Pelosi, Beats, and Stokesey*

After hearing about tomorrow's non-binding resolution ("little more than a wedgie" - great piece, btw) in the US Congress, which oh-so-symbolically opposes the planned 30,000 'troop surge' in Iraq, I found myself a bit narked. Granted, the Dems are looking for easy wins to build some momentum - they have after all, a year and nearly nine months to slow-roast the Republicans in the run up to the 2008 elections - but it just seemed so typically bloody liberal to make a symbolic gesture like this so and make a big deal out of it. And speak as a typical bloody liberal, so I should know. I almost found myself nodding along to the easy points scored by ex-military Republican representative Geoff Davis from Kentucky :

"This nonbinding resolution serves no purpose other than pacifying the Democrats' political base and lowering morale in our military."

Anyway, I may yet eat my scorn. The Speaker of the House, Nancy Pelosi today moved to another front on the Bush presidency's foreign policy:

Pelosi, D-Calif., noted that Bush consistently said he supports a diplomatic resolution to differences with Iran "and I take him at his word."

At the same time, she said, "I do believe that Congress should assert itself, though, and make it very clear that there is no previous authority for the president, any president, to go into Iran."

It's interesting to see Speaker Pelosi - derided so desperately in her home race in California at the last mid-terms as pathologically liberal, and now an immensely influential figure in the practicalities of politics - emerging as a central figure for the Democrats. Anti-war liberalism slowly seems to be becoming an acceptable attitude to display in the States (though still the resolution had to accept a "...but we support our troops subclause"), and it happens at a time where credible leadership figures are emerging on the American Left - and more specifically, within the Democratic Party. It occurred to me that the structure of American politics - Presidencies in general, I guess, or any government-type where the defacto head of government and head of state are one - is such is that there is no figure that can credibly act in the way our leader of the opposition does. Not ours in particular - no Cameron fan I - but with all due respect for the office of Minority House Leader, there's a lack of a credible adversarial presence in principle.

It seems strange to find a leader, run them immediately in an election, and discard them so thoroughly when they fail. It means that with the somewhat distracted exception of that coruscating eighteen-month whirl of flights and speeches and hotels and deals and strain on the road to a shot at the White House, there is no time where the unelected party and its supporters have an natural individual to provide it focus.

Still, it looks like there's a whole slew of people lining up to take a shot at the Bush administration and the Republican party now, so here's hoping.

Bush's** response to his critics. by the way was:

"This may become the first time in the history of the United States Congress that it has voted to send a new commander into battle and then voted to oppose his plan that is necessary to succeed in that battle," the president said.

It's like he lives in a completely different world, sometimes.

Quotes taken from this article.

---

On lighter, and altogther cooler matters, here's some guy mixing it up in the kitchen. The wig makes it.

Oh yes, and meet Stokes. Stokes is a cicada.

---

* Sounds a fine name for a legal firm
** I heard a lovely nickname for him the other day: "Chimpy McFlightsuit".