Yes, yes it has.

I have no good excuse, really. All I can tell you is, following politics in the United States right now is horribly depressing, upsetting and, often, rage-provoking. I get so disgusted reading about it, that I honestly have a hard time putting fingers on the keyboard and writing about it.

I’m not sure how Jeff Goldstein does it. Then again, he’s been known to take pretty long breaks himself - though he’s had a pretty good excuse.

The stuff I normally take to task is so commonsensical, and yet, that seems to elude so many people in so many positions of influence and/or power. Here’s a few items that have put a twist in my shorts lately.

The BBC: The U.S. is covertly planning to bomb Iran!

“US contingency plans for air strikes on Iran extend beyond nuclear sites and include most of the country’s military infrastructure, the BBC has learned.”

Well… yeah. This is a scoop?

Even the fainthearted European Union is beginning to admit to itself that, in the case of Iran’s nuclear program, diplomacy isn’t going to work. Reading between the lines like the astute observer I am, I can plainly see this report squirming around the very words our “friends” in Europe are so desperate to avoid: “To cease the Iranian march to a nuclear weapon, force will need to be applied.” After all, if you don’t say it, it must not be true!

Now that the rest of us can assume this is the case (some of us have known this for awhile, now), well, that would require CentCom to have some sort of strategy for applying that force (I know, call me crazy). It also would stand to reason that sound military doctrine would require CentCom to prepare that plan of action early, and revise it often (as new intelligence comes in), to be sure that, when the word to strike goes out, our military is prepared to act. It would at least behoove us to have these plans ready before the first nuke explodes in Tel Aviv; I’m sure even the Marxists at the BBC would agree (those who don’t secretly support the nuclear annihilation of Israel, at any rate). Shit, I’d even be so bold as to guess that CentCom has working plans for war with at least two dozen different countries. If any nation out there poses some sort of strategic threat to U.S. interests, I go so far as to guarantee you that CentCom has some sort of plan for defeating that country militarily, should the need arise.

So, we know we have to strike the Iranian nuclear program, in some fashion (assuming we want to stop it). This fashion would, of course, take the form of an air campaign. A ground invasion, after all, would ensure enormous casualties and essentially commit us to regime overthrow and occupation, which we simply are not prepared to do at this stage (a little matter of the occupation of Iraq, don’t you know). Now, if you’re CentCom, and you’re planning an air campaign over Iran, what’s your first logical step in that planning?

Correct! You will first identify those military emplacements, such as SAM sites, that would hamper America’s ability to strike nuclear-related targets with air power in Iran’s interior. These sites would of course be myriad, because there has to be consideration not only for the aircraft over Iran, but for protection of the carrior groups that would likely be launching many of them. So, we’re also looking for sites that can fire cruise missiles or other types of anti-ship ordinance. Those go into the plans as “kill sites” as well.

Which pretty much means that all of the BBC’s attempted alarmism and stoking of already tense American / Iranian “relations” amounts, in its entirety, to… that’s right… applied common sense. Something that the BBC left by the wayside long ago, I know, but it bears repeating. God forbid they’d miss a chance to fan the flames of anti-Americanism though, right? Whatever pushes subscriptions, baby. Capitalism at work!

Speaking of anti-Americanism, I’m sure that, if you’ve read this post this far, you’re at least marginally aware of John Murtha’s strategy to defund the war in Iraq. If you’re not, well, shame on you. You can find your background here, slacker.

This effort by the Surrender Caucus was no surprise to me, of course. What ended up driving me into (finally) breathing some e-flame, though, was Bill Frist’s pathetic attempt to come back to the well on his “blog“:

I hope Republicans will openly denounce this charade, throw his words back at him about minority rights and the meaning of the Senate, and take aggressive steps to demonstrate that it is Democrats, not Republicans, who are stifling free debate on Iraq. The last part of this is especially important - because in round one, the Mainstream Media (MSM) especially the NY Times and LA Times have helped Leader Reid by spinning headlines that Republicans were obstructing.

We need to be more aggressive and challenge this time and again. 

Bloggers are at the heart of this debate and I encourage every blogger to expose the Democrat hypocrisy for what it is and continue to decry the decline of the MSM and their lack of objectivity.

Given the antics of the Bush Administration and the Republican congress for the last several years, I wasn’t really in the mood to see someone like Frist pontificating about “Democrat hypocrisy”. I left a love note in his comments: