The Dish

The stab-in-the-back nutters are threatening revenge for acknowledging reality in Iraq:

From among the Senate Republicans who support a timetable, one or two should become either targets for primary challengers in 2008 or, if need be, targets for defeat by Democrats in the fall of 2008. Unfortunately there don’t appear to be any GOP wobblers who could be defeated in a primary, though there are least two –Senators Domenici and Smith of New Mexico and Oregon respectively– who could fall to a Democrat in the general election if even 10% of the GOP base defected from their cause.

It is crucial to not that neither Senator Domenici nor Senator Smith has yet crossed the political Rubicon that is support for date-certain defeat. Indeed, no GOP senator up for re-election has yet voted for a timetable that passed, and so the need doesn’t exist yet to organize other than a general boycott of the NRSC. But if enough Republicans defect to allow such a bill to pass, then the course is clear: I can’t support someone who doesn’t support victory. I suspect there are tens of thousands of Republican activists who feel the same way.

The one helps the other, for all the hostility drug companies receive. Ron Bailey examines the latest study of how medical innovation, uniquely facilitated by America’s private healthcare system, is integral to bettering health.

A reader writes:

Yeah, I am not going to argue against anybody calling Michael Moore arrogant, or accusing him of being an asshole. Maybe yes, maybe no. I only know that I don’t hang with him. On the other hand, if the media went on the same, blistering, fact-checking campaign effort concerning Iraq in 2002 that they are using to go after "Sicko" (rather than deal with the larger issue of health care), we might all be in a much better place today.

A reader writes:

Exactly. All of us who believed in the progressive model for Iraq can’t give up on the idea entirely. Dubai, even with all its glitz and faults, has had a huge impact on the Gulf – everyone is trying to copy its model of globally integrated, stable society, focused on building knowledge jobs. Kurdistan is a generation back, but it wants to go in the same direction. All you have to do is look at Gaza, Lebanon and Iraq to know that somethings are true even if George Bush believes them – this neighborhood desperately needs models of decent, progressive, modernizing government as the stepping stone to democratization.

How did East Asia develop? Because Taiwan followed the example of Japan, and Korea followed Japan, and Hong Kong followed Korea, and now China is following Taiwan and Vietnam is following Hong Kong. The problem with the Arab world is that there is not one good example, other than tiny Dubai, to follow.

Covering his ass? Or political maneuvring? My own thought is that we do not pay a homeland security chief to tell us what he feels.

San Diego braces for a giant, bulging phallus in its downtown.

Today is the last day of this year the average American will be working for the government. So far, they’ve taken everything you’ve got. Bush and the Republicans have added a full two weeks to the government’s take. If this is conservatism, please give me a liberal. Clinton was far better:

A love song for the dying.

Take it from a professional:

For those who liked that kind of stuff, there were whips, chains and a lot of leather. Jeanette says that most of the clients who wanted to be dominated were Republicans. She cracks a smile, then adds, "They wanted to be spanked and tortured and wear stockings — Republicans have impeccable taste in silk stockings — and these are the people who run our country."

I feel reassured. More Republican Madamorama here.

The fire-fighters get ready to unload a barrage of complaints about Giuliani’s pre-9/11 leadership. Swift-hosing? Money quote:

“America’s Mayor” is about to come under attack. The nation’s largest firefighters union is set to launch a video on Wednesday that seeks to tarnish former mayor Rudolph Giuliani’s reputation as a strong leader before and after the Sept. 11, 2001 terrorist attacks.

The 13-minute video — set for distribution to firefighters and the general public courtesy of the International Association of Fire Fighters — uses interviews with New York City firefighters and families of 9/11 victims to argue that Giuliani has exaggerated his record as mayor. “He’s running on his 9/11 leadership and it was lacking — and there was none,” Jim Riches, a deputy chief in the New York Fire Department and a father of one of the 9/11 victims, says on the video, according to a transcript obtained by ABC News. “I blame Giuliani. He was the leader that day. And he was the leader for the eight years leading up to that.”

The documentary-style video — titled “Rudy Giuliani: Urban Legend” — specifically criticizes Giuliani for failing to ensure that firefighters had working radios; placing the city emergency command center in the World Trade Center even after the 1993 terrorist attack at the Twin Towers; and Giuliani’s decision to abandon efforts to recover remains of dead firefighters as he sought a quick clean-up of Ground Zero.

(Hat tip: Joyner.)