One more Democrat in the Senate

Convicted felon Ted Stevens lost his Senate seat. Mark Begich was declared the winner yesterday. Not all ballots have been counted but Begich is greater than the number of ballots that remain to be counted. Read more here in the Post.

I guess my first question is why it took so long to get the results. But I guess this is democracy at work. The story notes that:

The Democrat's lead thus far -- 47.8 percent to 46.6 percent -- puts him beyond the margin of victory that would allow Stevens to call for a state-funded recount of the ballots.

The Republicans caucused yesterday but decided against any comments on Stevens. One Republican wanted Stevens expelled from the caucus. It seems they were aware of the event going on in Alaska with the count and decided to let matters take there own course rather than taking any action on their own. Seems rather typical for Republicans lately.

As for the Democrats they decided to make nice with Trader Joe Lieberman. Obama had said that the Democratic Caucus should not strip Lieberman of his chairmanship of the Homeland Security and Governmental Affairs Committee. It does seem that if the Dems are going to carry out the notion of bipartisanship they should begin at home. Punishing Lieberman although it would make many members feel good would be completely counter productive.

With this win, it means the Democrats now have 58 seats in the Senate and inch closer to the 60 need to end any filibuster. I think this is very much a careful what you wish for. I think it would be much better if the Democrats did not get to 60. Just because they have the 60 votes doesn’t mean they will get those 60 votes all the time. Also if they do reach 60, there’s no way they can blame the Republicans if important legislation is not passed.

Weapons of Mass Delusion

I was channel surfing last night and came across some politician talking about WMD.

To paraphrase Homer J. Simpson: Stupid Democrats.

All I can say about that issue is the train’s left the station, the boat has sailed, the plane’s taken off, Elvis has left the building. Use what ever cliche you want.

To paraphrase Claude Rains in Casablanca: I’m shocked, shocked to find that intelligence has been manipulated for political ends.

Actually, I’m not. It’s election season and all you have to do is turn on the television and wait for a political add to see the manipulation of the truth or the shading of the truth or distortion of the truth.

I want an investigation into why everyone got it wrong. It’s not like the US was the only country to say Iraq had WMD. Just about everyone out there said Iraq had WMD.

The question that needs to be answered is how did everyone get it WRONG! In this case, the fact everyone did get it wrong didn’t pose a threat to anyone. But let’s suppose everyone gets it wrong again. This time around everyone says the country X doesn’t have any WMD but it turns out that they do. If that’s the case, the world could be screwed.

So the next time someone says it’s a slam dunk, it actually needs to be one. As opposed to turning out to be a blocked shot.