Wow, I've been wonderfully lazy with posting. A rare bout of apathy it seems. This must be because Iraq has been dominating the political scene. Not that I don't care, but when speaking foreign policy, few people actually rely on hard numbers. Most decisions are arrived at by carefully considering selective and incomplete versions of past history. Real statistical evidence is hard to come by, mostly because each event is so infinitely differentiable in character, it is difficult to compare individual aspects ceteris paribus. End result: I say one or two things about the marginal utility of troops and then I get bored.

Great quote from Mike Huckabee showing how supremely unqualified he is:

"We need to understand that this is, in fact, World War III. Unlike any other world war we've ever fought, this one is one we cannot afford to lose."

Yes, we would have been just fine with a Nazi Europe. I saw him on Meet the Press the other week. He was such an equivocator (more so than most other politicians) that it was painful.