Personally, I’ve been upset at President Bush for not putting up a fight against adding prescription drugs to Medicare (Cheap play for votes IMO). GWB’s support for extending unemployment benefits didn’t win him any brownie points with me, nor did his steel tariffs, etc.

But like Michelle Goldberg lays out in this Salon article, I’m not the only one. I don’t disagree on foreign policy matters with the “neocons” as much as most of the folks in this article, but the rest rings true.

I’ve been less than impressed with Salon lately and was considering letting my subscription lapse, but this may keep me paying. What was driving me away was a complete and total lack of any Iraq coverage which did not immediately swerve over into either talk of quagmire, etc. I’m not saying that those aren’t valid threads, it’s just that it’s missing the relative successes the Allies have had in Iraq.

In any case, it’s good to see a little bit of balance making it onto the pages again. I don’t know that I would put too much hope into the impending destruction from within of the Republican Party; I’m much more concerned/optimistic about the shakeout in the Democrat ranks. I still think that it is just a matter of time until WMDs are found in Iraq; at which point many of the current presidential hopefuls will loose much of their platforms. I don’t think that Senator Clinton running for Pres in 2004 will be the panacea that some do – there will be allegations that President Clinton cost VP Gore the 2000 election (more so than the Florida voters), etc.

Granted, my opinion on this changes pretty much every time I catch one of the truly great Simpsons episodes, but running pretty high on my list right now is Mel Gibson. First, the running gag about John Travolta’s airplane was pretty sweet. Second, great reprises of Gibson’s famous roles. Lastly, and more importantly is that even without Gibson, this would have been a great episode. The writing was top-notch, the re-make of “Mr. Smith” was hilarious, and the shifty-eyed dog rocked.

Runners up are – Bono in “Trash of the Titans” (“Hold on People! The man’s talking about waste management! That affects the whole damn planet!”), especially having found out just tonight that Old Man Patterson was played in that episode by none other than Steve Martin. – Smashing Pumpkins in the “Homerpalooza” episode. – Joe Namath in “Bart Star” – Can’t explain it, really. It’s just that I really dug his cameo.