Today, as the fourth year of the greatest foreign policy disaster in American history rolls on, I stumbled across an old CNN article about the passage of the Iraq War Resolution way back on October 11th, 2002. You can read the article here

The article was quite a flashback for me, but not only because of the surprise from seeing the old layout from the CNN website (certainly not as many bells and whistles as it has today). Just reading the article made me reflect a lot on how I've changed in the last four years and how my political outlook has changed in the last four years.

In the meantime I've gone from being a loud, awkward high school freshmen to being a loud, awkward sophomore in college.

More importantly, however, during that time, 3,600 Americans have died needlessly, 25,000 Americans have been wounded in varying degrees needlessly, and a number of Iraqis have died so horrific that their deaths have passed from the 'tragedy' category and into the 'statistic' category, again, needlessly.

I've taken to simply referring to Mike Gravel as Abe Simpson, the grandfather character from the infamous TV show, The Simpsons. I have an unhealthy obsession with the Simpsons, so the first time I saw Mike Gravel, I could immediately see him saying many of the things Abe Simpson says. For those of you who aren't all that familiar with the show, Abe Simpson is famous for being cranky, senile and saying bizarre outlandish things that no one really understands. I figured I'd take a break from the normal partisan-hackery around here and write a kinda/sorta fun diary. follow me...

Barack Obama won a poll at the Take Back America conference, sponsored by The Politico. Obama won with 29% of the 720 poll participants. John Edwards came in a respectable second with 26% and Hillary Clinton trailed with 17% in third place.

http://www.politico.com/...

http://www.youtube.com/...

Just wanted to share this link with everyone. If it weren't so frightening, it would be hilarious...well...its still a little hilarious.

Fred Phelps giving a news report on the satanic virtues of Jon Stewart and Stephen Colbert.

I was doing my standard daily perusing of all things political, I happened upon Rasmussen's latest poll of the democratic primary.

http://www.rasmussenreports.com/...

I'll keep this fairly brief because its late and I have class in seven hours. Recently, the Kos community has been up in arms over the comments made by radio host Don Imus. His words were offensive and wrong and the debate over whether or not he should be fired is a legitimate discussion, but that is not the purpose of my diary. So far, both Obama and Hillary (who  I detest with a passion matched by few people on this site, if thats possible) have both come out strongly against the Imus comments, either with petitions or comments given in interviews.

Disclaimer: I'm an Obamaniac...

Obviously in such a large, politically aware community, there will be a large amount of dissenting opinion on who should get the nomination, but simply out of curiosity, I wonder who people think will get the nomination. Do Kossacks buy into the CW that Hillary is unstoppable? Does Edwards have enough early state support and organization to boost him to the nom? Is Obama creating a movement that will bring enough new voters into the fold to defy expectations? Will a second tier candidate emerge after the debates? Whatever your reasoning, just try to set personal choice aside and vote for who you genuinely think will win the nomination...

I'm sure anyone even remotely interested in politics somehow gets their name stuck on the email list of a major candidate. Thousands of us are constantly bombarded with bland, blanket emails that lack character or personality, but don't lack the gall to ask for a few bucks. A few days ago I made my first ever personal contribution to a political campaign, I gave $5 to Barack Obama. I received the standard 'thank you for your commitment blah blah' response and went on with my life. A few days latter though, I received another blanket email (Note: I receive them from Hillary, Edwards and Obama), but this one was different, it had some character. I'd just like to share it with you, because for some reason, it really captured me.

Ok, there is absolutely no political importance about this, but I found too odd and coincidental not to be shared.

Recently the blogosphere was been up in arms over the demands that the Edward's campaign fire their two recently hired bloggers. Dailykos and MyDD in particular have been extremely defensive of the two bloggers and their right to free speech. While I agree whole heartedly that the two had the right to say what they said, I can't help but feel us liberals are being the slightest bit hypocritical about the whole thing.

On this date, February 12th 2007, I am officially designating the 2nd week of February (and all following Februaries) "Crazy World Leaders Week." I can only hope, and assume, that Congress will follow suit.

I'll pretend for a moment I've never heard of any of these candidates. Currently, I'd say I'm heavily leaning Edwards, but certainly have Obama, Vilsack and Richardson in the back of my mind. What I want for you, my fellow Kossacks, is your best pitch.

http://www.denverpost.com/...

Today the House of Representatives voted overwhelmingly to cut the interest rate on student loans by half. I witnessed this event personally, along with 20 of my fellow Georgetown University students and democrats. We were graciously given guest passes by Representative George Miller of California.

The more and more I talk with friends and think about the 2008, the more I think its the democrat's to lose. People are going to be looking back on an extremely unpopular and unsuccessful republican administration and will be asked by the likes of Romney/McCain/Rudy to give them another four years to right the ship. Romney's flaws are obvious, being mormon and his inconsistent stances on important nut job issues. Rudy is a joke if you ask me, both in the primary and the general, he has WAY too many skeletons. Even McCain doesn't seem like much, all things considered. He might be the media's darling, but his insane support for sending MORE troops into the Maw would immediately lose him the moderate support the media claims McCain owns. Then I started thinking...

I was talking with some friends today at lunch about Senator Johnson's unfortunate attack and what it meant for our glorious new majority. Their opinion was: it doesn't mean all that much...

Hugo Chavez was easily re-elected as president of Venezuela tonight, receiving a little bit more than 60% of the vote. While we can all snicker when he calls Bush 'the devil' and the UN and claims he can still smell his sulfur, I'm a firm believer that the enemy of my enemy is NOT necessarily my friend. I am a progressive and I believe in progressive socio-economic policies, but, on both a philosophical and political level, essential and basic freedoms always supercede economic policies, barring only the most extreme of circumstances. While Chavez's policies might have contributed to Venezuela's surging economy (personally, I attribute it to the fact that oil prices boomed in 2004, the same year the Venezuelan economy began to grow) he has undeniably restricted essential civil liberties.

For a long time I, like many others here, was extremely skeptical of an Obama presidency. His lack of experience, both legislative and political, and his supposed unwillingness to take a hard or principled stance on any issue concerned me greatly. I thought that perhaps he could be president someday, but certainly not in 2008, that he should build up a legislative track record before running.