Karzai the Enemy, Not WikiLeaks

Our ally?
On what planet?

Afghan President Hamid Karzai now says that, if push came to shove, he'd throw his lot in with the Taliban.

And there is still rational discussion about how the U.S. can become better partners with this madman? Talk about a dysfunctional relationship. America is increasingly becoming like the battered spouse who remains in an abusive relationship, in denial, each day hoping that THIS is the day my partner begins to change. It almost never happens.

And it almost doesn't matter now.
Because the notion of abuse is not theoretical, and it's not to America as a whole.

The abuse is real and lethal to the brave young men and women in uniform who are fighting and dying to keep venal, corrupt and cowardly assholes like Karzai and his family in power, in money, in drugs, and apparently, in control of America's policy there.

Condemn WikiLeaks all you want.
Be a grandstanding blowhard like Bill O'Reilly and call for Julian Assange's execution.
Talk about killing the messenger.

The simple fact is, some of the leaks have made excruciatingly clear just how corrupt Karzai's government is, and just how completely the U.S. knows it. And still we prop up this opium-besotted bastard.

He gets to live, and play us for fools, and pocket our money, and mock us.
And three Massachusetts kids -- in the past two weeks alone -- die for this outrage.

We cannot leave Afghanistan soon enough.
But we should take Karzai with us.
And make him stand trial for war crimes.

In the end, it's Karzai, not WikiLeaks, that needs to answer for true depravity.

Martha, My Dear

"Hold your head up you silly girl, look what you've done."

So go the lyrics of the Beatles' song, "Martha My Dear."

Paul McCartney was writing about his sheepdog, not a girl.
I'm not thinking of a girl, either, but rather a 57-year-old woman.

The Massachusetts Attorney General.
The Democratic U.S. Senate candidate to succeed the late Ted Kennedy.

But oh, what she's done.
Made a muck of this special election campaign.
Should the worst happen, and a Democratic seat turn Republican for the first time in over thirty years, she will hardly be able to hold her up.

Her future in elective politics will, in fact, be quite over.
Deservedly so.

One does not mock one's opponent for "standing in the cold and shaking hands outside Fenway Park."
One does not run as an entitled incumbent when one is neither.
And one gets out there and presses flesh and wears silly hats and tells stupid, self-deprecating jokes till they say, "Hey, she's a good sport."
And one runs and runs and runs till even those whose votes are beyond your grasp have to give it to you for being a fighter.

Alas, Martha Coakley, my dear, you've done of the above.
And you may well lose (God forbid) to who is, in fact, the silly boy...