Perhaps the "mother of all sex scandals" will be enough to at least ensure a Democratic takeover of the house -- although, as Billmon points out, what exactly will that get us?
In any case, as tawdry and entertaining as the Foley-Hastert-Reynolds-Boehner scandal truly is, I hope it doesn't become another distraction from the critical matter at hand -- those unmentionable elephants sitting all over Iraq. Here are some numbers we might distribute around:
Al-Zaman reports that 21 US troops have been killed in Iraq since Saturday, with 8 killed on Monday alone.These wounds are often horrifying and debilitating. We're not talking scrapes, or even gunshots -- since most of them are inflicted with "roadside bombs." Like the term "waterboarding," which is bandied about so cavalierly, the IED is far more terrifying that it sounds, far more explosive. Anyone not sure what this might mean in reality ought to take some time out to watch the episode of Frontline (available online) on the insurgency. Every time one of these bombs went off, and many are shown in the film, I nearly fell out of my chair.
As of Tuesday, 23,416 US troops have been wounded or killed in the Iraq War.
The violence is beyond description in Iraq, and something needs to be done immediately. On this issue, we can be relatively certain that things will improve under the Democrats -- if only because they certainly can't get any worse (unless Rumsfeld continues to have something to say about it).
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