It’s starting to get ugly…er. Uglier.

From a comment at Political Animal...

Guardian Unlimited | Special reports | Powell aides go public on rift with Bush

Colin Powell’s key aide has described US sanctions policy against countries such as Pakistan and Cuba as “the dumbest policy on the face of the Earth”.

In an article in GQ magazine Larry Wilkerson, chief of staff of the United States secretary of state, bemoans Mr Powell’s firefighting role in President George Bush’s cabinet.

“He has spent as much time doing damage control and, shall we say, apologising around the world for some less-than-graceful actions as he has anything else.”

The article, which includes an interview with Mr Powell, is most illuminating for the comments made by his close friends and colleagues who are explicit about his distrust and disdain for the hawks in the administration.

Mr Powell’s deputy, Richard Armitage, remarks on his boss’s anguish at the damage to his credibility following his speech to the United Nations last year making the case for war and insisting there were weapons of mass destruction. “It’s a source of great distress for the secretary,” he said.

Meanwhile his mentor from the National War College, Harlan Ullman, describes the US national security adviser, Condoleezza Rice, as a “jerk”.

He said: “This is, in many ways, the most ideological administration Powell’s ever had to work for. Not only is it very ideological, but they have a vision. And I think Powell is inherently uncomfortable with grand visions like that.”

Their candour suggests that the internecine battles within the administration are becoming increasingly bitter and open, particularly those between the departments of defence and the state. “None of Powell’s friends had made any pretence of speculating about or guessing at his feelings,” wrote the journalist, Wil Hylton. “They spoke for him openly and on the record.”

There’s more. Read the article. If this wasn’t real life, I swear I’d be on the floor laughing my ass off.

Wait. I heard something news stories that had come from The Onion being reported as real. Lemme check…

Nope. This is real news.

The most excellent Brad DeLong posts Robert Reich’s essay on what’s wrong with American politics. This paragraph jumped out at me.

What’s Wrong with America’s Politics?: Archive Entry From Brad DeLong’s Webjournal

As we head into the 2004 election, Democrats should pay close attention to what Republicans have learned about winning elections over the long run – lessons that may be useful for New Labour as well. First, it is crucial to build a political movement that will endure after elections. Second, any movement derives its durability from the clarity of its convictions.

This is exactly what I’ve been saying about the Democratic race for President. If the Democrats try to build a platform out of the one plank that says “Get George W. Bush out of office,” one of two things will happen: a) they will lose or b) they will win.

If they lose, it will be because running a campaign based on a negative doesn’t generate enough energy with the fence-sitters. The large numbers of thinking Conservatives who are disturbed and disgusted with the Bush presidency still need something to vote for. They need a Democrat that they can at least stomach, one who offers enough that is palatable to them that they can turn their backs on Republicans and still save face.

If, however, the Democrats win based on “Get rid of W,” the sole aim of their campaign will have been achieved by the time the polls close in November, and they will face a miserable four years trying to define the Kerry presidency in retrospect. They will be doomed to failure because no one – not Democrats, Repulicans, nor the rest of us – will trust or understand their policy decisions.

The campaign is the time to define the agenda, and to sell it to the American public. I still don’t know what John Kerry stands for, only what he stands against. That isn’t even enough to get a liberal like me energized.

Kerry and the Democrats – and, by extension, all of us – are doomed if they don’t figure this out.

From Gadgetopia, we find a link to Tha Shizzolator. .: Snoop Dogg – Tha Shizzolator :.

Funny, funny, funny. Check it out, dog.

I haven’t talked about the Stanley Cup Playoffs yet, ‘cause I don’t want to jinx anything. John will know what I’m talking about. But I gotta say something about the Flames and Red Wings. Watching this game, it’s tied at 0-0 in the third period, going into overtime, and it’s been one of the most exciting games of the playoffs so far. Anyone who complains that there isn’t enough scoring in hockey just hasn’t watched a game like this. This is what it’s all about – the little battles for the puck, for position, for an edge, the outstanding goaltending, the speed, the missed chances and the lucky breaks. I love football, but I’d take a nothing-nothing playoff hockey game over a 35-34 football game any day of the week.

Adam Felber of Fanatical Apathy looks for a metaphor for the Bush administration…

A couple of weeks ago I’d have pointed to the recent Bush press conference and his now iconic inability to point to any mistakes he’s made in his entire administration. That was a good one – it conveyed the poor communication skills and lack of both foresight and hindsight that has transformed us from a beacon of hope around the globe into a nation known to possess the single largest and most prominent middle finger in the world.

But then I seized upon an earlier moment, something I’d dismissed as merely an amusing gaffe at the time: “There’s an old saying in Tennessee — I know it’s in Texas, probably in Tennessee. Fool me once…shame on … shame on you…Fool me – can’t get fooled again.” That’s nice and compact – you get the hubristic headlong plunge into an adventure whose outcome hadn’t really been thought about, the inevitable stumble when resources proved to be insufficient, and the assured but utterly nonsensical conclusion wherein all of the original sense is lost. If memory serves, this was followed by a confident, even defiant glare that said, “That’s what I MEANT to say. There will be no going back, no corrections, no apologies. Mission accomplished.”

As commenter Dee points out, though, “it is futile to search for metaphor in a literal administration. There is no metaphor, there is no symbolism, because that would require some realization that the problems we face are complex and the answers are not always obvious.”

Further down, commenter Murray nicely encapsulates the story so far…

“Lets see we went to war to:
1. get retaliation for 9/11, OK maybe that wasn’t exactly right.
2. rid the country of those WMD that threatened us, OK that was wrong too.
3. rid the country of Sadam’s torture chambers,
Hmm.. didn’t quite work out as we wanted.
4. Give the Iraqis a stable free democratic government that would be the envy of every Arab state. OK that’s not going to happen either, but at least Halliburton made a nice profit.

And the really sobering thing about this is that Bush’s poll numbers are still around 50%.