Wellll, here we are fighting this war on terror and it just went and won an election in the Palestinian Authority. (Wait -- I see the next step in this. Bush declares democracy doesn't work, and decides no more elections, starting here.)

This is not a good thing. It leads to all our diplomats running around and bumping into each other going, "What are we going to do?"

You -- you being US foreign policy muckymucks -- can't talk to a group that finds Israel's very existence offensive. As Chris Matthews said this evening, "Hamas not being against Israel is like Mothers Against Drunk Driving not being against drunk driving." Especially when they harbor terrorists and assist folks like Al Qaeda.

On the other hand, we would like a peace process. But you can't have peace when you can't talk to one of the two warring factions, and you can't talk to one of the two warring factions when it wants to destroy the other warring faction who's a close ally of yours.

I, Michael Bassett, do solemnly swear, that henceforth when I think that representing survivors of domestic violence is tough, I will remember I could be trying to bring about peace in the Middle East.

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I did hear W use the phrase "Osama bin-Laden" today, which was interesting. I thought he might have been hoping we'd forgotten who he was. Or else he did.

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We're back to arguing about executive privilege again, vis a vis the investigations into thef ederal response to Katrina. I'm generally sympathetic to claims of executive privilege and think we ought to be careful about intruding upon the advice the President receives from advisors; on the other hand, Michael Brown was recently paid to give a speech to a group about the advice he gave the president. So I think he should have to testify.