When it comes to taking out terrorists not on U.S. soil we have three options:

1. Let them go free
2. Use drones, incurring collateral damage
3. Put troops on the ground, putting soldiers at risk along with incurring collateral damage

The option of using international cooperation to round up these guys — the preferable option — is simply not viable in Pakistan, where much of this activity is taking place. As the Bin Laden operation showed us, terrorists are able to operate within a stone’s throw of Pakistan’s government without them lifting a finger to stop it. Their government is an impediment.

So, faced with those three options, we’ve opted for the drones. They are not perfect by a long stretch, but after over a decade of combat in Iraq and Afghanistan, it is the least bloody option that kills terrorists.

I’m not surprised that even among liberals, this is a strategy that meets with approval.

The numbers go down slightly if the target is a U.S. citizen, but again most of us view an American working with Al Qaeda on foreign soil as just another agent of that organization.

(It’s worth pointing out that the usually deceptive Glenn Greenwald writes about drone strikes saying, “Obama has used drones to kill Muslim children and innocent adults by the hundreds.” I don’t deny that innocent people have been killed by drone strikes, but Greenwald writes it like these people are intentional targets. They aren’t. Those of us who support the drone strikes shouldn’t pretend as if they are clean weapons, but those opposed should be honest as well.)

I totally understand the dangers in giving the president the sole power to designate terrorist targets. I’m not comfortable with that much power residing in the executive office. I would trust Barack Obama with that power, but not George Bush, so I don’t trust any president with it.

But I think the view of many who have these positions opposed to drone strikes and the like take a dispassionate view of this conflict that most don’t have. While we shouldn’t let emotion cloud things, we also can’t discount the unique toll of Al Qaeda-based terrorism on America’s psyche.

People want to get these guys, and it appears as if these drones are one of the best ways to get the job done, regardless of who the president is.

P.S. For what it’s worth, I still support closing the prisons in Guantanamo Bay and have found the sniveling opposition from Republican and Democratic lawmakers to closure to be disgusting. My guess is the death of Bin Laden and kill/capture of other Al Qaeda have made people less anxious about the war on terror and that’s why Gitmo closure isn’t the sticking point it once was. Still, we should close it.

Let us look at Iran. Although the administration and our European allies appear to be getting much more serious about rigorous sanctions against the Islamic Republic because of its quest for nuclear weapons, the White House has shied away from the possibility that Tehran will respond with terrorism, not negotiations. Perhaps the most stubborn wish in U.S. foreign policy has been the three-decade-old bipartisan determination to engage with and moderate the Islamic Republic. Ever since Ali Khamenei put on Ayatollah Ruhollah Khomeini’s mantle as guardian of the revolution, Western observers have wanted to describe him as “pragmatic” and “moderate,” even though his outpouring of virulently anti-American speeches, let alone the crackdowns and killings he’s unleashed at home since 1999, might engender skepticism. Iran’s much vilified and lampooned president Mahmoud Ahmadinejad is probably less hardcore—even on the villainy of world Jewry—than Khamenei is.

The Obama administration is dealing with Iran as the rogue state it is, working with the international community to try and get them in line. The Standard is arguing here for a return to the Bush era where the U.S. government used the magical terrorism wand to short circuit any and all discussion in order to do stupid things like invading sovereign nations based on cooked-up intelligence. It doesn’t work, gets Americans killed, and makes the world less safe.

Conservative foreign policy has discredited itself thanks to its adoption of this kind of useless strategy, and we’d be stupid to adopt it or even acknowledge it as a viable option.

The phrase “not tethered to facts” came to mind when reading this Rick Moran piece lamenting the supposed equal polarization of the two major political parties in America. Bonus points to Moran for writing this post at PJ Media (aka Pajamas Media aka Open Source Media), which is a cesspool of conservative nonsense.

The idea that both parties/movements in America are equally extreme is a well-worn media meme and one that the right often rides. It also happens to be quite untrue. In reality, we have a right dominated by the hard right and a left created out of a coalition of the hard left, center-left, and centrists (who often echo the center-right). Look at the standard-bearers for both parties. Republicans picked George W. Bush, an evangelical conservative who appeared to honestly believe all the trickle down and privatization nonsense he was peddling. Democrats picked Barack Obama, who pushed a pay freeze of federal salaries while passing an economic stimulus bill that contained a considerable amount of tax cuts.

You don’t even have to go to the presidential level. In congress, Republicans have a Kentucky conservative leading them in the Senate along with John Boehner in the House, who thunderously opposed health care and subjected the traditional raising of the debt ceiling to an exercise in tea party hostage-taking. Go back further and you’ve got Sen. Bill Frist diagnosing Terry Schiavo over video tape and Tom DeLay jamming right-leaning legislation through the House.

On the Democratic side, while Pelosi is a “San Francisco liberal,” her top lieutenant has been Steny Hoyer — a moderate Democrat. When Democrats ran the House, contrary to conservative rhetoric they didn’t pass socialism. Since they’ve taken back the House, Boehner and Co. have passed far more legislation governing women’s bodies than there was equally socially liberal legislation passed under Pelosi’s leadership.

Senate Democrats are led by Harry Reid, a moderate on most issues who appointed conservative-leaning Democrats like Kent Conrad and Max Baucus to lead important committees. This led, in the case of health care reform, to a lot of the progressive-leaning legislation being ripped out in the final bill.

The two parties and movements are not equally extreme. The right is rhetorically led by Rush Limbaugh, a minority bashing advocate of the harshest brand of conservative economic and security policy. Even the top liberal voices in the media — people like Keith Olbermann, Rachel Maddow, Jon Stewart, etc. — practice at best FDR-style liberalism which isn’t nearly as radical as what Limbaugh, Hannity, Beck and company say on a day-to-day basis.

The thesis is simply untrue. We have a center-left movement/party on one side and a right-wing party/movement on the other.

Some interesting stories I’ve found so far.

* A Russian soldier holed up in a farmhouse during the Russian invasion of Poland went outside to go to the bathroom to do number 2. In the process, he was shot in the leg. He ran back to the farmhouse and didn’t go the bathroom for another 7 days.

* A woman waiting for rationed food in the blockaded city of Leningrad had her food stolen by a man in line behind her. The starvation had reached such a crisis point that she reached down his mouth and pulled out what was left of the food in order to take it home for her family.

* In order to combat the problem of desertion in the Russian army, Stalin devised a strategy where Russians would approach the German line with their hands raised in a “surrender” position. Then, when they got close to the Germans, they would throw grenades. The Germans began responding to surrendering Russians by shooting them. Russian soldiers learned this, and what their fate would be if they surrendered to the enemy.

A campaign account maintained by former governor Robert L. Ehrlich Jr. (R) was used to pay more than $100,000 last year to law firms involved in the criminal defense of his 2010 campaign manager, Paul E. Schurick, on charges related to voter suppression.

Schurick was convicted in December by a Baltimore jury of four counts stemming from an Election Night robocall that prosecutors said was intended to mislead black voters into staying home.

A campaign finance report filed this week by Ehrlich lists payments to at least two law firms known to have worked on Schurick’s defense.

I wonder if people donating to Ehrlich’s campaign thought the money they donated would go to this cause?

They were led in this charge by Newt Gingrich. Gingrich vowed in 1998 to bring up the affair as much as possible. Gingrich decided to create ads about the affair, and thought it would be a good issue to run on in 1998. It didn’t work, and Democrats gained 5 seats in the House that year.

As we now know, while Newt Gingrich was on this moral crusade, he was cheating on his wife and eventually divorcing her.

So now, years later, after his moral crusade built on a platform hypocrisy, Gingrich has the nerve to berate CNN for bringing up this story? Excrement, indeed.

The Left is carrying out a coordinated attack on Mitt Romney’s business career. One sees exactly the same allegations, often phrased identically, whether you look at the Daily Kos, the Associated Press, Slate or Think Progress, or listen to Newt Gingrich or Rick Perry.

Apparently Newt Gingrich, leader of the conservative revolution in the House and Rick Perry, George W. Bush’s number two in Texas and a few months ago The Great Conservative Hope, are now part of a coordinated campaign between the left, the Associated Press and Slate (?) to take down Mitt Romney. It couldn’t be that Romney has a spotty career in the private sector. It couldn’t be that Romney has tried to disappear his time as governor and has put his career front and center. No. It has to be a conspiracy.

Because with the right, its always a conspiracy. It has been since at least 1964 when they were going on about the water being fluoridated by communists or in 2008 when they claimed that the housing collapse was a conspiracy of Democrats and poor people and not Wall Street. It’s always a conspiracy.

Because they are morons.

I want to thank everyone who’s contacted me, either here, Facebook, or on Twitter or via e-mail (or via their blogs like TBogg and John) about C.K.’s passing.

It doesn’t make it easier — and no lie it hurts like hell for my home to suddenly be so silent after a decade of little legs pitter-pattering everywhere — but it warms my heart. And I know in puppy heaven where he’s knocking out a giant ham, C.K. hears you too. Thank you, everyone.

I lost my best friend today.

C.K. was in my life for exactly 12 years, 2 weeks and a day. We first brought him home on December 23, 1999. He was so small, he fit in the palm of my hand. As a miniature dachshund, he never got really big, but at 15lbs now he seems so big to me.

C.K. was always there for me. Always ecstatic when I got home, always upset when I had to stop petting his head and go to work — the nerve of me! C.K. was my buddy in watching the Redskins fail again and again, looking ridiculous in the Redskins jersey I bought him. The jersey was size extra-small, but even then his little 2 inch legs were too short for it.

My entire family, particularly my mom, loved — loves — C.K. He was at all our familial gatherings, he got a plate of ham (his favorite) and other food at Christmas and Thanksgiving. He fell asleep in laps – mine, Mom’s, my Aunt Angela, my Grandmother’s, my little cousins. He cozied up with everyone, from my girlfriend to my uncle to perfect strangers. He would not be ignored. You must rub his head or his belly, or fear the wrath.

He wasn’t just a “pet.”

Those of you who read this blog and my Twitter feed know C.K. too. You’ve seen me post humorous photo essays about the “weiner dog of infinite justice.” You’ve seen me post goofy pictures and videos, notes about his birthday and the like. You’re part of the C.K. story as well.

He was diagnosed today with a tumor in his stomach and had been having trouble breathing. I could not allow him to suffer. I love him too much.

He’ll always be with me and I’ll love him until the day I die.

The outpouring of love and condolences is a testament to my little baby dog and the life he led.

P.S. Those of you who know me a little bit know this, but of course C.K. stands for Clark Kent and not the fashion designer (as if). He was and is in every way a Super Dog.

Conservative Leader Declares War On Romney

Private Sector Job Growth Up In December

Mad Man Goes Nude At Chipmunks Movie

Millionaire Mitt: Candidate Worth 2,708 Times Average American

Even worse, here’s nepotism poster child offensive coordinator Kyle Shanahan yelling today that “In 2012 the Redskins are gonna be the NFC East champions, and that starts right f–king today.”

This is the same Shanahan son who is coaching the #16 offense in the league and lost 34-10 to the 8-8 Eagles.

Shut the hell up, Kyle.

I know I keep writing this, but I’m tired of this. Tired that the Redskins aren’t just out of the league’s elite for two going on three decades, but that they aren’t even regularly in late contention for a wild-card playoff spot.

Turns out I was right to be suspicious of starting and NFL season with John Beck and Rex Grossman as the starting quarterbacks… because THEY SUCK AT PLAYING QUARTERBACK. I hate that the Redskins have now had two arrogant coaches who think they can start sucky University Of Florida quarterbacks because they think they’re such geniuses (the first was Steve Spurrier with Danny Wuerffel and Shane Matthews).

Neither Beck or Grossman should even be a backup on the NFL roster.

The Redskins — again — need a wholesale makeover. They need a new quarterback. Santana Moss is done at WR, they need new blood. RB is okay. They need new offensive linemen and tight ends who aren’t injury prone or who disappear. They also need defensive players who actually scare the opposing team.

And they need a head coach and coaching staff based on skill, not family connections. And they need coaches who will adapt to the players they have, rather than be so arrogant they insist on jamming round pegs into square holes (this is true of every Redskins coach over the last 20 years save perhaps Joe Gibbs and Marty Schottenheimer).

And they most importantly need an owner who isn’t an insufferable jerk who couldn’t assemble a winning team and staff if he had all the money in the world (which he does).

I’m sick and tired of the Redskins sucking, but I expect they will suck for the foreseeable future.

See you next September.

Mitt Romney is still making millions of dollars from layoffs engineered by Bain Capital, the private equity firm he helped to start.

As revealed by the New York Times, Romney negotiated a backroom deal with Bain that gave the already wealthy Romney a share of Bain’s profits even after he left the firm.

For Bush’s exercise in aggression, thousands of Americans and Iraqis needlessly lost their lives. Even worse, the American servicemen and women who perished did so without a good reason for it. Iraq was not a threat to us nor our allies. There were no weapons of mass destruction. The threat was exaggerated and the case for war was deceptive (and the Democrats who voted for Bush’s war were wrong and share some responsibility for the aftermath).

The argument has been made that if McCain had been elected, we would be leaving Iraq. That’s a pretty absurd assertion and debunked by McCain’s own words yesterday where he attacked President Obama for withdrawing from Iraq. If McCain had been elected, in all likelihood, we would have doubled-down on Bush’s Iraq failures and lost even more precious lives.

The Iraq War is ending, the soldiers are coming home. We owe them better than what the leadership of George W. Bush offered them, and I hope we will in the future, no matter who their commander in chief is.

Since then, there has been a meme from the right and now being echoed in the mainstream press. Don’t be too quick to dismiss Gingrich, they say. As evidence they cite 1980 and the fact that the Carter team preferred to face Reagan, thinking that his conservative positions would be a huge turnoff to the nation. That election, of course, ended in a landslide in Reagan’s favor and ushered in the so-called “Reagan Revolution.”

Those parallels are, at best, a major stretch.

For one, as bad as things are politically for President Obama, he is a far savvier politician than Jimmy Carter ever was. Carter repeatedly made the kind of tin-ear mistakes that Obama has largely avoided for the last three years. Obama is highly unlikely to emulate the foreign policy impotence of the hostage crisis, and this president simply doesn’t give “malaise” speeches.

The parallel becomes even more ludicrous when you compare Gingrich and Reagan. First, their pedigrees and legacies. Before being elected, Reagan was a B to C list actor, a national commercial pitchman, and the governor of one of America’s largest states. Gingrich, on the other hand, has never been elected to statewide let alone national office. And his tenure at the national level is remembered by moderates and liberals as one that ended in shame. Only conservatives remember the Gingrich tenure as Speaker with any sort of fondness. Post-Speaker Gingrich is also remembered by moderates and liberals as an abject hypocrite who was attacking President Clinton for an extramarital affair while he was cheating on his second wife.

The complete implosion of this meme comes when you compare Gingrich and Reagan as human beings. I’m a progressive who of course finds almost nothing admirable in the policies of Ronald Reagan, but it is a historical fact that he was a gregarious, well-liked leader (if conservatives were being honest they would acknowledge this about Franklin Roosevelt and Bill Clinton). Reagan’s the best advocate conservatism has ever had in America for a reason. There is a reason “happy warrior” is synonymous with his name.

Newt Gingrich is not this. Even though the “new Newt” claims he has learned from his past mistakes, in his debate performances and media interviews you can still see the petulant, whining, arrogant, condescending jerk Newt right below the surface. Gingrich is only ever a few seconds away from the temper tantrums he had during the Clinton era. In the battlefield of a national political campaign this will come out in spectacular fashion. Reagan was able to communicate some form of humility, often using self-deprecating humor in order to lull his political opponents into a false sense of superiority. Gingrich, at all times, believes he is the smartest man in the room. He would believe it if he was attending a summit of rocket scientists, he surely believes it on the campaign trail.

This doesn’t even take into consideration the conservatism of the two figures. While Reagan is being held up as a lion of the right, he would be seen as far too moderate to make it through the modern Republican primary. Gingrich is pandering to the Tea Party base, which is all well and good for the GOP nomination, but the 2012 electorate will not look like the 2010 crew that elected the Republican House.

Newt Gingrich isn’t Ronald Reagan. They were both nationally known conservative Republicans, but the similarities end there. Despite the sentiments of people like myself, Reagan is likely to be remembered fondly for a considerable time. The same will not be true of Gingrich.