Fast Rats

I am tempted to characterize the mass abandonment of GW by every element of his base with the traditional "rats off the sinking ship" metaphor, but I don't think I've ever seen rats move so fast:

http://www.realclearpolitics.com/articles/2006/05/the_base_vs_bush.html

http://www.nytimes.com/2006/05/15/washington/15dobson.html?ei=5089&en=f3bae0e611f1db9d&ex=1305345600&partner=rssyahoo&emc=rss&pagewanted=print

http://www.thehill.com/thehill/export/TheHill/News/Frontpage/050906/news1.html

A Poll That Parses The President's Proposition

The most recent Rasmussen poll, taken after the President's speech on Monday, asked survey participants to choose between two immigration bills. As Scott Rasmussen describes it, "one would improve control of the borders but do nothing about the status of working immigrants who are here illegally. The other would legalize the status of working immigrants who are here illegally but would do nothing to improve control of the border."

By a 63% to 19% margin, voters prefer the bill that controls the borders but does nothing about the status of illegal aliens. Rasmussen writes that "voters overwhelmingly believe that strict employer penalties are the best way to accomplish this goal."

Iran Nuclear Analysis

Here is a link to an interview on NPR with a political science professor from MIT. Like him, I definitely do not advocate a "submission" to Iran on the nuclear issue. However, I do believe that we need to objectively assess the true impact of Iran joining the nuclear club, and just how bad that would be. Frankly, if we had this conversation about Iraq before we attacked, I might have been less concerned about the threat they posed.

http://www.npr.org/templates/story/story.php?storyId=5407533