Currently Residing in the "Where is He Now?" Bin

The above title is a lot less offensive than my original idea, which was "Dick," to be followed in this post by "Morris, that is." Actually, DM is, among other things, lending his name to Vote.com. As far as any dalliances with prostitutes, well, you'd have to ask him yourself.

A comment at Today In Iraq provided a copy/paste URL to a most interesting article said Mr. Morris wrote for The Hill just about a year ago. Aside: I hear Dubya has a penchant for giving people nicknames. It may just be me, but I get the strangest feeling that Morris' moniker would have been either "Toe," "Toesucker," or, perhaps, simply "DickieMo."

Another aside: I came across this yesterday over at Bad Attitudes. Author Jerome Doolittle recounts his time spent as a roustabout in Odessa, Texas, one summer. Nicknamed "Slim," he notes that one day someone asked him what his real name was:

But one day while we were eating lunch somebody asked me, “Slim, what’s your name, anyway?”

And somebody else jumped right on top of him. “Why, you goddamned old fool,” the second man said, “it ain’t none of your business what that boy’s name is. If he’d have wanted you to know, he’d have told you.”

So that’s what was going on, at least in McCamey. Grown-ups seemed to use nicknames to be courteous, to respect the dignity and privacy of even a boy.

To which I'll add my own observation: historically, Texas was a place to which many settlers uh, for lack of a better term, fled. Under those circumstances, using your real name might not be such a good thing.

But I've once again gone off topic. My post was meant to provide a little bit of the hard-hitting (sarcasm) commentary of Dick Morris. Without further adieu, take a look:

The first casualty of Iraq war: Liberal credibility

It doesn't matter what the polls say right now about the war in Iraq. When we invade, we either will or will not find what Secretary of State Colin Powell says is there. If we do not find it, President Bush will be in serious trouble. If we do, all of his critics will be.

Unlike so many issues in public policy, this one will be determined shortly one way or another. One may have to wait years before we can determine if a legislative course succeeds or fails. Usually, by the time the verdict is in, the voters have shifted their attention far away.

But Iraq either will be found to have the chemical and biological weapons we fear it has and the incipient nuclear capacity or these nightmares will prove to have been paranoid. The fact that the denouement will take place in a few weeks, while the whole world is watching, makes this outcome a seminal one for our politics and the new world order.

My money’s on President Bush. He wouldn't be pushing us toward this war unless he felt he had the goods on Saddam.

If Bush is right, the left in the United States will be discredited for many decades to come. In the opposite of the Vietnam syndrome, where the left proved to be correct — it didn't make a bit of difference in the cold war whether we won or lost in Vietnam — it will now be proven massively, totally wrong.

Politically, in the United States, Iraq will become a term like “Munich” to debunk the appeasers. Like “Vietnam” it will be a place that becomes a lesson. It will stand as the prime example of how reflexive opposition to violence undermines the long term cause of world peace. Those who are now marching for peace are on their last march.

You can read the rest of Dick's drivel here. As for more recent commentary suitable for wrapping fish, here's a New Year's Eve message where Dick apparently suffers the kind of memory lapse formerly the exclusive domain of big-shots testifying before Congress or in court. God, I never thought I'd link to the Freeper site, but I assure you it is only by means of example--shit happens.

Oh, by the way--recall the 36 ten year old heavy mortar grenades, leaking but wrapped in plastic, and buried in a dried up marsh near the city of Qurnah--probably leftover ordinance from the Iran-Iraq war? CNN really played this up--(sung to the tune of "At Last") At last, my WMD has come along, all these foolish justifications are over, and this press conference is like a song...

Uh--wait a minute: Talkingpointsmemo links to a BBC article which states that "Three dozen mortar shells uncovered in Iraq earlier this month had no chemical agents..." although there's still faint hope: "About 50 more shells are thought to still be buried in the area." And if THAT doesn't pan out, they can always go jump in the river: "Local residents told troops they had recovered about 400 shells in recent years and had thrown them in the Tigris river, AP reported."