omorrow I'll be casting my vote at our local synagogue where election after election I get to see a fairly large percentage of my neighbors. I've a gut feeling that for this off-year election the turnout will be large. The issues are clear. The primary concern, the war in Iraq. If you have any doubts about whether or not what we are involved with, in that beleaguered country, is still undecided in your mind, let me point out that Richard N. Perle, the former Pentagon advisor, the man regarded as the godfather of the Iraq war, now believes that he should not have backed the U.S.-led invasion. Beyond that he has publicly stated that he holds President Bush responsible for failing to make timely decisions to stem the rising violence. This about-face is simply the latest in a series of war recriminations by neo conservatives. In growing numbers they lay the blame on the Defense Secretary Donald H. Rumsfeld and the military leaders who put the war plan together. The man has a lot more to say in the way of condemnation of the administration in the January issue of Vanity Fair. Kenneth Adelman, a longtime friend of Rumsfeld and an experienced former Reagan administration official, is quoted as saying that he still believes the reasons for going to war were correct, but the invasion should not have occurred because the goals were unachievable. He called Bush's national security advisors "among the most incompetent teams" in the post World War11 era.

The Associated Press has a story about secret war games that were conducted in 1999; the "Desert Crossing Games". They anticipated that an invasion of Iraq would require 400,000 troops, and even then chaos might ensue. It has.
There are currently 144,000 U.S. troops in Iraq. Conventional wisdom has it that we went in with insufficient troops. But, the documents which came to light through a Freedom of Information Act request suggested that we would have ended up with a failed state even with the considerably larger force on the ground.
Our troops are the finest and doing their best. In an interview with Secretary Rumsfeld's wife, I asked her whether her husband slept well at night. That was a year ago. Her answer then was "My Donald sleeps extremely well." And now?

Saddam Hussein has been found guilty and sentenced to death. A foul human being.

But back to the election. Republican, Democrat or Independent I do hope you make a date to vote. Sadly because of gerrymandering and generally the overwhelming power of incumbency, there are many November 7th elections that are either noncompetitive or predetermined. There are many "safe" districts where victory is guaranteed for one party or the other.

Thank you Sen. Joseph Lieberman for saying that if you win re-election, as an independent, (after being defeated earlier this year in the Democratic primary) you will caucus with the Democrats. That would be a godsend as the 51st vote would give the Democrats control of the chamber.
The majority party sets the agenda in both the House and the Senate. If either House has a majority of Democrats that would pave the way for hearings on the Bush administration's handling of the war and a vote to increase the national minimum wage. And more, of course. If the Republicans retain control they are expected to focus on making permanent some of the tax cuts enacted early in the Bush first term.

As the L.A Times said in a lead editorial... "California, Land of the perpetual election, seems almost a land apart this campaign season. We're peripheral to the passionate battle for control of Congress. The Republican governor is so completely outpacing his Democrat challenger in the polls that voters of any party might well figure, "Why bother?" We vote so often in this state that it seems more like a chore than a privilege". It is still, very much, a privilege and every election is significant.