Joe Lieberman, discussing the President’s “surge” plan, gives a perfect example of why I can’t stand him. It’s not just that he’s a weasel who fetishizes centrism, but that he’s a politician who doesn’t understand politics.

The Senate should “step back for a moment and give you [Gen. Petraeus] a chance…. Perhaps a last chance, to succeeed in Iraq,” Lieberman said. “If God forbid, you are unable to succeed, then there will be plenty of time for the resolutions of disapproval or the other alternatives that have been contemplated.”

Plenty of time? When? In 6-9 months from now, the Democratic and Republican 2008 primary races will already be in full gear. Any action, pro- or anti-Bush, will be seen as an election-motivated ploy. Joe Lieberman, who’s run for President himself, should know as well as anybody that trying to get anything done during a Presidential election is nearly impossible. The further we wait, the more likely that any significant action will be put off, lest the Senate be accused of “playing politics” with the lives of soldiers. But that’s the whole point of the “surge” anyways. Let Bush try to wait out the clock and make Iraq somebody else’s problem (and in the process, fuel a new generation of armchair hawks who, like their Vietnam-era brethren, will insist with blind hindsight that the Iraq war was winnable). If Lieberman honestly thinks that “there will be plenty of time” to change direction in Iraq once the “surge” fails, then he’s an even bigger fool than I thought.

John at Americablog makes a good point about the State of the Union.

Speaking of ignoring, what the hell happened to family values and the social conservatives. Did they get ANYTHING in the entire speech? Abortion, gone. Activist judges, gone. Gay marriage, gone. That’s the sleeper shocker of this speech, the utter cleansing of anything that would appeal to the family values crowd. They have truly become the crazy aunt in the attic, to be hidden at all costs.

That’s how it’s always been. The GOP has been playing the social conservatives like suckers for years and these voters, to their shame, dutifully show up at the polls every other year despite the mounting pile of empty promises. And as long as these wedge issues keep the “values voters” from jumping ship to a third party, they’ll continue to be exploited. Right wingers, it’s time to drop the faith in your party and realize that Republicans don’t care about you.

Wow. Jim Webb’s Democratic response to the State of the Union was awesome. He’s not the most dynamic speaker the Dems have to offer, but the speech itself more than made up for the delivery.

Regarding the economic imbalance in our country, I am reminded of the situation President Theodore Roosevelt faced in the early days of the 20th century. America was then, as now, drifting apart along class lines. The so-called robber barons were unapologetically raking in a huge percentage of the national wealth. The dispossessed workers at the bottom were threatening revolt.

Roosevelt spoke strongly against these divisions. He told his fellow Republicans that they must set themselves “as resolutely against improper corporate influence on the one hand as against demagogy and mob rule on the other.” And he did something about it.

As I look at Iraq, I recall the words of former general and soon-to-be President Dwight Eisenhower during the dark days of the Korean War, which had fallen into a bloody stalemate. “When comes the end?” asked the General who had commanded our forces in Europe during World War Two. And as soon as he became President, he brought the Korean War to an end.

These Presidents took the right kind of action, for the benefit of the American people and for the health of our relations around the world. Tonight we are calling on this President to take similar action, in both areas. If he does, we will join him. If he does not, we will be showing him the way.

Now that’s how you end a speech. This wasn’t the standard pathetic plea for bipartisanship that we’re used to seeing with the Democratic response, this was a warning. We’re in charge now, and this is how we expect you to behave…

Since everybody’s going to be throwing in their two cents about what the Democratic response to the President’s State of the Union should be, let me make the case for brevity. Rather than follow an hour-long speech with another 5-10 minutes of counter chest-thumping, why not just say :

“Tonight the President had a lot to say about protecting the American people, but this is the same man who thinks it’s okay to torture people. He’s lying to you again.”

Also, any guesses on what’s going to be the President’s WTF?! moment? We’ve already had human-animal hybrids, steroids in professional baseball, and a manned mission to Mars (sorta). My hope is that he goes a little nutty and goes off on a tangent about how cool the iPhone looks.

Kudos to CNN for finally exposing the fact that psychics are full of crap….

…but it’s worth pointing out that Sylvia Browne has been on Larry King at least four times since 2000. As James Randi noted, one of the reasons people believe these scam artists because they’ve seen exploitative scum like Browne treated like miracle workers on the news. The way I see it, Anderson Cooper’s ten minute bunking doesn’t come close to the hours of time “the most trusted name in news” has wasted by lending their credibility to frauds.

One of those damned blog memes, courtesy of Mr. Furious

1. Name a book that you want to share so much that you keep giving away copies: The Bible, of course. Jesus is my favorite literary character after Frankenstein, Terl, and Velociraptor. Joking aside, probably Michael Shermer’s Why People Believe Weird Things. I love the way Shermer draws parallels between creationism, holocaust denial, ESP, astrology and other bizarre beliefs to explore why people are drawn to superstitions, conspiracy theories, pseudoscience and more. Shermer has a tendency to be knee-jerk in his skepticism, but none of that is evident in this book.

Speaking of the Bible, I’m about halfway through Misquoting Jesus and it’s really good.

2. Name a piece of music that changed the way you listen to music: Side two of The Beatles’ Abbey Road. It’s what made The Beatles my favorite band and pretty much started my love of pop music. I doubt I’d own the majority of my music collection if I hadn’t heard Abbey Road in high school.

3. Name a film you can watch again and again without fatigue: Goodfellas. From the opening scene’s voice-over “As far back as I can remember I always wanted to be a gangster” to the final scene with Ray Liotta’s narration breaking the fourth wall and telling the audience that the good ol’ days are over, every aspect of this movie is perfect. (Halfway through writing this sentence, I had to run upstairs to grab the DVD. It’s that good.)

Runners-up : The Wizard of Oz, Citizen Kane

4. Name a performer for whom you suspend of all disbelief: For the last few years, all of my favorite character actors have finally gotten the mainstream attention they deserve. Philip Seymour Hoffman, William H. Macy, Paul Giamatti, John C. Reilly are brilliant in just about every movie they make.

5. Name a work of art you’d like to live with: A few months ago, I was at my friends’ art opening and was telling my friend Scot how much I was enjoying his new work. After a few minutes of my wine-fueled gushing, Scot seemed surprised and said “I always thought you hated art.”

“I don’t hate art,” I told him, “I hate pretension.”

That’s pretty much the story of my life. I avoid pretension the way George Bush avoids responsibility and self-awareness, so discussions of the fine art world put my bullshitting muscles to good use. “Quick, Greg, change the subject to something you know about,” I tell myself.

“So, have you seen American Idol this season? That Cowardly Lion girl was hilarious.”

But, like I said, even if I don’t know much about it, I like art. I can appreciate the aesthetics of art and can usually articulate why I like or dislike something, but I haven’t been exposed to enough art to speak about it with any degree of confidence. That said, here’s a piece of art that I do live with, which is also one of my favorite paintings of all time. An earlier version (minus the hand or blinds) of Tom Neely’s Sad Bird :

6. Name a work of fiction which has penetrated your real life: I rarely get “penetrated” by fiction. No, I’m not going for a cheap joke, just being honest.

7. Name a punch line that always makes you laugh: This bit from Mr. Show cracks me up every time I see it…

David: This show that we’re about to do is gonna blow your ass to high heaven!

Bob: David, David, you know the rule. Put a nickel in the swearing jar.

David: Oh shoot. [laughs]

Bob: Folks, we have a fun, new rule here at Mr. Show. Every time a cast member swears, they have to put a nickel in the swearing jar.

[David drops the nickel into an already full jar.]

David: The money goes to Swears For Cares, an non-profit organization committed to raising money through swearing.

Bob: So hopefully, we’ll make a little difference.

David: [holds up a nickel] A little fucking difference.

Since the rules are that I need to pass this on to three people, I’ll punt it to my three This Modern World co-bloggers, Tom Tomorrow, Bob Harris, and Jonathan Schwarz.

The Huffington Post has a cool new feature that you might Digg :

We’re excited to tell you that the Huffington Post is launching a new community powered section of our site called HuffIt. HuffIt lets readers decide what news stories should get the most attention on the Huff Post. You can submit and select news from anywhere in the world and then “huff” the stories you like best. The most huffed news stories will soon appear on our front page - allowing our community to become part of the editorial process.

If you’re curious about what I’ve been…huffing, my profile is here.

Call me old-fashioned, but I think we need to get in touch with our more traditional values. (via Digg)

Too bad the country is being run by Otis the town drunk.

Oh my god. This may be the greatest subtle “fuck you” I’ve ever heard, even if it didn’t get the reaction it deserved. At the beginning of Colbert’s interview with Bill O’Reilly, he jokes “That man is a sexual predator…you have no idea what that’s like.” Oh, I think he does. Ouch.

Send some love to Jane.