Cagle Puts Staton in His Place

Cagle is one smart politician. Today, he killed Senator Staton's much-blustered-about constitutional amendment on Voter ID (you know, Staton's solution to the pesky and expensive constitutional problems with his legislation). With one strike, Cagle put Staton in his place and made oh so many Democrats (read: potential voters) happy. And, there was no real cost to Cagle. The thing was not going to pass anyway, so Cagle looks sane and Cecil, well, looks like Cecil.

It is not, in my opinion, a coincidence that Staton was staunchly in Reed's camp in the election (as in sent an oh-so-sweet op-ed to the Telegraph two days before the primary that discussed Reed's virtues), and Cagle is on record crediting his victory in large part to the twenty-plus sentors who signed the statement asking Reed to withdraw. It was Staton who was at Reed's "victory party" consoling Sadie Fields and complaining about the fun the media would have with Reed's defeat. This was a brilliant political move for Cagle. Staton? Well, one of two things happened. Either (1) Cagle did not tell him that he planned to pull the bill and let him walk into this rather embarrassing situation blind (ouch), or (2) Cagle did tell him, and Cecil, being his arrogant self, filed it anyway betting that Cagle wouldn't pull it. I'm betting on #2 and wager Staton won't do that again.

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Saxby's Double-Speak

Senator Chambliss is on record in the Athens Banner Herald opposing a time line for withdrawal from Iraq, instead saying that the criteria for victory has changed. Here's what he had to say. If you can follow his logic, you're doing better than me:

"The degree of how bad it's going is where (Democrats and Republicans) might disagree," Chambliss said after Friday's fall commencement at the University of Georgia, for which he gave the keynote address. "From a military perspective, we are winning the war."
But a successful military operation does not ensure victory - "we can't say that about any other war," he said. "In this conflict, victory means training the Iraqi military to the point where they're able to protect the Iraqi citizens from the threat of an outside force ... and train the Iraqi police until they are at a point where they can protect citizens from domestic threats."
American troops continue to take out bad guys every day, "but that doesn't win a war for us," said Chambliss, who sits on the Senate Armed Services and Select Intelligence committees, as well as the Agriculture Committee."

What? Are these the same Iraqi police who recently stood by as worshipers were pulled out of a mosque and burned to death? This meaningless double-talk is just one of the reasons the right candidate can so beat this guy.

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