Well the time has come.

Tonight in Glendale Arizona, the Undefeated, Big 10 Champion Ohio State Buckeyes take on the SEC Champion Florida Gators for the first time ever in the Bowl Championship Series National Title Game.

The Buckeyes come in a 7 1/2 point favorite over the Gators behind the talented arm of Heisman Trophy winner Troy Smith.  The Gators are riding high after jumping into the #2 BCS ranking upon winning the SEC Championship game behind a stout defense and a lightening quick core of receivers.

Before we get into the relative merits of the two teams, let's address one thing Gator and Buckeye fans can all agree on . . .

 As Booman correctly noted, the country has had enough of George Bush's stubbornness with respect to the occupation of Iraq.  Acceptance of the ISG's recommendations was the administration's final opportunity to salvage what little support he retained, not only with the American public, but with elected officials in his own party.  

With the possibility that as few as 12 Republican Senators would support the President's decision to deploy additional troops to Baghdad,  aggressive action by the new Democratic majority to prevent the surge not only might succeed, but may accelerate the inevitable withdrawal of American forces from Iraq.

More below the flip.

Born to freedom
Liberty a birthright
Brave men and women of a forgotten past, careful stewards of a sacred burden
Of hope for humanity

Civil War
A Great Depression
Foreign powers bent on the destruction of the dream
The Red Menace
None could penetrate the bulwark of the people's spirit

A man stood and proclaimed his dream
A vision of America realized
A dream of the promised land
Of the birthright of humankind

Shots ring out
The dream lives on
A patriot dead
Chaos.

And the people turned on, tuned out, moved up.
ME, ME, ME, ME, ME
Greed, Avarice, Corruption
The lust for power

Driven by fear and ignorance, the once proud stewards of liberty stood willfully blind
Ignorance
Stupidity
Mindlessness
Blood lust
And the elders surrender to fear
Not of some enemy, but of losing grip on wealth and power.

A shining city on a hill now a dim flicker through the fog of the not so distant past.
Darkness descends.
The world on fire.
Tears.
Death.
Profound sadness.
Brother against brother.
Searching for hope.

Despite the cry for sanity and peace in this community by Delaware Dem not so long ago, the focus and continuity of this site continues to be disrupted by flame wars between the Troll Hunters (I use this term as short hand, not because it is an accurate description) and their critics.  

I just took a glance at the comments on the User Comments
to the ABC news blog story on the tracking of leakers from phone records of reporters.  I expected to see a chorus of outrage.  What I found instead might be more frightening to me than the story itself.

I don't know much about this recovery stuff.  But I've heard that the first step towards recovery is to admit you have a problem.

So after giving this a great deal of thought after reading all 1500 or so comments on two of the diaries currently sitting on the recommended list, I've realized I have a problem.  

I'm a meta-addict.

So after reading Senator Feingold's most excellent speech on the Senate floor yesterday about illegal wiretaps, I sent it around the office, including a coworker who is about as staunch an apologist for the Bush administration as I've come across (we'll call him Mr. W).  When the expected defense of the administration didn't come, one of my more liberal coworkers sent the following email:

A battle lost.  Bad ... no doubt.  But no one here seriously thought this was going to go any other way did they?  The Alito confirmation was a fait accompli after the abominable disaster that was the Judiciary Committee hearings.

Yes, spineless Vichy Dems let us down again.  But this time something was different.  

More blow the fold...

Ok, so when I joined this community recently I had every intention of writing epic diaries.  Alas, two small kids and a busy law practice has made that difficult, if not impossible.  Plus, all my spare time is taken up with reading the wonderful contributions of all of you who daily show me how woefully ill informed I really am.

One of the things I've learned here is that even the smallest effort can have an impact, so when I was the recent Tampa Tribune op ed on the filibuster, I mustered up my first ever LTE and it was published!