For most Americans, who now wish we had never invaded Iraq, the notion of expanding that extraordinarily lethal mistake into neighboring Iran and Syria must seem insane. Yet those same brilliant neoconservative strategists who brought us the war in Iraq and constantly urge its escalation exist in their own special reality. They speak of military hostilities against Iran and Syria with anticipation rather than apprehension.

            As we should have learned over the past four years, their dreams often turn out to be our nightmares.

            For four brief hours on Memorial Day, however, the neoconservative drive toward a wider conflagration in the Middle East stalled, when ambassadors from the United States and Iran met in Baghdad.

            That meeting's historic significance should not be underestimated, even though U.S. officials emphasized that no further meetings would necessarily occur. Convened under the auspices of the Iraqi government, the Monday encounter represented the first substantive bilateral discussion between American and Iranian officials in three decades.

To the editor:

If democracy rests on the art of compromise, the recent public quarrel over immigration may be telling us that we have more than an immigration problem. It may be telling us that we have a democracy problem; that we can't govern ourselves.

I once heard John Danforth, the Republican former senator from Missouri and an ordained Christian minister, point out that there is an inherent tension between democracy's requirement for compromise and religion's requirement for uncompromising adherence to one or another set of principles. If we aren’t careful about how we go about practicing religion, we may be going about being anti-democratic. If I assert, "I'm right, and you're wrong--end of discussion", wouldn't Danforth say I was obstructing democracy?

On Memorial Day, we pause to remember those who have given “their last full measure” to keep this democracy alive. We owe it to them to cultivate real public discourse to replace public quarrels like we’ve seen over immigration. And we better start cultivating soon--even if it hurts or inconveniences--before we let personal principle ruin what they died to preserve for us.

I had another post prepared today, but yesterday I read Cindy Sheehan’s letter of resignation as the “face” of the American anti-war movement.  I tried to read it aloud to my wife, but I couldn’t do it with composure.  Even now alone at my desk, it has the effect of real heartbreak, not heartbreak that just hurts, but heartbreak that cannot maintain its composure — mine, that is, not hers.

Cindy’s letter stands, as she has always stood, on a clear and honest principle.  Her principle used to be “that the issue of peace and people dying for no reason is not a matter of ‘right or left,’ but ‘right and wrong.’”  In resigning, her principle has become the principle of all families who have ever watched a loved one’s self-destructive addiction and come to the conclusion that a line must be drawn. 

Cindy writes, “Good-bye America…you are not the country that I love and I finally realize no matter how much I sacrifice, I can’t make you be that country unless you want it.  It’s up to you now.” 

This Monica revealed something hotter — much hotter — than a stained blue dress. In her opening testimony yesterday before the House Judiciary Committee, Monica Goodling, the blonde-ling underling to Attorney General Alberto Gonzales and Department of Justice Liaison to the White House, dropped The Big One….And the Committee members didn’t even know it.

Goodling testified that Gonzales’ Chief of Staff, Kyle Sampson, perjured himself, lying to the committee in earlier testimony. The lie: Sampson denied Monica had told him about Tim Griffin’s “involvement in ‘caging’ voters” in 2004.

Huh?? Tim Griffin? “Caging”???

The perplexed committee members hadn’t a clue — and asked no substantive questions about it thereafter. Karl Rove is still smiling. If the members had gotten the clue, and asked the right questions, they would have found “the keys to the kingdom,” they thought they were looking for. They dangled right in front of their perplexed faces.

The keys: the missing emails — and missing link — that could send Griffin and his boss, Rove, to the slammer for a long, long time.

Kingdom enough for ya?

Over the past two months of repeated Congressional votes to fund the occupation of Iraq, culminating in President Bush's signing the bill on Friday, what – if anything – have we learned?  Have we learned anything about individuals or political parties or activist organizations to trust or despise, or have we learned better what to demand of them regardless of such emotions?  Have we learned anything about policies to support, battles to lose, pyrrhic victories, or how to talk about ending the occupation?

A clear and growing majority of Americans wants to end the occupation.  Yet many people are opposed to defunding it.  So, not enough of us have learned that you cannot end this occupation without defunding it.  And far too few of us fully understand that ultimately we'll need impeachment before the occupation actually ends.