Not as bad as I thought

Well, as I read reports on the presidents speech on CNN, it did not appear to be as attacking as I thought he was going to do. I think the net impact will be pretty small in either direction.

I do want to go on record saying that I do not believe the Administration pressured the agencies for a certain finding. I think they may have read what they wanted to see, though. Probably giving more credence to the items that supported their view; but had less support. Combine that with the fact that I do not think our intelligence agencies are very effective or accurate these days and it is easy to come up with the justification for almost any position. Both sides are too blame for not scrutinizing the information further.

I supported giving the President the powers based on what we knew. I thought, at the time, that he moved us into war too quickly. However, I see absolutely no way that we should pull our troops out. I am actually in agreement with John McCain that we need more troops there in the short term and a timetable is a horrible idea.

We got ourselves into this mess and history has taught us that we must clean it up. If we don't clean it up, it will expand by osmosis and infect that entire region.