TB, you have learned much from your leaders. After every insurgent victory Cheney would say that it was the last gasp of a failed effort. The enemy would pound the crap out of some allied units and it would be described as the "last throes", a belief he still holds 5 years later. There is a type of person who simply cannot admit they are wrong.

So Cheney saying it made it true.

Some thoughts on the Occupiers.

The Occupiers are a weak, non-threatening objection to the looting having been conducted by the banks and government. They have been remarkably well organized, peaceful, long-lasting, wide-spread and well accepted by the American public. I'm rather awed - I would not have thought it possible. More people approve of them than the Tea Party.

I see them as a solid base from which more effective protests can be organized in the future. At some point there will be establishment tanks with gun barrels leveled at them. By then it will be the American people at whom the guns are pointing.

Funny how many Americans condemned the Chinese for their treatment of the folks in Tienamen Square.