I hadn’t realized, until I saw this linked to at Booknotes, that only six senators were present for the voice vote on the $87b Iraq appropriation. USA Today calls them courageous for sticking around for the vote and says we have ninety-four cowards among these august representatives. More telling, of the six only Sen. Robert Byrd voted no. To my way of thinking, we have ninety-nine cowards, not ninety-four. And among them are several men who are vying for your vote next November, of course.

When I linked a few days ago to the USA Today article about the superiority of the intelligence the insurgents are using in fighting against the US occupation, a reader —[thanks, ezrael] commented that someone must have been asleep at the paper’s editorial desk. This is another piece that might be interpreted as uncharacteristically critical of the powers-that-be.