Don Larsen was, by all reports, an excellent Army Chaplain. When he was a Pentecostal Christian, that is. His superior while he was in Iraq, Chaplain Kevin L. McGhee, called Larsen "the best" out of the 26 chaplains he supervised. But then Larsen applied to change his religious affiliation to Wicca, and the Army railroaded him out of Iraq and out of the Army.

The whole sordid story is extensively detailed in a recent article in the Washington Post which (though long) is well worth reading for anyone interested in the subject.

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That adds up to 57 votes. And that is three votes short of the 60 which are needed. Can the Democrats convince three Republican senators (most likely, three who are up for reelection in 2008) to vote against their party in the hopes of keeping their jobs?

I certainly hope so, but I wouldn't bet money on it at this point. Especially since Harry Reid is not only holding a Saturday vote at the beginning of a holiday weekend, but he is also hinting that if they do get the 60 votes to go forward, he will hold sessions all next week to debate the resolution and have a floor vote on it. Congress gets all of next week off, so a vote for the resolution is a vote to deny yourself a week of vacation. Not exactly an enticement for those sitting on the fence. Or maybe Reid is being crafty, and will back down from his threat to take away the Senate's vacation in return for those three votes? That would be a brilliant piece of political hardball, if he could pull it off.

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We have lost more helicopters in Iraq during the past three weeks than during any period of the war. Details are sketchy, but we've lost either six or seven helicopters in the past few weeks (sources disagree on the total number, and on how many of these were military choppers and how many were civilian contractors'). Nobody seems to be sure if this is due to: (a) new tactics by insurgents with conventional weapons (heavy machine guns); (b) insurgents getting new weapons such as shoulder-fired surface-to-air missiles (SAMs, or MANPADs); or (c) just a statistical anomaly.

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So you can expect a lot of teeth-gnashing, and rending of garments in frustration from the Republicans in the House floor debates this week. But take it all with a grain of salt. The right-wing blogosphere, as I mentioned, is going to reach new heights of high dudgeon, but in the end there will only be one vote. And only one bill will pass over to the Senate, giving Harry Reid the opening he needs to pressure Senate Republicans: the House has already passed a bill, if Republicans stop debate on the House measure, then you are the obstructionists, and we're going to make damn sure American voters are aware of that fact, all the way up to Election Day 2008.

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The entire article is fascinating and well worth a read to anyone interested in what is being done in the name of the United States of America. Mr. Fair was quite brave to come forward and tell his story, and is the first to do so that I have read. This article deserves more prominence than it will likely get, which is why I draw your attention to it.

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Picture this:

[GOP POLITICIAN:] "Bloviate bloviate BLO-vi-ate, bloviate the Democrat Party position on this subject is bloviate blovi-ATE..."

Or, perhaps, the following:

[FOX NEWS "JOURNALIST":] "Spin spin SPIN. Spin SPIN spin spin Democrat Party spin spin SPIN!!!"

Now picture this response to such provocation:

[DEMOCRATIC POLITICIAN'S RESPONSE:] "Well, if you insist on referring to my party as the 'Democrat Party' then I'm going to have to use President Bush's own term 'Republic Party' to respond to that. After all, if my party's name is too hard for you to pronounce, then I'll have to follow Bush's lead and use 'Republic Party' in order to get it down to the number of syllables you seemingly are able to pronounce."

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