Hillary Clinton has just outlined the approach she'd take as president against the Islamic State in Syria and Iraq. While not completely specific, it has enough details for some rough analysis. Much of what Clinton would do is either a continuation, extension, or expansion of what President Obama is already doing, but that's not surprising, given Clinton's close ties to the Obama administration. Clinton, however, would go beyond what Obama's doing in a few key aspects. These are all problematic in one way or another, but if she could get the other players in the region to agree (or at least accept) what she'd do, it would go a long way towards making them effective (and not counterproductive). Getting that acceptance is going to be the biggest challenge, in fact.

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Republicans are currently in a frenzy over Syria. This frenzy spread quickly across the entire party -- governors, members of Congress, and (of course) presidential candidates. But for all their noise, I notice there is not a single voice crying out to actually change anything in the most concrete way they have at their disposal. Republicans hold both houses of Congress. They are fully able (but, obviously, not fully capable) to pass an Authorization for the Use of Military Force (AUMF) bill which would direct President Obama on how to wage war with the Islamic State in Syria, Iraq, and elsewhere. So the answer to any wild plan any Republican proposes (and, already, there are too many of these to list) on what to do about the Islamic State or Syria has to be: "Well then, why don't you write up an AUMF with that idea and put it on the president's desk?"

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Imagine for just a moment that, right now, there were thousands of refugees from a land over the seas who not only wanted to come to America, but were actually now physically on the North American continent, heading north towards our southern border. In this scenario, the country they're fleeing has, in the past, dumped on American shores criminals and mentally disturbed people, in a wave of migrants. Up until the very recent past, this country was also officially listed as a state sponsor of terrorism. It actually sheltered terrorists who had committed acts of terror against Americans on American soil. And now 2,000 people from this country were trying desperately to get north to the United States.

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The problem of what to do about the Islamic State is an enormously complicated one. Right now, though, there seems to be an opportunity to propose at least a partial solution that, if successful, would be a major military victory of strategic value. This plan would be to let the French military lead the effort to retake the Iraqi city of Mosul from the Islamic State. Not only would this be an enormous blow to the soi-disant "Caliphate," but it would also be a productive way for France to fight back in retaliation for the recent slaughter in Paris.

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Since it's such an auspicious day, perhaps it's time to have a discussion about the increasingly-real possibility that Donald Trump or Ben Carson could actually become the Republican nominee for president next year. It's a scary, scary thing for most to contemplate, but the punditocracy's inside-the-Beltway strategy of just clapping our hands real hard and hoping that Tinkerbell quietly lies down somewhere to die just doesn't seem to be working. Pretty much every pundit under the sun -- from the hard left to the hard right -- has so far written a column this year predicting Trump's imminent political demise. To date, none of them have proven even slightly true. Trump is now challenged for the lead, but he's still polling at roughly the same level of support that he has pretty much ever since he got in the race. Ben Carson has risen to Trump's level in the polling much more than Trump has fallen back. The "Trump (and now, Carson) is going to fade -- it's inevitable" line of thinking is getting more and more divorced from the polling realities. So perhaps it's time to start thinking the unthinkable: either of these two men could actually become the Grand Old Party's nominee for the highest office in the land.

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Both debates tonight were wrapped in cotton balls, with questions only from deep within the conservative media bubble. Only one question, during the "kid's table" debate, even came close to straying off the reservation, and it was promptly ignored by everyone on the stage. Perhaps because of this, there were no direct attacks on the moderators and very little interchange between any of the candidates (at least in the main event).

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After two seemingly-endless Republican debates, this week the Democratic candidates for president finally got their turn to face off against each other on national television. While the audience was smaller (since Donald Trump was not on stage), it was still a lot bigger than most political debates in the past -- over 15 million people watched on CNN, and a further million livestreamed it. This is up from the usual audience of 2-to-5 million, it should be noted, from years past.

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Breaking news! Rick Perry drops out of presidential race!

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The entire Trump phenomenon reminds me of a basic rule from the world of magical/fantasy fiction. It's not quite Asimov's "three laws of robotics," but it's still been used my many authors who write about wizards casting dangerous spells. The rule of thumb among wizards? "Do not call up that which you cannot put down." Don't summon demons or otherworldly forces if you're not strong enough to defeat them, in other words.

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We're going to begin today with a wrapup of the week that was in the presidential campaigns, and as befitting his status as the Republican frontrunner, we're going to start with Donald Trump (if you're sick of hearing about Trump, just skip down eight or ten paragraphs and continue reading).

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