La Iguana*

*From the new Ry Cooder-Chieftains album.

Appropriate title for this afternoon.

A cool pamphlet is being circulated by the Fundaloons, which prove that children played with dinosaurs. Even Odysseus saw dinosaurs. Since last week scientists finally concluded the beasts were exterminated by a comet, I think Michelle Bachman should open a House hearing to determine how many humans died alongside them.

My afternoon e-mail said that now even NASA is involved in Climategate. I'm glad everyone's getting in on the act.

Glenn Beck must have read Pat Buchanan revisionist history of World War II or Lyndon LaRoche. Today, he said the Japanese had to bomb Pearl Harbor because Woodrow Wilson aligned himself with Britain, instead of Japan after World War I. It was the progressive's fault. I kid you not. This kid is on a roll. Catholic League President Bill Donohue backed Beck against the criticism he is receiving from the religious community. I guess Bill didn't receive the memo from the Jesuits. Don't worry, he will.

The Tea Partiers are coming to Washington to protest Obamacare. There is a slight problem. It seems their planned route is the same as "ZingZangZoom" the circus parade for Ringling Brothers. Or maybe it was the park officials believing they belonged together. Remember over 1 million came last year--even though the park officials said 75,000. Let's make it ten million this time.

Karl Rove said he's proud of waterboarding. Marc Thiessen is just very proud of torture and Liz Cheney's attack on the DOJ. He said it again this morning in the Washington Post, his new employer. Why didn't I think about supporting torture? I could have a regular column either at the Post or like Johnny Yoo at the Philadelphia Inquirer.

Rev. Joel Hunter, a moderate evangelical presently on the White House Faith Advisory Council, resigned his membership with the Republicans because he felt they were incompatible with his belief system.

Evangelicals are now angry at the libertarian streak of the Tea Parties, especially with their new manifesto Contract From America. Focus on the Family, which dumped Dr. Dobson from its board,has already condemned the new manifesto. I haven't even seen it.

Our friend Lawrence O'Donnell called into the Morning Joe and proclaimed Democrats are in trouble if they pass healthcare reform. I knew there was something fishy about this guy. Matthew Iglesias wrote in opposition to the Pat Caddell and Doug Schoen piece that Democrats will lose even more if they don't pass healthcare reform. He also said that it would secure Obama's place in history along FDR and LBJ as putting the final piece of the New Deal in place. I tend to agree.

Doug Brooks decided to put on his serious face today in "Getting Obama Right". He said the right and the left have Obama wrong. He says Obama is a center-left pragmatic reformer, who has displayed "tremendous tenacity" in fighting for his agenda. He says the President is the most realistic and reasonable major player in Washington. Brooks, who admits Obama is four clicks left of him, is pursuing a modern version of moderate progressivism. Brooks believes Obama over-estimated the public desire for federal activism. To this I would respond that this was a necessity because of a Depression. Brooks in the past admitted that Obama got his interest because the President can talk about Reinhold Niehbur at length and with great accuracy.

Little discussed in this town are the reports that Al Qaeda has changed its tactics to use single militants because the Obama Administration has crippled it both financially and organizationally. Al Qaeda now figures that failed attacks like the Christmas bombing are just as effective because it stirs up the political pot and gets the Republicans all hot and bothered. And this makes America look weak. Al Qaeda has other problems now with open fighting between it and the Taliban. The attacks on Al Qaeda in Yemen have yielded more American detainees. One of them hails from New Jersey and worked in five different nuclear facilities over the years.