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• Quote of the Day

Bubba and Dubya are going to engage in a presidential debate for the ages.
Former President Bill Clinton and George W. Bush will square off on the same stage at Radio City Music Hall in February as part of a series pitting liberal and conservative thinkers.

The event is part of MSG Entertainment’s third annual “Minds That Move The World” speakers series.

The event — billed as “The Hottest Ticket in Political History” — will take place on Feb. 25, 2010, at 8 p.m., according to organizers.

But, alas, it was not meant to be:

A “debate” between former Presidents Bill Clinton and George W. Bush has been nixed because the promoter overhyped it as a death-match faceoff between the men, The Post has learned.

Clinton spokesman Matt McKenna said the appearance was never slated to be a “debate” and was actually a moderated panel discussion with the 42nd and 43rd leaders of the free world.

“This event … was supposed to be a discussion between the two former presidents, and has been cancelled because it was not being billed as such by an overeager promoter,” McKenna siad.

It was too good to be true. And really, this would have been much more exciting five years ago anyway.

• President Bush’s last SOTU tonight….or is it?
• The fun of pointless sports debates
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• I might have to buy the book
• I want this more then anything

Perhaps the most surreal aspect of our great Afghanistan debate is the Beltway credence given to the ravings of the unrepentant blunderers who dug us into this hole in the first place.

Let’s be clear: Those who demanded that America divert its troops and treasure from Afghanistan to Iraq in 2002 and 2003 — when there was no Qaeda presence in Iraq — bear responsibility for the chaos in Afghanistan that ensued.

This isn’t just surreal with regards to Afghanistan; there are no penalties for being wrong in any foreign policy matter if your default setting is more force. Rich’s target in this case is Senator McCain, and to a lesser degree his two collegues Senators Graham and Lieberman. These three, led primarily by McCain, have been wrong about a lot of things since 9/11 and yet not only do they continue to make grand statements, more incredibly, the media continues to seek them out for wisdom. Rich again:

Along with his tribunes in Congress and the punditocracy, Wrong-Way McCain still presumes to give America its marching orders. With his Senate brethren in the Three Amigos, Joe Lieberman and Lindsey Graham, he took to The Wall Street Journal’s op-ed page to assert that “we have no choice” but to go all-in on Afghanistan — rightly or wrongly, presumably — just as we had in Iraq. Why? “The U.S. walked away from Afghanistan once before, following the Soviet collapse,” they wrote. “The result was 9/11. We must not make that mistake again.”

This shameless argument assumes — perhaps correctly — that no one in this country remembers anything. So let me provide a reminder: We already did make that mistake again when we walked away from Afghanistan to invade Iraq in 2003 — and we did so at the Three Amigos’ urging. Then, too, they promoted their strategy as a way of preventing another 9/11 — even though no one culpable for 9/11 was in Iraq. Now we’re being asked to pay for their mistake by squandering stretched American resources in yet another country where Al Qaeda has largely vanished.

Rich goes on to pick apart various statements made by McCain and Lieberman. Its interesting though, as Matt Yglesias notes, that McCain and company are entirely predictable. They always advocate for the same thing. Here’s Yglesias:

The key to understanding McCain’s strategic “thought” is that he loves war. Whichever war the United States of America seems mostly likely to start on any given day is the war he wants to start. Whichever war the United States of America seems mostly likely to escalate on any given day is the war he wants to escalate. The entire rest of his erstwhile worldview will just revolve around that.

I’ll repeat the title of this post: Why does anyone listen to McCain?

• Foreign policy experience my ass
• I really wish Lieberman would go away
• Obama before the VFW
• McCain: 100 years in Iraq
• The many homes of John McCain

• A dark day in DC sports
• Shuster and Matthews make America dumber
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• An interesting approach to a phobia
• Sen. Smith knows which way the wind is blowing

• A dark day in DC sports
• You aren’t really following 50 Cent
• Last fantasy draft tonight
• LaVar in motorcycle crash
• Steve Coll on the Redskins

• Quote of the Day
• Alternative ending way better

Anyway Chappelle didn’t break the record because the man had to go to the bathroom:

But then, five hours into his routine, he walked away to go to the bathroom and was disqualified, said club owner Jamie Masada.

The audience wasn’t happy, Masada said, but he insisted that rules are rules where endurance comedy is concerned.

“There are only two rules,” Masada said Tuesday. “You have to continuously tell jokes that are funny and you can’t leave the stage, even to go to the bathroom.”

Seven hours, or even five hours, is a really, really long time to listen to someone, forget how it must be like trying to entertain people. I wish Chappelle announced when he was going to try again, I’d fly across the country to be in the audience. And make sure I’d gone to the bathroom ahead of time.

• Laughing for six hours
• I have seen crazy and you, lady, are crazy
• D.C. area politicians and their bathrooms
• On a jet plane to L.A.

• Hot dogs in Adams Morgan = 10 extra pounds
• I need to learn to shut my mouth
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• Another WaPo chat question answered
• Oh right. About that

“Callista and I are going to think about this in February 2011. And we are going to reach out to all of our friends around the country. And we’ll decide, if there’s a requirement as citizens that we run, I suspect we probably will. And if there’s not a requirement, if other people have filled the vaccum, I suspect we won’t.”

What, do tell, does that even really mean? “If there’s a requirement”? Is there anyone in the world more full of themselves then Newt? The best part about this is that, as Chris Orr notes, THIS IS WHAT NEWT ALWAYS DOES. Here’s Orr:

The smart money is that he’ll muse endlessly about the possibility; let it be known that if the party wants him badly enough he’ll allow himself to be drafted; and, when this does not happen, publicly take his name out of contention, explaining that he’s abruptly found himself far too busy with some new organization with the word “Future” in the name. This is, after all, what he always does.

That’s not the smart money, thats the stone cold lock of the year. It is either depressing or hysterical that Newt 2012 speculation will be a fixture of the next 3 or so years, almost entirely driven by Newt himself.

• Not how you want a review of your book to end
• Anybody lose a foot? Or five?
• My enemy’s enemy is my friend
• A Google PC

The general atmosphere around the team suggests Zimbabwe—a failed state, an intractable dictator, and an impotent and suffering populace.

The 2009 Washington Redskins: The Zimbabwe of NFL teams. And after tonight’s game, I’m in a similar place as this:

I cannot give up on football; I can hardly give up on the Redskins; but like many other oppressed peoples worldwide, I can at least fall back into exile and await regime change.

At least the Wizards start on Wednesday.

• Last fantasy draft tonight
• Holla at your boy (updated)
• NFL Week One Picks
• Week Two NFL Picks
• Worst Wizards weekend Evah!