MOLDY CITY

NBC is advertising a special report on Monday's NBC Nightly News (5:30 CST)on where the billions for Gulf Coast Reconstruction have gone. Often as not, those advertised special reports are two minutes of fluff, so i wouldn't make a special effort to watch it. As a matter of fact, that's the time I normally get home from work, but it might be difficult for me to make it tomorrow.

Somebody needs to slap Tim Russert (type of slap optional) and tell him that, "Are people born gay?" is an absurd question to ask a presidential candidate.

Interesting story on the ACoE in Iraq:

"This is the worst project that my inspectors have visited," says Stuart Bowen, inspector general for Iraq.

Bowen says the Iraqis recently refused to take over the complex, calling the work disgusting.

Here's what Parsons delivered for taxpayers' $62 million:

* Shoddily built brick walls.
* Cracking concrete.
* Exposed reinforced steel bars.
* Buildings without enough power or with faulty electrical box wiring.
* Plumbing so bad that when cadets used it, human waste rained through light fixtures and ceilings.

The report places some blame on the Army Corps of Engineers, which was supposed to oversee the project.

"They actually awarded Parsons merit increases despite widespread evidence of deficient work," says Rep. Susan Collins, R-Maine.

Don't know whether this could more properly be called a rehash of or an update to an old story.

Finally, Joe Scarborough briefly sounded like Keith Olbermann on Thursday night's show:

I consider myself to be extraordinarily conservative. I‘m the same guy that I was when I was up in Congress, and I really don‘t care about what Jacques Chirac and the United Nations think. I care about our troops. I care about what‘s best for America. And I oppose this surge because I don‘t think it‘s going to make a huge difference over there.

How can you have Republicans, friends of mine like Jim DeMint, Jim Bunning, John Cornyn, accusing Republicans like John Warner of playing into the hands of enemies, and Tony Snow doing the same thing, when an overwhelming amount of Americans agree with the position that John Warner‘s taking and that you‘re taking and that I‘ve taken?
...

So Pat, you‘re saying tonight that John Warner is sending the wrong message to our enemies because he is following the popular will of the overwhelming number of Americans who oppose continuing down this path, this failed path.
...

You know, I‘ve got to say, just listening to this debate today, Joe Klein, has just made me very angry, angry at a lot of people in my Republican Party, angry at people that I like very much. The suggestion that either you support the president 100 percent or you‘re not a conservative is offensive to me. I am more conservative than George Bush has ever been! I‘m more conservative when it comes to the military. I‘m more conservative when it comes to economics. I‘m more conservative when it comes to spending our money.

But somehow, this president has been able to make the argument, You either support me, you either support—what, $10 billion more dollars, I guess, Joe? I mean, you either support these false estimates that I make at the beginning of the war, you either support my plan to give the generals less troops than they need to win the war at the beginning and more troops than they want at the end, or else you‘re not a conservative.

I don‘t know how that message doesn‘t tear the Republican Party apart, and I wonder, Why aren‘t there more John Warners out there?
...

And you know what? I would stay the course if there was any evidence at all that we could win this war. But when you have a general testifying on the Hill in front of John McCain that he still thinks that we‘re on the right path, that he still thinks no mistakes have been made—I‘m telling you, there are troops that live around northwest Florida that are over in Iraq, that live in Washington, that live across this country, that will not be coming home next Christmas because they will be dead because we have leaders that don‘t understand that we‘re on the wrong course in Iraq! If you‘re a true conservative, there is no way you can support staying the course in the sight of such failure. Either come up with a new plan or bring our troops home!

Don't want to read too much into it. I suppose I should look at conservative web sites to see if there's been any reaction.