I, for one, admire Barbara Lee for standing up for her convictions. This is not the first time she has stood against giving the President sweeping powers without the oversight of Congress. I am not against striking back at the terrorists… in fact I believe we SHOULD. However, I think that the only effective way to fight back is to, in some ways, get as dirty as they are, something that I don’t think our politicians in general, and George W. in particular have the smarts or the backbone to do.

A “war” in any traditional sense of the term (or even in the more recent sense ala the Gulf war) will do very little to stop potential terrorist acts. What is needed is assasination, middle of the night slips into camps with broken necks, serious efforts at human intelligence, and dealings with unsavory characters that do not result in money in a politician’s pocket… all things that I do not see happening anytime soon.