Iraq is a quagmire, and that leaves little room for serious debate about what the US interests really are in the Middle East. Everything distills to either “pull the troops out” or “add more troops to win it.” There are a few blogs out there that dissect the real issues in blunt terms that reflect the actual reality of the precarious position of not only our military, our foreign policy and our role in the middle east and a few of them are Belgravia Dispatch and Juan Cole and Steven Clemons. Today’s WashingPost Op-Ed by Joe Lieberman has certainly ignited the blogsphere to rehash arguments that have been hashed and hashed and hashed.

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Today’s Courant leads with Rell’s health care plan which focuses on insuring the 400,000 or so uninsured residents of Connecticut. From the Courant:

Rell presented in a press release what she is calling the Charter Oak Health Plan, which would lean heavily on private insurers. Any uninsured adult would have the option of paying no more than $250 a month for basic health care, prescription drugs, laboratory services and pre- and post-natal care. Rell said her plan would cost the state nothing more than nominal administrative and marketing support, and would be the product of collaboration with the managed-care industry.

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Today’s Courant delivers the usual fear mongering headline to accompany the Joe Lieberman position on children and video games; Lieberman Defends Video-Game Money. The article goes on to describe all the donations that Lieberman received this past election cycle, and what a surprise to find not a single video game company listed! Instead David Lightman cites WWE, which is a promotion company based in Stamford that excels at selling the shock and awe of large wrestling personalities strutting in spandex. They package this spectacle in various media, including toys and the occasional video game. But to say the WWE is a video game company is like saying that The Courant is in the interactive media business since they manage to occasionally put out an interactive piece.

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Authentic Connecticut Republican posts a brief statement here: Authentic Connecticut Republican: Riled Rell reacts (rightfully) to DPUC action. California and Enron showed the bad side of not carefully planned deregulation. Our legislators have failed to look out for the utility consumers in this state. Creating an Energy department may be a good first step, but a stronger action would be to take a step back towards having our utility companies generate electricity. Under the present system, there is no incentive for better management, and a convenient excuse to point at the vagaries of the market.

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Saturday was perhaps not the most groundbreaking news day to announce a major policy goal, but tucked away in a statement about Connecticut landing $145 million in federal funds was this Jodi Rell statement:

“Our commuters need relief,” Rell said in a statement. “And I will not be satisfied until we have created a modern and efficient transportation system in Connecticut that is a model for the nation.”

The small AP item appeared in that Connecticut centric publication, Newsday and also on WTNH. But the rest of the pack, newspapers that is, appeared not to send a reporter over to Rell’s Brookfield home base and ask some follow up questions.

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The larger question is whether there is a state budget surplus or not. Since the Connecticut Legislature has failed to adopt GAAP, the fiscal standing of Connecticut is somewhat murky. Recently, in The Courant Rell was announcing a $500 miullion shortfalll projected for 2007/2008.

The state could have a budget deficit of at least $500 million in the 2007-08 fiscal year, which Gov. M. Jodi Rell said Friday could require some cuts in state services.

If spending continues at its current rate, state budget director Robert Genuario projects a deficit of $500 million to $700 million for the next fiscal year to provide the current level of services.

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I wonder if Robert Koch gets combat pay for covering some of the more strident committees that serve Norwalk. From the latest trench warfare actions, The Norwalk Hour reports that a showdown may be looming between City Hall and the Historical Commission. This is not necessarily news, as the historical commission seems to specialize in showdowns, whether it was the warfare on Curator of the Norwalk Museum Susan Gunn, warfare on the inventory system in place at the Norwalk Museum, warfare over who can volunteer at the museum, warfare over whether pottery shards/examples could be accepted, warfare over Fodor farm, Stuart Ave, Golden Hill, etc. The list is by no means exhausted.

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Today’s Hour led with the squabble heard around the green at the Democratic town committee meeting, which was bolstered by the squabble heard at the Superior court about the house that the Norwalk Inn wants to remove topped with the fuzzy report from Forbes that the Bridgeport-Norwalk-Stamford corridor ranks 9th in the country as the areas “smartest“.

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In 2005 Alex Knopp lost the mayor’s race by less than 190 votes. It wasn’t even that close. Knopp lost the support of many Democrats in Norwalk because he is a poor leader who failed to delegate. This is not a character trait that is easily unlearned, nor is it easily forgotten. Aside from that, under Mayor Moccia, Norwalk has been slowly reigning in its spiraling budget and the fiscal management of the city has never been better.

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Matt Miklave, Norwalk Common Councilman and one of the Norwalk-outers, hit the papers with comments about how he was unhappy with the spirit of getting things done between the Democratic majority led Common Council and Republican Mayor Moccia. In particular, he mentions board and commission appointments. Leveling the microscope further, his beef swirls around the Historical Commission and affordable housing. Anyone who has read the local papers for the last few years would be surprised at his position concerning the Historical Commission considering that it is mostly known for it’s singular war against Norwalk Museum curator, Susan Gunn, and for challenging developers over questionable historical properties.

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