Intelligence Reform

I have no idea what's going on with the intelligence reform bill. I don't know who's really for it, who's really against it, or why. Two Republican House committee chairman are being praised for "standing on principle" in opposing a bill they say would endanger troops in the field. Rumsfeld would seem to agree, but he says he stands with the President. And Bush says he's for it after he said he was against it. So are the GOP Congressional leaders obstuctionists? Is Bush lobbying for a bill that would hurt our national security? And what about Rumseld? As I said, it's hard to know what to make of this.

It's a good thing, then, that all sides are working to clean this mess up:

In Crawford, Tex., a White House spokeswoman said that Mr. Bush's stance remained unchanged but that the administration was working with members of Congress on legislative language that could accommodate the concerns of House Republicans without diluting the essence of the changes the bill would bring about.

So Bush is going to accomadate his critics without changing his stance, while Congressional leaders will agree to new language that will get them nothing on a substantive level. And somewhere in all this, we're all good with the national security implications. Thank goodness we have a decisive man of action in the White House instead of some flip-flopper you can't trust.

Vacation

Mary and I are in San Francisco on vacation, and we're having an absolutely wonderful time. We're staying at the Hotel Palomar near Union Square. I highly recommend this hotel — very comfortable and very good service. The hotel bar is pretty cool, too — it's like having cocktails in your rich artsy friend's living room.

We arrived on Saturday. On Sunday, Mary and I took a trolley tour of the city, and we took a few pictures. That night we had dinner at Night Monkey, a wonderful little neighborhood restaurant with a very eclectic menu. Mary had the buffalo, and I had the venison; both were excellent.

Monday we spent the day touring the Napa Valley. Pictures are here. We visited five of the smaller, private wineries, and had a great time. We arranged the tour with Wine Country Safari, and our driver and guide Bruce was fantastic. He was extremely knowledgable and clearly loves all things wine. By avoiding the large commercial wineries, we got to taste some really extraordinary wines. If you want to tour Napa or Sonoma, Wine Country Safari is definitely the way to go.

Yesterday we had lunch at Swan Oyster Depot. Mary described it as the Soup Nazi doing seafood, and she was right. One lunch counter seating about 20, and the line forms outside. This is not a place where you linger over your meal. We had about a 5 minute wait (and that was at 11:30am), but it was worth it. Good chowder, and very good crab.