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There are so many things wrong with this panel discussion on the Chris Matthews Show, it's hard to decide where to begin, but for starters, Andrea Mitchell seems to be the only one that gets it that some happy talk on increasing our troop presence in Afghanistan is not going to satisfy the left. Chris Matthews seems to take absolute glee in the fact that escalating our presence there is going to piss off those of us who are anti-war and thinks that “the center” of this country is pro-war.

Joe Klein thinks that President Obama’s bigger problems are going to be from the screeching right that are not going to support him no matter what he does and that of course the left is going to have to suck it up if the President does something they don’t agree with. As John has said here repeatedly, the Villagers always think it’s a good thing if Obama alienates his base and that we should all sit quietly and STFU when we don't agree with his policies.

I’ll wait to hear what the President has to say on Tuesday rather than second guess him as the media has, but playing the middle and sending more troops rather than getting our military out of Afghanistan is not going to satisfy any of us who don’t think we belonged there in the first place. The people who attacked us on 9-11 were from Saudi Arabia, not Afghanistan, but we didn’t invade and occupy that country.

Matthews: And finally the President said he will say how much it’s going to cost. Anne it’s amazing. I’ve never heard of going to war but saying how much is it going to cost. It’s like that old saying if you have to ask, you can’t afford it.

Kornblut: Well, the White House would say the opposite, that we haven’t asked until now and they have to finally start taking it into account. They’ve actually broken down the numbers to figure out how many per soldier it would be. You know half a million dollars a year to have them there, so at this point they’re taking it into account and they’re measuring it against the other important priorities, like health care, like the other domestic achievements they want to get done.

Matthews: Andrea isn’t it odd we’re talking about the cost of this war and we’re already in it?

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The Rock Band video game franchise is here to stay, and Harmonix unveiled their first artist-specific version, Beatles: Rock Band, at the E3 conference yesterday in LA. Some special guests were on hand to make the intro.

It was a Beatles reunion, with Ringo Starr and Paul McCartney sharing the stage at this morning's Electronic Entertainment Expo in Los Angeles. The two living members of the legendary band dropped in on the Microsoft press conference to show off a new video game: the Beatles: Rock Band, developed by Harmonix and published by MTV Networks. [snip] Yoko Ono, widow of John Lennon, and Olivia Harrison, widow of lead guitarist George Harrison, also took their bows at the press conference.

This non-gamer who gets repeatedly sucked into a Rock Band frenzy at parties is hoping some of his friends who might read this go out and buy this game when it comes out September 9th.