Midday News Roundup: Tuesday, for reals

All over the state, county governments are being sworn in. This includes Dallas County, where the government flipped from Republican to Democrat. In case you hadn't heard. I think the self-awareness displayed by the party representatives in that article is refreshing - obviously nothing about Democratic advances can be taken for granted, and they seem ready to approach the challenges inherent to actual governance responsibly. I've been known to say, from time to time, that running for office and actually governing are two entirely distinct activities, and being good at one in no way guarantees competence at the other.

Massachusetts Governor Mitt Romney is gonna make an honest state out of the Commonwealth he's been riding to potential White House glory by filing his exploratory bona fides on Wednesday. I used to live in Massachusetts, and I swear that guy spent most of his tenure as governor in other states talking to Republicans about how much he didn't like the state he governed.

Bush's Iraq strategy is set to drop "within days," and by one account from the BBC, the cornerstone of the plan is going to involve committing even more troops to Iraq. This is going to be a hard sell, and I would look for Congressional Democrats to start groping for the purse strings if Bush doesn't take some other, different advice.

Speaking of Bush, check out the Texecutioner's approval rating here at home: a whopping 38%. My mother, someone who's voted Republican forever, gave me a calendar for Christmas which counts down Bush's remaining days in office, and he's got 749 of them to fix his job rating! Or, as an alternative, to blame the Iraq War on General Casey and the rest of the military leadership.