Saunter To The White House 25 ; The February Four

It quickly went from "we don't really know", to "we know who it won't be".

Obama, Clinton, Romney, McCain.

While Democrat leaning voters tie themselves in knots, deciding between a black man and a white woman (we're still hoping Michelle Obama will throw her hat into the ring and solve that dilemma), the GOP leaners have to pick either a used-car salesman, or Cold-War-Era-McCain.

In five days the results will be in and, hopefully, unless everything hangs on margins, we'll have a candidate for each party and democracy can be defrosted again. It was last seen being blast frozen by Dick Cheney late in 2001 and hung in a meat locker.

Tell The Truthiness ; Of course, the whole thing could be turned on it's head and on Tuesday everyone might vote for Ron Paul, wouldn't that be something.

355 Days Left ; No-One Expects Anything Anymore

The State Of The Union speech was given by the President this week and, he didn't even try to redeem himself.

Mr Bush is relying heavily on history being his judge. So in thirty or forty years, at least they'll be able to put a name-to-the-face responsible for the state of international relations and delays in environmental protection.

Tell The Truthiness ; No-one is going to mind if Mr Bush just sits quietly in his office and reads some of those books he missed out on. Really, go ahead, put your feet up, you've done enough, you really have.

Look Out, The Latest War Franchise Is Launched

Tell The Truthiness ; Look out Finland, he's after you before January next year!

Saunter To The White House 24 ; Bill Versus Michelle, For The Bored

With all news outlets saying 'the gloves have come off' about Obama and Hillary, since last year, a new match has been scheduled.

For those bored of the Obama/Clinton battle, or truce, whatever it currently is, Bill Clinton and Michelle Obama are starting off a parallel battle. Indeed, since most people have noted the difficult choice between the first female president and the first black president, why not have both? Michelle Obama is black and female, there's your 'out of the blue candidate'.

Tell The Truthiness ; It'll be a battle between Michelle and Rudy Giuliani in November! You heard it here first!

PS Whoever gave Giuliani the idea that putting all your eggs in the Florida basket was a good idea? Well, we will see how that went before too long.

Road To Tehran 9 ; Bush Says 'No No No' I'm Right

President Bush has bragged (apparently to reassure) the Israeli Prime Minister that he doesn't actually take any notice of the intelligence community's evidence that Iran has no current nuclear weapons programme.

Indeed, we'll repeat it again, the last time they had a programme was back in 2003, nearly five years ago. The National Intelligence Estimate however has been brushed off in public and totally dismissed as fiction in private by Mr Bush.

Is this an attempt to ratchet up the 'big bad wolf' image of Iran that Bush is desperate to maintain. Or, are these comments the final steps toward a full out invasion before the President's term expires?

Tell The Truthiness ; Someone please stop him. Anyone.

Road To Tehran 8 ; Hormuz Boat Incident A Fake

The Pentagon has backtracked on the exact details of Sunday morning's boat incident between the US and Iran.

Iran was the first to produce evidence that discounts the US claims. Authorities showed footage they said didn't show any of their boats approaching US vessels. Then, the US Navy admitted the voice on the US released tape may not have been Iranian in origin.

Plus, Pentagon officials are also saying the threatening voice on the videotape was recorded separately and added to the tape later.

Tell The Truthiness ; A poorly executed 'false-flag' operation, carried out by an inept government. Expect the actual plan for this to be published tomorrow, written badly on the back of a cheap bar napkin. Just three-hundred and seventy-five days of this administration to go.

Saunter To The White House 23 ; Clintons Go Budgeting

With speculation over what tonight's results will show, another set of numbers are worrying the Clinton campaign. It's being reported that Hillary Clinton's campaign has $15 million to $20 million left out of an initial budget of $100. Campaigners are now weighing up the pros and cons of skipping the Nevada caucus and the South Carolina primary.

The loss cutting, if it was followed through, would allow the Clinton campaign to plough everything into the Super Tuesday push on the 5th February.

Tell The Truthiness ; No doubt the numbers from tonight's result will be just as big an influence on the Clinton campaign as the financial numbers in making a decision.

Road To Tehran 7 ; Meanwhile, A Well-Timed Confrontation For The Bush Administration

On the eve of President Bush's (do you remember him?) visit to the Middle East, a convenient 'confrontation' that seems eerily familiar to the UK sailor hostage situation is being reported.

Looking for anything that could be used as pretext for a strike on Iran, the story of a confrontation between boats US Navy and Iranian Revolutionary Guard boats, is just what the administration has needed. The suggestions that the administration is not beyond a 'Gulf Of Tonkin' style incident is grounded in truth, with the January 2003 story about shooting down a drone aircraft over Iraq, painted in UN colours, as grounds for invading Iraq, discussed between President Bush and Prime Minister Blair.

Tell The Truthiness ; Remember, Iran does NOT have an active nuclear weapons programme. They shut it down in 2003. So no matter how much they might scratch the varnish on the US Navy's rowing boats, it's not a reason at all for Iraq : 2 - The Bad Sequel. Are you listening George?

Saunter To The White House 22 ; Media Goes Into Hyper-Drive Over NH

With about twenty-four hours to go before the New Hampshire Primary it seems the media, not including Chris Matthews, (who's always this wired) is in danger of spinning itself out of control.

New polls seem to be out every half an hour showing that Barack Obama's at 67% and Hillary Clinton's at 5% (those are the latest thirty minute figures). Combine that with the rumour-mill now grinding away, given a push by the Drudge Report, that Hillary Clinton may quit the race tomorrow if she doesn't win in New Hampshire, you'd be forgiven for thinking the election was the 5th of February.

On the Republican side, the great-white-hope pundits and GOP spinners have thrown themselves behind is the great-white John McCain. In addition, the man who overtook Rudy Giuliani in Iowa, Ron Paul, may have more of an impact in New Hampshire, with some speculating that the Fox snub of Ron Paul may garner a public pro-Ron Paul backlash tomorrow.

Tell The Truthiness ; Wait until the results and anything real to happen, instead of this incessant 24/7 spin, from all sides.

Saunter To The White House 21 ; A New Start Starts In Iowa Surge

Surge seems to get a bad reputation these days, after it was hijacked by the Bush administration for Iraq. Happily, into 2008, it can be used anew for a very positive reason. But there has been a huge surge of Iowans lining up to access caucuses across the state.

And the result was?

Mike Huckabee for the GOP and Barack Obama for the Democrats.

But the headline grabbers were not just the two winners, a close look at the numbers shows astonishing results across the board.

Obama didn't just win it by a nose, his number was 37.6% of the vote, with Edwards and Clinton fighting for runner-up at 29.7% and 29.5% respectively.

On the Republicans, Huckabee was 34.3%, with the next nearest being 25.3% for Romney. The loudest candidate, Giuliani (the one we love because we don't know what he'll do next candidate) needn't have bothered with 3.5%. But Ron Paul, the man who's been banned from televised debates and cast-aside by jokes from anchors and reporters stormed to a 10% of the vote.

Tell The Truthiness ; New Hampshire - You're next!