A few things to point out. One is the name change. That's right, MJ is gone. My name is Chris and it's nice to meet y'all.

Second is that it's officially baseball season. Prior to today I never posted about sports. Well, that's gonna change too. I'm a St. Louis Cardinals fan, but I do enjoy baseball in general. This year the Cardinals have a brand new stadium and I can't wait to get to a game. These last few years working with the senate I usually spent my summers traveling for work or managing campaigns. I never had time to do much, especially anything that could be considered personal-- or fun. I haven't been on vacation in three years. It will be tough for this year is a campaign year too, but I'm sitting this one out and I'm going to use this summer to travel for enjoyment, watch my Cardinals and play golf.

I'm not leaving politics completely behind, however. I will still contract out consulting work for both the senate and the house, but it will only be part-time and at my choosing.

The Cardinals started the season off completely opposite of where they stopped last year, with hot bats. They won 13-5 over the Pirates. Pujols smacked two homers and Rolen a grandslam. It's good to be back!

Not to leave everyone disappointed politically, I want to point out an article in The New Yorker by Steve Coll about the Pentagon's own classified history of the invasion of Iraq (found via Josh Marshall). The piece is from Pentagon documents written by Bush administration officials during the run up to the invasion, the middle of the invasion and the last 37 months. It's a startling reality check from the Bush government's own admissions as to why we are in Iraq, how we got there and what went wrong. It's worth a read and it doesn't read well at all for Bush & Co.

I want to get back to the Coll piece in the next couple days after I get a chance to read through it a little more and others get to as well. I have a feeling the Pentagon, and ultimately Bush, may make their own beds.