Russia is quite happy that our troops are bogged down in the desert conflicts. I doubt they would veto an extension in the UN.

WOW she's like a female version of Olbermann.

*dead

This video has been declared non-functional; embed code must be fixed within 2 days or it will be sent to the dead pool - declared dead by geo321.

Can't find a replacement. Here's the transcript in case some lonely wanderer wonders what this video was about:

Oct 14, 2008
"MADDOW: Coming up, Academy Award-winning director, Oliver Stone, joins us here in the studio to talk about his new film “W” or “double-u” if you‘re one of those east coast media elitists. Hopefully, I can persuade Mr. Stone to share his opinions about the life and career of President George W. Bush, but you know how shy Mr. Stone is. I will do what I can.

First though, it‘s time for a few underreported holy mackerel stories in today‘s news. Ready for the first one? Quote, “In the beginning of the timing of the laws, I said there is no difficulty‘s base.” What? Huh? What I said was, “In the beginning of the timing of the laws, I said there is no difficulty‘s base.”

Does that make any sense to you? Yes, me neither. And neither did it make sense to the judge, the military officers, or lawyers working one of the tribunals at Guantanamo recently, when an American paid Arabic translator dictated to them that nonsense sentence, as if it made sense in English.

Does the phrase “lost in translation” spring to mind? Five key defendants charged in conjunction with 9/11 are moving towards jury trials. The U.S. military lawyers assigned to defend them say that translation services have been done so on the cheap that they estimate about half of what a defendant stated in the hearing room was mistranslated and a ¼ of what was said in English in the courtroom never made it back to the defendant. There are standards for these sorts of things, you know, at, say, federal courts or the international criminal courts but at Guantanamo, apparently? Not so much.

Remember the case there about Osama bin Laden‘s alleged driver? That actual phrase, “bin Laden‘s driver” was repeatedly translated as “bin Laden‘s lawyer.” What‘s the difference?

And time is running out for American troops to be in Iraq legally. The United Nation‘s mandate that allows our troops to be there expires at the end of this year. What happens when that mandate expires? Well, the Bush administration has long expressed confidence that the Iraqi government and the White House could sign a status-of-forces agreement—a country-to-country, one-on-one plan for keeping our troops there.

But after months of a stalemate and trying to reach such an agreement, one of the Iraqi vice presidents this week finally said that he doesn‘t think it‘s going to happen in time. So, that means after December 31st, it will be illegal for American troops to be on Iraqi streets.

Karen DeYoung from “The Washington Post” reports today that American officials are looking for a plan B if the status-of-forces negotiations really don‘t work out. What is plan B? Apparently, the Bush administration might try to get that U.N. mandate extended. That would require a vote in the U.N. Security Council where Russia holds a veto and Russia, you may recall, would just love an opportunity like that to shove us our locker and steal our lunch money.

So that makes me think “B” in that plan stands for “bad,” as in if that‘s your only plan, that‘s a bad plan. Karen DeYoung suggests that a few other plan Bs might be in the works as well, though Plan B-1 - I guess we‘d call it. A plan B-1 would be, quote, “a simple handshake agreement between Bush and the Iraqi prime minister to keep troops around until the next president takes over and starts negotiating again.”

A handshake deal? You would ride 150,000 American lives on a handshake deal? Maybe I could suggest a plan C, “C” as in “see you.” If the Iraqi government doesn‘t want us to stay enough to sign a deal for to us stay, how about we leave?"