The rain on my car is a baptism, the new me, Ice Man, Power Lloyd, my assault on the world begins now.
John Cusack Comes Out Swinging

I love John Cusack. I haven't seen some of his more sappy romantically oriented flicks of late (Serendipity, Must Love Dogs) and I'm still a little bewildered why he was in Con-Air, but the depth and breadth of his film career speaks for itself (from The Sure Thing to Midnight in the Garden of Good and Evil to Grosse Point High to Being John Malkovich--and of course the uber-classic Say Anything...). And now, he channels a little Lloyd Dobler in a very kick-ass rant over at the HuffPo (that would be the Huffington Post). Here's a sample:

One question for any Democrat: Who will have the balls to get us out of Iraq?

If the Democrats don't step up and fill this vacuum, the Republicans will. They will take us out of Iraq. And then the Democrats will be left holding the bag -- first as the enablers who let the Republicans take us into an unnecessary and immoral war, and then as the whipping boys who stood by while the Republicans kept justifying what was clearly an unnecessary and immoral war. They were so worried about positioning themselves as hawks, not being seen as soft on terror and war, that they lost the capacity for outrage when the person responsible for a legal memo that denied the validity of the Geneva Conventions was appointed Attorney General. And it was downhill from there.

The Republicans, especially leading up to the 2006 elections, with the Bush administration crumbling, KNOW they have to find a way out of Iraq. So they will basically find a way to declare victory and do something that looks like a withdrawal, and the Democrats will be left as passive bystanders -- because they don't have the courage to suggest that people who lied to get us into war should not only not be in office, they should be in prison.

Last Tuesday, Harry Reid demonstrated wonderful signs of life. The question now is, are they going to build on this, or is it going to be an isolated episode that doesn't lead to a fundamental shift? Will enough Democrats now be willing to admit that voting to authorize the war was a mistake? Whether they were genuinely misled, they bought into it, or they were too cowardly to vote for what they believed was true, it was a mistake. Will they now have the courage to say, "This was wrong, and that we need to get our brave troops out of Iraq now."

Are the Democrats going to offer an alternative plan to get us out of Iraq? Are they going to fill this vacuum created by the chaos in Iraq and a scandal-plagued administration in tatters, or are they going to wait for the Republicans to do it their way, reap the political diviedends, and leave the Democrats sniping outside the palace gate?

He goes on to give major props to Jon Stewart and The Daily Show crew and offers a great suggestion:

I would suggest each Republican must face a press conference, or a gauntlet perhaps, of Daily Show correspondents...or at least Lewis Black.

It's a long rant, but damn it feels good reading it. Mr. Cusack, I forgive Con Air--everybody needs to pay the rent.

Lloyd Dobler from Say Anything...: I don't want to sell anything, buy anything, or process anything as a career. I don't want to sell anything bought or processed, or buy anything sold or processed, or process anything sold, bought, or processed, or repair anything sold, bought, or processed. You know, as a career, I don't want to do that.