-- A 51% to 38% majority continues to believe that "Iraq actually had weapons of mass destruction," virtually unchanged since February.

-- A 49% to 36% plurality of all adults continues to believe that "clear evidence that Iraq was supporting Al Qaeda has been found." These numbers have scarcely changed since June 2003.

-- A 51% to 43% plurality continues to believe that "intelligence given before the war to President Bush by the CIA and others about Iraqi's weapons of mass destruction" was "completely" or "somewhat" accurate. In February a 50% to 45% plurality believed this.

-- While a 43% plurality believes that the "U.S. government deliberately exaggerated the reports of weapons of mass destruction in Iraq to increase support for war," a 50% plurality (also virtually unchanged over the last eight months) continues to believe that the government "tried to present the information accurately."

posted by Jerry Bowles 12:14 AM

Wednesday, April 21, 2004

Mealy-Mouthed Messages

Looking at John Kerry's new Risk ad just released today you have to wonder if his advisors realize there's a presidential race going on. A somber looking Kerry looks into the camera and says "Let me tell you exactly what I would do change the situation in Iraq" and then proceeds to babble some lame notion about reaching out to the international community for support. That, of course, is precisely what Shrub says he wants to do, too. Ads are about differentiation, not sameness--Coke doesn't claim to taste just like Pepsi.

Kerry has to say, forcefully, that he can succeed in enlisting international help where our current administration cannot because BushCo's exaggerated claims about Iraq have destroyed its credibility and because it has insulted and abused our old friends in Europe--the ones with real armies--so much that they are not inclined to help.

Everybody already agrees that we need more international support. The point is that Shrub has blown his chances of getting it and Kerry still can. Say what you mean, guys.

posted by Jerry Bowles 10:09 PM

Kerry's Dilemma

The Washington Post editorial page is on John Kerry's case today for seeming to flip flop on the conditions under which he believes American troops can be honorably extricated from the growing Iraq disaster. Kerry has backed off a bit from "stability and democracy" to simply "stability."

In challenging Howard Dean's alleged "cut and run" policy back in December, Kerry made the kind of hawkish noises that we associate more with the Shrubster. Now, those words have come back to haunt him. It becomes more obvious by the day (to everyone except perhaps Andrew Sullivan and Paul Wolfowitz and the Washington Post editorial page) that an American-style democracy with all the bells and whistles that have taken us 250 years to get around to--women's and minority rights, freedom of the press, peaceful assembly, truly representative government--is not going to happen in any of our lifetimes. In fact, we will be lucky to ultimately patch together some kind of tense stability that resembles the Yugoslav solution, with NATO troops keeping armed combatants from tearing each other apart.

I understand that Kerry cannot be seen at this critical point as anything less than committed to making this whole sorry mess work. He cannot simply state the obvious--that this was a harebrained scheme from the beginning, the "democracy" building part of it was never taken seriously by the Administration until the failure to find WMDs, and you cannot kill enough people to change the central beliefs of an entire culture. Faint-hearted talk now would probably lead to defeat. But there will come a tipping point--in terms of lives lost and money wasted--when the American public becomes so sick of the entire disaster that they don't care if Iraqis want to be part of a democracy or not. If that happens on Kerry's watch, he simply heads for the nearest graceful exit.

On the other hand, if Shrub is re-elected you can bet that not only the Democrats but John McCain and Chuck Hagel will be campaigning in 2008 on a platform of "bring the boys and girls home."

posted by Jerry Bowles 6:38 PM

Beltway Amnesia…it’s still about the lies

Today’s Washington Post lead editorial takes John Kerry over the coals for “flip-flopping” on Iraq. According to the Post, Kerry has gone from supporting “stable Iraq” and “full democracy” to “democracy is optional." Helping Karl Rove and Ed Gillespie save advertising dollars, the Post pimps our leader, saying that “Bush is right not only in a moral sense, but from the perspective of US security too.” Will these Beltway Bandits ever tire of reducing the future of American democracy to a phony war on terror and the establishment of a new Iraq? One look at Tom Ridge's brow ridge and you'll get the answer.

Bottom line on all of this is that the Washington Post wants to gloss over the lies: the lies about WMD, the lies about the Saddam Al Qaeda links, and other Shrubby whoppers that have been imbedded in the minds of literate and semi-literate Americans by Obersturmbannfuehrer Rove’s propaganda machine.

Sorry, Washington Post. But with all the lies his crew concocted to get the war started George W. Bush is not right in a moral sense on Iraq. Not since the candidacy of Howard Dean has there been anybody willing to go to the wall on the “lying” issue. This is yet another area where the Dems have dropped the ball. Coming from on high as he so often does, Kerry doesn't give the impression to voters that he is a good listener. His campaign staff and policy team need to put their ear to the ground. Howard Dean's campaign had passion because it included his supporters in the election process. So far, John Kerry's campaign is creating the illusion of inclusion. Not the way a winner should behave.

posted by Groom 6:34 PM

Hide Your Nuts Alert

''Every ground squirrel in this country knows that it's going to be $50 billion to $75 billion in additional money required to sustain us in Iraq for this year.'' Senator Chuck Hagel.

posted by Jerry Bowles 2:36 PM

Body Count

John Kerry was "unofficially credited" with killing 20 enemy fighters during his five months in Vietnam, according to military records just released by the Democratic presidential candidate's campaign. via The Smoking Gun

What did you kill, Bungalow George? (Hey, the Republicans brought this stuff up.)

posted by Jerry Bowles 2:30 PM

A Big Issue That's Off The Radar Screen: An Opening for Kerry

There was a brief story on CBS Evening News the other night about the poppy problem in Afghanistan, and that’s about all we have heard of it. All the Google searches are dated. No one is on to this explosive story—and its connection to how BushCo is spending our money in Iraq. Woodward says $750 million for the war in Afghanistan was diverted to Iraq and Congress was kept in the dark. The Bad Guys in white hats say not so. Nevertheless, it is clear that BushCo’s lack of planning in Iraq also applies to Afghanistan.

Opium production in Afghanistan will have a record crop this year, in excess of 3,600 tons produced in 2003, 75 percent of the world’s poppy output. Fully 28 of the country’s 32 provinces are in the dope biz. Close to 2 million Afghans are engaged, seven percent of the population. Under the Taliban cultivation ban in 2001 only 185 tons were cultivated.

Here is a major part of the problem: wheat, the proposed American crop substitute that was part of the war plan, needs plenty of water to grow. Afghanistan is an arid country, duh, and poppies grow naturally in dry climates. But there is one more hitch—and it’s all our doing, or undoing. Farmers who tried to grow wheat couldn’t sell it in the marketplace.

Why? Because American-subsidized wheat undercuts the Afghan price in the marketplace. Why? Because Bush has given BIG farmers the BIGGEST subsidy in history so they can undercut the price in third-world countries.

Finally, consider this: The average wage in Afghanistan is $112 a year. The gross income from the 2003 crop was around $1 billion, giving the families involved an annual income of $3,900. If we bought the opium at half price, say, and then destroyed it, we end up with a win-win. Instead we’ll pay for it 10 or 20-fold on Main Street with lost lives, wasted law enforcement resources, endless treatment, and lost productivity.

All Kerry as a former prosecutor needs to do is call heroin a weapon of mass destruction and connect the dots, tying it all back to the failed planning of BushCo in Afghanistan. He has nothing to lose. The heavily subsidized wheat farmers live in Red States and the heroin problem is disproportionably a Blue-State problem.

posted by Josh 11:06 AM

Won't someone please start a fight?

I do hope and pray with every day that passes that the Kerry campaign has some magic to pull out of the hat to crush George Bush the way that Kerry crushed the other--to my mind--far more interesting and exciting Democratic candidates. At the moment, however, I am tired and bored, and I don't seem alone. I go to the Kerry blog and what do I find but a lot of people in the same frame of mind being chided by those who say, in effect, "Suck it up, ABB, ABB, ABB...." Sure, I've kicked in $250 bucks to the Kerry campaign, but whatever it was that made me feel so excited about Howard Dean that I cheerfully kicked in $2000 and would cheerfully do it again...even knowing the final outcome...God damn it! I'm feeling Gored again, and I have this miserable feeling that 2000 is about to repeat itself. God damn it! I wish this campaign would give me something to believe in.

posted by John 1:08 AM

Buried Alive

President Bush dropped by Buffalo yesterday to talk up the virtues of the perversely misnamed Patriot Act. The venue was well-chosen; nearby Lackawanna is the scene of the government’s greatest hit in the domestic war on terror—the conviction of six gullible young Muslim men who went to Pakistan thinking they were attending some kind of religious jamboree and wound up being coerced into one of Osama bin Laden’s camps in Afghanistan. Like John Ashcroft’s other mega-case--the “American Taliban,” John Walker Lindh--the individuals involved were not really dangerous, just young and idealistic. Neither the “Lackawanna 6” nor the “American Taliban” cases have contributed anything to the war against radical Islam nor made America in any way safer but they have provided Bush with bragging rights to “victories” against the evil little brown men who are, even now, lurking under the beds of good Americans everywhere.

So, there was our hero, Shrub, proclaiming his administration’s vigilance and the resolve in the face of misguided youths and, perhaps, even real terrorists, like that Chicago street punk, Jose Padilla, who is so dangerous he can’t even be allowed to speak to an attorney.

What the President did not mention yesterday (and is unlikely to ever mention if, in fact, he knows about the case) is that just down the road from Buffalo, at the state prison in Batavia, there is a man named Benamar Benatta, an Algerian air force lieutenant who was arrested on September 5, 2001 with an expired visa and has been held ever since in federal prisons, much of that time in solitary confinement -- even though the FBI formally concluded in November 2001—two months after the 9/11 attacks--that he had no connection whatsoever to terrorism.

Federal prosecutors dropped criminal charges against Benatta in October 2003 after U.S. Magistrate Judge H. Kenneth Schroeder issued a blistering decision against the federal government. Schroeder wrote that federal prosecutors and FBI and immigration agents engaged in a "sham" to make it appear that Benatta was being held for immigration violations. Prosecutors trampled on legal deadlines intended to protect his constitutional rights and later offered explanations for their maneuvers that "bordered on ridiculousness," Schroeder wrote. The government compounded its mistakes by failing to act once it was clear that Benatta was not an accomplice to terrorists.

"The defendant in this case undeniably was deprived of his liberty," Schroeder wrote, "and held in custody under harsh conditions which can be said to be oppressive." To keep Benatta imprisoned any longer, the magistrate concluded, "would be to join in the charade that has been perpetrated." Judge Schroeder wrote:

I am also of the opinion that because of the events of September 11, 2001, the FBI would have been derelict in its duty if it did not pursue an investigation of the defendant after the Canadian authorities contacted the U.S. officials on September 12, 2001. However, the events of September 11, 2001, notwithstanding the heinous and despicable nature of those events, do not constitute an acceptable basis for abandoning our Constitutional principles and rule of law by adopting an “end justifies the means” philosophy.

Three weeks ago, on April 7, Benatta was denied asylum for the second time by a United States immigration judge. His choices are grim—to appeal again or agree to be immediately deported to Algeria where he fears he will be tortured and executed. Considering the outrageous miscarriage of justice involved in this case, you would think the government might cut Benatta some slack but these are not times for compassion. The next time somebody tells you that we just have to trust the government to do the right thing with the dangerous powers it has been given under the Patriot Act, you might remind them that innocent people usually pay a heavy price for that kind of misguided trust.

posted by Jerry Bowles 12:09 AM

Tuesday, April 20, 2004

The Fate of Liberty

The Supreme Court is hearing the first of two Gitmo-related cases today. For a good synopsis of what's at stake, read the briefing on Rasul vs. Bush at the Center for Contstitutional Rights, which has led the fight against this illegal American concentration camp, despite death threats and government harassment.

posted by Jerry Bowles 6:23 PM

Draft the mercs not the kids

One can assume that Nebraska Senator Chuck Hagel (R-NE) never met a rigged voting machine he didn’t like, especially because he’s been in bed with the Hunt brothers and other right wing fatcats as a major shareholder of the company that counts the votes in his elections and other voting rituals around the US . Now he’s calling for a compulsory military draft that would put 18 year old kids with a reading comprehension level that doesn’t go beyond 7th grade to be out on the front lines of “post-occupation Iraq.” One problem. At the rate the Bush White House is moving, there will never be a “post-occupation” Iraq. Perhaps Hagel should suggest shifting all those high dollar private security mercenaries over to an Army command, pay them what they’d earn as draftees and stop creating huge profit centers for GOP political cronies.

posted by Groom 3:35 PM

Prince Bandar go Home

Memo to Kerry: this is how you make Shrubby's poll numbers go down (LA Times, req reqd). Saudi Ambassador Prince Bandar is meddling in US internal politics, announcing that he supports the incumbent for reelection. Maybe you should talk to some of your friends in the world's most exclusive club and call for an investigation, have this blackmailer sent back home. The story has legs. Don't let it get out of your grasp. The other shoe needs to drop soon.

posted by Groom 12:17 PM

Sincerely, Anonymous

This note, from the letters page of Romenesko (scroll down to "Another USAT staffer on the Kelley scandal"), raises an interesting issue regarding what motivates a person or organization to investigate possible malfeasance. The writer reports that USA Today editors received a letter early on that raised serious questions about Jack Kelley's reporting -- a letter that was signed by its author, David Wilder. Wilder never received a response. Only later, when the editors received an anonymous complaint, did they launch an investigation.

The implication is that those editors, not knowing who had written and what potential trouble that person could cause, felt more compelled to act than when they heard from a person they could identify and dismiss.

It makes me wonder about writing my congressional representatives, or presidents of companies, or anyone else. Is a vaguely threatening anonymous letter going to get a quicker response than a signed note? I might try it.

posted by Opus 12:06 PM

A Kerry Litmus Test for Vice President

We can rule out Edwards, Graham, Dean, Gephardt, Richardson, Bayh, Rendell, Ruben, and a whole bunch of others as VP candidates. None served in the military and there is no way, given Kerry’s recent pronouncements about Cheney, Rummy, Rove and other Bush administration senior officials not serving in the military and/or avoiding the draft, that Kerry can choose a running mate who does not have a military record. Or, the man really is a flip-flopper.

Since the McCain thing ain’t going to happen, despite Jerry's best efforts, that leaves Clark or a surprise. Seeing the “new” Kerry on Meet the Press Sunday, I’m of a mind to think that Clark is at a Kerry training camp on the issues and how to answer the press--his two big weaknesses during the primaries.

A twofer on military and security will make the Democrats solid in November. I don’t see it any other way.

posted by Josh 8:42 AM

Public Health Enemy #1

Another Best of the Blogs dunce cap for the US Centers for Disease Control (CDC). The New York Times reports that it took the CDC five months to consider the possibility that a patient who presented with symptoms consistent with Asian Bird Flu (otherwise known as avian virus) might actually have the disease and another month for them to confirm the diagnosis. Apparently, for reasons of national security, job #1 is not to do anything that might alarm the American people into thinking we might have a major disconnect in the areas of disease control and public health policy.

The CDC spends billions of your tax dollars each year to come up with, among other things, fascinating stories about how the West Nile Virus and Dengue fever got into the country. And then there is their “monkeys in the mist” theory about how AIDS got out the test tube, and then… out of Africa. Tuberculosis is back big time and pneumonia has reached epidemic proportions. As it now stands, we’ve had a major screw up on last year’s flu vaccine. The Bush administration refuses to raise its standards for inspecting beef cattle for “mad cow” disease to levels acceptable to the Europeans and Japanese, calling those testing programs “bad science.” And the Cambridge, England-based firm that won the contract to produce smallpox vaccine for the US government is having major production problems.

What part of disease control don’t they understand? And why doesn’t Congress hold hearings, get testimony, take names and kick butt before Rice-a-roni‘s November prediction becomes some Jihadster‘s wish fulfillment.

posted by Groom 3:06 AM

Reading the Polls

Ok, we're getting discouraging signals from the polls. The latest Washington Post-ABC News Poll shows Bush with a lead of 48 percent to 43 percent over Kerry among registered voters, with Nader at 6 percent. In early March, Kerry led Bush by 48 percent to 44 percent. Of course, we know that Nader will not get 6 percent in the general election so some of the folks polled are just being preverse.

In the new CNN/USA Today/Gallup Poll Bush leads Kerry 51 percent to 46 percent in a survey of likely voters.

The only ray of sunshine comes from Zogby which has Kerry ahead 47 percent to Bush's 44 percent, among likely voters. Among self-described independents, Kerry, 60, leads Bush, 57, 48 percent to 38 percent.

All of these polls come after an unrelenting spell of bad news for the Administration--increased violence and death in Iraq, Richard Clarke's revelations, some of Bob Woodward's revelations. The fact that Shrub's support has strengthened in the face of enough disasters to sink most governments suggests that our man Kerry has yet to give the handful of people who haven't already made up their minds a reason to vote for him. I am concerned that he has not been able to clearly distance himself from the crimes of the Bush gang or convince many people that he has real alternatives--particularly for the mess in Iraq which, by the way, he did vote to authorize.

This is beginning to look like another election to be decided by the Supreme Court, which ought not to be in the election business. The biggest problem facing the country today is not Iraq or joblessness--it's the deep divisions between right and left, with each side truly loathing what the other stands for. Kerry's boldest stroke would be to run on a "bring us together" platform and, to show that he means it, he should ask John McCain to join him on the the ticket.

posted by Jerry Bowles 12:20 AM

Monday, April 19, 2004

Terror Strike in U.S. Before Vote Is a Big Concern, Rice Says

By BRIAN KNOWLTON,
International Herald Tribune

Published: April 18, 2004

WASHINGTON, April 18 — The Bush administration said today that it was taking seriously the possibility of a major terror strike in the United States in late autumn aimed at influencing the November elections.

Condoleezza Rice, the national security adviser, said the administration was preparing for such an attack. "We are actively looking at that possibility, actively trying to make certain that we are responding appropriately," she said on Fox News Sunday.

* * *
Ms. Rice said that the White House had to "take very seriously" the possibility that terrorists had taken "the wrong lesson from Spain."

"I think we also have to take seriously that they might try during the cycle leading up to the election to do something," she said. "In some ways, it seems like it would be too good to pass up for them."

"Of course, we are concerned about the election cycle."


No! Really?

You know, what bugs me is not so much that Condi gets positively giddy at the prospect of another attack on U.S. soil . . .

. . . it's that she keeps blowing on her dice, and shouting "Poppa needs a new trifecta!" before throwing them . . .

posted by Michael 5:46 PM

Condi + W.

Does Condi have a crush on the Shrubster? Atrios has a picture.

posted by Jerry Bowles 5:13 PM

Open Thread

How will the Supremes rule this week on the Guantanamo Bay detainees? Can the government detain forever anybody it presumes is a danger without trial or access to due process? In my view, this is as big as it gets.

posted by Jerry Bowles 3:38 PM

Soccer Star's Sad Slide

As a contretemps to Iraq... Diego Armando Maradona used to say he remembered getting his first doll as a child from Evita Peron. But he was already a heavy coke user by that time and Eva was dead long before he was born. Even beloved athletes lie, especially when they have drug problems as bad as Diego's. Fidel Castro tried to help the man who some say surpasses Pele as the greatest player of the 20th century, providing him with free medical care and detox help in Cuba. But to no avail. Another cocaine intoxication has left the bloated, demented Diego on a respirator in the Buenos Aires of his childhood, a heartbeat from checking out to the big bombonera in the sky. We brought up the drink and drug problems of former Northern Ireland and Manchester United (and Fulham) star Georgie Best late last year. Now Maradona. What other shoes will drop before the "anti doping mania" that will surface with the Athens Olympics? Can't do anything to risk losing those ad revenues now... can we?

posted by Groom 2:30 PM

Bush’s Vision -- of the Apocolypse:

By subscription only, the Wall St. Journal’s wrap-up today in the front page lead column of how we got to where we are in Iraq is excellent, and illuminating.

Here's the encapsulated scenario: a new, unelected Administration takes control of government, and completely repudiates anyone connected to the prior, and in its eyes disreputable, regime.

Government services are not adequately funded and staffed; instead, basic functions like security, power and even trash collection are performed by faith-based organizations. Funding for whatever the government does perform is based on future, theoretical revenues and preference is given to certain private contractors.

Guns and powerful weapons are distributed and owned freely, and little is done to restrain private militias.

Free speech is curtailed; instead, the Administration supports the media that focuses on stories of its own success.

Sound familiar?

posted by Evelyn 1:56 PM

Where is the Outrage?

Bob Woodward told 60 Minutes last night that Saudi Prince Bandar had promised Bush that Saudi Arabia will lower oil prices in the months before the election - to ensure the U.S. economy is strong on election day. The very same Prince Bandar was told about the invasion of Iraq before our own Secretary of State.

What do you suppose the reaction would have been in Washington this morning if Bill Clinton were the president involved? Do you suppose there would be calls for impeachment? Where is the outrage?

posted by Jerry Bowles 10:08 AM

One Other Thing Bush Did Right

In Vicki Meagher’s recent provocative post on what Bush has done right, I was reminded today that we should add--creating a schism in his conservative base over his handling of the war. Here is an excellent article on the split in the Republican Party. With the Woodward revelations about Powell sure to further inflame the neocons, this is bound to get worse, and it means that we can hope some of the conservative base will sit on their bums come election time.

As my preacher father was fond of saying , "The Lord giveth and the Lord taketh away."

posted by Josh 9:33 AM

Does Prince Bandar run America?

That's the impression you might get if you watched Bob Woodward on 60 Minutes last night. The latest shoe to drop is Woodward's allegation that the Saudi Ambassador promised Shrubby that his nation will cut oil prices in order to help generate enough growth in the US economy prior to November to ensure a Bush victory. One problem; decreasing prices doesn't necessarily mean increasing output. Gauleiter fuer Irak Paul Bremer and others are now saying that Iraq can increase its oil production to 12 million bbls/day... with billions of dollars needed to finance the new refineries. With items like this maybe Woodward won't have to admit to being Al Haig's briefer during his days as a Navy Lieutenanat JG at the Pentagon after all.

posted by Groom 4:10 AM

Sunday, April 18, 2004

Entro-paeans

Now that Bob Woodward has planted a Claymore mine under Bush's reelection campaign that promises to explode in slow motion (just like in Swordfish!) over the next few weeks, I'm more convinced than ever that the road to Bush AND Cheney's tandem impeachments runs right smack dab through Riyadh.

I think Congress needs to start raising holy hell about this. When it comes to declassifying what they consider "CYA" material, the Bush administration pays out like a slot machine, no matter how sensitive the info. And let's not argue, at this late date, that there's no Saudi-Al Qaeda connection. (Personally, I would like to see ALL Saudi intelligence declassified NOW, but that's just me.)

And just in case the Congress needs a little how-to manual, this is how a Republican legislature impeaches and a Republican Senate then convicts and removes from office an incompetent, embarrassing Republican chief executive, for (among other serious charges) misappropriation of funds:

Are you Jewish?
-- [former Arizona Governor] EVAN MECHAM to author

Whenever I'm in my house or my office, I always have a radio on. It keeps the lasers out.
-- EVAN MECHAM

Don't ever ask me for a true statement again!
-- EVAN MECHAM

Ev has become an ethical pygmy.
-- STAN TURLEY, senate president and fellow Mormon


(Oh, and in case anyone reads through that last hotlink and wonders: The "Michael Scott" who defended Evan Mecham? It ain't me, babe.)

posted by Michael 11:06 PM

The New Kerry Meets (and Conquers) the Press

It’s obvious Kerry has been schooled, but it doesn’t look calculated the way it did when Gore corrected course from time to time in 2000. Kerry’s answers were short, responsive, and well thought out. He even took Russert on by quoting him back in 1996 when Russert interviewed Clinton. I’ve never seen anyone do that before and Tim, the usually not timid, didn’t know quite what to make of it. I was very impressed…finally. Kerry was articulate, precise, forceful, strong, and appropriately apologetic about Drudged-up 35-year-old statements he made as as an angry 27-year old Vietnam veteran. Above all he was engaging.

My only nit with him was his tentativeness at the outset, especially saying, “It may well be that we need another president…” and his ubiquitous “If I am president…” (italics are mine for emphasis). Those non-affirming statements have to go, unless they are part of a deliberate calculation to be less arrogant than Bush. But like Woody Allen said about work—showing up is 80 percent it—so Kerry needs to know that being president is 80 percent affirmation. He has the central-casting look and a sharpened message--now he needs to affirm his presidential qualifications further.

posted by Josh 5:19 PM

Little Ms Psychoterror

Smarting from her fall girl brush with the Kissinger... oops Kean Commission, Rice-a-roni is palming yet another card from the bottom of her Old Maid deck... terrorizing the American body politic with her prediction that Al Qaeda will disrupt the US elections in November just as they disrupted the Spanish elections last month. Try adding some sour grape juice to that Rice-a-roni, Con... your fascista-in-residence Jose "I have a big ranch like Shrubby" Aznar didn´t win the pozo grande . Maybe Condi needs to look at Diebold electronic voting machines. Or the problems the Pentagon is having with its e-vote system. Or why we can´t get a flu vaccine or a smallpox vaccine right. Or what NSC deputy director Eliot Abrams is doing messing with internal politics in Mexico as we speak. Anita Hill would have done a better job as NSC top banana than Cold War Condi. She sits at the bottom of the food chain with NSC also-rans like Dick Allen, ¨Bud¨McFarlane, John Poindexter and Al Haig.

posted by Groom 3:57 PM

Write Your Own Caption Contest

James Barlett passed on this little beauty which cries out for a good caption:



As a starter, James suggests "Aw-right! It's even bigger than Scalia's!"

posted by Jerry Bowles 1:11 PM

Hamas Leader Killed

No doubt you've heard the news Israel assassinated new Hamas leader Abdel-Aziz al-Rantissi by missile strike. It can be debated through the night, whether the killing is a good thing or a bad thing for Israel and the "war on terror" as a whole.

Some evidence shows that the recent Israeli assassination of Sheik Ahmed Yassin has caused Hamas to fight among themselves and other such internal problems, but this recent assassination may finally cause Hamas and their sympathizers to strike the United States directly. For years, we've heard the anti-American rhetoric from the Palestinians after an Israeli strike, but mostly it's b/c of the Israeli use of U.S. helicopters and other weapons. This time, the timing of the assassination makes the anti-American threats a bit more realistic.

Israeli PM Ariel Sharon and President Bush just had a meeting, where Bush basically conceded to Sharon everything that was asked of him. Now, with this assassination merely a few days later, it gives the appearance that Bush may have ok'd it. I think Sharon acts for himself and what he thinks is good for Israel first, but this attack does nothing but make America look bad. Whether Bush gave the "go ahead" or not, I think America will become more of a target because of it. This is one of the times that our friendship with Israel does nothing but hurt us. Did Ariel Sharon plan this attack in hopes of forcing Hamas to attack the U.S., thus, bringing the U.S. into their specific war against Hamas, Hezbollah, etc, I don't know. But, Sharon is a veteran warrior who thinks he knows what's right for his country and he knows that President Bush is staking his presidency on his "war on terror". Are the Gaza Strip and West Bank the next theatre for U.S. troops?

posted by FPN 12:02 AM