The Democrats are making hay with National Security Advisor Condoleezza Rice's refusual to testify publicly in front of 9-11 Commission. The words "under oath" are included in their whining about this as if when she testified privately she was just sitting there shooting the bull with the commission and that she has something to hide. Dr. Rice has testified before the commission and has offered to do so again. She has appeared on numerous television news shows where they seem to not want to ask her any substantative questions about 9-11 but want to be the one who asks the 100,000th question about WMD or "what her reactions are" to one of Richard Clarke's accusations. If there is a question about 9-11 she has not answered I would be surprised. I would not be surprised if the 9-11 families that want her to testify are part of the anti-war/anti-Bush Peaceful Tomorrows group.

It seems that the Democrats do not want President Bush to use a picture of 9-11 briefly in one of his ads because they contend that it politicizes 9-11 but they gleefully jump at the chance to politicize it themselves when the opportunity arises.

You're not in Kansas' (league) anymore, Alabama-Birmingham

They can change coaches. They can change systems. They can even change some of the players. They are still Kansas.

...

The game was also embarrassing for UAB. Perhaps tired of seeing his team being eviscerated, coach Mike Anderson was ejected in the second half after getting his second technical. It was fitting. His team already had been run out of the building.

...

Once the press was broken, the game turned into Forty Minutes of Layups -- or dunks or wide-open shots. Tongues were dragging but hearts were soaring for Kansas, which is a game away from advancing to its third consecutive Final Four.

The big question is: Roy, did you enjoy watching the game from home?

From: Richard Clarke
To: John F. Kerry

Subject: Recent Remarks

John,

What are you trying to do to me?

Dick

Fargo is my favorite movie. It is great on many different levels. I became a Coen brothers fan because of it. The Ladykillers ruined my high opinion of them. I hope it is just a creative lull for them.

Good wacky Coen brother characters make the Ladykillers almost bareable. Tom Hanks playing Professor Dorr is terrible. There is no other way to describe his part. Hanks' character ruined this movie which was tottering on the edge of being bad to begin with. The two big jokes, a black person donating money to Bob Jones University and the bombing the garbage barge, got really old after they had been repeated 3 or more times. The General's cigarette in the mouth thing was over done as well. Mrs. Munson played by Irma P. Hall is a great character.

The foul-mouthed inside guy, Gawain MacSam, was too foul-mouthed and the fight between him and the bomb expert, Garth Pancake, seemed to be contrived in order to allow some foul language to creep into the script in order to justify its rating. It wasn't funny hearing someone saying f**k or muthaf**k over and over and over again. Some scenes in the movie had a different, distracting quality to them. Probably different lighting setups as if they went back 2 months later to shoot a scene. Very noticeable.

The gospel music scenes were terrific. They were just straight shots of people singing their hearts out. Beautiful. I was waving my arms and tapping my feet.

I love Coen brothers movies but this one is one I can't love.>

From the Washington Post: "Tonight, I have some advice for you, Ralph," Carter said, as the crowd cheered. "Don't risk costing the Democrats the White House this year as you did four years ago."

Apparently, President Carter did not get the memo about the reasons for Vice President Gore's loss in 2000. Rarely ever do you hear Democratic apologists mention Nader's name when they try to explain away the 2000 upset. It is always the fault of the Supreme Court, Jeb Bush, Kathleen Harris, or voter fraud. The 2000 election was "stolen".

What will be their excuse this year? They are already lining up their excuses if you listen to the chatter. Diebold is the number one candidate right now.

Dr. Susan Dudley, deputy director of the National Abortion Federation, "The obvious and most important thing to say is most abortions take place before 20 weeks," Dudley said. Even if the Edinburgh study is accurate, she said, "it would have very little impact on people who are contemplating an abortion." or, in other words, women who kill their babies do not care if their babies experience pain or not. I doubt that.

CNN says

When the Bush administration was entering office, outgoing National Security Adviser Samuel Berger told his replacement, Condoleezza Rice, "she'd be spending more time on terrorism and al Qaeda than any other issue," Berger told the panel investigating the attacks Wednesday.

From CBS/AP:

Clarke wrote that Rice appeared never to have heard of al Qaeda until she was warned early in 2001 about the terrorist organization and that she "looked skeptical" about his warnings. "Her facial expression gave me the impression that she had never heard the term before," Clarke said in the book, going on sale Monday.

...

Rice disputes that. "We were all very aware of the al Qaeda threat. What I asked Richard Clarke to do was develop ideas that we could use to push forward the strategies against al Qaeda," Rice told the CBS News Early Show. Rice said Clarke's response was a list of ideas that had been around for several years.

Former Senator Bob Kerrey said this at the 9-11 hearings:

"Honestly, I don't understand if we're attacked and attacked and attacked and attacked, why we continue to send the FBI over like the Khobar Towers was a crime scene or the East African embassy bombings was a crime scene. You said we had balance between military effort and diplomacy. And frankly, I've got to say, it seems to me it was very unbalanced in favor of diplomacy against military efforts....Madam Secretary, with great respect, after August of '98 you and I both know what we did. I think it's a straw man to say that we're going to have random bombing or indiscriminate bombing. That's not what we're proposing at all. I keep hearing the excuse we didn't have actionable intelligence. Well, what the hell does that say to al Qaeda? Basically, they knew -- beginning in 1993 it seems to me -- that there was going to be limited, if any, use of military and that they were relatively free to do whatever they wanted."

Keep this quote on hand for the coming debate on how to deal with terrorism. Bob Kerrey just effectively trashed Senator John F. Kerry's terrorism platform. Hindsight is always 20/20 but if we do not learn from our mistakes we are doomed to repeat them someone wisely said.

Question: Why isn't this guy lying in bloody heap?

Answer: He is either at an anti-war or John Kerry rally where they are so, so tolerant of the views and feelings of others.

And look he thoughtfully included the registered trademark symbol because he was only afraid of getting sued and not getting stomped into the ground. Brave guy. Let's pay for his one way ticket to New York on the condition he parades around in front of a fire station with that sign instead of a bunch of Kerry supporters.

Want to see something that defines the word "lame"? Go here. This was cobbled together in response to the rocking and funny ad, called John Kerry, International Man of Mystery, put up by the RNC. Even top Democrats think it is cool. ABC likes it so well it is featuring it on their website and charging people to watch it. (You can get a 14 day free membership though) One problem with the GOP site is that the ad is so popular that it won't load half the time.

Nice try Dems.

Update: Bob Johnson over on Kos sounds like he is ready to shoot himself.

"It is worse than amateurish. It is embarrassing and richly deserving of the derision it has received here and on national political programs."

and this

"And after I had look at that lame Flash, I was angry... angry because I started thinking, is this what our contributions to the DNC are buying? Garbage like this?"

That says it all. They are doomed. Their candidate tries to snowboard down a bunny slope and falls down 6 times then tells the media "I don't fall down. That son of a bitch ran into me." when he does make a run down for the cameras. That SOB Senator Kerry was pointing to was a secret service agent we pay to protect him from attacks by others. Someone ought to protect him from himself.

The blogger over on Powerline (nice blog design by the way) takes on the issue of the hate crime crisis on the Claremont College campus. A Claremont College professor has been charged with staging a hate crime directed at herself in order to discredit some shadowy hate group operating on or just off campus (unstated assumption: a conservative hate group). Powerline calls this the Reichstag gambit. There is evidence that the Nazis burned down the German Reichstag and then blamed it on the communists in order to help them foment hatred against the communists and to take over the government.

The "hate crime" caused the 5 Claremont College campuses to be closed down. The President of the college sent an email out in response to the finding by law enforcement officials that the "hate crime" was a hoax by one of the leaders of the anti-hate crime movement that said:

"While this information certainly comes as a shock and surprise to our community, Claremont McKenna College remains committed to its mission as an undergraduate residential college in which academic freedom and free speech are wholeheartedly supported, and in which all individuals feel welcome to study and teach here, and free to express their viewpoints, thoughts, and ideas."

This statement led to calls for the college president to resign. Understandable. And just when will the professor be suspended?

There were questions about the previous "hate crimes" being staged as well but without any evidence to the contrary those questions were dismissed. From the LA Times:

Lindsey Wollschlager, 21, a Pomona history major from Cannon Falls, Minn., dismissed the idea of a hoax. She said that for someone to raise the possibility was "so sick. They are in denial. People don't want to accept that a well-educated, liberal community can have hate."

Sure they can. Being a liberal doesn't mean you can't hate. Just read what they write and watch what they do and you will see open, unrepentant hate on a daily basis. The Reichstag gambit is used a lot in many different ways.

The Phoenix Project is a plan by the anti-war group Vietnam Veterans Against the War supported by Jane Fonda to assassinate US Senators that was debated at a meeting in Kansas City, Missouri in November 1971. Senator Kerry was a leader of this organization at the time and apparently attended the meeting. Shortly thereafter the Vietnam Veterans Against the War seized and occupied the Statue of Liberty on December 27, 1971.

Senator Kerry's campaign has said that the senator was "absolutely certain" he was not present when the assassination plan, known as the "Phoenix Project," was discussed. Senator Kerry's aides also have said that because he appeared on a PBS "Firing Line" broadcast with William F. Buckley on November 14, 1971, Mr. Kerry could not have attended the Kansas City gathering. There is plenty of evidence that Senator Kerry was at the meeting. The minutes from the show that Kerry resigned from the organization at that meeting.

There are a lot of questions surrounding Senator Kerry's attendance at this event. He should come clean. At this point it is apparent that he and his campaign are trying to sweep this story under the rug at best or to lie about it at worst. Why is Senator Kerry and his campaign denying Kerry's involvement in this meeting in Kansas City. If Senator Kerry was aware that his band of brothers in the VVAW were plotting to assassinate senators why didn't he report it to the FBI? There are a lot of unanswered questions connected with this meeting and Senator Kerry's relationship and involvement with it.

An area north of Tucson called Sabino Canyon, where my daughter and I went hiking a couple of years ago, has mountain lion problems. Sabino Canyon is a beautiful area in Coronado National Forest and has a lot of hikers and picnikers using it. A 3 or 4 mountain lions have been seen in the canyon and in the inhabited areas near the canyon. The park has been closed since March 9th.

There is a kerfuffle between the AZ conservation department, known as Game and Fish, and Governor Janet Napolitano. The governor wants Game and Fish to demonstrate that the lions have been stalking humans and is therefore a danger and to forget that the lions has been seen in a Middle School High parking lot and other populated areas. Maybe the governor and the complaining environmentalists should take a little hike down the canyon just to see for themselves if the lions exhibit stalking behavior. Mountain lions aren't usually a big problem but they will kill humans. Game and fish was going to shoot them but the governor got involved and now they are going to spend a ton of money to move them to a northern AZ wildlife facility. I hate to see any wild critter harmed because they are annoying humans, but mountain lions just don't annoy humans they kill and eat them. It is good that Game and Fish are moving the cats and hopefully they will find some people to donate money to pay for it.

What a scumbag! Gov Dean plays some rhetorical games with the press who willingly pass them on. He said that President Bush's decision to send troops to Iraq appears to have contributed to the bombing deaths of 201 people in Spain. He says he is merely repeating what was on a video tape from those claiming responsibility for the bombings that has surfaced.

"That was what they said in the tape," Dean said. "They made that connection, I'm simply repeating it."

The Kerry campaign rather than repudiating Dean's half-witted statement, backs it up and uses the opportunity to attack President Bush.

Update! Senator Kerry says he does not share Governor Dean's view, however his campaign said this while attacking President Bush:

Dean was speaking on a conference call arranged by Kerry's campaign. Campaign spokeswoman Stephanie Cutter reiterated Dean's clarification of his remarks and added, "It's clear that what happened in Spain is a painful reminder that the war on terror is far from over," said said, "and the nation would be better off if this administration took the time to rebuild our alliances rather than engaging in political attacks."

This is called 'having it both ways'. A surrogate takes the low road and the candidate takes the high road while his campaign waffles incoherently inbetween so as not to dim the message.

The WSJ has a great editorial about what Senator Kerry said in the aftermath of the US apparently losing Spain as an ally in Iraq. The 1,200 Spanish troops, while few in number, are going to be missed by Coalition Forces in Iraq. They were fulfilling an essential mission and were extremely well-thought of by other members fo the Coalition.

Here's what the WSJ editorial said:

All of this is a splendid chance for Mr. Kerry to step up and defend American interests. At the very least, he might call Mr. Zapatero's remarks unfortunate. He could express sympathy for the Spanish people but go on to say that all Americans, no matter what their party and differences on strategy, stand united in fighting terrorism and won't be stampeded by threats. He might also note that the war on terror will require help from all nations and urge Mr. Zapatero to reconsider his intention to separate Spain from the U.S.

Alas, so far these are all might-have-saids. Here is what Mr. Kerry did say about Spain in a speech Monday to a firefighters union. We quote in full: "I think this Administration has it backwards. President Bush says we can't afford to fund homeland security. I say we can't afford not to. When it comes to protecting America from terrorism, this Administration is big on bluster and short on action. But as we saw again last week in Spain--real action is what we need. The Bush Administration is tinkering while the clock on homeland security is ticking. And we don't have a moment to waste." Mr. Kerry then renewed his call for the federal government to hire 100,000 new firefighters.

That's it. That's the sole reference in the speech to what is arguably the largest setback in the war on terror since 9/11. Instead of addressing the issues at stake in Iraq, his instinct was to dodge them. Instead of conviction, there was the whiff of opportunism. Senator Kerry placed Spanish events not in the context of U.S. foreign policy but of American homeland security--as if the main lesson of Madrid is that we must better protect our railways.

Senator Kerry had a chance to step up to the plate and say something important in support of America and instead he choose to use the occasion to pander to the fire fighter's union by echoing the old Clinton shtick about hiring 100,000 more bodies by recommending that the federal government hire more firefighters to "fight" terror. (side note: how are 2 more people at our local station going to help fight terror? Washing the truck twice a week instead of once?)

The NY Times also points out that Senator Kerry dodges speaking out about Spain. The reason: politics. Apparently that the Kerry campaign does not want to use a tragedy in Spain to bash Bush is the reason why Senator Kerry has remained silent on Spain. The strategy in the past is to use comments on news events to negatively bash Bush in order to maximumize free media coverage. So Senator Kerry will probably not comment on Spaind because Bashing Bush comes first and supporting America comes second if at all. Just like in the old anti-Vietnam war days.

Presidential candidate Senator John F Kerry boasts "I've met with foreign leaders who can't go out and say this publicly, but, boy, they look at you and say, 'You've got to win this. You've got to beat this guy [President Bush]. We need a new policy.' Things like that." and a citizen and Vietnam vet named Cedric Brown stood up at a town hall meeting Senator Kerry was holding and legitimately asked a question of one of the individuals who might be our president next January. How did the man who might be president someday treat a citizen of the United States and fellow Vietnam vet? With total arrogance. Listen to Senator Kerry's voice as he talks to this individual and tries to marginalize the man for asking him an uncomfortable question. Senator Kerry's voice literally drips with condescension. Senator Kerry obviously was not going to answer the citizen's question and proceeded to demean him for the benefit of his partisan audience who booed and jeered the man who dared to ask a question.

Of course Republican citizens should be upset that a potential president would treat another Republican in such a disrepectful manner when all the man was doing was asking a question. All Americans should take note of Senator Kerry's unpresidential behavior.

Photo: www.rushlimbaugh.com

Update I: The foreign leaders supporting John Kerry's presidential bid are here. Several of these are probably the ones that Senator Kerry talked to.

Update II: The Senator Kerry Campaign is bidding up the Imaginary Foreign Leader Endorsement auction on eBay in order to claim at least one.

Authorities in Gold Coast City, Australia, censor a perfectly good billboard. Where is the ACLU when you need them?

Thanks Dave.

Senator Kerry and President Bush both look like they have their weight under control. That can't be said for the rest of us.

I have a suggestion: the two candidates should join together bi-partisan program could be started that would feature Americans working out and comparing their daily food consumption and exercise regime with either or both of the candidates in terms of calories eaten and physical activities. Kerry's part of it could be called Krunch with Kerry and Bush's Run with the President. The appropriate daily data for each candidate could be posted on the White House website. At campaign stops, people could do krunches for Kerry or run with the President in order to remind people about exercising or watching what they eat. Perhaps some kind of contest could be made out of it and the national winners could get to eat lo-cal dinner with their choice of candidates.

Just a thought while I sit here and finish off my bowl of butter brickle ice cream.

This is a "cute" little exchange between two liberals who thought no one was reading:

First we have this comment from Atrios aka Eschaton who never can pass up an opportunity to malign conservatives even on a post requesting donations for an AIDS fundraising walk:

Is your sister a conservative? She just moved the goalposts. They tend to do that.

Posted by Atrios at March 9, 2004 05:29 PM | PERMALINK

Then we get this from Kevin Drum aka Calpundit 4 minutes later:

Atrios: Ha! Her favorite newspaper is the Guardian, and if she ever got within five yards of George Bush with a baseball bat the Secret Service would have its work cut out for it.

Posted by Kevin Drum at March 9, 2004 05:33 PM | PERMALINK

Nice, classy people.

Update: Kevin neglected, for some reason, to point out in his request for donations that his sister gets a free trip to Disney World if she is top donation getter. Then he deletes all of his comments to get rid of the comments above plus one where he chides me by saying his sister would only go after President Bush's kneecaps and not kill him with a baseball bat. That made me feel better.

This interesting bit of class from the John Kerry Website.

When Teresa Heinz-Kerry arrived, she handed me a pin that read in the center: “Asses of Evil” with “Bush”, “Cheney”, “Rumsfeld” and “Ashcroft” surrounding it.

James Liekes comments on it:

So Teresa Heinz-Kerry passes out buttons that say “,” with pictures of Bush, Cheney, Rummy and Ashcroft on them. There you have it: the President of the United States is an Evil Ass. I’d love for someone to put this question to Kerry in the debate: Senator Kerry, your wife handed out buttons that called the President an Evil Ass. Do you believe he is Evil, an Ass, or both? And if I may follow up, I’d like to ask if you can possibly imagine Laura Bush doing that. Thank you.

Why would someone whose husband is running for leader of the free world pass out such a totally tasteless button to someone in public?

Dick Morris, in an New York Post article HOW 'FLIP-FLOP' KILLS KERRY thinks President Bush is going after Senator Kerry's many significant flip-flops on major issues to keep him from moving towards the center later in the campaign. Remember President Reagan's withering "There you go again" in a debate with Jimmy Carter? Morris said President Clinton was so concious of being accused of changing positions that he actually changed a decision to keep from being accused of reversing his posiiton on welform reform.

Senator Kerry will be boxed into his liberal positions and will have no wiggle room to nuance his viewpoints the way he has in the past. Morris thinks that President Bush is setting Kerry up for the real message - that Senator Kerry is too weak and too liberal to be president. Morris says that if President Bush does it properly the campaign will be over by the end of spring.

Interesting.

Much to the dismay of the Duke administration, the DCU has provoked its ritual annual contretemps, this time by publishing an advertisement revealing that registered Democrats outnumber Republicans by a whopping 142-to-8 margin among university deans as well as faculty members of eight liberal arts departments.

FactCheck.Org fisks MoveOn.org's latest attempt to smear the Bush administration's new overtime rules. The number in question is the 8 million workers a study by the labor-funded Economic Policy Institute says will lose over-time pay. As FactCheck points out:

The ad misquotes the study, however. What the study actually says is that an estimated 8 million would lose the legal right to premium overtime rates should they work more than 40 hours per week. It does not say they would actually lose pay as the ad says. In fact, the 8-million figure is inflated by many part-time workers who never get overtime work, or overtime pay, even though they now have the right to it. (my emphasis)

MoveOn.org's ad:

The ad shows a worker in a hardhat punching a time clock as he leaves an empty factory at night, then drives home to a stack of bills and a sleeping family. The Announcer says: Times are tough. So you work overtime to make ends meet. Then you find out George Bush wants to eliminate overtime pay for 8 million workers. Two million jobs lost. Jobs going overseas. And now, no overtime pay. When it comes to choosing between corporate values and family values, face it, George Bush is not on our side.

I can't help myself.

Maureen ... Dowd discusses John Kerry's cultural side and points out that Kerry took longer to decide on his favorite movie than President Bush took for the entire, similar interview. Kerry evidently has time to burn on such mundane matters.

When I gave George W. Bush a culture quiz in 2000, he gamely struggled to come up with one answer in each category, calling baseball his favorite "cultural experience."

Mr. Kerry, on the other hand, struggled to stop coming up with a cascade of things in each category, rarely settling on a definite favorite.

In what may be an interesting harbinger for their debates, W. raced through his whole interview in the same time Mr. Kerry took to answer the first question about his favorite movie. After he had roamed through 37 movies, ranging from his "Fellini stage" to his Adam Sandler period, from "National Velvet" to "The Deer Hunter" to "Men in Black," Mr. Kerry's aides began to hover.

37 possible favorite movies? And by Dowd using the snotty quotation marks around cultural experience she shows that she obviously does not understand one thing about baseball and how it is a cultural experience enjoyed by millions who do not live in Manhattan apartments and who are looked down on by people like herself. Baseball is an important American cultural experience.

Then there's this:

It's not often that you get a presidential candidate to recite poetry to you, especially in a year when W. and J.F.K. are going macho a macho.

But there was Mr. Kerry flying from Boston to New Orleans on Friday, sipping tea for his hoarse throat and reeling off T. S. Eliot's "Love Song of J. Alfred Prufrock."

This must leave Dowd and her liberal readers breathless, however I found myself thinking - what a pompous ass. Only pompous asses recite poety to others while sipping tea. I know people who do this sort of thing in public especially and it is not pretty. Everyone looks at them like they are crazy.

And we have this

He not only reads poetry — "I love Keats, Yeats, Shelley and Kipling" — he writes it. "I remember flying once; I was looking out at the desert and I wrote a poem about the barren desolation of the desert," he said. "I wrote a poem once about a great encounter I had with a deer early in the morning that was very moving."

I can see thousands of NASCAR dads tossing their cookies after reading that little tidbit. It would be nice if President Bush could get Senator Kerry to quote a little T.S. Eliot or one of his poems in one of the debates. Dowd must hate Kerry.

Senator Dole resigned from the Senate when he ran for President in 1996. Running for President and being a United States Senator are both full time jobs. I guess Senator Kerry does not feel he has to resign because he is never there to vote anyways. Here is his voting record for the past year. Check out the number of 'Not Voting's there are under the Vote column. Staggering. Why can't John Kerry follow the good example of Senator Dole and quit short-changing his constituents and his fellow senators?

Senator Kerry was not AWOL from the Senate this past year, he deserted it.

Jay Redding has an excellent post about John Kerry that analyizes John Kerry's foreign policy positions. Kerry's position on Haiti Redding points out is completely out of line with OAS and UN recommendations. Kerry would favor a unlateralist course of action that clearly would be disastrous. Why would Kerry favor such a hairbrained course of action? 3 words - Black Congressional Caucus. Removing a tyrant like Aristide was the right thing to do for Haiti.

Redding comes to this conclusion:

Kerry is a weak candidate on foreign affairs. His foreign policy is a simplistic negation of the Bush Administration's policy, his positions lack coherence, and he barely mentions the most important issue of this election. The fact that Kerry very rarely mentions foreign policy on the stump, except to use it as a hammer against Bush is equally telling. John Kerry may have been a war hero in Vietnam, but he is not Commander in Chief material, and a Kerry presidency would return the US to the rudderless foreign policy of the Clinton Administration - a foreign policy that directly lead to the deaths of thousands of Americans at the Khobar Towers, our embassies in Africa, the USS Cole, the World Trade Center, the Pentagon, and the fields of Shanksburg, Pennsylvania. It is a price that cannot be afforded, and Kerry is not the kind of President that this country can afford in a time of war against an insidious and ruthless enemy.

Update: NYT has an article about Senator Kerry attacking President Bush's actions. Kerry demonstrates his ability to contradict himself again: he is for unilateral action in Haiti but he is against it elsewhere when President Bush does it. Why? His unilateral action is different from President Bush's. Yes, indeedy.

It is on the GOP.com website.

roge Shadroui examines the history of the National Book Award from a political perspective in his article Political Prize: The National Book Award in FrontPageMagazine.com on March 5, 2004. The NBA is another award in the arts that has become just another political forum for those on the left.

A Salon article by Laura Miller ignores the politics. Her discussion of the rather off-hand method of choosing finalists makes Shadroui's article to be on target. While quotas for each political persuasion is out of the question, shedding a little light on what has happened to a significant award over the past 10-20 years might bring about what looks like needed change.

The prestigious Bancroft Prize in history was awarded to liberal author Michael Bellesiles for the book Arming America: The Origins Of A National Gun Culture which was widely hailed by pro-gun control supporters. Later, Columbia University, sponsor of the award rescinded the award because Professor Bellesiles fabricated data to support allegations he made in the book. Was the award given primarily because Professor Bellesiles supported a liberal shibboleth and the award committee wanted to insure that the book was widely read and discussed? We will never know. More on the Bancroft Prize fiasco here.

Rosie made an honest woman out of her long time partner, Kelli Carpenter, in San Franscisco because she was mad at President Bush. I bet President Bush was touched at Rosie's kind words that he was the one that brought Kelli and her together at the alter, er, whatever, in San Francisco.

Rosie refers to Kelli as her wife which tells us who does the dishes, the mopping, the toilets, etc. in their house while the other partner sits in her dirty underwear and watches football and NASCAR races on the TV all weekend.

Watching author Douglas Brinkley discuss John Kerry makes me wonder what goes through this person's mind. Brinkley did not talk like an boring idealogue and presented his antedotes and facts in a chipper, upbeat fashion that pointed out interesting facts in John Kerry's life.

There were several things he said that probably mislead the audience into thinking John Kerry was something he was not. He indicated that John Kerry signed up with the Navy out of a sense of duty instill in him by his father. That is not the case at all. He signed up because he was going to be drafted into the army. You didn't have to be a graduate of Yale to know that at that time he signed up the chances for seeing combat were significantly less if you were in the Navy than in the Army. I have no problems with Kerry's choice but to characterize it as something that it wasn't is a problem in my book.

Another misstatement that Brinkley made was that John Kerry did not protest the war while he was still serving in the Navy and working at a cushy job as an admiral's aide in Washington. He did join an anti-war group at that time which judging from Brinkley's Atlantic Monthly article was not unexpected and if he did not protest actively it wasn't because of some sense of honor that Kerry had as Brinkley implied. Kerrry could have been court-martialed for being in violation of Article 88 of the UCMJ.

Brinkley, rather than talk about the John Kerry of today, concentrated on presenting information about the John Kerry of 30 years ago. It seemed strange, as if Brinkley found little or nothing about the John Kerry of today worth a significant comment.

I have always respected Dick Morris's political instincts even though he is somewhat of a sleazy character. He took a failing president and got him reelected. Bill Clinton put his reelection efforts in Morris's hands and Morris got him reelected by understanding the American electorate and how the system works. Looking back at Clinton's shabby record the first 4 years of office, he should not have been so, in my opinion, Morris performed a political miracle.

Dick Morris lays the campaign out for President Bush. How much of this good free advice is used remains to be seen. The Republicans cannot play nice because the Democrats certainly are not going to. The totally out-of-touch, bizarre ads from the extremist groups that are part of the Democratic leftwing will be something to behold.

One part of Morris's advice I disagree with is for President Bush to lay low on the economy. He can't. It is about the only issue the Democrats have and it will be on the table. The best way to deal with it is to say that of course we have had a bad economy, the country was in a recession when President Bush took office and then 9-11 caused a major economic disruption, but now things, thanks to the tax cuts, are definitely improving and while we will not be able to return to the boom years in the late 1990s we will have in place the basis for steady, sustainable growth for the next 10 years. This is an easy, positive, upbeat sell and surely offsets the typical gloom and doom from the Democratic side. The usual Democratic tax and spend plans are recipes for economic disaster.

Add Donal Logue to your list of actors who either lie or don't have a clue about politics. Mr Logue appears on Jimmy Kimmel Live and immediately begins energeticly touting Senator Kerry and joyfully bashing President Bush.

Logue says he is from Massachusetts. He is not. He is a Canadian. He went to Harvard which is in Massachusetts. If he admitted that he was a Canadian everyone would immediately discount every thing he had to say about Senator Kerry and President Bush.

Logue says Senator Kerry is Irish. He is not. Senator Kerry knowingly lied for years about being Irish.

Logue says Senator Kerry "took a bullet in Vietnam". He did not. Senator Kerry refuses to release his military records so we do not know the true origin or nature of his wounds.

Logue says President Bush skipped out on the Vietnam War and did "something" in the National Guard. President Bush served as a fighter pilot of F104as and was honorably discharged. Logue is just trying to dance around the slanderous lies of DNC Chairman McAuliffe and former candidate General Clark who accused, without evidence, the President of being AWOL and a deserter respectively.

Logue says President Bush is a moron. President Bush graduated from Yale and has an MBA from Harvard Business School. President Bush was twice elected Governor of Texas. Logue is just repeating like a puppet the standard Democratic line.

Logue mentioned that Gov Dukakis drove a tank around in a photo op and that Senator Kerry could do that and put President Bush in a bad light. Logue doesn't know that the tank was an M1 Abrams, which is now the main battle tank used by the Army, and that at one time Senator Kerry advocated against funding its development. Logue might advise Senator Kerry to stay out of that tank when photographers are around. Senator Kerry also voted against most of the major weapon systems in use today.

When the conversation somehow turns to Rosie O'Donnel, Kimmel mention that Logue was well on his way towards being depised by half of America the way Rosie is. Indeed.

Mr Logue should be ashamed about going on national TV and lying. Mr Logue made a total fool out of himself.

Senator Kerry said about the so-called controversy over Jean-Bertrand Aristide's departure from Haiti "I have a very close friend in Massachusetts who talked directly to people who have made that allegation," Kerry said on "Today" on NBC. "I don't know the truth of it. I really don't. But I think it needs to be explored and we need to know the truth of what happened.

It looks like we have a presidential candidate who is really plugged into what is happening in the world. He hears something from someone who heard something from someone who heard something and now he is demanding an investigation even though he doesn't have the slightest idea about whether that something is true or not.

I cannot believe a man who aspires to be president actually said this.

Tactius points out a lot of positive news in Iraq. Unfortunately when things start to look good we have this.

The recent terrible attacks are against innocent Iraqi people. The objective of the attackers seems to have shifted from causing casualties among the coalition forces to targeting large groups of Iraqis or the Iraqi security forces in order to forment civil war among the Sunnis and Shias. The attackers may have given up on the Mogadishu strategy because of President Bush's resoluteness. We have to develop better tactics and methods to track these thugs down to end the attacks like those that happened today. And the Iraqis have to help.

I was hoping no one would call Senator Kerry on his class warfare tax proposals this early in the campaign. His raise-the-taxes-on-the-rich standard liberal class warfare proposals were coupled with rhetoric about cutting the deficit using all the money he gets back from the evil rich.

Kerry, of course, wants more. He says he will reduce the deficit while at the same time starting up a lot of new spending programs that overwhelm any savings from closing all the loopholes that never seem to get closed and banking all money received from soaking the rich more than they are being soaked now. The WaPo looks at all this and comes to the conclusion that his tax and spending plans fall short. In fact Kerry's spending exceeds savings by $165 billion. Kerry's proposals, obviously, will not reduce the deficit.