Much ado about nothing

Republicans and conservative media are in full attack mode over Teresa Heinz Kerry telling a "journalist" to "shove it" and the media is buying it, hook, line and sinker.

Considering “Vice President” Dick Cheney recently told a senator to ”GFY” this is much ado about anything, unless the Republicans are successful with their chant “Act like an American, not like a Republican.”

The person who asked the question was NOT a reporter but the editorial page editor of the conservative Pittsburgh Tribune-Review which has a mean-spirited editorial page which has attacked the Heinz family in the past.

Mrs. Heinz Kerry in her speech said -"We need to turn back some of the creeping, un-Pennsylvanian and sometimes un-American traits that are coming into some of our politics." The “writer” repeatedly pressed her about what she meant by "un-American activity."
"You said something I didn't say, now shove it," Heinz Kerry said.

So Heinz Kerry said “un-American traits.” The writer claimed she said “un-American activity.”

Is that the same thing? Was she right in pointing out he changed her quote and then refused to answer for a quote she didn’t make?

The New York Daily News pointed out that the paper - which in the mid-1990s notoriously promoted the theory that Clinton White House lawyer Vince Foster's suicide was really a sinister murder plot to protect the political interests of Bill and Hillary - is owned by reclusive right-wing billionaire Richard Mellon Scaife. Richard Mellon Scaife is behind the “newspaper,” and James Carville in 1999 called him "the archconservative godfather in [a] heavily funded war against [Clinton]."

As one web site wrote In his 2003 book Lies (And the Lying Liars Who Tell Them), Al Franken said that the abusive tone of rightwing zealots like Bill O'Reilly and Ann Coulter can be traced back to Scaife, and in particular to one episode in 1981 when Scaife verbally assaulted a reporter. When the reporter, Karen Rothmeyer of the Columbia Journalism Review, asked Scaife about his funding of conservative groups, he replied, "You fucking communist cunt, get out of here." Franken writes that Scaife "went on to tell her that she was ugly and that her teeth were 'terrible.' Of Ms. Rothmeyer's mother, who was not present, he said, 'She's ugly, too.'"

I suppose Mrs. Kerry should be nice to everyone, including those who hate and unfairly attack her. The key to whether this incident hurt the Kerry’s is whether most people will learn the truth of the incident. Unfortunately, based on how the media acted in 2000 during their “War on Gore,” I expect only a few people will know the full story.

Lack of imagination

Among the areas of fault the 9/11 Commission found, as pointed out by Vice Chairman Lee Hamilton, was that those in government had "a lack of imagination" and that "was the most important failing."

However, the Commission also had a failure of lack of imagination. One of the most important questions theCommission considered was whether anything could have been done to prevent the terrorist's attacks on 9/11. However one of the major events that might have played a part in allowing the 9/11 attacks was barely mentioned in the report.

In November 2000 the American people selected Al Gore as the 43rd president, however thanks to the efforts of Gov. Jeb Bush of Florida, numerous Republicans, and a politically motivated group of US Supreme Court justices, Gore was denied the presidency.

As the 9/11 report states on page 198...The dispute over the election and the 36-day delay cut in half the normal transition period. Given that a presidential election in the United States brings wholesale change in personnel, this loss of time hampered the new administration in identifying, recruiting, clearing, and obtaining Senate confirmation of key appointees.

The thing was, there didn't need to be a major transition. If allowed to win, Vice President Al Gore probably would have kept a number of Clinton appointees. In addition, as the one who lead the White House Commission on Aviation Safety and Security (also known as the Gore Commission) which investigated terrorism in the 1990s, Gore had a greater understanding of the importance of the issue and undoubtedly would have placed a higher level of importance on the topic.

Unfortunately, the GOP and Supreme Court thought they knew what was best for the country and denied Gore the Presidency. As attorney Mark H. Levine explained in A LAYMAN'S GUIDE TO THE SUPREME COURT DECISION IN BUSH V. GORE, the Surpreme Court stopped the counting of the votes in Florida because "if America knows the truth that Gore won, they won't accept the US Supreme Court overturning Gore's victory."

This was an important issue but one no one was willing to discuss. Some may find it distasteful to ask if a Gore Presidency could have prevented 9/11 but in reality not asking that question showed a lack of imagination.

Second thoughts

One of the keys to the GOP "winning" the 2000 presidential election were overseas ballots from military personnel. Bush was able to "gain" enough of a margin through those ballots that Florida called the state for him.

However, close to 700 of the military ballots were improper, according to the New York Times. Military ballots are viewed as favoring Republicans so they were probably responsible for the 500-plus "win" by Bush.

"Citing the Florida Department of State's web site, the Times reports that without the overseas ballots counted after election day, Gore would have won Florida, and thus the White House, by 202 votes."

So four years later one has to wonder how many of those soldiers are having second thoughts

In a Knight Ridder story (registration required) one soldier put it "I don't have any idea of what we're trying to do out here. I don't know what the (goal) is, and I don't think our commanders do, either. I feel deceived personally," Staff Sgt. A.J. Dean.

Another added "A lot of times I look at this place and wonder what have we really done. When we first got here, we all wanted to change it and make it better, but now I don't (care)," he said. "What am I here for?"

Sounds like Democrats should do better at the polls in 2004. In 2000 the Bushies "won" on military ballots (well actually the Times found that it was more like Republican military ballots, a number of which shouldn't have been counted) so you have to wonder this time whether the Bushies will decide to limit the number by saying "only legal ballots should be counted"?

Lies, lies and more lies

After seeing the GOP parade their officials out on Thursday in an effort to divert attention from the 9/11 commission report one has to wonder if they believe what they are saying or do they know they are lying and don't care.

GOP officials said the the investigation of Samuel R. Berger regarding missing document raised questions about whether Berger was trying to keep information from the 9/11 commission. That was flatly denied by both Berger and one of the commission members, who called the charge ''ridiculous."

"Berger's allies rallied behind him, questioning whether the Bush administration leaked news of the 10-month-old probe to deflect attention just days before the commission is set to publish its findings from its inquiry into the suicide jet attacks of Sept. 11, 2001."

''None of our work is affected in any way," said the panel member, who spoke on condition of anonymity. ''We have many copies of it. He did not have access to anything that wasn't in duplicate. It can't have been to deprive us of information."

Hidden Agenda

What do you do when you are afraid of being called to task for mistakes. Blame someone else of course. With the release of the 9/11 commission set for this week, a months old investigation into whether Samuel Berger, the former White House national security adviser removed inadvertently took copies of several versions of an after-action memo on the millennium bombing plot from the Archives last fall.

Note the important word - Copies. Got that. Copies. Not originals.

The vein-bulging wild eyed groupies on the right immediately went into full "throttle" mode.

Tom DeLay, the House Republican leader, called it "a third-rate burglary", a reference to the Watergate scandal. "Berger's theft and destruction of classified documents is not 'sloppy', it's gravely serious," he said. "It is a national security crisis right now."

Un huh. Copies of copies are missing and it's a national security crisis. Makes you wonder what he would think if say a "president" didn't pay attention to security memos. I'm sure that's ok, but misplacing copies, now that's something to be concerned about.

If this is a "third-rate burglary" does that make what happened in Florida a FIRST RATE FELONY?

Democrats questioned the timing of the leak, which came months after the investigation began, on the eve of the Democratic convention and the final report of the September 11 commission.

"I do think the timing is very curious, given this has been under way now for this long," said Tom Daschle, the Senate Democratic leader. "Somebody leaked it, obviously, with an intent, I think, to do damage to Mr Berger, and I think that's unfortunate."

Second Choice

The Bush-Cheney ’04 campaign team (notice they don't use the word re-election) recently announced the release of a television advertisement ("First Choice") which "features John Kerry’s first choice for a vice presidential running mate, United States Senator John McCain. In the new ad, John McCain discusses his support for the President and the leadership President Bush has provided in the War on Terror. "

Two questions - One - how come the ad doesn't reference that Al Gore was America's FIRST CHOICE in 2000 for President. "Gore Got More," votes that is, winning the election by a half million votes. Bush was only able to get his way into the White House thanks to his father's friends on the Supreme Court and nifty moves in Florida to throw out thousands and thousands of votes.

Second how come the ad didn't mention that McCain disagrees with a lot of Bush's policies? Also, wasn't Dick Cheney was Bush's SECOND CHOICE for Vice President, McCain being his first?

So since Bush likes nicknames so much, how about calling him George "Second Choice" Bush?

GOP admits Gore won Florida

In planning strategy for the 2004 election both parties look at the results of the 2000 election to give them idea of where they stand. For Republicans, Iowa, New Mexico and Wisconsin are states they lost narrowly and they are working hard to overcome those losses.

Apparently the GOP has added Florida to the list of states that they lost in 2000 and must to more to win this year

Robert Novak, best known for outing a CIA operative, recently wrote "Florida Republicans also are worried that the new voting machines may give Sen. John Kerry some 15,000 votes that Al Gore lost in 2000 because of ''overvotes.''

So there you have it. The GOP views Florida as a state they lost by 15,000 (yes, thousand) votes in 2000. The GOP will try to argue that the votes were properly thrown out and that they won. That's kinda like a convicted felon freed on a technicality claiming innocence.

Don't blame us - we didn't elect him

Apparently the White House has lodged a complaint with the Irish Embassy in Washington over RTE journalist Carole Coleman's interview with George Bush. The reason - as John Nichols of the Madison Capitol Times put it, "Bush had an unpleasant run-in with a species of creature he had not previously encountered often: a journalist. He did not react well to the experience..."

"Apparently under the mistaken assumption that reporters in the rest of the world are as ill-informed and pliable as the stenographers who "cover" the White House, Bush's aides scheduled a sit-down interview with Carole Coleman, Washington correspondent for RTE, the Irish public television network...Unfortunately, it appears that Coleman failed to receive the memo informing reporters that they are supposed to treat this president with kid gloves. Instead, she confronted him as any serious journalist would a world leader."

In evaluating the complaint, the Irish government must understand that Mr. Bush is not representative of the United States and was NOT elected president, rather installed through the actions of his brother in Florida and his father's appointees on the Supreme Court. Mr. Bush lost the popular vote in 2000 and was behind in the electoral vote when he and his brother's actions allowed him to ignore the wishes of the American people and take the presidency.

Unfortunately, the American press has too often stood by and not questioned his actions and it has taken the foreign press to ask him tough questions. To that end the American people owe a debt of gratitude to Ms. Coleman and possibly an apology for the administration's reaction.

Lying with impunity

One of the reasons the right wing and the GOP have been successful in defining the issues of the day is that they have figured out that in today's sound-bite mentality they can lie and not be called on it.

On Larry King's show former President Bill Clinton said "Some of the right-wing Republicans -- Rush Limbaugh, a lot of the other talk show people -- immediately said he was murdered. It was -- it was a mad time where you could say anything you wanted about the president or anybody that had the misfortune to know me."

So on the CNN media watch show Reliable Sources, how did rightwing talk show host Laura Ingram respond to Clinton's statement?

"I never heard Rush Limbaugh say anything of the like. And I'm certain he didn't say that."

When pushed about it she said "It wasn't Rush Limbaugh. .. No, he didn't say anyone - that the Clintons murdered anyone."

So just what did Limbaugh actually say?

OK, folks, I think I got enough information here to tell you about the contents of this fax that I got. Brace yourselves. This fax contains information that I have just been told will appear in a newsletter to Morgan Stanley sales personnel this afternoon.... What it is is a bit of news which says...there's a Washington consulting firm that has scheduled the release of a report that will appear, it will be published, that claims that Vince Foster was murdered in an apartment owned by Hillary Clinton, and the body was then taken to Fort Marcy Park.

So is Ingraham correct, that Limbaugh didn't actually allege that Foster "was murdered" by just repeating someone else's story "that claims that Vince Foster was murdered" or was it a lie? To me it's a lie. And did Ingraham get called on this lie? No, host Howard Kurtz replied "We'll have to revisit that another time."

I'm sure Ingraham smiled, knowing she and her ilk got away with another one.

Who's the Slimeball?

Former President George H.W. Bush said he had "total disdain" for Michael Moore and called Moore a "slimeball." Moore's new movie, Fahrenheit 9/11, is likely to open eyes and help the current join his father as a "former" president.

But considering the slimy presidential election campaign George H.W. Bush ran in 1988, he should be the last one to criticize someone else for sliminess (or does he believe it takes a slimeball...).

For anyone who has forgotten, Bush (along with his RNC Chairman Lee Atwater) led one of the most disgusting and dishonest campaigns in recent memory, utilizing questionable advertising and speeches. Following the election, many news organization instituted Fact checks of candidates advertising to prevent future politicians from benefiting from lies the way Bush 41 did in 1988.

As one media outlet put it, Atwater was a "protage of the late South Carolina segregationist senator, Strom Thurmond, and personal Machiavelli to George Bush Sr. He's the man credited with coining "wedge issue." On his deathbed, he apologized for saying of Dukakis that he'd "strip the bark off the little bastard" and "make Willie Horton his running mate." His repentance made good press at the time of his death from a brain tumor in 1991, but his methods are still a blueprint for how we the living can run and win a nasty campaign."

Maybe the lack of grace and ethics is a family thing. After the 1984 vice presidential debate which pitted Rep. Geraldine Ferraro of New York against George H.W. Bush, Barbara Bush said she could not say on television what she thought of Ferraro, but "it rhymes with witch."

This from a woman whose family's accomplishments included sons (Jeb and Neil) who were involved in savings & loans that went under, and sons (Jeb & George) who possibly stole a presidential election.

Yeah, George you've got real moral authority to call someone a slimeball...

Never Mind - The Media as Emily Litella

A lot of people call journalism the first draft of history, unfortunately those first drafts are rarely changed and the public is left with inaccurate version of history. And the media is loathe to criticize itself on a real time basis.

So four years after the end of Bill Clinton's presidency, and after years of right wing inspired attacks, Time magazine (subscription required) finally came around to reviewing the media's coverage of President Bill Clinton and Special Persecutor Kenneth Starr.

"In retrospect, it is clear that there was no substance to the Whitewater allegations and the other White House scandalettes—the travel-office firings, the FBI files, the death of Vince Foster—except, of course, Lewinsky. It seems clear that Starr conducted an unseemly and irresponsible investigation filled with "abuses of power," as Clinton contends, illegal leaks to the press and barely legal coercive tactics against prospective witnesses. And it also seems clear that the press was way too credulous about Starr's allegations and didn't pay nearly enough attention to his methods."

As Emily Litella would have said, "Oh. That's very different. Never Mind."

While Time Magazine may have finally admitted what went on, it's difficult to imagine that the Washington Post's Susan Schmidt or the New York Times' Jeff Gerth (or the Wall Street Journal's Robert Bartely from the grave) will apologize for its biased coverage.

The next question is when will the press apologize for it's biased War on Gore coverage of the 2000 Presidential election. It is truly amazing that right wingers complain about the media when the MAIN reason George Bush is in the White House today is the biased coverage Gore received in 2000.

Conservative Media Myth

Robert J. Barro must have been disappointed to see his column, promoting a study that purported to show a liberal bias in the media, was included in the June 14 issue of Business Week whose cover story asks “Does Your Vote Matter?”

The study Barro promoted determined whether a media source was liberal by coming up with a rating comparable to the ADA rating of a congressman’s voting record. Barro said the median ADA rating of U.S. House members of 39 “is a reasonable measure of a centrist position.”

The problem, as Business Week pointed out, is that gerrymandering of House districts has forced out moderates and made districts less representative. Business Week pointed out that Al Gore received nearly half of the votes in Florida in 2000 yet led in only 8 of the state’s 25 congressional districts.

With congressional districts drawn unrepresentatively, 39 is NOT a reasonable measure of a centrist position, and claiming a media source is liberal based on a score higher than 39 is questionable.

In addition, leaving editorial pages out of the study also skews the results. Will the Wall Street Journal, with its extremist editorial page, be classified as “moderate” because of its news pages?

Dishonesty Watch or Stupidity Watch

The Wall Street Journal's editorial (idiotorial?) page has a column called Best of the Web where they take cheap shots at Democrats through links to articles on other websites. Many times the headline the Journal slaps on their "analysis" of the item is "Stupidity Watch."

After reading Tuesday's Best of the Web, one wonders whether the Journal's column should call it column Stupidity Watch or Dishonesty Watch.

In a ridiculous and dishonest report, the Journal attempts to say that when Democrats bring up the disgusting, but successful, attempt by the GOP to question former Georgia Sen. Max Cleland's patriotism in his 2002 election then the Democrats are only making more people question Cleland's patriotism.

For background, the Washington Post has noted that "Cleland, 60, is still livid over a now-infamous TV commercial that Republican challenger Saxby Chambliss ran against him. It opened with pictures of Osama bin Laden and Saddam Hussein, then attacked Cleland for voting against President Bush's Homeland Security bill. It didn't mention that Cleland supported a Democratic bill that wasn't radically different.

"That was the biggest lie in America -- to put me up there with Osama bin Laden and Saddam Hussein and say I voted against homeland security!" he says, his voice rising in anger."

The reason the Journal brought this up again because the AP (and others) reported that Theresa Heinz Kerry said she left the GOP over the treatment of Cleland.

"Shame on the AP for repeating as if it were a fact the canard that Republicans "raised questions about Cleland's patriotism." In fact, it was Democrats who did this because they could not defend the man's voting record" the Journal spewed.

According to the Journal, Democratic complaints about GOP dishonesty only reinforces the dishonesty so Democrats shouldn't complain and try to make sure the public knows the facts.

Isn't it odd that a newspaper would be against informing the public. So is the Journal dishonest or just stupid?

Just Desserts

Tom DeLay, called the "meanest man in Congress," and one who has been working on reducing the role of democracy and Democrats in America, apparently has been unable to completely install a one party (Soviet styled?) system of government in Washington.

According to the Washington Post, Rep. Chris Bell (D-Tex.) said he will send a complaint to the House ethics committee accusing the House's second-ranking Republican of soliciting campaign contributions in return for legislative favors; laundering illegal campaign contributions through a Texas political action committee; and improperly involving a federal agency in a Texas partisan matter.

To many people, it couldn't happen to a more deserving person.

Bell, a first-term lawmaker from Houston, lost his reelection bid in the March Democratic primary after his district was substantially redrawn in a contentious 2003 redistricting process backed by DeLay, according the Post.

Earlier this year the U.S. Supreme Court, on a 5-4 vote, decided that the shenanigans that DeLay and his ilk are pulling in several states are OK. In effect the Supreme Court ruled that democracy is messy and that fair elections are not necessary.

By sidestepping this case and deciding the Presidency in 2000, the court in effect said courts should only get involved when Republicans are harmed.

The Court may have been able to throw the 2000 Presidential election to the GOP and approved the dilution of voting rights for members of certain political parties, but until it is able to rig the entire system the GOP, and Supreme Court majority, must understand they are subject to the rule of the people.

While the day of rule by the people may be coming to an end, some rules remain. As a result, DeLay, also known as the "Hammer," may find a judicial hammer coming down on him.

But then again, just as George W. Bush escaped punishment for going AWOL and his questionable stock sale, there is always a good chance the system will give DeLay a pass.

The Tipping Point

In any political or military campaigns there can come a point where the hearts and minds of the public are up for grabs.

At that point people's views can go decisively one way or the other. In 1980 in the Reagan - Carter presidential campaign it occurred when Reagan asked the public if they were better off than four years ago.

The public said "No" and Carter was toast. In 2000 with the release of George W. Bush's DWI, the public swung toward Gore and gave him the election. (Upset about how the public rejected their candidates, the right wing conspired to overturn the election results and were able to do so.

In 2004 the tipping point may have occurred with the stories of abuse in Iraq. Ever since his forced installation as president by a questionable 5-4 vote by the Supreme Court George Bush approval rating has been on a downward trend, with only 9/11, the Iraqi war and Saddam's capture preventing a total meltdown.

From a high of 56% in April 2001 to his current 48% in May 2004 the public has turned against him and with the election a little over five months away things don't look good.

Short of capture of Osoma Bin Laden or another attack on America, Bush is toast, and even Republicans have figured that out.

Sean Hannity on his radio show said Bush was a man of principles and may end up paying for having principles (Help the rich, go to war, screw the environment).

So basically the GOP is already making excuses on why Bush lost. It's not that he was wrong, but he was willing to stand up for his principles. HAH!

Episode suggestion for JAG

With the television season over and writers probably thinking about topics for next year, here's a suggestion for the writers for JAG.

How about an episode about a politician who served in the National Guard to get out of going to Vietnam and new information comes up on whether he completed his service or went AWOL.

Such a show would be very timely, interesting and informative. Over the years it seemed that JAG would take shots at President Clinton, including Episode 94 where Harm faces a court-martial when a letter critical of the President appears on the Op-Ed page of a newspaper and is traced to his computer.

Harm wasn't at fault but he gets to say "It does not matter what I think of him, (referring to President Clinton) he's my Commander-in-Chief."

Nice little quote. Now how about a similar examination of Bush.

GOP hits new low

Republican National Committee Chairman Ed Gillespie and House Majority Leader Tom DeLay an have hit a disgusting new low. In an attempt to deflect attention away from the Iraqi prisoner abuse scandal and growing dissatisfaction with George Bush, they have decided to attack the formatting of Sen. John Kerry's campaign emails.

Sen. Kerry's emails include an option to donate, a necessity given the GOP's effort to purchase the 2004 election after they stole the 2000 election. (On Thursday Bush's campaign announced they had raised $200 million.) Since Kerry's emails include the donation option, the GOP decided that the emails must not discuss serious topics, such as the abuse scandal.

In the Kerry campaign's e-mail, supporters were thanked for their "amazing" response to a previous e-mail which called for Defense Secretary Donald H. Rumsfeld's resignation. As all campaign email include an option for contributions, this one did too. (Actually this email only had one "donate now," compared to two on a more recent email.)

In his attempt to attack Kerry for Bush's failures, Gillespie said the photographs of prisoner abuse are "clearly disgusting, but it's harder to find words to describe those whose first instinct upon seeing them is to raise campaign cash with them."

No, what's disgusting is an attempt to buy an election then attempt to deflect criticism for one's failures on another. But Mr. Gillespie knows the press are suckers and will run his complaints, accurate or not. And judging by the amount of press this story has recieved he is correct.

Cheap Shot

Howard Kurtz of the Washington Post took an unfair, or unbalanced shot at Teresa Heinz Kerry in Wednesday's Media Notes column. Kurtz reviewed a story on Heinz Kerry's taxes and said Fourteen point seven percent! Hey, I'd like to pay fourteen point seven percent. Where do I sign up?

Heinz Kerry paid a low rate of taxes because, as I understand it, much of her income came from in tax-exempt instruments, similar to Dick Cheney, which a co-worker acknowledged in the very last paragraph of his article.

Heinz Kerry's effective tax rate is similar to Vice President Cheney's. He and his wife, Lynne V. Cheney, reported an income of $1.9 million in taxable and nontaxable income for 2003 and paid $253,067 in taxes, an effective tax rate of 13.3%.

Hey, I make A LOT less than Cheney and I would love to pay only 13.3% in federal taxes. Both Heinz Kerry and Cheney use tax-exempt vehicles to lower their taxes. Is that right? I don’t know, but in a highly political season I do know it is unfair to take a shot at the wife of a candidate while not taking a shot at the candidate’s opponent (running mate) who is doing the same thing.

Granted this is a minor point but Kerry’s campaign seems to be defined by the media by these types of comments. Just look at the results of the University of Pennsylvania's National Annenberg recent election survey which showed that 56% believe Mr. Kerry "voted for higher taxes 350 times" and 46%, including a majority of independents, agree that "John Kerry wants to raise gasoline taxes by 50 cents a gallon."

This leads to mischaracterization by people, as shown in In Ohio, Building a Political Echo by John Harris. Throwaway statements like Kurtz's can contribute to people’s views of Heinz Kerry without considering she is no different than Dick Cheney. The same thing happened on weapons systems as Kerry got criticized for having similar views as Cheney.

The release the White House used on Cheney’s returns got the press to compare his taxable income (instead of overall income) to taxes paid. Maybe that should have been the gist of his item, that the GOP, through a limited news release, was able to get the media to downplay Cheney’s low taxes while the Democrats, through a large release of information made Heinz Kerry look like she didn’t pay much taxes.

The 2004 election has become so heated as it is a continuation of the 2000 election and it’s long way to November but it’s unfair just to criticize one party and not the other for doing the same thing.

Who really needs to resign?

During the discussions today on the alleged abuses of Iraqi prisoners there was a suggestion that if the Congress doesn't get the answers it wants it may ask for resignations, including that of Secretary of Defense Donald Rumsfield.

Throughout the Bush administration there has been a continual series of problems pop up, from lies about weapons of mass destructions, to disclosing the identity of a CIA operative, to harming the economy to benefit a small segment of society, yet the only one who has paid any price has been former Secretary of the Treasury Paul O'Neill. Yet reading his book makes one wonder if he got off lucky, getting to leave the insane asylum.

The person who seems to escape all judgment is George W. Bush and based on the scandals, perhaps he is the one who should resign. He was never elected and once the Supreme Court installed him, even though he lost by 500,000 votes, he has governed as if he won by 5 million votes, ignoring the public and thumbing his nose at the world.

It's time for Bush to go. And if he goes, Dick Cheney needs to go also. It's time to restore honor and dignity to the White House and even more important, it's important to restore America's honor. No longer should the world look with disgust and disdain at America.

The United States has always promoted ourselves as the "city on the hill," but the Bush Administrators is getting the world to think of us as the "thugs in the gutter."

My suggestion is that George Bush resigns and Dick Cheney names Al Gore as his Vice President and then Cheney resigns, fulfilling the wishes of the American public, as expressed at the voting booth in 2000.

Maybe then the world won't have such a poor view of America and it will give us a chance to make the world better AND safer.

The question he wouldn't answer

During his recent testimony before the September 11 commission George W. Bush apparently answered all the questions that were put to him. Except one, but then it apparently wasn't put to him by the Commission.

The question, why did he and Dick Cheney appear before the commission together? Bush was asked about it at his press conference, at a press gathering after the commission, and his spokesman was also asked about it, yet no one was quite able to answer.

All Bush was able to say was "If we had something to hide, we wouldn't have met with them in the first place." Previously at a press conference he said "because it's a good chance for both of us to answer questions that the 9/11 Commission is looking forward to asking us, and I'm looking forward to answering them."

Interesting possibly, but it doesn't answer why together. Oh, the comedians came up with suggested reasons (Bush is Cheney's puppet) and they wondered if Bush would show his independence by having Cheney drink a glass of water while Bush spoke.

But that's not to say Bush didn't take the meeting and the events of September 11 seriously. One commissioner, Jim Thompson, said "There was some laughter from time to time. The president is a bit of a tease."

In the end, the reason they testified together came out in a round about manner. In the press reports after the meeting it appears that Bush answered most of the questions and Cheney answered only a few. So if Bush didn't want Cheney, who was probably the leader behind the war, to testify, the way to accomplish that goal was to testify together. And with most of the commission wanting primarily to talk to Bush there would be little time or interest in talking to Cheney.

The panel met with former Gore for three hours in a private session. The also panel met with Clinton in private for three hours. So Gore and Clinton each testified for three hours a piece and didn't need to hold each other's hands, but then they weren't hiding anything.