Open thread

The Haggard story is over on Nightline. We'll switch this to an open thread.

And can I just say, oh what a difference a day makes. You'd have thought the Kerry snafu happened months ago, things have changed so much since then. Read the rest of this post...

Under pressure from congressional Republicans, Bush set up public Web site that included plans for making a nuke

Remember how the Republicans have always been trying to spend federal dollars on propaganda to convince the American public that the war in Iraq was really going well? Well, one of those projects, you may recall, was to publish tons of found Iraqi documents online so that the conservative blogosphere and conservative pundits could use the documents to bolster the pro-war effort at home.

Well, in the Republicans' zeal to push their propaganda campaign against the American people they published the plans for making an atomic bomb.

But in recent weeks, the site has posted some documents that weapons experts say are a danger themselves: detailed accounts of Iraq’s secret nuclear research before the 1991 Persian Gulf war. The documents, the experts say, constitute a basic guide to building an atom bomb....

One diplomat said the agency’s technical experts “were shocked” at the public disclosures.

The documents, roughly a dozen in number, contain charts, diagrams, equations and lengthy narratives about bomb building that nuclear experts who have viewed them say go beyond what is available on the Internet and in other public forums. For instance, the papers give detailed information on how to build nuclear firing circuits and triggering explosives, as well as the radioactive cores of atom bombs.

“For the U.S. to toss a match into this flammable area is very irresponsible,” said A. Bryan Siebert, a former director of classification at the federal Department of Energy, which runs the nation’s nuclear arms program. “There’s a lot of things about nuclear weapons that are secret and should remain so.”

But what's worse, the Bush administration had been warned about this site last week and refused to shut it down. It was only after the New York Times called last night that Bush finally pulled the plug.

Officials of the International Atomic Energy Agency, fearing that the information could help states like Iran develop nuclear arms, had privately protested last week to the American ambassador to the agency, according to European diplomats who spoke on condition of anonymity because of the issue’s sensitivity.

I've got a question for every Republican member of Congress on the campaign trail. Were you involved in this plan to propagandize to the American people that was so shoddy, so forced, so haphazardly thrown together that you gave al Qaeda and every other bad guy the plans for how to nuke New York?

Of course, we won't ever have any hearings on this issue, or find out what went wrong, because the Republicans control Congress and they don't hold the Bush administration accountable. They simply pressure Bush to literally hand Al Qaeda and Iran the plans for making a nuclear bomb.

In any case, Marilyn Musgrave says gay marriage is a bigger issue than terrorists getting nukes, so I guess we shouldn't care. Read the rest of this post...

Open thread

Great concept. 100 bucks if you can read all the names of the corrupt Republicans in one breath.

Read the rest of this post...

Top political pundit predicts Dems. will take House AND Senate

CNN reported tonight that Stuart Rothenberg, a top non-partisan political pundit, was now predicting that the Democrats would take both the House AND the Senate.

The projections from the Rothenberg Political Report:

House:

Democratic gain of 34-40 seats.

Senate:

Democratic gains of 5-7 seats, and state and national dynamics favor Democrats netting six seats and winning control.

Read the rest of this post...

Disgraced evangelical leader, accused of paying gay hooker for 3 years, lectures against homosexuality

Oh, it's good. From Jesus Camp, the movie.



After having watched this snippet, I just had to whip this up:

Read the rest of this post...

Interview last night with Haggard, evangelical leader embroiled in gay hooker scandal - not exactly the most convincing denial

He compares himself to John Kerry. Then at the end of the interview talks about what happens if the church investigation finds that the allegations are true. Why would you even say something like that if the allegations are bull?

Watch the video here. Read the rest of this post...

Gay hooker scandal brings down "most important evangelical, period"

Just who is Ted Haggard, the man who today was forced to resign as the head of the National Association of Evangelicals after being accused of having a 3 year sexual relationship with a gay male hooker?

Salon's "War Room" answers that for us:

We asked for an explanation from Salon's Lauren Sandler, the author of "Righteous: Dispatches From the Evangelical Youth Movement." Here's what she tells us:

"Ted Haggard may not just be the most important evangelical you've never heard of, but the most important evangelical, period....

"Which is why it matters so that Haggard seems to have fallen. The Mark Foley scandal inspired plenty of people to question their devotion to the Republican Party. But Foley is a politician; most evangelicals would already suspect him of thinly cloaking his identity in a three-piece, pinstriped superego. Haggard, on the other hand, has always represented the real deal. He's the one John Wayne would have tapped for his posse. He's the one who represents most how deeply political this evangelical population can be, while always disdaining the notion of politics, always cleaving toward the ranch rather than the Hill.

"If that makes it sound like Haggard and Bush are peas in a pod, well, they are. Haggard participates -- or at least he did -- in weekly White House conference calls, and he and the president like to joke that the only thing they disagree on is what truck to drive.

"Haggard has been preaching against homosexuality with his typical charismatic fire-and-brimstone fervor ever since he founded New Life Church in Colorado Springs. Probably even before then. And if he's right that there is a special place in hell for gay fornicators and drug abusers -- not to mention for liars and charlatans -- I guess he knows where he's headed."

Read the rest of this post...

News Flash: Michael Steele admits he's a Republican

Living in DC, I've seen Michael Steele's ads hundreds of times. Never, ever, ever does he use the R-word. But today, just before 5 PM, in a live interview on CNN's Situation Room, Steele made a dramatic announcement:

Hi, I'm Michael Steele and I'm a Republican.

Steele finally admitted it. I had to replay it a couple times to be sure. That clip should be Ben Cardin's ad for the next five days. Read the rest of this post...

Sherwood timed payments to his former mistress to keep her quiet til after the election

The latest bombshell on the Don Sherwood affair from the Associated Press:

A Republican congressman accused of abusing his ex-mistress agreed to pay her about $500,000 in a settlement last year that contained a powerful incentive for her to keep quiet until after Election Day, a person familiar with the terms of the deal told The Associated Press.

Rep. Don Sherwood is locked in a tight re-election race against a Democratic opponent who has seized on the four-term congressman's relationship with the woman. While Sherwood acknowledged the woman was his mistress, he denied abusing her and said that he had settled her $5.5 million lawsuit on confidential terms.

The settlement, reached in November 2005, called for Cynthia Ore to be paid in installments, according to a person who spoke on condition of anonymity because the deal is confidential. She has received less than half the money so far, and will not get the rest until after the Nov. 7 election, the person said Thursday.

Sherwood may have succeeded in keeping the young woman quiet, but he is going to lose on November 7th. He is just one face of Republican family values in 2006.

You will recall that the President of the United States did a campaign event with Don Sherwood just a couple weeks ago. Read the rest of this post...

World may run out of seafood by 2048

Jesus Christ. Can we please - please - get a government in Washington that actually cares about something other than gay marriage and cutting taxes? This stuff is getting downright scary. Read the rest of this post...

Desperate candidates Musgrave (R-CO) and Smith (R-NE) snag last minute Bush visits

As desperation increases in the Republican former-strongholds of Colorado and Nebraska, Bush is visiting over the next few days to help beleagured House candidates Marilyn Musgrave in Colorado (running against Democrat Angie Paccione) and Adrian Smith in Nebraska (running against Democrat Scott Kleeb).

Great. I hope the press will ask Bush about the White House's weekly calls with Ted Haggard, a man accused of using meth and frequenting a gay male hooker. And I hope they'll be asking Marilyn Musgrave and Adrian Smith whether they agree with Mr. Bush that Donald Rumsfeld and Dick Cheney have done a "fantastic job." Read the rest of this post...

Respected pundit Larry Sabato: "In our years of publishing, we have never gazed into a stormier Crystal Ball"

Virginia political scientist, and renowned political pundit, Larry Sabato says the Republicans are in more trouble, well, than anyone in American history.

Five days out, let's rephrase the question this way: when's the last time a major political party has failed to capture a single House seat, Senate seat, or governorship of the opposing party in a federal election year?

We bet it's never happened before, and it certainly hasn't happened in the post-World War II era....

Yet look at our 2006 predictions: at this moment, the Crystal Ball cannot identify a single election for Senate, House or Governor in which a Republican is likely to succeed a Democrat in office. Just imagine how devastating an absolute shutout would be in the eyes of history if this proves to be true!

....If little changes between now and Tuesday, there remains little question that the GOP is headed towards devastating losses.

WAY more from Sabato here. Read the rest of this post...

The incredible shrinking Marilyn Musgrave

It seems that since she decided to run for re-election, Colorado GOP Representative Marilyn Musgrave (who is running against Democrat Angie Paccione) not only shed quite a few pounds, but her head actually grew skinnier and taller. At least that's what her constituents would glean from visiting her re-election home page.

Here is Musgrave's photo on her campaign Web site, all skinny and long-headed:



But compare that to the photo of Musgrave on her congressional home page:



And finally, here's a photo of Musgrave from July 2006:



What was that about bearing false witness? Read the rest of this post...

Dobson issues press release, repeating gay-hooker allegations against evangelical leader, in order to protest media publicizing gay hooker allegations

Uh, thanks Mr. Dobson, you just told even more people about the details of a story that you think the media shouldn't be sharing details of. And you wonder why you're losing.

(Dobson is probably the only other evangelical Christian leader as powerful as Ted Haggard, the guy alleged to have paid a gay hooker for sex for the past 3 years, and there are also allegations that Haggard used drugs - and I don't mean the Rush Limbaugh kind.) Read the rest of this post...

No, nothing gay there

Harper's description of Ted Haggard's church, park, or whatever:

The atrium is a soaring foyer adorned with the flags of the nations and guarded by another bronze warrior angel, a scowling, bearded type with massive biceps and, again, a sword. The angel's pedestal stands at the center of a great, eight-pointed compass laid out in muted red, white, and blue-black stone. Each point directs the eye to a contemporary painting, most depicting gorgeous, muscular men—one is a blacksmith, another is bound, fetish-style, in chains—in various states of undress. My favorite is The Vessel, by Thomas Blackshear, a major figure in the evangelical-art world.[2] Here in the World Prayer Center is a print of The Vessel, a tall, vertical panel of two nude, ample-breasted, white female angels team-pouring an urn of honey onto the shaved head of a naked, olive-skinned man below. The honey drips down over his slab-like pecs and his six-pack abs into the eponymous vessel, which he holds in front of his crotch. But the vessel can't handle that much honey, so the sweetness oozes over the edges and spills down yet another level, presumably onto our heads, drenching us in golden, godly love. Part of what makes Blackshear's work so compelling is precisely its unabashed eroticism; it aims to turn you on, and then to turn that passion toward Jesus.

Is it getting hot in here?

Read the rest of this post...

Gay hooker says he has voicemails, letter, from evangelical leader

From the Rocky Mountain News

Jones also said during his appearance with Boyles that he was paid money by Haggard, who made frequent trips to Denver for sexual liaisons, that he has recorded voicemails and a letter from Haggard, and that he had also witnessed Haggard use methamphetamine.

Jones offered to take a polygraph examination concerning his claim, and Boyles said that will occur Friday during his morning radio show.

Read the rest of this post...

President of National Association of Evangelicals accused of 3-year sexual relationship with gay hooker, and of taking drugs

UPDATE: This guy is reportedly as important as James Dobson:

The press tends to regard Dobson as the most powerful evangelical Christian in America, but Pastor Ted is at least his equal.

UPDATE: Here is how big this story is.

Christian evangelical leader Ted Haggard... one of the nation's most influential evangelical Christians, whose overstuffed agenda includes a weekly conference call to the White House.

He also claims to have direct access to George Bush:

"We have direct access," says Mr. Haggard, senior pastor of the giant New Life Church in Colorado Springs, Colo. "I can call [Mr. Goeglein], he'll take my concern to the president and get back to me in 24 hours."

And he's virulently anti-gay. This guy was on TIME's list of the 25 most influential evangelicals in America. It doesn't get any bigger than this. And he's from Colorado. Wonder what Marilyn Musgrave has to say about this?

From 9News in Denver:

A gay man and admitted male escort claims he has had an ongoing sexual relationship with a well-known Evangelical pastor from Colorado Springs.

Mike Jones told '9 Wants to Know' Investigative Reporter Paula Woodward he has had a "sexual business" relationship with Pastor Ted Haggard for the past three years.

Haggard is the founder and senior leader of the New Life Church in Colorado Springs. The church has 14,000 members.

He is also president of the National Association of Evangelicals, an organization that represents millions of people.

Haggard is married with five children and an outspoken critic of gay marriage....

Jones started talking to 9 Wants to Know two months ago. He claims Haggard has been paying him for sex over the past three years, even though Haggard preaches that homosexuality is a sin.

Jones also claims Haggard used methamphetamine in his presence on several occasions....

Former NBC News anchor Tom Brokaw profiled Haggard in 2005 in a series on mega-churches. Haggard was also listed by Time magazine as one of the 25 most influential Evangelicals in America last year.

9News also has their TV broadcast on this story online here. Read the rest of this post...

Dems. lead in 6 key Senate races

Reuters:

Democrats must gain six seats in Tuesday's election to win U.S. Senate control, and they lead in six of the seven most vulnerable Republican-held states, according to Reuters/Zogby polls released on Thursday.

Democrats lead Republican incumbents in Pennsylvania, Ohio, Missouri, Montana, Virginia and Rhode Island, but only the Rhode Island and Pennsylvania races are outside the poll's margin of error of plus or minus 4 percentage points.

Zogby's latest poll provides further confirmation that Missouri and Virginia have been trending in the right direction.

Keep an eye on Arizona, too. Yesterday Hotline on Call reported that the DSCC was going on the air in AZ:

As for the AZ race, our sources tell us that Republican Jon Kyl continues to hold a mid-to-high-single digit lead but Dems are enthused about their chances because Democrat Jim Pederson is apparently doing better in early voting than expected.

Read the rest of this post...

Sadr dictating U.S. military actions?

Following up on Joe's post, the events surrounding the search for a kidnapped U.S. soldier in Iraq are disturbing. Those who closely follow Iraq already know that Prime Minister Maliki is deeply indebted to radical cleric Moqtada al-Sadr, who has a tremendous populist following and also commands -- loosely -- the Mahdi Militia, but I think this is the first time that influence has exploded onto the national U.S. stage.

Iraq is run (and I'm using that word loosely, but bear with me) by Islamist Shia groups. The two most powerful parties are SCIRI and the Sadrists, the two Shia groups with the most parliamentary representatives. More importantly, each group has its own powerful armed group, SCIRI's Badr Corps and the aforementioned Mahdi Militia. Maliki was essentially a compromise, non-aligned choice, as neither group wanted a member of the other to be PM. Since his election, however, Maliki has been far more closely aligned with the priorities of Sadr than those of SCIRI (though both groups are fundamentalist).

With Sadr having a huge influence on policy as well as a militia that runs much of the country, including the vast Baghdad slum of Sadr City, which houses over 2 million of his followers, it was only a matter of time before U.S. policy went up against the rabidy anti-U.S. Sadrists.

This week, U.S. priorities appear to have lost, with Coalition forces pulling out of Sadr City after Sadr demanded a withdrawal and called for a general strike. We still have a missing soldier, which as far as I'm concerned is a national nightmare. It's hard for me to believe that before Sadr threw a tantrum it was important to look for the soldier in Sadr City -- but afterwards it wasn't. Read the rest of this post...

Bush made it clear: He's staying the course

According to the latest NY Times/CBS poll:

80 percent said Mr. Bush’s latest effort to rally public support for the [Iraq] conflict amounted to a change in language but not policy.

That is an astounding number. 80 percent. As evidenced by two interviews Bush gave yesterday, they're right.

In both interviews, the message from George Bush was simple: In Iraq, we're staying the course. He didn't use the phrase. He didn't have to. It was obvious. With Rush Limbaugh, he wanted to make sure the right wingers knew that his strategy was, in fact, stay the course:

With less than a week before the election, President Bush sought to rally Republican voters on Wednesday with a vigorous defense of the war in Iraq and a vow to keep Defense Secretary Donald H. Rumsfeld in office until the end of Mr. Bush’s term.

Mr. Bush appeared on Rush Limbaugh’s radio program, whose audience is a reservoir of conservative voters, to criticize Democrats as lacking a plan for victory in Iraq.

Bush reiterated that stay the course message with the Associated Press:

Bush credited Rumsfeld with overseeing wars in Iraq and Afghanistan while overhauling the military. "I'm pleased with the progress we're making," the president said.

Bush has never been honest with the American people about the war in Iraq. The American people have figured that out. But, Bush doesn't know the American people have figured it out, so he just keeps lying and spinning. No one has held Bush accountable. Five days til that changes. Read the rest of this post...

Thursday Morning Open Thread

No soldier left behind. That used to be America's policy. It was until this week when Al Sadr rolled over George Bush. Unbelievable. Bush and Cheney talk a lot about making sure America doesn't look weak. Guess what? The Bush team has made America look weak.

GOP House Majority Leader John Boehner showed his disdain for the soldiers on the ground yesterday. The GOP leadership will do anything to protect Bush and Rumsfeld from criticism over Iraq -- even if it means blaming our soldiers. Those are the same people that Bush and Rumsfeld regularly ignore, but it's all their fault. Boehner's comments showed why there has been no oversight of Iraq so far. And, there won't be if we don't change the course.

Five days.

Do everything you can between now and then to change the course. Read the rest of this post...

Who has done more to harm US troops?

It is amazing that the debate is even going on, but definitely consistent. It is not 2002, nor is it 2004 so I don't see people falling for this latest bait-and-switch by the White House. The fear card just doesn't have the same pull any longer and the country sees that it is Bush, Cheney and Rummy who have made a mess of Iraq. Read the rest of this post...

US privacy protections among lowest in democratic world

Mission Accomplished? What a legacy by the rubber-stamp Republican Congress. What is equally interesting, if not depressing, is the similar ranking of the UK in this report. Both Bush and Blair have strongly promoted Big Brother societies, all while playing the fear card and distorting the truth. Looking at this report also makes me wonder what happened to those old line conservatives of another era who used to fight against such surveillance. After the election it's going to be interesting to see how the battle between the old guard and the theocrats plays out.

Privacy International ranked 36 nations around the globe, including all European Union nations and other major democracies, and determined that in categories such as enforcement of privacy laws, the U.S. is on par with countries like China, Russia and Malaysia.

Overall, the U.S. was determined to be an "extensive surveillance society,Â? the second-lowest rating in the study.

The survey identified Malaysia, China and Russia as the worldÂ?s lowest-ranked countries in terms of privacy. It ranked Germany and Canada as those that best protect the privacy of their citizens.

The world must be thrilled to have this new-style American democracy being promoted.

"This is damning evidence that privacy is being destroyed by the very nations that proclaim to respect our rights," he said. "It is clear that there is a systemic failure of legal mechanisms to protect us against the emerging surveillance society. Those responsible for protecting our rights have failed to do so ... Australia, Britain and the United States have not only performed abysmally but they are embracing surveillance at an alarming speed."

Read the rest of this post...

Please read this

MSNBC's Keith Olbermann, this evening. It's long. And some of the best writing I've ever read. C&L; has the video and the transcript - here is the transcript:

And finally tonight, a Special Comment.

On the 22nd of May, 1856, as the deteriorating American political system veered towards the edge of the cliff, Congressman Preston Brooks of South Carolina, shuffled into the Senate of this nation, his leg stiff from an old dueling injury, supported by a cane. And he looked for the familiar figure of the prominent Senator from Massachusetts, Charles Sumner.

Brooks found Sumner at his desk, mailing out copies of a speech he had delivered three days earlier — a speech against slavery.

The Congressman matter-of-factly raised his walking stick in mid-air, and smashed its metal point, across the Senator's head.

Congressman Brooks hit his victim repeatedly. Senator Sumner somehow got to his feet and tried to flee. Brooks chased him, and delivered untold blows to Sumner's head. Even though Sumner lay unconscious and bleeding, on the Senate floor, Brooks finally stopped beating him, only because his cane finally broke.

Others will cite John Brown's attack on the arsenal at Harper's Ferry as the exact point after which the Civil War became inevitable.

In point of fact, it might have been the moment — not when Brooks broke his cane over the prostrate body of Senator Sumner - but when voters in Brooks's district started sending him new canes.

Tonight, we almost wonder to whom President Bush will send the next new cane.

There is tonight no political division in this country that he and his party will not exploit, nor have not exploited; no anxiety that he and his party will not inflame.

There is no line this President has not crossed — nor will not cross — to keep one political party, in power.

He has spread any and every fear among us, in a desperate effort to avoid that which he most fears — some check, some balance against what has become not an imperial, but a unilateral presidency.

And now it is evident that it no longer matters to him, whether that effort to avoid the judgment of the people, is subtle and nuanced — or laughably transparent.

Senator John Kerry called him out Monday.

He did it two years too late.

He had been too cordial — just as Vice President Gore had been too cordial in 2000 — just as millions of us, have been too cordial ever since.

Senator Kerry, as you well know, spoke at a college in Southern California. With bitter humor, he told the students that he had been in Texas the day before, that President Bush used to live in that state, but that now he lives in the state of denial.

He said the trip had reminded him about the value of education — that quote "if you make the most of it, you study hard, you do your homework, and you make an effort to be smart, you can do well. If you don't, you can get stuck in Iraq."

The Senator, in essence, called Mr. Bush stupid.

The context was unmistakable: Texas;the state of denial;stuck in Iraq. No interpretation required.

And Mr. Bush and his minions responded, by appearing to be too stupid to realize that they had been called stupid.

They demanded Kerry apologize — to the troops in Iraq.

And so he now has.

That phrase "appearing to be too stupid" is used deliberately, Mr. Bush.

Because there are only three possibilities here:

One, sir, is that you are far more stupid than the worst of your critics have suggested; that you could not follow the construction of a simple sentence; that you could not recognize your own life story when it was deftly summarized; that you could not perceive it was the sad ledger of your presidency that was being recounted.

This, of course, compliments you, Mr. Bush, because even those who do not "make the most of it," who do not "study hard," who do not "do their homework," and who do not "make an effort to be smart" might still just be stupid — but honest.

No; the first option, sir, is, at best, improbable. You are not honest.

The second option is that you and those who work for you deliberately twisted what Senator Kerry said to fit your political template. That you decided to take advantage of it, to once again pretend that the attacks, solely about your own incompetence, were in fact attacks on the troops — or even on the nation itself.

The third possibility is, obviously, the nightmare scenario; that the first two options are in some way conflated.

That it is both politically convenient for you, and personally satisfying to you, to confuse yourself with the country for which, sir, you work.

A brief reminder, Mr. Bush: You are not the United States of America.

You are merely a politician whose entire legacy will have been a willingness to make anything political — to have, in this case, refused to acknowledge that the insult wasn't about the troops, and that the insult was not even truly about you either — that the insult, in fact, is you.

So now John Kerry has apologized to the troops; apologized for the Republicans' deliberate distortions.

Thus the President will now begin the apologies he owes our troops, right?

This President must apologize to the troops — for having suggested, six weeks ago, that the chaos in Iraq, the death and the carnage, the slaughtered Iraqi civilians and the dead American service personnel, will, to history, quote "look like just a comma."

This President must apologize to the troops — because the intelligence he claims led us into Iraq proved to be undeniably and irredeemably wrong.

This President must apologize to the troops — for having laughed about the failure of that intelligence, at a banquet, while our troops were in harm's way.

This President must apologize to the troops — because the streets of Iraq were not strewn with flowers and its residents did not greet them as liberators.

This President must apologize to the troops — because his administration ran out of "plan" after barely two months.

This President must apologize to the troops — for getting 2,815 of them killed.

This President must apologize to the troops — for getting this country into a war without a clue.

And Mr. Bush owes us an apology… for this destructive and omnivorous presidency.

—

We will not receive them, of course.

This President never apologizes.

Not to the troops.

Not to the people.

Nor will those henchmen who have echoed him.

In calling him a "stuffed suit," Senator Kerry was wrong about the Press Secretary.

Mr. Snow's words and conduct — falsely earnest and earnestly false — suggest he is not "stuffed" - he is inflated.

And in leaving him out of the equation, Senator Kerry gave an unwarranted pass to his old friend Senator McCain, who should be ashamed of himself tonight.

He rolled over and pretended Kerry had said what he obviously had not.

Only, the symbolic stick he broke over Kerry's head came in a context, even more disturbing: Mr. McCain demanded the apology, while electioneering for a Republican congressional candidate in Illinois.

He was speaking of how often he had been to Walter Reed Hospital to see the wounded Iraq veterans, of how, quote "many of the have lost limbs." He said all this while demanding that the voters of Illinois reject a candidate who is not only a wounded Iraq veteran, but who lost two limbs there: Tammy Duckworth.

Support some of the wounded veterans. But bad-mouth the Democratic one.

And exploit all the veterans, and all the still-serving personnel, in a cheap and tawdry political trick, to try to bury the truth: that John Kerry said the President had been stupid.

And to continue this slander as late as this morning — as biased, or gullible, or lazy newscasters, nodded in sleep-walking assent.

Senator McCain became a front man in a collective lie to break sticks over the heads of Democrats — one of them his friend; another his fellow veteran, leg-less, for whom he should weep and applaud, or at minimum about whom, he should stay quiet.

That was beneath the Senator from Arizona.

And it was all because of an imaginary insult to the troops that his party cynically manufactured — out of a desperation, and a futility, as deep as that of Congressman Brooks, when he went hunting for Senator Sumner.

This, is our beloved country now, as you have re-defined it, Mr. Bush.

Get a tortured Vietnam veteran to attack a decorated Vietnam veteran, in defense of military personnel, whom that decorated veteran did not insult.

Or, get your henchmen to take advantage of the evil lingering dregs of the fear of miscegenation in Tennessee, in your party's advertisements against Harold Ford.

Or, get the satellites who orbit around you, like Rush Limbaugh, to exploit the illness — and the bi-partisanship — of Michael J. Fox — yes, get someone to make fun of the cripple.

Oh, and sir, don't forget to drag your own wife into it.

"It's always easy," she said of Mr. Fox's commercials — and she used this phrase twice — "to manipulate people's feelings."

Where on earth might the First Lady have gotten that idea, Mr. President?

From your endless manipulation of people's feelings about terrorism?

"How ever they put it," you said Monday of the Democrats, on the subject of Iraq , "their approach comes down to this: the terrorists win and America loses."

No manipulation of feelings there.

No manipulation of the charlatans of your administration into the only truth-tellers.

No shocked outrage at the Kerry insult that wasn't; no subtle smile as the First Lady silently sticks the knife in Michael J. Fox's back; no attempt on the campaign trail to bury the reality that you have already assured that the terrorists are winning.

Winning in Iraq, sir.

Winning in America, sir.

There, we have chaos: joint U.S./Iraqi checkpoints at Sadr City, the base of the radical Shiite militias — and the Americans have been ordered out by the Prime Minister of Iraq… and our Secretary of Defense doesn't even know about it!

And here — we have deliberate, systematic, institutionalized lying and smearing and terrorizing — a code of deceit, that somehow permits a President to say, quote, "If you listen carefully for a Democrat plan for success, they don't have one."

Permits him to say this while his plan in Iraq has amounted to a twisted version of the advice once offered to Lyndon Johnson about his Iraq, called Vietnam.

Instead of "declare victory — and get out"… we now have "declare victory — and stay, indefinitely."

And also here, we have institutionalized the terrorizing of the opposition. True domestic terror:

– Critics of your administration in the media receive letters filled with fake anthrax.

– Braying newspapers applaud, or laugh, or reveal details the FBI wished kept quiet, and thus impede or ruin the investigation.

– A series of reactionary columnists encourages treason charges against a newspaper that published "national security information" — that was openly available on the internet.

– One radio critic receives a letter, threatening the revelation of as much personal information about her as can be obtained — and expressing the hope that someone will then shoot her with an AK-47 machine gun.

– And finally, a critic of an incumbent Republican Senator, a critic armed with nothing but words, is attacked by the Senator's supporters, and thrown to the floor, in full view of television cameras, as if someone really did want to re-enact the intent and the rage of the day Preston Brooks found Senator Charles Sumner.

Of course, Mr. President, you did none of these things.

You instructed no one to mail the fake anthrax. Nor undermine the FBI's case. Nor call for the execution of the editors of the New York Times. Nor threaten to assassinate Stephanie Miller. Nor beat up a man yelling at Senator Allen. Nor have the first lady knife Michael J. Fox. Nor tell John McCain to lie about John Kerry.

No, you did not.

And the genius of the thing, is the same, as in King Henry's rhetorical question about Archbishop Thomas Becket: "Who will rid me of this meddlesome priest?"

All you have to do, sir… is hand out enough new canes. Read the rest of this post...