The official merchandise Web site for President Bush's reelection campaign has sold clothing made in Burma, whose goods were banned by Bush from the United States last year to punish its military dictatorship.... The merchandise includes a $49.95 fleece jacket, embroidered with the Bush-Cheney '04 logo, bearing a label stating it was made in Burma.

More lies from the regime:
Spokesman Scott McCormack told The New York Times's Philip Shenon that "we actively pursued the Clinton administration's policies on al-Qaeda until we could get into place a more comprehensive policy," seemingly conceding that Clinton had an appropriate strategy. Last week National Security Adviser Condoleezza Rice took a slightly different line, telling CNN that Clinton's policies are "what led to September 11."

Mr. Clarke is a nonpartisan professional who has devoted his life to national security, serving four Presidents of both parties during a distinguished public career that spanned 30 years. Unlike most of those who have rushed to criticize him, he rose to the highest levels of government strictly on merit rather than family or political  connections. His devotion to duty and his qualifications in his field may be measured by his role on Sept. 11, 2001. He ran the ituation Room in the hours immediately after the attacks, while the President flew to Offutt Air Force Base and the Vice President sat in a fortified bunker; and when the White House was evacuated in fear of another suicidal crash assault, he stayed there to continue his work.
....
Vice President Dick Cheney proclaimed in May 2001 that he would undertake an immediate review of the nation s preparedness to deal with terrorism. As The Washington Post reported in January 2002, that review was postponed until after Sept. 11. The Vice President was busy meeting with energy lobbyists instead of responding to the urgent findings of the Hart-Rudman commission s crucial, multi-volume study of homeland insecurity.

The administration s attack squad should try to coordinate their stories more carefully, since their initial salvos contradict each other. Mr. Cheney says that Mr. Clarke "wasn t in the loop, frankly, on a lot of this stuff," and suggests that he had left his job as the counterterror chief before 9/11. Yet the official White House response to his book states that Mr. Clarke "continued, in the Bush Administration, to be the National Coordinator for Counterterrorism and the President s principal counterterrorism expert. He was expected to organize and attend all meetings of Principals and Deputies on terrorism. And he did."

Clarke began his testimony (before the 9/11 Commission) by offering the victims' family members a sincere and moving apology. "Those entrusted with protecting you, failed you," he said, his voice husky with emotion. "And I failed you. We tried hard, but that doesn't matter because we failed. I would ask, once all the facts are out, for your understanding and for your forgiveness." (source)

A previously forgotten report from April 2001 (four months before 9/11) shows that the Bush Administration officially declared it "a mistake" to focus "so much energy on Osama bin Laden." The report directly contradicts the White House's continued assertion that fighting terrorism was its "top priority" before the 9/11 attacks.   (source)

The Associated Press reported in 2002 that "President Bush's national security leadership met formally nearly 100 times in the months prior to the Sept. 11 attacks yet terrorism was the topic during only two of those sessions" (source)

"The only thing Republicans have to fear is the end of fear itself."  E. J. Dionne Jr.

 "The big question isn't about who you go to bed with, its about whether or not you have a job when you get up in the morning"  Al Sharpton

In December, President Bush's Commerce Department hosted workshops to train American companies in outsourcing and show them how to export jobs to China.   (Kerry speech)

Sign at an anti-war rally in Los Angeles:  Photographs of Bush and Vice President Dick Cheney with the words, ``Forget Janet Jackson's -- Expose the Real Boobs.''

All the American reporters are sporting the maple leaf--that is, when they aren't trying to disappear behind their newly purchased headscarves.
....
A quote from a Sadam hater (two of his brothers were killed by Sadam) AND a fromer supporter of the invasion:  "Paul Bremer has caused more damage than the war, because the bombs can damage a building but if you damage people there is no hope."
....
At the end of March, building on his Order 39 of last September, Bremer passed yet another law further opening up Iraq's economy to foreign ownership, a law that Iraq's next government is prohibited from changing under the terms of the interim constitution. Bremer also announced the establishment of several independent regulators, which will drastically reduce the power of Iraqi government ministries.
....
US engineers began construction on fourteen "enduring bases" in Iraq, capable of housing the 110,000 soldiers who will be posted here for at least two more years. Even though the bases are being built with no mandate from an Iraqi government, Brig. Gen. Mark Kimmitt, deputy chief of operations in Iraq, called them "a blueprint for how we could operate in the Middle East."

This very well written essay draws comparisons to the the Roman empire.  Some snippets:

The American Empire is in the grip of the idiot prince. But Bush the Younger doesn't have the heart of Claudius. He is a smirking and vindictive man, running on very bitter juices indeed. A sour little man of limited intellect and unbound ambition, primed with the pious rage of a dry drunk. Pretzel Boy....
...
The nation is ruled by corporate gangsters and the people who might do something about it are too dulled, overworked and panic-stricken to make a move to defend their rights. It's evidence that an extreme political degeneracy has set in, eating away at the great promise of this wrecked republic. The glory days are gone. Now the nation finds itself enshrouded in a kind of terminal entropy.
...
Like Caligula or Nero, George W. Bush is hardly competent to rule a global empire. The man proved incapable of being a figurehead for a dreadful baseball team or a minor league oil company, even when backed by his father's brawny political influence. As a micro-tycoon, everything Bush Jr. touched he bankrupted. It didn't take him long to A Midas in reverse. Others paid the bills and cleaned up the messes. Just as they did when he was a cheerleader at Andover and a coke-head at Yale.
...
Economists would call Bush a walking externality, leaving ruin in his in wake, as he prances away from one pile-up after another. His pampered psyche, pumping with narcissism and insecurity, would be all too familiar to both Freud and Suetonius. He fits an old and dangerous profile. The princeling reared by a remote and icy father and a overbearing mother, the grotesque Barbara Bush: our Livia Drusilla, the murderous harridan of the Roman Imperium. Bush can seem like a clown, but you laugh at his antics at your own peril. He is no Dan Quayle, an affable imbecile. This thin-skinned president holds grudges, settles scores. You're either with me or against me. Welcome to Bush's bifurcated world. And god help you if you fall on the other side.
...
We've entered a new era where corruption is a game of state and the mainstream media tags dutifully along because if they play it right they can make out in the great game, too.
The game is rigged, of course. The house always wins. But the foundation of the house is cracking. Soon it may all come down like Poe's House of Usher.
Our times call out for a new Poe. Someone to put the everyday horrors in a historical context. Someone to write it all up with a kind of savage grace that cuts through the narcotized fog that enshrouds most Americans. Someone to scare the shit out of us.

On the terrorism front, here's one story that deserves special mention. One of the few successful post-9/11 terror prosecutions -- a case in Detroit -- seems to be unraveling. The government withheld information from the defense, and witnesses unfavorable to the prosecution were deported (by accident, the government says). After the former lead prosecutor complained about the Justice Department's handling of the case, he suddenly found himself facing an internal investigation -- and someone leaked the fact that he was under investigation to the press.

Where will it end? In his new book, "Worse Than Watergate," John Dean, of Watergate fame, says, "I've been watching all the elements fall into place for two possible political catastrophes, one that will take the air out of the Bush-Cheney balloon and the other, far more disquieting, that will take the air out of democracy."

The retaliation from those around the President has been fierce. Mr. Clarke's personal motives have been questioned and his honesty challenged. He has even been accused, right here on the Senate floor, of perjury. Not one shred of proof was given, but that wasn't the point. The point was to have the perjury accusation on television and in the newspapers. The point was to damage Mr. Clarke in any way possible.

This is wrong–and it's not the first time it's happened.
When Senator McCain ran for President, the Bush campaign smeared him and his family with vicious, false attacks. When Max Cleland ran for reelection to this Senate, his patriotism was attacked. He was accused of not caring about protecting our nation -- a man who lost both legs and an arm in Vietnam, accused of being indifferent to America's national security. That was such an ugly lie, it's still hard to fathom almost two years later.

There are some things that simply ought not be done – even in politics. Too many people around the President seem not to understand that, and that line has been crossed. When Ambassador Joe Wilson told the truth about the Administration's misleading claims about Iraq, Niger, and uranium, the people around the President didn't respond with facts. Instead, they publicly disclosed that Ambassador Wilson's wife was a deep-cover CIA agent. In doing so, they undermined America's national security and put politics first. They also may well have put the lives of Ambassador Wilson's wife, and her sources, in danger.

When former Treasury Secretary Paul O'Neill revealed that the White House was thinking about an Iraq War in its first weeks in office, his former colleagues in the Bush Administration ridiculed him from morning to night, and even subjected him to a fruitless federal investigation.

When Larry Lindsay, one of President Bush's former top economic advisors, and General Eric Shinseki, the former Army Chief of Staff, spoke honestly about the amount of money and the number of troops the war would demand, they learned the hard way that the White House doesn't tolerate candor.

The common denominator is that these government officials said things the White House didn't want said.

If it takes intimidation to keep inconvenient facts from the American people, the people around the President don't hesitate. Richard Foster, the chief actuary for Medicare, found that out. He was told he'd be fired if he told the truth about the cost of the Administration's prescription drug plan.

Dryly entitled "An Abrupt Climate Change Scenario and Its Implications for U.S. National Security" (October 2003), the Pentagon report first appeared in the British press, Fortune magazine, a small number of American newspapers and then began circulating on the Internet.

The report, however, reads like the script for a horror flick. "The purpose of this report," they begin, "is to imagine the unthinkable." To accomplish this goal, they "interviewed leading climate-change scientists."

Extrapolating from the present, they predict that dramatic climate changes may lead to rising seas, mega-droughts and famine within 20 years. Some European coastal cities, such as The Hague, could sink under the ocean, Britain could be plunged into a semi-Siberian climate, Bangladesh could become uninhabitable and drought could destroy the American breadbasket.

"To say that the [Bush-Cheney] secret presidency is undemocratic is an understatement," he adds. "I'm anything but skittish about government, but I must say this administration is truly scary and, given the times we live in, frighteningly dangerous."
...
I quote Cheney from his time in the Ford White House when he said, "Principle is okay up to a certain point, but principle doesn't do any good if you lose." I think this statement sums up Cheney's thinking nicely.
...
Bush and Cheney have exploited terrorism ever since 9/11. Now they are exploiting it to get reelected. Should there be an even more serious threat, they have found that when Americans are frightened they can be governed like sheep, which suits Bush and Cheney perfectly. Rather than taking the terror out of terrorism by educating and informing Americans, they have sought to make terrorism as frightening as possible -- using terrorism to launch a war of aggression that is breeding a new generation of terrorists and getting the Congress to pass the most repressive new laws imaginable and calling it an act of patriotism.

The images beamed around the world Wednesday of enraged Iraqis in Fallujah celebrating over the mutilated corpses of American paramilitary operatives were horrific. But it must not for a moment be forgotten that they are the product of an horrific, illegal colonial war. History is replete with examples of occupied peoples, in the face of the systematic brutality and overwhelming military superiority of foreign invaders, giving vent to their indignation and outrage in such acts of retribution.

No one has less of a right to adopt a posture of moral superiority than those in the American political establishment, military brass and media who are responsible for the brutalization of an entire society, carried out for the most crass and sordid economic and political ends. The US takeover of Iraq is, in every sense, a criminal enterprise. Everything connected to it is foul and degrading. It marks one of the most shameful chapters in the history of the United States.

Only eight months ago, it should be recalled, the US government published photos and video clips of the dead, bullet-riddled bodies of Saddam Hussein's sons, Uday and Qusay, two days after American soldiers had gunned them down. In that case, there was nothing spontaneous about the gruesome spectacle. It was a calculated and premeditated attempt to intimidate and demoralize Iraqi opponents of the US occupation.

My, but things are looking bad for Shrub when a main-line news mag. like Newsweek runs an article like this:

This was the week the curtain got pulled back on the Bush presidency. In exchange for allowing Condoleezza Rice to testify under oath, President Bush gets to bring along his vice president when he appears  privately before the commission.

A top Republican strategist dubbed the legal document striking the unusual deal "the Wizard of Oz letter" because it strips away the myth that Bush is in charge. Until now, it's been all speculation about Vice President Cheney's influence. With the revelation of the tandem testimony, nobody with a straight face can deny Cheney is a co-president or worse, the puppeteer who pulls Bush's strings.

Aside from being fodder for the late-night comics, the arrangement confirms Bush's inability to articulate anything without a script--or a tutor by his side. There's a reason  lawyers don't take testimony in groups. The whole idea is to get individual recollections and then compare stories to uncover contradictions.  Try thinking about it this way: can anyone imagine Bush's father in a similar situation bringing his vice president? (Dan Quayle)
......
This is a defining moment in the Bush presidency because it reveals weakness at the top.
......
At the center is an incurious president who is so inarticulate that he can't be left on his own to make a sustained argument on behalf of his policies without falling back on rehearsed talking points and sound bites.

Last month, on its anti-terrorism Web site, the Pentagon posted a plea for volunteers to serve on the draft boards and appeals boards that will decide whether men (current draft law does not affect women) can get deferments or exemptions. The law created the boards as an insurance policy, in case of an emergency need for more troops....  When the appeal created a flurry of stories, the Pentagon quickly took it off the Web.

Israeli military historian Aryeh Yitzakhi notes that Zionism's modus operandi throughout 1948 was "indiscriminate killings, massacres and rapes." Ilan Pappe, an Israeli historian who advocates divestment, has unearthed evidence of more and more Israeli massacres committed in 1948. Facing expulsion from Haifa University, he remains determined to "break the mirror that shows [Israelis] a superior moral body. They must replace it with one that exposes the crimes that theyare committing against humanity and the Palestinian people."

We can also cite the testimony of several hundred Israeli soldiers who have witnessed Israel's Iron Wall firsthand. 494 Israeli army reservists now refuse to serve in the Occupied Territories, unwilling to take part in "the missions of occupation and oppression" or to "dominate, expel, starve and humiliate an entire people." Some of these men have described the actions which convinced them to refuse, such as dragging crying children out of their beds before destroying their home because of an 'illegal' balcony. Other soldiers have described the occupation in terms of 'A Nation of Slaves' controlled by 'A Nation of Masters', as "a colonial war," consisting of "rape" and "the theft of Palestinian land."

According to a significant section of Jewish and Israeli intellectuals, scholars, and soldiers, then, the Palestinian people have been brutalized for over fifty years by Zionist expulsion and occupation. Naturally, this fails to impress our esteemed pro-Israeli colleagues, who insist on invoking the specter of anti-Semitism in order to cover up Israeli crimes with what we can now clearly identify as a case of extreme denial.
....
On October 7th, 40 Israeli tanks, backed up by troops, and helicopters started "shelling houses on the main street" in Khan Younis, killing 17 Palestinians. Soon afterwards, the IDF shot up the hospital where the wounded had been taken, injuring "a 14 year-old boy in the neck and a paramedic struck in the chest." On October 13th, the IDF gunned down a 60 year-old Palestinian woman in front of her house in Nablus. On October 17th, 8 Palestinians died as Israeli tanks fired into the Rafah refugee camp in the Gaza Strip. At the same camp on the same day, the IDF demolished several houses in order to eliminate a weapons tunnel, killing a 3 year-old who was crushed in the debris. On October 6th, Israeli courts upheld an army order to demolish 120 newly-built Palestinian homes near Bethlehem; the low-income families from the Greek Orthodox Church, who had spent years saving up for the construction costs, pointed out nearby settlements as the culprit.
....
The political implications of this trend stretch to the highest echelons of power. Kathleen Christison, a former CIA analyst, notes, "it's safe to say Christian fundamentalism has an influence on the administration and specifically with regard to the Israeli-Palestinian conflict," and cites the rabidly pro-Israeli Defense Department heads as evidence. The links between our 'victimized' Zionists and the world's greatest purveyors of violence (exposed by Jason Vest of The Nation) prove most intriguing. A hard-line Zionist military think tank, the Jewish Institute for National Security Affairs, wields enormous power among the neoconservative heads of American war planning. JINSA's board of advisors once included current Vice President Dick Cheney and still has former Director of Central Intelligence James Woolsey at its side; it grooms similar American military leaders by sponsoring trips to meet Israel's own army heads. JINSA's grand vision of destroying the governments of the entire Middle East and occupying the whole region is prevalent among the war-mongers, and the Pentagon's Defense Policy Board is headed by a JINSA member, Richard Perle. JINSA also has crucial ties to the military industry, counting among its distinguished members former advisors and executives for Northrop Grumman, General Dynamics and Israeli Aircraft Industries.

The administration argument that it had only gotten intelligence about  potential terrorist attacks abroad in the summer of 2001 was rather drastically undermined when Ms. Rice revealed, under questioning, that the briefing given Mr. Bush by the C.I.A. on Aug. 6, 2001, was titled "Bin Laden Determined to Attack Inside the United States." Ms. Rice continues to insist that the information was "historical" rather than a warning of something likely to occur. The briefing memo has been withheld from the public, but the White House is doing the right thing in rethinking that position. It should also rethink the president's insistence on answering the committee's questions only briefly, in private and -- most strangely -- only in the company of Vice President Dick Cheney.

CLAIM: "I do not remember any reports to us, a kind of strategic warning, that planes might be used as weapons." [responding to Kean]

FACT: Condoleezza Rice was the top National Security official with President Bush at the July 2001 G-8 summit in Genoa. There, "U.S. officials were warned that Islamic terrorists might attempt to crash an airliner" into the summit, prompting officials to "close the airspace over Genoa and station antiaircraft guns at the city's airport." [Sources: Los Angeles Times, 9/27/01; White House release, 7/22/01]

CLAIM: "I was certainly not aware of [intelligence reports about planes as missiles] at the time that I spoke" in 2002. [responding to Kean]

FACT: While Rice may not have been aware of the 12 separate and explicit warnings about terrorists using planes as weapons when she made her denial in 2002, she did know about them when she wrote her March 22, 2004 Washington Post op-ed. In that piece, she once again repeated the claim there was no indication "that terrorists were preparing to attack the homeland using airplanes as missiles." [Source: Washington Post, 3/22/04]

CLAIM: There was "nothing about the threat of attack in the U.S." in the Presidential Daily Briefing the President received on August 6th. [responding to Ben Veniste]

FACT: Rice herself confirmed that "the title [of the PDB] was, 'Bin Laden Determined to Attack Inside the United States.'" [Source: Condoleezza Rice, 4/8/04]

CLAIM: "One of the problems was there was really nothing that look like was going to happen inside the United States...Almost all of the reports focused on al-Qaida activities outside the United States, especially in the Middle East and North Africa...We did not have...threat information that was in any way specific enough to suggest something was coming in the United States." [responding to Gorelick]

FACT: Page 204 of the Joint Congressional Inquiry into 9/11 noted that "In May 2001, the intelligence community obtained a report that Bin Laden supporters were planning to infiltrate the United States" to "carry out a terrorist operation using high explosives." The report "was included in an intelligence report for senior government officials in August [2001]." In the same month, the Pentagon "acquired and shared with other elements of the Intelligence Community information suggesting that seven persons associated with Bin Laden had departed various locations for Canada, the United Kingdom, and the United States." [Sources: Joint Congressional Report, 12/02]

CLAIM: "If we had known an attack was coming against the United States...we would have moved heaven and earth to stop it." [responding to Roemer]

FACT: Rice admits that she was told that "an attack was coming." She said, "Let me read you some of the actual chatter that was picked up in that spring and summer: Unbelievable news coming in weeks, said one. Big event -- there will be a very, very, very, very big uproar. There will be attacks in the near future." [Source: Condoleezza Rice, 4/8/04]

CLAIM: "The Vice President was, a little later in, I think, in May, tasked by the President to put together a group to look at all of the recommendations that had been made about domestic preparedness and all of the questions associated with that." [responding to Fielding]

FACT: The Vice President's task force never once convened a meeting. In the same time period, the Vice President convened at least 10 meetings of his energy task force, and six meetings with Enron executives. [Source: Washington Post, 1/20/02; GAO Report, 8/03]

CLAIM: "The CSG (Counterterrorism Security Group) was made up of not junior people, but the top level of counterterrorism experts. Now, they were in contact with their principals." [responding to Fielding]

FACT: "Many of the other people at the CSG-level, and the people who were brought to the table from the domestic agencies, were not telling their principals. Secretary Mineta, the secretary of transportation, had no idea of the threat. The administrator of the FAA, responsible for security on our airlines, had no idea." [Source: 9/11 Commissioner Jamie Gorelick, 4/8/04]

CLAIM: "The decision that we made was to, first of all, have no drop-off in what the Clinton administration was doing, because clearly they had done a lot of work to deal with this very important priority." [responding to Kean]

FACT: Internal government documents show that while the Clinton Administration officially prioritized counterterrorism as a "Tier One" priority, but when the Bush Administration took office, top officials downgraded counterterrorism. As the Washington Post reported, these documents show that before Sept. 11 the Bush Administration "did not give terrorism top billing." Rice admitted that "we decided to take a different track" than the Clinton Administration in protecting America. [Source: Internal government documents, 1998-2001; Washington Post, 3/22/04; Rice testimony, 4/8/04]

CLAIM: The Bush Administration has been committed to the "transformation of the FBI into an agency dedicated to fighting terror." [responding to Kean]

FACT: Before 9/11, Attorney General John Ashcroft de-emphasized counterterrorism at the FBI, in favor of more traditional law enforcement. And according to the Washington Post, "in the early days after the Sept. 11, 2001, attacks, the Bush White House cut by nearly two-thirds an emergency request for counterterrorism funds by the FBI, an internal administration budget document shows." And according to a new report by the Congressional Research Service, "numerous confidential law enforcement and intelligence sources who challenge the FBI's claim that it has successfully retooled itself to gather critical intelligence on terrorists as well as fight crime." [Source: Washington Post, 3/22/04; Congressional Quarterly, 4/6/04]

CLAIM: "The FBI issued at least three nationwide warnings to federal, state and law enforcement agencies and specifically stated that, although the vast majority of the information indicated overseas targets, attacks against the homeland could not be ruled out. The FBI tasked all 56 of its U.S. field offices to increase surveillance of known suspects of terrorists and to reach out to known informants who might have information on terrorist activities." [responding to Gorelick]

FACT: The warnings are "feckless. They don't tell anybody anything. They don't bring anyone to battle stations." [Source: 9/11 Commissioner Jamie Gorelick, 4/8/04]

CLAIM: "I think that having a Homeland Security Department that can bring together the FAA and the INS and Customs and all of the various agencies is a very important step." [responding to Hamilton]

FACT: The White House vehemently opposed the creation of the Department of Homeland security. Its opposition to the concept delayed the creation of the department by months.

CLAIM: "We have created a threat terrorism information center, the TTIC, which does bring together all of the sources of information from all of the intelligence agencies -- the FBI and the Department of Homeland Security and the INS and the CIA and the DIA -- so that there's one place where all of this is coming together." [responding to Fielding]

FACT: "Knowledgeable sources complain that the president's new Terrorist Threat Integration Center, which reports to CIA Director George Tenet rather than to Ridge, has created more of a moat than a bridge. The ability to spot the nation's weakest points was going to make Homeland Security different, recalled one person involved in the decision to set up TTIC. But now, the person said, 'that whole effort has been gutted by the White House creation of TTIC, [which] has served little more than to give the appearance of progress.'"  [Source: National Journal, 3/6/04]
IRAQ-9/11

CLAIM: "There was a discussion of Iraq. I think it was raised by Don Rumsfeld. It was pressed a bit by Paul Wolfowitz."

FACT: Rice's statement confirms previous proof that the Administration was focusing on Iraq immediately after 9/11, despite having no proof that Iraq was involved in the attack. Rice's statement also contradicts her previous denials in which she claimed "Iraq was to the side" immediately after 9/11. She made this denial despite the President signing "a 2-and-a-half-page document marked 'TOP SECRET'" six days after 9/11 that "directed the Pentagon to begin planning military options for an invasion of Iraq." [Source: Condoleezza Rice, 3/22/04, 3/22/04; Washington Post, 1/12/03]

CLAIM: "Given that this was a global war on terror, should we look not just at Afghanistan but should we look at doing something against Iraq?"

FACT: The Administration has not produced one shred of evidence that Iraq had an operational relationship with Al Qaeda, or that Iraq had anything to do with the 9/11 attacks on America. In fact, a U.S. Army War College report said that the war in Iraq has been a diversion that has drained key resources from the more imminent War on Terror. Just this week, USA Today reported that "in 2002, troops from the 5th Special Forces Group who specialize in the Middle East were pulled out of the hunt for Osama bin Laden in Afghanistan to prepare for their next assignment: Iraq." Sen. Bob Graham (D-FL) confirmed this, noting in February of 2002, a senior military commander told him "We are moving military and intelligence personnel and resources out of Afghanistan to get ready for a future war in Iraq." [Sources: CNN, 1/13/04; USA Today, 3/28/04; Sen. Bob Graham (D-FL), 3/26/04]

CLAIM: After 9/11, "the President put states on notice if they were sponsoring terrorists."

FACT: The President continues to say Saudi Arabia is "our friend" despite their potential ties to terrorists. As the LA Times reported, "the 27 classified pages of a congressional report about Sept. 11 depict a Saudi government that not only provided significant money and aid to the suicide hijackers but also allowed potentially hundreds of millions of dollars to flow to Al Qaeda and other terrorist groups through suspect charities and other fronts." Just this week, Newsweek reported "within weeks of the September 11 terror attacks, security officers at the Fleet National Bank in Boston had identified 'suspicious' wire transfers from the Saudi Embassy in Washington that eventually led to the discovery of an active Al Qaeda 'sleeper cell' that may have been planning follow-up attacks inside the United States." [Source: LA Times, 8/2/03; CNN, 11/23/02; Newsweek, 4/7/04]

The Department of Agriculture refused yesterday to allow a Kansas beef producer to test all of its cattle for mad cow disease, saying such sweeping tests were not scientifically warranted.

The producer, Creekstone Farms Premium Beef, wanted to use recently approved rapid tests so it could resume selling its fat-marbled black Angus beef to Japan, which banned American beef after a cow slaughtered in Washington State last December tested positive for mad cow. The company has complained that the ban is costing it $40,000 a day and forced it to lay off 50 employees.
....
"It is ironic in the extreme that an administration that's so interested in letting industry come up with its own solutions would come down with a heavy government hand on a company that's being creative," said Dr. Peter Lurie, deputy director of the health research group at Public Citizen, a frequent food industry critic.
....
Gary Weber of the cattlemen's association called 100 percent testing misleading to consumers because it would create a false impression that untested beef was not safe. He compared it to demanding that all cars be crash tested to prove they are safe....
Asked if beef producers did not want to be pressured to imitate Creekstone and pay for more tests, Mr. Weber said it was "absolutely not about the money."

Accordingly, Bushistas are arrogant and supremely sure of themselves. It is an unusually myopic opponent who fails to recognize these qualities as acute vulnerabilities. Arrogant and inflexible individuals can be led to their downfall. "Pride goeth before the fall."

An inability to publicly admit error, combined with a readiness to blame others. Remember Bush's mangled aphorism: "fool me once, shame on you - fool me, you can't get fooled again." The correct completion, of course, is "fool me twice, shame on me." Mark Crispin Miller suggests that this flub reveals a deep moral defect in George Bush: an inability to acknowledge, and thus to articulate, personal error. Instead, blame is attached to any available individual - such as Richard Clarke, Paul O'Neill, and perpetually, Bill and Hillary Clinton. "The buck" flows unimpeded through and past the Oval Office. Buck-passing is not an endearing quality among the general public, which appreciates heart-felt apologies. Witness the public response to Richard Clarke's apology before the 9/11 Commission.

Bush and his coterie have a grotesque and cruel sense of humor. Consider Bush's performance while Governor of Texas, as he mimicked the pleas of the condemned Carla Faye Tucker: "Please don't kill me!" Consider too his skit this past month at the Correspondents Association dinner, at which he pretended to look under the desk and chairs of the Oval Office for the missing WMDs. At that dinner, The Nation correspondent, David Corn, reflected: "Over 500 Americans and literally countless Iraqis are dead because of a war that was supposedly fought to find weapons of mass destruction, and Bush is joking about it." Yet Bush, and astonishingly, most of the correspondents, somehow felt that this performance was funny.

Finally, the Bush regime displays traits that border on the sociopathic; they appear incapable of recognizing, much less caring about, the humanity of others, or of the pain that they cause these other human beings: the impoverished, the wage-earners who lose their jobs, the investors who lose their savings to corporate criminals . They will not count Iraqi casualties. Bush will not attend military funerals. The Bush policies betray little thought about the human costs of cutbacks in social services, or burdens placed upon future generations. Furthermore, the Bushistas apparently have a "tin ear" when it comes to anticipating the moral responses of others. Somehow, they failed to perceive the inappropriateness of using for political advantage an advertisement depicting scenes of the 9/11 "ground zero," including an image of a flag-draped body being carried out from the wreckage. When most of the public was properly offended, that political ad fell with a thud and was promptly withdrawn.

The above account describes the personal qualities of a group of individuals intellectually and morally unfit to lead a great nation. That unfitness is borne out by the disasters that have befallen and will yet befall this country and the unfortunate nations it has dealt with, as a consequence of the policies adopted and enacted by this regime.

The arrogance, dogmatism and cruelty of the Bush gang could prove to be their undoing. The Democrats might be well advised to tease, taunt and provoke the Bushistas to extreme and self- defeating behavior. More by accident than by design, arrogant excesses led to the downfall of Senator Joe McCarthy, Lyndon Johnson, and Richard Nixon. The decline and fall of these three were facilitated by the initiative of courageous individuals such as Edward R. Murrow, Daniel Ellsberg, and John Dean. Similarly, George Bush is not invulnerable, for Johnson and Nixon were both far more capable and intelligent politicians than Bush.

Here are some interesting thoughts based our Commamder-in-Chief's recent statement that marriage "must remain in its time-honored form, the form it has taken throughout all of human history".

Also, since the Presidential Prayer Team (Yes, we really do have one!) is currently urging us to: "Pray for the President as he seeks wisdom on how to legally codify the definition of marriage. Pray that it will be according to Biblical principles. With  many forces insisting on variant definitions of marriage, pray that God's Word and His standards will be honored by all Americans", lets keep marriage in its biblical form.

For example, this would be a truly Biblically-based, suitably abhorent, Constitutional Amendment:

A. Marriage in the United States shall consist of a  union between one man and one or more women. (Gen  29:16-28; II Sam 3:2-5)

B. Marriage shall not impede a man's right to take concubines, in addition to his wife or wives. (II Sam  5:13; I Kings 11:3; II Chron 11:21)

C. A marriage shall be considered valid only if the  wife is a virgin. If the wife is not a virgin, she shall be executed. (Deut 22:13-21)

D. Marriage of a believer and a non-believer shall be  forbidden. (Gen 24:3; Num 25:1-9; Ezra 9:12; Neh  10:30)

E. Since marriage is for life, neither this Constitution nor the constitution of any State, nor any state or federal law, shall be construed to permit divorce. (Deut 22:19; Mark 10:9 --  Jesus was very clear on this one)

F. If a married man dies without children, his brother shall marry the widow. If he refuses to marry his  brother's widow or deliberately does not give her children, he shall pay a fine of one shoe, and be otherwise punished in a manner to be determined by law. (Gen. 38:6-10; Deut 25:5-10)

G. In lieu of marriage, if there are no acceptable men in your town, it is required that you get your dad drunk and have sex with him (even if he had previously offered you up as a sex toy to men young and old), tag-teaming with any sisters you may have. Of course, this rule applies only if you are female. (Gen 19:31-36)

Lets pray that these goals will keep John Ashcroft busy with his bible and law books and out of our bedrooms.