The Washington Examiner reports this gem -- not only is the Iraqi government withholding casualty figures but it is also detaining civilians there.  Given Laura Bush's sentiments, can we conclude this is being done to lessen the mental suffering of the American people about this war?

http://www.examiner....

BAGHDAD  - The Iraqi government withheld recent casualty figures from the United Nations, fearing they would be used to present a grim picture of Iraq that would undermine the coalition's security efforts, U.N. officials said Wednesday.

Working with its own figures, the U.N. released a new human rights report Wednesday saying that sectarian violence continued to claim the lives of a large number of Iraqi civilians in Sunni Arab and Shiite neighborhoods of Iraq's capital, despite the coalition's new Baghdad security plan. ***

The Iraqi government quickly responded by calling the U.N. report "inaccurate" and "unbalanced."

The U.N. Assistance Mission for Iraq report said civilian casualties in the daily violence between Jan. 1 and March 31 remained high, concentrated in and around Baghdad.

The agency also expressed concern about the treatment of detainees under the U.S.-Iraqi operation to pacify the capital, saying that families and other people often were randomly taken into custody, with more than 3,000 people in detention by the end of March.

For the first time, UNAMI said, its assessment of the human rights situation in Iraq did not contain overall death figures from the Iraqi government because it refused to release them, omitting what many had viewed as a rare, reliable indicator of suffering in Iraq.

I actually see nothing wrong here.  Other than our own CIA, the UN is the classic "gang that can't shoot straight" and nothing coming from them should have much credibility with anyone.  I think the Iraqi government was being kind calling them simply "inaccurate and unbalanced"  instead of fabricated conjecture as are almost every other UN finding with zero objectivity or intellectual rigor behind it.  I know some people want the US to subjugate ourselves to the UN's domination and control but this inept, corrupt little gaggle of thugs and dictators (52 from Islamic countries) are hardly the objective source we want to put our faith in.  They want nothing more than to raid the US Treasury with doing nothing themselves and these contracted UN hit pieces should be taken for the baseless, trumped up unattributed and unaccoiuntale tripe they are.  The Iraqi government was right not to add pure BS to the very serious debate. 

with comments like this: "I know some people want the US to subjugate ourselves to the UN's domination and control."  Oh yeah, millions of Americans want that, they're EVERYWHERE!!! :)

P.S. Maybe the same ones who are "wussified" by "liberalism," of whatever lunacy the right wing is spewing today?

Sorry for the expletive usage

And yes one can be critical of the UN, in a reasoned way, for many things.  But as I recall, it was a UN inspections team that, if it had been allowed to work, might have saved us from this horrible war (although Bush would have found another reason to invade).

Believe me, it's not like I don't feel like using it every time I see a comment by certain people, but I usually restrain myself. 

As far as criticizing the UN is concerned, I'd say we should refrain from casting stones until we are without sin (e.g., Iraq, extraordinary rendition, inaction on global warming...).

...UN teams Saddam's guys had chasing shadows and rumors for years?  Those same teams that had Iraqi agents on them tipping the government off to their every move?  Both Butler and Blix played footsie with the local thuggery and accomplished nothing in over 300 inspection visits.  Their teams were drawing fat UN paychecks (that you and I pay for) and had no incentive to do much of anything.  If the Oil for Food program alone doesn't demonstrate the UN's ineptness and corruption, then you simply can't be convinced.  I've worked most closely in the past with UNHCR and UNDP and the guys in UNOPS are really good at what they do...the development side of the house isn't bad.  Then there's almost everything else...you,re right.  I'm no fan.

assessments and actions have been versus the UN's.

a) "chasing shadows and rumors" - you mean like reports of WMDs, nuclear "aluminum tubes", impending "mushroom clouds", and hmmhmmhmmm ... yelllllooowwwcake uranium?

b) "footsie with local thuggery" - gotta admit it, our pet Iraqi thugs dressed much better than Saddam's.  Chalabi sure knows how to wear a nice suit when he's busy spending purloined foreign assets at local fine eateries, and everyone knows we only deal with honest, hard-working sheiks and tribal leaders, not those corrupt guys Saddam used to deal with. 

c)  "accomplished nothing in over 300 inspection visits" - you mean like in NOT finding WMD that turned out NOT to be there?  And we by contrast are accomplishing SOOO much more - we sure as hell have killed a lot more Iraqis and caused a lot more destruction than those 300 useless inspection visits.  Why I hear that not a single one of those visits ended in a single death - not even a teensie bit of collateral damage or one dead American soldier.  Useless.  Utterly useless!

d)  "If the Oil for Food program alone doesn't demonstrate the UN's ineptness and corruption, then you simply can't be convinced."  Really ... laughing this hard is going to make me split something.  Please stop.  If that's what Oil for Food does, then pray tell, what does the Halliburton/Iraqi contractor/320 tons of disappearing untraceable cash packed on pallets prove?  Our government's competence?  Oh, God, I really have to stop laughing.  I know, why don't I pause a minute and think of how much this war is costing our country and will end up costing my kids?  There, sobriety restored.

The fact that some folks at the UN tend to be a bit skeevy  - and my own experience was that it was much more the Washington and New York power guys rather than the folks in the field who fit this description - doesn't render the UN's assessment of the situation inaccurate or false, especially considering that the information appears to be coming from the folks in the field. 

...that pointing out the ineptness of the UN would be countered not with a defense of the UN but a little schoolyard "oh yeah, well Bush is worse" kind of nanny-nanny-boo-boo response?

a. Those reports Tweedledee and Tweedledum (Butler and Blix) were basing their actions on were the Iraqi's own reports they never verified.  The entire world believed it at the time.  Funny how hindsight is always so perfect. Glad you mentioned yellowcake:
http://www.powerline...

b. I'll pass on your respect for the Iraqi people on my next visit.

c. Yep, no American deaths (considering Saddam banned them from the inspection teams) but I didn't see where you believe Saddam wasn't also dumping political prisoners into mass graves during these stalling maneuvers.  Iraqi lives less important?

d. Ooooh , the Haliburton boogeyman!  We are talking about the company George Soros plopped a cool $62 million investment in, right?
http://blog.foreignp...

The cash was Iraqi cash, not US cash and was distributed in bulk to Shieks and village elders in the first two years to take the pressure off the Sunni handouts no longer being available.  It was theirs and they wanted it back.  I suppose we could have given them American Express traveler's cheques?
http://www.abcnews.g...

OK, the war is "costing" too much.  How much should it cost?  Was Korea too expensive?  Grenada?  Lebanon?  Somalia?  Ask a WWII vet how much the accountants said that war cost.  If peace, freedom and democracy become a "financial burden" do we just throw the white hanky up?  When you throw out bizarre declarations like "cost too much" don't you have an obligation to put a "proper" price tag on it?  What did 9/11 "cost" us in US dollars? I'm just guessing you won't have an answer to this one...no one ever does.

choosing instead to pretend that I was doing a tit-for-tat type of attack; but of course that's not what I was doing and you know it.  You have essentially asserted that the Iraqi government's claims in this context are more reliable or truthful than the UN claims.  When you do that you place the Iraqi government's credibility in play.  The rest of your comment was an itemized list of why the UN is so bad.  Well, two can play that game and I was just pointing up the absurdity of your position.  And really, the "bulk of the cash" was given to the Sunni sheiks?  I watched the hearings closely.  The fact is the guys handling the cash can't really say WHERE it went or WHO got it.  I'm thinking of the Mortuary Affairs Marine I talked to a couple years ago who'd worked Fallujah and told me that on many of the insurgent bodies they found hundreds of dollars in crisp American bills.  Yep, we got us some great loyalty for handing out all that cash. 

...if we don't connect non-existent dots.  I'm not surprised the mortuary affiars officer found american currency on thos bodies.  Was he expecting to find Mexican pesos?  Iraqi currency was worthless for years and even Saddam's cash was primarily US currency.  the cash he paid to hezzbollah suicide bomber families ($25,000 per household) was all in US currency.  The bribes he paid to the French and Russian businessmen were all in US currency.  The dollar was, and almsot still is, the "coin of the realm" and that terrorist could have gotten that cash from anywhere.  No one knows for sure since there's no possible or conceivable way of knowing...just speculation usually formed to fit a political agenda which should never be confused with the truth.

I've been too close to the UN to ever trust the crap they produce.  So yes, I'll give the Iraqi government the benefit of the doubt on this one.

As far as the tit-for-tat things goes, let's not turn this into a Pee Wee Herman ("I know you are but what am I?" and try and stick with specific issues many of which I can probabaly agree with you on if framed properly.

when the Fallujah battles occurred.  That dead insurgents were carrying large amounts of cash means they had only recently been paid.  Guys going into battle don't carry every penny they own unless there's no other place to put the money at the time.  And that money sure does not stay clean in that sort of environment.  The guy I talked to said the money looked like it had just come from the bank. You talk about trying to fit facts to a political agenda, but that is precisely what YOU are doing.  You deny the evidence in front of you and keep suggesting alternatives to your own little world view.  You obviously prefer the little fantasy that all OUR Sunni sheiks whom we paid off wouldn't have dreamed of double dealing.  You believe this in the face of dozens of accounts by American troops to the effect that they never know who their friends are.  They describe Iraqi police and soldiers who smile and go on patrol with them during the day and are caught planting IEDs at night. 

...reading too much into what I wrote.  I agree they were likely just paid but, even as you said, there's simply no way to validate or verify precisely where that money came from.  It's all inference and conjecture.

May 2004:  An Iraqi oil company "executive" is given a large sum to repair a pumping station, he hires Iraqis at a fairly decent salary to do the work.  The local sheiks and a mullah take more than half those wages from the workers and create a 'donation" to a "security" group to protect them who, in turn, fund a small group of insurgents to destroy what the other guys fixed.

I agree it's maddening and there's no way to completely get rid of all corruption in the shithole little third world countries.  Most of my time is in Africa where this happens daily and our European friends who operate there consider it a normal cost of doing business thus facilitating it.  The Iraqi government knows this is going on and is trying to crackdown where it can but they won't do anything to keep cash to getting to anyone unemployed for any reason.  The irony in all this is the jobs won't come until the violence stops but the violence is all perpetuated by a lack of jobs. 

I work with US Marines on a daily basis here at Quantico and many are anxious to get back and see the families and friends they made their first and second times over there.  Painting a picture of all Iraqis hating us is just a complete distortion of reality.

ad hominem attack - citing the accuracy, trustworthiness, and reliability of the IRAQI government, no less(!!) - perhaps you'll tell us all exactly what's wrong with the UN statistics, and by that I mean what's wrong with them that doesn't consist of you calling them names and repeating Rush Limbaugh talking points. 

...an ad hominem is an attack on a person not an organization but I get your drift.  It was the Iraqi Government that labeled these "inaccurate and unbalanced" but if they were produced by the UN staff in Iraq, it was the right call.  UNAMI is a gaggle of 16 or so UN agencies heavily influenced by NGOs who aren't exactly known for their objectivity.

I called them "names"?  Like? 

Limbaugh said this? 

about the devastation and human cost they see.  If only they'd stop emoting over all the dead people, ruined infrastructure, and ruptured social relationships they encounter they could be more "objective".  The Iraqi government has the nerve to call the stats "inaccurate" and it turns out that they have not counted people killed by car bombs in their statistics.  They must have learned this lesson from our government, which tries to claim budgetary progress by simply omitting funds borrowed for and allocated to the war. 

...to find death, destruction, and chaos in a WAR?  The international NGOs aren't stupid and prefer dictators and social chaos to democracies because that's where they make their big money. Their agenda is to be "apolitical" allowing them to vacuum in cash from people supporting both sides.  They are typically anti-western government, socialist by nature, and vehemently anti-American...after getting their grants from of us of course. 

I'd love to discuss governmental budgeting with you and explain how Congress uses the supplemental process in both on and off budget deliberations but it appears you're not really interested since you didn't mention agriculture or health supplementals that also follow the regular submission.

just go charging off in another direction hoping I don't notice. I'd call everything you wrote an ad hominem attack - AGAIN! - on those organizations, but then you'd compain that hominem refers to individuals and not organizations.  Guess I'll just have to settle for pointing out that instead of answering the question of whose account is more reliable:  the NGOs dealing with the Iraqi civilians or the Iraqi government (by its own and our President's admission) simply not counting car bombs in order to make falsely positive statistical results about the surge; you chose instead to go off on another rant about the evil NGOs.  Yep, the answer isn't that they might be providing the best information, but that they're just in it for the money and are deliberately falsifying their accounts of the harms to civilians, although in your next breath you acknowledge that civilians are harmed because they're in a war, and you ignore the deliberate falsification by those you defend so assiduously, the Iraqi government, which is itself loaded with people who have their own agendas to follow.

And then your piece de resistence is a pompous inference that since I omitted mentioning health and agricultural budgetary practices I must be in need of your tutoring in same, wholely disregarding my point about the government misrepresenting budgetary statistics.  You're sounding way too much like my ex-husband. 

...you're having as much fun as I am.

1. If you had a point, I missed it.  Try me a gain. (Men! We just don't listen, do we?)

2. Please look up ad hominem in the dictionary.  This is getting tiring.

3. I think I already said I'd prefer believing the Iraqi government over that of the NGOs.  You must have just missed it.

4. I never said the NGOs were "evil," those are your words.  Greedy? yes.  Evil? nah.

5. I'm still trying to get my head around "falsely positive statistical results" so gimme a while to work on that one.

6. The only person on the planet that has any credibility regarding the efficacy of the surge is a guy named Petraeus. He'll know in September. No one else matters, especially not some bozo politician in Washington.

7. If there's a "deliberate falsification" I'll read about it in the legitimate press, not a blog. (Giggle)

8. I didn't disregard anything about the budget, I just don't have the time or inclination to explain it to you here.  I'm at clearmines@yahoo.com if you want a more lengthy tutorial.  (I've been doing this budgeting thing since 1971) Congress bitched, whined, and moaned about the defense supplemental being off budget (as it had been for the last thirty years) so the '08 submission was changed to include it in the outyears--problem solved.  Next point?

9. All governments "misrepresent" budgets. Both sides see the same numbers and declare exactly opposite conclusions.  That's what budgets seem to be for--political nonsense.  Pretending this is unique to this one is just plain silly.

10. My regards to your ex.

 

Now I see why he saw fit to accept a Purple Heart from a supporter who was awarded it for wounds received in Vietnam - and in a White House ceremony on April 16th, no less.  No one feels as much pain as Dubya.  Those whining double amputees at Walter Reed ought to stop being so into themselves and develop a little empathy for the poor guy. 

Oh my gosh.

it was okay to accept it. Anyone with any sense of humility or proportion would have turned it down or would have handed it back to the giver with some words of praise for his service.  How many real soldiers with real wounds have been quoted as saying they did not believe they deserved their awards and citations because they perceived their comrades' sacrifices or courage to be greater than their own?  That's real humility and real self-sacrifice.  Bush is so far away from understanding humility or self-sacrifice that he can't even fake it.

John Brown, one of the State Department officers who resigned in protest over the campaign of fabrications used to justify invading Iraq, today has a piece with the above title at TomDispatch.com.

Warning: Brown's piece is startling. It is painful to read. It will no doubt be offensive to many.

But it is a must read, for it provides some eureka insights into how the U.S. is coming to be viewed by others on our planet.

Anyone who manages to read and reflect on Brown's powerful article may well end up looking at the U.S. role in the world a little differently as a result. Here is a link:

http://www.tomdispat...

I'll read the John Brown article.  There's so much that the professionals know that they cannot tell.

And Ms. Rice has been subpoenaed (there's a word that always looked misspelled).  http://www.forbes.co...

By 21-10, the House oversight committee voted to issue a subpoena to Rice to compel her story on the Bush administration's claim, now discredited, that Iraq was seeking uranium from Africa.

In addition to the Goodling grant of immunity, there's mote investigative news:

Simultaneously across Capitol Hill, the Senate Judiciary Committee approved - but did not issue - a subpoena on the prosecutors' matter to Sara Taylor, deputy to presidential adviser Karl Rove.

The House oversight committee also issued subpoenas for the Republican National Committee for testimony and documents about White House e-mails on RNC accounts that have apparently gone missing.

In case Gonzales thought the worst had passed with his punishing testimony last week before the Senate Judiciary Committee, the chairman and top Republican issued a new demand: Refresh the memory that Gonzales claimed had failed him 71 times during the seven-hour session.

"Provide the answers to the questions you could not recall last Thursday," Chairman Patrick Leahy, D-Vt., and ranking Republican Arlen Specter of Pennsylvania, wrote to Gonzales on Wednesday.

http://www.forbes.co...

The WH is losing its ability to intimidate Republican Senators and Congressmen, who clearly are becoming more and more worried about 2008.

The crumbling of the bunker proceeds apace. Time for another bowl of popcorn.

Oh, and remember Bill Moyers' special on PBS tonight at 9:00, as well as a rerun of Jon Stewart's takedown last night of John McCain (8:00 p.m. on Comedy Central).

In case you missed it, the Post gossip column had this tidbit:

Vice President Cheney exiting his motorcade in Foggy Bottom to scattered boos from pedestrians as he went to visit his doctor at George Washington University.

http://www.washingto...

Also, there are some fine pictures of W over at Wonkette, including this one:

I'm seconding the Arouet recommendation to read a piece by ex-Foreign Service Officer John Brown.  Scroll down a bit to get to the article.

It is amazing to me that so many Americans think the United States is the center of the universe.  And that what we do overseas has no lasting repercussions, and, essentially, the world is our Risk board.

As my favorite Middle East expert said -- what we've done in Iraq is going to haunt us for several generations -- until adults and their children forget what we did and how we acted.

Here is the link:

http://www.truthout....

This comment is so callous,insensitive, shallow and superficial. Tell me Laura, have you and George lost a child or a loved one? NO, of course not because your family members including your daughters don't serve in the military! So how can you say that you suffer more than anyone??? Is that what you and George tell families when you go to the funerals of the loved ones in Washington, DC. Oh yeh, that's right, you don't go to those funerals.

...did you have the enormous responsibility for ordering brave men and women into battle and knowing their deaths were because of a decision you made?  How would you deal with it and how would your wife feel knowing you were dealing with it?  Every President we've had has said and felt these same sentiments and singling out this one for pure petty political reasons is just plain dishonest.  When you've had that responsibility, as many of my fellow military comrades have had, then you can judge.  These aren't easy decisions to make and you feel each and every injury and death...and so do our wives.

Iraq was a highly orchestrated falsehood and the "collateral damage" that DIDN'T really factor into their grand scheme was merely a slight inconvenience.  And how to deal with it?  BAN the cameras at Dover and orchestrate "hero lies" like Jessica Lynch and Pat Tillman.

They are seriously callous and don't let them fool you.

..."grand scheme" you're talking about.  Was this the JFK grassy knoll grand scheme?  The alien spacecraft at Area 51 grand scheme?  The Hitler alive in Bolivia grand scheme?  Now we've got the Bush personally ordered the Lynch-Tillman cover up grand scheme?  Hmmmmm, there's a pattern developing here....(so much for an objective discussion of the issue)

I'm sorry for being somewhat persnikkity but just because you have a difference of opinion with a guy that somehow transformed itself into a blinding, frothing at the mouth hatred of him as an individual, I still don't see where it's ever appropriate to go after his family with the same venom and spite.  I just wasn't raised that way.

"if you're not outraged, you're not paying attention"

...but I sincerely appreciate the offer.  Since your research clearly only comes from finding sources that only confirm and validate what you already believe, I'm afraid it would have been a bit biased and myopic for my taste but I'm grateful nonetheless.  I also appreciate the cute little bumper-sticker response but was kind of hoping that there was a little more depth put into the point I made about attacking someone's family.  I should have realized where I was and known I was expecting too much.

Again, I'm at clearmines@yahoo.com and the coffee's always hot.  Cheers! 

of your research style?  Certainly not mine...

..."tah-dah!"  I'm here aren't I? 

I don't doubt for a minute that Laura Bush feels bad about things, but Dubya never even looked like he lost a moment's sleep until the Dems took over Congress.  Dubya was always going around saying things like "bring it on" and trying to show how tough he is.  I really don't get the sense from him, as I did from Johnson and even a bit from Nixon, that the burden of so many lives weighs heavily on his shoulders.  He's too shallow and too assured of his own righteousness.  He's got no empathy, which is why he's always putting his foot in his mouth.  He plays at feeling bad, but deep down I just don't get the sense that he really feels that way, any more than I get the sense that he has second thoughts about any decision he's ever made.  It's all lip service.  I think he's afraid to let anything affect him for fear that would show weakness, and nothing is more important to him than appearing to be strong and in charge. 

...an inarticulate buffoon but I'm not sure that automatically translates into a lack of empathy.  I suppose everything you said was a fair observation, I just don't like to see his wife get sucked into everyone's hatred for him.

Laura Bush's comments ring hollow as a balloon. Who in the hell does she thinks she's kidding. Her kids aren't over there, and never will be, (fortunate daughters--CCR) George Bush will have to live the rest of his life with our soldiers and many other unfortunate souls blood on his hands. While your at it Laura why don't you serve all the soldiers some cake!

and removal from "real" people's pain and suffering.  She should apologize for the stinging slap in the face to all the military families as well as the poor and suffering in our country.  What a sham to call her a lady.

Referring to New Orleans refugees after their city and homes were destroyed by Hurricane Katrina: "This is working very well for them."

Then there are these classics from Dubya himself:

Our enemies are innovative and resourceful, and so are we. They never stop thinking about new ways to harm our country and our people, and neither do we."

Too many good docs are getting out of the business. Too many OB-GYNs aren't able to practice their love with women all across this country.

I don't know where bin Laden is. I have no idea and really don't care. It's not that important. It's not our priority.

I know what I believe. I will continue to articulate what I believe and what I believe - I believe what I believe is right.

"If this were a dictatorship, it'd be a heck of a lot easier, just so long as I'm the dictator."

Now, here's Bush 41:

If you're worried about caribou, take a look at the arguments that were used about the pipeline. They'd say the caribou would be extinct. You've got to shake them away with a stick.  They're all making love lying up against the pipeline and you got thousands of caribou up there." -speaking in 1991 about the Alaskan pipeline

It has been said by some cynic, maybe it was a former president, 'If you want a friend in Washington, get a dog.' Well, we took them literally - that advice - as you know. But I didn't need that because I have Barbara Bush.

I guess it just runs in the family.

...can i play too?

"I have not committed a crime. What I did was fail to comply with the law."
-- Former New York Mayor David Dinkins (On been accused of tax evasion.)

"Those who survived the San Francisco earthquake said, 'Thank God, I'm still alive.' But, of course, those who died, their lives will never be the same again."
-- Rep. Barbara Boxer (D-California)

"This comes from the heart, the gut, from the hip, the common sense of Americans." Senator John Kerry (Presidential candidate) in Springfield, Ohio, midnight rally 2 August 2004

"During my service in the United States Congress, I took the initiative in creating the Internet." - VP Al Gore

"Character doesn't matter." - Bill Clinton

"A zebra does not change its spots." - Al Gore, attacking President George Bush in 1992

And everyone's all-time favorite:

"I did not have sexual relations with that woman, Miss Lewinsky!" - Bill Clinton

More?

"This Detcord guy is really just the biggest asshole I've met in a long time." - Me

...and I could really kick myself for it but I feel a civic obligation to sprinkle a little dash of alternative viewpoint into some of these myopic little diatribes now and then.  Don't you feel better with a little balance in your life?

But you're not here to provide balance.  You're here to stir everything up.  I don't mind if you do so because you want to prove a point, but to start fights and annoy bloggers for the hell of it?  That's annoying, dude.

...using a definition for "stir everything up."  The ascerbic, vitriolic tones used by many, if not most here, when it comes to the issues are certainly more vicious, combative, angry, and hateful than anything you've seen me write.  Many of your writer's counter points I make with irony and I like that but it seems like the skin's alway a little thinner when it's the other way around.  Funny, eh?

It's always "annoying" when people don't see things the way we do.  The real question is how you deal with it.  Convince me with a little civility and humor that I'm wrong or (the preferred method here I'm sure) tie me to a poll at sunrise and have me shot.  I honestly don't believe it's "starting fights" to demonstrate that thinking, reasonable people don't see things the same way.  To me it's simply starting discussion which is what we should all be doing.  These dialogs would be very different without all the personal deep hatred most here have for one individual and that's regrettable.

why do you keep coming back?  And again, I'd urge you to look in the mirror for a change. Sure, your tone may be understated in some ways, but the content of what you write has consistently been filled with mistatements (intentional?), distortions, condescension, arrogance, and ignorance.  Why should anyone respect what you have to say?

As far as being "ascerbic" and "vitriolic," are you saying that something's wrong with calling out Bush and Cheney in no uncertain terms for weakening our democracy, breaking our military, eroding our civil liberties, trashing our environment, threatening the rule of law, politicizing every aspect of our government, worsening the tone in Washington, failing to hold even the most egregious incompetence accountable, breaking their campaign promises, lying to the American people over and over again (and not just on Iraq), and making our country less secure?

If you aren't angry about all this, you not only aren't paying attention, your judgement is completely skewed by blind partisan loyalty (and hatred of the Democrats).  That's very sad, but not surprising, given everything you've written here over the past few weeks since you've graced us with your presence.

...what it is I wrote that indicated I hated it here so much.  On the contrary, it's always a pleasure meeting new people and making new friends...even if they want to drive a nail through your forehead.  Maybe I keep coming back because my religion teaches me to dedicate my life to leading the lost back to the right path ? (Insert smiley face)

Like we've said earlier, it's all about framining and perspective.  The contradiction in what i see is that you accuse me of "mistatements, distortions, condescension, arrogance, and ignorance" then turn around and give me an entire paragraph loaded with political bombast that does precisely the same thing.  Wanna borrow my mirror?  Surely there's some parcels of truth in all of those to agree on but this "vast right wing conspiracy" psychosis is just too nutty for rational people to deal with.  Angry?  You bet, but that doesn't necessarily translate into "I agree with you" and that seems to be where the message falls apart.  yes people (and especially Conservatives) as you've written and reported, are angry with this administration and the last election demonstrated that.  But that in no way is a validation of alternative views.  Said differently, it was a vote against something, not for something.  Big difference and that's your challenge in'08.

Once again, I have no party loyalty but I have principles and any candidate of any party gets my vote if those principles are the same.  Webb came close but we've already been through that.  I believe that most Americans who aren't whacko extremists at both ends of the spectrum vote that way.  "Hate" Democrats?  There's no evidence of that and you my writing never sinks to that level...well, OK, the UN stuff comes close.  We disagree, no hate involved.

True, the bit about no one suffering more than the President and her was a bit much, but I just put it down to poetic license in the heat of the interview.  She's a nice lady and spends all her time trying to encourage kids to read, fighting malaria, and other good causes.

I have to agree that if one of her children or one of Jeb's children were on active duty in the Army, she would be surprised to find that indeed she can suffer more.