Daily Affirmation with Stuart Smalley

Stuart Smalley.....Al Franken
.....Al Gore
.....Tipper Gore


Stuart Smalley V/O: I deserve good things. I am entitled to my share of happiness. I refuse to beat myself up. I am attractive person. I am fun to be with.

Announcer: "Daily Affirmation with Stuart Smalley".

[ open on Stuart giving himself a pep talk in his full-length mirror ]

Stuart Smalley: I'm going to do a terrific show today! And I'm gonna help people! Because I'm good enough, I'm smart enough, and, doggonit, people like me!

[ turns to camera ]

Hello, I'm Stuart Smalley, and it's great to be back! As some of you probably know, I was hit, uh.. by a bus. And, um.. I'm grateful for all the cards.. and letters. Um.. I'd like to start the show.. by making an amends, uh.. to the bus driver, uh.. Luis Calogne, uh.. who felt terrible about the whole thing. Luis, uh.. it was not your fault. I was, uh.. having a horrible week.. I was in a horrendous chain spiral, and.. I essentially let.. the bus.. hit me. I, uh.. I guess I just wanted some drama, which.. I got in spades. And, so, uh.. Luis, I'm.. I'm sorry.

Well! We've got a great show today. Because my guests are Al and Tipper G., who have two books out - two books! Good for you! Good for you!

Tipper Gore: Thank you, Stuart.
Al Gore: We're delighted to be here.
Stuart Smalley: I hear the book is about family?
Tipper Gore: The book is about..
Together: family!
Stuart Smalley: Which is terrific, because family is huge! A huge, huge issue.
Al Gore: Absolutely. And, in the books, we-
Stuart Smalley: [ interrupting ] My family's extremely dusyfinctional. Mt father is an active alcholic.. big, stinking drunk.
Al Gore: Well.. in the book, we do profile families dealing with stress.
Stuart Smalley: Oh, yes.. and the stories are very inspiring.. wonderful.
Tipper Gore: Thank you.
Stuart Smalley: Well, I think you might have left out one family trauma that I think you two could have written very.. eloquently about.
Al Gore: Uh.. I'm not sure I follow you.
Stuart Smalley: Well, it's something that happened to.. your family. [ a beat ] Tipper?
Tipper Gore: Honey? I think it's about the.. election?
Al Gore: Well, sure.. that was a disappointment. But I wouldn't describe it as.. "traumatic".
Stuart Smalley: [ glances at Tipper again ] Tipper?
Tipper Gore: Well.. it was difficult.
Stuart Smalley: Al? do you hear what Tipper is saying?
Al Gore: Yes. That the outcome of the election was very hard for.. her.. and the children.
Stuart Smalley: [ glances at Tipper again ] Tipper.
Tipper Gore: Um.. well, honey..
Stuart Smalley: Go ahead, you can say the "E" word.
Tipper Gore: The eating.
Al Gore: Okay! I was a bit down, and I took some solace in.. food.
Stuart Smalley: Al? Tipper gave me this picture that she took about three months after the election. Now.. I think it's pretty clear that you were in a humongous chain spiral.
Al Gore: Well, as you can see, I lost the weight, and I'm over it!
Stuart Smalley: [ glances at Tipper again ] Tipper? Is he over it?
Tipper Gore: [ faux crying, grabs a Kleenex from Stuart ] Oh, thank you.
Stuart Smalley: Tipper?
Tipper Gore: It's been difficult..
Stuart Smalley: Yes. Do you think that Al has feelings.. about not being President.
Tipper Gore: Yes.
Al Gore: Well, of course I have! I-
Stuart Smalley: Al, I'm talking to Tipper. [ turns to Tipper ] And, do you think that Al is maybe in denial about his feelings?
Al Gore: Oh, for goodness sakes!
Tipper Gore: Maybe a little.
Stuart Smalley: Do you think it might be good for the whole Gore Family if Al dealt with his.. his feelings?
Tipper Gore: Well.. sure, I do.
Stuart Smalley: You're doing good work! Good work. Al?
Al Gore: [ fuming ] What?
Stuart Smalley: You are in.. denial. But we are going to trace it, face it, and erase it. I want you to look at the mirror - come on, don't look at me, only you can help you. [ Al looks into the mirror ] Look at the mirror. Come on. That's it. Okay. I want you to say.. "Hi, Me!"
Al Gore: [ relunctant ] Hi, Me.
Stuart Smalley: "I am sad.. about not being President." Come on.
Al Gore: I am.. sad.. about not being.. President.
Stuart Smalley: "And that's.. okay."
Al Gore: And that's okay.
Stuart Smalley: "I don't have to be the most powerful man in the world."
Al Gore: I don't have to be the most powerful.. man in the world.
Stuart Smalley: "I don't have to be able to.. [ thinking ] ..bomb a country any time I want."
Al Gore: Look, I would never arbitrarily bomb..
Stuart Smalley: Okay, okay.. I-I-I'm sorry. Uh.. "All I have to do is be the best Al I can be."
Al Gore: All I have to do is.. be the best Al I can be.
Stuart Smalley: "Because I'm good enough.." Come on! "I'm good enough.. I'm smart enough.. and, doggonit, people like me!"
Al Gore: Because I'm good enough.. I'm smart enough.. and, doggonit, people like me!
Stuart Smalley: Feel better? You feel better?
Al Gore: Actually, I.. I do feel better!
Stuart Smalley: You do? You do feel better?
Al Gore: Yes. Actually, I do.
Stuart Smalley: Hug? [ holds arms out ]
Al Gore: No.
Stuart Smalley: Well! It's been a great show, I want to thank the G.'s. You've been terrific. Goodbye! See you tomorrow.. I guess.

Kevin said the AARLC was happy with the results of the November elections, and the Web site confirmed it: "AARLC Candidates Sweep in November Elections," it said. So I checked the victorious AARLC candidates for Congress and governorships: They are all white.

BEGALA: It concludes with a suggestion -- not a suggestion, an allegation that Democrats are guilty of treason for insufficient applause when the president talked about missile defense.

COULTER: Correct.

BEGALA: Let me test your definition of the word treason. I gather that's the name of the new book, by the way.

COULTER: It is.

BEGALA: Let's check out another -- just to test your definition of treason. Take a look at this from "The Washington Post."

"According to oil industry executives and confidential United Nations records, Halliburton held stakes in two firms that signed contracts to sell more than $73 million in oil production equipment and spare parts to Iraq while Cheney" -- that would be Dick Cheney, now vice president -- "was chairman and CEO of the Dallas-based company. Two former senior executives of the Halliburton subsidiary say that as far as they know, there was no policy against doing business with Iraq."

Is that treason too?

COULTER: We weren't at war with Iraq.

BEGALA: So that's not a problem. He wasn't a bad guy two years ago?

COULTER: In fact to the contrary -- no, to the contrary it was actually quite useful to have Iraq and Iran fighting one another, I might add.

BEGALA: But they weren't. This was 1998, Ann.

COULTER: No, but I'm just saying...

BEGALA: 1998.

"There are more American Indians alive today than there were when Columbus arrived or at any other time in history. Does this sound like a record of genocide?"

"How dare you ask me that question?" I shot back. "I'm every bit as much an American as you are. I believe in America. I believe in democracy. I also believe we have the right to free speech, the right to disagree with government policy, the right to protest against the government when we don't agree with it." Then I remembered a sign I frequently saw in Washington. "Dissent is patriotic," I declared. "This country was founded on dissent by men and women who believed they had a right to criticize their government's policies."

Dear Customer

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Some genuinely funny news from Amazon: One person recommended "Atlas Shrugged" instead of "What Liberal Media? The Truth About Bias and the News ."

Actually WLM is a lot shorter and the characters are more credible. The WLM? media tour is scheduled to start on Tuesday, the book's pub date. These things are always subject to change, particularly with an unnecessary and potentially counter-productive pre-emptive war being planned and lied about. But here is the schedule as of now. Check the site for updates.

"The O'Reilly Factor," Fox News, Tuesday 2/4, 8:00 p.m.
"Crossfire, CNN, Wednesday, 2/5, 7:00 p.m.
"The Big Story with John Gibson" Fox News, Thursday, 2/6 5:00 p.m.
"Nachman" MSNBC, Friday, 2/7 5:00 p.m.

"Now, in defense of the elder Bush, he inherited a fiscal mess from Ronald Reagan. Bush Jr., of course, inherited the largest surplus in history from President Clinton, and then he blew it. Which is really a surprise because I thought if Junior would be good at anything, it would be at inheriting things. I was wrong."

"It was many of the new spending initiatives the president called for the first half of the speech ... He spent $18 billion a minute, Senator, last night. Over a trillion dollars."

"Senator, let me ask you about this matter of the aluminum tubes. First off, earlier in the year, our president say the IAEA, the International Atomic Energy Agency, had a report that said Saddam Hussein would have a nuclear weapon in six months. The IAEA said, "With respect, Mr. President, that's false. There's no such report." Then he told us that there were these aluminum tubes that were going to be used to make nuclear weapons. The U.N. inspectors said that's not the case. The British intelligence, our closest allies, say that's not the case and the American intelligence agencies say that is not the case. Doesn't our president need to level with us instead of making things up?"

showing up all the nay-sayers, bush's numbers jumped a whopping 3 percent after last night's state of the union speech, confirming his status as the most incredibly influential speaker that the media has ever created.

the lastest abc news poll puts bush in the high 60's (assuming anything over 1 is high), thus assuring the corporate media and all other brown-nosers once again that bush is the best president that the united states ever has, and gee, we might as well just make him emporer while we're at it.

after hearing mr. bush make it all the way through an hour long speech without stumbling, his job approval ratings went from an already-incredible 59% rating, to an astounding 62%, giving everyone who works for rupert murdoch cause for rejoicing.

this is proof that the american people are totally behind bush and his policies, if you don't count 4 out of every 10 americans ... according to the abc poll of 781 americans held after the speech, a whole 1% more think invasion is a good idea than just the day before, proving once again that when it comes to speechifying, bush has no clone.

We think this c/ase shows that our criminal justice system is well equipped to handle terror cases. There is no need to keep the suspects in military custody, cut off from lawyers --or to try them in military tribunals. Reid pleaded guilty to all counts and received no promises of leniency or other sentence concessions. This is a case we don't have a lot of complaints about. Reid had excellent counsel and a U.S. District Court Judge.

BEGALA: He's at 53. In last year's State of the Union Address our president said that his economic plan could be summed up in one word, jobs. Since then 668,000 fewer Americans have jobs. And in all, 2.7 million Americans have lost their jobs under President Bush.

Last year Mr. Bush also promised more money to aid local police and firefighters in the war on terror. He pledged better border security, safer air travel, better tracking of foreigners in the United States. Two weeks ago his party voted down funding for those exact projects in order devote for money for another tax cut for the rich.

Mr. Bush also promised last year to fully fund education, another promise he broke. And he promised to increase veterans health care, which, in fact, he later cut. Perhaps our straight-talking president is really just a man of his most recent word.

BEGALA: He's at 53. In last year's State of the Union Address our president said that his economic plan could be summed up in one word, jobs. Since then 668,000 fewer Americans have jobs. And in all, 2.7 million Americans have lost their jobs under President Bush.

Last year Mr. Bush also promised more money to aid local police and firefighters in the war on terror. He pledged better border security, safer air travel, better tracking of foreigners in the United States. Two weeks ago his party voted down funding for those exact projects in order devote for money for another tax cut for the rich.

Mr. Bush also promised last year to fully fund education, another promise he broke. And he promised to increase veterans health care, which, in fact, he later cut. Perhaps our straight-talking president is really just a man of his most recent word.

Robert Kuttner: The proposal is bad economics and irresponsible budget policy. Two-thirds of the benefit would go to the wealthiest 5 percent. About half of all Americans have some money in the stock market, but most small investors have their money in IRAs, Keoghs, and 401(k) plans, which are already tax exempt. Bush is betting that small investors will misunderstand the law and identify with big investors.

The administration also claims that dividend income should be exempt from the income tax because corporations already pay taxes on their profits. "It's unfair to tax money twice," the president has declared.

But why special treatment for dividends? Workers pay income tax on wages and salaries, and then they pay sales tax at the store and property taxes on their homes and excise taxes on tickets -- all on spending from earnings that have already been taxed once.

DNC: In just one year, President Bush and congressional Republicans have managed to undo eight years of hard work and fiscal discipline. Bush's policies have already wiped out our hard gained surpluses, returned the nation to deficit spending, put Social Security in danger and slowed down efforts to pay down the national debt. One year into the Bush Administration, more than one million jobs were lost, the unemployment rate increased by 1.8 percent and about 2.6 million more people became unemployed. Now that the country is in a recession, President Bush and Republicans have proposed an economic plan that does little to stimulate the economy and consists mostly of giving profitable corporations and wealthy individuals $100 billion in tax cuts.

Vermont independent Sen. James Jeffords, who will give up the gavel of the Senate Environment and Public Works Committee when Republicans take over the Senate in January, said Bush is rolling back protections for clean air and water, cutting Superfund site cleanups and clearing new oil and gas drilling on national lands.

"Unfortunately, on environmental issues our president is moving us backward instead of leading us forward," Jeffords said, delivering the weekly radio address on behalf of Democrats. Jeffords also said provisions in the new law creating a Homeland Security Department will make it harder for people to learn of dangerous chemicals near their homes ...

Bush's "departure from the Clean Air Act will prolong the life of out-of-date power plants belching out pollution, not only contributing to growing rates of childhood asthma, but also to the unsightly haze that taints the beauty of our magnificent parks and scenic vistas," Jeffords said ... For the second year in a row, the Bush administration undermined America's landmark environmental laws, as federal agencies announced -- on almost a daily basis -- regulatory changes to weaken safeguards for our air, water, forests, wildlands, wetlands, wildlife, and public health. That was the principle finding of a new report by NRDC (Natural Resources Defense Council), which details more than 100 anti-environmental actions over the past year and highlights the fact that the administration intensified its assault after the November mid-term congressional elections.

PFAW: And President Bush most certainly will not admit that if he succeeds, his court-packing plan would:

-eliminate a woman's constitutional right to reproductive freedom and privacy
-dismantle vital environmental protectionss for clean air and clean water
-gut civil rights laws that undo the effeccts of past and present discrimination, and
-tear down the wall separating church and state.

Krugman: For example: On Saturday, in his weekly radio address, George W. Bush declared that "the tax relief I propose will give 23 million small-business owners an average tax cut of $2,042 this year." That remark is intended to give the impression that the typical small-business owner will get $2,000. But as the Center on Budget and Policy Priorities points out, most small businesses will get a tax break of less than $500; about 5 million of those 23 million small businesses will get no break at all. The average is more than $2,000 only because a small number of very wealthy businessmen will get huge tax cuts.

Baltimore Mayor Martin O'Malley: "Americans are not a greedy and selfish people. They understand that homeland security costs money, and we are willing to pay any price to protect and defend our country. We know that wars are won by service and sacrifice not by tax cut on top of tax cut. Mr. President, America's homeland security is weak, only because our leaders have failed to make our defense at home a funding priority. Your Administration forced a $2.5 billion cut for homeland security efforts and Congressional Republicans cut an additional $1 billion. And now you propose eliminating 1,200 FBI agents. Do your priorities truly reflect our country's needs? To protect America, we must invest in America. Where is the urgency? Where is our federal government? What has happened to the most fundamental Constitutional duty of all - "to provide for the common defense"?

EXCLUSIVE: MSNBC SHAKES UP SKED; PLAN FOR SAM DONALDSON TO ANCHOR NEW LINEUP: MSNBC is on the verge of shaking up its schedule, again, the DRUDGE REPORT can reveal... MORE... ABC NEWS veteran Sam Donaldson will soon take direct aim at CNN's LARRY KING -- in the 9 pm ET slot, sources reveal. [ABC NEWS executives on Tuesday grudgingly gave Donaldson the green light to pursue any MSNBC opportunity. Donaldson will continue at ABC NEWS RADIO.] Chris Matthews HARDBALL demoted to 7 PM ET; afternoon talkers Bill Press And Pat Buchanan upgraded to 8 PM ET, according to one blueprint. Phil Donahue, it appears, has been removed from prime hours. At 10 PM, former Minnesota Governor Jesse Ventura's will try a daily show... Developing...

Wolf Blitzer featured a poll on Monday's program: When it comes to Iraq, whom do you trust more: The Bush administration or the UN? The result: Bush administration: 32% UN: 68% After reading the results, Wolf introduced Lou Dobbs, whose program follows Wolf's. Lou made a point to ask, "Wolf, let me ask you a question...Do you trust that poll?" Wolf responded, "no," and a good laugh was had by all. Why did Lou Dobbs single out this poll among all others for ridicule?

It seems the more popular my site becomes, the more I get attacked from the Right. It comes with the territory. But in this case, it gives me an opportunity to blog one of my favorite topics -- the fact that the modern GOP is built upon a foundation of racism ...

His high name ID continues to serve him well in national polling, but at the state level, he barely registers in Iowa, NH, or SC. It's hard to see how he could do well in either MO or DC (assuming it moves up its primary to the head of the pack). Lieberman knows this, hence his "this is a marathon, not a sprint". However, no amount of cash will offset the negative press he will get if he strings together four or five straight solid losses. At that point, the media glare will be on the winners and surprise finishers. From his initial lofty perch in the polls, Lieberman only has one direction to go. Down.

KURTZ: Now, obviously, you open yourself up to a little bit of criticism of being a cause celeb, since you're not famous as a Middle East policy expert...

GAROFALO: Right.

KURTZ: But that has not deterred you.

GAROFALO: No. You know, I don't know that I would need to be famous as a Middle East policy expert to see that unilateral imperialism is bad policy.

But I also -- if I am uninformed, like a lot of citizens in this country are, that is the fault of the White House and the mainstream media. We don't get enough information. We don't get enough news with our news. And how can we function as a democracy without information?

We are given disinformation and White House propaganda all the time. We have no history to our news, no context to our news, no global perspective. We don't see people outside our borders as humans. And if I am uninformed, which I'd like to think I work very hard not to be, uninformed, it is the fault of the White House and the mainstream media.

Is George W. Bush a centrist or a conservative?

Centrist:
9%

Conservative:
89%

Don't know:
1%

[ open on a quiet forest. Gunshot rings out. ]

Voice: Over here! It went this way!
[ George W. Bush, dressed in hunting gear and pointing rifle runs into a clearing, followed by his father, George Bush ]
George Bush: Well, did you get him, or what? [ looks ] Ah, looks like you missed it.
George W. Bush: I missed it! Dammit! I think I scared it off. I'm gonna run after it!
George Bush: Ah, it's okay, son. Why don't we just stop, and sit on this old log for a minute? Your old man's getting tired. Have a seat, come on now.
George W. Bush: We gotta get out after that deer. I wanna kill it!
George Bush: Sit down! Come on, son, have a seat.
George W. Bush: Alright. [ sits next to his father ] I'll tell you something - that deer is gonna be one dead dog by the time I get to it! [ laughs ]
George Bush: Alright, son, settle down. You know, Babs and I used to come up here. In fact, you, Jeb, and your sister were.. I made all of you right over there in that dirt! Yeah, those were funky times, know what I mean, son?
George W. Bush: Shh.. I hear something. [ holds up his rifle and points ]
George Bush: Forget about the deer for a second, son! Come on, relax, would you like a little Lifesaver or something?
George W. Bush: Yeah, sure.
George Bush: Alright, buddy. [ takes out roll of Lifesavers ] There you go.
George W. Bush: [ pulls antlers out of his hunting jacket ] I'm gonna play with these antlers, too. [ starts clapping the antlers together ]
George Bush: Put the antlers down! Come on! [ separates the antlers from George W.'s hands ] Put 'em down, there's your Lifesaver. I wanna talk to you, man to man, for a minute.
George W. Bush: Sure thing, Dad. What's up?
George Bush: Well.. it looks like it's really gonna happen. Unbelievable. You're ahead in the polls, you look really good in those debates.. I tell you, I think we really got a shot.
George W. Bush: [ mind wandering ] I wish I'd shot that deer!
George Bush: Son, you know what it means to be President, President of the United States? Everybody looks up to you, you're the leader of the most powerful nation in the whole world.
George W. Bush: It's gonna be cool, Dad, I'm pretty psyched!
George Bush: It's more than just "cool". That hippy language you're still prone to.. It's honorable. The highest office in the land - none higher! People look to you to make their lives better, and you'll be in a position to really help.
George W. Bush: [ thinking ] Cool. Very cool.
George Bush: Well, when I was in the White House, there wasn't a day that went by that I didn't feel proud of what I'd acheived. But more than pride, I felt responsible. A lot of crazy stuff comes at you - world problems, problems at home.. [ George W. starts clapping the antlers together again ] Get these down, will you! [ seizes the antlers from George W.'s hands, then smacks him across the face ] Now, think about it! You're gonna be Commander-in-Chief. The most potent military in the world. That's a heavy burdon for any man to bear.
George W. Bush: Wow. Well, we should be getting after that deer.
George Bush: Look.. I know you're not quite right in the head, son. Maybe it's this dyslexia they keep talking about. Back when you were born, Babs and I called it "retardation". I guess no one says that any more. Whatever the doctors wanna call you, I just want you to know I'm proud of you, son. I really am. Your mother and I love you very much.. I just hope..
George W. Bush: Shh.. quiet! [ points rifle ] I got a beat on him! [ camera shows view from the scope of the rifle, deer grazing in the grass ] That's right.. look over here. I'm sorry, Rudolph, looks like the Governor will not grant you a reprieve! One.. two.. three..
George Bush: [ pushes rifle down ] Now, hey, hold up, come on now. How about letting this one get away, what do you say, son?
George W. Bush: Sure, Dad, I know what you're saying. But it ain't gonna happen. Nighty-night, Bambi! [ fires rifle ] Man! I dropped him! How about that? A whole deer! Wow! The buck stops right there, huh, Dad? Am I right? Say.. Dad? If I get to be President, are we gonna go hunting any more?
George Bush: [ sighs ] Sure, son. You know, son, why don't you go up there and check on your kill? Well, go on. I'm just gonna sit for a minute..
George W. Bush: Alright! That's a good idea! [ jumps up and runs to bag his deer ]
George Bush: [ stands up, points rifle towards George W., then lowers it ] Nah.. can't even think about it. First of all, it's against the law. Babs wouldn't like it.. Well.. it's probably just four years.. Hey, wait for me, son! I'm right behind ya!
[ George Bush runs after George W., as scene fades to black ]

ALAN COLMES, CO-HOST: We're back on HANNITY and COLMES. It's been more than a year since the release of his tell-all book on the media's distortion of the news. Is there anything new that this insider can tell us? Joining us now, the author of Bias, Bernie Goldberg. You know, Bernie, welcome and congratulations on the success of your book.
BERNIE GOLDBERG, BIAS AUTHOR: Thank you.
COLMES: Now in paperback.
GOLDBERG: Comes out tomorrow morning.
COLMES: You know, I'm not supposed to like you, you know, because some (UNINTELLIGIBLE.) But that's not true. And I think that for some reason, you struck a chord with people.
GOLDBERG: Yes.
COLMES: And your book did better than I think a lot of people, maybe even yourself, imagined.
GOLDBERG: Right.
COLMES: But why do you think that is?
GOLDBERG: Because I think most people in America listening to us tonight certainly understand that there's a liberal bias in the news. The fact that the media elites either ignored the book or ignored the subject or deny it, it doesn't resonate with the American people. They just feel as if it exists. And I'll tell you something. That is a large reason for the success of Fox. They've deserted the mainstream media.
COLMES: Yes.
GOLDBERG: And they've come to something that they feel more comfortable with.
COLMES: Look, I get yelled at by liberals for being on Fox, where there's a strong conservative voice. They often give me -- this guy -- they often give me a harder time than conservatives do.
GOLDBERG: Yes, you know why?
COLMES: Because I'm not -- go ahead.
GOLDBERG: Because they think you're a sell-out. That's part of it.
COLMES: I get that all the time.
GOLDBERG: That's part of the problem. We can't have an honest discussion about this...
COLMES: Right.
GOLDBERG: ...without somebody on the left, if they agree, God forbid...
COLMES: Right.
GOLDBERG: ...being called a traitor. I was called a traitor because I was on the inside, but they call people like you a traitor...
COLMES: Right.
GOLDBERG: ...because perhaps you see the point. Can I say something very quickly? I made a New Year's resolution, Alan, to reach out, seriously, to reach out to open minded, fair, decent, honorable liberals like yourself.
HANNITY: Why would you want to do that?
GOLDBERG: Well, because I...
COLMES: Hey, let him speak.
GOLDBERG: ...have nothing else to do. And I made the resolution. And here's the point. Are journalists the only people on the planet who could take their biases and their prejudices and set them aside and not let it affect their work? Journalists say cops can't do that.
COLMES: Right.
GOLDBERG: If a cop has biases, it's going to come out. If a corporate executive has biases, it's going to come out. Everybody in the south who's white and over five years old, their biases are going to come out. But journalists, this is interesting, they're the only people on the planet earth who could take all the baggage that they bring with them, all their life experiences, all their prejudices, and somehow set them aside. I don't think that's true. And I don't think a lot of liberals think that's true either.
HANNITY: Hey, I know Alan's good, because he gets under my skin nightly. So...
COLMES: It means I'm doing my job.
HANNITY: Yes, he is. Congratulations.

Then there's the question of war. Not that one, though. Dan Gillmor brings up the weakening of proposed SEC rules for accounting firms.

Is anyone surprised by this? Consider this administration's trend:

1) Repealed the estate tax. Calling it the 'death' tax instead of the 'millionaire' tax, this rebate went to the top 2%.
2) With approximately half the country investing in the stock market, the greatest weight of nearly 3 years of losses was on those invested in tech companies because many are not yet profitable. A smaller number of investors takes the less risky approach of buying the stock of profitable companies. They collect dividends. Guess who gets the biggest tax break, again.
3) Lower level government employees get their cost of living increases scaled back while the Administration justifies the awards of bonuses of $10K and $20K to selected members in upper management.
4) Congressional leaders raise the amounts lobbyists are permitted to spend when wining and dining Congress. Guess which party the leaders come from.
5) And though the SEC arrived late to the game after folks lost their shirts from the corruption at Enron, Worldcom, Adelphia, Arthur Anderson, Tyco and others, this administration signals its determination to crack down on the crooks that really hurt America.

Masters of propaganda use the Big Lie approach when they say Democrats or liberals are practicing 'class warfare'. But the alarms being sounded do not attack the rich nor cause them any harm. The Dem and liberal target is the administration that champions compassionate conservatism, which only demonstrates compassion for the well off.

There is a war going on. But the real name of it is The War on the Poor. And it ain't very funny.

The Hardball "Daily Briefing" from MSNBC's Chris Matthews says that the official Hardball water cooler Buzz gave the nod to Dean in exciting the base last night at the dinner...

This at a dinner commemorating the 30th anniversary of the U.S. Supreme Court's decision making abortion legal on Tuesday, hosted by NARAL Pro-Choice America, and attended by 1,300 people, featuring Democratic presidential candidates, including former Vermont Gov. Howard Dean, Rep. Dick Gephardt of Missouri and Sens. John Edwards of North Carolina, John Kerry of Massachusetts and Joseph Lieberman of Connecticut.

Dean is up in NH again today, campaigning in the University of New Hampshire community of Durham, N.H.

U.S. industries discharge several billion pounds of toxic chemicals linked to cancer, reproductive and developmental disorders, and other chronic health problems each year, according to a new report released today by U.S. PIRG. The report, Toxic Releases and Health, summarizes air and water pollution reported by industry from 1987 to 2000 and identifies significant gaps in information on health impacts of such pollution.

"Polluters across the country discharge billions of pounds of toxic pollution linked to serious health impacts each year," reports U. S. PIRG environmental health associate Meghan Purvis. "But without adequate public health systems for tracking environmental exposures and potentially related disease, we don't know how this pollution is affecting our health."

The report finds:
• More than 1 billion pounds of chemicals suspected to cause neurological problems were released in 2000, with Texas, Tennessee and Louisiana ranking first through third for these releases ...
• Over 1.7 billion pounds of suspected respiratory irritants were released into the air and water in 2000, and the states of Ohio, North Carolina and Georgia ranked first through third in these releases.

A radical crusader against wildlife protections -- Congressman Richard Pombo of California -- has been elevated to the chairmanship of the important House Resources Committee. Pombo is a committed foe of the Endangered Species Act. He even advocates hunting elephants in Africa for their ivory tusks. The Resources Committee oversees hundreds of millions of acres of public lands in the West as well as the Interior Department, Forest Service and many environmental laws. "With the selection of Representative Pombo, the House leadership appears to be giving its most anti-environmental members the green light to pursue their agenda," said Robert Dewey, our vice president for government relations. "We can only hope that the American public and supporters of common-sense environmental policies in the House can put the brakes on the new chairman's agenda."

Joe Lieberman is being buoyed and carried along by the high name recognition incumbent in his being on the ticket in 2000. I note that he out paces all of the candidates with news stories for the second week in a row. In the recent MSNBC Frank Lutz focus group he was only one of two candidates to receive votes from the panel (Kerry-17, Lieberman- 3). People within the party are comfortable with Lieberman at this point because he is a known quantity. This gives Lieberman an early lead in the first primary, which is of course fund raising.

John Edwards, the only candidate to poll equally well with both women and men. Doesn't appear to suffer from any gender gap. This speaks to his electability. His fast rise to name recognition is also indicative of a highly electable candidate. With that said, Edwards has looked nothing like the retail political wunderkind I know he is. For some reason his telegenic appeal is minimized by his looking unsure and a bit gawky. It is in small groups that Edwards really shines, and I think the grassroots of the party, as Edwards makes the "living-room" fundraising circuit rounds, is starting to recognize this.

Howard Dean, still for me shines as telegenic, "real", interesting, and skilled intellectually. This has not translated to the voters; it has not translated to fund givers. It's a shame, because Dean really does have the goods. It is clear that every cycle political analysts overestimate at least one guy. Perhaps, this is my guy to overestimate. It's still real early.

John Kerry has been impressive. He really exudes a statesman like quality that is palpable to voters. Level headed, honest, they might not agree with all of his positions but they admire the courage of his convictions. I'll have to move John Kerry to the head of the class of playoff candidates, if he continues to perform at such a high level.

Dick Gephardt, is the same candidate he was last time he ran, and we all know how that turned out. What do people in the party see in this guy?

"What is homosexuality? The dictionary defines it as exhibiting sexual desire toward a member of one's own sex. It is not about love between men and men, or women and women, because there is the love of a father for a son, or the love of brothers for one another. It is sexual activity with the same sex.

The media tries to present this lifestyle in a good light. When a supposed homosexual man was murdered by two young men, it was front-page news. But when two homosexual men in their 20's and 30's raped and tortured a thirteen-year-old boy for two days before killing him, you didn't hear anything about it. It didn't get reported. There is a huge cover-up where homosexuals are concerned ...

Be compassionate to those caught up in this sinful deathstyle. Let them know you care, but at the same time let them know homosexuality is a sin. Most people find the homosexual behavior vile and disgusting. Only when homosexuals know it is sin can they repent (I Corinthians 6:9-10).

God judges and condemns all sin because He is holy. He hates the sin, but loves the sinner. These people are looking for love. They have been hurt by the past and are trying to compensate for the lack of love in their homes and lives. We need to show them the love of Christ. Help them to understand that only Christ can forgive sin.

As the nation marks the 30th anniversary of Roe v. Wade, NARAL Pro-Choice America Foundation today released a comprehensive report detailing a state by state review of abortion and reproductive rights laws.

"The state of reproductive rights in America is cause for grave concern. Today, at Roe's 30th anniversary, women have fewer reproductive rights than their mother's had in 1973," said President of the Foundation Kate Michelman.

The report finds:
Overall, the nation earns a D+ grade for the state-imposed burdens on access to reproductive health services;
Women in 17 states could face sweeping criminal bans on abortion if the Supreme Court reverses Roe and allows states to re-criminalize abortion;
States enacted 34 new anti-choice measures in 2002, bringing the cumulative total to 335 since 1995.
Only three states, California, Connecticut and Maine, have pro-choice legislatures and pro-choice governors.
Every state except Maine that had a regular legislative session in 2002 considered at least one anti-choice bill.

In the US, poll after poll has shown a public unwilling to launch an attack on Iraq without UN and solid allied backing. Watch as the Bush starts to demonize the UN, France, Russia, and any other country and international institution that stands in the way of its unwarranted war against Iraq. The ultimate goal -- a public conditioned to accept a unilateral (and probably illegal) invasion of Iraq.

I have maintained from Day 1 that war was not inevitable. The forces now arrayed against Bush are powerful -- domestic public opposition, international opposition, lack of international mandate, lack of allies, poor logistic lines (assuming Saudi Arabia and/or Turkey don't concede), difficult urban warfare, increased terrorism, an expensive war in the era of ballooning deficits, and an expensive rebuilding process (and after Afghanistan, who can claim this administration can carry out the task?).

On Bush's side -- pride, and a fear that "backing down" would make the US look weak in the eyes of the world. I have said before, and say again -- Bush can always claim victory and say "by threatening war Iraq was forced to readmit inspectors and take disarmament seriously". And in that case, Bush would actually be right. But it's clear that anything short of fireworks over Baghdad won't satiate.

After all, his approval ratings are in the low 50s.

I expect that President Bush will use the State of the Union speech to do everything he can to scare the crap out of the American people. Rather than use his position of leadership – the "bully pulpit – to calm a frightened public, Bush will continue to use language intended to whip up fear.

This is their tactic. Our fear has been so useful to them. A terrified public will rally behind their leaders for their own protection. When we're under attack we must stand together. We will support our leader and will not tolerate breaking ranks.

They terrify us and then they harvest the results.

It is a little-known fact — I discovered it while researching my senior honors thesis in 1981-82 — that the anti-Vietnam demonstrations may have actually increased support for the war. Nobody was more unpopular with the country than the demonstrators. Even people who opposed the war, according to Gallup data, disapproved of the demonstrators by vast proportions. (The alternate argument — equally unprovable — is that the movement helped end the war because it scared the Nixon administration into suing for peace for reasons of domestic tranquility. But this is belied by the collapse of the movement following the end of the draft.)

Some demonstrations are effective because they show Americans that people just like them care passionately about a cause and are willing to show up in person to support it. This was certainly true of Martin Luther King's demonstrations and I think it's also true of Equal Rights Amendment and abortion rights demonstrations, and it seemed true of the nuclear freeze demonstrations I attended in the 1980s.

But radical rhetoric denouncing America and everything it stands for — which is what I heard from the A.N.S.W.E.R.-chosen speakers in D.C. over the weekend — does more harm than good. They harden the other side's resolve and turn away "normal" non-political people from a cause they might otherwise support. Ramsey Clark may have been a good attorney general way back when, and might have made a good senator, but he took a wrong turn somewhere and his political analysis is now about on par with that of Alexander Cockburn or Andrew Sullivan. I hope most of the people in that freezing crowd disagreed with it, but there's no way to know.

In other words, by allowing A.N.S.W.E.R. to take over the peace movement, protesters are focusing America on their worst features, and almost daring them to side with Bush and company. It's a tough quandary because the left needs bodies and these Stalinist types are the best demonstration organizers — just as they were in the sixties. And the Left has never solved it.

Far more effective, from the standpoint of stopping this foolish, unnecessary adventure, I think, would be more publicity for stories like this one, which was in my inbox Sunday morning: "As many as 1 in 3 senior U.S. military officers question the wisdom of a pre-emptive war with Iraq, one officer estimates in TIME's Special Report on Donald Rumsfeld's Blueprint for War." Also this one: "The military's assessment of the chances of success are less optimistic than those of the Administration's theologians, TIME's Mark Thompson and Michael Duffy report." See Time.com for details.

I have a hard time believing, however, that the American right is some kind of endless comedy hour that I've somehow missed out on. How funny is Tom DeLay? Or Trent Lott? Or to avoid begging any questions here, how funny is the more respectable leadership team of Hastert and Frist? Does President Bush's fondness for abstinence-only sex education bespeak of his love of fun, or would that be his religiously-motivated aversion to alcoholic beverages? Or was it the Attorney-General's religiously-motivated aversion to not only beer, but also dancing that we were thinking of?

Since its inception in 1979, the Alliance for Justice has worked to promote a fair and independent judiciary and strengthen public interest advocacy. Their work on judicial nominations is now more critical than ever before with President Bush's plan to pack the courts with extremist in full swing. Particularly troubling, and representative of a large slate of Bush's highly problematic nominees, is the renomination of Judge Charles W. Pickering, Jr., and Texas Supreme Court Justice Priscilla Owen, both of whom were rejected by the Senate Judiciary Committee last year. Check them out.

Microsoft announced its first ever dividend of 16 cents per share and a 2-for-1 stock split.

For Bill Gates, who personally owns 611,749,300 shares, this will give him a dividend $97.9 million. .

Normally, this would be taxed at a 38.6% rate, but with Bush's new tax plan, Gates will save and the Treasury will lose $38 million. A $38 million tax cut for the richest man on earth, while almost half of all tax filers would receive less than $100 in benefits.

Bush Observes Martin Luther King's Birthday

There is a principled case to be made against affirmative action generally, and definitely against particularly implementations of it. However, I echo what many others have said in stating that the motives of those who put solving the "problem" of affirmative action above solving the very real problems it is intended to address are more than a little suspect.

Bush has declared that being an African American doesn't qualify as a "life experience," ignored the affirmative action of legacy admissions, justified his position by exaggerating his support for the "separate but equal" Historically Black Colleges (many of which have affirmative action - in hiring and admissions - for white people), and misrepresented the Michigan system by referring to it as a quota system and claiming that being African American gets you 20 points, and one fifth of the way to the necessary 100. The truth is you can get 20 points for any one of "membership in an underrepresented minority group, socioeconomic disadvantage, attendance at a predominantly minority high school, athletics, or at the Provost's discretion." All of these things can be a "decisive factor" that Bush ascribes only to race, as can Michigan Residency (10 ponts), "leadership or personal achievement" (10 points total), being from an "underrepresented Michigan county" (six points for being from a white rural area), or by getting the up to 110 points purely through academic acheivement. There is no magic cutoff at 100, with subjective evaluation on top of the points system entering into the admissions decision as well.

Add all of this to the timing - Martin Luther King's birthday - and one can only conclude that Bush is engaging in the worst kind of race-baiting. He made his supporters mad over Trent Lott, and it's time to get them back.

Thousands of drunks are smashing into windows at Karlstad University, but it isn't students blowing off steam. Instead, birds feasting on fermented berries are getting drunk and playing chicken with the glass. Thousands of waxwings began gathering in the trees outside the university late last week to feast on ripening rowanberries. The birds haven't learned to say when.

MISTAH KURTZ: LET THE SLIMING OF DEMOCRATS BEGIN!
Tabloid Sleaze Attacks AOK at WashPost
"Nudge, Nudge, Wink, Wink, Know What I Mean..."

Howie "Mistah" Kurtz is outdoing himself these days. Now he has announced the official beginning of character assassination season against the Democrats, with a smarmy column of "nudge, nudge" about Sen. John Kerry.

Not that Mistah Kurtz has the guts to say outright, "Let the sliming begin!"

He just thinks it's all part of the game, the show, the effort by the press to dig up the dirt on anyone so presumptuous as to want to be president. And he's the first off the mark.

Nothing that Howie would condemn, of course. After all, he's written more than one glowing profile of Matt Drudge. In fact, he'll use his own little column to start spreading a little muck about what he calls the Democrats' "quirky behavior," and inciting the tabloids to pay women to tell whatever sordid story they can concoct about Kerry and others.

Bush and the rest of the right-wingers have been working hard to scare the hell out of the public for some time now. And they have been harvesting the results politically. Now they're harvesting cash, too ...
I used to write direct mail, so I understand how this is being used. TownHall sent it out - so it's approved. Their approval demonstrates that they recognize how this "wartime Presidency" crap is about selling stuff to the rubes. Bush formula: Terrify, then harvest.

With concern over North Korea's nuclear capabilities growing, President Bush reassured the American people Monday that "extreme force" will be used to remove Saddam Hussein from power if the Iraqi president fails to give up suspected weapons of mass destruction.

"For years, Kim Jong Il has acted in blatant disregard of the Treaty on the Non-Proliferation Of Nuclear Weapons, and last week, he rejected it outright," Bush told reporters after a National Security Council meeting on North Korea. "We cannot allow weapons of mass destruction to remain in the hands of volatile, unpredictable leaders. Which is exactly why we must act quickly and decisively against Saddam Hussein."

Q: How many Al Sharptons does it take to change a lightbulb? A: Why? Because I'm black!?

Q: How many Bjorn Lomborgs does it take to change a lightbulb? A: You're revealing your left-wing bias by asking.

Ohio Attorney Jeffrey S. Sutton is known for his work towards weakening the Americans with Disabilities Act and other civil rights laws in several recent Supreme Court cases. Through the coordination of ADA Watch, disability rights organizations across the United States are joining together to oppose the U.S. Senate confirmation of Sutton who has been nominated by President Bush to become a federal court judge in the U.S. 6th Circuit Court of Appeals ...

Individuals with disabilities would be segregated in institutions despite professional opinion that they would be better served in the community. Impoverished children and adults denied the basic medical care guaranteed to them under the Medicaid program would be unable to enforce their rights. State governments would be free to exclude people with disabilities from their programs and services, including health care, education, roads and streets, public buildings, and welfare benefits, without fear of having to compensate those individuals for the discrimination they suffered. Sutton has already ensured that state employees with disabilities can no longer seek compensation from their state employers for violating ADA.

Republicans who oppose affirmative action rarely offer workable solutions to address the problems that it causes. "Affirmative access", the plan that Bush favors, does nothing to increase minority fortunes in college admissions, and in fact, hurts the overall ability of the colleges to choose who they want. The thing we always told people in Swarthmore's admissions office is that we will reject somebody with a 4.0 who was the valedictorian of their class in favor of someone who's more interesting, who's more well-rounded. Affirmative access makes state-run universities (some of which, like UM and parts of the UC system, are phenomenal) automatically offer admission to a certain top portion of the students - 10%, 5%, whatever. It takes the power to decide who is admitted into a college largely out of the college's own hands - instead, the state mandates that a certain portion of people will be able to go to certain schools, regardless of whether or not the college wants them ...

Affirmative action is a stopgap. A remarkably effective stopgap, but a stopgap nonetheless. Until the root inequities and problems of the system are fixed, we can't afford to get rid of it - and those who the most tireless crusaders against its existence are exacerbating the problem. Short on answers, long on blame, and able to consign generations of American students to underperformance and disappointment with a shrug of the shoulders and a reminder that they're also getting pregnant because of condoms.

Howard Dean is unlikely to to win the nomination for the democratic party. The main reason is because he doesn't have enough money to win. (This is a very sad fact about the state of American politics. He who has the biggest campaign chest wins, while the interest of the people loses). Another reason I think he is unlikely to win is because people get easily spooked whenever you talk about government health care. He has a very bold, yet reasonable plan that will expand Medicare and provide health insurance for everyone who needs it

Joe Lieberman - $4.3 raised, 24 articles, 15% CIP – 43.3, Change +20.5
John Kerry - $14.6 raised, 7 articles, 13% CIP – 34.6, Change +10
John Edwards - $11.2 raised, 7 articles, 10.5% CIP – 28.7, Change -4
Dick Gephardt - $5.8 raised, 3 articles, 10.5% CIP – 19.3, Change -7
Bob Graham – $4.6 raised, 3 articles, 4% CIP – 11.6, Change -7
Howard Dean - $.136 raised, 7 articles, 3% CIP – 10.1, Change +2

The large spike in Lieberman's PPI number is in large part due to his official announcement this week of his candidacy and therefore a greater amount of media attention. John Kerry's spike is due to adjusted fundraising capability numbers.

Charges Dropped Against Man Who Shot Four Officers in No-Knock Raid

Check out this article in the Baltimore Sun about the decision not to charge Lewis S. Cauthorne, who shot four police officers when they barged into his house, with a crime.

"Investigators concluded detectives did not announce that they were police just before smashing down Cauthorne's door with a battering ram and rushing in to look for drugs."

The authorities believe Cauthorne acted in self-defense. In an interview given the night of the incident, Cauthorne said, "I didn't know you guys were police. I thought I was getting robbed."

The police were required to knock and announce themselves before entering the house. None of the officers suffered serious injuries. "The raid yielded six bags with trace amounts of marijuana, empty vials, a razor with cocaine residue and two scales, documents show."

Nor has Cauthorne been charged with any drug crimes. Nonetheless, he spent six weeks, between the date of the incident on Nov. 19 and January 7 in jail.

JARRETT: Jeralyn Merritt what do you think?

JERALYN MERRITT, CRIMINAL DEFENSE ATTORNEY: I applaud Governor Ryan. I think he's a hero. The system in Illinois is broken and it's broken beyond repair, and if you want somebody to blame for what happened today, you should look to the Illinois State Legislature and you should look to the system that tried these people. These people have not been tired fairly.

JARRETT: And you're a defense attorney and the governor also criticized incompetent defense attorneys who were in way over their heads. You guys are to blame.

MERRITT: And he's right. Well, it's not all of us but yes he is right and he established a commission after he entered the moratorium to study what went wrong in Illinois, and that commission came up with 85 reforms. Most of them, almost all of them, should have been enacted by the legislature and you know what the legislature didn't enact a single one. The system in Illinois is the same today as it has been for the past however many years. We have seven people who have been exonerated from death row in that state.

JARRETT: Right.

MERRITT: And since 1973 when the death penalty was re-instituted, only 12 have been executed. It's broken.

JARRETT: All right, Lis Wiehl wants to jump down your throat Jeralyn.

WIEHL: No, Jeralyn, look the system is broke. You and I will agree. I am not a proponent of the death penalty. But there is a -- there are ways to go about it. Here the courts and the legislature are the proper place. The governor's constitutional obligation or liberty to commute a sentence like this is very, very narrow, and for him to do a blanket pardon two days before leaving office it is what he thought was morally right but it smacks of being more of a political comment or political statement than a legal one.

MERRITT: I think all you had to do was listen or watch him today.

WIEHL: I did.

MERRITT: And you would see it was not a political move. That man lives and breathes this issue.

WIEHL: He believes it, yes.

MERRITT: It has transformed him. He has been studying it for three years and his clemency hearings have been going on for months.

WIEHL: But it's -- I don't disagree with you but it's not his right to take the power away from where it really belongs here...

MERRITT: Oh, yes it is, Lis.

WIEHL: ...which is in the court, the legislature, and the sentencing commission. If we want to change the law, we can change the law. We can't have governors in all states --

MERRITT: He has the power, Lis. Illinois has one of the broadest clemency statutes in the country. Four hundred and twenty-six legal scholars wrote Governor Ryan and told him there was legal precedent for what he was doing and it was legally valid.

WIEHL: (UNINTELLIGIBLE.)

You know, my wife yells at me when I shout, "Those damned Christian Conservatives!" everytime I read something like this piece. As an ex-Christian conservative herself, she claims that it is not very liberal of me to judge an entire group of people by the acts of a few idiots on the fringe. On the one hand she's correct, but when that idiot-fringe controls nearly the entire freaking Federal and, in TX anyway, state governments, they are no longer granted the benefit of my "live and let live" and "accept all others even if they are different" liberal worldview. Especially since their worldview is "live as we do or die, you heathen scum". What the hell is wrong with these people that they are so petrified of sex and willies!?

Meanwhile, we have another example of the administration's incompetence and disorganization which played a major role in getting us to this point in the first place. Yesterday, as we just noted, Jim Kelly laid out the possibility of a new aid-for-nuclear-cooperation agreement with the North. In this morning's Washington Post, however, an unnamed administration official from the hawk camp says "Kelly went off the reservation" and that "he should not have planted that seed."

Here's the point: if your chosen Korea point man (Kelly) goes to the region and makes a major announcement and is then undercut or repudiated by other officials back home, by definition, that's a screw up. Whoever's right, whoever's got the right policy, it's a screw up. One hand doesn't know what the other's doing. The administration can't negotiate effectively with its allies or 'talk' with the North Koreans because it hasn't even gotten to the bottom of its negotiations with itself.

Bush's 'Re-Elect' Poll Drops to 36% - That's BELOW Poppy!

Bush's "approval" rating is down to 58% in the latest Gallup Poll, but that's not the number that matters to political professionals. The important number is his "re-elect", and that stands at a dismal 36%, with 32% "definitely" voting for someone else, and 31% undecided. W's 36% puts him BELOW the 37% of the vote that Poppy got in losing to Bill Clinton in 1992 - the lowest re-election vote in 80 years. W's "re-elect" numbers are dismal, and if it was a Democrat they'd be saying he's "toast." Hey Charlie Cook, Stu Rothenberg, Bill Schneider, etc. - quit hiding Bush's dismal "re-elect" numbers!

http://www.pollingreport.com/wh04gen.htm

"The Pentagon plans to ask Congress next month for relief from environmental regulations that protect endangered species and critical habitats on millions of acres of military training ranges across the country, saying those controls impede crucial exercises and combat readiness. Defense officials said last week in interviews that their plan is designed to strike a "common sense" balance between environmental stewardship and wartime readiness. For example, environmental regulations prohibit military maneuvers on some ranges during certain mating seasons and dictate which California beaches the Marines can storm in practice, they said."

Contrasts were drawn between the intrepid, power-challenging, authority-questioning Watergate investigative reporter of the 1970's, and the obscenely slavish, weasely celebrity-reporter of the New Millennium, who relies on bizarre and dishonest devices (inventing facts) to achieve the outcomes his powerful patrons desire. For this year's voters, the extreme and tragic transformation of Bob "Woody" Woodward - and his decadent journey from "All the President's Men" to "Ten Days in September" - represents a poignant microcosm of the national mainstream media's deterioration over the last thirty years. So take a walk around the winner's circle, Bob Woodward. You're the new MWO Media Whore of the Year - 2002!

I think radicals should run in Democratic primaries, so I can't really go after Al Sharpton the way I do Ralph Nader. But the fact that this dishonest carnival barker been allowed to become the most politically prominent leader of disenfranchised Blacks in this country is both tragic and pathetic, as black people have never needed tough-minded and independent-thinking leadership than they do at this moment. It's obviously bad news for the Democrats, as well, but not as bad if Sharpton tried to take Blacks out of the party, as I gather, the anti-Semitic Cynthia McKinney might attempt to do for the Greens.

Okay, okay-- yes deliberately deceiving twenty women in order to induce the worst gold-digging stereotypes, then yanking out the truth to humiliate them when forced to "choose between love and money" (when the whole setup was about love OF money) is a sign of the apocalyse, of cultural decline and depravity.

So what's to praise? Well, one notable thing from watching the first episode last week was the easy interracial dating involved. I haven't followed the "group dating shows" (The Bachelor etc.) closely, but many of the traditional TV dating shows like Blind Date have been almost scrupulously Jim Crow in their dating matchups. I remember a few years ago when MTV introduced its dating show, Singled Out, how radical it was on television to have couples paired so easily and obliviously to race, while the regular television dating shows did and usually continued to be so racially segregated in their matchups.

After the mid-term elections, it was widely reported that President Bush was a political colossus. He appeared to be politically unassailable. Mr. Bush had high approval ratings. He had gotten both his massive tax cut and a use of force resolution through Congress in his first two years. Mr. Bush took substantial political risk in 2002 and reaped the reward of Republican control of both houses of Congress. During the 2000 campaign as well as in his first two years, Mr. Bush had gotten a virtual free ride from the media. Mr. Bush has been described as the most powerful President since Lyndon Johnson.

We detect, however, a change in the zeitgeist. We believe that Mr. Bush's popularity and political power have peaked and that his next two years will be much tougher than the last two years. There are a number of signs that point to erosion of Mr. Bush's popularity and political power.

The first sign of slippage came in the two run-off elections in Louisiana after the midterm elections. Mary Landrieu won reelection to the Senate despite massive Republican resources poured into the state, a large White House effort including the personal attention to the race by Karl Rove, and the active support for the Republican candidate by President Bush ...

There is a supposed tradition that ex-presidents refrain from attacking the actions and policies of their successors, even though I do remember Bush I taking shots at Clinton. On the few occasions that Clinton has spoken out (almost always after taking shots from the Bush White House), he has been accused by the right wing media Wurlitzer of violating the "tradition" of silence. Now, with this most recent and grotesque attempt by the Bushies to deflect blame to Clinton for their own botched foreign policy, it begs the question: is it time for Clinton take the gloves off and spend some time responding in kind to set the record straight?

Yes, there will be those who say that Clinton grabbing some of the spotlight right now can only hurt the candidacies of the 2004 Democratic candidates, and give Ari and Karl a chance to hurt the party by bringing up Clinton's drawbacks. However, others will say that on this issue, Clinton has the high ground to pound away at Bush's failings, which are all too apparent. In fact, as time goes on, it appears that one issue where Clinton can pound these guys successfully is on foreign policy, an area where despite the media whoring to the Bushies, there is very little actual achievement for this Administration to tout. Come to think of it, that applies to all issues as time goes on.

I personally would like to see Clinton go on the offensive for 30-60 days and make the Fleischer Ministry of Propaganda go on overdrive. Yes, Rush and Fox News would love it, but seeing Clinton effectively show how bad these guys really are would be fun too. And having six Democratic hopefuls for 2004 plus Clinton hammer at these guys at the same time would make the media cover it, something they will not do unless it involves sex, a war, or a fight. And Clinton would certainly give them something to cover.

Once again, the Post has been caught red-handed spreading Republican National Committee propaganda as if it contained a shred of truth. And this time it concerns a matter that ought to have been a no-brainer for a newspaper in heavily-black D.C.: the record of Judge Charles Pickering.

Ever since the White House nominated Pickering for the Federal Court of Appeals, the RNC and its media satellites have tried mightily to transform the old segregationist into some sort of heroic fighter for racial justice ... (MORE AVAIL)

Two red pandas were found dead yesterday morning inside their exhibit at the National Zoo and three employees who went inside the animals' enclosure fell ill, according to zoo officials who said they are investigating whether rat poison used at the zoological park may have played a role.

The adult male pandas were found on the ground in their outdoor exhibit at 8:50 a.m. by a zookeeper conducting routine morning checks, officials said. The National Zoo's red pandas -- about the size of large house cats -- are unrelated to the better-known and much larger giant pandas. They were 7 1/2 and 5 1/2 years old and had no record of medical problems. Red pandas often live into their early teens while in the care of zoos.

COSBY: Some of your supporters say Congresswoman Harris, Senator Harris, maybe President Harris. What do you think about that?
HARRIS: Never mind that. Not my supporters. People who really care about me couldn't possibly wish that on me.
COSBY: There are some people who say you have the potential.
HARRIS: Oh, you know.

Police in Genoa, Italy have admitted to fabricating evidence against globalization activists in an attempt to justify police brutality during protests at the July 2001 G8 Summit. In searches of the Nexis database, FAIR has been unable to find a single mention of this development in any major U.S. newspapers or magazines, national television news shows or wire service stories.

According to reports from the BBC and the German wire service Deutsche Presse-Agentur (1/7/03, 1/8/03), a senior Genoa police officer, Pietro Troiani, has admitted that police planted two Molotov cocktails in a school that was serving as a dormitory for activists from the Genoa Social Forum. The bombs were apparently planted in order to justify the police force's brutal July 22 raid on the school. According to the BBC, the bombs had in fact been found elsewhere in the city, and Troijani now says planting them at the school was a "silly" thing to do.

The BBC and DPA also report that another senior officer has admitted to faking the stabbing of a police officer in order to frame protesters. These revelations have emerged over the course of a parliamentary inquiry into police conduct that was initiated by the Italian government under pressure from "domestic and international outrage over the blood-soaked G8 summit in Genoa" (London Guardian, 7/31/01). Three police chiefs have been transferred and at least 77 officers have been investigated on brutality charges.

"The Justice Department announced plans this week for a new color-coded terrorism alert system, with green for the most relaxed, and red as the most serious warning. However, if the scale goes above orange, I will make brown. Strom Thurmond was visibly enthusiastic about the plan, saying, " A color alert system? Why, I've been waiting for one of them for years!" "
--Tina Fey

"UN inspectors still have not found proof of illegal weapons in Iraq and some say President Bush is having trouble justifying an attack. I think they're right because earlier today Bush accused Saddam of stealing cable." -Conan O'Brien

"It's been reported that the leaders of several Arab countries are thinking of asking Saddam Hussein to step down as president of Iraq. Apparently, they're upset with Saddam about some things he said at Strom Thurmond's birthday party." -Conan O'Brien

________________Average______Median
Edwards____________1.3_________1
Kerry______________2.4_________2
Graham____________3.5_________3
Gephardt___________3.5_________4
Dean_______________3.8________3.5
Lieberman___________4.3________ 4
Sharpton____________6.5________6.5
Dodd (1 rating)_______ 7__________7

Sorry about the lines and the cruddy spacing, but I ain't got no stinkin' HTML skills, and it's the best I could do. As you can see, the average/median thing doesn't matter much; the median slightly favors Graham and Dean over Gephardt, big whoop-di-do.

Now that's 15 out of, what, 15 or 20 million Democratic primary voters? Most pollsters probably wouldn't consider that a statistically valid sample, unless of course they're Frank Lutz (badaBOOM).

But I think it's reasonable to conclude that John Edwards had a very strong week, and that John Kerry, who was practically invisible, still has momentum, at least among the cognisceti (I'm going to Rome later in the month, and I gotta work on my Italian).

.... Edwards
Great press week; ABC interview; not too much hostile counterfire from the Reptiles. A smooth rollout. Didn't get too chopped up about being a trial attorney (editor's note: But just wait 'til the Reptiles start morphing him into Johnnie Cochrane.) Good showing in new Zogby poll. As the tall moderate from the upper South, benefits from Gore's disappearing act.

Kerry
Slow week, not much press, which is bad. Slow week, not much press, which is good (editor's note: I sense a certain ambivalence here.) Some feeling that he remains the frontrunner, despite having no discernible muscles in his lower face.

Graham
The new death star..cough..I mean dark horse from the right wing of the party. Schmoozed with Iowa governor at Orange Bowl -- never hurts, never hurts. Family connections with the Sopranos..cough..I meMoan the Washington Post. Scares Republicans, but may just be angling for.

In response to a Dec. 26 letter from Lorraine Akiba, I have to say: There they go again, "playing the race card!"

The Democratic Party chairwoman hopes to scare local voters into thinking that Republicans are all racists. Give me a break. Akiba criticizes President Bush for not having "appropriately chastised Republican Sen. Trent Lott."

I say action speaks louder than words. Rather than scolding a senator who had a serious lapse in judgment in making inexcusable remarks, look at the record. Bush has appointed more minority members to his administration than any previous Democratic or Republican president.

Regarding the Asian Pacific appointees, with which I am most familiar since I am a member of the President's Advisory Commission on Asian Americans and Pacific Islanders, Bush has an excellent track record.

He has appointed 97 Asian and Pacific Islanders to high administrative positions. Nineteen of them are U.S. Senate-confirmed posts. This list is headed by Cabinet Secretaries Norman Mineta of Transportation, a Japanese Democrat, and Elaine Chao of Labor, a Chinese immigrant. Hawai'i's own Mike Liu is assistant secretary at Housing and Urban Development and the president picked our new U.S. attorney, Ed Kubo.

Detractors should remember that two of the president's closest colleagues are minority members: Colin Powell, secretary of state, and Condoleezza Rice, national security adviser. Secretary of Education Rod Paige is a minority and Mel Martinez, a Hispanic, is secretary of HUD. Albert Gonzalez serves as White House counsel.

In addition to advancing the cause of minorities, the president is concerned about their welfare. He will make sure that the continuation of unemployment insurance is on the front burner when Congress reconvenes on Jan. 5. He is also committed to establishing a prescription drug program to help seniors pay for their necessary and expensive medicine.

State Rep. Barbara Marumoto

Rep. Barbara Marumoto, in her December 30th letter to the editor, claimed that Bush has a strong record on minority appointments, claiming, "Bush has appointed more minority members to his administration than any previous Democratic or Republican president." Nothing could be further from the truth.

According to the non-partisan Brookings Institute, Bush has actually sharply decreased the number of political appointments for African-Americans, from 15 percent under Clinton to just 9 percent. Furthermore, of all political appointments, less than 2 percent are African-American females.

Bush is even more woeful when it comes to other minorities. The National Journal weekly listed 6 percent of the top 300 appointees as Hispanic and only 3 percent as Asian American, down from Clinton's numbers. The National Journal (6/26/01) concluded, "Bush appears to be lagging behind the percentage Clinton appointed" with 20% less than Clinton's appointments.

None of this is surprising when looking at Bush's record as Texas governor: Out of 3,400 total appointments, 80% were white. Indeed, it's no wonder that during the 2000 elections only 8 percent of Blacks voted for Bush.

Numbers don't lie. Maybe Barbara Marumoto shouldn't lie either.

So if you watched CNN (or any of the other cable nets, for that matter) after CloneAid's announcement of the birth of a cloned baby on Christmas Eve, you know that they all took that story and ran like thieves. Many hours were spent on what an outrage the supposed cloning was, many reports were breathlessly reported.

In short, the news nets swallowed the story hook, line and sinker. CNN must have paid Sanjay Gupta some heavy overtime in the days following the announcement.

Now it's dawned on CNN that they may have been hoaxed, and the wailing is positively ear-piercing. Bill Hemmer has the guy who was supposed to scientifically inspect the CloneBaby (he's said 'I'm a scientist' 3 times already), and Hemmer is openly wondering how this all could have happened.

Umm, how to put this delicately...

Hemmer, you freaking idiot! You and those of your newswhore ilk pumped this story beyond all rational proportion. You hawked the CloneBaby story for 3 straight days. You took the word of a group that can only charitably be called loony and reported it as fact. You got taken, you rubes! And it's nobody's fault but your own.

Ahh, now I feel a little better. I'm anxiously awaiting CNN's Special Report on a new year for BatBoy. Friggin' dopes.

"When Governors speak from this podium, they ordinarily discuss a range of issues. But these are not ordinary times. We have one overriding task before us. We must come together to create new jobs and get our economy back on track."
--California Governor Gray Davis, 2003 Staate of the State Address

"When Presidents speak to the Congress and the nation from this podium, they typically comment on the full range of challenges and opportunities that face us. But these are not ordinary times. For all the many tasks that require our attention, one calls on us to focus, unite, and act. Together, we must make our economy thrive once again."
--Bill Clinton, 1993 State of the Union Adddress

The tape then shows the Smoak's medium-size brown dog romping on the shoulder of the Interstate, its tail wagging. As the family yells, the dog, named Patton, first heads away from the road, then quickly circles back toward the family. An officer in a blue uniform aims his shotgun at the dog and fires at its head, killing it immediately. For several moments, all that is audible are shrieks as the family reacts to the shooting. James Smoak even stands up, but officers pull him back down

FRANKEN: In your book, you cheat.
DONAHUE: How does he cheat?
FRANKEN: In your book. You have chapter 12. I read your book on the plane. Chapter 12, "Liberal Hate Speech." You cite 12 examples of liberal hate speech. One of them is a quote from John Chancellor on August 21, 1991, about the Soviet Union. Do you know what happened that day in the Soviet Union, Bernie?
GOLDBERG: Why don't you tell me?
FRANKEN: No, why don't you tell me? I want to know if you even...
GOLDBERG: Read the quote, so the people will know what we're talking about.
FRANKEN: "It's short of soap, so there are lice in hospitals. It's short of pantyhose, so women's legs go bare. It's short snowsuits, so babies stay home in winter. Sometimes it's short of cigarettes, so millions of people stop smoking involuntarily. It drives everybody crazy. The problem isn't communism. No one even talked about communism this week. The problem is shortages." This was John Chancellor .
(CROSSTALK)
FRANKEN: Now what happened in the Soviet Union that day?
GOLDBERG: Well, I don't know what happened that day. But you're (CROSSTALK)
FRANKEN: Do you want to know what happened? It was a huge day in the Soviet Union.
DONAHUE: Well, go ahead. Let's go. It's an hour-show. What happened, Al?
FRANKEN: That was the collapse of the coup, the hard-liner coup at the Parliament.
GOLDBERG: And?
FRANKEN: And that was a huge-well, and? Do you know that perestroika had been in effect for six years at that point?
The point here is, Bernie, you regurgitated a quote that you got from some right-wing media watch group. And you did not care to look at the context of it. Listen to how Tom Brokaw opened that evening news. If you're talking about that there's a left-wing bias, this is how Tom Brokaw opened the news that day from this thing that you're quoting.
"Good evening. Wednesday, August 21, 1991. This is a day for bold print in history to be remembered and savored as the day when the power of the people in the Soviet Union proved to be greater than the power of the gray and cold-blooded men who thought they could return that country to the darkness of state oppression." Boy, it sounds like a real pro-communist bias on NBC, doesn't it?
But you know what, Bernie? You didn't even bother to find out what the context of John Chancellor-who, by the way, is dead, and couldn't defend himself. You had no interest in finding out the context of what he was saying. And what he was saying was that, after six years of perestroika, in which communism was gone, that the people were-that the reason for these shortages was the transition away from communism.
(CROSSTALK)
FRANKEN: Then you had the nerve to say about John Chancellor-you call his absurd observation that the problem in the old Soviet Union wasn't communism, but shortages. The only thing absurd about this is your accusing John Chancellor of saying that.

In Korea, the Bush administration now seems to be pursuing a policy of what we might call 'strategic ridiculousness': a policy involving the seemingly intentional pursuit of every amateurish and counter-productive gambit conceivable in each given situation. What shrewd purpose might stand behind this doctrine I'm not able to ascertain. But we can at least tease out its main components.

We've already discussed how the Bush administration solved the vexing problem of preventing the NKs from becoming a nuclear power by announcing that they already are a nuclear power and it's probably something we can live with.

And now there's more.

At the White House and among Republicans on Capitol Hill there is increasingly serious talk of pulling out the 37,000 troops which the US has garrisoned along the DMZ for about a half century. (Henry Hyde's International Relations Committee is apparently preparing hearings about a possible unilateral withdrawal of American troops.)

In other words, in order to take a tough line against North Korea's nuclear jawboning, the Bush White House is now prepared to accept North

Korea as a nuclear power and contemplate the unilateral withdrawal of all American forces from the Korean Peninsula.

Excuse me, but how stupid is this? The point is not how many people are invested in the stock market, but how much money they have invested. As Kevin Phillips notes in his 2002 book, "Wealth and Democracy," while more and more people owned stock during the period, most of these had tiny stakes; with fewer than half owning more in their portfolios than in their cars. Meanwhile, "the top 1% pocketed 42% of the stockmarket gains between 1989 and 1997, while the top 10% of the population took 86%."

Here are the relevant numbers on the tax plan buried in the Post article about the Democratic response: "An analysis by the Urban-Brookings Tax Policy Center of the effects of eliminating dividend taxation found that the average benefit for those making less than $10,000 would be $6, and the average benefit for those making more than $1 million would be $45,098.

Accelerating the tax cuts slated for 2006, as Bush has proposed, would give 70 percent of the benefit to the top 5 percent of taxpayers, and the lowest 80 percent would receive 6.5 percent of the benefit. His expected proposal to accelerate the 2004 tax cuts would provide 64.4 percent of the benefit to the wealthiest 5 percent and 7.7 percent to the lowest 80 percent."

Is this simple distinction really beyond the ability of the American media to communicate?

Goblin Queen e-mailed me angrily about my Rolf Eden post, saying that as a woman, she should know about the state of womanhood. If she's any example of modern womanhood, it's safe to say that modern womanhood is in decline. Explore her website, and read about her desire to sleep with a woman as a man. If that's modern womanhood, it's surely in trouble.

Today the Pragpro begins a new feature, The Pragpro Power Index. Each Wednesday the pragpro will list the active, or soon to be active candidates for the Democratic nomination for POTUS in order of their PPI ranking. The PPI for each candidate will be accumulated in the following manner: Funds raised* + Media Stories featuring the candidate over the course of the last week**. For example: John Kerry has raised $8.6 million, and over the course of the last week he has been the feature of three newspaper articles, his score is 11.6. It's tough to get up to date numbers on fundraising, if any of the readers have a reliable source that updates weekly, clue me in. When I select "news stories" I weigh how much the candidate is featured, and the circulation of the paper/source. Now repeat after me, seeking the Democratic nomination for president is not a horse race. PPI - 1/8/2003

John Edwards - $11.2 raised, 10 articles – 21.2
Bob Graham – $4.6 raised, 12 articles – 16.6
Dick Gephardt - $5.8 raised, 10 articles – 15.8
John Kerry - $8.6 raised, 3 articles – 11.6
Joe Lieberman - $4.3 raised, 5 articles – 8.3
Howard Dean - $.136 raised, 4 articles – 4.1

President Bush and Vice President Dick Cheney each stand to reap thousands of dollars in savings from Bush's proposal on Tuesday to eliminate taxes on stock dividends. Based on income reported in his tax returns for 2001, Bush would have saved $16,511 on dividend payments of $43,805 if his new proposal had been in effect for the year. Cheney, who had dividends of $278,103 in 2001, would have saved $104,823. The estimated savings were derived by using a tax-savings calculator on the Internet site of the Heritage Foundation think-tank (www.heritage.org).

Close readers of media columns might have noticed last summer when Conrad Black -- conservative Canadian media mogul and Rupert Murdoch manquι -- bought The Hill, a weekly newspaper that covers Congress and competes with the older and higher-circulation Roll Call. Black, of course, has tried for years to build a conservative media empire on top of his successful newspaper acquisitions. He launched Canada's National Post in 1998 to create a big-time newspaper that would shift political debate in that country right, but that didn't do the trick. He's tried to buy the New York Observer and the Daily News, and owns a piece of the velvet conservative New York Sun.

So when Black buys a political rag, something's up. Now we get the news that longtime Hill editor-in-chief and publisher Martin Tolchin has parted ways with the paper. His replacement is one Hugo Gurdon, a Black loyalist whom the Associated Press describes as a former managing editor of the National Post, which is accurate as far as it goes. Gurdon does have real journalism credentials, having served as Washington bureau chief for Black's Daily Telegraph, a conservative tabloid, in the U.K. But more recently, he was a "Warren Brookes Journalism Fellow" at the Competitive Enterprise Institute. Some of our readers may already know about CEI, an "astroturf" group funded by big business to produce timely pseudoscience in order to influence policy debates, primarily on the environment. The fellowship in question is usually awarded to libertarian or right-leaning "journalists" who specialize in anti-environmental propaganda.

Previously, The Hill was known for no-nonsense, apolitical coverage of the inner workings of Congress. It will be interesting to see whether,under Gurdon's direction, The Hill becomes the Fox News of congressional journalism. (They're already excerpting David Frum's Dubya book -- Frum, interestingly, is among other things a columnist at the National Post. That's some nice right-wing synergy!)

MR. FLEISCHER: Good afternoon and happy New Year to everybody. The President began his day with an intelligence briefing, followed by an FBI briefing. Then he had a series of policy briefings. And this afternoon, the President will look forward to a Cabinet meeting where the President will discuss with members of his Cabinet his agenda for the year. The President is going to focus on economic growth, making America a more compassionate country, and providing for the security of our nation abroad and on the homefront.

And with that, I'm more than happy to take your questions. Helen.

Q At the earlier briefing, Ari, you said that the President deplored the taking of innocent lives. Does that apply to all innocent lives in the world? And I have a follow-up.

MR. FLEISCHER: I refer specifically to a horrible terrorist attack on Tel Aviv that killed scores and wounded hundreds. And the President, as he said in his statement yesterday, deplores in the strongest terms the taking of those lives and the wounding of those people, innocents in Israel.

Q My follow-up is, why does he want to drop bombs on innocent Iraqis?

MR. FLEISCHER: Helen, the question is how to protect Americans, and our allies and friends --

Q They're not attacking you.

MR. FLEISCHER: -- from a country --

Q Have they laid the glove on you or on the United States, the Iraqis, in 11 years?

MR. FLEISCHER: I guess you have forgotten about the Americans who were killed in the first Gulf War as a result of Saddam Hussein's aggression then.

Q Is this revenge, 11 years of revenge?

MR. FLEISCHER: Helen, I think you know very well that the President's position is that he wants to avert war, and that the President has asked the United Nations to go into Iraq to help with the purpose of averting war.

Q Would the President attack innocent Iraqi lives?

MR. FLEISCHER: The President wants to make certain that he can defend our country, defend our interests, defend the region, and make certain that American lives are not lost.

Q And he thinks they are a threat to us?

MR. FLEISCHER: There is no question that the President thinks that Iraq is a threat to the United States.

Q The Iraqi people?

MR. FLEISCHER: The Iraqi people are represented by their government. If there was regime change, the Iraqi --

Q So they will be vulnerable?

MR. FLEISCHER: Actually, the President has made it very clear that he has not dispute with the people of Iraq. That's why the American policy remains a policy of regime change. There is no question the people of Iraq --

Q That's a decision for them to make, isn't it? It's their country.

MR. FLEISCHER: Helen, if you think that the people of Iraq are in a position to dictate who their dictator is, I don't think that has been what history has shown.

Q I think many countries don't have -- people don't have the decision -- including us.

Paying For the War, Military, Etc. The word "taxes" has been the subject of intense, well-funded, well-crafted, right-wing messaging directed at the public for 30 years. So now there is a negative connotation associated with the word - almost as bad as the dreaded 'L' word, "liberal." So instead of using the 'T' word, let's try a different approach. Think of taxes as paying for the Iraq war and increased military and government services. Who will pay for these things?

Here's what WILL be taxed:
-Money made from working at a job in an offfice or at a factory or as a janitor, etc.
-Money made from savings interest.
-Money made if you are a plumber, etc. (evven though you are paid by people who already paid taxes on their income, so it will be "taxed twice," which is the justification for no dividend taxation. But that sort of nonsense justification only applies to money made by the really, really rich. Wink, wink, nod, nod.)
-Money you receive as unemployment benefitts.
-A big chunk of your income from your job will go into Social Security - but only the first 85,000 is taxed - if you make more than that the tax stops. This is the largest tax most Americans pay. This money is currently going back out to the rich as tax cuts, because the deficit resulting from these tax cuts is also using up the Social Security surplus.

In other words - the money that YOU make.

And that's not the worst of it. At least Frist supports some stem cell research. Yet he has been even more strongly anti-science -- nay, anti-medical science -- when it comes to the cloning of human embryos for research purposes ... The truth is that Frist -- like Leon Kass, Francis Fukuyama, Charles Krauthammer, and numerous others -- is caught in the awkward position of trying to argue against cloned embryo research without making an explicitly pro-life argument. As I have written here, this is nonsense -- and especially so in Frist's case, since he calls himself pro-life anyway.

"I will kill yr[sic] fuking[sic] dog!"

I don't have a dog. This kind of sloppy preparation renders your threats ludicrous as opposed to credible. Go ahead, kill my dog if you can find it. You see? I was able to dismiss your threat, which, based upon the grammar and spelling, I am sure you spent hours constructing, in a matter of seconds. A very poor return on the time you invested.

The three winners from these primaries will go on to duke it out. Note that "winning" a caucus or primary is more about meeting and/or beating expectations then it's about winning straight out. For example if Sharpton finishes third in any of these primaries, that's a win for him. If Kerry finishes second in New Hampshire that might the end of his run. The three winners of these early contests will develop momentum, which leads to donors selecting to place their "bets" on one of the three that pulls away from the pack. Note that Lieberman and to a lesser extent Dean, (mostly due to his lack of funds), are establishing strong bases in South Carolina as well as New England, which makes them both duel bracket players. Fearless prediction: Look for Dean, Gephardt, and Edwards to emerge from these battles and separate from the pack.

The new University of Maryland study also found that while prosecutors are significantly less likely to seek the death penalty when both the victim and defendant are black, they are substantially more likely to seek the death sentence when the homicide involves a black defendant and a white victim. These problems occur not only in the prosecutors' initial charging decisions, but continue throughout the entire judicial process, including during defendant sentencing. The study confirms the systemic nature of these problems and demonstrates that the moratorium should remain in place until they can be adequately analyzed and solutions implemented.

The Maryland study further demonstrates what we have long known about the bias and error inherent in the death penalty. For example, a study completed by Columbia University in 2002 showed that the death penalty is flawed both in Maryland and nationally.

If we invade Iraq, would there be anything we could do to stop the North Korean army from overruning the South and then aiming a few nuclear missiles at Tokyo to make sure we can't come back later and kick them out once we're done with Saddam. In principle we're supposed to be able to fight two wars, right? So Iraq is one, and Korea is two — no problem. But what about those troops in Afghanistan, Bosnia, Kosovo, Macedonia, etc.? Sounds like that's at least 2.5 wars.

Online polls skew conservative, which is to say that they're functionally irrelevant. Besides this fantastic "study", will anything come of this epiphany? Nope. We'll still see Quickvotes irresponsibly put up alongside Gallup polls on CNN, we'll still see Fox refer to everything as a "Fox Poll" regardless of source.

Polling is one of the most irresponsibly used and abused methods of declaring knowledge in modern politics. The word "poll" lends a sense of authenticity that simply isn't there much of the time. Despite declaring that online polls/some phone polls/etc. aren't "scientifically valid", they don't bother to tell you that this makes the results of the polls about as useful as a copy of Atlas Shrugged. Pundits will discuss an online poll just as much as they will a responsibly done scientific poll (i.e., as long as it's useful), even giving prime space to fluff polls. Other than as a sort of vanity push, polls that require an unfiltered audience to come to the poll and take it are beyond worthless, yet still used as a Gospel of the Day by many in the pundit corps.

AL FRANKEN
No, no, those were, those were great. I'm going to misuse one now. In the six years, about six years of both Bush administrations, the elder and the younger, there has not been one net new job created, and so here . . .

GEORGE STEPHANOPOULOS
(Off Camera) Private sector.

AL FRANKEN
No, not one net new job, just in the whole economy. So this is, extending that logically, that means that if the Bushes had run the country from its inception to the present, no one in this country would have ever worked. We'd be the poorest country, we'd be poorer than Somalia.

GEORGE STEPHANOPOULOS
(Off Camera) I don't think the Columbia Economic Department is gonna be hiring you any time soon.

AL FRANKEN
Numbers don't lie.

Well, I wouldn't say that we make government and politics a god (especially those of us that are atheists...which would be...kind of absurd) but we do tend to like our leader, also known as the "Leader of the Free World", to sometimes have deep thoughts or express an interest in something other than reading baseball box scores or avenging the the near asassination of his dad ("After all, this is a guy that tried to kill my dad."). We see the world as a kind of complex place that sometimes requires complex answers. We're funny that way.

In this case, however, we demonstrably don't have a plan. Because of that lack of a plan, the fact that the North Koreans are now months away from cranking out nuclear weapons really is a big national security set-back for the United States and its allies in the region. How and why exactly did the US let that happen? Now we're reduced to saying we're willing to accept what we were previously never willing to accept: a nuclear North Korea. Chris Nelson had it right last week. They caught the bad guy. But they botched the arrest. Big time. Tough criticism? Yeah. But it's a bigtime screw-up. And in Northeast Asia it's been going on for two years. It's time for the Bush administration to take some responsibility and explain how we got here.

FRIGHTENING FORESHADOWING: Six months before the Sept. 11 terrorist attacks, Fox's X-Files spinoff The Lone Gunmen premiered with an episode featuring a terrorist plot to fly a commercial airliner into the World Trade Center. Shockingly, this horrifying bit of foreshadowing was never widely reported χ until today. "This seems to be collective amnesia of the highest order," marvels Ed Martin, who broke the story in the industry newsletter The Myers Report. "The final act of the Gunmen pilot, which seemingly made no impact last year, now contains some of the most deeply disturbing images ever created for an entertainment program." (Having just viewed the episode again, he's not exaggerating.)