Mr. Keillor hits more often than he misses, IMHO, but the writing here was simply wonderful. The beautifully constructed image of cocker spaniels careening an SUV into the sunset is a metaphor destined for the history books.

Thanks Garrison,

Marc Thomson/Assoc. Edtior/Bottom Line Magazine/Palm Springs

Thanks Gene. Your uncle must have been pretty cool to deserve such a witty, brave tribute as this work. For all the living with AIDS, you've made the world a bit kinder place.

Would that the Republican strategy to get votes was based on logic. It has always been based on hyperbole, dis-information and down right lies repeated to their base until that base believes them. There is some hope that the current fight they've picked with Clinton, thankfully bringing him into the limelight with his dukes up and his gloves packed with the brass knuckles of truth and historical record, is winning over the independent voters in droves. However, we've seen the power of the Right use the media, the forum of the President and the Congress to bulldoze the truth with a constant flood of disinformation until even the undecided voters begin to doubt up is down and black is white. Let's rejoice that they've pulled a tiger by the tail, but let's not for one second underestimate the power of this administration. We each have to do our part to take back the country: call people, volunteer, write letters, complain to the media about misrepresentations and generally TAKE RESPONSIBILITY FOR A WIN IN NOVEMBER.

Not only does the President need another 9/11 -- preferably something with a nuclear device -- to prove the need to keep him as leader, but he also needs to burn down the Riechstag and assume "temporary" emergency powers.

I've heard an interesting analysis from John Dean that perhaps the President and the administration will NOT pardon Scooter because -- despite the conservative straw man about "no crime committed" -- Scooter is guilty of obstruction of justice. As in Watergate, if the President pardons those guilty of obstruction of justice it will lead the court right to the White House door and impeachment for high crimes. Therefore, once again, the noise machine is cranked up, seemingly separate from the White House's wishes, and all the noisemakers are calling for a pardon where the President can not, will not, without bringing down his own temple of obstructed justice.

Let him pardon! It will give new life to impeachment.

As to the big picture -- I never would have guessed that after a bloody failure in Iraq, stagnant economic growth, botched immigration, Harriet Myers, Gonzales, the conservatives, the LAW AND ORDER crowd, are ballistic over not pardoning a felon convicted by a jury chosen by the defense, prosecuted by a Bush loyal appointee, and sentenced by a Bush appointed judge. I keep wondering why I never seem to be able to imagine the next LOW for these traitors. Their criminality always surprize me.

So Dems are cowards for not honoring a network that 1) was the first to call the 2000 election for Bush 2) won a Georgia court case for the right to lie to the public 3) ... oh, please, need I go on? I don't see it as cowardice or shying away from a fight, but simply telling the Soviet inspired network FOX that it isn't capable of conducting what most people call "debate."

Not that Blitzer's "raise your hands if ... " method of "debate" is a model of forensic argumentation. What a joke!

AND ... I adore it will Roger-dodger so bravely faces his hyperbole by saying "the democrats said it, not ME!" Talk about cowards! Yeah, and Dems voted for the Iraq war, and we designed the Bush immigration bill, and Dems are responsible for spreading super TB, and....

I watched the press conference where Mrs. Vitter 1) cried about her loss of privacy from the press 2) said this was a private matter as her husband literally SCOWLED at the room in anger. After a WEEK of waiting to make a comment, THIS is all he's got? This sexual criminal was forging laws to deny civil rights to same sex monogomous couples, forcing the goverment into the bedrooms of millions of Americans, and has the tumerity to whine that the media finds this hypocrite's illegal use of whores NEWS? Amazing that NOW he's found out to be a whoremonger, and his wife is faced with the awful decision that perhaps philandering should not destroy her committed relationship they come to the very tenets that liberals have ALWAYS held -- that sex is private and that perhaps Clinton's (legal) sexual philandering was simply not enough reason for his wife to abandon him.

I wonder if they'll apologize to all the gays the Clintons?

Bumiller's reporting was appalling! Apart from ascribing emotional states only to the Democrats with all the erudition of emoticons, she MIS-reported that Obama went overtime. Any newspaper #1) should print a retraction 2) fire her biased, lazy, unprofessional self -- or refer her to an advertising agency for a job as copy writer. She has no place in a news room.

This reminds me of George W. Bush's quote, tipsy at a Texas Rep. fundraiser around the early 90s when he confessed he was just a face, a prop, that he was the salesman but everyone else around him made the product and his only qualifications was as an actor. From Thompson's obvious lack of knowledge and evident lack of curiousity -- we seem to have the same actor symdrome the Republicans are throwing at us again. Neither Bush or Thompson are fit to lead in any way, nor are they really interested in leading -- they simply want to LOOK like they're leading. If something goes horribly wrong -- it's some underling's fault, Brownie, Pace, whomever. Meanwhile the gang behind the curtain is stealing the country blind.