Point taken.

I was actually thinking of Arlen Specter as I wrote my last post but then remembered after posting that Sen. Specter has had nothing like the courage of his convictions lately, nor when he was Chairman of the Judiciary Committee. Instead he has been as reliable a water carrier for the Bushies as they could ask: rubber stamping their appointments and keeping dissent to a minimum from the other side of the table. Chairman Leahy seems to be made of different stock and can effectively block any Bush nominee from even coming before the Committee for a hearing. Let's pray he does so, because any nominee from the Inner Circle of the White House is going to be rotten to the core by definition. However I do take pleasure in the fact that two big rats have fled this sinking ship.

Skeleton after skeleton falls out of the GOP closet. Wasn't it last month that this senator/congressman whatever was found to not only be cheating on his wife, but he was seeing prostitutes also? Now, we have Senator Craig of Idaho being shoved out of the closet with his, ahem, equipment at the ready. Denying for all who wish to see or care to listen that he was in the men's room looking for a man. Now he says the press made him plead guilty to a lewd conduct charge. Okay...Sure...

Not gay and never have been gay. Except for that one time when...

The really amazing thing is how the GOP continues to try to blow smoke in our faces. Defying the evidence of our senses. Trying to twist it around as if we're all crazy. These guys really are short on imagination! It's always the press, the Democrats, those goddamned left-wing, latte drinking, New York/Boston/L.A./San Francisco/Seattle liberals. So what if I like men? Why do you have to make a federal case out of it? Why doesn't the press go write about something and let me get a handjob in the Senate steam room in peace?

There are people here who believe Sen. Craig should be forgiven by God and by us as well.

But let's just ask for a moment; what are we forgiving? An attempt to get some in a public restroom? As someone here said, straight people do that. Okay so it's not that. After all, if he were looking for some from a woman, he would still have had to plead to the lewd conduct charge, right? So it's not the attempt to get "sa-tis-fac-tion" that we have a problem with.

No one has a problem with scratching the itch.

All God's children do it. That's not the point. We are all laughing out loud because of the hypocrisy and the double standards that the Moral Majority embracing GOP seem to live by.

The "thou-shalt-not" values that they themselves can't uphold but would seek to impose by legislative fiat on everyone else. Privacy is fine for them and their little preferences, but not for us and ours. What's also sickening is not just the double standard, BUT THAT THEY ACTUALLY DEFEND IT. That's what I, and I suspect many people here find reprehensible and not easy to forgive. It's exactly this that lost Congress for the Republicans, what will lose them the White House next year, and make them irrelevant for perhaps the next generation or more.

Did I miss something or did he just use the famous dodge and effectively NOT answer the question? People talk about "blowing smoke", but this is the first time in recent memory that I've actually seen what the smoke looks like in print. Looked like English. Read like English. But all I could get out of it was, "What?"

Let's look at the field here.

Guiliani is quite simply mad. Wholly and defiantly insane.

Mitt Romney is a smiling, amoral opportunist.

John McCain has sold his soul to Satan and proudly wears the shackles.

And Fred Thompson is just muddling along with his old, folksy Southern charm that disguises that he's a Bush worshipper, just like he was a Nixon worshipper back in the day.

If I were a Republican, I'd be thinking, "The earth is doomed" right about now.

Having had some rather nasty encounters with Mormons, I'd like to add my perspective. They are, as their theology teaches, shockingly racist, and exceptionally vicious when you disagree with them, going out of their way to be as hateful as they can be when faced with those who question their beliefs or practices. I've done some checking,and I've found that the people who leave the "faith", and there are a lot of them, seem to experience a return of reason, logic, and sanity which leads them to question the authenticity of their founder (apparently a ne'er do-well who spent some significant time in jail), the so-called "revelation", and the entire doctrine or at least much of it. They find themselves becoming un-brainwashed, much like deprogramming from a cult. Ex-Mormons find that walking away from the faith ends up costing them friends, family, and loved ones, but they seem to feel that being able to think for themselves as opposed to being part of a collective worth the price. It's not much unlike the experience of "de-converting" from Fundamentalist Christianity. I believe that Mormonism is a very dangerous phenomenon in this country because of its insidious nature. The wholesomeness, cordiality, and family-first focus are facades that cover over a repressive, authoritarian, closed-minded, and xenophobic core. If, as the author suggests, this trend will turn into a cultural force that has Mormons moving in next door, then we're in a lot of trouble as a nation. If we are to be represented in the world by a President Romney, the sins of the Bush years will seem petty by comparison. Apparently there is worse than a "born-again" president. An LDS president who believes in a self-serving, male-dominated system spun whole-cloth from a 19th century slacker's ass.