The GOP Base is starting to get very restive. Calling every sectarian fighter in Iraq *Al-Qaeda* keeps the Base happy. Remember, all along the ignorant 30% has bought the Bush line in its entirety. They all really believe that Al Qaeda is who we're fighting in Iraq (most of the 30% probably still doesn't get the difference between Shi'ites and Sunnis...hell, half the *Administration* still doesn't understand that one.)

In short, this change in nomenclature is desperation borne of political reality: the 30% may be starting to peel away, and the GOP would do just about anything to prevent that...

You can bet that this change in nomenclature was thoroughly focus-group tested before they started it.

What astounds me is how MSM is letting them get away with it. What the hell is WRONG with the Washington press corps? Are they all complete idiots?

I know, I know. But still. They all have to know they're being idiots, right?

Get a grip, Gary. Breathed made a pretty good point in a gentle way, and some of us actually liked it.

Have you ever noticed that sometimes a milder approach to certain savage problems works better than savagery itself?......... No? I thought not.

I dunno about the rest of you, but I'd be less frightened of Bush (a little less) if his religion was merely an expedient, and he himself was a pure cynic.

But, I agree with Glenn, I think the guy really does believe God talks to him. I find that far more disturbing than any bogus relious belief.

Don't you?

Our country is in very deep trouble. The wealthy elites picked a very dangerous horse. the question is, as always, can we survive the tender ministrations of those who hold the power in this country?

... is that the Big Lie continues to be a very effective political tactic. No news there.

Of course, it also proves that 40% of american adults are stupid enough, or ignorant enough, or lazy enough, to fall for the Big Lie.

The effectiveness of the Big Lie is as old as humanity itself. We cannot outgrow the problem, it seems.

...and everyone thought, in 2000, that Cheney would be the one to keep Bush in check. Brother.

Anyone who read that exceedingly creepy Cheney profile in the New Yorker before the 2000 election would have known exactly what we were getting: a throwback to the darkest side of the American psyche. The man would have been more at home in Stalin's Russia, you ask me..

..."it's a dangerous world." Yeah, you numbnuts, and you're making it MORE dangerous every day.

God, what a fucking idiot he is. He could not have gone about his work more wrong-headed fashion. It's as if he hasn't read 1000 years of history. Force almost never works in these kinds of situations. Dick hasn't learned a thing in his entire life, apparently.

I'm betting if he'd gone to Vietnam, and served in the infantry, and survived, he'd have a different attitude..

it's a sly idea, and makes good political sense, at least, on the surface...but I doubt Bush would ever do it. You'd think cheney would, though, for the good of the party. Maybe he doesn't care about that much, if he ever did.

It's a move that'd give the dems fits though, I suspect.

Right now all the GOP candidates are hopelessly second-rate, especially Thompson... it's a little hard to believe that anyone would take any of them seriously.

With Thompson as VP, the GOP might just have a chance in 2008, although Thompson's public appearances have been less than impressive. He might be a whole lotta nothin'.

...but aside from the obvious desire of people like Lugar to have it both ways--to be seen both supporting the war, and wanting "the troops to come home"--is there more going on in cases like this? Does a guy like Lugar talk to his financial backers regularly, saying "I really have to vote to end this war" and his backers say "nope. Not quite yet."

Or what? Just what the hell is going on with these Republicans, who apparently lost their gonads back in 2000 and never found them again?

What are the pressures that cause someone like Lugar to sound like a drug-addled wino for years on end?

....but, when you get right down to it, Clinton's total mishandling of his personal affairs, and his almost total misreading of the depth of the right's political hatred of him, these terrible miscalculations of his handed us Bush on a platter.

Had Clinton conducted himself like the wise, mature man he should be, Gore would have been elected handily, and we would have avoided this eight-year nightmare. That seems inarguable. It was only Clinton's disasterous misreading of the situation he found himself in that made Bush possible..

..that, and the really surreal ignorance of half the American voting population. I concede that...but even *given* that, had Clinton kept his winkie in his pants, and had he done whatever he had to, to de-fang the extreme right in this country (something he could have done, under other circumstances), Bush and Cheney would not have got near the White House, hanging chads or no.

You know, I find it baffling that GOP voters are "afraid" that Clinton will win the White House.

What are they afraid of, anyway? It's clear to any reasonably informed person that Clinton's policies would likely help many of those same GOP voters in their wallets and elsewhere, far more than any policies of "it's our turn" GOP candidates..

There is something really ominous about the apparent truth that GOP voters have no real understanding of how the policies of their own candidates have screwed them royally--unless they're wealthy.

There is probably no more explicit example of the dense fog in which GOP voters conduct their lives, than their "fear" of Clinton. It's crazy.