It's late in Mr. Bush's last (constitutionally-permitted) term. The rats - er, loyal staffers - are fleeing the sinking ship for more lucrative work. It's been reported that as they come "out of the bubble" many are appalled at the disconnect between what the administration was doing and what the rest of us like to call "reality."

Mrs. Hughes is still in the bubble, but she may not be totally blind. She may be aware of reactions by her former co-workers.

At any rate, this is an open letter. It's not just to Mr.s Hughes - it's also to the remaining insiders, to the insiders who just came out and are blinking in amazement at the light of day, to the insiders who came out months or years ago, but have not yet written their tell-all memoirs, and ... to the rest of us.

Mr. Blumenthal's letter lays out, in stark detail, the "achievements" of the Bush administration and their impact upon America's reputation, its prestige. It shows what Mr. Bush has cost us.

Here at Salon, he's largely preaching to the choir. But most Americans don't read Salon, most Americans think The New York Times and CBS are part of "the librul media". Mr. Blumenthal's public letter lays it on the line for them.

Looks like it's time to bring back an old epithet: the Merchants of Death. Your suffering makes them rich! Your taxes are their profit! Start another war NOW - it's good for bidness.

It's a common conservative fallacy that investing gives corporations the money to upgrade, pay salaries, yada yada yada.

The only time that buying stock puts money into the "coffers" of a corporation is at IPO. Every other investment is just buying stock from some other individual or trading firm. That's why the call it trading stocks. When you buy 25 shares of Greedco, Inc. for your 401K, Greedco sees not a cent. Your money goes to whoever was selling Greedco, and whether they make any money depends on what they paid for Greedco, when they bought it from someone else.

Some 99.9999% of "investment" puts no money into corporations. So why do working taxpayers have to subsidize investing? Capital gains gets taxed at 15%; you probably get taxed at 20-30+ % on money that you actually worked for.

Tax all income at the same rate. Tax big incomes at significantly higher rates than little incomes. Duh.

"Relaxing in retirement"? Is this some kind of joke? For most women, regardless of age, the housework and yardwork continues, even though she may no longer be drawing a paycheck - if she ever did. "Pension"? What's that? I thought pensions went out with disco.

But seriously - you bet elderly women are an asset. Besides continuing to do the housework and yardwork, they're partial to volunteer work. (That's right - more unpaid work.) A survey last year by the League of Women Voters found that the average age of a member was 71.

Although I realize that retired men do volunteer work as well, the whole concept of "relaxing" is more descriptive of men's work than women's (which never ends.)

... we tried this approach. Bush is apparently peeved that the Iraqis have shown insufficient gratitude for their "liberation." Well, it shouldn't be hard to get a few dozen Iraqis who are willing to surrender a little dignity for potential real liberation. Bring them to Washington (it's safer for everyone, media coverage is easier to get, and it makes them look like supplicants) and have a celebration of Bush's victory. Thanks all around. They can award him the Medal of Nebuchadnezzar, or something. Declare him Gawd.

Democrats can begin talking up our awesome victory in Iraq - go over the whole timeline of successes, from "Mission Ay!" to each rigged election and poisoned "constitution". Sophisticates will see the irony; Dems will kindly keep a straight face: there are a lot of lives at stake here.

The news media can dust off footage of Mr. Bush's magnificent, shock'n'awe-inspiring fly-in, and Navy brass will urge him to do it again. Full coverage all around. Blanket the airwaves. Get a bigger codpiece for the "Commander in Chief."

At the end of which, of course, American troops AND CONTRACTORS will be withdrawn.

Pete H writes that he was surprised that "no one has ever brought up the notion that perhaps the memos provided to CBS were SUPPOSED to be revealed as fake".

Sure they did. There was intense speculation online in 2004, fueled in part by the wave of rightwing bloggers who had suddenly become typographers, experts in 1970s type fonts and typewriters, who had IMMEDIATE analyses and rejection as fakes of the CBS memos, in gory technical detail, within a day of the 60 Minutes broadcast.

Then more experts weighed in, and within a disturbingly short period of time, CBS threw in the towel.

In fact, a lot of the wingnut bloggers were just plain WRONG about the capabilities of 1970s IBM Selectrics. But wasn't it surprising, the progressive bloggers noted, how fast out of the gate they had been? How they all sang the same tune? And yes, there was speculation that the memos themselves had been a set up.

Liberal blogs traced the origin of the memos, and learned that the source had been forced to admit that he had gotten them extremely recently, by an anonymous source, under conditions that didn't bear scrutiny. His story held up - but those memos had been planted.

It looked like a Rove dirty trick then. It still does. Will the mainstream, so-called liberal media cover it?

Apparently, not -- even if Dan Rather sues for $70,000,000.00.

I sympathize with long distance runners/walkers in the big city. However, if you're one of the majority with good tap water, you can buy yourself a "hydration belt" or a camelback-type rig and carry your home water with you. Most even have a pouch for your keys, medical insurance card, etc.

They're pretty pricey, though, costing about as much as 10-15 bottles of yer commercial water.