Thanks for the link Urial, it does indeed add to Tristin's story. But only to make her even more human and worthy of a little compassion.

What resonated with me especially was when she described her immediate reaction to the voices of those she respected, those on the Left who she felt aligned with politically and philosophically. She wrote:

"Immediately after Sept. 11 I started reading outrageous statements from prominent leftists that shocked and saddened me. The Left does not speak for me on this issue. I find Michael Moore, Ralph Nader, Noam Chomsky, Katha Politt, Susan Sontag et al's attempts to blame the U.S. for this mass murder ideologically weak and morally absurd."

As I've said before, too many times perhaps, I'm a Vietnam combat veteran and a life-long Democrat. I believe that there are some things worth fighting and dying for, and worth sending other people's kids to fight and die for. Iraq was not one of them. But the Taliban Afghanistan regime was indeed such a cause. I still believe that the United States should have treated the nation of Afghanistan as a country at war with us and gone in with all the resources of our military and killed every bastard who so much as looked sideways at us. Perhaps many of you have forgotten that prior to 9-11 the Afghani Taliban were making Jews, Christians, secularists and non-Muslims wear a yellow star on their clothing ala Germany 1938. The Afghani Taliban were systematically murdering university professors and their students, and any intellectual leaders who did not repent their evil ways and adopt fundamentalist Islam, ala Pol Pot and Chairman Mao.

I had a similar awakening as Tristin one day shortly after 9-11, when the smoking ruins of the World Trade Center was all you could see on TV. I was standing in my kitchen talking to a friend of mine, a medical doctor, a fellow Lefty Democrat who I thought I knew pretty well. She started up with that absolute shit-brained stuff about how we deserved to be hit, how "we" had been asking for it.

Anger flew out of me from a place deep inside that I thought I had put away. "That's bullshit!" I snapped. "We didn't deserve this." The warrior in me was awakened. It's not a good place to be. It's like the first time a kid hit me on the playground and I surprised myself by pounding the shit out of him in a blind rage. It's like the first time I saw an American soldier in a body bag loaded onto a chopper outbound for the morgue at Tan Son Nut. I wanted to find the goddamn bastards that killed him and cut their eyes right out of their living skulls.

Always, after those rages, I feel bad. I feel guilty I guess that I let those thoughts overrule my more rational side. I calmed down a little, but was still fuming days later. But my relations with my friend were strained for almost two years afterwards. She can't understand why I wouldn't join her in denouncing the United States of America for all the evil it causes in our name. And I can't understand why she can't see that an attack on our nation cannot go unanswered.

But now, five years on, a lot has changed. I've changed. Tristin's changed. After enduring five years of Bush's lies and self-serving deception, I'd rather cling to the Left, because I sure as hell can't trust the Right.

But I can't go as far to the Left as those who want to experiment with passivity in the face of aggression. There are things worth defending, fighting and dying for.

Maybe Tristin isn't really a neo-con as Uriel suggests. Maybe she just got caught up with the same human reactions as I did when I saw the bag zip shut on one of my own.

Whether we like it or not, and whether Bush lied us into a war in Iraq we didn't need to fight, we are here. Bush has reaped the whirlwind. Now who is best suited to lead us back to sanity? Certainly not the Republicans. I think Tristin knows this too.

"White House press secretary Tony Snow said the administration had requested network time for the address at 9:01 p.m. EDT. The address is expected to run 16 to 18 minutes, he said."

Don't these White House assholes know that Monday Night Football is on?

Jeez!

The only unconditional love or even friendship comes from your mother and father ... if you are lucky.

Everybody else? Well, it's subjective. I've dropped people right out of my life without a word for some pretty silly reasons looking back on it. I've had people drop me out of their lives without a word and I never knew why.

That's how it goes.

Some friendships are forged in time of crisis. They tend to last a little longer, but as some have mentioned, maybe they don't want to be reminded of a life they once had that's no longer possible. I had a friend like that who was made a parapeligic by a motorcycle accident. I understand.

There's an old saying: "To understand is to forgive."

Try it, you shitbirds.

Either way, I'll never look at ABC the same way again.

What they are trying to pull is raw 1930s style Soviet agitprop. It's un-American and it's wrong. It's dangerous for our republic.

When those military tribunals start up, I think the first guy in the dock ought to be the Commander in Chief. Life at hard labor in Ft. Levenworth sounds good to me.

It reminds me of the Iggy Pop Tune "It's all shit."

AMSPECK, you really ought to read the million letters and then at least try to write something original, shitbird.