Unfortunately, Rove's "willingness to compromise" is based on the corporate desire for cheap labor, and the GOP's desire for Hispanic votes. Corporate "compassion" does NOT extend to American workers, however; and this amnesty, like Reagan's in the 80's, will not be accompanied by any serious enforcement of U.S. labor laws. With amnesty, there will be the customary assurances that from now on the border will be secured ("This time we really mean it!"). Yet despite a couple of well-publicized INS show raids, the supply of illegal labor and the race to the bottom will continue more or less unabated.

What I'd like to know is whether the small handful of businesses that will find themselves the targets of the INS's show raids are on the list of GOP donors. I think I can guess.

Last weekend I witnessed one of those accidental revelations that perfectly explain why things are the way they are -- in this case, why the corporate news media in America is so worthless. George Clooney was being interviewed concerning Darfur, when he observed how unfortunate it is that celebrities are having to educate the media about that issue, instead of the other way around. The amazing thing was the reaction of the interviewer, who actually seemed offended by the suggestion that journalism should involve journalists looking beyond press conferences and going out and finding important stories. The notion that a story such as Darfur might be inherently newsworthy without the context of a famous person drawing attention to it seemed utterly alien to the interviewer; and all of this helps explain why America has been so badly served by the corporate media during the last decade, as Stephen Colbert so eloquently described.

I would bet that of Stephen Colbert's glistening audience of sleek, well-heeled media stars last weekend, most got where they are not by being good journalists, but by being born into the right families, attending the right schools, and knowing the right people. It seems like hardly a month goes by without my learning that another odious right-wing TV pundit is actually the son of a real journalist from an earlier generation, or that another major network news reporter is marrying a Bush-Cheney operative. Clearly, these people ARE the establishment; the last thing they want to do is rock the gravy train; and the only real surprise is not that they should continue to give pass after pass to their republican buds, but that such an inbred system could ever have produced, even for a short while in history, a Woodward & Bernstein.

Thank you, Mr. Blumenthal and Salon, for this very interesting report.

I do dispute the notion -- peripheral though it is to the article -- that Colin Powell was a victim. I carefully listened to his presentation at the U.N. on February 5, 2003. His case -- the Republican case for war against Iraq -- came down to two facts: first, that an al-Qaeda camp had been established "in a part of Iraq not under Saddam's control;" and second, that a guy who had spent time with al-Qaeda in Afghanistan later sought medical treatment in Baghdad. That was it; that was their entire case.

Thus, even if everything Colin Powell said at the U.N. had been true, his case was too weak to justify starting a war -- as the French and Germans and Russians duly noted. Colin Powell disgraced himself forever that day -- though a very large share of the blame must rest with America's credulous mainstream media, whose immediate and unanimous verdict was "Case Closed; Let's Go to War!" Of course, we now know that much of what Powell said was not true, including the vast stockpiles of WMD which, along with Tenet and Negroponte, formed the backdrop for his fateful presentation.

It blew my mind to recently be reminded by the movie 'Jarhead' that more than 500,000 U.S. forces were sent to achieve the limited objectives of Gulf War I. That fact -- which I do not remember being reported by the worthless corporate media as a basis for comparison in the run-up to the current Iraq War -- puts into perspective the recklessness of the neo-cons, and explains the stress placed on coalition forces. There needs to be accountability not just for the individuals responsible for this one incident, but for those who dreamed up and sold this whole doomed war, which was based on lies and is being fought on the cheap.

In a recent 'Playboy' interview, Friedman said he knew the reasons being given by the administration for invading Iraq were all lies, yet he chose to keep silent and not tell the world because he personally believed the war was right for other reasons.

Remind me: what exactly is the definition of a "journalist"? Why are Tom Friedman and all the other armchair imperialists and republican stooges who supported this war still paid to traipse around the world masquerading as respected journalists?

Gordon Penway has asked us to consider who we "hate more -- Bush or Bin Laden?"

There are many good reasons to despise Bush-Cheney, starting with the crushing of democracy in 2000, followed by the repeal of the American Republic, and featuring a doomed war in Iraq based entirely on lies and the politicization of 9/11. Bush-Cheney deserve infamy, and I certainly do despise them and their disastrous follies.

On the other hand, who, if I may ask, is "Bin Laden"? His name sounds vaguely like the person we were once told was the head of al-Qaeda and the master planner of the 9/11 attacks. Isn't he the guy Junior Bush promised to get "dead or alive" once upon a time? I haven't heard much about him since 2001. I wonder what he's been up to since then.

In any event, Bush-Cheney haven't spent much time thinking about this Bin Laden. But who knows?: maybe someday Bin Laden will go too far and do something really crazy, like harm a blond American teenager on spring break. I bet THEN he would experience the righteous wrath of the corporate media and the GOP.