The Dems need to dig their heels in and take a strong position FOR due process, humane behavior, civil rights, etc.

"Yes," the Dems should say, "even Khalid Sheik Mohammed deserves due process. This is what makes the United States worth preserving. This is what makes us better than someone like KSM."

"President Bush, Vice President Cheney, Donald Rumseld and the rest of the administration have broken everything they've touched. One needs only to look at Iraq to understand the magnitude of their ineptness."

"This abject incompetence and failure to accomplish anything in the face of whatever real threats exist to our country need to stop now. This is where we draw the line and are taking our stand."

"We will not allow this gang of clowns to continue to make a mockery of the most important values of our great nation. Today, by reasonably constraining this cynical power grab on the part of a failure of an administration and a failure of a political party, we, the Democrats, the loyal opposition, begin the somber task of steering America back in the right direction."

"There is a light at the end of the tunnel. Today we turn towards that light."

...stays in Vegas.

Thank god we've got Golden Boy here to explain the inscrutable Muslim mind to us.

I'd like to see more articles written by you! I am also looking forward to seeing you on Real Time with Bill Maher tonight. Yay!

Please, oh, please John Kerry. Please go away.

Your constituents here in Massachusetts see you as a mediocre Senator. We'll keep re-electing you until you grow old and wither on the vine. Nobody *hates* you - we really just don't care. You're safe as far as spending the rest of your life as a Senator.

You've got to stop talking about running for president in 2008. You are making an embarrassingly arrogant mistake, confusing the electorate's revulsion with Bush as support for you. Even your supporters here in Massachusetts were behind you only because you were the anti-Bush candidiate. Anybody but Bush. Can't you see that? Don't you understand?

The mistreatment and lies you were subjected to from the Republicans during the 2004 campaign were terribly unfair and mean and un-American. You didn't deserve any of that. Everyone who supported you in 2004 felt pain for you while you were being forced through that cruel and dishonest right-wing gauntlet.

That dishonesty and cruelty aside, however, I can understand why Joe Six-pack in the red states were so turned off by you. You're a smart man but you're an arrogant man. You appear to be incapable of engaging with the rank and file. You were a poser and in many ways, a coward. Many stupid Americans like George Bush because they think he is firm, focused and committed to whatever his insane core values are. Watching you try to stake out a position, however, was tortuous even for those of us whose votes you were guaranteed to receive.

It's time to definitively flush your presidential ambitions once and for all. Nobody wants you in the White House. We can put up with you remaining in the Senate. Please keep your aspirations in neutral and leave the 2008 presidency to someone who inspires us.

It's not available anywhere online?

In a happier universe this story would enrage all honest people. That a story like this evokes a yawn at most says a great deal about the quality and quantity of lies and nefarious behavior that have been taking place at 2600 Pennsylvania Avenue.

Remember when the most outrageous episode to emerge from the White House was Bill Clinton getting his cock smoked?

Those were the days.

Swiftboating is lame. Shame on Salon for participating.

George Allen is asshole #1 in my book, regardless of whether or not he used the "n-word" back in college. The very idea, however, that shadowy figures from 30 years ago are coming forward and regurgitating this filth - true or otherwise - turns the stomach.

Disappointing.

Forget not that we lefties have a beloved reformed racist senator, Robert Byrd of West Virginia - an admitted one-time member of the Ku Klux Klan.

And creepy Pope Ratzinger - no friend of the left - was in the Hitler Youth during the war.

I can't wait to see Webb kick that smug bastard Allen out of the Senate. I wih that in doing so we needn't have pulled this polished turd of a story out of our collective lefty asshole.

What's missing is when/where/how the parents of the page allegedly made it known that they wanted the matter dropped. It is clear that the "fact" that the parents wanted the incident not to be pursued is a key part of these politicians absolving themselves of bungling this. What if this plea from the parents never really happened?

There must be a record of a phone call or meeting between the parents and ?????.

I'm rather fond of Hillary, although I don't find her to be "liberal" enough for my tastes, but that's neither here nor there.

I am writing to see what Salon readers think:

What's up with the right-wing's VISCERAL HATRED of Hillary? These people don't just not care for her or dislike her - they HATE her with a passion reserved for few other enemies of the conservative fantasy state.

The way they treat Hillary, she probably wishes that she HAD iced Vince Foster and the other dozen or so annoying people who the conservatives claim that she bumped off in order to protect her mighty Whitewater empire.

I'm asking the question seriously and hope for some serious answers...

Why does Hillary attract so much hatred from such a batshit crazy crowd of people?

XOXOX

I'm a member of the secular atheist liberal fifth column that seeks to undermine American might and glory at every opportunity in order to have an Islamofascist caliphate installed here in AmeriKKKa.

This guy really disappoints me.

I wish that Allen could be deposed by someone we can all be proud of.

P.S. Macaca!