There is zero tolerance for making even "joking" references to bombs or other weapons in airports or on board airplanes -- seems logical to me a similar standard should apply to terror threats as well! How can we expect our law enforcement officers and anti-terrorism authorities to sort out real threats or confessions from the "humorous" ones?

Sounds like dear Ann is almost daring someone to take her lame attempts at humor seriously -- why not? She isn't funny, as we all know -- let's assume she isn't really trying to be. Maybe she really DOES want someone to poison Justice John Paul Stevens, or destroy the NY Times. Let's take her COMPLETELY seriously, and let the chips fall where they may.

Couldn't happen to a nicer hag.

...that we should simply ignore dear Ann, because she obviously lives on the pure oxygen of HAVING ATTENTION PAID TO HER. As a result, even though I often did react to her nearly irresistible provocations, I really felt NO response would probably be wiser.

I don't think that's the best path any longer. Up to now, Ann has known full well what sort of reaction her comments and actions will cause -- what we need to do is choose to react DIFFERENTLY. DON'T do what she expects -- in other words, don't do what almost all of us have done up to now. That, of course, is to throw words back at her.

There appear to be all sorts of legal ways to entangle the hag -- from her lying about voter registration in Florida, to her evident plagiarism, to this latest terror threat (there have been several!). Someone with legal standing, or in a prosecutor's office, should just DO it. Sue her, indict her, HOLD HER ACCOUNTABLE.

Is there one person in a thousand (right wing ideologues included) who seriously maintains that the Founding Fathers could have imagined or accepted this statement from Att. Gen. Gonzalez? They must be spinning in their graves, considering how absolute power is accreting to the President under the so-called "unitary executive" theory. The President has growing power and shrinking accountability -- and this is greeted with near silence across the country!

Sad, isn't it, how a majority in Congress and a growing minority on the Supreme Court seem positively eager to cede such absolute, and apparently unaccountable, power to ANY president? It's stranger still to realize that Dubya, of all presidents, has been so privileged.

But the strangest and most wonderful moment will come on the day when, God willing, an enlightened Democrat occupies the White House again. Republicans may then realize that the genie of absolute power may be impossible to put back in the bottle again -- that THEY have corrupted and distorted the delicate balance of powers that was the pure genius of our American republic.

Imagine the squeals and protests they'll launch against any president with a (D) instead of an (R) behind his or her name!

...but the ONLY appropriate comment on this "revelation" is the quote from Gomer Pyle you just used in the previous War Room item:

"Surprise, surprise, surprise!"

Thanks for your earlier followup, Tim.

I was struck with utter despair at the spectacle of young Israeli girls putting messages on shells intended for Lebanon. There really aren't words to express how sad this is.

I did a little research yesterday and found similar Associated Press pictures on Yahoo; this morning, I tried to re-trace my steps and found the following picture and detailed caption on a foreign Yahoo site. Gaze upon it, world, and weep:

http://it.news.yahoo.com/17072006/38/immagine/israeli-girls-write-messages-on-shell-at-heavy-artillery-position.html

This is a story ready for the "Director of Lessons Learned" file:

This just goes to prove that there must be such a "Director" working for Congress, similar to the position at the White House supposedly occupied by Stuart Baker. Unlike the executive branch spot, which seems functionally vacant, the speed with which senators and representatives are abandoning the Bush team is mind-boggling -- and entirely logical.

Does it get any more transparent than THIS?

The level of political calculation and pandering by the Bush White House and their colleagues in Congress is absolutely breathtaking! Do you think anyone will notice?

Bill Clinton is/was lots of things -- promiscuous, self-centered, interested in self-gratification, egotistical, but most of all (based on actual evidence, not dear Ann's fevered imagination) rampantly HETEROSEXUAL. Not, as it was put in the classic "Seinfeld" episode, that there's anything wrong with being homosexual...

Next thing you know, she'll be accusing him of bestiality back in his early Arkansas days, based on nothing more than her exquisitely uninformed speculation.

My, my -- sweet little Ann DOES seem to be coming apart mentally, doesn't she? Not that there's anything wrong with that, of course.

...because any such discussion would be a TAD one-sided. Dubya isn't exactly a philosopher king (although he probably fancies himself to be one). Any real philosophizing would have to come from Hildi Halley and others who are truly living through the "cons" of war; our president doesn't seem to acknowledge that there even IS a downside to Iraq, etc.

To him, the problem is simply one of staying the course, no matter what; to continue doing exactly what we've been doing, and expecting at long last that different and wondrous outcome which has eluded us until now.

Wait a minute, where have we heard that before? "Doing the same thing over and over, and expecting a different result?" Isn't that, ummm, the classic definition of INSANITY? Yeah, I believe it is...