Paraphrasing Shakespeare, "A skunk by any other name would stink just as badly."

Does it truly matter what a candidate's name is? Do voters really believe that Dubya, or ANY President, actually KNOWS each person that he's "personally" endorsing? Give me a break.

He's flown in, driven by motorcade, wheeled out onto the stage or the factory floor, handed comments to read (being careful to weed out the praise for "family values" if the candidate in question has a few PROBLEMS in that regard, like Pennsylvania Rep. Don Sherwood), posed for photos and finally whisked away to the next spontaneous and unrehearsed event.

Politics as usual -- only just a little less REHEARSED this time!

...in the words of Emily Litella, one of Gilda Radner's beloved Saturday Night Live characters.

Someone must have heard it wrong, just like poor hard-of-hearing Emily. Maybe our charming Vice President REALLY said that "otter boating" was OK with him -- who doesn't like cute, frisky otters, anyway?

And if you put them on little boats, what could be cuter? Now THAT'S a no-brainer, brother!

Rush has taken lots of appropriate heat for his mockery of Michael J. Fox's Parkinson's symptoms -- how about a suggestion for his next impression?

I'd LOVE to see him imitate Terri Schiavo's vegetative state for, oh, 2 or 3 months -- just to prove that he's not picking on the "liberal" side's so-called poster children alone. Let him move to the right-wing's similar cases and give them a little equal time!

We could all use the peace and quiet, to be honest...

Assuming this book is actually published, here's my advice:

The staff of all Borders and Barnes & Noble bookstores need to keep PLENTY of space open on their discount/clearance shelves -- we'll see many copies of (soon to be) former Rep. Harris' magnum opus gracing their clearance areas.

Anyone willing to pay $3.99? How about $2.99? Maybe $1 for a boxful? Anyone???

Anyone with a grain of sense knows EXACTLY who and what Kerry was referring to -- and the who/what is Bush & his cadre of incompetent neocon advisors.

Reflect now on Tony Snow's incredibly lame attempt to claim that Cheney's approval of "dunking" in NO WAY meant he endorsed waterboarding of terrorism suspects. Oh, really?

In my 50 plus years on this earth, I've never seen such a pathological aversion to the truth as with this President, his advisors and his supporters. The comparison to language manipulation in Orwell's "1984" is usually invoked at this point, so it may appear to be a cliche (how does one type an "e" with an accent here, anyway?) -- but this is no cliche.

Language means what Bush and his people SAY it means. Any similarity to definitions as printed in Websters Dictionary, or to normal ways to parse sentences, is purely coincidental.

The next-to-last paragraph of this essay should be recited by every person NOT mesmerized by Dubya, at every opportunity and to any willing audience. The complete contrast between the relentless Clinton witchhunt and the utter lack of ANY effort by Congress or the GOP to hold this President truly accountable for ANYTHING is mind-boggling.

*sigh*

Maybe our long national nightmare will start to fade away next Tuesday night. God, let's hope so. How much more can this nation and world TAKE from this crowd?

Hillary Clinton wants to remove John Kerry as a possible competitor for the 2008 Democratic nomination for President. What other motive could she have?

She loses nothing by "piling on" Kerry this way -- assuming Democrats win big as expected next week, any benefit Kerry would have enjoyed from his real efforts to help in close contests has been completely erased by this phony "botched joke" controversy. Hillary is simply adding one more push to Kerry's backside, hoping he heads over the cliff to political oblivion even faster.

John Boehner is simply positioning himself to step into the soon-to-be-vacated GOP leadership shoes of Dennis Hastert. Conventional wisdom, as well as common sense, dictates that Hastert is GONE after the November elections, whether Republicans keep control of the House or not. Throughout most of the Foley debacle, Boehner has clearly been distancing himself from Hastert.

It's analogous to a relay race in high school track -- the runner about to take hand-off of the baton starts running to get up to the same speed as the person currently in the race. Boehner has to make sure he's in sync with the rest of the GOP leadership in Washington that's left to pick up the pieces after November 7th. For sure, he's changed his rhetoric to sound EXACTLY like the rest of existing Republican leadership.

Hard to blame the man -- he's dodged the bullet once, falling from a leadership position several years ago, but coming back in an upset to be elected Majority Leader. This has to be his one and only remaining shot to be Speaker of the House.

Of course, none of this excuses his clear attempt to shift blame to our military in Iraq for the mess we're in -- it's UNDERSTANDABLE, but not acceptable. Ironic, isn't it, to hear Boehner utter this slur on our military when the entire GOP insult machine has worked overtime to crush John Kerry for his botched joke?

Anyone want to guess if Rush Limbaugh et al. say ONE WORD about Boehner's comment? Of course not.

Anyone want to guess if "Topic A" will STILL be Kerry's mis-statement? Of course so.

I'm glad someone quickly corrected the mistake about Ken Lucas in an earlier post -- just to hammer it home, Ken made a voluntary pledge to limit his terms in Washington as a U.S. Representative, and retired from office in 2005 as a result. It was VOLUNTARY -- he did NOT lose an election in 2002.

Please correct your article, Mr. Shapiro! A really sloppy mistake, for sure.