No one is looking for excuses for the war in Iraq -- the majority of people in this country is now interested, at long last, in the REAL REASONS for it. Don't haul out the tired, misleading conflation of 9/11 and this war of choice in Iraq -- WHY are we there?

Interesting to hear chickenhawks like Rove continue to beat up on true military heroes like John Kerry and John Murtha -- I don't recall that Rove, Rumsfeld, Cheney or Bush were EVER "with" anyone "for the first few bullets" on ANY field of battle.

How can this administration maintain, with anything approaching a straight face, that DEMOCRATS are tax-and-spend budget busters? It is absolutely a statement of fact that the Clinton era budget surpluses have been converted into record-breaking budget deficits by Bush and his Republican lackeys in Congress. Oh, I forgot, tax cuts (primarily for the highest income brackets) are ALWAYS appropriate -- when times are good, and the budget's balanced, CUT TAXES; when times are bad, and we're being bled dry by a war of choice in Iraq, CUT TAXES. One-size-fits-all government at its worst.

So, "...character matters," huh? I guess, as Bill Clinton famously indicated when he said, "It all depends on what the definition of 'is' is," it all depends on what the definition of "character" is. Does a person of character indulge in character assassination? In wars of choice? In deferring our budget deficits to the next generation? In merging big business with the federal government so it's impossible to tell the difference? In denying the human responsibility for global warming, and refusing to do anything of substance about it? In continually pushing divisive hot-button issues like gay marriage and the flag burning amendment to distract the masses and maintain political power?

*sigh*

If the point is that 2500 is just another number, not particularly more meaningful than 2499, I guess I'd concede. But the insensitivity of simply dismissing 2500 deaths by saying, "It's a number" without expressing real regret for each and every individual is loathsome.

Even more despicable is the COMPLETE lack of regard for the tens of thousands, perhaps hundreds of thousands of Iraqis who have died during our intervention. Sure, some of them were in the military, or were otherwise engaged in deadly attacks on Americans, coalition forces or other Iraqis -- however, a large percentage undeniably had to be innocent civilians.

The exquisite term "collateral damage" is used on the rare occasions when we even discuss such deaths. How clean, how antiseptic, how inhuman that phrase is! I certainly don't think of anyone in MY family as "collateral", and I bet none of the Iraqi public does either.

It's one of life's big mysteries to me how easily we in the so-called Christian Western world dismiss the death of others, especially non-Christians. Who's the REAL non-Christian, hmmm? Hard to reconcile the dehumanization of those we've killed (or WANT to kill) with any sort of Christianity that *I* can recognize.

This disgusting detail of the political theater we saw yesterday should not escape anyone: The amendment, while admittedly containing Sen. Kerry's language, was actually brought up for a vote by Republican Sen. McConnell of Kentucky, not Sen. Kerry.

How low the "greatest deliberative body in the world" has fallen -- the bodies of hundreds of true statesmen (male and female) who've served in the U.S. Senate are twirling madly in their graves today, I'm afraid.

Dear Ann survives on the pure oxygen of BEING TALKED ABOUT BY OTHER PEOPLE. As Oscar Wilde pointed, the only thing worse than being talked about, is NOT being talked about. She's the living incarnation of that witticism (if she can be described as "living" -- I'm not so sure.)

You would think that she'd eventually go over the top, given how ever-more outrageous her statements are becoming, but the silence from her constituency is deafening. We'd be far better off ignoring her, as impossible as that seems to do.