And REPUBLICANS have the gall to accuse DEMOCRATS of engaging in class warfare? Good Lord.

Wouldn't you love to have been a fly on the wall to observe the general reaction to Rove's comments among the audience? I'll bet there was general snickering and head-nodding, but not too much of the jaw-dropping, gasping response he deserved.

Try to imagine the howls echoing through the halls of Congress, especially among members of the GOP, if the Clinton administration had been caught "manipulating" intelligence in order to justify involvement of U.S. troops in the Balkans (former Yugoslavia).

And you know what -- those howls would have been justified, JUST AS THEY ARE NOW!

But remind me again -- how many U.S. troops died in combat in the Balkans? Oh yeah, ZERO. How many are we up to now in Iraq? Over 3100 at latest count, with no end in sight.

As Kurt Vonnegut put it so memorably, "So it goes." I think I'll get some bumper stickers and T shirts made up with that line -- nothing captures the proper sentiment quite so well.

"Incurious George"

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The next bestseller directed towards the childish mentality.

How about substituting the name "John McCain" for "Dems", or any such reference to Democrats, in your latest screed?

It's interesting how well it fits! I used to like the man, but he's either gone around the bend, or he's decided his only hope for success in 2008 is to be conjoined to Bush closer than Joe Lieberman. (Is there such a thing as conjoined triplets? I believe I may have identified the first known case!)

McCain has remade himself as a totally different person than he was in 2000 -- for all intents, he's primed to become Bush 44 if elected next year. He will sacrifice anything -- more and more troops, his previously stated positions, his conscience and self-respect, ANYTHING. Of course, he's not alone in this -- look at Mitt Romney's warp-speed flip-flopping, reversing positions on abortion and gay marriage from six years ago!

What's to be learned from this? That politicians will be politicians, and none should ever be trusted? My own belief is that no politician should be taken as perfectly honest or straight-forward, not even a Jimmy Carter who promised he'd never lie to us. Skepticism is warranted at all times, with a strong bent towards an expectation they should keep the promises that got them elected.

Democrats returned to majorities in Congress in large part BECAUSE of opposition to the Iraq war, so it's hardly a surprise that they should follow through on attempts to stop what a large majority of Americans deem a mis-managed war. I don't particularly care at this point if those Congressional Democrats fully believe what they're saying -- it's clear a majority of Americans do not support the "surge". Better the right outcome for the wrong reasons than the opposite.

..."Where's the beef?" Well, we've sure found it over the last six years!

It's really funny to look back on the Bill Clinton years, when Republicans tried to stir up a scandal every month or two, ranging from Travelgate to Whitewater to actual claims of murdering Vince Foster.

They never could provide any "beef", but boy, did it hamstring Clinton for much of his two terms!

Now we have case after nauseating case of corruption, deception and malfeasance from the GOP side. Like most Americans, I'm getting mighty tired of BEEF -- think I'm gonna go vegetarian for a while...

...everyone needs to prepare a one-page essay by Friday, comparing and contrasting the reaction by media and politicians to this latest verbal gaffe by Dubya, and the reaction by the same parties to Sen. John Kerry's "botched joke".

I'm sure the President's incredible comment won't raise one percent of the ruckus raised against Kerry. And really, why should it? I mean, we're only talking about the "Leader of the Free World", the "Commander in Chief", the "Decider", right? One lone U.S. Senator is FAR more important than the President, so his words obviously must be parsed more closely!

Let's keep everything in perspective, folks -- this IS merely the President, after all...

We all know Dubya has read the children's book "My Pet Goat" -- can we assume he's also read Aesop's Fable "The Boy Who Cried Wolf"?

If not, it ought to be right at the top of his to-do list, along with reading more biographies of Lincoln, Truman and other U.S. presidents he does NOT resemble. He might learn something from good old Aesop -- and it might not even take more than two or three nights of reading at bedtime to finish the whole story.

Hey, maybe retired librarian Laura could READ IT TO HIM!

"There are known knowns. These are things we know that we know. There are known unknowns. That is to say, there are things that we know we don't know. But there are also unknown unknowns. There are things we don't know we don't know."

-- Donald Rumsfeld, February 2002

Clearly, Bush knows that knowing what Americans should know will allow all of us to know that he knows what's best for us to know...

Um, wait, oh heck -- I've got to go lie down for a bit -- my brain is about to explode.