...I don't know why. All my speculations seem to make people angry at me. But it's true.

It might be worth an article; ask various people why the Democrats seem to be so afraid of their own shadows most of the time. Incidently they've been that way at least since Jimmy Carter's presidency.

...was they put out a lot of wink and nod garbage. People were left to draw their own conclusions. They never really spelled anything out, hence they now have deniablity.

The speech quoted below bears that out. It's just a bunch of disconnected assertions. The explict assertion that Saddam and Al Qaeda were in cahoots is not stated. In fact, no conclusion of any kind is explicitly stated.

"We know Mary often likes to wear sexy dresses and/or high heels. And John has free time after work. Mary has been involved in previous relationships and now both Mary and John have been spotted speaking together." That is exactly how the Bush administration made its case against Saddam--by making eyebrow raising assertions and leaving the listener to form an incorrect impression.

Why did they do that? Most likely because they had lousy evidence that they wanted to believe in anyhow. They were simply sweaty, dirty minded gossips with a hot story to tell but no actual facts to back their fantasies. They ended up deluding themselves along with the rest of the country.

IMO, Bush & Cheney should be impeached for being foolish dunderheaded asses rather than actual liars. They just aren't even smart enough to lie, if you ask me.

If there was a REAL lie, IMO, it came when Bush asserted that all options were on the table and that going to war in Iraq would be a last resort.

...why not use stilts? These can be chopped out of tree branches, and at the end of the day, used for firewood. Remember, the longer the stilts, the fewer steps you'll need to make to reach your destination.

If you're lucky enough to have trees all along your route, you could try rope swinging like Tarzan. However, ropes are fairly high tech (at least good ones are) and also people do steal them, so be sure the ropes you expect to be there are really there.

Then there's the dependable old Roman way of getting around, which is to use a litter. These can be very comfortable, but require getting enough slaves to carry the thing. You'll need at least eight or so and you'll need to keep them somewhere. Try your back yard or your basement. Slaves can be a very low tech investment, assuming all questions of humanity can be left aside.

And finally, speaking of Roman ways, one might try a catapult and a parachute. Not only could you use all natural materials (for the catapult, not the parachute--unless you want to try making a parachute out of old sheets or big leaves or something), this has the advantage of being a naturally air conditioned method of travel and thus the need for a shower at the end should be eliminated.

No doubt about it, there really are greener alternatives to biking.

...because that just would get the Republicans off the hook. The Republicans would be immediately free of their stinking albatross and would set about blaming the Democrats for every bad consequence of leaving Iraq. And there WILL be bad consequences when we leave Iraq. And we WILL leave Iraq, one way or another. The only question is who to blame.

Really, the Democrats should just give Bush all the rope he needs to hang himself. Hopefully the whole mess will blow up on his watch and he won't be able to evade responsiblity. Why should Democrats and liberal suffer because he screwed up?

The Democrats need to make clear that Bush is losing the war--that he's not even trying to win and hasn't been trying since 2003. They need to point out that all he's doing now is kicking the can down the road in the hopes that the Democrats or another Republican president will be left stuck with the nasty can. Well nuts to that. Why should Democrats help him?

...then Republicans go up and the war continues. When left wingers abandon the Democrats, all that happens is that the Republicans become stronger. And that is just all she wrote.

The problem isn't that Democrats won't stand up against the war, the problem is that the American people won't stand up against the war. To most people, the war just barely registers on their radar screens. Most people don't know anybody serving in Iraq. Most people aren't suffering in any way whatsoever from the war in Iraq. Taxes haven't gone up and the draft is not even a remote possiblity. Gas prices really aren't that bad and aren't obviously connected to the war.

The war is losing popularity not because it is 'evil,' but it isn't getting anywhere. No progress is being made and the US is looking like bigger and bigger saps for having gone in. Cutting off funding really isn't the answer to the problem of lack of progress; to many people, it will just look like cutting and running. And in many ways, that is exactly what it will be; cutting and running. The country isn't ready to do that.

There just isn't an easy solution to the war. Blaming Democrats for that fact is just not constructive.