I'm a little dissapointed that King had nothing to say about the most incredible "I don't want to win" moment of the weekend.

Down 10-17 to the Bills (10 of those 17 from 3 turnovers), the Packers right the ship and drive to the 1, where they have a first-and-goal, with 4 downs to make one measly, lousy, stinkin' yard. Green and Heron were running well. Green had 126 yards with 5.5 yards-per-carry to that point. What do you do, sports fans? Run, maybe? No! The Packers decide to throw the ball into a congested endzone! Un-Be-Lievable. INT, 70 yard return, game over. I was pretty high on Mike McCarthy up to that point. What a letdown.

Those DLC'ers who oppose Howard Dean fear his 50-state strategy not because it won't work, but because it will work only too well, wresting control of the party away from their hands. We need to support Howard Dean in his efforts. This party has been in the wrong hands for far too long.

The good news is that the bullying frat boys have been spanked. The bad news is that we now have to clean up after an expecially destructive frat party that trashed almost everything we cherish. The Patriot Act must go. Warrantless surveillance must go. Respect for Habeas Corpus must be reinstated without exception. As Dwight D. Eisenhower said before a dinner at the B'nai B'rith way back in '53:

Why are we proud? We are proud, first of all, because from the beginning of this Nation, a man can walk upright, no matter who he is, or who she is. He can walk upright and meet his friend--or his enemy; and he does not fear that because that enemy may be in a position of great power that he can be suddenly thrown in jail to rot there without charges and with no recourse to justice. We have the habeas corpus act, and we respect it...I would not want to sit down this evening without urging one thing: if we are going to continue to be proud that we are Americans, there must be no weakening of the code by which we have lived; by the right to meet your accuser face to face, if you have one; by your right to go to the church or the synagogue or even the mosque of your own choosing; by your right to speak your mind and be protected in it.

We need to restore that pride. If we cannot do so this election will have meant nothing.

(The full transcript of Eisenhower's remarks may be found at http://www.presidency.ucsb.edu/ws/index.php?pid=9770. Readers may see a clip of Eisenhower as he says a part of this in the movie Good Night and Good Luck. The earnestness with which Eisenhower spoke has to be seen to be believed.)

Suddenly, in fact, there is a large segment of not-for-Hillary Democratic voters up for grabs now that Warner and Feingold have both been winnowed out by the Me Primary.

I'm not "up for grabs." I will not vote for any candidate who supports the war (or ever supported it), or for any candidate who's specialty is soulless political calculus. Feingold is my man. I might vote for Gore, should he run. Or Dean. No one else cuts it at the moment. If Hillary Clinton, Rham Emmanuel et. al. don't understand this after this last election then they deserve what's coming.

Paper trails can be indispensable, and all voting machines should produce them; but in this case a paper trail probably would not have helped. If the ballot is mis-designed so that voters overlook a race and don't catch it in the review screen, they probably won't catch it on the paper tape either. If the machine is not counting a selection, the same applies. Putting my software engineering hat on, allow me to propose a simple solution: each race on the ballot must have a selection, or the ballot is not cast and the machine so informs the voter. If the voter does not wish to vote for a particular contest, s/he can select a "no-vote" option (the famous "none of the above" option so many voters say they want). At least this way the voter intent is clear, allowing a malfunction to be easily distinguished from voter intent.

Errors will never be completely erradicated, but what happened in Sarasota County is simply inexcusable, whatever the cause. No bank would accept ATM technology that misplaces money. Voters should be just as discriminating.