On the same menu on MSNBC was the unfortunate moment when Mehlman was shown a bumper sticker that said "Steele, Democrat". He pulled a switcheroo and launched into a mile-a-minute speech on Michael Steele's strengths for Maryland. His answer to the bumper sticker...none.

So, it appears that in the "last throes" of their campaigns, Republicans are not only avoiding photo ops with Bush, they are running ads without identifying their party affiliation, and posting yard signs on which the proud "Republican" stamp is impressive only for its complete absence. And if that wasn't weird enough...now we have bumper stickers identifying Republicans as Democrats. Kind of a new take from Fox identifying Foley on TV graphics as a Democrat. Foley bad...Democrats bad. Now it's Democrats good....Republicans Democrats.

Guess when you can't scare them, intimidate them, disenfranchise them or kill them in Iraq...you have to switch strategies and try to pass yourself off as one of them on election day.

As flattering as this may be... it's a whole new (and fascinating) low in the Republican Power-At-All-Costs bag of tricks.

I'm almost at a loss. Almost, but not quite. My threshold for Right Wing Rhetoric has been so inflated out of necessity that I sometimes feel nearly innoculated against the sheer nonsense of it all. Then along comes the Hannity/Cheney comedy team and other equally noxious pairings. Hard to tell the buffoon from the straight man.

Torture is a "silly" discussion? Tell that to our children who are at risk of being dragged out and brutally tortured in Bush's war. Remember the outrage at the sight of mutilated bodies hanging from a bridge in Iraq? We've always had the right to be outraged...because we were better. Now that we're not, our people aren't safe anywhere. And we can't even cry "foul" anymore.

Bold aggressive leadership? All I can think of are idiotic proclamations like "Bring it on", "Wanted dead or alive", Mission accomplished", "Brownie, you're doing a heck of a job". Pair these with the visuals of smirking attempts to ride bikes and clear brush while Rome burns. Oh, and that stupid goat book. No plan, no equipment, not enough troops, ignoring generals and statesmen, piddling away effort on things like Terry Shiavo's personal situation and I just can't figure out why even the rightest of the right wing can help bursting out laughing at that pronouncement. Maybe I'm missing something.

Terrorists trying to break the will of the American people by getting Democrats elected? Apparently they are right there with Bush, not reading the polls. Breaking the will of the American people would mean more of the same, with this same cast of characters digging more graves. Bigger ones.

Now the Iraqi's are in control and driving their own bus? So why are we sending billions on billions there to influence policies (none of it appears to be going to reconstruction.)And why are we stepping up military efforts and still saying we have to "stay the course" even though we have dabbled in semantics and recast that as achieving victory. If they have truly taken major steps in running Iraq into a Democracy...why is Bushco still talking like the CEO of Iraq? It's so blatantly a case of "Making your own mess" and "disowning it too", that there just are no words to dispute it. Just sighs...and a note to remember to refill the antidepressant.

One of the biggest lessons I learned in the School of Communications at the U of Wash. was in a class called "Public opinion and Propaganda". It was that by saying people are thinking something...you can make lots more of them think the same thing.

Through the years, I have found the conservative PEW Center to be less than "scientific" in its reports, and more about positioning questions and skewing its interpretations under the guise of science. There is always a perfume of intellectual analysis, but it never quite covers the whiff of partisanship and wishful thinking. Whenever their "findings" are reported, their politics should be a footnote, and their methodology carefully scrutinized.

I believe in polls, but only the few that actually are unbiased and don't have roots firmly planted in a radical agenda.

Apparently the shock therapy of November 7 wasn't enough to jolt Orrin Hatch out of his "if I say it loud enough and publicly enough I can make it true" Republicanism.

But to join Bush's bandwagon in a love-fest sendoff to the apparently (by his own words) misunderstood architect of terrorist disaster that Rumsfeld has embodied...is too much, even for Hatch. Afghanistan is rising from the ashes as an increasingly unstable place. We are sliding fast down the hill we climbed. And while they're busy providing solace and support to Al Qida, they are providing nearly 90% of the world's cocaine.

Fabulous job, indeed. It makes you wonder who's really on drugs alongside Rush Limbaugh. The most disheartening thing about Hatch, however, is the amount of newsprint the "liberal media" can always be depended upon to give him. Can someone please just declare him irrelevant or insane, and start reporting reality?