I would like to know if there was an investigation into Harris' hiring of DBT Online, owned by ChoicePoint of Atlanta, to purge Florida voter rolls in 2000. In the previous election, a firm that charged $5,700 per year was used.

But Harris fired that firm and hired DBT.... at $4.3 million.

That's a big difference in costs... even if you include a finder's fee.

I doubt it. I don't see Reed spending one day in jail. I can foresee a possible future where Reed doesn't even spend a day in a US courtroom defending himself against charges brought against him. He's a white, conservative, Southern Republican who loudly proclaimed his Jesus-love for years. He won't do time.

In fact, I foresee Reed raking in millions in speaking fees, consulting contracts and on the board of various "think tanks." He will continue to scam the public and dip into the bottomless GOP trough.

I have noticed a lot of Republican pundits going on television lately -- particularly on Democratic-leaning comedy/talk shows -- claiming that Democrats will win back Congress in the fall. They did the same thing in 02 and 04. It's a talking point. It's tailored to make not-very-committed Democrats and fence-sitters feel as if their vote isn't needed. And it's to fire up the GOP base, to make sure they DO go out and vote.

I hope the DNC does everything it can to get out the vote this November.

I clicked on the article's link to the ad and neither tower of the Trade Center is on fire.

I don't recall seeing the smarmy little punk on a ballot anywhere, do you? How does this jerk get to write US foreign policy? As bad as the Dauphin Bush is, at least he was "elected" several times (or made a pretense of being elected). But Kristol? He's taking this country to war(s) and his only qualification is that he is the son of a former doctrinaire Trotskyite who is now a doctrinaire fascist. William Kristol's father gets mugged by a black man (not by "reality") and a generation later, his son gets to write disasterous US foreign policy as payback.

We're going to go to hell for allowing this shit. The Kristols are racists, pure and simple. Their "philosophy" is nothing but racism dolled up in conservative code words. William and Irving Kristol hate black people -- and Arab people. And anyone who doesn't agree with their world vision. And God help America for allowing these twisted nobodies to direct our armies.

I can't believe this is happening.

You liberals just don't understand! It's not just the balance that needs to be struck in this difficult decision-making process, it's about how delicate that balance needs to be. You can't just step back and make a decision in a situation as difficult as this one and say "let's be balanced." You have to weigh the options without incurring further indelicacies which could jeopardize the moral backbone of the president's stance!

Which is to say the balance that needs to be struck has to take into account the needs of those who agree with the president on moral grounds as well as the needs of the president's supporters in the economic sector (who keep America a strong and solvent superpower), while at the same time completely ignoring the wishes of the general population and the insane rantings of the scientific community, who are really just looking for more research dollars through higher taxes.

Do you see what I mean?

The president can't just make a blanket decision to outlaw all stem cell research in the private sector, because he has to strike a balance ensuring that the government doesn't get its filthy, grubby, indelicate hands on patents from discoveries made with taxpayer-supported stem cell research. Those patents are just as precious and as viable as those beautiful snowflake babies and they cannot be allowed to fall into the coarse hands of the public domain. One can't allow for the possibility of profits from future patents to slip through the grasp of the president's strong supporters within the business community; yet on the other hand, one needs to make sure that the more pronounced statement being made by the president about stem cell research focuses on the moral motivations. Do you see how difficult this particular scenario is, and why the president fervently seeks to balance that decision in a way that emphasizes his strong moral certitude in preventing the use of beautiful, sacred, blonde-haired human embryos for federal research? Why, it could devolve into a state-sponsored genocide! Soon a tyrannical government might demand that women take fertility medication and produce embryos to be fertilized and kept in locked government facilities to be used by immoral federal agencies for unsanctified reasons. (That's the talking point we use for speeches made in the halls of faith-based organizations.. for a hefty speaking fee, of course.)

Far better to let the privately-funded research community take control of the entire field of human embryonic research while the government funds morally correct solutions, like giving faith-based organization tremendous amounts of funding to direct the implantation and eventual adoption of those several dozens of embryos which are donated each year to infertile Christian and Republican Jewish couples.

And that's the difficulty faced by the president in this decision-making process... which is why it calls for an exquisitely delicate balance.

Buckley would be Tom Hagen, advising Bush's Frankie "Five Angels" Pentangeli to go out like a Roman senator, with a bit of class. Throw a big party, then go home, take a hot bath and slit his wrists.

.. oh, never mind.