You had the opportunity to speak out against the war before it started.

You had the opportunity to quit as State Department Secretary in protest, refusing to go before the UN to tell lies.

You had the OBLIGATION to go public and let everyone know that

1.) The war was a fix and

2.) Rumsfeld, Cheney, Perle and Wolfowitz were furthering the catastrophic result of their charade by throwing away years of State Department preparation and recommendations for what to do in the event of war with Iraq. Instead, we read about it in the Atlantic Monthly, as James Fallows documented the sheer stupidity of the warmongers in the White House and the Pentagon as they snidely smashed well-thoughtout plans for an Iraqi occupation right back in the face of the State Department.

YOUR State Departmant.

Your State Department which saw an unprecedented number of resignations of top officials and seasoned diplomats who refused to go along with the disasterous neocon nightmare which was unfolding.

That's who we should be listening to. Those who refused to go along and who had the balls to speak out. We should have a list of their names and send them all thank you cards.

You, Powell, on the other hand, can go dunk your head into the morass of your own slimy careerism.

Get a head start and leave now. I'll spring for airfare.

1.) Jenna Bush

2.) Barbara Bush

3.) Jeb Bush, Jr

4.) George Prescott Bush

5.) Noelle Bush

6.) Marshall Bush

7.) Pierce Bush

8.) Lauren Bush

9.) Samuel LeBlond

10.) Ellie LeBlond

But Barbara is a businesswoman and Rosie has increased ratings for The View. There's no way Barbara is going to toss her because Trump's bulbous nose is out of joint. In fact, if Barbara Walters DID tell Trump she dislikes Rosie, I'll bet you dimes to dollars Trump is leaving out the next sentence Barbara uttered, which would have been "But she's good for the show.. we're getting headlines. So keep it up, you two!"

I agree with Rosie's original statement. The point isn't that Trump gave Miss USA a pass - the point is that he made a huge production out of it, as if he were the Pope granting absolution to Henry VIII. He did it purely for front page publicity. If Trump were really a stand-up guy who simply wanted to give the girl a break, one sentence to one reporter would have sufficed. He could simply have said "Ah fuck it - it's my pageant and I'm giving the kid a pass." But of course Donald Trump wouldn't have done that. He's a publicity whore of the worst kind -- the kind who believes his own PR.

Rosie's original takedown of Trump reminds me of when Richard Pryor burst out laughing in Milton Berle's face on the Mike Douglas Show when Berle kept referring to an actress he took to Tijuana for an abortion after he impregnated her. Berle vowed he'd never reveal the name of the actress, as if this constituted high-minded self-sacrifice. When he said "I'd better keep saying 'Linda Smith'. I hope I don't slip and say who it really is," Pryor could contain himself no longer and started blurting out names.

Berle didn't get it, but we in the audience did. Naked hypocrisy and a greedy grab for attention while trying to profit from the misery of another is so disgusting that it actually is unintentionally, hilariously funny.

Trump doesn't get it, either.

I've never been a fan of Rosie O'Donnell, but I'll say this for her --- she made it on her own. Her father didn't hand her $30 million, like Trump's father gave him. For all her "ugliness" and her "fat ass" (according to Trump), she made it on her own from modest beginnings, and she continues to make it on her own without engaging in the cowardly financial chicanery Trump does, and without the corporate welfare Trump has slurped at the trough all these years while solemnly proclaiming himself an entrepreneur.

Fucking unbelievable. The man is responsible for untold misery and death around the globe and Colbert gives him a spot on his show? Haw haw. Yuh, that was sooo funny.

I really couldn't believe it. I thought Colbert's starfucker tendencies would stop short of something like that. I was wrong.

"...Bush and his people still retain this amazing ability to convert others to their point of view in a Godfatherish display of what can only be armtwisting of one variety of another".

Remember when Ross Perot claimed he wasn't going to run for president because the Bushes had threatened to disrupt his daughter's wedding with doctored photos making it look like his daughter had had lesbian sex?

Are you starting to wonder if he wasn't so crazy after all?

Cuz I am....

"But Bush will be on the way out by 2008, and what he needs in the meantime is to keep the war alive just long enough to let American withdrawal -- the "defeat" -- happen on somebody else's watch."

But before Slacker George can dump defeat in someone else's lap, he has to announce improvement. That's what the "surge" is for. I predict the "surge" doesn't come for months. When it does, we will be bombarded by the White House and is media minions with "news" that Iraq is improving, that great swathes of Iraqi territory are "safely out of the hands of insurgents", that Baghdad is "calmer", and that scores more schools and hospitals have been built (while we defund schools and deny insurance to people here in the US). Things will suddenly begin to look peachy, and "intelligence" reports will show promising results in "the Iraqification" of the war.

I had happy holidays despite Mr O'Reilly's bilious rantings about how people like me want to spoil the holiday season for the RIs (Religous Intolerants) like himself.

Happy 2007! See you next holiday season, same bat-time, same bat-channel, as the RIs try to spoil our multiple winter solstice-sourced holidays again.