Sigh. We are never going to even marginally unite this country until each side quits accusing the other guys of doing evil things they know they are doing as well. This article would have been much more convincing and credible had acknowledgement of various well-known Democratic voter fraud incidents been included. (LBJ in Texas, Daley hi-jinks in Chicago, etc., etc., etc.)

The solution? This one, at least, is pretty simple. Require reasonable PICTURE ID at the polls (driver's license, government ID, etc.). Do away with ridiculous ID requirements such as the cited need for married women to prove name-change documentation. And, for those who are screaming that poor citizens somehow find it difficult to obtain government issued PICTURE ID - create bipartisan voter registration crews who, each year, would fan out in neighborhoods where obtaining such ID might be difficult (even this assertion is questionable however - almost everyone has some form of government-issued PICTURE ID - but still - to make everyone happy). These voter-registration crews can knock on doors, bringing voter power to the people, in teams of two (yes, one Dem and one Rep!). The most logical choice for these teams would, of course, be idealistic college students and recent grads. And, they can even TALK TO EACH OTHER while roaming the countryside and urbanside in their red, white and blue buses. What a great way to spend a summer!

I really think this would work.

Bush did not LIE about the war in Iraq. The sad and very scary truth is that BUSH REALLY BELIEVED IRAQ HAD WMD's. In a way, this is worse. Do you see how?

As the build-up to the war progressed, it never seemed or felt right. What was happening did not match what was being said. The whole build-up had an odd Wag The Dog feel to it. Remember?

One day, while picking up my kids, it hit me out of the blue. This is all for show, I thought. The war had yet to start, and Tony Blair had just made a speech of some sort in which he indicated that Iraq could attack with WMD's in 45 minutes and it hit me that if this were truly the case - Britain and the US would simply send in the jets and take care of business. And explain why afterwards. I realized the whole back and forth to the UN pleading for permission to defend ourselves and the world from these suddenly dangerous WMD's was a huge charade. But why were we doing it?

Iraq, the Bush administration wrongly and stupidly thought, was an easy target. A pushover. We needed a staging area in the middle east. Iraq has the second largest oil reserves in the world, I believe. And we simply needed to stay close to that oil in a post 9/11 world. (This doesn't mean the administration wanted to "fight for oil" or any such childish simplification - it simply means there was recognition that since 9/11 the middle east was even more unstable than it had already been and we needed to have a presence close to the oil.) (Please someone, discover an alternative fuel source quickly, so that at least this aspect of the Middle East Problem can go away.)

However, announcing that we were invading Iraq because we needed a friendly government strategically located next to both oil and middle-eastern adversaries would have made it impossible for any Arab government to help us. In fact, they probably would have been forced to oppose us. So, the administration searched about for an excuse that could be accepted even by Arab countries. They seized upon the excuse of WMD's, which EVERYONE's intelligence, not just US's intelligence, believed Saddam had. THEY WOULD NEVER HAVE PICKED AN EXCUSE THEY KNEW WOULDN'T PAN OUT, WOULD THEY?

So, this is why Bush should not be impeached. You see - he didn't LIE. He was JUST WRONG. There's a difference.

I wish he had lied. As a Mom, I'd sleep better tonite - as it is, I think the CIA don't know nuttin' 'bout nuttin. And that's pretty scary.

This is beneath the usual standards of salon.com.