"Mona writes: 'And, if Saddam had let the U.N inspectors complete their job, Powell's presentation at the U.N almost certainly would not have happened.'

I have also read some of your posts and felt you were knowledgeable. That's why the aforementioned statement is so confounding. I recall vividly and fervently wishing that Bush would let the inspectors finish their job in order to prevent the forthcoming tragedy.

"While invading Iraq was wrong, Saddam was, you know, an amoral and ruthless bastard. And in this case a miscalculating stupid one. He FED W just what W wanted."

Therefore he and Iraq deserved to be invaded; and have a million people killed and unknown hordes of people tortured so that the neocons and their cronies could make billions rebuilding the Iraq that they destroyed.

That's extraordinary logic!

I agree you didn't state what I said you said. I was mad at your defense of "W." and by even hinting that Sadam caused a war when he didn't. He was surely afraid of Iran. OK he was evil. That wasn't was caused the neocons to go after him. He was weak. Israel wanted him taken out. The corporations wanted to make money rebuilding Iraq. Probably the last reason Bush, even if he considered it at all was that Sadam was evil.

So I inferred what I wanted from your statement and mis-characterized and embellished what you said for my own purposes.

It is just when a war criminal like Powell is getting extolled it really grates at me.

I agree with adnoto that these war criminals are going to get off and will become celebrities just like Krauthammer, Kristol, Friedman, Brooks, et al are doing today. They could care less about the enormous grief they have caused.

"The Fool" sure has everything pegged right from my vantage point.

This is difficult for me to say but the highlight of the whole clip was your reaction to Buchanan's racist statement. You should make a copy of it and market it!

Much more than a cameo!

I just read Bill Kristol's column in the New York Times.

He is recommending that John McCain's campaign attack in the final days. Duh!

Then I started reading the posted comments by readers. I got through about 50 before I stopped. Not one post supported Kristol's posit.

I am an old man who is a Certified Public Accountant and a Certified Financial Planner. I have been investing my whole life and I believe this time it really is different. The "free market" no longer works. Charts and trends and history based on supply and demand no longer apply. Derivatives and CDOs and CDSs and no transparency and government bailouts and relentless printing of worthless money and on and on and on have created an insurmountable problem. And the problems are global which compound the problem exponentially. And it affects many markets including currency arbitrage. It will take years to analyze the problems and then years to find a solution and then years to put the proper enforcement laws in place to prevent the greed-driven antics from reoccurring.

You would have to be insane to invest into this chaotic market.

Get out of the market and into treasuries and then read Paul Krugman to find out what is going on. Just watch from the side lines with a touch of schadenfreude.

The "big boys" are continuing to game the system they literally destroyed and they are after your money. The system is broken except for them.

The truly ironic result of this economic collapse is that the people who gamed the system and devised the gimmicks by hiding the sub-prime mess and the explosion of derivatives based on the over-rated financial instruments are the guys who are being paid zillions to get us out of the mess they created.

The "regular joe' hasn't been impacted yet, but the grief is going to be huge and protracted.

-- KlangenFarben

You know, I was pissed about the FISA thing also. I was more than annoyed that Obama wasn't retaliating against the slime being put forth by the HRC campaign. And then along come the repugs and they generate enough slime to measure up to HRC and Wolfson and Penn. And then they add a little more.

I voted for Nader over Kerry because I felt Kerry wasn't defending himself against the vile Rovian tactics of the repugs. I considered him gutless even though I was positive he was a valid war hero. Maybe a hero but not a president.

But I now feel I was wrong to get pissed at Obama. I think this guy figures everything out and even though he knows that "history is prologue" he figures out different ways to do things. He realizes that you win more through negotiation and compromise rather than the Krauthammer philosophy of dominating the world with a unilateral "big stick."

He wants to build consensus and you don't do that using the "proven Attwater/Rove tactics."

He recognizes that the real enemy is the small band of neocons led by the crazies like Leo Strauss, Wohlstetter, Wolfowitz, Kristol, Rove, Perle, Hannity, et al.

So he doesn't want to alienate the moderate republicans that he feels he needs to build the consensus he wants to change the country. IMHO he is a very smart guy.

Give him a break and a little time.

I will be destroyed if he loses and also possibly the country will be destroyed also.