I don't know how to write Dan Rather a fan letter, so I'm posting here, hoping he will read it.

I grew up watching Dan all the way back in the 1960s. He is the kind of Texan that a person could be so proud of way back in the day. While no one is 100 percent perfect, he is the nearest thing to it in a newsman I have ever seen in my life.

Every night I watch the news, I miss Dan. Only recently, I've given up and started watching NBC for the first time since 1960.

Maybe the Bushies will shout him down like they did every other book writer who was critical of this administration. But in the long scope of history, remember what that Warren Commission lawyers said: "The truth is a long distance runner." I think most of us knew Dan was right all that week that the story ran, but Salon.com was the only news organization that I know of that backed him up.

I can no longer be loyal to CBS. But I can be loyal to Salon and to Olbermann.

First, Obama was criticized for reading his speech from a teleprompter. But quite frankly, he had to write the speech first to get the wording just right.

Second, no person in America, speaking truly expemporaneously, can avoid some phraseology that can be picked apart by those straining at the fine print. And once some awkward wording is used, and maganified in the right wing media, it will encourage any politician to recite pat phrases, and not think while speaking.

An important historian of Nazi Germany asked of that era, "How did it happen?" He said an even more bewildering question was, "How was it even possible?"

The level of criminality is not even close to Nazism, but I have been asking the question for years, "How was George Bush's rule even possible?" I believe Glenn Greenwald has done the first incisive history into how such tragic departure from American tradition and Anglo-Saxon law was possible.

Today, a columnist covered many of Greenwald's points.

Maybe some other smaller town newspapers are touching it.

I don't know how much money Salon pays Glenn Greenwald, but whatever it is, it is not enough.

No matter how religious a Democrat is, the very fact that he or she is associated with a congregation can be used against him/her. Remember how an issue was created in the closing days of the 1976 campaign to tarnish Jimmy Carter's Southern Baptist heritage.

Two Sundays before the election an African-American man was sent to the church to "join". Then when the South Georgia people showed their historic prejudice, this was trumpeted in the media to make Carter guilty by association. Thank goodness it didn't work. But amazingly, it came close to working.

I just finished Chapter 2 of Greenwald's book. I believe it was all 100 percent on target. However, I got the feeling toward the end that the deck was being stacked. By that I mean that some examples could be found where Republicans in the recent primary must have been victims of equally stupid superficial smears. Either that, or reason prevails on some level of the process.

For example, John McCain is unlike the Republican candidates listed in Chapter 2, yet he won the primaries! The swaggering Fred Thompson could have been built up into a threat in November, but he failed. Mitt Romney had the best appearance of the lot--which carries a lot of weight in a superficial culture. Mike Huckabee had a religious base which could have been a major threat, when added to the regular right wing appeal.

I have not yet read your chapter on McCain, but I do recognize the thesis that the media gives him a free ride. Even at that, I'm not sure the time is right to hit the most major issues. As Al Gore famously pointed out, timing is everything in politics. At the right time, the major weaknesses of McCain will be pointed out. Even after living through the past 28 years of stupid elections, I cannot believe the media can put enough lipstick on this pig. The War; the economy; the Supreme Court; I believe this time the public is paying attention to the big issues.

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Dan Rather is an object lesson in the way the Evening News tried their best to cover the story honestly. The massive attacks on Dan Rather is another object lesson in what happens to an honest journalist in a time of war hysteria.

If Dan Rather could tell his story, it would confirm much of the negativism in the previous comments--with new factual examples.

Probably at the last minute, the concept of "scary brown people" will be pushed to the max. Either from Hollywood movies, or from evening news footage, various unsavory African-Americans will be shown and the message, possibly explicitly, will be that Barack Obama will turn these people loose on you.

"He's one of them, not one of us," will resonate with many in the South. I hope racism is not that strong in other parts of the country. But the message is going to be tried, because it's all the Republicans have.

I am still shocked that the "Different Kind of Car Company" that produced my "different kind of car" in 1999 does not do the same thing this year.

In the summer, I get 43 MPG regularly on the interstate.

In the winter, with different gasoline formulation, I get 46 MPG.

In the city I get between 30 and 33.

Why is everybody bragging about hybreds when they don't get as good a mileage as a 1999 Saturn 5-speed?

If an international court asks for custody of George Bush the way it did with Milosevic, will President Obama turn him in?

While the language used is somewhat different, considering Serbian culture compared to American culture, it would be difficult to see how actions by Milosevic were any worse than those of George Bush.