Are you a complete idiot?"

"No sir, not a complete idiot"

But seriously, the whole "ticking time bomb" scenario is really a red herring. I heard a former Interragator, on Fresh Air, I think, a guy who has done thousands of interrogations over 30-40 years, and he said that this only comes up in Hollywood. He flatly stated that torture does not work.

And if it were to come up? I think that as long as we have a policy that follows the geneva conventions, a president would be forgiven if in an extreme circumstance torture was authorized.

Would that it were the case that we had people in power who were bold enough to stand up to this McCarthistic rhetoric, and at the same time be bold enough to take responsibility for their actions.

Perhaps Armitage should be charged - THough most parties agree that his slip was accidental, unintended, it was still a serious mistake.

The special prosecutor was careful to make a distinction in his findings between this, and the deliberate coverup by the whitehouse.

If two people shoot someone in the head, they are both guilty of murder

On data collection - The NYT reported on this because it is..get this...Illeagal. And if you think that the years of service that Plame gave to this country was somehow less valuable that some fishing expedition aimed at increaing executive power and, doubtless, other nefarious political purposes, You are very, very wrong.

The upper class in this country bombard the rest of us with this message "You want to be like us"

From Television shows the glorify wealth and fame, to the ads that make up such a large percentage of these shows ("60 minutes"? Try 40) which sell us the lifestyle to which we would like to become accustomed, the super-rich sell us this dream that our life is not good enough.

And how can we afford such luxury? By not paying taxes on the money we don't yet have. How did the rich get rich? By selling us their shit.

I know that these are broad brush strokes, that there are wealthy people out there who pulled themselves up by the proverbial bootstraps and made good. From what I've read in the papers over the years, these are the people that are more likely to donate to their college, create charities, give back without being told to. Many of the rich and super rich are benficiaries of sweetheart deals (Think Halliburton, Blackwater), goverment subsidies (Ross Perot, Big agriculture, Big oil). There is only so much money in the world - It does notgrow on trees. When a few gobble it up, it eats away at those who can't.

I'm all for a free market, but I'm also still waiting for one.

More of us would be better of if we returned a middle-class centered society, but that is less and less possible as wealth distibution is polerized. It's time to tell them to give back more, now.

I am firmly on the side of taxing the rich, but I do have a question, brought up by Centrist above, and others...

Why is it that, say, during Reagan, taxes went down, revenues went up, and yet the economy still ended up in the shitter, and the deficit went so high? Please don't blame "Tax and spent liberals" 'cause I know that's a myth.

ANd During CLinton, when taxes went up, the economy seemed stable, low unemployment, welfare reform happened and seemed to move people from welfare to wrok

Does that drain on society through job loss as the rich suck up all the wealth counter the increased revenue?

This is an honest question, and I would be interested in an unbiased anwer

Whooo Hoooooo!!!

Do some of you imagine thet, if someone other than HRC is nominated, that the Republican attack machine WOULD NOT be brought out in full force?

This retort...

"I think, are obsessed with you, Hillary, is because that's a fight they're very comfortable having"

is misleading. They may be obsessed, they may be comfortable with that fight, but it is also a fight that they have lost in the past, and will lose today. The very fact that they keep on fighting this old battle shows that they know that they have lost. Bill Clinton (for whatever you may think of him) is viewed very very positively today, and not only in contrast to the current president, but in his own right.

HRC is much tougher than any of those other candy-asses out there - Hell, she's probably tougher than Bill - She will destroy her opponents in the debates, her machine will run over them in the ad wars. The religious right will stay home on election day, and the Dems will sweep.