There simply MUST be something to fear or hate in the Republican Party platform.

Else, why would anyone vote for a Republican?

Who have effectively abandoned all domestic issues in this election in favor of being somewhere on the spectrum of antiBush in foreign policy. And that doesn't mean we should focus even more on the 'war' on terrorism at home, because there is no terrorism at home and its war is a sham. And anyway Americans should be nudged a little accept a nonzero level of terrorism like almost every other country. A bombing here or there doesn't mean we stop everything dead in its tracks and become a police state. But again, we need to stop focusing the 2008 election exclusively on foreign policy.

look, lets face it, Hillary needs the pro-Israel's supporters money for her campaign. They are, in the words of Wes Clark who was quoting some one else, like a political ATM machine. Do any thing that Israel's supporters don't like and you can kiss running for any office goodbye. So Hillary figured, hey the vote for war with Iraq worked pretty well...i mean most Israel's supporters see her as being a STRONG supporter of Israel who will let Israel do whatever it wants to anyone whether the Palestinians or any other Middle East country. So she said hey let me vote for Kyl-Lieberman resolution and voila! mo' money will flow in my pockets..screw world peace!

same with Obama...the guy desperately needs cash to keep up with Hillary and so in order to seem like he wasn't gonna fudge on Israel or be more fair minded in the Mideast peace process, he abstained from the Kyl-Lieberman vote to grant war with Iran

the sad part is...Republicans seem stronger anytime anyday when it comes to Israel..they are like Bulldogs.."f**k Palestinians..who are they?!!" they say..."they want state huh?!"..."we will give them state after they have taken bombs up their ass!!"

Yeah Hillary, Obama keep up the pandering..you still cant beat Rudy or Mccain or Romney when it comes to Israel.

btw, lets all get rid of this happy horse shit idea that most American people care about their nation anymore. they care about the candidate who can put snazzy expensive ads on TV and who they can have a beer with. plus they wish the candidates can make them more money.

thats why in the past 3 decades the candidates with lots of campaign money as well as big personal fortune (Bush 1, Bush2, Hillary, Bill, Reagan, Romney, Rudy, Gore etc) has won or was close enough to winning. no one wants to utter Kucinich's name and thats only because he doesnt have the money. No one was even taking Ron Paul seriously (even though he is far more principled than any of these loser candidates) until he started getting campaign contributions

Haven't heard that one before.

I'm sure Cheney and his gang will come up with a dire threat to America long enough before election day to influence voters, but close enough to election day so there us no time for this made-up threat to be debunked.

Past conservative Democrats, such as Scoop Jackson, have specialized in it as well.

Scoop Jackson.

Washington State

Boeing.

Military-industrial-complex.

Not so much Democrat as just ..boughten.

Like usual.

If you do not like the intelligence community's report about Iran's (lack of) nuclear weapons, then discredit the intelligence community. Nothing in the U.S. says "intelligence" quite like the CIA. It is no coincidence that Wednesday of last week, with the NIE hot off the presses, the New York Times threatened to reveal to the world that the CIA had destroyed two torture tapes---two years ago.

The identity of the NYT's source(s) remains shrouded in secrecy, as does the date when they learned of this story. Knowing how long the NYT has been accustomed to sit on a juicy scoop, they could have known for up to the full two years. However, they waited until the CIA released a report that took Iran off the table to tell the world that the CIA was guilty of obstruction of justice.

Predictably, the CIA sought to soften the news by coming forward and making the announcement themselves. This did little to avert the media storm. Congressional Republicans and Democrats demanded investigations, prosecutions. The tidbit that Harriet Miers "knew" (though she correctly told the CIA "don't do it") drove the Democrats into a frenzy of blood lust. NIE? What NIE?

On Saturday, I predicted that we would soon be seeing two types of mainstream media stories. One would be criticism of the NIE report as the work of liars, criminals who can not be trusted with our national security, because they had only their own interests at heart. BY Sunday, both the New York Times and the Washington Post had opinion pieces reflecting exactly the sentiments I predicted.

My other prediction was that Democrats would quickly be tarred as being equally to blame for torture. The administration could not afford to bring torture to the forefront of public attention without making it a bipartisan issue. Therefore, both parties, Democrats and Republicans would have to be made equally guilty in the eyes of the public. This would prevent Congress from starting impeachment based upon the issue and from campaigning next year based upon the issue. As predicted, the big story on Sunday was "The Democrats approved torture in 2002" or more specifically "Pelosi knew!"

When a fiction writer, like me, can tell you in advance what news stories are going to appear in the next days paper, that is a pretty good sign that a coordinated propaganda campaign is under way. And not an especially clever one either. This same tactic--discredit the messenger--has been used time after time by the Bush administration. The intelligence community has also been attacked numerous times by the NeoCons for its refusal to play along.

I am hoping for a special prosecutor. I am hoping that he asks the NYTs where they got the story about the two destroyed tapes and how long they knew about it before they published it. Obstruction of justice is not pretty, but neither is another Bush administration attempt to force our nation into a Middle Eastern war of choice.