William,

You old dog you! Nailed all three--WFB, GW and Shooter--to a T, with such mirthful alacrity.

To demonstrate our superior moral evolution. We are liberals.

Which is what it is. McCain and others want marriage to only be between a man and a woman because it appeals to wide majority of the base and they want their votes. Family values has little to do with it. Why do these people feel the need to impose their views by legislation on others when it would change nothing in "their" world to allow same sex unions? They are giving nothing up or sacrificing anything so why are they so intolerant?

Commenting on the 20 years between his two "traditional marriages" Presidential hopeful Fred Thompson admitted:

"I was single for a long time and yep, I chased a lot of women. And a lot of women chased me. And those that chased me tended to catch me."

The problem, at least according to some very persistent scuttlebutt making its' way around the gay blogosphere, is that not all of those Thompson chased, was chased by & caught, were ...ahem...actually female.

It is further rumoured that there exists, somewhere in the dark, perhaps mythical, repositories of career ending scandals, graphic photos of an (allegedly) impressively priapic Fredrick of Hollywood, engaged in some quite indisputably man-on-man action. (I apologise unreservedly to the impressionable for introducing any mental picture of Fred Thompson nude. As my niece would say: "That's just so, like, eeeew.")

While such rumours may well be the libelous product of a rival Rethug campaign, Fred's staff would do well to question their candidate about any compromising assignations he's had over the years. Because as surely as day follows night, once Fredrick announces his candidacy & the moment he denigrates gay marriage or rights, if those photos exist, they'll surely be coming to light. Further, beyond Thompson's campaign, the GOP should be asking itself how well it could afford the outing of another Law & Order, Traditional Values Republican.

2002 :

Bush Aides Set Strategy to Sell Policy on Iraq
By ELISABETH BUMILLER
Published: September 7, 2002

''From a marketing point of view,'' said Andrew H. Card Jr., the White House chief of staff who is coordinating the effort, ''you don't introduce new products in August.''

A centerpiece of the strategy, White House officials said, is to use Mr. Bush's speech on Sept. 11 to help move Americans toward support of action against Iraq, which could come early next year.

2007 :

http://icga.blogspot.com/2007/08/post-labor-day-product-rollout-war-with.html

Wednesday, August 29, 2007
Post Labor Day Product Rollout: War with Iran

[...] Today I received a message from a friend who has excellent connections in Washington and whose information has often been prescient. According to this report, as in 2002, the rollout will start after Labor Day, with a big kickoff on September 11. [...]

- - Posted by Barnett R. Rubin at 10:11 PM

http://www.newyorker.com/online/blogs/georgepacker/2007/08/if-there-were-a.html

August 31, 2007
Test Marketing

If there were a threat level on the possibility of war with Iran, it might have just gone up to orange. Barnett Rubin, the highly respected Afghanistan expert at New York University, has written an account of a conversation with a friend who has connections to someone at a neoconservative institution in Washington.

[...] Postscript: Barnett Rubin just called me. His source spoke with a neocon think-tanker who corroborated the story of the propaganda campaign and had this to say about it: “I am a Republican. I am a conservative. But I’m not a raging lunatic. This is lunatic.”

- - George Packer at the New Yorker

http://www.ft.com/cms/s/0/0b44ff52-5823-11dc-8c65-0000779fd2ac.html

Cheney the survivor without challengers
By Andrew Ward and Edward Luce
Published: September 1 2007 03:00

Dick Cheney once jokingly referred to himself as Darth Vader - such was his dark reputation with the mainstream US media. With the departure of Karl Rove on Friday, George W. Bush's electoral mastermind, the US vice-president is seen as "the last man standing" in the administration.

Yet far from being the increasingly isolated figure that he is often portrayed, Mr Cheney wields influence that has arguably never been greater. Among the close circle of trusted advisors that Mr Bush has relied on since coming to the White House, only Mr Cheney remains.

The others - the so-called "Texas mafia" that included Harriet Miers, the former counsel, Dan Barlett, director of communications, Karen Hughes, a senior advisor, Alberto Gonzales, the outgoing attorney-general and Mr Rove - have all left.

It was this informal coterie that would retreat with Mr Bush to his private quarters after formal White House meetings and take the hard decisions. "These were the people Bush trusted and where he could say anything," said a former Cheney aide. "Cheney will now be unchallenged." [...]

- - Financial Times

http://www.timesonline.co.uk/tol/news/world/asia/article2369001.ece

September 2, 2007
Pentagon ‘three-day blitz’ plan for Iran Sarah Baxter, Washington

The Pentagon has drawn up plans for massive airstrikes against 1,200 targets in Iran, designed to annihilate the Iranians’ military capability in three days, according to a national security expert.

Alexis Debat, director of terrorism and national security at the Nixon Center, said last week that US military planners were not preparing for “pinprick strikes” against Iran’s nuclear facilities. “They’re about taking out the entire Iranian military,” he said.

Debat was speaking at a meeting organised by The National Interest, a conservative foreign policy journal. He told The Sunday Times that the US military had concluded: “Whether you go for pinprick strikes or all-out military action, the reaction from the Iranians will be the same.” [...]

- - From The Sunday Times of London

http://www.dailykos.com/storyonly/2007/9/1/183018/1527

"We Are Going To Hit Iran. Bigtime"
by Maccabee
Sat Sep 01, 2007 at 03:50:24 PM PDT

I have a friend who is an LSO on a carrier attack group that is planning and staging a strike group deployment into the Gulf of Hormuz. (LSO: Landing Signal Officer- she directs carrier aircraft while landing) She told me we are going to attack Iran. She said that all the Air Operation Planning and Asset Tasking are finished. That means that all the targets have been chosen, prioritized, and tasked to specific aircraft, bases, carriers, missile cruisers and so forth.

[...] "Orders just come down from the mountaintop and there’s no questioning. In fact, there is no discussing it. I have seen more than one senior commander disappear and then three weeks later we find out that he has been replaced. That’s really weird. It’s also really weird because everyone who has disappeared has questioned whether or not we should be staging a massive attack on Iran."

[...]

- - From Daily Kos

http://www.amazon.com/Iranian-Time-Bomb-Zealots-Destruction/dp/0312376553

The Iranian Time Bomb: The Mullah Zealots' Quest for Destruction (Hardcover)
by Michael A. Ledeen

Availability: This title will be released on September 4, 2007. Pre-order now! Ships from and sold by Amazon.com. Gift-wrap available.