On the lighter side, if you tend to dislike Fox News, as i do, you might enjoy the link below:http://mysite.verizon.net/vze1ldyn/id2.html

so what are people thinking about the Miers withdrawal and the Libby indictment? Please, original thoughts, no cut-n-paste. If you find something particularly insightful, please do post the link.Can we all agree that neither was done in by "THE LIBERALS"?What are points we can all agree on? what are facts that we can agree on?

I'm glad we can reach an agreement, POTUS. I believe it is possible to find a lot more that unites all of us than we often allow ourselves. I find it so much easier to look at the world as an "us vs them" zero-sum game, but therein lies our collective challenge - can we get out of that destructive mindset. It IS hard!One of the keys is insisting on what you've written below - we are all brothers and sisters, even though some of us, myself included (or especially?), may sometimes act like brats.I'lll be away from the site for a week. I look forward to reading what's transpired since then.Thanks again!

Franklin,For the first time in 3+ years, under many, many moniCkers, I agree with everthing you just posted below. And it feels good, my brother..........

That's a funny name, POTUS!Yes, fortunately it would take a constitutional convention to have your darling re-selected.But don't you agree, given the Democrats own track record of election-tampering, that a more transparent and accountable (i.e. paper trails) electoral process is urgent? Sure, right now the gop benefitted from electoral manipulation (few machines in heavily Democrat areas, plenty in GOP supporting areas) but wouldn't you feel otherwise if you were on the receiving end?It reminds me of all the GOP lamenting over out-of-control prosecutors - certainly wasn't the lament throughout all of the legal boondoggles during the Clinton years - or the traitor-branding of war critics totally absent during the Kosovo war.Don't we all have shared principles? Yes, different views on many things, but some shared principles?Do we believe in the rule of law? Do we believe in fair and transparent elections? Can we all agree the district gerrymandering blows? Do we believe that war should always be the last resort and never based on manipulated intelligence? I think we could reach a lot of agreement- and we must find common ground.

OUCH!Looks like GWB is going to have a rougher time hacking those Diebold(R) voting machines and getting himself re-selected in November 2008......

So the political earthquake continues in Washington as the rank-and-file true believers decide they can no longer trust the Administration with what they want.Thus the Meiers controversy is not seen as a "flap" but as a "last straw." A representative of the American Conservative Union is quoted in today's Washington Post saying something to the effect that they will no longer be taking Bush's word for it.I believe that Bush's team never really believed the rhetoric they had Bush spout - it was all just a means to an end: to power (and money). Kind of like Bush's first speech once he was finally elected (sorry, he was selected the first go-around), pledging a world-wide revolution in democracy, only to have his advisers back-pedal everything he said in the ensuing days.So some in the right are tasting for the first time what most in the left have maintained all along: BUSH LIES.

I don't know. I do believe Bush is disingenuous and has no qualms about lying, and i also think he's somewhat clever, but nah, i don't see Cheney approving this. Too much of a gamble for them.

After much contemplation and reflection, I think that I may have discovered the very devious agenda of President Bush that caused him to pick Harriet Miers for the Court. The political calculation and strategic planning that I now believe the President has demonstrated in this case is nothing short of remarkable. Surely Karl Rove’s evil hand is buried deep into this decision and if it all plays out the way they intend, conservatives and Republican Presidential candidates in 2008 will be deeply in their debt.The key to beating Hillary in 2008 is the Republican’s ability to nominate a national figure renowned for their leadership on a large stage with name recognition that can compete with a Clinton. This is a very tall order, and potential candidates like Senators George Allen and Bill Frist, or Governor Owens of Colorado would likely be fine Presidents and would readily be nominated by the conservative base, but they do not have the name recognition to go head to head with Hillary. Meanwhile, Republicans that do have that kind of mojo like Rudy Giuliani, Senator McCain, or even Condi Rice are under suspicion for their social conservative creds (and for good reason). These nationally popular Republicans can only be nominated in an environment where the SCOTUS is firmly leaning to the right. That means a solid 5-4 majority. Assuming that Miers is confirmed and is as conservative as the President says she is; she would ostensibly be joined by Roberts, Scalia, and Thomas in a quartet of reliable conservatives. This would put Anthony Kennedy in the “swing” vote and Ginsberg, Breyer, Souter, and Stevens on the left. In order to dial in that 5-4 majority, we need at least one of the 5 to retire or die.Waiting for Justices to die is an unfulfilling and ultimately untenable strategy. So how does Bush convince one of the lefties to take a cruise and not come back? He sends the signal that he is weak, cannot trust the Senate, and is forced to nominate Souterettes or marginal conservatives to replace them. John Paul Stevens is into his eighties now, and Ginsberg looks like a stiff wind might put her on her a$$. Bush is clearly targeting Stevens for retirement, and this limp wristed nomination of Miers is a invitation to him saying, in effect, "you don’t have to carry the load anymore buddy, just step aside and I’ll put Alberto Gonzalez up there so you won’t feel like you betrayed the DNC." If Bush and Rove are really lucky, Stevens will talk Ginsberg into walking off into the sunset with him. It is statistically impossible to lose the Senate majority during the remainder of Bush’s term, so if he can pick off one more liberal he’ll be able to go back to the deep conservative bench and pluck out another Roberts and go out a hero.JRB Links:http://air.fjc.gov/servlet/tGetInfo?jid=3088http://legalaffairs.org/howappealing/053005.html#003180http://www.sctnomination.com/blog/archives/2005/06/profile_of_pote_2.htmlhttp://www.pfaw.org/pfaw/general/default.aspx?oid=2939http://www.allianceforjustice.org/search/results.asp

oh and what can you tell me about Janet Rogers Brown? I know nothing about her.

Thanks JR____(Debatable) for your posting.What got you over the disappointment? Was it the steady insistence on her evangelical Christianity? Or learning about her having led a law firm, having been the head of the Dallas Bar Association, among other real world experience? or a reaction against the sniffing of some about her supposed lack of intellectual heft?And i would take it, for you this would not be a last straw at all in terms of frustration with the current Administration?

Although I was initially disappointed over the Harriet Miers nomination, now I am firmly planted in her corner. I support her because the substance of the anti-Miers criticism is based on her lack of elite credentials.A lot of conservative apologists are demonstrating their fealty to the Harvard-Yale establishment, more than to the conservative cause.You know very few elitists voted for GWB and he owes them nothing. He got elected in-spite of his H-Y connections, not because of them. Although I would have preferred a Californian like Janet Rogers Brown. I am solidly in support of Harriet Miers

If any of our non-liberal, non-radical (debatable) friends have any thoughts on the nomination of Miers to the Supreme Court, i'd be interested in hearing them. Please no cut'n'paste; either paraphrase with link or post original thoughts.What do you have to say about some commentators' position that the Miers nomination is the last straw?

here's a nice little pseudo-theological conundrummy guess is that Islamic Fundamentalists may have seen the punishing hand of God in the terrible hurricanes in the southeast; i wonder whose hand they see now in the horrible earthquake in Pakistan? vice versa, of course, for the Christian Fundamentalists.it's a conundrum for those who would use God to justify their earthly endeavors, political ambitions, power views, etc.

Frankie here:Franklin pleaded guilty to passing classified information to the Government of Israel via the American Israel Political Action Committee (AIPAC, see lyrics on "SONG 3907")And the world might be on the verge of a pandemic if the avian flu virus mutates so that it can jump from human to human. currently it can jump from bird to human but not human to human (see MADCOW)new lyrics coming soon, thanks to a very productive session in NYC