Iraq-No-Phobia

Still feeling that ol' Democrat disgust. I would especially like to take the junior senators from Illinois and New York out behind the woodshed. Way to triangulate until the last possible minute and not vote until the cause was lost, guys. Keep up the good work.

I just don't get it. You have a president who is less popular than open sores, his administration is reeling from the Scandal du Jour, and then he looks absolutely CRACKERS at his press conference, complete with bird poop--and the Democrats are terified of him.

Coast Guard, they're the boat guys right? Life jackets, no drinkin' on the boat?

Fearless Leader addressed the graduating class of the Coast Guard Academy.

Guess what--SEPTEMBER THE ELEVENTH!!

In this war, we face a brutal enemy that has already killed thousands in our midst

Gosh, I thought we were fighting native Iraqi resistance.

That means the best way to protect our people is to take the fight to the enemy.

OK, and the enemy is WHO?

in Afghanistan...25 million people have been liberated

Hmm, maybe we should tell them that they are just imagining the warlords, the re-emerging Taliban and Opium, Inc.

In Iraq, we removed a cruel dictator who harbored terrorists, paid the families of Palestinian suicide bombers

Hmm, George, Hussein was a latecomer to the payments thing, joining in with SAUDI ARABIA, the UAE, Qatar, etc.

I've often warned that if we fail in Iraq, the enemy will follow us home.

Yeah, they couldn't find the way here otherwise unless they followed the bread crumbs.

in January 2005, Osama bin Laden tasked the terrorist Zarqawi -- who was then al Qaeda's top leader in Iraq

Oh good God. He was a Jordanian thug that bin Laden had no use for and was the White House's "Iraqi Idol" until they needed to kill him.

The enemy in Vietnam had neither the intent nor the capability to strike our homeland. The enemy in Iraq does.

George, what would you know about Viet Nam? And a couple thousand foreign fighters in Iraq are going to "strike us?"

The question for our elected leaders is: Do we comprehend the danger of an al Qaeda victory in Iraq,

DO YOU??? There will be no "al Qaeda" "victory" in Iraq. It is a SHI'A country and the Shi'a DESPISE al Qaeda!

New and...Improved?

Stuff you can't make up:

Top U.S. commanders and diplomats in Iraq are completing a far-reaching campaign plan for a new U.S. strategy

Hey, look, a new strategy! it will help us win! Winning is good, especially the extra win-ny kind!

Amazing. After four years of botched nation-building and an occupation that makes even the most pro-western Iraqi hate us, they come up with a new strategy, one that unfortunately does not involve--LEAVING.

I belong to no organized political party

I'm (ashamed to be) a Democrat.

The cave on Iraq funding is so humiliating. The Democratic Congress was elected to stop the madness, and they cave in front of Chimpy's veto pen.

Hey Dems, here's a thought--You've sent hima bill, and he pulled out the veto crayon. ALL the leverage is YOURS. If NOTHING happens, the war funding stops. You had every advantage and you pissed it away. Disgusting.

E-mailed to the Speaker of the House...

Humbly submitted by your esteemed Zinfandelfan to Nancy Pelosi's website (www.speaker.gov):

It is being reported in conflicting fashion in several places (DailyKos, TalkingPointsMemo, Fox) that an agreement has been reached with the White House on Iraq war funding and that the funding would be provided without timetables, benchmarks or other caveats which could allegedly "hamper" the President's style.

As someone who went out in the last election cycle and not only contributed significantly for the first time in his life but also phone banked and canvassed, it would be a tremendous disappointment and a rebuke of all the time, effort and financial commitment of everyone who helped bring the Democratic Party to power in November.

While I realize that negotiations are "on-going" with the White House, despite the heat that members of the caucus may be feeling, it is important that we continue to do what the majority of Americans have called for in *every* poll and that is to bring the troops home and to not give the President a blank check with no restrictions or conditions.

No matter how many people continue to be paraded before the podium and the war keeps being packaged as a, "No, really, THIS time it will work;" the fact is that the Administration has lost all credibility and, further, the right to unquestioned fealty in their decision making process.

Do not concede, do not waver, do not yield. Bring our men and women home soon to rest, recover and reconstitute our fighting forces to fight the "Global War on Terror," not play arbiters between factions linked to unstoppable bloodshed.

In much the fashion that contributor Schmidlap put in his message to his guy, I don't think that we can let our elected representatives who were swept to power on a platform that includes doing something different about the war, think that giving der Chimpenfuehrer everything he wants is a "compromise". Somebody once defined compromise (or perhaps it was 'negotiation') as neither party getting everything they want but both parties being satisfied.

Unfortunately for The Decider, his definition of compromise is getting everything he wants and screw everybody else. Well, it is high time that Congress ceases to be the pet of the Executive Branch and that if he gets a bill that gives him all of his money with those "strings" that he threatens to veto, every radio, television, newspaper, billboard and MP3 player should ring with the very clear point that it is THE PRESIDENT OF THE UNITED STATES WHO IS PLAYING POLITICS WITH THE TROOPS AND NOT THE CONGRESS.

The man from Plains

In November 1976, at the ATO house in Greencastle, Indiana, Tom Garrison invited me and my new girlfriend (I wonder what ever happened to her? She was really cute. By the way, selfless shilling, you may wish us a happy 25th next Tuesday) to watch the election returns, where the Georgia governor defeated the incumbent president.

30-plus years later, that Georgia governor said that "I think as far as the adverse impact on the nation around the world, this administration has been the worst in history."

Please tell me where he was wrong.

On teaching--and Iraq

I took my 13-year old for one of his regularly-scheduled cheap haircuts. In the line in front of me was a young man, military cut and lean and mean. he was talking things military with his barber, and then he turned around. Immediately, he said "Professor Peter!" I hesitated at first because (as Doc would know, I was a humble instructor, not a "professor") and I did not recognize this lean taut young man. Then I saw and recognized the face--he was a really bright student who I taught at the local community college and yes, I inspired him to go into teaching (that's my one!). I thought I had demoralized him when I saw him in another part-time job when I said I'd given up teaching for the money but he remembered me and said he had given up his teaching job for an officer's commission in the Army--and Iraq. God bless you.

I would question his judgment (as I would for looking up to me in the first place!) for doing so, but please return safely.

Places to go, pictures to take

So tomorrow morning I'm off for a week or so in sunny middle of frackin' nowhere New Mexico. City of Rocks State Park, to be exact. One might realistically ask why I'll be headed there, to sleep in a tent, try to avoid rattlesnakes and scorpions, stay up til 2 or 3 every night, miss mrsdrmagoo terribly, and try to demonstrate some semblance of sanity. The answer, of course - work! We've organized a travel course on Astrophotography, and this is one of the darkest public sites in the country. There will be 5 professors (two of whom are teaching the course, two of us who are doing a little teaching, but are mostly learning how to do this stuff and to assist, and one who is coming along because he can) and 17 students. We'll be doing all sorts of late-night activities - well, the sort that involves a camera, a telescope, a computer, and looking up - and a bunch during the day - trips to historic towns, petroglyph sites, the VLA (where we can stand in the footsteps of Jodie Foster - and many brilliant scientists), and assorted natural wonders. Have fun whilst I'm gone, and don't burn down any important buildings (unless you can trap certain politicians).

Oh, and IMPEACH!

And in this corner...

From today's letters to the editor:

When will we admit that, if and when we abandon Iraq, we are still at war? How foolish to alert the enemy of our withdrawal when we are in a lifetime struggle against a foe that will never go away. We have got to toe the mark and convince other nations that if America loses, they are goners too.

We now struggle alone.

The threat of global dominance requires global resistance, not just one nation fighting Goliath. David slew the giant with help from his God. America seems to have forgotten our past, when we honored our creator. Many a battle is fought and won on one's knees.

Elizabeth Pearson
Elmhurst

Wow, this one is a stunner First of all, Lizzie, we are not "AT WAR." The "war" ended about 20 days after it began. Now we are just slogging through a botched occupation that will end badly, sooner or later. Global dominance? Wild-eyed fanatics in caves with box ciutters and backpack bombs. Please, be serious. I can show you global dominance if you want. Pull out your map and take a long look at that REALLY big country called China.

And God? Yeah, I'm sure the supreme being, creator of the universe has a vested interest in the outcome of the misguided imperial delusions of a drunken failure with daddy issues. Lizzy, please, on your way back to Elmhurst,

The long and winding road

Garrison Keillor wrote

The French have a new president, the British will soon have a new P.M., and we envy them as we endure the endless wait for this small dim man to go back to Texas and resume his life.

My question is--after that endless wait is over, what kind of country will we have left? Barring a Diebold disaster of the highest magnitude, given that one-third of the GOP presidential candidates believe that we would have unicorns dancing in the forests if they hadn't missed the Ark, the White House in 2008 must surely go blue. But what will it mean? How much lasting damage has been done?

Our standing in the eyes of the world has never been lower, and this administration has made the Middle east into a permanent nightmare. The Chinese are our Mr. Potter and we do live in Pottersville. The jobs that went across the seas aren't coming back, and precious time has been lost in avoiding more than one ecological disaster.

Those fellow unicorn believers sit not only on the U.S. Supreme Court, but on every federal bench in the country, and will sit there for the rest of their lives. Career professionals throughout the government have been pushed out in favor of small-minded ideologues. The U.S. military has been shattered in a fashion that will take years to rebuild. The young officer corps, the academy grads, the captains, majors and lieutenant colonels, are leaving in droves, and of course, one of our most valuable resources, the national Guard, has been effectively destroyed as another hurricane season awaits.

Yes, the small dim man will return to Texas some day. The question is--where do we go?

Three final notes

Today has been chock full of noteworthy stories, but I don't want to have too many posts, so let me combine three into one final post for the day (unless, of course, something else happens).

1) Paul Wolfowitz resigns. As a principal architect of the disaster in Iraq, I can only hope that his special comb someday gets used as his catheter.

2) The bloviating windbag says something really quite funny. During the GOP debate the other night, a question was asked about the lack of minorities or women on the stage. So, during his radio show yesterday, OxyContin boy said: "And I guess — you know, the Democrats never get those kinds of questions because it's always assumed that they're fair and just, and not discriminatory and all that." Or, perhaps, that well, I'm not even going to say it.

3) Valerie Plame and Joseph Wilson are fining a suit against Shooter, Turd Blossom, Scooter, etc, charging that when they leaked her identity for political reasons they did damage to her career. Cheney's lawyer's response: "He has immunity." From the Washington Post:

The lawyers said any conversations Cheney and the officials had about Plame with one another or with reporters were part of their normal duties because they were discussing foreign policy and engaging in an appropriate "policy dispute." Cheney's attorney went further, arguing that Cheney is legally akin to the president because of his unique government role and has absolute immunity from any lawsuit.

U.S. District Judge John D. Bates asked: "So you're arguing there is nothing -- absolutely nothing -- these officials could have said to reporters that would have been beyond the scope of their employment, whether the statements were true or false?"

"That's true, Your Honor. Mr. Wilson was criticizing government policy," said Jeffrey S. Bucholtz, deputy assistant attorney general for the Justice Department's civil division. "These officials were responding to that criticism."

So, when responding to "criticism," it's perfectly okay for any member of the Admininstration to say anything, true or false? Umm, what?

Torture Boy gets pwnd!

Fifty-six members of embattled Attorney General Alberto Gonzalez' graduation class from Harvard Law School (1982) took out a full-page ad in the Weshington Post as an open letter to Torture Boy:

Dear Attorney General Gonzales:

Twenty-five years ago we, like you, graduated from Harvard Law School. While we arrived via many different paths and held many different views, we were united in our deep respect for the Constitution and the rights it guaranteed. As members of the post-Watergate generation who chose careers in law, we understood the strong connection between our liberties as Americans and the adherence of public offi cials to the law of the land. We knew that the choice to abide by the law was even more critical when public officials were tempted to take legal shortcuts. Nowhere were we taught that the ends justified the means, or that freedoms for which Americans had fought and died should be set aside when inconvenient or challenging. To the contrary: our most precious freedoms, we learned, need defending most in times of crisis.

So it has been with dismay that we have watched your cavalier handling of our freedoms time and again. When it has been important that legal boundaries hold unbridled government power in check, you have instead used pretextual rationales and strained readings to justify an ever-expanding executive authority. Witness your White House memos sweeping aside the Geneva Conventions to justify torture, endangering our own servicemen and women; witness your advice to the President effectively reading Habeas Corpus out of our constitutional protections; witness your support of presidential statements claiming inherent power to wiretap American citizens without warrants (and the Administration’s stepped-up wiretapping campaign, taking advantage of those statements, which continues on your watch to this day); and witness your dismissive explanation of the troubling firings of numerous U.S. Attorneys, and their replacement with others more "loyal" to the President’s politics, as merely "an overblown personnel matter." In these and other actions, we see a pattern. As a recent editorial put it, your approach has come to symbolize "disdain for the separation of powers, civil liberties and the rule of law."

As lawyers, and as a matter of principle, we can no longer be silent about this Administration’s consistent disdain for the liberties we hold dear. Your failure to stand for the rule of law, particularly when faced with a President who makes the aggrandized claim of being a unitary executive, takes this country down a dangerous path.

Your country and your President are in dire need of an attorney who will do the tough job of providing independent counsel, especially when the advice runs counter to political expediency. Now more than ever, our country needs a President, and an Attorney General, who remember the apt observation attributed to Benjamin Franklin: "Those who would give up essential Liberty to purchase a little temporary Safety, deserve neither Liberty nor Safety." We call on you and the President to relent from this reckless path, and begin to restore respect for the rule of law we all learned to love many years ago.

THE SIGNATORIES ARE ALL MEMBERS OF THE HARVARD LAW SCHOOL CLASS OF 1982

How you can tell when you've found our house

Should you ever be driving along, looking for Magooland, you will know you've found it when you see this in our window:

The Impeachables

The Liar In Chief at today's joint press conference with outgoing British Prime Minister Tony Blair:

"Son, we live in a world that has walls, and those walls have to be guarded by men with guns. Who's gonna do it? ... I have a greater responsibility than you could possibly fathom. ... And my existence, while grotesque and incomprehensible to you, saves lives. You don't want the truth because deep down in places you don't talk about at parties, you want me on that wall, you need me on that wall. I have neither the time nor the inclination to explain myself to a man who rises and sleeps under the blanket of the very freedom that I provide, and then questions the manner in which I provide it. I would rather you just said thank you, and went on your way, Otherwise, I suggest you pick up a weapon, and stand a post. Either way, I don't give a damn what you think you are entitled to!"

Not really, but it amounts to the same thing (h/t TPM):

"There's a lot of speculation about what happened and what didn't happen - I'm not going to talk about it. It's a very sensitive program. I will tell you that, one, the program is necessary to protect the American people, and it's still necessary, 'cause there's still an enemy that wants to do us harm. ... And so there's going to be all kinds of talk about it, and as I say I'm not going to move the issue forward by talking about something as highly sensitive, highly classified subject. I will tell ya, however, that the program is necessary. ... As I said, this is a necessary program that's constantly reviewed and constantly briefed to the Congress."

To clarify, again, the the question that was asked had nothing to do with the nature of the program, but what could be considered "internal" deliberations within the Administration. Bush considers all such deliberations classified, because no one has the right to question him or his decisions. He was forcing through a program which John Ashcroft, for goodness' sake, was against, because Shooter and Torture Boy wanted it. Note, specifically, that he didn't in any way dispute Comey's testimony. To him, it is irrelevant what tactics he chooses, because "If the President does it, it's not illegal."

The President, Vice President and all civil Officers of the United States, shall be removed from Office on Impeachment for, and Conviction of, Treason, Bribery, or other high Crimes and Misdemeanors.

Move this pragmatist into the "Impeach Now" column

YES, there were ample grounds for impeachment before, and yes, I thought the effort would be futile and frustrating. The wiretapping-Ashcroft stories are brazen abuses of power, though, that not only support impeachment--they demand it.

Jimbow is certainly right on "high crimes and misdemeanors." Read the report of the Judiciary Committee in 1974 (will link when I get home). This phrase referred not to "crimes" but to abuses of power.

I don't want RR's head to explode

But after reading his post below, read the following, perhaps the only time John Ashcroft came out as a sympathetic figure in his life.

From Salon:

The call came at 8 p.m., Wednesday, March 10, 2004. Attorney General John Ashcroft was in the hospital, struck with a life-threatening case of pancreatitis. Deputy Attorney General James B. Comey was just leaving his office, being chauffeured by his security detail.

"I remember exactly where I was, on Constitution Avenue," Comey testified Tuesday morning before the Senate Judiciary Committee. "And [I] got a call from Attorney General Ashcroft's chief of staff telling me that he had gotten a call."

So begins a remarkable tale that nearly led to the resignation of the Justice Department's senior leadership, an ordeal that was recounted in great detail for the first time Tuesday. Two senior White House officials, Andrew Card and Alberto Gonzales, were headed to Ashcroft's hospital bed, despite the instructions of his wife that there would be no phone calls or visitors. They wanted Ashcroft to sign off on the secret National Security Agency wiretapping program, a program that Ashcroft had already decided to reject before falling ill.

Comey was determined to stop them. "So I hung up the phone," Comey told the committee, and I "immediately called my chief of staff, told him to get as many of my people as possible to the hospital immediately. I hung up, called [FBI] Director [Robert] Mueller and -- with whom I'd been discussing this particular matter and had been a great help to me over that week -- and told him what was happening. He said, 'I'll meet you at the hospital right now.' [I] told my security detail that I needed to get to George Washington Hospital immediately. They turned on the emergency equipment and drove very quickly to the hospital. I got out of the car and ran up -- literally ran up the stairs with my security detail."

The story gets better at this point. Comey's testimony reads like a detective story. Minutes later, there is a showdown in the hospital room. Ashcroft, buffered by his wife and three of his senior deputies, faces down Gonzales and Card and refuses to sign off on the spy program. Gonzales and Card storm out of the room. Card calls Comey and demands that he come to the White House, but Comey refuses to go until he can get Ted Olson, the solicitor general, to accompany him. "After what I just witnessed, I will not meet with you without a witness," Comey tells Card.

Read the rest. It's scary stuff.

IMPEACH.

OK -- I'm Convinced..... It's Time to IMPEACH

I have been one poor correspondent over these months since the last election cycle. After all, the wicked witches running the congress had been melted by the icy cold water thrown on them by a disgusted electorate. I was as happy as Dorthy returned to Kansas after having lived through the terrible nightmare of the Texas neo-con tornado...

But I was dead wrong to be happy. All that I have heard since the congressional takeover is lip-service to the agenda that was forwarded by the Democratic leadership in the months leading up to the November election. We're STILL losing brave men and women in Iraq for no discernable reason. Bush is surging troops in the face of a 28% approval rating (within a percentage point of what the illustrious Schmidlap calls the Keyes Constant) and he sees no real problem with pretty much ANY WRONGDOING by his minions. Events of the last 24 hours have caused me to go past my usual distaste for all things neo-con, and get right down to brass tacks: BUSH MUST BE IMPEACHED. What events you ask? What hit my radar in the past day which makes IMPEACHMENT a necessity? It's not the Wolfowitz scandal at the world bank, nor the firing of the U.S. Attorneys for partisan political reasons.

And no, it's not the troop surge.

All of these things while distasteful are completely within the boundaries of a president's constitutional authority. So, what is it, you ask? It's HIGH CRIMES and MISDEMEANORS.

Last night on the award-winning PBS investigative series Frontline the entire breadth of Bush's illegal domestic spying program was laid bare. The basis for the program revolved around a very quiet move by the Bush administration's FBI to commandeer the records of private enterprises in Las Vegas in the weeks preceeding New Year's Eve 2003 in reaction to a "threat" against the city intercepted by the NSA. In effect, National Security Letters were used to confiscate ALL information on 250,000 people who had visited Las Vegas over a 2 week period. In the end, there was no threat. There were no terrorists, no plot. But the FBI now had the personal financial and travel records of a quarter of a million citizens - AND THEN HELD THE INFORMATION FOR AT LEAST TWO YEARS.

The despicable nazi John Yoo could barely contain his glee as he explained that under the constitution the president has unbridled and unlimited rights to do anything he wants regarding suspicionless searches and seizures. The basis for this power: the president's authority as commander-in-chief. Yoo did everything but call the 4th amendment "quaint." At the same time, the investigation revealed that the president is almost certainly STILL bypassing the FISA courts and conducting unmonitored domestic surveillance on U.S. citizens.
Here is a portion of an interview done for the program with Peter Swire, Chief Counsel for "Privacy" in the Clinton administration

-------------------------------------------------------------------------

FRONTLINE: ...the president says, "I authorized (the warrantless domestic spying program)." As a lawyer, as somebody who specialized in information technology and the law for a quarter of a century, what's your bottom-line take on this? …

SWIRE: I was outraged. I tend to be fairly level in the way I approach things, and I had a sense of outrage that they would just disregard the law. The law said the exclusive authority for wiretaps were these other statutes, and the president looked at exclusive authority and said, "Except when I feel like it." It was as though the lessons of Watergate had been forgotten. It was as though the lessons of centralized executive power and the problems that come with that had been forgotten. And now the president just said, "I think I can do it my way."

Q: So you're saying the president violated the law?

A: My view is that the president violated the law, yes.

snip

Q: Now, the president has described the program publicly, and to a certain extent Gen. Michael Hayden, the former director of the NSA, Attorney General [Alberto] Gonzales have followed the same line that makes it sound as though the eavesdropping is from one point overseas -- Al Qaeda -- to one point in America; point to point, person to person. Is that what's going on here, or is there more going on?

A: Well, there's still mysteries here. There's one program that the president and the attorney general have announced publicly, but there's very strong reports about other programs that are happening, too. ...

Q: What are you talking about? There's one program; ... it's the program the president describes. What else have you got in mind?

A: Well, there's two other revelations that we've had -- three programs to keep in mind. Program number two has to do with a whistleblower for AT&T who says that some of the big phone switches where huge amounts of communications go in and out between the U.S. and overseas, there's a direct feed to the government. That's not point-to-point for people linked to Al Qaeda; that's anybody who's sending e-mails or [making] phone calls overseas.
[The] next report was the USA Today story in the spring of 2006 which said that for 40 or 50 million Americans -- that's not all Al Qaeda -- 40 or 50 million Americans, [their] detailed phone records have been turned over to the government by the big phone companies. So now we have huge numbers of ordinary communications being intercepted, huge numbers of ordinary Americans' phone records being taken, and no legal structure in place to do that. That's much, much broader than a few people linked to Al Qaeda. ...

Q: [T]his business of turning over the stored communication records for 40 or 50 million Americans, is that legal? …

A:I think it's illegal according to the published reports. There's something called the Stored Communications Act. It says what the rules are for when the government can get people's phone records, but the published reports went down each of the exceptions and said they didn't apply. And we had apparently senior lawyers for one of the phone companies, Qwest, that decided not to participate. … The published reports said ... that Qwest had asked for a warrant, and the government refused to do it.

Q: Could the National Security Agency have gone under the FISA law and gotten a warrant to obtain stored communications, records, for millions of Americans?
I think that would really be up to the judges on the FISA court. The Patriot Act says you can get the whole database. If the whole database is 10 million people, that's something that was never discussed in Congress, [has] never necessarily been approved by any court. The court might decide that's a general warrant and it violates the Fourth Amendment, but the words in the statute would appear to allow it. …

Q: The third program you were talking about is this AT&T program. ... What is your understanding of what is happening in the AT&T case?

A: This program sounds like it could be Carnivore on steroids (an old FBI eavesdropping program)
---------------------------------------------------------------------

Both my wife and I had to pick our jaws up off the floor. And today, the exacta came in. My brother emailed me this piece from Slate wherein a former assistant to (now retired) Attorney General John Ashcroft testified before a senate committee that (then) White House Counsel (now Atty. General) Alberto Gonzalez tried to coerce Ashcroft and his deputy to sign off on the reauthorization of the COVERT domestic spying program in 2004 WHILE ASHCROFT LAY CRITICALLY ILL IN THE HOSPITAL. The punchline is that Ashcroft, who has never been accused of being a liberal, had already come to the determination that the program was ILLEGAL, and he REFUSED to signoff on it. The upshot is that the US Attorney General was telling the president that this program BROKE THE LAW. The president's reaction? Send his counsel to get his signature from a nearly comatose Ashcroft. The piece reads like Kafka on acid.

So what do we have?? We have two stories which dovetail. They tell that this administration believes that it is answerable to no one. Bush and his minions believe that TOTAL INFORMATION AWARENESS isn't a necessary evil, but a presidential prerogative. It's time to stop this madness. It's time to IMPEACH.

Hell just got a lot more unpleasant

Rev. Jerry Falwell dead at 73

Happy Mother's Day!

If only...

Ahhh...Catholicism

Y'know, Schmidlap had the right idea abandoning this religion. Come to think of it, I'm knee-deep in doing the same thing, too.

Somebody must've been working with Ratzy and playing the old Mr. Robinson's Neighborhood alphabet game. "D", is for dogma and doctrine.

While traveling around Brazil, and *there's* a country come Carnival time that says, "Let's party and then start the most penitent part of the Christian calendar," God's Rottweiler gave us the following gem about politicians and abortion:

But before Benedict even got off his plane in Brazil, he stoked a debate among Catholics who have been arguing whether politicians who approve abortion legislation as well as doctors and nurses who take part in the procedure subject themselves to automatic excommunication under church law.

...

But Lombardi added that politicians who vote in favor of abortion should not receive the sacrament of Holy Communion.

Anybody remember what the 2004 Democratic Presidential candidate John Kerry went through when the religious right got their Wurlitzer started?

It's okay to play to play the pedophile shell game. It's okay to be hypocrites. It's even better to lead all kinds of cleansing "In His Name," throughout most of the Middle Ages.

But to have a tolerant, scientific approach about women having reproductive rights and formulating a well thought out opinion that has to do as much with population science and privacy as it does with anything else, they're going to remain stuck in the Dark Ages.

Best of all, Ruu-dee, who stands for really nothing at all, won't even get near this one.

And the band plays on...