I've just read a diary where the comments are - justifiably in my view - taking a whack at the diarist for seeming sympathetic to Saddam and, perhaps, making DailyKos participants look sympathetic to Saddam.  My diary is motivated by the dissonance in the last few days of commentary about how courageous it was for President Ford to preemptively pardon President Nixon and thereby establish the principle that it is simply too painful to hold an American President accountable to the law while at the same time we are told that the execution of Saddam Hussein validates the rule of law.

WE HAVE NOTHING TO FEAR BUT BUSH HIMSELF
http://www.antiwar.com/roberts/?articleid=4820

"You see, the facts that the US invaded Iraq on false pretenses, killed and maimed tens of thousands of Iraqis, shot down women and children in the streets, blew up Iraqis' homes, hospitals and mosques, cut Iraqis off from vital services such as water and electricity, destroyed the institutions of civil society, left half the population without means of livelihood, filled up prisons with people picked up off the streets and then tortured and humiliated them for fun and games are not facts that explain why there is an insurgency. These facts are just descriptions of collateral damage associated with America "bringing democracy to Iraq."

I'm just watching him speak now.  I guess this confirms he's running for President.

He's going through a list of mistakes Bush & Co. made in Iraq and he's pretty impressive.  I like that he's hammering "accountability," which was the reason I finally voted for Kerry-Edwards last year, having felt so strongly that I couldn't vote for anyone who supported that damned war.  Bayh is much more articulate than Kerry was on accountability.  

http://www.esquire.com/cgi-bin/printtool/print.cgi?pages=9&filename=%2Ffeatures%2Farticles%2F200 4%2F041222_mfe_dream.html&x=58&y=13

SOME EXCERPTS:

In July 2003, The Washington Post published a heartrending front-page story about Hanna under the headline A LONE WOMAN TESTIFIES TO IRAQ'S ORDER OF TERROR. Post reporter Peter Finn had accompanied her on a tour of Al Kelab al Sayba, Loose Dogs Prison, and his piece turned her into a bona fide hero.

"Should Americans be concerned that on March 23rd a bipartisan group of Congressmen attended a coronation at which a billionaire, pro-theocracy newspaper owner was declared to be the Messiah - with royal robes, a crown, the works? Or that this imperial ceremony took place not in a makeshift basement church or a backwoods campsite, but in a Senate office building."

You have to read this and spread it around.  Did anyone else hear about this event?  It happened March 23rd and this is the first time I've heard of it.  Its on a par for outrageousness with the bin Ladens being escorted out of the country right after 9/11.

http://www.lewrockwell.com/rockwell/training-wheels.html

"On the home front, another unspeakable scene: a huge conservative celebration in Washington, DC, attended by the usual hacks, hucksters, interns, college Republicans, political junkies, bumper-sticker salesmen, special interest pleaders, cynical intellectuals, organizers, would-be power brokers, and naïve throngs of dupes, plus some sincere people who truly believe that the conservative movement is a viable vessel for change toward freedom.

Bush spoke. That's the Bush, the one who has inflated the federal budget at a pace that matches and even exceeds that of Lyndon Johnson, and a man who has presided over and exacerbated the worst thing to happen to the world since the Cold War: the rise of global terrorism and US imperialism locked in a recurrent cycle of self-reinforcing mutual dependency - a perfect storm for the leviathan State."

Whatever else it is, the Iraq war is a disaster for the United States.  We are spending $6 billion a month, now, after the "war" is over.  Kerry says he'll have "combat" troops out of there by the end of his first term. How many will that leave who can be titled something other than "combat?"  Will he go ahead with the 14 military bases Bush plans?  Will he keep the American Embassy "Green Zone" that is virtually a city within Baghdad, claiming extraterritoriality (privilege of immunity from local law)?

Will Kerry do business with the Democratic crowd that got us into this or will he keep them away from power and influence?  Signs are not good.  Bob Kerrey (read the article) being on the 9/11 commission is not a good sign.

This is serious, folks.  We Americans have become HATED around the world.  When an American gets murdered, Europeans see some good in it, that we might learn something from it.  Thats the way they've come to see us.  

Vaclav Havel, the first Czech president, told about something that happened at the end of WWII in the town he grew up in, when he was just a boy.  There were lots of ethnic Germans living in Eastern Europe and when the war was ending and the Red Army was coming, they needed to flee to Germany.  A German woman wheeling a baby in a carriage was trying to flee through the town, just a mother and her baby and the carriage with whatever she could take.  It was as if the whole town rose up and chased her and threw her and the baby and the carriage into the river where they drowned.  Havel grew up in that town and nobody ever talked about it again.  

This is serious.  We can't think that putting a new face, i.e., Kerry's face, on the US will cause people to trust us when the same crowd of warmongers lurks around Kerry, urging the "use of force," i.e., trying to rule the world with violence.  

The only reason the AbuGhraib prison abuse has become public is that one of the accused soldier's relatives went to Col. Hackworth and they directed him to the right people to talk to at 60 Minutes.  One can only surmise that when CBS looked like it was going to sit on the story, somebody got this fellow over to Seymour Hersh.  

"The Army had the opportunity for this not to come out, not to be on 60 Minutes," he said. "But the Army decided to prosecute those six G.I.'s because they thought me and my family were a bunch of poor, dirt people who could not do anything about it. But unfortunately, that was not the case."

The article says that the soldier's uncle sent letters to 17 members of Congress with virtually no response and now here they all are pretending to be surprised!  Who are they?  Who are the 17 members of Congress who knew about prison abuses and did nothing?

I just read this interesting article above.  I'm not an Oprah watcher but my 17 year old daughter comes home from school most days and watches Oprah's protege, Dr. Phil.  He's a big hit and a big phony.  These people coming on his show and telling the world the intimacies of their lives are very scripted. (And all the shows about his diet book --- cheesy money grubbing at its worst.) A few years ago, there was a scandal about some participants of the daytime talk shows having been on one show as "sex addicts" and then on another show as "lifelong virgins."  I wouldn't be surprised if Phil's "family in crisis" was a bunch of paid actors.

Stern has a point if Oprah's show included any description of sexual acts/practices:  Its the typical sweeps week ploy to get ratings with sex.  Thats why I'm for getting rid of all of it:  its commercial, its for the money.  But not with government censorship; rather a public campaign to shame the hucksters.  

Will it be a battle royale, with Oprah drawn into it as a target?  Will Stern go down fighting?  Or will it be the old "not with a bang but a whimper" fade-out?  This Stern attack on Oprah has gotten my interest.

I note that Bush is hardly ever seen playing golf and that he's eschewed Kennebunkport and the "cigarette" boat his father loved to roar around in.  Instead, you see him sawing wood with a chainsaw, driving around in a pick-up truck, jogging.  IOW, hobbies that most people can afford to do.  

Meanwhile, John Kerry's hobbies are flying (even a helicopter --- what does it cost to stay current on a helicopter?  Lots.), windsailing, yachting, motorcycling, pheasant hunting ---- what else?  

Whats the plan here? And which plan is a winner?  It looks like Republicans want to show Bush as  a man who is not personally self-indulgent.  Is that an outreach to women?

Is this Kerry's way of getting the male vote?  Will it turn women off to him because expensive hobbies take money from the home?

Basically, a Nader run will allow a second anti-war choice if a pro War Democrat is the nominee and that would likely keep the Greens under 5% nationally, denying them future federal funding.

There will definitely be an antiWar candidate even if Democrats don't nominate one but splitting the AntiWar vote would at least remove that federal funds angle that would threaten Democrats in future presidential elections.

The issue boils down to:  Did the Vietnam War protests serve to get the US out of Vietnam more quickly by mobilizing public opinion against the war?

OR

Did the Vietnam  War Protests prolong the war by turning the War into a Republican vs. Democrat/strong national defense vs. pacifism issue.  In other words, the antipathy for the protests and protestors made it harder for Americans to come to the necessary consensus that whatever the government's purpose was in going into Vietnam, it wasn't worth the cost.  

So, it got me thinking whether John Edwards would leap in and endorse John Kerry or not and my bet is that he wouldn't.  I think he'd hold off and endorse no one.  

Kerry is unlikely to pick Edwards as a VP for the same reason that Dean IS likely to pick Edwards for VP nominee:  Edwards makes an attractive addition to the ticket for Dean but would overshadow Kerry.  

If Kerry is the nominee and loses, Edwards, like Al Gore, knows that the outsider/insurgent/reformer themes of the Dean campaign are the prize for 2008, especially if the Clintons really are waiting in the wings for 2008 and a Hillary run. Getting that Democratic base of people who want something from the government and joining it onto that insurgent message.  Edwards has a very favorable image with Dean supporters and I see no advantage to Edwards in staking out an anti-Dean position, ever.  

"As Florida's presidential recount raged in December 2000, a newly created political group spent $150,000 attacking three pro-Democratic state Supreme Court justices who threatened George W. Bush's hopes for victory.

The Florida Elections Commission now says the "Committee to Take Back Our Judiciary" was a front group for unidentified donors trying to ensure Bush's election. The panel is weighing a possible $450,000 fine against the committee's chairwoman, Republican Mary McCarty, a Palm Beach County commissioner.

But the committee's real organizer, the election commission said, was veteran GOP political consultant Roger Stone, who has been involved in major campaigns dating to Richard M. Nixon's administration. The election commission wanted to question Stone, who owns a home in Florida, but it couldn't locate him to serve a subpoena."

This guy is a Republican dirty tricks operative.  

My general reaction to all things Vietnam is "Oy Gevalt, I don't want to hear it."  I felt that way whether it was Quayle, Clinton, Bob Kerrey, McCain, Gore, Cleland, or Bush or any politician.  It has nothing to do with today or the future.  We ALL have "seering experiences" in our lives.  You can't get through life to age 50 or so without having some "seering experiences."  

What does everyone else think?  Are you all looking forward to another political year of "character issues" about the Vietnam War?

Kerry's the one accused of push polling by ABC news, but it isn't an established fact that he did this particular pushpolling.  But somebody did and it sure explains Dean's emotional overload.  Here are 2 of the questions, according to another Kos poster:  

"Would your support for Howard Dean change if you knew that he performed abortions while working with Planned Parenthood?"

"Would your support for Howard Dean change if you knew about his history of spousal abuse?"

Dean told PEOPLE that neither he nor his wife had performed any abortions.  The "spousal abuse history"  was a story about a policemen assigned to Dean's security detail, but that question sure makes it sound like Dean did it himself.

Renewing the Patriot Act

Constitutional Amendment to ban Gay Marriage

Make Tax Cuts Permanent

If the Democratic party nominates any of the proWar candidates, a third party is guaranteed.  Perhaps several third parties because the voters who are attracted to protesting the war will know they can't win the election.  Ralph Nader is a likely candidate and probably a famous entertainment figure would step forward (Susan Sarandon?).  A celebrity candidate could easily get publicity and appearances on EVERY TV show and could easily amass a substantial campaign fund over the internet.  Unlike Nader's rationale in 2000, that there was no difference between Bush and Gore, an antiWar candidate has an excellent, legitimate, even heroic,  rationale.  

Many people who vote for Democrats support Democratic issues from a sense of "doing good" rather than self interest.  They HAVE jobs; they HAVE health insurance; they HAVE good housing; their children are grown and educated; they're not personally worried about the Patriot Act or abortion rights.  But they support all those issues because its the right thing to do.  They also oppose the war because opposing the war is the right thing to do.  In a collision between those passions, its safe to predict that many will choose to stand up for their opposition to the war, and hence, an inevitable loss for any Pro War nominee.