[Ninong]

The first round of the French presidential election that is being held today reminds us that politics is the same the world over. Or maybe I should say that the campaign tactics are the same the world over. Heaven knows we're not nearly as polarized here in the U.S. as countries like Mexico, Italy or France.

In the French presidential campaign, the extreme right candidate, Jean-Marie Le Pen, is accusing the Bush Administration's favorite, Nicolas Sarkozy, of not being French enough. As you can tell by Sarkozy's name, his ancestors weren't French. Fortunately for France and the rest of the world, Le Pen has no chance of making it into the second round.

Nicolas Sarkozy's campaign has a lot in common with the anti-immigration platforms favored by some Republicans, except that in his case, it's anti-Muslim instead of anti-Mexican. Sarkozy is running a campaign based on fear and divide and conquer, themes the GOP loves. Le Pen's campaign is based on proving that he's even more anti-immigration than Sarkozy.

The Socialist candidate, Segolene Royal, wouldn't be half bad if she weren't so far to the left. I guess it's hard for us as Americans to realize just how far right of center most of our politicians are compared to those in many other democracies. For example, Giuliani and Hillary Clinton are practically identical twins compared to Sarkozy and Royal or the Mexican presidental candidates in the last election down there. In Mexico, the Bush Administration's favorite beat out the socialist mayor of Mexico City in an extremely close vote that many people think was incorrectly counted.

The only uncertainty in the French election taking place today is whether Sarkozy or Royal will come in first. The two of them will face each other in a runoff election two weeks from now. I have no idea which one of them will win the runoff. I'm glad I don't have to vote in that election.

P.S. -- Reports from Paris say that three-fourths of the voters are turning out to vote. I guess that means the French are more patriotic than we are. It always amazes me that so few Americans bother to vote.

There is only one candidate in the French election to the right of Sarkozy and I don't think he has a chance of making it into the top two. There is one moderate candidate and I don't think he can beat Royal but that's hard to predict because there are five other leftist candidates that will pull votes away from Royal. The last pre-election polls showed Sarkozy leading with Royal in second place, the moderate guy in third and Le Pen in fourth. They have so many candidates running it reminds me of Louisiana.

[Ninong]

The polls in France closed a little over an hour ago. LeMonde just published exit polls, which they are required by French law to withhold until after the polls close:



The exit polls are pretty much inline with the latest pre-election polls. It looks like Sarkozy will beat Royal by about 4 points. Notice the turnout: 85.6%!!! I wish we could get that over here. (P.S. -- I hope I'm reading that right. They show 14.4% "abstention." I'm pretty sure I'm reading it right because at 5 p.m. they already had 73.87% participation according to LeMonde and the polls didn't close until 8 p.m.)

So almost all of the Le Pen vote will go to Sarkozy in the runoff and virtually all of the minor candidates' votes will go to Royal. The important question is how the Bayrou vote will split between Sarkozy and Royal.

It looks like the second round could be close. If Royal should win, it will be fun to watch Bush try to pronounce her last name.

[Ninong]

The NY Times is calling the French election for Sarkozy and Royal. The turnout was more than 85% of registered voters.

The Times notes that both candidates will now switch gears and run to the center, just like in American politics. Republicans run to the right to get their party's nomination and then pretend to be moderates for the general election. The Republicans who voted for George W. Bush thinking he was a conservative sure got fooled!

[schrocat]

As far as pronouncing her name...

I give him 2 weeks until he refers to her as "Sandy Quail"

[Ninong]

Originally Posted by Ninong

Yep, the former governor of Wisconsin and HHS Secretary during GWB's first term has just announced that he will be the only "genuine Republican" candidate in the race. He called himself a "real conservative."

How conservative? Glad you asked.

How about requiring that we all have RFID chips implanted so that the government can better keep track of us. Tommy had one implanted in his right arm shortly after being named to the board of directors of the company that makes the VeriChip. Who knew that he was so desperate to pump up the value of his stock options that he would actually pretend to be a serious contender in the GOP 2008 race.

For the time being, Tommy says the RFID chips should be voluntary and everyone should volunteer to get one for medical emergencies. However, he has also proposed that all military personnel be implanted with these RFID chips as a replacement for dogtags. And he thinks they should be required for all new children entering school as a way to find them if they're lost or stolen.

And once they grow up, it would be a simply matter to eliminate any of the non-functional human units. Just send out the proper signal and their little chips would release their poison contents. Only "loyal Bushies," or in this case, "loyal Tommies," would be allowed.

Tommy Thompson is not going to like this at all:

North Dakota made it illegal to force people to insert microchips into their bodies. The law takes effect Aug. 1.

And while we're on the subject of Tommy Thompson, he said this last week in front of a Jewish audience:

"I'm in the private sector and for the first time in my life I'm earning money. You know that's sort of part of the Jewish tradition and I do not find anything wrong with that."

American Jews will be pleased to know that they have finally gained the approval of the Republican Party, something I'm sure they will be thrilled to hear. I hope Tommy wasn't hoping to improve his chances in New York City or Miami Beach.

[Ninong]

Check this out. The National Republican Senatorial Campaign Committee has something they call "multimedia," but the only clips in their "multimedia" section are from their own TV network, Faux News!

[Ninong]

Rudy Giuliani is now saying that if Americans elect a Democrat as president in 2008, the country is more likely to suffer another 9/11 type terrorist attack. In fact, he went even further than that. He implied that a vote for any other Republican might be almost as bad as a vote for a Democrat. Only Rudy is qualified to repel Sammy bin Laden and his Al-Qaida pals.

How low can you go!?! Isn't this the same guy who took over as mayor of New York City less than a year after the first terrorist attack on the World Trade Center and then did nothing whatsoever to fix the problem with the radios? The police and the firefighters couldn't communicate with each other. They couldn't during the 1993 attack and they still couldn't during the 2001 attack. That's because Rudy ignored their calls for new radio equipment.

And whose brilliant idea was it to locate the city's emergency response command center in the World Trade Center? It was Rudy's idea! His police commissioner was very opposed to setting up the command center in the same building that had previously been attacked and the building that was obviously the most likely target of any future attacks. In fact, the police commissioner referred to the World Trade Center as Ground Zero. That was back in 1997 when Rudy overruled all of his advisors and located his state-of-the-art command center in the building that would come tumbling down in a terrorist attack four years later.

And let's not forget Rudy's choice to keep our country safe from terrorist attacks: Bernie Kerik! Rudy assured the White House that Kerik would be an excellent choice for Secretary of Homeland Security. And Bush fell for it. So much so that he instructed his consiglieri, Gonzo the Magnificient, to handle the vetting process personally so that they could announce the appointment as soon as possible. Gonzo did his typical thorough job on that one and Bush made his nomination of Kerik public. Within two or three days, they knew they had screwed up.

People need to ask the firefighters' unions in New York City what they think of "America's Mayor."

[Ninong]

I'm beginning to think that Segolene Royal actually has a chance to win this thing on May 6. If she does, it will be extremely close. She is definitely appealing to the center now and it looks like she's gaining more support from the middle than Sarkozy.

Not that I follow European politics all that much, but wouldn't it be something if France joined Spain and Italy in electing Socialist leaders while Bush was in office. At least he can claim that Germany went the other way and installed a more conservative leader than they had before and he did manage to get Britain's so-called Labour Prime Minister to go along with whatever was asked of him. But even there, Blair will be stepping down soon and Gordon Brown is almost certain to be more liberal than Blair and less accomodating to Bush's ideas on foreign policy.

There is just something about the Bush presidency that seems to encourage other countries to swing more to the left. Look at what has happened in Latin America in the past six years. In France right now, Sarkozy is being hit repeatedly with the charge that he will be a friend of the Bush Administration. Even in the U.S., Republican candidates know that being tied too closely to the Bush Administration can be hazardous to your political health.

The White House blamed the Socialist victory in Spain on the Madrid train bombing but unless there is a bombing in Paris between now and May 6, they won't have any excuse to explain what may be about to happen in France. Of course, a Socialist victory in France is not the same as Socialist victories in Spain and Italy because those displaced loyal Bush allies. And the White House can always pretend that they don't care what happens in France.

[Ninong]

We haven't said much -- nothing actually -- about GOP presidential candidate Mike Huckabee, former governor of Arkansas and former Baptist minister. I guess you could say it was because no one other than himself takes him seriously.

Well, Rev. Huckabee made the news, finally. Or, to be more precise, his son made the news. David Huckabee, 26, was arrested for attempting to board a flight with a carry-on Glock in his carry-on luggage. A loaded Glock! With an extra ammo clip!

It seems that junior only recently got a permit to carry and he didn't realize you couldn't "carry" on a plane! How stupid is that!?!

I read elsewhere that the Republicans (or maybe it's Fox News) have decided to limit the number of candidates who will appear next Thursday in their first televised debate. Come to think of it, I think they said Fox News will make the decision on who will be allowed to participate. That's actually a good idea. Who wants to listen to candidates polling only one or two percent?

That's what was wrong with this evening's televised Democratic candidates debate. We could have done without Mike Gravel and Dennis Kucinich and even Joe Biden. They have absolutely no chance whatsoever so why give them a platform just to stroke their egos? Reminds me of when I was younger and Harold Stassen was always running for president. He was a Republican who ran for president his entire life. I'm sure he's dead by now or he would still be running.

Maybe they should agree that if you don't poll at least 5% in at least one respectable poll, you don't get to stand on the stage with the real candidates? Why waste our time with gadflys who are just up there to gum up the works. Gravel was the perfect example of that this evening. I think it's time for him to retire to the funny farm.

P.S. -- Let's start guessing which questions will be asked of the GOP candidates. Who wants to bet that one way or another the "wife question" will pop up. Maybe it will be a question from the audience (emailed in) or maybe Mitt Romney will make some comment about HIS happy marriage of x-number of years to the same woman. I can't wait to watch people like Giuliani, Gingrich or McCain try to dodge the ADULTERY question. Of course, they won't come right out and use that word but everyone will know what the question's really about.

[Ninong]

Speaking of questions for the GOP candidates, maybe they should ask them the price of a gallon of milk or a loaf of bread. That would be a really sneaky question to ask Mitt Romney.

A reporter in Montgomery, Alabama actually did ask that exact question of Rudy Giuliani while Rudy was campaigning down South on April 11, 2007.

Believe it or not, here is Rudy's answer:

"A gallon of milk is probably about a $1.50, a loaf of bread about a $1.25, $1.30." -- Rudy Giuliani, Montgomery, AL, April 11, 2007.



P.S. -- In Louisiana, milk runs $3.99-$4.59/gal and bread runs $2.69-$3.39 a loaf. And that's just plain old cheapy bread, nothing fancy. My favorite bread runs $3.49 a loaf.

[Ninong]

Who has a question for any of the GOP candidates?

I do. I do. Call on me!

"Governor Romney, as a firm believer in the theory that we have to fight them over there or we will have to fight them over here, have you encouraged any of your five sons to enlist in the military or do you expect the poor folks to carry that burden? Surely your boys are just as patriotic as you claim to be?"

This is Tagg. Tagg is 37 and likes spending time with his wife and kids, baseball (go Sox), basketball (go Celtics), waterskiing, horses, travel, snow skiing, movies, trust funds, and not fighting in godforsaken hell-holes in the Middle East. Tagg is an Aries.

This is Matt. (Warning: Turn down your sound first.) Matt is 35 and likes hanging out with family, basketball, Scuba diving, hiking, tennis, the remote control, trying new restaurants, trust funds, and not wearing forty pounds of kevlar in 110 degrees. Matt is a Scorpio.

This is Josh. Josh is 31 and likes surfing, waterskiing, snowskiing, reading, traveling, playing with his three children, trust funds, and not dodging sniper fire in Fallujah. Josh is a Leo.

This is Ben. Ben is 28 and is somewhat private about what he likes, but his hero is his dad who has provided him with a trust fund. Ben is studying to be a doctor, but not one of those doctors who performs triage in Ramadi on soldiers with severe head trauma. Ben is a Gemini.

This is Craig. (Soundtrack warning!) Craig is 25 and likes longboarding, Baseball, Volleyball, Surfing, Snorkeling, Lacrosse, Music, trust funds, wearing his trucker hat backwards and listening to The Whitest Boy Alive (which kind of goes hand in hand), and not having to wonder if second base is an IED when he plays baseball. Craig is a Taurus.

Surely at least one of Governor Romney's sons should be willing to enlist to help their dad win the Republican nomination? What's a few tours in Iraq if it will help your father gain the White House?

It must be pretty embarrassing to be all gung-ho for the war and yet not be willing to actually, you know, fight in it.

P.S. -- The Army is desperate. They will accept you all the way up to 42 years old. Even white boys with trust funds are eligible.

[Penguin]

Originally Posted by Ninong

That's what was wrong with this evening's televised Democratic candidates debate. We could have done without Mike Gravel and Dennis Kucinich and even Joe Biden. They have absolutely no chance whatsoever so why give them a platform just to stroke their egos?

I agree that Gravel and Kucinich have no chance but it's kind of interesting having them there to stir things up a bit. I liked where Hillary said she wouldn't have voted for the war if she knew then what she knows today. Then Kucinich said something to the effect of: all the facts were out there already, you just had to bother to look for them. Personally, I really agree with that assessment.

[Ninong]

Originally Posted by Penguin

I liked where Hillary said she wouldn't have voted for the war if she knew then what she knows today. Then Kucinich said something to the effect of: all the facts were out there already, you just had to bother to look for them. Personally, I really agree with that assessment.

I don't agree with Kucinich's statement that all the facts were out there already. The Iraq Intelligence Estimate (which was filled with false assertions) wasn't even made available until less than 48 hours before the vote was taken. I doubt that anyone read the entire 90-something pages. Most of them, if they read it at all, read the summary and that was it. The summary reached conclusions that were not supported by the facts. There were a couple of cryptic footnotes way back on page 90-something to the effect that the Energy Department disagreed with the Defense Department's conclusion that the aluminum tubes were intended for nuclear centrifuges. That's just one tiny example. You may remember that the Energy Department's nuclear engineers stated that it would be impossible for the aluminum tubes to be used in a nuclear enrichment centrifuge but these real experts were overruled by military "experts" with absolutely no engineering background.

Another tiny example would be the location of Saddam's nuclear weapons research facilities and the existence of the mobile biological weapons labs. The report did not disclose that the only source for that "intelligence" was Curveball, a delusional alcoholic who was desperate to gain asylum in Germany. The German intelligence reports said that he was not to be believed. They said that he told them that he saw a vision of Saddam's nuclear weapons research facilities in a dream!!! None of that was disclosed in the final Iraq Intelligence Estimate. Everything he reported was portrayed as fact. Colin Powell was never told that the proof of the mobile biological weapons labs came from a single source that we had never interviewed.

We now know that many of the claims made in the Authorization for Use of Military Force Against Iraq Resolution of 2002 were false! They were known to be false at the time by the likes of Dick Cheney, George Bush, Donald Rumsfeld, Richard Perle, Paul Wolfowitz, Douglas Feith and George Tenet.

For example, let me quote some of the Whereas's from the text of the bill:

"Whereas the efforts of international weapons inspectors, United States intelligence agencies, and Iraqi defectors led to the discovery that Iraq had large stockpiles of chemical weapons and a large scale biological weapons program, and that Iraq had an advanced nuclear weapons development program that was much closer to producing a nuclear weapon than intelligence reporting had previously indicated;"

The so-called Iraqi defectors were paid by Ahmad Chalabi to lie! We now know that. He has admitted as much and said that he is proud of what he did because it resulted in the removal of Saddam.

Iraq did NOT have "large stockpiles of chemical weapons." They were destroyed years earlier. Iraq did NOT have a "large scale biological weapons program." Iraq did not have "an advanced nuclear wespons development program that was much closer to producing a nuclear weapon than intelligence reporting had previously indicated." In fact, their nuclear weapons program was completely dormant! Nothing had been done on that front in years. We now know all this thanks to the efforts of Bush's hand-picked inspector who couldn't find anything! We now know that we flipped one of Saddam highest ranking cabinet ministers six months before the invasion and that he told us the truth, the whole truth and nothing but the truth: Saddam had no weapons of mass destruction and no ties to al-Qaida. We didn't like what he told us, so we ignored it and went ahead with our plans anyway. We later realized that everything he told us was true! Of course, Cheney probably knew that all along!


"Whereas Iraq both poses a continuing threat to the national security of the United States and international peace and security in the Persian Gulf region and remains in material and unacceptable breach of its international obligations by, among other things, continuing to possess and develop a significant chemical and biological weapons capability, actively seeking a nuclear weapons capability, and supporting and harboring terrorist organizations;"

Iraq did NOT continue to "develop a significant chemical and biological weapons capability." They had abandoned it years earlier and destroyed virtually all of their stockpiles except for a few non-viable canisters that were buried in the desert since the 1980's. And the statement that Iraq was "actively seeking a nuclear weapons capability" was the most egregious lie of all because it was based on manufactured false intelligence that we got from our friend, Silvio Berlusconi! The only thing we haven't nailed down yet is who put him up to it. Dick Cheney? Paul Wolfowitz? I wouldn't put it past them. We do know that the official Niger stationery and official Nigerois seal was stolen in a black op conducted by Italian agents who broke into the offices of a Nigerois consulate building in Italy.

The phony Niger letter was typed on the wrong letterhead, it was signed by a Nigerois official who had been out of office for 12 years and it contained misspellings. Yet this document was turned over to the Italian government by a reporter working for a magazine owned by Berlusconi. The French immediately told us the document was forged, yet we pretended that it was legitimate. We refused to turn it over to the U.N. for nearly nine months. We finally turned it over to the U.N.'s IAEA just a couple of weeks before we invaded Iraq. The U.N. immediately told us the document was forged. It was such an amateurish job it was hilarious! The two mines in question where this yellowcake uranium was supposed to be coming from were both under the control of the French and one of them had been flooded for years.

Yet the threat of Saddam attempting to build nuclear weapons that he might turn over to terrorists was the number one reason we went to war, according to the official explanation at the time. "We can't wait for a smoking gun that could come in the form of a mushroom cloud." That exact line was spoken by both George W. Bush and Condoleezza Rice! It was a lie! They knew it was a lie at the time. This is why Condi Rice is refusing to honor the House subpoena to appear before Waxman's committee. He wants to ask her about the 16 words in the State of the Union Address because he already knows that she overruled the CIA and insisted that that false claim remain in Bush's address. She was Bush's National Security Advisor at the time and she was considered a "loyal Bushie." Colin Powell, on the other hand, was never considered a "loyal Bushie." They lied to Colin Powell. George Tenet is now coming out with a book claiming that there was NEVER any discussion whatsoever about whether they should NOT invade Iraq. It was understood from the start that they were going to invade Iraq no matter what the evidence. He now claims that his "slam dunk" remark was taken out of context and misinterpreted by the White House. He thinks it was despicable of them to do that to him. He now tells us that it was all Cheney's fault. Why doesn't he tell us something we don't already know.

As far as the "harboring terrorist organizations" claim, that was a reference to Ansar al-Islam, a Kurdish Sunni Islamist group based in Kurdish controlled terrority. Saddam had no control over them because of the no-fly zone. In fact, we now know that Saddam did everything in his power to eliminate any and all terrorist groups because he viewed them as a threat to his power. In particular, he hated Sammy bin Laden because Sammy criticized him for his secular ways and Sammy was a threat to stir up Islamic fundamentalists against him. As far as Abu Musab al-Zarqawi is concerned, he was treated at a hospital in Baghdad for a few days. That's it! He was not operating out of Baghdad. We injured him in Afghanistan (leg injury) and he fled to Iran. He left Iran for treatment at the Baghdad hospital and then, within a week, he got out of Baghdad because he feared for his safety there and went to stay with the Ansar al-Islam guys up north.

"Whereas the current Iraqi regime has demonstrated its capability and willingness to use weapons of mass destruction against other nations and its own people;"

Finally, a true Whereas! Saddam did use weapons of mass destruction against the Iranians in the 1980's. We provided some of the chemicals and all of the satellite photos of the Iranian troop deployments to help him out. Iran was our enemy at the time and "the enemy of my enemy is my friend" ruled the day. Just ask Donald Rumsfeld, who famously shook Saddam's hand the same week Saddam was gassing people. Rumsfeld was Reagan's personal envoy to Saddam. And Saddam gassed some 5,000 innocent Iraqi civilians!

So what we're saying here is that he did it before, therefore he might do it again, therefore we must bomb the crap out of him because you can never know for sure that he won't ever do it in the future. Japan attacked us once before, too. Should we bomb the crap out of Toyota now to help save GM and Ford?

"Whereas members of al Qaida, an organization bearing responsibility for attacks on the United States, its citizens, and interests, including the attacks that occurred on September 11, 2001, are known to be in Iraq;"

That was a complete fabrication. If they're talking about al-Zarqawi, he wasn't affiliated with al-Qaida at the time and he was in Kurdish territory. Bin Laden didn't allow Zarqawi to use the name Al-Qaida in Iraq until after we were already there. In fact, I think it was after Zarqawi beheaded Berg that he started using that name.

"Whereas the attacks on the United States of September 11, 2001, underscored the gravity of the threat posed by the acquisition of weapons of mass destruction by international terrorist organizations;"

The scare tactic here is that Saddam is supposedly developing a nuclear weapon that he might turn over to terrorists.

"Whereas Iraq's demonstrated capability and willingness to use weapons of mass destruction, the risk that the current Iraqi regime will either employ those weapons to launch a surprise attack against the United States or its Armed Forces or provide them to international terrorists who would do so, and the extreme magnitude of harm that would result to the United States and its citizens from such an attack, combine to justify action by the United States to defend itself;"

Again, we are claiming that Saddam posed a threat to attack us with weapons of mass destruction. That was not true! Our policy of containment was working just fine. Ask Gen. Anthony Zinni. He has very strong views on this topic. He knew the Bush Administration was lying to us all along but he kept thinking that maybe they had new information that he was not aware of.

It goes on and on with a whole bunch of Whereas's that were based on half truths and outright fabrications and then it gets to the part about diplomatic efforts before we actually bomb Iraq back to the stone age. Not to worry though because their oil revenue will more than cover the cost of reconstruction and we will be greeted with flowers and kisses. And the idea that the cost might reach anything close to $100 million is absurd. And the idea that it would take "several hundred thousand" American troops is "wildly off the mark."

If you read the entire resolution, it seems to me it would have been very difficult to vote against it. Twenty-three Senators actually did vote against it but what if everything claimed in the resolution turned out to be true?

At the time that we invaded Iraq I suspected that we were doing it for oil and to get even with Saddam for his attempt on Poppy's life. I also suspected that the neocons were attempting to establish a permanent military base in the Middle East oil fields. I still believe all three of those reasons but at the time, I actually did believe Colin Powell's presentation at the U.N. As it turned out, he actually believed it, too. He soon found out that he had been had.

Based on the information available at that time, I probably would have voted FOR the resolution.

P.S. -- We discussed the possibility of war in Iraq on this forum back in October 2002 in this thread started by wgscott. It's interesting reading if anyone is wondering what the members were thinking about it before it even started.

[Penguin]

Regardless of what Powell or the resolution said, the fact that Bush & Co. kept hammering us with WMD speeches every day for months beforehand, and that it seemed WMD had barely been mentioned for years before that, it kind of sets off the old BS-detector. Of course there was still the risk that all of the "facts" in the resolution were true, but I thought we were going in for the same reasons you did. The WMD argument just didn't compute for me. Plus I didn't think we had really exhausted all other options before going in.

I'm surprised, but heartened, that 23 senators got it right. I didn't remember that many had actually voted against it.

[Ninong]

I knew we were going in for the wrong reasons but I actually believed most of the crap they were putting out at the time. I knew they were probably stretching things to a certain extent but I had no idea they were actually fabricating intelligence.

Now we're hearing Sen. Dick Durbin, who was one of the nine Democrats on the Senate Intelligence Committee, tell us that the reason he voted against the resolution was because he knew the claims were not well supported by the evidence based on briefings the committee had received. He said it was obvious that the administration was picking and choosing what they wanted to hear and discarding anything that didn't fit in with their plans. All members of the House and Senate Intelligence Committees are sworn to secrecy. Violation of the secrecy rule is a felony. That's why Sen. Jay Rockefeller wrote a letter to Dick Cheney in his own handwriting to object to the briefing on the wiretapping. Rockefeller said he couldn't use his secretary for the letter because he couldn't tell anyone at all about the briefing. The same held for the Iraq intel briefings. Durbin said he voted against the resolution but he was prohibited by law from explaining exactly why.

You might remember that on the wiretapping issue, Cheney decided that they would not brief the entire Intelligence Committees as required by law but only the Chairman and ranking member of each committee. And those members were forbidden from even telling other committee members. And IIRC, I think they also briefed the Speaker and Minority Leader in the House and the Majority Leader and Minority Leader in the Senate. It wasn't until the whole thing became public thanks to the NY Times article that all hell broke loose and they decided to follow the law and brief the full committees. And, more recently, the administration caved in and submitted the wiretapping program to the supervision of the FISA court.

Of those nine Democratic senators on the Intelligence Committee, five voted against the resolution and four voted in favor of it. I haven't bothered to go back and see if any of those four may have been up for reelection in November 2002. The vote was in October 2002. My sense of the mood at the time was that it would have been politically risky to vote against the resolution, depending on your home state.

[Ninong]

...as good looking in drag. Katherine Harris makes a much better drag queen. It must be her blue eye shadow.


Katherine Harris in drag


Rudy Giuliani in drag


Rudy Giuliani and admirer


Rudy & his admirer in a tender moment


Rudy Giuliani in drag makes the cover of National Review


More Giuliani in drag. The one on the right is Rudy without the usual Marilyn Monroe getup. I'm not sure if he's supposed to be Lisa Minelli or Joel Grey.

George "Macaca" Allen likes to play dress-up as a Confederate general. Rudy likes to pretend he's Marilyn Monroe.


Rudy Giuliani pulled a Katherine Harris stunt in New Hampshire. He released a list of 125 names of alleged New Hampshire supporters. There was only one little bitty problem with his list. Some of the people listed claim that they are not Giuliani supporters and others say that they received emails from Giuliani's campaign offering them the honorary campaign titles attached to their names in Giuliani's list but they didn't even respond to the email much less accept the appointment.

[Ninong]

Don't forget to tune in to MSNBC at 8 p.m. ET tonight for the first debate of the Republican presidential candidates. There will be 10 of them on stage at the Ronald Reagan Presidential Library, all claiming to be the next Ronald Reagan and not the next George W. Bush.

It will be fun to see if they have a candidate as nutty as Mike Gravel. Someone who will call the rest of the candidates crazy, like Gravel did at the Democratic candidates debate last week.

Instead of asking the candidates goofy questions such as, "Who is your moral guide?" like they asked poor John Edwards last week or "What is your favorite novel?," they should ask Tancredo what he thinks we should do about illegal immigration and maybe ask Paul if he favors the elimination of Social Security and Medicare. They can't ask them to name their favorite book because they would all say the Bible and they can't ask them to name their favorite philosopher because they would all say Jesus Christ. We've been though those questions before. BTW, Mitt Romney said last week that his favorite book was "Battlefield Earth," by L. Ron Hubbard. Then he quickly added that he's not a Scientologist and doesn't believe we are decendants from people from planet Xenu. He does, however, believe that Jesus visited North America in 34 A.D.

Will any of the other candidates pick on Rudy Giuliani? Will Sam Brownback bring up his position on abortion and gay rights as a contrast with Giuliani's? Will one of the moderators ask Mitt Romney to describe his many hunting trips? Will anyone ask McCain about his shopping spree in Baghdad, accompanied by a couple hundred heavily armed troops?

Romney is almost certain to make some comment about his wonderful Christian family -- you know, the kind with one wife and five kids that still talk to him. Brownback is almost certain to say something about the right to life issue and maybe even something about gay marriage. Will he direct his comments at Giuliani?

Will anyone make an open appeal to the NRA membership? Will Mitt mention that he is a lifetime member of the NRA, since last October?

Will all of the candidates criticize the mistakes made by the Bush Administration without actually dumping on the prez himself? That seems to be the needle McCain has been trying to thread. It's not Bush's fault. It's all those advisors who made the mistakes.

They can't dump on Donald Rumsfeld anymore because he's gone. Will one of the moderators ask them what they think of Alberto Gonzales? Please! Please ask them that! That's the only reason I'm going to watch this thing. Go though the entire group and ask each one of them if they think it would be best if Gonzo resigned. Will they all say that's a decision for the President to make or will any of them have the guts to come right out and say that Gonzo has to go?

The Democratic candidates debate last week was rather boring. Maybe the Republican candidates debate will be more fun?

[Ninong]

The GOP candidates debate was just as boring as the Democratic candidates debate. At the very end, Chris Matthews asked each candidate what they thought of the possibility of Hillary Clinton as president. That gave each of them a shot at trashing Hillary and they all took their best shot. What was that all about? We all know Chris can't stand Hillary but did he have to go that far with his little personal vendetta? No other Democratic candidate's name came up in any of the questions, just Hillary's.

Oh, well... When the GOP candidates get on Fox, that should be more interesting because Fox has announced that they will determine which candidates to invite and which to ignore. Having ten candidates on the stage is a joke when seven of those candidates can't even poll 2%.

Oh, we did learn that at least three candidates favor the abolition of the IRS. Dr. Paul said he would eliminate the IRS in his first week in office. They forgot to ask him about abolishing Social Security and Medicare, which is something I know he would love to do. All this talk about a "consumption tax" is a joke. These guys are even worse than Steve Forbes. A consumption tax is just another way to describe a national sales tax. Sales taxes are regressive, which is why the rich are in favor of them. If your income is $3 million a year, you still can't easily spend 60 times as much on food as someone who makes only $50,000/yr. Better for you to be taxed on what you spend rather than your income. A consumption tax would require a complicated set of credits and exemptions to make it anything close to fair. Better to fix the system we have now rather than start all over with something entirely new. Besides, I'm getting tired of having to go through this same stuff every 20-25 years or so. We did this back in the early 80's and that was supposed to be forever. We also did the immigration amnesty thing back in the early 80's and that, too, was forever.

I think Rudy Giuliani wins the prize for comparing himself to Ronald Reagan more than any other candidate. He mentioned Reagan's name four times in the first minute. He continued to throw in Reagan's name in almost every answer.

They asked McCain if he believes in evolution and he said, "Yes!" Then they asked if there was anyone on stage who does NOT believe in evolution and Brownback, Tancredo and Huckabee raised their hands. And this is the 21st century! Way to go, morons!

Oh, and they hit Tommy Thompson with a trick question. They asked if it would be OK for an employer to fire an employee for no other reason than that they found out that he was gay. Thompson said it should be left up to the individual employer but when pressed, he said his answer was yes. They didn't ask any other candidate that question. That's strange. Poor Tommy, they put him in the trick bag. It's illegal to fire someone based on sexual orientation in 17 states, including Wisconsin. In fact, Wisconsin was the very first state to pass such a law more than 20 years ago. One would think that as a former governor of Wisconsin, Tommy would know that. Maybe he did. Maybe he just disagrees with that law?

And Chris asked Giuliani if he knew the difference between Sunni and Shia Muslims. Rudy did. During the after-show chit chat, Chris expressed surprise that Rudy would know that. Chris doesn't get around much. Rudy knew the answer to that one because it's a question he got wrong a few weeks back. It was all over the blogs at the time. They should have asked the candidates whether Hezbollah was Sunni or Shia. Or even whether al-Qaida was Sunni or Shia. One idiot congressman said that al-Qaida was made up of both Shia and Sunni members. Hezbollah is exclusively Shia and al-Qaida is exclusively Sunni.

They should have asked them to name the President of Mexico or the Prime Minister of Canada. I would be willing to bet you that at least half of them wouldn't have a clue.

No one was asked to name his favorite book. Which reminds me, I wonder if Mitt Romney has ever read his own MySpace page? He told Fox News on national TV his favorite book was the Bible but his favorite novel was L. Ron Hubbard's science fiction piece, "Battlefield Earth."



Check out Mitt's favorite books as listed on his MySpace page:

Books
Huckleberry Finn – Mark Twain
What It Takes – Richard Ben Cramer
Theodore Rex – Edmund Morris
The World Is Flat – Thomas Friedman
1776 – David McCullough
The Battle For Peace –Tony Zinni and Tony Koltz
The Business Of Winning – Robert Evangelista

Well, what can I say? I guess he was for Huckleberry Finn before he was against him? Good old Mitt, still a-flippin' and a-floppin', even on the subject of what's his favorite novel. In fact, "Battlefield Earth" isn't even on the list at all, which makes me think that Mitt's image consultant forgot to get him to read his MySpace page after they put it up for him.