JunkYardBlog

POLITICS TODAY

Here's how things usually go:

Democrat spinner makes up Big Lie. Adds just enough pseudofact to it to make it believable, just enough academic gravitas to it to make it sell, and just enough edge to it to make it cut.

Conservative then must spend time researching, unspinning, untangling and writing to undo the lie, which has by now been blasted around the world by all media available.

Such is the case with Al Franken's idiot notion that Bill Clinton's military won the wars in Afghanistan and Iraq. I was in Bill Clinton's military. It was a demoralized force, reduced to cannibalizing parts and equipment to maintain the veneer of readiness. It was lied to by Pentagon brass who promised the administration wasn't cutting benefits when it was in fact cutting benefits. Rentention was a huge problem. Clinton left the military in a sorry state, though it was well-armed with advanced tech thanks to the Reagan/Bush I years.

Peter Heussy has now come along with the research to back up what I'm saying and refute what Franken says. But in the mean time, Franken's lie is out there, and some portion of the public will never hear the facts that counter it.

Such is the state of politics today.

(thanks to Hanks)

MORE: Here's another Big Lie refuted. For every one of these that has to get knocked down, some writer has to spend hours chasing down all the evidence, then persuade someone to publish it, then hope the facts set the record straight in enough minds to make a difference. Meanwhile, the Lie continues unabated. This is another area where I have some personal experience, actually. There's been a Big Lie about Texas redistricting circulating for months now, to the effect that the state's Republicans are hijacking democracy in an unprecedented fashion. It's not true, and I wrote about it months ago after having spent many, many hours documenting the facts. Yet the Lie continues to carry the day.

ROCK YOU LIKE A HURRICANE

Or at least a Nor'easter.

Sitting out on my deck at midnight last night, cordless phone in hand, longtime friend on the other end, you'd never know a killer storm was on its way. Mars was still clearly visible, bright and orange, through the trees. No wonder hurricanes were once such killer storms--the ancients probably never saw them coming. The friend is rapidly becoming a famous artist--I called to catch up and wish him well. He's single; he'll soon have art groupies and all the artsy press will have him in their Contacts on their PDAs. In fact, I fooled him for a few minutes into thinking I was from the New York Times. He says he wasn't fooled, but I know better. I've known him since second grade, so I know when he's taking the bait.

This morning there's a bit of a chill in the air and the wind is picking up. The sky is a very uniform gray. On the car stereo, "Bridge Over Troubled Water" by the late Johnny Cash. I kid you not; bought the cd yesterday, that tune happened to be on deck when I started out for the office. By early afternoon the streets will be deserted, the wind will have doubled and the rain will start. We're expecting 2 to 6 inches, most of which won't sink into our saturated ground. That's going to be the big problem this far north--the rain. We just don't have anywhere to put it. Troubled water indeed.

I'm thoroughly nonplussed by the storm, though I'm happily a member of the Axis of Isabel. We did our preps, moving potential missiles indoors and tying down some of the big stuff. I mowed the front lawn, just because. We bought a little more drinking water, and I picked up a wind-up radio earlier in the week--it was the last one in town--just in case the lights go out. But I really don't expect that to happen.

Floyd was bigger and meaner and hit us more directly up here. For a while I thought it would take one of my trees down, but it didn't. Our basement leaked back then, so I spent countless hours bailing and pumping to keep the flooding to a reasonable level. We have since fixed that problem, so we'll be high and dry this time around. Isabel's probably going to give us a glancing blow and peter out to our west. But if you're in North Carolina or Virginia, you're in for a wild ride. But I guess you already knew that.

HOW RAMESH PONNURU RUINED MY LIFE

Trolling through Slate's Today's Papers, I come across this nugget:

A piece stuffed inside the Post says former Liberian president and suspected war criminal Charles Taylor, currently exiled in Nigeria, is keeping busy. "Charles?" said one Liberian minister. "Oh, he's still in charge. I'm going to see him next week. What's wrong with that?"

Something about that paragraph got me thinking. Not about the implications of an exiled war criminal secretly running Liberia from afar--no, nothing that substantial. The phrasing bugged me.

Then it hit--Charles...still in charge. Charles in charge. Charles in Charge. And my mind raced back to an obscure Corner post from a year ago:

A WONK?: [Ramesh Ponnuru] Is that all I am to you, Rod? I was about to post my own theory about the theme of sexual dominance in the theme song to "Charles in Charge." But now I'll wait until I have something snappy to say about medical savings accounts.

I don't think I'll ever be able to hear the words "Charles" and "charge" in the same sentence again without thinking about the sexual dominance meme in an 80s vintage sitcom. And it's not even a good 80s sitcom.

Thanks, Ramesh.

WHY IS THE WACO KID RUNNING?

Interesting theory on Gen. McClellan's Clark's entry into the fray: He's a stalking horse to keep the Clintonista-run Democratic Leadership Council from becoming irrelevant.

I could buy that. The Clinton camp may not want the Dem nominee to win in 2004 (thus freezing Hillary! out for another term or two), but they don't want the party to lurch so far left that it will take a generation to come back to the faux Clinton center. So enter the General to try and stem the Dean tide. Into the breach goes the political soldier.

And for the general's motivation, there's always the chance he could fool around and win the thing, whereas if he waited around until 2008 he'd be up against Hillary! and that's a losing proposition for him. So now is likely his best shot. It's a win-win for Clark and the DLC.

MORE: Rick Brookhiser has picked up the Clark as McClellan meme that I've been trying to start (when I'm not accusing Clark of masterminding Waco, that is).

The gist of the McClellan meme is this: George McClellan was the penultimate political general. That's not to say that he was completely incompetent; on the contrary, he helped Abe Lincoln build the Army of the Potomac which would win the Civil War. But having built that army, McClellan just couldn't bear to use it. Lincoln fired him for his battlefield caution, then re-hired him, then fired him again.

McClellan loved to gad about Washington, even when he was Lincoln's field commander, making fun of the President at highbrow social soirees. After his last firing, McClellan ran for President against Lincoln on an anti-war platform and became the Dems' nominee.

Yes, the former commander of the Army of the Potomac ran against its mission in 1864. Had he won, he probably would've sued for peace, rending the Union forever.

So what's this got to do with Clark? Like McClellan, Clark was a competent soldier but lousy at discerning the political dimensions of battle. McClellan could turn a great victory into a humiliating defeat by failing to hunt down the Confederate forces as they retreated; Clark nearly turned a small-scale police action in Kosovo into World War III because he wanted to sack a Russian force occupying an airfield. McClellan was full of pomp and circumstance, but little substance or principle. He could build an army and then run against its just use. Clark could wear four stars, yet misunderstand the capabilities of the forces he recently led to the point that he predicted mass American casualties in Iraq. Both knew how to wear their uniforms well; both were known more for that quality than for any actual ability to lead men in battle. Both McClellan and Clark turned their military careers into an anti-war run against a sitting President in a time of grave national peril.

And last, McClellan failed...

REGIME CHANGE COMING DOWN?

China has apparently moved some troops up to its North Korean border. No explanation given, which is hardly unusual.

I doubt it's anything more than an exercise or possibly a force demonstration designed to put a wee bit of pressure on Kim. It might be a reaction to the Proliferation Security Inititiative, who knows?

But it's interesting.

OPPO RESEARCH TIME

Gen. Wesley "Waco" Clark has entered the fray at #10. He'll climb quickly, and he'll probably knock of a couple of the lower-tier candidates before long (Carol Moseley Braun, dust off your resume; John Edwards, it might be time to re-think that Senate race). And he'll keep Algore, the Frankencandidate, out of the race altogether. Which is a shame, since the Batboy endorsement could've really put him over the top this time.

"Bat Boy can't talk, of course - but he showed us in his own inimitable way that he was there to endorse our man," the [Gore] aide said. "He started screeching and excitedly pointing at a 'Gore for President' sign and shaking his head 'yes, yes, yes.'

"Then he hopped over and started patting Mr. Gore on the back and shaking his head 'yes, yes, yes' again.

Algore has missed his best chance, methinks. ;)

But about Clark....he attracts an odd sort of defenders. Funny, but odd. They loathe other military men, but revere him. Innnnteresting.

His four-star resume is less than stellar. He's known for "winning" the "war" in "Kosovo"--oops, didn't need the quotes for Kosovo--but got fired at the end of it. How many generals get fired for winning wars? It was the Clinton years... And it might have something to do with this:

But one million refugees later, and only because one of Gen. Clark's subordinates, Gen. Michael C. Short, did an end run around Clark to institute an increasingly aggressive bombing campaign against Belgrade. By the end, Bacevich writes, "Clark found his control over ongoing operations eroding. Rather than the theater commander, he became hardly more than a kibitzer."

Commander to kibitzer in one small war. Not what we need in a Commander in Chief, imho.

In Iraq, Clark predicted thousands of American dead during the invasion, an angry Arab street, etc etc. He was wrong about the casualties but right about an angry street, just the wrong street--the Democrat street has indeed risen up to resist American hegemony. The Arab street couldn't give a fig.

This past summer Clark said some White House conspirators tried to get him to go on camera and connect Saddam to 9-11. He said it came through a Canadian Middle East think tank, among other places. A fine story, except that no such outfit exists. Here are the relevant quotes:

GEN. CLARK: I think it was an effort to convince the American people to do something, and I think there was an immediate determination right after 9/11 that Saddam Hussein was one of the keys to winning the war on terror. Whether it was the need just to strike out or whether he was a linchpin in this, there was a concerted effort during the fall of 2001 starting immediately after 9/11 to pin 9/11 and the terrorism problem on Saddam Hussein. MR. RUSSERT: By who? Who did that? GEN. CLARK: Well, it came from the White House, it came from people around the White House. It came from all over. I got a call on 9/11. I was on CNN, and I got a call at my home saying, “You got to say this is connected. This is state-sponsored terrorism. This has to be connected to Saddam Hussein.” I said, “But—I’m willing to say it but what’s your evidence?” And I never got any evidence. And these were people who had—Middle East think tanks and people like this and it was a lot of pressure to connect this and there were a lot of assumptions made. But I never personally saw the evidence and didn’t talk to anybody who had the evidence to make that connection.

Clark added the Canadian bit when pressed to identify the think tank later. And he has the White House pushing a Saddam connection on 9-11. Wasn't it busy, you know, figuring out what in tarnation was going on? Lies or Memorex--I report, you decide.

Clark on Republicans and the war in Iraq:

MR. RUSSERT: So you would run as a Democrat? GEN. CLARK: Well, I haven’t come out and said that point blank. I mean, I think that’s another step that would have to be taken. MR. RUSSERT: But you wouldn’t challenge George Bush in the Republican primaries? GEN. CLARK: I haven’t considered that, no. MR. RUSSERT: So it would be in the Democratic primary? GEN. CLARK: You’re leading the witness here. I mean, that’s a step that I’ll have to work through along with everything else. You know, I’ve been non-partisan. I’ve got—I’m a centrist on most of these issues, and I’ve got people after me from both sides of the aisle. That are—a lot of Republicans have talked to me and they’ve said, “Look, we’re very concerned about where the country is. We’re moving into—not only have we done a war that’s essentially an elective war that’s put us in trouble afterwards, in an indefinite commitment”—and by the way I don’t hear—they don’t hear the strong voices out there about mission creep and exit strategy that dominated the 1990s dialogue. But a lot of Republicans have come to me and said, you know, “What does this mean?” And they’ve said, “On the other hand, we always believed that we should be the party of fiscal responsibility. And where are we going with the tax cuts? What does this mean for the future of the country?” So I’m getting, you know, interest from both sides, really...

Let's just chalk that Republican interest up as "unlikely." He's a Dem. Hinting, without naming, Republican support was just a way to try and ding Bush from the inside, and I'm not buying it. It's every bit as real as his Canadian Middle East think tank.

Clark is no stronger or weaker than any of the other 9 Dwarfs. His resume is hollow, his predictions more often wrong than right, and if not for the four stars that once graced his shoulder one could be forgiven for confusing him with any number of armchair strategists that have dominated cable news over the past two years and who got so much wrong about so many things. But he has a name, and the gravitas of Army history, and Little Rock roots. He'll make an excellent failed vice presidential candidate.

But he'd sew it up if he can get Batboy on board.

MORE: I'd forgotten to add this bit--how Wesley Clark almost got us into a war with Russia over an airfield. That would've gone over well with his swooning lefty supporters. Thanks, Henry.

AAARRRGGGHHH!!!

Just walking down the hall, passed a TV tuned to CNN. It showed video of kids, in class, reading Madonna's just-released kids' book.

If that doesn't state the case for school vouchers, I don't know what does.

Madonna has spent her entire career sexualizing young girls and driving wedges between kids and parents. She's never been edgy or important, just a shameless opportunist. Now that she has kids of her own, she's hoping to remake herself into something worthwhile, while smooching younger hoochies on national TV. And public schools are lapping it up. I hope the next PTA meeting for that school is a loud, contentious one. I hope one or more teachers will be looking for work afterward. I wish ruin on any school that allows the works of Madonna within their walls.

To the objection that vouchers give money to people that don't pay taxes, that's a lie. If you own property, you're paying taxes that fund education. If you pay rent, you're indirectly paying property taxes that fund education. If you live in a housing project, you should be allowed the chance to own your residence. HUD did some great pilot ownership projects in the 80s that worked wonders for poor, depressed neighborhoods. Liberals later killed those projects, just like they're killing voucher programs.

WE'RE NOT BIASED, NOTHING TO SEE HERE, MOVE ALONG

Heh-heh:

A Sept. 15 article on Vice President Cheney's appearance on NBC's "Meet the Press" mischaracterized the vice president's response to a question about releasing information on Saudi Arabia's ties to al Qaeda and the Sept. 11 hijackers. The article quoted Cheney as saying, "I don't want to speculate" about the ties, and said that the vice president went on to say that Sept. 11 is "over with now, it's done, it's history and we can put it behind us." The article implied that Cheney agreed with this point of view. In fact, in his full remarks, the vice president took the opposite view and argued that it is important, in discussing alleged Saudi connections to the hijackers, not to release information that would jeopardize the United States' ability to fight terrorism.

The WaPo must have channeled Dowd there for a minute. At least they corrected themselves.

And before you lefty trolls whine about Fox, demonstrate one case in which Fox has taken a quote and twisted it to mean the very opposite of what its speaker intended. Just one. Then you'll have something to say. If you can't do that, don't bother pelting me in comments. You'll just be wasting your time.

A TERRIBLE DEFENSE IS A TRUE OFFENSE

One- or two-hit-wonder R Kelly, accused of child porn and associated crimes, compares himself to The Most Wanted Man in the World:

The singer has been charged with 21 offences of child pornography, stemming from a video alleged to show him having sex with an underage girl. He has denied all the charges.

People can say whatever they want about you without knowing the facts," Mr Kelly tells Blender magazine.

"They can criticise you without even knowing you, and hate you when they don't even know you. All of a sudden, you're, like, the Bin Laden of America.

"Osama bin Laden is the only one who knows exactly what I'm going through," he added.

That's a stretch, R (may I call you by your first letter?). And it's hardly a defense--if Osama understands what you're going through, chances are you've done something reallllly bad.

Stop digging, R. Stop digging.

TALIBAN REGIONAL COMMANDER KILLED?

Yes, according to this story:

SPIN BOLDAK, Afghanistan (Reuters) - An Afghan official said Monday 15 Taliban guerrillas, including a senior commander, had been killed in a clash involving U.S. forces in the south of the country.

"Fifteen Taliban were killed, including Mullah Abdur Rahim, in Maruf district," said Afghan Foreign Ministry official Khalid Khan Achakzai, speaking in the border town of Spin Boldak not far from the Pakistan frontier. Maruf is in Kandahar province.

Rahim commanded the Taliban's southern region. May he rest in pieces.

Interesting angle to the story--Reuters suggests it has access to the Taliban's intelligence commander. He is quoted denying Rahim's death. How does Reuters know how to reach him? What are they providing him in exchange for access?

MOOSE, STUFFED

Gregg Easterbrook takes on former shakedown artist Montogomery Police Chief Charles Moose.

Our own Chris Regan was among the first to highlight Moose's low points.

UPDATE: Michelle Malkin tags Moose.

I do think it's fair to say that his book complicates the prosecution of Mohammed and Malvo, and that by withholding descriptions of those two from investigators on the case (!), Moose's actions probably led to lost life. It's also fair to say that he was little more than Jesse Jackson with a badge.

RWN INTERVIEWS MILTON FRIEDMAN

Blogs are becoming news generating operations, not just news criticism bullhorns. The other week, Kevin Holtsberry interviewed Rick Brookhiser. Today, RWN's John Hawkins goes one-on-one with Milton Friedman. The original liberatarian economist gets off some great thoughts:

John Hawkins: Do you think George Bush, with the economy being as it was, did the right thing by cutting taxes?

Milton Friedman: I am favor of cutting taxes under any circumstances and for any excuse, for any reason, whenever it's possible. The reason I am is because I believe the big problem is not taxes, the big problem is spending. The question is, "How do you hold down government spending?" Government spending now amounts to close to 40% of national income not counting indirect spending through regulation and the like. If you include that, you get up to roughly half. The real danger we face is that number will creep up and up and up. The only effective way I think to hold it down, is to hold down the amount of income the government has. The way to do that is to cut taxes.

Yup. On outsourcing:

John Hawkins: Let me ask you about this -- what do you say to people who claim that free trade will eventually lead to high unemployment in the US as large numbers of jobs move to cheaper labor markets overseas?

Milton Friedman: Well, they only consider half of the problem. If you move jobs overseas, it creates incomes and dollars overseas. What do the do they do with that dollar income? Sooner or later it will be used to purchase US goods and that produces jobs in the United States.

In fact, all of the progress that the US has made over the last couple of centuries has come from unemployment. It has come from figuring out how to produce more goods with fewer workers, thereby releasing labor to be more productive in other areas. It has never come about through permanent unemployment, but temporary unemployment, in the process of shifting people from one area to another.

When the United States was formed in 1776, it took 19 people on the farm to produce enough food for 20 people. So most of the people had to spend their time and efforts on growing food. Today, it's down to 1% or 2% to produce that food. Now just consider the vast amount of supposed unemployment that was produced by that. But there wasn't really any unemployment produced. What happened was that people who had formerly been tied up working in agriculture were freed by technological developments and improvements to do something else. That enabled us to have a better standard of living and a more extensive range of products.

The same thing is happening around the world. China has been growing very rapidly in recent years. That's because they shifted from a very inefficient method of agricultural production to something that comes close to the equivalent of private ownership of the land and agriculture. As a result, they've been able to produce a lot more with many fewer workers and that has released workers who have come into the cities and have been able to work in industry and other areas and China has been having a very rapid increase in income.

Not to be redundant, but yup. And this:

John Hawkins: Fast forward to today and there are a lot of Democrats & people on the left out there who say, "Why don't we just have exorbitant taxes on the rich and minimal taxes on everyone else"? What would that do to the economy?

Milton Friedman: That would eliminate the rich.

Which is probably their plan anyway. Read the whole thing. At 91, Friedman hasn't lost one bit of his edge. Congrats to John for netting a big one.

DALLAS COWBOYS 35, NY GIANT 32

Yeah, I stayed up to watch the whole thing.

The Boys blew a 23-7 third quarter lead, allowing the Giants to tie it up in a blistering fourth quarter. The source of the collapse was a Dallas offense that suddenly couldn't make first downs consistently, and a tired defense that had simply been on the field too long.

The Giants took the lead, 32-29, with 11 seconds on the clock, and it looked like yet another blown lead for the Boys. The ensuing kickoff went out of bounds at the Cowboys' 1 yard line, giving the Boys the ball at their own 40. New life?

On first down, with those 11 precious seconds left, Cowboys QB Quincy Carter dropped back and found receiver Antonio Bryant deep in Giant territory. Bryant caught the bullet and got out of bounds with 4 ticks left. Cowboys kicker Billy Cundiff came on to try a desperate 52-yeard field goal to tie it--which he made, with no time on the clock.

Overtime, 32-32. Dallas won the toss but didn't do much with the ball. Neither did the G-men when Dallas punted, so Dallas got the ball back and moved it down to the Giants' 10 on Carter's arm and legs (the man can scramble when he gets the urge). Cundiff came back on and booted a 25-yarder (his seventh of the game!) to lift the Cowboys past the favored Giants.

Unbelievable. I thought it would be November before we'd see a Dallas win this season, but Quincy Carter proved he can play when he knows what he wants to do with the ball. He even improvised well, only truly botching one pass which the Giants' defense snatched and turned into a quick score.

I'll pay for staying up so late tomorrow, but it was worth it to see the Tuna beat his old team in Giants Stadium. Take that, Jeremy Shockey!

HMMM...

So the leftwingnuts in California's Ninth Circuit have tied up the recall election for a while (pending appeals), on the notion that punch card machines somehow violate the 14th Amendment. Equal protection, etc.

Could this logic apply elsewhere? Could judges just keep delaying elections until every single county in the nation adopts the exact same voting system, and then create further delays if any flaw in that system turns up? What will this mean, if anything, in 2004?

On its face, the Ninth's actions look like a terrible and very dangerous decision.

MORE: I am stunned. I half expected Slate to come out firing this morning, and they did. But to my surprise, they didn't fire along narrow ideological lines--Will Saletan's column today is a must-read. He absolutely nails it, in Texas, in California, in Florida circa 2000.

(hat tip to Hanks)

WESLEY CLARK'S WEAKNESS ON THE LEFT FLANK

Many lefties believe Gen. Clark was the architect of a certain bungled, highly-lethal police raid in a certain central Texas town in 1993.

Was Clark in Waco? Did he orchestrate, behind the scenes, the raid on David Koresh's cult that ended up killing scores of men, women and children? Did Wesley Clark spawn Timothy McVeigh?

I have no idea; the evidence is sketchy, to say the least. But the left does. They think Clark was there and did map out the climactic April raid, a violation of Posse Comitatus if true. Expect Clark to have a left-flank problem if he jumps into the Democrat race for president. If he wins the nomination, expect lots of lefties to end up voting Green.

THAT OSAMA VIDEO

I don't make a habit of critiquing Weirdbeard's entrants to the MTV Music Video Awards, because I still think he's still dead.

But...even the French didn't buy the one he posthumously released circa 9-11-03? He has indeed assumed cave temperature if the French can't even find some reason to bash us. That is their raison d'etre, ain't it?

As for the timely death of OBL, looong time readers heard it here first. My take is that he expired in February 2002, courtest the appropriately named Hellfire missile.

JAPAN UNDERSTANDS, EMBRACES PRE-EMPTION

Japan will not sit idly by if North Korea prepares to attack it.

In an exclusive interview, [Japanese Defense Minister] Shigeru Ishiba told The Independent: "The Japanese constitution permits my position. Attacking North Korea after a missile attack on Japan is too late. If North Korea orders its military to send a missile to attack Japan and the missile is raised to vertical in preparation for launch, then Japan will assume that an attack has begun and has the right to attack that particular missile launch site. What else can the missile be used for but to attack us?"

For those of you who just endlessly carp, carp, carp that everyone in the world hates us because Bush is incompetent in foreign affairs, read this:

He believes that President George Bush's strategy is closer to his own approach, than the strategy of Bill Clinton. "Clinton's policy toward North Korea was based on two false premises: one, that Pyongyang would keep its promises [regarding the 1994 agreement to abandon its nuclear programme]; and two, that North Korea would collapse," he said.

"North Korea neither kept its promises nor collapsed. We are now faced with the consequences."

Amen to that. Unlike the backstabbing South Koreans and French (on whose side you will always find the backstabbing Democrats), Japan gets it. Japan sits across a small body of water from a very hostile, very aggressive enemy that has long been backed by two larger enemies, and thus understands better than most what its relationship with the US means: survival.

As the Proliferation Security Inititiative gathers to blockade North Korea's arms industry, it will likely take on several other roles formerly relegated to the UN, from arms control to local and regional security issues. In some ways it's a Pacific region NATO. Japan should be given a prominent place in that body, in its equivalent of the UN Security Council. Japan is economically larger than France. It is, in spite of its pacifist constitution, more militarily capable than France. It is strategically more important than France. It has also turned out to be a better friend than France. Oh, and one more reason Japan deserves better treatment than France: Because it is not France.

SCHOOL CHOICE: A CIVIL RIGHT

Rob Douglas writes:

George Will delivers in a must-read titled School Choice Is A Civil Right.

Taste this:

Bill Clinton, who could cry out of one eye, was dry-eyed about the plight of D.C.'s poor: he vetoed a school-choice bill for them in 1998. He felt the pain of the strong, the teachers unions who were feeling menaced by the weak -- by poor parents trying to emancipate their children from the public education plantation.

...School choice for poor children is, Boehner says, today's principal civil rights fight. The lottery of life, not choice, determines a child's parents and family situation. There should be choice about schools for children placed by life's lottery in difficult conditions. Otherwise, Boehner says, ``It's like saying you can only buy bread in the grocery store closest to your house -- and the government will run the grocery store.''

It is a pity that ``pro-choice'' Democrats do not remain pro-choice when poor children make it past birth and reach school age.

Thank you Mr. Will - for speaking truth to the true racists in America.

The Democratic Party.

I have nothing to add to that.

Douglas takes on Charles Moose (the former Montgomery Co. police chief who handled bungled the sniper investigation) and the Baltimore Sun's biased reporting on the Patriot Act. He's becoming a must-read for security issues and many other topics as well.