Wow. 94,586 responses. 88%  of those respondents say "Yes." Of course it would be nice for all of us to go vote, but just look at those results. And from such a large pool of voters. This seems significant to me. There really seems to be a shift happening. No matter how you slice it, people are realizing that this is serious stuff and you can't hide what Rove did.

http://www.msnbc.msn.com/id/8554738/

It's a minor point, but worth noting that the GOP talking points on Rove actually support the accusation Joseph Wilson has been making all along: that his wife's name was disclosed in an effort to discredit him.

The GOP says that Rove was simply trying to "correct" an inaccurate story. So in other words, he leaked the name to call into question the credibility of Wilson's story, to discredit him, as Wilson has claimed all along.

Again, it's an obvious thing, but turns into a nice talking point:

GOP: "Well, you see, Rove was simply trying to keep the media from writing inaccurate stories."

Response: "So he disclosed the information for the purpose of encouraging media to reconsider Wilson's claims? As Wilson has been saying for months?"

It seems to me anything that makes Wilson appear more correct gets us closer to justice.

On June 24th, my son turned 7 months. It's a beautiful, tender age. When I pay attention, I can see that he is no longer that unconscious blob that does nothing but eat shit sleep (do it again). He has a personality now and he smiles sometimes just because he knows it makes me happy. In the roundness of his face and depth of his eyes I see echoes of myself and of my father and of the grandfathers I never knew. And when he falls asleep in my arms, his eyes closed, I see the infinite future there in a tiny and profound way.

Of all people, Karl Rove made me realize how much we all are like my seven month old son.

Saw Bill Maher tonight here in bee-u-tiful Albuquerque. Wonderful night, crisp, golden leaves blowing around just enough to make you put on the wool coat. I love Bill Maher. He's damn funny and smart and he'll say anything he feels and he's just about always right (especially when he talks about the baser human instincts). Spot-on with his commentary about the "gay marriage" issue and the GOP's willingness to exploit any bigotry for the purpose of winning votes and maintaining power. A few tried-and-true lines ("I'm the only one who lost his job because of 9/11") and lots of good, new material.

In his spiel, however, Bill Maher also embodies one aspect of the current Left which I consider to lack "class". You know what I mean when I use the word "class." You have to let go of your political correctness to get me here, but in certain regards, Bill Maher lacks class. And the particular aspect of him that rises to the level of hurting the Left, I think, is his disdain for religion.

Given all the discussion about religion and rhetoric raging around here, I thought I'd share this. My father is an 83-year old Latino who is a DEVOTED Catholic. He also voted for John Kerry.

For years, his emails about "God" turned me off almost immediately. But as I grew up and expanded my notion of God through study of Zen and Pagan traditions, I found that I almost always agreed with my dad when I listened to him through his God-speak.

If you're like me, it might be a challenge to read through the email below that he sent. It will be the easiest thing in the world to dismiss it immediately as non-rational and "religious." But if you can let go of your resistance and try to read it for what it means in a practical sense, you will have accomplished something:

My folks are life-long, devout Catholics. And life-long devout Democrats. When I have lunch with them, we inevitably talk about politics, with me feeding them information and them asking questions. My mother shared with me a story about her recent experience at a prayer meeting (of all places) where she tipped an undecided over to Kerry. It provided an insight that I think will be valuable in talking to a certain share of Catholics (although certainly not all).

The blogsphere represents an interesting opportunity to test and understand the power of the new emerging political "body". Human beings organize themselves in different bodies of association (families, churches, tribes, nations, corporations) and key to this organizational tendency is communication. The political blog is a new kind of body very much in the tradition of the political party--both are virtual bodies, composed of disparate individuals whose general priorities and values tend toward the same direction. The political party has grown increasingly irrelevant as the means of electronic communication (telephones, television, the Internet) have proliferated and now occupy a core place in our reality (ask yourself: what would my work day be like without email and the web?). The great value and power of the political party grows from the ability to effectively communicate a message to its membership and establish a consensus upon which to build a program. Electronic communication now allows groups to self-organize and fashion an identity and message in a more organic manner.

I saw Dick Cheney today
shuffling in his slippers and bathrobe
in a bus terminal in Laramie, Wyoming
scowling at the toothless woman in the phone booth
and his own reflection in the ticket window glass

He left his suit and tie on a hotel floor
the night of the election and smells now
of sweat and medicines and plastic hearts
old man smells, odors of artificial souls
tolerable only to cheats and liars

I followed him out into the street
where the poets and cowboys studied
one another with weary eyes and all the world
waited, hushed, for the start of the next day
like drunks awaking the morning after a
long night of violence and intoxication

Just before dawn and Dick Cheney growled
at a fire hydrant, at the length of the pipe beneath it
at the water stored there by fathers before him
to extinguish the furies of careless boys

The Great Sky widening above us
flexing in all its expectant morning colors
and Dick Cheney, no light on his bald head
shuffling along the curb after election day
lost in a nation he doesn't remember or never knew

The toothless woman sits on a bus and glances
past the houses and shops on a quiet street   
past Dick Cheney, the glimmer faded from his icy lips
The doors of the houses open and America peeks out
Above, the first rays of morning pierce the long darkness

Dear Editor:

I pay attention to politics and have been following the presidential campaigns closely since the primaries. I have to pay attention because I believe there is a tremendous amount at stake in this election. I'm a grown man, 35 years old with a beautiful wife, a brilliant 2 year old daughter, and a second child on the way. I have a great job working for a strong technology corporation that was founded on the extremely hard work of hundreds of exceptional people. I recently moved back to my ancestral home of New Mexico, where my family has lived for hundreds of years--and where my mother and father live today--so that my daughter could understand and appreciate the beauty and strength of her roots.

All of this enabled because of the hard work of generations of Americans who always saw themselves first and foremost as Americans, the people who built this country on the principles of family, hard work and the belief that all people are created equal. It's true that man-by-man, no American has been perfect. But taken in total, in our heart of hearts, we understand our nation as a being that loves itself.

Regrettably, months ago I realized that our country is now badly on the wrong course. We are deeply engaged in a terrible war that has seen us kill thousands of civilians, transform a generation of Iraqi boys into an army of suicide bombers, and saddest of all, torture prisoners in a sick echo of the dictator we claimed to be there to depose. After a decade of prosperity, the U.S. government has gone into the largest deficit in the history of the country, with tax breaks favoring the wealthy in a time of war. I have recently read that it's no longer safe to eat the fish I catch from the streams and rivers of New Mexico because the levels of mercury and other poisons make them unsafe. This saddens me.

continues...

Couldn't have said it better myself:

http://story.news.yahoo.com/news?tmpl=story&cid=694&e=5&u=/ap/20040928/ap_on_el_pr/crawf ord_paper_kerry

Those unfortunate folks in Houston just can't get a break. They're just trying to conduct business and provide a return to their shareholders, like any other good American business would do. It seems they're considering getting rid of KBR, the unit that has benefited the most from cozy government contracts. Not only has that unit been bad from a PR perspective, but has been losing money from day one, even with the cards stacked in its favor by the federal government (can you say, "no-bid contract"). In addition, the unit was bankrupt when it was acquired and dogged by lawsuits related to its use of asbestos in previous years.

I mean, whoever the CEO was that made the decision to acquire KBR must have really been asleep at the wheel. From a business perspective, I'd want that person fired and never given another position of significant responsibility. It wasn't the current Haliburton CEO, but some previous person. I can't seem to recall his name, though...

On the same damn day that Bush and Allawi are talking up the Iraq security situation and saying elections will go forward, Rummy says that "partial elections" in Iraq are a possible outcome.

Great idea. Let's only have elections in the areas we control.

Watch out Vermont and all you liberal strong-holds!

Just had to post the Top-Ten list from Kerry's visit to David Letterman. Quoted from Reuters story here: http://story.news.yahoo.com/news?tmpl=story&cid=597&e=2&u=/nm/20040921/tv_nm/campaign_ke rry_letterman_dc

Top Ten Tax Reform Proposals for Dubya

 No. 10: "No estate tax for families with at least two U.S. presidents";

No. 9: "W-2 form is now Dubya-2 form";

No. 8: "Under the simplified tax code, your refund check goes directly to Halliburton";

No. 7: "The reduced earned income tax credit is so unfair; it just makes me want to tear out my lustrous, finely groomed hair";

No. 6: "Attorney General Ashcroft gets to write off the entire U.S. Constitution";

No. 5: "Texas Rangers can take a business loss for trading Sammy Sosa";

No. 4: "Eliminate all income taxes: just ask Teresa to cover the whole damn thing";

No. 3: "Cheney can claim Bush as a dependent";

No. 2: "Hundred-dollar penalty if you pronounce 'nuclear' instead of 'nucular"';

No. 1: George W. Bush gets a deduction for mortgaging our entire future."

Last night, while walking from a restaurant to our car, my 2 year old daughter made a move to jump off a curb and into an alley so I grabbed her hand. She immediately started crying and I realized that her arm was in great pain. We stashed the take-out in the car and immediately drove her to the hospital and found out that her elbow was dislocated. My wife and I felt our hearts in our throats as we answered the questions the admitting nurse asked, tears welling in our eyes at the sight of our little girl's arm hanging limp and the frown darkening her face.

Fortunately, I have excellent health insurance and in less than an hour, we had seen two nurses and a doctor and the arm was easily popped back into place. "It's fixed!" our girl said, holding it in the air. We were quite pleased with how responsible we had been, taking care of the situation.

Because I wasn't raised with money, however, I couldn't escape the feeling of how blessed I was to be able to take care of my beautiful little daughter. And the statistic popped into my head: 45 million Americans do not have adequate health care. My focus during the crisis had been on making sure my girl knew she was safe, that she knew the situation would be dealt with. What if my main thought was: how am I going to pay for this?

"Family values" should be about enabling parents to be able to make their children their number one priority, especially in times of crisis. 45 million Americans without healthcare. 8 million looking for work. That's a lot of people who have to think about a lot more than making sure their children feel safe and secure. Our children are our future. Our families are our future. We need a president who thinks about real people's lives rather than imagined threats to our "family values" and our nation.

Looks like Kerry is getting a convention bounce with regard to how he'll protect us Americans.

In the AP survey conducted Tuesday through Thursday, 43 percent said Kerry would do a better job of protecting the country -- a gain of 8 percentage points for the Democratic presidential nominee from a similar survey in March.

Kerry improved his standing on the issue with a demographic group that tends to lean Republican: men under age 45.

Check it out.

http://story.news.yahoo.com/news?tmpl=story&cid=514&e=3&u=/ap/20040806/ap_on_el_pr/presi dent_ap_poll