Collective Sigh

It's certainly true that Mr. Kerry said certain things in his war protestor days that can now be used against him with some audiences. But until he was well into middle-age President Bush's most noteworthy public utterances seem to have been limited to various invocations and inflections of 'par-TAY' and reciting the alphabet under legal compulsion.

On Wednesday, the campaign shattered its previous online fundraising record, raising over $3.3 million dollars in one day, only to crush it on Thursday with a total of $5.6 million raised – bringing its two-day total to $8.9 million. At times during Kerry’s speech, johnkerry.com received over 5,000 hits per second.

The "Nader factor" was little in evidence here this week.

True, Ralph Nader, who's making his third third-party run at the White House, tried to get credentials to join the Democratic National Convention, first as an observer and then as a television correspondent. (The Democratic National Committee turned him down.)

And dozens of his young supporters have been walking the streets and trolling for petition signatures, trying to get him on the November ballot in Massachusetts.

But here, even among many activists who formed his onetime base, he hasn't been feeling much love.

"I'm not voting for him this time," said Betsy Morgan, an independent who voted for Nader in 1996 and 2000. "This time it's much too dangerous," she said, as assorted peace and environmental activists spoke at historic Faneuil Hall.

The Commons Foreign Affairs Committee said there were “insufficient” coalition troops in Iraq to maintain security and warned that the country was in danger of becoming a “failed state” bringing further instability to the region.

At the same time, it warned that Afghanistan could “implode” with “terrible consequences” unless the international force sent to build stability following the overthrow of the Taliban was strengthened.

The international aid group Doctors Without Borders (Medicins Sans Frontieres) has been in Afghanistan since 1980. It has braved the Soviet occupation from 1979 to 1989, the civil war in the 1990s, and the rule of the hard-line Taliban. The medical charity has now decided to pull out of Afghanistan, becoming the first major aid agency to quit the war-ravaged country since the ouster of the Taliban in late 2001.

"You don’t need me to explain it to you, you know—you can’t save any money, can you? Takes every dime you make just to pay your bills, and you know what happens if something goes wrong—a child gets sick, somebody gets laid off, or there’s a financial problem, you go right off the cliff."

"In the meantime, the Middle East peace process has come to a screeching halt for the first time since Israel became a nation. All former presidents, Democratic and Republican, have attempted to secure a comprehensive peace for Israel with hope and justice for the Palestinians. The achievements of Camp David a quarter century ago and the more recent progress made by President Bill Clinton are now in peril.

Instead, violence has gripped the Holy Land, with the region increasingly swept by anti-American passions."

"Kerry certainly volunteered for duty in the Vietnam theater, and I respect his service--in fact, I'd even argue that his post-Vietnam opposition was sincere, well-intentioned and not a blanket condemnation of all veterans--as well as his purple hearts. I'm entirely unconcerned with debates over whether he was genuinely injured, or just kinda injured.

Bush, on the other hand, volunteered for a dangerous duty....but in the United States, rather than Vietnam."

As many as 195,000 people a year could be dying in U.S. hospitals because of easily prevented errors, a company said Tuesday in an estimate that doubles previous figures.

Lakewood, Colorado-based HealthGrades Inc. said its data covers all 50 states and is more up-to-date than a 1999 study from the Institute of Medicine that said 98,000 people a year die from medical errors.

"We need tort reform in America. Small businesses are threatened by -- if you ask people what affects their confidence in the future, they'll tell you, when they see junk lawsuits or have junk lawsuits filed against them. It threatens their existence, it makes it very difficult for people to plan with confidence. And, let's face it, our society is too litigious. There's too many lawsuits, a lot of them frivolous and junk lawsuits."

A report from the Center for Justice and Democracy, a non-profit group that opposes "tort reform," showed that as Texas Governor, one of Bush's first acts in 1995 "was to meet with representatives of nine Texas Citizens Against Lawsuit Abuse (CALA) chapters in a salsa factory outside of Austin, after which he declared a legislative 'emergency' on 'frivolous lawsuits.' Over his two terms, Bush signed a series of brutal bills that severely reduced injured consumers' rights to go to court." Then-Gov. Bush signed several laws in Texas protecting corporations -- like Enron, until recently his biggest career donor -- from lawsuits by consumers, such as capping punitive damages, diluting a law meant to penalize businesses that engage in deceptive business practices and prohibiting Texas cities from suing gun makers and sellers.

Also I heard the voice of the Lord, saying, Whom shall I send, and who will go for us? Then said I, Here am I; send me."

Nader plans on coming to Boston Wednesday, if not to calm their concerns, then to crash a party he sees as celebrating the wrong ideals. If he can get credentialed, Nader said in a phone interview from his home in Washington, D.C, he hopes to shock Democrats inside the FleetCenter.

'You know a good quote -- ''Show me the money!'' ''You talkin' to me?'' -- when you hear one. So after Stephen King wrote an EW magazine column that asked readers to send him their favorite movie lines, he received close to 3,000 letters. Check out his summary of the readers' picks.

''They call me Mister Tibbs!'' -- VIRGIL TIBBS (Sidney Poitier) in ''In the Heat of the Night''

''Gentlemen, you can't fight in here. This is the War Room!'' -- PRESIDENT MUFFLEY (Peter Sellers) in ''Dr. Strangelove''

''Look how they massacred my boy.'' -- VITO CORLEONE (Marlon Brando) in ''The Godfather''

''Stand up. Your father's passing.'' -- REVEREND SYKES (William Walker) in ''To Kill a Mockingbird''

The other clear TV oddity on day one was how the Fox News Channel, from 8 to 10:30 p.m. refused to air anything live from the Democratic convention podium, including speeches, tributes and patriotic songs. Only when the Clintons spoke did Fox turn its camera to the event.

Here's how the day unfolded:

10:40 a.m.: CNN's Daryn Kagan, pressing Kerry spokesman Tad Devine on Heinz Kerry's comments, asks, "Is that the kind of behavior we want to see from a future first lady?" Kagan then jokes about Kerry's ceremonial first pitch at a recent Boston Red Sox game (a pitch that bounced a few inches in front of home plate), and about the boos Kerry received from some hometown Red Sox fans.

10:45: An MSNBC anchor asks whether John Kerry is "aloof."

11:00: MSNBC reports on the "fear Clinton might overshadow the candidate ... who can come off as stiff and aloof."

11:35: "Isn't this a contrived, scripted John Kerry infomercial?" a Fox anchor asks GOP strategist Ralph Reed. "Wouldn't you love to hear Howard Dean and Ted Kennedy rampaging their hatred towards George Bush? You'd probably like to hear Whoopi Goldberg" up on the platform as well.

11:55: Noting the Democrats' focus on national security, Fox wonders, "Is this John Kerry doing his imitation of a Republican?"

Noon: MSNBC, hyping the Heinz Kerry story, flashes an onscreen "On the Defensive" graphic as the anchor asks, "Could [she] hurt her husband's campaign?"

12:10 p.m.: Previewing the former vice president's speech, CNN's Wolf Blitzer insists, "it's going to be difficult for [Gore] to go positive." He's "obviously" still "bitter."

12:15: MSNBC wonders, "Why was John Kerry booed at Boston Red Sox game last night?"

12:31: Looking for some real news, MSNBC's Tom Llamas phones in live to report Kerry's running mate Sen. John Edwards canceled a Greensboro, N.C. appearance because he has a cold; "it's a cold, it's a minor one."

12:41: An FNC anchor poses the question, "How will the Clintons manage to not steal the spotlight" at the convention? And, "Doesn't John Kerry's record as a Northeast liberal present a major obstacle?"

12:45: MSNBC asks a Boston Globe columnist, "Are Bostonians cringing at the convention at this point?"

12:52: Fox's Tony Snow is asked, "Is it really true [Kerry] is duplicitous?" Snow's response is yes, "He tells people what they want to hear."

2:10: CNN's Miles O'Brien notes that Bill Clinton "can be terrible at speeches. I mean, he could be talking until morning if they didn't have a little red light blinking there on the podium."

2:45: FNC's Patti Ann Browne reports that, "the buzz is that the Clintons are secretly hoping that Kerry will lose so the Clintons can win in 2008." She adds, "People are bringing it up, a possibility that Hillary will upstage the others."

3:01: FNC anchor Shephard Smith asks, "Will this convention be a boost to the White House?"

3:16: "For [Kerry] to come to Boston, a very liberal city, and cast himself as a moderate is a contradiction in terms," says Fox News reporters Carl Cameron. "It's hard to argue that Kerry-Edwards is not a liberal ticket."

3:30: CNN Judy Woodruff, interviewing former president Jimmy Carter, and discussing Sen. Ted Kennedy's failed run in 1980, wonders, "Why should anyone expect a Massachusetts liberal to do well" in 2004?

4:02: CNN's Kelly Wallace, previewing Gore's speech, reports, "Many Democrats are a bit confused and concerned about some speeches the former vice president has delivered over the past few months."

7:20: NBC's Tim Russert assures viewers that "Democrats don't like to hear" Kerry's "nuanced position" on the war and free trade. NBC anchor Tom Brokaw wonders if there's "a sense of entitlement" in Kerry's demeanor. Asked if Teresa Heinz Kerry was "manageable," Russert answered, "We're going to find out if the country is going to buy into her." Brokaw then says that, regardless of whether you are a Democrat or Republican, all Americans can agree that in the immediate wake of 9/11, Bush "was all that everyone wanted him to be."

8:10: Fox is the only major TV news outlet not to carry the Gore's speech, switching instead to "The O'Reilly Factor," as Gore's voice is heard booming in the background. (Minutes earlier, Fox was alone in failing to air the gospel-flavored "Star Spangled Banner.")

8:20: MSNBC's "Hardball," historically a bastion of conservatives and wayward Democrats during key campaign nights, invites a roundtable of panelists who are actually made up of ... people who will vote Democratic in November: former Howard Dean campaign manager Joe Trippi, Ron Reagan, Jr., and former San Francisco Mayor Willie Brown.

8:55: O'Reilly announces Michael Moore has agreed to finally enter the No-Spin Zone during Tuesday night's "O'Reilly Factor."

8:57: MSNBC's Matthews wonders, "If the Clintons come back with all their baggage [tonight], is that a good sell for the Democrats tonight?"

9:03: Fox is the only major news outlet not to carry former president Jimmy Carter's speech. Instead, it airs "Hannity & Colmes."

10:04: Fox is the only television news outlet -- and by this time, that includes ABC, NBC, and CBS --not to carry the convention's brief tribute to 9/11, which includes a stirring rendition of "Amazing Grace."

10:22: ABC News' Peter Jennings -- ignoring Carter and Gore and an entire night of speeches extolling the virtues of John Kerry -- reports that Monday has been "a night dedicated to the Clintons."

Heinz Kerry's comment came Sunday after she told a group of voters, "We need to turn back some of the creeping, un-Pennsylvanian and sometimes un-American traits that are coming into some of our politics."

As she was leaving, Colin McNickle, the Tribune-Review's editorial page editor, asked her what she had meant by, in his words, "un-American activities."

She denied having said "activities" and also denied saying "un-American."

After stepping away and speaking briefly with Democratic organizers of the event, she returned and asked the reporter whether he worked for the Tribune-Review. He said he did.

"Understandable. You said something I didn't say, now shove it," she told him.

Humana Inc. posted higher second-quarter earnings Monday, buoyed by its robust government business as the managed care company reported it was on track to achieve record earnings.
The Louisville-based company reported net income of $80.8 million, or 50 cents a share, for the quarter ending June 30, up from $69.3 million, or 43 cents a share, in the year-ago period.

Aug. 22, 2003 - U.S. Senator Jim Bunning today announced that the Department of Defense (DOD) has awarded Humana Military Health Care Services of Louisville, Kentucky a $2,058,582,137 federal contract.

DOD’s Health Affairs has contracted Humana Military Health Care Services to administer the TRICARE South Region. TRICARE provides health care services to our Uniformed Services’ families and support to military hospitals and clinics in the United States.

Between 2000 and 2003, military doctors performed 496 breast enlargements and 1,361 liposuction surgeries on soldiers and their dependents, the magazine said.

A friend who specializes in foreign policy and hobnobs with subcabinet officials in the Defense and State departments told me that the only thing that's stopped the Bushies from storming into Iran and North Korea is the upcoming election. If Bush is re-elected, "[Dick] Cheney and [Donald] Rumsfeld are out of the box," he said. "They'll take Bush's re-election as a mandate to wage the 'war on terror' everywhere and anywhere."

When the Bush leadership team gathered to consider cutting taxes on the higher income brackets, O'Neill warned that the resulting rise in deficit "is moving toward a fiscal crisis." O'Neill claims that in the meeting not one strong economic reason was brought forward to support the tax cuts for the wealthy. Cheney made clear why the tax cuts would be pushed all the same: "We won the midterms [elections]. This is our due." (Emphasis mine)

Candidate Bush Will Promote Private Investment Accounts for Social Security
Privatizing Social Security will almost certainly become a priority for President Bush should he win another term. In broadly outlining his domestic agenda, the president, speaking at a fundraiser for Republican House and Senate candidates, hinted that personal investment accounts would guide his overhaul of Social Security. Personal investment accounts would divert payroll taxes into stock market investments.

The Congressional Budget Office found that two plans to set up personal investment plans, proposed by a panel the president appointed, would create huge costs for the government and a sharp reduction in benefits. Figures were estimated to add $100 to $200 billion annually to the federal deficit for the next 50 years. President Bush has not yet approved either of the plans.

John Kerry's campaign quickly responded to the CBO report saying, "The president is about to start touting his proposal for the 'ownership society,' but the CBO analysis shows it's more like a debt society. It's biggest impact is to increase debt by trillions of dollars...damaging our long-run budget outlook."

The struggle to afford the prescription drugs Ruth needs to survive transformed Ruth and Leonard Tubbs into activists. Ruth has logged more than 2,000 miles traveling to Canada for lower cost medications, and Leonard returned to work part time to help with their Rx bills. Frustrated with the Republican response to America's health care crisis, Ruth switched parties and officially became a Democrat in 2002.

In any event, while LiberalOasis appreciates Ron Reagan Jr.'s sentiment about political exploitation of religion, the notion that his father, "never made the fatal mistake of so many politicians, wearing his faith on his sleeve to gain political advantage," doesn't quite hold up.

I will remember Mr. Reagan primarily for his relationship with the evangelical Christian community in our nation. We had long been shut out of the White House when Mr. Reagan took office. But he realized that this community was largely responsible for his election and held the key to stalling our nation's moral collapse. Many churches had organized (quite legally) voter registration drives through the help of my Moral Majority because we believed Mr. Reagan could make a difference in our nation.

We brought millions of new voters to the polls in 1980. We reactivated millions of discouraged religious conservatives who, though registered to vote, had given up on America. We believed we were electing the man who could return America to moral sanity. And he did not let us down.

(snip)

In the day after his election in November 1980, he conducted his first press conference as the president-elect. From 3,000 miles away, I listened carefully as a reporter asked him if he would be paying attention to all of these evangelicals and religious conservatives, i.e., "moral majoritarians." He said to this reporter – to us, and to the world – that he would be giving special attention to the people who had helped elect him. And he did.

A ground-based missile interceptor was installed Thursday in Alaska's Interior — the first component of a national defense system designed to shoot down enemy missiles.

(snip)

Five additional interceptors will be installed at the 700-acre complex — another four at Vandenberg Air Force Base in California — by the end of the year. Ten more will be installed at Fort Greely by late 2005, launching the Bush administration's multibillion dollar system.

(snip)

The interceptors have not proven their reliability, hitting targets only five times in eight tests, said Philip Coyle, former assistant secretary of operational test and evaluation at the Pentagon. He said they failed even when using advanced information "an enemy would never give us," including when they were launched."

Will Turner - You cheated!
Sparrow - (shrugs) Pirate.

The report argues that the notion of fighting an enemy called "terrorism" is too diffuse and vague to be effective. Strikingly, the report also makes no reference to the invasion of Iraq as being part of the war on terrorism, a frequent assertion of President Bush and his top aides.

"The first phase of our post-9-11 efforts rightly included military action to topple the Taliban and pursue al-Qaida. This work continues," the report said. "But long-term success demands the use of all elements of national power: diplomacy, intelligence, covert action, law enforcement, economic policy, foreign aid, public diplomacy and homeland defense. If we favor one tool while neglecting others, we leave ourselves vulnerable and weaken our national effort."

The Carrera GT, Porsche's half-million-dollar sports car, a 605-horsepower linear-mass accelerator capable of more than 200 mph, is certainly new. The car is just now going into full production in Leipzig, Germany — hand assembled at a rate of two per day — and so far only about 50 have been delivered to North American customers, mostly juice-intensive celebs like Jerry Seinfeld and Tim Allen.

(snip)

It is also rather sporty. It will accelerate from 0-60 mph in 3.5 seconds, according to Car and Driver, and cover the quarter-mile in 11.2 seconds, with a trap speed of 132 mph. That last number is telling: This car doesn't find its prodigious stride until it gets over 100 mph. From 0 to 100 mph takes a mere 6.8 seconds.

At speeds above 75 mph, the car deploys its rear spoiler to help create road-holding down force. At 186 mph the car is subjected to 880 pounds of down force, most of that generated from the ground-effects underbody and spoiler, but even the suspension arms are shaped like inverted wings to extract precious pounds of down force.

Fox News Channel's star talk-show personality, Bill O'Reilly, says he is uncomfortable with the practice of outing gay political figures--except, it seems, when he is doing the outing.

On his show Monday night, O'Reilly chastised guest Michael Rogers for maintaining a Web site publicizing the names of gay staffers working for politicians who oppose gay marriage.

"We're uneasy with this kind of exposition," O'Reilly said. "Somebody's personal sex life should have nothing to do with any kind of a policy."

But on the same show--and for at least the third time in the last year--O'Reilly described one of the justices on the Massachusetts Supreme Judicial Court as a lesbian, a claim that the justice herself, through a spokeswoman, denies.

On shows in November, last week, and again on Monday, O'Reilly has referred to "the lesbian judge on the Supreme Court who dissented" in the court's landmark ruling in favor of gay marriage.

O'Reilly has never named the judge, but of the three dissenting justices in that case, only one--Justice Martha B. Sosman--is a woman.

"Justice Sosman is not a lesbian," said court spokeswoman Joan Kenney. "We don't know where Bill O'Reilly got that information, but it is not correct."

Sosman declined an interview request.

A Fox spokesman said O'Reilly stands by his claim, which is based on "more than one independent source."

The spokesman declined to identify those sources, citing confidentiality.

Asked whether most Americans have an idea of how bad the security situation is in Ramadi, Sgt. Maj. John Jones said recently that he was annoyed every time he heard analysis about Iraq from politicians and journalists on TV.

"When people come over here, where do they stay? In the Green Zone. I call it the Safe Zone," he said, referring to the secure area in Baghdad where the government is housed. "They miss the full picture."

Yoshihiro Tsurumi, an avowed opponent of Bush’s current views and policies who was a visiting associate professor of international business at HBS between 1972 and 1976, said Bush was among 85 students he taught one year in a required first-year course. In the class on “Environment Analysis for Management,” incorporating elements of macroeconomics, industrial policy and international business, Tsurumi said students discussed and debated case studies for 90 minutes several times a week.

Tsurumi—now a professor of international business at Baruch College in the City University of New York—said he remembers the future president as scoring in the bottom 10 percent of students in the class.

Thirty years after teaching the class, Tsurumi said the twenty-something Bush’s statements and behavior—“always very shallow”—still stand out in his mind.

“Whenever [Bush] just bumped into me, he had some flippant statement to make,” said Tsurumi when reached at his home in Scarsdale, N.Y. “The comments he made were revealing of his prejudice.”

The White House did not reply to requests for comment on Bush’s time at HBS.

Tsurumi said he particularly recalls Bush’s right-wing extremism at the time, which he said was reflected in off-hand comments equating the New Deal of the 1930s with socialism and the corporation-regulating Securities and Exchange Commission with “an enemy of capitalism.”

“I vividly remember that he made a comment saying that people are poor because they’re lazy,” Tsurumi said.

Tsurumi also said Bush displayed a sense of arrogance about his prominent family, including his father, former U.S. President George H.W. Bush.

“[George W. Bush] didn’t stand out as the most promising student, but...he made it sure we understood how well he was connected,” Tsurumi said. “He wasn’t bashful about how he was being pushed upward by Dad’s connections.”

Tsurumi said that the younger Bush boasted that his father’s political string-pulling had gotten him to the top of the waiting list for the Texas National Guard instead of serving in Vietnam. When other students were frantically scrambling for summer jobs, Tsurumi said, Bush explained that he was planning instead for a visit to his father in Beijing, where the senior Bush was serving at the time as the special U.S. envoy to China.

In addition, Tsurumi is still sore about what he recalls as Bush’s slight to his cinematic taste. When he arranged for students to view the film of John Steinbeck’s The Grapes of Wrath during their study of the Great Depression, Tsurumi said, Bush derided the film as “corny.”

Stewart sent a tape of himself seated at "The Daily Show" anchor desk, expressing bewilderment at the idea of getting an award for news programming on the heels of last year's TCA award for best comedy.

"We're fake," he said. "See this desk? ... It folds up at the end of the day, and I take it home in my purse."

"It's funny," he said. "The only person prosecuted in the past three years for terrorism has been me."

President Bush isn't actually an Al Qaeda mole, with Dick Cheney his controller. Mr. Bush's "war on terror" has, however, played with eerie perfection into Osama bin Laden's hands - while Mr. Bush's supporters, impressed by his tough talk, see him as America's champion against the evildoers.

Articulating a health policy vision nearly opposite the one advocated by the Democratic presidential ticket, Cheney promoted individual tax credits, additional community health centers and more modern technology as ways to help Americans afford top-notch medical care.

But it was medical malpractice that dominated his address yesterday at the Medical College of Ohio in Toledo, and it is limits on lawsuit damages that remain the single most ambitious proposal of the Republican ticket's health-care agenda.

"This problem doesn't start in the waiting room," Cheney said in remarks released by the campaign. "It doesn't start in the operating room. The problem starts in the courtroom."

With lawsuits on the rise and multimillion-dollar awards garnering headlines, physicians and many Republicans say limiting damages would solve challenges confronting the U.S. health system. They say capping damages would lead to lower malpractice premiums, which would reduce doctors' use of unnecessary tests and procedures, known as defensive medicine. Those improvements would result in better care at lower cost, enabling more people to buy coverage.

An analysis by the Congressional Budget Office said the malpractice bill would benefit doctors and the government but reduce private health-insurance premiums by a scant 0.4 percent.

A federal program to protect patients from incompetent doctors is failing because health maintenance organizations and hospitals rarely report those doctors to the government as they are required to do, federal investigators say. Under federal law, H.M.O.'s and hospitals are supposed to inform the government of any disciplinary actions taken against doctors for incompetence or misconduct.

But in the last decade, 84 percent of H.M.O.'s and 60 percent of hospitals never reported a single "adverse action" to the government, a report by the inspector general of the Department of Health and Human Services said.

This low level of reporting occurred even though a government study found that tens of thousands of Americans die each year because of medical errors.

Information on incompetent doctors is included in a computer >system known as the National Practitioner Data Bank, created by Congress to protect patients against doctors who move from state to state without disclosing that they have been censured or disciplined in some way for providing poor care.

(snip)

The inspector general's explanation was stark. In a market more concerned about price than quality, the report said, H.M.O.'s have evolved into "bill-paying organizations," and managed care plans "often have little incentive to devote many resources to quality assessment and improvement."

Carmella Bocchino, vice president of the American Association of Health Plans, said many H.M.O.'s apparently did not realize they were required to tell the government when doctors were disciplined for incompetence or misconduct.

The primaries should have taken place May 4 but were delayed until the middle of summer because of a legal dispute over a state legislative redistricting plan. Today will mark only the second time in state history that Tarheel voters cast ballots in July.

A Maryville man spent his 23rd birthday in custody after police said they found him early Sunday running nude from the John Sevier pool snack bar with a box of stolen snacks.

Authorities said the man had apparently scaled an 8-foot tall fence while naked and covered in nacho cheese and was seen running toward a Jeep in which officers found clothing and an open bottle of vodka.

...bloggers, with few exceptions, don't add reporting to the personal views they post online, and they see journalism as bound by norms and standards that they reject. That encourages these common attributes of the blogosphere: vulgarity, scorching insults, bitter denunciations, one-sided arguments, erroneous assertions and the array of qualities that might be expected from a blustering know-it-all in a bar.

"I am offended by the perp walk of taking this man (Ken Lay) and putting him in handcuffs. He's been convicted of nothing.

He is not a rapist, he is not a murderer, and they have this long, slow walk across the parking lot just for publicity."

Democratic presidential candidate John Kerry said Friday he would be willing to launch a pre-emptive strike against terrorists if he had adequate intelligence of a threat.

Kerry offered some support for one of the most controversial aspects of President Bush's national security policy, even as he criticized the president for not reforming intelligence agencies after the Sept. 11, 2001 terrorist attacks.

``Am I prepared as president to go get them before they get us if we locate them and have the sufficient intelligence? You bet I am,'' he said at a news conference at his Washington headquarters.

Trudeau attended Yale University with Bush in the late 1960s and served with him on a dormitory social committee.

"Even then he had clearly awesome social skills," Trudeau said. "He could also make you feel extremely uncomfortable ... He was extremely skilled at controlling people and outcomes in that way. Little bits of perfectly placed humiliation."

Trudeau said he penned his very first cartoon to illustrate an article in the Yale Daily News on Bush and allegations that his fraternity, DKE, had hazed incoming pledges by branding them with an iron.

The article in the campus paper prompted The New York Times to interview Bush, who was a senior that year. Trudeau recalled that Bush told the Times "it was just a coat hanger, and ... it didn't hurt any more than a cigarette burn."

The Congressional investigation into the abuse of Iraqi detainees at Abu Ghraib prison has virtually ground to halt, as a senior Senate Republican said Thursday that no new hearings would be held on the matter until this fall at the earliest.

The Republican-controlled House Armed Services Committee made it clear weeks ago that it believed that the several current military investigations of the scandal were sufficient, and that summoning commanders to Washington would only hinder American operations in Iraq.

That left the issue to the Senate Armed Services Committee, whose chairman, Senator John W. Warner, a Virginia Republican, has held a series of hearings, but none since May 19. On Thursday, Mr. Warner said he would hold off calling any more witnesses until several criminal prosecutions and seven pending Pentagon inquiries were completed.

But some of those inquiries are running weeks behind. The pivotal investigation of the role that American military intelligence officials played in the abuses, which officials once expected to wrap up in June, now is not likely to be completed and reviewed by senior Pentagon officials until mid-August. Congress will soon recess until September.

When pressed Thursday to give a schedule of when hearings might resume, Mr. Warner expressed frustration and replied testily: "I can't give you a schedule. Take a look at all those investigations. What can you do until they are finished?"

Senator Lindsey Graham, a South Carolina Republican, said he agreed with Mr. Warner on putting off more hearings, but said investigators must search for culpability among higher-ranking officers and officials. "The idea that only five or six privates and sergeants are legally exposed is unacceptable," Mr. Graham said in a telephone interview.

At an Arlington Cemetery funeral, they're often in the background, inconspicuous in ordinary clothes. Their only mark of distinction: a small lapel pin, the size of a quarter, with the military insignia of the service that they represent.

But their duties stretch beyond the graveside. For family members unable to attend, the Arlington Ladies often write a long letter describing the funeral in detail, from the weather to the other mourners, the prayers, the traditional gun salute and the poignant trumpet notes of "Taps." Often, at the request of relatives, an Arlington Lady lays a wreath on a veteran's grave for Memorial Day or places flowers at Christmas.

But get ready. It is going to get much worse. The graphic videos and photographs that have so far been shown only to Congress are, I have been persuaded by someone who has seen them, not likely to remain secret for very long. And, if you wonder why formerly gung-ho rightist congressmen like James Inhofe ("I'm outraged more by the outrage") have gone so quiet, it is because they have seen the stuff and you have not. There will probably be a slight difficulty about showing these scenes in prime time, but they will emerge, never fear. We may have to start using blunt words like murder and rape to describe what we see. And one linguistic reform is in any case already much overdue. The silly word "abuse" will have to be dropped. No law or treaty forbids "abuse," but many conventions and statutes, including our own and the ones we have urged other nations to sign, do punish torture—which is what we are talking about here at a bare minimum.

Lindsay Graham, a Republican member of the senate committee that grilled Rumsfeld, said murder and rape cases were likely to emerge from the investigation.

"The American public needs to understand we're talking about rape and murder here," Graham told reporters after the Senate hearing.

"We're not just talking about giving people a humiliating experience. We're talking about rape and murder and some very serious charges."

Graham, who is a judge for the army reserve, said: "It's going to get worse. You're going to have more things to show people that will make people mad, more angry."

William Nash, a senior fellow at the Council on Foreign Relations and a retired two-star Army general who commanded American peacekeeping forces in Bosnia, said the White House's political calculations will determine Rumsfeld's fate.

"Right now everything in this administration is being measured against whether or not it contributes to the re-election of the president in November," he said. "Obviously he's been a lightning rod and oh, by the way, he's also been wrong and that's never good" for Bush.

Nash suspects that Rumsfeld has yet to feel the full force of the Abu Ghraib abuse.

"I don't think there's any particular reason to believe that the Department of Defense is out of the woods on Abu Ghraib," he said.

Powell is on track to become the least traveled secretary of state in more than three decades, since Henry A. Kissinger embodied the concept of the globe-trotting foreign policy guru, according to records maintained by the State Department's historian.

A British man who accidentally shot himself in the testicles after drinking 15 pints of beer was jailed for five years on Tuesday for possessing an illegal firearm, a court spokesman said.

David Walker, 28, was arguing with a friend at a pub in South Yorkshire, northern England, when he went home to get his sawed-off shotgun, which he jammed into his trousers.

But as he walked back to the pub, the gun went off, blasting pellets into his testicles. Doctors later removed what remained of his testicles during emergency surgery.

Walker admitted possessing a prohibited weapon at a hearing in June at the court in Sheffield.

The 196 page report says MI6 did not check its sources well enough, and sometimes relied on third hand reports.

The 45 minutes claim was "unsubstantiated"

No individuals were to blame for failures

Intelligence had been pushed to the "outer limits but not beyond"

There was no deliberate distortion of intelligence by politicians

Limits of intelligence not "made sufficiently clear" in September 2002 dossier

"I hope I -- I don't want to sound like I've made no mistakes. I'm confident I have. I just haven't -- you just put me under the spot here, and maybe I'm not as quick on my feet as I should be in coming up with one." - G.W. Bush, April 13, 2004

“I accept full personal responsibility for the way the issue was presented and therefore for any errors made.” - Tony Blair, July 14, 2004

"Talking Points" believes the Bill Clinton situation is a good example. While president, Mr. Clinton did a number of questionable things. Conservatives especially were angered that Mr. Clinton used the Oval Office in an unseemly way and then lied about it. The dissent over that was absolutely appropriate, but some right-wingers went overboard and began accusing Mr. Clinton of all kinds of deeds that were unproven and sometimes even defamatory.

That kind of behavior is simply dishonorable. Just because you don't like a politician doesn't give you the right to lie about them. Dishonor is defined as treating someone in a degrading manner, trying to injure them personally. There's no place for that in America.

So, flash forward to President Bush, who's being accused of many things, some of them flat-out untrue. For example, the Senate Intelligence Committee did not find any evidence that the Bush administration attempted to coerce, influence or pressure analysts to change their judgment on WMDs in Iraq — so reads conclusion 83 of the Senate report

Thus, all the bomb-throwers who accuse Mr. Bush of lying about WMDs have been dishonorable. They were wrong and had no proof to begin with.They are guilty of a slander, a dishonorable act.

Other examples, Whoopi Goldberg made crude jokes about Mr. Bush's name. Is that dissent or dishonor? Whether you like him or not, Mr. Bush is the president. It is dishonorable for Ms. Goldberg crudely to mock him without purpose. There's no dissent in that and it reflects poorly on her.

Meryl Streep said, "If you're going to invite Jesus on the campaign bus and ask him to stump for you, you'd better listen carefully to what he has to say first. He did not say 'blessed is the preemptive strike.'"

Dissent or dishonor? In this case, Ms. Streep is dissenting. She's objecting to a policy matter and that's legit. See the difference? Goldberg is disrespectful. Streep is entitled to her opinion about an issue, although I'd love to talk to her about it.

Michael Moore's movie is dissent, but his dishonesty within the film is dishonorable. Also, when he runs around Europe bashing America, he's giving comfort to our enemies, totally dishonorable and disgraceful in a time of war. You have to be careful where you utter anti-American statements. What's OK in Berkeley is not OK in Paris.

Finally, let's take a look at conservative Ann Coulter. She writes,"Kerry picks a pretty-boy milquetoast as his running mate, narrowly edging out a puppy for the spot."

Dissent or dishonor?

Well, it's dissent. She's simply making fun of John Edwards. Although to be fair, short of Newt Gingrich, Coulter would have been displeased by anyone Kerry picked.

Once again, dissent must be protected, but dishonorable behavior must be condemned.

And that's "The Memo."

Almost two-thirds of Indiana National Guardsmen in a battalion that spent a year in Iraq chose not to re-enlist when their service time expired.

Over the past 21 months, the service contracts of 102 soldiers in the 1st Battalion of the 152nd Regiment expired. Of those, 32, or less than one-third, chose to re-enlist.

The unit typically keeps 85 percent of its members, a sergeant in charge of retaining members said.

Before the war, the unit had 650 members. Now the regiment headquartered about 40 miles northeast of Evansville has about 530 soldiers left, The Herald reported in a story today.

In early 2003, 610 of the members were deployed to Iraq.

"That one big word, 'deployment,' has done more damage than anything," said Sgt. 1st Class Gary Love, who is in charge of convincing soldiers to stay.

"What killed us was the stop-loss," Love said. "There wasn't a whole lot we could do."

The U.S. military has launched a new operation in Afghanistan that will use thousands of American troops to protect the upcoming presidential election, the top American commander told The Associated Press Tuesday.

The operation, named Lightning Resolve, is "kicking off as we speak," Lt. Gen. David Barno said in an interview at his headquarters in the Afghan capital.

The schools are great. It's a great area to raise a family. But to survive on the money they pay here, it's ridiculous," (firefighter Darrin) Grant said.

Here, as in much of the Deep South, wages are among the lowest in the nation. A firefighter or police officer in Horry County starts at around $25,000 a year, with raises that come slow and small. Most of the men moonlight as grass-cutters or Wal-Mart clerks or by parking cars at the ritzy beach resorts to make ends meet. On his days off, Grant drove a limousine.

Contract work in Iraq not only pays wildly more, but as much as $80,000 can be tax free. Fat bonuses are offered for extending a tour.

(snip)

Two other Horry County firefighters resigned in a single week. The county police force has lost seven members since last winter. Six more have resigned from agencies in neighboring counties. For every person who has signed up for Iraq, at least two more are considering it, those in the department say.

And for most of them, the reasons are much the same. Outwardly living a modest version of the American dream — steady jobs, decent housing, food, clothes, toys for their young kids — they have in fact been locked in a grinding effort just to stay afloat.