DumOHcrap corruption......CONTINUES

Dollar Bill On Homeland Security?


William "Dollar Bill" Jefferson, under investigation for corruption, has been assigned to the House Homeland Security Committee, the Washington Post reports. The Congressman's last brush with security was having subpoenas served on his office and FBI agents raiding it, after earlier finding $90,000 in his freezer:

Rep. William Jefferson, the Louisiana Democrat who's facing an ongoing federal corruption probe, is being granted a spot on the Homeland Security Committee, according to Democratic aides.
The appointment will be announced Friday, according to one aide who requested anonymity because the decision isn't yet official.

Jefferson was removed from his seat on the Ways and Means Committee, one of the most important panels in Congress, by Democratic leader Nancy Pelosi (Calif.) last summer in an attempt to show how seriously Democrats viewed the allegations of corruption.

But the move by Pelosi, who was still minority leader at the time, infuriated members of the Congressional Black Caucus, who said Jefferson shouldn't be punished unless he is indicted; federal prosecutors have yet to bring an indictment, despite an FBI raid 18 months ago on his home that yielded $90,000 in cash in his freezer.


I suppose this should come as no surprise. Nancy Pelosi, who campaigned on cleaning out the swamp in Congress, allowed Alan Mollahan to chair a subcommittee that has responsibility for Department of Justice appropriations -- despite being under investigation by the FBI for corruption. Now we have the symbol of Democratic corruption being assigned to Homeland Security.

So much for cleaning up Congress.

Jefferson will have no oversight over the DoJ or the FBI, but that's hardly the point. Two of Jefferson's aides have already been convicted of corruption and bribery directly involving Jefferson himself, and the FBI found almost a hundred thousand dollars in his freezer. That may not be enough to remove Jefferson from Congress -- his constituents did not think so, unfortunately -- but that doesn't mean that the Democrats have to put him on a committee with such grave responsibilities for the defense of the nation. Billions of dollars flow through that committee; how much of that will wind up in Dollar Bill's freezer in this session of Congress?

Pelosi and the Congressional Black Caucus, who obviously pressured the Speaker for this assignment, have gambled that the FBI will not be able to indict Jefferson. If an indictment comes down, the entire group will have to answer for this assignment -- and the Republicans will have a great example of Democratic hypocrisy in 2008.

Yup

Demz da Dumz for you

I know

how bout SHADY Bungler

for Nat Sec Chief

I am willing to bet you Newt's freezer is bigger.

it MAY be bigger

BUT

does it have CASH obtained by BRIBES in it?


Besides the point

This should offend EVERYONE

I'll get in on this later................

I cant wait

busybody said:

it MAY be bigger

BUT

does it have CASH obtained by BRIBES in it?


Besides the point

This should offend EVERYONE

Click to expand...

It offends the shit out of me. I always say they're all the same.

On the security cmt., yet

maybe the TERRORISTS will BRIBE the guy to give em the keys to our NUKES

18 months of investigations and still no idictment for William Jefferson?

Maybe they need Ken Starr as special prosecutor so that they can spend a few million in the process of turning up nothing indictable.

Weren't you one of the people screaming about "innocent until proven guilty", and still do where Tom DeLay is concerned and he HAS been indicted? Obviously the FBI hasn't been able make a reasonable case as to Jefferson's guilt in 18 months of investigations, (which I think is insane, If they had any evidence worthy of indictment you would think it would have turned up something by now no?) or an indictment would have been handed down already.

The C&P you've posted here is ludicrous in the extreme, as usual. The writer acts as if William Jefferson will be counting out Homeland Security funds in $100 bills himself and will somehow manage to 'rob the place blind'.

You're advocating punishment for the accused, that hasn't actually BEEN accused here, yet. If and when an indictment is handed down it's a damn good bet that Jefferson will be removed from the committees at the least, from Congress at the most.

I guess "innocent until proven guilty" only applies to Republicans and Lacrosse players huh?

UD

Sometimes the word BIG DUMMY doesnt quite capture you

Ulaven_Demorte said:

18 months of investigations and still no idictment for William Jefferson?

?

Click to expand...

then why was he stripped of his seat on the TAX WRITING CMT?


How Nancy Pelosi regards national security


This story says it all.
House Speaker Nancy Pelosi, who stripped embattled Rep. William Jefferson of his seat on a powerful tax committee last year, has decided to put him on the Homeland Security panel, infuriating some Republicans who charge that he could be a security risk.

Jefferson, a Louisiana Democrat, was kicked off the Ways and Means Committee amid a federal bribery probe, yet still won re-election to a ninth term.

Pelosi is giving him a seat on the panel after Jefferson was outspoken in his criticism of the homeland security agencies that responded to Hurricane Katrina. His appointment must still be formally approved by the rest of the House Democrats.

The decision immediately came under fire from the top Republican on the committee, Rep. Peter King.

"It sends a terrible message," King, R-N.Y., said Friday. "They couldn't trust him to write tax policy, so why should he be given access to our nation's top secrets or making policy for national defense?"

Jefferson, 59, is the subject of a federal investigation into whether he accepted bribes related to a telecommunications deal in Africa. The FBI's evidence against him includes $90,000 found in his freezer - fodder for late-night talk show jokes but not funny to Pelosi, who promised to run the most ethical Congress in history.

A long, long time ago I had a summer job for which it was necessary that I get a security clearance. I had to undergo a FBI background check, take psychological tests, and pass a lie detector test.

It was all aimed at determining if I was a security risk, perhaps for blackmail or corruption. Now Congressman William Jefferson, a man subject to an FBI investigation for corruption, will get access to all sorts of classified information due to his perch on the Homeland Security Committee.

This guy that Pelosi thinks has a special expertise on Homeland Security because of Hurricane Katrina is also the guy who diverted a National Guard contingent to escort him to his home so he could retrieve his personal belongings . Yeah, he has some expertise. For shame.

He's willing to "crudely hamstring" the forces but just not in a way that might garner political criticism. Typical.

Meanwhile, Michael Novak points out a disturbing similarity between Iraq and Vietnam.


In Congress, Democrats (and the occasional Republican like Maine’s Chuck Hagel) would fulfill the prediction of Osama bin Laden, who said that Americans would lose heart and go home. This is the road the Democrats put us on on Friday. They have marched into untenable territory, and they have now exposed their flank to a withering enfilade. Once again, they have repeated their deed of 39 years ago, turning victory into defeat, setting the stage for last-minute departures by helicopter, banging with rifles the up-reached hands of friends of the United States, who are begging not to be abandoned.

I thought that day that that obscene, humiliating, disgraceful departure from the United States embassy in Saigon was the most dishonorable day in American history. I still feel sick thinking about it.

That dishonor was brought about by a Congress determined to stop funding a war that had turned into its final lap toward victory. An arrogant Democratic Congress abandoned several million friends of the United States to torture, imprisonment, death. Two millions took desperate flight by sea upon open rafts or flimsy junks, to be set upon by pirates as well as pursuing foes.

Until now, I had resisted comparisons between Vietnam and Iraq. The dissimilarities are immense. They are as different as night and day. Besides, the victories won and the difficulties successfully overcome in Iraq, by sheer bravery and persistence, have been of historic proportions.

But now the actions of our own Congress have made the sickening memories of that cowardly flight from Saigon come pouring back, with all their now forgotten shame and dishonor.




In Congress, Democrats (and the occasional Republican like Maine’s Chuck Hagel) would fulfill the prediction of Osama bin Laden, who said that Americans would lose heart and go home.

Support the troops

LET THEM WIN!

Nevermind.

Hillary Clinton will never be elected, she treats (treated) too many people like shit.

So in 2001 HRC and ClitMan opened a "private family chairty"

this from a couple that was NEAR BROKE at the time and owed millions in legal fees

she was supposed to report all this on her Senate financial disclosure form

she didnt

FOR SEVEN YEARS

she said it was an OVERSIGHT!

Well, the DIMZ did say before the election they will have more oversight

I guess SHE didnt lie then

did she?

What?

Clintons' Charity Not Listed On Senate Disclosure Forms

By John Solomon and Matthew Mosk
Washington Post Staff Writers
Tuesday, February 27, 2007; Page A01

Sen. Hillary Rodham Clinton and former president Bill Clinton have operated a family charity since 2001, but she failed to list it on annual Senate financial disclosure reports on five occasions.

The Ethics in Government Act requires members of Congress to disclose positions they hold with any outside entity, including nonprofit foundations. Hillary Clinton has served her family foundation as treasurer and secretary since it was established in December 2001, but none of her ethics reports since then have disclosed that fact.



Sen. Hillary Rodham Clinton (D-N.Y.) at a recent book-signing. The charitable foundation she operates with former president Bill Clinton has enabled the couple to write off $5 million from their taxable income since 2001. (By Jason Decrow -- Associated Press)


The Clinton Family Foundation, created in 2001, was seeded with more than $5 million in personal money. It was not listed on Sen. Hillary Rodham Clinton's financial disclosure forms.




The foundation has enabled the Clintons to write off more than $5 million from their taxable personal income since 2001, while dispensing $1.25 million in charitable contributions over that period.

Clinton's spokesman said her failure to report the existence of the family foundation and the senator's position as an officer was an oversight. Her office immediately amended her Senate ethics reports to add that information late yesterday after receiving inquiries from The Washington Post.

"The details of the Clintons' charitable family foundation and Senator Clinton's role in it have always been publicly available, but, in an oversight that leaders of both parties have made, it was inadvertently omitted from her Senate filing, which has been corrected," Hillary Clinton's press secretary, Philippe Reines, said yesterday.

Among the institutions receiving grants from the Clinton Family Foundation were Yale University, where both attended law school; groups named for deceased heads of state in Israel and Jordan; and a charity connected to the Arkansas businessman who helped Hillary Clinton make $100,000 on a commodities trade that stirred controversy a decade ago, Internal Revenue Service reports show.

Hillary Clinton's decision to amend her Senate disclosures comes after several other high-profile politicians came under scrutiny for omitting family foundations from their financial disclosure reports, including former Senate majority leader Bill Frist (R-Tenn.) and House Speaker Nancy Pelosi (D-Calif.). They amended their disclosures, and neither was penalized.

Advisers to the Clintons said the family foundation amounted to only a fraction of their overall charitable efforts, which generate millions each year.

The charity is separate from the New York-based William J. Clinton Foundation, which has directed $10 billion in corporate money and resources toward slowing the global spread of AIDS, addressing climate change, and reducing hunger and poverty in developing countries.

The smaller family foundation lists as its address a post office box in Chappaqua, N.Y., where the Clintons live. Hillary Clinton is listed as secretary and treasurer, Bill Clinton as president and the couple's daughter, Chelsea, as a director. None takes any compensation.

The charity has been funded with money from lucrative book deals for both Clintons and from speechmaking by Bill Clinton since they left the White House in 2001. The foundation's tax filings are available on an Internet repository for IRS documents. The only time the Clintons mentioned the foundation on her ethics report was in 2002, in a footnote about their $800,000 donation that year, but it did not disclose as required her position or other information about the foundation. In subsequent years, they made no mention of it.

Between 2001 and 2005, the Clintons seeded the charity with $5.16 million of their money. The foundation's 2006 tax form is not due until later this year.

Morning, busy.

busybody said:

Click to expand...

Pelosi Hires Soros' Right-Hand Man

By John Perazzo
http://www.frontpagemag.com/Articles/ReadArticle.asp?ID=27115

FrontPageMagazine.com | February 27, 2007

One can learn a great deal about the values and core beliefs of a political figure by taking note of the people he or she assigns to key government posts. Consider, for instance, what we can learn about House Speaker Nancy Pelosi on the basis of her February 8th appointment of Joseph Onek to be her Senior Counsel.

“This is a critical time for the Congress and the country,” Onek said following his appointment, “and I thank the Speaker for the opportunity to return to government service and work on behalf of the American people.”

But who is Joseph Onek, and how exactly does he define working “on behalf of the American people”?

A not insignificant clue is provided by the fact that Onek, a 1967 graduate of Yale Law School, is currently a Senior Policy Analyst for George Soros’s Open Society Institute (OSI), one of the world’s major financiers of the political far Left.

OSI is a member of the benignly named Peace and Security Funders Group, an association of more than 50 foundations that earmark a sizable portion of their $27 billion in combined assets to leftist organizations that undermine the war on terror in several interrelated ways:
by characterizing the United States as an aggressively militaristic nation that exploits vulnerable populations all over the globe
by accusing the U.S. of having provoked, through its unjust policies and actions, the terror attacks against it, and consequently casting those attacks as self-defensive measures taken in response to American transgressions
by depicting America’s military and legislative actions against terror as unjustified, extreme, and immoral
by steadfastly defending the civil rights and liberties of terrorists whose ultimate aim is to facilitate the annihilation of not just the United States, but all of Western civilization
by striving to eradicate America’s national borders and institute a system of mass, unregulated migration into and out of the United States — thereby rendering all distinctions between legal and illegal immigrants anachronistic, and making it much easier for aspiring terrorists to enter the U.S. Toward this end, OSI has poured rivers of money into the coffers of the Mexican American Legal Defense and Education Fund, the Immigrant Legal Resource Center, theNational Immigration Law Center, the National Immigration Forum, the National Council of La Raza, and the American Immigration Law Foundation.
In September 2002, Joseph Onek’s OSI also made a $20,000 grant to the Legal Defense Committee of Lynne Stewart, the criminal-defense attorney who had unlawfully abetted her incarcerated client, Omar Abdel Rahman, in transmitting messages to the Islamic Group, the Egypt-based terrorist organization he headed.

At the time of Stewart’s crime, Rahman was already serving a life sentence for his role in masterminding the 1993 World Trade Center bombing; he also had conspired, unsuccessfully, to plant additional bombs at the United Nations building, FBI offices in New York, the Lincoln and Holland Tunnels, and the George Washington Bridge.

OSI’s money is further apportioned to a far-flung variety of leftist groups, including:

radical feminist organizations that portray America as an irredeemably sexist nation and consider taxpayer-funded abortion-on-demand to be an inalienable right for all women (the National Organization for Women, Feminist Majority, the Ms. Foundation for Women, Planned Parenthood, Catholics for a Free Choice, and NARAL Pro-Choice America)
members of the Legal Left, which, in the name of civil liberties, seeks to dismantle virtually all government safeguards against terrorism (the American Civil Liberties Union, the Center for Constitutional Rights, and the National Lawyers Guild)
organizations that, under the revered banner of human rights, direct a grossly disproportionate share of their criticism at the United States (Human Rights Watch, Amnesty International, Physicians for Human Rights, and Human Rights First)
political organizing groups and think tanks of the Left (America Coming Together, the Center for American Progress, the Brennan Center for Justice, MoveOn.org, the Center for Community Change, People for the American Way, the Urban Institute, and Alliance for Justice)
anti-prison organizations seeking to transform the criminal-justice system’s current “punitive” model into one that is “rehabilitative” (the Sentencing Project and the Prison Moratorium Project)
The Open Society Institute’s funding priorities reflect a vision of America as a nation infested with all manner of inequity, a country in desperate need of radical social and economic transformation. It is more than noteworthy that Joseph Onek has secured for himself a leadership position within this Institute.

Another highlight of Mr. Onek’s resume is his current position as Senior Policy Analyst for the Open Society Policy Center (OSPC), which, like OSI, was founded by the billionaire leftist George Soros.

Established in the aftermath of September 11th, this organization helped draft the Civil Liberties Restoration Act, which in June 2004 was introduced in the Senate by Democrats Ted Kennedy, Patrick Leahy, Russell Feingold, Richard Durbin, and Jon Corzine. The Act was designed to roll back, in the name of defending civil liberties, vital national-security policies that had been adopted following the 9/11 terrorist attacks.

OSPC’s range of concerns extends also to “the proper treatment of detainees” — a polite reference to the bloodthirsty al Qaeda combatants captured on Middle Eastern battlefields and currently incarcerated in Guantanamo Bay.

Extending its advocacy on behalf of inmates to the American prison system at large, OSPC considers “rehabilitation,” rather than punishment, to be the proper function of criminal justice.

Key to the attainment of this objective, in OSPC’s calculus, are colossal boondoggles whereby American taxpayers foot the bill for a multitude of “needed services and treatment” programs designed to help ease prison inmates’ transition back into society after their release.

Joseph Onek’s busy life also requires that he reserve some time for his duties as Senior Counsel for the Constitution Project (CP), an organization that seeks “solutions to difficult legal and constitutional issues.”

These “solutions” are essentially calls for the United States to abandon every aggressive anti-terrorism and anti-crime measure it has ever initiated, on grounds that such measures violate the rights and freedoms of suspected wrongdoers.

Onek serves as Director of CP’s Liberty and Security Initiative (LSI), which flatly rejects most of America’s post-9/11 homeland security efforts as misguided “government proposals that [have] jeopardized civil liberties.” Specifically, LSI:

opposes President Bush’s decision to try suspected terrorists in military tribunals rather than in civilian courts
opposes “the use of profiling” in law-enforcement and intelligence work alike
holds that state and local law-enforcement agencies should be uninvolved in pursuing suspected terrorists
opposes government efforts to “conduct surveillance of religious and political organizations”
opposes “increased federal and state wiretap authority and increased video surveillance”
calls for the creation of a commission “to investigate the abuse of people held at detention facilities such as Abu Ghraib and Guantanamo Bay” (“When you think about it,” Onek says, “Guantanamo became a symbol around the world for American disrespect for law.”)
Onek was formerly the Director of the Center for Law and Social Policy (CLSP), which promotes the familiar leftist theme of massive taxpayer expenditures, coupled with a diminution of personal responsibility, as the proper means of achieving virtually every societal objective one can name. For example, CLSP:

proposes increased funding for “child care and early education initiatives” such as Head Start
opposes “family cap” policies that would make welfare recipients ineligible for incrementally higher payments if they procreate further while on public assistance
advocates “a comprehensive range” of new, government-funded services for “low-income children and their parents”
calls for “reorienting the child support program into an income support program, emphasizing the need to improve family resources by providing tailored services to both parents”
aims to make more money available to cover the cost of college tuition and “college support services” for “low-income adults”
proposes to help ex-prisoners “find work, get safe housing, go to school, and access public benefits.”
To disseminate his perspectives to the widest possible audience, Onek has been an occasional guest blogger on the website of the American Constitution Society for Law and Policy (ACS), a Washington, DC-based think tank that seeks to radicalize American jurisprudence by recruiting and indoctrinating law students, law professors, attorneys, and judges — and helping them to acquire positions of power. The roster of speakers who address ACS conventions includes such luminaries as Ralph Nader and the communist icon Angela Davis.

Apart from the foregoing organizational affiliations, Onek has also held important posts in two presidential administrations.

Under President Clinton, he served as State Department Rule of Law Coordinator and Principal Deputy Associate Attorney General. In the latter role, Onek was a key figure in the Justice Department headed by Attorney General Janet Reno and Assistant Attorney General Jamie Gorelick.

You might recall that Gorelick in 1995 issued the monumentally important “wall memo” to then-FBI Director Louis Freeh and U.S. Attorney Mary Jo White. Titled “Instructions on Separation of Certain Foreign Counterintelligence and Criminal Investigations,” Gorelick’s memo read:

“We believe that it is prudent to establish a set of instructions that will more clearly separate the counterintelligence investigation from the more limited, but continued, criminal investigations.
These procedures, which go beyond what is legally required, will prevent any risk of creating an unwarranted appearance that FISA [Foreign Intelligence Surveillance Act of 1978] is being used to avoid procedural safeguards which would apply in a criminal investigation.”

In short, this mandate stressed the importance of maintaining a legal barrier, or “wall,” barring intelligence investigators and law-enforcement investigators from collaborating and sharing information — even if they were both trailing the same suspect who was plotting a terrorist act.

This restriction (which had first been put in place by the Carter administration) effectively crippled the government’s ability to fight terrorism, and can arguably be blamed for America’s failure to prevent the 9/11 catastrophe. Two noteworthy examples of the policy’s deadly consequences are the following:

On August 29, 2001, an FBI investigator in New York desperately pleaded for permission to initiate an intensive manhunt for al Qaeda operative Khalid Almihdar, who was known to be planning something big. The Justice Department and the FBI deputy general counsel’s office both denied the request, explaining that because the evidence linking Almihdar to terrorism had been obtained through intelligence channels, it could not legally be used to justify or aid an FBI agent's criminal investigation; that is, it would constitute a violation of Almihdar’s “civil rights.” Thirteen days later, Almihdar took over the cockpit of American Airlines Flight 77 and crashed it into the Pentagon.
The same wall of separation prevented FBI agents in Minneapolis from searching the computer hard drive of Zacarias Moussaoui — the so-called “20th hijacker” — in August 2001. Had those agents been given access to Moussaoui’s computer, two of the nineteen 9/11 hijackers would have been identified along with the Hamburg-based terrorist cell that planned the attack; it can reasonably be argued that if that had happened, the mass murders of 9/11 could have been averted.
As noted above, it was during the Carter administration that the aforementioned “wall” (dividing law-enforcement from intelligence) was first created to defuse allegations of FBI espionage abuses.
And Joseph Onek served as Deputy Counsel to President Carter, advising the latter on all legal issues pertaining to the Presidency.

In other words, Onek has played major roles in the two presidential administrations that did more harm to America’s terror-fighting capacity than any other administrations in U.S. history.

On June 21, 2005, Onek testified at the invitation of the House of Representatives Homeland Security Committee’s Subcommittee on Intelligence, Information Sharing, and Terrorism Risk Assessment.

His chief concern involved Section 215 of the Patriot Act, which he referred to as “the so-called library records provision.” “The FBI,” Onek warned, “will seek financial records, employment records, transportation records, medical records and yes, sometimes, library records. ... Inevitably, FBI investigations will sweep up sensitive information about innocent, law-abiding people.”

Onek and his fellow critics of the Patriot Act have portrayed Section 215 as an egregious invasion of personal privacy.
But as Heather MacDonald points out, “grand juries investigating crimes have always been able to subpoena the very items covered by 215 — including library records and Internet logs — without seeking a warrant or indeed any judicial approval at all. Section 215 merely gives anti-terror investigators the same access to such records as criminal grand juries, with the added protection of judicial oversight.”

During his June 21 testimony, Onek also expressed deep concern about “the danger that the government will use the information it gathers and shares in ways that unfairly discriminate against Muslim Americans.”

“Muslims will appear disproportionately on the government’s computer screens,” he explained, “because they are the people most likely (naturally and innocently) to visit, telephone and send money to places like Pakistan and Iraq.

Inevitably, government officials will learn more about Muslim Americans than about other Americans.” He predicted that this would lead to the injustice of Muslims being disproportionately caught violating immigration laws, and that “[t]his unfairness will breed discontent in the Muslim community and undermine the fight against terrorism.”

And then, incredibly, Onek said this: “The government remains free to bring criminal or immigration cases against Muslim Americans, provided that it does not use information generated by anti-terrorist data-mining systems in cases not involving terrorism or violent crime.
This limitation will require some segregation of information and impose some burdens on the government. But these burdens are a small price to pay to ensure fairness to all Americans and strengthen the fight against terrorism.”

In other words, Onek continues to advocate the very same “wall” — barring intelligence officials and law-enforcement officials from sharing information and collaborating on investigations — that his former employers at the Clinton Justice Department sanctified in the 1990s.

You have read correctly: Onek favors precisely the policy that made it impossible for the U.S. to avert 9/11, and he characterizes its most (literally) fatal flaw as “a small price to pay.”

There could be no starker illustration of blind devotion to a seemingly enlightened ideology that has, in practice, shown itself to be the wellspring of failed and foolish policy.

And this is the man who Nancy Pelosi, the powerful Speaker of the U.S. House of Representatives, has named as her Senior Counsel.
The American people should know that.

busybody said:

Clintons' Charity Not Listed On Senate Disclosure Forms


The foundation has enabled the Clintons to write off more than $5 million from their taxable personal income since 2001, while dispensing $1.25 million in charitable contributions over that period.

Clinton's spokesman said her failure to report the existence of the family foundation and the senator's position as an officer was an oversight. Her office immediately amended her Senate ethics reports to add that information late yesterday after receiving inquiries from The Washington Post.

Click to expand...

I misplaced $5m last week too. It slipped out of my pocket and fell between the seats. It's a good thing the car wash guy found it. What a silly oversight by me.

vetteman said:

I certainly haven't forgotten.

Click to expand...

I haven't either, vette (even though I wasn't born at the time). It was not a shining moment in US history. But the failure in that war and this isn't to be blamed on those who stood (and are now standing) against them, nor on those who fought them. The blame of failure should land squarely in the laps of those who started them.

I want to finish and win this war, but not because I think it will do a damn bit of good in the fight against terrorism (and may in fact do exactly the opposite), but because there are many (like you) who do remember the last time we walked away from a war and essentially gave up. I've no wish for an encore of that performance. We're proving too easy to prod into battle, then too willing to walk away when it goes on too long. If we walk away again, it'll give proof of our supposed weakness to those who've suspected it all along, and will surely be used against us. What we need to do instead is prove that we're damn hard to prod into battle, but impossible to stop once we get going. That's the way we used to be, back when we were respected on the world stage. It's too late to undo what the idiot Bush did when he started this war, but we can start now to at least prove that we can finish the job.

And then let us pray (because there's so little hope) that our leaders in the future will act with greater restraint and far more wisdom, and that Bush will be granted the place in history that he so justly deserves.