• 10:58 p.m. ET

Points Scoring: The Scorer's Table unenthusiastically reports this bout as going to Senator John Kerry by 12 rounds to 4, with 5 rounds even. On individual points, Senator Kerry is awarded a net total of 19 points, and President Bush a net of 2, having undermined his own effort with no less than eight points subtracted, three of them in a disastrous 12th Round in which the President had to be told time was up, answered a question with, in essence, 'all of the above,' and stumbled by inadvertently criticizing himself by claiming the borders of Texas were tighter than they'd been when he was Governor there. He also lost points for having twice invoked the 2000 election, and for once having given back at least a minute of time when the question hadn't really been answered.

Judy Miller the Diva

Judy was on Larry King Thursday night, and gave a virtuoso performance in denial. With a sophomoric grin and a delusional account of what happened to her at the NY Times, Judy was a talking point of the battered soul. The victim in all of this.

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She was stunned and saddened over her perceived attacks by Maureen Dowd and Arianna Huffington against her great character. After all, it was only a few stories that were slightly off in her mind after twenty-eight years of reporting. The WMD reports were a mere blip on the screen based on slightly faulty intelligence. It could happen to anyone right-Judy? Miller was particularly annoyed at that pesky word " entanglement," Bill Keller used.

Let's clear that up, after all what's more important- a war that you helped promote, helping your pal Scooter Libby who's involved in outing a CIA agent or a single expression? She refused to answer any questions about Scooter's upcoming case even though she is legally allowed to. So how are the Aspens this time of year?

Seriously, I wrote about Rick Scott's swiftboating, lying ways way back in May. Back then I told you about how even if Florida voters overlooked his swiftboaty tactics, they should not and could not overlook his lying, criminal conduct with regard to Columbia/HCA.

Yet, they did. It boggles the mind. Of course, Scott did what he always does, and lied through his teeth about how that whole debacle came to pass and his own involvement in it. Forget that he used some legal maneuvers and plea agreements to end the mess. He was, in his mind anyway, above it all.

Rick Scott has always used this one excuse: "If I had known about the fraud, I would have stopped it." Baloney, and the St. Petersburg Times agrees.

But he was cautioned year after year that the financial incentives Columbia/HCA offered doctors could run afoul of a federal antikickback law that seeks to limit conflicts of interest in Medicare and Medicaid.

They were contained in the company's annual public reports to stockholders that Scott, now the Republican candidate for Florida governor, signed as Columbia/HCA's president and chief executive officer.

Scott's response?

Continue reading »

Hoffmania!

Wow. Bill Frist is getting a lesson on what happens to a wingnut who decides to take just one independent stand on just one issue. They're turning on him like a rabid dawg. If it's not becoming painfully obvious to Frist now, it will. When he runs for preznit in 2008 (and he will - it explains his jumping on this populist issue), how many of his GOP opponents will sic the 527s on him? You can hear it now.
"Bill Frist supports the mutilation of human embryos for speculative science. Human embryos which are completely capable of becoming a son or daughter to a good Christian family like your own. Is this the sort of man YOU want making YOUR moral and ethical decisions for your country? Bill Frist. Wrong on embryos. Wrong for America."

Frist won't tolerate losing this valuable hillbilly vote. And the flip-flop clock is counting down. 
Read on...

Yet Another Question For Judge Roberts         Old Fashioned Patriot

The Supreme Court will soon be asked to rule on the legality of depriving brown men with beards who aren't Christian or Jewish the legality of suspending constitutional guarantees like trial by jury, habeas corpus and other long standing American judicial principles. What are your thoughts on this issue?
If it's not becoming painfully obvious to Frist now, it will. When he runs for preznit in 2008 (and he will - it explains his jumping on this populist issue), how many of his GOP opponents will sic the 527s on him? You can hear it now.
"Bill Frist supports the mutilation of human embryos for speculative science. Human embryos which are completely capable of becoming a son or daughter to a good Christian family like your own. Is this the sort of man YOU want making YOUR moral and ethical decisions for your country? Bill Frist. Wrong on embryos. Wrong for America."

Frist won't tolerate losing this valuable hillbilly vote. And the flip-flop clock is counting down.
Read on...

Smearing Patriots Altercation

There aren't enough hours in the day to keep up with all the theories and counter-theories, plus the spin and propaganda being thrown out in the hopes of deflecting attention from the actions of the Rove/Novak diabolic duo. One thing worth keeping in mind is the quality of the people they are seeking to smear. Joe Wilson and Valerie Plame were both life-long public servants. Wilson, whom the right is seeking to smear as a partisan-minded Democrat—not that he wouldn’t have the right to be if he chose—contributed to the presidential campaign of George H.W. Bush, and took many hazardous and unpleasant duties on behalf of his country. When the CIA sent him to Niger, he knew that the politically smart—and self-promotional course to take would be to hew to the Cheney/Rumsfeld/Wolfowitz/Perle line without gumming up the system. Instead he told the truth and they came after him.
Valerie Plame, meanwhile, lived her entire life under cover—no small or easy thing—in the service of her country. (How many journalists and Republican pols or consultants can say the same?) And for her trouble, she has seen her cover revealed and both herself and her husband smeared across the land. Her former colleague, Larry Johnson, writing in TPM Café, tells you what kind of person and patriot she was, here.
Can you spell “desperate?”  They are now even spreading rumors, believe it or not, that Wilson was the source who blew his wife’s cover, if you can believe that.  Also, the Rove camp's claim that Matt Cooper "burned" his source is nonsensical.  Boy are these guys grasping at straws.
Meanwhile, Murray Wass reports here that “Fitzgerald is looking seriously at conspiracy or obstruction charges against Rove et al. and perhaps even Novak himself.”  Read the whole thing.

How We'll Know                     Rain Storm

Since Donald Rumsfeld has never been able to come up with a way to measure whether or not we are winning the global war on terror (GWOT), one of my fellow army veteran's is willing to suggest one:Can you spell “desperate?” They are now even spreading rumors, believe it or not, that Wilson was the source who blew his wife’s cover, if you can believe that. Also, the Rove camp's claim that Matt Cooper "burned" his source is nonsensical. Boy are these guys grasping at straws.
Meanwhile, Murray Wass reports here that “Fitzgerald is looking seriously at conspiracy or obstruction charges against Rove et al. and perhaps even Novak himself.” Read the whole thing.

Few Americans Familiar with More than Four of Ten Commandments

Swift Reports

While the Ten Commandments are increasingly popular in both text and tablet form, a new poll has found that few Americans are familiar with more than four of them. The Biblical bans on murder, theft, and adultery ranked highest among adults surveyed, while only a handful were familiar with Commandments prohibiting graven images and false witness.

Activist judges found to be least familiar with Commandments...read on

49% Say Bush Responsible for Provoking Iraq War
44% Say Hussein

via Rasmussen Reports

So, what does this poll mean winguts? Oh never mind, President Bush doesn't look at polls. Except when they help him. Now I know they like the Gitmo results, but they are mum on the most important poll of them all, The War poll. Without Iraq there would be no Gitmo. Without Iraq this country would not be so divided, without Iraq.........please fill in your answer.

The Bush Oil Co., er, Administration great scat!

A former disgraced official at the White House Council on Environmental Quality who resigned days after the New York Times reported he had changed some government reports on global warming is joining oil giant ExxonMobil .

Philip Cooney, the former chief of staff of the council and a former energy industry lobbyist, will be working for Exxon beginning in the fall, company spokesman Russ Roberts said on Tuesday.

The New York Times first reported Cooney's job with Exxon on its Web site. The newspaper said another Exxon spokesman declined to describe the former White House official's new job.

Cooney resigned from his White House post on Friday, two days after the newspaper reported he edited some descriptions of climate research in a way that cast doubt on links between greenhouse gas emissions and rising temperatures.

Bush Administration official, oil executive . . . same diff.

Senate Republicans who feared that they would not get the 50 votes they needed to destroy the filibuster spoke of abandoning the so-called "nuclear option" in favor of biological or chemical warfare.

"We should just gas all of them," said Sen. Rick Santorum of the Democrats, almost immediately after he had called them Nazis. Sen. Santorum later told critics that he had meant "sedating all of the Democrats with a non-toxic inhalant."

Another proposal on the table in behind-the-scenes discussion among conservative GOP senators is to inroduce Santorum's 6-year old niece, Bonnie Santorum, known to politicians as "Contagious Bonnie," into the Senate chamber. Most of the GOP senators have individually caught flus, coughs, incapaciting colds, and head lice from Bonnie in unfortunate happenstance encounters over the past two years, and Dr. Frist has certified that they have built up antibodies to her. Democrats, however, are expected to suffer and become unable to report for work long enough for the GOP to take advantage of their absence.

"And then the only issue would be whether we had a quorum," said Frist. "And when Dick Cheney is the Presiding Officer, well, a quorum is what we say it is."

The conservative organization Focus on the Family, which has been instrumental in forcing Republicans to wage the filibuster battle, supports the exploration of all "extreme" options, said Dr. James Dobson. "The ends definitely justify the means," said Dobson. "If it takes unethical and immoral acts to make this a more ethical America, then -- what are we waiting for?"
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The conservative organization Focus on the Family, which has been instrumental in forcing Republicans to wage the filibuster battle, supports the exploration of all "extreme" options, said Dr. James Dobson. "The ends definitely justify the means," said Dobson. "If it takes unethical and immoral acts to make this a more ethical America, then -- what are we waiting for?"