Samuelson and Mallaby are like mental broccoli--sometimes not enjoyable but it's still good for you to read wonks. For other Dems such as myself that think it's worthwhile to read thoughtful conservatives like Will, I'd also recommend David Keene's column on www.thehill.com. And I know most of my fellow partisans cannot stand Novak, but he has incredible access in GOP circles and some of his columns are really interesting.

JD - I think you are mischaractarizing Mallaby, but then I am not a libertarian. I believe there is a role for government in our society - consumer protection, environmental protection, etc. There are some problems that government has to tackle since no other entity can.

I like Mallaby's column and Robert Samuelson's as well. They tend to use statistical evidence to refute favored theorems of the right and the left. For this, they get excoriated regularly by both wings. I tend to think that anyone getting criticized by both right and left wingers must be on to something.

JD and Jim properly ask for toned down rhetoric here and I add that it should be obvious that "we" are not enemies and that freely exchanged ideas are the only ground upon which liberty thrives [this goes for Mike B., who has not-to-be-dismissed fears for the jobs of e.e.'s and computer software engineers; and Zouk, who has not-to-be-dismissed fears of weakness in the face of real enemies, as well as anyone else who calls names; and drindl and razor, who often have opposing views but call each other names and mischaracterize each other's views for the sake of an imagined audience, much like pols running for office].

I also want to add a word to "Che", who opens each day with multiple column-length pastes. This is not useful. For the curious among us [me, at least] a cite to a .url with a two sentence description from you would work. Your cite to the plans for the American Embassy in Bagdad was one I enjoyed at the .url - I could easily have missed it in your gratuitously lengthy quote. Please, show some restraint.

signed: very self-righteous this morning, I am.

Thanks Jim, I don't usually read Mallaby, he's a little off the deep end for a libertarian like myself. That is, I want gov out of my life, and he wants it everywhere in my life.

Still, I'll go check it out, thanks.

As for ' | ', so you don't like Will so you call him names. Very mature. Care to refute anything specific? No? Didn't think so.

'Thompson joined Sen. John McCain of Arizona in supporting campaign finance reform, an anti-Washington cause that was not popular with conservatives.

Thompson has been a senator, a lobbyist and a Washington lawyer going all the way back to Watergate, when he served as chief Republican counsel. But he runs as a Washington outsider. When he first ran for the Senate in 1994, Thompson wore a flannel shirt and drove a pick-up truck all over Tennessee, calling for term limits.'

biggest phony in the world. biggest insider in Dc, running as an 'outsider' -- right. Just like GW Bush, an 'outsider' whose father just happened to be president.

JD - I wholeheartedly agree with you that the vitriol from right and left in here is toxic and ultimately damaging. MikeB and Zouk are two good examples.

As for the World Bank, Sebastian Mallaby had a column a few days later refuting some of Will's points. Mallaby is a student of the bank and has written a book on it.

Read George Will? The man is a mummified gas bag...

'Construction of the U.S. embassy in Iraq, set to open in September, is projected to cost $592 million, with a staff of 1,000 people and operating costs totaling $1.2 billion a year. It will be a 104-acre complex, which is the size of approximately 80 football fields. On May 10, Sen. Patrick Leahy (D-VT) criticized the ballooning size and cost of the embassy in a hearing with Secretary of State Condoleezza Rice:

'Now, having said over and over again that we don't want to be seen as an occupying force in Iraq, we're building the largest embassy that we have -- probably the largest in the world -- in Baghdad. And it just seems to grow and grow and grow. ... We agree that we should focus our aid locally not in Baghdad, but we have 1,000 Americans at the embassy in Baghdad. You add the contractors and the local staff it comes to 4,000.'

The architectural firm designing the embassy, Berger Define Yaeger, has posted the designs for the colossus on its website. Some previews of the compound's planned swimming pool and tennis courts:

http://thinkprogress.org/2007/05/29/photos-embassy-iraq/

The complex "will include two office buildings, one of them designed for future use as a school, six apartment buildings, a gym, a pool, a food court and its own power generation and water-treatment plants."

The U.S. embassy is likely to create even greater Iraqi resentment toward the U.S. occupation. While Americans will be living in posh quarters, the citizens of Baghdad are forced to survive with just 5 hours of electricity a day. Baghdad was also recently rated the world's worst city in which to live.

UPDATE: The residence of the U.S. ambassador to Iraq will be 16,000 square feet. The deputy chief of mission in Iraq will have a "cozy cottage" measuring 9,500 square feet.

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http://www.kurdishaspect.com/doc053007DO.html

Turkey helps transport weapons for Hezbollah

Turkish media: Cargo train derailed by HPG (PKK) was transporting rockets from Iran to Syria

DozaMe.org

The Turkish cargo train with serial number 55555, which was attacked and derailed by HPG forces (PKK's armed wing) on May 25, was transporting 300 rockets from Iran to Syria, reports Turkey's biggest newspaper Hurriyet today.

The derailed train turned out to be transporting containers filled with rockets. The containers carrying the rockets had been filed as transporting construction materials and were rolled into Turkey at the border point in Van. The containers were then transported to Lake Van and from there with ferry boats to Tatvan in Bitlis province where they were loaded onto train 55555. The train was then to be transported to Malatya and then to Islahiye before transported into Syria at the Yolbasi border point in Gaziantep province.

HPG had derailed the Turkish cargo train 55555 close to Suveren in the Genc district of Bingol province of northern Kurdistan (southeastern Turkey) on May 25 at 08:00 (8.00 a.m.) EEST. The train was derailed with a remote-controlled bomb placed on the tracks.

HPG said in a statement relating to the derailing that they had had intelligence on the cargo train transporting weapons, but didn't indicate whether they had collected this intelligence themselves or been given it by someone else.

Turkish intelligence service MIT is now investigating the matter. The final destination of the rockets is believed to have been the Lebanese Hezbollah or Palestinian organizations according to Turkish media.

It was also reported that an Iranian cargo plane flying to Syria was forced down to the Turkish military airbase in Diyarbakir by Turkish authorities. The plane was claimed to have been searched by Turkish police and then allowed to continue the flight to Syria when nothing was found.

DozaMe.org reported in August 18 last year that Turkey was helping Iran smuggle weapons to Syria and the Lebanese Hezbollah through its Red Crescent organization.

PS, the World Bank needs to be dismantled, go read Will's piece on that in the WaPo from a couple weeks ago. It's way outlived its usefulness, and now exists as a monument to beauracracy and ever-growing government inertia.

MikeB, why not ease off on the vitriol, eh? Are there any, ANY, people in the Bush admin that you admire? Or does their mere affiliation with W poison them forever in your eyes?

I'm telling you, you people are so full of hate (both libs and cons), it will come back to haunt you some day. Relax. We're all Americans, we all want the same things: nice home, safe environment to raise kids, etc..

You can disagree with Bush policies all you want, but fanatics, buffoons, and ...TERRORISTS?

You need to seek help, bro.

MikeB: That is the thing you have gotten right in these past weeks. The dems have to try and stop some of this agenda, otherwise, with the SCOTUS in his pocket, it will take many, many years to repair the damage GW and company has done.

Wasn't this guy on the Enron board? Great past expireance. Really good guy. Was Ken Lay unavailable? OOOPpps sorry I forgot

Oh, please! Another "Bushie". Chris, go reqd any of the on-line articles on this nut job! He's a died in the wool Bushie and I wouldn't let him in my yard, much less place him in charge of the World Bank. If we're to have any chance at all of surviving these clodhoppers and baffoons, dangerous fanatics, and terrorists (and Bush and company ARE terrorists and it's time somebody said so), then we have to put some wind up the backs of our wobbly Congressmen and have them shut down these nitwits. Don't approve one piece of Bush legislation, not one nominee, nothing, make this turncoat a footnote in American history for the remainder of his term. This, I expect, is something everyone here would agree with.

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http://www.counterpunch.org/barry01142005.html

Rice's #2 at the State Department
Robert Zoellick: a Bush Family Man

By TOM BARRY

To what degree do neoconservatives and militarists control U.S. foreign policy? And how much influence do the less ideological figures like former National Security Adviser Condoleezza Rice have over President Bush?

Those were questions continually debated by foreign policy observers during last three years of the first Bush administration. And at the onset of Bushs second term, assessing the new ideological/realist balance in the foreign policy team is the main topic of Washingtons foreign policy community.

The presidents nomination of Condoleezza Rice and her selection of Robert Zoellick as her top deputy indicate that the ultra-hawks and neocon foreign policy revolutionaries wont completely dominate the second administration. Neither Rice nor Zoellick, who served as the U.S. Trade Representative during the first administration, are ideologues. But neither are they moderate conservatives. Only when compared with such figures as Rumsfeld and his deputies at the Pentagon, such as Paul Wolfowitz, Stephen Cambone, and Douglas Feith, could they be considered moderates.

Both Rice and Zoellick are nonideological foreign policy operatives who are not idealists or true believers. Rather they are realists who accept the neoconservative premise of U.S. global supremacy but want to wisely manage that power to further their notions of U.S. national security and interests.

At first glance, Zoellick could be mistaken for an ideologue, as an evangelist for free trade and a member of the neoconservative vanguard. But when his political trajectory is more closely observed, Zoellick is better understood as a can-do member of the Republican foreign policy elitea diplomat who always keeps his eye on the prize, namely the interests of Corporate America and U.S. global hegemony. Based on his record in the Bush Sr. administration and the current Bush presidency, Zoellick is highly regarded as an astute dealmaker.

Rices surprise selection of Zoellick was greeted with an almost palpable sense of relief inside Washingtons foreign policy circles. The great fear, outside the neoconservative and militarist camps, was that Cheney and company would insist that the shrill unilateralist John Bolton, current undersecretary for arms control, serve as Rices deputy.

Zoellicks Track Record

Robert Zoellick, who enjoys long-distance running, has a long track record in the economic policy and diplomatic affairs of Republican administrations since the late 1980s. During the second Reagan administration, Zoellick, who began his career as a Harvard-educated lawyer, served as a special assistant at the Treasury Department. During the Bush Sr. administration, Zoellick became a key figure shaping post-Cold War economic policy as a senior officer in both the Treasury and State Departments and a personal adviser to the elder Bush.

While serving in the Bush Sr. administration, Zoellick was instrumental in sealing the NAFTA accord with Mexico. When the negotiations hit a rough spot, Zoellick served as a special assistant to President Bush in his relations with President Salinas of Mexico and managed to keep jump-start the stalled negotiations. As an indicator of the degree that U.S. foreign policy in the 1990s increasingly became focused on global economic policy, Zoellick, while serving as a counselor at the State Department and Under Secretary of State for Economics, played a key role in launching the Asia Pacific Economic Cooperation forum. In recognition for this achievement, Zoellick received the Distinguished Service Award, the State Departments highest honor.

Zoellick shuttled all over the world during the Bush Sr. administration to promote U.S. global economic policy. Before the founding of the World Trade Organization, Zoellick was the Bush administrations top negotiator with the European Union at a time when the Uruguay Round of multilateral trade negotiations was blocked by U.S.-European differences over agricultural trade liberalization. He helped break the logjam by forging the Blair House Accord, which helped save the foundering Uruguay Round. Among other functions in his role as the roving ambassador for the U.S. free trade agenda, Zoellick was the administrations sherpa at the G-7 summits in 1991 and 1992.

His reputation of an Atlanticist was secured during the Bush administration when he persuaded the U.S. government to support the reunification of West and East Germany. According to the New York Times: He is most widely remembered in foreign policy circles for being the United States representative at the multiparty negotiation over the future of divided Germany. He persuaded the Bush administration to embrace German unity despite the qualms of allies and alarm in the former Soviet Union.

Zoellick is highly respected on Wall Street and by Corporate America at large. Not only a highly effective government representative of U.S. capital, Zoellick has benefited from direct personal ties with the U.S. financial community and transnational corporations. He has directly worked in the highest echelons of the U.S. corporate community, including serving as an executive at Goldman Sachs. Before joining the Bush Jr. administration as a cabinet official in the capacity of the U.S. Trade Representative, Zoellick served on an advisory council at the Enron Corporation. In addition, Zoellick also served on the boards of such corporations as Alliance Capital, Jones Intercable, Said Holdings, and the Precursor Group.

A protÈgÈ of James Baker, who served as treasury secretary during the Reagan administration and secretary of state during the Bush Sr. administration, Zoellick has close ties to the Bush family. He was an adviser to Governor George W. Bush and served as a foreign policy adviser to presidential candidate Bush.

A New Republican Foreign Policy

Zoellicks essay in Foreign Affairs in January 2000, entitled Campaign 2000: A Republican Foreign Policy, highlighted Zoellicks grasp of the radical new foreign policy directions that would come with a Bush Jr. administration. Zoellick faulted the Clinton administration for focusing too narrowly on economic policy and for promoting social and environmental clauses within free trade organizations, as Clinton did at the outset of the WTO ministerial in Seattle. He spelled out a new foreign policy that would be based on the preeminence of military powera concept of a new American century in which unquestioned U.S. military superiority would allow the United States to shape the international order.

Zoellick was perhaps the first Bush associate to introduce the concept of evil into the construct of Bushs radical overhaul of U.S. grand strategy. A year before Bush was inaugurated, Zoellick wrote: A modern Republican foreign policy recognizes that there is still evil in the worldpeople who hate America and the ideas for which it stands. Today, we face enemies who are hard at work to develop nuclear, biological, and chemical weapons, along with the missiles to deliver them. The United States must remain vigilant and have the strength to defeat its enemies. People driven by enmity or by a need to dominate will not respond to reason or goodwill. They will manipulate civilized rules for uncivilized ends.

Although regarded as a pragmatic promoter of U.S. economic interests, Zoellick has an idealist streak that also aligns him with the neoconservatives. In his Foreign Affairs article, Zoellick points to the need for a foreign policy that recognizes the appeal of the countrys ideas are unparalleled, and points favorably to the idealism of presidents Theodore Roosevelt and Woodrow Wilson in promoting their visions of an international order based on their visions of Americas transformational role in world history.

Zoellicks Foreign Affairs essay was a companion piece to another predictive about new directions in foreign policy by Secretary of State-designate Condoleezza Rice. Zoellick worked alongside Rice in the National Security Council in the Bush Sr. administration.

In 1998 Zoellick joined a group of neoconservatives and militarists, many of whom would later form the upper ranks of George W. Bushs foreign policy teams, in signing statements of the neocon Project for the New American Century (PNAC). The statements among other things called for increased military budgets and a policy of regime change in Iraq.

Coalition of the Liberalizers

The Senate unanimously confirmed Zoellick as USTR in 2001, and it is expected that his nomination as deputy secretary of state will also receive strong bipartisan support. Although Zoellick failed to seal a Free Trade of Americas Agreement during his tenure as USTR, he won respect among the corporate community for his role in gaining bipartisan support for Bushs request for trade promotion authority, also know as fast-track authority because it reduces the role of congressional and public review of new free trade pacts.

When it comes to global economic policy, Zoellick is not a free trade ideologue or a committed advocate of the World Trade Organization (WTO). Instead, he regards free trade philosophy and free trade agreements as instruments of U.S. national interests. When the principles of free trade affect U.S. short-term interests or even the interests of political constituencies, Zoellick is more a mercantilist and unilateralist than free trader or multilateralist.

Zoellick coined the phrase the coalition of the liberalizers prior to the failed WTO ministerial in September 2003. Thats what Zoellick called the group of countries that have joined the United States in bilateral or regional trade pacts. In the face of mounting opposition from Brazil and other developing nations to the U.S. global economy agenda, USTR Zoellick began forging a coalition of trade partners that agree to open their markets and protect U.S. investment in order to ensure coveted access to the huge U.S. market.

In early 2003 Zoellick outlined a free trade strategy that anticipated rising opposition to Washingtons liberalization agenda. Instead of committing itself to making the compromises necessary to completing another negotiating round in the WTO, the Bush administration announced that it would pursue its agenda through free trade agreements (FTAs) with single nations or subregional groupings. Our FTA partners are the vanguard of a new global coalition of open markets, declared Zoellick.

At the beginning of the Bush administration, the United States had FTAs with only a few nations, including Canada, Israel, and Mexico. However, once Congress in 2002 gave the executive branch Trade Promotion Authoritythe go-ahead to pursue fast-track trade negotiationsthe Office of the U.S. Trade Representative launched free trade initiatives around the world outside of the WTO. Zoellick took the lead in negotiating the Central America Free Trade Agreement (CAFTA) in May 2004. That same month the USTR announced the start of bilateral trade negotiations with Colombia, Ecuador, and Peru (and possibly Bolivia) as part of the planned U.S.-Andean Trade Agreement as well as the beginning of free trade negotiations with Panama.

Zoellick termed his free trade strategy one of competitive liberalization. By establishing numerous bilateral and regional agreements outside the WTO, the United States hopes to undermine opposition to its aggressive liberalizing agenda and weaken developing country demands for U.S. market access, subsidy reduction, and Special Treatment in the WTO. In a July 10, 2003 op-ed in the Wall Street Journal the administrations trade czar clearly articulated the U.S. global trade and investment strategy. Zoellick explained that under WTO consensus procedures, one nation can block progress in extending economic liberalization to new areas. Explaining that Washington can pursue its liberalization agenda outside the WTO, Zoellick warned: It would be a grave mistake to permit any one country to veto Americas drive for global free trade.

Although other nations remain committed to a multilateral forum and universal trade rules, Zoellick signaled that Washington was willing to proceed unilaterally. He predicted, The WTOs influence will wane if it comes to embody a new dependency theory of trade, blaming developed countries... Seeing the recalcitrance of many developing countries to approve new trade and investment rules, the Bush administration has adopted a my way or the highway approach to global economy issues. This unilateral posture with respect to trade and investment rules mirrors its unilateralism in foreign and military policy.

The day the WTO talks broke down in Cancun, the USTR said that the wont do countries had won the day over the can do countries. Referring to the developing country coalitions that had come together to block the must-do agenda of Washington and the EU, Zoellick issued a veiled threat to the multilateral process: Were going to keep opening markets one way or another, he said.

The Bush administrations decision to raise agricultural subsidies by $80 billion in the 2002 farm bill underscored the charges that the United States is a free trade hypocrite. But protectionism and subsidies have political payoffs. When Zoellick returned from the failed Cancun talks, he was praised by leaders of the American Farm Bureau Federation for not budging on the issue of farm subsidies. This hypocrisy galls many developing countries, who see their competitively priced exports blocked by U.S. protectionism while at the same time heavily subsidized U.S. exports flow into their own domestic markets.

The USTR relentlessly pressured other nations, particularly poorer ones, to liberalize their economies. For itself, however, free trade serves more as a battering ram to knock down national barriers to U.S. trade and investment than a universal principle.

In a speech to the right-wing Heritage Foundation in Washington, Zoellick made the case that there is no alternative to globalization and that U.S. companies and consumers were already benefiting in countless ways from this new wave of corporate-led economic integration. To drive his point home about all the new opportunities, Zoellick noted: Even the funeral business has gone global, with a Houston-based company now selling funeral plots in 20 countries.

Neoconservative-Realist Balance in New Bush Administration

The selection of Rice and Zoellick to direct the State Department points to President Bushs determination to consolidate his foreign policy team. Although Rice and Zoellick are not blazing hawks like Rumsfeld, Cheney, and Wolfowitz, they are loyalists and hardliners when it comes to promoting U.S. military supremacy and corporate economic interests. Set to replace Colin Powell and his deputy Richard Armitage, Rice and Zoellick can be counted on for reducing frictions within the foreign policy apparatus and seeking more policy coherence with the Pentagon and Cheneys office.

Part of that policy coherence was expressed by Zoellick in the aftermath of the September 11th attacks when he conflated his free trade initiatives with the war on terrorism. Now we have a clear enemy who is not only trying to do us great damage, but is also trying to terrorize us to paralyze us by terrorizing us, said Zoellick. The terrorists deliberately chose the World Trade towers as their target. While their blow toppled the towers, it cannot and will not shake the foundation of world trade and freedom. Our response has to counter fear and panic, and counter it with free trade.

This coherence was also on exhibit during a speech by Zoellick at the Institute for International Economics in 2003, when he linked economic agreements with political adherence to U.S. foreign policy. The U.S. seeks cooperationor betteron foreign policy and security. Given that the U.S. has international interests beyond trade, why not try to urge people to support our overall policies? Negotiating a free trade agreement with the U.S. is not something one has a right to doits a privilege.

Although not part of the new rights militarist and neoconservative camps, Zoellicks personal arrogance, his unilateralism, and his loyalty to Bush and the Republican Partys new radical elite make him a perfect fit for Bushs new foreign policy team.

Tom Barry is policy director of the International Relations Center, online at and author of numerous books on international relations.

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http://onlinejournal.com/artman/publish/article_2009.shtml

Has John McCain turned into a political has-been?

By Ben Tanosborn
Online Journal Contributing Writer

Less than two months after the senior senator from Arizona, John Sidney McCain III, of noble military lineage and great matrimonial wealth, announced informally on The Late Show with David Letterman that he was seeking the Republican presidential nomination for 2008, he can be considered toast . . . burnt toast. Well, that's my early prediction.

McCain running a distant second in the Republican race in most polls -- after Giuliani -- is no reason to discard his candidacy. His absurd pro-war stance is, however, leaving him standing at the post against both Giuliani and at least three or four Democrats.

And a good thing that is! For if there is one thing this nation can ill afford, it's another dubious Dubya . . . with comparable lackluster brainpower, similar lack of curiosity or knowledge, and a parallel strong affection for war!

Thanks but no thanks. America has had enough royalty at the White House for this century and it doesn't need another Bush, which is exactly what the nation would get from an individual for whom straight talk signifies but a slogan written on a campaign bus, a PR way to seduce independent voters and the media. McCain did succeed in 2000 presenting himself as a moderate Republican and sort of a maverick, and did have much of the press ready to pimp for his candidacy, had it not been cut short because of the dirty tricks Bush's handlers pulled on him. But trying to revive the romance this year, after a series of faux pas (political as well as social), has failed to resuscitate the type of commentary delivered by an enamored press of seven years before.

McCain's standing against torture, although commendable, is just not an issue in and of itself that can elevate him to a position of presidential contention. Nor his used, reused and forever recycled hero status as a prisoner of war in North Vietnam. The udder of such a POW fete has been milked dry with nary a drop left, whether he knows it or not.

His loss of stature is not based on his inbred tendency to insult; whether jokes in bad taste -- comment on Chelsea Clinton's looks comes to mind -- or racial slurs, "gook" being a term he has constantly used. He certainly does not appear as a sensitive or forgiving individual by even an overreach of anyone's imagination.

Nor has his popularity diminished because of any new discoveries on the Savings and Loan scandal of the late 80s, and his relationship with Charles Keating. After all, the Senate ethics committee exonerated (or whitewashed) his and Sen. John Glenn's participation in the affair, although the other three senators investigated paid their dues. Heroes must remain heroes, one guesses, since there seem to be few to draw from.

Neither should we believe for a minute that his standing has suffered because of his age, which would potentially make him the oldest president ever to be inaugurated at 72; or his health, and bouts with malignant melanoma; or his lack of the all important physical attribute for male politicians in the United States: hair.

And McCain's poorest-among-poor standing at Annapolis (he graduated in 1958 895th in a class of 900 -- fifth from the bottom) would not faze voting Americans; after all they will tell you, he had to be smart enough to be admitted to the Naval Academy, notwithstanding the fact that his father and grandfather, admirals both, were alumni . . . and that acceptance in most of "these cases" is simply a formality.

But where McCain lost credibility, as legislator and presidential contender, occurred during those town hall meetings a few weeks back when he couldn't even answer the simplest of questions about pending or past legislation on Social Security, Medicare, etc., deferring the answers to his staff at the end of the meetings. If anything, that display of ignorance spoke volumes as to his competency, although little commentary was made on this topic in the mainstream press, other than in those locales where the meetings took place.

His two exposures to ridicule this month have really exacted a toll; and if his candidacy was suffering an acute illness before, it's now ready to enter the ICU wing of the Public Opinion Hospital. Exposing his lack of gray matter with his statements certifying "that a great level of public safety exists in Baghdad," seen by millions in CBS' TV magazine "60 Minutes" and cartooned to death in the printed and online press, tops in idiocy the myriad dumb things he has done throughout his political career; and his deranged follow-up last week at Virginia Military Institute on bombing Iran, something which he did in a sardonic way, couldn't have helped much. His "let's nuke them" choir was no doubt happy to hear that, but that's not what moderate America wants to hear.

Perhaps Americans should be thankful that a "unity ticket" of Kerry-McCain did not come about in 2004 -- offer of the vice-presidential spot was purportedly made by Kerry but turned down by McCain -- or the entire nation might have been tagged by the world as a warmongering monster. At least now both the nation and the world can selectively blame the entire mess in the Middle East on George W. Bush and his gang of neocons.

I will not examine those things many question in him such as his lack of honesty and integrity, or his blatant hypocrisy. My contention is simply that he is totally incompetent to lead this nation, and that he is first and foremost a man of war, not peace -- a carbon copy of the man now occupying the White House . . . brains and heart. America certainly doesn't need a Bush-replica continuing to endanger an already fragile world order.

It won't be long now before McCain's presidential ambitions are laid to rest marked by an appropriate R.I.W. (Rest In War) instead of an R.I.P. (Rest In Peace).

© 2007 Ben Tanosborn
Ben Tanosborn, columnist, poet and writer, resides in Vancouver, Washington (USA), where he is principal of a business consulting firm. Contact him at ben@tanosborn.com.