Last night I had a dream that Mrs. Chuck Z and I were on a car trip to go meet the president. I woke up before I ever saw him, which was disappointing because I wonder what my subconscious would've cooked up to say to him.

So this morning, I was thinking about what I'd say if I had a few seconds to meet the president.

I think what I would like to say is to assure him that we're not a military family in distress. He gets all his info from the media too, so I'm sure he's heard that families are falling apart and that everyone blames him. But my husband and I feel very supported, very appreciated, and very in control of our destiny. We're not blaming anyone for where we are in life.

When we left the hospital the other day, my husband commented on how many resources there were for expecting families: classes, exercise groups, brochures, tours of the birthing unit, and all of it is free. The Army does so much for us and has so much to provide. We consider ourselves lucky to have such a support system behind us in everything we do.

So if I had a few seconds to greet the president, I would want him to know that we're happy, that we love this life, and that he doesn't need to attribute any of his grey hairs to us!

Posted by: Sarah at 04:55 AM | Comments (4) | Add Comment
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1 congrats to sarah russ and charlie! we are so happy for you. all that stuff at the hospital though, isnt free. you guys work very hard for those things. those are benefits of the jobs that you do. the army does have a lot of support above and beyond what most employers do. being in the army is not an easy job by far, but can be very rewarding. best wishes for you with your family. its a wild ride from here on out. patty

Posted by: patty at November 06, 2007 07:29 AM (4eMuD)

2 I agree. That is one reason why we are heading back to Active Duty after 11 years. We love it and it loves us.

Posted by: Reasa at November 06, 2007 11:06 AM (vdL8w)

3 what's the point of believing in the 2nd amendment if you support bush?

Posted by: Will at November 06, 2007 11:46 PM (JzKuA)

4 Honestly, Will, I don't understand how your brain works. Explain to me why they're mutally exclusive.

Posted by: Sarah at November 07, 2007 04:46 AM (TWet1)

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I thought John Kerry's "Service for College" program was pretty silly. I thought John Edwards' "Get Ahead Accounts" were stepping over the line. But Hillary Clinton's Throwing Money Around Like We Can Just Print More plan is really infuriating.

Democratic presidential candidate Hillary Rodham Clinton said Friday that every child born in the United States should get a $5,000 "baby bond" from the government to help pay for future costs of college or buying a home.

Clinton, her party's front-runner in the 2008 race, made the suggestion during a forum hosted by the Congressional Black Caucus.

"I like the idea of giving every baby born in America a $5,000 account that will grow over time, so that when that young person turns 18 if they have finished high school they will be able to access it to go to college or maybe they will be able to make that downpayment on their first home," she said.

Obviously it would be irresponsible to suggest this to voters before she's had a chance to sit down and crunch the numbers, right?

The New York senator did not offer any estimate of the total cost of such a program or how she would pay for it. Approximately 4 million babies are born each year in the United States.

Oh. She's just speaking out of her ass then.

Clinton said such an account program would help people get back to the tradition of savings that she remembers as a child, and has become harder to accomplish in the face of rising college and housing costs.

One way of building a stronger economy, she said, is "more savings, starting with the so-called baby bonds idea where every person born in this country would be given that kind of account because we want to make an investment in America's young people."

The savings you remember as a child? Yeah, your parents did that. Not the government. Your parents made do without new SUVs and plasma TVs until they had a plan for their children's future. My parents put aside a little bit of money for us to have when we grew up -- heck, not nearly as much as Clinton suggests the government should give -- and never touched it, even when they desperately could've used it. They sacrificed so their children could have a good start as adults. All Hillary's crappy plan would do is prevent parents from doing any saving for their kids because the government would just do it for them. Why forego that ATV for the kids when the government's got their future covered?

There's nothin' like a Democrat plan to keep people hooked on government.

But there's really no point in getting worked up over this. Just like all those other stupid plans, this one will disappear. It just really irks me that she brings this up in public to get votes, knowing full well it will never happen.

Posted by: Sarah at 08:34 AM | Comments (9) | Add Comment
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Last night we watched The Last King of Scotland, and I was so disgusted at the end of the movie that I lost sleep over it. Yes, I know the story portrayed is fiction, but Idi Amin was most certainly real.

What disgusts me the most is that there are rulers out there like Amin, yet people persist in calling President Bush evil. Have we no sense of evil? People in North Korea are eating children, but some American citizens can't stand to be associated with the American flag.

Google gets 1,850,000 hits for "George Bush evil" but only 178,000 for "Idi Amin evil." 65,700 for Arafat; 623,000 for Kim Jong-Il; and 264,000 for Mugabe.

We make me sick.

Posted by: Sarah at 06:23 AM | Comments (3) | Add Comment
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I too need to be reminded of these moments: The President Bush You Like

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I had a moment yesterday where I was confronted with the fact that I am indeed a crazy person. Some of you know how obsessed I am with thank you cards, but to me it seems like completely normal behavior to thank a person who's done something nice for you. And I promise you I didn't think anything of it until my husband cracked up at me for walking towards the mailbox with a thank you card for President Bush. He was nice enough to send us a DVD speech, so he deserves a thank you, right? That doesn't seem normal to you? The look on my husband's face was priceless.

I swear I never even stopped to think about whether I should send him a card or not. The only hard decision was choosing which stationery seemed the most...presidential. Yep, I'm nuts.

Posted by: Sarah at 04:00 AM | Comments (3) | Add Comment
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There's an argument going on at Political Radar over Hillary Clinton's qualifications for being president. I thought this comment by "colin" was spot-on:

Yeah it would be nice to have a woman be our President. But we cheapen the historical significance of such an event by putting our hands over our eyes to the weaknesses of a female presidential candidate just so we have a skirt at the podium with the seal of the President of the United States.

That's how Halle Berry won an Oscar, and it's the driving force behind affirmative action. When you pick someone based on anything other than his actual qualifications, you are screwing up. Who wants a token for a president?

Posted by: Sarah at 03:07 AM | Comments (4) | Add Comment
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OK, let's give Kerry the benefit of the doubt here and assume he was trying to make fun of President Bush instead of the troops. So what's the joke then? Study hard, kids, so one day you will grow up to be...not as dumb as the President of the United States? What kind of joke is that? Don't parents usually urge kids to study so they don't have to flip burgers, not so they won't become flipping President of the United States and make a decision that über-liberal senators disagree with? Good lord, one would hope that a presidential candidate would show more respect for the office of the presidency than that. I think it's foolhardy to send the message to young people that the president is someone to mock and jeer. As if young people these days could get more disrespectful of adults; Kerry doesn't need to fuel that fire.

Not to mention that the joke doesn't work very well, considering Bush and Kerry got roughly the same grades in college. And Kerry's wife doesn't even know what chili is. Let's not call any kettles black here.

MORE TO GROK:

WhoÂ’s the real flunky? Someone tell Kerry itÂ’s not military via RofaSix

MORE:

Hahahahha. You HAVE to click on this photo from Iraq...

Posted by: Sarah at 05:48 AM | Comments (7) | Add Comment
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I happened to be flipping channels this morning and saw Santorum talking about the sarin shells that have been found in Iraq. It's not exactly a fat man and little boy pointed straight at NYC, but it's something at least worth talking about. The Fox and Friends people asked Santorum why Bush isn't shouting this from the rooftops, and he said that the White House is no longer interested in debating the reason we went to war in the first place. And the Fox people simply reamed the president. They said that he has a duty to discuss this because most of the country is still discussing it, and that since we as a country are paying for this war, we deserve to still talk about the reason it happened. They went off, and I think they have a point.

I personally believe that history will be on President Bush's side. No one liked Lincoln at the time, but now he's the only president many people can name, and I have a feeling that history could treat Bush similarly. But sometimes I get annoyed that he seems to be sitting back and letting history take her sweet time. 500 sarin shells isn't all we expected Iraq to have, but I think the American public needs to know it was found. Santorum shouldn't have to go on a crusade to present information that most Americans would be interested in hearing. I don't think it should be a "ha, we told you so" revelation, but the info should be put out there. I think those Fox people were right: much of the country is still quite wrapped up in the WMD debate, and they need all the facts in order to hold informed opinions. And this fact somewhat justifies the president; I have no idea why he wouldn't want to put it out there.

But what I don't understand could fill a warehouse.

Posted by: Sarah at 03:13 AM | Comments (8) | Add Comment
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My husband and I watched part of the Coretta Scott King funeral last night and were completely shocked at what a political rally it became. We missed what President Bush had said because we tuned in right as Pres. Carter started speaking. We were both disgusted at his references to wiretapping and Hurricane Katrina. And the icing on the cake was when he snubbed President Bush and wouldn't even shake his hand. He came off as a real asshole, pardon my language. Pres. Bush 41 was witty and uplifting. Pres. Clinton naturally was a compelling speaker, but we were both a bit surprised at how overtly religious his speech was. I always have the feeling that Pres. Bush is the same man in public as behind closed doors, but Pres. Clinton seems to be whoever is needed at the moment. I guess that's a normal quality for a politician to have, but I don't necessarily think it's an endearing quality. And then Hillary Clinton spoke: did anyone else think it was a bit creepy that she focused so much on Coretta standing by her man? Somehow I think it's weird to see the Clintons at a podium talking about strength in marriage. Maybe it's just me.

Overall the whole thing was weird and completely un-funeral-like. I did like what Pres. Clinton had to say, reminding us all that Coretta Scott King was a woman and not just a symbol. I thought the whole thing was a bit smarmy, using this poor woman's death as a chance to reach out to the black community, as if every politician there were saying "see, look at me, I care about black people."

And once again, President Bush has to sit there and smile while everyone blames him for war, racism, and poverty. The man is a saint to take so much abuse with such grace. I'd've punched Carter in the flippin' mouth.

Posted by: Sarah at 05:04 AM | Comments (19) | Add Comment
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I didn't see this particular reporter badger Laura Bush, but I did see some other reporter (don't remember her name or which network) annoy Mrs. Bush in front of the White House Christmas tree. I must say that Mrs. Bush is the height of class. This reporter asked her if President Bush is feeling nervous this Christmas because of Rove and Libby; Mrs. Bush deflected all of her family's complaints, saying that any Christmas is hard when we're at war and when loved ones are far. She refused to let the reporter bug her about politics and kept returning to praise of our troops and their families. I thought it was touching, but maybe Jessica Yellin took it as an invitation to talk Iraq and try to make Mrs. Bush look heartless. What a low blow.

Posted by: Sarah at 06:21 AM | Comments (1) | Add Comment
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Daily Kos said that Hurricane Katrina was worse than 9/11. I believe Charles Johnson is right in saying that some people want nothing more than to downplay what happened to our country that day. There's no comparison between 9/11 and a natural disaster.

Look into this man's eyes. He flew an airplane into a building in a calculated and deliberate attempt to kill as many Americans as possible. He worked hard, studied hard, and trained to attack the United States and leave death in his wake. He is a monster and a nothing.

To intentionally compare what he did on that infamous September morn to what happened in New Orleans is beyond my comprehension. Deliberate murder is not really the same as dropping the ball during a natural disaster. There will be time yet for a hundred visions and revisions once the chaos of Hurricane Katrina has subsided, but right now people need to focus more on working for the present and future instead of pointing fingers into the past.

Unfortunately, this poor man is once again being blamed for everything. The way some people are jawing, you'd think President Bush borrowed Halle Berry's white wig and conjured up a big storm to try to kill him some black people. Or that if he'd only signed Kyoto as zee Germans told him he should, the hurricane would've been avoided. News flash: President Bush is not to blame for everything bad that happens in this world.

Varifrank wonders why anyone in his right mind would ever, ever, ever want to be president. President Bush acts pre-emptively and he's blasted for not waiting on the UN. He waits for his advisors on Katrina and he's blasted for not acting quickly enough. Last time he was suppsed to drop My Pet Goat and run into the burning buildings himself. And then sit around and wait for Hans Blix for another few years. And apparently now he should've immediately flown down to Louisiana with "a hundred helicopters dumping concrete blocks, crushed cars, barges, and anything else they could get, into the breach" to save the day.

What happened in New Orleans is terrible: Mother Nature can be a bitch, no doubt. But the only thing that Katrina has in common with 9/11 is that neither of them were President Bush's fault.

As Ben Stein says, Get Off His Back.

MORE TO GROK:

Porretto also said it better than I could:

I applaud DubyaÂ’s election, re-election, and his overall performance in office because I am persuaded, by everything IÂ’ve learned about his conduct, both in full view of the cameras and in less well publicized settings, that he is an honest man. He says what he means, to the best of his ability to express it, and does what he says heÂ’ll do, to the best of his ability to do it. The probability that his successor will be as honest and responsible is vanishingly small; consider the list of candidates for his position and see if you can disagree.

Yet this honest, sincere, remarkably generous and gentle man, who rose against savage opposition to the most powerful, most scrutinized, most pressured office on Earth, is subject to carping from all sides. Some of it is more vicious than any American public figure has ever endured. Some of it is based, not on his actual conduct, efforts, or results, but on his criticsÂ’ dislike of his priorities. And some of it, tragically, is emanating from the very persons who claim to hold those priorities themselves.

Posted by: Sarah at 06:56 AM | Comments (20) | Add Comment
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Our president grieves.

Posted by: Sarah at 05:54 AM | No Comments | Add Comment
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Dear President Bush,

Please stop doing stuff and things that make me not like you.

Sincerely,
Sarah

Posted by: Sarah at 10:14 AM | Comments (5) | Add Comment
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My in-laws are visiting, so I haven't been sitting at the computer much. This weekend we went to Nuremburg and spent some time at the Dokumentationszentrum Reichsparteitagsgelande, which is a heck of a name for the Nazi Party Rally Grounds. To be honest, besides a few details, we didn't learn much at the museum, but I did get to see footage of Nazi rallies and photos of Hitler's adoring crowds. And walking through the museum, I couldn't help but think of the travesty that is modern comparison. Googling "Bush Hitler" brings 2,140,000 hits, including a website that tracks Bush=Hitler comments. ("Saddam Hitler" only brings a third as many hits, despite the fact that if we have to compare someone to Hitler, as all are wont to do these days, Saddam fits much nicer in my eyes.) And seeing things like this t-shirt and this German website about how much Bush is like Hitler make me absolutely sick. Even worse are the websites where people claim that Hitler was better than Bush.

As I walked through that museum, I grew angry at both the past and at the present. But time revealed the true horrors of 1930s Germany, just as I believe time will vindicate the early 2000s someday. I just wish we didn't have to wait that long.

Posted by: Sarah at 04:02 AM | Comments (4) | Add Comment
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I've been avoiding the computer because it makes me too sad, but I know Bunker would've been one of the first people to tell me to get back in the saddle. It's just depressing when I scan my list of links and momentarily think "oh, I wonder if Bunker's written anything new?" and then the lump in my throat returns. But something caught my eye that I wanted to write about, so I'm gonna cowboy up and keep blogging.

John Kerry is stupid.

Well, I mean, if everyone is going to say that President Bush is stupid, then they should say the same about Kerry because they had the same grades in college. Actually, it appears that Kerry's are maybe even a shade worse, so it's no wonder he didn't release these records until after the campaign.

If Bush is a moron, what does that make Kerry?

MORE TO GROK:

Kerry is also a dog.

Posted by: Sarah at 12:48 PM | Comments (12) | Add Comment
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1 If GWB was into alcohol (and supposedly, maybe drugs) in college, and got the same grades - what does that say about Kerry, too?! Glad to see you overcoming your sadness - in a way, think of it as a tribute to Bunker when you write :-)

Posted by: Barb at June 07, 2005 06:02 PM (hF0Vm)

2 Making these sorts of arguments really makes you look bad. Bush was never blamed for his stupidity due to his grades, he was blamed for his stupidity for his poor diction, his appearance (he makes a lot of facial gestures that really do look dumb), is blamed for being stupid for of making many decisions that some disagreee with (as it is with others they don't agree with), is blamed for being stupid since he wears his religion on his sleeve, and is blamed for being stupid because his responses to questions often are nearly incoherent. It would be easy to argue with a number of those reasons listed - appearances can be deceptive, most of the great minds of history were religious men, etc. I don't agree with most of those points above (though he really is bad at answering questions without a script), I an just listing them as the actual reasons Bush is accused of being dumb. Talking about grades is a red herring. At best you inadvertently used a debater's trick, at worst you were deliberately abusing cheap debater's tricks to score a political point. Whatever the case, the argument is disengenuous, and if you want to address people's criticism's of Bush, you should work on addressing the actual reasons, not making straw-man arguments. It doesn't matter what side of a debate you are on, abusing reason brings the discourse down, and it the opposite of trying to 'grok'.

Posted by: VOT at June 07, 2005 07:03 PM (BUIek)

3 At least Bush was smart enough to not embrace avowed enemies of his country.

Posted by: Walter E. Wallis at June 07, 2005 09:44 PM (zJ4Tq)

4 My analysis of the "Kerry is smarter" assertion here: http://photoncourier.blogspot.com/2004_09_01_photoncourier_archive.html#109422760433909117

Posted by: David Foster at June 08, 2005 01:33 AM (7TmYw)

5 Sheesh! You got some rather defensive reactions, didn't you, Sarah? I just wanted to say that I'm glad you're back! And I think you're right about Bunker wanting it this way.

Posted by: Dave at June 08, 2005 10:21 AM (c6xQA)

6 Kerry isn't a dog. He's a Munster. As to Bush, I do recall his grades being quoted as proof that he was stupid, and not simply his bucolic speech. Tell you what, though, quoting his speech as proof of his lack of intelligence pissed me off to no end and showed that the left was populated by elitist bigots who look down their noses at average joes, such as myself. Kalroy

Posted by: Kalroy at June 08, 2005 11:30 PM (9RG5y)

7 I note that VOT has not correctly punctuated his sentences - note "people's criticism's." There's one extra possessive there, VOT. Also, you left out a verb in your last sentence. Regardless of your grades, your poor grammar skills lead me to believe that you are an idiot. I can only guess what your facial expressions reveal. Kerry is an idiot. You can base that on grades, facial tics and licks, or run-on sentences. He's not Lurch from the Munsters, more Mr. Howell on Gilligan's Island - a lockjaw, 'sophisticated' loser.

Posted by: Oda Mae at June 09, 2005 11:37 AM (iZBrs)

8 Oda, I never said a thing about what grades I got in school, nor is it relevant. It looks like you didn't understand my actual point. Instead you went nitpicking about typos, and then dropped ad hominem attacks. My point was that Sarah wasn't addressing the reasons why the Leftists call Bush dumb, and that we should be addressing their actual points instead of setting up a straw man. Finally, I was saying that Bush *wasn't* dumb. When you came along and posited that facial expressions really do indicate intelligence, you just added credence to the Bush bashers point.

Posted by: VOT at June 09, 2005 05:56 PM (axdvp)

9 Well if Oda Mae can not remember that "Lurch" was a character on "The Addams Family" , and not "The Munsters", we must call her intellect in to question. ;-)

Posted by: Bubba Bo Bob Brain at June 09, 2005 09:20 PM (aHbua)

10 VOT -- I think it's revisionist to say that "Bush was never blamed for his stupidity due to his grades", because that argument has come up numerous times. One can't just say that grades aren't important now that it's been shown Kerry and Gore have the same grades. I did some googling and quickly found some instances of Bush's grades being cited in articles about how stupid he is. (I'm sure if I dug harder, I could find even more.) See here, here, Molly Ivins' book Shrub, and here, where I hope this writer is eating major crow, since last year he said, "Does anyone in America doubt that Kerry has a higher IQ than Bush? I'm sure their SATs and college transcripts would put Kerry far ahead." It was always assumed that Kerry was smarter than Bush, and, yes, Bush's mediocre grades were used to justify that statement. I'm aware the fact that he "looks like a chimp" is also used, but don't pretend that Bush haters didn't eat up his college transcript.

Posted by: Sarah at June 10, 2005 02:43 AM (gemCS)

11 Hey Sarah, I followed those links. You are correct. I was incorrect. Now that I think about it, I recall that it came up more around 2000, and when Gore's grades came out the question of grades suddenly was dropped.

Posted by: VOT at June 10, 2005 12:57 PM (axdvp)

12 I know it's just one excuse of many, but it is used as one

Posted by: Sarah at June 11, 2005 02:01 AM (T0QKb)

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Today is Presidents' Day. I love all of the men who have taken on the burden of leading our country, but today I especially think of the current president, the man who would rather be right than be popular.

Thank you, President Bush. I hope you have a great day.

Posted by: Sarah at 03:56 AM | Comments (1) | Add Comment
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Seems the mayor of Baghdad wants to erect a statue of President Bush. I could go for that. I think he deserves a statue that's not made of paper mache or burning in effigy.

Posted by: Sarah at 03:08 AM | Comments (1) | Add Comment
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There's lots of pissing and moaning in my office today about the inauguration. I'm really not in the mood for it today, and I'm getting really anxious to get the hell out of this office. I can tell how ready I am by the way I am forcing myself not to swear like a sailor.

This is the only thing I want to hear about that stupid inauguration today:
The 16th Second Inaugural

Posted by: Sarah at 06:04 AM | Comments (2) | Add Comment
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If you hate Bush, you're not supposed to spend any money today. Seems like today would be a good time to buy that mixer...

Posted by: Sarah at 01:36 AM | Comments (1) | Add Comment
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I have no idea why I started thinking about this today.

I remember exactly where I was when President Clinton admitted that he had lied about his affair. I remember it vividly because I was so sad. I felt so hurt and betrayed, not because he fooled around with a skank, but because he had shattered my trust in him. I know the words honesty and politician don't often go together, but more than anything I want our president to display integrity. President Clinton hurt my feelings when he admitted that he had outright lied, and it hurt as if he had looked me in the eye and lied to only me.

The real problem I have with this is that President Clinton can't even hide behind semantics. My mom and I had a lengthy argument a few years ago about the definition of "sex" as it applied to President Clinton. Mom was appalled to hear that the definition of sex has changed for young people. I think there was a major generation gap during the Clinton impeachment between the generation that thinks sex is anything that happens with your clothes off and the generation that thinks sex is only intercourse. Much to my mother's dismay, the strict definition of the word "sex" only includes intercourse for young people, many of whom brushed off President Clinton's lie because of semantics: to them, he really didn't have sex with Lewinsky. The problem is that that's not what he said. He said he didn't have "sexual relations" with her, so he can't even hide behind the new definition of sex. He flat out lied.

Den Beste wrote long ago about two types of liars, as proposed by Martin Gardner: "A strict liar knows the truth and makes statements which contradict it. A creative liar knows the truth and makes statements which are intended to deceive the listener." President Clinton wasn't even being a creative liar, masking his deeds in the vague definition of "sex". He was a strict liar, which is what made me so durned disappointed in him.

Which brings me to thoughts on the world's most frequently branded liar. A lengthy chunk from Den Beste:

There were a number of reasons why the question of Iraqi WMDs occupied such a central place in the political discussion, but there was never a correlation between the amount of attention paid to various arguments and their importance. And there are a number of other points that can be made about the entire question of WMDs and the process of deciding whether to invade. But what I wanted to talk about here was the specific question of whether Bush lied. Is it actually correct to refer to Bush's claims regarding Iraqi WMDs as being "lies"?

Let's assume, for the sake of argument, that WMDs were the sole reason for the invasion, even though that isn't even remotely true. Let's further assume, for the sake of argument, that Iraq had indeed fully destroyed all its WMDs and all its banned equipment and that Saddam had no intention whatever of reviving its WMD development programs after the international political heat had been alleviated. Ignore for the moment the fact that there was nearly universal consensus that Iraq still had some WMDs, including UN agencies and international opponents of war such as France and sundry NGOs, not to mention the Clinton administration right up until Bush's inauguration.

So if Bush made the claim that Iraq still represented a threat because of its WMDs, did that make him a liar?

Not necessarily. It is not the case that everyone who utters a falsehood is lying. Someone can only be held to be a liar if they knew the truth at the time they spoke. A truth teller knows the truth and makes accurate statements about it. A strict liar knows the truth and makes statements which contradict it. A creative liar knows the truth and makes statements which are intended to deceive the listener. But there are several other possibilities; those three cases are not comprehensive. In particular, a person who is convinced that what they are saying is true is not a liar even if they're wrong.

Someone who is misinformed, and who genuinely believes that misinformation is not a liar simply because they repeat the misinformation or act on it. They can be accused of many things, such as gullibility, but not of lying.

All of the rhetoric about "lying" obscures the fact that this is an inductive process, not a deductive one, and words like "truth", "falsehood" and "lie" have to be interpreted entirely differently in the hazy world of inductive logic. As a practical matter, no one in the US government (or anywhere else) had conclusive evidence one way or the other about whether Iraq had WMDs or retained means and motivation to continue developing them once it became possible to do so. In fact, after we invaded evidence developed that even Saddam didn't truly know.

All the Bush administration had to work from were hints and calculations and imperfect reports from sources of less-than-ideal credibility; that's how it usually is in intelligence work. It's not crystal clear vision; you're usually trying to identify hazy shapes in the fog.

In other words, at the time Bush made the kinds of statements which my leftist friends have been referring to as "lies", what he had access to were reports which said that Iraq might still have any or all of those things, along with at least some degree of calculation of how likely it was.

And even if those reports and calculations were wrong, or if the calculated probability was low, that doesn't mean that acting on them was wrong.

The claim that Bush lied gets thrown around more than John Kerry's football. And I've often read in comments sections where lefties say that Bush hatred is nothing worse than Clinton hatred. I have a real problem with that statement.

I don't hate President Clinton, but he sure let me down. He made himself a strict liar based on his personal life -- things he was directly in control of -- as opposed to intelligence gathering or foreign policy. President Bush might have speculated incorrectly about WMDs in Iraq, but President Clinton knew damn well what he was doing behind closed doors. At the end of the day, that makes a big difference to me.

But President Bush is the world's biggest liar, and always will be. Sigh.

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