Humor me here.

My favorite part of Al Gore's endorsement speech last night was toward the end of the "These people.....know elections matter" section.

He went through the various types of people who have learned -- over the last 8 disastrous years -- why elections matter.  People who don't have health care, people who have mortgage problems, veterans who have served multiple tours of duty in Iraq, etc.

Then he came to my favorite part:

I hesitate to stir the waters, but since the same can't be said of the Clintons over the Memorial Day weekend, I'm gonna stir anyway.

Several of the calmer heads on KOS and the blogosphere (specifically Atrios) have noted that Senator Clinton's comments on Friday about primary races extending into June were troubling not purely because of the JFK reference, but also because of the level of pure BS.

Today in the NYT, the Grey Lady lays waste to the claims Hillary made on Friday and Bill continued/amplified over the weekend.

For the record:   I've been an Obama supporter since his Boston convention speech in 2004.  I told my mom that night, "That man is gonna be our president one day."  I've donated more than I can really afford to the campaign -- and when I see my money going to put up ads like this, proud to have done so.  Made phone calls, proudly cast my vote for him in the Virginia primary, forwarded YouTube clips, followed every in and out of this campaign since before Iowa and already planning to take the day off on January 20, 2009, to see my man Barack take the oath of office up on Capitol Hill.

My message to my fellow Obama supporters:   let's get real.  Hillary ain't gonna quit anytime soon....and I don't think she should.

Earlier this week, the WaPo printed an error in the Foley timeline which prompted me to write a couple of late-night diaries

WaPo gets Foley timeline wrong by A WHOLE YEAR! and

Who's correct? Weisman or Weisman?

 and write to the author, Jonathan Weisman, requesting a correction.

Well, the correction has now appeared:

Correction to This Article

An Oct. 11 article incorrectly said that the e-mails sent by then-Rep. Mark Foley (R-Fla.) to a former congressional page in Louisiana were sent in 2004. The e-mails, which were later called "over-friendly" by House Republican leaders, were sent in 2005.

But now the Republican attempt to spin the author -- and his apparent acceptance of the spin -- is more apparent than ever.

Okay, I know this might be a minor point, but there is already enough confusion and alternating timelines surrounding the Foley saga that I'm going to try this one more time.

A little less than 24 hours ago, I wrote a diary pointing out how the Washington Post made a blatant error in the Foley timeline -- saying Foley wrote the "overly-friendly" e-mails to the Louisiana page in 2004 when in fact, they were written in 2005.  And how its seemed perhaps the author of that story -- one Jonathan Weisman -- apparently transcribed the incorrect 2004 date from a Republican source trying to plant the idea a Democrat in Rep. Alexander's office was responsible for leaking the emails to the press.

Well now, we have confirmation the correct date was 2005 after all.  From a curious source.

The same Jonathan Weisman.

In today's attempt to hang the Foley dirty laundry on the Democratic clothesline, the Washington Post makes a fundamental error in the timing of the original "overly-friendly" e-mails:

The communications that would eventually trigger the scandal were written by Foley in 2004. Foley's e-mails asked a former page from Louisiana for a picture and told him he had just finished a long bike ride and was going to the gym.

But according to the scans of the e-mails posted at Americablog, the first contact from Foley to the former page in Louisiana was July 29, 2005!!!

Just a scant wo hours ago, this site was all "Foleygate-is-gonna-finally-take-down-the-GOP!!" all the time.

Now, its "OMG, North Korea has conducted a nuclear test so Foleygate is going to be knocked off the front pages and the GOP is gonna pick up seats!!!  OMG OMG OMG!!!

By all that's holy, calm the FRAK down!!!

Talk about moving the ball down the field.  :-)

House Speaker J. Dennis Hastert's chief of staff confronted then-Rep. Mark Foley about his inappropriate social contact with male pages well before the speaker said aides in his office took any action, a current congressional staff member with personal knowledge of Foley and his behavior with pages said yesterday.

.....

The staff member's account buttresses the position of Foley's one-time chief of staff, Kirk Fordham, who said earlier this week that he had appealed to Palmer in 2003 or earlier to intervene, after Fordham's own efforts to stop Foley's behavior had failed. Fordham said Foley and Palmer, one of the most powerful figures in the House of Representatives, met within days to discuss the allegations.

And the hits just keep on coming.  Up until today's revelation that Foley is gay -- color me shocked -- just about every article about PredatorGate has included some form of the bland disclaimer, "Foley is single."  (Wink, wink, nudge, nudge, knowwhatImean?)

Now comes word from the Washington Post, this wasn't exactly, strictly speaking -- again color me shocked -- the truth?

Tonight at 11:30pm EST, is the 32nd season premiere for Saturday Night Live.  For those of you on the "TV-melts-your-brain" side of the cultural divide, this old warhorse is getting increased attention this year because NBC has added not one but two new programs based on SNL-like programs.  (Studio 60 on the Sunset Strip is the latest from West-Wing creator Aaron Sorkin and 30 Rock, from SNL veteran Tina Fey and starring uber-liberal and still-occasionally-funny-as-hell Alec Baldwin).

Just now on Deborah Norville's program on MSNBC, she's moderating a "discussion" between the MoveOn.org Ex. Director and Jim Dyke, RNC communications director, about climate change.  After Dyke mentions Bush's environmental initiatives (cough cough) such as the Orwellian "Clear Skies" and "Healthy Forests" and complains how people don't talk about those, Norville says essentialy (paraphrasing) - "Well, isn't that your job?  If people don't know about these things, doesn't that mean you're not doing a very good job as communications director?"

Then when Dyke calls MoveOn "a bunch of Bush-haters" for the third time in the exchange, Norville bitch-slaps him and says that calling anyone a "hater" doesn't really advance the policy discussion.

And finally, she blows a minor stack when Dyke, for the second time, accuses George Soros of applauding the attacks on 9-11 (he said Soros called the attacks "spectactular -- well, they were.  Spectularly horrible.) and "airing ads comparing Bush to Hitler".  This is when Norville lost it:  "This is exactly the reason when you look at voter participation in the USA it is so low.  People just turn off to politics when we see you carping like this.  A pox on both your houses", although her ire was definitely directed specifically at Dyke.

Wonder where Norville will find work when MSGOP fires her ass next week?  ;-)

Realizing online polls are even more worthless than polls from polling companies.....I still think these numbers from an online poll on AOL are significant:

How would you rate President Bush's overall job  performance?

Excellent 23%
Good 22%
Fair 10%
Poor 44%

If the election were held today, who would get your vote?

John Kerry 49%
George W. Bush 48%
Ralph Nader 3%
Total Votes: 347,054

The membership of AOL is incredibly and notoriously conservative so the fact Bush is only at 45% approval and is actually LOSING to John Kerry in an online poll of AOL members tells us something.....and it ain't good news for BushRove, Inc.

Buried near the end of this morning's "On the Road" item about Bush's bus tour -- during which he spent more time flying from city to city than he did actually on the bus:

He took a few tame questions at an "Ask the President" event that was filled with a largely invited audience. He used the moment to cast Mr. Kerry as a huge spender, without ever mentioning the large government deficits run up over the last three years.

I believe David E. Sanger owes Nedra a royalty payment for nailing her famous word usage.

Couple of diaries this weekend called for Donna Brazille to "shut up" and essentially stop criticizing John Kerry.  Well, since she -- and presumably we -- aren't lock-step Republicans, I respectfully disagree.  This complaint that she needs to "shut up" rings hollow and un-democratic (and un-Democratic as well).  

Should she also "shut up" from defending John Kerry in today's WaPo, saying everybody needs to get off Kerry's back and cut him some slack about rushing to pick a running mate?

"Look, the timing is irrelevant -- what's critical is for John Kerry to pick someone who is going to give a boost to the ticket, perhaps carry another state, and reach out beyond Democrats to swing voters and Republicans," said Donna Brazile, a Democratic strategist who ran Gore's 2000 race. "It's his first big public decision, and it's going to say a lot about who he is and what he values."

Smartone wrote in that second diary:  on top of that in a puff piece written about her after 2000 it says she is pals with Karl Rove!  If this is to insinuate she's a Repub operative, I call bullshit.  What's the old saying?   Keep your friends close, your enemies closer.

Ya know, I don't remember a lot of calls for Donna Brazille to "shut up" back when she was warning that Howard Dean had to get his act together or else he was going to fail.  Funny thing, that.

Toward the end of "Inside Politics" with Judy Woodbarf this afternoon, CNN broadcast a video clip of some of today's action from Fallujah.  In the midst of this harrowing video tape, we hear some incoming fire do damage (it sounded like the wall of the building was caving in) and a Marine yells, among other things, "FUCK!"  (If I were in his position, that would be precisely the word which would come to my mind too.)

I was half-watching the program (I've found this is the the best way to watch Woodbarf) and the word caught my ear -- did I really just hear a clearly shouted "FUCK!" on CNN?

An hour or so passes and Wolf Blitzturd's show comes on and they re-run the tape....with the F-word now clearly bleeped out.

I'm sure they'll be receiving a big fine from the FCC any day now.

David Letterman last night runs this hilarious clip of Bush giving his speech at a fundraiser in Florida and behind him, this 12 or 13 yo. kid is fidgeting, yawning, cracking his neck, checking his watch -- it was hilarious.

Tonight, he runs a couple of clips of CNN anchors today saying the White House called them to complain the kid was spliced into the video, i.e. the tape was fake.

Letterman says, "That is an out and out, absolute, 100% lie."  Says it twice -- makes light of it but if I know Dave, he won't let this go.  He'll bring this up practically every night for the next 7 months.

Good.

The following passage from Newsweek's Clarke article raises a question:

At the Justice Department, Attorney General John Ashcroft seemed particularly indifferent to the threat. He brushed off regular briefings on national-security warrants to wiretap terror suspects. When two top antiterror officials flew out to his home in rural Missouri one weekend to get his signature on one such warrant, Ashcroft demanded, "How come you guys are bothering me out here?" He signed, but didn't even invite them in for a glass of water.

From other sources, we know for sure John Ashcroft didn't have terrorism on his list of priorities pre-9/11.  Are Janet Reno and/or John Ashcroft scheduled to testify before the 9/11 commission?  I know Ashcroft is probably still recovering from his medical issues, but since Albright, Powell, Cohen and Rumsfeld have all testified, does anyone here have any info about the former and current Attorneys General?

This point by Richard Clarke this morning on CNN got me to thinking:  

Clarke answered Cheney's question Tuesday. During the Clinton administration, he said, al Qaeda was responsible for the deaths of "fewer than 50 Americans," and Clinton responded with military action, covert CIA action and by supporting United Nations sanctions.

"They stopped al Qaeda in Bosnia," Clarke said, "They stopped al Qaeda from blowing up embassies around the world."

"Contrast that with Ronald Reagan, where 300 [U.S. soldiers] were killed in [a bombing attack in Beirut,] Lebanon, and there was no retaliation," Clarke said. "Contrast that with the first Bush administration where 260 Americans were killed [in the bombing of] Pan Am [Flight] 103, and there was no retaliation."

If you consider just these events Clarke mentioned, we end up with these tallies:

Reagan - 300 deaths / 96 months = 3.1 terrorist-related deaths per month in office
Bush I - 260 / 48 = 5.4 dpm
Clinton - 50 / 96 = 0.5 dpm
Bush II - 3000 deaths / 8 months = 375 deaths per months in office.

Dammit, Bush is better than his daddy at something after all!!!  Too bad that "something" is watching American citizens die in terrorist attacks on his watch.