WASHINGTON -- In a case eerily reminiscent of the death of British Ministry of Defense bio-weapons expert, Dr. David Kelly, an official of the State Department's Bureau of Intelligence and Research Near East and South Asian division (INR/NESA), John J. Kokal, 58, was found dead in the late afternoon of November 7. Police indicated he may have jumped from the roof of the State Department. Kokal's body was found at the bottom of a 20 foot window well, 8 floors below the roof of the State Department headquarters near the 23rd and D Street location. Kokal's death was briefly mentioned in a FOX News website story on November 8 but has been virtually overlooked by the major media.

Bush spoke before leaving town for a holiday week at his ranch.

Furthermore, the economic climate – or at least the perceived economic climate; I've read novels containing less fiction than the recent claim of 7.2 percent growth in GDP – is not one that lends itself to electoral upheaval, much less class struggle.

Evangelicals outraged over Bush's 'same god' remark Christian leaders express dismay: 'He is commander in chief, not theologian in chief'

At least one in three Americans believe that George W. Bush should face impeachment for misleading the public and Congress about Saddam's weapons of mass destruction to create support for war on Iraq.

A vice chairman of a Louisville anti-pornography group was arrested Saturday night on a prostitution charge.
"it just goes to show that even good men ... can get pulled into this pornography stuff."

"So much of what (Iran) has said in the past year about its nuclear program has turned out to be false that there is no rational basis simply to assume the contrary now," said U.S. Ambassador to the U.N. nuclear watchdog, Kenneth Brill.


Can a "miserable failure" of a president win re-election? Bush's victory would testify to a civic failure more dangerous to the American future than any policies implemented or continued during a second Bush term.

For all their worldliness the Founders were naïve to regard property as a shield of incorruptibility or the property-less as inherently corruptible. Their core insight, however, remains valid. A republic can be corrupted at the top and bottom, by leaders and led.

Of particular interest are Nixon's comments on which countries Rumsfeld might want to get involved with and which ones he should avoid—comments that display a twisted sort of prescience:
"The only things that matter in the world are Japan and China, Russia and Europe," Nixon explained. "Latin America doesn't matter. Long as we've been in it, people don't give one damn about Latin America, Don." Stay away from Africa, too, Nixon warned. As for the Middle East, getting involved there carried too many potential hazards for a politician. "People think it's for the purpose of catering to the Jewish vote," Nixon told Rumsfeld. "And anyway, there's nothing you can do about the Middle East."

Missing Links Found
Two blockbuster magazine articles last week revealed evidence that Saddam's spy agency and top Qaeda operatives certainly were in frequent contact for a decade, and that there is renewed reason to suspect an Iraqi spymaster in Prague may have helped finance the 9/11 attacks.
mred - safire is a cunt. this is all lies. and he knows it.


When you look at a chaotic region like the Middle East, what you're really seeing is most of human history, and some parts of America and some parts of Europe and a few parts of Asia are glaring exceptions. The kind of peaceful, productive, incredibly wealthy life that we live in these few areas around the world—this has only been going on for a nanosecond as time goes. It's so exceptional I'm not even sure what it means. The whole world might degenerate back into the Middle East, because that's what it's always been. And you can't solve the problem of the Middle East, because it's not a problem, it's a condition. It's the normal condition of mankind.

If you read Donald Kagan's The Peloponnesian War, it's all there. It's been going on like this, time out of mind. Little islands of human happiness, peace, and prosperity are so exceptional at this point in history that I'm not even sure we can draw lessons from them.

On the eve of his visit to London this week, he hit a characteristically phony note when he told an interviewer, "I never dreamt when I was living in Midland, Texas, that I would be staying in Buckingham Palace." Mr. Bush, who was born in New Haven, lived in Midland until only the age of 15 before moving on to such hick venues as Andover, Yale and Harvard when not vacationing in family compounds in Kennebunkport, Me., or Jupiter Island, a tony neighbor of Palm Beach.
Rich Democrats vying to replace him are merely less effective purveyors of the same aw-shucks nonsense. John Kerry is a Boston Brahmin (Mother was a Forbes) and a multi-millionaire in his own right before marrying a half-a-billionaire. Like the president, he's a Yalie (via St. Paul's in his case).

Howard Dean is more forthright about his Yale (via St. George's) and Park Avenue pedigree — up to a point.



Now Mr. Bush says that poor Turkey, a critical ally in the Muslim world, is the newest front in the war on terror. "Iraq is a front," he said. "Turkey is a front. Anywhere the terrorists think they can strike is a front." Here a front, there a front, everywhere a terror front.

But the only thing we really have to fear is fearmongering itself.