In the three weeks between Jan. 18 and Feb. 22, support for a constitutional amendment enshrining marriage as a union between a man and a woman rose from 30 percent to 42 percent in the West, according to an ABC News/Washington Post poll.
Still, Mr. Doherty adds, opposition to gay marriage has remained relatively constant (about 60 percent nationwide). Most people want states to decide, he continues, and favor an amendment only when they feel states aren't doing their jobs.

The younger Mr. Bush's hard-line stance should enable him to pick up the 173 electoral votes in the South, where Bible-pounding preachers thunder against sodomy. Mr. Bush's anti-gay position will also resonate in the conservative Midwest (115 electoral votes) and in some enclaves of the Rocky Mountains (21 electoral votes). All told, the South, the Midwest and the Rocky Mountain states supply well more than the 270 electoral votes needed to capture the White House.

Sen. Patty Murray (D-WA) revealed that the Bush administration's new budget provides no funds for a project she sponsored to track cargo coming through American ports.

House Speaker Dennis Hastert told President Bush on Wednesday he would not bring up any legislation to authorize the 60-day extension proposed by the commission and endorsed by the White House
"I can't understand the logic of denying this short but necessary extension of time to complete our work, given the fact that the bipartisan members of the commission unanimously supported the extension, and the White House has publicly indicated it would support it," he said.
"We've already conducted more than a thousand interviews, and these are among the most important, so we are doing them last," Felzenberg said.

ABC television, which broadcasts the event live in the United States, has for the first time instituted a controversial five-second delay to the telecast to allow it to block obscenities or nudity from going on the air. While ABC has said it will not bleep out political speeches, some Academy of Motion Picture Arts and Sciences (news - web sites) bosses are quietly worried about that possibility and its effect on the Oscars' image.

Nonetheless, bless Greenspan for creating an emperor-has-no-clothes moment. If none of Bush's tax cuts are rolled back, continuing deficits will place immense pressure on Social Security and Medicare. What needs to be asked is whether that is the whole point of the tax cuts. Is the president creating a fiscal crisis to make it impossible to avoid big cuts in programs for the elderly?
In an important article in the New Republic, Jonathan Chait notes that if you add up the cost of all legislation under Bush -- measured as either new spending or lost revenue -- the tax cuts account for 55 percent of the total cost. Defense, homeland security and international aid account for 30 percent. New entitlements count for 13 percent. The tiny percentage left over is for everything else.
Thanks to Alan Greenspan, we may have a debate over our priorities. What will it be: Going with Bush and repealing all inheritance taxes on large fortunes, or cutting Social Security for living, breathing seniors? Rolling back Bush's tax cuts for the very wealthy, or cutbacks in Medicare? Big tax breaks for dividends, or a higher retirement age? In short: Modest changes in entitlement programs to keep them solvent, or big cuts to cover the cost of our current profligacy?

And Kerry again found himself tussling with the CIA, for the agency had been using the services of BCCI even after it had learned that the bank was crooked and in league with terrorists (including Abu Nidal).
In the fall of 1992 Kerry released a report on the BCCI affair. It blasted everyone: Justice, Treasury, US Customs, the Federal Reserve, Clifford and Altman (for participating in "some of BCCI's deceptions"), high-level lobbyists and fixers, and the CIA. The report noted that after the CIA knew the bank was "a fundamentally corrupt criminal enterprise, it continued to use both BCCI and First American...for CIA operations."

Kerry voted against the Defense of Marriage Act, which would deny federal benefits to same-sex couples and permit states to not recognize same-sex marriages conducted in other states. He was one of only fourteen senators to oppose the measure.

The panel investigating the Sept. 11 attacks on the United States will get one hour to ask President Bush (news - web sites) what he knew about events leading up to the suicide airline hijackings, the White House said on Friday.

Comcast has said it has about $US8 billion in cash and securities that it could use to sweeten its offer but has declined to comment on speculation that Microsoft, its largest shareholder, with 7.4 per cent of the stock, could come to the party.