I repent! I am on my knees! (Mind out of the gutter). I have been convinced. I see the light! I have sinned! Forgive me, please, forgive me! Bush is a great man. He is the finest example of a leader I've ever seen. Let's start from the start, even before W was elected. He knew he was incompetent on foreign policy, so he enlisted the help of a top, unbiased expert in the field: the ambassador of Saudi Arabia. Yes, he got private tutoring sessions from the Ambassador, and was...

In my last political posting, I suggested Bush was one of the worst Presidents in history. My reasoning was straight forward: no matter what your position on the war in Iraq, his handling of the planning up to war, the execution of the war itself, and the poor after-thought about the conflict's aftermath, make him a nominee for Lousy Prez. So, many more conservative bloggers took me to task on the intelligence leading up to the war. "No," they write, "hind sight is 20/20, and it's easy to see...

You know, it's easy to get everyone riled up. Post an article on "President Bush is the worse President in history" and, BAMM you go from moderate to nut case in four paragraphs. Kinda fun, though. I know this posting will recieve few comments, and that's ok. I'm thinking out loud. Today, after six days in the hospital, my partner comes home, perhaps. I could have lost him. Jesus, how can that be? How can someone go from healthy to hurt in just a few days? I started this blog las...

[I ]"The reasons why we went to war in Iraq don't matter any more, we are there and that mission is accomplished."[/ I] That's a quote from a fellow blogger, buried under 99 other responses. Of course, I think he's wrong. The reasons we went to war in Iraq are central to our mission, and those reasons are changed and manipulated at the whim of this administration. Measures of success, in a similar fashion, are "evolved". Today, Bush cites the lower death tolls and levels of violenc...

A week has past now for me on Joe User. A strange week, I admit -- between work, my parnter in the hospital, and finding my dead neighbor -- I'm hoping the last gasps of 2007 are clearing the fog for the new breath of 2008. A year, by the way, I'm planning on starting in Athens: with my partner and a view of the Acropolis. A few weeks ago, I photographed a group of veterans at a defense forum. It wasn't a partisan event, it was a matter -of -fact examination by the military of veteran hea...

As a member of the press, this is an area I have some expertise. However, one disclosure: my days of working for hard news media are few and far between. I've joined the money train. Yup, that's right: most of my work centers on photos taken for groups interracting on Capitol Hill with membes of the government. Is that a fancy way of saying I work for a bunch of lobbyists, and it's my job to make them and our leaders look good for the photos. Yup. And I make a fine good living doing i...

Who did you vote for in the Primary Election of 2004? And why? How does that vote -- or the reasoning behind that vote -- affect your actions this go around? Remember in November of 2004, Howard Dean was the annointed frontrunner and presumptive nominee of the Democratic Primary. Poll after poll showed Dean ahead -- he was the Internet money raising darling and the new type of candidate. Then......".....EEEEEEAAAAAAWWWWWHHHHHHHH!!!!!!" Now, Dean is the Chairman of the DNC. And the ...

I knew it. I knew it, I knew it, I knew it. I often thought political commercials could just substitute names for any candidate running. "Doug Smith cares about you. He cares about children, and the environment. He'll keep your taxes low, the parks clean, and every four years, Doug will make sure the road in front of your house is paved. Doug. Doug is a proud American." Sure enough, yesterday, National Public Radio reported on a firm that provides canned advertisements to (mainly lo...

So today, after I wrote my initial thoughts on this subject, John McCain came out and called for an end to the third party, 501-C-4 advertisements supporting his campaing in South Carolina. For those of you not up on this subject, Rick Reed, who helped produce the famous Swift Boat ads during the doomed Kerry campaign, has been running spots supportive of McCain in South Carolina. Today, McCain denounced these advertisements. As I wrote earlier, I couldn't believe he would support the run...

Like it or not, the now famous Swift Boat advertisement in the last Presidential election harpooned John Kerry. The result: brace yourself for an entire season of off-based, dishonest commercials. It's already started. On the Democratic side, Move On published the now infamous "General Betrayus" advertisement -- lampooning a decent man's testimony even before he took the stand. On the Republican front, "The Foundation for a Secure and Prosperous America" (a group started by Rick Reed wh...

It seems the latest Congressional debate is over the Alternative Minimum Tax. When originally enacted, the AMT affected a small portion of the wealthiest taxpayers — forcing them to pay some taxes instead of skating by on loopholes. Now, unless something is done, the AMT will affect the average tax payer in a big way. But what is worse than the average tax payer getting hit with the highest tax bracket? Perhaps it’s hedge fund managers buying their way out of owing a fair tax burden by don...