On the McLaughlin Group tonight, a couple of panelists -- and not just liberal Eleanor Clift from Newsweek, but McLaughlin himself and even conservative Pat Buchanan, were seriously saying that he appears now to have a messianic complex. McLaughlin said that people who have engaged him in conversation come away feeling he feels this religious imperative to wage this war. That he believes he has a direct connection to God and is on a mission (since 9/11, Clift said). And that, what we have here is an upcoming religious war (espec. since he is backed by the evangelical Right)! Even more scary than I realized. That was pretty apparant in his "performance" the other night. No rational thought came through, he never answered any specific question, he just went into robot mode about Saddam being bad and then he lit up when that reporter lobbed him a softball about his "faith" (I hadn't realized that this was scripted, or that the reporters were assigned, but something was wierd, because reporters let him go awfully easy).

They were saying that people who have interviewed him say that he isn't registering the cost of this war -- he can hear "$200 billion over ten years," and it doesn't sink in what this means in terms of sabatoging our future (it's something like more than the military budgets of 19 nations put together).

Also, Senator Byrd was on Larry King Friday night, and he said that in his 50 years in the Senate, this is the most secretive and arrogant administration he has ever witnessed -- that this president doesn't feel he has any need to tell the American people anything about what this will cost us. If you think about it, it gets more and more outrageous. King asked him if he felt safe. And he said, "No, for the first time since the Cuban Missile Crisis, I do not feel safe." That's pretty scary in itself, to have to hear it from someone who's served every president since Eisenhower.

He also pointed out something I too noticed -- did you hear Bush give his new rationale -- that war will actually increase peace in the middle east? That's a new one, isn't it?