It comes down to this. The Reactionary Republicans want to create a New World Order and a Crusade built on the assumption that might is right, God is on their side, vilifying those who don't agree with them and resorting to smear campaigns that they defend by accusing others of doing the same. They want to punish Muslims in the Middle East and specifically Iraq because they are frustrated that they felt victimized at 9/11, are angry because they lost the war in Vietnam and perhaps the Gulf War as well. They didn't understand that the Vietnamese were fighting for their country in the same way that they don't understand that the Iraqi people are fighting for theirs. The reason they are called the Right-Wing is that they feel they are right regardless of the facts, issues, policies and that their values should prevail at the expense of civil liberties, plurality, compassion, responsibility for the welfare of others and civil discourse. In this way, the Republicans have lost their war in Iraq and have succumbed to the so-called "terrorists" by advocating a policy of fear and anxiety to be controlled by a dictatorial Administration. No wonder Iran has endorsed Bush.

As George Lakoff says in his must-read book, "Don't Think of an Elephant", it's not a matter of Bush lies but of Bush betrayal of our young men and women sent off to fight a futile war.

Frank