Since the election, Democrat strategist James Carville has tried to convince his party that it needs to fundamentally change its tactics. "We've got to reassess ourselves," he said. "We've got to be born again." The Ragin' Cajun ought to know. After all, he does look like he was literally born yesterday.

Once again, Jack Kevorkian cites poor health as the primary reason for requesting parole. Kevorkian used to prescribe death for all of his "patients" whose lives he deemed to be of "no value whatsoever." Evidently, he places a disproportionately high value on infirmed, 76-year old jailbirds.

According to the Hollywood Reporter, outgoing CBS News anchor Dan Rather claims to have had conversations with the late Edward R. Murrow at the network's headquarters. "Ed Murrow's ghost is here," Rather allegedly told the Reporter. "I've seen him and talked to him on the third floor of this building many times late at night. And I can tell you that he's watching over us." Dick Thornburg can now call off his investigation, since Rather has finally revealed his source for those National Guard documents.

Floridian psychologist Douglas Schooler has begun offering treatment to liberals who are suffering post-election trauma. Tragically, he is unable in his state to prescribe them "medical marijuana." No wonder they all want to go to Canada.

Senate Minority Leader Tom Daschle (D, S.D.) has been narrowly defeated by Republican challenger John Thune. Needless to say, Daschle is " disappointed" and " very concerned."

Rep. Katherine Harris (R, Fla.) won re-election days after an angry Democrat named Barry Seltzer, narrowly missed running her over with his car. Rep. Harris, remember, was Florida's secretary of state when she certified the election results that decided the 2000 presidential race. Seltzer claims that he had no intention of killing Harris, but only swerved up onto the sidewalk to scare her, as a manner of "political expression." If the party affiliations were reversed, we would surely now be seeing Republican politicians and activists grilled over whether they've contributed to a "climate of violence." We know, however, that there will be no such interrogations of Democrats. They're peaceful people, you know.

The Bush campaign's acclaimed wolf ad has come under criticism from an outfit calling itself the International Wolf Center. Spokesman Walter Medwid complains that, "Using wolves as a metaphor for terrorists rekindles the old fears and prejudice." So it's a form of bigotry to fear wolves? It seems those first two little pigs got what they deserved.

Actress Cameron Diaz says, "If you think that rape should be legal, then don't vote." What must the Democratic Party, which has taken up the cause of voting rights for convicted felons, think of her devious attempt to suppress the rapist vote?

The New York Times has endorsed John Kerry for president. This is one item they won't be retracting. Call it a hunch.

Even after George W. Bush addressed and rejected the baseless internet rumor twice during debates, John Kerry persisted in an Iowa stump speech to charge that the president had secret plans to institute a draft. Kerry, of course, opposes a draft, but he is promising not to pull out of Iraq. He also says it's a mistake to shift troops from Germany and South Korea to fight the War on Terror, and he wants to increase the size of the military by 40,000 soldiers. Mind you, this is all under the assumption that re-enlistment rates would remain steady under a Commander-in-Chief who came back from Vietnam accusing his fellow soldiers of atrocities; who has an atrocious defense record in the Senate; who insults are allies and calls the war a quagmire. He'd better get to work rolling those spitballs immediately.

During the second presidential debate in St. Louis, an audience member asked John Kerry what he would say to someone who opposes abortion, and wants the government to refrain from spending the taxpayers' money on it. Kerry responded that he cannot legislate his faith, and that "I have to represent all the people in the nation." Therefore, he has no compunction about taking the questioner's money and using it to fund something that same person thinks is murder. At least it can't be said that what he's imposing on others is his morality.

In the vice presidential debate, John Edwards twice said that "no state has been required to recognize another state's marriage," and elaborated by saying that a married couple from Massachusetts (like John Kerry and his wife, Teresa) would not have to be recognized by Edwards' home state of North Carolina. If this were true (which it is not) that would have to also mean the reverse -- that Edwards and his wife, Elizabeth are no longer legally married once they leave their home state. If only Bill Clinton had caught on to this technicality. Little Rock is a short distance from Memphis, where there are plenty of hotels, and Mr. Clinton is still single.

The Republican-controlled Congress has allowed the "assault weapons ban" to expire. So brace yourself for a wave of serial bayonettings.

John Kerry is now proposing to create a federal Department of Wellness. Haven't we spent enough hundreds of billions of dollars on Sen. Kennedy's account already?

The New York Post quotes a doctor from Boston as crediting the Republican National Convention for saving Bill Clinton's life. "Listening to Republican speeches at the convention could have increased Clinton's adrenaline and set things off," he said. An interesting theory, but let's not be so quick to dismiss those other things that have been known to increase the former president's adrenaline.

On August 31^st, USA Today ran a "cover story" tiresomely questioning whether the Republican Party has been too -- all together now -- extreme. Above the caption, "Would they be welcome?" was a picture of Abraham Lincoln, among others, deemed by the article to be "moderates." Let's check Abe's moderate credentials, for those scoring at home. Here's a deeply religious man, identified with the great social issue of the day, who led America to war in order to impose his morality on others. Yup, right out of the Rockefeller, Weicker, Jeffords mold.

In a new book entitled American Soldier, Gen. Tommy Franks reveals that Egyptian President Hosni Mubarak and Jordanian King Abdullah, among other Middle Eastern heads of state, warned him that Saddam Hussein had weapons of mass destruction. These must not be the same foreign leaders that John Kerry makes a habit of meeting in New York restaurants.

Fidel Castro recently pre-empted regularly scheduled programs on his state-run television station to air Michael Moore's film, Fahrenheit 9-11. Let's see you top that one, Mr. Redford.

The British government has ordered that its citizens refrain from smiling on passport photos from now on. Actually, there's a much simpler solution to their problem. It's called dentistry.

The Senate Intelligence Committee reports that, contrary to the opinion of Ambassador Joseph Wilson, "It was reasonable for analysts to assess that Iraq may have been seeking Uranium from Africa based on CIA reporting and other available intelligence." Furthermore, the British intelligence report that had charged that Saddam had sought Uraniam in Niger has been confirmed not only by Britain, but also by Italy, and even France. This means that the somehow controversial "16 words" from President Bush's 2003 State of the Union Address were accurate after all. No retractions have been forthcoming by those members of the media who had demanded one of the president.

A day before the Senate voted on a constitutional amendment to ban gay marriage, celebrity lesbian activist Rosie O'Donnell declared, "It will be the first time, except for prohibition, that bigotry has been added to the Constitution." It's about time somebody stood up for those most downtrodden victims of institutionalized bigotry, drunks.

A website called The Smoking Gun reveals that Michael Moore -- who insists he's an Independent and not a Democrat -- is actually registered to vote as a Democrat in New York at the same time that he's registered in Michigan. Since Michigan has open primaries, that state does not include a space for party affiliation on its registration forms, so Moore is not registered as an Independent there. This means that the only record of his political affiliation says he's a Democrat. Of course, if he really wanted to appear politically neutral, he would not have entered the Democrat primary fray on behalf of Gen. Wesley Clark, whose candidacy he promptly sunk by pushing the Bush AWOL fable at a fundraiser. Moreover, he's violated election laws, albeit unintentionally, in such a way that enables voter fraud. That's a more certain indication of his affiliation than his New York registration card.

The audio version of former president Bill Clinton's 957-page book, wittily entitled My Life, reportedly runs approximately fifty-one hours. It is unknown to this day whether anyone has gotten all the way to the ending, but don't be surprised if it finishes, " ... but enough about me."

The United Nations warns that global warming and other human activity is causing the "desertification" of the planet, which threatens to turn the world into a parched dust bowl. It sounds like we'll get around to melting those polar ice caps right in the nick of time.

The following is not a typo: The United Nations Monitoring, Verification and Inspection Commission (UNMOVIC) reports that Saddam Hussein had many of his weapons of mass destruction dismantled, and their components moved out of Iraq, before and during the U.S.-led invasion. This means that the "rush to war" that gave Saddam fourteen months' warning is a large part of the reason why relatively little WMD evidence had been uncovered so far. It also means that the cacophony of voices shrieking that President Bush "led us into war under false pretenses" have been proven absolutely wrong. If we had newspapers in this country, their headlines would now be shouting, "INVASION VINDICATED." As it is, however, most Americans will not be aware of this news until Dan Rather, Judy Woodruff, Keith Olbermann, etc., have approved the UN's findings.

According to Newsmax.com, a document discovered in Iraq indicates that 9-11 hijacker Mohamed Atta attended Abu Nidal's terrorist training camp in Baghdad, just over two months before the WTC and Pentagon attacks. Recently appointed Iraqi prime minister Ayad Allawi is quoted telling the London Sunday Telegraph, "We are uncovering evidence all the time of Saddam's involvement with al-Qaeda, but this is the most compelling piece of evidence that we have found so far. It shows that not only did Saddam have contacts with al-Qaeda, he had contact with those responsible for the September 11 attacks." Memo to Tom Kean and the rest of the 9-11 commission: here's a great opportunity for more face time in televised hearings.

The Iraqi national soccer team -- which used to be under the direction of the now extremely deceased Uday Hussein -- has qualified for the Olympics for the first time in history. It seems that, contrary to the beliefs of the former regime, people play soccer better when they aren't beaten on the soles of their feet after every loss.

The American Academy of Arts and Letters has given former president Bill Clinton an award, for upholding a "standard of correct utterance in the use of language." Presumably, this does not mean that the academy thinks the things Clinton says are true, but only that he utters his lies with precision.

The wannabe oligarchy that is the 9-11 commission scolded the New York police and fire chiefs who were on the job during the attack on the World Trade Center. Commissioner John Lehman, the former Secretary of the Navy, said that the departments' actions were "not worthy of the Boy Scouts." Gosh, worse than the Boy Scouts? You can't get much lower than that these days, in the eyes of a government-appointed panel, anyway.

Alleged comedian and talk show host Al Franken says he is thinking of running for the Senate, against incumbent Minnesota Republican Norm Coleman in 2008. Apparently, he feels the booming popularity of The O'Franken Factor has given him a mandate.

While leading the House of Representatives in its daily recitation of the Pledge of Allegiance, Rep. Jim McDermott (D, Wash.) omitted the words "under God." His explanation to Fox News was that those words weren't in the pledge when he was in grade school, as if he had forgotten that they'd since been added. His real reason, of course, is that he does not believe in that part of the pledge, in which case he can feel free to erase "and to the republic for which it stands" while he's at it.

Reportedly, handbags insulting President Bush in French have become a fashionable item in the Seattle area. According to an Agence France Presse report, the bags carry the message, "We're sorry our president is an idiot. We didn't vote for him." In response, this publication now encourages its readers to arm themselves with merchandise that insults the French in Bush-ian. Example: "Go Surrender to the Snails, You Frencian Ingratitudes!"

While promoting stricter fuel economy standards on Earth Day, John Kerry denied owning one of those big, evil SUVs. When asked specifically about a Chevrolet Suburban seen parked in his driveway, he responded, "The family has it, I don't have it." Two months earlier in Detroit, however, Kerry admitted partial ownership of not one, but several such vehicles. "We have some SUVs," he bragged. "We have a Jeep, we have a couple of Chrysler minivans, we have a PT Cruiser up in Boston, I have an old Dodge 600 that I keep in the Senate. ... We also have a Chevy, a big Suburban." It seems that whether or not the senator is a member of his own family depends on whom he is addressing. His supporters don't call him "complex" for nothing.

President Bush and Vice President Cheney met with the 9-11 commission, only to have Democrat commissioners Bob Kerrey and Lee Hamilton leave before they were through, supposedly to tend to other urgent commitments. The commission is supposed to be getting to the bottom of things ... and in a way, it is.

On the occasion of the record 17,000^th vote ever cast by Sen. Robert Byrd (D, W.Va.), one of his colleagues, Sen. Christopher Dodd (D, Conn.), offered the following praise: "Robert C. Byrd ... would have been right at any time. He would have been right at the founding of this country. He would have been in the leadership in crafting this Constitution. He would have been right during the great conflict of the Civil War in this nation. ... [turning to Byrd] I can't think of a single moment in this nation's 220 year-plus history where you would not have been a valuable asset to this country." Since Sen. Byrd was once a recruiter for the Ku Klux Klan, one might have expected an uproar to rival the Trent Lott-Strom Thurmond incident, if one weren't aware of the news media's obvious biases. Given the chance, Dodd declined to clarify his remarks, and his party's leadership has not criticized him publicly. Come to think of it, why would they? After all, Byrd would certainly have sided with a majority of Democrats during the Civil War. Isn't that what Dodd meant by "he would have been right"?

Theresa Heinz has requested that her husband, presidential candidate John Kerry, be assigned a Secret Service agent who knows how to windsurf, in order to better protect him. Obviously, these are people who are serious about our nation's security.

The Kerry campaign is not denying reports that the Democratic presidential candidate is considering former president Bill Clinton to be his Secretary of State. Apparently, Clinton's historically disastrous negotiations with Yasir Arafat are a record Kerry would like to build on. In addition, depending on which Democrat you ask, Clinton would become at least the second, and possibly the first, black Secretary of State in U.S. history.

The 9-11 Commission has concluded that it has seen "no evidence" that the Sudanese government ever offered to turn Osama bin Laden over to the Clinton administration. Newsmax.com points out that Bill Clinton himself has acknowledged the offer, but explained that he didn't take custody of the terrorist leader because "we had no basis on which to hold him." It must be pointed out, however, that a statement from the impeached former president cannot realistically be taken as "evidence" that the events he describes actually occurred.

Clinton-administration "terrorism czar" Richard Clarke, inexplicably held over by a Bush administration wanting to establish a "new tone," has issued a blistering series of accusations against the Bushies' handling of the terrorist threat. Unfortunately for him, many of his most pointed criticisms were discredited in a matter of hours. Clarke said that Bush national security adviser Condoleeza Rice had no idea who al-Qaeda was when they spoke in January of 2001 (because -- believe it or not -- he saw it in her eyes). Within two days of that claim, however, radio host Sean Hannity broadcast excerpts of an interview from 2000 in which Rice discussed the possibility of an al-Qaeda attack on American soil. Furthermore, Clarke charged that the administration was disinterested in terrorism prior to 9-11, only to have Rice point out that he'd opted not to attend most White House meetings on the subject. Even Lesley Stahl of 60 Minutes debunked one of the Czar's pronouncements during an otherwise friendly interview. Clarke had told Stahl that the report had been returned with the message, "Wrong Answer," indicating that Bush wanted him to falsify a justification for invading Iraq. He is undeterred by the fact that Stahl obtained a copy of the report, the written response to which was simply that he should continue to monitor the situation and issue an updated report at a later date. Not only are Clarke's assertions rapidly proving themselves wrong, but he delivers them with vein-popping intensity. It looks like the new Democrat radio network has a new star on its horizon.

While John Kerry is declining to name those foreign leaders who have allegedly supported his candidacy, he has had little to say of his recent endorsements: from North Korean dictator Kim Jong Il, newly elected socialist Spanish prime minister Jose Luis Rodriguez Zapatero, the Al Jazeera network, former primary opponent Al Sharpton, and the citizens of France.

Former presidential candidate Howard Dean blamed President Bush for the terrorist bombings in Madrid. This claim was based on an al-Qaeda tape claiming responsibility for the attack, in which the speaker tells the Spanish people that "it is a response to your collaboration with the criminals Bush and his allies." Dean tried to evade culpability for his statement, explaining, "That was what they said on the tape. They made that connection. I'm just repeating it." Oh ... so he was only regurgitating the propaganda of our enemies during a time of war ... is that all?

Speaking at a liberal think tank, Sen. Hillary Clinton (D, N.Y.) argued that George W. Bush has made America less secure against terrorism by pulling out of international treaties like the Kyoto Protocol. During a speech to the Brookings Institute, the former first lady claimed that the U.S. would be safer from groups like al-Qaeda if Bush had approved Kyoto, adhered to the ABM Treaty, and generally been more agreeable to the U.N. Moreover, she professed that her husband had succeeded in defending America through "cooperative international efforts." Several months ago, Al Gore warned us that global warming can cause blizzards and record-low temperatures. Now, another of the "best and brightest" Democrats reveals that it can cause terrorist hijackings, too.

Rep. Corrine Brown (D, Fla.) complained during a State Department briefing on Haiti that the President Bush's policy is "racist" and that the administration is just "a bunch of white men." State Department official Roger Noriega told Brown, "As a Mexican-American, I deeply resent being called a racist and branded a white man." Rep. Brown responded, "You all look alike to me." Some Republicans have expressed outrage over Brown's comments, but they should have saved some for Noriega as well. "As a Mexican-American" he resents being called a racist, as if members of other races were more likely to be guilty of the offense? He "deeply" resents being "branded a white man"? Evidently, Corrine Brown isn't the only one who views whiteness as some sort of moral deficiency. One might think the Republican Party would hold a Bush administration official to a higher standard than a hysterical Florida Democrat, but one would then, unfortunately, be wrong.

During a campaign speech in Rochester, NY, presidential candidate John Edwards angered some wheelchair-bound audience members by patting them on the heads. Apparently, he was only showing how much he cares about all the little people out there in America #2.

Democrat presidential frontrunner John Kerry has told Teamster president James Hoffa Jr. that he wanted to build a pipeline to ANWR. He maintains, however, that he is opposed to drilling for oil there. Consider this plan the sequel to the Big Dig -- another brilliant Democrat plan for "creating jobs."

When asked about the John Kerry-Jane Fonda photo on Fox and Friends, Rep. Harold Ford (D, Tenn.) warned, "Don't bring that up." He went on to threaten to "revive this thing on the National Guard" if the picture continued to haunt his party's presumptive nominee. He was referring, of course, to George W. Bush's entirely uncontroversial record of service in the National Guard. The translation of Ford's message to Republicans about the Kerry photo is clear: Bring that up!

Pope John Paul II hosted -- and this is not a typo -- a break-dancing exhibition at the Vatican. The 83 year-old pontiff sat on a throne while the dancers performed for him one at a time. The prospects for reality-TV fodder grow more depressing by the day.

The Hill reports that Defense Secretary Donald Rumsfeld turned down an offer to be Time magazine's "Person of the Year." This publication had hoped that Rudolph Guiliani had done the same when he was selected two years ago. Actually, declining the "honor" is not normally an option, otherwise Republicans would do it every time. For more, please see Rag Of The Year: Annual issue a waste of Time (1/9/02).

In order to illustrate a point about the Pentagon budget, presidential candidate Rep. Dennis Kucinich brought a pie chart to a debate on National Public Radio. He must have thought that the "P" in NPR stood for "pitshers."

All-time major league hit leader Pete Rose has finally admitted in a new book that he did in fact bet on baseball -- the very offense for which he was banned from the game for life -- and that he has been loudly and constantly lying about it for fourteen years. He hopes that his decision to "come clean" will lead to his reinstatement, and subsequently to his election to the Hall of Fame, which it might, since commissioner Bud Selig had made overtures to that effect last season. Too bad for Rose that Selig hadn't previously been employed by the IRS.

A recent Gallup Poll indicates that Republicans are happier than Democrats. We don't, of course, need a pollster to tell us this. All we need is to compare reactions to Saddam's capture.

Phoenix abortionist Brian Finkel has been sentenced to 34 years and nine months in prison for sexually abusing women who came to him for abortions. Thirty-two women testified against Finkel, who must register as a sex offender upon completion of his sentence. While "Dr." Finkel cannot be legally punished for his estimated 30,000 other offenses, he will not be adding to that total in the immediate future.

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