Clearly I'm a big fat liar when I said I'd get back on the board last night-- I was too tired. Okay, back today...
I'm sorry Jim-- I have a slight astigmatism during the day thanks to the Paragon lenses I wear doing a good, though not perfect, job of reshaping my nearsighted eyes at night and I misread "Arl" as "Art"-- computer screens are particularly easy to misread when you have an astigmatism. Thank you for the clarification (and the explanation of your screen name.
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I'm not sure what point you were going for in your exagerration of my post-- I believe someone had asked what stories I felt were more deserving of attention than the bank records one, and I gave a list that I felt were more deserving of attention. It seems to me that often when someone presents a list of things that deserve attention, there is often a knee-jerk reaction from others of "Oh, so if Bush wasn't in charge everything would be perfect then? Ha!" which doesn't do anything other than try to slam shut debate. Of course I don't think cancer would be cured if Bush weren't in office. I do think, however, had Kerry or Gore (or, for that matter, any of a number of Republicans who believe in separation of Church and State) been in the Oval Office, that at no point would the morality of pre-marital and teenage sex have entered into the debate over getting a vaccine for a virus that can lead to cancer out onto the market. (Likewise the morning-after pill, which should have been released over the counter years ago and hasn't been thanks to religious wingnuts appointed by Bush choosing "morality" over women's health.)
In the case of New Orleans, I wasn't making any reference to the levees and what Bush did or didn't ignore prior to Katrina; I was making reference to the crappy job of reconstructing New Orleans since. We've spent 200 billion in Iraq so far; how much has gone to New Orleans? Anywhere near that amount? Not blaming it entirely on Bush, but I think our failure in New Orleans is worth more newspaper space than the banking thing. Or rather, the finger-pointing over the banking thing.
Likewise the estate tax, which the Republicans have cleverly framed as the "death tax" and have even more cleverly persuaded your average American that families are losing their farms over it (not a single instance of a small farm being lost to the estate tax, by the way). The Dems have offered several compromises, but what the Republicans want is an abolishment of the tax. Which will drain the nation's coffers quite a bit (income for the next ten years of the tax is estimated at, I believe, $283 billion dollars, or about the cost of the Iraq war through next year). Who do the lower and middle class think is going to have to come up with the money for that shortfall? Why, they will, of course, through higher middle class taxes and cuts in lower class relief programs. All so a bunch of extremely wealthy dead guys (and a few gals) can make sure their kids never have to do anything with themselves.
All these, more deserving of news, because they affect us more directly and harder. More women die each year of cervical cancer than total people in 9/11. Higher middle-class taxes affect more of us I think, than cuts in upper income taxes (while I'm at it; I don't think I outright called you a blue-blood-- I asked if you were. I do apologize for assuming you were an conservative; your argument tactics tend to align with those of my conservative friends, but that was still a gross generalization on my part and so I'm sorry for it.)
Oh! And I'd add in our Republican-controlled Congress opting to NOT renew the Civil Rights Act. You're all aware of this, right?
Okay, ways in which I think the Bush Adminstration tries to get around the Constitution-- wiretapping, for one (the 4th Amendment). Faith-based initiatives (separation of church and state. Bush made it clear no Wiccan faiths, for example, would get money. Whatever one thinks of wiccans, it's still a recognized religion (the military includes it as a religion) and by discriminating against them, that seems to me to be a clear attempt to value some faiths (Christian) above others. In any event, the Constitution says Congress shall make no law providing for the establishment of religion. Not "A" religion, but "religion" in general). Imprisoning suspected terrorists without access to lawyers, without telling them why they're being imprisoned (habeus corpus? Is that what that falls under?).
Those are the ones I can think of off the top of my head. Thank you for the link to the editorial, Jim. My two big questions are-- if the WSJ's news and editorial pages are separate, why do they assume it's different at the Times? (They repeatedly invoke a Times editorial about opening a special investigation into the Plame thing) And I'm not sure whether their point was that they didn't know since the news and editorial sections are different or that they had the okay to do it- they seemed to be invoking both excuses, when honestly, I'd buy either reason if presented alone. But the Swift point is well taken and I'm going to keep googling to find out more (the specific bank thing). I might have missed that otherwise, and it's a valid point if true.
I don't think the Dems are the same as the Republicans. I, do, however, think my stupid party needs to find some balls to stand up to the party in power. And not let them hijack the debate. "Death tax" for example. On top of that, it would help them to figure out what they stand FOR. As Will Rogers said, "I don't belong to an organized party; I'm a Democrat."
That said, I'll paste in a funny article from Salon about the Democratic challenger to the Senate candidate in Virginia. If only the other Dems had the same cojones.
Love the meeting of the minds here, Jim, Irish, et al. You all keep me on my toes and aware of what's going on in the world.