Thank you, George McGovern for coming out for impeachment.

http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/conte...

The fact that you did this helps our movement. I'm sure that many of the impeachment movement have a deep respect for you, like I do. Mine goes back many years.

When I was 14 I read about the candidates in the 72 election. I admired George McGovern for his principles and for being against the war in Vietnam. My brother had had returned from Vietnam and disputed my father's distain for Jane Fonda. My brother defended her - he knew what a farce that war was. I wanted to do my part against that war and for the election and I begged my mother (who was voting for Nixon) to take me out to work the precinct on election day so I could hand out literature for McGovern. She did. My mother doesn't always agree with me but encouraged me in this conviction for something I felt deeply about.

Well I went out proudly campaigning for the finest man in my life who has ever run for office in my opinion. He is prinicipled, he is intelligent and he doesn't get caught up in emotional slogans. He is also a war hero. He wrote a book Out of Iraq two years ago which has a very sensable plan. He is 85 years old now.

Back then I told my mother Nixon had committed a crime and if he were elected he would probably be impeached. Investigations were called the following year and my mother realized that I was right. Now she is 85, the same age as McGovern, and still has her wits about her as well. My mother not only tolerates my politics but agrees with me now. She has encouraged my efforts this year in the impeachment movement.

Thank you George McGovern, for all you have done in public service. This is the caliber of public service we used to have in this country, but no longer have. While we have candidates to consider for election, it's important to recognize that the impeachment movement must go on, as the Justice Department continues to try and influence local voter polls in states, we need to be strong and we need to focus on impeachment.

We have to face some facts. We are in for a war in this next election. Whoever we pick to be the candidate will face an unbearable beating from the right-wing attack machine. Rove is not "spending more time with his family". I would bet he is formulating strategy for the nastiest campaign ever waged for President. Bush knows this, which is why he's confident of a Republican victory. After amassing all that power for the executive branch, I can't see the Republicans giving up the Presidency easily. We all know that they won't fight fair, so let's try and second guess what they might do with any of our top candidates.

A littler qualifier. I'm a Kucinich supporter, but I'm just going to talk about the top three who have a chance to win. Among the three of them, I don't have strong feelings against or for - I have little reasons for preferring one or another for campaign strategy.

First of all, Republican strategy will differ based on their choice of candidate. At present I see Mitt Romney as the old style pro-business Republican from the Northeast and Mike Hucklebee as the new style Evangelical candidate from the south. If Mitt Romney wins the nomination I believe it will be better for us. Yes, he's a Mormon, but he doesn't have that gleam in his eye. I'll bet he even believes in evolution. We don't have to worry as much that he will energize the evangelical vote of the south. They know he's not one of them. He was Governor of Massachusetts, for Christ's sake.

If Romney wins their nomination then we can frame our argument as rich vs. poor. If Romney wins, the campaign might not get as nasty. Any one of our three top tier would do well. Edwards could talk about poverty not being good business. He could talk about the difference between Massachusetts and the rest of the country and how Romney's business strategies won't work in other areas of the country (get the Western and Southern vote energized). Edwards may be rich, but he knows a lot about poverty. He ran a center down in North Carolina for the past few years and has made poverty the lynch-pin of his candidacy. As the economy becomes more depressed, Edwards sounds better.

Clinton also works well going against Romney. While he has state experience, she has national experience. Everybody remembers how good the Clintons were at the economy. Romney is just a white guy. Clinton will relate to blacks and women better.

Obama will work better because he sounds more visionary than Romney. He can tap into some of that black southern religious vote he seems to be working for in South Carolina as well in other southern states.

So while Romney will get nasty there is only so far he can go. He's limited by his supporters - those northern white rich guys - and he won't want to frighten them too much. Sure he would try to insinuate that Edwards is a "nancy boy" going to the hairdresser all the time. He'll elude to Obama's drug use, and he will cash in with remarks about Hillary being a ball buster, but when it's all said and done, he's still a rich guy with illegal workers doing his lawn. That may be the main thing to undo a guy like Romney.

My greatest fear is that Hucklebee will win the nomination because against the most likely candidate, Clinton, he will have the ability to unleash the gates of hell. If you've read Conason and Lyon's book, "the Hunting of the President", then you know what I'm talking about. A Clinton vs. Hucklebee race will be an Arkansas smear fest - and there are still guys hanging around down there who made a minor fortune smearing the Clintons. So you'll have the supposed murders, the supposed drug dealing, and every woman who ever got winked at by Bill (probably the whole state, the guy's just a natural flirt) up there talking the dirt. It will be the dirtiest, nastiest redneck fest that was ever created. Hucklebee isn't above that because that's how his kind is. Sure they portray themselves as Christian, but the low-down evangelical southerners are the biggest scrappers there are and I'm very afraid the Clintons won't be able to pull out the miracle this time. And I don't want this kind of race.

Hucklebee would be really nasty against Edwards too. Watch that race to focus on some homosexual inneundos as well as fidelity problems imagined more than real. Against Obama that "Obama is a Muslim" will be pushpolled to the max in every state that voted red the last time and some of the other ones too. They will be shoving that one so far down America's throat that by the time October rolls around Obama would think he was Muslim too. Then they will bring out the race card and that will be it.

So that's my take on it. Pray it isn't Hucklebee, because they are praying it will be.

Dear Mr. Webb,

I am sorry to hear that you voted to extend the Foreign Intelligence Surveillance Act. I hope you will support the ACLU's efforts to uncover the supposed http://www.aclu.org/safefree/spying/31227p... security threat that you and other members of Congress have alluded too.

This administration has a poor history in interpreting intelligence issues, as they did not heed the warnings of "chatter" before 9/11, they fabricated intelligence in the Downing Street Memos and outed a CIA agent for their own political revenge. I need more information before I would be convinced that it is necessary to my safety to erode the rights of American citizens based on any intelligence findings from this administration.

While the timid Democrats keep impeachment off the table, the Bush Administration and their Republican and Democratic minions are busy destroying our Constitutional rights.

By the time this government gets done, there won't be a country worth defending left. This is why I support the ACLU in their valiant efforts to save our Constitution. I hope you will reconsider. Talk to Col. Lawrence Wilkerson about this endless war we are in. Talk to Barbara Olshansky about the inmates of Guantanamo Bay and how this administration disappeared countless innocents and denied them their habeas corpus rights. I beg you to support the impeachment and removal of this evil bunch of criminals and to rescind the Patriot Act.

This country has always faced dangers when we must, and we of Scots-Irish heritage have always been a courageous people, we're not willing to give up our rights just to feel a false sense of security, especially not to a bloodthirsty, power-hungry war criminal like Dick Cheney.

Sincerely,

Today I went to speak, as did more than one hundred other people, before the Board of Supervisors in Prince William County regarding a tough immigration ordinance. This ordinance would allow and encourage search and seizure of illegal immigrants for items such as traffic violations. It was plain to me from the sarcastic remarks by an organization known as "Citizens to Save Manassas", that their obsession with immigrants didn't stop with who was legal and who was illegal. They plainly were pissed at the prospect of "pressing 1 for English", as one man stated.

But the crowd inside paled (not only in complexion for the most part, but also in numbers) with those standing on the outside. Hundreds of Hispanics gathered to hear basically what their fate would be. Many did not speak English well enough to speak before the Board.
It's tough for me to see these racial battlelines drawn. I've lived most of my life in Prince William County, and for the most part, racial relations have been good. It's obvious that relations have deterioriated since NAFTA drove many thousands of Mexican and others from Latin America north out of starvation to work on our construction crews and maid services.

If the vote is not put off tonight, who will the Board listen to, I wonder, the roughly 65% on the inside who favored the ordinance, or the other 35% of us and the masses outside who believe promoting racism and harassment is bad for our county.

WoPo article:

http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/conte... ...

For those who don't know, my Congressman, Tom Davis (R-VA) considers himself a moderate Republican who voted against escalating the war. My group the Virginians for Peace and Accountability write him often on impeachment.

If your Congressman is a Republican, you might want to look at this.


DC Voting Rights and the "I" Word

Dear Mr. Davis,

Congratulations on finally getting the voting rights for DC bill
passed. This is a major triumph for you and a demonstration of your
skills of working with others in Congress in a bipartisan manner to
right a horrible wrong that our neighbors to the north have been
living through. The good Ms. Holmes-Norton will make a fine full-time
Congresswoman. "Good on you", as the kids say.

I did want to make note of a deficiency regarding your previous
correspondence to me. Your highly efficient and courteous staff sent
me a letter explaining your views on Iraq, which grow increasingly
more like mine every day, however, I wrote to you on Impeachment.

I know that the Democratic leadership in Congress have taken
"Impeachment off the table" but that doesn't mean you should. I am
very disappointed in the Democrats at the moment, they are reluctant
to "rock the boat" because they are waiting to clean up in 2008. And
they shall clean up because your political party will be known as the
"Needless and Disastrous War Party", and the "Illegal Torture Party",
and the Illegal Wiretaps Party". Mr. Davis, if you were to introduce
articles of Impeachment, not only would you be our next Senator, you
could run for President and win. You could have the stature of
Senator Baker during the Watergate Investigations if you were to go
forth now for truth, peace and justice. Mr. Davis, I remember those
hearings and the faithful bipartisanship that helped to right the
wrongs done by the Nixon administration. No one hated Republicans
then, nor should they blame all Republicans now.

When I was young I got involved with an abusive man and it only took
me a couple of months to figure this out and end the relationship.
You have been in an abusive relationship with George Bush for six
years now (and he WILL VETO the bill you have worked so hard to get
passed!). You know this. So end the relationship now. What have you
got to lose when all those ignorant yokels from your party won't stand
up and support this voting rights bill. Stand up, Mr. Davis and
please do what is right. Also, I'd like a written response on
impeachment and to hear your views on it, please.

I hope you still have the little green IMPEACH HIM button I gave you.
Keep it in your pocket for the moment, but when the time is right, I
hope to see you proudly wear yours, when Kucinich puts his on and
maybe together you can right the wrongs that have taken place in this
country.

Sincerely,

Yesterday the biggest killing spree ever that has ever taken place on an American school or University happened. And while everyone is sorry, no one is sorry enough to look at the giant elephant in the room, certainly not George Bush, but not the good Governor Tim Kaine either. Senator Jim Webb was silent about this elephant yesterday as well. Senator Warner? Not a word. Mark Warner? Forget about it. Only the BBC’s Justin Webb nailed it.

The elephant in the room is easy gun access. Virginia has the distinction of having some of the most lax gun laws in the South, where gun laws are all lax. In Virginia, guns are easy to obtain and readily available anywhere in the state without much of a background check required. Don’t believe me? Take this quiz regarding Virginia gun laws: http://crime.about.com/library/blgunquiz_v...

When you buy a home in Virginia a lawyer is required to look over the legal paperwork with a fine tooth comb. In fact, Virginia has one of the toughest real estate titling processes in the United States, but obtaining a gun, a device for killing, requires hardly any scrutiny. Any crazy can do it. And this is unlikely to change, for the NRA (as Justin Webb so rightly pointed out), resides in Virginia and the NRA’s propaganda resides in the minds of Virginia’s residents.

I have no hope that any tightening of gun laws will come from this tragedy. But I can see the elephant in the room, and I will be surprised to see any politician owning up to this fact. If they did, they would earn new respect from me. As for my fellow Virginians, I suggest you write a letter to the governor and state legislature about gun control, and remove your children from Virginia schools until sanity reigns regarding Virginia’s gun laws.

A great man died yesterday, a man who was the most courageous novelist of his generation. And he was a great American who was perhaps the last German-American humanist left in this country.

Before anyone else suspected, Kurt Vonngut knew our country was on the wrong road just before the end , during and just after World War II. He thought the bombing of Dresden was immoral but the attacks in Japan, using a new atomic bomb were beyond comprehension.

I have a strange connection with Kurt Vonnegut. His father dated my grandmother. My father's family is from Indianapolis, my grandmother's family the Undversaws, were a very old German family in that city. When I read Vonnegut, his accent and his way thinking are immediately familar to me. The Germans who came over in the 1850's or so were escaping a war culture that the Kaiser in Germany had planted. These immigrants wanted to farm and live in a free society. My grandmother told me once that her grandfather thought that the best thing was for blacks and whites to intermarry in this country and then we would have a fair society. Their family had been part of the Undeground Railroad. They were socialist-thinking people who loved their families and their animals. They spoke English in public and privately admonished their children in German at home (I was a witness to this a few times).

German culture has a humanist side that is more intense than English culture has - this is obvious in music, literature and political writing. Goethe, Beethoven and Marx come from the same thought process. Vonnegut melded this German intensity so beautifully with a Scots-Irish accent like Mark Twain did for his hero, like Huck Finn. So we have lost our Mark Twain, the one who reminded us of the failure of our national morals in a humorous way, and who was so darkly right.

And so it goes.

Just a few days ago I could look out my cubicle window and see flowing water as the Potomac River gently lapped by. I was getting a little bit hopeful about the Levin/Warner Resolution in the Senate. Now the Potomac is iced over, so is the Senate resolution on the Iraq war. As Senator Webb (still enjoy saying that) said:

"Winston Churchill once wrote about watching good ideas getting nibbled to death by ducks. Last night, we saw that phenomenon in action. We had before us a measure that would allow this Congress to speak clearly of its concerns regarding the woeful lack of leadership by the President on an issue that affects our nation and our military people like no other. And the other side - including some Senators who had helped to draft the resolution, and had put their names on it - punted the ball down field, rather than giving the people of this country the debate they not only need, but are calling for in every public opinion poll."

Senator Webb was referring to the other Virginia Senator: Mr. Warner punted.

We are going to have to reach out to the Republicans. There is no way around it. If we want an end to the Iraq war (and not a start to the increasingly likely Iran war), we are going to have to convince them somehow to stop the monsters in the White House. There must be a way to do this. We have no choice.

When a local group of activists started the 11th Congressional District Impeachment Committee, I still wasn't getting this, but others in the group were. We have a devoted activist in the group who has personally gone to Tom Davis (our Republican Representative) and implored him to stop the war. Did it do any good? Not yet, but she keeps on trying, and we will be trying to get our Congressman's attention.

I'm also going to sit down and write to Senator Warner tonight. I had thanked him for writing his resolution, he deserves to hear from me on this. So I implore everyone to do the same. It is now convince a Republican time. We're desperate, we have no choice.

I got back about an hour ago. These things always make me so happy and I realize what a beautiful country this really is. So unlike the official country we are told we are on T.V. and so different from what the government or the media would have you think. You see the socialists with their persistent percussion and the raging grannies singing and the dear old WWII vet in his wheel chair with his battered war-shot flag from a battle he fought in 1944. You see the young kids and the suburban grandmothers. You see babies in strollers and the code pink bandana dogs on leashes. You see all the union workers who come down from New York state from some great local and they all have purple hats so they can stick together. You see the imaginative floats, the energetic young people, the infirm older people. You see the solemn, the playful and the cynical.

You see the real America. I'm so proud of my country when I see this, the real America.

When I was in elementary school our country faced a crisis similar to the one we face today. We were at war with a country for no reason that would benefit their country or ours. My oldest brother was over there in that pointless war. He was called up on December 16, 1966. Yeah, happy fucking Christmas, we're taking your boy, your beloved son, brother to fight in our fucking pointless war.

My brother went. That's what people in my family did. My grandmother, though bought him a small handgun. "In this war, you don't know who your friends are or who your enemies are".

Another thing my grandmother did was to contact our local Congressmen, Broyhill, and tell him that my brother had a great talent working with electronics and shouldn't be on the front line.

My brother was spared the front line because of this.

I loved my grandmother so much.

I have tormented my state Delegates, and Congressmen with letters ever since.

And I'm out in the streets protesting! You have a protest march near me, count me in, baby.

George Allen recently came forth spewing another negative ad about taxes. Oh yes, if you are a rich married Republican, what a sin it is for you to pay taxes! Child tax credits, two income families, maybe some rich relatives to leave you money. By God! George Allen will prevent those sneaky Democrats from trying to tax you so that single income, non-inheriting families and single people might get by. I mean, you might have to forgo buying that new Hummer or boat you always wanted. Good old George will see you through! You need to build that grand new deck on the McMansion!

In the mean time, how does a single person survive in this economy? The mortgage is so high that the small condos are selling out around me to families that are packing in four or more people in units less than 1,000 sq feet. And the my wage went down 20k last year. So I don't give a fricking damn about your rich man's taxes. Of course Republicans have never cared about single people, wer'e the forgotten people. They just consider a single person a social problem. So George, just hope the suckers in your court don't have single young adult children trying to buy or rent a home out there.

I was just reading Ian Buruma's article in a recent New Yorker, "War and Remembrance". This article is about the premier genius of latter 20th century German fiction, Gunter Grass and revelations that Grass had been involved in a small way in the SS during the latter part of WWII. Grass has come under criticism, not so much for the fact that he participated in something that many Germans of his age did, but that his involvement with the Secret Police of the SS was kept a secret for more than half a century while he condemned others for the same involvement. It is a shame that the genius who wrote 'A Tin Drum' should suffer so much shame that he would produce his own judgmental cover-up.

This article makes me wonder how the world and this country will perceive the Republican party of this country in years to come. Something is very wrong with the Republican Party and the Democratic Party's complacent enablers. You can see this in Rep. Foley's use of his power to try and seduce young men who worked for him as Pages. You can see it in the use of torture in Abu Garab and Gitamano, you can see it in FEMA's neglect in New Orleans. You can see it in what has happened in our schools since "No Child's Behind Left" as Journalist Greg Palast aptly calls it.

Most importantly you can see it in the callous disregard for the truth that began our war in Iraq. Where was the moral compass that we were able to have after WWII - that compass helped us rebuild the great nation of Germany which is now reunited, Democratic and more the country of Beethoven and Goethe than the country of Hitler and Himmler? When Auschwitz was liberated, it was liberated by segregated black soldiers - that’s true. But we were moving in the right direction then, just on the cusp of having an integrated military. This integrated military was so helpful to raising up a black middle class in this country. I don't know if there was a conspiracy behind the assassin who killed Dr. King. But very few in this country would have voted to jail and torture Martin Luther King in the 60's. Many whites took to the streets to support the Civil Rights movement because that was the great moral compass of our country.

But today, will we vote to jail and torture Muslims and other dissidents in this country? Is this where we are headed? Who makes the rules when a President has such an absolute arbitrary power? I learned in school that absolute power corrupts absolutely, but since Social Studies class is now cancelled due to No Child's Behind Left, this phrase will be conveniently deleted from the folk memory of our people in years to come. I know there are bad people who conspire against us, but can't we just try them on charges and move on?

But when someone finally rescues us from the prison our society has now become, whether it be the proverbial feces that hits the fan, or otherwise, will Republicans say they didn't know about the extent of the torture being inflicted? Will they say they didn't really mean to destroy our freedom of dissent? Will they turn on each other and point fingers? Probably.

I remember 9/11 too. As my blog attests, I was right in the middle of it. Let me tell you about a pretty Moroccan girl who used to be a cashier at the luncheon place in the building where I worked. Days after 9/11, she abandoned her scarf for a baseball hat, piling up her thick dark beautiful hair in that scarf, smiling, taking our money and fearing us. There were many military in our building (selective service). The outpouring of sympathy and support of the military officers was very wonderful to see. In a few days, she was happily back in her usual dress. That's America at its finest.

I know the bloggers at Raising Kane do not want to address this but Jim Webb does have a serious woman problem. How do I know? I use Jim's own way to scope out how people feel, I ask my family - and my 85-year-old mother has serious reservations about Jim Webb. This was after I told her about "Born Fighting" - the book he wrote about her own heritage, the Scots-Irish. Even after I told her that he had Hodges in his family (one of my Mom's family names) she didn't come around. My mother doesn't like the stuff Webb wrote about women in the military. His statements today during the debate were not quite enough to sway her.

To give some background, my mother's family was from the mountains of Southern New York State and her parents came down to the DC area after WWI to make a living. My Mom's family was poor people very similar to the Southern Appalachian people, and they lived in the Catskill town of Liberty, NY. The women worked as seamstresses and the men with whatever trades they could get. Later the Jewish community came to this area to establish tuberculosis sanatoriums, which was before the comedy clubs so popular there today.

My grandfather's family was from Binghamton, NY. He left home at 13 to join the circus, because from a family of 11 and being the eldest, he had to go out and fend for himself. Eventually he went to plumbing school in NYC. My grandfather was the first plumbing inspector for Alexandria, VA. He also put in the plumbing for Fort Belvoir and was a Mason who had a hand in building the famous Masonic Temple in Alexandria that sits near where the King Street metro goes today.

When my father went off to war as an Army officer and spent 2 years on Guadalcanal as an Army Captain of a trucking company, my mother got a job in the Torpedo Factory in Alexandria, VA - the same as its called today, but it was actually a Torpedo Factory - my teenage mother helped make torpedoes there during WWII. The women worked so hard in that factory that the men (those who didn't go off to war) complained that the women had increased production too much. That good old Scots-Irish spirit to fight the war had invaded them too. They were fighting along side their men as best they could.

So this is the background from which my Mother perceives - and so with all the things I've told her about how similar Jim Webb is to our own family's life in working our way up, she still has trepidations. She needs Jim Webb to understand that when their men go off to war the women continue fighting, in what ever form they need to. And I hope someone will send him this blog and he will read about my family as I have read about his and understand where we come from.

At the rally at Robinson Middle School I was happy to greet again the first woman to be elected to the US. Congress from Virginia, Leslie Byrne. And I had worked on her campaign with a dozen Woodbridge housewives and schoolteachers in 1992 and we were rewarded not only with our Congresswoman but also with a wonderful articulate President who turned things around economically and actually helped me get a new career in IT and independence from my family.

So this is where I come from, Mr. Webb. I esteem you but you have a problem with women, so you need to address this. Ask your good friend Leslie Byrne. She'll guide you along the way.

I was reading Cheers and Jeers by Bill from Portland Maine at DailyKos the other day. Bill humorously links to the Rapture Watch, a website that tracks signs that the apocalpse may soon occur. Amazingly, sites like this have cropped up on the web, along with Fundamentalist Christian sites that state the apocalpse is near. The idiot President thinks it's near also. Our society must be fraught with mass depression for so many to be so obsessed with the end. They are all looking forward to massive death. In the Gospels Jesus states, "No one knows the time of my coming." And yet so many believe they do, and they want it.

I'm not a Christian, I'm a Humanist and I believe Deist best expresses my lack of religious beliefs. I believe as Emerson and the Founding Fathers did, that we must determine a good place here on earth. I'm not waiting to be sucked up into the sky. And I don't believe I deserve anything better than what I have here on earth. Therefore I'm not anxious to enter into war with people where lives might be lost. A war for a concept, such as Democracy, or Capitalism, or Christianity - take your pick, loses all it's value when you look at a poor little kid with all his limbs blown off and his dead mother by his side. You can't tell me that Democracy will make life better for that kid. Sure if you're fighting people who are coming after you, I say kick their asses, and do it well and do it till they stop, but don't give me a war for concepts. War is killing people. That's all it is, and you have a war you better be willing and morally just and able to kill your enemy or keep your peace. A philosphy like that would keep us out of a hell of a lot of trouble.

I was all for going into Afganistan after 9/11. I was hoping they would kill Osama Bin Laden. Suddenly, as a person who opposed the death penalty, I felt the death penalty was all right for that guy. I hoped they would do it quickly with minimal loss of civilian life. The Taliban is a ruthless government that enabled Bin Laden to thrive. I was all for kicking their butts too. They way they smashed those giant Budda statues down, and enslaved their women showed they had no respect for any form of human kind or way of thinking other than their own rigid doctrines, but I wouldn't have wanted to kill them for that. They harbored Bin Laden as they do today, and for that they deserve a goodole' Toby Keith style ass whuppin'.

But we weren't able to do that and both are thriving again in Afghanistan. I can't tell you how much contempt I have for the government for allowing that. But I have even more contempt for them for starting an unnecessary war in Iraq. That little kid's picture with his limbs blown off haunts my mind. My tax dollars at work. Goddamn Bush for using my money to hurt that little kid.

The way Bush is talking he wants to start a war with Iran, and probably Syria too. Now is the time we must act. The only way to stop this madman is by turning over the Congress this fall. By checks and balances we can stop this madness before it goes too far. I fear if we don't get one branch of Congress for the Democrats this fall it may be too late. I wish for life.

A campaign that I am actively working on, for a man I deeply respect, had a misstep today. And my fear is that they won't correct it.

The Jim Webb campaign published an ad using Ronald Reagan talking about Jim Webb's many accomplishments. Politics, being the big ugly thing that it is, especially for a capable man who switched parties, upchucked.

Some people in the Republican Party must have contacted the frail, elderly Nancy Reagan and I believe she was persuaded to ask that the ad be pulled. So there really is no choice but to pull the ad. You can't disrespect a First Lady and most importantly, you won't win any votes doing so. Not in Virginia, where going against an elderly widow's wishes won't win you any votes. So you need to apologize your ass off and do it graciously. I'm a master at this, as I've done stupid things at work I needed to apologize for.

Even if you think you are right, you should apologize. Why? Not because it's your truth but because it's societies' truth and this is a entirely different thing. A very hard lesson for me to learn personally, but having learned it, I can only pass it on.

You know what, if you're sincere, they'll probably forgive you. And you can graciously turn this kind of negative stuff around. Everyone screws up, but to apologize gracefully is a God-given gift. One that will be remembered come election day.


A Postscript:

Here's the way I look at it. What if Joe Lieberman were to put out an ad for his Independent Senate race with footage of Gore praising him or even the nominating speeches at the Democratic Convention of 2000. If Gore's voice was used to praise Lieberman wouldn't he be in the political hot seat to renounce these comments now that the candidate has left the political party? Would you let that stand, if you were Gore?