I'm in a military frame of mind again. I had a number of things occur this week that got me headed in that direction.

A reader (I actually have one!!!) expressed an interest in military history. I was in the military and happen to be a history buff as well. Can't get any better than that.

Then my father brought over a CD of photos and films which my brother took in Iraq (more on that later). Last night I watched two C-130s fly over the house, and then tonight when I should have been doing better things I got hooked into a TV show (the kids left the TV on after I chased them to bed) about the efforts to rescue the captured members of the 507th Maintenance Company.

The C-130 flyover wasn't anything out of the ordinary. There's an Air National Guard wing maybe 20 or 30 miles from here and flyovers by C-130s and A-10s used to be frequent. They're much less frequent since the war--in fact I haven't seen an A-10 in several years--but just seeing them isn't remarkable. But these 130s had more lights than I can ever recall seeing. Not enough to be some sort of weird UN C-130 variant like the "black helicopters" (if you actually believe in that stuff), but they were very impressive. 130s have a unique sound, between the roar of the propellers and the whine of the turbo engines, and they have always really impressed me. Combine that with the extra set of lights on the wings and it was a neat display.

C-103s were our primary jump platform when I was in the Army. I've jumped a lot of other aircraft, but it's the sound and sight of a C-130 that always gets my blood pumping.

Yes, my brother is in Iraq. He was an engineer officer and took a buyout some years ago when the Army was downsizing. Thing is, any time the military gives you a payoff to resign your commission, they retain a hook in you. With all of the problems with roadside mines, IEDs and all of that sort of thing, the Army finds itself most in need of engineers. So much so that an overweight 41-year old former engineer captain becomes fair play.

I have his CD and there are just no really compelling images on it to post. Lots of photos of....damned if I know. And lots of videos taken over the hood of a Humvee. They seem to be hauling down the road, but it's too dark to see much. Just a sensation that they are driving quickly.

After a couple of light-hearted posts, I'm back to the Terri Schiavo case. Strangely enough, this case really bothers me. We have school shootings and I don't even know what else, but the cold bloodedness of this whole thing sticks with me.

Here's an interesting article, via Powerline.

The point everyone makes is that Terri isn't brain dead. She's disabled. Should we unplug everyone who needs a motorized wheelchair with a joystick? I guess she's just so much of a burden on her husband's life, even though her parents have done all of the caring for her while he's pretty much gone off to live his own life which lacks only the legal stamp of "remarried".

He wants the insurance money. That's clear to anyone smarter than Ted Kennedy (i.e. most of us). Can't prove anything, but there is a lot there to make us wonder if he didn't have something to do with her "accident" in the first place. Coupled with allegations that he used to accost caregivers with questions such as "Is the bitch dead yet?" and "When is that bitch going to die?", you just have to wonder.

This case brings ever us closer-no, it brings us right there. It brings us to the point where we presume to be God. We can make the decision that a particular life isn't worth living. Nobody asked Terri. "We", as a represented people, simply made the decision that her life isn't worth prolonging.

What's next?

Couple of sure fire Easter-time recipes for you (Holiday menus being absolute dogma here, Easter always, always means ham). Yes, Easter has passed, but I've always said that I have the world's worst timing.

The dressing recipe works with ham year round, not just at Easter. Probably also works with chicken--anything that a pineapple taste would accompany well. And the mustard sauce works with everything. Ham, cheese, hot dogs--you name it.

This is good stuff-honest. Absolute staples here.

Pineapple Dressing

1/2 cup butter
3/4 cup sugar
4 eggs
1 (20 oz) can crushed pineapple, drained
6 slices day old bread, cubed

Cream butter and sugar together, beat in eggs. Stir in pineapple. Fold in bread cubes. Put into greased 1 1/2 qt. casserole. Bake uncovered at 350 for 45 minutes.

That's the "heirloom" recipe. Actually it's more like eight or so slices of bread. Stir bread in until it's looking sort of dry. It'll come out just fine. Six slices of bread comes out pretty wet. More bread feeds more people, anyway. Seriously, this is good stuff. Try it with chicken in the summer, whatever. People like it a lot.


Mustard Sauce

1/2 cup dry mustard
1/2 cup vinegar

Combine the above, shake well and let them sit overnight.

On top of a double boiler beat one egg, then add 1/3 cup sugar, dash of salt and the mustard mixture. Cook over hot (not boiling) water until it thickens slightly and coats a spoon. Cool. Mix about 50/50 with mayonnaise (I'm a Miracle Whip person).

Obviously, once made it goes a long way. Keep the base mixture in a container and spoon it out, mixing it 50/50 (or so) with your favorite poison (mayonnaise or salad dressing) as needed. Taste it and adjust it as you go--a bit more mayo, a bit more mustard...Cooking the egg in the double broiler requires some restraint--keep the heat a bit low so that you don't end up with scrambled egg. Don't sweat the cooking of the egg. It's probably cooked just fine, and anyway the vinegar reduces the pH to the point where bad bacteria die anyway. If you accidentally end up with some scrambled egg, just put the mixture through a sieve (this is the voice of experience). Good stuff, I promise. Works well with ham, very good with cheese, summer sausage, chicken, hot dogs...you name it. It's a year-round recipe.

Easter. Another holiday passes beneath the bridge, carried on the confluence of the many rivers that constitute our life experiences.

As I was growing up we traded holidays around--Thanksgiving at my aunt's, Christmas at the grandparent's, Easter at my parents' place. And some times a New Year's Day thrown in. Then a new order was agreed upon for the next year.

For whatever reason, it's holidays at my grandparents' place that I remember the most. We'd wake up and open Christmas presents or Easter baskets, hit church and then embark on the two-hour drive to their place. For a kid, a two-hour drive is very nearly interminable. I hated it. Passionately. And when we got there, there was very little to do but read my grandfather's collection of Pennsylvania Game News magazines and play a few board games which they kept for the grandchildren. Yet, somehow, those visits are most firmly embedded n my mind. Even more so than the holidays we hosted at our house.

Food was of paramount importance at my grandparents'. They were both of sturdy Pennsylvania Dutch stock, the descendants of farmers, and hard work breeds imposing appetites. My grandfather was a civilian airframe and powerplant mechanic for the Army Air Forces-later the US Air Force--following a brief stint as a bomber pilot flying a biplane bomber which I believe was called a "Liberty", and my grandmother was a social worker in an era when few women held college degrees and worked.

My parents were somewhat older when I was born (a tradition I carried on), so all of my memories of my grandparents are post-retirement. I mentioned food...

Entering their house between breakfast and lunch was the beginning of a day-long sensory experience. The kitchen had the atmosphere of a rain forest as water vapor rose off of the pots of boiling potatoes and carrots. Meanwhile, the whole house was redolent of coffee and bacon from breakfast, carried further by the vapors from the yet-to-come dinner. Better yet was to arrive the night before and have breakfast there as well.

Dinner was the high point of the day. The food was very nearly unending. Thinking back to those days, I have no idea how we consumed so much food. A proper Pennsylvania Dutch dinner consists of seven sweets and seven sours, so there was always a relish plate with sour onions, sweet onions, sour pickles, sweet pickles, etc. Not to mention ham, vegetables, pineapple stuffing and mustard sauce (ask me for the recipes) and dessert. These days I could pretty much fill up on the relish plate alone.

And Pennsylvania Game News magazine is a pretty interesting read. The best part is "Field Notes", where game wardens report some of their more interesting experiences.

Via Little Green Footballs, a case that makes the Terri Schiavo situation that much more troubling.

http://www.cbsnews.com/stories/2005/02/11/earlyshow/main673281.shtml

The Terri Schiavo case has me all balled up. As someone who has lived a life which involved weapons and killing a commie for mommy, you would think that I would have a sort of throwaway view of life.

I don't.

Killing terrorists, commies, whatever in the heat of battle is one thing. But I honestly have no idea how anyone can cold bloodedly order that an apparently responsive person be condemned to a painful death by starvation/dehydration.

I looked for links, briefly. There is so much blogging going on about this (and rightly so) that it takes a bit of digging to find a link to a supposedly neutral news source. I found lot of links with information that appeared legitimate to me, but I wanted to link to a known news source so that I couldn't be accused of linking to biased sources (as though the mainstream news isn't).

Couldn't find any in the brief walkabout I took, but I found information aplenty. Things such as--and I don't doubt this for a second--a plan written for the first time Terri was supposed to be starved to death. Whether or not the memo is genuine, I think, as a scientist, that the information is. Basically, it prescibes a regimine of naprosyn suppositories to reduce pain and emollients to hide the effects of dehydration.

If she's brain dead as some claim (and the videos put the lie to it), why the naprosyn?

This case should be haunting people. Something happened to her in the first place, and there is a lot of reason to think that her husband had something to do with it. There are affidavits that he asked caregivers in her facility things like "Is the bitch dead yet?" and "Is she ever going to die?"

It's not a question of dying with dignity (and as one who has seen many deaths I can assure you that there is no such thing). He wants her dead. He may have tried to kill her in the first place--I don't know, but it sure seems possible--but at any rate it's without question that he wants her dead now.

As I write this, she may have already passed away. If she hasn't, she's going to. Nobody except her "loving" husband can change that. He won't, so I truly hope that as I write this she's dead. It's clear from the videos that she's alert and can feel, so I hope that she passes quickly without prolonged hunger and thirst pangs.

I'm not a religious man, at all. But Godspeed, Terri. And if there really is a God, I hope He rips you a new one Micheal Schiavo, you selfish bastard.

Here is why the Democratic party is sucking wind and losing ground with every election. All things I've touched on, but stated more intelligently and eloquently than I could ever manage.

I can't find the source, but I skimmed an article yesterday in which Bill Clinton was somewhere expounding on what a wonderful president Hillary would make.

I'm curious as to just what Hillary Clinton's credentials are to be a senator, much less president. All I can think of are ruthless, Machiavellian ambition; utter contempt for "the little people"; and a charismatic husband who apparently has coattails despite the fact that he shot the legs out from under the economy, gutted our defense intelligence network, nearly destroyed our ability to influence global events and thought it was really cool to have an intern under his desk while he talked on the phone with people in leadership positions.

And on top of it all, she made pantsuits fashionable again, for which I will never forgive her, even though I'm just fine NOT seeing her legs.

Now, how's this for an editorial.

Whatever lingering doubts I had about invading Iraq disappeared when they liberated the children's prison. That one got buried real quickly by the people who didn't want to have to discuss it (NY Times, CNN, etc.) but it was real. Turns out if a child's parents went to political prison in Iraq--not an uncommon occurrence--the child went to a prison as well. And it wasn't a nice place. I'm sure that someone somewhere is trying to describe it as a facility which cared for children whose parents were imprisoned, but that stretches things way too far. It was a prison, and it went on the old theory that parents' sins are visited on their children. It was not a nice place. The guy who wrote the above editorial took a bit longer than the prison thing to get it, but he finally did.

Now we're seeing the Lebanese grow weary of Syrian occupation and a former pro-Al Quaida Lebanese leader has decided that the US is a powerful positive influence and he has renounced his support of Al Quaida and said that we have the right idea after all.

Egypt has announced that they're modifying their constitution to allow multiple party elections (mainstream media have been careful to say that this "may be cosmetic", but have been equally careful not to mention that just maybe it may be a real change).

Maybe, just maybe, we're onto something. Only time will tell if Bush has things right. What I can tell you for absolutely sure is that Kerry does not have the fortitude to even attempt to get things right. Even if we fail in the big picture, we're miles beyond what Kerry could have done.

Our president has been a fighter pilot, an oil executive, a baseball team owner---Stupid doesn't apply. It's fine for people to disagree with him, but those who equate disagreement with stupidity diminish only themselves.

So Howard Dean is now the Chair of the Democratic National Committee. This is the guy who just recently said "I hate Republicans and everything they stand for". Lends credence to the line that the difference between Republicans and Democrats is that Republicans think Democrats are wrong and Democrats think Republicans are evil.

Hard to imagine they could find someone more pinheaded than Terry McAuliffe to run the party, but they've succeeded.

A lot of people are rubbing their hands with great glee, predicting that this will lead to an implosion in the party. I tend to agree, but I think maybe--just maybe--something good could come of this.

The Democratic party is totally out of the mainstream. They've suffered nothing but setbacks from the day Bill Clinton raised his hand, and yet they continue along the same path. Bush was elected with a clear majority of the vote, something Clinton never achieved. In fact I think the last president to get a majority of the vote was LBJ. There's a message here for the Democrats if they care to listen.

But I think that there is some small chance that once Howard "Meltdown" Dean finishes ripping the party asunder, perhaps a new Democratic party can emerge. One with viable ideas, a true "loyal opposition". A party which listens to America and not the Pelosis and Boxers and Kerrys and all the rest of the wine and brie set. A party which regards Teddy Kennedy as a ridiculous, besotted old fool instead of some sort of deity.

I most likely will still disagree with the Democrats, but I'd welcome the reemergence of a more reasonable, in-touch Democratic party

Meanwhile, under Dean the party is going to continue to suffer loss after loss. The next few years should be a lot of fun.

Have at it, Dr. Dean, and here's a YEEAAAH for you.

I nearly missed the train, but today was supposed to be a "blogburst" in memorium of the 50th anniversary of the liberation of Auschwitz.

The infamous Nazi death camp is perhaps a symbol for all of the Nazi concentration camps. Iron scroll above its gates read "Arbeit Macht Frei"--Work will set you free.

Unfortunately, labor never set anyone free at Auschwitz. At Auschwitz you pretty much went straight into the gas chamber unless they had a backlog, in which case you got to enjoy the hospitality until they could make room for you in the gas chamber, which was the basement of a former Polish Army barracks.

The exhibits at Auschwitz (yes, I've been there) spare nobody's feelings. It's raw "This is what happened here". The visitor views room after room--one contains luggage stripped from the victims, another their clothing. And last of all a mountain, and I mean mountain, of baby shoes. Baby shoes. A freaking mountain of baby shoes taken from babies that those monsters fed into a gas chamber.

The Nazis actually operated their concentration camps in several flavors. Dachau, for example, was a labor camp. There the Nazis worked and starved people to death. Not particularly pleasant, though I suppose at least at Dachau there was a hope of surviving.

I've mentioned Auschwitz before, taking to task those who compare Bush to a Nazi. Sorry, but if you call Bush a Nazi then you have no idea. None. You are incomparably ignorant.

It begs for "I told you so..."

The Maryland legislature decided to address the issue of soaring medical malpractice insurance costs by taxing HMO premiums. The revenue from the tax will be used to underwrite the cost of malpractice insurance.

Governor Ehrlich warned the legislature that he would veto the bill on the grounds that HMOs will merely pass the tax on to the working people who participate in HMO plans. The bill was passed, and vetoed. The veto was met with the usual wailing about Republicans and their partisan politics, then overturned.

Never mind that the legislature entirely missed the bus on this one. Underwriting malpractice insurance costs by taxing HMO premiums is stewing the cat in its mother's milk. It's the Democrat impulse to continue feeding the trial lawyer machinery, even if they must do so by taxing consumers. This tax doesn't address tort reform, which is what we really need, it just allows the situation to continue. Only now working people are being asked to fund this huge tort machine.

And that's where the "I told you so" comes in. Sure as Ehrlich said they would, the HMOs have elected to pass the tax onto consumers as a raise in premium costs.

So now "the working poor", whom the Democrats claim to care so much about, are being told that they will make sure that trial lawyers don't have to give up their Hummers and that they can be sure of making next month's slip fees at the marina.

There's been a bit of buzz about a real-looking Volkswagon advertisement which has been circulating the net.

Short story is the ad portrays an Islamic homicide bomber's attempt to murder people at a restaurant and the attempt backfires on him due to the toughness of VW Polos.

There's been some debate over the ad's taste. I found the premise to be in pretty poor taste, but ended up chuckling when I saw the video. Now I see it as another dumbass terrorist hoisting his own petard due to his ineptitude.

Is the ad real, or isn't it?

See the ad and the story behind it here at Whizbang.

In a petty, mean-spirited plot which serves only to prove that they are petty, mean and utterly ignorant of irony, Senate Democrats are using ex-Klansman Robert Byrd to stall the confirmation of the first black woman to the post of Secretary of State.

From the Sun Herald:

Sen. Robert Byrd, D-W.Va., said he and others "have asked the Senate leaders to give the Senate a few days to analyze Dr. Rice's testimony and consider it fully before casting a vote for or against her confirmation as secretary of state."

More here.

I'm not in the least afraid of criticism (I'm married, for Pete's sake). In fact I welcome good, solid criticism with facts to back it.

I've received some critical evaluations of the last couple of posts, and that's fine. I was incorrect with some figures I posted regarding dollar amounts pledged to the relief efforts in Indonesia.

Having admitted that, I want to return to the spirit of the posts. First, Jan Egeland displayed an incredible lack of class when he took the microphone as a UN offcial and called a number of countries "stingy". That was uncalled for under any circumstances. To further his indiscretion, anyone who has even the most passing familiarity with US philanthropy knows that whatever the monetary figure we first pledged, it would soon be increased as we investigated the magnitude of the tragedy.

President Bush is taking heat for not seeking the first microphone he could find on the day of the tragedy and placating his audience with presidential platitudes. The fact remains that he managed to order a naval armada to respond without finding it necessary to see himself on television as he did it. Along with Australia, the US began the relief effort some time before other nations began to arrive, and as far as I an tell the UN is still "evaluating" things.

Lest one criticize Bush for issuing orders without the benefit of a media audience, let us not forget that Kofi Annan kept skiing in the US Rockies for three days following the news of the disaster. And Annan is not one to shun media coverage.

The US has so far pledged a "stingy" $35 million to the rescue effort for the incredible disaster which has struck Indonesia. That doesn't count the cost of getting the goods to Indonesia and doesn't take into account the fact that we will certainly follow the initial pledge with far more assistance, monetary and otherwise.

In fact, a small charity organization in this county has somehow managed to raise 1.6 million dollars to send. The figure boggles my mind--this isn't NYC or LA. We're a rural county in a state in which tax dollars from the counties go to support a dying city. This effort gives credence to President Bush's vision of faith-based giving. Interestingly, $1.6 million far exceeds the amount thus far pledged by either France or the UN.....And that's just from one rural county in the US. Take it from there.

Before you criticize the US, read more about US relief efforts.

Now that I'm back, and now that I've had something to say about the incredible tragedy in Indonesia, I have something else to get off my chest.

The administration has taken a great deal of heat over the issue of armoring Humvees. Time to look at some facts.

First: Repeat after me "A Humvee is not a tank. It is not an amored reconnaisance vehicle. It is not an amored troop carrier."

The Humvee is the replacement for the venerable "Truck, 1/4 ton, M151". You know it as the "Jeep".

When the military decided it was time to replace the Jeep, a number of firms responded with proposals and the military decided on the design set forth by AM General, a firm with a long record of successful military vehicles. It was dubbed the High-Mobility Multipurpose Wheeled Vehicle (HMMWV). That was the project name, so it would have retained the name regardless of which design was chosen. The military likes pronounce-able acronyms, so it's referred to as the "Humvee".

It's much larger than the Jeep, so it was deemed that the chassis could replace a number of existing vehicles. It could function not only as a battlefield sedan a la Jeep, but as an ambulance, artillery caisson, etc. As an aside, the damn thing is so big that the Berlin Brigade had to keep their Jeeps since the Humvee was to large to squeeze through the alleys they had to patrol along the now defunct Berlin Wall.

Here's what the Army has to say about what it replaces:

Provide a common light tactical vehicle capability. Replaced the quarter-ton jeep, M718A1 ambulance, half-ton Mule, 1.25-ton Gamma Goat, and M792 ambulance

Whoever wrote this for the Army is apparently unaware that the Gamma Goat replaced the Mule years ago and was itself replaced in the 80s, but we won't quibble. The point is, the Humvee has always been intended to function as a soft skinned vehicle.

The sole exception was a variant intended for Military Police. Durng peacetime the main function of MPs (at least as far as I was concerned when I was in the Army) is to harass law-abiding soldiers and run detention facilities. During wartime, however, their mission expands. Detention facility MPs maintain such facilities as required, but also maintain POW facilities and law enforcement MPs retain those responsibilities, but also pick up the additional mission of convey escort. It was specifically for convoy escort duty that the military ordered a lightly amored version of the Humvee, some with machine guns in remotely controlled turrets.

Let's recap. The Humvee replaces the Jeep and two ambulances, none of which have ever been amored or could be amored. Bear in mind that the Jeep was a rag top. You can't armor a canvas roof.

As it turns out, you can armor a Humvee--to a point (apparently the "level three" armor is so heavy that the soldiers have to be very careful about opening the doors lest they rip the hinges out). Nobody anticipated that the nature of this war would require turning Humvees into miniature tanks, so we went into the war with the things configured just as we had planned to take them into war with a near-technological equal, the Soviet Union.

So now we've recognized the need for a better protected Humvee, and we're on it. But to say we went to war with an unprepared vehicle is sophistry.

Don't get me wrong. As an old soldier myself, I'm up for anything that can keep our troops safe, but nonetheless, I find it unfair to criticize the administration for decisions that the military made years ago and is now reevaluating.

Haven't posted much lately--Lots of reasons, non sinister.

Prior to the election I was on a mission. I just simply could not countenance the thought of Kerry presidency, so I was energized. I'm as pleased as I can be with the election results, but I've lost that pre-election energy.

And too, the "holiday season" becomes a consuming event in itself. Preparing for the holidays and remaining functional through them (including a visit from six nephews and nieces who had been traveling in a van for most of the week...) could turn a steel I-beam into a limp noodle.

I'd comment on the tragedy in Indonesia, but its scope defies my puny ability to place an event into words. I did go on a bit of a verbal tirade this morning re. The UN moron's comment that we're "stingy". As it turns out, we're ponying up $35 million in aid, which doesn't take into account the cost of getting that aid there. The actual cost of the effort far exceeds $35 million and as always includes the possibility that one of the aircraft we send there could go down in the effort. The loss of an aircraft and its crew would certainly be infinitesimal in a tragedy that seems destined to claim in excess of 100,000 lives, but it adds to it nonetheless. And bear in mind that the $35 million figure is only for what we are sending this week. As time goes on we most certainly will continue to provide aid far in excess of the initial $35 million. And, as it turns out, our $35 million initial package far exceeds that offered by two of our biggest critics--The UN and France-- as well as that offered by the oil-rich United Arab Emirates. All three have pledged relief efforts in the hundreds of thousands of dollars. In fact, the combined amount of all three's pledges barely breaks the $1 million dollar mark. One Socialist (among many) in the UN disagrees with our reluctance to tax ourselves to death and uses a tragedy of incredible scope as his bully pulpet. What a jerk.

Got a newsletter from my chapter of the Special Forces Association today. There's an item in there that I want to pass along. I know few people read this blog (and fewer read it a second time...), but if one or two people read this and take action, it'll be worth it.

I don't have the slightest idea how "pings" and "trackbacks" and so forth work, but I'll provide a gratuitous list of links to some of my favorite blogs in hopes of generating some extra traffic.

At any rate, someone got word from the Medical Family Assistance Center (MFAC) at Walter Reed Army Medical Center that they are need of calling cards for the wounded troops. I've poked around and gather that they could also use breakaway pants (to fit over casts) and small, poly-filled pillows which the soldiers use to prop up injured limbs; but apparently their number one need at this point is calling cards (phone--not the paper ones dinosaurs like me remember).

The government provides internet hookups, local phone service and DSN (official military) phone service, but soldiers must pay for long-distance calls. Maybe unfair, but it's easy to see that things could get seriously out of hand if they simply allowed soldiers to run up phone bills.

As long as they continue to have them on hand, the MFAC gives the cards to the soldiers as needed. With the holiday season all but upon us, let's make sure that they continue to have those cards on hand. Remember that the soldiers at Walter Reed tend to be the most severely wounded and some of them may be staying there for a long time.

Here's the address:

Medical Family Assistance Center
Walter Reed Army Medical Center
6900 Georgia Ave., NW
Washington, DC 20307-5001


Gratuitus list of links:

James Lileks
Little Green Footballs
Captain's Quarters
A Little More to the Right
Cut on the Bias
Electric Venom
Cold Fury
Michelle Malkin
PowerLine
The Diplomad
Chief Wiggles
SGT Hook

That'll do for now.

I'm not sure how to describe Democratic Underground. Cesspool comes readily to mind. Hate--Overriding hate. That also comes to mind as a descriptor.

Go there and look at the comments on posts. It really defies comprehension. Hatred reigns supreme under the guise of presumed moral and intellectual superiority.

Lest you have any doubts, check out their "Hate Mailbag". While there may be a real email or two thrown in there, it's pretty obvious that the emails are largely contrived. There is just no way that so many dumbasses could email a moderated page (which removes all postings favorable to the administration and bans the authors) in a short period of time. It's clearly fiction written up to make conservatives (particularly the so-called "religious right") look bad. And given the habituates of that page, I imagine they eat it up.

I have a question that's been weighing heavily on my mind for a while now. Unfortunately, I'll never know the real answer, and I likely won't understand at all any explanations that I'm given.

But here's the question: Why is Bill Clinton still afforded revered status by Democrats?

The Democratic party has suffered one resounding defeat after another since the day Clinton waltzed into the Oval Office. The ONLY people to benefit from Clinton's presidency have been Bill, Hillary and Chelsea Clinton. Yes, he managed to win reelection (by fewer votes than Bush enjoyed in his reelection), but he spent his second term with a Congress that he handed back to the Republicans.

It seems that he's regarded as a genius, but his only real genius is in self-promotion. In retrospect he accomplished little in his tenure other than to burst the Reagan economic bubble, present us with the largest tax increase in history and get a few bills passed which were long in style and short in substance. Midnight basketball, anyone?

To give him some credit, in between photo ops and podium thumping speeches, he did manage to score an intern and get some unusual cigar action.

I'm told that Bill is incredibly intelligent (but so what, if it's an undisciplined intellect?). If he was, indeed, one of our most intelligent presidents, he shares honors with Richard Nixon. Nixon was one of the top three presidents in IQ, but is reviled because he resigned in disgrace--a step Clinton would have taken in he had any honor whatsoever. Nevermind that Nixon got us out of an unpopular war which his Democrat predecessor had gotten us neck-deep into.

Remember the "crime bill"? The Republicans voted to extend debate on the bill for a few more days. It's Republican trait to want to understand things before we vote on them. Knee-jerk emotional decisions are Democrat territory. At any rate, it was voted to extend debate. The bill wasn't voted down. Clinton appeared on TV, chewed his bottom lip for a while and pounded the podium as though he expected to drive it into the stage. He had a figure, I don't know how it was derived, but he announced that "X" number of children would die every day that the bill languished in Congress. Thoroughly cowed, the Republicans rushed back to DC and immediately passed the bill. Clinton took that opportunity to take a vacation on Martha's Vineyard, staying at the home of yet another wealthy Friend of Bill. The "crime bill" laid on his desk, waiting for his signature, for another week while he yucked it up in Martha's Vineyard. Wonder how many children died that week...

I digress a bit. Some of the above are my own reasons for relegating the Clinton presidency to the executive dustbin. But the original question remains. Clinton has led a period of time which is historic in the defeats that the Democratic Party has suffered. Simply put, he's the worst thing that has happened to the party in decades. Possibly ever. Yet he remains revered.

I'm utterly baffled.