Saudi Arabia is the most extreme, brutal dictatorship --a family-owned theocracy barely above North Korea as the most cult-like nation on earth.

Political parties are banned. Trade Unions and public demonstrations are illegal. It is a crime to practice or promote any religion other than Wahabbi/Salafi Islam. Non-Muslims cannot testify in criminal court. The government uses flogging, amputation, and public beheadings to punish law-breakers --including the death penalty for "practicing witchcraft."

Gender Apartheid is the rule of law: women are not allowed to vote and cannot travel alone unless escorted by a male relative. Saudi Arabia is the only country in the world where women are prohibited from driving or riding bicycles in public, and whose Olympic Team had no female delegation.

Yet the US media routinely describes its leaders as the Saudi "Royal Family" as if they were comparable to the House of Windsor. Senators and Rep's demand boycotts of Venezuela when Hugo Chavez calls Bush schoolyard names, then go fill up their cars with Saudi oil...

I think if Ron Paul were smart, he would introduce a comparable resolution condemning the Saudis for denying women the vote, then take his colleagues to task when they vote against it.

And Cheech, don't forget Cheech...

Gobbledeygook.

Report the record straight, please...

AIG is now a taxpayer-owned company, and we, the American people, are entitled to know exactly who is taking millions of dollars of our hard-earned money. Every non-profit 501c3 charity must publicly disclose executive salaries, which can be obtained by anyone with a FOIA request. Why not AIG?

As long as these AIG sleazebags can conceal their identities, they will try to keep every ill-gotten nickel. But I guarantee you that the minute their names and photos appear on TV and in newspapers, and those camera crews come knocking on their front doors they will drop those bonuses like used condoms.

Just like ketchup constitutes a "vegetable" the Branch Davidian cult compound was a "church," and Bob Jones University's segregation policy was "religious freedom" --right-wing conservatives are the most extreme, double-talking relativists.

Can't wait to read more WaPo "minority views" on the faked Moon landing, the global Jewish conspiracy, the second gunman on the grassy knoll, our government's role blowing-up the Twin Towers, and those inflated numbers of Holocaust victims.

Well, not so long as the lying stimulates "debate" about the "controversy."

I guess the mouth-breathers will have to settle for more "Rising GOP Star" Bobby Jindhal doing Mister Rogers impersonations.

Will, however, is flatly misrepresenting proven facts and hard, scientific research.

It is political propaganda, plain and simple, with no other purpose than to deceive the public.

ACRC and WMO should sue Will and The Post in a court of law to force a very public correction; they should consider seeking compensation for damages to their reputation. If these groups truly value their respective missions, they should defend themselves aggressively from this kind of cowardly, political attack.

It is a widespread problem among opinion journalists: they have no expertise in anything other than writing 6-paragraph opinions. George Will knows absolutely zero about climate change, greenhouse gases, or any relevant scientific field.

Why, then, does the Post publish his opinions on these subjects? Why would anyone seek or care about Will's opinions on subjects about which he is utterly ignorant?

Answer: they wouldn't, except that Will's fact-check-free column occupies a prominent spot on the Post's newspaper and website.

It's not journalism --it's political propaganda, plain and simple.

Why do they think any Republicans insane enough to do so could actually sustain a filibuster in the face of public scrutiny?

Do they really believe the Republicans will commit political suicide by launching a filibuster on a jobs and economic rescue package when the voting public is being smothered in pink slips?

And, if so, why doesn't Reid challenge Republicans to filibuster, and make them go through with it until they soil themselves on the Senate floor.

If we shine the national spotlight on their opposition to helping millions of Americans at a time of need, they will be forced to relent.

Daschle was clearly instrumental in helping Obama win when Obama needed help, so I can understand Obama's loyalty and gratitude. But Sen, Daschle essentially "threw Obama an anvil" and has put a lot at risk for the sake of his own advancement.

I say his own advancement because there are many other progressive, capable people Obama could pick for this post who do not have a six figure tax problem, and Daschle still could be involved substantially in health care reform without being the Cabinet Secretary.

Coming in the wake of Geithner, it makes Obama look way, way too much like the Republican good 'ol boys he replaced. How does the president tell middle class people who make the same "mistake" that they deserve harsher treatment from the IRS than his Cabinet?

Frankly, I can believe Daschle is putting the President in this position instead of doing the honorable thing: withdrawing his name, admitting he concealed the tax issue and protecting Obama's reputation.

In the Web 2.0 age, opinions, gossip, clever insults and even (especially?) scoops abound. Why, then, would a pre-eminent newspaper hire William Kristol?

Bill Safire was a knowledgeable, first-rate wordsmith who worked in private sector PR & television and as an Army correspondent before getting his Times column. Rowland Evans served in combat in the Marine Corps before journalism. Krugman, as I noted, is an accomplished economist.

It's understandable why the Times would hire them and why their opinions would be interesting to readers.

But Kristol --like so many of today's editorialists-- is neither uniquely experienced, knowledgeable or able to bring new insight to readers through his writing. And people won't pay to read uninteresting opinions when there are so many alternatives.

The Achilles Heel of journalism long has been national "journalists" utter lack of practical knowledge or real-world experience in the subject matter about which they write as erstwhile "authorities."

Kristol, an intelligent man, spent his entire career in academia and as a political operative. He has absolutely zero life experience or hands-on knowledge of topics like combat operations (apart from what he reads), and therefore has no business evaluating the best Iraq military strategy from any prominent, serious media outlet.

Yet he was a ubiquitous presence in national editorials and TV interviews about the risk of invading Iraq and prudence of implementing the Surge.

Paul Krugman, by contrast, is an experienced and accomplished economist. He knows what he's talking about on economics because --unlike pure sophists such as David Brooks-- he can "do the proverbial math" and do it as well as anyone.

Krugman is an expert, hands-on economist first and foremost, who also writes opinions for the Times. Kristol is a partisan opinion-writer first and foremost, with no substantive hands-on expertise in any subject about which he professes to be expert.

It seems that a confident and entertaining schtick (=cough= Maureen Dowd =cough=) a Lexis-Nexis account and proper connections are the primary qualifications to be an editorial "journalist" these days.

As for conservatives, I think the incredibly prescient Kevin Phillips should be given Kristol's slot --if he'd take it.

Do you really think the perpetrators will simply go away? (many were scofflaws from the Reagan administration)

Identifying and holding accountable the person who forged those Niger letters, or the individual who covered-up Pat Tillman's friendly-fire death, would have the exact opposite effect of causing "more gloom."

It would restore public confidence and trust in government to know that people guilty of misdeeds aren't exempt from consequences simply because they are rich or politically-connected.

And there is no clearer way for Democrats to demonstrate they are different than the GOP, no way to look more different than the GOP, than by actually holding officials accountable for their misdeeds and abuse of power in a very public forum.

Yes, there are limited resources, but that's no excuse to do nothing. The answer is to prioritize which cases to pursue, and indeed it would be fruitless to bring charges against, say, Cheney or Rice.

There are, however, plenty of lower-level perp's who were involved in the US Attorney firings, war profiteering, the Niger forgery, the Pat Tillman cover-up, etc.

They must be held accountable or at least forced to live the remainder of their lives in court or on the run.

Its proponents never sought nor believed in "limited government" nor "individual liberty." They attempted to police Americans' most intimate private freedoms --who you can have sex with, who you can marry, what you can read, whether you can legally purchase birth control, how children must pray at school, etc.

They set-up massive taxpayer subsidies for agribusiness, petrochemical companies, and extractive businesses like mining. They secured unprecedented increases in taxpayer funding for weapons and military equipment manufacturers.

None of this was designed to "limit" government or "increase individual freedom," it was intended to subsidized corporate cronies and give control over individual liberties to fundamentalists.

Greg, I think your choice of words leaves the false impression that Leahy demanded removing Lieberman from something to which Lieberman is entitled. Let's be clear:

- committee chairs are re-assigned at the start of each Congress.

- there is no Senate rule requiring parties to appoint their most senior members or re-appoint the same members to Committee Chairmanships.

- the longstanding Senate tradition is that parties appoint their own party members to chair committees, not members of other parties.

- individual Senators may form an agreement to officially caucus with a different party during part or all of a Congress.

Lieberman, then, is demanding a committee chairmanship from a party he quit and then tried to prevent from winning an expanded majority --the very same majority that would provide him a senate chairmanship!

He's demanding this preferential treatment under threat of quitting the caucus!

If Democrats decide to give a different Senator (a Democrat, for example) the chairmanship that Lieberman held last Congress, it is not an "ouster."

The real question is: on what basis does Lieberman deserve a chairmanship?

Team Obama, however, is much more organized and forced to adopt a greater sense of urgency than Team Clinton was at the same point in time. My advice to him would be:

1. Pack the Courts -- have a pre-vetted list of progressive nominees, including any wrongly blocked by the Republican Right during the Clinton years, and push them through starting Day One.

2. Restore Tax Fairness -- repeal the Bush tax giveaways to the rich, enact the middle class cuts promised in the campaign.

3. End Bush Stem Cell Ban -- remove the Bush ban that limits federal research to existing lines.

4. End Bush Ban on aid to international Family Planning -- this backward bit of Reaganite censorship should be removed on Obama's first day.

5. Launch Key Investigations into Right-Wing Republican Criminals -- scores of corrupt Republicans and members of the conservative political establishment have been shielded from scrutiny by the Bush administration. From war profiteers to Scooter Libby to Tom DeLay to at-large members of the Abramoff Criminal Enterprise, they should be neutralized via aggressive investigation and forced to compensate taxpayers. Expect lots of crimes by Bush admin members to be revealed once they're out of office.

6. Tax & Punish the Oil Cartel -- enact an immediate windfall profit tax on oil companies to fund alternative energy research and veteran care.

7. Punish Corporate Predators -- enact new laws mandating massive fines and jail time for Enron-type corporate criminals and officers of companies who use offshore tax shelters to evade US taxes.

8. Convene Summit of World Leaders -- make a clear break from Bush extremism in foreign policy and forge new alliances to defeat al Qaeda, nuclear prolifieration and global poverty.

I brought my nephew and 4 of his Rugby teammates --all ROTC students-- to The Granite State for the day. We've been canvassing, transporting volunteers and moving supplies between the Portsmouth area and Nashua.

The biggest difference from 2004 is that all the wingnut voters for Bush back then were loud, pushy, and omnipresent with signs and even bullhorns. I've only encountered one today, a guy today who saw my Obama shirt tell me, "you know, you will burn in hell..." The rest appear totally unenthusiastic.

Also there are many hilarious spoof signs on roadsides that imitate Sununu's but say, "Stand up for Bush - vote Sununu" and "Oppose Stem Cell Research - vote Sununu" etc.