Ambivalence is a good word. I looked it up and the definition is: "The coexistence of contradictory emotions, attitudes, ideas, or desires with respect to a particular person, object, or situation." This perfectly describes my feeling for the junior senator from Massachusetts, our own John Kerry. 
SHERMAN OAKS, Calif. -- In the angry life of Maryscott O'Connor, the rage begins as soon as she opens her eyes and realizes that her president is still George W. Bush. The sun has yet to rise and her family is asleep, but no matter; as soon as the realization kicks in, O'Connor, 37, is out of bed and heading toward her computer.I've read some of Maryscott's rants and indeed they are among the harshest, but after reading her full profile, I have a better sense of why she is so angry and I hope her psyche can last the next few years while the Chimp is in office (so to speak). Hopefully, the latest polls will give Maryscott some comfort that the rest of the country is starting to agree with her. From today's Washington Post:
Out there, awaiting her building fury: the Angry Left, where O'Connor's reputation is as one of the angriest of all. "One long, sustained scream" is how she describes the writing she does for various Web logs, as she wonders what she should scream about this day."
"According to the latest Post-ABC News poll, Bush's overall job approval rating now averages 43 percent in the states where he beat Democratic nominee John Kerry two years ago, while 57 percent disapprove of his performance.
Bush is even marginally unpopular, at least on average, in states where he beat Kerry with relative ease. The poll data suggest that in states where the president's victory margin was greater than five percentage points, his average job approval currently stands at 47 percent. Red? Hardly. A watery pink at best.
And in states where the president's victory margin was five percentage points or less, a clear majority of residents now disapprove of his performance. Color them light blue."
It's Patriot's Day here in Massachusetts. Although we're supposed to be honoring the "shot heard round the world" at Lexington Green, and the march of British troops from there to Concord in 1775, this important historic moment has become overshadowed by sporting events."Libby's request could lead to greater attention on the administration's handling of Iraqi intelligence, and is being made at a time when Bush's past statements about Iraq's weapons have come under renewed scrutiny.
On Sunday the Washington Post reported that when Bush proclaimed, ''We have found the weapons of mass destruction" in May 2003 following the seizure of two trailers he described as mobile bioweapons labs, a team of specialists had already told the White House that the trailers had nothing to do with making weapons."
"Instilled by the Cadet Honor System with a fundamental, longstanding respect for truth, we graduates of the United States Military Academy believe that honor is a basic attribute of character. That we are no longer cadets is irrelevant. We stand appalled by the deceitful behavior of the government of the United States and, in particular, its widely known malefactors. Lying, cheating, stealing, delivering evasive statements and quibbling not only has demeaned these deceivers and the United States of America, but has placed vast numbers of innocent people in deadly peril. We will not serve the lies.
The war in Iraq was launched illegally. It has since killed tens of thousands of innocents, causing incalculable damage to Iraq and the Iraqi people, as well as the reputation of the United States of America. We will not serve the lies.
When we West Point graduates took our commissioning oath of office one past June morning, we swore to protect our nation against all enemies, foreign and domestic. The deceitful connivances of the current administration have resulted in a war catastrophic to our nation’s interests: politically, economically, militarily, and morally. We now stand to protect our nation from these deceivers. We will not serve their lies.
We seek justice for all victims of this illegal war, both servicemen and servicewomen, and the citizens of Iraq.
To our purpose we invoke the words of Thomas Jefferson in the Declaration of Independence whereby we too “mutually pledge to each other our lives, our Fortunes, & our sacred Honor.”
"The [White House] spokesman, Scott McClellan, said a decision was made to declassify and release some information to rebut "irresponsible and unfounded accusations" that the administration had manipulated or misused prewar intelligence to buttress its case for war."WTF? Now it appears that they can use the power of the national government to justify anything they damn well please.
"WASHINGTON, April 1 — The calls went out across the nation, as Bush administration officials asked the country's most seasoned disaster response experts to consider the job of a lifetime: FEMA director. But again and again, the response over the past several months was the same: "No thanks."From yesterday's New York Times.
Unconvinced that the administration is serious about fixing the Federal Emergency Management Agency or that there is enough time actually to get it done before President Bush's second term ends, seven of these candidates for director or another top FEMA job said in interviews that they had pulled themselves out of the running.
"You don't take the fire chief job after someone has burned down the city unless you are going to be able to do it in the right fashion," said Ellis M. Stanley, general manager of emergency planning in Los Angeles, who said he was one of those called.
Now, with the next hurricane season only two months away, the Bush administration has finally come up with a convenient but somewhat embarrassing solution. Mr. Bush, several former and current FEMA officials said, intends to nominate R. David Paulison, a former fire official who has been filling in for the past seven months, to take on the job permanently."
Well, it's finally here. Baseball season. This year's off-season seemed to take forever. And we're in first place! The Sox and everyone else who won their first game today. "Karl Rove, President Bush's chief political adviser, cautioned other White House aides in the summer of 2003 that Bush's 2004 re-election prospects would be severely damaged if it was publicly disclosed that he had been personally warned that a key rationale for going to war had been challenged within the administration. Rove expressed his concerns shortly after an informal review of classified government records by then-Deputy National Security Adviser Stephen J. Hadley determined that Bush had been specifically advised that claims he later made in his 2003 State of the Union address -- that Iraq was procuring high-strength aluminum tubes to build a nuclear weapon -- might not be true, according to government records and interviews."Not even the least bit shocking, is it? They'll do anything.
WASHINGTON - President Bush and British Prime Minister Tony Blair were officially on a diplomatic track regarding Iraq in January 2003, but a secret memo now reveals they were determined to go to war six weeks before invading.
"This issue will come to a head in a matter of weeks, not months," said Bush on Jan. 31, 2003.
Taking notes at the meeting that day in the Oval Office, Blair's National Security Adviser David Manning, now Great Britain's ambassador in Washington.
Five days later, then-Secretary of State Colin Powell made the U.S. case to the United Nations.
But Manning wrote that the president had decided on war no matter what happened diplomatically, or whether inspectors found weapons of mass destruction.
"As the memo makes clear, the diplomatic strategy was fixed around the military planning," says Philippe Sands, a professor of international law and the author of the book “Lawless World.” "The decision had been taken."
According to the memo, Bush and Blair also predicted a quick victory and vastly underestimated the challenge of creating a new government.
