over 100,000 Iraqis now dead

In evaluating Bush Estimates 30,000 Iraqis killed in Gulf War II, there are three options to consider. One, that the President's staff doesn't have the courage to brief him about the true human costs of his war, or that he doesn't care, or that he is flat-out lying for political gain.

Over a year ago, the medical journal Lancet, one of the most respected publications in the West, reported that over 100,000 Iraqis had died due to this war. As the violence has not diminished in Iraq, but only increased, it stands to reason that the figure is much higher now.

Furthermore, the office of the President has been understating our casualties. That's right. Minimizing the cost of war will ultimately cost the Republican Party its power, and I hope that happens in 2006. We cannot afford to take any more of this "conservative" administration that consistently underestimates the costs of everything it undertakes.

The war, Medicare prescription benefits, you name it. Our federal deficit is now running in the area of EIGHT TRILLION DOLLARS and growing every second. How long do you want your grandchildren to pay for the deadly trajectory of the Bush administration, and those Republican administrations that preceded it? Why are we allowing the Bush administration to mortgage our future even more with this illegal and immoral war?

Democrats lack a moral compass and wonder why people don't know what they stand for

Naturally, the Democrats Fear Backlash!

"Democrats, who have not controlled the White House since 2000 and the House in more than a decade, have tried over the past year to put aside deep philosophical differences and rally behind a two-pronged strategy to return to power: Highlight the growing number of GOP scandals and score Bush's unpopular war management."

When you try to play both ends against the middle, the results are usually unsatisfactory.

The two-pronged strategy? Legislate like the neoconservatives whenever you think you can get away with it. When your constituents notice, act like a "moderate" Democrat, which is what the liberal Republicans used to be. No wonder the Democratic Party has lost the battle for the hearts and minds of the people. If you do not have convictions, you can't expect people to follow you. Democrats are even afraid of being called liberal any more.

"'We have not blown our chance" of winning back the House but "we have jeopardized it," said a top strategist to House Democrats, who requested anonymity to speak freely about influential party leaders. "It raises questions about whether we are capable of seizing political opportunities or whether we cannot help ourselves and blow it" by playing to the liberal base of the party.'"

Oh heaven forbid that you play to the base of the party, the base that gives you life. Its the liberals who staff your phone banks, who walk precincts, who forward messages to their friends. As a matter of fact, most of the Democrats I work with on these sorts of projects tend more toward Green. Its your liberal base, the people with the conviction that human rights are more important than corporate profits, who keep the Democratic Party alive as a grassroots entity.

So go ahead, Democrats, ignore your so-called liberal base and watch yourselves continue to lose power.

Its just plain embarrassing to be a Democrat now. We have witnessed the Democratic Party blow TWO elections. These should have been a slam dunk. George Bush is a draft-dodging inarticulate child of the rich who mangles the English language and came into the political arena as a right-wing extremist.

Because the Democrats are unable to find a moral compass, Bush was able to take over the government of the United States, and to disastrous results. Stop trying to be like the Republicans, who have caused the deaths of over 2,000 innocent American young people in Iraq, the maiming of tens of thousands of same, and the deaths of over 100,000 Iraq innocents. Just for starters.