Bill, I still have the impression that the Old Guard advising le dauphin Bush were not completely aware of the power of the internet and the changing communication environment since they last had been inside the Beltway. There is today a much greater public appetite for openness in government, following on Watergate, but also from the tell-all books and punditry that has proliferated since Reagan-Bush. It's almost as if they underestimate the press and the public's ability to disseminate information that is presented to them by their leadership, as if they lived in CEO vacuums oblivious to what the voting and pension-building public had become. On the other hand, if your voting base is a group of conservatives, many of them apostolic Christians who believe in the Bible literally down to the commas, then they are presumed to be much more trusting and accepting of authority and top-down diktats. Therefore, if you motivate your base to outnumber your opposition, that's all that matters. Which brings us back to the voting booth: like so much else in life, half of success is just showing up. Karen Karen quoted:
"information from foreign informants have concluded they cannot validate two prominent allegations made by high-ranking administration officials: links between Hussein and al Qaeda members who have taken refuge in northern Iraq"
