Few law enforcement institutions have been so thoroughly discredited in recent years as the FBI's forensic laboratory. In 1997, the Bureau's inspector general (IG) at the time issued a devastating report, stigmatizing one instance after another of mishandled and contaminated evidence, inept technicians, and outright fabrication. The IG concluded that there were "serious and credible allegations of incompetence" and perjured courtroom testimony.

My view is that taken as a whole, forensic evidence as used by prosecutors is inherently untrustworthy. Of course the apex forensic hero of prosecutors, long promoted as the bottom line in reliability -- at least until the arrival of DNA matching -- has been the fingerprint.

Why should Americans care about possible 2004 vote miscounts? The 2004 election is over. It’s old news. The only reason for rehashing prior elections is to ensure that our votes are counted the way voters intend in the future. Should Americans trust that our votes are counted accurately; or is wholesale electronic election tampering occurring? How could the evidence of vote tampering be hidden? Are the future of democracy and U.S. elections at stake? The U.S. press has dismissed exit polls as surprisingly inaccurate in the 2004 presidential election when exit polls conflicted with official vote counts. Were exit polls wrong or were vote counts altered?

Two ghosts stalk the national Democratic Party in its pitiful, 21st century incarnation. One is George McGovern, who taught them that only Republican values matter in a national election. The other is Ralph Nader, who taught them who the real enemy is.

The present hamstrung state of the party is the result of its abject fear of these ghosts, which has given it a permanent moral stammer. A party that doesn't believe in itself is doomed to lose over and over, even if it represents the majority of the people and even - as Al Gore demonstrated in 2000 - when it gets the most votes.

While the ghost of McGovern, who was mauled by Richard Nixon in 1972, is the most deeply ingrained and enfeebling, seeming to guarantee uncritical Democratic support ("we love America, honest") for every cynical Republican military or civil-liberties outrage concocted in the name of national security, the ghost of Nader is the most life-threatening. Its effect is emetic, causing an immediate discharge of rationality among the party faithful at every hint of a challenge from the party's values base. The Nader Effect causes Democrats to upchuck the very medicine that will save it.

The Honorable George W. Bush
President of the United States
1600 Pennsylvania Avenue, NW
Washington, DC 20500

February 14, 2006

Dear President Bush,

The nation’s community pharmacists are offended by your comments last week in Manchester that pharmacists are overcharging the Medicaid system. This statement is disingenuous and untrue. In fact, nearly all Medicaid prescriptions have a cap (“FUL” or “MAC”) placed on them by the Centers for Medicare & Medicaid Services and by the state Medicaid programs designed specifically to make it impossible to “overcharge” the Medicaid system.

The National Community Pharmacists Association represents the nation’s community pharmacists—small businesses where 60,000 health care professionals work and where nearly 400,000 Americans are employed to serve millions of patients each day. Nearly half of community pharmacies are located in towns with populations of less than 20,000.