Vicente Fox got a well-deserved boot in the derrière for saying Mexicans come to America for taking jobs "not even Blacks want to do."

But Thomas Friedman earns plaudits and Pulitzers for his column which today announces that East Indians are taking jobs the French are too lazy to do. [See, "A Race to the Top," New York Times.] Friedman's fit of racial profiling was motivated by his pique over France's rejection of the globalizers' charter for corporate dominance known as the European Constitution.

It's not the implicit racism of Friedman's statement which is most irksome, it's his ghastly glee that, "a world of benefits they [Western Europeans] have known for 50 years is coming apart," because the French and other Europeans "are trying to preserve a 35 hour work week in a world where Indian engineers are ready to work a 35-hour day."

He forgot to add, "and where Indian families are ready to sell their children into sexual slavery to survive." Now, THERE'S a standard to reach for.

The following article is an interview with Joshua Frank, the author of "Left Out! How Liberals Helped Elect George W. Bush." The book is an analysis of the 2004 presidential campaign. Frank's writings appear regularly on the Internet and he is a contributor to "Dime’s Worth of Difference: Beyond the Lesser of Two Evils." In this interview we examine what the anti-war movement can learn from the 2004 presidential election and how the movement should be approaching the 2006 election.

Kevin Zeese: First, tell me about your new book “Left Out!.” What did you learn about the 2004 campaign while writing it?

Aggressive followers and participants in U.S. politics often have strong opinions about the Downing Street Minutes.  Most other Americans have not heard of or are not clear about what the Downing Street Minutes are. 

How is this possible?  Here we have the official government minutes from a meeting of British Prime Minister Tony Blair and his top national security officials, including a briefing by Richard Dearlove, then-director of Britain's CIA equivalent, MI-6, who had just returned from meetings with high U.S. Government officials in Washington.  While the meeting recorded in these minutes occurred on July 23, 2002, months before President Bush submitted his resolution on Iraq to the United States Congress and months before Bush and Blair asked the United Nations to resume its inspections for alleged weapons of mass destruction in Iraq, the minutes make clear that Bush had decided to overthrow Iraqi President Saddam Hussein by launching a war which, Dearlove reports, would be "justified by the conjunction of terrorism and WMD [weapons of mass destruction]."  Dearlove continues: "But the intelligence and facts were being fixed around the policy."

WASHINGTON -Human Rights Campaign President Joe Solmonese made the following statement today in reaction to Pope Benedict's anti-gay comments regarding marriage. In talking about marriage equality the Pope referenced "pseudo-matrimonies" and said, "Matrimony and the family are not, in reality, a casual sociological construction or the fruit of specific historic and economic situations."

"It is unfortunate that the Pope would choose so early in his pontificate to sweepingly condemn so many faithful Catholics. There is a long Biblical tradition of showing love and compassion for all. It is from that tradition that so many fair-minded Catholics want to see their Pope speaking. It's sad that he's choosing to ignore that tradition and to divide his followers."

"No one in the fight for marriage equality is asking any church to perform or recognize these marriages. What we're asking for are equal rights and responsibilities under the law. There are millions of gay, lesbian, bisexual and transgender Catholics who should feel welcomed by their Church. Today they do not."

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Senator Bill Frist and the Bush White House seem to share strongly held minority political viewpoints that they are trying to impose on the majority of American citizens. Both seem to be abusing their positions of political power to “rule over” Americans instead of “representing” Americans.

Frist is willing to permanently divide the Senate by attacking long-standing Senate traditions in order to impose radical, Right Wing judicial nominees selected by the Bush White House. Although Bush has been able to get Senate approval for hundreds of judicial nominees, a handful of his nominees hold extreme legal views that would prevent them from giving a fair hearing to workers, consumers, the poor and powerless.