When I met him I didn’t know
but he told me with clenched fists

how men’s heads explode like chicken bones
crushed by rocks
and how rubber bullets hurt worse than real ones,

how homeless was nothing
compared to nationless or
defenseless or

how tanks crushed his sister’s shoes
along with a star of David he had copied from soldier’s sleeves
while he, his father and brothers rebuilt the home
they lost during the previous occupation.

He told me without tears
of years and years of genocide
swallowing their blessed cities
inch by inch,

of soldiers with bloody gun butts
kicking aside dead boys
still clutching rocks,

of swarms of children with murdered parents
and stolen land
forming tiny armies in the sand,

of teenage girls with bombs
in their pants

of wars I’d never heard of
through my electric earplugs,

I was terrified
at these truths,
so raw and beautiful

I knew what I had to do
as an American,
it was my duty

            AUSTIN, Texas -- "I said you were a man of peace. I want you to know I took immense crap for that." George W. Bush, diplomat extraordinaire, to Ariel Sharon, The Washington Post, June 3, 2003.

            The effort to find peace in the Middle East is something on which all Americans can support the president, whether we think he knows what he's doing or not. He has recently been getting some criticism for letting his religious beliefs into the process. According to the New Yorker, he told Prince Abdullah of Saudi Arabia: "I think God loves me. I think God loves the Palestinians. I think God loves the Israelis. We cannot allow this to continue." This is good news: It seems to me Bush's attention span is longer and more focused when his religious convictions are involved.

            But I was pleased to see that the Stagecraft Administration has already set up the "money shot" for this peace conference, whether any progress is made or not. The New York Times reports the Big Photo-Op is ready to go. The president and the two prime ministers are to appear together on a bridge over the swimming pool behind the King of Jordan's palace.

Merely from the whines and howls of his numerous enemies on the right, you can tell that Sid Blumenthal has drawn blood in his book, "The Clinton Wars," within which many pages are spent detailing what his pal Hillary Clinton famously referred to as "a vast right-wing conspiracy." The only word I'd quarrel with here is "vast," since the prime players seem to have numbered under 20. And, of course, these days, Senator HRC rather strongly resembles a largish right-wing conspiracy herself.

            Blumenthal's is an awfully long book, but the chapters that I have thus far worked my way through do make a pretty good case in buttressing HRC's claim. Blumenthal's chapter on the Hitchens affair is vivid, too, on the latter's disgusting behavior.

            Prime among the whiners and howlers is the right-wing agitator (and, long ago, former leftist) David Horowitz, who lashes out at "Sid Vicious." I have to say that the endless claims on the right that Sid Blumenthal is some sort of heavy, or thug, have always made me laugh. I don't know him that well, but Sid has always reminded me more of Bernie Wooster's descriptions of Gussie Fink-Nottle.

Here's what we know so far about Iraq's alleged weapons of mass destruction: of the 600 or so sites identified by United States intelligence and Iraqi officials as places where the country biological weapons may be hidden, about 100 of these sites have been searched over the past six weeks and not a single spec of anthrax or other WMD has been uncovered.  

Two skeletal trailers that may have been used to develop anthrax or botulism, scrubbed from top to bottom when it was found, leaving no biological weapons traces behind, according to the Department of Defense, is the only evidence the U.S. has found so far to justify it's preemptive strike against Iraq. But this is far from a "smoking gun and the prospects for finding any WMD in the months ahead are becoming grim.  

The media is peppering U.S. military officials in Iraq on why WMD haven't been found yet. The responses are short and to the point.  

"I honestly don't know," said Stephen Cambone, undersecretary of defense for U.S. intelligence, during a briefing May 30.  

Hey you! Tom Daschle. WAKE UP!!!!!!!!!!!!!!! You've been taking Tylenol PM again haven't you? I knew it. I told you that stuff makes you groggy. Get your punk ass out of bed and get back to work. And this time don't forget to dust off your balls, you piece of crap.  

What are you laughing at Nancy Pelosi? You suck too. Big time. You call yourself a whip? You should take that whip and hang yourself. I'm sorry. Did you say something Dick Gephardt? You didn't? Gee, I'm not surprised.  

You gutless, spineless, brain-dead, paralyzed, sorry excuses for human beings, don't you know that Bush, Secretary of Defense Donald Rumsfeld and his assistant, that gnome Paul Wolfowitz, are trying to take over the world? You think that by ignoring them they're just going to go away?  

What was that Carl Levin? Aliens abducted you? What's your excuse Russ Feingold? How about you Joe Biden? Oh for crying out loud. He peed his pants again. Biden, how many times do I have to tell you that I am not President Bush? Helloooooooooo Barbara Boxer? Are you with me? Would somebody tap that cow on the shoulder and make sure she's still alive. Jeez.