A remarkable little scandal erupted last week involving President Barack Obama's planned education message, to be delivered September 8 in public schools across the country by video. Many parents expressed their disapproval, based on an early release of the text and curriculum. Their objections were sparked because of some sections of the lesson plan which they thought seemed too political in nature to be delivered to a captive audience of school children. But what is even more remarkable is the news media backlash to these protests.

On Friday, September 4, NPR insouciantly ridiculed and mocked the protests in an unabashedly partisan fashion. In Wade Goodwyn's Obama's Schools Speech Faces Backlash, Goodwyn doesn't even try to be impartial in his report, even going so far as to accuse parents who oppose letting the government politically indoctrinate their children of not wanting to help the president improve public education. You won't find that in the transcript on the NPR website, you'll have to listen to the full 3 minute MP3 file to find it. Here's the problem with Goodwyn's biased report: he makes a straw man argument. There's no reason to believe any parent opposes the improvement of their child's education. But NPR would have us believe inserting left wing propaganda is improving public education.

So what in this whole situation could be considered political? You won't find out from the main stream media. The following stories would have us believe the only thing we need to know about the president's speech to school children is that they should work hard and stay in school. One of these is another NPR story:

• Obama's Speech Protests Examined
• White House Seeks To Tamp Schools Speech Furor
• Harwood: Opponents of Obama's School Invasion 'Not Smart Enough' To Raise Their Children
• Unwillingness to Have Obama in Classroom Symptom of Why Schoolchildren 'Are So Dumb Today,' Says MSNBC Guest

What you won't find in the main stream news media are the real reasons many parents protested. Part of the reason is because these objections have little if anything to do with the speech at all. That's part of the media manipulation, focusing all this public attention on the speech, which few if any one actually had a problem with. You can read the full text of the speech here: Text of President Obama's School Speech. The problem is with the curriculum the White House and Department of Education put together to accompany the speech.

To find out what is, or was since the curriculum was edited after the protests began, in the lesson plan that outraged so many parents you'll have to go to alternative news media. The Cato Institute's Gene Healy writes about the lesson plan in Hey, Mr. President, Leave Those Kids Alone:

The lesson plans Obama Department of Education officials came up with after several meetings with the White House make it clear that federal education bureaucrats should be kept as far away from children as possible.

One of the plans envisioned teachers making kindergartners write letters to themselves about what they can do to help the president. After parents rightly recoiled from that recommendation, the DOE tried to throw it down the memory hole, deleting it from their Web site.

Given some of the cultish questions that survived DOE's hasty revision, however, concerned parents can be pardoned a few overheated references to Kim Il-Sung:

How will [President Obama] inspire us?"

What is President Obama inspiring you to do?

Why is it important that we listen to the president and other elected officials?

These are question-begging questions, especially if you're one of those sensible Americans of all ages who aren't particularly inspired by President Obama, and who aren't convinced that listening raptly to elected officials is the best possible use of your time.

Worse still, the goofy pedagogical theory that informs DOE's lesson plans assumes that if we just get kids to express themselves about how a speech makes them feel, then they'll get smarter.

When they're old enough, in history class, kids ought to read and listen to presidential speeches like Ike's farewell address, LBJ's Great Society speech, Carter's malaise speech, and George W. Bush's second inaugural. And then they should be encouraged to dissect those speeches: What's the argument here? Is it convincing? We ought to ask kids to think critically about presidential rhetoric, instead of prodding them to burble appreciatively about his compassionate plans for everybody.

There is another "education" video being shown to public school students, entirely separate from the president's planned speech, titled "I pledge". I pledge features celebrities making politically partisan pledges. In Parents upset over 'leftist propaganda' video Lisa Schencker describes some aspects of the video.

Many pledges, such as supporting local food banks, smiling more, and caring for the elderly are noncontroversial. But other pledges, such as "to never give anyone the finger when I'm driving again," "to sell my obnoxious car and buy a hybrid" and to advance stem cell research cross the line, some say.

Do you see the problem? The celebrity video was not "just" about staying in school and working hard. There is social engineering going on here. It's not all bad social engineering, what with encouraging children to support local food banks and care for the elderly. But let's at least acknowledge this goes beyond mere education. Then there is the stuff about buying a hybrid and supporting stem cell research - how can any thinking person NOT see these statements relate to highly charged political issues?

Schencker's piece continues:

Gayle Ruzicka, president of conservative Utah Eagle Forum, said the video was blatantly political. She said other offensive pledges included, "I pledge to be of service to Barack Obama," "I pledge allegiance to the funk, to the united funk of funkadelica," and pledges to not use plastic grocery bags and not flush the toilet after urinating.

"It's very inappropriate to show a radical, leftist propaganda piece that political to children," Ruzicka said. "If parents want their children to learn about those things and do them in the home, wonderful, fine, but it's not the place of the school to show a one-sided propaganda piece to children without parents knowing about it."

"They shouldn't be troubling our youth with the woes of the world and making them feel like we're in slavery or they have to worry about how many times they flush the toilet or if they have a plastic water bottle," Cieslewicz said, referring to pledges in the video to "end slavery."

Let's pose a hypothetical: "I pledge to be of service to George W. Bush." Now try to argue this is not a political statement, especially were it is to be delivered in a message to young students. Try to argue such a statement would not be met with widespread outrage by the very people saying there is nothing wrong with President Obama's message to students. That is partly what bothers so many conservative parents. People who see no problem with the "I pledge" video also seem to have no problem with the White House lesson plan that accompanied president Obama's back-to-school speech.

And no where in the main stream media are we being informed about the genuinely political and/or troubling aspects of the video or of the president's education message. Instead, we get more of the same loyal protection and obfuscation by left wing journalists trying to portray dissent as uncaring or racist, and alarmed parents as nincompoops who need government's help in properly raising their children.

Of the several news stories on NPR about the protests surrounding the president's speech I have yet to read or listen to one that actually tried to keep the public well informed. In every case so far (I admit I could have missed something) NPR wasn't even interested in being impartial - each story was designed to attack any opposition to the president's plans and to support the president in any and all aspects of his agenda. When was the last time you heard or read a story from NPR that supported anything President Bush tried to do?

This small scandal really doesn't merit this kind of media attention. There is tremendous left wing indoctrination in the public schools already. But the left-leaning news media chose to make this story a big deal, even if it wasn't the real story at all. The misrepresentation of conservative opinions and policies is standard procedure at NPR, and I'm afraid it has been for quite some time.

Truth - noun: the Democrat narrative

On August 28, 2009 NPR's Julie Rovner reported on a new angle for the health care debate - In Health Care Debate, Fear Trumps Logic. In yet another "you won't notice how partisan I am" moment Rovner's piece asserts the only reason to oppose the current health care reform legislation currently before Congress is because conservative groups are scaring you with lies. Part of the problem here is the vast majority of "fears" about this latest rendition of health care reform are well founded, even if she wouldn't admit it, something Rovner would know if she would take the time to actually read the bills.

If you listen to the mp3 file you'll notice Rovner mentions nothing what ever as to the contents of the bill, but she does blindly mention objections to the legislation have been widely "debunked." And what loyal reporter to the Democratic Party wouldn't mention the name of the current favorite scapegoat? Like the typical Obama supporting journalist Rovner is sure to mention Sarah Palin's "death panels" argument, as if it were merely rhetoric. Admittedly, the term "death panels" is inflammatory, but so are accusations that anyone who opposes the currently health care "reform" initiative is racist, stupid, un-American or what have you. We don't see NPR or any other main stream media outlet condemning that rhetoric, do we?

The American Thinker reports on a real life example of precisely what Sarah Palin was warning about. In Ethel Fenig's August 11 article 'Death Panels' in Oregon Fenig begins with this:

Perhaps former Governor Sarah Palin (R-Alaska) was referring to the tragic predicament of Barbara Wagner of Oregon when she wrote how she feared for the fate of her Down Syndrome son under "Obama's 'Death Panels.' "

Susan Donaldson James of ABC News reports on the letter Ms. Wagner received from the Oregon Health Plan in response to a $4000 a month drug her doctor prescribed after her lung cancer, long in remission, returned..

the insurance company refused to pay.

What the Oregon Health Plan did agree to cover, however, were drugs for a physician-assisted death. Those drugs would cost about $50.

Hmmmm, let's do the math. Yep, a one time prescription of $50 sure is cheaper than $4000 a month for who knows how many months to keep a 64 year old woman alive. So the Oregon "Death Panel" graciously offered suicide pills. Or doctor assisted murder.

Why shouldn't the American people interpret this situation as the reality of government death panels? And what is the anti-health care rhetoric that has been debunked? Is it that the death panels were not really in any Congressional bill? Well, no. What has been debunked in the notion that the term "death panels" appears in the language of any of the proposed bills. The provision that gave rise to the death panels label actually was part of the legislation, and the Senate made it known they eliminated such provision after Palin's label spread across the country. On August 14 the L.A. Times reported on the fact that this provision did in fact exist in the bill:

Senate committee scraps healthcare provision that gave rise to 'death panel' claims

In their L.A. Times piece, Christi Parsons and Andrew Zajac also try to persuade the reader that death panel claims are "widely discredited." But then there is this admission:

Recently, former Alaska Gov. Sarah Palin speculated that Obama and other Democrats wanted to set up "death panels" to decide who gets medical services and who does not.

In reality, the provision was designed to allow Medicare to pay doctors who counsel patients about planning for end-of-life decisions. The consultations would be voluntary and would provide information about living wills, healthcare proxies, pain medication and hospice.

Did you catch that? "Doctors who counsel patients about planning for end-of-life decisions" will get payed to do this. President Obama recently asserted paying doctors to perform a specific task counted as incentive to do more of it when he said My plan might stop doctors from cutting off your foot. So why pay doctors to counsel patients on planning for end-of-life decisions if paying them to cut off your foot is such a bad idea? If a doctor is willing to needlessly cut off your foot why wouldn't they needlessly encourage you to consider doctor assisted suicide?

The Washington Post's Charles Lane noticed this problem as well. In his August 8th piece Undue Influence Lane says:

Section 1233, however, addresses compassionate goals in disconcerting proximity to fiscal ones. Supporters protest that they're just trying to facilitate choice -- even if patients opt for expensive life-prolonging care. I think they protest too much: If it's all about obviating suffering, emotional or physical, what's it doing in a measure to "bend the curve" on health-care costs?

Though not mandatory, as some on the right have claimed, the consultations envisioned in Section 1233 aren't quite "purely voluntary," as Rep. Sander M. Levin (D-Mich.) asserts. To me, "purely voluntary" means "not unless the patient requests one." Section 1233, however, lets doctors initiate the chat and gives them an incentive -- money -- to do so. Indeed, that's an incentive to insist.

Patients may refuse without penalty, but many will bow to white-coated authority. Once they're in the meeting, the bill does permit "formulation" of a plug-pulling order right then and there. So when Rep. Earl Blumenauer (D-Ore.) denies that Section 1233 would "place senior citizens in situations where they feel pressured to sign end-of-life directives that they would not otherwise sign," I don't think he's being realistic.

Opponents of this so-called reform use warnings, many time emotionally charged warnings. But why do so many in the main stream news media act as if these opponents never used reason and logic? "The opponents" of health care reform are not some monolithic organization as Rovner's story and selected sound bites suggest. As Barbara Wagner's story shows us such a thing is already happening. But her's is not the only example.

On August 18th the Wall Street Journal published The Death Book for Veterans by Jim Towey. You tell me if this sounds like death panels:

If President Obama wants to better understand why America's discomfort with end-of-life discussions threatens to derail his health-care reform, he might begin with his own Department of Veterans Affairs (VA). He will quickly discover how government bureaucrats are greasing the slippery slope that can start with cost containment but quickly become a systematic denial of care.

Last year, bureaucrats at the VA's National Center for Ethics in Health Care advocated a 52-page end-of-life planning document, "Your Life, Your Choices." It was first published in 1997 and later promoted as the VA's preferred living will throughout its vast network of hospitals and nursing homes. After the Bush White House took a look at how this document was treating complex health and moral issues, the VA suspended its use. Unfortunately, under President Obama, the VA has now resuscitated "Your Life, Your Choices."

Who is the primary author of this workbook? Dr. Robert Pearlman, chief of ethics evaluation for the center, a man who in 1996 advocated for physician-assisted suicide in Vacco v. Quill before the U.S. Supreme Court and is known for his support of health-care rationing.

"Your Life, Your Choices" presents end-of-life choices in a way aimed at steering users toward predetermined conclusions, much like a political "push poll." For example, a worksheet on page 21 lists various scenarios and asks users to then decide whether their own life would be "not worth living."

The idea of death panels applies both to a bureaucratic panel deciding who does and does not get the resources needed for adequate health care to continue living and it applies to government coercion into "helping" people choose to end their lives.

Getting back to Rovner's NPR story, "Fear is crowding out the truth, and the truth ought to count for something" says Jonathan Oberlander. The truth is that despite inflammatory rhetoric by many, opponents to the current health care reform initiative have good reason to worry about it. That's why Rovner and so many others in the main stream news media treat the Democrat narrative as the truth. Therefore any disagreement with the left wing narrative equals some nefarious and manufactured excuse to prevent change. Had Rovner been interested in impartial journalism she would recognize the fact that the vast majority of Americans all agree something needs to change regarding the current health care system. But government intrusion is often considered just as bad as the current health care situation. We don't want another instance of "the cure is worse than the disease."

The rationing of health care in a government run system is inevitable. Just this week we learned the government, under the administration of President Barack Obama, will cut Social Security payments.Why would they do that if there is plenty of money in the Social Security system? And what is the biggest problem in public education? It's a lack of funding, of course. Resources in both S.S. and in public education have to be rationed. Why wouldn't rationing occur in a government run health care system? But saying this out loud is just a scare tactic, right? Even NPR has uncovered another example of this rationing problem. Remember that government mandated health insurance scheme in Massachusetts?: Mass. Health Care Reform Reveals Doctor Shortage.

Democrats are pros at using scare tactics. Scaring senior citizens has only recently become distasteful, because the fear leads seniors to oppose a Democrat agenda. But when Democrats scare seniors into thinking Republicans might take away their medicare or their Social Security, as was frequently done in past national elections, well let's just say we don't see many news stories about distasteful scare tactics in those instances. And what about the biggest scare mongering charade on the political scene, global warming? How can anyone support the scare tactics used to justify the green movement but pontificate about the supposedly "cheap tactic" of legitimate warnings to Americans about government taking over health care?

The main stream news media is in the tank for Democrats. The Democrat narrative is treated as the truth. Critics of the Democrat narrative are accused of racism, being uncaring, cruel, un-American, and more - and I'm talking journalists publicly making or supporting such accusations. What we are NOT told by the news media about the health care bills in Congress can hurt us. It is clear so many in the media support this health care initiative - accompanied by the assertion there are no concerns with the legislation. There are legitimate concerns, and they won't be given a chance in a left-leaning news media.

Please write your Senators and Representatives and tell them to vote against the current health care legislation. If they vote for it, you'll know not to vote for them during the next election cycle.

McClatchy Newspapers published a story May 21, 2009 by Jonathan S. Landay and Warren P. Strobel titled Cheney's speech ignored some inconvenient truths. The best part about the story is that Landay and Strobel also ignored some inconvenient truths.

These reporters begin with Mr. Cheney's statements about enhanced interrogation techniques and how they "prevented the violent death of thousands, if not hundreds of thousands, of innocent people." But letting this statement go unchallenged would make the Bush administration look good, and we can't have that. The former vice president was referencing Adm. Dennis Blair, who did in fact state the information gained by such techniques "was valuable in some instance." But, for some reason, "in some instance" doesn't get any credit from Landay and Strobel, who try to portray that value as irrelevant.

We are reminded with a further statement from Adm. Blair that "there is no way of knowing whether the same information could have been obtained through other means." This is true for Cheney, but apparently not for Landay and Strobel. Somehow they know Mr. Cheney's statement was an exaggeration and they want you to know it, too. However, even cursory attention to current events shows us Landay and Strobel's assessment can also be described as containing omissions and exaggerations.

Take, for instance, these two recent news stories on suicide attacks: 3 US soldiers, dozens of Iraqis killed by bombings, 3 U.S. Troops, 23 Iraqis Killed in Bomb Attacks. From these stories we see almost 100 people were killed in just two attacks. Notice, also, these attacks are both from Iraq. Let me repeat that: in just two attacks, in one country almost 100 people were killed by terrorists. Or how about this story: April brings highest Iraq death toll in seven months, which reports 355 people were killed just in Iraq, and just in the month of April, 2009. Three recent news stories indicating well over 400 people killed by terrorists. When you consider the innumerable news stories telling us about Iraqi civilian deaths it's not hard to imagine stopping only one such attack could easily save dozens of lives, and stopping dozens of attacks could quite easily save thousands of lives. Iraqbodycount.org shows possibly as many as 100,000 Iraqi civilians may have been killed since the 2003 coalition invasion of Iraq (remember during the 2004 election season John Kerry relentlessly and falsely claiming the U.S. unilaterally invaded Iraq? Do you remember any main stream news stories catching him in that lie?).

Now imagine the two stories above from May showing nearly 100 people killed were never written. Imagine those attacks were prevented because of harsh interrogations of captured terrorists. That is almost 100 lives that would have been saved. How in the world would anyone be able to prove how many lives were saved by stopping these two attacks? Had those attacks been thwarted and Dick Cheney publicly claimed dozens of lives were saved by stopping those attacks he would predictably be accused of exaggerating the victory and making misstatements. Rather than acknowledge the good that resulted from "enhanced interrogation techniques" we would be reminded instead that "there is no way of knowing whether the same information could have been obtained through other means." However, the flip side of this fact is that there could have been no relevant information what so ever acquired through other means. "There is no way of knowing" means "there is no way of knowing." But Landay and Strobel portray this fact as though Dick Cheney's assessment is somehow less reliable than theirs, as if they actually knew that.

Landay and Strobel include one more statement from Adm. Blair: "The bottom line is that these techniques hurt our image around the world, the damage they have done to our interests far outweighed whatever benefit they gave us and they are not essential to our national security." It's sad that when approximately 100,000 civilians have been killed by terrorist acts (or government abuse, as was the case with Saddam Hussein) in just one country, and while the U.S. and its allies tried putting an end to all this, the admiral and some reporters think the bottom line is that people around the world don't like the methods used to stop those terrorists. An even worse realization of this situation is that the typical leftist and anti-war activist would has us believe those 100,000 deaths were primarily the result of poorly planned and executed military action in Iraq, because America's troops are incompitent, or just plain evil. Representative John Murtha (D-PA) maintains he was right to call our Marines cold blooded murderers. Accidental civilian deaths are one of the worst aspects of war, and such tragedies do happen. But how does one justify accusing American troops of being just as bad as the terrorists or Saddam Husein because of what is callously called "collateral damage"? Even if a few troops did murder Iraqi civilians, does that justify suggesting all of our military are scum? Where are all the news stories condemning this egregious slander?

Landay and Strobel continue with reminding us Osama bin Laden is still at large. A serious problem, no doubt. But how do they justify suggesting military resources being spent on Iraq before capturing bin Laden was somehow inappropriate? I'm sure President Bush would have liked for the world to be simplistic enough so that he had to deal with only one tough issue at a time, but it just isn't that way. Besides, why are there so few reporters who know about these links between Hussein and terrorists?

• Saddam link to Bin Laden
• Connect the Dots . . .
• Al-Qaeda linked to operations from Iran (and Iraq)
• Al-Qaeda faces rebellion from the ranks
• Al-Qaeda leaders admit: 'We are in crisis. There is panic and fear'
• Iraq Officials: Al Qaeda Insurgent Leader Still in Custody (update on Abu Omar al-Baghdadi)
• ABC News: Iraqi intelligence chief met with bin Laden in December 1998

Next we see a rehash of anti-Bush propaganda regarding the Abu Graib scandal. With their left-leaning brand of impartiality Landay and Strobel try to cast doubt on Cheney's credibility on his denial that the abuses at Abu Graib were secretly condoned by the Bush administration. And we're supposed to treat a report by a supposedly bipartisan (meaning only 75% left-leaning) committee as the authoritative source on this investigation. Only evidence supporting the anti-Bush opinions of these two journalists about the war are included in this story.

Landay and Strobel then rehash the pre-Iraq invasion intelligence curfuffle. While bringing up several points Cheney didn't mention in his 36 minute speech these reporters also neglect to mention certain inconveinent truths about that intelligence. As with the ABC News story and others linked above, there are numerous statements from numerous Democrats prior to the Iraq war (many times years before) providing the same reasons President Bush gave the world for going to war in Iraq:

• Words of Mass Destruction
• Gore criticizes Bush for ignoring Iraq's ties to terrorism
• Bill Clinton: Clear Evidence of Iraqi WMD Program
• Gore To Bush: You Ignored Saddam's Terrorist Ties!
• Democrats before Iraq War started....

Landay and Strobel are sure to remind us "U.S. intelligence officials and numerous official inquiries have rebutted repeatedly" the links between Saddam Hussein and terrorist groups. But they fail to tell how such an assessment jives with the blatant claims by numerous Democrats to the contrary through out the Clinton era (even during the 1992 election season, as in the Al Gore videos above). In trying to refute Bush administration claims about ties between Iraq and terrorist organizations Landay and Strobel neglect to mention such claims were common place during the 1990s, accepted by almost everyone. Did no one bother to investigate the claims about such links during the Clinton administration? Or have we now decided all of that intelligence does count?

This McClatchy news story ends referencing a recent Pentagon study of over 600,000 Iraqi documents. Of course, Landay and Strobel don't mention "there is no way of knowing" how many documents were destroyed by Saddam Hussein's orders before he was removed from power.

This looks like another example of Bush Derrangement Syndrome: everything bad is to be blamed on the Bush administration, but anything good is someone else's fault.

Cheney, Master of Pain May 16, 2009 by MAUREEN DOWD

Maureen Dowd has done many obtuse things. But bloviating over torture in defense of House Speaker Nancy Pelosi (D-CA) is just the most recent. Her latest opinion piece defending Pelosi isn't really about her.

Dowd can't help but blame Bush and Cheney for Pelosi's moment in the hot seat over what she new about supposed torture, when she knew it, and why she did nothing in protest long ago in the early years of the Bush administration. But this is the most obvious symptom of what is called Bush Derangement Syndrome: blame the Bush administration for everything that can be construed as bad and refuse credit for anything good.

Take, for example, the issue of water boarding. The Democrat narrative pounds on the notion that water boarding is torture, without question, and that this is a settled fact not open for debate. Never mind that there is still disagreement among national security professionals about the issue. But Dowd is curiously concerned about torture, especially when considering her opinion on another moral issue in the middle of a semantics battle: killing unborn children. Dowd fully embraces the notion that unborn children are not people, and so killing them is perfectly alright. If Dowd has such a low threshold for what qualifies as torture I must ask why is her semantic threshold for murder so high?

Another example of Bush Derangement Syndrome is shown in what Dowd calls the administration's "dark arts in broad daylight". I assume she is talking about the misdeeds (I can call it that, if abortion proponents can call abortion "reproductive rights" or "women's rights") of a few guards at the Abu Graib prison. In Dowd's mind those abuses of terrorist prisoners are automatically chalked up as standard Bush policy (but don't tell her those abuses were condemned even by the Bush administration and those responsible were prosecuted for their crimes). Perhaps she is referring to Newsweek's bogus story about Guantanamo Bay prison guards trying to flush a Koran down a toilet, a story Newsweek had to retract (not to mention it caused riots around the world which were responsible for some deaths). Or maybe Dowd is referring to some news media concocted lies about the Bush administration claiming Saddam Hussein was responsible for the 9/11 attacks, journalistic lies which Orson Scott Card had the courage to expose. Or perhaps she means the absence of WMDs in Iraq, of course with no mention that what George Bush said about Iraq's WMDs after 9/11 is precisely what we were told numerous times by numerous Democrats for years before 9/11/2001. Even this little piece of history escapes notice by Dowd:

Saddam Hussein has been engaged in the development of weapons of mass destruction technology, which is a threat to countries in the region, and he has made a mockery of the weapons inspection process.

-- Nancy Pelosi, December 16, 1998

But this mental disorder of Dowd's doesn't stop with past anti-Bush propaganda; it continues on today. After rehashing past news media abuses and manipulations about the Bush era Dowd continues with the torture issue referring to Ali Soufan, "the ex-F.B.I. agent who flatly calls torture 'ineffective....'" Of course, mentioning Peter Baker's April 21st NYT story indicating torture has been shown to be quite effective doesn't fit with the Bush-is-Hitler agenda. Instead, it makes sense to Dowd to continue harping on the myth that the Bush administration claimed Saddam Hussein had something to do with the 9/11 attacks by quoting other leftist reporters and bloggers who have also bought into that revised history provided and apparently still promoted by the main stream news media.

If Maureen Dowd would actually do the job a journalist is supposed to do she would be just as cynical about Nancy Pelosi as she is about Dick Cheney, Donald Rumsfeld, George W. Bush and any Republican. But, alas, Bush Derangement Syndrome has claimed yet another leftist victim. But I don't hope her kidneys fail, I hope Dowd gets the psychiatric help she clearly needs.