There have been great ties between Ireland and America, and we’ve got a lot of Irish Americans here that are very proud of their heritage and their country. But, you know, they must not understand if they’re angry over Abu Ghraib — if they say, this is what America represents, they don’t understand our country, because we don’t represent that. We are a compassionate country. We’re a strong country, and we’ll defend ourselves — but we help people. And we’ve helped the Irish and we’ll continue to do so. We’ve got a good relationship with Ireland.

It was the perfect cut away, too - the Iraqis with their hands cut off, maimed and branded (tattooed) by a “brutal dictator” …… I remember that propagandist scene at the White House.

The seven men, all Iraqi merchants, have been in the United States since mid- April to receive their new “bionic” hands to replace the ones amputated by former Iraqi dictator Saddam Hussein as punishment for trading in U.S. currency. In addition to providing them with new $50,000 prosthetic hands, U.S. doctors in Houston also removed the tattoos Saddam had imprinted on the merchants’ foreheads to draw further attention to their misdeeds.

“Let me finish” is a tactic to reduce the number of questions he has to respond to, and allow him to switch the conversation to whatever he wants - the Iraqis with their hands cut off, for example. No doubt he’s got hours of such homilies in the can.

The speech pattern that bothers me the most is his mispronunciation of the indefinite article. C’mon you halfbaked dolt, it rhymes with half, not baked. A fricking ONE letter word, one of the most common in his native tongue, and he can’t pronounce it. Pathetic. There are plenty of people in Europe that speak ten languages and are more fluent in their tenth than Bush is in his first. (And only? I think he might have a few words of Spanish) Pathetic. Shamefully, indescribably pathetic.

Proudly.

No shit, huh….

One of the more disturbing imaging was the interviewing of Seymour Hersh by Candy Crowley. Jeezus, what a joke of a journalist - one of those touted as “the best political analysis team on TV” or “in cable news” - whatever the laughable trite labeling Wolf Blitzer has spun out.

Yeah - those frickin’ Unitarians; right up there with those damned Quakers!

But seriously, this is disturbing, especially the aspect that there are sufficient co-operative Democrats to allow this thing to get off the ground. Aren’t there always.

You can bet the Republicans won’t ever roll over that way for the next Democratic President.