Ayers says he has been the target of hate-mail.

He also says that he is often quoted as saying that he has "no regrets."

"This is not true," he writes at his Web site. "For anyone paying attention _ and I try to stay wide-awake to the world around me. . . . Life brings misgivings, doubts, uncertainty, loss, regret. I'm sometimes asked if I regret anything I did to oppose the war in Vietnam, and I say, `No, I don't regret anything I did to try to stop the slaughter of millions of human beings by my own government.' Sometimes, I add, `I don't think I did enough.'"

"This is then elided: `He has no regrets for setting bombs and thinks there should be more bombings . .'" he writes. "I encourage people to argue, to agree or disagree, to discuss and struggle, to engage in conversation."

The relevant - the only relevant - question is: are Obama's beliefs represented by the handful of video clips of the most incendiary of Wright's sermons? Or to unpack it a little further: Does Obama believe that black people should damn America? Does he believe that racial separatism is a viable option? Is he a black liberation theologian?

Do the Clintons seriously intend to overturn that?

Barack Obama doesn't have the warm and fuzzies for his press contingent and every casual encounter between him and them is painfully negotiated between, usually, the AP reporter and Robert Gibbs.

Showing a new aggressiveness and focus on Sen. John McCain (Ariz.) as the likely Republican nominee, the Obama campaign held a conference call with foreign policy adviser Susan Rice to “respond to Sen. McCain’s foreign policy attacks on Barack Obama.”

Rice called the argument that Obama lacked experience "specious."

"He's shown the judgment that's necessary, and that's what we need," Rice said.

Party rules call for the votes of superdelegates -- 800 or so party officers, elected officials and activists -- to tip the balance. The party instituted the system to avoid the turmoil that a deadlocked race would create at a convention.

But even some superdelegates are questioning the system, as the party heads toward the conclusion of a race in which they might determine the outcome.

"It's not the most democratic way of doing things," said Maine superdelegate Sam Spencer.

WASHINGTON -- Breaking party lines, former Gov. Howard Dean said Monday he supports Rep. Bernard Sanders' bid for the U.S. Senate, saying the Independent makes a "strong candidate."

"A victory for Bernie Sanders is a win for Democrats," Dean said in a telephone interview Monday.

Sen. Martinez is blaming a top-level staffer for the Schiavo memo. Apparently, he makes a habit of passing the buck elsewhere, something the St. Petersburg times warned him about right after he was elected

Starting about two years ago, the currency markets started to sell the dollar because of the twin deficits. The markets were very clear; traders continually site the deficits as the primary reason for their bearish sentiment. However, because no one in the administration understands the messages that markets communicate, their actions have only exacerbated the situation beyond repair.

Bush's final chance to head off the dollar's fall was State of the Union address where he stated he would propose a budget that was tough on spending. Since that time he has

1.) Proposed a Social Security spending plan that would increase outstanding debt by at least 1-2 trillion, and
2.) Issued a budget that does not include the cost of Iraq and Afghanistan.

In other words, Bush has officially dropped the ball and told the markets that deficit reduction will not occur on his watch.

University of Colorado officials investigating embattled professor Ward Churchill received documents this week purporting to show that he plagiarized another professor's work.

Officials at Dalhousie University in Nova Scotia sent CU an internal 1997 report detailing allegations about an article Churchill wrote.

"The article . . . is, in the opinion of our legal counsel, plagiarism," Dalhousie spokesman Charles Crosby said in summarizing the report's findings.

People all over the world hate, resent, and/or fear the United States for a gobsmacking variety of reasons, most of which are not the self-serving reasons many Americans imagine, either. Toby responds, "There's a lot of reasons why they hate us. You know when they're going to like us? When we win." Yeah, that's how it will work out. How freaking idiotic.

KATIE COURIC: I was going to say, because a lot of foreign policy experts are hailing the Bush Administration's policies, and saying the Bush Doctrine, of spreading democracy throughout the world, there's clear evidence that it's working. You agree with that assessment?

BILL RICHARDSON: Well, it is working. Whether by design, or by accident, it is working. The fact that the President has spoken out, where in the past the US policy has winked at Saudi Arabia, or Egypt, because of their massive security, and we have energy interests there, we have military bases, we kind of said, "OK, it's alright not to be democratic. The President, in talking about freedom and democracy, is sparking a wave of very positive democratic sentiment that might help us override both Islamic fundamentalism that has formed in that region, and also some of the hatred for our policies of invading Iraq. So, this is not only bringing a good result in the Middle East, potential democracy and full elections, but also it is helping our security, perhaps making us safer, by having less Islamic fundamentalism--

I listen to Air America, the floundering liberal talk radio network, more than I should (I get a laugh out of their kookiness and incompetence.) One thing that I’ve noticed is how often liberals say the phrase “talk about.” Eg. “We Democrats need to talk about moral values.” It’s an incredibly annoying habit, and one that seems to increase with ideology.

Try this the next time you see a liberal talking, without a script, on TV or radio: See how often they use the phrase “talk about.” Chances are, the more they say “talk about,” the more liberal they are.

Hitler’s originality lay in his realization that effective revolutions, in modern conditions, are carried out with, and not against, the power of the State: the correct order of events was first to secure access to that power and then begin his revolution. Hitler never abandoned the cloak of legality; he recognized the enormous psychological value of having the law on his side. Instead, he turned the law inside out and made illegality legal.

And that is what the nuclear option seeks to do to Rule XXII of the Standing Rules of the Senate.

"Moderate Republicans can't stand these people (conservatives), because they're intolerant. They don't think tolerance is a virtue," Dean said, adding: "I'm not going to have these right-wingers throw away our right to be tolerant."

And concluding his backyard speech with a litany of Democratic values, he added: "This is a struggle of good and evil. And we're the good."

I'm sure it's out there somewhere. If you can get your hands on it, he'll have it on hand when he repeats his allegation. That should shut up the naysayers.

Why haven't we been able to successfully link Guckert and the conservative pundits who accepted taxpayer money to push Bush's agenda? ... When will we successfully connect all these cases into a coherent whole?

Now, I mean, I have my own beliefs about how that happened: it originated with Karl Rove, in my belief, in the White House. They set that up with those false papers. Why did they do it? They knew that Bush was a draft dodger. They knew that he had run away from his responsibilties in the Air National Guard in Texas, gone out of the state intentionally for a long period of time. They knew that he had no defense for that period in his life. And so what they did was, expecting that that was going to come up, they accentuated it: they produced papers that made it look even worse.