The source of the angst on the left

Dr. Paul Anderson, clincal psychologist, just figured it out:

They're seething that Dr. Dean wasn't nominated, because they think he would have won. And they're lashing out at anyone or anything that tried to stop Dean (particularly moderates).

Dailykos watch

Check this out:

China calls out US on rights record
by zenbowl

Thu Mar 3rd, 2005 at 05:01:23 PST

China called out the US on its annual human rights report, citing "the administration of U.S. President George W. Bush for failing to deal with U.S. poverty, racial discrimination, and crime."

While I am no fan of PRC persecution, I do believe China has a valid point by continuing to highlight US hypocrisy in the human rights field. Certainly, while the PRC has a worse rights record, the United States is hardly improving its own.

This follows another diary yesterday where someone AGREED with Putin that Bush had "fired Dan Rather".

I'll tell you what: let's put these people in charge of the Democratic Party! We'll win dozens of elections.

It's been one day...

...since the Supreme Court outlawed executions of minors. I'm waiting to watch tonights news. Surely, the headline will be: "Realizing the diminished penalty, thousands of teenages commit murder today".

Bush transforms the Middle East!

From Juan Cole:

It is often pointed out that presidents get too much praise and blame for the economy, since the domestic economy has its own rhythms. We are now going to see everything that happens in the Middle East attributed to George W. Bush, whether he had much to do with it or not (usually not).

Idle nuke talk

Texas Congressman Sam Johnson:

Speaking at a veterans’ celebration at Suncreek United Methodist Church in Allen, Texas....Johnson said he told the president that night, “Syria is the problem. Syria is where those weapons of mass destruction are, in my view. You know, I can fly an F-15, put two nukes on ‘em and I’ll make one pass. We won’t have to worry about Syria anymore.”

George Bush knew Vladimir Putin would be defensive when Bush brought up the pace of democratic reform in Russia in their private meeting at the end of Bush's four-day, three-city tour of Europe. But when Bush talked about the Kremlin's crackdown on the media and explained that democracies require a free press, the Russian leader gave a rebuttal that left the President nonplussed. If the press was so free in the U.S., Putin asked, then why had those reporters at CBS lost their jobs? Bush was openmouthed. "Putin thought we'd fired Dan Rather," says a senior Administration official. "It was like something out of 1984."

The Russians did not let the matter drop. Later, during the leaders' joint press conference, one of the questioners Putin called on asked Bush about the very same firings, a coincidence the White House assumed had been orchestrated. The odd episode reinforced the Administration's view that Putin's impressions of America are often based on urban myths fed to him by ill-informed aides. (At a past summit, according to Administration aides, Putin asked Bush whether it was true that chicken producers split their production into plants that serve the U.S. and lower-quality ones that process substandard chicken for Russia.) U.S. aides say that to help fight against this kind of misinformation, they are struggling to build relationships that go beyond Putin. "We need to go deeper into the well into other levels of government," explains an aide. --By John F. Dickerson

Wow.