Okay, I'm waiting. Who will flame me first?

You seem to take pretty much any criticism as "flaming." Perhaps you need a litle thicker skin.

Your essay is fairly wrongheaded in a half dozen different directions. One little thing, for example, is your complaint about Bush raising big campaign funds. What, he should NOT try to raise campaign money? Any amount he raises would be but a drop in the bucket as applied to creating jobs in the whole economy. Plus, Dubya would be significantly better for the economy than any Democrat- though that is setting the bar pretty low.

You do have a somewhat reasonable point about Bush being protectionist. That is bad. The steel tariff was a particularly bad move.

Problem is, what Democrat would be better on this? Gephardt? The Democrats with their ties to unions are typically much worse than Republicans on this type of issue- though Clinton should get some credit on this count for NAFTA.

Actually, my point was that the party I'm a member of, the Republican Party, selects poor candidates to run in the national presidential election who tend to barely win, and once elected, govern less conservatively than say, the person who came in second place in the primary.

Take Nixon for example (price controls) and Ford (name a policy, any policy), or One Term, Sr. (read my lips, a BIG tax increase).

People said Clinton would be worse than One Term, Sr., but with a Republican Congress (which is the best thing that happened to this country), Clinton followed the polls and governed more like a conservative. W., however, does not.

What I find incredibly amazing is that Howard Dean's record as governor of Vermont is actually more conservative than Bush's record as president, but that's another matter.

The point is that Republicans buy into, hook, line and sinker, any spin that a famous-name favorite feeds us, then we all get screwed after they get elected and govern like big spending, out of touch protectionist liberals in the pockets of the AFL-CIO.

W. will not get Florida in 2004 if he keeps this up. I'll vote straight Republican, but for a Democrat for president that supports conservative issues, such as free trade, balanced budgets and tax cuts, whether targeted or otherwise. W. pretty much has worsened the deficit, the budget, national relations (which affects trade, by the way) and plenty of other things.

After W. gets done, few voters are going to care about morality anymore, which is really what allowed him to get elected. His strategists need to get a clue before he becomes One Term, Jr.

It took Al less than 45 minutes to commence flaming. Way to go, Al!

Why would the Republicans need to change? Ronald Reagan was compared to Hoover too, until the economy picked up. Republicans get compared to Hoover the way Democrats get compared to Stalin. It's just part of the game.

More importantly, the GOP exercises almost complete oligarchic control over the media and the government. By using war to divert attention from its own corruption, the GOP assures its rule.

As the great Republican political theorist Hermann Goering said at Nuremberg, "Naturally, the common people don't want war. Voice or no voice, the people can always be brought to the bidding of the leaders. All you have to do is tell them they are being attacked and denounce the pacifists for lack of patriotism. It works the same in every country." It's shameful the way Nazis stole so many ideas from the Republicans. If I was the GOP, I'd sue for damages.

You're watering down the whole idea of "flaming" here to the point that it has no real meaning. My reply above falls well within the range of moderate friendly criticism.

Properly, "flaming" would be knowingly saying something obviously and stupidly wrong and libelous just to get a reaction. Saying that Republicans are a bunch of Nazis, Bush is like Goerring, etc, for example, is just common flaming.

But you knew that.

Really, you ought to let Nim do the talking. The monkey makes a lot more sense.

Thanks for putting in a kind word for me, Al. Did you know that mike likes to dress up as Joe Stalin and terrorize the ladies at the Republican Bridge Club? When he's drunk, he calls me "Trotsky" and chases me around the house with a paper machee ice pick. Bastard.