While Republicans continue their same tired strategy of seeking to define Barack Obama and the Democratic Party as "too far to the left" the Democrats have a much more potentially promising tactic that, if used correctly, could deliver the keys to victory in November.

We still hear those same tired refrains from McCain's surrogates calling him a "reformer" while his present conduct presents a totally different picture.  

This so-called "Maverick Republican" has painted himself as a tax reformer and at one time opposed the Bush-Cheney neoconservative strategy of provider and enabler for the richest segments of society, beginning with multi-national corporations such as Cheney's Halliburton.

McCain once voted against the outrageous corporate sellouts implemented through tax cuts, but where does he stand now?

One of Dick Cheney's most preposterous comments amid a long political career of defying credibility and reality came before Donald Rumsfeld's "shock and awe" attacks were unleashed and American forces occupied Iraq.

"Our troops will be greeted as liberators!" Cheney confidently proclaimed.

Anyone with a reasonable knowledge of Arab history knows that its people do not want to be occupied by outside forces.  

This was what confronted Turkey's Ottoman Empire when stern Arab resistance during World War One prompted one of history's leading figures in understanding the Arab mind, T.E. Lawrence, known as "the crown prince of Arabia" to achieve unity among warring tribes for the objective of freeing the Arabs from outside influence.

If the question were asked to name the most childish international diplomatic ploy ever made a good instant response might be the pre-Iraq War tragic scenario where France was blamed for alleged wimp-like behavior for not immediately following the White House neoconservative rush to war.

This childish behavior was implemented by the symbolic act of the previously named French toast, which has endured for years, and changing it to freedom toast when served on Air Force One, the plane that transports George W. Bush.

Such a gesture befit the occasion of a robust nation flexing its muscles and launching a war in the best tradition of Rambo.

Who was France's leader during that period?  Who was the force urging that the launching of the first wave of shock and awe be withheld until it could be determined by a UN weapons inspection team headed by Hans Blix of Sweden that the alleged weapons actually existed?  

There is nothing like spinning a story two ways in an attempt to make your supporters as well as your opponents feel that a correct step has been taken on an issue as crucial and controversial as the Iraq War.

For some time well-intentioned progressives had trained their efforts on petition drives and letter writing to seek to convince the neoconservative Republican administration to remove Secretary of Defense Donald Rumsfeld in hope that fresh blood would improve conditions in a steadily worsening Iraq War tragedy.

How delighted so many of these forces were when it was announced that Rumsfeld would be stepping down.  Many naively believed that an opportunity for genuine progress might lie ahead with a new secretary installed.  

Others, as exemplified in this column, believed that the only way tangible progress could be achieved was by removing the duo of Cheney and Bush.

During these wild and wooly days where an unelected chief executive serves as a neoconservative dictator intent on achieving a global New World Order and has excessively low poll ratings with seemingly no end in sight, his incredibly inept Democratic Party opposition continues to refuse to confront him.

A classic example occurred when yesterday's (July 24) New York Times reported that Senate Democratic Leader Harry Reid and House Speaker Nancy Pelosi, concerned that George W. Bush is playing politics with key legislation he threatens to veto, announced their intention to seek a meeting with him to resolve the impasse.

The article brought immediately to mind a term Jerry Brown used when he was California's governor, "planetary realism."  To request such a meeting with Bush at this time to resolve a legislative impasse flies in the face of planetary realism.

The article brought to mind as well that so frequently repeated film footage from 1940 showing a thoroughly flummoxed Prime Minister Neville Chamberlain standing in the balcony of his residence at 10 Downing Street holding proudly aloft a piece of paper.

Two events have occurred over the last week that could catapult the world into a military spiral that could eventuate with global conflict.  Each involves the neoconservative global war machine spearheaded by Dick Cheney and symbolically orchestrated by George W. Bush.

Both reports are out of London.  The first, appearing on the BBC News site July 14, pertains to President Vladimir Putin of Russia suspending the application of a key Cold War arms control treaty.  Putin signed a decree citing "exceptional circumstances" affecting the reason for the move.

As the BBC News article indicates, "Russia has been angered by U.S. plans to base parts of a missile defense system in Poland and the Czech Republic."

Concerned foreign affairs experts of the global community are concerned that the American action to build a missile defense system in such a strategic area so close to Russia could result in a re-launching of the Cold War.  

"You is feeling like you was lost in the bush, boy? You says: It is a puling sample jungle of woods. You most shouts out: Bethicket me for a stump of beech if I have the poultriest notions what the farest  he all means."~~James Joyce, Finnegans Wake (1939)

My friend Bernie says ever since the Bush gang stormed the White House in 2000, then stormed the World Trade Center in 2001, we've done nothing but run in circles like a bunch of terrified chickens with our heads chopped off. "We have no sense of direction," Bernie said, "we're staggering around in a jungle of lies, deceit, and scandal with no way out -- and that's the way they planned it."

"You're kidding!" I exclaimed, astonished. "You mean they planned this mess? It's nothing but bloody chaos out there --"

Bernie nodded. "You got that right. Bloody chaos is the best -- the only -- way to get what they're after. Don't be fooled by those little American flags stuck in the lapels of this bunch," Bernie continued. "The people in this nation, the hungry and homeless, the ill, the elderly, displaced Katrina victims, and especially those returning from war's inferno either in body bags or maimed physically, psychologically, and spiritually aren't even blips on their New World Order radar screen. They suffer at the pleasure of the president."

"Preserving liberty may require the rule of a single leader -- a dictator -- willing to use those dreaded 'extraordinary measures,' which few know how, or are willing to employ." -- Michael Ledeen

By Sheila Samples

Goodness gracious! Henny Penny! Since defense secretary Donald Rumsfeld and vice president Dick Cheney teamed up to lead the charge to create a New World Order, the whole universe has become untidy. Very untidy. My friend Bernie says Dick and Rummy's big plan to take over the world by waging continuous war is kinda like baptizing a bobcat -- ain't gonna happen.

"You can't hold him," Bernie said. "You can't turn him loose. All you can do is jump up and down and run around in circles with your hands around his neck and hope you can choke him to death before he tears you to pieces."