character Master Blaster sounds just like Karl Rove. I did rent the DVD 'Bushs' Brain'.
I saw what makes Rove tick, success at any or anyone's cost. There is ice water not blood running through that man's veins.

The smear campaign was worse than that -- and nobody owned up to it.

The anatomy of a smear campaign
By Richard H. Davis, 3/21/2004

It didn't take much research to turn up a seemingly innocuous fact about the McCains: John and his wife, Cindy, have an adopted daughter named Bridget. Cindy found Bridget at Mother Theresa's orphanage in Bangladesh, brought her to the United States for medical treatment, and the family ultimately adopted her. Bridget has dark skin.

Anonymous opponents used "push polling" to suggest that McCain's Bangladeshi born daughter was his own, illegitimate black child. In push polling, a voter gets a call, ostensibly from a polling company, asking which candidate the voter supports. In this case, if the "pollster" determined that the person was a McCain supporter, he made statements designed to create doubt about the senator.

Thus, the "pollsters" asked McCain supporters if they would be more or less likely to vote for McCain if they knew he had fathered an illegitimate child who was black. In the conservative, race-conscious South, that's not a minor charge. We had no idea who made the phone calls, who paid for them, or how many calls were made. Effective and anonymous: the perfect smear campaign.

Some aspects of this smear were hardly so subtle. Bob Jones University professor Richard Hand sent an e-mail to "fellow South Carolinians" stating that McCain had "chosen to sire children without marriage." It didn't take long for mainstream media to carry the charge. CNN interviewed Hand and put him on the spot: "Professor, you say that this man had children out of wedlock. He did not have children out of wedlock." Hand replied, "Wait a minute, that's a universal negative. Can you prove that there aren't any?"

I exclude cat fish and other innocent fish from the sordid mess!

You might mention to Bushchick that if Hillary " couldn't handle the pressure", then how did she and Chelsea pull through the pressure cooker of the Lewinsky scandal? They both pulled through with dignity and grace.

Given the Bush profile for example:

a. Think they are always right
b. Never forgive/forget a mistake
c. Spend money that they don't have

If so, then I submit that ONLY women have the psychological profile needed to be President. I guess this makes Bush a woman.

(God, I hope my wife doesn't see this...)

I'm not sure those comments amount to a feud. These two candidates simply approach politics differently.

Senator Clinton, for her part, saw an opportunity to hang Senator Obama with his own words when he first shied away from the word "reject". She was grabbing whatever opportunity she could find to paint her opponent as an extremist. Politicians have always done stuff like this.

Obama, for his part dismissed the whole issue by both "denouncing and rejecting" Farrakhan. The message was "Fine, I'm not going to engage in political silliness like this. If it'll move us along to real topics, then I'll say what you want to hear." Honestly, I think Obama has been very good at ignoring the silly non-issues that get thrown his way. (Does he wear the proper jewelry, what's with that middle name, that african costume sure looks silly) It's completely consistent with his message of changing the political tone in this country. He doesn't do nonsense - period.

As for Ferarro, there's a small grain of truth in in what she said. Senator Obama probably wouldn't have been chosen as the keynote speaker at the Democratic convention if he wasn't African-American - and he may not have achieved the level of fame that he enjoys if that was not a part of his persona.

What I don't understand is this: Ferarro's been around awhile. She should know that if she brings up Obama's race, she will be seen as trying to paint Obama as the candidate for "black America". She'll be seen as trying to limit his appeal to Jesse Jackson's or Al Sharpton's constituencies - limiting his appeal to white voters. She should especially understand this since Bill Clinton was just hung for the very same tactic. Is this what Ferarro or Bill Clinton were trying to do? I don't know. But I know that some things are simply better left unsaid.

Jim Lausier