Dreadful news -- the worst. All the 9/11 nuts have relocated to Stolen Election. My inbox is awash. People who have spent the last three years sending me screeds establishing to their own satisfaction that George Bush personally ordered the attacks on the Trade Towers and that Dick Cheney vectored the planes in are now pummeling me with data on the time people spent online waiting to vote in Cuyahoga County, Ohio, and how the Diebold machines are all jimmied.

            As usual, the nuts think that conspiracies of inconceivable complexity worked at 100 percent efficiency, that Murphy's Law was once again in suspense, and that 10,000 co-conspirators are all going to keep their mouths shut.

The conflict in Iraq has become a holy war. In both directions.

On the surface, the most prominent headline on the New York Times front page Nov. 10 was simply matter-of-fact: "In Taking Fallujah Mosque, Victory by the Inch." Yet it's not mere happenstance that American forces have bombed many of Fallujah's mosques.

For public consumption, U.S. military officers -- like their civilian bosses and American journalists -- usually discuss this war in secular, even antiseptic terms. When the Times quoted Marine battalion commander Gary Brandl in another front-page story, on Nov. 6, the lieutenant colonel sounded straightforward: "We are going to rid the city of insurgents. If they do fight, we will kill them."

However, on the same day, the Associated Press reported that the same Lt. Col. Brandl said: "The enemy has got a face. He's called Satan. He's in Fallujah, and we're going to destroy him."

That statement by Brandl -- an officer with 800 soldiers under his command -- caused a bit of stir in some Internet circles. But mainstream U.S. media outlets scarcely noted his holy-warrior declaration. Most news

Hi and thanks for all your work.  I noticed one of the 12 ways Bush stole the election was Diebold.  I just want to put my two cents in that this is the number one issue for progressives until we get it fixed.  We simply must, must get the vote back out from corporate hands.  It must be a transparent process.   Call me a whiney liberal, but I cannot believe this is happening.  If Democratic leaning corporations had control of the voting machines, the whole media would be up in arms, and everyone would be saying Kerry is an illegitimate president.

Thanks for listening to me rant.  We absolutely must make this priority #1.  The exit polls were right.

The election is over, the results are well-known,
the will of the people has clearly been shown.
Let's dump all our quarrels and show by our deeds,
that we'll give our leader the help that he needs.
So let's get together, let bitterness pass,
I'll hug your elephant; you kiss my ass.

AUSTIN, Texas --- Here's my two cents worth on "What Is to Be Done?" First of all, let me rush to join the Bill-Clinton-for-Party-Chair bandwagon (which I believe started with a Los Angles Times editorial). Granted, that means Hillary couldn't run in 2008, which is fine by me since I think she is: (A) too divisive, and (B) I worry about her safety.

So put the Big Dog in at DNC. Let him raise money, recruit candidates and plot strategy. He knows and loves politics: who better? If he doesn't want that deal, he could at least travel about to various states to help strategize.

Second, count me in the Hidden Blessing camp on the defeat of Tom Daschle. Nice man, lovely man, not enough of a fighter. I know R's like to consider Daschle guilty of colossal obstructionism and terrible, extreme partisanship hiding behind his mild-mannered demeanor. If only. That's just the R's usual game of claiming to be victims.

The big problem with Daschle is that he comes from such a red state he always faced a tough re-election fight. You can't exactly be real Out There when you're from South Dakota -- and besides, he put such a milquetoast face on the party.