AUSTIN, Texas -- We cannot let pass without salute Martha Stewart’s remarks after being sentenced to five months in prison. In the long history of amazing things said by people in peculiar circumstances, you must admit, this ranks right up there. “There are many, many good people who have gone to prison,” she observed. “Look at Nelson Mandela.”

        We live in a great nation.

        Unfortunately, we are all likely to be driven batty if this presidential campaign gets any worse, which it is likely to do. Last week, I was on book tour doing one chat show after another and so got to experience first-hand the Republican orchestration of their talking points. And an impressive display it is. Truly, they speak with one voice, repeating the same thing over and over, never off-message -- just remarkable.

If you really were for a "free press," you would view the idea that someone would attempt to "stop Rush Limbaugh" as near treasonous!

YOU exemplify "newspeak" that George Orwell described in his prophetic novel "1984."

Dear Freepress,

I want to let Fitrakis and Wasserman know that I applaud their intelligently written article and many useful references.

I have been dismayed by the reception of this film by moderate and even liberal critics.

During these perilous times, I have become something of a news junkie out of self defense. I had the same response when I read their disclaimers; don't these people read?

The body of evidence supporting the oil pipeline "connections" and the Bush/Saudi allegations is substantial as they have written. Where's the outrage? What are these people being threatened with that they aim their guns at their own?

The audience are expressing themselves with their wallets and obviously disagree with the pundits. Hopefully some of them will Google these issues and some will be journalists who will dig even deeper.

I was also struck by journalists who criticized the film for being entertaining and followed with a list of mind numbing statistics and boring information, inadvertently revealing their complete lack of understanding of the film media and perhaps a bit of envy.

If we, the citizens of this nation, prevent the Bush Administration and its apologists from placing their blood-stained hands upon our ears, turn away from the voices of caution rising in chorus from the Establishment and simply listen to the sounds of chaos emanating from Iraq, we will hear the infamous, unmistakable echo of Vietnam attempting to tell us the terrible truth: this war, too, is sound and fury signifying nothing.

Nothing but pointless and tragic death and destruction. Nothing but the systematic dehumanization of our soldiers and of the people of Iraq. Nothing but the absolute futility of a nation attempting to impose its imperial power upon a people who refuse to accept it.

Those who still support the war deny they hear the echo. They insist that this war is different than Vietnam. And in a sense, they are right; this war is different in many respects--from its circumstances, to the nature and intensity of its combat, to its lower casualty counts on both sides. But the echo of Vietnam emanates not from the exact qualitative nature of this war or the quantitative measures of its death and destruction; it