Anyone who doubts former Treasury Secretary Paul O'Neill's recent claims that President Bush mislead the public and secretly planned the Iraq war eight months before the terrorist attacks on Sept. 11 needs to read the two letters sent to then President Bill Clinton in 1998 and Speaker of the House Newt Gingrich by current members of the Bush administration urging Clinton to launch a preemptive strike against Iraq.

Back then, Secretary of Defense Donald Rumsfeld, his deputy, Paul Wolfowitz and other pro-war hawks lobbied Clinton and Gingrich to remove former Iraqi President Saddam Hussein from power using military force and indict him as a "war criminal." Rumsfeld and Wolfowitz, both of whom were working in the private sector at the time, were affiliated with the right-wing think tank Project for a New American Century, which was founded by Weekly Standard editor William Kristol in 1997 to promote America's foreign and defense policies.

You'd think that President Bush would be facing, to quote Secretary of Defense Donald Rumsfeld, a long, hard slog in his bid to recapture the White House for a second term what with all the information trickling out of the president's administration the past few months showing that senior administration officials knowingly mislead the American public about the reasons for launching a preemptive attack against Iraq.

But, unfortunately, there's too much infighting taking place among the nine Democrats campaigning for their party's presidential nomination and not enough attention to the administration's misdeeds. Too bad, because this is the type of ammunition that even the weakest Democratic candidate should be able to easily spin to convince voters that Bush should be replaced come November.

AUSTIN, Texas -- In Texas, where the border is a constant presence in our lives, no one is mistaking President Bush's immigration proposal for a brilliant new departure in immigration policy, or even for a ploy to get Hispanic political support. What we have here is the old bracero program, a guest worker program, and it primarily benefits one group and one group only -- big business. And that would be OK, if other parts of the program totaled up to a net improvement in the current situation. That's what we need to look at and weigh.

When the Solid Waste Authority of Central Ohio (SWACO) met on Tuesday January 6, 2004, it only took them about fifteen minutes to vote down the proposal from United Purifying Technologies (UPT). After four people from SouthWest Neighbors Protecting Our Environment (SWNPOE) testified briefly, and two SWACO board members spoke against it, the board defeated a resolution to offer a lease to UPT. This ended the possibility that the Trash Burning Power Plant property on Jackson Pike would be used as a tire pyrolysis facility.

The citizens of southwest Columbus got up in arms about the proposal from a start-up company that consists of one person, president Jeff Troth, and a plan that he has been trying to implement for over a decade. When the Ohio EPA issued a draft air permit to UPT on July 17, 2003, it vaulted the proposal to the forefront of the projects being considered by the SWACO to pay off the debt the City of Columbus still owes on the construction of the plant that has been idle since late 1994.

The pyrolysis facility that UPT envisioned would shred tires then bake them at 450 degrees in a reaction vessel in the absence of oxygen. The

AUSTIN, Texas -- Mr. Bumble observed that the law is an ass, and he'd never even seen the congressional redistricting plan drawn by Texas Republicans. Sigh. I just hate when Tom DeLay and Karl Rove get away with a dirty deal like this. The University of Texas is now represented by Lamar Smith of San Antonio, I'm in a district that runs to the Mexican border, and two blocks north of me, they're in with Houston. Help!

As one who relishes our state's incontrovertibly bizarre political mores, I must confess I love the sheer awfulness of this map. It is, in its own way, totally awesome and worthy of the truly noble tradition of lunacy for which Texas is so noted.

Speaking of said tradition, I have failed to give sufficient recognition to our only governor, Goodhair Perry, who is adding to the old je ne sais quoi in truly impressive quantities. Goodhair gave such an amazing performance at his end-of-the-year press conference that I was forced to call a perfectly reliable reporter for the Dallas Morning News and ask if it was a joke.