Need to remind you dear Rising Hegemon readers that Chimpy McFlightsuit told he is playing into Bin Laden's hands Just to keep "the eye" on this upcoming book... Chimpy's response was to grab two small cymbals and crash them together repeatedly. My hopeful predictions of a Kerry victory are off in case a radiological dirty bomb goes off in a major city (say something that makes NY or LA unihabitable) or Bin Laden shows up in October. [warning left wing conspiracy statement coming up...] Of course, since the repugnicrats are probably keeping him on ice... just waiting... How about some historical context: One thing that has been recognized about American presidencies is that there is often a discrepancy between their foreign and domestic policies. While some like Teddy Roosevelt, Franklin Roosevelt, and JFK had what today would be considered progressive domestic policies, their foreign policies were often imperialistic. So for example, Teddy Roosevelt attacked the political graft in New York City, the food packagers, the big banks, the railroad monopolies, steel monopolies, and the robber barons whom he called "malefactors of great wealth" (can you imagine Chimpy giving such a speech?). FDR signed the 8-hour work day into law in 1938, brought about the Social Security Act, employed thousands in government work programs during the Great Depression, and JFK did publicly support the civil rights movement before he was assassinated. JFK also stated that "I do not speak for my church and my church does not speak for me" when questioned about his Roman Catholicism (wouldn't it be nice to hear something like this from Chimpy McReligion?). Robert Kennedy met with Caesar Chavez and expressed his support for the migrant farm workers strike during the 1960's, a rather unusual move for a U.S. Attorney General (I cannot even begin to envision Ashcroft doing anything like this). There is also Lyndon Johnson, who many credit more than Kennedy with escalating the Vietnam war, but who also signed into law the Civil Rights Act of 1964 (written before Kennedy's death), the most far-reaching civil rights legislation ever passed. But as is obvious, the foreign policies of these presidents were anything but progressive. Julian Borger in Washington Saturday June 19, 2004 The Guardian Al-Qaida may 'reward' American president with strike aimed at keeping him in office, senior intelligence man says [Beware the newest member of the Justice League -- Senior Intelligence Man!] A senior US intelligence official is about to publish a bitter condemnation of America's counter-terrorism policy, arguing that the west is losing the war against al-Qaida and that an "avaricious, premeditated, unprovoked" war in Iraq has played into Osama bin Laden's hands. Imperial Hubris: Why the West is Losing the War on Terror, due out next month, dismisses two of the most frequent boasts of the Bush administration: that Bin Laden and al-Qaida are "on the run" and that the Iraq invasion has made America safer. In an interview with the Guardian the official, who writes as "Anonymous", described al-Qaida as a much more proficient and focused organisation than it was in 2001, and predicted that it would "inevitably" acquire weapons of mass destruction and try to use them.