"I now know that if you describe things as better as they are, you are considered to be romantic; if you describe things as worse than they are, you are called a realist; and if you describe things exactly as they are, you are called a satirist." - Quentin Crisp, The Naked Civil Servant

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"It's true that you and I are not being grabbed on the streets and sent to a former secret police torture-training camp in Godforsakistan. Nor is the government eavesdropping on your international phone calls or mine. Probably. Because I like you, I'll forgo the usual ominous warning about how they came after him and then they came after her and then they came after you. I'll even skip the liberal sermonette about how even bad guys have rights.

"But your rights and mine are not supposed to be at the whim of the government, let alone the president. They are based in the Constitution and the willingness of those we put in power to obey it - even as interpreted by judges they may disagree with. The most distressing aspect of this story is the apparent attitude of our current rulers that the Constitution is an obstacle to be overcome - by conducting dirty business abroad or by wildly disingenuous interpretations of laws and the Constitution."

- Michael Kinsley in the Washington Post, Friday, June 16, 2006, here.

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"For people in America who are a part of my political tradition, our great sin has often been ignoring religion or denying its power or refusing to engage it because it seemed hostile to us. For ... the so-called Christian right and its allies, their great sin has been believing they were in full possession of the truth."

- former president Bill Clinton, accepting an award from the Tanenbaum Center for Interreligious Understanding, noted here.

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"I cannot support the war in Iraq. Not because I think Saddam was a good leader. Not because I think Iraqis don't deserve a chance. Not because I think this war we-shouldn't-have-started has not morphed into the war we-can't-afford-to-lose.

"I cannot support the war in Iraq because after all the lies, the mistakes, the hubris, the Constitution shredding, the cover-ups, the undercover outings and, most importantly, the torture, if we win this war during the Bush presidency, he and his like will take it as a vindication of their actions and they will be emboldened to further damage my country.

"This is not Bush bashing. This isn't hyperbole. I truly believe that President Bush is a danger to my country. And winning the Iraq war while he is in office would be the true end of the United States as we know it.

"Let's get Bush out of office. Let's put in place an administration that will wage this war within the bounds of the Constitution and the Geneva Conventions and has the will to do what it takes to win. Let's put in place an administration that asks the American public for the sacrifices of war time and deals openly and plainly with the public on the successes and failures at the front."

- a reader's letter to Andrew Sullivan at his Time site here, to which he adds - "I'm for making progress, period, whoever is the president. But I also agree that what Bush has done to the constitutional integrity of this country, the rule of law, and the international moral standing of the United States will take a generation to recover from.

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Advice to Democrats from "tristero" here -

Issue #1 is Bush. Issue #2 is everything else. Until Bush no longer has a Republican majority in the House and the Senate to rubber stamp nearly everything he wants, your opinions and ideas mean squat. No. Less than squat.

Make reining in Bush the issue. Republicans in Congress will do whatever Bush wants, but the country is fed up with what Bush wants. They've seen how much damage he causes. Only Democratic majorities in Congress can prevent him from wreaking even worse havoc on the country. Bush is the issue. And hoo boy! has Bush made the your job incredibly easy:

Remember: Bush really is incompetent. And the American public sees it now.

Remember: Bush really has governed above the law. And the American public understands that now.

Remember: Bush has bogged this nation down in an insane war. And the American public understands that now.

Remember: Bush does not have a genuine plan to deal with Iraq, nor is he capable of creating and implementing one. People are dying because he doesn't know what he's doing. And the American public understands that now.

Remember: Bush's supreme callousness and negligence led to the hiring of the incompetents in charge of FEMA during Katrina. And the American public knows it.

Remember: This is one helluva unpopular president. The American public has very good reasons for disliking him and his policies so intensely. They are all but begging you to stand up and refuse to go along with his incompetent, extremist, and unlawful behavior.

Focus on Bush. Everything else is detail.

That was posted at Hullabaloo.

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"Yesterday we had a moment of silence in the Senate because we thought it was a solemn occasion when our 2,500th soldier was killed in Iraq. We held a moment of silence. When the White House's press secretary was asked to step forward, the President's Press Secretary Tony Snow, they asked him about 2,500, he said "It's just a number." Just a number? I mean, that is outrageous. I went to Memorial Day services in Boulder City, our veterans' facility. I went and visited the grave of John Lukac with his mom and his dad. He'd been killed in Iraq. He was 19 years old. He's just a number? In Nevada we've lost 39. We've lost 2,500 nationwide, and we've had about 20,000 wounded, half of them permanently wounded. Just numbers? I don't think so." - Senate Minority Leader Harry Reid, cited here.

"Minority Leader Reid, in various comments discussed at the dinner, 'is not a deep thinker, to put it gently.'" - Republican Senator Arlen Specter, cited here.

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Associated Press items, late Friday, June 16, 2006, emphasis added -

Early evening -

U.S. special operations forces fed some Iraqi detainees only bread and water for up to 17 days, used unapproved interrogation practices such as sleep deprivation and loud music and stripped at least one prisoner, according to a Pentagon report on incidents dating to 2003 and 2004.

The report concludes that the detainees' treatment was wrong but not illegal and reflected inadequate resources and lack of oversight and proper guidance rather than deliberate abuse. No military personnel were punished as a result of the investigation.

The findings were included in more than 1,000 pages of documents the Pentagon released to the American Civil Liberties Union on Friday under a Freedom of Information request. They included two major reports - one by Army Brig. Gen. Richard Formica on specials operations forces in Iraq and one by Brig. Gen. Charles Jacoby on Afghanistan detainees.

Eight hours earlier -

New Orleans is still woefully unprepared for catastrophes 10 months after Hurricane Katrina, and the two cities attacked on 9/11 don't meet all guidelines for responding to major disasters, a federal security analysis concluded Friday.

Ten states were rated in a Homeland Security Department scorecard as having sufficient disaster response plans. But the analysis found the vast majority of America's states, cities and territories still are far from ready for terror attacks, huge natural disasters or other wide-reaching emergencies.

"Frankly, we just have not in this country put the premium on our level of catastrophe planning that is necessary to be ready for those wide-scale events," Homeland Security Undersecretary George Foresman told reporters.

City and state plans for emergencies like localized fires, floods and tornadoes "are good, they're robust," Foresman said. But plans for catastrophes "are not going to support us as they should."

Late afternoon, Eastern Time -

A soldier in the U.S.-led coalition in Iraq was killed and two others were missing after an attack on a checkpoint southwest of Baghdad on Friday, the U.S. military said.

The attacked took place around 8 p.m. near the town of Yusufiyah, about 12 miles southwest of Baghdad.

"After hearing small arms fire and explosions in the vicinity of the checkpoint, a quick reaction force responded to the scene," a military statement said. "Coalition forces have initiated a search operation to locate and determine the status of the soldiers."

The statement didn't provide any other information.

A spokesman for the U.S. Central Command in Baghdad, asked whether the missing soldiers could have possibly been abducted, told The Associated Press by telephone that military didn't know.

Draw your own conclusions

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As for the end of the week debate on the war, or whatever it was, covered in these pages here, note one other Republican house member had a problem with that, as noted here -

"I can't help but feel through eyes of a combat-wounded Marine in Vietnam, if someone was shot, you tried to save his life. ... While you were in combat, you had a sense of urgency to end the slaughter, and around here we don't have that sense of urgency," said Rep. Wayne T. Gilchrest (Md.), a usually soft-spoken Republican who has urged his leaders to challenge the White House on Iraq. "To me, the administration does not act like there's a war going on. The Congress certainly doesn't act like there's a war going on. If you're raising money to keep the majority, if you're thinking about gay marriage, if you're doing all this other peripheral stuff, what does that say to the guy who's about ready to drive over a land mine?"

... But Gilchrest, who won the Purple Heart and Bronze Star for his Marine service in Vietnam in the 1960s, believes political considerations have already played too large a role in the debate. In November, after Rep. John P. Murtha (D-Pa.) announced his support for a rapid withdrawal from Iraq, Republican leaders hastily pushed a resolution to the House floor calling for immediate pull-out. But the cursory two-hour debate was noteworthy less for serious policy discourse than for the suggestion by the House's newest member, Rep. Jean Schmidt (R-Ohio), that Murtha, a decorated war veteran, was a coward.

"It was ludicrous," Gilchrest said. "It had nothing to do with saving lives. It had nothing to do with the war. It was one-upsmanship against the Democrats."

That sentiment spurred Gilchrest and four other Republicans to break with their leadership this spring and sign on to a Democratic petition pushing for debate. Boehner pledged to do so weeks ago.

... But Gilchrest acknowledged he has ambivalent feelings about the way forward to success in Iraq. Citing his own battlefield experiences, he said this uncertainty is all the more reason for a full debate. "How many members have in their life [experienced] putting the barrel of their gun on another man's chest and pulling the trigger?" he asked in an interview this week. "How many members have experienced the chaos of a 3 a.m. battle, pushing your bayonet through another man's body? How many members have wrapped themselves around a fellow soldier who just lost his legs in a land mine and you feel the last breath and he's dead, calling in airstrikes on a village and walking through, seeing dead babies and others who are still alive, being with someone who's been shot and you can't move, you can't do anything because you're under intense fire and he dies right next to you?"

So who is this guy?  Officially that's here -

Member of U.S. House of Representatives since 1991. Member, Resources Committee, 1994- (national parks, recreation & public lands subcommittee, 2001-; chair, fisheries, conservation, wildlife & oceans subcommittee, 2001-); Transportation and Infrastructure Committee, 1994- (water resources subcommittee; chair, coast guard & maritime transportation subcommittee, 1997-). Co-Chair, Chesapeake Bay Watershed Task Force, 2004-. Member, Merchant Marine and Fisheries Committee, 1991-94; Public Works Committee, 1991-94.

Member, Bainbridge Re-Use Advisory Committee, 1996-97. Born in Rahway, New Jersey, April 15, 1946. Served in U.S. Marine Corps, 1964-67; Vietnam, 1966-67 (Purple Heart Medal, Bronze Star Medal, Navy Commendation Medal). Wesley College, A.A., 1971; Union College (Appalachian semester studying rural poverty); Delaware State College, B.A. (history), 1973; Loyola College. Teacher (American history, government, civics), 1973-90. Delegate, Republican Party National Convention, 1996, 2000. Member, Kent County Teachers' Association. Member, American Legion; Veterans of Foreign Wars; Military Order of the Purple Heart. Honorary Doctor of Public Service, Washington College, 2004. Member, Kennedyville United Methodist Church. Married; three children.

And there's more here, including this - "After graduating high school in 1964, he joined the U.S. Marine Corps. His tour of duty saw action during the invasion of the Dominican Republic, and ultimately the Vietnam War. He earned the rank of Sergeant in Vietnam where, as a platoon leader, he was wounded in the chest. Wayne was decorated with the Purple Heart, Bronze Star, and Navy Commendation Medal."

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Had enough?  It's a simple question.