Mark,
Here was an email I sent Sue Henry yesterday on the subject of President Bush's humorous barbs at himself and his staff from the recent media dinner.

** This from the news media later today (and from Kurt):

"How dare president Bush make fun of himself or others for that matter. So much for his compassionate conservatism. WMD should not be a joke at any time, especially from the man that lied about them.

"And how dare he make fun of the Fab 5 of Queer Eye for the Straight Guy; They would never be caught within a hundred miles of John Ashcroft.

"This was a travesty, especially since Richard Clarke just testified that he knew, that they knew, that the Israeli intelligence knew that he lied when he told the truth to the Clinton organization who was at fault when they weren't at fault because of Dr. Rice's facial expressions about knowing that she failed to understand al Qaeda, who as you know we did nothing about for eight years which was Bush's fault for not becoming President earlier because I thought at the time he was a great man and chose a better path because it was his fault and I'm sorry I failed you.

"Bush's feeble attempts at humor got no laughs whatsoever, but John Kerry told a really funny Polish joke while skiing in Idaho and the 147,000 bystanders laughed for 6 minutes and 32 seconds. But will you hear this on Rush or Hannity? No way! They are The Rightwing Attack Machine, so we will air his joke on 60 minutes, with commentary by Andy Rooney.

"When Kerry was asked about the joke, he said, "I have no animosity towards the Polish people, and I actually told an Irish joke before I told the Polish joke." **

Now, while I actually wrote this in jest, I also knew it was going to happen. You know, there is a grain of truth to humor. Not that I> 'm funny... maybe how I look. Okay, okay. I'm an engineer, this is as funny as it gets!

Well, I followed that email up with this one this morning.

** Hey, remember this? (Meaning the above email) Was I right or was I right? And true to form Kevin was all over this first thing this morning. It must have been a good drive in for him this morning knowing he had some other grain of sand to use to criticize the President. But then, while I was working out at the Y, they had on KRZ and there it is again as a NEWS item, and of course your FM counterpart told outright lies. She even had the audacity to say that "the joke got only one laugh," when in fact the whole room cracked up. I am wondering where is she and Kevin's outrage at Leno, Franken, Letterman, and O'Brien for repeatedly making the same jokes. Oh wait, they are supposed to be funny, or they aren't the Commander in Chief, or they aren't responsible for folks coming home in body bags, as if that has anything to do with the part of the joke that was offensive (no WMD).

The problem I have with all of this is that your counterpart, Kevin and many others in the mainstream media can't even say what a WMD is-they have no definition for it. All they say is that no WMD have been found.

How about these:

AL QUARNAH, IRAQ (Talon News) -- Danish troops Friday discovered what is believed to be Mustard Gas or some other form of blistering agent inside a cache of 36 warheads near the town of Al Quarnah, just north of Basra, where some 400 Danish soldiers are stationed. (Confirmed)

BAGHDAD, Iraq (CNN) -- U.S. forces operating in the so-called Sunni Triangle -- the region of Iraq most loyal to captured former dictator Saddam Hussein -- found a significant weapons cache that included al Qaeda literature and videotapes> , the U.S. military said Tuesday. (But don't forget that there was no connection between al Qaeda and Iraq)...In addition to the al Qaeda literature and videos, the troops found nearly 8,000 rounds of ammunition; 160 mortar rounds and six mortar tubes; 43 rocket-propelled grenade launchers and 79 rocket-propelled grenades (RPGs); and 19 AK-47 assault rifle well as dozens of other weapons.

BAGHDAD, Iraq - U.S. Marines have found weapons-grade plutonium in a massive underground facility discovered beneath Iraq's Al Tuwaitha nuclear complex, Fox News confirmed Friday...U.S. defense officials on Friday confirmed that preliminary field tests did in fact indicate the material could be plutonium. (It was confirmed).

BAGHDAD, Iraq -- An inspection team searching bunkers in southern Iraq on Thursday found 11 empty chemical warheads that Iraqi officials had not declared to the United Nations, a U.N. spokesman said.

By Rob Taylor, June 17, 2003--Prime Minister John Howard declared yesterday that evidence of a secret weapons program in Iraq had been found...Mr. Howard told parliament that British and American intelligence reports had concluded that a trailer found in Iraq was a biological weapons facility.

UNMOVIC inspectors have discovered chemical weapons in Iraq. Everything's going according to plan. The White House is gloating over the fact that that UNMOVIC team in Iraq has already discovered prohibited chemical weapons. It is yperite or mustard gas. The chemical weapons were found at an Iraqi base in the desert. Inspections team leader Demetrius Perricos says that the gas was stored inside shells.

I guess these and hundreds more finds aren't part of WMDs. I guess only those huge SCUDs constitute WMD. And there were only 12 of those found so far, and they couldn't even be fired-so there too!

But we'll add this from David Kay's report; you know the one that said that we found nothing:

... We have discovered dozens of WMD-related program activities and significant amounts of equipment that Iraq concealed from the United Nations during the inspections that began in late 2002. The discovery of these deliberate concealment efforts have come about both through the admissions of Iraqi scientists and officials concerning information they deliberately withheld and through physical evidence of equipment and activities that ISG has discovered that should have been declared to the UN. Let me just give you a few examples of these concealment efforts, some of which I will elaborate on later:

*A clandestine network of laboratories and safehouses within the Iraqi Intelligence Service that contained equipment subject to UN monitoring and suitable for continuing CBW research.

*A prison laboratory complex possibly used in human testing of BW agents, that Iraqi officials working to prepare for UN inspections were explicitly ordered not to declare to the UN.

*Reference strains of biological organisms concealed in a scientist's home, one of which can be used to produce biological weapons.

*New research on BW-applicable agents, Brucella and Congo Crimean Hemorrhagic Fever (CCHF), and continuing work on ricin and aflatoxin were not declared to the UN.

*Documents and equipment, hidden in scientists' homes, that would have been useful in resuming uranium enrichment by centrifuge and electromagnetic isotope separation (EMIS).

*A line of UAVs not fully declared at an undeclared production facility and an admission that they had tested one of their declared UAVs out to a range of 500 km, 350 km beyond the permissible limit.

*Continuing covert capability to manufacture fuel propellant useful only for prohibited SCUD variant missiles, a capability that was maintained at least until the end of 2001 and that cooperating Iraqi scientists have said they were told to conceal from the UN.

*Plans and advanced design work for new long-range missiles with ranges up to at least 1000 km - well beyond the 150 km range limit imposed by the UN. Missiles of a 1000 km range would have allowed Iraq to threaten targets through out the Middle East, including Ankara, Cairo, and Abu Dhabi.

*Clandestine attempts between late-1999 and 2002 to obtain from North Korea technology related to 1,300 km range ballistic missiles --probably the No Dong -- 300 km range anti-ship cruise missiles, and other prohibited military equipment.

And one more comment on Kevin's highly intellectual point that "We (the US) armed Iraq (yes, we did in 1980 when they were being torched by Iran, who at the time was a huge enemy of ours-remember the hostages?)," but lets look at what they actually used in the Gulf War and in The War on Terrorism:
Kalashnikov's AK-47s
Lion of Babylon Tanks; T-72s, T-62s, and T-55s
RPG-7
Type 63 YW-531 Armored Personnel Carriers
FROG Missiles & SAMs
Mirage Jets
60mm mortars...all Soviet made (except the APCs-China, Jets-France).

Perhaps some day Kevin will actually do some research-then again, maybe he should just stick to laughing at people, calling them liars, or telling them to go screw themselves-it's what he is best at and matches his intellectual fortitude. And as far as your FM counterpart, she makes a good talking head for the left, but should really let folks like you handle the intellectual stuff. **

And there Mark, I didn't use the word liberal yet...oh damn, I just blew it.

Shakespeare said, "No legacy is so rich as honesty." Well, I think that there are some folks that could use a dose of this. Am I in total agreement with Bush? No way. In fact, I think the amount of money he is spending on domestic policy is outrageous. And even though a 4.5% deficit is nothing to worry about, trying to woo Democrats to your side will not work no matter how much you give them. And even this is a target of attacks on Bush. In the same breath the media or the liberals (sorry) say: "Bush is spending too much-the deficit is too high," then they follow that up with" Bush is cutting education, Bush is cutting health care." Do a Google search and you will laugh yourself silly reading both. Even at the Democratic Unity Dinner, rightly acronymed-DUD, Bubba said "Bush has cut funding for after school programs for 300,000 kids." That is not even remotely true. But as I have said before, the facts don't count.

And yet Kerry continues to fall in the polls. How come we don> '> t see this in the newspapers everyday? Like when they printed FRONT-page polls showing Kerry ahead of Bush by as many as 9 points for weeks during the Primary. Must be all that honesty.

You know, I am facing something hard right now. One of my best friend's mother is dying from Pancreatic cancer. She doesn't have long. I really don't know what to say to him...I mean what can you say. He has been preparing for this, but still, it has to be so hard. My sister had cancer, as did her daughter, and both of them beat it. This is different. From the start there was not much hope. I'm going to be spending time with him this weekend, and although we will chat and play cards, I will still feel weird. Please pray for my friend Joe and his mother Marie.

Keep the faith.
Private Sector Dude.