I did an interview two weeks ago for Fox News. They invited me to come on their national news show and talk about "Trouble No More." And I thought, well wait a minute, am I going to have to go on TV and argue with somebody and defend myself? That's not my job. I'm a singer, a songwriter, I'm not going to go on TV and debate and all that bullshit.

They said, "No, no, no. This is strictly about the record." So I said OK. So I go in there and they ask me a few questions about the record. Then all of a sudden the guy says to me, "You wrote a song that took some potshots at the president." I said, "Whoa, motherfucker! I didn't take any potshots at anybody, that's not my style. I'm not yelling from the back of the crowd or giving somebody the finger. That's not what I do." I said, "Listen, I wrote a song and got the lyrics out of any newspaper in the country." He said, "Well, you saw what happened to the Dixie Chicks." I said, "Listen, people have died in World War I, World War II, the Korean War, Vietnam and a bunch of little wars in between so that people will have the freedom to speak out, and then the administration gets on the news and says there's a price for freedom. Yeah, and these dead guys have already paid for it. For people to drive by those women's houses [the Dixie Chicks] and call them on the phone and threaten them is criminal. What the Dixie Chicks did was legal."

Meet Betty Jack DeVine -- Atlantan, NASCAR fan, drag queen.

And the best way to get to know her, rather him, is on his Web site: www.gaytona.com.

Unlike the rantings of most sports bloggers, DeVine entertains with snappy "track yack" sprinkled with the irreverence of a Southern diva.

He is all about getting out to the track, not about outing anyone in the infield.

He pens this on the welcome page about the drivers: " 'Are they gay?' . . . Not that I know of -- and who cares, anyway? All I know is these hot rod hotties are all bad sexy and wicked fast."

.....

Statistically, DeVine, who works in corporate communications, fits this profile of a typical NASCAR fan: a male homeowner over age 35, with a household income over $30,000 and a full-time, professional job.

But when one of DeVine's favorite drivers wins, the scene in front of DeVine's TV is probably a little different than in most stock car fans' living rooms. When Jamie McMurray won last fall, "We were hollering and crying like Cher was winning another Oscar," DeVine recalled.

....When Jamie McMurray won last fall, "We were hollering and crying like Cher was winning another Oscar," DeVine recalled.

Dear Dr. Dean:

I know this isn't exactly on topic, but I need a place to put this.

My friend died today.

My best friend, Lance Corporal Gregory MacDonald of the United States Marine Corp died in Iraq when his vehicle overturned while rushing to aid a group of fellow Marines who were being ambushed.

I met Greg when we were both in graduate school at American University. He was studying Arabic and Near East affairs with a focus on the Palestian-Israeli conflict and Iraq.

During the entire build-up to the war in Iraq, Greg argued forcefully and logically that the case being outlined was false and not consistent with any expert opinion on the subject. He was also a man in the finest tradition the USMC has ever produced, and when called to serve with his Recon unit (one of the most dangerous positions, even for the USMC), he did not hesitate to answer the call of duty.

As a final act defiance before setting out to fight a war he knew was wrong, Greg was interviewed on the radio explaining why the President had not made his case for war. He did the interview on condition of anonymity because he did not want his fellow Marines to think he wasn't 100 percent committed to their mission.

Dr. Dean, we need you more than ever. Something is wrong with this country when our best warrior-philosophers are thrown into the cauldren of Iraq by a President who went AWOL from national guard duty. Something is wrong with this country when an actual expert on the subject of Iraq is sent to war by a cynical, unscupulous Vice President who had "other priorities" when it came his turn to serve.

I'm tired of the chickenhawks who lie while our best men pay the consequences.

Greg told me many times that he would support any candidate who stood up forcefully against this war because it was wrong and was not sold on evidence, but lies and ideology.

Greg would have supported you, Dr. Dean.

And I support you Dr. Dean, because I can think of no other way to better honor the memory of a man ten times greater than our President, even when he plays dress-up in a flight suit - unintentially mocking those who fought and died in uniform.

Thank you

SZ

I have had trouble believing there are no WMDs, and we may find evidence more compelling than a couple of broken-down trailers dubbed as mobile labs. But we haven't found the "thousands of tons of chemical agents" or the "massive stockpile of biological weapons," and the imminent threat of nukes turned out to be a scam.

As this becomes apparent, a lot of folks are busily parsing the difference between a lie and an exaggeration, a spinmeister and a fabricator. But by any definition, the script for a preventive war of pre-emptive self-defense was a craftily designed White House sales pitch.

So we don't know whether there are WMDs. But more importantly, we still don't know the real reasons why Bush went to war and why he thought those reasons wouldn't "sell."

.....

The real lie is that the administration didn't (dare?) make its essential case for war. And the real shame is not that we were conned but, so far, we don't mind.

Georgia Gov. Sonny Perdue ordered flags on state buildings and grounds lowered to half staff today to mark the death of former Governor Lester Maddox.

But Perdue faced criticism for failing to extend equal honors to Atlanta's first black mayor, Maynard Jackson, who died Monday.

Perdue signed an executive order this morning requiring flags to be lowered from now until sunset on the day of Maddox's funeral.

For Jackson, only the flags on the state Capitol will be lowered and for just one day -- Saturday -- the day of Jackson's funeral. Perdue issued that order Tuesday.

I'm sorry, but Bill O'Reilly weighing in on David Brinkley's legacy makes me want to die throwing up.

I can only compare it with having your dimwitted uncle show up at your father's funeral to tell you he's running the business now.

So Bill O'Reilly is calling upon legitimate journalists to stop reporting the news and start "opinionating" the news -- like himself and his colleagues at Fox News. Obviously, O'Reilly is seeking validation for his network's brand of unethical tabloid journalism.

Although some Americans need entertainers such as O'Reilly to do their thinking for them, many others find solace in having someone simply recite the news without inserting some obnoxious opinion. O'Reilly sells -- but so does the National Enquirer.

A father and his 11-year-old daughter swam five hours to shore after their 8-foot sailboat capsized in the Atlantic Ocean, authorities said.

The father was being held Tuesday for psychological evaluation. An official said the man thought poisonous gases were spreading across Florida and taking his daughter out to sea was the only way to save her.

We are saddened at anyone's death. We offer our condolences to the Maddox family.

The sad thing about Mr. Maddox in his later years is that he refused to acknowledge his sins. He died as a racist segregationist who would not admit he was wrong. He refused to rise to the level of a George Wallace who apologized and was embraced by Afican-Americans in Alabama.

There were some good things he did, but he was overshadowed by his racist, segregationist stand. He refused to bend.

It was in his soul. He came from an era that was all about segregation. It was all about black people not being able to vote. He believed in that. It's sad that anybody would live this long and witness all the changes and not bring himself to accept them.

-- State Rep. Tyrone Brooks (D-Atlanta), president of the Georgia Association of Black Elected Officials

About 300 supporters cheered former Vermont Gov. Howard Dean in Atlanta on Monday as he launched his presidential campaign with a call to "take back the Democratic Party" and the White House next year.

FAJARDO, Puerto Rico (AP) - The son of the late ocean explorer Jacques Cousteau toured Puerto Rico's northeastern coastline by helicopter Saturday, saying much of the area's coral reefs appeared to be dead.

"We continue using the ocean as a trash can," Jean-Michel Cousteau told environmentalists and reporters after the tour. He was basing his assessment of Puerto Rico's reefs on appearance and existing data.

Cousteau said ignorance about coral reefs and the hundreds of species they support was contributing to a worldwide trend in coral depletion.

Pollution, chemicals, erosion, diseases and physical contact are factors that can lead to coral depletion, he said.

Cousteau has followed in the footsteps of his late father, Jacques-Yves Cousteau, who until his death in 1997 led ocean expeditions throughout the world and popularized marine issues through films.

It is so ironic and so strange that he passed today around the same time the Supreme Court decision (on affirmative action) was coming down. He was one of the early supporters and a real leader for affirmative action. He was a leader among politicians, but African-American politicians in particular. He was not afraid. He was brave and courageous to get out front on some of the issues he felt very strongly about.

-- Rep. John Lewis, D-Ga.

Ten people were arrested Sunday night at an East Cobb youth baseball game, Cobb police said. Five adults and five 15-year-old boys were charged after a brawl broke out during the game, which was being played at Walton High School.

"Apparently one of the kids didn't like one of the calls," said Cobb Police Spokesman Brody Staud.

"It just all escalated from there."

The game was sanctioned by East Cobb Baseball Association, a regional powerhouse with a national reputation.

"It was not a good situation," said Gary Baldwin, president of ECB.

Maybe it's best that Jessica Lynch doesn't remember what happened. The doctors say she doesn't recall the ambush and capture, the April days that transformed the private first class into a first-class war hero.

So Private Lynch, at least, had no part in the making of the Legend of Pvt. Lynch. When the nonstop coverage began, she was a survivor being carried on a stretcher in and out of planes and hospitals. When producers "took meetings" for TV specials and docudramas, she was having her bones meticulously pinned back together.

When the big names of television tried to woo her with lockets and books and deals, when they tried to "get" her as if she were a charm for their bracelet, they didn't know that the star of the story couldn't actually tell the story.

There is something terrible about the alchemy that tries to turn a human into a symbol. In this case, the alchemists took a young soldier from the hollows of Palestine, W.Va., to the hollow world of myth-making. And now we are discovering the fool's gold.

.....

But to turn a human into a symbol, you have to take away the humanity. In the pursuit of fool's gold, you burn away the metal. By making Jessica into a cartoon hero, we may have missed the bravery of the young soldier now recovering in Walter Reed Army Medical Center.

Pvt. Jessica Lynch didn't empty an M-16 into the enemy. But she has learned how to take a hundred steps with a walker, one step at a time. That's heroism enough for one lifetime.

Either The Atlanta Journal-Constitution has a filter down there that just accepts letters of criticism of Cynthia Tucker and none critical of Jim Wooten, or I'm missing the letters sections on the days he gets blasted. Wooten says some of the most outrageous things, and hardly anyone in this metro area of 4 million takes him to task for it.

Recently, he gushed all over Hillsdale College in Hillsdale, Mich., for its stance in saying that it will proudly discriminate in its policy and refuse government money.

And Wooten's going to permanently disfigure knee ligaments if he remains in the crouched stance he has taken while trying to sell us Alabama Attorney General William Pryor as a worthy federal appeals judge.

Surely he writes some things for the shock value and idiocy of saying it. Right? No pun intended. Right?

Experts are trying to determine whether an American missile strike that destroyed a convoy last week killed Saddam Hussein or his sons, The New York Times and the Washington Post reported.

There was no evidence Saddam was hit in the attack, both newspapers reported, citing unnamed defense and intelligence officials. DNA tests are being carried out on the victims, the Post said, though it also said intelligence officials had no knowledge of any request to match Saddam's DNA.

.....

A senior administration official described the intelligence that led to Wednesday's attack as a good lead. But another administration official told the Times, "I have no information that leads us to believe we got Saddam." And one military officer told the Times that intelligence reports that Saddam or his sons might have been in the convoy may have been based more on hope than evidence.

Just yards from the throngs of commuters who rush through the Lindbergh rail station each day, MARTA stashes five years of mistakes that cost millions of dollars.

Past two security doors, in a gray concrete building, a 20-by-20 room holds nearly 500 pieces of computer hardware the transit agency never expects to use. The equipment includes stacks of high-end modems, circuit boards and network routers, as well as a $1.26 million IBM mainframe mothballed three years after it came online.

Many of the items remain in their original shipping containers, and most were never installed. Despite that, MARTA spent tens of thousands of dollars on maintenance contracts to make sure some of the unused equipment would run properly.

MARTA outfitted the storage room in 1999 to be a state-of-the-art computer center. But after spending $299,000 to equip and secure the building for computer operations, MARTA laid the plan aside, making the space perhaps Atlanta's most well-appointed storage closet.

"Early this morning, my 17 year-old son Paul and several friends were cited in court by the Burlington Police Department for attempting to steal alcoholic beverages from a local country club.

"When a child gets in trouble like this, it constitutes a family crisis, and I believe it's important that I be home. I have canceled my scheduled appearances tomorrow in Iowa so that I can return to Vermont and deal personally with what my family and I consider a very serious matter.

"I understand that this matter is being handled by the state's attorney and I hope the press and the public will respect the privacy of my family-- particularly of my son-- during this difficult time."

A ruling by the Georgia Court of Appeals has struck at the heart of Peachtree City's uniqueness -- the ubiquitous golf cart.

From now on, you'll need a driver's license to drive one on the city's roadways and golf cart paths, just as if it were an automobile.

The ruling applies to everybody in the state but really hits Peachtree City, an affluent Fayette County town where young people consider driving golf carts a prelude to driving cars.

.....

Molly Lanxton, 15, contemplated how her life may be changed by the ruling while riding around Peachtree City on Thursday with two friends in, of course, a golf cart. Lanxton, who has a learner's permit, has been driving a golf cart to McIntosh High School and planned to drive the cart to get to an after-school job.

Try telling this to a real estate agent: I want a healthy neighborhood.

That request may sound reasonable once you know that people who choose to live in sprawling subdivisions are more likely to be overweight -- even obese -- according to data released Thursday.

More than one in six admit to "communicating with rude gestures while driving," which Heenan politely defined as "telling people the Braves are No. 1."

The stretch of the Conasauga River known as The Snorkeling Hole is the sort of place you want to keep to yourself. Just north of the junction of the Jacks River, a few hundred yards above the Georgia state line, the confluence of geology, topography, temperature and water chemistry provides for a variety of aquatic life that surprises those who take a look.

.....

The snorkeling hole on the Conasauga River, for example, harbors more than three dozen kinds of fish, from endangered blue shiners the size of your pinky to rainbow trout 18 inches long. While the fish lack the Technicolor hues of their Caribbean cousins, the spring spawning season gives the blue shiner a brighter blue body highlighted by an electric gold horizontal stripe the length of its body. The Alabama shiner, in efforts to attract a mate, sports a red tail.

Once the picture of pride and patriotism during the war, the wives are arguing that the soldiers who did the killing should not have to do the peacekeeping.

"They need to be out of there, because I don't believe its safe," said Ellen Peterson, the wife of a 3rd Infantry sergeant who was deployed in January from the divisions base at Fort Stewart in Georgia.

"Tasteless." That's how one Danish amusement park official describes a lollipop shaped like a male organ.

Three months after parting ways with the Atlanta Humane Society, Fulton County has a new long-term contractor to run its animal pound.

The county selected Southern Hope Humane Society on Wednesday to replace Atlanta Humane, which departed in March after disagreements with the county about money and performance.

Under Atlanta Humane, the shelter killed a higher proportion of animals than pounds in several neighboring counties. Animal lovers complained to Fulton County commissioners, leading to friction with Atlanta Humane, which had run the pound since 1974.

Southern Hope was among two bidders on a new contract intended to increase the animal adoption rate. The nonprofit group from Cobb County stepped up adoptions and reduced the kill rate after it was selected to run the pound on an interim basis during the three-month bidding process.

The Race Across America (RAAM) suffered a terrible blow early Wednesday morning as racer Brett Malin was struck and killed by a truck along US route 60 in New Mexico. The accident, which happened at around 2:30am EST, marks the first fatality in the race's 21 year history. Malin, a member of four-person Team Vail-Go Fast, reportedly was struck by the truck as it attempted to swerve to avoid the collision, which was deemed an accident.

The Southern Baptist Convention has started an initiative to liberate gays from their homosexuality by befriending them and convincing them they should accept Jesus as their savior.

At the denominations annual meeting, which ends Wednesday night, leaders asked their 42,000 churches to reach out compassionately to gays, focusing on how Christianity can save them.

Homosexuals can find freedom from this sinful, destructive lifestyle, said Richard Land, head of the Southern Baptists public policy arm. They can be redeemed. They can be liberated.

Taking a week to bicycle 422 miles through south Georgia in the summer heat is not for everyone.

After the first day's ride of some 60 miles from Bainbridge to Thomasville, after the heat had very nearly parboiled my brain -- never mind that we started at 6:30 in the morning -- and I couldn't remember the name of a certain marvelous Georgia writer (it was Bailey White), I broke down and called a Savannah friend to help me out of my memory-lapse misery.

He left White's name on my answering machine at home along with the words, "Sounds as if you're having a good time. Sort of."

Mariah Carey's last two visits to Atlanta resulted in food poisoning and international press dispatches after her partly eaten turkey sandwich turned up on eBay. Maybe that's why the pop princess is blowing us off completely on her freshly tweaked "Charmbracelet Tour."

Environmentalists are claiming victory after a federal court ruled the EPA was out of line when it cut Atlanta some slack on air pollution standards.

"This is tremendous news for everyone who lives in the Atlanta region," said Ciannat Howett, Atlanta director of the Southern Environmental Law Center. The center represented the Sierra Club and other environmental groups that sued the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency last year.

The court's ruling is "a binding precedent," Howett said. "We think it's going to prevent, in the future, the EPA from taking these kind of actions."

EPA Deputy Regional Administrator Stan Meiburg said he is pleased with the court decision because it clarifies the agency's role in approving state air quality plans. "It was time to accept and move on," he said.

But beginning in the mid-1980s, with the emergence of Tipper Gore's Parents Music Resource Center, some of the most sustained and high-impact attacks on pop culture -- mainly meaning rap and heavy metal lyrics, video games and violent movies and TV programming -- have come from Democrats. As the music industry's self-appointed point man on the issue, Goldberg went toe-to-toe with Tipper on numerous TV panel shows, and "Dispatches From the Culture Wars" has lots of juicy detail on his private efforts to find some common ground with Tipper and her husband. (The private discussion between Goldberg and Al Gore on the interpretation of "With a Little Help From My Friends" is especially good.)

Goldberg's book is a fascinating memoir of the nexus where pop culture and left-wing politics collided throughout the '70s, '80s and '90s, and a cautionary tale directed at his own generation, the middle-class liberals of the baby boom who he fears are in danger of becoming their own intolerant parents. Perhaps in an effort to cleanse themselves of the cultural taint of the '60s, Goldberg speculates, Democratic middle-roaders like the Gores and, more recently and forcefully, Al's 2000 running mate, Sen. Joe Lieberman, have gone to considerable trouble to alienate themselves from contemporary youth and popular culture, sometimes by endorsing patently ludicrous attacks on constitutionally protected speech. These center-left moralists, themselves products of the tremendous cultural upheavals of the '60s and '70s, seem to believe, as Goldberg puts it, that pop culture was brought here by evil aliens and isn't actually, well, popular.

As Goldberg points out -- and no other political pundit, to my knowledge, has noticed this -- in 1996, Bill Clinton beat Bob Dole by 19 points among voters under 24. In 2000, George W. Bush and Gore were dead even in that age group, a total of about 9 million votes. Restore even half of Clinton's '96 edge with youth, and the result of the election is clearly different, with or without the much-debated Nader factor.

A Father's Day reunion turned tragic Saturday night when a 15-year-old boy was shot and killed by his father, a Rockdale County sheriff's deputy, in what authorities are saying was an accident.

.....

According to authorities, the father had just returned to his Conyers home Saturday night after practicing shooting at a private firing range with his personal gun.

He cleaned the weapon, reloaded it and was "carrying it through the house when it discharged in a family office-type setting," Wigington said.

The boy, who was sitting at a computer, was hit in the chest.

Hello!

I’m writing you because I want you to join me at a Dean campaign event that I'm attending. Howard Dean is the only candidate running for President who says what he thinks, and acts on what he says. I think he’s dead on, and the only candidate making sense about foreign policy, health care, and fiscal responsibility. Dean is not only taking on Bush, but directly addressing the failures of the Democratic party to give people a reason to vote. He also has a powerful record of success as Governor of Vermont. If you don’t know about him, visit his website:

http://deanforamerica.com

You can sign up for my event here:

http://action.deanforamerica.com

Type in your zip code and find my event in the list of events in our area.

I don’t want money to decide who leads this country, and for the first time in a long time, it might not because Dean is running a very grassroots campaign that relies upon people like us to go out and spread the word.

Its inspiring to be a part of something this big, but where each of us still counts. Even if this is the first time you have heard of Howard Dean, or if you are unsure about who you support, please come along and learn more. Howard Dean's campaign is important to me, personally, and I think it is critical to the country. Also, it should be fun.

Thanks! I hope you come! Here's the info on the event(s):

Declaration Celebration Rally Atlanta
Earthlink Live - 1374 Peachtree Street
Monday, June 23, 01:00 PM
Join thousands across the country to watch Governor Dean's Official Campaign Announcement in a satellite telecast from Burlington, Vermont.

30 In reply Jesus said: "A man was going down from Jerusalem to Jericho, when he fell into the hands of robbers. They stripped him of his clothes, beat him and went away, leaving him half dead. 31 A priest happened to be going down the same road, and when he saw the man, he passed by on the other side. 32 So too, a Levite, when he came to the place and saw him, passed by on the other side. 33 But a Samaritan, as he traveled, came where the man was; and when he saw him, he took pity on him. 34 He went to him and bandaged his wounds, pouring on oil and wine. Then he put the man on his own donkey, took him to an inn and took care of him. 35 The next day he took out two silver coins and gave them to the innkeeper. 'Look after him,' he said, 'and when I return, I will reimburse you for any extra expense you may have.'
36 "Which of these three do you think was a neighbor to the man who fell into the hands of robbers?"
37 The expert in the law replied, "The one who had mercy on him."
Jesus told him, "Go and do likewise."

PHOENIX -- The Roman Catholic bishop of Phoenix was arrested Monday in a deadly hit-and-run accident after police traced a license plate number to his car and found the windshield caved in.

.....

This administration has not found Osama bin Laden. It has not found Saddam Hussein. And it has not yet found weapons of mass destruction in Iraq. Supposedly all of that was the rationale for losing over 200 American lives and wounding over 500 American troops so far.

.....

We are trying to re-build hospitals and schools and trying to provide health care and food in Iraq. We need to rebuild crumbling schools in America. We need to extend health care insurance to the 41 million Americans not currently covered by health care insurance. We need to improve police and first responder capabilities in America. We need to rebuild the infrastructure of America, provide jobs to Americans. But we are trying to make Iraq the 51st state. This administration is doing all of this in a time of record deficits while at the same time slashing taxes for the wealthy. And let's be clear about this "economic stimulus." In the long run, this tax cut will redistribute the tax burden onto the middle class. In the tax bill the president signed, those families with children making less than $26,000 a year were denied a child tax credit while those families making more than that amount were given a $1,000 deduction per child. I ask you this. Does this seem fair? As I travel around this state, I see increasing unemployment, increasing financial hardship and increasing economic devastation due to Republican policies which have become themselves weapons of mass destruction particularly falling hardest on those families making $26,000 year or less.

What then is the Bush record in fighting the so-called war on terrorism? They have not found bin Laden. They have not found Saddam Hussein and as of yet there are no weapons of mass destruction in Iraq. However, we have found two trailers. Is that why we fought the war? For two trailers? Did we send our sons and daughters to spill their blood in the desert over two trailers? We are spending over $100 billion bombing and then rebuilding Iraq while giving a tax cut to America's wealthiest citizens and denying hard-working Americans making $26,000 a year or less a child tax credit in order to pay for it.

That's the Bush record. It is not compassionate, and with this year's budget deficit running over $400 billion -- a record set by no other President, Republican or Democrat, it is certainly not conservative.

.....

In terms of the tax cut -- more than $300 billion of tax cuts I might add -- these monies should go to improve the health care in the military for the over 500 servicemen and women and POW's who were wounded in Iraq alone. Additionally, we need to improve dramatically VA healthcare for all of our veterans instead of cutting the requested VA budget by $6.5 billion as President Bush has done.

Stimulate the economy not by tax cuts for the rich but by a payroll tax holiday so that working-class Americans upon whom the burden of taxes and war always falls will see their sons and daughters return from overseas to an economy that has jobs for them.

.....

As one kvetcher (among many) on VH1's online message boards recently wrote: "VH1 smokes crack." That was alongside other attacks on the song list, including "useless," "pathetic" and "This is more than insulting, this is a farce."

The group will soon begin fund-raising by giving away, in exchange for donations, "most wanted" decks of cards of Georgia elected officials who voted to change the flag during the most recent legislative session.

Spandex-clad riders will cut a seven-day swath through townships, hamlets and crossroads, dodging the Okefenokee Swamp, until they come to the tidewater of St. Mary's.

Most of the cyclists on BRAG will ride singly. But the route changes annually, and this year's pancake-like course is especially appealing to tandems. They like the flatlands.

Actually, not all service members make low pay. Some make pretty darn good pay, and I speak from personal experience as my husband is in the army.

.....

So think again when you start saying that the poor military are taken advantage of.

Seven months later, Max Cleland can finally talk about it.

The former U.S. senator from Georgia likened his stunning re-election defeat to the moment in Vietnam when a grenade explosion ripped away his legs and part of an arm.

"It was like the trauma of being suddenly and traumatically blown up, and I in effect relived all that hell of 35 years ago," Cleland said in an exclusive interview from his new office at Washington's American University. "It's been very tough to recover."

.....

With a snicker, he added, "In my case, it turned out it didn't matter what I said or what I did with my vote. The president came after me, anyway," he said, referring to President Bush's five trips to Georgia to boost Chambliss' campaign.

The memory of that campaign remains painful. It was one of the most closely watched and hardest fought contests of the 2002 elections, with control of the Senate hanging in the balance.

The lowest moment for Cleland came when Chambliss aired a TV spot that attacked his voting record on homeland security issues and featured photos of Osama bin Laden and Saddam Hussein.

Cleland said at the time he was personally hurt by the ad, and during the interview this week he remained bitter.

"The charge that somehow I was unpatriotic, when really I had helped write the law on the homeland security legislation, all those lies that occurred in the campaign -- that was a trauma that was unexpected for me," he said. "I thought I had done a good job for the people of Georgia. I thought they knew me as someone who had served and sacrificed for the country, as someone who was willing to defend the country 35 years ago. . . . But the White House and the media image makers turned me into some kind of villain."

The book, however, isn’t all that satisfying. And that goes to the root of the problem with the Clintons. The book can’t gain traction because Hillary isn’t sure where she stands. She wants to appear principled (and, compared to Bush, she’s a paragon of ethics), but it’s damn hard to pin down her principles. The Clintons, despite vast reserves of political currency, really didn’t stand for that much. And still don’t. Hillary has been AWOL among those who opposed Bush’s Endless War plans, for example. She should be leading the assault on Bush’s war against America’s poor via tax cuts for the rich – her response is, at best, lukewarm.

That said, the sales of her book are a signal to the Bushites that despite their propaganda firestorm, there are still Americans with brains.

His greatest legacy may be to show the utter bankruptcy of the far right. Remember those guys, who condemn as traitors those who dissented from the war? But did the neo-cons support the commander-in-chief when he was forced to commit troops. Nah, of course not.

The right has been so rabid in its never-ending attacks on the Clintons that many people became suspicious that it was more of the GOP’s Big Lie. There is a vast right-wing conspiracy. It lies, it enriches itself at your expense, it happily kills thousands to pursue goals most Americans aren’t informed about – and if they are, don’t support.

The House also removed from a Senate-passed bill language that would have enabled families of servicemen and servicewomen who served in the war with Iraq to claim bigger child tax credits.

With two outs in the ninth, Niekro had an 8-0 cushion when his brother came to the mound. Phil tried to hand the ball to Joe to get the last out, but Joe refused. Joe told Phil that at 46 he was one out from becoming the oldest pitcher to throw a shutout, so he needed to get the 27th out. Phil protested and told Joe they had an agreement, but Joe walked away.

The 2003 Raid Gauloises adventure race, currently underway in Kyrghyzstan, was temporarily halted Tuesday following the death of a competitor during the race's first whitewater canoeing leg.

Frenchwoman Dominique Robert, racing her tenth Raid Gauloises as part of team Endurance-AGF, became trapped in branches on a whitewater canoe section in the first hours of the race. Safety teams where unable to revive her at the scene and she is presumed to have drowned.

Leonard Pitts' surprise at the concept of Eric Rudolph being called a "Christian terrorist" shows he has been out of step with many liberal Christians' problems with how Christianity has been presented in our society.

I have to check Christian publications and promotional items for conservative teachings before I can give them to my children. Why? Because conservative teachings often teach intolerance, pride, nationalism, isolationalism and fear. Not only do these not follow the teachings of Christ's love, but they also can all lead to so-called hate theology when taken in the extreme.

As a liberal Christian, I firmly believe Jesus asks us to reconsider our violence toward others as well as having faith in a God who doesn't need us to beat up others for him to force them to comply with our own judgments of his needs.

A Fulton County Superior Court jury acquitted former Morehouse student Aaron Price of hate crime charges in the Nov. 3 beating of fellow student Gregory Love with a baseball bat in a dorm shower.

A short time earlier, the jury had found Price guilty of aggravated assault and aggravated battery in the Nov. 3 incident. He was sentenced to 10 years on each count, to run concurrently. If convicted of a hate crime, Price could have had 5 years added to his sentence for the assault and battery charges.

During the arguments for and against convicting Price of the state's first hate crime, Assistant Fulton County District Attorney Holly Hughes asked the jury to remember the words Price allegedly uttered "when he beat [Love] with a baseball bat: 'Faggot, you're gay, gay ... I hate these Morehouse faggots.' "

Aaron Price, 19, an expelled Morehouse sophomore, is on trial on aggravated assault and aggravated battery charges in the Nov. 3 beating of student Gregory Love in a dormitory bathroom, allegedly because Love stared at him in the shower.

A visibly angry U.S. President Bush condemned the Jerusalem bombing and urged all nations to cut off financial aid to terror groups and “isolate those who hate so much that they are willing to kill.”

The increasing cycle of violence threatens to overwhelm a U.S.-backed peace plan referred to as the “road map” to peace launched by Bush and agreed to by the Israeli and Palestinian prime ministers only a week ago.

Delta Air Lines can't seem to get it right.

The company, whose embarrassingly high pay and bonuses for executives nearly derailed federal aid for ailing airlines this year, is at it again. At a time when it is asking for pay cuts from pilots, Delta is coughing up more money to feather the nests of senior officers with big bankruptcy-proof pensions.

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Delta Air Lines may be the single most critical component of the local economy -- the petroleum that fuels metro Atlanta's economic engine. If it founders and lands in bankruptcy, its collapse would spread economic misfortune throughout the region. So its executives ought to be showing employees an example of the personal sacrifice needed from the airlines' entire labor force.

Instead, we have the sight of the captain and his officers donning life jackets on the bridge, while the crew members in the engine room are told to keep working harder to keep the troubled ship afloat. By shielding themselves from much of the harm in the event of a collapse, the Delta leaders are putting themselves in a safe harbor -- a place of privilege above the shareholders, the creditors, the employees and the existing pensioners.

By early afternoon Monday the red flags, signaling it's too dangerous to swim, had been changed to yellow on the Florida Panhandle beaches where five people drowned in riptides Sunday. A sixth drowned on Monday.

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Chad Carl, an attendant at WaterColor Market near Seaside, said Monday: "That's usually what happens down here. People see the red flags and they don't stay out of the water, they think that's going to make a funner day."

"Women who don't wear the veil won't be served when they go shopping; taxis won't pick them up and they might have eggs and rotten tomatoes thrown at them," he says.

"As far as the sellers of alcohol, they will be forced to stop, if necessary, by bringing their shops crashing down on their heads."

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"They want everyone to wear the veil like in Iran and they say make-up is forbidden. But that's not our way," she says.

"If this country becomes like Iran, I'll pack up and leave."

Hot-lanta is back among the top five best places for singles this year, after falling to tenth place last year. The home of the 1996 Summer Olympics features some wonderful highbrow diversions, such as the High Museum and Fox Theater, as well as more mainstream attractions, including the Atlanta Braves and Falcons. Universities always help with culture and coolness, and Atlanta has two of the best in Georgia Tech and Emory. Even though its economy has been hurt by problems at local behemoths Coca-Cola and Home Depot, Atlanta is still expected to have very robust job growth over the next five years. And the city's nightlife has something for everyone, from sleek club goers to the Jell-O shot crowd. Unlike some cities that close shop at two A.M. (are you listening, Boston and Denver?), certain spots in Atlanta stay open all night. That alone gives it a few extra buzz points. --Davide Dukcevich

Volkswagen said Friday it will stop making the original rear-engined Beetle later this year, bringing the curtain down on the nearly 70-year history of the classic "bug."

Production of the last old Beetles at the VW plant in Puebla, Mexico, will "end this summer," spokesman Fred Baerbock said, adding that an exact date was not set.

Instead of counting on the gender gap in next year's election, Democrats should attack the Bush administration's truth gap.

President Bush's rhetoric doesn't meet the reality test in three key areas: tax relief, weapons of mass destruction and corporate reform. Here's a sampling of the president's empty rhetoric.

The claim that Iraqi weapons of mass destruction posed an immediate threat to the United States was a sham. It will still be a sham even if some U.S. Army corporal outside Baghdad is stumbling across tons of anthrax right this very minute.

But don't take my word for it. When worried advocates of the war start claiming that it doesn't really matter whether WMD are found, they're saying the same thing I am:

WMD were just the excuse. They were never the reason. The Bush administration hyped WMD because it did not trust the American people with its true rationale for war, which was the launching of a crusade to remake the Middle East.

Records at the Federal Election Commission show that the former Democratic congresswoman from DeKalb County has begun filing paperwork that would allow her to run in her old 4th District seat, which she lost to fellow Democrat Denise Majette in the August 2002 primary. Majette went on to win the general election.

“We’re on the look. We’ll reveal the truth....”

Intelligence gathered by this and other governments leaves no doubt that the Iraq regime continues to possess and conceal some of the most lethal weapons ever devised.

“But one thing is certain: no terrorist network will gain weapons of mass destruction from the Iraqi regime because the Iraqi regime is no more.”

“America sent you on a mission to remove a grave threat and liberate an oppressed people and that mission has been accomplished,” he told the more than 1,000 troops.