The Liberator

Call me crazy but it seems to me that sending Bush into Latin America to sing the praises of Simon Bolivar can only be viewed by those poor people as an unbelievably crass insult. He can jump around on aircraft carriers in a Tom Cruise costume or stand on the rubble of the World Trade Center yelling "bring em on!" and dupe plenty of gringos but Latinos don't appreciate such forms of cynical irony. They are going to tear shit up in every city he goes to down there. They won't care what kind of goofy sombrero he wears or little snippits of espanol he mangles. People will get jailed , hurt, maybe killed, just like everywhere else he and his decrepid empire go so he could really do everyone a favor by simply staying home. Send Chris Hill ( State Dept. negotiator with North Korea) if you just have to visit the "sphere of influence", let GW go visit the melting perma-frost in Antartica.

The new Nation has a good article on the venerable Democratic Senator from Montana, good old Max Baucus. Max has never seen a KStreet lobbyist or "free trade" deal he couldn't crawl in bed with and his Business Council -Chamber of Commerce buddies have kept him in power for many terms (since 1978) A somewhat guiless, not particularly bright or well spoken millionaire ,(inherited), he is the ranking Democrat on the powerful Senate Finance Committee and he follows the money whichever way the wind blows. Re-election is his ideological polestar and if it means brokering Bush's massive 2001 tax cuts for the wealthy,supporting his Medicare prescription plan, voting for the war, the bankruptcy bill, energy bill and the confirmation of John Roberts, so be it. To his credit, he recently called for US withdrawal and for universal health care so the 2006 elections may have had some influence but like most Montanans he's just a clueless flounder in a sea of sharks, afraid of the words "progressive"or "collective bargaining".