Let's talk about replacing GWBush in 2004.

On Memorial Day last year, I visited the military cemetery at Normandy, and saw the grave of one of the founders of the American Legion, Brigadier General Theodore Roosevelt, Jr. When Roosevelt landed with the first wave of his unit on D-Day, he and his men found themselves in a different part of Utah Beach from the point they expected. Roosevelt quickly sized up the situation and called in a whole division to the new sector. Turning a challenge into an advantage, he declared: we'll start the war from here.

Well, a great challenge came to America on September the 11th, 2001. Enemies who plotted for years in secret, carried out missions of murder on our own soil. It was a day of suffering and sorrow. It was also a day of decision for our country. As a united and resolute people, America declared: we'll start the war from here.

On a single day last week we saw the true nature of the terrorists once again. In Baghdad they attacked a symbol of the civilized world - the United Nations Headquarters - and killed men and women who were there to bring humanitarian help to the Iraqi people. They killed a respected U.N. Special Representative, Sergio Vieira de Mello, from Brazil.

The terrorists' aim is to spread chaos and fear by killing on an ever-widening scale. They serve their cause by sacrificing the innocent. They celebrate the murder of women and children. They attacked the civilized world because they bear a deep hatred for the values of the civilized world.

They hate freedom and religious tolerance and democracy and equality for women.

They hate Christians and Jews and every Muslim who does not share their narrow and violent vision.

No nation can be neutral in the struggle between civilization and chaos. Every nation that stands on the side of freedom and the value of human life must condemn terrorism and act against the few who would destroy the hopes of the many.

Because America stands for freedom and tolerance and the rights of all, the terrorists have targeted our country. During the last few decades the terrorists grew bolder, believing if they hit America hard, America would retreat and back down.

"In Iraq the old regime wanted to avoid military retaliation or invasion, so it made sense to shun collaboration with Osama bin Laden's maximal terrorists. But since Saddam and his loyalists have lost their state, the prudence that deterred them from working with the jihadists is gone. Together or alone, the radicals must strike in Iraq, the newest 'field of jihad.'"

Afghanistan today is a friend of the United States of America. Because we acted, that country is not a haven for terrorists, and the people of America are safer from attack.

Terrorist networks are still finding recruits and still plotting attacks, and still intending to strike our country. Yet, our resolve is firm, and it is clear: no matter how long it takes, we will bring to justice those who plot against America.

We've also pursued the war on terror in Iraq. America and our coalition removed a regime that built, possessed and used weapons of mass destruction, a regime that sponsored terror and a regime that persecuted its people.

They know that a democratic Iraq in the heart of the Middle East would be a further defeat for their ideology of terror. They know that the spread of peace and hope in the Middle East would undermine the appeal of bitterness, resentment, and violence. And the more progress we make in Iraq, the more desperate the terrorists will become. Freedom is a threat to their way of life.

Our military is confronting terrorists in Iraq and Afghanistan and in other places so our people will not have to confront terrorist violence in New York, or St. Louis, or Los Angeles.

..In arguing that his office had intervened only in the packaging of the dossier and had left a senior intelligence adviser, John Scarlett, in charge of all substantive intelligence findings, Mr. Blair claimed an implausibly superfluous role for a leader preparing to take his nation to war. An e-mail note from Mr. Blair's chief of staff, Jonathan Powell, reported that the dossier had gone through a "substantial rewrite" to address points Mr. Blair had personally raised. Mr. Powell earlier told the inquiry that in mid-September last year he had warned Mr. Blair that it would be inaccurate to claim that Iraq posed an imminent threat. Yet one week later, in presenting the dossier to Parliament, Mr. Blair implied just that by saying Mr. Hussein's unconventional weapons programs were "up and running."

The widespread belief in Britain that the government was deliberately misleading about the Iraqi threat explains Mr. Blair's recent downward plunge in the polls. Most Britons now say they no longer trust him to tell the truth. Regaining their trust will not be easy.
http://www.nytimes.com/2003/08/29/opinion/29FRI2.html

Someday, when the grown-ups are back in charge, they'll have quite a mess to clean up. http://www.nytimes.com/2003/08/29/opinion/29KRUG.html

In celebration of the working person's holiday, Secretary of Labor Elaine Chao has announced the Bush Administration's plan to end the 60-year-old law which requires employers to pay time-and-a-half for overtime.

I'm sure you already knew that -- if you happened to have run across page 15,576 of the Federal Register.

According to the Register, where the Bush Administration likes to place its little gifts to major campaign donors, 2.7 million workers will lose their overtime pay for a "benefit" of $1.53 billion. I put "benefit" in quotes because, in the official cost-benefit analysis issued by Bush's Labor Department, the amount employers will now be able to slice out of workers' pockets is tallied on the plus side of the rules change.

Nevertheless, workers getting their pay snipped shouldn't complain, because they will all be receiving promotions. These employees will be re-classified as managers exempt from the law. The change is promoted by the National Council of Chain Restaurants. You've met these 'managers' - they're the ones in the beanies and aprons whose management decisions are, "Hold the lettuce on that."

My favorite of Chao's little amendments would re-classify as "exempt professionals" anyone who learned their skill in the military. In other words, thousands of veterans will now lose overtime pay. I just can't understand why Bush didn't announce that one when he landed on the aircraft carrier.