The president’s charges about obstruction would be easier to understand if the numbers themselves didn’t disprove them. The president and some Republicans in the Senate seem to be suffering from confirmation amnesia. The Democratic-led Senate confirmed 100 of his judicial nominees, acting far faster than Republicans did with President Clinton’s nominees. We have confirmed another 24 this year for a total so far of 124, the lowest judicial vacancy rate in 13 years. The vacancy rate on the federal bench today is 5.4 percent, which is lower than the national jobless rate of 6 percent. Unemployment has soared, the deficit has soared, crime is on the rise for the first time in a decade -- about the only thing that has gone down significantly over the last two years is federal judicial vacancies. Yet the White House complains that it has not been able to bully the Senate into rubber-stamping every one of the White House’s ideological choices. Democratic senators have cooperated to improve the process so that it has worked much more smoothly for President Bush’s nominees than Republicans allowed for President Clinton’s nominees.

The fact is that 124 have been confirmed, and two have been held back. You would not know that by listening to the president’s remarks.

Democrats held hearings even on controversial nominations, and we have cooperated this year in bringing many controversial nominations to the floor for votes. When Republicans controlled the Senate during the last Democratic administration, they blocked more than 60 judicial nominees. And they were blocked not with cloture votes in the light of day, but sometimes by a single, anonymous Republican objection. And yes, there were also Republican filibusters of President Clinton’s nominees. Yesterday, in fact, was the third anniversary of the cloture votes that ended Republicans’ double-filibuster of two of President Clinton’s circuit court nominees, Richard Paez and Marsha Berzon.

Faith moves mountains, hides weapons, and makes oil flow. At the beginning of May, the new viceroy of Iraq, retired Lt. Gen. Jay Garner, who seems to have recently resumed his military title, announced that the shortage of gasoline in Iraq was the United Nations’ fault. He said that continuing U.N. sanctions stopped supplies to the pumps in Baghdad.

Of course, until then, most of us not schooled in the new Republican reality had assumed that the purpose of U.N. sanctions was...

Remember Filegate ? That was when the Clinton White House requested and obtained over 400 FBI files. Some reports claim that over 900 personal FBI files were delivered to the White House. The files were probably delivered in violation of the 1974 Privacy Act, but they were delivered none-the-less. Conservatives and civil libertarians were — properly, of course — all over the Clinton Administration, criticizing the incredible abuse of power that Filegate epitomized.

Total Information Awareness makes Filegate look like kid's stuff. Imagine a White House that can request minute-by-minute transcripts of your life. Imagine a White House that can find out what you like on your pizza. Imagine a White House that can find out about your kid's drinking episode last week and use it against you politically. Imagine a White House that can discover that you smoked a joint last month and have you arrested for that offense if you dare send a nasty letter to the President.

If Total Information Awareness is allowed to proceed then all this and more can happen. Remember Senator McCarthy? Bah, he didn't have the tools to be really effective. Give his successor in 1015 TIA and watch him ruin more lives than we can count. Watch as average Americans (and not so average Americans) are called before the new Information Investigatory Committee and have their entire lives recounted before them. Watch as they break down in tears as their families are interviewed on the Capitol Hill steps.

Imagine the power of Total Information Awareness combined with the Domestic Security Enhancement Act of 2003 , legislation that has not yet been considered by Congress but that has been passed around by the Ashcroft Justice Department as a hint of what is yet to come. Imagine the ability of the government to discover that you donated $100 to Amnesty International or the American Civil Liberties Union simply through a few keystrokes by some clerk or through an automated program that finds all people who have donated more than $50 to such organisations. Imagine if the Attorney General, using his newfound power, has designated those organizations "terrorist". Imagine if he then uses the information from Total Information Awareness to arrest you, strip you of your citizenship, and put you in a military prison for your treasonous act?

It's all possible with TIA and DSEA '03. It's all possible. And if history is any guide — just look at Iraq, at Uzbekistan, at Soviet Russia, at China, at Franco's Spain, Hitler's Germany and Mussolini's Italy — it can certainly happen here. We are not immune. Our lofty founding principals and love of liberty will not protect us — we must actually take action to protect ourselves.

In thousands of cities and towns, millions of people—many of them new to activism—marched, vigiled, prayed, lobbied. War on Iraq happened anyway. And many Americans judged the war to be successful.

In 1991 a similar scenario led to discouragement and dropping out. Bill Clinton defeated George Bush I the following year despite, not because of, Bush’s war record. The months and years after Clinton’s elections were the darkest days since...

Iraq is a bloody mess and Al Qaeda has begun making a comeback. Afghanistan is still a bloody mess after over a year since their liberation and Bush is hiding over 800 pages of information concerning his abysmal performance concerning 9/11. Private Lynch's "rescue" was a fabrication but she has "amnesia" now so nobody's asking what really happened. The Total Awareness gang is heading back to Capitol Hill to plead that they're really not going to do anything wrong or underhanded - even though it's being headed by a criminal. We can't find any WMD's in Iraq (Because they were never there to begin with) and the Taliban seems to be doing fine and getting new recruits near the border of Pakistan. Then, of course, we have Tom DeLay abusing the authority of the Office of Homeland Defense to round up Texas Democrats who dared to stand up to his blatant and obscene power grab concerning redistricting. But where is the press?

More people are on the verge of losing their jobs, health insurance, child care coverage, over time pay, Social Security, Medicaid and Medicare. Not to mention what they've already lost. Their savings, many of their rights to privacy, many of their civil rights, a sense of security and their freedom to speak out without being labeled "un-patriotic." Exactly what country do we live in and why aren't more Americans concerned about these losses? Well, at least more than the media would have us believe are concerned?

But the saddest and most dangerous loss the American people have suffered is the right to know " why? " But don't look to the "news" people to inform you. Obviously, that's not their job anymore. Besides, they're too wrapped up in JFK's sixty year old intern or SARS right now to tell you anything of value.