Is she cringing?

The Border Is a Common Ground between Us"

But the lure of cheap labor has led the Essential Worker Immigration Coalition (including Wal-Mart, Tyson Foods and other corporate giants) to insert guest worker programs into almost every immigration reform proposal. Some argue this will benefit migrants, but a choice between becoming a bracero and dying in the desert is no choice at all. Instead, many immigrant organizations, like the Indigenous Front of Binational Organizations in Fresno, call for a general immigration amnesty instead.

In other news...

FBI Watched Activist Groups, New Files Show

One F.B.I. document indicates that agents in Indianapolis planned to conduct surveillance as part of a "Vegan Community Project." Another document talks of the Catholic Workers group's "semi-communistic ideology." A third indicates the bureau's interest in determining the location of a protest over llama fur planned by People for the Ethical Treatment of Animals.

Bush's Snoopgate

No, Bush was desperate to keep the Times from running this important story - which the paper had already inexplicably held for a year - because he knew that it would reveal him as a law-breaker. He insists he had "legal authority derived from the Constitution and congressional resolution authorizing force." But the Constitution explicitly requires the president to obey the law. And the post 9/11 congressional resolution authorizing "all necessary force" in fighting terrorism was made in clear reference to military intervention. It did not scrap the Constitution and allow the president to do whatever he pleased in any area in the name of fighting terrorism.

From the White House: Some Candor, but Not Enough

While the President's new candor is refreshing, it is neither complete nor is it sufficient. The original sin of this war was not just the failed intelligence on WMDs and the supposed 9/11 connections. It was also the failure to understand the consequences of the war, its costs and the commitments it would require. One thousand days ago, the White House entered Iraq, believing the war would be a "cake walk." Fantasy and ideology combined to create this mess, providing no security or services for the civilian population, dismantling the apparatus of the state and military, enabling cronyism and corruption, and all the rest.

One thousand days later, some candor and some admission of mistakes, but still no strategy and no clear sense of what will constitute real victory.

Because the US presence has become a part of the problem plaguing Iraq today, and because the legitimate government in Iraq still needs help, it is time for the US to leave. But to leave responsibly, there must be in place an internationally recognized support system that can assist the new government in making needed changes in its constitution, provide security, reconstruct its infrastructure and end the insurgency.

It Should Have Been Unforgettable

You might think that this administration, supposedly dedicated above all else to protecting the United States from terrorism in its newly formed Homeland Security State, would have devoted resources above all else to the task of implacably hunting down these particular terrorists, wherever they might be; that dead-ends met would have only led to redoubled efforts. That would have been, if not a "war" on terrorism, then at least a police action of note. Instead, with thousands of Americans and Iraqis now dead and an actual weapon of mass destruction still potentially loose in our land, the inability to focus all resources on real terrorists and bring them to justice seems but another cost of George Bush's "war on terror."

The saddest story is this: If tomorrow, George Bush, Dick Cheney and their cohorts were somehow tossed out on their ears - call it indictment, impeachment, or something else - what they, not Osama bin Laden or the anthrax terrorists will have cost us, in life, liberty, and the pursuit of happiness will still be incalculable. Among the greatest costs will be the way administration officials used the 9/11 attacks (and buried the anthrax ones) in order to breach so many levees of our world.

What they have embedded in our lives since 9/11 - from Northcom to our newest pinheaded giant bureaucracy, the Homeland Security Department, from the Patriot Act to ever increasing domestic spying by the Pentagon and the National Security Agency among other organizations - will be with us long after they are gone. Just imagine a political change of fortunes in our country in which the Democrats take Congress in 2006 and the White House in 2008. Then ask yourself a single question: What will the Democrats do with Guantánamo. Unfortunately, you already know the answer.

Now, let that pause button go and watch not just the Twin Towers but so much else in our world tumble down one more time.