Appearing at The Jaundiced Eye, the Independent Bloggers' Alliance, and My Left Wing.

There has been a good deal of blogospheric chatter about the public antics of the leader of the free world, in full view of cameras, at the olympics. Much of it speculation about whether or not he's drunk off his ass.

The folks at BuzzFlash have been digging a little deeper into the trash heap, for a bit of the back-story. The tabloids have been dishing dirt about a potential split between George and Laura. Reason: his drinking.

If the Edwards scandal has taught us anything, it's that tabloids may traffic in sleaze, but their sleazy reporting is also often true.

There was Barack Obama electrifying two hundred thousand Berliners listening with fascination to every word this spectacular presidential candidate had to say.

They welcome change in U.S. policies that have threatened world peace for eight years.  These were turbulent times, years fraught with hate, death and destruction.

Barack Obama's father was a black man from Kenya who tended his goats.  Barack's mother, an idealistic white woman, had left Barack with his white grandparents.

These grandparents guided his destiny from childhood to manhood.  

The above was the headline in the Seattle Times June 22.  The Associated press article by Robert H. Reid from Baghdad revealed the following:

"The White House said President Bush and Prime Minister Nouri al-Maliki discussed the talks Thursday via secured video teleconference.

"Nevertheless the two sides remain fair apart on core issues including the number of bases where the United States will have a presence and U.S. demands for immunity from Iraqi law for American soldiers and contractors.  To detain suspects, fight battles without Iraqi permission and control of the country's air space."

Quickly the Shiites, Sunnis and Kurds joined together in complaining about such an arrangement which would obviously leave almost all real power in the hands of the Americans.

The above headline appears concerning former White House Press Secretary Scott McClellan's recent appearance at a congressional hearing.

Laurie Kellman in her Associated Press article from Washington, D.C. wrote:

"If the nation doesn't trust the Bush White House, it's the president's and Dick Cheney's own fault, Bush's former spokesman told Congress.  From life and death matters on down - the rationale for war, the leaking of classified information ... the government's top two leaders undermined their credibility by `packaging' their version of the truth, former press secretary Scott McClellan said."

The White House, whose integrity has been battered, had only this to say in response, "Friday's hearing was un-enlightening."

The saying that has been appearing and re-appearing with such regularity recently is, "This is not the America I grew up in?  What is happening?"

This was the saying stated by Bill Moyers in a recent interview.  By no coincidence, Bill Moyers has been targeted for dismissal from Public Broadcasting System for years by Bill O'Reilly for "left wing bias" and falling outside the "fair and balanced" standard he has presumably operates under at Fox News.

O'Reilly and his allies are also upset over the numerous articles criticizing the Bush-Cheney neoconservative corporate enterprise.  

The more objective alternative would be to turn the Internet over to the tender mercies of Clear Channel, which has provided the broad perspective of Rush Limbaugh on the one hand all the way across the political spectrum to O'Reilly and Sean Hannity on the other.

David McKenzie of Federal Way, Washington in his letter to the Seattle Times Editors on May