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2004-07-06 Home Front: Politix

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Posted by Korora 2004-07-06 12:05:58 AM|| || Front Page|| [1 views since 2007-05-07] Top

#1 He's as restless as a spider spinning daydreams, he's as giddy as a baby on a swing. It's almost like he has spring fever, though we know it isn't spring.

Posted by Seafarious 2004-07-06 12:32:13 AM|| 2004-07-06 12:32:13 AM|| Front Page Top

#2 Funny, #1. I'll bet Edwards gets the regal nod, evil lawwwyyyer slimeball twin to Kerry. Those 2 ambulance chasers want to drive every MD out of practice. I just read an article in the Telegraph that there is such a shortage of doctors in the UK, that now they're flying in doctors from Germany [???]to cover the weekend call. In Canada there's also a shortage of doctors[socialist medicare system will do that]that now the government is fighting with the Cdn. Medical Assoc. to allow them to fast track credentialing of Pakistani taxi drivers, who got their MD's abroad albeit being trained in very different conditions...anyways, sorry to lather at the mouth, but I hope that Democrat voters realize in proper time that a Democrat Party win of the WH and Congress will decimate the already beleagured medical profession. We'll end up having nurses and techs doing surgery if we allow the Dimwits to bring in socialized medicine to the USA as they threaten.

Posted by rex 2004-07-06 1:08:26 AM|| 2004-07-06 1:08:26 AM|| Front Page Top

#3 Talking to a medical friend the other day, she commented on the fact that insurance cover takes so much out of the US doctor's pay packet that she wouldn't consider working stateside. American (non-socialised) healthcare is well in advance of British healthcare, but surely it could be leagues ahead if only you guys could get a grip on the litigation culture. Can't hospitals offer substantial discounts to patients who agree not to prosecute the professionals who try to help them? (Better still, refuse treatment to those who don't - no one's obliged to intervene medically on someone else's behalf, are they? - , or lock up the wankers who make fraudulent and exaggerated claims for compensation.)

Posted by Bulldog 2004-07-06 8:23:38 AM|| 2004-07-06 8:23:38 AM|| Front Page Top

#4 Medical malpractise reform will be tough to come by in the US. Many people look on the system as a sort of lottery. Mega-millions here I come!

Posted by Spot 2004-07-06 9:33:49 AM|| 2004-07-06 9:33:49 AM|| Front Page Top

#5 Bulldog, take medical whinging about insurance with a grain of salt. American physicians *always* bitch about malpractice insurance. On top of that, malpractice insurance is actually high right now, because reinsurance funds have spread the 9/11 pain around to strange and unfortunate places.

Malpractice insurance is high because some Saudis ran airplanes into extremely expensive real estate, not because of some imaginary predatory patients, trolling for rich, bumbling doctors. The capital used to insure all American insurance funds is a lot pricier than it used to be.

Posted by Mitch H. 2004-07-06 10:37:29 AM|| [http://blogfonte.blogspot.com/] 2004-07-06 10:37:29 AM|| Front Page Top

#6 Spoken like a lawyer, #5? Medical malpractice insurance was high and increasing every year long before 9/11. Malpractice insurance is high because of frivolous lawsuits. Contingency agreements offered by US lawyers, which encourages this greedy attack 24/7 by millionaire wannabes in the general population, is despicable.

Furthermore, in terms of added costs to the consumer in that it impacts health insurance rates, physicians need to do every test under the sun to protect themselves from parasitical lawyers trolling for easy money. Also, physicians are reluctant to try any potential life saving measure or device unless it is 150 % tried and true because of the risk of malpractice lawsuits, so this reduces doctors to only practicing very cautious medicine. Some people with unusual or life threatening illnesses might benefit from physicians trying anything reasonable to save their lives. Personal injury lawyers prevent doctors from saving lives.

Florida is so bad with frivolous lawsuits that the state has a shortage of ob-gyn's because mothers there have sued obgyn's out of existence when little junior was born with anything but a perfect Brad Pitt face. Similar shortages of specialists are being found across the USA, especially in any state that has not instituted a limit to pain and suffering awards.

As far as begrudging physicians' appropriate salaries, physicians' salaries earn good salaries because they have long and expensive training and high risks for lawsuits and physicians' families have high risk for stress because physicians always put them second to medicine. In actuality, physicians' salaries have stagnated in recent years as compared to other professionals' salaries. And here's a major problem down the pike looming large...smart kids [like my nephews and nieces and their peers] have zero interest in going into medicine, because of the long and costly training and the flattened earning power. Medicine does not compare to being a lawyer[I almost gagged when I heard this] or getting an MBA and going into business. So who is going to do our doctoring in the future unless we put a leash on trial/personal injury lawyers like Edwards? Are we going to be ministered in illness by third world physician trained taxi-cab drivers, perhaps?

Recently it was suggested to AMA members that doctors NOT TREAT lawyers and their families to bring the point home that society needs doctors more than lawyers for our survival. Food for thought: the Association of National Trial Lawyers is in the top 10 contributor orgs. to the DNC.
http://www.opensecrets.org/parties/contrib.asp?Cmte=DPC

Posted by rex 2004-07-06 3:02:18 PM|| 2004-07-06 3:02:18 PM|| Front Page Top

#7 Lawyers tend to contribute mostly to the DNC because the RNC has declared war on their profession. Thatâs just not nice, and it baffles me why it makes sense to some to attack a profession that has fought to preserve civil liberties for (literally) hundreds of years. For good reason, tyranny often begins with the cry, âFirst, we kill all the lawyers.â Now, I (on the other hand) am just crazy enough to keep supporting the RNC -- even though they hate my profession.

In reality, doctors are doing just fine. Here in Colorado, the top paying jobs (as measured by Average Hourly Wage) are:

Surgeons_______________$68.21
Anesthesiologists______$68.05
Ob-Gyns________________$67.35
Dentists_______________$63.96
Psychiatrists__________$59.14
Pediatricians__________$57.99
Chief executives_______$55.91
Fam/Gen Practitioners__$51.29
All other docs_________$49.53
Engineering managers___$43.76
Computer & IS Mngrs____$43.02
Physicists_____________$42.38, and only then do you see

Judges, etc.___________$42.34
Lawyers________________$41.69
Source

Colorado is not unique. The top wage earners in the country (as measured by Average Hourly Wage) are:

Surgeons_______________$91.48
Anesthesiologists______$88.89
Ob-Gyns________________$86.86
Internists, general____$76.99
Pediatricians, general_$68.90
Chief executives_______$67.58
Fam/Gen Practitioners__$67.13
Psychiatrists__________$66.97
Dentists_______________$63.08, and only then do you see

Lawyers________________$51.83

Source

The real reason for skyrocketing insurance premiums has to do with how insurance companies keep speculating and losing premiums in the stock market. Whenever that happens, a huge cry for âtort reformâ is rekindled.

Posted by cingold 2004-07-06 3:45:12 PM|| 2004-07-06 3:45:12 PM|| Front Page Top

#8 Well, sure cingold, but "first, we kill all the Anesthesiologists" just doesn't have the same ring to it...

Posted by Carl in N.H 2004-07-06 5:20:45 PM|| 2004-07-06 5:20:45 PM|| Front Page Top

#9 Thanks cingold..I've extra canned goods... ;>

LOL Carl!

Posted by Shipman 2004-07-06 6:36:35 PM|| 2004-07-06 6:36:35 PM|| Front Page Top

#10 1. The main reason for rising liability insurance costs per recent government report:
http://www.ama-assn.org/ama/pub/article/9255-7915.html
GAO report: Increasing lawsuit awards main cause of skyrocketing liability insurance rates

July 29, 2003
Yesterday, the U.S. General Accounting Office (GAO) issued a report on medical liability insurance. In response, AMA President Donald J. Palmisano, MD, stated that the report "confirms what we have long held: Since 1999, medical liability premiums have skyrocketed in some states and specialties â and increasing awards are the main driver."

The report, according to Dr. Palmisano, "also puts to rest two other trial lawyer smokescreens: that insurance company gouging and/or stock market losses have caused the medical liability crisis."The time for Senate action on

2. Debt incurred by med school graduates, not counting loss of earning power for all the years of training:
According to the AAMC's new "Working Group on Student Educational Costs and Debt" [2003] report, medical education debt is 4.5 times as high in 2003 as it was in 1984, while average tuition and fees is 2.7 times as high in private medical schools and 3.8 times as high in public medical schools. In 2003, graduates of private medical schools had incurred a median debt of $135,000, while the median amount of debt for graduates of public medical schools was $100,000. The report also notes that in recent years, however, physician incomes have increased only slowly and have declined slightly in constant dollars.

3. Declining numbers of applicants for medical school[compare to US law schools that churn out the highest number of lawyers per capita in the world next to Israel]
In September, 2003, the federal Council on Graduate Medical Education (COGME), in response to the findings of a study it commissioned, acknowledged that the country might be on the verge of a serious shortage of physicians. COGME endorsed a recommendation that medical schools increase enrollments by 15 percent over the next decade to help offset a future shortfall of doctors and that graduate medical education positions be increased to accommodate the increase in U.S. medical school graduates. "With our nation facing new health challenges and a possible physician shortage, the apparent flagging interest in the medical profession, as reflected by the shrinking applicant pool over the last several years, has been cause for some concern," said AAMC President Jordan J. Cohen, M.D. Since 1996, total numbers have steadily dropped anywhere from 1,000 to 4,000 applicants each year. This year's applicant pool of 33,501 is the smallest in the last six years, a 3.9 percent drop from the 2001 total of 34,859 applicants.

4. Re: salaries of physicians -physicians work the highest average number of hours of any professional group, including lawyers. Physicians graduate with the highest education debt of any profession. Physicians take longer and endure more rigorous training than other professions.

As for the paltry salaries of lawyers you claim, here's what judges point out as they themselves scramble for salary increases:
Data based on annual âProfits Per Partnerâ chart in American Lawyer magazine, and salaries adjusted using BLS Inflation Calculator
Prepared by: Administrative Office of the U.S. Courts/Annual Salaries of Law Partners
Adjusted to 2001 Dollars Using BLS Inflation Calculator:
1985 $500,000
2000 $825,000

5. Physicians' salary is offset by enormous costs of malpractice insurance. For example an othopedic surgeon in W. Virginia pays $150,000 annually for malpractice insurance.
http://www.mindfully.org/Health/2002/Bush-Restrict-Malpractice-Costs25jul02.htm
But recent news reports have highlighted a growing number of communities experiencing the loss of medical practices and physicians, in Las Vegas, Pennsylvania, Arizona, Oregon and elsewhere...In concert with Bush's speech, his administration released a report that found the price of malpractice insurance for certain high-risk specialists increased about 10 percent last year and may rise by 20 percent this year. But costs are climbing even faster in states without limits on non-economic damages, said the report released Wednesday by the Health and Human Services Department. States with limits between $250,000 to $350,000 for pain and suffering awards had average maximum premium increases for internists, general surgeons and obstetricians of between 12 percent and 15 percent last year, compared with an average of 44 percent in states with no caps, it said. Premiums can cost tens of thousands of dollars a year and go as high as $200,000.The result has been closed practices, rising health care costs overall as doctors defensively prescribe unnecessary tests and treatments, reluctance of medical professionals to share information on mistakes and thus improve care, and fewer physicians entering high-risk areas. The average jury award for medical malpractice doubled to $1 million in the six years ending in 2000, according to Jury Verdict Research, a private database used by lawyers, insurers and doctors.

5. For further links to organizations researching the need for tort reform:
http://www.legalreformnow.com/resources/

6. Here is but one organization that lists fast tort facts as well as studies showing how lawyers impact health care costs:
http://www.sickoflawsuits.org/fastfacts/index.cfm?sectionId=9
*Lawsuit costs passed on to consumers add up to nearly $809 per year for every person in America today.
* Because of litigation fears, 79% of doctors said they had ordered more tests than they would based only on professional judgment of what is medically needed.
* An estimated $50 billion per year is spent on unnecessary test procedures designed only to guard doctors and hospitals against malpractice claims.
* Almost half of the money spent by physician insurers goes towards defending cases that ultimately are closed without compensation paid to the claimant.

Here are some research studies listed on the same site with live links:
* U.S. Department of Health and Human Services: Addressing the New Healthcare Crisis: Reforming the Medical Litigation System to Improve the Quality of Healthcare (PDF file - 733 KB; March 3, 2003)
* AHA Survey: Medical Liability Crisis Affects Communities' Access to Care American Hospital Association (PDF file â 43 KB; April 28, 2003)
* PriceWaterhouseCoopers report - The Factors Fueling Rising Healthcare Costs - (PDF file - 72 KB; April 2002)
* Who Pays for Tort Liability Claims U.S. Council of Economic Advisors (PDF file - 1, 309 KB; April 2002)
* HarrisInteractive - Fear of Litigation Study; The Impact on Medicine - (PDF file - 347 KB; March 4-20, 2002)
* Long Term Care: General and Professional Liability Actuarial Analysis (PDF file - 297 KB; February 28, 2002)

Some quotes:
* The American tort liability system is the most expensive in the world, with total costs more than double the average of other industrialized nations. A 2003 study conducted by Tillinghast-Towers Perrin founds that the U.S. tort system cost $205 billion in 2001, which translates to $721 per U.S. Citizen. (Who Pays for Tort Liability Claims? An economic analysis of the U.S. tort liability system, Council of Economic Advisors, April, 2002; U.S. Tort Costs: 2002 Update, Tillinghast-Towers Perrin, February 2003)
* Hospitals, nursing homes, and health insurers have seen their costs escalate as a result of lawsuit abuse. According to one recent study, approximately $50 billion per year is spent on defensive medicine - tests, procedures, and paperwork practiced solely for litigation avoidance. ("Do Doctors Practice Defensive Medicine?" Quarterly Journal of Economics, 1996)
* In the last twenty years, personal injury lawyers have found litigation against healthcare providers and pharmaceutical manufacturers to be a lucrative "growth area" in their practices. Litigation that has enriched personal injury lawyers, however, is adversely impacting both the quality and the cost of care for the rest of us. ("The Factors Fueling Rising Healthcare Costs," PriceWaterhouseCoopers, April 2002)
*Nearly 41 million Americans are uninsured and 75 million people were uninsured at one point during 2001 and 2002. Lawsuits raise costs for healthcare and coverage, increasing the number of people without insurance. Companies must invest time, money and other resources fighting these lawsuits. If personal injury lawyers are successful, the additional costs of a damage award or settlement must be factored into the company's cost of doing business, ultimately increasing the cost of premiums. According to a study published in the Journal of Health Economics, every ten percent increase in the cost of insurance creates a three to four percent decrease in the number of people who choose to purchase coverage. (Going without Health Insurance, Families USA, March 10, 2003; "Number of Uninsured Americans On the Rise," Associated Press, March 5, 2003; " Avoiding Health Insurance Crowd-Out," Journal of Health Economics, March 2000)
* The Physician Insurers Association of America report that under typical contingency fee arrangements, lawyers walk away with 30-50% of any jury award to the plaintiff, plus an additional percentage of the award to cover expenses. (Medical Malpractice Claim Expenses, Physician Insurers Association of America, 1999)
* The Department of Health and Human Services notes that when a patient does decide to go into the litigation system, only a very small number recover anything. They note that 57 - 70% of cases result in no payment for the patient. (Testimony presented by the Physician Insurers Association of America before the Subcommittee on Commercial and Administrative Law before the House Judiciary Committee, June 12, 2002)
* The majority of victims of medical error do not pursue litigation. A study in the New England Journal of Medicine found that only 1.53% of those injured filed a claim. Almost half of the total amount of claim costs paid for liability claims in the long term care industry is going directly to attorneys. (Long Term Care: General Liability and Professional Liability Actuarial Analysis, p. 4)
* The National Association of Consumer Advocates testified: "Simply put, many consumer class actions are now being settled on the basis of what the lawyers get and not what the consumers in the class get." (National Association of Consumer Advocates, Senate Judiciary Subcommittee Hearing, May 4, 1999)
* Lawyer advertising seeking to gather up claimants has become endemic - on television, radio billboards and the Internet. One of the nation's largest legal-advertising agencies, Network Affiliates, reported that one-third of its $20 million in legal billings in 2001 came from pharmaceutical litigation ads, up from roughly 1 percent 10 years ago. ("Coming to Terms with the $20,000 Ad: A Realization About Lawyer Advertising," National Law Journal, October 10, 2002; "See You In Court," Desert News, September 8, 2002)
*President Bush is prudently proposing the imposition of caps on medical malpractice awards for pain and sufferingâ¦ But these ceilings are merely a stopgap. They deal with only one aspect of what greedy trial lawyers and timid judges are doing to destroy the American healthcare system. "Fact and Comment," Forbes Magazine, March 31, 2003.
* Deanna Rood, an expectant mother in Nevada, upon learning that her doctor is leaving his Las Vegas practice because he would have to borrow money to meet this year's malpractice insurance
"I'm in a scary position right nowâ¦ I'm six months pregnant, and I don't have a doctor." - "Fed Up Obstetricians Look for a Way Out", USA Today, July 1, 2002In the United States, it takes seven years to become a lawyer: four

Posted by rex 2004-07-06 6:54:37 PM|| 2004-07-06 6:54:37 PM|| Front Page Top

#11 Carl in N.H. and Shipman, LOL!

rex,

The bar association for my state reports the median annual income for attorneys for 2000 as ranging from $45,000 (for attorneys with 1-5 years of experience) to $112,000 for attorneys with 16-25 years of experience). Certainly, wage figures fluctuate around that, and these figures are based on a 2000 study. The hours worked ranged from 40 hrs/week (25th percentile) to 68 hrs/week (95th percentile), with a median of 46 hrs/week. Median total office expenditures per attorney (which would include legal malpractice insurance premiums) were $40,000 a year, in 1999 -- and are not reflected in the wages. Incidentally, the figures I cited before also were net figures before taxes, for both physicians and attorneys, and were for Colorado wages for 2001-2002, and national wages for 2003. Lawyers, like physicians, also incur tremendous debt getting an education (e.g., in 2000, the median law student educational debt was $84,400).

I am proud of my work as a trial attorney. I believe I work for the little guy against corporate greed, and against (too often) state sanctioned professional incompetence. I believe the price I charge my clients for my work is fair, and reflects both my skill and the long hours and great effort I put into protecting their rights and seeking redress for legitimate damages my clients have suffered.

Obviously, we both have strong feelings about this issue, and could really burn up a lot of bandwidth here. That might not prove anything to anybody -- even ourselves. I would like to point you, though, to a couple of resources -- not to spar with you, but to suggest that there may be more than one side to the medical malpractice premium issue. One resource is Testimony Before the Subcommittee on Wellness and Human Rights, Committee on Government Reform, House of Representatives by Richard J. Hillman, Director Financial Markets and Community Investment and Kathryn G. Allen, Director Health Care - Medicaid and Private Health Insurance Issues. I would expect these individuals to really attack trial work, but their statements are well summarized here:

Among the factors that have contributed to increases in medical malpractice premium rates are insurersâ losses, declines in investment income, a less competitive climate, and climbing reinsurance rates. We found that increased losses appeared to be the greatest contributor to premium rate increases, but a lack of comprehensive data at the national and state levels on claims and associated losses prevented us from fully analyzing the composition and causes of those losses at the insurer level.

In other words, âlossesâ (roughly translatable as jury verdicts) are only one part of the equation, and the testimony doesnât even analyze why those jury verdicts are rising (e.g., is it inflation, are doctors being more reckless and uncaring, are juries tired of seeing people needlessly hurt, has medicine designed to address the effects of malpractice become available -- but is simply expensive?). The findings of the United States General Accounting Office, as stated in the June 2003 Report to Congressional Requesters regarding Medical Malpractice Insurance, is aptly summed up in the reportâs subtitle: Multiple Factors Have Contributed to Increased Premium Rates. In other words, itâs not just jury verdicts. And, why jury verdicts have gone up in some instances (again) has not been analyzed. Jury verdicts might be going up for good reasons. I, for one, would be hesitant to rush to undercut a provision added to the U.S. Constitution early on -- the right to a jury trial:

In Suits at common law, where the value in controversy shall exceed twenty dollars, the right of trial by jury shall be preserved, and no fact tried by a jury, shall be otherwise re-examined in any Court of the United States, than according to the rules of the common law.

U.S. Const. Amend. VII. Granted this is a very superficial response to your posting, and a very superficial treatment of a very complex issue that touches on the civil right of injured people, but it is probably more than what is necessary in a forum devoted to the WOT. Enough said, on my part anyway.

Posted by cingold 2004-07-06 9:11:33 PM|| 2004-07-06 9:11:33 PM|| Front Page Top

#12 Enough said, on my part anyway.
Good. Then I can have the last word.

I am proud of my work as a trial attorney.
He, he...your opinion falls into the whopping 29% of people who respect and trust lawyers.

According to a Readerâs Digest Poll conducted by Ipsos-Reid and released on January 23, 2003 shows that pharmacists (91%), doctors (85%) and airline pilots (81%) are given top trustmarks by Canadians. This is in comparison to lawyers (29%) edging out new home builders(27%). Auto mechanics beat lawyers coming in at 33%. Greedy CEO's whom you claim lawyers fight on behalf of the "little guy" trailed lawyers by a mere 8 % coming in at 21% trustworthiness. Not bad.

Because there are more lawyers per capita in the USA than in Canada and therefore and thusly, more chances to be ripped off by a lawyer here, the percentage of respect for lawyers in America would be closer to 13%.

Bottom line, 20 years hence, who is going to do our heart bypass surgery? Who is going to deliver our grandchildren? Who is going to diagnose and treat our cancer? Who do we trust with our lives? What is the most essential profession to society?
Not lawyers.

Posted by rex 2004-07-06 9:46:59 PM|| 2004-07-06 9:46:59 PM|| Front Page Top

#13 rex: Can't respect your opinions. The reason trial lawyers contribute to the DNC is because the GOP is backed and funded by a lot of insurance companies, and because of a history of the same.

About doctors: I wouldn't trust my life to a doctor who could never be sued. Do you have any idea, whatsoever, how irresponsible they can be? They're just human beings serving the almighty dollar, and themselves, like everyone else--and a lot of them should never be allowed to treat patients.

You seem very ignorant to me, and yet attack cingold, who is treating you with respect.

If you honestly don't believe lawyers are essential to a free society, then I guess you're a closet totalitarian liberal, or someone who stands to benefit from tort "reform." There are many trying to eliminate the jury system in this country and I hope you're not one of them. The jury is the common man's last recourse.

Bottom line: Everybody hates lawyers until they get hurt or ripped off, and need good one they can trust.

Posted by ex-lib 2004-07-06 11:41:39 PM|| 2004-07-06 11:41:39 PM|| Front Page Top

#14 You seem very ignorant to me, and yet attack cingold, who is treating you with respect.
a. I did not attack cingold. He/she took my criticism of the profession of attorney/lawyer personally. But hey, if the shoe fits, who am I to deny the pleasure...

I am not ignorant. I take great care not to attack people, just their opinions. Furthermore, I have a graduate degree, so there are a good number of professors with PhDs, who gave me A grades, and who would beg to differ with your swipe at me because it reflects poorly on their judgment.
c. If you are so distrustful of doctors, then you should vote Kerry/Edwards, by all means, because the dynamic duo of duplicity will truly do away with all that's noble and dedicated in the medical profession and leave mere shadows of the profession as substitutes.

Ever wonder why the PM Chretien flew down to the Mayo Clinic to take care of his "problem" and not have it dealt with in Canada where socialized medicine is sooooo great, according to Hitlery? It's because of our excellent trial lawyers, of course. Ever wonder why physicians are the only profession still eligible for conscription until age 54? It's because JAG is needed for ministering to our soldiers on the battlefield, of course. It all makes sense to me. Lawyers, especially trial lawyers, are revered and needed ever so much.

Posted by rex 2004-07-07 12:55:51 AM|| 2004-07-07 12:55:51 AM|| Front Page Top

#15 Chill, rexy, be nice. You're skating at the deep end of the pond - in July.

Posted by .com 2004-07-07 1:03:23 AM|| [http://www.amble.com/images/baby-finger.jpg] 2004-07-07 1:03:23 AM|| Front Page Top

#16 Thanks for the advice,.com. I'll add more than my usual to the rantburg donation jar in August as penance for my running at the mouth about trial lawyers in general and fears about John Edwards sharing the WH with skerry. This news has really sent me over the edge. I apologize to cingold and ex-lib. BUT...the Kerry/Edwards ticket, if it wins, could ruin everything that defines America and separates it from all the also rans, so-so okay, non-ME hellhole countries in the world. This is serious bad news, folks.

Posted by rex 2004-07-07 1:24:05 AM|| 2004-07-07 1:24:05 AM|| Front Page Top

#17 I commiserate - I've never been able to hold back, heh. Multiple broken noses and jaw dents to prove it.

Edwards, boy-toy, is bad, indeed. I have come to a sad conclusion about America, given the polls: There is absolutely nothing Skeery could do to diminish his appeal, because it's actually anti-Bush, not pro-Skeery.

The only guy in a position to do anything about the WoT, and the demonstrated will and guts to follow through, is reviled for it -- and thoroughly bashed for the gall of being imperfect and unable to accomplish superhuman things outside the veil of reality. Truly amazing. I will be ready to leave by the time the election is over. We'll see, eh?

Posted by .com 2004-07-07 1:36:43 AM|| [http://www.amble.com/images/baby-finger.jpg] 2004-07-07 1:36:43 AM|| Front Page Top

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