He's Still Not Gay

"John McCain does not believe in destiny. God, he says, gives us life, shows us how to use it, and leaves it to us to carry out as we choose.

"In other words, the senior senator from Arizona does not believe that in surviving the ordeal of 5-1/2 years as a prisoner of war in North Vietnam, including torture and extended periods of isolation, he has somehow been tapped by God to become the next president of the United States.

"But Senator McCain, now in the thick of his second run for the Republican presidential nomination, does believe that he is still alive for a purpose. 'There is no logical reason for me to be on earth, if you look at my life, so I should spend this time trying to serve a cause greater than myself,' says McCain in a Monitor interview."

He doesn't particularly like to bring up his POW experience either, but he's earned the right to do so if he wants.

Interesting tidbit from Valerie Plame's forthcoming book:

"After reading a Washington Post editorial criticizing her husband, Plame writes that she 'suddenly understood what it must have felt like to live in the Soviet Union and have only the state propaganda entity, Pravda, as the source of news about the world.' "

Here's a story that got wayyy out ahead of the facts. Bull Dog Pundit picked up the initial report:

"Randi Rhodes, host of her own talk show on Air America was viciously attacked by a mugger while walking her dog outside of her Manhattan apartment. Jon Elliot, late night host of another Air America program, said the following when reporting the incident.

"Pointing out that Rhodes was wearing a jogging suit and displayed no purse or jewelry, Elliott speculated that 'this does not appear to me to be a standard grab the money and run mugging.'

" 'Is this an attempt by the right wing hate machine to silence one of our own,' he asked. 'Are we threatening them. Are they afraid that we're winning. Are they trying to silence intimidate us.'

"What kind of lunatic is this guy? How in the hell does he take what appears to be a random mugging and turn it into some vast right wing conspiracy. Geez, dude - paranoid much?"

That question takes on even more resonance from what happened hours later, as blogger Ben Greenman reports: