Condi Rice

However, according to US vice-president Dick Cheney's new biography, Rice was once so fazed by ex-defence secretary Donald Rumsfeld that she broke down to tears at a meeting in the White House.

The story dates back to 2004. Rice, the then national security adviser, tried repeatedly to organise a meeting with the senior most government figures to discuss setting up of military tribunals for Guantanamo Bay, The Sunday Telegraph reported.

Rumsfeld twice refused to attend, sending his deputy Paul Wolfowitz instead. He did not regard her as an equal and barely hid it. The opinions of her staff did not interest him," author Barton Gellman wrote.

McCains & Palins

At the other, quieter end of the same mighty river in the Twin Cities, journalists have been holding on to their notebooks in defiance of all expectations about this unconventional convention.

First we had the unscheduled storm in the Gulf of Mexico. At the same time, the country was digesting the news of the unexpected vice-presidential candidate, Alaska Governor Sarah Palin, and then came the news of her unscheduled grandchild.

How many surprises can you fit into a news-cycle? As Donald Rumsfeld might have put it: there are the known unknowns and the unknown unknowns. The worry amongst the delegates here is that Mrs Palin might actually belong to the latter category.

What we know already about Sarah Palin is extraordinary enough. It's difficult to know where to start. The moose stew. The former Wasilla beauty queen and Miss Congeniality who is a better shot than current Vice-President Dick Cheney.

Distortion 101

But one frontrunner candidate, in particular, kept repeating derogatory words about one of his opponents, also a frontrunner. His opponent vehemently denied those words and the media seemed to concur that they were untrue. But this candidate continued to repeat those keywords about the other man over and over, up to the very end of the debate. It seemed obvious he wanted to have them stick - to paint them on his opponent with indelible ink that soaked clear through his skin.

It got me thinking about words and the power of words: "Jury, disregard that last statement" kind of thing. Or "Don't think about an elephant."

Congress

So I made myself a commitment to start a campaign to "Tro Da Bums Out!" (All of them)

First, I looked at Term Limits. Since 75% of Americans want term limits for Congress, I thought it would be easy. But... we need to get a bill for term limits thru Congress FIRST, which ain't never gonna happen!

Then I looked at Article V of the Constitution, which says that "the people" could have a "convention for proposing amendments". But this was already tried by Bill Walker of http://www.foavc.org, and bounced by the Supreme Court in 2004, erroneously (imho), and should be attempted again. But we should wait for a more 'originalist' court.