Politics aside: why cannot American conservatives select qualified people? European conservatives it seems to me always insist on qualification and competence. Richard Nixon was qualified; he knew the world and the issues. That is what is most scary about this president: the extent to which he does not know the world he lives in--and he insists on LEADING the world he lives in. And would people stop quoting Vaclav Havel in an attempt to sound educated and sophisticated. There is nothing original or profound that Havel has ever said: unless you count the saying: "Liberty is freedom", or his other famous saying: "potato can be sliced". There is somebody very unfunny who wrote the ostensibly humorous lines for Republican speakers. I suspect somebody as unfunny as Dennis Miller, who thinks that by invoking the name Kafka in every routine he sounds sophisticated. And Laura Bush (who was a feminist for a week in preparation for the war in Afghanistan) invoked the plight of women in Afghanistan. How offensive is that? Has she followed up on their status? Does she know that a form of fanatical misogyny there has been replaced with a system of thuggish misogyny. There is nothing more unprincipled in my judgment than changing positions on fundamental issues for political expediency. I can see somebody changing position on bills or regulations, but the abortion question? Zel Miller has changed positions on the abortion question. How opportunistic is that? In Cheney's speech this evening: the audience ACTUALLY cheered his invocation of "use of force." What is that about?