Quote - My suggestion is this: that the administration simply admit this was ill conceived, rescind the policy, and follow up with something that makes more sense. After all, everyone makes mistakes ...

You are, of course, mistaken. The President of the United States, for one example, is on record as admitting that he cannot recall ever making a mistake. Mistakes are made by people who do not know the truth. In fact, what those of us who claim to be making mistakes actually are doing is WILFULLY and PERNICIOUSLY FLYING IN THE FACE OF A TRUTH EVERYONE KNOWS PERFECTLY well!!!!!

The truth, after all, is just common sense, like only eating with your right hand and bowing just the right amount and having beer with your football and wearing your caftan to bed but with a little hole ("No, honey, I didn't mean 'little' in THAT sense!") torn in it for your husband's convenience and loving whoever happens to currently have the biggest stick. We don't make mistakes; we PRETEND to make mistakes because we are carping negativists and haters and, of course, the perverts who buy the filth this site must, unfortunately, sell to serve the greater good.

You sound like sane fellow. I expect you are reasonably young and certainly idealistic. You need to understand that the Rules of Right do not work the way you learned Reason in school. You see, if you are bad, the good you do is bad (so, for instance, the people who opposed the war from the beginning are STILL wrong even now that everyone else agrees with them), and if you are good, then you can take bribes and rape pages, because they probably deserved it and you certainly do. It's called, ironically enough, Election, and once you have it, you are the instrument of Truth so you just don't make mistakes.

Ok, maybe little ones.
M