He admitted he was addicted to drugs -- not that he obtained or even used them illegally. You know, thousands of people become addicted to painkillers every day and use as well as obtain them legally. It doesn't mean they aren't addicted, but that they have obtained and fuel an addiction for legitimate pain reasons. If you listen closely, you'll realize that he has only admitted to being addicted to painkillers -- not meaning anything illegally was committed. If there were a crime, he would have been charged -- he hasn't. If there were an obvious crime, the SAO wouldn't have had to violate medical privacy rights to obtain documents indicting him. And you can easily be blackmailed by someone who knows you are addicted to painkillers if you (a)rich, (b)famous and (c)extremely divisive. This is easy because all it takes is a story of alleged crimes agains someone like Limbaugh and those who already hate him will have their hate fueled -- regardless of the facts. That is evident here.

As for Iraq: Can you please get the transcript of Rush saying there was a "smoking gun"? W. never said Iraq wasn't affiliated with Al Qaeda, he said they weren't behind 9-11. The statement that Iraq was attempting to purchase uranium was not discredited. The one source that was made public was in fact found to have been false. Since the invasion though, documents have been found that Iraq made repeated efforts to purchase uranium from N. Korea, and yes...Africa. Bush never took credit for that statement and specifically credited it to UK intelligence. You also state that because the weapons that Iraq potentially had couldn't necessarily reach us, they weren't much of a threat -- wrong. Al Qaeda didn't even have WMDs and apparently they turned out to be a threat -- even though Clinton underestimated UBL. Clinton avoided a war on terrorism because of people inherent inability to comprehend possibilities. Had Clinton launched a full-fledged war against UBL, he would have been criticized in the same way W. is now. But it would have prevented 9-11.

This war has made the world safer. Saddam is out out of power -- period. Not only that, though. Qaddafi also voluntarily disarmed following the war. A precedent was set: If we believe you pose a threat to us, our allies, or are going to seriously hinder our war on terrorism by funneling money or providing safehaven for terrorists, we will destroy you. Also to be noted is this: The Middle East needs to change and citizens there deserve freedom. Terrorists come from this part of the world primarily because they are not allowed cultural freedom, economic freedom, or political freedom. We are changing that. We are instituting democracy in the Middle East. It 10 years you will understand what this means. Following WWII, there was much criticism over how Germany was being rebuilt -- time told us otherwise. We are freeing people, changing the Middle East, sending strong signals, and changing our reputation. On that note, and lastly for now, we have a horrible reputation for hightailing it out of anywhere that isn't easy to change. Hence our last chance to change things in the Middle East, Vietnam, Somolia, Lebanon, etc. We have to restore respect for our resolve again because that is all terrorists understand. Recently a memo from an Al Qaeda operative was obtained demonstrating their frustration. They were upset and extremely surprised we hadn't left Iraq yet. The memo went on to illustrate that people in Iraq don't seem to be very willing to commit suicide bombings and expressed fear that they may be losing the war in Iraq. The moral of the story? We are winning and they are losing. We are restoring respect in our military and our resolve while destroying their morale. We are chaning Iraq and planting a seed that no one -- even the UN -- could begin to plant. And withdrawing would only prove the terrorist right: We are weak, we aren't serious, and we can't win. We can win in Iraq, we are winning in Iraq, and we must win in Iraq.