Funding Fathers

Join us in saluting those pioneers who have made our country what it is today. That's Pioneers with a capital P. And capital with a capital C. According to tenacious watchdog Texans for Public Justice, BushCo has 251 Pioneers, those "elite bundlers" who have each raised at least $100,000 for the '04 campaign. Help! Call the Rangers! On second thought, don't call the Rangers. They're the 165 people (and counting) who have each raised $200,000 for Bush.

You really thought that McCain-Feingold was about real campaign-finance reform? Last May, when the presidential campaign's fundraising season kicked off with Bush's President's Dinner, when he raised $22 million for the GOP at one sitting, Mississippi senator Trent Lott, relaxing at table No. 742 (he had been at the head table at the previous year's President's Dinner), pointed out to the New York Times that the new campaign-finance rules, which outlaw most "soft" money, weren't going to slow down the GOP money machine. "This is what John McCain always said would happen," Lott said, "that we'd be better off under the new campaign-finance laws because we have a better ability to raise hard money." (When the senator and his wife finally left the D.C. gala, word has it that when Lott's wife looked back to say hi to someone, she turned into a pillar of greenbacks.)

There may not be hope, but you can at least dry those tears in less than a minute by checking out the busy, busy Liberal Oasis, sort of an Arts & Letters Daily of leftish politics, where you can find Mark Spittle's video Bush in 41.2 Seconds, a sound bite with a real bark. Spittle indeed. Bush's Rangers will be reaching for their six-shooters if they surf to the site and watch their guy being called a "flatulent pusbag" and worse.