Case in point...what a democratic view....NOT.

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The characteristic of greatness - whether we are talking about a great man or great art - is that it transcends time and place. It dips into that which is universally and eternally true and applies those truths to a particular moment and a particular place.

Re-reading, after many reads, Dr. Martin Luther King's words of Aug. 28, 1963, the famous I Have a Dream speech, his greatness rings clearer than ever.

Because King did indeed touch the heavens on that day and pull down kernels of eternal truths about freedom and the condition of man, those words of 40-plus years ago have relevance to our struggles today. They can serve as guidance in these difficult times.

Am I saying that King's message from 1963 can guide us in today's conundrums _ about our embroilment in Iraq, about the Middle East, about America's role in the world? Yes, I am saying this.

The power of King's message, the unquestionable reason that the movement he led was successful, was his appeal to the truth of freedom and its universal applicability to all men.

By identifying and appealing to the freedom of man as a universal and eternal truth, and going on to make clear that this truth defined what this great country is about, then King's conclusion _ the intolerability of conditions that denied any American full participation in this freedom _ could not be denied.

Beyond this central message, King made other very important points in this speech.

One of key importance was that responsibility for solving a problem does not necessarily imply direct responsibility in having caused that problem.

Although the responsibility clearly was in the hands of those Americans with power, overwhelmingly white Americans, to fix the problems in the country that limited the availability of freedom to all, this did not mean that all those same Americans were racists or had caused the problem to begin with.

The responsibility for fixing these problems came, rather, with being the beneficiaries of a country whose destiny and identity was fundamentally linked with the enterprise of freedom.

In King's words, white Americans have come to realize that their destiny is tied up with our destiny and they have come to realize that their freedom is inextricably bound to our freedom.

He appealed to blacks not to allow suffering to translate into bitterness nor into categorical hate of white Americans. Let us not seek to satisfy our thirst for freedom by drinking from the cup of bitterness and hatred.

Instead, King exhorted black Americans to Continue to work with the faith that unearned suffering is redemptive.

He recognized the universal truth of human liberty. He recognized our country as a unique vessel of that truth. He appealed to Americans with power to assume their responsibilities as the beneficiaries of liberty to make this a better and freer country. And he appealed to black Americans to assume a different kind of responsibility _ to not allow themselves to be destroyed by unearned suffering but to be redeemed by it.

The prophet is a lonely man because he brings a message that people do not want to hear.

There is natural appeal in the inertia of the status quo. Change and assumption of new responsibilities and challenges are welcomed by few.

Turmoil tells us that something is wrong and we have no choice but to open our eyes and ears and assume the responsibilities that are cast upon us.

I am, of course, not a military tactician and am in no position to speculate about how best to use American troops to midwife a portion of the world that clearly needs help in becoming more modern, more civil and freer.

However, I can say, that I am in complete sympathy with our president who senses that America has a unique and special role to play in this world. We cannot shirk responsibilities that are clearly ours.

I cannot help but think that it is not an accident that the United States stands so alone, despite many other nations that claim to have similar commitments to and stakes in civility and liberty. The way they act makes clear that they don't.

The truths that Dr. King articulated in so crystal clear a way in 1963 continue to resound today. Freedom is what this country is about. We have no choice. It is our heritage. We thrive and prosper from it. And we cannot avoid the responsibilities that come with it in our engagement with the rest of the world.

but not everybody thinks he has lied. Just because people say he has lied does not make it true. There has been nothing substantial to support that he lied. I just wish people would just quit throwing the word lie around so freely, because they are jumping to conclusions with no substantiation.

What scares me is I wonder how many people could withstand a real threat to this country. We are so un-unified if it came across the television that we were being attacked....I'm not sure some of you would believe it....you'd just say, "another Bush lie..."

Our generation knows nothing of true hardship. The Iraq war is not a quagmire...it's not another Vietnam...it's not anything like the dems are whining about it being....

Both similar to yours. Though her point of view was a little different from yours, she had a great sense of humor. She knew she was going to be attacked by certain posters on this board no matter what she said and she never cared and never caved in to the ridicule and the ignorance.

If they finally got to her, then I'm really sorry about that, though I can understand why. I considered her a friend, and I miss her.

CI'm thinking about voting Democratic because I believe everything the main stream media tells me about the Presidential candidates.

I'm thinking about voting Democratic because English has no place being the official language in America.

I'm thinking about voting Democratic because I'd rather pay $4 for a gallon of gas than allow drilling for oil off the coasts of America.

I'm thinking about voting Democratic because I think the government will do a better job of spending my money than I could.

I'm thinking about voting Democratic because when we pull out of Afghanistan and Iraq , I know the Islamic terrorists will stop trying to kill us because they'll think we're a good and decent country.

I'm thinking about voting Democratic because I believe people who can't tell us if it will rain in two or three days, can now tell us the polar icecaps will disappear in ten years if I don't start riding a bicycle, build a windmill or inflate my tires to proper levels.

I'm thinking about voting Democratic because it's alright to kill millions of babies as long as we keep violent, convicted murderers on death row alive.

I'm thinking about voting Democratic because I believe businesses in America should not be allowed to make profits. Businesses should just break even and give the rest to the government so politicians and bureaucrats can redistribute the money the way they think it should be redistributed.

I'm thinking about voting Democratic because I believe guns, and not the people misusing them, are the cause of crimes and killings.

I'm thinking about voting Democratic because when someone with a weapon threatens my family or me, I know the government can respond faster through a call to 911 than I can with a gun in my hand.

I'm thinking abou t voting Democratic because oil companies 5% profit on a gallon of gas are obscene, but government taxes of 18% (federal and state) on the same gallon of gas are just fine.

I'm thinking about voting Democratic because I believe three or four elitist liberals should rewrite the Constitution every few months to suit some fringe element that could never get their agenda past voters.

I'm thinking about voting Democratic because illegal aliens are not criminals, are not sucking up resources through government aid, hospital services, education, or social services, but are just people trying to make a better life by coming to America illegally. We can't blame them for that, can we?

I'm thinking about voting Democratic because now I can now marry whatever I want, so I've decided to marry my horse.

I'm thinking about voting Democratic because they know best how to run a mortgage company like Fannie Mae and Freddy Mac. They will guarantee I get a low interest loan even if I don't have a job and can't pay it back.

I'm thinking about voting Democratic because I agree that Fannie Mae and Freddy Mac executives should get 10's of million dollars in bonuses, then leave and join a Democratic presidential candidate's campaign as his advisors.

Makes ya wonder why anyone would ever vote Republican, doesn't it?

Permission to reprint or copy this article or photo, other than personal use, must be obtained from The Seattle Times. Call 206-464-3113 or e-mail resale@seattletimes.com with your request.

WASHINGTON � It was after 11 p.m. on Friday when Rep. Norm Dicks finally left the Capitol, fresh from the heated House debate on the Iraq war. He was demoralized and angry.

Sometime during the rancorous, seven-hour floor fight over whether to immediately withdraw U.S. troops, one Texas Republican compared those who question America's military strategy in Iraq to the hippies and peaceniks who protested the Vietnam War and did terrible things to troop morale.

The House was in a frenzy over comments by Rep. John Murtha, D-Pa., who had called for the troops to leave Iraq in six months. In response, the White House initially likened Murtha, a 37-year veteran of the Marines and an officer in Vietnam, to lefty moviemaker Michael Moore.

Then a new Republican representative from Ohio, Jean Schmidt, relayed a message to the House that she said she had received from a Marine colonel in her district: Cowards cut and run; Marines never do.

During much of the debate, Dicks, a Democrat from Bremerton, huddled in the Democrats' cloakroom with Murtha, a longtime friend. Both men are known for their strong support of the military over the years. Now, they felt, that record was being questioned.

There was a lot of anger back there, Dicks said in an interview this week. It was powerful. I can't remember anything quite as traumatic as this in my history here.

Near midnight, he drove to his D.C. home, poured a drink and wondered how defense hawks like he and Murtha had gotten lumped in with peaceniks by their colleagues and the administration.

And he thought about all that had happened over the past couple of years to change his mind about the war in Iraq.

In October 2002, Dicks voted loudly and proudly to back President Bush in a future deployment of U.S. troops to Iraq � one of two Washington state Democratic House members to do so. Adam Smith, whose district includes Fort Lewis, was the other.

Dicks thought Saddam Hussein had weapons of mass destruction and wouldn't hesitate to use them against the United States.

After visiting Iraq early in the war, Norm told me the Iraqis were going to be throwing petals at American troops, Murtha said in an interview this week.

Dicks now says it was all a mistake � his vote, the invasion, and the way the United States is waging the war.

While he disagrees with Murtha's conclusion that U.S. troops should be withdrawn within six months, Dicks said, He may well be right if this insurgency goes much further.

The insurgency has gotten worse and worse, he said. That's where Murtha's rationale is pretty strong � we're talking a lot of casualties with no success in sight. The American people obviously know that this war is a mistake.

Dicks, a member of the House Intelligence Committee, says he's particularly angry about the intelligence that supported going to war.

Without the threat of weapons of mass destruction (WMDs), he said, he would absolutely not have voted for the war.

The Bush administration has accused some members of Congress of rewriting history by claiming the president misled Americans about the reasons for going to war. Congress, the administration says, saw the same intelligence and agreed Iraq was a threat.

But Dicks says the intelligence was doctored. And he says the White House didn't plan for and deploy enough troops for the growing insurgency.

A lot of us relied on [former CIA director] George Tenet. We had many meetings with the White House and CIA, and they did not tell us there was a dispute between the CIA, Commerce or the Pentagon on the WMDs, he said.

He and Murtha tended to give the military, the CIA and the White House the benefit of the doubt, Dicks says. But he now says he and his colleagues should have pressed much harder for answers.

All of us have gone through a difficult period, but Norm really has agonized, Murtha said this week.

Murtha and Dicks were appointed to the House Defense Appropriations subcommittee in 1979, three years after Dicks first was elected to Congress. They rarely have disagreed, especially in their support of the military.

In October 2002, Dicks made an impassioned speech during the House debate over whether to authorize the president to send troops to Iraq without waiting for the United Nations to act.

Based on the briefings I have had, and based on the information provided by our intelligence agencies to members of Congress, I now believe there is credible evidence that Saddam Hussein has developed sophisticated chemical and biological weapons, and that he may be close to developing a nuclear weapon, Dicks said at the time.

By spring 2003, U.N. weapons inspectors said they hadn't found hard evidence of WMDs in Iraq. But Dicks remained convinced of Iraq's threat.

We're going to find things [Saddam] had not disclosed, he said shortly before the war began in March 2003. There is no doubt about that. Period. Underlined.

By June of that year, with no chemical, biological or nuclear weapons found, Dicks remained steadfast in his support for the war but called for a congressional inquiry into the intelligence agencies' work on Iraq. I think the American people deserve to know what happened and why it happened, he said at the time.

That same month, Dicks was upset when a good friend, Gen. Eric Shinseki, the Army chief of staff, was forced into retirement after telling Congress that the secretary of defense was not sending enough troops to win the peace.

On July 6, 2003, Dicks awoke to read the now-famous New York Times opinion piece by former Ambassador Joseph Wilson, who had been sent on a CIA mission to investigate a report that Iraq had tried to buy nuclear materials in Africa.

Wilson wrote that he had found no evidence of such Iraqi intentions and criticized Bush for making the claim in his State of the Union address two months before the invasion.

Dicks grew somber about Iraq. Rep. Jim McDermott, who represents Seattle and had opposed the war from the start, talked with him about it.

Norm is a lot like Jack Murtha. These are guys with a somewhat different philosophy than me, McDermott said recently. This an extremely difficult time for them because they have to reassess what they were led to believe about prewar intelligence.

The White House maintains it did nothing to mischaracterize what it knew about Iraq and its weapons.

Dicks' private concerns became more public two months ago. At a breakfast fundraiser on Capitol Hill, Dicks surprised the guests with a tough talk against the war.

The White House last Friday called Dicks to gauge his support. House GOP leaders were pushing for a vote on a resolution they hoped would put Democrats on the spot by forcing them to either endorse an immediate troop withdrawal or stay the course in Iraq.

Dicks said he told the White House that their attack on Murtha was the most outrageous comment I've ever heard.

Dicks says the Pentagon should begin a phased withdrawal and leave some troops to help maintain order and train a new Iraq army. We've got to be very concerned that Iraq comes out of this whole, he said.

Some people say it takes eight to nine years to control an insurgency, Dicks said.

I don't think the American people will give eight to nine years, and I sure as heck won't.

Stand up to whom and why? The Congress is run by Republicans. Bush does whatever he wants, when he wants, regardless of what Congress or the courts deem to be legal or constitutional.

He has already stood up to them by spreading propaganda that anyone who doesn't agree with him is either on the terrorist's side or a fascist. If he gets really mad, he swiftboats them.

This is the reason people want him to get warrants before spying on Americans. A President with such a history of personal revenge can't be trusted to just go after the terrorists. He can't be trusted not to spy on innocent Americans who don't agree with his policies. He can't be trusted to have a good reason to spy. He just can't be trusted, period.