Great. Now McCain sells his soul to the anti-scientists.

On Tuesday, though, he sided with the president on two issues that have made headlines recently: teaching intelligent design in schools and Cindy Sheehan, the grieving mother who has come to personify the anti-war movement.

McCain told the Star that, like Bush, he believes "all points of view" should be available to students studying the origins of mankind.

The theory of intelligent design says life is too complex to have developed through evolution, and that a higher power must have had a hand in guiding it.

At a breakfast meeting Tuesday with the Tucson Metropolitan Chamber of Commerce, McCain said Sheehan is probably being used by organizations opposed to the U.S. mission in Iraq. But, he added, she is "a symptom, not a cause" of growing public discontent with the war.

So this is the guy who is supposed to be the moderate Republican? Screw that. I say we need to write off the whole party.

But before I get too partisan, I have to say that the Democratic party is doing its usual fine job of cowering back and avoiding any conflict with the Republicans, no matter how thuggish and imbecilic they may get. Here's a simple issue on which they could take a stand and differentiate themselves from their opponents—in which they could bravely set themselves apart as the party of the 19th century, rather than the 13th—and all you get is dumb silence. Maybe we need to write off the Democrats, too.

With one exception.

My man, Howard Dean.

Mr. Harris: Were you troubled by President Bush's endorsement that intelligent design should be taught alongside the evolution to schoolchildren?

Dr. Dean: The president has been anti-science for a long time. This is the most antiscientific regime that I've seen in America in my lifetime. I'm a trained physician, as you're aware. I'm insulted by that. It's going to harm America. What serious business is going to invest in America if a scientific education is influenced by politics? Science ought to be taught as science. If you want to teach religion, that's a separate debate. But science should be taught as science.

Schieffer: What is intelligent design? What do you think of that idea?

Dr. Dean: I think it's a religious idea. And actually, Einstein thought that there was some merit to it. Who am I to question Albert Einstein? But that is not--a religious idea is different than a scientific design. The idea that--and I don't think science and religion are incompatible. That's the thing that amazed me about this. You don't have to disbelieve evolution in order to be a religious person. So I don't understand why these folks continue to try to have this debate. But the truth of the matter is, intelligent design is a religious perception and a religious precept. That's fine. That should be taught wherever religion is taught, if that's the desire of those people who are religious.

Science is science. There's no factual evidence for intelligent design. There's an enormous amount of factual evidence for evolution. Those are the facts. If you don't like the facts, then you can fight against them. The Catholic Church fought against Galileo for a great many, many centuries. But it never pays to ignore the facts. Reason we're in trouble in Iraq right now, president didn't care what the facts were. Reason we have a $7 trillion, almost $8 trillion national debt, president didn't care what the facts were. The facts matter. The truth is, you can't run a business, a state, a country or a family if you don't care what the facts are.

He's not quite right about Einstein, there, but otherwise…I want him to be President in 2008. I guess that won't happen, but the other lame potential Democrat candidates are a tepid bunch in comparison. If McCain thinks the way to start campaigning for the Republican nomination is to come out for medieval theology, why can't the Democratic nominees begin by coming out for modern science?

New Patriot has another representative of principled opposition. It's not about creationism, but I'll settle for a Democrat who will criticize the war.