wish I understood why.  I wish I could fathom the support the two- term failure of a president still has. It's a few days past the 100 days that he has been out of office and in that brief while, with his record low approval ratings, George W Bush has already raised over $100 million for his proposed presidential library. That, I believe, is a faster fundraising pace than any other recent former president.  The library is scheduled to open in 2013

n Sunday newsman Bob Schieffer asked the former Vice President, Dick Cheney, how America can employ torture when it mocks our nation's ideals. Cheney answered in a way that would surely have been considered treasonous by Rush Limbaugh, if a former Vice President, who happened to be a Democrat had said it about a Republican president.

Cheney, the silent one, has changed. Just as the Republicans are trying for a kinder, gentler image (perhaps), he, who spent his time in the White House dungeon, now is above ground and won't stop talking. As New York Times columnist, Maureen Dowd, put it, "Cheney has popped out of his dungeon, scary music blaring, to carry on his nasty campaign of fear and loathing".

Lest we forget, this man of war - the wrong war, had five deferments to make sure he didn't serve in the armed forces.

I still don't think he has a single, coherent, foreign policy viewpoint.

n Tuesday the annual report from the Medicare trustees found that the recession had made Medicare's tenuous financial condition even worse, hastening the day when the program's hospital fund will face insolvency. There is a critical need for the lawmakers to pass the strongest possible reforms and bring down health costs. More than 45 million of Americans remain uninsured.

As Peter Orzag, the director of the office of Management and Budget put it, "the only way to solve the fiscal problems of the big entitlement programs is to slow the relentless rise in the underlying health costs". On Monday, representatives of drug and device makers, hospitals and labor unions, doctors and insurance companies pledged, at the White House, to shave 1.5% percent off the annual rate of growth in health care spending. Much more is needed and Congress must find some way to force savings from the industry if its voluntary efforts fail to reduce costs as they have promised.

t's looking more and more as if President Barak Obama will have the opportunity to make significant changes in the Supreme Court of the land. Just last week Supreme Court Justice David Souter stated that next month he will retire. Republicans reacted with alarm over the Chief Executive's calling for a justice with "empathy". Senators like Republican Orrin Hatch will tell you that it's a code word for an activist judge.

This surely will not be Obama's last opportunity to nominate a Supreme Court justice. John Paul Stevens is 88 years old. Ruth Bader Ginsburg is being treated for pancreatic cancer. As a senator Obama pleaded with Bush to consult with Democrats when selecting his nominees, and he chastised liberal interest groups for poisoning healthy debate with extreme claims about the candidates. Now we'll see if he can get it right.

t still amazes me how so many prosecutors would rather ignore rape. Human Rights Watch recently discovered that in Los Angeles County there are well over 12 thousand rape kits gathering dust in police storage rooms. In many cases the statute of limitations had passed. More than 450 of the kits just sat around for over a decade. Valuable criminal evidence is just left to languish. Many DAs just don't like to try rape cases, viewing them as difficult to prosecute, especially when the victim knows her attacker. This kind of indifference to justice for women is more like what one might expect in Afghanistan rather than in the United States.