If the Republicans want to save not just face,but any hope of Redemption by thenext presidential Election they had better start redefining THEIR party- As Colin Powell so aptly laid out. So which are you one of the Criminals running with McCain,Bush & Cheney or are You one of the Republicans which were Excommunicated in the '80's once the Moral Majority took over? Are You a 'Phil Gramm Repug neo con or are You a General Powell, Sen Chuck Hagel Ol' School Republican? the decision could have ramifactions on whether or not you should be updating your Resume for a New Career.

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Because I live in Florida, and I've watched closely what Crist has been up to, especially with respect to the insurance companies.

Yes, he's a republican, but he is NOT a neocon.

As for being turned down for the VP slot? Crist's history suggests that he turned McCain down.

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Charlie Crist distanced himself from McBush, Shreiking Sarah, Rudy "one delegate" Giuliani (the grinning doofus), and Fred "it's time for my nap" Thompson because Crist is a moderate, very sensible Republican who is extremely popular in Florida. He is doing the right thing by avoided the political stains he would pick up by associating himself with these ultra-Right crackpots working so dilligently for the Plutocracy. As a moderate Republican, he is one of the few left. Reagan started the ridding of the Republican Party of its moderate wing. The slide down the slope began with Reagan into the abyss that has become Puppet Bush's Gilded Age II Disaster. Reagan as nominee precipated the exit of millions of Republicans, including me, who still are registered Independents who lean to the left in the face of the crackpot rightwing ideologues responsible for the political and economic and international relations wreckage they are leaving in their wake.

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Gov. Crist is very good at exuding concern for fellow Floridians during campaigns and press conferences. That concern is unfortunately akin to his famous tan; it's skin deep rather than heartfelt.

I've called upon Crist countless times to attend to the vagaries of civil servants in Brevard County that resulted in decades of wrongful convictions; I've taken those pleas public more than once. Wilton Dedge's 2004 exoneration, made famous in the documentary After Innocence, represented a second innocent man getting out from under the false testimony of a discredited crime scene dog handler; the first was Juan Ramos, in 1987. William Dillon was exonerated by DNA testing of a bloody T-shirt in July. He remains incarcerated. Prison snitches testified against all three men; the snitches were all discredited. There are likely 19 other men that were convicted in the same manner.

Dillon has been incarcerated for 27 years, his mother has an inoperable brain tumor. Crist could have called upon the judge, under the circumstances, to allow bail.

Silence isn't always golden; sometimes it's just old fashioned, southern-style stonewalling. The real perpetrators that Ramos and Dedge served time for were never caught. When mistakes are made and the wrong man is prosecuted, one dangerous man walks free; when prosecutions are overzealous and reward prison snitches with light sentences, two dangerous men walk free.

It isn't "moderate" or "Republican" or "neocon" to fail to ensure the public safety and there is no appropriate value system slot to place the unwillingness to care about actual innocence, either. Florida statutes empower Crist to order a Special Investigation of suspect civil servants. Each day that Crist delays ordering that investigation paints a truer picture of the content of his character.

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