This is the best explanation of the behavior of the Democratic Party I've ever seen. On Tue, 10 Dec 2002 20:01:37 -0500, you wrote:

1. Put a bunch of gorillas in a cage.

2. Put a nice stack of boxes in the cage.

3. Then, string a big bunch of bananas from the top of the cage hanging within arm's reach from the top of the stack of boxes.

(3a. Okay, put the gorillas in last, or you'll never get to steps 1 and 2 :-).)

4. When the first gorilla climbs to the top of the boxes to grab the bananas, do something extremely unpleasant to all the gorillas, like, say, deluging them with icy water from sprinklers at the top of the cage, or something.

Pretty soon, they stop climbing the boxes completely.

5. Then, replace the one gorilla. Watch the others physically restrain him if he tries to go for the bananas.

Repeat 5 until all the gorillas have been replaced.

6. The gorillas will physically assault anyone who climbs the pyramid, and they won't know why.

:-).