BUSH DEBATES BUSH Jon Stewart rocks, as this debate he hosts between Texas Governor George W. Bush and U.S. President George W. Bush demonstrates. You'll need to wait through a 15-second "Daily Show" commercial before you get to the main event.

BUENA VISTA BREAKOUT Ibrahim Ferrer was shining shoes in Havana and uninterested in the music that had shaped the earlier years of his life when he stumbled into the spotlight with the Beuna Vista Social Club. The Cuban singer has released two solo recordings since his breakout moment in 1997, including the just-released "Beunos Hermanos."

BLENDED SOUNDS "Arabesque Tlata" is the third compilation CD pulled together by London restauranteur Mourad Mazouz, and like the previous releases provides a lively collection of the latest collisions between Arab, Turkish and pop groove music.

ONE FACE FROM A REGIME The New Yorker's Jon Lee Anderson's lengthy account of his friendship with Dr. Ala Bashir, and Ala Bashir's relationship with Saddam Hussein, is revealing in many ways. And it's a testimony to the fact that the New Yorker's handful of good writers trumps the glut of bad writers employed by other general interest magazines.

GO FALL IN LOVE WITH SONYA She's the one with a fist full of flowers.

THE DEMOCRATS DEBATE This weekend, the Democratic candidates meet in South Carolina to either gingerly dance around each other or gnash some teeth. Mark Halperin and the rest of ABC News' political team sent out an email only spin today, which featured their creative (read:fictional, yet informed) version of how Al Gore might talk to the candidates about their pending wrestling match. I've chopped it down, and it's still long, but it gives you a clue how unfocused these guys are heading into the fight of their lives:

This weekend, you will take the stage, see how crowded it is, and say to yourself, 'Back in 2000, Gore had just one opponent to beat to get the nomination -- and I have to go through this? Gore had it easy!' I had it easy in 2000? Really? You're all trailing Bush by 15-20 points in the polls, and yet, you arrive in Columbia bright-eyed and bushy-tailed.

At this stage in 1999, I was losing by just 10 points, and people thought I was an awful candidate, dead in the water. I started firing folks, and I didn't stop until a year later. I'll let you all in on a little secret: that George W. Bush fella -- he's tougher to beat than the elite press believe.

The fact of the matter is that -- even with contibution limits doubled -- none of you has raised as much money as I did at this stage in the process; none of you has the endorsements I had at this stage of the process; none of you has the well-developed issue platform that Elaine Kamarck and Sarah Bianchi built for me. Each of you, in your own way, mocked where I stood at this stage in 1999 -- now, as you take the stage in Columbia, each of you probably has some respect for just how hard it was...

Take your position, Senator Kerry. I've been there: the front-runner, the smart one, the Vietnam vet... and still, not quite loved. Why do you have to put up with that damn chattering class whining about how 'stiff' and 'cold' you are? And endure Bob Shrum trying to correct every single thing you say, to get you to say it just his way? And hearing Lehane telling you to attack, attack, attack, all the time, like you were some sort of pit bull, instead of letting you be what you know you are: the thinking person's presidential candidate. Take my advice: Leave the rabid dog routine to Lehane, and on Saturday night, you bring that toothy smile and some new jokes (Maybe if you ask nicely, my daughter Kristen, would do some for you.). You should handle this group like the school principal looking down at some unruly quarreling children: stay above it all, be presidential, and be 'likeable' (whatever the hell that means.) And above all, for god's sake, even when the other guys say stupid things, don't roll your eyes or sigh. You've got huge 'sighing potential.' Sighing is bad. That did me right in.

I guess I feel most sorry for you, John Edwards. Three years ago, Tad Devine just wouldn't shut up telling me to make you my vice president -- now, he's not even going to vote for you in the Rhode Island primary. And how unfair is it for people to say your campaign lacks ideas, when you've got the two best policy wonks in our party -- Bruce Reed and Gene Sperling -- churning out stuff for you? Well listen to me: on Saturday night, toss out the binder that Bruce and Gene have given you, and Reach for the one that David Ginsberg prepared: the one filled with John Kerry's 'bad' votes -- probably 3 or 4 dozen out of the 10,000 he has cast. Sure, it's unfair; sure, it's cheesy -- but trust me, it works. If you doubt me, ask your buddy Ed Turlington to tell you who Chris Peterson is.....

Dick Gephardt, my old friend. You are the underestimated one in this race ... but not by me. It took everything I had to beat you in 1988 – and that left me nothing to fight off Mike Dukakis. The Washington press corps sees you as washed up and old news -- but in 2000, I saw just how much support you still have among the key folks in the primary process. You, more than any of the others, need a fresh start on Saturday night: a new introduction to the national press corps. Your health care plan has gotten good marks -- even Mort Kondracke says you lead in the 'ideas primary.' On Saturday night, make your plan the issue -- let them beat up on it and on you, just keep bringing it back to center stage. You gain ground when your ideas, not your labor endorsements, are front and center.

As for the rest of you, well, I wish you all the best. I don't think you can win, but frankly, after having spent 1988 trying to beat an eloquent preacher, a candidate backed by Donna Brazille, and a left-wing congressman, I don't underestimate how difficult you, Rev. Sharpton, Senator Moseley Braun, and Representative Kucinich, can make this thing for the rest of them.

Don't forget to talk alot about the environment. I know I didn't, but that is just because my consultants told me not to. I sure regret listening to them, and a year from now, all but one of you will feel the same way...

A ROSE BY ANY OTHER NAME IS NOT A ROSE The Bush PR team keeps our boy on message, that much is for sure. William Saletan over at Slate wonders which war we won last night, as the President bobbed about in the Pacific, addressing the nation.

In Bush's telling of the story, it all fits together. The war on terror gives meaning to the battle of Iraq. And the battle of Iraq demonstrates tangible success in the war on terror.

Except it doesn't. The two stories -- Iraq and al-Qaida, the battle and the war -- have never really meshed. Bush keeps saying they're the same thing. But saying doesn't make it so.

Saddam was a tyrant, butcher, and serial aggressor. He jerked around the U.N. Security Council for 12 years, and the council did nothing about it. Even if all his biological and chemical weapons were destroyed years ago, his refusal to prove it -- as he had pledged to do -- by turning over records and personnel defied any hope of enforcing nonproliferation rules for gross offenders. Something had to be done, and Bush did it.

But don't tell us this was a triumph in the war on terror, Mr. President. Don't tell us the defeat of a secular dictator has turned the tide against a gang of religious fanatics. And don't talk about patience. You inserted a battle that could have waited into a war that couldn't, precisely because you lacked -- or thought we lacked -- patience for the slow, diffuse, half-invisible struggle against the people who hit us on Sept. 11. You wanted a quick, clear victory, and you got it. But don't flatter yourself. You haven't changed the world in 19 months. You've only changed the subject

THE STATUS OF BAGHDAD Sure, it's not making headlines, but life in Baghdad does continue for millions of people. This May 1 report from the UN Office of the Humanitarian Coordinator for Iraq gives a comprehensive overview of the humanitarian situation there.

STATISTICALLY YOURS It's truly odd to watch the numbers continue to climb, as I glance at the counter and peruse the end-of-the-month site statistics. April featured a daily average of 252 hits from a daily average of 121 different visitors. That's roughly double of where things stood in January, and adds up to 7,567 hits for the month for the total site (Buttermilk & Molasses, Caffeine Magazine and the poetry and review sections). The stats track for the whole site, while the counter on this page only calculates hits to Buttermilk & Molasses.

X-SQUARED Sometimes it's good to let the inner geek run free. And sometimes the inner geek becomes commercially viable. Just ask Buffy. Or director Brian Singer, whose new film "X2," based on the once insanely popular X-men comic (thank you, Chris Claremont), trumps the competition.

Director Bryan Singer returns in the sequel with an intricately plotted adventure, overflowing with deep characters in compelling relationships, and rich with the always-timely message about bigotry and acceptance. And, in case you worry that things are getting too heavy, Singer also delivers more action and excitement than in the first round.

ALL HE IS SAYING David Ignatius is tempted to join the ranks of the skeptical, to read the headlines this week and disbelieve that the newly released Roadmap for Peace -- the plan designed to create a Palestinian state and a secure Israel -- is a roadmap to anything other than more violence. But he doesn't, and he's right not to. Ignatius decides to take the road map for what it is, and to ask some important questions about how it can take hold --

• Peace is too lofty a notion. It will take a generation for these two sides to forgive each other and embrace. Needed now are a truce and a separation, signified by the borders of a Palestinian state. What's good about the road map is that it's short on rhetoric and long on practical specifics.

• To achieve a truce, both sides must give up the idea they can "win" the conflict. Once upon a time, it was the Israelis who seemed to believe they could win -- keep the land and impose peace, too. But then came the disastrous 1982 invasion of Lebanon, the two Palestinian intifadas and the nightmare of the suicide bombers. Frustrated Israelis began to play for a tie.

At that point, in the sickening balance wheel of Middle East politics, the Palestinians began to imagine they could "win" -- to believe that their human bombs could break the resolve of the Jewish state. That's what made the iron fist of Prime Minister Ariel Sharon inevitable. He told Palestinians, in the savage language of military force, that Israel would never give up. For the road map to succeed, the Palestinians must now decide to play for a tie, too.

GIMME TWO STEPS, GIMME TWO STEPS A'BABY Hey, champs. See you on Friday. Don't forget to bask in the sunshine and water the damn plants.

HEY, PROPONENTS OF A FREE IRAQ... Why exactly is it that you're not pissed off about this:

Three million, three hundred thousand people dead in a four and a half year war. Sound familiar?

Have you seen it on the news? Have you heard about it being debated by any parliaments or congresses or world conferences?

In less than five years, the equivalent of the entire population of Chicago was wiped out in the war in the Democratic Republic of Congo. That's the equivalent of every man, woman and child in Ireland being killed. Surely if something of this nature occurred, it would have made the headlines. It's too shocking and horrible to ignore, one would think.

Earlier this month, the International Rescue Committee widely disseminated the findings of a comprehensive mortality study in Congo. The most conservative estimate is that 3.3 million people died in the war that has gripped this desperate and largely forgotten country since August of 1998. That makes it the deadliest documented conflict since World War II.

POETRY MONTH: THE END IS ALMOST NIGH In two days you can stop paying attention to poetry. Or at least until next April. Yes, National Poetry Month only allows poetry to peek into our lives for 30 days a year. To mourn its passing, drop by Bold Type and get your poetry fix from Edward Hirsch and Nicholas Christopher.

SURVEY SAYS... New Delhi TV, an Indian media outfit, polled 1000 Iraqis in Baghdad late last week (668 men and 332 women). The results? A majority favored the U.S. invasion that led to the removal of Saddam Hussein, the city's population is split about whether troops should stay, and the younger the respondants the less supportive they are of the U.S.

As per the poll, a sizeable 54 per cent of the respondents believed that America did the right thing by invading Iraq while 32 per cent felt it was wrong. A more detailed analysis showed that the older Iraqis (over 40 years) Iraqis tend to be more pro-American and anti-Saddam.

To the question ‘‘Should America stay on and help re-build Iraq, or should they go back now?’’, 52 per cent wanted the US troops to return immediately while 43 per cent felt the they should stay on. And clearly while a large per cent of Muslims want the Americans to stay on, many Christians in Baghdad wanted an American presence in Baghdad to help rebuild the devastated country.

GETTING ON TWAIN'S TRAIL Here's what you need to know before you go any further -- Michael Lewis is a good writer. He's married to Tabitha Sorenson (former MTV political journalist). They have two children, both cute as buttons. And he's posted a four-part chronicle of the family excursion from San Francisco to Carson City -- following the path taken by Samuel Clemens -- on Slate.

Clemens was 25 years old in the summer of 1861 when he first went west with his older brother Orion. He'd fought briefly and badly for the Confederate army and was saved, in a way, by his older brother, who had campaigned for Abraham Lincoln and been rewarded with a job as secretary of the Nevada Territory. When the Clemenses boarded the stagecoach in St. Joe, Mo., for Carson City, Nev., they were each permitted 25 pounds of baggage. Both were forced to abandon possessions, but the Unabridged Dictionary somehow made the cut. Or so Twain claimed, 10 years later, in Roughing It. As a writer, Twain was lucky in many ways, and one of them was that he died before the birth of the fact-checker. He ingeniously set up the Unabridged as an unpleasant traveling companion on a hellish journey, just as he ingeniously played up his encounters with gunslingers, desperadoes, Indians, deserts, wild beasts, and bad weather. Writing for an audience already a little vague about the Wild West—between his going and writing about it the stagecoach had been replaced by the railroad—Twain clearly sensed that a gap had opened up between what was believable and what was true, and he made the most of it.

OLD TIMEY POLITICKING (CIRCA 1980) Back in the day, some political hacks would go out on a limb, spitting casual faxes out to the media giving the political junkies an honest, straightforward taste of what the campaigns really thought. The National Journal's Hotline was as close as you got to candor in the 1988 election cycle. Now ABC News' The Note presents The Notepad, a daily digest of campaign missives on any topic.

The rules of The Notepad are simple: Sumissions will be cut off at 200 words, printed in the order received, must be "irreverent and breezy," must be signed by someone in the campaign. The Notepad will be updated daily, probably after 9 a.m. or so.

Day One reveals a surprising lack of panache -- when Joe Lieberman's submission is the only breezy one of the day, you know there's a problem. We'll see in the coming days and weeks which campaign can break out of the dull, predictable approach and really show us a good time.

THE CAFFEINE MAGAZINE ARCHIVES AND THE POETRY SECTION have been updated for your reading pleasure. Stay tuned for a revamped Buttermilk & Molasses weblog, the remaining back issues of Caffeine and new reviews in the coming week, cha cha.

WE'RE A'MOVIN' ON UP MoveOn.org formed as the 2000 Presidential Election spiraled out of control in Florida and has developed a strong focus since then on pushing a progressive agenda using a variety of traditional and new tools. MoveOn.org PAC is focused on "showing Bush the door in 2004" by registering new voters, getting out the vote, fundraising and more.

HESTER PRYNN IN BAGHDAD This is what happens when you decentralize military authority: a low-ranking officer has a neat idea. In the case of the U.S. military in Baghdad, the idea involves stripping Iraqi men of their clothes and parading them around a park. Apparently, it's a sure-fire crime deterent. It does wonders for the U.S. image abroad, too.

Amnesty International expressed concern today at the disturbing article and images portrayed in the Norwegian newspaper Dagbladet which show American soldiers escorting naked Iraqi men through a park in Baghdad. The pictures reveal that someone has written the words 'Ali Baba - Haram(i)' (which means Ali Baba - thief) in Arabic on the prisoners' chests.

The article quotes a US military officer as saying that this treatment is an effective method of deterring thieves from entering the park and is a method which will be used again; another US military officer is quoted as saying that US soldiers are not allowed to treat prisoners inhumanely.

TOWNIES TAKE ON THE FEDS The fine folks in my old stomping ground of Carrboro, North Carolina, are pushing the federal flashlight out of their faces. Local residents are urging the City Council to pass a "Bill of rights defense resolution," requiring federal authorities visiting the town to report to city hall and state their business in Carrboro.

Constitutional scholars say the new Patriot Act renews old distrust in federal authority.

"Under this standard of terrorism," said Kimberly Crenshaw of Columbia University, "the civil rights movement, the freedom riders, the sit-in demonstrations, all of these people could conceivably have been prosecuted as terrorists."

MY OWN LITTLE POETRY MONTH I've finally managed to get the poetry section of the site back up just in time for National Soybean Month.

RICHMOND'S DRUG OF CHOICE The third and fourth issues of that 1993 classic Caffeine Magazine are finally on the Internet. Take a trip with us back to the cynical days of the early Clinton administration, and discover the Richmond, Virginia, you never knew existed.