Reply #83: That's a reasonable approach.

[Taxloss]

However, Occam keeps nagging me. Why, out of the army of people who have attacked the Bush administration over the past five years, "whack" these ones? If you're going to adopt an absurdly risky policy like assassination, you would have to pick high-yield targets for it to be worthwhile. Richard Clarke, not Kelly, Cindy Sheehan, not Westhusing, and three dozen other names.

Also, there is the possibility that one of these people was actually murdered by Team Bush. I doubt any of them were, but if one was, my money would be on Wellstone (with a side bet on Kelly, if Team Blair is considered part of Team Bush). However, the way that your OP will inevitably be interpreted by a lot of people here as saying all of these people were killed by Team Bush. Not your fault, but it indicates the danger of the "Coincidence? I think not!" approach.

We'll have to agree to disagree about the top 100.

Finally, you say something interesting in your final paragraph: "I wish that some DUer could think of a reasonably objective way to make such an assessment." My fear is not that a DUer could not do such a thing, it is that other DUers would automatically reject that assessment if it produced the "wrong" answer - that these deaths were not murders by Bushco.