It is clear that Russert and NBC are acting as political shills for the Democratic Leadership Council and their corporate masters at General Electric, a major defense contractor profiting from Bush's wars in Iraq, Afghanistan and against "global terrorism," in denying former Senator Mike Gravel a spot at the Philadelphia debate and trying to embarrass Kucinich by asking him about UFOs as a result of the Ohio Congressman's suggestion that President Bush is mentally ill.

WMR has uncovered a letter from Democratic President Clinton to the organizer of a 1995 conference on UFOs and contact with alien civilizations that was bankrolled by the late Laurence Rockefeller. The organizer, Dr. Scott Jones, served on the National Security Council of Democratic President Jimmy Carter and later on the staff of Rhode Island Democratic Senator Claiborne Pell.

Even the late Carl Sagan, while skeptical of first encounters, was interested in the 1995 Washington DC UFO conference.

Clinton's chief of staff and aide John Podesta was quoted by the Las Vegas Journal as saying, "I think it’s time to open the books on questions that have remained in the dark on the question of government investigations of UFOs." The Washington Post quoted Clinton's Press Secretary Mike McCurry as saying of Podesta, "John can get totally maniacal and phobic on certain subjects. He’s been known to pick up the phone and call the Air Force and ask them what’s going on in Area 51."

Bill and Hillary Clinton are also reportedly intrigued with the subject of UFOs as was Presidents Carter and Reagan.

While Governor of Georgia in 1973, Carter filed a UFO sighting report with the International UFO Bureau claiming he had seen a UFO in Leary, Georgia in 1969.

While Governor of California in 1974, Reagan related a UFO encounter with The Wall Street Journal: "I was in a plane last week when I looked out the window and saw this white light. It was zigzagging around. I went up to the pilot and said, ‘Have you seen anything like that before?’ He was shocked and said, ‘Nope.’ And I said to him: ‘Let’s follow it!’ We followed it for several minutes. It was a bright white light. We followed it to Bakersfield, and all of a sudden to our utter amazement it went straight up into the heavens. When we got off the plane, I told Nancy all about it.’" The pilot confirmed Reagan's account.

As president, Reagan said the following in a speech: "I’ve often wondered...what if all of us in the world discovered that we were threatened by an outer - a power from outer space, from another planet. Wouldn’t we all of a sudden find that we didn’t have any differences between us at all, we were all human beings, citizens of the world, and wouldn’t we come together to fight that particular threat."

The father of Republican conservatism, Senator Barry Goldwater, wrote in 1975, "The subject of UFOs has interested me for some long time. About ten or twelve years ago I made an effort to find out what was in the building at Wright-Patterson Air Force Base where the information has been stored that has been collected by the Air Force, and I was understandably denied this request. It is still classified above Top Secret."

Kucinich's competitor for the Democratic nomination and Clinton's Secretary of Energy and UN ambassador, New Mexico Governor Bill Richardson, said on numerous occasions that the government should release all documents concerning an alleged UFO crash in Roswell, New Mexico in 1947.

Russert and his NBC colleagues have shown themselves to be ridiculous political operatives for the DLC and the Bush White House. However, by haranguing Kucinich, Russert and his neocon pals risk having their favorite candidate, Hillary Clinton, drawn into the UFO debate. Dennis may yet have the last laugh