Is It Too Early for a Christmas List? Edition

Some holiday gift suggestions for our recently defeated friends on the neocon right:

-- For George W. Bush, a DVD of "The Candidate," a copy of "The Final Days," an edition of Sun Tzu's "The Art of War," a thick rawhide saddle, and tickets to a rodeo not hosted by the GOP.

-- For Laura Bush, 500 hours of Primal Scream therapy and a dartboard with Barbara Bush's picture.

-- For Dick Cheney, a Player's Club International card, a copy of Gen. Smedley Butler's "War is a Racket," free medical care at a Baghdad hospital, and a deluxe Risk game.

-- For Lynne Cheney, an autographed edition of Rita Mae Brown's "Rubyfruit Jungle" and a DVD of "The Vagina Monologues."

-- For Don Rumsfeld, a copy of "The Peter Principle," a biography of Gen. George McClellan, and a month's vacation at the sunny paradise of Devil's Island, including a stay in the old prison torture rooms, just to make him feel at home.

-- For Karl Rove, a copy of "Math For Dummies," free tickets to "Death of a Salesman," a take-out dinner of Crow Tartar, and a hefty donation to National Public Radio in his name.

-- For Condi Rice, a gold-embossed edition of "Black Like Me," bound in $100 dollar bills, a case of Jheri-Curl, and a lifetime subscription to Ebony magazine.

-- For George Allen, the collected works of James Baldwin, a copy of the Emancipation Proclamation, and an easy-read edition of the Talmud.

-- For Michael Steele, a trade paperback of "The Autobiography of Malcolm X," a coupon for the Hair Club for Men, and a case of Oreos.

-- For Conrad Burns, a book on etiquette and a case of lemons to suck on.

-- For Dennis Hastert, an "I'm with Stupid" t-shirt, a hosting stint on TV's "The Biggest Loser," and a contract with the World Wrestling Federation, where he'll appear under the pseudonym "The Great White Whale."

-- For Mark Foley, a Bible signed by Ted Haggard with his phone number on the flyleaf, and a free lifetime membership in NAMBLA.

-- For Ted Haggard, a subscription to the Washington Blade, a copy of Sinclair Lewis' "It Can't Happen Here," a massage table, and a 'Build Your Own Meth Lab at Home' kit.

-- For Ken Mehlman, a collection of Mark Foley Action Figures in various election-losing poses and a pink triangle.

-- For Bill O'Reilly, a Brillo-pad loofah, an autographed picture of Sen. Al Franken, and the Encyclopedia of American Facts and Figures.

-- For Sean Hannity, a comb with serrated steel teeth, a case of Brylcreem, and an animated cartoon version of "Das Kapital."

-- For Ann Coulter, an edition of "The Feminine Mystique," a copy of the Sermon on the Mount, a case of KY Jelly, and a slinky low-cut black straightjacket.

-- For Rick Santorum, an inflatable sex dog, a copy of "The Color Purple," and a DVD of "Angels in America."

-- For Don Sherwood, a DVD of "Bum Fight," and the number of a good dominatrix.

-- For Lewis Libby, a Monopoly game with no Get Out of Jail Free cards and a Vespa with bad brakes.

What a Difference a Day Makes Edition

"It was a thumpin'."
-- George W. Bush on Nov. 8, 2006, noticing the bleeding obvious: Against the odds, the Dems had broken the GOP's kneecaps and won a majority in the House and the Senate.

"The cynics are right nine times out of ten."
-- H.L. Mencken. [Mencken is right, but this is that tenth time when he's wrong.]

The Era of Rove's Neocon Republicans is Over and the Country's in Clover as Visions of Sugarplum Fairies (from Pelosi's Frisco, Natch) Dance in My Head

November 9, 2006 -- Yesterday, as I returned to consciousness from my recurring nightmare of Dick Cheney with horns and a pitchfork popping up on the computers at the Casa de Tatty as an annoying Microsoft Word Assistant -- "Let me show you how to save this file -- oops, it's deleted, har, har, har!" -- I felt like the Robert Hays character from "Airplane!"

Yup, I would have been motivated to ask the guy next to me at the bar, if I'd been in a bar, to "pinch me" as I perused the news Wednesday: Dems win the House with more than twice the number they needed for a majority. Incredible! Indiana incumbent Reps. Chris 'Count' Chocola, Mike Sodrel and John Hostettler, Bush Republican family-values types from a Red-on-Red State, had fallen to the Dems. Amazing! Dem Nick Lampson picked up Tom DeLay's crimson Congressional seat in Texas, and Mark Foley's GOP district in Florida went Blue. Miraculous! Republican jackass Rep. J.D. Hayworth of Arizona and 12-term CT Rep. Nancy Johnson will have to find honest work as they both lost to sub-par Dem candidates. Wow! Even old GOP warhorse Rep. Jim Leach in Iowa succumbed to Dave Loebsack. a Democrat unknown with no money and no help from the DCCC, a college professor who'd never even run for office before. Fantastic! Three unindicted neocon co-conspirators and enablers -- Sens. Jim Talent, Mike DeWine and Satan's Imp Rick Santorum -- went down in flames early. Wonderful! Dem governors now control a majority of statehouses! Fabulous! Supposedly Bush didn't listen to his Dick for once and forced Don 'Bumsfeld' to quit! Awesome! And the electoral grip of Rove's kooky far-right Christian fanatics is finally broken! Un-freaking-real!

And the good news just kept on coming; by the time the AP confirmed Jon Tester's US senate win over incumbent Conrad 'Montgomery' Burns in Montana and Jim Webb's over Sen. Macaca Boy Allen in Virginia, I had run out of superlatives and exclamation points! (Except that last one.) Even the victories of Musclehead Schwarzenegger, Shifty Corker and Droopy Lieberman couldn't dampen my giddiness! I would have thrown on the dress whites and disco danced, if I had any dress whites and I didn't deplore disco music as a crime against humanity.

Think of it: In spite of no-paper-trail voting machines, GOP voter suppression tactics, despicable 'robocalling,' some of the nastiest RNC ads ever seen, and Rove's so-called 'genius,' a giant Blue tsunami had washed over the nation, rinsing away the far-right red stain of Bush Republicanism. (Side note: One of the Tattlesnake's vast circle of two friends claims Karl's Korps tried to steal the election, but the Dem turnout was so overwhelming they couldn't keep track of it all; appropriately, they lost by incompetence in the end.)

Even the Little King himself had to grudgingly acknowledge in a speech Wednesday that few were left to follow him in his long march off a short pier; now he was going to have to play nice with the Dems and let Daddy's friend Jim "I Stole Florida for Bush" Baker provide him with a face-saving 'cut and run' trapdoor for his debacle in Iraq.

For once, the Tattlesnake felt sorry for the Bush Boy, in the same way you'd feel pity even for a hated enemy who had been beaten to a bloody pulp; in a lifelong Oedipal fight with his father, he's proven to be a bigger failure as president than Poppy ever was as everything he's touched has turned to lead. One-term President Daddy has an aircraft carrier with his name on the stern; if two-term Dubya ever gets a US Navy ship named in his honor, it'll no doubt be a garbage scow.

In retrospect, George Junior might regret than Kerry didn't win in 2004; if he had, Bush and the neocons could have lived off the idea that if he'd only served a second term, he could have solved the world's problems, sustaining the notion that neocon nuttery would work and kept that faith alive. Now, it's all been exposed as an irredeemable disaster, a discredited ideology rendered as dead as slavery by Bush's incompetence and the results of November 7th.

Karl Rove boasted to an NPR reporter before the election that he possessed "THE MATH" that proved the GOP would retain their sway in Congress. That math must have come from the same drawer as 'THE PLAN' for Iraq, 'THE PLAN' to privatize Social Security, 'THE PLAN' to bail out New Orleans, 'THE PLAN' to save the economy, and 'THE PLAN' to make Bush a president that mattered with an eternal neoconservative Republican majority billowing his sails. Then reality happened Tuesday.

Karl Rove is finished as a force in politics, as is the fundamentalist Christian GOP voting bloc he helped create and manipulate. For the next two years Rove's invention will sit uncomfortably in the Oval Office as he and his administration are held accountable for six years of egregious deception, massive corruption and mind-numbing incompetence. I wouldn't be surprised if Rove resigns next; his potency is drained and his continued presence in the White House is only an embarrassing reminder of utter failure.

Future GOP candidates will take note of what happened on this election day in November and run to the center; the term 'conservative' itself will acquire the taint previously imposed on 'liberal' as the right-wing media attack machine withers in importance and the big media companies deal with the reality of an energized and progressive American public; even such neocon standard-bearers as Rush Limbaugh and Richard Perle have already begun moderating their cant and rewriting their history.

With a majority in both chambers of Congress, Dems will now decide which bills and judges come up for a vote and, if they keep their promises, we won't see any more of our laws written by lobbyists and ethical standards will be imposed. Saddled with a widely unpopular president and a lifeless neocon agenda, those Republicans interested in political self-preservation will side with the Dem majority on such issues as national health care, an increased minimum wage, educational funding for the poor and middle class, stopping future dumb Bush wars, and cancelling government giveaways to the wealthy and multi-national corporations. Maybe they'll even get around to repealing those Constitution-killing Patriot and Military Commission Acts, set fair national standards for verifying the vote count and voter eligibility, and insure that US citizens are detained legally and spied on only with a probable-cause warrant signed by a judge. At least real Congressional oversight should back Bush off his worst authoritarian tendencies.

It will be satisfying and ironic to see the Dem TV ads of 2008 slamming GOP opponents for voting against health care, constitutional rights or Pell grants, and having those ads impact the election.

There is a 12-year cycle in US politics which Rove should have anticipated, were he not blinded by his own ego: The neoconservatives take office, as Reagan did in 1980, promising lower taxes, smaller government, increased defense spending, and that they won't cut entitlement programs popular with the public. This unworkable scam is kept afloat for a while by expanding the deficit until the economy suffers and the public gets sick of the inevitable corruption brought on by tax breaks and other special favors for Republican-friendly corporations, defense contractors and campaign contributors. Then the Dems are voted in to clean up the GOP mess. During that period, the Republicans go on the attack against 'tax and spend Democrat liberals,' blaming them for all the problems the GOP set in motion in the first place, making the same empty neoconservative promises, pumping up their 'moral values,' and then the conservatives take power and the cycle starts all over again, as it did with Bush Junior.

But cycles, especially those unhealthy for a free constitutional democracy, can be broken; let's hope that Tuesday's election finally broke this one for good.

Incidentally, H.L. Mencken also wrote another timely sentiment I agree with:

"In this world of sin and sorrow there is always something to be thankful for; as for me, I rejoice that I am not a Republican."
-- H.L. Mencken

Reply to a Wrongheaded Neocon Email

Some form of this boneheaded email has been making the rounds for years, and it's time to set the reord straight.

For some reason the neocons, through ignorance or intention, habitually have a difficult time getting their historical facts straight which, naturally,
affects their reasoning and occludes their judgment. This was originally written in 2004 and has been updated.

The erroneous neocon claims are in italics with the facts in bold.

"Liberals claim President Bush shouldn't have started this war [in Iraq]. They complain about his prosecution of it. One liberal recently claimed
Bush was the worst president in U.S. history. Let's clear up one point: We didn't start the war on terror. Try to remember, it was started by terrorists BEFORE 9/11."

Let's clear up this point: Bush started a war in Iraq which had nothing to do with the war on terror. If he had taken the $200 billion (Update: $400 bil. now) of our money he's wasted trying to make Iraq a democratic state, and spent it going after Al-Qaeda, who attacked us on 9/11, we might have eliminated that particular terrorist organization by now.

"Let's look at the 'worst' president and mismanagement claims."

Let's.

"FDR led us into World War II. Germany never attacked us...Hitler declared war on the US. JAPAN attacked us."

That's wrong on several counts: On Oct. 17, 1941, the USS Kearny was attacked and damaged by a German U-Boat in international waters; on Oct. 30, 1941, the US Navy destroyer USS Reuben James was torpedoed by a German submarine off the coast of Iceland and 100 American sailors died. It was the first US warship sunk in WWII.
On Dec. 8, 1941, the US Congress, following the attack on Pearl Harbor, declared war on the Japanese Empire; Germany and Italy, Japan's Axis partners, were not included.
On Dec. 11, 1941, Germany and Italy declared war on the United States; only then did Congress recognize a state of war with those two countries.
So, FDR did not 'lead us into war' or attack Germany first, although we had been attacked by Germany at least twice prior to Dec. 7, 1941.
[The source for this information is the Encyclopedia of American Facts & Dates, 8th Edition, published by Harper & Row.]

"From 1941-1945, 450,000 lives were lost, an average of 112,500 per year."

Considering that all of Asia, Europe and most of the Pacific area were at war, with tens of millions of combatants, that's not surprising.
To construe WWII with Bush's War on Terrorism is the same as not knowing the difference between a basketball and a peanut.

"Truman finished that war and started one in Korea, North Korea never attacked us. From1950-1953, 55,000 lives were lost, an average of 18,333 per year."

This is also wrong: The Korean War started when the North Koreans crossed the 38th parallel on June 25, 1950, invading South Korea. We had a treaty with South Korea at the time; any attack on South Korean soil was tantamount to an attack on the United States.
The United Nations ordered North Korea to withdraw, they refused, and Truman, honoring both our treaty with South Korea and our commitment to the UN, sent US troops to South Korea as part of an international peacekeeping force, after the US Congress passed a resolution enabling him to send in US military forces.
Truman acted only after he had received permission from the UN Security Council authorizing the use of force, something Bush did not have prior to his invasion of Iraq.
So, Truman did not 'start a war' in Korea.
[The source for this information is the Encyclopedia of American Facts & Dates, 8th Edition, published by Harper & Row.]

"John F. Kennedy started the Vietnam conflict in 1962. Vietnam never attacked us. History might show Eisenhower committed the troops and Kennedy was honoring that commitment."

The third sentence invalidates the first; American involvement in Vietnam began during the Eisenhower Administration, after the French withdrew following their defeat at Dien Bien Phu on May 7, 1954. Ike sent in US 'advisors' and air support who participated in combat in Vietnam before Kennedy was president.

"Johnson turned Vietnam into a quagmire. From 1965-1975, 58,000 lives were lost, an average of 5,800 per year."

Johnson did indeed increase troop strength and American involvement in the Vietnam War, but he left office in 1968, and Nixon, who promised 'peace with honor' during the 1968 presidential campaign, expanded the war and bombed Laos and Cambodia, thereby extending combat and casualties to two countries with tangential ties to Ho Chi Minh's regime in North Vietnam. Millions of innocent Vietnamese, Cambodian and Laotian citizens were killed, directly or indirectly, as a result of this action.
Here's another interesting story that has surfaced since then: In October of 1968, Nixon dispatched his future Secretary of State, Henry Kissinger, to the Paris Peace Talks to make an illegal back-channel deal with the North Vietnamese.
The official US government negotiators were on the brink of a peace agreement with the North, and Nixon was afraid that, if the war ended in Vietnam, his Democratic opponent Hubert Humphrey would get the credit and win the election, so he sent Kissinger to tell the North Vietnamese that if they waited until after Nixon was elected, he would make them a better deal.
They stupidly trusted Nixon, and the Paris Peace Talks ground to a halt. Of course Nixon, following the election, reneged on his promise to the North Vietnamese and kept the war going.
Do I need to mention here that it is illegal for a private citizen, such as Nixon was at the time, to negotiate with foreign governments without the approval of Congress, especially simply to increase their chances of winning an election?

"Clinton went to war in Bosnia without UN consent, Bosnia never attacked us. He was offered Osama bin Laden's head on a platter three times by Sudan and did nothing. Osama has attacked us on multiple occasions."

To the last first: Clinton denies he was ever offered Osama bin Laden at any time; so far, I have heard from neocons he was offered Osama once, twice and, now, three times. If you have any hard evidence that he was offered Osama at any time, and I don't mean some Rush Limbaugh OxyContin fantasy, present it, or stop making this claim.
We do know that Clinton ordered a missile strike on an Al-Qaeda training camp in northern Afghanistan in an attempt to assassinate the terrorist leader; George W. Bush, with the entire nation of Afghanistan under his control in 2002, couldn't find bin Laden.
As far as Bosnia is concerned, not one American soldier died in that war and, according to the World Almanac and Book of Facts, both the United Nations and NATO were involved in peacekeeping efforts in the former Yugoslavia as early as 1992, before Clinton took office.
In December of 1995, the US brokered a peace agreement between Bosnia, Serbia and Croatia called the Dayton Accords. NATO troops, which included US forces, were charged with implementing the agreement, with the blessing of the UN.
So, once again, this neocon accusation is dead wrong; Clinton did have UN consent.

"In the two years since terrorists attacked us, President Bush has liberated two countries, crushed the Taliban, crippled al-Qaida, put nuclear inspectors in Lybia [sic], Iran and North Korea without firing a shot, and captured a terrorist who slaughtered 300,000 of his own people. We lost 600 soldiers, an average of 300 a year. Bush did all this abroad while not allowing another terrorist attack at home."


A regular feast of error and half-truth! Let's take these one-by-one: Iraq is not 'liberated' as of yet, that issue is still in doubt; in Afghanistan, the warlords control most of the country and the Taliban is on the rise again; Al-Qaeda enlistment is up around the world, thanks to the Iraq war; the nuclear inspectors in Iran, North Korea and Libya were put there by the UN, not George Bush, and they were there before Bush became president; the only connection to international terrorism by Saddam Hussein was giving $20,000 checks to the families of suicide bombers in Israel, and there was no Iraq connection to Al-Qaeda, nor any other global terrorist organization, ever established.
Did Saddam kill 300,000 of his own people? It's hard to say: certainly he killed many, but in those mass graves Bush likes to talk about, some of the bodies have been proven to be victims of our bombing raids during the first Gulf War, so the exact number of Saddam's victims are not yet known.
By the way, we have lost over 900 in the past year [2004] just in Iraq, not an average of 300, as you claim.
[Update: We have lost over 2,700 troops in Iraq since March, 2003, an average of nearly 900 per year.]
Yes, it's true that, up to now, there has not been a major terrorist attack on our soil since 9/11, but the number of terrorist attacks worldwide have increased, and the Bush Administration has been promising us that another domestic attack is on the way and they are apparently powerless to stop it.
Which brings up this question: Why are we spending half a trillion dollars for defense every year, only to have the Vice President, the Secretary of Defense, and the head of Homeland Security guarantee us there will be another devastating attack within our borders?
We could get that kind of dismal advice for considerably less, I suspect.
(Update: For political reasons, the Bush Administration has stopped promising another terrorist attack since this was written.)

"Worst president in history?"

Yes, and here are a few reasons why:
-- He has violated his oath of office to uphold the Constitution by illegally imprisoning two American citizens (Hamdi and Padilla) without access to a lawyer, a speedy trial by jury, or the right to be confronted by witnesses against them, among other things. (Read the Bill of Rights, Amendments V, VI, VII, VIII.)
In doing so, Bush has not only violated his oath, he has also illegally usurped the power of the Congress; only Congress and the States have a right to alter the Constitution, and Congress has no power to invest the president with any powers not specifically granted to him by the Constitution without an amendment.
This, alone, is a high crime; denying a citizen his or her rights is one of the most serious crimes a president can commit, and punishable by impeachment.
-- Members of Bush's White House staff leaked the name of a covert CIA agent to the press for political reasons, endangering her, her family, her contacts, and US intelligence operations abroad. This is serious; this is treason.
Commander-in-Chief Bush didn't seem to be worried about it though; instead of turning the White House upside down to search for the leaker/leakers, making it a top priority, the only action he took is to hire a private lawyer to protect him should he be accused of any wrongdoing.
-- Bush is the first president to pre-emptively invade a country. US policy since its inception has been not to instigate wars without direct provocation, not to fire the first shot; Bush, by invading Iraq, has changed that, and for, as it turns out, terrible reasons. This gross incompetence, which led to Americans being killed and wounded, far exceeds the ineptitude of any president in our history.
-- Bush has promoted the interests of global corporations over the average citizen, leading to our jobs being sent overseas, enhancing the profits of multi-national corporations while destroying the lives of our people. This is reprehensible, and also a violation of his oath of office to protect the US from enemies foreign and domestic; economic predators and the dismantling of our standard of living are ultimately more of an enemy than terrorists to the future health and prosperity of our nation.
-- Bush is the first president to be illegally appointed to the presidency by the Supreme Court. If you doubt this, read the Constitution; the Supreme Court has no right under law to determine the fate of an election; that right is reserved to the voters, the Electoral College and the Congress. Yet Bush accepted the presidency under a cloud, rather than making sure his election was legal.
If this isn't enough, there are many more examples of why Bush is the worst president in our history.
(Update: Since this was written, Bush has used signing statements to avoid following the laws passed by Congress, has just signed a bill making it legal for him to declare anyone, including American citizens, 'unlawful enemy combatants' and suspend their Constitutional rights, and has authorized the use of torture which violates international treaties signed by the United States, another flagrant abuse of his oath of office to uphold the Constitution.)

"The Democrats are complaining about how long the war is taking, but it took less time to take Iraq than it took Janet Reno to take the Branch Davidian compound. That was a 51day operation."

American troops are still fighting in Iraq, so this is wrong as well; we have occupied the country, but the war is not over. [Update: In fact, now it's become a bloody civil war.]

"We've been looking for evidence of chemical weapons in Iraq for less time than it took Hillary Clinton to find the Rose Law Firm billing records."

This isn't true, either; UN inspection teams have been in and out of Iraq since the end of the first Gulf War in 1992, and two different Bush-appointed US inspection teams have failed to find any WMD.

"It took less time for the 3rd Infantry Division and the Marines to destroy the Medina Republican Guard than it took Teddy Kennedy to call the police after his Oldsmobile sank at Chappaquiddick."

Unfortunately, we'll never know if anyone was killed or injured as a result of George W. Bush's drunken-driving episodes since his records have been sealed from public view. And, as history has proven, it really doesn't matter how quickly we destroyed the Medina Republican Guard.

"It took less time to take Iraq than it took to count the votes in Florida."

Catch up on the news; the war in Iraq is hardly over.
One final thing: Neocons, be fair and balanced: Read back through this and replace Bush's name with Clinton's and then see how you feel about his presidency.
====================
New GOP TV Programming for October

- Macaca and Me
George Allen stars as 'Neck,' a wacky Californian from an upper-middle-class family transplanted to the rustic Virginia outback. Laugh along as George displays Confederate flags, ties lynch ropes, chews tobacco, leaves a dead deer head on a black family's property, and invents new racial slurs in an effort to win the hearts of the locals. If you liked "Hee Haw" and "Amos 'n' Andy," you'll love "Macaca and Me"!

- Maf54 - Where Are You?
Madcap hijinks abound as the Republican 'Animal House' Leadership chases 'Screwy' (Mark Foley) around trying to quietly make him quit sending lewd e-mails and IMs to the young 'uns in the Congressional Page program. Starring Denny Hastert as 'Flubber,' John Boehner as 'Boner' and Tom Reynolds as 'Bunghole.'

- All in the Family Business
You'll laugh and you'll cry, but mostly cry, at this stirring saga of life in an American crime family as Don Bandar (George Bush, Sr.) sends in his man Jimmy the Fixer (James Baker III) to set son Meathead (George Bush, Jr. ) straight on his war with the Iraq Gang. Also starring Don Rumsfeld as The Artful Dodger.

- I Love Looneys
If you're a conservative Christian, the laughs are on you as Satan's Apprentice Mackie V. (Karl Rove) plots and schemes to get you out to vote for people who contemptuously think you're nuts. Also starring Dick Cheney as the Antichrist.

- Don't Leave It to Beaver!
Prominent gay Republicans get together to chat about rank hypocrisy and charming closet decorations. Hosted by Ken Mehlman with Dave Dreier as 'Poofer,' Rush Limbaugh as 'Mrs. Beardsley' and Arnold Schwarzenegger as 'Muscles the Bi-Boy.'

- Introduction to Great American Fiction
Join host George W. Bush in examining some of the greatest works of fiction in the English language. In the first episode, Mr. Bush has his assistant Dan Bartlett read from the White House Iraq Group's report on Saddam Hussein's WMD (PNAC Publications, 2002). Later, Secretary of State Condoleezza Rice comments on highlights of her 9/11 Commission testimony and Mary Matalin reads from the speeches of Dick Cheney.

George and Tony Gassin' About Camus Edition

"White House spokesman Tony Snow said Bush 'found it [Albert Camus' 'The Stranger'] an interesting book and a quick read' and talked about it with aides. 'I don't want to go too deep into it, but we discussed the origins of existentialism,' said Snow."
-- John Dickerson, "Stranger and Stranger," Slate, Aug. 14, 2006.

White House Press Secretary Tony Snow claims he discussed Albert Camus and existentialism with George W. Bush?

Here's an imaginary transcript of that conversation:

SNOW: "Mr. President, did you have a chance to read that book by Camus yet?"

BUSH: "Uh, oh, yeah -- The Strangler, right?"

SNOW: "Close enough. What did you think of it?"

BUSH: "Wahl, that there Kha-Moo feller musta been pretty busy, whut with writin' books and inventin' camouflage and all."

SNOW: "Uh, I don't think he invent --"

BUSH: (BRAAAAATTTTT!!!) "Haw, haw, haw!"

SNOW: "Sweet Jesus, Mr. President! My eyes are tearing up!"

BUSH: "Haw, haw, haw!"

SNOW: "What do you think of the origins of the existentialist movement vis-a-vis Camus?"

BUSH: "Here's what I think!" (BRRRIIIIPPPP!) "Haw, haw, haw!"

SNOW: "Oh, my God -- get me a gas mask!"

BUSH: "Haw, haw -- exit-stencil-ism? This guy is some war-hatin' Frog, ain't he? I mean he's got one a them Frenchy names, don't he? I bet he wants tuh pull outta I-raq afore our mission's finished, don't he, like all them surrender monkeys over there want to?"

SNOW: "Well, actually, Mr. President, Camus' been dead for many years; he passed away long before the Iraq War started."

BUSH: "Oh, yeah? Think he smells like this by now?" (BRRRUUUPPPPTTT!) "Haw, haw, haw!"

SNOW: (Gasping for air.) "Ugh, argh -- open the window -- I can't breathe!"

BUSH: "Haw, haw, haw!"

SNOW: "Well, it's certainly -- cough, cough -- been nice discussing Camus and existentialism with you, Mr. President."

BUSH: "Sure, anytime, Tone. Say, lookit this -- I had Karl make me up a tape loop of that campfire scene from Blazin' Saddles. Hee, hee, just lissen tuh that!"

SNOW: "Well, that's very nice, sir. I'd better get downstairs and start today's press conference."

BUSH: "Hey, before yuh leave, grab that lighter off the table and come on over here. You ever played 'pull my finger,' Tone?"
------------------------
The True Cost of Iraq

According to John McLaughlin on PBS' The McLaughlin Group, the total cost to the American taxpayer of our occupation in Iraq, including care for wounded service personnel and other items not listed in the Bush Administration's budget, is $7.6 billion per month.

Just think, for one month of what we're spending in Iraq, we could completely rebuild the Gulf Coast and New Orleans and fix the levees; for one month of what we're spending in Iraq, we could provide first-class medical and rehabilitation care to all of our vets; for one month of what we're spending in Iraq, we could upgrade all of our anti-terrorist security systems, making them state-of-the-art instead of catch as catch can; for one month of what we're spending in Iraq, we could provide adequate funding for our public schools; for one month of what we're spending in Iraq, we could provide health care to Americans who are uninsured; for one month of what we're spending in Iraq, we could make sure our military families don't have to collect food stamps to get by and provide them with adequate housing; for one month of what we're spending in Iraq, we could improve our decaying highways and bridges; for one month of what we're spending in Iraq, we could underwrite the pension benefits of retirees who have been cheated by their former employers; for one month of what we're spending in Iraq, we could finance a program that would provide employment with decent wages for those whose jobs have been outsourced; for one month of what we're spending in Iraq, we could invest in technological and medical innovations that would create jobs here in the U.S and cure disease, and the list goes on.

For what we've spent so far on Bush's disaster in Iraq, we could have gone a long way towards bolstering Social Security and keeping our country out of the catastrophic debt Bush has incurred.

Sure, profitable private corporations like Halliburton and the military-industrial contractors wouldn't be getting filthy rich, but that's the way the cookie crumbles in a democracy where the government is run for the benefit of the people.

Which, according to our Constitution, is what we're supposed to be.

The Tattlesnake -- It's Not 'Just' About the War, Joe Edition

Bush's 'Mud Honey' Mired in Muck Because He's Also a DLC Corporate Whore

The other day Sen. Joe Lieberman, the Democratic Party's Benedict Arnold, appealed to Connecticut voters to look beyond his fervid support of Bush's Iraq Bust in the Dust and skim his 'liberal' record. Okay, Joe, let's do that.

Aside from Lieberman being the toast of Washington Neoconnery, as Lindsay Beyerstein at AlterNet recently delineated in "Who Blows Joe?":

True friends of Joe Lieberman include:

-- George W. Bush
-- College Republicans
-- Right-wing slimelord David Horowitz
-- Indicted former House Majority Leader Tom DeLay

Even kooky neocon doma-hatetrix Ann Coulter likes Joe, along with dozens of reactionary right-wingers of the so-called 'Mainstream' Mediaplex, such as oily RNC propagandist David Brooks of The New York Times, who wrote of Joltin' Joe, presumably with a strolling violinist scratching the theme from "Love Story" in the background and a bottle of the house's best bubbly on ice, "[He is] transparently the most kindhearted and well-intentioned of men." (Gasp, swoon -- where's the ring, Joe?)

Matt Taibbi, in "Bush's Favorite Democrat" from the August 10, 2006 edition of Rolling Stone, tears away Lieberman's avuncular old Elmer Fudd moralist guise to reveal the crass Under the Beltway monster beneath:

"[Joe Lieberman] is everything a Washington insider loves in a politician. He is pompous, pious and available. Routinely one of the very top recipients of campaign donations from the insurance, pharmaceutical and finance sectors, and a man whose wife, Hadassah, is a pharmaceutical-industry lobbyist for Hill and Knowlton, Lieberman has quietly become one of the greatest allies corporate America has in Washington."

In other words, the only difference between Lieberman and, say, GOP Senate Majority Leader Bill Frist, is the color of their hair and their alleged religious beliefs. ('Alleged' because both of these guys, at the end of the day, belong to one religion -- the Church of Mammon.)

Taibbi goes on to expose the other scat littering Lieberman's feculent record. While he may take off Saturdays to keep faith with his Old Testament God, Holy Joe spends the rest of the week giving the Devil more than his due.

-- In 1998, Lieberman was instrumental in the passage of a law to shield chemical companies like Dow and DuPont from lawsuits for producing shoddy medical device, such as breast implants. As Taibbi wrote, "Yes, that's right: Joe Lieberman fought for the principle of manufacturing faulty fake tits with impunity."

-- In 2001, Lieberman pumped for S. 1764, a bill lengthening the patent coverage held by big pharmaceutical companies, insuring that affordable generic versions of expensive medicines would take longer to reach the shelves. ("Take that, Mr. and Mrs. Retired America!") Joe hid his foul payback to his corporate contributors under misleading 'combating bioterrorism' rhetoric.

-- He has supported legislation banning federal money from organizations that counselled desperate suicidal teens that being gay wasn't a reason to take your own life.

-- He became a member of Lynne Cheney's American Council of Trustees and Alumni, an organization that seeks to limit the free speech of teachers should they dare to disagree with Mrs. Cheney's husband, and publishes a McCarthyesque blacklist of 'anti-American academics.'

-- A darling of the insurance companies, he sponsored a bill that limited lawsuits against auto insurers and allowed lower consumer insurance rates, in exchange for the public forfeiting their right to sue the insurer.

-- Lieberman has a consistent record of jumping onboard much of the Republican social-oppression agenda, especially as it extends to the activities of private citizens in their own bedrooms. ("Is that fellatio I see? You'll have to come with me, sir. No, not like that!")

-- Lieberman has voted for NAFTA, CAFTA and a host of other legislation that disenfranchises American workers to enhance the profits of multi-national corporations. He has also accepted campaign contributions from Wal-Mart's right-wing PAC, while presenting himself as a populist 'man of the people' -- yeah, Joe, the rich people.

-- He practically invented the benighted Department of Homeland Security, rubber-stamped the incompetent Michael Brown as head of FEMA, and voted to put the Federalist Society's Samuel Alito on the Supreme Court. (The Federalist's believe strongly in the 'unitary executive' theory, essentially meaning the president is above the law and rules as a monarch.) He also voted for John Roberts on the SC, and Bush's tax cuts for the wealthy.

-- In 1997 -- slap o' the forehead -- he tried to blame the Columbine massacre on rock music lyrics.

-- In the 1990s, Joe also tied his rickety wagon to the GOP 'Impeach Clinton' bandwagon on 'moral' grounds, yet he has never spoken out against Bush on the immorality of his various wars. Like most Bible-belted neocons, sex is always more horrible and disgusting than the dead bodies of young people killed in an unnecessary war.

-- In his campaign against Ned Lamont, Lieberman has adopted such choice GOP tactics as spreading handbills in black neighborhoods with a picture of Joe with Bill Clinton on the cover; on the back, the copy subtly implies that Lamont is some kind of rich white elitist, as if the coddled three-term Senator Lieberman isn't. His campaign has also loaded Lamont coffee-shop stops with Lieberman supporters, and planted hecklers in the crowd to disrupt Lamont campaign events. Karl Rove would be proud.

This then, apart from his support for Bush's Iraq disaster, is the real face of Joe Lieberman: A vicious warmongering Religo-Right neocon moralist, tirelessly defending corporations as they rip asunder what's left of Main Street America; crapping on the poor and working class while posing as a progressive Democrat whose only true liberality lies in his specious use of quotes from Martin Luther King Jr. to huckster up the Democratic vote.

Dark rumors surfaced several years ago that Lieberman, when he was Gore's Veep candidate in 2000, was a secret back-channel link to the Bush campaign, apprising them in advance of Gore's next move in the campaign and contested Florida vote, a conspiracy theory that assumes some solidity considering who Joe's most ardent supporters are these days.

No wonder Bush planted a big wet one on Elmer Fudd; he may owe his presidency to the Senator from Connecticut, AKA 'Traitor Joe.'

The Tattlesnake -- Waiting For...Oh, God Edition

Stop and Smell the Rose Garden
or, The Importance of Being Ernest in the White House

June 15, 2006 -- The Tattlesnake has never actually seen someone whacked across the back of the head with a 2" X 4" but, if he had, he could imagine the look on the face of the 'whackee' as being very similar to the expressions of some members of the White House Press Chorus Wednesday morning as they listened to President Bumblefutz verbally stagger his way through yet another painful and embarrassing press conference.

As Bush did Jon Stewart doing Bush, your Tattlesnake couldn't help but try to recall where he had seen such a performance before.

Then, through the hazy layers of years of ruinated brain cells sacrificed to the joys of low-living, emerged the answer: Bush was really imitating Ernest P. Worrell, the kid-flick Gomeresque goofus created by actor/comedian Jim Varney.

Whenever the Scourge of World Terrorism (as he's known with a wink and elbow dig around Al-Qaeda HQ), has a good week, as we've been assured by Republicans and their media coat carriers that Bush has had, he always holds a press conference where he lapses into the most irritating form of hyuk-hyuk white-trash shuck and jive this side of a "Hee Haw" rerun.

But it's not just his 'Ernest Goes to Baghdad' presentation that annoys; his ideas are so comically inane and stale you have to wonder if he's just trying to see how much he can get away with before the WHPC break out laughing uncontrollably.

Reproduced from bleary memory -- so don't expect even Fox News transcript accuracy -- here are some highlights (or the opposite) of El Roto's flapping-softshoe session:

Answering a reporter's question concerning his recent secret trip to Iraq:

"Yuh see, ah'm the decider who decided to do that trip. It's dangeous out there and ah'm like a prime target or somethin' so we kept it all under the hat, an' no, ah don't mean that guy's black hat -- whut's his name, Alabamoff? Asimov? -- that ah only had a couple pictures taken with and don't know from Adam.

"Yuh see, that's whut deciders do -- they decide. An' ah decided to decide that we'd go on this here secret trip and visit up with the I-raqis over there in I-raq, the place where ah decided to send our troops to fight the terraists and, God bless 'em, they're doin' a heckuva job there, ah mean our troops, thanks tuh strong leadership from strong deciders here in the White House and over there in the mil'tary command with strong plans."

When asked about his surprise meeting with new Iraqi Prime Minister Nouri al-Maliki:

"Ah could tell jus' by looking at him -- lookin' him in the eye -- that he was a strong leader like me, an' a strong leader who's gonna show some strong leadership to the I-raqi peepul, just like Amurkins like me because of muh strong leadership here in Amurka. It's a tough job he's got, but he's tough enough tuh do it, 'cause he's a strong leader with strong plans and strong decisions he's made. See, strong leaders have strong plans so they can be strong deciders when the time comes to be decidin'. You gotta have yourself a strong plan if you're gonna be a strong leader with strong plans that yuh make from them strong deciders, or when yuh make strong plans that lead tuh strong decision makin'.

"Now, a course, since he's head of this here free and democratic government they got in I-raq now, he's gotta respond to the will of the peepul, 'cause that's what strong leaders do in a free democracy, even if they got themselves strong plans and strong decisions tuh make. Otherwise, yuh got yourself a tyranny where yuh can have a strong decidin' leader with strong plans but the peepul don't have no say -- see, that's what yuh call a tyranny -- I mean, most of the time, 'cause sometimes tyrants have tuh lissen tuh the peepul, but not like they have tuh lissen in a free democracy like I-raq is now."

Responding to a question about Iraq's infrastructure:

"Well, this here Prime Minister Malarkey is a mighty good man. Ah could tell when ah looked in his eyes an' talked tuh him for five minutes that he was a good man and a strong leader with strong plans and strong decisions tuh make. An' he'll make 'em, because of all his strongness.

"Now, everbody over there wants electricity. See, your appliances like the refrigerator and the air conditioner can't run without some electricity. So we got tuh get that juice runnin'. Boy, an' they sure need some electricity over there 'cause -- whoo doggies! -- it's hot! See, that part of the world ah've learned from muh close advisers is mighty hot, with deserts and things, so they need that air conditionin' bad. See, the Prime Minister tol' me he had his electricity man up workin' on gettin' the power goin' -- you know, power tuh the peepul, huh, huh -- but it's hard tuh keep it runnin' when we keep bombin' it -- ah mean, the terraist insurgents keep bombin' it. Y'know, we jus' want tuh practice our love on the I-raqi peepul an' show 'em we're the kind of neighbors they can depend on tuh never leave -- ah mean, leave 'em with th' terraists who hate freedom and democracy an' our strong plans for a stable democracy in the Middle East kinda like Israel, but with A-rabs instead a Jews. But it's kinda hard tuh stuff that down their throats all at once after they been used tuh Sad-dam Hussein, the world's most evil man, doin' the stuffin', but they'll come around 'cause we got strong leaders with strong plans and strong deciders an' whut's on the other side but Democrats who can't decide what tuh order for breakfast? That's why we'll win, 'cause, like Darwin said, only the strong survive. Not that ah believe in Darwin a course, 'cause ah'm a good Christian man who has Gawd tell me whut's whut, not Percy Darwin."

On a question regarding Karl Rove escaping indictment in the Plamegate case:

"That there Pat Fitzgerald fella is a fine man. Fair and balanced an' doin' a heckuva prosecutin' job, except with Scooter, but we can afford tuh cut him loose. Ah knew Karl was innocent all along, even if'n he lied a few times, but that's not illegal, 'cause see the president -- that's me -- says it wasn't illegal. See, ah got special powers in wartime to make the laws, that's whut muh Attorney Gen'ral Gonzales says the Constitution says, so ah can make it that Karl wasn't lyin' or doin' nothin' illegal in this here ongoing investigation I can't talk about, 'cause it's all a national security thing, and we can't let our enemies find out that Karl was lyin' or whatever for political reasons cause then they might use it against us, see? Ah mean, Karl's the reason ah'm here talkin' tuh yuh as president, an' one a the finest public servants ah've ever known. So that's the reason we can't afford tuh have Karl in a jail cell somewhere or tied up in court. Ah mean he knows too much -- wait, uh, er... ah meant to say he has valuable advice that can help me make the right strong decisions when it comes time tuh put my strong decider hat on an', since we're back talkin' about hats again, ah think that's a good time tuh stop this here press conference. Hey, you with the sunglasses: nice touch, moron! Gawd bless Amurka an' yuh all have a nice day."

Some dedicated investigative reporter should check the Crawford vacation Ranch; I'll bet, in the stable, they'll find a horse missing its ass.
------------------------------
Today's Quote

"The stars are in alignment for a new national orgy of rancor because Americans are angry. The government has failed to alleviate gas prices, the economic anxieties of globalization or turmoil in Iraq. Two-thirds of Americans believe their country is on the wrong track. The historical response to that plight is a witch hunt for scapegoats on whom we can project our rage and impotence. Gay people, though traditionally handy for that role, aren't the surefire scapegoats they once were; support for a constitutional marriage amendment, ABC News found, fell to 42 percent just before the Senate vote. Hence the rise of a juicier target: Hispanics. They are the new gays, the foremost political pinata in the election year of 2006."
-- Frank Rich, "How Hispanics Became the New Gays," The New York Times, June 11, 2006. [Requires subscription]

The Gas War and Other Loose Leakers Edition

Passing Gas to Your Friends; Thank You, Meester Boosh!

-- The Gas War is On: Recently, an acquaintance of Tattlesnake's was held up at gun point in the alley right behind his own home. Luckily, he wasn't harmed and nothing was taken but his credit cards. Sadly, for a city the size of Chicago, this was an unremarkable mugging, or would have been until the whole story came out.

When my friend was calling around cancelling his credit cards and making a police report, he discovered that the two young teenagers (15, 16 year olds) who stuck him up immediately went to the gas station and charged hundreds of dollars worth of gas. The police and credit card folks told him this was the new trend since gas prices shot up: Kids heist credit cards and take the whole gang to the gas station where they all fill up, then they quickly ditch the cards. Fortunately, my buddy won't be charged for the gas since he reported the stolen cards right away, but it led Tattlesnake to think that this is the on-the-ground result of living in CEO Bush's American Oiligarchy -- people stealing for gasoline.

Well, at least ExxonMobil is getting filthy rich.

-- What's Wrong with America, #256: The Main Squeeze recently received a gift from her dear elderly mother; a couple of 'hair scrunchies' -- those puffy ponytail holders -- each decorated with a spray of gauzy fabric holding a little red, white or blue star at the end of a translucent strand. It's supposed to look like a burst of fireworks, I guess, but definitely not the Squeeze's style. (Poor Mom can't help it -- she's old.) The Tattlesnake, donning his Investigative Reporter hat (kept behind the stained bottle of Angostura bitters in the liquor cabinet), carefully eyeballed the label: Hmmm, "Patriot Pride"; next line, "HAIR TUTU," and below that, "Wear it with pride!" Okay, well, God bless America and Kate Friggin' Smith. Flip the label over, though, and it read, just beneath the bar code: "D.M. Production, Elmhurst, IL 60126, #USA-TU." But right in the middle, in all caps, it screamed: "MADE IN CHINA".

WTF?! "Patriot Pride"?!

This joins the Museum of Thudding, Jaw-Dropping, Head-Slapping Irony, along with Dubya's photo-op promoting his wondrous work on the economy where his advance team covered 'Made in China' stamps on factory boxes with 'Made in America' labels, and those little American flags pro-war demonstrators often frantically wave, supporting our troops by wanting them to stay in combat in Iraq. Tiny labels are affixed to the sticks holding each flag. Yes, you've already guessed what they say, in eight-point type.

I'd tell everyone to write 'D.M. Production' and ask what in the hell they were thinking, but we'd probably only get a visit from O'Reilly's Fox News Security patrol asking us to explain why we're engaging in such 'un-American' activities. I wonder if D.M. also sells rope...

-- Winning Broken Hearts with Broken Minds: It still hasn't dawned on the Bush Keyboard Kommandos and Neocon Desk Jockeys that fighting the insurgency in Iraq is like fighting water with a hammer; it doesn't matter how hard you hit the water, nor how big the hammer, the water simply scatters and it's still there. The insurgency is still there, and will still be there in the future because, contrary to the ill-winds emanating from the Pentagon and the White House, it's largely made up of Iraqis fighting to get rid of us.

Haditha, Abu Ghraib, the destruction of Fallujah, ad nauseum. The stories of all of these disasters passed among the Iraqis long before they were heard by American ears, the consequence of over-stressed troops, low morale, inept leadership, and governmental paranoia. It's too late to convince the majority of Iraq that we are anything but Saddam in a different uniform and it's past time to take the advice of Rep. Jack Murtha and dozens of retired military brass and pull our forces back to the borders and let the Iraqis form their own government and police themselves, even if that means a civil war (already in progress). At this point, it's the only way out and every death or maiming of one of our guys is simply a sacrifice on the altar of Bush arrogance and incompetence.

-- Finally, every day I hear the MSM go on about Bush doing something or other to placate his 'base' -- now about 30 percent of the population and falling. Here are a couple of questions they never ask: As president, Bush is supposed to represent all of the people -- when does he start working for the nation instead of this confused minority? Why should we pay him and his cabinet (and the Republicans in Congress) to cater to a group the majority doesn't agree with?
-------------------------
Best Quote Yet on Rove's Immigration Distraction

"Show me a 50-foot wall, and I'll show you a 51-foot ladder."
-- Gov. Janet Napolitano [D-AZ], on building
a wall to stop immigrants. Quoted by Molly Ivins in "Yes, I Am Actually Calling Them Racist," Truthdig, May 22, 2006.

Chicks No Chickens Edition

Dixie Chicks Talk Turkey and Win Despite the Wide Open Spaces Between the Ears of Neocon Detractors

In March 2003, after the Dixie Chicks' Natalie Maines told an audience in England that she was ashamed that George W. Bush was from her home state of Texas, you'd have thought, from the frothing reaction of the Usual GOP Bush Protectors, that she'd announced her engagement to Osama bin Laden.

Moreover Maines, showing a spine Democrats should study, refused to apologize or back down from her comment. As organized letter-writing and calling campaigns (can you say 'Rove'?) besieged country radio stations (most of them affiliated with Bush-friendly Clear Channel Radio), urging them to stop playing Dixie Chicks music, and the news showed shots of alleged former fans of the group destroying their CD's, many of the Republican brand smugly informed the public that, sure, Natalie Maines had her right to free speech but warned gleefully that, as the price for using it, she was going to have to 'suffer the consequences.' Even King Junior himself entered the fray, telling NBC in an interview in April 2003 that "Freedom is a two-way street," implying that those who might speak out against him would pay a price, perhaps even losing their livelihood.

(Strangely, those of us who have done more than glance at the Constitution never noticed that it said any suffering or price should be attached to exercising your right of free speech, especially losing your means of supporting yourself, but then the Rovian Bushistas can get very creative in their ugly smear campaigns.)

Various members of the punditocracy of the day predicted a quick and unseemly demise for the Chicks for committing the new post-9/11 crime of expressing your honest opinion. That prediction was belied by the packed concert halls that accompanied their American tour following the flap, with only a handful of sorry stragglers outside holding shabby anti-Chicks signs.

At any rate, fast forward to the present, where the Chicks are 'suffering the consequences' of opposing Bush by being the biggest-selling female group in history, with a number one album on both the Billboard charts and the Internet. (Tattlesnake wonders how many other popular musical artists who disliked Bush and the Iraq debacle but held their tongue back in 2003 are kicking themselves now?)

Only such a revered fount of establishment journalism such as Time could so misread the mood of the nation by having a cover photo of the band with the legend "Radical Chicks" splashed below them. Radical? In poll after poll, two-thirds of the nation agree with them on Bush and the Iraq War. That sounds more 'mainstream' than radical.

In an interview with Larry King May 31st, the Chicks still refused to buckle to the right-wing Bush Noise Machine, and they are more popular than ever, a lesson our feebly fainthearted Democrats in Washington might take to heart.

By the way, the first female U.S. president shouldn't be that politically-bendable Gumby doll Hillary, it should be Natalie Maines -- pretty, smart, takes no guff, and she can sing, too. And Randi Rhodes would be the perfect Veep for her.

Not that it's ever going to happen, but the Tattlesnake would enthusiastically join the 'Maines-stream' in 2008, especially with Randi as the anti-Cheney.

Besides, Natalie would be the first president who could sing "The Star-Spangled Banner" at her own inauguration.
--------------------------------

Today's Quote: Vindication

"But now those harsh critics [of the Bush Administration] have been vindicated. And it turns out that many of the administration supporters can't handle the truth. They won't admit that they built a personality cult around a man who has proved almost pathetically unequal to the job. Nor will they admit that opponents of the Iraq war, whom they called traitors ..., have been proved right. So they have taken refuge in the belief that a vast conspiracy of America-haters in the media is hiding the good news from the public.

"Unlike the crazy conspiracy theories of the left -- which do exist, but are supported only by a tiny fringe -- the crazy conspiracy theories of the right are supported by important people: powerful politicians, television personalities with large audiences. And we can safely predict that these people will never concede that they were wrong. When the Iraq venture comes to a bad end, they won't blame those who led us into the quagmire; they'll claim that it was all the fault of the liberal media, which stabbed our troops in the back."
-- Paul Krugman, "Who's Crazy Now?" The New York Times, May 8, 2006. [Requires subscription.]

The Enron Jesus and Other Rambling Ruminations Edition

-- Republican Prince of Piece of the Pie: The most gag-inducing moment of Kenny Boy's trial came shortly after the jury's verdict convicting Enron-bandito Lay of all charges was announced. Reportedly, Lay and his chums gathered in a corner of the courtroom with a Baptist minister to pray, which allowed the minister a chance to compare the Enron swindler's conviction to that of another 'innocent' man -- Jesus. Let's check the history here a moment: From the New Testament, we're informed that Jesus was crucified for proposing that we stop our soul-deadening hypocrisy, renounce violence, try to love and understand one another, and because he was a threat to the politically powerful moneyed class of his day; Kenny Boy, on the other hand, was one of the politically powerful moneyed class of his day who screwed his investors out of millions while he regularly practiced soul-deadening hypocrisy to keep the cash flowing in, and supports a government that uses violence to destroy those it doesn't understand. Yep, that's an exact analogy alright!

Perhaps the minister, when he sobered up, meant the Biblical tale of Barabbas, the lifelong criminal who was picked by the crowd to be spared instead of Jesus, much to the surprise of the Roman governor of Judea, Pontius Pilate.

Speaking of Pilate, Kenny Boy has his own version of a Roman territorial despot, let's call him Pontius Dubya, ruling the land. If 'Mr. Lay' can prolong his appeals for a few years, his old Texas pal will no doubt pardon him as he leaves office and Enron's 'Bush Pioneer' will not have to think twice if he drops the soap in the shower.

-- Side Prediction: Bandar Bush Junior will set a record for presidential pardons just before he leaves office; Lay, DeLay, Ney (oy vey!), Scooter and a whole host of other Republican ne'er-do-wells will never see the inside of a jail cell, thanks to their Old Friend in the Oval Office.

-- Speaking of the Midland Mouse That Roared: Last night he and Frack -- I mean Tony Blair --held a joint primetime press conference to repeat the same guff they've been peddling for years. The only interesting moment came when each were asked if they had any regrets. Bush mourned his jackass cowboy routines of 2001 - 2003, especially telling the terrorists to 'Bring it on' and other such immature TV Wild West staples like wanting bin Laden 'dead or alive.' Gee, Junior, anyone over the age of consent could have told you such boasts would make you look like an asshole (except to your goofy 'base,' of course), but I'm sure America is glad to pay for your on-the-job training; read the poll numbers. Too bad you haven't seemed to learn a whole lot since then.

On Blair's side, the Tattlesnake didn't really know what in hell he was talking about -- it seemed that someone gave him the 'stretch' sign and he was vamping for time, just twittering away vacuously -- probably either regretting we didn't find WMD or that he just wet his pants. What struck me most is that neither one of these self-involved yuppies regretted the loss of life from their unnecessary invasion. They didn't have to admit the Iraq War was a dead skunk in the middle of the road to say something like, "While we believe the Iraq War is necessary to preserve blah, blah, blah, we regret the loss of our men and women in the armed forces and that of the Iraqi people." Of course, that would have taken some compassion and some class, both in short supply for our 'Wartime President' and his British Lapdog.

-- Incidentally, the Bush Boy said he's going to miss Tony's 'red ties' when Blair leaves office -- somebody get Hannity on the case; that sounds vaguely pinko to me.

-- Finally, last night on a Discovery Channel show about CIA mind control experiments in the '50s and '60s -- using drugs such as LSD, electro-shock therapy, brainwashing techniques and hypnotism, occasionally on innocent civilians -- it was mentioned that some senior members of the Ford Administration recommended classifying the documents so that the American public would never know the terrible, illegal things that had been done in their name. The senior members? Dick Cheney and Don Rumsfeld.

Tooting Around the Horn Edition

Alberto's Abridged Too Far and Other Neoconniving Numbskullery

-- Let's review: Attorney General Alberto Gonzales, who is known in some circles as 'Torture Boy' due to his memo wherein he provided BushCo with wrongheaded legal justification to torture prisoners and called the Constitution a 'quaint' document, thinks it's okay to search the offices of a Congress-creature because Congress shouldn't be 'above the law.' Hmmmm, isn't this the same AG Gonzales who claimed the president didn't have to follow the Constitution or international treaties because, during 'wartime' (for a war that hasn't been legally declared by Congress), the president is, according to his unique interpretation, 'above the law'? Alberto has also threatened to toss reporters in jail who embarrass the White House, such as disclosing the recent warrantless NSA domestic spying campaign that the Bushites insisted didn't exist. So, once again, we are treated to Gonzales' bizarre reading of a document he took an oath to uphold, but thinks is quaint and largely irrelevant. The First Amendment clearly states the freedom of the press shall not be abridged, the Founders acknowledging that only a press free of fear of government reprisal would be able to properly hold it to account. Now, Torture Boy wants to make our nearly supine MSM even more fearfully comatose by prosecuting reporters who reveal information of illegal government activity; he apparently believes a few words should be added to the First Amendment: The freedom of the press shall not be abridged, unless they go too far. If the Dems take control of Congress next year and want to impeach somebody, they should start with this fork-tongued lizard.

-- The various mainstream pundits are now serving up the dreaded Conventional Wisdom roadkill that the Dems can't win in November unless they all march in lockstep with exactly the same 'message' and have one leader -- be it Nancy Pelosi, Hillary Clinton, Harry Reid or whoever -- with a sack of Cliff Notes talking points for all those unwashed masses out in Fly-Over Country for whom our media has such quiet contempt. You know, the same people who hold the goose-march GOP and their always-on-message leader in such high regard these days. When a David Gergen or Tim Russert or other solon of the airwaves asks themselves what the Dems stand for, they just can't think of a thing. (Thanks for regurgitating the RNC's talking points, boys; ah, the vast liberal media conspiracy at work.) Maybe they should listen to what is promoted as 'the news' on the networks who pay them handsomely for their bubbleheaded opinions; they might learn that the Dems have actually advanced a few plans, when they take a break from bashing the poor, defenseless Republicans. Sure, every Dem doesn't agree completely with each point or program -- welcome to democracy, something we could use some more of these days. The Corporate Shill Patrol seems to value moronic messages and repeated sound bites over the messiness and debate of our form of government, which is exactly how we ended up in the ugly spot where the Republicans have taken us, on issues ranging from Iraq to health care. Karl Rove's GOP is great on lockstep sound bites and bumper-sticker themes, what they can't do is govern competently like mature adults; that takes judgment, consideration, comprehension, nuance, finesse and diplomacy, all in short supply in the Bush White House. Tattlesnake would suggest the various networks dock their political prognosticators a thousand bucks for every prediction they make that turns out to be wrong, but we have enough people begging in the streets as it is -- although the notion of Tim Russert meeting the press with his hand out for spare change has a certain appeal.

-- Speaking of the MSM political pundirazzi, Howard Fineman is the latest in a string of media miscreants who keep touting Bush's wonderful economy, as in this line from one of his recent articles: "The claim is that doing so will sustain overall economic growth (which has been pretty impressive, even though Bush gets no credit for it.)" Tattlesnake can't even count on all his appendages how many times he's heard this CW scat repeated by the mainline media in the past month. Maybe within Fineman's tennis-whites D.C. cocktail party circuit, tax breaks, stock dividends and getting rich from betting against the dollar are causing a bulge in their chinos (or are they just glad to see Bush?), but out in the cheese-fries hinterlands where they film the jiggling, from-the-neck-down clips that accompany their various narrow-eyed denunciations of expanding American obesity (followed by the obligatory Burger King ad, of course), things just aren't all that great. Mr. and Mrs. Living-Two-Paychecks-To-Paycheck aren't impressed with the roaring economy as they raid the couch cushions to fill the tank of the family ride; decent-paying blue-collar manufacturing jobs are vanishing, along with the white-collar middle-managers that go with them; recent grads trying to find employment with a salary large enough to repay their college loans and still afford an apartment are finding both few and far between (more and more are moving back in with the 'Grups' and taking a low-income McJob); credit card debt is jacked up to record highs for most Americans, just to keep the sinking head slightly above water; disillusioned, hollow-eyed men and women, who have had the rug pulled out from underneath them thanks to the magic of outsourcing or downsizing, force themselves to smile their way through interviews for jobs that pay half of what they were making before; other workers are watching their hard-earned benefits and pensions fall by the wayside; and prices continue to rise as the devalued dollar rapidly inflates. If this is an 'impressive economy' please, let's have one more Eisenhower stodgy.

-- Good for ABC News for not backing down on its reporting regarding the FBI investigation of Republican House Speaker Dennis Hastert for fraud and corruption. This is a story some steady Tattlesnake readers (all five of them) may recall 'moi' mentioning many months ago. Hastert, the hefty oleaginous bag of wind who was picked to be Speaker in the late 90s solely because he was the only senior Republican the GOP could find during the Clinton sex persecutions who didn't have some lascivious hanky-panky he was hiding (seriously) and because he would dumbly follow orders, has vehemently denied the charges that's he's under investigation, as GOP chieftains commonly do these days, usually about a month before the indictments are delivered. Major Rumor is Denny has some 'splainin' to do about misuse of campaign funds in home-state Illinois and possible connection to a heavy-money fraudulent real estate deal there. Couldn't come at a better time for the GOP, from the Tattlesnake's point of view. DeLay, Ney, Frist, and, possibly, Denny the Hutt -- who will the RNC have left to run as incumbents when the flurry of indictments and resignations come down between now and next November?

-- Speaking of Sen. Dr. 'Dollar Bill' Frist, word on the street is that he may be ducking subpoena servers before Labor Day as new revelations concerning his profitable 'blind trust' investments and other corruption come to light. Folks, you once again heard it here first, er... 'Frist': Look for an unexpected link-up between Jack Abramoff, Mike Scanlon, Dusty Foggo, Frist, Sen. 'St. Rick' Santorum and other upper-level House and Senate Republicans. The warblers are out in Washington this spring, and what tales they're singing. Santorum may want to quit before he's embarrassed by the election results next November, and the words 'President Frist' will only serve as the punchline of a bad joke after 2008.

-- Sure, the Tattlesnake is all for making English the standard language of the U.S., just as soon as the 'misunderestimated' George W. Bush starts speaking and writing as well as the average Yale graduate. And he must take the test on live nationwide TV without a Teleprompter, too.

-- Finally, isn't it about time somebody wrote a book called "100 Ways Bernard Goldberg is Ruining America"?

Political Ins and Outs Edition

IN: Stone walls for corrupt Republicans
OUT: Stonewalling by corrupt Republicans

IN: Outrage at the government
OUT: Outrages by the government

IN: Working for Change
OUT: Change for working

IN: Immigrant work force
OUT: Working over immigrants

IN: Hybrid vehicles
OUT: High bread vehicles

IN: "Where are my damn rights?"
OUT: "Thank you, sir, may I have another?"

IN: Campus Democrats for Change
OUT: Old Republicans for the Same Old Shit

IN: Presidential impersonator Steve Bridges
OUT: Presidential impersonator George W. Bush

IN: DeLay's leaving Congress
OUT: DeLay's Congressional leavings

IN: Summer rum and cola
OUT: Bummer Rummy's COLA

IN: Fitzgerald nearly finished with prosecutions
OUT: Rove nearly finished by prosecutions

IN: Liberty and freedom
OUT: Libby's freedom

IN: The Dixie Chicks
OUT: The Dixie Hypocrites

IN: Hurricane season
OUT: Michael Chertoff

IN: Fox News commentator Tony Snow as Bush Press Secretary
OUT: Bush Press Secretary Scott McClellan, Fox's newest commentator

IN: Bill of Rights
OUT: Billing rights

IN: Intelligence
OUT: Porter Goss

IN: Congressional investigations
OUT: Michael Hayden

IN: Picnics
OUT: PNAC's

IN: Stephen Colbert
OUT: Bill O'Reilly

IN: Really challenging media garbage
OUT: Garbage media reality challenges

IN: Bikinis at all the beaches scenes
OUT: Bikini Atoll and On the Beach scenes

IN: Retired generals
OUT: Retread generals
---------------------
Today's Quote: A Bush Too Far

"Modern history offers no precedent of a president climbing from a hole as deep as the one Bush finds himself in, and White House strategists have concluded that no staff shake-up or other quick fix will alter their trajectory. In the sixth year of his tenure, they said, Bush cannot easily change the minds of voters whose impressions are fully formed."
-- Peter Baker and Jim VandeHei, "Midterm elections crux of GOP strategy," Washington Post, May 22, 2006.

My Name is Oil and Other Irritants Edition

Skimming the Septic Tank of the News

-- It's about time for these naive simps in the MSM and on the starboard side of Blogospheria (the public restroom of the Information Superhighway), to stop 'opining' that the Iraq War is about anything but controlling the price of oil. Big Oil is raking it in, and so stuffed with profit they don't know what to do with all the cash; Bush's pals in the royal family of Saudi Arabia are likewise glutted, which means the Bush family, with extensive investments in petroleum, are also swimming in oil profits. The war in Iraq, like most wars, is about well-heeled heels making a buck from the sacrifice of the patriotic peasantry; to pretend otherwise is irritating and false. Bush doesn't want a free and open democracy in Iraq, nor anywhere else; he wants a government that will control oil production to his liking. To pretend otherwise is just an insult to intelligence, common sense, and the dictates of evidence.

-- According to MSNBC, God has spoken to Pat Robertson again, this time to predict the weather. Pat says the Almighty Creator of the Universe, apparently with nothing better to do, informed the 700 Clubber that this weather season is going to be worse than last, with hurricanes of greater intensity, and a possible tsunami hitting somewhere on American shores, because this is just the kind of thing Robbo's Loving Christian God serves up to people who don't do Crazy Pat's bidding. (Watch CBN headquarters get flooded by a torrential rain; can't wait to hear the excuses.) This is funny since agnostic scientists who believe in E-vo-lution have been predicting the same thing, not from chat sessions with the Lawd, but from calculating the effects of global warming and weather patterns. It's a shame that Pat is so far gone he never considers that that voice in his head isn't God but someone a little warmer, hornier, and closer to his heart; the same 'deity' that assured him Bush would win by a landslide in 2004 when he barely eked out a 51-49 percent victory.

SATAN: "Pat, this is God."

PAT: "Yes, I recognize your voice, Lord. You sound just like James Mason in 'Lolita.'"

SATAN: "Good, Pat. Listen, this year the weather's going to be mighty nasty; lots of hurricanes, tornadoes, maybe even a tsunami. Go scare your viewers with the news."

PAT: "Oh, I will, Lord. Say, what's that I hear in the background? Is that a fire crackling?"

SATAN: "Just roasting a few sinners for din...uh, just having a little wienie roast here in heaven. Dick Nixon's our featured guest tonight."

PAT: "Oooooh, Nixon, our second greatest president after Dubya. Say, is that giggling I hear, Lord?"

SATAN: "Mind your own beeswax, Pat. Listen, I have to sign off now; I have to make sure the Iranians get some nukes so Bush can have his war."

PAT: "Thank you, Lord. Say hello to Jesus for me."

SATAN: "Fat chanc...er, sure, Pat, you bet! Ta, ta."

-- Why doesn't our intrepid Washington media (stop smirking) ever ask the Bush White House to explain how much the Bush family and every member of his cabinet, all of whom crack the millionaire mark, have gained from Bush's munificent tax cuts for the wealthy, and why it's ethical for them to enrich themselves by handing themselves tax breaks? For that matter, most of our lawmakers on Capitol Hill are rich; why aren't they questioned on this point as well? When the Clinton's gained financially through Hillary's trading, they were derided mercilessly; if Bill had passed tax laws that benefited his family, the neocon media would still be frothing about it. Yet, the Bush regime skates free. Oh, I forgot: It's the US media -- here, boy, fetch, fetch, come get your biscuit ...

-- Speaking of the Bush Boy, his immigration speech received bad reviews from a broad spectrum of the political punditry, as lefties, righties and fence-squatters panned El Presidente's pandering. The righties had their BVD's knotted over Bush's 'amnesty' program; the left over his duncely and pricey border lock-down and immigrant crackdown plans; while the middle of the roaders were exercised over the fact that the whole thing just wouldn't work. What a waste of airtime. The pertinent questions even a few of the more astute of our Fourth Estate dead asses got around to asking were: Since we're deeply in debt (thank you, Republicans), exactly where do the billions come from to implement Bush's immigration schemes? With the Army stretched so thin they're sending PTSD soldiers back to fight in Iraq, exactly from whereat do the 6,000 National Guardsmen materialize to guard the border, and, without the power of arrest or seizure, exactly what good will they do? (And, considering the stunning level of ineptitude of BushCo, even if they find the troops by combing mental hospitals and drug rehab clinics, they'll no doubt be outfitted with parkas and skis by Homeland Security, along with Swedish to English dictionaries.) So, Bush's prime time boom was a bust, and his ratings continue to slide, except in those internal RNC polls Karl Rove is fond of citing which claim that over 60 percent just "like this president" personally. Which leads to this question: Did they confine their polling to the Republican National Committee headquarters, or did they ask staffers at the White House as well?

Paradise Costs Edition

What if 'The Terror' Won the War on Error?

Let's say the neocon carpers and whiners were granted their wish: Tomorrow, every single person they hate, including despicable Democrats, liberals, the Clintons, moonbats, bloggers, pinkos, wackos, socialists, commies, agnostics, atheists, Buddhists, dissidents, free-speech nuts, pacifists, porn stars, school teachers, college professors, Hollyweird actors, humanists, free-thinkers, skeptics, Amnesty Internationalists, Francophiles, women's libbers, ACLUers, Darwinists, environmentalists, scientists, gays, lesbians, San Franciscans, Brokeback Mountaineers, flag-burners, unionists, the unemployed and welfare recipients, along with Howard Dean, Sean Penn, Michael Moore and Cindy Sheehan, and anybody else who doesn't think George W. Bush is the greatest thing since sliced baptism, simply vanished, in a sort of Hunter S. Thompson version of the Rapture, and the country was left inhabited solely by those who worship at the clay feet of the All-Knowing Dubya.

Bush's poll numbers instantly would be at 100 percent in every category and his handlers wouldn't have to pre-screen crowds any longer, since every single person showing up would gush drool like this:

"Mr. President, I just thank God and Jesus every day that you're our leader."

"Heh, heh, thank you. Uh, er...is that a question?"

"My question is: Would you please be our leader forever, O Most Godly and Infallible One?"

It is the neocon paradise in every respect.

The thing is, what would be any different? What could Bush do in a completely neoconned America that he can't do now? Ignore the Constitution and the Bill of Rights? No, he already does that. Throw more people he decides are 'enemy combatants' in jail without charges? No, he can do that, too. Torture enemies of the state? No, that's already happening. Further run up the national debt? No, that mission's accomplished also. Reward even more fat government contracts to his friends? No, nothing's stopping him there. Increase funding for his Iraq War? No, the Congress has already appropriated every penny he's requested.

Sure, there would be no more investigations and Fitzgerald prosecutions; the news media would be full of peppy blather about all of Bush's imaginary 'successes,' and nary a peep would be heard about New Orleans, rank incompetence, civil liberties, the economy, the death toll in Iraq, the Taliban coming back to power in Afghanistan, nor any other rude facts that might intrude on the neocon Disneyland.

"This is Bill O'Reilly and we're in the No-Spin Zone. Say, folks, isn't everything just great since we got rid of all those liberal crybabies and character assassins? What about you, Sean, I'm sure you agree."

"Absolutely fantastic! It's just wonderful to have a truly superior president who can do no wrong -- ever."

"They say love is never having to say you're sorry, and with the superb President Bush at the helm, we have someone worthy of our complete love -- and our total adulation."

"Total adulation is the word, Bill."

"Well, those are the headlines. Now for some video of His Excellency President Bush petting his dog."

"These are so heartwarming I just want to break down in tears, Bill."

"Alan Colmes here, Bill. Do you think he'll throw the ball for him this time? I just love it when he throws the ball."

The wealthy would be exalted; perhaps George would even issue them titles like 'Lord Governor Jeb' and 'Most High Chancellor of the Treasury Kenny Boy,' while the rest of the population would descend into serfdom, scrabbling for whatever crumbs they could get. Pensions? Social Security? All gone, drowned in the bathtub with the rest of the government, as prescribed by Supreme Czar of Consummate Financial Wisdom Norquist. Families would have to take care of their oldsters, which should be easy, since they're all going to have to live together in the same one-room shack anyway; it'll be all they can afford.

And there's little doubt an artist's depiction of Jesus, looking very much like Jeffrey Hunter in "King of Kings," would be engraved on every denomination of coin and paper money, except the new three-dollar bill, which would feature a portrait of George W. himself, clearing brush on his ranch in a cowboy hat; abortion, or even thinking about abortion, would be outlawed; church attendance would be mandatory, and enforced by the 'Faith Police'; freedom to criticize the government or the state church would be eliminated; those of other religions 're-educated' and forced to accept Jesus as their personal savior; and school kids (on vouchers, naturally) would be taught that any scientific principle that contradicts Rev. Pat Robertson's interpretation of the Old Testament, such as the Theory of Evolution or that the Earth is more than 6,000 years old, is Against the Lord's Will and taboo. Pat would also toss out any scientific knowledge that he personally doesn't understand or agree with, such as Applied Physics or Ecological Biology. (I forgot to mention that Pat would be appointed Most Splendid Prophet of the National Academy of Sciences.)

Books would be burned; artwork destroyed; unorthodox and new ideas purged; computer-users strictly limited as to the sort of information they can store or disseminate, and the Promise Keepers would keep their promises: Women would be back in the home under their husbands' thumb, raising the kids, cooking the meals, staying pregnant, and being seen and not heard.

It would be a rebirth of the Holy Roman Empire of the Middle Ages, except without all the Catholicism and the Pope, as we'd expand our wars of piety to bring America's new Christian brand of freedom and democracy to the rest of the world. Service in this Grand Army of God, led by Supreme Field Marshal Jerry Boykin, would be mandatory for all men between the ages of 16 and 40. But Bush's military, even with the Almighty on its side, would somehow lack morale and competence, making it prone to disaster and defeat, of which there would be an abundance.

After a generation or two, the other nations of the world would eventually tire of us, stop lending us money and cut us out of their markets. A desperate Emperor Bush, unable to keep together his army or pay off his defense contractors, would threaten to use 'nukular' weapons against them unless they line up to support us. The rest of the world would laugh in his face.

Raving and insane, he'd decide to bring about global Armageddon, and would finally push the button to launch our nukes and destroy the world.

But, you know what? Nothing would happen. All those kids educated in Robertson's Biblical-science schools wouldn't know diddley about real science, the kind of science that launches nuclear weapons, that makes complicated firing mechanisms work. (After all, these things weren't mentioned in the Holy Bible.)

The Red Chinese would then simply walk in and take over with little resistance, make all those who disagree with them vanish, and install a Sino-Communist paradise in America.

"Hi, Bill O'Reilly here in the No-Spin Zone. Say, didn't the incredibly amazing Red Chinese Army put on just one heck of a parade as they marched through downtown Washington yesterday? Everything about the peace and prosperity they're bringing our country is just great! Isn't that right, Sean?"

"Oh, you bet, Bill -- just fantastic! Hoo-ray, communism is here to stay!"

"Well, those are the headlines. Let's just watch this video of our Most Exalted Masters' hanging a picture of the wonderful Mao Zedong up in the East Wing of the White House, sponsored by Wal-Mart. What a fantastic, moving moment."

"I'm moved to tears at the beauty and majesty of it all, Bill."

"Bill, Alan Colmes here. Say, whatever happened to His Excellency President ---"

"You shut up! Cut his mic off! Cut his mic off! I won't have that kind of crazy anti-communist talk on my show!"
----------------------------
Gone with Their Minds Edition

Operation Swarmer a Pentagon Production to Cloak Raging Iraqi Civil War

The various flapping jaws and bunched foreheads of the Mainstream Mediocrity and their puppeteers in the Republican galaxy of error (Dingbatus Major), in a collective issuance of empty hot breeze, have proclaimed that, while Iraq may be on the brink of civil war, they are not yet actually engaged in one.

The multitudinous attacks on mosques and daily death toll among the civilian population are notwithstanding for these satraps of numbskullery and boneheadedness, apparently waiting for vast armies dressed in blue and gray to face each other on the banks of the Tigris before they officially anoint the proceedings a true 'civil war.'

Of course, those who read more than White House press releases and the masturbatory circularity of the American media know that Iraq has had a low-level civil war in progress for at least the last year, and it's been steadily growing in violence, scope and intensity.

One can only speculate that this latest round of delusional denial by our Appropriated Press has something to do with forestalling the public's reaction when they discover our military is caught in the middle, taking flak from both Sunnis and Shi'ites in the current conflict. Those Americans not affiliated with the oil industry might then surmise, "Let the Iraqis fight their own civil war," and demand we pull out. Such a situation, naturally, would result in the hollow brass balls of the neocon chickenhawkery thudding to the floor simultaneously, as their Crawford Dauphin struggles to rise above 20 percent in the polls. Hear their war cry: "Stay the course, as long as no one we know is getting shot at!"

Their willingness to sacrifice the lives and futures of kids who weren't lucky enough to be born Ivy league legacies is legendary; their stunning ineptitude at accomplishing anything, whether it's pacifying an Arab uprising or responding to a natural disaster, is cliché. It's a testament to the acting talent of the assembled reporters at the White House and Pentagon that they can maintain a straight face while enduring the latest flat mumblings of marvelous achievement from Android McClellan or the triumphant bleating of Death's Head Don, both of whom have been wrong so often that a gambler could bet against them and come out wealthy beyond imagination.

This latest subterfuge, Operation Swarmer, just like the Hooray USA fireworks display that was Shock and Awe, is just another expensive explosives-enhanced distraction, not hastening the end of the civil war or our misbegotten involvement in Iraq by even an hour. The brass hats have been gathering before the cameras and microphones to declare some sort of victory over the insurgents in Samarra, while the U.S. media shines their spoons for a new feeding of feel-good militaristic gruel. But the truth is the insurgency has eyes and ears throughout Iraq; they no doubt knew of this attack long before the American media were aware of it, and vacated the area accordingly. In a few months, we'll be reading the grisly coda to this recent thumb's-up, glom-and-bomb scenario, written in the blood of innocent Iraqi men, women and children -- regrettable collateral damage all.

Yes, Scarlett, there is a full-blown civil war going on in Iraq, our people are getting killed in it, it isn't going to stop because we're there and, frankly, they don't give a damn.
--------------------
Today's Quote

"Every prediction the President made about this war has proven to be false, while virtually every prediction made by war opponents has proven to be true. The President and his followers controlled every part of this war with an iron fist... insisting on the right to exert full-scale, undiluted control over it. And now it has failed. And it's everyone's fault except theirs."
-- Glenn Greenwald, a conservative Republican.

Part Two: Channeling Changes Edition

Surf's Up! (And Down)

[CLICK]

"This is The Situation Room and I'm Wolf Blitzer. Now let's go to CNN's Senior Political Analyst Bill Schneider for the latest on the president's 34 percent approval rating. Bill, what about this -- this is the lowest rating of his presidency, isn't it?"

"Uh, Wolf, just one minor correction: That's not 34 percent of Americans who approve of President Bush's handling of his job -- that's 34 PEOPLE TOTAL, and all of them from his family."

"Thank you, Bill. And now over to Suzanne Malveaux at the White House. Suzanne, what does this president have to do to improve those numbers?"

"Wolf, do you ever listen to yourself? You're supposed to be an objective journalist reporting the news -- why do you care about improving Bush's poll numbers?"

"Thanks for that report, Suzanne. Ed Henry on Capitol Hill: Ed, what does the president have to do to bring up these poll numbers?"

[CLICK]

"Welcome back to Hardball. I'm here with Katrina vanden Heuvel, editor of The Nation magazine, and we're talking about this AP video that shows Bush being briefed on August 28th by FEMA. Katrina, how do you think this affects the president's credibility?"

"Chris, obviously, as we've been saying all along, Bush has zero credibility on --"

"Katrina, are you saying the president is LYING? I mean, do the far-left bongo-players you represent -- those types with the purple dreadlocks and the piercings on their flap-doodle -- really believe President Bush would lie to the American people? No wonder nobody listens to you."

"Chris, I think this tape shows without question that --"

"I don't get you lefties: Do you think you're going to win by slamming this president that everybody wants to have a beer with? People like the guy! Americans look at him and say, 'Yeah, there's my uncle or big brother! So he's wrecked a few cars when he was drunk, slaughtered a few people, he's still okay in my book!' Why don't you guys get that?"

"Chris, if you look at the recent polls -- "

"Yeah, but don't you think that -- gut-level, man-to-man -- Americans just identify with a macho guy like Bush who looks good in cowboy hats and tight blue jeans and clears brush and that stuff? A manly straight-shooter like John Wayne? I mean, Noam Chomsky looks like a big dork in a cowboy hat. Katrina, don't you think you could reach more of the Red States you need to get your side elected if you had a Southern accent like Bush?"

"Chris, I think you're dealing in superficialities; what's important is -- "

"See, that's what I mean. Maybe if you didn't use words like 'superficialities' you could score with the NASCAR crowd out there. Go for the lowest common denominator. That's what Karl Rove and the Republicans know how to do. You weirdo leftists keep talking to the American people like they had some brains, like you have some respect for their intelligence. What the hell's wrong with you?"

"Chris, do you just have me on so that you can rudely interrupt me before I make a point, while, pretending to be unbiased, you score points for the Republican Party?"

"You're catching on, Katrina. After the break, watch me embarrass myself by repeatedly kissing former Republican Sen. Alan Simpson's hindquarters because he went bird hunting with a shotgun a few times. We'll be right back."

[CLICK]

"We're back with our guests Ann Coulter, Michelle Malkin and Bill O'Reilly. Ann, some critics have described your controversial comments as bordering on fascism. How do you respond?"

"Oh, that's ridiculous -- these commie pinkos just have no sense of humor. I mean, my GOD, these outright traitors, these ACLU perverts, and all of their freedom of speech talk -- freedom of speech is vastly over-rated. They simply don't realize real Americans want a strong leader like George W. Bush, someone they can trust who won't put up with their carping questions. 'Why are you doing this about the war? Why did you do that about Katrina? Why are you wasting my money? Why are you lying to me?' and all that other claptrap. Picky, picky. Don't they realize they are impeding the president from performing his duty of securing the nation with their never-ending questions? These liberals just don't realize the benefits of a little local fascism. They should all be drawn and quartered and their heads placed on spikes on every highway leading into Washington."

"Of course, you were just kidding about that last part."

"If it's to my advantage I am."

"Michelle, it must be quite a challenge to come up with outrageous things to say to compete with Ann here. I mean, it seems like no matter what you do, her skinny rump is always above you on the ladder of right-wing media success. How does that feel?"

"It's all due to liberal racism against Asian-Americans. If I were blonde and Aryan like Ann here, I'd be kicking sand in her eyes but, because the liberal media has pegged me as a dark-haired Filipino woman and the reverse-racism of the left, I'm being prevented from airing my views. I'm chained like a slave to the blogosphere and my books haven't sold nearly as well as Ann's thanks to the New York Times and the Washington Post."

"Isn't it possible that it's your obnoxious opinions and not your race that is the problem?"

"Oh, that's just silly. My opinions are all very much in the mainstream of American thought. My audiences at my paid appearances tell me that all the time."

"Bill, would you like to weigh in?"

"Say, have either of you two young ladies ever had a loofah in the shower?"

[CLICK]

"Katie, it's great to see New Orleans coming together once again to celebrate Mardi Gras after all this town has been through this year."

"That's wonderful, Matt, but there don't seem to be as many bare-breasted women this time around."

"Well, a lot of plastic beads were lost in Katrina..."

[CLICK]

"Say, Bud, I hear you're going to introduce us to the most powerful cleaning agent in human history!"

"That's right, Tom! Ladies and gentleman here in the studio audience and you folks at home, what if I told you that I had a spray cleaner that can instantly remove greasy fingerprints from walls, tar from tile floors, those tough mineral deposits in the bathtub, and those stubborn stains on the garage floor? What if I told you this miracle cleaner could remove chrome from trailer hitches, the old paint from your walls, and several layers of skin from your face? How much would you pay for a super cleaner like that?"

"Gosh, Bud, to have my hands on the greatest home cleaning product since the machine gun?! I think I'd easily pay fifty -- even a hundred dollars!"

"You'd think wrong, Tom -- one gallon of this incredible new cleaner, invented for use by our military forces in Iraq, can be yours for only $19.95 in this special TV offer!"

"Gawdamitey on a cracker, Bud! My head's reeling from the savings! Or maybe it's the toxic odor. Why don't you tell the folks how to order while I put my head between my legs to control the nausea and dizziness."

"Folks, you can order new White Phosphorus by calling ..."

[CLICK]

"Welcome back to Desperate Political Housewives."

"We could have a happy marriage if not for you and your stable of whores."

"Okay, here we go again with the 'stable of whores' stuff. I can't even talk to you these days without you bringing that up. First of all, it's only THREE whores -- that's hardly a 'stable'..."

[CLICK OFF]
--------------------------------------
Today's Quote

"15,000 atheists in London have rioted after a blank sheet of paper was found on a cartoonist's desk."
-- Steven Alan Green