Don't Make Fun of Dear Leader

Stephen Colbert headlined the annual White House Correspondent's dinner. One of my favorite jabs, talking about how the press does its job:

"Let's review the rules. Here's how it works. The president makes decisions, he’s the decider. The press secretary announces those decisions, and you people of the press type those decisions down. Make, announce, type. Put them through a spell check and go home. Get to know your family again. Make love to your wife. Write that novel you got kicking around in your head. You know, the one about the intrepid Washington reporter with the courage to stand up to the administration. You know--fiction."

I guess Colbert must have disturbed the cozy, cocktail party that the press and the administration jointly inhabit these days, because many in attendance found his material a bit too "biting." As atrios points out, "Lord High Pissypants" wasn't too amused:

As he walked from the podium the president and First Lady gave him quick nods, unsmiling, and left.

For a recap of the proceedings, this Editor and Publisher story is pretty good. You can watch the whole uncomfortable affair here.

How Low Can He Go?

Bush at 32 in CNN poll. Any guesses at how low he can go?

How Low Can He Go?

Bush at 33 in CNN poll. Any guesses at how low he can go?

Big Time Nap

Our Vice President at the ceremony for Chinese leader Hu:

I'm Out of Ideas...

I have no more creative ways to say "liars"...from today's Washington Post

On May 29, 2003, 50 days after the fall of Baghdad, President Bush proclaimed a fresh victory for his administration in Iraq: Two small trailers captured by U.S. troops had turned out to be long-sought mobile "biological laboratories." He declared, "We have found the weapons of mass destruction."

The claim, repeated by top administration officials for months afterward, was hailed at the time as a vindication of the decision to go to war. But even as Bush spoke, U.S. intelligence officials possessed powerful evidence that it was not true.

Another Day, Another Low...

From today's Washington Post:

The U.S. military is conducting a propaganda campaign to magnify the role of the leader of al-Qaeda in Iraq, according to internal military documents and officers familiar with the program. The effort has raised his profile in a way that some military intelligence officials believe may have overstated his importance and helped the Bush administration tie the war to the organization responsible for the Sept. 11, 2001, attacks.

Do you think the Indigo Girls Like Bush?

New song from Pink and the Indigo Girls...

P.S. - that headline was not (originally) intended to be suggestive...

OHMYGOD!!!

Seynour Hirsh, who broke the Abu Grhaib story, has an article in the New Yorker claiming that Bush is planning on attacking Iran with Nuclear weapons.

The Bush Administration, while publicly advocating diplomacy in order to stop Iran from pursuing a nuclear weapon, has increased clandestine activities inside Iran and intensified planning for a possible major air attack. Current and former American military and intelligence officials said that Air Force planning groups are drawing up lists of targets, and teams of American combat troops have been ordered into Iran, under cover, to collect targeting data and to establish contact with anti-government ethnic-minority groups. The officials say that President Bush is determined to deny the Iranian regime the opportunity to begin a pilot program, planned for this spring, to enrich uranium.

How did he put it? Fool me once...

Hit 'em Straight

Interior secretary Gale Norton announced the other day that after 50 years of steadily decreasing wetlands, the most recent government data indicates that the trend has reversed under the careful environmental stewardship of the Bush Administration.

Secretary Norton fails to mention, however, that the reason that the number has increased is that the government has redefined the way that it classifies wetlands to include, um, golf course water hazzards. Take them out, and the wetlands are still in decline.

I predict that the next stunning improvement in wetlands acreage will result from the government's inclusion of toilet bowls into the calculus.

Complicated Relationship with the Truth

George W. Bush, on February 11th, 2004:

"If there's a leak out of my administration, I want to know who it is," Bush told reporters at an impromptu news conference during a fund-raising stop in Chicago, Illinois. "If the person has violated law, that person will be taken care of.

I want to know the truth," the president continued. "Leaks of classified information are bad things."

Court filing, today:

President Bush authorized the release of then-classified information in the summer of 2003 about Iraq's suspected pursuit of nuclear weapons to help bolster the administration's case for the U.S.-led invasion, a former high-level White House aide has told federal prosecutors.

I'm sure he's going to hide behind some legalistic defense to the tune of "I declassified the information before I told Libby to leak it, so it wasn't a leak of classified information." Even so, this raises so many questions. Is Libby lying to save his own ass? Will Cheney contradict him? If he's not lying, did Bush and Cheney tell Fitzgerald in their meeting with him that they authorized the leak? Seems like this is a long way from over.

Of course our intrepid press corp didn't see fit to ask about it at today's white house breifing. Wouldn't want to upset the popular kids...

Piling on

There's really not too much to add to the whole story about Tom Delay being found out for the crook that he is. But there is one detail that seems to have gone missing from all of the reporting on this: Did you know that, before he was known as the Bug Man or the Hammer, Tom Delay's nickname in the Texas State Legislature was Hot Tub Tom? Fact check me on this, but I don't believe he garnered this moniker as a result of his skill at repairing whirlpools...

Put a Fork In It?

News a few weeks ago that President Bush signed into law a bill raising the US debt ceiling for the fourth time during his presidency demonstrates that the best way to disprove conservative theory is simply to implement it. Bush and his party have control over all levers of government, so with nobody left to blame, can we finally all just acknowledge that there's more intellectual depth and honesty in the writings of K-Fed than the writings of George Will?

The evidence is plain. We've given these wack-jobs two extended cracks at the reins of government. Twice they've trotted out the same playbook of tax cuts for the rich and empty promises of eliminating waste. The results are clear: when they're in power, deficits go up. When we are, they go down. When they're in power, more people are unemployed; when we are, more people have jobs. In fairness, though, at least we're safer from terrorism thanks to conservatives, that is, of course, if by safe you mean more likely to get killed.

We could spend time disecting why it doesn't work - perhaps it's because for politicians, cutting government programs is a sure way to lose your job, or because decreasing tax revenues actually doesn't increase them, but why throw good brain cells after bad? The fact that it's all a scam doesn't really come as a surprise, especially to the leaders of the conservative movement.

You see, it was never meant to be real - it was just supposed to look real. The modern republican agenda begins with selfishness - a desire to amass as much money and power as possible and to avoid helping anyone else. Obviously, this would never fly with the masses, so conservative thought was developed to provide cover with intellectual-sounding policies (supply-side economics, etc.). These policies, cranked out in assembly-line fashion by sham think tanks like the Heritage Foundation and the Cato Institute, then gain momentum and the veneer of fact as they're bandied about the Republican echo chamber of talk radio and cable news.

This story, of course, will never be told by your liberal media. I can more easily imagine Linda Tripp as an SI Swimsuit Model than I can envision the Washington media cocktail circuit kicking its addiction to white men in bow ties. But, at least we know it's true, and in the meantime, if you're looking for more truth, give another shout out to Mr. Spears.

I'm Glad Garrison Keillor's on Our Side

From today's column:

What vast grandeur do you find in Washington these days? The Abramoff-DeLay saga is the story of weasels. Small-time grifters and flimflam men wheedling favors and skimming money off the top. Nobody in the Republican majority could be shocked by any of this, so why should you and I?

The people who are getting reamed by this administration are people under 30, and they are, like, OK with that. They walk around with little wires coming out of their ears and 10,000 tunes on their iPods, and if you go, like, Global Warming, they are, like, Whatever. And you go, Government Deficit, and they are, like, Duuuuuuuuuuuude.

George Bush's America

Lovely.