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The Almighty’s gift to the world…

The heavy eye blinking started about two minutes after the press was allowed to proceed with their soft line of questioning. Al-Sadr is now numero uno in Shrubby’s bum-of-the month club. Following his script, he kept mentioning “I wanted Tenet in there…” as if the DCI was some kind of ranch hand being summoned from the bunk house to the big house to provide updates on the “war on terror.”

To obfuscate his own obsession with Christian fundamentalism, our leader emphasized that the “war on terror” (a/k/a response to “Jihad”) is not the work of a religion. Yet in the same breath he calls it “theocratic terror.” Pan over to the wings, where Obersturmbannfuehrer Rove is basking in the spotlight, his thinning hair tinted so blonde you wonder if he’s planning to audition to play Al Jardine in “The Beach Boys Story." With Rove at the controls, the Shrub Club is using their war of lies in Iraq to distract the American people from the biggest rip-off in the history of the nation.

Yo Kerry, it's time to take off the gloves. Even Bundini Brown could lay out the issues... you've got the war of lies in Iraq, the Medicare rip-off, the jacking of Social Security, the Katrina Leung spy affair, the twin towers of foreign debt and trade deficit, the incompetent, ganglionic bureaucracy of the Department of Homeland Security and lots more. Don't wait until the 9th round to beat the rope-a-dope, you just might tire out by then.

The faiblesse of this entire exercise is evidenced by Shrubby’s continued need to couple Iraq with 9/11 and the war on terror. These are his crutches. Yet polls indicate that his messianic religious zealotry no longer resonates with the body politic.

From his pulpit, Rev. Bush reminded us that freedom is the Almighty’s gift to the world… “it’s what we have been called to do.” Whose god is he talking about? His god? Al-Sadr’s god? My g-d? Three press conferences in three years. This man is as detached from reality as Hitler was when he was being fed drugs down in the bunker in the final days of Berlin. If I were to ask the Almighty for one gift, it would be to provide the American people with enough strength of will and common sense to vote this man out of office. Amen.

posted by Groom 10:53 PM

If Gabby Hayes Were President

We're gonna git them evil varmits, by gum, because I said so and I mean what I say and I have never made a mistake in my life and anyway God told me to do it and if you don't like it you can just lump it because I really don't care what you think.

The most illiterate, rambling, incoherent, self-involved piece of neurotic political theater I have personally ever witnessed. Where are the guys in the white lab coats?

posted by Jerry Bowles 9:51 PM

Press 10, Kerry 4, Bush 3

I can’t imagine how the press could have asked better questions, given the format. Bush’s performance was slush and mush, not answering questions. The cut-away shot of Rove, Rice-a-roni, and the auto chief-of-staff was priceless. The election will be a choice between Bush clip and cadence and Kerry drone and drip.

In anticipation of Bush’s press conference, Kerry had a byline on “A Strategy for Iraq” in today’s Washington Post. It is disappointingly weak, unimaginative and lets Bush off the hook. I understand that taking the high road is the safe road for Kerry, but BushCo’s non-strategy is stuck in rut and costing American lives. Instead of drawing on his Vietnam experience and “lessons learned,” Kerry lets a milquetoast aide chart a safe course on internationalism—nothing new—and calls on the president “to rally the country around a clear and credible goal.”

Excuse me? I thought this was an election year? Why doesn’t Kerry rally the country around a clear and credible goal? And why doesn’t he do this in front of his Band of Brothers after taking a stealth mission to Iraq to see if for himself, first hand, up close and personal? Or why doesn’t he announce the formation of a Terrorism Council to advise him on Islam extremists and to help him articulate an exit strategy from Iraq and a new approach to fighting extremism around the world, chaired by former Senator Sam Nunn, or better yet, Fareed Zakaria, author of The Future of Freedom: Illiberal Democracy at Home and Abroad, and international editor of Newsweek.

posted by Josh 9:41 PM

Wolfie goes Hollywood

With Lee Strasberg doing his schtick at that big Stanislavsky school in the sky there’s nobody around to play Hyman Roth (Meyer Lansky) in the next “Godfather” sequel. Looking at the photo posted at the right, Paul Wolfowitz would be a great stand-in. My Ohio homie Mark Winegardner, who won the contest sponsored by the Puzo Family (foundation) to write the next “Godfather book, says there are lots of stories out there. Maybe Wolfie can get executive producer status if he uses his Brooklyn connections to let us know why Dick Nixon dealt on Lansky after being the beneficiary of so much handgeld from the Republican-leaning factions of the Jewish “mob.” Like they used to say down on Key Biscayne… Bebe Rebozo can’t blow his nose-o.

posted by Groom 7:09 PM

Bill Clinton Knocked Down the World Trade Center

John Ashcroft got a surprisingly mild grilling from the 9/11 Commission today although he came out swinging, blaming FBI failures mainly on the Clinton administration and on structural and institutional impediments like the "wall" that supposedly prevented agents working criminal cases from sharing information with their counterparts working national security. As an illustration, he helpfully declassified a directive written by liberal Commissioner Jamie Gorelick when she was deputy attorney general under Clinton that he said made it even tougher for agents to communicate with each other. He denied that he ever told acting FBI director Thomas Pickard that he didn't want to hear any more about terrorism but--like many conflicted Christians who lie badly--stammered like a kid caught playing with himself by his mother.

The BIG news, alluded to by Richard Ben Veniste, is a classified document the Commission received only a week ago (presumably in the batch of Clinton papers deemed too duplicative or irrelevant to share by the White House) that apparently shows that Clinton's directive to get Bin Laden dead or alive was far more "robust" and less ambiguous than the Bushies--and Ashcroft--have portrayed it.

posted by Jerry Bowles 6:27 PM

It's Haiti... it's Pravda... is it true?

Closer to home, at the Haitian branch of the Ugly American Club the Russian cold-war throwback newspaper Pravda is reporting that US "trigger happy" US forces have confiscated only 150 weapons since they arrived in the worlds baseball manufacturing center. And that the French forces seem to be winning "hearts and minds" since they eat pommes frites and not Amerikan fries. US forces in Haiti are scheduled to be replaced by Brazilian troops in 6 weeks. The mixture of the Brazilian candomble forms of animist Catholicism and Haitian voodoo cultures could be a plus for promoting goodwill. Might we see the use of the Shrubby pilot doll for pin-sticking rituals? A bit pricey... the cost of one doll is roughly half of the monthly income of one Haitian worker.

posted by Groom 3:20 PM

On the Bush Flip-Flop Trail

BushCo saying that the August 6 briefing memo was not actionable because it was historic and not specific enough, while justifying the war on Iraq on vague and historic information has to be the Mother of All FlipFlops. Kerry should point this one out as well. I wonder if anyone will have the cajones to ask the question tonight.

posted by Josh 2:17 PM

The "D" word

It's popping up all over. The New York Times editorial on Sunday alluded to it, today's Guardian refers to it, even the Corvallis (OR) Times-Gazette.

What will be the political consequences of a military draft to support a war of choice, whose mission continues to be redefined with a swiftness that Madonna would envy? What if those happy little college Republicans had to tote a gun for Shrub?

posted by Evelyn 11:51 AM

Read and Weep, Joe Lieberman

I've always had a soft spot in my heart for thin-lipped Irish-American liberals and I even married one. And I have always found Mark Shields really sexy, but no more so than now.

posted by Evelyn 11:21 AM

Oink, Oink

I can think of no politician more self-centered and self-absorbed than Bill Clinton. Reports that he now plans to release his book before the election has to be one of the most selfish acts in politics. This is not good news for Kerry. Not only will Bill hog the limelight for weeks while he is on his book tour, but he will trough up all the swill from his personal life—which he is bound to skirt in the book, feeding the right-wingers who haven’t had a Clinton to kick around for a while.

Clinton’s triangulation policy wonk stuff is soooo last century and it will pull the rug out from under Kerry who is trying to look moderate. I can’t imagine any humility—or honesty—in Clinton’s book, no mea culpas on domestic, foreign or personal policy. He will simply brag about jobs, welfare reform and what, his sending troops to Haiti and a few other wag-the-dog skirmishes in warfare? Keep in mind, this is “feel-your-pain” chief who did NOT visit the World Trade Center after the dry run bombing for 9/11, much less vigorously pursue terrorism the way he should have.

If Clinton cared about the next four years and defeating Bush, he would put his pride on hold and wait until next year to release his book when it could be a useful guide for Kerry or, the gods forbid, a checkpoint manifesto for trying to keep Bush “honest” in his second term, thereby filling a policy vacuum for the Democrats.

posted by Josh 10:09 AM

Caution: Heavy Spin Ahead

It's going to be a busy day for Republican spinners with our snake-handling, tongue-talking, Crisco-oil anointed, Confederate-flag waving, anti-choice, gay-bashing, naked-statue loathing, sap songwriting, holy roller Attorney General John Ashcroft, one of the few politicians ever to lose an election to a dead man, taking the hot seat at the 9/11 Commission this afternoon and the Shrubster, his own bad self, holding a rare primetime press conference tonight.

Both the New York Times and the Washington Post report that Ashcroft's people are furiously trying to pressure the Commission to re-write portions of its draft report which portray the in-over-his-head AG as basically uninterested in terrorism before 9/11. Buried in the Times story is this little gem: "...until the attacks, Mr. Ashcroft had resisted signing emergency warrants that would have allowed eavesdropping in terrorism investigations, apparently because he had only a rudimentary knowledge of how the warrant process worked." No suprise there; this is what you get when ideology trumps competence.

The main question about Shrub's press conference is will it be as elaborately stage-managed as that surreal piece of theater the White House presented before the Iraq invasion in which handpicked reporters asked carefully screened questions of a President who appeared to be severely over-medicated? Stay tuned.

posted by Jerry Bowles 9:59 AM

Right wing rat on their own

You know that conventional wisdom among the right wingers is turning against the Bush inner circle when ageless wardog Arnaud de Borchgrave does a character assassination on teacher's pet Ahmed Chalabi. In his column published today in the New York Times, Paul Krugman sources de Borchgrave to wit that Washington provided kleptocrat Chalabi with Saddam’s “secret” files. Chalabi is a convicted criminal who is wanted in Jordan for a quarter billion dollar bank fraud. Moonie pimp de Borchgrave claims Chalabi is using the files as a tool for blackmail and kickbacks. The icing on top of the Chalabi sleazecake is that some of Saddam's best and brightest are creeping back into the military and security structure of Iraq.

Will anybody in the press corps ask Shrubby about that at the pop quiz? Or will they cut him some slack since he just got back from a visit with with mommy and daddy? Maybe Helen Thomas will put the biscuit in the basket and ask just when the White House plans to announce the return of Saddam Hussein to power...

posted by Groom 2:57 AM