He never touches me that way.
(Reuters photo via Pam.)
Infuriating
If you can get through this whole video clip of Matt Lauer interviewing George & Laura, without screaming, cursing, or turning the thing off, I applaud you.
AMERICAblog has an amusing post on Bush's body language during the interview here.
Fitzgerald Puts on his Asskickin’ Boots
It’s looking more and more like Fitzgerald is in hot pursuit of a conspiracy:
The New York Times reporter who went to jail to avoid testifying in the CIA leak case was quizzed by the special prosecutor again yesterday and has agreed to return to the grand jury today.A moment to offer some blogprops: True Blue Liberal suggested back in July that the White House Iraq Group was the key to this whole thing, as the Big Brass Alliance attempted to continue to keep the issue in the news by tying the Downing Street Memos to Plamegate.
Judith Miller's additional testimony comes as the endgame is intensifying in the legal chess match that threatens to damage the Bush administration.
There are signs that prosecutors now are looking into contacts between administration officials and journalists that took place much earlier than previously thought. Earlier conversations are potentially significant, because that suggests the special prosecutor leading the investigation is exploring whether there was an effort within the administration at an early stage to develop and disseminate confidential information to the press that could undercut former Ambassador Joseph Wilson and his wife, Central Intelligence Agency official Valerie Plame.
[…]
Ms. Miller, the Times reporter, was interviewed again yesterday to discuss conversations she had with I. Lewis "Scooter" Libby, the vice president's chief of staff. She testified on Sept. 30 before a grand jury about conversations she had with Mr. Libby in July 2003.
[…]
Lawyers familiar with the investigation believe that at least part of the outcome likely hangs on the inner workings of what has been dubbed the White House Iraq Group. Formed in August 2002, the group, which included Messrs. Rove and Libby, worked on setting strategy for selling the war in Iraq to the public in the months leading up to the March 2003 invasion. The group likely would have played a significant role in responding to Mr. Wilson's claims.
The key to understanding what is the great success—and what may well be the ultimate downfall—of this administration was summed up beautifully by Mr. Shakes not so long ago: "The problem is that this administration is incompetent at absolutely everything except politics, at which they are extraordinarily good." It may have won them two elections, but I’m not convinced, for the first time, that they’ll be able to spin their way out of this one.
Tease
Stop playing with me, you cheeky devil!
Former Vice President Al Gore said Wednesday he had no intention of ever running for president again.We might need to do a collective Jedi mind trick on Mr. Gore, Shakers.
"I have absolutely no plans and no expectations of ever being a candidate again," said Gore, who lost the 2000 election to President Bush.
However, Gore did not completely shut the door to political endeavors.
"I don't completely rule out some future interest, but I don't expect to have that," he said during a visit to Sweden.
Sour Grapes
Oh, Tom, Tom, Tom. You may be good at strongarming and arm twisting, but subtlety was never your forté.
DeLay's Lawyers Subpoena His Prosecutor
Okay, time for the obligatory "can you imagine if Clinton did this?" comment.
Can you imagine if Clinton had tried this?
Okay, I feel better.
WASHINGTON - Indicted Rep. Tom DeLay
Wait, wait just a second, I just love seeing that in print.
WASHINGTON - Indicted Rep. Tom DeLay
*Sigh* Just brings a big smile to my face. Okay, on with it:
WASHINGTON - Indicted Rep. Tom DeLay's attorneys turned the tables on a Texas prosecutor Tuesday, delivering a subpoena to compel his testimony about his conduct with grand jurors.
Defense attorney Dick DeGuerin, who contends there was misconduct by prosecutors, said Travis County District Attorney Ronnie Earle refused the subpoena at his Austin office when he declined to sign a paper acknowledging its delivery. Earle said he had voluntarily accepted the subpoena.
Nyyyeah, nyeah, nyeah. Jesus; we're governed by children.
The subpoena is part of the defense tactic to have charges dismissed before trial against DeLay, R-Texas, who was obligated to temporarily step aside as House majority leader when charged with conspiracy and money laundering in a state campaign finance investigation. DeLay has denied any wrongdoing.
So in other words, it's compolete Bullshit. And of course he's denied wrongdoing. He's given us every reason to believe him, hasn't he?
DeGuerin wants Earle to answer 12 questions about conversations he had with grand jurors, including whether the prosecutor became angry when a grand jury decided against an indictment of DeLay and why that decision was not publicly released.
He also wants to know the details of Earle's conversation with William Gibson, foreman of a grand jury that indicted DeLay on conspiracy charges, whose term has since ended.
"If you did nothing improper, you should not be concerned about answering these questions," DeGuerin said in his letter to Earle.
Ahem. Heh. Haha. HAHAHAHAHA!!!!
Damn you, kettle! I'm the pot, and I say you're BLACK!
The first grand jury indicted DeLay on conspiracy charges, the second failed to indict and the third indicted him on an allegation of money laundering. DeLay has said he is innocent of wrongdoing.
AWK! AWK!! Innocent of wrongdoing! *whistle* Man, they're parroting that enough, aren't they? Gee, for someone who's innocent of wrongdoing... he's awfully concerned about answering some questions, isn't he?
In a motion filed last week, the defense team said that from Sept. 29 through Oct. 3, Earle and his staff "unlawfully participated in grand jury deliberations and attempted to browbeat and coerce" the grand jury that refused to indict DeLay.
The motion said Earle then attempted to cover up and delay public disclosure of the refusal, and also "incited" the foreman of the first grand jury to violate grand jury secrecy by talking publicly about the case — in an effort to influence grand jurors still sitting.
The foreman, William Gibson, gave media interviews after the grand jury finished its work but told The Associated Press that Earle did not ask him to discuss the case.
"That's a bunch of (expletive) there," Gibson said. "That man did not talk to me."
I suddenly really like William Gibson.
Both indictments of DeLay focused on an alleged scheme to move money around and conceal the use of corporate contributions to support Texas Republican legislative candidates. State law prohibits use of corporate donations to support or oppose state candidates, allowing the money to go only for administrative expenses.
DeGuerin is asking for all documents, notes, telephone records and other relevant materials from Earle's staff.
"I am determined to put on record the steps taken by you and your staff to obtain a replacement indictment against my client, Tom DeLay," DeGuerin said in a letter to the prosecutor.
This is blatant misdirection, and I don't think they're fooling anyone. It just goes to show the shamelessness and cowardice of DeLay. They all know that they're hiding behind a very delicate house of cards, and here come the other kids to knock them down.
DeLay broke the law, he's been caught, and now he has to face the music. But like any good Republican, he can't go down without whining the whole way and pointing his finger at the Democrats. Take the pipe, bitch. Hey, "Hammer," I think Rush and Rove have room for you in the playpen.
Waaaaaaaaaahhhhhh!!!
UPDATE: As always, The Green Knight has more. And it's better than what I wrote, damn him!
(All Bolds mine. Hush, little cross-post, don't say a word... Bushy's gonna buy you a blossom on a turd...)
Halloween Wingnuttia Continued: Carman and the Monsters
Yesterday, I shared with you the first of two books my nephew got as Halloween “treats” last year. Though “Satan, Bite the Dust!” is clearly a helpful guide to rendering the devil dead, how many of us really come face to face with Satan on a daily basis? (No fair answering, Scooter—it’s no fair if he’s your boss.) On the other hand, we’re all a little more likely to run into monsters, so “No Monsters” is obviously the more important of the two volumes. It’s also autobiographical, as Carman shares his childhood experiences dealing with monsters, which gives us a little more insight into our tour guide to salvation.
A Storybook for Kids
Our story begins with Young Carman watching a scary movie, all alone…
His parents are, inexplicably, nowhere to be found, so he only has the crazy lunatic on the teevee to keep him company.
Carman gets it in his head that the crazy lunatic is after him!
In spite of his disturbing relationship with horror movies, Carman continues to watch them…
…including one about an alligator man…
…devouring the peaceful family’s child!
Carman gets very scared when he goes to bed…
and he sees an evil spirit float by his bed, but…
Carman’s Christianity takes care of the imaginary demon once and for all, and he finally gets a good night sleep. Or so one imagines. The book ends there. Maybe the monsters killed him. Who knows? Kind of anti-climactic, to be honest. I’d have liked to see Carman’s parents giving him a good ass-whupping for watching scary movies on his own and then waking them up by screaming about being the temple of the Holy Ghost.
The one good thing about No Monsters, though, is this:
An order form right in the back! I can order music, videos, more books—and I just might, so I can keep educating all you filthy heretics and hopefully save your eternal souls from, uh, alligator men.
Happy Halloween!
Hackett Update
Even though the DSCC, as has been widely reported, is denying that its chair, Chuck Schumer, is pressuring Hackett to get out of the race, Mannion called Schumer’s office and was told that it is indeed true. So I’ve got no clue what’s going on, aside from the fact that the Dems have their heads up their asses. Again.
Impeachment Poll Results
Damn. It’s not a huge margin, but it’s wider than I thought, with a higher number supporting impeachment than I expected.
By a margin of 50% to 44%, Americans say that President Bush should be impeached if he lied about the war in Iraq, according to a new poll commissioned by AfterDowningStreet.org, a grassroots coalition that supports a Congressional investigation of President Bush's decision to invade Iraq in 2003.Follow the link to read more, including a large section on how support for impeachment is a major underreported story.
The poll was conducted by Ipsos Public Affairs, the highly-regarded non-partisan polling company. The poll interviewed 1,001 U.S. adults on October 8-9.
The poll found that 50% agreed with the statement:
"If President Bush did not tell the truth about his reasons for going to war with Iraq, Congress should consider holding him accountable by impeaching him."
[…]
Both the Ipsos and Zogby polls asked about support for impeachment if Bush lied about the reasons for war, rather than asking simply about support for impeachment. Pollsters predict that asking simply about impeachment without any context would produce a large number of "I don't know" responses. However, this may understate the percentage of Americans who favor Bush's impeachment for other reasons, such as his slow response to Hurricane Katrina, his policy on torture, soaring gasoline prices, or other concerns.
Other polls show a majority of U.S. adults believe that Bush did in fact lie about the reasons for war. A June 23-26 ABC/Washington Post poll found 52% of Americans believe the Bush administration "deliberately misled the public before the war," and 57% say the Bush administration "intentionally exaggerated its evidence that pre-war Iraq possessed nuclear, chemical or biological weapons."
Ohhhhh…Laura Says So…
Someone explain to me to whom, exactly, it makes a sliver of shit worth of difference that Laura Bush is offering reassurances that Miers will make a dandy Supreme Court Justice?
President Bush and his wife, Laura, offered a double-barreled defense of Supreme Court nominee Harriet Miers on Tuesday while the White House worked to dampen opposition from the right and win confirmation for the president's pick.Fanfuckingtastic. Because the Supreme Court has been a regular Animal House for years, so the most pertinent qualification in a new appointee should be dignity.
[…]
"She won't change," Bush said. "I mean, the person I know is not the kind of person that is going to change her philosophy and her philosophy is, is that she is not going to legislate from the bench."
Bush said Miers is the most qualified candidate for the job, and Mrs. Bush agreed: "Absolutely. Absolutely."
"She's very deliberate and thoughtful and will bring dignity to wherever she goes, but certainly to the Supreme Court," Mrs. Bush said. "She'll be really excellent."
What are these two smoking? Only someone who is high could say with a straight face that a woman who is a former Catholic Democrat, and who contributed to Hillary Clinton’s campaign, is “not the kind of person that is going to change her philosophy.” Only someone with a drug-addled mind could suggest that any member of the Supreme Court won’t “legislate from the bench,” with total disregard for the fact that sometimes when the highest court in the land simply interprets existing law on a new issue, it has the de facto effect of creating new law. Only someone through whose veins is coursing near-lethal levels of illicit substances could sputter that being “deliberate and thoughtful” are somehow among the most significant attributes required of a Supreme Court Justice. I’m sure Jeffrey Dahmer was single-mindedly deliberate and thoughtful in his pursuit of a victim to turn into a lobotomized sex zombie and delicious midnight snack, but I’m fairly certain I wouldn’t want him deciding important court cases. Honestly—just shut up and go away already, you idiotic lunatics.
Typepad, What Up?
You're supposed to be better than Blogger, remember?
I don't know what's going on with Typepad, but I'm able to get into fewer and fewer sites over the course of the day. Their whole network seems to be collapsing like flan in a cupboard.
Megachurches
Slate has an interesting photo essay of megachurches worth checking out. Generally, I find them truly hideous displays of everything wrong with modern architecture, which is why I’m strangely fascinated by them. This is my favorite all-time example of a megachurch:
Yowza.
Blah Blah Sputter Garble Blather Blahbiddy Blah Blah
REMARKS BY THE PRESIDENT TO THE TRAVEL POOLThe President was then whisked away by the Secret Service before his desire to celebrate such spectaculous schoolosity with the students by passing out cans of Pabst Blue Ribbon could be realized.
Delisle Elementary School Pass Christian, Mississippi
10:54 A.M. CDT
THE PRESIDENT: Listen, first I want to thank the Superintendent. We're delighted to see that the schools of pass Christian are blue ribbon schools. They have been blue ribbon schools before and they'll be blue ribbon schools in the future. Part of the health of a community is to have a school system that's vibrant and alive. And in spite of the fact that a lot of equipment was damaged and homes destroyed and teachers without places to live and -- this school district is strong, and it's coming back. And it's a sign that out of the rubble here on the Gulf Coast of Mississippi is a rebuilding, is a spirit of rebuilding.
And thank you all for having us. I want to thank the principals and teachers for understanding the quality of education -- the quality of the education in a community helps define the nature of the community. And one of the things that's interesting is the high school principal told Laura and me that the -- and Madam Secretary -- that the high school was deemed to be a blue ribbon high school after Katrina hit. And yet a lot of the students don't know that yet. And so when the high school comes back next Monday, the first thing the principal is going to tell them is that the school that they go to, even though the building is different -- the buildings are different -- is a blue ribbon high school.
And the Superintendent says, blue ribbon high school last year, this year, and next year. And I appreciate your spirit. Thanks for letting us come by.
Thank you all. Bye-bye.
(Hat tip Catherine.)
I Agree
…with Oliver:
My current thinking goes that if the GOP really reacts harshly to the Miers pick (missing their big “F-U” to the left) and the promise unfilled of the Bush administration, they could pick one of the crazies - Roy Moore, Tom Tancredo, etc. Which would mean they would lose big. The pragmatic choice for the GOP would be John McCain, who’s also the candidate who would siphon off the most independent and Democratic voters, but they increasingly seem less likely to pick him - at least among the base, mainstream Republicans know better.The problem (for us) with McCain is that making clear what a disingenuous, opportunistic, bootlicking, useless hack he really is requires that his Democratic opponent have the balls to point out loudly and repeatedly that a two-faced, arrogant shit doesn’t even deserve the nomination for the presidency, no less the office itself. Is there anyone among the field of possible candidates on the Left who can (and will) do it? I’m hard-pressed to imagine any of them not suffering an acute case of sphincter-tightening at the mere thought of having to go negative on a war hero, no matter how deservedly.
On the Democratic side, I do also think that someone outside of the DC Dems may have a leg up - including the usual look at governors, as well as Al Gore and John Edwards who are no longer “inside the beltway”.
Question of the Day
There’s an article in Salon today about men who own Real Dolls, which are lifelike replicas of women designed for fucking (and, for many owners, companionship). It’s an interesting, if at times disturbing, article.
Without going too much into an analysis of the story, one of the things which most bothered me was that among the dollmaker’s list of requests he refused to fulfill was armpit hair. It’s strange and unsettling to think that particular standards of beauty are enforced even upon fake women.
Anyway, one of the things mentioned in the piece is that Real Dolls often serve as stop gap measures for men between relationships, and I was curious about what people thought of a potential partner who had engaged in relations with a Real Doll. (At this point, the primary market is female dolls for men, but there are some women who buy them, and there is one male doll on the market, too—so this question is open to everyone, regardless of sex or sexuality.) Would you be bothered if you found out your partner had a Real Doll? Would it make a difference if they continued to use the Real Doll while in a relationship?
Boy, that didn't take long.
I'm sure you're all shocked... SHOCKED.
(Tip 'o the Enegry Dome to the skippys)
Oh, you negative liberals! (Much finger wagging)
Mimus Pauly over at skippy the bush kangaroo has a little survey going on that I quite like. It all began with being annoyed by that wanker Bernard Goldberg, so I'm getting all kinds of fuzzy feelings from it.
but i got to thinking about the title of his new book, and i wondered: instead of harping on who is (allegedly) screwing up america, why not try identifying those who made america great? so, as of today, i'm conducting a survey: who are the 100 greatest americans of all time?
Head on over to read the "rules," and chime in. The suggestions in comments are really interesting.
(We can cross-post if we want to, we can leave your friends behind...)
“If You Like Me, Check This Box!”
"You are the best governor ever - deserving of great respect!" [Miers] wrote in 1997, in a belated birthday note that was typical of the tone she used in her correspondence with then-Gov. Bush.The best brush-clearin’ govner with scat for brains.
[…]
Bush responded to her birthday wish in kind, and included a humorous, if baffling, postscript.
"I appreciate your friendship and candor. Never hold back your sage advice," he wrote. "P.S. No more public scatology." Whether Bush was referring to Miers' rough-and-tumble time as chairwoman of the Texas Lottery Commission or something else isn't clear. Scatology refers to "the study of or preoccupation with excrement or obscenity," according to Webster's dictionary.
[…]
Indeed, Miers oozes with deference and awe in her letters to Bush. In a 1995 note, she thanked Bush for a visit and called a ride in a plane with him "Cool!" When she wrote Bush a thank-you note for meeting with a lottery job applicant in 1997, she wrote, "You are the best!"
I’ve always thought that the particular brand of cronyism practiced by the Bush administration (you know—the kind where the big dog’s buddies are put in charge of FEMA, rather than just given the ambassadorship to Luxembourg, which is a sort of harmless kind of cronyism that all big dogs play) is a lot like middle school—stranded between childhood friendships and the beginnings of adult friendships. It’s a time where one starts to understand loyalty, but a kind of adolescent version of it, where the girl who always says you look good is deemed more loyal than the one who will tell you honestly if you look ridiculous, and the boy who’s always up for a game of touch football is the better friend than the one who’s willing to stay in and help you study for the big science test. It’s a time when “I didn’t do it!” is a common refrain, when you can sell your friend down the river to save your own ass (or be sold by a friend), but be Best Friends Forever again the next day. It’s a time before many kids fully understand what the difference is between a fun friend and a good friend; it’s usually only by sheer luck you can find someone who’s both at that age.
The Bush administration seems stuck in middle school—a group of kids who aren’t well-liked, but have parents with clout, so they can get away with a lot of shit. They’re popular only because they are bullies, and the younger kids look up to them for fear of doing anything less. They make fun of the smart kids, and don’t pay much attention in class.
The teachers might think they’re taking notes, but they’re really just writing notes to pass each other in the hallway between classes.
“I can’t wait to get out of here!”
“If you like me, check this box!”
