Newt Runs Away Again

I think we're all disappointed that Newt Gingrich has realized his highest and best purpose in life is to star on a VH1 dating show called Hee-Haw Honeys of Love run a bullshit think tank, and not to run for President.

Earlier today, the melon-headed cracker was quoted as saying:

"To give up and kill an organization we spent a year on and that had 2,000 sites around the country where people had now invested their time and effort just to look at whether or not you could run, I thought would be irresponsible."

Of course, it would have been just as irresponsible last week, when Newt was soliciting pledges of 30 million dollars for a possible Presidential bid. Just slipped his mind.

Now we're left with Huckleberry Fred and Alan Keyes as the comedic relief for the G.O.P. And Duncan Hunter and Ron Paul. And Mitt Romney and that 9/11 guy. And if we're really lucky, a third party run by James Dobson.

Kicking Tom Friedman In The Nuts In A Roomful of Nitrous Oxide = Good Satire

In Friedman World, the sole criteria of something's worth is how it affects Tom Friedman.

"Like all good satire, the story made me both laugh and cry..."

Or, as Tommy would paraphrase Mel Brooks, "Tragedy is when I get a gravy stain on my turtleneck. Comedy is when thousands of Iraqis have bombs dropped on them and die."

Tommy Boy doesn't both to explain why an Onion article mocking Rudy Guiliani's 9/11 self-promotion made him weep, but we may safely assume it wasn't due to any self-examination of Tommy's own role in whipping up support for a post-9/11 world police state.

I wonder what emotions Tommy displays when reading about the latest Friedman Unit.

More About Matthew Shepard

Julia of Sisyphus Shrugged, David Neiwert and Scott Lemieux all have more on the ongoing Matthew Shepard bashing campaign by Andrews Breitbart and Sullivan.

A Challenge

I challenge former Vice President Al Gore to debate me on the topic: "Resolved: Bonner Cohen Is A Corporate Whore." If the Vice President refuses this challenge, the proposition must be resolved in the affirmative.

I also challenge the Vice President to pick up my laundry, drive me to the airport, and give me a no-interest loan so I can buy a Prius.

By the way, when Cohen writes for Schmuck Central Station, does that create a conflict of astroturf? Or at least an astroturf war? Who is Cohen's real master? For accounting purposes, does ExxonMobil make out the check to TCS, or directly to Cohen?

Nice Work

In the middle of National Review Online's Star Trek fanboy wankfest, wingnut welfare queen Mark Krikorian demonstrates the Christian compassion and respect for women that the right is famous for:

The late Gene Roddenberry's second wife, Majel Barrett (who played Nurse Chapel and Troi's mother and the voice of the ship's computer) stuck me as a professional widow, a la Coretta Scott King. And even then, more than 10 years ago, it was clear to me that George Takei (Sulu) was not the marrying kind.

Needless to say, Mrs. King's accomplishments far exceed those of Krikorian's career of racist teat-sucking. But to suggest that Mrs. King benefited from the assassination of her husband is beyond the pale even for such as pale hater as Krikorian.

Shepard Ain't Shit

Over at the Los Angeles Times, Drudge flunky Andrew Dimbart takes another belated whack at the Gay Right's favorite whipping boy, Matthew Shepard. Says Andy, "A street in West Hollywood still stands in [Shepard's] name despite ABC News reporting the story false: He was killed by crazed meth addicts for drugs and money -- not because he was gay."

This proclamation is Sully Joe's cue to chime in. Dimbart's "right," says Sully, though he later qualifies that claim by sniffing a whiff of "homophobia" in the killing, "even if it was grotesquely distorted as a pure hate crime by the usual suspects."

Let's see what ABC News actually reported: After the killing, Aaron McKinney's girlfriend claimed that McKinney beat Matthew Shepard to death when he became enraged after Shepard made a sexual advance. At trial, McKinney's defense attorneys sought to introduce evidence (assuredly with McKinney's cooperation and consent) that McKinney killed Shepard after a pass because McKinney had been sexually assaulted as a child. (And ABC omitted mention of a great deal of additional evidence and testimony that both killers targeted Shepard because he was a gay man.) McKinney's defense failed spectacularly. Six years after the assault, while rotting in prison, McKinney swore that all he wanted to do was beat up and rob Shepard, not commit a "hate crime." McKinney's girlfriend also changed her story, and a bunch of people claimed or speculated that McKinney was doing meth the week of the crime.

The usual suspects indeed. If a cold-blooded killer, his girlfriend and his appointed defense attorneys aren't the patresfamilias of the P.C. Gay Mafia, I don't know who is.

All ABC reported was that McKinney claimed he killed Matthew Shepard because Shepard was a predatory homosexual and, some four or five years after that story failed to earn him a sympathy verdict, started pedalling another sob story titled "The Crank Made Me Do It." Of course, Dimbart and Sullivan adopt McKinney's self-serving revisionist history because it fits their liberal-gays-want-special-rights fantasy, and not because version 2.0 is more credible than McKinney's original admission against interest.

The only grotesque distortion here is Sullivan's continuing attempt to smear political opponents based on a convienent recantation made long after the crime was committed. Were those who called attention to a hate crime in 1998 supposed to anticipate a lie told six years later? Meanwhile, Dimbart, who hasn't been beaten to a bloody pulp and left for dead, must continue to suffer the daily indignity of knowing that a street in his beloved town bears the name of a man who wasn't even man enough to fend off two armed attackers.

Another Fucking Nut Who Is Taken Seriously

Casting his lot with the Doughy Pantload and Marty Peretz (see post below), Ben Stein invokes fascism to prove he is a fucking moron:

[Stein] said he also believed the theory of evolution leads to racism and ultimately genocide, an idea common among creationist thinkers. If it were up to him, he said, the film would be called "From Darwin to Hitler."

And yet evolution is the only explanation for Stein's pathetic kissing of Richard Nixon's ass.

Stein's pattern of working for lying sacks continues with his present employer, Walt Ruloff:

Mr. Ruloff also cited Dr. Francis S. Collins, a geneticist who directs the National Human Genome Research Institute and whose book, "The Language of God: A Scientist Presents Evidence for Belief" (Simon & Schuster, 2006), explains how he came to embrace his Christian faith. Dr. Collins separates his religious beliefs from his scientific work only because "he is toeing the party line," Mr. Ruloff said.

That’s "just ludicrous," Dr. Collins said in a telephone interview. While many of his scientific colleagues are not religious and some are "a bit puzzled" by his faith, he said, "they are generally very respectful." He said that if the problem Mr. Ruloff describes existed, he is certain he would know about it.

Everybody Loves Fascism

Henceforth, fascism is whatever Marty "The Wedding Singer" Peretz says it is:

As everybody knows Columbia University hosted Mahmoud Ahmadinejad on campus Monday.

Now, the Hoover Institution, a historically conservative center at Stanford University where several Mensheviks lived out their lives, wants to appoint Donald Rumsfeld as a senior fellow. The first item I saw about this was on the editorial page of the WSJ. The editorial was called "Demon Rummy."

Of course, there is a petition going around demanding that he not be appointed because Rumsfeld is "fundamentally incompatible with the ethical values of truthfulness, tolerance, disinterested enquiry." Already 3,000 professors, students, and alumni have signed it.

So it's Ahmadinejad, yes; Rumsfeld, no. Both are actually instances of left-wing fascism.

Just try to find a logically consistent principle in that post.

Better yet, don't waste your time.

Run, Newt, Run

Crap author, deadbeat dad, friend of pro-Nazi historians and family man Newton Leroy "Newt" Gingrich is dipping a tubby toe into Presidential waters:

WALLACE: You've been flirting with the idea of running for president for months. And this week you said you want to see if you can get pledges of $30 million before deciding. How is that going to work?

GINGRICH: Well, I've said all along for the last year, I'm going to focus — I personally am focusing totally on doing American Solutions, having the workshops on Thursday and Saturday, reaching out across the whole country on a totally bipartisan basis.

Next Monday, Randy Evans, who's been my friend and adviser for many, many years, will hold a press briefing. Randy will spend the next three weeks checking with people around the country.

If he reports back that, in fact, we think the resources are there for a real race — remember, Governor Romney has been very successful legitimately as a businessman. He can write a $100 million check.

I mean, there's no point in getting into a fight with a guy who can drown you unless you at least have enough resources for a vote.

And so if we have enough resources, then close to that we'll face a very big decision in late October. If there aren't enough resources, I'm not for doing unrealistic things.

If you check in with me, Randy, I'm all for a Newt candidacy. There's plenty of room in the G.O.P. field for the white Alan Keyes. In fact, I'll pledge a considerable amount to a Gingrich candidacy. In a Newt's wedding vows sort of way, to be sure, but a pledge is a pledge.

A Quarter For The First Five Minutes

If you couldn't find a parking space in the City last Friday, it was all Tom Hilton's fault.

It Was Worse Than I Remembered

Thanks to TimesSelect, I'd forgotten just how terrible a writer Maureen Dowd is. Now I remember:

As though Republicans don't have enough problems, Mr. Craig said he is ready to go back to work while the legal hotshots he hired appeal his case. He even cast a couple votes, one against D.C. voting rights. (This creep gets to decide about my representation?)

* * *

The Iraq war she helped sell has turned into Grendel, devouring everything in sight and making it uninhabitable. It has ravaged Iraq, Bush's presidency, the federal budget, the Republican majority, American invincibility and integrity, and now, John McCain's chance to be president. [Jesus wept - Roger]

And there's no Beowulf in sight. Just a bunch of spectacularly wrong hawks stubbornly continuing to be spectacularly wrong at what an alarmed Republican Senator John Warner calls "a time in our history unlike any I have ever witnessed before."

Watching the warring tribes in Iraq grow more violent has caused the beginning of a reconciliation among the warring tribes in Washington, as they realize they have to get the car keys away from the careening president who has crashed into the globe.

* * *

This pundit, for one, needs hope as much as any American these days. But the only time I roll my eyes is when my hope is dashed that Obama will boldly take on Hillary, making his campaign more than cameras and mirrors and magazine covers.

....

Obama relentlessly recited his credentials to voters in New Hampshire, talking about being a community organizer the way corporate lawyers remind you they were in the Peace Corps.

It's not his experience that excites people, but his brainy elan. We don't know about his judgment: good on Iraq, bad on Rezko.

* * *

Republicans are especially eager for a papa after their disappointing experiences with Junior. After going through so many shattering disasters, W. seems more the inexperienced kid than ever.

...

W. cooperated with Ropert Draper, the author of a new biography of him, yet the portrait was not flattering. Like a frat president sitting around with the brothers trying to figure out whether to party with Tri-Delts or Thetas, W. asked his advisers for a show of hands last year to see if Rummy should stay on.

Stupid and pointless analogies, issue spotting as substitute for analysis, incompetent analysis, trivia and, quite often, just plain bad writing. She and Nooners must be using the same phone. Even when I can understand Dowd well enough to agree with her -- on those rare occasions she addresses and takes a position on something of significance -- her blather is just painful to read.

The only good news is that she'll be hitting mandatory retirement age any day now.

V.D. Is Another One

Just in time for Columbus Day (or as we call it in these parts, Indigenous Peoples Day), The Atlantic Monthly is advertising itself in banner ads with the slogan "Give A Gift They Won't Return."

Yes, they won't return The Atlantic Monthly because it would be a waste of postage. And if they call to cancel, the refund wouldn't go to them anyway.

Straight from the post box to the recycling bin is what they'll do.

Republicans selling arms to terrorists for personal gain.

Isn't that the Reagan Doctrine?

Update: As the great and good Urban Sombrero points out in comments, the Washington Post/Reuters article doesn't mention the fact that the smuggled weapons ended up in the hands of terrorists, as the Associated Press reported. Blackwater is denying prior knowledge of its employees' activities, as well as denying the smuggling has anything do with Iraq. (So it's okay then.)

And, of course, if you believe the Iraqi government -- our staunchest ally in the Terrorists War Against Us, The Non-Terrorists -- Blackwater is a terrorist.

And, no, that's not comedic exaggeration.

A Gathering Of Nutjobs

From the "Values Voters Debate":

In attendance were former Arkansas Gov. Mike Huckabee, Sen. Sam Brownback of Kansas, Chicago businessman John Cox, Maryland conservative Alan Keyes and Reps. Ron Paul of Texas, Tom Tancredo of Colorado and Duncan Hunter of California.

The debate was marked more by the candidates' agreement than anything else, illustrated in a round in which they were asked a string of yes-or-no questions.

All seven participants said they would work to keep federal funding away from organizations that perform or promote abortions; to revive an attempt to reform Social Security by offering personal retirement accounts; and to oppose a government-run universal health insurance system.

They all vowed to increase funding for abstinence education, to veto hate crimes legislation and to oppose embryonic stem cell research. They all agreed multiculturalism "weakens and divides" the country.

So much for Paul's libertarianism. The man wants taxpayer-funded no-fucking classes and a government prohibition on scientific studies. Oh well. I suppose those poor schmucks without any retirement income will sustain themselves with the knowledge their taxes are being spent on Bible lessons for horny teens.

The debaters also took their turns whacking the empty chair:

That didn't stop questioners from addressing the front-runners who didn't attend.

Giuliani, Romney and McCain were all asked questions about abortion and gay rights. All, of course, went unanswered.

Just like the debaters' prayers to their deity.

The loons in charge of the debate vow that the G.O.P. frontrunners will rue the day they crossed the "values voters."

"They will regret the decision," said Jan Folger, president of Faith2Action and a member of the debate host committee. "Because they snubbed us, they will not win, because we will not follow their lead."

And their wives shall be barren and their crops shall wither in the fields and the Lord thy God shall spew them out of His mouth like a big slug from a stale cup of coffee with cigarette butts floating thereon.

Wingnut Welfare Jnr.

Where will the future Ben Domenechs and Ben Shapiros come from? From whence cometh the Young Republicans who haven't yet assaulted their drunk or unconscious acquaintances of both sexes, or at least haven't been caught yet?

They're here, and their waiting for their wingnut welfare checks to arrive.

America's Future Foundation is pleased to announce a nationwide contest for the best conservative or libertarian college blogger. The purpose of the contest is to encourage original liberty-minded blogger journalism on college campuses and to identify young conservative and libertarian talent who wish to pursue careers as journalists and writers.

The contest is open to all graduate and undergraduate bloggers age 25 and younger. The winning blog will be awarded a cash prize of $10,000, and be invited to be a panelist at an AFF Roundtable on higher education in Washington, D.C. Awards will be announced on April 7, 2008.

The Judges

Jonathan Adler of The Volokh Consipracy
Radley Balko of The Agitator
Robert Bluey of The Heritage Foundation and RobertBluey.com
Jonah Goldberg of National Review Online
Mary Katharine Ham of TownHall.com
Megan McArdle of JaneGalt.net

Entrants will be judged on "[the] blogs on quality of the blogs, the intellectual merit of the posts, and the ability of the blogs to make a meaningful contribution to their college campuses." Blogs demonstrating quality, intellectual merit or the ability to contribute will be disqualified, and the remainder will be judged based on the ability to suck up to the judges.

Judges will also consider "How regularly does the blogger post? How many comments does the blog receive on its posts?" thereby eliminating RobertBluey.com from consideration.

So if you're young, stupid and hoping to be sexually harassed by a Doughy Pantload (no fags, please!), this is the opportunity for you.

Wondering what kind of Attorney General Michael Mukasey might make?

In September 2006, he gave a grand to Joe Lieberman's campaign.

Roger's Booknotes

October 12, 2007 marks the fiftieth anniversary of the shittiest novel ever written.

Of course, the book does make it easier to spot morons.

Alan Keyes Is Running (Low on Cash)

In a bid to make themselves look sane, Sam Brownback, Tom Tancredo, Duncan Hunter and John McCain have announced that Ambassador Alan Keyes is running for the Republican presidential nomination in 2008:

On Friday, Sept. 14, Alan Keyes filed a Statement of Candidacy (Form 2) with the Federal Election Commission--thus officially announcing as a Republican candidate for President of the United States.

Keyes told Janet Parshall, host of a nationally syndicated radio show, that he's "unmoved" by the lack of moral courage shown by the other candidates, among whom he sees no standout who articulates the "key kernel of truth that must, with courage, be presented to our people."

He added, "The one thing I've always been called to do is to raise the standard . . . of our allegiance to God and His authority that has been the foundation stone of our nation's life"--and he decried the lack of "forthright, clear, and clarion declaration" from the other candidates concerning this issue.

As a result, Keyes said, "We're putting together an effort that's not going to be like anything before, because it's going to be entirely based on citizen action. We're going to be challenging people to take a pledge for America's revival," and elevate them from spectators in the political arena to participants.

Keyes' first official act as a candidate will be an appearance at a "Value Voters Debate" in Florida on Monday, where the Republican hopefuls will clash over whether toilet sex aficionados, sexual predators or pedophiles best fully represent the values of Florida Republicans.

Keyes' second act will be to pay himself a handsome salary from the campaign donations sent in by suckers.

I can't find a report of Keyes' run from any of the major news outlets. It appears the EMESSEM is covering up Keyes' announcement just to make the Republican Party look good.

Your Worst Nightmare

Scrub all you want, Lady Macbeth, the stench of Paul Wolfowitz and his invasion will not come off.

As Shakespeare might say, if he was misquoted, "Here's the smell of the blood still; all the perfumes of Arabia will not sweeten this little man."

Think Harder

"On Tuesday, Wendy Ellis, a former New Orleans prostitute, presented her case at a Beverly Hills, Calif., news conference arranged by Hustler magazine publisher Larry Flynt. She said Vitter was one of her clients in 1999, the year he won a seat in the U.S. House.

"Vitter has denied those claims, but Flynt said Ellis recently passed a lie detector test that confirms her side of the story. Ellis was previously identified as Wendy Cortez, the name she used as a prostitute.

"Joel Digrado [!], Vitter's spokesman, declined to comment on Ellis' new claims and said 'Vitter and his wife have addressed all of this very directly.'

...

"Lee Fletcher, a north Louisiana Republican radio talk show host and political operative, said the latest claims by Ellis and Flynt would not damage Vitter.

"'He came in here 30 days ago, and it was SRO: standing room only,' Fletcher said about a recent visit to north Louisiana by Vitter.

"'The consensus even among the folks behind the scenes is that it's not going anywhere. It's been tried and it didn't stick,' Fletcher said about the allegations. 'What's really helped Vitter, the people going after him are a pornographer and a prostitute. And therefore they have less credibility than anybody I can think of.'"

Excluding Republican radio talk show hosts and political operatives.

Shorter Lee Fletcher: Vitter needs to start fucking a better class of persons.

Isn't This Where We Came In?

I woke up this morning and witnessed almost exactly the same scene I saw six years ago. MSNBC was rebroadcasting the Today Show from September 11, 2001 in "real time," with only a small-print explanation of what was depicted at the bottom of the screen. I'm convinced that I tuned in nearly at the same point as six years ago -- with only the first tower hit and the hosts having no idea as to the origin of the plane or the reasons for the collision. That could be a trick of memory, however.

So much has changed in the past six years.

The same incompetent president is still in the White House.

Osama bin Laden is living his life as before.

The Administration and its necrophiliac cheerleaders are planning a glorious campaign to attack a Middle Eastern country based on fraudulent intelligence. Again.

Cheney, Rumsfeld, Wolfowitz, Powell and Rice remain unindicted.

Norman Podhoretz is still batshit crazy ("the battle of Iraq"! Again!)

Telegenic white women of all ages are in peril, 24/7.

And thousands of Americans have become casualties of senseless violence, because that's what God wants.

Vanessa Hudgens Naked

Zac Efron naked
Roger Ailes' already anemic hit count has sunk to nearly flatline levels in past months.

Fred Dalton Thompson naked

Consequently, I'll be spending this weekend with the creative team designing new strategies to increase traffic.

Monica Bellucci naked

Rest assured that this blog's high standards will not be affected in the least by my insatiable appetence for attention.

Hot Roger L. Simon on Charles Johnson reconquista dhimmitude

In the meantime, check out James Wolcott's blog.

Sic Fucks

I rarely comment on the quality of writing or proofreading on blogs, primarily because I don't believe amateurs and part-timers should be held to professional standards and secondarily because I'm too lazy to use spellcheck. If a blogger and a formerly-respected journal are going to combine forces, however, at least one of the two should make a half-assed stab at literacy.

Ignore the obvious idiocy of the content of this example, and consider the grammar, composition, punctuation and spelling:

An upper middle class white kid who decides to become a journalist is consigning themselves to a lower standard of living than the one they grew up with; at one time I considered writing a book on downward mobility. But it's not the same decision that a kid whose parents are a janitor and a waitress makes. Even if their parents don't give them money, the upper-middle class kid know that if some financial disaster appears, their parents can step into alleviate it. Help with things like housing downpayments in expensive urban areas will be forthcoming. Eventually, a small inheritence will provide capital for needed projects. Meanwhile, an enhanced lifestyle is generally available through parental meals, vacation homes, theater tickets, and so forth.

You might as well start every post with "Readers, I can't be bothered to give a fuck...."

Toys In The Attic

Recently released studies show that some boys who play with dolls turn out to be morons:

The popular all-American comic-book military man and action figure dating back to the 1940s is undergoing a significant transformation for the Paramount Pictures-distributed "G.I. Joe" film, which begins production in February and is scheduled for release in summer 2009.

No longer will G.I. Joe be a U.S. Special Forces soldier, the "Real American Hero" who, in his glory days, single-handedly won World War II [WTF? - Roger].

In the politically correct new millennium, G.I. Joe bears no resemblance to the original.

Paramount has confirmed that in the movie, the name G.I. Joe will become an acronym for "Global Integrated Joint Operating Entity" — an international, coed task force charged with defeating bad guys....

"I find it outrageous that they'd want to drop everything American" from the character, said conservative blogger Warner Todd Huston, who wrote about the rumors this week on Newsbusters.org and his own blog. "That's nuts."

Retired Army Col. David W. Hunt, a FOX News military and terrorism analyst, called the scheme to make a whole new Joe "a shame."

...

"G.I. Joe is not an international hero. That's crap," said Col. Hunt. "They don't have to water it down. That doesn't make sense."

For blogger Huston, who played with G.I. Joe as a boy, transforming the entire character into an amorphous task force in the movie feels like a hit to his childhood memories.

"I certainly understand that it's for international audiences, but these things are American icons," he said. "Why even pretend it's G.I. Joe then? I am a little bit upset about the whole thing."

...

"It's the last spit in the face of our military," Huston said. "The doll was G.I. Joe, the government-issued guy who was a hero and American. It was celebrating this one heroic soldier. They want to take even that away."

Actually, the heroic Joe has been slandered since the 1980s, when it was insinuated by South Korean animators that Joe fighter pilots, though armed with the latest laser gun technology, were completely incapable of killing the Cobra airmen whose planes they shot down.

But Joe survived that, as well as the 70s, a decade in which he spent most of his time on Fire Island with Brent Bozell (in blue) and some of their pals.

I can understand why this shocking news would cause a proud military man like Weenie Todd to lose his tenuous kung-fu grip on reality. I haven't yet found any record of Huston's adult military service, but rumor has it he served in the same division as "Captain Ed" Morrissey, and wounded his wrist in the Battle of Avalon Hill.

The New York Sun was unimpressed by Huckleberry Fred's presidential announcement, and yearns for a stronger man to enter the G.O.P. race.

"The Battle of Iraq" says it all.

Scoop

Yesterday, the New York Times shocked the world with a front-page exclusive which revealed that hookers advertise on Craigslist.

If only the paper can nail down that elusive massage parlor-handjob connection, a Pulitzer is theirs for the asking.

Oh, Yes I Did

By the way, I'm not the only one who's down on Huckleberry Fred. Dick Viguerie tries his hand at some comedy, and attacks Huckleberry in the persona of a catty bitch known as "The Washington Insider."

(Washington, D.C.) Fred Thompson, well known for his role as the District Attorney in NBC's wildly successful "Law and Order" series, has been signed by Faux Productions to star in its new political soap opera, "The Conservative."

...

One Faux executive confided to The Washington Insider that the producers wanted to sign Thompson for the series because he was seen as a "natural," having already impersonated a conservative U.S. Senator for eight years. It is not yet known whether the new production will bring back the old stage props, such as Fred's red pickup truck. That may be fine for Tennessee, the executive said, but too unsophisticated for a national show. Rumors are also rampant that Jeri Thompson, who plays the leading distaff role as The Conservative’s child bride, doesn't like pickup trucks.

The snap you just heard was Dick's hip breaking.

Iraqtober Surprise

This is from a blog post from Kit Seelye, so it could be inaccurate, but:

Mr. McCain gets the last word [in the G.O.P. Debate] and invokes Ronald Reagan. He says it was more than a coincidence that Mr. Reagan took the oath of office in 1981 on the same day that the American hostages in Iran were released. And he said he would be guided by Mr. Reagan's principles.

Hmm.... Is Saint Johnny in negotiations with Al-Qaeda in Iraq?

Roger's News Soundtrack: Larry Craig Edition

Curly Howard once claimed, "I'm a victim of circumstance."

Do you remember when we used to dance
An incident arose from circumstance
One thing lead to another we were young
And we would scream together songs unsung

...

It was the heat of the moment....

Me too, says Larry Craig (R-Idaho), whose kids claim Lar is "victim of circumstance, in the wrong place at the wrong time."

I been in the right place
But it must have been the wrong time
I'd have said the right thing
But I must have used the wrong line

Specifically, "What do you think about that?"

Meanwhile, Craig has lawyered up, has changed his mind on the question of resignation, and is hoping to wipe the slate clean. He's asking the musical question:

Should I stay or should I go now?
Should I stay or should I go now?
If I go there will be trouble
And if I stay it will be double
So come on and let me know

...

Should I cool it or should I blow?

(Okay, it's not art, but it worked for Rick Dees.)

President Peckerwood

Well, doggies. Huckleberry, I say, Huckleberry Fred Thompson, the nation's most talented Southern actor since Jim Varney passed on, has thrown his hat into the G.O.P. presidential ring. We'll see plenty of Fred on the trail, mopping his brow with a big white handkerchief and looping his thumbs into his suspenders, the living embodiment of Matthew Harrison Brady and Willie Stark. Take a nice long sip of your lemmynade and get ready for some cornpone:

Leno introduced [Huckleberry] as "one of the most popular Republicans not running for president" and then asked, "You've been in the water for awhile now ... Are you starting to get a little wrinkly?"

"These wrinkles don't come from the water," the 65-year-old Thompson mugged.

"What does the water tell you?" Leno said.

"Nice and warm," Thompson said. "That's one thing I wanted to talk to you about. "I'm running for president of the United States."

The audience erupted into cheers.

Junior Samples couldn't have said it better.

Our CEO President

WASHINGTON, Sept. 3 — A previously undisclosed exchange of letters shows that President Bush was told in advance by his top Iraq envoy in May 2003 of a plan to "dissolve Saddams military and intelligence structures," a plan that the envoy, L. Paul Bremer, said referred to dismantling the Iraqi Army.

Mr. Bremer provided the letters to The New York Times on Monday after reading that Mr. Bush was quoted in a new book as saying that American policy had been "to keep the army intact" but that it "didn't happen."

The dismantling of the Iraqi Army in the aftermath of the American invasion is now widely regarded as a mistake that stoked rebellion among hundreds of thousands of former Iraqi soldiers and made it more difficult to reduce sectarian bloodshed and attacks by insurgents. In releasing the letters, Mr. Bremer said he wanted to refute the suggestion in Mr. Bush's comment that Mr. Bremer had acted to disband the army without the knowledge and concurrence of the White House.

"We must make it clear to everyone that we mean business: that Saddam and the Baathists are finished," Mr. Bremer wrote in a letter that was drafted on May 20, 2003, and sent to the president on May 22 through Donald H. Rumsfeld, then secretary of defense.

After recounting American efforts to remove members of the Baath Party of Saddam Hussein from civilian agencies, Mr. Bremer told Mr. Bush that he would "parallel this step with an even more robust measure" to dismantle the Iraq military.

One day later, Mr. Bush wrote back a short thank you letter. "Your leadership is apparent," the president wrote. "You have quickly made a positive and significant impact. You have my full support and confidence."

...

In an interview with Robert Draper, author of the new book, "Dead Certain," Mr. Bush sounded as if he had been taken aback by the decision, or at least by the need to abandon the original plan to keep the army together.

"The policy had been to keep the army intact; didn’t happen," Mr. Bush told the interviewer. When Mr. Draper asked the president how he had reacted when he learned that the policy was being reversed, Mr. Bush replied, "Yeah, I can't remember, I'm sure I said, 'This is the policy, what happened?'"

Maybe Bremer will get around to remembering where he put that $8 billion. And explain how Bush gave him the authority to dispose of it.

You're It

I missed this while celebrating the Labor Day weekend, but apparently a Colorado Springs elementary school has banned Tagg Romney from its playgrounds.

If you see this man loitering around a school or public park, wearing a Dodgers cap and holding an Anne McCaffrey novel, alert the appropriate authorities. Do not approach him under any circumstances.