a girl can fantasize

In the past week, I’ve twice been close enough to Dick Cheney to kick him in the shins.

I didn’t. It’s probably a federal crime of some sort. But a girl can fantasize. I did, however, assume the Stay-away-from-me-you’ve-got-cooties stance that Jimmy Carter used when posing with Bill Clinton at the presidents’ powwow in the Oval.

The first time was Tuesday, when Cheney left the ceremony where he gave the oath of office to senators. The senators seemed thrilled, especially Joe Biden, who was getting sworn in for just two weeks and was excitedly showing off a family Bible the size of a Buick. But I thought it gave the ceremony a satirical edge to have the lawless Vice presiding over lawmakers swearing to support and defend the Constitution that he soiled and defiled — right in the heart of the legislative branch he worked to diminish.

The second time I crossed paths was Thursday night, at a glitzy party at Cafe Milano for Brit Hume, stepping down as a Fox anchor. It required extreme defensive maneuvers — much zigging and zagging — to avoid Cheney, Wolfie and Rummy, all three holding court and blissfully unrepentant about the chaos they’ve unleashed on the world.

“My conscience is clear,” Rummy volunteered to Bob Woodward...

...From Gaza to the unemployment figures to the $10.6 trillion debt, things keep spiraling while W. keeps fiddling. Just as when he was in the National Guard and didn’t bother to show up, now, as the scabrous consequences of his missteps shake the economy and the world, he doesn’t bother to show up. He’s checked out — spending his time on more than a dozen exit interviews that do nothing to change his image as a president who was over his head and under Cheney’s spell.

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Hopeful Palin Interview Q's

Hopeful Palin Interview Q's

... if you’re reading this, Charlie, we want to know everything, including:

What kind of budget-cutter makes a show of getting rid of the state plane, then turns around and bills taxpayers for the travel of her husband and kids between Juneau and Wasilla and sticks the state with a per-diem tab to stay in her own home?

Why was Sarah for the Bridge to Nowhere before she was against the Bridge to Nowhere, and why was she for earmarks before she was against them? And doesn’t all this make her just as big a flip-flopper as John Kerry?

What kind of fiscal conservative raises taxes and increases budgets in both her jobs — as mayor and as governor?

When the phone rings at 3 a.m., will she call the Wasilla Assembly of God congregation and ask them to pray on a response, as she asked them to pray for a natural gas pipeline?

Does she really think Adam, Eve, Satan and the dinosaurs mingled on the earth 5,000 years ago?

Why put out a press release about her teenage daughter’s pregnancy and then spend the next few days attacking the press for covering that press release?

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Maureen Dowd

Today's Quote:

"The blazing hostility toward W. has faded to indifference and a sort of fatigued perplexity about how les imbeciles de regime cowboy got into office, and how America could have put the world through all this craziness."

--Maureen Dowd

link

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Bush’s Fleurs du Mal

Bush's Fleurs du Mal
By MAUREEN DOWD
Published: May 27, 2007

The president thinks he can save face if he keeps taunting Democrats as the party of surrender - just as Nixon did - and dumps the Frankenstate he's created on his successor.

For me, the saddest spot in Washington is the inverted V of the black granite Vietnam wall, jutting up with the names of young men dying in a war that their leaders already knew could not be won.

So many died because of ego and deceit - because L.B.J. and Robert McNamara wanted to save face or because Henry Kissinger wanted to protect Nixon's re-election chances.

Now the Bush administration finds itself at that same hour of shame. It knows the surge is not working. Iraq is in a civil war, with a gruesome bonus of terrorists mixed in. April was the worst month this year for the American military, with 104 soldiers killed, and there have been about 90 killed thus far in May. The democracy's not jelling, as Iraqi lawmakers get ready to slouch off for a two-month vacation, leaving our kids to be blown up.

The top-flight counterinsurgency team that President Bush sent in after long years of pretending that we'd "turned the corner" doesn't believe there's a military solution.

--MORE--

So many deaths; so little truth.

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Dying For Dick

DAFFY DOES DOOM
By Maureen Dowd

01/27/07 New York Times

Dick Durbin went to the floor of the Senate on Thursday night to denounce the vice president as "delusional."

It was shocking, and Senator Durbin should be ashamed of himself.

Delusional is far too mild a word to describe Dick Cheney. Delusional doesn't begin to capture the profound, transcendental one-flew-over daftness of the man.

Has anyone in the history of the United States ever been so singularly wrong and misguided about such phenomenally important events and continued to insist he's right in the face of overwhelming evidence to the contrary?

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[Stealth Lesbian has a far better post (& title) on Dying For Dick with detailed graphics.]

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A Come-to-Daddy Moment

Poppy Bush and James Baker gave Sonny the presidency to play with and he broke it. So now they?re taking it back.

They are dragging W. away from those reckless older guys who have been such a bad influence and getting him some new minders who are a lot more practical.

In a scene that might be called "Murder on the Oval Express," Rummy turned up dead with so many knives in him that it?s impossible to say who actually finished off the man billed as Washington's most skilled infighter. (Poppy? Scowcroft? Baker? Laura? Condi? The Silver Fox? Retired generals? Serving generals? Future generals? Troops returning to Iraq for the umpteenth time without a decent strategy? Democrats? Republicans? Joe Lieberman?)

The defense chief got hung out to dry before Saddam got hung. The president and Karl Rove, underestimating the public?s hunger for change or overestimating the loyalty of a fed-up base, did not ice Rummy in time to save the Senate from teetering Democratic. But once Sonny managed to heedlessly dynamite the Republican majority ? as well as the Middle East, the Atlantic alliance and the U.S. Army ? then Bush Inc., the family firm that snatched the presidency for W. in 2000, had to step in. Two trusted members of the Bush 41 war council, Mr. Baker and Robert Gates, have been dispatched to discipline the delinquent juvenile and extricate him from the mother of all messes.

Mr. Gates, already on Mr. Baker?s "How Do We Get Sonny Out of Deep Doo Doo in Iraq?" study group, left his job protecting 41?s papers at Texas A&M to return to Washington and pry the fingers of Poppy?s old nemesis, Rummy, off the Pentagon.

"They had to bring in someone from the old gang," said someone from the old gang. "That has to make Junior uneasy. With Bob, the door is opened again to 41 and Baker and Brent."

Another great Maureen Dowd piece that never lets us forget that it's Bush Inc in charge; not Baby Bush. [Read More] (This week is Free Access week at NYT)

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Maureen Dowd: Death By Instant Message

So now we have our first IM scandal.

We knew it was coming, all this personal information zinging back and forth across cyberspace at the speed of write, all this constantly streaming technology being inexorably adapted to the needs of desire.

IM-ing is like whispering, perfect for furtive, racy exchanges — or slimy, perverted ones. It’s as if your id had a typewriter. In a world where everything is instant, the delaying and censoring mechanisms that contributed to a civilized life are gone.

In the old days, there was a chance that career- or marriage-destroying letters would be, upon further consideration, thrown into the fireplace. IM’s, e-mails and BlackBerry billets-doux, more perilous forms of drunk dialing, have the wings of Mercury and the indestructibility of mercury.

But peripatetic pols, like gossipy high school girls, will not give up computer messaging just because creepy Mark Foley (a k a Maf54) got caught with his e-boxers down.

Indeed, the president and his top advisers were IM-ing just last night about the party’s meltdown. I hacked into the OVAL1600 chat room and prepared a transcript. Warning: politically explicit language, reader discretion advised.

Decider: hey

Rover08: ya

Decider: Dick, u here? Don?

DarthV: ya, potus

Rumstud74: ditto, boss

Decider: I called denny to tell him i just can’t quit him ...brokeback party ... did we decide right?

Rover08: ya ... even if we’re now the party of gays and a weak military, let’s not let the Dems paint us that way

DarthV: obvi

*Continued in the Comments

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Tripping Thru The Web, April 1 Edition

Happy St Stupid's Day!
Celebrated by The First Church of the Last Laugh. The 27th annual absurd parade wanders, totters and meanders around, starting at the Embarcadero Plaza. Bring old lottery tickets, pennies and socks for the stations of stupid, and dress accordingly. Free. Noon. Justin Herman Plaza. (SF, CA) I feel a little silly, does that count?

Ilustration Friday is a photo meme with a weekly challenge. This week's topic is, "Crowded".
(via: Anne?)

And speaking of photos, take a look at this one Marie took of the Blue Ridge Mtns. Adjectives fail me.

Comedian Mitch Hedberg dies at 37 - That's sad. He had the dry-est delivery of any comedian I'd ever heard. A truely unique individual. I saw his first television appearance, which was on Letterman several years ago, and every chance I had after that.
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Sez the Rev Falwell:
"Grown men should not be having sex with prostitutes unless they are married to them."
[more noxious gems...] (via: maru whow gets best quote of the day honors for this: Boy, will he be suprised to find out that the Almighty is a liberal black lesbian... )

I Spy A Screw-Up - Latest column in which Maureen Dowd calls bullshit.

NYPress's 50 Most Loathsome New Yorkers list is relentless. It must have been a blast constructing this column. Better duck, bloggers. The shit's slinging in your direction, too, as the first target is the " Franken-headed Gawker Media emperor Nick Denton". Priceless.
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There's a brand spanking new collaborative blog in town. The Scarab Dreamer, is ticking with wild anticipation. Go on over and have a look.

Art With Latex Designs has great looking necklaces and chokers uniquely make of latex so I'll be having one when I can make up my mind. (via: ollapodrida who's in the midst of a posting frenzy of most excellent links and we're all the beneficiaries.)

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Welcome To The Matrix

In what civil liberties advocates call the most massive database surveillance program in U.S. history, the Multistate Anti-Terrorism Information Exchange, or Matrix, continues to compile billions of records on law-abiding citizens and receive federal funding, despite public outcry and suspicion.

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Maureen Dowd, the Pulitzer Prize-winning columnist, pointed out in Thursday's NY Times that the Secret Service has "advised journalists to bring 'escape hood respirators' to the Democratic convention in Boston in case of a terrorist attack." {via: esoteric bowl, who has a thoroughly researched and humorous post on hoods for the 21st century.) Scroll to the bottom for this line about the respirators here.



saturday morning me//

still in a stupor/oatmeal & brown sugar/

sipping:Folger's #1/puffing:Gauloises Blondes #2/

Stewie t-shirt/navy sweatshorts/

new kitten with no name climbing my frame/

winamp: since i've been lovin' you-led zeppelin/

thinking: 'bout the unviverse/

so how's about you?/

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I Gotcher Monday rite heah. Don't forget your patriotic duty. It can be expressed in so many ways. Skippy and Stu express their political beliefs on their weblogs below.



Blog Hit Parade

* skippy's still consistently fighting the good fight. He reports on the latest Time/CNN poll with Bush's slipping numbers.

* Next time you think you've got the job from hell, read about Stray Bullet's boot camp new job and think again.

* Stu Savory sees the US most objectively and is passionate about the injustice. "Let us think today of those mutilated by Bush's unneccessary rush into an unjustified war."

* Smells Like Team Spirit - Bush's B-Boys Replay Their Greatest Hits

* Marie at Blue Ridge Blog congratulates local legend, Doc Watson for his Lifetime Acheivement Award at the Grammys.

* Get over yourself, Justin. Of all the greats nominated at the Grammys, why in hell did we award Lame-ass Vanilla Boy? Maybe we should have one award show for the kiddies and another one for the grown-ups (with the real talent).

* Tish has great positive outlooks, but Kevin Cooper's fate is clouding it as he's scheduled for execution tonight.

* Laurie is such a good writer, and even good writers experience writer's block.

* Today Bsti asks "If you could do something that's considered socially unacceptable, what would it be?" I'm thinking, I'm thinking!



"All we need are a few gay nuptials outside the Boston convention hall and we're home free." as Maureen Dowd imagines Cheney planning Bush's assault on Kerry.

As long as we're imagining, I imagine Bush home in bed in the fetal position freaking on John Kerry's heroics when he was in the National Guard defending Texas from Oklahoma.

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:: Crawford George has morphed into Baghdad Bob



Speaking to reporters this week, (with blatantly obvious previously approved questions and questioners--Susan's words) Mr. Bush made the bizarre argument that the worse things get in Iraq, the better news it is. "The more successful we are on the ground, the more these killers will react," he said.



Now Bush illogic continues: The more Americans, Iraqis and aid workers who get killed and wounded, the more it is a sign of American progress. The more dangerous Iraq is, the safer the world is. The more troops we seem to need in Iraq, the less we need to send more troops.



The harder it is to find Saddam, Osama and W.M.D., the less they mattered anyhow. The more coordinated, intense and sophisticated the attacks on our soldiers grow, the more "desperate" the enemy is.



Stop this ride, Bush. I wanna get off. Eyes Wide Shut - Maureen Dowd piece today in the NYTimes.



:: Extensive article in LAWeekly music section about Dub: All the World’s a Slave - Today, with a planet in bondage, the fragmented yet relentless pull of instrumental riddims could be the colorblind soundtrack to the dance of the chain-breakers. There's the cross-cultural potential. The dance thing. The upsetter rhythms. The revolutionary history. The religious connection, reinforced by tranceful repetitions à la Buddhist or Gregorian chants — this music can lift you off the earth.



And of course, there’s the ganja.



I don't always disclose my age, but let's just say it's between twenty and Wal-Mart greeter.

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Good morning to you...



::Bloghdad News Tish is done with her BOOK. Shirl is planning her Montana adventure. Theo is hoping to hear from that great job offer he recently had. Rhonda got her dream job. Maggie's spending some nice time with family.



::And I've been a cleaning fool. Cleaning everything that goes out of this house to our other home. I mean everything. Not simply packing it all up & taking it with us. I'm taking this opportunity to go thru it all. Toss it, donate it or clean it, pack it, (flip it & reverse it.) Moving is more fun than any human should be allowed to have.



::Killing Saddam: A Summer Blockbuster - Tom Hayden has a lot of questions that need addressing if and when Saddam is killed.



::Maureen Dowd weighs in -- "Maybe we should pity President Bush, stranded in his 50's world of hypermasculinity as his country goes gay and metrosexual (straight men with femme tastes like facials)."



::The Restaurant is on tonight. Anyone watching it? Last week's show was more riveting than any movie I've seen lately.



::Quote For Today

To be interested in the changing seasons is a happier state of mind than to be hopelessly in love with spring. ~George Santayana



::Today is the last day of some of your life.

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Mo Dowd reports" Desert Spring" on the horizon. The military is "banking genetic material before deployment", American embassy staffs in the Mideast are moved out, network anchors are packing their bespoke flak jackets, and the 101st Airborne moves out to the Persian Gulf, along with the Kitty Hawk. We're on track for a mid-March invasion of Baghdad.



Dozens Protest "Players Ball"

To get to the "World Famous Players Ball" (Club Mirage in Atlanta) on Saturday night, partygoers had to pass about 50 protesters carrying signs reading "Shame" or "Pimping Ain't Popular." Some men attending the party Saturday wore full-length mink coats, fancy hats, alligator boots and jewelry. Protester David Smith objected to the party's glamorization of pimps.



Unaware that it was a straight lift from a PHD thesis both Tony Blair and US Secretary of State Colin Powell this week paraded the dossier as quality research and a searing indictment of Saddam's regime. Unbelieveable. Doesn't anyone fact-check this stuff? [jpg via: whatreallyhappened]



Quotes For The Day

"Forget not that the earth delights to feel your bare feet and the winds long to play with your hair."

~Kahlil Gibran



There are many ways to measure success; not the least of which is the way your child describes you when talking to a friend.

~Unknown

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The Political M & M Show [Maureen Dowd], [Molly Ivins]


Who's Your Daddy


Mareen Dowd breaks it down by saying that it's nothing more than a pissing contest [my words, not hers] in her 'Who's Your Daddy' column in the New York Times yesterday. But the more Junior goes along with his vice president and surrogate Daddy and stakes his entire presidency on trying to finish the job, the more he underscores the contention that his real Daddy went wobbly. "...General Haig simply spit out what other conservatives imply: Daddy wimped out in Iraq and Junior has to fix it." Is 43 now afraid of being seen as a wimp as his father was? I believe them's fighin' words in Texas.



Dirtied By Iraqui Oil


When Dick Cheney was CEO of the oilfield supply firm Halliburton, the company did $23.8 million in business with Saddam Hussein, the evildoer. But she does go on to say that both parties have had similar interest in terrorist sponsoring countries. But hearing Cheney denounce Saddam is truly "Give us a break" time, because of his company and the subsidiaries he's been directly involved in maintained such lucrative corporate interest.

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All Slaw, No Ribs, says Maureen Dowd


According to the Runner's World interview, "It's interesting that my times have become faster right after the war began." "On Sundays, if I'm at Camp David, I'll go for a hard morning run — these days about 20:30 to 20:45 for three miles on a tough course. . . . I try to go for longer runs, but it's tough around here at the White House on the outdoor track. . . . It's sad that I can't run longer. It's one of the saddest things about the presidency."





Another one of the saddest things about this presidency is that it has no voice.





The president won't speak clearly, and the vice president won't speak to anybody whose check to the Republican National Committee hasn't cleared.





This summer, while the administration has been scaring jittery Americans about Saddam's chemical, biological and nuclear wantonness, the president has given few interviews. He has granted one-on-ones only on topics like running and brush-clearing, designed to burnish his image as a Reaganesque frontiersman.





Usually, such lifestyle features are meant to humanize a tough leader. But with W., we hear more about the soft stuff than the hard stuff. He's all slaw, no ribs.
more>> [via: new york times]

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