What are We Witnessing?

Hyperbole is to be expected on blogs, which I want to emphasize up front since I'm asking this question without intent to be hyperbolic or to elicit hyperbolic responses.

This morning, as documented over on TPM and Crooks and Liars and AmericaBlog, George Bush had a "teleconference" with nine soldiers stationed in Iraq. It looked scripted, it sounded scripted, it had the smarmy stamp of Bushco SOP photo-op posing as news. Scott McClellan, when asked if it was scripted, said no. CNN is now running video of the soldiers practicing their questions before the "teleconference."

Numerous questions come to mind, but I suspect all of them are variations of:

The fake teleconference, the recycling of the war card, the Presidential spokesmen professing outrage at the media's questioning of his version of events, all at a time when Bushco photo-ops are held in virtually universal contempt, the support for the war is at an all time low, and the media, having finally realized the rubes they have been played for, is looking for revenge:

Is this the best Bushco's got? They thought this was a GOOD idea? They sat around in a room and came up with this as best option? Has Bushco, in its crashing, skipped over the realm of the bathetic and zoomed immediately into the pathetic?

Three More Years in Scandalandia

While Georgie was indulging his fantasy of being the construction worker in the Village People yesterday (and having great fun until the suddenly ballsy Matt Lauer audaciously asked Georgie pertinent questions that made Georgie squirm), Georgie's heretofore marchstepping Party is abandoning ship.

This article in today's NYT reports that GOP Senators long considered safely in Bushco pockets are rebeling over the Miers nomination. The Senators are letting their surrogates do the bitching, but senatorial surrogates don't bitch publicly but at their masters' behest.

This isn't about judicial philosophy, or fear of the Talibamericans, this is about fleeing the plague ship Bushco.

Georgie is going to be humiliated on Miers. Major White House figures are going to be indicted and/or forced to resign. The MSM, long quailed by Bushco, sense a bloody feeding frenzy at the same time they're awakening to their five year abandonment of principles. There's an election next year.

Yes, we Liberals have ALWAYS loathed Bushco, ALWAYS thought and said that they are corrupt AND incompetent. The paradigm shift: those Republicans who KNEW the same about Bushco but wanted to join the looting are in deep uh-oh mode. They're getting ready to throw Georgie overboard and let him swim by himself.

Where's the biggest Dick in Washington? I see three possibilities. More probably, a combination of all three. In what proportion? That's the question.

First, there are those "knee" operations, complete with the photo-op with the crutches. I'm willing to bet that there were indeed stents implanted in the veeper's body, quite possibly in his knees, as well as his many times infarcted heart. Quite honestly, I don't wish a heart attack on anybody, but realistically, any time Cheney disappears you have to consider the guy's medical history and wonder.

Second, he could soon be perpwalking. What does he have to offer Scooter to not flip? S'gotta be something good if Scooter chooses that over jail time. Maybe, if Dick's still loyal to the Boy King, he's distancing himself from the Boy King in case he's handcuffed and introduced to the gang in the weight room of the federal pen.

Third, maybe Dick's tired of the Boy King's wankeries, pisseries, pooperies, and maybe the Boy King's tired of Dick's scolding and badgering and hectoring and goddamn grim seriousness. Maybe Dick, flyfishing in Wyoming, heard about Aftermath Katrina and said, clean it up your fucking self to the Boy King. Maybe Dick said to the Boy King, you're President, YOU cut your vacation short. Maybe the Boy King told him, like a 13 year old running away from home, I don't need you Dad.

In any case, Cheney's mysterious disappearance from the public eye means something. Hopefully, the end of the Cheney Administration.

UPDATE (7:33am 10/12/05): KABOOM?

Can I Ask You Something?

In what universe does Joe Biden think he can gain the Democratic presidential nomination in 2008, much less be elected president? Crikey, this fatbastard from Mississippi has a better chance of being president, but that's just because he's more skilled at fatbastarding than Biden (but then, he's a Republican; that gives him a natural advantage in fatbastarding. But don't underestimate Biden's fatbastard quotient.).

Meanwhile, the guy who I'd vote for today (subject to change) of all those mentioned as speculating a run in 2008 for Democratic nomination, Russ Feingold, has an interview in today's Salon. It's not a home run, there's too much candidate-like hedging, but it's worth a read.

Not Culture, Again?

Click here to hear an audio-article from this past Saturday's All Things Considered. Also at the site are three downloads off the new Knitters album.

I, like many people, play the desert island game - what five bands/solo artists' canon of music would I take if I were stranded on a desert island? What authors?

Well, two of the Knitters, pictured to the right, (John Doe, top left, Exene Cervenka, right in the middle) interviewed in the audio-article posted above, were the heart and soul of X, for my money one of best bands America ever produced, and one of my desert island five.

And the Knitters are pretty damn good too. In the NPR interview, Exene makes the argument that punk is folk and folk is punk, and is very persuasive. Check it out.