Hail the Chimperor

I do so like Tom Toles. If you can't read it, click the picture to enlarge. (The picture.)

That Should Do It

....but hey, do what you want....you will anyway.

I'm Thankful

And I expect you are, too - that the Bushies are on their way out and we might get back a White House family and administration we don't have to be ashamed of or embarrassed by. If you haven't seen the Barbara Walters interview with the Obamas from last night, check it out. I know I feel better.

And now I have to go peel potatoes.

....but hey, you do what you want....you will anyway.

Update: So is Tom Toles...

Or Maybe It's the Other Way Around

I was calling Sarah Palin "Bush in a dress." Maybe Bush is Sarah in a rumpled suit. This is the second picture I've seen recently of Dubya winking. I never saw pictuers of him winking before Sarah (B.S?) Does he think that her coyness was the secret of her popularity amongst the base? (And I do mean "base".) Is this his way of trying to be popular? Does he really think it will work for him?

....but hey, do what you want....you will anyway.

The Fall of the House of Bush

Update: I misheard or got bad info. Babs wasn't rapidly released from the hospital. But my comments still apply.......

I’m not a Joe Klein fan, but he’s got it right here:

That we have slightly more than one President for the moment is mostly a consequence of the extraordinary economic times. Even if George Washington were the incumbent, the markets would want to know what John Adams was planning to do after his Inauguration. And yet this final humiliation seems particularly appropriate for George W. Bush. At the end of a presidency of stupefying ineptitude, he has become the lamest of all possible ducks.

[…]

In the end, though, it will not be the creative paralysis that defines Bush. It will be his intellectual laziness, at home and abroad. Bush never understood, or cared about, the delicate balance between freedom and regulation that was necessary to make markets work. He never understood, or cared about, the delicate balance between freedom and equity that was necessary to maintain the strong middle class required for both prosperity and democracy. He never considered the complexities of the cultures he was invading. He never understood that faith, unaccompanied by rigorous skepticism, is a recipe for myopia and foolishness. He is less than President now, and that is appropriate. He was never very much of one.

  Time

Mommy Dearest Barbara Bush was just admitted and rapidly released from the hospital. I hear this morning that she’s “fine”. Of course she is. There wasn’t anything wrong. She’s just trying to distract or garner sympathy for the mental cripple she spawned. Oh, yes she would do such a thing.

Former first lady Barbara Bush was expected to be released from a Houston hospital on Wednesday after complaining of stomach pain

[…]

Jim McGrath, a spokesman for Bush's husband, said all the results for tests she had undergone had been negative. McGrath said former president George H.W. Bush was with her.

Bush disclosed she was suffering from an overactive thyroid ailment known as Graves' disease when she lived at the White House.

The disease causes teary eyes and double vision.

  CBC

But then, so does alcoholism. A grave disease.

They Didn't Want Him in Peru Either

Assuming we actually make it to January 20, and the madness that is King George retires from Washington, it's a good thing for him that he really was never very interested in anything outside his bubble, because he won't be able to go anywhere. At the APEC summit, one thousand protesters in Lima demanded the war criminal be ousted from their country.

You know we are right up there with Argentina in harboring these characters.

....but hey, do what you want....you will anyway.

Jim Hightower's Lowdown on the Economic Crisis

The five most wanted men from Wall Street and Washington...

What the hell's happening here? Why is my bank in the tank? And my house and job? And my retirement money? Even my state's teetering on the brink of broke! Who did this to us?

Our economy didn’t melt down, it was taken down by ideological extremists.

[…read it here.]

  Hightower Lowdown

....but hey, do what you want....you will anyway.

Okay, Okay. But....

It looks like a dead ringer for a Tina Fey/SNL clip to me! They would have, if they'd thought of it. Poor turkeys, but...too funny. I wonder if she just doesn't realize what a joke she is. The turkey man is a riot. I had no idea it was such an ordeal to kill a turkey. Wouldn't an axe and a chopping block be quicker? Not to mention more humane?

....but hey, do what you want....you will anyway.

(As Wait, Wait's Peter Sagal said about covering Sarah's foibles: I'll stop when she stops.)

Positively Metaphysical

I heard on the radio this morning that the Senate passed the bill to increase unemployment benefit time and that Bush would sign it. Not only that, but that he had been pressing for this measure. So I clicked that second Yahoo link in the post below to see if they'd corrected anything. More than corrected, the link goes to a whole new article. How can you ever be wrong if you can simply step back and change the past?

....but hey, do what you want....you will anyway.

Bailout - But Not for You

UPDATE: See the next post (above).

New claims for unemployment benefits jumped last week to a 16-year high, the Labor Department said Thursday, providing more evidence of a rapidly weakening job market expected to get even worse next year.

  Yahoo

The Senate this week is expected to take up legislation already passed by the House that would extend unemployment insurance for those whose benefits have run out. The Senate vote could occur as early as Thursday evening and would require support from 60 senators to pass.

Bush has threatened to veto the bill, calling it fiscally irresponsible.

  Yahoo

....but hey, do what you want....you will anyway.

One of Those Presidencies

Bush said he plans to return to Texas after he leaves office January 20 and "may write a book" but otherwise has few plans. "No doubt I'm heading straight home. I miss Texas; I love Texas; I've got a lot of friends in Texas.

"I'll probably get back and take a deep breath," he said.

Bush said he has begun to think about an outline for the book.

"I want people to know what it was like to make some of the decisions I had to make," he said. "In other words, what was the moment like? And I've had one of those presidencies where I've had to make some tough calls, and I want people to know the truth about what it was like sitting in the Oval Office."

  CNN

Yes, George, you should probably take a deep breath.

....but hey, do what you want....you will anyway.

Update: On NPR's "Wait, Wait, Don't Tell Me" this week, P.J. O'Rourke said the first line of the book will be: It were a dark and stormy night.

If You Can't Get Enough

I was kind of hoping that we wouldn't be subjected to more Sarah Palin, but then I forgot what culture I was living in, I suppose. Nevertheless, if you were beginning to enjoy the scary humor of her awesome Bush-like qualities, you will have a good time here.

....and hey, do what you want....you will anyway.

"Sabertooth"

Massachusetts Congressman Barney Frank, on Wait, Wait this past weekend, talking about Sarah Palin's professed attitude toward gays, said, "I want to give her this: she is apparently much more tolerant of me than I am of her."

Thank You

"Here is my attitude. I think people passing a law against people wearing sagging pants is a waste of time. We should be focused on creating jobs, improving our schools, health care, dealing with the war in Iraq, and anybody, any public official, that is worrying about sagging pants probably needs to spend some time focusing on real problems out there. Having said that, brothers should pull up their pants … you know, some people might not want to see your underwear — I'm one of them." —Barack Obama, on proposed bans on sagging pants.

  MTV

Always the Last to Be Told

But anyone who is surprised has not been paying attention or reading any history text.

The United States military since 2004 has used broad, secret authority to carry out nearly a dozen previously undisclosed attacks against Al Qaeda and other militants in Syria, Pakistan and elsewhere, according to senior American officials.

[...]

The recent raid into Syria was not the first time that Special Operations forces had operated in that country, according to a senior military official and an outside adviser to the Pentagon.

[...]

Shortly after the Sept. 11 attacks, Mr. Bush issued a classified order authorizing the C.I.A. to kill or capture Qaeda militants around the globe. By 2003, American intelligence agencies and the military had developed a much deeper understanding of Al Qaeda’s extensive global network, and Mr. Rumsfeld pressed hard to unleash the military’s vast firepower against militants outside the combat zones of Iraq and Afghanistan.

[...]

Apart from the 2006 raid into Pakistan, the American officials refused to describe in detail what they said had been nearly a dozen previously undisclosed attacks, except to say they had been carried out in Syria, Pakistan and other countries. They made clear that there had been no raids into Iran using that authority, but they suggested that American forces had carried out reconnaissance missions in Iran using other classified directives.

  NYT

....but hey, do what you want....you will anyway.

Free At Last, Free At Last

"...after 8 loooong years, it's okay to use big words again." The end of kakistrocracy.

....but hey, do what you want....you will anyway.

Mr. President

What, no honeymoon?

The Hackett/Brown and Cegelis/Duckworth fiascoes is what makes Rahm Emanuel, as far as I'm concerned, the poster child for the Democratic Party's long sojourn in the wilderness. The future of the party is with Obama and with Howard Dean at the helm of the DNC, bringing the kids into the fold and showing that we don't have to be the party of glad-handing and hackery. Choosing this odious hack as his chief of staff is not the most auspicious of beginnings for Obama, though it's one that was predictable. After all, only Republicans thought Obama was the most liberal Senator. The rest of us knew better.

  Brilliant at Breakfast

I don't think even the Republicans really believed that - it has just become a piece of red meat tossed to the base to keep them roaring. Liberal being a dirty word these days.

....but hey, do what you want....you will anyway.

Stirring the Passions

I understand that the "conservatives" wouldn't mind that Sarah Palin came out of her hotel bathroom in front of aides in a towel, but I wonder how they'll excuse the fact that she didn't know Africa was a continent. And now I want to know how it can be excused that the press agreed not to release that information until after the election.

....but hey, do what you want....you will anyway.

Mr. President

It just tickles me every time I think of some of those Good Ole Republicans having to call Obama "Mr. President".

You know I have not been a dreamy-eyed Obamite, but the way I see it, everybody in the world should be relieved that the all-too-eager for warring McCain and that whack-job Dubya in drag on the stage with him didn't get the job. And beyond that, I think that all Americans should be glad that the young black men of this country now have a well-educated, intelligent role model in the highest political position in the country, and that all minority children may now have hope and a feeling of something real and tangible at stake in the future of this country. It has been my contention for some years that the increases in crime and the deterioration of our society has been in large part due to the hopelessness of our youth in regards to improving their lot (not to mention what they've seen that passes for morals in their financially and politically successful elders).

Let us now hope that the forces that would see Barack Obama succeed are stronger than those that would have him fail.

Good luck, Mr. President.

Get Up, Ohio

Joe does a good job here. It amazes me that the people who should be even more jaded than I, because they're right in the thick of it, can still find sincere emotion.

....but hey, do what you want....you will anyway.