MY HERO
Another fab piece from World O’Crap, in which we compare George W. Bush to the Romance Writers’ Ten Steps to a Yummy Hero.
I can’t excerpt this one without causing damage to essential humor elements, so go read it.

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ONCE UPON A TIME, THERE WAS REAL REPORTING
In other journalism news, the always-excellent Jay Rosen asks a pertinent question: How can journalists report under such restrictions on their safety in Iraq? He uses the Times’ John Burns as his ideal:
That passage takes on far more meaning today. If a journalist can speak in a prophetic [...]

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BUSTED
Via Romenesko, something that shows the inner workings of the “journalistic” mind:
Pittsburgh Tribune-Review columnist Dave Copeland says most reporters aren’t allowed to think for themselves, so they rely on experts “who can state their pre-determined opinion for them.” He writes on his blog: “As a service to readers …I’m starting a new feature where I’ll [...]

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BOOMTOWN
I just wonder when reporters are going to put economic information like this in the proper context. The country is filled with people like me whose unemployment has run out; officially, they’re no longer unemployed. Now, they may have gotten a job at the local convenience store, but in terms of their financial obligations, they [...]

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TRUTH OR CONSEQUENCES
Mike Berg, Nick Berg’s father, responds to his critics.
George Bush never looked into my son’s eyes. George Bush doesn’t know my son, and he is the worse for it. George Bush, though a father himself, cannot feel my pain, or that of my family, or of the world that grieves for Nick, because [...]

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HOW DO YOU THINK THEY GOT SO RICH?
I suppose I should be surprised. But I’m not:
NEW YORK — Six months after the Sept. 11, 2001, terrorist attacks, Congress approved an $8 billion program to repair this city’s damaged office towers, build apartment buildings and finance the rebirth of the financial district.
But two years [...]

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In case you had trouble following Guiliani’s star turn at the 9/11 hearings this week, or why firefighter and police familes were so upset, Breslin sums it up nicely:
On April 3, Alan Hevesi, then the city comptroller, wrote, “I am told that the practice in the Fire Department was always to carefully test all new [...]

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GO NANCY
In the better-late-than-never department, I just want to say how happy I am that Nancy Pelosi stopped being nice:
House Democratic leader Nancy Pelosi of San Francisco rejected Republican demands Thursday that she apologize for her strong condemnation of President Bush, as raw nerves over Iraq collided with raw politics on Capitol Hill.
Republican leaders accused [...]

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VOTE
We need to de-Freep this poll. Go show them what a Democratic country looks like - and tell your friends.

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STILL WAITING FOR PROOF
About that sarin shell… Kevin Drum points to an interview with Scott Ritter where he talks about the objective ways of determining whether this was part of a WMD stockpile - and notes that no such information accompanied the news.
If the 155-mm shell was a “dud” fired long ago — which is [...]

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WHATSOEVER YOU DO TO THE LEAST OF MY BROTHERS
You know, I kept thinking how that one picture of the hooded Iraqi standing on the pedestal with outstretched arms reminded me of the crucifed Christ. Now Jeanne D’Arc draws the same Catholic symbolism from the latest prison pictures:
Something odd happened in the right-wing spin on this [...]

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COVERUP
John McCain was just on Larry King and said he found out today parts of the Taguba report on the Iraqi prison scandal were missing from the one sent to Congress - and he sounds really pissed about it.

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‘GOOD WORK’
This is so much worse than any of us ever dreamed, and it makes me sick to think about it. You have to wonder about how such gullible people got high enough in our government to put up in this position.
WASHINGTON — The Defense Intelligence Agency has concluded that a U.S.-funded arm of Ahmed [...]

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HALLELUJAH
I have my computer back and all’s right with the world. Now, for some minor housekeeping: Someone suggested I add a firewall, although I don’t understand why that would help someone who uses dial-up. Plus, my copy of Windows 2K is corrupted and now I have no backup at all. Anyone have a spare? Let [...]

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HE’S COMPLEX THAT WAY
Mark Morford addresses the eternal Bush contradiction: Is he stupid - or hands-on?
It is the eternal Bush conundrum. How to appear sort of blank faced and ignorant of the true atrocities your administration commits so as to avoid any sort of direct accountability, and yet still pretend to be a savvy, aware, [...]

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NOTES FROM THE UNDERGROUND
Sorry blogging has been so irregular. In addition to the ongoing computer problems, I’m acknowledging the inevitable and packing up my apartment. Short of a miracle (i.e. a well-paying job or a winning lottery ticket - don’t laugh, that $220 million Powerball ticket was sold ten minutes from my house), I have [...]

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PERFECT
Better late than ever… congratulations to Randy Johnson on his perfect game.

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OPEN LETTER TO THE DIPLOMATIC CORPS
The diplomat who resigned over Nixon’s invasion of Cambodia calls for current diplomats to resign:
You know well what a willfully uninformed and heedless president you serve in Bush, how chilling are the tales of his ignorance and sectarian fervor, lethal opposites of the erudition and open-mindedness you embody in the [...]

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WHERE DOES THE BUCK STOP ON THIS ONE?
Salon has more on Chalabi’s plans to destabilize the new Iraqi government.
Why did the Bush administration turn against its former favorite Iraqi? Almost certainly because it realized that Chalabi, maddened by the realization that he was being excluded from the post-June 30 hand-over arrangements, was putting together a [...]

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IT’S THE MONEY, HONEY
And John Kerry’s picking up more of it:
Sen. John F. Kerry’s fundraising receipts surged strongly ahead of President Bush’s last month, with the presumptive Democratic nominee pulling in almost twice what the president raised.
At the same time, Bush’s campaign is spending money at an unprecedented rate. In part because of a $50 [...]

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SAVE THE STRIPPERS
Strip clubs know Bush is bad for business:
Strip club owners are putting a little bada-bing in the presidential campaign by asking patrons to turn their eyes away from the stage for a moment to fill out a voter registration form — and then vote against President Bush.
“It’s not to say our industry loves [...]

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ONCE A CROOK…
When I was an executive recruiter, there was a saying: “The past is the best predictor of future performance.” Ahmed Chalabi has always been a liar and a con man; why would he change now?
The raid came as a shock to many: U.S. soldiers breaking into the home and offices of Ahmad Chalabi, [...]

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COVERUP IS THEIR MIDDLE NAME
Remember Sibel Edmonds, the FBI translator who says there was specific intelligence about 9/11?
The Justice Department has taken the unusual step of retroactively classifying information it gave to Congress nearly two years ago regarding a former FBI translator who charged that the bureau had missed critical terrorist warnings, according to [...]

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RENDER TO CAESAR
Let me introduce you to the backbone of the Republican party:
A Nashville church that’s fighting to keep from registering its daily child ”camp” as a state-licensed day-care center posts armed guards on the church grounds, which is raising alarms for state human services officials.
The church also defied a court order yesterday and continued [...]

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$2.4 TRILLION
They’ve done such a good job selling the Democrats as the tax and spend party. Isn’t it ironic? Don’t ya think?
Republicans muscled a compromise $2.4 trillion budget for 2005 toward House approval on Wednesday, but struggled in their quest for enough votes to push it through the closely divided Senate later this week.

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INTELLIGENCE
The coverup is unraveling:
Military intelligence officers at the Abu Ghraib prison in Iraq directed military police to take clothes from prisoners, leave detainees naked in their cells and make them wear women’s underwear, part of a series of alleged abuses that were openly discussed at the facility, according to a military intelligence soldier who worked [...]

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IXNAY
Catholic politicians are fighting back:
Forty-eight Roman Catholic members of Congress have warned in a letter to Cardinal Theodore E. McCarrick of Washington that U.S. bishops will revive anti-Catholic bigotry and severely harm the church if they deny Communion to politicians who support abortion rights.
The letter’s signers, all Democrats, include at least three House members with [...]

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OOPS
Looks like Chalabi (you know, the man who told them all the fairy tales about Iraq) is up to his old tricks:
U.S. soldiers and Iraqi police surrounded the residence of Iraqui politician Ahmed Chalabi on Thursday, and an aide said troops entered the house ostensibly to search for fugitives.

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ABANDONMENT ISSUES
From Political Wire:
“President Bush’s plan to make national-security adviser Condoleezza Rice the first female African-American Secretary of State is dead,” the Washingtonian reports.
“Republican congressional sources say Rice’s resistance to testifying in public before the September 11 commission—even then doing it so effectively—has made the onetime wonder girl too controversial politically to ever get past [...]

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TECH UPDATE
I hooked the slow, memory-starved laptop to my regular monitor and suddenly I’m able to cut and paste again. It’s still slow, but it looks like we’re back in business. Yay!

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