perfidy

Because the issues are so complicated, I've constructed this handy guide to American political principles! It comes in easy-to-digest table form, and as an outsider, I hope I can do my little part to bring a little light and knowledge into all of your lives. This absence has been lengthier than I expected, as my brain recovers from too much working. Read on, beneath the fold...

It makes perfect sense!!

Ken of Oldsmoblogger notes that the Reform Party has picked whom they will endorse this election cycle.... Drum roll.... Ralph Nader.

Ken astutely asks, "[c]an a party that will nominate Ross Perot, Pat Buchanan, and Ralph Nader for the highest office in the land--in consecutive elections--possibly stand for anything? Beyond, that is, getting enough votes to preserve ballot access, get media play, and maybe qualify for federal matching funds?"

Well?

Via Instapundit, I see that CIA Director George Tenet has resigned. I would rather have seen his ass fired, and about two years ago, but hey... what's a couple dozen months when national security is at stake?

[wik] Patton is all over this like a fat boy on pie.

The internecine battle between the screwball peace-niks at the State Department and CIA, on one side, and the Pentagon and White House on the other has finally boiled over. The pivot point appears to be Chalabi, and all of the (so far unsubstantiated and prima facie silly) allegations of his being an Iranian agent. State and CIA have been leaking like sieves on the story, with the apparent intent of embarrassing the President and Pentagon.

If the next personnel action is a high-level departure at State, I'll claim victory here. And if no other high-level departures occur at either CIA or State, I'll likely have been incorrect.

I watched Bush's big address last night (shame on the major networks for not clearing the time!), and I gotta say... the ending kicked ass. Once the senior speechwriter took over, and you could pinpoint the exact second he or she did, the prose took flight, Bush settled into a comfortable speechifying groove, and for once he sounded like a President rather than a two-bit trust-funder presiding over a Masonic lodge. The speech ended with this call to action and resoundingly clear statement of purpose.

We did not seek this war on terror, but this is the world as we find it. We must keep our focus. We must do our duty. History is moving, and it will tend toward hope, or tend toward tragedy. Our terrorist enemies have a vision that guides and explains all their varied acts of murder. They seek to impose Taliban-like rule, country by country, across the greater Middle East. They seek the total control of every person, and mind, and soul, a harsh society in which women are voiceless and brutalized. They seek bases of operation to train more killers and export more violence. They commit dramatic acts of murder to shock, frighten and demoralize civilized nations, hoping we will retreat from the world and give them free rein. They seek weapons of mass destruction, to impose their will through blackmail and catastrophic attacks. None of this is the expression of a religion. It is a totalitarian political ideology, pursued with consuming zeal, and without conscience.

Our actions, too, are guided by a vision. We believe that freedom can advance and change lives in the greater Middle East, as it has advanced and changed lives in Asia, and Latin America, and Eastern Europe, and Africa. We believe it is a tragedy of history that in the Middle East -- which gave the world great gifts of law and science and faith -- so many have been held back by lawless tyranny and fanaticism. We believe that when all Middle Eastern peoples are finally allowed to live and think and work and worship as free men and women, they will reclaim the greatness of their own heritage. And when that day comes, the bitterness and burning hatreds that feed terrorism will fade and die away. America and all the world will be safer when hope has returned to the Middle East.

These two visions -- one of tyranny and murder, the other of liberty and life -- clashed in Afghanistan. And thanks to brave U.S. and coalition forces and to Afghan patriots, the nightmare of the Taliban is over, and that nation is coming to life again. These two visions have now met in Iraq, and are contending for the future of that country. The failure of freedom would only mark the beginning of peril and violence. But, my fellow Americans, we will not fail. We will persevere, and defeat this enemy, and hold this hard-won ground for the realm of liberty.

That's one for the ages. Great stuff, though chock-full of imperialist/progressive-history assumptions sure to enrage Chomskyites and nonpluss left-leaners (me included, sort of). But what about the other 90% of the speech? Much less good, as if Bush could only let out the President to play for five minutes at a time. The rest of the address was in the usual fumble-prosed and murky style we usually encounter from him. Murdoc says that critics will say "It's the same thing he's been saying all along!" and argues that that's the point. I disagree. A year and a half has gone by, and Bush has quietly changed tack 180 degrees on some crucial issues. Two examples:

At my direction, and with the support of Iraqi authorities, we are accelerating our program to help train Iraqis to defend their country. A new team of senior military officers is now assessing every unit in Iraq's security forces. I've asked this team to oversee the training of a force of 260,000 Iraqi soldiers, police, and other security personnel. Five Iraqi army battalions are in the field now, with another eight battalions to join them by July the 1st. The eventual goal is an Iraqi army of 35,000 soldiers in 27 battalions, fully prepared to defend their country.

So much for de-Ba'athification. A little later, Bush made a comment that elicited howls of derision from the folks I was with, Republican and Democrat alike: "General Abizaid and other commanders in Iraq are constantly assessing the level of troops they need to fulfill the mission. If they need more troops, I will send them." Presented without comment like that, one gets the impression that the invitation's been open all along.

Elsewhere, Bush marred what was in general a strong speech by flatly contradicting himself.

On June 30th, the Coalition Provisional Authority will cease to exist, and will not be replaced. The occupation will end....

Do note the use of the word "occupation," the first time I can remember that Bush has called a plow a plow since the libervasion began. Kudos there. But the larger point is that the occupation is slated to end on June 30. Yet, a little later the President says, "given the recent increase in violence, we'll maintain our troop level at the current 138,000 as long as necessary." To me, that seems a bit contradictory. Either the occupation will end on June 30, or US troops will stay in Iraq at full strength. That dissonance is only magified by statements like this one: "After June 30th, American and other forces will still have important duties. American military forces in Iraq will operate under American command as a part of a multinational force authorized by the United Nations." Aside from the faintly ridiculous presumption that the UN's endorsement of whatever plan the US brings to it is a fait accompli, one is left to wonder which of the three plans is the real one, or in what measure each is true.

Furthermore, even though Bush came thisclose to admitting mistakes have been made, ("We've learned from these failures, and we've taken steps to correct them"), it turns out the failures in question are Iraqi:

Iraq's military, police, and border forces have begun to take on broader responsibilities. Eventually, they must be the primary defenders of Iraqi security, as American and coalition forces are withdrawn. And we're helping them to prepare for this role. In some cases, the early performance of Iraqi forces fell short. Some refused orders to engage the enemy.

Beyond being fatuous and cack-handed, yet again the President resists the urge to admit fallibility.

But, after a point I am nitpicking. Last night Bush did something he should have done long ago: reached out to the American people with a progress report and a plan for the future. Despite what I regard as grave missteps as cataloged above, and a cringe-inducing moment when he squinted at the TelePromTer as he stumbled over the pronunciation of "Abu Ghraib" (giving the unfortunate impression he'd never heard the words before), Bush sounded more Presidental, and more like a leader, than he has since September 2001.

It's not enough to make me vote for him, but at least it seems that after three years in office, he's learning a thing or two. Go read it yourself and see what you think.

As with so many things I care to write about, the staff of The Simpsons have thoughtfully provided me with a parable by which to judge the present. I suppose that means I treat The Simpsons as a reservior of moral and ethical teachings much like fairy tales, the Bible, Greek myth, or Buddhist sutra, though the part of me that fancies itself a serious scholar recoils from what that implies. (The Simpsonian heresy? To the auto-da-fe with him! And while my flesh melts in the flames and vultures perch on the stake I'm tied to all I can think of is Ralph Wiggum crying out,"My mouth tastes like burning!".... I should probably accept that my intellectual growth has been irrevocably stunted.) But I digress.

Last night I had occasion to attend a John Kerry fundraising houseparty put on by a friend of mine. As far as I can tell, there were hundreds of similar parties going on across the country at the same time. Why, you might well ask, would I go to a John Kerry houseparty when I'm on record as "having my hate on" for him?
Well, there's a few reasons, but mainly I just felt like it would be fun to get together with some people for a night to talk politics, like a twenty-first century junto or salon. I'm not very much of a Democrat at heart, and I was hoping that my handful of Boston Republican friends would be there so that the night would not just be a self-affirming leftward circle-jerk. In truth, there wasn't much risk of that, because the party organizer's original email read in part, "Now, do I think Kerry is the best person the Dems have? No. BUT, I do think that he is a much better alternative for this country compared to Bush."

The centerpiece of the night was a conference call from the Man Himself. I was kind of hoping that it would be a live event, with an opportunity for a Q&A session at the end, but sadly that was not to be. At 6 PM we gathered around the conference pod and waited for the call to begin. We were notified that we would be listening to a pre-recorded address, and then John Kerry started to speak. It was a masterpiece of political rhetoric, with laugh points, applause points, and sweeping policy statements that clarified for all present exactly what John Kerry, President, would do for our country.

No, no no. I'm just fucking with you. In reality, the first laugh point of the evening was inadvertant, and came when Kerry called upon "each and every one of you across the country tonight to reach out to fifty people you know" to get them involved. We all knew that a call to action would be coming, and we all were nodding in agreement, "sure, sure, I can find a couple people to get on board with this thing" until Kerry dropped that number. Fifty. Do I even know fifty people? We all just looked at each other in disbelief and broke out in laughter-- "who the hell does he think we are? And does he really think we care?" We laughed through the next bit; no big deal.

Here's the short version of the John Kerry House Party speech: "I'm not Bush. Bush is bad for the country and I'm not like him. Fifty people! I'm not like Bush. International community. Manufacturing jobs. I'm not like Bush. Create jobs. Jobs, jobs, jobs, environment, jobs. Not like Bush! International community, Bush bad! Health care, too expensive! Bush Bad! Eat your peas, Bush bad! Jobs! College, jobs, Bush, college, international community, bad Bush jobs!" All of which was punctuated by fake-folksy interjections, asides, and implied grins. As an example of public speaking it was ugly, and as a specimen of political image-making it was embarassing.

I'm not sure why I expected more from the junior Senator from Massachusetts, but I did. It's June, the campaign is in full swing, and all I know about John Kerry, candidate, is that he isn't like George Bush. Well, fine. Chlorine isn't much like lead either. How, exactly, does John Kerry plan to bring manufacturing jobs back to the country, and what does he think that will accomplish? And exactly how many subsidies will that require? And how will those subsidies be financed, and will the products of those subsidized industries be cheaper for it, or more expensive? And, if that's the plan, exactly how does this "plan" differ from a very expensive and roundabout form of sub-New Deal make-work welfare at $25 an hour? It's time to talk turkey, and all we the supposed True Believers got last night was pap.

But back to the Simpsons. John Kerry reminds me of nobody more than Armand Tanzarian, the imposter known to Springfield as Principal Skinner. The town knows he's a fraud and imposter, and that he's not much of a principal, but they accept him anyway. He's an awkward figure, a bit of a cold fish, spineless and vaguely incompetent to boot That's great for a cartoon figure, but are those really ideal, or even marginally acceptable, qualities in a presidential candidate? I was in a room full of left-leaning young voters last night, and not one of them were the least bit enthusiastic about a Kerry presidency. Not one. I realize that Kerry isn't even bothering to campaign in Massachusetts because he can't lose here no matter what happens, but last night John Kerry was speaking to a national audience and came across as a joke.

So I am left to wonder. When faced with a choice between a president who is taking the country in directions I deeply disagree with, and a contender who is little more than a cipher, what do I do?

The Cleveland Plain Dealer is reporting one of Senator Mike DeWine's (R-OH) female staffers maintained a blog chronicling her sexual adventures in Washington. The blog has apparently been removed by its host site, but wonkette has the archive. The interesting part isn't that this staffer had sex, at times with senior officials. The interesting part is that at least one of these senior officials paid for it. Like with cash. Peeled off a big wad.

I'll spare you all the obvious remarks about Washington whores, screwing the people, and the other metaphors that exist wherever sex and power meet. What is remarkable is that the men who expressed an emotion to this woman were "douches", but the ones who paid her cash to nail her in the ass were somehow more tolerable.

Given that the first day that gay marriage was legal in Massachusetts was coincidentally the same day as the 50th anniversary of the decision in Brown vs. Board of Education (May 17, 2004), answer me this.

The Massachusetts decision has been decried as base judicial activism which usurped legislative power by construing a civil-rights decision possibly (or probably) at odds with the explicit wishes of a majority of the population. How is that functionally different from the Brown decision, which did the same thing on a far larger scale and yet is hailed as a towering landmark in the history of the US Supreme Court and a great and just victory for civil rights? Is it really possible to argue that, if put to a vote on the same day in 1954, a majority of the nation as a whole would have agreed to move forward with widespread national school desegregation with "all deliberate speed" or any speed at all, without the Supreme Court's "activist" decision?

How are the two different?

KOS puts the cost of the war in perspective.

Key figures: Cost of War in Iraq (so far): $149 Billion. Cost of all law enforcement in the United States, including police, prisons and courts, is $167 Billion.

So when it comes to making Americans safer, where should we be spending our money?

If I know Bush (and I don't), then I know what's coming -- a tax cut!!!. What better time could there possibly be for a heavy tax cut for the wealthy, again? No time like now! Stupid socialists! Don't you know that if we give the wealthiest people in this country yet another tax cut, it will...well...turn out...better....for them? And maybe their heirs...but...you could marry into one of their rich families and then you'd be better off...and then everyone can do that! Yay!

Bush likes having his cake and his turkey, and he wants to eat them both.

This Presidency is turning out to be the biggest scam ever perpetrated on the American people.

From the Christian Science Monitor:

Bush was reportedly upset that he learned of the extent of the prisoner abuses and saw the incriminating photographs by watching "60 Minutes II" last week, with no advance warning. He is also reported to be upset with Rumsfeld that the Pentagon had not acted on recommendations that Iraqi prison conditions be improved. All eyes will be on Rumsfeld Saturday when he testifies before the Senate Armed Services Committee.

That is an absolutely astonishing quote. What it means that Bush's team keeps key decision-making information from the President. They're either doing it because they have bad judgement, they're incompetent, or they're doing it deliberately. Take your pick.

Which makes me wonder: Exactly what else has Bush not been told? If we take a "delegating", CEO-style President who relies on and trusts the opinions of his inner circle and then combine that with an inner circle that is less than candid with their President, it starts to explain a hell of a lot about the continuing policy screwups of this administration.

My gut feel is that his inner circle people are not "bad people". My gut feel is that his inner circle people are gamblers. They don't know what's going to happen as a result of their policies, and they're willing to take the risk. They present to the President scenarios and characterize them as fact, when they are in fact supposition. I suspect that this behavior is not limited to the inner circle; it likely pervades the political structure in this White House.

Can anyone else apply Occam's Razor and find a simpler answer?

You know George Will, serious conservative political commentator. His latest in the Post, Time for Bush to See The Realities of Iraq, demonstrates the uncertainty yet another serious conservative has about this administration. The current leadership's hard line has real costs associated with it. Their no-fault, no-error, no-problem monoposition causes real damage, and has real consequences.

Will:

This administration cannot be trusted to govern if it cannot be counted on to think and, having thought, to have second thoughts. Thinking is not the reiteration of bromides about how "all people yearn to live in freedom" (McClellan). And about how it is "cultural condescension" to doubt that some cultures have the requisite aptitudes for democracy (Bush). And about how it is a "myth" that "our attachment to freedom is a product of our culture" because "ours are not Western values; they are the universal values of the human spirit" (Tony Blair).

"Thinking is not the reiteration of bromides" is definitely my quote of the day. George Bush's bizarre, bumper-sticker solutions to complex, real-world problems have damaged this country for a generation or more, economically and culturally.

Which brings me to this point: One of the most important reasons to vote for John Kerry this fall is an unfortunate, indirect one. The election of Kerry represents a real opportunity for America to reset itself in global culture. A voter rejection of Bush's policies will be seen by the rest of the world as demonstrative of the true nature of the citizenry; quarter will be given, and success is dramatically more likely.

Can this country really afford to bury itself under four more years of faith-based government?

As the May 17th deadline approaches after which gay couples will be able to wed in my fair Commonwealth, Governer Mitt Romney has pulled what could charitably be seen as a bozo move.

Romney, who has done everything in his power to stop the marriages from going forward (which is of course his right), has invoked a 1913 state law that bars out-of-state couples from marrying in Massachusetts. That seems like a reasonable stopgap, an attempt to mitigate the effects of couples from other states marrying here and going back home, forcing a painful and rancorous re-examination of the Defense of Marriage Act and the Full Faith and Credit clause of the US Constitution. Unfortunately for Mitt, his problem is with gay marriage itself rather than its political consequences, and the law in question was originally passed to ban miscegenation by barring interracial couples from out of state from marrying.

Furthermore, straight couples from out of state are not barred-- and the Governer has not instructed that they be barred-- from getting married in Massachusetts, though the law is still on the books. It's just the gays, like the blacks used to be. To my mind, it's more than a little hypocritical to revive an antiquated law whose intent everyone today would agree is fundamentally immoral in defense of an ostensibly moral crusade.

With this in mind, I challenge all comers to tell me with a straight face that gay marriage, complicated as the question is, is not a civil rights issue with strong ties to the past.

Hat tip to brdgt.

The Center on Budget and Policy Priorities pops the Bush "tax cut" hot air balloon. I don't know who these guys are, but at first blush, their numbers look a lot like my own do. They've got somewhat different inflation-adjusted income figures over time, but their time scale is different from mine.

Bottom line is this: The Bush tax cuts are doing exactly what they were designed to do: Benefit the political donor class (to borrow a descriptive phrase from David Cay Johnson). Nobody seriously believed that tax cuts for the wealthy would create jobs; twenty years of recent history means we know that's just bullshit.

This whole tax policy debate bears astonishing similarity to arguments about smoking and health. Sure, we know now that it's bad, and you were a dope to ever think that it was good for you. But in the seventies and eighties the jury was out as far as health effects went...the tobacco profiteers maintained their public ignorance about the health effects and went to extremes to ensure that the debate stayed confusing.

Today's "conservative" is reduced, in his pro-tax cut rhetoric, to vague protestations of "it's just wrong to tax", or "the rich people will leave, and we'll all be in trouble".

One of the ideas behind democracy is that if we all vote in our self-interest, what comes out of the sum of that is policy that benefits to most people. What is utterly mysterious to me is how many otherwise decent and smart people vote for a party whose fiscal policies amount to stabbing that voter in the back.

Our cultural clash with Radical Islam has taught us a great deal about a spectrum with politics on one end and religion on the other. If we presume that facts were ever available to support a position, knocking away those facts one by one results in a shift to the religious end of that spectrum, if one continues to support those positions with the same level of fervor...

Crazy maverick senator Zell Miller has said, with his face hanging out, that we should no longer directly elect our senators. The esteemed Georgia senator thinks that the founding Dads had it straight the first time, and that senators should be appointed by the legislatures of the several states.

Now, those of you who are devoted readers of this webthingy will know that I am all about originalism, the genius of the founding fathers and our comparative unwisdom, and in thinking that almost every political development since about 1800 was generally for the worse. However, I must beg to differ with Democrat in Name Only (DINO) Miller.

Because of the curse of gerrymandering, the vast majority of seats in the People's House, the House of Representatives, are elected by "safe" districts. There is, thanks to careful (not to say maniacal) line drawing, absolutely no chance that these seats will ever face a competive election, even when an incumbent steps down. The only interesting competition you'd see is in the primaries for the dominant party.

Contrariwise, the shark like operatives for both parties have not yet devised a method for gerrymandering whole states. Senate elections are (aside from Presidential elections) the only place where our votes can truly make any sort of difference in who represents us in Washington. Of course, this is completely at odds with the intent of the founders. They envisioned the Senate being the calm, wise, reserved debating soceity that would restrain the whims of the democratic mob in the House. Instead, we have the mob in the Senate, and party hacks from safe districts in the House.

Zell's proposal would remove the one democratic part of the Congress. And we can't really afford that. I would agree to his plan only if we passed an amendment that somehow removed the problem of gerrymandering. (I have no idea how you might accomplish that, but if you have ideas, please use the comments.)

[wik] Rich Lowry has more on this up at the National Review Online.

Krauthammer has a good one up in the Washington Post.

Clifford May writes:

Bob Woodward's new book is less an expose than an inkblot test. It's remarkable how people can see the same words on the same pages - and come away with entirely different pictures.

...An example? For months, the president's critics have accused him of exaggerating or even distorting the CIA's intelligence on Iraq's weapons of mass destruction. Indeed, the charge has been made repeatedly that the president "misled" the public - even that he "lied" and "betrayed" America.

The big news in Woodward's book is that Bush was deeply skeptical about the CIA's conclusions regarding Iraqi WMD - even after he was presented with a "Top Secret" document starkly warning: "Baghdad has chemical and biological weapons."

What changed the president's mind? Woodward vividly describes a meeting in the Oval Office in which George Tenet, the director of central intelligence, responded to Bush's doubts by rising up from his seat and throwing his arms in the air. "It's a slam-dunk case!" he said.

Even that didn't quite persuade Bush. He pressed further, asking Tenet: "George, how confident are you?" At which point, the nation's top spy - a nonideological nonpartisan who held the same job in the Clinton administration - "threw his arms up again. 'Don't worry, it's a slam dunk!' he repeated."

Imagine if - instead of heeding this warning - Bush had ignored it, put on his sweat suit and gone for a jog around the White House. Imagine if a terrorist attack, utilizing WMD supplied by Saddam Hussein, had followed. Bush would have faced impeachment - and deservedly so.

But the president didn't do that. Instead - according to Woodward's reporting - he instructed his CIA chief to assemble the evidence on WMD, adding cautiously: "Make sure no one stretches to make our case."

That's a remarkable bit that I have not seen in the media. How very strange.

He ends with a good closer:

One last word: Those media moguls who have chosen to highlight only parts of Woodward's book they hope will damage Bush might want to recall the old joke about the man whose psychiatrist shows him a series of inkblots.

"Listen, Doc," he says, "I have serious problems to discuss with you. I have no time to look at a bunch of dirty pictures."

What if you could decide how your tax dollars could be allocated? How would you divy up the government's share of your income? More money for butter, or guns? Food stamps for whales, or send the Marines to Mars? James at Outside the Beltway links to an article by Charles Murray posing that very question.

I've thought about this before, and even posted this on the subject, though I'm too lazy to find the link. I think that a system like this would be hideously complex to implement. It would wreak havoc on the smooth functioning of the government, since budgets could be subject to wild swings tax dollars follow the fickle whims of the taxpayers. It might even be unconstitutional, since the Legislature is given the power to disburse funds from the treasury.

However, it would also be really cool. It would be a stupendous demonstration of faith in the common people. Lobbying would take on whole new forms, and arguable far less corrupt ones. Special interest groups would actually have to convince real, individual people that their particular hobby horses are the ones that deserve money. Groups of citizens could organize to direct funding to favored projects. Public involvement in politics would (alright, might) soar as people follow the projects they sent their money to. Think of the pride you would feel when you see a mars probe that you funded lands and starts poking the Martians in the belly. Or when a bomb that you funded blows up an enemy compound. And so on.

You'd have to allow some flexibility though - something on the order of a discretionary fund that would allow the government to maintain funding of secret projects, and of projects that got zeroed out by the populace but are deemed important enough to be maintained. Citizens could also be given the option of putting their money in this fund, or assigning one of several default distributions.

But I think that Charles and James are right that a large percentage of the funds would be pointed in the direction of tangible government services. And I really can't think of a downside to that.

A lifelong democrat is very concerned about the direction of his party. This expands, rather eloquently, on the point I was raising in my recent post (and in the comments thereof) about the ad placed by the St. Petersburg Democratic Club.

Further evidence that the Bush spin machine is in, well, a tail-spin: What idiot just stuck him out in front of cameras with a small-grain black-check tie? It's called a moire pattern, folks...any experienced media person knows you don't wear one in front of a camera (resolution + digital transmission + other junk == funny rainbow colors).

No serious media person checked the President before he went on TV tonight.
Press Conference, my ass. It's just another speech, so far.

- No mention of short or medium term strategy for Iraq.
- "No brainer" we-support-the-troops crap.

- "No one can predict all the hazards that lie ahead." Well, we should at least try to predict some of them, shouldn't we? Isn't that what all those "highly qualified" people around you are paid to do?

- Sounds like June 30 is the date, no matter what. There may be no functional entity to hand power over to, but we're gonna hand it over anyway. He's cemented the date in stone.

- On the Viet Nam message; there aren't enough parallels (yet) to make that comparison. The press likes the convenience of it, but it doesn't really fit.

- "A year seems like a long time, to the families of the troops, overseas...been really tough for the families, been tough on this administration". Yeah, real tough what with all that golfing you've been doing over the past week.

What the heck is a "must-call"? Sounds like they're reporters that the President has been instructed to call upon, who have, oh, let's say, pre-set questions. Helpful!

- Mr. President, why are you and Vice President Cheney appearing together, instead of separately, as the committee asked? BECAUSE.

- Good God! Which reporter just had the cojones to tell Bush that all his speeches use similar phrases, and sound alike? I mean, the guy's totally right, but to just say it like that, to the President? Damn.

- David Gregory? asked the President what he considered to be his most significant mistake since 9/11. It's my very favorite question in the world! Fellow Perfidians know this already -- if you can't name something you did wrong, you don't know a damn thing. Guess what happened to Bush when he was asked. And guess what happened off-camera, as his assistants apparently panicked. ;)

One word comes to mind, from this speech: BLUSTER. Loud, and clear.

Fareed Zakaria for President!

Yet another tedious example of how Bush's "No Child Left Behind" plan is actually designed to further increase, if possible, the basic innumeracy of this nation. Unless...unless Bush himself doesn't understand the difference between a median and an average. Can it be? Can this really be it? Brothers, there is hope! We can still save this economy. All we need to do is find a way to teach Bush about the difference between a median and an average. We must put our best, our brightest teachers, who are paid less than 30k a year, to work on the problem. Perhaps we'll test afterwards, just to make sure.

Kevin Drum has more detail, as usual.

- Kerry says middle class families are worse off and the rich are better off under George Bush.
- George Bush says that's not so: average income has gone up 5.9% in the past three years. Not bad!
- Oops, wait a second. That's "average" income. The right measure is "median" income, since the average is skewed upward by.....the rich being better off.
- Median household income has decreased 3.3% since 2000.
- But wait! If you take into account tax cuts and increased entitlement income, median household income has.....declined 0.6%.

Even flat income for three straight years is disastrous, of course, something the writer of the article seems not to understand. So no matter how you measure it, middle class families are worse off and the rich are better off under George Bush. Just like Kerry said.

You'd think that winning a little thing called "The Presidency" would be, I don't know, motivating somehow? Not satisfied with the distinct lack of evidence that he's made any effective decisions since his court-awarded victory, Bush seems to have figured out that he doesn't even have to show up for work, and he'll stillhave defenders who'll be with him no matter what.

This Washington Post story is generally about US casualties, but it notes the following rather astonishing fact:

This is Bush's 33rd visit to his ranch since becoming president. He has spent all or part of 233 days on his Texas ranch since taking office, according to a tally by CBS News. Adding his 78 visits to Camp David and his five visits to Kennebunkport, Maine, Bush has spent all or part of 500 days in office at one of his three retreats, or more than 40 percent of his presidency.

You'd think that with the general public's uncertainty about his capabilities and thought process, he might balance that with a strong work ethic.

Then again, exactly what in his past would lead us to believe that he has a strong work ethic?