Rove's replacement is just like... Rove

This is the actual headline from the Washington Post:

Rove Replacement Seen as Highly Partisan Go-Getter

It gets better.

Jackson is seen as cool, analytical and fiercely partisan -- "none of this 'let's get along' kind of stuff," in the words of one GOP acquaintance from Capitol Hill, who described Jackson "as the man behind The Man."

Bush's Brain's brain. That, or a Karl Rove hit man. He should improve things nicely, don't you think?

In other information from the same article...

[White House Chief of Staff Josh] Bolten first approached Donald Rumsfeld's old press secretary Torie Clarke about becoming White House press secretary after Scott McClellan quit in 2006. Clarke purportedly told Bolten she would rather commit suicide. The chief of staff then turned to Snow.

I would have thought the inimitable Victoria Clark would have been well suited for the job. After all, fiction seemed to suit her quite well. She was the general manager of Hill and Knowlton's Washington DC office when, during the lead up to the 1991 Gulf War that firm created the Nurse Nayirah fiction; and she suddenly found herself "resigning effective immediately" after her complicity in the Jessica Lynch fantasy.

H/T Melissa

How Convenient . . . .

The White House has announced when General Petraeus will present testimony before Congress on the Iraq war escalation.


The date is September 11.




Coincidence?




I think not . . . .

(Cross-posted from Moving to Vancouver)

Reasonable Al Gore . . . .

Our local library here in conservative-repuglican-land is becoming more Progressive-friendly thanks to our efforts. To counter the ann coulter, sean hannity and robert novak books in abundance, we have successfully gotten them to order "The One Percent Doctrine" by Ron Suskind, "Imperial Life in the Emerald City" by Rajiv Chandrasekaran and most recently "The Assault on Reason" by Al Gore. All have been great additions to our local literary options.

I checked out Al Gore's latest the other day and am about half-way through it. I found the following excerpt in the chapter entitled "Convenient Untruths" particularly good. He is describing how the bushco administration operates in regards to disseminating information to the US public. These paragraphs pertain to their one-time Iraqi point man Ahmed Chalabi:


Yet in spite of those analyses, President Bush chose to suppress those warnings and conceal that information, and instead he went right on conveying to the American people the absurdly Pollyannaish view of highly questionable and obviously biased sources like Ahmed Chalabi, a convicted felon and known swindler.

The Bush administration put Chalabi on its payroll and gave him a seat adjacent to First Lady Laura Bush at the State of the Union address. They then flew him into Baghdad on a military jet with a private security force. However, the following year the administration decided he was actually a spy for Iran who had been hoodwinking the president all along with phony facts and false predictions. Now Chalabi is a top official of the new government in Baghdad.

It has become common for President Bush to rely on special interests, like the one represented by Chalabi, for basic information about the policies important to these interests. ExxonMobil, for example, has apparently been his most trusted source of information about the climate crisis. Chemical companies are his most trusted sources on whether or not particular chemicals are hazardous to the environment. The major pharmaceutical companies are his most trusted advisers on the health risks of new drugs. Insurance companies are considered the most reliable source of data on any policy that affects them. And so forth.

And then, amazingly, the president seems to trust what these special interests tell him over and above objective information prepared for him by independent analysts who are charged with protecting the public interest. Since his ideology teaches him contempt for the very notion of "the public interest," he actually prefers to rely on biased information prepared by sources of questionable reliability - like Chalabi - who have a private interest in a particular policy outcome. The president has, in effect, outsourced the truth. (Emphasis mine.)


Once again, you've got to ask yourself: If ordinary folks like us can see stuff like this and be concerned about it, why didn't our elected "representatives" see it and apply their Constitutional responsibility of oversight over this crowd? Could it be they were protecting their cushy jobs and perks to the detriment of what was right?

A pox on all their houses . . . .

(Cross-posted from Moving to Vancouver)

Cue the rhapsodic screams of ecstasy

Canadian Cynic aptly points out that the September progress report on Iraq, to be issued by General David Petraeus and US ambassador, Ryan Crocker, will result in jubilant cheering by certain segments of the population. Petraeus is expected to announce that a pullback is possible, the "surge" having gone so well to that point. (We're not there yet, but what could go wrong?)

Intent on demonstrating progress in Iraq, the top U.S. general there is expected by Bush administration officials to recommend removing American troops soon from several areas where commanders believe security has improved, possibly including Al Anbar province.

But it won't be a report by Petraeus and Crocker. When Bush repeats that everyone must wait for the report by those two, he has omitted the fact that the authorship of that September progress report will come from within the White House.

Despite Bush's repeated statements that the report will reflect evaluations by Petraeus and Ryan Crocker, the U.S. ambassador to Iraq, administration officials said it would actually be written by the White House, with inputs from officials throughout the government. And though Petraeus and Crocker will present their recommendations on Capitol Hill, legislation passed by Congress leaves it to the president to decide how to interpret the report's data.

Given the in and out movement and the fact that we can now virtually predict the climatic outcome, if you close your eyes and think about it, you could be excused for believing that the Bush administration is producing a porn movie, including the director's demand for loud cries of exaltation, "Yes, yes, YESSS!" in the moments before the final credits roll.

Pete Townshend could get away with that while most of us just smiled and understood.


Bush, however, doesn't have the traction to sneak this one by. While the 26 percenters, paying no attention to the actual words, continue to bob their heads to the Bushco beat, the majority of us won't be the slightest bit amused.