Overnight - A roundup of news items that you might have missed

Of pots, kettles and degrees of blackness John McSame would have done well to keep his mouth shut about Barack Obama not flying off to Iraq for a whirlwind shopping trip and some of the finest Kabuki Theater found outside Japan every time the wind blows. Well, it turns out that he has been remiss in a duty right here at home! Prior to last month's stroll through the Lower Ninth Ward, he had been to the Gulf Coast exactly once since the day Katrina made landfall. By contrast, Obama has visited the region five times. Mapquest says it is only 1089.87 miles between Washington DC and New Orleans, and it is not necessary for a visiting potentate to be escorted on a stroll by a full company of armed soldiers, three Blackhawk helicopters and two apache gunships to make sure the potentate stays safe. And by not monkeywrenching operations in a war zone six soldiers didn't get dead on any of the five trips that Obama has made to New Orleans. Not only has McShame been aWol in NOLA, he has failed to vote for reconstruction because it might saddle the future with debt, but the old hypocrite supports the occupation of Iraq - the single biggest expense and burden upon the backs of our grandchildren - without fail.

McClellan apologizes to Richard Clark According to Clarke, McClellan apologized to him last night, stating, “I should have known how personal it would get when they went after me, well, I mean, after what I said about you.” On MSNBC today, Clarke said the apology was “genuine.” (h/t TP)

Being called a "miserable creature" by Bob Dole is kinda like being called hard on the eyes by a horny-toad, innit? Bob Dole sent out a scathing email to Scotty McClellan yesterday, so angered was he at McClellan for verifying what the reality-based community has known all along. "There are miserable creatures like you in every administration who don’t have the guts to speak up or quit if there are disagreements with the boss or colleagues," Dole wrote in a message sent yesterday morning. "No, your type soaks up the benefits of power, revels in the limelight for years, then quits, and spurred on by greed, cashes in with a scathing critique." Huh. Bob Dole's type cleans up pimping an erectile dysfunction drug.


Don't think for a second the wingnuts will go quietly and accept gay marriage. They will fight it to the last dog dies, so don't get complacent just because the recent California Supreme Court decision was met with a collective shrug of the shoulders. “There is no reason to think [gay marriage] should be less potent of an issue in 2008 than in 2004,” said Peter Brown, assistant director of the Quinnipiac University Polling Institute. “It is an issue that could cause further problems with those voters [with] whom Obama is already having trouble — white working-class voters.” Well, maybe. But if they have a family member or family friend in the military, or have depleted their savings buying gasoline, or maybe they have an ARM that has reset or is about to, it might not be such as big damned deal as those on the lunatic fringe will try to make it. (BG adds: For the record - my Uncle Billy and Aunt Richard have a loving relationship that has outlasted both of my moms marriages, and their relationship didn't "undermine" those consecrated unions in any way.)

But Hastert kinda undermined the wingnuts by taking a job with a "tranny" lobbying firm. Those "family values" he cast votes to uphold as recently as November of last year flew right out the window when it was beneficial to him to abandon them. How very...republican... But it does bring to mind a quote by that good Democrat Will Rogers..."It's hard to get a man to understand something if his paycheck depends on him not understanding it."

This church needs to be scrutinized by the IRS because it obviously engages in partisan politics. I mean, the IRS goes after liberal churches that oppose the war, so when a priest is openly identified as a "GOP priest" that is pretty damning - or ought to be, in a sane world. But we live in Bu$hWorld these days...

One of these things is not like the other Johnn McCain is finally getting a little heat from the media over his use of a picture of him and General Petreus glad-handing one another in a fundraising letter. The McSame campaign tried to justify it by pointing to a picture of Obama on the campaign website that shows him talking to an unidentified member of the armed forces - who is decidedly NOT an O 10. (After the roundup was complete, we learned that McSame, after getting some well-deserved heat, has admitted that the use of the photo was inappropriate.)

Flashback Five years ago today, Tom "douchebag" Friedman told Charlie Rose that invading Iraq was the United States' way of telling the middle east to "suck on it" after the attacks of September 11, 2001. How is it this guy is still considered a Serious member of the commentariat?

So let us get this straight...being off in your numbers by 25,000 is "nitpicking"? Damn! I gotta try that sort of math with my bank! Yesterday, John "Warhead" McSame said that the number of American service personnel in Iraq has returned to "pre-surge levels." He was either deliberately lying or he is clueless (they are not mutually exclusive categories) because "pre-surge" there were 130,000 troops deployed to Iraq, and today, there are 155,000. When he was called on it, he dismissed the critics as "nitpicking." For the record - 25,000 soldiers is damned near enough to man two entire frickin' DIVISIONS. That's a pretty damned daunting nit to pick!

111 countries sign treaty agreeing to ban cluster bombs...but the United States wasn't one of them. Nor was Russia, China, Israel, India nor Pakistan - the primary offenders. U.N. Secretary-General Ban Ki-moon urged every nation in the world to sign the painstakingly negotiated pact "without delay" but the countries listed didn't even participate in the negotiations. The pact that was hammered out leaves the door open for new types that could pick targets more precisely and contain self-destruct technology.

Bainbridge gets one right! (We know - we are as shocked as you are!) And he even gets bonus points for reminding us of one of our favorite Monty Python skits!

A point to ponder....Listening to a segment on NPR this afternoon in the basement of the Gun Club & Home Brew Supply that serves as the international headquarters for WTWC, we heard people-on-the-street being interviewed, talking about McCain and his experience, and we have come to the conclusion that his lauded "experience" is all for naught. It certainly didn't give him the foresight, insight, or clarity to get a single thing right in the last eight years.