Because it's a triple-witching-hour:

Friday, the day before a long weekend, and just before Congress returns from vacation.

And, whaddaya know? Just before I pressed the Submit button: Read more…

Here's the transcript of today's mind-blowing press conference. The doctor's warned me about that forehead-banging and screaming thing, so I can't analyze it in detail.

If you want to get an excellent reading on the state of the Republic, go and read it. I'll wait.

[Reach me that bucket, wouldja hon?]

Here's what caught my eye:

Maybe we can hope that thepress has, finally, graduated as The Class Of 2007:

Q No, you're trying to take the logical and change it around and make -- you're insulting our intelligence.

MR. BLOW: No, I don't think so. What I've tried to do is to insert a little nuance into a conversation that continues to try to create broad generalizations that can be used, frankly, to twist the case out of context.

Isn't Pony good? Seriously, we've had a Department of How Stupid Do They Think We Are in The Mighty Corrente Building for quite some time, and any one of our uniformed, courteous citizen representatives will be happy to point it out the odd member of our famously free press who happens to wander in or, if necessary, present them with a complimentary rotogravured floor plan with exciting coupon offers on the back.

Anyhow, this interchange is my favorite, of the many, many candidates: Read more…

Shake, baby, shake. From yesterday's press briefing at the Whitewash House:

Q Waxman's committee has put out an interim report on the issue of the RNC emails showing, they say, that there was more use of those emails than the White House suggested, indicating possibly widespread violation of the Presidential Records Act. It's, like, 140,000 emails of Rove's, so the White House Counsel's Office is aware that official business was being conducted through this party (inaudible) system? Can you respond to all that and what --

MR. BLOW: Look, I can't respond specifically to things that the committee may have put out. But those email accounts were set up, A, on a model based on the prior administration, which had done it the same way, in order to try to avoid Hatch Act violations. And we'll just -- we'll leave it at that. I mean, these were designed precisely to avoid Hatch Act violations that prohibit the use of government assets for certain political activities.

Oh, come on. This is the most transparent fucking cover story I've ever heard. They say "Move everything that's political into the private RNC accounts." But, to this White House, everything is political; as John DiIulio and many others have written, there's no policy arm in this White House at all. So, since everything is political, all the correspondence moves off the White House servers onto the RNC servers. Eh?

The shakin' continues: Read more…

Tony Snow, after attacking Democrats' war plans, bristled when CNN reporter Ed Henry asked what Bush's own plan for Iraq success was.

Ever the articulate spokesman, Snow told Henry to "Zip it!" He later apologized.

CNN anchor Tony Harris concluded the story thusly:

Ed, if it weren’t such a solemn day we could do about five minutes on that whole zip it exchange, but because of the the anniversary, we will let it go at that.

Props to Henry for calling the elephant in the room. But this little vignette is the perfect tribute to four years of insane media deference to an insane president conducting an insane war. Read more…

The 2nd in a series.

Well, well.

Just off the wires; (do they still have wires?)

As reported in the NY Times:

In Big Shift, U.S. to Follow Geneva Treaty for Detainees

In a sweeping change of policy, the Pentagon has decided that it will treat all detainees in compliance with the minimum standards spelled out in the Geneva conventions, a senior defense official said today.

The new policy comes on the heels of a Supreme Court ruling last month invalidating a system of military tribunals the Pentagon had created to try suspected terrorists, and just before Congress takes up the question of a replacement system in a Senate Judiciary Committee hearing today.

As part of its decision, the court found that a key provision of the Geneva conventions, known as Common Article 3, did apply to terror suspects, contradicting the position taken by the Bush administration.

The Pentagon memo allowing detainees the protections of Article 3 was first reported today by The Financial Times.

Mighty interesting. But please, don't even begin to think this battle is won. Read more…

This Father's Day, Meteor Blades and some friends will be reading aloud the names of the 2500 American military men and women who have died in Iraq.

The Bush Regime would surely prefer these 2500 to be just "a number." Nameless statistics. Known only to their friends and kin, not the wider community of America whose future and freedom they were supposedly sent off to kill and die for.

Speaking the names of these dead men and women will not end the war in Iraq, nor American involvement in it, anymore than did our read-out of names in 1966. More than symbolic activism is required. But some things are worth doing regardless. So, on this Father's Day, I and five friends will publicly pronounce the 2500 names of the American dead from this list below. Plus however many more are dead by then.

For as long as it takes, probably ten hours, we will read their names, ranks, ages and death dates, loudly and without hurrying. Because they aren't just a number.

No, Mr. Snow, they aren't that. Read more…