What Has He Done Now? Put Bannon Above All Others

Photograph by Jeremy Liebman
for Bloomberg Businessweek

Steve Bannon, the former Breitbart gunslinger and officially Trump's chief strategist, has been named to a "principal's seat" on the National Security Council, while the Director of National Intelligence and the Chair of the Joint Chiefs have been kicked out of those meetings, except by invitation.

Bannon is calling all the shots. National security is now in the hands of a political operative with no scruples. Reports from the White House are saying that Bannon and his deputy Stephen Miller are behind most of the executive orders (including the one yesterday banning Muslims from certain countries). Bannon and Miller also wrote Trump's inauguration speech, and Bannon is gleefully gas-lighting the national media. Screw the fact-checkers!

This is Bannonland now, where "fact-checking becomes an act of war by the media,” said Charles Lewis, the founder of the Center for Public Integrity and the author of “935 Lies: The Future of Truth and the Decline of America’s Moral Integrity,” a book about presidential deception.

Without scruples? Bannon told The Daily Beast last August, "I’m a Leninist ... Lenin wanted to destroy the state, and that’s my goal too. I want to bring everything crashing down, and destroy all of today’s establishment."

Heck of a job, Stevie Baby!

Another president, George W. Bush, much in thrall to his famous policy advisor, was a smarter man than Trump. George W. decreed that adviser Karl Rove not attend meetings where national security issues were discussed.

"It wasn't because he didn't respect Karl's advice or didn't value his input," Joshua Bolten, Bush's chief of staff, said. "But the president also knew that the signal he wanted to send to the rest of his administration, the signal he wanted to send to the public, and the signal he especially wanted to send to the military is that the decisions I'm making that involve life and death for the people in uniform will not be tainted by any political decisions."

We're going to be in a new war before this year is over, because Steve Bannon thinks fear is the best motivator of the people.

Why Is This Woman Laughing?

MSNBC

Nicole Wallace was President George W. Bush's chief of communications, and now she's a regular panel member on MSNBC's Morning Joe. Yesterday, with the Senate Intelligence Committee’s so-called torture report still hours from public release, Wallace had an emotional tantrum at the very thought that anyone -- well, "liberals" mainly -- would object to what went on during her former boss's regime.

So Wallace led off her tantrum, waving the bloody flag of 9/11: "In the history of this country, I think months after 9/11, there were three people who we thought knew about imminent attacks and we did whatever we had to do.” Three people? Not according to the report. Wallace then did what every conservative does, invoked God on the side of torture and "American exceptionalism":  “I pray to God that until the end of time, we do whatever we have to do to find out what’s happening.” It was “asinine” and “dangerous,” she added, to claim that systematic torture “makes America less great,” because God, as we know, supports everything our exceptional nation does. 

All that matters, Wallace argued, is whether torture “help[s] us kill people who want to kill us.” But liberals, she complained, want to focus on “political correctness” — i.e., not committing war crimes.

“I don’t care what we did,” Wallace ended, thus admitting, inadvertently and unnecessarily, that she didn't know what she was even talking about.

I don't care what we did. That statement effectively sums up the public stance of her former boss, not to mention his cumulative intellectual acuity.

It also sums up, apparently and unfortunately, the limpness of the Obama administration's decision not to prosecute anything done during the previous administration, from bank fraud to "rectal feeding" of prisoners.

Let's bring I don't care what we did into the present tense: I don't care what we do. Obama pursues his drone-attack program, with all its lovely collateral damage, as though six, seven years from now another Senate Intelligence Committee report won't be detailing how heinous it all in fact was.

Government Spying

Warned you guys about this during the waning days of George W. Bush:

"...Republicans who claim to love the Constitution ... might want to consider these extraordinary spying powers in the hands of a president of the other party. We don’t want them in the hands of a president of EITHER party."

Still don't.

Snakepit

Who cares when one viper starts biting the other vipers?

Why, we suspect that every Sunday morning gasbag show will give the odious former vice president air time so he can hawk his get-even-with-everybody book this coming weekend.

Then, inevitably, following Cheney's new 15 minutes of fame, during which he will bash George Tenet, Colin Powell, Condoleezza Rice, and other co-conspirators in the 2nd Bush administration, we'll be treated to more endless blather from George Tenet, Colin Powell, Condoleezza Rice, and other co-conspirators, so they can defend themselves against Cheney.

Sigh. Who the freak cares about any of those versions of history?

Well, at least Jon Stewart will have some fresh material for cracking wise.

Taller. Marginally more articulate. But with a similar arrogance, driven by a C- intellect and the bright idea that he's been chosen by God.

Peachy!

The Continuing Influence of the KJV

Like the local blogger at Sententiae, I too grew up with the language of the King James Bible ringing in my ears, and not just at church three times a week but during most days out of church, as my mother read it to me and I read it for myself on a daily basis. That language seeped deeply into my own vocabulary, syntax, and (Lord knows!) tendency to call down fire from Heaven.

The language of the King James translation was bolstered by an education at a West Texas Baptist college which required us to take religion courses. I was all too willing. Also annoying, probably, to the professor, because I could quote substantial swatches of scripture right along with him. My favorite in college -- my mantra, actually -- became Philippians 2:12:

Wherefore, my beloved, as ye have always obeyed, not as in my presence only, but now much more in my absence, work out your own salvation with fear and trembling.

Which actually, because it prompted a certain doctrinal independence, got me into a little hot water as a budding apostate.

"Gradual School" at the Morman-deep University of Utah brought me to one of the best college courses I ever remember taking, "The Bible as Literature" with the great Jack Adamson. Much of what I learned in eight total years of college, the part worth remembering, I learned from this man.

When the iVoteValues crowd erupted in 2004, associating the reelection of George W. Bush with the Will of God, I took the opportunity to re-read all four books of the Gospel, trying to get the actual King James version of the words of Jesus back into my head as antidote to Rev. Richard Land's version and Jerry Falwell's version of who Jesus was and what his example taught us. I did not find that George W. Bush rose in human stature as a result.

Meanwhile, am I alone in keeping this website bookmarked on my computer? The fact that it wants to default to more modern translations when I search the Scriptures, I choose to ignore, since it does give me the option of searching that 400-year-old (this year!) piece of towering English literature, the KJV.

Freakin' Hilarious (and so unexpected!)

El ex-Presidente George W. Bush is a plagiarist!

So far combers of "Decision Points" have found 16 instances of direct word-for-word lifting of other writers' words passed off as George W. Bush's own. How did this guy get through Yale? Oh, riiight!

Just one example:

From Decision Points, p. 205: "When Karzai arrived in Kabul for his inauguration on December 22 – 102 days after 9/11 – several Northern Alliance leaders and their bodyguards greeted him at an airport. As Karzai walked across the tarmac alone, a stunned Tajik warlord asked where all his men were. Karzai, responded, 'Why, General, you are my men. All of you who are Afghans are my men.'"

From Ahmed Rashid’s The Mess in Afghanistan, quoted in The New York Times Review of Books: “At the airport to receive [Karzai] was the warlord General Mohammad Fahim, a Tajik from the Panjshir Valley …. As the two men shook hands on the tarmac, Fahim looked confused. 'Where are your men?' he asked. Karzai turned to him in his disarmingly gentle manner of speaking. 'Why General,' he replied, “you are my men—all of you are Afghans and are my men...'"

Bush was not at Karzai’s Innauguration.

Torture. It's Not Just For Republicans Any More

We now have the public spectacle of an ex-president bragging that he authorized torture. "Damn right!"

It's infuriating that no one in the Obama administration says a word in response. No one with a justice or human rights portfolio, no one the least embarrassed that our legacy in the world is now stamped forever.

Complicity in torture is like any other complicity. Silence is assent.

Questions for the Tea Party Folks

Guest Blogging: Matt Robinson

Barack Obama's election and relentless pursuit of health care reform led to the emergence of a new political movement -- the "Tea Party" -- which claims the Obama presidency is reckless and irresponsible in its spending. Their evidence is quite limited and includes the new health care law, priced at $940 billion over 10 years, or $94 billion per year. Never mind the fact that the costs of the health care law are paid for without adding a penny to the national debt.

What I'd like to know from any "Tea Party" member is ... where were you during the Bush administration? The costs of the war in Iraq are now $721 billion over seven years, or $103 billion per year, more than the health care law. And all of the war costs under President Bush were paid for using emergency appropriations outside of the normal budget process. Thus every penny spent on the Iraq war is added to the national debt!

Perhaps "Tea Party" members see war and health care reform as apples and oranges. I agree. The health care bill pays for itself and helps people, while the war adds to the debt and kills people! Assuming we just ignore the war, though, what about President Bush's Medicare expansion in 2003? This law costs $720 billion over 10 years, or $72 billion per year, and every penny of the costs were added on to the national debt. Yet this did not upset you enough to form a "Tea Party" movement.

And what about the $700 billion bailout of big business by Bush? No "Tea Party" movement for that either (in fact, you guys seem to think it was Obama that organized the bailout!). Yet you attack Obama for the 2009 stimulus plan, priced at $787 billion. Criticisms of the stimulus aside, many economists say it did save our economy from a major depression, and it is even helping expand Highway 421 here in Boone!

Your lack of criticism of President Bush is clear proof that your criticism of President Obama is not rooted in principles such as small government or fiscal responsibility but instead in partisan ideology. In other words, you are out in the streets because Obama is a Democratic president, plain and simple. So spare us the "devotion to the Constitution."

Analysis of White house budget data shows that the three presidents who most added to the national debt were all Republicans, George W. Bush, Ronald Reagan, and George H.W. Bush. Yet neither of the Bush administrations prompted a "Tea Party" movement, and you hold President Reagan up to be this godlike figure who supposedly stood for conservative values such as small government and fiscal responsibility. It is just not true.

Almost nothing the "Tea Party" members say can be taken seriously. I'd laugh out loud if it were not so scary and dangerous. There are thousands of angry and uninformed people who actually believe Obama is a socialist, a communist, a Muslim, a totalitarian dictator, a foreign citizen, and even the anti-Christ who wants the terrorists to win! And they're generating societal unease based on these absurd beliefs.

So I ask you again: Where were you during the Bush administration? And the other Bush administration? And the Reagan administration? And why do you believe these ridiculous things?

Additionally I am curious if you know that your movement is led by lobbyist-run think tanks including "Americans for Prosperity" and "FreedomWorks"? These groups are not about fiscal responsibility or small government. They are for getting Republicans elected, no matter what. It's just politics, plain and simple. Finally, why do you even call yourselves the "Tea Party"? You are citizens, and you have representation! So there's no need to dump tea in the harbor!

Virginia Foxx's Opposition to Federal Money for Education

Congresswoman Virginia Foxx once again says one thing, does another.

The Congresswoman's attack on President George W. Bush's "No Child Left Behind" (Winston-Salem Journal, Jan. 31), amounts to damage control. She recently stood on the House floor and declared that the federal government "should not be funding education." Period.

Her radical and blanket condemnation of all federal help for education -- brick and mortar projects, educational materials, funding for teachers and teacher aides -- may be wholly typical of the shoot-from-the-mouth "style" we've come to expect from Congresswoman Foxx. But it quickly became enough of a liability for her that she felt compelled to write one of her "what I meant to say" explanations and have it published in the Winston-Salem Journal.

What she meant to say, evidently, was that "No Child Left Behind" is highly unpopular and is a symbol of good government intentions gone awry. We can't disagree.

But in writing those words, Foxx was disagreeing with herself. When President George W. Bush came to Waldo C. Falkener Elementary School in Greensboro in October 2006 to praise the local accomplishments of his "No Child Left Behind" federal program, Congresswoman Foxx stood with him for the photo ops and even issued this press statement: "I was pleased to join President Bush today as he highlighted the successes of the No Child Left Behind Act."

Congresswoman Foxx went on:

"The first year that Waldo C. Falkener was tested under the NCLB the scores were low and the school had fallen short of the standards for progress. Falkener Elementary took a number of steps to improve results by using federal funding to pay for new laboratories, teacher collaboration, research and professional development as well as tougher accountability measures. They increased their focus on results and implemented a Saturday Academy for students in need of extra assistance. Through these efforts Falkener Elementary has met NCLB standards for three years in a row, exemplifying the progress and the success of the program."

When currying favor with President Bush, federal assistance to education was A-okay with her. With Democrats now in power, Congresswoman Foxx has rediscovered her deep "constitutional" opposition to funding education.

Ms. Foxx also forgets to tell her constituents that for every dollar North Carolina sends to Washington, we get back $1.08. If the Congresswoman succeeds in her mission to stop all Federal dollars coming into our state for education, that means a major tax increase for the working men and women of our state.

Coming Out

Disgraced politicians have limited options. When they decide to make a reappearance in public, they desperately need to go where they're guaranteed a friendly, even adulatory reception, and a minimum of booing. Which is why Richard M. Nixon in August 1979 chose the tiny (and heavily Republican) mountain town of Hyden, Kentucky, for his first public appearance after being forced from office. That's him on the right in the Hyden school gymnasium, sharing a victory wave with the judge executive of Leslie County, who was running for reelection at the time and was pleased as punch to be standing next to the ex-president. The judge executive happened to be under indictment at the time for fraud and vote-buying.

Birds of a feather.

Thus are the citizens of tiny Woodward, Oklahoma, beside themselves that their invitation to George W. Bush to attend their July 4th celebration tomorrow was accepted. "To actually come to a small community like this, that shows his character," said Kelle Robinson, co-owner of the Sweet Surprises store, which has been turning out U.S. flag cookies. "He's not too good for the common people."

His character? Why, yes. He's being paid for the visit ... to a place where the last surviving Democrat died in captivity decades ago.

Dealing with W.

I'd been avoiding this movie. But at someone else's house this weekend, where someone else punched it up via Pay Per View, I found myself watching it compulsively and hating myself for giving in so easily.

Amazing what a Whole New Context will do for a movie like this one. Which is to say, with W. out of office, there's a little more distance -- precious little, granted -- to appreciate what that bad bad boy Oliver Stone manages to pull off.

Not going for a full review here. Because the movie turns out to be what I read about it, unusually sympathetic to the subject, and I ain't there yet.

But it deserves a viewing, via whatever means.

FOOTNOTE
Just a brief special bravo for Stacy Keach, who does a small turn as the Reverend Earl Hudd, the preacher who helped W. find God. And raspberries for the usually excellent Thandie Newton, who is turrible as Condoleezza Rice.

I've found myself clenching up repeatedly since January 20th, wondering if this or that move by President Obama, this or that statement, this or that appointment to the cabinet, will be the ten-penny nail that seals his coffin and destroys his presidency. Sometimes I feel like frost-heaved soil, alternately thawing with the election and the Inauguration, and then freezing up again at the sight of too many Wall Street Boys in the Obama administration or too many fainting goats among the Democrats in Congress.

I'm tired of winter. I'm tired of fear. I've decided to relax and enjoy the Obama administration.

A smart man in the White House! A calm man. A thoughtful man. A man who can demand that the CEO of General Motors clean out his desk for abysmal performance, and the CEO of General Motors cleans out his desk! A man who is respected and even loved abroad, instead of a wince-inducing buffoon who bullied and blustered and proved on a daily basis that he was in way over his head. (Every time Fox News plays nostalgic TV footage of their hero, George W. Bush, Obama's ratings just go higher.)

And about those approval ratings. The newest polling shows that "the number of Americans who believe that the nation is headed in the right direction has roughly tripled since Barack Obama's election," and the American public actually seems to understand who was responsible for the economic meltdown (it ain't Obama). Despite the universal ululating of the Lilliputian Right, the Limbaugh-ettes who scream "socialism," the Dick Cheneys who intimate that our president is essentially a traitor, the Congressional Republicans who look increasingly like the flying monkeys who served the Wicked Witch of the West ... our president has the people solidly behind him and behind his agenda to change the policies of the last president.

I'm through holding my breath every time the cable-talkers tell me that Obama's presidency has failed because there's a chance that Wall Street or even Main Street is unhappy ("Morning Joe," I'm looking in your general direction). The special election yesterday in the NY-20 to fill the congressional seat vacated by Kirsten Gillibrand is, if anything and even though it isn't decided, proof that people in that Republican-leaning New York district are NOT willing to push back against the Obama administration.

If the American people cared what Congressional Republicans had to say, we would have a different situation on our hands. But the American people don't care what Congressional Republican have to say, aren't listening to them, and the more John Boehner and Mike Pence put both hands on their hips and stamp their feet, the more the American people can't stand the sight of them. (Congresswoman Virginia Foxx is now crying on cue as often as Glenn Beck, and with the same evident purpose of proving how superior her patriotism is to any Democrat's. No one cares.) We don't see any indication yet that the vast public is willing to run back into the baleful embrace of the same political/economic philosophy that landed us in this awful soup.

So I'm through with fear, through with holding my breath, through with jumping at the sound of squeaking hinges. I'm going to enjoy this moment in American history.

Oh, who am I kidding? I'll be back at my worry-beads before the sun goes down on the daffodils.

The Bushes' Moving Van

Here's a sight we thought we might never see.

The mind races with apt captions, with parting shots, with poetical adieus, but we're far too dignified to set them down here.

You may, however, consider this your open thread for getting your own thoughts off your chest.

So, Bush Wins (Revisited)

By guest blogger Matthew B. Robinson, Ph.D. (Professor of Government & Justice Studies, Appalachian State University):

In November 2004, George W. Bush had just won reelection, and I reacted as honestly as I could in an essay that was published here on Watauga Watch. Now that the Bush disaster –– I mean, presidency –– is finally over, I thought it might be useful to review that column for its prophetic accuracy.

FYI, my kids are now 7 1/2 and 4 1/2 years old, respectively. They managed to survive the Bush presidency, although not unscathed. Fortunately, each is happy and healthy, still too young to know what they've actually managed to live through. But they're also much poorer than they would have been had someone else –– probably anyone else –– been elected in 2000 or 2004.

Thankfully, I was wrong in my prediction that we'd be attacked again on our soil by al Qaeda. There has not been another attack against America on our soil under the Bush presidency, and Bush takes credit for this every chance he gets.

Frankly, he does deserve some credit but maybe not as much as some think. I've read numerous accounts of al Qaeda –– what its goals are and how it operates. Each attack, they think, must be bigger and more dramatic than the last. The first time al Qaeda attacked us on American soil was in 1993. The next time was in 2001. That eight-year gap gave them time for something much bigger and more horrific.

It's now been about eight years since 9/11. Had we done nothing to weaken al Qaeda in America, it'd be just about time again for another major attack.

You might say that George Bush gave al Qaeda a much easier way to attack us, not here but in Iraq. The group known as "al Qaeda in Iraq" did not exist until our invasion, and there simply was no al Qaeda presence in Iraq prior to 2003 when we started the war. Now that we are there, so too are they, and Americans have paid with their lives.

Which brings me to my next 2004 prediction –– that we'd be in Iraq for 5-10 years and lose as many as 5,000 to 10,000 military personnel. Four years later, we're still there. Fortunately, we haven't hit 5,000 deaths yet -– not quite -- but about 600,000 Iraqis has died prematurely as a result of our invasion and occupation.

We didn't start another war against a country not involved in the 9/11 attacks, as I thought likely. But the Iranian influence in Iraq and in the Middle East is far greater now, and Bush policies are the proximate cause. "The Iranian problem" is being passed on to President Obama, along with the Israel-Palestinian conflict.

Sure enough, we've swelled the ranks of al Qaeda, creating more enemies and putting our country at greater risk. U.S. intelligence shows that al Qaeda is stronger and larger now than on 9/11 and is operating freely in portions of Afghanistan and Pakistan.

The rest of my predictions were 100% accurate. Bush gave us Justice Samuel Alito and Chief Justice John Roberts. These two individuals are young and healthy and will continue to push the Supreme Court to the right for decades to come.

Medicare and social security are still in deep trouble. The gap between the rich and the poor is greater than ever. Poverty, child poverty, true unemployment, and the number of people without health insurance have increased steadily throughout the Bush Administration.

The Environmental Protection Agency was reduced to a good old boy hangout, just like FEMA, and now plant and animal species are threatened. Further, literally nothing has been done to reduce our reliance on foreign sources of energy. Funding for education (and for just about every social service) is in serious jeopardy. Cuts are occurring everywhere.

We are less free because of the USA PATRIOT Act (now permanent law), domestic eavesdropping/warrantless wiretapping (in violation of U.S. law), the suspension of habeas corpus, the detention of US citizens as enemy combatants, and the official use of torture as part of the war on terror.

What I was probably most wrong about was that George W. Bush would finally be forced to take responsibility for all of this. Just the other day, Bush held a farewell press conference, saying he was disappointed that we did not find weapons of mass destruction in Iraq and that one of his greatest mistakes was hanging that "Mission Accomplished" banner on the aircraft carrier. What a warped sense of morality this guy has!

The last four years of the Bush Administration did in fact give us tens of thousands of Americans who are poorer, more uneducated, more uninsured, more polluted, sicker, more threatened, definitely more hated, more monitored by Big Brother, and even deader. But thankfully, I was also right that the last four years of George W. Bush shifted the political pendulum to the left.

We can credit George W. Bush for giving us a black man named Barack Hussein Obama, the 43rd President of the United States of America. Think about it –– would this have been even remotely possible without a George W. Bush presidency?

Now Democrats and Republicans of good will can get back to fixing the problems thrust upon us by eight years of the Bush Administration.

It's over.

And I'm feeling much better now!

Your Grandfather's GOP

Bless their hearts, but a cabal on the Republican National Committee intends to force conservative orthodoxy on their elected leaders, fashioning a resolution that they intend to ram through at their end-of-January national meeting which says flat-out that George W. Bush has taken the country toward socialism. And men like Senate Minority Leader Mitch McConnell and House Minority Leader John A. Boehner aided and abetted.

"Socialism." Might as well have accused Shrub of being a dirty, 5th-column Commie. Well, as a matter of fact...

We applaud this upwelling of The Pure in the National Republican Party and can't wait to see this played out.

The Bush Legacy

Rarely content where there's money to be made, the George W. Bush Criminal Conspiracy has taken steps to allow the mountains of West Virginia, eastern Kentucky, southwest Virginia, and the Cumberland Plateau in Tennessee to be bulldozed into any flanking creeks, branches, streams, rivers, rivulets that get in the way of the strip miners.

The goddamn Godless bastards are also taking steps to make it impossible for Congress to intercede to prevent all kinds of other mining on public lands, including those adjacent to some of the gems of the American landscape like the Grand Canyon.

This, in addition to the myriad other perversities of power George W. Bush has been busily enacting in his Last Days in office through the regulatory powers of the Executive.

Rape and pillage is his legacy, and our American resources are only part of it.

Sorry, sorry, sorry excuse for a human being.

Jerk, To the End

The "midnight rules" of George W. Bush:

Rules that will make it easier for polluting industries to pollute.

Rules that will make it harder for women to get federally funded reproductive health care.

Rules that will change the way regulators assess risk for jobs, especially those that expose workers to chemicals.

Rules to make it impossible to sue in state courts for negligence on the part of manufacturers.

Rules making it tougher for employees to take family or medical leave.

Rules that would effectively gut the Endangered Species Act.

And our personal favorite:

Rules to ease restrictions on coal companies that decapitate Appalachian mountains to get at the coal underneath and then push the waste dirt and rock into neighboring creeks.

It Wasn't a Frickin' Stream!

As John McCain was using the financial crisis as a means to save his mortgaged candidacy, and decided to air-drop himself into the negotiations, El Presidente graciously invited both candidates and a host of Congressional leaders in this afternoon to share in the disgrace of his presidency.

For those many voters who told us in 2004 that, although they thought George W. was a bald-faced liar and multitudinously inept, they were afraid "to change horses in the middle of the stream," we wonder how they're feeling now that El Presidente has ridden us into the deep blue sea.

Thrown us into the drink and then announced that we'd have to pay MUCH more for a life preserver and that we needed to pay for it RIGHT NOW.

Treasury Secretary Henry Paulson's original demands of Congress are posted in their entirety here, for your amazement and edification. Be sure to get a load especially of the notorious Section 8, titled "Review," which runs one whole sentence, to wit:

Decisions by the Secretary pursuant to the authority of this Act are non-reviewable and committed to agency discretion, and may not be reviewed by any court of law or any administrative agency.

That's the Bush administration in a nutshell.

NUT. SHELL.

Sen. Chris Dodd's counter legislation is also posted here, but we understand that it's been tinkered with further in consultation with U.S. House leaders, so this isn't the final version being discussed this afternoon at the Booby-Hatch (a.k.a., White House).

John McCain's grandstanding about all of this is just this side of pathetic. We're supposed to get BACK on this particular horse/elephant? Gee thanks, but this time I think I'll walk.

Brokeback Presidency

El Presidente will be in Greensboro on Sept. 30th for a fundraiser for John McCain, and we can't help noticing the quick exit from his general vicinity of any Republican running in a tight race. Like Liddy Dole, who's already said (cough, cough) that she's planning an aneurysm that day or needs to be at her home in Washington, D.C., on the 30th to pet the cat and pull a dead leaf off the ivy.

But apparently, the 30% of Americans who still approve of George W. Bush mostly live in North Carolina (and some 65% of that 30% live in Blowing Rock!).

Watching El Presidente's (non) performance this past week during the financial market meltdown certainly identifies him as an intellectual partner to McCain. It must be a proud moment for both of them, presiding over the nationalization of private debt. The apotheosis of Conservatism.