"Because I Fail, Therefore I Am"

If Josh Marshall doesn't have the best take-down of El Presidente's newest rationale for voting him into a second term ... "Vote For Me, Since I Can Best Manage My Failures!"

More Cracks in the N.C. Republican Party

Catching up on news from late last week ... another big resignation from the Republican Party State Executive Committee over the ouster of Robert Morgan. Harold Brubaker, the only Republican in the state House of Representatives to lead that body in the 20th century, resigned from the state executive committee to protest the treatment of close ally Morgan.

The only thing not showing stress marks on the Republican right was Liddy Dole's fearless power helmet of hair. She showed up at the battleship North Carolina in Wilmington on Tuesday May 25th for what was supposed to be a major address on Iraq and found in attendance only three battleship memorial board members, a spouse, and a couple of reporters. But according to the N & O, she bravely performed a 30-minute harangue in the 92-degree heat to a sea of empty chairs, showing how even the lowliest junior senator from North Carolina can "stay the (stupid) course!"

Kerry's Southern Exposure

All the recent happy talk about Kerry's improving poll numbers in the South (for example, over the weekend, the DNC announced that Virginia is now considered "in play") has not swayed us from our perception that the South is officially a Republican sump, and this morning John Wagner, the News & Observer's man in Washington, has an interesting article about Kerry's problem winning ANY Southern state.

They assured us that Kerry would do so much better with Southern voters than Howard Dean, another blunt New Englander to be sure but a man with a perceptible soul (and Southerners generally honor perceptible soul).

Guess we'll have to rely on the PR possibilities of something Southerners also REALLY appreciate, the enormous penis that Kerry is rumored to possess (what? you don't read Wonkette?).

Afghanistan Ain't Going So Well

It's getting to be a semi-regular event ... when the Prince of Darkness Robert Novak writes a column critical of George W. Bush.

Check out his latest, titled "U.S. Is Lost in Afghanistan," the product of some conversations with military guys on the front in that "forgotten war." (And thanks to P.L. for the link.) The best Novak can say for those poor soldiers is that they're depressed over their leadership and the general situation. Their general doesn't have a clue. It seems increasingly unlikely "if not impossible" that Osama will be captured. And the Afghan government of Hamid Karzai reeks of corruption, propped up by American force.

Just ordinary by-products of El Presidente's Iraqi-centric obsession.

But just wait for the scandal involving members of the U.S. military trafficking in poppy dust. Bound to happen eventually.

"Wanna Pet My Gun?"

Comes out now on the Time magazine site that El Presidente has been presented the pistol that Saddam had on him when he was captured, as a personal memento, and that he keeps it in the personal study where Bill Clinton used to do the dirty with Monica, and that he lets people touch it, and that "He really liked showing it off," says a recent visitor to the White House who has seen the gun. "He was really proud of it."

Enough there for theorists of sexual inadequacy and political posturing, we wager. One president gets off with interns; the other gets off on invasions. And NOW his gun is bigger than yours!

Iraq War "a Large Problem," According to Bush's Dad

Drudge has up today a story that George H.W. Bush told Time magazine's Hugh Sidey that "the war in Iraq is a large problem. There's a lot of what Jimmy Carter called 'malaise' around."

But the man who had never seen a grocery scanner and didn't know the cost of a gallon of milk nor how ordinary Americans were getting by back in 1992, also told Sidey that "the country is doing pretty darn well," which just goes to show you that when you've never had a clue, you're not likely to get one just because Fate decides to take pity on you.

Democrat Prospects Improving in N.C.?

Any more of this rosy outlook for Democrats stuff, and our teeth are going to start rotting on their stalks ... but Rob Christensen with the Raleigh News & Observer is out today with a piece saying that Democratic prospects haven't looked better in this state since 1976, and he hits the obvious high points ... that the Democrats DIDN'T nominate Howard Dean (and don't get us started on THAT!), that Mike Easley is polling wa-a-a-ay ahead of any of the Republican challengers for the governorship, that Erskine Bowles is polling well ahead of Dick Burr for the Senate seat, and that the Republicans seem much more absorbed right now with purging their dangerous moderates than with attacking the Democrats, and that the Republican candidates for governor, senate, and, yes, 5th District Congressperson will have expended their psyches and their bank accounts ripping into one another during the primary.

We don't necessarily believe any of it, but it's nice to read anyway.

Democrats' Changes in the House Improving

Stuart Rothenberg, a nonpartisan analyst of Congressional races, is acknowledging that the picture has brightened for Democrats' taking U.S. House seats this year, though he's not quite ready to say they have a shot at taking CONTROL (they'd need to win 12 seats to throw the Hastert/DeLay bunch out). (Read the New York Times story here.)

But what are we to make of other polling which seems to show that the American public is generically more disposed this year to vote for Democrats than for Republicans?

And aren't the 30 open seats this time (including the one here in the 5th N.C. district) something of an advantage for Dems?

Also the Dems seem poised to win another special congressional election in North Dakota next Tuesday, a MOST Republican state under normal circumstances. (The Dems already won a special election in Kentucky back during the winter, in a district previously held by a Republican.)

It just may be that people are getting a little weary of Republican rule, Republican smugness, Republican arrogance, Republican moral superiority coupled with Republican moral culpability. And just maybe, if donkeys actually do start flying, even Virginia Foxx will have a race on her hands this fall, that is, after she beats Ed Broyhill in the inevitable primary run-off for the Republican nomination.

Bush's Poll Numbers Down, Threat Level Up

Anyone else notice the Pavlovian connection? Bush's poll numbers sink, Attorney General Ashcroft rises to announce new, imminent terror threat levels. What a coinky-dink!

Attorney General John Ashcroft said at a news conference yesterday that intelligence reports and public statements by people associated with Al Qaeda suggested that the terrorist group was "almost ready to attack the United States" and harbored a "specific intention to hit the United States hard."

What to do, what to do?? Trust in George W. to save us, is what.

Mr. Ashcroft said, "We believe the public, like all of us, needs a reminder." Oh. Got it!