GRANDPA KICK-BUTT

Lee Iococca, the 82-year-old former CEO of Chrysler Corp., takes the hide off Bush & Company (the knuckle-headed incompetents) in a new book, "Where Have All the Leaders Gone?"

You can read the searing first chapter here for free.

3RD SOUTHERN BAPTIST CONGREGATION LEAVES THE NC BAPTIST CONVENTION

Saying that the homophobes in the state Baptist Convention have no right to tell them how to run their church, members of Sardis Baptist Church in Charlotte voted yesterday to quit the state organization. This is the third Southern Baptist congregation to dissociate themselves from the new intolerance.

SAY JESUS, OR ELSE!

Over 2,500 souls demonstrated in the streets of Yadkinville yesterday, demanding that the Yadkin County Commission ignore the Constitution and pray to Jesus, specifically and explicitly, at official commission meetings.

Because, see, you can't possibly be a good man or woman unless you're seen by men in the act of praying to the right god, like the pharisees.

"All but one commissioner voted in February to stop referring to specific deities and religions during prayers at government meetings. The commissioners were trying to avoid a lawsuit that could have been filed if they continued to use sectarian prayer."

Yadkin County Commissioner Joel Cornelius said, "We asked for the advice of our attorney, and he gave us his legal advice on where we stood. I myself made my own personal decision that we needed to adhere to what the law was. I'm a Christian just as much as anybody else is, but I am bound by the oath that I took to uphold the rulings of the court and the Constitution."

For which opinion, Mr. Cornelius is gonna split hell wide open when he lands there.

KARL ROVE DOES COMEDY AT OPEN-MIKE GIG

O no he dint!

Yesterday in Hendersonville, Karl Rove "assailed what he characterized as the tax-and-spend policies of the Democrats." (Asheville Citizen-Times)

That got a HUGE laugh, considering this.

Another knee-slapper, via Screwy Hoolie, who was there: "Our philosophy of government is held by the majority of Americans whether they know it or not, whether they're aware of it or not."

Take his philosophy. Please!

Screwy Hoolie, who probably counted very carefully, said there were 179 delegates present, while both the Asheville Citizen-Times and the Hendersonville Times-News followed the company line that there were 300 there. Either way, paltry attentance for such a comedy star.

A bust, even.

BUSH'S BRAIN IN HENDERSONVILLE TODAY

NC-11 Republican leaders are hosting Karl Rove today in Hendersonville in hopes Mr. Rove will tell 'em what to do to get rid of Heath Shuler.

Mike Harrison, chairman of the Buncombe County Republican Party, said "he hopes Rove will talk about what WNC Republicans can do to improve their chances in the 2008 election and what the national party is planning in order to be more successful next year."

Mr. Rove, for his part, is looking for a crowd of gullible rooters who don't pay attention to national news and who will cheer for week-old fish.

There'll be some chest-thumping in Hendersonville, assuming Mr. Rove can find his chest.

HYPOCRITE OF THE WEEK

That's Randall Tobias to the left ... until yesterday afternoon the boss of the Bush administration's foreign aid programs, which among other things made him "the AIDs czar." He liked to emphasize "faithfulness and abstinence over condom use to prevent the spread of AIDS."

He resigned suddenly yesterday when his name surfaced in the "DC Madam" scandal ... for hiring high-priced and mainly foreign-born prostitutes for "massages."

Beware the highly placed Bush administration pooh-bah who preaches faithfulness and abstinence. Oh just go ahead and beware of the Bush administration, period.

A "GREEN" PIONEER IN BOONE

One of our favorite Republicans is also a past chair of the local Watauga County Republican Party, so go figure ... but Rob Holton is a role model for how responsible environmentalism can be combined with a business interest. He's covered in this week's High Country Press for a "Green Business Plan" proposal he's thought up and presented to the local Tourism Development Authority, over which he's also the reigning chair.

We'll have to wait to see how his ideas about "market-driven" greening initiatives for local businesses work out, but we're willing to applaud his efforts and the notion that it'll take actual capitalists to lead these initiatives for anything really significant to change in the way people behave -- that is, the way we consume and throw away.

Maybe this is a moment analogous to Richard Nixon going to China. (Naw. Too many knots in that comparison.)

IS THIS THE NEBBISH WHO'LL BRING DOWN KARL ROVE?

Scott Bloch, Special Counsel of the United States. He's opened an investigation into Karl Rove's activities, particularly certain alleged violations of the Hatch Act. Scott Bloch was on C-SPAN this a.m. Seems like a kind of bumpkin (and incidentally master of the double-negative: "We will not leave any stone unturned"), but he just may be that rarest of birds in the Bush administration, an honest man uncorrupted by political manipulation.

Look for the Rovians to begin discrediting him, but Bloch has this history that'll make him hard to discredit without doing the administration itself some harm, because Bloch has been criticized for being a right-wing tool and even a Christian Right tool. It would be poetic justice for him to be the one who finally gets some goods on Rove.

WE'RE STRUGGLING TO HANG ONTO OPTIMISM

Watched the first hour of the debate from South Carolina last night, before the real Survivor called us away. It was just ... plain ... depressing ... that in a scrum of eight, we can find no one to be enthusiastic about.

No one with "Senator" attached to his name (either "sitting" or "former") will do, though we confess that Mike Gravel was at least passionate, direct, honest, and quite possibly nuttier 'n' a Mr. Goodbar. But he got our attention.

So did Bill Richardson, for how uncomfortable he looked and how unprepared he seemed.

I mean ... it's PITIFUL, the whole field of 'em.

We see no relief for the baneful bruise that Hillary will become other than that former bruise, Al Gore.