Bush-Fluffin' With Matthew Dowd (Fox "News" Edition)(Now With Updated Goodness):
Here's former Bush campaign strategist, Republican pollster, and Fox "news" Conttributor Matthew Dowd described his man back in December 20, 2005 on Hannity and Colmes: "I think the American public -- and from what I've seen, from what the public responds to -- they want a president that's going to do everything possible to protect them from any more loss of life, like what happened on 9/11." He was spinning the sewer-level poll numbers of the President.

Here's Dowd on John Gibson's Big Story That's Big on October 25, 2005, talking about Bush's alleged "peevishness" about no one give him the high hard poll-lovin': "[T]his is a president that in spite of all of it -- 9/11, the Iraq war, everything that has happened, disasters and all that -- has stayed fairly optimistic, has stayed fairly disciplined about what he wants to do."

Here's Dowd on the same show on February 25, 2005, comparing opposition to Bush's Iraq war strategy with opposition to Ronald Reagan on the Soviet Union: "[I]n the end, we found out that his strategy was right. . . what he did in defeating the empire."

And here he is again, primping Gibson's pompadour on October 27, 2004, regarding Bush's concentration on the "War on Terror" as a campaign issue: "It's a human side of him and what it takes when you send soldiers into battle, even if you know it's right, what effect it has on families and also the leadership it takes and the commitment it takes to defeating the war on terror. So, I think it's a great insight into the President, how he makes decisions, who he is, the sensitivity he has, but the commitment he has to winning this battle on the war on terror."

Same show, regarding John Kerry's fitness to be Commander-in-Chief because Kerry "made up" facts about the tons of missing munitions in Iraq: "John Kerry says what he would do as commander in chief, before he gets his facts right, he makes an attack on our military."

One more: here's Dowd on Hannity and Colmes on July 2, 2004: "John Kerry's only plan to combat terrorism or deal with Iraq or whatever else you might call it is to elect him. Everything else he said the president is already doing."

Well, apparently not. For Dowd, who began punking out a month or so ago by writing in Texas Monthly against the surge in Bush's Army pants, now says he was ready to publish an op-ed piece titled "Kerry Was Right."

See, Dowd's had one of those remarkable revelations, the kind that a man has when he realizes what he has wrought, and that while Dowd thought he was putting together an awesome orgy party, a complete fucking free for all for Republicans, with an open bar, he didn't realize that it would turn into a hideous Dionysian thrill kill cult, making human sacrifices to hallucinated gods. God, what blood has coated Dowd's laptop.

Now, Dowd is speaking out because, as he says, "I’m a big believer that in part what we’re called to do — to me, by God; other people call it karma — is to restore balance when things didn’t turn out the way they should have. Just being quiet is not an option when I was so publicly advocating an election." Yeah, he's feelin' flames licking his toes, he's feeling plague rats chew their way into his asshole. That's what you get, you know, when you make it your life's work to convince everyone that George W. Bush is a great, mighty, compassionate warrior and all challengers will be defeated by his innate awesomeness.

Dowd claims he felt this way before the 2004 election, but he hoped his Bush-lord would right himself in the wake of a victory. He claims he was outraged that Donald Rumsfeld wasn't fired for Abu Ghraib. He makes all kinds of claims, but mostly they're just the pussy bleats of the self-immolated lamb.

Seriously, couldn't you just see Rove, Dan Bartlett, a coughing Cheney, and a farting Bush doubled over in laughter when they read that Dowd said he supports Obama and that "I wouldn’t be surprised if I wasn’t walking around in Africa or South America doing something that was like mission work...I do feel a calling of trying to re-establish a level of gentleness in the world."

Man, that's like if Himmler had lived after World War II and dedicated his life to coming up with peaceful uses for Zyklon-B.

Still, maybe one has to pity Dowd, in that "let's-shoot-Old-Yeller" kind of way. Here's a man who gets to live the rest of his life knowing that he bears some of the blame for every American that dies in Iraq, for every scandal that erupts, every mistake that drives us further and further into an American midnight, the time of day when Dowd will sit there, sweaty, closing his eyes, wishing that back in 1999, he had never put his soul into a trust with Satan's own and that, after how much sin, one has become part and parcel of that evil.

Oh, by the way, fucker may also be doing it to save his financial skin, to bail on the Bushtanic now that it's hit an iceberg, before it splits in two, sucking everyone down with it.

Update: The Rude Pundit missed one part of the big picture - Dowd's got a son shipping out to Iraq. Foxhole conversions, once removed, no? (Rude tip o' the dunce cap to reader S.H.)

Chocolate Jesus Is Risen (Updated):
Cosimo Cavallaro, the artist of the big, naked chocolate Christ, just owned William Donohue on Anderson Cooper's CNN show. Donohue came across as himself, a ranting madman. Cavallaro was dignified and questioning and gently scolding.

Two things learned: Unlike what Donohue was spitting out on his Catholic League sit, Cavallaro said he had no intention of having people eat Chocochrist. And "My Sweet Lord" will be seen in another venue.

Update: Here's the transcript of the Donohue/Cavallaro nude fudge wresting match. Scroll down. It's after all the insignificant shit, like the ongoing destruction in Tal Afar.

This summary is not available. Please click here to view the post.

What Would Chocolate Jesus Do?:
You know what's funny about a chocolate Jesus? The obvious answer here is "everything," but let's narrow it down a bit. Nope, nope, it ain't His average-sized fudgy wang. And, nope, nope, it ain't the thought of Christ melting into a puddle of syrup or the fact that the Son of Man's gotta be kept refrigerated.

It's how completely bugfuck insane Cosimo Cavallaro's sculpture has driven William Donohue and the Catholic League. Seriously, if there is a God, this is the thing that'll actually cause Donohue to have an aneurysm on Hannity and Colmes, leaving him spasming, mumbling, drooling, and pissing himself on the Fox "news" studio floor. Hell, they probably wouldn't even notice the difference on the show.

Check out the Catholic League's site. Donohue calls the Lordly confection "hate speech," and threatens, "All those involved are lucky that angry Christians don’t react the way extremist Muslims do when they’re offended—otherwise they may have more than their heads cut off." No, but they certainly have to dodge the fountains of spit from Donohue's mouth. Oh, and Donohue threatens a boycott of the Roger Smith Hotel, where "My Sweet Lord" will be displayed (and, by the way, that's the real title).

And, now that Donohue says that Cavallaro wants people to show up and take a bite of His Chocolatey Goodness, his eyes have actually popped out of his head. Sputums Donohue, "The Roger Smith Hotel will rue the day it sought to declare war on Christian sensibilities" by saying that he, himself, William Donohue, has the power to stop millions of people from going to the hotel. Gee, what was it the Bible says about pride?

Man, you'd think that Chocochrist's Milky Way bar was in the mouth of a marzipan Mary Magdalene. Mmmm, tastier than a eucharist.

Pictures That Make the Rude Pundit Want To Down Three Klonopin With a Bottle of Tequila:


So this morning the Rude Pundit watched Presidential aide and child-raping demigorgon of the K Street underworld, Karl Rove, participate in a minstrel show at last night's Radio and Television Correspondents' Dinner. Rove, brought up on stage by a comedian, was interviewed in classic improv style, or, perhaps, in the style of someone having a caricature drawn of them by a skeevy street artist in Omaha's Old Market. Oh, ho, oh, ho, how the gathered journalists and politicos laughed as Rove said his name was "Patrick Fitzgerald" (misspeaking at first and saying, "Peter," maybe because Fitzgerald denied Rove a subpoena three times and then Rove's cock crowed). Rove tried to joke, saying that one of his hobbies was to "tear the tops off of small animals," which was meant as their heads, but Rove's assertion was done with the creepy self-assurance of a man who, with the flick of his Blackberry, could have everyone in the room beheaded. And who has felt warm, sticky puppy blood pouring down his hands.

Then the song started, with Rove and two white comedians dancing and rapping, and David Gregory (for fuck's sake) and Ken Strickland (who is not a white guy) dragged onto the stage as back-up dancers. Man, how the white people loved seeing those white men shuckin' and jivin' up there for their pleasure. The only thing that would have been more hilariouser is if Karl Rove had been in blackface, with big goddamn jigaboo lips painted on him. And a fuckin' bowler on his head. Yellin', "Boogedy-boogedy-boo."

Rove's performance, which, according to several articles, brought the motherfuckin' house down, consisted of Turd Blossom swinging his arms like Frankenstein's monster at the end of a four-day meth bender and then doin' the hippity-hoppity thang of crossin' his arms gangsta-style and doing some weirdo shit with his cell phone, every once in a while answering the question of "What's your name" with his best Negro-speech-inflected, "MC Rove."

Truly, if the Rude Pundit had had a bottle of acid, he'd've washed his eyes out with it. Truly, Tupac Shakur, seeing the video on YouTube, said, "Fuck it" and shot himself, realizing there was no reason to go on pretending.

Yeah, how fuckin' cozy it always is, the press and the politicians, with Rove being reported as having closer and closer ties with the U.S. attorney firings, with Bush on stage, leaning back at the table, like a fat king forced to go to the wedding of a loyal duke, wondering when the cake will come out and if he can get the bride to lick his balls under the table without too many threats to her family.

Of course, Bush spoke, not quite doing the "Where's the WMD's" thing he did that one time. But he did offer a disturbing reflection on Barack Obama's "sleek, hairless pecs." Yep, between the lurching faux rap and the homoerotic objectification of the black male body, it was a proud evening for America.

Why Michelle Malkin Ought To Be Caged Like a Rabid Shih-tzu, Part 972:
Michelle Malkin, in her latest "column" (if by "column," you mean, "Cave drawings of woolly mammoths fucking done by a retarded Neanderthal"), writes what is, esssentially, a mini-Turner Diaries of batshit post-9/11 anti-Muslim paranoia. In her "John Doe Manifesto," Malkin professes to speak for those anonymous everypeople whose sphincters clench each time they pass someone praying to Mecca. It's a how-to guide to justify every redneck pig-running action around the country.

Malkin declares that "I am John Doe," your neighbor, your fellow traveler, your boss. And John Doe, man, he's bugfuck nutzoid since the Big Day: "I will never forget the example of the passengers of United Airlines Flight 93 who refused to sit back on 9/11 and let themselves be murdered in the name of Islam without a fight." And your neighbor likes a certain actor: "I will never forget the alertness of actor James Woods, who notified a stewardess that several Arab men sitting in his first-class cabin on an August 2001 flight were behaving strangely. The men turned out to be 9/11 hijackers on a test run." James Woods, man, is there anything he can't do?

See, John Doe's got his guard up, all the goddamn time, because Uncle Fuckin' Sam wants him to be: "I will act when homeland security officials ask me to "report suspicious activity." John Does's worried that crazed Muslims are a-gonna take over the United States: "I will challenge your attempts to indoctrinate my children in our schools...I will resist the imposition of sharia principles and sharia law in my taxi cab, my restaurant, my community pool, the halls of Congress, our national monuments, the radio and television airwaves, and all public spaces."

Yeah, man, John Doe's getting his bug-eye on, checkin' shit out, makin' sure Uhmerka stays safe. "I will put my family's safety above sensitivity. I will put my country above multiculturalism," Malkin as Doe writes. "I will not submit to your will. I will not be intimidated." Damn, motherfucker's takin' a stand.

And, yet, strangely, you could turn this fucker around, replace Islamofascist or whatever, as well as a couple of other words, and it could be a "manifesto" for how to deal with the Bush administration. Christ, to live as Malkin wants us to would not be unlike using radiation therapy to cure a sinus infection, to use a bazooka to swat a fly.

Monica Goodling's Act of Civil Disobedience:
Justice Department counsel, now on extended leave, Monica Goodling is a dirty fuckin' hippie who hates her country. Look at her lawyer's letter stating why she's taking the Fifth on testifyin' before Congress on Alberto "Where's Your Fucking Neck?" Gonzales and the eight fired U.S. Attorneys, and let's spin this fucker hard. Essentially, Goodling's counsel says that she ain't gonna talk 'cause the Man wants her to talk and, well, shit, fuck the Man: "First, the public record is clear that certain members of the Senate [and House] Judiciary Committee[s]...have reached conclusions about the matter." Then the letter goes on to cite Arlen Specter's belief that Chuck Schumer might be having hearings "to promote his political party," and, citing a Fox "news" transcript, that Specter thinks the committee lacks "objectivity." So the lawyers think that it ain't gonna be a "legitimate" hearing. Why, my, gee-fuckin' whizzoids, gang, one might think Goodling believes it's a partisan witch hunt. That is soooo nineties.

In essence, what Goodling has done might, in some circumstances, be construed as civil disobedience - telling those in the power position, here the Congress (for, truly, it ain't just Democrats who think something's stinky in the cesspool that is the Bush Justice Department), to stick it. Although it's something of a wimpy act of protest, since Goodling is hiding behind a bullshit use of the Fifth Amendment (you can't invoke the Fifth just because you don't like the people doing the investigating), and any true act of civil disobedience involves, well, shit, you know, being disobedient to the law and risking arrest. And not just covering up for others in power.

Of course, the real reason Goodling's taking the Fifth has nothing to do with this raw seal meat tossed to the drowning polar bears of the right. It's actually the fourth of Goodling's objections that is the gist of the whole deal, that another official at Justice, Deputy Attorney General Paul McNulty, told Schumer that he had lied in a report to the Committee and was ready to turn on Goodling and others. Rats, man, and their sinking ships.

Goodling uses the most punk-ass cop-out ever: Scooter Libby got caught lying. The letter goes on, "The potential for legal jeopardy for Ms. Goodling from even her most truthful and accurate testimony under these circumstances is very real. One need look no further than the recent circumstances and proceedings involving Lewis Libby."

Yeah, what at first looks like a noble stand, an act of protest, against partisan "political theatre," in the popular parlance, is actually what it seems: criminals turning on each other faster than hyenas going at the last bit of a carcass.

Regarding the Men in the White House as Midgets:
Midget porn exists for several reason. The most obvious is so frat guys can laugh at the funny fucking midgets (or "little people," although that takes too fuckin' long to type and it's an absolutely idiotic name since "Little People" are Fisher-Price toys, so here it's "midgets"). Or midget. See, your midget porn comes in various varieties. There's the hot midget on midget action, which you can get in straight male on female midget sex, and gay male or female midget fucking. There's also the mixed midget/regular-sized person sex. Where a midget woman is getting roundly fucked by one, two, seven non-midget men (insert your own gender variations here). Yep, should you choose to, or not, since the Rude Pundit's been to parties where midget porn is played on giant plasma screen TVs, where the host thinks it's funny because it's ironic, when the truth is, he's just an asshole, you can see midgets in every position possible.

But another reason for the existence of midget porn is that, like other kinds of porn, there are people, midgets and non-midgets, who get off on it. But why? And let's confine our discussion to male viewers since, from an unofficial poll of three stoned chicks and one drunk dude, midget porn is similar to the Three Stooges in the minds of women: why the fuck would you watch that?

Oh, there's no way to calculate the workings of the male heart or genitals. Still, it's pretty clear that one reason non-midget guys watch midget porn is an issue of relativity. In other words, a little cock on a regular guy looks much bigger when it's jammed between midget tits or sucked by a midget mouth. Hell, think about it: a couple of half-hard inches looks like Big Dick McGee in a midget hand. And then, ah, sweet masturbatory bliss, how wonderful to contemplate a lack of personal shortcomings when you're coming in a short person.

So it was that both George Bush and Dick Cheney took the opportunity while speaking this past weekend to attack Democrats in Congress. And hearing them was like seeing guys watch midget porn to pump up how they feel about themselves. You ever watched someone watching porn? The little twitches and nods and sneers, maybe even a muttering of "Yeah" while touching themselves. It's fuckin' creepy. Now make it midget porn. So here's Dick Cheney, speaking to Jews, on Saturday: "When members of Congress pursue an anti-war strategy that's been called 'slow bleed,' they're not supporting the troops, they're undermining them. And when members of Congress speak not of victory but of time limits, deadlines, or other arbitrary measures, they're telling the enemy simply to run out the clock and wait us out." It was the virtually the same speech he gave at CPAC a couple of weeks ago, which was when Dick Cheney was gratifyingly surrounded by midgets he could fuck.

And here's the President in his weekly radio address (which, truly, does anyone but shut-ins with broken radios listen to?), with Bush talking about members of Congress wanting to investigate the firing of the eight U.S. attorneys: "Members of Congress now face a choice: whether they will waste time and provoke an unnecessary confrontation, or whether they will join us in working to do the people's business." Bush also tried to call out the Congress on war-funding, sounding more pathetic than ever: "[A] narrow majority in the House of Representatives decided yesterday to make a political statement." Man, now that's the sound of a man who wants midgets brought to him on a silver platter for his coital pleasures.

The problem, of course, as with any sexual perspective skewed by porn, is that they're not fucking midgets. They gotta fuck regular-sized people, who'll show them just how small their dicks actually are. And you gotta fuck with the dick you have, not the dick you wish you had.

President Bush Riding To Nowhere:
What is it about this picture that so annoys the Rude Pundit? There's George W. Bush, our goddamned President, sitting in a hybrid Ford SUV on Tuesday in a Missouri assembly plant with Ford employee and 20-year member of the United Auto Workers Barbara Neal? By this point, we should be used to the goofy grin, the same fuckin' smile he probably had when he paid someone to steal the answers to an algebra test at Andover. And certainly we've all gotten used to dress-up George, whether it's jet pilot George or brush-clearin' cowboy George. So seeing Bush wearing assembly line goggles, well, at least they've learned not to let a Bush ask how a price scanner works.

Maybe it's the fact that this picture was taken the day after the fourth anniversary of the Iraq war. Maybe it's the fact that Bush is sitting next to a woman who he has worked very hard as President to dick over. Maybe it's because the photo was taken just a couple of hours before his pissy little throwdown with reporters over Congressional access to Karl Rove and Harriet Miers.

Or maybe it's because of this picture, another one from the same event, and not, as one might expect, the official White House photo:


Look at Bush there. Look at Neal. It's the look of a man who just got away with finger-fucking his prom date. It's the look of a jackass boy king, loving the way everyone wants to wipe his ass.

It's Friday. It's been a long week. The stupidity and greed of making Daylight Savings Time so goddamn early has fucked with the Rude Pundit's internal clock. He doesn't have a patch to download from Apple to take care of it. He doesn't like his president to act like a happy-go-lucky extra from a high school production of Lil' Abner while the world spins out of control thanks to the man's own slapping of the globe.

The Rude Pundit wants to see this man suffer and ache. He wants him to feel every day like the low man on the assembly line. He wants to see George Bush crumble under the weight of all the encroaching scandals, the ones that lap at his feet like Barney cleaning his toes.

Instead, we get this: the image of our leader, our goddamned President, as the Rude Pundit said before, sitting in a car that is not moving, that has not moved under its own power. And as we approach a moment of national stasis, with the House passing the Iraq timetable that'll be vetoed, with Bush not budging on the Rove testimony, and more, perhaps it is an apt metaphor for the weekend: Bush, grinning as it all stands still, the deer in the headlights look of the worker, the average American, next to him, wondering how the fuck to get out of this car, away from this man, with her limbs still attached.

Pictures That Make the Rude Pundit Want to Down Three Vicodin With a Fifth of Whiskey, Part 4:


More on the meaning of George W. Bush, passenger in an unmoving car, later this afternoon.

Tony Snow: "Congress Has No Oversight Responsibility Over the White House":
CBS News host Harry Smith administered an old-fashioned journalistic bitch-slapping to White House Press Secretary Tony "Actually, Karl Rove Is Easier On My Asshole Than Rupert Murdoch Was" Snow this morning on the virtually unwatchable Early Show. He went at Snow as a skeptic, as someone who needed to be convinced that the White House was offering members of Congress something more than a "chat," as Smith put it, with Karl Rove and Harriet Miers over the firings of U.S. Attorneys.

Snow came off sounding like the fanciest-dressed apparatchik at the politburo, saying things like that the White House will give Congress everything the White House thinks "they need" to look into the matter. Snow distanced the White House from the Department of Justice, which will become the spin as Alberto Gonzales is forced to walk the plank for the good of his captain.

"You're trying to create a narrative," Snow insisted to Smith, adding, "The perception is that you're trying to badger me into creating a fight between the White House and the legislative branch. And what we're trying to do is something pretty extraordinary." One assumes that the extraordinary something is cooperation with Congress in an investigation, but, of course, only on the White House's terms.

Then Snow said something that really was extraordinary: "The legislative branch has no oversight responsibility over the White House...the executive branch doesn't have to do anything." Now, the Rude Pundit's no Consitutional scholar teaching at yer big damn law schools, but it seems like, well, fuck, yeah, actually, that's what your basic "checks and balances" are. As rude reader J. Wilson (who gets the hat tip for actually stomaching the show) notes, "Is this a dictatorship or a constitutional republic?" Does J. really want an answer to that question?

Snow attacked Smith, saying that "You're sounding more like a partisan than a reporter." Smith wouldn't back down, apparently remembering the "truth" part of "truth seeking," holding up a transcript of Snow's press briefing and wondering why there can't be a transcript of any meeting. Snow said he just wanted everyone to know the truth. Smith scoffed, disgusted (really), and said, "I hope so. You owe it to me."

It was a good ol' fashioned brawl, of the kind you used to hear about, when Chet Huntley would drag an aide to Ike into an alley off the secret, hidden J Street in D.C. and the two of them would go toe to toe in the rat shit and dirty snow until only one man was still standing, usually Huntley, who would spit at the prone figure, dragged off by David Brinkley, knowing full well that the aide would be more than willing to appear the next night on their news show.

Bushie Gets Pissy:
What is it with this White House and its punk-ass nicknames? Karl Rove is "Turd Blossom," Irve Lewis Libby is "Scooter," and now to be devoted to the President is to be a "loyal Bushie." Fuckin' Bushie? Man, there's a couple of bars in Baltimore where if you call someone "Bushie," you're leavin' with a face full of bottle glass shards. Sure, sure, the Rude Pundit has always thought of himself as something of a "loyal bushie," but that's only because he prefers women with some carpeting downstairs than shaved clean. "Bushies" just sounds like what H.W. calls the maid's children at the Kennebunkport compound when they're running around the croquet field.

The head Bushie hisself had a public snit yesterday over the coming subpoenas of Karl Rove and Harriet Miers over the whole U.S. attorney clusterfuck of firings. After laying out his offer that Rove and Miers have tea and crumpets with a couple of members of Congress, sans oath, sans transcript, and with only limited lumps of sugar for the tea, the President unironically said, "[W]e will not go along with a partisan fishing expedition aimed at honorable public servants." Karl Rove and the word "honorable" belong together like a baby and a bucket of bleach. Indeed, it's about as dissonant as the sound a man might make if he slammed his dick in an unabridged dictionary. And then a midget jumped on the book.

Bush, though, is gonna go to the mat for his Blossoming Turd and for Miers (although, considering how quickly Bush folded on her Supreme Court nomination, she oughta be thinking about how many ways one can say, "Fifth Amendment"). Not for Alberto Gonzales, though. That motherfucker's gonna testify in order "to explain how the decision was made and for what reasons." See, Bush isn't concerned about the firings: "I regret these resignations turned into such a public spectacle." Oh, shit, that's right. We keep forgetting that they're resignations. Asked-for resignations, but resignations nonetheless.

After his pissy little statement of how he needs to get his way and anyone who doesn't agree with him is full of partisan shit, he was asked questions by reporters that ranged from stupid to idiotic. Here's one: "Mr. President, are you still completely convinced that the administration did not exert any political pressure in the firing of these attorneys?" How the fuck does one come up with that one? It's essentially, "So you're convinced you didn't do anything wrong after telling us you didn't do anything wrong?"

Of course, Bush talks about the "precedent" of his aides talking to Congress, that he wouldn't receive honest opinions and advice, although isn't this whole thing about firing people whose opinions and advice (and actions) didn't jibe with predetermined policy? And Bush also has a concern about the lighting of his aides in a hearing situation: "if you haul somebody up in front of Congress and put them in oath and all the klieg lights and all the questioning, to me, it makes it very difficult for a President to get good advice." Yes, the klieg lights. Those goddamned klieg lights. When you're used to hovering in shadows, squatting in dark corners to hiss out your counsel, klieg lights might reveal the pasty, sweaty face of evil.

Bush brought up those lights again (really) at the end of his appearance, being appalled at "the idea of dragging White House members up there to score political points, or to put the klieg lights out there..."

It's like fucking, you know. If you think it should only be done with the lights off, it's because you don't want anyone to see the moles, the dry patches of skin, the hair in weird places. To fuck with the lights on is to say there's nothing to hide: here is the body, all glorious and grotesque at the same time. If the Bush administration were a lover, it'd fuck in the pitch black in order to hide the herpes scabs, warts, and tumors.

Why Bill O'Reilly Ought To Be Sodomized With a Microphone, Part 1647:
When Bill O'Reilly, Fox "news" commentator and a man who would know from being forcibly pulled away from a breast, sought to "analyze" the fourth anniversary of the Iraq war, he decided to do what he always does: use it as an opportunity not to mourn for the lost (which, let's face it, pro- or anti-war, is the only proper way to celebrate four years of this shit), but to attack the phantom fake liberal that he slaps blindly at every night.

First, he showed his stunning grasp of statistical analysis by noting, "According to a poll by The Times of London, 49 percent of the Iraqi people believe they are better off today than they were under Saddam; twenty-six percent say they are worse off. Another poll by USA Today and others puts the number at 43 percent, with 36 percent believing life was better under Saddam." Now, one might assume that those numbers are less than stellar. Not O'Reilly. He concludes from the results that "the polls indicate that the Iraqi people themselves, even after all they've been through, are glad the USA and Britain toppled Saddam." That's the kind of conclusion we expect from O'Reilly, the same type of logical thinking that makes a man at a bar think that because a woman brushes his arm reaching for a drink, she'll blow him in the men's room.

See, the problem is that the USA Today number of happy Iraqis is lower now than it was in November 2005, when 51% thought life was better after Saddam. And the level of happy divides pretty harshly along Sunni/Shiite lines. Still, 51% of all Iraqis do believe it's okay to attack Americans, so there's some unity there, some way for the Sunni and Shiite to join hands and sing, "Kumbaya" over a burning Black Hawk.

O'Reilly, after waving his scrotum-smelling finger in disappointment at the people of Iraq, gleefully replayed something from his radio show (Motto: "I only rip the heads off puppies on TV; I rape their corpses on the radio"). The saggy-faced bastard went after the head of the National Council of Churches, Bob Edgar, for daring to call the war "immoral." He barked at the Reverend, "You can't produce one person who's been tortured by the United States. You cannot produce one. And neither can NBC News and neither can..." Without allowing Edgar to answer, O'Reilly insisted again, "Give me one person tortured by the United States."

Smugly, O'Reilly concluded, "[T]he truth is that Guantanamo is not a torture chamber. The rights of Americans are firmly intact. And while there have been cases of criminal abuse like Abu Ghraib, the USA is waging a war on terror that is honorable."

One might be tempted to ask if it is possible to be that dense. One might be tempted to give O'Reilly the benefit of the doubt, and say, "Well, shit, maybe, just maybe, he might think that extraordinary renditioning is not technically Americans doing the torture." But fuck that.

The panty shield of fairness that O'Reilly hides behind is piss stained. But perhaps Bill O'Reilly is the right man for America now: just a thuggish bully with no regard for anything but the sticky feel of his own semen, ramming aside all semblance of reality in order to bludgeon us with his version of truth.

Four more years, motherfuckers, four more years.

Late Post Today:
The whole Justice League has to sit shiva for Captain America. Back this afternoon with more rudeness.

Bush the Perfunctory:
Four years, 3200+ dead, 24,000++ wounded, the fast track to a trillion dollars flushed down the shitter, the country begging for the exit strategy, and that's all the speech we get?

Five minutes or less of "Fuck you, fuckers, we're staying and I don't give two sheep shits what anyone thinks. Oh, and Congress? Gimme the money, bitches." He might as well have come out in his pajamas, grunted, "Talking points 3, 27, and 105," and shuffled back to sleep, scratching his ass along the way. Then the reporters could have consulted their handy lists of talking points, downloadable to their PDAs, to see which lines they needed to repeat again and again.

It was pretty much the same pattern as the last anniversary remarks: Bush told us who he talked to on the phone before saying how super-duper great the troops are. A little bit of 9/11 goodness thrown in for spice.

A compassionate man might have offered moments of comfort and promises of better treatment to the abused wounded, a wise man might have at least made a stab at an explanation, but Bush is neither wise nor compassionate. He chose the perfunctory route - no one could accuse him of missing the anniversary, but no one would remember a word he said.

Now the Rude Pundit's gonna celebrate four years of the Iraq war by downing Vietnamese food with a bottle of vodka from Belgrade.

Bong Hits 4 the Wounded:
Chances are extremely great that you will never encounter an improvised explosive device. Not for your entire life. Chances are you won't truly understand what it's like to feel the concussive blow of the homemade bomb. That is a good thing, of course, of course. But you should know. You should know what it's like. It's part of our responsibility to know.

You see, the thing about whatever shrapnel is released by the IED, whether it's the materials of the bomb or perhaps nails and shit packed in with it, is that it's hot. It is, after all, metal that just was instantly rocketed in your direction by fire. So remember that one of the sensations is of a piece or, more likely, pieces of metal searing your flesh. Remember what it felt like when you touched that pan on the stove that one time? Now imagine that hitting your face or legs and piercing into you.

Then, there's the cutting of the wounds. Look at your arm. Pick a spot on it: your wrist, your forearm, your elbow. Now imagine that spot shredded. Not necessarily cut off. But shredded, like a carrot after a bit of grating, skin and muscle and veins jutting out, dangling, spitting blood, like an electric circuit looking for a completed connection. Maybe move that to your gut, your genitals, your neck, your face. Essentially, small buzzsaws went into you, slicing and buffeting around. It's probably still in there, cutting more with each convulsion your body involuntary makes, burning still.

Now add to that temperatures over 100 degrees and possibly 40 pounds of clothes and gear on you heating you further. In a cramped space, if you were in a Humvee and weren't thrown from the vehicle.

That's one way to be wounded or killed by one weapon in Iraq. As one nurse from Kansas wrote, "It's amazing to see the amount of physical damage a body can survive." She worked at the hospital in Camp Anaconda, where they did 50-100 surgeries a day in three operating rooms. The frontline medics just try to hold off the bleeding out.

We just get to do it metaphorically.

Back in a bit with a few words on Bush's few words.

More Fun Karl Rove Lies:
When Karl Rove, a man who looks like that creepy bald Nazi who melts at the end of Raiders of the Lost Ark, was speaking before students at Troy University in Alabama, he had no speech and just took questions from the 800 gathered there for about an hour so they might learn the accumulated wisdom of a man whose life had been devoted to the propagation of the kind of vile depravity that'd give Vlad the Impaler a woody.

Of course Rove was asked about his role in the firings of U.S. attorneys. Of course Rove lied about it.

But lying is to Karl Rove as Astroglide is to Matt Sanchez's well-used anus. And Rovean lies were in abundance for the good journalism students of Troy. Here's Rove on one attorney firing (or forced resignation): "The U.S. attorney in Arizona said he would not ask for the death penalty. The administration has a policy of, where appropriate, asking for the death penalty."

Sounds reasonable. Problem is, of course, that it's not really, you know, all that true. Here's what was said back in February about why Paul Charlton left office in January: Charlton "pursued the death penalty in some cases. But his insistence on determining whether to push for capital punishment on a case-by-case basis clashed on at least two instances with a Justice Department effort to centralize decisions nationally and to seek the death penalty in a uniform way." See, the Justice Department has sought to strip power from the individual U.S. Attorney offices around the country and centralize it in D.C. Or, more clearly, in the executive branch.

And, of course, Rove continued to lie about California's Carol Lam, who turned Duke Cunningham into a man worth two packs of cigarettes and dibs on the new weight bench. Apparently, despite the fact that she devoted half the resources of her office to prosecuting immigration cases, Rove could say with a straight (if doughy) face, "She would not commit resources to prosecute immigration offenses."

Rove also went on the attack about new media outlets, like blogs and YouTube, but what he said actually sounded like he was writing his own epitaph. See, everyone wants more content, and, Rove said, "The tyranny of this chase for more and newer is encouraging people to cover things that would normally draw little or no attention." Like, you know, the Machiavellian machinations of a toad-like man hunching in the shadow of a president.

But Rove deferred to the judgment of the people when it comes to such manipulations: "The masses are not asses, they will figure it out. You can underestimate their interest, but if you underestimate their intelligence, you're making a big mistake."

That's what should be engraved on Rove's political tombstone. Or on a sign nailed to the wall of his prison cell.

Ten Other Things Khalid Sheikh Mohammed Claims Responsibility For:
Here's some of the stuff that was blocked out on Mohammed's brand new, attorney-firing distraction of a confession:

1. The long delay between seasons of The Sopranos.

2. Telling his captors to use more electricity on his left testicle for that is the way Allah makes him hang.

3. George W. Bush's re-election.

4. Those Head-On commercials. Terrorism in its purest form.

5. Sneezing on that CIA agent after a particularly long waterboarding session. And the agent's ensuing sniffles.

6. That burnt flavor in every cup of Starbucks coffee.

7. Splattering urine on the Koran after being tossed naked, shivering, and wet into a 50-degree cell and needing to take a piss really bad.

8. An upsurge in white t-shirt sales with a concomitant decline in back waxings throughout the Muslim world.

9. Ishtar.

10. American pride, man, American pride.

In Brief: Mister Gonzales Regrets:
Attorney General Alberto Gonzales yesterday accepted responsibility for...well, shit, some broad, nebulous thing: "I am responsible for what happens at the Department of
Justice. I acknowledge that mistakes were made here. I accept that responsibility." He accepts responsibility, but he didn't make any mistakes. Mistakes, you see, "were made," passively, not actively. It's like saying that you left the door open to your apartment and your five vicious rottweilers went on a neighborhood killing spree, swallowing chihuahuas whole and taking down a couple of children and one old lady on a walker and you say, "Mistakes were made." And don't worry - you'll get to the bottom of it.

Gonzales admitted nothing yesterday. What we saw was the kind of legalistic bob and weave that makes "what is is" seem positively quaint. As the growing mold of the U.S. Attorney firings begins to infect the walls of the White House, AG AG, a man who has the creepy semi-smile you see on men like Jeffrey Dahmer just before they dine on a face, most regretted the leak of information: "I regret the fact that information was inadequately shared with individuals within the Department of Justice and that consequently information was shared with the Congress that was incomplete."

Then, just to demonstrate how clearly Gonzales is responsible for what goes on at the DOJ, he said, "As we can all imagine in an organization of 110,000 people, I am not aware of every bit of information that passes through the halls of the Department of Justice, nor am I aware of all decisions." In other words, the firing of U.S. Attorneys in collaboration with the White House was something that Gonzales was kept out of the loop on, to an extent, like not knowing who's running the NCAA pool or whether the travel office needs more ink for the copier. You can't keep up with everything that goes on in the goddamn place, you know?

Alberto Gonzales dared to trot out his "Oh, I am but a poor Hispanic boy who made good, gringo reporters" line, saying, "I've overcome a lot of obstacles in my life to become Attorney General," sounding like some mugger who wanted the jury to know that his father beat him and he had to watch his mom use food stamps.

Goddamn, throw the fuckin' book at him. Make sure it's the book that has things like, you know, the laws of the land in it.

Note: Yeah, yeah, the Rude Pundit's still workin' on evil.

Dick Cheney Opens His Maw to AIPAC:
Few things in this world are more frightening than the sight of Dick Cheney speaking in front of a group of powerful people, for, indeed, in those moments, we see the Vice President toss off his discomforting Ming the Merciless disguise and reveal the hideous, slithering and undulating ooze that is his real being, the kind of stench-ridden viscosity that'd make Cthulhu say, "Holy fuck, that's scary."

Yes, indeed, Dick Cheney was in his element, making a speech at the yearly conference of the apex of circumcised neoconturbation, the American Israel Public Affairs Committee, or AIPAC (motto: "We're the Jews that all the anti-Semites are really talking about"). The Veep kicked it with the old school terror jams, conjuring every super-spooky Arab image short of the "Hassan chop" guy in "Ali Baba Bunny."

"They take videos of their attacks and put them up on the Internet to get them broadcast on television. They send messages and images by e-mail and tell their followers to spread the word. They wage war by stealth and murder, disregarding the rules of warfare and rejoicing in the death of the innocent," Cheney wheezed. And, to assure us that they are not quite even human, he spittled forth, "And not even the instinct of self-preservation is a restraint. The terrorists value death the same way you and I value life." Instead of applause, you heard could hear the unzipping of flies and thumping from under the tables.

Then the Cheney sludge-beast went all nutzoid on Congress. He transuded that "threats have been made that would hamper the war effort and interfere with the operational authority of the President and with our military commanders... When members of Congress pursue an anti-war strategy that's been called slow bleed, they're not supporting the troops, they are undermining them. And when members of Congress speak not of victory, but of time limits -- (applause) -- when members speak not of victory but of time limits, deadlines or other arbitrary measures, they're telling the enemy simply to watch the clock and wait us out. (Applause.)" And, remember, replace "Applause" with "Unzip. Thump-thump-thump."

In one of those statements that's so ironic in so many directions you don't know which way to look, Cheney extravasated, "President Bush understands, as Ronald Reagan did, that if history teaches anything, it teaches self-delusion in the face of unpleasant facts is folly." So the dry drunk and the guy who had Alzheimer's in the Oval Office are the people we need to learn historical context from. Seems about right for this country.

Then, after taking out Ariel Sharon's corpse (the man hasn't looked that thin in years) and madly fellating it for a moment or two, Cheney concluded with this bizarro bit of over the top balderdash: "America is a good and an honorable country. (Applause - sorry - Thump-thump-thump.) We serve a cause that is right and a cause that gives hope to the oppressed in every corner of this earth." And somewhere in a hut in Angola, a mother and her children dined on a big bowl of American hope.

And AIPAC, in deep gratitude, gave Cheney a malnourished Palestinian girl that he could absorb into his globular sludge before heaving off the stage.

(Rude thanks to Jude at Punch and Jude for a heads-up.)