In re: my earlier pieces (here and then here) on Bill Kristol and the other NeoCons and their policy break from Bush as seen in his recent Weekly Standard piece. Is it just me? Or did Kristol appear truly dejected on last night's Daily Show? While, as he said, he was "trying to put on [his] game face" during the interview with Jon Stewart, his slumping body language suggested that he's truly been up against it, as he referred to "a really tough week, and a really tough last six weeks".

He's has been up against it, I'd imagine. And it showed. He was one of the original NeoCon architects (along with Wolfowitz, Cheney, Rumsfeld, Perle etc.) behind this whole Iraqi Misadventure. One that far pre-dates 9/11. Even the most militant of Hawks should by now be able to see that these guys got their fair shot at it, and --- frankly --- have just blown it all in one single Mesopotamian Misjudgement. Now can we move on to Plan B already?

In re: my previous rant (or rants) at Sean Hannity. Even the NY Post has picked up now on the outrageously politicized, remarkably hypocritcal and astroundingy poor taste airings of the full "uncut" audio of the Nick Berg beheading. What I had forgotten to mention, as an ironic sidebar, is that his flagship station in NY (WABC), his station out here in LA (KABC) and many other stations in between, are owned and operated by a little company known as Disney. You remember them...the ones who opted against distributing Academy Award winner Michael Moore's Farenheit 9/11 because it was too political and they "don't wish to alienate" the "families of many political stripes" that they cater too. I guess that only applies to films and not radio for Disney? (Films like Kill Bill and Pulp Fiction mind you!)

In related unsurprising news, there's still no word on how the FCC feels about a "live" beheading being played over the public airwaves in the middle of the afternoon.

In re: Andy Kaufman's imminent return to life this Sunday. After hemming and hawing about it for a week or so, we finally decided to fork out the $50/per SRO tickets to the big show on Sunday at the House of Blues being put on by Andy's co-writer, Bob Zmuda, and girlfriend Lynn Margulies. Sadly, though, by the time we finally got around to trying to purchase tickets, all the $50 SRO tickets were gone. Next available ticket: $99.95. To rich for my blood, I'm sorry to say.

I do believe though, it's virtually assured now that Andy is indeed alive and well and will be making his glorious re-appearance from the dead this Sunday --- since we won't be able to be there to witness it.

"The POWs I expect to be treated humanely, just like we're treating the prisoners that we have captured humanely. If not, the people who mistreat the prisoners will be treated as war criminals."
- George W. Bush, as the US was invading Iraq, March 23, 2003

"That's a violation of the Geneva Convention, those pictures you show, if, in fact, those are our soldiers."
- Donald Rumsfeld, on Face the Nation, March 23, 2003

Source: Reuters, "Bush warns Iraq over Prisoners"

The gospel according to Reuters...

After endlessly criticizing Democrats for "politicizing this war" and more specifically the abuse of prisoners at Abu Ghraib, Sean Hannity --- as I railed on Tuesday --- has been pointing folks to his website where he's proudly featured links to the Nick Berg beheading.

As if that's not both hypocritical and horrendous enough, he's been playing the audio from the beheading on his radio show - over the public airwaves! (FCC are you listening?) - for the last two days.

Does this guy have any self-respect left? Or entirely too much of it?

"Let Freedom Ring" indeed...

Following up my "With Friends Like These..." article from Tuesday (which is, incidentally, now being run at DemocraticUnderground.com - the third such article of mine they've run in as many weeks, I'm proud to say) wherein I described how even the NeoCons at The Weekly Standard are falling away from Bush, a lot more evidence is emerging that Conservative support for Bush is rapidly evaporating.

The Washington Post on Monday ran a piece about exactly that, citing - among others - two Hard Right Commentators who have been very critical lately of Bush:

But it's not just the War where Bush is losing what should be his core support:

While all the polls continue to trend away from Bush support, showing his Job Approval Ratings at an all-time low, falling now well below the crucial %50 mark, I'll take a counter-position from Conventional Wisdom to say that dumping Rumsfeld (and a few other folks) would put Bush in better stead with the public than he will otherwise be, running up the down escalator for the next 6 months.

Conventional Wisdom also had it that Presidential Apologies would be bad for Public Opinion and Good for the Opposition, but that was proven wrong with Clinton, and seems to have been proven wrong with Bush as well, as his Almost-Apologies last week didn't seem to directly add to his woes, and may in fact have briefly shored him up.

Add to it all, Mark Mellman's piece at The Hill, bolstering John Zogby's article by pointing out that, contrary to the lazy through-line being echoed throughout the supposedly "Liberal Media", Kerry's current position is "better than any challenger in modern times has ever been doing at this point in this race" and you know that Team Bush must be pulling out whatever's left of Karl Rove's hair just about now.

Either that, or they're still in the same Bubble of Denial that kept Bush's Daddy from reading the writing on the wall before it was far to late to change the fates.

So Democrats (and people who care about America) should take heart...Even with Kerry leading the ticket, all signs seem to be heading your way.

(Thanks to KJO for the pointer to the WaPo article!)

I see both pros and cons in releasing all of the Iraqi Prisoner Abuse photos to the public. Yet for a week, I've been having trouble coming up with an opinion on this matter one way or another. Do you have one? Would really appreciate hearing any of your thoughts, if you have them, on this matter...

Either Bush/Rumsfeld is lying or Colin Powell is. I'll let you decide.

While Rush squirms like a worm defending his latest reprehensible statements of last week, today he as much as admitted that the Bush policy for "The War on Terror" is a disastrous failure.

An "irate" caller phoned in to tell Rush how angry he is at the way things are going in Iraq, and that he's beginning to think "the only way to defeat these animals once and for all" may just have to be "complete and total annihaltion".

Of course, Rush was pleased with the call, and agreed with the sentiments. Which would imply, of course, that even Rush agrees Bush's "War on Terror" is not working. On which Rush and I would agree.

Let's just hope when the current strategy to "rid the world of evil-doers" is abandoned for a plan that may actually have a chance of working, that's it's not Rush or his caller who's advice is heeded.

Have I mentioned lately what a dangerous man Rush Limbaugh is? How long did it take before McCarthy's assault on America was actually recognized for what it was? How long will it take America to realize the same about Rush?