The answer to a thousand questions

The man pictured here vetoed legislation yesterday that would have provided funding for U.S. troops in Iraq and would have set a non-binding -- repeat: non-binding -- timetable for orderly withdrawal of those troops.

That was just the latest of this man's blunders.

Indeed, the attitude symbolized by the man's gesture in this photo is the answer to a thousand questions, including these:

• Why are even such venerable conservatives as William F. Buckley worried about the very survival of the Republican Party?



• Why are so many retired generals rushing to disown this man and his ill-conceived, badly-managed, disastrous war?



• Why is this man's presidential administration, which came to office on vaunted claims of business-like professionalism, widely viewed as the most incompetent (the war, Katrina, the environment, Walter Reed, the Justice Department, etc.) since Herbert Hoover's?



• Why has this man hired 150 graduates from Pat Robertson's clown college, Regent University, to work in his administration?



• Why do even some Republicans, including this U.S. senator, speak publicly of the possibility that this man (and perhaps his vice president, as well) will be impeached?



• Why have this man's cronies from the business community (Haliburton, et al) reaped such obscene profits from the war in Iraq?



• Why did a crook like Jack Abramoff have such entree at the White House under this man?



• Why were oil-company executives secretly allowed to write this man's energy policy?



• Why was a right-wing talk-show host paid taxpayers' money to promote this man's policies?



• Why was this man's General Services Administration (which has yet to grant final approval of a new federal courthouse in Rockford) instructed to use its resources for the benefit of Republican congressional candidates?

The questions go on and on and on. The man's answers to all of them are represented by his gesture in the photo.

But he's a man of God. That's what the TV preachers tell us.

Rap this, Dude!

The Rascal doesn't ordinarily go in for rap music, but I find this video a worthy exception, especially on this fourth anniversary of Mission Accomplished.

Moyers kicks liberal media butts -- big time!

In a 90-minute report on PBS tonight, Bill Moyers delivered an awesome roundhouse punch to the liberal media for its scandalously unquestioning acceptance of the Bush administration's lies during the run-up to the war in Iraq.

It's too bad that every American -- especially every journalist in the country -- didn't see this important documentary. PBS would do well to re-run it a few times over the coming weeks and months.

Moyers didn't plan it this way, but his devastating piece aired on the same day that this NBC/Wall Street Journal poll shows that most Americans aren't buying the Bush bullshit on the war anymore and are no longer afraid of being labeled unpatriotic by the die-hard hawks and right-wing nut cases.

The poll also shows that most Americans agree with the Democrats on setting a timeline for withdrawal of U.S. troops from Iraq.

If Bush refuses to sign the war-funding bill, it is he, not the Democrats, who will have betrayed both the troops in Iraq and the American people.

Right-winger gets a slamdown

I love how this letter to the editor in today's Rockford Register Star has drawn a couple of good rejoinders from better-informed folks. (Scroll down to see the responses.)

In the days before the RRS had a Web site that allowed for responses to letters and articles, such drivel as that peddled by the letter-writer in this case would go unanswered unless someone bothered to write a response, which wouldn't get published at least for a few days (and then without benefit of the entire text of the first letter appearing with it).

Yes, the Internets (as George W. Bush calls this medium) is a wonderful thing.

Rightists to Bush: Dump 'Berto

Under the banner of the American Freedom Agenda, a bunch of influential conservatives is telling President Bush that he should fire Attorney General Alberto Gonzales "for the good of the country."

The group's letter to Bush says Gonzales "has presided over an unprecedented crippling of the Constitution's time-honored checks and balances...has brought rule of law into disrepute, and debased honesty as the coin of the realm."

Gonzales is scheduled to testify tomorrow before the Senate Judiciary Committee in its investigation of the Bush administration's firing of eight federal prosecutors.

UPDATE: Gonzales' appearance before the Senate committee has been postponed until Thursday because of the Virginia Tech shootings.

Circle April 25th on your calendar

On that Wednesday night, PBS will air a 90-minute documentary that details not only the lies with which the Bush administration sold the war in Iraq but also how the so-called liberal media disgracefully bought into it all.

That includes PBS itself.

Here are some details of the program.