This is a waste of time and effort

Some well-meaning folks are trying to organize a presidential debate on matters of science.

How naive of them. Do they honestly expect that Republican candidates would be willing to talk about science? Come on. Even the comparatively enlightened among the GOP hopefuls are barely distinguishable from flat-earthers.

The Republican Party, thanks to the Bush administration, has cast itself as the most anti-science crowd this side of the people you see on the street muttering to themselves about the how the space program is a fraud.

Neo-Cons say CIA traitors are out to undermine Bush's foreign policy

That famous National Intelligence Estimate declaring that Iran is not the nuclear threat the Bush administration had claimed it was has got the neoconservatives among us entertaining all manner of daffy conspiracy theories.

The juiciest among them is that the CIA is infested with Bush haters who will stop at nothing to make trouble for him.

String section

A former White House official, no less, concedes that the Bush administration plays right-wing bloggers like so many violins.

Did White House leak screw up U.S. spying?

There ought to be hell to pay on this one, right?

British general slams Rummy on Iraq

The guy who led the British army during the invasion of Iraq is out with a book in which he labels former U.S. Defense Secretary Donald Rumseld's war policy as "intellectually bankrupt."

Gen. Sir Mike Jackson also says the U.S. government depends too much on its military in the fight against global terrorism.

Funny

Hat tip to Zaius Nation for this one:

How many Bush administration officials does it take to change a light bulb?

The answer is seven:

* One to deny that a light bulb needs to be replaced.

* One to attack and question the patriotism of anyone who has questions about the light bulb.

* One to blame the previous administration for the need of a new light bulb.

* One to arrange the invasion of a country rumored to have a secret stockpile of light bulbs.

* One to get together with Vice President Cheney and figure out how to pay Halliburton one million dollars for each light bulb.

* One to arrange a photo-op session showing Bush changing the light bulb while dressed in a flight suit and wrapped in an American flag.

* And finally, one to explain to Bush the difference between screwing a light bulb and screwing the country.

Put this poll in your pipe and smoke it

Conservative bloggers have been peeing in their pants lately with delight over polls that show great public dissatisfaction with the Democratic-controlled Congress.

They ignore, of course, the fact that the low numbers for Congress reflect, in part, great dismay that lawmakers aren't taking a harder stance against the Bush administration. The right-wingers want us to think that the polls reflect an anti-liberal bent among the public, which is nonsense.

And the conservatives have got nothing to say about a Pew poll showing that Americans favor the Democratic Party over the Republicans by a margin of 15 percentage points. Karl Rove's dreams of a permanent Republican majority are gone with the wind, as this piece notes.

Most folks skeptical of Petraeus report

Americans have been fed so many lies about the war in Iraq by the Bush administration that most of them suspect that next month's report on the success, or lack of it, of the recent surge will just be more of the same.

A CNN poll on the matter also shows that about half the public thinks the surge has not gone well , and 72 percent say the report from Gen. David Petraeus will not change their opinion of the war.

Bush aides have admitted that the report will be written not by Petraeus but by White House officials.

Who killed Pat Tillman? And why?

The Bush White House refuses to release its documents relating to the death of Pat Tillman, the pro football star who was killed by "friendly fire" in Afghanistan in 2004.

Questions remain about what really happened to Tillman, a critic of the war in Iraq, but the Bush administration won't reveal what it knows, or what it knew, or when it knew it.

Congress is putting bipartisan pressure on Bush concerning this matter, and heat is emanating from other quarters as well. Check it out here and here and here.

Bush gang becoming fratricidal

The erstwhile loyalists of the Bush administration are scurrying like so many rats escaping a sinking ship, and as they leave, they're turning against one another and against their former idols in an unseemly spectacle.

Please avert your eyes, gentle people. This isn't a pretty picture. The self-righteous can be especially scornful, even toward their own.

Why does the VA hate our troops?

Some wounded (physically and psychologically) veterans of the war in Iraq are fed up with the runaround they get from the Department of Veterans Affairs and have filed suit over the matter.

The Bush administration's treatment of veterans is a disgrace -- remember the Walter Reed scandal? -- and yet this gang persists in wrapping itself in the American flag and pretending that it and its supporters are more patriotic than thou.

This just boggles the mind

Yesterday, we provided this link to coverage of congressional committee testimony from former Surgeon General Richard Carmona about the interference he encountered from Bush administration officials when he tried to do his job.

Today, we ran across a tidbit in the International Herald Tribune about Carmona having been told by Bushies that he shouldn't attend the Special Olympics because -- get this -- it's an event in which the Kennedy family has long been involved.

Said one Bush flunky to Carmona: "Why would you want to help those people?"

Physician, heal thyself

James Holsinger, the Bush administration's nominee for the post of U.S. surgeon general, the nation's head doctor, perhaps needs a head doctor himself.

The guy's a wacko homophobe, as you can see here (in a piece, I should warn, that has references to various forms of anal sport).

UPDATE (June 7): More on Holsinger here.

Speaking of appointments to the court...

ABC says the White House is preparing itself for the possibility (but not likelihood) of a vacancy on the U.S. Supreme Court shortly after the current term lapses at the end of this month.

But if President Bush tries to appoint a right-wing ideologue to the high court, it's going to be tough sledding on the Senate Judiciary Committee, which is controlled by Democrats, including a big bunch of liberal stalwarts.

That would be fun, wouldn't it?

Fredo quitting tonight?

John Aravosis at AmericaBlog says the buzz in D.C. is that Alberto Gonzales might resign tonight.

If so, Bush's choice for a successor will have to pass muster in a Democratic-controlled Senate, which will be disinclined to approve another stooge like Fredo.

And, of course, a truly independent attorney general could mean big trouble for the administration, what with all of its ethically challenged employees.

Be afraid, be very afraid

Harvey Mansfield, a Harvard professor and supporter of President Bush, says here that he favors "one-man rule" over "the rule of law" in certain cases.

Mansfield, by the way, is tight with the neo-cons who so greatly influence the Bush administration.

Heaven help us.

More on the Moyers documentary

(NOTE: This post from last week has been bumped up to give prominence to the exchanges in the comments section, the last few contributions to which were made today. -- The Rascal)

Before you click on this link for a good little essay by Glenn Greenwald about last night's edition of "Bill Moyers Journal" on PBS, wherein the media were skewered for swallowing the Bush administration's crapola in the months just prior to the war in Iraq, The Rascal has one observation to share:

One of the best things about Moyers' documentary is that it puts the lie to a popular myth among conservatives about the so-called liberal media. That myth holds that the media, controlled by a snobbishly liberal elite, is inherently inclined to oppose almost anything arising from a conservative Republican presidency.

The truth, as Moyers made clear, is that The New York Times, the Washington Post, the TV networks and the rest of the establishment media were more than eager four and five years ago to support this Republican president in his plans for military adventure in the Middle East. They were more than eager to marginalize, if not denounce, anybody who dared express skepticism about the matter. They were more than eager to play an indispensible role in the administration's calculated efforts to curry public favor for the policy. They were willing, in short, to be played like so many violins.

The lesson to be learned from this is that liberals have no more reason than conservatives to trust the mainstream media. That's why so many of the liberals in the blogosphere, unbeknownst to the conservatives who don't read such stuff, tend to be distrustful of (and sometimes hostile to) the establishment media.

UPDATE: Mark Knoller of CBS News takes issue today with Moyers' characterization of the White House press corps as lapdogs. The comments at the bottom of the piece rightly put Knoller in his place.

I told you this was going to be fun

Attorney General Alberto Gonzales seems not to be doing himself much good with his testimony today before the Senate Judiciary Committee.

One Republican member of the panel declared that Gonzales should resign, and CNN is reporting that White House officials are greatly dismayed at the AG's performance.

Why doesn't the Bush administration cut its losses here and show the man to the door? After all, most Americans want him out, and that situation is not likely to change unless he suddenly comes up with a cure for cancer or singlehandedly captures Osama bin Laden.

But then, even if Gonzales quits, the fuss over Prosecutorgate probably isn't going to just disappear.