Weekly Follies 07-30-05

Cartoon of the Week. Doonesbury's Garry Trudeau got flack for using W.'s term of endearment for Karl Rove. Some newspapers refused to carry it, others edited it. Trudeau defends the moniker as a "small masterpiece of nastiness". I say, if a certain bloom of a stinky essence is good enough for the leader of the free world and The Blue Voice, it should be good enough for them newspapers. Killjoys.

He has Spoken. Asked about Bill Frist's support for stem cell research funding, W. made his position clear. "The president said, 'You've got to vote your conscious,' " McClellan said. What a novel idea. Why, if everybody in Congress and the Senate voted with their eyes open -- as opposed to their usual subliminable and disassembling ways -- we can get more stuff done!

Bush Flips. Judge for yourself. Scotty McClellan indignantly denies it (sort of): "I'm not going to dignify that with a response. I mean, I haven't seen the video that you're talking about, but I know the way the President acts. And if someone is misportraying it, that's unfortunate". Shame on you people for even asking. Like the president would even think such a thing! Uhm, Scotty, you know he's done it before?

Not G-WOT, G-SAVE. It was W. who insisted on calling it a "global war on terror", a "war between good and evil". But there's a problem, see. When you say "war", people expect it to end at some point and they expect to win. It's hard to deliver either, so what's the fix? Change the slogan, of course. You don't say "global war on terror", that's sooo 2004. Nowadays, "global struggle against violent extremism" is what you say in Bush world where a slogan and a strategy means the same thing.

Quote of the Week.

It must be very strange to be President Bush. A man of extraordinary vision and brilliance approaching to genius, he can't get anyone to notice. He is like a great painter or musician who is ahead of his time, and who unveils one masterpiece after another to a reception that, when not bored, is hostile. -- John Hinderaker, Powerline

Hinderaker, aka Hindrocket, runs out of hyperbole praising W. for his Asia Pacific Partnership for Clean Development and Climate, claiming it's way superior to the Kyoto Protocol. In his rapture he didn't notice that the accord is largely "symbolic", "does not set precise new emissions targets or timetables" and doesn't "require enforcement". And since W. thinks global warming is all hot air, what's the point? Unless, of course, that is the point.

Image from doonesbury.com.

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