Regarding Andrew Card's recent resignation, Tim Grieve asks, "What, exactly, was Bush trying to accomplish?"

Why, Tim, surely you know: Bush knows that he can't give Mr. Card the Freedom Medal until after he leaves government service! After "Cardie" did such a great job, Bush wanted to reward him, and asked him to step down so that he could have his Freedom Medal ceremony this spring. It's obvious, of course! It's the Bush Way! Get hired as a low-level toiler, show intense, unquestioning loyalty, get promoted up the chain, resign, get the Freedom Medal! Well established Bush practice.

And people wonder why my generation is so cynical.

I have been outraged about this situation for a long time, and am completely baffled myself by the emasculated way in which both houses of Congress are treating it. Do they want to give the President essentially unfettered executive power? Do they want the President to be able to ignore provisions of laws he doesn't like with "signing statements?" Don't they realize that eventually there will be a Democrat as President, and they will have given him or her that power as well?

This issue has always seemed so straightforward to me: the President has broken the law (and possibly his oath of office, as the Constitution's "unlawful search and seizure" clause would seem to cover this kind of thing pretty clearly), he has publicly admitted it, and he has vowed to do it again? What on Earth could be clearer? What does he have to do, knock over a bank and leave a letter behind that says, "I, President George W. Bush, stole the money from the this bank to fight the terrorist threat, and will do so again if it find it necessary?" (I bet even then, he would find apologists in Congress and in the right-wing media informing us how it was perfectly reasonable for him to rob banks to combat the terrorists.)

In my view, a resolution of censure--which has no binding affect whatsoever--is the least this Congress can do. For a President who has admitted to breaking the law and possibly defying the Constitution, why are we not hearing more impeachment talk? Why is a person like Orrin Hatch calling it political posturing when he was willing to drum Clinton out of office for lying about consenual sex?

The whole thing is insane, and I don't understand it.

One of the great things about Heather is that she has saved me a lot of unnecessary time and bother by watching--and writing about--shows that I would never, ever want to watch. Because of her, I am now watching much less TV than I would otherwise; other than hockey (does that count as a reality show?) and the occasional episode of "Kim Possible" with the kids, I only watch DVDs.

In fact, I have accelarated backwards, one might say. Now when I want to watch TV, I just rent the DVDs from Netflix, and watch 'em whenever I damn well want to. I find that I mostly like shows that were cancelled pretty early, for whatever reason. Firefly, Dark Angel, Cowboy Bebop. . .all of these have taken a spin through my DVD player. Perhaps someday I'll watch 24, but it'll be on DVD.

So thanks, Heather, for watching so we don't have to.

Karen Finley is welcome to slap raw meat on herself and scream at the audience about socialism or the evils of capitalism or do whatever she wants. And anyone who likes is free to go see her do so (although I personally find it hard to understand why anyone would want to; but all art is about personal taste, isn't it?). But it's tough for me to buy the argument that the public should be funding it.

Look: with me having to fight every step of the way to get funding for my children so that they can be taught to read; with Washington passing insufficiently funded "No Child Left Behind" legislation that gives the teachers more work but doesn't give us more teachers to do the work; with services and support being cut at the city, state, and national level, I have a very very hard time feeling any sympathy for Finley's position on the public funding of art. If she needs more money, she can hold a bake sale or a rummage sale or something; don't take it from my police and my teachers and my schools and my bus system so that Finley can stick a yam up her butt and moon people. That's just absurd.

Every time I read yet another article by yet another Beltway insider who either didn't "get" Colbert, or was so incensed, offended, scared, or some combination of all of them, I can't help but remember Bruno Kirby's humorless Lt. Hauk. Hauk, confronted with a wild, irrepressible, insanely funny Robin Williams, who pokes fun at things that Hauk feels should be "out of bounds," is literally baffled by every joke, reference, and remark. "Who authorized that?!" Hauk exclaims angrily.

The press corps' similar reaction in a similar situation is similarly hilarious, for those of us on the "outside." How unfortunate that they control so much informational access to the "inside." Thank goodness for the internet.