Okay, that's all very interesting to the conspiracy theorist in me (except, unlike evolution, this particular conspiracy is not a theory, but a fact). What's more important is how this information could be useful to improve the status of our nation and reinstate the long-abandoned checks and balances in our administration.

I... haven't the foggiest idea. Which is understandable, because I'm not even a political analyst, let alone a politician. However, I know this: you cannot communicate this complex conspiracy to a crowd of swing voters (as is) and expect them to suddenly vote Democrat. I suppose a much more direct approach would be to get the right group of pundits to shout "liar liar, pants on fire!" repeatedly until it takes. Never mind whether or not Bush "technically" lied: all these shenanigans amount to one thing: you just can't trust these guys. This has to be understood by everyone these days. It's a failure of the opposition to the administration that more than 10% of the population still trust the Bush White House on ... anything.

Mind you, Bush has only a couple of years left. Sure. But the Rumsfeld-Cheney cabal has been in and around the administration for decades, and who says that they'll fade into insignificance as soon as Bush leaves the White House? No no, these folks are there to stay. If a conservative gets re-elected, Cheney is automatically re-elected. Never mind if he doesn't have an official post, even. He'd like that even better! The next Republican President would be another puppet, since it's worked SO WELL this time around! Dick can dictate policy, Rummy would fabricate intelligence, Karl would write the speeches, Condi would sell 'em to our "allies" and Scooter would take the blame, it would be a jolly great party!

So join me in linking hands and chanting "Liar liar, pants on fire!" until it takes. These folks are dangerous and the masses are dull by definition. We can wax intellectual about these complicated schemes, sure. But it won't bring us any results. After all, who cares what Dick and George lie about, they are liars! That's all that matters.

Aw come on! What IS he going to say? "Uh... yeah, the President knew all that. He was just looking out for his cronies, as usual. Come on, people, you know how it is! We scratch each other's backs here... well, nobody scratches mine, but... that's besides the point. I mean, yeah okay, Joe Wilson was a problem, and we decided to take care of this problem, but we didn't want to be seen out in public defending ourselves, you know, because that'd make us look weak, because like, NOBODY questions our President! NOBODY! Okay? Our policy is perfect, and we don't need to defend it against Wilson, or... or anybody, okay? In fact, I'm not going to tell you anything because we do what we want, okay, and you reality-based folks can just suck it. So fuck off!"

Right. That'd be the day. I don't envy his position, having to politely restrain all that ire. And ire he has. Just look at his tie. It SCREAMS ire.

Whoa! Wait a minute. Since this page very rarely (okay, never) stoops to pointing out the blindingly obvious, I figured that'd be my cue. So let's crunch some serious math here.

1. 28% of the public believe that "Bush has done nothing seriously wrong"

2. 37% believes that Bush is doing "a heck of a job"

Uh... so correct me if I'm wrong, but my spiffy calculator says that 37 - 28 = 9, so

3. 9% of the public believes that while Bush is acting illegally in the White House, he's still doing a good job as President.

I hereby declare the frivolous speculation marathon about where this 9% resides officially open! Have at it, folks!

This particular post of yours brought back a memory of a General Electric ad that keeps popping up on TV; it's about coal and it features a bunch of super-models, male and female, ruining their manicure while posing with picks and jack-hammers in a coal mine. Apparently, this is supposed to make the general populace like the idea of coal again and associate it with stylishly besmudged hotties.

What I found most interesting, though, was the soundtrack of that ad. Tennessee Ernie Ford's "Sixteen Tons", in fact. The following stanzas, in fact:

"I was born one mornin' when the sun didn't shine

I picked up my shovel and I walked to the mine

I loaded sixteen tons of number nine coal

And the straw boss said Well a-bless my soul

You load sixteen tons, what do you get

Another day older and deeper in debt

Saint Peter don't you call me 'cause I can't go

I owe my soul to the company store "

(No, I haven't obsessively watched the ad until I memorized this thing. Evocative music and is all it took.)

Not quite the theme you want to sell "clean energy" to, is it? Sort of evokes the image of hardcore, downtrodden miners toiling in filth and dampness, dying in their 30s of the black lung, getting buried alive when the tunnels collapse, all of it so that the rest of us can get cheap non-oil energy and feel good about "saving the environment". Yeah. Great pitch there, GE. There's an old Russian fable about the snake that changes its skin, but I don't want to make this longer than it already is.

Hang on, is he angling for Karl Rove's job as well? Uh... maybe he should have an in on the foreign policy as well? Or, like Olivier, maybe he should be giving Junior a shave every morning, while whispering policy ideas and flatteries into his ear? Because THAT's Harriet Miers' job, apparently...