Larry King is the journalistic equivalent of a woman walking Sunset Boulevard in fishnet stockings and a thong bikini at midnight the day before the rent comes due. He's the nice big cracker, poised for anyone with a big name to pread the crap they are calling caviar while he proclaims it food for thought.

The idea that the Vice President of the United States should communicate his egocentric and grossly misrepresented views to the American public he is supposed to be serving in the venue of this softball-lobbing sycophant is disgraceful and pathetic. But...that's where we are, professionally speaking in the world of statesmanship these days.

That Cheney should be able to so egregiously deceive (the polls!) and so outrageously thumb his nose at those who elected him, not to serve George Bush, but to serve THEM, is offensive in the extreme. And the fact that he would use this entertainews program to preach that the stubborn, misguided actions of Bush is a form of heroic fortitude and the epitome of service is over the top.

Larry King. Your guide to the real scoop in government today. Tough questions. Straight answers.

Oh. My. God.

My only question about this no-surprise-here testimony is:

so which bible-thumping brain-draining college did this twenty-something pipsqueak go to? And who in the Bush family is his Godfather?

Am I the only one who is sick of experienceless neophytes spewing self-important and high-handed crap?

It is NOT respectful to refuse to answer any of the questions of Congress, just because he showed up. Boy....we've really lowered the bar, haven't we?

I hate to be a cynical wet blanket but I am what this country has made me (or re-made me).

Newt has been posturing grossly all over the place that he could be "coaxed" into running if the people draft him out of the sheer need to acknowledge that only he can save us. This kind of hubris could easily breed the guts to "go off point" and position himself as something lacking in the field. A Republican willing to say the war...the system...hell, the party, is a failure. Whoever said he wasn't speaking to the Rabid Publicans in the room...the ones who think Ann Coulter is cool...was right. Those people belong to a shrill shrinking presence thanks to the 6-year wake-up call the Average American has now heard after hitting the snooze alarm nearly into oblivion.

He knew this would get picked up. Just as so many in this thread received it. Go Newt!

Well not so fast. Gingrich is a politician's politician. After his egocentric posturing of late, and his track record, I'm not buying it. I think Newt's found his shtick. He's the Joltin'Joe L. of the Republican Party. Or more accurately, he's now appearing as the "other white meat". Not here, not there. But just right.

He may be "trim and tan", but I'm betting under his new strategy and his new PR-generated persona, he's as smarmy as always.

All I'm gonna say is...George W. Bush, awshucks guy, man of the folks, plain speaker, plain dealer. Fool me once, (which he didn't) shame on me. Fool voters who are willing to get sucked in by a little "articulate" three-card monty...shame on them. Sorry. Can't help it. I know I'm jumping ahead...but just watch.

It's a sad day when members of Congress have to carefully choose their language when questioning the Attorney General of the United States (and those other mini-weasels) because he will parse and equivocate about the tiniest opportunity in sytax or verbiage to claim that a lie is really a truth.

I think Chuck Schumer said it...it's really about the truth, the whole truth, and nothing but the truth. Not a speck of finely sliced literal interpretation.

While the Republicans were willing to eviscerate Clinton over his parsing of language in regard to his sexual activities (about which they had NO RIGHT to question him), they obviously feel that lies of ommission or obfuscation are acceptible when it comes to serious issues that violate federal law and the principles of the constitution.

There is only one way to stop this. Every time one of these bozos is in the hot seat on Capitol Hill, the committee members need to take the position that they will be lied to if they do not take the time and energy to creatively block every single verbal exit. Of course, the questions might not be answered at all, but at least invoking illegitimate privilege paints the spots on the leopard. Whereas answering with the type of "truthtelling" in which Gonzales and his cohorts engage, leaves us with the likes of Arlen Specter conceeding that they didn't ACTUALLY lie.

These antics are clearly engineered as a form of political gamesmanship. Having been burned so many times, one would think Congress would have figured out the rules by now and started to apply them a little more ruthlessly.

You're bound to get up with fleas. And when you've got enough of them to make you start scratching in sensitive spots, even the dogs don't want to cuddle up with you any more.

Novak has aided and abetted the underhanded agenda of Bush, Cheney, Rove, Rummy and the whole nasty bunch of politithugs for years. He's publicly damaged goods.

He knows they would eat their own young. Why does he seem so surprised that they've shoved him out of the pack?

Pity for Novak? It's the mythical "liberal media's" fault? Sorry, Bob, that dog just won't hunt.

Hardly. Surrounded by the Scooter Libby's and the Alberto Gonzoles', just to name two of the oh-so-many enablers, spinners, shills, "executive-privileged" fallguys and neo-conmen...the President is bullet-proof. Alas.

Would that just this once, he spoke the truth.