Robert Novak needs a ballad.

To anyone who says not to speak ill of the recently deceased, I would like to say that Robert Novak was a useless waste of human flesh. I would also like to say that Gerald Ford did the entirely WRONG thing in pardoning Nixon, and it is a shame that everyone felt the need to whitewash that fact when he died.

For the team

Another Bush official bites the dust, this time it is Lurita Doan from the GSA. The thrill is slightly gone when corrupt Bush appointees resign now that his time in office is coming to an end, but still it is good to see that the corruption the administration can get away with is lower since Congress became majority Democratic. Mucht of the credit for the shift should go to Henry Waxman.

Oil Portraits

Bush's HUD director has now resigned. I guess the oil portraits is what did it. If only he could just have been a fuckup and not gone crazy with the portraits. Everything would have been fine then. Heckuva Job!

Buh Bye

Resigning today was Howard 'Cookie' Krongard, the Inspector General of the State Dept. He had been the subject of complaints from State Dept. employees and then had an embarrasing hearing in Congress with some confusion about his brother Alvin 'Buzzy' being on blackwaters board while he was investigating them.

Working from home

More proof that just because Karl Rove physically left Washington doesn't mean he left in spirit. Many strange things have come out of the mouth of Karl Rove over the years, but his recent statements that back in 2002, it was Congress that was in a rush to vote to give Bush authorization to use force in Iraq, not Bush who was in a rush, must be by far the strangest that I have heard.

Especially taking into account Bush's common strategy of pressuring quick votes on dubious things to give lawmakers little time to review them, a fact alluded to in the most recent Democratic debate when Dennis Kucinich answered a question about why he voted against the patriot act by saying 'because I read it'.

One interesting thing is that Rove is actually saying it himself, where more often he'd just delegate the lying or half-truths to give himself plausible (in his mind) deniability (maybe a technique learned from Cheney who is infamous for not keeping written records of anything lest it be used against him at some point). Is it that Rove can't remember what happened and is trying to guess? Is he saying what he actually believes, maybe because of some ideological selective memory that makes him attribute bad things to people he doesn't like? Is he using the 'big lie' strategy again to rewrite history? The world may never know but with his exhaustive list of past dirty tricks it's not a good sign.

Update: Tom Daschle replies, here too.

Hard to find good help these days

So after months of stubbornly staying put, Alberto Gonzalez has finally resigned. This following other recent notable departures such as Karl Rove, and a bit less recently Scooter Libby and Rummy. The AG A.G. is no more. Here's W's statement concerning Gonzo's resignation:

"After months of unfair treatment that has created a harmful distraction at the Justice Department, Judge Gonzales decided to resign his position, and I accept his decision. It's sad that we live in a time when a talented and honorable person like Alberto Gonzales is impeding from doing important work because his good name was dragged through the mud for political reasons."

Almost all the places I went to find that quote corrected the presidents English and substituted impeded for impeding. But I heard the president say that on the radio and he definitely said impeding. Should the media really be correcting the presidents grammar? If the president of the United States is a dim-witted buffoon, shouldn't the people know about it, and not think he spoke correctly because newspapers correct him? But this is a little beside the point so maybe more on that another time.

A few points on what the president said...I don't think talented and honorable are good descriptions of Gonzo, but hey I can forgive that by thinking he was just being polite.
The thing that seems most bizarre is that W thinks it is sad if someone's name is dragged through the mud for political reasons. Maybe I've had him all wrong the last 7 glorious years, but I got the distinct impression that dragging someone's good name through the mud was one of his favorite pastimes. There's little doubt that it was THE favorite pastime of former WH hack Karl Rove. Seemingly just to add insult to injury, dragging people's good names through the mud for political reasons (and firing them) is pretty much the main thing Gonzo was being accused of anyway.

Keep watch for a more in-depth review of some of the highlights of Alberto's time in the white house