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Just a few things:

If you aren't reading Jane Mayer's The Dark Side (scheduled for a FDL Book Salon on 8/23) you should at least go read this essay at the New York Review of Books.

Via the indispensable Digby,  we discover that John McCain is what my grandmother used to refer to as "total dick".

The Good Ship Godlstein (you may know it as the HMS Cockslap) sinks slowly in the west. Historians will debate the exact moment it started taking on water but I would submit that it began with this post causing people to start acting like they had just walked in on their grandparents having sex.
Awk-ward.

 Pejman Yousefzadeh at Eagle Publishing's Write-off writes:

 I trust as well that the Nightline interview notwithstanding, John Edwards will stop badmouthing "tabloid publications." I don't care how lacking in credibility "tabloid publications" are. They called this one dead-on accurate and while I am not inclined to believe that Elvis is alive and is working at a Burger King in Kansas City, Missouri, I certainly am inclined that publications like the National Enquirer--trashy as they are--are infinitely more respectable than the likes of John Edwards, who let down his wife, his family, the people who worked on his campaigns and his supporters. When you don't meet the standards of the National Enquirer in terms of honesty and trustworthiness, you are in a bad place--the same place that John Edwards is in now.

Which makes me feel better about reporting:

Faced with the biggest crisis of his political life, President Bush has hit the bottle again, The National Enquirer can reveal.
Bush, who said he quit drinking the morning after his 40th birthday, has started boozing amid the Katrina catastrophe.
Family sources have told how the 59-year-old president was caught by First Lady Laura downing a shot of booze at their family ranch in Crawford, Texas, when he learned of the hurricane disaster. His worried wife yelled at him: "Stop, George."
Following the shocking incident, disclosed here for the first time, Laura privately warned her husband against "falling off the wagon" and vowed to travel with him more often so that she can keep an eye on Dubya, the sources add.
"When the levees broke in New Orleans, it apparently made him reach for a shot," said one insider. "He poured himself a Texas-sized shot of straight whiskey and tossed it back. The First Lady was shocked and shouted: "Stop George!"
"Laura gave him an ultimatum before, 'It's Jim Beam or me.' She doesn't want to replay that nightmare — especially now when it's such tough going for her husband."
Bush is under the worst pressure of his two terms in office and his popularity is near an all-time low. The handling of the Katrina crisis and troop losses in Iraq have fueled public discontent and pushed Bush back to drink.
A Washington source said: "The sad fact is that he has been sneaking drinks for weeks now. Laura may have only just caught him — but the word is his drinking has been going on for a while in the capital. He's been in a pressure cooker for months.
"The war in Iraq, the loss of American lives, has deeply affected him. He takes every soldier's life personally. It has left him emotionally drained. The result is he's taking drinks here and there, likely in private, to cope. "And now with the worst domestic crisis in his administration over Katrina, you pray his drinking doesn't go out of control."

Lastly, much thanks to David in Alviso, Karen in Lakeview, and Linda in Mount Pleasant for the gifts that will sooth and entertain me while I await Satchmo's beck and call. 

I'm glad to report that he has had a couple of pretty good days.