Philosophical question

If a Bush administration official whose work doesn’t appear to have any effect on anything anywhere resigns, does it make a sound? And does it matter?

Wrong again, Fox

Boy with matches or al Qaeda in America? We Make Shit Up, You Decide.

Officials blamed a wildfire that consumed more than 38,000 acres and destroyed 21 homes last week on a boy playing with matches, and said they would ask a prosecutor to consider the case.

The boy, whose name and age were not released, admitted to sparking the fire on Oct. 21, Los Angeles County sheriff's Sgt. Diane Hecht said Tuesday. Ferocious winds helped it quickly spread.

But while the fires raged, Faux News fanned the flames of fear.

This morning on Fox News, hosts of the show Fox and Friends blamed the wildfires in California on a new culprit: al Qaeda.

Don't hold your breath waiting for the correction. Because that’s what journalists do when they get a story wrong. Fox News isn’t in the journalism business, it’s in the fear and misinformation business. And if anyone was stupid enough to believe its bullshit report, Mission Accomplished.

Champions

The Sox defeated the Rockies, 4-3, for their second World Series sweep in four years.

After all these years of watching the Sox fall short, it feels a little strange to see them poised to dominate major league baseball for years.

I didn’t say it feels bad, it just feels strange.

A lot of fans wanted the Sox to take the title at home, but I’m glad they swept. For one thing, I’ve seen them come so close only to fail when they couldn’t possible fail more times than I care to recount. Throughout this series, like in 2004, I’ve said, "I don’t want drama, I want wins." But the other reason I’m glad they won last night is that the back of their bullpen was spent. Hideki Okajima certainly would not have been available tonight, and Jonathan Papelbon clearly was not as sharp last night as we are used to seeing him. Usually he has good command of his pitches, but on all three out pitches in the ninth inning last night he missed his spots badly. With an 0-2 count to the first batter, Yorvit Torrealba, catcher Jason Varitek wanted a fastball up and out of the strike zone, as he often does in that count. But the pitch was just above the belt and out over the plate. Torrealba grounded to Justin Pedroia at second.

To the second hitter, Jamey Carroll, Varitek set up on the outside corner, but the pitch was inside and Carroll hammered it to left, sending Jacoby Ellsbury crashing into the wall to make a fine play.

Varitek wanted the 2-2 pitch to the third hitter, Seth Smith inside, under his hands. The pitch was high and over the outside corner. Smith swung through it.

With Okajima and Papelbon probably unavailable for a game tonight, the pressure to throw a complete game would be great on Josh Beckett. Of course, he can handle that kind of pressure, but the image of Eric Gagne warming in the bullpen last night made me nervous. Fortunately, Papelbon had enough left in the tank.

And the Red Sox are world champions again. Congratulations Sox!

Rudy Giuliani

Flip Flopper.

In an act of baseball blasphemy, Yankee die-hard Rudy Giuliani said Tuesday he’s pulling for the Boston Red Sox to win the World Series over the Colorado Rockies.

"I’m rooting for the Red Sox,” the Republican presidential contender said in response to a question, sparking applause at the Boston restaurant where he was picking up a local endorsement.

And remember, this is not political pandering, because Rudy said so.

No thanks, Rudy. Stick with your loser Stinkins.

La la la, we can’t hear you

What exactly do GOP members of the House Budget Committee think they’re accomplishing by not showing up for a hearing on the cost of the Iraq war and occupation through 2017, which, by the way, the Congressional Budget Office now estimates at $2.4 TRILLION. That’s 2,400 million-dollar bills, people.

Do they think that not confronting this makes it not a problem? Or are they protesting the result of a disastrous policy that they supported and continue to support? Either way, their refusal to face the situation is a disservice to the people they pretend to represent.

Here’s a list of the Republicans on the committee who prefer to bury their heads in the sand rather than address or even acknowledge one of this country's most serious problems. The accountability party indeed. Remember them next time you’re in a voting booth. Show them what accountability really is.

J. Gresham Barrett, SC; Jo Bonner, AL; Scott Garrett, NJ; Mario Diaz-Balart, FL; Jeb Hensarling, TX; Daniel E. Lungren, CA; Michael K. Simpson, ID; Patrick T. McHenry, NC; Connie Mack, FL; K. Michael Conaway, TX; John Campbell, CA;Patrick J. Tiberi, OH; Jon C. Porter, NV; Rodney Alexander, LA; Adrian Smith, NE.

Man on Dog column

Oh goody.

Buried in the middle of the Inquirer’s A3 Rick-Santorum-blasts-brown-people story this morning is a bracketed announcement that the former U.S. senator, our state’s preeminent Islamo-Fascist Warrior, will begin a biweekly op-ed column for the paper starting next month.

Just in case Brian Tierney forgot, Pennsylvania residents have already rejected Ricky. In fact, Santorum carried exactly zero counties in November ’06 (including losing his home county, Allegheny, by 30 percentage points). The beating was especially bad in Philadelphia, where I understand quite a few of the Inky's readers live, 84 percent to 16 percent.

So who exactly is expected to read — let alone buy the paper for — Ricky’s column? Heavily Republican Montgomery County, where Santorum managed only 38 percent of the vote? Nah. The aptly named Bucks County? Perhaps. Santorum lost that county by only 18 percentage points — a photo-finish, comparitively speaking.

The great majority of your readers have already rejected Rick Santorum’s ideas, Brian. I hope you’re not expecting a spike in single-copy sales twice a month. In fact, don’t be suprised to see some subscribers cancel. That’s what happens when you hitch your wagon to an anchor.

Administration of Torture

When the same abuses are taking place in prisons in Iraq, Afghanistan, Cuba and God knows where else, they are not isolated incidents. They are not coincidences.

President Bush gave "marching orders" to Gen. Michael Dunlavey, who asked the Pentagon to approve harsher interrogation methods at Guantanamo, the general claims in documents reported in the book.

The ACLU also found that an Army investigator reported Rumsfeld was "personally involved" in overseeing the interrogation of a Guantanamo prisoner Mohammed al Qahtani. The prisoner was forced to parade naked in front of female interrogators wearing women's underwear on his head and was led around on a leash while being forced to perform dog tricks.

One of the first question I asked when I saw Lynndie England holding a dog leash with a prostrate Iraqi man on the other end was, "If these incidents are the isolated actions of prison guards working the third shift, as the administration contends, where did she get the leash?” I doubt she brought it with her to Iraq, and she probably didn’t have a lot of free time to go shopping after she arrived.

Pennant!

The Sox topped the Cleveland Indians 11-2 Sunday to take the AL pennant. Some observations:

The game was not the relaxed affair that the score would indicate. The game was close until the seventh inning, when Dustin Pedroia hit a two-run homer to give the Sox some breathing room, and the eighth, when they broke it open. The big hit of the inning was a bases-loaded double by Pedroia that plated three runs.

This win, of course, comes after Saturday night's 12-2 win, which featured a strong outing by Curt Schilling and offense from players not named Ortiz, Ramirez or Lowell. Those players basically carried the team offensively until the weekend, when the rest of the lineup, notably Pedroia, Kevin Youkilis and J.D. Drew, made significant contributions.

Rookies were central to the Sunday's pennant-clinching win. Daisuke Matsuzaka gave up two runs in five innings of work. Hideki Okajima pitched two-plus innings to get the game to Jonathan Papelbon. Jacoby Ellsbury was 1-for-3 and scored two runs, including from first base on Pedroia's eighth-inning double. And, of course, Pedroia drove in five runs.

Coco Crisp made a trerrific catch in the triangle in deep center to end the game. He came up limping after crashing into the bullpen wall.

Josh Beckett was named the series MVP.

The World Series starts Wednesday in Boston. Beckett will get the ball. The Sox need to take the first two home games because the lack of a DH rule in NL parks will force them to sit Youkilis in order to keep David Ortiz in the lineup. Youkilis is swinging a hot bat right now and is solid defensively, so it wouldn't be a tremendous shock to see him start one of the games in Denver, especially if the Sox have a commanding lead in the series.

Congratulations to the Red Sox on winning the AL pennant. But there's still some work to do. Go Sox!

Daily Chicken Scratch

One of my friends and like-minded opponents of the regime has started his own blog, which can be seen here and accessed in the links section below left. I guess he just HAD to be on the administration's enemies list.

Don't hold it against him that his blog is hosted on a JRC page. He has no illusions about the company and isn't about to let it influence what he writes.

Poor get poorer

If this is news to you, consider yourself fortunate.

The calculus of living paycheck to paycheck in America is getting harder.

What used to last four days might last half that long now. Pay the gas bill, but skip breakfast. Eat less for lunch so the kids can have a healthy dinner.

Across the nation, Americans are increasingly unable to stretch their dollars to the next payday as they juggle higher rent, food and energy bills. It's starting to affect middle-income working families as well as the poor, and has reached the point of affecting day-to-day calculations of merchants like Wal-Mart Stores Inc., 7-Eleven Inc. and Family Dollar Stores Inc.

Food pantries, which distribute foodstuffs to the needy, are reporting severe shortages and reduced government funding at the very time that they are seeing a surge of new people seeking their help.

Think this has anything to do with that growing income gap thing?

History: Crusades ‘necessary, justified’

My ongoing, public audition for The Onion:

At a hastily called press conference Friday, history declared that the Crusades, a series of Catholic Church-sanctioned purges of heretics across Europe in the 12th through 14th centuries, are now understood to be “necessary and justified.”

“No pope wants to go to war,” history declared. “Except maybe for Pope Urban II,” whom history referred to as a “wartime pope.”

History explained that the killing of Christian pilgrims by Seljuk Turks in the 11th century had to be avenged, and that Christian rulers faced imminent threats from non-Christian kingdoms.

“The pope didn’t want that smoking mace to be an invading horde,” history said.

The Bush administration reacted favorably to the news.

“See, my legacy is still up in the air,” President Bush said from Camp David in a prepared statement. “I’m confident that 700 years from now, history will vindicate the invasion of Iraq as necessary to respond to a thug dictator armed with WMD-related programs and/or to spread democracy.”

History said the Holocaust is currently under review, but indicated the odds that it someday will be considered necessary and justified “aren’t good.”

Not a chickenshit

From the Credit Where It’s Due Dept. (in light of my previous post on the subject): Senator Chris Dodd.

Senator Chris Dodd plans to put a hold on the Senate FISA renewal bill because it reportedly grants retroactive immunity to telephone companies for any role they played in the Bush administration's warrantless eavesdropping program, Election Central has learned.

Dodd will send a letter to Senate Majority Leader Harry Reid this afternoon informing him of his decision. Dodd also plans to put up a page today at his campaign Web site where opponents of the immunity provision can register their opposition.

That page on Dodd’s site is here. Click through and show your support.

Well no shit

You see, I'm really a fucking team player.

A different kind of new low

If you thought the right's attacks on 12-year-old accident victim and SCHIP beneficiary Graeme Frost were low, prepare yourself for a new level of appalled.

While we are on the subject, read this too.

“The demagogue is one who preaches doctrines he knows to be untrue to men he knows to be idiots.” —H. L. Mencken

Yet another new low

Not the first new low for Bush, not the last.

Bush's job approval rating fell to 24 percent from last month's record low for a Zogby poll of 29 percent. A paltry 11 percent gave Congress a positive grade, tying last month's record low.

"There is a real question among Americans now about how relevant this government is to them," pollster John Zogby said. "They tell us they want action on health care, education, the war and immigration, but they don't believe they are going to get it."

That's it, Congress, keep hitching your wagon to that sinking ship in the White House. How's that working out for you?

Radio host attacked

Best wishes to Randi Rhodes for a speedy recovery.

Quote of the day

Guess who said this?

"In any country, if you don't have countervailing institutions, the power of any one president is problematic for democratic development."

For the answer, click here. You won't believe it.

VP wins Nobel Prize

My application to The Onion.

On the heels of news that former Vice President Al Gore won the Nobel Peace Prize, the Norwegian Nobel Committee announced that current Vice President Dick Cheney has won the Nobel War Prize.

In explaining its decision, the committee cited Cheney’s unwavering dedication to promoting and waging war.

“The United States is already bogged down in armed conflicts in Iraq and Afghanistan, and Cheney is pushing for war with Iran,” the committee said. “He ignored facts, cherry-picked intelligence and flat-out lied to push the U.S. toward invading Iraq. This guy just loves war.”

The committee also noted Cheney’s role as CEO of Halliburton and as chair of the Bush administration’s energy task force.

“At a time when rising global temperatures threaten to create increased competition and conflict over dwindling natural resources, Dick Cheney supports increased reliance on coal and oil,” the committee said. “He’s doing everything he can to promote a perpetual state of global war for years to come. How could we not give him this award?”

Gore shared his honor with the UN’s Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change. Cheney was the committee’s unanimous choice and will share the prize with no one.

Many observers felt that Cheney’s lack of military experience — he received five draft deferments during the Vietnam War — would hurt his chances with the committee.

“It is unusual for the committee to award this prize to someone who not only has no actual experience serving in the military, but also went to such extraordinary lengths to avoid service,” said Rear Admiral Jacob Shuford, president of the United States Naval War College. “But the bloodlust that Cheney has demonstrated since taking office has been, quite literally, unprecedented.

“The fact he shot that guy [Harry Whittington] in the face couldn’t have hurt, either,” Shuford added. “His chances, I mean, not that guy’s face. That probably hurt quite a bit, actually.”

The White House reacted with pride to the announcement, which came at an opportune time for the Bush administration as Gore’s honor spotlighted the administration’s dismal environmental record.

“We, like all Americans, are extremely proud of Vice President Cheney for winning the war prize,” said White House spokesperson Dana Perino. “It is a well-deserved honor. He’s a true warrior.”

At the time of the announcement, Cheney was holed up in his bunker at an undisclosed location and unavailable for comment.

Fucking chickenshits

Senate preparing to cave on telco immunity.

Kudos California

Too bad the measure isn’t stronger.

California motorists will risk fines of up to $100 next year if they are caught smoking in cars with minors, making their state the third to protect children in vehicles from secondhand smoke.

Gov. Arnold Schwarzenegger on Wednesday signed a bill that will make it an infraction to smoke in a vehicle if someone under age 18 is present. But the traffic stop would have to be made for another offense, such as speeding or an illegal turn, before the driver could be cited for smoking.

A Harvard School of Public Health report issued last year said secondhand smoke in cars can be up to 10 times more of a health risk than secondhand smoke in a home.

At least 20 states and a number of municipalities have considered limiting smoking in cars where minors are present. Arkansas now bans smoking in cars with children age 6 and younger, while Louisiana has limited it when children 13 and younger are in the vehicle. Maine lawmakers will take up the issue in January.

Frankly, if it weren’t for the powerful tobacco lobby (and greedy, craven legislators), cigarettes as they currently exist probably would be flat-out illegal already.

What the Right has wrought

I’m all for letting your freak flag fly, but you deserve to know what’s out there.

Be sure to thank a hatemonger. Lord knows our liberal media is full of them.

Supremes: ‘We will not dignify these charges with justice’

I bet Khaled el-Masri thought this country was through screwing him when he walked down that hill in Albania. Well, after he was convinced his captors didn’t plan to shoot him in the back.

Wrong.

A German man who says he was abducted and tortured by the CIA as part of the anti-terrorism rendition program lost his final chance Tuesday to persuade U.S. courts to hear his claims.

The Supreme Court rejected without comment an appeal from Khaled el-Masri, effectively endorsing Bush administration arguments that state secrets would be revealed if courts allowed the case to proceed.

El-Masri, 44, a German citizen of Lebanese descent, says he was mistakenly identified as an associate of the Sept. 11 hijackers and was detained while attempting to enter Macedonia on New Year’s Eve 2003.

He claims that CIA agents stripped, beat, shackled, diapered, drugged and chained him to the floor of a plane for a flight to Afghanistan. He says he was held for four months in a CIA-run prison known as the “salt pit” in the Afghan capital of Kabul.

After the CIA determined it had the wrong man, el-Masri says, he was dumped on a hilltop in Albania and told to walk down a path without looking back.

El-Masri’s claims, which prompted strong international criticism of the rendition program, were backed by European investigations and U.S. news reports. German Chancellor Angela Merkel has said that U.S. officials acknowledged that el-Masri’s detention was a mistake.

The U.S. government has neither confirmed nor denied el-Masri’s account and, in urging the court not to hear the case, said that the facts central to el-Masri’s claims “concern the highly classified methods and means of the program.”

El-Masri’s case centers on the CIA’s “extraordinary rendition” program, in which terrorism suspects are captured and taken to foreign countries for interrogation. Human rights activists have objected to the program.

President Bush has repeatedly defended the policies in the war on terror, saying as recently as last week that the U.S. does not engage in torture.

The story included the following sentence, which I think sums up the Bush administration almost as nicely as does the word “criminal.”

At the height of Cold War tensions between the United States and the former Soviet Union, U.S. presidents used the state secrets privilege six times from 1953 to 1976, according to OpenTheGovernment.org. Since 2001, it has been used 39 times, enabling the government to unilaterally withhold documents from the court system, the group said.

Do you get it yet? What your government up to is none of your friggin’ business, and less so now than at any other time in our nation's history.

Fighting back

Like I said, this would be addressed, but only because there’s so much light on it. So hopeully this will be resolved before Lindsay Lohan goes back into rehab and the MSM covers that instead.

The 2,600 members of a Minnesota National Guard unit that returned from Iraq in July after serving there longer than any other ground combat unit were shocked to be told that their total time overseas of 729 days was one day short of the number needed to be eligible for expanded educational benefits under the GI Bill. Many of the soldiers wondered if this was done deliberately and they and Minnesota's senators asked the Secretary of the Army to look into it.

1st Lieut. John Hobot, a spokesman for the unit, told CNN on Monday that he believes it was simply a bureaucratic mixup, saying, "There's people that got off the same plane from Iraq ... and their orders read 730 days, whereas 1162 soldiers' orders say 729. These guys did the same exact tour." Hobot just wants the Army to fix the orders so that the soldiers, some of whom are already back in school, can receive the additional $500 to $800 a month.

The Army has announced that it is trying to get to the bottom of the matter and may ask for a legislative clarification to the criteria for GI Bill benefits. Hobot agreed that a change in the law might prevent the problem from recurring in the future but said it won't help his troops now. "We've been back 90 days as of tomorrow and it hasn't gotten fixed. And they keep telling us that they're fixing it."

It was smart and diplomatic of 1st Lieut. Hobot to publicly claim to believe the whole thing is just a bureaucratic mixup, as it gives higher-ups the cover they need to fix this without losing face.

But one day short? You don’t accidentally type “729” when you mean to type “730.” And I guess the fact that this one day makes 2,600 troops ineligible for education benefits is just a coincidence.

At the risk of being less diplomatic than 1st Lieut. Hobot, I’m going to call this exactly what it looks like to me: People being screwed out of benefits they need and deserve to save a little bit of money. You know, like when Bush vetoed the SCHIP exapnsion.

It’s not that the Bush administration doesn’t like to spend money (look at the billions of dollars of taxpayer money being poured into the bottomless well called Iraq). It’s that the administration only likes to spend money to benefit certain people, and these troops ain’t those people.

And neither are those children.

More on that ‘greatest hoax’ thing

Reality denier and GOP senator James Inhofe and a CNN weatherdunce might not think this has anything to do with global warming, but doctors do. Whom do you believe?

Jack is one of six people to die this summer in the United States from the naegleria fowleri amoeba.

All were believed by health officials to have contracted an infection from the amoeba from swimming in warm, freshwater lakes, rivers or natural springs.

There is no risk from properly chlorinated swimming pools, according to the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention.

The amoeba enters the human body through the nose. It then travels to the brain, where it begins to feed.

Symptoms of the amoeba’s rampage begin 1 to 14 days after infection and resemble the flu. At the onset of those symptoms the amoeba victim’s health swiftly declines.

At this point, says Dr. Kevin Sherin of the Orange County Health Department who is investigating three deaths this summer in Florida, ”It’s progressing very rapidly and then there’s a downhill course for them there. Folks lapse into a coma, there are abnormal movements of the eyes and a terrible cascade of events leading to the actual death of parts of the brain.”

In the hot summer months when the amoeba flourishes, he said, doctors need to learn to look for the symptoms of an amoeba-related illness.

“Physicians have to consider it. The public needs to consider it,” Sherin said. “If you have a flu-like illness or a bad headache following swimming in a freshwater body and the temperature is over 80 degrees Fahrenheit, be aware of this.”

However, only a handful of doctors have seen a patient with the rare amoeba.

Until this summer there were only 24 known cases of the virus in the U.S. since 1989, according to the CDC.

Health officials cannot explain the spike in cases this summer, except that weather plays a factor.

“Because it‘s been such a hot summer, that has contributed to warmer water temperatures and lower water levels and that makes an ideal environment for the amoeba,” said Dr. Rebecca Sunenshine of the Arizona Department of Health, which is investigating a death last month there tied to the amoeba.

On the plus side, think of how many wealthy corporations have been spared the burden of expensive environmental upgrades. And not being able to swim in any body of water that isn’t saturated with chemicals surely is a small price to pay for the ability to drive a Hummer.

Pretending this isn’t happening is madness.

Comeback kid?

Look out, here comes John McCain.

Senator John McCain’s once front- running presidential campaign, which has been battered by plunging polls, defecting donors and staff turmoil, is showing signs of a rebound in New Hampshire.

McCain, whose bid for the Republican nomination has been hurt by conservatives’ hostility to his pro-immigration views and independents’ ire over his support for the Iraq war, has refocused his efforts on New Hampshire, site of the nation’s first primary. McCain has risen 10 percentage points since July in one new poll and 5 in another.

“You have McCain, I think, making a comeback with almost no money,” former President Bill Clinton, who knows something about New Hampshire comebacks from his 1992 campaign, said in a Sept. 27 interview. “He deserves to be a major candidate.”

But then he said this.

Sen. John McCain, R-Arizona, told CNN Wednesday he agrees with President Bush’s veto of legislation expanding a children’s health insurance program, saying the bill provided a “phony smoke and mirrors way of paying for it.”

“Right call by the president,” the Republican White House hopeful told CNN’s John King. “We’ve laid a debt on these same children ... that we’re saying we're going to give health insurance to.”

And so much for that.

‘Funny’

The NYT's DFH, on what tickles the conservative funny bone. HINT: It's not The 1/2 Hour News Hour. Nobody thought that was funny.

What’s happening, presumably, is that modern movement conservatism attracts a certain personality type. If you identify with the downtrodden, even a little, you don’t belong. If you think ridicule is an appropriate response to other peoples’ woes, you fit right in.

And Republican disillusionment with Mr. Bush does not appear to signal any change in that regard. On the contrary, the leading candidates for the Republican nomination have gone out of their way to condemn “socialism,” which is G.O.P.-speak for any attempt to help the less fortunate.

So once again, if you’re poor or you’re sick or you don’t have health insurance, remember this: these people think your problems are funny.

Register. Vote the bastards out.

Supporting the troops

This speaks for itself.

Approximately 2,600 members of the Minnesota National Guard recently returned home after serving multiple tours of duty in Iraq. They served 22 months — “longer than any other ground combat unit” — recieved nine fatalities, and were awarded dozens of Purple Hearts.

But the Army wrote the orders for 1,162 of these soldiers for 729 days, making them ineligible for full educational benefits under the GI Bill, which requires written orders saying they were deployed for 730 days or more. These soldiers were shorted more than $200 per month for college.

This action will be reversed, but only because it’s high profile now and elected officials can score easy political points. This is their favorite kind of issue to get involved in — noncontroversial and unopposed by campaign donors.

We still do not torture

The 2005 Justice Department memos that Congress would like a look at reportedly authorize the use of head slaps, freezing temperatures and waterboarding while interrogating terror suspects. They were issued after the 2004 Justice memo that declared torture “abhorrent.” Which, of course, isn’t quite the same as saying don’t do it.

Senate Intelligence Committee Chairman Jay Rockefeller sent a letter to the acting attorney general saying the administration's credibility is at risk if the documents are not turned over to Congress.

Which is like threatening me with the loss of my Rolls-Royce.

“This country does not torture,” White House spokeswoman Dana Perino told reporters. “It is a policy of the United States that we do not torture, and we do not.”

Compare that with “I did not have sexual relations with that woman” and tell me if the country is moving in the right direction.

Craig to remain in congress, closet

Even if he is still guilty. He put his foot down.

Idaho Sen. Larry Craig defiantly vowed to serve out his term in office on Thursday despite losing a court attempt to rescind his guilty plea in a men’s room sex sting.

“I have seen that it is possible for me to work here effectively,” Craig said in a written statement certain to disappoint fellow Republicans who have long urged him to step down.

Craig had earlier announced he would resign his seat by Sept. 30, but had wavered when he went to court in hopes of withdrawing his plea.

The third-term lawmaker issued his statement not long after Idaho Gov. C.L. “Butch” Otter relayed word he has selected a replacement for Craig in the event of a resignation.

“He is ready to act should we receive a letter of resignation,” said Jon Hanian, Otter’s spokesman in Boise, in what seemed like a calculated signal that home-state Republicans want Craig to surrender the seat he has held for 17 years.

In his statement, Craig said he will not run for a new term next year.

Which, if history is any guide, means he’s preparing for another run.

Quote of the day

What dumbass said this?

“We can’t forget the fact that although at a particular point in time we never found any WMD down there, [Saddam] clearly had had WMD. He clearly had had the beginnings of a nuclear program.”

If you said former “Law and Order” star Fred Thompson, give yourself a point.

For clarification purposes, what Frederick of Hollywood meant by “a particular point in time” is “before the invasion and in the four and a half years since.” And what he meant by “clearly“ is “based on the complete lack of evidence.” What he meant by “fact” is “fiction.”

Fun fact: Fred is running for president.