Crappy the Smart-Assed Toilet

Answer: Not any time soon, since Duke Cunningham (R-MZM) has, even while incarcerated, seemingly found a way to shove that basketball-loving university’s lacrosse team off the ticker.

Oh, Duke. Duke, Duke, Duke.

We didn’t complain when you supplanted Patrick Kennedy as the most embarrassing Congressman who’s ever represented us in Washington.

But did you have to go sullying the good name of the Watergate Hotel with your tawdry antics? For shame!

Justin Rood at TPM Muckraker has an enlightening summary of the various tentacles of the Jack Abramoff operation, and notes the recurring theme of crooked Republican lawmakers and lobbyists using their wives to skim a little extra money off the top. (Sadly, poor Duke Cunningham, ever the “No Rocket Scientist,” doesn’t appear to have been aware of this particular scam).

So now we can finally nail down what the GOP has meant with their constant preaching about “family values” for the past 20 years:

It’s about 10-15%.

In the true Christmas spirit, the Bush administration has decided to sic DOJ investigative squads on whoever leaked news of the NSA’s domestic spying program. And as we’re sure John Yoo would agree, if the Bush administration even suspects one of their own may have said something that casts the whole operation in a bad light, even if they’re merely exposing the administration’s complete disregard for the rule of law, they must automatically be “enemy combatants,” and can therefore be shipped off to Uzbekistan for some good, old-fashioned, extreme rendition. Good times, good times.

And with that in mind: Ladies and gentlemen, uh, we’ve just lost the picture, but what we’ve seen speaks for itself. The Constitution has apparently been taken over — ‘conquered’ if you will — by a master race of giant space elephants. It’s difficult to tell from this vantage point whether they will consume the captive earth men or merely enslave them. One thing is for certain: there is no stopping them; the elephants will soon be here. And we for one welcome our new NSA overlords. We’d like to remind them that as a trusted blog-based personality, we can be helpful in rounding up others to toil in their underground peanut caves.

Ah, nice to see our good “uniter, not a divider” President, faced with sinking poll numbers, is rallying the base by calling the opposing party a bunch of liars. Brings to mind an oldie but goodie from the TDT archives:

And while we’re at it, we note that the recent discovery that Shiite militias in Iraq are running (formerly) secret torture prisons is just the sort of good news the President has been looking for out of Iraq. Now Bush can make a clear case to the American public that we need to overthrow Iraq’s corrupt, human rights-abusing government, using military force, so that Iraq can become a beacon of democracy to the rest of the Middle East. (Again, much like Turkey).

On the plus side, we already have troops there, and they’ve been getting on-the-job training for a while, so additional costs would be relatively small. Perhaps he can give the rich another tax cut to pay for it.

Okay, so we hear this guy…

…may be tiring of having to say exciting lines like “The tribe has spoken” and “Survivors ready? Go!” 36-plus times a year. We know, we know, it’s a tough job, and like most actors, his true passion has always been directing. And we know, given that an “exciting new challenge” in your book is one that’s already been on the ten previous seasons, but this time is in a different country (or, for next season, at least has mostly different people). So we know you have trouble thinking outside the box, and coming up with creative, novel ideas.

With that in mind, we think you should consider the guy below as a potential Probst replacement. Here are a few reasons why:

- A Survivor host needs to be quick on his feet, and able to be articulate under the most trying of circumstances, to keep those Tribal Councils moving along. Ask anyone, you’ll find nobody better than the guy below at that.
- In order to empathize with the trying conditions in which the contestants find themselves, the host ought to have an implicit understanding of hard work, and making do in life with nothing but the barest essentials. Seems like a good match here!

So without further ado, here he is:

- Sure, he already has a job at the moment, but that will be done with, one way or another, in 3 years. Plus, taking 4 months off a year to film the show, plus making the various talk-show rounds and special appearances, shouldn’t be much of a problem.
- His wife has already appeared on a reality show. And as we all know, it’s not about your desire to be on this show, it’s about the people you know, or perhaps those your agent knows.

Most of all, who better to host a show that venerates lying and deception? Where the most successful are those that shield and promote their friends, then jettison them whenever it becomes expedient? Or perhaps ride the coattails of your friends while they shield you and backstab others?

We’re pretty sure he’ll come cheap.

Tom DeLay (R-TX): “This anonymous, slack-jawed troglodyte of a partisan, out-of-control prosecutor has cost me the leadership, and yet if I were to have him killed, I would be the one to go to jail. That’s democracy for you!”
Roy Blunt (R-MO): “You are noble and poetic in defeat, sir.”

The new meme sweeping the Right side of the blogosphere today, like, say, here, is that President Bush never said he’d fire the people responsible for leaking Valerie Plame’s identity to the press. Guess this must have been at the top of today’s edition of the talking points.

Well, that’s a good story, and if you look back at the specific quote they want you to pay attention to, you will indeed see that Bush specifically said he’d only fire someone if they were guilty of committing a crime:

“And if there is a leak out of my administration, I want to know who it is. And if the person has violated law, the person will be taken care of.”

Which is fine, because it might be difficult a prisoner to show up for their daily job at the White House. Sure, they’d probably get security clearance and everything, being a Bush loyalist, they just might have problems getting out of the prison in the first place.

But the problem is, the President actually did say he would fire the leaker(s), after all, as we see here:

“QUESTION: Given — given recent developments in the CIA leak case, particularly Vice President Cheney’s discussions with the investigators, do you still stand by what you said several months ago, a suggestion that it might be difficult to identify anybody who leaked the agent’s name?

THE PRESIDENT: That’s up to –

QUESTION: And, and, do you stand by your pledge to fire anyone found to have done so?

THE PRESIDENT: Yes. And that’s up to the U.S. Attorney to find the facts.”

But, you know, we guess that depends on what the definition of “yes” is.

Shockingly, for two straight days, reporters at the daily White House press briefings have been asking tough questions (and expecting answers).

If all it took to transform the White House press corps from a cuddly collection of playful puppies into a snarling pack of pit bulls was sending Judith Miller off to prison, why didn’t anyone think of it sooner? During the run-up to the Iraq War might have been a good time to try it.

Just when it looked like, in her parting gesture, Sandra Day O’Connor had again rescued George W. Bush from the pit of despair (as she had in installing him as President in 2000), up comes Karl Rove (affectionately dubbed “Turd Blossom” by the President) to stink up the place. Which perhaps is not too terribly surprising: as an animated, talking toilet, we know a thing or two about fecal matter. And in our experience, you can pile all the flora you want on one, but a turd is still a turd.

It’s an interesting quandary in which Dubya finds himself. On the one hand, he has an unprecedented chance to cement his credentials with the religious right, and permanently overturn Roe v. Wade, if he can guide a rigidly anti-abortion nominee through the Senate. He can leave his stain… er, “mark”… on the Supreme Court for a generation to come. But then, on the other hand, just as the White House coke-’n'-keg party was kicking into high gear Friday night, there goes Lawrence O’Donnell shooting his mouth off on the McLaughlin Group, telling the world that Time’s recently turned-over emails will show Karl Rove was the Valerie Plame leaker. Not only that, but he apparently perjured himself in denying this to the F.B.I. Whoops!

So what’s an unpopular President, already contemplating giving the finger to the Senate with a backdoor, recess appointment of John Bolton to the U.N., and facing an increasingly hostile public that has started to warm up to the I word, to do? If he wants to beat Ronald Reagan on the next go around of AOL’s “Greatest American” poll, he definitely needs to replace O’Connor with someone who makes Antonin Scalia look like Michael Moore. But to do that, at least semi-successfully, he desperately needs Killer Karl greasing the wheels and blackening the mail in the Senate. True, good old Uncle Dick could in theory be counted on to give the Pat Leahy treatment to any recalcitrant Senior Circuiters, but he’s had some unfortunate recent heart troubles… er, a “knee injury”… and there’s a possibility that the next Plame domino to fall (after Karl) might land on Dick’s undisclosed location. As Jack Bauer would say, “Dammit!”

Actually, speaking of Jack Bauer, maybe that’s the best plan. Karl and Dick can fake their own deaths, then slither back under their respective rocks to continue running the country. A double funeral, rivaling the pomp and circumstance of the Reagan memorial, can be held to soothe the fragile nation’s wounds. This would be especially effective if someone could anonymously deliver to Al Jazeera a “videotape” showing Dick and Karl “perishing” at the hands of that elusive Osama bin Laden, who had mysteriously materialized on American soil, then just as mysteriously flown the coop again. For added excitement, Porter Goss himself could put on the fake turban, robes and beard for the film shoot. Those mean Democrats in the Senate wouldn’t dream of opposing a James Dobson SCOTUS nomination after their dear leader has suffered such a debilitating twin tragedy, would they? Where’s the humanity? Think of the children!

But that’s crazy talk. We mean, sure, they can whip up stories of WMDs, aluminum tubes, yellow-cake uranium purchases and the like to send troops off to die in a foreign country, but they’d never go to all that trouble for a fake death (or two). Besides, as Dubya’s father aptly demonstrated, there’s no crime that can’t go unpardoned. Maybe you can’t polish a turd (blossom), but you sure can pardon ‘em.

Yeah! Bring ‘em on!

We’re sorry, for jokingly suggesting a few days ago that George W. Bush wasn’t a very good liar, at least compared to Tony Blair.

As it turns out, based on a British briefing paper described variously today in the Times of London and (gasp) the Washington Post, which backs up and expands upon the content of the almost-famous Downing Street Memo, which Bush and Blair each dismissed as inaccurate, they’re both big fat liars.

Actually, that’s not quite accurate, either. Dubya is more of a shortish, scrawny, acquired-drawling liar. Our mistake.