Christ Weary of Terri Schiavo's Mouldering Corpse and the "Power" of Prayer:
By the end of her balloon-smilin' life, Terri Schiavo was, more or less, a zombie. In fact, if her gelatinous muscles and bones had been able to create mobility, she probably would have risen to eat the brains of the opportunists, hucksters, and losers gathered outside her hospice to pray for her recovery. Oh, what a glorious scene that would have been, the welcome, open arms of Randall Terry embracing the staggering Schiavo as she ripped his scalp open with her teeth and dined on the yummy goo within. God workin' in such mysterious ways, you know.

But, no, Schiavo died today a year ago. And it's particularly sad to note the ways in which right wingers are memorializing her (or, indeed, that they are memorializing her at all, as if she belonged to them). 'Cause, see, it ain't the living Terri Schiavo that's bein' remembered. It's the bed-bound pile of goo that Schiavo was when her body finally shut down after her feeding tube was removed that's gettin' all the flowers and accolades. And that's a damn shame, because she wouldn't have noticed at all. Apparently, these people never read the autopsy or they simply don't believe in science.

The most odious use of Terri Schiavo's corpse is by those who want to turn her into a martyr for the rights of the disabled. Says Daniel Allott at Human Events Online (motto: "Proudly Licking Our Own Taints"), "What Terri and all persons with disabilities offer is something invaluable in today's world. They can show us how to love, and thus, how to live." Allott blathers on about artificially keeping a dead person alive so the blood-pumping corpse can make the living feel good about themselves: "What do persons with disabilities have to offer? They will change us. They will call us to be people of mutual trust; they will help us to learn how to listen. They will call us out of our individualism, break down our prejudices, and help us sustain our relationships."

Now, see, read Allott's essay and replace "Terri Schiavo" with "rutabaga," and it pretty much means the same thing. Terri Schiavo was not disabled; she wasn't teaching anyone anything; she wasn't asking for a goddamn thing. She simply wasn't, as in the big "was not." And to call Schiavo's soupy brainpan-topped body a full person is to insult disabled people, especially since non-sentient bundle of flesh Terri Schiavo was treated better and with more passion than almost all of the functioning, conscious disabled people around the nation. When the energy devoted to the deadheaded jellybag Schiavo is directed towards the real disabled population, then maybe real, not rhetorical, good can happen.

All the good Christian fundamentalists are makin' sure that the day doesn't pass without some commemoration. Anti-euthanasia activists who wanna make sure that people like Terri Schiavo are kept alive until they rot in their beds are markin' the day, like Senator Sam Brownback, who said, more or less, "The Terri zombie was fundraising gold for our cause. Prop that dead bitch up, motherfuckers." Hell, there's even a movement to get March 31 declared "Terri Schiavo Day," a national holiday where we'll all celebrate by staring blankly around our rooms, shitting ourselves and forcing our loved ones to blow all their savings on our futile existence while we just hope the day gets over with as quickly as possible.

Yeah, they're all gettin' their freak on over with Terri Schiavo's corpse. Meanwhile, in the real world, a just-released study says that prayer does jackshit in helpin' someone who's undergoin' heart surgery, and may, in fact, cause life-threatening stress to those who know that the whole church congregation is wastin' time prayin' for their recovery.

But like the masturbatory glee with which Terri Schiavo's corpse is being trotted about like a trophy, made to dance like a bunraku puppet, as long as it makes us feel good about ourselves, fuck, it doesn't matter what it does for anyone else, it doesn't matter how much energy is devoted to useless methods for useless causes while so much other sadness goes on unabated. Just like God would want.

The Whores Come Up With Laws For Whoring:
And so it was that the whores decided it was time to police themselves. They were tired of the judgment of the moralistic, those who would say that what passes between a whore and a john has an effect beyond the act of a john blowing a load into the mouth of a whore; that all of a sudden there was a profligacy of stalker johns, who expect the whores to fuck only for them; that the families of the whores noticed that the whores don't spend any time with them any more, devoting themselves to whoring and only whoring, neglecting their children, their old parents, their dogs, their homes. Ahh, the life of a whore. One hard fucking after another. Who has time for more?

Yes, the whores had themselves a big meeting, a whorefest, where they talked about what acts were the most offensive to them. And, frankly, it's kind of hard for a whore to find something really beyond the pale. Sure, sure, there's always a prissy prostitute or two who won't do anal or groups, but, really, once you've been forced to lick the anus of a 300 pound professional hot dog eater, what is "too much?" Still, the whores wanted to come up with a few bones they could toss to the non-whores to show that they were serious about cleaning up whoredom.

They narrowed it down to two or three things they could all agree on: it would be fine to ban scat games - for, indeed, it had become too much of a chore to wash shit out their hair. The time-and-effort to pay ratio simply made it easier to get rid of it altogether. Some of the whores wanted to get rid of beatings. After all, it is the most dangerous part of a whore's life, alone in a room, pimp waiting outside, as some combover-headed skinny-dicked john wants to make up for his time in the cubicle by beating the fuck out of a "defenseless" woman, getting hotter and hotter as she bleeds and pleads until he comes on her tits. But the money for meet and beats is too good. It'd be a serious cut in a whore's take-home, even with the medical bills involved.

So the whores decided that they would limit the size of foreign objects that could be shoved into their twats and assholes. Anything bigger than an average fist would be forbidden. So beer bottle, corncob, and golf club would be fine. However, lawn statue of the Virgin Mary, Progresso soup can, and violin case would not. One must have standards.

As for the enforcement of their new rules, some of the whores proposed a board of pimps and bodyguards to beat any whores or johns who violated the guidelines. But the whores decided that it would be better for the law of the jungle to regulate them. Who better to know if a whore has broken the rules than another whore? Then the claws would come out.

Sure, sure, some whores said the rules didn't go far enough, that in the course of an evening, a whore could be pissed on, slapped around, and fucked with a nine-iron. But the other whores pointed out that even small steps are fine, and, really, if someone's willing to pay the cash money to have such a night, why should they stop him? And, yeah, it really wouldn't give the whores the time to listen to phone calls from their kids, but, c'mon, they've got jobs to do.

After all, they are whores.

Why Michelle Malkin Needs To Be Caged Like a Rabid Shih-Tzu (Protest Edition):
Some of the conservative reaction to the protests over immigration "reform" have reminded the Rude Pundit of the time his friend Jason saw his first real pussy. It was around junior year of high school, and by then the Rude Pundit had seen a pussy or two, including one blessed by the tender charms of a twenty year-old female friend, who graciously allowed the Rude Pundit to explore and discover that, indeed, there were mysteries within the labial folds and swollen clitoris, but the Rude Pundit was Encyclopedia Brown, the Hardy Boys, and Sherlock Fuckin' Holmes wrapped up in one hormonal package, and thus he probed and traversed the delicate vaginal landscape until he could map it out. Or at least have a general idea of where things were. It has benefited the Rude Pundit in ways immense and small.

But Jason didn't have such an education. And when he went over to his girlfriend's house one night when the parents' were away, she pulled off her Guess jeans and panties and spread her legs to reveal all. Apparently, Jason freaked. See, it's one thing to jack off to porn and imagine what you'd do if given the chance to experience a real pussy. It's one thing to stick your fingers into unzipped pants and feel around. It's another thing altogether to be dropped off in a foreign country with no guide and no language to speak. When Jason tried to explain to the Rude Pundit that he was turned on and then embarassed and confused and then hurt by his inability to comprehend the pussy, the Rude Pundit said, "Sorry, Jason, but that's what a pussy looks like. It's a beautiful thing, it says something about the woman around it, and if you can't deal with it, well, shit, there's always cock." Probably the Rude Pundit wasn't as smooth as that, but the general idea is pretty accurate.

Michelle Malkin has been even more rabid, monkeyfuck insane than usual over the immigration bill protests. Bless her comically exaggerated facial features, she was all awake at 1:15 this morning, tapping her fingers bloody to reveal to all of us the outrages of the protests, including - holy fuck - the placement of a United States flag upside down under a Mexican flag. This was done by high school students, those models of subtlety, in California. Evacuates Malkin, "You will not see this heart-stopping photo on the front page of the NY Times or on the lead story of the major news networks." That's right - upside down American flag second on a pole - heart-stopping. Japanese Americans put into concentration camps for being Japanese - a-ok. Such is the morality of Malkin, for whom symbols are more important than people.

Malkin expands on her blog's bugfuckery in her column this week (if by "column," you mean, "flatulent banshee screeches sledgehammered into your head"), where she calls the protests "militant racism" from a "protected minority group." See, for Malkin, it's racism if Hispanics call out whites for hypocrisy, and they're "protected" so she can't write something like "Paco Taco and Senorita Chiquita Banana hate whitey and threaten to sleep under their sombreros on our porches if we don't let them fuck our children with chalupas" without sounding, you know, racist. Good thing Mexican immigrants are so goddamn protected - otherwise, white employers might exploit them.

But it's the protest themselves that have Malkin's Hello Kitty panties in a wad (see? That's a vaguely racist reference because Malkin ain't "protected," right?). Malkin belches, "One of the largest, boldest banners visible from aerial shots of the rally read: 'THIS IS STOLEN LAND.' Others blared: 'CHICANO POWER' and 'BROWN IS BEAUTIFUL.' (Can you imagine the uproar if someone had come to the rally holding up a sign reading 'WHITE IS BEAUTIFUL'?) Thugs with masked faces flashed gang signs on the steps of L.A.'s City Hall. Students walked out of classrooms all across Southern California chanting, 'Latinos, stand up!' Young people raised their fists in defiance, clothed in T-shirts bearing radical leftist guerrilla Che Guevara's face and Aztlan emblems." God, one a.m. must be a sad little time around Casa de Malkin.

Rush Limbaugh, Cal Thomas, and other jowly right wingers are besides themselves that Hispanics would dare protest, would dare raise up the Mexican flag (although one would bet that they have no problem with the flags raised on St. Patrick's Day or Columbus Day), would dare actually cry out en masse against the government.

And this is how we get back to Jason and the pussy. 'Cause for the most part, in the last couple of decades, protests in this nation have been long-planned events, not spontaneous outpourings of outrage (even if the Hispanic media was involved in getting out the message this time). But this is what real protest looks like - not like riots, not like well-conceived marches. It's messy, it's angry, it's sometimes over the top, it's sometimes offensive. Maybe it's the fact that many of the protesters come from countries with a more contemporary tradition of mass action that the demonstrations have mattered and been more energized.

Let the bottom feeders like Malkin get pissed off and confused and hurt by the protests. Let us go about embracing them, embracing the effectiveness of the form, and asking what it says about the nation surrounding them to figure out how to harness their energy and tactics for future action.

Taquitos of the Damned: Orrin Hatch Is a Puta:
In one of the many faux gaucho bars that have entrances in stinky alleys between the buildings of Tijuana, there's a particularly dark, dank, death-smelling place called Los Republicanos. It's a gay leather bar where the Mexicans are rented out as man-whores to the voraciously horny, closeted queer white males who cross the border in order to partake in the joys of fucking or getting fucking by the prostitutes. See, the Mexican owner of the place is a shrewd drag queen, Glorioso Libertades, who knows that her clientele includes right wing Americans and conservative lobbyists who just wanna live a dream. So she has given her rent boys the names of different Republican members of Congress. That way, when, say, a Minuteman, fresh from patrolling the California border, wants to bust a nut, he can do it by getting blown by a skinny Mexican guy called "Tom Tancredo" or by fucking the generous ass and jowly face of an absurdly fat man named "James Sensenbrenner," giggling as his rolls of flesh undulate from the thrusting cock behind him. There was a "Duke Cunningham," but it just seemed redundant to have a fake one sodomized on a regular basis.

Glorioso charges more for the Senator-whores than for the Representative-bitches. A particularly popular Senator-whore is "Orrin Hatch," a true hermaphrodite in that he has both a dick and a pussy. "Orrin Hatch" can also take on different roles, being one of Glorioso's best performers: he can wield a whip, dominating an oil industry lobbyist by slapping the lobbyist's trembling balls into ejaculatory ecstasy. He can be the submissive, being tied up while five fundamentalist preachers penetrate every available orifice. Yes, "Orrin Hatch" is quite the Mexican man-whore. His most requested sexual favor, though, is a show, where he sits spread-eagled on a bed, takes his cock and bends it into his pussy so he can fuck himself.

So it was that Orrin Hatch was nowhere to be found in yesterday's Senate Judiciary Committee hearing on immigration reform, voting by proxy against the strangely civilized proposal put forth by Ted Kennedy and John McCain. Hatch's reasoning was that the temporary worker program in the bill amounted to "amnesty" for the people who mow his lawn, pick his fruit, wash his car, clean his toilets, cook his food, build his buildings, stock the shelves at his grocery store, etc, etc. The bill still passed the committee on a truly bipartisan vote of 11-6, and the Republicans in the cruel House of Representatives imploded with rage. Hatch's lackey blathered something about not rewarding people who break the law, which, considering Hatch's hackery for the adminstration, could be a definition of "irony."

The reason to focus on Hatch here is that the Utah Senator fell all over himself to praise Hispanics during the "debate" over the nomination of Alberto Gonzales as Attorney General. "We work with Hispanic people all over America who are every bit as devoted to our country as any citizen who has ever been in this country. I personally love Hispanic people," Hatch gushed, rubbing salsa all over his scrotum and taint in support. Then, in an amazingly prophetic threat, Hatch said of those who would not support Gonzales, "Frankly, I know my friends in the Hispanic community, and Hispanic people all over America, are watching this debate, and they are sensing something very unfair going on here." One might wonder what Gonzales, whose father was a migrant worker, might say about this. One might wonder what Hatch's "friends" in the Hispanic community might say.

Hatch is, after all, chair of the Republican Senatorial Hispanic Task Force, a group so significant that its only mentions are by Hatch himself. Hatch trotted out that title, a group and chair that Hatch created for Hatch, when Bill Clinton, at the savage end of his presidency, supported the "Latino and Immigration Fairness Act," which would have granted amnesty to some illegal immigrants.

Yes, Orrin Hatch loves Hispanics. As long as he doesn't have to actually support anything that might be meaningful to a majority of them.

Dissent and the Right Not To Be Fair and Balanced:
A few years ago, the Rude Pundit found himself in Birmingham, Alabama, doing some righteous readin' and researchin' on the civil rights movement in that fine town with its fine barbecued ribs. Visiting the 16th Street Baptist Church, which was not only the site where a bomb killed four little girls back in 1963, but also as a meeting place for civil rights activists, the Rude Pundit spoke to a woman who was a parishioner and was at a good many of those meetings. No FBI or police attended the meetings, she proudly said, so they were able to speak freely.

Problem was that she was wrong. The Rude Pundit had already been looking at archival documents in downtown Birmingham, and he read reports written for that cracker bastard, Police Commissioner Bull Connor, he of the firehoses and dogs vs. children fame. The documents clearly stated that the Birmingham cops were in the church at the meetings. The Rude Pundit also read FBI reports from agents who were inside the church during meetings when, say, Martin Luther King spoke. COINTELPRO was in full swing by then, and Hoover, his Woolworth's panties in a wad over the civil rights movement, was trying to destroy anything that smacked of leftism, but the Rude Pundit doesn't know if the FBI agents in the reports he read were undercover.

And while one could say that it's naive to think that such a public meeting would go unmonitored during a time of such deep paranoia and mistrust, what if the FBI or the cops wanted to not only attend, but speak? Was Fred Shuttlesworth obligated to allow the police, the very people who wanted to intimidate the blacks in attendance to re-learn their place, a forum to speak, too? Would it have been possible for those meetings to go forth the way they did, for movements to start and flourish? If you think so, then you are a fucking idiot who believes that it is possible to be "objective" in this world, a Fox "News"-watching drool monkey who masturbates to lies about fairness and balance.

The reason the Rude Pundit brings this up is a little incident that took place in Three Oaks, Michigan. See, it seems that on March 14, Chellie Pingree, President of Common Cause, was on a panel at a forum on open government. The panel was sponsored by the area League of Women Voters. Seems that in the course of the forum, Pingree, in the spirit of the event, criticized the Patriot Act and its invasion of privacy. This prompted Michigan FBI agent Al DiBrito to call Susan Gilbert, head of the sponsoring group, to say that Pingree was "way off base" and that the FBI should have had the red carpet rolled out for them in order to correct perceived misinformation about the Patriot Act. And while the FBI denies that DiBrito acted on orders of general surveillance of possible "subversive" activity, his office defends his actions.

In a press release, Pingree says, "It is troubling to think that the FBI would scrutinize my remarks about the Patriot Act at a public meeting organized by the League of Women Voters. Surely the FBI's resources could be put to better use...Why should a citizen meeting on open government merit the attention of the FBI?"

As the Rude Pundit said, this is a minor incident. But are not smaller incidents indicative of larger ills? The cough can just be a cough. Or it could be the flu. Or lung cancer. Paranoid times make hypochondriacs of us all.

DiBrito told Gilbert that someone from the Michigan assistant U.S. attorney general's office would contact her to set her straight on the Patriot Act. Seems like she already got her lesson.

Welcome to the Party, Bitches: Christian Right Outraged Over Afghan Trial of Convert:
Oh, shit, this is funny. Not ha-ha funny, but more like "goddamn, you got punked good" funny. As you know by now, over in the wilds of Afghanistan, in the only part of the "nation" that's got any kind of democratic government, this guy Abdul Rahman was arrested and is now on trial, facing the death penalty for convertin' from Islam to Christianity back over a decade ago. And, oh, how the nutzoid Christian right is in a twitter now that they have to backtrack like a mudbug in a ditch on even a little of the Jeeezus-inspired love they give President Bush.

Said the Family Research Council's Tony "No, I Didn't Even See Psycho II" Perkins, "Democracy is more than purple thumbs," a line that if, say, Howard Dean said, he'd be impaled on Ann Coulter's hip bones. Perkins went on to say, "Americans will not give their blood and treasure to prop up new Islamic fundamentalist regimes. Religious freedom is not just 'an important element' of democracy; it is its cornerstone. Religious persecution leads inevitably to political tyranny. Five hundred years of history confirm this. Americans have not given their lives so that Christians can be put to death." No, Americans have given their lives so that Muslims could be tortured, but that's another issue, innit? Well, no, not really.

In his letter to George W. Bush (and Condi and others), Perkins writes, in a statement that could have come straight from the ACLU with a couple of numbers or treaties adjusted, "This trial belies any idea that Afghanistan, under its constitution, is committed to fundamental human rights. Such a trial is a flagrant violation of Article 18 of the UN’s Universal Declaration of Human Rights—to which Article 7 of the Afghan Constitution mandates state adherence." So let's get this straight - the Family Research Council, which backs the actions of the President at Guantanamo and elsewhere in blatantly violating international law now demands that the Afghan government abide by it. Cool. It's kinda like Keith Richards tryin' to tell a classroom full of kids that drugs'll ruin 'em while three naked groupies fight to see who gets to lick his balls that are resting inside his golden jockstrap.

"The most recent reports that Abdul Rahman may be found unfit for trial due to mental illness do not alleviate our concern. The substitution of Soviet-style psychiatric repression for a more lethal form may be only death by slow-motion," Perkins says, thus comparing a government the United States helped create with the Soviet Union, and then he begs Bush to help.

But help ain't comin' any time soon. The judge in Rahman's Kabul trial has said that, despite the international outcry, "There is no direct pressure on our court so far, but if it happens we will consider it interference," and then he wiped his ass with a New Testament taken from the rotting corpse of a raped and mutilated Gideon missionary. And putative leader of Afghanistan, Hamid Karzai, is more or less fucked, since the Ulema Council, the Islamic scolds who really run the show, ain't likely to budge. Shit, they made sure the editor of a magazine was jailed for just fuckin' writin' that convertin' from Islam ought not bring the death penalty. And because "irony" ain't just what Reagan said in his last earthly gasps, a spokesman for Karzai said that the decision was up to the courts because "The judicial system is an independent system."

So this is all causing convulsions on the Christian right, with Chuck "Sodomized in Prison for Tricky Dick" Colson writing, "Is this the fruit of democracy? Is this why we have shed American blood and invested American treasure to set a people free? What have we accomplished for overthrowing the Taliban? This is the kind of thing we would expect from the Taliban, not from President Karzai and his freely elected democratic government."

In December, Dick Cheney told troops over there that they had fought for "the victory of freedom in Afghanistan." And while we may shake our heads sadly, since many of us over here in Left Blogsylvania have said for the last three years that the fundamental changes to a culture do not come about simply because people go to vote, that the naivete of that notion is breathtaking, that it might take a couple of generations to make the kinds of sweeping changes the Bush administration thought were possible with some guns and bombs, while we may welcome the crazy Christian right to the party of those who think the whole situation is FUBAR (even though we know they won't stay long), the Rude Pundit finds himself thinking about the poor, abused bones of Pat Tillman. First a hero, then a victim, and now he left behind his football career and died for what? For who?

America: Home of the Hang-Up, Land of the Repressed:
Let us pause in our neverending battle against the rank evil that permeates every pore of our American existence to remember the joys of fucking. Not love, not romance, none of those accoutrements. Just fucking. Fucking a member (or two) of the opposite sex. Fucking a member (or two) of the same sex. Fucking oneself. Let us celebrate the act of coming, of the quake and quiver before spewing a load in a handy Kleenex or in the pussy or ass or mouth of someone else whose muscles are contracting and pulsing, eyes rolling back in something not unakin to ecstasy, although, indeed, that's only achieved so rarely it may as well be called "nirvana." No, let's just think for a second of the everyday orgasm, the rush and flush of release, the feel of the thrust, the feel of the thrusting inside, the right proper tickling of clit, the sweet warmth of wetness, the sticky effulgence produced by just loving a guilt-free fucking, fucking not to prove anything, not to procreate, just to fuck. Let us remember it, keep it in our heads and cocks and cunts before it is just a memory.

For, indeed, the joys of sex are under attack in a concerted effort to deny you the right to fuck yourself or anyone else unless you're at least tryin' to make a baby, motherfucker. Take Mississippi, where the Supreme Court there upheld a law that bans the sale of "sex toys." Or, to really fuck up your wet dream, here's part of the text of the law: "A person commits the offense of distributing unlawful sexual devices when he knowingly sells, advertises, publishes or exhibits to any person any three-dimensional device designed or marketed as useful primarily for the stimulation of human genital organs, or offers to do so, or possesses such devices with the intent to do so." So Caddy Compson, for instance, could own a mini-rabbit that, perhaps, Quentin could control with a remote, but she couldn't offer to sell one to Dilsey. And let's not even discuss the Jenna Jameson latex doll with grinding pussy action.

Over in Missouri, last week the Republican-led House passed a budget amendment that would ban all county health clinics from giving low-income women contraceptives or referring them to, say, Planned Parenthood to get them. Said Susan Phillips, Kansas City rep and chair of the Children and Familes Committee, and a woman who looks like she needs a ribbed vibrator badly, "All the black bitches outside my district are gonna have those fuckin' babies or they're gonna stop the fucking," or words to that effect. 'Cause, see, according to some Republicans in the House, access to contraceptives means more people fucking or "promiscuity," and, of course, poor people will just stop fucking without the pill.

For extra scary shit, check out what Representative Cynthia Davis said to another Republican in an e-mail. This is filled with such bugfuck insanity that it bears extensive quoting, but read the whole thing to understand just why you can't look directly into the eyes of the Christian right. After saying that contraceptives are a way of "tampering with Mother Nature" through "chemical and pharmaceutical ways," she goes all Glenn Close Fatal Attraction-ish: "When I was listening to the debate last week I wondered what kind of man would want to enjoy free sex and then expect her to provide for her own contraceptives? These are the kind of men who want free whores. Any man who would be so low life as that does not deserve to have any woman love him. Smart women will stay away from men who use them and abuse them."

And nutzoid right wingers say that feminists "hate men?" Check out this putative good little woman: "The irresponsible men love it when women think they are supposed to give away free sex without any consequences. However, you still have not solved the problem of the increase of sexually transmitted diseases that you are creating by encouraging free sex. Susan Phillips said it best when she said that sexual behavior needs to be between a husband and a wife, not between women and the state. The problem is not the babies, it is the lack of a family." That's right, guys, how dare we love sex without consequences. Fuck, we're such pigs.

Anti-birth control is part of the anti-abortion movement now, as it's always been. It's just now surfacing because the movement feels emboldened by Bush. The American Life League contorts itself like a double jointed Thai hooker to say the organization is not trying to outlaw contraception, but it is against contraception use: "In virtually all areas, the contraceptive culture and mentality must be viewed as part of the problem." And the ALL is talkin' condoms, too.

Do you get it? Go back and read the beginning of this post. It's goin' away. No "free sex without any consequences" for you. No sex outside of marriage. Dan Savage is right - it ain't just about icky queer fucking. It's all the icky fuckin', man. It's any sense that joy can be achieved on one's knees without prayer. It's the fear that the release of cock and cunt will lead to the release of the mind, for, indeed, if one can achieve bliss through the body, what other bliss might be possible? What other release?

The Rude Pundit Auditions To Be the Liberal Blogger at the Washington Post:
Since the Washington Post saw fit to hire Redstate.org's Ben Domenech as its "authentic conservative voice" blogger, the Rude Pundit thought they might be in the market for a "liberal" voice. So the Rude Pundit is writing today to show the Washington Post that he can be their kind of liberal blogger:

You know, even though the Rude Pundit is a liberal, boy, he sure agreed with so much President George W. Bush said at his press conference yesterday. There's just oodles of common ground between the left and the White House, if only the rest of the left just wouldn't be so antagonistic to the right. But, as the liberal blogger for the Washington Post, the Rude Pundit's job is to demonstrate just how conciliatory we on the left can be, because we wouldn't want to be perceived as radical or "crazy." That would undermine our credibility.

So here's a list of everything the Rude Pundit, representing liberals everywhere, agreed with the President on:

-- "No question that the enemy has tried to spread sectarian violence. They use violence as a tool to do that." He's right; there's no question that those who oppose the U.S. in Iraq use violence. But what should we do, since withdrawal is an option only the most radical among us believe is realistic?

-- Regarding Iran, "It's important for our citizens to understand that we have got to deal with this issue diplomatically now." It's just so great for the President to say that, because some on the left just think he sees diplomacy as a speedbump on the short road to invasion. But, now that the Rude Pundit is the liberal blogger for the Washington Post, he understands that the President needs to be taken at his word or there's no way for any progress to be made.

-- "Afghanistan provided safe haven for al Qaeda." Would it be impolite to point out that this was true prior to 9/11? Even though the Rude Pundit is the liberal blogger for the Washington Post, he can freely slam Bill Clinton, because he believes that his slams at Bush will have more credibility then.

-- "I'm telling you what's on my mind." That's the kind of refreshing honesty that keeps the public so squarely behind the President. It's something that we on the left could learn from.

-- "I like the size of the pie, sometimes I didn't particularly like the slices within the pie." Oh, the Rude Pundit couldn't agree more. Especially when you get a slice of pie that's all crust. (See? As the liberal blogger at the Washington Post, the Rude Pundit drops little humor bombs to show everyone he's not so deadly Cindy Sheehan serious about everything.)

-- "Anyway, your performance at the Grid Iron was just brilliant." Yes, Helen Thomas was brilliant at the Gridiron dinner. As the liberal blogger at the Washington Post, the Rude Pundit feels compelled to demonstrate his insider status because that's what makes his opinions valid.

Well, that's about all the Rude Pundit agrees with that the President said. Boy, the press sure asked some hard ones, especially that sweet, tough nut Helen Thomas - can't stop her, for sure. No, the President didn't appear to be facing reality or living on the same planet as the rest of us, and he didn't offer anything new or admit error, but the Rude Pundit, as the liberal blogger at the Washington Post, can appreciate the pressure he's under from his own party and the polls, and, gosh, it's nice that he held a press conference. Gee, do you think Brit Hume'll invite the Rude Pundit on this Sunday?

Oh, and, by the way, Ben Domenech is a shitty, confusing writer, a crazed Christian wad of fuck who must have blown Fred Hiatt, whose hiring demonstrates that there is no mainstream conservatism anymore, a homophobic elitist who quotes the Bible, St. Augustine, and Shakespeare, but pathetically tries to make himself one of the "people" by citing his favorite Simpsons episodes or talking football, but who despises dissent, isolating his children in a homeschooled hell that'll make sure they never can communicate with the rest of humanity on a rational basis, just like dear old Dad.

So, Washington Post, can the Rude Pundit have the job?

Bush Speaks Yesterday and Today: Lies, Prevarication, and Bullshit:
In his entire scripted speech yesterday in Cleveland, President Bush mentioned 9/11 one time, in a comparison between mosque bombers and plane crashers. However, once he went off script and started taking questions, he contextualized his answers through 9/11 another ten times. It was a psychotic moment, like when you tell a four year-old not to say "Shit" after she hears Mommy yell it in traffic and then that's all the four year-old can say for the next three days. Eventually, the only way to get that child to stop is to ignore her.

But, as ever, it's not the fact that Bush didn't answer the questions people in the Cleveland crowd asked; it's the way that he didn't answer. Right out of the gate, someone asked, "Do you believe this, that the war in Iraq and the rise of terrorism are signs of the apocalypse? And if not, why not?" Not once in his entire endless goddamn answer did Bush address what the Clevelander wanted to know, other than "The first I've heard of that, by the way. I guess I'm more of a practical fellow." And then blathering on about his job is to protect us, September 11th, and using "diplomacy" before the military.

If the Rude Pundit were an endtimer, waitin' fer that mighty apocalypse so's Jeeeezus can come on down on a dark cloud fartin' lightnin' to rapture some motherfuckers up to the Great Beyond, readin' the tea leaves fer any glitch in the system that'd say it's all about to go down, he'd be mighty pissed off at Bush's claim that he hadn't heard about it. Ain't that why endtimers voted for him? 'Cause he supposedly was in on the whole deal? And if you deny it, ain't you denyin' you some Jeeezus? And...oh, shit, the Rude Pundit's brain just can't fuckin' take that much rank stupidity from all sides.

The next questioner, wanting to know how we "restore confidence" in our leaders, brought up the pre-war claims: "Before we went to war in Iraq we said there were three main reasons for going to war in Iraq: weapons of mass destruction, the claim that Iraq was sponsoring terrorists who had attacked us on 9/11, and that Iraq had purchased nuclear materials from Niger. All three of those turned out to be false."

In a move that would have gotten Bill Clinton crucified by the press, Bush simply denied he ever said anything of the sort: "First, just if I might correct a misperception. I don't think we ever said -- at least I know I didn't say that there was a direct connection between September the 11th and Saddam Hussein. We did say that he was a state sponsor of terror -- by the way, not declared a state sponsor of terror by me, but declared by other administrations...But I don't want to be argumentative, but I was very careful never to say that Saddam Hussein ordered the attacks on America." And, sure, yeah, technically, he may be right.

So let's see: On February 9, 2003, Bush said, "Prior to September the 11th, there was apparently no connection between a place like Iraq and terror. Oh, sure, he had run some terrorist networks out of his country, and that was of concern to us. But it was very difficult to link a terrorist network and Saddam Hussein to the American soil...The world changed on September the 11th."

Or like, in his 2003 State of the Union, he said, "Before September the 11th, many in the world believed that Saddam Hussein could be contained. But chemical agents, lethal viruses and shadowy terrorist networks are not easily contained. Imagine those 19 hijackers with other weapons and other plans -- this time armed by Saddam Hussein."

But, fuck it, yeah, sure, he told us to imagine a Saddamn-led 9/11, he implied an almost direct connection between the 9/11 terrorists and Iraq, but, no, guess he didn't say, "Iraq attacked America." Tou-fuckin'-che'.

Onward and upward to live-bloggin' today:
Every time Bush speaks in this current press conference that's being held as the Rude Pundit types, the layers of irony are almost overwhelming. When Bush says that "Iran is walking away from international agreements," one can almost smell the Geneva Conventions burning.

It's a bullshit press conference. It's a constant repetition of the same nonsense he's been saying since 2001. It's more of the same "I know what I'm doing, you worthless shits, and you just shut the fuck up and believe me." When Helen Thomas attempted to challenge him about why the Iraq invasion happened, it's like he had an early 2003 flashback, talking about oceans protecting us (someone mention that to the bones of the censured Andrew Jackson-tell him that oceans kept us safe in 1812), and then, of all fuckin' things, saying that we had to "disarm" Saddam Hussein. And when dear, ballsy Helen Thomas deigned to ask a follow-up, Bush shoved her into the street, laughing at her broken hip. Mostly, Bush just sounds like Plankton, the evil microbe on Spongebob Squarepants, talking louder so people will think he knows what he's talking about.

"I'm havin' this press conference so I can tell you what's on mah mind. What's on mah mind is winnin' this war on terror," he says. When he talks about winnin' this war, he sounds like a paranoiac who sees roaches out of the corners of his eyes, swatting at phantom bugs because he might actually kill a real one some day.

Just embarassing, this man, this Bush, this President, our President. Like when you see an Alzheimer's patient at a nursing home stare at you, lost in the past, while he shits himself. He doesn't realize it, but you feel so ashamed for him. And for yourself.

Fuck it. The Rude Pundit's tunin' out. More on this nightmare tomorrow.

Three Years In Three Games:
Game 1 - The More Things Change, the Vaguer They Become:
See if you can tell the differences between the following quotes:
President Bush in his March 20, 2004 radio address marking the first anniversary of the Iraq War: "The fall of the Iraqi dictator has removed a source of violence, aggression, and instability from the Middle East. The worst regime in the region was given way to what will soon be among the best. The demands of the United Nations were enforced, not ignored with impunity. Years of illicit weapons development by the dictator have come to an end. The Iraqi people are now receiving aid, instead of suffering under sanctions."

President Bush in his March 19, 2005 radio address marking the second anniversary of the Iraq War: "Before coalition forces arrived, Iraq was ruled by a dictatorship that murdered its own citizens, threatened its neighbors, and defied the world. We knew of Saddam Hussein's record of aggression and support for terror. We knew of his long history of pursuing, even using, weapons of mass destruction, and we know that September the 11th requires our country to think differently. We must, and we will, confront threats to America before they fully materialize."

President Bush in his March 18, 2006 radio address marking the third anniversary of the Iraq War: "The decision by the United States and our Coalition partners to remove Saddam Hussein from power was a difficult decision -- and it was the right decision. America and the world are safer today without Saddam Hussein in power. He is no longer oppressing the Iraqi people, sponsoring terror, and threatening the world. He is now being tried for his crimes, and over 25 million Iraqis now live in freedom."

Can you spot the differences?

Game 2 - Top the Rumsfeld:
In yesterday's Washington Post, Secretary of (putative) Defense Donald Rumsfeld declared that Iraq was going jim-spankin'-dandy, saying, unironically, that the majority of the Iraqi people don't want violence in their streets and homes. Apparently, what the majority of the Iraqis want is important to Rumsfeld, but what the majority of Americans want is not. Such are the burdens of leadership in this crazy world, are they not?

Then Rumsfeld drags out the hyperbole feather and starts tickling his balls with it, pronouncing that "Turning our backs on postwar Iraq today would be the modern equivalent of handing postwar Germany back to the Nazis. It would be as great a disgrace as if we had asked the liberated nations of Eastern Europe to return to Soviet domination because it was too hard or too tough or we didn't have the patience to work with them as they built free countries." Others can dissect the patent absurdity of the comparisons, which are just another way to fluff this grubby little conflict into the full tumescence of a great and mighty war for right and goodness. (Oh, and, by the way, did you know we were in postwar Iraq? Strange the way that it looks like wartime Iraq.)

Instead, let's play a game the Rude Pundit likes to call "Top the Rumsfeld." Here's how it goes. Come up with a metaphor for the Iraq War that beats Rumsfeld for both absurdity and aptness. Like this:
Our staying in Iraq is like a rapist kidnapping the woman he's raped and keeping her bound and gagged, nude in a closet so he can take her out at will and rape her again, coming up with new and disgusting ways to penetrate her, and even after she's dead, he keeps raping her until she falls to pieces, after which he rapes the pieces until finally there's nothing left to stick his cock into so he just fucks the air where he wishes she still was.

See? Disturbing? Yeah. Disgusting? You fuckin' bet. So's Rumsfeld. And so's the goddamn war.

Game 3 - Which wounded Iraq War vet story is sadder?:
Is it Army Staff Sgt. John Quincy Adams who received a head injury from a bomb while on patrol in August 2003, who can't drive at all or speak well or remember some things, but "still supports the war and thinks democracy will eventually triumph in Iraq," as the former National Guardsman says?

Or is it former Army Spc. Robert Acosta, who lost his hand and had his left leg torn up from picking up a grenade that had been tossed in his Humvee, who joined Operation Truth and goes to high schools to speak against the war and against students signing up for the military; as Acosta says, "I show a video and talk to them. I try to tell them that everything the recruiters say is not true, and that there are alternatives to joining the military"?

Two men, both injured in that heady first year of war, when there was still hope for finding WMDs and the elusive Saddam/Osama connection. Which one would you choose? Who is it easier for? The one who believes he was injured for something good? Or the one who is trying to stop others from being injured or killed?

Don't worry. We'll be able to return to these games, these conundrums, next year.

Family Research Council: Foreign Gay Athletes Stay Home:
So, like, the Gay Games in Chicago are set for July of this year. The Gay Games are like the Olympics, except with better clothes and a smidgen more steamy, steroidal guy-on-guy action. In a surprising act of decency, the federal government decided to grant waivers to athletes to its draconian "let's-keep-the-homos-out" policy of barring international travelers with HIV/AIDS from entering the United States. So the Gay Games is now considered a federal Designated Event, thus the granting of the waiver for most of the month of July. This happened in mid-February.

Cue the Religious Right.

The Family Research Council (motto: "Telling Idiots What Jesus Would Do For Over Twenty Years") just discovered that the waiver was being allowed and, since anything that smacks of pleasures of the cock and cunt make its members quake and foam at the mouth in repressed concupiscent rage, FRC President Tony Perkins sent out an e-mail that reads, in part: "Imagine my surprise when I learned that the U.S. Government has granted 'Designated Event Status' to the 2006 Gay Games to be held in Chicago this July. The 'Gay Games' are an event known as much for after-hours sexual activity as for on-field athletic competition. In fact, on the official Chicago Gay Games web site just as much emphasis is put on 'entertainment' as on the event itself. This entertainment includes links to bathhouses and clubs where illicit and illegal activity is allowed."

The links that Perkins is clenching his ass cheeks are listed on the sponsors page, and include such places as the fine Chicago nightclub Spin, the comfy gay and lesbian bar Sidetrack, and, yes, Steamworks, a mini-chain of bathhouses, where male athletes can practice their squats and thrusts while getting slippery wet and covered in cum. These are, indeed, sponsors, as are Walgreens, Kraft, Orbitz, and Merrill Lynch, among others.

But, see, Perkins doesn't have his dick in a knot about the "gay" part. Oh, no. Perkins is concerned about disease and the health of Americans. Says Creepy Tony, "The tragedy is that there are Americans who may well be infected with a deadly disease as a direct result of this most unwise decision. Why should this administration feel the need to bow to the politically correct crowd?" What should you do about it? Perkins is there to guide you: "Please contact the Office of the Citizenship and Immigration Services Ombudsman within the Department of Homeland Security. Ask the office to revoke this almost unprecedented waiver. Human lives are at stake."

And, indeed, the FRC has prepared for you an e-mail to send to Michael Chertoff, where you tell the head of Homeland Security not to get those fuckin' ports secure or resign over Katrina. No, no, you tell him, "Inviting thousands of HIV-infected visitors to a 'Gay Games' celebration that promotes these activities will only put Chicagoans at risk and help spread HIV. (More than 60 percent of male AIDS cases in Illinois involve 'men who have sex with men,' according to the Illinois Department of Public Health.)" See, it's just that the FRC cares about all of us that they wanna keep the HIV-positive gay athletes out.

The Illinois Family Institute has gone after Walgreens for its $100,000 sponsorship (as well as Chicago Mayor Daley for being an Honorary Co-Chair of the Games). At least the IFI ain't hidin' behind the skirt of the "spread of disease" and is outright hatin' them some fags. In a hilarious postscript to his letter to Walgreens, IFI President (with the name of a drag queen) Peter LaBarbera: "I read in your web bio that North Dakota is your home state. I certainly don't think that Walgreens' sponsorship of the 'Gay Games' is something that most North Dakota citizens would be proud of. Actually, I think the same could be said for Illinois and every other state in the union. Please reconsider the implications of this corporate decision." That's right - when all else fails, bring out the threat of gay bashing by cowboys. (Insert yer own fuckin' Brokeback Mountain joke here.)

See, the FRC is crafty in that it hides its hate and intolerance underneath the veneer of "health threat," as if thousands of HIV-positive queers will descend on Chicago and spread plague faster than the nascent bird flu, like it'll be 28 Days Later through ass fucking and cocksucking. Prior to this tactic, the Christian Right had just gone after sponsors, with the American Family Institute asserting that the Gay Games are merely a chance for gays to act all icky and, well, gay, and how dare these hot, ripped men look like they're enjoying their lives, you know? (The Rude Pundit loves the warning on the AFA's page that "These photos are provided for informational purposes," so no jackin' off to 'em.) And Kraft, dear Kraft, whither our Velveeta without you?

Now, though, the FRC is acting like it's 1985 or so, hysterical, uninformed, playing on ignorance and fear, condemning those who might have a disease. Just like, you know, Jesus would do.

Questions of Decency:
The episode of the CBS show Without a Trace titled "Our Sons and Daughters," the one with a teen "orgy" scene, originally aired on November 6, 2003. A re-airing of the episode, on New Year's Eve 2004, led to the largest fine in FCC history being imposed yesterday on CBS and its stations that aired said orgy, $3.63 million.

The orgy itself, available for viewing at the Parents Television Council's website as part of a bizarre little video of "TV's Worst 2001-2004," is pretty benign stuff as far as orgies go. It's a bunch of quick-cut flashbacks of MTV-ready teenage guys and girls drinking, caressing, making the motions of sex, with vague thrusting and bending over. It's kind of squalid and sordid, but, sure, it's teens having sex. Actually, for maximum effect, let's let the FCC give the description:

"The December 31, 2004 episode at issue concerns an FBI investigation into the disappearance and possible rape of a high school student. During an interrogation, a witness recalls a party held at the home of a teenager. As she recounts the details of the party, the program cuts to a 'flashback' scene. The scene -- which forms the basis of the viewer complaints -- consists of a series of shots of a number of teenagers engaged in various sexual activities, including sex between couples and among members of a group. Although the scene contains no nudity, it does depict male and female teenagers in various stages of undress. The scene also includes at least three shots depicting intercourse, two between couples and one 'group sex' shot. In the culminating shot of the scene, the witness exclaims to the others in the party that the victim is a 'porn star.' The action briefly returns to the present, as the witness pauses in her story, then the flashback resumes, as the victim is shown wearing bra and panties, straddled on top of one male character, while two other male characters kiss her breast near the bra strap. The lower portion of the panties is shaded, but she is shown moving up and down while the male teenager thrusts his hips into her crotch."

In an unintentionally (one hopes) phallic analysis, the FCC says, "We find that the material meets the first prong of the indecency test. While no nudity is shown, it is clear, as detailed above, that the scene depicts numerous sexual activities." The problem, though, is not really the "indecency." No, the problem is that the "shocking and titillating" material was broadcast at 9 p.m. in the Central and Mountain time zones. "Therefore," says the FCC, "there is a reasonable risk that children may have been in the viewing audience and the broadcast is legally actionable." Of course, had not the Parents Television Council and other right wing groups not "alerted" their members to something that probably a good many of them hadn't even viewed, there would not have been the number of complaints and no one would give a damn.

As noted above, the episode was originally broadcast on November 6, 2003.

On the evening of November 7, 2003, over in Iraq, Corporal Charles Graner was beating new prisoners at Abu Ghraib and forcing them to strip off their clothes. In the course of the night, Graner, Lynndie England, Ivan Frederick II, Sabrina Harman, Jeremy Sivits, and Megan Ambuhl would slap, punch, and jump on the seven prisoners. They'd force them to make human pyramids, make them pretend to give each other oral sex, and more. There's photos of it. And video. The soldiers were giddy with power, smiling and giving the thumbs up sign. They believed what they were doing was fine, that no one would care, for, indeed, most of the time, one who believes he or she is committing a crime does not take photos or video of the crime.

One wonders how many of those who complained to the FCC about the televised pseudo-orgy on CBS gave more than a passing thought to what went on at Abu Ghraib, one wonders if they bothered to write letters or make phone calls about that indecency. Perhaps they did; more likely they did not. But, then again, the torture of the prisoners in Iraq that night took place after 10 p.m., after the family hour. And then it can't affect the children, can it?

Message To Democrats: Supporting Feingold Is the Path To Enlightenment:
The air is filthy with signs of Democratic weakness, ripe with the odor of flop sweat and self-shitting. Perhaps one of the more puissant signs is the near absence on the Democratic National Committee website of mention of Senator Russ Feingold's call for censure of the President for the illegal domestic spying program. It's only referenced once, in the DNC's blog, as a way to criticize odious bastard Wayne Allard for saying that Feingold is "siding with terrorists" for believing that the Constitution of the United States actually gives the Congress power to hold the Executive branch accountable for lawbreaking.

Meanwhile, Senate Minority Leader Harry Reid said he hoped that Feingold's move would make the Republican whores in the Senate Intelligence Committee stop being the White House's whores and allow an investigation of the surveillance program. Joe Lieberman, that strange, sad little man who fucks for money but refuses to call himself a "whore," said, "Frankly, I'd prefer to spend our time figuring out ways to bring this very important program of surveillance of potential terrorists here in the United States under the law." Which is not unlike saying, "Right now, it's against the law" or "Instead of punishing the rapist, let's legalize rape."

God, no wonder Feingold said, "Democrats run and hide" from the administration and are "cowering" before the incredibly unpopular President. Feingold must be stunned, like a soldier leading his machine gun-toting men into battle who then run screaming away from the rock-throwing enemy. The censure issue should be on the front of every Democrat's website, with press releases and interviews sticking to a single talking point: President broke the law. Feingold knows it's a black and white issue, as he tried to explain to sexily dim Soledad O'Brien Monday on CNN in response to O'Brien's quoting of Bill Frist on the issue, "Many of his colleagues on the Republican side, senators, have said repeatedly since we've found out about this eavesdropping program in December, that it wasn't legal. In fact, some are saying, well, it's illegal, so let's make it legal. What does that tell you? That means they're admitting the president broke the law of the United States of America."

What the rest of the Democratic Party ain't gettin' is that the nation is fuckin' begging for the party to stand up and say, "Enough." Bush's poll numbers are in the tank despite non-stop coverage of every flea fart of a speech he gives, despite the political talk shows being filled to swelling with Republicans and Joe Lieberman saying how goddamned wonderful the President is, except for a minor thing here or there, like, you know, the war; with the bloviators of the air and of the Congress saying that it's unpatriotic to question the President; and without any serious news organization or investigative body exposing the rotten worm and maggot-filled underbelly of all the scandal that's eating away the nation. Turn that log over, and you'll retch from the disgusting sights and smells. Still, still, the public is done with this President. So you know what? Here's the big fuckin' conclusion, so listen the fuck up:

Democrats are makin' one huge miscalculation in staying away from Feingold's motion for censure. They are being played by the Republicans, who are scared shitless that they'll be forced to go on record, with a vote, that they support the illegal activities of the White House. So they are lashing out, calling Feingold a "traitor" and double dog daring Democrats to support him. Looking at how loudly the Republicans are screaming. As the Democratic Leadership Council's Marshall Wittman said, "The Republicans couldn't contain their glee over an attempt to censure the president for being overly zealous in defending the country against al-Qaeda." The DLC are a bunch of tools, idiots for whom triangulation is resistance. And they're wrong about the Republican huffing and puffing. It's a Rovean bluff. Call that fucker. Back Feingold and the public will follow you to 2006 and 2008 because you actually said enough is, indeed, enough.

Here we Democrats sit, staring longingly like puppies at the pound, hoping that some kind stranger will take us home when, instead, we should be motherfuckin' pit bulls, ready to tear some ass, daring the dog catchers to put us down.

Bush on Iraq: Yep, We're Gonna Get More Americans Killed and Wounded:
President Bush was introduced at his twenty-thousandth speech on how great things'll be if we just let him do his thang in Iraq yesterday by Clifford May, President of the organization hosting the event, the Foundation for the Defense of Democracies, although most of us know him as that little bearded fuck always screeching his head off on Fox "News" and CNN. He is a loyalist in that he is essentially a regurgitation machine for Republican talking points.

Some of the Rude Pundit's favorite Clifford May moments involve him being completely, utterly, awfully, wonderfully wrong, like on October 23, 2003 on CNN's American Morning: "We can't cut and run. We can't leave it to the U.N. They can't fight this. We have to beat the enemy in Iraq. And help the Iraqi people establish a decent society and I don't think that's going to take terribly long." Or maybe on September 28, 2002, on CNN: "We do know, do we not, that Saddam Hussein has connections with terrorists, has weapons of mass destruction, is not rational, and he hates us." Well, fuck, battin' .500 ain't bad. Unless, you know, you're sendin' people out to die.

But, hey, such sycophancy is exactly what President Bush needs when he's, one more time, "laying out the case" for whatever the fuck is going on in Iraq and whatever the fuck the goal is there. And Bush slathered on the praise for the FDD, a group filled with people, even with Joe Lieberman and a couple of other token Democrats in it, whose basic philosophy seems to be "Bomb the fuckers." And "Give us money."

Then, once again, as ever, the speech turned inward, to another litany of "Things I Has Said" and "Things I Will Say": "Immediately after the [Golden Mosque] attack, I said that Iraq faced a moment of choosing" and "We have a comprehensive strategy for victory in Iraq -- a strategy I laid out in a series of speeches last year" and "At the end of last year, I described in detail many of the changes we have made to improve the training of Iraqi security forces" and "When I reported on the progress of the Iraqi security forces last year, I said that there were over 120 Iraqi and police combat battalions [sic] in the fight against the enemy" and "I assured General Meigs that he will have the funding and personnel he needs to succeed" and, of course, the promise of more to come, "In the coming weeks, I will update the American people on our strategy." As ever, the approach to the President's speeches seems to be to layer them with lines that are meant to tell us, "No, really, I'm in charge, I'm runnin' shit, I actually do somethin'."

And even though this speech was somewhat more "honest" about all the violence and horror going on in Iraq, which, one suspects, means that the media is allowed to report on it without being condemned for not telling the "full" story, the speech still ended with the threat of sending more U.S. soldiers to die. After exploiting the letter of a grieving mother demanding more blood for her son's death, Bush added, "We will not let your loved ones' dying be in vain. We will finish what we started in Iraq. We will complete the mission." But, shit, at least 9/11 was only mentioned four times.

Of course, there's a world of difference between speaking about reality and facing it. A man can understand that his old dog's got cancer, is blind and deaf, and pisses more inside than out. A man can know that the humane thing to do is put that old bastard down. But that doesn't mean that the man is going to do it, that he can't let go, that he's just gonna watch that dog suffer and slowly, horribly slip away.

Two Senators, One President, One Weekend, and a Pair of Possible Futures:
One would like to think that it causes John McCain actual, physical pain to bend over and lick George Bush's anus. Not the act of giving the rim job, but the bending waist, half-bent knees, the body in general, all have to be aching from his Vietnam War torture injuries whenever McCain does one of his public asshole lappings of the President. While at the Southern Republican Leadership Conference, which was surprisingly not a KKK meeting, McCain proclaimed for all to see that he loved the taste of Bush's sphincter, as he asked the gathered delegates to write-in Bush's name for a straw poll on who they wanna have fer President in 2008. It was perhaps the gayest action at a Republican event since Richard Nixon and Roy Cohn performed a duet of "Anything Goes" in drag at the 1952 Republican Convention.

In his speech at the SRLC this past Friday and in his "private" conversations with the President, John McCain sacrificed whatever phantoms of "maverick"-ness he still had surrounding him. As Paul Krugman says today, McCain is just another ultra-right-winger who happens to have done one or two things that make it seem as if he's not. He's all talk, McCain is, a chipmunk-cheeked blowhard who, like every other Republican, makes noises that he's independent and free-thinking when, in reality, like Olympia Snowe, like Arlen Specter, like Chuck Hagel, he's just in a line waiting for Karl Rove to let him into the Oval Office washroom so he can lick Bush's asshole clean. Rove calls McCain after Bush has had another bad delivery tamale lunch.

In our Fox "News"-infected world, "straight talk" means about as much as "fair and balanced" and "no-spin zone." When, as McCain did this past weekend, you can say of a man who defends policies on torture, policies that break the laws of the nation, laws you swore to uphold, "We should all just keep our personal ambitions a distant second to standing with the president ... in good times and bad. ... He's our president, and the only one that needs our support today," then you have placed all your chips on red, and you better hope that motherfucker doesn't drop on black.

Meanwhile, on Sunday, McCain's Democratic cohort on campaign finance reform, Russ Feingold, said on This Week With George Stephanopoulos's Hair that he was going to introduce a resolution for the Senate to censure the President for the NSA spying scandal. Simply stating that the President broke the law and should be held accountable for that, Feingold's quixotic action was not only immediately dismissed by Senate Majority Leader Bill Frist, a man who is so far up Bush's ass that McCain has to shove his feet aside in order to give a proper rimming, but the Republican National Committee, led, of course, by Ken "Mr. President, I'll Go Down On Your Ass Whenever You Ask" Mehlman, savagely attacked Feingold.

Spat the RNC: "Sen. Feingold's out of touch attack demonstrates, once again, that Democrats are willing to play politics with the most important issue facing the American people. Attempting to harness angry partisanship for short-term political gain does nothing to make America safer and everything to detract from President Bush's continued efforts to aggressively fight the War on Terror. Not only is Senator Feingold's approach a disservice to those who work tirelessly to protect America, it sends the wrong message to our enemies." Not to dissect such a tired argument too far, but it ain't too far a leap to think that if George W. Bush fed roofies in chocolate eggs to the children at the White House Easter egg hunt and then went crazy fucking all the children one or two at a time and Russ Feingold felt that it might be proper to censure Bush for drugging and raping children, the RNC would put out the exact same statement.

Oh, and the RNC lists all the times that Feingold voted against the Patriot Act, a record that Feingold ain't exactly runnin' from.

There you go: two visions of the President - one as the steadfast leader, fightin' against polls and partisanship to wage a good fight against those who would try to kill us; the other as a craven liar and lawbreaker who has done more harm to this nation than our enemies could have ever hoped to do. Just as we must give up the illusion of McCain as a moderate, we need to give up on the notion that there is such a thing as middle ground.

Laura Bush Talks; No One Gives a Shit:
Unless it's "Jesus Christ, you're on fire" or "Let me lick that clean for you," the Rude Pundit doesn't give a happy monkey fuck what Laura Bush has to say. The Rude Pundit doesn't give a lonely rat turd what Laura Bush has to say about gangs. The Rude Pundit doesn't give a retarded dog drool what Laura Bush has to say about the Olympics. And the Rude Pundit really, really doesn't give a bloated weasel carcass about what Laura Bush has to say when it comes to Hurricane Katrina relief.

But there she was, the woman who allows her husband, the buffoonish destroyer of freedom, liberty, and lives to shove his cock in her plucked Marion-the-goddamn-librarian twat. Christ, sex between them must be like watching a circus clown fuck a balloon animal. And she was standin' by her Emmett Kelly as he of the sad face talked about Katrina recovery efforts with all the enthusiasm of a sixth grader givin' a book report about The Old Man and the Sea, adding his personal touch, a reminiscence about getting fucked up in the Big Easy: "I've always had a soft spot in my heart for Louisiana. Some of you might recall I grew up across the line, over there in Texas, and really enjoyed my stay here when I came." And then it was Laura's turn.

The national pulse flatlines when Laura Bush speaks. And everyone's so goddamned enthusiastic about her because the end of one of her speeches is like getting an electric jolt to the failing heart: "Shit, it's over, I'm still alive, musta been great." In New Orleans (and in Mississippi), Laura droned on about the Laura Bush Foundation, which is not, it turns out, a place for researching the proper care and maintenance of a Brazilian pube job, but is actually a charity for the nation's school libraries. Apparently, according to Laura, what the residents of the Gulf Coast need is not more trailers to live in so they can rebuild their shattered lives and property. What they need are grants to build back school libraries. Between 50 and a hundred grand. And the best part? It's competitive. So the destroyed Salmen High School in Slidell, Louisiana will have to compete with a destroyed high school in Waveland, Mississippi for the money.

Now, the point here ain't that books fer schools is a bad idea. It's that the White House deemed it so fuckin' important to get sympathetic Laura down there with mucho hated George in order to express a little love. It's that when Laura said, in that chilling, robotic, faux motherly voice of hers, the one that when Jenna hears it on the phone, she's gotta snort coke until it clogs her brain in order to block the bad thoughts, "We all know that schools are at the center of every child's life, and the routine of going to school gives children a sense of comfort that's more important than ever for boys and girls who've endured trauma. The sooner children are back in their own school, the happier and healthier they'll be," all the Rude Pundit could think was, yeah, and you know what'd really help out with the kids' trauma? Knowin' where they're gonna live. Which a fuckuva lot of kids still don't know.

Laura was sent to the Gulf Coast to talk about something nice, like a soldier giving chocolate to the kids of a village his platoon just blew the shit out of. But after listening to the President blame Congress for the failure of Katrina recovery funds getting to the area, it was just so much eye-rolling bullshit, an ice pack after you've been kicked in the balls. Yeah, thanks, but in the end, you'd've preferred not being kicked in the balls.

By the way, the Rude Pundit won't even get into how much he doesn't give a jolly aardvark suck about what Laura Bush has to say about Women's History Month and International Women's Day. Let's just leave it at her own words: "There are encouraging signs for progress for women in many parts of the world, and I'm proud to be married to a man whose policies promote this success." Flatlined once again.

The Alabama Church Fires: The Joke's On Who?:
Exactly what the joke was when Benjamin Moseley and Russell Debusk, Jr. set churches on fire near Birmingham, Alabama is yet to be mentioned. But the two college students have admitted it was a "prank" that got out of hand, like dumping a bucket of pig's blood on Carrie at the prom, which, as we know, didn't go over too well, either. Still, we know at least some of the people who were the butt of the church fire joke.

Here's Chris Matthews on Feb. 3's My Balls Are Hard, speculating with ATF Special Agent James Cavanaugh on a motive, in this case, crazy mad liberals gone wild:

"MATTHEWS: Is there anything in the papers down there where the Baptist Church has taken a position on some social issue: gay marriage -- something that's hot -- where that would have aroused somebody?

"CAVANAUGH: I haven't seen that, Chris, but it's very viable, because, you know, we had an arson of a Unitarian church in rural Virginia back in the summer and it was right after the church, on a national level, had embraced some gay members. And then there was an attack on this church in Staunton, Virginia, so things like that can happen.

"MATTHEWS: That's why I'm thinking like that, because the more liberal churches would drive some people on the right crazy and maybe a more liberal person who is gay for example would feel that they've been terrorized by the beliefs of another church too. We don't know."

No, no, we didn't know, but Chris "Thin Lips Means Less Slobbery Blow Jobs" Matthews couldn't help but think it was a crazy gay liberal who couldn't stand - what? The interior design of the churches?

Of course, it might not have been specifically a gay liberal, just someone who hated hisself some Jesus, as John Giles of the Alabama Christian Coalition opined on Rita "Gargly Voice Means Ticklish Blow Jobs" Cosby's MSNBC show on Feb. 7: "[T]here's some common denominators here, as you well know. They're all Baptist churches. They're all rural and hidden areas. And of course, one of the common denominators, as Ron just brought out, is the fact that these fires have been started in the pulpit and on the communion table area. Now, somebody is certainly sending a message to Christianity in Alabama. I'm not sure we know what that message is, but somebody's certainly sending a strong message." And that strong message appears to be that setting more fires doesn't really cover your tracks on the other fires you've set.

Columnist Jeff "Hairy Face Means Ticklish Blow Jobs, Too" Jacoby got himself all into a huff and puff about the church fires, calling them an anti-Christian "hate crime." Jacoby got riled like a titmouse tryin' to squeeze into a tiny knothole, sayin' that if it had been "10 gay bookstores and bars in San Francisco" or "10 Detroit-area mosques and halal restaurants" and then usin' the fires as an excuse to attack the idea of hate crimes, without, really, coming to any point.

And the leader of the Christian Defense Coalition, Rev. Pat Mahoney, condemned the Bush administration for not making a statement about the church fires, despite having condemned the bombing of the Golden Mosque in Samarra, Iraq. Wept Mahoney, "Sadly, these attacks may now be spreading to Christian businesses and other Christian places of worship. With an entire community living in fear, it is important that Mr. Bush provide leadership and assurance that the federal government is doing all within their power to apprehend those behind these hate filled attacks." With the Christians of Alabama apparently cowering under the covers, their Bibles in their shaky hands, whispering jittery prayers as they tried to calm their violence-shattered nerves, Mahoney continued with a Jacoby-worthy analogy: "I am troubled by the lack of the public response by the White House especially when one considers how they may have responded if ten abortion clinics were burned in eight days." But we know how Mahoney would have responded to such an act: he'd've broken out the marshmallows.

Jacoby's column is right about one thing: throughout the whole investigation, the media desperately wanted this to be racially motivated. It would be an easier narrative to grasp than chaos, randomness, a pair of stupid fucks doing what stupid fucks do, which is stupid fuckery. And, failing that, how desperately some want this to turn out to be the work of queer leftists who wanna re-crucify Christ or burn 'em at the stake or some such shit. Then they could do the same to the church wreckers.

Spyin' and Lyin':
Sweet Jesus, the lies we must live with, the litany of falsehoods that all of us must commit in order to exist in this world. There's a paper trail of our lies - we may wish to call them "hypocrisies," but, indeed, they are nothing but lies. Somewhere there's a yearbook buried in an attic where, in your junior high scrawl, you promised the yearbook's owner, "Friends 4ever," written for someone who is a memory, a ghost, a whisper, a forgotten thing, like an old rag doll. There's boxes and drawers of love letters, sweet commitments to so many people, each one of whom, you believed, fully, with the entirety of what you call your heart, that you thought this person was the one. But time changes us, does it not? Time changes us and the heart clicks into a new position, and those things we swore, all the future promises, all the endearments and turns of phrase saying that there would be more, more of time, more of learning about each other, all of that is gone, gone, gone. But somewhere, someone's got that box, got those words. And that someone knows the truth: that you are actually a liar, and you shift in the winds of circumstance.

So it is when we look at Senator Olympia Snowe's website, we see that she proudly keeps her box of lies open for all to see. For there, in the press release section, is her proclamation of independence from the Executive branch, a statement of the necessity of Congress to engage in its constitutional duties of oversight, calling on a joint inquiry between the Intelligence and Judiciary Committees to look into the President's domestic spying program. Bucking her party's touted "discipline," which means, in fact, sucking the President's asshole until you're huffin' nothin' but Texas burrito farts, Snowe said, "Revelations that the U.S. government has conducted domestic electronic surveillance without express legal authority indeed warrants Congressional examination. I believe the Congress – as a coequal branch of government – must immediately and expeditiously review the use of this practice."

And to show just how fuckin' tough and independent she is, she joined three Democrats and brave fellow Republican Chuck Hagel in a letter to the chairs and ranking members of the committees, saying, "We strongly believe that the Judiciary and Intelligence Committees should immediately seek to answer the factual and legal questions which surround these revelations, and recommend appropriate action to the Senate."

That, of course, was in December 2005. Now, Snowe says that Congress's role ain't review or searches for answers. It's to pass an ass-coverin' worthless piece o' crap law to make it look like the Republicans have done something, except, you know, that whole oversight and coequal bullshit she spouted earlier. Said Snow of the 45-day warrantless search plus more charming visits from Alberto "We Don't Need No Stinkin' FISA" Gonzales approach to the issue, "We are reasserting Congressional responsibility and oversight" or, in other words, pass me some of that ass, Mr. President, we gots some huffin' to do. And she certainly ain't bogartin' the Bush ass pipe. Chuck Hagel's suckin' those farts, too.

And why? Because Kansas Senator Pat Roberts is a toady, a compliant wad of fuck, of whom the most generous thing that can be said is that Karl Rove must have pictures of Chippendale's dancers rubbing their scrotums on his bald head as he laughs, but who is more likely just another useless, desperate petty power-clinger who's tied his wagon to George Bush's star and will stay on until that fucker supernovas.

Once again, after makin' a ton of noise that they're gonna work with the Democrats, Republicans abandoned them, which oughta be some kind of lesson: we're talkin' the supposed "good" Republicans, the alleged moderates who'll vote for Alito and give the President as much power as he desires. The Democrats could filibuster the shit out of the bill once, as Roberts says, "Congress works its will." But chances are, beaten like curs again, they'll just slink into the alleys near the Capitol and lick themselves, growling madly about missing the bone again.

Roberts said the most unintentionally funny thing of the whole deal: "We should fight the enemy. We should not fight each other." But what if the enemy is us?

The Solution For South Dakota: More Fucking:
Here's what we do: the age of consent in South Dakota is 16 years old, so this'll be easy. We gotta get a bunch of the smoothest black motherfuckers around, sweet-talkin', hot lookin' African American males, we're talkin' some Terence Howard or Andre 3000 or Taye Diggs-lookin' and actin' dudes, and get 'em on board for a mission to South Dakota, where the past-the-age-of-consent (which is, by the way, 16) white pussies are tight and virginal and ready for fuckin'.

Then we organize us a concert, say a double bill of Common and John Legend, maybe a mini-tour of the fine, repressed towns of Pierre, the ironically-named Deadwood, and the even more ironically-named Sioux Falls, places where meth use and HIV infections due to IV drug abuse are flyin' high.

Invite all the fine Christian youth groups, young women only past the age of consent, which is, as has been mentioned, sixteen, to the concert, and let them listen to Common for a little while. All of a sudden, in their pure white panties, they'll start feelin' sticky and strange, like they did for just a moment when they saw Michael W. Smith in concert, but now it's so much more intense, much hotter, and so goddamn-oops- damn tingly, and, what the hey? No one's makin' 'em feel guilty for it.

Then, the trap set, the troop of smooth black dudes heads into the club or American Legion Hall to start dancin' with the beautiful, snow-white daughters, all of whom are at least 16, of South Dakota. If a Taye Diggs-lookin' man is whisperin' in your ear, movin' slow to that groove, while John Legend is singin' "Let's Get Lifted Again," you are goin' to promise to do anything to fuck that man.

Which, of course is the end result of the evening. Fuckin'. Lots of fuckin'. All consensual. All without drugs or alcohol. All above 16. Just pure, passionate, oh, shit, ain't this fun, fuckin'. The cherry poppin' noises'll make it sound like New Year's Eve. Those upstandin' Christian white girls'll be shoutin' their "Hallelujahs" and "Amens" and really know what those words mean.

And when the night is over? Well, shit, it's South Dakota, man. Get those guys out of there. Fast. You seen how they treat the Indians who live there? How do you think they're gonna treat visitin' non-whites?

Over the next few weeks, months even, as periods are missed and crocodile tears are shed (for, indeed, there will be few real regrets), you can pretty much bet that abortion on demand will become the law of the land in South Dakota so fast that it'll seem that yesterday never happened.

How To Start a Civil War in the Republican Party, Part 2:
Last Friday, the Rude Pundit offered a very simple, economical way to use the Dubai Ports World deal in a Rovean strategy to exploit the fears and hatreds of Americans to the benefit of Democrats. Let's face it: one of the primary, if not the most powerful, ways, that Republicans have been able to gain and maintain power is through the deplorable (morally) but admirable (in the amoral world of politics) use of racism (with a good, solid dose of gay-bashing tossed in like a salad). Willie Horton, welfare mothers, illegal immigrants, dark-skinned terrorists. On each of these equations, Democrats were on the wrong side. Republicans were able to divide Democratic voters, steal a good many, make another bundle disgusted at the pathetic way that many Democrats responded, and, oh, lookie, Republican majorities to rule the land.

So the Rude Pundit believes that a bit of subtle infiltration, clever word usage, and questioning of loyalties will rip the Republican Party apart with all the disproportionate force of a car windshield on a mosquito. See, Karl Rove's great achievement has been to mobilize the base, as they say, and get all the sweaty, frothing, God-fearin', sexually repressed to self-loathing, ignorant to the point of near-violence citizens out to say that they want their sweaty, frothing, God-fearin' repression and ignorance codified into law. Call it the "Yahoo Strategem," and it's worked for Bush and for the Republicans who want to cling to power. The key, then, is to appeal to the same instincts to either keep the Republican base home in November or, heaven forfend, bring 'em back to the Democratic Party.

How does the Rude Pundit know it'll work? Check out the Decatur, Alabama paper's editorials on Bush threatening to veto any anti-DPW legislation and on the deal itself. Or howzabout the Hattieburg, Mississippi paper, the American, declaring, "The Bush administration needs to rescind the agreement." Or maybe we could head out west, where, in Helena, Montana, readers of the Independent Record responded overwhelmingly against the ports deal, with one reader throwing Bush's own words back at him: "Has the White House forgotten what happened on 9-11?" Yep, the Red States are bleedin' out over this issue, and they need a little poke before it all comes pourin' through.

Does this need to be spelled out? Yeah, there's a fuckuva lotta voters who'd rather lick broken glass than pull the lever (or push the button) for a Democrat. The key is makin' sure they don't go into the voting booth at all or vote for some fringe outsider (get that fat bastard Pat Buchanan to run for somethin').

As for Republicans who try to abandon the President on this issue, well, fuck, if you let the rats leave the sinking ship, all you've got are wet, scared, plague-ridden vermin polluting the streets. Tie their fuckin' tails to the yardarms, motherfucker. Make sure that Bush is synonymous with the United Arab Emirates and that Johnny and Jenny Republican are synonymous with Bush. It's gotta be as blatant as implyin' that Max Cleland loves Bin Laden for wantin' union protections in the Department of Homeland Security. Show Jenny Republican shakin' Bush's hand with a fuckin' UAE flag behind them. At some point, the rats will chew their own tails off, feed on each other, anything to save themselves. And the rest of us can just sit back and enjoy the bloodsport.

Again and again, you gotta keep your eyes on the prize: at least one house of Congress, maybe two, a Presidency in the offing. You may not have a soul at the end of the day, but you'll have power. And what good have the Democrats' souls done them in the last decade?

Update: John Aravosis offers more evidence of why the above will work.

Someone Keep the President Away From the Livestock:
This past week, the Rude Pundit posited that the President was distracted during the Katrina briefing because of memories of bovine intercourse with a favorite heifer. And then there's the picture of Bush with a water buffalo in India that, simply, proves the point.

This is not to mention, of course, My Pet Goat.

In the same post, the Rude Pundit called Bush the "anti-Midas," in that "everything he touches turns to shit." Blogger Rimone pointed out in an e-mail that he made the same analogy back in November 2005. In order to demonstrate that the Rude Pundit ain't a filthy plagiarist, just that "like minds..." and all that shit, props to Rimone for beatin' the Rude Pundit to the punch and jab.

Update: So, like, anti-Midas is, what? A trope? A meme? A cliche'? What the fuck ever. It's been used a fuck of a lot in reference to Bush. Oh, and Rimone is female. No, the Rude Pundit doesn't know if she's hot, available, or legal.