CNN:

Spectators, including some 9/11 family members, fell silent and [Bush] showed no immediate reaction.

"America, you lost," [Bush] taunted, clapping his hands as he left the courtroom. "I won." (Watch how [Bush] grew up surrounded by pain -- 3:07)
...
"[Bush] will quickly go away and slowly die," Tim Roemer, a former Democratic congressman from Indiana who served on the 9/11 commission, told CNN.

The jury had two choices -- death by injection or life in prison. The jury's rejection of the death penalty was viewed as a setback for the government.

"I certainly believe the verdict should have been death," said former New York Mayor Rudy Giuliani who testified against [Bush] during the trial's penalty phase.
...
[Jurors] twice heard from an unrepentant [Bush], who said he is willing to kill Americans "any time, anywhere." (Full story)
...
Three jurors decided [Bush] had only limited knowledge of the 9/11 plot and three described his role in the attacks as minor. A majority of the jurors found [Bush] endured a brutal childhood.
...
Defense focuses on mental illness

Defense attorneys focused on [Bush]'s mental health, calling experts who diagnosed him as a delusional paranoid schizophrenic. The jury heard that [Bush]'s troubled family history includes two [brother]s and an abusive [mother] who suffer from mental illness. (Full story)
...
[Bush] shows no remorse

On the witness stand, [Bush] displayed a complete lack of remorse for the 9/11 deaths, saying he was sorry only that the attacks weren't more lethal.

"I just wish it could have gone on the 12th, the 13th, the 14th, the 15th, the 16th, the 17th. We can go on and on," [Bush] said. "Like they say, no pain, no gain."

From David Ignatius' op-ed piece "The Man Who Won't Sell His Soul":

Some people (Bill Clinton comes to mind) have a knack for making easy compromises on the road to election, but McCain isn't one of them.

David Ignatius: You are a shitlicking asshole--an asshole that was itself excreted from the asshole of John McCain, reingested through that albinoid freak's bloodthirsty jaws, and then reshat out into the blood pooling on the floor of the WaPo offices.

Ken "Gay Jew" Mehlman was booed at an American Jewish Committee event when he claimed that Iraq was less dangerous to "our" "country" with Saddam Hussein out of power than with him in power. He was also told that the White House was not doing Israel any favors by linking Israel's "needs" with Republican howls for Iranian blood.

More.

Just felt like promoting my own comments from Scats' post below, because I think the topic's interesting. Anyway...

One of the commentators on Colbert (forget who) cited David Foster Wallace's claim about the negative power of irony. Of course Wallace is writing against irony (totally different time, context, type of irony)--the point of the commentator's use of Wallace's quote is to show that in the case of Colbert, standing before the actual em"bodi"ment of the Death Machine, the negative power of irony is the only *possible* weapon he can use--and he used it brilliantly.

I also really liked the (sometimes subtle, but usually not) distinction between the assuasive, affirmative (and therefore complicit and murderous) quality of the traditional "self-deprecatory" and "tongue-in-cheek-reference-to-recent-'scandalous'-news-item" type of humor customary at these types of dinners, and this one in particular. THAT, in fact, is the kind of "irony" that Wallace would want to attack--the type of irony that brackets (neuters) the attack-quality of the "joke" so as not to really attack.

The reason Colbert used the full negative power of irony so well as that all of his jokes delivered THROUGH the ironic negation a silent and totally positive and totally unironic accusation, condemnation, and righteous shaming.

File under "A" for "Ape, The."

I doubt any of you missed it, but just in case...

Stephen Colbert's speech at the White House Correspondents dinner is absolutely not to be missed.

Video and transcript are here.

Peter Daou's commentary on Colbert's reception in the press is here.

and Billmon's take on it is here.

Seeing Bush and the press whores get called corrupt to their faces at one of their own backslapping self-congratulatory events may be the best thing I've ever witnessed.


UPDATE:

If you like, you can thank him here.