From the WaPo's Dan Froomkin:

Bush's Secret [Shit] Dinner -- With the Press

About 50 members of the White House press corps accepted President Bush's invitation last night to come over to his house in Crawford, eat his [shit], drink his [shit], hang around the pool and [shit] with him -- while promising not to tell anyone what he said afterward.

It's something of a Bush tradition, a way of saying [fuck] you to journalists for whom an extended stay in the Crawford area is anything but a vacation.

And in spite of all the recent press demands for senior administration officials to [shit] on the record more often, the press corps can't resist an offer of [having their] face [shat on] with the president, pretty much no matter what the conditions.

Nevertheless, I'm told that several reporters expressed squeamishness about last night's [shit-fest], particularly as the press-pool vans drove by antiwar protester Cindy Sheehan's "Camp Casey" site. And later, a small handful watched askance as the rest [ate the shit of] Bush, following him around in packs every time he [shat].

Associated Press reports: "President Bush played host to the White House press corps Thursday night for a private off-the-record dinner [of shit] at his ranch.

"The casual affair of fried [shit], [shit] salad, [shit]slaw, homemade [shit] and chocolate-[shit] cookies followed a tradition in which Bush and his [rictus-turd], Laura, have the press covering his annual August vacation out to the their ranch in central Texas as a sort of [fuck]-you.

"The event was not held last year because of the busy campaign [theft]. The invitations to the reporters were issued on the condition that they not discuss [the shit they were eating, regurgitating and reingesting] at the event."

Sorry.

Digby has a great reflection on the generational post-traumatic stress disorder of the Democratic "Class of '72" (anti-war McGovern campaign) and their (d)evolution into the present ruling class of soulless inside-the-beltway establishment whores. He talks about Clinton vs. the Kewl Kidz, the Media Whore disdain for Gary Hart, Howard Dean, anyone outside the elite Club.

Interestingly, a reader comments:

So why did they hate Kerry so? He's got the right credentials, went to the right schools, spent 20 years as a senator.

So where did their loathing come from?

This comment made me think back. Did the Whore Establishment hate Kerry so much? After their ritual sacrifice of Dean, they seemed downright jubilant (at least for a while) over the nomination of Kerry. It's true, they collaborated, as they always will, in much of the shit-slinging of the Right-Wing Shit-Slinging machine. They may not have liked Kerry--after all, they prefer the stupid to the smart and the cynical to the earnest--but they didn't hate him, didn't fear him.

The way I remember it, the Whore Establishment had pretty much resigned itself to seeing Kerry elected. And not, perhaps, unhappily. They were ready to let Bush go.

And what happened? Kerry was elected. The voters let Bush go.

But a Whore Establishment quietly pulling for Kerry does not, of course, translate into a Whore Establishment willing to talk about anything as distasteful and unkewl as, say, election fraud.

When I read this story this morning it was preposterous enough:

In what Fox News officials concede was a mistake, John Loftus, a former U.S. prosecutor, gave out the address [of Randy and Ronnell Vorick] Aug. 7, saying it was the home of a Middle Eastern man, Iyad K. Hilal, who was the leader of a terrorist group with ties to those responsible for the July 7 bombings in London.

But the full meaning of the story didn't hit me till I saw this (thanks to el serracho):



Yes, the grafito on the Vorick home reads "Terrist."

As if one needed any more sad irony, John Loftus is the author of the book The Secret War Against the Jews.

Can the pathology motivating the author of "Terrist" be much different from that which moved people to paint swastikas on synagogues and the homes of Jewish people?

I never knew what all the references to this entity (on various blogs) were about. Then I found this link on Wikipedia. Apparently, this parody religion has gotten worldwide notice. The joke is pretty damn funny. The fact that people are telling it all over the world is amazing.

Also, on an unrelated note, there are some brilliant bits of sustained tongue-in-cheek writing in this week's Onion. See especially the opinion column written by an American who is tired of "losing to the terrorists," and by the English teacher who explains that Shakespeare was actually a righteous "homie."

Visit it. Bookmark it. It might actually save us.

Q: Who said this today?

The brilliant Protestant theologian, Dietrich Bonhoeffer, who lived under the hellish conditions of Nazi Germany, is reported to have said:

“If I see a madman driving a car into a group of innocent bystanders, then I can’t, as a Christian, simply wait for the catastrophe and then comfort the wounded and bury the dead. I must try to wrestle the steering wheel out of the hands of the driver.”

On the strength of this reasoning, Bonhoeffer decided to lend his support to those in Germany who had joined together in an attempt to assassinate Adolf Hitler. Bonhoeffer was imprisoned and killed by the Nazis, but his example deserves our respect and consideration today.

A: Pat Robertson, rationalizing his call for the assassination of Venezuelan president Hugo Chavez.

I've heard a lot of sick things from the Christofascists, but Robertson invoking Bonhoeffer to justify his own murderous insanity just about tops the list.

As Atrios says:

CNN says that Bush is once again going to "remind" the country of 9/11.

I, for one, don't have much trouble remembering it.

Q: Instead of lamenting Iraq, why aren't Americans celebrating 9-11? Who told them to stop celebrating, anyway?

Courtesy of The Fixin's Bar:


Bumpersticker with picture of Bush. Caption: "Saving your ass, like it or not".

If you enjoy our occasional American Snapshots feature, get ready for more and better! The contributor we all know as The Fixin's Bar has started an American Snapshots website:

http://amsnap.blogspot.com/

Visit, enjoy, pass along the link to your friends.