Dubya (without the prompter): Hey, what's the noise on the street? What's that banging on the door? There are millions of people out there? Is that what you're seeing? What's the matter with them? How did they get loose? I thought we had them all trained. Hey the roof is caving in. Help, I am choking. The walls are cracking. What do we do now? Someone broke their invisible chains. How is that possible? I thought we'd convinced them they were all happy. We'd told them to watch television and have fun. Why didn't they just do as they were told? And they have their own Eiffel Tower at Disney World. What else do they want? They don't even have to go to Paris. We give them everything they might possibly want here at home. And they come beating our doors down. All right, this is the time. Give them all anthrax. What do we need the people for anyway? They're just heavy ballast. Or, wait, throw them some white phosphor grenades. It works faster. What the hell went wrong? I thought we had it all figured out. The Boys in Washington playing marbles with nukes - The day after Armageddon

The Bush administration is bracing for impeachment hearings in Congress. "A coalition in Congress is being formed to support impeachment," an administration source said. Sources said a prelude to the impeachment process could begin with hearings by the Senate Judiciary Committee in February.

No evidence has emerged thus far suggesting Bush had a close relationship with Abramoff or that he or any of his top White House aides did anything to improperly assist his clients, according to people familiar with the investigation. Several lower-level administration officials, however, have been caught up in the scandal, including the top procurement official.

"Democrats and Republicans alike are adept at making decisions without letting the facts get in the way, a new study shows. And they get quite a rush from ignoring information that's contrary to their point of view. Researchers asked staunch party members from both sides to evaluate information that threatened their preferred candidate prior to the 2004 Presidential election. The subjects' brains were monitored while they pondered ..."

The U.S. Supreme Court on Monday refused to hear a challenge to a California law that requires wines carrying the name "Napa" to have at least 75% of their grapes from Napa County....

In August 2004, the California Supreme Court overturned a lower-court decision and ruled against Bronco by finding that the federal rules didn't trump the state wine label law.

First of all, when you make decisions, you've got to stand on principle. If you're going to make decisions, you've got to know what you believe. I guess the best way to summarize me is I came from Texas and I'm going back to Texas with the exact same values I had when I arrived in Washington, D.C. (Applause.)

But since we're not able to track vast battalions or armadas, we've got to have intelligence, good intelligence, to help us locate the dark corners of the world where these people hide. A lot of the decisions I make, and decisions future Presidents make, will be based upon the capacity of our intelligence services to find the enemy and to understand the intentions of the enemy and to share information with our allies. This is a different kind of struggle and requires the best intelligence possible. That's why we're reevaluating, constantly reevaluating, how best to use our intelligence services to be able to protect the American people

President Bush begins each day at the crack of nine o'clock kneeling on the floor of the Oval Office in his Batman flannel feety-pajamas, holding hands with a group of Christian men. They kneel there for an hour (two hours on the Lord's Day or if there are enough doughnuts) just talking to our nation's Commander-of-the-Commander-in-Chief, the Lord Jesus. This is the Presidential Prayer team. Rev. Pat Robertson, Dr. Jerry Falwell, Rev. Bob Jones Jr., Pastor Deacon Fred, Brother Harry Hardwick, President George W. Bush, and the Lord Jesus Christ (who invisibly attends, legs crossed and dangling over the side of the Resolute desk), They comprise the elite force of spiritual warriors that most Americans consider more important and able to inflict more damage than the entire United States Military. Department of Faith - Preznidential Prayer Squad

Gen. Michael V. Hayden, the former NSA chief who is now deputy director of national intelligence, told reporters in Washington that the warrantless eavesdropping on calls and e-mails between the United States and overseas was "targeted and focused" and did not constitute a "driftnet" over U.S. cities.

Hayden is saying that the NSA program isn't some kind of large-scale data mining operation that the authors of the FISA act never could have foreseen. Rather, it's "targeted and focused"... precisely the kind of monitoring that the FISA court already approves routinely and in large volumes. Another few hundred requests wouldn't faze them in the least.

What is appalling is the length the administration goes to in order to make these exceedingly weak arguments. The entire document is basically a long justification for the president's power to collect foreign intelligence. The problem with that argument is that it is not disputed, not by anybody. Yes, the president DOES have the authority to spy on our enemies. His powers over foreign policy and foreign intelligence collection are great. The problem is with DOMESTIC intelligence collection. The problem is not with wiretapping Al Queda, it is wiretapping IN THE UNITED STATES, ON US CITIZENS, WITHOUT A WARRANT. This is not about foreign intelligence, it is about our government's actions with respect to US citizens. It is about US.

So this is the "new and improved" TL?

Good luck with the WaPo blog idea. For over a year I've been operating the blog at the link that has daily open threads where anyone can leave comments about articles appearing at the WaPo, NYT, Insty, TL, Sully, Kaus, TPM, DU, DK, and others. It receives very little traffic, despite the benefits of posting there.

but constant name calling is tiresome.

When I make a mistake, it's a beaut!

BTW, charlie was banned, partly due to my complaints about his civility.

And how many think that the many personal/vulgar/etc. Washington Post attacks advanced their cause?

PPJ how do you think hat the many personal/vulgar/etc. GOP attacks advanced their cause?

I feel that when we discuss things here we are guests in Jeralyn's domain, and out of respect for TL, and, by extension, respect for those TL allows in, we can do without the playground postering.

There goes PPJ, blindly accepting the MSM characterization of the facts.

I am saying yes, I suspect that the vitriolic response against the "WP lady" does advance the cause of those who spoke out.

Accepting this will help you realize how badly Bush the elder screwed up in 1992. Had he run ads stating that Clinton's running mate was Charles Manson, he would have won in a walk.

So he lost because he didn't? Hmmmm..

head is spinning. Too much ice tea.

Call me old fashioned, but when you start the vulgar/personal stuff I immediately tune you out and post a note that says: "Not logical... Ignore."