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REUTERS/Gleb Garanich

for the week ending 10/28/06:

An old joke, tailored ever so slightly to fit current (and/or future) events: 

After being found guilty of war crimes (humor me, OK?), George Bush was up on the cross, his remaining disciples and thirty-three percenters at the foot of Golgotha, milling about, wailing and gnashing their teeth and jockeying for lucrative positions on K Street.  Bush lifted his head and weakly cried out, "Joe! Joe!"

Republican Senator Joe Lieberman heard his savior faintly calling out his name, and believing that he was to receive more of Bush's gospel, tried to rush up the hill, only to be beaten down by the centurions guarding the cross. 

A few minutes later, Bush lifted his head and cried, "Joe! JOE!" And once again, Lieberman tried in vain to make it up the hill to hear the words of his Lord.  The guards thrashed him soundly and threw him back into the thinning crowd. 

A weakened Bush lifted his head one more time and cried, "Joe! JOE!"  Fueled by petulant arrogance, opportunism, and very little common sense, Joe Lieberman pushed past the centurions and raced up to the top of the hill, to the foot of Bush's cross.

He looked up adoringly at Bush. "What is it, my lord! Impart unto me your great wisdom!" Lieberman pleaded.

Bush smiled and replied, "Joe, with The Google, I can see my house from here!"

I must admit -- the two days I spent on jury duty last week gave me a much-needed break from the Intertubes, although perhaps finally reading "Conservatives Without Conscience" wasn't exactly a vacation.  But seriously, people, what the hell kind of Republican psychodrama was working itself out over the past seven days? Rick Santorum tried to get all butch on the radio, Karl Rove ominously declared that only he, the Great Karnack, possesses THE MATH regarding opinion polls, and Donald Rumsfeld changed his title to "Secretary of Defensive."  Literary critics George Allen and Lynne Cheney apparently were hired by The New York Review of Books, Dick Cheney shrugged off waterboarding as a "no brainer", Rush Limbaugh insisted that Michael J. Fox is a faker, and Bush flatly denied ever having uttered the words "stay the course."

And I wonder why I have this pounding headache 24/7? So you'll forgive me if this week's round-up mirrors the week's madness.

Now that John Dean's words refuse to exit my brain post haste, I don't think I'm too far off base to note a direct correlation between the theories he espouses and what James Wolcott has to say about the bunch of fucking crazy bastards:

All Republican political figures are gay, especially the men. When President Bush insists on kissing one bald head after another, the psychosexual symbolism speaks for itself. He's planting his lips on big uncircumcised Kojak peckers. When Rush Limbaugh packs his Viagra and jets off on a tropical jaunt with the guys, it's assumed there are saucy wenches awaiting him under the sultry palms, but I wonder--I wonder if it's cabana boys making the hammock sway under the moonlight. Republican women--those masochistic saints--are more like Joan Allen playing Pat Nixon under layers of frosting, their rigid smiles forged by years of living a lie with a man infatuated with other men and too timid to take out a subscription to Details magazine, lest he be exposed.

Yes, there was yet another presidential presser this week (jebus, now you can't get him off the televsion).  The Rude Pundit took the only reasonable route to alleviate the pain: vodka shot blogging. I fear for his liver. Norbizness over at Happy Furry Puppy Story Time provides the interpretation for the masses.

And when Bush isn't sanctioning torture as a means of denying his sexuality or peering longingly at his ranch on the internets' "Teh" Google, TBogg notes that the Preznit is still working his way through that pile of books on his nightstand (you'd think that being a War Preznit wouldn't afford you much time for recreational reading, but you'd be wrong):

Fortunately A History of the English-Speaking Peoples Since 1900 is a scant 752 pages so it shouldn't conflict with the President's promise to Victor Davis Hanson to translate his A War Like No Other: How the Athenians and Spartans Fought the Peloponnesian War into Greek before the end of the year.

Hugh Hewitt, action man of mystery who works on the front lines of terror in his office in the Empire State Building (no, I'm not making that up), thinks the Michael J. Fox ad was tasteless. Scott at World O' Crap thinks Hugh Hewitt is the Godzilla of Self-Righteous Stupidity:

Hugh has apparently peeked over at Ann Coulter’s Composition Blue Book, since this reeks of her belief that anyone who confronts Republicans with the results of their ideological extremism represents a violation of the rules of war, since right wing pundits “aren’t allowed to respond.”  How dare Michael J. Fox have Parkinson’s in public?  How dare he support politicians who believe in funding research that may one day relieve his symptons.  How are you supposed to argue with that?  It’s not like those clumps of eight frozen cells in a petrie dish are gonna get off their lazy nuclei and shoot a counter-ad.  In Hugh’s day, palsied cripples stayed in their rooms and wasted away with dignity, or at least kept their heads down and their mouths shut in public in the hopes that — at best — people wouldn’t notice their shameful condition, and — at worst — would mistake them for Joe Cocker.

Morse at Media Needle thinks stem cell research might help some of the ijits in the Bush Administration.

My favorite Roy at alicublog thinks George Allen should put down his Confederate flag needlepoint project and work on his reading comprehension. Digby liveblogs Lynne Cheney's breakdown on CNN.  Hell, I suppose if I were married to Torquemada, I'd be hyper-defensive, too.  Oh, and if you think Dick Cheney is a man of the people, think again.  Matt at Tattered Coat has the deets.

Oooh, you get down with your bad self, New Jersey, giving the nod to gays and their silly civil rights! And when George Bush denies ever having said that he approves of civil unions and shakes his fist impotently at those danged activist judges, Kerry at 100 Monkeys Typing says, "Oh, bite me."

Jesus' General delivers a necessary and mighty swift kick to Joe Lieberman's groinal area. Repeatedly. 

I was heartened to see that it was "Verbally Beat Up Overrated Camille Paglia" week, here and here.  Y'all already read TRex's take.

Fred Clark at Slacktivist has some not-so-random thoughts about the week.

And a few mind-wipers: Pete at A Perfectly Cromulent Blog offers up "Fantasy Congress"; If I Ran the Zoo's Kvatch pens an ode to Starbuck's, and Eszter at Crooked Timber gets all trippy on our sorry asses.