Heroes in error

Doesn’t Bush’s campaign slogan, “Steady Leadership in a Time of Change,” actually mean “We never learn”?

A NYT editorial notes that despite his talk about forcing democracy on the Arabs, Bush today met the dictator of Tunisia. Well, to be fair, he’s been elected with more than 99% of the vote 3 times, and you can’t have more democratic legitimacy than that.

Bush spoke to National Guard troops yesterday. The White House said it was a coincidence that this event, scheduled months back, came up right during the talk about his own Nat Guard service. Actually, they lied, assuming that no one would check, as indeed the NYT, WaPo & AP did not. The event was scheduled last week.

Ahmad Chalabi says that even though every bit of the “intelligence” he supplied about Iraqi WMDs was false, it’s ok because Saddam is “gone.” “What was said before is not important”; “We are heroes in error.” [Boy, I’m spoilt for choices for a subject line for this email. I’m telling you, they’re just like buses.]

Speaking of Chalabi, it seems his family & cronies are getting oodles of Pentagon cash, including to provide “security” to the oil industry, or to put it another way, the Pentagon is supporting his private army. On top of that, Chalabi personally evidently got $2m for setting up the deal.

Not being familiar with the oeuvre of Johnny Cash, I didn’t pass on this story yesterday: “The family of the late Johnny Cash is outraged at a plan to use his 1963 classic song, Ring of Fire, to promote a haemorrhoid ointment.” But today the Telegraph reports it under the headline “Piles of Cash Rejected.”

The US is evidently now trying to get Aristide to step down before his term ends in 2006 as a way to appease the death squads (yes I know Aristide is very far from perfect, but he is the elected president and c’mon, do we not remember the death squads and the Duvaliers?). While the Bushies aren’t “excited” about intervening militarily, they are actually deploying the Coast Guard and Navy to turn back refugees trying to flee the civil war.

“Last week, drug company lobbyists said veterans could face higher drug bills if the Legislature cuts the prices West Virginia will pay for prescription drugs. “If West Virginia imposes price controls on us, we have to make up that decrease somewhere else,” said Mike Bolen of Pfizer Inc. “We would have to raise our prices on the veterans who have sacrificed for their country.”

Shrub on gay-marriage licenses in SF: "I am watching very carefully, but I am troubled by what I've seen." Oh, just go rent porn like everyone else, George.

Fun fact to know and forget: California was the first state to repeal a ban on interracial marriage, in 1948. I assume some other states never had one in the first place.

After the doctored Kerry/Jane Fonda photo, the Guardian is holding a competition for the best doctored election-related photo.