Every effort was made

I hope you people aren’t looking to me to say anything bad about Saint Ronny. Oh dear god my poor heart is breaking. We shall not see his like again.

OK, I’ll stop that now. Really, how lucky for Reagan’s memory that the current “president” is the only human being on the planet that could make Reagan look, well okay not good, obviously, but not the worst president ever. I mean, Reagan is up there with the worst of them (Coolidge and Buchanan), but holy shit. Bush says of Reagan (who he doesn’t really remember, having spent the ‘80s sniffing coke off a hooker’s ass in the backroom of a Houston bar)(but then again, Reagan’s popularity came at the height of crack cocaine. Coincidence? I think not): “He always told us for America the best is yet to come.” Wrong again, oh orange-haired one.

Some, but by no means all, of the British papers avoid using the word “cowboy” in the headlines about Reagan. And the Telegraph has a story “Reagan and Thatcher: ‘It Would Take a Crowbar to Get Them Apart’”. Or you could turn the hose on them.

Speaking of Reagan and cowboy, here’s the news.google search. My favorite hit is this headline from the Dallas Morning News: “He Liked Texans.” Possibly the most nauseating (although I’m accepting nominees): “Republicans, Democrats Hail Reagan’s Optimism.” (WaPo)

That does seem to be the word of the day. Via Bartlett’s: “Optimism is the content of small men in high places.” (F. Scott Fitzgerald). “Optimism. The doctrine or belief that everything is beautiful, including what is ugly.” (Ambrose Bierce). “Optimism is the madness of insisting that all is well when we are miserable.” (Voltaire).

Since Murdoch got greedy(greedier), I have to wait 10 to 24 hours after seeing Times headlines before I can get the actual stories off Lexis-Nexis. One can only hope that “Bush and Chirac Best Buddies for Cameras” is as snarky as it sounds. (I’m told that CNN Headline News called Bush & Chirac opponents in the war on terror.) Then there’s “Scalp Hunters Take Cool Look at Cheney,” written by someone who hasn’t seen a recent picture of Cheney.

FRANKLY MY DEAR...: Just as with the Tenet, the British MI6’s new head John Scarlett, who I mentioned is the guy behind the 45-minutes claim, is facing a report on pre-Iraq war intelligence failures. The report will be written by Lord Butler.

An Iraqi judge has issued an arrest warrant for Achmad Chalabi’s right-hand man, the consultant Francis Brooke, for obstructing the police when Chalabi’s hq was raided. The judge said, “He stopped the raid by telling the police they didn't have the legal power to do it because he was an American and they were Iraqis.” Brooke was once paid by the CIA to work with Chalabi, and is now paid by some private company owned by a Republican. He is an Evangelical Christian who boasted to the New Yorker that he faked WMD intel he passed to the Americans. “I'm a smart man. I saw what they wanted, and I adapted my strategy.”

The Indy has a story about Niaz “I’d rather lose all my money in a casino than fly a plane into one” Khan, which notes that the US government did indeed take action against him: they put him on the list of people banned from commercial airplanes. Just in case. The Indy talked to an (anonymous) FBI spokesmodel, who says they didn’t think he was crazy, they just couldn’t substantiate his story. “Every effort was made.” Hopefully, that phrase will be very slowly, very firmly shoved up the FBI’s collective ass over the next few months.

Oh, and Congress was told about this in 2002.

Having failed to get the FBI or MI6 to listen to him, Khan proceeded to call Crimestoppers. No luck there either.

The story is beginning to move--hope the Reagan thing won’t hurt it.

Radio ad for Vernon Robinson, running for Congress in NC. This will be the most racist ad of the election cycle, I predict, and must be listened to to be believed. And Robinson is black.