A balanced life (balanced between callousness and stupidity)

Saturday’s NYT’s front page sports a lovely example of a two-faced head, a headline with more than one possible meaning: “G.I.’s Deployed in Iraq Desert With Lots of American Stuff.”

Cute Carl Hiaasen column on FEMA paying for supposed hurricane-related funerals in, ahem, Florida.

I hadn’t realized that when Bush oh-so-casually threatened Iran with war, the Iranian president was in the process of picking a new cabinet. I’m not saying they wouldn’t have been hardline and pronuclear before Bush’s little intervention, but it still wasn’t very smart, even by Chimpy’s standards.

And here’s a surprise: no women cabinet members.

You’ll probably have seen this elsewhere, but this is what Bush said yesterday about Cindy Sheehan: “But whether it be here or in Washington or anywhere else, there’s somebody who has got something to say to the president, that’s part of the job. And I think it’s important for me to be thoughtful and sensitive to those who have got something to say. But I think it’s also important for me to go on with my life, to keep a balanced life.” So thoughtful, so sensitive. And then he went on a two-hour bike ride. He insists that all the exercise and outdoors stuff (he also went fishing) is essential so that he can make “good, crisp decisions.” The reporter did not ask for any examples of his having ever made a good, crisp decision.

Mrs. Sheehan must be overjoyed that he can “go on with my life.”