Candid council -- is that what they’re calling it these days?

Harriet Miers has sacrificed herself to preserve the separation of powers, sez Bush. “It is clear that Senators would not be satisfied until they gained access to internal documents concerning advice provided during her tenure at the White House - disclosures that would undermine a President’s ability to receive candid counsel.” There won’t be more than six people in America who’ll buy that one.

Harry Reid assigns responsibility for the failed nomination to radical right-wing Republicans, adding “I mean, it must be them, because we just stood around with our thumbs up our ass. Again.”

But I wonder who George Bush really blames for this fiasco? Not himself, of course, and probably not Miers. Reid may now think that the Dems’ quiet about Miers was a brilliant strategy, but who will Bush feel a need to appease with his next nominee? Or will he go the other way, in a snit, and petulantly refuse to appease a faction that failed to give him the loyalty he feels is his birthright?

From the Guardian:

A hospital has removed a staff unicycle from its children’s ward after a mother complained that her six-month-old baby had to wait for treatment while his doctor learned to ride it up and down corridors. ...

The South Tyneside NHS Foundation Trust said: “On a children’s ward, we strive to combine professionalism with an air of informality and fun aimed at putting children at ease. On this occasion we did not succeed in achieving this compromise.”

The BBC is closing down its broadcasts in Bulgarian, Czech, Greek, Hungarian and other Eastern European languages in order to pay for a new Arabic tv service in the Middle East. Could anything say more clearly that the BBC functions as the propaganda arm of British foreign policy?

Michael Brown is not only still on FEMA’s payroll as a “consultant,” a gig just extended for another month, but he’s getting the same salary as when he (supposedly) ran the agency.