Timely information about my philosophy

Bush gives a stirring thank you to outgoing press secretary Scott McClellan: “I will always be proud to call him, ‘friend,’” adding, “because I’ve already forgotten his name.” And as for the new guy, Tony Insert-Snow-Related-Pun-Here, “He’s going to work hard to provide you with timely information about my philosophy, my priorities, and the actions we’re taking to implement our agenda.” Can’t wait for that timely information about Bush’s philosophy.

Condi Rice and Donald Rumsfeld are both in Iraq at the same time! Presumably that was where she meant to go, because she said in Greece yesterday “The United States of America understands and believes that Iran is not Iraq” (I adore her choice of the verb believe)(maybe that’s what Bush meant by “my philosophy”). Rice tells reporters on the plane, “and I will obviously link up there with Secretary Rumsfeld.” Hey, she said it, not me. Maybe they can finally come to an agreement on whether we’ve made thousands of mistakes or zero mistakes in Iraq. She said the purpose of the trip is “to make sure there are no seams between what we’re doing politically and what we’re doing militarily.” I’m sure what you’re doing politically and what you’re doing militarily will indeed be unseamly.

Oh, get a room, you two

A reporter asks Condi whether this visit doesn’t just reinforce the charges made by Zarqawi that the Maliki regime is a puppet of the US. She replies by repeating over and over that it is a “government of national unity.”

Canadian PM Stephen Harper has followed American practice in banning news coverage of the return of the bodies of soldiers killed in Afghanistan. He says it’s all about privacy and certainly not aboot hiding the consequences of Canada signing on to fight America’s wars – but at the same time he halted the practice of flying the flag at half-staff for slain soldiers.