Comfortable in his own mind

On the trip back from Jordan, Stephen Hadley admitted to reporters that the leaked memo was his, but said it didn’t affect the summit, and Maliki, “a really class act,” didn’t knee him in the groin even once.

He said Bush would react to the Baker Commission report (by the way, Bush this morning referred to the Iraq Study Group as, I’m paraphrasing slightly, a bunch of guys outside of government; he no longer ever says the name James Baker out loud, just as he avoided using Kerry’s name during the election campaign) in weeks rather than months. “It’s really going to be when the President is comfortable in his own mind”. That is an example of a straight line so pure and perfect, the Platonic ideal of a straight line, if you would, that it would be unnecessary, redundant and even a little cheap to respond to it.

Prodded to provide a little “color” about the summit, Hadley admitted that the table was rectangular, but, consummate diplomat that he is, evaded the questions, “Were there peanuts?” and “Did you have Coke, or what did you do?”

Speaking of having coke, a guy in Florida smoked some crack and decided to go skinny dipping. An alligator tried to eat him. There’s probably some sort of lesson in there somewhere.

So this 17-year-old high school student is given one of those dolls that teaches you what a pain in the ass babies are the responsibilities of parenthood. A few minutes later she’s driving along on the I-580, and the thing suddenly starts crying. She’s startled, bounces off the guard rail and hits a pickup truck. “When officers arrived, she was still caring for the baby,” according to a CHP officer, but didn’t have a driver’s license. There’s probably some sort of lesson in there somewhere.

The pope, visiting Turkey, attempted to make amends for saying bad things about Islam by visiting a mosque. He promptly burst into flames. There’s probably some sort of lesson in there somewhere.