If it weren’t for recreational hysteria, I’d get no exercise at all

Bush nominates Michael “Not As Much of a Dick As Ted Olson” Mukasey to be attorney general.



While Mukasey does indeed seem to be not as much of a dick as Ted Olson (or, to set the bar even lower, as incompetent as Gonzales), this 2004 op-ed article in which he defended the Patriot Act against “a good deal of hysteria, some of it reflexive, much of it recreational,” and calling for the government to be given “the benefit of the doubt,” does give one some pause, if not the recreational hysteria we all enjoy so much. At least not yet.

This morning Bush met Prime Minister José Sócrates of Portugal for a bit of a – dear god I can’t help myself – Socratic dialogue, which Bush described thusly:

So we discussed our bilateral relations. I asked the Prime Minister, I said, how would you frame our bilateral relations, he said: good. Well, you know, I feel the same way. ... we discussed and confirmed that transatlantic relations are very important for the United States and the EU.

The prime minister then called for a round of hemlock.