TODAY'S TOP FIVE: The World Is Full Of Crashing Bores.
I've Never Seen This Man Before in My Life! Well, Maybe Tons of Times On a night when John Edwards and the Red Sox won, how could anyone be unhappy? Well, there was one niggling complaint about the Edwards victory, a "zinger" fired by Cheney that even my liberal friends thought was a great line: Where Cheney talked about how he presides over the Senate, and had only met "Senator" Edwards for the first time last night at the debate. Great line! Except, like everything else that comes out of Cheney's mouth - including the words "hello" and "good morning" - it's a lie. As this story shows, the two have met on numerous occasions; there is even a photograph of the two of them standing side-by-side at a National Prayer Breakfast in 2001. Oh, man - in addition to having a defective heart and a soul wholly owned by Satan, you're telling me Cheney's memory is on the blink?
Shocker! Charles Duelfer, chief of the Iraq Survey Group, is going to present a 1,500-page report on the status of Saddam's weapons of mass destruction before the invasion. Here's what they'll report: "[Duelfer] is expected to conclude that Iraq had neither weapons of mass destruction, nor significant WMD production programmes at the time of the invasion." But, you know, what a dick that Saddam guy was.
The Daily Mayhem: Iraq Edition At least 10 people were killed when a car bomb exploded near an Iraqi military recruiting post west of Baghdad today.
CIA Belabors the Point, Cheney Still Doesn't Get It A few months ago, the aptly-named Dick Cheney asked the CIA to prepare a report on the nefarious connections between Saddam's regime and the terrorist Abu Musab al-Zarqawi. Well, the results are in, and it turns out that what everybody has been saying for years is still true: Saddam's regime, detestable as it was, had nothing to do with terrorism, including al-Zarqawi. Don't imagine for a second this will stop the aptly-named Dick Cheney from continuing to posit a link between the two.
Is There a Draft In Here? Don't be suckered by the Republicans' quashing of Charlie Rangel's draft bill yesterday. Rangel's bill was never going to get approved, and in fact he introduced it to shame those Republicans in Congress who have draft-age kids that aren't in the military (of the people who voted to authorize force in Iraq, only one has a child in the military). A draft is still an imminent possibility, as this column from retired Col. David Hackworth suggests. Hackworth, keep in mind, is no wild-eyed lefty fanatic, but actually thinks a draft would be a good idea. He's not trying to stir up opposition to Bush, he's just pointing out the hard facts of trying to occupy a restive country and maintain our troop commitments elsewhere in the world.
-Consider Arms
