TODAY'S TOP FIVE: Laura Bush, Gangbuster.
State of the Union: Everything Is Fine...In Narnia Joshua Micah Marshall takes apart the SOUA, especially in regards to the bullshit Bush was peddling about Social Security. Sadly, Marshall does not mention my absolute favorite part of the speech: the part where the president said that his wife is going to defeat America's street gangs. Because, you know, there's nobody better to reach out to alienated young people in gangs than a prim white librarian who married an oil brat.
The President May Have Exaggerated When He Said that Social Security Will Involve Raping Your Children If Something Isn't Done By 2007 Meanwhile, how did the dreaded liberal media do in parsing the president's speech? Pretty terrible, according to MediaMatters, whose front page today is full of grisly details: six Republicans to one Democrat on "Hardball," CBS using the "personal accounts" lingo about Social Security, David Brooks being David Brooks on ABC, etc. The most that anyone could muster in terms of a backbone was Ceci Connelly's lame explanation on Fox News that Bush "may have stretched the truth" when he said that Social Security will be bankrupt in 2042. How did you get your job at the Washington Post, Ceci? Were you the 14th caller to a radio show or something?
Stop Attacking Our Freedom With Your, uh, Freedom Two dread enemies of public order, the Veterans for Peace and the Quakers, have been banned from a Tennessee high school's organization fair for distributing material that parents found "anti-American." Among the quotes in the literature that the magificently named principal, Wayne Shank, found particularly offensive was one by that noted bomb-tosser and freedom-hater, Dwight D. Eisenhower.
Jeff Gannon, Ace Reporter Maybe you've heard of TalonNews.com, maybe not. Maybe you've heard of Jeff Gannon, Ace Reporter, maybe not. But some of the milksops in the White House press corps are crying foul over the fact that Gannon has had White House press credentials for two years. Maybe it's because they're soft and sloppy and he makes them look like chumps. Maybe it's because they can't keep up with his superhuman productivity and effortless grasp of complex policy questions. Maybe it's because his web site is owned by a Texas Republican Party big shot and he actually asks questions like this at press conferences: "Since there have been so many questions about what the president was doing over 30 years ago, what is it that he did after his honorable discharge from the National Guard? Did he make speeches alongside Jane Fonda, denouncing America's racist war in Vietnam? Did he testify before Congress that American troops committed war crimes in Vietnam? And did he throw somebody else's medals at the White House to protest a war America was still fighting?"
The Usual Suspects: High School Students, Elected Officials, College Professors There are a number of people who won't be at President Bush's speech today in Fargo. Among them, elected Democratic officials, high school students, librarians, and people who wrote letters to newspapers in support of gay rights. All of these people are officially banned from the event, according to a blacklist circulated by the Republican Party to the people taking tickets at the door.
-Consider Arms
