Dick Cheney’s Marvelous Torture Tour will continue this week as the most evil man in America is set to address the American Enterprise Institute. Liberal ire is up and GOP morale is down as the former vice president appears all over cable news and talk radio to explain the merits of his prized torture program. The Daily Beast weren’t the only ones wondering aloud this week if Cheney is running for president, but that’s kind of a silly suggestion. The stakes here are much higher than Cheney’s future political plans. His PR blitz this week is more about saving his own ass than driving a new policy agenda.

If you can get through the the first five rambling paragraphs of his HuffPo piece, Bob Cesca comes right out of left field and sort of nails it:

I believe it’s the desperation of a crook who’s under significant strain and duress. And as information related to his authorization of torture trickles out, the reason for his desperation becomes increasingly evident.

This isn’t just about torture or a tangential debate about ticking nukes or “keeping us safe.”

It’s apparent that torture was authorized for the purpose of fabricating a case for invading Iraq.

Hello! Read the rest of this entry »

President Barack Hussein Obama and House Speaker Nancy Pelosi cordially share the microphone at a press conference about health care in Washington today.

• If it ain’t broke don’t fix it. Oh, wait. Yeah, okay, go ahead and fix it please. [New York Times]
• Some foreigner says Bush told “half-truths” about torture. Dude. Get back to us when there’s some news. [Think Progress]
• Katie Couric is readying the hardest-hitting piece of fluff about journalism made with Flip cam. Should be fascinating. Quick, what’s the opposite of cutting edge? Blunting bevel? This is real blunted bevel reporting.[CRJ]
• Facts have always been a left-wing conspiracy. It’s no surprise that measuring fact also has a liberal bent. [The Plank]
• Barry’s starting to hang out with the wrong crowd. [Sully]
• For some reason, the Democrats don’t think Roland Burris is Senate material. [Political Wire]
• Andy Borowitz makes a funny joke that become sad when you realize that it’s true. [Huffington Post]
• Oh, Arlen. It’s so inspiring when you feign a conviction of principles. [Political Wire]

David Souter will hopefully hang around long enough for Al Franken to get seated in the US Senate. Sixty seems like a pretty solid number to put a new justice onto the Supreme Court.

It’s only been 100 and something days, but already this must feel to that certain 23% of the country what it felt like for us when Bush was nominating two justices simultaneously while New Orleans was sinking into the sea.

Suck on apocalypse, bitches.

You don’t get more cynical than this. We like a politician who calls it like he sees it, and Arlen Specter couldn’t see himself getting re-elected to the Senate as a Republican. Our favorite part of the deal he struck with the Democratic Leadership is that they’ll recognize his seniority reaching way back across his 29-years as a Republican and he’ll get to chair whatever committee tickles his fancy. But so long as there are 60 votes for Obama and the Republicans are thoroughly humiliated, we don’t give a shit how, right? All the same, lest we forget his roots, we’ll hit some of his Bush-era highnotes in a photo treasure trove after the jump.

Read the rest of this entry »

The New York Times has been short a douchebag ever since old Bill “I’ll Take the Job But You Won’t Like the Job I’ll Do” Kristol split after a year of half-hearted Op-Eding on the Op Ed page. Today, 30 year-old Harvard graduate Ross Douthat of Bloggingheads stepped up to fill his loafers, unleasing on the world the 800 poorly-chosen words that will allow the Times to continue pretending having him onboard somehow makes them a politically neutral organization. They undermined themselves a tad bit by labeling Douthat “Susan Etheridge” under the handsome headshot accompanying his very first column for the Old Gray Lady - doubtlessly not the last disappointment he’ll suffer while working there.

Anyway, his first column, called, “Cheney for President,” explores what a effect a Cheney run for the White House would have had on the GOP.

Watching Dick Cheney defend the Bush administration’s interrogation policies, it’s been hard to escape the impression that both the Republican Party and the country would be better off today if Cheney, rather than John McCain, had been a candidate for president in 2008.

Oh? And how might that be, pray tell?

Read the rest of this entry »