April 19, 2006:

So Scotty McClellan is out. He's the one guy who I feel bad for. Not because I liked him or thought he got the shaft wrongly; on the contrary, he did a lousy job and it showed every time he got up to defend one of the Administration's failed policies. I feel bad for him precisely because he had to get up and defend the Administration's failed policies. The job of the White House Press Secretary is probably ranked among sweeping up after the elephants in a circus (wow, unintentional pun right there!) and is merely thee to bare the brunt of the scorn of the Press Corps. And the only time the White House Press Corps showed any teeth was when they had Scotty dropped like a feeder fish in a tank of piranha — they could smell the blood in the water. Personally, I'm surprised he lasted this long without being fitted for a straight jacket.

Obviously, this type of change is more than cosmetic. Bush needs someone to face the Press and just lie straight faced, much like Cheney does whenever he goes in front of the camera.

April 18, 2006:

The media and public should note how the President staunchly defends Secretary of Defense Rumsfeld amidst all the calls for him to resign. Whether Rusmfeld resigns or is fired will not change the policy, which is directed by the White House. The "stay the course, we're turning the corner" mentality has gone on so long that these armchair generals can't see that they keep moving in circles. The policy will not change by replacing Rumsfeld; the President will only replace Rummy with another neo-con clone. Gregg Palast has a great piece pointing out that all the mistakes were not only Rumsfled's...

April 12, 2006:

Just the latest in a series of reports that shows that the Bush Administration's claims about WMD and reasons to invade Iraq were not merely bad intelligence but cherry picked intel, or worse, ignored. Again, you can argue the semantics of "Bush lied" vs. "Bush mislead", but argument that he was using the best intellignce that was supplied to him by the CIA just does not hold water. Add to that AT&T's collusion with the administration to set up massive wiretapping and now the communications giant is scrambling to cover their behinds.