Subject: George W. Bush

• Hair of the Dog: Not just for hangovers or hot dogs anymore

  When it comes to the Bush administration, it's not so much that rules are made to be broken, it's that rules are made so laws can be broken. The administration issues rules on "interrogations" of "detainees" that violate international law and various treaty obligations. And rules on wiretapping that violate laws which have been in place since the days when George W. Bush was a blackout drinker. Hours could be wasted counting the ways the Bush administration has abused the rules making process, a

  March 19, 2006

• Another Star Chamber Turn

  My colleague Alex Brant-Zawadzki is right about the potential of television for doing good– his pro-having-sex-with-George Clooney stance, I'll pass over in silence– but Edward R. Murrow is long dead, and TV nowadays seems to be mostly offering up "the evil of banality", to use Alex Cockburn's evocative phrase. One of the cornerstones of that banality is reruns. Another is fact-free, shamelessly manipulative advertising. And thanks to the U.S. Chamber of Commerce devotion to Governor

  March 23, 2006

• Ask not for whom the (Radio Shack) bell tolls

  President Bush, as he never tires of reminding us, considers protecting the American people to be his top priority. So, how's that working out? The New York Times gives us an idea: Mismanagement of a $1 billion technology contract by the Transportation Security Administration resulted in the expenditure of the entire budget long before all of the needed computer and telephone equipment was installed, according to an audit released Thursday by the inspector general of the Homeland Security Depart

  April 2, 2006

• W's Finest Hour

  What did our one and only president, George W. Bush, tell the German weekly Bild am Sonntag was his "best moment of all" since he took office? For the answer, click here. Strange? Yes. Childish? You bet. Though to be fair to W, if you were president and the buck stopped with you for things like this, because you unnecessarily invaded another country, you might not associate your day job with the phrase "best moment" either.

  May 8, 2006

• Bordering on Nonsense

  For those of you sensible enough to avoid watching President Bush's twenty minute attempt to distract the public from his other problems and shore up his sinking poll numbers address on immigration last night, the relentlessly evenhanded Kevin Drum of the Washington Monthly (by way of Irvine) has neatly summed things up: Beef up the borders with troops and high tech wizardry but insist that it's not "militarization"; start up a guest worker program that's not called a guest worker program; intro

  May 16, 2006

• State Secret: Arnold's Big Night Out

  How desperate is Governor Schwarzenegger to avoid reminding people that he belongs to same political party as George W. Bush, let alone remind them that he was one of the featured speakers supporting Bush at the 2004 Republican Convention? Desperate enough to sneak across the country and into the White House yesterday, while trying to hide his trip from reporters. Yesterday, a statement from the governor's press office drily explained that there no official business scheduled, because the gover

  July 11, 2006

• Putting the Right in Civil Rights

  Charlie Savage, the excellent Boston Globe reporter who broke the story of President Bush's governing-by-presidential-signing-statement trick, brings us more disturbing news. The Bush administration is quietly remaking the Justice Department's Civil Rights Division, filling the permanent ranks with lawyers who have strong conservative credentials but little experience in civil rights, according to job application materials obtained by the Globe. The documents show that only 42 percent of the la

  July 23, 2006

• Another good reason to be rich

  Sure, there are plenty of good reasons to be rich– don't have to worry about the rising cost of living; the greater likelihood of attracting a pneumatic mate (or at least being able to afford to surgically alter your mate into a more pneumatic state, until a newer, pneumatic-er model comes along); etc., etc.– and now the Bush administration has given us one more. The rich are different from you and me, because the Bush administration doesn't particularly care whether they pay all the

  July 24, 2006

• Dancing around a great problem at The Great Park

  The El Toro Shuffle? The Great Park Gavotte? The Irvine Ranch Water District Toxic Waltz? We should come up a name for the little dance. It's a simple four step dance, and very familiar one. Scientists point out a looming environmental threat and call for government action. The Bush administration, refusing to act and attempting to dismiss the scientists as panic-mongers and tree-huggers, calls for even more scientific study before it will even consider acting. The further study is completed, a

  July 28, 2006

• Le Mot Juste

  From the UK newspaper The Independent: [UK Deputy Prime Minister] John Prescott has given vent to his private feelings about the Bush presidency, summing up George Bush's administration in a single word: crap. The whole story, Bush is crap, says Prescott, can be found here.

  August 16, 2006

• Waist Deep in the Big Muddy

  If you're one of those people who are worried that President Bush doesn't seem to have a plan for Iraq, worry no more.  He does have a plan, as he explained at a press conference this morning. We're not leaving so long as I'm the president. That would be a huge mistake. Just to be clear: that "huge mistake" Mr. Bush is referring to is withdrawing from Iraq, not him remaining president. But of course, that's just his opinion. (If you don't recognize the title of this post, click here.)

  August 21, 2006

• One Year Later

  Usually when a regular columnist for one of the major news magazines begins to chew through the restraints of received ideas and government press releases, it is, to borrow a phrase from Samuel Johnson, "like a dog's walking on his hind legs. It is not done well, but you are surprised to find it done at all." Jonathan Alter's latest column in Newsweek illustrates the point. A year ago, in the aftermath of hurricane Katrina, NEWSWEEK published a cover story called "Poverty, Race and Katrina: Les

  August 29, 2006

• Dad, Get Me Out of This

  One of the ironies of George W. Bush being the leader of the Republican party, traditionally (and whorishly) the party of business, is that in his pre-political days, Bush was a miserable failure as a business man. What saved him from the poorhouse was that when he would drive a business into the ground, one of his Daddy's cronies (or someone hoping to curry favor with his Daddy and his cronies) would bail him out. Some things, it seems, never change. Now, after driving the country into a dis

  November 9, 2006

• Crazy

  During a May 2004 appearance on The Daily Show, Janeane Garofalo told Jon Stewart, "At this point, I think voting for Bush is a character flaw." Now news from Connecticut suggests she may have been more accurate than she knew. The New Haven Advocate reports: [Christopher] Lohse, a social work master's student at Southern Connecticut State University, says he has proven what many progressives have probably suspected for years: a direct link between mental illness and support for President Bush.

  November 29, 2006

• Iraq notes (Gratitude and Napoleon edition)

  Two quick notes on Iraq. First, in an interview broadcast on last night's 60 Minutes, President Bush was asked "if he owes the Iraqi people an apology for botching the management of the war". His response, "Not at all", will come as no surprise to anyone who has noticed over the past six years that Bush doesn't do apologies. His elaboration of those three little word was a little surprising, however. "We liberated that country from a tyrant," Bush said. "I think the Iraqi people owe the Americ

  January 15, 2007

• Foxes, Henhouses, and the Fashion Police

  Just like breaking a leg can take your mind off a toothache, the major traumas the Bush administration has inflicted on the body politic make it easy to forget the lesser damage it's doing.  Or, as Ruth Marcus puts in her column in today's Washington Post, "The tornado of disastrous headlines -- a Pentagon that can't take proper care of its wounded, a Justice Department that can't be trusted to follow the law or tell the truth to Congress, a top White House aide who lied to a grand jury-- h

  April 4, 2007

• Why Do We Love WorldNetDaily?

  Because it is THE place to read shit like this... . . . [George W. Bush] lied when he said: "Massive deportation of the people here is unrealistic--it's just not going to work." Not only will it work, but one can easily estimate how long it would take. If it took the Germans less than four years to rid themselves of 6 million Jews, many of whom spoke German and were fully integrated into German society, it couldn't possibly take more than eight years to deport 12 million illegal aliens, many of

  May 15, 2006

• Wednesday's Headlines

  Dear Mr. President: Costa Mesa's city council plans to send President Bush a letter, asking that he reject a bill that would give some immigrants a path to citizenship. And now a word from the Vatican: Driving can be "an occasion of sin," so the Vatican's issued 'Ten Commandments' for motorists, to keep them "on the road to salvation," reports the AP. Opposing views: San Clemente residents are peeved at one neighbor who wants to add a second story and, in effect, spoil their views of the ocean.

  June 20, 2007

• The Stupid American

  Yesterday I got an e-mail from my good friend and former colleague Anthony Pignataro, who's now the editor of the Maui Time Weekly (lucky bastard). Anyways, when Pignataro's not busy teasing me about my recent depiction in the Vietnamese-language media as an ugly, big-nosed communist mastermind, he likes to show off his vast knowledge of history and literature. Most recently, he clued me in on what has to be just about the stupidest part of the stupidest speech President George W. Bush has ever

  August 28, 2007

• NBFF: Snow Jobs and Sausages

  Sometimes I wonder about the power of coincidence. Both times I've covered the Newport Beach Film Festival, I have been unable to attend every day because some or other duty at the office ends up taking a lot more of my time than expected. So I was called home on Tuesday, thereby missing both THE REST IS SILENCE (which fest staffer Jay has been recommending to me all week) and THE SEEKERS (made by my friend Diana Ljungaes). I was fortunate enough to see on the big screen a short that I actually

  May 1, 2008

• This Inauguration Doesnt Auger Well

  January 20, 2005

• Stop the War

  September 1, 2005

• The City That Bush Forgot

  September 15, 2005

• Khan Game

  July 6, 2006

• [Hey, You!] If You Can Read This Bumper Sticker, You're Trying to Kill Me

  March 13, 2008

• Kkkcuf Amerikkka

  Jan. 4-Jan. 11

  January 4, 2007

• True Lies

  The rise of the bunkumentary

  November 2, 2006

• Dead-End Presidents

  Crimes of the Oval Office

  September 7, 2006

• Diary of a Mad County

  August 31, 2006

• Diary of a Mad County

  April 6, 2006

• Letters

  January 12, 2006

• The Children of Imperialismo

  January 5, 2006

• Don't Gloat Yet

  December 29, 2005

• Diary of a Mad County

  December 1, 2005

• Diary of a Mad County

  November 10, 2005

• Monster Mash

  Five hits from Hell

  October 27, 2005

• Halloween 2015

  October 27, 2005

• Diary of a Mad County

  October 6, 2005

• Letter From Mazatlan

  New Orleans shows were about a single disaster from the Third World

  September 15, 2005

• Diary of a Mad County

  August 11, 2005

• From Bad to Worse

  A Karl Rove timeline

  July 21, 2005

• Wreck (of) a Nation

  June 2, 2005

• Diary of A Mad County

  January 27, 2005

• Living in Oblivion

  January 27, 2005

• The Year In Oh, Dear God!

  December 30, 2004

• The Year In Letting Go, Go, Angels!

  Los Angeles Ashes

  December 30, 2004

• Call Me Irresponsible

  December 30, 2004

• Repetition in Politics, News, Big Business and Human Suffering

  December 2, 2004

• So Now What?

  November 11, 2004

• The Incredible Bravery of Hugh Hewitt

  How brave is our boy Hugh Hewitt, the talk radio blatherer/lawyer/pundit/Nixon fetishist/blogger/moralizer/George W. Bush worshiper/professional Vermont boycotter? Brave enough to take the GWOT (Global War on Terrorism-- though the Bush administration may have changed the brand name by now) to the terrorists? Hell, yeah! Has he parachuted into Iraq, to administer some Rambo-style justice to the evil doers? Nope. Is he charging up a mountain in Afghanistan, to mow down the Taliban? Wrong again. I

  March 29, 2006