MERKELGATE: SUMMITING ANGELA

The Germans tend not to be touchy, feely people. You don't bake 8 million people like so many loaves of bread if you're a touchy, feely people.

So what part of President Bush's Presidential Daily Brief told Dubya to massage German Chancellor Angela Merkel's shoulders during the G-8 Summit -- before billions of shocked TV viewers?

It was probably the part of the PDB that told Junior to cut brush while terrorists were poised to commandeer US aircraft and fly them into tall buildings.

For those of you living in a cave in Borneo, President Bush decided to grope the German Chancellor while attending the crises summit called in his honor. The newly-elected German leader threw back her shoulders to shrug off the horny US president's advances, seconds before he could snap her bra strap, and tug her panties into a wedgie.

"This wasn't a Delta Kappa Epsilon kegger, you know," said Fraulein Merkel, after the incident. "We were all here to try and undo the considerable damage Dubya has done to the world in the last six years," she reasoned with reporters (in German).

Karl Rove, not unaccustomed to Code Red alerts, went into full crises mode. Quoting President Nixon, Rove said, "When the president does it, it means it's not groping. I mean, illegal."

President Clinton, at least, had the decency to keep his moves within the Oval Office. He got heads, yes, but not heads of state. And unlike Angela, Monica was a consenting adult. What was our Clown-In-Chief thinking?

Republicans, apparently, like to air their sex, whether outing Bill Clinton, or summiting Angela Merkel.

The Republican disconnect in all things progressive (why does Laura Bush still dress like the Beaver's mom, June Cleaver?) exempts them from being sexist. Their whole platform channels a time before there was sexism. You recall that Reagan bragged about being so old he came from the time before there was racism.

Anyway, not burdened by ideas, or facts, President Bush was free to monkey around, cupping world leaders -- especially Tony Blair-- and using the "S" word.



METAPHORICAL WHORES
July 27, 2006

Maureen Dowd, in her wonderful Op Ed piece in the Times yesterday, wrote that waiting for Junior to adapt to change is not so much like watching paint dry, but rather, like watching dry paint.

Even dry paint may be too dynamic a metaphor for Dubya. After all, dry paint molds over, eventually cracking, and becoming flaky. Second thought, it's perfect.

Watching this president evolve is not like watching grass grow, but like watching Houston Astroturf grow. Bush's threadbare strategies in Iraq are being re-instituted as wall-to-wall carpet-bombing of Lebanon and Israel continues.

Indeed, watching Bush adapt is like watching baseball. You wait nine interminable innings and nothing happens. Then you call it a pitcher's duel and stampede the exits.

Bush is like a watched pot. Everywhere but the Oval Office is boiling over while Bush isn't yet up to steam. He's real slow.

Yet watching Bush is not like watching snails. It's more like watching escargot. He's cooked. He has no treasure. He has no credibility. He has no sympathy. And he's waiting to be shelled.

Egypt, Syria, Lebanon, Iran, and Saudi Arabia are all looking at Bush's model democracy in the heart of the Middle East, and saying, no thank you. Dead, is not what they want to be. It's one thing to demand democracy, and another to contain sectarian violence and provide security.

Like his "No Child Left Behind" mandate, Bush's commandment for a democratic Iraq, without creating the necessary conditions for success, is nothing but one more Mission Unaccomplished. And 40 times the number of people killed on 9/11 are now dead.

It's not like watching the Poles melt, but more like watching the puddle. As oceans of anger rise, we ought to take our gored, flag-waving president and hoist him on his own petard.


THE SOFT TARGET
July 26, 2006

"They say that patriotism is the last refuge to which a scoundrel claims," wrote a man named Zimmerman in the last century. He went on to say...

"Steal a little and they throw you in jail, steal a lot and they make you king ...."

...Or president. President of Enron, certainly. President of the United States? Smells like Dubya to me.

The song lyrics "Sweatheart Like You," were written by a Robert Zimmerman (aka Bob Dylan) who seemed to be channeling Junior Bush. Actually, he was channeling Samuel Johnson, who, biographer James Boswell tells us, made his famous statement about patriotism on the evening of April 7, 1775.

Junior used patriotism to avenge what he perceived as his father's political humiliation following the first Iraqi war. His soft target was Saddam Hussein.

Sure, Saddam Hussein bluffed with his enemies, and with the UN. All serious political scientists, including those working for Junior, knew Saddam had to bluff his way along following his defeat in Kuwait in order to survive in that region. But nobody believed that Saddam had any military capability whatsoever after 1992: a conventional wisdom that was later confirmed by UN arms inspectors.

No, what really made Junior snap was Senior Bush's fall to Bill Clinton: it was simply more than the simple-minded Junior could bear.

Fast forward to 2001. What better sneak attack than 9/11 to ignite the fuel that leads to that most insidious of evils: "patriotism?" And Junior played it like an understudy virtuoso.

The real virtuoso, however, was Osama bin Laden. He knew Junior lacked a sense of proportion. He knew Junior was politically on the ropes. He knew Junior had cracked before and would crack again. By playing off Junior's weaknesses, Osama's terrorist act involving 19 highjackers with box cutters could be magnified, exponentially, into a war of civilizations.

It's fair to say now that the attacks of 9/11 would not have occurred had Al Gore assumed the presidency. Gore simply didn't have the pathology of his rival; a pathology that Osama, working with smoke and mirrors, needed to actualize his evil deed. Unlike Bush Jr. and Hussein, Gore was not a soft target.

So, before 9/11, America wasn't the soft target. Junior was. Sadly, after 9/11, Junior was able to manipulate patriotism in a way that rendered America as vulnerable to him as he was to Osama.


FROGS: WINNERS AND LOSERS
July 25, 2006

Pinecliff Network News is so-named for the Pinecliff swamp -- that in turn is so-named because it is the dot at the bottom of the exclamation point that is the cul de sac, Pinecliff Road.

Before monitoring the news reports streaming in from PNN reporters around the world, I walk a loop around the boardwalk that circles the swamp to clear my mind of the sorry news the day before.

Every warm morning I greet a bullfrog that is as large as a Guinea pig in scuba gear. He hangs out by the edge the boardwalk and we go through our ritual staring contest to see who laughs first. As usual, he wins, and I pour a few drops of my coffee on top of his head to acknowledge his superior concentration.

This has been going on since May. The bullfrog always seems to enjoy the coffee. Whether this is some kind of perverted, cold-blooded "golden showers" thing -- or he is somehow getting addicted to his morning splash of jo, I don't know. But he would come from some distance to stake out his spot.

One day several weeks ago I was surprised to find two bullfrogs, un-customarily side-by-side beside the boardwalk, waiting with great anticipation. Thinking this a nice coincidence, I spilled out some coffee on each of their heads as payment for them keeping a straight face and continued on.

But today was unmistakably a PNN moment. Today there were three frogs lined up waiting for their coffee with milk, no sugar. It became clear they were there for the little "pick-me-up," and as long as I didn't pick them up, they were content to share morning coffee with me.

So what does this have to do with Bush? you ask. I'm getting to that. Jeez -- so quick to jump down my throat!

Friday's PNN dealt with "proportionality." Proportionality in schoolyard fights. In the Iraqi war. In the current Israeli/Lebanese war.

In sports there is also a recent example. When the Frenchman head-butted the Italian who had allegedly insulted his sister and mother, he had failed to check his personal sense of honor for his country's greater honor -- an egregious violation of proportionality. After all, this was the World Cup.

Tragically, Junior Bush couldn't keep in check his macho sense of honor in avenging his "wimpy" father's honor following the first Iraqi war. Now, over 100,000 people are dead and Junior is reduced to spectator status as the world around him comes unglued.

And the frogs? They took one to the head, but unlike their counterparts across the pond, they surfaced as winners! Enjoy your coffee.


PROPORTIONALITY
July 22, 2006

Okay then. Just back from vacation and I'm seeing what I missed. Record hot weather. No surprise there. It was 95 in Maine. Come back Al Gore. Israel and Lebanon-based Hezbollah exchanging blows. Good then. Nothing's changed.

The theme for the week seems to be "Lack of Proportionality" on Israel's part. I wasn't aware proportionality was ever part of strategic war planning.

It reminds me of a time I was having a fist fight with one of my friends in grammar school. We came to blows over an insult. He shoved me -- I answered with a half-hearted body punch -- to which he hauled off and punched me in the nose.

I told him with the utmost indignity that I purposely hadn't hit him in the face and that this was an un-called for escalation.

My opponent looked confused for a moment, then reached back and broke my lip. I sensed at this point that gentlemen's rules were not going to win the day. Just then I spotted an incoming fist moments before it shuttered one of my eyes.

Really mad now, I reprimanded the bellicose boy for lacking aplomb. Then I guided my right fist into his left rib cage, at which time he kicked my cajonies all the way up to my sinuses.

One is not supposed to use one's feet in boxing, just like one is not supposed to use one's hands in soccer, I informed him.

"Not fair. Not fair!" I screamed at the rule breaker as I limped off the battlefield.

"Proportionality" is not a war mentality. This is evidenced by our attempted conquest of Iraq over non-existent WMD.

Though I'm sure Lebanon has trouble controlling Hezbollah, the country should not be surprised that superior force will be used against those who use the country as a base for strikes against Israel. The Middle East war of attrition is not draining lives equally on both sides: but then, war is never fair.

The US probably didn't need to firebomb into oblivion Tokyo and other major Japanese cities (not to mention nuking Hiroshima and Nagasaki), in order to win the war in the Pacific. The US probably didn't need to blanket carpet North Vietnam during that conflict. But had the US not invaded the wrong country in going after al Qaeda after 9/11, it could have acted as the honest broker in the current war de jour.

Sadly, the crazies prevailed, both here and in the Middle East.


THE REVENGE OF THE UNDER-COVER BOMBSHELLS
July 14, 2006

Republicans crucified President Clinton every time a blonde-bombshell came out from under the covers and sued the president. Though labeled as "White trash bimbos" by the Right wing press, the women had actually been courted by Republican political operatives to go after the president with promises of paid legal expenses and career-building publicity.

Now, another blonde bombshell, an ex-undercover CIA agent, is suing Karl Rove, Dick Cheney, and Scooter Libby for exposing her identity, putting her life and her mission in jeopardy, and trashing her career. Unlike those she's accusing, this undercover agent had risked her life serving her country.

Our latest under-cover, "white-trash" episode, of course, involves former Ambassador Joseph Wilson's glamorous wife, Valerie Plame. Joe Wilson knew that no atomic yellow-cake had passed between Niger and Iraq and wrote so in the New York Times on July 6, 2003. Wilson had directly contradicted the President's State of the Union address which had enunciated our country's rationale for going to war and infuriated the president and vice-president.

Almost immediately, top officials in the Bush administration starting leaking Plame's name to punish Wilson. Nine days later, Robert Novak spilled Plame's outing in the Times. Three years after that, Novak fingered Karl Rove as the deepest of deep throats.

There is a word for this high-level "whispering campaign" of leaks: treason. Unlike extramarital sex, treason is an impeachable offense.

Karl Rove's Spokesman, Mark Corallo, caught unaware, issued the following statement:

"Without even having had a chance to review the complaint, it is clear that the allegations by this trashy harlot are absolutely and utterly without merit."

Just then, a woodpecker landed on his nose.

The pending lawsuits at the time crippled Bill Clinton, forcing him to make personally humiliating public confessions regarding his personal life while Republicans were in the process of impeaching the leader of the free world over the Lewinsky episode.

Let's hope our armed service-dodging officials, Cheney, Rove and Libby, are forced to turn state's evidence and plea bargain the unimpeachable truth: that George W. Bush directed the Plame leak -- and should be impeached for it.


ESCALATOR HANDRAILS
July 13, 2006

So anyway, now Karl Rove is nailed.

From Robert Novak's lips to our ears, we now know Bush officials were tripping over themselves to leak the name of Valerie Plame in order to quiet her husband, ambassador and administration critic, Wilson.

This is the same administration that fingered the Times for spilling so-called top secret info on the government's enlistment of the Swift consortium of banks to track terrorist spending, while they remain silent on the Wall Street Journal's same transgression.

Karl needs to be sent to Guantanamo to bunk with Osama's chauffeur. It all seems to be a game anyway. Incidentally, I could never touch the handrails of escalators in malls, because I imagine they smell like Karl Rove's hands. But I digress.

Recently, the administration is playing up the fact that they reduced the deficit from $425 billion to $375 billion. That's like bragging that you stole the Hope diamond, but left the felt stand. Clinton left a $1 trillion surplus.

I have worked in enough Fortune 500 boardrooms to know the discussions that go on there. Over M&Ms and coffee, some of the most distinguished board members in the United States discuss plugging in artificially low earnings estimates so they can exceed street estimates. This administration has refined this to a high art.

The bar is set so low for the Bush administration, you'd have to be an anorexic flatworm to limbo under it. Bragging rights begin with, "hey, the Earth is still here, isn't it."

Had the Democrats ever led the country so far down the road to ruin, Karl Rove, Dick Cheney, and the Ape in Chief himself, would have had a field day finding fault. Once Republicans loose congress in the midterms, and the White House in 2008, I want to see some jail time. Hope Guantanamo will still be open. I can't sleep at night knowing I'm spending $500 million to house Osama's chauffeur, while his florist and dentist are still on the loose.


July 12, 2006

Columnist, Robert Novak, has finally broken his silence and identified Karl Rove as the lying leaker in the Valerie Plame Wilson case. Rove leaked state secrets for political advantage. Scooter Libby, Dick Cheney's top aid, took the hit for the entire administration. More on this tomorrow.

Against my better judgment, I have decided to give PNN's erstwhile Science Scribe one last chance at redeeming himself. Here, live from the PNN newsroom, is our probationary Science Scribe.

HIGH-POWERED BREAKTHROUGHS IN SCIENCE

Thank you ed. It's good to be back. I was reading the other day that humans are not the only species who enjoy pornography. Scientists, studying hydras in the lab, have found that when two hydras start going at it, others "stand" around and watch.

Since hydras are hermaphroditic, containing both sex organs, they can do it all alone, or engage with others. They are one of only a handful of species that can "69" without actually 69-ing. Or they can double 69, which is enough to make even an amoeba blush.

It is not entirely clear whether hermaphrodites watching their other halves, (i.e., themselves) constitutes pornography. But hydras watching other hydras in order to get "frisky," came as a total surprise to devoutly Christian scientists such as myself.

And therein lies the moral dilemma. When is a pornographer a pornographer? Does it start with a single cell, or zygote -- or a fully mature hydra who should know better.

As such, this has opened up a whole new branch of science, which I call Pornoscopy.

Pornoscopy is the study of very small pornographic thingies. Microscopes of 100 power or more are required for human voyeurs wanting the experience afforded the "expensive suits in the expensive seats." One can use binoculars, however.......

PNN Editor:

CUT. CUT! All right. That's it. You're out of here. First of all, hydras are not hermaphroditic. Secondly, I want you to take both your books and your damn manual typewriter and get the hell out of here. No, you may not take the water cooler. Out!

Alright readers. I apologize. I'll have to do this myself. Here's your fill-in story for this Wednesday, July 12.

SECOND HELPINGS

Though I'm no scientist, I was surprised to read in Tuesday's Science Times that second and third helpings have nothing to do with obesity. It all about that first helping.

And here I thought that as long as I stacked as much food on my plate as I could safely balance, and avoided "seconds," I was "on-plan."

Now a spate of surveys studying countless test subjects has found that it's the total amount of food you eat that determines fatness, not the number of servings. Imagine that. This is the kind of science that will get Dr. Kyung E. Rhee, at the Boston Medical Center, a post within the Bush Administration.

It's sad because I was quite happy with my "eat but verify" method. Now I know that the French method of tiny portions at huge prices was right all along; just like their suggestion --learned from hard experience -- that we stay out of Vietnam and the Middle East.

Those Frogs! Fool me once, shame on me. Fool me twice, shame, shame on...well it's a shame when you find yourself with more on your plate than you can handle -- and possibly in a civil war to boot.


CHAUFFEURS IN JAIL
July 11, 2006

In the olden days, it was the butler who did it. Now it's the chauffeur.

While the Supreme Court delivered a stinging rebuke of the Bush military tribunal's right to try prisoners at Guantanamo Bay, it left open the government's right to detain people there. I, nor anyone else, know exactly who is imprisoned at the notorious facility, because none has been formally charged.

What we do know is that the "highest value" prisoner at Guantanamo is Osama's chauffeur. That's right. His chauffeur! His f**king driver!

We've spent countless millions of dollars detaining Arabs in Guantanamo, and the worst, most heinous one is a chauffeur. I hope, at least, we also swept up Osama's florist.

One can imagine the torture sessions Osama's driver has been through. Nipples wired, finger nails pulled, and near suicide, the interrogation proceeds...

Government:
What do you know about future attacks on the United States?

Chauffeur:
I buy road maps. I buy air freshener so car smells nice for boss. I buy felt dice to hang off rear view mirror. I sit on abacus to stop sweaty bottom.

Government:
Don't mess with us. What are you planning?

Chauffeur:
I hope someday to be New York City cabdriver. They make big bucks. Osama shitty payer.

Government:
What was your responsibility in the 9/11 attacks.

Chauffeur:
Nine who who? I live in Herat. I buy gas to fill up tank. Sometimes I buy high test. Sometimes I buy regular and pocket difference. I put quart of oil in once. Ouch!!!!!! Please stop. Okay, I buy once windshield washer fluid. Don't fry my nipples, please. Oooooweeeeeeee!!!!

Government:
What is you next target?

Chauffeur:
I rotate tires once. Osama too cheap to balance them. AHHHHHHH!!!!! Jesus Mohammed!! Please don't put cigarette butt on feet. What's that? No, my teeth no need pliers.

Government:
We can make your life easier. Just tell us where Osama is hiding.

Chauffeur:
Haven't seen cheap bastard in 5 years. He owe me 10 dinars. I like easier life. Maybe you get me apartment in Astoria Queens, please? I like to drive. No, not the nuts. No, no, no. Aye Carrumba!!! Oh, my poor cajonies!

Government:
George Bush is sinking in polls because of shits like you. Start spilling or you'll be getting white-hot Webber suppositories.

Chauffeur:
I like Webber. I like barbecues. Barbecues in Astoria Queens. Chicken Tikka Masala. Yes, thank you, I will bend over. Wait. Wait. Nooooooooooo......

Government:
Keep talking.

Chauffeur:
I like George Bush. He uneducated -- like me. He talk simple. He always outsmarted like me. He like vacations. He fast. He make good driver. I buy him pine scent for limo.

PNN:
Neither George Bush nor Osama bin Laden are likely to ever see the inside of a jail.

But Osama's chauffeur wondered if chaufeurs in America were privy to state secrets-- and if Mr. Bush's chauffeur will be doing some time at Guantanamo for his complicity in fabricating evidence to go to war with Iraq.

There is a bright side. With both chauffeurs put away, the cost of detaining the drivers at Guantanamo could be amortized over the two.


THE GREAT "WORLDWIDE WAR" LIE
July 10, 2006

When the politically desperate George W. Bush needed a war, his God granted him 9/11. Unfortunately, it was us who granted Bush his characterization of 9/11 as a "worldwide war" against terrorism.

Going after 20 mostly Saudi Arabian men with box cutters does not signify a world war no matter how horrific the result: especially a world war that will soon be approaching a trillion dollars and well over a hundred thousand lives, with no end in sight.

Timothy McVeigh killed a huge number of people right in America's heartland, and unlike Osama bin Laden, he was from our own army. Terrorists have always been with us and they always will be.

We can fear terrorists with weapons of mass destruction, but the reality is, since Hiroshima and Nagasaki, the possibility of a large scale attack has always been more than a zero possibility. What changed with Bush, was the perception that infinitely small possibilities require draconian measures of mobilization (and the surrender of rights) more injurious than what they are intended to remedy.

There have always been worldwide wars against poverty, illiteracy, racism, disease, and hunger. In these cases the term "worldwide war" was never meant in the literal sense. They are not actual wars in the sense that they have beginnings and endings, but are more perpetual struggles against intractable foes.

Terrorism fits into this same category. It needs to be monitored and policed. It requires surgical strikes, along with common sense strategies and diplomacy to secure international arms stockpiles. What is doesn't require, no matter how politically expedient, is a declaration of war against the world.

Though the scale of the 9/11 attacks screamed out for revenge, the 20 men who carried it out were no larger a group than those who pulled off Great Brink's heist. Had Osama bin Laden, or any other terrorist, known that his 9/11 attacks could have caused a trillion dollars damage to our economy and tens of thousands of lives, and fomented massive unrest between civilizations, they would have planned attacks to occur every day of the year.

This is the gift that George Bush gave the terrorists: the gift that keeps on giving.

Overreaction, while supremely macho, is the worst mistake a commander can make. It immeasurably magnifies the strength of the enemy and encourages terrorist wannabe's. Our president was outsmarted when he vacationed through the tragedy of the 911 attacks, and was outsmarted again when he went for the bait. Strike three was, and is, charging it all to future generations.

Sadly, Americans have learned that stupidity in our highest office is a price even America can't afford to pay.