Payroll Roll-outs Roll-on

Cheney certainly did look like a dick in Poland yesterday. Can't wait to hear the spin on this one.

PayolaGate identifications continue this morning. According to Salon, Michael McManus took $10K from HHS to promote Dubya's marriage initiative. McManus is yet another second-rate "marriage expert" with a syndicated column (how does one get that gig, anyways?). This all helps to flesh out some of the grander reporting done in the USAToday earlier in the week - the Bushies have spent $250M during their first term on PR activities. Not Iraq-level wasted money, but more than almost any American can stomach hearing about repeatedly. I'm still waiting for Robert Novak and Tucker Carlson's paycheck stubs to be found. You heard it here first.

In yet another attempt to drive the debate his direction, Bush gave the NYTimes an interview. Boilerplate, mainly. But he did have one hilariously condescending response to a question about his news conference admission that he'd not read Condi's "Foreign Affairs" article in 2000 outlining HIS foreign policy. "I don't know what you think the world is like, but a lot of people don't just sit around reading Foreign Affairs," he said, chuckling. "I know this is shocking to you." Yea, well maybe the sort of people that should be reading "Foreign Affairs" are exactly the people that aren't these days. What a goober.