"Just when I thought I was out, they pull me back in..."

If you're at all like me, you can already see the GOP nutjobs out there spinning their beanies at hyperspeed as they conspire how to use the flaming cartwheel of a crash that is Illinois Governor Blagojevich (prounounced nothing like it's spelled). As I type, Patrick Fitzgerald is holding a clinic on poise during a press conference to announce Blagojevich's arrest. Somewhere far, far away, Scooter Libby is having a flashback. Cut to the chase? Blago extorted untold sums of cash and contributions for favors while Guv. But the headline is - he was trying to sell the Senate seat being vacated by Obama to the highest bidder. Thus far, absolutely no link to Obama. Nor will they ever find any. Unless, perhaps, someone pushed the Justice Department to dump this truck on the lawn well before the Inauguration. I guarantee everybody one thing - the GOP will try to make this stick to Obama. This is Bill Ayers on the sort of steroid cocktail Barry Bonds choked down. This is utter crap, as a smear. But - I'm sad to say - it's got zazz. Back to the real point - Blago provides the final evidence for one of the truest hypotheses in my canon. Never trust a guy with a haircut like THAT.

Hope your own Cabinet announcements somehow avoid questions about "when did you speak with Blagojevich?...cough, cough...sorry, there's a lot of phlegm in that name". Rock on.

Our one Prezidunt at this time keeps his focus on the big issues

On the day Barack Obama gave his third daily presser in a row on economic recovery, what did Dubya accomplish? He saved a turkey. No, not Scooter Libby. That pardon is coming in early January. Instead, Dubya continued the annual tradition first introduced by his Poppy (true story - 1989 was the first "official" gobbler un-served). While it's not as much fun as seeing Sarah Palin gobble up airtime with inanities while a turkey went through the wood-chipper just over her shoulder, Dubya's classic shot from a few years back really gets me in the mood to tear into one of those suckers.

Hope your own turkeys are brining, not getting tossed out of a cab in suburban Chevy Chase right about now. Rock on.

Novak once ate a puppy in Reno. With a spoon.

We've all seen the battle initiated today in the Dems Primary Race an embarrassing number of times before. A major political campaign gets sideswiped by cowardly innuendo, in this case from a traitorous windbag some decades past his prime. The thusly engaged parties involved throw flaming balls of crap at each other. Everyone gets burned, while somebody (usually the roped-in dope, or dopette) survives to fight another battle. And the jerk-off who threw the first bomb gets to start more battles later. In campaigning, it's called the dark arts. For tax purposes, those paid to do it call it "opposition research". I call it something else - the Full Novak.

To explain - Robert Novak threw a bomb of an undefined "story" in his especially horrid column meant to tarnish Barack Obama with "scandalous" overtones that was blamed on Hillary Clinton's campaign. No one knows any of the details yet. But Obama's already come out this afternoon to say don't "Swift Boat" him and Hillary's minions are spreading loads of counterattacks and denials. We all know Novak's the ultimate dooshbag. We all expect unending scandal in the current state of electoral wrangling. Sadly. But did ya expect that a guy who was utlimately responsible for outing a CIA agent and sending Scooter Libby to jail would go this far, this soon thereafter? I can only hope that this story is nothing but bunnyfarts and we all laugh, laugh, laugh at the momentary ripple at this stage of the campaign. But hope ain't shite in politics. It's just a hick town in Arkansas.

Hope your own weekend is focused on what it should be - football. Rock on.

"After long deliberation with my closest advisers, I've decided that I should move on and clear some brush..."

I'm prepping to take some time off from blogging given the expected craziness of the upcoming month. But I simply can't sit idly by without offering my brief shot at the Scooter Libby commutation granted by Dubya. Plainly, no one's satisfied. Nutjob conservatives are bitching about their outrageous claim that he should have been pardoned. Everyone else can't understand why an "excessive" sentence translates to "no time served" in Dubya's view of assessing a felony conviction. Where I fall is firmly upon this point - Dubya screwed it up embarrassingly, once again. If he'd pardoned him sooner or later, it would be defensible. Wrong, but defensible. If Dubya had chosen any other course of action imaginable, it would be somehow defensible. Still wrong, but you get my point. So what Dubya chose was the utterly wrongest wrong in the whole panorama. He praises the prosecutor, stands by the jury's ruling, and then throws the whole process under the bus. That's Dubya. Always wrong, never in doubt. I can't wait for the "history will judge" wheels to start turning. Oh wait...they've already begun doing so. Worst. President. Ever. Period.

Hope your own pre-Fourth of July deliberations deal entirely with beef versus fowl. Rock on.

"Does Scooter Libby deserve to go to jail?" and/or "When did the Cold War actually end?"

The sentence just came in for Scooter. 30 months - the low end of the prosecutor's recommendation. Still, I. Lewis Libby is officially bummed. Yet another just dessert, some would say. But while this is going down, Dubya's peeing in everybody's soup just prior to the G8 by re-igniting Cold War-esque rhetoric in response to Pooty Poot's rope-a-dope routine. If I were running CNN's GOP Debate writing today, I'd make sure that both Scooter and Putin make an appearance this evening. Sadly, I expect neither to be mentioned.

If there's one anti-war vet I truly respect, it's Adam Kokesh. He may be an attention hog. Or maybe he's not ready for prime time. But the way he's been treated by this Administration's military and the way he's responded...well, this guy's a stud. I think we'll all be seeing a great deal more of him in the near to long-term future. I expect that will be a good thing.

Maya surprised us with a revelation this past weekend. We were just joshin' around - Sarah, Maya and me. And the question came up for Maya - "who's Jesus?" Please bear in mind, the dude's not been mentioned herein thus far. But Maya does spend her weekday mornings with the Lutherans. So how did Maya respond? "Jesus loves me." You could have decked me with a feather. Hearing her spout unjustifiable profanity at a formal dinner party was more of what I expected to be surprised by with this kid. I guess it goes to show that you just never know.

Hope all your own sentences are suspended today. Rock on.

No longer desperately seeking a Bird, a Sheep, and an Elephant.

Everyone's stumbling over themselves to snark that Scooter's guilty, minimum security shower stall with body gel style. Sucks for that guy to have at some point sold his soul to the Devil, I suppose. This really piles on another historic bad newzy run for the Bushies. I can't imagine that this story diminishes before the end of June when Scooter get sentenced. My early bet is that even with time off for being a rat, he still does 5 years. But he could get 25. However thinly you slice it, the outcome is a big ouch.

Maya's really got the gunk all up in her lit'l grill. Pink eye (conjunctivitis) is an insidious punk of an affliction. Pesky eye boogers everywhere. Most parents know, I'm sure. Since you can't really efficiently test whether it's bacterial or viral, antibiotics sound as surefire as taking Dick Cheney to a friendly trap shoot where your kids are throwing the clay pigeons. So we're riding it out, enjoying the company of a friend passing through on a book tour, and letting Maya write the stage directions. One of which is worth mentioning, as a recommendation for the youngins. Namely, "Jack's Big Music Show" within the Nickelodeon universe of cable channels. We all dig the show since the music is diverse and the shtick with the puppets is so well done. Maya got obsessively connected to one episode. Which we mistakenly deleted a month ago. Oopsie. Everytime we've allowed Maya to watch TV since, she's asked for this episode of "Jack's" by saying "bird, sheep and elephant". With a thick San Francisco/Seattle two-year-old accent, but that's beside the point. Which is that today that episode of "Jack's" replayed. Not really sure if Maya can see eveything through the sludge. But she was still happy as an elephant with a trunkful of water when we watched it this morning. Karma seems to be on our side. Which is nice.

Hope your own TiVo finds you a longlost love today. Rock on.