Bah. Bah I say. The ISG report is out, and so far it’s pretty grim looking (though I obviously haven’t read it fully, though I plan to over the weekend). It’s just a hair away from saying it’s all lost and we need to do damage control now. But for now I want to look not at the report, but the responses from Bush and his team.

White House spokesman Tony Snow said the report does not represent a repudiation of the administration’s Iraq policy.

“No, it’s something we have acknowledged,” Snow said. “It’s an acknowledgement of reality.”

“Stay the course is not the policy and it’s been that way for months,” said Snow during his daily White House briefing for reporters. “We look at this as a very positive document.”

Bush and his boys are avoiding “stay the course” like it were on fire and spraying anthrax. The saddest part is that “for months” part. Chances are that can’t mean more than four to six months, meaning it took until around May before they finally realized hey, this stay the course business isn’t working.

Bush’s response isn’t so much on the report aside from his stock “yeah I read it now leave me alone”, but this part really threw me off guard.

“We probably won’t agree with every proposal,” Bush said, but he added that it offers an opportunity for the White House and Congress to work together. The “country is tired of pure political bickering that happens in Washington,” the president said.

…what? Are… did he…

In a related story, Barry Bonds said he’s tired of the steroid use in professional sports, and Carlos Mencia wishes comedy wasn’t so racist.

Boy, you learn a lot about our politicians when you find one complaining about having to put in a full work week.

Hoyer and other Democratic leaders say they are trying to repair the image of Congress, which was so anemic this year it could not meet a basic duty: to approve spending bills that fund government. By the time the gavel comes down on the 109th Congress on Friday, members will have worked a total of 103 days. That’s seven days fewer than the infamous “Do-Nothing Congress” of 1948.

…

“Keeping us up here eats away at families,” said Rep. Jack Kingston (R-Ga.), who typically flies home on Thursdays and returns to Washington on Tuesdays. “Marriages suffer. The Democrats could care less about families — that’s what this says.”

Given that he probably isn’t flying home on Thursday evenings and arriving back in DC at 7am on Tuesday, that means that ol’ Kingston works between one and three days a week, and we’re only guaranteed he’ll put in a full day on Wednesday. No matter what he won’t be in the office Friday through Monday.

Can you imagine having that kind of freedom in your job? Jeez. Whiny bitches.

I’ve seen this in text before, but here it is in video. Enjoy:

[youtube]_KlcgegOlow[/youtube]

I could watch this all day long. Whoever wrote this is brilliant.

I admit it, a lot of the time this is just to get something out of my system, but it also gives me sort of a microcosm of the greater problem I have with common arguments circulating about the ol’ political sphere. Take this one by Chuck Asay, who has so many hilarious ways to mock his name I’ll take the high road by not doing any of them:

Now this is actually pretty impressive, we’ve got at least three comics worth of stupid crammed into just four panels here, but let’s go through each one individually, mm?

1. Asay is blatantly saying that people who lead their lives through Allah are terrorists. According to this guy, there is no difference between Islam and terrorism, the two are inexorably linked. Muslims crashed into the World Trade Center, so anyone who lives under Allah will be guaranteed to do the same. I’m going to take a wild stab here that Asay makes no such connections between Christian leadership and those who commit terrorism under God’s name.
2. I’m not sure how this one works, honestly. He simultaneously says that a writer is advocating letting the Iraqis vote on their destiny, but that they might also decide not to have elected leaders. So he’s accusing the Iraqis of potentially voting to not allow themselves to vote on things. I’m not sure who he thinks is less intelligent here, the Iraqis or his readers.
3. Panel 4 has the lovely Iraq-9/11 connection blatantly thrown in our faces. In one fell swoop Asay tells us that the Iraq War was started because of the 9/11 attacks. And he doesn’t say it in the sense of after 9/11 we were led into Iraq despite its lack of connection, no. It’s just 9/11, Iraq, bam bam. Iraq, 9/11, and Islam are all one item.
4. For some reason there’s a donkey in the comic and HE’s the one saying the Iraq War happened because of 9/11. I’m not sure what purpose Asay has in offering the opposing team’s mascot to say something antithetical to their actual viewpoint on things other than to just be annoying, but there you go.

Ah, I feel a little better now.

I promised you a video, and here it is. It’s not Olbermann, but it’s definitely amusing.

[youtube]hIU6_rHkyy4[/youtube]

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