Okay, let’s see, what have I missed the last few days?

Cynthia McKinney: arrogant, stupid bitch. Hates cops, hates white people, thinks the laws she helps bring into existence shouldn’t apply to her, blames everyone else for problems she creates herself, wholly unserious about security and in fact interprets the very idea as a perceived breach of some phantom “right” or other, an overblown response to a nonexistent threat. Yep, she’s a Democrat all right. Throw in her love for the Big-Nanny welfare state, her mistrust of American intentions and capabilities, her contemptuous dislike for most of her countrymen, her discomfort with the Constitution as it was actually written, and her implacable anti-Semitism, and you could say she’s the archetype, the living, breathing representation of the cloth from which all other Dems are cut.

Immigration: I don’t quite get this “compromise” business, since from here it looks like both RINOs and Commiecrats are in almost complete agreement: all illegals get to Pass Go and Collect 200 Dollars, sooner or later. The only potential stumbling block is the vast majority of Americans, but hey, when did that ever matter much to Congresscritters? Not to deflect any blame from Bush on this one, mind. He deserves plenty. You can’t call a nation secure when it has a BINO problem: Borders In Name Only. In fact, without borders (and assimilation, which is at bottom what this is all about anyway), you can’t even really call it a nation at all.

Dateline NBC and its manufacturing of news: well, more on that in a bit. And how.

The latest media-driven “gotcha” Scandal of the Century of the Week, and the usual attendant Leftist slapstick-comedy act: do you guys really think that a President releasing declassified information in a controlled leak to defend his policies against the spurious charges of a proven-liar critic will at last prove to be the lever that shifts the American electorate once and for all to the loony-Left side of the aisle? Do you think the American electorate as a whole finds your frenzied hate for Bush at all attractive, and sees you as anything other than a passel of unreasoning, howling crackpots when you uncritically respond to contrived non-news like this as if you were Pavlov’s dog hearing a church-bell ringing? Do you really?

And you still insist that you’re the ones who are reality-based? Well, good luck with all that.

Update! The NYT tries to inflate this flaccid, dripping condom of a “leak” scandal with plenty of their usual hot air, but unfortunately for them, Tom Maguire just unsheathed his rhetorical rapier. And don’t miss this quite interesting comment from j. west:

Referring to the “poorly suited” comment concerning the aluminum tubes, perhaps someone in the MSM braintrust could explore the suitability of the other use claimed for the tubes.

Detractors hold up the story that these tubes were meant for reverse engineered Hydra/Medusa rocket motors. These are short range rockets designed for use in helicopters, but conceivably could be used for ground launched Multiple Launch Rocket Systems (MLRS). They have a burn time of approximately 1.8 seconds, so the range is severely limited.

Trouble with this theory is that the expected survival time of an Iraqi helicopter (if any existed) in a conflict with the U.S. was less than 1.8 seconds. Used with a ground based MLRS, firing one would lead to a smoke trail that screams “kill me here”. The point being – this was an extremely ineffective weapon for the circumstances.

No one has asked the question: “Why would Saddam violate the sanctions trying to acquire aluminum tubes for an ineffective weapon system when purchasing the complete rocket was fully allowed?”

Even Bush’s most vocal critics who have any understanding of technical aspects of the tubes have not claimed the tubes could not be used for centrifuges. They simply point to the rocket use as the “more likely” end product. I think that even a cursory investigation of the facts would lead to a more reasoned conclusion.

Ahh, but ain’t that always the way?

Updated update! Like, totally spaced on mentioning the accession of Perky!™ Katie Couric to the once-venerated anchor’s desk of the CBS Evening News, y’know? No official word yet on rumors that the show will be renamed “Vital Social Issues ‘N’ Stuff with KATIE,” though. And as part of the deal, CBS has agreed that it will never, ever again use the word “gravitas” in any context whatever.

Update to the updated update! Captain Ed says if the MSM wants to root around looking for culpability for Bush’s decision to declassify the docs mentioned in SotCotW v.8652.3beta, they better start in their own trough first:

One can argue about the wisdom of George Bush in declassifying the Iraq NIE when he did, but let’s remember that the press had been clamoring for that information ever since the fall of Baghdad three months earlier. The WMD stockpiles had not been found, and Joe Wilson among others had claimed that “Bush lied”. In response, Bush declassified the NIE so that everyone could see what exactly the intelligence services had told him about Iraq’s WMD programs. Now everyone wants to proclaim George Bush a criminal for releasing the information that the entire media establishment demanded he reveal.

This isn’t brain surgery, folks.

Nope. But in the case of the slack-jawed droolcases who are most excited over this “revelation,” it ain’t like we’re dealing with brain surgeons here, either. Only to hate-filled partisans like these could the notion of a President mounting a perfectly legitimate PR defense against a malignant, vicious, and dishonest attack — a defense mounted in direct response to their own strident demands for information — be considered a “crime.”