Category: Grave

It’s 4th and 10 with six days on the clock and hundreds of electoral votes to go…and John Kerry hopes that his Hail Mary Cheney play works!!!
And please take note that sports metaphors will never again appear on this site. Ever.

Slate, in its noble but hopeless effort “to emphasize the distinction between opinion and bias,” allows contributors to reveal their picks for President. And while the legion Mia-philes will be fascinated to learn that arts writer Mia Fineman is voting Kerry, it’s Christopher Hitchens’ endorsement that is likely to raise eyebrows – Hitch, per Slate, is voting Kerry.
Nevermind his recent endorsement of Bush in The Nation (titled “Why I’m (Slightly) for Bush”), nevermind his defenses of the Bush administration that occasionally border on the absurd, let Hitchens explain his choice, with the clarity and concision for which he is known. From Slate:

So his Slate endorsement is ironic, but his Nation endorsement is sincere? Or he’s not interested in voting for Kerry for ironic reasons, but for obvious reasons? Or what the fuck? I’ll bet that piece from the Nation will clear things up, where this Merlot-fueled master of the mot juste really gets to lay out his case. To wit:

OK, so that was totally ironic. Totally. But then what to make of what follows?

That’s totally sincere (aka un-ironic), right? So then what’s with the thing in Slate? Did he change his mind in the four days between the publication of his Nation piece and his Salon rumblings? Maybe Hitchens has run out of things to be a contrarian about and he now has only himself to debate. Or maybe someone should just lay off the sauce this close to the big day. God knows I’m confused.

So, like, yesterday the U.N.’s nuclear watchdog agency announced that a whole lot of explosives were missing or gone or something from an Iraqi weapons facility. This, like, looks so so bad for President Bush, who’s been campaigning non-stop on the perceived strength of his, like, handling of this war on terror thing. We’re, like, fighting terrorists, and if they have weapons that they shouldn’t have, it’s so totally bad for our troops.
Yesterday, White House Press Secretary Scott McClellan fielded questions on the munitions – which are, like, missing – from reporters aboard Air Force One.

Q: Are U.S. troops under any kind of higher alert because there’s enough munitions for like 50 car bombs? Is there, like, any kind of alert going on for them? Are they on any kind of higher standard?
MR. McCLELLAN: I think you need to look at what we have done in terms of destroying munitions. As I point out, we’ve destroyed more than 243,000 munitions, we’ve secured another nearly 163,000 that will be destroyed.

OMG those numbers totally shot you down, anonymous White House pool reporter! Or should I say…Ms. Lohan!

Soon enough, they’ll both be aged ex-presidents, after all, so it’s only fitting that they’ve begin to look like one another. And by “soon enough,” we mean, January 2009, unless certain American voters get their shit sorted in time.
EARLIER: Bush 41 and 43 in happier years, when little W. was content to merely drink Barbara’s milk while wearing a Yale sweater, as opposed to his later-in-life consumption of JD while disingenuously sporting a cowboy hat.

Life lessons on how to navigate through the hellhole that is Iraq, gleaned from “New Violence Flares in Iraq, After Executions Leave 49 Dead”, the New York Times, October 25, 2004:

“In the future, we will try to be more careful when the soldiers leave their camps,” he added. “We will provide them with protected cars that can escort them home.”

Phew! We can all rest assured, then, that slaughters of this magnitude will never happen again. I mean, the guy said, in the future, they’ll try to be more careful about it.

Earlier: A handy guide to Bush’s supporters (as seen from front and back)

Huge Cache of Explosives Vanished From Site in Iraq
by James Glanz, William J. Broad, and David E. Sanger, The New York Times, Oct. 25, 2004.
Worst case scenario: A deadly manuscript bomb set off in an American city.

Canidae Rovus: The North American Rove Wolf

The Wolfman’s drawing: “How did the wolves get up in the tree?”
I dreamed that it is night and I am lying in my bed (the foot of my bed was under the window, and outside the window there was a row of old walnut trees. I know that it was winter in my dream, and night-time). Suddenly, the window opens of its own accord and terrified, I see that there are number of white wolves sitting in the big walnut tree outside the window…
So recounted Sergei Pankejeff, AKA “The Wolfman,” to his doctor, the original Dr. Funkenstein himself, Sigmund Freud.
I thought about the Wolfman recently, since Freud might just be the man to decode Wolves, the new scare ad from the Bush/Cheney camp, released just in time for Halloween (Oooh, Veddy Scary!). There’s a raw, hypnopompic quality to the spot: it has the sweaty, blurry feel of a nightmare. (A not dissimilar feeling to this entire gut-wrenching campaign season.)

Naked Without My Peace Prize: Henry Kissinger’s body politic, 1974 Playgirl parody
Everybody loves Henry!
Well, at lease they used to, according to In Calls to Kissinger, Reporters Show That Even They Fell Under Super-K’s Spell, by Scott Shane, The New York Times, Oct. 22, 2004:
“The only reason for this call was to tell you that despite all appearances to the contrary in this city you still have some friends.”—CBS correspondent Marvin Kalb.
“It has been an extraordinary three years for me, and I have enjoyed it immensely. You are an intriguing man, and if I had a teacher like you earlier I might not have been so cynical”—Ted Koppel.
“I couldn’t agree with you more, my friend… I will make a call and see what I can do”— James Reston, New York Times columnist.
Related: Long out of print, but partially online: Kissinger: The Adventures of Super-Kraut by Charles Ashman.