Bush Base Blunders:

Again. Plagiarism is back in the news. Just when Bush puts his foot in his mouth revealing his lack of connection to the rest of us over the price of a gallon of gas, one of his top aids is caught stealing the words of others. Tim Goeglein, one of Bush's top religious right aids, has admitted to stealing large chunks of other people's words in 19 of 38 articles he published over the years since 2000. Sheryl Gay Stolberg covers the story in today's New York Times. Goeglein, a top aid to Karl Rove early in the Bush administration, has left the building, so to speak.

Speaking of lack of awareness: "I thought how proud I am to be standing up beside my dad. Never did it occur to me that he would become the gist for cartoonists." — George W. Bush, Newsweek, Feb. 2000.


A Personal Moment:

Ah, Saturdays! Ya gotta love 'em. Don't you wish there were five Saturdays a week? I mean, you can't do away with Fridays (thank God), because you need a payday, and Sunday has to stay for the sake of pro football and to keep the religious right happy, but I see no reason why we shouldn't have five Saturdays in between.

Defining Victory:

President Bush asked the press core to define victory for him recently—I heard it on NPR, but forgot the context—and added that he wasn't going to allow politics to define it in the case of Iraq, which just makes perfect sense.

Some Vietnam veterans are found of saying the war in South-east Asia could have been won if it hadn't been for the need to have a political solution. That's like saying you could have been baseball's greatest home run hitter if you just hadn't had so much interference from those darn genes.

Face it, the decision to go to war is always a political decision, the decision to remain at war is always a political decision. The only time that a war ends other than for political reasons is when either you are your foe is obliterated and incapable of making a political decision.

The simple fact that the decision to invade Afghanistan was bi-partisan does not keep that war from being political, and unless we wipe the country off the planet, ending that war will be a political one as well.

Here's the definition from The American Heritage Dictionary:

po·lit·i·cal: adj. Abbr. pol., polit. 1. Of, relating to, or dealing with the structure or affairs of government, politics, or the state. 2. Relating to, involving, or characteristic of politics, parties, or politicians: “Calling a meeting is a political act in itself” (Daniel Goleman). 3. Having or marked by a definite or organized policy or structure with regard to government: the union's political machine; political pressure. 4. Relating to or involving acts regarded as damaging to a government or state: political crimes.