I want some of what he's having

Hillary on the "hangover" speech:"I am reminded of what Abraham Lincoln once said, when his commanders
complained about Ulysses S. Grant's binges. 'Find out,' he said, 'what brand of whiskey Grant drinks
because I'm going to send a barrel to each of my generals.'"

Where is Penn and Why is Teller Speaking?

The DLC convention: Joe Lieberman is now talking about Gore "losing the election" because of his "people vs the powerful" message. The ABC's Note captured him as speaking in his "more-in- sadness-than-in-anger" sharp elbowing about the Bush administration domestic policy.
Nader told Time that he doesn't regret throwing the election to Bush: "it could have been worse, with a Republican Congress and Gore and Lieberman." Oh, good, so now there's a difference at last!

Conason's advice to the White House whining about Clinton defending himself: if you can't take it, don't dish it out!

Letter to the editor:
Bush jailbirds,
A new game show, It's time to play.... " Guess which Bush is in jail". Is it granddaddy Prescott Bush for illegally trading with the Nazis during WW11 ? Is it daddy Bush for selling weapons to terroists ? Is it unelected president G W Herbert Hoover Bush for his vandalism and drunk driving convictions ? Is it Laura Bush for killing her ex-boyfriend ?
Is it Jenna or Barbara Bush, the Tequilla Twins, for their numerous alcohol arrests and convictions ? Is it Jeb Bush's wife, Columba, for smuggling ? Is it Jeb's son, George P. Bush, for stalking an ex-girlfriend and vandalizing her house ? Is it Jeb's other son for statutory rape and commintting illegal sex acts with a minor?
No, It's Jeb's daughter Noelle, for using illegal drugs.
Bush. A family riddled with numerous repeated arrests, substance abusing convicted criminals and ex-convict jailbirds. Fact. An indisputable irrefutable fact.
Kevin Cunningham

Washington Post: "CLINTON REJECTS BLAME IN CORPORATE CRISIS, BLAMES BUSH ON MIDEAST"
"These people ran on responsibility, but as soon as you scratch them, they go straight to blame," Clinton said. "Now, you know, I didn't blame his father for Somalia when we had that awful day memorialized in 'Black Hawk Down.' I didn't do that."
And "There was corporate malfeasance both before he took office
and after. The difference is I actually tried to do something about it, and their party stopped it" And
one of the people who stopped our attempt to stop Enron accounting was made
chairman of the Securities and Exchange Commission

Washington Post: "BUSH FAR OUTSPENT GORE ON RECOUNTS" - to the tune of 4 t0 1 it seems. 13.8 million for only 500 votes advantage? The dollar sure isn't what it used to be...In the context of today's other headlines, it's easy to figure out who paid and why. Which reminds me: Ken, Dick - where are you?

Bill Clinton said last Sunday: "These are reverse Titanic economics: throw the women and children overboard and the captain and the crew sail away to Tahiti". He also reminded the audience his own line from the LA convention that he serves today to NY investors: "If you want to live like a Republican, make sure you vote for the Democrats"

A 10 foot shiny plastic dog appeared in Tompkins Square Park last week. He stands in a shallow pool of water on a platform under a roof. "The Dog is You - You are the Dog - this is about Community" proclamis a Haagen Daas board next to it (they sponsored the thing, along with Marion Boeski). An uniformed guard was there on a chair next to it last week, but he's gone now. Yesterday, the dog's closed eyes started squiting water - like long eyelashes. "I like him" Maya said. "He's brand new, I like brand new things"

"BUSH BEGINS HUNGER STRIKE TO PROTEST HUMAN RIGHTS ABUSES IN NEPAL" proclaims the Onion this week and even has the pictures to prove it. An orange clad Bush, complete with beads is sitting in the lotus position outside the White House next to a carboard sign: "Freedom for Nepal" and the peace sign. He looks extremely pissed. Long article follows.

"WHITE HOUSE SECURITY REBUFFS ATTEMPT TO SERVE PAPERS ON DICK CHENEY" - the Halliburton VP is hiding behind the security guards giving Larry Klayman a serious identity crisis: "
"We have served many a lawsuit on Bill Clinton, Al Gore, and Hillary Clinton when they were
in the White House," said Judicial Watch Chairman and
General Counsel Larry Klayman.
"The Clinton White House accepted the papers. Never before
have our process servers been
threatened with arrest.

NY Post's cover has the Looney Toons logo with the title: "THAT'S AOL, FOLKS" complete with Porky Pig. Kids were pointing to it in the supermarket. Steve Case bought AOL "to make a difference". Now, the SEC will have to check just how much of a difference. The NY Post cover reminded me of a sadder similar quip on NY Magazine's cover two years ago:Dot's All, Folks"

"When does this guy ever wind?" asked David Letterman. "THE WHITE HOUSE DEFENDS BUSH'S VACATION " was the AP headline. Paul Begala on Crossfire said: "You know, hard work didn't kill anyone, but Bush is not taking any chances.

Poor Tom DeLay! he went to the trouble of making a nice chart of the falling market in order to blame Democrats for "talking down the market". As he did that, the market went up, the chart had to come down. It may be his karma. When Bush and Cheney were yelling: "Recession!"in 2000, Delay insisted that "no one can talk down the market, it has its own rules!"Also, this:http://www.toostupidtobepresident.com/shockwave/cnbc.htm

Krugman's site refers today to Ionesco's Rinoceros. He concludes that " Some of us refuse to ignore the rhinoceri running the country.

Pollster John Zogby: "Here is a president who was elected with only 48% of the popular vote and more than one and a half years later, even in a time of war, remains stuck in that position."
Of course I only trust exit polls and Zogby was caught in October 2000 by the Village Voice inflating GOP numbers - only after that did they show Gore as a winner. I did however like the "STUCK IN THAT POSITION" statement.

When not fending calls for resignation, Harvey Pitt is asking Congress for respect and a raise. And, after all his hard work, Bush is going on an yet another tax paid vacation.Maryland Governor Parris Glendening, chairman of the Democratic Governors
Association, said yesterday
. "'In times of financial crisis and international crisis, the public looks for hands-on, confident leadership. What we're going to see is every-other-day photo ops from the ranch.

It seems that the TIPS program was killed in Congres. Not so fast, says calico cats vanquisher, John Ashcroft. His department of justice will pursue the informant program, Congress be damned. That has the Bush cheerleaders at the Free Republic confused: "It's becoming hard to tell who the enemy is anymore" writes one of them. For people who define themselves by their enemy,this is a serious existential crisis. They go as close to reality as to compare Bush with Ceausescu (if I read their spelling correctly):

Like Bush or not, we are going to have to realize that in ten or twenty
years he could be viewed
as a Calchesque (sp?) or others from the Eastern Block, who were hated
for what they set up or
carried out.

CNN: BUSH DID IT AGAIN! The market was poised for a rally until he started speaking, then went down showing a lack of confidence in his policies.
Time's Bill Saporito concludes that Bush managed to sound both self-confident and self delusional in his speech on "the few bad apples"

Damn these polytheists and their hateful ways! Bush's speech:
"
You know, these people hate -- they hate America because we love freedom. They hate the fact that -- as I
look out, I mean, I can see people who worship an Almighty and some who don't; who worship an Almighty
one way and others another way. They hate that.

Jonathan Chait of The New Republic comments: The lesson both Cenney and Bush
seem to have
learned [from private business]is that to benefit from shady accounting,
you don't
need to fool people forever. You only need to fool
them long
enough to get away with it.

TV host Jay Leno lampooned Bush's economic speech, which featured a backdrop festooned with
the words ''Corporate Responsibility.'' Leno's prop showed Bush speaking before a screen, proclaiming: ``Hasn't got a clue.''

Carville said at the democratic Convention in Florida:" Who are these "clowns" to be
telling us how to run the economy. The Republicans back in Washington are so confused
right now they don't know whether to " wind-up their arses' or scratch their watches"

"I am constantly amazed that anybody cares what I do" declared Paul O'Neal to Bloomberg News last Thursday. Geez, Paul, you'd think that the American people - your bosses would expect some work in the middle of the market crash, rather than your touring the world with rock stars.

"THE CRASH OF 2002" was the CNN headline as the market dropped under the 8000 mark today. Noelle is walking - her probation violation was stealing drugs from the nurse's office - which according to the police report "raises concerns about her honesty"Her daddy made sure that others not named Bush go to prison for similar repeat ofenses.

The new Paul Krugman website
> VACATION ALERT: I will be off for a little while. I mention this because a funny thought has occurred to me: will some people try to read some significance into my absence from the NYT op-ed page? .
>
> If I'm not back in the NYT by July 23, however, try to find out where John Ashcroft is holding me. Probably in the same cell as Nick Kristof.
>

Robert Kuttner: "Bush is at risk of becoming a Cinderella president. Terrorist attacks elevated
him from an untested pretender with no mandate into a popular commander in chief. Now a domestic economic crisis, eerily
reminiscent of Bush's own dubious financial history, could turn him back into a bumpkin"

Bush says that Cheney is a fine business man and the SEC will clear him (no undue pressure here, move along, nothing to see). He is also willing to go ahead with the privatization of the Social security, volatile market notwithstanding - a sacrifice he's willing to make.
Jonah Goldberg (Lucianne's pride and joy) has a headline:"So we found out that Bush is a hypocrite - so what?".
Jebbie's daughter, Noelle is in jail for violating her parole on forging prescriptions for drugs.

Meanwhile, everyone is talking about "Operation TIPS": volunteer to turn in your mother, your teacher and that nasty neighbor with the black dog" - :report suspicious activities" - one in 24 Americans should do this if Ashcroft and Bush have their way. Only one in 24? Why so modest? Hmmm, where I come from, if 4 people met, it was ASSUMED that one was an informer...

Mary Cocco :" Now that his tax cuts have failed to create jobs, cheer investors, boost wages, prop up profits or keep the government's fiscal house in order, he has a plan for the future. More tax cuts."
>

"Look, the reason he was credible leading us in the war on
terrorism is he hadn't served in the Taliban, OK? He's not credible leading
in a war on corporate fraud because he participated in corporate fraud." said Paul Begala on Crossfire last night.: He also said: "Clinton beat the first Bush like a piece of bad meat and that's exactly what we'll do to the second one"
Maya learned to swirl a hoola hoop today.

BUSH ADMINISTRATION HAS ANOTHER GOOD WEEK: NOBODY IS ACCUSED OF MURDER" - OK, this headline is actually from Ironic Times. Paul Krugman moved on to the next chapter in W's life: The Texas Rangers deal. Conason's article in the 1999 Harpers is the gift that keeps on giving. Kristoff and Salon are in hot porsuit.Confiscating land, raising taxes - these are conservative capital sins!

In the Hangover speech Bush is fighting his own demons: Clinton, "permissiveness", drunkeness, sin
Bush's sermons see everything in moralizing terms. Now the boom of the 90s had
nothing to do with bringing down the budget, or technological innovation, as
now, in Bush's cosmology it
gets confused with his drunken orgies, all a period of excess and godlessness.

PREDICTION: it will be the Hangover speech that will be W's undoing.
In the near future, they'll speak of "Wimp II: the hangover years"

I now know why the market is plunging. Bush was delivering his own version of the "malaise" speech - drawing from his own experience, he calls it "hangover" (blaming the investors and Clinton - for getting us "drunk"):

" As well, in order for us to have the security we all want, America must get rid of the hangover that we now have
as a result of the binge, the economic binge we just went through. We were in a land of -- there was endless
profit, there was no tomorrow when it came to, you know, the stock markets and corporate profits. And now
we're suffering a hangover for that binge.

"BEARS GROWL AT BUSH" is today's CNN headline. Which is a sweet irony, considering that in Wichita last week a headline was proclaiming: "BUSH BARKS AT WALL STREET" 700 points lost last week, over 300 today - so far.

Robin Williams started his HBO Special last night with Bush's speech that toppled the market: "Having him speaking about business is like having a lepper giving you a facial". This took it a step further than Barry Criminis who wrote last week: "like a cockroach lecturing about higiene"

Only about a week since Paul Krugman wrote: "Harken deserves a second look".Eversince he lamely defended it : In the corporate world everything is not black and white in accounting" and SEC"I can't figure out what happened to the filings". The Stock market tanked after the virtuosity speech, Halliburton hit the news again (Klayman finally got publicity). Maureen Dowd has W running for hours mumbling: "It's not my fault. It's Bubba's fault" Chris Mathews says: "People are connecting the dots. They see the economy like a sinking ships with W and his people in boats dressed as women and children"

Happy Birthday Brian!