Flipping around one morning this week I caught this little exchange on Fox News where they were discussing how unfair it was that Kerry wasn't being made fun of for his shrapnel wounds from Vietnam.

It was such an obvious attempt to denegrate Senator Kerry's service to our country that I figured I should share... and add a little commentary and music while I was at it. Enjoy.

Link

All week there have been rumors that a $1.5 Million fine was coming down against Viacom this week from the FCC. Meanwhile, Howard's ratings have exploded. Usually the all-news WINS station takes the #1 slot, but no longer.

Will this cause the FCC to reconsider it's content regulation campaign?

Time will tell...
Here are Drudge's unsourced figures:

HOWARD STERN TRIUMPHS IN NEW YORK CITY: BACK TO #1 AFTER INDECENCY FIGHT: ARBITRON ratings released this hour show badboy Howard Stern rocketing back to the top in New York City with a 7.2 share in 12+ listeners and a stunning 10.0 share in ages 25-54 [Up from a 5.9 12+ in the fall]... Stern, once again at the center of an indecency fight with the Feds, takes NYC morning drive for the first three months of the year, over all-news WINS [6.4 share], WABC's CURTIS & KUBY [3.4 share] and WFAN's Don Imus [2.6]...

Developing... HARD!

Bush:


Kerry:


The choice is clear.

(Kevin Drum provided the pretty pictures)

Pentagon official: Iraq military operation to cost more than expected
By Scott Lindlaw, Associated Press, 4/21/2004 16:13

WASHINGTON (AP) A top Pentagon official said Wednesday the Iraqi military operation ''is going to cost us more money'' than anticipated, and the White House kept open the possibility it will seek additional funds before the end of this election year.

A rough first estimate showed that the decision to keep 20,000 troops in Iraq for some 90 days longer to deal with increased violence will cost about $700 million, Gen. Richard Myers, chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff, told the House Armed Services Committee.

More...

Today's winner of the coveted Overspun.com DUH award goes to General Richard Myers. I mean, DUH!

The transcript made it clear that the foreign dignitary Woodward was discussing was Bandar, although Rumsfeld would not say that. "We're going to have to clean some of this up in the transcript," Rumsfeld said in the omitted passage. "We'll give you a -- I mean you just said Bandar and I didn't agree with that so we're going to have to -- I don't want to say who it is but you are going to have to go through that and find a way to clean up my language too."

All told, the Pentagon transcript omits a series of eight questions and answers, some of them just a few words each. Yesterday Rumsfeld described the deleted passages as "some banter."

Larry DiRita, the Pentagon's chief spokesman, said the deletion was an honest disagreement and defense officials were reviewing the passage to determine whether to restore it to the published version.

"I had discussions with the author about passages that would be excluded from the transcript by mutual agreement, and this passage was one of those sections," he said. "It was excluded specifically because the secretary was not in a position to validate or confirm the details that the author was raising."

Woodward said: "As the transcript shows, it was not off the record. I was surprised that it was deleted because it obviously dealt with a critical issue and was important corroborating information for the book. I asked DiRita to restore it on the Pentagon Web site."

Link

Kevin Drum points to a Washington Post article this morning focusing on the need for supplemental funding and the Bush administration's refusal to acknowledge it because of the coming election.

This isn't something we can dick around with- the soldiers are there and Mr. Bush needs to fund them. It's Bush's war- he can't start cheaping out now.

So here's what we now know:
John Kerry was treated two separate times for shrapnel resulting from attacks on his boat.

George Bush was treated for hemorrhoids.

I think that tells the whole story right there.

via bartcop

A new threat has suddenly emerged, a possible terrorist attack before the election. It could happen! We should be worried!

Of course, the problem with all this is we already knew that. Nothing changed from last week... Why bring it up this week? Three words: That Fucking Book.

The White House is now engaged in a desperate campaign to distract the American people from the multiple illegal acts President Bush has recently admitted to. Here's an important point to keep in mind:These aren't allegations, these are quotes from the president and his staff. Ladies and gentlemen, these are not assertions. These are facts[.] (Okay, I cribbed that bit from Colin Powell's UN speech... but I assure you, unlike Powell, I'm not lying.)

Drudge has two headlines up at this moment dealing with this sudden threat- "Bracing For Terror" and "Terror Operatives In Place" while there's one headline of Condi denying everything she told Woodward. And thus, the distraction machine is in motion.

I find it hard to believe something this lame could distract us from these illegal, treasonous acts, but I've been surprised too many times to count with the ignorance/indifference of the American people. I won't be too surprised tomorrow when I hear, "President Bush struck that deal with the Saudis to get us some cheap gas! Hey, if that gets him reelected, well, that's an unintended consequence."

Watergate was some guys breaking into an office. This is about killing literally thousands of innocent people for no reason, making secret deals with the country that funded the 9/11 terrorists in order to help with reelection, not to mention lying constantly to the American people. Why hasn't anyone called them on this?

Everyone agrees that President George Bush's lobotomy has been a tremendous success.

...and that's just the opening line.

Link

Screaming "9/11 Changed Everything!" over and over won't work in this case...

Prince Bandar enjoys easy access to the Oval Office. His family and the Bush family are close. And Woodward told 60 Minutes that Bandar has promised the president that Saudi Arabia will lower oil prices in the months before the election -- to ensure the U.S. economy is strong on election day.

Woodward says that Bandar understood that economic conditions were key before a presidential election: “They’re [oil prices] high. And they could go down very quickly. That's the Saudi pledge. Certainly over the summer, or as we get closer to the election, they could increase production several million barrels a day and the price would drop significantly.”

Of course, those of us paying attention have known for years the close relationship shared by the Bush family and the Saudi royal family. Now the facts finally being presented to a larger audience. What the hell took so long?