A couple more stories percolating today... Are Black churches plundering the faith based initiative money and turning their congregations over to the GOP? Apparently not. Meanwhile, Salon plumbs familiar territory: George W. Bush is an idiot, whose "brain" is supplied by Karl Rove. But Salon rounds up a slew of new books that ponder whether Rove himself, might not be so smart, either... And speaking of Dubya's mental capacity, something James Bamford said on Al Franken's radio show yesterday strikes me as particularly basic, but soberingly true. He said that what he finds oddest about President Bush is the extent to which he seems to see himself as a serious figure -- in the Teddy Roosevelt, Abraham Lincoln, Winston Churchill sense of the word "serious," and the lengths his aides go to prove to the public that he is a serious figure. The contrast between the pretend seriousness of the man, and his actual intellectual heft, depth and curiosity is so striking, it's almost funny. Except that he's occupying an office that has been inflated by history, and by the American people and media, into an almost emperor-like roll as "commander in chief." Salon also has the GOP's flip flop on the torture issue, as the international outcry over the further slippage of our global moral standing continues... Over at the NY Observer, it's Hillary Time! And Sy Hersh and company at the New York diagnose our ills five years after 9/11. On the wacky religious front, Florida's Islam-bashing Rev. O'Neal Dozier (who's not returning my phonecalls after his last appearance on the radio show, which came shortly before Jeb Bush forgot who he was...) is at it again. |
