Author: Dick

From the transcript of today’s presidential news conference. Well, I guess GW kind of answered the question posed by John Roberts of CBS News, but if it is an answer it’s not much of an answer.

Q Thank you, Mr. President. So many questions, so little time.

THE PRESIDENT: Well, keep your question short, then. (Laughter.)

Q I’ll do my best, sir. But, sir, you’ve shown a remarkable spirit of candor in the last couple of weeks in your conversation and speeches about Iraq. And I’m wondering if, in that spirit, I might ask you a question that you didn’t seem to have an answer for the last time you were asked, and that is, what would you say is the biggest mistake you’ve made during your presidency, and what have you learned from it?

THE PRESIDENT: Answering Dickerson’s question. No, I — the last time those questions were asked, I really felt like it was an attempt for me to say it was a mistake to go into Iraq. And it wasn’t a mistake to go into Iraq. It was the right decision to make.

I think that, John, there’s going to be a lot of analysis done on the decisions on the ground in Iraq. For example, I’m fully aware that some have said it was a mistake not to put enough troops there immediately — or more troops. I made my decision based upon the recommendations of Tommy Franks, and I still think it was the right decision to make. But history will judge.

I said the other day that a mistake was trying to train a civilian defense force and an Iraqi army at the same time, but not giving the civilian defense force enough training and tools necessary to be able to battle a group of thugs and killers. And so we adjusted.

And the point I’m trying to make to the American people in this, as you said, candid dialogue — I hope I’ve been candid all along; but in the candid dialogue — is to say, we’re constantly changing our tactics to meet the changing tactics of an enemy. And that’s important for our citizens to understand

I just finished watching Bush speak on TV about the Iraq war.

I counted about 17 times that I said:

“F**king a***hole.”

About 7 times I said:

“What a f**king d***h**d.”

And about 4 times I said:

“Are you out of your f***ing mind?”

Gee Dubya will speak to the nation in about 90 minutes. He reportedly will say: Iraq policies good. Opponents of policy bad. And I guess he will again defend his ordering that the Fourth Amendment be violated by ordering illegal searches of U.S. citizens. He will blame the media for delivering this bad news, saying it endangers our ability to fight terror. This is George’s M.O. Stay the course. Shoot the messenger. It’s really wearing thin.

Bush if fortunate that he has a Congress controlled by the G.O.P. That is because his ass would otherwise probably be looking at impeachment charges quicker than you could say the words: “Bill Clinton.” He may still end up being impeached. But even if he is guilty of violating the law I would bet the majority party in Congress wouldn’t have the backbone to prosecute him, much less vote to remove him. Bush will also have probably a lot of the public saying they understand his motives because of 9/11. I could be wrong. Look at Dick Nixon.

But Bush by his insistence on torture, on his ordering American citizens be spied upon, accomplishes the same as signing a unconditional surrender to Osama and the rest of the terrorist bastards. The Bush administration — let’s suppose they do really have our safety in mind — is missing the forest because of the trees. Of course, there are those who say the forest and trees will soon be gone the longer Bush is in office. I don’t know. I say we get the bad government we elect. And I didn’t elect this administration.

Here is a dispatch about a good, old-fashioned Christmas:

WELLINGTON, New Zealand (AP) — A group of 40 people dressed in Santa Claus outfits, many of them drunk, went on a rampage through Auckland, New Zealand’s largest city, robbing stores, assaulting security guards and urinating from highway overpasses, police said Sunday.

The rampage, dubbed “Santarchy,” began early Saturday afternoon when the men, wearing ill-fitting Santa costumes, threw beer bottles and urinated on cars from an overpass, said Auckland Central Police spokesman Noreen Hegarty.

She said the men then rushed through a central city park, overturning garbage containers, throwing bottles at passing cars and spraying graffiti on office buildings.

One man climbed the mooring line of a cruise ship before being ordered down by the captain. Other Santas, objecting when the man was arrested, attacked security staff, who were later treated by paramedics, Hegarty said.

The remaining Santas entered another downtown convenience store and carried off beer and soft drinks.

Alex Dyer, a spokesman for the group, said Santarchy was a worldwide movement designed to protest the commercialization of Christmas.

“Some privacy for crying out loud!”

Mr. Whipple started squeezing the Charmin when I was a young kid. I thought he was kind of creepy but perhaps he was just subversive. I think he’s dead and — as we all know — you’re supposed to say only good things about the dead.

Charmin — which makes one heck of a TP by the way(I’m in a dash mood)– has been definitely subversive with its animated bear commercials in which the large but lovable animals trek to the woods with a roll of toilet paper. I mean, it could be a coincidence that bears going to the woods with TP in paw was just something the ad people came up with and sold to Charmin. But I don’t think anything “just happens” in the advertising world. Surely they were going for the joke, that old retort of the most obvious: “Does a bear s**t in the woods?”

So I thought that if Basho was here today — and he’d be really old — perhaps he would celebrate in haiku the clever joke that the evil advertising geniuses developed to sell us squeezably soft Charmin. He would be much more eloquent than I, but here’s kind of a rough draft:

Bear goes to the woods
Takes a crap in the cold wind
Loves Charmin tissue.

Which raises a whole new question: “Does a bear wipe in 17 syllables, or perhaps 5-7-5?”