White House Mafia Blog

Article: How Many Scientists?

I don't know what this picture has to do with global warming, but for some reason it seemed fitting.

From the March 28, 2007, New York Times:

Op-Ed Columnist
How Many Scientists?
By THOMAS L. FRIEDMAN

Sometimes you read something about this administration that is just so shameful it takes your breath away. For me, that was the March 20 article in this paper detailing how a House committee had just released documents showing “hundreds of instances in which a White House official who was previously an oil industry lobbyist edited government climate reports to play up uncertainty of a human role in global warming or play down evidence of such a role.”

The official, Philip A. Cooney, left government in 2005, after his shenanigans were exposed in The Times, and was immediately hired by, of course, Exxon Mobil. Before joining the White House, he was the “climate team leader” for the American Petroleum Institute, the main oil industry lobby arm.

The Myth Of Voter Fraud

From today's Washington Post: "Firing a prosecutor for failing to find wide voter fraud is like firing a park ranger for failing to find Sasquatch."

The complete article is below:

Article: Panda Porn (parental advisory warning)

Is This Legal!? After a little Googling it seems that, while kitty porn is a major no-no, panda porn is perfectly legal. Go figure. PS: I don't know what an article about panda orn is doing on a George Bush blog... but I'll bet if you dig deep enough you'll find a connection.

From the March 27, 2007, New York Times:

Zoo Hopes Porn Will Help Pandas Mate
By THE ASSOCIATED PRESS

CHIANG MAI, Thailand (AP) -- Chuang Chuang the panda has been spending his days in front of a big screen television watching panda porn.

Authorities at the Chiang Mai Zoo in northern Thailand hope the images will encourage him to mate with his partner, Lin Hui, and serve as an instructional lesson in how to do it right.

So far, it's been a tough sell, the zoo's chief veterinarian, Kanika Limtrakul, said Tuesday.

Global Warming: Just a Theory in Bush's Amerika

From the March 27, 2007, New York Times:

Heat Invades Cool Heights Over Arizona Desert
By TIMOTHY EGAN

SUMMERHAVEN, Ariz. — High above the desert floor, this little alpine town has long served as a natural air-conditioned retreat for people in Tucson, one of the so-called sky islands of southern Arizona. When it is 105 degrees in the city, it is at least 20 degrees cooler up here near the 9,157-foot summit of Mount Lemmon.

But for the past 10 years or so, things have been unraveling. Winter snows melt away earlier, longtime residents say, making for an erratic season at the nearby ski resort, the most southern in the nation.

Growing Old In Bush's Amerika

From the March 26, 2007, New York TimesL

Aged, Frail and Denied Care by Their Insurers
By CHARLES DUHIGG

CONRAD, Mont. — Mary Rose Derks was a 65-year-old widow in 1990, when she began preparing for the day she could no longer care for herself. Every month, out of her grocery fund, she scrimped together about $100 for an insurance policy that promised to pay eventually for a room in an assisted living home.

Article: When Will Fredo Get Whacked?

From the March 25, 2007, New York Times:

Op-Ed Columnist
When Will Fredo Get Whacked?
By FRANK RICH

PRESIDENT BUSH wants to keep everything that happens in his White House secret, but when it comes to his own emotions, he’s as transparent as a teenager on MySpace.

On Monday morning he observed the Iraq war’s fourth anniversary with a sullen stay-the-course peroration so perfunctory he seemed to sleepwalk through its smorgasbord of recycled half-truths (Iraqi leaders are “beginning to meet the benchmarks”) and boilerplate (“There will be good days, and there will be bad days”). But at a press conference the next day to defend his attorney general, the president was back in the saddle, guns blazing, Mr. Bring ’Em On reborn. He vowed to vanquish his Democratic antagonists much as he once, so very long ago, pledged to make short work of insurgents in Iraq.

The Jekyll-and-Hyde contrast between these two performances couldn’t be a more dramatic indicator of Mr. Bush’s priorities in his presidency’s endgame. His passion for protecting his power and his courtiers far exceeds his passion for protecting the troops he’s pouring into Iraq’s civil war.

Article: The President’s Prison

"[W]hen Bush brought in Mr. Gates, he didn’t want to fix Mr. Rumsfeld’s disaster; he just wanted everyone to stop talking about it."

From the March 25, 2007, New York Times:
Editorial
The President’s Prison
George Bush does not want to be rescued.

The president has been told countless times, by a secretary of state, by members of Congress, by heads of friendly governments — and by the American public — that the Guantánamo Bay detention camp has profoundly damaged this nation’s credibility as a champion of justice and human rights. But Mr. Bush ignored those voices — and now it seems he has done the same to his new defense secretary, Robert Gates, the man Mr. Bush brought in to clean up Donald Rumsfeld’s mess.

Article: Washington, D.C.: [New Slogan Goes Here]

My hometown (DC) needs a new slogan... got any ideas for them? If so, post them on WHM 2.0, which you can find here. Express yourself, interact with others... and all that crap!

Washington, D.C.: [New Slogan Goes Here]
2 Firms Hired to Develop Catchphrase

By Sue Anne Pressley Montes
Washington Post Staff Writer
Sunday, March 25, 2007; C11

Seattle has a new tag line: "metronatural." And Little Rock has recently begun calling itself "The Rock."

Now the District is looking for its own catchy way to describe and define the city and lure more tourists to town. Tourism officials are hiring marketers, conducting surveys and convening focus groups in search of a few words or images that capture Washington's essence.

Article: Iran’s Operative in the White House

From the March 20, 2007, New York Times:

Iran’s Operative in the White House
By NICHOLAS D. KRISTOF

If an 18-year-old American soldier were caught slipping obscure military paperwork to Iranian spies, he would be arrested, pilloried in the news media and tossed into prison for years.

But in fact there’s an American who has provided services of incalculably greater value to Iran in recent years. So you have to wonder: Is Dick Cheney an Iranian mole?

Article: It Wasn’t Just a Bad Idea. It May Have Been Against the Law.

From the March 19, 2007, New York Times:

It Wasn’t Just a Bad Idea. It May Have Been Against the Law.
By ADAM COHEN

The Bush administration has done a terrible job of explaining its decision to fire eight United States attorneys. Story after story has proved to be untrue: that the prosecutors who were fired were poor performers; that the White House was not involved in the purge. But the administration has been strangely successful in pushing its message that the scandal is at worst a political misdeed, not a criminal matter.