The weather is great. I hope everyone will go out tonight dressed up as a stalker or something equally scary. Assuming I had to make a choice, I'm not sure which of those would be a better way to describe Donald "Poor and Stupid" Luskin, who has gone on to threaten Atrios with a lawsuit over a micro-sized post called "Diary of a Stalker."

This guy Luskin is sick, sick, sick -- the number of the beast. Just in case you're wondering, I'm not judging him on his physical appearance (as he does to others), but on the content of his character.

Luskin is obsessed with Paul Krugman, as a short visit to the Poor and Stupid website will show. In addition to his online accusations and attacks, Luskin appeared at a Krugman book signing, where he didn't identify himself until Krugman was halfway through signing a book for him. Krugman described Luskin's behavior as "stalking"

Here's how Luskin describes the man he loves/hates:

The nervous, stammering, shifty-eyed, twitching, ill-tailored, gray homunculus slumping across the table from Tim Russert Saturday night was simply not recognizable as the titan who strikes fear in the hearts of conservatives everywhere each Tuesday and Friday morning. He had all the talking points, but they seemed to be coming from someone else's mouth. It was as though, through some terrible casting mix-up, the part of Paul Krugman was being played by Woody Allen.

It was like he had met someone on the Internet, formed an impression based on pre-existing ideals, and gone into shock when he discovered what this person really looked like. If you were to see Luskin waiting in line at a future Paul Krugman book signing, would you think he was just a fan or a mentally unstable stalker?

I'd like to dedicate this song to Donald Luskin, PK:

I can't seem to face up to the facts
I'm tense and nervous and I can't relax
I can't sleep 'cause my bed's on fire
Don't touch me I'm a real live wire

Psycho Killer
Qu'est-ce que c'est?
Fa fa fa fa fa fa fa fa fa far better
Run run run run run run run away

You start a conversation you can't even finish it.
You're talkin' a lot, but you're not sayin' anything.
When I have nothing to say, my lips are sealed.
Say something once, why say it again?

This song has been ready for this very occasion since 1977. David Byrne even cries out later in the tune, "I hate people when they're not polite." For someone like Donald Luskin to threaten someone like Atrios for holding the mirror up for him, that's more than just impolite. It's downright pathetic.

Bush is spouting more doublespeak, and he's laying it on thick with the statements that brought on these latest headlines.

* Bush sees Iraqi violence as reflection of progress
* Bombings called sign of progress

The first of these articles reads like this:

US President George W. Bush vowed Monday to stay the course in Iraq, after a series of bold attacks around the Iraqi capital killed 43 people and wounded more than 200 in the deadliest day for two months.

"The more progress we make on the ground ... the more desperate these killers become," Bush said. [Emphasis mine] [LINK]

If we are to believe Bush (as William Saletan does), then War is Peace, Freedom is Slavery, and Ignorance is Strength. This next headline reflects what Bush said, but its subtitle is more reassuring:

* Bush: Baghdad blasts show U.S. making progress
* Democratic presidential candidates ridicule statement

It goes on to say:

"Does the president really believe that suicide bombers are willing to strap explosives to their bodies because we're restoring electricity and creating jobs for Iraqis?" said Sen. John Kerry, D-Mass., a White House candidate. "Is the president arguing that the better things get in Iraq, the more dangerous it will become for American soldiers?"

...

Democratic presidential candidates said the surge in violence only bolstered their contention that postwar Iraq is a mess.

"I just don't understand the president's logic -- that because there is more violence and more deaths, things are going well. In my book, that means things are worse," Democratic presidential contender Howard Dean said.

Said Kerry, a Vietnam War veteran: This sounds frighteningly like the 'light at the end of the tunnel' rhetoric of Vietnam. Every day, the White House's excuses become more insulting to our troops on the ground."

Sen. Joe Lieberman, D-Conn., said in New Hampshire that he was "startled" by Bush's words. "With all respect, it makes no sense: This is a tragedy that occurred today, and it's amid growing signs of dangerous disorder in Iraq."

Kerry and Dean are saying the right things, but that Lieberman is an idiot for continually kissing up to Bush!

Bush says elsewhere in the Olympian article:

"[T]he more electricity is available, the more jobs are available, the more kids that are going to school, the more desperate these killers become. They can't stand the thought of a free society. They hate freedom. They love terror. They love to try to create fear and chaos."

This is a nonsensical echo that hurts both my ears and my brain. As Richard Wolffe retorts:

The terrorists don’t want to shut down Iraq’s schools. They want to kick the occupiers out of the country by showing they can’t rule the place. [LINK]

When will the impeachment proceedings begin?

When the Feds have to lie again, they can just blame it on Nathaniel Heatwole this time.

Deputy TSA [Transportation Security Administration] Administrator Stephen McHale said Monday's court action "makes clear that renegade acts to probe airport security for whatever reason will not be tolerated, pure and simple."

"Amateur testing of our systems do not show us in any way our flaws," McHale said. "We know where the vulnerabilities are and we are testing them. ... This does not help."

You see? Nat (the "amateur") made them (the "professionals") lie about their flaws -- which, er, they don't have!

Some background may be in order. Heatwole is a 20-year old college student who breached airport security six times -- without ever getting caught -- in an attempt to show authorities just how easy it is to get past them. It wasn't merely an attempt. He succeeded! And authorities in charge of such matters would probably not have known anything if Heatwole himself had not sent an e-mail to the Transportation Security Administration on September 15, including his name and telephone number. In the e-mail, he informed them of items he had left aboard planes, including modeling clay "made to look like plastic explosives" (which, I suppose means it was simply shaped into a block as opposed to being molded into a likeness of Hello Kitty or something), box cutters, and a small amount of bleach, the last two of which are banned from being taken aboard flights in the wake of the 9/11 attacks.

The charges against Heatwole could put him in jail for 10 years. What these charges actually are attempting to hide is just one more embarrassment about the fact that the conditions that allowed nearly 20 hijackers to board passenger jets on September 11, 2001 and crash them into the Pentagon and World Trade Center towers have not been improved one bit by things like the Patriot Act and shoe checks. Can you say "scapegoat"?

In my search for a position which seeks to understand various points of view, I read news and views from the ultra- to the infra- ends of the spectrum and everything in between. However, it seems that I've been "over there" a few too many times recently, and it's really making me sick. Tom Tomorrow has obviously visited some of the very same web-shites (sic) and seems to feel pretty much the same as I do.

Spinsanity's Bryan Keefer makes one dizzy with his (unintentionally self-referential) piece "Dude, Where's My Intellectual Honesty?" Glenn Reynolds (InstaPundit) dissembles about media groveling, and in commenting on an NPR piece, he sends readers over to Andrew Sullivan's blog to get their "Daily Dose" of spin.

With bloggers like Keefer and Reynolds (and almost anybody they link to), who needs facts? Ronald Reagan once said that "Facts are stupid things." If I were to take that statement and the behavior of the aforementioned bloggers to heart, what might this blog look like?

By the way, AIDS and global warming don't exist, condoms don't prevent that nonexistent disease, the moon is made of cheese, and the Earth is indeed flat (despite the oft-spewed "facts" behind Columbus' "discovery" of America). Monday -- every Monday -- is Free Shopping Day, and you don't have to go to work! That brave cowboy fighter pilot named W has singlehandedly rid the world of terrorists (because they're all in Iraq making life wonderful for the soldiers and Iraqi people alike), so don't waste your time grabbing plastic sheeting or duct tape at the store. Go for the biggest items you can stuff into and pile atop your SUV, because there's also an endless supply of environmentally safe oil right under the Arctic National Wildlife Refuge in Alaska. (Why are there no links in this paragraph? What -- like I have to back my shit up?! And if I did, I'd just link either to myself or to somebody who links back to me, thus proving the truth of my statements. Just believe me and shut the hell up, why don'tcha?)

Yes, can you give me the number in Baghdad where one could hypothetically phone in terrorist threats to the military? Yes, I'll hold...

While we're waiting for directory assistance, I'll tell you what prompted my imaginary phone call. It was this bit from an article on CNN:

"Coalition military sources said Wednesday that they have received specific threats against hotels housing Westerners in the Iraqi capital." ...

"Authorities received similar warnings last week about a possible attack on the Turkish Embassy in Baghdad, where a suicide car bomb detonated Tuesday afternoon. U.S. and Turkish officials said that the bomber was killed in the attack, the second such bombing this week."

What's that you say, operator? You don't have any such listing? Okay, thanks anyway. Sorry to trouble you.

These threats may actually exist, but an item like this appearing so soon after Bush rebuked the media for reports on Iraq which "emphasize the negative" shows just how fictitious this administration's statements are. (Remember, we're talking about the same Bush whose every other sentence seems to mention either "terra" or "terra-ists.")

To add to the drama, the above news comes right on the heels of more "astroturf" -- a neologism used to describe campaigns where people send identical letters to news editors all over the place in an attempt to create the appearance of a spontaneous "grassroots" movement, signing their own names when, in fact, someone else wrote the letter. Bush apparently thinks that if we just ignore the bad stuff (daily body count, no WMDs, no capture of Saddam, no electricity, no jobs), that everything'll just be peachy.

"The public will believe anything, so long as it is not founded on truth."
-- Edith Sitwell (1887 - 1964) English biographer, critic, novelist, & poet

I drank some mint tea yesterday, as I do on many hot days here on my island. But that's not the only thing I did. I woke up early, went to a wedding reception, did a bit of outdoor photography, made an international phone call, watched some local and world news, surfed the Internet, added a post to my blog, read and answered some e-mail, and so much more. In other words, it was a pretty busy Saturday, and a tall, cool glass of mint tea was a nice way to help put a relaxing end to that day. I'll also let you in on a little secret. Being the multimedia-oriented multitasker that I am, I drank my tea and watched the news simultaneously.

"Just what in tarnation does this have to do with anything, Maddog?!" There is a point. Be patient, and I'll get to it straight away.

I like mint tea a lot, but frankly, I'm getting tired of reading about it, and I hope you are, too. Many websites I've come across recently (1, 2, 3, 4, and 5, to point out just a few) have adopted the "mint tea" phrase from Joe Wilson's New York Times article "What I Didn't Find in Africa" (apparently without reading the rest of the article -- sometimes not even reading the whole sentence, for that matter -- or simply choosing to ignore it) as a "talking point" in order to benefit their argument that seems to be desperately trying to say, "Joe Wilson didn't investigate doodly-squat."

These articles read like this:

*1 "[F]rom the sound of his report, 'drinking lots of mint tea' seemed to occupy much of his time." (World Net Daily)
*2 "As Mr. Wilson himself acknowledged, his so-called investigation was nothing more than 'eight days drinking sweet mint tea and meeting with dozens of people' at the U.S. embassy in Niger." (World Net Daily)
*3 "Then Wilson detailed the guts of his investigation: 'I spent the next eight days drinking sweet mint tea and meeting with dozens of people: current government officials, former government officials, people associated with the country's uranium business.' This, in the business, is called 'phoning it in.'" (Cybercast News Service)
*4 "This is the most telling paragraph in that piece: 'I spent the next eight days drinking sweet mint tea and meeting with dozens of people: current government officials, former government officials, people associated with the country's uranium business. It did not take long to conclude that it was highly doubtful that any such transaction had ever taken place.' Which is another way of saying he conducted the investigation in this manner: 'Hey anyone seen any yellowcake? No? Okay, I'll go home then.' He'll never make a detective." (ChronWatch)
*5 "As for Wilson's 'investigation,' the ex-ambassador to Gabon based his conclusion on 'eight days drinking sweet mint tea and meeting with dozens of people' at the U.S. Embassy in Niger. Wow." (The Oregonian) [All emphasis mine]

"Wow" is right! The first World Net Daily article fails to get even the quote itself correct. Here's what Wilson actually said, with a bit more context:

"[Barbro Owens-Kirkpatrick, the United States ambassador to Niger] and I agreed that my time would be best spent interviewing people who had been in government when the deal supposedly took place, which was before her arrival."

"I spent the next eight days drinking sweet mint tea and meeting with dozens of people: current government officials, former government officials, people associated with the country's uranium business. It did not take long to conclude that it was highly doubtful that any such transaction had ever taken place."

"Given the structure of the consortiums that operated the mines, it would be exceedingly difficult for Niger to transfer uranium to Iraq. Niger's uranium business consists of two mines, Somair and Cominak, which are run by French, Spanish, Japanese, German and Nigerian interests. If the government wanted to remove uranium from a mine, it would have to notify the consortium, which in turn is strictly monitored by the International Atomic Energy Agency." [Emphasis mine]

Of course there's lots more in the article. There are also many more examples of spin to be found than I can effectively list here. If you haven't read Joe Wilson's article already, go here, and read it for yourself. If you have already read it, read it again to refresh your memory. You'll want to have these details as mental ammunition so you can argue against those who are spinning the facts into something farther from the truth than I currently am from the shores of the U.S. Remember also that the White House made an admission one day after Wilson's article that the infamous "16 words" shouldn't have been in the State of the Union speech. (And please don't try to argue that the sequence of those 2 events was simply a coincidence!)

What all this "tea talk" indicates to me is sheer desperation. Nevertheless, while the truth is still "putting on its shoes," these lies have made their way around the world several times over. Fight these fabrications with flat-out facts.

Would anyone care to join me for a glass of tea and a discussion about revolution? If they take us away to Guantánamo Bay and charge us with sedition, we could always just whine, "But all we were doing was drinking mint tea!"

UPDATE: It may have been so obvious that this angle eluded me, but for people in many countries of northern and sub-Saharan Africa, drinking mint tea is akin to drinking chilled carbonated beverages in North America. To supplement the 12 links included above, here are a few more.

A web page describing Tunisia's customs says, "Personal relationships are important in business, and time is usually spent in light conversation, over tea or coffee, before embarking on business matters. ... Mint tea or fresh lemon or orange juice are typical non-alcoholic drinks. It is polite to accept a drink when offered." Another page -- this one about Morocco -- says, "Mint tea isn't just a drink in Morocco. It is a sign of hospitality and friendship and tradition. Because this drink is so popular -- it is served all day long, after every meal and with every conversation -- Moroccans take great pride in their tea..." Another page about Morocco has this to say: "Mint tea. The country’s national drink, tea is drunk [past participle of the verb "drink," it is not being used as an adjective in this sentence] every hour of the day." Finally, this one refers directly to Niger: "Niger's most popular drink is tea, which is available everywhere from street stalls." [All emphasis mine]

Once again, the tirades against mint tea by the people quoted above (in their articles attempting to denounce Joe Wilson's efforts in pursuit of truth) are ample evidence of the cultural ignorance and/or insensitivity -- as well as their ignorance of what constitutes treason.

Addicted to more than just hate, Rush Limbaugh has admitted that he's "addicted to prescription pain medication." Of course, he doesn't admit how he obtained them, for that would subject him to the same scorn with which he has viewed others less fortunate than himself. On this very topic, he has said things like:

"[T]oo many whites are getting away with drug use. Too many whites are getting away with drug sales. Too many whites are getting away with trafficking in this stuff. The answer to this disparity is not to start letting people out of jail because we're not putting others in jail who are breaking the law. The answer is to go out and find the ones who are getting away with it, convict them and send them up the river, too." [LINK]

Normally, I wouldn't advocate that sort of treatment of drug addicts. But it's not especially Rush's addiction that I have a problem with. It's his hypocrisy. To which precinct did he say he was going to turn himself in? Oh, he didn't?

But is the left going to get its "trifecta"? A few days ago, it seemed that Limbaugh, the White House "leaker," and perhaps Arnold Schwarzenegger would be knocked off their high horses and wind up on their asses. Well, the jury is obviously still out on all three, though the neocons are already whining that the "liberals" are picking on them. Ha! Maybe the media is getting a bit gutsy, but when the New York Times is still (9/29/2003) publishing the LIE that Saddam Hussein "threw weapons inspectors out in 1998" (after having corrected this information once before, back in 2000), one can't really call it a "liberal" paper. (Note: they did correct this on 10/4/2003 after hundreds of people complained, but the recurrence of this "mistake" is inexcusable.)

I hope to put up a response to the California recall results soon, but I'm still doing research.

You think I'm kidding, do you? I'm as serious as a freaking heart attack!

I doubt that there are too many people visiting this blog who need to hear this, but I'm going to say it anyway:

IF YOU ARE A REGISTERED VOTER IN THE STATE OF CALIFORNIA, VOTE "NO" ON THE RECALL AND "YES" FOR CRUZ BUSTAMANTE!

Sorry for screaming, but if Arnold Schwarzenegger is elected as governor of California, this will be a very bad thing for all of America. Not only because of the allegations of groping or his aversion to debate. Not just because of his connections with Ken Lay. No, it's much bigger than all of that.

Beyond these things, the circus known as the California Recall is an attempt to recall democracy. If you think this is a crazy runaway train, you'd better do what you can to stop it before it runs you over. Voting "No" to the recall might stop it from succeeding. Voting "Yes" for Bustamante is the only hope of stopping Schwarzenegger if it goes through. If you want to cast a "vote of conscience," I have only three words to say to you: Remember Ralph Nader. If you avoid the polls without a really good reason, you'll deserve whatever you get.

Get out there and vote while you still can. Remember the name of this blog. This is where it becomes literal. Even if you're on an island far, far away from the United States, use whatever influence you have to get people out of their houses and away from their televisions long enough to make a difference this Tuesday! If Gray Davis gets recalled and Arnold Schwarzenegger becomes the next governor of California, it will be more than a bad precedent -- it'll be a bad omen. Mark my words.

Note: I have absolutely no reason to oppose the idea of foreign-born presidents, but the Constitution should not be amended specifically to benefit Schwarzenegger and/or those who would want him in the White House.

UPDATE: The Poison Dart provides one particular link I neglected above regarding ballots just in case you are still not aware that the neocons want to redact you in the redacted "and stuff like that." Go there now!

I don't know if it was there before and I just didn't notice, but Google news now seems to include some items from Al-Jazeera's English site on its main page.

While I believe this makes it an even more complete source than before, you should not neglect to check out some of the websites of news agencies such as Associated Press (AP), Reuters, and others directly. Also be sure to use the other news aggregators such as Ask Jeeves, Yahoo! News, and the collection of "Today's Front Pages" from around the world via the NEWSEUM.

Does this new inclusion indicate that people are opening their minds a bit and as a result opening their eyes to things they previously wouldn't dare to look at? That might help to explain the recent rejuvenation in an interest in the truth.

An AP article headlined "Bacteria 'prove' Saddam's intent" contradicts its very own title.

While Bush, Powell, and others desperately cling to the hope that something -- anything -- will be found to justify going to war in Iraq, the only that they can say truthfully is that "Saddam was a bad guy."

A few things in that article bother me more than just a little bit. David Kay says they found "a vial" of botulinum toxin. One. More than six months after Rummy said he knew where the WMDs were.

Colin Powell latches onto that vial like it was his precious baby bottle. "Do you think vials of botulism should constitute a weapon of mass destruction? ... They never lost that capability. They never lost that intent." [Emphasis mine] A single vial becomes plural via his germ-filled mouth.

Powell is using a classic trick often applied by those lacking the real evidence with which to back up their argument: he states his intended conclusion as a question whose answer may be "No," but he wants you to think it's "Yes." No one can argue that this is an outright lie, but it is most certainly deceit. Powell then uses the words "capability" and "intent" which do not even come close to reflecting the imminent threat of a "mushroom cloud" used in the days leading up to the war.

Also in the AP article, State Department spokesperson Richard Boucher added: "You kill people with botuli. They have no other use." [Emphasis mine]

That is absolutely false. A big, stinking L-I-E! Botox is being used increasingly by people around the world to smooth out the facial wrinkles one gets as they grow older. It has also been used since 1989 by opthalmologists for problems such as "blepharospasm (involuntary spasms of the eyelids), strabismus (crossed eyes), and hemi-facial spasm." While most of the applications of Botox seem rather dangerous compared with their "benefits," the purpose of its use is certainly not only to "kill people."

We might want to carry this point even further, since Powell has tried to transform this into the "smoking gun." "Smoke and mirrors" is more like it. Let's clear the air a bit more. DailyKos provides more crucial details which may be lost on the average reader:

Clostridium botulinum, the bacteria which produces botulinum toxin, is a normal soil bacterium. You've probably ingested large quantities of it yourself, if you've ever eaten vegetables straight out of a garden without washing them thoroughly, or if you've ever eaten unfiltered honey. Live C. botulinum is used in undergraduate microbiology labs as a teaching tool...the live bacteria are not dangerous, are ubiquitous in nature, and are ubiquitous in microbiology labs around the globe -- even those not hell-bent on the destruction of American liberty & whatnot.

(Go to the DailyKos' site directly to read more.)

I think this argument deserves even more dissection. Here's another segment of the Mail & Guardian article linked above:

Although tests showed that the one vial of bacteria that the scientist kept was still viable, Kay offered no evidence it had been used in a weapons programme during the last decade. [Emphasis mine]

All that spinning makes me dizzy. Go read more for yourself. (Credit for the Botox and Kos links goes to Atrios.)

I was just wondering what Ann "Treason" Coulter would think of Robert Novak at this point, now that he has added to the damage of revealing the name of Joe Wilson's wife by also publishing the name of the "front firm" used to hide her real job as an undercover CIA operative.

As they say, give 'em enough rope... Rush is doing a great job with his rope just like Michael Savage did before him. Hey, Arnold. Got rope? Karl, you want some rope? Come and get it. Bring along a friend or two.

Rush Limbaugh (AKA "Vulgar Pigboy") sure has made BartCop's day by almost simultaneously getting himself fired (No, you're supposed to say he "resigned"!) from ESPN because of his big mouth and for getting himself in trouble with the law for illegally ("Allegedly," say "allegedly"!) purchasing "hillbilly heroin" -- more commonly known as OxyContin -- by the thousands.

In case you've somehow missed all the excitement, this most recent spate of porcine behavior got started when the loudmouth -- in a move which could not have possibly been unforeseen by ESPN -- described the Philadelphia Eagles' Donovan McNabb as "overrated" because "[t]he media has been very desirous that a black quarterback do well." In other words, the praise given him was simply some kind of "affirmative action" bestowed upon someone who didn't deserve it. As McNabb himself pointed out, apparently no one present at the time Rush let loose with the diarrhea of the mouth had anything to say about these obviously foolish and racist remarks, not "even the camera guy."

To be honest, I know very little about the current state of pro football and care even less about it, but it's obvious that the "Vulgar Pigboy" has earned his name fully. Way to go, Rush! (And my sincere apologies to Babe, Gordy, and Wilbur for lowering you guys to the level of "the Vulgar one.")

Project Censored:

"... explore[s] and publicize[s] the extent of censorship in our society locating stories about significant issues of which the public should be aware, but is not, for one reason or another. Thereby, the project hopes to stimulate responsible journalists to provide more mass media coverage of those issues and to encourage the general public to demand mass media coverage of those issues or to seek information from other sources."

Here is their list of 25 news stories from the past year which they feel deserved much more exposure and investigation than they got.

#1: The Neoconservative Plan for Global Dominance
#2: Homeland Security Threatens Civil Liberty
#3: US Illegally Removes Pages from Iraq U.N. Report
#4: Rumsfeld's Plan to Provoke Terrorists
#5: The Effort to Make Unions Disappear
#6: Closing Access to Information Technology
#7: Treaty Busting by the United States
#8: US/British Forces Continue Use of Depleted Uranium Weapons Despite Massive Evidence of Negative Health Effects
#9: In Afghanistan: Poverty, Women's Rights, and Civil Disruption Worse than Ever
#10: Africa Faces Threat of New Colonialism
#11: U.S. Implicated in Taliban Massacre
#12: Bush Administration Behind Failed Military Coup in Venezuela
#13: Corporate Personhood Challenged
#14: Unwanted Refugees a Global Problem
#15: U.S. Military's War on the Earth
#16: Plan Puebla-Panama and the FTAA
#17: Clear Channel Monopoly Draws Criticism
#18: Charter Forest Proposal Threatens Access to Public Lands
#19: U.S. Dollar vs. the Euro: Another Reason for the Invasion of Iraq
#20: Pentagon Increases Private Military Contracts
#21: Third World Austerity Policies: Coming Soon to a City Near You
#22: Welfare Reform Up For Reauthorization, but Still No Safety Net
#23: Argentina Crisis Sparks Cooperative Growth
#24: Aid to Israel Fuels Repressive Occupation in Palestine
#25: Convicted Corporations Receive Perks Instead of Punishment

Read more about Project Censored on their website, and be sure to check out a few of the above links. You really don't know what you're missing.

Robert Novak, the loudmouth from Crossfire who published the name of Joe Wilson's wife after receiving information from "White House officials" earns a figurative boot to the head for all his "misspeaking."

Here are a couple of excerpts from a CNN report on this matter:

"Nobody in the Bush administration called me to leak this," Novak said on CNN's "Crossfire," of which he is a co-host. "There is no great crime here."

"They asked me not to use her name, but never indicated it would endanger her or anybody else."

...

[Joe Wilson speaking:] "Bob Novak called me before he went to print with the report and he said a CIA source had told him that my wife was an operative," Wilson said. "He was trying to get a second source. He couldn't get a second source. Could I confirm that? And I said no."

Wilson said he called Novak after the article appeared citing sources in the Bush administration.

"What was it, CIA or senior administration?" Wilson said he asked Novak. "He said to me, 'I misspoke the first time I spoke to you.' " [Emphasis mine]

The one about asking him not to use her name "poked me in the eye" one too many times. I guess that Novak wasn't able to quote the "nudge, nudge, wink, wink, grin, grin" which accompanied that "request" to not use the name.

Update: Read the Crossfire transcript with all the (LAUGHTER) and (BELL RINGING) and (CROSSTALK) where Novak gets to be both the host and the guest.

The Poor Man mirrors my sentiments exactly about the "right-wing punditry" and their "slavish" reaction to the recent Joe Wilson story. This "punditry" had me writing e-mail to straighten out Andrew Sullivan (who can't seem to count higher than two) and doing all sorts of other things to waste my time and energy.

The interest in this matter has supposedly fully transformed into a "formal inquiry" now, but we're still waiting for an independent counsel to materialize. It's really turning into the "Keystone Cops" mess I've envisioned it as for so long. Stock up on the marshmallows -- there's gonna be a bonfire (or should I say "Bushfire"?)!