The Politico Illustrated #10

"Bush a four-letter word at CPAC"

Elektro says he's still willing to walk a mile

for a Camel, but he wouldn't take ten steps

for a Ruyan V8.

For those who may have missed the 1960s

the first time around, we now have Fiscal

Responsibility, the New Counter-Culture.

This week at CPAC, cracks appeared in the united front

presented by Psychedelic Republicans. On the left are

those who believe Barack Obama is a Marxist, on the

right are those who believe he is a Leninist, and in the

center are those who believe he is a Marxist-Leninist.

It's not the size of Jim Calhoun's salary--$1.6 million per

year--as coach of the University of Connecticut basketball

team that makes you want to retch. It's the size of his ego,

which is way out of proportion relative to the size of

his importance in the overall scheme of things.

So this is how the World That Reagan Built ends---

not with a bang, but with a whimper.

Was Sarko the Giant 'too big to fail' or 'too big not

to fail'? Carla Bruni wasn't sure.

The crowd went wild when Mike Huckabee announced

that next year's CPAC would convene in Tennessee in

June and would be called 'Wankeroo'.

If you add John Boehner's favorability

rating (16%) to Mitch McConnell's (22%),

that's only 38%. Still way too high, if you

stop and think about it.

The Obama family has decided to adopt a

State Fair of Texas Cornyn Dog. It is slated

to arrive at the White House in April,

fully-cooked.

"Where would our civilization be today if we had rejected

Homer and Shakespeare, just because they made stuff up?"

"To give you some idea of how big $1 trillion is,

at my current rate of $150,000 per speech, you

could pay me to give 6,666,666 speeches and

still have some money left over."

"At this very moment, Joe the Plumber, Michelle Malkin, and

Glenn Reynolds are mobilizing to increase the visibility of our

American Tea Party. I can hardly wait to see what we look like

on Pajamas TV!"

The resignation of a California mayor just goes to show, one

more time, that some people can tell watermelon jokes,

some can't.

By unanimous consent, Benjamin Ginsburg has been

re-elected President of the Ugly American Lawyers

Association.

Bush Administration Straw Man to Publish Memoir,

My Years with Rove

Ladies, for those of you who will be attending

George Bush's first post-presidential speech

in Calgary next month and have been wondering

what to wear, here's a suggestion.

"Like John Boehner said, 'We just have to admit

we're broke'. I did, and that's when being a street

beggar became a point of pride for a principled

conservative like me."

After putting 223,000 miles on the Ford F-150 he

bought in 1989, Fearguth reluctantly purchased a

brand new Chevrolet Silverado in 2008. Can you

imagine his shock when he learned today that,

despite his selfless sacrifice, General Motors lost

$30.9 billion in 2008?

Some questions are hard to answer, but not this

one. For anyone with a child's understanding

of the Law of Cause and Effect, America hasn't

been attacked since 9/11 because Slate was

created by Michael Kinsley in 1996 and Timothy

Noah has been investigating this question ever

since he repudiated a Slate column he wrote in

2003, advocating the invasion of Iraq, in a Slate

column he wrote a year later, in 2004, admitting he

had been played the fool by Colin Powell and the

Bush Administration. Timothy is now producing

the fruit of his lengthy investigation--eight Slate

essays--which, hopefully, he will be able to

complete before Osama bin Laden emerges

from his cave and attacks America again.

Despite a deep recession, Fearguth's Hall of Wackos has

been growing at a much faster pace than the computer

model of the George W. Bush Presidential Library at

Southern Methodist University. The Hall's director says

that the addition of yet another right wing to the existing

structure will be required in the not-too-distant future,

making it look more and more like the Ninth Circle of Hell.

Fearguth's Hall of Wackos #18

Jeb Hensarling

"Sorry, we're just a bunch of normal people dressed up

as clowns. You'll find the real clowns across the street

at the Conservative Political Action Conference,

dressed up as normal people."

"Dusty Foggo, a former high-ranking CIA official, has been

sentenced to more than three years in prison for a fraud

scheme in which he steered procurement contracts to an

old friend. His sentence might have been lighter if all of his

good deeds over the years hadn't been classified Top Secret."

"Who are you calling a bore? You're not exactly

Tim the Enchanter yourself!"

Kashmiri Protesters Showing Banks One Way of

Handling 'Illiquid Assets': Hurl Them

"No federal money for volcano monitoring in the state

of Washington, no federal money for hurricane

monitoring in the state of Louisiana. That's what I'd be

saying right now had Rush Limbaugh not given me this

handsome barber-pole tie from his No Boundaries

collection."

Porter Goss, former congressman and short-time

CIA director, is not yet in over his head in the Dusty

Foggo affair. But the water's rising.

As Dusty Foggo, former #3 man in

the CIA, can tell you, 'procurement'

is a term best used in only two

contexts: illicit sex and defense

contracts.

Grow Your Own Dope: Plant a Conservative Republican

World's Worst Yobs #79

Michael Gerson

Patrick Ruffini wants no part of 'The Joe-the-Plumberization

of the GOP'. Instead, he loves Newt Gingrich's "emphasis on
finding 80/20 issues and defining them in completely non-

ideological terms"---'The Newtering of the GOP', in other words.

Daffy Duck, like Sisyphus, had annoyed the gods. His

punishment was to 'push the envelope' throughout

all eternity.

Times were so tough that the world's last

Dick Cheney impersonator had been laid off.

"OK, this may be a little hard to follow, but

stick with me; it'll all become clearer at the

end. Yes, the Republican Party is a disaster;

it's ideology has become nihilistic. But if

enough people read my columns in the New

York Times and watch me hobnob with Mark

Shields on the NewsHour with Jim Lehrer,

I'll be able to lead my party and the American

people on the long and winding Nietzchean

road beyond nihilism."

Senator Robert Byrd, 91, Accuses President

Barack Obama, 47, of Youthfulness Grab

In these lean times, people with fat heads, like

Rush Limbaugh, are at a natural disadvantage.

Republican strategist Ed Rollins says last night

was good for Sarah Palin, who didn't open her

mouth, and bad for Bobby Jindal, who did.

"Senator DeMint, I don't think you or Senator Price are likely

to be picked out of the lineup. But Senator Thune, with that

jack-o-lantern colored tie, well . . ."

"I wholeheartedly agree, Justice Ginsburg. Senator Bunning's

role in the collapse of the 1964 Phillies remains one of the

most infamous in baseball history."

Black conservatives are wild and crazy guys. Think of

Armstrong Williams, Thomas Sowell, Shelby Steele,

Juan Williams, Clarence Thomas, Stephen Carter, Walter

Williams, Alan Keyes, and a handful of others. The list

isn't long, because, as American history makes clear,

conservatives didn't exactly free the slaves or release

African-Americans from the grasp of Jim Crow. But

now a Black conservative, Michael Steele, has become

the leader of the Southern White Wealthy Christian

Heterosexual Male Party. Yessir, wild and crazy is written

all over his face.

Portrait of the Counter-Cultural Norm

Bobby Jindal Surpasses Jar Jar Binks in List of

'Top 10 Arguments Against Intelligent Design'

Professional moral handwringers, like Rod Dreher,

are so deep into self-satire that it's difficult to satirize

them without feeling a twinge of guilt for trafficking in

gratuitous overkill.

Chickens Confirm Jindal Laid an Egg Last Night

"It's time for me to stop kidding around and tell you what

I really think: Barack Obama is a conscious, articulate

agent of the International Pessimist Conspiracy!"

"One hundred! One thousand! One million! One billion!

One trillion! One quadrillion! What number comes

next? ¿Quién sabe?"

"Although I wasn't invited to Obama's summit, I'm

thrilled that he takes true fiscal conservatives,

like Andrew Sullivan and me, seriously."

"So what's it going to be, soldier? A civil discussion of

the three stage progression in moral thinking from

pre-conventional thinking about punishments and

rewards, through conventional thinking about the

norms of friends and society, to post-conventional
thinking about universal rights and principles? Or

shall we keep wasting our breath, Crossfire-style?"

Icky Twerp

His Dog, Tiny Gonsalez