Finally, Bush found someone to replace Claude Allen as domestic policy advisor. Those were tough shoes to fill. Claude Allen was a very good Bushie until he resigned last Feburary. Described as a "ferocious" opponent of abortion, he supported abstinence-only sex education and was an enemy to groups working to fight the spread of AIDS. As the deputy secretary of Health and Human Services, Claude prevented a 21-year-old rape-victim from getting an abortion, you know, just because he felt like it. That sort of behavior got Claude a nice position in the Bush Administration, that is, until he got caught scamming Target. That incident, which brought his character into the spotlight, made him last March's Playerhater of the Month. [Note: The difference between a "playerhater" and a "playahata" is explained here] So who should this month's Playerhater of the Month be? I say Claude's new replacement: Karl Zinsmeister, editor of the American Enterprise Magazine, and author of several books about the Iraq War. Mr. Zinsmeister has already been busted pulling a scam. Here he is in a candid interview for college newspaper doing a profile of him in 2004:

"People in Washington are morally repugnant, cheating, shifty human beings. The mom who charters a bus for her kids to go to a rave is as bad as the lady with the crackpipe. We have sickness at the top and bottom of our society and we have a big middle, sensible with common sense and decency and morality"

Zinsmeister, according to the reporter who interviewed him, was very pleased with the article about him when it was published. So much that he posted the article on his own website, the American Enterprise Online. Except before he put it online, Zinsmeister made some revisions and alterations. Here is Zinsmeister, intentionally misquoting himself:

"I learned in Washington that there is an 'overclass' in this country stocked with cheating, shifty human beings that's just as morally repugnant as our 'underclass.' The mom who charters a bus for her kids to go to a rave is as bad as the lady with the crackpipe. We have sickness at the top and bottom of our society but we have a big middle that is full of common sense and decency"

So is this paramount to pulling a refund scam at Target? I say it's worse. Target deserves to be scammed. The average size of a Target is 125,000 square feet. They are hideous, urban sprawl-causing freak shows. Let them be robbed. But Zinsmeister's revisionism? How about we look at what he said in the first place: People in Washington are morally repugnant, cheating, shifty human beings. As a person in Washington, I resent that. And poor people are "sick" and "morally repugnant"? Give me a break. Zinsmeister is completely out of touch. This is the same idiot who concluded about Iraq in June, 2005, that: The War is Over, We Won. That's funny. I could have sworn the war is still raging. Why else would US Marines massacre 24 civilians in Haditha last November? Maybe the civilians were "morally repugnant, cheating" members of the Iraqi underclass, therefore, they deserved it. In any event, Zinsmeister will probably revise the little incident in Haditha to sound better next time he writes a book about the Iraq War. Man, this guy is such a hater.

"[The United States'] defense budget in absolute figures is almost 25 times bigger than Russia's. This is what in defense is referred to as 'their home - their fortress'. And good on them, I say. Well done! But this means that we also need to build our home and make it strong and well protected. We see, after all, what is going on in the world. The wolf knows who to eat, as the saying goes. It knows who to eat and is not about to listen to anyone, it seems. How quickly all the pathos of the need to fight for human rights and democracy is laid aside the moment the need to realize one's own interests comes to the fore. In the name of one's own interests everything is possible, it turns out, and there are no limits"

-Vladimir Putin addressing Russia May 10th

So the Russian President didn't actually use any Duran Duran lyrics in his latest speech, but he does have a known nostalgia for the 80s. Although the Cold War seemed to have thawed out, 80s-style trends, like acid-wash, cut-off jeans miniskirts and arms races between the US and Russia, are making a comeback. Last week, Putin called for renewed, smarter defense spending to make Russia a global superpower again. He called America a "wolf", referencing an old Russian joke about a man and his pet sheep who fall into a pit. When a wolf falls into the pit as well, the frightened sheep begins to cry out. The man then asks his sheep: "What's with the bah, bah, bah? The wolf knows who to eat".

Putin longs for the days when Russia was more like a bear, and less like a man trapped in a pit with his pet sheep (Afghanistan, Iraq?) and, of course, a hungry wolf (that would be us). The wolf metaphor has some bearing to it. 9/11 and the Taliban may have justified the invasion of Afghanistan, but the invasion of Iraq was done out of a ferocious hunger to dominate the Middle East. Cheney and the neocons (like Wolfowitz) knew who to invade and weren't going to listen to anyone. Putin also took a swing in his speech, rightly so, at the hypocrisy of the Bush Administration for calling for human rights and democracy while at the same time rounding up people into secret prisons and committing abuses seen in Abu Ghraib prison. The fact is the Bush Administration has no moral highground to criticize Putin's clamp-down on democracy. Just this week, we have learned that the National Security Agency has been spying, warrantlessly, on tens of millions of Americans. And that's just the tip of the iceberg.

Perhaps Putin, a former KGB spy, is simply jealous of the totalitarian state that post-9/11 America has become. If Putin had an equivalent to Bush's "War on Terror" and Fox News, just think of all the strategic territories Mother Russia could "liberate". It's like another old Russian saying: If the Bear is hungry, the Bear will eat. Ok, that was actually Steve Pontius from Jackass after being asked whether he likes boys or girls. The point is that Putin would love for Russia to rise again. America, in his eyes, is a tired, stuffed wolf, and Putin sees this as a chance to get out of the pit. Maybe Putin might even try to capture the wolf, using a little birdie to distract him while Putin catches him in a lasso. Well this is another Russian fairytale, Peter and the Wolf. I think the geopolitical Putin and the Wolf may be a tale yet untold. But maybe this is the analogy Putin really was hinting at. Iran would be the little birdie, Iraq the duck inside the wolf's belly, and Putin as the little Russian boy who captures the big, bad wolf at the end. Putin can dream, can't he?

The Prime Minister of Iran has decided to break the tradition of the last 26 years (Yowsers, it's been that long since the Islamic Revolution?) and make contact with Washington through a letter dropped off at the Swiss Embassy in Tehran today. The letter (read it here) questions American policies in the world, speaks of the failure of "liberalism and democracy" and essentially asks Bush "What Would Jesus Do?". While I am certainly not interested in having a religious government of any kind (maybe a Scientologist State would be acceptable, assuming Tom Cruise is the Grand Idiotolla), nor do I believe democracy has failed (unless you are talking about Bush's neoconservative "Bombs & Ballots" campaign of Iraq), I have to give credit to Prime Minister Ahmadinejad for this act of genius. The letter strikes directly into the heart of the Bush's Christian crusader semblance that convinced pious Americans that he was doing "the right thing" by invading Iraq. Ahmadinejad points out that such policies are in direct contrast to the teachings of Jesus Christ. I had previously wondered whether Dick Cheney and the neocons were planning on bombing the Shia-t out of Iran. There is no doubt this gentle call for shared religious devotion (you've got your God, and we have Ours) and mutual understanding on the issue of Iranian nukes will at least stop the bombs from dropping on Tehran anytime soon. Remember that 700-ton Bunker Buster they were going to test in Nevada? Just today they reported the test has been delayed. Maybe this means Dick "Don't Aim Just Fire" Cheney has ruled out an attack. I doubt it. But at least for the moment, and thanks to Condoleezza Rice, we look like the assholes.

Porter Goss, acting head of the CIA, has resigned from his position. This must be related to the growing DC hooker scandal that now appears to be lighting up. Donde hay humo hay fuego. But before we make assumptions: Porter Goss was hated at the CIA since he took over after Tenet. Was this a set-up? More on this firestorm coming up.

The White House visit log of super-sleazy, mafia-connected lobbyist Jack Abramoff will be made public next week, thanks to the Freedom of Information Act. The F.I.A. previously exposed the White House visit log of Jeff Gannon from 2003-2005. Gannon, a.k.a. James Dale Guckert, a.k.a. "Bulldog", was a gay prostitute who worked for the Bush Administration as a pro-Bush media plant until being exposed. Despite his fake-name and basically fake Talon News, Gannon was given virtually unlimited White House access. According to his visit log, Gannon came in the backdoor all the time. He would stay at the White House for hours, sometimes until the next day. All this entering and exiting points to Gannon having a very special relationship with the Bush Administration. But it is possible that the Secret Service just aren't very strict about their logs. Nevertheless, Gannon has a very large log for a lowly journalist. One can only wonder how large Abramoff's log is. I'd say its likely that Abramoff's log has been snipped at one point. That's just my gut-feeling. McClellan has already said it probably won't be complete. And he would know too. In any event, people will be examining Abramoff's log very carefully. Regardless of its length, Abramoff's time at the White House was probably a whole lot dirtier than Jeff Gannon's.