Random thought

I wish Huggy Bear had harped on the Ayers thing more last night, so Obama could bring up Vicki Iseman, John Hagee, Charles Keating, Jack Abramoff, that aide who was an advisor for Saddam, etc., etc., ad infinitum ...

Speaking of liars

You know the Bush crime syndicate is going down in flames when they can't even lie effectively anymore. Oh, they were really good at it for a while, and a lot of Americans bought their bullshit hook, line, and sinker. But boy, do their lies suck now.

Take Karl Rove, for example. Please.

Karl Rove, the chief political strategist for President Bush, did not intentionally delete e-mail messages to avoid creating a paper trail detailing his work, his lawyer said on Friday. Rather, he mistakenly thought that the messages were being preserved by the Republican National Committee.

“Karl has always understood that his R.N.C. e-mails were being archived,” the lawyer, Robert Luskin, said in an interview. “He has never asked or sought any kind of special treatment to permit him to delete anything.”

Delete e-mail messages intentionally? Who, me? Oh, give me a fucking break.

On Thursday, Representative Henry A. Waxman, the California Democrat who is chairman of the House committee conducting the inquiry, said he had “particular concerns about Karl Rove” after a briefing his aides received from Mr. Kelner, the R.N.C. lawyer.

Mr. Waxman raised questions about an R.N.C. policy, aimed only at Mr. Rove, that Mr. Waxman said “removed Mr. Rove’s ability to personally delete his e-mails from the R.N.C. server.”

In an interview Friday, Mr. Kelner said the committee had indeed adopted such a policy, in January 2006. Mr. Kelner would not say if the Fitzgerald leak inquiry sparked the change, but he said the new policy was aimed simply at preserving Mr. Rove’s e-mails.

“It wasn’t because the R.N.C. thought, uh oh, Karl Rove’s going to destroy e-mails, we have to save them,” Mr. Kelner said. “Absolutely not. That’s exactly the impression Waxman is trying to create. I don’t think there’s any evidence of that.”

However, because Mr. Kelner refused to say "cross my heart and hope to die, stick a finger in my eye," we know he's a Big Fat Liar.

There's a ton of e-mails missing. Does anyone -- even Rove's lawyers -- seriously believe that their deletion was accidental? I mean, anyone other than Rove's friends ... people who really love the guy and think he's swell. People who, let's put it bluntly, associate with a serial liar. People like these:

The button is photoshopped; the meeting of the mindless is not.

Florida Young Republicans with Rove.

NBC needs to read this blog

Not only is NBC dealing with the fallout over the Don Imus debacle, but their news office is more than two weeks behind the times.

Here's what MSNBC.com is reporting as I write this; it was posted yesterday evening:

WASHINGTON - Disgraced lobbyist Jack Abramoff may be getting out of jail earlier than he expected, NBC News learned on Monday. A federal judge Monday granted the government's request for a new hearing to determine an appropriate reduction in Abramoff's sentence, a reward based on his continued cooperation with investigators in several federal probes.

And here's what I reported here on Blast Off! back on March 22:

I confess I haven't followed this case all that closely, but I doubt it's a good thing when federal prosecutors in Miami are trying to get Jack Abramoff out of prison early.

Documents filed in federal court say that Abramoff has provided "substantial assistance" in a separate Washington corruption scandal and that he continues to work with investigators from his prison cell in Cumberland, Md.

"However, that cooperation is not yet complete and will not be complete within one year of the defendant's initial sentencing," said assistant U.S. Attorney Paul F. Schwartz in court papers filed Wednesday.

Yes, I understand that Monday the court actually ruled on the government's request, but the fact remains that MSNBC's headline, "NBC: Abramoff could get reduced sentence," was just as true on March 22 as it is today.

Am I splitting hairs on this? Maybe. But as far as I'm concerned, a scoop's a scoop, dammit, and I'm going to take full credit for this one. Take that, National Broadcorping Castration. Nanny nanny boo boo.

Abramoff: time off for good behavior?

I confess I haven't followed this case all that closely, but I doubt it's a good thing when federal prosecutors in Miami are trying to get Jack Abramoff out of prison early.

Documents filed in federal court say that Abramoff has provided "substantial assistance" in a separate Washington corruption scandal and that he continues to work with investigators from his prison cell in Cumberland, Md.

"However, that cooperation is not yet complete and will not be complete within one year of the defendant's initial sentencing," said assistant U.S. Attorney Paul F. Schwartz in court papers filed Wednesday.

It's all well and good that Abramoff, who was convicted in Florida for faking a $20 million transaction that allowed him and his partner to get $60 million in financing to buy a casino gambling ship fleet, is helping with the corruption investigation in Washington. But essentially what Abramoff apparently is doing is buying his way out of jail with information, and it just seems fishy to me.

I guess this happens pretty frequently; at least it does if you believe the TV cop shows. But is Abramoff -- who's known to have friends in high places -- getting special treatment because of his ties to the Bush crime syndicate?

It would be irresponsible not to speculate.