A BUZZFLASH GUEST CONTRIBUTION

by Michael Winship

There's an old joke I first heard years ago in Washington at a political fundraiser.

A senator is primping in the bathroom mirror and muses aloud to his wife, "I wonder how many great men there are in the world."

She replies, "One less than you think."

Each of the 100 seats in the United States Senate comes with elevator and franking privileges, a pass to the congressional gym and a customized suit woven from hubris and ego. The warp and woof vary from member to member. Some wear the suit more lightly than others.

BUZZFLASH MAILBAG 

Subject: Israel Did Start This One

Just Remember, Hamas and Hezbollah are No Boy Scouts. What is Happening is a Tragedy, but Israel Didn't Start This One. 7/15

Washington, DC - As Vice President Cheney again rolls out the Republican smear machine, Americans have made it clear that they are tired of the blustery rhetoric that is a hallmark of the inept and dangerous foreign policies of the Bush Administration. President Bush's mishandling of the War in Iraq and America's subsequent disengagement from a host of military and diplomatic confrontations around the world highlight the fact that his policies have made America less safe. And at home, the Bush White House and the "Do-Nothing" Republican Congress have not done enough to keep our borders and or ports secure.

A BUZZFLASH EDITORIAL 

As civilians on both sides of the Israeli-Palestinian war perish, Bush has advanced from his rudderless, leaderless talk of a pig dinner in Germany to barnyard expletives at the G-8 conference.

Sadly, BuzzFlash is not making this up. This is how America is represented in foreign policy as the tinderbox ignites.

In case you missed it over the weekend, here is a BuzzFlash editorial that discusses our views on the current bloody battle between Israel, Hamas, and Hezbollah:

http://buzzflash.com/analysis/06/07/ana06062.html

Welcome to the Repuglican scare the beejeezzus out of them tactics in order to get the people to support the PNAC plan to accomplish the goal of world domination!  According to Newt Gingrich we are witnessing the beginning of World War III in the Middle East! The Bush administration and their minions are doing everything they can to accomplish their goal!  Where are the statesmen, where is the sanity, where oh where is the leadership??? 

Hey guys, guess what: he's Back! Yes, dear friends, Tom DeLay has crawled out from under the rock he's been hiding for the last couple of months apparently prematurely completing all those important pieces of personal business he needed to attend to, like the filing of the scuff marks off his cloven hooves and the sucking of hundreds of pints of virgin Mormon blood so he's refreshed and ready to jump back into electoral politics. Whether he wants to or not. Inflicted with a tertiary case of the Michael Corleones: every time he tries to get out, they pull him back in. And if the "they" in question have a lick of common sense, they're wearing sterile gloves while they're doing it.

WORLD MEDIA WATCH FOR JULY 17, 2006

1//The Independent, UK--FURY AS KARZAI PLANS RETURN OF TALIBAN’S RELIGIOUS POLICE (The Afghan government has alarmed human rights groups by approving a plan to reintroduce a Department for the Promotion of Virtue and Prevention of Vice, the body which the Taliban used to enforce its extreme religious doctrine. The proposal, which came from the country's Ulema council of clerics, has been passed by the cabinet of President Hamid Karzai and will now go before the Afghan parliament. "Our concern is that the Vice and Virtue Department doesn't turn into an instrument for politically oppressing critical voices and vulnerable groups under the guise of protecting poorly defined virtues," Sam Zia Zarifi of Human Rights Watch said. "This is specially in the case of women, because infringements on their rights tend to be justified by claims of morality." Under the Taliban the Ministry for the Promotion of Virtue and Prevention of Vice became notorious for its brutal imposition of the Taliban's codes of behaviour. … Western diplomats have reacted with unease to the proposal. However, several told The Independent that they believed the move was partly designed to defuse Taliban propaganda which accuses the Karzai government of being un-Islamic. "This is an Islamic republic and sharia is a part of the constitution," one diplomat said on condition of anonymity. "If it is constitutional and within the framework of the International Convention on Human Rights [to which Afghanistan is a signatory] then it could represent a public information victory for the government.")

Gingrich Declares "World War III Has Started"

by Tony Peyser

Trash talk like this from a chicken hawk
White House wannabe Neo-Conista
Shows Newt will say anything to make
People stop asking about Calista.

Shuttle Lands Safely

by Tony Peyser

In the astronauts absence began
This bloody new Mid-East war
I thought they might’ve asked to
Stay out in space a little more.

A BUZZFLASH NEWS ANALYSIS

Today we will just quote from a story in "Newsday" that indicates even the mainstream media may be awakening to the gross negligence and cluelessness of Mr. Bush:

"As Israeli warplanes were preparing an attack on Lebanon Thursday afternoon, and a Lebanese militia was aiming a rocket at the ancient Israeli city of Safed, President George W. Bush was bantering with reporters in Germany about a pig.

"Bush kept bringing up the roast wild boar he was about to dine on at a banquet that night, even when asked about the swelling crisis in the Middle East, where pig meat is forbidden to religious Jews and Muslims.

"Does it concern you that the Beirut airport has been bombed?" a reporter asked. "And do you see a risk of triggering a wider war?"

"I thought you were going to ask me about the pig," Bush replied blithely. Then he brought the pig up again -- for the fifth time -- before giving a long answer that ended with his saying Israel needed to protect itself.

"He was asked a serious question," said Ian Lustick, a Middle East expert now at the University of Pennsylvania, and his answer "epitomized his disengagement in the Middle East."

A BUZZFLASH NEWS ANALYSIS

We've all heard plenty of "Bushisms" over the years, when Bushit offends not only our sentiments but the English language. Entire 365-day calendars have been filled with various gaffes and slip-ups.

Recently, BuzzFlash.com discovered dozens of Bushisms on the President's own website, www.WhiteHouse.gov . A search on the site for the Latin word sic, which is used to indicate that printed mistakes were in the original source and are not typos, reveals several specific instances when Bush's own transcribers were forced to distinguish their own competency from that of the President.

Of course, this method only found the small percentage of Bushisms that happened to be specifically labeled as such. The following are just a few of the highlights we copied straight off the site: