Bush is woefully, embarrassingly unaware

* ew:

" So Dick, apparently, gave DeFrank an award for airing Shrub's emotional dependence on Turdblossom, Shooter's emotional dependence on Scooter, and their falling-out based on one dependee getting indicted but not the other.

Geez, I mean, I knew these guys were nuts. But I thought it was sadistic, violent nuts, not quivering emotionally dependent nuts. And then to reward exposing that nuttiness?"

* carpetbagger:

"Many Bush critics, and I certainly include myself on this list, enjoy poking fun at a caricature of the president as an uninformed simpleton who doesn't like to read or get bogged down with facts. But the description in Suskind's book suggests the caricature isn't quite right. Bush is woefully, embarrassingly unaware of key issues, but as it turns out, it's part of an intentional White House strategy.
[]
It's breathtaking. White House aides didn't keep Bush uninformed to protect him; they kept him ignorant to protect an agenda the president might have screwed up if he knew what he was talking about.

As the Bush gang saw it, an informed president was a dangerous president. It's a scary thought - but it was also, apparently, a concerted White House strategy executed in advance of a war."

* thinkprogress:

"Fox News’ Jim Angle contacted the Defense Department who quickly disavowed Santorum and Hoekstra’s claims. A Defense Department official told Angle flatly that the munitions hyped by Santorum and Hoekstra are “not the WMD’s for which this country went to war.”"

d'oh

* arkin:

"Strategic U.S. forces are also being beefed up in Guam and other parts of the Pacific in a general shift in overseas posture often described as a reaction to China. This week, agains the backdrop of "crisis," the United States initiated an unrelated five-day naval exercise around Guam called "Valiant Shield." The largest military exercise since the Vietnam War includes three aircraft carriers and 30 other ships and submarines."

* malkin:

"What I find interesting is the total silence of civil liberties Chicken Littles who would be screaming "police state!" if Nagin were white and he and Blanco were Republicans sending convoys of armed military police officers into any other city in the country."

* caption o' the day to Holden: "There's Something About Laura"