Obstinance-Only Education

It looks as though it's going to be a slow blogging week for me. Not that there aren't a million stories out there, but sometimes you've just got to sit back and take a breather. Particularly after breathtaking displays like the Republican presidential debate (Giuliani thinks we did "exactly the right thing" in invading Iraq?!?), Fearless Leader's apparent willingness to rewind US-Russian relations thirty years for the sake of being the man who deployed Reagan's Folly-- the utterly ineffectual, $100-billion SDI project.

And that's been the theme of the news this week: obstinacy in the service of idiocy. Yes, sometimes you just need a breather.

Rep. Doolittle (R-CA) catapults the propaganda to 7th and 8th graders: “I don’t think putting carbon dioxide into the air by man made energy sources is the problem, but I do think being held by unfriendly countries who have most of the worlds petroleum is a problem.”

Dick Cheney lies to high schoolers: "The worst terrorist we had in Iraq was a guy named Abu Musab al Zarqawi, a Jordanian by birth; served time in a Jordanian prison as a terrorist, was let out on amnesty. … Then when we launched into Afghanistan after 9/11, he was wounded, and fled to Baghdad for medical treatment, and then set up shop in Iraq. So he operated in Jordan, he operated in Afghanistan, then he moved to Iraq."

Bush nominates sex-obsessed quack for Surgeon General: In his 1991 work (written for the Methodist Church) "Pathophysiology of Male Homosexuality,” James Holsinger noted that "When the complementarity of the sexes is breached, injuries and diseases may occur. . ." Because not just homosexuals, but all Americans need to be aware that injury and disease can never result from heterosexual intercourse.

Then there's that Schlozman clown. I'm not even touching that one. And the calls for the immediate pardon of Scooter Libby? Yeah. Skipping it, in all its Magna-Carta-be-damned contempt for the rule of law.

But I'd at least like to share one funny link-- Kevin drum collected some of the funniest zingers from the debate's liveblogging here. My favorite (maybe, there are some really good ones here, and even from wingers):

Ezra Klein: Does anybody really believe religion is a "very important" part of Giuliani's life? He seems like the type who would make holy water sizzle.