• When we look at Golf Digest’s ranking of Washington golfers, all we see is a whole lot of strokes. [Golf Digest]

• Paunchy and balding DoD employees still sneak onto college campuses to “gather intelligence.” [PageOneQ]

• Mail carriers nationwide having a good laugh at the old “death and taxes” line. [Tax Prof]

• The cartoon crib notes to An Inconvenient Truth. [Drink at Work]

• Joe Biden doesn’t really want a presidential nomination, just a Viagra endorsement deal. [First Slate]

Yesterday we blogged about how the Georgetown law school students who protested Attorney General Alberto Gonzales's speech by turning their backs to him also had "tap this" written on their rears. A reader directed our attention to this message board -- for the San Antonio Spurs, of all things -- which features photos of the students with "tap this" on their asses (such as the one shown at right, by Charles Dharapak for the AP).

The photo, of a protester on crutches, caught our eye -- but so did some of the erudite commentary on the message board. Here's an excerpt:

Oh, Gee!!!: I wonder if he [Gonzales] ended up tapping that girl's ass.
Mr. Peabody: She's a bit of a chunky. But you know what they say "better to bang a chunky than to spank the monkey."
xrayzebra: I don't think he was that stupid or "hard" up. But guess she can always keep wishing someone would.

We feel badly for this poor protestor. She's hobbling around on crutches, enduring mocking comments on the internet about the size of her posterior... It's more than a woman should have to bear!

Hey Alberto Gonzales, TAP THIS [SpursTalk Forum]

Earlier: That Would Be Problematic Even With A Warrant

A recent New York Times story about the NSA domestic eavesdropping program included the photograph above (Mike Theiler/European Pressphoto Agency) of students protesting Attorney General Alberto Gonzales by turning their backs to him during his speech.

A reader has this information to add:

The NYT left out a funny detail — the students had the words “Tap This” printed on their asses, so Gonzales could read it as he gave his speech. A couple dozen students participated in the protest and some clips were shown on CNN the day of the speech. Too bad they didn’t have a more Wonkette appropriate slogan on their asses — I’m sure you know what I’m talking about!

Defending A Program and His Reputation [NYT]

• Su Lin? Straight up OWNED. Butterstick? Currently keeping scientists busy recalibrating all known measures of cuteness.

• Michael Lenehan proposes a Year Without Journalism after dissing pioneering web-based content efforts. Big words for a guy who only gets read on slow-loading PDFs.

• If you thought that Abramoffukkah didn't have a cream-filled center of sex gone wrong in the corridors of power, think again.

• The selective stupidity of public servants on full display.

• Ticking time-bombs make for compelling television, idiotic public policy.

• Michael Scanlon's ultra-weird adolescence, REVEALED. And how.

• But the most important moment of the week: After a few days of dawdling, you learned that your beloved Ana Marie Cox would be elevating to Editor Emeritus. It may feel like a hole has been torn in the Blogosphere, but remember: OG Ana built this domain on the premise that the leaders of Washington DC's main industry roll into town on the wings of high ideals and then proceed to behave as if they were participants in some kind of Feyian slambook cliqueria, with the aesthetically pleasing likes of LiLo and Rachael McAdams replaced by grizzle-haired overexcitable coots and shrill, claws-out harridans. The premise is unimpeachable--no matter how many Sensenbrenners you throw at it. And while change is coming to Wonkette, there's always one thing you can be certain of: those **** ers NEVER learn. Godspeed you, Ms. Cox. Long live Wonkette.— DCEIVER

You can't be surprised that President Bush goes all out whenever the Congress is out of session. Now that he's hit his three hundred and sixty-fifth day of vacation in his fifth year as President, he's managed to turn the highest station in our government into something of a recess appointment itself.

This week, Bush nominated Julie Myers to a position at the Department of Homeland Security, as the head of the U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement Agency. Why does Julie Meyers need to bypass the nomination process? She's married to DHS head Michael Chertoff's chief of staff. She's the niece of outgoing Joint Chiefs Chairman Richard Meyers. In short, she's another phony baloney crony dip **** .

But everyone knows that there is cronyism, and there is CRONYISM. As in Kee-ray-zee Ass Kronytastic Kronygasms. Michael Brown riding backwards and blindfolded on an Arabian steed to the rescue style cronyism. How unqualified do you have to be that the President is too scared to put your nomination before a legislative body that his very own party controls?

It's enough to make you wonder: how outrageously out-of-bounds does a wiretap request have to be for the rubber-stamp-happy, available 24-hours-a-day FISA courts to say no?— DCEIVER

As we approach the coming of Abramoffukkah, we learn more and more about the origin story behind the scandal. It goes something like this: Our parents always told us that the problem with Washington was that with all the lobbyists and special interests and money moving hither and yon, there was too much skin in the game. Now we learn that most of that skin was wrapped around the manyly bone structure and vital internal organs of Jack Abramoff, who may have influence-peddled his way into the bosom of a considerable number of well-heeled politicos.

We only have Abramoff on the hook today because his partner, Michael Scanlon, rolled on him. And, as Raw Story reported today, we may only know about Michael Scanlon because of a jilted former lover, Emily Miller, who avenged herself after Scanlon took up with a manicurist by going to the FBI and dropping the proverbial dime. You may remember Miller from the time she famously attempted to prematurely end a Meet The Press interview with Colin Powell.

But wait, it gets even more enjoyable.

Tom Delay, whose extensive dealings with Abramoff have goosed speculation that his name may be well-suited to appear on the Abramoffukkah bingo card, has loudly complained that all of the scandals surrounding him are baseless and are all "just another seedy attempt by the liberal media to embarrass me." Deliciously, Scanlon and Miller met one another when they both worked for Tom Delay -- he as his director of communications, she as his press secretary -- and soon after, took up their campaign of furtive, secret a-boinking. So I guess these means that the "liberal media" includes Delay's own press mouthpieces. Who knew?

It's all a seven-layer dip of tasty malfeisance with the sourest of creams yet to be added. Still, you have to wonder, with the intricate webs of distrust so clearly on display within the Congress, between members and aides and lobbyists, isn't it just awesome that it will be these people who will try to decide who gets to wiretap who?— DCEIVER

How they got caught: After lobbyist broke off engagement, ex-fiancee told of illicit dealings to FBI [Raw Story]

• "Willful disregard of a law is potentially an impeachable offense. It is at least as impeachable as having a sexual escapade under the Oval Office desk and lying about it later. The members of the House Judiciary Committee who staged the impeachment of President Clinton ought to be as outraged at this situation. They ought to investigate it, consider it carefully and report either a bill that would change the wiretap laws to suit the president or a bill of impeachment." Thus spake those pinko-liberals from that bastion of Maoism known as...uhm...wait--this is from Barron's? [The Big Picture]

• Congratulations to everyone who won an Urb! We've only two disappointments. One, no wins for Toby. Two, our choice for World's Most Inane Urban Blog Post wasn't even nominated. [Gridskipper]

• Slate's Mickey Kaus seems to think that the administration's overall friskiness will be it's saving grace (emphasis his): "The Katrina botch suggested not much--maybe Bush, as the left-wing caricatures always suggested, really was out to lunch, playing computer golf in the Oval Office while various Michael Brownian cronies held meetings to plan their wardrobes. That's why, if the Bushies have really had the energy to secretly do all sorts of illegal spying against terrorists, it's almost reassuring. At least they've been on the case, doing their job as they see it." Basically, Kaus thinks that Americans are too bamboozled to distinguish activity from achievement. And, yeah, he's probably right... [Slate]

• This is the sort of thing Wonkette is up against in the slowest news week of the year. [Gawker]— DCEIVER

In the wake of the disclosure that the Bush administration had been conducting surveillance on American citizens without legal authority, defenders of the practice actually had one plank in its argument that wasn't spurious on its face. Rolling the dice that no one with standing would try, they shrugged and said, "So sue us!"

Well, as luck would have it, the only known-by-name target of the extralegal wiretap program, Iyman Faris, is reported to be considering taking the President to court. Faris, who pled guilty to working with al-Qaeda in a plot to destroy the Brooklyn Bridge in October 2003, is lawyer-shopping with the help of his criminal defense attorney in the hopes he may get his charges overturned. Faris withdrew his guilty plea ahead of sentencing in the Brooklyn Bridge case, claiming that he only admitted to wrongdoing to secure a book deal -- thus accounting for every possible stupid reason to get mixed up with al-Qaeda except, perhaps, for attempting to impress Jodie Foster.

Wonkette, by the way recently obtained a brief transcript of the recordings collected by those wiretaps, and, based upon Mr. Faris' appearance, we were not surprised when it read, "No! Stop! The numbers are bad! The numbers are bad!"— DCEIVER

Lawsuit against Bush? [Salon]

In the wake of revelations that the Bush administration conducted a campaign of illegal wiretaps pursuant to matters that are widely claimed to be vital to the national interest yet simultaneously devoid of any evidence that the legal avenues available to the President were insufficient to the pursuit thereof, it's possible to imagine that dull-witted, tranked-up press corps failing to ask any number of questions. Like: Why, Mr. President, are you so angry about the Patriot Act filibuster when you seem jolly well disposed to conferring whatever powers you like upon yourself? Like: What part of "You have seventy-two hours to seek a warrant after the initiation of a wiretap" don't you understand? Like: Why can't you and the idea of separation of powers just hug it out, bitch?

Nevertheless, some hopeful and naive part of us still wonders why no one is questioning one of the central planks in the Administration's defense of their actions, namely: "Hey, it's totally okay that we are wiretapping American citizens without legal authority because we totally briefed some Democrats that we were going to be doing it." That's an extraordinarily bizarre justification! Since when does briefing members of the opposition party have boo-boo-poopy to do with something being legal or not?

You'd think that the Bush administration could more fully harness their crazy-ass "let's brief the Democrats" power by gathering the gang of four and telling them you were going to save the taxpayers some scratch by knocking over a few jewelry stores. We wish we could avail ourselves of this executive privilege, unfortunately, down here in the real world where we common folk live, the po-po have a name for what Bush suggests gives him legal cover: criminal conspiracy.— DCEIVER

Despite the fact that working in the United States Senate offers a person like Jeanine Pirro to do what she does best, namely, staring stupidly into space for extended periods of time, Republican Party officials are saying today that she will drop her bid to unseat New York Senator Hillary Clinton. A replacement candidate has not yet been named.

For her part, Clinton remains committed to "running as fast and hard as [she] can" for re-election. Of course, many snipers of barrel-bound fish imagine that at some point, Clinton becomes a factor in the 2008 Presidential election. That prospect has only been enhanced by the authority President Bush conferred on the office allowing him to wiretap the phones of American citizens. No more crying yourself to sleep with a glass of warm milk and a stack of FBI files, eh, Hill? — DCEIVER

Officials: Sen. Clinton's GOP challenger to quit race [CNN]

Last Friday's news of President Bush authorizing extralegal espionage continues to resonate throughout Capitol Hill as the Senate reups for another Patriot Act showdown. Democrats continue to hammer away, believing that maybe at long last they've found some ground on which their bald tires will gain traction. For his part, the President and his surrogates continue to thrust their fists against the posts and still insist that they have the right to listen in on your calls.

Of course, the anger over the domestic espionage disclosure isn't confined to the Democrats. Republican Senators Chuck Hagel and Olympia Snowe have joined their Democratic counterparts Dianne Feinstein, Carl Levin and Ron Wyden in calling for a Congressional inquiry. Reporting this news last night, we couldn't help notice that the good folks at CNN took great pains to remind us that Hagel and Snowe are "maverick Republicans." Because in this day an age, a Republican who evinces actual conservative ideology when everyone else's lips are stained with the "Hey, let's build a massive government to spend scads of money on sandcastles in Mesopotamia" Kool-Aid is maverick indeed. — DCEIVER