What is up here? George Bush is not shaking anybody’s hand, nobody’s shaking his hand, it is an international diplomatic crisis! It will be nice to have a President whom the leaders of other nations do not find so physically revolting they can’t stand to touch him briefly. [YouTube]

• Here is your President — ha ha, no, the other one: “George” — congratulating Barack Obama. [Ben Smith]
• Hysterical manchild Eric Cantor, whose feelings were hurt by terrible bully Nancy Pelosi, is throwing his name into the House Republican Whip hat. [RedState]
• Michelle Malkin will have none of this dumb “GOP re-branding,” which is just a fancy vapid David Axlerod-ism. The fundamentals of the Party, clearly, are strong. [Michelle Malkin]
• A bunch of elitist four-year college professors suggest books that Obama should read, now that he’s President and has so much more time for leisure. [Inside Higher Ed]
• Meet Obama’s all-star transition team! Starting lineup includes Janet Napolitano, John Podesta, and that new puppy that Obama has pinky-sworn to Sasha and Malia. [Marc Ambinder]
• There are about 9 billion humans on Earth right now (not counting Joe Lieberman or his multitude of evil hologram clones.) In 1830, it was just 1 billion. [The Caucus]

Oh this is hilarious, on CNN we have a split screen with Barry finally laying out his detailed, comprehensive policy proposal on the left, and on the right we have a bunch of sad orange roses waiting for George Bush to stomp all over them. MORE »

Well good morning to you! The Dow dropped over 660 points after opening, which is to say, it’s just another beautiful day on Wall Street. Our president, George W. Bush, will once again scurry out of his spider hole to choke out a few brief words about our flourishing economy before he glimpses his shadow and disappears for another six weeks. So of course we will liveblog all 90 seconds of his remarks, so stay tuned! [Yahoo Finance]

• The Department of Homeland Security just began its new $634 billion dollar satellite surveillance program, despite some Democrats prattling on about how this thing violates “civil liberties” and “the law” or some such. [Wall Street Journal]
• Obama’s new Mexican telenovela stars a little boy with cancer who can’t see a doctor because McCain wants him to have cancer, because that’s what Bush would have wanted. [Ben Smith]
• Your President Bush has the highest disapproval rating in history! It’s 70% and even Nixon wasn’t quite as hated. [Political Wire]
• Did you know despicable foreign fatcats from exotic Muslim lands are giving Barack Obama dozens and dozens of dollars?  [RedState]
• Sarah Palin wants you to know she has a gay friend! And still, she loves her! Joe Biden, on the other hand, has a black friend.  [The Caucus]

America’s president, George W. Bush, was supposed to go to a fundraiser today but he had to stay home and send Dick Cheney in his stead to stand around the buffet table and shovel shrimp cocktail into his pockets. Why? Because of the economy, which George Bush is “concerned” about! He even talked about it, on the teevee. MORE »

Yay it’s your weekly CNN headline funny! Pack up all your worldly belongings, board up the windows, and kiss your nice pets goodbye forever. Hurricane Ike sucked, but it’s nothing compared to this fearsome “Bush,” which destroys literally everything it touches. [CNN]

• Obama’s big speech last night was a success, as he compared McCain to Bush and it included a number of good burns. The subsequent fireworks also indicated success.  [Politico]
• Putin blamed (who else) President Bush for the Georgian conflict, and explained that this whole thing was created just to drum up support for a certain unnamed person running for President who is not Barack Obama. [New York Times]
• Today is McCain’s 72nd birthday, and he will celebrate by choosing a vice president, maybe 73 vice presidents (one for good luck). [Washington Post]
• New Orleans prepares itself for Tropical Storm Gustav with their old FEMA friends, while Gustav prepares for New Orleans by flooding Jamaica. [Times-Picayune]
• Oil prices will probably have their biggest weekly gain in two months, thanks to Gustav and all the rig evacuations in the Gulf of Mexico it is causing. [Bloomberg]
• The audience at Invesco Field last night was very pleased with Obama’s speech, and cheered and stayed silent at all the appropriate times. [New York Times]
• In his speech, Al Gore compared Obama to Lincoln and said that if the 2000 election had gone differently, Osama would be dead, Iraq would be not be such a mess, and we would be working towards solving global warming. [The Hill]

No, alas, this isn’t the much-anticipated “Whitey” tape where George Bush sits in an Afghan cave with Louis Farrakhan spewing racist garbage. (That’ll be out next week.) A newly surfaced video shows our president making some jokes at a recent fundraiser for Pete Olson. Who’s that, you ask? Olson is the Texas Republican who beat Shelley “Dracula Cunt” Sekula Gibbs in a hard-fought primary, thereby strangling in its crib one of the most glorious political ascensions since … well, the last incompetent fraud from Texas. MORE »

If it weren’t for the greatest president in modern times, George Walker Bush, Jr., the Republican nominee in 2008 would be his Brother, Jebediah “Jeb” Bush, the second male heir to the Bush crown and a known Mexican. He would win, because why not. But George Jr. got to the presidency first, and despite his fantastic performance over the last eight years, the Liberals would use the sum of their mighty slapping powers to prevent Jeb’s latest Bush presidency. Poor Jeb. But since everyone in this country forgets everything, he can easily run in 2012, which George Jr. today suggested his brother might do. Country, saved. MORE »

George W. Bush has two great ambitions in life: to be the president of Major League Baseball, and to bomb Iran. He will accomplish the second in his waning days in public office before retiring and turning his attention to the very important task of running the sport of baseball into the ground. MORE »