Like everything else poisonous and wrong with America today, the curse of the “senior administration official” is all Henry Kissinger’s fault. This we learn from Mike Allen in today’s Politico, as he takes us on a magical journey through the world of journalistic euphemism. MORE »

In his new job as op-ed columnist for the Khaleej Times (?!), America’s greatest diplomat explains that while we utterly destroyed a country that was at least stable before 2003, there’s just too much damned oil to leave.

But under present conditions, withdrawal is not an option. American forces are indispensable. They are in Iraq not as a favour to its government or as a reward for its conduct. They are there as an expression of the American national interest to prevent the Iranian combination of imperialism and fundamentalist ideology from dominating a region on which the energy supplies of the industrial democracies depend.

So, we toppled Saddam because our former ally held a grudge about the last Gulf War, and now we’re staying forever because our other former ally (Iran) still holds a grudge. Grudge = No western companies taking all the oil. Stick your purple finger in that, bitch! MORE »

* Former US President Gerald Ford is still dead. [WP, NYT]
* Kissinger: Still evil, sycophantic sonuvabitch. [NYT]
* The Democrats who now control congress argued among themselves briefly over whether they should let Republicans help draft legislation, then decided to bind and gag them instead. [WP]
* Boy, we had this great strategy for winning the war in Iraq, and then all this chaos started going down, it sucked. But seriously, it was a great plan. You woulda loved it. [NYT]
* Thousands of Iraqis are fleeing their country, we were gonna let 500 into the U.S. this year. [NYT]
* 3,000 dead in Iraq, and most of America doesn’t know one of those 3,000. [WP]
* The NRA has some crazy new pamphlet warning its members that the the new democrats will steal their guns, even though the new Democrats are pretty damn pro-gun. Also, someone forgot to credit Wonkette. [WP]
* Jeb Bush’s official Florida Gubernatorial portrait features a bible and a Blackberry, Bush family will never, ever, ever go away. Also, he uses emoticons. [NYT]
* Breaking: People aren’t very good at giving up bad habits. Doctors say, “change comes from the heart, not the head.” You should probably stop seeing any doctor who says that. [WP]
* Former Iraqi President Saddam Hussein is still dead. [USAT]

Hotline: MORE »

The world’s scariest two people — Henry Kissinger and Pope Joseph Ratzinger — have reportedly formed an alliance that Iranian officials soberly described as a “papal-Jewish conspiracy.” MORE »

New York mag has a lengthy profile of Henry Kissinger. What we learned:

* Henry Kissinger is short, has a deep voice.
* Henry Kissinger is a sycophant.
* Henry Kissinger is very charming.
* Henry Kissinger has lots of rich Manhattan liberal media friends.
* Henry Kissinger is BFF with John “WALLNUTS!” McCain.
* We miss Peter Jennings, if only for the occasional stories like this:

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It takes courage in the face of adversity — along with “Yikes, We’re All Crazy Moonies! — to declare victory in Iraq a few hours after Henry Freakin’ Kissinger says he “doesn’t believe that is possible.” But that’s why we love the Washington Times. MORE »

Hotsoup, the new website from former AP hotshot Ron Fournier, Mack McKinnon, Joe Lockhart, and a couple other names you see everywhere in Washington but can’t ever figure out why, launched this week. We first told you about it back in July, and we’ve been shivering with anticipation ever since. What is HotSoup? It’s this thing, see… like a message board, sorta. Or Facebook + CNN Instant Polls. And a blog. Everything’s a blog now. But it’s attracted the attention of a lot of Washington Insiders. Everyone — and we mean everyone — is on it:

So go check it out! It’s all about social networking, and the grassroots, and shit like that! With Lance Armstrong! And every single link is Javascript and they don’t work half the time! But you can use it to play awesome arcade games. MORE »

Once again, Yale secret-society member and Pentagon Intel veteran Bob Woodward is tearing apart a wretchedly unpopular president stuck in a lost war.

Bush’s foes are cheering this exciting development, but here at Wonkette we’re just sadly shaking our heads while finishing off another bottle. We’ll remind you why this is the best possible strategy, after the jump.

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Photo by Liz Gorman, tux by Gymboree. MORE »

Shortly after the picture was taken, with a brief whisper from Mr. Secretary, Patrick Gavin developed an uncontrollable desire to secretly bomb some southeast Asians. MORE »