Wonkette

To a certain crowd, the Council on Foreign Relations is part of the all-powerful Illuminati/Trilateral Commission/Bohemian Grove/Bilderberg/Skull & Bones conspiracy that runs the Western World. And while that’s all true, we shouldn’t overestimate the power of these secret societies. In other words, Bush & Cheney don’t listen to the CFR, either.

Today, the Council on Foreign Relations issued a grim report that very clearly describes the Iraq occupation as an unmitigated disaster with no possible hope of “military victory.” While this is obvious to sane people around the world and was already said by the Iraq Study Group, the House and Senate, all the generals Cheney has fired and even the White House’s own “Iraq Intelligence Estimate,” the CFR has unique knowledge … from the future. Read tomorrow’s news today, after the jump.

MORE »

This does mean they’re going to shoot them, right? It sure looks like last rites. MORE »

As a special War On Christmas treat for those serving in Iraq and wondering when the hell they might get to come home, George W. Bush has finally admitted what most humans (and 93% of political bloggers) have known for years: America is “not winning” in Iraq. MORE »

* Congressional Republicans push through change to health insurance rules at the buzzer. [WP]
* Meanwhile, Democrats fail to extort concessions from oil and gas companies. “Wait ’til next year,” they say. [WSJ]
* That’s when they’ll be relying on younger members’ “energy” and “intensity” to get everything they want from the 110th Congress. [WP]
* State department intelligence on Iranian nuclear terrorists powered by Google. [WP]
* William Jefferson wins reelection, reaffirms superiority of the American political system. [WP, NYT]
* Iraq Study Group’s report exposes rift among Republicans. James Baker and Lee Hamilton claim they got no beef with President Bush, and want to know who you callin’ “surrender monkey?” [WP, NYT]
* Barack Obama goes to New Hampshire, tells giant crowd that he doesn’t trust his own hype. [WP, NYT]
* In his farewell speech today, Kofi Annan will rip White House policies in the only dapper, civilized, and slightly accented way he knows. [USAT]
* Havana-born Republican congresswoman calls for the assignation of Fidel Castro, dog bites man. [NYT]
* Republican Presidential hopefuls kiss Bush family ass, dog bites man. [LAT]

At his press conference with Tony Blair today, Bush again revealed his deep spirituality — spiritualism, actually — when he proved to reporters how much he knows about how much Iraq sucks:

Make no mistake about it, I understand how tough it is — I talk to families who died.

So many mysteries here. No American families have died in Iraq, thanks to tough military recruitment standards that prevent entire families from enlisting, but it’s reasonable to assume entire families are among the 600,000+ Iraqis killed in the war. Are there entire dead Iraq families that speak English, or does Bush secretly speak Arabic, or does the Ouija board have live Babelfish translation or what? MORE »

Times are tough for the brave commenters on pro-Bush pro-Republican pro-Endless War In Iraq blogs. Their only allies in the War Against Bob Gates are Rick Santorum and some crazy old man from Kentucky with a broken No button. Dick Cheney has been kicked down to vice president and is no longer allowed to speak in public, the House and Senate are Democratic, and every church in the country is hosting nude gay weddings where the only heterosexual intercourse allowed is to produce stem cells for AIDS patients.

As somebody like Jon Bon Jovi once said, “They need another hero.” And they found him: a 24-year-old Army reservist with a blog. Why? Because the Iraq Study Group Report sucks, that’s why! All the painful details, after the jump.

MORE »

Nothing goes better together than gloomy government reports and comic books, which is why Slate’s cartoon version of the 9/11 Commission Report was such a staggering artistic and commercial success that truly marked the fifth anniversary of the terror attacks for all Americans.

Unfortunately, we don’t have five years to pay some second-rate comic inkers to make up “dramatic” visuals for 100+ pages of bureaucratic surrender, so we’ve just slapped some of Baker and Hamilton’s shimmering prose atop Slate’s 9/11 comic.

Join us after the jump for a very special “We give up!”

MORE »

It’s really everything we’ve dreamed of: First, it’s a PDF file. Everybody loves PDF files because they crash browsers and load that Adobe whatever. Second, it’s a lot of stuff we’ve known for months, but in official PDF form! MORE »

President Bush got his hard copy of the Iraq Study Group report at 7 a.m., and we, the people, get to see it ourselves at 11. MORE »

Having solved that messy little war problem, the Iraq Study Group is moving on to a more pressing issue: how to dress for success. MORE »