• Page Six: Donald Trump defends the biggest, swankiest flag ever [NYP]
• Cindy Adams: Cindy predicts Michael Ripoff’s demise. [NYP]
• Liz Smith: Anthony Kennedy whoops it up with Lally Weymouth. [NYP]
• The Reliable Source: Hillary Duff, Nicollette Sheridan and Michael Bolton spotted in the area. [WP]
• Lloyd Grove’s Lowdown: Will Bloomberg run for President? Signs point to… maybe! [NYDN]

On this, the most pointless of patriotic holidays, we pause to… well, do something. Something flag-related, probably, but we don’t really know what. We’d think barbeques, but it’s a Wednesday and the weather’s kinda crappy. What kind of patriotic holiday is allowed to happen on a Wednesday? And we don’t even get a half-day? Fuck the flag, man. This is bogus.

All-media Flag Day Coverage Roundup, after the jump. You know you’re excited.

MORE »

Have Hollywood celebrity bashers been saying a little prayer for a return to the glory days of Spring 2003, when proving one’s patriotism was as simple as hemorrhaging a thousand-word screed about Sheryl Crow’s tshirt? If so, their little prayer has been answered.

Challenged by his producer to take risks, [Burt] Bacharach responded with songs set to hip-hop beats with lyrics, co-written with Tonio K., expressing nostalgia over bygone days and frustration with U.S. political leaders.

Sample lyric?

“Who are these people that keep telling us lies and how did these people get control of our lives and who’ll stop the violence ’cause it’s out of control? Make ‘em stop.”

Burt, the Dylanesque urgency of that run-on sentence structure is giving us chills! And that ‘em? Very street, and it proves you really mean it. Plus, we dig that your name sounds like “Back Iraq” — we bet Sean Hannity is popping a vein over that at this very moment. But is there any way you could make it even easier for critics to paint you as a totally fatuous Hollywood nincompoop?

Bacharach sings about his personal reflections on “Where Did It Go?” “It’s not like your normal, ‘I am angry, I protest’ song. There’s a groove going on. It’s kind of cookin’ along on a nice groove. And I’m saying like ‘Wow’ in the middle, a little bit of a surprise for a statement I wanted to make. It became very heartfelt,” said Bacharach, who said he cried doing the vocal.

Ok, thanks! — GREG BEATO MORE »

Jeep sponsored this Jeep-constructed American flag to promote “National Anthem Project, a national effort to re-teach Americans the words to ‘The Star-Spangled Banner.’” It’s a little like Halliburton sponsoring an apple pie contest. Funny thing about this stunt, though: With gas at $50 a gallon, it’s pretty much a permanent exhibit. Talk about these colors not running. MORE »

The Washington Times today took belligerent patriotism to new lows… no, actually, we’d have to admit its new highs:

As recruitment tactics go, it lacks something. MORE »

Thank God for surveys:

Surveys of recruit-age Americans and their parents have shown that fear of being killed or wounded in Iraq is one of the major reasons that young people are choosing other careers after high school.

We have to wonder what the other major reasons were, don’t you? MORE »

Drudge reports (”reports”?) that American military commanders banned their personnel from entering London. One of Wonkette’s Fleet Street operatives writes it makes sense that these troops were “told not to venture into the terrorist-ruled, bombed-out blackened shell of a capital city that is London.” But, he continues, it “is quite odd, given that the Pentagon has never been shy about letting US troops amble into the terrorist-ruled, bombed-out blackened shell of a capital city that is Baghdad, but there you go.” MORE »

The blogosphere will chatter on about the implications of the recently leaked U.K. memo outlining a significant withdrawal of British and American troops by 2006. And, to be sure, the memo raises many questions: Is Bush grubbing for higher approval ratings? Are the insurgents marking the date in their Outlook calendars? How do we define a “stable” Iraqi government? And, perhaps most puzzling: Why can’t the Brits keep their “confidential” memos out of the fucking press? MORE »

It’s probably callous to accuse anyone whose just survived a terrorist attack of having too much time on his hands, but HuffPo breakout star and expat lad mag editor Greg Gutfeld will apparently answer email from just about anyone and doesn’t appear to have slept much. First he’s corresponding with our shallow step-sister, cataloging both his drinking efforts and an Indian take-out menu while assuring us that “With the exception of the bombs and the carnage, everything is fine here.” MORE »

BBC reports Rudy Guilani’s reaction to the bombings, in which he says he “was right near Liverpool [Street] Station when the first bomb went off and was notified of it and it was just to me very eerie to be right there again when one of these attacks takes place.” Very fucking eerie indeed, we have to admit. We’re not saying he knows about these things in advance; maybe — as our Token Conservative Operative pointed out — he’s just like Superman, and somehow just happens to be on the scene wherever lives are in danger, liberties are threatened or bombs go off. MORE »

Wonkette’s Fleet Street operative writes with news of the aftermath:

It’s just 4.50pm here and people are already fleeing central London like rats leaving a sinking ship. MORE »