You’d think Donald Rumsfeld would know better than to go to the land of rabid Jerry Lewis fans, striped boating shirt aficionados and melty cheeses, but oh, no! He probably thought, “It’s Sarkozy’s town, now,” and, therefore, he’d be greeted as a liberator. Well, not exactly:

Former US Secretary of Defense Donald Rumsfeld’s jaunt to France was interrupted today by an unscheduled itinerary item — he was slapped with a criminal complaint charging him with torture.

Rumsfeld, in Paris for a discussion sponsored by the magazine Foreign Policy, was tracked down by representatives of a coalition of international human rights groups, who informed the architect of the US invasion of Iraq that they had submitted a torture suit against him in French court.

The filed documents allege that during his tenure, the former defense secretary “ordered and authorized” torture of detainees at both the American-run Abu Ghraib prison in Iraq and the US military’s detainment facility at Guantanamo Bay, Cuba.

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There are Friday News Dumps, and then there are Friday News Dumps Before Labor Day Weekend. MORE »

Katie has built a magnificent journalism career on a great set of legs. And this Craigslist poster, with a little luck, may end up with amazing breasts — which she’ll parlay into an anchor’s chair of her own: MORE »

Please, Al, you’re scaring the kids: MORE »

Rumsfeld: “Excuse me, is this seat taken?”
Soldier #1: “Sorry — six retired generals say you can’t sit with us.”
Soldier #2: “And on Wednesdays, we wear camo.” MORE »

Or maybe he wasn’t. From this morning’s Post: MORE »

* It turns out that a court does resemble a circus, at least when Jessica Cutler is there, along with a former paramour as plaintiff and an alleged former paramour as defense counsel. Well, not anymore, as defense counsel had to “pull out.” MORE »

Yes, we know all about the purported White House gossip posted over at Something Awful (and picked up by Daily Kos, among other places). We’ve known about if for a while now, but we’ve been holding off on doing anything with it because we can’t tell how much of it is factual and how much of it is satirical or apocryphal. Here at Wonkette, we’re all about factual accuracy.

But since so many of you have emailed us about it, we’ll blog about it, just to stem the flow of messages. In case you’re not familiar with it, Something Awful is a comedic community website, with a huge and intensely loyal message board community. Last week, a community member called “Martin Random” posted a long thread of what he called “Secrets from Inside the White House.”

Excerpts from the lengthy thread, accompanied by our comments, appear after the jump.

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Every now and then, we tune in to the Pentagon briefings given by Secretary Donald Rumsfeld. Today’s briefing, while not as entertaining as the one from last month — you know, the one where Rummy took a swipe at Maureen Dowd — had its moments. MORE »

* The Post spent two whole paragraphs on the National Day of Action for Immigrant Justice before focusing on how the afternoon rush hour will be affected. They helpfully included a map of the march route, so readers can keep a healthy two block distance. [WP] MORE »

And he is very, very happy to see them. MORE »