It's Victory Wednesday: Punch the Economy For Iraq!

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   Did you stay up late watching the president's four-second speech about the end of the "fightin' part" of the 2003 U.S. invasion of Iraq? Then you must be feeling very victorious today, and ready to prosecute the next war against American Freedom, which is the war against the way we spent money we didn't have on Chinese "consumer goods" we didn't need but kept magically using Ancient Islam to make money come out of our genies (our mortgaged houses) by using the foreign-sounding "HELOC loans." This is why Barack Obama and George W. Bush enjoyed a telephone chat yesterday, and why Robert Gates is in Baghdad right now about to give Iraq a certificate of attendance for having the shit blown out of it for a decade now.Would you feel better if you actually listened to Obama's televised address, right here on your Wonkette, in the bitter light of day? Fine, listen to it. Watch it. Feel the Freedom:

• Guess who has an exciting new political memoir? Okay, guess again. Here is a hint: He used to be the British prime minister, but he's not Margaret Thatcher, Winston Churchill or (especially) Gordon Brown. That's right, it's third-way new-age bullshitter Tony Blair! His book is very kind and new-agey, in the way it calls his longtime political ally Gordon Brown a bunch of insulting names. Blair calls Brown's time at 10 Downing Street "a disaster" and sums up Gordon's skills like this: "Political calculation, yes. Political feelings, no. Analytical intelligence, absolutely. Emotional intelligence, zero." Oh and then there's a whole chapter about how Tony Blair feels bad about Iraq but has no regrets. Stay classy, Tone! [ BBC / AFP ]

• You are probably very busy kissing random ladies in the streets and throwing your sailor hat high into the sky in celebration of our latest "win" in Iraq, but were you aware that a certain Hurricane Earl is carelessly heading straight for the coast of North Carolina, which is only two coasts away from Ground Zero? This extremely insensitive Category 3 hurricane is whipping up winds of 125 mph! Ocracoke Island, "that other island Barack Obama doesn't vacation on," has already been evacuated. Don't worry, Taxachusetts liberals, Earl should make it to Cape Cod by Friday, and then you can tax him. [ Seattle Times ]