(1) Mirror, Mirror On The Wall

A diplomat is supposed to lie abroad for the good of her country.

But Condoleezza Rice is a mirror-image Secretary Of State. She has managed to get it fully reversed: she lies at home for the bad of her country.

You are only supposed to rise to your level of incompetence. Clearly, Condi reached that level when she was made the National Security Adviser. Only Dear Leader could have had the lousy judgment to promote her beyond that level.

I’m afraid I’m assigning homework again today. Just sit down and try to imagine how different the history of our country would have been if anyone else had been National Security Adviser in 2001.

(2) Whatever Leadership He Can Provide

Dear Leader has woken up to the fact that Foley did something very, very bad. One of these days someone may be able to sit him down and explain to him how Denny Hastert, John Boehner, Tom Reynolds, probably John Shimkus too, also did something very, very bad. (Georgie, there are bad acts of commission and then there are bad acts of omission.)

But right now Bush is still talking the talk that those guys didn’t live up to by walking the walk:

Families have every right to expect that when they send their children to be a congressional page in Washington, that those children will be safe.

So families have a right to expect that, but nobody in a Republican Congress has any responsibility to deliver?

Bush went on to provide a ringing endorsement for Hastert:

I’m confident he will provide whatever leadership he can to law enforcement in this investigation.

Just as George, as President, is providing whatever leadership he can scrape up?

(3) The “Stupidest Sleazy Attempt to Distract Attention From A Red Hot Scandal” Prize

Monday’s prize is shared by Boehner and Hastert.

AP:

Boehner also suggested that campaign opponents might have made sure the e-mails surfaced close to midterm elections. “If this evidence was withheld for political purposes, one can only speculate as to how many additional children may have been endangered before this information was finally revealed,” he wrote.

And AP again:

Hastert sought to blame Democrats for leaking sexually explicit computer instant messages between Foley and former pages from 2003.

“We have a story to tell, and the Democrats have — in my view have — put this thing forward to try to block us from telling the story. They’re trying to put us on defense,” Hastert said.

The only evidence that anyone attempted to withhold key evidence for political purposes consists of the attempt by Tom Reynolds’ Chief of Staff, Kirk Fordham, to bribe Brian Ross not to disclose the sexually explicit IMs. How come none of these outraged family values Republicans are calling for his scalp?

But, more importantly, Brian Ross had already revealed that his sources for this story were Republicans, not Democrats (the story is datelined October 3, but was posted online on the 2nd evening):

Mr. Ross dismissed suggestions by some Republicans that the news was disseminated as part of a smear campaign against Mr. Foley.

“I hate to give up sources, but to the extent that I know the political parties of any of the people who helped us, it would be the same party,” Mr. Ross said, referring to Republicans.