Dartblog

The latest news in global politics is that President Bush, on his final Baghdad press conference, was confronted with an airborne loafer tossed by an uppity journo whose cushy bureau job had obviously been cut as a result of The Bush Economy. “This is a farewell kiss, dog,” were the tosser’s parting words before he was escorted to the floor by Secret Service. The President may not have the grit of a Barack Obama, who grew up an Hawaiian street urchin hawking stolen bread-halves while saving for Harvard, but he gamefully retorted something like: “It’s a size ten, that’s all I can report.” Guffaws. Then the Iraqi reporters in the room, whose own inclinations may or may not run in favor of United States foreign policy over the last seven years, but who nevertheless seem to possess decorum exceeding the average, apologized on behalf of the sod who threw the shoe.

Meanwhile, Sarah Palin’s church in Wasilla, Alaska was torched to nearly nothing by an arsonist who did not bother to check whether any innocent people were inside praying for goodwill, so keen was the preudomme to rid the world of the she who performed unsatisfactorily in the Katie Couric gauntlet. Uneven speakers create more terrorists than they kill, you know.

The reports say that no one was harmed, although the damages reach into seven figures.

The personal furies summoned against the governess over the last several months had clearly had their way with her, because after hearing of the arson she legged it to her church and, astoundingly, apologized just in case the incident was connected to “the negative attention” stemming from her vice presidential candidacy. Which, roughly, is how fifth-column (and fourth estate?) whackos would like it to run when Change arrives: conservatives apologize in advance, for everything, and are subsequently hit in the head with shoes, while their entire policy slates are quietly adopted by the Democrat President, with certain parts blown out and estuarial veins run to organized constituencies who will ensure a second term.

I suspect the whole game was nearly given up last week when ticking across our desks came headlines like: “Blagojevich and Union Have Longstanding Ties,” mentioning that Governor Rod Blagojevich and the Service Employees International Union were trying to see if they could make the dollar figures work, Senate-seat-wise. The corruption isn’t usually that tidy, of course; but the Blago business could have been the first spidering crack in the dam.

Probably it won’t be. The modern liberal uses conservative policy to avert disaster and kickbacks, cash or cultural, to keep his customers pleased.

On which score, I think you will enjoy hearing this 2002 Blagojevish commercial. Laughing at it last year would have been racially insensitive, but now you are free.

Movin’ Illinois forward/ Means so much to me/ I’m tired of those Republicans/ They really don’t care about me/ That’s why I’m gonna make that switch/ To Rod/ Blagojevich!