What Chuck Grassley meant to say...

By GottaLaff

Yesterday I posted a Tweet from Chucky Grassley claiming he was "no nail" ... with implied exclamation points. Seems he has a regret or two. See, what he meant to say, see, was...

What Senator Grassley meant, his spokesperson tells me, was that he would greatly appreciate it if Obama would “let the legislative process work” and show a bit more “bipartisan” spirit.

Ohh, so now he would "greatly appreciate" an Obama bow to him and wishes the president would engage in some of that bipartisanship the Rushpublics have been initiating.

That Prez O! He's so unbipartisan! Those meetings with the Rushpublics were just an excuse to sit at long tables and horde more water bottles. What a selfish move by the Partisan President who somehow has a slew of Rushpublics in his own very cabinet.

I asked Grassley spokesperson Jill Kozeny what he meant. She emailed:

Senator Grassley has been urging the President to let the legislative process work so that health care reform legislation restructuring 17 percent of America’s economy will reflect broad consensus and garner bipartisan support from as many as 80 senators.

A good deal clearer, though perhaps not quite as colorful. One of these days Senators will figure out that tweets are, you know, public statements that are read by lots and lots of people, including reporters.

And bloggers.

And bloggers who Tweet.

McConnell warns of grim GOP future

By GottaLaff

I love it when words like "slipping," "marginalized," and "grave danger" are used to describe the Republican party:

Senate Minority Leader Mitch McConnell painted a downright dismal view of the state of his party Thursday afternoon, telling Republican National Committee members the GOP is in grave danger of being marginalized to a regional party.

"We’re all concerned about the fact that the very wealthy and the very poor, the most and least educated, and a majority of minority voters, seem to have more or less stopped paying attention to us," the Kansas Republican said on the second day of the four-day gathering.

Can't imagine why.

"And we should be concerned that, as a result of all this, the Republican Party seems to be slipping into a position of being more of a regional party than a national one.

"In politics there's a name for a regional party, it's called a minority party," said McConnell.

Oh, now, McChinless, don't be shy... there are other names: Failure party, bigoted party, fiscally irresponsible party, loser party, exclusionary party, warmonger party... feel free to stop me whenever you have something to add.

"My concern is that unless we do something to adapt, our status as a minority party may become too pronounced for an easy recovery," McConnell also said.

Why, that would be catastrophic! We Dems may have to go to extremes and... pop open two bottles of champagne per person.

McConnell also laid some blame at the feet of former President Bush, whom he described a "man of principle," but one who did "not win any popularity contests."

"History shows that unpopular presidents are usually a drag on everybody else who wears their political label," he said.

What lessons can McChinless and his sinking ship learn from this? Think real hard. Here's an idea: Have the stones to point out what failure of a president [sic] your guy was while he's still in office.

"Too often we’ve let others define us," McConnell said. "And the image they’ve painted isn’t very pretty. Ask most people what Republicans think about immigrants, and they’ll say we fear them. Ask most people what we think about the environment, and they’ll say we don’t care about it. Ask most people what we think about the family, and they’ll tell you we don’t — until about a month before Election Day."

Bingo. Except the part he left out about fearmongering, racism, smearing, and deception. Other than that, he nailed it.

"…We should avoid the false choice of being a party of moderates or conservatives," he said. "America is diverse. The two major parties should be too. But this doesn’t mean turning our backs on commonsense conservatism, or tailoring our positions to suit particular groups. Our principles are universal. They apply to everyone."

In related news:

Saltsman out of the running for RNC chair

You remember him, don't you?

Newsflash! George "I'm never wrong" Bush has REGRETS

By GottaLaff
How fitting that Kucinich's Resolution to Impeach is being read as I type this...

I didn't think this was possible. A miracle has occurred! And we are witnesses: George W. DinkyParts has expressed ::fanfare:: regret:

ABC News' Tahman Bradley Reports: Across the pond for a Europe farewell tour, President Bush spoke candidly about his legacy, acknowledging mistakes in handling the Iraq war. Bush told the British newspaper, The Times, he regrets the bitter division over the Iraq war and -- rather remarkably -- admitted his words in the lead up to the U.S. invasion of Iraq did not help unite the country behind the effort.

This is so immense, so groundbreaking, so... late. And meaningless. And understated. The "bitter division" was underway during the lead-up to the war, and the "uniter" knew it. His ill-chosen, infantile words were part of it, to be sure. His actions? Now that's another story. A bigger story. The biggest story ever, so tragically big that it encompasses thousands upon thousands of deaths, a region's devastation, and the disdain of the whole world.

The paper writes that the president "expressed regret at the bitter divisions over the war and said that he was troubled about how his country had been misunderstood."

His sputtering mental horsepower is wreaking havoc with my patience. "Misunderstood" were we? The country was misunderstood? The country made the decision to enter into a fraudulent invasion/occupation/tragedy? Way to accept responsibility, President Cretin. Way to show regret.

Bush told the paper, "I think that in retrospect I could have used a different tone, a different rhetoric." Bush also admitted that some of his strong phrases like "bring them on" or in general his "Cowboy Talk" -- as he once referred to it in an ABC News' interview with George Stephanopoulos -- affected the perception of the U.S. around the world. Those phrases, Bush said, according to the paper," indicated to people that I was, you know not a man of peace."

Where do I even begin?

• Substitute the words "Cowboy Talk" (isn't that just the cutest?) with reckless, swaggering, irrational threats laced with fear-mongering lies supported by absolutely nothing. That doesn't sound as funsy and Texan and John Wayney, does it, you destructive, sadistic, masquerading little frat boy?

• "Affected the perception"? You might say it affected a lot more than mere perception. It affected people, you psychopathic fool, with disastrous, deadly results. How's that for legacy?

• "Not a man of peace"? Mr. Bush, you're not a man at all.