for crony, a long hard road from minding the steed.

just when you thought you'd heard/seen the worst of it, more incompetence from the world's most famous ex-arabian horse sheppard. speaking of arabia, can someone levy a fatwa on this jackass?

meanwhile, in the situation room...
the daily global threat assessment briefing is winding down.

dubya jots a joke down on the presidential notepad. let's out a little chuckle, shimmies the shoulder, slides it over to condi. she's all clandestine as she draws the note near. it reads:

"w/ friends like mike brown, who needs liberals?"

condi busts out a laugh. not laughter. just one laugh... *ha. but it's not just 'ha', it's more like a 'pfthfwHAH!!' loud, piercing. it jumps to the ceiling and blasts into all four corners. her body does a little upward heave, tethered... ever so gently... to the ascending-- it's a chortle, and a guffaw together, and a touch of shriek underneath it all. it throws everyone when it happens cuz there's no predicting when the good secretary doctor's gunna bring it. funny... her sense of humor; it can be quite black, really.

they do this, dubya & doc con... w/ the passing of the notes during the briefings and the summits...


"hey c, prime minister speech was good...",
"hey c, thx for e. europe debrief..."
"hey c, i think i may need a bathroom break? is this possible?"


(like fourth grade language arts class; you try and pay attention but johnny funboy behind you is passing forward torn & folded scribbles and drawings and doodles or like that one time it was gum.)

an aide escorts the press in for the standard snapshots and softball q&a. dubya & condi are still in shits & giggles mode; dubya's shoulders bounce as he chuckles, then he tries to regain some semblance of composure by furrowing the brow and chewin' on his inner cheek. condi can't contain her ear to ear alfred e. newman grin.

someone asks dubya to comment on the mike brown e-mails. "mr. president, do you regret telling former fema director mike brown that he was doing, "a heck of a job" in the aftermath of katrina, now that mr. brown has been exposed as a bumbling jackass?"

"lemme tell ya som'n," dubya begins, a little ornery. "you media folk, yer always tryna play this game of 'do you regret' or 'are you sorry' or 'doesn't so and so deserve an apology. and the answer to your question is a... rescinding 'no'. i don't regret saying what i said to mike brown because if you look at what i said, you'd see there's nothin doin with regards to apologizin. what i said was, 'brownie, you're doing a heck of a job'. the operative word there in what i said is 'heck'. and 'heck' is a whole lot different than 'hell'. a helluva job would imply that he was doing good by fema and the katrina folks. a heckuva job implies the exact opposite. any dimwit would understand that. now, if you don't mind, i need to head to an ethics meeting. scotty'll be more'n happy to answer any more of your folks's questions."