Staying the course; flip-flopping on the deck

Well, just one short year and-a-half after being asked by a citizen in the 2004 town hall-style presidential debate to name three mistakes he's made as president and what he did to correct them, President Bush gave a partial answer Thursday in a joint news conference/mea culpa/commitment to keeping the troops in Iraq until the job is done with British Prime Minister Tony Blair, both of whom are enjoying career-low approval numbers attributed to the war in Iraq.

... in an unusual admission of a personal mistake, Mr. Bush said he regretted challenging insurgents in Iraq to "bring it on" in 2003, and said the same about his statement that he wanted Osama bin Laden "dead or alive." Those two statements quickly came to reinforce his image around the world as a cowboy commander in chief. "Kind of tough talk, you know, that sent the wrong signal to people," Mr. Bush said. "I learned some lessons about expressing myself maybe in a little more sophisticated manner."

He's apparently practicing that lesson in baby steps, but you have to start somewhere.

He went on to say that the American military's biggest mistake was the treatment of prisoners at Abu Ghraib prison, where photographs of detainees showed them in degrading and abusive conditions. "We've been paying for that for a long period of time," Mr. Bush said, his voice heavy with regret.

Refreshing as it is to hear the president speak as though he's rationally accepted the fact that he is not Jack Bauer, of course he's only making such statements because he can't (under current law, at least) run for re-election.

For as American voters have demonstrated, many prefer to select presidents using the same criteria they apply to select action stars they'd like to watch on TV, whom they can be confident aren't intimidatingly smarter than them and will just entertain them while singularly pursuing the bad guys with ever-righteous vengeance.

But alas, the real world is not "24"–those qualities are rarely the most conducive to effective diplomacy and policy. And sadly, most conflicts cannot be settled with torture and a magical green messenger bag full of high-tech vigilante justice. Besides, as President Bush continues to insist, timetables are just plain dirty.

Lurking around in the Bushes

The last time members of one major party's camp broke into the offices of the other to steal documents from a famous Washington office building, things didn't end too well for the interlopers.

Now we've got members of a sitting president's administration ordering the Justice Department to raid an allegedly equal branch of government's turf, simmering bipartisan resentment and talk of Supreme Court intervention, but seemingly falling short of scandal.

FBI agents conducting a bribery investigation of Rep. William Jefferson, D-La., showed up at a closed House office building with a warrant signed by Attorney General Roberto Gonzales and spent their Saturday night going through his files, spreading unease across the aisle.

"The Justice Department was wrong to seize records from Congressman Jefferson's office in violation of the constitutional principle of separation of powers, the speech or debate clause of the Constitution, and the practice of the last 219 years," Mr. Hastert and Ms. Pelosi said in a rare joint statement.

Silly senators, that's just Dubya the Visionary being innovative. Indeed, President Bush, never one to let an opportunity to remind us all that he's The Decider slip by, issued a statement Thursday ordering that the documents taken from Jefferson's office be sealed for 45 days, so that the parties involved can settle on (read: have imposed) a way to move forward "in a manner that respects the interests of a coequal branch of government."

Yes, for when it's using proxy agencies to rifle though a fellow lawmaker's private communications, then all the legislative branch "representatives" start to care about this executive branch's flagrant and seemingly escalating attempts to consolidate power and remain above reproach for its actions.

Though, in fairness, what they're nosing through in congressional offices is probably a trifle more consequential than what the NSA could glean if it were literally eavesdropping on citizens' phone calls and e-mails. (Assuming the fact that I cleaned my closet yesterday and thought the season finale of "House" was lame are not in the nation's vital interests–and if they are, we've all got more serious issues to worry about.)

Still, better late than never. It's still worth noting how an administration with such disregard for boundaries so zealously guards its own–recall, the Bush White House holds the record for classifying documents, which it does to its paranoid and hyperactive little heart's content, even re-classifying many that have been sitting on public library shelves for years.

And though Supreme Court challenges and other means of recourse through official channels are all well and good, I think some rogue if juvenile lawmakers need to get together and wage this privacy battle in terms the Bush crew can relate to: Raid Dick Cheney's undisclosed location when he's out conducting business on the surface, then take pictures of a lawn gnome waving from throughout the property and send them to Cheney weeks later to freak him out.

Either that, or maxi pad the presidential motorcade and plastic fork the lawn of the White House. I swear, just one near-impaling for Miss Beazley, and that'll learn 'em.

ABC, thanks so much

In a move they should have made in the first place, those in charge at ABC News have decided to give Elizabeth "Now With Spawn" Vargas and her phantom, injured co-host Bob Woodruff the boot and pass the anchor chair over to Charles Gibson, who is being pulled at long last from the morning show abyss to take over World News Tonight starting Monday.

Not only does this mean Peter Jennings is finally getting a serviceable successor, with any luck, it will also save us from having to endure the local news tradition of whenever an anchor has a baby, suffering through a series of stories on "motherhood" that are really just an excuse to beam the wrinkled newborn banshee's creepy little face into people's homes.

Hillary: the codger and Luddite candidate

For any fellow "young people" who still hold delusions about supporting Hillary Clinton in anything, you should be aware she recently used a speech to the U.S. Chamber of Commerce to fish for the "traditional values" vote by saying we're all lazy, we think we're entitled to high pay without putting in our share of work and, who could forget, we're ruining the American culture of our venerable elders with our blasted technologies of instant gratification.

Because we all know Baby Boomers in Hillary's cohort never act "entitled," to Social Security (paid for by all those young slackers) or pricey (if corrupting) electronics or SUVs (with DVD players inside) or expensive homes or real families or automatic respect and five-star service everywhere they tread for merely having money and not being dead yet.

Of course, she soon publicly apologized when her 26-year-old, six-figure salary-earning daughter called her on it, then released her utterly common and roundly inoffensive iPod playlist to the media to try and look all hip (come on, "Beautiful Day" by U2? Lame.). This from the woman who still talks about the dangers of violent video games and calls for better equipping parents, and everyone else, to control what children see online, what they listen to and who they communicate with (known outside of political rhetoric as "censorship").

Indeed, Hillary, way to trash the only age bracket that perhaps doesn't actively hate you, if only because so many of its members don't read the news and know you make more pandering flip-flops in a week than John Kerry and a Flying Wallenda combined make in a year. And because they like your husband.

But though many may question his character, Bubba would never disrespect us like that. Uh-uh.

Class of 2006, vote McCain in 2008

Though the fine graduating class of Jerry Falwell's Liberty University is blessed in so many other ways, at least they didn't get a monopoly on the inspiring oratorical gem that surely is a commencement address by Arizona Senator and Republican presidential nomination heir-prematurely apparent John McCain–the exact same commencement address, to be precise.

As reported by the New York Times, McCain's glorified stump speech Friday at New York's New School graduation, at the invitation of university president, former senator and war buddy Bob Kerrey, got him pilloried by perturbed students and faculty.

Too bad McCain didn't speak at UW-Madison–I might actually have gone to my own, non-mandatory commencement. But then again, if he had, the protest-poseurs here probably would have just been so excited to see a name they recognized listed as speaker, heckling would never have crossed their minds.

But of course, trooper that he is, McCain soldiered on and dismissed the batty liberal criticism with characteristic condescending finesse:

After yesterday's event, Mr. McCain told reporters he felt "fine" about his reception. "I feel sorry for people living in a dull world where they can't listen to the views of others," he said.

Oh, screw you, McCain–you're transparently campaigning at a college commencement. Bravo to a crowd for having the collective balls to call you on your phony, patronizing, politician hypocrisy; and for not indulging you with the automatic deference you're used to just because you're Republican royalty and a veteran.

Hell, too bad you're not from Wisconsin–your friend and mine, fine state Sen. Scott Fitzgerald, R-Juneau, has introduced a bill (that Democratic Gov. Jim Doyle supports) that would give resident military veterans free tuition at any of the state's public universities or technical colleges, funded by tuition increases for the unpatriotic ingrates who don't choose to enlist and foolishly want to get an education instead.

Oh, and forget the GI Bill or signing bonuses intended to pay for college, this bill also carries no time limit–meaning instead of writing angry letters to his pandering, flag-waving representatives on the subject, my comfortably retired grandpa could go back and get a second degree just for fun, on the civilian students' tab. Which, as R.G. would no doubt impart to you at length if you were ever unfortunate enough to encounter him in a dark alley, is bullshit.

But I suppose, students of modest means at the state's public colleges are already racking up tens of thousands in loan debt–what's a bit more if it could conceivably help keep a few budding McCains out of elected office?

Morons by any other name...

When it comes to trendy baby names, if you thought Dakota, Mackenzie and the perennial common names spelled with eight extraneous vowels were bad, meet Neveah.

It's No. 70 on the Social Security Administration's new list of the most popular baby names given to girls in 2005, and as reported today, it has shot to popularity faster than any name the agency has tracked since it began tallying in the 1880s–thanks to a Christian "rock star."

Yes, there were 4,457 little pieces of Heaven-spelled-backward born in 2005 alone.

And like good little evangelicalets (if they can make up names, I can make up words), according to a delightfully headlined snippet in the New York Times, it seems at least some of the early Neveahs have been trained to parrot the name's meaning when introduced to people, for it obviously makes them extra-special little miracles.

Much of the name's supposed appeal lies in how it captures the aspirations parents have for their daughters' lives–but that's a rather tall order. Never mind the simple fact that names are hardly deterministic (for Christ's sake, according to some non-botanical sources, mine means "holy one")–what if precious little Neveah turns out to be a whiny little tarb, or later in life a nasty hctib or a filthy tuls? What if–gasp–she doesn't ultimately want to be Christian?

And aren't parents afraid they're going to invoke some divine curse upon their eternal souls or be struck down on the spot the moment they try to discipline or yell at their daughter using her name?

And what worthy moniker do you give any siblings that won't make them look like mortal, sin-sullied human refuse next to their sister? Just how do Neveahs fit into this carefully cultivated, everyone-gets-a-cookie world of equal merit for merely existing?

All these fad names end up doing is branding kids not as original, but as dated fashion victims, and perhaps causing people they encounter throughout life to wonder whether their parents had some kind of learning disability.

Seriously, if you think journalists have a pathetically hard time spelling people's names correctly in print now, just wait.

Meet the press, and strike up the banjos

It's too soon to rule decisively, but it appears as though new White House Press Secretary Tony Snow might turn out to be a bit more entertaining than his predecessors.

In his first on-camera hootenanny with the press corps Tuesday, Snow not only got all sensitive new-age man on us by getting misty eyed over his Livestrong bracelet, but claimed having colon cancer last year was the best thing that ever happened to him.

And he's now doing a masochist's dream job, so I for one expect great things–like tasteless, out of place turns of racially incendiary phrase:

Asked repeatedly about reports that the government has collected records on millions of Americans' phone calls, Snow said, "I don't want to hug the tarbaby of trying to comment on the program, the alleged program, the existence of which I can neither confirm nor deny."

When asked to clarify just what that "hug the tarbaby" business was all about, Snow said something about the phrase tracing back to "American lore."

And doesn't it just make you proud to be an American to know that your president's spokesman has such fine pearls of culture and history at the top of his head?

What's next, discussing immigration policy in terms of border-hoppers and wet-backs?

My fellow Americans, amnesty is for pansies

In case you missed President Bush's address to the nation on immigration Monday evening, here's what you need to know:

• As you can see in the above screen capture from the AP, our fearless leader decided to forgo any attempt to look stately and professional at his desk in the Oval Office, instead electing to clutter up the background with busy flags and a bunch of tacky family photos that clashed with the dumpy paisley draperies. Supposedly they tried to squeeze in a few more American flags as well, but that sent test viewers into seizures–paroxysms of patriotism so intense, the FCC ruled them obscene.

• The president cordially pretended to ask Congress for legal authority to do something, as if everyone didn't already know he's The Decider, who does what he fancies and doesn't need permission from a constitutionally coequal branch of government to act, damn it.

• Bush talked about stationing National Guard troops on the Mexican border for the next year to improve security with new technology. Critics argue military and homeland security resources are already stretched thin, especially given behind-the-scenes projects like the domestic eavesdropping National Phone Call Database of Doom, but just think–they won't even have to waste any money or man-hours covering this one up. Besides, I just saw on our local news that our two, lame shopping malls got a $100,000 grant from Homeland Security because they're the closest thing this city has to potential terrorist targets–plainly, they give away these funds like candy.

• The president mentioned the importance of ending the "catch and release" policy that too often sends captured illegal immigrants back into society because authorities don't have the resources to hold them. The next sentence about closing the PR-stain that is Guantanamo and re-opening it as an offshore "detention resort" must have been edited for time. It was "24" night, after all.

• Like everything else in this country, if you're got a real family, the president alluded to the fact that you're just a little bit better than other illegal immigrants.

• And finally, President Bush urged us to remember, though the illegal immigration issue is divisive, we can all find common ground in that we inhabit a nation built on respect for law (except for the executive branch, of course) and we are united by our ability to speak and write in English (excepting, of course, the commander in chief, the 11 million U.S. adults who are not functionally literate and just about everyone on the Internet).

Turning the moralists to malcontents

The moral values crowd is apparently upset at President Bush and ruling Congressional Republicans for failing to take up its policy torches and pitchforks by constitutionally banning gay marriage, further restricting abortion or increasing penalties for obscenity–they're even talking cutting them off at the ballot box come November as passive-aggressive punishment:

"There is a growing feeling among conservatives that the only way to cure the problem is for Republicans to lose the Congressional elections this fall," said Richard Viguerie, a conservative direct-mail pioneer.

I doubt that will cure their problem (as one hopes Democrats are still sane enough not to listen to them either), but it just might cure everyone else's by tossing these nutjobs out of the major-party policy debate and keep them preaching to their peanut galleries where they belong.

For if many had their way, the Federal Marriage Amendment would have gotten as much elite attention as the medicare drug plan or the president's stab at social security reform–because obviously, banning gay marriage is far, far more important to a greater number of people in this country than health care or, you know, being able to afford basic necessities.

I think these folks are due for a reminder (and what luck!) that this notion of them delivering Bush the 2004 election on the "values vote" is a myth–it was based on an after-the-fact, vote-rationalizing opinion poll, and if you look at simple facts, you'll find values issues didn't turn out new voters more than any other set of issues.

But still, staying home on election day is a fine strategy–at least then social conservatives will have no beholden avenue through which to project their delusions of power and wisdom beyond themselves.

Ordering policy from the kids' menu

In his State of the Union Address this week, in addition to name-calling back at Dick "The Dog-Faced Boy" Cheney, Russian President Vladimir Putin chose to highlight the country's shrinking population as its most salient national worry. And of course, instead of working to reverse the trend by battling the country's escalating death rate or trying to decrease emigration to other countries, the government is going to try and use money to convince women to have more children. Right.

An editorial in today's New York Times also had this helpful suggestion:

Perhaps another approach would be to see whether the population could be increased through improved democratic institutions. If corruption and greed among the elite were curbed somewhat, and if Mr. Putin started worrying less about throwing Russia's weight around and more about allowing a greater part of the population to share in the country's governance, riches, debates and dreams, maybe the drinking and poverty would give way to larger families. There's no guarantee, of course, but unlike the measures Mr. Putin outlined, this approach has never been fully explored.

Apparently Scott McClellan has joined the editorial board. And yes, good old democracy is the remedy for everything–we've (allegedly) got it and we certainly don't have any problems with poverty or alcoholism within our glimmering borders. (And come on, if anything, larger families are causes of more than cures for both.)

We've also got plenty of wailing national posterity despite all our rampant corruption and greed. And we certainly don't ever throw our weight around, or concern ourselves too heavily with letting the population share in governance, debate or especially riches:

The overwhelming share of the tax cuts the Senate voted to extend will flow to the wealthiest taxpayers. People earning $1 million a year would save about $42,700, and reap about 22 percent of the total tax cut, according to the Tax Policy Center, a research group in Washington. People earning $40,000 to $50,000 a year would save about $47 and receive less than 1 percent of the benefits.

Oh, but at least we've still got our dreams.

Unless perhaps we want to be scientists and we were unfortunate enough to go through a creationism-happy public school system. As stated eloquently by Holden Thorp:

Where science gets done is where wealth gets created, so places that decide to put stickers on their textbooks or change the definition of science have decided, perhaps unknowingly, not to go to the innovation party of the future. Maybe that's fine for the grownups who'd rather stay home, but it seems like a raw deal for the 14-year-old girl in Topeka who might have gone on to find a cure for resistant infections if only she had been taught evolution in high school.

Wow, who would have thought that medical schools and cutting-edge research corporations might not want you if you believe diseases are intelligently designed components in some incomprehensible divine plan, meant to teach us lessons or punish us for tolerating the gays?

And they call this the land of opportunity.

Jesus didn't die for you so you could be rational

Now that it appears the fabled bird flu global diffusion of death is not coming on the wings of migrating flocks, alarmists are probably going to need something else to squawk over.

Good thing the film adaptation of Dan Brown's "The Da Vinci Code" opens May 19–insecure Christians are now scrambling for a strategy to combat this "blasphemy on steroids" from tarnishing the silver screen, polluting the populace and slandering their savior.

While some are saying the bound-to-be blockbuster film is an opportunity for teaching and evangelism (for Christianity is such a profoundly misunderstood and mysterious religion in this country), others are calling for censorship, boycotts or "othercotts"–seeing different movies to keep the "Code" from opening on top.

Others are worried such measures simply won't do enough to convey just how profoundly offensive the film's storyline is to many Christians, even though a mortal Jesus knocking sandals with Mary Magdalene is one of the most tired "heretical" themes in the post-modern Western canon and hasn't yet destroyed the world or the Christian faith.

Some theologians are really getting their vestments in a twist and are starting to talk abject crazy-talk:

"I think we really have to see it, at least some of us," said Richard J. Mouw, president of Fuller Theological Seminary, a prominent evangelical school. "It's very important for some Christians at least to be able to engage in an intelligent discussion."

Others are wringing their rosaries and making analogies to the recent fervor over the cartoons published in several Western newspapers of the Muslim Prophet Muhammad:

In Rome recently, Archbishop Angelo Amato, the No. 2 official in the Vatican's doctrinal office, told Catholic communications officials: "If such slanders, offenses and errors had been directed at the Koran or the Holocaust, they would have justly provoked a world uprising. Instead, directed at the Church and Christians, they remain unpunished. I hope you will all boycott the movie."

That call to action seems rather lukewarm after such a fiery buildup–how about tapping into some Old Testament vengeance and publicly calling for Ron Howard's eyes to be gouged out, or Tom Hanks' head on a platter?

Religious kooks, don't you see? By treating this talking devil-picture as just a movie with all your talk of informed debate and peaceful protest, you're already letting the secular humanists win!

Cruisin' for a bruisin'

We know we're living in truly disturbing times when legislative agendas are being set by whack-job Scientologist celebrities.

A bill supposedly inspired by Tom Cruise, Katie Holmes and their penchant for taking at-home ultrasounds of their gestating freak fetus passed the California Assembly Thursday, banning the sale of the $200,000 imaging machines to non-professionals.

Apparently lawmakers were worried this would start a broader national trend among wealthy and over-involved parents–and when they're already getting portraits of their spawns in utero at mall kiosks and reserving domain names for their progeny to theoretically bore and disgust the entire wired world with updates on their growth, imitating the Cruise family isn't such a leap.

"Having an ultrasound once, twice during the course of a pregnancy, there is no danger," said [a spokesman for the bill's author, Democrat Ted Lieu]. "But too much or too often could cause the liquids in the womb to heat up, which could cause damage to the mother and fetus."

I suppose that would be good to avoid, but come on–if your father is Tom Cruise or anything like him, overheated amniotic fluid is by far the least of your worries.

Foreign policy fit for the playground

Is an ill-advised footwear decision enough to bring down an Iraqi insurgent leader? Oh, if only. Yet the chatter over outtakes from Abu Musab al-Zarqawi's recent propaganda video seems to suppose it may.

As reported quite snappily by the New York Times, "In an effort to turn Mr. Zarqawi's own propaganda against him by mocking him as an uninspiring poseur, the American military released the selected outtakes at a news briefing in Baghdad."

The clips reveal the anti-Western jihadist enemy du jour pairing white New Balance sneakers (yeech) with his menacing black terrorist garb, and shows him fumbling inexpertly with a machine gun.

"We have a warrior leader, Zarqawi, who doesn't understand how to operate his weapon system and has to rely on his subordinates to clear a weapon stoppage," the general said. "It makes you wonder."

Apparently military officials think this is going to turn Iraqis against the insurgency by painting one of its leaders as incompetent–never minding how their own commander in chief has played up just such a persona as a congenial and nonthreatening simpleton to win popular esteem.

Good strategy, boys, no wonder that whole Iraq campaign is going so swimmingly that you have to resort to counter-spin like this to try and change hearts and markedly dull minds.

Come on, people, this is why powerful, violent deviants have henchmen (and if they're really cool, hench-wenches) to do their dirty work for them. I'm sure President Bush knows how to personally operate the high tech military weapons he has ultimate authority over–he's certainly never struggled on film broadcast worldwide to operate anything so mechanically sophisticated as, say, a door.

And at least Zarqawi only looked like a phony acting for the cameras during an outtake–"Mission Accomplished," anyone? Not to mention our fearless leader's seeming inability to speak a sentence in public composed exclusively of actual words.

But the whole Zarqawi tape affair isn't much more mature than Dick Cheney's little speech taunting Russia for picking on other, punier countries over oil and other assorted infractions:

"In many areas of civil society – from religion and the news media, to advocacy groups and political parties – the government has unfairly and improperly restricted the rights of her people," Mr. Cheney said in a speech to European leaders in Lithuania's capital, Vilnius.

In response, a spokesman for Russian President Vladimir Putin retorted with a vaguely threatening allegory involving rubber and glue, and then told the vice president he smelled funny.

A woman's worth, controlling for inflation

In a rather fitting addendum to yesterday's post, apparently each of the nation's 5.6 million full time stay-at-home mothers would earn $134,121 per year if she was paid for all her work, and working mothers would earn an additional $85,876 for performing their additional domestic duties, according to Reuters and a study by Salary.com.

Now, before everyone hits the e-mail forward button in honor of Mother's Day so mom can feel like a martyr for the countless, thankless acts of charity she undertakes every day to sustain the lives of the children she chose to have, think about this for a moment:

To reach the projected pay figures, the survey calculated the earning power of the 10 jobs respondents said most closely comprise a mother's role -- housekeeper, day-care teacher, cook, computer operator, laundry machine operator, janitor, facilities manager, van driver, chief executive and psychologist.

Now, correct me if I'm wrong, but to merely survive in the world, those of us without kids also have to do every single one of those jobs except "day-care teacher" and perhaps "van driver." And unless I'm just an anomaly, we're not hiring out private contractors or illegal immigrants to do them for us–shouldn't we all get compensation, too?

But then again, of course our everyday duties just don't matter if we're not tending the nest and grooming the next generation.

"Every husband I've ever spoken to said, 'I'm keeping my job. You keep yours.' It's a tough one," said Gillian Forrest, 39, a stay-at-home mother of 22-month-old Alex in New York. "I don't know if you could put a dollar amount on it but it would be nice to get something."

Yeah, that would be nice, wouldn't it? Unfortunately, few people in this country make what they're worth or ever will. And I don't think I'm alone in saying I wouldn't fancy my tax dollars–which I actually work for–going toward paying disgruntled breeding cows to stay home and tend to their spawns.

Hell, if we're going to be throwing federal funds away, I'd rather they go toward the Bush administration's star wars anti-satellite space laser project – at least frivolous interplanetary weapons systems, assuming they function correctly, wouldn't annoy me virtually every time I go out in public.

Why do Democrats keep losing elections?

Well, according to Caitlin Flanagan's waste-of-last-page-space essay in this week's Time magazine, it's not because they can't seem to articulate a message and continually allow Republicans to direct the discourse–it's because Democrats are meanies to proud housewives like herself and their real families who are living the American dream, circa 1950s.

Flanagan sums it up in the not at all tired paraphrase, "It's the contempt, stupid."

"Here's why they're after me," she writes. "I have made a lifestyle choice that they can't stand, and I'm not cowering in the closet because of it."

It's not the Democratic Party as a whole Flanagan argues "rejects the family," but rather:

It's a small but very vocal minority, the Democratic pundits, who abhor what I represent because it doesn't fit the stereotypical image of the modern woman who has escaped from domestic prison. Fifty years ago, a stay-at-home mom who loved her husband would not automatically be assumed to be a Republican.

Oh, please. Like it or not, being a "housewife" today is a luxury. Any contempt that may be directed your way has nothing to do with malicious derision of your love for your traditional family–it's because you have the economic privilege to stay home, depend on someone else for your livelihood and publish self-justifying "essays about family life" to fill your surplus of time and bolster your self-esteem.

You didn't make some noble and reasoned "life choice" that's open to everyone–you got lucky to find yourself with the resources to make it possible to live a life in which your greatest worry is being mistaken for a Republican on your book tour.

And if that's how you can and prefer to live your life, more power to you in living the leisured dream–but your "stereotypical" contemporaries who are independent and attempting to accomplish things out in the world beyond their homes sure as hell don't have to respect you as an equal.

This, as I informed our fine campus women's center in the free-response e-mail survey they foolishly sent me yesterday, is why I most certainly would not consider myself a "feminist."

In the feminist illogic, all too often, anything a women does is good and right just because she's a woman, who must overcome so very much to carry on even the simplest tasks of daily life. Whatever happened to humanism, supporting anyone of any sex who is a decent person or does good things?

Feminists are the ones who can argue that stay-at-home moms and Harvard chick-lit plagiarists are just as worthy of attention, acclaim and monetary reward as someone like Mukhtaran Bibi, featured in the very same issue of Time as one of the year's 100 most influential people.

If you've never heard of her, she's the Pakistani woman whose story has been chronicled by Nicholas Kristof of the New York Times. She was gang-raped as institution-sanctioned punishment for an "honor crime" her brother committed, and instead of killing herself in shame as is customary, she took her attackers to court and used her compensation and donations from Times readers to start up a school for girls and a shelter, pretty much single- handedly challenging prevailing unjust social and legal norms and standing up to death threats and international leaders who want to silence her in the process.

Next to stories like hers, it's more than a little sickening to read a pompous, wealthy, militant housewife waste a guest column in one of the most widely read news magazines on earth whining about how her pompous, wealthy politicians aren't pandering directly enough to her values.

That's not constructive or praiseworthy–and far from being feminist or humanist, it's just plain childish.

Stephen Colbert has the greatest job in the world

Who else gets to stand up in front of the president and all sorts of senior government officials and personally insult every single one of them for laughs?

Take this bit from his speech at the annual White House Correspondents' Dinner, a transcript and links to video of which can be found here:

Now, I know there are some polls out there saying this man has a 32 percent approval rating. But guys like us, we don't pay attention to the polls. We know that polls are just a collection of statistics that reflect what people are thinking in "reality." And reality has a well-known liberal bias.

So, Mr. President, please, pay no attention to the people that say the glass is half full. Thirty-two percent means the glass -- it's important to set up your jokes properly, sir. Sir, pay no attention to the people who say the glass is half empty, because 32 percent means it's two-thirds empty. There's still some liquid in that glass is my point, but I wouldn't drink it. The last third is usually backwash.

How do you get paid to do this for a living, seriously? I'm funny and biting, and I'm prettier than Stephen Colbert besides. On a good day. Maybe. SHUT UP.

But I must hand it to the lad, the re-arranging the deck chairs on the Hindenburg line and the one about the president doing all that brush-clearing in Crawford in an attempt to develop an alternative fuel are pure gold.

And anyone who has the balls to so publicly rip on Saint John McCain the Bipartisan for cavorting with religious kooks is just unqualifiedly awesome. Bravo, good sir. Bravo.