And By Their Deeds Ye Shall Know Them. Unless They Can Talk You Out Of It

As a public service we here at the Marbled Halls of IM Central have initiated the George Orwell Memorial Don't Look Over There, Just Listen Photo Of The Day. We feel it will be something soothing for you to gaze upon as your elected leaders go about telling you, don't worry, be happy. Today's edition:


Ever have one of those days when nothing goes right? First, you get up in the morning and find the dog has dumped a load in your shoe, then the car has a flat, you forget about a meeting, the boss is getting a demotion and blames it on you, aliens kidnap you for another round of anal probing.

You get the picture

It seems the president is having a whole term like that. First, the war in Iraq turns out to be a big disappointment, then the plan to give all the money in the government to his rich friends hits a snag, then social security refuses to die, then Katrina (talk about an anal probe), and now this.

A former General Services Administration (GSA) official was arrested on charges of making false statements and obstructing an investigation by the GSA's Office of Inspector General. For those of you taking notes, the GSA is the office that handles procurement policy for the White House's Office of Management and Budget. That's spending money for those of you watching in black and white.

The affidavit filed in support of the criminal complaint alleges that from May 16, 2002 until January 10, 2004, David Safavian served as Chief of Staff at the GSA. During that time he allegedly aided a Washington D.C. lobbyist in the lobbyist's attempts to acquire GSA-controlled property in and around Washington, D.C.

The lobbyist in question would be Jack Abramoff.

Yes, that Jack Abramoff, who is, in turn connected to Tom DeLay.

Yes, that Tom Delay.

Seeing a pattern here? We need to point out that we don't have a problem with incompetence in politicians, heck we even expect it. After all, if they had any competencies they would have gotten real jobs, right? Say in the greyhound racing industry. But when incompetence is so bad it's illegal, well, that just gives stupid a bad name.

So, with that as a backdrop, can you guess how high our expectations are for this?

President Bush has named his homeland security adviser, Fran Townsend, to lead an internal inquiry into the much-criticized federal response to Hurricane Katrina, the White House said on Tuesday.

"The president said he wanted to hold people accoun...heh...accoun...hac...accoun...hahahahahahahahahaha...sorry, accountable. This is one of the many ways in which he will...spppff...he will...hehe...he wii...hahahahahahaha...oh, sorry again. He will do that," the spokesman said. "Man, I must be tired. I used to be able to say stuff like that with a straight face."

A memo from White House chief of staff Andrew Card directed government departments and agencies to designate one useless official to be the token to work with Townsend for their specific agency. "We're thinking this might be a good opportunity for that janitor, or mail room clerk who wants to move up," Card said.

Townsend will look at "what went right, ignore what went wrong and try not to learn lessons from the federal response to Hurricane Katrina, except the part where we blame everyone else," said spokesman Trent Duffy.