Las Vegas Gleaner

A nation moves on

This week marks the fifth anniversary of our mistaken invasion of Iraq, an invasion, if memory serves, that was facilitated not only by the all-too predictable cowardice of politicians of both parties, but also enthusiastically supported by a shamefully large number of bloodthirsty Americans and a drum-banging, flag-waving mainstream media.

Since then, both the citizenry and the media have undergone some painful but necessary introspection. As a result, a better-informed body politic, wizened by the catastrophic errors of its ways, has developed a far healthier and more mature perspective — which explains why a substantial portion of the people and the press (pictured, in a rare group photo) have come to the insightful realization that the future of this nation if not the entire world now hinges on what some geezer said in a Chicago church.

Thusly assured that the republic rests on at least as much sanity and good sense as was the case five years ago, the Gleaner's bugging out for a day or five. There may be an intermittent post or two, unless of course the known terrorist Barack Obama and his chief mastermind Jeremiah Wright fly passenger jetliners into the internets.

Ta.

Miniglean: Sociopathic oaf apologizes for projecting

• The nation's worst governor says he's sorry for characterizing the media's coverage of the state's health care fiasco as "buffoonery" (INP, AP), which is odd because the people whose health has been endangered are the ones he has offended when he so coldly and cavalierly dismissed their anxiety like the obtuse insensitive prick that he is. He should apologize to them. But no. Instead he attempts to demonstrate that he cares about somebody other than himself by going through the motions of firing some mostly inconsequential functionaries, but he's just pretending to be concerned and it's all for show which is inevitable inasmuch as the ass-clown is a flaming sociopath.
• Always eager to give something back to the community, Sheldon Adelson gave the Clark County Republican convention a supply of lanyards advertising a porn site, which the Republicans dutifully, quietly and unwittingly wore (Best Erin Neff column ever) while they cheered ignorant racist remarks made by Utah's attorney general on behalf of John McCain. The lanyards were apparently found in the same storage room for leftover, useless and pervy items that Adelson went to when the Nevada Republican Party asked him if he could give the state a governor.
• Review-Journal bean-counter-in-chief and recreational columnist Sherm Frederick cobbles together what might be the stupidest angle yet rendered by anyone anywhere on the Eliot Spitzer matter — no mean feat considering that virtually every blogger, newspaper writer, teevee talking head, comedian, cartoonist, water cooler wit and seventh-grader in the entire world has addressed the subject. For the record, Sherm's "argument" is that Democrats usually stay in office when they're caught in sexual escapades while it is the Republicans who resign. To be fair, it's not all that surprising that the publisher of an upper-mid-sized daily paper has never heard of Louisiana War Party Sen. David Vitter and his whores. Frederick's job does not require an astute and rigorous command of public affairs that might inform journalistic judgment. Frederick's job is to count beans. It is surprising, however, that Frederick would not have heard of Vitter's whoremongering in the course of, say, a social engagement, or maybe on the golf course, in that Frederick and Vitter have a much admired mutual friend and trusted ally in the traditional family values wars, Sen. Hairdo McWedgeshot.
• A Denver-based gigantic transnational mining conglomerate finally gets something in return for paying former Nev. Gov. Bob Miller to sit on its corporate board: lame-ass mutterings about how now, clearly, is no time to raise the mining tax. RJ