A Rather Slow News Day

The American Toad


Scott McClellan smiles for the photo-op, oblivious
Photo: Winn McGee/Getty Images




Not much very entertaining to blog about in the news today, thank goodness, just old news with the morning's coffee.

So. As I'm perusing today's news at a leisurely pace, I can't really get righteously worked up about much of anything except the Orwellian "Real ID" legislation that's percolating its way down to a state government near all a y'all soon, and the forthcoming Congressional hearings on whoever Georgie chooses to replace the Spook-in-Chief who just up & resigned recently. If Congress unexpectedly grows a spine, it should be a very interesting referendum on matters close to this Demon's heart. Like warrantless spying on American citizens whose only offenses are paying their credit cards off early. But I'll save these rants for another day.

All I want to do today is register my annoyance with Scott McClellan in his final acts as White House Press Secretary, as reported in the Washington Post:

"White House press secretary Scott McClellan's final turn at the lectern yesterday proved to be something like a greatest hits album. For 45 minutes, he trotted out all the old standbys, then gave a jaunty wave and bid farewell.

'This country is on a solid track under this president because of his leadership.''We're more interested in looking at the results, not the polls.'

'We are winning in Iraq.'

"After two years and nine months of faithfully representing President Bush and deflecting skeptical questions with a relentless fidelity to official talking points, McClellan called it a wrap. The last hammering by the press corps touched on many of the issues that have dominated his briefings since 2003 -- the flawed intelligence on Iraq weapons, the hunt for Osama bin Laden, Medicare and the president's plunging public support.

"'Scott, 73 percent of Americans in a new poll say that the country is headed in the wrong direction,' Terence Hunt of the Associated Press said as he opened the questioning.

"In something of a parting gift, though, it proved a somewhat gentler grilling than usual, and the packed room of reporters applauded in respect as he exited.

Well, with the exception of some foreign guy, who inconveniently posed the rhetorical question, "'Did you even notice that the outside world does not criticize you as much as probably you deserve?' a Russian journalist asked McClellan to much laughter in the briefing room."

Doesn't Scottie-boy just remind y'all, as he does me, of all those panting, grating toadies in all the workplaces & all the classrooms of your whole entire life?

You know, the ones who always persist in mouthing the party-line platitudes while it's painfully apparent to the rest of us whose brains aren't anesthetized that the ship is sinking, FAST? I'm just' sayin.' It's just as irksome today as it ever was.