While I was outside working today and listening to the radio, I got to hear dubya blither his way through another press conference. It was a real humdinger. As usual, he bumbled around not answering the questions posed of him while gamely trying to keep repeating what he said in his opening remarks. And as usual, the assembled press failed to call him on any of the blatant bullshit he was peddling. If the press really has a liberal bias as the right-wing noise machine constantly claims, why oh why do they keep letting him get away with this? When he dodges a question or tells an outright lie and then refuses to let the reporter ask a follow up question, why doesn't one of the subsequent reporters call him on it when it's their turn to ask a question?

Today's message was all about how preznit tough-guy is going to veto any spending bill containing an artificial timeline for withdrawal from Iraq. (By the way, what the fuck does he mean by repeatedly calling the timeline artificial? Someone needs to explain to him what that word actually means. It's a very real timeline with real dates and everything, you dumbass.) The whole purpose of this presser is to try to paint the Dems as insufficiently supportive of the troops and set the stage to blame them for not funding the troops. Not one reporter has the guts to point out that the bill the House and Senate passed - the one dubya plans to veto - actually gives the troops every single dollar he asked for. It also gives the American public what they asked for, an exit strategy. He keeps saying politicians in Washington shouldn't be dictating to our military leaders in Iraq how to carry out their mission, and of course no one mentions that when the previous military leaders in Iraq said we didn't need any more troops they got replaced by - ahem - a politician in Washington. Dubya says Amurkins will know who to blame if the troops don't get their funding. I sure hope he's right.

I've been looking around the intertubes for a transcript or a video of the whole thing because I wanted to get one quote in particular verbatim, but I haven't had any luck, so I''ll just have to paraphrase. At one point, dubya was going on about his puppet government in Iraq and the difficulties they have. He mentioned a couple of times that it was hard work (yes, we're recycling Election 2004 platitudes for use in Iraq) and then he said something along the lines of this:

There's no military solution to these problems. That's why I sent more troops to Baghdad.

No shit. He really said that. And I didn't hear any laughter at all. Apparently when a reporter gets that cushy assignment to the White House press corps, the sense of humor is removed along with the testicles. Hmm.