THE BUSH-MANSON CONNECTION. Conservatives everywhere are outraged that Wesley Clark did not renounce Michael Moore's endorsement in last night's debate. "Didn't have the decency, the wits, or the guts," says Jonah Goldberg. "Clueless," says Tim Graham. "Stumbled badly," says Rush Limbaugh.

A couple of eventheliberals have taken the cue as well: "May have joined Howard Dean in the penalty box," says Eleanor Clift; "evasive... barely a person," says Roger L. Simon. But the anger is more palpable among rightists like Byron York, who spent several paragraphs telling the tale of Clark's perfidy to National Review readers, who are most easily enraged by any reference to the "radical leftist filmmaker" (three words that, individually, can rattle the teacups of any NR reader, and which used collectively send them screaming to their Robert Welch books and Reagan ephemera for comfort).

What I want to know is, when will someone call out George W. Bush for his endorsement by Marilyn Manson in 2000?

...Manson -- who says he loathes Gore and Sen. Joseph Lieberman -- tells Tucker [Carlson] that "If I had to pick, I'd pick Bush, and not necessarily by default."

A Bush campaign spokesman did deflect the endorsement -- but Bush himself craftily remained silent on the issue. And the Manson endorsement may have won him crucial support in Florida! What was his margin, 720-odd votes? At least that many people bought "Holy Wood"!

Bush's silence is even more disturbing when you consider that he was seen -- as President --at a White House Correspondents' Dinner joshing around with Ozzy Osbourne, an even more Satanic (and far more marketable) rocker. Do you not see the pattern?

Does the Family Research Council know about this? Why hasn't Peggy Noonan written about it? The culture warriors of the Right may have been bought off, but alicublog will not let this weasley (or should we say "Wesley") behavior pass.

Write to Peter Jennings, Brit Hume, and all media outlets and demand that Bush renounce Manson and Osbourne and all their works. Then ask him why he didn't do it sooner. Then ask him about his sweater.

Then, in a spirit of fairness, we can start grilling the General about Madonna.