BASE MOTIVES. KJ Lopez hears about alleged (i.e., Drudge-reported) anti-war protests at Walter Reed and seethes: "Have you ever been so disgusted?"

Then she hears that the famous military hospital is actually being closed down by a federal commission -- the same one that did Joe Lieberman a solid by exempting New London from the bloodletting -- and sighs that it's a "bad p.r. move." Protesting outside a place is apparently worse than shutting it down, in Bizarro World at least.

Meanwhile the Crazy Jesus Lady, her mind now a melange of old MGM movies and Reagan feet, pretends to be a Shirley Temple talking to Old Mr. Government -- not a bad man, just cranky, played by Lionel Barrymore -- and says, with her finger in her mouth, goodness gwacious, what if those bad dusky men take pictures of St. Patrick's again, and I'm too busy tap-dancing to make faces at them? Amewica will be in bad, bad twouble!

I'll actually be out at the NIH in a few weeks, on one of my medical vacations. I imagine the folks there feel about the Walter Reed closing pretty much what they feel about all the cost-cutting that's been going on in our federal health services lately. But hey, I'll tell 'em, at least you don't have any damn hippies!