DISORDER AND EARLY SORROW. Saw Charlie and the Chocolate Factory. I can’t speak to its faithfulness to the book, which I haven’t read – my Dahl knowledge is restricted to The Big Friendly Giant and a corking old mystery story called "Man from the South"—but I can say that it is perfectly consistent with Tim Burton.

Burton has great showmanship, and I used to think that his less successful efforts, like Sleepy Hollow and Planet of the Apes, were the ones where it ran away with him. If he had a better artistic track record than Cecil B. DeMille, I figured, it was only because he had a proper arts education, and thus was compelled to channel his Barnumite gusto into whatever style he deduced was appropriate. My favorite of his films, Ed Wood, may be as low-key (relatively) as it is because Burton internalized the real Wood’s club-footed style, which disarmed his usual apparati and left the wonderful story, relationships, and acting to provide the special effects. (In my second favorite, Batman Returns, the script is so absurdly florid that even Burton in full effulgence can do no better than match it.)

Charlie’s style is perhaps Burton’s most egregious hodgepodge since Mars Attacks!. The references range from the Dickensian 19th Century to some Warchowskian future. The property’s big problem -- how to make sense of the parents’ grotesquely underscaled reaction to their children’s disfigurement -- is completely ignored; the grown-ups just stand around looking stupid while their kids are inflated, discarded, extruded, etc. Burton even sticks on a new ending that, while fine in itself, seems to reduce the eventful voyage through the factory to a grisly joke about Willy Wonka's father issues. At one point even the usually game David Kelly ran out of ways to register astonishment at all the marvels, and looked positively wrung out.

I enjoyed it nonetheless. I'm not sure why. It may be that Burton has exceeded Mach Roy, the velocity at which showmanship overrides my objections to -- well, anything. It is an embarrassing admission, but the guy might have just outgunned my intellect. Me like pretty colors and Danny Elfman!

Or it may be that Burton's logic is subtler than it looks. Seen this way, the bad old world really isn't so much different from era to era -- only the art direction changes, if not as capriciously as here. The children's come-uppances are no worse, though more accelerated and fanciful, than what any greedy, over-ambitious, self-centered, or plain depraved kids might experience in the world outside their parents' control; and their parents' reactions only look strange because they're having them on the spot, instead of wondering stupidly at kitchen tables years later where they have failed. And Willy Wonka's psychology may be perfectly sound, given his intolerable burden of pleasing children, and the child he has steadfastly determined to remain, with sensory palliatives that never fill their, or his, bottomless need.

<wonkavoice>Well! That sounds kinda creepy, doesn't it? So maybe you wanna just get yourself down to the movies and see for yourself. 'Kay?</wonkavoice>

UPDATE. Corrected name of Dahl story I read as a kid. I found "Man from the South" (which I had previously confused with Bloch's "Yours Truly, Jack the Ripper")in one of those Alfred Hitchcock collections popular in my youth. They usually had titles like Stories to Make You Plotz or something like that; mine was called Spellbinders in Suspense (this is what my copy looked like -- without the Hitchock autograph, of course -- though there are apparently alternate versions). Spellbinders had "The Most Dangerous Game," DuMaurier's "The Birds," the Dahl story, stuff by Edgar Wallace, Dorothy L. Sayers, and Agatha Christie, etc. This is what we had instead of Harry Potter, folks, and it was just fine.

JUNIOR ANTI-SEX LEAGUE, PART #134,789. "The Party was trying to kill the sex instinct, or, if it could not be killed, then to distort it and dirty it. He did not know why this was so, but it seemed natural that it should be so. And as far as the women were concerned, the Party's efforts were largely successful." George Orwell, guess what book.

Carrie Lukas decries the alleged sexual promiscuity of Washington's female interns. Lukas hails from the Independent Women's Forum, at whose website you can read how The March of the Penguins provides good role-modeling for human families, or at least those human families that live in arctic wastelands and have brains the size of cashews. (Isn't there something weird and hippie-ish about comparing human family dynamics unfavorably to those of wild animals? How did this become a rightwing thing?)

The group does enjoy some laughs that are not clinically hysterical -- for instance, much glee is had over silly podiatrists who try to keep women from their fancy shoes. But on the subject of sex, the peals of girlish laughter subside, and the IWF ladies turn grim as death. Hence this study, which is of interest only to those of us who get a mild thrill hearing about young people in power suits gittin' it awn, and to culture scolds.

If you don't have time to read this whole post, here are some of the key words and phrases found in Lukas' article: thong-snapping seduction, vixen, over-sexed cesspool, casual physical encounter, meaningful relationship, alcohol-fueled hook-up lifestyle. Context doesn't add much to it, believe me, but read on if so inclined:

The meat of Lukas' story is am IWF poll of 200 D.C. interns. 44 percent of them admit to "hooking up" and "40 percent of congressional interns admitted to engaging in 'intimate activities' that they otherwise may not have participated in while under the influence" of alcohol. Only 1 percent admitted to knowing anything about any live, hot legislator-intern action.

Young adults having sex! Stop the presses! But Lukas is concerned. The percentage of interns who have sex has doubled since 2003, she writes. "Why should anyone care that drinking and hooking up are a part of the typical Capitol intern experience — chalk it up to harmless fun and life experience, right?" she asks in a moment of sanity which, alas, passes: "…research shows that many young women experience serious regret after engaging in such encounters."

In other scientific developments, many 21-year-olds fail to plan for retirement, say things they later regret, and find Adam Sandler funny. Regrets, we greybeards know, are part of life. But this is more serious, I guess, because it involves penises and/or vaginas -- so serious Lukas proposes "a running dialogue about the drawbacks of existing traditions and practices so that a healthier culture can develop."

Sister, that dialogue's been running in conservative publications since the days when Malcolm Forbes cruised the West Side on his Harley. Since the primary purpose of this dialogue (or, to be more specific, series of soapbox perorations) is to stimulate outrage among scolds, which can then be transmitted to a gullible public, it will probably never end so long as a few votes can be wrung out of it.

Throughout Lukas speaks of Washington interns as if they were Girl Guides between the ages of 12 and 16. It would be astonishing that a group devoted to the empowerment of women seem to regard sex as some sort of malign force, like terrorism, that persons of the female persuasion can't handle without help from a think tank. Maybe Scaife or somebody should feel them a few mill to produce some TV ads with headlines like "Prayer Meetings: The Anti-Sex."

How stupid do they think we are? Well, they're probably right.

RETURN TO TODAY'S TOONS! Encouraged by my first visit, I returned this afternoon to Free Republic's Today's Toons page. It really saved my Friday. My compliments to the chafed!

TT is reaching out to the Michael Totten constituency: Chris Muir is on board to encourage the elect that not all them urban, black-wearin' coffee-drinkers is librul traitors. Here he makes a gag about the "flypaper" theory -- see, you pull out of Iraq, and terrorists will wind up in big Western cities like London! He also essays a Plame strip, though I vastly prefer this one, apparently done by the same fellow that took last week's prize, and which also explains its own joke. I hope this is a series. I can't wait to see Plame and Wilson as Ignatz and Krazy Kat, Harry and Sally, Sacco and Vanzetti!

"Ima Liberal" is ugly and stupid and "non-judgmental," which is liberal for ugly and stupid! Haw! 'Course, "John Q. Public" isn't stupid, just uninformed, bless him. But the ugliest, stupidest and everything-baddest of them all is of course Hitlery, and I defy my readers to find anything in the history of Clinton-bashing more garish that this -- it makes Der Sturmer look like The Family Circus.

P.S. Abortion is murder, Kerry is fake, etc. Oh, and to avenge London we're gonna get Osama -- for real this time!

How I would I love to shake hands with all these madcap rascals if they weren't destroying my country.

CENTRISM -- THE NEW LIBERTARIANISM? Had a look at Donklephant, described by Michael Totten as "centrist." I am interested in centrism, as I am assured it is the coming thing, and sought to understand it through this new site, that I might find out where to buy my nephews some rad centrist gear for next Christmas.

I found:

• A long article explaining that "not all Europeans are our natural allies" -- that in fact "Anti-Americanism in Western Europe often goes well beyond mere criticism and ventures deep into the territory of vituperative hate-mongering." The author allows that this "has been matched by a nascent and often nasty anti-Europeanism in the United States," and follows up by observing that many Frenchmen "proudly joined the Nazi regime at Vichy" and that Spain has "joined the anti-American French and German alignment and may not ever be anything like a reliable battlefield ally" (though she "never was a reliable battlefield ally in the first place, though, so there’s nothing new there"), etc. Conclusion: the West is not united against terror, but it's not Bush's fault.
  
  
• An author wondering aloud if women really do give a damn about reproductive rights, because Virginia Postrel doesn't, and a female friend of his "wants the Dems or the GOPers to come up with something new to offer her besides control over her body." (Not clear whether by "besides" she meant "along with" or "in place of.")
  
  
• Another author reporting on a House Republican bill that would give grants to stem-cell researchers only if they can do their thing without harming embryos (and is vigorously opposed by stem-cell advocates including Arlen Specter) writes, "Good news stem cell advocates. It looks like a growing number of Republicans are supporting federal funding of increased stem-cell research." This may be sarcasm.
  
  
• Smackdown on Molly Ivins.
  
  
• Smackdown also the BBC's selective use of the term 'terrorist'; the author says that "Conservatives routinely make hay of policy like this," then makes hay of it ("We all know what happens to those who forget the past. What becomes of those who forget the present?")
  
  
• Link to Arianna Huffington parody site post, described as "dead-on Rove caricature." Linked site is silly, transpartisan, and not especially funny. Speaking of which, lots of links to The Garlic, which is ditto.
  
  
• Clinton joke.

To be fair, one writer does criticize the Patriot Act, and it is generally accepted on the site that liberals should be allowed to live. I'll try back in a few months when it goes totally right-wing.

WHAT ABOUT THE CHILDREN, EPISODE 782,221. David Ross at Libertas reports on the menace of edible body frosting:

The other day I was shopping in an Eckerd Drug Store and noticed a prominently displayed selection of “deliciously kissable body frostings” endorsed by [Jessica] Simpson. The preponderance of pink sparkles makes it clear that the product’s market is girls let us say between ages nine and thirteen. A little research uncovers an entire line of cosmetics called “Dessert Treats” marketed under the unapologetically salacious slogans “Wear it, then share it” and “Dessert just got even sweeter.” A budding sexual adventuress, for example, might add “Lollipop” body frosting to her sixth-grade sex play...

Also, vibrators etc. are frequently referred to as "sex toys." Toys are what children play with. Therefore vibrators, butt-plugs etc. are being marketed to children. Constable, do your duty!

P.S. And it's about time the Royal Family did something about the Prince Albert.

JUST DON'T YELL "THOMAS!" IN YOUR THROES OF PASSION. You have to wonder whether Christopher Hitchens' heart is in the job anymore. In his latest terror-war fist-shaker, except for his now-traditional condemnation of people who disagree with him as "stupid," Hitchens expends most of his words on Thomas Jefferson. Well, when one's mission is to explicate the work of G.W. Bush to upmarket readers, I can see how, in the long course of contemplation and composition, the bust of one of our more thoughtful Presidents might be more inspiring than Dubya's.

Most of the Jefferson analysis is unobjectionable, even pleasing, but has little to do with the alleged subject, named in the subhead as "Jefferson's ideas presaged the Bush doctrine." While it is true that Jefferson hoped the American example would embolden men to seize freedom, there is no evidence that he wished our soldiers to wander the globe in search of philosophically dissonant states to overthrow. That looks far more like Napoleon's dream than Jefferson's.

Hitchens closes by comparing the Iraq adventure to the First Barbary War:

The most successful "export" was Jefferson's determined use of naval and military force to reduce the Barbary States of the Ottoman Empire, which had set up a slave-taking system of piracy and blackmail along the western coast of North Africa. Our third president was not in a position to enforce regime change in Algiers or Tripoli, but he was able to insist on regime behavior-modification (and thus to put an end to at least one slave system). Ever since then, every major system of tyranny in the world has had to run at least the risk of a confrontation with the United States, and one hopes that the Jeffersonians among us will continue to ensure that this remains true.

When I was a boy American schools still taught history. We were told then that Jefferson sent the Marines to Tripoli because the Barbary pirates kept holding American ships and sailors for ransom, and Jefferson preferred fighting to the payment of tribute. In fact, I see that is still the accepted version.

The pirates, in other words, had directly attacked Americans, and promised to attack still more, and Jefferson responded to those attacks. It is true that Jefferson "was not in a position to enforce regime change in Algiers or Tripoli," but neither was he of a mind to do so -- he was protecting American interests in the most basic terms.

Perhaps in some alterna-history universe -- one, say, in which a bunch of Berbers blow up a warehouse full of New Yorkers, and Jefferson invades some non-piratical North African nation-state in hopes that this nation-state-building example will reform the rest of the region -- there would be some connection between the actions of our third President and those of our forty-third.

Or maybe there is some other version of history left over from Hitchens' socialist days -- some stunning refutation of prior accounts of the Tripolitan War, suppressed by bourgeois historians -- that makes the comparison more clear. Maybe we'll get that clarification is some future installment, to be issued after we've bugged out of Iraq.

KEEP ON BORKING.We've been hearing a lot of pre-emptive criticism of Democrats who wish to have a hand in the process of selecting the next Supreme Court Justice. We have heard the word "Bork," indicating the unfair treatment of a nominee, revived for this purpose.

Thankfully, OpinionJournal has published the latest ravings of the real Judge Bork on "ever-expanding rights" to remind us that, if "Borking" was what kept this lunatic off the Court, then it was a jolly good job:

Contrast Tocqueville with Justices Harry Blackmun and Anthony Kennedy. Justice Blackmun wanted to create a constitutional right to homosexual sodomy because of the asserted " 'moral fact' that a person belongs to himself and not others nor to society as a whole." Justice Kennedy, writing for six justices, did invent that right, declaring that "at the heart of [constitutional] liberty is the right to define one's own concept of existence, of meaning, of the universe, and of the mystery of human life." Neither of these vaporings has the remotest basis in the actual Constitution, and neither has any definable meaning other than that a common morality may not be sustained by law if a majority of justices prefer that each individual follow his own desires.

Etc. If they get another one of these guys on the Hill, I really don't care what they do to keep him off.

DEFINING VICTORY DOWNWARD. Last September Michael Totten wrote "Don't Abandon Iraq," agreeing with Victor Davis Hanson that a premature departure from Iraq would lead to Mogadishu Saigon Etcetera.

I guess Iraq must have shaped up quite a lot in the past 10 months (despite outward appearances), because now Totten is open to an early exit; something to do, for all I can tell, with some rope-a-dope strategy of depriving the rebels of a target, and the eerie persuasive powers of Donald Rumsfeld. (Victor Davis Hanson doesn't see it the same way, of course, but he is not a famous moderate, to say the least.)

No word yet as the whether this calls for another "Mission Accomplished" banner, but as word of the new reality spreads it will be interesting (and fun!) to see who lines up and who doesn't.

MORE CARTOON FUN! I see by his latest installment that Mallard Fillmore creator Bruce Tinsley does indeed think that a parody of his strip in Jon Stewart's America: The Book is meant "to deceive people into thinking it was a real one."

Originally I didn't see how anyone with brains enough to breathe could think that, but I understand better now that I've surveyed "Today's Toons" at Free Republic. How have I missed this before? It shall join Photoshop Phridays and overheardinny.com as one of my unmissable end-of-week delights.

Tinsley is here, of course, as are several lesser known artists bringing you the latest in anti-Kerry and anti-Kennedy/pro-torture gags. Some panels are surprisingly abstract (this one suggests The Turner Diaries illustrated by Barbara Kruger); some are just book covers; one suggests that Live8 was either part of a "Blame America" movement, or merely waved a torch and emitted intoxication bubbles in the vicinity of a "Blame America" movement.

There is a maudlin British flag thing, of course, with an audio link -- not, I am disappointed to report, to a new version of "Where Were You (When The World Stopped Turning)" as sung by Alan Rickman and Lulu, but to "God Save the Queen" (pre-Pistols version).

Points for purity to the Howard-Dean-with-crazy-eyes thing, but the palm this week must go to a little animated parody of Valerie Plame on a "Get Smart!" theme -- at the end of which the author takes time to explain the gag to his viewers. If only Jon Stewart worked like that -- Mallard wouldn't have his feathers in such a twist!

TODAY'S SHOWTRIALS! As mentioned here earlier, some conservatives gave big ups to London Mayor Ken Livingstone post-attack speech, but the Ministry of Truth has since informed the comrades of their doctrinal error, and a round of self-criticism is in order:

I posted those comments by Mayor Livingstone yesterday, thinking them good and strong. But I knew absolutely nothing of his politics or past statements. (Since coming to the Corner, I've really expanded my personal library of things I know nothing about -- that is, it's hard to know what you don't know.)...

Applaud the comrade, but let him sit in dunce cup awhile so error is not repeated!

Further down, Kathryn Lopez proposes Rudy Giuliani as "London's Mayor, Too" (on the evidence of a letter Giuliani wrote to the London Times, not from any apparent groundswell of public opinion). Positive imaging is useful! We dream, we plan, we can!

Rather than wish him away, Hurry Up Harry just hopes Comrade Livingstone will become right-wing. In context, that sounds almost reasonable.

PARAGRAPH OF THE WEEK: "Asher B. Durand's 'Kindred Spirits' (1849)... depicts Thomas Cole, the founder of the Hudson River School of painting, with the poet William Cullen Bryant. The two stand along a rock ledge, a tree arching above, a river tumbling below and a hilly vista stretching to the horizon. It's as if, looking out on the scene and imagining America's great potential, they can almost see a Wal-Mart rising in the distance."

That's from a Walton family blowjob in OpinionJournal. The piece is unsigned, but I detect in it the hand of Luis Buñuel.

HOW TO TALK TO YOUR RIGHTWING FRIENDS ABOUT LONDON."You either surrender to it or you defeat it. President Bush knows this, and you hold out hope that the Bush-haters might get it but I don't have much hope in that regard because I think there's so much seething rage and hatred for Bush out there that the majority of the Bush-haters are already gleefully blaming Bush for this, and blaming the war in Iraq for this, and blaming Afghanistan for this, and feeling sorry for Tony Blair that Bush roped in into joining us in Iraq. That's the kind of thing. You can expect it to exist in a free country, but it's going to continue to be an impediment, as those people represent forces who attempt to weaken our ability not only take the offensive but to defend ourselves as well. But here's the interesting thing for those of you on the left to consider. The terrorists today not only attacked civilization. They attacked you. They attacked you liberals, you leftists who may think that you're the ones who have the ability to forge a common understanding." -- Rush Limbaugh

"You're pretty goddamned negative. Do you believe in God?"

"Not your kind of God."

"What kind of God?"

"I'm not sure."

"I've been going to church since I can remember."

I didn't answer.

"Can I buy you a beer?" he asked.

"Sure."

The beers arrived.

"Did you read the papers today."

"Sure."

"Did you hear about those 50 little girls who were burned to death in that Boston orphanage?"

"Yes."

"Wasn't that horrible?"

"I suppose it was."

"You suppose it was?"

"Yes."

"Don't you know?"

"If I had been there I suppose I would have had nightmares about it for the rest of my life. But it's different when you just read about it in the newspapers."

"Don't you feel sorrow for those 50 little girls who burned to death? They were hanging out of the windows screaming."

"I suppose it was horrible. But you see it was just a newspaper headline, a newspaper story. I really didn't think much about it. I turned the page."

"You mean you didn't feel anything about it?"

"Not really."

He sat a moment and had a drink of his beer. Then he screamed, "Hey, here's a guy who says he didn't feel a fucking thing when he read about those 50 orphan girls burning to death in an orphanage in Boston!"

Everyone looked at me. I looked down at my cigarette. There was a moment of silence. Then the woman in the red wig said, "If I was a man I'd kick his ass all up and down the street."

"He doesn't believe in God either! said the man next to me. "He hates baseball. He loves bullfights, and he likes to see little orphan girls burned to death!"

I ordered another beer from the bartender, for myself. He pushed the bottle at me with repugnance. Two young guys were playing pool. The youngest, a big kid in a white T-shirt, laid his stick down and walked over to me. He stood behind me sucking air into his lungs, trying to make his chest bigger.

"This is a nice bar. We don't tolerate assholes here. We kick their butts good, we beat the shit out of them, we beat the living shit out of them!"

I could feel him standing there behind me. I lifted my beer bottle and poured beer into my glass, drank it, lit a cigarette. My hand was perfectly steady. He stood there for some time, then walked back to the pool table. The man who had been sitting next to me got off his stool and moved away. "The son of a bitch is negative," I heard him say. "He hates people."

That's from a Bukowski story called "Beer at the Corner Bar." If you get a chance, read the whole story, and the book it's in, Hot Water Music. Then read everything he ever wrote, poems too. Then read it again.

DUCK AMUCK. Remember that little "Mallard Fillmore" parody in Jon Stewart's America ("Oops! I forgot to tell a joke!")? The nation's favorite right-wing duck does not seem to recognize it as a parody. In fact, he smells (can ducks smell? Well, "senses" then) an MSM smear job:

"This isn't me!" Fillmore quacks. "I mean, it is me, but Jon Stewart has cut and pasted me into a fake 'Mallard Fillmore' strip... put me in his book and even dated it 'October 1, 1998,' to make it look like this comic strip said stuff it didn't say..."

It would be easy to assume that cartoonist Bruce Tinsley is either unacquainted with the concept of satire (an assumption for which his strip provides daily evidence), or that he has been swept up in the War against the MSM, and recognizes from the behavior of the generals that, when it comes to armament, the creation of smoke and noise means a lot more than scoring a true hit.

But it's only Thursday; maybe Tinsley has a twist ending prepared that plays with objective reality, a la Chuck Jones, revealing a more nuanced view of things. I'm going with that. After all, we are all Britons now; even the least likely of us may have suddenly acquired some wit.

BOMB SQUAD. Condolences to my London friends on the awful attacks Thursday morning. I hope you're safe and stay so.

If you want to follow the bombing news, the best source I've found for updates is the Guardian's news blog. And I thought mainstream news didn't """get""" (*) blogs! Why, they have better info than a Tennessee law perfesser. The citizens' tributes posted there are especially good.

(* that awful usage really requires triple-quotes, as no human now living can use it without evincing at least three layers of alienation from normal speech patterns.)

As for idiocy on the subject, there are sources aplenty, though as usual Goldberg's Frat House holds its own. While the Man Who Would Be Bluto himself seems about two bongs shy of a pantload, speculating muzzily about possible "useful" outcomes, other Cornerites wave Union Jacks and shake fists energetically. "We Are All Brits Now," announces Den Mother Lopez. Funny, I don't remember ever being told that we were all Balinese (have you forgotten October 12?). I vaguely recall being told we were Madrileños, but I think the Ministry of Truth revoked Madrid's status as a Place of Which We All Are shortly thereafter.

I imagine some readers may find it offensive that I am expressing my opinions on even so ancillary an aspect of these bombings as their press coverage without resorting to the seemingly requisite clenched teeth and offers of prayer. My feelings for the horrible deaths of several people I do not personally know are probably about the same as yours. Every man's death diminishes me, whether or not it is on the news, but I try not to intrude upon the funerals of strangers.

For my own part, I am more offended at the cunning use of public tragedy for propaganda purposes. For example, the Perfesser's jape at Ken Livingstone's response to the attacks on his City -- that "they've got even Ken Livingstone sounding Churchillian" -- seems to me appallingly cynical. Red Ken, bless him, is simply being Livingstonian. To talk about his call for solidarity as if it were some sort of deviation from the norm makes no sense, unless your business is to interpret basic human behaviors and emotions in political terms.

WELL, THERE'S ALWAYS EMINENT DOMAIN IN THE ATLANTIC YARDS. The big news today was New York's Olympic bid, and I gotta say I don't see how they missed from what I heard was in the presentation:

• Robert DeNiro surprising International Olympic Committee Chairman Kevan Gosper with his knowledge of Gosper's biographical details, including the names of his children and the address of, and security codes to, his home.
  
  
• Mayor Bloomberg throwing fistfuls of money a la Rip Taylor.
  
  
• Billy Crystal breaking down in sobs as he relates his father's heartbreak over never getting to attend a live synchonized swimming event.
  
  
• Donald Trump promising gold shotputs, garishly appointed athletes' quarters, and prostitutes.
  
  
• Muhammed Ali, a large and familiar presence from which nearly all the once formidable strength has been cruelly sapped, now conveyed from place to place by powerful men using his reputation as combination bragging standard and begging bowl; a perfect avatar for our City.

It's London's headache now, and jingos get to laugh at France -- everybody wins! Citizens, carry on.

A LONG WEEKEND. I suppose I could put it down to a slow news week. The big stories have been few: one butt-ugly WTC tower being replaced by another butt-ugly WTC tower; further fist-shaking about the memorial therein (I say have David Allan Coe do twenty-minute-on-the-hour sets in the lobby and leave it at that); a Presidential speech and Congressional babbling. Who wants to read about that, let alone write about it?

But the plain fact is I'm burnt. Between a work schedule that never lets up, the demands of human beings (Christ, they're always trying to talk to you and get you to talk), and nightly wrestling matches with the Angel of Death (at least that's who he says he is, though I could swear I saw him in a Bumfight video), I have been hard-pressed to find tranquility enough to recollect emotion, or even to collect stray thoughts and ball them into blogposts.

So, with apologies for the slow pace of production, I am getting the fuck off the merry-go-round for a few days. I'm going to New Hampshire to visit Editor Downs and his family, and eat pie and walk in the woods. I am not much of a tree-hugger, but on the excellent chance that I will have a nervous breakdown in the maddening cricket-encrusted silence, a tree will be useful to cling to when I feel as if I am about to fall off the earth.

See you Tuesday. Meantime have a glorious Fourth and remember, when the roaring madness of the times gets you down, the immortal words of Neil Young: "Got people here down on their knees and prayin'/Hawks and doves are circlin' in the rain/Got rock 'n' roll, got country music playin'/If you hate us, you just don't know what you're sayin'."

SIDESHOW. I didn't watch the Leader's address on TV, so I cannot rate it for stagecraft any more than I could a speech of Lincoln's or Millard Fillmore's. I will say that I was misled to expect that Bush would overtly echo the anti-liberal-traitor theme foreshadowed by his operatives. The Ft. Bragg setting, and the President's call for Fourth of July flags 'n' fan mail for the troops, were clearly meant to tie support for the Iraq adventure to support for the troops. But such devices were already old news in the days of "Pride Integrity Guts" buttons and yellow ribbons. The hardcore supporters will enjoy them, but the White House cannot seriously expect these gestures to restore the faith many citizens have lost in the occupation.

This is a little disappointing, because it left the President without a bold gambit to revive public faith in his plan, leaving him only a restatement of familiar talking points: 9-11, international cooperation, madman Saddam, 9-11, Iraqi sovereignty, and 9-11.

You can see how useless this regurgitation is from the nostalgic commentary of the President's more reliable supporters, such as K.J. Lopez: "He always nails that freedom thing--let freedom ring," etc. Yes, the fans love it when The Boss does the old songs. But we have been hearing freedom ring, and mission statements, and success stories (flowers strewn in the path of beloved conquerors and so forth), for a couple of years now, and from the looks of things, this cheerful litany has ceased to work.

So the sanest way to view tonight's speech is as an aside. The President is now focused on reforming (or destroying, depending of your point of view) America's politics, finances, and judiciary. From that point of view, the Iraq occupation is a nuisance, a constant reminder of how this Administration's peculiar obsessions do not coincide with this nation's needs. So a few hours were set aside for a few soothing words to momentarily defuse a small groundswell of non-support. Time well spent, in this Administration's view, if it muddies these particular waters for another little while, leaving the wrecking crew to do its work undistubed. Like most of us, they live day to day, looking for the main chance.

HOW ROVE CAN YOU GO? Lately, the temperature in the conservative fever-ward has been climbing like a Neopolitan busboy at Monte Carlo with a stolen dinner jacket.

OpinionJournal has picked up Karl Rove's "Traitors among us!" tone, complaining that Americans are turning against the war because of their tireless attendance upon the words of Edward Kennedy and Chuck Hagel. OpinionJournal is where the Crazy Jesus Lady stores her scrawls and shopping bags, and even on good days hosts some pretty deranged commentary, but lines like "Where the terrorists are gaining ground is in Washington, D.C." really represent a new low.

Of course, the New York Post has never had any guardrails whatsoever, but even Murdoch's Money-Pitbull is straining its already well-stretched leash. The Post decreed on Sunday that the Supreme Court's Kelo decision was all the work of "liberals." I thought Ward Churchill was the Face of Liberalism – when did Anthony Kennedy get the job? In January the Post ran Ryan Sager's complaint that liberals all hate Wal-Mart; maybe now that the Post has decided that liberals actually want to give people's homes to private developers – the sort of thing Wal-Mart thrives on -- perhaps the paper will print a retraction.

Or maybe they'll just go a little crazier. On Monday the Post declared two museums proposed for the World Trade Center to be a threat to our way of life:

What if, some years from now, a latter-day Andres Serrano turns up at the Drawing Center's new home at Ground Zero, with an American flag submerged in a tub of urine — calling it, say, "Piss Flag"? Or with an image of the Twin Towers covered in cow manure?

Could such outrageous "art" be banned from the site?

If that sounds ridiculous, just think back a few years — to Serrano's "Piss Christ." Or to the Brooklyn Museum's 1999 exhibit, "Sensation" — featuring the Virgin Mary covered in elephant dung…

Let's face it: New Yorkers are known for abusing the First Amendment… Once the IFC and Drawing Center are up and running, there'll be no stopping them.

If either of the institutions has planned an installation that shows Michael Moore pointing at the burning Twin Towers and laughing, the Post has not shared this scoop with its readers. Apparently the whole tsimmis is based on the revelation that one of the IFC guys worked for George Soros, and that the WTC exhibit might include information about other atrocities that could not be so easily exploited by Republicans as 9-11.

Free Republic concurs in its usual guttural roar: "The liberal parasites of New York are not capable of recognition of bravery, of sacrife....the liberal trash of your state is only concerned WITH SELF, encouraged on by their witch of a so-called Senator…" etc.

But we expect it from them. It's the mainstreaming of such froth that's noteworthy. What's up? Well, the Leader is expected to defend his Iraq policy on TV tonight – flanked by soldiers, we hear. Some of the President's cheerleaders are calling on him to better explain his policies; others want more inspiring rah-rah.

But, given the advance work done by his press functionaries, I expect the message will involve less explainin' and more traitor-baitin'. What else does he have left, really?

UPDATE: Kevin Drum has noticed an uptick in the crazy meter, too, though he (probably wisely) refrains from drawing conclusions.

SHORTER JAMES LILEKS, PART #34,701: I don't know why you people want to see movies by that child-molester Woody Allen when I have these perfectly good matchbooks here. Plus which, being a lifelong New Yorker, Allen doesn't understand 9-11.

QUOTE OF THE DAY -- PERHAPS EVEN QUOTE OF THE WEEK! The newly invigorated Poor Man points us to a blog maintained by the President of GoDaddy. I liked GoDaddy's Super Bowl ad, but this guy's posting on Guantanamo Bay contains another sort of outrage entirely -- an unexpected gloss on the "Gitmo is not as bad as [insert atrocity here]" gambit:

Compared to those Americans and others who were forced to jump to their death on 9-11, the detainees at Gitmo really don't have it so bad...

But maybe those detainees should be forced to jump from a tall building, because they might have had something to do with the WTC attacks -- or they might not; maybe they're in there for parking tickets; we'll probably never know, but hey, how about that 9-11? Coming soon: Gitmo compared favorably to Hiroshima!