Its Friday and I'm sure we could all use a little bit of Daily Show humor at the end of this hard work week.

Last night on the show Jon's opening headlines covered the little-known reversal of Bush administration policy on negotiation or as they would inaccurately refer to it - appeasement. Despite the fact that Bush has criticized his political enemies for attempting to negotiate with evil "terrorist" countries like N. Korea and Iran... that is exactly what his administration has been doing (with success, actually) with North Korea and now with Iran.

He also takes a look at McCain & Obama's speech at the NAACP and the art of pandering to minorities. He tries to evaluate how each candidate is doing at pandering to Hispanics by using a Lou Dobbs meter.

Enjoy the videos and weigh in with comments -

...but not to negotiate. This is weird. I mean, I understand it--the White House and Dana Perino can't call this negotiation with a member of the "axis of evil" a negotiation, because the White House has always assured its conservative base that it does not negotiate with terrorists.

But--if they're not going to negotiate, why did the White House ask for a meeting with "Tehran's nuclear negotiator?" Let's look at the story and try to figure this out:

On April 9, 2008 Howard Frumkin of the Center for Disease Control submitted the uncensored testimony to Congress of CDC Director Dr. Jule Gerberding on the consequences for human health of continued global warming. Dr. Gerberding's original testimony was censored by the Bush Administration when she originally tried to give it in October 2007.

Yesterday, on his blog, Climate Progress, Joe Romm reprinted in full an excellent report by the Center for American Progress Action Fund detailing the relationship between the censorship of Dr. Gerberding and the White House's refusal to accept the EPA email on regulating greenhouse gases. The common element: Dick Cheney and opposition to the Clean Air Act. I highly recommend you check out his post.

For this diary let's focus on what the White House and other more objective sources have told us recently about the censorship of science, particularly science relating to Climaticide.

Day 1
  George Bush announces that he will be seeking a third term in office.  He explains, "While I respect Senator McCain's service to this country, I feel that he has embraced too much of the Moveon.org, Radical Left's 'change for the sake of change' rhetoric.  And that could lead to him undoing the crucial work my Administration has done over the years to protect this country from the threat of terrorism."
  The McCain's camp has no comment, though sources claim they heard the words "But I was tortured!" coming out of Mr. McCain's house.

As reported yesterday:

Members of Vice President's Dick Cheney's staff censored congressional testimony by a top federal official on the health threats posed by global warming, a former Environmental Protection Agency official said today.

...an official from Cheney's office edited out six pages from the testimony of Julie Gerberding, director of the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention, last October.

So, what was the White House saying about this last October?

Q Is it typical for the White House to cut that much of an administration official's prepared --

MS. PERINO: ...remember, we only suggest the edits. CDC made the decision as to what testimony they were going to provide. [...]

Q There's another CDC in that article -- another CDC official was saying that the testimony was "eviscerated," which is pretty -- I guess accusing the White House of playing very heavy hands.

MS. PERINO: I understand what they're accusing us of, but I can -- I just reject it.

"...Finally -- and most curiously -- John McCain inexplicably showed up in Colombia around the time of the "rescue."

Officer Barbrady sez... "nothing to see here folks, move along now... Just a Co-Inky-Dink folks !!

and (for MikeTheLiberal)

"Coincidence doesn't just happen." -- Homer Simpson

On June 20, 2008, former White House Press secretary Scott McClellan testified under oath before the Congressional Judiciary Committee regarding disclosures made in his book, What Happened, about the outing of Valerie Plame and the administration officials involved. Committee Republicans derided McClellan’s appearance by calling it, "The book of the month club."

According to the New York Times, the committee’s ranking Republican, Lamar Smith said, after grilling McClellan, "Scott McClellan alone will have to wrestle with whether it was worth selling out the president and his friends for a few pieces of silver."

Mr. Smith does protest too much! In general, McClellan’s book is generous to the White House staff and the president. He paints a rosy picture of the current White House compared to what most Americans believe. For the most part this is not a gang of criminal conspirators; it is rather the gang that can’t shoot straight (Pun intended).

(Seriously, spot the lie, win a cupcake)

So this morning Secdef Gates decapitated the airforce command.

General Mosel and Secretary Wynne are tossed

now the official story is  http://news.lycos.com/...

The top military and civilian leaders of the U.S. Air Force were forced out Thursday over the handling of nuclear weapons, the Defense Department secretary said.

woah?  Since when did a bushe ever get fired for INCOMPETENCE (Mike Brown, condi rice, john bolton,
doug feith, paul bremer,,,,,,)

With the release of the Senate Intel Committee Phase II report (pdf) on how intelligence was used by the administration to mislead this country into war, the White House responded with the expected, "but everyone thought Saddam Hussein had WMD, it’s not our fault" line.  But when it was pointed out that the report says that claims were made Bush, Cheney and Company that were in dispute among those in the intelligence company, Dana Perino explained:

That dissent, amongst experts within the intelligence community at some levels, did not reach the President.

So, all those claims about mushroom clouds, links with Al Qaeda, and Saddam peddling nuclear weapons to terrorists?  Just honest mistakes because George didn’t get the memo.  And besides, according to Ms. Perino:

...this is just another example of rehashing this old issue, which is fine. If people want to spend their time doing that, that's up to them.

And in other old news, eight more soldiers have been killed this week in Iraq. Get over it!

Alas, irony.  White House Press Secretary Dana Perino calling former White House Press Secretary Scott McClellan "sad" is like McClellan calling Perino a "Bush administration whore."  They’re both right, but look who’s talking.  

No, Scott didn’t really call Dana a Bush administration whore—not in public, anyway.  Dana really did call Scott sad though, and she really is a Bush administration whore.  

Dana should have taken it easy on Scott.  He’s just the latest in a long line of former Bush liegemen who wrote books so they can make enough money to buy their way out of hell.  Dana’s time will come.  After her press secretary gig is over and people start calling her out for fibbing about the surge, she’ll get to dwelling on the fate of her immortal soul and boy, will her tune ever change.  

Scott McClellan charges that White House staffers colluded to get their stories straight on the Plame outing.

Washington Post columnist Dana Milbank compiles the reactions of the current White House staff to that obviously ridiculous claim:

Dan Bartlett is "puzzled" by Scott McClellan.

Dana Perino is "puzzled" by Scott McClellan.

President Bush, Perino says, is also "puzzled" by McClellan.

What puzzles you, dear reader?

Puzzling.

In a White House press briefing earlier today, Dana "What is the Cuban missile crisis?" Perino was asked about Scott McClellan and the possibility of him testifying to congress.

John Conyers recently announced that he would begin discussions with Scott McClellan about testifying before Congress. Congressman Wexler has called on him to testify as well. Dana's response is that they have not received a formal request yet so she cannot comment.

But when asked the follow up question of whether the White House could potentially block McClellan from testifying she answered that they could. Hmmm... I wonder if they will stonewall him? We'll see.

Richard Clarke accused the Bush administration of ignoring warnings on terrorism.

"I find it outrageous that the president is running for re-election on the grounds that he's done such great things about terrorism," Clarke said in a "60 Minutes" interview on the book with CBS. "He ignored it. He ignored terrorism for months, when maybe we could have done something to stop 9/11. Maybe, we'll never know."

Scott McClellan provided the White House response.

"Let's remember why we are having this conversation, because Mr. Clarke made assertions that we have said are flat-out wrong," McClellan said. Moreover, in his book, "Mr. Clarke certainly decided on his own to go ahead and reveal conversations that were considered private previously," the spokesman said.

And Scotty didn't stop there.

McClellan pointed to the timing of Clarke's book.

"If Dick Clarke had such grave concerns, why wait so long? Why wait until the election?" Instead, McClellan said, Clarke "conveniently" released a book in the middle of the campaign season.

(The lancing pain between your eyes is only a needle of pure irony.  Don't worry, it'll pass.  Kind of like a Slushee-induced brain freeze.)

When Paul O'Neill said the Bush administration was planning to attack Iraq all along and only used 9/11 as a justification.

Former US Treasury Secretary Paul O'Neill has provided the grist for an unflattering tell-all book about the Bush White House called "The Price of Loyalty". ... Mr O'Neill said President Bush was disengaged, "a blind man in a room full of deaf people," and said the administration was hatching plans to invade Iraq from the day Mr Bush entered office.

Scott McClellan provided the White House reply.

White House spokesman Scott McClellan brushed off O'Neill's criticism.

"We appreciate his service, but we are not in the business of doing book reviews," he told reporters. "It appears that the world according to Mr. O'Neill is more about trying to justify his own opinion than looking at the reality of the results we are achieving on behalf of the American people. The president will continue to be forward-looking, focusing on building upon the results we are achieving to strengthen the economy and making the world a safer and better place."

When it was Scott's turn at the plate, it was up to Dana Perino to deliver the smackdown.

Scott, we now know, is disgruntled about his experience at the White House. For those of us who fully supported him, before, during and after he was press secretary, we are puzzled. It is sad - this is not the Scott we knew.

"The book, as reported by the press, has been described to the President. I do not expect a comment from him on it - he has more pressing matters than to spend time commenting on books by former staffers."

Positively McClellan-esque.

How long will we have to wait for Dana Perino's book?  It's hard to tell.  Lawrence Lindsey was shoved from the National Economic Council way back in 2002 for giving an estimate that the Iraq invasion could cost as much as $200 billion ("baloney" was the official response that time), and his book didn't make it till 2008.  

But Dana likes to make the rounds of the talk shows and the entertainment value of watching ex-Bushies admit to their complicity has just about run its course.  I'm guessing the press will pretend to be "shocked" by her revelations and whoever has the sad job of post-presidential Bush handler will be moaning "that doesn't sound like the Dana we all know" well before 2010.

While the rest of the nation still has to worry about retirement, the Bush administration seems to have solved the problem for their own: fat contracts for admitting they're liars.  We can only hope that publishers soon note that we're not that shocked, we're not sympathetic to people who passed off propaganda they knew was false, and we're not interested in lining these people's pockets just to have them fess up to what we knew all along.

The response from the Bush administration and its amen corner to the blistering charges in former press secretary Scott McClellan's new book has been quick, brutal and predictable.  While his predecessor Ari Fleischer proclaimed himself "heartbroken" over McClellan's revelations, his eventual successor Dana Perino branded him "disgruntled."  Even as Karl Rove likened the man who once lied for him to a "left-wing blogger," former Bush homeland security adviser Frances Townsend trashed McClellan as "self-serving" and "disingenuous."  As for President Bush himself, he is said to be "saddened" and "disappointed."

Of course, it wasn't always this way.

The past twenty-four hours have yielded a cornocopia of my favorite thing: lies.  I love lies, and liars, and their friends, deceit, inveigling, obfuscation and Cthulhu. (Actually, that was a lie.  Deceit is not a friend of lies.)  Lies are enormously powerful because if you get enough people to believe them, they become the truth.  Okay, the "de facto" truth, but for a liar, that's close enough.  

Today's lies are special though, because they fall into the category of "Enormous, Fly In The Face of Reality" Lies.  Lies that make baby jebus cry. Lies that will later require some time in a confessional.  Lies that make people doubt reality, if but for a second.  These are the lies one tells when one has nothing left to lose.  They are the lies of the cornered and desperate, which makes them some the best lies you may ever hear.

An important announcement from the White House:  George Bush is not, repeat, not running for President in 2008.  Or as Dana Perino put it:

But remember this election is -- the President is not on the ticket.

But remember, he's not on the ticket.

But again, President Bush isn't on the ticket.

Well, okay, then, no, I'm not -- I'm seeking nothing but to tell you that the President is not on the ticket...

And so begins the tightrope walk we can expect for the next six months.  Assurances that Bush is "fully committed, 100 percent committed, to making sure that John McCain is elected to be the next President," while doing everything they can to put distance between John McCain and George Bush. When questioned (six times) on whether Bush and McCain would appear in public together, the best Perino could do was to say, "stay tuned," and to remind reporters that:

President Bush is a formidable campaign fundraiser, as has been reported over the years, and I expect that he'll continue to be.

So, how is that working out?

A Tuesday fundraiser headlined by President Bush for U.S. Sen. John McCain's presidential campaign is being moved out of the Phoenix Convention Center.

Sources familiar with the situation said the Bush-McCain event was not selling enough tickets to fill the Convention Center space, and that there were concerns about more anti-war protesters showing up outside the venue than attending the fundraiser inside.

With the need for repeated reminders that George Bush is not on the ticket, dodging questions about public appearances and failing fundraisers, John McCain is learning that running to carry out the third term of the most unpopular president in history is hard work.

How is this for some seriously messed up priorities?  During the run-up to the Iraq war, the White House was more than happy to have Judy Miller peddle the administration’s distortions and lies on the pages of the New York Times as a part of their campaign to sell a bogus war to an unsuspecting public. But an editorial that is critical of the White House for its opposition to Jim Webb’s G.I. Bill of Rights?   Them’s fightin’ words.:

Once again, the New York Times Editorial Board doesn't let the facts get in the way of expressing its vitriolic opinions - no matter how misleading they may be.

Leaving aside the inappropriateness of the White House publicly whining about benefits for veterans on Memorial Day, let's look at some of the facts that the New York Times ignores in their effort to mislead the public:

.

And here’s what they got right:

President Bush opposes a new G.I. Bill of Rights... Having saddled the military with a botched, unwinnable war, having squandered soldiers’ lives and failed them in so many ways, the commander in chief now resists giving the troops a chance at better futures out of uniform. He does this on the ground that the bill is too generous and may discourage re-enlistment, further weakening the military he has done so much to break.

So lavish with other people’s sacrifices, so reckless in pouring the national treasure into the sandy pit of Iraq, Mr. Bush remains as cheap as ever when it comes to helping people at home.   [...]

Mr. Bush — and, to his great discredit, Senator John McCain — have argued against a better G.I. Bill, for the worst reasons.   [...]

By threatening to veto it, Mr. Bush is showing great consistency of misjudgment. Congress should forcefully show how wrong he is by overriding his opposition and spending the money — an estimated $52 billion over 10 years, a tiniest fraction of the ongoing cost of Mr. Bush’s Iraq misadventure.

George Bush opposes the bill for obvious reasons...after all, supporting the troops has always been just a slogan for him.  And John McCain's opposition?  He thinks that requiring 12 years of service to get a whole $2000 a month for college is more than "generous," not to mention his fear that he won't have enough warm bodies for his 100 years in Iraq.  Of course what absolutely terrifies McCain about this overwhelminingly popular and bipartisan bill is that he'll have to vote against it.    

Amidst the uproar over George Bush politicizing the 60th anniversary of Israel's independence, the media has been strangely silent about the revelation that Secretary of Defense Robert Gates, by George Bush and John McCain's own definition, is guilty of "foolish delusion," and lacks "the knowledge, the experience, the background to make the kind of judgments that are necessary to preserve this nation's security."  

Just one day before Bush declared that "some," also known as Barack Obama, is an appeaser to terrorists, the likes of which have not been seen since Hitler invaded Poland, and before John McCain chimed in by saying Obama wanted to enhance "the prestige of a nation that's a sponsor of terrorists and is directly responsible for the deaths of brave young Americans," Robert Gates said:

We need to figure out a way to develop some leverage with respect to the Iranians and then sit down and talk with them. If there's going to be a discussion, then they need something, too. We can't go to a discussion and be completely the demander with them not feeling that they need anything from us.

And while there has been plenty of coverage of Bush's remarks, McCain's parroting of Bush's remarks and Obama's smackdown of both of them, no one seems to be covering Gates' policy of terrorist-enabling appeasement.  Or as Jamison Foser at Media Matters put it:

Naturally, then, a media firestorm erupted, with the Bush administration and its political allies questioned all day about whether Bush has any idea what he is talking about, whether he has lost control over the Pentagon, whether Gates will be fired, what Gates thinks about Bush's comparison of those (like Gates) who advocate dialogue between the United States and Iran to appeasers of Adolf Hitler, and whether the fiasco will remind voters that the Bush administration's foreign policy has been marked by incompetence and dishonesty, thus doing irreparable electoral damage to John McCain and other Republican candidates.

Sorry -- what was I thinking? That didn't happen.

Foser points out that ABC, CBS, the New York Times, Washington Post, Boston Globe, Los Angeles Times, Time and ABC's The Note, have all extensively covered the "appeasement controversy," but have made no mention of Gates' comments.  Given that Dana Perino claimed that Bush's remarks simply reflected "long-established United States policy," why is the fact that Bush's own Secretary of Defense opposes this policy not news?