W. Wonka's Death Factory!

Hey, Kids!!!

http://www.cnn.com/2005/LAW/10/31/medical.custody.battle.ap/index.html

One of you youngsters is about to die because the Republican government doesn't believe scientists know more than your parents about your health! Just think, next it could be you.

And remember, if you think this is frightening, you can't just run away--that's what the Amber Alert is for, silly!

Love,
Jibbenainosay

The sKarlett Letter

The Confidence Man has read the snippets of Pat Fitzgerald's indictment of Scooter Libby.

Along with everyone else, the Confidence Man waits with bated breath for the other shoe to drop on Karl Rove, aka "Official A."

Alas, Turd Blossom, we hardly knew ye: thy new nickname is "Official Asshole."

Denoument (Corrected): Bush/Kinski

Back in July of this year, we offered our prediction that "the remainder of Bush's term [will] look like the last 20 minutes of GOODFELLAS":

http://croatan.blogspot.com/2005/07/denouement.html

As of today, with the indictment of Scooter "Frankie Carbone" (http://imdb.com/name/nm0803370/) Libby, the 20 minutes have begun.

However, we feel we must revise our denouement prediction: the remainder of Pat Fitzgerald's investigation will look like the last 20 minutes of GOODFELLAS; the remainder of the Bush Administration after *that* will look like the last 2 minutes of AGUIRRE: THE WRATH OF GOD -- George Bush, with a demented gleam in his eye, floating downstream on a raft covered with spider monkeys.

(And, by the way, we're not under any impression that Scooter Libby looks anything like Frank Sivero. In fact, were we casting PLAMEGATE: THE MOVIE, we'd have Richard Roxburgh [http://imdb.com/name/nm0746896/?fr=c2l0ZT1kZnx0dD0xfGZiPXV8cG49MHxrdz0xfHE9cm94YnVyZ2h8ZnQ9MXxteD0yMHxsbT01MDB8Y289MXxodG1sPTF8bm09MQ__;fc=1;ft=21;fm=1] play Scooter.)

Le Canard Maladroit

The Confidence Man reads yet another of Bush Pere leak-magnet Tom DeFrank's pieces on the spider-monkey-infested raft that is the Bush II White House:

http://www.nydailynews.com/10-28-2005/news/story/359941p-306654c.html

'"He's not a lame duck," one of [Bush's] closest political counselors said yesterday. "He's a clumsy duck. This can still be fixed."'

A "clumsy duck" -- what an evocative, yet metonymically clumsy *itself*, locution.

The Confidence Man is certain it scans much better en Francais: "le canard maladroit."

Note, of course, the alternative reading of the French phrase: the malevolently false and misleading story ("le canard mal") from the Right ("a droit").

Ding ding ding ding! We have a winnah!

The Fiduciary Roots of the Anti-Clinton Industry

The always reliable and diverting Dan Froomkin notes this morning that another WaPo article on Special Prosecutor Patrick Fitzgerald says that, "In its first 15 months, the investigation cost $723,000, according to the Government Accountability Office."

http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/content/blog/2005/10/24/BL2005102400865_pf.html

Froomkin compares the cost of Fitz' investigation with the ludicrously protracted Henry Cisneros investigation ($3M in the same amount of time; $21M over its 10-year span) and the simply ludicrous Ken Starr investigation ($52M in the same amount of time).

Now, if the Confidence Man recalls correctly, Starr's investigation ended up costing somewhere north of $200M in toto.

And the Confidence Man wonders ... just where did all that money go?

We won't necessarily speculate that Starr threw cash around suborning perjury -- but we will note that all of the principal players in Starr's little crucible were the founders of the VRWC Anti-Clinton Industry. Yes, the Richard Mellon Scaife cash was funding some of the players independent of Starr's pork; but we suspect that much of Starr's spending may well have been seed cash for the Rovean apparatus.