Is Our Leader a closeted Democrat?

Or is he just pretending to be something he's not (again)?

I didn't watch the speech (I had something much better to do with my Thursday evening), but Kevin Drum, MaxSpeak, Media Girl, and others seem to think so.

(If so, then that would have to be a DLC Democrat, n'est ce pas?)

Which generates a tangent ...

Coming on the heels of a liberal quantity of conservative apoplexy at Tom DeLay's recent comments about himself -- err, the federal government -- I'm really bemused at what's happening over there in far right field.

This summer, a number of the most virulent starboard-tackers I can still call friends have been getting off the GOP bus (you've noticed this among your own circle, haven't you?). First it was the matter of Terri Schiavo, then Cindy Sheehan, and then it was the soaring cost of gasoline, and this month it's been Katrina. Mix in the sham of the Roberts hearings, pictures of Bush eating cake and playing guitar and asking Condi if he can go potty and you've got a seriously bad fall kickoff.

Not everyone on the Right is wavering; the bloc in the Senate remains steadfast. Next week they'll vote in harmony for a new Chief Justice, just as they did last week to kill an independent Katrina commission.

But the support in the outlands is falling away like the leaves. Well, not so much here in Deep-In-the-Hearta; it's still too freaking hot.

But it's only a matter of time before that first cool snap ...

If you're viewing this blog in IE...

... then it probably looks pretty screwy right now.

I use Mozilla Firefox almost exclusively, but every now and then someone tells me something doesn't look quite right, and when I look at it through Bill Gates' glasses, sure enough ...

I've given up trying to fix it, too. Just put down the Kool-Aid, people.

I am going to try to beat

Fred and northstar to the punch with this:

Texas Democratic candidates

The next Governor of Texas, Chris Bell.


David Van Os, candidate for Texas Attorney General








(L.) Jay Aiyer, Houston City Council candidate















(R.) DeLay-slayer Nick Lampson



Two-hundred and fifty Democrats gathered in Houston's Bay Area last night to "fun-raise" for BAND, but what they really raised was a coming hell (for the GOP).

Moneyshot Quote Eligible

...from Will Durst:

Bush says he doesn’t want to play the “Blame Game.” Makes sense. Never heard of a chicken who wanted to play the “Extra Crispy” game.

The good news is, closed circuit videos in and around New Orleans have allowed us to identify the looters: Chevron, Shell, and ExxonMobil.

Senator Rick Santorum thinks there should be tougher penalties on people who decide to ride hurricanes out. I guess he means worse than drowning.

As soon as New Orleans gets back to normal, I plan on volunteering to go down there and help drink their economy back on its feet.

Count me in on that.

The President Falls

and I'm not talking about his poll numbers.

Use your mouse to help him when he gets, ah, "stuck."

A transgender evacuee's story

Arpollo Vicks was born male, but in January, the 20-year-old became, she says, "who I really am." She started living as a woman.

In New Orleans, this was no big deal.

Friends and family began calling her Sharli'e. She says that at L.B. Landry Middle School, where she worked as a substitute teacher, kids who had known her as Mr. Vicks simply began calling her Ms. Vicks.

Sharli'e's gender didn't play a part in the beginning of her Katrina miseries, either. After the levees broke, she and two cousins left their downtown neighborhood, looking for help and higher ground. Eighteen-year-old Rolanda Grisham was a plain-vanilla, born-that-way girl. Things were more complicated for Rolanda's 16-year-old sibling. Like Sharli'e, Leo had been born male but lived as a woman.

The three waded and swam a mile and half to the terrifying New Orleans Convention Center, where they spent two uncomfortable nights, one punctuated by gunfire. They then spent two hot, hungry days on an Interstate 10 overpass. At the Superdome, they finally found someone to rescue them.

A bus carried the three to Houston, but it was turned away at the Astrodome. Around 1 a.m. that Sunday, the three learned that they had arrived, instead, in College Station. They were shepherded into a shelter at Texas A&M University's Reed Arena.

Pansexual, live-and-let-live New Orleans had arrived in the heart of Aggieland, and there was bound to be trouble.

There's lots more trouble, but the story ends happily.