In Statistics Class, this is referred to as a…

“Pant’s On Fire” chart.

The chart is from Scoop. Brought to my attention via Atrios…via JuliusBlog.

If they weren’t running Western civilization into the ground and then peeing on the grave, shit like the clips below from Tom Ridge (“Then and Now”) and others on the growing list of Petro Junta Exiles would be comical.

It’s almost as if they’re entirely unaware that there’s this global electronic information system wherein is stored a magical treasure trove of what we in the United Federation of Realists like to call “History.” You know…the crazy shit that you said yesterday, to cover up the lies you told the day before yesterday, to cover up the Massive Fuck-up you committed a week ago…that was caused by some more wet-brained goof shit that you pulled out of your ass the week before that.

Out here in Realityland, we understand this phenomenon. We’ve all worked for preening, egomaniacal halfwits. We all know that they can’t stand the idea of being shown up be, well, preening, egomaniacal halfwits so the surround themselves with toadies and lickspittles who will nod and agree and shout “Splunge!” when asked for their honest opinion by the boss.

They’re funny in “Dilbert”.
They’re a disaster at “Enron” and “Tyco”.
They’re a global tragedy when they take up residence at 1600 Pennsylvania Avenue, where reaction to the Apocalypse-grade serial fuckups, lies, ‘sexing-ups” and cherry-picking party that constituted the George Bush pre-War, War, and post-“Mission Accomplished” policies was to boldly put the Presidential Medal of Freedom Factory on a third shift and give every single person who had contributed to Operation Endless Clusterfuck some snappy, new lapel-salad.

Man, I really must be ancient, for I remember a bygone era of when the Republican’s controlled the Senate and the House.

They would NEVER have stood for this kind of treachery and blood-soaked incompetence.

Never would have stood for a company that was run by a Vice President -- now on record as illegal war profiteers -- making Big Cake off of a war that that very Vice President helped engineer…

They would have brought every bit of the nation’s business to a screaming halt if something a President had done reeked with 1/1000th of the absolutely choking, rotting-corpse-stank that comes oozing out of this White House every single day…

If only the GOP still ran the House and Senate

hey…wait a minute?!

So here, for you consideration, the anatomy of yet another chapter in the already long, long, loooong novel entitled “If Clinton Had Pulled Anything Remotely Like This, the GOP Would Have Had Him, His Family and Socks-the-Cat Shot.”

It’s absolutely nauseating…(emphasis added by me.)

This from the WaPo, August 03, 2004
Most of the al Qaeda surveillance of five financial institutions that led to a new terrorism alert Sunday was conducted before the Sept. 11, 2001, attacks and authorities are not sure whether the casing of the buildings has continued, numerous intelligence and law enforcement officials said yesterday.
…
President Bush and Vice President Cheney said in separate appearances yesterday that the new alert underscores the continuing threat posed by al Qaeda. At a news conference announcing his proposed intelligence reforms, Bush said the alert shows "there's an enemy which hates what we stand for." 

"It's serious business," Bush said. "I mean, we wouldn't be, you know, contacting authorities at the local level unless something was real."

OK, got it? We wouldn’t be pulling this shit unless it “was real”, and how dare you even question the motives of Dear Leader. Sure he's locked in a virtual dead-heat for re-election and running the most aggresively, all-out, carpetbombing, hate-lie-and-fear-based campaign in modern memory. But tamper with Terror Alerts!? Heavens! Who but an Amercan-hating Liberal would even suggest such a thing?

Onward…

This Tom Ridge from USA Today 08/10/04…(you remember, during those heady pre-election days when Bush looked like he might get his sodden ass stomped for being such a catastrophic fuckup of a President. Again, all emphasis addedby me.)

Ridge 'grateful' U.S. has not been hit againA week ago, the Bush administration elevated the terror-alert level for financial institutions in several East Coast cities. In a meeting with USA TODAY's editorial board, Homeland Security Secretary Tom Ridge discussed the events leading to that decision, his department's response and other issues relevant to the war on terrorism. His comments were edited for length and clarity. 

Question: There was a fair amount of confusion — including whether the intelligence was new — after your recent decision to raise the terror-alert level to orange in the financial-service sectors in New York City, Newark, N.J., and Washington. What are the lessons?
Answer: There was no confusion in my mind. There was no confusion in the minds of the CEOs (of companies in the targeted areas) that got the information. There was no confusion in the minds of New York Mayor Michael Bloomberg and D.C. Mayor Anthony Williams. No confusion among the governors.
...
Q: By complimenting President Bush when you announced the alert, you drew criticism for mixing politics with national security. Was that a mistake?
A: No. This was information that wasn't easily acquired. It was acquired through very aggressive action and the support of allies overseas who helped us. Without the
military and the diplomatic linkages, we don't get access to the location information, we don't get access to the individuals who had the hard drive, we don't get access to other names that may assist us and better determine who they are, where they are, what their plans are. This is how we got it.

Q: How do you see your role during the election?
A: The secretary of State, the attorney general, the secretary of Defense and the secretary of Homeland Security are not going to be involved in the campaign. We're not going to the convention. We're not giving partisan speeches. We're not doing fundraisers. That has been true historically and will continue to be so.

And this, just to round out the Aristotelian unity of Time and Place that a good short story should strive for. A little reminder of what happened to Bush’s poll numbers right after issuing this terror alert.

This from CBS News Aug. 27, 2004
(CBS/AP) Recent polls have shown President Bush gaining a bit and John Kerry losing a bit in their neck and neck race for the White House.

Insert time-passing montage here. Pages flying off the calendar. “The Horse Masturbator’s” nose getting longer and longer and longer.

And then Time Machine spins, slows and comes to a creaky stop. The whipping yin-yang bolo of sun-and-moon returns to its stately pace, Rod Taylor staggers dazedly from his contraption, and what does he find?
Yvette Mimieux ready to relieve him of his Victorian inhibitions and striped pants?
Morlocks, or at least Tom DeLay, if he would only grow in those dreds like I’ve been telling him to?

Or this…(and, yes, I'm Mr. Emphasis)

USA Today 05/10/05
Ridge reveals clashes on alerts
By Mimi Hall, USA TODAY WASHINGTON — The Bush administration periodically put the USA on high alert for terrorist attacks even though then-Homeland Security chief Tom Ridge argued there was only flimsy evidence to justify raising the threat level, Ridge now says.Ridge, who resigned Feb. 1, said Tuesday that he often disagreed with administration officials who wanted to elevate the threat level to orange, or "high" risk of terrorist attack, but was overruled.
His comments at a Washington forum describe spirited debates over terrorist intelligence and provide rare insight into the inner workings of the nation's homeland security apparatus.
Ridge said he wanted to "debunk the myth" that his agency was responsible for repeatedly raising the alert under a color-coded system he unveiled in 2002.

"More often than not we were the least inclined to raise it," Ridge told reporters. "Sometimes we disagreed with the intelligence assessment. Sometimes we thought even if the intelligence was good, you don't necessarily put the country on (alert). ... There were times when some people were really aggressive about raising it, and we said, 'For that?' "

Well, we can’t really fault the hydroencephalic “special” GOP Children of the Corn for this because they are, after all, sincere. They’re deranged idiots and the worst kind of hate-rooted cultists, forever angling for another chance to install a pet Prophet-Emperor in Lincoln’s chair…but they are very upfront about it.

We’re Here. We’re Taliban. Get Used To It!

But the “Moderates” in the GOP and in the cynically-complicit MSM need to burn for this, because they know better.

The Fundy’s wanted Clinton to hang because they though he was The Devil, but the Moderates ginneed up a seven-year Clinton fishing-and-hunting party to find a technical excuse why they would pander to the dregs of their party while still looking like statesmen.

It fooled NO ONE, but I believe it actually will come to serve the Progressive cause in the long run.

How?

Because every time some John McCain or David Brooks – some straddler who wants to grease himself up and play a naked game of Storm the Bastille at the Big Fundy Hate Orgy on Saturday night, and they shower up and pretend to be a sober, reasonable Moderate on Monday morning – every time that happens, they need have their noses shoved right in the latest Bush atrocities… and then beaten with the 20-pound maul of their own public positions and rhetoric that they so eloquently staked out during the Seven Year War on Clinton.

And every one that does not demand an investigation based on their own publicly held standards needs to be called out for by their True Names:

They are liars.

They are hypocrites.

And, since we’re talking about life, death and playing politics with the security of our beloved country, they are traitors of the lowest order.