You know what we haven't heard about lately? That letter Ron Suskind says the Bush regime had the CIA forge. Would you like to see the letter?

by Ken

Say, you know what we don't hear so much about anymore? That book of Ron Suskind's in which he dropped the bombshell that the Bush regime actually commissioned a forged letter linking Mohammed Atta to Saddam Hussein. You figure in any other administration, by the next day everyone involved would have delivered their letters of resignation and gone home to pack for prison.

The Bush regime, of course, lives by the Karl Rove maxim:

"When in trouble, change the subject."

And now Chimpy the Prez and Young Johnny McCranky seem to have formed a Mutual Subject-Changing Society. Since Chimpy stands at the end of a seven-and-a-half year record of unbroken catastrophe, with no issues of legitimate national concern which he can address without self-incrimination, and Young Johnny has no real-world issues based on actual belief which he dares to speak publicly about, they sort of change the subject for each other. Man, this Georgia thing couldn't have worked better if they'd planned it. (That's silly, of course. Who do they know in the region who might be willing to stir up trouble to help them?)

I'm just saying, isn't it strange how the book seems to have disappeared from the front pages?

Meanwhile, I've been meaning to make sure you saw these remarkable documents recently made public by Lee Camp (of Laughing Liberally) on OpenLeft.

There is, first, the forged letter itself:

[click to enlarge]

And then there is, of perhaps even greater historical importance, the letter with which President Bush set the CIA forgery in motion:

[click to enlarge]

New York alert: Cliff Schecter of "The Real McCain" joins Laughing Liberally tonight to vivisect (one hopes) Young Johnny McCranky

Who is John McCain?
What are his politics?
And what was his boyhood in the 16th century really like?

-- questions to be tackled
tonight at Laughing Liberally's
John McCain Comedy Jaunt

Incredibly, we keep hearing that people "trust" Young Johnny, that they think of him as a man of "principle" and "convictions."

I'm guessing fewer people think that way than was once the case, and that's in no small part thanks to the tireless researching and crusading of our pal Cliff Schecter, principal author of The Real McCain -- and now a political blogger at Firedoglake. (This morning Cliff brings us breathless news that McCranky "is aware of the Internet"! Makes you wonder how he found out.) So I want to make sure New Yorkers know that he's scheduled to join Laughing Liberally's John McCain Comedy Jaunt tonight, along with Paul Waldman, coauthor with David Brock of Free Ride: John McCain and the Media, and a slew of comics gathered to try to answer questions like those above.

It's true that word of McCranky's sleazy ethics and cynically opportunistic ideological flip-floppery (though there seems little doubt that he's a true-red reactionary) hasn't reached elite pundits like D.C. Village elders David Broder and Richard Cohen, but jeez, do you really want to be farther out of the informational loop than those bozos?

The John McCain Comedy Jaunt is tonight at 9pm at the Tank, 279 Church St., between Franklin and White Sts., below Canal, and I certainly plan to be there, armed with my copy of The Real McCain for Cliff to sign. (Hmm, I should probably pick up a copy of Free Ride.) It's listed as "FREE / $10 Suggested Admission." Make it $100 -- or $1000 -- and it sounds like a pricing policy the "straight-talking" McCranky could get behind.

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