All sorts of weirdness here: Bush Suffers Cuts, Bruises While Biking:

Bush was wearing his bike helmet and a mouth guard when the mishap occurred. Duffy said he didn't know exactly how the accident happened.

"It's been raining a lot and the topsoil is loose," the spokesman said. "You know this president. He likes to go all out. Suffice it to say he wasn't whistling show tunes.

I'm glad Bush protects his bean, but according to the weather channel, it hasn't rained in at least a week in Crawford. And that bit about "whistling showtunes?" I guess that's supposed to be making fun of people who like musical theater, who may or may not be gay.

Bush is supposed to go on TV monday. Wonder if we'll see any visible damage. From the AP photo, it doesn't look too bad. Also: scrape on chin and temple. It's fucking hard to abrase your temple when you're wearing a bike helmet.

While the prez has proven his ability to fall off easier things to ride than a mountain bike, the weird and inconsistant details around this remind me a lot more of the pretzel incident.

I don't know whether or not Bush is off the wagon, or if he and his wife really do fight, but the notion that he got these injuries falling off a bike is suspect. The rain thing only makes it moreso. Well see if anything emerges. Probably not. Just another day in the spin cycle I suppose.

The New York Times: Soldier's Family Set in Motion Chain of Events on Disclosure

For those of you keeping score, here's the essence of what's important here:

He knew whom to turn to: David Hackworth, a retired colonel and a muckraker who was always willing to take on the military establishment. Mr. Lawson sent an e-mail message in March to Mr. Hackworth's Web site and got a call back from an associate there in minutes, he said.

...The irony, Mr. Lawson said, is that the public spectacle might have been avoided if the military and the federal government had been responsive to his claims that his nephew was simply following orders. Mr. Lawson said he sent letters to 17 members of Congress about the case earlier this year, with virtually no response, and that he ultimately contacted Mr. Hackworth's Web site out of frustration, leading him to cooperate with a consultant for "60 Minutes II."

Can this get any more clear? The government is fatally unresponsive, and unless our elected officials get their act together 21st-Century style, the Emerging Public will continue to route around them.

Juan Cole: The Mideastization of the US, or:
Rumsfeld Must Resign

I agree with everything Juan has to say. Call me a big fat academic dittohead, but he makes a tight case.

I urge all of you who read my site to sign Kerry's Petition to remove Rumsfeld. This is an issue that can be pushed to great effect against Bush, but Kerry isn't the type of guy who will go out there and stump for it himself. It's up to us to give the long-faced bandit a spine. Tell your friends. Seriously. It will make a difference.

Also, while we're at it, tomorrow is a big day for non-candidate anti-bush political activism. The America Votes coalition (the old-school org which is coordinating all the independent action on the left) is doing a day of visibility. Wear a t-shirt, a button, or hit up a rally. There's no time like the present to start getting active.

Via the Agonist, which is once again a many-times daily read for me:

Editor-in-chief of U.S.-funded Iraqi newspaper quits, complaining of American control

On a front-page editorial of the Al-Sabah newspaper, editor-in-chief Ismail Zayer said he and his staff were ''celebrating the end of a nightmare we have suffered from for months ... We want independence. They (the Americans) refuse.''

Al-Sabah was set up by U.S. officials with funding from the Pentagon soon after the fall of Saddam Hussein last year. Since its first issue in July, many Iraqis have considered it the mouthpiece of the U.S.-led coalition, along with the U.S.-funded television station Al-Iraqiya.

This is big news. I watched Citizen Kane for the first time last night -- Orson! Oh man; fuck Hollywood for breaking that artist -- and so the permutations are coming hard and fast. The main takeaway, though, is that the Editor (and apparently most of the senior staff) of our own Pentagon-funded "friendly" paper walked off the job after publishing a scathing front-page attack on the very existence of the US occupation. This is not a good sign for the occupation, but maybe it will wake some heads up in DC that (guess what?) a growing majority of Iraqi people don't want us over there anymore.

By the by, if you find yourself inexplicably hungry to know what is actually going on around the world (and you can stomache the bad news, because while there is love and joy all over I'm sure, it doesn't often make news) then the Agonist should be on your short list of places to visit. I got hooked during the war, and now that the war seems to be back, so am it.

Congressional Republicans are edging closer and closer to a "declare victory and leave" strategy in Iraq, as the newly pronounced (and apparently pretty popular) resistence to US occupation is not simply dissolving and wafting away. Republican Senator Chuck Hagel on Wolf Blitzer's CNN Sock Puppet Parade:

BLITZER: Senator Hagel, a lot of people in Fallujah -- this is a city of about 200,000, maybe 300,000 people -- see this as a victory for the so-called insurgents, this Marine pullback, sending this kind of message. What does it say to you?

HAGEL: Well, first, we don't have many good options. In fact, we have no good options. The fact is that we need to stay focused on getting the Iraqis into a position where they can govern themselves, where they can securitize themselves, where they can lead.

That's the new drift, and it signals a potential break between the President and his Party. Congressional Republicans (as well as Governors and local pols) are feeling the heat that the war is already generating, and they're imagining what could come in this election if something catastrophic were to happen. They believe the Hype about Madrid; that Al-Qaeda swung that election rather than the (not-so) Popular Party's transparent attempt to spin the attacks there into a boost in the polls. They fear that the same might happen here, that the war might continue festering (or even get worse), or that a domestic terror incident could cause a massive swing.

So Republican office-holders as a mass are spooked, and they're betting on the war being a looser unless we can get out soon. The President is on his own mission from God though. If he's not taking war advice from his own damn father, I highly doubt he'll take it from Ed Gelespie. Thus the potential wedge.

And the Dems seem just about ready to split their hand open trying to bang on it. The talk from the DC crowd is all about "we went there to give them Democracy; the lack of planning has left us this mess." This is a disaster waiting to happen. The implicit message is "so put someone better in charge and lets make it work." We're all pro-war now. It's a bit like '64, faced with (LBJ) someone who merely wanted to "escalate" Vietnam vs. someone who was a firebrand idealogue who talked (Goldwater) openly of Nuking China... well, people went with the more sane-seeming dude.

As both parties are about to learn, the Zeitgeist is about resisting shitty governing practices, not about being afraid of terrorists or chasing someone else's dream of empire. Spain wants out of Iraq, and rightly so, but they're willing to go to bat in Afghanistan, where the terrorists are -- ahem -- still operating from. They've got the right idea.

That being said, we can't literally drop everything and go. We need a 1-year plan to transfer all possible reconstruction contracts to native Iraqi workers; to have the UN oversee a series of elections and conventions to create a new system of state. As for the troops, we should be gradually moving US troops out of offensive or high-visibility positions. We should use US force as a vigorous oversight on well-trained, well-paid Iraqi police, ensuring that patterns of violence and oppression do not re-emerge. We should give aid, we should offer support and expertise, but we should get out of the decision-making process ASAP.

The truth is, we've blown our credibility with the people of Iraq (other than the Kurds). They don't want us, and they don't believe in our ability to be a truly positive factor. They're glad Saddam's gone, but they'd rather we let them run their country now, thanks very much. We should respect that, and find the most generous and well-intentioned way to do that. We don't need Iraq to be our provence in order to move forward as a nation. It's ok. We can let it go, and we should.

Who will speak this truth and be taken seriously? Sane Republicans and people like Howard Dean.

My roommate and colleague Zack Rosen has done it again: Progressive Pipes: Juggling 33 progressive mailinglist subscriptions so you don't have to. It's rough and still coming together, but I've got the whole vision and it's exactly right on. Frankly I'm pissed I didn't come up with it first. He's got the knack, that Zacker. Pass it on.

The Kurds Love US!, the rest of Iraq is at best "meh" when it comes to the occupation. People in Baghdad, kinda pissed.

Big Media wants to hide casualties from the public, because honoring the fallen is really a tactic to undermine the war effort. Yeah.

Dick and Bush are meeting the 9-11 commission today, sans oaths or tape-recorders. No record, bitches. You come to our office. We play foostie, and you can't stop us.

And I'm listening to RJD2: The Horror...

The ugly american is making a stand. Corralled, embattled, seeping life and energy from a thousand paper cuts, the meaty, manic, sour faced figure roars defiance against a world gone wrong. Paranoid and sweaty, jaw nearly locked with tension, he casts about looking for allies as the sycophants who fueled his rise breathe short breaths and steadily fail to meet his gaze. Deep within the clenched, backed-up anus there is a watery quiver. It all went wrong. Someone must have sold us out. Out plan was foolproof. Bring me a head!

And slowly it dawns that placing blame on the old enemy, on liberals and queers and arabs and blacks, isn't going to relieve the tension. The piggish brain is not a stupid one; the beady eyes peering out from thick cheeks see deeply, the moist seeking nose knows the sharp scents of fear and anger and anguish and need, knows they are spiking instead of being assuaged; and so the only answer is combat.

The swine are expert manipulators, yes. In dire times powerful men have always demanded human sacrafice. No expense shall be spared in the fall offensive, at home or abroad.

Party chairmen in their masses/Just like witches at black masses

There's an arid wind blowing now and the spring promises to be short. The thaw has come but little new life has broken forth. It's already bloody, and everyone knows the real scorch is still coming. The dog days are hungry, breathing beery meat-breath all over our backs like some large, unstoppable, half-mad and wholly untrustworthy distant relative. There's a war on in foreign lands, and confusion and anger at home. It's going to be a long, long hot summer.

These months will dial the pressure steadily upward, as all around the world reserves of humanity, patience and tact are depleted. People are going to be sweating and angry and nervous and proud, gas is going to be expensive, and someone's dream is going to have to die. It's going to be ugly. Kindhearted and fragile peope will shy away. Butchery is only a pleasent show for the knowledgable.

Well before the autumn chill sets in the course is going to be clear. This isn't going to be a languid half-year upcoming. It will be brutal; a heavyweight match with little defense or strategy. Both sides are leading with their chins, publicly baiting their foes to "bring it on."

Ideologies will be broken on an anvil of sand and in the streets of New York city. The question is whose, and how, and whether or not something new will be forged in the process.

It will be a time for building. The already lonely will look more pointedly for solace and the recently arisen will join one rank or another. New armies will rise and old generals will return from retirement. Everything will happen.

Will our peoples spend this season tearing one another apart? It seems likely, and I have no real clue how it might be stopped. Only if leaders emerge from all sides, and those leaders understand one another and choose to pursue what is truly best for all people. Simple understanding. It seems sad that this is so much to hope for.

"Mr. President, do you believe the end of the world is coming?"

I'd really like to see that question asked. The answer would be interesting.

Yeah yeah yeah; a lot of things are falling by the wayside lately. Whaddya want from me? I'll get down too it soon enough, just you wait.

As it is I go back and forth. Sometimes I'm completely overwhelmed and lost; wondering where the path through all of this lies. Other times I feel like the white-hot intergalactic knight of the universe, spitting PHP, political polemic and poetic prose like it was my job or something. As someone reminded me the other day, "it's not easy, changing the world."

And in the end it won't be me that does anything. It will be you, and my friends, and a whole host of others; the aggregate emergent Truth that comes from millions of individual decisions being made in a new way, with new purpose, with dignity and piercing insight. The exquisite corpse shall drink new wine.