But in a much lighter vein, Bloomberg Business Week columnist Christopher Buckley has an excellent take this week suggesting — tongue in cheek — some additions he’s uncovered to the 565-page book’s index entries that he says the publisher, for some reason, “left behind in a secure undisclosed location.”
So in Buckley’s newly discovered “index” we find, under “B — Bremer, L. Paul, nonmention of, 1-565; C — Chalabi, Ahmed, nonmention of, 1-565; McCain, John, weird behavior of, 359; truly weird behavior of, 509.”
And then there’s: “O — Obama, Barack, announcement that as president will close Guantanamo within a year, 355; So? 520; R — Rice, Condoleezza, disastrousness of as National Security Advisor, 449; even worse disastrousness of as Secretary of State, 474-489.” And our favorite: “W — Whittington, Harry, resemblance to quail of, 250.”
Where do your interests lie?
Meanwhile, the book has driven some haters to denounce Cheney as a liar. In this town where lying is a common pastime, the epithet is considered exceptionally harsh and churlish. And in this case, off-base.
Perhaps everyone could calm down and recall that classic “Seinfeld” episode in which Jerry is worried about how he can somehow pass a lie-detector test. His friend George Costanza counsels, “Jerry, just remember: It’s not a lie if you believe it.”
And there’s that 1983 lawsuit we covered in federal court here that was brought by Citizens Against UFO Secrecy. The suit, subsequently dismissed, demanded that the Air Force turn over the photos it had taken of the little green men landing in Area 51 in Nevada. No one accused the citizens of lying, did they?
Attention, house hunters
Great news from Wisconsin this week. Former governor Tommy Thompson says he’s running for the Senate seat being vacated by Herb Kohl. Thompson, W.’s former secretary of health and human services, is pretty conservative, but he may have a tough go in the GOP primary, in which opponents are attacking him as not being conservative enough for the new Wisconsin GOP.
If he becomes the nominee — and the president’s numbers don’t improve — he will stand a good chance against the likely Democratic nominee, Rep. Tammy Baldwin.
A Thompson victory could do wonders to boost the somewhat moribund D.C. area housing market. Loop Fans may recall that Thompson, when he was last a homeowner here, supplemented his $175,000 Cabinet-secretary salary by flipping properties in Northern Virginia.
Between August 2002 and January 2004, he bought and sold at least four two-bedroom, two-bathroom townhouses, pocketing $143,000 (less any commissions). Sure, the market’s hardly as hypercharged as it was then, but Thompson, who had a valid Wisconsin real estate license at the time, may be just what we need to spark some life into it.
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