Karl Rove Fired (The Woodshed Isn't Working)?

Click to enlarge -- Karl V. Rove and President George W. Bush Bantered
With Reporters During Happier Times

The White House Bulletin--a subscription newsletter--says that Bush's Brain, a/k/a Karl V. Rove, is on his way out the door. I don't subscribe, so I am taking Think Progress's word for this. You think the Yellow and Blue Dog Democrats are after his scalp? Just look at the Republicans!

-Trent Lott is now back in the GOP Senate leadership with a serious axe to grind. Rove was behind the scenes agitating against Lott as he fought to save his majority leader's post following his foolish remarks about Sen. Strom Thurmond.

- Harriet Miers, trusted Bush aide and failed Supreme Court nominee doesn't much cotton to Rove either. She believes Rove sat on his hands while her nomination languished. Rove's top aide Susan Ralston was recently fired over ethics questions. Many believe this was at Miers behest, and was a signal that Rove should leave as well.

- Republicans on Capitol Hill say that anger runs deep over President Bush's decision to announce the ouster of Defense Secretary Donald H. Rumsfeld one day after the election instead of weeks before, when it might have actually made a difference. Rove was among those who had argued that to announce Mr. Rumsfeld's resignation before Election Day was admitting failure in Iraq.

- Bush cannot possibly achieve bilateral cooperation between the Dems and GOP (and his hoped for redemption and "legacy) with a wild-eyed partisan like Rove in the wings. Just as this election pushes the Dems toward a Blue Dog position, it also drags the GOP (kicking and screaming) toward the middle. McCain may soon begin taking shots at Bush on just about everything. Even the war. After all McCain wants/wanted to go in with even more troops.

- According to today's New York Times, "many Republicans say they blame Mr. Rove for failing to heed warnings that the war was hurting their campaigns, as the president and the vice president continued making the case for it on the stump."



- "Karl's role has not been to serve as a bridge over troubled waters; he has tried to stir the waters as often as possible," Senator Richard J. Durbin, the Illinois Democrat, and new Majority Whip, told the New York Times.



One Rove insider quoted in the White House Bulletin, is of course, quite correct: Karl's been through plenty of tough times and survived. That S.O.B. has slipped the noose so many times now, it's difficult to actually envision him leaving. In some ways, I guess, it doesn't matter. He has already done about all the damage he can do to The Administration. . .and even the country.

I believe the rumor. All we're waiting for now is for a politically decent interval, or "period of mourning" to pass between the firing of Rummy and the firing of Rove. And if things get really interesting. . .the firing of Cheney.
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Jerry Seinfeld Called Them The Close Talkers, Or, The Study Of Proxemics

click Lyndon Johnson close talking to Supreme Court
Justice Abe Fortas to enlarge


Jerry Seinfeld called them “close talkers;” people who just get too close when they speak with you. Or in line somewhere, the guy behind you is way closer than he really needs to be. I had a neighbor in Seattle once who was always seven inches from your face when she talked to you. When someone is this close, you inherently want to pull back, but you can't. In the normal course of things, when someone is this close to me, it's for a kiss.

Earlier this year I mentioned the bathroom rules of engagement for guys and the discomfort you feel when someone takes the urinal stall next to yours--when every other one is available. Is this guy just clueless, or is he a pecker checker, or just looking for some hot man on man bathroom action? It may not be personal space, but I encounter this same space violation while commuting too--the car that insists on driving right next to you when there is plenty of other space, or the tailgater who follows you too closely to either speed you up or to force you to pull over and let them pass. I constantly have find my aural space invaded by the dolts with bluetooth headsets, gabbing merrily away on their cell phones. Being forced to listen to some of these conversations is tantamount to assrape. At the gas station (I almost wrote the 50's equivalent "filling station") the other day, we were all treated to a guy breaking up with his longtime girlfriend via his bluetooth headset. Listening to his litany of complaints, it was tempting to ask him to put it on speaker phone so we could hear her side of the story too!

The New York Times had an article this week, "In Certain Circles, Two Is A Crowd," that focuses on the study of proxemics. "Communications scholars began studying personal space and people’s perception of it decades ago, in a field known as proxemics. But with the population in the United States climbing above 300 million, urban corridors becoming denser and people with wealth searching for new ways to separate themselves from the masses, interest in the issue of personal space — that invisible force field around your body — is intensifying. "

Some interesting facts:

1) Proxemics scientists studying the videogame Second Life found new evidence of their theories. The rules of proxemics are so ingrained that people even impose those rules on their cyber sprite selves while playing games.


Hiroko Masuike for The New York Times - click to enlarge

2) People tend to retreat to corners to distance themselves from strangers. You are not actually distancing yourself, but establishing your personal bubble. People tend to sit apart at an equidistance (see the photo above of three women in Union Square, NYC). They will separate themselves like birds on a telephone wire (see drawing). Think of a table in a public space. The first person will seat themselves at a corner. The next person will sit at the opposite corner (farthest from the first person). The next people seat themselves as far as possible from the first two. Each succeeding person deals with a diminshed space, but attempts to maximize their distance by distributing the remaining space.

3) Personal space is not confined to that invisible bubble around you. . . smells, sounds and stares from outside the bubble can also invade your space. The knucklehead yelling into his bluetooth headset on the train, your cubicle mate spraying Axe on himself, the guy across the way staring at you every time whenever you look up, or the guy dining on lutefisk. . .all of them are guilty!

4) In cities, which are much more crowded, people tend to adapt, and compromise, but they still attempt to follow the rules ox proxemics whenever possible. They may compromise, buy they always revert to The Old Ways when space permits.



5) While we all strive for space, it's almost unconscious. Proxemics scholars can even draw a map of that table I mentioned, and predict the order in which the seats will fill up, or which urinal stalls will be filled, and in what order...

6) “to overcome the intimacy, you have to make sure you don’t make eye contact.” said Dane Archer, a professor of sociology at the University of California, Santa Cruz. From my five years riding the subways in New York City, I know this is true. I often wore shades on the train. I would also have my head in a book. Keelin and other women I knew would wear "repellent" hats and bulky coats. People hold 'papers in front of them to read and also to shield themselves from the madding crowd by increasing their bubble.

“Animals tend to have an aversion to being touched by a strange critter,” said David B. Givens, the director of the Center for Nonverbal Studies in Spokane, Wash. (What a great name! Their mission could be to study everything that doesn't involve talking). I had a friend, Chipper Stone, who spent every Friday "being nonverbal." My wife and favorite sister in law do this once a year--three days of nonverbal living at Breitenbush! I would be expelled, being constitutionally incapable of achieving the state of being nonverbal, and even more, of not hearing the rhythm and music of voices for three whole days!

Some proxemics scholars believe that the iPod "craze" turns city streets and commuter trains into islands of individuality. " The article also talks about how it is easier to be close in low light (another form of the iPod's sensory deprivation). Givens gives the example of a bar in dim light. If the lights were suddenly switched on, people would race to move away from each other...
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Poem:With Or Without The Words

1
If I don't write it down
It's gone like a pickpocket
Easing back into the crowd

2
If I don’t write it down
The world will carry on
Merrily on its own

Unaware of the loss
The world spins revolves and rotates
With or without the words

3
If I don’t write it down
The words race away
Like a hit and run driver

Leaving the scene
Of the crime
As if distance

Cures the unthinkable
If I can't see it
It never happened.

4
The words themselves are
Disassociated and fragmented
Until I gather them

And range and rearrange
The words or new words they suggest
Syllabify and counterbalance

Tinker with rhythms
Remove unnecessary verbiage
And lop off limbs

To save the patient
In a particular place
or an unknown span of time.
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All This Is That Turns Two Years Old Today. . .

. . .and to celebrate, here are some of our banners and posters from the last couple of years. . . /jb



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President Bush: The Election Was A Mandate To Win This War!

According to The Guardian, President George Bush recently told his most trusted aides and advisers that the US and its "coalition" must make one last "big push" to win the war in Iraq. The President's increasingly tenuous hold on reality appears to be at the breaking point.

Instead of commencing troop withdrawals, The President is, in fact, strongly considering adding 20,000 more soldiers to the forces on the ground n Iraq.

President Bush intends to buck the public and congressional backlash against the war. The citizens have voted for change in our policy, and Bush intends to do just that, by cranking up the war effort. It appears that the major drubbing of the Republican Party was the catalyst for the President's new direction. Rather than stand down, and begin withdrawing troops, the Administration believes it needs to get serious about winning this war.

Sources say that The President's intransigence is coloring the work of the Hamilton-Baker commission studying our current war policy.

The commission is still working, and its recommendations are expected to be built around a "victory strategy" architected by Pentagon officials. The panel appears to have been significantly influenced by The Administrations No. 1 hawk, Vice-President Cheney.

Neither The President, nor his top aides would return calls from All This Is That confirming this article. They only appear to be talking with "friendly press."
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Painting: Adam and Eve

Click to enlarge
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Poem: Going Mad Might Be Like A Bad Eight Track Tape Deck

You're not sure hear it:
Faint overtones in the music
Like the static in a skipping signal

From a distant 50,000 watt radio station.
It's subtle at first,
Like music from another room.

Soon it becomes more than an echo.
You hear two songs at once
Like when the azimuth of an 8-track head

Becomes misadjusted
And the audio of adjacent tracks
Bleeds into the current song.

Hearing voices must be like that.
You brush it aside
At first, doubting your own ears.

When it emerges with authority
You no longer know
Which voice is real

And which voice is a doppleganger.
Soon the bleedthrough
Takes precedence

And you no longer differentiate
Between your Jiminy Cricket voice
And the one ordering you

To leave your house
And dice up the first luckless person
To cross your path.
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Poem: Fall Haiku

Fall Haiku

Ask the blowing wind
Which leaf on the locust tree
Will be next to go.
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Painting: Four Takes On The Soon To Be Retiring Secretary of Defense

. . .click the painting to enlarge. . .
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Poem: Changes 19/The Approach

click the painting to enlarge

There will be misfortune
When the eighth month comes.
The earth wobbles on its pivot

And dangles above the lake.
Will she sink
Or will she float?

The leader never falters
On the approach.
Tolerance and protection

Joins the goodness of the people
And everything furthers.
Blame is shucked aside

And the greathearted approach
Is complete.
Good fortune. No blame.

We must be in heaven
Because the ducks on earth
Don't sing like this.
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Alien Lore 91 - Why Do The Greys (and others) Visit Earth?

The Invasion Theory - Early in the UFO years (say after the Arnold/Mr. Rainier sighting in 1947), abductees and contactees claimed the aliens were setting the stage for a massive invasion. It's an attractive theory and one that has been popularized in films, stories, and radio plays (War of the Worlds, Mars Attacks, Starship Troopers, et al). The invasion theory has one fundamental flaw: a civilization that navigates space, and even time, could easily overrun a planet that first took to the skies 103 years ago at Kitty Hawk. If the invasion theory is correct, well, then, it's likely the invasion is already over. Supporters of the invasion theory have begun using the Genetic theory to explain why have not yet been invaded. The aliens, they say, cannot exist here without genetic modification, which has lead to the abductions, mutilations and breeding/hybrid experiments.

The Greys Are Just Intergalactic Sightseers - The aliens arrive here for the same reasons we visit the Galapagos Island, Mexico, or Antartica, climb K2 or Broad Peak, or walk on the moon. The visitors are curious; they find the animals, and plants and, most of all, the antics of the homo sapiens interesting. We are a roadside attraction on the great stellar highway.

Judging from the variety of spaceships reportedly seen by observers, the visitors may hail from several other planets, or from various "countries" on one planet. Perhaps they told each other via some great galactic internet about the bizarre goings on on Earth.

The Greys Visit Because We Have Something They Desperately Need - This theory attempts to account for the reported abductions, cattle mutilations, genital inspections, implants, alleged inseminations, crop circles, and other unexplained, or unexplainable, phenomena. The crop circles could just be interstellar graffiti. The theory on the UFO community is that we're being visited by several races--some benign, some malignant--and they all have an agenda.

Some people posit that the aliens are here to mine organic material in short supply on their planet. The cattle mutilitations are often attributed to the greys lacking some essential fluid or nutrient--and they are forced to sweep the galaxy looking for new supplies.

Another popular theory has the Earth may containing minerals absent from the alien planet. This is partly the basis for the claims of vast underground colonies of aliens (such as the Dulce base). There have also been reports of UFOs and aliens taking samples and cores of our flora and fauna (up to and including ourselves!).

Some UFOlogists have pointed out that extensive mining operations would be easily noticed--for example, if the Aliens were carting away many tons of bauxite omagnesiumum. . .we might notice eventually. Other researchers point out that they may need only small samples to clone or duplicate in their obviously far advanced laboratories.

The Day The Earth Stood Still Theory - One theme that comes back again and again (both from observation, and from tales of abductees) is that the visitors are here to help us mend our evil ways. We may just be an outpost of a civilization that seeded us millenniums ago. They come back to check up on their colony. Remember Klaatu from The Day The Earth Stood Still? He came to warn us of the consequences of our bellicose society. Some abductees claim to have seen images--mental film loops--of the Earth's annihilation through neglect and war. "Contactees" of the 1950's claim to have been shown similar mental 'films' about the consequences of neglecting peace and the earth itself.

One researcher points out that these claims surfaced shortly after the first atomic bombs had been detonated in the 1940s. And many of the most famous sightings have occurred near nuclear installations, (Roswell was the world's first nuclear bomber Air Force Base).

Alien Sex/Genetic Manipulation? - Abduction victims claim that they were subjected to strange experiments including the removal of semen from men and eggs from women. Some women claim that they have been impregnated only to have the fetus removed shortly after conception. Why? One popular theory says that an alien civilization needs to crossbreed with humans to forge a new, stronger of hybrid aliens. Numerous abductees speak of seeing 'human-like' children on board alien craft.

Another theory claims the aliens are cross-breeding in order to live on earth. Their native bodies could not survive on earth due to atmosphere differences and our diseases. . .without some adaptive genetics. (see above, "the invasion theory").
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President Hugo Chávez: Hang President Bush First

In a speech Tuesday, Venezuela's President Chávez declared that ''If sentencing is to be done,'' Chávez said, "the first one to be given the most severe sentence this planet has to offer should be the president of the United States, if we're talking about genocidal presidents.'' Read the full article on the Miami Herald's web site.
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Poem: [If I don't write it down. . .]

If I don't write it down
It's gone,
Like a hit and run driver
Or a pickpocket in the crowd
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The Donkey Takes Her Victory Lap

Click the painting to enlarge

The Last Rumsfeld Poem: A Broken Bone.

A Broken Bone [1]

If you don't set it,
Everything grows around the break
And you end up with that abnormality.

I used the phrase it's like teaching
A youngster how to ride a bicycle.
You run behind them with your hand in the seat.

At some point you've got to take some fingers off,
And then you've got to let go,
And they might fall.

You help pick them up and put them back on it.
But if you don't take your hand off,
You end up with a 40-year-old who can't ride a bike.


Click on Rummy and President Ford to enlarge


[1] This poem is extracted from interviews with Bob Woodward in July, 2006.
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The weeping of the G.O.P.

Fox News Photo

Image by ?? - Click to enlarge


The Santorums, Tuesday night
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The Jackass Roars::::::::::The Long Winter Begins For The G.O.P.

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Donald Rumself Is Fired, Or, Quit

Those Glass Boxes

You know, it's the old glass box at the—
At the gas station,
Where you're using those little things
Trying to pick up the prize,

And you can't find it.
It's—
And it's all these arms are going down in there,
And so you keep dropping it

And picking it up again and moving it,
But—
Some of you are probably too young to remember those—
Those glass boxes,

But—
But they used to have them
At all the gas stations
When I was a kid.



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Today's the day: Vote to throw the bums out!

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40 years in the wilderness

Click image to enlarge

The 40 years in the wilderness refers, of course, to the many years the Republicans spent in the poltical outhouse. Heh heh. In 1954, the Dems, led by the great Sam Rayburn (a mentor of LBJ) retook the House after control had seesawed back and forth for 10 years. Rayburn was so sure that the Republicans would take back the House in the Eisenhower re-election year of 1956, that when he became Speaker after the 1954 election, he didn't even bother to move his furniture back to the better office suite occupied by Joe Martin (the Republican Speaker).

As it turned out, the Republicans didn't re-take a majority of the House for 40 years (The Gingrich "revolution" of 1994). We've been in the minority for ten years. But it seems like 40 because the G.O.P. has done about 40 years of damage while they have been in "power."
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Alien Lore 90: UFO Sightings By Christian Evangelical Ministers

"And there shall be signs in the sun, moon, and in the stars; and upon the earth distress of nations, with perplexity; the sea and the waves roaring; men's hearts failing them from fear, and for looking after those things coming on the earth; for the powers of heaven shall be shaken."

Luke 21: 26-27

Pastor Christopher Ward: "I saw a UFO April 1st, 1997 just 5 days after the Heaven's Gate mass suicide, out front of my home in Leesburg, Florida. It was absolutely silent, about a football field in length, 1/5 as wide, black with red lighting. It was shaped like a elongated triangle. It was traveling very fast east to west about 500 feet overhead. It disappeared in about 10 to 15 seconds. I was with Rev. Ed Buehler and his wife Carol and my wife Rita. We watched as the Airforce scrambled to intercept." If you click here, you can hear Reverend Ward discussing UFOs and their agenda.

Monsignor Corrado Balducci (Vatican Curia): "Extraterrestrials are not demonic, they are not due to psychological impairment, they are not a case of entity attachment, but these encounters deserve to be studied carefully...By now, at this point, there are several considerations made with certainty that these beings do exist. It cannot be doubted. It can also be said...that this phenomena does exist."

Click here to read an article on Balducci's beliefs, Vatican Official Declares Extraterrestrial Contact Is Real.




Paul Crouch Sr. (C.E.O. Trinity Broadcasting Network): "Could I pose a guess and just say our benevolent government in an effort to just try and keep us all from getting scarred to death kinda likes to pooh pooh the whole thing and kinda keep it a kind of ethereal thing, nonexistent fascination..."

Chuck Missler (The Missler Report): "What we do know is that they are real; they show up on radar (multiple radar simultaneously), they are seen by competent witnesses, thirteen astronauts--not only have they seen them but some report that they have never been on a mission without seeing them."

Bob Larsen

Bob Larsen (author of Larson's New Book of Cults, Larson's Book of Spiritual Warfare, and UFOs and the Alien Agenda): "It was a sticky summer evening. The buzz of heat bugs drowned out all other sounds. I stood on the front porch, watching swarms of fireflies in their dazzling display of pyrotechnics. Then it (UFO) appeared, just across the road and a section's distance of farmland away. It drifted across the eastern horizon, just above the Kotchswars' barn."

"The dim light of dusk prevented me from making a positive identification, but my childhood imagination filled in the blanks. 'They' were up there in that thing (UFO), peering down on me! I was sure their telescopes were studying my every move. I cautiously stepped off the porch into the front yard for a closer look. Dodging a cloud of gnats, I crept across the lawn. Slowly I moved in the direction of the object (UFO). It did not seem to be going anywhere in particular, and I could not see the lights that people identified with such spaceships. Gradually the object dimmed from view and melted into the darkening sky."

Hal Lindsey

Hal Lindsay: "I mentioned this (visitation of the heavenly hosts in Genesis 6:4) in The Late Great Planet Earth."

Jeff Fenholt

Jeff Fenholt Describing his UFO encounter: "It was...just a big object that went over the top of us. The newspapers said the next day that police cars chased it."

The UFOs and The Church Web Site says:

"It is important that the Body of Christ take an aggressive and Biblical position concerning UFOs and extraterrestrial life.

"We believe that UFOs and their hosts are the "Wicked Hosts in High Places" of Ephesians 6:12.

"We are warned several places in the Bible not to worship the heavenly hosts. It is also said that Yahweh/Jehovah is the Lord of Hosts (Saboath).

"Therefore, they are created beings.

"We reject evolution and extraterrestrial life form theories.

"We do not believe they qualify as demons because they are not earthbound and they do not seek embodiment. They also do not attempt to attach themselves as in demonic possession. Although, demons may be their slaves.

"We believe they are capable of incredible technological demonstrations. UFOs and alien life forms would be within their genetic engineering capability. Jesus warns us of deception that could fool even the 'elect.' Paul warns the Thessalonians of 'lying wonders.'

"They have managed for fifty years to avoid any disclosure of their hidden agenda. They fly in military formation and have on occasion destroyed government aircraft and equipment.

"As an exorcist of many years, I have listened to hundreds of UFO abductee stories. I have listened to their reports of fear, terror, probing, implants, abduction (kidnapping), sexual assault, fetal development, brutal physical assault and mayhem.

"It is my opinion that, within this so called group of UFOs, there are hostile and dangerous elements that have a hidden spiritual/political/scientific agenda."

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"I am a deceiver and a liar." -- Rev. Ted Haggard

"Wildman" Ted Haggard on whom we've reported twice in recent days:

President Bush Silent On Recent Ted Haggard Revelations

Rev. Haggard hauls out the old reliable "just the tip" and "I didn't inhale" defense )

has been fired by the 14,000 member church he founded. On Friday he stepped down from his leadership of the National Association of Evangelicals, and "temporarily" resigned from the New Life Church. He would be reinstated, he said, when it was proven he had not engaged in homosexual relations with a prostitute. An independent board of the church, however, found that "Our investigation and Pastor Haggard's public statements have proven without a doubt that he has committed sexually immoral conduct."

"The fact is I am guilty of sexual immorality. And I take responsibility for the entire problem. I am a deceiver and a liar."

The Republicans have once again been put in a tight spot by penis-loving members who invite scrutiny by simultaneously fighting against gay rights, gay marriage, and gay adoption, while they pursue and pursue a closeted, but gay, lifestyle.

"There's a part of my life that is so repulsive and dark that I have been warring against it for all of my adult life," said Reverend Haggard.

How this affects the election is anyone's guess. We DO know that the evangelicals/Christian right are already angry with the president and the Republican-controlled Congress for their failure to deliver any real gains on social issues--even before the recent homosexual sex scandals involving Mark Foley and Rev. Haggard. The pendulum might swing mightily if the allegations surrounding President Bush and Reverend Haggard prove to be true. All This Is That, as you may recall from yesterday's article, is investigating those allegations, but has been met with a wall of silence. . .
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Will Rogers On The Democrats

Vote Dem On Tuesday -- If We Can't Put Them All In The Hoosegow, Let's At Least Send Them Back Where They Came From!

click sign to enlarge
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Torture? Dems: "We've always been against it."

Three days to go! Don't forget to go to the polls on Tuesday, November 7th. And throw the bums out!
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President Bush Silent On Recent Ted Haggard Revelations

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The President--as of Friday, at least--has not yet leapt to the defense of his old buddy, the Reverend Ted Haggard. The White House remains most circumspect on the matter.

A reporter from All This Is That called and emailed the White House numerous times on Friday, inquiring whether the Pastor and The President had also enjoyed homosexual relations. None of the messages were returned as of press time.

An Associated Press photographer present at the photo opportunity pictured above said that as they shot this photograph, The President's right hand rested on Reverend Haggard's buttocks.
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