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From the wide wide world of blogging comes perhaps America’s most disturbing baby birthday picture:

Strongmen Weep

The death of the monstrous Suharto throws new light on the recently beloved Gerald Ford. Suharto presided what couldn’t possibly described as a “decent” regime, and from the massacre of a million Reds to the East Timor genocide he had the foursquare support of six Us Presidents.

Thrill once more to Ford and Kissinger signing off on the invasion of EastTimor, with the horrors that unfolded. The National Security Archives has packaged up their Suharto greatest hits, and there’s more.

They’ve included a link to an upcoming book with perhaps the coolest title ever in international relations,

Economists with Guns.

So Long, Suckers!

The State of the Union is an annual orgy of history in the making, or at least struck glancing blows. National treasure James Wolcott spun the dial to join in the fun, and his rage was stoked by the performance of Jacob Weisberg and Doris Kearns Goodwin in one post speech historama.

“I watched a large chunk of the Charlie Rose post-SOTU all-star cud-chew last night during which [Jacob] Weisberg expressed mild surprise that Bush hadn’t sounded “more conciliatory” in his final address. I was surprised that Weisberg was surprised, expressing my surprise by muttering aloud just soft enough so the cats wouldn’t hear, “Diphead, what did you expect? That he would make nice now having gotten his way through arrogance and imperious piety ever since 9/11? He makes cracking down on earmarks a show of manhood, and you think he’s going to introduce softer colors into his palette and fluffier textures as he struts out the door into History’s sunlit parlor? Have you no psychological acumen whatsoever, man?”

“…even Weisberg wasn’t nearly as annoying as fellow panelist Doris Kearns Goodwin, who has become a major irritant with her girlish enthusiasm and goody bag of presidential anecdotes that she dispenses to humanize everybody on the same glorious continuum, as if the crimes and calamities of Vietnam and Iraq were crucibles of character-building for our chief executives, the crowded backdrops to personal tragedy and greatness. (So many faraway nobodies have to die so that History can come alive.)”

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Just Do It

They’ve moved beyond anger to angry resignation at Southern Methodist University, and the SMU Daily Campus just wants their long university nightmare to end.

From their editorial “Enough is Enough“.

“It’s like we are stuck in a horrible time warp where nothing is being done but we have to keep pretending that the Bushes could pack up their books and go elsewhere.

They aren’t. No one else wants the library at this point. Or the Bushes for that matter.

For better or worse, it will be at SMU.

So just end the needless suspense. Get it over with. Build the stage, inflate the balloons, bake the cake and get the shiny shovels out of storage for another groundbreaking ceremony.

Do it and do it now before SMU becomes as big a joke as the president is.”

Man With a Plan

Not satisfied with claiming executive powers based on fanciful yet secret legal reasoning and “losing” millions of White House emails, the Bush White House has moved to bury a small advance for the public’s prying eyes.

New Freedom of Information Act legislation created an office to track FOIA requests and promote greater transparency. So Bush’s new budget would dump it in the Justice Department, which among other things defends agencies sued for denying FOIA requests.

Done and Done!