He can pick his friends, he can pick his nose, but can he find a friend to pick his nose?

So, 58% of New Jerseyans wouldn't even want to have a cup of coffee with George W. Bush. Go figure.

New York Mayor Mike Bloomberg and ex-President Bill Clinton came out on top as folks we'd most like to meet. No surprise, both personable intellectuals.

That was an unrelated question in a Zogby poll commissioned by Garden State Equality that found 63% of us support gay marriage. That would surprise only people who listen to the right-wing noise machine.

Over the buttoned-down top

This is George W. Bush on vacation. ----->


And this is George W. Bush during his leisure time while on a recent business trip.

He thinks he can dress as he wants when he travels to our home turfs, but when we visit our White House, where he resides temporarily, we now must dress by his dress code -- no jeans, no sneakers, no T-shirts and no flip-flops. After all, if he is expected to dress up on duty there, we all should have to. That's the childish behavior we've come to expect of Bush.

But, that means we should behave as he and his family do when we're there, right?

Decorum in this White House. Absolutely.

Government "of the people"?

The latest poll from Princeton-based Gallup and USA Today found two-thirds of Americans wanted George W. Bush to mind his own business in I. "Scooter" Libby's punishment for obstructing justice and perjury in the coverup of the White House leak of a highly classified undercover CIA spy. Then again, was it exactly Bush's business to help Libby hide from the public which of his bosses -- Dick Cheney or Bush -- ultimately ordered this traitorous crime?

20% presidents

Only three presidents reached as low as the 20s in favorability polls: Richard Nixon sunk the lowest, but he got out before he had the sustained numbers of these two:

Harry S Truman: "The buck stops here."

George W. Bush: "I'm the decider."

The American public grew to despise both who believed in the imperial presidency, one of whom saw it as responsibility and the other, as arbitrary and capricious power.

Watch the watch

Albanians may love George W. Bush, but they still lifted his watch while he basked in the rare lovelight this week. And the shameless lying White House press spokesman Tony Snow lied about that, too, saying Bush took it off it. But watch this:

Again with "these people"

Curious. A scant 700 showed up yesterday for George W. Bush's visit to Edison raising, supposedly, $650,00 for New Jersey's GOP. At $300 a plate and $5,000 for grip-and-grins with Mr. 28% (25% in New Jersey), he must have grinned for a lot of pictures. More likely, a couple of sugar daddies -- oil, pharma? -- pumped some fiscal amphetamines into the coffers.

Pushing his only-leg-to-stand-on terrorism button, Bush doesn't give up his "these people" talk, a bigotry Rick Perlstein called out in an editorial. Bush said:

"These people are brutal. They have no conscience," Bush said. "The only way to deal with these people is to stay on the offensive — fight them overseas so we don't have to fight them here."

"You can't ration (ration?) with them. You can't compromise with them. You can't even hope for the best with them," Bush said. "You must treat them as they are — cold-blooded killers, and bring them to justice."

Who are "these people?" He sends our troops to kill Iraqis, none of whom killed or threatened to kill anyone on our shores. Osama bin Laden, the Saudi mastermind of 9/11 operating from Afghanistan, is said to be in Pakistan now. Of Osama, Bush in March 13, 2002, said, "I don't know where he is. You know, I just don't spend that much time on him. I truly am not that concerned about him." Osama isn't one of the "they," apparently. I wonder why not.

And we can't "ration" with them? This is what happens when oil-rich daddies buy their kids a college degree.

In further lack of "ration," Bush attacks, "(The Democrats)... think they can spend your money better than you can." Then he talks about just signing a bill he wanted to spend $30 billion of our money on AIDS/HIV treatment and prevention in Africa. It looks like he's spending our money, better than we can. Is he saying he's a Democrat, then?

The RNC chased out the TV trucks, so we can't tell who showed up. As they say, there are none so blind as he who will not see.

What goes around comes around

I call it good aim:

ABC's Ann Compton reports: An outdoor news conference in perfect spring weather, with birds chirping loudly in the magnolia trees, is not without its hazards.

As President Bush took a question Thursday in the White House Rose Garden about scandals involving his Attorney General, he remarked, "I've got confidence in Al Gonzales doin' the job."

Simultaneously, a sparrow flew overhead and left a splash on the President's sleeve, which Bush tried several times to wipe off.

That's one smart bird! Bush also was boasting about winning all his new war funding, no strings attached, and said yesterday it would be a bloody summer for our soldiers (hear: hee, hee, hee, I'm the commander guy). The sadist seems to thirst for that blood.

Listening to him makes my skin crawl, so I'm not going to post the video. But what fool wipes bird poop off his left arm with his right hand and then grabs the presidential podium, aka Bush's bully pulpit? Where's his sidekick with a wipe?

Extra-credit reading:

... (T)he Sermon on the Mount, in the Book of Matthew, ... says if you want to know God's design when it comes to the question of empires, study the sparrows.

Then, lo and behold, a sparrow empties our bowels upon our emperor.