CATCHING UP WITH THE WHITE HOUSE NUTCASE

We didn't intend to take the week off. But it turns out that's what happened. There was no particular reason, except a touch of blog fatigue, which was regrettable because we missed posting the BBC saga about the divine inspiration that led to the invasion of Iraq.

The story of the Bullshitter-in-Chief's "mission from God" showed up first as a press release, then as reported in The Guardian with a terrific illustration, right, and finally as a tale about the BBC's failure of nerve. That the bullshitter believes he's on a mission from God, not just in Iraq but in all things, has been reported before. It's been part of his regime's theocratic compulsion from the beginning. But his claim, as attributed to him by Palestinian Foreign Minister Nabil Shaath, had the ring of a biblical maniac:

President Bush said to all of us: 'I'm driven with a mission from God. God would tell me, 'George, go and fight those terrorists in Afghanistan.' And I did, and then God would tell me, 'George, go and end the tyranny in Iraq …' And I did. And now, again, I feel God's words coming to me, 'Go get the Palestinians their state and get the Israelis their security, and get peace in the Middle East.' And by God I'm gonna do it."

The content of the message was sensational, of course. We were also struck by the goofiness of his tone, which rings true to his public utterances, and by God's familiarity with him on a first-name basis -- which is just one more confirmation that we've got a certifiable nut in the White House.

Another story we failed to note was last week's piece in The Wall Street Journal about an obscure case involving Dick Cheney during the disputed 2000 election which offers a rare glimpse into a Constitutional battle that Supreme Court nominee Harriet Miers took on. What makes the piece interesting -- given the uproar about her expertise in Constitutional law -- is that it shows she won the case by arguing for a "broad and inclusive" reading of the Constitution, "a style of legal interpretation more commonly associated with liberal-leaning judges" than conservatives. Now ain't that a kick in the head?

-- Tireless Staff of Thousands

Postscript: As long as we're catching up, here's the very latest commentary on the Miers nomination from today's New Yorker: "In the Federalist No. 76, Alexander Hamilton writes that the Senate’s role in confirming appointments is designed to make the President

both ashamed and afraid to bring forward, for the most distinguished or lucrative stations, candidates who had no other merit than that of coming from the same State to which he particularly belonged, or of being in some way or other personally allied to him, or of possessing the necessary insignificance and pliancy to render them the obsequious instruments of his pleasure.

"Hamilton was no naïf about human nature, but in the present case his formula seems to have underestimated the Presidential capacity for both shamelessness and -- well, courage isn’t quite the right word. Arrogance."

Love the Hamilton reference (which is new to us) and the reference to arrogance (which is not).