Katrina changed the subject. So the Bullshitter-in-Chief ended his monthlong vacation by two days, breaking camp at his Texas ranch to rush to Washington -- and we quote the Houston Chronicle here -- "to coordinate federal relief efforts" in the wake of the hurricane that swamped New Orleans, killed more than 100 people at last count, and devastated the lives of hundreds of thousands, possibly millions, along the Gulf Coast.

The Chronicle's headline and subhead read like a White House press release posted on a billboard, since it's nothing more than the assertion by the chief bullshitter's press secretary, who declared his boss "made the decision that he wanted to go back to D.C. and oversee the response efforts there." We don't see how anyone can believe such pompous poppycock. And frankly, we can't imagine him overseeing anything except his treadmill when he gets back to the Oval Office. Neither do others:

Oh, and let's not forget this, with thanks to Hammond Guthrie for the reminder: "Cut and paste," which appeared while we were in Dell meltdown mode. I'm especially fond of the conclusion:

When Burroughs died, JG Ballard lamented his passing by saying that he was the most important and original writer since the second world war. "Now," he mourned, "we are left with the career novelists."

Which also reminds me: Once upon a time, Brion Gysin let the mice in. That was way back in 1960. It became the title of a book published in 1973 by Something Else Press, which traced the origin of "cut-ups" as a technique applied to writing by Gysin and William Burroughs, a literary "method," if you will, that gained notoriety following the publication of Burroughs's partially cut-up "Naked Lunch."

In an editor's note to "Brion Gysin Let the Mice In," I pointed out that their first cut-ups were published in "Minutes to Go" and "The Exterminator," to which "Mice" was intended as a companion. I also noted that the title came via Gregory Corso. Gysin wrote me from Tangier:

The original text included the words "said Gregory Corso in 1960," and they consequently appeared in the cut up text, also. Gregory disassociated himself from the whole idea so thoroughly that I agreed with Bill Levy of Insect Trust Gazette that he should be edited out and, now, I rather regret it but there was Gregory's voice in there, squalling away to be let out of there, so we took the scissors to him.

"Those first cut-ups tested the potency of words. Further investigations tested the influence of other sensory input," I wrote somewhat tendentiously. "Ian Sommerville and Brion Gysin designed a dream machine on which a patent was granted in 1961. William Burroughs explored a vast subject throughout the Sixties. He formulated, described, and applied to his literary work certain discoveries about Control -- of consciousness and society -- through sound & image. Certainly, it is difficult to think of any writer of fiction who paid so much attention to theorizing the discrete psychoactive suggestiveness of words."

A final sidenote, with thanks to Arts & Letters Daily for the tip: My favorite romantic, Michel Houellebecq, is back! He's made a career all right, but not with the usual material.

Finally. A column by David Brooks worth reading -- not for what it says, but for what it doesn't say. Pointing to an essay by the counterinsurgency scholar Andrew Krepinevich, "How to Win in Iraq," which has just been published in the September/October issue of Foreign Affairs, Brooks writes:

The article is already a phenomenon among the people running this war, generating discussion in the Pentagon, the C.I.A., the American Embassy in Baghdad and the office of the vice president.

Notice there's no mention of the Bullshitter-in-Chief, not even in the rest of the column, a sure sign that the chief bullshitter is further out of the loop on his bicycle than his Crawford, Texas, vacation would indicate.

As to what the column does say -- with approval, no less -- we can only shake our heads in wonder. The strategy Krepinevich proposes is the same one "used, among other places, in Malaya by the British in the 1950's," Brooks writes. But to cite that long and sordid colonial occupation as a strategy for Iraq is sheer madness. The 12-year guerrilla war known as "the Malaya Emergency" of 1948-'60 was especially brutal on both sides.

To put down a Communist insurgency, the British resorted to atrocities, such as beheading and mutilating dead guerrillas, and terrorist tactics later copied by the Americans in Vietnam. British troops burned villages, bombed from the air, shot civilians, imposed curfews, cut off food and water supplies, and instituted "wholesale resettlement" of hundreds of thousands of people. All of this was part of the British High Commissioner's "winning hearts and minds policy."

The Emergency was declared over in 1960. Considered a major British success at the time, it looked phenomenally successful a decade later: Roughly 35,000 British troops had done in Malaya what 500,000 American troops couldn't do in Vietnam. Never mind that in 1989 the British were forced out of Malaya anyway. This is a strategy for Iraq?

At the end of his largely dull article recapitulating everything we already know about the failures of the Iraq war, Krepinevich writes: "Even if successful, this strategy will require at least a decade of commitment and hundreds of billions of dollars and will result in longer U.S. casualty rolls."

Such is the phenomenal idea that, according to Brooks, has electrified the Pentagon, the C.I.A., the American Embassy in Baghdad and the office of the vice president. Please don't tell the Bullshitter-in-Chief. He might try to sell it to the rest of us from his bicycle.

-- Tireless Staff of Thousands

Uh, Jay, what got into you? Some kind of turgid word virus? Is there any other explanation for this sentence?

Wilmerding is aimless and passive in a Oblomovian way that is, we sense, meant to be representative in terms of his chrysalis stage in life and the dictates of the genre.

The whole damned review sounds like that. And on the front page, no less. How could you let it out of the house, and how could they have let it in?

-- Tireless Staff of Thousands

After a humongous computer meltdown -- thanks to a crappy Dell Inspiron laptop -- we're limping back into service. May we draw your attention this morning to Adam Cohen's signed editorial, which asks, "Is John Roberts Too Much of a Judicial Activist?" It begins with the case of a "hapless toad" and ends with a warning about toadying to the activism of conservative Supreme Court justices "intent on using new readings of the Consitution to take away rights." They are far "more dangerous" than the liberal justices who allegedly create rights "like the right to privacy," Cohen writes.

And by the way, does this sound like anything you've heard of lately?

He lived either in the darkness of the hood, or in the white light of the cells. There was no night or day, and to make it even more weird they kept the noises going most of the time.

They were working him on the production-line principle, he explained: no sleep, relays of questions, a lot of disorientation, a lot of muscle, till the interrogation became to him a slow race between going a bit dotty, as he called it, and breaking completely.

The passage comes from John le Carré's 1974 novel "Tinker, Tailor, Soldier, Spy." It's Jim Prideaux describing his interrogation by Moscow Centre's expert goons to George Smiley.

We're partial to le Carré, above, who's getting some play these days because of the new movie based on his 2000 novel "The Constant Gardener." Not having seen the movie -- it opens Wednesday, directed by Fernando ("City of God") Meirelles -- we can't say whether it's any good. But the novel won't let you down, even though "Tinker, Tailor ...," which is key to the Smiley back story, outranks it in the le Carré canon.

-- Tireless Staff of Thousands

A revitalized version of the L.A. Free Press? Uh, Art Kunkin says so. You remember him, founding publisher-editor of the old Free Press back in the day? Kunkin, right, wants to re-connect with all these folks (scroll down) -- they're mostly famous and mostly from the '60s -- for celebrity testimonials. Sounds to us like the old counterculture redux, not revitalized, while there's a new counterculture shaping up in Crawford, Texas.

Meantime, Gig LeCarp won't be attending tomorrow's $2-million fireworks memorial for Hunter S. Thompson, where the late writer's bagged-up ashes will be shot 300 feet into the air from a red Fiberglass "fist" canon. "Not that I begrudge the good Doctor his booming sayonara," LeCarp writes in a faux memo to Jann Wenner, adding:

Whatever private anguish or defective pharmaceutical prompted him to cash in his chips, at 67 and in failing health -- well, no player can tell another when it's time to quit the table. And if his loved ones want to tamp his ashes into a howitzer and blast them across the bar at the Jerome, that's their business.

But to join the pack of media hyenas slavering at the gates...all those gizmo-saddled, gonzo-worshiping curs...swilling Wild Turkey, snorting ether, waving cigarette holders and craning their wattled necks for a glimpse of Johnny Depp [who's paying for the farewell party] ...sorry, but I'll pass. The plan to erect a giant fist clutching a peyote button is a nice touch, but it's a bit anachronistic; these days what matters is who's doing the fisting.

Feature this, Mr. Wenner: This depraved cult of press jackanapery is what took the punch out of gonzo a long time ago. Hunter was our tragic clown, but he used to be much more than that, before the bitch
Celebrity got him. We should be celebrating the seat-of-the-pants outlaw who savaged despots and wrote like Fitzgerald on liquid nitrogen, not guzzling Cristal with the rest of the press corps in Aspen -- a nest of rabid greedheads that would have been renamed Fat City if the Doctor had won the sheriff's race back in 1970.

That stuff was too good not to quote, and it's just the tip of the memo. Go read the whole thing, Art.

-- Tireless Staff of Thousands

Bob Herbert has written the lead of the week in this morning's column. The mood of it -- especially his description of the Bullshitter-in-Chief -- captures our sentiments exactly. As Herbert put it, our B-in-C has "the unsettling demeanor of a boy king ... who launched a savage war in Iraq and now spends his days happily riding his bicycle in Texas."

We've taken a vote on this, and no other lead comes close. The rest of the column -- about the air of unreality that has settled over the nation and a privileged class of hawks who send "other people's children" to fight the war -- isn't too shabby either.

--Tireless Staff of Thousands

Jim Holt's critique on the difference between the liar and the bullshitter has forced us to revise a recent policy decision. Not to put too fine a point on it, Holt quotes a "subtle and useful" distinction offered by author Laura Penny that summarizes an essential theme of Harry Frankfurt's current best seller "On Bullshit." Namely this: "The liar still cares about the truth. The bullshitter is unburdened by such concerns." Taking that distinction to heart and applying it to the current president of the United States, from here on in we will refer to him as the Bullshitter-in-Chief, not the Liar-in-Chief. We regret the error.

-- Tireless Staff of Thousands

Is the Liar-in-Chief's Supreme Court nominee a clandestine Bruce Springsteen fan? If he is, it's certain to upset plenty of right-wing conservatives. So consider this: According to The Wall Street Journal, which scrutinized more than 5,000 pages of newly released files from John Roberts's years as an associate counsel in the Reagan White House, he filed memos urging Reagan to ignore an invitation from Michael Jackson to a concert in Washington and to avoid even sending a congratulatory letter because it could offend fans of other stars. Was Roberts thinking of himself as one of those fans? The Journal quotes him as writing: "Why, for example, was no letter sent to Mr. Bruce Springsteen, whose patriotic tour recently visited the area?"

-- Tireless Staff of Thousands

From here on in we will no longer refer to the current president of the United States as Dear Leader, King George, Georgie Boy, King Georgie Boy, W., Gee Dubya, or by any other antonomasia (lovely, obscure word stolen from William Buckley's letter) except for one: the Liar-in-Chief.

It's time for our change of policy when Paul Krugman can call him an outright liar on this morning's New York Times op-ed page ("Oh, I'm sorry -- was that a rude thing to say?"), and when Frank Rich can diss him with refreshing impudence by channeling Tonto (via Lenny Bruce) on Sunday's op-ed page: "'We will stay the course [in Iraq],' he insistently tells us from his Texas ranch. What do you mean we, white man?"*

*Footnote: The Lone Ranger, in mask, and Tonto are sitting around the camp fire when the Lone Ranger remarks to Tonto that a thousand Indian warriors are bearing down on them and asks him, "What should we do?" to which Tonto replies, "What do you mean we, white man?"

-- Tireless Staff of Thousands

Postscript: G.I. Joe in Iraq is Bushed. And you may want to note that "the current president of the United States," as you call the pretender to the plutocratic-evangelistic throne, is, current-wise, AC/DC: Acting Counterfactually as a Disciple of Christ.

-- A Tireless Reader

Two years ago today, Straight Up entered the world and bawled out its arrival with a howling bid for independence. A year ago today, it was still bawling, but in a more civil tone with a complaint about Upper West Side seepage. Today, we celebrate our second birthday without a complaint in the absence of our gallivanting chief writer, except to note that Bob Herbert is more faithful than he is on the mind-numbing issue facing all of us.

-- Tireless Staff of Thousands

Someone we know calls him "Lord Dave" and suggests his blog be renamed "Anglo File." We thoroughly disagree. David E's fablog is exactly right. Have a look at his latest post: What a great item.

-- Tireless Staff of Thousands

One year ago today Leon Freilich (a k a Straight Up's Calvin Trillin) offered this high-end celebrity commentary, Cultural Dish. Now he's at it again, but from the low end:

If equal-opportunity nastiness reigned at the New York Post, the Murdoch family brouhaha would have merited the following shock-heds:

Rupe:

Tabbed in

the Back!

Lachlan:

Topless Head

On Topless Tab

"That's the Thanks

I Get" -- Rupert

Lach to Rupe:

Drop Out!

Thunder

Down Under!

Lachie:

G'Day, Sydney

-- Tireless Staff of Thousands

Parents know about the terrible twos. Later this week, when Straight Up celebrates its second anniversary, we enter that period of ass-kicking maturity called "oppositional behavior." One day we may even grow into the thrilling threes. In the meantime, join the birthday party: Have a look at our very first post about:

1) our "bid for freedom,"
2) "the mounting cost of war" in Iraq,
3) a bogus WMD claim by King Georgie Boy (a k a Gee Dubya),
4) a piece by John Cage that will take 639 years to perform,
and 5) a major news site that shills for celebrities.

-- Tireless Staff of Thousands

The dog days of summer came early this year. So I'm outta here for a while. I've got a couple of writing projects to finish, which means my time off won't be only fun and games. But I do intend to entertain myself. Besides, according to the archive, more than 850 entries have been posted since Straight Up was launched (two years ago, come Aug. 11). That's an average of more than one a day, which is a lot of blogging. It ought to explain why I need a break -- not even counting The Juice, my daily MSNBC.com blog, which preceded Straight Up. While I'm gone, a tireless staff of thousands may keep its hands in by posting "look back" items from the past two years. For instance, on Aug. 9, it might post a link to The Pharoah, The Outlaw, and The Hot Club, which ran on that date in 2004.