What's all this fuss I keep hearing about the deaf penalty?

First of all, I would like to say that I think the WH reporters showed some balls during the press conference today. There was some actual holding of feet to the fire. That is, until they all dissolved into laughter over some remark the president made about not being able to remember whose turn it was. (I swear, if you ever really want to understand why W continues to hold the press in his sway, watch a great documentary called Journeys with George.)

Before W cracked them up, however, there came these two exchanges about a National Intelligence Estimate on Iran that came to light this week. For those of you who remember the early days of Saturday Night Live, the NIE can best be compared to an old Gilda Radner’s character called Emily Litella, an elderly, hard-of-hearing lady who always got herself worked into a huge lather about some statement she misheard, like “violins on television,” and then, once corrected, would primly look into the camera and say “Never mind.”

BushCo’s imminent nuclear threat from Iran? Never mind.

From today’s transcript:

Q Mr. President, thank you. I'd like to follow on that. When you talked about Iraq, you and others in the administration talked about a mushroom cloud; then there were no WMD in Iraq. When it came to Iran, you said in October, on October 17th, you warned about the prospect of World War III, when months before you made that statement, this intelligence about them suspending their weapons program back in '03 had already come to light to this administration. So can't you be accused of hyping this threat? And don't you worry that that undermines U.S. credibility?

THE PRESIDENT: David, I don't want to contradict an august reporter such as yourself, but I was made aware of the NIE last week. In August, I think it was Mike McConnell came in and said, we have some new information. He didn't tell me what the information was; he did tell me it was going to take a while to analyze. Why would you take time to analyze new information? One, you want to make sure it's not disinformation. You want to make sure the piece of intelligence you have is real. And secondly, they want to make sure they understand the intelligence they gathered: If they think it's real, then what does it mean? And it wasn't until last week that I was briefed on the NIE that is now public.

Several questions later:

Q Mr. President, thank you. Just to follow, I understand what you're saying about when you were informed about the NIE. Are you saying at no point while the rhetoric was escalating, as "World War III" was making it into conversation, at no point nobody from your intelligence team or your administration was saying, maybe you want to back it down a little bit?

THE PRESIDENT: No, nobody ever told me that. Having said -- having laid that out, I still feel strongly that Iran is a danger. Nothing has changed in this NIE that says, okay, why don't we just stop worrying about it. Quite the contrary. I think the NIE makes it clear that Iran needs to be taken seriously as a threat to peace. My opinion hasn't changed.

Aw, geez, where does one start?

First of all, he calls a press conference to tell us about an NIE that he says is news but then says it’s had no effect on him. And he doesn’t think he is undermining his credibility, even when he admits that for four months he knew there was new intelligence on a subject that he was speaking about to the nation every day, but he didn’t ask what the new intelligence was? And Iran is just as big a threat now as they were, even though they’ve stopped doing what it was he had the problem with?

W is like that guy at your job, you know, the one that always has about a million reasons why he didn’t get done what he was supposed to, and none of the reasons really make any sense, but they’re all so contradictory and interwoven and illogical that it’s just too damn hard to try to straighten them all out?

And so you just sit there in the meeting, listening to him weave his web of bullshit, and you think “When the fuck are they going to wise up and fire this clown?”

Well, the answer is, they never will. Clown retires with full benefits 1/20/09.