"They have managed him the same way they managed Ronald Reagan. They send him out to the press for one event a day, they put him in a brown jacket and jeans and get him to move some hay or drive a truck, and all of a sudden he's the Marlboro Man."
- John Kerry

Watching the president backpedal furiously on Meet The Press yesterday, I was trying to think of who he reminded me of. At first I thought he reminded me of me. Because last week before a ping-pong game, I guaranteed a victory. After getting my ass kicked, I said: "I guaranteed a victory. I didn't guarantee that I would win."

But that wasn't it. Then I thought maybe Dubya reminded me of Pee-Wee Herman, who would say: "I meant to do that." But that wasn't it either. Pee-Wee would accidentally goof, and then pretended like it was what he meant to do. Bush is maintaining that his Iraq campaign was correct, even as his reasons for waging it are starting to fall apart. He'll keep throwing "Saddam needed to be removed" at us endlessly until November.

THEN I figured out who Bush reminded me of in his Sunday interview ... Nigel Tufnel from Spinal Tap:

Nigel Tufnel: The numbers all go to eleven. Look, right across the board, eleven, eleven, eleven and....
Marty DiBergi: Oh, I see. And most amps go up to ten?
Nigel Tufnel: Exactly.
Marty DiBergi: Does that mean it's louder? Is it any louder?
Nigel Tufnel: Well, it's one louder, isn't it? It's not ten. You see, most blokes, you know, will be playing at ten. You're on ten here, all the way up, all the way up, all the way up, you're on ten on your guitar. Where can you go from there? Where?
Marty DiBergi: I don't know.
Nigel Tufnel: Nowhere. Exactly. What we do is, if we need that extra push over the cliff, you know what we do?
Marty DiBergi: Put it up to eleven.
Nigel Tufnel: Eleven. Exactly. One louder.
Marty DiBergi: Why don't you just make ten louder and make ten be the top number and make that a little louder?
Nigel Tufnel: [Pause.] These go to eleven.


On a related note, the White House has announced that it will create 2.6 million jobs this year. If you are wondering how many jobs the Bush administration has created to date ... well actually it's a LOSS of 2.2 million jobs. Don't buy into their math - the administration also told us last year that its tax cuts would generate 5.5 million jobs by the end of 2004. Yeah, right. All I can say is "HOOVER!" and it's not because this administration sucks.