President Bush, his now-arrested advisor Claude Allen and further evidence of follies

dude having a serious personal problem = lame excuse for partisan glee, Ned.

"When I heard the story last night, I was shocked, and my first reaction was one of disappointment, deep disappointment - if it's true - that we were not fully informed," Mr Bush said on Saturday.

"Shortly thereafter, I felt really sad for the Allen family."

You can almost see his face going from angry to sad...

We know now that Montgomery County Police contacted the White House in January with some sort of inquiry about Allen. The issue reached the highest levels of the White House staff, and Allen discussed it with chief of staff Andrew Card and counsel Harriet Miers. He reportedly told them that it was just some sort of misunderstanding involving his credit card.

Right now, it is not clear whether the president knew about the problem at the time, but Bush said on Saturday that, "If the allegations are true, Claude Allen did not tell my chief of staff and legal counsel the truth, and that's deeply disappointing."

Of course it is reasonable to believe that Allen, if the charges against him are true, might well have lied about it to his employers. But White House officials surely must have put two and two together when, a few weeks after the call from Montgomery County Police, Allen suddenly resigned. So why, then, did the White House claim so confidently that Allen simply wanted to spend more time with his family?

The answer to the rhetorical question is obvious enough; question is if the intended audience gets the meaning of it.

(Sorry if I'm not being kinder to the fellow kleptomaniacs of the world, but I had one as a roommate in college... and kleptomaniacs are not necessarily always people to be pitied.. sorry.)

If Focus on the Family and other RRW groups didn't harp so much on the moral iniquity of others and their own righteous upstandingness against the forces of relativistic depravity, then the grounds for such glee would be considerably undercut, you know.

What this means, I guess: the right repulses me, but the left disappoints me, and while I can get over revulsion - it's just a sensation - disappointment's a lasting ache.

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*I should rather say "revels in thinking of itself as" here

Actually I'd probably be even *more* scathing in that case.

I dunno, actual kelptomania is pretty rare. DSM-IV says only 5% of shoplifters actally have kleptomania...it's a complusive thing where the stealing's just to relieve pressure rather than for actual gain or need of the objects. This guy definitely had a specific scheme, at only two stores, stealing objects he'd already bought to get refunds. That just sounds like a really lame way to get extra money, not a specific compulsive behavior. If you're dumb enough to use your credit card for this kind of a scheme, you've earned your own arrest soon enough.

(PLEASE SAY IT WAS NRO PLEASE SAY IT WAS NRO)

maybe this isn't so strange, it would explain the in-store videotape and also Claude's "I know nooootheeng" aka the Sgt Schultz defense.

sad. and not worth dwelling on if only because the Bush admin will provide us with something better to slam, probably in a few hours.

-dukester
-safavian
-scooter libby
-bob ney?
-tom delay
-abramoff
-and whomever Patrick Fitzgerald is going after