she loved him, cruel boor

You gotta have a certain grudging admiration for someone who can tell this story on himself without flinching.

I had a birthday dinner a couple of years ago at a fancy Japanese restaurant where my party was getting really lousy service and Jann Wenner and Yoko, right next to us, were getting great service. When they got their third course before we got our second, I lost patience and called out to the model/sometimes waitress, “What do you have to do to get served around here? Break up the Beatles!?” Really happened.

because when the two high-profile multi-millionaires at the next table are getting better service than I am, the constructive way to handle it is to insult the widow.

No, really, how cool is that? Somewhere, PJ O'Rourke is proud.

oh brave new world, that has such people in it

the Claude Rains Memorial Gambling Awareness Award goes to Ed Gillespie of the RNC, (still) a major Republican lobbyist, who has discovered to his shock and horror that rich people put money into politics.

imagine their outrage at the news that George Soros, the billionaire financier and philanthropist, will spend millions next year to defeat President Bush. Actually, no imagination is needed to hear the squealing and squawking from the right. From the commanding heights of the Republican National Committee and House hearing rooms all the way down to the lowliest Web sites, George Soros is an object of vilification.

Righteous anger about the Soros funding burns hottest among those with the least credibility. Leading the anti-Soros chorus is Ed Gillespie, the new R.N.C. chairman and former lobbyist. His clients notably included the late Enron Corporation, a firm where criminal book-cooking paid for promiscuous political palm-greasing.

According to a former Enron executive interviewed by The Washington Post, "whenever we had to get in to see a Republican, the first call was to Gillespie." While churning out press releases about the nefarious Soros, the R.N.C. chief continues to hold an ownership stake in Quinn Gillespie, the lobby shop he founded in 2000 with former Clinton White House counsel Jack Quinn that has reported fees totaling $27 million from its corporate clientele.

Now Mr. Gillespie accuses Mr. Soros of seeking to empower "special interests," and of undermining campaign-finance restrictions that the Republican Party has traditionally opposed and subverted. He frets that the Soros donations may not be "disclosed to the public."

...

The Journal editorial sniffs that Mr. Soros will give money through so-called "527" committees (a reference to the section of the I.R.S. code that regulates such groups), whose "disclosure patterns … have been full of holes and evasions." And any Democrat who defeats the President will have no choice but to answer to the Soros political "machine."

Exactly what has Mr. Soros done to provoke this reaction? He has given $3 million to a new liberal Washington think tank, the Center for American Progress. And yes, he has publicly pledged $10 million to Americans Coming Together, a liberal voter-registration effort, and $5 million to MoveOn.org, an Internet-based group that is raising millions of dollars in small donations for liberal candidates and causes.

That sounds like a lot of money, except when contrasted with the enormous amounts pumped into organs of conservative propaganda every year by such truly prodigious spenders as Sun Myung Moon, Rupert Murdoch, Richard Mellon Scaife and literally dozens of other obscure but rich Republicans.

Besides, there is no evidence that Mr. Soros is seeking to influence Washington policy on behalf of his financial interests. The same can hardly be said of the "Rangers" and "Pioneers" who collect hundreds of thousands of dollars every day for the Bush campaign. The corporate leaders and K Street lobbyists who "bundle" these donations include an individual "tracking number" on every checkÑto ensure proper "credit" by the White House.

The results can be traced in nearly every important item of White House legislation. Its energy bill brimmed with billions in favors to the oil, nuclear, coal and auto industries. Its Medicare "reform" will dispense billions to the insurance, pharmaceutical, hospital and nursing-home industries.

Meanwhile, House Majority Whip Tom DeLay oversees his own array of Republican 527 committees, which funnel millions of dollars into various advertising campaigns and legislative races. He has long since mastered the "holes and evasions" of this system, and is constantly drilling new ones.

According to The New York Times, his latest is a "charity" that would suck huge, undisclosed contributions from anonymous Republican donors who desire access to Congress. Supposedly intended for the benefit of neglected children, this money’s real purpose is to pay for "late-night parties, luxury suites, and yacht cruises" at next September’s Republican convention.

Stiffen the sinews, summon up the blood

It was a good thing that Bush went to Iraq. It was a good thing that Hillary went to Afghanistan. It was a good thing that her husband went to Kosovo.

It was tacky as hell that we heard about the non-existent pecan pies made with pecans from his very own pecan trees and his quality time with the wife and twins for two days ahead of time.

Never mind. Our soldiers deserve to feel as if the White House cares about them. It's the least they deserve.

lord, what fools these mortals be

Andrew Sullivan online

We know the Bush family likes to keep secrets, to spring surprises on unsuspecting outsiders, to hold decisions close and unveil maneuvers and initiatives with some aplomb. But the visit to Baghdad was spectacular even by those standards. The president said what almost all of us feel: that those troops out there are doing enormously difficult work and they deserve immeasurable thanks. By also serving them dinner, he demonstrated something important: that even the president is essentially indebted to these men and women. He is their servant, not they his.

Andrew Sullivan in e-mail

i'm sorry but i pay for those soldiers to fight in a volunteer army. they are servants of people like me who will never fight. yes, servants of civil masters. and they will do what they are told by people who would never go to war. that's called a democracy.
andrew

if you cut us, do we not bleed?

More proof, as if we needed any, that bigotry and egregious bad taste are linked traits.