Morning Roundup

Get your blood flowing with:
Salon's 34 Bush Scandals (courtesy of BartCop)

From The Departments of Day Late and Dollar Short:
Ohio Dumps Touch-Screen Voting Machines
And why not? Their work is done.

Exiting Deputy Secretary of State Richard Armitage was being unusually candid during an ass-kissing session conducted by Greg Sheridan of The Australian:

Armitage's disappointments? Not a lugubrious person, Armitage doesn't nominate disappointments spontaneously. But he'll answer a question honestly: "I'm disappointed that Iraq hasn't turned out better. And that we weren't able to move forward more meaningfully in the Middle East peace process."

Then, after a minute's pause, he adds a third regret: "The biggest regret is that we didn't stop 9/11. And then in the wake of 9/11, instead of redoubling what is our traditional export of hope and optimism we exported our fear and our anger. And presented a very intense and angry face to the world. I regret that a lot."

Earlier in our discussion Armitage had refused to claim any political dividend out of the generous US response to the Asian tsunami, saying it was a question of responding to a human tragedy and the US would have responded the same wherever the tragedy occurred, and that to talk about it in political terms cheapens the effort.

Those Bush cats sure enjoy being "straight shooters" once they've packed up the office. Their stinking legacies, left to rot beneath the blistering sun and blankets of swarming flies, are beyond salvation. Just ask Robert McNamara.