Last night's "Real Time with Bill Maher" was top-notch from top to bottom. If you have access to HBO, make an attempt to catch one of the reruns today and for the rest of the week. Howard Dean was worth the price of admission alone, but the whole show was great. Excellent panel. Good interview with Pat Buchanan. "New Rules" as sharp as ever. If I have time later, I'll try and post some of the highlights.

It's been nearly four years since Bush's invocation of "The Axis of Evil". During that time --- while we tackled (sorta) the non-threatening tinhorn dictatorship of Saddam --- the actually dangerous regimes of North Korea and Iran have been allowed to continue their atomic weapons programs virtually unabated. In regards to Iran specifically, we still have no formal policy 3 1/2 full years since they were declared part of that "Axis".

The reason for a lack of policy towards Iran seems to be explained by information emerging from the recent investigations of spying for Israeli interests at the top levels of the Defense Department and into the Vice-President's office.

It's all likely too wonky to have much of an effect on this Administration during an Election year, particularly as the damage will be controlled by skilled Republican "fixers" (see the abandoned Iran/Contra scandal for a good playbook example). And with both houses of Congress currently in GOP hands, it may be well assumed that there will be very limited policing of all these matters this year.

But it looks like the folks at the focus of the recent probes at the Pentagon may also be the same ones tied into other wonky scandals including the Valerie Plame leak investigation and the use in Bush's State of the Union address of discredited claims that Iraq was seeking uranium in Niger . It's "the whole ball of wax," as one U.S. official familiar with the case described it.

That would include folks in the offices of Douglas Feith and Donald Rumsfeld and even up into Dick Cheney's office. Folks with names like Wolfowitz, Perle, Wurmser and Rhode.

As I say, such wonkery is perhaps too much for Americans to wrap their brains around this year, especially with the predictable lack of help they'll get from the useless Mainstream Media. It's possible too, in my estimation, that confining and then dumping all of these scandals onto a single group of "bad apples" (sound familiar?) would be a convenient way to jettison all of these damaging scandals in one fell swoop should it get too hot in Bush Country between now and November.

Either way, it's worth keeping an eye on...

As I postulated previously, the Republicans have now officially thrown Zell overboard. He served his political usefulness to the party who will use anybody and, like a Reservist sent to die in Iraq, is no longer useful to the them. Sleep with the fishes, Zell.

Your Republican Party...

- Dishonoring the troops...

- Kicking the demonstrators...

- Rightwing BRAD BLOG commentor "ed", speaks of "wasting a bullet" on Ted Kennedy.

Compassionate conservatism at work. Great Americans, all.

And one last RNC "Great American of the Moment" Bonus pic!

An honest West Texan! I knew there had to be at least one out there!

Again, we hate to spoil the fiscal fantasies of the Fake Conservatives, but for all those "red" states out there who voted for Bush last time and calling for tax breaks, fiscal responsibility and decrying the "welfare state", you'd think they were subsidizing the "blue" states with all of their hard-earned tax dollars.

Turns out, as usual, the unreported truth is quite the opposite from the Fake Conservative fantasy.

In fact, the "blue" states, on average, get back less money than they pay out in federal taxes, while the "red" states receive more in federal funds than they put out. Go figure.

From Media Matters:

Is it any wonder then that "red" states want to keep their guy in office so they can keep sucking disproportionately off the Federal Government tit without anybody noticing? Red state welfare queens.

Once again, the "Liberal" Media seems to have forgotten to report much on all of this. I wonder if the Media really isn't so "Liberal" after all? But they must be! Sean Hannity wouldn't keep saying it if it wasn't true!

And on the topic of "Words speaking louder than Actions"...

A Conservative --- a real one, with character, courage and conviction --- reviews Bush's con job from last night. (Fake Conservatives need not click through. Far be it from us to spoil your illusions by dropping a big reality turd into your fantasy soup.)

George W. Bush:
Words Speak Louder than Actions

FOX News Primetime Convention Speech Coverage

Courtesy of Media Matters

Dear Fox News Watchers,

The Democratic Candidate for President of the United States is speaking live on television in response to the Bush/Cheney convention.

The Vice-Presidential Candidate is there too! Live!

Feel free to turn to either CNN or MSNBC if you'd like to see it!

UPDATE: Fox finally did go to the Kerry speech. They ran a total of 4 minutes of the speech, picking it up near the end, and dropping it 4 minutes later. Both MSNBC and CNN ran it from the beginning, when Kerry said things like "I'm not going to have my commitment to defend this country questioned by those who refused to serve when they could have and by those who have misled the nation into Iraq."

Total coverage of Kerry's speech: MSNBC - 25 minutes, CNN - 15 minutes, FOX - 4 minutes.

Just a few miles from Ground Zero. Where "the people who knocked down these buildings" would hear from "all of us soon."

I watched all four nights of the RNC Convention. But I'll be damned if I heard any word about who it was who knocked those buildings down. Did I miss something?

He sounds like he's answering the "platform question" at the Miss America Pagaent, no?

UPDATE: Speech just finished. Lest I be accused of unfairness (I'll leave that to Fox), it seems to me that Bush recovered somewhere around the final third of his speech from the Miss America / School Assembly delivery of the first two thirds that I mentioned above. He finished just fine. And the tear he almost squeezed out will no doubt be the tear heard round the world for the next few news cycles. More later, no doubt.

I should have known we were in trouble when Alan Colmes said "Senator Miller, I'd like to talk about the substance of your speech last night". He then went on to fire the only bullet that Sean allowed him, I guess, accusing Zell of having called Kerry "an authentic American hero" in 2001.

Zell said "I was wrong about that." Alan hemmed, hawwed, looked at his notes...and then...cut to commercial.

Wouldn't it be more honest if they didn't even bother to put a name at all after the "Hannity &" part?

Oh, well. Since Colmes is useless, I'll toss out another contradiction and factual inaccuracy from Zell's speech that apparently didn't occur to the hapless and completely useless Colmes.

Kerry in his acceptance speech: "I will never give any nation or international institution a veto over our national security."

Zell last night: "Senator Kerry has made it clear that he would use military force only if approved by the United Nations. Kerry would let Paris decide when America needs defending."

There ya go, Alan. Would that have been that hard?

Apparently Colmes has no memory, isn't allowed access to Google by Sean, or simply has no familiarity with what's actually going on anywhere but in the Republican National Party and/or the Fox News Channel. Not that there's any difference.

And Cheney? He said last night: "George W. Bush will never seek a permission slip to defend the American people."

I'm sure Colmes will get right on that. Sigh.

There has been so many blatantly and provably incorrect statements on the RNC's podium this week, that it's becoming almost tiresome to point them out.

So forgive me if you have become as weary of it as I have, even though I've only bothered to highlight a few of them. But if folks like you and me don't take the time to point these out who will? The Mainstream Media?!

In this case, it fell to a polling organization, Gallup to be precise, to fact check where the Media has decided to nod off again this year:

Provably and factually incorrect statements at the GOP Convention. One after another after another.

Feel free to "liberally" use the "Email it to Someone!" link at the bottom of ALL the entries here on the BRAD BLOG! It's game time, folks! And someone's gotta show up to play! How about you?!