The following dialogue has been simplified as much as possible in the hope that Republicans can see what they’re enabling by continuing to put Bush before party, party before constituents, and their own pathetic hypocritical treasonous asses before all else.

Until the above performers finish workshopping their new production on the Constitution, please revel in the Chimperor’s latest miserable failures. It’s time to stop pretending that libruls are “making” this news awful by not regarding it as super-fabulous.

Saudi Arabia has denied accusations in Bob Woodward’s latest book that it had reached an agreement with the White House to increase oil production closer to the Nov. 2 election, thus driving down gasoline prices. … [OPEC] of which Saudi Arabia is a leading member, had announced at the end of March that it would cut its crude oil production target by 4 percent. That decision was expected to push prices higher – and U.S. motorists already have been paying the highest prices in recent years for gasoline. (04/20/04 AP)

A Democratic congressman [David Obey, D-Wis, House Appropriations Committee] on Monday demanded to know whether the Bush administration transferred $700 million to Iraq war planning efforts out of counterterrorism funds without informing Capitol Hill. The Pentagon said it didn’t happen. A senior Defense Department budget official, speaking on condition of anonymity, said the Pentagon used a smaller amount of post-Sept. 11 counterterrorism money on projects that would aid the war on Iraq … [The Bob Woodward book] says President Bush “approved 30 projects that would eventually cost $700 million” by the end of July 2002 in preparation for the war, and that some of that money came from appropriations for the war on terrorism. (04/19/04 AP/Lumpkin)

At hearings Tuesday and Wednesday, the Senate and House armed services committees are to hear about current Iraq operations from Deputy Defense Secretary Paul Wolfowitz, Joint Chiefs of Staff Chairman Gen. Richard Myers and State Department Undersecretary Marc Grossman. As of Monday, the Pentagon had not agreed to attend another hearing Thursday on how it intends to transfer political power June 30 to an as-yet unnamed Iraqi government. … [Lawmakers] faced constituents’ questions about Iraq. … Already, almost six in 10 of those surveyed say [Bush] does not have a clear plan for success in Iraq. (04/20/04 AP/Jelinek)

President Bush gave a chilly welcome to Spain’s new leader Monday, suggesting his abrupt withdrawal of troops from Iraq would give “false comfort to terrorists.” Bush said later he was sending diplomatic troubleshooter* John Negroponte to Iraq as America’s first post-war ambassador. … Zapatero has rejected claims that withdrawing troops would appear to be appeasing terrorists, saying his idea of removing them came long before the March 11 commuter-train bombings that killed 191 people in Madrid three days in advance of his election.** (04/20/04 AP/Hunt)

*death squad enabler, war criminal
**Note to Bush: other leaders get to have resolve.

The king of Jordan … postponed a White House meeting with President Bush this week … Bush’s statement after a White House meeting with Israeli Prime Minister Ariel Sharon last week constituted a historic shift in U.S. policy, and Palestinian leaders accused the administration of undercutting the possibility of a negotiated settlement. Jordan is considered a key moderate ally of the United States and is one of only two of Israel’s Arab neighbors to have a peace treaty with the Jewish state. … The rift between the Bush administration and its moderate Arab allies over Bush’s statement on Israeli settlements is one of the worst to emerge in years – and has exacerbated the already tense relations between the United States and Arab countries over the war in Iraq. (04/20/04 AP/Halaby)

And no, party locksteppers are not supporting the troops by allowing the Miserable Failure to miserably fail in a bigger, more appalling downward spiral.

I am the wife of a soldier who was just officially extended yesterday. He has been in Iraq for nearly one year. He has proudly served his tour, and we were planning for his arrival home next week. Here’s a true story. A group of soldiers from his unit went to BIAP to wait for their return flight to Germany, where we are based. They were turned away and told that they were being kept in Iraq indefinitely. On the way back to their base in Baghdad proper, they were ambushed. The unit had their first casualty that night. My husband should have been with them, as he is one of their medics, but he was supposed to drive the ambulance to Kuwait the next day, so they told him to stay back and get some rest. I am sickened by this whole betrayal of trust and abuse of our volunteers. If Bush and Co. get reelected, start moving your military age men to Canada, because the draft will be reinstated. Nobody deserves this kind of a back stabbing. Least of all the men and women who have signed up to protect our country. This extension was a death sentence for that poor soldier. This extension cost three children their father. And it will cost much more. (From Catch.com)