Quote of the LAST DAY

last day of work that is....

• CNN's Begala: "Look at it this way, though. Maybe Cheney was just telling Leahy the Republican version of safe sex" ("Crossfire," 6/24). On the Vice President telling the Ranking Member of Senate Judicary Committee Pat Lehy to go F%&@* himself on the Senate Floor.


Best Newspaper allusion to what Cheney said:


• According to the New York Times, Cheney "turned and stalked away, using an obscene phrase to describe what he thought Mr. Leahy should do" (Stolberg, 6/25).


How proper!


• Bush was questioned in the Oval Office for 70 minutes 6/24 by atty Patrick Fitzgerald and his team who are investigating whether Bush admin. officials "illegally leaked the name of" undercover CIA operative Valerie Plame.

And finally AP's Fournier recounts the "disastrous year" for Bush so far:

1. An "unremarkable" SOTU where his "opposition to performance-enhancing drugs in sports" stood out "against a bleak roster of new policies."
   
2. Ex-Treas. Sec. Paul O'Neill's book "claiming Bush was determined from the get-go to overthrow" Saddam Hussein.
   
3. Bush's "shaky performance on NBC's 'Meet the Press.'"
   
4. Ex-counterterrorism czar Richard Clarke "undercuts the president's tough-on-terrorism claims" before Congress.
   
5. NSA Condoleezza Rice "at first refuses to testify" before the 9/11 commis., "then bows to pressure."
   
6. Econ. adviser Gregory Mankiw says outsourcing "is sometimes a good thing."
   Bush "scuttles plans to name" businessman Anthony Raimondo manufacturing czar after Dems note he "laid of 75 workers" in '02 while building a plant in China.
   
7. "The death toll in Iraq mounts through the spring." GOP govs. "warn" the WH that "voters are getting antsy."
   
8. "Four U.S. contractors are killed and mutilated near Baghdad."
   
9. "Train bombers strike Madrid. Voters throw the Bush-backing" govt. "out of power" and Spain later "withdraws its troops from Iraq."
   
10. VP Cheney "comes under fire" for business dealings with Halliburton, "secretive deliberations on energy policy and unsubstantiated suggestions that his office might be behind the leak of a CIA operative's name."
    
11. Weapons inspector David Kay "concludes that Iraq did not have stockpiles" of WMD, "undercutting Bush's main justification for the war."
    
12. Dems "untie behind [John] Kerry after a short nomination fight."
    
13. Dem lawmakers "call for an investigation into whether" Bush's Medicare chief "pressured a subordinate to withhold estimates" of the full cost of the '03 Medicare bill.
    
14. Clarke "follows his testimony with a book claiming Bush ... failed to effectively confront" al Qaeda.
    
15. "Gas prices top $2 per gallon."
    
16. "Revelations that U.S. soldiers abused" Iraqi prisoners "fuel anti-American sentiment" abroad and "raise questions at home about U.S. moral authority in Iraq."
    
17. Al Qaeda terrorists in Iraq behead American Nicholas Berg.
    
18. "The leader of Iraq's governing council is assassinated."
    
19. "A Memo reveals plans" for the Bush admin. to "slash domestic programs" should they win a second term.
    
20. Al Qaeda terrorists in Saudi Arabia behead American Paul Johnson.
    
21. Al Qaeda terrorists in Iraq behead South Korean Kim Sun-il.
    
22. On 6/24, terrorists in Iraq "launched coordinated attacks that kill more than 100 people, including three U.S. soldiers."

Who needs enemies when you can shoot yourself in the foot on your own?