I know life is unfair, and that there are always going to be those who are the haves and have-nots. I also know that a lucky few will always reap the inevitable profits of war.

But Iraq seems different. Maybe it isn’t, but something about the profiteering seems shameless, in-your face, almost sneering at us little guys. I mean, do you have any idea how many members of Bush’s entourage, former members of his cabinet, current and former Bush cronies are about to mop up obscene amounts of money in Iraq?

Chances are if you visit this site you read Josh Marshall’s. In case you don’t, please go and read his masterful sleuthing of what’s going on over there. And read every link in that post. Links about companies like New Bridge Strategies.

What you’ll encounter is worse than obscene, it is truly sickening. And it is symptomatic of something unique to the Bush administration: a gleeful, delirious worship of the dollar, to the point that those intimately associated with Bush feel free to brazenly show us all how they are lining their pockets, selling their “influence” and “connections” — “I know Bush & Friends and I can make you rich, rich beyond your wildest dreams.”

I know all about paying people for influence. It’s an old practice that we professionals categorize under the bland term “public affairs.” But this is different. Public affairs has always been associated with subtlety, a high degree of tact and propriety and professionalism. What we are seeing now is whoring, plain and simple. And the whores are Bush’s friends and advisors. And we just shrug and mutter that we can’t fight city hall….

These posts of Marshall’s should be required reading for anyone who remains equivocal about our president and what he stands for. If Bush wanted to, he could insist it be stopped. He could tell his dear friends that if they behave like whores they will wield no influence. But whoring is what Bush is really all about, and I suspect he sees absolutely nothing wrong with it. It’s what his tax cuts are all about, and his energy policy and everything else about him — alms for the rich. Breaks for his cronies.

At a time when Americans are losing jobs in record numbers, at a time when a lot of people are looking for help and wondering what their future will be, this should be devastating news: mountains of wealth, virtually inconceivable to us ordinary people, are going to be made by companies frantic to tap into that $87-billion wad Bush is waving in front of them. To get at it, these companies will do business with the devil — our president’s friends and advisors, who have no compunction about whoring themselves in public, on Web sites, in advertisements.

I can’t really put into words how furious this makes me. I am only depressed at the relative silence this topic has thus far evoked. I just thank god we have people like Marshall, who take it on themselves to shine light under the rock and show the world what Bush’s maggots there are up to.

Iraq may be flypaper for freaks, but the Bush administration is flypaper for pigs, chortling, filthy, stinking and shameless.

We are about to find out.

Pomfret, who I have long regarded as the best foreign correspondent in China, has just posted a great story on how a rural bureaucrat, Wei Shengduo, attempted to hold a real, honest election for his township’s leader, as opposed to having him appointed by the CCP.

Will it surprise any of us to learn what happened next? Wei was, of course, thrown into jail, and the CCP has banned all coverage of his situation and the aborted ballot in his little town of Pingba.

The day before the election, the party secretary at the county seat, one notch above Wei, canceled the vote and had the 34-year-old would-be reformer arrested, then held in custody for two weeks. The official announced that he had smashed an “anti-party clique” and led a delegation to Beijing last week to ask authorities to punish an academic who had advised Wei, sources in the capital said.

The story of Wei’s attempt to bring democratic change to this mountainous corner of China is one that is being played out across the country. Experiments in limited democracy have been occurring quietly, but most are stymied by Communist Party officials fearful of losing their monopoly on power in a closed political system that appears increasingly at odds with China’s opening economy.

The article also explores the awful dilemma facing China’s impoverished rural regions; as the economy of the coastal cities soars, that of the countryside disintegrates, forcing more and more rural citizens with no hope to become prostitutes, thieves and streetsweepers. A grim and important reminder of the underside of the China economic miracle.

Wei’s fate could serve as a barometer for how China’s alleged “reforms” are actually materializing. This is a big challenge for pooor Mr. Hu:

Wei’s case, analysts and researchers say, amounts to a challenge to the central authorities, particularly to Hu Jintao, the president and party general secretary. In a speech on July 1, Hu said that power should be used by the people and that the people’s interests should come first. Before the speech, rumors had swirled that Hu would use it to give the green light for limited political liberalization. He did not.

“People are waiting for Hu to live up to the great expectations they had for him,” said Li Fan, the Beijing-based academic who advised Wei on the ballot. “But I think this case shows that our optimism about real political reform was misplaced.”

Pomfret’s reporting is nothing short of miraculous. He researches every aspect of Wei Shengduo with meticulous detail, and paints a vivid picture of the risks facing those noble enough to dare to do what is good for their people, even if it may not be good for the CCP (nor, of course, for themselves):

Wei also had personal reasons for pushing change, Li said. In 1957, his father, who was a teacher, was branded a “rightist” during one of Mao Zedong’s many political campaigns. The elder Wei was sent to teach in an isolated village, then fired and forced into hard labor in an even more remote mountain community. He was not released from this bondage until the 1980s. On his deathbed, he summoned Wei and his older brother, both government officials. “He told them that he didn’t mind that they were both government officials, but he wanted them at least to do something for China’s ordinary people,” Li said.

Wei was appointed Pingba’s party secretary in 2001 and quickly won the support of many of the town’s residents. According to the petition supporting him after his arrest, Wei played a key role in reducing an annual head tax from $24 a person to $5, a big drop in a township with an average annual income of less than $200. Wei also helped start a cement factory and convinced Chinese companies to invest in Pingba, the petition said.

And this is the man who is punished, while those who would see him arrested rule the land. It makes me sick. Read the whole thing.

As a lot of us know, Andrew Sullivan has been bashing Wesley Clark 24/7. For balance (I guess), he threw in a post yesterday in which he seemed to be reconsidering his loathing of Clark, musing aloud whether Clark might be the best of the Dems out there.

Needless to say, the new-found admiration was a flash in the pan.

Today, American Prospect dissects Sullivan’s criticisms and makes the godfather of blogville look like a real dork. I just loved this:

You also have to love Sullivan’s newfound distaste for Rhodes Scholars. Commenting on Clark’s earlier praise for Bush and his team, Sullivan writes, “You have to remember he’s a Rhodes Scholar and they tend to say anything to suck up to whomever they’re talking to” and that Rhodes Scholars “suck upwards and kick downwards.”

Really? Does that include Sullivan’s boss at The New Republic, Peter Beinart? Slate editor Jacob Weisberg, with whom Sullivan interned at TNR back in the 1980s and later co-authored a book? Walter Isaacson, who published Sullivan at Time during his tenure as editor there? All three earned Rhodes scholarships. Do tell, Andrew.

Great work.

My jaw dropped when I saw this list of what our tax dollars are being used for in Iraq. It can’t be true. Can it?

Link via (yes, again) Atrios.

Go and check Atrios’ hilarious parody of Bill O’Reilly. I was laughing out loud, maybe because I live in Arizona (though not at the moment). Truly inspired.

A taste (if that’s the right word to use) from the next of his O’Reilly parodies:

If you want to be gay, then fine. That is your choice. And America is the land of the free. In America, you are also free to be Australian. That is what our American ancestors fought for–for the right to be gay Australians. But not in front of my daughter. 9/11 taught us a lesson. Let us never be complacent. Let us fight to have the right to let my daughter have the right to not see you being a gay Australian. Then I slipped her panties down her legs and, within seconds, my tongue was inside her, moving rapidly. Not my daughter, of course. Shut up! You sicko pervert gay Australian!

That’s just for starters. I can’t believe the ingenuity here — one parody after another, each more funny than the last. Amazing, how he can stretch a single joke and keep it savagely funny.

I just went back and revisited the post I refer to below on China’s new “anti-corruption” campaign. And I can’t believe I didn’t comment on that post’s headline, “Hu makes huge inroads toward ‘intra-party democracy.” So let me comment now.

I don’t mean to be over-critical of Adam, who is a great blogger and is doing a fine job with his China news site. But this is really a s t r e t c h.

“HUGE INROADS”??? I’m not sure which dictionary Adam uses, but what actually happened — Hu has announced a plan for intra-party checks and balances — doesn’t meet the definition.

To call it an inroad at all is questionable, but a huge inroad — that’s downright misleading (even if unintentionally so). Announcing such a program is novel, unusual, perhaps even a breakthrough. But whether or not huge inroads have been achieved can only be said after we see what the effects of the program are (if it is even implemented).

If corruption is measurably reduced we have huge inroads. If not, we know we’ve seen more smoke and mirrors, like the new-found “freedom of the Chinese press” so many were celebrating after the big SARS press conference.

I don’t mean to be pedantic. But how we phrase things is important if we are running a news service. Otherwise, great job Adam.

PRC News is very upbeat about a CNN article on the “de-Jiangification” of China, i.e., rectifying Jiang Zemin’s legacy of corruption.

It all sounds really good. Hu is apparently trying to set up processes to help identify and deal with intra-party corruption. There’s no doubt it’s a big step in the right direction.

But before I wax enthusiastic, I’m going to wait and see. The CCP is always claiming to be cracking down on corruption, and you can find a steady stream of articles going back years about officials arrested for graft. Still, there’s been no real shift. So I remain skeptical, because a one-party system invites corruption by its very nature.

Reform is as reform does, so let’s see what Hu Jintao accomplishes. And let’s also see if Jiang Zemin just lets it happen without a good fight.

Selected recent gems gushing forth from our president’s mouth:

“We had a chance to visit with Teresa Nelson who’s a parent, and a mom or a dad.” —George W. Bush, Jacksonville, Florida, Sept. 9, 2003

“As Luce reminded me, he said, without data, without facts, without information, the discussions about public education mean that a person is just another opinion.” —George W. Bush, Jacksonville, Florida, Sept. 9, 2003

“Security is the essential roadblock to achieving the road map to peace.” —George W. Bush, Washington, D.C., July 25, 2003

“You’ve also got to measure in order to begin to effect change that’s just more — when there’s more than talk, there’s just actual — a paradigm shift.” —George W. Bush, Washington, D.C., July 1, 2003

“I am determined to keep the process on the road to peace.” —George W. Bush, Washington, D.C., June 10, 2003

“I’m the master of low expectations.” —George W. Bush, aboard Air Force One, June 4, 2003

“I’m also not very analytical. You know I don’t spend a lot of time thinking about myself, about why I do things.” —George W. Bush, aboard Air Force One, June 4, 2003

“I recently met with the finance minister of the Palestinian Authority, was very impressed by his grasp of finances.” —George W. Bush, Washington, D.C., May 29, 2003

How is it possible that I’ve missed this great blog? The chart its authors created detailing Bush’s ability to get away with acts that border on the criminal (and that are certainly unethical) is absolutely priceless. But so is just about everything else at this site. A masterpiece.

Ann and her admirers

Funniest site ever for those who think realize that Ann Coulter is a smooth-brained, lying, hissing, deranged, fire-breathing brain-dead bitch monster.

[Thanks to Tbogg for this magnificent link.]