Michael Brown is absolutely awesome:

"I was as frustrated as everyone" at "the slowness of the response. I was screaming and cussing," Michael Brown told the Senate Homeland Security and Governmental Affairs Committee, which is probing the government's sluggish response to the disaster.

Before Katrina's landfall, he said he had pushed the appropriate officials "to cut every piece of red tape ... to do everything they humanly could to respond to this."

Brown said he views himself as a scapegoat "abandoned" by the Bush administration."

Do you think that as he used the word "abandoned," he grimaced, because he recognized the craziness of what he'd just said? Or did it just go flying out of his mouth with nary a thought to follow it up?

Dan Froomkin links to a Media Matters post that poses an interesting question:

On October 13, 2003, Time magazine ran an article that included a quote from White House press secretary Scott McClellan insisting that White House senior adviser Karl Rove had nothing to do with outing undercover CIA operative Valerie Plame. As Media Matters for America has previously noted, at least two Time editorial employees involved in the article knew McClellan's denial was false: correspondent Matthew Cooper and Washington bureau chief Michael Duffy. Cooper knew the denial was false because Rove had outed Plame to him. Duffy knew the denial was false because Cooper had sent him an email relating what Rove had told him.

Former Time White House correspondent John Dickerson, in a first-person account of his knowledge of the Plame matter, now acknowledges that he, too, knew that Rove was Cooper's source well before the October 2003 article - an article on which he, like Cooper, received reporting credit.

So, Media Matters asks, "How many Time reporters knew they were deceiving readers about Rove's role in Plamegate?" Makes you wonder.

Update (because I'm too lazy to give it its own post): National Journal reports that Scooter Libby told a grand jury that Dick Cheney "authorized" him in summer 2003 to release classified information to journalists in order to build support for the Iraq war. Between this and the Media Matters post, today was a good day for Plamegate junkies, wouldn't you say?

Off Wing Opinion makes a good point that I haven't seen anywhere else:

And what are the chances now that the league is going to approve the deal the Penguins are pushing to use revenue from slot machines to pay for a new arena? Say hello to the Houston Penguins.

So exactly what academic credentials are required to substitute your scientific judgment for that of the director of the Goddard Institute? None whatsoever:

George C. Deutsch, the young presidential appointee at NASA who told public affairs workers to limit reporters' access to a top climate scientist and told a Web designer to add the word "theory" at every mention of the Big Bang, resigned yesterday, agency officials said.

Mr. Deutsch's resignation came on the same day that officials at Texas A&M University confirmed that he did not graduate from there, as his résumé on file at the agency asserted.

Phony degree, tendancy toward anti-intellectualism... at least he was working for the right administration.

Monday Night Sacrilege!

Washington Post columnist Tony Kornheiser will be joining the ESPN broadcast booth for "Monday Night Football" next season, the sports network said today.

Kornheiser will be part of a three-man team including Mike Tirico and former Redskins quarterback Joe Theismann, ESPN reported on its Web site. Suzy Kolber and Michelle Tafoya will be sideline reporters.

I like Kornheiser, but come on: Tirico, Theismann, Kolber, and Tafoya? Are they trying to make it hard to watch?

With Tirico doing play-by-play on Mondays, Al Michaels will head over to NBC to keep John Madden company on Sunday nights, which is a relief. Without the vaguely-incredulous buffer that is Al Michaels, Madden would be an awful lot to take.

And if the gods are smiling, ABC's MNF production staff will tag along. Because if Notre Dame games are any indication, NBC can't produce-a-football-game its way out of a paper bag.

As reported by the Washington Post this morning, freshly-minted Majority Leader John Boehner (R-K St.) rents his relatively inexpensive D.C. apartment from lobbyist-cum-landlord John D. Milne.

Milne's clients - including restaurant chains and health insurance companies - hired him to lobby on issues at the heart of Boehner's work, including minimum-wage increases, small-business tax breaks and tax-free savings accounts to help cover insurance costs, congressional lobbying records show.

The "R-K St." joke aside, as long as he's paying full market value and not dealing with Milne (or the members of his firm) on a business level, I guess there's probably not anyhing terribly wrong here. But if the goal is to avoid the appearance of impropriety, Boehner's sure starting off with a bang. (Between this and Boehner's "let's not overreact" Sunday-talk-show message, you really have to wonder exactly how badly he wants to give the Democrats a rock-solid foundation from which to campaign this fall.)

To: Barack
From: John
Date: 2.7.06
Re: Don't Fuck With Me, Kid

Barack,

We have a saying back in Arizona. A city-boy like yourself probably won't understand it, but it goes like this: "If you mess with the bull, you get messed..." No, wait. "Don't mess with..." No... Horns. Something about horns. Whatever, I live in Phoenix. The point is, sleep with one eye open tonight, buddy. Because if you can't stand the heat... well, you know what they say. (I believe it's "stay out of the kitchen," which doesn't appear to apply to this situation, but trust me, Barack: it does. It really does.)

Very sincerely yours,

John

[Thanks to the fine people at On Call for giving me a reason to mention John McCain for the third day in a row.]

Sens. John McCain and Joe Lieberman buddy up at the Munich Security Conference, prompting self to do some hasty Photoshoppery:

Get it? It's Dino and a rhino.

It's a blessing and a curse, folks. A blessing and a curse.

The Alabamienne* unmasked.

* - See Jessica Cutler.

I can't believe I didn't bet.

(Though, as I pointed out to a friend, had I bet, the Steelers would almost certainly have lost.)

The highlights of The Hotline's terrific roundup of political Super Bowl predictions:

• Sen. Evan Bayh: Steelers.
• David Brooks: Steelers, 35-10.
• Charlie Cook: Steelers by six.
• Sen. John McCain: Pittsburgh by ten.
• Mike McCurry: "My heart says Steelers but my wallet says take Seattle and the points."
• Keith Olberman: Steelers "by a touchdown or more."
• Gov. Ed Rendell: Steelers, 27-10.
• Sen. Rick Santorum: Steelers, 31-10.
• Sen. Arlen Specter: Steelers are "going to whoop them."

See the trend? (Granted, the trend is a bit more pronounced thanks to the fact that I just kept Seattle picks off the list [with the exception of Mike McCurry], but still, the trend is there.) And for the record, my prediction: Seattle comes out hot in the first, and the Steelers go into halftime trailing by seven. A big second half for Roethlisberger turns it around, and Bettis puts the game away with a four-yard touchdown run in the middle of the fourth quarter. Steelers by eleven.