Morning Roundup

I told you so. Well, not you, but some other people. I swear. Point is, I called it: The city would rather eat shit than have an arena that's not downtown. By the way, the Magic's sale pitch to the county is this morning, wherein I imagine we'll hear just how much old fundie DeVos is willing to pitch in (my guess: $60 million).

Speaking of shit-eating, the feds recently filed the first FEDERAL obscenity prosecution in Orlando in, well, at least 20 years, some local lawyers tell me. (I say shit eating because the government considers a movie called "Toilet Man 6" too indecent for your viewing. Just use your imaginations.) Apparently, the spirit of John Ashcroft lives on in the administration. We'll try to have more for you in next week's paper.



God bless Keith Olbermann:

The only positive on 9/11 and the days and weeks that so slowly and painfully followed it was the unanimous humanity, here, and throughout the country. The government, the President in particular, was given every possible measure of support.

Those who did not belong to his partyâ??tabled that.

Those who doubted the mechanics of his electionâ??ignored that.

Those who wondered of his qualificationsâ??forgot that.

History teaches us that nearly unanimous support of a government cannot be taken away from that government by its critics.

It can only be squandered by those who use it not to heal a nationâ??s wounds, but to take political advantage.

Terrorists did not come and steal our newly-regained sense of being American first, and political, fiftieth. Nor did the Democrats. Nor did the media. Nor did the people.

The Presidentâ??and those around himâ??did that.

They promised bi-partisanship, and then showed that to them, â??bi-partisanshipâ?� meant that their party would rule and the rest would have to follow, or be branded, with ever-escalating hysteria, as morally or intellectually confused; as appeasers; as those who, in the Vice Presidentâ??s words yesterday, â??validate the strategy of the terrorists.â?�

They promised protection, and then showed that to them â??protectionâ?� meant going to war against a despot whose hand they had once shaken, a despot who we now learn from our own Senate Intelligence Committee hated Al-Qaeda as much as we did.

The polite phrase for how so many of us were duped into supporting a war, on the false premise that it had â??something to doâ?? with 9/11, is â??lying by implication.â?�

The impolite phrase is: "impeachable offense."

Despite what ABC's mockumentary says, more Americans think 9/11 was Bush's fault than Clinton. Because, you know, Bush was in office, and had that whole presidential briefing thingamagiggy telling him about the planes and bin Laden and all that. Check it out.

Shrub tries to rally us behind him. Because we're supposed to forget about his failed Iraq campaign and just think of the good ole' days, after 9/11, when we all held hands and sang Kumbayah. This is a WashPost analysis of his totally non-political (cough:bullshit) speech last night. Here's a transcript of said speech.