A recent survey showed that bitter people in towns all over America have been becoming increasingly bitter, in no small part because of people calling them bitter.

Gordon Stillwater, a native of Elk's Mount, Pennsylvania, denied that he was bitter. "I may be a little peeved," he said, holstering his gun on the way to church, "I mean, I lost my two jobs, I lost my house, and now some goddamn strangers are calling me bitter."

He killed two crows on the way to the Sunday service.

"Who am I voting for?" he later told reporters. "Do I have time to worry about an election? Do I care whether Hillary Clinton and Barack Obama are at each other's throats? Get out. You're scaring away the deer." He mumbled something about having more time for hunting now that he was completely unemployed.

For his part, John McCain was upbeat about all the bitterness and infighting. "I don't know about bitterness," he said, "but things are certainly looking up for me."

Steve Benen, the liberal blogger who runs The Carpetbagger Report, has recently been discovered to be the sole author of almost every liberal blog dealing with U.S. politics on the internet, blog readers recently discovered.

At first Benen was writing The Carpetbagger Report and allegedly guest blogging on sites such as TalkingPointsMemo, the Washington Monthly's blog, Political Animal, and Crooks and Liars. However, a visitor to TalkingPointsMemo, who saw a video of the alleged author and blog founder "Josh Marshall," immediately recognized him to be actor Marshall Mappschteen, with whom he had performed "Guys and Dolls" in college. A phone call to Mappschteen resulted in revelations that eventually uncovered Benen as the author of more than 260 liberal blogs. Subsequent investigation revealed that popular "bloggers" Atrios and Political Animal's Kevin Drum are actually fellow league bowlers whom Benen recruited to be fictitious front men.

The revelations caused Salon to put an end to their Blog Report, a supposed roundup of items of interest on liberal and conservative political blogs compiled by Benen. "All the liberal blogs were him," said "Skippy," one of the few liberal bloggers who appears to really exist. "He was just linking to himself all over the place. It was unsanitary."

Benen admitted that he had orchestrated and created the liberal blogosphere in order to create the impression that more people have liberal values than actually do. "I wanted the liberal presence on the web -- and in the U.S. -- to appear to be very, very big, much larger than it actually is," admitted Benen, who welcomed the end of his deception as a chance to rest his hands. "I've been suffering from carpal tunnel something awful," he said.

Benen is now thought to be the entire 65% of Americans who oppose further involvement in the Iraq war.

"There have been many Presidents who have thrown out first pitches, but I don't know if any have done it better than this particular President," gush television announcers when President Bush, in the midst of a chorus of boos, opened the Nationals' season this Spring.

And now from the historians:

As one historian put it,

No individual president can compare to the second Bush. Glib, contemptuous, ignorant, incurious, a dupe of anyone who humors his deluded belief in his heroic self, he has bankrupted the country with his disastrous war and his tax breaks for the rich, trampled on the Bill of Rights, appointed foxes in every henhouse, compounded the terrorist threat, turned a blind eye to torture and corruption and a looming ecological disaster, and squandered the rest of the world's goodwill. In short, no other president's faults have had so deleterious an effect on not only the country but the world at large.

H/t to Steve M. and Skippy.

Polls conducted in the wake of Mark Penn's dismissal from his role as Chief Strategist in the Hillary Clinton campaign show that the public strongly opposes the move, according to a poll conducted by Mark Penn, who retains his job as head pollster for the Clinton campaign.

"98% said that Mark Penn is a good person," said Penn, "98 per cent of people said that they believe he is the right person for the job." Penn said that the 2 per cent who did not like him was his cousin Barney, with whom he has had "some issues."

Penn later denied that he had "cherry picked" the data.

Of great importance to Clinton, Penn said that polling showed that Pennsylvanians especially wanted him to be reinstated, and that it had nothing to do with his name. While most other polls show Clinton with at least a double digit lead in Pennsylvania, Penn said his post-dismissal polling shows Clinton now trailing Obama by 35 points. "Her only chance is to let me take over again," said Penn, adding, "Numbers don't lie."

Opinions You Should Have reporters gained access to a copy of the poll. One of the questions on the poll was, "Should Hillary Clinton have kept the brilliant and gifted political strategist Mark Penn on her staff as Chief Strategist, or would you prefer that the world go up in a big puff of smoke?" 98 per cent of respondents chose the former.

Hey -- I've been so overwhelmed by spam in the comments that I shut them down, then turned on moderation, and now I'm just searching for a solution. So comments will be either moderated or unavailable, and my apologies to those who've tried to leave a note but been waylayed.

I'll probably put a captcha on or require registration, both options I've been avoiding, but those Russian spammers are now far too good at their job these days.

Prospects for a poor economy, a neverending war, melting ice caps, increasingly dangerous weather systems, the plummeting dollar, and the horrific job market have taken a toll on the public's view of the economy, the war, ice caps, weather, the dollar, and the job market, a New York Times/CBS poll found today.

Describing the poll's methodology, pollster Felicity Proctor explained that it was based on a survey of 3,042 increasingly depressed individuals throughout the United States.

The poll also found that the use of torture by the American government, and its disregard for many basic civil rights laws, including those protecting individuals from being wiretapped and spied upon, made Americans fear being tortured, having their civil rights violated, and being wiretapped and spied upon.

"People in an increasingly negative environment often experience their environment as increasingly negative," said Dr. Enola Imnot Gay, a Boston researcher whose specialty is diseases of the obvious.

But Dr. Gay cautioned reporters not to read too much into the poll results. "American Idol and the fleeting availability of even the most miniscule line of credit can completely erase Americans' awareness of outside phenomena," she said.

Cross-posted at The American Street.

Fed Chairman Ben Bernanke's response to a Congressional question on the advisability of Bush's scheme for overhauling the nation's "regulatory" (read: "lack of regulatory") structure:

"The Treasury plan is a very interesting and useful first step," he said. "I think we all agree there is going to be quite a bit of discussion and analysis before we are ready to do major changes in our regulatory structure."

Our tax money, once again providing us with basic college-level bullshit from the world's greatest authorities in answer to serious and fundamental questions upon which the future of our country depends.

New York Governor Elliot Spitzer attacked Republicans today for creating an economic climate so hostile to middle and low income workers that they can barely afford the cost of a decent blowjob. "The cost of prostitutes is skyrocketing while the salary of the average American worker is declining," Spitzer complained.

"Everyone should be able to get a reasonably priced reacharound," said Spitzer, "but George W. Bush and his cronies want only the Washington fatcats to be able to afford quality hummers."

Spitzer said he was astonished that he recently had to pay close to $5000 for what he called "basic services."

"Now we see that the effects of the subprime mortgage collapse are truly widespread," Spitzer said, his anguished wife mysteriously standing beside him. Spitzer noted that under Democratic rule, escort services have always been far more affordable.

Republicans defended themselves, noting that the rising cost of intercourse reflected a burgeoning economy, and noted that any money injected into "hooking establishments" would just trickle down to lower earning members of our Capitalist society.

Spitzer responded that being trickled on was also prohibitively expensive, especially at the parlors he frequented.

Barack Obama and Hillary Clinton today separately vowed that, regardless of the results of today's now important Texas and Ohio primaries, they will not rest until one of them has been crowned the official Presidential nominee of the Democratic Party, "hopefully by the spring of 2009."

"It is for the good of the party and the good of the nation that we select the right nominee," said Clinton, "even if it takes until next Easter."

Barack Obama noted that the contest is "already over," even before today's votes are counted, because, as analysts have already shown, Clinton can never make up the delegate deficit, no matter how well she does. Nevertheless, Obama said that he would consider conceding the nomination to Clinton depending on the results of next year's Superbowl. "If the Patriots lose again, I'm out," he said.

Democrats are concerned that a prolonged battle for the nomination would endanger the party's ability to win the general election. "Particularly if the fight goes past November 4," said left-wing pundit Freddy Dreckler.

Civics Professor Norman Golan commented on the impasse. "Some say that only the Democrats could screw up the opportunity they have to take the Presidency this coming November," he said. "But not many people realize that it only takes two of them to do it."

President Bush called John McCain a "true conservative" this past Sunday, and told reporters that McCain would certainly do a fine job of continuing the Bush Administration's policies.

McCain's supporters were very upset and said there was no reason for the President to "attack our candidate." "I don't know what John McCain has done to President Bush to deserve this," said Gladys Denovio, a self-described moderate Republican who heads the Midwest chapter of Boosters for John McCain.

"It was an uncalled for, vicious thing to say," said lawyer John Bristol of Ohio. President Bush had no reason to be so harsh, he added. "What's next?" Bristol asked. "Is he going to call McCain a butthead?"

True conservatives also criticized President Bush's statement, saying that when President Bush showed that he knew what true conservatism was, they expected to be able to watch pigs fly over ice hockey rinks in hell. "Until then he should keep his mouth shut," they suggested.

"George Bush is the first so-called conservative to cut taxes while vigorously increasing the size of the Federal government," said political expert Professor Madeleine Fullbuck. "Maybe we should call him a right-wing religious economic conservatiberal."

Mitt Romney explained today that he was dropping out of the U.S. Presidential race in order to spend more time with his money. Romney said that the time on the campaign trail had really harmed his ability to spend "quality time with my bills."

Romney explained that some of his money had been extremely neglected, and shook his head, noting that even several of his fifties had become severely creased.

He reassured stunned supporters, saying that he would still have plenty of time to flip flop his positions on every conceivable issue and praise African Americans for their "bling-bling".

On the plus side, Romney said he was looking forward to spending more time not drinking coffee and less time assuring Americans that his personal religious beliefs don't matter. "Now I can just be a regular joe, just like everyone else who can finance their own multimillion dollar campaign for the country's highest office."

Romney did not say what he was going to turn his attentions to now, but hinted that he might go back to the world of business. The former management consulant, who took the ailing Duane Reade pharmacy business and reinvigorated it until there was a Duane Reade on virtually every corner of the nation, said he was thinking that there was "still a lot he could do" with mailboxes, ATMs, and premium coffee shops.

Polls out of New Hampshire showed that voters who favored a quick exit from Iraq overwhelmingly voted for Hillary Clinton and John McCain, the two candidates who most favor staying there for long periods of time, up to "one hundred or a thousand years," according to McCain. Those same polls showed that voters who most wanted a male President voted for Hillary Clinton, while those who desire a woman President voted for Rudy Giuliani.

"That's not as irrational as it first sounds," said Professor Josh Kornbluth of the Center For Diseased Pollsters. "Many people see Hillary as very macho, and see Rudy Giuliani as lisping and effeminate." He pointed out that, of the male candidates, Giuliani is the one who has most often worn a dress.

Backing up the New Hampshire polls, polls of likely voters in South Carolina showed that those who want an intelligent President overwhelmingly favor Huckabee, while voters who want their President to only have one wife are certain to vote for Romney.

The South Carolina poll also found that voters who want to see a black man in the White House will vote for Fred Thompson; voters who want change are likely to vote for George W. Bush. "If Bush isn't on the ticket, I'll vote for McCain," said Ira P. Winnowalker, a South Carolinian funeral parlor director who really wants "a huge break from the policies of the current administration."

"It may be that voters are not very logical," said Professor Kornbluth. "Perhaps voters are as some say, uninformed, fickle, or dumb."

Professor Kornbluth paused momentarily and stroked his chin before adding, "Or maybe we should stop reading these stupid polls."

Cross-posted at The American Street.

Dane Goodman, official overseer of the Iowa caucuses, admitted today that no one really understands how the Iowa caucuses are supposed to be conducted, and that every four years, he and two other state officials just "make up some results."

Goodman explained the procedure that the caucuses were supposed to employ. "People gather at chosen locations, group themselves by candidate, and somehow they exclude some of the candidates or something, and then they call us and try to tell us what happened. But in the end we just pick some numbers out of a hat," he said.

Goodman admitted that he and his fellow officials usually don't even wait for the caucuses to report back to them, but instead just read the latest poll, change the numbers a little and fill out some forms indicating the alleged results.

He defended his committee's procedures. "Let's face it, this is just as democratic a process as the caucuses ever were."

Goodman revealed that, in 2004, the committee was pretty sure that Howard Dean had actually won the caucuses by a hefty margin, but found that "so hard to believe" that it picked John Kerry instead.

In the future, Goodman promised that primary overseers would scrupulously follow the correct caucusing procedures.

"As soon as someone figures out just what they are," he said.

Cross-posted at The American Street.

Today in Iowa, Mike Huckabee told reporters "enough is enough" and denounced negative campaigning. Huckabee, who recently fashioned a strident negative campaign ad about rival Mitt Romney, said it was "about time I stopped this viscous campaign of negative attack ads that I have been running," and derided himself as a "detestable fearmonger." He also labelled himself a "pandering schizophrenic."

"Mike Huckabee is about standing on Mike Huckabee's qualifications for President and Mike Huckabee's record, and he is not about pointing out his opponents' disgusting failures and ineptitudes -- of which there are many -- in order to gain the nation's highest office," Huckabee explained. Gesturing to a negative ad he was running locally, he added, "I reject this Mike Huckabee and his evil, negative campaigning ways."

A spokesman for Huckabee said that Huckabee would continue to run attack ads against his opponents, but noted that they would now conclude with the admonition, "My name is Mike Huckabee, and I strongly disapprove of this ad."

The White House confirmed this morning that the cause of a fire that threatened to consume the Vice President's ceremonial chambers was a bonfire made up of documents that Congress has subpoenaed over the past year.

"We do this every holiday season," said Jared Simms, a spokesperson for the Vice President. "As the Vice President often says, 'There's nothing on a cold winter day like curling up with a good book beside a heap of slowly roasting memos.'"

Some have decried what they called "the wanton destruction of requested documents," but Simms denied any wrongdoing. "It's just festive, that's all," he said.

"If it makes you feel better, there were no CIA interrogation tapes in that fire to speak of," Simms added.