Ew, Condi 'N' Daffy Wankbook Story Actually Got Creepier

Libyan leader Moammar Gadhafi receives US Secretary of State Condoleezza Rice, unseen, after her arrival in Tripoli, Libya, Friday, Sept. 5, 2008. Rice begins a four-nation tour of North Africa in Tripoli today, meeting with Libyan leader Moammar Gadhafi and other top officials in what the State Department is calling a landmark trip that will symbolize the opening of a new era in ties between the United States and the oil-rich country. (AP Photo/Nasser Nasser)

So Daffy's creepy photo album of fab Condipics? When I heard about it, I assumed he had become infatuated with La Belle Ferragamo after meeting her in September, 2008. I thought Condi had so dazzled the nutty despot that, dazed and lovestruck, he had turned to scrapbooking as a way to make up for her absence.

But no! According to one of the guys in the Conditourage, Daffy already had the scrapbook and insisted on showing it to Condi 'n' Company, creating what was no doubt a uniquely awkward atmosphere. Can you imagine? He showed Condi the obviously creepy and stalker-y Condibook! 

So that photo up top is Daffy when he glimpses his African Princess in the flesh for the very first time. Imagine how thrilled and adrenalized he is! I think he thinks he has a chance with her! It makes my heart sore soar.

The saddest thing ever, though, is that dismal photo-op set. Poor Moammar's hope to win Condi's heart was dashed by that tacky decor before she even walked in the door, and he didn't even know it. It really is enough to make you cry.

And it goes without saying, of course, that the "new era in ties between the United States and the oil-rich country" probably didn't turn out the way Condi expected it to.

Here Comes Condibook Number Three

What a weird week it's been for Condi! We found out that Dick Cheney called her naive and a stupid crybaby (basically) and that the currently most hated man in the world (other than Dick Cheney) kept a bizarre custom-made lad-mag filled with dreamy Condirazzi superpics for his own personal amusement. Buried beneath all this odd and funny stuff was the news that Doctor Ferragamo's not-particularly anticipated memoir of her years in the Bush administration has been scheduled for release by Crown. This will be Condibook #3, thus finishing off her lucrative contract with the publisher. When I last wrote about the Condibook industry,  I revealed that it didn't turn out so great for Crown after all, so I'm assuming they are totally crossing their fingers and hoping this last one will be a hit.

Here are some adjectives Crown uses to try to convince us that Condibook 3 won't be boring: vivid, forthright, unique, consequential, harrowing, candid... you get the picture, and if you are a long-time reader of this blog, you already know that this book will be none of those things. It will be thoroughly dull, I promise you. So far media coverage is fairly flat, with outlets simply reporting that the book will exist and that it will be quote candid unquote. I don't think the Guardian really believes the book will be candid, or that it will "shed light on the Bush administration."

The title is telling: No Higher Honor. The focus appears to be on the honor Condi achieved for herself –becoming the first female national security advisor, becoming the first African American female secretary of state– and on the honor she felt in serving in those positions, rather than on pesky questions about her effectiveness as the national security advisor or her accomplishments as secretary of state. Remember, this is a woman so famous for running around and spending tons of time arranging complicated, time consuming meetings which produced zero results that the Israelis literally coined a slang term based on her name which means "to run around and spend tons of time arranging complicated, time consuming meetings which produce zero results."

The one and only thing I'm curious about is if she'll mention anything about "blogs that follow her hairstyles and shoes."

The cover is OK, fine, Condiface with nice pearls and conservative fonts. Yawn. I hardly expected Klingon Condi. I thought it would be fun to go with a more "Wacky Packages" approach:

Where does Condi go in the publishing industry now? She did her flop kid's book, she did her underwhelming early years memoir, and now she's done with her Bush Years™ and done with her Crown Books contract. If this one isn't a big seller, it'll be strictly the lecture circuit for her from now on.

UPDATE:

The Associated Press Had A Really Hard Time Spelling Michele Bachmann's Name Correctly Yesterday

How embarrassing! AP had to issue not one, but two caption corrections yesterday, for two different misspellings of poor ol' crazy eyes' name, and the corrections themselves appear to have errors (??), or at least an inconsistent format:

OK, Now I'm Interested

(Screenshot from washingtonpost.com)

Don't get me wrong: I think it's great that there's a Martin Luther King Jr. memorial on The Mall now. It's just that the memorial itself is so awful, both in execution (to be fair, I feel sorry for any sculptor who has to depict a man wearing a suit and tie; at least King didn't wear glasses!) and in concept, that I have a hard time getting excited about it.

Until now! What kind of "kink" do you think they're going to feature at the ceremony? And what does it all have to do with hurricane Irene? Maybe rescue worker fetish? This could be really interesting.

Quickie: Gaddafi Masturbation Fodder Located

OK, I don't have much to say about this, but I've already gotten six emails about it, so here goes:

A whole scrapbook of Condi found in Gaddafi's compound! What does it all mean? I think we all know exactly what it means. Heh.What's really strange is that it appears to be random wire photos of Condi spanning several years, which suggests that the Libyan despot had more than just a passing interest in America's Princess Diplomat. Really... so strange. I wonder if there are any PSP photos in there?

EDIT: The more I look at this, the weirder it gets. It doesn't look like a dossier. It looks more like a tween girl's Justin Beiber scrapbook. I'll take a closer look at the AP photos when I get home from work.

Important Disaster Update

I had not one, not two, but THREE tchotchkes fall over (!!!) on a shelf in my apartment yesterday, so don't tell ME about suffering, Haiti.

PSP Flashback! When Condi Met Daffy

(Reuters, 09-05-08)

It seems just like yesterday, but it was almost three years ago! Later I referred to this meeting as Condi's sole diplomatic accomplishment. In light of recent events, I think we can safely say that her score needs to be readjusted back to zero.

An Old Favorite

U.S. Vice President Joe Biden, left, and Chinese Premier Wen Jiabao, right, have a light moment during their meeting at the Zhongnanhai leaders compound in Beijing, China on Friday Aug. 19, 2011. (AP Photo/Andy Wong, Pool)

I haven't featured a classic Matching Armchairs Photo-Op™ in some time, so here's a recent beauty starring Joe Biden. And I always love it when they have the translators discreetly tucked behind the armchair principals. Five stars!

Michele Bachmann Perfectly At Ease Around Negroes

(Detail: see below)

Republican presidential candidate, Rep. Michele Bachmann, R-Minn. greets Tommy Rice, a 38-year employee of the Beacon Drive-in, Tuesday, August 16, 2011, in Spartanburg, S.C. (AP Photo/ Richard Shiro)

She then screamed for backup:

Side note: her eyelashes are PERFECT (see above).

A Modest Proposal For Michele Bachmann

You all saw this coming, right?

The Other White Meat™

Former House Speaker Newt Gingrich and his wife Callista grill pork chops as they visited the Iowa Pork Producers tent during a campaign stop at the Iowa State Fair in Des Moines, Iowa, Friday, Aug. 12, 2011. (AP Photo/Charles Dharapak)

One thing I love about things like the Iowa Republican Circus is that you get to see totally wonky urbanites like Newt 'n' Cally struggle to appear like jes' folks for the cameras. The Pork Tent™ was an irresistible photo-op-stop for all the candidates, and here we see a hilariously contrived scene of two Washington boutique media figures wearing branded aprons and pretending to prepare food. Other photos of the event show other candidates stepping up and flipping the pork for as long as it takes, presumably, for the Associated Press to record the moment.

The Denver Post has done us all a favor and rounded up the best wire photos of the fair. My favorite shot shows a circle of reporters creating with their cameras and microphones a sphincter from which Sarah Palin emerges:

(Max Whittaker/The New York Times)

And, of course, Ugly Tour Bus Photoblogging – Michele Bachmann edition:

(Scott Olson/Getty Images)

UPDATE: Telegraph blogger Toby Harnden captured the most magical moment of all:

She then shoved her wiener in husbeard Marcus' face:

There you have it: a graphic depiction of the Bachmanns' sex life. What fun those two have!

UPDATE: Over at Mediasnack, Frances Martel, offended, asks of the humorous wiener pic, "Is This The Best Picture Of Rep. Bachmann Eating A Corn Dog The Telegraph Could Find?" My response to Ms. Martel is how much better a picture of Michele Bachmann eating a corn dog do you want? Or is necessary?

You Can Learn A Lot About Sarah Palin By Staring At Her Bangs

(AP Photo. Click for bigger!)

I'm glad that this blog has gotten back to the things that really matter: hairdos! That's, obv, Sarah Palin earlier today at the Iowa State Fair. She's staring at a cow or something, wondering what it is, I don't know. What goes through Sarah Palin's peculiar mind? I imagine her thoughts to be like many little miniature Ty-D-Bol guys in their little boats sloshing around in an erratic sea, forever just out of hearing distance from each other, unable to communicate or correspond in any way.

Hellooooooooooo... Can anybody heeeeear meeeeeeeee...

And covering and protecting those thoughts is the Palin hairdo. What is that? Octo-fringe?  It's like tarantulas resting on her forehead. There's something so fake-casual about it, this hairdo is really annoying me. It's so manicured to look tousled. And if you click to see the larger picture, you'll see that the dye-job is quite elaborate and multicolored. This says something about Sarah Palin.

Michele Bachmann's Debate Contract Required That A Fresh Coat Of Varnish Be Applied During Each Commercial Break

Republican presidential candidate Rep. Michele Bachmann, R-Minn. is pictured during a commercial break at the Iowa GOP/Fox News Debate at the CY Stephens Auditorium in Ames, Iowa, Thursday, Aug. 11, 2011. (AP Photo/Charlie Neibergall, Pool)

Book Shelf: Unpublished, Obscene Vandalism Of Obscure Charles Schulz Religious Cartoons By Noteworthy Underground Cartoonists

In the 1990s in San Diego, I went to the Comic Con every year (yes, this is another "I went to the San Diego Comic Con before it was bloated and horrible" story). I got to know Mary Fleener, who was local, and every year she and several other excellent underground humor cartoonists, such as Dennis Worden, J.R. Williams, and Wayno, would share a couple of tables at the Con. They called their little area Sin Alley due to the "adult" nature of their comics.

So anyway! Long story short, I'm not saying that the cartoonists I just mentioned are responsible for this vulgar, obscene and hilarious re-working of one of Charles Schulz's awful collections of Christian-themed teen cartoons (or are they teen-themed Christian cartoons?), or that they Xeroxed these up and handed them out to their friends for free during the Comic Con. No, it must have been some other guys.

The alterations range from simple caption changes to the addition of hideously graphic sexual organs, scatology, gore, filth, pornography, blasphemy and all the other wonderful things which generally make modern comics enjoyable. Here are a few of my favorite less profane examples:

To make it easier for you to either enjoy or condemn the whole thing, I've split it into two PDFs which you can download here and here. Warning: not safe for work, unless bloody cartoons featuring massive penises are a popular email forwarding commodity at your workplace. But as sophomoric and ridiculous as they are, if you don't laugh at least once, you may be dead inside.

PSP Flashback! Remember When Ursula Plassnik Wore Great Shoes And Made The President Of Syria Look Totally Nervous?

Syrian President Bashar Assad meets with the Austrian Foreign Minister Ursula Plassnik at Ash-Shaeb presidential palace in Damascus on Thursday, Feb. 7, 2008, for talks on bilateral relations, the presidential Lebanese crisis and other regional and international issues. Plassnik's visit is part of a Middle East tour that has included Lebanon, the Palestinian territories and Israel.(AP photo Bassem Tellawi)

Infant Shares Our Feelings About Michele Bachmann

Republican presidential candidate Rep. Michele Bachmann, R-Minn., holds 3-month-old Reese Benjamin as she makes a campaign stop in Humboldt, Iowa, Tuesday, Aug. 9, 2011. (AP Photo/Charles Dharapak)

The unfortunate baby-shot: truly a rite of passage for all aspiring politicians.

Newsweek Seeks To Prove That It Is Impossible To Take A Non-Crazy-Looking Picture Of Michele Bachmann

Click for bigger, magnificent. Best Michele pic EVER.

Ha ha! Newsweek is taking a little heat for their ka-raze-ee cover photo of Michele Bachmann, so they posted what they purport to be "the outtakes" from the photographer's work to prove that she always looks crazy no matter what! Case closed!

And this is, of course, unmitigated bullshit in its purest form. First of all, there are only nine "outtakes" in the feature, and anybody who knows anything about photography knows that's an improbably tiny number of discarded shots. Secondly, I stand by my earlier comment that this is the kind of revenge Bachmann should expect when she constantly bashes the press. And finally, I've seen loads of pictures (so you don't have to!) of Michele Bachmann, and there are plenty of them where she looks quite convincingly like a totally normal person.

Newsweek should stand tall! They should just shrug and say, "Why yes, we are desperate for attention and so we used a particularly nutty picture of this lady because she is a particularly nutty subject, and it's funny, so there."

It's all OK though, because the photos are great. I mean, look at her. Look at Michele! She is terrified of that coffee table.

Plus, anybody who wears those shoes with that suit is obviously off her rocker.

Pony Pals Will Get Mad At Me If I Leave That Hideous Picture Of Michele Bachmann At The Top Of The Blog For Too Long, So Here's A Picture Of A Much More Attractive Baby Rhino

An Indian rhinoceros cub takes a bath in a mud hole at the Tierpark Zoo in August 5, 2011 in Berlin. JOHANNES EISELE/AFP/Getty Images

Ugh, OK, so last night I endured some kind of terrible food-poisoning event. This morning the first thing I saw was that horrible picture of Michele Bachmann, and it basically started my body's involuntary purge cycle all over again, so I've got to push it down the page a little bit. Blecccch.

Speaking of Bachmann, Newsweek's cover story is now up for your reading... pleasure? It's not very pleasurable at all, truth be told, because it is so basic, like it's intended for people who have never heard of Bachmann. The author, Lois Romano, mentions controversies without describing them, and it's just Tea Party Tea Party blah blah blah. The article features no insights, no analysis, nothing new or noteworthy at all.

I believe the cover photo says much more about Michele than the actual story it purports to represent, like the former wrote a check the latter was too embarrassed to cash. Too bad.

Cute baby rhino, though, right?

UPDATE: The New Yorker has a much, much better Bachmann profile up today. This one is everything the Newsweek story should be, but isn't. 

OMG

Wow! OK, one could say that Michele Bachmann looks absolutely nuts on the cover of Newsweek's upcoming issue (detail above). One could say that this is an intentional act of violence against Bachmann by Newsweek's editors. One could say that this cover represents Bachmann's media-bashing chickens coming home to roost. One could say that this is a naked cry for attention from Newsweek itself.

Yes, one could say all these things, and they would all be 100% accurate.

Great News For Hairdressers

Oh, sure, it's easy to get discouraged with "our side" every now and again: we squander opportunities, snatch defeat from the jaws of victory, wear scrunchies in public, etc.  But worry not, because fantastic news comes via an extremely unlikely source: Andrew Breitbart's Big Peace website, where what first appears to be a strongly-worded condemnation of inter-interior-decorator matrimony by the superbly-named Paul Hair soon takes an unexpected turn with a tantalizing promise:

[...] be prepared for the left to open the doors to sodomites from around the world [...]

Hooray!

Real Food: Block & Barrel

Click for bigger.

I Don't Have Much To Write About Right Now, So Here's A Picture Of Callista Gingrich Last Thurday With A Disturbing Elephant Furry

(Photo via Gingrich Productions Twitter)

I wonder what they'll get up to? I'd love to know. Wouldn't you?

Haw, anyway, this is a dumb photo stunt having something to do with Sweet Land of Liberty, Callista's children's book in which Ellis (get it?) the Elephant (GET IT? GET IT?) teaches America's tots about American Exceptionalism™. Neat!

So many questions: why does Ellis have tiger stripes on his trunk? Why is he wearing oven mitts?