He may not have what it takes to run this country, but ya gotta love Joe Biden for having the guts to call BS when he sees it.

The chairman of the Senate Foreign Relations Committee Joe Biden, D-Delaware, called President Bush’s comments accusing Sen. Barack Obama and other Democrats of wanting to appease terrorists "bulls**t” and said if the president disagrees so strongly with the idea of talking to Iran then he needs to fire his secretaries of State and Defense, both of whom Biden said have pushed to sit down with the Iranians.

“This is bullshit. This is malarkey. This is outrageous. Outrageous for the president of the United States to go to a foreign country, sit in the Knesset…and make this kind of ridiculous statement,” Biden said angrily in a brief interview just off the Senate floor.

“He’s the guy who’s weakened us. He’s the guy that’s increased the number of terrorists in the world. His policies have produced this vulnerability the United States has. His intelligence community pointed that out not me. The NIE has pointed that out and what are you talking about, is he going to fire Condi Rice? Condi Rice has talked about the need to sit down. So his first two appeasers are Rice and Gates. I hope he comes home and does something.”

Keith Olbermann can go overboard on his "Special Comments," and this one is no exception. But at the end, Olbermann catches Bush lying about what he said about quitting golf so that mothers of dead soldiers wouldn't see him playing the game. Olbermann finds a photo taken two months after he claims to have quit. It was bad enough for him to say he was sacrificing golf for these soldiers, but to lie about it? In that light, he deserves Olbermann's full wrath:

I have to give credit where it's due. President George W. Bush is fighting for lower caps on farm subsidies while Democrats want to give more government money to rich farmers. Yes, that's right. This may be the only issue where the president is actually helping the little guy. Maybe. It could be a typo, or perhaps Bush misread his speech or something.

There are few people who understand the situation in Iran and Iraq better than Juan Cole. His knowledge of the region and fluency in the local languages gives him the ability to dig past all the PR spin.

Recently, Cole has been noting the absurdity of Bush & Co. claims that Iran and Muqtada al-Sadr are on the same side, and this it was Sadr who sought out the Iranians to broker the recent cease fire in Basra. Quoting local sources, Cole points out that it was the Maliki government that sought the cease fire, than it's the Maliki government who is directly tied to Iran, and that Sadr is not looked on too favorably by Tehran.

It all points to an effort to start a war with Iran, blaming them for the mess we created next door. Bush seems to ignore that our allies in Baghdad are tied directly to Iran, that the Iranians sheltered and trained them, and continue to support them.

What Sadr is doing is pointing out to Iraqis that their government is a puppet of both the U.S. and Iran, which is basically the truth. He could end up being the unifying figure that has been missing in Iraq. But he's a nightmare for Bush.

It's not enough for Bush to piss off most of the Middle East, but now he wants to screw with Russia. Yes, that missile shield located in Eastern Europe is really for protection from the Middle East, not Russia. Like any kid who can look at a map will believe that one. And inviting Ukraine and Georgia into NATO is just fine, too. Guess Bush was absent on that day they went through basic diplomacy and international relations in college. How would he feel if the Russians put a missile shield in Mexico, or invited all of South America to join a modern-day version of the Warsaw Pact?

Just when you think you've heard it all, The Decider finds a way to screw us once again. Bush has a problem with people saying he wants permanent military bases in Iraq. He claims he doesn't want such bases. But according to his spokesperson Dana Perino, the U.S. doesn't have any permanent bases, anywhere.

That means all those bases in Japan, Korea, Europe and other places, no, they're not permanent. When asked about Guantanamo, Perino had to admit that this base doesn't count.

Just like Bush did with torture, they changed the definition of "permanent" to mean something other than what it did before. In their view, all bases are temporary, used at the invitation of the host country. Since the host could tell us to leave, that means they aren't permanent.

Cuba has been asking us to leave Gitmo for decades. Fidel Castro even refuses to cash the rent checks the U.S. sends as payment for using the base. Guess Gitmo is what should be more properly called occupied territory.

Seems George Orwell was right about the world. He just got the date wrong.

Less than three weeks ago, George W. Bush was talking about how great the economy is. Today he says we urgently need a stimulus package (tax cuts for the rich) because the economy is in trouble.

Is there anyone left who believes what he says anymore?

Nevada Appeal

Bush says US economy is safe and sound.

Gee, now I feel better.

He reminds me of Kevin Bacon's first movie role in "Animal House," the part where he is furiously urging the crowd, "Don't panic! All is well!" right before his is trampled to death.

Bush is trying to tell everyone that he wasn't made aware of the findings of the NIE that said Iran shut down its nuke program in 2003. Joe Biden calls him on it:

“Are you telling me a president who is briefed every single morning, who is fixated on Iran, is not told back in August that the tentative conclusion of 16 intelligence agencies in the United States government said they had abandoned their effort for a nuclear weapon in ’03?” Biden said in a conference call with reporters.

“That’s not believable,” Biden added. “I refuse to believe that. If that’s true, he has the most incompetent staff in … modern American history and he’s one of the most incompetent presidents in modern American history.”

There has been some disagreement about whether George W. Bush in fact lied about Iraq in order to invade the country. He argues that he didn't know the full truth, and that what we said at the time was what he believed to be true. Others point out that the truth was there, but that Bush and his cohorts weren't looking at it objectively.

Whatever.

But I think there is little doubt now that the president was lying about the threat of Iran obtaining nuclear weapons. The newly released National Intelligence Assessment on Iran clearly states that their nuclear weapons program closed in 2003. And, the president and his people knew about this assessment for the last several months, while in public they were making all kinds of threatening gestures, even talking World War III.

Plausible deniability might get you off on Iraq, but not Iran. Watch him squirm to explain himself:

Josh Marshall's take:

Look at the expressions on Bush's face and the evident discomfort as he gets ready to fib and weave about when he knew the intel on Iran.

Pay particular attention to when he says he was told there was new information back in August but supposedly didn't ask what the 'new information' was. And then: "He didn't tell me what the information was." Right ...)