• North Korea: Still have nuclear weapons, still want to bomb the **** out of us.
• Al-Zarqawi: Still dead, still causing trouble.
• Sy Hersh: Still concerned about how we want to bomb the **** out of Iran.
• Space program: Still pointless, dangerous joke.

• Names & Faces: Al Gore on An Inconvenient Truth: “The production schedule was so grueling, I told the producers they should have called it ‘Kill Al Volume 1.’” [Life via WP]
• Heard on the Hill: Rep. Katherine Harris’s latest shoeless incident also involved a car wreck… A television ad for Rep. Deborah Pryce (R-OH) misspelled Pryce’s name. [Roll Call]
• Lloyd Grove’s Lowdown: Sen. Ted Kennedy says that Al Gore is keeping his options open with respect to a presidential bid, describes Sen. Hillary Clinton as “an extremely significant contender,” and expresses pride in his son, Rep. Patrick Kennedy (D-RI). [NYDN]
• Liz Smith: Did Roger Ailes have advance notice of the attack on Abu Musab Al-Zarqawi? [NYP]
• Washington Whispers: Journalist Robert Draper is working on a biography of George W. Bush, due out next year… Dave Matthews likes to read the Nation, which “seems kind of moderate” to him. [USNWR]

Sad about missing the ice cream and the dadrock and the picnic and the seersucker yesterday? Well, cheer up — you could be the Comics Curmudgeon, whom we force each and every week to look through the detritus of Today’s Cartoons for the unfunniest of the unfunny. And then we make him spin it into gold, while we count our money and trawl Facebook for more pictures of those strapping young Frist boys.

This week, it’s all crazy, all the time in toon land. After the jump: blood, guts, flags, and polar bears. Join us, won’t you?

You know what I like? You know what really totally makes my day? When some political cartoonist really just lets one rip! No, that’s not a fart joke. I mean, a lot of times cartoons are sort of tepid and boring, trying to pander to the sensible middle, labels on everything, about tax law or some complicated aspect of foreign policy or BLAH BLAH BLAH. And to be sure, they’re rewarded for such efforts, mostly because their bosses don’t have to listen to outraged readers with lots of free time. That’s why my very favorite cartoons are ones where the cartoonist just draws a bunch of insane whackedoutedness about whatever the hell he or she feels like drawing and/or ranting about. In order to encourage America’s political doodlers to continue with the crazy, I recognize some of the loonier of the week here.

Insane content: Where to start? Let’s see, it’s a footrace where a generic terrorist’s feet are squishing in Abu Musab al-Zarqawi’s blood.

Best of the crazy **** : It appears that the artist has taken the media’s constant “500-pound bomb” refrain to mean that the U.S. military uses Warner-Brothers-cartoon-style lead weights to squash our enemies. Also, al-Zarqawi’s feet stick out from under said weights like the Wicked Witch of the East’s.

Caveats: Terrorist appears to be wearing a doo-rag. “Iraqi Freedom” is wearing short shorts that would probably get him killed on the streets of Baghdad for “indecency.”

Insane content: Congress’s naked ass, just a thin flag away from visibility!

Best of the crazy **** : If you look closely, you can really see that the artist provided a lot of subtle clues — the way the hem of the shirt rides up, the dainty bare ankles — to indicate that Congress’s ass is, like, totally naked. Plus, the cartoon ran on Flag Day, so: topical.

Caveats: Wait, are we saying that it’s a bad thing that we can’t see Congress’s naked ass?

Insane content: The New Orleans Mayor’s Office is surrounded by a protective wall of bull **** . (I’m assuming that’s what that stuff is, anyway, as otherwise this makes no sense to speak of.)

Best of the crazy **** : The absence of any background details implies that the Mayor’s Office sits high above the Big Easy on a veritable mountain of feces. Mayor Nagin is look pretty smooth there in his open collar and goatee, and the cartoonist had the good sense to not even label him. (Yeah, you’d think that what with him being right next to the MAYOR’S OFFICE and all there’d be no need, but once these guys start labeling things, it’s hard to stop them.)

Caveats: The building itself is something of a weird mishmosh, architecturally speaking. It should either reflect New Orleans’s rich history and architectural heritage, or be a squalid substandard FEMA trailer.

Insane content: George Bush and Vicente Fox are gay lovers who have gay sex and will soon get gay married.

Best of the crazy **** : So much wacky visual deliciousness: The fact that Dem Donkey and GOP Elephant are wearing spiffy suits, the donkey’s look of mean-spirited triumph, the motion lines and puffs of smoke as the door whiffs open, Fox’s enormous blond hairdo (actually, on closer inspection, that may just be the background lighting, but I like my version better), and, of course, the fact that George Bush has “Illegal Immigration” written on his ass, which, as everyone knows, is the gayest part of any homosexual’s body.

Caveats: The “quote marks” around “the closet” are “inappropriate.”

Insane content: OH MY GOD THAT BEAR JUST ATE THAT OTHER BEAR AND THERE’S A BLOODY BEAR STAIN WHERE THE FIRST BEAR USED TO BE AND SOME BEAR BONES AND THAT’S CRAZY!

Best of the crazy **** : Definitely the bloody bear stain. You get the feeling that the artist had been squirreling away that “news item” until he could come up with some topic — any topic — that could be illustrated best by a polar bear eating another polar bear. Normally I frown on that sort of forced analogy, but obviously I’m willing to make exceptions when polar bear cannibalism is concerned.

Caveats: I’m pretty sure that the artist is opposed to cutting social spending to fund the Iraq war, but he’s undermining his point with this metaphor, because everyone knows that polar bears are irresistibly **** ing delicious. And if our social safety net is some kind of plump, juicy, tasty polar bear, well of course we’re going to cannibalize it. —THE COMICS CURMUDGEON

• Recent good news, including the killing of Abu Musab Al-Zarqawi and the non-indictment of Karl Rove, may lift President Bush’s poll numbers, allowing the White House and the GOP to get off the defensive. [WP; WP]
• Democrats pick Vietnam War veteran and former Reagan Navy Secretary James Webb to run against Sen. George Allen (R-VA). [WP; WP; NYT]
• At the Take Back America conference, liberal activists boo and hiss at Sen. Hillary Rodham Clinton (D-NY), after she reiterates her opposition to a timetable for Iraq withdrawal. Sen. John Kerry (D-MA) denounces the war, to cheers and applause. [WP]
• Rep. Patrick Kennedy (D-RI) pleads guilty to driving under the influence of prescription medication, gets a year of probation. [WP; NYT]
• Rep. Alan Mollohan (D-WV), currently under federal investigation, acknowledges numerous mistakes in his financial disclosure forms. [WP; NYT]
• Fraudulent claims for Hurricane Katrina and Rita assistance may total as much as $1.4 billion; FEMA paid for “season football tickets, a tropical vacation and even a divorce lawyer.” [WP; NYT; USAT]
• Tropical Storm Alberto weakens before making landfall, failing to reach hurricane strength; “a splash in the panhandle.” [WP; NYT; USAT]
• Core consumer prices rose against last month, making another rate hike from the Fed likely. [WSJ]
• Family of Guantanamo prisoner questions whether he committed suicide. [WP]

• In defiance of the best interests of both the Democratic party and summer weekend motorists, Jack Murtha chooses Friday afternoon to declare his intention to run for majority leader, with the notion that Democrats will actually win some midterm elections and retake the House. “Jacky Drama” and “First Degree Murtha” expected to be to most popular nicknames.

• No tears, but at least one full sigh as we watched DeLay’s farewell speech. We hope someone got some free drinks at his party, and will send us pictures — of the party, not the drinks.

• All your yellow ribbon magnets and support for the troops have paid off! Abu Musab al-Zarqawi was killed in Iraq. Death can sometimes be a beginning, as in this case when it started a civic morality discussion on how to display bloody portraits, and how not to. The President, as usual, was out in front with the ideas.

• His prosperity threatened, Arlen Specter walks calmly to his desk, retrieves his weapons, and fires a shot at Dick Cheney — with an angry letter and, um, a craigslist posting.

• First, find out what Kiplinger’s is. Second, get paid out the frame like Tom Delay and Dick Cheney. Third, use fresh lucre to rapidly consume goods and services, increasing overall life satisfaction.

• Bush got back to the gay marriage thing, but unlike other Bush initiatives, this one was over quickly.

• More than one blogger’s wet dream was realized by a New York Times article on Katherine Harris.

• Cynthia McKinney is at it again, setting a bad example any way she can.

• The rumor about Bush and Condi burned so hot, it consumed itself in seconds.

• Yes! There is a God! Er, um — that stuff is gross, he’s so perverted. [AP]

• Bush was irked that Prime Minister Rasmussen seemed unaware of the “puff, puff, pass” rule. [Extreme Mortman]

• The Maryland House of Delegates: one good headlock away from greatness. [eBay]

• Even the cherished sirens of eternal paradise end their w4m ads with, “no fatties.” [SFGate]

• Only “the one” can save the internet. To find her you must ask, “Who is the boss?” [The DC Universe]

• The Counterterrorism Blog keeps track of reactions to Zarqawi’s death. Proterrorism Blog strangely silent all day. [The Counterterrorism Blog]
• Shockey news on House Appropriations Chair Jerry Lewis (R-CA) and Terroristster.com. [TPM Muckraker One and Two]
• Yearly Kos attendees starting to lose us: “We, the people, are coming to power slowly and indefatigably, here in Vegas.” [Daily Kos]
• In Sen. Rick Santorum’s (R-PA) 2005 book, It Takes a Family, he talks about the “weird socialization” of public school kids. For the audio book, he grasps for poll numbers and changes the language to “strange socialization.” [Attytood]
• ABC News publishes the name and picture of the informant who ratted out Zarqawi. It’s cool that ABC’s The Blotter allows open comments, especially today when the commenters are pissed. [The Blotter]

Sucks to be you, Abu Musab al-Zarqawi. First you get killed by a pair of 500-pound bombs.* Then you wind up on the front page of the New York Post, with a cartoon-style speech bubble emanating from your face.

But the unkindest cut of all is when your life gets set to Daniel Powter music. The video montage appears at the end of this clip — Jon Stewart’s priceless exchange with Samantha Bee from last night’s Daily Show.

*Ok, technically he briefly survived the bomb attack, before he mumbled something incoherent and died. This seems neither here nor there.

• Sen. Specter (R-Pa.) proposes to give Bush the choice of getting a warrant from a special court for surveillance programs; proposal would specifically not limit presidential powers. Specter: “I think he [Cheney] is serious about trying to work something out. For the first time, he said they are willing to consider legislation.” [WP]
• Cheney says his communications with Sen. Specter “are not unusual.” Specter: “He does not face head on; he does not deal with his not having taken it up with the chairman. This isn’t me personally; this is institutional. This is not the way government works, to deal with a committee without going through the chairman.” [WP, NYT]
• Rep. DeLay (R-Tex.) gives “defiant retirement speech”: “I did a good job… Given the chance to do it all again, there’s only one thing I’d change. I’d fight even harder.” [WP, NYT, LAT]
• Death of Abu Musab al-Zarqawi will provide little reprieve for Republians feeling political heat. Official: “We don’t want another ‘Mission Accomplished’ moment.” [WSJ]
• Troop levels in Iraq will not be down to 100,000 by the end of this year. [NYT]
• Senate is three votes shy of repealing the estate tax. Sen. Lott (R-Miss.): “The conservative base will appreciate the fact that we are trying.” [NYT, LAT, WSJ, USAT]

• House and Senate negotiators agree on $94.5B for Iraq, Afghanistan, and the Gulf Coast; Bush gets his way on hurricane relief. [WP]
• Congressional Black Caucus opposes leadership move to get Rep. William Jefferson (D-La.) off of the Ways and Means Committee. [LAT]
• Police suspect computer containing Veterans Affairs data was stolen for parts, not names. [WP, NYT]
• Rep. DeLay’s former chief of staff was a top recipient of privately funded travel; cost of trips totaled $85,000. [WP]
• Congress is aging; the average age in the Senate is 60.4 years. [USAT]

• Bloggers ask about timing of Zarqawi death, wonder how we’ve forgotten that Bush wasn’t willing to nab “this known al-Qaeda terrorist in a known location based on air-tight intelligence before the war even began.” [Political Animal]
• Jonah Goldberg hopes “Zarqawi is greeted in the after life with a giant, tasty, bowl of white raisins.” Urban Dictionary declines to comment. [The Corner]
• The father of Nick Berg, the American allegedly beheaded by Zarqawi, takes the high road, quotes John Donne, is called “twat waffle.” [LGF]
• The FDA approves Merck HPV vaccine, Gardasil. On June 29th the national Advisory Committee on Immunization Practices decides whether or not to endorse the vaccine. Committee member Dr. Reginald Finger is concerned the vaccine could undermine his abstinence message. Feministing asks: “Are we Finger **** ed?” [Feministing]

“No, Dominic, I said gold. I want a gold frame. Yeah, with a sort of blue-gray matte. Can we draw a penis on his forehead with a Sharpie? All right, that one’s just for us.”

I Never Thought I Would Say This, But The White House Could Learn A Thing Or Two About Spin [HuffPo]

Well, Fox News, congratulations — you got it.

We don’t know what’s worse: that they ripped this off shamelessly from someone else, or that the someone else was Drudge.

Fox News
Abu Musab al-Zarqawi Killed in Bombing Raid [Fox News]

Earlier: Drudge’s Unyielding Good Taste

One of these things is not like the other:

Or maybe not? Our tipster suggests: “Apparently Americans are obsessed with one-legged people.”

(Actually, scratch that — it seems that Al-Zarqawi was not missing a leg. So was it Heather Mills who traveled to Baghdad for surgery paid for by Saddam?)

CNN.com

Most news organizations are going with either photos of Al-Zarqawi when he was alive, or the tastefully-framed picture of a “cleaned-up” Al-Zarqawi. But not Drudge:

Props for the concise headline, Matt. Brevity is the soul of wit!

Drudge Report
Abu Musab Al-Zarqawi Killed in Air Raid [AP]

Earlier: We Can Go Home Now, Right?
Update: Is This A Ploy To Get Our Attention?

Maybe it’s irrelevant, but did they get that professionally framed?

You know who the real winner is now that al-Zarqawi’s gone? The people of Iraq? No, they’re pretty much still screwed. It’s the editors of The Atlantic, who have a huge Zarqawi profile in their July/August issue, conveniently added to the website yesterday. Abu Musab al-Zarqari: Terrorist mastermind, total idiot.

Abu Muntassir (who would also later break with al-Zarqawi) was his editor. Al-Zarqawi was “a terrible writer,” he told me, “and didn’t really understand the Koran. He had learned it by rote.” Even today, al-Zarqawi cannot write a fatwa, Abu Muntassir said, and as a result has had to set up his own fatwa committee in Iraq.

How embarrassing. Say what you will about Moktada al-Sadr, the guy writes a catchy fatwa.

The Short, Violent Life of Abu Musab al-Zarqawi [The Atlantic]

• Abu Musab al-Zarqawi, al-Qaida leader, is killed in Iraq by a “precision airstrike”; Bush says it’s “a significant victory in the war on terror.” [AP]
• George H.W. Bush “waged a secret campaign over several months” to replace Rumsfeld with a “retired four-star general,” but the president held firm. [Salon]
• Sen. Arlen Specter (R-Pa.) exposes how Cheney played hardball with the Judiciary Committee. [NYT]
• Victory in California primary “settled Republicans nerves,” but the margin was slim and the campaign was expense. Ken Mehlman: “You see a lot of things that are bellwethers, and they indicate Republicans are in position to hold Congress.” Professor: “The fact that Busby got 15 points over Democratic registration, that should make Republicans nervous. It’s not that Bilbray won. This is a safe Republican seat. I was very surprised that $5 million doesn’t allow you to break 50 percent.” [WP, NYT, LAT, USAT]
• Constitutional amendment banning gay marriage fails to get 60 votes needed to end debate; roll calls ends with 49 yeas, 48 nays. Sen. Sam Brownback (R-Kan.): “We’re not going to stop until marriage between a man and a woman is protected… for the future of our children in this society.” [WP, NYT, USAT]
• FBI threatened to pick the lock of Rep. William Jefferson’s office when a Capitol Police official hesitated. [WP]

• Democrats criticize loss of personal data by the Veterans Affairs Department. [NYT]
• House and Senate negotiators agree on $8B aid package for Louisiana. [NYT]
• Bush wants immigrants to learn English. [NYT]
• Senators push for overhaul of estate tax. [WSJ]
• Stepdaughter of Rep. Jerry Lewis (R-Calif.) received over $40,000 from his lobbyist-backed PAC. [WP]

Striking back in the war of Internet images, the American military today released what they said were the captured outtakes of a video made by Abu Musab al-Zarqawi that it hoped would make him look more like a bumbling paintball player than the ruthless jihadist he has portrayed himself as.

Future US Military propaganda projects:

• Raw footage of Muqtada al-Sadr sped up w/ Benny Hill Show theme soundtrack
• Audio tape of Osama bin-Laden “mashed up” w/ “Since U Been Gone” and Lil Jon’s “Snap Yo Fingers”
• New hilarious Note “memo” from Saddam’s defense attorneys.
• New Iraq Minister of Information: Katie Couric

U.S. Shows Video of Bumbling Zarqawi [NYT]

On this, the anniversary of the war, let’s see how old man Rumsfeld thinks it’s going.

Some have described the situation in Iraq as a tightening noose, noting that “time is not on our side”and that “morale is down.” Others have described a “very dangerous” turn of events and are “extremely concerned.”

Yes, those sound like the reasonable complaints of conscientious political figures with legitimate concerns about the way the war has been waged. Maybe expressed by George Will and Representative Murtha, or some likeminded individuals. Those are fairly mainstream views, after all.

Who are they that have expressed these concerns? In fact, these are the exact words of terrorists discussing Iraq — Abu Musab al-Zarqawi and his associates — who are describing their own situation and must be watching with fear the progress that Iraq has made over the past three years.

Oh, snap! You hear that, critics? Naysayers? The 65% of Americans who disapprove of Bush’s handling of Iraq? YOU ALL THINK LIKE TERRORISTS. QUOD ERAT DEMONSTRANDUM, BITCHES.

What We’ve Gained in 3 Years in Iraq [WP]

Sunni clerics and political party spokesmen may be encouraging their constituents to go to the polls tomorrow, but this has only redoubled the efforts of jihadists to murder and intimidate them, regardless of their democratic ambivalence or committed disdain for an American military presence in Iraq. The New York Times reports:

Sunni insurgents launched five attacks against the largest Sunni Arab political party on the eve of Iraq's crucial referendum Friday, bombing and burning offices and the home of one of its leaders in retaliation after the group dropped its opposition to the draft constitution.

--MICHAEL WEISS

Continued after the jump.

Sunni Divide on Display a Day Before Iraq Vote [NYT]
In Iraqi Swing City, Hope vs. Defiance [WaPo]
Zawahiri Letter [English translation]

It's not exactly a feather in anyone's cap if national elections are successful because the wellspring of potential Al Qaeda recruits and sympathizers has been drained by Al Qaeda itself. But thuggery, almost by definition, means a power struggle, a process of self-cannibalization, which if this occurs within the ranks of jihadism, can only be to the greater good of Iraq.

Consider the recently translated letter sent by Osama's number two, Ayman al-Zawahiri, to the leader of "Al Qaeda in Mesopotamia," Abu Musab al-Zarqawi. It argues for an about-face of strategy in luring Iraqis away from democracy and toward the establishment of a Sharia-governed caliphate in the Gulf: i.e., stopping killing those same Iraqis. If the letter is in fact authentic, then the advice contained within it certainly hasn't been heeded.

Zarqawi consistently maintains that his two biggest fears are a large, well-equipped Iraqi military and police force, and Iraqi self-determination. He's even floated the idea of his own "timetable" for withdrawal from the country -- to a more propitious "field of operations," like Syria -- should these two criteria be satisfied. He's declared open war against the Shiites, "collaborationist" Sunnis, and any group he considers atheistic or apostate of the "one true Islam." This can't be pleasing to "The Base" in Pakistan, Afghanistan and wherever else Bin Laden's original lieutenantry lurk because while it's true that they adhere to same core fundamentalist tenets, they also appreciate the value of pragmatism and public relations, two things for which Zarqawi has no patience. His stubbornness in assaulting the very people he should want to win over can therefore be seen as a more hopeful sign that his forces will grow increasingly isolated, even in the so-called "Triangle of Death." For a majority of Sunnis to cast ballots tomorrow, and for the draft constitution to be approved, would be a devastating blow against Al Qaeda, not just regionally but globally as well.

Morale on this side of the battlefield in the war on terror is at an all-time low, thanks largely to the incompetence of the Bush administration. But what's seldom discussed is what morale is like on that side, thanks to an entirely different species of incompetence.

Again, it's no cause for self-congratulation that the short-sightedness and stupidity of a man like Zarqawi may yet prove to be our greatest ally.