• Ralph Reed is happy to grip and grin with a blatant adultering cousin- **** er, as long as it brings in contributions. [Talk To Action]

• Richard Cohen pays his mortgage by writing articles about what stale websites he surfs through in the slow afternoons on 15th Street. Sounds like serendipity to us. [WP]

• Who dropped the ball on the pre-9/11 intelligence? Who do you think? [Able Danger Blog]

• Bono for Secretary of State! And, uh, Axl Rose for President? [Democracy Arsenal]

• Social Darwinism is most easily understood using the parable of the meat helmet. [Punk Ass Blog]

• A cure for cancer will be available in five years. No, that doesn’t mean you should get the plan with unlimited anytime minutes. [BBC]

The DoD is taking extreme security precautions for Sunday's tasteful Clint Black jamboree commemorating the fourth anniversary of the Sept. 11 attacks--to the point of erecting restraining fences all along the two-mile path of the march from the Pentagon to the National Mall:

What's unusual for an event on the Mall is the combination of fences, required preregistration and the threat of arrest.

Park Police officials said security and safety were concerns, especially because Secretary of Defense Donald H. Rumsfeld will participate in some of the day's events.

An understandable precaution. It was Donald Rumsfeld, after all, who waved off concerns about looters of the Iraqi National Museum with the anodyne reply, "It's untidy. Freedom's untidy. And free people are free to make mistakes and commit crimes."

And God knows what the dude will say to incite the crowd if anyone gets in his way when he gets some everclear in him and decides to bum rush Clint Black. -- HOLLY MARTINS

Tight Constraints on Pentagon's Freedom Walk [Washington Post]

Looting and Conquest [The Nation]

Loudon County contractor John A. Andrews II laid to rest a controversy over the authenticity of an American flag he purchased on eBay said to have been flown atop a construction crane at the Pentagon in the wake of the 9/11 attacks. Andrews had two Boy Scouts and a Loudon County Boy Scouts commissioner cut the stars out of the flag and burn it in two metal drums filled with burning oak logs--a method, the AP reports, that "followed one of several methods outlined in Scout protocol."

Come again? When did the Boy Scouts get into the destroying-the-symbols-of-our-liberty business? Wait, we know: It must have been during that brief interval when the government made them accept homosexual scoutmasters!

The story only gets stranger. It appears that the construction company originally associated with the flag's alleged provenance claims it never flew a flag at the Pentagon rebuilding site. What's more, it doesn't even have a crane from which it never flew the alleged flag. Nevertheless, the seller of the flag is suing the construction company for the difference between the previous high bid on Old Glory and Andrews's $25,000--some $346,000. Because, you know, if you immolate something, you need to pay at least six figures for it to get any sort of good flame going. It's right there in the Boy Scout Manual. -- HOLLY MARTINS

Purported Pentagon Flag Burned to End Controversy [AP, via CNN]

• Administration officials privately acknowledge trouble with Iraq. Bush: "The recent violence in Iraq is a grim reminder of the brutal enemies we face in the war on terror." Retired General McCaffrey: "It's a race against time because by the end of this coming summer we can no longer sustain the presence we have now. . . The American people are walking away from this war." [WP, USAT]
• Bush expresses sympathy for Sheehan: "It breaks my heart to think about a family weeping over the loss of a loved one. I understand the anguish that some feel about the death that takes place." White House does not publicly dispute Sheehan's characterization of her original meeting with Bush. [WP, NYT]
• Abramoff is indicted on fraud charges by federal grand jury in Florida. Rothenberg: "It absolutely could play into the Democrats' national message. They are going to look for any and all ways to paint the Republicans as ethically challenged." [WSJ, NYT]
• NARAL will change its controversial anti-Roberts advertisement. [WP, NYT]
• FBI prepares for a possible domestic terrorist attack around anniversary of 9/11; sources propose a plot that involves exploding fuel tankers. DHS flack: "The information is uncorroborated, and the source is of questionable reliability." [NYT]

• FEC criticizes DeLay's PAC for misstatements and irregularities. [WP]
• Roberts provided confidential advice within the Reagan administration. [NYT]
• 9/11 Commissioners are looking into pre-9/11 surveillance of hijackers by DoD. [WP]
• Many nominees to Pentagon jobs are stuck in the senate confirmation process. [NYT]

Remember Rudy Giuliani's bravura propaganda turn at last year's GOP convention? When he delivered the plainly apocryphal tale about turning to Bernie Kerik amid the smoke and rubble of the WTC attacks and blurting, "Bernie, thank God George Bush is our president"?

Well, now the Bush administration has come up with something for those Americans who found that performance just too goddamn tasteful. It's called the America Supports You Freedom Walk, and as Donald Rumsfeld announced yesterday it's our government's official commemoration of the fourth anniversary of the September 11 massacre. It will begin at the Pentagon with a commemorative service for those killed there on September 11, and it will culminate in a Clint Black concert at the National Mall.

Wonkette HQ employees have absolutely no quarrel with an official memorial for a national tragedy. But we do take issue with planning one around a mass stroll across the Potomac and giving the thing a motivational name--clearly in line with the practice of dubbing our military options things like Urgent Fury and Operation Infinite Justice in the same self-advertising vein. And with no disrespect to Mr. Clint Black and his repertoire, we simply don't see how a couple of sets of New Country ballads, however soaring or overorchestrated they may be, are remotely appropriate to legitimate expressions of public grief. What's next, Darryl Worley as the new undersecretary of official condolence?

We find ourselves growing strangely serious, and yet more bitter. Pardon us as we adjourn to spend the next several hours cursing and sputtering ineffectually.--HOLLY MARTINS

Is He **** ing Kidding? [Steve Gilliard]