Noted...

Bombing Iran: Europe and the U.S. have given Israel their "blessing" for a strike against Iran, according to Israeli Minister of Strategic Affairs Avigdor Lieberman.

Lieberman said the Western powers acknowledged the severity of the Iranian nuclear threat to the Jewish state, but said that ongoing conflicts in Afghanistan and Iraq are “going to prevent the leaders of countries in Europe and America from deciding on the use of force to destroy Iran's nuclear facilities,” even if diplomacy ultimately fails.

What threat to the Jewish state? Let us suppose that Iran suddenly possessed ten nuke-equipped ICBMs. How could they use them without fear of annihilation?

Jack Burkman, conservative pundit, was on the DC Madam's list.

The party of suck. Republicans like Burkman and Vitter aren't the really naughty ones. In North Carolina, State Representative David Almond is alleged to have displayed the Little Almond to a female employee while yelling "Suck it, bitch!" Strangely, this romantic suggestion failed to have its intended seductive effect.

One wag has suggested that the GOP adopt this phrase as its new slogan.

Executive privilege has long been this administration's fallback position, but only recently have we understood just how privileged Bush thinks he is. Here is Marcy Wheeler on EP and the congressional request for testimony from Taylor and Miers. More than that:

But the real absurdity is BushCo's refusal to show up and reveal the truth about when it learned that Pat Tillman was killed by friendly fire. They don't assert executive privilege. Rather, they're calling this Embarrassment Privilege "Executive Branch confidentiality interests"

Oh, and have I mentioned the Exempt from Presidential Records Act but not from Executive Privilege Privilege, being used to prevent Congress from seeing emails sent on an external server?

This is getting absurd--and deserves to be treated with appropriate absurdity in return. It's like a new party game we're playing, the "dream up the most absurd privilege" game.

Actually, Marcy...

We have a winner! If this isn't the most absurd use (or abuse) of the executive privilege claim, I'll eat a hard-boiled egg. (I hate hard-boiled eggs.)

Daniel Hopsicker has a characteristically amazing story (which I should discuss at greater length in a short while) about one of the jets hired to ferry prominent Saudis in the wake of 9/11. Turns out the owner of one of the jet charter companies was a fellow by the name of Frank Zammiello, who appears to have close contacts with -- ahem! -- da boys. You know who I'm talkin' about. Fuggedaboutit.

Hopsicker looks into Zammiello's associates, and the resultant tale is long and complex. Along the way, Hopsicker makes reference to one John Connelly, an FBI agent tasked with looking into organized crime in Boston. Connelly was accused of corruption -- apparently, he proved a little too helpful to his informants.

In 2002, a congressional committee run by Republican Dan Burton asked to see FBI documents concerning the Connelly case. This is the sort of request congressmen make all the time.

And yet Burton's request was turned down. The reason? "Executive privilege." As Hopsicker puts it:

You would have thought Bush had more important things on his mind at that particular moment than FBI corruption in Boston, but who knows?

Now, we do not need much imagination to guess why Bush would use the EP claim to cover up the Tillman embarrassment. But why the hell would he want to keep Congress from looking into a corruption case? Mull it over. It's hard to think a scenario that isn't way creepy.