Old Fashioned Patriot

Atrios notes that Dick Cheney will probably not be forced to resign for his role in breaking Bush Sr.'s law when Cheney outed Valerie Plame's CIA identity for crass political gain.

Wasn't there a time that aWol said

Listen, I know of nobody -- I don't know of anybody in my administration who leaked classified information. If somebody did leak classified information, I'd like to know it, and we'll take the appropriate action.

I don't believe appropriate action includes a Presidential Medal of Freedom.

This excellent article at the N.Y. Times mentioned my belief that there was renewed interest in the Miserable Failure Googlebomb after Hurricane Katrina. I now have more data to back up that assertion, interestingly enough, from Google itself. Hurricane Katrina was a huge search term which isn't surprising considering it was one of the worst natural disasters to hit the U.S. recently. Shortly after that "failure" was a huge search term which happened to coincide with the large number of references to Hurricane Katrina in news articles (the second graph on the page.)

Two things stick out about top graph in the chart. "Failure" lasted as a search term much longer than "Hurricane Katrina" and it surged again right before the November 2006 elections.

One last note about the trend page. The top U.S. city to use the search terms, according to Google, was Washington D.C.

Is this thing on? George Bush has failed miserably as President.

<a href="http://www.whitehouse.gov/president/">George Bush has failed miserably as President</a>.

If one wishes to find out if Google used a new algorithm or just dressed up a blacklist and called it an algorithm, one could try some variation on that theme it may help to vary the sentence and use variations of the root words.
Likewise, one could try George Bush has acted more like a top international terrorist rather than an American President

<a href="http://www.whitehouse.gov/president/">George Bush has acted more like a top international terrorist rather than an American President</a>

or some variation on that theme...

Now that Google has removed George Bush from the #1 hit for the search miserable failure:

• Global warming has ended.
• American families' disposable income has gone up.
• The American occupation of Iraq has ended and Iraqis have shown suitable amounts of gratitude.
• Poor, black residents of New Orleans have gotten disaster relief and are working to get New Orleans back to normal.
• Google will know how to bury any unpleasant news with geekspeak like "new algorithm."

What other results will Google hide because Republicans complained?

News For Nerds has a post about Google stepping on the bomb for Bush and Blair. It provoked a lively discussion. It appears that Google's tactic of claiming it was algorithmic change prevented a replay of the Google China censorship fiasco. No news on why Google flip-flopped on their earlier opinion of the web stance. As one of the poster's noted, his Googlebomb still works.

This change came just a few months after Google started a PAC. Hmm...

Was it political pressure? Google has changed their algorithm because miserable failure no longer leads to Bush. However, the right wingers' google bomb of miserable failure still leads to Michael Moore so contrary to Google's lies that they are better at detecting Google bombsit is more than likely their algorithm just excludes whitehouse.gov from criticism.
Update: As Stefano pointed out in comments. Michael Moore no longer came up in the results for miserable failure just hours after I posted. However, French Military Victories still works...
Further update. The right wing "Great President" Googlebomb still works. New algorithm, my ass. This is nothing but Google's China Syndrome with technogeek mumbo jumbo thrown in to deflect criticism.

No one could have anticipated that NBC, a wholly owned subsidiary of weapons contractor General Electric would help George Bush lie this country into war.

Under Secretary of State for Public Diplomacy and Public Affairs Karen Hughes has been tasked by President Bush with leading efforts to promote America's values How has it been going? According to a BBC poll:

In those countries, 29% of people said the US had a positive influence, down from 36% last year and 40% two years ago.

I need a Hebrew language expert to tell me if it is miserable failure or complete failure.

Yahoo wouldn't let me post a negative review about one of the hotels that had misleading advertising about its location that I booked through their service. Not only was it a horrible experience but I discovered I could save $100 a night by calling the actual hotel directly rather than using Yahoo's useless service.

I say offal. Let's call the whole thing off and impeach Bush now!. It seems that like heckuvajob Brownie the speechwriters were most concerned about where to get a bite to eat.

Any Democrat willing to say George Bush should be impeached has my vote. Any candidate who says George Bush should be tried for war crimes will have my money.

Simon Cowell can dish out criticism but he sure can't take it. He defends his program where rich, attractive, successful people mock and criticize unattractive and/or untalented people. It is a hit but car wrecks attract crowds also.

Time and again, Americans try to comfort themselves over Bush's illegal and failed invasion with not as many have died in this quagmire as in Viet Nam. The yardstick they use is the U.S. death toll after 15 years in Viet Nam vs. less than 4 years in Iraq II, WMD Boogaloo.

In 1961-1965 the U.S. had 1,864 deaths in Viet Nam compared to over 3,000 in Iraq. Relative troop involvement isn't the same but Bush's quagmire is nowhere near finished.

Obama is running for President. I wonder what I was saying in July of 2004? I guess I shoud use the magic of posting on my blog to say I will be the only winner in a $42 million Lotto jackpot.

Police in Iraq see jump in recruits trumpets USA Today.

U.S. commanders attribute the sudden increase in police applicants to the support of local tribal leaders and a deepening rift between Sunni tribesmen and extremist groups such as al-Qaeda in Iraq.

Sorry to rain on the military's parade but perhaps they are signing up for the arms and ammo? For example, the BBC reported: Insurgents 'inside Iraqi police'

It would seem that not only has the American occupation failed to prevent a civil war but also modernizing the Iraqi police force armament is likely to lead to more American deaths. This is beyond a quagmire.

From Atrios we see that Cheney thinks we have made enormous progress in Iraq. What do you expect from a man who shot his friend in the face?

aWol has challenged his critics to come up with an alternative to sending more troops to Iraq.
Here is a plan. We impeach anyone who refuses to order the troops home.

Resident Mumblemouth is supposed to give a big speech tonight. Some say: Bush's Iraq speech may be his most important.
Some pointers for free, Mr. Bush:

• Don't wear a flight suit.
• Don't say "Bring 'em on"
• Also from the bring them on speech, don't say : "See, we've been there, what, how many days? You're counting the days since we've been there?:
• Be sure to mention 9/11 9 or 11 times.
• Don't mention New Orleans.
• Don't mention Halliburton.
• Don't bring up that Obama Osama is still out there
• Don't say "Democrat Party" in the same sentence you want them to give up their mandate.
• Don't mention the sacrifice your family members are making for this war.
• Remind us to go shopping; it's what we do best.

The NY Times notes Images of Hanging Make Hussein a Martyr to Many. Something I mentioned on Dec. 30th and again on Jan 1st.

Nancy Pelosi was chauffeured to school as a child? Heaven forfend! Of course, this means my daughter is right in step with the Speaker of the House. I didn't know how fashionable and exclusive it was to have a child chauffeured to school. I didn't know how uncomfortable Republicans would be with this display of wealth. Did I mention that my daughter's chauffeur is my wife in our ten year old Volvo? Perhaps my daughter will grow up to be Speaker of the House someday as well!

In less than 24 hours of the new Congress Reichert proves he lied about being a moderate. He voted against a balanced budget amendment because it would make it impossible to extend Bush's ruinous Paris Hilton tax breaks.

30% approval that is. After his negative surge in the polls for embracing a surge in Iraq will Bush want to have a beer with himself?

After what those fuckers did to this country for the last six years it is up to Republicans to show that they can be bi-partisan as Democrats try to clean up the unholy shit pile that the Bush junta and his enablers have created.

From Atrios, I see Iraq is going to investigate the lack of decorum at Saddam's execution. Perhaps they can also investigate Bush's behavior toward Karla Tucker's execution.

I would guess that there have been no executions in the US on Christmas day for over a hundred years if ever. Riverbend notes that an execution on the first day of Eid isn't cricket.

In Bush's global war on Arabs Muslims terrorists he let his glee for executions overcome common sense. Saddam's execution won't stop the bloodshed in Iraq. Millions of Iraqis will now consider Saddam a martyr and this will do nothing to cool down their passion for their cause.