OCTOPUS LOGIC :

Rub-a-Dub in the Hot Tub (MAUREEN DOWD, 7/14/02, NY Times)

Dick and Rummy are in the Jacuzzi at Camp David.

The two masters of the Bush universe have had a lousy week. [...]

Junior jogs over to the Jacuzzi and tries to get Vice's attention.

"Dude?"

Dick waves him off [...]

But the Kid has finally lost patience. He jumps into the Jacuzzi, barely missing Rummy's cast, and sloshes right over to Vice, leaning into his ear and wailing plaintively: "Where's Karen?"

In her eagerness to whack George W. Bush, Ms Dowd unfortunately gets her storylines thoroughly tangled. On the one hand, we're to believe that W. is the savvy business exec who essentially stole $800K in that Harken stock sale. On the other, we're supposed to believe that he's really a nonentity and that the administration is secretly run by Cheney and Rumsfeld. Then, on the third hand, we're supposed, in that final line, to realize that it was really Karen Hughes who ran things, but that without her wily feminine hand at the tiller, W. is lost. I don't know about you, but I ran out of hands in there somewhere. Posted by Orrin Judd at July 14, 2002 6:09 AM