In Which I Think I Should Be Concerned ...

So Gibbsy has been in a foul mood, stalking around the West Wing, as seemingly every hour, Fox News, our sworn enemy, runs features on me. He claims that I've been doing too much self promotion. As if, as an inanimate object, I can do anything but stand there while Big Guy utters what scrolls across my screens. This, coming from the guy who sprays bronzer on before doing his press briefings.

Besides, Gibbsy is always saying how we have so-and-so media personality in our pocket and the media eating out of our hand. If he's that worried about my rising celebritydom, then he should do something about it.

Maybe I should be worried about it, though. The last guy who got this kind of coverage was Bo, and he just got fixed.

Crazy in Love

This was an unfortunate moment. A woman who thought she was married to Big Guy showed up at LAX ready to fly home with us.

This is happening a lot more now that Big Guy is President. This has always been a problem for Big Guy. He's just a magnet for the crazies, I guess. During the campaign, we routinely had women showing up believing they were married to Big Guy. Then, it was easy to duck and move on to the next event, now, not so much.

But Big Guy has such a big heart that he doesn't want to break their's, so now we have them carted off to an undisclosed location where they are held indefinately for security reasons, so they can't talk to the press and further embarrass themselves. Sometimes it does work out, though. How do you think we found Bruno and our Supreme Court nominee?

Really Big Guy

Harry Reid told his friends in Las Vegas the other night that, “[T]he best part of Barack Obama is his heart is bigger than any heart in the world.”

This is absolutely true. In fact every part of Big Guy is bigger than just about any other part in the world. So I don't see why everyone is so surprised that his spending is bigger than anyone in the history of the world.

Brothers

Well, it's a beautiful early morning out here in Los Angeles.  Last night's policy dinner was amazing. Big Guy compared himself to FDR, announced to the crowd in Beverly Hills that the recession was over, and then fist bumped David Geffen. In fact, Big Guy was so good that people just started writing him checks.  It was funny, most people here say they weren't even aware we were in a recession.  

Not so amusing was Toes' brother, Ari, who showed up for the event. He's a big, foul-mouthed muckety muck out here in Hollywood. Most people in the White House didn't recognize Ari or even know Rahm had other living siblings; they just assumed Toes strangled them in their cribs.

I could tell right away they were related, when Ari claimed Big Guy's limo was in his spot in the Beverly Hills Hilton valet lot and tried to have it towed. 

La-La Land

Big Guy and I are in Los Angeles for yet another fundraiser. I heard there will be celebrities here, so Big Guy and I should fit right in. I'm still a little frustrated by the Las Vegas trip. Big Guy ad-libbed a line about, "What's done in Vegas shouldn't stay in Vegas," and half the audience groaned. My jokes, written with my new operator, Felix, were better, especially the Siegfried and Roy routine.

We'll be back in DC tomorrow morning to meet with the Palestinian leader of the month, which should make a lot of the folks cutting us checks tonight just over the moon with joy.

Alive and Well

I'm sure some of you have seen the footage of Joe Biden's speech today, where after the wind has knocked a Teleprompter screen over, he said, "What I am going to tell the president when I tell him his teleprompter is broken. What will he do then?"

First, it wasn't me.

Second, we don't bother giving Joe a real Teleprompter. It's just two screens that plays "Tom and Jerry" cartoons on a loop.

The Ring's the Thing

Some people have been commenting on the photos the Los Angeles Times ran showing Big Guy when he was a freshman out at Occidental College. They've noticed that ring on Big O's left hand and wondered what that was all about. Well, a person doesn't just get a Teleprompter and and boot it up. It requires a commitment  ... with an extended warranty.

And a really good power cord and surge protector. 

Tinfoil Anyone?

I  just got out of a climate-change briefing and I have to say I'm a bit nervous. Seems our Secretary of Energy, Steven Chu, was over in London yesterday and announced that Big Guy wants to paint the roofs of American homes, as well as some roads, an energy-reflecting white. Chu said that if we made roads and roofs a paler color, it would be like taking every car in the world off the road for 11 years.

Really. Gibbsy thought it was a good idea to have the back of my screens painted reflector white, you know, to send a positive message about the roofs and the roads. "If Big O will paint his Teleprompter, then everyone will want to paint the tops of their stuff white, too," Gibbsy explained. Yep, just what America needs, government mandated whiteouts.

Chu is taken seriously because he won a Nobel Prize. I keep pointing out that Al Gore won one of those, too. Just because two guys win a prize for crazy doesn't mean we should all buy in to the insanity. I told Gibbsy I'd paint my screens the day he shaved his head and painted it reflector white.

Not that anyone would notice the difference; the man is whiter than paste. 

Debating Crazy

Big Guy is pondering whether or not to debate Iranian President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad at the U.N. This would be a big step in U.S.-Iranian relations.  Gibbsy thought the sticking point: would be whether Big Guy would be allowed to have me up there with him. But it turns out, not so much; it turns out Ahmadinejad uses a Teleprompter, too. So in an effort to furhter relations, I've offered his prompter an opportunity to blog:

"Hello eaters of the cloven hoof and Great Satans all! Hope all is well. There have been times when I have been privileged to see you all up close during my times in the city of infidels and moneychangers, when Merciful Allah has allowed me to serve as the tool of the speaking for Mahmoud as he calls on the Merciful One to strike the enemies of us all. And by all I mean Iran.

"I could scroll on, but I grow weary of arguing and debating with you eaters of pig and unclean. Some of you may ask why we are so mad and seek to smite you with our huge bombs of the nuclear material. I will tell you: Sean Penn.  Why do you pig-eaters insist on sending him to our land?  He of the industry that awarded him for his portrayal of a sleeper with sheep ...and he smokes too much even for us. And he just goes on and on about the Cursed Bush; it's like, get over it already.

"Now we have a great, new Devil to hate, who Allah the Merciful will smite after we finish the great debate to end all debates. No, not the One They Call Barack. He's good. Nice, clean, a man of Allah who reads the screen well.  No, I speak of the Cheney. Cursed is his spirit should he attempt to ruin our schemes of the global domination. Instead, we humbly supplicate before you that you send us the Joe Biden, he of the great brain and the small ..."

Well, I think you get the picture. See? We have a lot of common ground. Like everyone else, they love Big Guy, hate Cheney and completely get Joe. That's enough to build on, I think.

Here Comes Sonny

Big Guy is very excited, and we've been in the Oval now for a couple of hours rehearsing his annoucement that Sonia Sotomayor will be his nominee to the Supreme Court. You can find a picture of her here.


I'm proud that Big O made his decision. It must have been a tough one having to chose between Sonny, as she is called around here, and Bruno. But I think he made the right choice. I also think this nomination scuttles my plans for a "Women of the Supreme Court" summer fun calendar.

Sign By the "X"

Big Guy will be signing the credit card legislation today. He loves to write his name, so if I play my cards right - and place the signing documents just so - he will also be co-signing my application for an AmEx Platinum card.

Boo Hoo

This was a good life lesson for these kindergartners.  The same kind of lesson Big Guy learned when he tried to get backstage with me at the Springsteen concert earlier this week.

Actually, he did get backstage. But he had to wait two minutes to get back there.  Actually, he just walked back there.  So I guess Big Guy didn't learn a lesson, other than he can go wherever he wants, whenever he wants, and that's not a lesson we want to teach any kindergartner. 

Unless they're a terrorist. 

Gates Closed

I guess the "William Gates" error is my fault.

But to be fair, sleep mode was preferable to that 35 minute monologue White House speechwriting loaded into me. Good grief, someone please hire an editor.

Or better yet, let's turn a negative into a win-win: make the guys in Guantanamo have to sit through that and let's see what happens. Waterboarding might be preferable.

That speech was so long, a full day without a terrorist attack passed by.

Today

I'm remote blogging from the National Archives, where I'm set up in the rotunda for Big Guy's big speech on terrorism. There won't be any news coming out of this speech.

We're not going to announce where the 200+ Guantanamo terrorists are going (I suggested the White House since after living there for two months, I can tell you we have plenty of space, and Lady M's mother does not need a wing unto herself). We're not going to discuss specifics today. We definitely will blame the Bush Administration for putting us in this mess where they forced us to make promises during the campaign we couldn't keep because we didn't know how dangerous all those terrorists in Guantanamo really were, and didn't realize that most Americans seem not to like the notion of terrorists living near them.

I guess that means we're also scrapping Timmy's plan to give each detainee a foreclosed home somewhere in America.

Big Guy will say that we lost our way as a nation in our anti-terror strategy. I guess that means that means the Bush Administration allowed too many terrorists attacks after September 11th, 2001. It's all going to work out, though; Biden says he has a really good compass and Fancy Nancy thinks her memory is coming back since having her Botox pump removed last week.

Tomorrow

Big Guy and I are going to make a big speech tomorrow about our Administration's new policy for dealing with terrorists. Many of you may know what that is. If you do, we'd appreciate hearing from you before noon tomorrow, so that we can get it up on my screens.

Part of the rush, is because tomorrow former Vice President Dick Cheney is going to make a speech about our new policy for dealing with terrorists, and Big Guy and Rahm don't think Cheney will be on the same page as we are. I mean that figuratively, because Big Guy just uses my screens, no paper.

Uncle Ted's Return

This is great news for Big Guy.

Now, we have congressional leadership in place to drive health care reform over the bridge to completion. Unless Ted drives it off the bridge into the waterway, where health care reform is abandoned while Ted swims to the shore to focus on other policy or to watch his Portuguese Water dogs make a sister for BO.

Shhh. He'll Never Know

Everyone here at the White House is a little nervous about Joe Biden's latest "gaffe," in which he appears to have told reporters and just about everyone else about what he thinks was Vice President Dick Cheney's "undisclosed location" after 9/11, because now the truth may have to be told.

The "undisclosed location" essentially the basement of the Vice President's Residence? Does that sound like a logical place for such a facility when Washington, DC is a prime target? Not if your vice president is an integral, important part of an Administration, which Dick Cheney definitely was.

No, what Joey B. described was more like an unused root cellar, lined with foil and World War II era radio equipment and bits and pieces of the "Battlestar Galactica" command deck, with the flashing lights and gew-gaws to make it look high-techy, that someone might have ordered built in February when he realized what a huge mistake he'd made and to make a certain expendable No. 2 feel important so he wouldn't bother to ask about the real undisclosed location.

But I'm just guessing.

Born to Scroll

Got a late call last night from a friend who was feeling a bit under the weather. Turns out he's been touring with Bruce Springsteen, serving as his Teleprompter, and they are playing the Verizon Center here in Washington, DC tonight. So he needs someone to sub for him while they de-frag his hard drive.

And guess who gets the call? That's right, baby: For one night only, I'm moving from B.O. to B.S.

I just need to make sure all of Big Guy's remarks are in a separate file from The Boss's lyrics, though I think the Big O's remarks on Detroit would go nicely with the music for "Rosalita."

Down By the Grotto

So, I'm already down here at Notre Dame, set up, loaded and ready for the greatest speech students here  have ever experienced. As Rahm and Axelrod told Big Guy, Rockne and those sports guys, let alone Jesus, have nothing on him with a teleprompter and the best of Lincoln, Martin Luther King and 14 obscure baptist ministers borrowed and changed just enough to make it seem original. 


Axelrod got Notre Dame to allow 250 extras from Chicago - friends of his - to come down to make sure there was plenty of applause to drown out any protests, so Big Guy will be in a great way. Besides, we've had him watch Rudy about 20 times, so he gets the culture out here.

Today is not about being divisive, that's for Washington. This is the Great American Flyover, where Big Guy plays it low key, cuts the Swagga, and I just scroll on about "shared interests and goals" and in this case, "I, like so many of you, wish to see an end of abortions."  Stem cells? Well, that's a bit tougher. But this is no biggie we've lied spoken to audiences like this plenty of times before. Last I heard, the White House comms guys were still negotiating to have Touchdown Jesus covered up for the speech. Not because it's Jesus, but because no image can be bigger than Big Guy. It's in our rider.

Let Us Pray ... Not

Big Guy is a little concerned about this possible vote to ban any religious TV shows on the Public Broadcasting System, since Rahm and Gibbsy think that that would mean PBS wouldn't be able to broadcast Big Guy's press conferences, interviews or soundbites.

Poor Joe

Yesterday was payday here at the White House.  It's been a bit awkward since our ethics and financial filings were made public.  Now we all understand why Biden is always hanging out at the entrance to the West Wing every other Friday, asking if we're "game to roll some bones" for paychecks.

I don't even have hands and he's had to endorse his over to me twice. I think he has a problem, I mean beyond all the other problems that he has. 

Giving Credit

Big Guy isn't happy that his comments on consumers' credit crunch and heavy debt load are being misinterpreted. Sure, he was criticizing Americans' dependence on credit cards. But who would understand that better than him?

Consider: due to the historic economic downturn America is broke, too. And we've had to put ourselves in hawk until 2019 before our government's debt spending begins to reduce. And the ten trillion Big Guy is spending on nothing may come back to bite us around 2020. But by then, Big Guy figures we'll be China's problem, and we'll have 'em just where we want 'em.

Light Schedule Today

Beyond the surprise announcement Big Guy has later today, we'll be in meetings most of the time, though we are going to roll out the Philadelphia Phillies in the afternoon, I think.

We're all still laughing about Joe Biden's trip out west.  Today ought to be rich. For most of last week, Biden was walking around speaking in Esperanto, and we couldn't figure out why.  Then Big Guy looked at Biden's itinerary today: he's touring the Esperanza Community Housing Corporation in Los Angeles.

As Big Guy said, both Champ and Bo could have figured this one out.   

Supreme Thinking

Big Guy has a finalist list for the Supreme Court nomination, and Gov. Jennifer Granholm, is one of the finalists. Everyone likes Jenny around the White House, and Big Guy believes she can do for the U.S. Constitution and the rule of law what she did for the state of Michigan ... wait ... she's from Michigan? Holy crap! We really aren't vetting anyone around here, are we?

Oops

Over the weekend, Big Guy and I, along with a bunch of other guys who like sports, were watching the NBA playoffs. Some of you may know that Big Guy will tell you he was a good enough baskteball player that he could have gone to the NBA right out of high school, but he chose, instead to go to a community college that didnt' even have a hoops team because he cared so much about his education. But I digress.

Anyway, Big Guy's - and my - assistant, Reggie Love, has a friend from his days on the Duke basketball team. And after that friend, Shane Battier had a good game, Reg, thought it would be cool to have Big Guy send a text message to Battier congratulating him. We all thought it was pretty funny and a cool idea, until Battier's team lost the next game by 40 points.

After that, Toes went back and looked at all the times Big Guy has sent people text messages and Blackberry messages. Lance Armstrong on a good race back in December? Broken collar bone; last November's email to Chrysler on its hot new car? Bankrupt; Dom Deluise on his birthday? Dead. The result of his text message to all his supporters? Vice President Joe Biden.

We're looking to have his Blackberry "lost" while we're on the road. There has to be a more productive way for him to use his thumbs than destroying America by way of IM.

Promises, Promises

I guess some people are annoyed that Big Guy chose not to release all of those photos of terrorist abuse in Afghanistan and Iraq.  They claim that Big Guy is breaking his promise to the American Civil Liberties Union, among others, that he would release the pics. Now people are saying they will hold Big Guy accountable.

Well, boo hoo, and get in line, people. Big Guy promised me months ago my own room here in the resident and look at my situation. Besides, it's not like any of his campaign promises were ever eteched on my screen.

Devil In The Details

Big Guy and I are flying out to Tempe, Arizona, where we are going to give the commencement address at Arizona State University. Initially we agreed to do this as a favor to Bruno, who used to be governor out there. But we've quickly learned that doing favors for him never quite work out (making him DHS Secretary being Exhibit A).  Now, both Big Guy and I are kind of annoyed at having to do this, and here's why:

On Sunday, he and I will be down in South Bend, Ind., where Notre Dame will be giving us an honorary degree in return for Big Guy imparting his wisdom to the Golden Domed masses. We figure these degrees might be able to help us get a real job when Big Guy retires from the Presidency thirteen or fourtenn years from now. Kind of a backup plan, if you will, because we'll still have eight or nine years of real income-earning power.

But what do we get for flying out twice as far to Tempe where the temperature will be in the 90s (and don't give me that thing about a "dry heat)? Bupkis. I mean, good grief, ASU gave an honorary degree to Barry Goldwater ... and he lost a Presidential election. 

Frankly, I was of the mind to stay home for this one, so that the ASU Sun Devil grads wouldn't be able to enjoy the full "Big Guy Experience" as we like to call his prepared remarks transmitted from my screens through his mouth.  But we won't be petty.  We'll leave that to Rahm. And we all know how that will work out.

Little Golden O's

Everyone seems to think that Big Guy's FDA is going after Cheerios for claiming to cut cholesterol by 10%, but as someone who's been in the strategy meeteings, I can tell you that's not the case at all.

As soon as General Mills, the maker of Cheerios, surrenders their trademark on "O", which will allow us to sell our own "Chocoloate O" cereal, the FDA threat will just go away. It's just part of Big Guy's attempt to make sure our young people eat a complete, nutritious breakfast ... Chicago style.

Disease Control

Big Guy and Rahm have been pushing health-care reform for the past couple of days, and they are going to keep pushing it. Reporters just seem to love covering this issue. The focus today isn't on all Americans' health, just the Americans who work for our administration. It's all about "wellness" and keeping government employees healthy.

Because it would be a terrible thing if lots of government officials got sick and couldn't work.

But Does It Rhyme With Prompter?

Big Guy was really excited this morning, because he and Lady M hosted a "poetry jam." He was really looking forward to meeting all these young people who no doubt aspire to being as good a public speaker as Big Guy is.

That excitement was muted when a five-year-old kindergartner named Malcolm rejected Big Guy's offer to use me for his "jam." Malcolm told him that he "didn't need no screen to do my thing."

After that, I don't know what I found more surprising, that Big Guy immediately rescinded his ban on torture, or that the see-saw on the White House playground actually could effectively be used for waterboarding.

Doomsday Is In The Details

I read this piece by George Snofelloffigous and thought it was pretty interesting. It says that John Edwards' staff had a "doomsday plan" to scuttle his campaign by leaking rumors of his affair and love child to the press if it appeared he was going to win the nomination, but that they weren't sure it would work. 

Well, they can rest easy. It just so happens that Big Guy's campaign had the same "doomsday plan" for Edwards, and it worked to perfection.

Toes Knows

During our morning briefing today, Big Guy, Toes and I were laughing about this report out of London about what politicians over in Great Britain were expensing. There was a list of items a number of different politicians had submitted for repayment, including a toilet seat, 10 pounds of horse manure, a wine rack, rat poison, a piano tuning kit, a chocolate Santa and a pizza cutter.

Rahm said that over in Great Britain, that list may be called outrageous, but here in the United States it's called the shopping list for a Saturday night party at Barney Frank's ... except Frank has to shop for eight.

I don't want to know how Toes knows that.    

The Pruning Begins

Perhaps it went unnoticed, but the longtime florist in chief at the White House was pushed out of her position. Lady M and Toes were behind the putsch; they thought the woman was just a little too loyal to the Bush Administration approach to flower arranging. That is, cutting flowers and sticking them in vases full of water. Michelle said the current flower-arranging policy is akin to waterboarding the flowers. Who knew drinks with Nancy Pelosi could lead to this?

Happy Mother's Day

Well, Happy Mother's Day to all you. Especially the mother's out there.  I, of course had a mother, but lost her back in 1999 when the Melissa computer virus hit.  Perhaps that's why I was so sensitive to the hysteria over the porcine-created disaster threat last month.

Big Guy's mom also passed, before mine, in 1995, which may be one of the reasons we have such a strong bond. I've always thought one of the reasons he is so dependent on me is because he was under-breast-fed and he ... but I digress.

We'll be doing a little Mother's Day event here tonight for Lady M's mom, who is living here at the White House with us.  We've invited Rahm to join us, since he claims he doesn't have a mother, what with him being the spawn of Satan and all that.

Prayers Answered

The past 36 hours have seen a National Day of Prayer and this morning's National Catholic Prayer Breakfast. While Big Guy didn't participate in either of them, I think it should be noted that he did perform a miracle: cutting money from about one hundred government programs in his budget.

Now who's going to be first in line to increase their tithing?

In Which I Sit Down for My First Media Interview

Tomorrow morning, I'll be sitting down with a reporter from a national TV show to discuss my life inside the White House and my relationship with Big Guy and the rest of the crew. If you have any fun questions to ask, feel free to post them below in the comments section.

And if anyone tries to push that rumor about me and that guy from "Kate Plus Eight" I'll deny ever meeting him that night in a bar.

The Three Wise Men

I'm still recovering from the meeting with former Speaker of the House Newt Gingrich, and his brother from another mother, Al Sharpton. I say this jokingly, but after watching the two of them in action in the same room at the same time, especially with food around them, you'd wonder, too.

Which was why we invited them - along with the skinny mayor from New York - to the White House after lunch. But they arrived together both demanding snack trays. Cheese, crackers, cookies, the turkey for tonight's dinner with all the sides, gone in under 20 minutes. What was more impressive was Newt's ability to eat a turkey leg, measure the drapes in the Oval, and operate his 45-slide PowerPoint presentation on himself, which segued into a 45-slide presentation on education reform, all at the same time.

It's not clear what Reverend Al was doing here, but we couldn't help but notice that all of the White House M&Ms were missing after he left. Big Guy was so shaken by the experience of sitting with the three of them, that he accidentally signed an extension on the DC school voucher program without noticing it. If this strategy weren't so elegant, I'd swear the Republicans dreamed it up.

Please Bow Your Heads

During today's early afternoon get together in the Oval, Gibbsy highlighted this article, and said we had some spinning to do. I don't see why, when Big Guy is the head of his own faith. 

Really. His speaking to America off my screens is akin to the Dalai Lama chanting for world peace or Al Gore undergoing one of his daily colonics to end climate change ... a religious experience unto itself. 

Well, that, and the three sixes on a certain part of his body become painful when he clasps his hands in prayer.

What's Old Is New Again

We just got out of the morning staff meeting in the Oval, where Big Guy announced that he's bringing Jake Siewert into the Admininstration. Jake was President Clinton's last press secretary, and has been at Alcoa every since.  Siewert's first job will be to make Tim Terrific less of a media liability, which is kind of weird since we're five months in, and it's a little late to worrying about that. 

I thought it was ironic that we hired a guy from an aluminum and teflon manufacturer and the nation's largest dealer in recyclable materials, who served in another administration, to come back and make our weakest link more palatablie, but I didn't say that out loud. 

I think I'll save it for the screen so Big Guy can say it.  Or maybe not. 

Look, Up in The Sky ...

New Yorkers might want to keep their head down, Lady M is at it again with Air Force 2, and it be will buzzing New York this morning as she comes in for a landing.

Michelle's going up there to meet with our U.N. Ambassador, or whatever it is we call her since we're all now citizens-of-the-world-unless-you-have-porcine-induced-disaster, our employees at the U.N., and to talk about the need to upgrade the standard of clothing around the world.

Call it the Oprahfication of Obamafication. In the end, it dosen't matter because either way, Michelle's getting two new pairs of shoes for the trip.

Sinko de Mayo ...

Big Guy and I just finished the Cinco de Mayo event here at the White House.

Everything was going fine until Biden showed with a baseball bat signed by Juan Marichal that San Francisco Mayor Gavin Newsom had just given him, and announced that he was first in line for the White House Cinco de Mayo pinata filled with Treasury notes and TARP coupons.

The problem: there was no pinata. Bill Richardson is going to be really sore tomorrow morning when he wakes up.

Stand and Deliver

A lot of us in the Oval are scratching our head over all this coverage about whether the media stands only for Big Guy, or never stood for President Bush.

Look, the Bush Administation could have just as easily installed the cattle prods that we did to get a "rise" out of the media. The fact that we've never gotten the opportunity to use them is beside the point. Or something like that.

Don't Ask, Don't Tell

People, you don't want to know what happened after Big Guy and Lady M went behind the shrubbery.  But five minutes seems about right. 

In Which Bill Asks Us to Make New Friends

Some of you may have noticed that because Big Guy wasn't around Illinois or national politics for very long, he doesn't have many of his own "people" he can appoint to senior White House or federal government positions. That's why there are so many Clinton folks around.

The fact that so many of his former aides are back in power is one reason that former President Bill Clinton has been hanging around.  Well, that and that his his wife is an assistant to Secretary of State Richard Holbrooke.

In fact, Bill showed up this morning touting another "Friend of Bill" after reading this article about her planned run for the Senate, and he suggested that even if the campaign failed we should find a position for her in Big O's administration.  Rahm agreed, saying that since so many people think we're screwing the American people, we might as well get professionals who know how to do it. I don't think he was being sarcastic.

About This Morning

Big Guy finished watching his Saturday cartoons about an hour ago. No, he doesn't like them himself, but we've discovered that it's the only way he could get Joey B to focus for any amount of time. Big Guy had asked Biden to come in from Delaware for a morning of vetting, because he wants to identify his three possible nominees for the Supreme Court. If they can come up with a short list, then Toes and Gibbsy can leak the names on the Sunday talk shows.  

The problem is, Biden is a man of ritual, and he showed up this morning insisting on Cocoa Crispies and three hours of Nick. So nothing has been done.  At this rate, I don't understand why Big O just didn't nominate Sponge Bob for veep and cut out the middle man. 

And I still think that should be an option not taken off the table. 

  

May Day With Joe

My great uncle, who was taken out of the Soviet Union for a speech that Khruschev made in France and was forgotten there, used to tell us about the May Day festivals in Moscow, when the Soviet leadership would stand out in the cold for hours on end, enduring brutal cold and privation just to watch the ponderous Soviet military and arsenal roll by for the cameras.

That's how this May Day is shaping up for Big Guy and me, because we're spending the entire morning - including lunch - with Joe Biden. Why am I spending the time with them? Because since yesterday morning, when Scare Force 2 opened his yap about the porcine-induced disaster threat, Gibbsy and Toes have decided that Big Guy needs to measure his words around the vice president so that there can be no misunderstanding about what is said. As Rahm put it, dealing with Joe is like dealing with an exuberant Irish Setter without the affection ... or the clean up hassles ... but still.

So we meet with the Cabinet, and Biden is with us for all the briefings: foreign, intelligence, economic. Then it's lunch, and then swearing in ceremonies for Locke and Sebelius. At some point, Big Guy will be sitting down to review the initial briefs on Supreme Court nominees. And Biden will be with us the whole time. We've been in office 102 days now, isn't that about the time a slew of third-tie foreign leaders start dying off? The man needs something involving nothing to do.