The Bush administration is not only worse than you imagine even after taking account of the fact that it is worse than you imagine. It is worse than you can conceivably imagine.

(Irwin Stelzer) also advises Rupert Murdoch, acting as a key intermediary with the British government: during the negotiations over the relaxation of Britain's media ownership laws in 2001 and early 2002, for example, the ministers concerned were obliged to offer him any access he wanted where he pressed his anti-regulation case. At the heart of the economic, government, media and business establishment he can get away with consistent presentation of unsubstantiated ideology as the truth -- and does so regularly.

It's an incredible piece of bully talk. Because it comes from before 9/11, it sounds unbelievable, but it's just proof that 9/11 changed fuck all.

Here's a sample re the topic of Rogue Trooper's diray:

To add to Blair's woes, Bush has nominated Donald Rumsfeld to be his Secretary of Defence, specifically rejecting his old friend Tom Ridge, the Pennsylvania Governor, because of the latter's lack of enthusiasm for the national missile defence system (NMD) that Bush has promised to deploy at the earliest feasible date. Rumsfeld is a long-time proponent of a missile shield to protect America and any who would shelter from missile attacks from "rogue Governments" such as North Korea, Iran and Iraq, or from a newly hostile Russia.

To put that shield in place, America will need to upgrade radar equipment at RAF Fylingdales in North Yorkshire. That means Blair will have to say "yes" or "no" -- "maybe" or "later" won't do. The French, of course, are violently opposed to the plan, as are many other European nations which Blair has been so assiduously courting, some of which are eager to curry favour and contracts with the likes of President Saddam Hussein and Iran's ayatollahs. Bush aims to make Blair choose, and if the Prime Minister thinks he can fob off the allegedly not-so-bright new President and his formidable team of Donald Rumsfeld, Dick Cheney, Colin Powell and Condoleezza Rice, with talk of a bridge between America and Europe, he had better think again. America wants an ally, not a bridge.