Read this story over the weekend (while at a beach) and thought it was the funniest thing I've read in weeks. In a story about the inability of the American Government and whatever kind of Iraqi Government they have going on to do anything about the increasingly fuckedup-ness of post-war Iraq, was this:

"Yet in Baghdad, the Iraqi and U.S. officials charged with shepherding this country toward democratic rule went about their business as if little had changed. There were no speeches calling for calm, few public appearances by anyone in charge.

L. Paul Bremer, the chief U.S. administrator who is on vacation in Vermont, issued a statement blaming the attack on "the evil face of terrorism."

Okay, first of all, how long has Bremer been on the job? The war ended when, in April? He didn't start until May or June so that's only a couple of months on the job. Has he even accrued enough time to go on vacation? Especially to Vermont by way of Baghdad? That's not exactly a three-day weekend we're talking about.

Second of all, you got a country rapidly falling apart. You've got American soldiers dying daily, an Iraqi population getting increasingly more and more pissed off, and intelligence showing you that every wanna-be terrorist is now heading straight for Iraq like drunken sorority girls heading for Spring Break and he goes off on vacation. To Vermont.

Did it occur to either him or anyone else in the Administration that a little trip to Vermont in the middle of maybe the defining moment of the 21st Century was not such a good idea? Hell, one of the last companies I worked for wouldn't let employees off for Christmas or Thanksgiving because the company had their major product launches in January. And that was just in the Consumer Electronics industry, not in the Making the World Safe for Democracy industry.

What does he think he is, French?

Good thing the President is in Washington monitoring the situation. Oh, wait, nevermind....