Mr. Burns, your campaign seems to have the momentum of a runaway freight train. Why are you so popular?

I drifted off to sleep listening to Mike Malloy last night. Malloy is on via rebroadcast at 1 a.m. on XM, so yes, I was up late. But I had just seen MSNBC's "Countdown" at midnight and had just become aware of the unfathomably awkward "spontaneous" press event held with 11 American troops from Tikrit.

Malloy had the wrong take on the whole thing altogether. He was angry (surprise, surprise). Which puzzles me. These days, the Bush administration barely needs our opposition to be defeated because it is working so tirelessly to defeat itself, and you're angry? Dude. Get a grip. This stuff is FUNNY.

Malloy was going on and on about how the troops were used and how this was a terrible, terrible thing. I'm sure the troops don't think they were used. I'm sure the troops genuinely believe in the mission and are honored to speak to the CIC, even if the event is such obviously staged bullshit. I'm sure the troops are bewildered by those of us who disagree with this White House's policies and are pleased to have an opportunity to talk to the American public about all the spiffy things they're doing in Iraq.

But, I wonder: Who, exactly, designed this fiasco, and when do they get a Presidential Medal of Freedom? Who imagined that such tele-masturbation was going to be useful? Whose minds did they believe such transparent stagecraft was going to change? To wit: How does dabbling in bullshit help when the core problem for this administration is that it is drowning in bullshit?

Witness America's own little Baghdad Bob, Puffy McMoonface, also known as White House Press Secretary Scott McClellan. Here is a KIAV Horrible Reenactment of yesterday's press briefing:

Reporter: Is it possible that Harriet Miers might withdraw her own nomination?

McMoonface: No, I think she's very qualified to be on the Supreme Court. You should look into that.

Reporter: Yes, but do you think she might withdraw her nomination?

McMoonface: I sure do wish you reporters would stop sidestepping the real issues and just report that Harriet Miers is the most qualified human being ever in the history of the universe to sit on the Supreme Court. Just stop making this all about her religion already.

Reporter: It sounds like you don't want to say that she is tenacious.

McMoonface: Of course she's fair-minded! Stop trying to suggest that she's not fair-minded! Just look at her qualifications and her record. She thinks the president is cool. And he is. So there. Thank you, no more questions.

End scene.

Bullshit has a tendency to rot things out from the inside, to break down any opacity that might be covering it up, and to eventually seek the glorious antiseptic of sunshine. That's what you're seeing these days with this administration, although for the life of me I'll never understand why most people in this country didn't start seeing the bullshit a long, long time ago.