Happy (in a somber way) Veteran's Day. If you're a young American aged 17-24, you might consider honoring the sacrifices of our men and women in uniform by joining the United States Army yourself! Sounds good, no? We all know the Army has been having some recruitment problems lately, what with the hopeless wars we're fighting and the psycho Commander in Chief and the excellent chance of being blown up. But the Army has decided to shift its sales pitch in order to lure you youngsters in. By talking more about Iraq!: They're adding a webcast called "Straight from Iraq" to their website, where soldiers will tell you the real deal about life in the desert war zone. Presumably not too real, though. They're also supercharging their marketing plan with the following changes: - More internet, less "sponsorships of professional rodeos." - The voice of Gary Sinise! - New commercial: "young workers in business attire suddenly start climbing walls. 'This company is filled with dreamers,' Mr. Sinise says." You'll have to join the Army to know how it ends! Of course, all of this is very much deck chair/ Titanic. If more people join the Army it will be because they can't get a job anywhere else since our economy collapsed. And if the Army was smart it would have one simple selling point: "Bush is gone." [NYT]

Typically when a live shot of a plane on a tarmac gets together with flashing "BREAKING NEWS" graphics, it means something truly awful has happened. But, aside from applying Us Weekly-style body-language analysis to the way Barack Obama and George W. Bush greeted each other before their closed-door White House meeting (Obama's press statement called it "productive," while Bush's went with "constructive."), the cable news nets didn't have much to work with. The true star of today's MSNBC coverage? The American Airlines charter plane sitting on the tarmac of Reagan National Airport patiently waiting to ferry the President-elect back to Chicago.

Oh, good one. The smaller text on this ad (for a website that sells college info) gives all of Barack and Michelle Obama's Ivy League credentials. The payoff line: "From Bush League to the Ivy League." See, everything's better now that Ivy League grads will be in charge! Except that George W. Bush went to Yale and Harvard. Taste the failure, Ivy League. Failure of all you stand for. Click for the big version. [via Adrants]

Man, that presidentin' gig was hard, but it's almost finished for George W. Bush, and he's as happy to be leaving it as America is to see him go. It's an even wash. Except that Bush and his goons walk away stinking rich on war swag and a hundred other nightmare scams while everyone else is scared shitless for their future. After a recent closed-door fundraiser in St. Louis recently, former Missouri Senator John C. Danforth said Bush "seemed relieved" to be leaving office. "It was very unusual, I thought. I think it was a man who was relaxed and funny and looked as though he was about to shed this burden of the presidency. In a way, his speech seemed kind of like a valedictory. I took it as though, ‘I’ve done the best I can, I think I made the right decisions and now it’s almost over.’ ”

Dan Rather filed that big $70 million lawsuit against CBS last year because, he said, they hung him out to dry like a coonskin on a tree branch when it turned out there were problems with his story about George W. Bush's National Guard Service. CBS said Rather was crazier than a coyote with Mexican jumping beans in his anus. (Okay, that's enough). Some of his suit was thrown out in April, and now two more of his remaining four claims have been dismissed. But he's still alive!

The GOP just cannot get their language right for a second. It's as if they've been running the country into the ground unopposed for the better part of a decade and have retreated into some nebulous dreamscape where nothing they say can hurt them! Politico's Mike Allen was discussing the McCain campaign with an anonymous member of the George W. Bush gang, when the party hack offered up this bit of wisdom: “The tactics that got them to mid-September in a tie are not going to get them to 50 percent plus one in November. They need … an eye toward driving out the range of contrast that makes McCain different from Obama (action-oriented rhetoric v. grand prose; accessible v. uppity; humble servant of country v. arrogant).” Uppity is quickly becoming the go-to epithet among baffled Republicans. Earlier this month, GA Rep. Lynn Westmoreland was discussing Sarah Palin's Convention speech with reporters outside the House chambers when he was asked to compare Palin to Michelle Obama. Westmoreland opined, "Just from what little I’ve seen of her and Mr. Obama, Sen. Obama, they're a member of an elitist-class individual that thinks that they're uppity." Asked if he'd really just used that word, the Congressman gave it some thought and responded, "Yeah. Uppity." [ThinkProgress and TheHill]

President George W. Bush takes some time away from his busy schedule to appreciate the athletic prowess of our young champions in Beijing. [source]

Conservative talking head and former George W. Bush press secretary Tony Snow died of colon cancer today. He was 53. After a decade at Rupert Murdoch's Fox News, Snow served 17 months in the Bush administration, from May 2006 through September 2007. "Although a star in conservative politics, as a commentator he had not always been on the president's side. He once called Bush 'something of an embarrassment' in conservative circles and criticized what he called Bush's 'lackluster' domestic policy."

We would be remiss if we let this one get lost in the whoremongering hubbub: George Bush, President of the US and foe of Eliot Spitzer, sang a song at the annual Gridiron Dinner this past weekend [WP]. To the absolute delight of the assembled Washington press corps/ slavish DC whoremongers to power. Clips have surfaced on YouTube, and two videos are after the jump: the first records the actual, self-referential song that Bush croons; the second records the deafening positive reaction of the press corps to the spectacle. Fuckers.

· This should make up for Hannibal: Oliver Stone's next project is a G.W. biopic titled simply, Bush. (Why is the frat boy in us suddenly compelled to add the words National Lampoon's to the beginning of that?) To play the Greatest American President Currently Holding Office—Josh Brolin, who's looking forward to taking on a role in which he gets to turn the figurative pitbulls on everyone else for a change. [Variety]
· Just days after the DGA reached a quick and dirty deal with AMPTP, the WGA announces that they have ended the negotiation stalemate, and that "informal" talks have been set, just as soon as the two sides can settle on which Koo Koo Roo sides would be acceptable for the catering. [Variety]
· DreamWorks Animation entered into a multibillion-dollar deal to build a theme park in Dubai. Michael Jackson must be rolling in his oxygen chamber for having left the country so tantalizingly close to the grand opening of Donkey and Puss n' Boots's Wacky Wave Pool. [Variety]