"President Bush will likely nominate Homeland Security Secretary Michael Chertoff to replace Alberto Gonzales as Attorney General, senior administration officials told CNN Monday." It's a pretty good move, sure, but if the president is really intent on taking the Constitution, cutting a whole out of it, and fucking it six ways to Sunday, why just settle for partisan incompetence? Why not go for outright criminality? Dude should tap I. Lewis "Scooter" Libby. Added benefit: Thanks to the ankle bracelet, we'll always know where he is! [CNN]

President Bush inspires so much apathy that even anti-war protesters can't be bothered to go to Crawford, TX, and heckle the beleaguered lame duck. From the department of great openings: "For the last presidential election campaign, Norma Nelson Crow hung an 11-foot-long banner above her thriving souvenir shop here that said, "Bush 2004." On election night, she and her employees celebrated by overlaying it with a new word, so the banner read, 'Bush Wins.' These days, another banner flaps in the hot August breeze: 'Building for Sale.'" [WSJ]

During a briefing yesterday concerning the recommendations of a panel appointed to investigate the treatment of our wounded soldiers, President Bush singled out former ABC News anchor Bob Woodruff, who was grievously injured in Iraq.

Nearly half of all Americans would like to see George W. Bush impeached, according to a new poll. The rest are still curious to see what he'll fuck up next. [NYS]

It's tempting to view yesterday's commutation of I. Lewis "Scooter" Libby's 30-month prison sentence for perjury and obstruction of justice as the moment the wheels finally came off this administration, as the sign that George W. Bush has totally lost control over a process that he's spinned and gamed for so long without repercussion. But we've felt that way before, and we've been proved wrong. Even our cynicism has been overwhelmed by how much these people have gotten away with. We're assuredly part of the problem: As Liz Smith so eloquently declaims this morning, "If all of us who love gossip and celebrity so much only loved history more - with all it has to tell us - I know we'd be better off." Sing it, sister!

In an otherwise decent New York Times Book Review appraisal of Twice As Good, a new biography about Secretary of State Condoleezza Rice, the Guardian's Jonathan Freedland displays the tin ear so many of his compatriots (the Economist) have for the nuances of American politics. After an entire page describing the Secretary's control and discipline, which one might think would keep any sensible person from being enthralled by George W. Bush (apparently not), Freedland suggests that we're looking at a future occupant of the Oval Office.

Hey, so the Vanity Fair Africa issue hit newsstands today! Guest-edited by Bono! We rushed out to get our copy and brought it to the office where we realized that, you know, we're kind of shallow. Isn't Africa kind of last fall? We don't have the attention spans for that stuff. You know what we do care about, though? Celebrities! And with twenty different celebrity-studded covers, the magazine kept up involved for a good five minutes looking at the Annie Leibovitz compositions. Each one blends one subject from the previous cover, so you've got your Don Cheadle and Barack Obama giving way to Barack and Muhammad Ali. Here's a handy guide to who you'll want to look for at the newsstand.

President Bush drinks a (non-alcoholic) beer as he jokes about his non-plans to reduce carbon emissions with German chancellor Angela Merkel and British prime minister Tony Blair. Later Blair and Bush lamented the non-success of their war in Iraq. How they laughed!

Hasn't Wesley Autrey given enough already?

When we heard that George W. Bush's approval rating had hit a record Nixonian low of 28%, we became incredibly concerned about this finding's implications. Would there be immediate repercussions? Who would be most affected? We turned, of course, to Socialite Rank for the answer, which is, duh: socialite cousins Lauren and Ashley Bush. Apparently, these ladies' social rankings have borne the brunt of their infamous uncle's unpopularity. While Ashley is valiantly carrying on, debut-ballin' and cultivating the friendship of mini-Andre Leon Talley, Teen Vogue's Kimball Hastings, Lauren Bush is becoming downright obscure:

The Times is all in a lather over a seeming reversal: President G. Dubs, who'd previously eschewed newspapers in favor of the "objective opinions" of his staff, mentioned reading an article in one last week. "Is there hope for newspapers after all?" the article tongue-in-cheekily asks. Well, not so fast, guys. We personally know how hard it is to read a bunch of newspapers, and in our professional opinion, Bush doesn't have what it takes. We think he's lying about reading that article: probably some aide read aloud to him while he watched Deal or No Deal or something. And while on the one hand you want to be all "our president is an idiot monkey" about this, on the other hand, you kind of see his point, right? Reading newspapers, at least for him, would be like if Lindsay Lohan read Us Weekly!

A tipster writes:

• David Carr discovers TMZ.com, "the limitless appeal of the famous performing the mundane ." [NYT]
  

There's a kind of masochistic satisfaction to be had in reading Slate's roundup of the European media's response to Tuesday's Democratic victories, the gist of which was, "Took you long enough, you fucking idiots." But among the teeming tidal wave of mixed metaphors about what drove the last nail into the straw that broke the American voter-camel's back, one device stands out: the comparison of our Texan president to a Wild West gunslinger.

Via Eat the Press, the following analysis of George W. Bush from noted psephologist Diddy:

• Eminem in whiteface. Someone, somewhere, is rolling in some grave, or something. [DealBreaker]
• TIME reporter claims magazine didn't touch Karr story. Claim eerily matches reality of Karr claim he touched JonBenet Ramsey. YEAH, WE'RE STILL DOING THIS. [Think Progress]
• Wired reviews Pitchfork Media. Gives it a 7.030032. Basically good, but a little bit derivative of [obscure reference], like some kind of [overwrought metaphor that doesn't actually make sense when you think about it for even two seconds]. [Wired]
• A CNN reporter has a private conversation in the bathroom while wearing a hot mic during President Bush's memorial Hurricane Katrina address. Embarrassing? Yes. Was anyone watching President Bush's memorial Hurricane Katrina address? No. [Wonkette]
•: Important Update on Bravest Actress of All Time: Natalie Portman is definitely doing something courageous, coyly seductive, and thoroughly Jewish, we're just not sure where. [One Park Avenue Reality]
• Maybe forcing millions of drunk people to interact in the same small corner at the edge of the city wasn't such a good idea after all. [VV]
• Union Square still has street cred. Where else can you enjoy Thai chili lime peanuts, free Ben & Jerry's milkshakes, and heroin? [ANIMAL]

• Jane magazine continues its quest to lower lowest common denominator. [Jane]
• Heidi Klum is African, too? With Seal? Who actually is kind of African, or like African-British or something? Now we're just confused. Insert apartheid joke here. [Flickr]
• Tom Cruise cuts deal with third most likeable owner in professional sports. If you're working from a list that only also includes Mark Cuban and Al Davis. [LAT]
• World's oldest person dies at 116. World's youngest people continue never to call, never to write. [CNN]
• Bush to commemorate one year anniversary of Hurricane Katrina with three minutes of silently not paying attention. [Yahoo]
• Meanwhile, Tropical Storm Debbie going to fuck East Coast's brains out. [The Bad Pitch Blog]
• FHM lays off five staffers, forced to return company badges, bathroom keys, and mysoginistic concepts of women as objects solely for the sexual gratification of illiterate men. [FishbowlNY]
• Here is a picture of Rachel Sklar's dad. Whatever, Garfield's not the only one who hates Mondays. [HuffPo]

Our Lexis/Nexis account has expired, so we're not one hundred per cent sure, but it looks like this is one of the first times The Times has used the word "shit" in its pages. (Or on its screens; maybe they prefer to use the web to work blue.) The occasion, of course, came during a conversation between President Bush and British Prime Minister Tony Blair, which the president did not know was being transmitted over a live mike:

And yet he keeps pushing for a gay-marriage ban.

• Katie Couric to narrate PBS docu on Walter Cronkite. No one ever said she's not clever. [B&C]
• Why does Bush likes to pick on the Times? Because of the Jews, of course. [SFChron]
• The New Yorker rock critic Sasha Frere-Jones wants to be a rocker, too. [LAWeekly]
• September VF will focus on fashion, be as fat as Vogue. [WWD]