They should be wearing tights

Bush's obsession with drama is...weird. The strange dance played with White House correspondants on Wednesday -- actually lying to them in order to play up news about Edith Clement and deflect attention from the cyborg -- makes absolutely no sense. Unless you take into account Bush's desire to be in the spotlight -- and on prime time teevee. I imagine some of it was to give ol' Karl a reprieve, but did they really think it would buy them any more than a day? Especially since reporters are smelling the blood in the water, the cast of characters grows larger every day, and there appears to be two dueling camps of leakers who are adding fresh details to this glorious Passion Play with every news cycle.

"The Rove story is too important to stay out off the front page for long. Not only does it reveal how the White House sometimes operates, but it shows how sensitive the administration was to any arguments that undercut its rationale for war. The court obviously is important, perhaps almost as important as a presidential election. But developments in the Rove case will surely be back in the news."

Certainly, as Digby writes (in a series of brilliant posts), Wilson's op-ed piece threw the White House into a frenzy, and the ongoing Rovegate investigation has further frenzied the legendary Republican P.R. machine.

But I think the Roberts announcement wasn't about Rove at all. It came down to preznit's almost child-like glee in being on stage and in keeping secrets and being the one to yell, "Surprise!" on the networks. It also points to Bush's similarly childlike belief in the power of television. By announcing Roberts' nomination on TV, Bush believes the nomination is then beyond question. Why, it was on TV after all. How can he not be confirmed now?

Weird.