Mein Kampf for the 21st century

Your blogstress has been getting a lot of Al Franken these days, it seems, having found herself in the studio audience for yesterday's road version of Franken's Air America radio program, which was great fun. (The program broadcast for two days from the Jack Morton Auditorium at George Washington University, here in Our Nation's Capital, before moving on to Chapel Hill, North Carolina, for a day.)

Woefully underreported, though, was the news Helen Thomas made as Franken's guest when the host asked her to answer her own question -- you know, the one the doyenne put to our president at his latest press conference: Why did you really go to war?

When asked why she thought Bush went to war in Iraq, Ms. Thomas attributed the attack to "the neo-con manifesto," which she described as "their Mein Kampf for the 21st Century." But what do you really think, madame?

Mme. Thomas explained her interpretation of that manifesto as the neo-cons' desire to "take[ ] all of the Middle East, straight to China" in preparation for "the next world war--World War III."

Sen. Hillary Rodham Clinton joined the show briefly by telephone, proving herself to be quite nimble with the quips. "I want to ask you about health care," Franken said. "Why? Are you sick?" Clinton replied.

When asked to respond to Tom DeLay's charge, issued to MSNBC's Chris Matthews, that Sen. Clinton is "a know-it-all," and that "there's nothing worse than a woman know-it-all," the former first lady said, "Well, actually women do know it all; they just pretend that they don't."

During the course of the broadcast came word that Scooter Libby fingered Bush as the leaker-in-chief of classified information. Bush's defense? It's only classified until he says it's not. However squishy that excuse, it might have actually had a chance of flying had White House Press Secretary Scott McClellan not put his foot in it with an apparent bit of honesty. The leak in question was committed on July 8, 2003. Ten days later, when McClellan was hammered by the press with questions as to when the White House declassified the leaked info, ThinkProgress reminds us that McClellan responded, "It was officially declassified today."