I don't write too many diaries. And I definately don't do much shilling for other blogs or bloggers. But this one is too good not to share. It's probably the best, and funniest, blogger vs. blogger smackdown I've seen.
Really, you should ignore the rest of this diary and head over to Legal Fiction and read the whole thing for yourself here.
Some highlights:
There once was a man in the land of America, whose name was Hinderaker; and that man was perfect and upright, and one that feared Bush, and eschewed evil and Democratic Satan. And with him, there blogged two others. And Hinderaker had an exceedingly great blog. It was so great that it was called the greatest blog of them all. And each day Hinderaker rose up early in the morning and offered burnt offerings to the unerring White House.
One day in early 2003, when the followers of Bush came to worship Him, Democratic Satan came among them. And Bush said unto Satan, "Whence comest thou?" Democratic Satan answered Bush, and said, "Oh you know - from going to and fro Senator Kennedy's office, and from walking up and down in it."
And Bush said to Democratic Satan, "Have you seen my servant Hinderaker? There is none like him on earth - as Time Magazine astutely noted. He is a perfect and upright man, one that followeth Bush and escheweth Democratic evil."
Democratic Satan answered Bush, "Of course he follows you. Why wouldn't he? You just led a successful war in Iraq in name of fighting terrorism. He is merely supporting his country and his military - not you personally. I bet if the news got worse about Iraq, and if he thought you screwed things ups, he would curse you to your face."
"No, no," replied Bush, "he will stay with me through thick and thin. And I'll prove it. I have so much confidence in my servant that I'll grant you, Democratic Satan, the power to change any news about Iraq that you like. Whatever you want to do, you can do. And regardless of what you do, my good and loyal servant will remain faithful."
"You're on," replied Democratic Satan. "Just to be clear, I can do anything I want."
"Yes, anything you want, but you must not interfere with the confirmation of Janice Rogers Brown. Her anti-New Deal philosophy is very consistent with my religious values."
"What are we betting?"
"How `bout that shiny fiddle made of gold?"
"It's a bet," replied Democratic Satan. And they shook hands and parted ways.
And it came to pass one day while Hinderaker was expressing empathy for the Muslim worldview on his blog that a messenger said, "I just heard on CNN that there are no WMDs in Iraq. David Kay, Charlie Duelfer - they all agree. The rationale of the war was all wrong. Also, fires have come from the heavens and burned up all the sheep and oxen."
"No WMDs you say?"
"Yes," the messenger said. "This is big. WMDs were the main rationale for the war. If they aren't there, the entire thing was based on falsehood. And that means that Bush was wrong."
"There will be no blasphemy in this house!" snapped Hinderaker. "Everyone knows that WMDs weren't the main reason. It was really about Saddam's intent and his ties to terrorism." In all this, Hinderaker did not sin, nor charge Bush foolishly.
Democratic Satan became angry. "I will send down word through my Democratic minions on the 9/11 Commission that Saddam had no links to terrorism. Then, he will surely curse Bush."
Yet, seconds before the messenger came, Bush sent down the angel Stephen Hayes to envelop Hinderaker's mind with a thick impenetrable fog of unsubstantiated rumors from Doug Feith's office. "Mr. Hinderaker, it turns out there were no terrorist ties."
But the biased satanic words of the 9/11 Commission could not penetrate the divine fog. Hinderaker replied, "I'm sorry Mr. Messenger, but did you just say this:
There is no doubt about Saddam's support for al Qaeda and other terrorist groups, as we have noted many times."
"I said the opposite."
"Yes, I'm glad you agree. Saddam was indeed a dangerous terrorist-supporter."
Democratic Satan fumed. "He stays loyal because he believes in this freedom and human dignity talk. But when I show him certain acts that contradict the very core of this new rationale, he will surely curse you and abandon you."
"Do your worst," Bush chuckled.
The next day, Hinderaker turned on his television and watched CBS show a series of photos of torture, abuse, and murder from the Abu Ghraib prison. But Democratic Satan didn't stop at Abu Ghraib. In a single flash, Democratic Satan showed Hinderaker all of the abuse from Gitmo, Afghanistan, Iraq, and the other countries where America sent detainees to be tortured. He showed him memos from DOJ giving the green light to abandon the Geneva Convention.
Satan smiled, "This will surely turn him against the administration. Anyone who values human dignity and the safety of troops must denounce this. Surely this will cause him to take Bush's name in vain."
As Hinderaker watched, his wife pleaded with him, "Curse Bush, he's wrecking our mission." Hinderaker responded angrily, "Thou speakest as one of the foolish liberal armpit-hair women speaketh." And Hinderaker arose, and shaved his head, and fell down upon the ground, and worshipped Bush and said, "Naked came I out of my mother's womb, and naked shall I return thither: the Bush giveth, and the Bush giveth even more; blessed be the name of the Bush." He also added:
I will say[eth], though, that this threatens to become the most over-blown news story of the decade. What these Guardsmen did was stupid, cruel, and thoughtless. It was also not much different from some fraternity pranks. Anyone who thinks that the goings-on at Abu Ghraib prison would have cracked a list of the 50,000 worst things that happened that day is a fool. And I don't think that most of the media critics and politicians who are doing their best to fan this story are fools; I think they are cynical opportunists who have gotten far more pleasure out of the Abu Ghraib farce than the soldiers who perpetrated it.
And Bush laughed and laughed. "See Democratic Satan, there's nothing you can do. These people love me. They just love me. That torture bit was good - better than the WMDs even. But still, he remains loyal."
Satan growled. "He follows you because he is loyal to the men and women in the military. I will show him how their deaths and maimings resulted from your negligence and your failure to plan and provide enough troops. I'll make it obvious. The world will see that there was zero post-war planning. This will be confirmed by ignored State Department reports and missing Phase IV plans. I will even force the Washington Post to put a Walter Pincus story on the front page proving the lack of planning. I'll show them how you ignored weapons caches. I'll show them how you force people in the military to serve longer than their commitments. Basically, I'll show them that your actions display a callous disregard for the lives and safety of the troops you ordered into battle."
"Ha ha," Bush laughed, "do it all. It won't matter to my loyal servant. Oh, but here, while you're at it, take these with you."
"What's this? A trick? A ruse?"
"A ruse?" asked Bush.
"A cunning attempt to deceive me?"
"No, no. I'm trying to help," explained Bush. "These are two memos from British intelligence. One explicitly says that we were planning to fix the intelligence around our policy eight months before the war. And the second explicitly states that there was no postwar planning. There, knock yourself out."
Get the ending, and the rest of it, by reading the original (it's also better with all of the supporting links there).