I had a shot of cortisone in my hand Friday afternoon so I'm still not certain I'm not hallucinating this, even though I've seen it on the Reuters news wire, read it aloud to a couple of colleagues, and put it out on Countdown as the closer to "Bushed!"
Attorney General Michael Mukasey says he has hung two portraits in his new office. And one of them is of George Orwell.
This would be the original Reuters story. The operative part would seem to be the AG's insistence that he esteems Eric Blair, AKA Orwell, for the clarity, not the subject, of his writing.
I'm still not sure I haven't gotten a very specific "Your Worst Fear Suddenly Materializes In Real Life As A Matter-Of-Fact Wire Story" moment going on here. Or maybe it's some sort of "You've Been A Good Boy: Here Is Six Weeks Worth Of Jokes, No Lifting Involved" thing.
This was the Countdown version of it, and I hope you'll forgive me quoting myself. Eating my own words, most wholesome diet, Churchill... you know the gag.
Bushed! Number One: 1984-Gate.
I swear, I ain't making this up.
Attorney General Michael Mukasey reveals today, he has two portraits hanging in his new office.
One, of former Supreme Court Justice and Nuremburg Prosecutor Robert Jackson.
The other, of Eric Arthur Blair. Pen name, George Orwell, the author of Nineteen-Eighty-Four.
Wouldn't an Orwell/Rove portrait combo have been better?
No, says Mr. Mukasey, the Attorney General.
The Attorney General of the United States.
The Attorney General of the United States who keeps a freakin' picture of George freakin' Orwell on his office wall.
He swears it's not because he admires the history-revising, corner-cutting, terror-manipulating government which Orwell created.
He says the portrait hangs there because he likes the clarity of Orwell's writing.
Mr. Mukasey he adds he adores Pamela Anderson's penmanship.
Now, to be clear, Mukasey never mentioned penmanship. I was looking for something a little less gender-explosive but I got deadlines and a lot to write and that Fox guy talking about Bush and how President Lincoln was so hated by virtually the whole country when he left office - so these were crowded hours and if anybody flinches at that, I apologize.
But I'm thinking, certainly somebody came into his office and said "Judge, this could look bad if it gets out. You know, Room 101, Rats, Torture." I'm assuming he mumbled something about not being sure a cage full of rats welded to one's face was necessarily torture, and how we've always been at war with East St. Louis, and the responsible citizen backed slowly out of the office and made his plans to move to Zanzibar.
So there you have it. I was so stupefied I called Orwell "Eric Michael Blair" on the air. As you see above, in tribute to the Orwellian premise, I have washed clean my error about his middle name. It has unhappened.