Whore City — Being witty about poisoned drinking water isn't easy. It requires a certain obtuse savoir-faire.

Our president gave it a go Thursday night at a press dinner here.

"As you know, we're studying safe levels for arsenic in drinking water,"
he told the crowd of radio and TV correspondents at the Washington Hilton.
"To base our decision on sound science, the scientists told us we needed to
  test the water glasses of about 3,000 people. Thank you for participating."

I guess a guy who can yuk it up about a woman he has executed in Texas can yuk it up about anything.

But it was a creepy moment.

It worked for Erin Brockovich to joke about the carcinogens in the water enviro-villains were sipping
because she wanted to get the poison out. W. wants to keep the poison in — to help the enviro-villains
who contributed to his campaign.

Forgive me, Al Gore.

(Go to hell, Mo. You told a thousand lies about Gore, and helped this monkey steal the White House.
 Don't you dare pull a Chris Matthews and try to come back now. You have blood on your hands.)

I used to think you were striving too geekily to be Millennial Man. The Palm Pilot on your belt. The Blackberry.
The Earth-cam you dreamed of. Citing "Futurama" as your favorite show. The obsessions about global warming
and the information highway. Boldly choosing the first Jewish running mate.

But now I'm going hungry for a shred of modernity. Bush II has reeled backward so fast, economically,
environmentally, globally, culturally, it's redolent of Dorothy clicking her way from the shimmering spires
of Oz to a depressed black-and-white Kansas.

With the guidance of his regents, the Duke of Halliburton and Cardinal Rumsfeld, W. has set off the specter of
a mushroom cloud of carcinogens and carbon dioxide emissions, nuclear power and "China Syndrome" fears,
rapacious drilling and retrenchment on women's rights, the missile shield, spy tensions and the cold war.

The son has become what the father used to privately deride as an "extra-chromosome" conservative.

W.'s press conference on Thursday boiled down to one exhortation: "Let's hear it for corporations!"

This administration is so hawkish that Colin Powell is cast as a sandals-and-beads peacenik.
And John Ashcroft threatens to fry the F.B.I. spy.

The Clinton team wrestled with the messy grays of a post-cold-war world.
The Bush team decided it was easier to bring back the cold war.

"These guys are linear," says a top official from Bush I.
"They have to have black and white. They have to have bogeymen."

One veteran cold warrior who served under several presidents told me he was shocked that
Bush II had refrozen the cold war.

"They've turned the clock back to 1983," he said. "It doesn't make any sense to slap the Russians around.
They're already on their knees. We don't have to humiliate them. We need to use some finesse,
to allow them some dignity.

"The thing I always hated about Clinton foreign policy was they seemed to be making it up as
they went along. But these guys seem to be doing that, too. They are negative toward old policies,
without coming up with anything positive."

The regents moved quickly to cast the administration in the gray-flannel image of their salad days. (One Republican
says that Henry Kissinger once called Mr. Rumsfeld the most ruthless man he knew, all global despots included.)

Not satisfied with smacking around the Russians, humiliating Christie Whitman, downsizing Condi Rice and brushing
back Colin Powell, the Cheney-Rumsfeld axis has no patience for the plaints of health-conscious yuppies, either.

You can just hear Rummy, slugging back a Scotch with Cheney in the Oval after they've put the Kid to bed,
grousing about the gazillion dollars' worth of investments he has to sell to avoid a conflict, and growling:
"Real men can drink twice that much arsenic. And how soon can we get some lead back in the lousy paint?"

What's next? Asbestos, DDT, bomb shelters, filterless cigarettes? Patti Page?
Rummy griping that Laura Bush is too assertive?

W. never seemed happier than he did on Friday at the White House, surrounded by the old-timers
from the Baseball Hall of Fame, basking in memories of his beloved 50's.

He is only our second boomer president, but his White House needs Geritol. He seems older than his sprite
of a father. He goes to bed early and, except for sports, is oddly disconnected from the culture. He seems to
have no engagement with contemporary America, except by virtue of being the president of the United States.

...and thanks to your and your whore press friends, this monster is in control.
Maureen Dowd, you can't be trusted to tell the truth.
You make shit up.

You hate everybody and everything that walks, moves or breathes.
You have no soul, and no center.
You just hate.

Well, your hatred of all things Clinton/Gore helped this moron's momentum
and now you're whining about the sorry mess this country is in?

Ms. Dowd, you're a liar and a whore.
You cannot be trusted.
Why don't you go fabricate a "bridal registry" story about Pickles Smirk?

You can write all the "Smirk is bad" stories you want, but as long as there's a  bartcop.com
I'm not going to let people forget you and your whore buddies created this monster because
you thought eight years of Gore would be too boring.

Go to hell.