LE SALSA, MON CHERI The periodic My Blue House update has arrived with collected links to Mexican film and music, and to Diccionario de escritores en Mexico. Ole.

DRIFTING TOWARD GOMORRAH Television critic Tom Shales gives last night's press conference the 2003 No-Doze Award for it's ability to rally the handful of people who didn't toothpick their eyelids open as the President "stayed on message" and looked like he really, really wanted to get upstairs to watch "Survivor."

George W. Bush kept seeming to lose interest in his own remarks last night as the president did that rarest of rare things -- for him -- and held a prime-time news conference. Televised live on all the major networks from the East Room of the White House, the occasion found Bush declaring this to be "an important moment" for America and the world, yet he spoke with little urgency and no perceptible passion.

Have ever a people been led more listlessly into war?

Occasionally he would stare blankly into space during lengthy pauses between statements -- pauses that once or twice threatened to be endless. There were times when it seemed every sentence Bush spoke was of the same duration and delivered in the same dour monotone, giving his comments a numbing, soporific aura. Watching him was like counting sheep.

PUNCH THE GEEK The Post's Robert Kaiser weighs in with some healthy vehemence and dismay at last night's softball game between George Bush and the press.

Chicago, Ill.: Why are reporters so easy on Bush? They seem to be completely under his spell, as worshipful as a state Republican committee meeting. How can any honest opposition to Bush be mounted if the Washington press corps treat his "spin" as gospel truth and assume every administration action is done from the purest virtue.

Robert G. Kaiser: Alas, this is a fair comment after last night. I don't get it myself. No questions asked on the economy; one not very effective effort to smoke out the cost of the war; nothing asked about the tax cuts Bush still wants, etc etc. As I said already, a bad night for the press.

MAYBE YOU CAN STOP THE NEXT WAR If the President has made a decision on Iraq, perhaps anti-war activists could turn their attention to North Korea because it's clear as day that the administration has no clue what to do, as Joshua Marshall notes.

Question number two tonight in the president's news conference was on the North Korea crisis. The answer was depressing. And the message was clear: we have no policy. The president wants help from the Chinese, South Koreans, Russians, Japanese, etc. etc. etc. Can anybody help? Does anyone have a policy we can borrow? Does anyone have another question? Next question.

KURDISTAN OR BUST Slate's Timothy Noah enters his fourth day on the Kurd Sellout Watch with a question he'd like answered.

Here's the question Chatterbox would most like somebody to ask President Bush at tonight's scheduled press conference:

"Mr. President, what precisely have you offered the Turks (besides money) in exchange for allowing U.S. troops to invade Iraq from their country? Specifically: How many Turkish troops have you said you'd allow into northern Iraq—over the strong objections of Iraqi Kurds—and how far would you let those Turkish troops go? If the Turks refuse to leave northern Iraq after the war is over, how do you propose to make them leave? Is our support for an autonomous Kurd enclave within Iraq at all negotiable? If not, can you reaffirm it now?"

HEY, JACK SNOW! Using the short version of the National Budget Simulation, I was able to increase defense spending slightly, dramatically increase social and environmental spending, and maintain some tax cuts for individuals, and still slash the budget by $275 billion.

LITERATURE AS NUTRITIONAL SUPPLEMENT Forget books on tape. What if a novel could be condensed down into, say, a short article in the Guardian Unlimited? You could call the column "The Digested Read." And you could end each column with a digested version of the digested read. Like this one on David Eggers' new book "You Shall Know Our Velocity" -- "The digested read... digested: Postmodern Forrest Gump." Or the digested take on the new Nick Hornsby essays on 31 songs he loves -- "The digested read... digested: 31 compelling reasons not to make lists."

IN HIS OWN WORDS If you missed Bush's press conference last night because you were night fishing for shad, here's the Associated Press transcript.

A SQUIRREL'S REALITY "It's amazing! It's incredible! Nothing restores your faith in humanity like a water-skiing squirrel." That's how Peter Carlson ends his exploration into the world of Twiggy No. 5, who will be strutting her stuff at the National Capital Boat Show, and is all the reason the developing world needs to hate America.

It was her [Lou Ann Best's] husband, the late Chuck Best, who trained the first Twiggy. That was back in 1978, when the couple ran a roller rink in Sanford, Fla. One of Chuck's skating students gave him a baby squirrel that had been blown out its nest during a hurricane. He named it Twiggy, nursed it to health, then taught it to water-ski behind a little remote-controlled boat.

Chuck Best had some kind of genius for teaching various animals to water-ski. "He taught two miniature ponies, two French poodles, an armadillo and a toad-frog," Lou Ann says, and then she pulls out an envelope of photos to prove she's not kidding.

CAIRO FROM ABOVE Khaled El-Fiqi captures unique views of Cairo from the air for Al-Ahram Weekly, and Jill Kamil describes what he sees.

Clearly visible are motorised vehicles on massive flyovers, domes, minarets and modern steel and plate glass buildings. All that is absent is the cacophany. The honking horns of vehicles as they vie for space in narrow streets filled with draft animals, cyclists and pedestrians are not heard from this altitude. Nor the shouts of traders announcing their wares, or the loud bantering over the price of products, or arguments between neighbours -- and the very voices of children.

We see none of the choked traffic or perilous driving and indiscriminate parking habits. Nor can we gauge the contrast between ancient and modern, want and plenty. What we can do is to look, with Khaled, upon Al-Qahira, a city that has lived a thousand years and that happens to be one of the most exciting, captivating and mysterious cities in the world.

ANOTHER ONE BITES I was praying, literally praying, that "Tears of the Sun" would get good reviews, because I used to like Bruce Willis, and I enjoy things exploding with the best of them, and because I had hoped it would have a meaningful plot about the political and military chaos that is Africa. Fat chance, you know?

Remember when Bruce Willis was funny? In recent years, his underlying sadness seems to have been winning the battle with his wit. The once arrogant wisecracker has become ever more self-effacing onscreen. I don't know whether this stems from newfound moral wisdom or clinical depression, but I fear Gloomy Gus can't give too many more charisma-free performances like this one and remain a huge star.

The rest of the cast is also glum, with the most memorable performance turned in by a violently yawning baboon.

I COULD ONLY PUT IT OUT IN JAPAN Rhett Miller is dancing as fast as he can in Tokyo this week, as he does the circuit in support of his new solo album. The circuit included a tasteful little interview with the Japan Times.

"I've known Ryan [Adams] since he was 17. He's very single-minded. If there's an opportunity to advance his career, he'll go out and drink with The Strokes and introduce himself to Sheryl Crow. I prefer staying home. I don't think his writing is disingenuous, but I think he's figured out how to push certain buttons. When I say my songs aren't calculated, it's because I don't really think about what I'm doing."

"I grew up in Texas, and I was an effeminate kid -- unpopular, whatever that means. If you're not aware of it, it doesn't matter, but I was sensitive to the cliques and my place outside of them. And my parents were unhappy, so there was no place in the real world to hide. I just read a lot."

He also grew up "an Anglophile," enamored of Aztec Camera and falling to sleep every night listening to The Smiths' "Hatful of Hollow." His connection to both music and literature is purely emotional. "As much as I liked Pavement, I was sort of annoyed they wouldn't own up to anything, no real feelings." When he listens to Beck he hears someone who "loves his record collection. His music is a comment on something that's already a comment on something else."

THE POET POPE Pope John Paul II has published a 14-page, three-part meditation on nature, described by a close friend of his as "the meeting with a man who is about to see God."

Czeslaw Milosz, the leading Polish poet and Nobel Prize for literature winner, said: "There are many poets and many poems, but there are few poems of such profoundness. "It is a conversation between man and God."

The first part, called The Stream, is an ode to nature: "The undulating wood descends to the rhythm of mountain streams... If you want to find the source, you have to go up, against the current, tear through, seek, don't give up, you know it must be somewhere here. Where are you, source? Where are you, source?!"

The third part is a meditation on the story of Abraham, the Biblical figure honoured by Christianity, Islam and Judaism. It is set in Ur, Abraham's birthplace, in modern-day Iraq - but there is no reference to the current crisis.

EVERYONE'S WRITING LETTERS Minneapolis-based FBI agent Coleen Rowley made headlines last year when she exposed agency mistakes prior to the September 11 attacks. She made more headlines today with a detailed, to-the-point letter to FBI Director Robert Mueller outlining a host of new concerns related to Iraq, al Qaeda, the civil liberties of U.S. citizens, and the FBI's lack of focus in several areas. She made the letter available to the Minneapolis Star-Tribune and the New York Times, and the Star-Tribune has printed it in its entirety. Her points about the impact of the current U.S.-European rift, and the detention of Arabs and Arab-Americans in the United States captured my attention.

It is not clear that you have been adequately apprized of the potential damage to our liaison relationships with European intelligence agencies that is likely to flow from the growing tension over Iraq between senior U.S. officials and their counterparts in key West European countries. There are far more al-Qaeda operatives in Europe than in the U.S., and European intelligence services, including the French, are on the frontlines in investigating and pursuing them. Indeed, the Europeans have successfully uncovered and dismantled a number of active cells in their countries.

In the past, FBI liaison agents stationed in Europe benefitted from the expertise and cooperation of European law enforcement and intelligence officers. Information was shared freely, and was of substantial help to us in our investigations in the U.S. You will recall that prior to 9-11, it was the French who passed us word of Moussaoui’s link to terrorism.

The vast majority of the one thousand plus persons “detained” in the wake of 9-11 did not turn out to be terrorists. They were mostly illegal aliens. We have every right, of course, to deport those identified as illegal aliens during the course of any investigation. But after 9-11, Headquarters encouraged more and more detentions for what seem to be essentially PR purposes. Field offices were required to report daily the number of detentions in order to supply grist for statements on our progress in fighting terrorism. The balance between individuals’ civil liberties and the need for effective investigation is hard to maintain even during so-called normal times, let alone times of increased terrorist threat or war. It is, admittedly, a difficult balancing act. But from what I have observed, particular vigilance may be required to head off undue pressure (including subtle encouragement) to detain or “round up” suspects—particularly those of Arabic origin.

STATEMENT OF THE DAY The Graduate Record Examination is silly. And without the use of bubbles and #2 pencils, it is soulless. And you can't drink expensive coffee while you ponder the relationship between (x-1) and (y-2)(7x).

A DIFFERENT FRENCH PERSPECTIVE, JUST AS CONFUSING At a literary symposium in Florida, dozens of American and French scholars gathered to discuss literature, and how French and American writers have influenced one another. If anything, the conference demonstrates just how wide the gulf is between the national consciousness of the two countries, and how symbiotic our relationships are.

When symposium participant Didier Daeninckx, whose novel "Meutres pour mémoire" has been translated in the US as "Murder in Memoriam," listed American writers important to the French of his generation, he named Upton Sinclair, Jack London, Hemingway, Richard Wright, Nathaniel West, and Horace McCoy.

This was the only time I've ever seen 20 English professors furrow their brows as they silently mouthed the words "Horace who?" (Make that 21, actually, since I did the same.) McCoy turns out to be the author of "They Shoot Horses, Don't They?" the 1935 novel that was made into a movie in 1969. His other tough-guy novels have titles like "No Pockets in a Shroud" and "Corruption City."

And, yes, he too was a favorite of Sartre. After a while, it begins to make sense that the term used to describe books by Dashiell Hammett, Raymond Chandler, Horace McCoy, and other hard-boiled Americans isn't an English word at all but the French "noir.

WHAT POLLACK REALLY SAID A year or so ago, former CIA and NSC Middle East analyst Kenneth Pollack published "The Threatening Storm: A Case for Invading Iraq." It's a book that convinced many readers, myself included, that there was a case to be made for forcing regime change in Iraq. Just not the case the Bush administration has made, argues Slate.

... Pollack's book reads as much like an indictment of the Bush administration's overeagerness to go to war as it does an endorsement of it. A more appropriate subtitle for the book would have been "The Case for Rebuilding Afghanistan, Destroying al-Qaida, Setting Israel and Palestine on the Road to Peace, and Then, a Year or Two Down the Road After Some Diplomacy, Invading Iraq."

Pollack's reluctant tone, his respect for doves' sincere and patriotic motives (Pollack says the term "appeasers" is a "vicious slander"), his emphasis on the humanitarian virtues of regime change, and his somewhat dismissive attitude toward the over-optimistic unilateralism of the "far right" all suggest that he was writing with a liberal audience in mind. "The Threatening Storm" demonstrates that you don't have to be pro-Bush to be pro-war. Think that Bush should focus on al-Qaida before Saddam? So does Pollack. Think that Bush should make a more serious effort to reduce the violence between Israelis and Palestinians before invading Iraq? So does Pollack. Think Bush's linkage of al-Qaida and Saddam is facile and unconvincing? So does Pollack. Fearful that Bush's endorsement of the "pre-emption" doctrine could set a dangerous precedent that other nations might imitate? So is Pollack. Worried that Bush's inattention to the rebuilding of Afghanistan bodes poorly for the reconstruction of Iraq? So is Pollack!

SHIELD ME FROM HUMAN NAIVETE' What exactly do people think when they pack up their lives and offer themselves up as human shields to the dictatorial government of a threatened and oppressed nation? That the government won't actually seek to use them as pawns? I've got no problem with people being willing to pursue their beliefs passionately, but my mind is effectively boggled after reading this article in The Guardian about the activists leaving Iraq in a petulant fit:

The activists accused the Iraqi authorities of trying to use them as pawns in the war with America. More defections are expected in the coming days.

The bitter flight from Iraq follows a showdown with the Iraqi authorities who demanded that they decamp from their hotels in central Baghdad and take up their self-assigned roles as civilian protectors.

"Basically, they said we are not going to feed you any longer," said John Ross, an American who has been active in radical causes since he tore up his draft card in 1964.

THE DEATH OF UNCLE JOE When Joseph Stalin passed away in 1953, distraught Soviet citizens everywhere wondered how they would go on without the brutal leadership of their beloved "Uncle Joe." The Onion explains.

MAKING THEM TALK Torturing captured terror suspects to get them to talk apparently is something most Americans either don't care about, or simply push to the corner of their mind that contains things like last week's grocery list. Or as Richard Cohen puts it, "No one gave a damn."

"But we should. Just to be pragmatic, torture is not as effective as it's cracked up to be. Your average torture victim is likely to say anything to relieve the pain -- the truth, a lie or, if he happens to be innocent, whatever will please his jailers. Undeniably, though, there are times when torture does the trick. It has not been around all this time for no reason.

"... It is a form of punishment, harsh and irrevocable -- applied to the innocent as well as the guilty. 'Whoever was tortured, stays tortured,' wrote the late Jean Amery. Amery, a resistance fighter, had been tortured by the Nazis. His hands were tied behind his back, a hook was lowered from the ceiling and he was raised by it. "All your life is gathered in a single limited area of the body, the shoulder joints," he wrote. 'Twenty-two years later, I am still dangling over the ground by dislocated arms.' He ultimately committed suicide.

"Torture is a beast with a rapacious appetite. The sanctimonious French wound up using it indiscriminately in Algeria; the Argentine junta, faced with a terrorist threat as real as our own, also tortured on a grand scale.

"Civilization is threatened not only by terrorists but also by the means we use to fight them."

PRIDDY AMBITIOUS Taking a break from current affairs, I find my mind wanders to friends and acquaintances, and questions of how they travel in their worlds. Which leads me periodically to discover their successes, and to share them, though I'm not sure where this impulse originates. Damn human nature. Joel Priddy, an old acquaintance, distant friend and fellow traveler at times in the esoterica that captures me, won an Ignatz debut book award in 2002 for his book, "PULPATOON PILGRIMAGE." Here, he sits down with Ninth Art to discuss his art, his work and his ambitions.

"I'd like to create a completely unabridged comics adaptation of MOBY DICK," Joel Priddy informs, when asked what his dream project is.

"We venerate it as a classic, but forget that it's entertaining. And funny - it's a very funny book. It's full of these mock-erudite tangents on things like clam chowder, the depressive effects of the color white, and which mythological heroes could be considered whalers. All of that gets lost in the multitude of previous adaptations of the book, which strip it down to the bare bones of basic plot."

MARTIN AMIS SHOWS HIS STUFF Novelist Martin Amis took readers of The Guardian (UK) on a pretty comprehensive walk through Iraq, September 11 and global power politics this week, and I think he does more than grab attention with his observations. At the least, he exceeds the performance of many of the traditional cultural observers since September 11, 2001.

Osama bin Laden is an identifiable human type, but on an unidentifiable scale. He is an enormous stirrer - a titanic mixer. Look how he's shaken us up, both in the heart and in the head. One could say, countervailingly, that on September 11 America was visited by something very alien and unbelievably radical. A completely new kind of enemy for whom death is not death - and for whom life is not life, either, but illusion, a staging-post, merely "the thing which is called World". No, you wouldn't expect such a massive world-historical jolt, which will reverberate for centuries, to be effortlessly absorbed. But the suspicion remains that America is not behaving rationally - that America is behaving like someone still in shock.

This is a vital question. Why, in our current delirium of faith and fear, would Bush want things to become more theological rather than less theological? The answer is clear enough, in human terms: to put it crudely, it makes him feel easier about being intellectually null. He wants geopolitics to be less about intellect and more about gut-instincts and beliefs - because he knows he's got them. One thinks here of Bob Woodward's serialised anecdote: asked by Woodward about North Korea, Bush jerked forward saying, "I loathe Kim Jong II!" Bush went on to say that the execration sprang from his instincts, adding, apparently in surprised gratification, that it might be to do with his religion. Whatever else happens, we can infallibly expect Bush to get more religious: more theological.

MEMORIA FOTOGRAFICA Several years ago, I took a photography workshop and met Fabian Martinez, who impressed me initially with amazing photos he was shooting and developing of his tousle-headed twins. A native of Argentina, he and his wife Sarah took the twins to Spain for an extended stay, and Fabian turned to a different sort of recording -- through fiction. He writes in his native Spanish, and recently won an annual short-fiction contest in Spain.

A VIEW FROM INSIDE, HEADING OUT Career diplomat John Brady Kiesling's letter of resignation says it better than most.

"We should ask ourselves why we have failed to persuade more of the world that a war with Iraq is necessary. We have over the past two years done too much to assert to our world partners that narrow and mercenary U.S. interests override the cherished values of our partners. Even where our aims were not in question, our consistency is at issue. The model of Afghanistan is little comfort to allies wondering on what basis we plan to rebuild the Middle East, and in whose image and interests. Have we indeed become blind, as Russia is blind in Chechnya, as Israel is blind in the Occupied Territories, to our own advice, that overwhelming military power is not the answer to terrorism? After the shambles of post-war Iraq joins the shambles in Grozny and Ramallah, it will be a brave foreigner who forms ranks with Micronesia to follow where we lead."

A VOICE THAT CARRIES Journalist David Halberstam participated in an absolutely smart conversation about Iraq with some Washington Post readers earlier today, and the link goes to a transcript. Here's where Halberstam hit some balls well out of the field:

On the debate, or lack of -- "I think it's been a very disappointing debate, unlike the debate that preceded Desert Storm. And I think the debate has been poorly framed. I don't blame the administration and its allies for the way they've framed their case, which is to sort of imply that anybody who does not go along with military action is some kind of wimp and pacifist. But I do blame some of the Democratic leaders in the Congress and the more senior Democratic NSC people for not framing a tough-minded alternative. That is, that you can believe, as the advocates of immediate force believe, that Saddam is in fact evil and a threat, but that the time frame should be different, that the long-range undertow in the region that comes from unilateral or quasi-unilateral American action will be in the long run more damaging than sustaining a policy of containment but slowly closing off escape hatches for Saddam, and doing it, one hopes, with more allies and more support in the region."

What we may really be doing -- "My fear is not that we can't do it militarily; my fear is that we are about to punch our fist into the largest hornet's nest in the world, and do some of bin Laden's recruiting for him."

Our perspective vs. someone else's -- "Let me jump, because we're talking politically, to a photo that sticks in my mind. It's a dramatic one, taken on the last day of the fighting in Gulf War I. It shows the entire Iraqi army, like a giant snake in the sand, in line to surrender. If you're in a Western country, you look at that photo and you're filled with joy, because it shows that the victory has been swift, with only marginal casualties. But if you're a young, partially radicalized Muslim in the region, the photo is like a dagger in your heart -- another humiliation vested on your people, and therefore an incentive to join up with more radical elements."

GET YOUR NEIGHBORHOOD ON The Get Your War On gang takes a break from ebola and oppression to say good-bye to Fred Rogers.

ANYONE REMEMBER THAT "OTHER" MIDDLE EAST ISSUE? The Council on Foreign Relations serves up a reminder that the Israeli-Palestinian conflict -- which is flaring to peak levels of violence this week -- remains a critical issue in the region. The Council report rightly asserts that two very specific actions must happen, and that they must happen unconditionally and independently:

The report states: "All previous efforts to end violence on both sides and turn to a political process (the Mitchell recommendations, the Tenet cease-fire work plan and the Zinni mission) have failed to gain traction on the ground, primarily because each side maintained that the first step must be taken by the other.

"If the Road Map is not to encounter the same fate, the U.S. administration and its Quartet partners must insist on a 100% PA effort to end violence that is unconditional and independent of actions demanded of Israel. The U.S. and its Quartet partners must similarly insist on an equally unconditional cessation of Israeli settlement expansion (including so-called natural growth) that is independent of actions required of Palestinians."

The report also says the U.S. needs to get off of its ass and start articulating the Road Map the President referenced nine months ago. "We believe there is no national security reason for the President to delay elaboration of his June 24 vision. Indeed, there are important national security reasons to spell out without further delay the broad shape of the peace agreement for which the U.S. intends to work."

THEY'RE JUST TESTING THE GEARS A BBC documentary lays it out for us: Isaac Newton did some calculations and determined that the end of the world, popularly known in some circles as Armagedon, will occur in 2060 -- 57 years from now. George Bush must be really torqued.

TRUDEAU. HE'S CANADIAN, RIGHT? Garry Trudeau must be beside himself these days, as his strips more and more reflect their origins in the Imperial presidency of Richard Nixon, when the economy choked, the world was our enemy and our purposes were purported to be noble.

KISSING THE FROG David Ignatius looks to put a human face on the French, which is not a bad idea given the current American cultural tendancy toward knee-jerking of late. He spent some time with the French foreign minister, one Dominique de Villepin.

Ignatius reports: "Washington needs the world more than it may realize, de Villepin argues. 'America can't do it alone,' he contends. 'If America could all alone solve terrorism, stop proliferation, make peace in the Mideast, solve the problem of AIDS, then I'll sign on the bottom line.' But he says that's a fantasy, like some of the administration's ideas about bringing democracy to the Arab world through war. 'One shouldn't imagine that with the touch of a magic wand, one can render things simple,' he contends... What's disturbing is that America may soon part company with some of its friends -- to pursue goals that are not yet well enough defined to convince most of the world that America is right.

And therein lies one of the many tragedies of our current foreign policy. Much of the world, in general, would find itself in agreement with Washington. Washington, however, has found no need to wait for that agreement, much less compromise elements of it, or provide a clear rationale for it. So, as America lambasts French arrogance, it's probably going a bit far to discuss pots and kettles.

THE WAITING IS THE HARDEST PART I don't buy into the idea that anyone is necessarily "rushing into war," since this particular game of Inspections Tag actually started in 1991 and came close to a second ground war in 1998 during the Clinton administration. That said, I would agree that there continues to be a false sense of urgency, usually attributed to issues of weather or the costs of maintaining forces for long periods of time. Josh Marshall cobbles together a smart little analysis by the Carter administration's Zbigniew Brzezinski. Note that no one has mentioned that Bush's re-election team would like to get this war over with sooner than later.

IT ISN'T HARD TO MASTER Jane (for short) pens a birthday missive to an ex-boyfriend, a reminder that even those who are out of our lives were once in them for a reason. Such as singing along to "The Pirates of Penzance" on cross-country drives.

OLD FORM, NEW LANGUAGE, NICE TRY Gus Van Zant tries to break the molds of conventional filmmaking with "Gerry," and the verdict is out on whether he succeeds.

"By the time we were shooting, I had the idea of letting things go on for longer than they normally would, I think just because of the realities of that situation -- the realities that movies sort of stay away from. [In most movies,] it's all just shorthand until we get to the dialogue, and then the dialogue can be like five minutes long, and you wouldn't question that. Instead, [in Gerry,] we have the establishing shot of the car [run] five minutes, and the dialogue [run] 30 seconds."

THE RING'S THE THING Sarah of Que Sera Sera fame discovered many things as she tried on her bridesmaid straightjacket, including:

"What do I want engraved on the inside of my wedding ring? No one expects the Spanish Inquisition."

THE MIL-DEP CURE-ALL Kate Sullivan's recipes for curing yourself of mild bouts of depression:

"5. Write yourself a love letter (including your phone number) and mail it to yourself. When you receive the letter, call yourself up. If you get voice mail, leave a message. Keep leaving messages until you hear back. And if you never hear back, well, I guess it's pretty obvious you're dealing with a game-player."

WHEN A DOLLAR WOULD BUY YOU A COKE AND A WAR The Post lambasts the Bush administration for budgetary politics today -- a long overdue caning, and hardly severe enough given the game playing. The game is simple enough. It involves keeping one budget problem hidden long enough to force Congress' hand on another. Faced with a record deficit, a multi-billion dollar war plan and a proposal to cut hundreds of billions of dollars in taxes, the Bush team hopes to force Congress to sign off on the tax cuts and then unveil a supplementary request to fund a war in Iraq that Congress will be unable to dodge.

"As a U.S. war with Iraq draws closer, the Bush administration's discussion of its economic plan is becoming increasingly unhinged from reality. It would be an amusing case study in the surreal nature of Washington debate if it were not simultaneously so irresponsible -- and so real. The situation is this: The administration, already facing a record budget deficit of $304 billion this fiscal year, wants Congress to enact a 10-year, $637 billion tax cut plan that by the administration's own estimates will dig the deficit even deeper. As Congress considers that course, the administration is refusing to put any price tag on the coming war with Iraq; any number would be wrong, it says, so why try?"

It's entirely possible that the existing deficit, plus a war and reconstruction, plus pork barrel politics, plus tax cuts will create multi-year deficits as high as a trillion dollars a year. And people thought Ronald Reagan was a bad banker.