By Scott Wright

I am about to type a sentence I never thought any of us would ever experience the happiness of reading: Last week, for the first time in the (seven years too) long history of the Bush administration, someone finally got what he had coming for his loathsome incompetence.

John P. “Pat” Philbin, the former director of external affairs for FEMA, had his promotion to the top spot in the public information office yanked from under him following one of the most ignorant acts I've seen so far from these rightwing blockheads -- and like you, I've seen plenty already.

Philbin arranged a press conference last week in response to questions from reporters regarding FEMA's response to the California wildfires. The session was called with little notice and featured responses from the deputy administrator, Vice Adm. Harvey Johnson. The problem is that there were no reporters asking questions. Every last query that Johnson fielded, turned out, emanated from an audience filled with FEMA staffers.

Initially, the White House tried to defend Philbin's antics. But the outcry from the news media was unanimous. Homeland Security spokeswoman Laura Keehner was first to call a charade a charade, saying “stunts such as this will not be tolerated or repeated.” Homeland Security Secretary Michael Chertoff followed up by calling the hoax “one of the dumbest and most inappropriate things I've seen since I've been in government.”

Apparently, Chertoff doesn't get out much, because that press conference came from the same hacks who gave us days and weeks of “inappropriate” Hurricane Katrina rescue efforts, illegal wiretapping, the “inappropriate” response to the abuses of Abu Ghraib, the “inappropriate” plans for post-war Iraq, the outing of a CIA operative, and the appointment of Alberto Gonzales to attorney general, among dozens of other missteps. And all of these failures and (far) shortcomings ultimately fall at the feet of the worst excuse for a president we've ever had.

On second thought, perhaps Chertoff's “dumbest and inappropriate” remark reflects a certain level of keen-eyed experience. After all, as a cabinet-level official in the Bush administration, he often finds himself sitting at a table headed by a man who's a perfect example of at least one of those adjectives.

Speaking of George W. Bush, it's beginning to sound to me as though the man has mouths on both sides of his head. At the very least, he's talking out both sides of the one below his nose. Last week, Dubya decide to take the offensive against Democrats in Congress, who he claims are hindering efforts to defeat the forces of evil around the world.

“Some in Congress should spend more time responding to the warnings of terrorists like Osama bin Laden … and less time responding to the demands of MoveOn.org,” he said in a speech Thursday.

That from the man who gave up trying to actually locate bin Laden in the mountains of Afghanistan years ago, who once told a room full of reporters that he didn't spend any time thinking about where the terrorist mastermind might be hiding.

Bush's exact words, spoken on March 13, 2002, were: “I don't know where bin Laden is. I have no idea and I really don't care. It's not that important. It's not our priority.” Somehow, though, in George W. Bush's convoluted brain, the Democrats in Congress are solely responsible for the fact that bin Laden still exists as a threat to America. Honestly, I don't know why the lack of logic in this nincompoop's logic still surprises me.

Bush also accused Congress of dragging its feet on the fight against terrorism, including delaying the confirmation of attorney general nominee Michael Mukasey. But the funny fact is that both Democrats and Republicans loved the guy -- and who wouldn't, since his last name isn't Gonzales -- until Mukasey took a pass last week when a senator asked whether it's lawful for terrorist suspects to be waterboarded.

He hemmed and hawed and said very little, and in the process got the Senate Judiciary Committee wondering if this guy is going to do his job if he becomes attorney general, or if he's going to be another Bush lapdog. Would Mukasey as AG be willing to look the other way while the president and Darth Cheney continue to break the law and violate U.S. and international law? Or would he uphold what's left of the Constitution, which this administration has worked for seven years to undermine and demean?

Since Mukasey made his muddied remarks, senators on both sides of the aisle have voiced concerns over whether or not he has the brass you-know-whats to stand up to Bush. Until Mukasey out-and-out declares waterboarding to be illegal, as even Republican senators John McCain and Lindsey Graham have demanded, he can't be counted on to perform his job properly, especially considering that his first job as attorney general may be to initiate the prosecution of members of the Bush administration for approving the illegal and despicable torture of terrorist suspects.

“The American people have got to understand the program is important and the techniques used are within the law,” President Bush said late last week, two days after the waterboarding flap threatened to drown Mukasey.

This from the same guy who told us there were WMD's in Iraq and insisted that Brownie was “doing a heck of a job.” Honestly, I can't imagine why all those senators don't believe him.