The biggest stones

A guy named Harry Taylor has the biggest stones in the entire United States of America. How he managed to find the balls to ask Festus point-blank a question that hundreds of professional journalists have failed to is simply jaw-dropping to me.

A striking exchange from President Bush's Q+A session with an audience in Charlotte, North Carolina on Thursday:

Q: You never stop talking about freedom, and I appreciate that. But while I listen to you talk about freedom, I see you assert your right to tap my telephone, to arrest me and hold me without charges, to try to preclude me from breathing clean air and drinking clean water and eating safe food. If I were a woman, you'd like to restrict my opportunity to make a choice and decision about whether I can abort a pregnancy on my own behalf. You are --

THE PRESIDENT: I'm not your favorite guy. Go ahead. (Laughter and applause.) Go on, what's your question?

Q: Okay, I don't have a question. What I wanted to say to you is that I -- in my lifetime, I have never felt more ashamed of, nor more frightened by my leadership in Washington, including the presidency, by the Senate, and --

AUDIENCE MEMBERS: Booo!

THE PRESIDENT: No, wait a sec -- let him speak.

Q: And I would hope -- I feel like despite your rhetoric, that compassion and common sense have been left far behind during your administration, and I would hope from time to time that you have the humility and the grace to be ashamed of yourself inside yourself.

What is even more amazing is that you can watch it. It's almost sickening in it's grotesqueness. Festus seems so cocky, so smug, you can almost see the thought balloon over his head thinking "Who does this dickhead think he's talking to?"



Amazing.