When President Bush boasted that, “I saw a poll that said the right track / wrong track in Iraq was better than here in America,” I immediately logged onto Orbitz and bought a one-way ticket to Toronto. Burning the last of my Delta Sky Miles, I upgraded to seat 4B, right between Paul Bremer and Colin Powell. Yesterday, Bremer described the conditions during his stint in Iraq as “horrid” and confessed that not having “enough troops on the ground… established an atmosphere of lawlessness.” Disturbingly, the Secretary of State now concedes that, “it’s getting worse.” In contrast to W’s edict that we are better off without Saddam, Powell allowed, “We have seen an increase in anti-Americanism in the Muslim world.” No shit. British diplomat Sir Ivor Roberts framed the issue beautifully when he quipped, “Bush is the best recruiting sergeant for al-Qaeda. If anyone is ready to celebrate his eventual re-election, it is [Bin Laden].”

Not so fast with the goat’s milk, Osama. Despite Fox News polls giving the President 25-point lead, cracks are beginning to appear in the hull of HMS Crawford. Contravening the well-worn adage that Democrats fall in love with a candidate and Republicans fall in line, the rats are starting to jump ship. Neo-conservative godfather Francis Fukuyama lambasted this administration’s forays into social engineering and nation building. Stephen Moore of the conservative Club for Growth said that Bush was not “very forthright” about his budget proposals and that his fiscal record has been “abysmal.” Chairman William Niskanen of the Cato Institute opined, “there’s no way to accomplish [Bush’s] major new measures, including tax reform, without substantial increases in spending.” Pat Buchannan simply called the President a fag and suggested the country would be better off if George would resign and live out his final days as a houseboy for some “wrinkled Hollywood Jew.”

Dissension in the ranks finds the handful of Republican Senators unwilling to bail out fostering mutiny. In a desperate attempt at self-preservation, Chuck Hagel told CBS that as for the war, “No, I don’t think we’re winning,” and that “we’re in deep trouble in Iraq.” Richard Luger blamed “incompetence in the administration,” while John McCain declared, “I would never have allowed the sanctuaries [like Sadr City] to start with…We’re not going to have those national elections until we get rid of [them].” Rumsfeld concurred, advocating partial-birth elections in “in three-quarters or four-fifths of the country.” Deputy Secretary of State Richard Armitage tried to quickly mop up the mess by telling a House Appropriations panel, “We’re going to have an election that is free and open, and that has to be open to all citizens.”

Amid the swirl of mixed messages, Bill O’Reilly begged the commander-in-chief for clarity: “But can they vote when people are being blown up and these guys are threatening them?” “Yes,” replied Mr. Bush, “That’s when you’re supposed to vote.” Anyone serving in the military will tell you that it’s easy to talk about doing the “hard work” when you’re surrounded by Secret Service agents and the gravest threat to your well-being comes in a bag of pretzels. But no matter, the message never got to Baghdad where Wall Street Journal reporter Farnaz Fassihi asked a 28-year-old engineer if he and his family would participate in the January elections. “Go and vote and risk being blown into pieces or followed by the insurgents and murdered for cooperating with the Americans?” For what? To practice democracy? Are you joking?”

Timing, they say, is everything and so it seems for drug maker Pfizer. Back in August, the company ended its less-than-remunerative senior discount program, leaving 536,000 elderly cardholders without access to affordable medication. “A lot of people will be left high and dry,” decried Robert M. Hayes of the Medical Rights Center, fearing the episode would prove “a harbinger of trouble ahead” with the new Medicare drug program.

With the pharmaceutical behemoth already cast as an uncaring, greedy monolith, news that rival Merk would be ladling billions of dollars a year into Pfizer’s coffers only served to exacerbate the rampant geriatric dyspepsia. It seems that Merk’s Cox-2 inhibitor, Vioxx, doubled the risk for heart attack and stroke for patients who used the drug for more than 18 months. With Vioxx pulled off the market, sales of Pfizer alternatives Celebrex and Bextra will easily jump 100%. Now imagine if the Vioxx windfall was announced before the decision to shaft the old folks. Pfizer management would not be seen merely as callus profiteers but rather as a band of shameless, butt-raping pirates.

Yet as long as Viagra remains available, Supreme Court Justice Antonin Scalia won’t give the matter a second thought. It seems his honor has a penchant for gangbangs, observing, “Sexual orgies eliminate social tension and ought to be encouraged.” Bear in mind, this is the same Justice who went duck hunting with Dick Cheney while the Vice President had a case pending before the court, but still, the revelations are appalling. When asked, hypothetically, how he would react to knocking up a fellow group sex practitioner, Scalia mused that matters such as abortion and assisted suicide are “too fundamental” to be resolved by judges. Unwrapping a quart-sized pump bottle of personal lubricant, the Justice summed up his thoughts: “It is blindingly clear judges have no greater capacity than the rest of us to determine what is moral.” Amen to that.