Nursing an anemic 42% approval rating, President Bush tried to drum up support for the quagmire in Iraq by delivering a televised speech to the nation. Unfortunately, nobody was tuned in when he proclaimed that we are fighting an ideology that “rejects tolerance, and despises all dissent.” Mr. Bush, who requires American citizens to sign a loyalty oath before attending presidential rallies, argued we must continue the war and cautioned we dare not “abandon the Iraqi people to men like Zarqawi,” though he remained starkly mum on why he thrice rejected military plans to take out the Jordanian terrorist at a Kurdish terrorist camp before the invasion. Safely behind the walls of Ft. Bragg, — or was it Ft. Bluster, Exaggerate and Lie? — The Commander-In-Chief boasted that the terrorists have “failed to break our Coalition and force a mass withdrawal by our allies.” Never mind that Spain, Norway, Hungary and the Philippines have pulled their soldiers in toto, that Dutch and Ukrainian troops have already begun phased withdrawals, and that Italy and Poland will start their retreat later this year. The British, who have cut personnel from 46,000 to 8,500, just announced another 50% pullback.

The news is downright bleak and the administration (“last throes”) is at wits’ end trying to convince us otherwise. Enter Republican PR firm Russo Marsh & Rogers, who conjured up an Armstrong Williams-meets-Joseph Goebbels “Truth Tour” of conservative talk radio personalities. The delegation will spend a week in Iraq generating stories with a positive slant. “The reason why we are doing it is we are sick and tired of seeing and hearing headlines about our defeat in Iraq,” explained Melanie Morgan, a San Francisco radio host. “War is war, and it’s dangerous. At the same time, there is success and there is a mainstream media that is determined to shut out that success.” The contingent is not some “crop of ‘pinkos’,” ranted another member. “We are Americans first and journalists second.”

While fake reporters trundle off to Baghdad, real journalists are getting thrown in jail. Judith Miller left The New York Times for The Alexandria Detention Center after refusing to divulge her source on the Valerie Plame story, which, ironically, she never even wrote. Bob Novak, who first published Plame’s CIA affiliation, and Time Inc.’s Matt Cooper, whose publisher had already caved in to authorities, avoided jail time by cravenly giving up Karl Rove as their source. With the vast White House machinery under his thumb, Karl hardly needs protection from some federal shield law, but then again, does anyone relish being outed?

Certainly not Rep. Randy “Duke” Cunningham (R-CA), whose open hostility to gays –describing a proctologic procedure as “just not natural, unless maybe you’re Barney Frank,” and lambasting Democrats for putting “homos in the military” — serves to obfuscate his own sexual disarray. The Duke, apparently, was the thinly veiled subject of a Gay Pride forum presentation by Elizabeth Birch, executive director of the Human Rights Campaign. Birch told of meeting a conservative Republican congressman averse to same-sex rights who surprisingly ushered his staff members out of his Capitol Hill office, closed the door, and asked Birch about her homosexuality: “You know, how do you know you’re that way?” Birch then recalled that the congressman, flanked by walls festooned with whips and guns, confessed, “Because I’ve loved men.” Harmony Allen, Cunningham’s press secretary, decried, “He is a heterosexual. He never had guns on his walls!” No mention, oddly, of the whips.

When the FBI raided Cunningham’s house this week, agents weren’t scrutinizing his decorating schemes. Rather they were investigating schemes of a more remunerative nature, namely graft and tax evasion. Last week we recounted how Cunningham sold his house to a defense contractor at a hefty premium and then awarded huge Pentagon contracts as a quid pro quo. New evidence reveals that the representative sold a $200,000 boat to one Thomas Kontogiannis for $600,000. Kontogiannis, who in 2002 pled guilty to bribery and bid-rigging related to New York City computer contracts, never took title to the vessel but subsequently financed Duke’s new house. Mr. K bristled at suggestions of influence peddling: “Why would I do that? I don’t need the man,” he insisted shortly before acknowledging that the Congressman offered to help wrangle a presidential pardon for his earlier crimes. The silver lining in all of this is Cunningham’s chance, if convicted, to finally resolve the sexual conflict raging inside him by turning his ass into the parking lot for cellblock “C”.