George Has Got Some 'Splainin' To Do
Oh, those awful 527s are at it again... but this time with a haymaker from the left--check out this ad from Texans for Truth regarding W's time in the Alabama National Guard.

Salon also tackles this subject with an interview with the wife of a political operative (and Bush family friend... for a time) that W worked with while in Alabama:

"The impression I had was that Georgie was raising a lot of hell in Houston, getting in trouble and embarrassing the family, and they just really wanted to get him out of Houston and under Jimmy's wing," Allison's widow, Linda, told me. "And Jimmy said, 'Sure.' He was so loyal."

Allison's account corroborates a Washington Post investigation in February that found no credible witnesses to the service in the Alabama National Guard that Bush maintains he performed, despite a lack of documentary evidence. Asked if she'd ever seen Bush in a uniform, Allison said: "Good lord, no. I had no idea that the National Guard was involved in his life in any way." Allison also confirmed previously published accounts that Bush often showed up in the Blount campaign offices around noon, boasting about how much alcohol he had consumed the night before. (Bush has admitted that he was a heavy drinker in those years, but he has refused to say whether he also used drugs).

We'll be finding out more about how George got into the Texas National Guard later this week when 60 Minutes interviews Ben Barnes, the man responsible for shifting the paperwork (though I can't tell if it's on tomorrow night or next Sunday).

Then there's Kitty Kelley's new tell-all book about the Bush family, and whether W was doing coke at Camp David.

But really, what we should be talking about is the budgetary mess this "conservative" President has gotten us into:

The U.S. budget deficit will balloon to $2.29 trillion over the next decade, congressional analysts said on Tuesday, a worse outlook than previously forecast and one likely to stir election-year debate about President Bush's economic policies.

The forecast from the nonpartisan Congressional Budget Office compares to the outlook for a $2.01 trillion deficit for 2005-2014 it provided in March under current economic policies [...]

The CBO also confirmed a preliminary forecast it put out in August showing an expected record deficit of $422 billion for the 2004 fiscal year.