The names of twenty five hundred young men and women have been erased from the chalkboard of life by the merchants of pain and death in our government.

They were erased from the list of the living by the hands of arrogant men wielding erasers soaked in the blood of tens of thousands of others who were maimed and wounded and tens of thousands of Iraqis whose deaths they will not dignify by counting or even mentioning.

It's a number, another irritating milestone that they hope falls on Friday so that the press flap will dissipate over the weekend.

White House Bilgemeister Tony Snow while appearing on one of Sunday's talk shows on CNN and trying to goose the Presidents ratings, compared the Battle of the Bulge to Iraq.

"The president understands people's impatience — not impatience but how a war can wear on a nation," said Snowjob "He understands that. If somebody had taken a poll in the Battle of the Bulge, I dare say people would have said, 'Wow, my goodness, what are we doing here?' But you cannot conduct a war based on polls."

Imagine if Rush Limbaugh or Ann Coulter were selected to help determine national policy in the White House. How would you feel about that? Would Oxycontin become an over-the-counter drug? Would all Democrats go to jail for 'treason'?

Who cares! It'll never happen... ...or will it?

Introducing Tony Snow, an equally ideologically-driven, though less toxically expressed right-wing pundit recently selected by the White House to serve as their official mouthpiece.

Following in the footsteps of past media punching bags Ari Fleischer and Scott McClellan, Tony will take the podium to crush journalistic softballs and distract the American public from various inconvenient affairs.

Under normal circumstances, such news is unsurprising and unworthy of our scarce attention. Unfortunately, this circumstance moves with a bit of a twist. It seems Mr. Snow is insisting that he, as an administration spokesperson, a former speechwriter, and a long-time conservative propagandist, have a groping hand in the actual development of current White House policy -- something unheard of in past administrations.

Jeff Gannon smiles after his introduction by President Bush

Washington, DC (APE) - in a stunning move today it was announced that the anticipated replacement of outgoing press secretary Scott McClellan with Fox TV news commentator Tony Snow had been scrubbed. The White House today announced that instead, effective immediately, the new press secretary would be controversial independent journalist Jeff Gannon.