BLOGGING BUSH'S BASH. There's been a change of plan. I've returned to Media Log Central, and will be blogging the inauguration through most of the day. Only Hunter Thompson could do this hideous spectacle justice, but I'll do what I can.

A little while ago, during my drive back to the compound, I heard right-wing talk-show host Mike Gallagher interview Tod Brilliant, of Not One Damn Dime Day, which is urging a consumer boycott today to protest the war in Iraq.

Gallagher was amazingly polite - he's never going to be able to play with Rush and O'Reilly if he keeps this up - but his manners were exceeded only by his cluelessness. He asked Brilliant whether Not One Damn Dime's real goal was to find a way to make money on the Internet. After Brilliant assured him that was not the case, Gallagher followed up by asking whether Not One Damn Dime was "against capitalism." Really.

All this was interspersed with the clumsiest on-air sponsor announcements I've heard in quite a while - three times in 10 minutes, Gallagher had to interrupt Brilliant to read ads.

Gallagher also let Brilliant pull a fast one. Brilliant claimed that because John Kerry favored the war, Not One Damn Dime would have called for a day of protest even if Kerry had been elected president. I, uh, think not. (Maybe Brilliant, a Nader supporter, would have staged his own one-person boycott.) But Gallagher said nothing. Probably thinking about the next sponsor.

By the way, Gallagher, Ramblin' Gamblin' Bill Bennett, Hugh Hewitt, and an assortment of other right-wingers can be heard locally on WTTT Radio (AM 1150), which is apparently devoted to the proposition that Sean Hannity, Laura Ingraham, and the like just aren't right-wing enough, damn it!