Sucking up to the White House? ...

Bolten quietly orchestrates change in White House by William Douglas, McClatchy Newspapers

Seems Joshua B. Bolten as White House Chief of Staff is just working wonders ... Haven't you noticed? He's been chief of staff since March of 2006, over a year and a half.

• He plays the 'bass-guitar,' gee, how human.

• "Several Democratic lawmakers praised Bolten this week for helping to find pragmatic outsider Michael Mukasey to replace Bush's longtime inner-circle friend Alberto Gonzales as attorney general ..."

• He's "exercising pragmatic conservatism ..." Is that anything like 'compassionate' conservatism?

• "There is a sense that compromise is no longer a four-letter word as long as the president can adhere to his fundamental principles." Believe that? After 7 years? And just what are those fundamental principles? War? Shock and awe? Torture. Corruption? Lying? But it sounds good and no one is as gullible as a Democratic Congresscritter ...

• " ... administration friends and foes alike say they see positive change in the White House, thanks largely to its low-profile chief of staff." Ha, ha ...

• Oh, my, and he got rid of Rove, too?: "He has gotten rid of some of the problems," Panetta said. "Moving Karl out, Gonzales leaving — I suspect the chief of staff had some impact on that, cleaning out the lightning rods." Believe it or not ...

The article goes on and on ... One gem is that Tony Snow is one of Bolten's admirers and "said Bolten is a master recruiter who's able to persuade talented people to quit their jobs and join an unpopular administration." Intellectual giant Snow was a victim of Bolton's reverse psychology!

The more I read this article, which I used for this post on Mukasey, the more I wonder ... is the writer serious, is it tongue in cheek, am I really in an alternate universe? Alice, where are you?

NOTE ADDED: Has 'pragmatic' been chosen to replace 'compassionate' as the term of choice for Republican obfuscations?