Captain Renault: Major Strasser has been shot. Round up the usual suspects. (Casablanca, 1942)

We have plenty of the “usual suspects” in this, the 24th edition of the Carnival of the Clueless. Hall of Famers Ted Kennedy, John Kerry, and Hillary Clinton are all given a good going over by our intrepid contributors who span the globe to bring you the constant variety of cluebats you’ve come to expect.

It was difficult to cull the herd of nominees for Cluebat of the Week. Here are a few finalists:

• Senator Arlen Specter who is so desperate to see his Philadelphia Eagles win the Super Bowl he wanted to convene a Congressional hearing to see if Congress couldn’t make the team take back problem child Terrel Owens in order to have him play. He then experienced an Emily Litella moment when he was told by the Justice Department to “fagetaboutit.” Never mind.

• How about President Bush’s nominee for Deputy Director of USAID Paul Bonicelli who the President plucked from tiny Patrick Henry College, a fundamentalist Christian institution of higher learning? Nothing inherently wrong with that, of course, except the school isn’t accredited and requires its “science” teachers to sign a statement saying that they believe the earth and everything on it was created in 6, 24-hour days. Mr. Bonicelli allowed that if “there was evidence that contradicted scripture” on the creation of the earth he would be willing to examine it. How very big of him. And the fact that the statement also says if you don’t accept Jesus as God you will end up in “torment” may have caused a few awkward moments around the table with some of our non-Christian friends. Try again, George.

• Don’t forget Nancy Pelosi whose timing couldn’t be better. No sooner does she come out in favor of cutting and running in Iraq than CNN releases a poll saying that 59% of Americans oppose that course of action. Considering that Pelosi has never taken a principled stand in her political life, it appears she slightly miscalculated the mood of the American people. Par for the course for the clueless harridan from San Francisco.

But the winner of Cluebat of the Week absolutely must go to the CIA. Last summer, the spooks leaked a National Intelligence Estimate on Iran that assured us the mad mullahs were 10 years from getting the bomb. The leak was aimed at discrediting the Bush Administration who had been ratcheting up the rhetoric against Iran’s nuclear ambitions.

Imagine our surprise when America hating IAEA Chairman Muhammad ElBaradei said just yesterday that the radioactive ayatollahs are 6 months from constructing a nuclear weapon. The fact that we are surprised at this doesn’t trouble me. But isn’t it just a little bit disturbing that the CIA was off in its estimate of Iran’s nuclear capability by 9 1/2 years?

So for breathtaking incompetence above and beyond just about anything imaginable, the CIA walks away with the coveted Cluebat of the Week.

Here are 29 more examples of head-scratching cluelessness. Click to your heart’s content.

“Naivete in grownups is often charming; but when coupled with vanity it is indistinguishable from stupidity.”
(Eric Hoffer)

Hey Eric! Just how familiar are you with Democrats on the Hill?
(Me)

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Orac is rightly upset with an internet squatter who seems obsessed with the Wise One’s website, going so far as to purchase the “dot com” domain name “Orac.” A cautionary tale with an interesting comment thread as well.

The usually placid Pachyderms at Elephants in Academia are steaming mad at John Kerry for…well, being John Kerry first and foremost but specifically for some recent remarks made by the Senator from Hanoi about timetables for withdrawal from Iraq.

Another takedown of Kerry at Palmetto Pundit who posits “Using John Kerry’s new math, we have to conclude that Withdrawal=Success. Call me old fashioned, but I still use the old formula which is Victory=Success.” Yep.

Jay at Stop the ACLU has the skinny on the “rights” organization’s attack on the CIA. As Jay points out, don’t these cluebats realize there’s a war on? Actually they do – they’re just having problems with “enemy identification.”

Good to have Matt Johnston contributing to the Carnival again. His post on the cluelessness of football fan Senator Specter has a nice analogy using the Senator’s own staff as an example.

Mark Coffey chews up Senator Kennedy and spits him out for his clueless comments on Judge Alito’s upcoming confirmation hearings. Pot meet kettle. Mark surprises himself as he notes it is the first time that Kennedy has made his “Jackass of the Week.” Sometimes, we tend to overlook the obvious…

Raven has the tale of some protesters who tried to confront Ward Churchill about his “little Eichman” comment. A flavor of what went on at the protest: “He also claimed the guest speaker left the building but not before “putting a hex on us in an Indian dialect.” Read the whole thing.

The Headmistress of those gentle home schoolers in The Common Room has an excellent article on the UN’s attempt to take over the internet. “What’s wrong at the UN? Well, it depends on your point of view. From the point of view of self-perpetuating institutions, nothing”. I would say that’s spot on.

Another Carnival regular we can welcome back after a while is Tom Bowler of the excellent Libertarian Leanings. Tom has a few thoughts on the Democrats and Iraq: “They are a party demanding a timetable but needing a clue.” Uh-huh.

Your dose of Carnival satire is brought to you this week by Mr. Right and Buckley F. Williams. Suggest you put down all liquid refreshment before reading either of these excellent screeds.

The Right Place has the Democrats newest fundraising gimmick; a CD of Christm…I mean “seasonal” songs sung by their political stars including Hillary’s marvelous rendition of “”I Caught Bill Kissing Mrs. Claus.” And The Nose on your Face contributes “The Top 9 Other Prison Complaints of Saddam Hussein” including #7: I’m not allowed to put up pictures from my Playboy: Girl’s of Mesopotamia issue.

JB on the Rocks takes two towns in Arizona to task for allowing “public nudity.” As Jeff points out, public breastfeeding is a question of fairness to others, not whether it is right. I might add something about bad manners but hey! What do I know? I’m a 51 year old mossback with old fashioned ideas about what should and shouldn’t be done in public.

Jack Cluth of The People’s Republic of Seabrook asks “Isn’t it about time that we WAKE UP AND SMELL THE CAT LITTER??” regarding President Bush and his “National Strategy for Victory in Iraq.” As usual, Jack holds up the liberal argument against Bush as well as it can be done.

Rachel at Tinkerty Tonk defends C.S. Lewis and The Chronicles of Narnia against anti-Christian moonbats. Lewis, one of the most thoughtful men of the 20th century, used the imagery in Narnia to make a statement about universal truths and humanity, as Rachel points out. Only a clueless atheist would see anything else.

The lovely and super-smart Mensa Barbie has an interesting post on the skyscraper in Taipei that scientists believe could be causing (proximately) earthquakes. Clueless engineers? Read the post and follow the fascinating link to the American Geophysical Union’s website.

Critical thinker Skeptico turns a baleful glance toward a San Francisco cluebat Supervisor who is demanding all businesses of 20 or more employees to have health insurance. A nice idea but pretty arbitrary and capricious – which is about what you’d expect from the San Francisco government.

Will Franklin sends along this story in the student-run Eagle of Texas A&M University about a cluebat who threw horse feces on the rival University of Texas band. Flinging feces, eh? Read what the Dean says about it.

It’s “Old Home” week as Mean ole Meany rejoins the Carnival with the first year-end round up I’ve seen to date. Of course, it’s done the way that only Two Dogs can do it – real mean and brutally funny.

Fred Fry reminds us just what kind of tree we’re putting up this season. The fact that intelligent, rational human beings are even discussing this shows the absolute, total cluelessness of the left in opposing the idea of a “Christmas” tree.

Soccer Dad has the jawdropper of the day with a post on what an American reporter asked Osama Bin Laden in an interview that was published in the book A Brief History of a Long War. Please Santa…add that one to the stocking.

A.J. at The Strato-Sphere has the skinny on a CNN-USA Today-Gallup poll showing surprising support for staying until the job is done in Iraq. Murtha and Pelosi should be wiping the mud off their faces about now.

Sethual Chocolate at Multiple Mentality lays into Sony for their cluelessness regarding their attempts to curb piracy of their CD’s that backfired spectacularly.

Doug at Below the Beltway has a hilarious post on the Canadian moonbat who believed that the US was going to build a base on the moon to shoot down alien visitors. A Carnival finalist last week.

The Maryhunter has a real headshaker involving Producer-Director David Lynch and his curious ideas about how to win the War on Terror.

Adam at the excellent Sophistpundit has a funny conversation between Harry Reid and a glass house over a speech by Vice President Cheney.

Van Helsing is stalking moonbat extraordinaire Ramsey Clark and gives the traitor his just desserts in an eye opening post about Clarke’s life of anti-American activism.

Kevin at The Liberal Wrong-Wing has a great fisking of Michael Moore. Some new jawdroppers from Mr. Moore are featured.

Finally, here’s my take on the cluelessness of the New York Times and redistricting.