As usual, I don’t have a whole lot of time to write about all the things I’d like to…

But, the fact that, according to the latest NYT/CBS poll, “83 percent of respondents thought that Mr. Bush was either hiding something or mostly lying when he discussed how the war in Iraq was going” is something that just can’t be passed up…

I mean, think about that for a moment.

83% of Americans think that George Bush is dishonest.

Just stunning.

Here are the full results. [PDF]

I’ve been oh so close to fame and fortune as a result of the blog monkey on my back…

But, in the past, I’ve just been a blurred image on the edges.

I was quoted as “Vermonter” in a Cathy Resmer article about Jerome Armstrong in Seven Days.

I was (maybe, if I really stretch it) referenced as part of a group of “tech-savvy volunteers” for Scudder’s campaign in a front page Burlington Free Press article on political blogs.

I was one of the “bloggers” referred to in an editorial in the Free Press about the Dunne/Tracy online Lt. Guv debate.

And an inch of my face made it onto the WPTZ coverage of that debate.

But, all that has changed.

I am on the map in Shay Totten’s long article, “Blogger breakthrough: Vermont’s net-savvy citizens go from obscure to mainstream,” on Julie Waters and her recent exposure of plagiarism on Martha Rainville’s website that appeared on the cover of the Vermont Guardian’s latest print edition.

Way, way at the bottom, in the “Getting respect” section, but still, I have arrived.

I saw Mark Halperin and John Harris last night on Charlie Rose discussing their book “The Way to Win.”

Their description of the “Freak Show” of current Presidential politics might actually be interesting if they both weren’t such willing participants in it.

Anyway, here’s what the excellent Eric Boehlert had to say this past Tuesday…

Books about politics and the press don’t come much more dishonest, or depressing, than the new tome hitting stores this week, The Way to Win (Random House). Written by corporate media bigwigs Mark Halperin, political director of ABC News and founder of its political newsletter The Note, and John F. Harris, national political editor of The Washington Post, the new digest — it’s their take on how to win the White House — is already being toasted by celebrity journalists inside the Beltway, which in today’s environment means the book politely re-enforces preferred conventional wisdom and graciously avoids asking tough questions about Republicans. The press corps also skates by in the eyes of Halperin and Harris, who continuously rewrite recent history in order to ensure that journalists shoulder little or no blame for D.C. pressroom disgraces such as Whitewater, the blatantly dishonest coverage heaped upon Al Gore’s presidential campaign, and for the Swift Boat Veterans for Truth hoax that ensnared Sen. John Kerry’s 2004 presidential run.

I’m not sure where Darren Allen got the quote, but he’s reporting that this is how Hillary Clinton’s press secretary, Jenifer Hanley, responded to the news that Martha Rainville’s campaign had stolen that energy policy language from her website…

They say imitation is the highest form of flattery, in this case, it is not the first time a Republican has taken components of Senator Clinton’s energy speech and adopted it as their own. This is yet another clear example of why important policy ideas, such as real energy reform, will be best left to a Democratic Congress.

Nice.

And ouch, too.

The jarring symbolism, to the electorate, of Rainville’s plagiarism mini-scandal — after months and months of ducking the disclosure of a single original position — just can’t be blurred by the immediate firing of an underling, grandson of a Supreme Court Justice or not.

Eric Davis may disagree, but I’m not so sure this will be just a tiny rumple on Rainville’s Rotunda road. Not super dramatic in the end, to be sure, but it deepens the already growing sense that behind the self-effacing, pleasant exterior, Martha Rainville is simply self-effacing and pleasant.

And Shay Totten’s Vermont Guardian story is a good read on the impact of blogs in this year’s election cycle.

Learn about the many benefits of tequila…

And, maybe, tequila is just what the doctor will order for Martha Rainville to ease the pain of Plagiarism-Gate.