Your president told reporters this week that Mukasey should be approved quickly by Congress, because “he’s plenty qualified to be attorney general.” And yes, he said it in exactly whatever Bush-parody accent you want to deliver it in. “Plenty qualified.” He said it in a first-ever, for him, press briefing in the Oval Office. He got the idea after seeing a photo of Truman doing the same thing. Pretty dang cool, huh? Maybe we should show him some photos of Nixon ending the war in Vietnam.

Meanwhile, Bush’s BFF Musharraf has all but declared martial law in Pakistan. That’s over there next to Afghanistan. Where Osama bin Laden is hiding. In the northwest regions so lawless that they’re simply referred to as the tribal “areas.” This is the country that already has nuclear weapons and has had them for some time.

Musharraf says he’s shut down the courts and the mass media out of security concerns. (He has left the Parliament functioning for the time being.) Dana Perino, White House press spokesperson, was asked about the situation.

Q: Is it ever reasonable to restrict constitutional freedoms in the name of fighting terrorism?

MS. PERINO: In our opinion, no.

Mercy. Didn’t that set off alarms in the press room? I mean, when the irony meter blows a fuse, doesn’t that set off an alarm somewhere? I guess not.

In Lahore, a name which I’ve always tittered over, not unlike the word titter, now that I think about it, the main protesters against Musharraf’s power grab are the lawyers.

Yes, lawyers. There’s something odd about the photo on the cover of the Times, a man in a suit and tie hurling a tear-gas canister back at the police. There’s something odd about all the photos of these black-besuited barristers taking to the streets. There’s something awfully Monty Pythonesque about it.

Including the following scene: Two new judges who had taken the oath of office under the emergency rule were forced to leave the courtroom by hundreds of angry lawyers shouting, “You’ve taken an unconstitutional oath; if you don’t go we will throw eggs at you.” Apparently they left.

So, lawyers, eggs, and support for the Constitution. I’m in. Anyone else?