Michael Deaver dead at 69

Deaver taught the Washington press corps that they could be manipulated and like it. He made all those pretty Reaganite pictures that meant so much more than mere words and lowered the common denominator - though not nearly as far as subsequent GOP media people. But Deaver was never evil like Lee Atwater or Karl Rove or smarmy like Ken Mehlman and Ed Gillespie. I guess he could always leave the dirty work to Roger Ailes, who has a network full of hacks who are both evil and smarmy. Ironic that CNN has the headline before Fox, though there's as yet no story to link to.

It's continually amazing how the depredations of the Bushist regime make me nostalgic for previous, less nasty Republican Administrations - for just a second or two, anyway.

Update: I had forgotten about Deaver's felonies. Just another Republican criminal, I guess, even if he did have a pleasant manner.