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Saturday, October 18, 2003

If George Bush was put in the White House by God... 

... why couldn't God have come up with a better way of doing it than the Florida 2000 debacle?

If George Bush was put in the White House by God.... 

... does that mean that she has put the hypocrites and Pharisees in charge?

(“Beware of practicing your piety before others in order to be seen by them; for then you have no reward from your Father in heaven.” (Matthew 6: 1 – 18)


If George Bush was put in the White House by God... 

... does that mean that She has abolished the Ninth Commandment?

("Thou shalt not bear false witness against thy neighbour")

If George Bush was put in the White House by God ... 

... then why hasn't She smitten Saddam in the most visible way?

If George Bush was put in the White House by God... 

... can't he just ask Her to reveal the identity of the Plame leaker to him?

Friday, October 17, 2003

More from religious loon Boykin 

No matter how much I try to imagine how ridiculous things are getting under the Bush regime, it's just never enough!

Here's more lunacy from Army Lt. Gen. William G. "Could it be—Satan?" Boykin:

Dressed in his Army uniform, Boykin told an Oregon religious group in June that radical Islamists hate the U.S. "because we're a Christian nation and the enemy is a guy named Satan." ... The United States' "spiritual enemy," Boykin told the Oregon group, "will only be defeated if we come against them in the name of Jesus."

Gosh, I wonder if these remarks are getting any play in the Islamic world? And, if so, will more troops die as a result? Probably....

Speaking of spiritual enemies.... Is greed a sin, and is Kenny Boy Lay still on the street? Just asking...

SCLM remains curiously silent on The Plame Affair 

Way back in The Newspaper of Record—Not!:

Mr. Gonzales said White House officials "have already forwarded on a rolling basis thousands of pages of documents" to the Justice Department in response to investigators' request for relevant records on Mr. Wilson and his wife, Valerie Plame.

On a "rolling basis"? What does that mean?

We're waiting for the thunderous editorials from Pravda and Isvestia on bringing the felon in The Plame Affair to justice... Just to tie up the loose ends... Not that it's important, like a blowjob or a ten-year-old failed land deal...

Fill in the blank 

From a caption on the front page of The Times:

The Last Emperor
From defectors and former aides, a portrait of ________ is emerging of family dysfunction, palace intrigue and imperial menace.

...

...

...

No, silly! It's Kim Il Sung!

Greed is not always good 

That Cubbies "fan" who tried to grab the ball...

... and blew it for the Cubs team, 40,000 people in the stands, the city of Chicago, and Cubs fans everywhere—

Is Ken Lay grabbing his millions at the expense of his employees, his stockholders, and the pensions of thousands....

Is Halliburton grabbing its million, at the expense of the taxpayer...

Is Bush grabbing Iraq for the PNAC and his re-election, at the expense of the lives of the troops and the taxpayers....

Yep, it's a smash and grab economy—force and fraud.

farm-dog-grrrr-el 

Holycrat Tines

Down from the mountain they came
like a thundering biblical rain
The message was clear
no skeptics round here
they're dangerous sinful and vain

They took to the road like a hack
all political moonshine and quack
Spouting their views
on redemtion and news
for conjecture, none did they lack

In God were the answers we sought
for Jesus our forefathers fought
Not the secular lies
of Enlightenment guys
but the dogma of reformed Christian thought

From the mountains and valleys and rills
they come bellowing Scriptural trills
And parade their wares 'round
the publicity ground
of TV and squawk-radio mills

Like Moses, Levi and Divine
Old Testament law they do mine
As answers for this
and answers for that
perish else to the waves with the swine

And low and behold not a blink
pampered press nor public did think
About what was at stake
should a theocrat rake
emerge as our number one shrink

So now we have holycrat tines
who govern our morals with rhymes
Clipped from a book
whose authors mistook
bad weather for fabulous signs

If you care for your feedom and rights
beware of the theocrat's spites
Whose fears light his Way
commands, Thou shall obey!
All kneel - or bow for the smite

Thursday, October 16, 2003

Signs of the times 

From the Dear Abby column in WaPo yesterday:

I was recently hired at a company that seems to be way out of my league. When I walked in, I saw young, beautiful, thin, well-bred, middle-class folks everywhere. I am none of those things. (Well, I am young.) How does a person from one class work with another class without being noticed?

Feels Like a Fraud in Florida


Funny... I thought this America was supposed to be a class-less society? Not any more, I guess. Not with the increasing gap between CEOs and ordinary people... Not with the children of the powerful getting powerful jobs themselves...

From Wapo's front page on that same day:

The record receipts -- more than triple the top Democrat's fundraising for the quarter -- were driven in large part by just 285 men and women, who collected $38.5 million or more, which was at least 45 percent of Bush's total take.

Gee, I wonder what class those 285 people are from? And whether their "votes" count more than "Feels Like a Fraud in Florida"s?

What's tragic is that "Feels Like a Fraud in Florida" blames herself. As Frank Herbert wrote: "Good subjects must feel guilty. The guilt begins as a feeling of failure. The good autocrat provides many opportunities for failure in the populace. " Just what the administration is doing.

Of course, those 285 people know all about fraud, what it means, how to do it, and all about fraud in Florida too ...


Lay back and enjoy it, America! 

From "our" Deputy Undersecretary of Defense, Gen. William “Jerry” Boykin:

"Why is this man [Bush] in the White House? The majority of Americans did not vote for him. Why is he there? And I tell you this morning that he’s in the White House because God put him there for a time such as this.”

And get this... This loon is in charge of the hunt for OBL. Maybe that's why it's going so well?

Armed Forces Network giving air time to criminals 

Well, potential ones, anyhow. Not the felon in The Plame Affair, though—The Gaseous One! Frankfurter Allgemeine Zeitung here:

The Armed Forces Network intends to keep the controversial radio commentator Rush Limbaugh on the air as long as listeners want to hear him, despite his admission that he abused prescription drugs and reports that he is under investigation for obtaining them illegally.

That's the stuff to give the troops!

CEOs taking the fifth 

AP has a list.

Wonder how many of them are big contributors to the Republicans?

Say, is "Kenny Boy" Lay still on the street? Just asking...

The Plame Affair and the SCLM 

Tapped on The Plame Affair:

Funny thing: Pravda and Isvestia aren't writing any editorials on it. Guess revealing the name of an undercover operative isn't in the same league as a ten-year-old failed land deal or a blow job....

Another "Get out of jail free" card for aWol from the MWs.

The ever-excellent Orcinus has more. Among other things, he points out that the White House has refused to rule out using Exective Privilege—a direct signal of possible involvement by Bush.

Howie the whore doing the whore thing 

Yep, a whole "evenhanded" screed on The Clenis™ versus Yawnold (thanks, Leah).

Why can't these people get it through their skulls that Bill Clinton's thing with Monica was consensual and Der Groper groping 15 women was not?

It Goes Without Saying, But... 

Rep. George "What's a couple of dead soldiers a day?" Nethercutt is, of course, a chickenhawk. From his online bio:

Nethercutt was born in Spokane on October 7, 1944. A graduate of North Central High School, he earned a B.A. in English from Washington State University in 1967. In 1971, he graduated from Gonzaga University School of Law, and was admitted to the Washington State Bar Association in March 1972.

Guess he had "other priorities" during Vietnam.

Tuesday, October 14, 2003

Bushmaster Laughs at Space-Time Continuum 

Look! Up in the sky! It's a condor! It's a spotted owl! No, it's the Bushmaster!

Apparently all improvements in the environment over the last 30 years are properly credited to Bush's underappreciated environmental policies, according to Gregg Easterbrook. And those Herculean labors entitle the Bushmaster to slack off more or less continually in the present, time travel being so exhausting and all. (Don't talk to the Bushmaster about jet lag!) Who knew?

Meanwhile if the whiners in the environmental movement would just recognize what a friend they have in the Bushmaster, he might do more for them. Instead, they just hurt his feelings. Bad enviros. Bad, bad! If the Bushmaster doesn't feel like helping us any more, it's their fault.

And if enviros can't make up other people's minds to want mileage limits on SUVs, they can't complain if the Bushmaster's friends reluctantly drill on public lands as a result. It's a simple matter of logical consistency.

Interestingly, Easterbrook was making pretty much the same arguments in 1995, yet, curiously without crediting the Bushmaster. See "Rush Limbaugh with Book Learning". Probably figured no one would believe him.

Thank goodness now the truth can be told.

Are We Downhearted?* 

Just because Shrub appears to have caught a bounce in his overall approval rating in that CNN/USAToday/Gallup poll?

Reader Hobson is, a bit, but then he is self-described as a default pessimist. Hobson brings the poll to our attention as discussed, rather briefly in the Chicago Tribune. Fifty-six % is surely a healthy bounce. But what does it really mean?

Well, for one thing, it means that his descent in the polls is over, for now. It also means that CNN and MSNBC, those bastions of the SCLM, can crow with relief that they won't have to change the basic narrative they've already worked out for the coming election. Both cable outlets trumpeted the plus 50 % who thought the president deserved a second term, without pointing out what even the Tribune manages to:

In the survey, 53 percent of respondents said the president deserves a second term, 45 percent said he does not. Thirty-eight percent said they would definitely vote for Bush, 38 percent said they would definitely vote against him and 24 percent said they were unsure.

Might it also mean that the glamor of Yawnold has burnished all things Republican?

Or could it mean that the self-described PR offensive by the administration to convince Americans that they can't trust a free media unconstrained by government to tell them the truth about Iraq is already paying off?

Billmon gives us a glass half full, and a glass half empty;an interesting theory about what might be behind those overall approval numbers, and a reminder of some chinks in the Bush armor that are show up even in a positive poll like this one, paired with this caution:

It's also possible, however, that Bush truly is covered with a coat of Gipper-brand telfon. The emotional bond that many Americans (especially those of little brain) formed with Shrub in the aftermath of 9/11 may very well be unbreakable -- and impervious to fact or reason.

If the latter is true, Shrub's reelection would seem to be inevitable -- an incumbent that goes into a campaign with the rock-hard support of something like 50% of the electorate is pretty much home free.

I find Billmon's other theory more compelling, but then I'm a default optimist.

One undeniable aspect of the public's view of its current president, the majority of Americans want to believe that this president is an honorable man, straight-foward and honest. I know that is infuriating, but there it is. If we're going to win the next election, there's very little value to be had in railing against the stupidity of our fellow Americans. At least some of those same Americans who want to believe in the decency of George W. Bush are the same Americans we're going to have to convince that Bush is leading America in the wrong direction. That may well be the challenge, and one thing we can be certain of, it won't be met by calling those we seek to convince "stupid."

For another fascinating take on that Gallup poll, check out Digby's comments on this discussion at Ray Teixeira's excellent site


Bon Mot Uprising 

In praise of satire, sarcasm and battle royal:

There are three things that are real: God, human folly, and laughter. The first two are beyond comprehension. So we must do what we can with the third. -John F. Kennedy

So let me say just a few things to this Convention. We are a big, brawling political Party, and we fight. Somebody said that when Democrats assemble a firing squad, they always gather in a circle.

But when we get together, watch out, and tonight we are together, and I am up here to see that in this critical next 100 days this Party stays together, and that it deliver a beating to those Republicans that they richly deserve, and we are going to give it to them.

[...]

And so, my friends, tonight I say to you one final thing, America is a good country and we are a good people. Our country isn't working very well. We have lost our confidence and we lost our way, and with the help of the Independents and the sensible Republicans that go with us when we are right, we are going to win a victory in November. We are going to turn this country around and we are going to make America work again.

This good country is going to work again, and thank you very much.

Address of the Honorable Morris K. Udall.
Proceedings of the Democratic National Convention, 1976.


***


Of course, there are those Scrooges who think that humor and the serious business of politics should never be mixed. One adviser of President James Garfield warned him, "Never make the people laugh. If you would succeed in life you must be solemn, solemn as an ass." Solemn as an ass he was--and somebody shot him 3 months into his term. It is true, however, that the business of Government is serious business, and in politics, as in any other endeavor, wisecracks are no substitute for substance. But, used adroitly, wit is something more than oratorical ornament; rather, it is a gentle pry bar with which to open the minds of your constituents and colleagues. If your speeches have a humorous slant it is less likely that their substance will be rejected out of hand. - Morris K. Udall.


File your repartee trigger.

Monday, October 13, 2003

Call for Entries 

Dohiyi Mir photo-op!
NTodd is sponsoring a write that photo caption contest.
Help define a Rumsfeldian moment and win a valuable prize!
Now in progress.

How cheerfully he seems to grin
How neatly spreads his claws,
And welcomes little fishes in
With gently smiling jaws!
- Lewis Carroll, Alice's Adventures in Wonderland


That would be my submission for the caption. But since its not really mine, and is really that Lewis Carroll guys, it might not count. But if it did count, well, then, that would be it.
Deadline for submissions:
midnight Tuesday, Oct 13 ...oops... 14 that is - Tuesday, October 14.

More Republican Bullies 

Taking the debasement of "fair and balanced" even lower, Illinois Senate Republican candidate Chirinjeev Kathuria has responded to an unflattering article in the Chicago Tribune by filing a lawsuit for defamation against the paper. The press release from the campaign does not dispute any factual errors in the story (though it airily promises an imminent rebuttal), but rather suggests a novel legal theory of defamation: failure of the Tribune to provide "fair and balanced" commentary:

This type of irresponsible trash reporting will never stop, unless someone takes a stand against it. I will carry this fight to save my reputation on behalf of all the people of Illinois and make politics a level playing field for all candidates. May this type of character assassination and negative and biased reporting never occur again.

The article in question points out, inter alia, that candidate Kathuria rarely voted, coasted through the Ivy League, embellished his credentials, and left a highly touted string of business ventures deeply in debt while personally enriching himself. Republicans as powerful as Grover Norquist touted his prospects.

One can understand Kathuria's frustration: after all, the same bullshit story worked for the squatter in the White House.

Meanwhile, the right-wing demonstrates its abhorrence of defamatory character assassination and smear jobs here.

(Via Archpundit.)

Channeling Rush 

There ought to be hazard pay for any columnist who's willing to try, but Bill McCllelan of the SL Post Dispatch succeeds with such perfect pitch in creating an on-air Rush reaction if Bill Clinton had made, in the exact same words, the admission that Rush did last week that even though you've probably read it over at Eschaton, where I also got the link, read it again, it's that good.

"It's interesting to see the way the liberal media are playing this. I'm looking at a copy of the St. Louis Post-Dispatch, the Saturday, October 11th, edition - the day after the big announcement. Well, the story is on Page 2, and right next to his photograph, in large boldface print, is the following quote: 'I take full responsibility for this problem.'

"That's interesting, folks, because if you look at his actual statement - not what the liberal media say he said, but what he really said - you get a different take on it. First, he says he's got back problems. So he's blaming it on that. Then he says he had surgery, but the surgery wasn't successful. So he's blaming it on the doctors. Then he says the pain medication was addictive. So he's blaming it on the pharmaceutical companies. Folks, he blames it on everybody but himself! But as long as he puts in that obligatory line about taking responsibility, that's what the liberal media are going to grab: Clinton takes full responsibility!

It gets even better. You can email Mr. McClellan to thank him for his superb act of imaginative compassion: bmcclellan@post-dispatch.com; you can also do what I'm doing, bookmark his column for future regular reading.

You can do one other good deed.

Here's how Howard Kurtz started out his "Reliable Sources" this Sunday:

KURTZ: In checking into a rehab clinic for 30 days, Limbaugh leaves America's most popular radio show in a swirl of controversy. He has to deal with a Florida drug investigation into the matter, and has to kick the habit, which may be far harder than struggling to cope with deafness, as he discussed with me in an interview last fall.

LIMBAUGH: It's just something to deal with. I mean, it's a medical miracle to be able to hear.

KURTZ: But the real problem is this: Rush Limbaugh is a two- fisted conservative who smacks people around. Bill Clinton, feminazis, environmental whackos, the liberal media, and, on occasion, drug addicts. So Limbaugh's detractors -- and there are many -- are already saying, "What a hypocrite. He doesn't deserve our compassion because he shows so little for his political opponents."

(edit)

KURTZ: But I suspect that most people will be careful about condemning him for struggling with his personal demons. Liberals who believe addiction is a disease, who defend coked-up movie stars in rehab, will look hard at themselves if they use a different standard for their nemesis.

LIMBAUGH: Now I want to ask for your prayers.

KURTZ: Limbaugh, in my view, should be hammered the way he hammers others. But for his political views not his drug problem.

If only we liberals, besotted with our admiration for "coked-up movie stars," can pull ourselves together and behave rhetorically with the same wit, discretion, restraint, and civility as Rush Limbaugh.

Has this guy ever actually listened to so much as an hour of Rush Limbaugh?

And just what coked-up movie stars in rehab has anyone on the left defended?

One could go on, but one won't.

Instead, let me suggest that as many of you who happen by here send the link to the McClellan column to Mr. Kurtz at reliablesources@cnn.org, or just send the whole column.

Keep it polite, but ask Mr. Kurtz if he considers this column appropriately fair-minded, and ask him if he can fault by so much as a comma this rendering of a Lambaugh reaction to a turn of the tables situation with Bill Clinton, and finally, ask if Mr. Kurtz would have been as censorious of Rush as he is of some mythical coked-up-movie-star-defending liberals.

Well, Well, What Have We Here? 

In a just filed story, the AP is reporting that a new US draft resolution is being circulated at the UN which proposes that by December 15th, the Iraqi interim Governing Council should have developed a timetable for both a constitution and elections.

Needless to say this is a big concession on the part of the US, although a policy change of direction will, doubtless, be denied by the usual Administration deniers.

What could have motivated this new resolution will also, doubtless, remain a mystery. We already know that the President is uninfluencable by polls, never changes his mind, and is never wrong.

Perhaps it was hearing someone like Senator Lugar, over the weekend, try and remind the President that he is the President. Personally, I suspect Rove's hand here.

As the AP notes:

The latest draft also addresses concerns from U.N. Secretary-General Kofi Annan, who had demanded a lead role for the organization or little role at all.

It says the United Nations ``should strengthen its vital role in Iraq,'' saying it can do so by providing humanitarian relief, promoting economic reconstruction and help to restore ``institutions for representative governments.''

By conceding to many of the international questions about the original proposed resolution, the ball flies right back in the UN's court. If troops and money are not forthcoming, then the administration can say, it wouldn't have mattered what we did. If they are, they've effectively neutralized one of the growing criticisms of its policies, both among Democrats and Republicans.

But shouldn't we all be pleased that the administration is finally listening to something besides the President's gut? So why not welcome this change of policy, we shall doubtless be asked by administration partisans, and join hands with Republicans in a spirit of non-partisanship to make our occupation of Iraq the best damn occupation of Iraq there's ever been?

Because there is no such thing as non-partisan in this administration. Because even though the new resolution may be a better one, it's quite late in coming, and it's as much a ploy as it is a policy. There is no middle ground with this administration, because all policies are ultimately about getting re-elected. It won't matter that Democrats like Biden, like Kerry, yes, even like Lieberman have been urging the administration to travel in this direction, the assault on them as Saddam supporters will continue. There is the separate issue that window dressing like this new resolution alters not a wit the logic of occupation, which in and of itself is the chief impediment to the democratic future I have no doubt the Iraqi people are capable of achieving. (more on this in another post)

So, what do we have here? From my perspective, yet another stink bomb.




Shorter Gregg Easterbrook 

Men are not responsible for knowing that 'no' means no, but Jewish elites in Hollywood, "who worship money above all else," are responsible for marketing "the adulation of violence" to ignorant Third Worlders by cranking out an homage to kung-fu movies that I don't like.

And I'm not responsible for any bigoted, fact-free idea that comes into my pointy little head.

Remember Victoria Leggett? 

Familar name? To me, too.

Matt Blivens of The Nation's Daily Outrage column, reminds us of who she is by way of a compare and contrast story of the treatment by Ashcroft's Justice Dept. of two journalists, Robert Novak, and this "novice crime reporter." Coming back to you, is it?

In both cases, the reporters in question refused to reveal sources. I'll bet you can guess the difference in the outcomes. Even if you can, take a look at Matt's post.

This is not a story about leaks in any case. This is a story about the White House attempting to dirty up an administration critic by suggesting that there was something fishy about his Niger trip undertaken at the behest of the CIA because his wife also worked for the CIA and she might have had something to do with his appointment. All this blather about how difficult it will be to prosecute is beside the point, which should be about following up the leads already out there in numerous WaPo stories in order to see not only who leaked to Novak, but if the White House took further advantage of his column by calling the attention of journalists to it. It's a story about the administration's attitudes towards those who disagree with it. This is about politics and governance, not about crime and punishment.

What amazes me is the willingness of so many on the right to dirty up the CIA itself, one its own favorite institutions in the past, or perhaps they now think of it as Clinton's CIA, a CIA not utterly subservient to the administration's desire to use it as a ministry of propoganda.

For any of you who missed the NIGHTLINE of Oct 6th, in which four ex CIA operatives, all self-pronounced Republicans spewed forth their contempt and disgust at administrationi's actions against the Wilsons, you can look at some video and read a summary of what got said here.

Help The Administration Find the Traitor In Its Midst 

Well, perhaps traitor is too harsh a word.

In dealing with l'affair Plame, I think all of us would do well not to talk about treason.

However, from the Bush administration's point of view, whoever got the bright idea, (even if, as claimed by Novak, it was an unpremeditated inspiration of the moment) to divert attention from the content of Joe Wilson's op ed piece to something unkosher about Amb. Wilson and his CIA employed wife, to make the Wilsons the story, as Novak's original column claimed they were, is certainly a traitor to the high ideals of this administration.

As administration supporters have rightly pointed out, the search for whodunnit is complex and will be as exhausting as it is exhaustive; personally I don't blame any of them for feeling beseiged. It's not as if they don't have a lot on their plate already: dragging this economy out of the Clinton recession; formulating a forward-thinking fossil-fuel based energy policy; shoring up our homeland defense without actually investing huge sums (like 87 billion dollars) in retrofitting nuclear/chemical sites, or ports of entry; creating democratic governments in both Afghanistan and Iraq; assidously ignoring all other troublespots around the world, like, say, N. Korea, or the horror that is happening between the Israelis and the Palestinians; I don't know if you've ever consciously tried to ignore something, but even that takes up a lot of time and energy.

So please stop griping, and take one of the two ways offered below to help out the Bush administration.

The first way you've already probably heard about. MoveOn has had the brilliant idea of limiting the scope of the necessary investigation by providing affadavits to all who are willing take themselves out of the potential leakers pool. If you had nothing to do with leaking information re: either Joe Wilson or his wife, sign the affidavit and make the work of the administration that much easier. If you did have something to do with sliming the Wilsons, please DO NOT sign the affidavit, that would be LYING.

True Majority also has a way to help out; send a free fax to congress urging them to urge the White House to appoint a Special Prosecutor. Initially, the Bush administration may not be as grateful for this intervention, but it is certainly in their own best interest. Does anyone question the President's deeply felt desire to find out who did this? And doesn't the Justice Department have enough on its own plate, not to need this headache? Isn't what's needed here a little tough love?

Sunday, October 12, 2003

George, are you listening? 

AP via the Houston Chronicle:

"Rush admitted a problem and that is the first step. It is when you keep lying about it that you get in deep and lose respect," declared Lawrence, a Republican who used to deliver groceries to the Limbaugh house.

What the "Blue Dog" Democrats got for compromsing with the Republicans 

Remind anyone of Max Cleland? Same strategy, minus the vicious advertising.
Chuck Lindell of the Austin American-Statesman writes:

The Republican-drawn congressional map approved Friday by the Texas House delivers a brisk one-two punch: It targets a number of conservative and moderate Democrats in Congress and jeopardizes the re-election of vigorous GOP opponents Lloyd Doggett and Martin Frost.

Four of the targeted Texas Democrats are members of the Blue Dog Coalition, party conservatives and moderates who focus on a balanced budget while attempting to steer Democrats on a more centrist policy course.

Granted, though, that the Democrats haven't been as creative with new ideas as they can and should be.

More lying Republicans 

  YARL Threat Alert!             
Business as usual!
This one's so routine it doesn't really warrant jacking up the alert level... We'll leave it at green....

Rick Pearson of the Chicago Tribune writes:

If Republican U.S. Senate candidate Chirinjeev Kathuria makes it to the March primary ballot, the one vote he may not be able to count on is his own.

The 38-year-old Oak Brook business promoter isn't registered to vote. According to election officials in DuPage County, where he grew up and still lives with his parents, he never has been.

That is only one of the striking inconsistencies surrounding Kathuria, whose campaign is built on highly embellished claims of success as an international business tycoon.

A firm he until recently touted as a groundbreaking Internet site for health information is on life support, $3 million in debt, and has been sued by suppliers.

After looting and bootlicking, lying is what Republicans do best!

Winning hearts and minds 

Patrick Cockurn of the Indepedent writes:

US soldiers driving bulldozers, with jazz blaring from loudspeakers, have uprooted ancient groves of date palms as well as orange and lemon trees in central Iraq as part of a new policy of collective punishment of farmers who do not give information about guerrillas attacking US troops.

Thanks, Rummy!

All it would take ... 

... would be one reservist at one of Bush's boy-in-the-bubble speeches to the troops standing up and asking the following question:

"Mr. President, when are you going to tell us what you did and where you were during your missing year of Texas Air National Guard duty?"


Our CEO President 

Yep, Condi has a new bauble (besides aWol's brain, that is). But it won't help any:

In Rice, "you've never really had a national security adviser who's ready to discipline the process, to drive decisions to conclusions and, once decisions are made, to enforce them," said one former senior NSC staff member. In particular, he said, "she will never discipline Don Rumsfeld" when he undercuts decisions that have been made. "Never any sanctions. Never any discipline. He never paid a price."

In one sign that Rice is trying to address the problem, she recently appointed Robert Blackwill, a mentor and former ambassador to India, to run a new committee that will seek to plan the administration's response to possible crises and help the NSC reach consensus on a huge backlog of unresolved policy questions.

Yeah, that's the ticket... A new committee...

But if Condi isn't minding the store, who is? Not aWol—but then what did we expect?

"The president has to be the president, over the vice president and over these secretaries," the chairman, Sen. Dick Lugar, R-Ind., said on NBC's "Meet the Press." (Via Atrios.)

Even the Republicans are starting to realize that aWol has no credibility...

WWJD? 

Throw all gay people out of the Episcopal Church according to some.

WWWD? Milk bigotry for all it's worth in 2004, of course.

The Arnis™: Lying already! 

Surprise!

Two whoppers in one press conference:

  YARL Threat Alert!             
Yellow Bellied Sap Sucking LIE!

Mr. Schwarzenegger also swatted away a question about when he would address accusations of sexual misconduct that arose near the end of the campaign. He said last weekend that he would answer the matter after the election. But on Thursday he dismissed the accusations as "old news" and refused to discuss them further as he strode from the room.

  YARL Threat Alert!             
Yellow Bellied Sap Sucking LIE!

Mr. Schwarzenegger said there was "no White House connection in our transition team." But one of its members is Gerald Parsky, a top Bush fund-raisers and the White House's point man in California.

After looting and bootlicking, lying is what Republicans do best!



The Arnis™ discovers California is a blue state 

Missed this one...

During various campaign appearances, Schwarzenegger has said that he plans to seek more money from the federal government. Currently, he said, California gets 77 cents back from each dollar it sends to Washington.

Yep... Subsidizing the Red States that voted for Bush. Another one of the "causes" of the budget "crisis" that had nothing to do with Davis... Wonder how far The Arnis™ will get with Bush on this one as he tries to be governor of all the people?


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