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    Thursday, August 31, 2006

    College football is back


    Let's enjoy the season. It might be one of the last as the nutters in the White House are determined to bring on the apocalypse. Good info on the upcoming season here and here.
    Fight on!

    Wednesday, August 30, 2006

    Maureen Dowd 8/30/06

    Begat, Bothered, Bewildered
    By MAUREEN DOWD
    New Orleans

    Doing his stations of the Katrina cross, President Bush went for breakfast with Mayor Ray Nagin at Betsy's Pancake House.

    As Mr. Bush tried to squeeze past some tightly placed tables, a waitress, Joyce Labruzzo, teased him, saying, "Mr. President, are you going to turn your back on me?"

    "No ma'am," he replied, with a laugh and a pause for effect. "Not again."

    It was a rare unguarded moment - showing that his towering Katrina failure is lodged somewhere in the front of his cerebral cortex - in a trip of staged, studiously happy settings, steering away from the wreckage of buildings and people so searing for anyone who loved the saucy and sauce-laden New Orleans of old.

    W.'s anniversary contrition for the cameras was a more elaborate version of his famous Air Force One flyover a year ago, when he had to be shown a DVD of angry news coverage of apartheid suffering here before he belatedly and grudgingly broke off his five-week Crawford vacation.

    In an interview on the Upper Ninth Ward's desolate North Dorgenois Street, the president told NBC's Brian Williams that, besides Camus, he had recently read a book on the Battle of New Orleans and "three Shakespeares." A White House aide said one of them was "Hamlet."

    What could be more fitting? A prince who dithers instead of acting and then acts precipitously at the wrong moment, not paying attention when someone vulnerable drowns.

    The president bristled when the anchor asked about criticism that his inept response had to do with a "patrician upbringing" and about whether he was asking the country to sacrifice enough. "Americans are sacrificing," he said. "We pay a lot of taxes."

    The last two days in Mississippi and New Orleans were W.'s play within the play. He took the role of the empathetic and engaged chief executive, rallying resources to save the Gulf Coast, even as the larger lens showed a sad picture of American communities that are still decrepit and hurting, while the Bush administration's billions flow to reconstructing - or rather not reconstructing - Iraq.

    You longed for this Crawford Hamlet to just go out there and say, "This just isn't good enough."

    Instead, he gritted his teeth and put on his blandly optimistic cheerleader-in-chief role and talked about restoring "the soul" of New Orleans. It always makes me nervous when W. does soul talk.

    He was brazen enough to pose as the man of action even in a city ruined by his initial and continuing inaction. "I've been on the levees," he told a crowd at a high school here yesterday. "I've seen these good folks working."

    He spoke to a small number of residents in the boiling sun before the one house that had been tidily restored in a blighted neighborhood in Biloxi. Outside the TV frame, there was a toilet on its side in the yard of a gutted house. On one fence spoke there was a child's abandoned stuffed toy.

    At a stop at a building company in Gulfport, Miss., he chirped biblically: "There will be a momentum, momentum will be gathered. Houses will begat jobs, jobs will begat houses."

    Douglas Brinkley, the New Orleans writer who recounted the history of the trellis of failure, Republican and Democratic, federal, state and local, in "The Great Deluge," noted that Mr. Bush was merely "sweating bullets trying to get the visit over with."

    "In the Republican playbook, Katrina's a loser," he said.

    Mr. Bush tells journalists he has been reading prodigiously, 53 books so far this year, with three bios of George Washington, two of Lincoln and one of Mao. He seems more attuned to his place in history and yet he doesn't really seem to get that his presidency will be defined by rushing into one place too fast and not rushing into another fast enough.

    He has let Dick Cheney and Rummy launch Category 5 attacks on critics of the war. Darth Vader reiterated his nutty pre-emption policy, and Rummy compared critics of Iraq to Chamberlains who appeased Hitler, noting that "once again we face similar challenges in efforts to confront the rising threat of a new type of fascism."

    Somebody needs to corner the defense chief and explain that it's not that we don't want to fight terrorism, it's that we want to do it efficiently and effectively. Why is it necessary to scare the country, make false connections between an ill-conceived war and fighting terror, and demonize critics with outrageously careless historical references to Hitler and fascism?

    W. needs to restore the soul, not merely of the Big Easy, but of the White House.

    Tuesday, August 29, 2006

    Fundamentists are corrupting our kids

    Fundamentalism is a prime cause of immorality in society and has a corrosive effect on the family unit and civilization itself. We see the evil affects of fundamentalism here, and here. Banning fundamentalists from getting married and ejecting them from the military and our public school system may be necessary if we are to keep our moral standing as a nation. A nation that accepts fundamentalists as “normal” will surely experience God's wrath. God does not take kindly to the willy-nilly disregard of reason and intelligence that She/He gave us.

    If you know a fundamentalist, I suggest you take them to a fundamentalist conversion center near you. Fundamentalism is choice. Fundamentalists can change and become normal again.

    Monday, August 28, 2006

    Bush on the couch

    He's a nutter.We should all read this book. Some of us have been saying this all along. It is amazing to me how many intelligent people - from Colin Powell to Tony Blair - have been enablers for Bushco.

    Sunday, August 27, 2006

    Frank Rich 8/27/06

    Return to the Scene of the Crime
    By FRANK RICH

    PRESIDENT BUSH travels to the Gulf Coast this week, ostensibly to mark the first anniversary of Hurricane Katrina. Everyone knows his real mission: to try to make us forget the first anniversary of the downfall of his presidency.

    As they used to say in the French Quarter, bonne chance! The ineptitude bared by the storm - no planning for a widely predicted catastrophe, no attempt to secure a city besieged by looting, no strategy for anything except spin - is indelible. New Orleans was Iraq redux with an all-American cast. The discrepancy between Mr. Bush'’s "heckuva job" shtick and the reality on the ground induced a Cronkite-in-Vietnam epiphany for news anchors. At long last they and the country demanded answers to the questions about the administration's competence that had been soft-pedaled two years earlier when the war first went south.

    What's amazing on Katrina's first anniversary is how little Mr. Bush seems aware of this change in the political weather. He's still in a bubble. At last week's White House press conference, he sounded as petulant as Tom Cruise on the "Today" show when Matt Lauer challenged him about his boorish criticism of Brooke Shields. Asked what Iraq had to do with the attack on the World Trade Center, Mr. Bush testily responded, "Nothing," adding that "nobody has ever suggested in this administration that Saddam Hussein ordered the attacks." Like the emasculated movie star, the president is still so infatuated with his own myth that he believes the public will buy such nonsense.

    As the rest of the world knows, the White House connived 24/7 to pound in the suggestion that Saddam ordered the attacks on 9/11. "The Bush administration had repeatedly tied the Iraq war to Sept. 11," Thomas Kean and Lee Hamilton write in "Without Precedent," their new account of their stewardship of the 9/11 commission. The nonexistent Qaeda-Saddam tie-in was as much a selling point for the war as the nonexistent W.M.D. The salesmanship was so merciless that half the country was brainwashed into believing that the 9/11 hijackers had been Iraqis.

    To achieve this feat, Dick Cheney spent two years publicly hyping a "pretty well confirmed" (translation: unconfirmed) pre-9/11 meeting in Prague between Mohamed Atta and a Saddam intelligence officer, continuing to do so long after this specious theory had been discredited. Mr. Bush's strategy was to histrionically stir 9/11 and Iraq into the same sentence whenever possible, before the invasion and after. Typical was his May 1, 2003, oration declaring the end of "major combat operations." After noting that "the battle of Iraq is one victory in a war on terror that began on September 11th, 2001," he added: "With those attacks, the terrorists and their supporters declared war on the United States. And war is what they got." To paraphrase the former counterterrorism czar Richard Clarke, this was tantamount to saying that the Japanese attacked us on Dec. 7, 1941, and war with Mexico is what they got.

    Were it not so tragic, Mr. Bush's claim that he had never suggested a connection between the 9/11 attacks and Iraq would be as ludicrous as Bill Clinton's doomed effort to draw a distinction between sex and oral sex. The tragedy is that the country ever believed Mr. Bush, particularly those Americans who were moved to enlist because of 9/11 and instead ended up fighting a war that the president now concedes had "nothing" to do with the 9/11 attacks.

    A representative and poignant example, brought to light by The Los Angeles Times, is Patrick R. McCaffrey, a Silicon Valley auto-body-shop manager with two children who joined the California National Guard one month after 9/11. He was eager to do his bit for homeland security by helping protect the Shasta Dam or Golden Gate Bridge. Instead he was sent to Iraq, where he was killed in 2004. In a replay of the Pentagon subterfuge surrounding the friendly-fire death of Pat Tillman, another post-9/11 enlistee betrayed by his country, Mr. McCaffrey's death was at first officially attributed to an ambush by insurgents. Only after two years of investigation did the Army finally concede that his killers were actually the Iraqi security forces he was helping to train.

    "He said we had no business in Iraq and should not be there," his mother, Nadia McCaffrey, told the paper. Last week's belated presidential admission that Iraq had nothing to do with the attacks on America that inspired Patrick McCaffrey's service was implicitly an admission that he and many like him died in Iraq for nothing as well.

    Mr. Bush's press-conference disavowal of his habitual efforts to connect 9/11 to Saddam will be rolled back by the White House soon enough. When the fifth anniversary of 9/11 arrives in two weeks, you can bet that the president will once again invoke the Qaeda attacks to justify the Iraq war, especially now that we are adding troops (through the involuntary call-up of reservists) rather than subtracting any. The new propaganda strategy will be right out of Lewis Carroll: If we leave the country that had nothing to do with 9/11, then 9/11 will happen again.

    But before we get to that White House P.R. offensive, there is next week's Katrina show. It has its work cut out for it. A year after the storm, the reconstruction of New Orleans echoes our reconstruction of Baghdad. A "truth squad" of House Democrats has cataloged the "waste, fraud, abuse or mismanagement" in $8.75 billion worth of contracts, most of which were awarded noncompetitively. Only 60 percent of the city has electricity. Half of the hospitals and three-quarters of the child-care centers remain closed. Violent crime is on the rise. Less than half of the population has returned.

    How do you pretty up this picture? As an opening act, Mr. Bush met on Wednesday with Rockey Vaccarella, a Katrina survivor who with much publicity drove a "replica" of a FEMA trailer from New Orleans to Washington to seek an audience with the president. No Cindy Sheehan bum's rush for him. Mr. Bush granted his wish and paraded him before the press. That was enough to distract the visitor from his professed message to dramatize the unfinished job on the Gulf. Instead Mr. Vaccarella effusively thanked the president for "the millions of FEMA trailers" complete with air-conditioning and TV. "You know, I wish you had another four years, man," he said. "If we had this president for another four years, I think we'd be great."

    The CNN White House correspondent, Ed Henry, loved it. "Hollywood couldn't have scripted this any better, a gritty guy named Rockey slugging it out, trying to realize his dream and getting that dream realized against all odds," he said. He didn't ask how this particular Rockey, a fast-food manager who lost everything a year ago, financed this mission or so effortlessly pulled it off. It was up to bloggers and Democrats to report shortly thereafter that Mr. Vaccarella had run as a Republican candidate for the St. Bernard Parish commission in 1999. It was up to Iris Hageney of Gretna, La., to complain on the Times-Picayune Web site that the episode was "a huge embarrassment" that would encourage Americans to "forget the numerous people who still don't have trailers or at least one with electricity or water."

    That is certainly the White House game plan as it looks toward the president's two-day return to the scene of the crime. Just as it brought huge generators to floodlight Mr. Bush's prime-time recovery speech in Jackson Square a year ago - and then yanked the plug as soon as he was done - so it will stop at little to bathe this anniversary in the rosiest possible glow.

    Douglas Brinkley, the Tulane University historian who wrote the best-selling account of Katrina, "The Great Deluge," is worried that even now the White House is escaping questioning about what it is up to (and not) in the Gulf. "I don't think anybody's getting the Bush strategy," he said when we talked last week. "The crucial point is that the inaction is deliberate - the inaction is the action." As he sees it, the administration, tacitly abetted by New Orleans's opportunistic mayor, Ray Nagin, is encouraging selective inertia, whether in the rebuilding of the levees ("Only Band-Aids have been put on them"), the rebuilding of the Lower Ninth Ward or the restoration of the wetlands. The destination: a smaller city, with a large portion of its former black population permanently dispersed. "Out of the Katrina debacle, Bush is making political gains," Mr. Brinkley says incredulously. "The last blue state in the Old South is turning into a red state."

    Perhaps. But with no plan for salvaging either of the catastrophes on his watch, this president can no sooner recover his credibility by putting on an elaborate show of sermonizing and spin this week than Mr. Cruise could levitate his image by jumping up and down on Oprah's couch. While the White House's latest screenplay may have been conceived as "Mission Accomplished II," what we're likely to see play out in New Orleans won't even be a patch on “Mission: Impossible III."

    Saturday, August 26, 2006

    The Bush team: reckless and feckless.

    Bush has made the world less safe. The ostriches that still support this imbecile need to come to terms with this truth. Iran has been the main beneficiary of the Cheney/Bush/Rummy/Rice stupidity. Read it.
    The Left warned everyone about how reckless and feckless these people were a long time ago. Maybe it is time that progressives got their due. We are always correct after all.

    Friday, August 25, 2006

    The farting president

    I am days late writing about Bush's farting antics. Here is the sad thing - the fact that Bush apparently breaks wind for fun while doing his "work", and loves a good fart joke, - is the only story in a while that actually makes me like him a wee bit more. I do love a good fart joke. And lets face it - farts are always funny. Always. Like most every Ab Fab episode, they never stop being funny. If only Bush were a minor character actor, or the fun loving local kook who runs the hardware store, I really would like him.
    But we are all subjected to him as President and it is a disaster for this great country. The Right and the middle have finally woken up about just how bad Bush is for the republic. We on the Left knew it all along. When will they listen to us? Really - given the track record of conservatives in this country from slavery, to suffrage, to civil rights -why do we listen to them at all?

    How to Answer a Stupid Question

    Chris Matthews had Diane Farrell on Hardball tonight. He asked her what is her plan for Iraq and then kept badgering her because instead of answering she spoke of Chris Shay's support of the President.

    Well, Ms. Farrell, I'm here for you.

    Here's your answer.

    My plan for Iraq is for the Democrats to take over Congress so we can have some actual oversite and figure out what the hell Rummy has been doing. Did the Administration have any strategy after getting rid of Saddam or was that the entire plan and if it was why are our men and women still there? In case you have been living in a bubble the Republicans are in charge. We need subpoena power and let the investigations begin. Let the information come out about what this administration has been doing and then we can make some plans for Iraq.

    For now I support Jack Murtha because no one is closer to the military than he and I think he is actually listening to the leaders on the ground.

    Thursday, August 24, 2006

    Great People

    I worked with a man who died last week named Steve Marhefka. He was 83.

    He landed on Omaha Beach on D-Day. His brother did, too. He had switched units prior to the landing and his brother thought Steve died because the boat Steve was supposed to be on blew up in front of his brother. D Day plus four Steve saw a guy who was in his brother's outfit and asked his CO if he could go see his brother to say hello. To quote Steve his brother was "damn glad to see him."

    It's that understatement that defines our hero's of WWII. Completely self-effacing, casual in the idea that anyone would have done what they did.

    Steve always had a kind word and was a joy to be around.

    And in the spirit of who he was he didn't want a funeral or a service. He just wanted to be buried in private.

    He will be missed.

    Great Expectations

    I want to follow up on something the President said during his press conference.

    He said about Iraq that he is rarely surprised.

    Well, Gomer Pyle, I've got a few questions. You expected 110 Iraqis to be killed every day? When you declared "Mission Accomplished" you expected us to be sending in more troops three years later? When you touted election after election as solving our Iraqi problem you expected the sectarian violence to escalate to a Civil War? When Zachary was killed you thought the insurgency would go on and on like Celene Dion? You expected us to have to involuntarily recall 2,500 marines to continue fighting in Afghanistan and Iraq because after all this time neither war is close to completion? You expected your poll numbers to drop to below 40% approval for your handling of the war in Iraq?

    If none of this surprised you I think your next job should be on the Psychic Friends Network with Dionne Warwick.

    Oh, and you must know if the crazy guy killed Lisa Bonet Ramsey. So, did he do it?

    Wednesday, August 23, 2006

    Everyone knew this except the retard in the White House

    Why didn't the Neo-Con crack heads figure this out? It ain't hard. Of course, what the enormous waste of lives, money, and time in Iraq has done is empower Iran. DUH. Again - I want to hammer at this over and over again- many people on the Left warned about this outcome. The Left was right all along. As usual.

    The Bushies are, were, and will continue to be idiots.
    We need to elect leaders that are not fools, gasbags, greedy fucks, sycophants, and morons.

    Tuesday, August 22, 2006

    Dark Shadows

    I sometimes listen to right wing talk radio just to hear what the other side is doing. I'll admit that there are times when I just can't do it. This morning, though, it was rather interesting. Joe Lieberman was on the Glen Beck show and they were in complete accord talking about WWIII.

    According to Mr. Beck and Mr. Lieberman the biggest mistake of the current administration in Iraq was not just saying we were going in to get rid of Saddam. They both said that Bush & Co. made too big a deal of WMD. That was not the reason we needed to go. Mr. Beck said we went to cut of the head of the snake of Iran. This was not a slip of the tongue because he said the same thing twice. I'm not sure what he meant by that but ole Joe concurred.

    Joe also said, and you're going to love this, I may paraphrase a bit, that what they said Iraq was (a haven for terrorism) it has now become a haven so we have to deal with it. Ain't that grand?

    Let's hope that the newest polls are correct and that Lamont is getting close.

    Please baby baby please!

    Wendy Werris - An Alphabetical Life



    Taking a break from cataloguing idiocies of Bush the Idiot for a minute to show off the cover of my dear friend Wendy's book - coming out in the fall - called An Alphabetical Life. I will be blogging about this later as she starts a book tour - but the COVER IS HOT! It is already on Amazon. Go on...then...buy.

    Monday, August 21, 2006

    Conservatives need to apologize to Liberals

    Wapo has a piece on how conservatives are turning on Bush and his Iraq war. Seems to be quite the trend. Since conservatives are never accountable for their actions I don't expect that. But how about an apology for just how stupid and wrong they were about Iraq. And an acknowledgement that - once again - on the major issue of the day, the Left was right.
    Let's hear one of those gung ho civilians on the Right say something like "You know what, we should have listened to some of the liberal commentators a little more closely in the run up to the Iraq invasion. A lot of what they said turned out to be correct."

    Or even this will do "oops! Sorry about that. Those crazy Libs were right again!"

    Of course, the conservatives have turned on each other. They always do eventually - because they are always wrong to begin with. It's hard to be accountable and apologize when you're always wrong.

    Dreams

    So, the word is that the Democrats don't have a plan for Iraq.

    Bush just said that the strategy in Iraq is to enable the Iraqis to achieve their objectives and dreams of democracy.

    What does that even mean? How is that a strategy? Isn't a strategy "the science or art of combining and employing the means of war in planning and directing a large military movement and operations."

    I would think at this point the dreams of the everyday Iraqi probably include electricity for more that four hours a day, not getting shot or blown up when you go to the market, maybe being able to go to the mosque and getting home alive, not worrying about being ethnically cleansed. You know, basic dreams.

    Mr. Bush finished up his press conference by saying that Iraq had NOTHING to do with 9/11. Thanks for that. He went on to say that no one in his administration ever said that Saddam ordered 9/11. I guess that would depend on what your definition of is, is.

    Sunday, August 20, 2006

    I, too, am sick of these motherfucking snakes running my motherfucking country.

    I saw Snakes on a Plane last night at the Chinese. (took the subway and it was packed -when the subway is packed in Los Angeles it means gas prices are HIGH even by California standards.) Don't worry I won't tell you what the movie is about. But here is an allegorical website that explains the film. See we are the people on the plane. The good old U.S. A. is the plane. And the snakes are well... you know...We are trapped in mid air until January 20, 2009 - and the snakes have control.

    I hope I did not give away the plot.

    Saturday, August 19, 2006

    Another Reason Why Frank Rich Should Never Take Vacations

    Five Years After 9/11, Fear Finally Strikes Out
    By FRANK RICH

    THE results are in for the White House's latest effort to exploit terrorism for political gain: the era of Americans' fearing fear itself is over.

    In each poll released since the foiling of the trans-Atlantic terror plot - Gallup, Newsweek, CBS, Zogby, Pew - George W. Bush's approval rating remains stuck in the 30's, just as it has been with little letup in the year since Katrina stripped the last remaining fig leaf of credibility from his presidency. While the new Middle East promised by Condi Rice remains a delusion, the death rattle of the domestic political order we've lived with since 9/11 can be found everywhere: in Americans' unhysterical reaction to the terror plot, in politicians' and pundits' hysterical overreaction to Joe Lieberman's defeat in Connecticut, even in the ho-hum box-office reaction to Oliver Stone's "World Trade Center."

    It's not as if the White House didn't pull out all the stops to milk the terror plot to further its politics of fear. One self--congratulatory presidential photo op was held at the National Counterterrorism Center, a dead ringer for the set in "24." But Mr. Bush's Jack Bauer is no more persuasive than his Tom Cruise of "Top Gun." By crying wolf about terrorism way too often, usually when a distraction is needed from bad news in Iraq, he and his administration have long since become comedy fodder, and not just on "The Daily Show." June's scenario was particularly choice: as Baghdad imploded, Alberto Gonzales breathlessly unmasked a Miami terror cell plotting a "full ground war" and the destruction of the Sears Tower, even though the alleged cell had no concrete plans, no contacts with terrorist networks and no equipment, including boots.

    What makes the foiled London-Pakistan plot seem more of a serious threat - though not so serious it disrupted Tony Blair’s vacation - is that the British vouched for it, not Attorney General Gonzales and his Keystone Kops. This didn't stop Michael Chertoff from grabbing credit in his promotional sprint through last Sunday's talk shows. "It was as if we had an opportunity to stop 9/11 before it actually was carried out," he said, insinuating himself into that royal we. But no matter how persistent his invocation of 9/11, our secretary of homeland security is too discredited to impress a public that has been plenty disillusioned since Karl Rove first exhibited the flag-draped remains of a World Trade Center victim in a 2004 campaign commercial. We look at Mr. Chertoff and still see the man who couldn't figure out what was happening in New Orleans when the catastrophe was being broadcast in real time on television.

    No matter what the threat at hand, he can't get his story straight. When he said last weekend that the foiling of the London plot revealed a Qaeda in disarray because "it's been five years since they've been capable of putting together something of this sort," he didn't seem to realize that he was flatly contradicting the Ashcroft-Gonzales claims for the gravity of all the Qaeda plots they've boasted of stopping in those five years. As recently as last October, Mr. Bush himself announced a list of 10 grisly foiled plots, including one he later described as a Qaeda plan "already set in motion" to fly a hijacked plane "into the tallest building on the West Coast."

    Dick Cheney's credibility is also nil: he will always be the man who told us that Iraqis would greet our troops as liberators and that the insurgency was in its last throes in May 2005. His latest and predictable effort to exploit terrorism for election-year fear-mongering — arguing that Ned Lamont's dissent on Iraq gave comfort to "Al Qaeda types" - has no traction because the public has long since untangled the administration's bogus linkage between the Iraq war and Al Qaeda. That's why, of all the poll findings last week, the most revealing was one in the CBS survey: While the percentage of Americans who chose terrorism as our "most important problem" increased in the immediate aftermath of the London plot, terrorism still came in second, at only 17 percent, to Iraq, at 28 percent.

    The administration's constant refrain that Iraq is the "central front" in the war on terror is not only false but has now also backfired politically: only 9 percent in the CBS poll felt that our involvement in Iraq was helping decrease terrorism. As its fifth anniversary arrives, 9/11 itself has been dwarfed by the mayhem in Iraq, where more civilians are now killed per month than died in the attack on America. The box-office returns of "World Trade Center" are a cultural sign of just how much America has moved on. For all the debate about whether it was "too soon" for such a Hollywood movie, it did better in the Northeast, where such concerns were most prevalent, than in the rest of the country, where, like "United 93," it may have arrived too late. Despite wild acclaim from conservatives and an accompanying e-mail campaign, "World Trade Center" couldn't outdraw "Step Up," a teen romance starring a former Abercrombie & Fitch model and playing on 500 fewer screens.

    Mr. Lamont's victory in the Connecticut Democratic senatorial primary has been as overhyped as Mr. Stone's movie. As a bellwether of national politics, one August primary in one very blue state is nearly meaningless. Mr. Lieberman's star began to wane in Connecticut well before Iraq became a defining issue. His approval rating at home, as measured by the Quinnipiac poll, had fallen from 80 percent in 2000 to 51 percent in July 2003, and that was before his kamikaze presidential bid turned "Joementum" into a national joke.

    The hyperbole that has greeted the Lamont victory in some quarters is far more revealing than the victory itself. In 2006, the tired Rove strategy of equating any Democratic politician's opposition to the Iraq war with cut-and-run defeatism in the war on terror looks desperate. The Republicans are protesting too much, methinks. A former Greenwich selectman like Mr. Lamont isn't easily slimed as a reincarnation of Abbie Hoffman or an ally of Osama bin Laden. What Republicans really see in Mr. Lieberman's loss is not a defeat in the war on terror but the specter of their own defeat. Mr. Lamont is but a passing embodiment of a fixed truth: most Americans think the war in Iraq was a mistake and want some plan for a measured withdrawal. That truth would prevail even had Mr. Lamont lost.

    A similar panic can be found among the wave of pundits, some of them self-proclaimed liberals, who apoplectically fret that Mr. Lamont's victory signals the hijacking of the Democratic Party by the far left (here represented by virulent bloggers) and a prospective replay of its electoral apocalypse of 1972. Whatever their political affiliation, almost all of these commentators suffer from the same syndrome: they supported the Iraq war and, with few exceptions (mainly at The Wall Street Journal and The Weekly Standard), are now embarrassed that they did. Desperate to assert their moral superiority after misjudging a major issue of our time, they loftily declare that anyone who shares Mr. Lamont's pronounced opposition to the Iraq war is not really serious about the war against the jihadists who attacked us on 9/11.

    That's just another version of the Cheney-Lieberman argument, and it's hogwash. Most of the 60 percent of Americans who oppose the war in Iraq also want to win the war against Al Qaeda and its metastasizing allies: that's one major reason they don't want America bogged down in Iraq. Mr. Lamont's public statements put him in that camp as well, which is why those smearing him resort to the cheap trick of citing his leftist great-uncle (the socialist Corliss Lamont) while failing to mention that his father was a Republican who served in the Nixon administration. (Mr. Lieberman, ever bipartisan, has accused Mr. Lamont of being both a closet Republican and a radical.)

    These commentators are no more adept at reading the long-term implications of the Connecticut primary than they were at seeing through blatant White House propaganda about Saddam's mushroom clouds. Their generalizations about the blogosphere are overheated; the shrillest left-wing voices on the Internet are no more representative of the whole than those of the far right. This country remains a country of the center, and opposition to the war in Iraq is now the center and (if you listen to Chuck Hagel and George Will, among other non-neoconservatives) even the center right.

    As the election campaign quickens, genuine nightmares may well usurp the last gasps of Rovian fear-based politics. It's hard to ignore the tragic reality that American troops are caught in the cross-fire of a sectarian bloodbath escalating daily, that botched American policy has strengthened Iran and Hezbollah and undermined Israel, and that our Department of Homeland Security is as ill-equipped now to prevent explosives (liquid or otherwise) in cargo as it was on 9/11. For those who've presided over this debacle and must face the voters in November, this is far scarier stuff than a foiled terrorist cell, nasty bloggers and Ned Lamont combined.

    Friday, August 18, 2006

    Maureen Dowd 8/19/06

    Where Is Euphrates Etiquette?
    By MAUREEN DOWD
    WASHINGTON

    You know W. is burned up at the Iraqis.

    You know Rummy got disgusted with nation-building ages ago. (In Baghdad in April, Rummy doodled at a news conference while Condi went on about her hopes for Iraq's future.)

    You can tell that Condi has grown fed up with the intractable mess in Iraq because she's so focused on the intractable mess in Lebanon.

    And certainly Dick Cheney has given up on those obstreperous Iraqis to move on to the more gratifying task of plotting how to liberate Iran and Syria.

    W., unschooled in Middle East quicksand politics, learned the hard way that too many Iraqis prefer jihad to Jefferson. The Iraqi forces can't stand up so we can scamper out. The Shiites we gave the country to prefer Iran and Hezbollah to the U.S. and Israel. And our rebellious yet incompetent Iraqi puppets have had the temerity to criticize both the U.S. and Israel for brutal behavior in the region.

    How sharper than a serpent's tooth it is to have a thankless child, as the Bard said, and the Bush administration has always condescendingly treated Iraq as though it were an ungrateful child. Rummy, Paul Wolfowitz and Republican lawmakers liked to compare the occupied nation to a tyke on a bike. "If you never take the training wheels off a kid's bicycle," Wolfie would say, "he'll never learn to ride without them."

    Thom Shanker and Mark Mazzetti of The Times reported that the president seemed dissatisfied this week in a private meeting at the Pentagon with his war cabinet and outside Middle East experts.

    "I sensed a frustration with the lack of progress on the bigger picture of Iraq generally - that we continue to lose a lot of lives, it continues to sap our budget," one person who attended the meeting told The Times. "The president wants the people in Iraq to get more on board to bring success." Another said that W. was confounded that 10,000 Iraqi Shiites would take to the streets to rally behind Hezbollah.

    W. is sick of holding on to the bike as his legacy crashes. He wants to see some gratitude from his charges - pronto.

    The Iraqis have no doubt offended W.'s keen sense of loyalty. He went back to sack Saddam to make up for his father's lack of loyalty to the Shiites who were slaughtered after Poppy encouraged them to rise up, and now the Shiites show little loyalty to W.

    Carole O'Leary, an American University professor who is working in Iraq on a State Department grant, told The Times that Mr. Bush offered the view that "the Shia-led government needs to clearly and publicly express the same appreciation for United States efforts and sacrifices as they do in private."

    Naturally, Tony Snow denied that President Resolute was frustrated. But if W. can behold how his plans have backfired and not be frustrated, then he's out of touch with reality. And the reason W. is meeting with outside experts is to demonstrate that he is, too, in touch with reality. Even though he doesn't use that expertise to reshape his plan in Iraq, which shows again that he's out of touch with reality.

    Reviewing Paul Bremer's book in The New York Review of Books, Peter Galbraith wrote: "In Bremer’s account, the president was seriously interested in one issue: whether the leaders of the government that followed the [Coalition Provisional Authority] would publicly thank the United States. ... Bush had only one demand: 'It's important to have someone who's willing to stand up and thank the American people for their sacrifice in liberating Iraq.' "

    You can take the boy out of Kennebunkport, but you can't take Kennebunkport out of the boy. The erstwhile black sheep is now as obsessed with manners as his dad. He's furious that he got no thank-you note from the Iraqis for the big present of allowing them the opportunity to be like us. They refused our gift, after everything W. did for them - invading their country under the false pretense of protecting our country, shattering their shaky infrastructure, and starting a shame spiral that's led to civil war.

    His foreign policy has been more force majeure than the noblesse oblige of his father and grandfather. But now he has embraced noblesse, and puzzles over why the poor Iraqis do not feel more obliged after being blessed with America's philosophical, economic and political riches. How on earth do these benighted folk not understand the difference between the good guys and the bad guys?

    Iran

    When the generals first starting coming out against the actions in Iraq my friend, John, said that it was all about Iran.

    Well, once again, he was right.

    Today a group of 21 generals and diplomats sent a letter to President Bush urging him to use diplomacy, not force, to resolve the situation with Iran.

    "As former military leaders and foreign policy officials, we call on the Bush administration to engage immediately in direct talks with the government of Iran without preconditions to help resolve the current crisis in the Middle East and settle differences over the Iranian nuclear program," the letter said.

    "We strongly caution against any consideration of the use of military force against Iran. The current crises must be resolved through diplomacy, not military action," it said.

    It warned that an attack on Iran would have disastrous consequences for the region and for US forces in Iraq, further inflaming Muslim hatred and violence.


    Further inflaming violence. Is it even possible? Iraq is a Civil War no matter what the administration says. The Taliban is gaining power. Hezbollah and Hamas hammered Israel.

    I realize that Bush & Co. live in complete denial but where on earth do they think they will get the forces to take Iran? If they're planning on using Israel's intelligence they better think again. Apparently the best intelligence agency in the world was on par with "Curveball" about the strength of Hezbollah so do we really believe that they can tell us where to bomb in Iran? One would hope that even Bush would not be so delusional to buy the "greet us with flowers" line again.

    Because to quote the President, "Fool me once, uh, uh, shame on me...fool me twice, uh, um, we won't get fooled again."

    Thursday, August 17, 2006

    I don't give a shit who killed that girl.

    There. I said it. This Lisa Bonet Ramsey crap is nonsense. It is a bunch of CNN, dan abrams, nancy grace ghoulish retards run amok.
    There are two reasons and two reasons only for this story.
    1. Lisa bonet ramsey is NOT IRAQ.
    2. Lisa bonet ramsey is WHITE. Or was white anyway. No news organization would be anywhere near this story is that little girl had been black. AND:

    let us remember the real loser here:
    poor poor Natalie Hollywood. That sad WHITE girl on the Caribbean graduation trip who was lost at sea. Or on a beach, or in the light house. WHO? WHO? will remember her???? Rita Crosby? Nancy Graceless? Will Freaky McNerderson confess to her murder next? Can we keep up the distraction of BLOWING LOCAL NEWS UP INTO GLOBAL PSYCHOSIS until those damn Iraqis settle down? And isn't it nice that Freaky McNerderson waited until the Israel Lebanon mini series was over before he started his?
    I repeat: It is sad when a child is murdered. But this Boulder kid deserves no more attention than the thousands of black and brown kids who get shot in this country every year.

    The media is sick. and we are watching.

    Wednesday, August 16, 2006

    Bush Is Crap


    Just seeing it on the front page of a newspaper is fantastic.

    Last night, Joe Scarborough's first segment was, "Is Bush an Idiot?". That was on the screen for the entire segment.

    Because I don't care who killed Ms. Ramsey. Call me a horrible person, but I really don't care. That's local news gone hay wire. Why are we so obsessed with blond girls who meet bad ends in this country. The obsession is the only thing that explains Paris Hilton's career.

    Keith did the first forty minutes on Ms. Ramsey. I'm not interested. What happened to that little girl is terrible and I'm glad for the closure for her family but it doesn't impact the world the way Bush being Crap does.

    Just an update. I've just left the debacle of Falujah in Fiasco.

    Is Bush an Idiot?

    Absolutely.

    Maureen Down 7/16/06

    Camus Comes to Crawford
    By MAUREEN DOWD
    WASHINGTON

    Strangely enough, we find two famous men reading Albert Camus's "The Stranger" this summer.

    One is Jean Girard, the villainous gay French race car driver hilariously played by Sacha Baron Cohen (a k a Ali G and Borat) - the sinuous rival to Will Ferrell's stocky Ricky Bobby in "Talladega Nights."

    Girard, a jazz-loving, white-silk-scarf-wearing, America-disdaining Formula Un driver sponsored by Perrier, is so smooth he can sip macchiato from a china cup, smoke Gitanes and read "L'Etranger" behind the wheel and still lead the Nascar pack.

    Frenchie contemptuously informs "cowboy" Bobby that America merely gave the world George Bush, Cheerios and the ThighMaster while France invented democracy, existentialism and the menage a trois.

    The other guy kindling to Camus is none other than the aforementioned George Bush, who read "The Stranger" in English on his Crawford vacation and, Tony Snow told me, "liked it." Name-dropping existentialists is good for picking up girls, as Woody Allen's schlemiels found, or getting through the clove-cigarette fog of Humanities 101. But it does seem odd that W., who once mocked NBC's David Gregory as "intercontinental" for posing a question in French to the French president in France, would choose Camus over Grisham.

    Camus is not beach reading - or brush reading. How on earth did this book make it into the hands of our proudly anti-intellectual president?

    "I don't know how 'L'Etranger' made it onto his list," Mr. Snow said. "I must confess, I read 'L'Etranger' 25 years ago." The rest of W.'s reading list was presidentially correct: two books on Lincoln and the Pulitzer Prize-winning "Polio: An American Story," by David Oshinsky. (Not a word by Merleau-Ponty.)

    Debunking the theory that W. had a sports section or Mad magazine's "Spy vs. Spy" tucked inside the 1946 classic of angst, Mr. Snow noted that he and the president had "a brief conversation on the origins of French existentialism, Camus and Sartre." Pressed for more details by an astonished columnist having trouble envisioning Waco as the Left Bank, the press secretary laughed. "Confidential conversation," he said, extending the administration's lack of transparency to literature.

    He brushed off suggestions that the supremely unself-reflective W. was going through a Carteresque malaise-in-the-gorge moment: "He doesn't feel like an existentialist trapped in Algeria during the unpleasantness."

    It takes a while to adjust to the idea of W., who has created chaos trying to impose moral order on the globe, perusing Camus, who wrote about the eternal frustration of moral order in human affairs. What does W., the archenemy of absurdity as a view of life, kindle to in C., the apostle of absurdity as a view of life? What can W., the born-again monogamist, spark to in C., the amorous atheist? In some ways, Mr. Bush is supremely not a Camus man. Camus hated the blindness caused by ideology, and Mr. Bush wallows in it. Camus celebrated lucidity while the president keeps seeing only what he wants to see.

    Mr. Bush's life has been premised on his confidence that he will always be insulated from the consequences and the cruelties of existence, unlike Meursault. W. or his people always work to change fate, whether it's an election or the Middle East.

    If you think about it long enough, though, it begins to make a sort of wacky sense.

    "The Stranger" is about the emotionally detached Meursault, who makes a lot of bad decisions and pre-emptively kills an Arab in the sand. Get it? Camus's protagonist moves through an opaque, obscure and violent world that is indifferent to his beliefs and desires. Get it?

    If there was ever a moment when this president could regard the unanticipated consequences of his actions, behold the world littered with the very opposite of what he intended for it and appreciate the gritty stoicism of the philosophy of absurdism, this is it. Iraq in civil war. Al Qaeda metastasizing and plotting. Hezbollah, Iran and Syria knitting closer, celebrating a "victory" in standing up to Israel, the U.S. and Britain, and mocking W.'s plan for a "new Middle East." The North Koreans luxuriating in their nuclear capability. Chavez becoming the new Castro on a global scale.

    Maybe next the president should pick up Camus's other classic, "The Myth of Sisyphus." Was there ever a national enterprise more Sisyphean than the war in Iraq?

    If there was ever a confirmation of Camus's sense of the absurdity of life, it's that the president is reading him.

    Tuesday, August 15, 2006

    oil shock

    Are We Ready for the Next Oil Shock?
    By Frederick W. Smith and P.X. Kelley
    Friday, August 11, 2006; Page A19
    From the Washington Post:

    Could a mere 4 percent shortfall in daily oil supply propel the price of a barrel to more than $120 in a matter of days? That's what some oil market experts are saying, and if they're correct, we face the very real possibility of an oil shock wave that could send our economy reeling. Such a rapid rise in fuel costs would have profound effects that could severely threaten the foundation of America's economic prosperity.

    The global oil trends now at work -- rising consumption, reduced spare production capacity and high levels of instability in key oil-producing countries -- all increase the likelihood of a supply shock. But unfortunately energy debates in this country often suggest a profound misunderstanding of these international economic dynamics. Calls for "energy independence" notwithstanding, oil is a fungible global commodity, which means that events affecting supply or demand anywhere will affect oil consumers everywhere. A country's exposure to world price shocks is thus a function of the amount of oil it consumes and is not significantly affected by the ratio of domestic to imported petroleum.

    The magnitude of our dependence on oil puts stress on our military, strengthens our strategic adversaries and undermines our efforts to support democratic allies. Each year the United States expends enormous military resources protecting the chronically vulnerable oil production and distribution network while also preparing to guarantee international access to key oil-producing regions. This allocation of forces and dollars diminishes the military's capability for dealing with the war on terrorism and other defense priorities.

    Considering the potentially devastating impact of an oil crisis, the time has come for new voices, especially those of business leaders and retired national security officials, to join the call for meaningful government action to reduce projected U.S. oil consumption. Our respective personal experiences -- running a global transportation and logistics company and spearheading the establishment of an independent U.S. Central Command in the Middle East -- convince us that America's extreme dependence on oil is an unacceptable threat to national security and prosperity.

    During the coming months, we will be co-chairing the Energy Security Leadership Council, a new and intensive effort by business executives and retired military officers to advance a national energy strategy for reducing U.S. oil dependence. Although drawn from very different backgrounds, the members of the council are united in the belief that a fundamental shift in energy policy can prevent an unprecedented economic and national security calamity.

    As President Bush and members of Congress construct a strategy for energy security, several central principles should guide them:

    · The most substantial, rapid and cost-effective gains are almost certain to be achieved by making our transportation system more fuel-efficient. To be sure, the search for increased oil, natural gas and alternative energy supplies merits support, as do strategies for controlling industrial demand. But the transportation sector relies on oil for 97 percent of its energy needs and accounts for 68 percent of total U.S. oil consumption. With the right incentives, America's engineers and businesses could soon provide better vehicle technologies, a more efficient movement of goods and many other smart solutions. Substantially reducing demand in the transportation sector would help ensure availability of affordable supplies for critical industrial, commercial and consumer needs.

    · Pure market economics will never solve this problem. Markets do not account for the hidden and indirect costs of oil dependence. Businesses focused on the highest return on investment are not always in a position to implement new solutions, many of which depend on technologies and fuels that cannot currently compete with the marginal cost of producing a barrel of oil. Most important of all, the marketplace alone will not act preemptively to mitigate the enormous damage that would be inflicted by a sudden, serious and sustained price increase.

    · Government leadership is absolutely necessary. Many of the most promising solutions on both the demand and supply sides will require decades to mature. Government proposals should align the interests of businesses and individuals with society's goals; for example, tax credits and similar incentives must allow businesses to recover investments and engage in essential long-range planning, and they must account for the high implicit discount rates that consumers apply to future savings. While recent legislation has pointed us in the right direction, bolder action must be taken.

    Whatever the eventual shape of a credible energy security plan, significant public and private resources will be required to put policy into practice. The government needs to do more than just provide funds, though; it must sustain a strategic energy policy even if oil prices drop in the medium term. This is only fitting given the size and nature of the threat. Indeed, if it means condemning the country to another decade of energy dependence, the possible return of $50 oil should be no less frightening than the prospect of an oil shock wave.

    Frederick W. Smith is chairman, president and chief executive of FedEx Corp. P. X. Kelley, a retired general, was commandant of the Marine Corps and a member of the Joint Chiefs of Staff under President Ronald Reagan. They are co-chairmen of the Energy Security Leadership Council, a project of Securing America's Future Energy.

    Power Joe

    According to our friends at Raw Story the White House is not backing the Republican candidate in Connecticut.

    Like Ken Mehlman they are "allowing the Republicans in Connecticut to make the decision".

    Harry Reid allowed Lieberman to keep his committee seats.

    Everyone is hedging their bets.

    Could Joe Lieberman, if he wins, be the most powerful man in the Senate? As an independent he will get to decide which side of the aisle he sits on and both sides are courting him.

    Yuck. Please, please, vote for Ned.

    Monday, August 14, 2006

    Lou Dobbs Tonight

    Lou Dobbs had John Dean on tonight to discuss his new book.

    Let me just quote Lou for you.

    "We're watching neo-conservatives dominate within this administration and frankly lead us into a war under absolutely - absolutely - the wrong circumstances about which they lied..."

    Thank you Mr. Dobbs.

    Bob Herbert 8/14/06

    Aiding Our Enemies
    By BOB HERBERT
    "Fanaticism consists in redoubling your effort when you have forgotten your aim."

    - George Santayana

    Here we go again.

    I wonder if Americans will continue to fall for the political exploitation of their fears of terrorism, or if voters will begin to show some awareness of the fact that they have been cynically manipulated, and that our current policies have been disastrously counterproductive.

    The disrupted plot to blow up as many as 10 passenger jets bound for the United States was a reminder, as if we needed a reminder, that the threat of terror remains both real and imminent. And it was a reminder that the greatest danger to Americans here at home continues to be an attack by a group affiliated with, or inspired by, Al Qaeda.

    That being the case, what in the world are we doing in Iraq?

    There was something pathetic about the delight with which Republicans seized upon the terror plot last week and began trying to wield it like a whip against their Democratic foes. The G.O.P. message seemed to be that the plot foiled in Britain was somehow proof that the U.S. needed to continue full speed ahead with the Bush administration's disastrous war in Iraq, and that any Democrat who demurred was somehow soft on terrorism.

    The truth, of course, is that the demolition derby policies of the Bush administration are creating enemies of the United States, not defeating them. It cannot be said often enough, for example, that the catastrophic war in Iraq, which has caused the deaths of tens of thousands, was a strategic mistake of the highest magnitude. It diverted our focus, energy and resources from the real enemy, Al Qaeda and its offshoots, and turned Iraq, a country critically important to the Muslim imagination, into a spawning ground for terrorists.

    Almost three years ago, in the immediate aftermath of the bombing of the United Nations headquarters in Baghdad, Jessica Stern, who lectures on terrorism at Harvard, wrote in The New York Times that the U.S. had created in Iraq "precisely the situation the Bush administration has described as a breeding ground for terrorists: a state unable to control its borders or provide for its citizens' rudimentary needs."

    Ms. Stern went on to say, "As bad as the situation inside Iraq may be, the effect that the war has had on terrorist recruitment around the globe may be even more worrisome."

    The situation has grown only worse since then. While Republicans are savoring the political possibilities of a foiled terror plot, the spiraling chaos in Iraq and other Bush administration policies are contributing mightily to the anger and radicalism in the Muslim world.

    Ms. Stern, the author of "Terror in the Name of God: Why Religious Militants Kill," said in an interview last week:

    "We're in a world where Islamist terrorist leaders are teaching their followers that they have been humiliated. Well, first of all, it's true that Islamic civilization has fallen behind economically, intellectually, politically. It was once the greatest civilization. That's true. But the terrorist leaders teach their followers that not only is this humiliating, but somebody else is to blame - and that's us. They say that we have deliberately set out to destroy the Islamic world and humiliate Muslims."

    While it's not true that the United States is trying to humiliate the Muslim world, said Ms. Stern, "I think that as we contemplate our policy remedies today, we also need to think about how they may ultimately be used by our terrorist enemies to recruit."

    The debacle in Iraq, and inhumane policies like torture, rendition and the incarceration of Muslims without trial at Guantanamo Bay, Cuba, serve only to strengthen the appeal of militants who are single-mindedly dedicated to the destruction of American lives.

    The U.S. needs to be much, much smarter in its efforts to counter this mortal threat. We should be focused like a laser on the fight against Al Qaeda-type terrorism. We need to ramp up our security efforts here at home. (Even as the terror plot in Britain was emerging, the Bush administration was trying to eliminate millions of dollars in funding for explosives-detection technology. Congress blocked that effort.) We need a new approach to foreign policy that draws on the wisest heads both here and abroad. And we need a strategy for withdrawal from Iraq.

    In a world that is growing more dangerous by the hour, it's time to try something new.

    Sunday, August 13, 2006

    Here's a great letter to the editor from today's New York Times:

    David Brooks has outdone himself in his spin on the Lieberman loss in Connecticut. It is ludicrous to argue that Senators John McCain and Joseph I. Lieberman represent the voices of reason in America when they have been such outspoken advocates of the disastrous Iraq war.

    If there is to be a third party formed, it will be by someone bold enough to lead the opponents of that war, with 60 percent of the people already opposed to it. Now there’s the base for a new party!

    Kenneth N. Davis Jr.
    Stamford, Conn., Aug. 10, 2006
    The writer was an assistant secretary of commerce/international in the Nixon administration.

    There were four today and they all echo Mr. Davis' comments.

    Watching McGlaughlin I have been agreeing with Pat Buchanon lately. How scary is that? Apparently Mr. Bush really is a uniter. He is uniting all of us against him. Anyone who thinks realizes that the Iraq War is a Fiasco and is not helping us in the "war on terror". It is increasing hatred towards us and has created a training ground for terror.

    I'm up to 2004 and the capture of Saddam in Fiasco. Once again, we snatched defeat from the jaws of victory because it could have been a turning point in the war. But lack of leadership foiled victory again. It is amazing to see how the apologists for the war recycle the same rhetoric for any occasion. What they said about Saddam's capture they also said about Mousawi's death.

    And the beat goes on.

    By the by, McGlaughlin seems to think we will take both the House and the Senate in November but that will actually hurt us in '08 because we will then share the blame for the failing economy.

    The Bush/Lieberman team at work

    NBC is reporting that the Bush freak show pressured the U.K. to arrest the bomb plotters earlier than they intended to.... hmmm, I wonder why?
    Lamont.
    And isn't it interesting that scumbag Lieberman immediately connected the bomb plot to Lamont in a speech.

    I repeat a favorite rant of mine: We on the Left condescend to the idea of conspiracies at our peril. Most are bullshit. Some are not. Politics is the art of successfully conspiring. Sometimes in the open, often in secret.

    Friday, August 11, 2006

    Screw it. I like Hillary.

    I get a lot of shit from my Democratic friends - but ya know what- I believe that not only can Hillary get the nomination. She can win the White House.
    Fuck it. I like her. I think she would be a kick ass President.
    And if Gore refuses to run - why NOT? If you do not think she can take McCain you are not looking closely at McCain. She can.

    Paul Krugman 8/11/06

    Nonsense and Sensibility
    By PAUL KRUGMAN

    After Ned Lamont's victory in Connecticut, I saw a number of commentaries describing Joe Lieberman not just as a "centrist" - a word that has come to mean "someone who makes excuses for the Bush administration" - but as "sensible." But on what planet would Mr. Lieberman be considered sensible?

    Take a look at Thomas Ricks's "Fiasco," the best account yet of how the U.S. occupation of Iraq was mismanaged. The prime villain in that book is Donald Rumsfeld, whose delusional thinking and penchant for power games undermined whatever chances for success the United States might have had. Then read Mr. Lieberman's May 2004 op-ed article in The Wall Street Journal, "Let Us Have Faith," in which he urged Mr. Rumsfeld not to resign over the Abu Ghraib scandal, because his removal "would delight foreign and domestic opponents of America's presence in Iraq."

    And that's just one example of Mr. Lieberman's bad judgment. He has been wrong at every step of the march into the Iraq quagmire - all the while accusing anyone who disagreed with him of endangering national security. Again, on what planet would Mr. Lieberman be considered "sensible"? But I know the answer: on Planet Beltway.

    Many of those lamenting Mr. Lieberman's defeat claim that they fear a takeover of our political parties by extremists. But if political polarization were really their main concern, they'd be as exercised about the primary challenge from the right facing Lincoln Chafee as they are about Mr. Lieberman's woes. In fact, however, the sound of national commentary on the Rhode Island race is that of crickets chirping.

    So what's really behind claims that Mr. Lieberman is sensible - and that those who voted against him aren't? It's the fact that many Washington insiders suffer from the same character flaw that caused Mr. Lieberman to lose Tuesday's primary: an inability to admit mistakes.

    Imagine yourself as a politician or pundit who was gung-ho about invading Iraq, and who ridiculed those who warned that the case for war was weak and that the invasion's aftermath could easily turn ugly. Worse yet, imagine yourself as someone who remained in denial long after it all went wrong, disparaging critics as defeatists. Now denial is no longer an option; the neocon fantasy has turned into a nightmare of fire and blood. What do you do?

    You could admit your error and move on - and some have. But all too many Iraq hawks have chosen, instead, to cover their tracks by trashing the war's critics.

    They say: Pay no attention to the fact that I was wrong and the critics have been completely vindicated by events - I'm "sensible," while those people are crazy extremists. And besides, criticizing any aspect of the war encourages the terrorists.

    That's what Joe Lieberman said, and it's what his defenders are saying now.

    Now, it takes a really vivid imagination to see Mr. Lieberman's rejection as the work of extremists. I know that some commentators believe that anyone who thinks the Iraq war was a mistake is a flag-burning hippie who hates America. But if that's true, about 60 percent of Americans hate America. The reality is that Ned Lamont and those who voted for him are, as The New York Times editorial page put it, "irate moderates," whose views are in accord with those of most Americans and the vast majority of Democrats.

    But in his non-concession speech, Mr. Lieberman described Mr. Lamont as representative of a political tendency in which "every disagreement is considered disloyal" - a statement of remarkable chutzpah from someone who famously warned Democrats that "we undermine the president's credibility at our nation's peril."

    The question now is how deep into the gutter Mr. Lieberman's ego will drag him.

    There's an overwhelming consensus among national security experts that the war in Iraq has undermined, not strengthened, the fight against terrorism. Yet yesterday Mr. Lieberman, sounding just like Dick Cheney - and acting as a propaganda tool for Republicans trying to Swift-boat the party of which he still claims to be a member - suggested that the changes in Iraq policy that Mr. Lamont wants would be "taken as a tremendous victory by the same people who wanted to blow up these planes in this plot hatched in England."

    In other words, not only isn't Mr. Lieberman sensible, he may be beyond redemption.

    Thursday, August 10, 2006

    Lieberman is not a moderate.

    Some one needs to say it once and for all - attacking a country that did not attack us and WAS NO THREAT, killing thousands, spending billions, lying about all of it without remorse, making the world demonstrably LESS safe, creating a terrorist state in the Middle east, creating a civil war in Iraq, and empowering the nuts in Iran IS NOT "MODERATE."
    JOE LIEBERMAN SUPPORTS ALL OF THIS. HE IS NOT A MODERATE. The Democrats did not throw a moderate overboard Tuesday. They rejected a man with very bad judgment about the most important issue of the day.

    He deserved to lose and he did. Thank God.

    Wednesday, August 09, 2006

    Tony Snow

    Did anyone catch the Tony Snow show today?

    He essentially blamed 9/11 on George H.W. Bush. He said that because we didn't finish the job in '91 it lead to 9/11.

    What do you think of that?

    Then, of course, Mr. Snow had to say that Lieberman's loss is showing that we, the Democrats are partisan. Hello pot? Mr. Lieberman's loss is because he is out of touch with mainstream Americans.

    If being anti-war makes us partisan then 60% of the country is partisan.

    But wait, there's more. Mr. Mehlman won't commit to supporting the Republican candidate in Connecticut. "It's up to the voters of Connecticut." Excuse me? You are not supporting your own candidate because Lieberman is also your candidate.

    Tuesday, August 08, 2006

    The simple reason to fire Lieberman's tired ass.

    I have no idea what will happen to Joe Lieberman today in his primary battle. But here is a gloves off moment: I hope he gets his ass kicked six ways to Sunday by Lamont. No, I do not care if he is a "nice guy." I want to point one thing missing from rants on all sides about Lieberman's troubles. He is in trouble because he is too cozy with Bush, because he was an asswipe during the bogus Clinton impeachment, because he is for a war that no one wants anymore except the Cheney trust fund managers - HOWEVER - all that aside - Lie ber Man deserves to lose his job for one reason only:
    HE WAS WRONG ABOUT IRAQ.
    As was every other person who jumped on the invade Iraq bandwagon. The LEFT, ignored and attacked by the media and everyone else in the run up - WAS RIGHT ABOUT IRAQ. It is time for the Left to claim and proclaim this fact - WE WERE RIGHT. Lieberman's colossal misjudgment is reason enough to fire his tired ass out right. I do not give a shit how "nice" he is. If voters could fire Bush, Cheney, Rice and that clown at the Pentagon today I am quite sure they would. Everyone who insisted the Iraq war was the right thing to do - while ignoring all the facts, ignoring the informed views of those on the Left, in the military, and intelligence community - and some on the far right - DESERVES TO LOSE THEIR JOBS. This is not a minor misjudgment on Lieberman's part. It is a misjudgment that will affect American lives for 50 years. The reason to pitch Lieberman overboard is simple: HE WAS WRONG.

    Fiasco

    In today's New York Times there's an editorial about our soldiers not receiving commendations and medals for their service in Iraq and Afghanistan.

    In my local paper there's a front page story about a young man from here who was just killed in Iraq.

    I'm reading Fiasco by Thomas Ricks. (Please don't tell me how it ends - I'm only up to 2003). Man oh man do we need a book club or maybe a support group to discuss this book. I know Olberman has read it and I'm thinking Chris Matthews has as well. Because once you read it you will be so angry at the colossal mis-steps and failures of Bush, Rummy, Rice, Franks, Wolfowitz, Pearle, Feith, and Bremmer you will either want to drink heavily or throw things at your TV when you see Rumsfeld speak.

    The fact that Franks and Bremmer received the Medal of Freedom instead of a speedy trial for treason and our soldiers are being shorted on medals makes me crazy.

    Right now I'm up to the point where the administration was denying there was a war in Iraq after we toppled Saddam. You could cut and paste their denials for war then with their denials for civil war now.

    If Bush & Co had spent more time on planning and dealing with reality instead of spinning we could have won the war in Iraq. We really could have.

    Instead I read about a young man from a town over who was killed on a battlefield a world away.

    Monday, August 07, 2006

    Oil yips.

    Let me take the latest from BP - "beyond petroleum" as a teachable moment. OR at least a linkable moment. Cheap oil is exiting along with OUR ENTIRE BLOODY LIFESTYLE. And we had better deal with it - because it is about to deal with us.
    Go here.
    Go here
    Get up to speed.
    FYI: when golfer get nervous twitches they are said to have the "yips."

    Oil is gonna give us all the yips real soon.

    400,000 Barrels per day

    BP is shutting down it's Pruhdoe Bay production in Alaska to refit the pipeline.

    News of the shutdown of Alaska's Prudhoe Bay plant, which BP said was due to pipeline corrosion, lifted the price of crude oil for September delivery by around one dollar to $75.75 in Asian trading this morning. The market has also been affected by the continuing violence in the Middle East.

    BP, already part of a criminal probe into a much bigger Alaskan pipeline rupture in March, was unable to estimate when output might resume at Prudhoe.


    So 400,000 barrels per day will go off line and we don't know when they'll be back. That's 8% of total US production. Katrina shut down 1% and look what happened to prices then.

    As Whoopi Goldberg would say, girl, you in trouble.

    Sunday, August 06, 2006

    Darfur

    Please read this piece by Jan Baumgartner about Darfur.

    Over the last three years, it is estimated that between 200,000 to 400,000 people have been killed in Darfur with as many as two to three million displaced. Their homes are gone, burnt to the ground. Families have been wiped out. Ethnic cleansing. Genocide is a difficult idea to get one's head around. As is rape, starving children and burning villages. So instead of focusing on the tragedy in Darfur in its entirety, let's take a moment to look at the immediate: hunger and malnutrition, the basic sustenance needed for survival for the millions of displaced men, women and children living in makeshift refugee camps.

    In early May, the United Nations World Food Program announced that due to lack of funding, they would be forced to drastically cut its food rations in Darfur beginning that month. As quoted by James Morris, Executive Director of the WFP, "This is one of the hardest decisions I have ever made. Haven't the people of Darfur suffered enough?"

    The World Food Program reported that by the end of February, only four percent of donations needed for Sudan in 2006 had been raised. By the forced scaling back of daily food rations, this drastic cut will exacerbate the already dire concern of malnutrition and disease.


    Where do you even start?

    Is the UN broken as the Bush administration insists? Yes, if they cannot sustain a country like Darfur through their Food Program. What is Mr. Bolton doing about that?

    We went to Iraq to "free" the people. To spread "freedom". To protect them from an evil dictator who killed 100,000 of his citizens. Yes, I know the initial rational was that Saddam was an immanent threat to the world with his WMD but, darn it all, he didn't have any so our friends in Bushland changed the reason for invading.

    How can we continue to ignore Darfur when there are four times as many dead? Saddam had rape rooms; Darfur has rape camps. Why aren't we invading to spread Democracy and save the people of Darfur? Don't they deserve freedom, too?

    Please donate do Savedarfur or Oxfam Call your representative and senators, call the White House, call the UN.

    Thanks.

    Saturday, August 05, 2006

    Jeepez

    My pal, John, has placed a moratorium on being surprised by anything Bush & Co. do.

    Fair enough.

    But has everyone seen this from Raw Story?

    During their conversation with the President, Galbraith claims, it became apparent to them that Bush was unfamiliar with the distinction between Sunnis and Shiites.

    Galbraith reports that the three of them spent some time explaining to Bush that there are two different sects in Islam--to which the President allegedly responded, “I thought the Iraqis were Muslims!”

    My friends, Gomer Pyle is running our country and Cheney is Sarge.

    Well, I'll be.

    More good news from Iraq!

    Has there ever been as colossal a foreign policy fuck up as George W Bush's invasion of Iraq? Has there ever been a vice president as mean, insular, arrogant and wrong as Dick Cheney? Does Donald Rumsfeld enjoy imitating Teri Shiavo at a Senate hearing? Just how bad is Condi Rice at her job? Will America survive these fools?
    Oh, and more good news from Iraq yesterday linked here. Good job, White House!

    Friday, August 04, 2006

    End times mid wives

    Any one else think the freaks in the White House are egging Israel on? And yes - Israel has gone to far. Killing children and farmers IS TOO FAR. But the Neo-con men and the end timers on the far freaky Right are, again, working to encourage war and more war.
    As a liberal Christian let me say this loud and clear: the book of Revelation is drug induced mush. And delusional nutters like this guy are truly dangerous. Let's be clear about what is happening: the Bushies want more war and their primary supporters want to mid wife the apocalypse. Jesus is going to roast these sons of bitches.

    Freedom, Once Again, On the March

    Ms. Condi was on Hardball this evening in an interview with David Gregory.

    Cuba watch out - she thinks you want libre. (And I'm not saying you don't). She said Cuba wants freedom five or six times. I love the simplistic terms they use. So let me do the same. They want freedom - we want oil.

    Based on the freedom we've brought the Iraqis and the Afghani's I'll quote The Way We Were:

    Any freedom but Condi's freedom.

    Rummy Gets Roasted

    So, Ms. Clinton fried Rumsfeld like a chicken yesterday.

    Check out the New York Times today.

    It's been obvious for years that Donald Rumsfeld is in denial of reality, but the defense secretary now also seems stuck in a time warp. You could practically hear the dominoes falling as he told the Senate Armed Services Committee yesterday that it was dangerous for Americans to even talk about how to end the war in Iraq.

    Americans who once expected the Pentagon to win the war in Iraq have now been reduced to waiting for an indication that at least someone is minding the store. They won't be comforted to hear Mr. Rumsfeld fretting about protecting Spain from Muslim occupation.
    How do you think Rumsfeldl would respond to the latest salvo?

    Am I upset? No
    Are they right? No
    Should the Times building be blown up? You Bet
    Do I know what I'm doing? You'd have a dickens of a time proving that
    Will I pretend to resign again in a meaningless gesture? Sure
    Will Bush accept while he's on vacation in Crawford? Doubtful
    Are there unknow-ables? How I got this job might count. How I keep this job, totally

    I have to say it was good to see Iraq back on the news.

    Everyone has a theory about why we've gone 24/7 to Israel. It's a war we can actually cover unlike Iraq which is too dangerous for reporters. It's summer and Iraq is too depressing (according to Bill O'Reilly). The Israeli uniforms are cuter. But I think it's because we don't have a stake and it's not our fault.

    Because lost amid the shelling of Beirut was the report that we did kill people in cold blood as Jack Murtha said in Haditha.

    Do we want to deal with that? Apparently not.

    Thursday, August 03, 2006

    Senator Clinton kicks Rummy's tired ass.

    Watch it. She is good.

    Wednesday, August 02, 2006

    AND How Will Peak Oil Impact You?

    This Chicago Tribune article covers everything we all need to know about oil depletion. The fact is that global warming and peak oil are the 2 issues that undergird all others. Read the article.

    How Will Global Warming Impact You?

    Well, you know it's bad when people come to Florida in August to get cool, but we are cooler than the Northeast right now. Shoot, we have been cooler than Minneapolis. There's just that little issue of hurricanes...

    All the buzz on ethanol is going flat because of the crazy heat in California and the West. The crops are ready to be picked now because they've ripened too early but since the National Guard is at the border not letting the illegals in there aren't enough laborers to harvest those crops. All that corn that would become ethanol is going to rot on the stalk. Look for higher prices on soda which is primarily corn. Look for higher prices on most of your fruits and vegetables. Oh, and look for higher electricity costs since natural gas is up to $8.02. (It was just over $6.00 last week). Oil is over $76 per barrel.

    It's a long, hot summer, indeed.

    Yep, the verdict is out on global warming.

    Tuesday, August 01, 2006

    Those darn Jews.

    So I admit to some perverse pleasure in Mel Gibson's troubles. Didn't you just know that underneath the wildly violent Passion of the Christ was a cesspool of anti-Semitism? Yes, I think it was the booze talking. But so was the man. I am not Jewish - and I think all bigotry wrong - but I must say there is something especially odious about mindless remarks like"Jews cause every war". Anti-Semitism is the first refuge of the intellectually lazy. The real legacy of the Bush era is the elevation of intellectual laziness.

    It is nice that Gibson apologized so quickly but the fact is he needs to apologize specifically. He did not just say awful things - he said specifically awful things about a specific group of people. He should be shunned until he directly apologizes for his anti-Semitic remarks.

    shit

    Tropical Storm Chris has formed. He looks like he might want to come and see Florida.

    Like most Floridians I have the National Hurricane Center book marked and will be watching The Weather Channel "Focus on the Tropics at 10 til the hour.

    Crude prices are up this morning. Fill your tank today.

    Expect to see CNN reporters standing in the rain. In our ADD world this could draw attention away from Israel which drew attention away from Iraq.

     

     
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