Ideas for Bill Bennett's next remark

"You know, there's a lot of filth coming out of Hollywood these days. And if your sole purpose was to clean up Hollywood, you could just abort every Jewish baby in this country. Of course it would be impossible and reprehensible to do such a thing - but Hollywood would be a better place."

"If all you wanted to do was lower the obesity rate in this country, there's a simple solution - shoot all the fat people. I mean, just round them up and shoot them in the head and dump their bodies in the ocean. But of course, that would be wrong."

UPDATE: The White House now calls Bennett's original remarks "not appropriate." To which Sen. Frank Lautenberg (D-NJ) responded, "Not appropriate is wearing white shoes after Labor Day. These comments were reprehensible and racist." Yay to Sen. Lautenberg!

I'm beginning to take a fancy to it, too

Beautiful, bracing stuff over at Daily Kos:

Cries from the Lake of Fire

Hat tip: John Callender at lies.com

An excerpt:

I know you hate me, and anyone else who dares disturb the thin strands of alternate reality in which George W. Bush is an intellectual giant, Saddam really was responsible for 9/11, the economy is getting better by the minute, and we capture the most very important members of al Qaeda on a weekly basis.

But here's some advice. You'd better start hating me more. This is the world you forged and, unfortunately for you, I'm beginning to take a fancy for it. Welcome to the politics of your own party, finally sprouting from the ground on which you planted the seeds and shat upon them.

Amen, brother.

Quick quiz

Which is worse:

A) American soldiers torturing prisoners

B) Releasing photos of the abuse

Take your time with your answer. This one's important.

"The Death of Outrage," indeed

"But I do know that it's true that if you wanted to reduce crime, you could -- if that were your sole purpose, you could abort every black baby in this country, and your crime rate would go down. That would be an impossible, ridiculous, and morally reprehensible thing to do, but your crime rate would go down."

-Bill Bennett, America's self-appointed morality czar (and gambling addict), on the radio this week

"Our nation does not surrender to blackmail"

Boy the good news just keeps on coming this week:

Judge orders release of Abu Ghraib photos

That was some fraternity party, wasn't it, Rush?

One down, so many others to go

DeLay indicted, steps down.

Put a fork in him. Next?

Lynndie England to head investigation into Abu Ghraib abuses

As if we needed further proof that Onion-style satirical humor is obsolete in our society: only after Tom Burka of "Opinions You Should Have" wrote the satirical headline "Mike Brown To Take Charge Of Congressional Investigation of FEMA" did he learn that his joke had basically come true.

I believe that the apex of The Onion was the 2001 headline heralding the inauguration of George W. Bush: "Our Long National Nightmare of Peace and Prosperity is Finally Over." Since then, well, reality is just moving too fast for any satirist to keep up.

Fake Presidents

My friend David and I were talking about the premiere of "The West Wing" this week, and how much we enjoyed getting back to those characters we loved. (The scene between Donna and Josh was both heartbreaking and refreshingly real.) And now there's "Commander in Chief" starring Geena Davis starting tonight, where she plays the first female U.S. President.

"This is good," said David. "These days, we need all the fake Presidents we can get."

So true. So true.

"I want fake Sunday shows to start talking about what the fake Presidents are doing during the week," he said. "Bring on 'Capital Beat!'"

I support it.

Drinking again?

Dangers of a Drunk Dubya

What he said.

First good news I've heard in a long time

Odious gun nut whackjob Kim "John Fuckface Kerry" du Toit and his wife, the even more odious Connie "Dissent is treason" du Toit, have both completely shut down their web sites. From what I can gather, Kim got a new job, and was perhaps a skosh concerned that his wild-eyed rantings about killing all the ragheads and hanging liberals from telephone poles might cause some consternation with his new employer.

This after the du Toits admitted that their online business venture, DidToday, was just about scuttled when investors pulled out after discovering the couple's hateful, disgusting rantings.

Couldn't happen to a more deserving pair. I can only hope that their sites stay dead - there's enough filth on the internet as it is.

Cluelessness? Or something more deliberate?

A tale of crescents and cones.

The elephant in the room of the crapweasel right is their own screaming stupidity. One thinks it's a tree trunk, one thinks it's a rope, one thinks it's a spear, and one thinks it's a fan.

Bill O'Reilly thinks it's a falafel.

NOTE TO CRAPWEASELS: Did you know that New Orleans is known as the "Crescent City"? Let loose the dogs!

Good Democrat! Good!

For conservative Bush backers, Donna Brazile is a "good" Democrat, because she's unwilling to hold the President accountable for his massive failures surrounding Hurricane Katrina.

Joe Lieberman is a "better" Democrat, because he's willing to praise the President and get in bed with Republicans at the drop of a hat.

And Zell Miller is the "best" Democrat, because, well, he's clinically insane.

For La Shawn Barber

Lyrics to my new favorite song, "God's Song" by Randy Newman:

Cain slew Abel
Seth knew not why
If the children of Israel
were supposed to multiply
why must any
of the childen die?

So he asked the Lord
and the Lord said,

"Man means nothing
he means less to me
than the lowliest cactus flower
or the humblest yucca tree
He chases 'round this desert
'cause he thinks that's where I'll be
That's why I love mankind.

I recoil in horror
at the foulness of thee
at the squalor and the filth
and the misery
How we laugh up here in heaven
at the praise you offer me
That's why I love mankind."

Christians and the Jews
were havin' a jamboree
Buddhists and the Hindus
joined on satellite TV
They chose their four greatest priests
and they began to speak

They said, "Lord there's a plague upon the land
Lord, no man is free
The temples that we built to you
have tumbled into the sea
Lord, if you won't take care of us
Then please please let us be."

And the Lord said
And the Lord said

"I burn down your cities
How blind you must be
I take from you your children, and you say
How blessed are we!
Y'all must be crazy
to put your faith in me

That's why I love mankind.
You really need me!
That's why I love mankind."

This was so funny I almost peed my pants

Sorry, but this photo is freakin' hilarious. If you don't find this funny, you've lost your soul.

Call me Cassandra

I hate to say "I told you so."

But I told you so.

As Edward G. Robinson intoned so memorably in one of the greatest movies of all time, The Ten Commandments:

Where's your messiah now?

President Bush has got to be counting his lucky stars that the event that ripped away his last shred of credibility came in the form of a natural disaster, and not a terrorist attack. Imagine if those images of him eating cake with John McCain and playing the guitar were taken while people burned alive after a nuclear explosion. I wonder if he would be sleeping in the White House tonight.

Words mean things

"From my perspective, it is far, far too late to start bringing up questions about funding priorities now, except maybe in the sense of bringing them up if another war is proposed."
-Dean Esmay, Crapweasel-in-Chief, who previously described the war in Iraq as an "experiment"

I wasn't aware that democracies "proposed" wars, like they do, say, highway projects. But this is the world we live in now. George Orwell, call your office.

Drowning

Grover Norquist, the architect of the Bush tax cuts and general right-wing asshole, is famous for his remark about wanting to drown the federal government in the bathtub.

We're all in that bathtub, now.

Louisiana

Randy Newman sang this song from his "Good Old Boys" album at the outset of the benefit concert tonight for hurricane relief. It made me cry.

Louisiana 1927

What has happened down here is the wind have changed
Clouds roll in from the north and it started to rain
Rained real hard and rained for a real long time
Six feet of water in the streets of Evangeline

The river rose all day
The river rose all night
Some people got lost in the flood
Some people got away alright
The river have busted through cleard down to Plaquemines
Six feet of water in the streets of Evangeline

Louisiana, Louisiana
They're tryin' to wash us away
They're tryin' to wash us away
Louisiana, Louisiana
They're tryin' to wash us away
They're tryin' to wash us away

President Coolidge came down in a railroad train
With a little fat man with a note-pad in his hand
The President say, "Little fat man isn't it a shame
what the river has done
To this poor crackers land."

Louisiana, Louisiana
They're tryin' to wash us away
They're tryin' to wash us away
Louisiana, Louisiana
They're tryin' to wash us away
They're tryin' to wash us away

Another funny one

How conservatives see liberals in America:

POLL: Which do you hate the most?

(a) Freedom
(b) America
(c) The troops
(d) Jesus
(e) Hate all equally.

(stolen from comments at Balloon Juice)

Freedom is on the march

"What's unusual for an event on the Mall is the combination of fences, required preregistration and the threat of arrest."

-The Washington Post, on the frankly obscene war rally planned for Sept. 11 in Washington. D.C.

Wouldn't Martin Luther King Jr. be proud!

UPDATE: Since I don't have the strength to write the kind of rip-roarin', over-the-top rant that this event deserves, I'll leave it in the capable hands of The Rude Pundit.

Rght-Wing Dictionary

The Blame Game
n.
Accountability.

"A quick observation: when people don't want to play the blame game - they're to blame."
-Jon Stewart, The Daily Show, 9/7/05

Because laughing is so much less painful than crying

Bush to Investigate Self
from Opinions You Should Have

The Do-It-Yourself Emergency Management Guide
from Fafblog!

Other suggestions? Let me know in the comments.

Hell Week

Being a die-hard Bush supporter (and let's face it - is there any other kind?) is much like joining a fraternity. You go through Hell Week (9/11), and after that, it's just too difficult to break away. You've already defended the frat when that pledge died of alcohol poisoning, and during that massive cheating scandal. Then there was the bonfire that burned down the dorm - I mean, who could have predicted that would happen? Nothing will shake your faith in your brothers - nothing. So when two girls are raped after a keg party, no matter how much evidence piles up against the frat President and his roommate, you deflect. And defend. And never admit so much as a speck of culpability for the Prez, or anyone in the fraternity. If you did, your whole world would crumble around your feet. And nothing - nothing - will make you turn against this organization you've staked so much on.

Which explains why, if President Bush slit their grandmother's throat on national television, people like Dean Esmay would clutch her gurgling body and declare, for the cameras, that she had it coming.

Another thought experiment

Your city is hit by a massive terrorist attack, nuclear or biological in nature. Thousands are dead and many thousands more are homeless. You won't be able to return to the home you and your family have known your whole life - for months, maybe years. President Bush spends the first two days after the attack playing guitar and having cake.

That's OK, right? Anything else would just be stupid symbolism. After all, what can *he* do, right?

Run that one up the flagpole.

Redundant

According to the right-wing media on TV, radio and on the web, the President isn't responsible for anything that happens in Iraq. And now with the hurricane, we learn that nothing here at home, even disaster planning by his shiny new Department of Homeland Security (I get a little shiver every time I hear that name), is his responsibility. What do we want him to do, build a levee or something? I mean, a giant multi-state disaster has nothing to do with the federal government, right? Nope.

So according to this, the President has no responsibilities. He's done the impossible - made himself redundant, as they say in Britain. So I guess he can just go back to Crawford permanently and not bother us any further.

Whew. I feel better already!

UPDATE: Steve Gilliard has some great righteous anger to share. (Personally I loved the "live-action Chauncey Gardiner" line, which is spot-on.)

QUOTE OF THE DAY: From a wire story on tragically-unqualified FEMA head Michael Brown...

In Mobile, Ala., on Friday, Bush said the response to Katrina was unsatisfactory. But he had nothing but praise for his FEMA director. "Brownie, you're doing a heck of a job," the president said.

Hooray for the Accountability Administration!

Infinity

"A lot of the people -- a lot of the people who stayed wanted to do this destruction. They figured it out. And that's -- I'm not surprised."

-Bill O'Reilly last night, explaining that "a lot" of the people who remained in New Orleans did so because they were looking forward to looting

To Bill O'Reilly, John Gibson, Bill Whittle, and all the right-wing crapweasels who want to make this tragic story about the looting instead of about how thousands of people lay drowned in their ruined homes, and thousands more are stranded; to those who want to place the blame on the poor of New Orleans instead of the people who were supposed to save them:

Fuck you. Fuck you very much. Double-fuck you. Fuck you times infinity.

Thought experiment for right-wingers

It's 1993. Your city, and huge areas around it in several states, has been destroyed by [insert geographically appropriate natural disaster here]. Thousands are dead, hundreds of thousands are homeless, and your city is gone.

Bill Clinton is in Vail skiing with Robert Redford, and only returns to Washington after being shamed by members of his own party. He surveys the damage on the way back to D.C. by tipping the wing of Air Force One slightly. Secretary of State Madeleine Albright is on vacation in Boston, shopping and going to the theater. Speaker of the House Tom Foley gets on TV to say that maybe your city isn't worth rebuilding. When Clinton gets back to Washington, he's interviewed by Jane Pauley, and he says that, well, no one could have anticipated this disaster - even though it's common for the area, and he recently cut funding that could have helped. Clinton's FEMA director gets interviewed on the morning shows, and insists that "everything is fine," despite constant images and reports of the devastation and massive refugee movements.

Your reaction?

BONUS QUESTION: Remember your outrage - OUTRAGE - when Bill Clinton got his $200 haircut on Air Force One? Yeah.

Oh my freakin' god

Condi goes shoe shopping.

Wow. Just wow. Funny how it took this story to make my anger explode, where it was just simmering before.

And I'll echo Gawker, and say: Angry Lady, whoever you are, I love you.