I've got your official language right here

George W. Bush, call your office.

(stolen from August Pollak's xoverboard site.)

Slippytoad's got it right

Well, surprise: World Net Daily took the passage about Hitler and the Nazis out of the piece I wrote about last week. George Orwell, call your office. Meanwhile, a commenter on Crooks and Liars named Slippytoad pretty much summed up my feelings about the whole immigration "debate":

If you bothered to ask me what my position was, I would tell you very simply that we need to do three things: #1, we need to prosecute companies who wink and nod and hire illegals. This would stop the incentive for people to come in the country. If they don't have jobs to come to, they will stay home. #2, we need to make a serious and abiding effort to improve economic and trading relations with Mexico so that their economy is not an open cesspool of corruption and misery. We contributed to that mightily with the ill-conceived NAFTA giveaway to large corporations. We need leadership to come up with a trade program that actually improves economic conditions for everyone, instead of just for large companies. #3, we CANNOT deport 12 million people, and more importantly we should not. What we should do is make a sane and rational process for becoming naturalized that isn't up to the whims of paper-pushing assholes, and not insist on horrific punitive measures that are only there to make racist pricks feel good about "administerin' justice." The people are here, and they have families here, and some of them believe it or not are refugees from oppresive regimes who came to America because they thought it was the land of the free. We owe it to them to give them the opportunity to do it right, instead of wasting tremendous amounts of taxpayer money, blood, effort, and time doing a purely spiteful thing like yanking them out of the lives they have established here and putting them in tremendous peril, just because we've suddenly decided to enforce the rules that we've been winking and nodding at for 30 years. Large corporations enabled this situation by nudge nudging and selectively enforcing immigration laws. Nobody, especially the Republican Congress, deserves any political capital for suddenly creating a crisis out of whole cloth and capitalizing on it.

And that's what I'm really fucking sick of. The hysterical bullshit assertion that this is suddenly a crisis. Jesus Fuck, I grew up in Denver, Co, and know goddamn well what's going on. DO NOT presume to tell ME what I do or do not understand about immigration. You have no idea who I am or what I do or who I know, so you can climb off your fuckin' high horse of knowledge and come down here where your assertions stand or fall based on their truth. And the truth of it is, we are engaged in this discussion because Republicans are scared shitless of losing their base. And the reason they are using this issue is to scare their base with the image of a bunch of "filthy brown people" scumming up their alabaster fucking communities. And any impulse in that direction I encounter from anyone will be met with unremitting, withering scorn. Deal with the REAL ISSUE. Do not make up fake issues to scream about. I will mock you, I will get the facts, I will jam them right up your ass, and I will shut you down. Bank on it.

Explaining water to a goldfish

John Gibson went out of his way to be offended that anyone could have concluded that he was racist from his recent racist remarks about how white people need to have more babies to catch up to Hispanics. (I love it when they dig themselves in deeper.) His defense boiled down to "Hey, I love Mexicans. I just hate Muslims." Thanks for clearing that up, John. We were worried there for a minute.

Gibson's remarks led to a fantastic comment over at Digby's Hullabaloo site:

Once again, I spent the morning trying to explain 'water' to my goldfish. He listens well, but just doesn't see it.

It's like explaining racism to John Gibson.

How do you tell a blind person what 'red' is?

Quote of the Week

"I'm upset with the Democrats too. Because after all this time, they still haven't found one woman willing to have oral sex with President Bush so we can impeach him."

-Woman in the audience of the Stephanie Miller Show on Air America, broadcasting from the Barrymore Theater in Madison

Good for you, Russ (Part 352)

Why can't more Democrats stand up for what they believe in? Come on guys. The President's approval ratings are in the 20s. When are you going to grow a backbone?

My favorite little tidbit about the anti-gay-marriage vote detailed in the above link is how Arlen Specter voted for the ban in his Judiciary Committee, even though he's personally opposed to it, because it "deserves debate in the full Senate." Full-on crapweaselry on display these days.

Utopia - "Da Vinci Code" Pop Culture Edition

"People get so worked up over the historical accuracy of Jesus marrying Mary Magdalene and having a child. But they don't seem to have a problem with him coming back from the dead."

-David Farré, religious philosopher

At least they're honest

Some highlights from the Ultimate Crapweasel Media recently:

Fox's John Gibson says that it's white Americans' duty to make more babies, to counter the tide of brown people streaming across our borders.

A World Net Daily columnist says that deporting those millions of illegal Mexicans should be no problem - after all, look how quickly the Nazis got rid of 6 million Jews.

The thing is, I'm glad when the essential racism of the right wing gets thrust out in the open like this. I would much rather they be honest, than try to couch everything in mushy code-word rhetoric. Stand up for yourself, racists!

Hard to keep up

Tom Tomorrow's latest "This Modern World" cartoon brings up a crucial point I think is too often ignored in all this: why does this administration have any credibility left? When Bush and his surrogates like the odious Brit Hume on Fox News pat our heads and assure us that they're not doing anything wrong with all this spying and data mining, no, it's just to catch the bad guys - why does anyone believe them? Their stories change more often than a killer on "Law & Order."

And to those fuckheads like Brit Hume who are pushing the "hey, if you didn't do anything wrong, you don't have anything to worry about, right?" line of anti-American bullshit - and to those whom it comforts - I feel I need to again reprint some immortal lines from "A Man for All Seasons":

More: And go he should, if he were the devil himself, until he broke the law.
Roper: So now you'd give the devil benefit of law!
More: Yes. What would you do? Cut a great road through the law to get to the devil?
Roper: Yes! I'd cut down every law in England to do that.
More: Oh? And when the last law was down and the devil turned round on you - where would you hide, Roper, the laws all being flat? This country is planted thick with laws, from coast to coast, man's laws, not God's, and if you cut them down - and you're just the man to do it - do you really think you could stand upright in the winds that would blow then? Yes, I'd give the devil benefit of law - for my own safety's sake.

How low can he go?

29 percent.

Six point drop - in one month.

Poor Osama

"I sort of feel bad for Osama bin Laden. All these years hating us for our freedoms - and now he has to find a new reason to hate us."

-Bill Maher, "Real Time with Bill Maher"

Somewhat

Stephanopoulos: And is it curious to you that given how much control U.S. and coalition forces now have in the country, they haven’t found any weapons of mass destruction?

Rumsfeld: We know where they are. They’re in the area around Tikrit and Baghdad and east, west, south and north somewhat.

-"This Week," 3/30/03

Let's face it: Donald Rumsfeld isn't going anywhere. Bush firing Rumsfeld would be like firing himself - it would be admitting that his entire Iraq "experiment" (tm Dean Esmay), the centerpiece of his presidency, was a colossal mistake. So Rumsfeld stays.

But the quote above has always seemed to me to be a perfect encapsulation of the entire Iraq war, and in fact of the administration as a whole. In the first half of the quote, Rumsfeld "knows where [the WMD] are." And then seconds later, he proves for anyone who was even half listening that in fact they "know" nothing of the kind. (The "somewhat" is the cherry on top of the sundae.)

The simple fact is, no one who supported the war in Iraq, administration or citizen, much cared whether those pesky WMD existed or not. We needed to kick some Arab ass and this was the easiest target. The bully always picks on the weakest kid. (Is it any wonder that Iran wants to bulk up a little bit before recess?)

Meanwhile, we watch "United 93" so we can refresh the hatred and fear and hopelessness we felt that day. And we step out onto the playground with our dukes held up defiantly, waiting. For something.

Revulsion

Writing about Stephen Colbert's beyond-brilliant performance Saturday night at the White House Correspondents' Dinner, Scott Rosenberg of Salon wrote:

Just for a moment, Colbert brought a heavily sheltered President Bush face to face with the outrage and revulsion that large swathes of the American public feel for him and what he has done to our country.

Now see, I'm a word person. And when I or someone else use just the exact right word, I get a little chill of pleasure down my spine. That ever happen to you?

Well it happened to me when I read the word "revulsion." What a fantastic, fantastic word. Don't you just have the urge to find a way to work that into your regular conversation tomorrow? (Well, probably not. But I do.) It so perfectly characterizes the feeling I get when I consider our President and all he represents. Revulsion.

Of course, for those on the right that's just my (uncommon) admission of Bush Derangement Syndrome, the whacked-out hatred of Bush that has no basis in reality.

The thing is, it's all about reality. It's about where we came from, where we are, and where we are going. It's about our inability as a society to even agree on what "reality" is. Traitors and patriots staring at each other from each side of the looking glass, snarling and spitting.

It's about not only not trying to suppress our worst instincts, but reveling in them. It's about whittling the universe down to six inches in front of our faces - if that. It's about money and power and privilege and religion. It's about Dennis Hastert driving a hybrid car a block away from a photo op press conference, then jumping into an Escalade.

We know full well the Emperor has no clothes. And we don't care.

It's not really about Bush at all. He's just a symbol, a pawn in a high-stakes game he only partially understands. But that's part of the picture, too.

What I feel, all too often, is revulsion. Thanks, Scott Rosenberg, for giving me a word for it.

Crapweasels on parade

So Republican crapweasel Sen. Lamar Alexander wants to make a law saying that the U.S. National Anthem can only be sung in English - banning, say, the recent Spanish-language version coming smack-dab in the middle of immigrant protests that have Republicans all around the country looking sideways at their maids.

Too bad the cat's out of the bag - the anthem was already translated into Spanish. In 1919. Oops. Can't unring that bell. Stop them before they translate again!

And don't show Sen. Alexander this - he might have a seizure of some kind.

Just when you think these boobs can't get any more stupid, venal or irrelevant, they prove you wrong.

United 93

Dean Esmay, my favorite HIV-denying crackpot, is miffed that someone didn't praise the 9/11 movie "United 93" high enough for his taste. He links to a smirking review of the Salon review by someone called "Cranky Insomniac," who calls Salon "smug and French-sounding."

No doubt these people were captains of the debate team in high school.

Salon's Stephanie Zacharek feels pretty much like I do about the movie (which I haven't seen yet) - no matter how well-made it is, I wonder what the *point* of it is. Why does it exist? Clearly 9/11 is one of the most important historical moments any of us will ever experience, and as such I think it's more than fair game for dramatizations and discussions of all kinds. I even defended the film to a friend, who also hasn't seen it, who proclaimed it was "in bad taste" by definition. I disagree.

But unfortunately the project reminds me of "The Passion of the Christ," Mel Gibson's tragically wrongheaded version of Christ's crucifixion. If all we're shown is two hours of bloody torture, what do we learn about Christ's death? Similarly, what is the point of immersing us in the terror that those passengers felt?

Of course for Bush cultists, who wrap themselves in the fuzzy blanket of 9/11 on a nightly basis, that *is* the point of this movie. Because if it were up to them, we would all be watching footage of the twin towers exploding 24/7, our eyes propped open Clockwork-Orange-style so we couldn't look away, ever. No amount of outrage, and the reliving of outrage, is enough for them.

Well I have a message for those people: get the hell out of my mind. How dare you say that what I feel about 9/11 isn't enough. How dare you presume to tell me how I should interpret that event.

The tragedy of 9/11 is that it changed everything, and changed nothing. And no movie, no pundit, no stupid country song on the radio is going to erase that truth. Ever.

So true it hurts

Neal Gabler, who has the distinction of having Bill O'Reilly wanting him canned, had this to say about apparently true rumors that Fox News' Tony Snow will become the new White House Press Secretary:

"It would be a change in job title, but not description."

War with Iran

Is anyone else getting just a little sense of deja vu over the Iran war drumbeat? As Jon Stewart has said, it's only one letter away from Iraq. And the tactics seem identical - hype the threat, compare their leaders to Hitler, and try to pretend to be considering anything other than war while the war plans are being drawn up.

As Kevin Drum has said, this administration doesn't actually want to talk to Iran. Just as in Iraq, when they didn't want inspectors because it might remove their rationale for war, they don't want diplomacy in Iran for the same reason.

I believe the war is already set. The only thing we don't know is exactly what form it will take.

Well, actually, there's another thing we don't know about the War in Iran - who will it be blamed on? The press? Cindy Sheehan? Bill Clinton? (Blaming it on "the gays" is so 2001.) I've got one - illegal Mexicans! Brilliant!

And the world rolls on. For now.

The line is a dot

Digby says something I've been saying for a while now - are there any taboos left?

"You're so far over the line, you can't see the line. The line is a dot to you."
-Joey Tribbiani, "Friends"

A beaver and an artist

Because we all need a little humor these days.

Winston Smith puts it well

"I do not think [Bush and his administration] are evil and I do not think they are idiots. But I am fairly sure that they are fairly bad, and fairly sure that they are unwilling to consider even the possibility that they might be wrong. And at least as much harm has been done to the world by men such as these as has been done by history's pure villains.
...
OBL is a psychopath, but he has little power. Bush is merely a not-very-good man. But a psychopath with a pointy stick is nowhere near as dangerous as a not-very-good man with a wing of B-52s."

-Philosoraptor

Assimilate this, bitch

Now that the right wingers have settled on "throw the brown people out" as their chosen wedge issue for the 2006 midterm elections, we're seeing the return of a great code word: assimilation.

Why can't those brown people just stop speaking Spanish, stop waving flags around and get back to their jobs picking fruit and cleaning our toilets?

Frankly, the rhetoric surrounding "assimilation" and the brown peoples' resistance to it reminds me a little too much of the right-wing rhetoric about gay people. Why can't those gays just shut up about what they do in the bedroom? Why do they have to shove it in my face all the time? Why do they have to show up at the White House Easter Egg Roll and disrupt everything with their perverted desires?

There is a racist angle to all this. After all, Michelle Malkin isn't writing columns about how the St. Patrick's Day Parade is a rejection of American values.

But in the end, I think, the "assimilation" gambit is less about racism and more about the right wing's insistence that they and only they know the "proper" way to live, the "proper" way to be an American. How dare they think they can decide for anyone else what it means to be an American? How dare they decide that they are the final arbiter of what American culture should look like?

How dare they.

UPDATE: I have to say, with all the caterwauling about the "loss of American culture" (translation: too many brown people speaking gibberish), I get a little rush of pleasure thinking about Rick Santorum or Tom Tancredo waking up one morning and realizing that *he* was the minority.

It's not as pleasurable as the phrase "The Vice President shot an old man in the face," but it's close.

Bunker busters

Well, now according to Seymour Hersh of The New Yorker, Bush is planning to initiate nuclear war with Iran.

Great idea! I want to be one of the first to get behind this plan. After all, the only thing that can make our silk purse of a world even better would be to allow a President with a self-acknowledged messianic complex to initiate unprovoked nuclear war. It's the big prize we've all been waiting for. "Canticle for Leibowitz," here we come.

Sweet merciful Jesus.

Apparently the administration has already been briefing some members of Congress on the plan, and true to form, they've basically shrugged their shoulders and gone back to taking bribes from lobbyists. Reminds me of Tyler Durden's description of the people on airline safety cards: "Calm as Hindu cows."

I've said it before and I'll say it again: we richly deserve everything that's coming to us.

I'm not making this up

Ann Coulter's new book is coming out on 6/6/06.

Seriously.

Exhausted

So Scooter Libby's testimony in the Plame leak case says that Bush authorized leaking classified information in the effort to discredit Plame's husband, Joe Wilson. Then, of course, came months and months of posturing. Of course leaking is bad, says the President. Of course I'm going to get to the bottom of this, says the President. Anyone caught leaking will be shown the door, says the President.

But like so much else coming out of his mouth since he took office, that was a lie.

But hey, it's OK. These days, we can't even agree what a lie is. We can't agree what torture is, or what treason is. Hell, we don't even know what "war" is. Until Bush took office, I thought these were pretty easy concepts to understand. But no more. 9/11 changed everything, didn't you hear? Christians are now the persecuted ones. Up is down and green is blue. War is, literally, peace. Unless we say otherwise. And if you even start thinking that the Emperor has no clothes, we're going to drag you into the town square and set you on fire, you dirty terrorist-lover!

Does anyone care? Is anyone even listening anymore? (This morning, the day after Libby's testimony became public, the infamous "liberal press" didn't ask Scottie McClellan a single question about the Plame case. Not a single one.)

Not much else to say.

OMFG Quote of the Week

"It is simply amazing how some people will take the silk purse that is Iraq and try to mangle it into a sow's ear, based on nothing but press accounts and pessimistic analysts."

-Dean Esmay

Bonus bugfuck insane comment on Dean's "silk purse" post:

"If this is Vietnam, it's Vietnam done right."

Call McMann and Tate! We have a winner!

I wish I'd written this, Part Infinity

From Eschaton:

Kudos to Feingold for supporting gay marriage. It's the right thing to do, and we're the party of the gay anyway so we might as well be right on the morality. It's not as if we're gonna capture the hate the gay vote anyway, so it's time we had some political leaders who, you know, lead.

The endless waffling on these issues trying to find some incoherent middle ground makes politicians look bad.

I would add, it shames us all.

Ho, Ho, Hos

Rush Limbaugh, after calling an alleged rape victim a 'ho', said this by way of apology:

"I regret that you heard me say it."

Yes, Rush, we all regret every day that you don't keep most of your thoughts to yourself. Work on that and get back to us, OK? Thanks.

BONUS STUPID RIGHT-WING COMMENT:

As part of his remarks today announcing his resignation from Congress (yay!) Tom DeLay said that Democrats are "drunk with power."

Bush lied! Bonus

While I'm waiting for some video of Feingold on FNS this morning, here's a bonus link where Salon's Joe Conason discusses the "Saddam wouldn't let the inspectors in" lie that Bush told repeatedly.

Of course looking at it now, it's weird to call it a lie. Usually a lie is something told when the real truth, one way or another, isn't known by the people being told the lie. This is more like your next door neighbor meeting you on the sidewalk in a torrential downpour and exclaiming, "I love this sunny weather." It's a strange denial of a reality we all understand.

Still, in this Through the Looking Glass world we live in, we are surrounded by this sort of stuff. "Who you gonna believe - me or your lying eyes?" We don't torture. Saddam and Osama were friends. The war will be swift and cheap. Global warming is junk science. Gays are destroying marriage. Terri Schiavo is conscious.

We should be used to it by now.

Magnificent

That's the word for Russ Feingold's performance in the lion's den of Fox News Sunday earlier today. Here are some other words: forceful, strong, clear, commanding, ethical. He destroyed Chris Wallace's barrage of right-wing talking points on the censure, one by one.

This isn't about spying on terrorists. It's about whether we will require the President to act within the law.

I'm desperately hoping that someone like Crooks & Liars puts up video of Feingold's appearance, so I can link to it. If this man isn't the country's next President, we will all be the poorer for it.

Selling and buying

I love the new rhetoric of the right that the only thing the President has done wrong in Iraq is he's not good enough at "selling the war."

Selling the war. Hmmm. To me, Iraq isn't a used car, or a set of encyclopedias. It's a generational commitment to expend potentially unlimited amounts American blood and treasure in order to install democracy in the Middle East at the point of a gun. (It used to be about protecting America, but that's *so* 2003.)

I don't think that the American people should have to be "sold" on a war. The case should be so clear, so obvious that no "selling" should be involved. A war should be scuba equipment in the ocean, not a Hummer in the suburbs.

Cleansing the palate

People who live in America are Americans. People who live in England are English. People who live in France are French.

But people who live in Holland are Dutch.

What's up with that?

Facts are funny

When George W. Bush took office, the national surplus was $236 billion.

After six years of Republican control, the national debt is now $400 billion.

Recently, Congress approved raising our debt ceiling (think of it like filling out all those pre-approved credit card apps that come in the mail - all at once) to $9 trillion. According to the London Times, that amount of money would buy you 28 full-size replicas of the Eiffel Tower - in pure gold. (Or 9,000 Buckingham Palaces. Presumably, not in gold.)

Thanks to Democratic Underground, which basically wrote this post for me. But I thought it was too good not to share.

'They are animals'

Well, now that RedState founder Ben Domenech has been forced to resign from his job as the WashingtonPost.com's resident conservative blogger because of a rather extensive history of plagiarism, the knives are out as usual. This is my favorite line from a commenter:

I repeat: Should the entire American Left fall over dead tomorrow, I would rejoice, and order pizza to celebrate. They are not my countrymen; they are animals who happen to walk upright and make noises that approximate speech. They are below human. I look forward to seeing each and every one in Hell.

You first, buddy.

The Iraq War: A Play in One Act

Now that the "blame the media" meme is back at full strength, thanks to people like Laura Ingraham demanding that the Today Show broadcast footage of smiling Iraqi children, I thought it would be a good time to reprint something written back in June 2004 by Adam Blust on his now-defunct weblog, Words Mean Things.

The Iraq War: A Play in One Act

RIGHT: That hornet's nest is interfering with my enjoyment of our tree. Let's poke it and get all those hornets out.

LEFT: What, are you crazy?

RIGHT: No, it's a great plan. I have this giant stick and I'm not using it at all. Here goes!

[frenzied poking]

[swarm of hornets emerge, stinging both Right and Left]

RIGHT: Damn you, Left! You didn't help me poke! This is all your fault.

Finis.

Bush broke the law

It was fun on "Fox News Sunday" this week to watch Brit Hume skate close to a stroke when Juan Williams had the temerity to suggest that The Great and Powerful Bush might have, in fact, broken the law by doing warrantless wiretaps. (At least this time Hume didn't suggest, as he did in a recent FNS dustup, that Williams be "hosed down." Nice, Brit. Fucker.)

Well, for all those still clinging to "we need to investigate before we determine whether Bush broke the law," as usual my new hero Glenn Greenwald breaks it down:

1. FISA requires warrants.
2. Bush didn't get warrants.

Neither of those facts are in dispute.

"An investigation cannot answer the question as to whether U.S. Senators ought to take a stand against deliberate and ongoing lawbreaking by a President. Only U.S. Senators can answer that question, and they already have all the facts that are relevant to that question already before them. Claiming that they need further 'investigation' before taking a position is nothing short of an abdication of their responsibilities, an obvious tactic for avoiding the question of whether they oppose lawbreaking by the President."

The way-back machine, remix

February 24, 2001: "Saddam Hussein has not developed any significant capacity with respect to weapons of mass destruction," says Secretary of State Colin Powell. "He is unable to project conventional power against his neighbors."

July 29, 2001: "We are able to keep [Saddam's] arms from him," NSC advisor Rice tells the media. "His military forces have not been rebuilt."

Now that we're entering the fourth year of the war in Iraq, isn't it tragic and sick how truthful and accurate those statements were?

More compare and contrast:

"Fuck Saddam. We're taking him out."
-President George W. Bush, March 2002

"To assume I wanted war is flat wrong, with due respect. No president wants war. It's simply not true."
-President George W. Bush, March 21, 2006

These days, even humor can hurt

Senate to legalize Watergate break-in

While stuff like this is still funny and clever, at this point reading it is like laughing while hitting my elbow against the table edge and getting that nerve-twinge pain.

Bush Lied!

My position all along, despite the braying from people like Dean Esmay, was not that the President lied about Iraq. My position was that he didn't know whether what he was saying was true or not, and didn't care. This applies to the "16 words," the mushroom cloud, the aluminum tubes, everything. (Of course, this applies to the domestic spying, as well. He didn't know whether what he was doing was legal, and didn't care.) In every instance, it sounded good, and it furthered his agenda. That's all that mattered.

A perfect example of this was the President's recent assertion that roadside bomb IEDs in Iraq were coming from Iran. The funny thing was, when reporters asked Gen. Pace, chairman of the Joint Chiefs, about this, he admitted that they have no proof of this. But it sounds good, and in fact, Bush's assertion received a lot more press, even after Pace's denial, than the denial. Examples like this are legion in the last four years. Remember Condi Rice's "smoking gun will be a mushroom cloud"? Yeah. Same thing. Sounds good, gets people riled up, and the actual truth is pretty much irrelevant.

"I believe it is an established maxim in morals that he who makes an assertion without knowing whether it is true or false is guilty of falsehood, and the accidental truth of the assertion does not justify or excuse him."
-Abraham Lincoln

Fantasy and reality

Went with some friends to see "V for Vendetta" on the Madison IMAX last night. While it was well-shot, well-produced and well-acted, for me it just didn't have the emotional punch I was expecting. The movie skillfully translates the original comic book's outrage at the Thatcher administration in England to the current War on an Abstract Concept, even though the setting remains London. But for me, the revolutionary oomph fell flat.

I guess I have outrage fatigue. When the Attorney General of the United States testifies before Congress (not under oath, but still) that Congress can certainly suggest things, and the administration will consider them, where do we have to go from there?

Back in reality, people like John Aravosis of AMERICAblog are saying beautifully all the things that I don't have the strength for right now.

The lesson, my friends, is that no matter what you do, Rush Limbaugh is going to crow about it, Ken Mehlman is going to do a mass-mailing about it, and the American Family Association will launch a boycott over it.

And even if you choose to do nothing, all of them will still attack you, claiming that you did something you didn't do.

So the choice for Democrats is to sit on their asses and do nothing, while Republicans criticize them unjustly, or to launch an all-out attack on the GOP while the Republicans criticize them unjustly.

When half the country fails to vote it's because they realize they're not represented by an political party. Almost half the country supports censuring the president. That's not half the Democratic party, that's half the country.

We ARE the majority of the country. The Republicans represent a 30-percent-or-so minority, that's it. They've only got the Terri Schiavo voters - the rest they get by default because we suck. They don't get 51% by choice. The majority of the country supports Democratic policies. We simply need some Democrats who have the nerve to stand up and say it, and fight for it.

Sick fucks

Here's a sample of what passes for mainstream opinion over at FreeRepublic.com:

I am FED UP with the crap coming out of Washington. Maybe this country needs another Pearl Harbor to wake up completely. Maybe we need to lose DC in order to wake up. For God's sakes I am SICK of the crap that gets passed as a national platform for Republicans. NO ONE is thinking about the border.

Translation: I am so disgusted with brown people that I would welcome my nation's capital be destroyed, hopefully by terrorist nuke. U.S.A.! U.S.A.!

UPDATE: And over at Michelle Malkin's place, with all that's going on in the world, her top post right now is about.....

wait for it.....


9/11.

(You saw that coming, right?)

Stop being weak and be strong

I've said for months and years now that all the American electorate cares about is strength. If you're strong, it doesn't matter what your policy positions are; we like you. And of course the opposite is true. It doesn't matter if you have the greatest ideas in the world, or even if the voters agree with you. If they think you're weak, they hate you. See: Bush and Kerry. Policy pales into meaninglessness against this emotional calculus.

The Feingold censure resolution is another prime example of this truth. As usual, Glenn Greenwald says it eloquently and forcefully:

And, at bottom, what this whole episode illustrates, yet again, is that if Democrats want to be perceived as strong, and if they want to lose the albatross of being pereceived as weak, what they have to do is extremely simple and clear -- stop being weak and be strong. Who appears stronger and more resolute right now -- Russ Feingold, or the Democrats scurrying around in the dark, afraid of their own shadows and petrified of standing up to a weakened President who got caught breaking the law?

The personal responsibilty and morality administration

So did you hear the one about the guy who is charged with $5,000 in retail fraud at Target? The guy who would buy items, then return to the store with the receipt, grab an identical item from the shelf, and then demand a refund for the item he didn't purchase?

As Paul Harvey would say.....and that man was Claude Allen, President Bush's former top domestic policy advisor and nominee to the U.S. Court of Appeals. Great way to restore honor and credibility to the Oval Office. Bravo. Next stop, smashing kittens with hammers! Tonight on FOX!

Everything these guys touch is turning to crap. And it couldn't happen to a more deserving bunch.

Good for you, Russ

I just called Senator Herb Kohl's office to urge him to support Russ Feingold's censure of Bush over the illegal wiretapping. As expected, Kohl "hasn't taken a position" on the issue. Yeah. OK. Good job, Herb. Way to put yourself out there. (See Update IV below.)

But hey, none of this matters anyway, right? Feingold is just another crazy liberal elitist terrorist-loving America-hating baby killer, emboldening our enemies in a time of war with his pitiful attempt to attack The Great and Powerful Bush. And who doesn't want us to spy on towelheads who want to kill us? Traitors, that's who. Anyway, Bush didn't violate FISA. Or if he did, it's OK because Congress said he could do whatever he wanted. Or if Congress didn't tell him, really the Constitution says the President can disregard any law that gets in the way of potentially killing towelheads. Because the President's war powers, in a war he declared, are infinite. So FISA is actually unconstitutional! Or something like that. Give me a few more hours watching Fox and I'll be up to speed.

UPDATE: Egregious weasel words from Michigan Sen. Carl Levin on Feingold's censure resolution:

"I think criticism of the president is legitimate," Levin said. "I think we ought to welcome some checks and balances on the president."

"Welcome" "some" checks and balances, Carl? How about "demand" "all"? This is still America. For now.

UPDATE II: Glenn Greenwald on how the administration lies to try to defend itself. They are utterly shameless.

UPDATE III: It's really a shame when only one Democrat in the whole fucking Congress is willing to stand up against a President who has not only violated the law and consistently lied to the American public, but who is at 34-freaking-percent in the polls. Every single one of those cowering, simpering weasels should be thrown out on their asses. And then beaten severely about the head and shoulders with a large tuna.

UPDATE IV: Well as expected, Herb Kohl wimped out and wouldn't support his Wisconsin colleague.

"As the Senate continues to investigate the president's implementation of the domestic eavesdropping program, it is not clear that censuring the president is the most effective way to bring that program into line with our need to protect national security and civil liberties."

Thanks, Herb.

Bravo, George

"And finally, I would say that, you know, we are a little bit out of touch in Hollywood every once in a while. I think it's probably a good thing. We're the ones who talked about AIDS when it was just being whispered, and we talked about civil rights when it wasn't really popular. And we, you know, we bring up subjects. This Academy, this group of people, gave Hattie McDaniel an Oscar in 1939 when blacks were still sitting in the backs of theaters. I'm proud to be a part of this Academy, proud to be part of this community, and proud to be out of touch."

-George Clooney, accepting the Best Supporting Actor Oscar for "Syriana"

Since I readily admit my faults, I'll admit a special charge when Clooney won, because I knew somewhere, Bill O'Reilly's head was exploding.

He should stay away from phones altogether

Apparently now, Bill "Shut up!" O'Reilly is threatening callers to his radio show who mention rival Keith Olbermann with retaliation from the Fox News security staff. Good move, Bill.

Obviously poor Bill is stressed. Even Juan Williams can't calm him down these days. What the man needs, clearly, is a complete falafel rubdown.

Hard to be freaked out anymore

In a Zogby poll out just a few days ago, 85 percent of troops serving in Iraq believe the U.S. mission there was "to retaliate for Saddam's role in the 9-11 attacks."

85 percent!

We are so fucked.

Cognitive dissonance

I'm convinced that at this point, supporting President Bush and his war is becoming increasingly painful for those in the Bush Frat. (I used to call it the Bush Cult, but I've downgraded it, mainly because I think it's a more accurate description of the phenomenon.) Psychic pain, I mean. They might want to jump ship, but they've put so much energy and time into supporting this guy that the more things go south, the more motivation they have to hang on. If they jump, that means they have to admit that their whole worldview was a mistake in the first place.

That's why fraternities put pledges through so much hell. Because psychologically, these young men think, hey, if I put up with all this in order to become a member of this group, I'm going to value that membership above all else. No criticism of my frat will be allowed. I will never betray my frat brothers. If being a part of this group is meaningless, then I ate all those goldfish and wrestled naked in the quad for no reason. And no one wants to admit that.

As the great Robert Cialdini, author of "Influence," said:

Once we make a choice or take a stand, we will encounter personal and interpersonal pressures to behave consistently with that commitment. Those pressures will cause us to respond in ways that justify our earlier decision. We simply convince ourselves that we have made the right choice and, no doubt, feel better about our decision. It is, quite simply, our desire to be (and to appear) consistent with what we have already done.

Bush Frat Brothers have been through a lot - Plame, Katrina, Gitmo, Abu Ghraib, no WMDs, Halliburton, Iraq, port security, and on and on and on. They sure as hell can't back out now.

Glenn Greenwald hits it out of the park again

"Those who insisted on this war, who started it, who prosecuted it, who controlled every single facet of its operation – they have no blame at all for the failure of this war. Nope. They were right all along about everything. It all would have worked had war critics just kept their mouths shut. The ones who are to blame are the ones who never believed in this war, who control no aspect of the government, who were unable to influence even a single aspect of the war, who were shunned, mocked and ridiculed, and who have been out of power since the war began. They are the ones to blame. They caused this war to fail."

-Glenn Greenwald on the right's refusal to take personal responsibility for the war in Iraq, an "experiment" (tm Dean Esmay) that even William F. Buckley admits has failed.

Apparently, the U.S. Coast Guard is racist

Racist, I tells ya.

Love the graphic

Love it. Love it. Love it.

Bush Ratings At All-Time Low

34 percent! Cheney at 18 percent!

Live by the sword, die by the sword, motherfuckers.

Forgot this one

During the "Cheney's Got a Gun" incident, everyone's favorite falafel, Bill O'Reilly, was fond of saying that the Vice President of the United States shooting a guy in the face just wasn't a big deal, and that it didn't affect the lives of average American citizens one bit.

To which I say, Natalee Holloway. Fox News, heal thyself.

(Oh, and the "War on Christmas," and how brown people will give you anthrax, and Air America's finances, and George Clooney's politics, and oh-dear-god-in-heaven whatever Dick Morris thinks about anything.)

Hey, at least he's honest

Bask in the glory of this bracing rant from man's-man Guy Adams (even his name is masculine - and check out the 'stache!):

The secularization of America

If only the rest of the right wing was as honest in their rhetoric.

RELATED: Why do all these homosexuals keep sucking my cock?

A MESSAGE TO GUY: It might interest you to know that your celebrity hero, Stephen Baldwin, once starred in a movie called "Threesome," where he played a college-age male slut who ended up in the title entanglement with both a woman and a gay man. Chew on that for a while.

Hell forecast: frozen over

Bush cultists all over the place are freaking out about the latest Rasmussen poll, which shows that Americans now trust Democrats more than Bush when it comes to national security.

National. Security.

Wow.

Hmm. I guess turning over the operation of our ports to a terrorist-friendly government might not be the absolute best idea after all. Who knew?

Mmmmmm. Chocolate mousse....

Of cabbages and kings

Great comment on Balloon Juice from the always-interesting ppGaz, on the UAE port deal:

It’s really the same issue as the Cheney lawyer-shoot story. It’s about the arrogance and fuck-you attitude of these people. The NSA story strikes me as being in the same category. For that matter, the whoe Iraq war is in this category.

These are people who don’t like process, because it gets in their way. They don’t like courts. They don’t like the legislative branch. They don’t like the press. They really don’t like the people. They want to do whatever they want to do, and fuck anyone who doesn’t like it.

When the apologists and the spinmonkeys are playing with their feet and wondering why we “hate Bush”—this is why. This is exactly. America is all about the rejection of the King model of government. These people want to be kings.

Delicious

Well the latest defense/attack strategy of the Bush Cultists who are defending the UAE port deal is that people who don't like it are "racist." Hmmm.

Which means that people like Bill O'Reilly are in effect calling people like Michelle Malkin, who wrote "In Defense of Internment," racist.

Delicious, delicious irony. It's like the chocolate mousse of irony. Sweet and creamy and chocolatey.

It's funny because the Bush Cultists are trying to ignore the fact that people on the right also oppose this deal. They are trying to squeeze their eyes shut really tight and convince themselves that this is just traitorous Commies and their George-Clooney-loving friends in the traitorous mainstream media. But it's not. It's Bill Frist and it's Peter King. It's Lindsay Graham and Sean Hannity. And it's Michelle Malkin. Open your eyes, cult members. You can handle it.

There's nothing better than the rare sight of people on the right tearing each other apart, hammer and tongs. Because when they turn their guns on each other, only little gobbets of flesh are left. You always hurt the ones you love.

The Republican-English Dictionary

Good stuff. On the mark.

Dick Cheney: Moral coward

Well, that's Josh Marshall's take, anyway. I thought it would make a good headline, and intro to his piece about Mary Matalin's dissembling over the "Cheney's Got a Gun" incident. He's got Mary cold.

The thing is, I sort of admire Cheney in a bizarre way. With him, what you see is what you get. Not like Bush, who hides behind a rather absurd hail-fellow-well-met, all-hat-no-cattle sensibility. Cheney doesn't do pretense. Which is why it was so hard for him to do even the soft Brit Hume mea culpa, which he only did when the Prez leaned on him. I'm sure he honestly believed that he had nothing to explain, nothing to apologize for. He knows he comes off like the Emperor in Star Wars, and he's OK with that. Good for him.

The gang that couldn't shoot straight (literally)

Well now we find out that the Bush administration is outsourcing our major port operations to the United Arab Emirates, a country with ties to the 9/11 hijackers. Michael Chertoff, who oversaw the many failures of Katrina, and Condoleeza Rice, who was national security advisor during the largest attack ever on U.S. soil, have been making the rounds defending this decision.

But of course they can't really specifically defend it, because that stuff is classified, you see.

Why does half of the country trust these people? And don't tell me it's because we haven't been hit since 9/11. That's a false conclusion. Al Qaeda takes *years* between attacks. They wait. They plan. And considering the criminally-negligent security at our ports and chemical and nuclear plants, their job probably isn't all that hard.

And Bill O'Reilly and Michelle Malkin want you to think that the greatest threat to your security in Ottumwa, Iowa is an undocumented Mexican.

UPDATE: President Bush, who hasn't vetoed a bill in his five years in office, promises that if Congress tries to block the port deal, he'll stop that cold. Good job, Mr. President! Protect the hell out of us.

UPDATE II: Shepard Smith on (gasp of surprise) Fox News had the following tack: Hey, since we don't really search the containers anyway, why does it matter who runs the ports?

Oh and BTW, Bush didn't know about the sale to the UAE until it was already done. Yep - eye on the ball, that's these guys.

Oh my freakin' god

Actual CNN headline:

Shooting victim apologizes to vice president

Anyone who doubts that we live in an absolutely batshit crazy time should print out that headline and look at it several times a day. Because that, my friends, is the world we live in.

Anyone got any vodka? Or grain alcohol?

RELATED POST BELOW: Congress, why do you have to make me hit you like that?

RELATED: Iraq apologizes for being invaded

UPDATE: VP Accident Tale Filled with Discrepancies

AND THIS...

The shooting could hardly be a better metaphor for Cheney. It neatly packages his faulty judgment, insularity and arrogance in a story that is not cataclysmic on its own terms but will prove hard to forget. That's too bad for Cheney, and certainly for Harry Whittington. But it is a blessing for anyone hoping to restore some accountability to a government that increasingly believes it is a law unto itself.

-Jonathan Alter, Newsweek

Oh and one more thing...

While ranch owner Katherine Armstrong told the media initially that absolutely no alcohol had been consumed by the hunting party, Cheney did tell Brit Hume that he had "had a beer at lunch." This line was conveniently removed from the broadcasted interview and the posted transcript.

As one commenter elsewhere noted, "I'll stop calling this administration 'Orwellian' when they stop using '1984' as their political playbook."

Mr. Vice President? Your kitten hammer is ready.

Why all the hysteria? The vice president accidentally shot a hunting companion with buck-shot over the weekend. He is in "very stable condition." The media were not notified for some time. And we're all supposed to be worked up about that?...Who cares? I don't.

-Mark Levin, National Review Online

Congress, why do you have to make me hit you like that?

Forgot to mention this gem from Attorney General Alberto Gonzales' testimony about the domestic spying:

"Well, Senator, I'll repeat what the president has said, and that is to the extent that Congress wants to suggest legislation, obviously, we'll listen to your ideas."

Hmmm. So now Congress just "suggests" stuff, and maybe, just maybe, King George will consider it. How magnanimous of him.

A prediction

If a Republican wins the White House in 2008 (I give it an 85 percent chance), that person is going to make George W. Bush look like a piker. We will look back fondly at the restraint and common sense of the GWB administration.

The future's so bright, I gotta retreat into my concrete-reinforced fallout shelter.

Deprogramming

Glenn Greenwald absolutely nails it in his deconstruction of what I have come to call the Bush Cult. All that matters to these people is fealty to one man, George W. Bush. Bush tomorrow announces that we are in a War on Peanut Butter, and these people organize a peanut butter bonfire within hours. Past statements in support of peanut butter never happened. John Kerry loves peanut butter. Anyone who questions this new PBW are traitorous bastards who should be hanged until they are dead, dead, dead. (Or suffocated in peanut butter. Whichever is handier.)

I've been saying this stuff for years. Sadly, at this point, the small number of people who are even willing to broach the subject won't make much of a difference. The cultists have to leave on their own power. We can't kidnap half of the nation and throw them in a van.

UPDATE: As Glenn's commenters, and Glenn himself, point out, this isn't really a Bush Cult. It's an authoritarian cult. It can (and most likely will) be transferred to whoever succeeds Bush in the White House. It's comforting to think we have an all-knowing, all-seeing leader who can protect us and love us. Too bad it's all a fiction.

Best blog comment of the week

In a post on Balloon Juice about how Dick Cheney accidentally shot someone on a quail hunting trip in Texas:

How come we never hear any good news about hunting accidents?

(Just for the record: the man Cheney shot was *not* Scooter Libby. And to be fair, he probably shouldn't have been wearing that novelty quail costume.)

UPDATE: I find the sentence "Dick Cheney shot a guy in the face" to be strangely invigorating.

UPDATE II: In response to leads like this from the Washington Post:

"Vice President Cheney accidentally sprayed a companion with birdshot while hunting quail on a private Texas ranch."

Atrios has an object lesson.

Bush's "Pre-1776 mentality"

If there is a shred of justice and decency left in this country by then, Russ Feingold should be President come January 2009.

I hope we can wait that long.

Where are we?

• Those who criticize the government are routinely branded as traitors.
• The executive branch has unlimited power, and no accountability to either the people or the legislature.
• Political opposition is nearly non-existent.
• The government takes prisoners who are tortured and held without representation or charges for months or years in secret facilities.
• Intellectuals and universities are routinely considered fifth columns. Anti-intellectualism is rampant.
• Those who strive for civil liberties, both at home and abroad, are demonized.
  
• The government has started a war that has no definition, and no end. Only the government has the power to define this war and its combatants, however it sees fit.
• The press participates eagerly in the propagandization of the people, and requires no accountability from the government.

Where do we live? What year is this?

Memo to Tom Vilsack

...and all the other spineless Dems who will have to stop acting like beaten dogs and abused spouses before something gets changed in this country:

This isn't about keeping us safe. This is about whether the President is above the law.

Is that too hard to understand? Because if it is, or you can't articulate that simple, basic idea to the public, then pack your bags and go home. Now.

You just can't make this stuff up

When Sen. Joe Biden asked Attorney General Alberto Gonzales whether al Qaeda members wouldn't just *assume* they were being monitored on the phone, leak or no leak, Gonzales responded:

"If they're not reminded about it all the time in newspapers and in stories, they sometimes forget."

Wily terrorist scum or Forrest Gump? You decide.

UPDATE: Another gem from Gonzales:

"President Washington, President Lincoln, President Wilson, President Roosevelt have all authorized electronic surveillance on a far broader scale."

UPDATE II: True, but sad, words from a site called "Right Wing Nut House":

"No GOP senator would ever do anything to harm Bush in the NSA hearings. Ever. The Dems are in the minority. Hence the outcome of these hearings is immaterial, and thus so are the hearings."

WTF?

Apparently Attorney General Alberto Gonzales wasn't under oath when he testified today about the NSA spying program. This is because Russ Feingold, bless his heart, demanded that Gonzales be sworn in, and the Republicans blocked it.

Honor and credibility. Yep.

The U.S. Attorney General isn't willing to say, under oath, why the illegal domestic spying program was, in, fact, legal.

When is enough enough? What's the tipping point? Does it exist?

Why does he have to lie like that?

AKA "I'm so sick of this shit, Part Deux"

"Secondly, there are such things as roving wiretaps. Now, by the way, any time you hear the United States government talking about wiretap, it requires -- a wiretap requires a court order. Nothing has changed, by the way. When we're talking about chasing down terrorists, we're talking about getting a court order before we do so. It's important for our fellow citizens to understand, when you think Patriot Act, constitutional guarantees are in place when it comes to doing what is necessary to protect our homeland, because we value the Constitution."

-George W. Bush, April 20, 2004

I'm getting so sick of this shit

More evidence now comes out that Bush told Tony Blair months before the start of the war in Iraq that the U.S. was going to attack no matter what - the weapons, any real threat, didn't matter. Further, Bush floated a plan to disguise a U.S. spy plane as a United Nations plane, trying to goad Saddam into shooting it down and thus justify the already-inevitable conflict.

But that's OK, right? Yeah. No problem there. Nope. It's all good. Protecting us. 9/11. Terra. Yep.

Hey, is "Survivor" on?

Amen, brother

"I don’t know why Republicans would feel any concern aboout the 2006 election. If Democrats continue on the path they’ve been on for the last 13 or so months - that is, capitulation, wimpiness, flip-flopping - the GOP should expect either the status quo or to pick up seats in the House and Senate. They’ll deserve it, because at least they want to fight for their side, no matter how evil their intent may be."

-Oliver Willis

My only State of the Union analysis

Mrs. K: Anyone have any questions?
Bart: How would I go about creating a half-man, half-monkey-type creature?
Mrs. K: I'm sorry, that would be playing God.
Bart: God shmod! I want my monkey-man!

That's about all it warrants.

Reason No. 1,634 why I love Molly Ivins

Bush, Cheney and Co. will continue to play the patriotic bully card just as long as you let them. I've said it before: War brings out the patriotic bullies. In World War I, they went around kicking dachshunds on the grounds that dachshunds were "German dogs." They did not, however, go around kicking German shepherds. The minute that someone impugns your patriotism for opposing this war, turn on them like a snarling dog and explain what loving your country really means.

-Molly Ivins, "Put up or shut up," 1/22/06

I don't support Hillary Clinton either, Molly. Hillary's always struck me as the worst sort of pandering, triangulating, which-way-is-the-wind-blowing sort of politician. And it disgusts me that the crapweasel right is able to paint Cindy Sheehan as "the left" simply because of the vacuum on the left side of the aisle.

Why doesn't anyone have the courage of their convictions? Most Americans *don't* support this President or his war, but yet all we get is Joe Lieberman doing his Droopy Dog impression on Meet the Press. That's maddening.

Like women in the corporate world, progressives have to be 10 times better than the ruling right in order to be considered equal. But with this crowd, why is that so hard?

What are the odds? Part Deux

Glenn Greenwald has his own (perhaps more cogent and relevant) take on my "what are the odds?" post from a while back.

Putting the terrorist threat into perspective

An eye-opening contrast from Glenn's article:

The total number of Americans killed by Islamic terrorists in the last 5 years -- or 10 years -- or 20 years -- or ever -- is roughly 3,500, the same number of deaths by suicide which occur in this country every month. This is the overarching threat around which we are constructing our entire foreign policy, changing the basic principles of our government, and fundamentally altering both our behavior in the world and the way in which we are perceived.

Where's the difference?

"Bin Laden was a self-mythologized figure of no historic standing until George W. Bush designated him America's equal by defining 9/11 as an act of war to be met with war, instead of a crime to be met with criminal justice."

-James Carroll, The Boston Globe, Jan. 30, 2006

This quote got me thinking again about being "at war," and the President being a "war President." The bombing of the Federal Building in Oklahoma City was an act of terrorism carried out by a small group of people in order to effect political change. So were the attacks of 9/11. Why was one an act of war, and the other not?

Exercising my infamous hyperbole, why didn't we bomb wherever we thought McVeigh's associates could be hiding? Why didn't we round up all their families and associates, and imprison them without representation at secret sites until they divulged all they knew? Why wasn't the OKC bombing the beginning of the "War on Anti-Government Extremism"? This of course would result in the routing and killing of hundreds of militia members across the nation. After all, their anti-government views are an imminent danger to the society.

Why didn't this happen? Where's the difference?

UPDATE: More thought-provoking stuff on war here and here at Digby's place. One snippet:

The fevered one-handed war blogging and the endless evocations of pre-9/11 and post 9/11 thinking reminds me of nothing so much as people who are hooked on a stimulating drug.

Conservative humor update

"We need somebody to put rat poisoning in Justice Stevens' creme brulee," [Ann] Coulter said. "That's just a joke, for you in the media."

And when Bill O'Reilly called for terrorists to bomb San Francisco, that was a joke too. I guess conservatives can say whatever insane, vile things they want, as long as they chuckle with that creepy GWB chuckle and say, "Just a joke, folks. When I said I wanted you dead, hey, that was just a joke! Don't you have a sense of humor, you fascist?"

The word "fuckers" is losing its effectiveness when describing these people, sort of like an antibiotic that's been overwhelmed by a new strain of ebola. I need a new word.

State of the Union: Preview

9/11.
Iraq.
Hard work.

9/11.

Thank you and good night.

Bush cultists' latest line

Troops don't need all that stinkin' armor! It's too heavy! Weighs ya down. (Those armored Humvees are probably a waste as well. Maybe we could use Ford Escorts? A real warrior doesn't need a metal cage to protect him, am I right?)

It's official. There is no depth to which Bush blowjobbers like Dean Esmay will not sink to defend the immoral, criminal policies of this administration. My "ritual puppy slaughter" and August Pollack's "Dead Kitten Survey" don't go far enough.

As Joey Tribbiani said, "You are so over the line that you can't even see the line. The line is a dot to you."

UPDATE: My father didn't want to wear his seat belt, because it was uncomfortable across his giant belly. Therefore, we should get rid of all seat belts, right? That's the cultists' "logic" on this. Of course, it's not really logic. It's just craven talking points designed to exonerate Bush and Rumsfeld from any responsibility in how they run the war they started. Fuckers.

He’s the President. He’s got a hammer. There’s a kitten sitting on his desk. What more reason does a man need?

I love August Pollak. And it appears that he and I are on the same wavelength.

Men feared witches and burnt women

Al Gore. Wow. Read the whole thing.

I hope Al Gore runs for President. And I hope he kicks Hillary's ass.

What are the odds?

Since 9/11, Americans have been gripped with an almost all-consuming fear of terrorism. I'm convinced that this is the reason so many people are willing to let their government do virtually anything, as long as it's ostensibly done in the name of Fighting Terrorists.

(To any pro-Bush people who might be reading this, my question is, how far is too far? What could the government do that would be too extreme for you? As a society right now we seem basically comfortable with torture, imprisonment without representation, curtailing press freedoms, and warrantless spying on American citizens. What exactly is left?)

The thing is, your chances of getting killed by a terrorist on American soil are almost laughably small. You're 1,300 times more likely to die at the hands of a cigarette than a terrorist. 1,300.

But let's take a more realistic example. You're 85 times more likely to die in an auto accident in this country than be killed by a terrorist. But would you support the President severely curtailing your rights, in order to possibly reduce the threat of auto accidents? He could make everyone take a road test every year. He could require auto makers to encase their vehicles in bubble wrap. The punishment for a moving violation would be 10 years in Guantanamo. Also, only one car per household. After all, fewer cars, fewer accidents. Heavy drinkers, turned in by neighbors, could be spied on to make sure they wouldn't get behind the wheel. Drunk driving gets the death penalty.

Sound OK? I mean, why doesn't the President campaign on his ability to save us from auto accidents? They are orders of magnitude more of a threat to the safety and security of you and your family than getting gassed or nuked or otherwise blown up by dusky people with strange religions.

We know this intellectually. But in the Hindbrain Administration, thinking takes a backseat. That's where we get in trouble.

HOMER: Not a bear in sight. The Bear Patrol must be working like a charm.
LISA: That's specious reasoning, Dad.
HOMER: Thank you, dear.
LISA: By your logic I could claim that this rock keeps tigers away.
HOMER: Oh, how does it work?
LISA: It doesn't work.
HOMER: Uh-huh.
LISA: It's just a stupid rock.
HOMER: Uh-huh.
LISA: But I don't see any tigers around, do you?
[Homer thinks of this, then pulls out some money]
HOMER: Lisa, I want to buy your rock.

It's time we stop shopping for rocks.

Methinks they doth protest...

It always gives me a chuckle when the cave dwellers at Free Republic start talking about pop culture. Their idea of pop culture begins and ends with "Bonanza," so it's always funny to see them rage against the dying of the light.

Particularly funny are the posts every year about the Oscars, where they pile on and spend pages and pages to shout how Hollywood is just a bunch of perverted Commie fags and of course, they wouldn't watch the Oscars anyway if someone pried open their eyelids like in "Clockwork Orange." On and on they go, each trying to outdo the previous exhortation of hatred toward movies and TV in this debauched age. They rage and rage until they are hoarse, and presumably need to chill out in front of a 3 a.m. showing of "Naughty Cheerleaders 12" on the Spice Channel.

It's especially funny this year, because the movie they all fear more than a terrorist attack, "Brokeback Mountain," where two men kiss (ack!), is a serious contender. One of the earlier Brokeback/Oscar threads got 345 (!) comments.

Could we be...ahem.....repressing anything at all? Anything? No? OK. Well, wrestling is on in a few minutes. You like wrestling, right?

Bush lied!

Boy, it feels good to get that out of my system. As a card-carrying member of the America-hating, flag-burning, blood-on-my-hands Commie left, I have always thought that Bush Lied! (tm), but I've been too scared to say so. True patriots like Dean Esmay have cowed me into not revealing my real evil agenda to the world at large. (He's worked his magic on so many other lefty sites that for every mention of Bush lied! on a liberal site, that phrase appears approximately 45,000 times on conservative sites.) But no more! I will proudly proclaim now that Bush Lied! People Died!

Ahem.

See the thing is, as people like the execrable Dean Esmay are so fond of pointing out, a lie is a difficult thing to prove, especially in court. I can't look into George W. Bush's mind (not that I would want to) and figure out what he knew and what he didn't know. My problem has always been, he didn't *care* whether what he said was a lie or not. And I consider that to be equal to or worse than an actual literal prove-it-in-court falsehood, especially when it comes to the Leader of the Free World. His people had a plan, and they were going to do whatever it took to make that into reality.

Mounds of real evidence show that Bush's gang wanted to invade Iraq long before 9/11, and before Bush was even elected. Mounds of real evidence from both inside and outside the administration shows that they minimized or ignored evidence that didn't support their position, and hopped up anything, no matter how trivial or possibly false, that might do the opposite. (Colin Powell and the fake anthrax at the U.N.? Aluminum tubes? Unmanned drones? Anyone? Bueller?)

This is eminently acceptable behavior for, say, a defense lawyer. His job is to convince a jury that his client is innocent, and whether his client did the crime or not is immaterial. In our system of justice (at least for now) everyone deserves the best defense they can get. It's up to the jury to decide the fate of the accused.

This is not acceptable behavior for the Leader of the Free World. It just isn't. But that position is perhaps a little too nuanced for a slogan; a little too logical for the screaming harridans of the Right. Let a thousand terrorism experts proclaim that the administration "fixed intelligence around the policy," and that the war has made us less safe, not more. It's all just elitist America-hating to Esmay and Coulter and Hannity.

And the world rolls on. For now.

Conservative logic

1991: Anita Hill is a bitch. Therefore, Clarence Thomas should be confirmed to sit on the U.S. Supreme Court.

2006: Ted Kennedy made Sam Alito's wife cry. Therefore, Alito should be confirmed to sit on the U.S. Supreme Court.

It doesn't take Nostradamus to predict that the second will come true, just as the first did.

We are a bunch of stupid, stupid little bitches in this country. And we deserve everything that's coming to us.

Historical hypothesis

Monica Lewinsky changed the world more profoundly than Anne Boleyn ever did.

Discuss.

The things conservatives don't like about Bush

1. He lets too many brown people into the country.
2. He wanted to put someone on the Supreme Court who might not have wanted to overturn Roe v. Wade.
3. There is no Number 3.
   

Unless you're guilty, you have nothing to worry about

I am continually amazed (see comments on the "bathroom" post below) at the American public's ability to smile while they say, "The President can do whatever he wants, as long as he says it will keep me safe. I don't need to know anything about it - in fact, it's better if I don't know. I trust him completely with all my freedoms." I've said many times since that date that we went collectively insane as a society on 9/11/01, and it may take generations for us to come out of it. (Even Sybil listened to her therapist.)

So it has struck me in the last few months how conservative blogger John Cole has begun to question, on many fronts, the Bush Administration's War on an Abstract Concept. Here's what he said to the latest news that Homeland Security (a creepy name if there ever was one) may be reading your mail:

Once again, another government practice that is news to me. And, of course, I will be told that the government has long had the authority to do this, that it is necessary to keep me ‘safe,’ and that I really shouldn’t worry about it- just like torture and the Patriot Act, this is vital to our security.

At what point will these people have all the damned tools they need to fight terrorism?

Preach it, brother.

Bathroom non-humor

All you Bush apologists may have absolutely no problem that the President wipes his ass with the Constitution. You may even be there in the bathroom to hand it to him - gladly.

But aren't you the least bit concerned about the contents of the Presidential bathroom when it's occupied by, say, Hillary Clinton?

The pendulum swings.

Hillary Clinton inaugural speech, January 2009 (excerpt)

"...and I would like to thank my predecessor, George W. Bush, for establishing once and for all that in America, the President *is* the state. In these uncertain times, our great nation needs a benevolent leader who knows what is best for all her citizens. I want to assure the American people here and now that I will be using my absolute power only for good."

Right wing self-delusion quote of the week

"If I believed in burning books, I'd have a perfect prospect for the bonfire!"
-Rhianna, frequent commenter at Rosemary Esmay's "Queen of All Evil" site

It reminded me of one of my favorite quotes from the actually-evil Connie du Toit (no longer blogging, apparently): "I would never read Hillary Clinton's book, because I am 100 percent certain it is full of lies."

Fucking "Silent Night"

Watching Bill O'Reilly on David Letterman last night was, to say the least, a bittersweet experience. Each made sort of a fool of himself, but each also did just well enough that partisans on both sides predictably declared their guy the winner of the skirmish. Ho hum.

I was quite disappointed, though, that Dave didn't debunk Bill when Bill pulled out the fully discredited story about the "Silent Night" lyrics at a school in Dodgeville. Dave, that could have started the segment out with a slam-dunk. Try preparing for interviews next time, OK?

But mainly, I have a message for Bill. Hey Bill: if I want to change the lyrics to fucking "Silent Night," or fucking "Good King Wenceslas," or whatever, I'm going to fucking do it. If I want to have an "Atheist Holiday Solstice Pageant" like on South Park, where the cute moppets run around in grey jumpsuits holding up cardboard face masks of Noam Chomsky wearing a Santa hat, I'm going to fucking do it.

(now there's an idea!)

Eloquence

People keep writing amazing stuff, while my brain slumbers (hopefully not for much longer). But in the meantime, I have to repost this comment from Balloon Juice on the domestic spying scandal:

Bush now stands in contempt of the Constitution, both in deed and declared intent. That is the astonishing thing—he does not even try to hide his villainy. He has declared himself an enemy of the constitution. This means that we all now have an affirmative moral obligation to see to it that he is removed. At least those of us who have sworn similar oaths (lawyers, other public officials) have that obligation, ordinary citizens need to examine their consciences to see if they prefer a man who claims to be a benevolent monarch to their own freedom.

The general populace of America has already made that choice, more than once. And they chose the monarch.

UPDATE: More on the Imperial Presidency in this Salon article.

A Christmas letter

This is an e-mail I just sent to Bill O'Reilly. I'm not a "premium member" of his site, so I'm not sure he or anyone else will see it. (It's kind of like sending back a Publisher's Clearinghouse entry without subscribing to any magazines.) But I thought I would give it a try anyway.

Bill:

I'm an agnostic, but I love Christmas. For me it's about the traditions: the tree, the gifts, Christmas music. Obviously, there's a lot about Christmas that's secular and not religious.

I'm not the least bit offended when someone wishes me "Merry Christmas." So why should a devout Catholic or Protestant be offended when someone wishes them "Happy Holidays"? Is that really an insult?

What puzzles me the most is why you want to require retail establishments to celebrate your religious holiday. Seems to me Christmas for Christians should be a lot more about what happens in church and a lot less about what happens inside a Wal-Mart.

-Thomas More
Madison, WI

iTunes Music Store

I did the "podcast" post below simply as a test for a client who wants to start a podcast on his site. So I figured I had to learn how it all works for myself. And I must say, it's fascinating. I was even able to add the Utopia podcast to the Apple iTunes Music Store. (Search for "utopia" under podcasts, and it should come up. Or, Apple says this link will work.) That's cool. Who knows - I may even do a few podcasts, even though I can't stand the sound of my voice.

Good news and bad news

The good news is that a federal judge has ruled that teaching "Intelligent Design" in the Dover, PA schools is unconstitutional, and further, that ID is not science.

That's great.

The bad news is that we even have to endure a case like this. Why are we even questioning whether it's OK to torture prisoners, or secretly spy on U.S. citizens? Why is there a question about the definition of science in the year 2005? Why are we forced to cheer whenever basic common sense and the values we thought we shared are upheld? And why must we be disappointed so often when this doesn't happen?

Our society is completely upside-down. That's scarier than I can express. All I can think of is, what's next?

Bill, Bill, Bill

For those like me who greatly mourn the loss of Henry Quinn's wonderful site "Sweet Jesus, I Hate Bill O'Reilly," why not try "The Anti-Bill O'Reilly Blog." It's a great resource for cataloging all the reasons to loathe Billy.

Utopia podcast: Inaugural Edition

This is a test of using Blogger for podcasting. The file linked here isn't actually a Utopia podcast, but that could come in the future. Just testing for now.

Utopia podcast - 12.19.05

Utopia logo

This is a test.

Chris Wallace, Fucker

I recently watched Chris Wallace interview his father, Mike Wallace of "60 Minutes," on "Fox News Sunday," the program Wallace Jr. anchors. It ended with a tearful father telling his son, "I love you and I'm proud of you."

Now NewsMax has only slightly more credibility than the guy yelling about aliens outside the Walgreens. But if Chris Wallace said anything even close to what's being reported, he earns Fucker of the Year without anyone else having to be nominated.

Great move, Chris. I didn't think I could loathe anyone more than your colleague Brit Hume. But you're almost there.

Bill O'Reilly loves Christmas

Listening to O'Reilly's latest salvo in his ginned-up "War on Christmas" coverage, I couldn't help wishing that the latest dildo Bill would use on himself while calling up female employees with x-rated come-ons would take the form of a very large and spiny Christmas tree. (Hey Bill - did you know that the Christmas tree is a pagan symbol?)

Bill's latest line is that "the secular forces will lose this war." That's a good trick. Create a "war" out of whole cloth, pontificate endlessly about "battles" that don't exist, and then declare "your side" the winner. Another blow struck against the secular humanist heathens! Hallelujah!

The thing is, this little trick has been going on for several years now. It's a winner for Fox, and a winner for O'Reilly. He gets to be the Holy Warrior, and even better, he "wins" every year! Guaranteed! It's brilliant. And it lets retail establishments like Sears and Target know the power of the religious right, and the slack-jawed yokels who hang on Bill's every strangled word.

To me, it comes down to this: if you need Target to affirm your faith, you've got some serious problems - problems that won't be solved by a Wal-Mart greeter wishing you "Merry Christmas."