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."

We have nothing to fear but Fox News

"You know, Fox turned into a hardcore sex channel so gradually, I didn't even notice."
-Marge Simpson, The Simpsons, "Lisa's Wedding"

Watching John Kasich fill in for Bill O'Reilly on "The O'Reilly Factor" tonight, it struck me how much networks like Fox, and conservatives in general, simultaneously rail against the debasement of culture, while falling all over themselves to see who can be the biggest debaser.

O'Reilly's show in particular won't let a single child molestation case, illegal alien crime spree, or lurid murder case go without obsessive over-coverage. (I hear Greta Van Susteren is just going to give up and *move* to Aruba.) Watching Fox, it would be easy for space aliens to conclude that our society is composed completely of abusive clergy, murderous teens and Commies.

The reason is simple: fear. If they can whip up enough fear among the housedress-wearing masses tuned into Fox, they can sell anything to those quivering millions. An illegal alien is going to take your job! Hillary Clinton wants to take your hunting rifle! Muslims will kill you if you so much as step out of your own yard! Macy's wants to burn down your Christmas tree!

It's sick and transparent, but fear sells. Literally. Fear sold the Iraq war and the Bush re-election. And when you can move crap like that, you can sell anything.

Neocon translations

"Whether one agrees with going into Iraq or not and whether or not WMD was found isn't the point any longer. We need to complete the mission now that we started it; we cannot afford to leave it unfinished."

-Captain's Quarters

Translation:

"Finding out who bludgeoned your mother to death and left her corpse on the kitchen floor just isn't the point any longer. Listen, son, I know I'm holding a shovel. I know I have blood all over my clothes. And you did find me standing over your mother's lifeless body, screaming 'I'm so glad you're finally dead, YOU BITCH!' But the point right now is, you have to help me clean up this mess and hide the body before anyone finds out. You don't want your father going to jail, do you? Your mother's gone - no amount of finger-pointing is going to change that now. So grab that bottle of 409 and get to work. Now."

George Bush hates America

Last night, watching "The O'Reilly Factor," I guess I shouldn't have been surprised that Bill did re-broadcast his comments about San Francisco (see post below), but conveniently left out the part about calling for Al-Qaeda to bomb the Coit Tower. He played the entire quote, just without those last few crucial words. Hmmmm.

When the liberal guest from SF tried to call him on that editing job, O'Reilly shrugged his loofah-polished shoulders and said, "Hey, we can't play the whole thing. It's five minutes long."

This morning, I was thinking, I wonder what Malkin, Esmay et al. would say if their President dared the enemy to attack Americans. Could they justify that?

Then I remembered - that's just what Bush did.

"There are some who feel like that the conditions are such that they can attack us there. My answer is bring them on."

- President George W. Bush, 7/1/2003

Bill O'Reilly is a traitor

Hey, you know, if [in San Francisco] you want to ban military recruiting, fine, but I'm not going to give you another nickel of federal money. You know, if I'm the president of the United States, I walk right into Union Square, I set up my little presidential podium, and I say, "Listen, citizens of San Francisco, if you vote against military recruiting, you're not going to get another nickel in federal funds. Fine. You want to be your own country? Go right ahead."

And if Al Qaeda comes in here and blows you up, we're not going to do anything about it. We're going to say, look, every other place in America is off limits to you, except San Francisco. You want to blow up the Coit Tower? Go ahead.

-Bill O'Reilly, on "The Radio Factor," Nov. 8

Bill O'Reilly is a traitor to this country. Bill O'Reilly is a terrorist sympathizer. He should be imprisoned in Guantanamo without access to an attorney, tortured, and then, best case scenario, executed on national TV.

I'm serious.

Maybe we could get one of those cages to attach to his head so rats could eat his face. I'd pony up serious Pay-Per-View cash to see that.

Then, to defend himself, he said this:

Look, San Francisco is a beautiful city. It is now a disgraceful city. You can’t even walk around the city without seeing people doing appalling things in the streets.

This is a man who sexually harrassed his employees multiple times over the phone, describing the sex acts he would perform on them while using a vibrator on himself.

Fucker.

Political weblog comment of the week

"I wish we could make the right wing small enough to drown in a bathtub."

-commenter on John Cole's Balloon Juice site

War is peace, and freedom is slavery

The White House is trying to get news services to change their transcripts of the press conference where Scott McClellan is finally called on his lies about how Libby and Rove "were not involved" in the Plame fiasco.

Winston Smith, call your office.

Actual Democrats are pussies

Why can't any of them be as forthright as fake Democrat Matt Santos? Why can't they stand up for themselves and what they believe in? (Memo to Dems: you believe in good stuff. Trust me on this.)

Santos: I know you like to use that word, "liberal," as if it were a crime.

Vinick: I know Democrats think "liberal" is a bad word. So bad you had to change it. What do you call yourselves now? Progressives? Is that it?

Santos: It's true. Republicans have tried to turn "liberal" into a bad word. Well, liberals ended slavery in this country.

Vinick: A Republican president ended slavery.

Santos: Yes, a liberal Republican, Senator. What happened to them? They got run out of your party. What did liberals do that was so offensive to the liberal party? Liberals got women the right to vote. Liberals got African-Americans the right to vote. Liberals created Social Security and lifted millions of elderly people out of poverty. Liberals ended segregation. Liberals passed the Civil Rights Act, the Voting Rights Act. Liberals created Medicare. Liberals passed the Clean Air Act, the Clean Water Act. What did conservatives do? They opposed every single one of those things. Every one. So when you try to hurl that label at my feet, "liberal" -- as if it was something to be ashamed of, something dirty, something to run away from -- it won't work, Senator. Because I will pick up that label, and I will wear it as a badge of honor.

-from "The West Wing" live debate episode Sunday

Seeing all those Republicans praising Rosa Parks made me sick to my stomach. Conservatives are on the wrong side of history, again and again. I think it's about time we had the courage to point that out.

Anyone? Bueller?

If anyone's out there reading this, I'd love it if you'd leave a comment. Let me know if you've read the site before, why you read it, that sort of thing. Thanks.

Feingold '08!

Russ Feingold (D-WI) is making a lot of sense about Iraq. I wonder why more people aren't.

Definitions

A left-winger looks at half a glass of water and says it's half full. A right-winger looks at the same glass and wants to know who drank half their water.

-from a commenter at Queen of All Evil

35 percent, bitches

My question, as always, is who are these millions of people that make up Bush's 35 percent? After all, these are the people who would staunchly defend the President if he reached into Dakota Fanning's chest on live national TV and pulled out and ate her heart greedily, the bits of blood and muscle spattering the camera lens.

Dick Cheney? 19 percent.

Pundit show quote of the week

"This is unacceptable. This is America. And if you don't like America, find another place to live.....That said, we are respectful and tolerant of all religions and all people."

-Hillsborough County (FL) Commissioner Brian Blair on The O'Reilly Factor Thursday night. Blair was upset over the local school board's decision to cancel all school holidays based on religion after the board heard a request to honor a Muslim religious holiday on the school calendar.

O'Reilly went on to opine that it was "absurd" in a "Judeo-Christian country" like the U.S. that schools honor Muslim religious holidays.

I heart Patrick Fitzgerald

Fitzgerald made it clear, from the very start of his press conference, that Valerie Plame's status as a CIA officer was CLASSIFIED.

CLASSIFIED.

He also made it clear that Libby leaked the info to Matt Cooper and Judith Miller, and lied about it.

Clear enough, wingnut bastards? OK. Great.

CLASSIFIED.

And lying about it is a serious crime, not a "technicality."

"Truth is the engine of our justice system."
-Patrick Fitzgerald

Restoring honor, integrity and accountability to the White House

Yeah.

Bumper sticker for our times

Stolen from This Modern World.

Wrestling with a pig

On many political web sites I frequent, both liberal and conservative, I find time and time again liberals patiently explaining obvious truths to clueless/venal righties. Then they do it again. And again. These liberals are beginning to resemble friendly Labrador retrievers who will bring the tennis ball back indefinitely, until they finally collapse in exhaustion.

Some of the truths we have to explain over and over:

-Valerie Plame was a NOC.
-Bill Bennett and some random liberal crank are not the same thing.
-Saddam didn't try to get tons of uranium from Niger for his non-existent nuclear program.
-Protest and celebration are not the same thing.
-If perjury was a crime then, it's not a "technicality" now.
-The Flight 98 memorial is not a secret Muslim plot.

This game of Whack-a-Mole with patently obvious truths reflects badly on both sides. The right willingly believes as many falsehoods as necessary to keep their heads from exploding with cognitive dissonance (think "Scanners"). But even worse, the left takes the bait - again and again and again.

Stop taking the bait.

Campaigning for torture

Democratic Underground is right: Cheney is vulnerable, which is the only reason the Washington Post could see fit to write "Vice President for Torture."

The DU poster put it succinctly, and correctly: the man is a monster.

On a side note: it was odd last night to see the fictional female U.S. President Mackenzie Allen (Geena Davis) dealing with one of those perfect hypotheticals that pro-torture people love throwing around: you have a suspect in custody with specific knowledge of imminent terrorist attacks, and no time for traditional police work. It's Dick Cheney's wet dream, frankly. And they played all the angles by having the President call for doing everything short of torture, while the evil Attorney General ordered torture behind the President's back. So they got the results of torture (the amazingly correct intel), while keeping the President's hands clean. Neat trick.

Blowjobs and broomsticks

Sen. Kay Bailey Hutchison (wait for it.....R-Texas) believes that perjury (lying to a grand jury) is a "technicality."

Funny how Republicans spent the 90s screaming about the "rule of law" until they were blue in the face when it came to Bill Clinton, but when it's Dubya and his cronies, perjury is a "technicality." Nice.

To be fair, Bill Clinton lied about a blowjob, while Rove and Libby lied about exposing a covert CIA operative in time of war. Not the same thing at all!

The blowjob is worse, of course.

"Won't someone THINK OF THE CHILDREN!"
-Helen Lovejoy, The Simpsons

The bad news just keeps on coming

Cheney cabal hijacked U.S. foreign policy
I love the word "cabal."

Senators say Miers' answers "incomplete to insulting"
Harriet's making friends wherever she goes these days.

Bush whacked Rove on CIA leak
Was there any doubt the President knew all along what was happening? No.

Texas court issues warrant for DeLay
I admit my love for schadenfreude.

No quorum for Santorum
Couldn't happen to a more deserving guy.

Because reprinting other people's comments is the only thing I have the strength for right now

In a comment thread on Balloon Juice about the Frontline report on U.S. use of torture in the Iraq war:

I just finished watching Frontline and all I can say is I am sure glad that we ignored the Geneva Convention because without doing so we never would have found those stockpiles of WMDs.

Oh.

Blog comment of the week (month? year?)

"You'd think after five years they'd start running out of ways to suck."
-Atrios commenter

You'd think so. But you'd be wrong.

President Toaster

The left-wing media is positively giddy over the prospect of multiple indictments on the Plame investigation, thought by many to be widening out into an investigation of the selling of the Iraq war by the Bush administration. But I confess I can't get excited about this. They've weaseled out of so much over the last five years, why should this be any different? And if they do get out of it, it'll just be another cudgel to beat their opponents over the head with. "Look at what those damn liberals did! Criminalization of politics!" etc. etc.

I'm in another of those periods where none of it seems to matter. Go ahead, put Jerry Falwell on the Supreme Court. Imprison Muslim Americans in concentration camps. Invade China. Elect a four-slice toaster to be President. At this point, I just don't care.

Tillman hearts Chomsky

Fascinating article from The Nation about attempted-right-wing-poster-boy Pat Tillman (hat tip: John Callender at lies.com):

Pat Tillman, Our Hero

The fact is that Tillman was so much more than a shill for the fever dreams of the New American Century crowd. His family deserved better. He deserved better.

We all deserve better.

Another 15-20 years isn't so long

This week's "Top Ten Conservative Idiots" over at Democratic Underground is one of the best ever - each one is a gem. But this passage about Iraq stood out to me:

The truth is that Iraq is on the verge of tearing itself apart, with our soldiers trapped in the middle. In order to "catapult the propaganda," Bush has been tossing out the fantasy that "Right now there are over 80 army battalions fighting alongside coalition troops," with "over 30 Iraqi battalions in the lead."

There are about 500-600 soldiers in a battalion, so that's a minimum of 15,000 Iraqi soldiers ready to rock n' roll. Considering that there are somewhere in the neighborhood of 150,000 U.S. troops in Iraq, that means we only have to train 135,000 more Iraqis (at a cost of $7 billion per month) to finish the job. It took us two years to train 15,000 so it should only take another, oh, 15-20 years or so to train the rest.

There's just one problem - when Bush says that there are 30-80 Iraqi battalions fighting in Iraq, he's talking out of his ass. Last week Gen. George Casey, the top U.S. general in Iraq, told the Senate Armed Services Committee that there is actually only one self-sufficient Iraqi battalion.

One. It's taken us two years to train one self-sufficient battalion, comprising 500-600 soldiers, at a cost of $200 billion dollars and counting.

Coincidence? You decide.

President Bush: job approval at 37%. (yep.)

Tom DeLay: indicted (three times).

Karl Rove: on the cusp of indictment.

Harriet Miers: attacked by both right (Ann Coulter!) and left.

wait for it...

wait for it...

NYC subway terror alert!

And for those who think I'm just a pinko Commie baby-eating Chomsky-loving liberal conspiracy theorist, remember when Tom Ridge admitted that the administration pressured him into raising the threat level? Yeah.

Turtles all the way down

Dean Esmay, the avowed atheist who never met a hard-line Christian conservative he didn't like, links to an article by Michael Balter whose premise is neatly contained in the headline: Let 'intelligent design' and science rumble.

Hey, what a great idea. I think the next series of debates should be "Physics vs. Magic: Who's right?" Can physicists explain everything? Hell no. So the obvious alternative is magic. I'm not sure if it should be the magic of "Charmed" or "Bewitched" or even "The Craft" (if we're reaching), but that can be determined by a public opinion poll, or something.

I personally believe that angels cause "gravity" by pushing us all down away from Heaven until we're ready to go. Prove me wrong, Stephen Hawking! I dare ya!

The world we live in

If Bush nominated a fax machine for the Supreme Court, right-wing weblogs and pundits would be engaged in endless discussions of what the judicial philosophy of the Xerox 4250 would be.

On Fox News Sunday:

Brit Hume: We still don't know how the Xerox would rule on Roe v. Wade. But the fax machine has been in the Oval Office for some years, so we have to trust that President Bush knows how it would rule.

Juan Williams (incredulous): It's a FAX MACHINE!

Brit Hume: What's your point?

I'm sure I'll get tired of posting about Bennett eventually

Best deconstruction of Bennett's remarks I've read so far, from a commenter at Daily Kos:

There is no distortion that could make those remarks worse than they were. The idea that any context could make even hypothetically suggesting that total genocide would reduce the crime rate just shows the depth of his bigotry.

And in fact even taking the entire conversation into account makes it worse not better. Even if, as some have claimed, he was only extrapolating from the observation that crime-rate (official) is higher in the black population, the fact that he said he "knew" that removing all black people, even hypothetically, would result in a reduction in crime rate means that at bottom, he believes that blackness must be causal. [Emphasis mine. -TM] If he had been prepared to consider that, say inequality was causal, or poverty, or judicial racism were causal, he could not have said that he "knew" the crime rate would go down. Because there is absolutely no way of knowing. It is perfectly possible the crime rate would stay the same or go up. It depends on what is causing the crime rate. By saying he "knew" what would happen, he was assuming race was causal.

Ergo it was not just disgustingly racist, but simply racist. There is absolutely no defence.

Schadenfreude

Now Bill Bennett can concentrate on blackjack full-time:

Bennett feels the heat

And yes - I feel tremendous pleasure from this. I'm OK with that. Sort of like when Bill O'Reilly was caught leaving unwanted dirty-talk messages on an employee's phone, just when "The O'Reilly Factor for Kids" was coming out? Yeah, like that.

Justice Brownie

"In the White House that hero worshipped the president, [Bush's Supreme Court nominee Harriet] Miers was distinguished by the intensity of her zeal: She once told me that the president was the most brilliant man she had ever met."

-David Frum, National Review Online

"I'm disappointed, depressed and demoralized."

-Bill Kristol, The Weekly Standard

"I am going to assume that this is a classic Bush head-fake gambit. If I'm wrong, I will spend the weekend banging my head against a concrete wall. This is the Supreme Court we're talking about! It's not a job for a political functionary!"

-John Podhoretz, The Corner on National Review (before the pick was announced this morning)

More Bennett analogues, because they're fun

Man at a party with friends and his wife:

Man: You know I bet if I punched my wife in the mouth that would get her to shut up. But that would be morally reprehensible to do, and I would never hit my wife.

Wife: I can’t believe that you would say that, I’m offended that you would talk openly about punching me in the face.

Friend: Well, Wife you didn’t listen to his WHOLE statement, he said it would be morally reprehensible. He was just stating a FACT, because he’s a big guy and if he did punch you in the mouth I bet that it would make you shut up. I can’t stand that everyone is so P.C., he was just making a truthful claim and again why can’t he just talk about PUNCHING you in the face, it’s in his right to make thought experiments.

If we killed all the vets returning from duty in Iraq, we would reduce the incidence of mental illness in this country. Of course that would be very hard to do and it would be morally reprehensible but we would have alot less nut jobs.

Both stolen from comments at Balloon Juice, where conservatives are falling all over themselves to figure out ways to support Bennett and his comments. Which says more than Bennett's quote ever did, if you ask me.

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.