“[I]f we make the wrong choice then the danger is that we’ll get hit again, that we’ll be hit in a way that will be devastating from the standpoint of the United States“…Um, say WHAT?!? You heard it straight from the mouth of the Vice-President, folks: vote for John Kerry and the terrorists will kill you. Cheney’s remarks are so low and un-American that I’m almost at a loss for comment. (Plus, since we’ve broached the subject, it’s also flat-out wrong…it’s Dubya’s missteps and budget cuts on Homeland Security, to say nothing of his idiotic and isolating diplomacy, that are more likely to add up to fatal embarrassment for our nation.) And this coming from a sitting veep…I mean, you must be joking. We’re through the looking-glass now, people.
Category: Dick Cheney
A Nightmare in November.
I also found this grisly pic of Angry Cheney on Looka (and Eschaton), and it reminded me of something that I couldn’t quite put my finger on. But, while walking Berkeley this evening, it came to me. In fact, I think I might just have figured out the inspiration behind Karl Rove’s whole two-faced strategy:
And, just to round out the meme…
(Pics via HalloweenTown. And a similar take on the Zellout can be found here, also via Eschaton.) Update: The Zellout also brought to mind this, but I ultimately thought it was a disservice to poor Bilbo. He wasn’t that far gone in Rivendell.
Fact-Checking Time.
As the dust settles from the GOP convention and Tom DeLay emerges from hiding, the truth starts coming back to light. Naturally, Dubya’s speech had serious problems with reality and the GOP severely distorted Kerry’s voting record. Obviously, Cheney and the Zellout were full of it. More surprisingly, however, Arnold Schwarzenegger apparently doesn’t know Austria from a hole in the ground.
A Moment of Clarity.
In a surprising (yet very likely vetted and scripted) exchange, Dick Cheney distances himself from Dubya’s hard line against gay marriage. What a compassionately conservative way to make news the week before the convention, no? Sure, Cheney probably does harbor some reservations about the religious right’s goofy stance on gay marriage, given his family relationship to the issue, and I suppose I should give him credit for mentioning them aloud. But, it’s hard to buy his second-thoughts now, when he’s been so silent on the topic these past few months…it’s too convenient by half.
Landslide?
“The president — highly intelligent, personally flawed, detested by many, a man who was first elected in a narrow three-way race and then reelected easily — had faced impeachment. In the following election, his vice president, a decent man with decades on Capitol Hill, was beaten by an inexperienced governor from the South. Four years passed. The economy weakened and oil prices soared. Crises in the Persian Gulf and Afghanistan eroded our national confidence. Clearly the president was in trouble. Yet many were not comfortable with his opponent. Yes, he was effective on television. But was he a steady hand? Was he trustworthy? Would the country be safe in his hands? The year was, of course, 1980.” James K. Galbraith makes the case for a decisive Kerry-Edwards victory in November.
The Battle is Joined.
“It just outrages me that someone who got five deferments during Vietnam and said he had ‘other priorities’ at that time would say that…When I hear this coming from Dick Cheney, who was a coward, who would not serve during the Vietnam War, it makes my blood boil…He’ll be tough, but he’ll be tough with someone else’s kid’s blood.” Iowa Senator Tom Harkin lashes out at Cheney for the “sensitive war” bit he was banging into the ground last week. I don’t much care for the notion that not serving in Vietnam makes anybody a coward…but, then again, the veep had this coming. He should’ve known better than to push the tough guy thing so hard. After all, he’s a war profiteer, not a warrior.
Follow the Bouncing Ball.
So did Kerry-Edwards get a post-convention bounce or not? Depends on how you spin it, it seems. I’m not too concerned, frankly…I think most people know how they’re going to vote at this point (including the Kerry Republicans.)
Onward, Christian Soldiers.
Speaking of Dubya and “shared values,” I neglected to post this earlier, so the links are kinda stale now. (Compounding my bad form, I also forgot where I saw them originally.) Nevertheless, much to the chagrin of many pastors and theologians, the Dubya campaign is leaning heavily on churchgoers to join an ecclesiastical voting army this November. “Even Richard Land, president of the Southern Baptist Convention’s ethics and religious liberty commission and a prominent Bush supporter, recoiled at the idea of churches becoming directly involved in a political campaign. ‘I am appalled,’ Land said in a statement. ‘I suspect that this will rub a lot of pastors’ fur the wrong way…It’s one thing for a church member motivated by exhortations to exercise his Christian citizenship to go out and decide to work on the Bush campaign or the Kerry campaign. It’s another, and totally inappropriate for a political campaign, to ask workers who may be church members to provide church member information through…directories.” Will Karl’s Crusade against Kerry-Edwards falter before it’s even begun?
A word about values, from the 3-DUI Ticket.
In his first riposte against his new Dem adversary, Dubya questions Edwards’s qualifications for the Presidency. Good God, man, we let you take the position (although admittedly it did take some prodding by the Supreme Court.) For the Dems’ part, Kerry had a pretty solid response: “He was right that Dick Cheney was ready to take over on Day One, and did, and he has been ever since, folks.“
Apparently, the Bushies are also keying in on “shared values” as their answer to the threat of Kerry-Edwards. Shared values? Puh-leeze. Playing bait-and-switch on the American people? Wading neck deep in corporate cronyism? Handing the rich tax-cut candy at the expense of everyone else? Those ain’t my values, bub.
Verbal Infelicities.
Cheney drops an F-bomb in the Senate and likes it (naturally, the GOP moral arbiters don’t care, despite their tsk-tsking Kerry after an earlier outburst.) Meanwhile Dubya loses his temper on Irish TV when asked relatively basic questions about the failures of his Iraq policy. Yes, folks, these people are in charge.