“‘Our committee heard blindly optimistic people from the administration prior to the war and people outside the administration — what I call the “dancing in the street crowd,” that we just simply will be greeted with open arms,’ [Republican Richard] Lugar said. ‘The nonsense of all of that is apparent. The lack of planning is apparent.'” A new intelligence report declares that, despite Dubya’s dog-and-pony show, things are looking worse in Iraq. “At worst, the official said, were ‘trend lines that would point to a civil war.’” Bang-up job, Dubya, as usual. “‘It’s beyond pitiful, it’s beyond embarrassing, it’s now in the zone of dangerous,’ said Sen. Chuck Hagel, R-Nebraska,” referring to the administration’s disbursement of reconstruction money thus far. After getting us into this fiasco, the least the Bushies could have done was try to manage it properly. We must get these fools out of office already.
Category: The Middle East
It’s Funny Because It’s True.
Bad form, I know, but this week’s Onion is particularly amusing. Take, for example, Hundreds Of Republicans Injured In Rush To Discredit Kerry. “‘It’s bad down here,’ Savannah (GA) General Hospital director Lloyd Sautner said. ‘We were still treating hurricane victims when all these politicians were hurt in the whirlwind of manufactured controversy.’” I also liked Bush Campaign More Thought Out Than Iraq War and Terry Gilliam’s Barbeque Plagued by Production Delays.
Coalition of the Disgusted.
Aside from the Philippines, Nigeria, and Poland, the world wants John Kerry by a landslide. Undecided voters out there, you know how you can “Ask the Audience” on Who Wants to Be a Millionaire when you’re stumped? Consider it like that.
Finding a Groove.
“‘It is outrageous and shameful to make the war on terror an instrument of their politics,’ Kerry said. ‘I defended this country when I was a young man, and they chose not to. And I will defend this country as president of the United States.'” John Kerry pushes back hard at Cheney for his indefensible remarks on Tuesday. Whatsmore, Kerry has keyed in on a way to concisely tie together two of Dubya’s most grievous sins. To wit: “George W. Bush’s wrong choices have led America in the wrong direction in Iraq and left America without the resources we need here at home.” Simple, eloquent, and effective.
1,000 Points of Light.
Or, more to the point, 1002 points of light and counting have now been extinguished in the service of Dubya’s unnecessary and mismanaged neocon sideshow in Iraq, and that’s just the American count. (The Faces of the Fallen) As this site notes in an update of John Kerry’s famous question, how do you ask a man or woman to be the last person to die for a lie? Update: And now it appears we’ve already reached another dubious milestone. “With the latest spike in violence in Baghdad, more U.S. troops have died since the turnover of power to an interim Iraqi government at the end of June than were killed during the U.S.-led invasion of the country in the spring of 2003.“
A Record of Shame.
13 more soldiers dead in Iraq since yesterday, a looming $2.29 trillion deficit over the next ten years…I mean, really, what’s it going to take to persuade people that Amateur Hour in the White House needs to end?
The Rich Get Richer.
Not content with the elements of freak-show conservatism in his acceptance speech or the flattening effect of Dubya’s giveaways to the rich in recent years, Dubya is now threatening an official flat tax (not unlike the one imposed by fiat on Iraq last November.) As even Phil Gramm attested eight years ago, “It’s not fair to say that people who work with their head or with their hands ought to pay taxes, but people who earn their living with their capital ought not to.”
Fighting Mad.
“‘Let me tell you what I think makes someone unfit for duty,’ Kerry said. ‘Misleading our nation into war in Iraq makes you unfit to lead this nation. Doing nothing while this nation loses millions of jobs makes you unfit to lead this nation. Letting 45 million Americans go without health care makes you unfit to lead this nation. Letting the Saudi royal family control our energy costs makes you unfit to lead this nation. Handing out billions [in] government contracts without a bid to Halliburton while you’re still on their payroll makes you unfit.’” It’s about freakin’ time we got some push-back…now just wait until the Pleasure Boat Captains for Truth ads start airing.
Dubya Distilled.
Well, with talk of deregulation, privatizing Social Security, tax code “simplification”, anti-gay and pro-life rhetoric, “Hollywood value” and “activist judge” hectoring…all punctuated by that off-putting and consistently out-of-place chimp smirk, you can’t say Dubya didn’t warn us about his plans for a ultra-conservative second term last night. (And for a man who was heroic enough to stop circling Nebraska and venture down to Ground Zero three long days after 9/11, he seemed amazingly ready to bolt-and-run at the sign of one measly protestor.)
Not much was said about Dubya’s first four years in office, of course, aside from 9/11 (9/11, 9/11) and the usual conflation of Al Qaeda and Saddam. But, really, what can he say? Deficits through the roof, the worst jobs record since Herbert Hoover, 1000 men and women dead in a needless diversion of a war…His administration has been an embarrassment of historic proportions. And it is time for him to go. (Dubya video via I’m Just Sayin’.)
Immigrant Song.
“If you believe that government should be accountable to the people, not the people to the government, then you are a Republican.” If you believe that rich people deserve tax breaks while the middle-class struggle harder and the poor send their kids to war, then you are a Republican. If you believe that cutting First Responder, Homeland Security, and Nunn-Lugar funding, lying bald-faced to our allies before the UN, letting Osama Bin Laden disappear into the caverns of Afghanistan, and contriving a casus belli to start a war in Iraq that has further alienated the moderate Muslim world is sound anti-terror strategy, then you are a Republican. If you believe an extramarital blow job is an impeachable offense, but dissembling to the American people about war is hunky-dory, then you are a Republican. If you believe God loves you, but He hates gays, liberals, and foreigners, then you are a Republican. If you’re an immigrant bodybuilder who made it to the top of his field through hard work, discipline, and the judicious application of enough steroids to kill a small horse, then you are a Republican. And if you’re a serial groper who was befuddled enough to think Nixon was a good idea in 1968 and who somehow earnestly believes that the GOP hasn’t moved much further right since the days of Tricky Dick, then you are Arnold Schwarzenegger.