Saturday, October 11, 2008

At the McCain-Palin Rally


When you're talking base, well, it doesn't get any lower than this.
President Spicoli


Shorter George W. Bush: "People on 'ludes should not drive."

Actually, it's more like what Attaturk says--if it wasn't so tragic, it'd be hilarious.

Friday, October 10, 2008

In Other News...
From 2Millionth Web Log


George W. Bush spoke to the nation today. He's still got the anti-Midas touch.

And would it kill the media to note that John McCain and Sarah Palin are in his political party?
Time to Play 'Think Like a Wingnut'
From 2Millionth Web Log

I'll take ludicrously stupid for $100, Alex

OK, maybe 'think' is a little generous, but by whatever lizard-brain logic they're using for this line of reasoning--that the somewhat concurrent employment of Michelle Obama (née Robinson) and Bernadine Dohrn at the law firm of Sidney & Austin (among some 500 other lawyers)--one could just as easily make the case that John Sidney McCain the third and Osama bin Laden have shared one planet for OVER fifty years...and not once has McCain done anything about it.

I mean, think of it: it's quite possible that at some point or another since 1957 they could well have crossed paths. McCain even cut bin Laden quite a bit of slack barely ten years ago. And there's even a good chance that John McCain helped fund bin Laden in the 1980s, when Osama was working with the mujahadeen, of whom an authority no less than Ronald Reagan referred to as "freedom fighters."

John McCain: abetting terrorism in its worst form for over 50 years.

--wow...that required some serious brain-stem...but not a bit of upper thought.
McDouchebag
From 2Millionth Web Log


The Straight Talk DO YOU KNOW WHO I AM?!?! Express.
Subterranean No Dick Blues
From 2Millionth Web Log


It looks like Johnny Mac's latest designated whining scold, one John Murtagh, has a serious case of selective morality when it comes to violence in pursuit of political aims (via):
From 1999 to 2001, Mr. Murtagh served as a pro-bono lawyer for the Rev. John T. Murphy, a leader of a group of antiabortion protesters who spent years picketing outside Long Island Gynecological Services in Garden City, N.Y. Rev. Murphy ran a charity called "Save the Babies," records show.

According to a 1995 Nassau County, N.Y., court decision involving the clinic, the Nassau County Police Department was called to the premises at least 17 times in 1994 and 1995 to investigate reports of physical assault, harassment, bomb threats and in four cases, the firing of bullets into windows.

And, not surprisingly, the Wasilla Wonder is similarly afflicted.

You know, it's interesting to watch the rending of garments, gnashing of teeth, and other displays of what would be called extreme concern trolling if done online. These same people, not all that long ago, were worshipping at the altar of St. Ronald Reagan, who couldn't embrace certain domestic terrorists quickly enough...and for whom an ongoing effort has been made to 'close the books' and 'put the past behind us.'

It's unfortunate that questions won't--and can't--be asked of McCain and Palin regarding these domestic terrorists, because it would speak volumes every bit as significant as their rhetoric of late speaks to their shamelessness. Well, one can hope that a discussion can begin after the election, provided we're not all in the poor house thanks to economic policies Team McCain is rushing away from as fast as their aching, aging feet can hobble.

Thursday, October 09, 2008

What Dick Heard


Did anyone really think they were listening in "for national security reasons?"

You've been had.
The Hand of God Satan


Matt Taibbi on Karl Rove:

Rove is not a genius, or even very clever: He's totally and completely immoral. It doesn't take genius to claim, as Rove ludicrously did last fall, that it was the Democrats in Congress and not George W. Bush who pushed the Iraq War resolution in 2002. It doesn't take brains to compare a triple-amputee war veteran to Osama bin Laden; you just have to be a mean, rotten cocksucker.

The reason Rove continues to survive is the same reason that Johnnie Cochran was called a genius for keeping a double-murderer on the golf course — because this generation of Americans has become so steeped in greed and social Darwinism that it can no longer distinguish between cheating and achieving, between enterprise and crime, and can't bring itself to criticize winners any more than it knows how to be nice to losers. He survives because an increasing number of Americans secretly agree with Rove's vision of rules, laws and "the truth" as quaint, faintly embarrassing rituals that only a sucker would let hold him back.

Rove's comeback is evidence that the attack on our civic institutions in the Bush years wasn't an isolated incident, something we can pin on a specific group of now-deposed politicians. It's a trend, a thing that grows in direct proportion to our greed and ignorance. We may be a country at war, facing one of the greatest financial meltdowns of all time. But in the end, the thing that could be our undoing is the kind of generalized boredom with legality and honor that empowers Rovian behavior. If we let it.
Whoa...It's Todd


Link.

You know, that might be fine for Alaska--and hell, probably Loosiana too, or at least the ArkLaMiss, home of fine examples of humanity like Wade Williams--but do we really want "Todd" representing us?
Dispensing With the Remaining Shreds of His Dignity


I realize ambition is an awfully powerful drug, but I continue to be amazed at how low McCain's willing to go--he's like a grumpy little Ahab, lurching and hobbling both figuratively and literally--I mean, c'mon, "his [Obama's] 'friend' William Ayers"? The Rude Pundit points out how that doesn't come close to passing the smell test. Then you've got Palin showing her true self, which is about as un-Christian as it gets. Matt Taibbi nails it in writing about her convention speech: "It was like watching Gidget address the Reichstag."

And her campaigning is little more than a traveling Nuremberg Rally for the 21st Century.

Oh, and McCain's even drafted Stepford Cindy into the act...I wonder if he used the carrot of percocet and vicodin, or the stick of threating to beat her up...or both.

At this point, I'd vote for a plasmodial slime mold over McCain-Palin.

Wednesday, October 08, 2008

Stuff Happens


You'd think a self-described Christian would be appalled at something like this, but denial must be an even stronger faith system for Governor Palin:

An investigation by the military has concluded that American airstrikes on Aug. 22 in a village in western Afghanistan killed far more civilians than American commanders there have acknowledged, according to two American military officials.

The military investigator’s report found that more than 30 civilians -- not 5 to 7 as the military has long insisted -- died in the airstrikes against a suspected Taliban compound in Azizabad.

The investigator, Brig. Gen. Michael W. Callan of the Air Force, concluded that many more civilians, including women and children, had been buried in the rubble than the military had asserted, one of the military officials said.


My link is to the New York Times, which we all now know the governor reads...right?
On Hobnobbing With Terrorists


Paul Campos make a very good point:

...make no mistake: Henry Kissinger has done things that, morally speaking, make Ayers' actions, deplorable as some of them surely were, look like the equivalent of jaywalking.

An abbreviated list of the events that have made it dangerous for Kissinger to travel overseas, because of the possibility he would be arrested as a war criminal, include: covertly sabotaging Vietnam peace talks in 1968 in order to help get Richard Nixon elected; playing a key role in convincing Nixon to launch illegal wars in Laos and Cambodia (the latter action helped create the conditions that led to the Cambodian genocide); helping to plan the overthrow of Chile's democratically elected government, which included numerous assassinations funded by the CIA (again, all this in direct violation of international law); and helping to facilitate the Indonesian invasion of East Timor, which may have killed as many as 200,000 civilians.

Kissinger appears to have had every bit as much contempt for the law as Ayers, with the difference being that his brand of contempt led to millions of deaths.

The other difference is that playing a key role in a radical political movement that manages to take over the United States government is much more likely to get you to continue to be invited to swank dinner parties on the Upper East Side of New York, no matter how much blood may be on your hands.

That social fact doesn't make Henry Kissinger more respectable than Bill Ayers.
Don't Mention the War! *
From 2Millionth Web Log


John McCain "mentions the war."
The Calm Before the Storm?
From 2Millionth Web Log


Think Progress links to a McClatchey report about the latest Iraq NIE that's more than a little sobering:

A nearly completed high-level U.S. intelligence analysis warns that unresolved ethnic and sectarian tensions in Iraq could unleash a new wave of violence, potentially reversing the major security and political gains achieved over the last year...

The findings seem to cast doubts on McCain's frequent assertions that the United States is "on a path to victory" in Iraq by underscoring the deep uncertainties of the situation despite the 30,000-strong U.S. troop surge for which he was the leading congressional advocate.


Of course, considering the cost in lives and money, any non-wingnut would have to realize that "victory" in context of Iraq is disengenuous at best, and makes a classic Pyrrhic victory look like a smashing success in comparison. But such is the mythology, which is clung to by some far more fervently than guns, religion, or whatever.

Aside: I half-watched the debate last night--obviously I'm pleased at the outcome, even if it was a little boring...I'd rather be bored than infuriated by crap prattle emanating from particularly Palin, but in general Campaign McCain. As for Johnny Mac, I thought he looked like a grumpy old Captain Ahab: his tottering around made him look like he had a pegleg, and he even seemed to wobble or list a bit, despite being on terra firma.

Well, good--I think and hope. Guess we'll see what, if any, surprise the Rethugs have in these final four weeks.

Tuesday, October 07, 2008

Strange Bedfellows...
From 2Millionth Web Log


Salon explores the link between the Alaska Independence Party and Iran, which is a bit more interesting than the extremely tenuous connection between Barack Obama and "Willie" Ayers.
Waving the Bloody Rag
From 2Millionth Web Log


Makes Dubya look honorable and dignified (or, as he might put it, honorablized and dignituded) in comparison.
Heckuva Job
From 2Millionth Web Log


And to think we could have four more years of the same in a McCain-Palin administration.
KKKlassy
From 2Millionth Web Log


McCain's base is the media, Palin's...no, not so much:

Palin's routine attacks on the media have begun to spill into ugliness. In Clearwater, arriving reporters were greeted with shouts and taunts by the crowd of about 3,000. Palin then went on to blame Katie Couric's questions for her "less-than-successful interview with kinda mainstream media." At that, Palin supporters turned on reporters in the press area, waving thunder sticks and shouting abuse. Others hurled obscenities at a camera crew. One Palin supporter shouted a racial epithet at an African American sound man for a network and told him, "Sit down, boy."

In fact, her base sounds like, well, domestic terrorists--or sympathizers.

Monday, October 06, 2008

The Martyrdom of St. John McNasty
From 2Millionth Web Log


Those mean Democrats...and that mean Charles Keating. How dare the latter lavish money on John McCain for the sole purpose of ensuring that the former could one day besmirch him?
Where's Dubya?
From 2Millionth Web Log


Interesting how the media doesn't find the incredible shrinking president's absence from the campaign trail--really, about the one thing he did even half-competently--at all unusual.

Oh, sure, I suppose you could make the case that the Palin train wreck and the revelation of the real John McCain--an insecure, petty, petulant, mean-spirited bully projecting more than a chain of multiplexes--is, technically speaking, "the story," or at least the lede of the recent news cycles. But still--the fact that a sitting second term president is SUCH a kiss of death that the candidate dare not mention his name? Pretty damning.
Maybe She Thinks You Can See It From Alaska
From 2Millionth Web Log


And maybe I think basic geographic competence should be a consideration for someone aspiring to hold high office.
Drill Baby Drill
From 2Millionth Web Log


It's not like something could go wrong or whatever:

Hurricane Ike's winds and massive waves destroyed oil platforms, tossed storage tanks and punctured pipelines. The environmental damage only now is becoming apparent: At least a half million gallons of crude oil spilled into the Gulf of Mexico and the marshes, bayous and bays of Louisiana and Texas, according to an analysis of federal data by The Associated Press.