It’s hard to say. Right now, it’s like a limbo contest in which they’re already underground. The latest is an absurd photoshop job of Michelle Malkin ostensibly wearing a bikini in a “Girls Gone Wild” pose.
I just want to throw this into the general discourse, without, at this point, examining it very closely or crafting any arguments for or against it. It’s only a thought right now.
It’s that George W. Bush may have no intention of leaving the White House in early 2009, when his term expires.
Henry Kissinger has been advising President Bush and Vice President Cheney about
Iraq, telling them that “victory is the only meaningful exit strategy,” author and journalist Bob Woodward said.
The Washington Post editor’s third book on the Bush administration, “State of Denial,” comes out next week.
He said Kissinger, who served in the Nixon and Ford administrations, has been telling Bush and Cheney that “in Iraq, he declared very simply, ‘Victory is the only meaningful exit strategy.’”
“This is so fascinating. Kissinger’s fighting the Vietnam War again because, in his view, the problem in Vietnam was we lost our will.”
The sound you just heard was Christopher Hitchens flying headfirst into his own liquor cabinet.
Lott went on to say he has difficulty understanding the motivations behind the violence in Iraq.
“It’s hard for Americans, all of us, including me, to understand what’s wrong with these people,” he said. “Why do they kill people of other religions because of religion? Why do they hate the Israeli’s and despise their right to exist? Why do they hate each other? Why do Sunnis kill Shiites? How do they tell the difference? They all look the same to me.”
Thanks to the 65 losers and cowards who voted to give the stupidest president in American history still more unchecked power. History will not look kindly upon you.
Retardo-san adds: Take names. Next time these so-called Democrats run for office, throw everything you have to their opponents in the primary. Memory and ruthlessness is all we have; I suggest we use them. I hope Kos has these losers’ names on his shitlist. If he doesn’t, he should have. These assholes have flushed not only the Geneva Conventions and the U.S. Constitution down the toilet, but also common law. No true conservative much less leftist could support Bush’s power-grab in good conscience. These people are fascists and fascist fellow-travellers.
On Sunday, Salon reported that Ken Shelton, a former [college football] teammate of Allen’s who works as a radiologist in North Carolina, claimed that Allen asked after a hunting trip for directions to a neighborhood populated by black residents. Shelton said Allen then drove him and another teammate, Billy Lanahan, to the area and put the severed head of a deer they had killed into a mailbox.
George Beam, a nuclear engineering company manager who lives outside Lynchburg, Va., now says he can confirm parts of that story. Beam, who played football with Allen, said he remembers Lanahan, who is now deceased, describing the hunting trip with Allen and Shelton.
“We were sitting around drinking beer,” Beam said in an interview Wednesday morning, recalling the conversation with Lanahan. “Billy said, ‘George and Kenny and I went hunting, and we decided at some time to cut off this deer head and stick it in a mailbox.’”
The George Allen Election 500 — some say it isn’t real racing because he only makes right turns, but you get more flaming wrecks than NASCAR.
Yeah, that’s what I thought of at first too. But the actual article is a good deal funnier than the zany adventures of Mahoney, Hightower, Tackleberry and company (though the Iraqis have yet to find anyone who can do “bwah-ha-ha”-worthy sound effects like Michael Winslow could). Anyway, let’s check out the piece:
Heralded Iraq police academy a ‘disaster’
$75 million project so mismanaged that campus poses huge health risks
By Amit R. Paley
BAGHDAD – A $75 million project to build the largest police academy in Iraq has been so grossly mismanaged that the campus now poses health risks to recruits and might need to be partially demolished, U.S. investigators have found.
We’re only 30 seconds into this movie and I’m laughin’ already!
I got the right, I got the right – I got the ticket and the buck stops here.
Shorter Michael Medved: By placing a television in every room, Americans are packing on unnecessary pounds and eliminating communication between family members – as my wife mentions in her best-selling book, The Case Against Divorce.
Shorter Jerry Newberry: The troops in Afghanistan told me they’re sad that you’ve forgotten about them.
Shorter Mike S. Adams: Liberal academics are the most virulent racists of all, and I can prove it with a story about the time I bought crack cocaine.
Shorter Michelle Malkin: Remember that lovely young singer, Charlotte Church? These days she’s an Ecstasy-gobbling, Bush-bashing whore.
Shorter Linda Chavez: Racial profiling would have saved me $200 at the cosmetics counter.
Shorter William Rusher: The United Nations remained relevant until all those ex-colonial nations were permitted to enter through the front door, the same as the rest of us.
Shorter Walter Williams: There’s no problem that can’t be solved if it’s explained in terms of an employer hiring a group of day laborers.
Shorter Brent Bozell III: Bill Clinton was probably just cranky because some Fox staffer hadn’t picked the red M&Ms from the bowl in his dressing room, as he demanded. Also, he is laughing at you.
Shorter Ben Shapiro: Was Bill Clinton’s outburst staged, or an example of his unhinged mania? It’s hard to say, but the truth undoubtedly lies in which answer is most personally outrageous to you. Also, he digs fat chicks and is most likely a rapist.
Shorter Tony Blankley: I’m wondering whether we should topple Pakistan’s government now, or wait until next year.
Shorter Paul Greenburg: The Constitution’s framers could never have imagined how fearful we’d be of our terrorist enemies – which is precisely why they originally intended for us to start over from scratch with a wartime Constitution.
Shorter Terence Jeffrey: Unless you vote Republican this fall, activist judges will allow people to display child pornography during murder trials.
Shorter Kathleen Parker: Bill Clinton has every right to be angry about distortions of his record, but he shouldn’t have wagged his finger at Chris Wallace. Also, he is a liar and a narcissist.
Shorter Jacob Sullum: As a libertarian, I believe the United States should honor higher standards of human rights than Syria.
Shorter Austin Bay: Kofi Annan shall remain without credibility until he sends forces to solve the problems in Darfur with still more violence.
Shorter Andrew Tallman: Liberals throughout history have defended the sacred right to express unpopular viewpoints, which is why I would expect them to support the president’s right to enact policies most people disagree with.
Shorter Richard Mgrdechian: Liberals are divisive, godless, thieving, hateful, name-calling jackals, which is why I’m proud to call myself a conservative.
Shorter William F. Buckley: It seems likely that, to deflect attention from her son’s patrician views on other races, George Allen’s mother disclosed her own status as a Jewess.
Shorter Maggie Gallagher: We must formally ratify the defintion of parenthood before it’s decided in the court of public opinion.
Shorter David Keene: John McCain’s campaign finance “reforms” have allowed shadowy left-wing organizations and notorious elitists such as George Soros to fund efforts to topple the government.
Shorter Debra Saunders: Bill Clinton is right to suggest that he could never have gained public support to wage war on terrorists, but he should have had the guts to do it anyway. Also, he believed Saddam Hussein possessed weapons of mass destruction.
Shorter Cal Thomas: When Bill Clinton shook his finger at Chris Wallace, did it remind you of another time he wagged his finger? Also, I believe he intended that as an obscene gesture.
Shorter David Limbaugh: Riddle me this: If treacherous Democrats truly believe that negative world opinion toward the U.S. promotes terrorism, why won’t they quit telling the world about things that might make them hate us?
Shorter Travis G.: I wish Bill Clinton would do more things to piss these guys off.
Slightly less tragically hip 10″x3″ bumper sticker
UPDATE: Smiling Mortician just posted a link to Olbermann’s Monday stem-winder, in comments. Apparently, the wingnuts sent Olbermann a fake anthrax letter yesterday. (Note the tone of the piece, in the NY Post gossip section.)
[&BTW: I'm back in effeck.]
Above: On the Internet, no one knows your pants are down past your knees.
UPDATE: Oh also, I’m somehow reminded of this. I’ve been wanting to make a small run of these. (See below the fold). Does anyone know where to source some cheap plastic whatsits like the one in the mockup? And just as importantly, what should the female version be?
To hear poor Brendan Nyhan tell it, being dubbed “Wanker of the Day” by Dr. Atrios is like some hideous Internets death sentence that ruins your on-line nerd life forever. Check it:
Last Wednesday, controversy broke out when I slammed two liberal blogs for using an airline employee’s suicide after 9/11 to take a cheap shot at President Bush. My post, which initially contained a minor factual error, prompted one of the bloggers, Atrios (aka Duncan Black), to label me the “wanker of the day” and to call on TAP editors to “rethink things a bit.” Hundreds of Atrios readers filled the Prospect’s comment boards with vitriol.
So now I’m curious- just what happens to someone when they’re named “Wanker of the Day?” Does their dog stop loving them? Does their girlfriend call them up and say, “I thought u were kewl, but then I saw that some guy on the Internet called u a ‘wanker.’ We r so, so ovar.” Do they sit in their closet eating donuts and sobbing because they received 350 e-mails informing them that they’re “teh gayest-assed fagort?” Really, I want to know.
Above: The cruel Dr. Atrios, who doesn’t understand sticks and stones break bones, and that calling people names on the Internet RUINS LIVES.
[Gavin adds: Aieee! No matter how many times I fix the color on that picture, the original AWFUL RED ONE keeps coming back...]
So how about it, Atrios? Make me “Wanker of the Day.” Go ahead. I can take it. I double-quadripple-dog dare you, ya bastuhd.
The Bush administration today released excerpts of a leaked U.S. intelligence report that concludes the U.S. invasion and occupation of Iraq has fueled Islamic extremism and contributed to the spread of terrorist cells. It also finds that terrorist groups around the world are adapting to counter-terrorism strategies. [...]
The report, which reflects the consensus of 16 government intelligence services, also suggests that a U.S. victory in Iraq could weaken the will of terrorist groups.
“Should jihadists leaving Iraq perceive themselves, and be perceived, to have failed, we judge fewer fighters will be inspired to carry on the fight,” the report said.
“Maybe, like, three fewer. But hey, it’s a start.”
The report argues that the spread of democracy in Muslim countries “would alleviate some of the grievances jihadists exploit” and erode their support.
But there’s a catch, right? And that catch is…?
But the Iraq conflict “has become the ’cause celebre’ for jihadists, breeding a deep resentment of US involvement in the Muslim world and cultivating supporters for the global jihadist movement,” the report said.
Nifty. So our presence in Iraq makes them hate us more. Our supposed “plan,” then, is to stay in Iraq until… when? They magically change their minds?
The weekend’s news out of Iraq was predictably grim. Here are some gruesome tidbits:
*BAGHDAD – A car bomb killed 26 people and wounded 29 others when it exploded in Baghdad’s Shi’ite slum of Sadr City, police said.
*NAJAF – Gunmen shot dead Fadhil Abu Seybi, the head of a local tribe and a member of the Supreme Council for the Islamic Revolution in Iraq (SCIRI), a prominent Shi’ite party. Police said Abu Seybi was killed outside his home in the holy city of Najaf, 160 km (100 miles) south of Baghdad.
*MAHMUDIYA – Police found five bodies bearing signs of torture and bullet wounds, in different parts of the small town of Mahmudiya just south of Baghdad, police said.
I’m sure The Left will use these attrocities to bolster its case that the Iraq war cannot be won. The Left, helped by their enablers in the mainstream press, will say that the entire country has degenerated into a bloodbath of sectarian violence and is quickly sliding toward a full scale civil war. “Oooh, look at how bad things have gotten in Iraq!” The Left will shriek. “You seriously can’t expect us to take sides in a full-scale civil war, can you?”
This reminds me of another time when America stood by and watched as a brutal war of attrition unfolded right before our eyes. Much like the current situation in Iraq, the United States failed to act decisively to end the conflict, mostly due to The Left’s inherent moral weakness. “It would be immoral to take sides in sectarian fighting,” The Left moaned at the time. “I’m just going go home, hide under my bed and sob myself to sleep! Wah, wah, wah, I am such a big vagina!”
I’m sure that many readers are scratching their heads, wondering what conflict I’m talking about. This is unsurprising, since today’s history classes spend an inordinate amount of time discussing the angry homosexuals who marched against America’s liberation of South Vietnam in the ’60s. So for those of you still in the dark, let me spell it out for you: I am referring to The Left’s failure to learn the lessons of the Cola Wars.
There’s bullshit even-handedness — being, purposefully, too fair with the radical right — as practiced and perfected by Sensible Liberals. Awful stuff. Then there’s something like the following, which is fair in the ‘giving the devil his due’ sort of way. Consider these passages:
From Wolcott’s Attack Poodles, which I just finally got a copy of the other day:
The one old pro who exemplifies what CNN was and still could be is Lou Dobbs, the rotund host of Lou Dobbs Tonight and a forceful battering ram. So full of self-assurance himself that it seems to be spilling out of his shirt collar, so confident in his opinions that he acts as if he’s bowled a ten-strike every time he delivers a smart comeback to some pencil-neck economist, Dobbs nevertheless is not your average cable news know-it-all demagogue. He has become what Bill O’Reilly, Neil Cavuto, and Chris Matthews only pretend to be, a broadcaster outraged on behalf of the screwed American worker, fleeced investor, and betrayed pension-holder. A champion of capitalism whom no one could accuse of being a liberal weenie, Dobbs has been pounding the beat on the outsourcing of American jobs and the hollowing-out of the industrial base with an unswervable fervor that sets him apart from everyone else on financial news. While they’re orgasming over every jump in the stock market, he’s outpaced them in comprehending the slow-motion convulsions and dislocations under way. Each night he holds apologists and guilty parties responsible for their answers without making it all about him and his amazing interrogation techniques. There’s nothing wrong with CNN keeping a few attack poodles such as Tucker Carlson and Jonah Goldberg around as pets, but if it is to depose Fox News from the throne CNN once held, it must let more lions like Lou Dobbs out of the den. Because the wrath over what George Bush has done to the country and its economic future is going to feed a hungrier roar in the years ahead, and his defenders and fellow decievers will become prey for the big cats…
Democrats have decided that the way to win in November is — I kid you not — to make the economy the central issue of the campaign.
“We’ve got to go on the offensive,” explained a senior Democratic aide, “and keep our eye on the ball — and that’s the economy”
“We’re not going to win 15 seats on the war in Iraq,” said another Democratic staffer, insisting it is the economy that will, in the words of Roll Call, “bring the party across the goal line.”
Sen. Debbie Stabenow is quoted as saying the 2006 election “is all about jobs.”
And, in a memo sent to Democratic staffers, the party’s Senate leadership claimed “while Iraq may be high among the concerns of the American people, it is a distant reality in comparison to the day to day challenges many families face filing their gas tanks, paying for college, saving for retirement and securing a job.”
A distant reality? Oh. My. God.
Yeah, I know. It’s like they’ve learned nothing from the past six years. Rooting for the Democrats is like being a pre-2004 Red Sox fan. But wait, there’s some hope. Check it:
The decisive question is whether Democrats can seize the initiative back from Bush in early October, after the Republican Congress returns home. Democrats plan to marry the themes of national and economic security — think of their economic platform as a dose of Klobuchar and a dash of Brown — and hope that splits among Republicans on torture, which were resolved only yesterday, will dampen GOP gains from the resurgence of the terrorism issue.
Sounds like a plan to me.
The thing is, the Democrats have been running a woefully incompetent “campaign” thus far. They are not taking the fight to the GOP- instead, they are holding Medicare press conferences while relying on McCain and Warner to try feebly and pathetically reining in the administration’s torture plans. I wish I could say I saw a plan of some kind here, but so far I don’t see anything.
Please say you’ve got something up your sleeves, guys. I mean, my God. Congress is yours for the taking if you’re willing to go on the damn offensive. Get going.
After a party-line vote in June, the House Intel Committee made public yesterday (ahem) a cut-and-pasted campaign brochure, intended to scare the bejeebers out of those whose bejeebers have long since flown off in a panic, over the unanimous objections of its Democratic members:
“There are a growing number of groups building the capability to attack the United States, our allies and our interests abroad,” said the report, which was detailed Wednesday by Rep. Peter Hoekstra (R-Mich.), chairman of the committee, in a speech at a conservative think-tank in Washington.
In their rebuttal, Democrats said Americans “do not need the House Intelligence Committee to remind them” that Al Qaeda posed a serious threat, and that the assessment added “no new information to the nation’s understanding of the challenges or to the U.S. government’s ability to address them.”
Au contraire, Hoekstra says (link is to NPR report so, if you’re verifying my work, you’ll have to listen to the audio or read the PDF – sorry):
A significant portion of the American public seems to have forgotten that the threat remains … We continue to be a nation at war against a very, very dangerous enemy and, in some cases, I think perhaps we’ve become a little bit complacent.
If by “have forgotten” and “complacent,” he means “not constantly scared witless,” then I suppose he’s got a point. But, on the other hand, I don’t see much benefit of being scared witless all the time. My wits keep me from making bad decisions (void where prohibited by booze).
It’s becoming more and more apparent that the Republican approach to fighting terrorism is pretty similar to Barney Fife’s approach to fighting crime (comical haplessness, making citizen’s arrests, wide-lens paranoia, eagerness to imprison people, bugged-out eyes, waving a pistol around, etc.). If only there were some way to ration their bullets, too, in the interest of public safety.
“There once was a deputy called Fife, who carried a gun and a knife. The gun was all dusty and his knife was all rusty, because he never caught a crook in his life.”
