Someone oughta tap Michelle’s phone and see how she likes it…

Oh gawd no! I don’t wanna hear what she and O’Reilly talk about!

The cognitive dissonance over at Little Green Snotknobs comes in two flavors:
It’s treasonous for The NYT to tell the truth.

If you have nothing to hide you have nothing to fear.

Calgon Crescent, take me away!

I still say that the best/craziest line in that entire rant is ?President Bush took extraordinary measures to protect Americans in the aftermath of the Sept. 11 terrorist attacks??. Gee, thanks; you shouldn?t have. No, really; you shouldn?t have.

Next time some Christofascist blows up a Planned Parenthood Clinic, I hope the FBI will start opening the Ferocious Filipino?s mail.

Did they ever get to the bottom of that Filipino spy ring?

Just curious.

Loathesome? Is there room in your world for tolerance for the broad spectrum of political opinion in this country. There are plenty of really effective and intelligent advocates of beliefs with which I strongly disagree. The mere fact that I don’t agree with them does not reduce me to name calling. Talk on substance and dont’ just hate.

It’s not a question of agreeing or disagreeing with her, Autumn. Michelle Malkin is a compulsive liar, a raging bigot, and a fatuous twit.
And Charlotte, instead of tapping Michy’s phone, someone should tap on her head to find out how hollow it is.

Autumn- please. Unlike other conservative pundits, Malkin does not deserve to be politely engaged. She is a notorious liar and propagandist whose claim to fame is her attempt to justify a racist policy of internment. Were she a German, she’d be denying the Holocaust. I have zero respect for such vile and unforgiveably dishonest human beings.

It’s obvious all y’all (I feel like I’m going native when I use that) at Sadly, No! are anti-liar bigots. Hate crime!!!

Malkin. What a khunt…

…Hey, I’ve got my comedy “kh’s” back…*ahem*..”kh kh kh kh”……chutzphah, Tijuana, Loch Lomond…

My vote for “most ironic paragraph” goes to this one:

Civil liberties extremists pretend there are no tradeoffs, no costs, to putting legal absolutism over national security. That is simply not the case. Had Faris remained free, he may have likely kept forging ahead until he found the right tools, the right bridge, the right trains, and the right time to execute the al Qaeda plot.

I want to answer the first sentence thusly: Hack administration apologists pretend there are no tradeoffs, no costs, to adopting an ends-justify-the-means approach to violations of the Constitution.

But it’s nice to know that if the NSA had not used unconstitutional measures, Faris “may have likely kept forging ahead” in the plot they uncovered. If that level of certainty justifies breaches of the Fourth Amendment, then we are waaaaaay down the rabbit hole.

I just love the phrase “civil liberties extremists.”

you know, I was just looking at a picture of St. Peter’s square in Rome, and that kind of looks like two crescents.

Or, if you turn your head a little, they could even be sickles!

It’s obviously some kind of Mus-Com conspiracy to subvert religion.

We should start rounding up and interning Catholics, just in case. It’s the only American thing to do.

Had Faris remained free, he may have likely kept forging ahead until he found the right tools, the right bridge, the right trains, and the right time to execute the al Qaeda plot.

Is this a variation of “100 million monkeys, each with a typewriter, given an infinite amount of time, will collectively produce Romeo and Juliet?”

Given an infinite amount of tools, infinite bridges, infinite trains, and of course, infinite time, Faris’ll destroy simultaneously in Chicago the Sears Tower, the Red Line subway, and the Chicago River bridges; so we need to lock him in Gitmo and glowstick-fuck his ass!

Besides the fact that Faris needs to be immortal for this hypothesis to hold, and that the above sounds like cheats out of Grand Theft Auto or SimCity, what’s to say that we can’t substitute Michelle’s name instead of Faris’? She’s practically a Reptilian zombie already, so let’s send her to Gitmo!

I ♥ AntiLogic.

Michelle forgot three adjectives in her article:

“…President Bush took extraordinary [illegal, immoral, & unconstitutional] measures to protect Americans…”

Maybe she had an overzealous editor.

Every time Malkin writes anything, she argues tacitly in favour of re-education camps for Republicans.

Michelle…Miche…Shelley…Be careful what you wish for, for God’s sakes.

The real headline news is not …bullshit bullshit bullshit… but that the blabbermouths at the Times chose to disclose classified information… a year after the U.S. elections, though they knew at least some of the details before. Freaking leftist bastards!

Wah. Here’s a prime Malkinism. Her championship skill isn’t lying, per se, but doing a backward pretzel twist.

For those who blithely suggest that the NSA had no reason to bypass the courts, note that Judge Colleen Kollar-Kotelly refused to issue FISA warrants based on the NSA info.

What actually happened: The judge said, in effect, “Hey, NSA… Stop going out and spying on people, and then bringing the evidence you collect into my courtroom, trying to get a warrant to collect that same evidence. That kinda negates the whole purpose of ‘warrants,’ don’t you think?”

What can be said about Malkin that hasn’t allready been said? She’s like a female Frank Burns from M*A*S*H
Besides, I allready did my ranting today in the newest post 😀

Methinks Al Franken should christen Malkin the new “reigning diva of the hysterical right”. She’s starting to make Ann “I have an Adam’s Apple” Coulter look sane.

I got nothing. I am too mad to even snark. My snark mojo has been tapped out.

What can be said about Malkin that hasn’t allready been said? She’s like a female Frank Burns from M*A*S*H

Nah- Frank was entertaining (and in the show was shown to have some semblance of a soul. Malkin has yet to prove that one yet).

Let’s all keep talking about Malkin so we won’t have to talk about the Iraqi elections.

Speaking of the Iraqi elections, to CNN’s credit, they spent a great deal of time interviewing elated, emboldened Iraqi citizens. They made Fox look like they had been hijacked by Cindy Sheehan.

Doc, let’s all talk about that “Goddamned piece of paper” that Bush hates so much…

Let’s all keep talking about Malkin so we won’t have to talk about the Iraqi elections.

You mean the USA-installed “democracy” in Iraq? In a discussion about police-state tactic in the USA?

…are you honestly that stupid, BLT?

Iraqi elections? You mean the ones that the “Islamofascist” theocrat crow are handily winning? Oh, yes–ain’t “democracy” grand. And it’s only cost us $270 billion (so far…) to arrive at this glorious result, the xeroxing of Iran (with reduction set to 30% size). Truly lovely. And it’s not like anyone could have seen this coming, or anything. Why, I didn’t start warning people about this possible result before, oh when was it?, 2002 or so. Well, it’s a good thing the Shiite majority doesn’t believe in practicing torture, like Saddam or anything.
Oh, wait….

That was meant to be “theocrat crowd“.

My favorite bit of Malkinite stupidity of late was her claim that because less than 50% of the people who died as a result of hurricane Katrina were black, therefore the administration’s response to the hurricane was not racist.

Now, regardless of whether the administration’s response was racist or not, and regardless of whether you think it’s racist or not…how the hell does any of the thinking behind that work?

Mal de mer, don’t you have anything better to offer good old Dr. BLT than an ad hominem attack?

Marq, don’t shoot me, I’m just the messenger of the good news out of Iraq.

I agree that Malkin is despicable.

Mal de mer, perhaps you’re mad at me because of “That Saddam is Gone Christmas Song” of mine that they’ve linked folks up to over at Power LIne.

Well, I actually didn’t think you folks over here could handle that much enthusiasm over the end of Saddam’s rule or I would have offered the song to you folks first. I was trying to protect your feelings. Or perhaps you simply can’t stand it that someone isn’t inclined to join in your liberal groupthink.

I meant to recommend a book on how to get rid of trolls, but I haven’t written it yet. I can assure you that for the persistent troll, merely trying to discredit them by calling them “stupid” and shaming them so they will either conform to the liberal groupthink or abandon the liberal site forever, is entirely insufficient.

Marq, suppose that someone were able to provide such clear, unequivocal evidence (that things were much better for the Iraqi people now in Iraq than they were no longer under Saddam’s evil rule) that even someone as poisoned by the cyanide of cynicism as you appear to be would believe it. Would you then welcome the good news and be happy for them? I think not. Perhaps I’m being too cynical myself, but I believe that you folks really would rather that things continue to go bad in Iraq, just so that you can have more ammunition for your battle against Bush and his ilk.

Like you folks, I am dishearted by the bloodshed in Iraq. I blame the bloodshed on the insurgents, however, not on the Bush administration. I am not, however a Bush apologist, as Sidhe would like you to believe. I believe the Bush administration has made some massive blunders in Iraq, but deliberately setting out to destroy innocent lives was not one of them.

Yeah, Doc he did make some MASSIVE blunders…kind of like when you decide to decide to wield a chainsaw in a large, tightly packed group of people, and forget to yell “Stand back!”

People will undoubtedly get hurt and maybe even killed, but it’s not really *intentional*…

Oh, and I notice you completely ignored my request for you to comment on Bush’s statement about the Constitution. If that’s how he feels about ours, why do you think he gives a rat’s ass about the Iraqi version?

Hello, celticgirl, I appreciate the fact that you didn’t resort to cheap tactics of some at this site (like blame; shame; insensitive rebuke; unmodulated cursing; character assasination; abominable ad hominem attacks; vile, vituperative, virulent utterances and puerile, pusilanimous insults) to draw me into a dialogue. I will never forget the noble aspect of your character for avoiding such a pitfall.

now, in terms of your request, I’m not here to be an apologist for Bush. I don’t agree with everything that he says or does. Your analogy was a little extreme, but, yes, much of the operation was, at times, executed in an abysmally clumsy way, and in a clumsy way that was, unfortunately, costly, and regretable at best. Going into Iraq, and removing Saddam’s regime is something that I believe, in the long run, will be absolutely wonderful for the entire region, and indeed, the world. But the price has been extremely high, and some of that price could have been avoided if better planning had prevailed.

Yeah, and what will you say if a civil war erupts?
I hate to be the bearer of bad news, but its pretty much either that, or a coalition with Iran. Either way people are gonna end up dead.
I hope, more than anything, that somehow the election will bring some peace to them, but as allways, it seems that this is just another photo op.

If it were a photo-op, I doubt if CNN would be the ones filming the most elated, visibly emboldened Iraqis.

Well, at least your statement reflects a modicum of hope. You’re not as negative about the situation as many are at this site, Timmah. In fact, that’s the most optimistic statement I’ve witnessed coming from you yet.

Doc: I’m not asking you to be a Bush apologist -just answer the question I have asked you TWICE now…how do you feel now that you know your president thinks the U.S. Constitution is just a “Goddamned piece of paper”? (One that he apparently has been wiping his ass with).

Tell me how the right can justify that? I really want to understand.

Not only that, celticgirl….didn’t Bush swear an oath before God to uphold that Constitution? And wouldn’t you think that he, being that good, God-fearing Christian he claims to be, would be in fear for his mortal soul for insulting a document that he swore before his Eternal Judge to hold in reverence?

Marq, don’t shoot me, I’m just the messenger of the good news out of Iraq.

That it’s turning out to be a fundamentalist Islamic theocracy?! I had no idea you fundies were so close-knit. Islam, Christianity, whatevah! When they sweep the globe, and you have to have that Satanic “B” removed, Doc, don’t forget to pray toward Mecca at the proscribed 5 times a day. After all, I’d hate to have you publicly beheaded for heresy.

celticgirl, patience is a virtue. I will answer your question as soon as I’m a able to find an article on the subject that doesn’t look as though it came right out of the National Enquirer. I’m looking for one objective report, written by someone who doesn’t have an obvious axe to grind. Let me know if you find what I”m looking for first. Then I will seriously look into the matter, and respond accordingly.

Marq, you’ve greatly increased my credibility as a victim of persecution with that not-so-subtle death threat 🙂

Apparently you haven’t read anything about the election in Iraq. Hello!? The massive election turn-out, by members of both religious and secular factions, with vastly disparate ideologies, is a huge step away from theocracy and an ineffably huge step in the direction of democracy.

Because would-be-insurgents are now actively participating in the elections, and thinking that having a democratic voice may be a viable alternative to violence, your doomday scenario in Iraq may ultimately be doomed.

While I applaud the elections as an (at least) semi-positive step toward the direction of stability (though we are at the beginning of a very long road if we actually want to see that. Longer than the administration is willing to admit, I’ll wager), I think you greatly underestimate the size and power of the Shi’i factions, Doc- especially since the Kurds make up a fair portion of the minority Sunnis, and even the Al-Fayliah Shi’i Kurds are integrated into Central Iraq (outside of “Kurdistan”) are probable to vote either nationalistically or with the theocrats.
The Sunnis are a moderate minority (comperable to, say, Catholics and Episcopalians here in the USA)- Saddam was one of them, and a highly secular one at that.
The Shi’i are the primary components of the United Iraqi Alliance- al-Sadr and the Ayatollah al-Sistani’s boys are the ones running the show there.
Naturally, these individuals won (in addition to al-Sadr’s official party, NICE) 143 seats of the 275 seat parliment, with just over 48% of the vote.
A not-so-short list of the parties in question in this (granted, convinient and fragile) alliance:

Supreme Council for the Islamic Revolution in Iraq (SCIRI)
Islamic Dawa Party (al-Dawa)
Iraqi National Congress (INC)
Badr Organisation
Centrist Assembly Party
Da’wa Islamic Party/Iraq Organisation
Islamic Fayli Grouping in Iraq
Fayli Kurd Islamic Union
Al-Fadilah Islamic Party
First Democratic National Party
Assembly “Future of Iraq”
Hezbollah Movement in Iraq
Hezbollah al-Iraq
Justice and Equality Grouping
Islamic Master of the Martyrs Movement
Islamic Action Organisation
Islamic Union for Iraqi Turkomans
Islamic Virtue Party
Sayyid Al-Shuhadaa Organisation
Shaheed Al-Mihrab Organisation
Turkmen Fidelity Movement

Now, the fun part about most of these groups is that (besides the obvious history of our friends in Hezbollah and the Martyrs) they have- survey says!- deep ties to both the Iraqi Islamist theocratic movement from the fifties (and were persecuted by Saddam, who thought they were a threat to his secular dictatorship) and (as a corollary) Iran’s “Revolutionary” governement (who just, if you missed it, denied the Holocaust and banned most US pop music and film).
We supported Saddam back in the day because he represented stability, and we knew he wouldn’t cozy up to the Iranians who, Shah or no, were going to play the majority Shi’i theocrats against him.
The current prime minister, al-Jaafari, was the Ayatollah’s anti-Saddam monkey-boy back in the ’80s, and is, terrifyingly enough, both in bed with Hezbollah and the most popular political figure in Iraq besides al-Sadr and al-Sistani.
As long as we’re there, propping them up, they’ll stay in line (mostly). When we leave… I wouldn’t say a Iran-esque theocracy will take shape there, but I do predict something along the lines of the Islamic version of Pat Robertson’s America taking shape (at the no doubt fawning demand of the Iraqi people).
Now, if we were to stay for, say, 10-15 years, it is likely our culture will seep into the Iraqi conscience enough to leave a bi-polar collection of US-hating theocrats and pro-capitalist kleptocrats (not unlike our political system, but with Tourette’s).
Granted, I’m not a professional (yet), but that is the, best case, 50/50 fate of Iraq.
The best we can hope for, in my cynical opinion, is a guy (or party with a series of guys) like Mubarak- a moderate kind of stable dictator who is significantly less personally repressive than Saddam (because, frankly, Iraqis had it relatively alright economically and socially during Saddam’s reign- so long as they didn’t piss him off). A guy “we can do business with”, to quote the ill-fated Chamberlain.
Don’t get me wrong: Saddam was a bastard who deserved to get overthrown in a perfect world… but that, we don’t have, and we have to choose our battles to take out the worst ones (i.e. Darfur, Rwanda, Somalia, East Timor, Kosovo… we don’t have a great track record, but that is another lecture entirely).
They’d need a self-started revolution to do anything constructively positive with that mess of a fragmented political system they have right now.
That might happen sooner, rather than later- if the Islamists get elected, they will ask us to leave (as we’ve promised to allow them to). Either we look like imperialist bastards and welch, or we leave and they plunge into a bloody civil war within 10 years, with Iran supplying one side and the Saudis supplying another (probably with our assistance).
Then, the process starts all over again.

Yes, GuinnessGuy, the situation is complicated, and fragile, I will give you that. And I applaud you for obviously doing your homework on the subject, but here is where I object to your line of argument:

“Either we look like imperialist bastards and welch, or we leave and they plunge into a bloody civil war within 10 years, with Iran supplying one side and the Saudis supplying another (probably with our assistance).”

This is the sort of black and white, either/or thinking that we cannot afford to have as it concerns the region. It’s all about compromise. The road towards democracy in Iraq will, no doubt, be a rocky one, and one bound to involve conflict.

But the fact that disparate factions are co-existing within a legitimate system of government, and the fact that democracy is now seen by many (who would have otherwise resorted to violence as a road to empowerment) as a viable option, is the seed that, if nurtured (not by either intrusive overinvolvement, underinvolvement, or abandonment on the part of the U.S.), has the potential to blossom into a beautiful, if thorny, rose bush (no pun intended).

Doc: Please. What part of “how do you feel now that you know” requires finding an article written by some right-wing hack to answer my question?

I want your opinion. YOURS. It’s your Constitution too. He vowed to uphold it. He swore before God and the nation to do it. This incident was witnessed by several Republicans, at least one of whom (I assume) was disgusted enough to leak it. As much as you’d like this to be some made up story, it reflects W’s true feelings about the document that is the foundation of our democracy.

Step away from the trees doc. Try to see the forest for once. No more double-speak. Just tell me how you can support a president that has broken the most important vow he made to the American people-to defend and uphold the Constitutuon.

“Doc: Please. What part of “how do you feel now that you know” requires finding an article written by some right-wing hack to answer my question?

I want your opinion. YOURS.”

While it’s nice to be wanted for a change, celticgirl, for my opinion, no less.

However, I’m avoiding all authors with obvious axes to grind—those who would grind their axes from the left, as well as those who would grind them from the right. As soon as I find an article written by someone who has a reputation of being objective and non-partisan in his/her
reporting, I will be happy to answer your question.

I will say this however: If the general consensus of the folks who attended the meeting swear that these were Bush’s exact words, and that they weren’t taken out of context, then I will be every bit as concerned as you are.

As for now, I’m still celebrating about theunprecedented, overwhelmingly positive results of the election in Iraq, along with the glorious fact that Saddam is no longer in power over there.

Heck, if it’s good enough for Power Line to post and proclaim it, it’s good enough for you folks at “Sadly, no!”:

That “Saddam is Gone” Christmas Song
words and music by Dr. BLT (c)2005
http://www.drblt.com/music/saddamosix.mp3

Black and white… not quite (though I admit the poor structure). That are the two options in one likely outcome, i.e. the Islamists get elected strongly (I gave it 50/50, give or take 15% depending on the events of the next few years). While there might be a democratic process at thet beginning, if said Islamists win, it won’t stay that way indefinately (either the people will keep eating their crap up, or they’ll get sick of them and force a Dieboldx1,000,000 election policy).
That is why I’d rather take a goal-based approach to withdrawal than set a timetable (though having a flexible timetable for the achievement of goals is not out of the question). I don’t know exactly what those goals should be (that’s for a bunch of smart people in State to draw up, preferable with as few mentions to “freedom”, “liberty” and all that other jingoistic crap as possible).
I like to this type of thing would have us out in a couple years (again, I’m no policy expert), and would at least be more effective in giving Iraq a decent shot at a half-way decent existance than the blind ass-grabbing way we’re going about things now.
I hope Iraq manages to stabilize itself out; I just (as a student of the Middle East, granted of its history) am wary to say it is “probable”, with the situation as it stands… though I wouldn’t be willing to bet either way (economies are much more predicable, as GOTO from Knights of the Old Republic II so brilliantly put).
Just hope for a secular party to win out in these elections and upcoming ones, that’s all I’m going to say.

And, to my great dismay, I turn on Blitzer today and see the UIA is kicking ass in the current election, followed by the Kurds (who apparently stuck to their nationalism) and the Sunnis, then the secularists (our favorites) led by our boy Allawi in a distant fourth, not leading in a single region.
Damn…

GuinnessGuy, I must admit that your comments on Iraq are the most intelligent ones I’ve come across in a long time.

It can’t be good that they are just thrilled at the outcome of this election in Iran…

The fact the the election even happened, and the fact that it was not met with ineffable violenceboth of these facts are nothing short of miraculous.

This election was, as it were, a test-case for the Sunni. They’ve been loudly complaining about “fraud” ever since, and in some cases seem to think that they, in fact, constitute the majority population (they are not-they are >20%). It’s the next election that will prove telling, since the Sunni’s resentment will likely build during the intervening time, and they will feel politically slighted and persecuted. The violence-level will likely rise as well, whether we stay or not. The chances of a civil war, or even a regional or world war if surrounding countries get involved are fairly high. And, eventually, down-the-line, the blowback will come our way, just as it did from our involvement in supplying the mujhadeen during the Afghan war with Russia came back to us on 9/11.

I think that the chances of improvements in Iraq will be much greater if we all focus and build upon the positive, and send a little positive mental energy their way in the process. Go ahead and hate the US government if you want for going into Iraq, but for God’s sake, have a little compassion and hope for the innocent Iraqis who are now left with the challenge of rebuilding their nation after being crushed, mercilessly brutalized and woefully oppressed by the iron fist of Saddam for so many years.

Doc: You want to talk about innocent Iraqis? I have two words for you: White Phosphorus.

Let FREEDOM ring!

And I have two words for you, celticgirl.
Merry Christmas!

“May your days be merry and bright, and may all your Christmases be white!”

Doc: I’ll see your “Merry Christmas” and raise you a “Happy Solstice” and a “Sumptuous Saturnalia”!

You’re exasperating, but I appreciate your good wishes…

“May your days be merry and bright, and may all your phosphorous be white!” Hee hee. OK, I guess melted people isn’t that funny….

Marq, if there was some sort of subtle apology in there somewhere for cursing at me, I’m sorry, but I missed it. And I’ve tried to read between the lines, but can’t find one innuendo in that statement that would suggest that you’ve forgiven me for falsely assuming that you were the one to have made me mildly famous.

celticgirl, I’ll accept your “Happy Solstice” and “Sumptuous Saturnailia” as the only way you know how to say “Merry Christmas!” And please, don’t let yourself get exasperated over a silly, if marginally droll, troll!