Y’think you can photoshop some of Saddam’s WMDs onto that table? You know, the ones that were shipped into Syria in yellow barrels with skulls and crossbones on them?

I would like to dismiss this comment as mere sabre-rattling, but the problem is, he’s said it before, and look where it’s got us.

So I guess bombing Iran with horny, naked Ma Bush clones is also on the table?

The President must have table options universal or homo nups will be unopposed.

/Swank

Or, alternatively, you could just read how us dropping a bunch of nuclear bombs on Iran is actually “de-nuking” them.

And then you’d give serious thought to giving up on the whole idea of rationality, logic, and Englightenment values, and just embrace such simple, time honored truths as “it’s never time for homo nups global” or 2+2=5″ or whatever else the voices in their heads are telling them this week.

Where’s my bunny?

I’m gonna have to disagree with Gavin on this one. See, for years ALL the options have fit neatly on the table. It’s not like some options keep rolling off onto the floor, staining the rug with death and suffering, which are wicked hard to get out. I don’t recall there being a time when bush said “Actually, I’ve had to take Tactical Nuclear Weapons and Strip Parchisi off the table, as there just wasn’t enough room for them”.

So if he followed Gavin’s advice and got some shelves, maybe a hutch or an armoire, he would need to get MORE options. And his speeches would be even more convoluted. “All options are NOT on the table. Some are in the closet with the skis and hiking boots”. See, that would simply make the Europeans CRAZY, ’cause they’d never clutter up there whole house with options like that.

mikey

Oh, lord….somebody please do something with that Mark Steyn article….he’s crossing into Swankerific levels of incoherence there.

He just said something about one guy wanting to “nut[another guy] in the face”, and I think he meant beat them up, but God help me, I can’t be sure….

Geeze, Mikey, are you channelling Fafnir, or hitting the inhalants awfully hard?

That’s some mighty fine postin’, by the way…

Have you ever seen me and fafnir in the same room at the same time?

I rest my case…

mikey

Should there not be some evil kitties sprinkled about the place?

Unless Bush is lying and the evil kitten option has indeed been taken off the table. Could they sink any lower? I think not.

“Put some Wagner on the phonograph, and release the death kitties!”

Together now, kids: dun-da-dun DA DA dun-da-dun DA DAAA, dun-da-dun DA DUN, dun-da-dun-DAAAAA!

Hey, you changed the table! So, I guess everything must be on the table, but we can change the table? What are we talking about now?

oh boy! nucular brinksmidship!

I’m Photoshopping for dear life, yes.

People think it’s easy, but I’m the hardest-working kid around here, by God.

All options should remain on the table. If we were taking options off the table, it would cause the Iranians to get too confident.

I’m with Gary. Taking off the option that George W. Bush might sodomize Ahmadinejad and then marry him against his will in Massachusetts (which is coming soon if those liberal activist judges have their way) would just be insane.

Yeah, like the option of disemboweling all Iranian children and eating their intestines in a nude berserk orgy. That’s gotta stay on the table.

Well, all realistic options, including a defensive nuclear attack on Iran

Maybe Bush just needs a storage solution. Maybe some shelves, a closet organizer…

A closet organizer? Isn’t that Ken Mehlman’s official title?

Thank you, thank you. I’ll be here all week.

Or, we could just send Tom Cruise over.

I love how the words “nuclear attack” can somehow be characterized (at least in Gary’s mind) as defensive.

So turning Tehran into glass and killing thousands of people who can’t do the same to you is defensive. Maybe, if you are insane to take the “The best defense is a good offence” mantra to an insane literal length.

I’m talking about a defensive child-disemboweling, of course. Iran may be in a position to build a nuclear weapon in five to ten years.

Another thing is a general massacre of Baghdad. I think it’s fair to say that the Iraqis had their chance. Now they’re a liability.

Perhaps Gary could explain to us why a nuclear first strike on Iran is a rational defense option but disemboweling all Iranian children and eating their intestines in a nude berserk orgy is not. Because obviously he must have his reasons for holding this belief.

Is it just the “nude” part that is problematic or what? Because the clothed option is on the table too.

It’s a pre-emptive child-disembowling, so it’s covered under the Bush doctrine.

Only the objectively pro-Islamist could deny that.

the nuclear strike would be defensive as it would be defending our troops in Iraq from Iranian aggression

I take it back. Now I see how defensive measures like unprovoked nuclear attacks and nude child disembowlment and a massacre in Baghdad are necessary. But I’m not sure it’s a good enough defense. Perhaps we need to round up people into interment camps, purely as a defensive measure of course, just so the Iranians can’t use their offensive capabilities against us. And I think that we should start with well, the media, who are Islamofascist Sympathizers, the Democratic Party, and anybody who doesn’t look white and christian enough.

the nuclear strike would be defensive as it would be defending our troops in Iraq from Iranian aggression

Another reason why we must sterilize Iraq of the Muslim bacillus. America’s patience is long, but the survival of the Arab race is not America’s responsibility.

If Iraq continues to kill innocent Americans, there will be no Iraq, no Iraqis.
We will drive toward Tehran on a desert strewn with bones and ashes.

Hey, haven’t I heard that before somewhere….

Is this on the table? It’s got something for everybody –
“There was a big sex orgy when everybody knew that the world was going to end, and then Jesus Christ Himself appeared ten seconds before the bomb went off”

So… if they were to attack first, it would count as defensive- Okay, I can kind of see how that works logically, given that Iran could probably do a number on our emplacements in Iraq.
But how does that apply to the current situation that “the table” is concerned with- the Iranian’s potential creation of nuclear weapons (in 5-10 years…)?
And, more importantly, how can a preemptive nuclear strike qualify as “defensive”, especially if employed toward mixed targets (i.e. non-isolated military targets… which is inevitably where the nuclear program targets are).

I’m not too worried…

I’ve got lots of tuna fish under the bed, plenty of plastic and duct tape. I feel very safe!

And, more importantly, how can a preemptive nuclear strike qualify as “defensive”, especially if employed toward mixed targets (i.e. non-isolated military targets… which is inevitably where the nuclear program targets are).

9/11, dude. If they didn’t want us to obliterate millions of Iranians, they should’ve thought about that before flying those planes into the buildings, in the greatest tragedy ever known in human history.

Except for the Holocaust, which stands alone.

Yeah 9/11 changed everything. We can’t allow for rogue states to have the bomb that they could use to attack people they didn’t like without provocation!!!

GG, any action can be preemptively defensive since the Bush Doctrine came to town.

It’s the swingingest new game – all the cool cats are playing it! What are you, some kind of square, man?

…or whatever else the voices in their heads are telling them this week.

You probably thought you were joking, right, Jillian? Nope.

HENRY: But what do you say to critics who believe that you’re ignoring the advice of retired generals, military commanders, who say that there needs to be a change?

BUSH: I say I listen to all voices, but mine’s the final decision and Don Rumsfeld is doing a fine job. He’s not only transforming the military, he’s fighting a war on terror. He’s helping us fight a war on terror. I have strong confidence in Don Rumsfeld. I hear the voices and I read the front page and I know the speculation, but I’m the decider and I decide what is best and what’s best is for Don Rumsfeld to remain as the secretary of defense. I want to thank you all very much.

If we nuke the entire world, we can defend ourselves from every attack! Only a terrorist lover would disagree.

It’s the swingingest new game – all the cool cats are playing it! What are you, some kind of square, man?

I just want to see Gary explain it, ‘sall…

GG I’d like Gary to explain it as well, but all you’ll get is some rambling incoherent thing that basically would boil down to the Islamofascists would boil you alive while making you eat your children if they could do it, so we’d better nuke ’em all and let God sort it out.

psst…………don’t tell anyone I told you this, but……Gary’s a square!

I say why stop at claiming that a nuclear weapon is “defensive”? Why not pull out our big guns of freedom?? Pump Rush Limbaugh full of 7 bean chili and drop him over Tehran. I understand that not only is that our worst chemical weapon we ever developed, but that anal cysts can really morph the sound of a fart into deadly sound waves — bleeding of the ears, burst eardrums etc.

This is not to mention that while the people of Tehran are dying from gas poisoning and bleeding from their ears, Rush can tell them all that if they just breathe deeply enough, they too can be free just like his “Dittoheads”….

Well, HG, I’m just holding out hope that he might break precedent…

Sorry, I meant to work in the term “fat ass” as well, but failed miserably! Hey, maybe I’m qualified for a high ranking position in the Pentagon….

Hey Look! I found a Picture of Gary in Action!!

mikey

the nuclear strike would be defensive as it would be defending our troops in Iraq from Iranian aggression

So a nuclear strike from the US would be defensive because it might prevent a strike from Iran against the sovereign nation of Iraq happening at some indefinite point in the future.

Atta boy, Gary; if you haven’t logic on your side, use mindless fear-mongering.

I just shot Diet Pepsi out of my nose. I read this and then browsed at Media Matters. William Donohue is talking about the archbishop saying the De Vinci Code movie is evil, and he follows it up with “What the archbishop of Canterbury was doing was telling the truth. And that is to say, if you’re a Christian and you take your religion seriously, you’d better be aware of what’s going on. It’s a matter of self-defense.” (http://mediamatters.org/items/200604180007). Thus the Diet Pepsi. Perhaps the Catholic Church should pre-emptively strike at the studio and Tom Hanks. I heard they were planning an attack on Christianity. So it would be defensive, correct?

the nuclear strike would be defensive as it would be defending our troops in Iraq from Iranian aggression

Ah, a classic.

I remember reading about when that was first used, when the Soviet Union was forced to defend itself against Finnish aggression.

It never goes out of style.

the nuclear strike would be defensive as it would be defending our troops in Iraq from Iranian aggression

So if the fallout from the defensive nuclear attack on Iran blows across the border into Iraq and poisons our troops, is that still defensive? Or does that count as Iranian aggression?

(I happened to be in Italy when Chernobyl went up. Because of the wind movement, we couldn’t get fresh fruit or vegetables for weeks; beef and mutton were also really frickin scarce there for a while. And we were a hell of a lot further away than Iran is from Iraq.)

But wait, if the fallout blew into Israel, we’d have to go nuke Iran again for blowing fallout into Israel.

It gets so complex.

Dorothy–Do you want food on your table, or options? Sheesh.

I have one question, though, for anyone who cares to answer. How does one decide whether or not they are the decide? Kind of a conundrum, huh? I mean, did Bush decide he was the decider, and if not–if he didn’t make that decision–how can he really claim to be the decider? Who decides the decider?

That is “How does one decide whether or not the are the decider?”

As I recall, it was Clarence Thomas who decided the decider.

It seems so long ago.

I remember reading about when that was first used, when the Soviet Union was forced to defend itself against Finnish aggression.

Ron, you eedjit. When the Russkies do (or did) something like that, it was Eeeevil, because they were Eeeevil Commies.

If we do it, it’s OK, because we’re The Good Guys. Honest, we are.

…George W. Bush might sodomize Ahmadinejad and then marry him against his will in Massachusetts…

Posted by: His Grace | April 19, 2006 01:02 AM

OK, this is just scary. This is the EXACT comment I had intended to make about “all options” being on the table. If two of us thunk it, it must be true!

Gary: the nuclear strike would be defensive as it would be defending our troops in Iraq from Iranian aggression

But does that mean that Iran’s acquisition of nukes is also defensive, as it would be defending their civilians from US aggression? But the only reason that they would need to defend themselves from US aggression is because the US needs to defend itself from Iran’s aggression, which is because Iran needs to defend itself from US aggression….

You know, between Gary and Lee’s “decider” question, my head is starting to hurt. These matters are much too complicated for my little brain. I think we should just trust the President.

We’re all going to die! For freedom! Hurrah!

Sorry, elendil. It was an honest question.

But, yes, these questions cannot be answered, so a poem:

The pres’dent’s the decider,
He talks straight to al-Qaider,
But ask him to read
Past the front page lede
An’ he goes right back to hard cider.

(Yes, I know it’s terrible, but I think the rhymes are not bad–someone take them and do better, please)

I just can’t wait til that ticky-tacky government in Pakistan tips over and lands in the hands of the Jihadists…they already HAVE nuclear weapons.

Maybe we should just nuke Pakistan now, to be on the safe side. You know,”the nuclear strike would be defensive as it would be defending our troops…” blah de blah de blah, ad infinitum.

See how this works? Who’s next? Ooh! I know, how about Korea? Oh, wait…they don’t have any OIL.

…Of course, I meant NORTH Korea, but if they have nukes in South Korea, we should probably “defend” ourselves against them too, just to be on the safe side….

RE: celticgirl

You forgot India and Britian.

This is what drives me batshit crazy about the whole “war on terror” business: our “enemies” and our “allies” in this fight bear only the most tangential relationship to reality imaginable.

Our “ally” Pakistan is responsible for whatever recent improvements in Iranian nuclear technology that the Iranians didn’t come up with themselves.

And when various Islamic republics that nobody could even find on a map, like Kyrgyzstan, start popping up with nukes in the next ten to fifteen years, just remember when you are making out your thank you cards that it’s spelled “Pervez Musharraf”.

Oh, and as far as preemption goes between the Soviets and the Finns…is there any way to explain to Bush about how well this worked out for the Russians?

Maybe it’s just me, but if I were going to try to repeat the Russo-Finnish war at home, I’d really try to make sure that my team got to be the Finns.

Well Curtis, since I live in Britain, I can’t advocate that (I have a funny sense of self-preservation, me)…but by all means, Amurka should “defend” itself against any brown people with nukes – and for that, India does qualify, indeed.

Maybe it’s just me, but if I were going to try to repeat the Russo-Finnish war at home, I’d really try to make sure that my team got to be the Finns.

OK, but the wingnuts are probably worse at skiing than they are at writing. And that takes some doing.

“Yeah, like the option of disemboweling all Iranian children and eating their intestines in a nude berserk orgy. That’s gotta stay on the table.” – Gavin

I bow before the superior snark.

“…Do you want food on your table, or options?…”

Aw, c’mon Lee; options go on the table, food goes on the family…