Let Me Through; I Speak Hinderaker!

He may have frubbily, fustily changed all the instances of his classic pseudonym in old Powerline posts to ‘Rocket Man,’ but he’ll always be our Hindrocket, our Captain Corndog, our…

hindrakercorndog.jpg

Old Canards Never Die…

…and they don’t seem to fade away, either. Tom Raum of the Associated Press revives the myth, debunked countless times here and elsewhere, that President Bush has shifted the rationale for the Iraq war over time:

President Bush keeps revising his explanation for why the U.S. is in Iraq, moving from narrow military objectives at first to history-of-civilization stakes now.

Initially, the rationale was specific: to stop Saddam Hussein from using what Bush claimed were the Iraqi leader’s weapons of mass destruction or from selling them to al-Qaida or other terrorist groups.

But 3 1/2 years later, with no weapons found, still no end in sight and the war a liability for nearly all Republicans on the ballot Nov. 7, the justification has become far broader and now includes the expansive “struggle between good and evil.”

Raum continues to expand on this theme, but without citing any evidence whatsoever. In fact, as we have often noted, if you listened to any of the speeches President Bush gave on Iraq in 2003 or read the Congressional authorization on the war, every rationale that has ever been discussed is there. And, as I have often said, bringing reform and democracy to the Arab world was perceived by me, and by many if not most of the war’s early supporters, as the most important goal.

Translation: If you exclude the speeches that Bush gave throughout 2002, concerning a war which was officially launched on March 19th., 2003; and if you are gullible enough not to spend roughly 30 seconds in checking the actual text of the Congressional authorization on the war, as found on the White House web site, you might be persuaded that John Hinderaker is not a figure of mirth and comedy, beloved for his crowd-pleasing antics.

Fair enough; we’ll take a handicap. Here’s a Hinderaker post from January 28, 2003:

Another phenomenal performance by President

Another phenomenal performance by President Bush tonight. His evident sincerity and resolve shone through once again; he is his own best weapon. His exposition of the Iraq situation was eloquent and compelling, and should shift the terms of the debate from here on.

And here’s a noteworthy passage from the now-famous January 28, 2003 State of the Union Address to which the above post refers:

The International Atomic Energy Agency confirmed in the 1990s that Saddam Hussein had an advanced nuclear weapons development program, had a design for a nuclear weapon, and was working on five different methods of enriching uranium for a bomb. The British government has learned that Saddam Hussein recently sought significant quantities of uranium from Africa. Our intelligence sources tell us that he has attempted to purchase high strength aluminum tubes suitable for nuclear weapons production. Saddam Hussein has not credibly explained these activities. He clearly has much to hide.

However, 3 1/2 years later, with no weapons found, still no end in sight, and the war a liability for nearly all Republicans on the ballot Nov. 7, Hinderaker’s justification has become far broader and now includes this expansive phrase.

Here’s Hindy talking some more.

It’s hard to know what to make of a news service that persistently retails fables as facts, or of a reporter who writes about President Bush “revising his explanation for why the U.S. is in Iraq” without, apparently, having bothered to read Congress’s Authorization for the Use of Military Force.

“(I)f absurdity be the subject of laughter, doubt you not but great boldness is seldom without some absurdity. Especially it is a sport to see, when a bold fellow is out of countenance.” -Sir Francis Bacon

By this we refer to the actual text of the Congressional authorization on the war, as found on the White House web site.

But maybe it’s not worth commenting on what is in reality, like a lot of AP stories these days, a campaign ad for the Democratic Party.
Posted by John at 09:24 PM

It’s true that a great number of news stories are de facto campaign ads for the Democratic Party. It’s also the case that a poo volcano, showering torrents of poo all over the entire landscape, would help sell umbrellas.

Hindenfreude: the ambivalent pleasure experienced in witnessing the crash of a flaming gasbag.

 

Comments: 67

 
 
 

when, exactly, did Captain Corndog go and edit out all the Hindrockets? he’s acting like it’s something to be ashamed of.

and note to el Corndog himself: if you’re shying away from the potential gay allusions, i’m not sure “Rocket Man” helps out your case that much. i suspect Gary Ruppert and the Lavender Mafia have a hand in this somewhere…

 
 

Wow. What an absolute piece of dogshit this Hindraker is. I am at a loss. Who are these people? Where do they come from? Who are the evil bitches that queefed them? Do people like Hindraker even have mothers? How can they lie, day in and day out, and not… and not… oh hell I don’t even know what else to say. Seriously, he must have the blackest of hearts or is a complete mental defective, or both.

.

 
 

The fact is Hindrocket is a blithering idiot. He’d deny his own gender if it would help the GOP hold on to power.

The fact also is that poo showers are objectively traitorious pro-umbrellatarians and fellow travelers of the Trench Coat Mafia.

 
 

the fact is that poo volcanos are the Democrats fault. developing….

 
 

To build on adnoto’s speechless outrage, how can anyone, even the ethically bankrupt and morally retarded assrocket, continue to support the American occupation of Iraq at this late date? Can they not see what has happened there? How many Americans have died in the last two weeks? It is utterly traitorous to support the continued waste of American lives and resources in Iraq. And assrocket and his ilk are criminals for doing so…

mikey

 
 

If you chart out neo-con algebra for the Iraq War, calibrated for time, it might look something like this:

2002: A=A

2003: A=A+B

2004: There is no A, only B=B

2005: C+D=B, maybe

2006: There is only F, and any other letters are treasonous

 
 

The fact is reality is a campaign ad for Democrats these days.

 
 

To build on adnoto’s speechless outrage, how can anyone, even the ethically bankrupt and morally retarded assrocket, continue to support the American occupation of Iraq at this late date? Can they not see what has happened there? How many Americans have died in the last two weeks? It is utterly traitorous to support the continued waste of American lives and resources in Iraq. And assrocket and his ilk are criminals for doing so…

These bastards, (and that is being all too generous) would rather more kids die and be maimed, more mothers, fathers, sisters, brothers and friends mourn, than admit even in the slightest case that their idiotic plan to reshape the Middle East has failed. There is an almost pathalogical inability to conceed even the tiniest of doubt on the decider’s decisions. They cannot come to grips with the moral consequences of the President being wrong, and their responsibility in encouraging and promoting his agenda. As long as the President is right, is resolute, is the next incarnation of Churchill rather than a dumbass with a third grader’s understanding of geopolitics, they can escape their responsibility for all the carnage that has been caused. Fuck ’em all.

 
herr doktor bimler
 

dan b said,
i suspect Gary Ruppert and the Lavender Mafia have a hand in this somewhere…

I really did not need that mental image, thank you.

 
 

His Grace has said in one paragraph everything, EVERYTHING about assholes like corndog. Cognitive dissonance, denial, ego, pure unadulterated ingnorance; whatever the hell you want to call it, these bastards all play along while the Emperor’s naked ass leads them in the elephant walk through town, all the while shouting “What? No, my finger’s not in anyone’s ass. It’s called Democracy!”

 
 

Hindrocket is Double Oh Schmegen, licensed to shill.

 
 

A modern day Mr. Merriweather sans eyepatch and peg leg, so far…

 
 

Raum continues to expand on this theme, but without citing any evidence whatsoever. In fact, as we have often noted, if you listened to any of the speeches President Bush gave on Iraq in 2003 or read the Congressional authorization on the war, every rationale that has ever been discussed is there. And, as I have often said, bringing reform and democracy to the Arab world was perceived by me, and by many if not most of the war’s early supporters, as the most important goal.

From the AUMF:

Whereas the efforts of international weapons inspectors, United States intelligence agencies, and Iraqi defectors led to the discovery that Iraq had large stockpiles of chemical weapons and a large scale biological weapons program, and that Iraq had an advanced nuclear weapons development program that was much closer to producing a nuclear weapon than intelligence reporting had previously indicated;

Whereas Iraq, in direct and flagrant violation of the cease-fire, attempted to thwart the efforts of weapons inspectors to identify and destroy Iraq’s weapons of mass destruction …

Whereas Iraq …remains in material and unacceptable breach of its international obligations by, among other things, continuing to possess and develop a significant chemical and biological weapons capability, actively seeking a nuclear weapons capability, and supporting and harboring terrorist organizations;

It goes on like that talking about September 11th and WMD’s. Only two or three times does it mention the Iraqi people and only once does it mention democraticizing the region. But we all know how important stuff buried in paragraph 16 can be.

 
Smiling Mortician
 

adnoto, mikey, His Grace et al: You are, of course, absolutely correct. And it’s cathartic to rail against manipulative, conscienceless purveyors of death like assrocket.

But here’s my problem: how to deal with people like the Missouri woman who was interviewed not 20 minutes ago on All Things Considered, who said basically, “Yeah, well, I know the president has made some mistakes, and I wish he’d admit them. I voted for him twice and I’m not really proud of those votes but I’d vote for him again because he’s going to protect me from terrorists who want to kill me just because I’m a Christian. I know he’s weakened the Constitution, but that was only to make sure the terrorists are punished.”

I mean, what the hell do you do with a woman like that? She’s gonna vote for Talent, for chrissakes. I was screaming at my radio, but I’m pretty sure she didn’t hear me.

 
 

Assrocket’s inner monologue: “I’m fed up of people saying my internet handle makes me sound gay. I’ve got to change it something more macho and heterosexual. I know! I’ll use an Elton John song title. That’ll wipe the smile off those libs’ faces.”

 
 

To paraphrase Stephen Stills..If you aren’t with the one you believe..believe the one you are with..

Their inability to recognize history is always stunning.

 
 

Not even Roger Moore AND the guy who played Jaws AND that Swiss girl that falls in love with Jaws all working together would be able to save Hindrocket from his utter whackjobbery.

 
 

This is, ultimately, my biggest fear. That the people, numbed by MTV and American Idol, jobs and family, health care and college, just don’t care. That is, they don’t feel the sanctity of the constitution. They have no doubt that they’re not going to be tortured, or rendered, or wiretapped. That’s strictly for the muslim terrorists who want to kill us. Why should we fight to maintain these outmoded protections, they ask. All they are doing is helping criminals and coddling terrorists. This is the same people who are pro-death penalty, that vote to prevent substance treatment facilities and post-prison halfway houses from being built in their neighborhood.

It really has come down to a vast majority that doesn’t read, doesn’t think deeply, is numbed and harried and somewhat brutalized. They have come to believe that America is a powerful force for good in the world, and that good springs from her immensely powerful military. They do not mourn the death of habeus corpus, they do not understand the irony in Americans legislating the use of torture, they do not sense the historical context of an all-powerful, unchecked executive. So they do not rail, they do not shout, they don’t even go out and vote.

It is not the Democrats that are the minority, it is people who care, or rather, people who understand why they must care…

mikey

 
 

Smiling Mortician wrote:

But here’s my problem: how to deal with people like the Missouri woman who was interviewed not 20 minutes ago on All Things Considered, who said basically, “Yeah, well, I know the president has made some mistakes, and I wish he’d admit them. I voted for him twice and I’m not really proud of those votes but I’d vote for him again because he’s going to protect me from terrorists who want to kill me just because I’m a Christian. I know he’s weakened the Constitution, but that was only to make sure the terrorists are punished.�

I hate to say this, but some people are unreachable. No matter how badly Iraq goes, there are going to be people who support bush. Osama bin Laden could take over the entire country, get nukes from North Korea and build ICBMs in the Desert (and yes this is completely inconceivable except to the far right) and I figure about 20% of the American public would either blame the media, Clinton or “the left” (or some combination thereof). When given a choice between admitting that the guy you’ve been pulling for these last six years is a complete failure and blaming someone else, some people are going to do the latter. George Bush could have had oral sex in the oval office with Jeb and Pat Robertson while reciting the koran, admit it on live television, hell do it on live television and he’d still be endorsed by somebody like Hind Rocket. There still would be Conservative Christians going “Well, our president may have had a male three some on live TV, but he at least keeps us safe unlike John Kerry.” People irrationally rationalize things. In the American political system, it is virtually impossible not to get 40% of the vote in a Presidential Campaign if you are a Republican or Democrat. There are people you cannot reach. I still hope there are enough that can be reached as to bring the Decider to heel before he starts another war.

 
 

His Grace –

I think the idea of the “unreachables” is summed up well in John Roger’s discussion of The Crazification Factor. There will *always* be people who are crazy, on all sides.

 
 

Don’t worry my friends, with a half-arsed search you will find that the ol’ back-door-blaster is still there (hiding behind a shrubbery).

http://powerlineblog.com/aboutus.php#hindrocket

Have a peek my little baklavas. See if you can find the arse-buster.

 
 

“…,every rationale that has ever been discussed is there. And, as I have often said, bringing reform and democracy to the Arab world was perceived by me, and by many if not most of the war’s early supporters, as the most important goal.”

And as everyone who is anyone really knows, the best way you turn a dictatorship into a freedom loving democracy is by making it a choice destination for terrorists. Iraq is going EXACTLY as planned as far as the mighty missile boy is concerned.

 
 

My father is a member of “The Unreachables” (he even has a cool costume consisting of logic-resistant Kevlar and a deathly Ray of Hatred Towards the Unknown). He voted for Bush the first time, but absolutely detested him after three years. Surprise, surprise…he voted for him a second time.
“He’s still better than that other asshole!”
Unreachable.

 
 

mikey –

I don’t think it’s a matter of the American people being numb so much as a big chunk of the populace being utterly convinced that they will never be affected. Oh sure, our civil rights are weaker than ever, but some people know (just know) that the only people who will be affected are THEM. Doesn’t matter who THEY are – the point is that THEY are not US. I think these folks can be reached, albeit with difficulty.

On the other hand, you’ve got the real Unreachables – the folks who think that fascism/theocracy/whatever is just a swell idea. I imagine these are the people that bemoan the Administration and the GOP and then turn around and vote them back into power. An authoritarian mindset will do that to you.

 
 

Anyone have the spare time to whip up some good side-by-side comparisons of Assrocket and the North Korean Propaganda Ministry?

Pyongyang, October 3 (KCNA) — The Kwail County (fruit-growing county), South Hwanghae Province, the DPRK is busy with picking fruits these days. Trees are heavily laden with fruits.
Apple, pear, persimmon, jujube and other fruits have ripened, colorfully decorating the vast orchard-county.
The county also cultivates peach, plum, apricot, sweet cherry, grape and other fruit trees.
The county has a fruit foodstuff processing factory and a famous wine factory.
President Kim Il Sung visited several times the orchard, reliable base of fruit production in the country.
Under the wise leadership of Kim Jong Il, the county has turned into a supply base of fruit and processed fruit for Pyongyang citizens.

Pyongyang, October 14 (KCNA) — A sketch contest was held in the yard of the Nam Gate in Mt. Taesong in Pyongyang on Oct. 12 and 13 in celebration of the 80th anniversary of the Down-with-Imperialism Union. The contest drew many artists and university and middle school students. Divided into the groups of experts and students, they competed in sketching and semi-sketching of objects and figure sketching on the spot.
The participants in the contest produced more than 150 sketches by fully displaying their talents.
Such works as “Holiday Morning,” “Those who defended the walled city of Pyongyang”, “Korean Wrestling”, “Our dance and our song”, “Cheer up” and others were highly estimated for their high ideological and artistic values.
Kim Jong Il developed sketching, which used to be an elementary skill for fine art, into part of the cultural and emotional life of the people in the era of Songun.
There is growing social interest in sketches in the DPRK and sketching has become instrumental in enriching the flower garden of popular art.

They’re out there, just dying to be had.

 
 

Anyone have the spare time to whip up some good side-by-side comparisons of Assrocket and the North Korean Propaganda Ministry?

It’d be more concise to just rename him Ass-Silo.

 
Smiling Mortician
 

lemonheads, your dad sounds like my dad, except mine died long enough ago that he cast his last (losing) presidential vote for GB41. I recall you’re a Michiganderanian, yes? Me too, in a former life. Maybe we should compare scars.

Anyway, my point: I always considered my dad unreachable mostly because he was, you know, my dad — meaning that he wasn’t going to listen to anything I had to say regardless of whether it was about politics or TV or what I wanted to major in. But you’re right: he was a lot like that aggravatingly, passively, contentedly wrong-headed woman from Missouri through whose clenched, close-your-eyes-and-think-of-the-flag actions evil is allowed to maintain its grip . . .

 
 

You’re right Drew. But here’s the nightmare. American people are raised on movies, we get how solutions are reached. Eastwood, Bronson, Wayne. America’s goodness is always delivered at the point of a gun, always accompanied by death, disease, suffering and brutality. They don’t get right with peace and coexistence as a political strategy, nor as a geopolitical construct. Domination IS an option, and one they paid for with hight taxes. So they want to see some goddam solutions…

mikeeye

 
 

Mortician, where did you haunt? Detroit, the burbs?
And someday my dad and yours will commiserate about the ungrateful little bastards that they love.

 
Smiling Mortician
 

Lansing & Kalamazoo . . . and yes, one day they undoubtedly will.

 
 

But here’s the nightmare. American people are raised on movies, we get how solutions are reached

I’d take that a step further and say we’re raised on American Exceptionalism, which manifests itself in the ideaa that everything and everyone outside of these borders is inferior in varying degrees. All it took for to be completely disabused of that notion was a trip to Europe in 1983; ever since then, I’ve felt like an alien resident in this country. If I could find a job in Europe, I’d leave here and never come back and I certainly wouldn’t miss it in the slightest except for baseball.

I saw Elvis Presley walk out of a 7-11
And a woman gave birth to a baby
And bowled 257
And the excess of fat on your American bones
Will cushion the impact
As you sink like a stone

Crowded House, Chocolate Cake

 
 

we get how solutions are reached. Eastwood, Bronson, Wayne. America’s goodness is always delivered at the point of a gun

You know, I just saw Unforgiven on Friday, and I was honestly surprised by it. I just knew it as another Western, albeit a supposedly sophisticated one. What surprised me was how violence and mythmaking is handled. When you get to that last scene when Eastwood comes in with his rifle and starts blowing people away, you see his eyes, how they’re wide open, crazy-looking. Man known for his squinting, now wide open, with a look like Col. Kurtz. This ain’t no hero; even the women who hired him turn away in shock–and these were hardly blushing schoolgirls. They were all for having two men killed for attacking one of their own.

I don’t know that it was the filmmaker’s intention, but what I saw was a pretty damning look at America’s obsession with justifying, glorifying violence, seeing it as the path to justice. The film isn’t so cut-and-dry as that–like I said, it was way more complex than I was expecting–but it did feel like the violent myths were turned on their head, and we finally got to see a gunslinger in action, commiting horrible acts, and finally seeing them as horrible. Goodness wasn’t delivered at the barrel of a gun, only destruction–of a town, and of a man’s soul.

Well, I was floored.

 
 

The idiot was more fun when he kept insisting that Bin Laden was dead, over and over.

As to WMD: here’s Hindraker quoting Meet the Press, June 27, 2003:
“What do you think is the most important rationale for going to war with Iraq?
“VICE PRES. CHENEY: Well, I think I’ve just given it, Tim, in terms of the combination of his development and use of chemical weapons, his development of biological weapons, his pursuit of nuclear weapons.

AssRocket then reminded us of his apologist credentials:
Cheney said that he disagreed with the IAEA’s claim that Iraq did not have a “nuclear program,” and when he said that “he has, in fact, reconstituted nuclear weapons,” it was a slip of the tongue. What he meant to say–as Tim Russert clearly understood–was that Saddam had reconstituted his nuclear program.

 
 

Anyone watching football?

Cardinals/Bears game… W. T. F.?

Bears did everything to lose… yet win. How?

 
 

It really has come down to a vast majority that doesn’t read, doesn’t think deeply, is numbed and harried and somewhat brutalized.

I disagree, mikey. Remember, Bush lost the popular vote in 2000. This has been a right wing coup, aided and abetted by a cowed “liberal media” and so called “serious” centrists like Holy Joe Tortureman and Lee Hamilton.

It’s not a majority of America, that’s what the shrublicans want you to think. And I really hate to see this kind of talk when there are good people running out there as underdogs, and have a chance to win. People like Dr Victoria Wulsin in OH-2, and Jerry McNerney in CA-11.

Can we all stop whining and crying for three weeks, and fight these ****** (I was going to write weasels, but that would be a horrible slur to Mustela frenata)?

 
 

You know, I just saw Unforgiven on Friday, and I was honestly surprised by it.

Yeah, that’s because it was good. Might didn’t make right.

 
 

And, as I have often said, bringing reform and democracy to the Arab world was perceived by me, and by many if not most of the war’s early supporters, as the most important goal

Which is why our first plan for Iraq was to install Ahmad Chalabi as a pro-Western strongman and let him rule however he wanted. Then Chalabi self-destructed, Sistani got uppity, yadda yadda yadda “we wanted democracy in Iraq all along!” Attention everyone, the memory hole is now open.

 
 

Wait… sorry, still computing… he is trying to seem more butch by invoking an Elton John song?

Were all the Judy Garland titles taken?

 
 

Hindrocket and poo volcano? I’m thinking smegma volcano.

Confederate Yankee is a poo volcano. RETARDEAUX, TO THE BATCAVE! YOUR COUNTRY NEEDS YOU*.

*To reign down invective like hell-fire on that goober’s sorry ass.

 
 

Mary Jones, from what I remember of the press surrounding “The Unforgiven” when it came out, your impression was exactly what Eastwood was going for. It was a mea culpa of sorts, flipping the script so the nuances of the movie are nothing like the spaghetti westerns he did earlier. That’s a dark movie.

 
 

Strange Forces: thanks for the link on The Crazification Factor.

 
 

You guys don’t get it. It doesn’t matter that any objective reading shows that the main reasons for going in to Iraq were WMDs and the link to Al-Queda. Hindrocket believed that we were going in for the reasons he wanted. That’s all that matters. That means that when the main reasons fell apart, he could ignore the cognative dissonance and keep saying “we’ve been saying this all along.”

In other words, he is not part of the reality based community. He is part of the community that believes what he remembers percieving at the time is what really really really happened.

Sort of sick and sad, really.

 
 

Hell, the spaghetti westerns are hardly “might makes right” propaganda. The Good, The Bad and The Ugly has a strong anti-war moral core, while the Eastwood directed Hang ‘Em High is all about: “Goodness wasn’t delivered at the barrel of a gun, only destruction–of a town, and of a man’s soul.” Clint’s masterpiece, The Outlaw Josey Wales, doesn’t handle the moral ambivalence as well as Unforgiven, but it does puncture the traditional Western mythos superbly: “Dyin’ ain’t much of a livin’, boy.”

If you’ve been ignoring Eastwood westerns out of some prejudice against macho bullshit, then you’ve really been missing out.

 
 

High Plains Drifter was pretty good, too.
Definitely worth watching.

 
 

Isn’t it one of the Straussian tenents that fabrication about the nature and history of our country is necessary to maintain patrotism? If so, it doesn’t surprise me that groveling pukes like Buttrocket try do the same to the Iraqi history.

When you combine sycophantic sociopaths like him with the self-lobotomized asswipes out in Crackerstan, the future starts to look grim.

I don’t think these people (and their pathological “leaders”) ever, for one moment, think about the Iraqi civilians. They don’t imagine the shocked, horrified, and screaming parent gazing at the mangled remains of their child, who just happened to be playing right where the car bomb went off. Or the child in a halo cast, immobile and legless from the US rocket that was “off target”. Or the woman that now does not consider a burka such a bad thing because her facial features have been turned to ash by an incendiary device. Or the old man sobbing in the street in front of the morgue having just viewed the remains of what was his last surviving family member.

I don’t think it ever crosses their minds. They are sociopaths. I do hate them so.

 
Your Name's Not Bruce?
 

Constitutional/ technical question from a foreign observer;

If Bush is impeached, does that make Cheney president? Can you (oh, would you, please, please!) impeach both at the same time? Who’s Prez then?

Just asking.

 
 

I would like to point out that “Dan Somone” (at 16:34) is not me. While I don’t disagree with his comment, I am somewhat perturbed that somebody is possibly trying to spoof me in comments here (and perhaps elsewhere), even if the spelling errors are a giveaway. (I would never misspell “cognitive dissonance. Or “Someone.”)

That is all.

 
Hate Encrusted Eyes
 

I’m a history major. When I was studying, one of the questions I wanted to answer about the past was the problem of Germany in European and World history and why it went where it went and did what it did in the 19th and 20th century. And the basic issue you have with Germany is that it never became a true liberal country the way England or the United States did in the 19th century. Politically and culturally Germany remained aristocratic and conservative. Massive executive power and a castrated legislature. Violent hostility towards liberalism and other reformers by both the German state and independent German patriot groups. All through the entire period. The self conception of what it ment to be German became a profoundly anti-liberal romatically conservative ideal.

Here is what bothers me so much. With the 30 year culture war in the USA, American conservatives are taking the United States down the same politico/cultural path that Germany followed from 1811 to 1945. And that is not a path any people would want to follow, if they had a choice, if they knew it was happening.

Incidently, 19th centrury Germany was the social model Strauss admired the most. Go figure.

 
 

Bruce: If Bush is impeached, the country grinds to a halt while Congress conducts the impeachment proceedings. If impeachment leads to conviction and removal from office, then yes, Cheney would become president. It would be possible, though entirely unprecedented and completely unlikely, for both the President and the Vice President to be simultaneously impeached. You can find out more here. (See Q115.)

 
 

President Cheney would be an astonishingly unpopular figure. Under more constant scrutiny, his actions and vocal spew would be viewed as reprehensible by so many Americans, it would effectively stall the Administration, wouldn’t it?

I mean, he there’s really no way he could hold together the coalition of repubs.

His only choice would be to go full bore for permanent authority. They’re pretty damn close now; with no other choice, who here would bet against Dart pulling out all the stops, manufacturing a USS Cole type attack, and declaring temporary (but interminable ) martial law?

The only hope would be for the glee at having an opportunity for ultimate power to short out his ticker, permanently.

 
 

It’s probably worth also mentioning that the only *legal* justification for starting the war was the statement that the previous Iraqi republic was in material breach of security council resolution 1441.

Go look it up, read it, and tell me where the wiggle room is. If Saddam didn’t have WMDs, he couldn’t have been in breach of 1441. As such, no legal justification. None whatsoever.

 
 

If Saddam didn’t have WMDs, he couldn’t have been in breach of 1441. As such, no legal justification. None whatsoever.

That’s why bush had to force the inspectors out and start the invasion. They were in the process of disproving his premise…

mikey

 
 

Rocketman? So he’s a Gravity’s Rainbow fan too? In which case I’d say he’s more deserving of the Brigadier Pudding nom-de-poop.

 
 

Hindraker also likes to clip audio clips where he wants so they make his point for him.

 
 

Ginger, I was just commenting on what Eastwood said at the time, and what the perceived notions were of that movie. I’m a big fan of his old stuff, and I know there’s layers, but he was going for something different in “The Unforgiven”, according to Clint himself.

http://film.guardian.co.uk/interview/interviewpages/0,,1058722,00.html
The interview participants are Michael Parkinson and Clint Eastwood.

MP: What about the character you played, Munny? It seems to me that the character you played in those westerns, the stranger who comes into town in Pale Rider, High Plains Drifter – was that him, was that the man, just retired?

CE: Not necessarily. I think all those characters were driven by other things. But this fellow is a renegade… The script was unusual, and I’ve read a lot of western scripts. But it was unusual because David Peoples had approached it from a whole different thing – the fact that this guy had reached his lowest depths as a person, his background was haunting him and even to the point where he was monogamous to a deceased wife and even in death she continued to be a great influence on him. And here’s this young guy coming along who represents everything he was at one time in his life long past – and that’s what he realises when he says “That’s a hell of a thing you’re carrying there”. He probably didn’t think so when he was that age, but this kid is learning it early, and just as well.

MP: What was interesting about that film was that the villain was given a human dimension; they weren’t all bad, were they?

CE: Not at all. Gene Hackman’s character very much had his own philosophy about running things in town, he was very much for gun controlling, especially with him controlling it. He liked running a very tight ship, but he had this human thing about building his house and wanting to live a certain type of lifestyle, and unfortunately he had a slight sadistic streak when it came to dealing with what he called lower riffraff. And so, it came back to haunt him a little.

MP: Was it a sort of swan song for your own involvement in the western?

CE: Barring someone coming along with some brilliant concept, some brilliant script that I haven’t seen yet, yes.

MP: This is the 100th anniversary of the western this year, so I wonder if you’d be tempted by any offers to revive the genre.

CE: You can’t without the story. The story is everything. Whether it’s a book or a screenplay, the story drives everything. And if you just go out and try to make one by putting on boots and jumping on a horse and riding off… If you don’t have the material, the characters and the things to overcome and conflicts that give life to drama, you don’t have it.

 
 

And to combine the Pynchon spam and Hindrocket threads:

“Each will have his personal Rocket.”
–Gravity’s Rainbow

Heh, indeed.

 
 

If you’ve been ignoring Eastwood westerns out of some prejudice against macho bullshit, then you’ve really been missing out.

Actually, no–I’d just never really been introduced to his films. I think the first movie of his I saw was Mystic River, and that’s because I haven’t read Garden of Good and Evil yet. I avoided Westerns as a kid, because my parents liked them, and I was bored. And, frankly, I didn’t understand the subtexts involved. But as I’ve gotten older, I’ve gotten into them a lot more, in part because of my husband, who loves Sergio Leone. I’ve finally seen The Good, the Bad, and the Ugly and Once Upon a Time in the West this year, too. Again, I was blown away. So yeah, it’s more that I’m still somewhat young, and didn’t really get into the genre until recently.

 
 

My b/f and I just bought “High Plains Drifter” a couple of weeks ago. I hadn’t seen it in years, and remembered being very impressed by it, and he had never seen it. Since “Unforgiven” is one of his favorite movies ever, I thought he’d like it. For me, HPD really resonated with what’s going on in our present-day society; here are all these townspeople who don’t give a rat’s ass what evil goes on in their names, just so long as profits and business remain safe and stable.

I’m going to have to tackle Gravity’s Rainbow. In college, my Am Lit instructor thought Pynchon was the very god of writing. She did her doctoral thesis on Pynchon, in fact. I read Entropy but never managed to get into GR. Now I feel guilty. All right, already, I’ll read it! Hear me, Dr. Greenfield? (She was the greatest; I should read it, write a ‘thematic analysis’, and mail it to her. She’d dig it.)

 
 

Um, doctoral dissertation. When I’m tired, I really, really miss the preview button.

 
 

Bored Huge Krill and Mikey at 20:40,

The invasion was absolutely illegal, even if Iraq had WMD, because the U.S. cannot unilaterally enforce UN Resolutions.

 
herr doktor bimler
 

Candy said,
I’m going to have to tackle Gravity’s Rainbow.

Someone may have to lock Lars von Trier and Takashi Miike together in a studio until they make a film of Gravity’s Rainbow. There might be some waiting time involved… but it will still be faster than reading the damn book.

 
 

“U.S. cannot unilaterally enforce UN Resolutions.”

Can and did. 🙂

 
 

The characterisation is certainly different (and much deeper) in Unforgiven, compared to most of the spaghettis but I don’t think the message is all that different. For all their onscreen slaughter, the spaghettis (especially Leone’s) are deeply anti-violence. They’re littered with people who have been brutalised by the lifestyle they or the people around them lead. The difference with Unforgiven, besides the aforementioned characterisation, is that the protagonists are trying (and failing) to put it behind them, to achive something unsullied by violence that they can be proud of, and even that is an echo of Josey Wales.

 
 

“Can and did”

Oh, yes. And what a success it was, wasn’t it?

 
 

Ginger, on this you and I can agree: Clint’s movies are good cinema, whether he’s acting or directing. He’s one of the American gems, along with Scorsese and a host of others I’m too lazy to list at the moment.

 
Phoenician in a time of Romans
 

This is, ultimately, my biggest fear. That the people, numbed by MTV and American Idol, jobs and family, health care and college, just don’t care. That is, they don’t feel the sanctity of the constitution. They have no doubt that they’re not going to be tortured, or rendered, or wiretapped. That’s strictly for the muslim terrorists who want to kill us. Why should we fight to maintain these outmoded protections, they ask. All they are doing is helping criminals and coddling terrorists. This is the same people who are pro-death penalty, that vote to prevent substance treatment facilities and post-prison halfway houses from being built in their neighborhood.

Good Germans, in other words.

And you sure as hell know that’s how historians are going to judge Americans of the early 21st century, judging them almost as harshly as the Confederates stringing up uppity niggers and marching to war.

 
 

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