Sadly, No!

The Washington Post has many, many bad columnists. Jackson Diehl often gets overlooked among the Krauthammers, Samuelsons, Gersons, Wills and Kagans, but he’s still very, very bad:

During the years when Iraq was at the center of U.S. foreign policy, pundits and policymakers would regularly and prematurely proclaim that the following six months would be crucial to the war’s outcome. Now, at last, that forecast is warranted: The next six months in Iraq could decide whether the country emerges as a democracy friendly to the United States, a cleric-dominated satellite of Iran or a cauldron of sectarian conflict — and whether Barack Obama can pull off the “responsible withdrawal” he has promised.

How odd, then, that Iraq — where the United States has invested $700 billion and the lives of more than 4,300 soldiers over the past seven years — is no longer a top priority for the White House, the State Department or nearly anyone in Congress.

God, we’ve spent $700 billion on Iraq. We’ve spent $700 billion bailing out the damn banks. That’s $1.4 trillion (!!!!!!!!) thrown right down the crapper. Anyone serious about government waste would have to conclude that those two projects were some of the most wasteful in American history.

As for the rest — look, dude, I just don’t care about Iraq right now. We’ve got 10% unemployment and a government that is wholly owned and run by the clowns on Wall Street. These are things we need to fix before we double down on ill-considered military occupations. I’m all for setting up a refugee program to help Iraqis move to the U.S. if their situation spirals downward again, but we can’t just occupy the place forever. At some point you have to acknowledge sunk costs and move the hell on.

Two Americans who understand how big the stakes are — U.S. Ambassador Christopher Hill and top commander Gen. Raymond Odierno — were in Washington last week to explain. Iraq’s March 7 election and what follows it, Hill said, will “determine the future of Iraq . . . and also the future of the U.S. relationship with Iraq.”

Said Odierno: “We have an opportunity in Iraq today that we might never get again in our lifetimes . . . to develop a democratic Iraq that has a long-term partnership with the United States.”

Compare that with Obama’s account of Iraq in his State of the Union address: “We are responsibly leaving Iraq to its people. . . . We will have all of our combat troops out of Iraq by the end of this August.” That pledge means that even while Iraq passes through this crucial turning point, U.S. forces will be reduced from 98,000 now to 50,000 on Sept. 1.

Yuh-huh.

The thing is, we’ve been hearing this since, oh, I don’t know, forever. Whenever we start to pull troops out of Iraq — in this case so they can be transferred to fight yet another Village-approved war — we hear cries that we can’t leave just yet or we’ll be killing Iraqi democracy in its infancy. This has happened over and over and over and over again, as Diehl himself acknowledges with his reference to Friedman Units. But this “Boy-Who-Cried-Whiskey-Freedom-Sexy!” routine has gotten extremely old by now and mostly people are just sick of seeing lives and money wasted on this colossally stupid imperial adventure.

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One of the more fascinating spectacles over the past week has been watching the leading lights of the wingnutosphere react with horror and dismay at Ron Paul’s victory at the CPAC straw poll (Roy has a good roundup here). Let’s take a look at a typical reaction by a typical wingnut, namely one John Hinderaker:

Pee-Wee for President?

Ron Paul has won the CPAC straw Presidential vote with 31 percent of the total. This is dismaying, to the extent one takes it seriously. Ron Paul is the crazy uncle in the Republican Party’s attic. He is not a principled libertarian like, say, Steve Forbes. Rather, as I noted in this post, where I likened him to Pee-Wee Herman, Paul has a rather sinister history as a hater and conspiracy theorist. He has no business being taken seriously as a Presidential contender–and that’s before we even start talking about his inadequate vision of national security or his disgraceful performance in the 2008 Presidential debates.

Now it’s true that Paul has some pretty deep connections to some fringe groups in American politics — for instance, his former aid happens to be the founder of the creepy, authoritarian Oath Keepers group. But is that really any worse than the Moose Eater Formerly Known as the Alaskan Governor? For chrissake, her husband was part of a damned secessionist party!

No, what really upsets the wingnuts about Paul isn’t that he hangs out with gun-toting anti-government radicals but rather that he’s opposed to The Precious, a.k.a. the state of perpetual warfare that gives the wingnuts’ pathetic, mediocre lives a sense of blood-stained purpose. For people like Hindy and Daniel Pipes war is always the answer. It sends a thrill up their leg. Every minute not spent launching missiles at foreign nations is a minute where their collective libido continues on its downward trajectory into an impotent death spiral. For people like this, it’s perfectly sane to use mere video footage to diagnose Terri Schiavo’s condition on the Senate floor or to claim that tears can give you AIDS. But to oppose a state of perpetual warfare against swarthy foreigners? Shit, son, that’s crazy talk.

Fareed Zakaria dissects the ramblings of Dr. Strangemoose:

It is important to recognize the magnitude of what people like Palin are advocating. The United States is being asked to launch a military invasion of a state that poses no imminent threat to America, without sanction from any international body and with few governments willing to publicly endorse such an action. Al-Qaeda and its ilk would present it as the third American invasion of a Muslim nation in a decade, proof positive that the United States is engaged in a war of civilizations. Moderate Arab states and Muslim governments everywhere would be on the defensive. And as Washington has surely come to realize, wars unleash forces that cannot be predicted or controlled.

Meh, I don’t know. I think there would be some clever ways to get around the “third-Islamic-country-in-a-decade” meme.

For instance: We could have the CIA replace every single atlas. globe and map in the entire world with new versions that merged Iraq, Iran and Afghanistan into one big country called “Iranqistan.” That way, we could say that we’ve always been at war with Iranqistan and could claim with justification that we are simply moving the war from the east and west of the country into the center, similar to how the Allied powers came from both the east and west to engulf Berlin in World War II. It could work is all I’m sayin’.

As for the rest of the stuff about destabilizing allied Arab governments… well heck, that’s just par for the course in heightening the contradictions, eh, comrades? Once those governments fall to Islamic radicals, we can justify invading them as well!

War: It’s always the answer.

UPDATE: The hits just keep on coming:

Q: What about ordering a village of resistants to be massacred? … Is that a power that the president could legally–

Yoo: “Yeah. Although, let me say this. So, certainly, that would fall within the commander-in-chief’s power over tactical decisions.

Q: To order a village of civilians to be [exterminated]?

Yoo: Sure.

Q: Can the president create a bolder that’s too heavy for him to lift — and then lift it up anyway?

Yoo: Sure.

Q: Can the president order the military to go back in time and kill Baby Jesus in the manger?

Yoo: I don’t see why not.

Q: Can the president violate the laws of physics by creating matter out of empty space?

Yoo: Oh hell yes.

Egad. I never thought it would come to this:

In an apparent reference to John McCain, Beck condemned a “guy in the Republican Party who says his favorite president is Theodore Roosevelt.” He then read disapprovingly the Roosevelt quote that “we grudge no man a fortune in civil life if it is honorably obtained and well used . . . so long as the gaining represents benefit to the community.”

“Is this what the Republican Party stands for?” Beck demanded. He was answered with boos and cries of “no!” “It’s big government, it’s a socialist utopia and we need to address it as if it is a cancer.”

I have mixed views on Teddy Roosevelt myself. He did some good stuff at home — Busting the trusts! National parks! Sanitation standards at meat-packing plants! — while leading a horrific neocons-on-‘roids foreign policy abroad.

But dudes. You’ve already been engaged in a death struggle with one Roosevelt (Franklin) for the past several decades. Are you sure it’s really time to open up a second front? And once you’ve vanquished those two, how far back will you go? Does Abe Lincoln get tossed over the side for his failure to protect states’ rights (I’m pretty sure he does, yes)? Will you guys rethink your adoration of Thomas Jefferson when you realize that he was at heart just a hippie farmer boy? How much further will Teh Crazy take you?

Rob Port, owner of the aptly named “Say Anything” blog, was allowed a few days off from stocking the galoshes shelf at the Home of Economy in Minot, North, Dakota, to come to Washington to attend CPAC with all the other kewl konservative kids.

Not having been more than about 100 miles from Minot before (and that was to go to the State Fair to scarf down a few fried Snickers bars), Rob thought he should do a little sight-seeing in the Nation’s Capital.

So he hit upon the idea of bravely visiting the lair of the enemy — or what you and I would call the White House.

During that tour Rob found himself in the White House library:

Now, according out [sic] the person who guided our tour, the library is stock [sic] with books picked out by the First Lady, Michelle Obama. Being a bit of a bibliophile,¹ I started to peruse some of the books on the shelves…and lookie, lookie what I found.

By itself, this wouldn’t be that big of a deal. But … In the context of Obama’s economic policies?

Well, I’ll let you make your own call.

Now granted that this was the first time Rob had probably ever been in any kind of library, much less one in a home, so he might not have understood that having a book on the history of socialism on a shelf doesn’t make the owner a socialist anymore than a copy of The Two Towers would make him a hobbit.

But not surprisingly, this isn’t the end of the story on this discovery by Mr. Rob “if you can find cheaper galoshes at WalMart I’ll refund the difference” Port. The perpetrator behind the vile socialist tome in the White House wasn’t Michelle Obama but an even more radical and dangerous socialist — that pinko Jackie Kennedy, who put the volume in the White House library way back in 1963.

Well, muses Port, after discovering his error, there’s always the Mao Christmas ornament as definitive proof that Obama is a socialist. And don’t forget all the other “red” ornaments on the tree.

[h/t Tbogg]

UPDATE: Well, guess who just piped up? Why, the White House sleuther himself, Mr. Rob Port. He chides us for targeting him for our “special brand of hatred for diversity in thought.” Okay, Rob, our gig is up. We admit it. Sadly, No! is intolerant of stupidity and our notion of diversity of thought doesn’t include teh stupid. We’ll just close up shop now.

But Rob’s not done with us and points out some grievous factual errors in our post. First, the state fair is in Minot so he didn’t have to drive 100 miles to visit the fried Snickers booth. And he’s no longer employed at the Home of Economy. He doesn’t tell us his current job but the Great Gazoogle did. He’s now a private detective. No shit, Sherlock. Well, based on his sleuthing skills in this post, caveat fucking emptor.

¹ Uh huh. Right. And I’m an expert on string theory and a world-class figure skater.

Above: Mark Steyn, Roger Kimball, James Taranto

James “Leafy” Taranto,¹ The (opinion section of the) Wall Street Journal:
Consensus or Con? The global warmists are the real deniers.²

• I’ve long thumbed my nose at the idea of global warming, but held off on judging the actual science because I didn’t understand it. No more, for overwhelming evidence says the science has typos in it, unmasking a massive liberal fraud-conspiracy.³

‘Shorter’ concept created by Daniel Davies and perfected by Elton Beard. We are aware of all Internet traditions.™

Elisabeth Rosenthal, The New York Times
Skeptics Find Fault With U.N. Climate Panel

Gautam Naik and Keith Johnson, The (actual) Wall Street Journal
Controversies Create Opening for Critics

The spate of recent controversies about climate research has given fresh voice to a group of scientists who question the mainstream view that human activity is warming the planet to dangerous levels.

Very few scientists disagree that the earth’s climate has warmed since 1850. But some have long argued that there are too many uncertainties about man’s role in the warming, and that other factors, such as solar activity and the greenhouse effect of clouds, could account for a large part of the observed warming trend. Among this group are researchers who have criticized the limitations of past temperature records and mathematical models used to forecast future effects.

Such views are getting a fresh airing on the heels of two recent controversies dogging climate researchers. A United Nations group, the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change, or IPCC, has been heavily criticized for publishing an unsubstantiated claim that Himalayan glaciers would entirely melt away by 2035. A recent report also included several other claims later found to lack a scientific basis, including predictions of the impact of climate change on agriculture in Africa and the retreat of Amazonian rain forests, among others.

News of those discrepancies followed a scandal in Britain where the publication of hacked emails of climate scientists suggested they had declined to share their data with fellow researchers and tried to squelch dissenting views about climate change.

It’s too soon to tell whether the critics’ views will force the scientific community to revisit the prevailing view of man-made climate change. Many of their colleagues remain…

Wingnut apostate Mickey Edwards lays out the ugly truth:

Today there are few things that set a “conservative’s” teeth on edge more than a defense of “civil liberties;” yet that is what American conservatism was all about–protecting the liberties of the people. It was a system designed to protect the people from an over-reaching government, not to protect the government from the people. American constitutionalism was a historical high-point in recognizing individual worth. Stop at CPAC today and you will find rooms full of ardent, zealous, fervent young men and women who believe the government should be allowed to torture (we condemned people at Nuremberg for doing that), who believe the government should be able to lock people up without charges and hold them indefinitely (something Henry VIII agreed was a proper exercise of government authority). Who believe the government should be able to read a citizen’s mail and listen in on a citizen’s phone calls, all without a warrant (the Constitution of course prohibits searches without a warrant, but nobody cares less about the Constitution than some of today’s ersatz conservatives).

Most “conservatives” today don’t dislike big government. In fact, they absolutely love big government if it is used in the service of further empowering America’s economic elite. Witnesseth Rich Lowry’s hilarious defense of Enron buying off government officials:

LOWRY: Well, no one can point to specifically anything they got that they shouldn’t have gotten. And, you know, the fact is, Enron backed Chuck Schumer, the Democrat in the 1998 New York Senate race. Why? Because Chuck Schumer agreed with Enron on deregulation. Companies that support deregulation are going to give money to candidates who support deregulation. There’s nothing inherently corrupt about that…

And of course, they also love using the government to start unjustified wars and to torture people. It’s a pretty sick ideology, but hey, if people want to vote it back into power, be my guest — after all, I’m a white heterosexual male, I’m supposed to benefit from this shit. I think this country needs to get wingnuttery out of its system once and for all, and Dr. Paul Ryan’s plan to throw old people off of Medicare might finally do the trick. It’s sad that we’ll have to have bankrupt elders dying in the streets to make this happen, but if that’s what it takes, so be it.

UPDATE: As many of you in the comments have pointed out, I’ve been acting like a childish jerk about issues like this. All the same, it’s hard not to be cynical when you read stuff like this:

Okay, I’ve got some more info for you on what the health care compromise proposal that Obama will bring to the summit next week is going to look like.

Bottom line: It’s all but certain to have the Cadillac tax in it, even though House Dems oppose it, and no public option, aides say.

OK, so no public option AND a tax that will screw over union members. Hot damn, that’ll get the Democratic base to turn out in droves!

I think what we actually need is a genuine populist politics in this country, and not the fake sort of Rich Lowry and Sarah Palin. Because the policy makers we’ve elected just aren’t cutting it.

Hey dudes, please check out my latest AlterNet piece on how to win the long-term battle for financial reform.

Basically, it boils down to this: The Democrats are very unlikely to do anything significant to rein in the banksters and it will likely take another financial crash before we actually get around to doing anything about it. Cheery, I know.

But the good news is that we now have an opportunity to engage in more long-term messaging strategy so that when the next crash comes we can say, “We tried to warn you, dumbasses.” Excerpt:

Happily for us, Wall Street is the best ready-made villain this side of Skeletor. Think about it: Most of these guys have spent decades telling the federal government to butt out of their business and have successfully lobbied Washington to deregulate their industry through such odious legislation as the Commodity Futures Modernization Act that helped blur the lines between commercial and investment banking. And yet, when these clowns got themselves into trouble and wrecked our economy in the process, what was the first thing they did? That’s right, they went running to the government to bail them out.

Admittedly, Skeletor-izing the bankers will get some pushback from the mainstream press, which never misses an opportunity to suck up to the rich and powerful. David Gregory’s interview with Tim Geithner was a classic example of this phenomenon, with Gregory practically begging Geithner to denounce executive compensation limits for bailed-out banks. Don’t believe me? Take a look at some of the questions Gregory asked:

– “By capping the pay that executives get at those largest firms that got bailout money, how does that further the goal of paying the taxpayer back?”

– “But what if the people who are capable of stabilizing these companies and becoming profitable again leave, undermining the effort for these firms to pay the government back?”

-“You don’t see an exodus at these seven firms?”

-“Do you think a company like AIG, would you like to see it prosper, make a lot of money again and be successful?”

Punchy progressive messaging can easily shut this line of questioning down. A halfway competent progressive advocate would have simply responded to David Gregory’s questions by giving him a funny look and saying, “Uh, dude? Why do you care if we hurt Skeletor’s feelings?”

Please do check it out, especially since I’m suffering from a particularly nasty case of food poisoning. Getting some extra pageviews from you guys would totally make my day!

Above: “You’ins better tell me who wrote
‘J.B. Hunt party hats’ on tha rubber muh-shine!”

Shorter Linda Kimball
Renew America
“Evolutionism: the dying West’s science of magic and madness”

• I figgered it all out! Modern liberalism is an occult-Marxist conspiracy that uses pagan magic it calls “science” to advance a theory called “evolution” in pursuit of its ultimate goal of SIDSing Baby Jesus in His cute lil ol’ manger. We’re done through the lookin glass here, people.

‘Shorter’ concept created by Daniel Davies and perfected by Elton Beard. We are aware of all Internet traditions.™

Above: “Stay fit, keep sharp, make good decisions.”

Shorter David Frum
Frum Forum
“Andrew Sullivan and the Jews”

• Sure, Andrew Sullivan obviously sucks for opposing torture and writing nasty things about serious people like C. Krauthammer and J. Yoo, but to say he’s anti-Semitic just because he bashes Israel? C’mon. That’s totally not fair.

Shorter David Frum
CNN
“Is Israel-bashing anti-Semitic?”

• All theory to one side, it’s totally fair to assume that anyone who bashes Israel is an anti-Semite.

‘Shorter’ concept created by Daniel Davies and perfected by Elton Beard. We are aware of all Internet traditions.™