Have you no sense of decency, sir, at long last?

Thursday, Aug. 20, 2009
The GOP Has Become a Party of Nihilists
By Joe Klein

In one of those awful collisions between public policy and real life, I was in the midst of an awkward conversation about end-of-life issues with my father when Sarah Palin raised the remarkable idea that the Obama Administration's attempt to include such issues in its health-care-reform proposal would lead to "death panels." Let me tell you something about my family situation, a common one these days, in order to illuminate the obscenity of Palin's formulation and the cowardice of those, like Senator Charles Grassley of Iowa, the lead Republican negotiator on the Senate Finance Committee, who have refused to contest her claim. Both my parents are 89 years old. They have been inseparable, with the exception of my father's service in World War II, since kindergarten. My mother has lost her sight and is quite frail. My father takes care of her and my aunt Rose, lovingly, with some — but not enough — private help at their home in central Pennsylvania. One night in early August, I had a terrible scare. I called home and Aunt Rose was freaking out; she didn't know where my father was. All the worst possibilities crossed my mind — it turned out he was just getting the mail — as well as a very difficult reality: if he'd had a stroke, I would have had no idea about what he'd want me to do. I had lunch with him the next day to discuss this. It wasn't easy. My dad is very proud and independent. He didn't really want to talk about what came next. He was pretty sure, but not certain, that he'd signed a living will. He was very reluctant to sign an enduring power of attorney to empower me, or my brother, to make decisions about his care and my mom's if he were incapacitated. I tried to convince him that it was important to make some plans, but I didn't have the strategic experience that a professional would have — and, in his eyes, I didn't have the standing. I may be a grandfather myself, but I'm still just a kid in my dad's mind. Clearly, an independent, professional authority figure was needed. And this is what the "death panels" are all about: making end-of-life counseling free and available through Medicare. (I'd make it mandatory, based on recent experience, but hey, I'm not entirely clearheaded on the subject right now.) Given the heinous dust that's been raised, it seems likely that end-of-life counseling will be dropped from the health-reform legislation. But that's a small point, compared with the larger issue that has clouded this summer: How can you sustain a democracy if one of the two major political parties has been overrun by nihilists? And another question: How can you maintain the illusion of journalistic impartiality when one of the political parties has jumped the shark? I'm not going to try. I've written countless "Democrats in Disarray" stories over the years and been critical of the left on numerous issues in the past. This year, the liberal insistence on a marginally relevant public option has been a tactical mistake that has enabled the right's "government takeover" disinformation jihad. There have been times when Democrats have run demagogic scare campaigns on issues like Social Security and Medicare. There are more than a few Democrats who believe, in practice, that government should be run for the benefit of government employees' unions. There are Democrats who are so solicitous of civil liberties that they would undermine legitimate covert intelligence collection. There are others who mistrust the use of military power under almost any circumstances. But these are policy differences, matters of substance. The most liberal members of the Democratic caucus — Senator Russ Feingold in the Senate, Representative Dennis Kucinich in the House, to name two — are honorable public servants who make their arguments based on facts. They don't retail outright lies. Hyperbole and distortion certainly exist on the left, but they are a minor chord in the Democratic Party. It is a very different story among Republicans. To be sure, there are honorable conservatives, trying to do the right thing. There is a legitimate, if wildly improbable, fear that Obama's plan will start a process that will end with a health-care system entirely controlled by the government. There are conservatives — Senator Lamar Alexander, Representative Mike Pence, among many others — who make their arguments based on facts. But they have been overwhelmed by nihilists and hypocrites more interested in destroying the opposition and gaining power than in the public weal. The philosophically supple party that existed as recently as George H.W. Bush's presidency has been obliterated. The party's putative intellectuals — people like the Weekly Standard's William Kristol — are prosaic tacticians who make precious few substantive arguments but oppose health-care reform mostly because passage would help Barack Obama's political prospects. In 1993, when the Clintons tried health-care reform, the Republican John Chafee offered a creative (in fact, superior) alternative — which Kristol quashed with his famous "Don't Help Clinton" fax to the troops. There is no Republican health-care alternative in 2009. The same people who rail against a government takeover of health care tried to enforce a government takeover of Terri Schiavo's end-of-life decisions. And when Palin floated the "death panel" canard, the number of prominent Republicans who rose up to call her out could be counted on one hand. A striking example of the prevailing cravenness was Senator Johnny Isakson of Georgia, who has authored end-of-life counseling provisions and told the Washington Post that comparing such counseling to euthanasia was nuts — but then quickly retreated when he realized that he had sided with the reality-based community against his Rush Limbaugh-led party. Mitt Romney, the Republican front-runner for President according to most polls, actually created a universal-health-care plan in Massachusetts that looks very much like the proposed Obamacare, but he spends much of his time trying to fudge the similarities and was AWOL on the "death panels." Why are these men so reluctant to be rational in public? (See how to prevent illness at any age.) An argument can be made that this is nothing new. Dwight Eisenhower tiptoed around Joe McCarthy. Obama reminded an audience in Colorado that opponents of Social Security in the 1930s "said that everybody was going to have to wear dog tags and that this was a plot for the government to keep track of everybody ... These struggles have always boiled down to a contest between hope and fear." True enough. There was McCarthyism in the 1950s, the John Birch Society in the 1960s. But there was a difference in those times: the crazies were a faction — often a powerful faction — of the Republican Party, but they didn't run it. The neofascist Father Coughlin had a huge radio audience in the 1930s, but he didn't have the power to control and silence the elected leaders of the party that Limbaugh — who, if not the party's leader, is certainly the most powerful Republican extant — does now. Until recently, the Republican Party contained a strong moderate wing. It was a Republican, the lawyer Joseph Welch, who delivered the coup de grâce to Senator McCarthy when he said, "Have you no sense of decency, sir, at long last?" Where is the Republican who would dare say that to Rush Limbaugh, who has compared the President of the United States to Adolf Hitler? This is a difficult situation for the President. Cynicism about government is always easy, even if it now seems apparent that it was government action — by both Obama and, yes, George W. Bush — that prevented a reprise of the Great Depression. I watched Obama as he traveled the Rocky Mountain West, holding health-care forums, trying to lance the boil by eliciting questions from the irrational minority that had pulverized the public forums held by lesser pols. He would search the crowds for a first-class nutter who might challenge him on "death panels," but he was constantly disappointed. In Colorado, he locked in on an angry-looking fellow in a teal T shirt — but the guy's fury was directed at the right-wing disinformation campaign. Obama seemed to sag. He had to bring up the "death panels" himself. This may tell us something about the actual state of play on health care: the nutters are a tiny minority; the Republicans are curling themselves into a tight, white, extremist bubble — but there may be enough of them raising dust to render creative public policy impossible. Some righteous anger seems called for, but that's not Obama's style. He will have to come up with something, though — and he will have to do it without the tiniest scintilla of help from the Republican Party.

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Racism, Right-Wing Rage and the Politics of White Nostalgia

Racism, Right-Wing Rage and the Politics of White Nostalgia
By Tim Wise
Mon Aug 17, 2009 at 06:25:30 AM PDT

"How dare you say this is about racism!" And a pleasant Monday to you too sunshine, I thought, as I stared at my computer screen this morning, reading over the first e-mail of the day. It was from someone who had apparently seen my presentation on CNN last night, in which I explained why racism is indeed a driving force behind the outpouring of anger we've been seeing at the various town halls around the country, in opposition to health care reform and pretty much all things Obama. Although I had been careful to point out that not everyone who opposes the President's agenda is a racist, but rather had made the more nuanced argument that racial resentment and white racial anxiety was the background noise of that opposition--often being stoked quite clearly by the radio talk show hosts on whom the mobs have been relying--my electronic interlocutor was having none of it. He had no more listened to me than he had actually read the health care proposals about which he was frothing so at the mouth. The message continued: "You know full well that no one is talking about wanting to go back to the days of segregation." Well, no, I don't know it. I don't know that at all, seeing as how so many of the tea-bag set and anti-health care folks make "taking their country back" one of the most prominent lines of their vocalized outrage. What does that mean, coming from people in their 60s and 70s, for whom the America of their youth was indeed a white supremacist place? A place where white hegemony could be taken as a given, something that could be presumed in perpetuity? What does it mean when someone says that they want to go back to the country the way the founders envisioned it, as many have also explained at these rallies? After all, they envisioned a white republic. They envisioned and sought out the extirpation of indigenous peoples, most believed in the enslavement of African peoples, and none truly believed that blacks should be treated as equals. "But that's not what we're talking about when we say we want our country back," another writer intoned, also angered by my televised comments: "We aren't talking about the racism part. We mean the rest of it." How fascinating. That it is factually impossible to separate out the "racism part" from the rest of it is something many white folks seem not to understand. They seem to think there was once a time of innocence when oppression wasn't happening, or that we can easily extract from our accounting of those crimes the great and noble things about our forefathers and view them in some patriotic vacuum. But we can't. Anymore so than we can say that the man who beats his wife might still be a loving father. Or that the company that poisons the air and water with toxic chemicals is still okay because they have a good record on labor or because they give a percentage of their annual profits to charity. This second writer sought to explain herself further however, just so as not to be misunderstood. When people like her claim they want to return to "what our forefathers started," she continued, they simply mean the part about being dependent on God, rather than government. Okay, I suppose. Of course, last time I checked God wasn't offering to pick up the tab for chemo treatments, organ transplants, or any other medical procedure for that matter. Oh, and not to put too fine a point on it, but the founders actually did foster quite a lot of government dependence: enshrining slavery was about government protecting white people from the competition of free black labor, and white folks becoming quite dependent on that protection. Stealing native land and then redistributing it to white people was about dependence on government-imposed violence. And later, yet still in the supposedly "good old days," government dependence was at the heart of segregation--which artificially subsidized white people in the job, school and housing markets--and was at the heart of the FHA and VA loans that white families used (and from which black families were all but completely blocked) in the 40s and 50s, which literally built the white middle class. But I'm guessing that when she uses a phrase like "dependence on government" she isn't thinking about the white folks who were given 270 million acres of essentially free land under the Homestead Act. Or the 15 million or so white families who got those racially preferential home loans, with government underwriting and guarantees, thanks to programs implemented by liberals and thanks to pressure from the left. I'm thinking she isn't talking about the white soldiers (but typically not the black ones) who were able to return from World War II and make use of the GI Bill to go to college, or get job training. And the fact that she likely doesn't think of those kinds of things and those kinds of people as being dependent on government is, of course, precisely the problem, and the point I was trying to make. Indeed several of the e-mails made this same argument about opposing "government dependence," all the while oblivious, it appears, to the way in which that concept has become so color-coded in the white imagination over the past several decades. In fact, this is a point I had made on the program: that according to a significant body of social science research (among the most prominent, Martin Gilens's brilliant book, Why Americans Hate Welfare), most whites perceive social program spending aimed at helping the have-nots (be they income have-nots, housing have-nots, or health care-have nots) as being about giving something to those people, who are, of course, conceived of in black and brown terms, and taking from "hard-working" white folks in order to do it. So if the notion of government dependence itself has been racialized--and the evidence says it has been--to say that it is only this dependence you oppose, and that racism has nothing to do with it is to either lie or engage in self-deception of a most unfortunate and unbecoming variety. There were of course others who wrote to me, and who felt no need to finesse their hostility; those who wore that hostility quite clearly on their electronic sleeve, in fact. Like the one guy who called me, in big capital letters, a "FUCKING FAGGOT," because nothing demonstrates a keen command of the health care issue better than a little random homophobia. Or the guy who mentioned--in response to an incident I had discussed on the show--that he too had cheered when the white man attacked the black woman holding a Rosa Parks poster in the Missouri town hall meeting. To him, the woman deserved to be assaulted and thrown out of the hall because she was (and here he was simply stealing the latest line from the woefully under-medicated Michael Savage) "nothing but a race baiter." This, unlike, say, the whites in the crowd with signs calling the President a nigger, or the talk show hosts who have been claiming for months that Obama hates white people, hates white culture, and really only wants health care reform as a form of reparations for black people. To him, the black victim of white thuggery is a race-baiter, but the white kid with the sign calling Obama a monkey is probably just an all-American boy, and the whites with the signs comparing the President to Adolf Hitler, are just under-appreciated amateur historians, making obvious analytical points that real historians are just too obtuse, or, ya know, educated, to understand. In the end, although there are many people, with many different reasons for opposing the President or his health care proposal, the role that race and racism is playing cannot be ignored. With major conservative spokespersons stoking the fires of racial resentment daily, and with most whites having long ago come to the conclusion that social program spending is something done on behalf of racial "minorities" at their own white expense, it is not too much to insist that race is operating, for some quite overtly and for others more subtly. And for those who insist racism has nothing to do with it, the question remains why they have said nothing to those persons coming to their rallies and giving exactly that impression by way of the signs they carry. Where are their letters or calls to Limbaugh or Beck, chastising them for saying Obama hates white people, or that health care is just a form of reparations--racial payback of white America? Of course they have written no such letters. They have made no such calls. They are too busy. Busy waxing nostalgic for bygone days, which they mis-remember as a time of innocence, of decency, and of self-reliance, but which days were really days of widespread injustice, profound indecency, and institutionalized racial preference for people like them. They can neither accept the present as it is, nor, interestingly, the past as it was. So they invent a phony version of the latter, while hoping against hope for a reversal of the former. Let us deny them the ability to do either for very long. (read the entire article)

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In America, Crazy Is a Preexisting Condition

In America, Crazy Is a Preexisting Condition
By Rick Perlstein
Sunday, August 16, 2009

In Pennsylvania last week, a citizen, burly, crew-cut and trembling with rage, went nose to nose with his baffled senator: "One day God's going to stand before you, and he's going to judge you and the rest of your damned cronies up on the Hill. And then you will get your just deserts." He was accusing Arlen Specter of being too kind to President Obama's proposals to make it easier for people to get health insurance. In Michigan, meanwhile, the indelible image was of the father who wheeled his handicapped adult son up to Rep. John Dingell and bellowed that "under the Obama health-care plan, which you support, this man would be given no care whatsoever." He pressed his case further on Fox News. In New Hampshire, outside a building where Obama spoke, cameras trained on the pistol strapped to the leg of libertarian William Kostric. He then explained on CNN why the "tree of liberty must be refreshed from time to time by the blood of tyrants and patriots." It was interesting to hear a BBC reporter on the radio trying to make sense of it all. He quoted a spokesman for the conservative Americans for Tax Reform: "Either this is a genuine grass-roots response, or there's some secret evil conspirator living in a mountain somewhere orchestrating all this that I've never met." The spokesman was arguing, of course, that it was spontaneous, yet he also proudly owned up to how his group has helped the orchestration, through sample letters to the editor and "a little bit of an ability to put one-pagers together." The BBC also quoted liberal Illinois Sen. Dick Durbin's explanation: "They want to get a little clip on YouTube of an effort to disrupt a town meeting and to send the congressman running for his car. This is an organized effort . . . you can trace it back to the health insurance industry." So the birthers, the anti-tax tea-partiers, the town hall hecklers -- these are "either" the genuine grass roots or evil conspirators staging scenes for YouTube? The quiver on the lips of the man pushing the wheelchair, the crazed risk of carrying a pistol around a president -- too heartfelt to be an act. The lockstep strangeness of the mad lies on the protesters' signs -- too uniform to be spontaneous. They are both. If you don't understand that any moment of genuine political change always produces both, you can't understand America, where the crazy tree blooms in every moment of liberal ascendancy, and where elites exploit the crazy for their own narrow interests. In the early 1950s, Republicans referred to the presidencies of Franklin Roosevelt and Harry Truman as "20 years of treason" and accused the men who led the fight against fascism of deliberately surrendering the free world to communism. Mainline Protestants published a new translation of the Bible in the 1950s that properly rendered the Greek as connoting a more ambiguous theological status for the Virgin Mary; right-wingers attributed that to, yes, the hand of Soviet agents. And Vice President Richard Nixon claimed that the new Republicans arriving in the White House "found in the files a blueprint for socializing America." When John F. Kennedy entered the White House, his proposals to anchor America's nuclear defense in intercontinental ballistic missiles -- instead of long-range bombers -- and form closer ties with Eastern Bloc outliers such as Yugoslavia were taken as evidence that the young president was secretly disarming the United States. Thousands of delegates from 90 cities packed a National Indignation Convention in Dallas, a 1961 version of today's tea parties; a keynote speaker turned to the master of ceremonies after his introduction and remarked as the audience roared: "Tom Anderson here has turned moderate! All he wants to do is impeach [Supreme Court Chief Justice Earl] Warren. I'm for hanging him!" Before the "black helicopters" of the 1990s, there were right-wingers claiming access to secret documents from the 1920s proving that the entire concept of a "civil rights movement" had been hatched in the Soviet Union; when the landmark 1964 Civil Rights Act was introduced, one frequently read in the South that it would "enslave" whites. And back before there were Bolsheviks to blame, paranoids didn't lack for subversives -- anti-Catholic conspiracy theorists even had their own powerful political party in the 1840s and '50s. The instigation is always the familiar litany: expansion of the commonweal to empower new communities, accommodation to internationalism, the heightened influence of cosmopolitans and the persecution complex of conservatives who can't stand losing an argument. My personal favorite? The federal government expanded mental health services in the Kennedy era, and one bill provided for a new facility in Alaska. One of the most widely listened-to right-wing radio programs in the country, hosted by a former FBI agent, had millions of Americans believing it was being built to intern political dissidents, just like in the Soviet Union. So, crazier then, or crazier now? Actually, the similarities across decades are uncanny. When Adlai Stevenson spoke at a 1963 United Nations Day observance in Dallas, the Indignation forces thronged the hall, sweating and furious, shrieking down the speaker for the television cameras. Then, when Stevenson was walked to his limousine, a grimacing and wild-eyed lady thwacked him with a picket sign. Stevenson was baffled. "What's the matter, madam?" he asked. "What can I do for you?" The woman responded with self-righteous fury: "Well, if you don't know I can't help you." The various elements -- the liberal earnestly confused when rational dialogue won't hold sway; the anti-liberal rage at a world self-evidently out of joint; and, most of all, their mutual incomprehension -- sound as fresh as yesterday's news. (Internment camps for conservatives? That's the latest theory of tea party favorite Michael Savage.) The orchestration of incivility happens, too, and it is evil. Liberal power of all sorts induces an organic and crazy-making panic in a considerable number of Americans, while people with no particular susceptibility to existential terror -- powerful elites -- find reason to stoke and exploit that fear. And even the most ideologically fair-minded national media will always be agents of cosmopolitanism: something provincials fear as an outside elite intent on forcing different values down their throats. That provides an opening for vultures such as Richard Nixon, who, the Watergate investigation discovered, had his aides make sure that seed blossomed for his own purposes. "To the Editor . . . Who in the hell elected these people to stand up and read off their insults to the President of the United States?" read one proposed "grass-roots" letter manufactured by the White House. "When will you people realize that he was elected President and he is entitled to the respect of that office no matter what you people think of him?" went another. Liberals are right to be vigilant about manufactured outrage, and particularly about how the mainstream media can too easily become that outrage's entry into the political debate. For the tactic represented by those fake Nixon letters was a long-term success. Conservatives have become adept at playing the media for suckers, getting inside the heads of editors and reporters, haunting them with the thought that maybe they are out-of-touch cosmopolitans and that their duty as tribunes of the people's voices means they should treat Obama's creation of "death panels" as just another justiciable political claim. If 1963 were 2009, the woman who assaulted Adlai Stevenson would be getting time on cable news to explain herself. That, not the paranoia itself, makes our present moment uniquely disturbing. It used to be different. You never heard the late Walter Cronkite taking time on the evening news to "debunk" claims that a proposed mental health clinic in Alaska is actually a dumping ground for right-wing critics of the president's program, or giving the people who made those claims time to explain themselves on the air. The media didn't adjudicate the ever-present underbrush of American paranoia as a set of "conservative claims" to weigh, horse-race-style, against liberal claims. Back then, a more confident media unequivocally labeled the civic outrage represented by such discourse as "extremist" -- out of bounds. The tree of crazy is an ever-present aspect of America's flora. Only now, it's being watered by misguided he-said-she-said reporting and taking over the forest. Latest word is that the enlightened and mild provision in the draft legislation to help elderly people who want living wills -- the one hysterics turned into the "death panel" canard -- is losing favor, according to the Wall Street Journal, because of "complaints over the provision." Good thing our leaders weren't so cowardly in 1964, or we would never have passed a civil rights bill -- because of complaints over the provisions in it that would enslave whites. (read the original article)

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Matthew 25:35: "For I was hungry and you told me, 'Get a job'"

The Colbert Report	Mon - Thurs 11:30pm / 10:30c
Tip/Wag - Cynthia Davis & Fox News
www.colbertnation.com
Colbert Report Full Episodes Political Humor Jeff Goldblum

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The wingnut prayer: "bin Laden, please bomb a US city so we can come back into power."

Yep... more rightwingnut thinking...



Thanks to Tom Tomorrow. His original cartoon was right on the mark... as usual.

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Republican conservatives are just liberals in right-wing drag

Friday, June 26, 2009
Remind me: Which political party is "decadent" and "sick"?
by Joe Conason

Whenever the latest Republican politician is caught with his zipper undone, a predictable moment of introspection on the right inevitably ensues. Pundits, bloggers and perplexed citizens ruminate over the lessons they have learned, again and again, about human frailty, false piety and the temptations of flesh and power. They express concern for the damaged family and lament the fall of yet another promising young hypocrite. They resolve to restore the purity of their movement and always remember to remind us that this is all Bill Clinton's fault. What they never do is face up to an increasingly embarrassing fact about themselves and their leaders. They're really just liberals in right-wing drag. The proof is in the penance, or lack thereof, inflicted on the likes of Mark Sanford, John Ensign and David Vitter, to cite a few names from the top of a long, long list. For ideologues who value biblical morality and believe in the efficacy of punishment, modern conservatives are as tolerant of their famous sinners as the jaded libertines of the left. Even after confessing to the most flagrant and colorful fornication, the worst that a conservative must anticipate is a stern scolding, followed by warm assurances of God's forgiveness and a swift return to business as usual. Mark Sanford may have forfeited his presidential ambitions, but the South Carolina governor seems determined to hold onto his office despite his escapade in Argentina -- and if he is thrown out, the reason will be his offenses against good government rather than his betrayal of his marriage vows. John Ensign isn't expected to step down from the Senate, despite the mounting evidence that he concealed his extramarital affair through the misuse of public funds; even now he remains more popular than fellow Nevadan Harry Reid, the Democratic majority leader. And then there is David Vitter, the Louisiana bon vivant whose evangelical constituents seem inclined to reward him for consorting with prostitutes by giving him another Senate term. The safest prediction is that these pharisaical pols will continue their careers without suffering the retribution they have earned. According to the Old Testament -- a text regularly cited by these worthies as the highest authority in denouncing reproductive freedom and gay rights -- the proper penalty for adultery is death by stoning. Leviticus is quite clear on this point (as any truly strict originalist could hardly deny). Fortunately for all of us, biblical law doesn't rule this country, despite the zealots on the religious right who disdain separation of church and state. Very few Americans believe that we should impose state sanctions, let alone the death penalty, on private peccadilloes. But civic tolerance doesn't excuse the limp, smiling attitude of the Republican right toward the infidelity of its leaders. That flabby acceptance contrasts sharply with right-wing screaming about the iniquity of the opposition. As understood by conservative commentators, this is not mere rhetoric but a theory of civilization's rise and fall. Ann Coulter believes that liberals actively "seek to destroy morality" by "refusing to condemn what societies have condemned for thousands of years," including "promiscuity" and "divorce." Dinesh D'Souza once recommended sarcastically that the Democrats adopt the mantle of "moral degeneracy" by forthrightly advocating "divorce, illegitimacy, adultery, homosexuality, bestiality and pornography." The supposed depravity of the Democratic Party has long been a favorite theme of conservatives, dating back to the rise of Newt Gingrich, who distributed an official campaign lexicon to Republican congressional candidates that featured such defining insults as "decadent," "permissive," "sick," "selfish" and, of course, "liberal." Back then the Georgia Republican was on his second marriage and carrying on a clandestine affair with the young Capitol Hill clerk who would eventually become his third wife (after he converted to Catholicism and had his union with wife No. 2 annulled). In 2007, he admitted on James Dobson's radio show that he was cheating on wife No. 2 with future wife No. 3 while he was publicly chastising President Clinton for consorting with Monica Lewinsky. Gingrich has remained a consistent favorite among his pious comrades. Today, in fact, Gingrich is fully rehabilitated as a party spokesman, still nurturing presidential ambitions. So why should any other Republican fear the wrath of the righteous? The disappointment in Sanford and Ensign among the devout must be particularly keen, since they have so rigorously aligned themselves with the most fervent elements of the religious right. For more than a decade, Ensign lent his name to Promise Keepers, the all-male Christian prayer movement run by a former Colorado football coach, whose mass rallies highlighted men's integrity, purity and uncompromising domination of family life. Both he and Sanford have worked closely with the Family, a secretive Christian fellowship on Capitol Hill that maintains a brick townhouse where Ensign and other members of Congress have resided. Over the years both men have won the highest marks from the Family Research Council, the Christian Coalition and the American Family Association -- and until the other day, Sanford was featured as an invited speaker at the Family Research Council's upcoming Values Voters Summit 2009. (As Pam Spaulding and Think Progress noted, however, the FRC removed his photo from the summit Web site immediately following his confessional press conference.) Certainly there is considerable pressure for Sanford to resign in South Carolina, and perhaps he will surrender. But he might well ask whether that is fair when Ensign is hanging on and Vitter appears to be in the clear. For a while, Family Research Council president Tony Perkins had threatened to challenge Vitter in the Republican primary next year, but last March he announced that he won't run after all -- and instead endorsed Vitter for reelection. Amazingly, Perkins then hosted a radio broadcast with Vitter as his guest, where they tut-tutted over the alleged ethical problems of Health and Human Services Secretary Kathleen Sebelius. Nobody had the poor taste to mention the infamous black books in which Vitter's friendly madams in Washington and New Orleans had inscribed his name and phone number. By the way, while Vitter, Ensign, Gingrich and perhaps Sanford have been able to retain their positions and political viability, the same cannot be said for the most recent offenders on the progressive side. Neither Eliot Spitzer nor John Edwards, each among the most promising figures in the Democratic Party, will ever be a candidate for public office again, although their misbehavior was no worse than what their Republican counterparts did. If they looked honestly at themselves, religious conservatives might notice that they are morally lax, socially permissive and casually tolerant of moral deviancy -- just like the liberals they despise. So as they wonder aloud why the same salacious nightmare haunts them, year after year, the best advice they can get happens to come from that old sinner Clinton. As he so often says, the definition of insanity is to keep doing the same thing while expecting a different outcome.

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More rightwingnut thinking

Click image for larger view.
Click here for original comic.

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Mythbusting Right-Wing Domestic Terrorism

[Note: My cohort at Orcinus, Sara Robinson, has been nearly as preoccupied the past couple of weeks in dealing with media requests to discuss the recent spate of domestic terrorism now washing up on our shores. She posted her thoughts about it yesterday, and it was so good, I had to pass it along to our readers here. -- DN] Mythbusting Right-Wing Domestic Terrorism By Sara Robinson It's been a wild couple of weeks for those of us in the wingnutology business. Our services have been in tremendous demand as the mainstream media tries to sort out the meaning of what Scott Roeder and James von Brunn did. I've done an average of one radio show every day for the past two weeks trying to help various lefty talkers around the country make some sense of it all; and I'm generally gratified at how seriously people are starting to take this. At the same time, I'm also appalled (though, sadly, hardly surprised) by the conservative mythmaking that's going on around the very serious issue of right-wing domestic terrorism. So it's obviously time to pull together another "Firing Back" piece to give progressives what they need to separate fact from fiction when these talking points start flying. I've actually had every one of the following myths pitched to me by on-air interviewers, phone-in callers, and/or online commenters over the last two weeks. Most of them have come up over and over, which suggests to me that you're likely to encounter them, too. So let's walk 'em through... (read the entire article)

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Not your daddy's GOP

Okay, so, there are these "protests" across the country today. Seems some people have, all of a sudden, gotten all upset about "spending our children's (and children's children's) money."

Where the hell were they, say, 7 years ago? Oh, that's right. George W. Bush was president, the GOP had the majority in Congress, and major deficit spending wasn't a problem.

Also, do they have even the slightest clue what "tea bag" means?

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The "Right" Stuff

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What Palin's candidacy says about America

Mad Dog Palin
The scariest thing about John McCain's running mate isn't how unqualified she is -
it's what her candidacy says about America
by Matt Taibbi
Posted Oct 02, 2008 3:00 PM

From the article:

It was like watching Gidget address the Reichstag. ===== So, sure, Barack Obama might be every bit as much a slick piece of imageering as Sarah Palin. The difference is in what the image represents. The Obama image represents tolerance, intelligence, education, patience with the notion of compromise and negotiation, and a willingness to stare ugly facts right in the face, all qualities we're actually going to need in government if we're going to get out of this huge mess we're in. Here's what Sarah Palin represents: being a fat fucking pig who pins "Country First" buttons on his man titties and chants "U-S-A! U-S-A!" at the top of his lungs while his kids live off credit cards and Saudis buy up all the mortgages in Kansas. The truly disgusting thing about Sarah Palin isn't that she's totally unqualified, or a religious zealot, or married to a secessionist, or unable to educate her own daughter about sex, or a fake conservative who raised taxes and horked up earmark millions every chance she got. No, the most disgusting thing about her is what she says about us: that you can ram us in the ass for eight solid years, and we'll not only thank you for your trouble, we'll sign you up for eight more years, if only you promise to stroke us in the right spot for a few hours around election time. (read the entire article)

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Hypocrisy, they name is…

In light of the current financial crisis I thought it would be helpful to see what the Republicans really think about the government helping to bail out financial institutions. From the 2008 Republican National Convention platform:

We do not support government bailouts of private institutions. Government interference in the markets exacerbates problems in the marketplace and causes the free market to take longer to correct itself. We believe in the free market as the best tool to sustained prosperity and opportunity for all.

Flip flop...Indeed.

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Feminism's Bastardization

Thursday, September 11, 2008
Zombie feminists of the RNC
by Rebecca Traister



From the article:

In this strange new pro-woman tableau, feminism -- a word that is being used all over the country with regard to Palin's potential power -- means voting for someone who would limit reproductive control, access to healthcare and funding for places like Covenant House Alaska, an organization that helps unwed teen mothers. It means cheering someone who allowed women to be charged for their rape kits while she was mayor of Wasilla, who supports the teaching of creationism alongside evolution, who has inquired locally about the possibility of using her position to ban children's books from the public library, who does not support the teaching of sex education. In this "Handmaid's Tale"-inflected universe, in which femininity is worshipped but females will be denied rights, CNBC pundit Donny Deutsch tells us that we're witnessing "a new creation ... of the feminist ideal," the feminism being so ideal because instead of being voiced by hairy old bats with unattractive ideas about intellect and economy and politics and power, it's now embodied by a woman who, according to Deutsch, does what Hillary Clinton did not: "put a skirt on." "I want her watching my kids," says Deutsch. "I want her laying next to me in bed." Welcome to 2008, the year a tough, wonky woman won a primary (lots of them, actually), an inspiring black man secured his party's nomination for the presidency, and a television talking head felt free to opine that a woman is qualified for executive office because he wants to bed her and have her watch his kids! Stop the election; I want to get off. (read the entire article)

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A pig by any other name...

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One of America's most notorious race-baiters has died

Race-Baiting Former Senator Jesse Helms Has Died
Posted by Lindsay Beyerstein, AlterNet at 1:21 PM on July 4, 2008.
From the article:

David Broder of the Washington Post summed up Helms' legacy in an 2001 op/ed entitled, Jesse Helms, White Racist, "What is unique about Helms -- and from my viewpoint, unforgivable -- is his willingness to pick at the scab of the great wound of American history, the legacy of slavery and segregation, and to inflame racial resentment against African Americans." That says most of it. Here's the rest: Upon Helms' death Heritage Foundation president Ed Fuelner praised the late conservative icon effusively, vowing that the legacy of this "great patriot" would live on. In 2002 Heritage bestowed its highest honor on Helms for his “dedicated, unflinching and articulate advocate of conservative policy and principle"--which tells you just about everything you need to know about Helms and the conservative movement. (read the entire article)

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Energy: Carter was right

Carter Tried To Stop Bush's Energy Disasters - 28 Years Ago
by Thom Hartmann
Tuesday, May 3, 2005

In his recent news conference, George Bush Jr. suggested that our nation's "problem" with high gasoline prices was caused by the lack of a national energy policy, and tried to blame it all on Bill Clinton. First, Junior said, "This is a problem that's been a long time in coming. We haven't had an energy policy in this country." This was followed by, "That's exactly what I've been saying to the American people -- 10 years ago if we'd had an energy strategy, we would be able to diversify away from foreign dependence. And -- but we haven't done that. And now we find ourselves in the fix we're in." As is so often the case, Bush was lying. (read the entire article)

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The G in GOP Stands for Ghoul

June 25, 2008 at 06:26

The G in GOP Stands for Ghoul
by Mary Lyon
http://www.opednews.com/

I've heard of rooting for the bad guys, but this is ridiculous. John McCain's elite adviser Charlie Black opined to Fortune magazine that if there were another terrorist strike against our country in time for the general election, it "certainly would be a big advantage" for McCain's campaign ("a candid and very disappointing glimpse into the thinking of one of McCain's closest advisers.").

Wow. Nice. Which American city would you like to see take it in the shorts this time, Mr. Black? How many thousands of us are expendable for the sake of your candidate's success? Let's see, New York City has already been there. Same thing for Arlington, Virginia, home of the Pentagon. And don't forget New Orleans. No, that wasn't terrorism, per se, but it was still a disaster that needed - but did not get - government foresight and planning wisdom from seasoned, credible public service professionals as well as swift and effective response.

Is this the newest round of "October Surprise" paranoia? Or is it paranoia? A terrorist strike on American soil would be a major campaign boost for John McCain? Does it sound at all as though someone regards such a tragedy as a good thing? Really nice.

(read the entire article)

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McCain's YouTube Problem

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GWB: Worst. President. Ever. Part II

Sorry, Mr. President, But Your Legacy Is More Awful Than You Think
by: Bob Cesca

Posted June 11, 2008 04:57 PM (EST)

From the article: War mongering is a significant aspect of your legacy, but I think we can conclude, and without much debate, that your legacy will also be one of criminality, failure and a degree of incompetence rarely achieved by any American president, much less one whose deficit of character is rivaled only by his nearly unprecedented lack of humility in the face of his unprecedented roster of inadequacies. Sorry. As it turns out, you won't have much control over your legacy and the history of your administration anyway. You might have some cursory input, but no-one really takes you seriously anymore and anything you put forth will be taken as just another work of fiction; another bit of propaganda. Your legacy will ultimately be written by those of us who have been actively documenting your presidency in real time -- millions of voices authoring the narrative of your awful regime and preserving it with digital clarity one trespass at a time. And everywhere we look, we can plainly observe your smirking, affectless footprint. Death, poverty, war, pain, ignorance, blind patriotism, joblessness, and abandoned homes. And guess what? We're writing it down on the Internets. Your history, Mr. President, is being written at this very moment by those of us who are watching our homes collapse in value and our friends and relatives sent to places like Ramadi and Fallujah and, in some cases, Walter Reed or worse. Your history, Mr. President, isn't going to be settled and published decades from now. It's being published immediately and without the fog of memory to obscure the ugly details. (read the entire article)

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Senator McCain wants context? Fine.

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Keeping an especially sharp eye...

According to the "Hillary is 44" Web site/About page:

"We will keep an especially sharp eye on "progressives" or Democrats who repeat Republican talking points to undermine Hillary or any of our candidates."

Any of our candidates. Okay, that's plain enough.

Then just one question: Why does the entire site seem devoted to undermining the candidacy of Barack Obama for President of the United States? For example:

"Women will NOt vote for race-baiting, gay-bashing, women-hating Barack Obama in NOvember."

You know, the same Barack Obama endorsed by Hillary Clinton:

"The way to continue our fight now, to accomplish the goals for which we stand, is to take our energy, our passion, our strength, and do all we can to help elect Barack Obama the next president of the United States," Clinton told a crowd of 8,000 supporters during an emotion-filled rally at the National Building Museum in Washington. "Today, as I suspend my campaign, I congratulate him on the victory he has won and the extraordinary race he has run. I endorse him and throw my full support behind him. And I ask all of you to join me in working as hard for Barack Obama as you have for me."

Hillary Clinton says: "And I ask all of you to join me in working as hard for Barack Obama as you have for me."

That's plain to all. Apparently, though, the "Hillary is 44" people have comprehension problems.

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You'll Get What You Deserve

click on image to enter site

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Why they call him "McSame"

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The Fool on the Hill

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The face of terrorism in America

Rachael Ray and Dunkin' Dounts*

Click on image for Leonard Pitts' take on this.
* - in the paranoid world of Michelle Malkin, natch.

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Show us the money...

If there's a so-called "whitey" tape out there I, for one, would like to see it instead of hearing all of the "I heard from someone who heard from someone who knows someone who has seen it" hype.

Even the National Review agrees.

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GWB: Worst. President. Ever.

There are those who erroneously claim that Jimmy Carter was the worst president ever. They cite the economic situation during his administration and the Iranian hostage crisis as proof of their assertion.

I would argue that, without a doubt, we are witnessing and living through this country's worst president ever: George W. Bush. It isn't a matter of the so-called "irrational hatred of President Bush." Nope. I believe that future historians will reflect what this Michael Hirsh article from Newsweek has to say, and it isn't pretty:

An Unnatural Disaster by Michael Hirsh In a month of horrific natural disasters—the China quake, the Burma cyclone—it's instructive to consider what one of the biggest unnatural disasters in memory looks like. That is the decline in America's position in the world from where we were when George W. Bush inherited power on Jan. 20, 2001, to what he will bequeath to the next president eight months from now. (read the entire article)

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Through the lens of history

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Rightwing Racism on Display

This continues the discussion from tonight's broadcast of The Political Atlas.

Partisanship Is Back! on The Hotline: On the right, bloggers accused Obama of offering "false moral equivalence," "blame whitey," and "the politics of grievance." ... One thing is clear: those who predicted that an Obama-John McCain race would lead to a "civil" debate about this country's future (we're looking at you, Andrew Sullivan!) are deluding themselves. If the conservative reaction to the Wright controversy is any indication, an Obama-McCain race would be just as nasty as a Hillary Clinton-McCain race. (read the entire article)

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Why I'm a Liberal

Ken Quinell, my friend and Executive Director of the Florida Progressive Coalition, used to maintain a personal blog, T. Rex's Guide to Life. One of his regular features was "Why I'm a Liberal." It was usually just a picture highlighting the absurdities of the right wing in this country.

The top-of-the-fold story in today's Tallahassee Democrat reminded me exactly why I am a liberal:

Lawmakers attend Tallahassee screening of movie by Ben Stein
The caption from the accompanying picture ("Expelled: No Intelligence Allowed" on Wednesday at the Challenger Learning Center) demonstrates that few people understand the concept of "irony."

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Makes a lot of sense...

Why modern-day conservatism makes no sense to me

By media girl

Once upon a time I was a moderate. I believed in Keynesian economics. I believed in using market forces to help institute desired policy. I believed in empowering people so that they could take charge of their own lives. I believed in incentives in business and personal tax deductions and rebates. I believed that people had a right to privacy. I believed that the government should stay out of people's private lives, but that the government is needed to protect people from not just crime but from abuse through pollution and fraud. I believed in free speech. That was then. I was a moderate. This is now ... and I still believe all those things. But now I find myself labeled as "left." (read the entire article)

More GOP-led Injustice

Voter ID Scam Is the Real Fraud
by Cynthia Tucker
Monday, January 14, 2008

If the U.S. Supreme Court upholds Indiana’s harsh voter ID law, as its justices seem poised to do, hundreds of thousands of black Americans should march in protest. So should hundreds of thousands of Latino Americans. Native Americans, too. Political activists from across the ethnic spectrum should convene the biggest political demonstration since the historic March on Washington in 1963.Where is the Rev. Al Sharpton when a genuinely critical issue comes along? Where’s the Rev. Jesse Jackson? The GOP-led campaign to pass stringent voter ID laws is a greater injustice than the prosecutions of the Jena Six, more significant than the incarceration of Michael Vick, more damaging than the insulting rants of Don Imus. This is a frankly brazen effort to block the votes of thousands of people of color who might have the temerity to vote for Democrats. And it’s un-American. As happened in several states, including Georgia, the then-GOP-dominated Indiana legislature pushed through a rigid law in 2005 requiring state-sponsored photo IDs at the ballot box. While the Republican spin machine has worked mightily to portray this as an effort to curb voter fraud, it is no such thing. There has never - never - been a single case of “voter impersonation” at the ballot box, with a fake voter using an electric bill or phone bill to pretend to be a valid voter. Earlier this month, radio journalist Warren Olney pressed Indiana Secretary of State Todd Rokita about the prosecution of voter impersonation cases in Indiana. “Oh, yeah. We suspect it happens all the time,” Mr. Rokita said. “Suspect?” Mr. Olney countered. “Well, are you saying you want to define whether or not there’s fraud based on whether or not its prosecuted?” Mr. Rokita answered, adding, “It’s a hard type of crime to catch. … It’s hard to catch one in the act.” OK, then. Got that? It’s a little like the search for life on other planets. Extraterrestrials are out there, even if none has actually been spotted. (If Republicans were interested in actual voter fraud, they would have tightened the rules for absentee ballots, since that’s where most voter fraud occurs. But because Republican voters tend to favor absentee ballots, many GOP-dominated legislatures have made absentee balloting rules less stringent.) But there is evidence aplenty of this: There are thousands of law-abiding registered voters across the land who have no government-sponsored ID - no passport, no driver’s license - and who will be banned from the ballot box if the highest court upholds this highly partisan law. It is difficult for middle-class citizens to believe, I know. If you live inside the comfortable economic mainstream, where taking airplane trips and renting DVDs is a routine part of life, you can’t imagine voters without a state-sponsored photo ID. But they’re out there. Just ask Mary-Jo Criswell, 71. Her ballot was thrown out when she showed up at her Indiana polling place expecting to use the same forms of ID, including a bank card with a photo, that she had used in the past. She has epilepsy, she says, so she has never had a driver’s license. Citizens like Ms. Criswell are Americans, too, and they have every right to vote. It is elitism, pure and simple, to suggest requiring them to obtain a state-sponsored photo ID is a “minor inconvenience.” But that’s exactly what Justice Anthony M. Kennedy called it during oral arguments, noting that the law is expected to affect only a small percentage of voters. That’s true. The GOP is aiming at a small pool of voters - mostly poor, often elderly, usually black or brown - who lack driver’s licenses. As it happens, they tend to support Democrats. With so many elections decided by a margin of a few hundred votes, Republicans figure they can stay in power by blocking just a few Democratic ballots. But the Republicans could be in for a jolt. The electorate seems much more excited about Democratic candidates this year. The Democratic presidential candidates have topped the Republicans in fundraising, and in early primary states, more Democratic ballots have been cast than Republican ones. The way things are going, Republicans running for national office could lose by a lot of votes - not a few. So they’ll need a new scam to win elections.

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Third-Tier Pundits, Part 5

Goldberg Can't Explain His Own Book
by: Sam Boyd

The following clip of Jonah Goldberg being interviewed on the Daily Show should, I submit, convince anyone that Jonah Goldberg doesn't have any idea of what he's talking about. He gets numerous opportunities to explain why liberals aren't fascists and instead he just randomly combines words. I mean when the first thing you say when someone asks you why you think liberals are fascists is that the New Republic supported Mussolini in the 1920s you've made it clear that you don't actually have any evidence. This also just reinforces my point from the other day. Goldberg doesn't give a damn about fascism. He just wants to convince everyone that progressives are evil opressive racists and if that involves saying the environmental movement is fascist because some Nazis liked organic food then so be it. Equally damning is this Michael Ledeen review. Ledeen is a hard-right political scientist and pundit, but he's also an actual expert of fascism. His critique is all the more devastating because he so clearly didn't want to have to write it. The not-in-anger-but-in-sadness tone is incredibly effective.

NOTE: Excerpts from the Michael Ledeen review, mentioned above, can be found in my thread, Third-Tier Pundits, Part 4.

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Third-Tier Pundits, Part 4

Even some on the right question these Third-Tier Pundits. Some excerpts from Michael Ledeen's Fascism, Liberal and Otherwise:

Some of his fans have praised Jonah for writing a work of history, but it isn’t, really. ===== What is missing from Jonah’s book—he mentions it in passing a few times, but never gives it the weight it deserves—is the specific historical context from which fascism was born: the First World War. ===== “What distinguished Nazism from other brands of socialism and communism was not so much that it included more aspects from the political right (though there were some). What distinguished Nazism was that it forthrightly included a worldview we now associate almost completely with the political left: identity politics.” And in case you thought he was kidding, he repeats it a few pages later: “What mattered to (Hitler) was German identity politics.” The best that can be said about this is that it’s imaginative. But it’s what happens when you are bound and determined to put liberals, Socialists, Communists, fascists and Nazis into a common political home.

Pretty much speaks for itself.

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Fight the bully

NoSavage.org

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The War on Christmas - Update!

Looks like it is going to get nasty now:

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Rudy's Latest Ad

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Rightwing "humor"

December 1, 2007

Right-Wing Nutcases Laugh It Up Over Clinton Office Hostage Crisis
by Marc McDonald
http://www.opednews.com/

"Anyone care to bet the protagonist is a card-carrying member of the Democrat Party (aka nutroot) who is frustrated that Hillary hasn't personally defunded the War in Iraq yet? Might even be a member over at Daily Kos?"
---Rotarymunkey, commenter at MichelleMalkin.com

I have to admit, I never really understood the right-wing sense of humor.

Like when Ronald Reagan joked in 1964 about the 17 million people who then went to bed hungry every night in America, saying that "they were all on a diet."

Or when Rush Limbaugh called 13-year-old Chelsea Clinton a "dog."

Or when George W. Bush yucked it up over the issue of the non-existent WMDs in Iraq during a "comedy" skit in the Oval Office.

I don't know---maybe I just don't have much of a sense of humor, because I saw nothing funny about yesterday's hostage crisis, in which a distraught man wearing what appeared to be a bomb walked into the campaign office of Hillary Clinton in New Hampshire.

However, plenty of right-wing folks thought the whole episode was real funny. Take (please) the wingnuts who hang out at the blog of right-wing nutcase Michelle Malkin.

As of Friday night, Malkin's comments section was full of posters who were joking about the crisis and speculating about how the "liberal" media and the Democrats would conspire to spin the episode to Hillary's advantage.

A poster by the name of "Fodder Jack" seemed to find humor in the crisis, writing, "Maybe it is a last ditch effort by the press to get an interview with Hillary."

Another writer called "Reppac122" was (like many across the right-wing blogosphere) already using the occasion to attack the Clintons. "My cynical political thinking here is that the Clintons (yes, both of them) will use this horrible situation for their political benefit."

Another writer, using the handle, "RetFireman," raised the issue of conspiracy: "Now be honest...with all that has come out lately, and I am not saying it is staged, but how many people would be that surprised to find out at some later date that it was? Be honest with yourself, and consider who we are talking about."

Commenter "Eric CharlotteNC" sarcastically mocked Liberals in his post. "If our troops weren't in Iraq this never would have happened! Or maybe global warming got this guy very hot!"

"Blacktygrrrr" added his own two cents: "The bottom line is if the hostage taker is a liberal, he will be dismissed as deranged, since many liberals are deranged anyway."

"Rotarymunkey" had this to say: "Anyone care to bet the protagonist is a card-carrying member of the Democrat Party (aka nutroot) who is frustrated that Hillary hasn't personally defunded the War in Iraq yet? Might even be a member over at Daily Kos?"

And so it goes, on and on.

Of course, none of this comes as much of a surprise to those of us who are at all familiar with the vicious hatemongering in the right-wing blogosphere.

The scary thing is Malkin's blog supposedly has a policy of screening out "offensive" remarks. If the above comments weren't screened out, one can only wonder what truly deranged nutcase comments were deleted. The mind boggles.

I'm sure there are those who would argue that Malkin isn't responsible for the deranged posters who comment on her blog. But anyone familiar with Malkin's own writings knows that she herself is a truly psychotic nutcase whose babblings over the years have been far scarier than any of the comments above.

As prominent Malkin critic Glenn Greenwald pointed out, Malkin once wrote a book "defending the ethnicity-based imprisonment of innocent American citizens in internment camps."

As media watchdog site Media Matters pointed out, the mainstream media has given, on numerous occasions in the past, significant coverage to episodes in which controversial comments appeared on progressive blogs.

How much do you want to bet that the MSM ignores the right-wing hatemongering that appeared in the aftermath of the Clinton office hostage crisis?

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Fight them there... well, you know how that goes...

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Fox News Porn

For more information visit Fox News Porn dot com.

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From the "You can't make this up" category

This, from the official White House Web site:

BUSH: If anybody were to come to this center, they would have to leave inspired and thankful, inspired by the servicemen and women who are recovering from wounds with such courage; thankful that there are instructors and preachers and volunteers who are helping these people get back on their feet...

Thanks to Top 10 Conservative Idiots, No. 314 for originally posting this gem.

Nope, you can't make this up!

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Government sidesteps morality, accountability

Torture and Profit
Government sidesteps morality, accountability
By Andy Opel
Originally published November 13, 2007

While in Canada recently, I saw the new film “Rendition” about the same time I watched Condoleezza Rice testify about the U.S. government policy of extraordinary rendition. Here is a basic summary of real life: The U.S. government has a program in which foreign nationals suspected of terrorist connections can be secretly detained and flown to countries around the world that are known to practice torture. The CIA then works with local interrogators, who perform the actual torture. The documented torture techniques include beating, electrical shocks and waterboarding. And, yes, waterboarding is torture according to our laws, going as far back as 1902. In the Hollywood version, Omar Metwally plays Omar El-Ibrahimi, an Egyptian-born engineer who is married to Reese Witherspoon's character and lives happily in Michigan with their child. This American dream is burst when El-Ibrahimi is detained while returning home from a business trip in South Africa. The film then details the torture he endures in an unidentified North African prison while a CIA officer, played by Jake Gyllenhaal, supervises the interrogation. The scenes are graphic and disturbing, but in the classic Hollywood tradition, the injustice is corrected and audience members can leave the theater relieved that the wrongly accused were tortured for only a short time. Unfortunately for audience members and U.S. citizens, the real story is not a happy ending and the process depicted in the film continues day after day, paid for by our tax dollars and supported by government policy. The night after viewing the film, I watched Rice testify before the House Foreign Relations Committee about Maher Arar, a Canadian citizen who was detained in New York, flown to Syria and tortured for 10 months before being released without charge. The film “Rendition” is said to be loosely based on the Arar case, so the timing of was particularly chilling. All Secretary of State Rice was willing to admit was that the U.S. “mishandled” the case, and that the U.S. does not send people to countries where they will be tortured. The Canadian government has apologized and paid Arar $10 million for its role in working with U.S. officials. The U.S. continues to keep Arar on a do-not-fly list and refuses to let him into this country to visit his extended family. Time magazine in April named Arar one of the 100 most influential people, and Jimmy Carter cites Arar's story in his 2005 book, “Our Endangered Values.” The blurring of fact and fiction between the film and Rice's statements raises troubling questions for Americans who still believe in the rule of law. Why would we send a Canadian citizen to Syria when we often refer to Syria as part of the axis of evil? How many other people have been “disappeared”? Who are the companies involved in this process and how many of our tax dollars are going into the pockets of private contractors hired to fly terror suspects to torture destinations? What we do know is that Jeppesen Dataplan Inc., a Boeing subsidiary, has flown more than 70 flights for the CIA. Closer to home, The New York Times reports that a Florida-based company, Presidential Aviation, leased the Gulfstream III jet that flew Arar from the U.S. to Syria on Oct. 2, 2002. The flight is estimated to have cost the U.S. government more than $100,000. By using private jets, the CIA is able to evade scrutiny of public officials and leave families wondering, “Where did Dad go?” because the other side of this story is the wall of government denial that families face when they try to understand where their husbands and fathers have gone. The work of Jeppesen, Presidential Aviation and others who are accepting money to serve this program is a new form of war profiteering, what we can now call torture profiteering. As we privatize the war and allow more transactions to occur that are outside the reach of public accountability, we see new levels of complicity with illegal and immoral government policies. These are not the actions of civilized people leading the world toward a more democratic future. Secrecy, denial, torture and international detention are the hallmarks of dictatorships, governments we spent the 20th century fighting to overthrow. To abandon the rule of law during during trying times is to admit a fundamental weakness in our justice system. If we can honor civil rights only during times of peace, then we are no better than the tyrants and butchers who rule through fear and pain. We have a choice in these matters, and the choice begins with calling our own government to account and holding everyone to the rule of law, including the president. (read the original article) Andy Opel is an associate professor in the Department of Communication at Florida State University. He is working on a book, "Preempting Dissent," about the changing contours of civil society. Contact him at aopel@fsu.edu.

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NOTE: Dr. Opel is scheduled to appear on the December 1st broadcast of Situation Awareness.

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"Pants-pisser" defined

It is said that a "pants-pisser" is someone so afraid of something that they urinate on themselves. You can easily spot them: They're the people who exaggerate easily identified and understood threats, elevating them to mythic status. They're like a child who overhears a frightening news story on the television and translates that into the boogeyman under the bed or in the closet.

An example of a "pants-pisser" in action will easily illustrate this point. Here's a post by "bowa," on the blog, The Drudge Retort: Red Meat for Yellow Dogs:

"I beleive (sic) that Islamo-fascism is as great a threat to the US and the World as Nazism and Communism was last century." Posted by bowa at 2007-11-10 10:21 PM

Paul Krugman does an excellent job of dispelling the whole "Islamofascism" nonsense:

For one thing, there isn’t actually any such thing as Islamofascism — it’s not an ideology; it’s a figment of the neocon imagination. The term came into vogue only because it was a way for Iraq hawks to gloss over the awkward transition from pursuing Osama bin Laden, who attacked America, to Saddam Hussein, who didn’t. And Iran had nothing whatsoever to do with 9/11 — in fact, the Iranian regime was quite helpful to the United States when it went after Al Qaeda and its Taliban allies in Afghanistan. (read the entire article)

But more importantly, in the same article Krugman sarcastically answers these "pants-pissers" directly:

Yep, a bunch of lightly armed terrorists ... pose a greater danger than Hitler’s panzers or the Soviet nuclear arsenal ever did. All of this would be funny if it weren’t so serious.

Do you suppose "pants-pissers" like "bowa" understand what Krugman is saying?

Or do they actually enjoy the feeling of urine in their pants?

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It was not only untrue, it was demonstrably untrue

Tom Tomorrow: The age of disinformation

One of the top stories on right wing talk radio yesterday (with mentions on NPR and in the New York Times) was the fact that Hillary Clinton did not leave a tip at a restaraunt. I suspect that this has now been enshrined into conventional wisdom on the right, and will be one of those anecdotes which the candidate will never, ever be rid of. Well, big effing surprise: like pretty much everything else you might hear on right wing talk radio, it was not only untrue, it was demonstrably untrue. It’s a strange age we live in. To paraphrase Mark Twain, in the time it takes the truth to boot up a browser for a Google search, a lie can circle the globe several times over.

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Mukasey's New Office a Big Splash

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An alcoholic liar, and Dick Cheney and George W. Bush believed every word he said

Isn't It Interesting How War Supporters Always Want To "Move Past" How This Country Was Duped Into War? By Oliver Willis on November 3, 2007 1:56 AM Intriguing as hell, says I. The Iraqi defector code-named "Curveball," whose false tales of biological weapons labs bolstered the U.S. case for war, wasn't the prominent chemical engineer he claimed to be and invented stories to help his case for asylum in Germany, a new report says. "Curveball" is Rafid Ahmed Alwan, who did study chemical engineering but made poor grades and never managed a biological weapons facility, according to CBS' "60 Minutes," which will broadcast on Sunday a report describing how Alwan became a secret intelligence source. Although known publicly only by his code name, Curveball has been repeatedly discredited by investigations of the United States' faulty prewar intelligence and became an embarrassment to U.S. spy agencies. A presidential intelligence commission found that Curveball, who mostly told his stories to German intelligence officials who passed them on to the U.S., was a fabricator and an alcoholic. An alcoholic liar, and Dick Cheney and George W. Bush believed every word he said. Perhaps this explains some of the skepticism about "Iran's nuclear program" by fifth columnists like myself?

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Typical Rightwing Know-it-all

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mAnn Colter: On the Gay Circuit

Ann Coulter: On the Gay Circuit in West Hollywood

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Ritual Defamation and Humiliation

The Art Of The Hissy Fit
By Digby on October 23, 2007 - 10:53pm.
From the article:

The political cost to progressives and liberals for their inability to properly deal with this tactic is greater than they realize. Just as Newt Gingrich was not truly offended by Bill Clinton's behavior (which mirrored his own) neither were conservative congressmen and Rush Limbaugh truly upset by the Move On ad --- and everyone knew it, which was the point. It is a potent demonstration of pure power to force others to insincerely condemn or apologize for something, particularly when the person who is forcing it is also insincerely outraged. For a political party that suffers from a reputation for weakness, it is extremely damaging to be so publicly cowed over and over again. It separates them from their most ardent supporters and makes them appear guilty and unprincipled to the public at large. (read the entire article)

My thanks to Michael Silliman for alerting me to this excellent and highly recommended article. Liberals and progressives everywhere should read this!

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The Right-Wing Smear Forward

The New Right-Wing Smear Machine
Christopher Hayes
On February 27, 2001, two members of the American Gold Star Mothers, an organization of women who've lost sons or daughters in combat, dropped by the temporary basement offices of the new junior senator from New York, Hillary Clinton. They didn't have an appointment, and the office, which had been up and running for barely a month, was a bit discombobulated. The two women wanted to talk to the senator about a bill pending in the Senate that would provide annuities for the parents of those killed, but they were told that Clinton wasn't in the office and that the relevant staff members were otherwise engaged. The organization later submitted a formal request in writing for a meeting, which Clinton granted, meeting and posing for pictures with four members of the group.

But the story doesn't end there. In May of that year, the right-wing website NewsMax, a clearinghouse for innuendo and rumor, ran a short item with the headline "Hillary Snubs Gold Star Mothers." Reporting via hearsay--a comment relayed to someone who then recounted it to the column's author--the article claimed that Clinton and her staff "simply refused" to meet with the Gold Star Mothers, making hers the "only office" in the Senate that snubbed the group.

At first the item didn't attract much attention, but it quickly morphed into an e-mail that started ricocheting across the Internet. "Bet this never hits the TV news!" began one version. "According to NewsMax.com there was only one politician in DC who refused to meet with these ladies. Can you guess which politician that might be?... None other than the Queen herself--the Hildebeast, Hillary Clinton."

Before long, the Gold Star Mothers and the Clinton office found themselves inundated by inquiries about the "snub," prompting the Gold Star Mothers to post a small item debunking the claim on their website. When that didn't stem the tide, they posted a lengthier notice. "These allegations were not initiated by the Gold Star Mothers.... This is a fabricated report picked up by an individual using the Gold Star Mothers as an instrument to discredit Senator Clinton.... We do not need mischeivous gossip and unfounded lies to promote our organization. Please help stop it now."

That plea notwithstanding, the e-mail continues to circulate to this day. Anyone who's been following politics for the past fifteen years won't be surprised to find Hillary Clinton the subject of a false and damning right-wing smear. We've all become familiar with the ways the Republican noise machine transmits lurid bits of misinformation and tendentious attacks from the conservative fringe into the heart of American political discourse, the process by which a slightly misdelivered joke by John Kerry attracts the ire of Rush Limbaugh and ends up on the front page of the New York Times.

But in some senses, the kind of under-the-radar attack embodied in the Gold Star e-mail--which never made the jump to Fox or Drudge--is even harder to deal with. "It's a Pandora's box," says Jim Kennedy, who served as Clinton's communications director during her first Senate term. "Once [the charges] are out in the ether, they are very hard to combat. It's very unlike a traditional media, newspaper or TV show, or even a blog, which at least has a fixed point of reference. You know they're traveling far and wide, but there's no way to rebut them with all the people that have seen them."

Such is the power of the right-wing smear forward, a vehicle for the dissemination of character assassination that has escaped the scrutiny directed at the Limbaughs and Coulters and O'Reillys but one that is as potent as it is invisible. ...

(read the entire article)

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Nelson Rockefeller versus Barry Goldwater

This was on WorldNutDaily. If they say it, well, it must be true. Right?

Conservatism is a Tower of Babel by: Patrick J. Buchanan "I was conservative yesterday, I'm a conservative today, and I will be a conservative tomorrow," declared Fred Thompson to the Conservative Party of New York, billing himself as the "consistent conservative" in the GOP race – in contrast to ex-mayor Rudy Giuliani. In his defense, Rudy cites George Will as calling his eight years in office in the Big Apple the most conservative city government in 50 years. And, truth be told, Thompson was reliably conservative in his Senate years. But so, too, has John McCain been, and Ron Paul, Duncan Hunter and Tom Tancredo. Hunter, however, splits with Thompson and McCain on trade. Paul disagrees with all six of them on the war. And Tancredo assails McCain for backing Bush's amnesty for 12 million to 20 million illegal aliens. Will the real conservative please stand up? Or perhaps we should recall John 14:2, "In my father's house there are many mansions." What does it mean to be a conservative – in 2007? Sixty years ago, Robert A. Taft was the gold standard. Forty years ago, it was Barry Goldwater, who backed Bob Taft against Ike at the 1952 convention. Twenty years ago, it was Ronald Reagan, who backed Barry in 1964. Reagan remains the paragon – for the consistency of his convictions, the success of his presidency and the character he exhibited to the end of his life. About Reagan the cliché was true: The greatness of the office found out the greatness in the man. Reagan defined conservatism for his time. And the issues upon which we agreed were anti-communism, a national defense second to none, lower tax rates to unleash the engines of economic progress, fiscal responsibility, a strict-constructionist Supreme Court, law and order, the right-to-life from conception on and a resolute defense of family values under assault from the cultural revolution that hit America with hurricane force in the 1960s. With the collapse of the Soviet Empire and the breakup of the Soviet Union, anti-communism as the defining and unifying issue of the right was gone. The conservative crack-up commenced. With George H.W. Bush came the advent of what Fred Barnes of the New Republic hailed as Big Government Conservatism. Some thought the phrase oxymoronic. But when Bush stood at the rostrum of the U.N. General Assembly in October 1991 to declare that America's cause was the creation of a New World Order, the old right reached reflexively for their revolvers. In 1992, with foreign policy off the table, the Bush economic record a perceived failure and Ross Perot running on protectionism and populism, Bush refused to play his trump card with the Clintons: the social and moral issues he and Lee Atwater had use to beat Michael Dukakis senseless in 1988. And so, George H.W. Bush lost the presidency. Now, 15 years later, what does it mean to be a conservative? There is no pope who speaks ex cathedra. There is no bible to consult, like Goldwater's "The Conscience of a Conservative" or Reagan's "no-pale-pastels" platform of 1980. At San Diego in 1996, Bob Dole told his convention he had not bothered to read the platform. Many who heard him did not bother to vote for Bob Dole. And so, today, the once-great house of conservatism is a Tower of Babel. We are big government and small government, traditionalist and libertarian, tax-cutter and budget hawk, free trader and economic nationalist. Bush and McCain support amnesty and a "path to citizenship" for illegals. The country wants the laws enforced and a fence on the border. And Rudy? A McGovernite in 1972, he boasted in the campaign of 1993 that he would "rekindle the Rockefeller, Javits, Lefkowitz tradition" of New York's GOP and "produce the kind of change New York City saw with ... John Lindsay." He ran on the Liberal Party line and supported Mario Cuomo in 1994. Pro-abortion, anti-gun, again and again he strutted up Fifth Avenue in the June Gay Pride parade and turned the Big Apple into a sanctuary city for illegal aliens. While Ward Connerly goes state to state to end reverse discrimination, Rudy is an affirmative-action man. Gravitating now to Rudy's camp are those inveterate opportunists, the neocons, who see in Giuliani their last hope of redemption for their cakewalk war and their best hope for a "Long War" against "Islamo-fascism." I will, Rudy promises, nominate Scalias. Only one more may be needed to overturn Roe. And I will keep Hillary out of the White House. A Giuliani presidency would represent the return and final triumph of the Republicanism that conservatives went into politics to purge from power. A Giuliani presidency would represent repudiation by the party of the moral, social and cultural content that, with anti-communism, once separated it from liberal Democrats and defined it as an institution. Rudy offers the right the ultimate Faustian bargain: retention of power at the price of one's soul.

Then it was Nelson Rockefeller versus Barry Goldwater.

Today it is cross-dressing, adulterous, thrice-married Rudy Giuliani versus Pat Buchanan.

Let the games begin!

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The War on Christmas x3

Click image for larger view.
Click here for original post on Daily Kos.

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Unbelievable by Tom Tomorrow

Click image for large view.
Click here for original on Salon.com.
Click here for original Tom Tomorrow post

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Hate Filtered Through a Smile Isn't Pretty: Part II

Coulter: "I don't think most Jews are as stupid as Donny Deutsch"

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From the article:

On the October 11 broadcast of Steve Malzberg's WOR (New York) radio show, right-wing pundit Ann Coulter stood by her recent comment -- documented by Media Matters for America -- that "we" Christians "just want Jews to be perfected." She made that statement on the October 8 edition of CNBC's The Big Idea, during which host Donny Deutsch later said, "I'm offended by that personally." On Malzberg's show, Coulter defended her remarks by saying that she had "stated the ... doctrine of Christianity," and that the idea that Christians "want Jews to be perfected" "comes from that raging anti-Semite St. Paul." She added: "I don't think most Jews are as stupid as Donny Deutsch," and later asked, referring to Deutsch, "Is that guy even bar mitzvahed?" (read the entire article)

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The Face and Reality of "Compassionate Conservatism"

And there’s one more point that should not be forgotten: ultimately, this isn’t about the Frost parents. It’s about Graeme Frost and his sister.

Song For Graeme Frost
(from Corrente Boldy shrill....)

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Meanies And Hypocrites
By E. J. Dionne Jr.
Friday, October 12, 2007; Page A17

From the article:

Conservatives claim to be in favor of stable families, small businesses, hard work, private schools, investment and homeownership. So why in the world are so many on the right attacking the family of Graeme Frost? ----- Most conservatives favor government-supported vouchers that would help Graeme attend his private school, but here they turn around and criticize him for . . . attending a private school. Federal money for private schools but not for health insurance? What's the logic here? Conservatives endlessly praise risk-taking by entrepreneurs and would give big tax cuts to those who are most successful. But if a small-business person is struggling, he shouldn't even think about applying for SCHIP. Conservatives who want to repeal the estate tax on large fortunes have cited stories -- most of them don't check out -- about farmers having to sell their farms to pay inheritance taxes. But the implication of these attacks on the Frosts is that they are expected to sell their investment property to pay for health care. Why? Oh, yes, and conservatives tell us how much they love homeownership, and then assail the Frosts for having the nerve to own a home. I suppose they should have to sell that, too. ----- All the conservative attacks on a boy from Baltimore who dared to speak out will not make this issue go away. (read the entire article)

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Op-Ed Columnist
Sliming Graeme Frost
By PAUL KRUGMAN
Published: October 12, 2007

From the article:

All in all, the Graeme Frost case is a perfect illustration of the modern right-wing political machine at work, and in particular its routine reliance on character assassination in place of honest debate. If service members oppose a Republican war, they’re “phony soldiers”; if Michael J. Fox opposes Bush policy on stem cells, he’s faking his Parkinson’s symptoms; if an injured 12-year-old child makes the case for a government health insurance program, he’s a fraud. Meanwhile, leading conservative politicians, far from trying to distance themselves from these smears, rush to embrace them. And some people in the news media are still willing to be used as patsies. (read the entire article)

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Hate Filtered Through a Smile Isn't Pretty on OpEdNews.com

October 12, 2007

Hate Filtered Through a Smile Isn't Pretty
by Hans Meyer
http://www.opednews.com/

So, Ann Coulter goes on Donny Deutsch's CNBC show "The Big Idea" this past Monday and proceeds to insult the host. In front of her Jewish host she declared that Jews need to be "perfected" by becoming Christians, and that America would be better off if everyone were Christian, (Deutsch: "We should just throw Judaism away and we should all be Christians?" Coulter: “Yeah.”) To top it off she even asked Deutsch to go to church with her ("Would you like to come to church with me, Donny?").

Is anyone really surprised at her vile and insulting comments?

(read the entire article)

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Presidente Jorge W. Bush's new AMERO

Compliments of Grouchy Old Cripple in Atlanta
(with a tip o' the Tilley to CalifChris)

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Senator Craig, Really!!?!

glumbert - Senator Craig, Really!!?!

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Today's Republican Party

The Republican Decline
by John Cole

From the article:

Like me. It had nothing to do with Burke, and everything to do with what the party had become. A bunch of bedwetting, loudmouth, corrupt, hypocritical, and incompetent boobs with a mean streak a mile long and no sense of fair play or proportion.. ----- That is why the Republican party is in shambles. The majority of us have decided that the movers and shakers in the GOP and the blogospheric right are certified lunatics who, in a decent and sane society, we would have in controlled environments in rocking chairs under shade trees for most of the day, wheeled in at night for tapioca pudding and some karaoke (read the entire article)

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The Total Package

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Young Republican Chickenhawks on YouTube!

Generation Chickenhawk
by Max Blumenthal
Web site: http://www.maxblumenthal.com/

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How 911 Changed Rudy's World on Jesus' General

Click image for original post on Jesus' General.

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Can You Find The Phony Soldiers?

Click here for original post and more images on Corrente (Boldly shrill...)

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Petraeus: A Political General of the Worst Kind

Sycophant Savior
General Petraeus wins a battle in Washington—if not in Baghdad.
by Andrew J. Bacevich

In common parlance, the phrase “political general” is an epithet, the inverse of the warrior or frontline soldier. In any serious war, with big issues at stake, to assign command to a political general is to court disaster—so at least most Americans believe. But in fact, at the highest levels, successful command requires a sophisticated grasp of politics. At the summit, war and politics merge and become inextricably intertwined. A general in chief not fully attuned to the latter will not master the former. George Washington, U.S. Grant, and Dwight D. Eisenhower were all “political generals” in the very best sense of the term. Their claims to immortality rest not on their battlefield exploits—Washington actually won few battles, and Grant achieved his victories through brute force rather than finesse, while Ike hardly qualifies as a field commander at all—but on the skill they demonstrated in translating military power into political advantage. Each of these three genuinely great soldiers possessed a sophisticated appreciation for war’s political dimension. David Petraeus is a political general. Yet in presenting his recent assessment of the Iraq War and in describing the “way forward,” Petraeus demonstrated that he is a political general of the worst kind—one who indulges in the politics of accommodation that is Washington’s bread and butter but has thereby deferred a far more urgent political imperative, namely, bringing our military policies into harmony with our political purposes. (read the entire article)

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“The phony soldiers,” says Rush Limbaugh

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Butterfly Ballots and William Jennings Bryan

Op-Ed Columnist
The Democratic Dark Side
By Gail Collins
Published: September 27, 2007

All the major Democratic candidates for president have signed a pledge promising they will only go to Florida or Michigan when they want to raise money. Among the really bad ideas in the history of the Democratic Party, this ranks somewhere between butterfly ballots and William Jennings Bryan. (read the entire article - requires registration. If unavailable, use the Adobe Acrobat copy, below.)

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The Conservative Value of Hating Our Troops

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Who’s responsible?

Senate Republicans get to do whatever the fuck they want because House Democrats don't understand the concept of payback

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O'Reilly admits he has no credibilty

O’Reilly Rips Columbia’s Invitation To Ahmadinejad As ‘Revolting,’ But Admits He Invited Him Too
With thanks to OldCADUser from The Drudge Retort for his original post there.

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Priorities on Jesus' General

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They Stumble Headlong on Whisky Fire

September 21, 2007
They Stumble Headlong

Senator Lindsey Graham on why he and 47 other senators voted against the Levin bill to bing US toops home from Iraq in 9 months: "It would be a very overt rejection of Gen. Petraeus' leadership," said Sen. Lindsey Graham (R-SC). The military commanders "have earned the ability to carry on their mission," he said at another point. Bite me. In a "very overt" kind of way. First off, withdrawing the troops would be a rejection of Bush's leadership, and the GOP's leadership, and neither has "earned" anything except the disgust and hatred of the vast majority of the American people. Second, "we must not ever hut the General's feelings!" as a rationale for anything is puerile and idiotic and a load of shit. General Petreaus is not our leader, and this is not his war. Nobody voted for him. And nobody's going to vote for anyone who wants to cower behind his uniform, either. Americans apparently know basic civics a doucheload better than Senator Graham, and his party is going to learn this in 2008. And I hope to Christ certain Democrats learn this in certain key primaries, also. (read the original article with comments)

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The Annual Republican Witch-Hunting Season is Underway

Tom Tomorrow: Olbermann

So the President, behaving a little bit more than usual, like we’d all interrupted him while he was watching his favorite cartoons on the DVR, stepped before the press conference microphone and after side-stepping most of the substantive issues like the Israeli raid on Syria in condescending and infuriating fashion, produced a big-wow political finish that indicates, certainly, that if it wasn’t already — the annual Republican witch-hunting season is underway. (read the entire article)

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The Face of the Party of Traditional Family Values - Part II

A perfect follow-up to my original post on this subject.

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His Kid...Your Kid

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Can't Demonize the Flying Nun

James Wolcott is a Vanity Fair contributing editor

Pickle Pusses

From the article:

Ken Levine must have a cast-iron stomach for a brain--what else could explain his bionic ability to not only watch the Emmys but blog about them not just once, but twice? I missed this year's bleepfest but I've following the predictable rollout of scrunchy indignation coming from the Fox News corral and the rest of the rightwing pipsqueakery over the controversial remarks of Sally Field, Kathy Griffin, et al. Controversial to the Fox Newsers, that is; just as the Patreaus love-in was a strictly pundit affair, the "media storm" over the Emmy comments doesn't extend beyond a few newsrooms, radio booths, and blog shacks. Despite Michelle Malkin's grandstanding huffing and puffing, Sally Field isn't someone who can be demonized; she's one of America's most endearing and adorable chipmunk-cheeked moms--going after her is like trying to tear down Florence Henderson...give it up, it's futile. Similarly, trying to whip up a big to-do over Barry Manilow's refusal to share airspace with Elizabeth Hasselbeck on The View is a nonstarter because Manilow is just too fluffy a target for ire. So this singing sheepdog doesn't want to chat with that conservative shrill pill--who can blame him? And do all those Fox News panelists really think that America is in a flecked froth over the Jesus wisecracks that comedian Kathy Griffin made that weren't even aired? To Griffin's stalwart credit, she's refused to apologize or smooth down any ruffled feelings, recognizing what a game this all is. The truth is that outrage isn't what it used to be. The Fox hosts and guests haven't even been able to get a rise out of people after broadcasting the addled, bizarro response of James Brolin on a radio talkshow where, upon being reminded what anniversary day it was, cheerily wished everyone, "Happy 9/11!" Brolin's words and tone were so blithely tasteless and cluelessly dumb ("Celebrate the day, right?" he added) that it was like something out of Terry Southern, a bit of macabre humor that had washed ashore. An apology is being demanded of Brolin too, though I'm not sure how you wring an apology out of a dense cloud and if I were Jonah Goldberg I'd be a little careful about whom I was calling "a jackass of bowel-stewing proportions," j'know? (read the entire article)

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The Petraeus Cheerleading Squad...

... from this week's The Top 10 Conservative Idiots, No. 306:

Number 3: The Petraeus Cheerleading Squad Oh, I'm sorry, have I been criticizing General Petraeus? Heaven forbid! The next thing you know, Rudy Giuliani will be running a full-page ad in the New York Times condemning me. Hey Rudy! You're an asshole! Now go run crying to Hillary Clinton and demand she apologize because I called you a rude name. Yes, last week Rudy Giuliani blamed Hillary Clinton for a MoveOn ad in the New York Times which read "General Petraeus or General Betray Us?" The ad was roundly denounced by conservatives. Apparently it's once again unpatriotic and un-American to suggest that we might want to think twice before blindly accepting the word of one of Gee-Dubya's generals, despite the obvious fact that if the guy was going to tell the truth Bush would have fired him ages ago. The funny thing is, these conservatives are always banging on about "learning the lessons of history." Well how about this? It only happened five years ago so everyone ought to remember it: Just in case you've forgotten, that was when another well-respected general gave a major speech to the U.N. Security Council which contained so much bullshit that the building had to be mucked out with shovels. Shortly after Colin Powell wagged his anthrax, the U.S. media were all aboard the shock-and-awe express and it wasn't long before we were racing to Baghdad. Here's how it works: Step One: Media goes ga-ga over Colin Powell and his WMD presentation to the U.N. Step Two: Media insists that Powell is an unimpeachable source and that anyone who criticizes him must love the terrorists. Step Three: Media demands that we must invade Iraq immediately before Saddam Hussein can drop anthrax down our chimneys. Step Four: U.S. invades Iraq. No WMD are found. Things quickly turn to shit. Step Five: Media wrings hands and spanks itself for getting swept up in war fever and not being critical enough of Powell. Step Six: Media goes ga-ga over David Petraeus and his report to Congress. Step Seven: Media insists that Petraeus is an unimpeachable source and that anyone who criticizes him must love the terrorists. Etc. etc. ad nauseam. But let's be fair to the media here. What's the likelihood that George W. Bush would send two well-respected generals to con the American people into going along with another one of his batshit crazy ideas? Surely that would be highly unlikely. After all, fool me once, shame on you, fool me twice, I must work for CNN. By the way, I hear that Gen. Petraeus is thinking of running for president in 2012. He should ask Colin Powell for tips. I remember when that guy used to be a shoo-in.

Nailed it!

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A Simple Question

How does turning a hemmed-in secular dictatorship into a hotbed and of — and recruiting cause for — anti-Western religious-fundamentalist terrorism make us safer?

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Supporting the Troops, GOP-style

© dhonig 2007
Click image for larger view
Click here for original post on Hypnocrites.

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Selective Defenders of Free Expression on Salon.com

Wednesday September 12, 2007 13:43 EST
Selective Defenders of Free Expression
by Glenn Greenwald

According to our country's great warriors, one of the main reasons we wage Glorious War Forever in the Middle East -- not just in Iraq but soon (if Norm Podhoretz's "prayers" are answered) in Iran and maybe Syria and beyond -- is because The Islamofascists pose a threat to Our Freedoms (which Muslims hate). (read the entire article)

To recap:

Censoring offensive Mohammed cartoons = Existential Threat to our Civilization.

Censoring offensive anti-Christian commentary = Glorious Victory in the Culture War.

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Worth 1,000 Words

Click on image for larger view
With thanks to my friend Tom Crocker for sending this picture along to me.

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An Appeal to turn America into Iran

Can the Alabama 'Ten Commandments' Judge Rise Again?

By Jeremy Leaming, Church and State
Posted September 7, 2007.

Ousted Alabama judge Roy Moore is waging war on church-state separation -- and you won't believe the far-out folks who are helping him.

Some excerpts from the article:

Peroutka called church-state separation a myth and a lie and claimed the Constitution, in reality, mandates just the opposite. ========== "...we might have the courage that Christ can give, the boldness that he requires and also provides, Lord, that we might fight the fight the way you want it fought, that we might hate what you hate, but that we might be godly in our hatred..." ========== Said Americans United's Lynn, "If these folks had their way, the Bill of Rights would be a thing of the past. We must make sure that Americans are aware of their extreme agenda and see to it that they don't succeed."

Read the entire article

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The John Doe Movement: You even get a button!

Meet John D'oh: Michelle Malkin is Watching You by Chris Kelly "We are coming to a new order of things. There's too much talk been going on in this country. Too many concessions have been made. What the American people need is an iron hand." -- Someone in Frank Capra's Meet John Doe, but Not the Good Guy Most Americans just rolled over and surrendered when Arab terrorists took over the government and the media, but not Michelle Malkin. She's fighting back. By starting a club. All you have to do to join is report everyone you see who seems to be a foreigner. Or who seems to tolerate foreigners. Or who may be thinking foreigner-tolerating thoughts. It's like the Junior Spies in 1984, only totally fun. (read the entire article)

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The Face of the Party of Traditional Family Values

from left to right: Ted Haggard, Bob Allen, Larry Craig, David Vitter and Mark Foley

"Do Lewd Republicans Make The Usual Suspects?"
from PixelMarx
A Slightly Left Leaning Political Cartoon Blog

Click picture for larger view.
Click here for original post.

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Dick Cheney '94: Invading Baghdad Would Create Quagmire

In this interview from April 15th, 1994, Dick Cheney reveals the reasons why invading Baghdad and toppling Saddam Hussein wouldn't be a great idea. He also stipulates that "not very many" American soldiers' lives were worth losing to take out Saddam during the Gulf War.

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In the Spotlight: Idiots and Hypocrites

Welcome to In the Spotlight, a semi-regular feature of this blog, where I highlight one or more of the links on my personal Web site, www.HansMeyer.net.

Today I'll be highlighting two great sites, both of which can be found on my Opinion and Humor pages (Easy URL to my Links pages: www.HansMeyer.net/Links).

At the beginning of each week, Democratic Underground places ten conservatives under a different kind of spotlight.

URL: www.democraticunderground.com/top10/index.html

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BuzzFlash.com's GOP Hypocrite of the Week. As they say on the Web site: "So Many Republican Hypocrites, So Little Time."

URL: www.gophypocrites.com

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Says It All ...

From Corrente (Boldy shrill...), a bumper sticker from the Minneapolis-St. Paul area which "Says It All..."

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Hypocrisy or Values? on OpEdNews.com

August 10, 2007 at 14:14:10

Hypocrisy or Values?
by Hans Meyer
http://www.opednews.com/

There is an interesting phenomenon in the anti-abortion arguments: Those who proclaim that they are “pro-life” but are also in favor of the death penalty. Doesn’t pro-life mean pro-life, whether it is a fetus or someone already born?

It interesting to watch as many of the so-called “pro-lifers” spin and spin when asked about their support for the death penalty. All of a sudden there are all sorts of rationalizations which come into play: ... (read the entire article)

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Jesus' General: An Excellent Read!

Wednesday, August 08, 2007

Why I Avoid Dr. Dre

by Gen JC Christian, patriot

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