Repub Senator Derides Decider’s Decision

Arlen Specter (R-PA) was Chairman of the Senate Judiciary Committee for the past two years until Patrick Leahy (D-VT) became chairman when the 110th Congress convened on January 4, 2007 under Dem control. Specter can be wildly on the wrong side of political debates. But once in a while he demonstrates that he has a brain and that he can use it. Yesterday, in a Senate Judiciary Committee hearing, Specter joined Dems who took exception to the President’s wrong-headed contention that he, and only he makes decisions about Iraq. Specter said, “I would respectfully suggest to the president that he is not the sole decider…the decider is a joint and shared responsibility.” At another hearing, in testimony before the Senate Foreign Relations Committee, Lee Hamilton, who co-chaired the Iraq Study Group with James Baker, argued that the White House was wrong when it contended it had incorporated most of the ISG’s recommendations into the president’s plan to send additional troops to Iraq. “The diplomatic effort has not been full enough,” Hamilton said. In fact, the initiatives had been “modest and slow.” Hamilton added, “We don’t have the time to wait.” Admiral William J. Fallon has been nominated to command American forces in the Middle East. Fallon said, “time is running out” for Nuri Kamal al-Maliki to end sectarian violence in Iraq. “Maybe we ought to redefine the goals here a bit and do something that’s more realistic in terms of getting some progress…what we’ve been doing is not working and we have got to be doing, it seems to me, something different.” If the words the Republicans are using to indicate their displeasure with President Bush and his so-called new strategy sound wimpy, it is not difficult to read between the lines. The Prez is full of shit and his plan won’t work, is the closest translation. However, Senator Russ Feingold (D-WI) has come up with a resolution that is neither wimpy nor does it pussyfoot around the measures that need to be taken in Iraq. Feingold, who acted as chairman of the Senate Judiciary Committee hearing, said he will introduce a resolution that would “end all financing for the deployment of American military forces in Iraq after six months, other than a limited number working on counterterrorism operations or training the Iraqi Army and police force.” In effect, it would call for all other American forces to be withdrawn by the six-month deadline, Feingold said. The New York Times reported this morning, that “Bush administration’s allies in the Senate began a major effort on Tuesday to prevent a potentially embarrassing rejection of the president’s plan to push 20,000 more troops into Iraq.” I am so struck with the use of the words “embarrassing rejection”. I am absolutely convinced that the Republicans in Congress who want the war in Iraq to continue don’t give a damn about our troops in Iraq, or about the war in Iraq, or about the people in Iraq or about the civil war in Iraq. The sole concern of the Bush administration and the neocons in Congress is that a rejection of the president’s plan would be embarrassing. That’s it. That’s why we are staying in Iraq. That’s why we are sending more troops to Iraq. That’s why more brave American troops are being killed in Iraq. It is only about saving face.

Why Does Cheney Persist in Lying?

Well, the first reason Vice President Cheney keeps on lying is because he’s a dangerous psychopath. And he should be committed to a real mental institution rather than be allowed to run the psychopath-enabling White House Insane Asylum. But the second reason Cheney keeps on telling lies is because the strategy has worked flawlessly in the past. Why should he change his modus operandi now? It has been the practice of the Bush administration to make wildly untrue statements in the belief that any statement would become true as soon as the executive branch of the United States government declared it to be true. And for five years of George W. Bush’s two terms, the mainstream media participated in this deception. When the White House made a false statement the MSM slavishly repeated it with no regard to actual facts. Now, however, the MSM is starting to discredit the White House fiction department, thanks to the changeover in the Senate and White House from a Repub to a Dem majority. And thanks to the real facts constantly being printed in blogs. But Cheney is stuck with the old MO, which had worked in the past. It must be astounding for the Vice President to claim on CNN that things are not terrible in Iraq, that the US has had great success in Iraq, and that the president’s new plan will solve the security problems, only to have every major news source say that Cheney is at best, in denial or at worst, out of his gourd. And now, we have ex-press secretary Ari Fleischer (called “the public face of the White House for nearly three years” by the New York Times this morning) spilling the beans. Fleischer testified about White House shenanigans in Special Prosecutor Patrick J. Fitzgerald’s trial to prove that Cheney’s chief of staff Scooter Libby lied to FBI agents and a grand jury and obstructed justice in a federal investigation. No one could be more cool than Fleischer who has an immunity agreement. He has given Libby’s defense team absolutely nothing but he always gave them full answers. Ari Fleischer is an artful dodger in spades. But his answers to the prosecution were a great blow to Libby's defense. I can’t wait to see Cheney in the witness chair. He will lie, of course. But there is no way he can be as creatively evasive as Ari Fleischer. I would love to know the contents of the cocktail of meds Cheney will be given the day he’s on the witness stand. And there’s another thing I would love to know. Does Cheney have a regular make-up person on staff, who keeps him looking if not healthy, at least alive? Or does he hire make-up people ad hoc? And how far down does the make-up go? Just to his collar or all the way to his clavicle? And do they make up his hands too? I wonder if Fitzgerald will give Cheney time to pop pills and wait until they kick in if the need arises? And wouldn’t it be fun if Cheney collapsed while giving his false testimony? Oh, and I wonder how many of his team of lawyers aren’t actually lawyers but are doctors? We may never know the answers to these questions. Then again, we may.

Should Victims Dictate Public Policy?

An interesting editorial in the New York Times this morning, “A Public Memorial”, addresses an ages-old problem: How much can the most grievously affected victims of a crime be allowed to be the arbiters of justice? This article is about a small group of families of those who died as a result of the attacks on the World Trade Center. This group wants to make the final decision about a fitting memorial at ground zero. This is not about lynch mobs. And yet, the two issues are not unrelated. The lead paragraph of the editorial says: “For a while, it seemed as if the emotional issue of how to place the names of the dead at the 9/11 memorial had finally been resolved. And for nearly everyone, including most of the 9/11 families, it has, thanks to a compromise engineered last month by Mayor Michael Bloomberg. But a small group of victims’ families has regrettably decided to mount a public campaign against the compromise.” The article goes on to say: “They are trying to discourage contributions to the memorial until the victims’ names appear exactly the way they want them, listing the age, corporate affiliation and floor on which each person worked. We fear that this effort will only add to the distress of other families who have been waiting for years for what is, after all, a public memorial.” The NYT’s point is that it is fitting and right for this small group to create a private memorial exactly to their liking. But, the NYT says, “the public memorial must be more expansive than that.” And although this group as been listened to and accommodated to by New York Governor George Pataki and everyone else involved in creating a public memorial, still, “As painful as the private loss of this small group of mourners is, it must be accommodated as part of the larger public loss.” Time after time I have seen the families of victims of horrendous crimes berating our justice system for not meting out death penalties to the perpetrators of these crimes. And each time, I have thought, these people need to be heard, but not heeded. Indeed, the wish for revenge from victims cannot be heeded. Wanting revenge is understandable but it can’t be enabled. And no memorial will ever be good enough, big enough, respectful enough or detailed enough to honor those who died at ground zero, at least not in the minds of the most sorely affected. But in the end, the memorial is not for the living who have been the most affected. The memorial at ground zero is for those who have been the least affected and who need to reflect on the enormity of what happened on September 11, 2001. True justice can never meet the demands of a victim. Justice is a huge and beautiful concept. But justice can only satisfy the legal community’s fictitious “reasonable man”. Justice can never satisfy the victim.

Hillary or Obama…Could Either One Win?

Hillary Clinton (D-NY) and Barack Obama (D-IL) have the same problem. Human beings are inherently deceitful when asked questions having anything to do with racism or sexism. People lie. Question: Would you vote for a black man for president? PC Answer: Of course I would. It’s time we get over our racist approach to politics. Honest answer: No. Question: Would you vote for a woman for president? PC Answer: Yes. It’s time we get over our sexist approach to politics. Honest answer: No. Question: If you would not vote for Hillary, why would you not vote for Hillary? PC Answer: Although I would welcome the opportunity to vote for a strong, smart, qualified woman for president, many people are sexists. I don’t think she could win and it’s very important for Democrats to win in the next presidential election. Honest Answer: She’s irritating. She’s a ballbuster. I don’t like her and I never have. And mainly, no woman could ever have the authority and gravitas needed by a president. Question: If you would not vote for Obama, why would you not vote for Obama? PC Answer: I don’t think he’s had enough experience yet in the political arena. He would be a very good choice in 2012. Honest Answer: He’s not ready to be president and I’m not ready for a black president. Would I vote for Hillary? No. She gives me the heeby-jeebies. Would I vote for Obama? No. He gives me the willies. Right here and right now, what Democrats don’t give me the heebies or willies? John Edwards (D-NC) for President and Russ Feingold (D-WI) for VP, if Feingold could be talked into it. Could they win? Gore won, and that was an even bigger long shot. And given that they are not Hillary or Obama, an Edwards/Feingold ticket has a better than even chance.

Prez and VP Are Certifiably Cuckoo

Not much left to say. We can read the news stories and spin about White House shenanigans. And we can watch the talking heads on TV all day and all night. But the bottom line remains. The President and Vice President of the United States are insane. This is not the first time the US has had impaired leaders in its top positions. Google has a nice site called Health in Plain English. It lists diseases (diagnosed as well as presumed anomalies and peccadilloes) of our presidents. Although Nutsoid to the Nth Degree does not appear in the listing, one can presume many of our presidents were not 100% in their right minds during the time they served. George Washington Malaria, smallpox, tuberculosis, dysentery, boils (carbuncles), tooth loss, hearing loss, presbyopia (needed reading glasses), infertility, quinsy, pneumonia, epiglottitis or strep infection of the larynx. John Adams Hair loss, depression, boils, heartburn, falling into a coma, hyperthyroidism (?), porphyria (can’t metabolize porphyrins—don’t ask), rheumatism, manic-depressive (?). Thomas Jefferson Cluster/tension headaches, broken/fractured bones, dysentery, depression, rheumatism, constipation, boils, hearing loss, enlarged prostate, Asperger syndrome (form of autism) (?). James Madison Frostbite, frequent illness, hypochondria (?), inflamed gallbladder (cholecystitis), arthritis, congestive heart failure. James Monroe Malaria, gunshot wound, seizure (stroke?), heart failure, tuberculosis. John Quincy Adams Hairloss, stroke, cerebral hemorrhage. Andrew Jackson Sword wound, smallpox, depression, gunshot wound, malaria, dysentery, frequent headaches, tuberculosis, edema (dropsy), heart failure. Martin Van Buren Frequent colds, indigestion (dyspepsia), gout, asthma, heart failure. William H. Harrison Ulcer (?), stress, cold, pneumonia, pleurisy, jaundice, septicemia. John Tyler Paralysis, dysentery, colds, bilious fever (?), arthritis, bronchitis, stroke. James K. Polk Kidney stone, sterility, cholera, debilitating diarrhea. Zachary Taylor Yellow fever, malaria, dysentery, double vision, nearsightedness (myopia), heat stroke, bilious fever, cholera (?) or acute indigestion, arsenic poisoning (?) Millard Fillmore Paralysis and stroke. Franklin Pierce Horse riding injury, depression, alcoholism, tuberculosis, cirrhosis of the liver. James Buchanan Eye twitch, alcoholism, gout, respiratory failure. Abraham Lincoln Color blindness, strabismus (cross-eyed), presbyopia, concussion, fractured jaw, malaria, depression, Marfan syndrome (connective tissue problem affecting tall thin people) (?), scarlet fever (?), dental phobia, toothache, smallpox, hairloss, fatal gunshot wound. Andrew Johnson Typhoid fever, alcoholism (?), stroke. Ulysses S. Grant Alcoholism (?), throat cancer (carcinoma of the tonsils and tongue). Rutherford B. Hayes Poison ivy dermatitis, heart attack (myocardial infarction). James Garfield Malarial fever (ague), cold, upset stomach, anal fissure, infected gunshot wound, heart attack or aortic aneurysm (?), blood poisoning, pneumonia. Chester Arthur Indigestion, gallstone disease (?), Bright's disease (kidney disease), malaria (?), hypertension, heart failure, cerebral hemorrhage (hemorrhagic stroke). Grover Cleveland Obesity, leg laceration, typhoid fever, jaw (palate) cancer, hearing loss, nephritis, gout, heart attack. Benjamin Harrison Food poisoning, scarlet fever, contact dermatitis, nervous breakdown, cold, pneumonia, William McKinley Pancreatic necrosis, fatal gunshot wound, blood poisoning. Theodore Roosevelt Nearsightedness (myopia), asthma, hyperactivity, gunshot wound, obesity, detached retina, blind in one eye, throat infection, thigh abscess, middle ear infection, deafness in one ear, rheumatoid arthritis, coronary embolism. William H. Taft Skull fracture and head injury due to wagon accident, sunburn, typhoid fever, severe obesity, dengue fever (?), perineal abscess (urethra infection), dysentery, food poisoning, heartburn, sleep apnea, motion sickness, constipation, headache, gout, cold, eye injury, pink eye, lower back pain (lumbago), hypertension, carpal tunnel syndrome (?), indigestion, atrial fibrillation, rheumatoid arthritis, chronic cystitis, atherosclerosis, myocarditis, heart failure. Woodrow Wilson Dyslexia (?), eye twitches, atherosclerosis, headache, cold, hypertension, multiple strokes. Warren Harding Nervous breakdown, mumps, nasal allergy, mild aphasia (?), dermatitis, infertility (?), hypertension, diabetes, heart disease, obesity, stroke, pneumonia, flu (?), food poisoning (?), heart attack. Calvin Coolidge Depression, heart failure. Herbert Hoover Croup (strep throat or laryngitis), measles, mumps, diphtheria, chicken pox, hatchet injury to finger, burn injury to foot, gall bladder disease, shingles, intestinal cancer, deafness, near blindness, pneumonia, fatal gastrointestinal bleeding. Franklin D. Roosevelt Polio, hypertension, hemorrhoids, anemia, melanoma (?), anorexia, weight loss, indigestion, sebaceous cyst, atherosclerosis, cardiomyopathy, angina, cholecystitis, cerebral hemorrhage. Harry Truman Farsightedness (hyperopia), diphtheria, headache, dizziness, sleeplessness, horse riding injury, sore throat, asthma, flu, gall bladder disease, allergy to medications, hernia, broken ribs, lung congestion, heart failure.. Dwight Eisenhower Appendicitis, seborrheic keratosis (benign tumor), arthritis, Crohn's disease, anxiety, depression, bowel obstruction, stroke, cholecystitis, prostatic hyperthropy, heart disease, multiple heart attacks (myocardial infarctions). John F. Kennedy Scarlet fever, measles, knee injury, bronchitis, jaundice, rubella, whooping cough, colitis, osteoporosis, presbyopia, diphtheria (?), sexually transmitted prostatitis and urinary tract infection (?), back aches, malaria (?), Addison disease, fatal gunshot wound. Lyndon Johnson Angina, gall bladder disease, heart disease, multiple heart attacks. Richard Nixon Phlebitis, "furious eye blinking", stroke. Gerald Ford Actinomycosis (with tongue abscess), pneumonia, stroke. Jimmy Carter Severe chronic hemorrhoids. Ronald Reagan Nearsightedness (myopia), pneumonia, fractured thigh bone, urinary tract infections, prostate stones, severe cold, Temporomandibular joints (TMJ) disease, arthritis, hay fever, gunshot wound, collapsed lung, hearing loss, colon polyp and cancer, basal cell carcinoma, benign prostatic hyperplasia (enlarged prostate), gastroenteritis, epidural hematoma, Alzheimer's disease, hip fracture, pneumonia. George HW Bush Staph infection, bleeding ulcers, arthritis, mucoid cyst, sebaceous cyst, glaucoma, eye sty, atrial fibrillation, hyperthyroidism, Graves disease (a form of goiter), depression, vomiting and fainting (flu?), actinic keratosis (crusty skin growth). Bill Clinton Gasteroesophageal reflux (GERD), rectal bleeding, knee injury, allergy, torn knee tendon, sebaceous cyst, basal cell carcinoma, acne rosacea, angina, atherosclerosis, coronary artery disease, sexual addiction (?). George W. Bush Hemorrhoids, benign colon polyps, alcoholism, cocaine abuse (?), actinic keratosis, loss of consciousness (syncope), knee injury (torn meniscus). Yup, as you see, no Nutsoid to the Nth Degree diagnoses. Still, it looks like the Executive Branch attracts people who are wildly unhealthy. And not a few of them, IMHO, look very suspicious for being Off the Chart Bonkers.

The Voice in Bush’s Ear

Vice President Dick Cheney usually is seen as having a better hold on reality than President George Bush. Cheney may be a warmongering son of a bitch neocon, who has committed illegal acts, war crimes and has lined his pockets with war profits, but he never came across as being certifiably nutty. Not until yesterday, that is. Cheney appeared on Wolf Blitzer’s Situation Room on CNN last night where he and Blitzer engaged in a heated exchange about what Iraq and the world might be like if the US hadn’t invaded Iraq. All of which was tiresome. But when they finally started to deal with the actual situation in Iraq, Cheney showed his true and crazy-as-a-loon self. Cheney said, referring to Saddam Hussein, “If he were still there today, we'd have a terrible situation. Today, instead...” BLITZER: But there is a terrible situation. CHENEY: No, there is not. There is not. There's problems, ongoing problems, but we have, in fact, accomplished our objectives of getting rid of the old regime, and there is a new regime in place that's been there for less than a year, far too soon for you guys to write them off. They have got a democratically written constitution, first ever in that part of the world. They've had three national elections. So there's been a lot of success.” According to Vice President Richard Cheney the situation in Iraq is not terrible, there is no civil war, there is not even sectarian violence, and we’ve had a lot of success. I can’t believe I’m starting to feel compassion for Crazy George. But with Dick Cheney whispering nonsense in his ear, our over-medicated, intelligence-challenged, delusional, self-absorbed Narcissist-in-Chief can hardly be expected to act rational. That’s why I was so surprised yesterday when Bush had a moment of stunning clarity. The Prez was touring the DuPont Experimental Station in Wilmington, DE on the first stop of a whirlwind tour to promote his energy strategy. He said of one of the DuPont scientists, “He’s got the brains...and I’m President.” Uproarious laughter followed, after which Bush said, “Well, sometimes it happens like that.” So now Cheney is sounding like the White House Insane Asylum’s star L0onyTune and Bush has gone sane. Here's another snippet of the Blitzer/Cheney dialogue: BLITZER: How worried are you, Mr. Vice President... CHENEY: We still have more work to do to get a handle on the security situation... BLITZER: How worried... CHENEY: But the president has put a plan in place to do that. BLITZER: How worried are you of this nightmare scenario -- that the U.S. is building up this Shiite-dominated Iraqi government with an enormous amount of military equipment, sophisticated training, and then, in the end, they're going to turn against the United States? CHENEY: Wolf, that's not going to happen. Well, that's surely a relief. Everything is going to be peachy in Lalaland. Crazy Dick says so.

POTUS SOTUS 2007

President Bush looks like crap, as well he should. The man pushed us into a war he can’t win and he can’t end. President Bush is a man under siege and it shows. The alternate reality his delusions have forced him to live in is clashing with the real world he has to face. And the toll it’s taken is monumental. Which is as it should be. After racing through the so-called Domestic Agenda that the speechwriters gave him to reel off last night during the State of the Union address, the Prez got into his proposal to send more troops to Iraq. He said, “This is not the fight we entered in Iraq, but it is the fight we are in.” Unfortunately, the situation in Iraq is precisely the fight we entered in Iraq. President Bush and the neo-cons who lied us into the war had no interest in understanding the culture they had bumbled into when they staged their ill-considered, stupid, illegal and unnecessary attack on Iraq. Had the Bush administration consulted people who knew and understood the mindset of people who live in the Middle East in general and in Iraq in particular, they could have foreseen the civil war that would erupt. The fight we started on March 19, 2003 is exactly the fight we are in today and the upshot could have been foretold. Last night the president was reduced to pleading with the people of the United States to let him continue his delusion about winning in Iraq. “Our country is pursuing a new strategy in Iraq, and I ask you to give it a chance to work.” Not so. Our country is pursuing the same old strategy in Iraq and it doesn’t have a prayer of working. Last year, the Prez said, “If we were to leave these vicious attackers alone, they would not leave us alone. They would simply move the battlefield to our own shores.” A statement that was as doubtful as it was overheated. But the fear factor had always resonated with Republicans. Whenever it looked as though support for the war was waning, a terror alert appeared out of nowhere. Last night, the president trumpeted the success of foiled terror attacks. He said, “Our success in this war is often measured by the things that did not happen. We cannot know the full extent of the attacks that we and our allies have prevented.” He than rattled off a litany of plots against the US that had failed because of Homeland Security vigilance. The only trouble is the terrorist geniuses behind most of these plots were adolescents without two working brain cells. And some of the plots seemed as though they were fictions thought up by Homeland Security. The Republican position (and that of some Democrats) seems to be to humor our insane president until someone else is elected in 2008 because whatever we do in Iraq will be wrong. The Repubs keep hammering away that at least the President has a plan for Iraq while the Dems have no plan. In fact, just the opposite is true. The Democrats have a number of plans for ending the debacle but the Bush administration’s strategy to send a few more good people to their deaths is no plan at all. However, when all was said and done last night, when all comments had been made, when it was clear that the president was offering the same-old same-old, or at best, solutions to domestic problems that should have been advanced in 2000, still, there was that wonderful moment when we saw a woman seated behind the president as Speaker of the House. It brought tears to my eyes. And the Dems do have control of both the Senate and the House. And against all odds, the state of our union is fairly strong. It’s just the state of the executive branch that is sick and ailing. But we’ll do something about that…soon.

A Few Laughs With Our Morning Coffee

The New York Times outlined the main points in the President’s State of the Union speech tonight: 1) A plan to help states provide health care coverage to people who lack insurance by diverting federal aid from hospitals, especially public institutions. 2) Proposals to address the nation’s energy needs and global warming, 3) Renew his call for an overhaul of immigration law and to propose altering tax policies to help the uninsured. Those dead-on-arrival ideas will take up 20 minutes of the SOTUS. The other 20 minutes will be devoted to dead-on-arrival ideas about Iraq. White House counselor Bartlett provided a knee-slapper when the NYT quoted him saying, “The power of the ideas requires people to take notice and take seriously important domestic initiatives…there will be key signals to the American people that despite disagreements over the war, other work can be done.” Bartlett added that a major theme of the SOTUS would be that “divided government does not mean we cannot govern.” Then Tony Snow topped Bartlett’s hoot-for-the-day when Snow attributed the president‘s newest low-approval rating (28%) to “discouragement over Iraq that could be overcome at home.” Snow said, “George W. Bush as a president, is not somebody who is going to cease to be bold because people are concerned about the progress of the war. Instead he understands his obligation as commander in chief is to go ahead and address forthrightly big problems and come up with solutions that not only are going to have political appeal, but they’re also going to be effective in making life better for Americans.” ROTFLMFAO. Political appeal? Making life better for Americans? Oh gasp! Oh wiping my eyes! Give me a minute. And looky here, for the first time in weeks, the name Karl Rove appeared in a news story. The Washington Post said, “White House Deputy Chief of Staff Karl Rove said Bush will challenge Congress to put up its own plan if it does not like his ‘new way forward,’ according to people who were briefed.” That’s very funny, in an odd, is-Karl-in-a-coma? way. There is no “if” about it, Karl. Congress flat-out and vociferously does not like Bush’s plan. Nobody likes Bush’s plan. And everyone who is not asleep has put up an alternate plan starting with the Iraq Study Group’s plan. Then there’s the “bring the American troops home tomorrow” plan. There’s the “stop funding the war in Iraq” plan. There’s the “let the Iraqis solve their own problems” plan. There’s the “impeach the jackasses who got us into this and bring the troops home” plan. There are so many alternate plans, Karl, all you have to do is throw a dart in the air and you’ll hit a plan that is not George Bush’s plan. But the final laugh in the news today was the NYT’s tag line: “The new initiatives will require a political push by Mr. Bush, who will begin touring the nation to promote his policies on Wednesday.” Way to go, George. We can't wait to watch you fumble, fumfer, stutter, rant and ramble your way around the nation. You'll be giving work to stand-up comics for weeks to come.

Could Brownback Be More Dimwitted?

Republican presidential hopeful Senator Sam Brownback (R-KS) said something so ridiculous yesterday on George Steph’s “This Week” TV show that I nearly choked on my coffee. Well, actually, Brownback said a few ridiculous things, but his stunner was that George W. Bush had wanted to do a whole host of wonderful socially conscious things during his presidency, but.... Are you ready for this? The reason George W. Bush could not carry out all his marvelous visionary programs for the folks in the United States of America was because “9/11 made George W. Bush a wartime president.” Yo, Sam, you ignorant Republican tool! First: the Republican Party wanted to do two things TO the American people not FOR the American people when it foisted George W. Bush on us in two fraudulent elections. Number One was to fuck the middle class six ways to Sunday and up the yazoo. and Number Two was to make all the rich Republicans in the United States richer. Second: George W. Bush and Company started an unnecessary illegal war in Iraq and that’s how the Little Fascist From Texas became a wartime president. Yo, Sam, you dumbass sycophantic toady! 9/11 was a terrorist act thought up and put into action by George W. Bush’s best buddies, the Saudis, on September 11th, 2001, and George W. Bush sat mute and stupid in a grade school for seven minutes after he was told about it. Yo, Sam, you moronic simpleton! The war in Iraq, which the folks in the White House Insane Asylum started on March 19, 2003, had nothing to do with the terrorist attack by Saudis on the World Trade Center. ABC News/Washington Post conducted a poll from January 16 to January 19, 2007 and only 1% of the people polled said they would vote for Brownback, which is no surprise. The Brownback name is not a household word. But God knows, Sam Brownback is uninformed, imbecilic and servile enough to be a perfect Republican candidate for president. However, he probably won’t be able to raise enough dough to beat Giuliani and McCain to the starting gate. Yo, Sam, don’t start thinking you aren’t in Kansas anymore. You are in Kansas. Stay there.

You Want Insane? How About This!

President Bush has warned Iraq’s Prime Minister Nuri Kamal al-Maliki that the US won’t fund any more troop increases in Iraq unless Maliki starts winning the war in Iraq. But, according to the Washington Post this morning, Maliki told Bush on November 30 that he didn’t want any more troop increases in Iraq. So, watch out Mr. Prime Minister, if you don’t obey Crazy George, he’s not going to give you something you don’t want. I’m aware that the fine print says Maliki would welcome US money and more authority. Still, Maliki was very clear. He does not want an increase in US troops. And the Prez is equally clear…the money comes only if Maliki accepts the troops. But Maliki doesn’t want more US troops. I have said before, and I will say again: The Prez wants to get out of the mess he’s caused in Iraq as much as you and I want our troops out of Iraq. Of course Bush’s reason for wanting to be shut of Iraq and the war’s rising stench is simply because it makes him look bad. But George W. Bush has a problem. He can’t say he was wrong. Therefore, the Bush minders have a solution. They have set up Maliki to take the fall for Bush’s failed war because everyone knows there is no such thing as even the smallest victory in Iraq. This morning the New York Times quoted Bush’s national security adviser Stephen J. Hadley saying, “It’s going to be a little bit pay-as-you-go, and it’s going to depend a lot on Iraqis performing…as Mr. Maliki’s government follows through on its promises, the (Bush) administration will be in a much better position to resist any efforts to fence the funds (when the Iraq budget request goes before Congress).” Translation: When Maliki’s government starts winning the war in Iraq the US will make a request to Congress for more funds for Maliki’s government. So, does this sound like restricting funds for the war in Iraq? Yes, it does. Does this sound like the troops that Maliki doesn’t want won’t be sent to Iraq unless Maliki starts winning the war? Which, of course he can’t do. Yes, it does. Does this sound nutty as all get out? Yes, it does. But don’t look for Bush to strongly push his Iraq plan in his State of the Union Speech this coming Tuesday. He’ll talk in broad terms about fighting terrorism, he’ll give a broad overview of his health care plan which is already dead, he’ll talk about immigration, and energy and global warming which of course is not the fault of the Repubs, and blah-blah-blah. But what the SOTUS won’t be is a replay of last year’s rah-rah-rah, fire-up-the-masses, stay-the-course horseshit. SOTUS this year will be ignore-the-elephant-in-the-living-room horseshit.

Explain It To Me, Please!

The White House issued a statement through the National Security Council with regard to China testing an antisatellite weapon last week. The statement said, “Development and testing of such weapons is inconsistent with the spirit of cooperation that both countries aspire to in the civil space area.” “Only two nations — the Soviet Union and the United States — have previously destroyed spacecraft in antisatellite tests, most recently the United States in the mid-1980s,” the New York Times said this morning. I don’t understand. Why does the United States think it has the right and power to tell China what it can do with regard to what is being called “the escalation in the weaponization of space”? Why does the United States think it can arm itself to the teeth, escalate its nuclear weapons programs, while at the same tell all other nations of the world that they cannot and must not arm themselves or weaponize space because to do so would be (gasp!) against the wishes of the United States. In addition to which, the United States believes it is unethical, immoral and ungodly for the nations of the world to defend themselves against America’s plan to rule the Middle East and eventually, the World. I don’t understand. Who the fuck does the United States of America think it is? A force of nature? A super superpower against which the nations of the world must remain defenseless? Get real! China and Japan own the United States. And we don’t even have a military to defend ourselves at home, let alone around the world. The NYT said, “White House officials said the United States and other nations, which they did not identify, had “expressed our concern regarding this action to the Chinese.” Who are we to presume to tell China jack shit? China is the second-largest owner of US Treasuries. At the end of October, 2006 China was holding $344.9-billion of US debt. (At the end of August, Japan held $644.2 billion in US Treasuries.) If either of those countries decided not to buy Treasuries or to sell off the US Treasuries they now hold, the US dollar would spiral down into worthlessness. And yet, here we are posturing and strutting and issuing pronouncements about what China and the other nations of the world should and should not do to defend themselves. The only reason George W. Bush (and the rest of us) can get up in the morning and act like assholes for the rest of the day is because China and Japan allow it. I detest the expression “sending a message” with regard to shifts in the power structure of the world, or come to that, with regard to anything. China and Iran are not sending messages. They are simply acting in their best interests. And the fact is that thanks to the spending priorities of the Republican Party, the United States is a second-class nation with nuclear capabilities it can no longer use as a threat. China has gone into space with its weapon capability and the US can only bluster and fume about the fact that we didn’t have the foresight to make a space-weapons treaty with China. And little by little for the last 25 years, China has been buying our Treasuries so that China now owns our sorry ass. Explain to me the part about how sending 20,000 ill-trained and tired troops to Iraq will keep us safe.

Symbolic Measure Introduced in Senate

The New York Times has published the text of a Resolution prepared by Senators Biden (D-DE), Levin (D-MI) and Hagel (R-NE), which says the plan to send more troops to Iraq is not in America’s national interest. And, of course, since it’s written in Senator-speak, it’s wordy and cumbersome. But what I don’t understand is why there are two glaring typos in this text and why does it say that “more than 2000” American troops have been killed in Iraq and “more than 22,500” have been wounded in Iraq? Everyone knows more than 3000 American troops have been killed in Iraq and more than 47,000 American troops have been wounded in Iraq. About those typos and why do I care? Because it’s sloppy. The published text reads “Whereas the United States strategy and presence on the ground in Iraq an (sic) only be sustained with the support of the American people and bipartisan support from Congress." One paragraph down the text reads, “Whereas maximizing chances of success in Iraq should be out (sic) goal." It’s difficult enough to get through the Whereases and the six Nowtherefore conclusions without having to mentally correct typos and statistics. Foreign Relations Committee chairman Biden says, “This resolution will demonstrate — and it will demonstrate it right away — that support is not there for the president’s policy in Iraq…the sooner he recognizes that reality and acts on it, the better off all of us will be.” Neither this resolution, nor any resolution will ever make our insane president recognize reality, even when it slaps him in the face. And reality has been regularly slapping George W. Bush in the face since the Dems began controlling Congress after the November elections. However, I’m not saying the Resolution is a bad idea. Public outcry is what caused the Bush administration to agree yesterday to end it’s wiretapping without warrants policy. The new policy is merely a step in the right direction, not a solution, since the new policy has created yet another secret process. Still, without the public getting in high dudgeon over the egregious misuse of power regarding wiretapping Americans, even this small step would never have been made. The New York Times calls the Senators’ Resolution “symbolic”. And that is exactly what it is…a symbolic show of concern. “The resolution…would not be binding”, the NYT said, “And the White House said it would have no effect on Mr. Bush’s plan to send more than 20,000 additional troops to Iraq…But sponsors of the measure said Congressional passage would send a powerful message that the president could not ignore, and its adoption could be a precursor to further efforts by opponents of the war to place limits on his use of the military in Iraq or to limit financing for the war.” Of course the President will ignore this Resolution. But the Bush administration will not ignore it. And even though the White House has made an end-run with regard to warrantless wiretaps, in an effort to forestall a court review of its wiretap policy, it won’t work. Dems intend to continue their investigation into wiretapping without warrants. These little steps are fine. But I so want Attorney General Alberto Gonzales to be publicly humiliated. Isn’t there some way that can be done?

YIKES! I Agree With James Dobson

Dobson and his far-right conservative Christian “Focus on the Family” radio program are based in Colorado Springs, Colorado. Last Thursday Dobson said he couldn’t support Senator John McCain (R-AZ) and his presidential bid "under any circumstances." That’s something Dobson and I agree on. Dobson’s attack on McCain was because McCain doesn’t support traditional marriage values. And that’s where Dobson and I part company. There are so many issues where McCain is flat-out wrong, that his views on gay marriage aren’t even a blip on my radar screen. In a radio interview with KCBI, a Dallas Christian station, Dobson said not only did McCain not support traditional marriage values, but also, the campaign finance legislation that McCain had co-authored hurt Christian broadcasters. Although McCain can hardly be called pro gay-marriage, he does not support a constitutional amendment outlawing same-sex unions and he believes it’s an issue best left up to each state. On October 6, 2006, WaPo reported, “In 2004, white evangelical or born-again Christians made up a quarter of the electorate, and 78 percent of them voted Republican, according to exit polls. But some pollsters believe that evangelical support for the GOP peaked two years ago and that what has been called the "God gap" in politics is shrinking…A nationwide poll of 1,500 registered voters released yesterday by the nonpartisan Pew Research Center found that 57 percent of white evangelicals are inclined to vote for Republican congressional candidates in the midterm elections, a 21-point drop in support among this critical part of the GOP base.” So why is McCain even bothering with the far-right Christian faction? Because it’s McCain's nature to say anything to anyone anytime if he thinks it will net him one smile, one vote. Yesterday, the New York Times reported, “During a campaign stop in Columbia, S.C., McCain said: ‘I'm obviously disappointed (about Dobson’s lack of support) and I'd like to continue and have a dialogue with Dr. Dobson and other members of the community.’” McCain added, ''I'm happy to say that I've established a dialogue with a number of other leaders.'' Those leaders include the Rev. Jerry Falwell and Dr. Richard Land of the Southern Baptist Convention. McCain, of course, doesn’t give a damn whether he and Dobson kiss and make up or not. But McCain has a track record of testing the waters and saying anything he thinks may resonate with any group. The NYT noted, “In 2000, Falwell opposed McCain's campaign for the GOP nomination and supported George W. Bush. At the time, McCain labeled Falwell and others on the right and the left as ‘agents of intolerance.’” I still maintain that John McCain learned more than he will ever talk about when he was a POW in Vietnam. You don’t stay alive in enemy territory by opposing the enemy. And I would never fault anyone for saying and doing anything to stay alive. I certainly would adopt that modus operandi if I were captured by, oh, say, Bill O’Reilly or the FBI. It’s just that I don’t think it’s a good or honorable political strategy. On October 18, 2006, good-guy, political jokester and stay-alive-by-any-means McCain was asked how he would react if the Dems took over the Senate. He said, "I think I'd just commit suicide," adding, “I don't want to face that eventuality because I don't think it's going to happen...I think it's going to be tough, but I think we'll do o.k." My advice? Don’t hold John McCain to anything he says about anything ever. As we can see, he is still alive and making nice with the opposition.

A Ramble Through the News

Today, the New York Times quoted the most widely-circulated newspaper in Spain, El Pais: ''A grave infection in the large intestine, at least three failed operations and various complications have left the Cuban dictator, Fidel Castro, laid up with a very grave prognosis.'' I tittered. Just before Christmas Castro’s doctor said. “Mr. Castro could make a full recovery, but required muscular rehabilitation and a strict diet.” I tittered then, too, even though he wasn’t described as being “in a grave condition”. Ever since my hometown newspaper referred to someone who was sick as being in a grave condition, I have tee-hee’d at the phrase. I was about ten years old the first time I read it. The Editor of the Paxton Daily Record realized the word had two meanings, so he put grave in quotes. Heh! Heh-heh! When I read the NYT piece about the hanging of Saddam’s brother-in-law, I noticed John F. Burns had written it. This Brit has been embedded in Iraq since Bush started his ego-war. He is a reporter for CNN. Why doesn’t he cut his hair? I can’t stand looking at him. I mean his hair is very gray and curly and very long. It’s not that he doesn’t get his hair cut at all. If he didn’t cut his hair ever, it would be sticking out four feet from his head. So his hair does get cut. But it’s kept uniformly untidy and unkempt, as though the man is just too busy keeping alive in Baghdad to get a haircut. But he does get his hair cut. It’s cut to look unkempt and untidy to match Burns’s mental image of a war correspondent. Fah! Anyway, as I read the Burns piece that the hanging of Saddam’s half-brother resulted in a decapitation, I was reminded of an old Hitchcock Presents episode. It was the horror of the scene that took me back to the TV show. I could not imagine watching a man’s head fall off. The hanging would be barbaric enough, but the accidental decapitation was beyond barbaric, it would be so macabre as to be Grand Guignol, in the French theater tradition. My memory of the Hitchcock show was that a ventriloquist was actually the dummy and the dummy was the ventriloquist. A woman falls in love with the ventriloquist because she comes to every performance. Finally, the ventriloquist invites her to his hotel room. When she comes into the room he’s sitting in darkness. They talk. She reaches out to touch him and he falls to the floor and his head falls off. In desperation she tries to stick the head back on But when I looked up the episode, (Hitchcock Presents-“The Glass Eye” with Jessica Tandy and Billy Barty), the head did not fall off, a glass eye fell out. Oh well, I like my version better. Finally, I have never seen an unfunnier movie than “The Devil Wears Prada”, but Meryl Streep won a Golden Globes comedy award for it last night. And even though “30 Rock” is one of the worst shows on television, Alec Baldwin was awarded a Golden Globes for it. You want funny? You want weird? You want horror? Watch the news.

60 Minutes’ Pelley Interviews Delusional Decider

SCOTT PELLEY: “Do you believe as commander-in-chief you have the authority to put the troops in there (Iraq) no matter what the Congress wants to do?” GEORGE W. BUSH: “In this situation, I do, yeah. Now, I fully understand they could try to stop me from doing it. But I made my decision, and we're going forward.” Well no. That’s the thing. The Prez does not fully understand anything. And certainly, he does not fully understand there are limits to his so-called power. A transcript of the interview is available at the New York Times site. Pelley has been chastised elsewhere for throwing softballs to the Prez and for feeding him lines. When the Prez complained that the Democrats were saying, "We're not even gonna fund this thing.’ And they're not gonna give it a chance,” Pelley said, “There’s no Democrat plan”, giving Bush the opportunity to say, “It doesn't look like it to me. And maybe there will be one. Now, I've listened to a lot of good folks who are Democrats who have expressed their opinions. They're just as patriotic as I am. And the interesting is, Scott, a lot of people are saying, "Well, we can't afford to fail." In other words, people understand the consequences of failure. But what's deafening is those who say, "we can't afford to fail and here's the plan that will cause us not to fail." Frankly, that's not their responsibility. It's my responsibility to put forward the plan that I think will succeed. I believe if they start trying to cut off funds, they better explain to the American people and the soldiers why their plan will succeed.” But by me, Pelley gave us the chance to once again hear how out of touch Bush is. And it’s interesting that last night the Bush tics and smirks were back--the laughing and smiling inappropriately, the cocky attitude. I would love to see the president’s list of meds, uppers, downers and mood enhancers. But back to Bush thinking he can’t be stopped…not so fast, Mr. I-Am-the-Great-I-Am. There’s the no-more-funding option; there is the fact that your order to send in more troops cannot be implemented immediately, unless you plan to send in untrained troops; there is Senator Ted Kennedy’s (D-MA) pending bill to require you to have authorization from Congress for your escalation of the war in Iraq; there is the fact that Senator John Thune (R-SD) said regarding the President’s plan and how Republicans feel about it, "Everybody is scared spitless”. Not to mention the option of removing both Bush and VP Cheney from office for malfeasance and crimes and misdemeanors. It’s not that you can’t be stopped, Mr. Prez. The question is, which options will be utilized by the Congress and the public to stop you.

Like Schoolyard Bullies, the WH is Goading Iran

The New York Times reports this morning that Secretary of State Condoleezza Rice said President Bush decided “several months ago” to go after Iranians in Iraq. Using the passive voice so admired by the Bush administration, Rice said, “There has been a decision to go after these networks.” What that means is that the decision was not made by our confused and unstable president, but that after the people who make Bush’s decisions decided to make war on Iran, the president was told he had authorized the raids. And last Wednesday, the president’s speechwriters dutifully gave the Prez a warning to issue to Iran : Bush solemnly intoned, “Iran is providing material support for attacks on American troops. We will disrupt the attacks on our forces. We will interrupt the flow of support from Iran and Syria. And we will seek out and destroy the networks providing advanced weaponry and training to our enemies in Iraq.” After the Bush administration deployed an aircraft carrier off Iran’s coast and Patriot antimissile defense systems in Persian Gulf countries on Iran’s borders, Tony Snow had the balls to tell reporters that they should pay no attention to “an urban legend that’s going around” that Mr. Bush was “trying to prepare the way for war” with Iran or Syria. Right. And Nixon said he was not a crook. And Poppy Bush said George W. is not a liar. But technically, it probably is true that Bush is not preparing the way to make war on Iran and Syria, because the Prez isn’t capable of preparing his own way from the Rose Garden to the Oval office. But the Bush administration is definitely on the war path with Iran. And the Bush administration has definitely decided to provoke Iran into a confrontation. This bullying sneaky style of aggressing on nations in the Middle East while claiming it is not aggressing on nations in the Middle East is starting to bite the simpering, insolent, self-satisfied Bush administration in the ass. But the White House in particular and the GOP in general is what it is. It cannot change its nature. And the nature of the Republicans who lied us into the war in Iraq is to try to outsmart the world, to try to appear clever, to look for loopholes like a bunch of defense lawyers for the Mafia, and to grin and smirk about finding ways to say one thing and do another. It is the nature of the Bush administration and the GOP to stay in their cozy club and congratulate each other on smart rhetoric and to feel superior about putting another one over on the ignorant masses. And it’s the nature of the Bush administration and the GOP to be so awed at their own brilliance that they have neglected to notice they aren’t running the show anymore.

Bush Plan Contemned; Hagel To “Resist It”

Senator Chuck Hagel (R-NE) called the President’s surge plan "The most dangerous foreign policy blunder in this country since Vietnam." He vowed to “resist it.” There is not one headline this morning in the online editions of the New York Times, The LA Times or the Washington Post that could remotely be construed as positive regarding the Bush administration’s mad plan. Even Evan Bayh (D-IN) has decided not to run for president because Iraq is such a mess. And yet, WaPo reported today “U.S. troops launched two raids on Iranian targets in Iraq yesterday, following through on President Bush's vow to confront and break up Tehran's networks inside Iraq. Five Iranians were detained, and vast amounts of documents and computer data were confiscated, according to U.S., Iraqi and Iranian officials.” Congress can put a stop to the madness infecting the White House. Congress has every tool it needs to remove Bush and Cheney for malfeasance and to cut off funds for the war in Iraq. Enough is enough!

Rebutting an Asshole

So rebutting the Prez would be what? Reaming him a new one? I watched the President’s speech last night on CNN. I don’t know about other news shows, but everyone on CNN responded as though the president were a sensible human being worthy of respect. No one, not Larry King, not John McCain, not John Edwards, not Barack Obama, not Dem Majority Whip Dick Durbin and not Arwa Damon, CNN’s Correspondent in Baghdad, addressed the fact that the president looked like death, that he said ridiculous things in his speech, and that the man is crazy as a loon. My daughter said it best in an email to me when I said the prez looked like he’d been embalmed. She said, “Like an embalmed deer in the headlights... on Quaaludes.” Gone were the smirks and tics. Gone was the ill-advised jokey manner. And thank God for that. But in place of being off-hand, inappropriate and cheery about a somber and serious issue, which has been the president’s demeanor in the past when speaking of his unnecessary and illegal war, last night the Prez looked frightened, unsure and tranked to the gills. Of course it would be a step in the right direction if the president at long last had seen the situation he caused in Iraq and that the reality frightened him. Not a chance. George W. Bush is scared that his popularity may be waning. He is not frightened of the fact that his popularly has waned. Our delusional president is frightened that at some time in the future his popularity may wane. The Prez agreed to say the words the speechwriters gave him to say and to look serious while he said those words because in his mind he wants to bring back into the fold that tiny minority which may not have been fully convinced that he has always been right about Iraq. The sobersides delivery was an uncomfortable fit. The president doesn’t like to play that role and it made him look unsure and unwell. But the president has no doubt whatsoever that his dopey, silly plan will work. He said, “The situation in Iraq is unacceptable to the American people, and it is unacceptable to me. Our troops in Iraq have fought bravely. They have done everything we have asked them to do. Where mistakes have been made, the responsibility rests with me.” And with those few sentences George W. Bush eliminated his little PR problem. He made it crystal clear that he has made no mistakes but that he magnanimously accepts the responsibility for the woeful mistakes of the US military and the prime minister of Iraq. I actually could not believe the president said the following, and I had to consult a transcript to make sure I had heard it correctly. Yup, he said it: “On September the 11th, 2001, we saw what a refuge for extremists on the other side of the world could bring to the streets of our own cities. For the safety of our people, America must succeed in Iraq.” Yo, Mr. Crazy-person Prez, the Saudi’s slammed into the World Trade Center. Iraq had nothing to do with 911. And in case you need to be reminded, YOU AND THE ENTIRE UNITED STATES GOVERNMENT WERE HARBORING SAUDIS. The Prez explained that the US military had not been successful in Baghdad in the past because there weren’t enough Iraqi and American troops in Iraq. And he said another reason for the failure was because there were “too many restrictions on the troops”. Meaning what? That we couldn’t torture and kill civilians at will? Bush said, “our military commanders reviewed the new Iraqi plan to ensure that it addressed these mistakes. They report that it does. They also report that this plan can work.” Now let’s see, if I remember correctly, Bush has appointed a completely new bunch of military commanders in Iraq, all of whom have their heads firmly up the president’s ass. Could that be why they report the plan is a never-fail dilly? And what on earth were the speechwriters drinking (or smoking) when they cranked out this gem: “Our troops will have a well-defined mission: to help Iraqis clear and secure neighborhoods, to help them protect the local population, and to help ensure that the Iraqi forces left behind are capable of providing the security that Baghdad needs… Yet, over time, we can expect to see Iraqi troops chasing down murderers, fewer brazen acts of terror, and growing trust and cooperation from Baghdad's residents.” The president added, “When this happens, daily life will improve, Iraqis will gain confidence in their leaders, and the government will have the breathing space it needs to make progress in other critical areas.” And we’ll all go to the seashore. But the following is my personal fave in the Bush speech: “From Afghanistan to Lebanon to the Palestinian territories, millions of ordinary people are sick of the violence and want a future of peace and opportunity for their children. And they are looking at Iraq. They want to know: Will America withdraw and yield the future of that country to the extremists, or will we stand with the Iraqis who have made the choice for freedom?” I’d like to make one point, you addle-brained numnut asshole, millions of people in the Middle East do want a future of peace and opportunity but they are not looking at the US in Iraq to give them hope. In fact, they are looking at the US in Iraq in horror and fear because last night you threatened to go to war with Iran and Syria. At least the Democratic leadership, Nancy Pelosi and Harry Reid rejected GWB’s so-called new strategy. They issued a statement saying, "This is not a good idea. This proposal endangers our national security by placing additional burdens on our already over-extended military, thereby making it even more difficult to respond to other crises." They could have been a little stronger in their objection though. They could have said, “This is an egregiously BAD idea, put forward by an insane little fascist putz who just happens to be the worst president the United States has ever had.” But I guess it's up to me to say it. So be it.

WHY Did the US Bomb Somalia?

This morning the Washington Post said, “In Mogadishu, the Somali capital, reports circulated that as many as 50 people, many of them civilians, were killed in the attack by a U.S. Air Force AC-130 gunship…Pentagon spokesman Bryan Whitman confirmed yesterday that a single airstrike occurred on Sunday, targeting 'what we believe to be principal al-Qaeda leadership.'" WaPo’s lead paragraph said: “Two days after the United States launched an airstrike against alleged al-Qaeda terrorists in southern Somalia, U.S. officials declined yesterday to provide details of who, or what, was hit.” US officials also declined to say WHY the US launched its airstrike. The United States launched an airstrike in Somalia against “alleged al-Qaeda terrorists” that killed many innocent civilians because President Bush is giving a speech tonight to whip up support for escalating his ego-war in Iraq. That’s WHY! Time was, when the crazy fascist in the White House Insane Asylum planned a speech to stoke up support for his war, Homeland Security would trot out a scare alert and Michael Chertoff would deliver a warning in his high-pitched girly voice about virtual terrorists planning a virtual attack. But Chertoff and his sky-is-falling hysteria got laughed off the stage. So now, Crazy George has bombed the shit out of Somalia in an attack on virtual terrorists four days before his speech to justify escalating the war in Iraq. Like a serial killer, the president’s atrocities are increasing in intensity and in wanton violence. Rest assured, this insane president will be shut down because his delusional escapades are causing voters to turn against his supporters. But it’s going to be very interesting to see how and who activates his Off switch.

Another Codger Called Back to Duty

Fred Fucking Fielding has been named as the new chief White House lawyer to George W. Bush. How about that! This is the same Fred F. Fielding who was WH counsel to Ronald Reagan during the air traffic controllers’ strike in 1981. This is the same Fred F. Fielding who made his bones as deputy counsel to Nixon in 1972 during the Watergate scandal, This is the same Fred F. Fielding who was believed to be “Deep Throat” until May 31, 2005, when William Mark Felt, Sr. announced he was the one and the only “Deep Throat”. The New York Times reported this morning “President Bush has chosen Fred F. Fielding as the new chief White House lawyer, adding to his team a longtime Washington legal hand and veteran of the post.” The NYT said Fielding was “always a leading candidate” for WH counsel as far as chief of staff Joshua Bolten was concerned but the Prez “swiftly dismissed that notion”. Bush installed Harriet Miers as his counsel. She had been his lawyer in Texas and she followed him to Washington, DC. Miers’ main duties were to assist Condoleezza Rice and Karen Hughes as minders and nannies to the increasingly infantile and tantrum-prone president. So the humiliation of Harriet Miers is now complete. First, Bush tried to reward her for being a trusted and true nanny by appointing her to the Supreme Court, which was so ridiculous that Bush had to withdrew the nomination. And now he’s canned Miers as his counsel and has named Fred F. Fielding to the post. Too bad Harriet, but it’s a dog-eat-dog world. Look at it this way, there are thousands of bratty, spoiled, narcissistic little sociopaths in Washington. You can easily get another job. So Fred Fielding becomes the latest old coot to be called back to staff the White House Insane Asylum. Oh sure, what with the investigations that will certainly be launched by the new Democratic Congress, it’s a prudent move for the WHIA to have a seasoned lawyer officially on call. Fielding has been a senior partner at Wiley Rein and Fielding in DC since his days in government, but he’s always been available to the White House in an advisory position. Lee Hamilton who headed the Iraq Study Group said Fielding “understood the problems for the White House and he understood the demands of the commission…he played a key role in working it out for us in an amicable way, and it didn’t come easily.” And Fielding has maintained a close friendship with Dick Cheney. So how about this? If it’s true that Cheney is about to desert the sinking WHIA by claiming ill health, how does Vice President Fred Fucking Fielding sound?

The Insane War-Loving Minority

Yesterday Editor & Publisher said, “With Paul Krugman hitting the surge on Monday, this represents perhaps a first: all six regular (New York Times) opinion columnists (Brooks, Krugman, Friedman, Dowd, Kristof and Rich) are in agreement on a vital issue, all against the escalation.” E&P also noted that Oliver North had attacked the surge idea in his column on Friday, and on Sunday, George Will commented in his Washington Post article, “Surge, or Power Failure?” that the surge was too little, too late and only would prolong the war. Since I am unable to read any of the above-mentioned New York Times Op-Ed writers because I refuse to pay the extortionate membership fee required by the NYT TimesSelect club, I have not read Paul Krugman this morning. However, the teaser accompanying his article “Quagmire of the Vanities” is probably enough to catch his drift: “The only real question about the planned ‘surge’ in Iraq is whether its proponents are cynical or delusional.” Those proponents, who can rightly be called cynical AND delusional, have been quick to say that cutting off funds for the war would endanger the troops already in Iraq. Which is nonsense. Congress can and should cut off funds for any escalation (fatuously called a “surge”). Nearly three-quarters of the American public oppose the way George W. Bush is handling the war in Iraq. But the neocons claim that cutting off funds for the war in Iraq may endanger our troops. What hypocrisy! Our government has never properly equipped our fighting forces in Iraq; our government has unadvisedly and foolishly spent funds appropriated for the war in Iraq; our government did not properly evaluate this war or send enough troops in the very beginning; our government is penny-pinching and tight-fisted about adequately providing money for medical procedures and prescriptions to wounded veterans returning from Iraq. And now, our government is making plans to send 30,000 more troops to Iraq. This escalation cannot even pretend to be about fighting for freedom and democracy in Iraq. This escalation of troops will fight Iraq’s civil war. How hardhearted, un-American and unpatriotic does the Bush administration, the Pentagon and the Defense Department have to be before Congress pulls the plug on this insanity in Iraq? It’s interesting that two rumors are making the rounds about Dick Cheney. And these rumors, if they prove to be true, will show that Dick Cheney may be a rat but he is the only one in the Bush administration who is not insane. Rumor No. 1: Dick Cheney believes the war in Iraq has been lost. Rumor No. 2: Dick Cheney has plans to step down due to “ill health”.

A Little Truthtelling

CBS’s David Martin said on January 5th “military commanders have told Bush they are prepared to execute a troop escalation of just 9,000 soldiers and Marines into Iraq.” A State Department official said, “That’s no surge…it’s a bump”. Senator Ben Nelson (D-NE) said, “I don’t know that the American people will see the surge as a new direction…the American people want to see a change in direction, not just a change in slogans.” WaPo quoted Senator Joe Biden (D-DE) yesterday saying, "I have reached the tentative conclusion that a significant portion of this administration, maybe even including the vice president, believes Iraq is lost." Biden added, "They have no answer to deal with how badly they have screwed it up. I am not being facetious now. Therefore, the best thing to do is keep it from totally collapsing on your watch and hand it off to the next guy -- literally, not figuratively." The New York Times reported this morning: “Mr. Bush appeared to be trying to head off any confrontation when he invited 13 Democratic and Republican senators to the White House Friday for what administration officials called a “consultation” on Iraq.” Senator Blanche Lincoln, (D-AR) was at the so-called consultation. She said she asked the president where that surge would come from? Ms. Lincoln said the president answered, “That was a very good question.” WaPo’s Dan Froomkin says he sees a possible theme in “the sudden spate of personnel convulsions emanating from the White House”. It’s “a purge of the unbelievers”, Froomkin says. The President’s announcements of his personnel changes certainly do look like he’s kicking the unbelievers to the curb. But what difference will that make when George W. Bush is truly the only one left (with Laura and his dog) who believes in the continuation of his unnecessary war in Iraq? Bush doesn’t know where his surge of troops will come from and according to Joe Biden; Dick Cheney thinks the war in Iraq is lost. Can the White House get any nuttier?

What Is Needed Is a National Moment of Truth

Yesterday, Bob Herbert said in his Op/Ed piece in the New York Times, “There must be a leader somewhere who can shake the U.S. out of this tragic hypnotic state, who can see that it is beyond crazy to continue our involvement in this war indefinitely, to sacrifice another 1,000 young lives, and then another thousand after that," He said, “The war has been an exercise in futility and mind-boggling incompetence.” He said, “This war is not worth fighting.” He called the war in Iraq “criminal”. He said, “All of the tortured, twisted rationales for this war — all of the fatuous intellectual pyrotechnics dreamed up to justify it — have vaporized, and we’re left with just the mad, mindless, meaningless and apparently endless slaughter.” And everything Bob Herbert said so eloquently is true. But “a leader somewhere” is not what is needed. What is needed is a moment of clarity when the good men and women who can change things realize that they can no longer be silent. There has been an unspoken covenant between the mainstream media, the people in Congress and the movers and shakers around the world that they will not speak publicly about the fact that President George W. Bush is insane. But the fact that George W. Bush has descended into madness has been known by anyone who has had contact with him for at least four years, and for probably as long as the past six years. Arrogance has been the defining characteristic of the Bush administration. And it is this arrogance that has lead everyone behind the George W. Bush throne to believe they can control him. It is folly to think you can give anyone (and certainly not a psychopath) the unlimited powers that the GOP gave to President Bush and at the same time believe the recipient of those unlimited powers can be restrained. It was thought by the Bush-minders that he could be pacified by his surrogate mommies--Condoleezza Rice, Karen Hughes and Harriet Miers. Karen Hughes is no longer in the inner circle and Harriet Miers just quit (or got fired). It was believed Dick Cheney, Donald Rumsfeld and Karl Rove could control him. Wherever Karl Rove may be, he certainly is not controlling the president and Bush was forced to fire Rumsfeld. Condoleezza Rice and Dick Cheney have to maintain the fiction that the president is really the president. It was part of the original contract the GOP made when the Republican power brokers agreed to elevate a troubled and delusional man to the presidency of the United States. But Rice and Cheney are no longer in control of George W. Bush. And George W. Bush is out of control. A national moment of truth is needed. Not a cover up, not more lies. All the people who know George W. Bush is a dangerous psychopath must say so. And they must demand his removal from office. Will the United States crumble and fall? No. Will the earth’s magnetic poles shift? No. Will the entire Republican Party lose face? You can bet your sweet ass it will. But we survived Joe McCarthy and we survived Richard Nixon and we survived Bill Clinton not being able to keep his libido in check. We can survive Cheney stepping down and being replaced by someone who will be president until the 2008 election. And we can survive a president being removed because he’s a dangerous megalomaniacal psychopath.

Who Was Behind the Saddam Hanging Fiasco?

Yesterday, AJ in DC posted the following on AmericaBlog re the Saddam Hussein hanging: “I committed a blunder that is, for me, exceptionally rare: I assumed that somehow this, a historic and potentially inflammatory event, would be handled with even a minimal amount of decorum and professionalism by the Bush administration and the Iraqi government. Instead, the Bush administration turned over Saddam to the Iraqi government prematurely . . . to a band of thugs-as-executioners . . . who wore not uniforms but leather jackets and ski masks . . . who shouted Shia chants, including invocations of Moqtada al-Sadr . . . all of which was illicitly videotaped and then emailed around Iraq and throughout the world . . . on, no less, one of the holiest days of the Sunni religious calendar.” The fact (and it is a fact) that the Bush administration turned over Saddam to Shia hooligans, has never been fully addressed by the mainstream media, as far as I know, until this morning’s New York Times editorial. The NYT said: “Saddam Hussein deserves no one’s pity. But as anyone who has seen the graphic cellphone video of his hanging can testify, his execution bore little resemblance to dispassionate, state-administered justice. The condemned dictator appeared to have been delivered from United States military custody into the hands of a Shiite lynch mob.” Last night on a segment of Anderson Cooper’s “360 Degrees” news program on CNN, Ryan Chilcote, a CNN correspondent reporting on the Saddam hanging, said, “The U.S. military spokesman says the U.S. would have handled it differently, but, once they handed Saddam over to the Iraqis, they lost control.” And Major General William Caldwell, the US Army Spokesman for Coalition Forces in Iraq said, “We had absolutely nothing to do with any of the procedures or any of the control mechanisms or anything from that point forward.” What could be more clear? The US military knowingly handed over Saddam Hussein to a lynch mob and then washed its hands of the whole affair. The question once again hangs in the air in Iraq: Who delivered the orders to the US military? And once again, the answer is: The orders came from the top. The orders to quickly and prematurely hand over Saddam to a hooded Shia mob came from the top. And THE TOP is not Iraq’s Prime Minister Nuri Kamal al-Maliki. In Iraq, THE TOP is the Bush administration. But the NYT is still maintaining that it was Iraq’s Prime Minister Nuri Kamal al-Malik who wanted Saddam hanged immediately. The NYT said, “Mr. Maliki ignored pleas for delay from Washington and the legal niceties of Iraq’s Constitution. He rushed to deliver Mr. Hussein’s death as a holiday gift to his hard-line Shiite constituency, especially followers of the radical cleric and militia leader Moktada al-Sadr, who were allowed to chant abuse at the condemned dictator while he stood at the gallows with the noose around his neck.” That’s total nonsense. It is the Bush administration that calls the shots in Iraq. In Iraq, the top is not Iraq’s Prime Minister Nuri Kamal al-Maliki. It is the Bush administration that pulls Maliki’s strings. And it was the Bush administration that wanted Saddam hanged on December 31. Gerald Ford died on December 26. There were five days of mourning for Ford. His state funeral was in the Rotunda of the US Capital on Saturday night, December 31. An event that George W. Bush could not be bothered to attend. Why would George W. Bush want to upstage the funeral of President Gerald Ford by hanging the former dictator of Iraq? Because he can. Oh…and there is another reason: Because George W. Bush is a delusional paranoid vengeful pissant sociopath fascist who can’t bear to be told he is wrong. And President Ford told the Washington Post's Bob Woodward that Junior Bush was wrong to attack Iraq.

Shrink Justin A. Frank Talks to BuzzFlash

In 2004, Psychoanalyst Justin A. Frank, MD, published a book titled, “Bush on the Couch”. The book blurb says Dr. Frank is “a clinical professor in the Department of Psychiatry at George Washington University Medical Center. He is also a teaching analyst at the Washington Psychoanalytic Institute.” Other sources say Frank has 30 years experience as a psychoanalyst. It always bugs me when I can’t find out how old someone is. Frank’s book jacket pic looks like he and actor Wilford Brimley were twins separated at birth. Brimley admits to being 72. Frank is probably younger…but who knows? I loved “Bush on the Couch”. It corroborated all my most negative assumptions about George W. Bush, which are that he’s a delusional sociopath who hates his father and was dominated by his mother. I also read into Frank’s analysis of Bush that Bush should be drummed out of the presidency and placed in an asylum. However, those words were never used in the book. An interview with Dr. Frank was conducted by Mark Karlin for BuzzFlash. It was posted on the BuzzFlash site late yesterday afternoon. Dr. Frank hasn’t changed his opinion of George W. Bush since “Bush on the Couch’ came out. And of course, Dr. Frank has been monitoring the Prez from afar all this time. He has had no face-time with Bush. But from Dr. Frank’s point of view, Bush’s psychiatric problems have only gotten worse in the past two years. Frank told Karlin: “His (GWB’s) parents abandoned him psychologically and emotionally, both because of their own grief and their own way of dealing with their grief, but also because of how they were as parents in general. Barbara was very preoccupied not just with the loss of her daughter, but with the fact that there was a newborn at home -- Jack, who was only a few months old. So he (GWB) was left alone to solve a terrible catastrophe of loss, evoking anxiety and all kinds of things.” GWB’s sister Robin died in 1953 which was the same year Jeb/Jack was born. Dr. Frank said, “You can fast-forward that to the present day, and he is now feeling very much in the same situation. Even Scarborough talks about how isolated Bush is, and how it's like a bunker mentality. I think he has had a bunker mentality all of his life, and that he has covered it over and compensated for it with a tremendous amount of affability and charm. That may be partly because he had trouble reading, so he couldn’t like retreat and become isolated the way some people perhaps do, by hiding in books, or drugs, or whatever. He hid from various things, you know, with alcohol and things. But, mainly, he used his affability and his charm to be able to brush away anybody who might get to the core pain and terror that existed inside of him. “I think that that’s what’s happening now. I think somebody -- the voters, the public, the Baker Commission, various people --have tried to turn the light on. And he is very terrified of any kind of truth that will intrude into his need to cling to preconceptions, because they make him feel safe, and they allow him to stay in his bunker. He looked disgruntled this morning. I was watching his statement about President Ford, who died last night. I was really struck by how ill-at-ease he seemed, and like he didn’t want to be doing it. There are historical reasons for his being ill-at-ease, of course, and that was that Gerald Ford and his own father, H.W., didn’t like each other very much, and there was a lot of conflict between Ford and Bush Senior during the Reagan days.” And what does Dr. Frank think should be done about our problem of having a sociopath leading the country? Dr. Frank said, “I think the only way to deal with somebody who is this embattled and this delusional is to invoke the 25th Amendment. It’s so ironic that it was only used once, and that was when Gerald Ford became President and Nixon was forced out because he resigned.” The 25th Amendment makes provisions for the Vice President and principal officers of the executive department to make a written declaration that the President is unable to discharge the powers and duties of his office and that the Vice President shall immediately assume those duties and powers as Acting President. Dr. Frank feels that Cheney as president would be a better alternative than Crazy George, Although Frank does say that the best solution would be to impeach Cheney first and make sure the person appointed to replace Cheney would be acceptable to both sides of the aisle in Congress. Frank noted that this was the ploy used in 1973 when Agnew was removed and Gerald Ford was appointed as VP. What Dr. Frank and BuzzFlash make clear is that there are measures that can be taken by our Congress right now to solve the problem of the United States having a crazy person as President. Of course those measures would take balls to be brought into play. However, Speaker of the House Nancy Pelosi and our Democratic Congress have the power to do what needs to be done. The question is: Would our getting rid of George W. Bush and bringing our troops home from Iraq be worth the problems that would arise in the world as an aftermath to such dramatic measures? Desperate times call for drastic measures. We as a nation should certainly be thinking about it.

Poppy, No. 1, Jeb and George

A New York Times story this morning reports that former Florida Governor Jeb Bush is still trying to explain why he recently told reporters “Yo no tengo futuro,” that is to say, “I have no future.” Jeb Bush is now saying, “I was misunderstood by a reporter.” In Newsweek last month, Eleanor Clift wrote, “On the eve of a report that repudiates his son’s leadership, former president George H.W. Bush broke down crying when he recalled how his other son, Florida Gov. Jeb Bush, lost an election a dozen years ago and then came back to serve two successful terms. The elder Bush has always been a softie, but this display of emotion was so over the top that it had to be about something other than Jeb’s long-ago loss.” Clift was talking about a lecture the elder Bush gave in Tallahassee where he paid homage to his son Jeb who was leaving office as Florida Governor. Clift said, “The former president was reflecting on how well Jeb handled defeat in 1994 when he lost his composure. ‘He didn’t whine about it,’ he said, putting a handkerchief to his face in an effort to stifle his sobbing.” It’s no secret that George Herbert Walker Bush had plans for Jeb Bush to be president of the United States. It’s no secret that Jeb blew it when he lost his bid to be Governor in 1994. It’s no secret that Poppy Bush’s Dragon Lady Wife (called “No. 1” by little George) favors her eldest son George W. Bush. So when the four Bushes get together, what do they talk about? George W. has fouled the Bush nest and Jeb is out of a job and looking to be gainfully employed. Does Mr. I-Have-No-Future Bush blame his older brother just a teense for denying him his rightful ascension to the throne? Who knows? And we’ll never know what goes on between those four Bushes when they get together. Although I’m betting they rarely get together. But one thing is as sure as tomorrow’s dawn: Jeb Bush is going to lobby for the Vice President slot in the 2008 election. Will he be able to talk Senator John McCain (R-AZ) into being his running mate? Jeb Bush is likeable, that’s sure and the NYT says 57% of Floridians feel he did a “good” or “great” job as governor. And we know that McCain can tell lies as though he had Bush genes and that he will get behind anything or anyone in order to be President of the United States. The NYT quoted Peter Schweizer, a fellow at the Hoover Institution at Stanford who wrote “The Bushes: A Dynasty”, as saying, “The presidency is out of the question at this point because of Bush fatigue…but the vice presidential slot is something that’s very much in play. He’s (Jeb Bush) a successful governor of an important state, he helps shore up relations with the social conservatives and he has the Bush money machine.” But who will tell Jeb Bush that he’s no Dick Cheney and that John McCain is no pushover idiot? Probably no one. All the Bush sons feel they were born to scam the masses and that everyone else is a sucker. What the reporter may have misunderstood when Jeb said, “I have no future”, is that he meant: I have no future as president in the next election. But Jeb Bush will only be 54 on February 11th. There’s plenty of time for John Ellis Bush to rule the world, if he can just keep his foot in the door in 2008.