Another day, another Republican lie

It's what they do. Dana Perino (on Fox, natch) claims:

• The shoe bomber in 2001 and the penis bomber in 2009 are "apples and oranges" even though both were goofball al Qaeda terrorists who smuggled explosives on board airplanes in their clothing, only to be subdued by passengers, Mirandized, and tried in civilian courts.
• If only the Bushists had had their military tribunals set up, they would have tried the shoe bomber in one of them. They learned their lesson on José Padilla, never mind that he wound up back in a civilian court too, insane to boot.

If there's a more obvious case of do-as-I-say-not-as-I-do, I'd like to hear about it, so I can call it bullshit, too.

Perino has a smooth pink complexion, blue eyes, and blond hair. She lies for a living. She's packaging - a spokesmodel. She and Fox are a perfect fit.

Update: Glenn Greenwald had another case of Republican bullshit yesterday. Don't you dare do as I did! says Michael Mukasey.

Making a get out of jail free card from bullshit

In this case, Mukasey is trying to create the presumption of good faith on the part of John Yoo, Alberto Gonzales, David Addington, Jay Bybee, William J. Haynes, et al. They were just advocating what they thought was legal for their client, the quivering cowardly mass of abject Bushists.

Yeah, sure.

They were rationalizing torture with creative legalisms that they knew were wrong.

Not that far to fall

The only reason to sympathize with Michael Mukasey is ill health, and of course I wish him a speedy recovery.

"The attorney general is conscious, conversant and alert," said Carr. "His vital statistics are strong and he is in good spirits."

(Vital statistics? Does he look good in a bathing suit?)

What I do not wish is for him to continue to abuse America with defenses of torture, the execrable Federalist Society, John Roberts, Samuel Alito, and the rest of the Bushists. CNN, of course, gives us the bullshit story Mukasey testilied to during his confirmation, without noticing that subsequent events have proven it to be bullshit.

Better late than never

The Presidential election will determine whether this investigation ever goes anywhere. If McCain wins, why would his AG provide resources or back-up to Nora Dannehy.

For now, Mukasey's just trying to get his reputation back at a time when it's too late to hurt the Bushists. That's not all that's too late.

Pigs more equal

I'm going on record. I'm against the Paulson bailout bill. (Yeah, big whoop!)

I don't care if Chuck Schumer is for it. He's been fooled before - anyone remember Michael Mukasey?

I've read the thin tissue of legalism that the bill frames. This bill won't fix the problem because it's not targeted at the problem. In fact, it's not targeted at anything. It's a $700 billion giveaway. To whom? That's not even stated, but given that the Bushists are in charge, it won't be spent to help you and me.

So what should the cowardly Congressional Democrats do? Pass a bill that includes reforms and oversight and dare Duhbya to veto it. But they're soft-headed dopes with no appetite for combat, even with the least popular President in recent memory.

Yeah, this is why American dominance is doomed. The smart people are chickenshit.

Tsk-tsk, but too bad

Justice Department officials committed no crime by letting improper political considerations drive hirings of prosecutors, immigration judges and other career government lawyers, U.S. Attorney General Michael Mukasey said Tuesday, speaking to the American Bar Association.

No accountability, no consequences, no punishment - the Republican way (when Republicans are in the dock). It was wrong, uh, improper, but too bad. Oops.

That's all we'll ever get from so-called law and order Republicans.

If President Obama fires all the Bushist hires, and he should, do you think "oops" will be enough?

Update: Please let us waste even more of your time.

I think the Bushists are determined to kill Civil Service, too. Honestly, is there any law left that they're not openly contemptuous of?

Why isn't this much much worse than "no controlling legal authority"?

Leavenworth dreams

Like Joe Wilson, I dream of Karl Rove frog-marched out of whatever house he besmirches by his mere presence. Isn't Rove in contempt of Congress with every breath he takes?

I dream, but with the wishy-washy Democrats in charge of Congress and the order-taking Mukasey in charge of enforcement at the woefully misnamed Dept. of Justice, I don't expect it.

Update (7/10): Linda Sánchez's definitive slap-down pwns Robert Luskin's bullshit claims of privilege. But no contempt citation - what's the committee waiting for?

Nothing is ever Duhbya's responsibility

Congress did it, yeah, that's the ticket. The recess-uh-slowdown is their fault. Yeah.

Charles Schumer was an amoral idiot on Mukasey, but this is pretty good:

“While the president is standing idly by, proposing irrelevant solutions to a national and international crisis,” he added, “Shell and BP announced record profits for the first quarter in 2008. Whose side is the president on?”

Procureur du roi

The administrators at BC may congratulate themselves for sitting at the feet of power, absorbing its pearls of wisdom and its good wishes. But they've abandoned the law's aspiration to justice in favor of its aspiration to power.

"I cannot imagine a better role model for the class of 2008," [law school dean John] Garvey said in the statement.

The ability to utter bullshit like this with a straight face is an important skill for a lawyer, but he's telling his students that anything they learned in three years about the principle of law they should forget. It's all about becoming the procureur du roi and sending the victims off to the Chateau d'If.

Orwellian bullshit

Mukasey says he can't investigate something that John Yoo and Alberto Gonzales excused in memos that transparently excused criminal behavior because they were written on Department of Justice letterhead.

I mean, seriously, I'm reading The Count of Monte Cristo, and there's nothing in its persecution of Edmond Dantès that is so abusively unjust.

Chuck Schumer must be sooo proud.

No law, only power

When you buy a pig in a poke, this is what you get. Banal bullshit delivered with a smile.

Yet there is no one in the Senate who will cast aside loyalty to colleagues' vacations to say, "Here I stand. I can do no other." We get a little from Dodd, a little from Feingold, a little from Boxer, a little from Kennedy, but no one addresses the fundamental corruption of our political system.

The Constitution and the rule of law that were hallmarks of the old order have vanished under the Orwellian onslaught of the Bushists. Chuck Schumer must be so proud.

Speak intel

Unswerving

He promised to make sure the Justice Department follows an ''unswerving allegiance'' to the law and the Constitution.

I am not sure these words mean what Michael Mukasey thinks they mean. But then he's used to changing the meaning of words to suit his Bushist masters.

Maybe he'll get to the truth...

Yeah, Michael Mukasey could always waterboard the U.S. Attorneys to find out what happened under Gonzo.

But he'll never touch Karl Rove, you can take that to the bank.

Would subpoenas be too harsh?

OK. Michael Mukasey has been sworn in. I don't blame the Bushists for keeping it private. Mukasey took an oath to the Constitution. Will the Democrats in Congress at least try to find out immediately if he takes that seriously, or if he'll continue to be a dutiful Bushist?

Please, Henry Waxman or Pat Leahy, push on Duhbya's new AG and find out. There's plenty of work due to make the Department of Justice a wee bit more transparent. Get started.

Not with a bang but with a whimper

Senate Democrats didn't care enough to filibuster Mukasey, so a man who can't tell whether waterboarding is torture is now nominally in charge of enforcing the law in this country, which has lost its moral bearings.

Republicans, of course, happily assented to evil with a banal face.

The policy of the United States

... is to torture prisoners and to call it something else. It's immoral, despicable, and illegal, but the Senate Judiciary Committee has acquiesced to it, when they should have exposed it in stark relief for the Constitutional crisis that it is.

I am ashamed of my government, which is nothing new, but I am also ashamed of my party, a morally equivocal shell of its former self, made to look better than Republicans only because the Republicans on the committee voted unanimously to condone evil. In favoring torture, they do have party discipline to line up and rubber-stamp whatever Duhbya wants in his infantile and unyielding manner.

Idiot deal-makers

Can we Democrats stop trying to make deals with those who refuse to show any good faith? Like the T1000, Duhbya can't be bargained with, he doesn't feel pity, and he will not stop.

Useless establishment Democrats

... can't even say no to torture. What a thing to happen on Guy Fawkes Day.

Sunday comics blogging - the antidote

Mike Keefe nails the Bushists and their apologists, a better response than my previous post.