And we thought irony was dead

Click image for full Tom Toles/Washington Post cartoon.

Bushist dream

South Korea has the right(-wing) view of kleptocracy. Business executives are too rich and important to send to jail.

The Bushists can only dream and hope.

Not torture if they change the dictionary

Shorter Douglas Feith: We moved all these tortures into the harsh treatment category, hence we don't torture.

Think of the shit Bill Clinton got for classifying oral as not sex (when that's the definition he was presented with by Paula Jones's lawyers). Yet the Bushists can still expect lock-step Republican defense of classifying waterboarding and forcible stress positions as not torture.

The subcommittee's Republicans criticized the inquiry. The panel's ranking Republican member, Arizona Rep. Trent Franks, accused the majority Democrats of holding hearings "dedicated primarily to making sure we are protecting the rights of terrorists."

It's enough to make you think that the values of the American press are thoroughly self-fellating. Or Republican-fellating (see Ron Fournier kissing some part of Karl Rove's anatomy).

Some people have the courage to speak the truth:

In June, retired U.S. Major Gen. Antonio Taguba, who led the Army's investigation into the Abu Ghraib prisoner abuse scandal in 2003, wrote there "is no longer any doubt" that the Bush administration committed war crimes in its treatment of suspected terrorists.

"The only question is whether those who ordered torture will be held to account," Taguba wrote in the preface to a June report by a Massachusetts-based human rights group.

Principled stand

... and Duhbya's principle is that Medicare should be destroyed:

Bush spiked the bill Tuesday, telling lawmakers they would be "taking choices away from seniors to pay physicians."

That way, seniors will have two choices - expensive health care or no health care - versus the current one choice - moderately expensive health care.

Remnick vs. Mencken

David Remnick defends the Republican wet dream cover of the New Yorker:

I think you underestimate the intelligence of the American people, to be quite honest.

H.L. Mencken's anticipatory rejoinder:

No one ever went broke underestimating the intelligence of the American people.

One of the fundamental problems trying to satirize the Republican view of the world is that it's too extreme to exaggerate. There's probably already an email circulating to credulous wingnuts that says, "Even the liberal New Yorker says that Obama is a flag-burning Muslim al Qaeda foreigner with a revolutionary for a wife." (Yeah, true, at a lower reading level and in all caps, but I'm paraphrasing.)

The medium is the message. Remnick went looking for publicity and got it. You think he might be cuing up McCain in Depends?

Their lips are moving

The Bushists lie routinely, habitually, without conscience. It's not even news any more.

But how do you know that they're lying in furtherance of a conspiracy? Not a single one can remember anything about a topic.

Ron Fournier, on the other hand, is embarrassed by the release of his fawning email to Karl Rove. Sucking up to sources was his job, he defends. So this is why the AP sucks! It's a qualification.

Things we already knew

Dan Froomkin notes Andrew Bacevich's review of Jane Mayer's book, The Dark Side: The Inside Story of How the War on Terror Turned into a War on American Ideals. The Bushists don't care, and the rest of us already know that we live under an outlaw regime.

Kissing up to NASCAR dads

George H.W. Bush loved pork rinds, and Cindy McCain thinks Danica Patrick looks hot in Sports Illustrated (not!). See, if she had picked one of the most prominent male drivers, half the demographic would have thought that the McCains cheer for an asshole.

Click image for full cheesecake. Severe crop used under Fair Use.

The uses of presbyopia

Eighty-year-old Christian stripper in soft focus...

Don't think about it too much. As LBJ said (I think), even whores and politicians git respectable if they live long enough. Why not strippers?

Posting today unlikely

I'm off lolling in Cape Cod Bay, assuming the weather's good enough, so no dose of media-bashing or Republican-thrashing today, but I scheduled this for you so you don't get lonely (as if).

Why not read the greatest hits of 2008 (as determined by Google Analytics)?

1. the front page
   
2. Florida and Michigan
3. Journalism 101
4. West Virginia mountain mama
5. Jonah Goldberg newspeaks
6. Leavenworth dreams
7. Phil Gramm whines
8. First public statement
9. Polls close at 8:00
10. GOP standings to date - the pretenders
    

If those are too boring or dated, how about these recurring themes?

• GOP constituencies
• Political history - how did we get here?
• The former Constitution - documenting the tatters

Limits to backlash

I'm part of the netroots backlash on FISA. At MoveOn's urging, I even sent the Obama campaign a blunt email. On the other hand, I did address it to "future President Obama".

Here's what I got back:

Dear Friend,

Thank you for contacting us and sharing your strong feelings about this important issue. Please find a statement from Senator Obama below.

We appreciate hearing from you.

Sincerely,

Obama for America,

---
Given the grave threats that we face, our national security agencies must have the capability to gather intelligence and track down terrorists before they strike, while respecting the rule of law and the privacy and civil liberties of the American people. There is also little doubt that the Bush Administration, with the cooperation of major telecommunications companies, has abused that authority and undermined the Constitution by intercepting the communications of innocent Americans without their knowledge or the required court orders.

That is why last year I opposed the so-called Protect America Act, which expanded the surveillance powers of the government without sufficient independent oversight to protect the privacy and civil liberties of innocent Americans. I have also opposed the granting of retroactive immunity to those who were allegedly complicit in acts of illegal spying in the past.

After months of negotiation, the House passed a compromise that, while far from perfect, is a marked improvement over last year's Protect America Act. Under this compromise legislation, an important tool in the fight against terrorism will continue, but the President's illegal program of warrantless surveillance will be over. It restores FISA and existing criminal wiretap statutes as the exclusive means to conduct surveillance - making it clear that the President cannot circumvent the law and disregard the civil liberties of the American people. It also firmly re-establishes basic judicial oversight over all domestic surveillance in the future.

It does, however, grant retroactive immunity, and I voted in the Senate three times to remove this provision so that we could seek full accountability for past offenses. Unfortunately, these attempts were unsuccessful. But this compromise guarantees a thorough review by the Inspectors General of our national security agencies to
determine what took place in the past, and ensures that there will be accountability going forward. By demanding oversight and accountability, a grassroots movement of Americans has helped yield a bill that is far better than the Protect America Act.

It is not all that I would want. But given the legitimate threats we face, providing effective intelligence collection tools with appropriate safeguards is too important to delay. So I support the compromise, but do so with a firm pledge that as President, I will carefully monitor the program, review the report by the Inspectors General, and work with the Congress to take any additional steps I deem necessary to protect the lives - and the liberty - of the American people.


----------------------
Paid for by Obama for America

So, it's a straddle. It says, "My heart's in the right place, but my ass is willing to temporize." McCain's heart isn't even close to the right place on FISA (any more).

Politics won't make you happy. Sure, ecstatic for a few minutes, but the reality is always messier and uglier than your ideals, no matter what they are. Even if you're king.

Phil Gramm whines

I guess that makes him a leader. Have you ever heard anything he said that didn't come out as whining?

The post facto excuse that he was whining about the whining of leaders is the most transparent bullshit I've heard since the last time a Republican had to make excuses for something.

Just for the record, here's what Gramm said originally:

We have sort of become a nation of whiners.

Yeah, nothing about leaders.

McCain refuses comment on Viagra question

"When I was old and irresponsible, I was..."

Oh, not that Viagra question. Nuts.

Even worse

Warren Christopher has denied that he was the pushover portrayed by "Recount", but we now have our proof that he's a fool for Bushist flim-flam. He has signed on with James Baker, who strong-armed him before, to replace the War Powers Act with the War Powers Consultation Act, which would further emasculate Congress:

It requires Congress to vote up or down on a deployment within 30 days, and it permits a cutoff of funds for deployments if approved by two-thirds of the House and Senate.

What Congress is already too weak to do by majority vote, the law would now require a supermajority to do.

Of course, David Broder loves it:

[T]he Florida antagonists have devised a clever way to signal a healthy change toward bipartisanship in foreign policy.

This bipartisanship, his graven idol, is what got us in the shit we're in, but he always wants more of it.

What America really needs is a Congress that will stand up to Bushists, not one that will accept crumbs from the master's table.

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?

I feel safer already

Congress is going to protect my privacy!

At least until some important lobbyist gives them $2300 to look the other way or Duhbya calls them soft...

Obligatory Fair Use to tweak AP's nose:

"This is analogous to AT&T listening to your phone calls all day in order to figure out what to sell you in the middle of dinner," said Robert Topolski, a technology consultant to Public Knowledge and Free Press, two other public interest groups that have raised concerns about NebuAd.

Analyze this

McCain mouthpiece and long-time Duhbya aide Nicolle (sic) Wallace says "Barack Obama falsely accuses John McCain of running for George Bush's third term," and wants the media to do something about it. Yeah, blood 'n' guts McCain is such a maverick that he's larding his team with more and more Bushist political operatives. We all know how urgently they want radical change.

What does Nicolle come up with to differentiate her new product from her old product? Packaging!

While she emphasized that both are "hardworking men," she also added that "they are totally different people." One such difference is McCain's insistence on being in the middle of the media scrum, a setting that Bush did not often enter.

It's good to know that their personalities and taste in conversation set them apart. After all, Duhbya does have a shitty personality, and that's the only reason he ran the country into the crapper.

For all this bullshit, McCNN breathlessly provides a conduit for nothing but McCain campaign spin, and they have the gall to label it "analysis". It's progress of a sort, I guess, that the media are labelling their abject transcriptions as analysis to distinguish them from actual news, but a more honest label would be "press release".

(For some reason, I hope the Mark Preston who wrote this is not the kid I knew from Kenesaw Dr. forty years ago, but I've always been willing to bust the chops of my friends, anyway.)

No Jim Morrison

John McCain's mojo ain't rising. Maybe he should give Bob Dole a call.

McCain was the anti-Republican, the guy who broke with party orthodoxy -- opposing President Bush's tax cuts, opposing offshore drilling and bucking the party line on immigration reform.

Now he's mouthing standard Republican talking points on all of these issues -- agreeing on the president's tax cuts, supporting offshore drilling and touting his border-focused immigration plan.

Love that verb 'mouthing'! But McCain was never an "anti-Republican". It's just that the Republicans expect complete orthodoxy, so now he has to give it to them.

Closing the bullshit gap

Quote from John McCain:

"And also, you can't get over the fact that historically, when you raise people's taxes, guess what, revenue goes down."

Not only can this guy not count or even remember, he can't reason. He believes as an article of Republican faith the fairy tale that revenues always go up because of tax cuts, a happy-talk bullshit claim that Republicans love to spout. Paul Krugman has definitively slapped this down (but he's a shrill liberal, so they cover their ears and go, "na, na, na, I'm not listening").

Then McCain busts all rules of logic and "reasons" that the inverse must also be true (in the myths of Republicanism). McCNN says nothing, of course.

The problem in modern American politics is that openly being stupid is not a disqualifier for the Presidency. Instead, it makes you a man of the people, or the Republican base, anyway. Since Nixon's debacle, even the intelligent Republicans have pretended as hard as they can that they were stupid. Many of them (who could I be thinking of?) didn't (don't) have to pretend.

From the guys who brought you Florida 2000

Warren Christopher and James Baker are concerned about the War Powers Act and the rule of law. Isn't that dreamily bipartisan of them?

Of course, Christopher thinks it's ineffective, while Baker thinks it's unconstitutional. But whatever it is, it's bad law, and the Beltway dyspeptics love it when Democrats sign up to have their pockets picked by Republican operators. Since Christopher has already conceded that the law should go, he has already negotiated away the one thing Republicans care about.

The problem with the War Powers Act is not its framing. The problem is that Congress has proven too weak to use any of its war powers in the face of imperial Presidents. This defect in our democracy is political, not legal.