Howsabout we stop talking about George W. Bush for a little while. Let's talk about a subject I started getting fascinated with all the way back when I was a little kid: airplanes.
Imagine you're a shareholder in a major aircraft manufacturer — let's say Boeing, if that makes it easier to visualize. The new CEO is a nice guy, maybe not the savviest businessman to ever come down the pike, but someone with a lot of concern for the company and its shareholders. One day the CEO announces that Airbus Industrie, Boeing's biggest competitor, has embarked on a new project called the A500. The A500 is a sleek Concorde-style jet that will carry 250 passengers and cruise at about twice the speed of sound. Airbus is betting that, by the time the project begins full-scale production maybe 10 years down the road, speed will be a greater priority for airlines than it is today, and the A500 is their attempt to attract those air carriers that will be looking at speed rather than sheer capacity.
The CEO believes Boeing must respond, and that's why he's launching the 797, a passenger jet that goes head-to-head with the A500: 200-250 passengers, top speed of Mach 2.2.
It's a controversial project, to say the least. A slight majority of shareholders think this is a great idea, but a substantial minority disagrees. They see a supersonic passenger jet as too big a gamble in the current market; particularly with fuel prices getting as high as they are, they think it would be smarter to focus on conventional passenger planes like the 747 that carry a lot of passengers but don't fly at supersonic speeds, and are thus more efficient in terms of the amount of fuel burned per passenger-mile. The CEO, however, says that the 797 is vital to maintaining the company's competitiveness; supersonic airliners are the wave of the future, and as such, the future of Boeing might depend on this project. You trust the CEO, so in spite of the controversy, you support the 797.
The project is launched, and for the first few months, everything goes great. The engineers on Boeing's design team have the most state-of-the-art computer-aided techniques at their disposal, so in spite of the engineering problems presented by supersonic flight, the basic airframe design proceeds at a record pace. A few international airlines step forward to tentatively express their interest.
Then things start going wrong.
The first shocker is an announcement that research and development on the 797 project has proven to be drastically more expensive than was initially projected; the CEO and his management team take major hits in the industry press for having underestimated the R&D costs so dramatically. Also problematic is the design of the plane's delta wing; the engineers are working overtime to figure out how to build a wing that can withstand supersonic speeds while maximizing fuel efficiency, as the CEO ordered. Some of the top engineers get so burned out working on this one problem that they retire early. Some of those who stay complain that they're being overworked and morale is getting low. Nevertheless, you maintain your support of this important project; you believe the CEO made his cost predictions in good faith, and it's not his fault that designing supersonic delta wings is hard, so you support him as well.
But the problems continue. The next bombshell is that the management team completely misread the Airbus A500 project; it was never going to be a Mach 2 airliner, but rather a more aerodynamic jet that could fly at Mach 1 or just above while maintaining the fuel efficiency of a conventional airliner. It's too late to back off now, though, because you've promised the world the successor to the Concorde, and United, historically your biggest and most faithful customer, still wants Mach 2 capability. Unfortunately, other airlines are dropping out — loyal customers like Delta, British Airways, and JAL are inquiring about the A500 or withdrawing their new-airplane orders entirely. What's worse, many say they were treated insultingly by Boeing's sales staff. Some shareholders demand a major shake-up in the sales department, but the CEO says he'll stay the course.
Other problems pop up. Engineers working on the 7E7 Dreamliner project complain they're being neglected and deprived of resources; they're not happy that the 797 project was started before the first 7E7 prototype had even come off the assembly line. Customers are complaining that their orders for existing planes like the 747 and 777 aren't being filled, too. After that, the main engine supplier for the 797 says work on the plane's brand-new supersonic engines is proceeding slower than expected, and it's going to cause a delay in the project. Management is angry, but the engine supplier says he warned them that designing a brand-new engine with the kind of fuel efficiency Boeing was looking for would be a herculean task.
Another longtime customer, British Airways, cancels its orders. A small minority of Boeing's shareholders think the company should cut its losses and scuttle the 797 entirely, but you're with the majority who believe the company has invested far too much time, money, and energy in the project to just quit now.
The next shareholders' meeting is coming up, and you find out they're going to be taking a vote of no-confidence, with the shareholders being given the chance to vote up or down. The current CEO and his management team botched the cost estimates for the 797 project, they ignored the warnings of the engine supplier that the engines would take a long time to design and construct, and they've chased off some of Boeing's most loyal customers. Even those airlines who've stuck with the project through thick and thin are starting to wonder if they'll ever see any airplanes. You still think the CEO is a nice guy, but so far he hasn't said he'd make one single change to the 797 program. There are rumors that he's going to order test flights of the 797 prototype before it's even been deemed fully airworthy. The project needs to move forward, that much is mostly agreed upon, but this guy just might not be the one to make it happen.
How do you vote?
# Once again back is the incredible Doug at 10:42 AM
Not-really-breaking news: 1 dead, 2 injured as Ann Coulter's train of thought jumps tracks, careens through Scarborough Country
We meant to link to this World O'Crap post days ago for all you Ann Coulter is a Lousy Writer and She Isn't Even That Hot fans; basically Wo'C recaps Ann's recent "Scarborough Country" appearance to demonstrate that, as bad as Ann is at telling the truth or coming up with a cogent case for her views in print when she's had entire days to research them, she's even worse when she has to do so on her feet.
That, of course, should come to the surprise of precisely no one. But then there was this little tidbit, which briefly made us consider changing the name of our popular Friday feature from Ann Coulter is a Lousy Writer and She Isn't Even That Hot to Not Only is Ann Coulter a Lousy Writer and Not Even That Hot, She May, In Fact, Be the Single Dumbest Person Who Ever Lived:
ROBERT REICH: I don‘t know how we could have won Vietnam, given how we began Vietnam. And do you think that if we had stayed in Vietnam we would have won it and that we should have stayed and continued to bomb?
Ann Coulter: I think it‘s a curious fact is that we only lose wars that Democrats run.
If anyone from the Palm Beach County DA's office is reading this, it may be time to expand your Rush Limbaugh drug-buying investigation to include Ann Coulter, because it looks like she's definitely occupying an alternate reality here. An alternate reality where the Germans kicked America's ass in not one but two world wars, the Communists control the entirety of the Korean peninsula, Slobodan Milosevic is still in power in Yugoslavia, and Richard Nixon and Gerald Ford somehow put their heads together and saved Vietnam from the brink of Communist domination.
Why Ann prefers this reality, we have no idea. Maybe in this reality, she's not only a decent writer but also hot? Hey, reach for the stars, kiddo.
# Once again back is the incredible Doug at 8:07 AM
Monday, April 19, 2004
Yo, Ren (what up?), tell 'em where you from
Well, I finally did it — broke down and got a GuestMap, the button for which you should be able to see on the right, just above the poll. Don't leave me hangin' here, kids. Click the button and drop a little icon on the map whether you're straight outta Compton or anywhere else.
And I'd like to extend a specific invitation to the conservatives who visit this site just to get pissed off. Because I'm a uniter, not a divider, see!
# Once again back is the incredible Doug at 3:41 PM
Oh, do shut up, Michael
Other than Kathryn Lopez's bitching and moaning about Bob Woodward supposedly leveraging his name to get all this access to the Bush White House (jealous much, K-Lo?), there's not a whole lot on The Corner on National Review Online this morning about Woodward's appearance on "60 Minutes" last night — maybe because the kinds of revelations Woody made about Bush are the kinds of things for which even die-hard Kool-Aid drinkers like the ones at NRO wouldn't be able to mount rebuttals. If that's the case, though, evidently Michael Graham didn't get a copy of that memo:
NO OIL FOR WAR? [Michael Graham]
Jeff Greenfield of CNN says the most disturbing revelation on "60 Minutes" last night was Bob Woodward's claim that the Saudis plan to flood the international market with oil to bring down gas prices in time for the American election. To which I say "Great!" Why shouldn't the Saudis help out the president who's bravely led a coalition against an enemy on their own border, an enemy who has repeatedly threatened to invade Saudi Arabia?
If the Democrats want to argue that having President Bush in office means oil-rich nations will try to help out the American economy, go right ahead. If these nations were driving gas prices up in order to punish Bush, you can bet Teresa Heinz Kerry's dead husband's last dollar that the Democrats would be holding Bush responsible.
Instead, they’re helping a brother out. What's the prob?
First of all, honky Michael Graham referring to Bush as "a brother" should be right up on a par with the scene from "Can't Hardly Wait" where the three wannabe-gangsta whiteboys walk into a group of African-American guys, say, "Wassup, my niggas?" and proceed to get their white asses kicked.
Second of all, Graham makes up a hypothetical situation that hasn't happened — "If these nations were driving gas prices up in order to punish Bush, you can bet Teresa Heinz Kerry's dead husband's last dollar that the Democrats would be holding Bush responsible" — to distract attention from the very real situation that has happened — gas prices have been driven up. And now that we know Bush struck a deal with the Saudis to drop gas prices right before the election, why shouldn't we believe that the Saudis increased gas prices so that they'd have a point to lower prices from, to make the lower prices look better by comparison? Plus, if they're going to be flooding the market and dropping gas prices like this, surely they'd want to recoup their costs somehow, right?
But third and maybe most importantly, this is the kind of collusion with a foreign government that would've gotten Bill Clinton drawn and quartered back in the '90s. The Saudi government is known to coddle terrorists within their borders, remember? Or put it this way: Everyone was stunned and outraged when terrorists tried to influence the outcome of last month's elections in Spain. Well, here's a government that supports terrorism, and here they are taking direct steps to influence an election — where's the outrage over that?
If you answered "Because it's Bush and everything he does is OK," congratulations, you've earned the right to advance to the lightning round. For the rest of you, sorry, we've got some lovely parting gifts for you — some bus tokens for when gas goes over $2.50 a gallon.
# Once again back is the incredible Doug at 11:46 AM
”[Donald] Rumsfeld and [Gen. Tommy] Franks work out a deal essentially where Franks can spend any money he needs. And so he starts building runways and pipelines and doing all the preparations in Kuwait, specifically to make war possible,” says Woodward.
"Gets to a point where in July, the end of July 2002, they need $700 million, a large amount of money for all these tasks. And the president approves it. But Congress doesn't know and it is done. They get the money from a supplemental appropriation for the Afghan War, which Congress has approved. ... Some people are gonna look at a document called the Constitution which says that no money will be drawn from the Treasury unless appropriated by Congress. Congress was totally in the dark on this."
Is that so? I dare someone to tell me that isn't an impeachable action. Go on, do it. If Clinton can be impeached for fibbing about a BJ, I'd really like to know why Bush isn't sitting in front of a group of House managers right now for this.
“That decision was first conveyed to Condi Rice in early January 2003 when he said, ‘We're gonna have to go. It's war.’ He was frustrated with the weapons inspections. He had promised the United Nations and the world and the country that either the UN would disarm Saddam or he, George Bush, would do it and do it alone if necessary,” says Woodward. “So he told Condi Rice. He told Rumsfeld. He knew Cheney wanted to do this. And they realized they haven’t told Colin Powell, the Secretary of State.”
Oops. Who had Colin Powell on the phone tree? You don't suppose it was Cheney, do you?
But, it turns out, two days before the president told Powell, Cheney and Rumsfeld had already briefed Prince Bandar, the Saudi ambassador.
”Saturday, Jan. 11, with the president's permission, Cheney and Rumsfeld call Bandar to Cheney's West Wing office, and the chairman of the Joint Chiefs, Gen. Myers, is there with a top-secret map of the war plan. And it says, ‘Top secret. No foreign.’ No foreign means no foreigners are supposed to see this,” says Woodward.
“They describe in detail the war plan for Bandar. And so Bandar, who's skeptical because he knows in the first Gulf War we didn't get Saddam out, so he says to Cheney and Rumsfeld, ‘So Saddam this time is gonna be out, period?’ And Cheney -- who has said nothing -- says the following: ‘Prince Bandar, once we start, Saddam is toast.’ "
Man, being a Saudi must be awesome. Free flights out of the country on September 11, get to see top-secret eyes-only war plans even before fricking Colin Powell does...
Oh, and they get to do whatever they want to oil prices. Listen to this shit:
Prince Bandar enjoys easy access to the Oval Office. His family and the Bush family are close. And Woodward told "60 Minutes" that Bandar has promised the president that Saudi Arabia will lower oil prices in the months before the election -- to ensure the U.S. economy is strong on election day.
Woodward says that Bandar understood that economic conditions were key before a presidential election: “They’re [oil prices] high. And they could go down very quickly. That's the Saudi pledge. Certainly over the summer, or as we get closer to the election, they could increase production several million barrels a day and the price would drop significantly.”
Wait. Just. A. Fucking. Minute.
Driving back from Columbus to Birmingham on Easter Sunday, I paid a buck eighty-six a gallon for gas. Not in L.A. or Chicago, but in Macon County, Alabama. Did I just pay $25 to fill up my tiny-ass car just so that prices will look lower by comparison -- and thus make Bush look like some kind of hero?
In a comments thread for a previous post, when the topic of discussion (at least in the beginning) was why the right wing hates Hillary Clinton so much, one of our illustrious conservative commenters levelled the accusation that Hillary "lacked integrity" (and then clammed up like Trent Lott receiving an invitation to the NAACP Image Awards when asked to elaborate). So you want to talk about integrity? Fine, let's talk about integrity. What kind of integrity is it to take $700 million away from a war you're not even done fighting yet and secretly sock it away for another war that the overseers of that money haven't even been told about? What kind of integrity is it to conspire with your Saudi Arabian pals to drop gas prices right before the election just to make yourself look good?
And, of course, you could set your watch by the moment some administration official was sent out to call Woodward a liar. I'm sure we can now look forward to a solid week of admin officials and various Bush fans all but accusing Woodward of being a paid agent of the Kerry campaign, conveniently forgetting how thrilled they were with Woodward's decidedly gushier portrayal of Bush in the earlier book Bush at War.
Just when I think it's impossible to have any less trust in, or respect for, this administration, something else comes along to make things even worse. Pandagon pretty well sums it up:
The darkly insinuated (and stated) reason for offense at Kerry's "foreign leaders" remark was that Kerry was going to somehow sell out our national security for their support, that he'd promised them things if they'd just do things to support his presidential run. Bush has done exactly that. ...
We don't have to peer in the dusty corners for dark secrets these days. Every time we turn around, there's something new, bright and shiny and just plain wrong in our face. ... We need a change in the White House not because of partisan distinctions, but because government is ultimately supposed to be responsible to us...and Bush is responsible only to himself.
ETA:TBOGG reports that one right-winger at National Review Online is already bitching about Woodward.
# Once again back is the incredible Doug at 7:57 AM
Friday, April 16, 2004
And now for the essay portion
In response to a post earlier today concerning Rush Limbaugh's pill-induced fever dream about Hillary Clinton taking John Kerry to Fort Marcy and busting a cap in his ass, we thought we'd pose a question for y'all to ponder over the weekend.
Since we've had to hear people whine "Whyyyy do you hate Bush so much" over and over again, now we'd like to ask you: What the fuck is your problem with Hillary Clinton?
Seriously, we want to know. Place your answers/rebuttals in the comments thread below or underneath the seat in front of you. And if anyone comes up with something more substantial than " 'Cause she's a bitch," please don't be alarmed when we die of shock.
# Once again back is the incredible Doug at 4:08 PM
Ann Coulter is a Lousy Writer and She Isn't Even That Hot: Chapter XXXV — Gorelicks in the Mist
Anyone for a game of Hide the Tennis Ball? Ann Coulter is, and that means Ann Coulter is a Lousy Writer and She Isn't Even That Hot has no choice but to play along. Ann's tennis ball for this week is Jamie Gorelick, the former deputy attorney general who's now serving on the 9/11 Commission; Ann thinks she's somehow game-set-and-matched the Commission by pointing out that Gorelick authored a 1995 memo setting up strict guidelines for the exchange of information between counterintelligence and criminal investigations. In Ann's world, this tennis ball will completely distract her puppy-dog readers from the fact that John Ashcroft spent more time harrumphing over bare-breasted statues than fighting terrorism in the months leading up to 9/11.
It's a nice try, but ask yourself: If Ashcroft was so incensed with these rules, as he claimed to be during his testimony before the Commission, why didn't he change them? (Cue the sound of crickets chirping.) It's one thing for folks like Coulter and Ashcroft to claim that the Clinton administration did a shitty job of fighting terrorism, but when they try to use stuff like this to mount their defense, they're basically reducing their "argument" to, "Well, OK, so 9/11 happened, but at least we weren't any worse at fighting terrorism than Clinton!" Hey, that's great, guys — maybe Bush can use that as the kicker for his next round of TV ads. Join GWBWYPGN?! and its code-sharing partner, World O'Crap, on this flight of fancy through insults, recrimination, and out-and-out racism, and make sure your seat belts are securely fastened throughout the entirety of "Thank You For Choosing United, Mr. Bin Laden":
Last week, 9/11 commissioner John Lehman revealed that "it was the policy (before 9/11) and I believe remains the policy today to fine airlines if they have more than two young Arab males in secondary questioning because that's discriminatory." Hmmm ... Is 19 more than two? Why, yes, I believe it is. So if two Jordanian cab drivers are searched before boarding a flight out of Newark, Osama bin Laden could then board that plane without being questioned. I'm no security expert, but I'm pretty sure this gives terrorists an opening for an attack.
In a sane world, Lehman's statement would have made headlines across the country the next day. But not one newspaper, magazine or TV show has mentioned that it is official government policy to prohibit searching more than two Arabs per flight.
As Wo'C points out, only every single publication that published transcripts of the 9/11 Commission's proceedings (including, ironically, enough, the New York Times Ann hates so much) mentioned this. It's also worth pointing out that Condi Rice evidently didn't know this was official policy, either. So, OK, if this policy is so bad, the Bush administration has had more than three years to change it. Why haven't they?
Meanwhile, another 9/11 commissioner, the greasy Richard Ben-Veniste, claimed to be outraged that the CIA did not immediately give intelligence on 9/11 hijackers Nawaf Alhazmi and Khalid Almihdhar to the FBI. As we now know -- or rather, I alone know because I'm the only person in America watching the 9/11 hearings -- Ben-Veniste should have asked his fellow commissioner Jamie Gorelick about that.
In his testimony this week, John Ashcroft explained that the FBI wasn't even told Almihdhar and Alhazmi were in the country until weeks before the 9/11 attack -- because of Justice Department guidelines put into place in 1995. The FBI wasn't allowed to put al-Qaida specialists on the hunt for Almihdhar and Alhazmi because of Justice Department guidelines put into place in 1995. Indeed, the FBI couldn't get a warrant to search Zacarias Moussaoui's computer -- because of Justice Department guidelines put into place in 1995.
The famed 1995 guidelines were set forth in a classified memorandum written by the then-deputy attorney general titled "Instructions for Separation of Certain Foreign Counterintelligence and Criminal Investigations," which imposed a "draconian" wall between counterintelligence and criminal investigations.
What Ashcroft said next was breathtaking. Prohibited from mounting a serious search for Almihdhar and Alhazmi, an irritated FBI investigator wrote to FBI headquarters, warning that someone would die because of these policies -- "since the biggest threat to us, OBL (Osama bin Laden), is getting the most protection."
FBI headquarters responded: "We're all frustrated with this issue. These are the rules. NSLU (National Security Law Unit) does not make them up. But somebody did make these rules. Somebody built this wall."
The person who built that wall described in the infamous 1995 memo, Ashcroft said, "is a member of the commission." If this were an episode of "Matlock," the camera would slowly pan away from Ashcroft's face at this point and then quickly jump to an extreme close-up of Jamie Gorelick's horrified expression. Armed marshals would then escort the kicking, screaming Gorelick away in leg irons as the closing credits rolled. Gorelick was the deputy attorney general in 1995.
And how long did Ashcroft have to change these policies before 9/11, if he found them so "draconian"? Nearly eight months. In fact, according to this story, Gorelick's successor as deputy AG wrote a memo in August of 2001 specifically leaving those "draconian" policies in place! But again, somehow it's all the Clinton administration's fault. Bow your heads, fools, and tremble before the mighty Clenis™!
The 9/11 commission has finally uncovered the proverbial "smoking gun"! But it was fired by one of the 9/11 commissioners. Maybe between happy reminiscences about the good old days of Ruby Ridge, Waco and the Elian Gonzales raid, Ben-Veniste could ask Gorelick about those guidelines. Democrats think it's a conflict of interest for Justice Scalia to have his name in the same phonebook as Dick Cheney.
No, half-wit, Democrats think it's a conflict of interest for Scalia and Cheney to be going duck hunting together even as Scalia prepares to hear a case in which Cheney is a party. How dumb are you? All we want is for Scalia to recuse himself from the case...
But there is no conflict of interest having Gorelick sit on a commission that should be investigating her.
...just like Jamie Gorelick recused herself from the Commission proceedings involving former colleagues Janet Reno and Louis Freeh.
Bill O'Reilly's entire summary of Ashcroft's testimony was to accuse Ashcroft of throwing sheets over naked statues rather than fighting terrorism. No mention of the damning Gorelick memo. No one knows about the FAA's No-Searching-Arabs counterterrorism policy. Predictions that conservatives have finally broken through the wall of sound coming from the mainstream media may have been premature.
If that's your beef, Ann, go take it up with the O'Whiner, not with us. (And don't blame us if he responds by telling you to shut up.)
When Democrats make an accusation against Republicans, newspaper headlines repeat the accusation as a fact: "U.S. Law Chief 'Failed to Heed Terror Warnings,'" "Bush Was Told of Qaida Steps Pre-9/11; Secret Memo Released," "Bush White House Said to Have Failed to Make al-Qaida an Early Priority."
Wellll...wasn't Bush told of al-Qaida steps pre-9/11, as that "secret memo" indicated? I mean, it's not like we're just making shit up here, Ann. (Thus solidifying our belief that the right wing's incessant whining about the so-called "liberal media" basically boils down to, "Oooohh, you're telling the truth and it's making us look bad! Stop that at once!")
But when Republicans make accusations against Democrats -- even accusations backed up by the hard fact of a declassified Jamie Gorelick memo -- the headlines note only that Republicans are making accusations: "Ashcroft Lays Blame at Clinton's Feet," "Ashcroft: Blame Bubba for 9/11," "Ashcroft Faults Clinton in 9/11 Failures."
We did a quick bit of Googling to see if Ann's hysteric assessment of the headlines was correct. Here's what we found:
"Ashcroft Lays Blame at Clinton's Feet": 0 times.
"Ashcroft: Blame Bubba for 9/11": 0 times.
"Ashcroft Faults Clinton in 9/11 Failures": Once, in the Baltimore Sun. Given that Ashcroft did, in fact, fault Clinton, our initial inclination is to give them a pass. But that's just us.
It's amazing how consistent it is. A classic of the genre was the Chicago Tribune headline, which managed to use both constructs in a single headline: "Ashcroft Ignored Terrorism, Panel Told; Attorney General Denies Charges, Blames Clinton." Why not: "Reno Ignored Terrorism, Panel Told; Former Deputy Attorney General Denies Charges, Blames Bush"?
Democrats actively created policies that were designed to hamstring terrorism investigations. The only rap against the Bush administration is that it failed to unravel the entire 9/11 terrorism plot based on a memo titled: "Bin Laden Determined to Attack Inside the United States.
No, the "rap" isn't that they "failed to unravel," it's that they "failed to do jack shit." Since we have a Republican president in the White House, however, it's evidently completely acceptable for said president to ignore terrorism warnings until the exact date, time, and location of a potential attack drops right down into his lap.
I have news for liberals: Bin Laden is still determined to attack inside the United States! Could they please tell us when and where the next attack will be?
Sigh. Thanks for proving our previous point, Ann.
Because unless we know that, it's going to be difficult to stop it if we can't search Arabs.
Our prior experience with Ann's columns leads to a sneaking suspicion that her eagerness to "search Arabs" has less to do with national security and more to do with the fact that she thinks they're all violent, foul-smelling barbarians she'd simply like to rough up for sport, but OK. Let's say her motives are pure as the driven snow and she thinks this sort of racial profiling is a critical element in stopping the next terrorist attack. We refer you to one of the very first editions of Ann Coulter is a Lousy Writer and She Isn't Even That Hot, in which it was written:
...let’s get real here: Now that 9/11 has happened and everyone is on the lookout for swarthy Arabs named Mohamed who all seem to be boarding flights together, how hard would it be for al-Qaeda to dye a few guys’ hair blond, give them new passports with names like Kevin Kirby and Ryan Stanton, maybe even throw a female or two into the mix, and send them into U.S. airports where they wouldn’t even merit a second glance? Make fun of our "thinking outside the box" if you like, but the fact is, Coulter’s "let’s focus solely on the olive-skinned Arab guys named Mohamed" attitude is an example of the kind of catch-up-playing, reactive (as opposed to proactive) methodology that leaves us wide-open for attacks of ever-greater ingenuity and intricacy. And if you think the idea of Arab terrorists made-up and finessed to closely resemble Americans is an unthinkable prospect, ask yourself: Before 9/11, how "thinkable" was two widebody airliners getting rammed into the Trade Center?
Anyway. If Ann wants to persist in her belief that all terrorists have olive skin, dark hair and an Arab-sounding last name, as if there was some kind of Audubon field guide to hijackers, she can go on believing that. We're just glad that her myopia and prejudice aren't being allowed to have a substantial influence on our national-security policy. Instead, they're merely having a substantial influence on our Friday afternoon, which in some ways is bad enough...but that's Ann Coulter is a Lousy Writer and She Isn't Even That Hot for you, bravely leaning into the right-wing strike zone and taking one for the team! See you in a week!
# Once again back is the incredible Doug at 4:07 PM
And now for a bit of "investigative reporting" even the Weekly World News passed on...
In previous posts concerning Rush Limbaugh, a bunch of people have whined about how it's not nice to call Rush out for his drug problems, but really, it's hard not to make a what-have-you-been-smoking joke when Rush lets loose with a riff like this (courtesy Orcinus):
Hillary wants to be on the VP ticket so that she dispels the notion that the Clintons are sabotaging the campaign and so that she can also go out there and really be the star. She'd be the star because she'll be the one bringing excitement to it. And, by the way, she'll get all kinds of criticism and the Republicans will launch all they've got at her, and she'll endure that. They know that they're pretty confident Kerry is going to lose and if Kerry wins there's always Fort Marcy Park. So they're rolling the dice on this.
Yes, kids, Rush just said Hillary Clinton is going to call out a hit on John Kerry if he wins the election.
First of all, this is the kind of insane conspiracy-theorizing that would make even the likes of Chuck Manson say, "Um, yeah, that's great, Rush, I'm just going to go stand over here now." But second of all, you want to talk about hate? You want to talk about "intense hostility and aversion usually deriving from fear, anger, or sense of injury"? Then look no further than the crap Limbaugh spews about the Clintons. Oh, sure, we lay into Dubya pretty hard here, but one thing I'm pretty sure we've never done is pre-emptively accuse him of assassinating an elected president of the United States.
Somebody defend Limbaugh for making these comments. Go on, I dare ya. You may not like Hillary, but even the Hil-haters out there have to concede this is some seriously idiotic shit.
# Once again back is the incredible Doug at 9:10 AM
You know what I really miss? Hate mail
After a long dry spell, finally another bit of trenchant insight from the Bush camp:
From : HarleyDeal@aol.com
Sent : Tuesday, April 13, 2004 3:39 PM
To : georgemustgo[at]hotmail.com
Subject : you are an asshole
you are an asshole.....a real fucking asshole
Mom, how many times have I told you, use my other e-mail address!...
# Once again back is the incredible Doug at 8:08 AM
Thursday, April 15, 2004
Just sayin'
Last month, the people of Spain exercised their democratic rights and voted out the ruling Popular Party that had committed the country to fighting in the Iraq invasion. As a result, they got called pansies and appeasers by the right wing in this country.
Today, the nations of Europe were offered a truce by Osama bin Laden in exchange for pulling out of Muslim countries -- and rejected it. Even those pansies and Germany and France!
Have we heard anything yet from the right-wingers praising them for their courage? Or even saying "good show"? Well...er, no.
If anyone comes across an instance of a conservative giving any kind of ups to Europe for this, please e-mail us a link or drop it in the comments. We'd love to have a look at it. But we're not holding our breath.
# Once again back is the incredible Doug at 9:01 PM
Playa-hater? Who, moi?
Numerous times over the past few years — in conversations with people, in exchanges on this blog, in exchanges on other people's blogs where I've left comments (troll city, baby!) — I've been asked why I "hate" George W. Bush so much. Plenty of other lefty bloggers can say the same. You know what, though? As surprising as this may sound coming from a guy who runs a blog called "George W. Bush, Will You Please Go Now?!", I don't actually hate George W. Bush. Oooh, shocker!
First of all, I think "hate" is a word that's way overused in our language. ("Love," sadly, is right up there too.) Secondly, it should have become clear over the last two and a half years or so that there's a surfeit of hate in this world, and when I started going back to church in the summer of 2002, I decided I was going to make a concerted effort not to contribute to it. I'm not going to try and claim I've batted 1.000 at that, but I've tried.
So no, I don't "hate" George W. Bush. I do, however, disagree strongly with the overwhelming majority of his policies. (I consider myself a liberal; so sue me.) I don't like the fact that he took this country to a war that I don't think needed to happen; I don't like the fact that the arrogance wantonly exhibited by him and his administration has angered and alienated countries that were once our staunchest allies. I don't like the way he and his administration have impugned people's patriotism simply for disagreeing with them. I don't like the way his administration seems to have an obsession with concealing their dealings and motives from the American public, nor the efforts they seem to have taken to dodge accountability for things.
Really, there's not a whole lot about his presidency I do like. Sorry, that's just the way I feel. It shouldn't come as even the slightest surprise, but it doesn't mean I "hate" him. I do, however, think he's been a bad president, I don't think he's a person I can trust, and I don't want to see him re-elected.
The whole goal of this blog is to point out the things I don't like — the bad policies, the arrogance, the secrecy — and use them to make the case for Bush not meriting a second term. But to some people, those disagreements, disappointments and the lack of trust constitute nothing more than "hate."
I think that's simply an attempt to divert attention from genuine, substantial disagreements people like me have with Bush and his policies. Really, "hate" is not that unlike one of those doomsday-machine words such as "Nazi" that can be counted on to bring any debate to a screeching halt. When I point out, for instance, that the Bush tax cuts saved me $50 last year while somebody making 10 times my income got a tax cut one hundred thirty-six times as big, the ideal response from someone on the Bush side would be to explain why there's nothing wrong with that or why they believe it's sound policy. For some people, however, the response is simply to say, "Why do you hate Bush so much?", and that ends the debate right there. Somehow I've been reduced from someone with an honest, reasonable policy beef to some wild-eyed fanatic driven only by hatred. Which I'm not. But whipping out the "hate" card insulates them from having to actually defend their policies or make any kind of case for them.
Now, I'm not going to sit here and try to portray myself as an angel, as pure as the driven snow. Some of the stuff on this blog pokes fun at the president. Some of it is sarcastic. Some of it is downright angry, at times even profane. But you know what? That's life, and that's politics. If something's funny, I'm going to poke fun at it. If something's ridiculous, I'm going to ridicule it. (Like, OK, the picture of Bush with his dog? No, it didn't pertain to any policy issue, but come on, it was fricking funny. I mean, if you're going to pump up your image wearing a Navy flight suit on national TV, you're going to have to take your licks when someone catches you toting a little Scottie and blowing kisses over your shoulder.) And if something makes me angry, then by God, I'm going to get angry. If you don't like it, well, that's too bad. But it happens.
Nevertheless, none of it constitutes what I believe to be "hate." See, I know that may sound hollow coming from someone who's never blogged anything nice about Bush, but in all honesty, I don't think Bush has done anything I've particularly liked since I started doing this — so what am I supposed to do, just make stuff up or pretend to like it just so I can appear "fair and balanced"? It's easy for people to whip out the straw man of "It doesn't matter what Bush does, you wouldn't like it," but that isn't true. If Bush did something I liked or agreed with, I'd be man enough to admit it, but so far I haven't encountered an example of that yet. And in the myriad instances when he's done something I didn't like, I've tried to present a very clear explanation of why I didn't like it, precisely to guard against those "You only don't like it because Bush did it" accusations. (Of course, I get 'em anyway, but again, life's like that.)
If you're a Bush supporter who thinks this overwhelming disagreement with Bush is unfair, then tell me: What has he done that I should like? It's not my obligation to like the decisions he makes — if anything, as an elected official, it's his job to represent me. And it's his job to make me believe he's earned re-election. So tell me, why should I want to vote for him in 2004? I've issued this challenge numerous times on this blog, mind you, but interestingly enough, nobody's taken me up on it. (Sometimes I wonder why that is.)
At any rate, though, this is disagreement, this is dissent, this is occasionally anger, but it isn't hate. I don't think Bush has been a good president, I don't really trust him, and there are times when I find it extremely hard to respect him. But that doesn't mean I hate him. Clearly, I have a strong attitude toward Bush — that I won't deny — but "hate" is too strong a word to define it. And paradoxically, it's too weak an argument to constitute a debate.
If you disagree with one of the complaints I've lodged against Bush's policies, voice your disagreement. (Lord knows everybody else has.) If Bush has done something positive that I haven't talked about, tell me what it is. But if all you've got is "Why do you hate Bush so much," run along. Sorry, but I haven't got the time.
# Once again back is the incredible Doug at 2:33 PM
In his defense, 63 percent of people aged 18-45 said a strong president should not give the impression of being ruled by the polls
Sometimes it's just soooo easy. From Tuesday's prime-time talking points press conference:
And as to whether or not I make decisions based upon polls, I don't. I just don't make decisions that way.
Now how much would you pay? But wait, don't answer yet:
Don, if I tried to fine-tune my messages based upon polls, I think I'd be pretty ineffective. I know I would be disappointed in myself.
One adviser said the White House had examined polling and focus group studies in determining that it would be a mistake for Mr. Bush to appear to yield.
Mmmm...irony.
# Once again back is the incredible Doug at 1:58 PM
New York Post, you ignorant slut
In case anyone was curious, here's an example of just how desperate the right wing is getting in their efforts to smear John Kerry: an unsigned editorial in the New York Post pissing and moaning about just how Kerry earned his three Purple Hearts in Vietnam. Actually, it's only pissing and moaning about one of those Purple Hearts, managing to grudgingly admit that the other two were probably completely legit.
Notice anything missing from this picture? How about any mention whatsoever of the Bronze Star and Silver Star that Kerry earned?
When you get right down to it, this really isn't that much different from Ann Coulter's failed attempt to smear Max Cleland a couple months ago. (You'll recall that she tried to claim Cleland wasn't a war hero because the incident in which he lost three limbs didn't occur in combat, while managing to completely ignore that he'd earned a Bronze Star by risking his life to save colleagues in a separate incident.)
In the end, even if one of Kerry's Purple Hearts actually did come under less-than-heroic circumstances, he still earned two more Purple Hearts than Dubya did. Not surprisingly, this is not of any interest to the Post:
But Kerry has forged a war-hero persona of particular relevance as he seeks to become a war-time president — in the here and now.
While other young Americans are earning Purple Hearts of their own, in Iraq and elsewhere around the world.
So it is time for Kerry to come clean.
Where was Bush in '72? None of your business, sayeth the Post! What about all those PDBs? He shouldn't have to release those! But how did Kerry get that third Purple Heart? A matter of life and death!
ETA:TBOGG provides a link to this post at Catch.com, which spells out just what exactly the "young Americans earning Purple Hearts" are thinking about Bush, Rumsfeld and their "war-hero persona[e]."
# Once again back is the incredible Doug at 7:38 AM
Wednesday, April 14, 2004
I'm thankful for the opportunity to be here today, I really appreciate the spontaneity of these...uh, the unscripted...uh, line!
The only part of the Prez's press conference we got to hear last night was his opening statement and the first couple of questions — unfortunate, because we missed getting a firsthand gander at Dubya's tie, which we understand was horrendous. But anyway, in the opening statement, the talk (once again) was about "responsibilities" — though, as usual, they were someone else's.
Sovereignty involves more than a date and a ceremony. It requires Iraqis to assume responsibility for their own future.
On June 30th, when the flag of free Iraq is raised, Iraqi officials will assume full responsibility for the ministries of government.
Other nations and international institutions are stepping up to their responsibilities in building a free and secure Iraq.
...exploring a more formal role for NATO, such as turning the Polish-led division into a NATO operation, and giving NATO specific responsibilities for border control.
Iraqi's neighbors also have responsibilities to make their region more stable.
Of course, when Bush was asked whether he felt any personal responsibility for 9/11, he dodged that question like Barry Sanders juking around a middle linebacker...but as Corrente points out in their pick-apart of the press conference, that's just the Fearless Leader we've come to know and love:
QUESTION: Mr. President, why are you and the vice president insisting on appearing together before the 9-11 commission? And, Mr. President, who will we be handing the Iraqi government over to on June 30th?
BUSH: We'll find that out soon. That's what Mr. Brahimi is doing. He's figuring out the nature of the entity we'll be handing sovereignty over. And, secondly, because the 9-11 commission wants to ask us questions, that's why we're meeting. And I look forward to meeting with them and answering their questions.
QUESTION: (OFF-MIKE) I was asking why you're appearing together, rather than separately, which was their request.
BUSH: Because it's a good chance for both of us to answer questions that the 9-11 commission is looking forward to asking us. And I'm looking forward to answering them.
I don't see an answer. Do you see an answer?
Because it's a good chance for both of them to answer questions, Lambert! Come on, this is not rocket science!
Here's another one:
QUESTION: Thank you, Mr. President. In the last campaign, you were asked a question about the biggest mistake you'd made in your life, and you used to like to joke that it was trading Sammy Sosa.
You've looked back before 9-11 for what mistakes might have been made. After 9-11, what would your biggest mistake be, would you say, and what lessons have learned from it?
BUSH: I wish you'd have given me this written question ahead of time so I could plan for it.
Mmmhmm, yeah. I used to say that to my AP calculus teacher in high school on finals days.
Finally, both Corrente and Josh Marshall helpfully explain what the deal is with Bush's "must-calls." In case you didn't get to see the conference or read the transcript, Bush hightailed it away from his weasel answer to the question on his joint appearance with Cheney before the 9/11 Commission and passed over a bunch of other reporters with the explanation that he had some "must-call" questions he had agreed beforehand to take. Not coincidentally, the "must-call" he chose was a softball from Bill Sammon...of Fox News and the Washington Times. Convenient, that.
But OK, for real, the tie. Can anyone who watched the broadcast live explain just what exactly was up with that?
# Once again back is the incredible Doug at 8:56 AM
Once more before the 9/11 Commission, the dark and powerful Clenis™ rears its ugly head
If Kerry wins in November, someone on his transition team should leak a memo right after the new year that has Mel Carnahan's lifeless, decaying remains at the top of the shortlist of attorney general nominees, just to piss John Ashcroft off. That's how much this guy sucks:
...[T]he attorney general said the fault lay with the administration of president Bill Clinton that left office in January 2001.
"The simple fact of September 11 is this, we did not know an attack was coming because for nearly a decade, our government had blinded itself to its enemies," Ashcroft told the commission.
Oh, ooookay. The man who didn't even have terrorism on his list of pre-9/11 priorities and slashed the FBI's antiterrorism budgetthe day before 9/11 is accusing the Clinton administration of "blinding itself to its enemies." Boy, that "personal responsibility" stuff you always hear the Republicans talk about sure is a fickle mistress, isn't it?
# Once again back is the incredible Doug at 7:49 AM
Tuesday, April 13, 2004
Blogpimpin' (and more hot chicks)
Aaaand we're back. Just in time to welcome a newcomer to the blogosphere: college homegirl Andrea, who not only has been given a blog with which to cover the presidential race but is being paid by the Atlanta Journal-Constitution to do it. Nobody's ever offered me a damn thing in exchange for my blogging except for a knuckle sandwich, and trust me, you don't want that.
But anyway. It's only her first day on the job and already Andrea's getting the hang of this blogging thing. (I like to think this is because she picked up pointers from reading GWBWYPGN?!, in much the same way that immigrants frequently pick up English by watching "Sesame Street.") In fact, when she asked me for a quick critique this morning, I couldn't find that much to criticize, which is a first — the only really glaring fault I could pick out was the fact that, while she did manage to use the words "Jenna Bush"and"ass fixation" in just her first day of blogging, she did not use them in the same post, which is where I would've put them. But anyway. That's just me. Your mileage may vary. (On the other hand, now is the perfect time for GWBWYPGN?! to seize the opportunity to become the number-one Google search result for "jenna bush" "ass fixation". You snooze, you lose, Andrea!)
Maybe AJ should take a lesson from Wonkette, who uses a Jenna Bush picture from the same sequence to make a somewhat different, and rather hilarious, point. Then again, Wonkette can use phrases like "Coors?!? Fuck that shit! Pabst Blue Ribbon!" which, I'm fairly certain, Andrea's corporate overlords at the AJC would frown upon. I don't know, just guessing. Anyways, I probably better cut out this nonsense in the first place if I have any hope of ever taking Jenna out on a date.
Oh, ha ha, Elisha, you know I'm only kidding. To prove it, I'll completely ruin my chances with Jenna by linking to this picture from Wonkette. And Dubya's supporters have the nerve to call the French effete pansies? Sounds like a case of the pot calling the kettle queer. (Look at poor Barney there. You can tell by the look on his face he's all, "Somebody rescue me from this man before he puts jingle bells and a scarf on me.")
Ciao, sweethearts! Love you! Love everything about you!
# Once again back is the incredible Doug at 3:03 PM
Strategery
You asked, he delivered: John Kerry has a column in today's WaPo opinions section titled "A Strategy for Iraq." It's an overview, of course, not a complete line-by-line plan, but it's a start — and better than anything I've seen from the Bushies since Dubya took his "Here she is, Miss America" walk across the deck of the USS Abraham Lincoln to announce mission accomplished*. Yeah, remember that?
Yours Truly is headed down to Shelby County to stump for Kerry in a little bit, so there may not be much blogging today — read the Kerry column and consider this an open thread in which to debate its various merits and/or potential problems while I'm out. You don't have to be nice, but try and be smart.
* Offer void in AL, AK, AZ, HI, remaining continental United States, Canada and where prohibited. "Mission Accomplished" is a trademarked advertising slogan of Bush-Cheney '04 Inc., a division of Let's Roll! Industries l.l.c., and should not be construed to indicate any actual progress in the war in Iraq. Let's Roll! is not responsible for any heartache, disappointment, outrage, or upset stomach caused by mission(s) not actually being accomplished. Slogan may cause drowsiness, headache, nausea, depression, hair loss, skin rash, sucking chest wound, colon cancer, sudden coronary event, stigmata, or spontaneous combustion, and should not be handled by pregnant women or people operating heavy machinery. Consult your campaign manager. By the way, like how I snuck in that link to the picture of Miss America? Yeah you do!
# Once again back is the incredible Doug at 10:34 AM
Monday, April 12, 2004
Had I known the 9/11 attack was coming, and had the exact time and place of the attack dropped right into my lap, I would've moved heaven and earth...
You know, the more I think about Bush's response to the release of the 8/6/01 PDB, the more pissed-off I get.
"I never saw any intelligence that indicated an attack on our land," Bush said after Easter Sunday services at Fort Hood, a U.S. Army post about an hour's drive from Austin, Texas. The Aug. 6, 2001, intelligence briefing he received "gave no indication of a terrorist threat," Bush said.
No intelligence that indicated an attack? No indication of a terrorist threat? George, when you see a memo that says "Bin Ladin Determined To Strike In U.S." and contains sentences like "Bin Ladin told his followers he wanted to retaliate in Washington," just precisely what the fuck do you think that means? That wouldn't seem to constitute a "terrorist threat" to you?
Furthermore, as David Sirota points out, Bush's so-called "defense" that there was no "specific" information in the memo is the cop-out of all cop-outs. Well, what did you think, George, that Condi Rice was going to hand you your Clue™ detective notepad with all the answers already filled in — Colonel Mustard, on September 11, in the World Trade Center, with the Boeing 767? Of course the memo didn't indicate the specific date and time; if it had, the FBI would've had agents staking out Logan Airport waiting for Mohammed Atta to walk inside before Bush had even finished reading the damn thing. What the 8/6 PDB should have been was an encouragement to find out the "when" and the "where," but did Bush even express any interest in that? No. He didn't issue any directive to John Ashcroft or whoever to step up investigations — hell, he didn't so much as issue a directive to major airports telling them they might want to beef up security just a tad. Think about that: Maybe one boxcutter gets discovered in a carry-on and the whole scheme begins to collapse. But even that didn't happen.
As Matthew Yglesias points out, Bush is even trying to excuse his administration's inactivity by pointing out that while the memo specifically referred to hijackings, it did not explicitly state that someone might try to hijack a plane and fly it into a building. Ummmm...so freakin' what? Is Bush saying that hijacking is OK unless you're planning on flying it into a skyscraper, then it's a no-no? What exactly is the big difference he'd like us to see here that I'm just not seeing?
And you know what? Maybe Bush does order John Ashcroft to start new investigations, maybe he does warn the airports to beef up security — and maybe the terrorists still manage to evade the FBI and still manage to sneak their boxcutters through the metal detectors and 9/11 happens anyway. But at least someone did something. I would feel better if I was 99.999% sure that we did everything we could before 9/11 and it was just destined to happen anyway...but the feeling I'm getting is that we didn't do everything we could've, and not only that, we didn't even come close.
I heard this saying a while back that "You always regret the things you didn't do more than the things you did." How true, unfortunately, that is.
# Once again back is the incredible Doug at 1:22 PM
"You're what the French call les incompetents"
Y'all want to talk about the war? Let's get our war on then.
In Columbus on Friday night, I had the pleasure of dining with a female acquaintance who is very bright, unafraid to share her opinions, and is also a staunch Republican. (See, America? I'm a uniter, not a divider. I have no problems at all with breaking bread with Republicans — as long as they bring something to the table themselves, like in this case being smoking hot, f'rinstance.) Her biggest complaint with the Democrats, from what I gathered, was that their attacks on Bush and how he's prosecuting the War on Terra™ — while he's prosecuting said war — are only divisive and don't do anybody any good.
Well, on the one hand I can see why she might think that — even though the Republicans somehow managed to sidestep such questions of decorum when Clinton sent troops into Somalia, or hell, even when Roosevelt got us involved in World War II. But I still think we've got every right to criticize how Bush and his administration have handled this war, because they've earned every bit of the criticism they've been getting.
I'm not an expert military strategist, as shocking as that may sound to some of you, but the planning of the Iraq invasion and, more importantly, the subsequent occupation of the country strikes me as some of the most blatant, woeful incompetence we've seen from our Defense Department since Vietnam. I'm not even talking about the process by which we decided to go to war, which has already made this country a laughingstock around the world, I'm talking about the process by which we planned the war itself — though it bears mentioning that both were heavily influenced by the shystering of Ahmed Chalabi, who would've told the U.S. government that Saddam had a squadron of nuke-carrying flying monkeys if he thought it would've freed up the Iraqi presidential palace quicker. (If you're trying to decide whether it's time to buy a new car, you ask your parents or a close friend — you don't base your decision on what the Toyota dealer tells you.)
It should all be common knowledge by now, but here are some helpfully compiled quotes from folks like Cheney and Perle about how easy the war was going to be. Dick Perle, ever the ray of sunshine on a cloudy day, even said the war would be over in three frigging weeks. But now, according to some on the conservative side, pointing out such delusions is unhelpful to our nation in a time of war. Well, excuse me, but I think it's very helpful. Yes sirree bob, we're at war, and that means we need to have the best possible people running that war. And if the people currently running that war are not the best possible people, then somebody better say something before those people screw things up any further.
Some of you may remember the very colorful metaphor Joshua Marshall used a few weeks ago to illustrate this situation. I'll do so somewhat more plainly: Most people have performance reviews at their jobs. I've had them from time to time. When my boss sat down in front of me and discussed the mistakes or errors in judgment I'd made over the preceding six or 12 or however many months, I didn't say, "You should know that your insistence on focusing on the past is really hurting my ability to do my job." If I'd done that, I dare say I would've been fired. Instead, I owned up to my mistakes and made a concerted effort to do better.
Has anyone in the Bush administration owned up to their mistakes or vowed — hell, even proposed — some change to our current strategy in Iraq? Nope. If anything, they're more bound and determined than ever to do things the same, to the point where our generals have to go begging for more troops to do the job that the higher-ups wrongly insisted we could do with the original number. If the Washington war planners were on "The Apprentice," they'd be the team getting called up to the boardroom at the end of the episode, and the question wouldn't be which one would Donald Trump fire, it'd be whether Trump could restrain himself from firing all of them. Well, as voters we can fire all of them in 2004, and that's precisely what we ought to do.
Look, this being a free country and all, you're welcome to tell me I'm hurting the war effort by speaking out against the people running it. But even if what I'm doing does, in fact, harm the war effort in some way, that harm is nothing compared to the harm being done by the fact that the people in charge are incompetent.
You care about the troops? So do I. I care enough about them that I don't want them to continue being the pawns of people who misuse and abuse them and send them out undermanned and underequipped. For their sakes — for all of our sakes — now is not the time to just sit on our hands and hope that somehow Rumsfeld, Cheney, and Wolfowitz somehow magically figure out how to find their asses with both hands. We won't get better leadership unless we demand it, and if demanding it makes me a nitpicker, a Monday-morning quarterback or worse...well, so be it.
(Shout-out to my man Jay Bookman, who says some of the same stuff, only [as usual] better.)
ETA: Smashing post from Sadly, No! over the weekend going into even greater detail about the administration's numerous war-related screwups. Yet, as they point out, Bush still wants to refer to himself as a "war president." Well, if he can do that, I guess I can come out and tell you that Elisha left a toothbrush and a few changes of clothes at my apartment over the weekend...looks like things are really getting serious!
# Once again back is the incredible Doug at 8:07 AM
Look, the purpose of us putting that front page up there isn't to say "A-ha! See, they did know four airplanes were going to be used as missiles on the morning of September 11, 2001!" We don't honestly believe they knew that. (Although it seems clearer and clearer that they knew a whole lot more than they've been letting on.) All we're doing is pointing out that we have our first official sighting of a 200-point "BUSH KNEW" headline...and the paper that did it is none other than the oh-so-right-wing New York Post...which is owned by Rupert Murdoch, for sobbing out loud. And that strikes us as kind of a big deal.
# Once again back is the incredible Doug at 9:53 PM
Friday, April 09, 2004
Whaddaya know, he really is a uniter, not a divider
Well knock GWBWYPGN?! over with a feather, we had Bush wrong from the get-go. The irrepressible Matt at Basket Full of Puppies has the straight dope. (By the way, you're officially not cool unless you have BFoP somewhere in your blogroll, even if it has been knocked down to third place on the Google search results for "John Kerry nude.")
# Once again back is the incredible Doug at 10:09 PM
How to be a "War President"
• As the war commences, as planes auger themselves into buildings and death and destruction rains from the heavens, demonstrate your defiance and steely resolve by reading a book about goats to schoolchildren. (Heh, it really pisses some of you guys off when we mention that, duddnit? See if we care! You'll never take us alive!)
• As costs of the war streak past the $200 billion mark, instead of asking your country to make sacrifices in this time of great need and unsureness, ram another round of tax cuts through Congress.
• Spend around 500 days or so at your ranch. Even if the war is intensifying and troops are dying at the fastest rate in months. You've earned it!
Everyone talks about what a hard job Bush must have and how the sorts of trials he has to deal with on a daily basis are the kinds of things they wouldn't wish on anybody...but, shit, if this is what it's like being a "war president," sign my ass up.
# Once again back is the incredible Doug at 12:29 PM
Ann Coulter is a Lousy Writer and She Isn't Even That Hot:Part the 34th — in which Ann pleads temporary inHannity
When she's not hawking her own books for all they're worth, Ann Coulter occasionally finds it within herself to hawk someone else's book, and this week Ann Coulter is a Lousy Writer and She Isn't Even That Hot is proud to bring you another instance of Ann getting by with a little help from her friends — the book she's all atwitter over is Sean Hannity's Deliver Us From Evil: Defeating Terrorism, Despotism, and Liberalism. (What's his next book going to be, Defeating Socialism, Anti-Disestablishmentarianism, and Zoroastrianism? You'll know as soon as we do.)
Ann's mightily upset that the nasty librul media aren't paying her BFF Sean more attention, as if Deliver Us from Evil was some Great Gatsby-level achievement in the annals of American literature. But like an ADD child who's just hoovered all the Peeps and Pixie Stix out of his Easter basket, Ann's focus shifts in the blink of an eye from Hannity to the same old libruls-love-turr'rism sludge she's always done. Which begs the question, why'd she bother dragging Hannity into this column at all? We have our own theory below — as well as the presentation of a formal hypothesis about one of Coulter's favorite rhetorical strategies — so just kick back and try to remind yourselves that "Deliver Us From Democrats" was not, in fact, written by an eighth-grader:
Sean Hannity's latest book, "Deliver Us From Evil," is even better than his last.
Which is kind of like saying that "Police Academy 6: City Under Siege" completely kicked the shit out of "Police Academy 5: Assignment Miami Beach."
It hit No. 1 on the New York Times best-seller list the week it came out and stayed there for at least five weeks. This explains the huge cover story on Hannity in the latest New York Times magazine, as well as that big NPR profile on him – wait, neither of those happened. Indeed, not a single major mainstream newspaper has reviewed it.
Take a real close look at what exactly Ann is whining about here. She doesn't just want to see reviews of Hannity's book, she wants him on the cover of the New York Times Magazine. What the hell for? Al Franken's never been featured there. Neither have Alan Colmes, Paul Begala, or Randi Rhodes. (Is Coulter demanding special treatment for conservatives like Hannity? Sounds like affirmative action to us!)
As for her complaints about the dearth of reviews, she's right, most major papers haven't reviewed it. Know what? Surprisingly few papers reviewed Al Franken's Lies and the Lying Liars Who Tell Them, Molly Ivins' Bushwacked, or Alan Colmes' Red, White & Liberal. Why? Because there's no point. Let's say some major paper had "reviewed" Hannity's book and given it an unfavorable rating — folks like Coulter would be jumping all over said paper about how this proves their liberal bias. Conversely, if somebody "reviewed" Lies and the Lying Liars and said it stunk, the folks on the liberal side of the aisle would be calling them right-wing hand puppets. Sad to say, that's the way things work these days — nobody needs to "review" these volumes of pure political invective because they know what they think of them the minute they see the author's name. Not that we're trying to pitch rocks out of a glass house here, because we see "Savage" or "Coulter" on a book jacket and instantly think Bullshit too. But that's life in America in the 21st century, kids. Suck it up.
That's unless you include the St. Louis Post-Dispatch, which briefly mentioned Hannity's book in order to say that it compared unfavorably with another book...
Here's the review of which she speaks, in case you actually want to read the thing — it turns out that "other book" is John Podhoretz's Bush Country: How Dubya Became a Great President While Driving Liberals Insane. Yeah, the guy sounds like a real liberal head case! Ann might've seen fit to mention this if it hadn't blown her quote-unquote "point" out of the water.
...and to call Hannity an "angry conservative" (redundant in liberal-speak).
Just a couple of months ago, Ann was mass-producing columns on Howard Dean's allegedly thermonuclear temper at a rate that made Ford's Detroit assembly lines look like a bunch of guys assembling model ships in bottles. But now all of a sudden she's pissed off when her guys are described as "angry."
The reviewer, Harry Levins, Post-Dispatch "Senior Writer," complained that Hannity's book "reads like a long, long transcript of his television and radio shows." Inasmuch as Hannity's TV show is the second-most-watched show on cable news and his radio show is the No. 2 radio show in America, only a liberal would consider that an insult. Levins is hoping for a book that would read more like a transcript of Al Franken's listener-free show on Airhead America.
Once again, Ann has used her Miss Cleo-like powers of extrasensory perception to gaze deep, deep inside the mind of someone — in this case Harry Levins, whom, we might remind you, actually seemed to like Podhoretz's book — to discern what he's "hoping for." Our crazy-ass guess, however, is that she's never met Levins before in her life. Hey, Ann, we're thinking of a number between one and a hundred billion. Guess it in three tries and we'll spring for a case of Hannity's books out of our own pockets.
Hannity's book is chock-full of something that frequently makes liberals uncomfortable – history. He begins by reciting historic evils such as the Holocaust and the 9-11 terrorist attacks and contrasts those with everyday stories of evil culled from the newspapers: A suicidal woman is poised to jump from a bridge in Seattle and, after a few hours, someone from the crowd below yells out, "Jump, b----, jump!" The woman jumps.
Typical stupidity from the Coultinator. What, exactly, makes us "uncomfortable" about history? In Ann's mind, of course, we should be "uncomfortable" about history because we liberals were responsible for the aforementioned Holocaust, 9/11, and everything in between — the Seattle woman's suicide most likely included.
Hannity says we face moral choices between good and evil every day. If we make excuses for evil – Hitler was a "madman," a pedophile priest was "weak" or, as philandering actor Ethan Hawke recently advised us, Bill Clinton "suffered from" infidelity – soon we cease being able to distinguish good from evil at all. (I would add to the excuses for evil, "It's just about sex.")
Is anyone surprised that Ann would put Clinton's "crimes" on the same level with Hitler and pedophile priests? Not when Hannity puts both "Terrorism" and "Liberalism" on the cover of his book as things that need to be "defeated." Tells you a lot about how focused the right wing really is on terrorism when they put Ted Kennedy on the same threat level as Osama bin Laden.
With each choice we make, large and small, we take a step closer to the devil or a step closer to God.
The leaders of the modern Democratic Party, Hannity says, have made excuses for evil for so long that they cannot recognize evil anymore.
The closest thing to it in their vocabulary would be "someone who wears fur." And of course, they recognize evil in the person of "George W. Bush," whom they see as the very essence of evil. In fact, Bush may be the only force of evil in the world liberals haven't wanted to appease.
Blah blah, snore. Price check on Acme StrawMan 2000, aisle five. Let the record show that even this blog — which is about as anti-Bush as it gets — has never referred to the man as "evil." But in Ann's Kool-Aid-soaked world, simply disagreeing with Bush's policies, foreign or domestic, automatically drops one into the ranks of craven wild-eyed conspiracy nuts driven by sheer immature hatred of the man himself. (Wethinks Ann reflected on her rhetoric from the Clinton years and is now projecting like it's going out of style.)
"Deliver Us From Evil" runs through an enormous amount of history that's fun to hear again. Hannity quotes Neville Chamberlain on his return from Munich, a few years before German warplanes began ravaging Britain, promising the British "peace in our time" and advising them, "Go home and get a nice quiet sleep." (This was just after Chamberlain's "national malaise" speech, if memory serves.)
What the hell is Ann doing bringing Jimmy Carter into this? (Maybe she saw this and temporarily forgot which year it was.)
Chamberlain's proud boast that he had removed "those suspicions and those animosities that have so long poisoned the air" sounds eerily like today's Democrats so eager for the rest of the world to love us.
If Ann hadn't been too busy confusing her ass with a hole in the ground, she might've taken five seconds to Google-search Neville Chamberlain and discover that — oh my dear Lord sir! — he was a member of Britain's Conservative Party! Just like dear Marge Thatcher! Oh, the humanity!
Sen. John Kerry has condemned Bush's "belligerent and myopic unilateralism," and called for a "progressive internationalism." To reprise an old joke from the Cold War, if Democrats aren't on al-Qaida's payroll, they're being gypped.
The whiz kids at Sadly, No! revolutionized the liberal blogosphere by digging into the "South Park" canon and creating the "Chewbacca defense." Allow us to do the same with...the Underpants Gnomes Maneuver.
OK. Remember the episode where the "South Park" kids had to do a school report, and Tweek, the son of the local coffee-shop proprietor, wanted to do the report on the Underpants Gnomes whom he claimed stole underwear out of his drawer? Somehow the boys made it down into the Gnomes' secret underground cavern, where the Gnomes put their "plan" — such as it was — into action. But the "plan," according to the Gnomes, consisted only of this: "Step 1, steal underpants. Step 3, profit!" But what was Step 2? Nobody knew, not even the Underpants Gnomes themselves.
Ann has just employed the Underpants Gnomes' pseudo-strategy in linking Democrats to terrorism. Step 1, John Kerry wants to bring countries together in the war on terror! Step 3, that means Democrats support al-Qaeda! But what is Step 2? Anybody? Anybody? Bueller? Bueller? Ann doesn't so much as mention Step 2 here, which leads us to believe that, like the Underpants Gnomes, she doesn't have a clue what it actually is.
And speaking of old jokes from the Cold War, Hannity turns to Jimmy Carter next. Carter could see evil in the world; he just mistook it for a rapidly moving bunny rabbit. Reacting to the Soviet Union's invasion of Afghanistan, Carter exclaimed on ABC News: "This action of the Soviets made a more dramatic change in my own opinion of what the Soviets' ultimate goals are than anything they've done in the previous time I've been in office."
Hannity then runs through a few other incidents that might have caught the president's attention – Stalin's and Mao's mass murders, genocide in Cambodia, the Berlin Wall, Soviet tanks crushing uprisings in Hungary and Czechoslovakia, the personal testimony of Aleksandr Solzhenitsyn – before concluding: "The evil of communism was no secret." Well, yes, but Carter was distracted by that rabbit.
In his defense, there has not been a documented rabbit attack on a U.S. citizen since Carter left office.
What's up with the Carter-hatin' this week, man? Did Jimmy ding her car in the parking lot of the Western Sizzlin' in Plains and not leave a note? It's really funny how right-wingers will dig all the way back to the Carter years to show how Democrats are spineless, negligent, this, that, or the other thing, but when you start questioning something as recent as the Bush administration's activities before 9/11 or their grossly incompetent planning for the postwar occupation of Iraq, they get all Chris Tucker in "Friday": "Yo, why you gotta bring up old shit?"
And of course there was Carter's masterful handling of the crisis in Iran, leading America to betray our ally, Mohammed Reza Shah Pahlavi. Even as Carter was back-stabbing this loyal U.S. ally, the Shah was assuring those around him, "The United States has always been our friend, and it won't let me down now." Sadly, there was no one to warn him: "Run for your life! A Democrat is in the White House!"
Umm...what, precisely, did Carter do to "betray" our "ally" in Iran? Think it's any coincidence that Ann doesn't bother to elaborate?
In addition to covering Carter's accomplishments in Iran, which taught Islamicist animals that Westerners can be made to grovel before terrorism, Hannity reviews what Democrats in Congress have done about brewing trouble in the Middle East over the last 20 years: i.e., nothing.
Snort. Whatever, Ann, you already tried to do a similar "review" of that topic, and we already punked you.
After Saddam Hussein's forces invaded Kuwait in 1990, torturing men and raping women, Rep. Nancy Pelosi took to the floor of the House to say, "I hope the point will be made that we take very seriously the environmental consequences of our actions." Rep. Dick Gephardt said: "History shows that even brutal dictators have been toppled and defeated by sanctions." And so it was again after 9-11. Sixteen months after the attack, John Kerry gave a speech saying, "Mr. President, do not rush to war."
According to the latest polls there's at least a fair chance that an amoral appeaser and foreign suck-up like John Kerry could be our next president. Now everyone go home and get a nice quiet sleep.
Oooohhh! Now if that isn't some seriously passive-aggressive shit! "You so-called Americans want to vote for Kerry? All righty then. You're a bunch of pansy appeasing Chamberlainites, but hey, whatever you want to do..." Coulter and her fellow right-wing Bush sycophants may have to be moved into a new political category, the Passive-Agressicrats, whose view of democracy is basically, Yeah, sure, vote for whomever you want, m'kay? But just so you know, if you vote for anyone but the person we're telling you to vote for, you're a terrorist-loving traitor...anyway, happy Election Day!
Anyway. This turned out to be just another one of Ann's boilerplate liberals-love-terrorists screeds, no different from the crap she usually spews, with the only difference being she had the "creativity" to use Sean Hannity as her intro. Why is that, exactly? Why would Ann just arbitrarily grab Hannity's book out of thin air and go on and on about it in a column that's actually nothing more than her usual liberals-appease terrorists schtick? Oh, we think we know what's going on here, and we think some of you do too...Ann's got a crush on Sean Hannity! Awwww! It's only a matter of time before a crumpled-up note reading "Sean, I heart you, do you heart me, check one box, yes/no/maybe" shows up in Sean's dressing room at Fox Studios. Ann Coulter is a Lousy Writer and She Isn't Even That Hot will follow this developing romance and report back to you every disgusting detail! 'Till next time, traitors!
# Once again back is the incredible Doug at 9:17 AM
Thursday, April 08, 2004
She's so fine, she can't be...aw, the hell with it
Yeah, we were going to keep rolling with the whole "I Want Condi" theme today, but then the indefatigable s.z. at Sadly, No! knocked it right out of our hands like Don Beebe chasing down Leon Lett. Fie! Fie, I say! Well, at least they came up with the good stuff on Condi's testimony before the 9/11 Commission today. Here's the CAP debunking of her actual testimony, to go along with the one they did of her opening statement earlier in the day. Collect the whole set!
There's tons of good stuff over there at S,N!, including the revelation that the White House has been pulling its usual bullshit with that "We already let Condi talk to the 9/11 Commission and only five members bothered to show up" refrain you've no doubt been hearing for months. Turns out that the White House told the Commission that only three members at any given time would be able to talk to staffers of Rice's rank! So basically the Commission was lucky to get five at a time, and the Bushies have been acting pissy about the Commission having only followed rules the Bush administration set in the first place. What a bunch of douches.
Meanwhile, Atrios reports that Condi tried to shrug off the president's August 6, 2001, personal daily briefing as a "historical document," a categorization which could conceivably encompass everything from the Declaration of Independence to my August water bill. Yet this "historical document" that contained "no new threat information" was evidently acted on anyway. Hmmmm.
Not directly related to Rice's testimony this morning, but still quite germane, is this post from The Daily Kos discussing how antiterrorism experts in the Bush administration have been jumping ship in ever-increasing numbers. Why? Because they feel like they're not accomplishing anything, what with Bush ignoring al-Qaeda to focus on Operation Who Wants To Avenge My Dad? in Iraq.
By the way, how's that going? Peachy, just peachy, thanks for asking.
# Once again back is the incredible Doug at 3:52 PM
I know a girl who's tough but sweet... (bomp, bomp-bomp)
No TV in the office, sadly, so GWBWYPGN?! hasn't been able to watch Condi Rice's testimony before the 9/11 Commission. But her opening statement is already up on the news sites, and if her testimony is anything like the statement, there may not be any truth in anything she says today other than "Good morning" and "Thank you."
I took the unusual step of retaining Dick Clarke and the entire Clinton administration's counterterrorism team on the NSC staff. I knew Dick Clarke to be an expert in his field, as well as an experienced crisis manager.
That high opinion's going to make for some awkward moments in the West Wing breakfast nook with folks like Dick Cheney who "don't hold him in high regard."
This new strategy was developed over the spring and summer of 2001 and was approved by the president's senior national security officials on September 4th. It was the very first major national security policy directive of the Bush administration — not Russia, not missile defense, not Iraq, but the elimination of al-Qaida.
That's awfully interesting, considering that Condi her ownself was supposed to have given a speech on September 11 about how missile defense and not al-Qaeda was a huge priority for the administration. If the 9/11 Commission had its way, we'd get to read that speech — but the White House has declared it "confidential," as TBOGG reports in the linked post. That's right: A speech that would have been given in public and seen or heard by millions of people is all of a sudden confidential. Of course, it's already been established how this administration's standards for what's classified or confidential and what isn't are as fickle as the weather.
We increased funding for counterterrorism activities across several agencies. And we moved to arm Predator unmanned surveillance vehicles for action against al-Qaida.
Given how high-ranking blokes like Rumsfeld and Ashcroft were slashing budgets for antiterrorism efforts any which way they could, Condi's definition of "increased funding" must be positively Orwellian. But there's no spinning her statement about the Predator drones, which is as fatuous as anything that's ever been said in Washington, D.C. The Bush administration "moved to arm Predator unmanned surveillance vehicles" only after 9/11, and yet Condi's trying to make it sound like this was part of some big antiterrorism plan they'd put together the minute Bush sat his ass in the Oval Office for the first time! Know what's even more galling about the Predator issue? The guy who was trying to convince Bush to arm the Predators from the beginning was a guy you might have heard of — one Richard Clarke.
When threat reporting increased during the spring and summer of 2001, we moved the U.S. government at all levels to a high state of alert and activity.
Here's George W. Bush at "a high state of alert and activity" with respect to terrorism.
Anyway, GWBWYPGN?! will have to wait until after it's all over to make some sort of overall comment on how this went. But at least Condi didn't have to have her hand held by Dick Cheney when she went before the commission, so that's something.
# Once again back is the incredible Doug at 9:59 AM
Wednesday, April 07, 2004
What do the terrorists want?!?! (But more importantly, who gives a shit?)
Ever since the train bombings in Madrid and the subsequent upset defeat of the ruling Popular Party, the hysterical chorus from the right has been that this is precisely what the terrorists "want" — they want to disrupt an election in this country or that country so that the people will get pissed and the ruling party, whoever it may be, will be tossed out of power. The recent uprisings in Fallujah and Sadr City have increased the intensity of this bleating, as evidenced by an Andrew Sullivan post from earlier in the week, which notes a quote from a relative of rebellion leader Muqtada al-Sadr expressing a desire to "drive George W. Bush out of the White House." Sully concludes that the Iraqi insurgents are trying to "destroy morale" back here at home, which in his mind basically equals an erosion of support for Bush. (A recent Daily Dish letter from "A Baffled Briton" seems to concur: "Why do I think [Kerry] would be such a disaster? Well, for something of the same reasons you think the recent result in Spain was so bad. If Kerry were elected, it would be a signal to our enemies that America wants to retreat into Clintonian softness...")
There's been a whole lot of speculation from both sides about what's going to happen, and what should happen, in our first presidential election since 9/11. The right wing, naturally, thinks George W. Bush should be elected, because if he isn't, the situation is 100-percent analogous to that in Spain and "the terrorists have won." Here's Rush Limbaugh his ownself:
The question now becomes: "What are they going to do here?" Who do you think the terrorists would rather have in office in this country — socialists like those in Spain as personified by John Kerry and his friends in the Democratic Party, or George W. Bush? Their question is how to get rid of Bush.
The right wing says the terrorists want you to vote for Kerry because he wouldn't be as strong on terror as Bush has been. So let's say you completely agree with the right wing and you vote for Bush because you believe that the terrorists want you to vote for Kerry.
Haven't you basically gone from letting the terrorists intimidate you into voting for Kerry to letting the terrorists intimidate you into voting for Bush?
Look, vote for whomever you want. But when you start bringing the "Who do the terrorists want me to vote for?" consideration into the equation, you're letting them have an influence on your voting choice no matter who your choice ends up being. For the past two and a half years, we've been subjected to an endless litany of "If you do X, Y, or Z, then the terrorists have won," to the point where that statement hardly means anything anymore. But I think we can all agree, no matter what our political leanings are, that if we go into the voting booths on November 2 allowing what the terrorists want to determine what we want, then we've handed them a pretty unsettling victory whether we realize it at the time or not.
I'll be voting for Kerry in November because I like his policies better than Bush's and I think he'd actually do a better job of fighting terrorism than Bush would. (Ooh, somewhere Ann Coulter's Adam's apple is about to explode with righteous indignation!) And quite honestly I don't give a flying f$#! what Osama bin Laden thinks of that choice. But look, if you want to vote for Bush because you think he's stronger on terror, that's your right.
On the other hand, if you pull that lever for Bush thinking "Those nasty terrorists want me to vote for Kerry," you're a retard. And you've actually given the terrorists more influence in our political process than they ever would've been able to get on their own.
# Once again back is the incredible Doug at 9:40 AM
It was a mouthwatering menu. Not that you'd expect less for $2,000 a plate. Seared beef tenderloins with golden tomatoes on an herb-encrusted baguette. Grilled garlic chicken with smoked gouda on a honey wheat wrap. Fruits and gourmet olives and crudite. A gourmet luncheon with only one thing missing: something to eat it with.
The explanation was at the bottom of the menus distributed at President Bush's $1.5 million Charlotte fund-raiser Monday. "At the request of the White House, silverware will not accompany the table settings," it said in discreetly fine print.
No silver. No plastic. The lack of utensils might have been why many plates went virtually untouched.
The reason: So the tinkle of silver wouldn't disrupt the president's speech.
Ha ha. Savor, if you will, the mental image of all those rich Tarheel State fatcats, dressed to the nines to kiss the ring of Dear Leader, having to sully their soft Lancôme-moisturized hands and risk staining their designer suits with au jus and pungent smoked gouda, all because the White House demanded barbaric hand-held foods — just so that everyone could hear Bush's mellifluous voice mangle the world "nuke-you-ler" and mumble "turr-rism" about 20 times, uncluttered by the clink of silverware.
Shit. Why not increase your profit margin even further and just go pick up a few hundred Atkins Wraps from Subway?
# Once again back is the incredible Doug at 3:48 PM
Satire: The cornerstone of any nutritious breakfast
Our sincerest apologies to anyone who was hoping to gaze upon my girlfriend, the lovely Elisha Cuthbert, when they logged on this morning — but we had to give a shout-out to icarus88, who was kind enough to doctor up the above photo in response to the "Oval Office Space" post from a couple weeks back. Nice work, icarus88, but I'm still gonna need you to come in on Saturday, mmkay? Thanks a bunch...
My favorite spoof, though, might have to be "Right Wing Eye" from Planned Parenthood. Go watch, right now, and make sure you have the sound on, it's faaaabulous! (Thanks to TBOGG for that one.)
My apologies, though, for the Dubya/Lumbergh image that has now surely etched itself into your cerebral cortex. Here's another helping of Elisha to cleanse your mental palate.
# Once again back is the incredible Doug at 9:44 AM
Monday, April 05, 2004
Big, big news on the GWBWYPGN?! dating front...
I've got an announcement to make that I know is going to shock a lot of you — for the past few months, Yours Truly has been dating Elisha Cuthbert, star of the recent film "The Girl Next Door" and Keifer Sutherland's daughter on "24."
Well, Doug, it goes without saying that you're full of shit. Oh, am I?
Comes now a story courtesy of The Daily Kos revealing that Bush is reneging on his promise to enact a patient's bill of rights with respect to HMOs. Bush placing the rights of corporations above the rights of individual citizens, of course, is no more surprising a story than dog-bites-man, but it's the backstory Kos provides that's really interesting. Bush first made his patients' bill of rights promise back in 2000, during a debate with Al Gore in which he took credit for passing such a bill while governor of Texas. Problem is, Bush actually vetoed it the first time it was submitted to him, and it only passed the second time because it was backed by a veto-proof majority; Bush didn't even bother to sign the damn thing. And now, of course, his Justice Department is trying to block lawsuits against managed-care companies.
So basically, if Bush can claim to be a supporter of patients' rights despite having blocked such rights every time he had the opportunity, then I can be dating Elisha Cuthbert despite never having met her before in my life. Boo-ya.
(Oh, and if the Republicans can deny that holding their nominating convention in New York City right near the third anniversary of September 11 is nothing more than a cynical attempt to capitalize on the memory of that tragedy, I can certainly deny that this post was nothing more than an excuse to put up a picture of a hot chick. Nehh!)
# Once again back is the incredible Doug at 1:57 PM
Attack of the multisyllabic abstract nouns!
The operation to leave a U.S. Army boot-print permanently embedded in Fallujah's ass has begun, and it's evidently such a big deal that it has its own code name, separate from Operation Iraqi Freedom: Operation Vigilant Resolve. Thus continues our efforts to fight Islamic terror with both Daisy Cutters and thesauri.
Think back to the original invasion of Afghanistan back in '01 — it started out as "Operation Infinite Justice," and when that turned out to be a little close-to-home Koranic for the Muslim world, it was nice-niced down to "Operation Enduring Freedom." The invasion of Iraq was "Operation Iraqi Freedom," and now we have "Operation Vigilant Resolve." I still remember sitting around with a bunch of friends watching football the Sunday that Infinite Justice/Enduring Freedom kicked into high gear in Afghanistan, with the news anchors breaking in at every time-out, and I still remember fellow NFL fan and comments-thread denizen DAve saying, "Oh, great, the next one's probably going to be named 'Operation Ostentatious Perspicacity' or something."
Well, so far it hasn't gotten to quite that level yet, but there's still a valid question here: What happened to all those cool operation names from years past, and why did we replace them with markety-sounding, focus-grouped abstract nouns with so many syllables that Dubya can't even pronounce them without help? One obvious answer, of course, is that when this administration tries to come up with a cool macho name, they accidentally end up using stuff the Nazis already used in World War II. But surely they can do better than this. Remember Desert Storm? Sure you do, and that was a cool name. You told some Iraqi, "The Desert Storm is comin' for yo' ass, bitch," he automatically knew to be afraid, be very afraid. But what are we supposed to say this time? "It's time for us to get all up in yo' ass with some Vigilant Resolve, Fallujah!" Eh?
The best we can figure is that the Pentagon has a master list with two columns. Column A has forceful yet positive-sounding adjectives like enduring, vigilant, or infinite, while Column B consists of abstract nouns that also have a positive (and in most cases patriotic/American) connotation — justice, freedom, resolve. They pick one from Column A and one from Column B, and bickety-bam, they're set. The problem is, you go to the Roget's well too often and you come up with some pretty unwieldy shit. To what lengths could this odd trend be leading? To find out, we entered the names of every American military operation going back to D-Day (Operation Overlord, mofo!) into a Thinking Machines CM-5 supercomputer, along with reams of information about our present efforts in the War on Terror and possible outcomes. The computer went through millions of permutations to predict the most likely events in the Middle East over the next five years, along with what our military responses would be, and predicted a name for each operation down to 98.9% accuracy based on current naming trends. We called it Project Thesauric Omniscience, and the results follow:
October 2004: With Kerry looking like a stronger contender in the presidential election by the day, Bush tries to prop up his sagging poll numbers with the invasion of Syria he'd been jonesing for ever since the military went into Iraq to hunt for WMDs and came up with bupkus. Burned by the failure to find such weapons in Iraq, however, the U.S. can only enlist England, Paraguay, and the Solomon Islands as coalition partners. No matter, we soldier on! Name: Operation Invigorating Liberation.
May 2005: Finding nothing in Syria, Bush concludes the weapons must have found their way to Iran, where the hard-line Muslim clerics in power are pulling their usual repressive bullshit. But having cried wolf twice already, Bush can't even get the UK or the Solomons to sign on, and Paraguay's prime minister writes Bush that his country would love to, but every last person in the country has a cold. The U.S. marches into Teheran alone. Name: Operation Unfettered Bulwark.
August 2005: Just as things are really getting good in Iran, we have to send troops back into Iraq, where the lack of an enduring military presence has allowed violence to flare in the Sunni Triangle once more. No rest for the neoconservative. Name: Operation Resplendent Bellicosity.
December 2005: Almost four years to the day after Operation Infinite Justice/Enduring Freedom barreled into Afghanistan, an already overextended U.S. fighting force must return there to counter the renewed threat from a re-formed Taliban looking to seize control of the country back from Hamid Karzai's government. This bizarre new three-fronted war effort forces our military to answer the question: can we walk and chew gum and rub our tummy and pat our head at the same time? Name: Operation Tumescent Pugnacity.
June 2006: With our fighting forces exhausted by having to fight reinvigorated enemies in three different countries, Bush decides a show of nuclear might is what's needed to snap the rest of the world back in line. Nice knowing you, Pyongyang. Name: Operation Orgasmic Annihilation.
Of course, this is just our early projections. Feel free to suggest your own operation names in the comments thread below. We can even make a contest out of it...Operation Artistic Verbosity, anyone?
# Once again back is the incredible Doug at 8:25 AM
Sunday, April 04, 2004
Fox News: We shill for the Republican Party so you don't have to!
Just now, RNC sock puppet Fox News [sic] anchorman Greg Jarrett was interviewing financial expert Jim Rogers about the current state of the economy in a variety of areas, including gas prices. Rogers said that gas prices were indeed rising and he had every reason to believe they would be staying there for some time unless someone found some massive new source of oil, and Jarrett's response was something to the effect of, "Well, we could've been using that supply of oil located up in the Alaskan National Wildlife Refuge if the Democrats in Congress, led by John Kerry, hadn't voted against it, but let's move on..."
Christ. I mean, I realize that anyone with more than two brain cells to rub together has known for some time that Fox's "fair and balanced" claim is an utter farce, but...evidently plenty of people still believe it. Thus the question becomes, How frigging stupid are you people?
Sure, the liberal-media tinfoil hatters on the right wing will seize upon any and every opportunity to paint this mainstream journalist or that mainstream journalist as a wild-eyed liberal. Did you see Leslie Stahl arch her eyebrow when Condoleezza Rice answered that last question? An eyebrow-arch like that must mean she's a damn Commie! But I would hope that even the most diehard neocons out there can recognize that there's a difference between that and what Fox does, which is to hire well-known diehard conservative ideologues as anchors. Tony Snow used to fill in for Rush freaking Limbaugh on Limbaugh's days off, for crying out loud, yet there he is reading the news on my TV screen! Not as an opinion commentator or a Crossfire-style talking head designed to balance out a liberal voice, but as a supposedly objective reporter!
Again, anyone outside of a vegetative state knows that "fair and balanced" is no more true when Fox says it than when Al Franken does. Problem is, only Franken seems to have the sense to know he's doing so satirically. What's Fox's excuse?
# Once again back is the incredible Doug at 3:09 PM
Would you buy a used car from these guys?
So Condoleezza Rice had time to appear on every morning show except for "The View" to tell everyone what a liar Richard Clarke was, but somehow getting her to testify publicly under oath before the 9/11 Commission is like getting a five-year-old to eat his peas. Same goes for getting the administration to release Clinton-era security documents. Now Bush and Cheney say they'll only agree to appear before the Commission privately, and together (and not under oath). And when the Commission finally releases its report, the administration is going to be given the chance to go through it line by line before anybody gets to see anything!
It all goes back, as we've stated many times on this site, to an issue of trust. With all of the unbelievable pains they've taken to hide things from the American people -- everything from 9/11 information to TV footage of dead soldiers returning from Iraq to Cheney's dealings with his "energy advisory panel" to how they calculated the cost of the prescription-drug bill -- why should I trust these guys to have my best interests at heart? Why is it that those of us on the left are somehow the paranoid assholes just because we think this all looks awfully fishy?
Bush campaigned on a pledge to bring honesty and integrity back to the White House, to make the office of the president one that people could trust again. Just when were you planning on getting around to that, George?
# Once again back is the incredible Doug at 2:49 PM
Friday, April 02, 2004
Ann Coulter is a Lousy Writer and She Isn't Even That Hot: Chapter 33 — Timeline's On My Side (Yes it Is)
We at Ann Coulter is a Lousy Writer and She Isn't Even That Hot have become so used to her boilerplate histrionics and rote column-writing method — point out a major issue of the day, construct a straw man designed to represent the liberal view of said issue, and tear said straw man apart like a lion shredding an injured wildebeest on "Mutual of Omaha's Wild Kingdom" — that we were actually surprised this week when she tossed us a stylistic curveball. Oh, sure, her "point," to the extent that there is one, is still the same — hard-core conservative Republicans are heroes and everyone else is a lily-livered, terrorist-appeasing sissy, most especially liberals — but she actually switched up the format a little bit. Now, instead of employing tedious paragraphs branching irrelevantly off into the rhetorical stratosphere, she's organized her innuendoes, inaccurate statements, double-standards and historical misrepresentations into a fun little timeline. Oh, rapture!
Ann's timeline purports to explain "How 9-11 Happened," and the thumbnail sketch of her explanation is that every U.S. president of the last quarter-century had their thumbs planted firmly up their asses while Islamic fundamentalism proliferated across the globe — with the obvious (and convenient) exceptions of Saint Ronald of Reagan and our current commander-in-chief, who bravely protected the elementary-school children of Sarasota from al-Qaeda by reading them a book about a goat while Mohammed Atta's Flying Circus was knuckleballing large winged objects into the World Trade Center and the Pentagon. That information and much more can be gleaned from the Complete 9/11 Timeline located at the Center for Cooperative Research, which we find substantially more enlightening than Ann's misleading, cherry-picked account. But hey, if she wasn't treating the truth like Wilt Chamberlain treated cocktail waitresses at Caesar's, it wouldn't be a Koulter Kolumn, now, would it?
We don't need a "commission" to find out how 9-11 happened. The truth is in the timeline:
PRESIDENT CARTER, DEMOCRAT
In 1979, President Jimmy Carter allowed the Shah of Iran to be deposed by a mob of Islamic fanatics. A few months later, Muslims stormed the U.S. Embassy in Iran and took American Embassy staff hostage.
Wait wait wait...Jimmy "allowed" the Shah of Iran to be deposed? How'd he accomplish that, exactly? Did he write them a permission slip? Was he standing before the gates of the imperial palace, but then stepped aside and said "Y'all go on ahead" when the mob showed up? If in fact he did not do any of these things, how come Coulter has never bothered to rail against Ike for "allowing" Castro to take over in '59, or against Nixon for "allowing" Pinochet to grab Chile in '73? (Oh, right, she likes Pinochet. Never mind.)
Carter retaliated by canceling Iranian visas. He eventually ordered a disastrous and humiliating rescue attempt, crashing helicopters in the desert.
Yes, it was Carter's fault that two helicopters almost immediately went down with engine trouble. He probably also engineered the collision between a helicopter and a C-130 that occurred as the mission was being aborted. Ann evidently has the secret White House memo issued by Carter to the Delta Force troops ordering them to "exercise as much disaster and humiliation as possible." Ingrate.
PRESIDENT REAGAN, REPUBLICAN
The day of Reagan's inauguration, the hostages were released.
Is Ann trying to insinuate that Reagan had a hand in this? Given her belief as to how the economy did so well under Clinton (Reagan's tax breaks) and how it started faltering once Dubya got elected (some unspecified thing Clinton did), it would seem that she thinks everything that happens under a given president was actually set in motion by the guy who came in before him. So that would mean Carter actually managed to get the hostages released, right? Wrong, commie, Reagan was such a superhuman figure, a God come to earth if you will, that he was able to engineer the release of the hostages even as he danced the night away with Nancy at his inaugural ball! Is there anything this pillar of humanity couldn't do?
In 1982, the U.S. Embassy in Beirut was bombed by Muslim extremists.
President Reagan sent U.S. Marines to Beirut.
In 1983, the U.S. Marine barracks in Beirut were blown up by Muslim extremists.
Reagan said the U.S. would not surrender, but Democrats threw a hissy fit, introducing a resolution demanding that our troops be withdrawn. Reagan caved in to Democrat caterwauling in an election year and withdrew our troops – bombing Syrian-controlled areas on the way out. Democrats complained about that, too.
Oh, right, the Democrats made him do it. (Which Democrats were "caterwauling" for the pullout, Ann? Any particular reason why you didn't see fit to name names?) Even you Reagan fans out there have to admit that this excuse is little more than one of the Family Circus tykes blaming "Not Me" for breaking Mommy's favorite lamp.
In 1985, an Italian cruise ship, the Achille Lauro, was seized and a 69-year-old American was shot and thrown overboard by Muslim extremists.
Reagan ordered a heart-stopping mission to capture the hijackers after "the allies" promised them safe passage. In a daring operation, American fighter pilots captured the hijackers and turned them over to the Italians – who then released them to safe harbor in Iraq.
Yeah, those weenie Eye-talians screwed things up just like Europeans always do. But wait, Italy was a member of the "coalition of the willing" in Gulf War, The Sequel! What a predicament...
On April 5, 1986, a West Berlin discotheque frequented by U.S. servicemen was bombed by Muslim extremists from the Libyan Embassy in East Berlin, killing an American.
Ten days later, Reagan bombed Libya, despite our dear ally France refusing the use of their airspace. Americans bombed Gadhafi's residence, killing his daughter, and dropped a bomb on the French Embassy "by mistake."
Ann isn't bragging that we bombed the shit out of the French embassy on purpose, is she? Is she?
Reagan also stoked a long, bloody war between heinous regimes in Iran and Iraq. All this was while winning a final victory over Soviet totalitarianism.
The fact that Reagan armed Saddam to the teeth while "stok[ing] a long, bloody war"? I guess Ann was pressed for time and decided not to get into all that.
PRESIDENT BUSH I, MODERATE REPUBLICAN
In December 1988, a passenger jet, Pan Am Flight 103, was bombed over Lockerbie, Scotland, by Muslim extremists.
President-elect George Bush claimed he would continue Reagan's policy of retaliating against terrorism, but did not. Without Reagan to gin her up, even Prime Minister Margaret Thatcher went wobbly, saying there would be no revenge for the bombing.
In 1990, Saddam Hussein invaded Kuwait.
In early 1991, Bush went to war with Iraq. A majority of Democrats opposed the war, and later complained that Bush didn't "finish off the job" with Saddam.
Boy, the way Ann puts the phrase "finish off the job" in quotation marks like that, you'd almost think she was quoting one of those complaining Democrats. Only there aren't any. If anyone can find a quote from a Democrat complaining about Bush I not finishing off the job — and it has to be from one who opposed the war, mind — send it to us. Otherwise, we'll have to chalk this up as yet another manifestation of acute Just Plain Making Shit Up Disorder (JPMSUD), which has been granted the sobriquet "Coulter's Syndrome" in certain circles.
PRESIDENT BILL CLINTON, DEMOCRAT
In February 1993, the World Trade Center was bombed by Muslim fanatics, killing five people and injuring hundreds.
Clinton, advised by Dick Clarke, did nothing.
Um, we arrested and tried the people responsible, that counts as "something," right? (And whoa whoa whoa, back the shit up...why are we suddenly busting out with the "advised by Dick Clarke" caveat now? Surely Ann knows that Clarke also advised the last two presidents on her timeline, right? Or, again, was she just so pressed for time she didn't think this was worth mentioning?)
In October 1993, 18 American troops were killed in a savage firefight in Somalia. The body of one American was dragged through the streets of Mogadishu as the Somalian hordes cheered.
Clinton responded by calling off the hunt for Mohammed Farrah Aidid and ordering our troops home. Osama bin Laden later told ABC News: "The youth ... realized more than before that the American soldier was a paper tiger and after a few blows ran in defeat."
Yeah, and who was bitching and moaning for a U.S. pullout the whole way? Republicans in Washington! (See, unlike Ann, we actually cough up names and quotes when we're trying to back up a point. Maybe she should try it sometime.)
In November 1995, five Americans were killed and 30 wounded by a car bomb in Saudi Arabia set by Muslim extremists.
Clinton, advised by Dick Clarke, did nothing.
In June 1996, a U.S. Air Force housing complex in Saudi Arabia was bombed by Muslim extremists.
Clinton, advised by Dick Clarke, did nothing.
Months later, Saddam attacked the Kurdish-controlled city of Erbil.
Clinton, advised by Dick Clarke, lobbed some bombs into Iraq hundreds of miles from Saddam's forces.
Now, you'll recall that Saddam was using a lot of the same weapons he'd been sold by good ol' Unka Ron in the '80s. And you have to admit that Clinton's response was quite a bit more substantial than George H.W. Bush's postwar Iraq strategy, which was to encourage those Kurds to rise up against Saddam and then leave them high and dry. But Clinton still got a blowjob from an intern, so ick, we still hate him!
In November 1997, Iraq refused to allow U.N. weapons inspections to do their jobs and threatened to shoot down a U.S. U-2 spy plane.
Clinton, advised by Dick Clarke, did nothing.
In February 1998, Clinton threatened to bomb Iraq, but called it off when the United Nations said no.
On Aug. 7, 1998, U.S. embassies in Kenya and Tanzania were bombed by Muslim extremists.
Clinton, advised by Dick Clarke, did nothing.
On Aug. 20, Monica Lewinsky appeared for the second time to testify before the grand jury.
Clinton responded by bombing Afghanistan and Sudan, severely damaging a camel and an aspirin factory.
On Dec. 16, the House of Representatives prepared to impeach Clinton the next day.
Clinton retaliated by ordering major air strikes against Iraq, described by the New York Times as "by far the largest military action in Iraq since the end of the Gulf War in 1991."
A military action that destroyed any infrastructure Iraq might've had for making chemical weapons, according to David Kay! But again, it's Bill Clinton, so Ann says no soup for you! How interesting that Ann will write thousand-word paeans to George W. Bush for eliminating a grave Iraqi threat that wasn't even there, while the guy who actually eliminated the threat through Operation Desert Fox will forever remain an evil pervert who didn't care about the safety of his country.
The only time Clinton decided to go to war with anyone in the vicinity of Muslim fanatics was in 1999 – when Clinton attacked Serbians who were fighting Islamic fanatics.
Yeah, what a bunch of "fanatics"! A little ethnic cleansing by Slobodan Milosevic and they get all pissy, like there's something wrong with genocide! What a bunch of babies!
In October 2000, our warship, the USS Cole, was attacked by Muslim extremists.
Clinton, advised by Dick Clarke, did nothing.
PRESIDENT GEORGE BUSH, REPUBLICAN
Bush came into office telling his national security adviser, Condoleezza Rice, he was "tired of swatting flies" – he wanted to eliminate al-Qaida.
Yeah, and what exactly did he do about al-Qaeda before 9/11, Ann? That would be the "nothing" you've been referring to all this time. (But evidently George gets more points for merely talking about al-Qaeda than Clinton gets for actually doing stuff.)
On Sept. 11, 2001, when Bush had been in office for barely seven months, 3,000 Americans were murdered in a savage terrorist attack on U.S. soil by Muslim extremists.
Yeah, seven months of grave warnings about how a major assault by al-Qaeda was on the horizon. But hey, at least he talked tough! You can't put a price on that!
Since then, Bush has won two wars against countries that harbored Muslim fanatics,
How 'bout we say he won one and a half wars. We'll give him Iraq when there's a democratic government in place and civilian contractors aren't being burned to death and strung up from bridge girders.
captured Saddam Hussein, immobilized Osama bin Laden,
Whoa whoa whoa..."immobilized" bin Laden? How the crap does Ann know how "mobile" bin Laden is at this precise moment? Our present administration certainly doesn't, and they're too focused on not getting set on fire in Fallujah to care.
destroyed al-Qaida's base, and begun to create the only functioning democracy in the Middle East other than Israel.
Yeah, "beginning" shit is easy, isn't it? Look how great things were going in Afghanistan.
Democrats opposed it all – except their phony support for war with Afghanistan, which they immediately complained about and said would be a Vietnam quagmire.
Yep, that's right, Democratic support for the invasion of Afghanistan was "phony." Would you like your straw man with barbecue sauce or honey mustard? If anybody can find one quote, one single solitary quote, from a Democrat slagging the Afghanistan mission as a "Vietnam quagmire," send it here — and send it to Ann while you're at it, since she was evidently too frickin' lazy to look it up herself.
And now they claim to be outraged that in the months before 9-11, Bush did not do everything Democrats opposed doing after 9-11.
What a surprise.
How retarded does Ann think we are? Basically what she's saying with that last statement is that the Democrats who opposed the Iraq war are upset that Bush didn't invade Iraq before 9/11. What the hell? Have we just completely stumbled through the looking-glass here? Or has Ann constructed so many straw men for this argument that she's run out of straw, and she's reduced to fabricating them out of toilet paper and Bisquick?
Well, Your Coulterness, your "timeline" was a fun little excursion, wasn't it, but there ain't enough lipstick in the world to put on this pig of an argument you're trying to make. Look, we're not trying to make the case that Clinton or Carter was some monolothic pillar of strength in the battle against terrorism — clearly, both had their share of negligences and screw-ups — but we'll be damned if we're going to let Coulter use them to advance her fatuous argument that Bush did anything other than jack squat about al-Qaeda before airplanes started hitting skyscrapers on 9/11. Now the only question is, which racy format will Coulter use to make her "case" next week? Cartoons? An entire column in haiku? Or 3D? The possibilities are limitless, but so is Ann Coulter is a Lousy Writer and She Isn't Even That Hot's capacity to skewer them! Join us in waiting with bated breath for next week's McTirade, and we'll see you then!
# Once again back is the incredible Doug at 10:04 AM
Thursday, April 01, 2004
I leave this time zone for five seconds...
Well, actually it was closer to five days, but whatever. As you may have deduced, GWBWYPGN?! is home from Boston, back in the land of sunshine, barbecue, and waitresses who call you "hon."
A lot of shit happened while I was gone. Condoleezza Rice said she'd testify under oath before the full 9/11 Commission (and if you listened really close, you could hear Dubya saying, "Do it or there's no dessert for you tonight!"). The Massachusetts state legislature passed a gay-marriage amendment along to the people for ratification — actually, I was there for that one, and co-worker Kathleen and I got to walk right through the middle of a big-ass protest in front of the state capitol on Monday (a dude gave me a sticker that said "I agree with the SJC" and I put it on my laptop bag). Four civilian contractors got killed in Iraq, and burned beyond recognition, and dragged through the streets, which is the first time that's happened since the last time that happened, with the only difference of course being that this time it's a Republican in the White House rather than Bill Clinton so presumably everything's cool. And remember, people getting brutally murdered in Iraq is a sign that things are going great, so stop worrying, you big silly!
The big GWBWYPGN?!-specific news, however, was that "Oval Office Space," despite mainly just being filler for you commie traitors to get your ha-has at while I was out of town and in a non-blogging mode, kind of took off. A whole bunch of y'all were kind enough to link it, which I appreciate immensely, and it even made the "Campaign Desk" section at the Web site of the Columbia Journalism Review. Now, those of you who know me well know that this is some seriously ironic shit, because I actually looked at Columbia way back like 10 years ago when I was looking at colleges with my dad, back when I was still able to look in a mirror and say "Sure, I could get into an Ivy League school" and not laugh my silly Georgia ass off. And yet when some accomplishment of mine actually does make the CJR, it's not anything I've done in the actual field of journalism (which ain't much, I'll be the first to admit) but rather some completely unrelated side project I do to keep from having to do stuff at work! Now forgive me if I'm getting self-indulgent here, but that is way more ironic than rain on your wedding day, 10,000 spoons when all you need is a knife, or a traffic jam when you're already late, bitch!
Anyway. Did I mention Boston? Hell of a town. We got to see the bar "Cheers" was based on and the spot in Cambridge where the infamous "I got her numbah, how do you like them apples" scene from "Good Will Hunting" was shot. Yeah, that's right, you can touch me now!
Just wanted to let you suckas know everything's kizzy and the blogging shall resume forthwith. Some hot Democrats will be coming your way before too long, and Ann Coulter is a Lousy Writer and She Isn't Even That Hot will be appearing in its regular time slot tomorrow (and by "time slot" of course I mean "indefinite time on a given Friday when I decide to post it up there, except when I do it Thursday, or not at all"). And thanks for reading, every last one of you. Thirty-thousandth reader gets some free Kerry swag...you know where to beg for it.
# Once again back is the incredible Doug at 4:40 PM
I've got the requisite 500 e-mails to slog through this morning so it may be a little while yet before the blogging resumes at full speed, but while you're waiting, why not juxtapose the images above with this:
Ha-ha. Bet the families of those four dead contractors are laughing their asses off right now.
All the latest news that's fit to rant, plus more hot Democrats and lurid tales of Beantown debauchery, sometime in the next 24 hours...
# Once again back is the incredible Doug at 8:38 AM
Friday, March 26, 2004
ExxonMobil ReHash Theatre presents: Oval Office Space — The Director's Cut
Ebert and Roeper gave it two thumbs up. Entertainment Weekly called it "the laugh-out-loud funniest film about Washington politics since 'All the President's Men.' " Now, with GWBWYPGN?! heading up to Bahhston this weekend for a four-day balls-out pub crawl an editors' conference and posting most likely sparse over the next few days, we present a feeble attempt to tide you over until our return: the special DVD collector's edition of "Oval Office Space," digitally remastered, somewhat recast, and with a few deleted scenes newly added. Sure, we're just rehashing old material, but we're rehashing it in Dolby 5.1 surround sound, bitch! And now, the limited-edition director's cut of "Oval Office Space."
SCENE 1:
INT. WEST WING OFFICE — DAY RICHARD CLARKE is working at an anonymous cubicle deep within the bowels of the West Wing, poring over papers, when his boss, GEORGE W. BUSH, stops by, cup of coffee in hand.
BUSH: Heeeey Clarke. Whaaaat’s happening.
CLARKE: Uh, hi, Mr. President.
BUSH: We need to talk about your WMD reports. Yeeeeah…we’re really trying to punch up our Iraq intelligence. Did you get a copy of that memo?
CLARKE: Uh, yeah, I got it, right here. I’m sorry. I was going over all the intelligence and I just couldn’t find anything indicating that Iraq had any weapons of mass destruction…but I promise I’ll do better next time.
BUSH: Yeeeeah. It’s just that we’re really trying to make it clear that the U.S. was in imminent danger from Saddam Hussein and everything, and he might have had a connection to al-Qaeda...so if you could just start putting that in your WMD reports, that’d be great.
CLARKE: But I don't think that —
BUSH: And I’ll make sure you get another copy of that memo, m’kay? Thanks a bunch.
BUSH walks off as CLARKE, shaking his head, returns to his paperwork. Within seconds, DICK CHENEY arrives.
CHENEY: Richard, we need to talk about your WMD reports.
CLARKE: Yeah. I know. I know. The President just came around and told me, and I promised him I’d…
CHENEY: It’s just that we’re trying to make it clear to everyone there was a "smoking gun" forcing us to invade Iraq and everything instead of focus on al-Qaeda, so if you could "punch it up" a little with those reports, that’d be super. OK?
CHENEY gives CLARKE an overly chummy punch on the shoulder, from which CLARKE recoils.
CHENEY: …And I’ll make sure you get another copy of that memo.
CHENEY walks off. CLARKE sighs heavily, gets up from his desk, and trudges into the situation room where GEORGE TENET and PAUL O'NEILL are looking at computer readings.
TENET: (angrily) Why does it say "Nigerian yellowcake" when there is no Nigerian yellowcake? One of these days I’m going to kick this piece of shit out the window, I mean it…
O'NEILL: You and me both, man. That thing's lucky I'm not armed. (notices CLARKE entering the room) ’Sup, G?
CLARKE: You guys want to go get some coffee at Starbucks or something? I gotta get out of here.
O'NEILL: Yeah, let's go.
CLARKE, TENET and O'NEILL grab their stuff and prepare to leave.
O'NEILL: By the way, what the hell’s up with your WMD reports?
SCENE 2:
INT. STARBUCKS, DUPONT CIRCLE — DAY CLARKE, O'NEILL and TENET sit morosely around a table, sipping disinterestedly at their cups of coffee.
CLARKE: Do you guys ever get the feeling that you’re not making a difference around here? Sometimes I wonder why I even stuck around in this business. I mean, think about it, what if we’re still doing this when we’re 80?
TENET: It would be nice to have that kind of job security.
CLARKE: Bush is gonna have me appear before the 9/11 committee on Saturday. I just know it. And I’m gonna end up doin’ it, because, well, because I’m a pussy. Which is pretty much why I signed on with this administration to begin with.
O'NEILL: Hey, I work for this administration and I don't consider myself a pussy, all right?
TENET: Yes, I am also not a pussy.
CLARKE: (something catches his attention) Look. There he is.
Angle on RAND BEERS, standing in line and laughing with a few of his friends.
TENET: Richard, if you’re so anxious to tell Rand Beers about everything that’s going on in the administration, why don’t you just go over there and talk to him?
CLARKE: You know what, I think I will.
CLARKE gets up and walks over next to BEERS.
CLARKE: Hi. I don’t know if you’ve seen me before, I’m Richard Clarke, one of Bush’s top terrorism advisers. I was wondering if you might want to have lunch sometime. I’ll be over at the Old Ebbitt Grill tomorrow, and if you want to stop by, that’s cool, and if not, that’s cool too.
CLARKE walks away with O'NEILL and TENET.
BEERS: Did he say the Old Ebbitt or Flinger's?
SCENE 3:
EXT. PENNSYLVANIA AVENUE — DAY CLARKE, O'NEILL and TENET are walking back toward the White House when PAUL WOLFOWITZ comes rushing toward them, clearly agitated.
WOLFOWITZ: Did you hear the news? Congress is mounting an investigation! To look into our prewar intelligence handling! You know what that means, right? We’re all screwed!
O'NEILL: Jesus, Wolfowitz, calm down, you're gonna give yourself a heart attack.
WOLFOWITZ: They’re gonna find out about how we trumped up all that information about Iraq’s weapons of mass destruction! Somebody’s gonna lose their job!
The foursome re-enter the White House and find themselves back in the Situation Room.
WOLFOWITZ: Oh, man, I remember back in the first Gulf War we were talking about removing Saddam Hussein from power, but Bush 41 said we’d only end up having to occupy the entire country if we did that, so we held back instead. Now that was a great idea.
O'NEILL: You really think so?
WOLFOWITZ: Of course I do! At least it didn’t cost us two hundred billion dollars!
CONDOLEEZZA RICE: (walking by) Sounds like someone has a case of the Mondays! (walks off)
WOLFOWITZ: (wistfully) You know, I had a great idea once. It was called a "Jump to Conclusions" mat. You started out at 9/11, and then you could jump…to conclusions. Get it? You could end up at "Saddam Hussein has nuclear weapons," or "Saddam Hussein was responsible for 9/11," or…
O'NEILL: Paul, that’s the worst idea I’ve ever heard.
TENET: Yes. Yes, it is horrible, this idea.
CLARKE: You know, one of my old guidance counselors used to ask us, "If you had a billion dollars, what would you do?" Kind of like to help us figure out what our perfect job would be.
WOLFOWITZ: If I had a billion dollars? First of all, I would invest half of it in a new space-based missile shield. Then I would take the rest and put part of it into a new joint strike fighter that could be used by both the Navy and the Air Force…
O'NEILL: Paul, that's not even the point of the question. The point is they’re asking you what you would do if…(his attention is distracted by the fax machine) Discretionary spending up 12.5 percent over the last two years? The fuck does that mean?
SCENE 4:
INT. CLARKE’S APARTMENT — NIGHT CLARKE is sitting glumly on his couch, watching CNN. Suddenly a voice, that of former president BILL CLINTON, booms through the wall.
CLINTON (offscreen): Hey, check it out, Clarke, man, Juliet Huddy's on "Fox and Friends" and she's got her high-beams on, man!
CLARKE: (rolls his eyes) Bill, I already told you, if you want to talk, just come over!
CLINTON (offscreen): Oh! Sorry, man!
Within seconds, CLARKE’s front door opens and in walks CLINTON, who takes a seat on the couch next to CLARKE.
CLINTON: What’s wrong, Clarke, man?
CLARKE: Bill, when you were on Capitol Hill, trying to drum up support for a bill or something like that, and you weren't making a lot of progress, did anyone ever tell you it looked like you had a case of the Mondays?
CLINTON: A case of the Mondays? Hell no, man. Hell no. Matter of fact, I think I’d kick somebody’s ass for saying something like that, man.
CLARKE: Now let me ask you this — what would you do if you had a billion dollars?
CLINTON: A billion dollars? Tell you what I’d do, man — two interns at the same time.
CLARKE: That’s it? Two interns at the same time?
CLINTON: Yeah. Man, I’d hire Pamela Anderson for one of them and Carmen Electra for the other. Always wanted to do that, man. And I figure if I had a billion dollars I could hook that up, ’cause chicks dig a dude with money.
CLARKE: Well, not all chicks, Bill.
CLINTON: Well, the kinda chicks that’d double up on a dude like me do.
CLARKE: Good point.
CLINTON: What about you, man?
CLARKE: Besides two interns at the same time? I would do nothing.
CLINTON: Nothing?
CLARKE: Yeah. I’d just sit on my ass all day and do nothing.
CLINTON: Well, hell, man, you don’t need a billion dollars to do that. Look at Jeb Bush, his state’s broke, he don’t do shit.
SCENE 5:
INT. CONFERENCE ROOM — DAY Senators JOHN McCAIN and CHUCK HAGEL are sitting on one side of a long conference table. A visibly agitated PAUL WOLFOWITZ sits across from them.
HAGEL: So, uh...what is it you do here again?
WOLFOWITZ: Look, I already told you! I take intelligence briefings and turn them into plans for military operations!
HAGEL: So you're out there collecting data in the field?
WOLFOWITZ: Well, no, we have special agents that do that...
McCAIN: But when the military operations begin, you're out there directing the troops.
WOLFOWITZ: Well, no, I've actually never served in the military...look, I take the intelligence from the agents and present it to the president so that he can get a goddamn war started!...I'm a people person! Why is that so hard to understand!...
HAGEL: Uh, thank you, Mr. Wollo...uh, Wolfer...uh, that'll be all.
Quite shaken, WOLFOWITZ leaves, and PAUL O'NEILL enters to take his place.
HAGEL: Paul...Paul...Paul O'Neill?
O'NEILL: (dreading what's coming) Yes.
McCAIN: Like Paul O'Neill the right fielder for the Yankees?
O'NEILL: (sighs) Yup, that's me.
HAGEL: So what do you think of him, having the same name and all?
O'NEILL: Uh...he's pretty cool, I guess...
McCAIN: You're goddamn right he is! What do you think was his best season?
O'NEILL: Umm...I guess I'd have to say I liked them all...
HAGEL: Me too, that's a riot! I celebrate the man's entire career! For me it just doesn't get any better than the 2000 Series!
McCAIN: But it must be twice as hard for you, having the same name and all.
O'NEILL: Yeah, uh, you can just call me "P.O." if you want...
HAGEL and McCAIN just stare blankly at O'NEILL, bewildered.
SCENE 6:
INT. OLD EBBITT GRILL — DAY CLARKE waits, looking surprisingly serene, at a table where he sits stirring a cup of coffee. Eventually RAND BEERS walks in, looking a little unsure of himself. He takes a seat across from CLARKE.
CLARKE: Hi, Rand, glad you could make it. What’s that on your jacket?
BEERS: (pointing to his John Kerry button) This? Oh…this is one of my pieces of flair. (looks around surreptitiously, hastily removes button from jacket) I don’t really like to talk about my flair though. So, uh, what do you do, Richard?
CLARKE: I work in the Bush administration.
BEERS: Yeah, I know that. What do you do there?
CLARKE: I sit in a cubicle and "punch up" WMD intelligence from Iraq.
BEERS: Uh, OK, yeah…uh, so what's that like?
CLARKE: Well, see, we wanted to invade Iraq way back in 2001, right after 9/11, so basically people bring me this bogus information about Iraq’s weapons capabilities or their connection to al-Qaeda so I can hype it up and make people think Iraq was really dangerous…only I don’t really like my job, so, uh, I just don’t think I’m gonna go anymore.
BEERS: You’re just not going to go? Won’t you be forced to resign?
CLARKE: Maybe, but I don’t really want to work anymore, so I’m just not going to go.
BEERS: What will you do for money? How will you make any political contributions?
CLARKE: I never really liked donating to political campaigns, so I just think I’m not going to do that anymore, either.
BEERS: Wow.
CLARKE: Hey, I was thinking I’d just hang out at my apartment tonight and listen to some National Public Radio. Do you like National Public Radio?
BEERS: I love National Public Radio…
CLARKE: And I can tell you about all the stuff that’s going down behind closed doors in the administration. What do you think?
BEERS: Yeah. Definitely. Yeah.
SCENE 7:
INT. CONFERENCE ROOM — DAY Still in the same conference room with McCAIN and HAGEL at the table. CLARKE enters and sits across from them.
HAGEL: Richard Clarke, is it?
CLARKE: That’s right.
HAGEL: Well, Richard, maybe you could start off by telling us a little bit about what you do each day.
CLARKE: Well, usually I start off by coming in about 15 minutes late, and I come in through the East Wing — so President Bush can’t see me — and after that I just sorta space out for an hour.
McCAIN: Wha wha wha…space out?
CLARKE: Yeah, I just stare at all that Iraqi intel I’m supposed to be analyzing, but it looks like I’m working. I usually do it about an hour after lunch, too. All in all I’d say in a given day I only do about 15 minutes of real, actual intel work.
McCAIN: Really?
CLARKE: Yeah, you know why? Because I have four guys above me "vetting" my intelligence and making the threat sound as imminent as they possibly can.
McCAIN: Four guys?
CLARKE: Four guys, John! And that’s not gonna motivate me to write accurate reports. All that’s gonna do is make me use intel that’s just plausible enough for me to not get fired. I mean, it’s not that I’m lazy. It’s just that I don’t care.
HAGEL: Lemme ask you this, Richard — and this is just a hypothetical! — what if we put you in a more prominent position where we’d have four or five guys under you?
CLARKE: Yeah, I don’t know, I’ll think about it. (gets up to leave) Listen, I’ve gotta go, but it’s been a lot of fun talking to you guys. I hope your investigations go well.
HAGEL: Trust me, the pleasure was all on this side of the table.
CLARKE leaves the room. McCAIN and HAGEL look at each other.
SCENE 8:
INT. WEST WING — DAY Former ambassador JACK WILSON is seated nervously at his desk, listening to the radio. GEORGE W. BUSH strolls up in a Navy flight suit and stands by his desk, cup of coffee once again in hand.
BUSH: Heeeey Wilson. Whaaaat’s happening. Listen, we’re kind of behind the 8-ball with this weapons-of-mass-destruction thing, so I’m gonna need you to go ahead and make another trip to Nigeria, see if you can’t uncover some other information that would indicate they were selling uranium to Saddam Hussein, m’kay?
WILSON: But…but I…
BUSH: That’d be greaaaat. Yeah. And, ahhhh, I’m also gonna have someone in Cheney's office leak to Robert Novak that your wife is an undercover CIA officer. We’re kind of playing catch-up and everything, so I just gotta make sure the staff knows who’s in charge. M’kay?
WILSON: But I…I believe you have my stapler…
BUSH: Super. Thaaaanks a bunch, Wilson.
BUSH strolls off, leaving WILSON all alone.
WILSON: OK, but I’m going to set the building on fire…
SCENE 9:
INT. CLARKE’S APARTMENT — NIGHT CLARKE sits on his couch drinking a beer. O'NEILL and TENET are there also, looking very glum.
CLARKE: …So that’s the impression I got. Someone’s definitely going to take the fall for this.
TENET: This sucks! What are we gonna do?
CLARKE: I don’t know, George. But we’ve got to come up with a plan to get us out of Iraq. We weren’t meant to spend the rest of our lives sitting in tiny cubicles, getting reports that a tiny vial of botox was found in a truck trailer and trying to make it sound like we uncovered a massive chemical-weapons operation.
O'NEILL: I have an idea.
CLARKE: What is it?
O'NEILL: We need to find a way to make the Iraq operation too expensive to maintain without help from the international community, so we try to ram through another round of tax cuts. The Republicans on the Hill are almost sure to go for it, and while they’re busy slashing taxes for the richest one percent, revenue will decrease and we just won’t have enough money to keep things going...
CLARKE: …And the Republicans won’t have a clue.
O'NEILL: (smiling) Thumbs up their asses, my friend, thumbs up their asses.
TENET: That plan sounds awfully familiar.
O'NEILL: Yeah, they did it during the Reagan administration.
CLARKE: OK. You put in the call to the Congressional leadership, I’ve got another meeting with the senators tomorrow.
O'NEILL and TENET get up to leave. On his way out the door, TENET is singing a gangsta-rap song to himself.
TENET: Back up in your ass with the res-ur-rec-tion…
SCENE 10:
INT. CONFERENCE ROOM — DAY Back in the conference room, GEORGE W. BUSH and DICK CHENEY are sitting across from JOHN McCAIN and CHUCK HAGEL.
HAGEL: Well, first of all, you’re gonna have to get rid of that O'Neill guy. He's a liability at this point.
McCAIN: He’s history.
CHENEY: Sounds good to me!
McCAIN: And then there’s that guy, what’s his name, Wolla…Wolfo…Wolfor one thing he’s not gonna be working here much longer, I can tell you that…(McCAIN and HAGEL laugh)
BUSH: They’ll be gone by the end of the day.
HAGEL: Oh, no, we don’t do it like that. We generally wait until the sitting president’s term is up, and get them to submit their resignations when a lot of people are resigning anyway.
McCAIN: Problem solved from your end.
HAGEL: And that brings us to Richard Clarke. We had a chance to meet this guy, and boy, he’s just a straight shooter with "cabinet-level appointment" written all over him.
BUSH: Ooooh…yeah. I’m gonna have to go ahead and disagree with you on that one…yeah. He’s been real flaky lately, and…well, we’ve been having major problems with his WMD reports.
McCAIN looks like he’s about to get angry. HAGEL stops him.
HAGEL: I’ll handle this. Mr. President, we don’t think the problem is with Mr. Clarke. We think the problem (taps the table) is with you.
McCAIN: There it is. There it is.
BUSH: Ooooh, yeah, I don’t know about that…
McCAIN: Let me ask you this: How much time each day do you think you guys spend on these WMD reports?
Long, uncomfortable pause.
BUSH: Yeahhhh…
SCENE 11:
INT. CLARKE’S CUBICLE — DAY CLARKE and TENET are waiting anxiously for O'NEILL. O'NEILL finally arrives with a little grin on his face.
CLARKE: Did you put in the call to Frist and McConnell?
O'NEILL: Sure did. The plan is in motion.
TENET: Now we just sit back and wait…
SEAN HANNITY, the intern, stops by.
HANNITY: Did y’all hear what happened to Wolfowitz?
CLARKE: No, what happened?
HANNITY: Dude was going to Baghdad to survey the reconstruction efforts. He’s staying at the al-Rasheed Hotel downtown, right, when all the sudden some al-Qaeda insurgents mount a mortar attack on the building. Took the front of the place clean off.
CLARKE: Is Wolfowitz OK?
HANNITY: Oh, yeah. Broke both his legs…a few ribs...an arm…a wrist…lost a few teeth…but check this out. Dude’s writing a book about the whole thing. Getting an advance from Crown worth seven figures. He’s having a party at his place this weekend to celebrate. Think I might take that blond chick Ann Coulter from Human Events. If things go right I might be showing her my "O-face." You know — Ohh! Ohh! Ohh! Get it? Ohh! Check you guys later.
SCENE 12:
EXT. WOLFOWITZ’S BACKYARD — DAY It’s a beautiful fall afternoon and WOLFOWITZ is holding his celebratory barbecue. As CLARKE, BEERS, O'NEILL and TENET enter, they are met by WOLFOWITZ himself, in a full-body cast, rolling up in a motorized wheelchair.
WOLFOWITZ: Richard! Paul! George! Glad you could make it!
CLARKE: Uh, hi, Paul. Gee…you look…uh, great.
WOLFOWITZ: Thanks! Hey, you know, Richard, I know you’ve been kind of down lately, but I’ve been meaning to tell you, you’ve just got to keep your chin up. If you hang in there long enough, good things can happen in this world. I mean, just look at me!
CLARKE: Yeah…uh, that’s great, Paul.
BEERS, O'NEILL and TENET walk off to mingle with the other partygoers. SEAN HANNITY sidles up to CLARKE.
HANNITY: You've been hanging out with Rand Beers lately?
CLARKE: Yeah, I guess so.
HANNITY: Way to go, Clarke! Oooh! Oooh! Guy’s been around the block more than a few times in Washington, if you know what I mean.
CLARKE: No, Sean, what do you mean?
HANNITY: Well, he's worked for a few other administrations.
CLARKE: Like whose?
HANNITY: Well, hell, Reagan's...and Bush's...
CLARKE's face goes white.
SCENE 13:
INT. CLARKE'S CAR — DAY CLARKE drives with BEERS in the passenger's seat, looking distressed about something.
BEERS: I still don't know if this whole plan is a good idea. Trying to ram through a tax cut just so that Bush will be forced to cut back spending and bring in other countries for the Iraq occupation? It doesn't seem right to me.
CLARKE: Oh, yeah? Well, at least I didn't work for REAGAN!
BEERS: Who told you that?
CLARKE: Ohhhh!
BEERS: That is none of your business who I work for, mister! Let me out of the car!
CLARKE stops the car and BEERS opens the door.
BEERS: How dare you judge me. You're just some petty...intelligence...falsifying man. And I'm leaving.
CLARKE: Say hello to REAGAN for me!
BEERS slams the car door and CLARKE drives away. He stops at a convenience store on the way home and glances at the front page of the Washington Post; the main headline reads, "NATIONAL DEBT ABOVE $7 TRILLION; BUDGET DEFICIT FOR 2005 ESTIMATED AT $521 BILLION."
CLARKE: Oh, no.
SCENE 14:
INT. CLARKE’S APARTMENT — NIGHT Back at the apartment, CLARKE, O'NEILL and TENET look pretty depressed indeed.
TENET: Shit…mother…piss…ass…bitch…
CLARKE: What were we thinking? How did the deficit rise so fast?
O'NEILL: It was probably my fault. You know, the prescription-drug bill alone cost $130 billion more than they said it would. I probably just misplaced a decimal somewhere...dammit, I'm always screwing up mundane details like this!...
CLARKE: Well, this is not some mundane detail, Paul!
O'NEILL: You know what this means, don’t you? When this story breaks, we’re not gonna be talking about it on some Sunday-morning talk show. We’re going to be answering for it at a pound-me-in-the-ass Senate hearing, that’s what.
TENET: I don’t want to go to any hearing!
O'NEILL: Look, I’m gonna get out of here, try and figure out what I’m going to do next.
TENET and O'NEILL get up to leave.
TENET: Richard, this was a bad decision. And you are a very bad person.
TENET and O'NEILL head out the door.
CLARKE: (calling out) Hey, uh…Bill, you wanna come over?
CLINTON: Hell naw, man! I don’t need you fuckin’ up my life too!
CLARKE sighs heavily and begins writing his letter of resignation.
SCENE 15:
EXT. KERRY CAMPAIGN HEADQUARTERS — NIGHT CLARKE pulls up as RAND BEERS is walking out to his car. CLARKE gets out.
CLARKE: Look, I'm going to be going away for a while, and...I just wanted to say I'm sorry for the way I acted the other day. I shouldn't have acted that way when I found out you worked for all those Republicans.
BEERS: Dick, nobody likes the Republicans. That's why I left the Bush administration in disgust and started working for the Kerry campaign. But Republicans are just a fact of life that we have to deal with, whether we want to or not.
CLARKE: I understand that now. Thanks for forgiving me.
CLARKE and BEERS shake hands as ZELL MILLER walks up to his car.
ZELL MILLER: Get a room, you two! (flips them off) Nehhhh!
BEERS: I hate that guy.
SCENE 16:
EXT. WHITE HOUSE — DAY CLARKE pulls up to the White House, resignation letter in hand, to see all manner of objects being taken out of it — furniture, photographs, personal effects. Thousands of people are gathered on the sidewalk along Pennsylvania Avenue to watch as BUSH and CHENEY are marched out of the White House, weeping. CLARKE walks up next to SEAN HANNITY.
CLARKE: What happened here?
HANNITY: Bush and Cheney lost the election, man. People were already mad about how they were screwing up the war in Iraq and how they’d messed with all that intelligence, and then it turned out somebody in Cheney's office leaked the name of an undercover CIA agent to get back at her husband. When that story broke, it was the last straw…people tossed Bush out and now some dude named Kerry is the president.
CLARKE looks at HANNITY, stunned. Then he turns his attention back to the unfolding drama in front of the White House, and smiles.
SCENE 17:
EXT. CONSTRUCTION SITE — DAY CLARKE and BILL CLINTON are hard at work putting up a Habitat for Humanity house in northeast D.C. Presently PAUL O'NEILL and GEORGE TENET pull up in a Town Car. CLARKE greets them with a smile.
CLARKE: Paul! George! What are you guys doing here?
TENET: We heard you were putting up houses for the poor, wanted to come by and see how you were doing.
CLARKE: Hey, I heard the two of you wrote tell-all books and now you’re pulling in big money on the lecture circuit. Congratulations.
O'NEILL: You know, we could hook you up with a lecture deal of your own, if you want.
CLARKE: Thanks, guys, but I’ve already got a book lined up, and besides, I’m pretty happy here, building houses for the less fortunate with Jimmy Carter. But that’s great for you guys. We should have lunch sometime.
TENET: Take it easy, Richard.
CLARKE: Yeah, you too.
TENET and O'NEILL get back in the Town Car and drive off. CLARKE turns to CLINTON.
CLARKE: Nothin’ like a hard day’s work, huh, Willie?
CLINTON: Fuckin’ A, man.
CLARKE casts his gaze across the construction site and takes a big breath of fresh air.
CLARKE: Fucking A.
CLARKE and CLINTON get back to work.
SCENE 18:
EXT. BEACH — DAY Wearing sunglasses and some garish swim trunks, JACK WILSON is stretched out on a beach chair on a pristine stretch of sand in Mexico. A WAITER comes by with a drink for him on a tray.
WILSON: Excuse me, sir? Señor? May I speak to you please? I asked for a mai tai, and they brought me a piña colada, and I asked for no salt on the margarita, but it had grains of salt, big grains of salt on the glass.
WAITER: Lo siento mucho. (under his breath) Gringo estupido.
WILSON: (as WAITER walks off) And I could have this place condemned, I could write a letter…sir? I could call and have a group of special agents execute a covert operation to shut this place down, assassinate the manager…there were big grains of salt on my margarita, BIG grains of salt!…
THE END
# Once again back is the incredible Doug at 9:20 AM
Hey, we'll all be laughing about this later! I will, anyway.
George W. Bush wants you to know he's terribly upset about those WMDs not showing up in Iraq. Oopsie! Tee-hee, where are they? Under my desk? Whoops, no they're not! I am so embarrassed!...
From the linked story:
Bush put on a slide show, calling it the "White House Election-Year Album" at the Radio and Television Correspondents' Association 60th annual dinner, showing himself and his staff in some decidedly unflattering poses.
There was Bush looking under furniture in a fruitless, frustrating search. "Those weapons of mass destruction have got to be somewhere," he said.
Yeah, ha-ha. George, you are such a card, and by "card" of course we mean "smug, arrogant son of a bitch with no regard for human suffering." Hey, what's a near-complete loss of global credibility if we can't laugh about it later? And hey, don't you think these guys are laughing their asses off about it? Or would, if they were still alive?
Try and imagine what the reaction would have been if, at the RTCA's annual dinner in '99, Bill Clinton had tried to warm up the crowd with some blowjob jokes, or if his "White House Photo Album" had included a shot of an intern "hard at work serving the president" — with her head in Clinton's lap. Think the Republicans would be sharing the chuckles at that one?
So often those of us in the anti-Bush camp get accused of an animus for Bush that goes beyond simple policy disagreement into an alleged visceral dislike for Bush personally. It's stuff like this that makes us want to say, Damn straight. Anybody got a problem with that?
# Once again back is the incredible Doug at 8:17 AM
Thursday, March 25, 2004
O Sloganator! my Sloganator! your fearful trip is done...
Evidently, the Bush/Cheney '04 poster-maker we wrote about a couple weeks ago — which shall hereafter be referred to as "The Sloganator" — is achieving something approaching cult status on the Internet. TBOGG, who also commits the grievous sin of being funnier than me on a regular basis, links today to this touching elegy for the now-defunct sign-maker. (You need the sound on for the full tear-jerking effect.)
O, Sloganator. I did have the time of my life, I really, really did. (Props also to Wonkette for breaking the whole Sloganator story in the first place.)
# Once again back is the incredible Doug at 3:23 PM
Ann Coulter is a Lousy Writer and She Isn't Even That Hot: Part the 32nd — Rockin' Around the Clarke
You could practically set your watches by the moment Ann Coulter laid into the capitulating pansy Spaniards for daring to elect a president who wasn't best buds with George W. Bush, and Ann Coulter is a Lousy Writer and She Isn't Even That Hot dutifully took her apart like we always do. Now here's another thing to set your watch by: the moment at which she rips the skin off of Richard Clarke for daring to suggest that George W. Bush is anything other than a god among men. Yes indeedy, she's given him her customary 1,000 words' worth of character assassination, and once again we're here to tell you she's categorically full of monkey poop. (Well, you already knew she was full of monkey poop, we're just here to tell you why.)
Read between the lines of Ann's column and you'll find that her "reasons" for slagging Clarke as a hack — just like her "reasons" for just about every other opinion she's ever held — are so obtuse, tangential and irrelevant that we wonder if she had any idea what she was writing as she was writing it. From the best we can deduce, Ann thinks Clarke is not to be trusted because (1) Nobody in the media paid any attention to Gary Aldrich's book; (2) He didn't like Condi Rice, even though Condi Rice is clearly one of the greatest human beings ever, everybody thinks so and if you don't you're a doo-doo-head; and (3) He was just a "paper-pusher" anyway so screw him. Yes, obviously these are all brilliant reasons for assuming he is not to be trusted! But we all know whom you make an ass out of when you assume, and Ann doesn't disappoint with "Chair-Warmer On The Hot Seat" — for though she attempts to pass herself off as an expert on everything Clarke, it doesn't take a genius to realize she doesn't know Dick:
Are you sitting down? Another ex-government official who was fired or demoted by Bush has written a book that ... is critical of Bush! Eureka!
But did they write the critical book about Bush because they got fired...or did they get fired because they were being critical of Bush? Which came first, the chickenhawk or the egg on his face?
The latest offering is Richard Clarke's new CBS-Viacom book, "Against All Enemies," which gets only a 35 on "rate a record" because the words don't make sense and you can't dance to it.
Boy, only a paragraph into her column and already Ann isn't making sense. She must be really pissed.
As long as we're investigating everything, how about investigating why some loser no one has ever heard of is getting so much press coverage for yet another "tell-all" book attacking the Bush administration?
And here we go: Ann Coulter, who has turned whining about liberal name-calling into a cottage industry, has already dubbed Richard Clarke "some loser." A loser who has forgotten more about international terrorism than Coulter will ever know, perhaps, but a loser just the same. (Coulter's possible response: "All Muslims are terrorists and they smell bad! What more about terrorism do you need to know?")
When an FBI agent with close, regular contact with President Clinton wrote his book, he was virtually blacklisted from the mainstream media. Upon the release of Gary Aldrich's book "Unlimited Access" in 1996, White House adviser George Stephanopoulos immediately called TV producers demanding that they give Aldrich no airtime. In terms of TV exposure, Aldrich's book might well have been titled "No Access Whatsoever."
"Larry King Live" and NBC's "Dateline" abruptly canceled their scheduled interviews with Aldrich. Aldrich was mentioned on fewer than a dozen TV shows during the entire year of his book's release -- many with headlines like this one on CNN: "Even Conservatives Back Away From Aldrich's Book." That's almost as much TV as Lewinsky mouthpiece William Ginsburg did before breakfast on an average day. (Let's take a moment here to imagine the indignity of being known as "Monica Lewinsky's mouthpiece.")
But a "tell-all" book that attacks the Bush administration gets the author interviewed on CBS' "60 Minutes" (two segments), CNN's "American Morning" and ABC's "Good Morning America" -– with an "analysis" by George Stephanopoulos, no less. In the first few days of its release, Clarke's book was hyped on more than 200 TV shows.
Puh-leeze. A book about presidential blowjobs rates every bit as high on Ann's importance meter as a book about how a presidential administration whistled Dixie while the worst terrorist attack in the nation's history was being planned? The truth finally comes out, doesn't it — to Ann Coulter, and no doubt millions of other right-wingers across this country, Bill Clinton's sexual peccadilloes were of equal, if not greater, consequence to the United States than 9/11.
In contrast to Aldrich's book, which was vindicated with a whoop just a few years later when the Monica Lewinsky scandal broke, many of Clarke's allegations were disproved within days of the book's release.
How was Aldrich's book "vindicated"? He never even mentioned Monica Lewinsky in the book, all he had was bogus stories about Clinton allegedly slipping out to the Marriott late at night for romantic trysts with unnamed individuals — and his only source for that turned out to be "rumors" heard by then-right-wing attack dog David Brock. Which means Aldrich may be the only writer in American history to take a slam-dunk topic like Clintonian marital infidelities and still manage to get it wrong. (If you want more on Aldrich, this post at World O'Crap should tell you just about everything you need to know.)
Clarke claims, for example, that in early 2001, when he told President Bush's National Security Adviser Condoleezza Rice about al-Qaida, her "facial expression gave me the impression that she had never heard the term before." (If only she used botox like Sen. Kerry!)
Speaking of unsubstantiated rumors. What the shit is Coulter doing name-checking Botox, other than to distract people from the fact that she's pulling stuff out of her ass here?
Sean Hannity has been playing a radio interview that Dr. Rice gave to David Newman on WJR in Detroit back in October 2000, in which she discusses al-Qaida in great detail. This was months before chair-warmer Clarke claims her "facial expression" indicated she had never heard of the terrorist organization.
Here's part of Rice's exhaustive expert analysis on the Newman program: "There needs to be better cooperation, because we don't want to wake up one day and find out that Osama bin Laden has been successful on our own territory." Yeah, how'd that work out for you, Condi?
But in deference to our liberal friends, let's leave aside the facts for now. A few months before Clarke was interpreting Dr. Rice's "facial expression," al-Qaida had bombed the USS Cole. Two years before that, al-Qaida bombed U.S. embassies in Kenya and Tanzania. In fact, al-Qaida or their allies had been responsible for a half dozen attacks on U.S. interests since Clinton had become president. (Paper-pusher Clarke was doing one heck of a job, wasn't he?) In the year 2000 alone, Lexis-Nexis lists 280 items mentioning al-Qaida.
By the end of 2000, anyone who read the paper had heard of al-Qaida. It is literally insane to imagine that Condoleezza Rice had not. For Pete's sake, even The New York Times knew about al-Qaida.
Rice had been a political science professor at Stanford University, a member of the Center for International Security and Arms Control, and a senior fellow of the Institute for International Studies. She had written three books and numerous articles on foreign policy. She worked for the first Bush administration in a variety of national security positions.
Her turn-ons are conservative men, long walks on the beach, and candlelit dinners. She doesn't like affirmative action or people who are mean to animals. So f$#!in' what?
All this was while Clarke was presiding over six unanswered al-Qaida attacks on American interests and fretting about the looming Y2K emergency. But chair-warmer Clarke claims that on the basis of Rice's "facial expression" he could tell she was not familiar with the term "al-Qaida."
If the attacks went "unanswered," it wasn't Clarke's fault. Here's an excerpt from a National Review interview with Richard Miniter, author of the book Losing Bin Laden: How Bill Clinton's Failures Unleashed Global Terror and thus clearly not a wishy-washy liberal by any stretch:
"Counterterrorism czar Richard Clarke had ordered his staff to review existing intelligence in relation to the bombing of the USS Cole. After that review, he and Michael Sheehan, the State Department's counterterrorism coordinator, were convinced it was the work of Osama bin Laden. The Pentagon had on-the-shelf, regularly updated and detailed strike plans for bin Laden's training camps and strongholds in Afghanistan.
"At a meeting with Secretary of Defense William Cohen, Director of Central Intelligence George Tenet, Secretary of State Madeleine Albright, Attorney General Janet Reno, and other staffers, Clarke was the only one in favor of retaliation against bin Laden. ... Cohen, according to Clarke, did not consider the Cole attack 'sufficient provocation' for a military retaliation. Michael Sheehan was particularly surprised that the Pentagon did not want to act. He told Clarke: 'What's it going to take to get them to hit al Qaeda in Afghanistan? Does al Qaeda have to attack the Pentagon?' "
So basically, Miniter is saying that Clarke warned the Clinton administration about the al-Qaeda threat and they did nothing. Contrast that to what happened the following year, when Clarke warned the Bush administration about the al-Qaeda threat and...they did nothing. Maybe someone else can explain the difference here, because we don't see it. The end result is that even if Miniter — and Coulter — are right about everything, the Bush administration at best didn't do any better a job of combatting al-Qaeda than the Clinton administration did, right up to 9/11. Something tells us, though, that Bush isn't exactly dying to make that a part of his re-election pitch.
Isn't that just like a liberal? The chair-warmer describes Bush as a cowboy and Rumsfeld as his gunslinger -- but the black chick is a dummy. Maybe even as dumb as Clarence Thomas! Perhaps someday liberals could map out the relative intelligence of various black government officials for us.
Oh, now we get it — Clarke's a racist! How could we not have noticed this before! Pay close attention, those of you who have attempted to defend Coulter in the comments threads. She writes off all Muslims as bloodthirsty terrorists who smell bad, yet Richard Clarke is the racist — for daring to suggest that a certain policymaker who just happened to be African-American didn't know what she was talking about! (Hey, Ann, we think you're a dummy, too — does that mean we hate white people?)
Did Clarke have the vaguest notion of Rice's background and education?
Who gives a shit what her background and education was? If Coulter can look at a guy with an undergrad degree from Georgetown, a Rhodes scholarship to Oxford and a law degree from Yale and call him a hillbilly pervert, maybe Clarke isn't necessarily obligated to bow down before Condi Rice just because she taught at Stanford.
Or did he think Dr. Rice was cleaning the Old Executive Office Building at night before the president chose her -- not him -- to be national security adviser? If a Republican ever claimed the "facial expression" on Maxine Waters -- a woman whose face is no stranger to confusion or befuddlement -- left the "impression" that she didn't understand quantum physics, he'd be in prison for committing a hate crime.
We say again: snore. After all the times Coulter has railed against media whores and race-card-players like Waters and Jesse Jackson, does she really expect us to buy it when she drops the race card on Richard Clarke, of all people?
As we know from Dr. Rice's radio interview describing the threat of al-Qaida back in October 2000, she certainly didn't need to be told about al-Qaida by a government time-server.
Richard Clarke: top counterterrorism advisor to Reagan, Clinton, and both Bushes...and, in Coulter's estimation, nothing more than a "government time-server." If you want to discredit the man, Ann, you're gonna have to do better than that.
No doubt Dr. Rice was staring at Clarke in astonishment as he imparted this great insight: Keep an eye on al-Qaida! We've done nothing, but you should do something about it. Tag -- you're it. That look of perplexity Clarke saw was Condi thinking to herself: "Hmmm, did I demote this guy far enough?"
Doubt that very much, Ann, because Rice herself asserted that Clarke "was in every meeting that was held on terrorism" after 9/11. It's the Bush administration that couldn't keep their stories straight on Clarke's level of involvement if you put guns to their heads. If Rice was such a font of knowledge on al-Qaeda, one who didn't need to waste her time with a puny lightweight like Clarke, maybe she can explain why her rebuttals to Clarke's claims have been so mealy-mouthed and dishonest. And if Clarke is such a do-nothing weakling, perhaps Ann can explain why Clarke has the balls to testify before the 9/11 Commission while dear sweet Condi can't be bothered to do the same.
Should Clarke's interpretations of Rice's facial expressions be taken at, well, face value? Sure. But while Ann is trying to distract you with that tennis ball — and inexplicably trying to slag Clarke as a racist in the process — she still doesn't manage to address the fact that, whether Rice thought al-Qaeda was a terrorist group or a lamb dish served with babaganouj, neither she nor anyone in the Bush administration did a whole hell of a lot about it. Doesn't matter, though, because 9/11 was Clinton's fault! The intelligence failures, the inaction on al-Qaeda, the whole shebangabang! This, of course, begs the question: If John Kerry gets elected in the fall, and there is a major terrorist attack on the U.S. in the first 235 days of his presidency, we get to blame that on Bush, right? Ponder that question, kids, while you await the next installment of Ann Coulter is a Lousy Writer and She Isn't Even That Hot, same Coulter-time, same Coulter-channel!
# Once again back is the incredible Doug at 3:19 PM
Clarke vs. Rice: Testimony Cage Match
Who holds greater concern, and takes more responsibility, for the safety and protection of the American people — Richard Clarke or Condoleezza Rice? Who is more determined to get to the bottom of how 9/11 was allowed to happen and make sure it never happens again? To answer this question, let's examine what each of them has said before the 9/11 Commission.
Richard Clarke: Your government failed you, those entrusted with protecting you failed you, and I failed you. We tried hard, but that doesn't matter because we failed. And for that failure, I would ask — once all the facts are out — for your understanding and for your forgiveness.
# Once again back is the incredible Doug at 1:05 PM
Let's try this again
If you surf over to this page and the little counter to the right reads 25,000, congratulations, you're the twenty-five-thousandth person to have wasted valuable time reading this blog (and John Ashcroft just put your name on his Naughty list...in pen). E-mail us here and let us know who you are so we can send you some kind of prize, and perhaps contribute to your legal defense.
Update: The phone lines are closed and Lisa from Kamikaze Kumquat is our 25,000th visitor. Mazel, mazel. Good things. Good things.
# Once again back is the incredible Doug at 8:42 AM
I've already gone on at length about how betrayed I feel by Zell Miller, a man I once admired about as much as anyone I've ever met, so I won't bother rehashing that here. But I will say this: Zell, go join the Republican Party, for Christ's sake. You obviously don't like it here in the Democratic Party, so what the shit are you hanging around for? Just to bitch and moan about it? Look, I don't even care if you become a Republican, just become a Republican already and stop hanging onto the "D" next to your name. As it stands now, you sound like this so-called Georgia "fan" I knew who went to UGA but couldn't stop talking about how great everything was at Florida.
I remember a time years ago when we were living in Tennessee, and I went with a couple friends of mine out into the woods back behind our house. My little sister and a friend of hers, much to our dismay, insisted on tagging along, and my sister (who was like 7 or 8 at the time, she's changed a lot since then, she's a lovely individual and we get along swimmingly) proceeded to do nothing but whine the whole time: It was too cold outside, the snow was getting in her shoes, the thorns on the bushes were sharp, the boys weren't letting her play. So finally I asked her, "Well, why don't you just go back inside, then?!" And she responded — without irony, I thought, but maybe I'm mis-remembering this — "Because then I wouldn't get to complain."
Zell, it's cold out here, and you're obviously not having a good time. Go back inside. The big boys are trying to play.
# Once again back is the incredible Doug at 2:51 PM
Dude, where's my loop?
This is a pretty good defense of Richard Clarke in Slate today, but this might be an even better one. The Bush administration sure doesn't do a terribly effective job of keeping their top braintrusts and advisors "in the loop," do they?
So far, the Bush administration's rebuttals of Clarke's revelations on "60 Minutes" have made the Bush administration themselves look every bit as bad as Clarke. Your excuse is that he wasn't "in the loop"? Then what the hell were you doing keeping your top terrorism advisor out of the loop? If, as you claim, Clarke was basically incompetent, then what were you doing hiring him in the first place? (And then, of course, there's the Scott McClellan strategy, which is to simply lie your ass off.)
Look, you can go back and forth on this one all you want — Clarke is lying, Bush is lying, Clarke is only out for political gain, Bush is only trying to stifle dissent and cover up the truth, Clarke is an egomaniac, Bush is an incompetent, blah blah blah ad infinitum. Before long the whole thing has been reduced to he-said, she-said, and the only question you're left with is: In whom do you feel like you can place the greater trust, Clarke or the Bush administration?
You want to turn this into a game of Who Do You Trust? Fine, then I pick Clarke.
If you want to pick Bush, of course, this is America and you're welcome to do so...I just wish someone could explain to me why.
# Once again back is the incredible Doug at 9:06 AM
Tuesday, March 23, 2004
Planet of the Hot Democrats Part II: Revenge of the Donors
A few weeks ago, GWBWYPGN?! put its foot down and called upon the Democratic party to become the Party of Hot Chicks again. We pointed out that, some stereotypes to the contrary, the left side of the aisle is blessed with quite a number of lovely individuals, and the battle over hotness is one we must not concede to the GOP in 2004.
But little did we realize how right we were — and just how powerful the Democratic Party is in this department! Prodded by a certain bat-shit-crazy right-winger's expression of disgust that "Alias" star Jennifer Garner donated a big chunk of money to various Democrats, we went a-hunting on opensecrets.org to find out if any other hot chicks might be lurking on left-leaning donor lists. And boy, were there! Please excuse another brief descent into lookism and superficiality while we give you the rundown:
Jennifer Garner gave two gees to Dick Gephardt, plus a grand apiece to Wesley Clark (w00t!), John Edwards and John Kerry.
Uma Thurman wrote a big fat $2,000 check to John Kerry, which maybe explains why she couldn't afford a better dress to wear to the Oscars.
Reese Witherspoon threw five hundred bucks over to — gasp — Hillary Clinton!
Gwyneth Paltrow gave two grand to Emily's List, a PAC for female Democratic candidates, and another five hundred for John Kerry.
Debra Messing put two dimes on Joe Lieberman, which is sort of like donating to a Democrat.
Charlize Theron gave two grand to Barbara Boxer and another thousand to Kerry.
Not to mention all the other celebrities who have donated to Democrats. Meanwhile, what's Bush got? A lousy two hundred bucks from Pat Boone? That's not gonna cut it, George!
Normally we do our best not to dip into the Barry Goldwater well when posting here, but with all this in mind, we've got an idea for the DNC's 2004 slogan: Democrats 2004 — In your heart, you know they're hot.
# Once again back is the incredible Doug at 3:08 PM
# Once again back is the incredible Doug at 9:16 AM
America's worst boss?
We were going to wait until someone whipped out the "Richard Clarke is just pissed off and looking for revenge" tennis ball before reciting the litany of former Bush advisers and policymakers who've left the administration in disgust, but...well, TBOGG couldn't wait that long. Hats off to him.
It would be one thing if it was just Clarke slagging the administration on his way out the door. But John DiIulio, Paul O'Neill, Rand Beers, Christine Todd Whitman (whom TBOGG left off his list), and Richard Clarke...that's a pretty long and illustrious list of disgruntled ex-employees. And there comes a point at which, if you're a supervisor, you've got to start to wonder, Is it them...or is it me?
You might also add to that list the ignored and marginalized Colin Powell, who's history even if Bush gets re-elected this fall. Then consider those who are not in the administration's direct employ but whose influence is just as important to their efforts: James Jeffords, who jumped off the GOP as a direct result of Bush's policies; Lincoln Chafee, who probably wishes he had; and centrists like John McCain and Chuck Hagel who wince every time Bush opens his mouth, like the mother of a child whom she knows is a shitty trumpet player but she has to grit her teeth and smile proudly every time he picks up the trumpet because she's his mom and she has to encourage him and, you know, be supportive.
Anyway, point is that's a lot of people jumping overboard. One would be fairly simple to explain — but five or six or seven, ehh, not so much.
# Once again back is the incredible Doug at 8:35 AM
Monday, March 22, 2004
Banned in the USA
Well, I finally crossed the line (evidently)...I've been banned from making any further comments to posts on Blogs for Bush. Oh, poo!
Today I left a comment on one of the posts about Clarke's appearance on "60 Minutes" to the effect of "You're right, Clinton didn't do as much as he could have against terrorism. I'm sure that once people find this out, Bush will easily win re-election over Clinton in 2004. Oh, wait, Clinton isn't running?..." Came back later that afternoon and the comment had disappeared (replaced only by the words "Troll"...boooo!), and when I tried to leave a comment asking why this was the case, I wasn't allowed to leave anything. Is this how Blogs for Bush typically reacts to anyone who disagrees with them? I don't know about you, but I think we have...yes! We do! Congratulations, Blogs for Bush, you're the latest winner of the Right-Wing PansyWatch™ Wuss o' the Week Award! Your names have been inscribed on the Wuss o' the Week plaque hanging in the GWBWYPGN?! lobby next to the desk of Tiffany the receptionist, and you're automatically eligible to win the 2004 Golden Pacifier Award at the end of the year!
The infantile Chicken-Little fear of opposing viewpoints over at BfB, though, did make me think a little, and I decided that those of us on the left side of the aisle have to be better than babies like that. So from now on, there's no such thing as "trolls" in the GWBWYPGN?! comments threads, for as BfB ably demonstrated, "troll" is too often a synonym for "someone who told me something I didn't want to hear." And try to be smart when you're making comments — the more you do that, the less likely things are to devolve into a "you're a poopy-head"/"no, you're a poopy-head" type of argument.
Other than that, gloves are off.
# Once again back is the incredible Doug at 2:52 PM
Why does the WSJ hate America?
In the wake of Richard Clarke's revelations last night on "60 Minutes," even the Wall Street Journal is beginning to ask some uncomfortable questions about 9/11. Glad you could join us, fellas. (Link courtesy of Atrios, who also brings us this.)
Well, at least the reporters are asking questions. The august opinion-writers at the Journal, however, still can't let go of their image of Bush as fearless terrorist-slayer, so they dutifully counter the news article with this bit of invective, whose message is basically thus: Investigating 9/11 is a complicated task that is bound to be politicized and spun by any number of people in Washington, so we should just not do it. Well, that's not quite accurate — they think we should do it, just not until Bush is safely ensconced in the White House for a second term. The editorial's last paragraph:
If the 9/11 Commission members really wanted to make a public contribution, they would shut down and resume their probe after the elections. Their final report is now due on July 26, two months after its original deadline and the same day that the Democratic Party convention begins in Boston. We doubt that's a coincidence either.
So releasing the report on the day the DNC begins, as was agreed to by the president: awfully convenient, according to the WSJ. Completely shutting down the investigation and not doing shit until after the election: Not convenient for anybody, and why, how dare you even suggest such a thing! (World O'Crap does the full takedown here.)
That ker-thunk sound you're hearing, by the way, is the sound of the neocon Kool-Aid drinkers following their marching orders and closing ranks around the prez at any cost. O.J. Simpson didn't even have this kind of blocking when he was running behind the O-line of the '75 Bills.
# Once again back is the incredible Doug at 8:34 AM
Sunday, March 21, 2004
Terra Wars Episode V: The Clenis™ Strikes Back
A short time ago in an administration far, far away from reality...
The Empire is in peril. Lord Bush has succeeded in vanquishing the Iraqi menace, but the ongoing battle against Terra has proven to be a long and difficult struggle. Stung by his inability to hunt down and destroy the evil bin-Laden, Lord Bush has been reduced to blaming the ancient and mysterious Clenis™ for his failures.
Richard Clarke's appearance on "60 Minutes" tonight could end up being a pretty significant part of a development we've been waiting for for quite a while — Clinton's anti-terrorism folks stepping forward to call the Bush administration's bluff and debunk the lie that Clinton somehow fell asleep on terrorism and allowed 9/11 to happen. It's about time they stood up for themselves, and maybe now we won't have to hear the Bush people blaming everything from the spread of terrorism to the mediocre economy on the Clenis™.
Do not mess with the Clenis™, my friends. Like the Force, it is a double-edged sword, one that can be used for good as well as evil. You can blame your problems on the Clenis™, but be careful, very, very careful, for when you least expect it, the Clenis™ may exact its revenge...
# Once again back is the incredible Doug at 12:35 PM
