Don't fall off your chair in shock, but, apparently, George W. Bush's new book is full of lies. (Who could have seen that coming?)
Specifically, he asserts that he was "sickened" when he learned that Saddam Hussein did not have weapons of mass destruction after all. However, according to Mike Isikoff on today's edition of "Hardball," when chief weapons inspector, David Kay, broke the news to Bush that there were no WMD's in Iraq, Bush had virtually no visible reaction to the news.
Chris, Mike and Joe Wilson (the real one, not the dirt bag from South Carolina) also discussed the newly released film, "Fair Game," which is about how the White House purposely outed Wilson's undercover CIA operative wife, Valerie Plame, for the sole purpose of exacting vengeance against Wilson for his op-ed in the New York Times in which he revealed the falsity of the White House's representations regarding Saddam's alleged efforts to purchase yellow cake uranium from Niger and uranium tubing from somewhere else, I'm not sure where.
Chris recommended this film in glowing terms that I have rarely heard him use. Joe Wilson is played by Sean Penn. Naomi Watts is Valerie Plame. And her CIA coworker is portrayed by none other than D-Day, Kent (Bruce McGill)!
Which reminds me of a line in "Animal House" that perfectly captures what Bush and Cheney would doubtlessly have said to the American people had they ever had an uncharacteristic burst of candor:
"Hey. Don't cry over your mistakes. You f--ked up; you trusted us."
In the book, Bush also "wrote" that he and Cheney were frequently at odds with each other because they each had "different styles."
Right. Bush liked to shoot from the hip while Cheney liked to shoot people in the face.
Anyway, for anyone who might still harbor even a sliver of remaining doubt that Bush simply used the phantom WMD's as a thinly veiled excuse for going to war, this charade has now been thoroughly debunked by the combination of Mike Isikoff's investigative reporting and the release of "Fair Game."
We don't know the exact reason or reasons why Bush went to war although each of us has his or her suspicions. But one thing we do know with absolute certainty: None of the more than 3000 brave young American men and women who have died in Iraq since the beginning of this needless, gratuitous war gave their lives because either Bush or Cheney honestly believed that Saddam constituted a genuine threat to our security.
But, let's go ahead and impeach President Obama because of his offer to Joe Sestak of a political appointment in an effort to dissuade him from running against Arlen Spector (an artifice that has been routinely used in politics from time immemorial).
Or how about we impeach him because his trip to India was too expensive?
Hey, at least, if he needed tech support while he was there, it would have been a local call.
But let's not even consider impeaching, or now investigating and prosecuting, George W. Bush and Dick Cheney for war crimes even though the only reason why they took us to war was because they wanted to take us to war and even though, for the first, and hopefully the very last, time in our history, we actually participated in the use of torture, detained innocent people indefinitely without cause, and otherwise shredded our constitution.
Hell, why not? After all what's worse? Spending a few extra dollars on an official visit or lying to the American public to justify a needless war, the costs of which in human life, misery, and dollars that we don't have continues to mount by the day?
Seems obvious to me ...
Wednesday, November 10, 2010
Tuesday, September 21, 2010
The Upcoming Election or Catch-22: The Sequel
The upcoming election can be summarized in one paragraph:
Eight years of George W. Bush and his rubber stamp GOP Congress drove our economy to the brink of depression. President Obama and the Congressional Democratic majorities have made heroic efforts to restore the economic stability that we had when President Clinton left office, but the Republican members of the Senate have obstructed these efforts at every turn by unprecedented use of the filibuster. Now, having prevented most of President Obama's attempts to turn the economy around, Republican Congressional and Senatorial candidates have been campaigning on the platform that the President hasn't done enough to fix the economy!
All of which is reminiscent of this line from Humphrey Bogart in "The Big Sleep" (1946) - "First they'll knock my teeth out. Then they'll kick me in the stomach for mumbling."
Eight years of George W. Bush and his rubber stamp GOP Congress drove our economy to the brink of depression. President Obama and the Congressional Democratic majorities have made heroic efforts to restore the economic stability that we had when President Clinton left office, but the Republican members of the Senate have obstructed these efforts at every turn by unprecedented use of the filibuster. Now, having prevented most of President Obama's attempts to turn the economy around, Republican Congressional and Senatorial candidates have been campaigning on the platform that the President hasn't done enough to fix the economy!
All of which is reminiscent of this line from Humphrey Bogart in "The Big Sleep" (1946) - "First they'll knock my teeth out. Then they'll kick me in the stomach for mumbling."
Christine O'Donnell
"In Delaware, the Republicans have selected an unemployed, anti-masturbation activist to run for the Senate. She REALLY hates masturbation, which is ironic since she owes her nomination to a bunch of jack offs." - Bill Maher
"She has no job; there's a lien on her home; she's using campaign funds for her living expenses; and her platform is about bringing fiscal responsibility to Washington." -Bill Maher
New Scientific Discovery
A recent Time Magazine article reports that scientists have been able to extract antimicrobial medicine from, of all places, cockroach brains. My question: Are there enough Tea Partiers to provide a sufficient supply?
http://www.stumbleupon.com/su/8Ujhe9/healthland.time.com/2010/09/17/new-weird-source-of-antimicrobial-drugs-cockroach-brains//r:t
Thursday, September 16, 2010
Very Possibly the Most Critical Six .Weeks in Our History
I started this blog because I firmly believe that our wonderful country, with all of its grand traditions, is currently facing the most serious threat to our way of life that we have ever known. More serious than Bin Laden, the Taliban, and Ahmadinejad. More serious than even the Nazis or the Communists. Because all of those threats were external. Since the United States is by far the greatest country the world has ever known, we will always, as we always have in the past, conquer any enemy that threatens us from without.
But threats from within present an entirely different problem. When it's us against us, anything is possible, and the predictability factor goes out the window. Right now, we are facing the gravest existential threat that has ever confronted us. It is right wing extremism, and it has been insidiously encroaching upon us since at least the 1950's, although groups like the Ku Klux Klan prove that right wing extremists and their first cousins, merchants of hate, have apparently always been among us.
Of course, I'm referring primarily to the so-called "Tea Party," and its minions in the Republican Party. The way that Tea Partyism sprung up overnight and the nonstop momentum that it has gathered exponentially ever since is particularly frightening because it is mostly built upon the sands of anger, hate, jealousy, greed, selfishness, racial prejudice, and just about every other base characteristic that one can think of. The fact that a movement grounded upon these most negative of characteristics has grown so fast in such a short period of time does not speak well of our citizenry.
Which, of course, brings us to their titular leaders, Sarah Palin and Glenn Beck, one of whom has less knowledge than your average first grader and the other who seems to have been released from a facility far too prematurely.
I hate to bring up the subject of Hitler, because that most awful of names has recently been bandied about much too frequently in a myriad of situations in which it has absolutely no application. But the Beck/Palin duo unfortunately do reveal a certain commonality of characteristics with those by which Hitler gained power in Germany:
(1) They are both willing to say anything, no matter how obviously false and/or ludicrous, in order to achieve their desired goals; (2) Although I can't see or understand it, both are apparently captivating, charismatic public speakers who are able to gain numerous ardent supporters by their mere intonation; and (3) Most reminiscent of Hitler, both Beck and Palin are accomplished purveyors of "The Big Lie," a stratagem by which the same untruth, repeated often enough and loudly enough, eventually becomes the truth in the mind of the listener. (I believe Joseph Goebbels was the originator of this artifice.)
Consequently, the vast majority of Tea Partiers do not seem to have the slightest idea of what they actually want. All they know is that it is presumably a catharsis for them to rail against the President of the United States, who, whatever you might think of him and his policies, is beyond the slightest doubt, trying his very hardest to do what's best for the people of his country. Yet the shockingly misplaced comparisons between the President and Hitler first arose during the "debate" over health care reform. Huh?? This President's best efforts to make decent medical care available to as many Americans as possible remind people of Hitler? Can someone please explain this nonsequitur?
The Tea Baggers' unlimited lack of insight and understanding defy comprehension. They foam at the mouth at the mere thought of some of their tax dollars being used to provide health care or unemployment benefits to truly needy people, but they don't have the slightest problem with the Republicans' relentless efforts to provide huge windfall "tax cuts" to the super rich who don't need them in the least. What in the world are these people thinking? Of course, by being so gullible and so easily duped, they fall right into the trap laid by the dishonest, Machiavellian hierarchy of the Republican Party which has somehow convinced them that the burgeoning deficit about which they so constantly and irrationally complain will not be negatively affected by the giveaway of billions of dollars to the super rich, a plan that every objective economist has concluded will do absolutely nothing to help our faltering economy.
Of course, since the Tea Parties are almost exclusively comprised of right wing extremists, they invariably mesh perfectly with the Religious Right, as is shown by such Tea Party darlings as Palin, Sharron Angle, Joe Miller, and their latest gift to our body politic, Christine O'Donnell.
Angle, Miller, O'Donnell, Rand Paul, and Ken Buck all believe that ALL abortions should be illegal. That is ALL as in no exceptions even for rape and/or incest. So these Tea Baggers who excoriate the current administration for supposedly growing government much too large apparently have no problem at all with omnipresent government agents arresting and prosecuting young girls and women who try to have abortions, as well as their doctors, of course.
I could go on forever because it's so frustrating that so many people in this country refuse to see what's right in front of their eyes. We only have about six weeks within which to wake them up. Let's hope that's enough.
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=XcATvu5f9vE
But threats from within present an entirely different problem. When it's us against us, anything is possible, and the predictability factor goes out the window. Right now, we are facing the gravest existential threat that has ever confronted us. It is right wing extremism, and it has been insidiously encroaching upon us since at least the 1950's, although groups like the Ku Klux Klan prove that right wing extremists and their first cousins, merchants of hate, have apparently always been among us.
Of course, I'm referring primarily to the so-called "Tea Party," and its minions in the Republican Party. The way that Tea Partyism sprung up overnight and the nonstop momentum that it has gathered exponentially ever since is particularly frightening because it is mostly built upon the sands of anger, hate, jealousy, greed, selfishness, racial prejudice, and just about every other base characteristic that one can think of. The fact that a movement grounded upon these most negative of characteristics has grown so fast in such a short period of time does not speak well of our citizenry.
Which, of course, brings us to their titular leaders, Sarah Palin and Glenn Beck, one of whom has less knowledge than your average first grader and the other who seems to have been released from a facility far too prematurely.
I hate to bring up the subject of Hitler, because that most awful of names has recently been bandied about much too frequently in a myriad of situations in which it has absolutely no application. But the Beck/Palin duo unfortunately do reveal a certain commonality of characteristics with those by which Hitler gained power in Germany:
(1) They are both willing to say anything, no matter how obviously false and/or ludicrous, in order to achieve their desired goals; (2) Although I can't see or understand it, both are apparently captivating, charismatic public speakers who are able to gain numerous ardent supporters by their mere intonation; and (3) Most reminiscent of Hitler, both Beck and Palin are accomplished purveyors of "The Big Lie," a stratagem by which the same untruth, repeated often enough and loudly enough, eventually becomes the truth in the mind of the listener. (I believe Joseph Goebbels was the originator of this artifice.)
Consequently, the vast majority of Tea Partiers do not seem to have the slightest idea of what they actually want. All they know is that it is presumably a catharsis for them to rail against the President of the United States, who, whatever you might think of him and his policies, is beyond the slightest doubt, trying his very hardest to do what's best for the people of his country. Yet the shockingly misplaced comparisons between the President and Hitler first arose during the "debate" over health care reform. Huh?? This President's best efforts to make decent medical care available to as many Americans as possible remind people of Hitler? Can someone please explain this nonsequitur?
The Tea Baggers' unlimited lack of insight and understanding defy comprehension. They foam at the mouth at the mere thought of some of their tax dollars being used to provide health care or unemployment benefits to truly needy people, but they don't have the slightest problem with the Republicans' relentless efforts to provide huge windfall "tax cuts" to the super rich who don't need them in the least. What in the world are these people thinking? Of course, by being so gullible and so easily duped, they fall right into the trap laid by the dishonest, Machiavellian hierarchy of the Republican Party which has somehow convinced them that the burgeoning deficit about which they so constantly and irrationally complain will not be negatively affected by the giveaway of billions of dollars to the super rich, a plan that every objective economist has concluded will do absolutely nothing to help our faltering economy.
Of course, since the Tea Parties are almost exclusively comprised of right wing extremists, they invariably mesh perfectly with the Religious Right, as is shown by such Tea Party darlings as Palin, Sharron Angle, Joe Miller, and their latest gift to our body politic, Christine O'Donnell.
Angle, Miller, O'Donnell, Rand Paul, and Ken Buck all believe that ALL abortions should be illegal. That is ALL as in no exceptions even for rape and/or incest. So these Tea Baggers who excoriate the current administration for supposedly growing government much too large apparently have no problem at all with omnipresent government agents arresting and prosecuting young girls and women who try to have abortions, as well as their doctors, of course.
I could go on forever because it's so frustrating that so many people in this country refuse to see what's right in front of their eyes. We only have about six weeks within which to wake them up. Let's hope that's enough.
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=XcATvu5f9vE
Subscribe to:
Posts (Atom)