Woodward book blows away W war myths

On Sunday night, Bob Woodward appeared on 60 Minutes to discuss his new book, The War Within: A Secret White House History 2006-2008, which contains some pretty stark revelations about President Bush and his handling of the War in Iraq, specifically the GOP ballyhooed Troop Surge. He sat down with CBS' Scott Pelley for a very interesting interview:

"What does General Casey, sitting in Baghdad, think of having additional troops?" Pelley asked.

"He thinks that Baghdad is a troop sump-a place you can put endless numbers of troops in. And he does not want to add force," Woodward said.

"The president, who has said in public, endless times, that he relies on his generals to tell him what they need, is actually going his own way here," Pelley remarked.

"That’s right," Woodward agreed. "The records of the joint chiefs show that the idea of five brigades came from the White House, not from anybody except the White House."

Not that I totally agree with the philosophy, but so much for the Republicans "listening to the generals on the ground," an MO that Bush and McCain have attempted to smear Obama for not advocating.

BONUS:
Here's an interesting excerpt from The War Within regarding Bush's psyche regarding Iran (and his intellectual capacity, for that matter). On page 334:

That spring, [2007] Admiral Fallon attended a White House meeting on Iran.

"I think we need to do something to get engaged with these guys," Fallon said. Iraq shared a 900-mile border with Iran, and he needed guidance and a strategy for dealing with the Iranians.

"Well," Bush said, "these are assholes."

Fallon was stunned. Declaring them "assholes" was not a strategy. Lots of words and ideas were thrown around at the meeting, especially about the Iranian leaders. They were bad, evil, out of touch with their people. But no one offered a real approach. No one wanted to touch diplomatic engagement.

What a shocker - the Bush administration not wanting to engage in diplomacy?!? It's pretty clear that Bush (and McCain, if he gets into office) would rather bomb the Iranians than talk to them to find out what they really hope to accomplish. Bush, Rove, McCain and co. have been pushing the meme that "talking" to our enemies is a weakness. Someone needs to school these rubes on history, especially their anointed saint, Ronald Reagan, who used diplomacy to help win the Cold War.

And "assholes," Mr. President? How... presidential, President Frat Boy.

I wonder if Dick Cheney will curse out Bob Woodward again for his latest book, just as he did following Woodward's release of last explosive book, State of Denial, which was very unflattering to the Bush Presidency. (See below)

Debunking the bunk on Al Gore's speech

Well, the reception from Al Gore's speech yesterday has been pretty predictable in many ways. (A short clip from the full version of his speech is above - and it's the best part, where he challenges America to have 100 percent renewable energy within 10 years.) Those who oppose him for political reasons are still whining about his electricity bill while ignoring the real problems facing our country. After I blogged about Gore's speech yesterday, I sent out an e-mail to a bunch of people, imploring them to at least listen to Gore's speech with an open mind. Here are two very different responses (my comments follow each one).

Here's the predictable, negative, right-wing ideological tripe in an e-mail from an unidentified conservative who I know through someone else:

If Clinton hadn't vetoed the bill to drill in ANWR back in 1994, we wouldn't have such dependency on foreign oil and we wouldn't have the high gas prices we have now. I've written to my congressmen to 'Drill here, drill now'. We need to keep gas prices down while exploring cost effective alternatives. Food prices are soaring due to the regulations "forcing" the use of ethanol (ever notice how much stuff uses corn syrup?).

How can you take Algore seriously when he's the biggest hypocrite out there? The money paid for "Carbon Credits" goes to a company he owns. And his own home uses 20 times the national average in energy consumption (http://abcnews.go.com/Politics/GlobalWarming/Story?id=2906888&page=1)

(silly you...you know I have a soap box too....and I remember the Carter years and the misery index and I fear for our country (and my hard earned income) if a Socialist is elected president :-( )

Hmm - where to start...

First, I'm actually pretty amused that some conservatives can actually find a way to tie 2008 fuel prices to President Clinton. And just when I thought the Blame Clinton fad had faded. How silly of me. Conservatives have spent the last eight years blaming Bill Clinton for just about everything bad, all while George W. Bush has been driving America into the ground on many fronts. I'm happy and proud that Clinton vetoed ANWR drilling. The idea that ANWR can alleviate our energy problem is a farce and a sham, perpetuated by those on the right who think that a little more oil from our modest (at best) oil reserves will lower prices. WRONG. ANWR, even by generous estimates, would only provide a fraction of oil that American uses on a daily basis (approx. 21 million barrels per day, as of 2008). To wit, according to a statistical report from the U.S. Department of Energy:

The opening of the ANWR 1002 Area to oil and natural gas development is projected to increase domestic crude oil production starting in 2018. In the mean ANWR oil resource case, additional oil production resulting from the opening of ANWR reaches 780,000 barrels per day in 2027 and then declines to 710,000 barrels per day in 2030. In the low and high ANWR oil resource cases, additional oil production resulting from the opening of ANWR peaks in 2028 at 510,000 and 1.45 million barrels per day, respectively. Between 2018 and 2030, cumulative additional oil production is 2.6 billion barrels for the mean oil resource case, while the low and high resource cases project a cumulative additional oil production of 1.9 and 4.3 billion barrels, respectively.

What's all this mean? That we still need foreign oil, and lots of it, to function as we are right now with very little mass transit options, few explored alternative energy sources, and virtually no other automobile options, save a smattering of hybrids that are hitting the market, which still rely on oil to run.

There are a few more things that conservatives aren't considering, and that our corporate media (and Faux News) isn't telling us. One, has anyone considered that if we do start drilling on our outer continental shelf and in ANWR, OPEC could simply reduce production by the same amount, thereby keeping prices high? What or who is to stop them, other than begging by our politicians? The answer is, nothing, unless a Republican president wants to invade another country in the Middle East. (How much oil does Iran have again?)

Anyone who thinks that OPEC will sit on its collective hands and not lower production while we drill for more oil, thereby lowering the price of oil, raise your hand. Now go sit in the corner and put on a dunce cap.

Two, it amazes me that people think if we start drilling tomorrow that gas prices will magically come down. It ain't happenin', capt'n. These people (like the e-mailer above) who write their elected legislators demanding that we "drill here, drill now" don't realize that it's only going to line the pockets of Big Oil and the politicians they support (and we know who most of them are: G-O-P), and also destroy the environment in the process. It's just one more example on a tragically long list of ways that Republicans convince people to vote against their economic (and environmental) self interests.

Big Oil is NOT friendly to the environment, and there are many, many examples, most notably the Exxon Valdez. Sickeningly enough, ExxonMobile has fought in the courts tooth and nail the people whose livelihoods the company destroyed, refusing to make adequate restitution. So, should we open up a pristine refuge for Big Oil to come in and rape the land? How about, NO!?! No way. Big Oil has proven time and time again to be environmentally unfriendly (to be kind), yet now it claims it can extract oil from ANWR "in environmentally sensitive ways." (A line that President Bush happily pimps on TV, over and over and over.) That just sounds good for the political argument to turn our land over to Big Oil to be raped and pillaged.

Three, I seldom hear this argument voiced, but it's our oil, and by our I mean citizens of the United States - it's not Big Oil's. Currently, the oil companies pay the U.S. Government 12.5 percent of the oil's market value to get it out of the ground. If a law does get passed allowing Big Oil access to ANWR & the outer continental shelf, that rate should be doubled, and the money should go entirely toward development of alternative energy sources. What's more, a law should be passed imposing strict fines on the oil companies should they have an oil spill. What a novel concept - the polluter pays, not the taxpayer. In the last 30 years (since Reagan took office) - it's been the taxpayers who have largely been paying for corporate environmental disasters, not the polluter. That's an outrage of Biblical proportions.

As far as Al Gore and his electricity bill, I'm not going to waste a whole lot more time on it here, as I've blogged about this before, but I will repeat a few things (Note: it's "Al Gore," not "Algore," an elementary smear perpetuated by drug addict Rush Limbaugh, the uneducated Sean Hannity, and the asinine Newt Gingrich. It's sort of like saying the "Democrat Party" in lieu of the "Democratic Party," a McCarthy-era smear every bit as stupid and childish):

1. Gore has publicly stated that he purchases renewable energy and has taken many steps to reduce his carbon footprint, including putting up solar panels on his mansion in Tennessee, and I believe him. Hey, if the guy has one solar panel, it's one more than the White House has. But, the White House DID have solar panels when Jimmy Carter was president, but Reagan had them taken down. How stupid does that look, in hindsight?

2. The entire faux Gore Electricity Bill "story" has been endlessly flogged and pimped by a group called the Tennessee Center for Policy Research, a right-wing funded group that has been out to smear Gore for years now, specifically the day after his movie, An Inconvenient Truth, won two Oscars. But, I'm sure the timing was entirely coincidental, right? Anyway, read more about the myths behind Gore's electricity bill Here and Here.

3. Quite frankly, I don't care if Gore criss-crosses the globe in a 747 by himself - he's done more to raise awareness about global warming in the last two years than George W. Bush (or his father) did in three presidential administrations.

4. It's tragically hilarious that President Bush went out of his way on television a few days ago to say that he would NOT encourage Americans to conserve energy, that it's "not his place to do that." Unreal. Like it would be a bad thing for the president to set an example for the American people. Then again, why start now?

5. One more thing about oil spills - the right has perpetuated the myth total lie that there were no oil spills during Hurricane Katrina. I will write more about this in a bit - it warrants a separate post, but it's absolutely, 100 percent FALSE. This is yet another blatant example of the right-wing media's strategy of repeating a lie over and over, hoping that people will believe it if they hear it often enough. Sell that crap to the tourists, because I ain't buyin' it.

To be fair, I will say this about the e-mail above - she brings up two points that I sort of agree with, so there is some common ground.

First, ethanol is NOT the answer - I totally agree. Burning food for fuel is a monumentally stupid idea. But, it's not Gore who has been pimping ethanol, it's been President Bush. Spend 15 minutes on YouTube and you can find plenty of Bush speeches where he's talking so favorably about ethanol, you'd think we have enough corn to power the entire planet.

Second, I've never been a big fan of carbon credits, but I don't yet know too much about it. However, I'm not keen on giving a corporation my money, with which it promises to "plant a tree" or something of the like. I'll make my own decisions about how I help the environment, thanks very much. Hey, I may be a big fan of Al Gore (notice the spelling), but I'm not slavishly devoted to every idea he has. Just most of them. And I'm hearing more ideas and bold goals come out of his mouth about the environment than I've heard from Bush in 7+ years, but I'm repeating myself. (But that point bears repeating, to be sure.)

However, if Gore chooses to invest in a carbon credit company, so what? I'm sure he's invested in a great deal of "green" companies. How is that a bad thing? People who accuse him of promoting green ideas because he owns stock in some innovative green companies are missing the point, and are stuck in a Rush Limbaugh-like drug-induced haze, where being critical of Al Gore is supposed to be the right's answer to his innovative ideas, as well as our energy problems.

Speaking of investments, I guess the conservative e-mailer above has never heard of Halliburton, a company headed by Dick Cheney until he became vice president, and also the same company that's received no-bid contract after no-bid contract in Iraq. (Also a company that recently moved its world headquarters to the Middle East, away from prying eyes in the U.S. Anyone care to bet how much cash Cheney is lavished with from the company once he leaves office?) Halliburton has made hundreds of millions during this administration, due in no small part to its connections at 1600 Pennsylvania Ave.

And finally, I got a kick out of this line from the e-mail above: I remember the Carter years and the misery index. ... (Read: Hey, you stupid kid, I know more than you because I've been around longer.) Please - get a grip. What's more, turn off Limbaugh, Hannity, O'Lielly and their ilk and get some real news. Here's a few recent news items that this person may have missed: Consumer prices jumped 1.2 percent in June, the biggest one-month jump since another Republican recession, circa 1982. And a recent Washington Post poll revealed that consumer confidence is at a 16-year low, the lowest since 1992, another year of a Republican recession. But hey, let's not facts get in the way.

I also laugh and laugh at Repubes bringing up Carter whenever they get the chance, including McCain, who impressed no one with the witless remark, "Obama keeps saying I'm running for a third Bush term, but it sounds like he's running for Jimmy Carter's second term." Funny how McCain never mentions the eight years of President Clinton, which were mostly a time of economic growth. If Jimmy Carter's all McCain's got, he's going to have the look of a candidate who's going to get his ass kicked this November.

I'll bring up the other e-mail shortly in a separate post.

Cheney's ignorance on display... again

This hardly classifies as news any longer - Shooter Cheney is making an ass out of himself again. The latest installment came yesterday at a gathering in West Virginia. WaPo's Mary Ann Akers:

During a question-and-answer session toward the end of the luncheon, someone asked the vice president about his wife Lynne Cheney's revelation on MSNBC last year that "Dick and Barack Obama are eighth cousins."

The questioner jokingly asked the vice president if he and Obama were going to have a family reunion, to which Cheney replied he would "have no objections" though he said he doubted Obama would want one - "certainly not before November."

Then came the offensive punch line. Cheney explained that during the course of researching his family lineage for Lynne's memoir "Blue Skies, No Fences" last year, he learned there were Cheneys on both his father's and his mother's side of the family. There was a Richard Cheney on his mother's side, the vice president said.

"So I had Cheneys on both sides of the family and we don't even live in West Virginia," Cheney quipped.

West Virginia politicians aren’t laughing at Cheney’s little joke, including his fellow Republican, Rep. Shelley Moore Capito (R-W.Va.)

Who knew a Dick could be this funny?

Seriously, I've little to no idea why West Virginians would even consider voting for John McCain in the general election this November. Any fair minded political observer would probably draw only one conclusion - race. I know, I know, it's not PC to say, but I don't care - I think it's the truth.

Considering that West Virginia ranks in the bottom five in the country in just about every conceivable income category (According to the 2000 Census), what other conclusion could one draw? I find it impossible to believe that the state's working poor could look to John McCain (or George W. Bush or Dick Cheney, for that matter) to improve their lot in life. It's not like the last eight years have been boom times for West Virginia, that's for sure. However, the Bush administration has been in bed with the coal industry since day one of Bush's presidency, so that undoubtedly plays a party in Bush's popularity in the state.

Anyway, draw your own conclusions.

P.S. - Cheney's spokeswoman offered an apology after his office received complaints about his ignorant remarks. One more thought - you'd think that the Cheney family, considering that they have a gay daughter, would have an appreciation for diversity and for people who are cut from a different cloth than they are, especially considering hypocrite Lynne Cheney's crazed reaction to John Kerry merely mentioning in 2004 what everyone already knew, that the Cheneys have a gay daughter. (And then there's Dick's barking at Wolf Blitzer for a question about his daughter Mary.) These people don't have a good track record of being tolerant when people point out the obvious about their family, much less making jokes about it, so I wonder how the Cheneys would have reacted about a joke about their family? Well, let's not let facts get in the way.

Cheney to America: F*ck You

Okay, so he didn't say "F-You," but he might just as well have.

Say this about Dick Cheney - the man has balls. I'll also say this about him - he is quite possibly the darkest man in American politics, and the worst vice president in American history.

Yesterday, on ABC's Good Morning America, responding to a question by Martha Raddatz about the unpopularity of the War in Iraq, Cheney offers up this defiant, despicable answer...

Raddatz: Two-thirds of Americans say it's not worth fighting, and they're looking at the value gain versus the cost in American lives, certainly, and Iraqi lives.

Cheney: So? [Bush-like sneer]

Raddatz: So — you don't care what the American people think?

Cheney: No, I think you cannot be blown off course by the fluctuations in the public opinion polls.

[...]

Think about what would have happened if Abraham Lincoln had paid attention to polls, if they had had polls during the Civil War. He never would have succeeded if he hadn't had a clear objective, a vision for where he wanted to go, and he was willing to withstand the slings and arrows of the political wars in order to get there. And this president has been very courageous, very consistent, very determined to continue down the course we were on and to achieve our objective.

I couldn't be more tired of the senior members of this administration (along with President Bush) constantly making references to Lincoln, Reagan and World War II, and our troops in Germany and North Korea, all as a justification for what we are doing in Iraq.

I also love how when opinion polls go against this administration, "you can't be blown off course by public opinion polls," yet when opinion polls support a position of this administration, the numbers are endlessly and breathlessly pimped all over TV by Bush's talking heads.

If these guys were any more clueless, we would be in World War III. I guess we can at least be thankful for that.

h/t Crooks & Liars for the video

Must see: montage of Bush cabal's Iraq lies

I don't know how I missed this one, but it's been up on YouTube for about 3-4 months now - a great montage of the lies the Bush administration has been shoveling on the American people for the better part of eight years now.

I know what some of you may be thinking - "We get it - the Bush administration has lied to us a great deal."

No so fast. Seriously - John McCain has played more than a small part in propagating these lies, specifically about Iraq. Bush, Cheney, Rumsfeld, Condi Rice, Colin Powell and McCain all got various aspects of the Iraq War wrong, and then years later went in front of the camera to totally deny ever having been wrong. Dick Cheney is the biggest skunk, but McCain doesn't escape it, either.

My point in bringing all of this up is this - Why should we believe these people now, most notably McCain? They haven't gotten one thing right about this war yet.

I snicker and sneer every time I hear McCain say that "victory in Iraq is possible," and "We are Americans and we never surrender." I'd think that someone who spent over five years in a North Vietnam POW camp would realize that sometimes a guerrilla war, and the Iraq War is one, reaches a point where it is untenable to continue.

This point has been made by many, and it bears repeating - at what point do America's interests become more important than Iraq's? I realize that we created the mess over there, but it's costing us soo much money and is created so much havoc and chaos, here's a crazy idea: Maybe if we left, the area might actually stabilize.

Not only that, but I heard this point on a talk show last week that has really stuck with me: In Iraq under Saddam Hussein, if people stepped out of line, they might end up in prison, or they might have had their tongues cut out. Now, people are afraid to leave their homes because they might get blown to kingdom come.

For the last two years now, polls have consistently shown that Iraqis were more confident in their future and had a better quality of life under Saddam than during our occupation.

Well, it's heartening to see that the hundreds of billions of dollars we're spending over there is building up good will with the Iraqi people.

At least Halliburtion is getting rich, and as an added bonus, the company folded up its headquarters and moved it to Dubai, where it will no doubt be scrupulously monitored.

I really do wonder where the press has been these past eight years.

Happy fifth anniversary, Dick

Remember when?

Tomorrow marks the fifth anniversary Dick Cheney's laughable prediction that our troops "would be greeted as liberators" in Iraq. On March 16, 2003, this is what Cheney said, with a straight face, on Meet the Press with Tim Russert:

CHENEY: Now, I think things have gotten so bad inside Iraq, from the standpoint of the Iraqi people, my belief is we will, in fact, be greeted as liberators.

From Think Progress:

That same month — in March 2003 — McCain was parroting the Bush administration's rosy talk, repeating on many occasions that "we will be greeted as liberators." Cheney and the administration ignored numerous pre-war intelligence analyses that warned "that the US would face armed resistance from Iraqis following the fall of Saddam Hussein's regime."

Talk about a collective Ma Bad from the boobs in this administration, and the man who wants to succeed it, John Sidney McCain III.

This is yet another example of the Recency Effect, which in short means that the American people don't typically have a memory span that goes back five years. In our pop culture nation, attitudes and political winds shift quickly, and misdeeds and whoppers like the one above are sometimes forgotten quickly.

Not this year.

It wasn't so long ago that McCain was one in a long line of Bush administration parrots, serving, in effect, as the White House spokesman on a variety of issues, from the Bush tax cuts to the War in Iraq.

More on the tax cuts in a bit.

Dick's dark view on presidential powers

Last week, PBS Frontline aired a special that is getting plenty of attention and discussion called Cheney's Law. Above is a pretty damning clip about the administration's use of Signing Statements, which is the Bush administration's method of sticking up its collective middle finger at Congress and the American people. Never before in my lifetime do I remember a president telling Congress that it will do what it wants. Even more damning is the press's willingness to under report this ominous, unchecked increase in presidential power.

It's no secret that the old guard Republicans, most notably Dick Cheney and Donald Rumsfeld, were out to dramatically increase presidential power, even before 9-11. But, September 11 offered this administration the perfect opportunity (Read: Excuse) to do just that. Don and Dick were right in the middle of the Ford administration after the fall and resignation of President Nixon. After Watergate, the American public demanded, and Congress enacted, laws that reduced presidential powers.

This was inexcusable in the eyes of neocons Wolfowitz, Dick and Don. So far, the feckless Democratically controlled Congress and the press have done precious little about Bush's blatant, arrogant power grab, which has again created an imperial presidency of sorts.

Bush's use of signing statements alone, which openly flout laws that he has signed, should alone be an impeachable offense. (And there are many others.) If the Democratic party had any backbone whatsoever, which it has demonstrated on a daily basis it does not have, it would have put a stop to Bush's flagrant, lawbreaking presidency. Sigh.

All we can do is watch and wait. Only 457 days to go until we again have a legitimate president.

You can watch the entire PBS series, Cheney's Law, Here. I plan on watching it as soon as I can, and when I do I'll write my thoughts.

BOR bores with more Kos crap

I have to confess, I'm beginning to have a fetish for Bill O'Lielly's fetish about Daily Kos. It's actually getting pretty hilarious. His latest outrage is a picture that appeared on DK. Here it is...

Personally, I laughed for about five minutes when I first saw it. Okay, no one ever accused me of being the most mature person in the world, 24 hours a day, nor to I portray myself to be. But, this picture is using humor to make a serious point, and that point is that Joe Lieberman is a flat-out liar. Where do I get that from?

When Lieberman ran as an Independent in 2006 after he lost the Democratic Connecticut Primary to Ned Lamont, he promised that if elected he would caucus with Democrats that that he would remain a Democrat in spirit. I'm still waiting to see it.

He has continuously supported the Bush administration regarding the War in Iraq since he was elected last year.

BOR calls Lieberman a patriot. Hardly. As far as I'm concerned, Lieberman has just as much blood on his hands as Bush and Cheney.

Oh, and as for BOR whining that DK traffics in hate? Hmm, I wonder if Bill's brain is out to lunch, perhaps sexually harassing someone other than Andrea Mackris so he doesn't get sued. (More on that in a minute.)

But seriously, where was BOR when Rush Limbaugh was accusing the Clintons of murder, or when he called Chelsea Clinton the White House dog? Or when Ann Coulter was on television saying that the 9-11 widows are enjoying their deaths? How about this doozy - when Dick Cheney suggested that people who don't side with the administration on terrorism (Read: Democrats), they are siding with Saddam Hussein, Osama bin Laden or fill in your terrorist here that the administration tries to scare the American public about: _________. Oh, and Cheney has been on Rush Limbaugh's program numerous times, most notably early this year.

I'm not going to make a laundry list here, because why bore you with what's already mostly understood - that BOR merely spits out GOP-authored subjects and ideas.

Even one of the segments on his show is dubbed Talking Points Memo !!

Bottom line, and I've written it so many times it's bordering on trite - if you dare disagree with O'Lielly or Fox News and you call him/the network out on their lies, then you're a hate monger or you're operating a hate site.

Color me happy - O'Lielly thinks I'm a hate monger. Sweet.

Please do me and yourself a favor - visit Daily Kos each and every day. (Click logo above to go right to the home page.) Take a look around. Kick some tires. If you're a Progressive, you're going to like what you read. In addition to that, it's a way to support the Website, which is more than worth supporting. I just signed up for a Daily Kos premium account a few hours ago - it takes about two minutes. I urge you to do the same - it's a way to support the site and keep it going to fight the good fight against blow hards like Bill O'Lielly.

If you missed it: KO's take on Libby pardon

If you think I'm done with the Libby pardon, think again. Not even close. Yes, I'm calling it a pardon, even though the White House is not. I know that two year's probation and the $250,000 fine is an incredible hardship, but I'm sure Libby will, ahem, "survive." I wonder if Halliburton has an opening? One phone call from our favorite Dick will land him a job just about anywhere in the right-wing industrial complex that our creep veep controls. I let out a yelp when I saw that Libby wrote out a check for $250,000 last week to pay his fine. Hmm. Wondering where that generosity came from? But, I digress.

I meant to post this last week, but with the holiday, I forgot. It's still as powerful now as it was when Keith Olbermann delivered it last week.

As usual, Olbermann nails the Libby pardon just as he has so many other Bush missteps in the past few years; it's just too bad that Olbermann wasn't around from about 2002 on - I wonder if all of the things he exposes and offers biting commentary on about this administration would have made just enough of a difference in the 2004 election. We'll never know, but hopefully he'll make a huge difference this year and next.

For those who feel that Olbermann is the left's equivalent of Bill O'Reilly, Rush Limbaugh or Sean Hannity, I'd say you don't listen to any of them. I have, and Olbermann is the only one who deals with the facts, not hatred, intolerance or demagoguery. Okay, he does take off on O'Lielly quite a bit, but I overlook that, because that's long overdue, and deserved.

Dana Perino clears it all up

This is some pretty grand footage of Deputy White House Press Secretary Dana Perino clearing up trying to spin Vice President Dick Cheney's position on just what freakin' branch of government he is in.

I'll have lots more to say about this later today - that's a promise. Right now, I have to get on the road, because the state school I teach at is about to go on strike, and I have to go retrieve some things from my office.

More later today.

Lynne Dick Six

I nearly forgot this one - Lynne and Dick Cheney welcomed their sixth grandchild, Samuel David Cheney, into the world last week. Samuel is the son of Mary Cheney and her partner, Heather Poe. I think that's great, and if Poe and Cheney provide a loving household, that's all that matters. Too bad an overwhelming majority of Republicans don't feel that way.

Here's hoping that Lynne and Dick, every time that look at little Samuel, realize what sell outs and hypocrites they are for supporting a president and a party that's so openly homophobic. Of course, when Dick is questioned about his absurd contradiction of having a gay daughter and shilling for an openly homophobic administration, he gets mighty defensive, decrying people like Wolf Blitzer for being "out of line" and saying that gay marriage should be "left up to the states to decide." I've written it many times: whenever a politician gives the "leave it up to the states" answer, it's merely a euphemism for "I don't want to answer that awfully awkward question."

Flashback: take a look at Cheney barking at Blitzer...

Being hypocritical is nothing new to Dick - who's the biggest war monger in this administration, but did everything he could to dodge the draft in the 1960s. Dick now has more grandchildren (6) than draft deferments (5). It took a while.

White House Photo

An excellent compilation to observe "Mission Accomplished"

Today has been an introspective one for me - I guess a three-hour commute to work tends to do that, but that's a separate subject for another post.

This is a pretty good compilation of the lies, distortions and half-truths told by Bush, Cheney and all the rest.

I've stated this to the point of cliché, but the footage doesn't lie.

Think petitions don't matter? Watch this...

This is proof positive that petitions really can make a difference. I'm glad the leadership of the Democratic Party woke up and realizing that Fox does not deserve equal billing with the rest of the news networks.

Fox is free to peddle its propaganda, but that doesn't obligate any Democrat to participate.

I've read plenty about Republicans' decrying the cancellation, but where were these same people when Bush and Cheney were calling a New York Times reporter a "major league asshole" (caught on camera) or when Cheney banished an NYT reporter from Air Force Two over the paper's coverage?

Fox is merely getting what it deserves. The "network" has already made sport out of trashing and smearing Democrats in this young campaign. Anyone remember the phony Barack Obama Madrassa story?

Bravo to MoveOn and to everyone who signed the petition. Let's hope that Howard Dean and the Democrats have used up their "stupid move" for the year.

BYU students say no to Dick

I've been following this story with great interest. If it were up to the arrogant morons at Brigham Young University, free speech would only apply happen at public universities in America, or perhaps not at all.

More than a few of BYU's students are very upset at the university's invitation of Dick Cheney to be this spring's commencement speaker. People who are adamantly opposed to Cheney's appearance (which is today, by the way) are having an event of their own - Ralph Nader is speaking at an alternate event today (off campus, of course).

I always laugh at private universities requiring students to "ask permission" to protest. If you ask permission, it's not a protest, people.

Lots of interesting things about the footage above. The fat guy who touched the student - if he had touched me, I immediately would have had him arrested for assault.

At the end of the vid, I got a kick out of BYU President Cecil O. Samuelson, who, in so many words, tells the inquiring student to go screw himself.

I'm not a particularly huge fan of Nader, but I like and admire him a whole lot more than Dick Cheney. So, I'm happy for BYU students that they are having a counterweight of sorts to Dick.

Call me old-fashioned, but I thought that college campuses are a place of expression and free thinking (with some sensible limits). Evidently, that idea is dead on BYU's campus.

Pathetic and sad.

Time Magazine gets one right

I have been a harsh critic of Time Magazine on more than a few occasions, but the mag certainly got the cover right in this week's issue, its first since the Virginia Tech Massacre last week.

Thus far, I've only had time to briefly peruse the issue, but I'll get to it in a day or two. But, from what I've seen and read, so far, so good - there are a number of longer pieces that pay tribute to the victims in a respectful way.

Bravo, Time.

A few cartoons...

Today's the day - Gonzo goes before Congress to lie testify about his role in the U.S. Attorney purge scandal. Politically, he's mortally wounded. It's just a matter of time before he hangs himself with his lies, obfuscations and inaccuracies. If Democrats on the Senate Judiciary Committee are smart, they'll just keep feeding Gonzo rope, because before long, he'll use it.

Speaking of lies, I love it when a politician or PR flak gets on TV and talks about a "misstatement." That would be a LIE. I wonder how many times Gonzo will say "misstatement" during his testimony today?

Well said - we're all counting. - 641 days to go.

Tragically accurate.

Yep, Bush supports the troops alright. Our military is in such dire straights, we should have either ended this war or began a draft years ago. But the "D" word might as well be the "F" word in the discourse about this war. No politician (mostly Republicans) would dare go near it. The language of shared sacrifice might just as well be Arabic to our government - so few people can read it, much less interpret it.

How many times have we heard this in the last four years? But, it usually doesn't come from Bush - he sends his Dick to do the dirty work. Or Repubes in Congress.

It's Vietnam, the sequel. Just like many/most South Vietnamese weren't willing to fight the Viet Cong and North Vietnamese while they had the American military behind it, the Iraqi government is taking this same approach. Maybe, just maybe, unlike the decision makers in this administration, the Iraqis pick up a history book every now and then and read about our past mistakes and are learning from them. God only knows Bush and Cheney have learned no lessons from Vietnam. Maybe it's because they both successfully avoided serving the war.

How good does John Kerry look now?

Spot on. It's amazing to me that Dick Cheney still has an al-Qaeda fetish about Iraq. The terrorist group is only in Iraq now because we are there. It's nothing short of remarkable that a few select neo-cons, led by Cheney, still insist that WMDs were/are in Iraq, and that Hussein and al-Qaeda were connected to 9-11. Last week, Cheney was at it again, making thoroughly debunked claims about the bogus connection. After thinking about it, this occurred to me - this is the same tactic and logic the right uses with global warming - just keep repeating a lie over and over, and as long as you can successfully bring doubt into the discourse and cloud the issue, Mission Accomplished.

A shocking number of American people still believe, in the face of all the facts, that Iraq was connected to 9-11. In my humble opinion, the right is doing this to "soften the blow" about our disastrous foray into Iraq. The thinking is this: if we can make a few people cling to the notion that Iraq and 9-11 are connected, the War in Iraq doesn't look quite so bad. (As it really is.) Nice job, Dick.

Well said. We so desperately need tax reform.

Soo disturbing for so many reasons, but also very funny, too. I love the dog's bubble talk. I'm sure Rudy already rues the day he ever decided to get in a dress for a joke. I'd ask, "What was he thinking, but clearly, he wasn't."

CEO funnier than Ford's "profits"

In case you didn't catch this story, this is Ford CEO Alan Mulally's idea of a joke. He told a room full of reporters that President Bush nearly blew himself up for plugging an electrical cord into a hydrogen tank on an electric/hydrogen hybrid car prototype that was brought to the White House for a photo-op.

Too bad it wasn't true.

The best part was his rationalization - he saw the joke on Jimmy Kimmel Live.

One would think the CEO of Ford, which lost $12.7 billion last year, would have better things to do than trying to be something he's not - funny.

One thing he is, though, is rich; he reportedly received over $20 million in compensation from Ford in 2006 for working four months.

Ford is in serious trouble, which is no laughing matter.

According to the Associate Press,

In December 2006, Ford announced that it would mortgage all assets, including factories and equipment, office property, intellectual property (patents and trademarks), and its stakes in subsidiaries, all to raise $23.4 billion in cash. The secured credit line is expected to finance product development during the restructuring through 2009, as the company expects to burn through $17 billion in cash before turning a profit. These drastic actions are unprecedented in the Ford's 103-year history.

Call me crazy, but that's a lot of scratch. One would think that a chief executive genuinely interested in saving his company would take some sort of pay cut, or at least defer part of his exorbitant compensation. I wonder how Mulally can look blue collar workers in the eye after receiving that much largess in light of the worst fiscal year in corporate history.

I wonder if Bush whispered anything in Mulally's ear about his compensation.

I'll spare you the suspense, or the digging. I'd bet what I'm worth that Bush probably high-fived him.

Who among us could do anything but laugh when Bush, during one of his trademark b.s. photo-ops, looked into the camera with a straight face and said, "companies need to carefully consider what they pay executives."

I guess, by that, he means every company except Halliburton, which gave Dick a $20 million severance package in 2000; or Harken Energy, whose board President Bush served on in the late 1980s. One week before the company announced an enormous loss of nearly $25 million, Bush sold over 200,000 shares of the company at $4 a share, netting him nearly $1 million.

Cheney is such a Dick

I despise Vice President Cheney probably more than any "elected" public official I can think since I've followed politics. I mean that. And, considering who he beats out for that distinction, it's saying something.

Before I even get to Cheney's ludicrous statements yesterday on Rush Limbaugh's show, a quick word about Limbaugh himself. I know a great deal of conservatives, and whenever the name Rush comes up, all I ever hear about is how he represents extreme viewpoints that don't really represent what a majority of Repubes believe.

Really? If Rush is so extremist, why has Cheney made a concerted effort to go on the show? He's been on Rush's show at least a half dozen times since being Vice President, and those are only the ones I can remember.

What's more, Limbaugh has 13 million viewers and is widely (no pun intended) regarded as one of the most successful radio talk show hosts in America. So, when he inevitably says something stupid, which happens pretty often, people who attempt to dismiss him as an obscure extremist aren't accurately dealing with the facts.

Rush, you're up:

Now, let's start talking about the supplemental funding bill for Iraq. I have to tell you something that I heard last night as I'm watching some of the cable news network shows. Some of the Democrats and Democrat commentators, are saying publicly now they expect that the president is eventually going to back off the veto threat because he will he will eventually realize that he cannot be seen as de-funding the troops.

Predictably, Cheney flatly denied that Bush would back off his veto threat to avert the perception that he is defunding the troops:

No, he has been very, very firm in his insistence, Rush, that if they send him a bill with limitations on his ability to function as commander-in-chief or restrictions on the troops or with a withdrawal date that in effect would tell our enemies we're going to quit, he will veto it. He's also said the same thing if the bills are loaded up with pork on non-essential spending. So he's been very, very clear. No one should be mistaken about that.

Predictably, Rush asked loads of leading questions to try to bring out the partisan in Cheney that is always bubbling not too far below the surface. Dick's response to a question about Democrats' "theatrics" that are intended to cause defeat of U.S. forces, causing our troops to come home defeated:

Well, I think that the policies that they are recommending would in fact produce that result. I've got some friends on the other side of the aisle, and I don't want question everybody's motives. I do believe that a significant portion of the Democrats -- including, I think, Nancy Pelosi -- are adamantly opposed to the war and prepared to pack it in and come home in defeat, rather than put in place or support a policy that will lead to victory.

I can't even begin to describe how sick to death I am of hearing ideological rubes like Cheney continue to cheerlead that victory in Iraq is possible. The only thing I've give the Veep credit for here is consistency - he's been holding onto this pipe dream for over four years. He's been consistently wrong, but remarkably consistent.

In response to Oxymoron's absurd question about the Democrats' "allegiance to defeat":

It seems to me so abundantly clear, Rush, that we really need to prevail in this conflict, that there's an awful lot riding on it. It's not just about Iraq. It's about our efforts in the global war on terror, and that entire part of the world, affects what's going on in Iran where we're trying to make sure they don't develop a nuclear weapon. You can imagine the extent to which the Iranians would be heartened in that effort, if they see us withdraw from Iraq next door. We got Musharraf and Pakistan and Karzai in Afghanistan, who put their lives on the line every day, in effect, supporting our efforts to deal with the extremists and the terrorists in part of the world. If they say us bail out in Iraq they clearly would lose confidence in our capacity to carry through and get the job done. So, it's absolutely essential we do it. I don't know what the motive is. They seem to think that we can withdraw from Iraq and walk away from it. They ignore the lessons of the past. Remember what happened in Afghanistan. We'd been involved in Afghanistan in the eighties, supporting the Mujahideen against the Soviets and prevailed. We won. Everybody walked away, and in the nineties, Afghanistan became a safe haven for terrorists, an area for training camps where Al-Qaeda trained 20,000 terrorists in the late nineties, and the base from which they launched attacks on the United States on 9/11. So those are very real problems, and to advocate withdrawal from Iraq at this point, it seems to me, simply would play right into the hands of Al-Qaeda.

Nice try on Afghanistan, DICK. Pretty funny that Cheney covertly admits one of the Senior Bush administration's foreign policy failures, and that was walking away from Afghanistan after the Soviet Union admitted defeat and withdrew its forces. Cheney served as Bush Sr's only secretary of defense.

This next one is great, and Keith Olbermann does an awesome job at slamming this one off in the door - Repubes decrying Democrats' attempted elimination of the term "Global War on Terrorism." (More on that in another post in a little while.):

RUSH: It may not just be Iraq. Yesterday I read that Ike Skelton, who chairs -- I forget the name of the committee -- in the next defense appropriations bill for fiscal '08, is going to actually remove the phrase "global war on terror," because they don't think it's applicable. They want to refer to conflicts as individual skirmishes, but they're going to try to rid the defense appropriation bill, and thus official government language, of that term. Does that give any indication of their motivation, or what they think of the current plight in which the country finds itself?

DICK : Sure. Well, it's just flawed thinking. I like Ike Skelton. I worked closely with Ike when I was secretary of defense. He's chairman of the Armed Services Committee now. Ike's a good man. He's just dead wrong about this, though. Think about it. Just to give you one example, Rush. Remember Abu Musab al-Zarqawi, a Jordanian terrorist, an Al-Qaeda affiliate. He ran a training camp in Afghanistan for Al-Qaeda, then migrated after we went into Afghanistan and shut 'em down there, he went to Baghdad. He took up residence there before we ever launched into Iraq, organized the Al-Qaeda operations inside Iraq before we even arrived on the scene and then of course led the charge for Iraq until we killed him last June. He's the guy who arranged the booming of the Samarra mosque that precipitated the sectarian violence between Shi'a and Sunni. This is Al-Qaeda operating in Iraq, and as I say, they were present before we invaded Iraq. There's no way you can segment out and say, "Well, we'll fight the war on terror in Pakistan or Afghanistan but we can separate Iraq. That's not really, in any way, shape, or form related." It's just dead wrong. Bin Laden has said this is the central battle in the war on terror.

In response to Oxymoron Rush's question about Nancy Pelosi's trip to the Middle East, including Syria, Dick was just getting warmed up:

Well, it's not helpful. I made it clear earlier that I thought this created difficulties, if I can put it in a gentle form. Obviously, she's the speaker of the House and ought to travel to foreign nations and ought to conduct visits.

[...]

[Pelosi's] not entitled to make policy. She, in this particular case, by going to Damascus at this stage it serves to reinforce, if you will, and reward Bashar Assad for his bad behavior.

On how much "damage" Pelosi has done by visiting Syria, Dick had this to say:

Well, I think, clearly, she stimulated a reaction out of the Israeli. Prime Minister Olmert immediately made it clear that she was not authorized to make any such offer to Bashir Assad. Among other things, of course, the Syrians have not renounced their support for terror. The major terrorist organizations that are dedicated to the destruction of Israel, such as Hamas, are headquartered in Damascus, Syria. It was a non-statement, a nonsensical statement. It didn't make any sense at all that she would suggest that those talks could go forward as long as the Syrians conducted themselves as a prime state sponsor of terror.

Pelosi issued a clarification on her statement HERE that went virtually unreported in the Western Mainstream Media. Dick's answer wasn't satisfying or controversial enough for Rush, so the Oxymoron proceeded to poke Dickie the Tiger with a stick, until he got the desired response about Pelosi's behavior. *Ding! Ding!* Pavlov's dog responds:

(Chuckles) Well, I've been around a long time. I'm obviously disappointed. I think it is, in fact, bad behavior on her part. I wish she hadn't done it, but she is the speaker of the House, and fortunately I think the various parties involved recognize she doesn't speak for the United States in those circumstances. She doesn't represent the administration. The president is the one that conducts foreign policy, not the speaker of the House.

Hey, if your administration is solely responsible for foreign policy, as you assert Dick, then conduct foreign policy. No one's saying that Syria has been a model nation - in fact, quite the opposite. But, talking to our enemies can and does have value. We even talked to the U.S.S.R. during the Cold War. And Tony Blair resolved the British Soldier hostage situation with good 'old fashioned diplomacy - a concept this administration considers an anathema.

The Oxymoron saved the best for last though, with a question about the controversial Sam Fox appointment as the Belgian ambassador:

RUSH: One more, and that's the recess appointment of Sam Fox. Sam Fox is from my home state, and I know of Sam Fox. He's an immigrant, a Ukrainian-Jewish immigrant whose parents had nothing. When they died, they had nothing. He is a totally self-made man, a great American, and he was treated horribly by Senator Kerry and others on that committee, simply because he had made a political donation. They essentially told him he did not have free speech in this country, and until he would apologize, 'til he would go up to Kerry and apologize for supporting the Swift Boats... Now the president has recess appointed him, and of course the Democrats say they're going to investigate this and going to look into this. This is the kind of move that garners a lot of support from the people in the country. This shows the administration willing to engage these people, and not allow them to get away with this kind of -- well, my term, you don't have to accept it - "Stalinist behavior" by those people on that committee.

DICK: Well, you're dead on, Rush. I know Sam well. He's a good friend of mine and has been for many years, I think he's a great appointment and he'll do a superb job as our ambassador to Belgium. I was delighted when the president made the recess appointment. He clearly has that authority under the Constitution -

RUSH: You go on vacation, this is what happens.

Stalinist behavior? Hmm. I guess the endless Nazi comparisons and analogies have run their course, at least for now, so Republicans have now moved on to comparing Democrats to Josef Stalin. Yet another example of elevating the discourse.

More on vacations by lawmakers in a moment, too.

Going into Easter Weekend, it's great to see that the Bush administration's penchant for comparing political opponents to mass murders. Nice job, men.

Read the whole transcript of Rush's Dickfest Here.

Brit soldiers not given VIP treatment in Iran

Above, Left to Right: Joe Tindall, Arthur Batchelor, Chris Air, Felix Carman, Adam Sperry and Simon Massey during a press conference.

*****

Can anyone honestly say they're surprised to hear this news? It seems as if Iran didn't exactly give the VIP treatment to the 15 British soldiers that it held captive for 13 days. I can think of five reasons why I wasn't surprised to hear the news...

It doesn't take a diplomat to figure out that the British hostages weren't going to be treated, ahem, kindly while held captive in Iran. It shouldn't take a diplomat to figure out why.

Great Britain is our closest ally - in many ways, our fates are linked when it comes to the War in Iraq. Since the UK has marched in lockstep with the US during this war, that quite naturally makes British soldiers a target, as well as American GIs.

Our enemies certainly know this, and I can guarantee that not one of our enemies will ever forget the images like the ones above that came out of Abu Ghraib. As soon as I heard the news that English soldiers were taken hostage by Iran, I shuddered at the thought of the treatment they were going to get at the hands of their captors.

Earlier today, the British soldiers confirmed what many feared would be their fate while in captivity. During a press conference, seven of the soldiers discussed some of the unpleasant aspects of their captivity, including:

• Being blindfolded and subjected to interrogation
• Being told they faced seven years in prison if they did not "confess"
• The soldiers stated that Iranians entered Iraqi waters deliberately to detain them, and that fighting back was not an option
• They were 1.7 nautical miles away from Iranian waters
• Psychological pressure and mind games
• Faye Turney (the only woman held hostage) was isolated in a cell away from the rest of the crew

This kind of puts Abu Ghraib into perspective a little bit. THIS is just one of the reasons that so many people were upset when the scandal broke, including me. First and foremost, it's immoral and a national disgrace - the U.S. cannot and should never, under any circumstances that I can think of, condone such behavior from anyone in its armed forces.

But, the other argument against using such techniques against POWs, enemy combatants, or whatever you wish to call them, is that our soldiers or soldiers of our allies may also be taken prisoner. Besides being morally wrong, this is the principle reason that it's never, ever a good idea to torture prisoners - what goes around has the potential to come around.

I'm very happy and grateful that our friends across the pond are home safe and that nothing terribly bad happened to them, but all accounts I've been reading. (Although I'm quite certain that their time in Tehran was no picnic.)

This really could have escalated into an international incident, and I'm very thankful that it didn't.

A quick footnote to this incident - Tony Blair, for all of the heat he's taken for his almost blind devotion to President Bush and the U.S. War in Iraq, handled this incident exactly as an experienced, in-control politician should.

I wonder how President Bush and Dick Cheney would have handled this if the 15 captives in Iran were American soldiers. I will go to my grave believing that if Democrats would not have taken control of Congress last November, this very well could have led to war between Iran and the United States.

One last thought (at least for this post) about Abu Ghraib - I can still remember Rush Limbaugh saying this about the prison scandal:

(From a New Republic article about his comments, which refer to Limbaugh's comments on his May 5, 2004 radio show)

This is no different than what happens at the Skull and Bones initiation, and we're going to ruin people's lives over it, and we're going to hamper our military effort, and then we are going to really hammer them because they had a good time. You know, these people are being fired at every day. I'm talking about people having a good time, these people, you ever heard of emotional release? You [ever] heard of need to blow some steam off?

(From Rush Limbaugh's Website)

I'm sorry, folks. I'm sorry. Somebody has to provide a little levity here. This is not as serious as everybody is making it out to be. My gosh, we're all wringing our hands here. We act like, 'Okay let's just die,' you know? 'Let's just give up. What can we do to make these people feel better? Let's just pull out of there, and let's just go. Let's just become a neutral country. Let's just do that.' I mean, it's ridiculous. It's outrageous what's happening here, and it's not -- and it's not because I'm out of touch; it's because I am in touch, folks, that I can understand. This is a pure, media-generated story. I'm not saying it didn't happen; I'm [not] saying the pictures aren't there, but this is being given more life than the Waco invasion got. This is being given more life than almost - it's almost become an Oklahoma City-type thing.

I would love for Rush to spend a few weeks in an Iranian prison camp, or better yet, one run by Al-Qaeda, and have the exact things done to him that a few of our soldiers did to prisoners at Abu Ghraib. But, he's so stupid, I doubt it would even make a difference.

It really is proof positive that regardless of the abuses and misdeeds by our federal government, as long as Republicans are in power, there is a certain element of society that will defend their every action. Rush Limbaugh and Ann Coulter lead the way.

Cheney peeps on W's press conference

This is weird, creepy video of Dick Cheney peering at President Bush's press conference. I can't think of anything pithy to say that's not even creepier than this video.