Month: September 2006

Why Do They Hate Us?

Jon Ponder
Osama bin Laden is still doing bong hits on Al Jazeera five years after we boldly promised to kick his ass.

Matt Taibbi:

America’s response to 9/11 was basically to blow off the entire question of why it happened, change the set-design behind the same old us-vs.-evil commies cowboy-movie worldview, and to patch the hole blown in our self-esteem with a crude mix of stage-managed self-congratulation and sentimental claptrap. Our failure to actually win our subsequent self-declared war on the evildoers we explained away by using a modern innovation, i.e. taking a New-Agey approach to our shortcomings and forgiving ourselves for our little imperfections. In the Dr. Phil age, actual achievement isn’t important, so long as you’re comfortable with yourself! Make a list every morning, think about the good things in life! Living in Madison Avenue’s irony age helps also — when even Tony Soprano pours his heart out to a shrink every week, it’s not hard to convince Americans that they’re still tough, even though Osama bin Laden is still doing bong hits on Al Jazeera five years after we boldly promised to kick his ass.

Whatever happened to actually being tough? What happened to speaking softly while we carry that big stick? Of staring problems bravely in the face, of taking the world seriously? History long ago washed that generation of “us” away, along with the world we still think we live in.

‘Average Joe’ Scarborough Urges GOP Congress to Run against Bush

Jon Ponder
[It] must be tough explaining to voters at their local Baptist church’s Keep Congress Conservative Day that it was their party that took a $155 billion surplus and turned it into a record-setting $400 billion deficit.
— Rightwing pundit Joe Scarborough

It’s hard to believe that just a few years ago people who critized President Bush were accused of hating America. These days, however, when the criticism comes from Republicans like MSNBC’s Fox-wannabe Joe Scarborough, it’s considered a bold and brave move.

Whatever — but get a load of this:

I can’t help but feel sorry for my old Republican friends in Congress who are fighting for their political lives. After all, it must be tough explaining to voters at their local Baptist church’s Keep Congress Conservative Day that it was their party that took a $155 billion surplus and turned it into a record-setting $400 billion deficit.

How exactly does one convince the teeming masses that Republicans deserve to stay in power despite botching a war, doubling the national debt, keeping company with Jack Abramoff, fumbling the response to Hurricane Katrina, expanding the government at record rates, raising cronyism to an art form, playing poker with Duke Cunningham, isolating America and repeatedly electing Tom DeLay as their House majority leader?

And:

If I were a GOP candidate this year, I would not call the president an idiot (he isn’t). But I would spend the next 50 days of the campaign telling conservatives and liberals alike that even though I voted for this war once and this president twice, time has proved that Bush and Defense Secretary Donald H. Rumsfeld were wrong to think that the nation could win Iraq on the cheap. I would also look them in the eye and say that our president was wrong to believe that the United States could fight a war, cut taxes and increase federal spending, all at once. I would castigate my president for claiming to support homeland security while allowing our borders to remain wide open.

Will God Change Parties in 2006?

Trish

Finally, some reassurance Americans haven’t totally lost their minds. Only 4 percent believe God belongs to a political party.

According to a study produced by Baylor University and administered by Gallup, 92 percent of us do believe in God. But after that initial agreement, defining who God is gets a little varied.

The study also found belief in an authoritarian God — along with frequent church attendance — is strongly tied to the notion Saddam Hussein was behind the 9/11 attacks

According to the study, believers hold four very different views about their deity:

Authoritarian — An angry God who metes out punishments to sinful humanity and is very active in their daily lives or worldly affairs.

Benevolent — An active but forgiving God, less willing to condemn or punish.

Critical — A God who judges the world harshly, but doesn’t intervene.

Distant — A God who is neither active in worldly affairs nor angry, a sort of cosmic prime mover.

The study also found belief in an authoritarian God — along with frequent church attendance — is strongly tied to the notion Saddam Hussein was behind the 9/11 attacks.

I guess we know which God Dick Cheney believes in. The question is how to get God to read a copy of the 9/11 Commission Report.

Won’t Get Fooled Again: IAEA Rejects U.S. Claims on Iran

Trish

In case you missed it in all the tantrums and threats from Pres. Snippy O’Huffnpuff, the world is doing what many of us who have been paying attention long feared: refusing to believe us when we cry wolf.

In a case of deja vu all over again, the Bush administration is trying to sell a story of imminent crisis, this time in Iran. Except now, nobody’s buying it.

The IAEA has been down this road before, when it entered the fray over Iraq’s weapons program before the 2003 U.S. invasion

The U.N. nuclear watchdog agency has written a scathing letter to a congressional committee saying part of its case against Iran is “outrageous and dishonest.”

…The International Atomic Energy Agency wrote the leadership of the House Intelligence Committee on Wednesday, lambasting it for claiming that the Islamic republic “is currently enriching uranium to weapons grade.”

Iran is far from that capability, the IAEA said.

So how did Team Bush react? Did they learn a lesson from Iraq and accept the U.N.’s facts? What do you think?

In a word, no. They had a member of the Permanent Select Committee on Intelligence, U.S. Rep. Mike Rogers (R—Mich.), say that the inspectors are conspiring with Iran to cover up its weapons program.

The subcommittee’s report also insinuates that the IAEA may be in cahoots with Tehran in covering up Iran’s nuclear ambitions.

The report alleges that an IAEA inspector might have been removed at Iran’s request “for not adhering to an unstated IAEA policy barring IAEA officials from telling the whole truth about the Iranian nuclear program.”

The IAEA shot back that the claim was “an outrageous and dishonest suggestion,” but Rogers stood by it Thursday.

…The IAEA has been down this road before, when it entered the fray over Iraq’s weapons program before the 2003 U.S. invasion. During that tussle, the Bush administration criticized the agency for being too cautious and opposed the reappointment of agency chief Mohammed El-Baradei.

“This is a very troubling instance here, this report, of U.S. policymakers in my view trying to push the intelligence community to find evidence that they believe supports their suspicions and their end policy goals,” said Daryl Kimball of the nonprofit think tank, the Arms Control Association in Washington.

President Queeg Confronts Congress, Threatens to Quit Torturing Terrorists

Jon Ponder

President Bush had a mini-meltdown during his news conference at the White House on Friday. It was triggered by a question from NBC’s David Gregory and the topic was his demand that Congress legalize his administration’s torture of terror suspects (and retroactively, to boot).

But what has the president in a snit is the fact that his lackies in the Senate have refused to write the legislation the way he wants it. Even Bush’s own former Sec. of State Colin Powell criticized the administration’s policy of torturing terrorists.

The president is frustrated because, as it turns, he can’t force the Congress to do anything. Who knew?

So all he can do now is make threats — and the threat he made at the press events was a real head-scratcher: If the Congress doesn’t give him the legislation he wants, says the leader of the free world, he’ll stop his people from torturing terrorists from now on!

Here’s a snippet:

[…]

Bush Seeks Comparisons between His Presidency and Lincoln’s

Jon Ponder

Earlier this week, we reported that President Bush told a group of conservative journalists that he believes so-called War on Terror has sparked a third Christian evangelical “Great Awakening.” He also said that the awakening is part of a confrontation between “good and evil,” making it sound like the world was slouching toward Armaggedon and that he was proud to be playing a role in bringing on the End Times.

At a press conference today, President Bush was asked about the story. In his answer to the question, he revealed something even more shocking. He has apparently been spending time recently trying to find someone who will tell him whether there are parallels between his presidency and Abramham Lincoln’s:

[…]

Colin Powell Exhibits a Sign of Spinal Growth

Jon Ponder

Nimbus askew: Colin Powell took a shot at President Bush’s current campaign to force the Congress to give him permission to torture terror suspects when Sen. John McCain released a letter from Powell that said, in part:

“The world is beginning to doubt the moral basis of our fight against terrorism,” Powell said, adding that Bush’s proposal “would add to those doubts. Furthermore, it would put our troops at risk.”

This is the same Colin Powell, of course, who allowed President Bush and the White House political office to shred his already tattered reputation when, on February 5, 2003, they sent him to the United Nations to make their case for war against Saddam Hussein.

We now know — as many of us suspected at the time — that Powell’s presentation that day was filled with lies, half-truths and misinformation.

Powell has subsequently tried to excuse misleading the citizens of the United States, not to mention the world, is that he did not know his presentation was false — which, in a different era, would make what he said that day even worse.

Pundits say that Powell is a good soldier at his core, and therefore won’t rat out George W. Bush while the president is in office, but that he is writing a book that will be released after 2008 that will include the truth behind the administration’s campaign to “market” (their term) the war to the American public in 2002 and 2003.

Talk about too little to late.

Hollywood Dems Support Angelies

Jon Ponder

Gov. Arnold Schwarzenegger’s bid for reelection has split the Hollywood community. Famous liberals supporting Democrat Phil Angelides in his bid outs Gov. Angelides include the coolest and the smartest:

Former President Bill Clinton, a longtime friend of Spielberg and Katzenberg, hosted a Beverly Hills fundraiser for Angelides recently, raising an estimated $4 million. (The campaign also cites backing from more than two dozen celebrities, such as Barbra Streisand, Larry David and Jeremy Piven.)

And:

Ed Begley Jr. and Dana Delany attended a get-out-the-vote rally for him. Other supporters include Diane Keaton, Will Ferrell, Matt Dillon, Laura Dern and Olympia Dukakis, according to the Angelides campaign.

Meanwhile, the list of Hollywood types supporting Gov. Arnold Schwarzenegger is growing:

Some of Hollywood’s most influential Democrats are throwing their support behind Gov. Arnold Schwarzenegger’s reelection bid, following the lead of Steven Spielberg, Jeffrey Katzenberg and media mogul Haim Saban.

Schwarzenegger’s campaign sent out hundreds of invitations this week to an event — hosted by Sherry Lansing, Casey Wasserman, Danny DeVito and wife Rhea Perlman, director James Cameron and more than two dozen others — asking the Hollywood glitterati to donate up to $22,300 each to attend a fundraiser for the Republican governor at Saban’s Beverly Hills estate on Sept. 30.

Quote du Jour

Trish

“I did not want my tombstone to read, ‘She kept a really clean house.’ I think I’d like them to remember me by saying, ‘She opened government to everyone.'”

— Ann Richards (1933 – 2006), Texas governor, shortly before leaving office in January 1995

Bonus Quote du Jour from Gov. Richards: “Ginger Rogers did everything Fred Astaire did, only backwards and in high heels.”