Year: 2006

The Age:

Dozens of charred, smouldering bodies littered the streets of this bustling commercial centre after three days of rioting in which Christian mobs wielding machetes and clubs set upon their Muslim neighbours.

Rioters have killed scores of people here, after burning their homes, businesses and mosques in the worst violence yet linked to the caricatures of the prophet Muhammad first published in a Danish newspaper.

The violence erupted after similar attacks on Christians in northern Nigeria last week by Muslims.

At least 33 bodies were still visible on the streets of Onitsha on Thursday and a local organisation reported that it had already picked up 80 others.

Sectarian violence has pushed the total death toll in the last week well beyond 100, making Nigeria the hardest-hit country so far in the cartoon controversy.

The main thoroughfare leading into the city across the Niger River was covered in bodies of Muslim Hausas who had tried to flee rampaging bands of youths, witnesses said. Many appeared to have been beaten to death; most had been doused with petrol and burned.

Looters combed through the destroyed shops and homes of Muslims.

Murray Waas reports Sen. Jay Rockefeller, the vice chairman of the Intelligence Committee, sent a letter to John Negroponte, the head of the new National Intelligence agency, complaining about leaks coming from top officials in the Bush Administration, including providing classified information to Bob Woodward:

In his 2002 book Bush at War, Bob Woodward described almost unfettered access to classified material of the most sensitive nature. According to his account, he was provided information related to sources and methods, extremely sensitive covert actions, and foreign intelligence liaison relationships. If it no wonder, as Director Goss wrote, “because of the number of recent news reports discussing our relationships with other intelligence services, some of these partners have even informed the C.I.A. that they are reconsidering their participation of some of our most important antiterrorism ventures.”

I wrote both former Director of Central Intelligence (DCI) George Tenet and Acting DCI John McLaughlin seeking to determine what steps were being taken to address the appalling disclosures contained in Bush at War. The only response I received was to indicate that the leaks had been authorized by the Administration. The CIA has still not responded to a follow-up letter I sent a year and half ago on September 1, 2004, trying to pin down which officials were authorized to meet with Mr. Woodward and by whom, and what intelligence information was conveyed during these authorized exchanges.

Republicans like to call people who criticize the president,”Bush haters.” They’re also fond of saying that hating Mr. Bush is the same as hating America itself.

Lately, as the Bush regime has begun to disintegrate, Republicans are going on the record to criticize their Dear Leader. However, just because Republicans are finally acknowledging that George W. Bush is not infallible, the rules of discourse they set in place must not be allowed to change:

Criticizing Bush = Hating America

Here are a few Republicans who hate America because President Bush has sold our ports to the Emir of Dubai:

• Michael Brown, former FEMA director: “We ought to get mad at the President… The alarm bells were being sounded on Sunday. Because not only was I having conferences with the President on the telephone, but he was also on the video conference with all of the state emergency managers.”
• William F. Buckley Jr.: “One can’t doubt that the American objective in Iraq has failed… And the administration has, now, to cope with failure.”
• Tom Delay, indicted former House Majority Leader: “Politically, for the president, it is a huge mistake for him to be defending this decision. The president will be overturned.”
• Sue Myrick, member of Congress and former Charlotte mayor: In regards to selling American ports to the United Arab Emirates, not just ‘no’ but ‘hell no!’”
• Bill Frist, Senate Majority Leader: “As of today, I’m requesting briefings on this deal. If the Administration does not put the deal on hold, I will introduce legislation doing so … to ensure that this decision gets a more thorough review. Common sense warrants it; our national security requires it.”
• Dennis Hastert, Speaker of the House: “We must not allow the possibility of compromising our national security due to lack of review or oversight by the federal government.”
• Wayne Allard, senator from Colorado: “My primary concern about this plan is national security. I am asking the president to reconsider this takeover and to put it on hold immediately.”
• Ileana Ros-Lehtinan: “This is a financial transaction whereby DP World … will have 50 percent of the financial interest of a small operation in the port of Miami. This gets people rolling because of the secrecy involved in this committee, CFIUS. There’s not enough transparency. We don’t know what questions have been asked.”
• Cal Thomas, rightwing columnist: “There have been some dumb decisions since the United States was attacked on Sept. 11, 2001. … But the decision to sell port operations … to a company owned by the UAE may be the dumbest of all. … Apparently money talked more than common sense.”
• Michelle Malkin: “I stand with critics … who want to stop the secretive deal transferring operations of our ports to the UAE — a Middle Eastern government with a spotty record of fighting terrorist plots and terrorist financing. … From every angle — political, safety, and sovereignty-wise — Dubai Ports World’s business transaction … looks bad and smells worse.”
• Wes Pruden, editor-in-chief of the rightwing cult-owned Washington Times: “Perhaps, as the president seems to suggest, the Arab chiefs of the United Arab Emirates who are bound to their brothers across Arabia by blood, history and religion will prove as reliable as our own English cousins. But counting on their loyalty and friendship being permanent is a risk too far. That’s what the president’s friends are trying to tell him.”
• George Pataki, governor of New York and 2008 presidential candidate, was also critical of the deal.
• Bob Erlich, governor of Maryland, criticized Bush’s decision as well

Last week, Republicans on the House committee that investigated Hurricane Katrina, chaired by Rep. Tom Davis of Virginia, were critical of the President’s handling of the disaster.

Last year, the Republican wingnut fringe went ballistic when the president nominated Harriet Miers to the Supreme Court because her idealogical purity was suspect.

Why are Republicans so angry? Why do they hate America so much?

Note: If you come across other instances of Republicans hatin’ on America, please send them to us or leave a comment. (Please include a link back to the source of the quote. )

Lawrence Summers stepped down yesterday as President of Harvard University after a stormy five-year tenure. In March of 2005, Summers (former Secretary of the Treasury under the Clinton administration) garnered a no-confidence vote from the Harvard faculty; he faced a second censuring in the wake of the resignation three weeks ago of William C. Kirby, Dean of the Faculty of the Arts and Sciences. Like many folks associated with the “college outside of Boston,” Summers has a propensity for talking out of his butt. His most controversial remarks concerned the underrepresentation of women in science and engineering fields:

So my best guess, to provoke you, of what’s behind all of this is that the largest phenomenon, by far, is the general clash between people’s legitimate family desires and employers’ current desire for high power and high intensity, that in the special case of science and engineering, there are issues of intrinsic aptitude, and particularly of the variability of aptitude, and that those considerations are reinforced by what are in fact lesser factors involving socialization and continuing discrimination. I would like nothing better than to be proved wrong.

…Blah blah blah, basically what the dude said was that chicks are dumb in math and too busy making babies to hold down a real job.

To this correspondent, even more egregious was Summers’ 2002 dissing of Cornel West (scholar, rapper, and featured player in two-thirds of the Matrix trilogy), who left Harvard’s African-American Studies Department to rock the mike at Princeton after Summers’ suggestion that he devote more time to “traditionally academic pursuits.” Hmmph. Don’t let the door hit you on the way out, suckah.