Year: 2007

Bush: Saddam Hussein Killed Nelson Mandela

Trish

What is Bush on?

In a speech defending his administration’s Iraq policy, Mr Bush said former Iraqi leader Saddam Hussein’s brutality had made it impossible to unite the country.

Bush: “Mandela’s dead because Saddam Hussein killed all the Mandelas.”

“I heard somebody say, ‘Where’s Mandela?’,” he said.

“Well, Mandela’s dead because Saddam Hussein killed all the Mandelas.”

The bizarre gaffe was made in a press conference in Washington yesterday.

Mandela became South Africa’s first black president in 1994. He won a Nobel Peace Prize for preaching racial harmony and guiding the nation into the post-apartheid era.

References to his death – Mandela is now 89 and increasingly frail – are seen as insensitive in South Africa.

Ya think? I imagine they’d be seen as insensitive anywhere, not to mention too stupid to contemplate

We already told you about the delusional antics of our president during his recent visit to Southeast Asia and Australia. We also postulated that Bush has advanced Lyme Disease, which causes brain fog and psychosis. But even we are becoming alarmed. This is getting way beyond just mispronouncing “nuclear.”

The Week magazine noted another mysterious Bush mistake.

He talked of the danger of terrorist groups such as “Jenna Islaaanah Nia,” which no one had ever head of (one can only assume that meant Jemaah Islamiyah).

The leader of the Indonesian terror group Jemaah Islamiyah, Abu Dujana, was arrested in June in connection with the 2002 Bali nightclub bombings, along with more recent attacks. But hey, Bush knows someone named Jenna and it sounds a lot like that.

The Week also quoted the Sydney Morning Herald’s Annabel Crabb about Bush’s public speaking meltdowns in her country.

One could almost sense the craning CIA sharpshooters wearily exchanging their live rounds for tranquilizer darts.

“Time to get the big guy out of there, Hank?”

“Roger that, Chuck.”

If only it were that easy.

HBO Will Relive 2000 Recount

Trish

HBO has chosen Jacksonville for the main location of its big screen feature, “Recount,” based on the 2000 presidential election and rumored to be staring Kevin Spacey and William Hurt.

Droves of local amateurs answered the call for extras.

“I’m not sure, but I think they cast me as a Democrat. Honestly, I’d rather be Green Party.”

A number of scenes in the movie involve crowd shots of protesters and will require thousands of voting-age extras, Davidson said. Senior citizens and college-age extras are in high demand for the shoot.

Lara Randall said she and her friend Melissa Lamanna learned of the open call online…

“It was a positive experience,” Randall said. “I’m not sure, but I think they cast me as a Democrat. Honestly, I’d rather be Green Party.”

And there’s one of the problems, but don’t get me started.

Speaking of casting, two roles are still open.

Representatives from Martini Shot [Casting] also have been actively looking for look-alikes to portray the major political figures from the 2000 presidential race. Davidson said they’ve found actors for George Bush and Al Gore, but they’re still trying to find some for Laura Bush and George Bush Sr.

Anyone got any suggestions on who could play the Lauratron or Poppy?

Breaking: Florida Democrats Tell DNC “Screw You”

Trish

That cheer you hear is Florida Democrats receiving some good news. At long last, state party leaders are showing signs of intelligent life. They are announcing today that they will tell the DNC they are not coming up with work-arounds for the national leaders’ sanction of Florida’s Jan. 29 presidential preference primary.

Instead of spending millions of dollars to hold caucuses, straw votes, or whatever else it would take to please Howard Dean & Co., they are doing the right thing and encouraging Florida Democrats to vote in our state’s authentic election. From a party email and new web site:

You should care about Florida’s situation even if you aren’t in Florida

…your Party’s leaders have chosen overwhelmingly to reaffirm our strong commitment to fully participating in the state-run Democratic Presidential Primary on January 29, 2008, despite the penalties from the Democratic National Committee.

There will be no other primary. Florida Democrats absolutely must vote on January 29th. We make this election matter. Not the DNC, not the delegates, not the candidates, but Florida Democrats like you and me voting together. We make it count.

Stating which candidate they like best isn’t the only issue on the ballot for Florida voters. A new tax plan that would starve local governments into cutting social services, law enforcement, and public works is also in play. Democratic voters can’t sit this one out, although many would if they thought they were not also helping select the party’s presidential candidate.

I’m planning a post on why you should care about Florida’s situation even if you aren’t in Florida. For now, trust me. This all matters.

I’ve been critical of FDC leader Karen Thurman for a number of reasons and I don’t expect that to change. But I have to give the devil her due on this one. Thanks, Karen, for getting it right!

O’Reilly Goes to Harlem, Finds It Suprisingly Similar to America

Jon Ponder

Billo’s narrative about a recent trip to Harlem offers keen insight into the rightwing’s inner monologue on race:

You know, I was up in Harlem a few weeks ago, and I actually had dinner with Al Sharpton, who is a very, very interesting guy. And he comes on The Factor a lot, and then I treated him to dinner, because he’s made himself available to us, and I felt that I wanted to take him up there.

Note the adverb: He actually had dinner with Sharpton, which translates as “believe it or not, I had dinner with a liberal, and an African-American liberal, at that.” But the takeaway point: Bill paid for dinner.

And we went to Sylvia’s, a very famous restaurant in Harlem. I had a great time, and all the people up there are tremendously respectful.

Not just some dive nobody’s heard of. Bill went to one of the most famous restaurants in the African American universe.

They all watch The Factor. You know, when Sharpton and I walked in, it was like a big commotion and everything, but everybody was very nice.

Bill would have us believe that Sylvia’s was packed with Fox News watchers, but what he probably couldn’t imagine is that black people have cable television and may have seen him in his almost nightly presentation as Keith Olbermann’s “Worst Person in the World,” or in any number of other shows where he is mocked and lampooned.

And I couldn’t get over the fact that there was no difference between Sylvia’s restaurant and any other restaurant in New York City. I mean, it was exactly the same, even though it’s run by blacks, primarily black patronship. It was the same, and that’s really what this society’s all about now here in the U.S.A. There’s no difference. There’s no difference. There may be a cultural entertainment — people may gravitate toward different cultural entertainment, but you go down to Little Italy, and you’re gonna have that. It has nothing to do with the color of anybody’s skin.

Is Bill O’Reilly truly as unsophisticated as he comes off here, or is this part of his everyman shtick? If he’s reporting his true impressions here, it appears he experienced more than a little trepidation in advance of his visit.

What is truly revelatory here is the fact that O’Reilly is so out of tune with his own prejudices that he would broadcast them to his audience without a trace of irony or self-deprecation.

GOP Big City Mayor Comes Out As Human, Changes Stance on Gay Marriage

Jon Ponder

The Republican mayor of San Diego — the last remaining large city in California with a conservative base — changed his position on gay marriage last week:

“In the end, I couldn’t look any of them in the face and tell them that their relationships, their very lives, were any less meaningful than the marriage I share with my wife, Rana.”
Jerry Sanders, Mayor of San Diego (R)

A tearful Mayor Jerry Sanders made a dramatic shift yesterday, explaining that he can no longer oppose same-sex marriages because he does not want to deny justice to people like his daughter, who is a lesbian.

Joined at a late afternoon news conference by his wife, Rana Sampson, the San Diego mayor announced he will back a City Council decision to support same-sex marriage before the state Supreme Court, where California’s ban on it awaits review.

“I decided to lead with my heart, which is probably obvious at the moment,” said Sanders, moments before he revealed his daughter’s sexual orientation.

The mayor’s new stance marked a reversal of his pledge Tuesday to use his veto power to block the council’s move. At the time, he repeated his preference for civil unions, partnerships between same-sex couples that offer some but not all of the legal protections given to those who marry.

Describing what led to his decision, Sanders referred to friends and staffers who are gay, as well as his daughter:

“In the end, I couldn’t look any of them in the face and tell them that their relationships, their very lives, were any less meaningful than the marriage I share with my wife, Rana,” said Sanders, who quickly thanked reporters and dashed from the room.

San Diego has a population of 1.26 million, and is the second largest city in California and the eighth largest city in the United States. It is home to a large population of military retirees, which explains its large number of Republican voters, but it has a sizable gay community, as well:

Nearly 62,000 San Diegans are part of households led by a same-sex couple, according to a U.S. Census Bureau survey conducted two years ago.

Sanders is a former police chief who won a hard-fought election two years ago in the wake of multiple GOP scandals in San Diego County, including bribery charges against Rep. Duke Cunningham and a sleazy case in which the acting mayor and a city council member, both Republicans, were sent to prison for conspiring to ease restrictions on strip clubs.

Sanders’ principled position stands in stark contrast with Vice Pres. Dick Cheney, who also has a gay daughter, but who has won election based in no small part on an anti-gay agenda.

With new elections underway, Sanders’ change of heart may well cost him the election but, unlike the vice president, he will leave office with his his personal integrity intact.

GOP Swiftboats the Moveon Ad – And Dems Surrender

Jon Ponder

Surrender Does Not Work. Just Ask Pres. Kerry

If you think Democrats in Washington are on high alert and in rapid-response mode, readied for the inevitable barrage of Republican Swiftboat attacks, think again. The sad fact is the GOP successfully deployed just such a campaign this month right under their noses, and the Dems fell for it, folding their tents at the Republicans’ first suggestion that they are anti-military.

How to create Rovian disinformation: Craft sentences that imply more than they say. Deliver them with conviction. When found out, reveal the artful parsing that proves you never said what everyone heard.

The smear campaign had the standard Swiftboat profile — a concerted, tightly scripted roll out of disinformation designed to discredit an otherwise credible opponent. But maybe the Dems didn’t recognize the attack as Swiftboating, per se, because the target was not a person. It was a newspaper ad published Moveon.org.

Sure, the opportunity fell into the Republicans’ laps, but their rapid-response seized the moment, turned it around and eventually won the day. (Meanwhile our rapid response team is still hiding under the bed.)

The GOP had its talking points together within a few hours. They slammed Moveon for having the temerity to criticize the general, thus shutting off discussion of the charges they’d made against him. If liberals criticize uniformed officers, the talking points said, it proves they disrespect the troops.

In reality of course, criticizing Petraeus proves nothing of the sort. He was sent to Capitol Hill as Bush’s political proxy to defend the president’s policies in Iraq, because Bush is too weak politically to defend them himself. To suggest that Bush’s surrogate can’t be criticized, or that this military man performing an unprecedented political role is emblematic of the entire military is a ridiculous attempt to close off debate.

Ridiculous or not, it worked.

[…]

Maybe If Karen Thurman Had Said ‘Pretty Please’

Buck Banks

It seems the Florida Democratic Party just gets patheticker and patheticker. According to the Politico, state Chair Karen Thurman, in an effort to make the party’s October state convention at least marginally meaningful compared with its totally meaningless January primary, wrote to the four early-primary states to ask them to permit the Dem prez candidates to attend the convention.

Maybe Karen and Co. can console themselves with a ride on ‘It’s a Small World’ or a visit to ‘Country Bear Jamboree.’

See, following the Democratic National Committee’s smack-down of the the Florida Dems for moving the state’s primary to Jan. 29, ahead of the Feb. 5 earliest-allowed date, the four leading Dem candidates signed a pledge not to campaign in the state unless FlaDems fixed the date thingy. The state party leaders are supposed to teleconference next Saturday and come up with a final solution to the mess before the Sept. 29 5 p.m. deadline. Nothing like leaving it to the last possible minute.

In the meantime, Thurman asked the lead states — Iowa, Nevada, New Hampshire and South Carolina — to allow the candidates to come to Disney World for the FlaDem convention next month. (Appropriate venue, no?) The answer? No way, not until you folks get together a “compliant” plan to render your primary meaningless. One wonders why Thurman didn’t wait until after the party had figured out what it was going to do before crawling hat in hands to the early states. But then, one wonders often at Thurman’s behavior. For instance, why wait until just hours before the deadline to convene the party leadership to discuss what to do about Jan. 29.

Here’s the hard-assed letter signed by reps of the four states:

The Hon. Karen Thurman September 18th, 2008
Chair, Florida Democratic Party
Dear Congresswoman Thurman,

The Florida Democratic Party has requested that candidates who signed the “Four-State Pledge” with Iowa, Nevada, New Hampshire and South Carolina attend their Democratic Convention in October. We understand from the Florida Democratic Party that this is an important event for them.

Each candidate signed the pledge and indicated they understood that the intention of the pledge is to bring finality, predictability and common sense to the nominating calendar. The pledge refers to the 2008 Delegate Selection Rules for the Democratic National Committee, including, but not limited to, Rule 20 c 1 b.

These rules hold true for any state infringing on the pre-window. Candidates have signed a pledge to honor the calendar with regard to the pre-window and that applies to all states moving forward.

[…]

Appallingly Stupid M.I.T. Student Not Even Tasered

Trish

The prestige of an M.I.T. degree just took a dive.

An MIT student wearing what turned out to be a fake bomb was arrested at gunpoint Friday at Logan International Airport and later claimed it was artwork, officials said.

Star Simpson, 19, had a computer circuit board and wiring in plain view over a black hooded sweat shirt she was wearing, said State Police Maj. Scott Pare, the commanding officer at the airport…

The battery-powered rectangular device had nine flashing lights, Pare said. Simpson also had Play-Doh in her hands, he said.

Man, what an idiot. Logan was the airport where two of the four 9/11 planes took off. I would think they’d be just a tad jumpy about things like this.

The trooper, joined by others with submachine guns, confronted her at a traffic island in front of the terminal.

“She was immediately told to stop, to raise her hands and not to make any movement, so we could observe all her movements to see if she was trying to trip any type of device,” Pare said. “Had she not followed the protocol, we might have used deadly force.”

Of course, had she been trying to ask a question at a John Kerry talk she would at least have been Tasered. So what was up?

“She said that it was a piece of art and she wanted to stand out on career day,” Pare said at a news conference. “She claims that it was just art, and that she was proud of the art and she wanted to display it.”

Simpson was charged with disturbing the peace and possessing a hoax device. A not guilty plea was entered for her at her arraignment Friday and she was released on $750 bail.

She was lucky again. Had she beaten up a fellow high school student in Jena, Louisiana her bail would have $90,000. If she were black, that is.