pwned

Sen. Hagel is a hero. Well, at least an honest man.

Furious George (McGovern)...

George McGovern with a few "impolitic" questions for a less distinguished George. We're waiting for answers Monkey Boy.

Pot? Kettle.

I'd like to introduce you. Actually, the pot is looking quite healthy compared to the kettle. I think the kettle is just tired of standing out.

Well isn't that speccccial?

As The Church Lady said. Turns out that the Iranians offered us what we essentially want now, from them. Isn't that lovely? Oh the foresight of President Cheney...once again, he's only five years behind the curve. I guess that's more ahead than he is on the torture issue-you know, like 800 years. Actually I think by that point the Vikings realized, wait, all this looting and vandalizing is pretty rude. We should stop. No wonder Cheney doesn't want his TV on anything other than FOX. Good to see Cheney is consistent at least.

Yup, more listening to the Generals

Well, I wonder if Bush will listen to the Generals as he so often does. Yeah...that's the ticket.

Can't he just....

call it what it is? It's an escalation. Just as in Vietnam when US popular for Johnson's course of action was low, even in 1967, even though the War went on and the US bombed Cambodia for nearly four years with no real strategic gain in Vietnam, even though Johnson reached a nadir in popularity with the disaster of the Tet Offensive, even though he was discouraged from seeking re-election, the US still acted as though it had a mandate to warmonger more.

Perhaps this is not happening to this degree in Iraq; Cambodia was destroyed as many had known it and the resulting political vacuum allowed for the accession of psychopath Pol Pot; that said, in both cases, the American people had made clear their feelings about the situations, and in both cases, Presidents had completely ignored the intensity of those feelings and carried on as though nothing had changed. Apparently, one can cordon oneself off in an incomparable manner, even though the job is perhaps that in which one is accountable to the most people (at least in the United States). And history seems to be repeating itself as again the Cooped-Up-One-In-Chief turns up his imperious nose at the American people and the world.

Bush glad for more dissenting opinions

In a clear sign that his comment about only Barney and Laura supporting his War on Turrr (and the idea that the fact that its afilure hasn't suggested to him it might not have been the best idea) will be a self-fulfilling prophecy, Bush is replacing Gen. Casey and Gen. Casey because they haven't been adequately obsequious because they voiced doubts about the insane escalation of the War on Turrrrr. Apparently Bush has the tunnelvision of death on because that is what is going to be happening to many other people because of his decisions. At some point when he cannot escape reality-or when the American people start taking to the streets, reality will be a biooootch for him.

W Respects the Constitution...ha ha ha; Exxon is Honest...ha ha ha

Yeah, so this has gotten plenty of play by now. Story broke probably Wed. or Thurs. but what can I say, I'm homeless at the moment. But yeah, Bush has employed one of his signing statements to claim the right to look at people's mail in "exigent circumstances". To what end? All of his policies have not reined in terrorism at all. All the numbers show that things are getting worse in Iraq and not better. So he can't claim that we're trying to protect people from terrorism. All your "protection" so far has only gotten people killed and de-stabilized the Middle East. I'm wondering if there are any grounds on which a lawsuit can be made over the appropriateness of signing statements-are they being used appropriately? Apparently, at least according to Wikipedia, they are. Is the purpose of the signing statement being ignored or abused by Bush's use of them? Sheesh. They represent a serious blot on the notion that the powers are separate and they, deny the legislative and judicial branches some of their powers to check and balance. Unconscionable.

Oh yeah, one more thing, it turns out Exxon has spent $18 million over the past 8 years funding organizations which misrepresent the threat of global warming. Lovely. They've done this by funding organizations which will basically do their dirty work for them. They know they are mistrusted and reviled so they pass of their dirty work to someone else. Fantastic.

More on the possible Saddam snuff-film filmer

Found several posts about the unseemliness and insensitivity of hanging Saddam on al-Eid, a high Holy Day in Iraq. A veteran Iraq journalist, Nir Rosen, has writtenwhat others in the know such as Juan Cole (and yours truly, by some happy accident) wrote. Namely, that choosing the Sunday rather than the Saturday to hang Saddam endorsed the legitimacy of Shi'a Islam over Sunni Islam. It is bad enough that a holy weekend was selected during which the man was supposed to hang, but to do it when Sunnis (of which Saddam was one) were celebrating a very holy day is the sort of unprincipled, cynical, heinous thing that will do nothing but further polarize the situation in Iraq, as even a prominent Conservative commentator has noted. No doubt other informed commentators on Iraq have weighed in on the inappropriateness of hanging Saddam on a holy weekend. This is quite apart from the very notion that his execution was wrong on simple human rights or even strategic military grounds.

Anyway, now comes the not-at-all-surprising-news that the man who possibly filmed Saddam's hanging was Mowaffak al-Rubbaie, a former spokesman for the Dawa party, the strict Shi'a group which is fueling some of the violence in Iraq and seventeen of whose members went to prison for the murder of 17 people at the French and US embassies in Beirut in 1983. This gave way to a whole new round of terrorism including the hijacking of a plane on which two Americans died two years later. But of course al-Rubaie isn't anyone important right? Oh no...just.....the Defense Secretary.....uh huh.

Well, the man who initially accused al-Rubaie of filming the execution-Munkith al-Faroun, one of the prosecutor's at Saddam's trial, has backed off the accusation some, saying that he did not believe al-Rubaie filmed the execution once the scrutiny and outrage over the filming of the death raised. But as is typical for Bush's, oops, I mean al-Maliki's Iraq, al-Maliki will not disclose the identity of the guard. That doesn't necessarily mean that a guard did not film it, but it does leave open the option that an innocent schlub is set-up to be the hangman (no pun intended) to protect al-Faroun. He had said that he believed he had and that he had noted that the guards had not done it. But he seems to have backpedalled some. Regardless, whether a shrill possible terrorist endorser filmed him or not, perhaps more importantly, he's now the Defense Secretary. Do you think he's pursuing helpful, sensible policies designed to aid all Iraqis?