Postcards from Moronica

I'll let this one speak for itself:

There was a small news article about five hostages being traded for prisoners in Afghanistan. Yet it is a large piece of information about Mr. Bush's failure to be a proper leader.

When a government is forced to turn over prisoners for hostages, you get more hostages taken, to force the government to do more things it should not do. Thus, the Afghani government of Hamid Karzai set up by Mr. Bush after the invasion will be increasingly unable to govern.

The one good war Mr. Bush had to fight, Afghanistan, was shoved aside for his personal vengeance against leaders in Iraq. Had Mr. Bush, with the blessing of most countries after 9/11, spent only about half of the money and sent about half the troops to Afghanistan as he has sent to Iraq, Afghanistan would have been rebuilt and shown that democracy works in Islamic countries.

But he did not. We know Iraq is lost, but Mr. Bush won't admit it, leaving our boys to die there for his glory. Now it looks like his stubbornness to keep up pretenses in Iraq will lose Afghanistan, too.

What's wrong with this country?

Priceless

Did somebody say "mouth-breather"...


Subject: Comments Sectino
To: pundit

So, did you eliminate the comments section because you were tired of having us Libs hand you your anti-intellectual ass, or were you just trying to hide the fact that your fans are drooling mouth-breathers?

Given that I've never had a comment section -- or even a "comments sectino" -- I have no idea what provokes emails like this. But they certainly don't encourage me to add one, if this is the kind of person who's, er, drooling at the prospect of posting on my site.

The Moron Museum of National History

Bill Whittle obliterates Rosie O'Donnell's recent nonsense. All in the context of discussing conspiracy theory at-large. And I laugh:

Recently, Rosie O’Donnell said on national television that she believes 9/11 was orchestrated by the US government.

Well, that’s why we went through the steps above. If you believe that the government lied about the moon landing, you can believe they lied about killing JFK. If they lied about JFK, then they can lie about chemtrails. And if they are willing to poison the entire population with aerial spraying, what are a few thousand people in four airliners and a couple of buildings?

Rosie O’ Donnell making such a claim on a major network is a national disgrace. The fact that much of the audience cheered and applauded is nothing less than a national catastrophe.

To her, and to her audience, it is taken as granted that the government is capable of such things. As if “the government” was operated by cyborgs grown in Haliburton vats, rather than by well-meaning and patriotic people that love this country.

"This is the first time in history that fire has ever melted steel," she said. This is a statement of such pristine and perfect idiocy that it surely must be emblazoned in stone across the entrance to the Physics Imbecile wing of the Moron Museum of Natural History. But mastery of physics and engineering requires some intelligence, some perseverance and some discipline: none of which are in evidence in this buffoon. Everything is a conspiracy to a mind this far gone. The 15 British sailors kidnapped at sea? All a plan by our evil (but incompetent!) government to get the next war it so desperately needs. “Gulf of Tonkin! Google It, people!” she said on national TV.

And I will, Rosie. I promise. As soon as I finish googling MAD COW DISEASE.

I will make the point yet again because I believe it is the crux of the issue: what kind of moral universe do you have to inhabit to be able to believe that your own people – airline personnel, demolition experts, police and security forces, faked witnesses and all the rest – are capable of such a thing? How much hate for your own society do you have to carry in order to live in such a desolate and ridiculous mental hell? What psychoses must a mind be riddled with in order to negate what was perfectly obvious and instead believe a theory of such monumental fantasy? How much pure constant hatred does that take?

What, in short, is the miserable black hole of self-loathing that drives a person like Rosie O’Donnell and millions like her?

Mindless in Moronica

Did you know? I didn't know, but Tigerhawk knows:

I haven't seen this widely reported but the Democrats are working to establish a Department of Peace and Nonviolence. If I recall correctly, this was a plank in the platform of the ill fated Kucinich Presidential campaign of 2004. With the Democrats now in control of the legislature, they are moving ahead.

It appears the proposal would establish a cabinet level position with broad new powers and responsibilities, and the details of this proposal describe Utopia through the progressive lens. I began looking for choice bits to post as highlights, but it was so hard to choose I had to reproduce in total.

For those looking for a distillation, imagine a governmental agency responsible for advising on non-confrontational foreign policy options, establishing and enforcing new gun control measures, designing school curriculum, establishing and enforcing new legislation governing "hate crimes" and violence against animals, and my favorite, establishing a "Peace Academy," a four-year institution of higher learning modeled on our service academies.

In any sane world it would be just another laughable bit of posturing from the most idealistic of idealists on the fringe. But these days, I'm not so sure such a thing couldn't actually pass through Congress.

On the face of it of course you've got to think that the current WH resident would veto anything which included this kind of nonsense. But again, just not so sure anymore...

Moronica's Citizen of the Year

I give you Gale in Santa Maria, in all his mindless, rambling ridiculousness:

George, you've done enough damage to me, and to our children, and you are going to have to leave!

I'm filing for a divorce today. And there will be no child visitations! You sent our children to war without enough training, without enough supplies, without body armor or armor to protect their vehicles. We've done enough bake sales to buy our children body armor.

Every time I hear you say the words, “Support our troops,” I am thinking, then why don't you?

We do support our children. We support them coming home. And when they do come home, we want to see them, whether they are in a body bag or a coffin or a wheel chair. We deserve to see the results of your immoral war. You can't hide that from us any longer. And the ones who are alive but injured need every bit of medical and psychological help they deserve. They already paid the bill when they enlisted to defend us.

So, George, it's time for you and Dick to step down, to get out of our sight. This isn't a vote of “no confidence,” it is a kick out the door. In a just world, you and your sidekick would be impeached for high crimes and misdemeanors.

But we don't have time for that. We have a lot to repair in this country and in the world. Be a man and leave!

I'm filing for divorce...

The insufferably indistinguishable Chuck Hagel

Earlier in the month I referred to Chuck Hagel as indistinguishable; as in indistinguishable from Senate Democrats on walking away from Iraq. This week Hagel ups the ante and moves into full-blown publicity-seeking idiocy.

First, he exposes his constitutional illiteracy and then on the very next day abandons his party on the Iraq supplemental. A fine week and it's still only Wednesday. Why again, exactly, is it this man thinks he could ever win the Republican nomination for President?

New Series: What's in The Nation

This afternoon I decided I needed something to laugh about. It's been a tough, tough week of work and I've devoted far too much of my time to slaving on behalf of the sales morons with whom I have to work (apologies to any sales-types in the audience). So I needed a cool-down. Something that would kick my weekend off in a good way. A variety of thoughts and considerations suddenly lead me to the belly of the beast, Christina Vanden Heuvel's hovel, The Nation.com. While there I perused the offerings to see what might appeal to me in such a battered and brutalized state. There was the expected Bush hatred, Halliburton, class warfare, Plame (still), and Iraq doom and gloom faire. But what caught my eye this afternoon was this preposterous title:

Al Gore, Global Statesman

Ha, ha...ha.....ha....ha....ha, ha, ha....ha....ouch......oh.....ha.....ha,ha, ha...stop....stop....my sides are hurting. Now that was good. Just what the doctor ordered. The piece starts here: Al Gore is not one of those Power Point politicians, which is ironic since Gore has been selling his Inconvenient Perverication routine via PowerPoint for twenty years, but I progress. And it ends here:

Gore has something of the 19th century about him. He is almost courtly in his manners. He can talk to Republicans, at least of the non-flat-earth variety. He has a deep voice and sometimes he thunders as few modern politicians can. At the same time you would be hard-pressed to find another major public figure so conversant with such a wide span of technology and with the earth, air, fire and water problems which are reaching crisis proportions in our century. It has been so long since we have seen one that we may not remember what one looks like. We may not recognize that Al Gore has become a statesman.

Seriously, stop it! This isn't fair! I'm having a coughing fit.

Anyway, after recovering from this episode, I quickly decided that I need to start doing a series about some of the hilarity that one can find over at David Corn's pone-y home. I think I may do them on Fridays since that seems to be a point in the week when we could all use a little comedy break. So until next time, this is your roving seeker of humor signing off.

The March 18th, 2007 FNS Sunday Show-palooza

Quite the morning at FNS.

First off, Senator Schmuck Schumer's conflict of interest, or "Senator Specter almost grows a spine":

WALLACE: This week, you said that New York Democratic Senator Schumer -- that his role leading the investigation into the U.S. attorneys at the same time that he's running the Democratic Senate Campaign Committee is a conflict of interest. Has he crossed a line here?

SPECTER: I think he has. And I confronted Senator Schumer on it eyeball to eyeball on Thursday in the Judiciary Committee meeting.

But let's look at what the facts are. Senator Schumer is leading the inquiry, and the day after we have testimony about Senator Domenici, he puts his name up on the Democratic Senatorial Campaign Committee, criticizing or really making the argument that he ought not to be re- elected.

Now, I think that the inquiry by the Judiciary Committee ought to have at least a modicum of objectivity, and if Mr. Schumer is doing a job to defeat Senator Domenici, which he is now -- that's his job as chairman of the Democratic Senate Campaign Committee -- that he puts it up on their Web site the very next day, and then he has made very conclusory and judgmental statements all along.

And I challenged him on that a week ago in the Judiciary Committee, and he calls it a purge, and he's taken a very political stance. Now, he's got a right to do that. He's a politician and I'm a politician.

But I don't think he can do both things at the same time without having a conflict of interest, but that's up for him to decide.

WALLACE: Senator, we only have about 30 seconds left. Are you calling on Senator Schumer to step down -- if he's going to continue this political effort, are you calling on him to step down in terms of leading the investigation?

SPECTER: Nope, I'm calling on him to use his own judgment on that. If I call him to step down, somebody's going to say Arlen Specter is trying to stifle this investigation, and I'm not.
I've been totally cooperative, as all of my Republican colleagues have been, with this investigation. But when he has a conflict of interest, I'm not going to be afraid to say so.

I would have been more encouraged to hear him truly go after Schumer on the issue but I'll take what I can get. The fact that he even brought it up is worth a brownie-point or two.

Next on the agenda, an interview with the man that you almost made President, John Kerry. It's too painful to put in words my utter disbelief that this man came within a state of the Presidency. Read the transcript and you'll understand.

Of course we wind down as always with the panel discussion, with this week's edition far more animated than many as a result of the topics: Valerie Plame and Iraq. It wouldn't be Sunday without the usual Juan Williams bitch-slapping and this time around we get two for the price of one. First on Plame:

WILLIAMS: Well, let's question somebody else's credibility. What happened to President Bush who said, "You know what, I'm going to investigate this and look into whether or not there was any such activity in my White House?"

According to the White House chief of security this week, he knows of no such investigation.

HUME: Can you imagine what would have happened once a special prosecutor had been named if the White House itself was still trying to conduct some type of inquiry on this?

LIASSON: He can do it now. He can do it now.

WILLIAMS: Of course he should -- the president said that he was going to do it, Brit, and apparently nothing was done.

HUME: It was done, if my memory serves, by the Department of Justice, which we are...

LIASSON: Wait a minute. What the president said is if anybody leaks anything in my White House, they're going to be out. That's different investigating the whole Plame...

HUME: And the guy who did leak it is out.

LIASSON: One of them.

HUME: Well, you say one. There was only one leak that ever mattered. And that was the one that first brought her name into the public eye. That was not done by the White House or through the White House. It was done by a guy at the State Department.
WILLIAMS: So it's only the first knife into the back that counts. All the other knives, that's okay.

HUME: Juan, look. Once something is out, it's out.

Second on the cautious optimism on the Surge:

WILLIAMS: Someone is trying to compromise with you, Bill. Someone is trying to say here is a reason -- OK, immediate withdrawal -- you think that's wrong, that might endanger American national interests. We'll do it slowly. We'll try to encourage some political development.

Chris asked Mara, "What about what's going on on Capitol Hill?" I think the key development here is the lack of political progress in Iraq. Where are the Iraqis in terms of making deals and allowing some kind of consensus government to form?

They're not helping. Why are we putting our people at risk?

WALLACE: Brit?

HUME: Well, Juan, two points. First of all, one of the critical elements in a political compromise that is thought necessary here is a petroleum revenue distribution measure.

WILLIAMS: Right.

HUME: The cabinet has now completed that, and it appears that it is on its way to passage. That's one thing the Iraqis are doing.

The other thing is you heard the military spokesman say this week was that the Iraqis have stepped up, they have sent the units into Baghdad they've said they would.

They are clearly trying their best to hold up their end of the bargain. So in two areas there, you have the Iraqis making a difference.

The other thing is we used to have a problem in places like Sadr City that U.S. and combined U.S.-Iraqi units couldn't go in there to try to sweep that place because it was too politically sensitive because of Muqtada al-Sadr.

Well, the Iraqi government has given the green light to all of that. Muqtada al-Sadr has gone to ground, thought to be in Iran, and the Mahdi army has melted away.

So just on those three counts alone, Juan, it's fair to say that while we're a long way from any kind of final success here, the Iraqi government has stepped up. They are doing something different. The strategy is different.

And the problem with the debate in the Congress as I see it at the moment is that the Democrats seem impervious to the fact that something genuinely new is being tried there. That doesn't mean it's going to work, but it does mean that it is something different.

WILLIAMS: No, but here's the thing. The Pentagon this very week, Brit, said this is a civil war. They're using that language that has been resisted by the White House and by Republicans. It's a civil war.

The second thing to say here is...

HUME: Well, all that may be, Juan, but would you dispute that militarily at least some signs of progress are evident, and that on the political side there are signs of progress evident there as well?

WILLIAMS: Well, that's why you have military people in this town calling it, you know, by this derisive term, the "whack-a-mole" strategy.

You've got a huge surge right now. Some people withdraw. Some people wait. Are we going to be there forever to try to hold peace between warring sects?

HUME: Evidently.

WILLIAMS: That's not the American military interest. That's not why we should be there. So, yes, for the moment, you look like you have a decrease in violence, but you know what? It's not anything that we can say is now in place to offer a stable future for Iraq or for our interests in the Middle East.

HUME: Things are better or not?

WILLIAMS: Better for what? For the moment?

HUME: Well, that's the only time we can talk about here.

Juan apparently didn't catch that little tidbit of polling news earlier in the weekend. Like I said though, it just wouldn't be Sunday...

What do you really think?

Idiotic is the first word that comes to mind. But there are more, most not fit for family-blogging:

Americans’ clocks will spring forward three weeks earlier this year (2 a.m. Sunday, March 11), but more than half of Americans (54%) say they’re relaxed and haven’t really thought about the change, a new MSN/Zogby Poll shows.

But one in four (23%) say they’re excited about this year’s early time change – they’re looking forward to the longer daylight and a chance to conserve energy. Those living in the Eastern U.S. are more likely (27%) than those living in other regions to be excited about this year’s early time change.

Some may find themselves out of sync with everyone else March 11 – 16% had no idea daylight-saving time would be any different this year. Younger Americans are most likely to fall into this category – 21% of those age 18-29 say they are clueless about this year’s time change, compared to just 10% of those age 65 and older. Women (19%) are more likely than men (13%) to draw a blank about daylight-saving time.

I know that Scooter outed Valerie Plame!(Or, Spank me Harder!)

This is what happens when you substitute belief for facts and add a dash of certitude:

I'm not asking you to believe anything in particular, but to back up what you say you believe...

You assert a coordinated effort to out Plame as pushback on Joe...

You conflate discussions within government with those between government officials and members of the press...If you believe every syllable by Grenier, Grossman, Schmall, Harlow and Martin, you're no closer to establishing a effort to leak outside of the admin...You simply deduce "5 government officials talking = 5 government officials coordinating an effort to leak"...Is there one sentence that you can point to where any of these clowns allege this? or anyone else alleges this?

You use phrases like "effort by multiple officials w/i the OVP and various Federal Agencies to disseminate talking points about Joe Wilson." Great coffee shop banter, but what do you have? All of the above testified they were responding to direct requests from OVP for information on Wilson...and there is no testimony that they disseminated anything to anybody else...

If you want to claim that Cheney, Rove, Libby, and Fleischer coordinated, fine...but you're still way short on proof by even the most liberal of standards...

One government official (Ari) testified that Libby told him during lunch, and told him to keep his trap shut. of course you know that was a wink, wink, nod moment, 'cause Scooter knew Ari would blab...

So the plan works and Ari testifies that he told Dickerson and Gregory (they say he didn't) and that he didn't tell Pincus (he says Ari did)...

And the other proactive step? Libby meeting with Miller, whose notes and memory were so convincing that Libby isn't charged with any statements refuted by her...Probably multiple other sources, Valerie "Flame", WINPAC, and Joe's phone number had a little to do with that prosecutorial discretion...(I don't expect you to understand the significance of any of this, BTW)...

And here we are...the smoking guns...Rove (leaving on vacation) and Libby (taking wife and 2 kids on birthday trip aboard AF2 to see the dedication of the USS Ronald Reagan), passing on multiple ops to leak to Novak, Pincus, Russert, etc, waiting for the phone to ring from Matt Cooper and Robert Novak, in hopes that either might ask about Val...

Meanwhile, back in the real world: This is a joke! Summarizing the summaries: This morning the defense signalled a belief that the prosecution would attempt to exceed the boundaries of appropriate rebuttal, and from the often garbled summaries we are reading he appears to. Will the defense be able to use these missteps to get further jury instructions and perhaps even a sur-rebuttal? Maybe.

And this, a personal favorite: I'm pulling my info from second-hand transcripts, and it appears perhaps Walton is going to use the 1.5 hours for jury instructions. I did find this interesting, however...

In the last five minutes he (Fitzgerald) provided work for the appeals courts (should Libby be convicted) for a year or so...