Can't We All Just Get Along?

Can't We All Just Get Along? Short answer: NO!

A Chance for Consensus on Iraq
By John McCain, Joe Lieberman and Lindsey Graham
[...]
Now it's time for the unthinkable to take place in Washington. For the past several years, Iraq has divided and polarized our parties, our policymakers and our people. The debate over the war has often been disfigured by politics and partisanship, precluding the national consensus so important to American security in a dangerous world.

Consensus!? Freakin' CONSENSUS!? You dumb,lying,malevolent bastards! There's been a consensus for years! 60%+ Americans want us out and 70%+ Iraqis want us out, that's your consensus! The sovereign government of Iraq stated it quite clearly in the SOFA. Remember when Bush said we'd leave when they asked us to? They not only asked, they're telling us to get out!

The op-ed continues:

To achieve this, the president-elect, his national security team and all of us in Congress should seek the counsel of Gen. David Petraeus, the head of U.S. Central Command, and Gen. Ray Odierno, commander of coalition forces in Iraq.

Oh really!? Listen to those treasonous bastards?

US Military Defiant on Key Terms of Iraqi Pact

U.S. military leaders and Pentagon officials have made it clear through public statements and deliberately leaked stories in recent weeks that they plan to violate a central provision of the U.S.-Iraq withdrawal agreement requiring the complete withdrawal of all U.S. combat troops from Iraqi cities by mid-2009 by reclassifying combat troops as support troops.

The scheme to engage in chicanery in labeling U.S. troops represents both open defiance of an agreement which the U.S. military has never accepted and a way of blocking President-elect Barack Obama's proposed plan for withdrawal of all U.S. combat troops from Iraq within 16 months of his taking office.
[...]
Gen. David Petraeus, now commander of CENTCOM, and Gen. Ray Odierno, the top U.S. commander in Iraq, who opposed Obama's 16-month withdrawal plan during the election campaign, have drawn up their own alternative withdrawal plan rejecting that timeline

The first time one of them pulls this crap after the inauguration I hope Obama does a Truman to their MacArthurs!



Cross posted at VidiotSpeak

Wounded Animals

Remember the 'angry left' that the wingnuts on the right have railed against since Saint Reagan or before? From what I am seeing in the news and around some of the lefty blogs the right is trying to raise the ante. McGrumpy and Caribou Barbie are increasingly feeding angrier and angrier crowds that shouting 'terrorist' and even 'kill him' with no response from either candidate. They are feeding it and taking energy from it. It's like the seen in Star Wars where Luke is finally facing the Emperor and Darth Vader in person and the Emperor encourages the anger and hate. I can't remember the exact dialogue but it is something like "yes young Skywalker let the hate grow--your transition to the dark side is almost complete". It's the first thing that came to my mind when I read the stories of the angry crowds surrounding.

I don't remember this much outright hate and vitriol in previous campaigns. What is different this time? Could it be that in the previous campaigns they were the assured winners and that this time it is almost assured that they are the losers? Does it go beyond the election itself and actually touch on who they are and the knowledge that they are about to lose control?

The reality is that in the last 8 years they have had power. They have had their boy George in the White House with Darth Cheney in the background pulling the strings. Bush and Cheney were their justification for their extremist views. Bush and Cheney in power validated their hate, war mongering, gay baiting, and yes, racist views. Think back over how often the rallying point for the conservative right has been their derision and resentment of liberals, intellectuals, Europeans or anything else that threatened their carefully constructed alternate and self-serving reality. What is happening now is that it is starting to sink in that they are losing and losing in a big way. The failure of Iraq, Afghanistan, free market capitalism and all the rest is shredding their belief structure. Cap all of the sense of loss with the unthinkable - a black man as President of the U.S. and you have a sense of how dangerous this is really is. If you think cornered and wounded animal then you may get the sense of where we are.

Anybody what to take odds on how soon the "N" word pops up at one of these hate fests?


crossposted at Fallenmonk

Polishing off a fine whine

Someone please call the whaaambulance for the WATB rethuglicans who have mounted a campaign to whine that the NYT had the temerity to ask McCain to re-submit his obviously deficient article.

House Republicans Fire Off Letter To New York Times
[...]
"A national publication such as the Times has a clear obligation to provide equal access to its op-ed page to both candidates," the Republicans wrote, "to convey fairness by the paper and to help further the national debate."

Well, actually, no! Newspapers have never been obligated to provide equal access. Newspapers aren't 'broadcast', and even if they were it's the Republicans who successfully fought the "Fairness Doctrine." Ye shall reap what ye sow.

And here's the nuts:

House Republicans distributed a letter on Wednesday formally "urging" The New York Times to allow a third party to take out a full-page ad featuring a rejected opinion piece by their party's presidential candidate, Arizona Sen. John McCain.

Strawman anyone!? Aside from the fact that many media outlets have already trumpeted McCain's unedited piece, no one has even suggested that McCain couldn't buy an ad in the NYT. No one has said McCain's billionaire buddies can't buy an ad. But I have to wonder, is McSame's campaign so deficient of funds that they can buy millions of dollars of TV ads but they can't but a print ad!?

Piffle, this is yet another attempt to manufacture a faux (news) controversy to cover up the fact their candidate doesn't have anything to offer except blaming American's first, negative campaigning and a fainting couch for his rich republican buddies.



Cross posted at VidiotSpeak

And Another One Bites the Dust

A recurring meme I see over and over, continuing the false meme of a 'liberal bias' in the MSM, is that it's so unfair that Obama gets more coverage in the press than McSame. e.g.

The Project for Excellence in Journalism evaluates more than 300 political stories each week in newspapers, magazines and television to measure whether each candidate is talked about in more than 25 percent of the stories.

Every week, Obama played an important role in more than two-thirds of the stories. For July 7-13, for example, Obama was a significant presence in 77 percent of the stories, while McCain was in 48 percent, the PEJ said.
[...]
"No matter how understandable it is given the newness of the candidate and the historical nature of Obama's candidacy, in the end it's probably not fair to McCain," he said.

Sure, a Lexis/Nexis search will show that Obama is mentioned more often than McCain in MSM reporting, but if one looks at the stories they are usually negative stories about Obama. The perfect example of this is in the above story when they ask Rush Limbaugh to comment on whether this is unfair to McClain.

Are you kidding me!? Asking Rush Limbaugh to comment on whether the press is unfair to McCain is the same as asking a lying, drug addicted, racist, homophobic [you can Google it, but I refuse to provide the link to Rush's website where he says "... I am a homophobe ..."], sexual predator uber-republican to comment on McCain's unequal coverage in the MSM.

It's obvious that Obama gets more coverage in the MSM, it's also obvious that most of the coverage is negative.

And after all, if they were to write about McCain they might have to mention that McCain thinks:
Czechoslovakia is a country, (nope, not for over 15 years)
Iraq borders Afghanistan, (nope, not ever)
We have succeeded in Iraq, (oops, my bad, the MSM covered that lie over and over. p.s. If we've succeeded in Iraq why can't our troops come home?)
McCain has reversed course on almost every POV he's ever held, occasionally twice in the same day.

And now McCain is whining that the NYT asked him to make changes in his Op-Ed.

All I have to say to Republicans is that the "Fairness Doctrine" has never applied to the press, and Republicans are responsible for it being negated in the broadcast media. (BTW, Bill Clinton had several Op-Eds to the NYT rejected when he was President!)

It's just yet another desperation tactic by McCain and his Bush/Rove advisers to try to rouse the rabble and ignore the fact that McClain has one again flip-flopped and now endorses Obama's plan for Iraq:McCain indicates US troops could withdraw in 2 years




Cross posted at VidiotSpeak

Think for yourself 'cause I won't be there with you

A visit to his daughter's bedroom proved to be an eye-opening experience for Rudy Guiliani

Seriously. If his own kid doesn't want him running our country, why should we?

[graphic by Dancin' Dave]

Dream yourself a dream come true

The Right-wing pundits sure know how to pour gas onto their own funeral pyre:

Of course, the big difference is that the Democrats don’t have a Ronald Reagan to take advantage of the situation. Nobody will ever confuse Hilliary’s (sic) shrill denunciations with the twinkle in the Gipper’s eye when he zinged an opponent. Nor will anyone fail to see the difference between the inspirational yet empty platitudes of Obama with Reagan’s soaring rhetoric that touched something so American in people’s souls.

Hillary is shrill. Dude, how do you react when your wife asks you to take out the garbage, do you call her shrill?

And the twinkle in the . . . dammit! Stop calling Reagan that movie name! He was an actor, a bad one at that. He did absolutely nothing to connect himself with anyone tough or brave, he was a f***ing actor!

The twinkle was acting, reading words written by Peggy Noonan, while he tried to feed school kids ketchup and erect a big umbrella to prevent the awful Ruskies from sending missles to attack us. Stop it, just stop it! Soaring rhetoric my ass.

I don't know about Obama yet, but he has a college education, has written books, and actually has thoughts that are deeper than "tear down this wall".

Look here at Democracy Now for some insight into Reagan's effect on California and working people while he was Governor, but that's not important right now.

Seriously, the Right's pining for another Reagan is just sad; a fantasy about a guy who can bankrupt the country, raise taxes with no benefit to the middle class, and spout slogans written by the woman who wrote this crap about poor Elian Gonzales:

a miracle that when he tired and began to slip, the dolphins who surrounded him like a contingent of angels pushed him upward;

There's Reagan's brain: a science-fiction fantasy that has the Righties yearning for Jack Bauer to take over their world and save them, and take away their Constitutional rights at the same time.

After all, they weren't using them.

And our pundit ends with this:

A Guiliani or Romney candidacy would alter the face of the party at least temporarily and give hope to some of the more moderate elements in the GOP.

From your mouth to God's ears. But not for the reasons you believe.