"we" are not amused

i had been hoping to make time for an original piece on former seinfeld star michael richards' now-famous racist rant at the laugh factory, but steve gilliard just stole my main points:

his tone was deeply racial and mean. i've been called nigger before, but never has anyone said i should be lynched. that kind of hate comes from a feeling of racial superiority, that other people are lower than you (e.g borat and the gypsys) and that is the natural order of things. when the two neatly dressed men walked in the group, he said as they did "here comes the blacks and mexicans" they weren't in hoodies, they looked like young professionals. yet they were racially abused. ... i don't think this is a man who handles failure or correction well. even with hecklers, you don't call for them to be murdered. this is an unhappy man, who got rich but never grew up. he lives in a white world, and his outbursts have been ignored for years. you don't see his former cast members running to say "this isn't the guy we know". only seinfeld, who has a financial relationship with richards, jumped in.

steve then zeroes in on the one aspect of richards' tirade that leapt out at me as the most reprehensible:

it's one thing to say "fuck you nigger". which will get you a punch, it's another world to say "50 years ago we would have hung you from a tree with a fork in your ass" we? most people would have said, they or the klan. not we. we is pretty twisted.

bull's-eye.

richards is identifying personally with the worst elements of any society.

kramer the klansman.

time to stick a fork in him. he's done.

time for a change, pt. iii

ok, it's time for a last-minute election eve post for simple posterity.

the democrats will take both the house and the senate.

the momentum clearly belongs to the democrats, for whom it's been building for months. most significantly, republican incumbents both nationwide and up and down the political hierarchy are trailing their challengers. i'll go so far as to say that any surprises coming tomorrow will break for the democrats. that's what momentum does.

conversely one could say that the republicans have been unable to gain momentum, despite their best (or worst, to be more apt) efforts to control the direction of the race.

the republicans and their enablers have not only been beset by a seemingly endless barrgage of viscerally disturbing late-developing scandals, but they are also bereft of any accomplishments to boast of and any message to trumpet — at least any the electorate still finds compelling — exactly what they have so srtridently accused their soon-to-be-masters of lacking.

the republican's still-favorite whipping boy, ex-president bill clinton, today in maryland summed up the gop message in his characteristic plain-spoken style:

clinton: ... that you have to vote for us because our opponents are no good. and because they'll tax you into the poor house. and on the way to the poor house, you'll meet a terrorist on every street corner. and when you try to run away from the terrorists, you'll trip over an illegal immigrant. isn't that their thing? that's what they're sayin' ...

but the main reason the republicans' short-lived "permanent majority" is coming to an end is their unrestrained corruption and incompetence. as i wrote in march ("cry uncle") and april ("the only thing we have to fear") in two of my numerous posts on republican malfeasance:

but it is far too late for this regime to save 2006 and 2008. bush's ratings have already dropped into the range of the worst presidents and the poisonous drip-drip-drip of scandal betrays no sign of abating. as long as the white house insists on treating its problems as a matter of perception, they will continue their pointless pantomine of leadership and never adopt the substantive remedies that might regain the public's trust. thus the drip-drip-drip will torment them to the bitter end.

the republicans had a choice; they always did, but they chose naked power over good governance and forgot that in a democracy power alone isn't enough to maintain power.

ooh, ooh that smell

ap: charles dharapak

(hat tip to watertiger @ firedoglake)

foley night football

just when it seemed the tastiest juice had been already squeezed out of the foley congressional page scandal (not that the squeezing itself was anywhere near abating), another spirited exegesis has blossomed from steve gilliard's news blog, this time from commenter lowermanhattanite, in the spirit of steve's warhammer 40k series:

what with monday night football being on, players stomping each other in the grille and thoughts of half-*ssed collegiate griddder [sic] george "macaca" allen jr. dancing in my head all weekend, the gop's handling of this whole foley thing brought believe it or not — football to mind for me. some of you may be too young to remember those scary san diego charger teams of the late 70's, but let me tell you — they were probably the most frightening passing offense you'd have ever seen — with john jeffferson [sic], charlie joiner, chuck muncie, wes chandler and kellen winslow catching balls hurled all over the field by the toss-happy dan fouts at qb. my god, but they were a sight to behold. a breathing 11-man textbook on passing power 101. folks called 'em "air coryell", after their "rain man-esque" offensive savant of a coach don coryell. watching them seeming to effortlesssly run up scores via air power, you'd think they were the greatest thing ever to grace turf and chalk. but you know what? the mother-f*ckers never won a super bowl — much less even made iit [sic] to one. wanna know why? son-of-a-b*tches couldn't play a lick a' defense. folks, the gop's defense on this pig-f*ck of a scandal is "air coryell, 2006" — a team used to passing, passing and mo' passing its way to easy, demoralizing regular-season victories, but in the end, unable to win the big game/truly govern. i mean, it really is kind of amazing to watch this team of supposed bruisers, so used to dominating in their usual way, getting their *sses handed to 'em on this story. again, baack [sic] to "air coryell", that squad sought to beat you down with long offensive drives that would keep their defense off the field. their p*ss-poor, hole-filled, sub-par defense, that is. and what this little debacle is showing us all is what happens when the gop actually has to defend for any length of time. they really don't know how. all this mad scrambling, unable to control the tempo because they don't have the ball in their hands as usual? they look a little lost. "uh. rep. hastert didn't know about this." "well, he did, but only the clean e-mail." "er ... not even that, really. he might've been told, but he doesn't really remember it." "oh, it was just a few naughty e-mails" "whoops! did i say naughty? i meant reprensible! [sic] reprehensible, vile — fill in the blanks." "it's the pages fault!" "it's the dems fault!" "it's the holder of the ims fault!" "they're adults!" "um ... pay no attention to us getting busted scrubbing all the child endangerment stuff from hastert's website — in spite of this being about 'adults'". there appears to be no coordinated defense on this at all — just a bunch of individulsl [sic] running around aimlessly after whoever they think is carrying the ball at the moment. and that vaunted offfense [sic] can't do a f*cking thing here. can't outscore the other side — because offense don't mean sh*t when you ain't in possesssion of the ball, baby. a position this crew is sorely un-used to. even drudge — usually so canny with his poison darts — took to crow-barring his target upside the head with that egg-zaggerated "beast" sh*t he spouted. and man ... when you get him, the gop's star ball-carrier (pun unintended) that far off his game and screaaming [sic] on the sidelines? they have got a serious f*cking issue on defense. i don't mean to boil the seriousness of what foley and his enablers did by equating it to a mere "game". rather, i'm talking about the craven team of bullies who've been trying to as usual, dodge this heinous sh*t by "offense-ing" their way out of some really serious trouble here. more than 72 hours into this blow-out and they can't as yet conjure up a equally troubled democrat to equivocate this sh*t with? wtf? three quarters in and these f*ckers are still getting shut out? i ain't used to seein' this team! it is a wonder of sorts though, watching all the old gimmick plays — "88 flea-flicker media misdirect", "swift boat shake-off on 04" and "baby-fake power trap r-dc" all get thrown for f*cking losses over the last few days. f*ck that "best defense is a good offense" sh*t, eh? are you ready for some football?

to be fair, the republicans are not merely lacking a defensive plan: there simply exists no defense for the odious trap they've so carefully constructed for themselves. the doomsday scenario they've been quietly postponing has detonated in their faces, at the worst possible moment. the only way the survivors can leave the field with honor at this late date is to remove themselves as hastily as decorum allows. but knowing this crew, and their pathological hatred of even the appearance of defeat, they'll go painfully down in protracted overtime, whining all the way like babies.

torture logic

if anyone is still a little puzzled why president bush has invested so much of his waning political capital into an end run around the geneva convention, it's not just to save himself the cost of a trip to the hague, although that alone would certainly be reason enough.

juan cole relates a most enlightening lecture delivered by former uk ambassador to uzbekistan craig murray at a recent academic symposium on central eurasia:

the bush administration has been about "the greater middle east" (including central asia). it has been about basing rights in those areas. it says it is fighting a "war on terror" that is unlike past wars and may go on for decades. it has been about rounding up and torturing large numbers of iraqis, afghans and others. this region has most of the world's proven oil and gas reserves. why is the bush administration so attached to torturing people that it would pressure a supine congress into raping the us constitution by explicitly permitting some torture techniques and abolishing habeas corpus for certain categories of prisoners? ... boys and girls, it is because torture is what provides evidence for large important networks of terrorists where there aren't really any, or aren't very many, or aren't enough to justify 800 military bases and a $500 billion military budget.

boys and girls, is there any doubt that when this chapter of american history has been committed to ink that it will catalogue the war on terror with the spanish inquistion and the salem witch trials?

separated at birth

disgraced former boston cardinal bernard law

disgraced soon-to-be-former house speaker denny hastert

(hat tip to jeffrey feldman @ dailykos)

but you already knew that, didn't you?

with the release of parts of the key judgements of the most recent national intelligence estimate (nie), the final linchpins to the administration's ever-shifting arguments for its continued occupation of iraq have been definitively yanked away, by the very community paid to know the facts better than anyone else on the planet. the last shreds of clothing have been snatched off the emperor, as explained by aj, a former defense intelligence officer who spent two years on iraq policy:

the recently-declassified nie titled "trends in global terrorism: implications for the united states", which was finalized nearly six months ago, is a devastating repudiation of virtually everything leading executive and defense department leaders have told americans about the war on terror. as i've written before, the most important thing to look for in this kind of analysis is trends. events are different than how things are going in general, and here's an example: the report states that u.s. efforts have damaged the leadership of al-qa'ida and "disrupted" is operations, which is almost certainly true. there have been plenty of operations disrupted. but that's a summary of events, not a trend. more important is the follow-up that "the global jihadist movement ... is spreading and adapting to counterterrorism efforts." event: we've done some good. trend: things are getting worse, not better. much of the initial assessment is uncontroversial. jihadism is decentralized, it's expanding, self-radicalized cells (especially in europe) are a growing threat, etc. the real meat, both analytically and politically, involves iraq. bear in mind that the report focuses on terrorism, not iraq per se, so it's instructive that a great deal of the summary addresses iraq. the iraq portion begins somewhat dubiously, with the statement that "perceived jihadist success there would inspire more fighters to continue the struggle elsewhere." that's disingenuous to the extent that jihadists already perceive success and fighters have already moved beyond iraq (claiming responsibility for attacks in jordan and other gulf states). the assessment that iraq "is shaping a new generation of terrorist leaders and operatives" is also not surprising, though i think more people should realize that a similar situation in afghanistan caused the rise of al-qa'ida in the first place. no matter how or when we leave, there will be trained and angry operatives who will lash out in the future. but to me, the most important, the scariest, and the most damning part of the entire summary is this single sentence: we assess that the underlying factors fueling the spread of the movement outweigh its vulnerabilities are [sic] are likely to do so for the duration of the timefram [sic] of this estimate. ladies and gentlemen, that's the ballgame right there. what this intelspeak means in english is, "the causes fueling terrorism outweigh the vulnerabilities of terrorists and their networks, and that fact is likely to be true indefinitely." the assessment is saying that the main motivations for terrorism — and the report puts iraq at the top of that long list — outweigh our ability to prevent it, meaning, essentially, that iraq is more harmful than helpful in our counterterror strategy. i already knew that, and so did most readers here, but i don't think that's the conventional wisdom. until now, at least. anyone who defends the iraq war now has to answer this question: the collective judgment of the entire u.s. intelligence community is that under the watch of the bush administration terrorism is becoming more of a threat, not less of one, primarily due to iraq. do you support continuing that failure, or changing the course to solve it? the bush administration is trying to spin the findings, saying that they reflect previous statements, but this response is pathetic. the spin conflates fact with trend, basically saying that president bush has stated some of the facts contained in the report (shorter version: "the report says al-qa'ida is bad. president bush has said al-qa'ida is bad!") while failing to address the assessment that things are getting worse, not better. one more time, because it's really a remarkable assessment, despite being in bureaucrat-speak: we assess that the underlying factors fueling the spread of the movement outweigh its vulnerabilities and are likely to do so for the duration of the timeframe of this estimate. those underlying factors are listed as, basically, entrenched grievances and humiliation; iraq; lack of political reform in muslim nations; and pervasive anti-u.s. sentiment among most muslims. these are all interconnected, of course, and bush administration policies, especially its intransigence on iraq, are hurting more than they are helping. analysts are generally discouraged from offering policy suggestions (that's for policymakers, not interpreters of information), but this transcends that usual prohibition a little, and the strongest statement is this: countering the spread of the jihadist movement will require coordinated multilateral efforts that go well beyond operations to capture or kill terrorist leaders. that is a concept this administration, and its rubber-stamp congress, simply doesn't seem able to grasp. the report is definitive, provocative, and damning, and every day between now and the elections democrats — and sane republicans — should demand accountability for these unconscionable failures of presidential and congressional leadership.

it's a given

chief of u.s. central commander in iraq, general john abizaid:

given unlimited time and unlimited support, we're winning the war.

whew! — now that's a relief! and i was really getting worried there for a second ...

wwjd?*

josh marshall:

if you were to pick the single greatest hypocrisy of the bush presidency, wouldn't it have to be this: that the man who ostentatiously claims jesus as his favorite philosopher (he of "do unto others as ye would have them do unto you" fame) would say, in all seriousness, "common article iii says that there will be no outrages upon human dignity. it's very vague. what does that mean, 'outrages upon human dignity'?"

---

^* what would jesus do?

for the president's clarification

george w. bush, addressing the press in the white house rose garden:

this debate is occurring because of the supreme court's ruling that said that we must conduct ourselves under the common article iii of the geneva convention. and that common article iii says that there will be no outrages upon human dignity. it's very vague. what does that mean, "outrages upon human dignity"? that's a statement that is wide open to interpretation. and what i'm proposing is that there be clarity in the law so that our professionals will have no doubt that that which they are doing is legal. you know, it's — and so the piece of legislation i sent up there provides our professionals that which is needed to go forward.

the geneva convention, article 3, regarding the treatment of prisoners of war, in force since october 21, 1950:

in the case of armed conflict not of an international character occurring in the territory of one of the high contracting parties, each party to the conflict shall be bound to apply, as a minimum, the following provisions: persons taking no active part in the hostilities, including members of armed forces who have laid down their arms and those placed hors de combat by sickness, wounds, detention, or any other cause, shall in all circumstances be treated humanely, without any adverse distinction founded on race, colour, religion or faith, sex, birth or wealth, or any other similar criteria. to this end the following acts are and shall remain prohibited at any time and in any place whatsoever with respect to the above-mentioned persons: violence to life and person, in particular murder of all kinds, mutilation, cruel treatment and torture; taking of hostages; outrages upon personal dignity, in particular, humiliating and degrading treatment; the passing of sentences and the carrying out of executions without previous judgment pronounced by a regularly constituted court affording all the judicial guarantees which are recognized as indispensable by civilized peoples. the wounded and sick shall be collected and cared for. an impartial humanitarian body, such as the international committee of the red cross, may offer its services to the parties to the conflict. the parties to the conflict should further endeavour to bring into force, by means of special agreements, all or part of the other provisions of the present convention. the application of the preceding provisions shall not affect the legal status of the parties to the conflict.

now tell us again, george — just what part is it that's "vague" and "wide open to interpretation"?

no, george, this "debate" is not occurring because of any wrist-slap from the supreme court. the geneva convention did not pass unmolested for more than a half century because no one noticed how pretty the plain and bespeckled old bird was. so too with the constitution and your craven efforts to play peeping tom on its citizens.

no, george, after spending your two terms shamelessly defiling both the convention and the constitution, your flabby virgin backside juts exposed to charges of war crimes and impeachment and you need your rubberstamping posse running congress (but running it for not too much longer) to cover your unsightly naked emperorship.

america's most wanted

or maybe not.

president bush, september 17, 2001:

q: do you want bin laden dead? bush: i want justice. there's an old poster out west, as i recall, that said, "wanted: dead or alive." q: do you see this being long-term? you were saying it's long-term, do you see an end, at all? bush: i think that this is a long-term battle, war. there will be battles. but this is long-term. after all, our mission is not just osama bin laden, the al qaeda organization. our mission is to battle terrorism and to join with freedom loving people. we are putting together a coalition that is a coalition dedicated to declaring to the world we will do what it takes to find the terrorists, to rout them out and to hold them accountable. and the united states is proud to lead the coalition. q: are you saying you want him dead or alive, sir? can i interpret — bush: i just remember, all i'm doing is remembering when i was a kid i remember that they used to put out there in the old west, a wanted poster. it said: "wanted, dead or alive." all i want and america wants him brought to justice. that's what we want.

president bush, march 13, 2002:

q: but don't you believe that the threat that bin laden posed won't truly be eliminated until he is found either dead or alive? bush: well, as i say, we haven't heard much from him. and i wouldn't necessarily say he's at the center of any command structure. and, again, i don't know where he is. i — i'll repeat what i said. i truly am not that concerned about him. i know he is on the run. i was concerned about him, when he had taken over a country. i was concerned about the fact that he was basically running afghanistan and calling the shots for the taliban.

president bush, september 5, 2006:

bin laden and his terrorist allies have made their intentions as clear as lenin and hitler before them. the question is: will we listen? will we pay attention to what these evil men say? america and our coalition partners have made our choice. we're taking the words of the enemy seriously. we're on the offensive, and we will not rest, we will not retreat, and we will not withdraw from the fight, until this threat to civilization has been removed.

fred barnes, editor, the weekly standard, september 14, 2006:

host: alright fred, you and a few other journalists were in the oval office with the president, right? and he says catching osama bin laden is not job number one? barnes: well, he said, look, you can send 100,000 special forces, that’s the figure he used, to the mountains of pakistan and afghanistan and hunt him down, but he just said that’s not a top priority use of american resources. his vision of a war on terror is one that involves intelligence to find out from people, to get tips, to follow them up and break up plots to kill americans before they occur. that’s what happened recently in that case of the planes that were to be blown up by terrorists, we think coming from england, and that’s the top priority. he says, you know, getting osama bin laden is a low priority compared to that.

that certain ... je ne sais quoi

results from today's cbs news/new york times poll for the period august 17-21. the poll was open-ended, in which the respondents were allowed to provide answers in their own words rather than choose from a provided list:

what do you like best about the bush presidency?
	don't know	34%
	nothing	19%
	handling of war on terror	11%
	decisive	5%
	handling of war in iraq	4%
	taxes	3%
	morality/religion	3%

tough guys don't carry umbrellas

we can all sense that the war is coming. it is vital for america to seize the initiative and fight it on our terms, when we have the maximum advantage. it's five minutes to midnight. the time to strike iran is now. — robert tracinski, "five minutes to midnight: the war is coming, no matter how hard we try to evade it."

tracinski tries his level best to sound calming and reasoned, yet still strident and imperative — but james wolcott, left blogistan's resident ginsu expert, knows the sound of trash talk when he hears it:

i have a theory on why the war party rhetoric has gone skittish and skyhigh, a theory based on casual observation of new york streetfights (streetfights everywhere, really). what i've noticed is that the trash talk in a street altercation escalates in proportion to the expanding distance between the two protagonists. when two potential fighters are almost literally in each other's faces, their words are few, their expressions fierce. it's when the fist fight has been avoided (or tabled) and they're putting distance between each other that the taunting becomes louder and more florid. "get back in my face again, motherfucker, and i'll pound your face into hamburger meat, motherfucker." "come back and say that to my face, lame-ass motherfucker." etc. you can supply your own david mamet expletives and challenges. one of my favorite verbal showdowns occurred on 14th street one rainy day when two non-pugilists kept up the trash talk until one of them said, "you're carrying an umbrella, motherfucker — how tough can you be?" which i must say got quite a chortle from us idle bystanders. now what has this to do with the posings of our militaristic muscle mouths? this: it is an index of the frustration and impotence they're experiencing at not getting their way. they're waging rhetorical escalation because de-escalation is the unacknowledged order of the day, and there's nothing they can do about it. steve clemons published a dispatch from the nelson report indicating that despite all of the cheneyesque bluster, the bush administration is pursuing the diplomatic route with iran. to the dismay of the hard nosers, bush is also reeling back his use of "islamic fascists", which will be interpreted as a capitulation to political correctness. you even have rumself whining that his recent appeasement slur was taken "out of context," and calling for "constructive" dialogue regarding the situation in iraq. and then there's the happy novelty of rudy giuliani blowing the whistle and calling a foul on "partisan bickering", which will not endear him to the more strident dickheads in his party. there has been a major shift in the mood climate, one which the war party and its bloggers are resisting at the top of their lungs. but resistance is futile. as john robb writes in an important post at global guerrillas, "playing at war", we're not going to the get the grand, conclusive world war iii (or iv) that same [sic] neocon ideologues crave.

newt gingrich: look at all the different connectivity. you'd have to say to yourself, "this is in fact world war iii." john gibson: world war iii. bill o'reilly: world war iii, right? john gibson: this is world war iii. sean hannity: ... world war iii. the start of world war iii! michael leeden: more like world war iv ...

send in the clowns

fmguru @ steve gilliard's news blog explains exactly why joe lieberman's newly released "sunset" ad is further evidence that his contentious "independent" senate bid is doomed:

lieberman's expensive consultant sucks ass. this is yet another reason why joe's campaign will sputter and die. all of the good political consultants and media people are already fully employed with '06 races. joe fired all his staff after the primary and went to hire a brand-new team. but august 9 is verrrry late in the season to be staffing up a political campaign. the people who are available are the political equivalent of the kids chosen last for the kickball team. i was briefly worried that joe was going to go out and get himself a team of ass-kicking, eye-gouging, race-baiting republican campaign consultants (you know, the ones that actually know how to fight and win elections, unlike the bob shrum all-stars), but then i realized that all of the a- and b-level gop talent was already busy with actual republican races. and there are plenty of democratic shops that won't touch joe with a 10-foot pole. so he's stuck sifting the dregs for his campaign staff. it's not even that the ad is terrible — it's that this ad was what they'd spent two weeks cooking up in their backroom. the [sic] spent a couple hundred thousand dollars making and airing this ad — this was their opening shot, their best foot forward. that's what so funny about this (well, that and the commo team's hapless response to people wondering how they got the sun to set over the southern coast of ct). it's proof that the entire lieberman campaign is being run by the political equivalents of larry, moe, and curly. i'm sure this same half-assery is replicated throughout the lieberman organization. you think these clowns will be able to put together a functioning gotv operation in 70 days, prep for a debate, organize campaign stops and appearances, or mail out literature to people asking for it? it's like the lieberman campaign should be followed around by caliope music wherever it goes. i'm reminded of two things: one is the famous film flub in john wayne's dreadful rah-rah vietnam pic the green berets, where the movie closes with the sun setting in the gulf of tonkin (nice trick, that), and the other is the half-assed, corner-cutting way they did their web operation in the primary. the sort of people who figure webhosts are all the same, so why not go with the cheapest one are the same ones who'll buy the first piece of stock footage they find on google. sunrise, sunset, who the fuck's gonna know the difference, right?

buh-bye, joe.

on notice

you're on notice, pal!

i just found a new toy on the internets: the stephen colbert "on notice board" generator.

have fun.

one year later

almost one year ago, clinton administration jetsam dick morris washed up on fox news and made this bold prediction about hurricane katrina's impact on bush's popularity:

y'know, george bush basically believes the federal government should do two things: fight wars and help people recover from disasters and now he's got both on his plate. i think that his ratings are gonna soar! not necessarily in the next three days, but over the next year he's gonna look so good doing all this stuff.

morris' hosts — even bush apologist-in-chief sean hannity — were understandably skeptical:

morris: ... the people who said this storm is gonna hurt bush's presidency are just wrong. he can get all the money he wants out of congress 'cause of this disaster, the people will be solidly behind him, the media will cover it like crazy, and he's gonna look like santa claus. colmes: so if you're advising democrats now, how would you advise them to react? morris: to shut up and stop harping — colmes: ha! "shut up" ... ! morris: — and screaming and hollering and pointing fingers, and start amassing national credits by showing the same liberal democratic compassion bush did. colmes: so they should just agree with him and say he's doing a great job. morris: yeah, they — just like right after 9/11, they hurt themselves by any kind of carping. ah, bush — this speech was fantastic! [ snip ] morris: ... you have a president that doesn't think government should do a lot. but he believes they should fight wars and that was the first term, and they believe they should recover from disasters and that's the second term. man, is this guy fortunate! hannity: [chuckling] fortunate to have a disaster? morris: fortunate to be able to be president at a time when he can respond without violating his principles.

with bush's approval at 41% (according to a fox news poll released on the day of the broadcast), dick probably thought his analysis was not completely ludicrous, since bush seemed to have nowhere to go but up:

today, 41 percent of voters approve and 51 percent disapprove of president bush’s performance, which is the lowest job rating he has received in a fox news poll. the president’s approval rating is down 4 percentage points from two weeks ago (45 percent, august 30-31), around the time the magnitude of katrina’s damage was becoming clear. before the hurricane, 47 percent approved and 44 percent disapproved (july 26-27).

well, after a year of bush's "liberal democratic compassion", dick may have been at least half-right — bush had nowhere to go. nowhere but down, that is, and he's dragging his republican-led congress down with him:

the new poll finds the [sic] 36 percent of americans approve of president bush’s job performance and 56 percent disapprove. these results are in line with the ratings the president has received for the last couple of months. moreover, for the past three surveys the gap between approval among republicans (76 percent) and democrats (10 percent) has been 66 percentage points. the assessment of the job congress is doing continues to be abysmal, as more than twice as many americans say they disapprove (58 percent) as approve (24 percent).

to be fair, dick's fawning pronouncements would not necessarily have been so pathetically absurd had he been prognosticating about any other president than the dismal one we are presently stuck with. to vindicate dick's wet dreams of republican munificence, all nero bush needed to do was to roll up his sleeves and simply deliver on dick's assurances of timely and tangible material support to katrina's victims.¹ compassion — if bush actually has any to give — without assistance is nothing more than contempt.

it was sickening enough that dick neglected to acknowledge the federal government's own culpability in the disaster that so fortuitously befell louisiana. but did dick truly believe that this potemkin administration ever intended to provide new orleans with more than a white wash and red tape? did he truly believe that the destruction of a major american city ever meant more to bush than just an opportunity for another series of woefully ineffectual photo-ops in bush's non-stop dog-and-pony tribute to himself?

---

¹ and of course, while he's at it, bush would also need to pacify iraq and lower oil prices and catch osama bin laden and jump-start the economy and ...

a message for dick cheney

seen on a bus in queens, new york:

photo by dave hill © 2006.

since i doubt the vice president frequents that particular route, i thought i'd pass the sentiments along.

anyone?

josh marshall, a liberal blogger still trying in these partisan times to hold fast to the middle — wherever that may be going — has just reached "like a sort of epiphany":

is there anyone in the country who can say honestly, in their heart of hearts, that when that moment of fear hit them after the recent reports out of london, they said to themselves, "god, i'm glad we're in iraq"? anyone?

red alert

boys, it's time to duct tape the windows, strap on your diapers and man the keyboards — the islamo-irani-talibani-qaeda-o'fascists have taken connecticut!

chuck roberts, anchor @ cnn headline news:

how does this factor into the lieberman/lamont contest? and might some argue, as some have already argued, that lamont is the al qaeda candidate?

tony snow, press secretary @ the white house:

... the real question for the american people to ask themselves is, do you take the war on terror seriously? with all the developments around the world — and, if so, how do you fight it to win? there seems to be two approaches, and in the connecticut race, one of the approaches is ignore the difficulties and walk away. now, when the united states walked away, in the opinion of the osama bin laden in 1991, bin laden drew from that the conclusion that americans were weak and wouldn’t stay the course and that led to september 11th.

dick cheney, vice president @ the white house:

the thing that's partly disturbing about it is the fact that, the standpoint of our adversaries, if you will, in this conflict, and the al qaeda types, they clearly are betting on the proposition that ultimately they can break the will of the american people in terms of our ability to stay in the fight and complete the task. and when we see the democratic party reject one of its own, a man they selected to be their vice presidential nominee just a few short years ago, it would seem to say a lot about the state the party is in today if that's becoming the dominant view of the democratic party, the basic, fundamental notion that somehow we can retreat behind our oceans and not be actively engaged in this conflict and be safe here at home, which clearly we know we won't — we can't be.

bill o'reilly, talking head @ the o'reilly factor:

i believe this is a chilling indication of what lies ahead in american politics. iran’s betting we americans have no will to restrain their jihad, and judging from the connecticut vote last night, they might be right.

cal thomas, columnist @ the washington times:

the narrow primary defeat of veteran sen. joe lieberman in connecticut's democratic primary is more than a loss for one man. it is a loss for his party and for the country. it completes the capture of the democratic party by its taliban wing. they used to be "san francisco democrats," a phrase coined by former u.s. ambassador to the united nations jeane kirkpatrick to describe the party's 1984 convention. but they have now morphed into taliban democrats because they are willing to "kill" one of their own, if he does not conform to the narrow and rigid agenda of the party's kook fringe.

joe lieberman, sore loser @ the new york times:

if we just pick up like ned lamont wants us to do, get out by a date certain, it will be taken as a tremendous victory by the same people who wanted to blow up these planes in this plot hatched in england. it will strengthen them, and they will strike again. i'm worried that too many people, both in politics and out, don't appreciate the seriousness of the threat to american security and the evil of the enemy that faces us — more evil, or as evil, as nazism and probably more dangerous than the soviet communists we fought during the long cold war. how the heck can we be in a battle in which we are fighting as democrats and republicans against each other, when these terrorists certainly don't distinguish based on our party affiliation? they want to kill any and all of us.

post mortem

let us examine the corpse, shall we?

admiralnaismith @ mydd:

lieberman was the goliath candidate. when you're goliath, you win by being as gracious as possible, trying to keep the condescension out of your voice as you welcome the chance for an amicable primary contest and talk about how democracy is so wonderful and your little-known opponent has every right to run, and then you swamp him financially with positive, upbeat ads about your record, mentioning the "david" by name barely if ever. "goliath" wins popularity contests by being a gentle giant, not by being a brutal bully. lieberman didn't do that. he was fred sanford, clutching his chest and yelling "lamont! lamont!" every chance he got. he didn't even bother to hide his contempt for the democratic process as he screeched and raged at how this bloody peasant was daring to besmirch the divine right of incumbents. he publicly insulted not only the "david" but anyone who held "david"s views — which happened to be popular, majority views. and to cap it off, he unveiled his spoiler independent bid, stabbing his own party in the back before he had even had the primary. it was lieberman, and not lamont, who turned this race from nothing into a real contest, and then an upset.

thereisnospoon @ daily kos:

let's face some cold, hard facts, people. we didn't do this, because what we supposedly did was impossible to do — in any politcal climate. in one corner, you had a bunch of unpaid volunteers, internet rabble-rousers, and an inexperienced politician whose highest post had been county selectman. in the other, you had the three-time senator, former vice-presidential candidate, visible party statesman, bill clinton, hillary clinton, harry reid, barbara boxer, the other popular ct senator dodd, most of organized labor, the women's groups and the environmental groups, most of traditional democratic party support, paid lobbyist support, paid armies of gotv staff, the slick ad money, the top dlc consultants, and a 3 to 1 budget gap. i'm sorry. that's not david vs. goliath. this isn't even the nba champions versus a rec league team. that's more like an ant vs. my shoe. and the shoe lost. but then, the dlc is an old shoe — and the most politically incompetent shoe i've ever seen. the truth is that the dlc couldn't beat my dead great-grandmother. or yours. they couldn't beat their own shadow. so why did anyone think they could beat karl rove?

josh marshall @ time:

he's seemed almost militantly indifferent to the disaster iraq has become. and his passion about the war seemed reserved exclusively for those who questioned it rather than those who had so clearly botched the enterprise. his continual embrace of president bush — both literal and figurative — was an insult to democrats, the great majority of whom believe bush has governed as one of the most destructive presidents in modern american history. it's almost as though lieberman has gone out of his way to provoke and offend democrats on every point possible, often, seemingly, purely for the reason of provoking. is it any wonder the guy got whacked in a party primary? lieberman got in trouble because he let himself live in the bubble of d.c. conventional wisdom and a-list punditry. he flattered them; and they loved him back. and as part of that club he was part of the delusion and denial that has sustained our enterprise in iraq for the last three years. in the weeks leading up to tuesday's primary, a-list d.c. pundits were writing columns portraying lieberman's possible defeat as some sort of cataclysmic event that might foreshadow a dark new phase in american politics — as though voters choosing new representation were on a par with abolishing the constitution or condoning political violence. but those breathless plaints only showed how disconnected they are from what's happening in the country at large. they mirrored his disconnection from the politics of the moment.

juan cole:

first of all, the man was brain dead on the iraq issue. ... lieberman had bought into the rove master narrative. bush went to war electively, thus very conveniently making himself a war president and therefore above criticism. he got a second term that way despite having been among the worst presidents in history. lieberman ceded to bush a kind of invulnerability on the most important republican party snafu since its policies contributed to the onset of the great depression. why would a democrat do that? the answer is that on foreign policy issues, lieberman is a neoconservative, and supports the iraq project for the same reasons that douglas feith and paul wolfowitz (then number 3 and 2 respectively at the pentagon) did. ... lieberman may run as an independent, and we cannot know what will happen in that case. but for the reasons given above, it is important that he has been repudiated by democratic voters. the rest of the party now has a shot at taking the house, without risking having their colleague's pro-bush sanctimonies on iraq constantly thrown in their faces.

christy hardin smith @ firedoglake:

at some point, the folks who report on politics and the folks who run for office will wake up and understand that bloggers are merely americans who try to amplify the sentiment of thousands more just like them. and the overwhelming sentiment that i have been hearing for months and months is that people have had enough of the lies, the manipulation, the self-dealing, the egos, the idiocy, the selfishness, and the outright dereliction of duty and lack of accountability from so many in washington, d.c. in this rubber stamp republican congress … we’ve had enough.

time for a change, pt. ii

from ned lamont's victory speech:

this race started out as a dream, many thought an impossible dream, but thanks to all of you and thousands of citizens across the state ... we have a coalition that believes this is a time for change.

time indeed. couldn't have said it better.

time for a change

well, it's primary day in connecticut and the country finally gets to see if democratic and independent voters there want a new senator. although lamont has enjoyed an amazing 13-point lead in the polls over the last week, that lead was halved over the weekend, and polls have been known to be wrong anyway. lamont's "netroots" supporters have been careful to temper their enthusiasm, having bitterly tasted defeat too often before.

i've been trying to step back and look at the race in more fundamental terms, beyond the particular issues being argued in it. in most regular elections the voters are offered two choices: the incumbent or the challenger; the status quo or change.

and right now the entire country is disgusted with the direction the white house and congress has taken the country, and nowhere is that truer than in connecticut, one of the bluest of the blue states. the country is aching for change. it's a fundamental dynamic that seems only today to be getting the emphasis it really deserves:

americablog: people are frustrated. they're tired of the republicans and their arrogance, their failed policies, their incompetence, and their inability to learn and grow from their mistakes. that is why the blogs came about, and it's why we've been successful at getting a voice. we are tapping into that frustration and, yes, anger, and channeling it towards an effort to change things for the better. and that, my reporter friends, is what is happening in connecticut and across america. joe lieberman is a victim of the anti-incumbent, anti-republican times in which we live. he is not a victim of the peace movement. he is not a victim of the iraq war. he is part or the larger passion play that is taking place across the country against the incumbent party in power. republicans control the executive, legislative and judicial branches of the federal government. americans believe our country is heading in the wrong direction and we, rightfully, are finally holding those running the country accountable, in addition to those who enable and embrace them.

mydd: luis, a poll worker who came out for some fresh air, said "lots of democrats today!" — the polling place had separate doors for the republican and democratic primaries, and i could see fewer than 1 out of 10 voters were going in the republican door. luis said he's seen a lot of new voters and young voters today. "they want change."

for all his vaunted experience in politics, lieberman strangely has been either unwilling or unable to recognize or respond to that basic dynamic. he's lost touch with his own constituents. he's been taking them for granted.

this race shouldn't have been a contest. it's been lieberman's to lose all along, and he will. what finally convinced me was lieberman's last big media statement, his "closing argument", which he delivered as a speech on sunday in east haven.

in it he reiterated his record and ticked off his democratic bona fides. but not once did he say the magic words: i'm going to change.

lieberman insists that he's been good for connecticut for 18 years and connecticut needs him to continue to do what he's been doing.

he even insists that he hears the criticism:

what i will say is this: i not only respect your right to disagree or question the president, i value it.

but just how does he demonstrate that? he never explains how his constituents' views influence his behavior, if at all. i get the impression of joe patting a boy on the head, telling him, "i know you're upset — i really, really do — you just need to understand your daddy knows what's good for you."

so it comes as little surprise, according to markos of daily kos, that lieberman omitted these words from his planned ending for that speech when he finally delivered it:

if after hearing the truth about where i stand on iraq, you still want to cast your vote solely on that one issue, then i respect your decision.

lieberman apparently had second thoughts about legitimizing that rationale for the voters.

and when asked early sunday for his position on iraq by george stephanopolous on abc's this week:

gs:	you're right that iraq is the number one issue, there's just no question —
jl:	— there's no question about it and you see not only — you see it in the opinion polls.
gs:	and you said in the debate [with lamont on july 7] that iraq is better now than a year ago. do you still believe that?
jl:	it is better now ... it- it- it’s better and worse if you’ll allow me to put it that way ...

joe just can't let go of his support for the failed occupation. even while suffering the damage it's done to his career — which explains his fumbling bush-like doublespeak.

so joe's not gonna change his tune or his behavior, and he expects connecticut voters to simply accept that.

and they will, but only for a few hours longer.

a good old-fashioned space opera

"rally 'round me boys, we have the heretic on the run!"

this coming tuesday, a long-anticipated, closely-watched and hotly debated showdown will climax in connecticut, deciding not only the democratic nominee for senate (and the de facto next senator of the blue state), but also (in the words of one breathless pundit) for "the soul of the democratic party — and possibly the future of civility in american politics", as well as for the continued relevance of the "netroots", who have invested a great deal of political and emotional capital in the race.

of all the intense coverage of the impending shootout, the most entertaining analysis is being delivered by steve gilliard, who for the past month has been staging the unfolding drama in the brightly painted miniverse of the warhammer 40,000 fantasy wargame:

so why use this? because of a few reasons. one, the figures are widely available online, usually well painted, which makes great illustrations. two, it seems enough people are familiar with the back story so that using it as an allegory to describe joe lieberman's troubles makes sense. it may seem like gibberish to some, but it's really effective. the horus heresy, which has betrayal at it's [sic] core, seems to describe lieberman's predicament pretty well. three, there is no historical or social bias to the w40k world. if you use historical figures, all kinds of meanings can be inferred where there aren't any. so to depict lieberman as a ultramarine and lamont as a blood angel, with various other participants as members of space marine chapters is a wonderful way to take a lighthearted look at the politics of the connecticut race and not feed the need for lieberman's people to infer some insane bias against him. sure, there's geekdom involved, which is no handicap here, especially when jen painted a ton of ad&d figures, but it's also a way to express issues of loyalty and opposition in a fictional world where those are the defining characters. more than any other fictional setting, warhammer 40k is about the duty of citizens to the state and to each other and the value of loyalty.

while not myself familiar with warhammer, only someone who's never seen star wars or lord of the rings could be stumped its simple dynamics, which pit the loyal forces of the imperium (progressive democrats) against the corrupt gods of chaos (republicans and their enablers like the traitorous lieberman).

"defend the leader at all costs!"

the series thus far:

august 3 betrayal "chaos marines, follow me" august 2 chaos space marines to the front july 30 so what does the times endorsement mean? "boys, the imperium is with us, attack, attack, attack!!!!!!" ned lamont for senate: ny times "ned lamont. in his non blood angels uniform" july 29 lamont to get times endorsement "rally 'round me boys, we have the heretic on the run" july 23 about the lamont race "once more unto the breach, dear friends, once more, or close the wall up with our blood angel dead" july 22 the last, desperate gasp "join us and fight the joerus heresy" defend joe "how dare anyone challenge the commander? if he makes an alliance with the chaos space marines, it is for our benefit." july 20 lamont in the lead "rally to me boys, rally to me. we have the heretic joerus on the run" chaos space marines for lieberman "we're for joe, why not you? chaos space marines for lieberman" july 19 all hail the joerus legacy "see how the robes feel, commander, come join the chaos marines, you want to be one of us, forget the imperium, come join us." joe's problem "who will stand with the commander?" july 17 nobody loves the commander any more "poor commander lieberman" july 15 about warhammer 40k and the space marines "blood angels for lamont" "ultramarine legion of lieberman" july 14 defend commander lieberman "commander lieberman" hosanna, someone gets it "ned's army of gentically mutated blood angel warrior-volunteers on the march" july 12 joe's problem "defend the commander at all costs" july 11 lieberman to form own space marine legion "so we fight with chaos space marines, we're still loyal" july 9 the fear of losing joe "the only people lieberman can trust, his legion of space marines" july 7 the lieberman lie "defend the leader at all costs" july 6 the lieberman conundrum "a party at war"

sunday funnies

george bush:

this moment of conflict in the middle east is painful and tragic, yet it is also a moment of opportunity for broader change in the region. transforming countries that have suffered decades of tyranny and violence is difficult, and it will take time to achieve. but the consequences will be profound — for our country and the world.

richard hass, bush's former state department policy director:

an opportunity? lord, spare me. i don't laugh a lot. that's the funniest thing i've heard in a long time. if this is an opportunity, what's iraq? a once-in-a-lifetime chance?

umm, that's no disguise

baghdad, iraq, july 28 — the two armored vans left a branch of the warka bank on thursday around noon, loaded with 1.191 billion dinars, or nearly $800,000. almost immediately, on a busy street near the baghdad zoo, the drivers spotted an oncoming iraqi army convoy, led by a shiny new humvee. they followed standard procedure and pulled over. but the convoy stopped, and an officer politely ordered the surprised drivers and guards to lay down their guns while his men searched the vans for bombs. within minutes all eight drivers and guards had been handcuffed and locked in the back of one of the vans on a suffocating 120-degree day, the cash had been stolen by the men in the convoy — whoever they were — and the iraqi banking system marked another day of its slow slide into oblivion. the only thing atypical about thursday’s robbery, which was described by bank and interior ministry officials, is that most private banks try to avoid using armored vans, because they draw too much attention, and instead toss sacks of cash into ordinary cars for furtive dashes through the streets of baghdad. however the cash goes out, it risks being lost in the wash of robbery, kidnapping and intrigue that now plagues the system. praised by the united states as a success story as recently as a few months ago, that system has quickly become a wild landscape of clandestine cash runs, huge hauls by robbers dressed as police officers and soldiers, kidnappings of bank executives with ransoms as high as $6 million, american allegations of tie-ins with insurgent financiers, and legitimate customers turned away when they go to pick up their savings and flee the country. "it is a crisis," said wisam k. jamil, managing director of iraq’s oldest private bank, the bank of baghdad, which lost $1.5 million in a literal case of highway robbery by men wearing police uniforms last december. because of that robbery, the bank lost much of its insurance coverage. even more galling for mr. jamil, the insurance policy had a standard disclaimer saying that losses due to acts of war or terrorism were not covered, and as the warka holdup on thursday illustrated, no one can say if a theft in iraq is committed by insurgents, bandits or genuine members of the security forces. so the insurance company has not paid mr. jamil’s claim ...

the times might prefer to whistle past facts aimed straight between its eyes, but it's all too crystal clear to the rest of us that iraq's highwaymen aren't just outlaws masquerading as police and military — it's far worse: they are the police and military.

(hat tip to steve gilliard.)

don't even think about it

tristero at hullabaloo offers some free advice — the most undervalued kind, as always — in an open letter to liberal hawks:

dear liberal hawks and other fence sitters from 2002/2003 (you know who you are), don't even think about a "thoughtful, measured response" to this bullshit: president bush proudly declared that american foreign policy no longer seeks to "manage calm," and derided policies that let anger and resentment lie "beneath the surface." bush said that the violence in the middle east was evidence of a more effective foreign policy that addresses "root causes." this is sheer, abject lunacy of the sort that imagined the invasion of iraq would lead to city squares in iraq named after george w. bush and the invasion would pay for itself out of oil revenues. the only appropriate reaction is to very loudly proclaim this is the reasoning of madmen. no rational human being thinks like this. your credibility has been ruined already by falling for the preposterous lies and rationalizations prior to the iraq invasion. if you take this seriously, your immortal soul is majorly on the line ...

bloodsuckers

steven d at booman tribune on the neocons, their bottomless thirst for conquest, and its role in the coming midterm elections:

... a while ago i predicted we were in for a wild ride this summer in terms of a coordinated campaign by conservative supporters of president bush to generate support for war with iran, in part to bolster the republican party's prospects for the mid term elections this fall. yet even i didn't anticipate the bush administration letting israel slip off it's [sic] leash to attack both the palestinians in gaza and hizbollah in lebanon. mea culpa. i should have anticipated such murderous manipulation from the most immoral and deceitful administration in our history. if killing a few more arabs (and israelis) is what it takes to assure continued majorities in the house and senate for republicans, the bush team is more than happy to oblige. the fact that this approach has already failed miserably in iraq is of little consequence. retaining their power, and implementing the folly of an expanded war in the middle east is all that matters to them.

monstrous as this picture of the administration is, the reality may be even uglier. while steven portrays the israeli offensive merely as a means to an end — continued domestic political domination — the offensive may be an end in itself, as an irresistible incitement to war with the archnemesis iran.

the war trolls know that they're running out of time. they know that their clutch on the body politic may be significantly weakened come november. they know that they may never again in their lifetimes get another chance to dismember and resurrect a servile middle east — a chimera which never seemed more achingly close to birth.

this administration has only one modus: raising bogeymen. it has only one note: a shrill screech. it has only one concern: its own blasphemous survival. forget about acts of governance or evidence of accomplishment from these bloodthirsty maurauders. true leadership cannot hope to thrive as long as they remain battened onto a host as torpid and succulent as america. will the world will have strength enough left in 2008 to exorcise the vampires of vietnam for once and all?

i once called this administration a potemkin government, for its perverse devotion to pretense, but i was mistaken, because a potemkin government accomplishes nothing. as the bones, sucked dry, pile higher and higher in the desert, their leavings, their real achievement, can be seen for miles and miles: it is a charnel house.

painting by alex ross © 2004.

less than human

those who can make you believe absurdities, can make you commit atrocities. (voltaire)

even in an age of laser-guided precision instuments of mayhem, warfare still remains an untidy business. civilians still get slaughtered, exposing the slaughterers to bad press and, more inconvenient, the risk of legal sanction. just how can an honest warmonger do what he does best — mass murder — without all the headaches?

never fear, celebrity lawyer-pundit alan dershowitz is here! and he has just the solution you need when you can't — or won't — let pesky civilians hamstring your efforts to bomb your opponent into the stone age:

just redefine the term "civilian" — no purchase necessary!

... we need a new vocabulary to reflect the realities of modern warfare. a new phrase should be introduced into the reporting and analysis of current events in the middle east: "the continuum of civilianality." though cumbersome, this concept aptly captures the reality and nuance of warfare today and provides a more fair way to describe those who are killed, wounded and punished. ... the israeli army has given well-publicized notice to civilians to leave those areas of southern lebanon that have been turned into war zones. those who voluntarily remain behind have become complicit. some — those who cannot leave on their own — should be counted among the innocent victims. ... every civilian death is a tragedy, but some are more tragic than others.

it is epiphanies like these that honestly make me wonder if it is actually embarassing to be as brilliant as alan. i mean, this is so simple! no need to retool weapons or rethink strategies. (or — god forbid — question the legitimacy of the attacks!) just relabel the dead!

of course, a nonetheless elegant solution, even one as brilliant in its simplicity as this, can sometimes be a little too simple. as juan cole explains, does relabeling really go far enough?

alan "torture is ok" dershowitz is annoyed that the israelis have been accused of killing innocent civilians. he is now arguing that there are degrees of "civilianity." he wonders how many innocent civilians killed by israel in lebanon would still be innocent if we could make finer distinctions. (he should read the lebanese newspapers and he would get the answer. one third of those killed by the israelis are children. i'd guess they are all civilian all the time. and then there are the families, like the canadian women, children and men blown up at aitaroun. i suppose they are really civilians. etc.) but i don't know why dershowitz stops there. let me reformulate his argument for him. shouldn't we recognize degrees of humanness? after all, isn't that the real problem? that the enemy is considered a full human being in the law of war? that horrible supreme court judgment that hamdan had to be given a trial of some sort was based on the misunderstanding that he is a human being. israeli officials have already showed us how arabs can be reclassified away from a full "human" category that they clearly, in the view of the kadima government, do not deserve. for instance, israeli ambassador to the united nations dan gillerman angrily denounced kofi annan for neglecting this key fact. the guardian reports,' mr gillerman said "something very important was missing" from mr annan's speech: any mention of terrorism. hizbullah were "ruthless indiscriminate animals", he told reporters.' so you see, one reason that you can just bomb the hell out of the lebanese in general is that they aren't human beings at all. they are "animals." you might quibble that gillerman is only referring to members of the hizbullah party as animals, not all lebanese. but most shiite lebanese, some 45 percent of the population, support hizbullah. and the lebanese government, made up of christians, sunnis and druze, let hizbullah into the lebanese government and gave it cabinet posts. so probably those who tolerate hizbullah are at most half-human. this has yet to be worked out. it might be possible to declare them .66 animal. or maybe they are just all animals. they speak arabic, after all, right mr. gillerman? there is a problem with stopping here, however. it is not enough to reclassify some human beings as animals. after all, you have to treat animals humanely. you can even be fined for mistreating an animal, though probably you would not go to jail. the staff of us secretary of state condi rice has made a suggestion for another, more convenient level, that of snake. thus, a senior white house official referred to the massive israeli bombing campaign and destruction of lebanon's civilization and killing of hundreds and wounding of over a thousand as "defanging" hezbollah. i am pretty sure that language is meant to suggest that the shiites of lebanon, although apparently human beings, are actually snakes. i suppose it is possible that another sort of reptile is is intended, but i suspect that "snake" is the intended classification. but some snakes are protected species. we need a lower category. it is clear that some human beings are neither human nor animal. hamas and hizbullah members, for instance, are actually not even full organisms, just diseases. israeli deputy consul general for san francisco, omer caspi, said of the lebanese and palestinian publics concerning hamas and hizbullah members, "we say to them please remove this cancer off your body and soul before it is too late." caspi did not specify whether members of hamas are leukemia and those of hizbullah melanoma, or the reverse. the good thing about finding out that some apparent human beings don't have to be treated as well as whales (which have almost been wiped out) is that it allows us to put behind all wimpy hesitancy just to do what needs to be done. i mean, a cancer. everyone knows what you have to do with a cancer. it requires chemotherapy. it needs to be just exterminated, before it kills the snakes, animals and humans. so we have the human beings, like israeli prime minister ehud "bomb'em back to the stone age" olmert and torture defender, attorney alan dershowitz. then we have the animals, like the "persons" who vote for hizbullah and hamas. then we have the level of human-appearing snakes, who need to be "defanged," which apparently involves killing their wives and children with air strikes. then we have the cancers, who need to be "wiped out" immediately. i understand that president bush is appointing alan dershowitz to be head of the "human-non-human metrics" commission that will decide which people are full human beings, and which fall into other categories, such as "animal," "snake," and "cancer." it is rumored that that dershowitz intends to create a special category, of "cockroach," for the human-appearing creatures who dare to criticize him.

punked by putin

when president bush was asked at the end of today's joint presser with russia's president vladimir putin — in prelude to the weekend g8 summit in st. petersberg, russia — about his "concerns about russian democracy", bush responded:

... i talked about my desire to promote institutional change in parts of the world like iraq where there's a free press and free religion, and i told him that a lot of people in our country would hope that russia would do the same thing ...

um, nice setup, dubya. his iraq comparison allowed putin to deftly close the session with this quip:

we certainly would not want to have the same kind of democracy as they have in iraq, i will tell you quite honestly.

heh.

all dubya could do amid the laughter was helplessly blurt: "just wait — !"

but i have a feeling no one, especially putin, will be holding their breath.

man, that vladimir can be a tough act to follow ... especially when you try to pretend iraq isn't an ungovernable disaster.

the complaint against king george

to celebrate the 230th birthday of the united states, juan cole is having a little holiday contest. can you identify how many of the complaints which thomas jefferson and his fellow signatories leveled against king george and britain in the declaration of independence could be leveled against george bush and his administration by current american and/or iraqi citizens?

the first one on jefferson's list is easy:

he has refused his assent to laws, the most wholesome and necessary for the public good

this complaint against the department of homeland security is oddly comical in its archaic construction:

he has erected a multitude of new offices, and sent hither swarms of officers to harass our people and eat out their substance

while these offenses of the military occupation should be familiar to the iraqis:

he has combined with others to subject us to a jurisdiction foreign to our constitution, and unacknowledged by our laws; giving his assent to their acts of pretended legislation: for quartering large bodies of armed troops among us for protecting them, by a mock trial from punishment for any murders which they should commit on the inhabitants of these states

and these offenses familiar to the anonymous captives at guantanamo bay and hidden elsewhere in once-abandoned gulags scattered around the globe.

for depriving us in many cases, of the benefit of trial by jury for transporting us beyond seas to be tried for pretended offences

jefferson's list is quite long. for now, the rest of king george's crimes i leave to you.