Does Anyone Know How to Write, “God Bless You” in Chinese?

A friend of mine wrote a letter to the editor of New Mexico's Carlsbad Current-Argus about the hijacking of the Republican Party by the extreme right and asked if I would include it on the blog. I don't know if or when it may be published, so here it is.

Does Anyone Know How to Write, “God Bless You” in Chinese?

The President of the US Chamber of Commerce, Tom Donohue, recently extolled the virtues of outsourcing American jobs, while accepting donations from foreign corporations, including ones from state controlled companies in Russia, India, and Abu Dhabi. The Chamber blames Democrats for job loss while promoting outsourcing those same jobs. It should be clear that these foreign corporations donate to the Chamber because they want more American jobs. The US Chamber of Commerce recently pledged $75 million to attack Democratic candidates across the country.

Alas, the Republican Party is no longer the GOP. Barry Goldwater and William F. Buckley must be rolling over in their graves. The party has been hijacked by their ignorant conservative wing and moderate Republicans have been largely silent. Even the Arizona Maverick seems to now be one of them. The Tea Baggers seem to be calling the shots. This wing constantly carries on a smear campaign against the Democrats in general and the President in particular that is ill mannered, full of lies and downright unpatriotic. This wing slanders our elected President, promotes armed rebellion and invents nonissues to energize their base. It is now so crazy in the Republican Party that Karl Rove, a frequent Republican spokesperson on FOX News and often called “Bush’s Brain,” has endorsed a candidate that believes scientists have developed human brains in mice.

It is amazing that anyone would trust this hijacked party with resolving this recession. Republicans/Tea Baggers don’t know anymore about the economy than they do about manners or patriotism. Republicans tell us that we must eliminate the deficit. They then tell us that we must pass all of the Bush Tax Cuts, which they know and admit, would add trillions to the deficit. Republicans tell us that regulations are killing recovery when lack of regulation and oversight caused this recession. They rail against stimulus spending then beg for that money to be spent in their district. I am reminded of a Will Rogers quote:” If stupidity got us into this mess, then why can’t it get us out?”

So Americans, continue to buy those Toyotas and vote Republican and all of our jobs will soon be gone. We can all stand on the corner and beg. Does anyone know how to write, “God Bless You” in Chinese?

Forrest in NM

Quote of the Day

"I'm releasing our enemies list. No one is on it. Now can I see the donors to American Crossroads?"

~White House Press Secretary Robert Gibbs in response to criticism from Karl Rove that the President had a veritable "enemies list" who he targeted from his Executive Office perch.

Coward

Karl Rove spoke the truth for a change... and found the wingnut backlash so objectionable to his sensitivities, he caved to them and endorsed the nominee he thought was unelectable just hours earlier.

Karl then.



Karl now.



Heckuva job, Turdblossom.

How Much Bullshit Do You Have To Spew For Fox News To Call You Out?

Karl Rove knows. Turdblossom, architect of the "Permanent Republican Majority" while "not laying the blame at the foot of the White House" for the BP spill, conveniently has a timeline showing their allegedly slow response. He doesn't want to call it "Obama's Katrina" but in essence is making a timeline comparison, with his cute little dry erase boards, to, oh I don't know, some other horrific disaster.

Well, Fox News host Jane Skinner isn't buying it. Yes, a Fox News host. Watch Rove as he says he's not playing the blame game while playing the blame game. Unfortunately for Rove, Skinner has actual facts to rebut the bullshit.



Once again, Karl, under who's direction does the Coast Guard act? Uh, the US government? I love Rove's use of the phrase, "rewriting history." You'd think he'd get this right considering he's a master at rewriting history.

(H/T Think Progress)

American Brownshirts

posted by Armadillo Joe

America is finally degenerating into the violent, balkanized quasi-fascist cesspool -- lorded over by rapacious corporations and their well-heeled beneficiaries with the help of a militarized police force and a violence-prone segment of the general populace -- that sci-fi writers have been predicting for decades.

The information campaign waged during the August recess to inform the public regarding the Democratic position on the health-care debate? Shouted down by American Brownshirts. We used to call them Nazis because it made us feel better, but these days I'm not so sure we have been exaggerating. These people are mixed-up, screwed-up cognitively dissonant malcontents who are capable of just the kind of ruffian street violence a political party needs to intimidate the opposition into cowed silence. Democracy is about the non-violent resolution of social conflicts. Their side seethes with the threat of imminent violence from Dixiecratic racist goobers, which operatives like Atwater and Rove and others of their ilk have been exploiting since the 1950's.

Funnier still is the fact that these people are financed by health-care companies -- a private brownshirt brigade sent to shout down and shut down the civil discourse needed for a well-functioning democracy. In the wake of the awful shooting at the fitness club in Pittsburgh, one wonders how long til one of these townhells ends in a bloodbath? In five, four, three, two...

And speaking of privately-funded violence aimed at political ends, Eric Prince and Blackwater Xe are truly little more than a private army whose leadership is sympathetic to the political aims of one party and diametrically opposed to those of the other. The Nazi SS Divisions, despite the way many historians talk about them, were not part of Germany's national army, the Wehrmacht, they were a separate and distinct organization: the militarized wing of the National Socialist Party. They were Hitler's private army. Only the most fanatical Nazis were invited to join the Schutzstaffel and in many cases these men had never even been in the regular army, being drug-addicts or degenerates or just plain ol' bug-fuck nuts, they were frequently judged to be utterly unfit for duty in Germany's very disciplined and highly professional Wehrmacht.

Anyone see parallels to Blackwater Xe? How long til a corporation hires these goons to close down by any means necessary some large-scale political function (like a mass rally or a March on Washington) they deem a threat?

Who would really stop them if they did? Our mass media would cluck their tongues at how all those foul-mouthed, dirty fucking hippies made those goons hit or shoot them and then they'd talk about how sad it is that we all can't just get along by not provoking the racist vigilantes into acting out, the socio-political equivalent of shhhh - don't make daddy mad - you know how he gets! The police themselves? The post-Reagan's-War-on-Drugs militarized police force with their Taser guns on a hair-trigger and general political proclivities completely unsympathetic to things like the First or Fourth Amendments? We're more likely to see them loan their billy clubs to the goons from Blackwater Xe.

Just remember who's really in charge in this country. We may have the inter-webs as our conduit for organizing and the tremendous amount of energy and willpower we collectively expended during the Long Nightmare of the Bush Dystopia may have gotten our guy into the White House, but the last time we had someone who gave people this kind of hope and this level of optimism in power his motorcade left Dealy Plaza in Dallas with his brains all over the trunk lid and we ended up with Nixon's breeding ground for everything nefarious and sleazy to slime and slither its way through American politics for the next 40 years, including that greasy meat-puppet from California: Saint Ronnie of the Ray-Gun.

In short, folks, I'm just afraid that even if we win this health-care fight -- and right now I'm fairly certain we won't -- the potential for violence from that armed, resentful, persecution-complexed segment of the population, goaded as they are by the monied interests (with an assist from their brain-dead cronies and other assorted functionaries in the Congress and the media) into doing their bidding against all those noisome DFH's, makes me afraid for what could happen to our un-white president and those of us who put him there.

Read this link and then discuss.

Turdblossom's Nuggets of Wisdom

Karl Rove: Few events mobilize as many interest groups and set Washington atwitter as much as a Supreme Court vacancy. In the Bush White House, I served on a five-person committee charged with recommending nominees for Supreme Court vacancies. We had the opportunity to do so twice, though admittedly it took us three nominees.

We collected thick binders of background material on prospective nominees -- not just opinions, utterances and legal writings, but everything from college transcripts to tax-return summaries to charity dinner speeches. We had years to prepare, update and review this exhaustive research. It helped get Chief Justice John Roberts confirmed within three months.

Oh, Karl. Karl. Three words: HARRIET. FRIGGIN'. MIERS!

Rove writes an op-ed in the Wall Street Journal warning the Obama administration of all the hard work they'll need to do to make the right choice on their Supreme Court Justice nominee and completely undercuts his argument in the third sentence of his piece.

"We had the opportunity to do so twice, though admittedly it took us three nominees."

That's right, Karl. With all your vetting, research and months of background work, you still put up Harriet Miers as a pick for the Supreme Court of the United States. So please do us a favor and spare us all your wisdom, your experienced hand and your sagely advice that has found your "permanent Republican majority" where it is today.

Rove: Bush Likes Too Reed

Oh, Turdblossom, Turdblossom... is this what your legacy has come to? For someone who was planning on a permanent Republican majority in the very recent past, this is an incredibly pathetic attempt to try and fool what's left of the public that still believes a word you and the Chimp in Chief (up 2 points to 29% at last count) have to say. And now you're writing an opinion piece for the Wall Street Journal talking about the reading contest between you and the MENSA Man. Oh, how the mighty have fallen.

With only five days left, my lead is insurmountable. The competition can't catch up. And for the third year in a row, I'll triumph. In second place will be the president of the United States. Our contest is not about sports or politics. It's about books.

It all started on New Year's Eve in 2005. President Bush asked what my New Year's resolutions were. I told him that as a regular reader who'd gotten out of the habit, my goal was to read a book a week in 2006. Three days later, we were in the Oval Office when he fixed me in his sights and said, "I'm on my second. Where are you?" Mr. Bush had turned my resolution into a contest.

......At year's end, I defeated the president, 110 books to 95.

Sorry, Karl. The Preznit pulled one over on you. The Pet Goat and Alexander and the Terrible,Horrible,No Good,Very Bad Day don't count. Green Eggs and Ham and Where The Wild Things Are don't count. Picture books don't count. The side of a cereal box doesn't count. The tag in his trousers pocket reading, "Inspected by #12" doesn't count.

It's a shame Bush didn't have this zest for reading on August 6th, 2001. And yet we have Bush's Brain extolling the virtues of Mr. Peeance Freeance's vast literary "curiosity" and kissing his wrinkled ass in the process. But I guess Rove is used to having his nose up Bush's rectum. Where do you think the "turd" in Turdblossom comes from? Get a load of this:

...Each year, the president also read the Bible from cover to cover, along with a daily devotional.

...He read one book meant for young adults, his daughter Jenna's excellent "Ana's Story."

......He reads on Air Force One and to relax and because he's curious.

It's amazing how far Karl Rove can get his large, bulbous head up George's ass and still manage to give shout outs to Jebus and Jenna. But "curious"? Well, now you've just gone too far, Karl.

The saddest part of it all is that if any of this were true, Bush, as leader of the free world found enough time to read as little as 40 and as many as 95 books per year over these past three years. I don't know what's worse: the fact that he really doesn't read or the fact that he really had to finish Harry Potter and the Half-Blood Prince before he could get to his PDBs.

No amount of revisionist history or pathetic "Legacy Project" work is going to convince the educated public that George W. Bush was and is nothing but an uninspired, uncaring, incurious two-bit hack who had no business being the President of the local PTA chapter, let alone the United States. And if you think that you are likely to persuade anyone otherwise with your worthless Wall Street Journal op-eds, then maybe you weren't the political genius everyone gave you credit for being, either.

(H/T Crooks & Liars)

T Minus 25 Days

"I am mindful of the difference bewtween the executive branch and the legislative branch. I assured all four of these leaders that I know the difference, and that difference is they pass the laws and I execute them."

- Washington, DC, December 2000

And let's not forget Turdblossom who celebrated his 58th birthday yesterday and gave us this little dingleberry of wisdom:

"As people do better, they start voting like Republicans - unless they have too much education and vote Democratic..."

Happy birthday, Douchebag.

And Happy Boxing Day! Also, today is the first day of Kwanzaa.

Evil Incarnate

Well, not too much blogging for me today. Spent the day with the little Mrs. , running errands, trimming the tree (that's sounds nasty) and attending a friend's Christmas party. Got home and caught up on some TV. Needless to say, I was cable news free for the day - good thing too, I needed to clear my head.

But the one thing I did hear is that the King of the Douchebags, DICK Cheney said something to the effect of "even if we knew there were no WMD, we would have gone into Iraq anyways, because that's how I roll, motherfuckers!"

I haven't even looked up the direct quote, so I'll search for it now. Be right back... in the meantime, you can hum The Girl From Ipanema to yourself while waiting.

...

Okay, I'm back. So basically, it looks like Cheney was disagreeing with a Karl Rove quote while he was playing Salvage the Bush Legacy.

Former White House Adviser Karl Rove said last week that if pre-war intelligence on the Iraqi WMD programs had been accurate, the United States likely would not have entered the war. But asked about Rove’s comment during an interview with ABC News Monday, Cheney said “I disagree with that.”

Then he goes on with the same old story; some such shit about Saddam Hussein still having "the capability to produce weapons of mass destruction. He had the technology, he had the people, he had the basic feed stocks."

Uh, why is this news? We all know that it was bullshit then, it's bullshit now, but somehow it's being fed to us as if this is some revelation. There is no new news about Cheney saying we still would have invaded Iraq even if we knew they didn't have WMD, because... well, we did know that there were no WMD. And we went in anyway. And it's because Cheney is an evil, evil demon. I'm starting to believe that he's not really human. He's evil incarnate.

It was all a money grab. That's all it ever was - privatize the military and get your corporate friends the overinflated government contracts, have them do a shitty job, leave the place worse off than when you went in, say it wasn't your fault, rinse and repeat. And don't forget to bleed the Treasury dry in the process. The $700 billion TARP bailout was the final slice across the throat to bleed out the country before riding off into the sunset with boatloads of cash.


UPDATE (12/17/08 12:35am): Anyone in public office who says "So what?" in a conversation as a rebuttal ought to be tarred and feathered. I thought he was just an imbecile, but I've come to realize that even Bush was smart enough to know the Devil when he saw it, and went along for the ride anyway.

The Bush Legacy Project

For an administration so adept at the Reverse Midas Touch, where everything they touch turns to shit, the one thing I give the Bushites credit for is their ability to spin. They are Rembrandts in the art of Flim-Flam. They were able to, for eight long years, fool enough of the people enough of the time to remain in power just long enough to fill their coffers and almost destroy the country in the process. And the P.T. Barnum of the political three-ring circus that is the White House? Karl Rove.

Ron Suskind, 2004: In the summer of 2002, after I had written an article in Esquire that the White House didn't like about Bush's former communications director, Karen Hughes, I had a meeting with a senior adviser to Bush. He expressed the White House's displeasure, and then he told me something that at the time I didn't fully comprehend -- but which I now believe gets to the very heart of the Bush presidency.

The aide said that guys like me were "in what we call the reality-based community," which he defined as people who "believe that solutions emerge from your judicious study of discernible reality." I nodded and murmured something about enlightenment principles and empiricism. He cut me off. "That's not the way the world really works anymore," he continued. "We're an empire now, and when we act, we create our own reality. And while you're studying that reality -- judiciously, as you will -- we'll act again, creating other new realities, which you can study too, and that's how things will sort out. We're history's actors... and you, all of you, will be left to just study what we do."

We all now know that "the senior adviser" in Suskind's piece was Karl Rove. And Rove was right. Study we did. While everyone was flipping out over the latest Bush Administration outrage, the Bushites were creating another and another. And another. Until this endless avalanche of bullshit was so overwhelming, the focus of the "judicious students of history" Rove was talking about splintered apart. There was no consolidated front. There was no one particular story that would stick.

Hurricane Katrina was really the first time they took a big hit, but how many people still talk about Bush and Cheney testifying together, not transcripted and not under oath during the 9/11 Commission investigations? How many of us are still thinking about Alberto Gonzales and the mockery he made of the Justice Department? And when one jamoke resigns, another is ready to take his place and condone torture while avoiding answering what torture is. Who talks about the devastation that still haunts New Orleans over three years later? Or even the slow recovery efforts of Hurricane Gustav's wake just a couple of months ago?

We all know the long, long list that George W. Bush leaves as his legacy: 9/11, Hurricane Katrina, The Patriot Act, The Military Commissions Act, illegal wiretapping, cherrypicking intelligence reports, the Iraq War, rendition, torture, waterboarding, Abu Ghraib, Guantanamo, economic meltdown, record foreclosure rates, and on and on. That's just scratching the surface. Amazing isn't it?

And here we sit, eight years after the first national Bush atrocity that no one could have anticipated would become the norm from the crooks residing in the White House. Yet we are now hearing that Karl "Bush's Brain" Rove, former Bush communications director Karen Hughes and other senior Bush advisers are brainstorming ways to salvage Bush's legacy. A Bush legacy project. And they're meeting in the White House with current officials. They're doing it on our dime! How does one wrap their mind around the dilemma of attempting to create a positive spin on Bush's "legacy"? And since when is a president's legacy part of a White House agenda? Legacies are made, not manufactured.

This think tank's plan is to rewrite history. Already we're seeing Bush's farewell tour, kicked off with a Charles Gibson/ABC interview in which the Chimp in Chief tries to pass the buck in a sad, Bart Simpson-like "it was like that when I got here" attempt.

GIBSON: Do you feel in any way responsible for what's happening?

BUSH: You know, I'm the President during this period of time, but I think when the history of this period is written, people will realize a lot of the decisions that were made on Wall Street took place over a decade or so, before I arrived in President, during I arrived in President.

"... before I arrived in President, during I arrived in President." What the fuck?! How does one turn that into anything positive? And isn't it ironic that Karl Rove, the man who only a short time ago was plotting a permanent Republican majority (possibly the last Republican majority for at least a generation), the man Bush nicknamed "Turdblossom," now has the dubious task of polishing a turd?

leg⋅a⋅cy  [leg-uh-see]noun, plural -cies.

1. Law. a gift of property, esp. personal property, as money, by will; a bequest.
2. anything handed down from the past, as from an ancestor or predecessor: the legacy of ancient Rome.
3. an applicant to or student at a school that was attended by his or her parent.
4. Obsolete. the office, function, or commission of a legate.

Hmmm.... Oh, here's one!

leg⋅a⋅cy - A gift of property by will, esp. of money or personal property; a bequest. Also Fig.; as, a legacy of dishonor or disease.

That last line nails it. Bush will be remembered for his indifference; for his lack of curiosity; for his ineptness; for his butchering of the English language; for his disregard of that "goddamned piece of paper," the United States Constitution; for his preference to be at his photo-op Crawford, Texas ranch; for the hubris of his crony appointments.

But most of all, the George W. Bush legacy will be one of dishonor to the office of the Presidency. His legacy is one of a parasitic disease that sucked our treasury dry, bled us of our moral standing in the world and crippled the last remaining superpower (if such a thing still existed). And no amount of revisionist history will scrub The Shrub's "legacy" clean.

The Obama - O'Reilly Factor Interview Part One

I watched the Obama/O'Reilly interview Part 1 on The You Tubes and I have to say that I'm really appalled at the amount of disrespect BillO showed. This is a United States Senator and the Democratic nominee for the presidency and O'Reilly finds it necessary to be fucking smug and arrogant.

That dirty motherfucker sits there, smirking and interrupting Obama at every turn. I defy anyone to find video of O'Reilly daring to be that disrespectful or even challenging ANY Republican. Not just Bush or Cheney, although BillO probably creamed in his pants if he has had them on (I don't know, I can't stand to watch this fuckwad) but even McCain (questions were about nothing other than softballs to bash Obama), Giuliani, Rummy, Rove ("Newsweek has become a far left publication..." says BillO), Boehner... ANYONE with an "R" after their name. Goddamnit, he pisses me off! Yet another asshole that I hope to have the opportunity to bump into on the street so I can punch him in the throat.

Obama, for his part, handled himself as well as he always does, but sometimes I'd wish he wouldn't be so accomodating to these douchebags and call BillO out for his interruptions and contempt.

The rest of O'Reilly's interview with Obama is scheduled for this week in three additional parts, because knowing O'Reilly, he's probably taking the time to try and find a way to edit the interview in order to portray Obama in the worst possible light.



* NOTE - the above post was partly written before searching for other O'Reilly interviews, which I have linked above.

Bush Fired Rove... In Church?!?!

I always knew George W. was a classsy guy.

"...according to a new book – “Machiavelli’s Shadow” – by former Time magazine reporter Paul Alexander, is where President George W. Bush informed trusted advisor Karl Rove in 2007 that his services would no longer be needed at the White House.
“On a Sunday in midsummer, George W. Bush accompanied Karl Rove to the Episcopalian Church Rove sometimes attended,” writes Alexander. “They made their way to the front of the congregation. Then, during their time in the church, Bush gave Rove some stunning news. ‘Karl,’ Bush said, ‘there’s too much heat on you. It’s time for you to go.’”

This story makes me so FUCKING happy. Even if it isnt true, it's made my day.

(H/T TRex)

Karl Rove Subpoenaed?

Why is it that Karl Rove, or for that matter George Bush and Dick Cheney or any other criminal in this worst administraion ever, believe that they are above the law, ignoring Congressional subpeonas, agreeing to testify under the conditions that they're not under oath and that there would be no transcript?! And how is that acceptable to any elected Republican official or any Republican citizen?

What balls! It's astounding.

Here's Congressman Robert Wexler and Former Gov. Don Siegelman on with Dan Abrams, who won't let this story go, and for good reason.



From Wexler's office via email:

If Rove refuses to testify voluntarily and ignores the subpoenas that will certainly be issued, he should be held in Inherent Contempt of the House of Representatives.

No American is above the law. None of us should be able to ignore Congress without consequence. If Mr. Rove ignores a subpoena from the Judiciary Committee, then the House of Representatives should pass an Inherent Contempt citation and exercise our right to send the House Sergeant-of-Arms to gather Mr. Rove and bring him before Congress to testify.

I do not advocate this option lightly, but the reality is that Congress has few options left against an Administration that totally refuses to submit to any type of reasonable Congressional oversight. Congress has both the right and obligation to investigate these matters. Never before has an Executive so upset the checks and balances inherent in our Constitution. If we back off or delay, we effectively forfeit the power of Congress to investigate the Executive branch.

Rove is not the first White House official to ignore Congress. We have seen a pattern of refusals based on laughable claims of executive privilege. First, White House Chief of Staff Joshua Bolten and former White House Counsel Harriet Miers ignored subpoenas on the investigation into the firing of US Attorney Generals for partisan political motives.

Their refusal to testify was unprecedented: never before have executive officials totally refused to even show up before Congress. Bolten and Miers are the highest officials ever held in contempt of Congress. Unfortunately, Attorney General Mukasey – in a dereliction of duty – has refused to enforce the contempt decree and now Congress is suing them in District Court to demand compliance. Then, the Vice President's Chief of Staff, David Addington, refused to testify on the investigation into the Bush Administration's ordering of torture. Now, Rove continues this executive arrogance by also refusing to testify.

Enough is enough. We have a Constitutional obligation to provide accountability to a White House that is trying usurp the constitutional powers of Congress.

These are the very reasons why I have been pushing for impeachment hearings for Vice President Cheney. The Bush Administration has been running roughshod over the Constitution for eight long years. We should not allow the promise of a positive election be used as an excuse to ignore our duty to investigate crimes that weaken the very fabric of our Democracy.

Tucker Replaced By... David Gregory?!

This David Gregory?!

...Sigh...

Huffington Post: MSNBC announced a slate of changes this afternoon, leading with their new election-themed show: "Race For The White House" with David Gregory... fear not for the fate of poor usurped Tucker Carlson— he remains with the network as Senior Campaign Correspondent and will continue to be sprinkled throughout the schedule as a panelist and contributor.

Countdown with Keith Olbermann will now run in its regular slot at 8pm and will be rebroadcast at 10pm and 2am. Three hours of Keith. I wonder what Billo will have to say about that?

David Gregory?... sigh...

For your viewing pleasure...

Anatomy of A Kitchen Sink

I have lost faith.

For the longest time, as far as I can remember in my "political" life, I have defended the Clintons. When the vast right wing conspiracy went after Bill (and Hillary), using the repugnant Ken Starr, spending millions and millions of taxpayer dollars, looking for any kind of mud to stick, I supported my president to the end. Even when Bill had painted himself into a corner and lied under oath (and who wouldn't) about an affair - a stupid, cheap little affair - I stood by him because I could not believe or understand at the time, that although he violated the "rule of law", these repulsive troglodytes led by Newt Gingrich and the now deceased Henry Hyde would dare to impeach based on lying about something that insignificant. Finding out later that Gingrich himself was having an affair at the same time that he was crucifying the president for the same offense (or lying about it) only poured salt on the wounds, but it was a classic case of IOKIYAR.

I took solace in the fact that I was a Democrat, and we didn't stoop to such disgusting levels. That one day*, the pendulum would swingin the other direction, and that again we would find our way. And now the unthinkable has happened. In a desperate attempt for a long shot bid at the presidency, Hillary Clinton has used the same tactics that were used against her for all these years. Hillary broke out the Karl Rove playbook called "The Kitchen Sink."

We all knew it was coming. Hell, Hillary's campaign told us that was exactly what they were going to do in a last act of desperation. They even called it the "kitchen sink." So I thought I'd take a look to see what came out of the kitchen sink and list them in no particular order.

1 - Clinton compared Obama's foreign policy experience to George W. Bush: “We’ve seen the tragic result of having a president who had neither the experience nor the wisdom to manage our foreign policy and safeguard our national security. We can’t let that happen again.”
Considering that Bush never even visited another country before becoming president, I think that comparison is a little suspect.

2 - Clinton's "tested and ready" mantra was repeated over and over while portraying Obama as naive when it came to meeting foreign leaders if he believed “that mediation and meetings without preconditions will solve some of the world’s most intractable problems." Obama has never said that carefully preparing for meetings wasn't in his plans.

However, this is what he did say: "...I do think it is important precisely because the Bush administration has done so much damage to American foreign relations that the president take a more active role in diplomacy than might have been true 20 or 30 years ago.

Because the problem is, if we think that meeting with the president is a privilege that has to be earned, I think that reinforces the sense that we stand above the rest of the world at this point in time. And I think that it's important for us in undoing the damage that has been done over the last seven years, for the president to be willing to take that extra step."

Makes sense to me. Do we really think we're better than anyone else? If that's the case, then we're in more trouble than I thought.

Put on your hip waders, this is we're it turns ugly.

3 - Matt Drudge posts a photo of Obama in traditional Somali garb attributing it to the Clinton campaign. Whether or not Drudge is to be trusted as to the source, instead of denouncing it was a fear mongering tactic, the Clinton camp shrugs its shoulders.

4 - The Clinton camp accuses Barack Obama of plagiarism when using phrases borrowed from his own Committee chairman and Massachusetts Governor Deval Patrick, that Patrick told Obama to use. In an interesting twist, Hillary Clinton's now famous "whatever happens, we're going to be fine" quote can be attributed to John Edwards during the December 13th debate, and the "hits I've taken every day..." line can be found almost verbatim in a Bill Clinton speech during his run for the presidency.

5 - Continuing with their fear tactics, the Clinton campaign puts out their "3am" or red phone ad. Vote for Hillary and your children will sleep safe at night. Ironically, the stock footage of the sleeping child was taken 8 years ago and that actress is an Obama supporter.

6 - NAFTA-Gate: Clinton accuses Obama of calling the Canadian Embassy to reassure the ambassador that all the NAFTA talk in their recent debates is just rhetoric. In fact Obama senior economic adviser Austan Goolsbee had been invited by someone at the consulate to visit and discuss trade. "The Canadian Embassy confirmed that he said everything I said on the campaign trail," Obama asserted. Then the kicker: it turns out that it was actualy someone on the Clinton staff had put out feelers to the Canadians and asking them to take the rhetoric with "a grain of salt."

Ah, the ol' political projection and transference.

7 - Clinton's 60 Minutes interview and her non-denial that Obama is a Muslim. "As far as I know" doesn't cut it when you are denying something. At first I took it lightly, but reporters close to the Clinton campaign categorize it as "not an accident."

8 - Clinton national co-chairman Bill Shaheen suggests that Obama was a drug dealer in his youth. From the Telegraph UK:

Obama has been open about youthful drug use (big deal) but no one has suggested he was a dealer. A Hillary spokesperson immediately disowned Shaheen by saying that “these comments were not authorised or condoned by the campaign in any way”. Too late. It came after a second Clinton campaign volunteer was forced to resigned for forwarding an Obama Muslim smear email and means another day of negative press coverage for Hillary.

9 - The"Obama is a Muslim" smear e-mail that has been circulating for over a year has been at least partly attributed to Clinton's former Iowa chairman, Ryan Callanan. Even if it did not originate with him, one little click of the "delete" button instead of the "forward" button and campaign disclosure of the receipt of the e-mail was all it could have taken to distance the Clinton campaign from any doubt.

10 through 13 - Hillary Clinton has questioned and compared not once, not twice but at least four times as of this writing, Obama's experience to lead as commander in chief to her experience and ...John McCain's experience! Does she really want to do the bidding of the Republican smear machine?

Hillary Clinton has crossed into the delusional threshold if she thinks that her eight years as first lady equals experience to be commander in chief. Her constant propping up of McCain to advance her dying campaign undoubtedly proves that she will burn the village down in order to save it... or save herself. If she loses the campaign, she's given McCain ammo against Obama. If for some reason she wins, McCain can attack her with the same twisted logic. He has much more experience than she does.

14 - Howard Wolfson compared Obama to Ken Starr when Obama suggested that Clinton disclose her tax records as he has done. Ken Starr? Really, Hillary? Is that where you want to take this thing? Double-edged swords can be mighty tricky. Do we want to delve into the nastiness that was Ken Starr and all that idiocy? Just release the tax records. What are you hiding? The fact that Bill Clinton's library was partially funded by the Saudis to the tune of $10 million? The fact that money was donated from the United Arab Emirates as well?

All these points combined with the ongoing positioning on superdelegates, claiming victory in Florida and Michigan when there was no contest and constantly moving the goalposts when primary defeat seemd imminent has soured me on Hillary for good. She has shown herself to truly be the establishment candidate despite her claims to the contrary.

I'm sure there's much more to come in the remaining six long weeks until the Pennsylvania primary on Aprill 22nd. Ultimately, if all pans out and there are no shenanigans, my theory is that Obama will win the nomination (do the delegate math) and Hillary's Rovian tactics will have damaged her so much in the process, she will lose the trust of the American people, her base and come 2012, her Senate seat will be up from grabs, hopefully by a better Democrat.

So no more defense of the Clintons for me. As my friend Armadillo Joe said to me the other day, their mistake is thinking that they are the Democratic party instead of realizing that they are just a small part of it.

__________________________
*I thought that day happened on November 7th, 2006. We'd had enough of W. and his administration's incompetence. Finally, they would get their comeupance. Alas it was not to be, as the Democrats that overtook the majority in Congress (a razor thin majority in the Senate) wound up being the wrong Democrats - they would capitulate and give the lame duck president everything he'd want and more for fear of being conceived as soft on defense, and in the process became soft, period.

Revisionist Rove

By now we've all heard Turdblossom's spin in trying to blame not just Congress in pushing Bush into war with Iraq prematurely, but having the gall to say it was the Democrats in a Republican controlled Congress that were hankerin' for a fight.

Well, I hope Rove understands that he is no longer under the White House's umbrella of protection and will be taken to task when bullshit spews from his mouth. He can no longer hide under the Oval Office desk and... do whatever it is he does under there, without fear of repercussion hitting him in the face.

This morning on Fox News Sunday, Rep. Chris Van Hollen called out Karl Rove for his false claim that Congress, not President Bush, had pushed for a speedy vote on the 2002 Iraq war resolution.
"Clearly things have not gone right in Iraq and you've tried to revise history," Van Hollen told Rove, demanding he "retract the outrageous statements you made."

If you have a Newsweek subscription, I suggest you cancel it immediately and let them know why. It's bad enough the mainstream media carries water for these criminals, but do we really need the privilege of paying for it as well? I don't think so, Newsweek.

What Happened?!...

...is the the title of Scott McClellan's new book(punctuation mine). The former White House Press Secretary reveals in a stunning tell-all that he (gasp!) knew he was lying when covering for the Bush Crime Syndicate.

The most powerful leader in the world had called upon me to speak on his behalf and help restore credibility he lost amid the failure to find weapons of mass destruction in Iraq. So I stood at the White house briefing room podium in front of the glare of the klieg lights for the better part of two weeks and publicly exonerated two of the senior-most aides in the White House: Karl Rove and Scooter Libby.

There was one problem. It was not true.

I had unknowingly passed along false information. And five of the highest ranking officials in the administration were involved in my doing so: Rove, Libby, the vice President, the President's chief of staff, and the president himself.

The book is scheduled for release in April of 2008, with plenty of time to hand out presidential pardons before then. Great going, Scotty, you li'l ol' patriot, you.

UPDATE: November 21, 2007, 9:30pm EST

McClellan does not believe President Bush lied to him about the role of White House aides I. Lewis Scooter Libby or Karl Rove in the leak of CIA operative Valerie Plame's identity, according to McClellan's publisher.

...the president told McClellan what "he thought to be the case." But... McClellan believes, "the president didn't know it was not true."

So that makes Bush incompetent instead of a liar. Either way, it's a sorry state of affairs for the Oval Office.

I just want a member of the press corps to ask one, simple question: Dana, now that this story has come out, how can we ever trust what anyone in this administration says from that podium ever again?

James Moore: The Rove Goes On Forever

James Moore is an Emmy-winning former television news correspondent and the co-author of the bestselling, Bush's Brain: How Karl Rove Made George W. Bush Presidential. He has been writing and reporting from Texas for the past 25 years on the rise of Rove and Bush and has traveled extensively on every presidential campaign since 1976. He is currently writing a book on the long term consequences for America of Bush and Rove policies, which will be published next year.

Here's his take on the legacy of Karl Rove courtesy of his Huffington post blog:

EXCERPTS: "Although he has thus far managed to avoid charges, Rove will always be connected with the treasonous act of leaking the name of a CIA agent. People who buy into the notion that it was an accidental slip by Richard Armitage in a conversation with Novak are perpetuating the kind of naiveté that makes Rove's work easier."

"Rove's great mind might have been put to great use. Instead, he has decided to view as an enemy any fellow citizen who doesn't think like him and his party. All of the institutions of our government, like our judicial system, which used to be considered politically sacrosanct, have now been polluted by his political ambitions."

"The image I see of Karl Rove as he leaves Washington is of a man carrying a gas can and a box of matches as the city burns behind him and yet no one has thought to blame him for the great blaze sundering our democracy. In his parting news conference with the president, Rove readily invoked the name of an Almighty but even this act was hypocritical. He told his friend Bill Israel years ago that he was agnostic and that 'he wished he could believe, but he cannot.' Karl Rove, though, can turn even religious agnosticism into a political advantage. Were he to eventually confront a judgmental deity, that may be the one place where he will finally discover the justice he has long managed to avoid."

Read the entire post here.

Rove Resigns!

Wow, the rats really are deserting a sinking ship.

NY TIMES: In an interview published this morning in The Wall Street Journal, Mr. Rove said, “I just think it’s time,” adding, “There’s always something that can keep you here, and as much as I’d like to be here, I’ve got to do this for the sake of my family.”

Mr. Rove said he had first considered leaving a year ago but stayed after his party lost the crucial midterm elections last fall, which put Congress in Democratic hands, and as Mr. Bush’s problems mounted in Iraq and in his pursuit of a new immigration policy.

Ah, yes, the ol' "spending more time with the family" excuse.

MSNBC video courtesy of Crooks & Liars.

Sampson Testifies

Karl Sampson, former Chief of Staff for Attorney General Alberto Gonzales, testified today before the Senate Judiciary Committee.

Here is his opening statement courtesy of PoliticsTV.com:

Now, remember that Gonzo earlier stated that he was not involved "in the deliberations over whether or not United States Attorneys should resign... and that he had Kyle Sampson "coordinate a performance review of the Dept. of US Attorneys."

Well Kyle Sampson said this: “I don’t think the attorney general’s statement that he was not involved in any discussions about U.S. attorney removals is accurate... I think he’s recently clarified it. But I remember discussing with him this process of asking certain U.S. attorneys to resign, and I believe that he was present at the meeting on Nov. 27.”

The one constant phrase that's been used over and over again is that these US Attorneys were not fired for "improper reasons". Well how about we cut to the chase and they just let us know why they were fired? If the reasons were not improper and weren't performance related, then just let us know why. But they can't tell us - because the reasons were improper. They were politically motivated for something as simple as having a crony fill the vacancy, to something as tragic as anticipating the 2008 elections and perpetrate voter fraud and begin frivolous investigations against certain candidates to instigate voter doubt and begin smear campaigns against Democrats running for election.

And the truly terrifying part of this whole fiasco is that if these eight fired attorneys were forced to resign because they did not play ball, think about how many kept their jobs because they did play along and what they might have done!