The Pot Calling the Kettle Drunk

From the NY Times:
WASHINGTON, May 31 — A top Russia expert at the State Department issued an unusually sharp public criticism on Thursday of Moscow’s behavior under President Vladimir V. Putin, describing the Kremlin as bullying its neighbors while silencing political opponents and suppressing individual rights at home.

Hmmm, does this sound like anyone we know? The hypocrisy is astounding, don't you think? But wait, I thought Chimpy looked Putin in the eye.

PRESIDENT BUSH: I looked the man in the eye. I found him to be very straightforward and trustworthy. We had a very good dialogue. I was able to get a sense of his soul; a man deeply committed to his country and the best interests of his country.

And now, believe it or not, Curious George has actually gotten us back into the arms race!

PUTIN: We have signed and ratified the [1990 Conventional Forces in Europe treaty] and are fully implementing it. We have pulled out all our heavy weapons from the European part of Russia to (locations) behind the Ural Mountains and cut our military by 300,000 men," Putin said.

"And what about our partners? They are filling Eastern Europe with new weapons. A new base in Bulgaria, another one in Romania, a (missile defense) site in Poland and a radar in the Czech Republic," he said. "What we are supposed to do? We can’t just sit back and look at that."

And let's not forget the February, 2007 speech Putin made when he threw down the gauntlet to the west... attacking what he called “illegal” US unilateral military action and arguing it had made the world more dangerous.

I don't know about his soul or if he's trustworthy. But he's definitely straightforward and he is not stupid.

The Death of Cindy Sheehan

No, Cindy Sheehan is not dead - at least not physically. But on Memorial Day, May 28, 2007, the spirit of Cindy Sheehan passed away with her letter of resignation as "the face of the anti-war movement" that was posted on Daily Kos entitled "Good Riddance Attention Whore". The irony is that after all the name calling, ridicule, slurs and harassment she received from the right wing, it is the Democrats that killed her spirit. It was the liberal left that stuck the dagger into her soul just as Brutus betrayed Caesar.

"I guess no one paid attention to me when I said that the issue of peace and people dying for no reason is not a matter of 'right or left', but 'right and wrong.' "

After three years of sacrificing so much for this country - her son, her marriage, her life which she voluntarily chose to stop so she could concentrate all her energies on trying to make blind America see, the America who for some reason or another still had faith in this corrupt administration - Sheehan 's Judas kiss was delivered by the liberal left.

Everything was fine while Sheehan was critical of George Bush and his cronies. She became the "face" of the anti-war movement whether she wanted to or not. The protests at Camp Casey, the five acres she bought in Crawford, Texas so she could be close to Bush on his many vacation days and named after her son who was killed in Iraq, were the talk of the liberal blogs. She traveled the world over to bring the real message of the American people: that two-thirds of us did not agree with our leaders and wanted an end to this war. She was a founding member of Gold Star Families for Peace, a group who have had loved ones killed in Iraq, committed to the sole purpose of ending the war.

But then something strange happened in November of 2006. The Democratic Party won the House and Senate in the mid-term elections. The people had spoken. They had enough of an incompetent, illegal, warmongering, duplicitous administration. They were tired of Bush thinking he was above the law. There was finally going to be accountability as the checks and balances that were so sorely lacking lo these past six years and were trampled by a do-nothing Republican led Congress, were going to come back with a vengeance. The Democrats had won the elections based on promises of ending the war in Iraq, and now it was time to put their money where their mouth was.

Unfortunately, much of that money came from the same pot that the Republicans were raking in. So now Cindy's call to end the war landed on Democratic ears - and apparently they didn't like it. Cindy Sheehan had served her purpose while she was "the darling of the so-called left as long as [she] limited [her] protests to George Bush and the Republican Party", but now the tables had turned and it was time for her to go. The slurs and accusations that once came from the right wing now spat out of the mouths of the left.

But the absurdity of it all was that Cindy Sheehan never misled anyone into thinking that hers was a political cause. Hers was the cause of a grieving mother not wanting any other mother to feel the same anguish that she has felt. Hers were the cries of a truth teller crying for peace, not an election result. And now those cries were falling on deaf Democratic ears.

After all the sabre rattling, I myself mind-numbingly wonder where the Democrats' collective spine disappeared on the most recent vote to continue funding this illegal occupation in Iraq, but for Cindy Sheehan the disillusionment must have been devastating. She has lost her son. She has lost her marriage. She has lost support from those she trusted to be friends and allies. She has lost her country - the country she so desperately fought to save from itself.

So she will go home now - trying to repair the fractured pieces of her life. Hopefully she will find peace. Peace that evaded her as she protested under Bush's nose on those five acres in Crawford. Peace that never came each time she was arrested for civil disobedience. Peace that she fiercely tried to gain for our troops as well as the Iraqi people.

I truly hope she finds that peace. She deserves it. Goodbye Cindy. Thank you.

FIELD TRIP!

I've been thinking about what I might do when I go to Ohio to visit my future in-laws. We've actually got some baseball tickets to watch the Mets play the Reds and now the calendar is full. It's too bad I didn't hear about the new museum that opened up in Petersburg, Kentucky or I would have loved to go. It's only 20 miles south of Cincinnati.

But this isn't your regular, run-of-the-mill museum. You know the kind I'm talking about. They're usually pretty boring, with old stuff encased in hermetically sealed glass. You see one fossil, you've seen them all. But not this museum. This is a brand new $27 million CREATION MUSEUM! No artifacts here!

That's right! Forget about what you may have learned in school. All that schoolin' ain't gonna learn you nuthin'! This is the real deal! A museum that tells the Bible's version of Earth's history - that the planet was created in a single week just a few thousand years ago.

"The guests were very happy with the museum experience," [co-founder Mark] Looy said. "Of course, we had some naysayers come through and engage us in conversation, and that's fine - we want them."

One of the naysayers was Lawrence Krauss, a physicist visiting from Cleveland, who rated the museum a 4 out a 5 for technology, but a negative 5 out of 5 for content.
My favorite is this: Some exhibits show dinosaurs aboard Noah's Ark and assert that all animals were vegetarians until Adam committed the first sin in the Garden of Eden.

Hmm... I'm confused. Didn't Noah come after Adam? If that's the case, that means that at least some of the animals were now carnivores... Oh well. I guess Noah had extra livestock to feed the dinosaurs. "Okay T-Rex, you can eat anything you can catch, just make sure you leave me a male and a female of each."

Remember, everyone is welcome, but a word of advice to the naysayers: don't drink anything they offer you. Also, make sure the bottled water in the vending machines is sealed.

And The Hits Just Keep On Coming

Analysts' Warnings of Iraq Chaos Detailed

This from the Washington Post:

Months before the invasion of Iraq, U.S. intelligence agencies predicted that it would be likely to spark violent sectarian divides and provide al-Qaeda with new opportunities in Iraq and Afghanistan, according to a report released yesterday by the Senate Select Committee on Intelligence. Analysts warned that war in Iraq also could provoke Iran to assert its regional influence and "probably would result in a surge of political Islam and increased funding for terrorist groups" in the Muslim world.

This was in January, 2003, months before Bush and his buddies invaded Iraq. But as we all know, once again intelligence was ignored or cherry picked to strengthen support for the war and occupation. In reading sections of the report, it seems that the administration used positive, albeit incorrect assessments as talking points to solidify their stance on Iraq such as the following:

...terrorist threats heightened by the invasion would probably decline within five years.

...oil revenue would greatly ease the rebuilding of Iraq's economy.

John D. Rockefeller IV (W.Va.), and three other Democratic panel members said: "The most chilling and prescient warning from the intelligence community prior to the war was that the American invasion would bring about instability in Iraq that would be exploited by Iran and al Qaeda terrorists."

Apparently, the "fight them there so we don't fight them here" theory only exacerbated the al-Qaeda problem. The invasion and current occupation "emboldened the enemy". But the Republicans would have you think the Democrats are to blame as so many of them regurgitate the usual talking points about Dems being weak on defense and the like.

New Surgeon General = Doctor Death

George Bush has chosen a potential new Surgeon General.

"Dr. [James W.] Holsinger is an accomplished physician who has led one of our nation's largest health-care systems, the state of Kentucky's health-care system, and the University of Kentucky's medical center," Bush said.

But of course, why wouldn't Bush hand pick a doctor who is perfect for his administration?; a man who is as grossly incompetent as the rest of them.

From Buzzflash:

As Chief Medical Director of the Department of Veterans Affairs under Bush's father, Dr. Holsinger was neglecting our vets long before Walter Reed made it fashionable. A government investigation found "several cases in which incompetence and neglect led to the deaths of patients." Dr. Holsinger was forced to admit blame for the deaths of six patients in less than a year at a single Chicago hospital alone.

... A decade later, Dr. Holsinger was appointed Kentucky's Cabinet Secretary for Health and Family Services. By the end of his tenure, a Kentucky newspaper found that the state was at the bottom of the nation for almost every health measure. Kentuckians die at a rate of 18 percent above the national average, the newspaper reported.

"We don't have to worry about foreign aggressors. We are killing ourselves off," said Dr. Baretta Casey, a Hazard physician and University of Kentucky professor. "I see a lot of illnesses similar to a third-world country," added Dr. Sandra Dionisio, a Kentucky internist trained in the Philippines.

The real kicker on Holsinger's resume is that he is also a homophobe. I'm sure that was high on the prerequisite list.

You can read the full Buzzflash news analysis here.

Boehner's Crying Jag

What the hell is wrong with this guy? House Minority Leader John Boehner (pronounced Bay-ner although Bo-ner is more appropriate) stood on the House floor and cried for war. Literally cried. Was he drunk?! This blubbering idiot must have stunk like Jack Daniels when he stumbled into the House.

"When are we going to stand up to these terrorists?" he asks. What the hell have Bush and the Republicans been saying they've been doing for the last six years? These people make me sick.

But seriously, he's got to be drunk. I was waiting for him to yell out, "I LOVE YOU, MAN!" in the middle of his inebriated diatribe.