IN A NUTSHELL

Yesterday I was having lunch with my family and inlaws and we were talking about politics. We all thankfully agree politically so the conversations rarely dissolve in to arguments and this was no exception, as we were agreeing about the current state of the democratic side of the race for president.

My 5 year old son with whom I'd had limited discussions about politics before -enough that he knows that "we" are democrats and that there are other people who are republicans- chimed in asking "why are we democrats?"

Nothing gives you a dose of "gut-check time" more than when you're forced to put your entire political belief system into a perspective that a 5-year-old can grasp. Moreover, I felt it important to give him a real answer and not just sluff it off with an "it's too complicated to get into" response.

I paused for what seemed like an eternity and finally responded with: "Because we believe that the government should help all of the people and not just the rich ones".

*whew*

That's really it though isn't it? Isn't that the idea behind "we the people"?

It's not that the republicans don't believe that the government should work for all of the people -it's that they don't believe that the government should work at all. Period. They don't believe in representative government -that's why they're perfectly happy handing over the reins of every function of daily life to private business and then letting private business follow its own agenda which is of course profit. For itself.

By definition that means that not everyone will be able to have access to those services/functions.

Therefore, since the republicans believe that business should fulfill many of the functions of government, they necessarily don't believe that those functions should be available to all of the people -but only the ones who can afford to pay a private business to do them. That is the traditional definition of "rich" -being able to afford private services: private schools, private hospitals, private security, private mail, ad infinitum.

How anyone could look at any of the actions of the republicans and the measures they support and come to any other conclusion is beyond me.

So, in 5-year-old terms Democrats believe that government should help all the people, Republicans believe the government should only help the rich.

"...and that's why we're democrats."

GOODBYE AMERICA

Well they finally did it.

Years of planning and hatred and deceit finally paid off today and the Senate -the Democratic Senate- voted to give the telecom companies who enabled the White House to illegally spy on you complete immunity from any and all prosecution, removing the last tool to investigate and discover just how deeply the illegal activity and corruption went here.

What's more and particularly sickening is that they actually voted against Feinsteins amendment which basically declared that "OK this is now the law" voting instead to allow the President to decide to reject it if he feels like it.

You no longer live in the country where you thought you resided. This isn't America anymore. The law used to mean something, and it was the only thing that separated America from despotic and repressive nations where only the rich and powerful were protected from their government.

Look, I'm not naive -I know that in reality even in this country the rich and powerful have always held a huge advantage because they could afford to use the law to their advantage -but somehow through all of that our law itself -the Constitution- still protected the rights of everyone. It still mattered. It still meant that, at least in theory, you were protected from unreasonable repressive and unjust actions prepetrated on you by the government or those acting "on its behalf".

This vote means that the fourth amendment protection against search and seizure can be completely disregarded by the executive branch if they feel like it. No warrant is necessary to listen to conversations between US citizens and non as long as there is an alleged national security interest as provided by executive order. This essentially means that executive orders trump the Constitution.

The long and the short of it: dont talk on the phone with anyone with a foreign sounding name.

Now the House is taking up the resolution, and they're a little less friendly to it, but don't hold your breath.

We had a beautiful idea, but we let assholes ruin it in just over 200 years.

MY NEW FAVORITE QUOTE

This is brilliant:

"If the Goverment is a car setting out to give every one a ride to work, then for 40 years the Republicans have been puncturing the tires, pouring sand in the gas tank, stealing the distributer cap, and, whenever they can get their hands on the wheel, driving it straight into the nearest ditch and then, pointing to the wreckage as the tow truck backs up to it, saying, 'See, this proves that people were meant to walk'.

And they do this so that they don't have to chip in on gas."

OK, I THOUGHT ABOUT IT

Alright, I'm sold so would someone tell Scarlett Johansen to please stop calling me (Ok, it was a recording -but I can dream can't I?).

Here's a guy who makes the ultimate case as succinctly as anyone (and gee he's a writer- what a shock!)

"The point of Obama's candidacy is that the damaged state of American democracy is not the fault of George W. Bush and his minions, the corporate-controlled media, the insurance industry, the oil industry, lobbyists, terrorists, illegal immigrants or Satan. The point is that this mess is our fault. We let in the serpents and liars, we exchanged shining ideals for a handful of nails and some two-by-fours, and we did it by resorting to the simplest, deepest-seated and readiest method we possess as human beings for trying to make sense of the world: through our fear. America has become a phobocracy.

Since I started talking and writing about Obama I have come to see that this ruling fear, and nothing else, lies at the back of every objection or reservation people raise or harbor regarding the man and his candidacy.

Fear whispers to us that white voters have a nasty tendency to tell pollsters, friends and neighbors that they support an African American candidate, then go into the voting booth and let the fear known as racism pull the lever.

Fear tells us that ugliness, rage and brutality are the central facts of human existence, that decency and tolerance are luxuries on whose altar our enemies will be only too happy to sacrifice us.

It is through our fear of falling prey to the calamity and misadventure from which the media promise faithlessly to protect us -- a fear manufactured and sold by the media themselves -- that we accept without question the media-borne canard (tainted, in my view, by a racism as insidious as any that hides behind the curtains of voting booths) that Barack Obama, a seasoned and successful 46-year-old husband and father of two, a man sweeping into the prime of his life with all his sails and flags unfurled, is too young and inexperienced for a job that demands vitality and flexibility and that, furthermore, has made nonsense of glittering resumes, laughingstocks of practiced old hands and, in a reverse of Popeye's old trick, ravenous alligators out of years of accumulated baggage.

Fear and those who fatten on it spread vile lies about Obama's religion, his past drug use, his views on Israel and the Jews. Fear makes us see the world purely in terms of enemies and perils, and leads us to seek out the promise of leadership, however spurious it proves to be, among those who speak the language of that doomed and demeaning, that inhuman view of the world.

But the most pitiable fear of all is the fear of disappointment, of having our hearts broken and our hopes dashed by this radiant, humane politician who seems not just with his words but with every step he takes, simply by the fact of his running at all, to promise so much for our country, for our future and for the eventual state of our national soul. I say "pitiable" because this fear of disappointment, which I hear underlying so many of the doubts that people express to me, is ultimately a fear of finding out the truth about ourselves and the extent of the mess that we have gotten ourselves into. If we do fight for Obama, work for him, believe in him, vote for him, and the man goes down to defeat by the big-money machines and the merchants of fear, then what hope will we have left to hold on to?

Thus in the name of preserving hope do we disdain it. That is how a phobocracy maintains its grip on power."

Hear hear, and without resorting to the old Ben Franklin quote

Looking at both Hillary and Obama policy wise, they some out about even. Sure, there are differences to quibble over, but on balance they come out the same. Therefore the real difference is that Obama is inspirational and Clinton is not.

It's strange to be in a position to be casting a vote based on such a gut-level feeling -being one who has always chastised those who do the same and having prided myself as one who votes based on substantive policy issues and not the sloganeering bullsh*t soundbytes that seem to capture so much of the electorate (purple band-aids? Flip-flop sandals? How do you feel now a**holes? ). But policy is determined at the party level and I think most people who vote based on substance have drawn their lines there, so when voting for candidates who are from the same party the "X-factor(s)" are what ultimately tip the scale in favor of one or the other.

Which is an extremely round-about way of saying something simple: he inspires me, she doesn't.

Speaking of inspirational:

WELL THERE GOES MY GUY

It's my fault.

I shouldn't have endorsed John Edwards -how else to explain his dropping out of the race today??? ;-) Should'a kept my big "mouth" shut. *sigh*



Well now what to do?

I'm tempted to still vote for him on February 5th just to send a message to Hillary and Obama. The problem is, I've been historically against "message voting" because it was that practice that gave us Dubya to begin with:

The Nadir voters (and I misspell his name on purpose ) in 2000 threw the election to Bush an order of magnitude more than the SCOTUS -it shouldn't have even been close and wouldn't have been if the moronic message minded Nadir voters had pulled their heads out of their a**es and thought through what a W presidency would have meant. It's not as if the signs weren't there.

But I digress, this time around the "message" would be in a primary and wouldn't necessarily affect the general -except for the fact that I'm marginally more for Obama than for Hillary and if voting for Edwards handed CA to Hillary it would be wrong.

Look, if Hillary is the nominee I'll still hold my nose and vote for her in the general because her presidency would be fundamentally better than a McCain one, but I'd rather not if I didn't have to.

I guess I'll have to think about it more.

THIS IS SCARY

FOLLOW UP II

Received this (bulk) email from John Edwards this afternoon:

Dear [OP],

When it comes to protecting the rule of law, words are not enough. We need action.

It's wrong for your government to spy on you. That's why I'm asking you to join me today in calling on Senate Democrats to filibuster revisions to the Foreign Intelligence Surveillance Act (FISA) that would give "retroactive immunity" to the giant telecom companies for their role in aiding George W. Bush's illegal eavesdropping on American citizens.

The Senate is debating this issue right now -- which is why we must act right now. You can call your Senators here:

Barbara Boxer, (D): (202) 224-3553 Dianne Feinstein, (D): (202) 224-3841

Granting retroactive immunity is wrong. It will let corporate law-breakers off the hook. It will hamstring efforts to learn the truth about Bush's illegal spying program. And it will flip on its head a core principle that has guided our nation since our founding: the belief that no one, no matter how well connected or what office they hold, is above the law.

But in Washington today, the telecom lobbyists have launched a full-court press for retroactive immunity. George Bush and Dick Cheney are doing everything in their power to ensure it passes. And too many Senate Democrats are ready to give the lobbyists and the Bush administration exactly what they want.

Please join me in calling on every Senate Democrat to do everything in their power --including joining Senator Dodd's efforts to filibuster this legislation -- to stop retroactive immunity and stand up for the rule of law. The Constitution should not be for sale at any price.

Thank you for taking action.

John Edwards
January 24, 2008

Coincidence? You decide. ;-)

I had already left a message for Boxer this morning. Feinstein's number was busy.

FOLLOW UP

Well the first vote on the FISA Bill -the motion to table the Senate Judiciary Committee's bill (which contains no immunity for telcos)- passed 60-34. That means that the Intelligence Committee's version (which does grant immunity) will be considered the base bill and will begin debate soon.

Apparently BOTH Clinton and Obama voted "not voting" and didn't even bother to show up. I guess Edwards didn't say anything to them. Of course even if he had, it's unlikely it would have been covered in the MSM anyway.

*sigh*

So now it's up to Chris Dodd to filibuster the Intelligence Committee's bill. Go Dodd!!

AN EMAIL TO EDWARDS

I wrote this email to John Edwards today after recieving an email from Glen Greenwald and Jane Hamsher at FISAfight@gmail.com

Dear Senator Edwards,

As you know, the FISA bill is going to come up again in Congress on monday due to the Republicans' refusal to allow Majority Leader Reid to delay it.

I voted for you and Senator Kerry in 2004 and have been a supporter of yours since the beginning of your campaign this election because I've seen that you, unlike Senators Obama and Clinton, have not "stuck your finger in the wind" before you've spoken out on the substantive issues large and small. Additionally I admire your stand in taking public funds and refusing the big-money corporate donations despite the disadvantage it gave your campaign.

However, I will admit that I vascillated between you and Senator Dodd when he stood up to the Republicans and the round-heeled Democratic Congress and filibustered the retroactive immunity provisions of the FISA bill. (Senator Dodd's dropping-out of the race has made my decision easy and I intend to cast my vote for you in the February 5th California Democratic primary.)

Retroactive immunity would allow the Bush administration to once again skirt the Constitution and trample the Fourth Amendment rights of perhaps hundreds of thousands of Americans. I support and appreciate your efforts on behalf of the poor, but if we don't have the fundamental liberties guaranteed by the Constitution it makes no difference. What does it matter whether we're rich or poor if we're no longer free?

As a presidential candidate you are in a unique position to shine a spotlight on this issue, but it goes without saying that as a former senator you are not in a position to vote on it. Senators Obama and Clinton ARE and I therefore urge you to tell them to go back to Washington and stand with Senator Dodd to prevent retroactive immunity from eroding the Bill of Rights any further.

Thank you and Good luck!

[obssessiveprogressive]

Let's see what happens.

Oh, and P.S. -yes that is your ol' OP's endorsement.

OFF THE SUBJECT

Happy New Year!

I generally try not to stray too far from politics in this series of rants, but this really pissed me off:

(AP) SAN FRANCISCO - One of the three victims of San Francisco Zoo tiger attack was intoxicated and admitted to yelling and waving at the animal while standing atop the railing of the big cat enclosure, police said in court documents filed Thursday.

[...]

Toxicology results for Dhaliwal showed that his blood alcohol level was 0.16 — twice the legal limit for driving, according to the affidavit. His 24-year-old brother, Kulbir, and Sousa also had alcohol in their blood but within the legal limit, Matthews wrote. All three also had marijuana in their systems.

Guess what folks? All of the above is completely IRRELEVANT. The Tiger got out. Period.

It doesn't matter what they did. It wouldn't matter if they'd thrown rocks at it and slandered its mother -THE TIGER GOT OUT. THE TIGER SHOULDN'T HAVE BEEN ABLE TO GET OUT.

If the City of San Francisco or the Zoo Board or whomever feels that these young men did something illegal then by all means prosecute them to the full extent of the law. But nothing these men did removes blame or culpability from the San Francisco Zoo because the TIGER GOT OUT.

If the visitors had somehow broken the structure containing the tiger or put something foreign into it that allowed the tiger to climb out -that would have been a different story. But the fact is that no matter how stupid these guys were (and to be honest, from what I've read they don't sound like rocket-scientists) the tiger should have been contained and it wasn't.

And this is before the Polar Bear nearly got out and had to be darted. And before the Snow Leopard ripped through the wire mesh in its cage. Apparently, this Zoo is not up to code.

Exactly one year before this incident I took my then 2-year-old daughter and 4-year-old son to that zoo. This was after a massive windstorm had shut down portions of the zoo. We have pictures of that tiger (well, ok pictures of A tiger -but allow me a little dramatic license here). That tiger could have gotten out just as easily then.

That the zoo would try to shrug off responsibility for not only the death and injuries of the "offending" visitors but for endangering all visitors by saying "oh well, they shouldnt have taunted the tiger" is outrageous. I'll certainly never go there again, and frankly it should be closed until it is brought up to code the management is fired and replaced with more competent people.

DOWN BUT NOT OUT

You really have to marvel at the California GOP. They're just so damn entertaining.

I mean these are the same folks who actually defeated their best chance to elect a Republican Governor in 1996 order to nominate the one man in the state who COULDN'T defeat the then floundering Grey Davis.

Now they've come upon the brilliant idea of stealing a Republican victory in November 2008 by scrapping the "winner-take-all" distribution of California's 55 electoral votes and awarding an electoral vote per congressional district based on the popular vote in each district, in essence taking the "winner take all" formula of the electoral college and bringing it down to the congressional district level. In other words, if the GOP candidate wins in a congressional district he gets a California electoral vote and vice-versa if a Democrat wins in a district.

That would have the effect of awarding 20 electoral votes to the Republican -the same block of votes as winning a state like Ohio or Florida. That in turn would make it nearly impossible for a democrat to make up the difference and get to the magic number 270, meaning that regardless the national popular vote the republic party would win the White House.

This desperate attempt at a power grab was dead in the water after it was discovered that the sole fundraiser for the project was one of Rudy-boy's inner circle. But in a classic display of arrogance the initiative is up and running again chiefly due to an infusion of cash and support from Rep. Darrell Issa (R) (duh!), former loser gubernatorial candidate, millionaire, and GOP operative.

The new push is even using direct-mail with the words "your official CA state petition" on it, and sporting the "nonpartisan" (does anyone ever use that word and mean it anymore?) scowling picture of Hillary Clinton with the words "she hopes you won't open this letter!"

Make sure to drop-in to nodirtytricks.com and contribute what you can. This can't be allowed to go forward. As cliche as it sounds -our nation is at stake.

THE ARMY OF (some of) THE PEOPLE

Apparently the Military of the United States of America has become the Military of the Republican Party.

From the "Support the troops" lipservice to the firing of all the generals and commanders who disagree with the GOP party line, to the latest wingnut smear-campaign against a troop who (pseudonymously) wrote about his experiences in Iraq and dared to show them in a less than glowing light (that's a euphamism -the phrase "skull jewelry" should give an inkling of what he wrote).

The military apparently leaked info about this troop to the Drudge report, that paragon of impartiality while they made liberal bloggers file a FOIA request to get the same information, though they deny it vehemently, which leads one to one of two conclusions:

1) that they were (gasp) lying (!) and did in fact leak the information to the wingnuts
2) that there was a SERIOUS security breach by CENTCOM.

neither of which make me feel warm and fuzzy.

Meanwhile (or as Python used to say "during the meanwhilst" Glenn Greenwald got an unsolicited and blathering email from General Petreaus' public affairs officer Colonel Stephen A Boylan because he dared to comment on the above leak. Weird enough, but then Boylan denies that he sent the email, though it came from the same server that sent "denial" email. When Greenwald asks what Boylan thinks about that, he says first that he was the victim of identity theft in Vermont (!?!?) and then says that what he's doing about it none of Greenwalds concern.

WTF is going on over there? Either the military is the victim of a sophisticated hacking attack which has the ability to convincingly spoof emails to seem that they come from military servers in Iraq (yikes), or more likely and more depressingly the military has fallen into the same hands as the now undisputably politicized Justice department.

Two of the government arms that are constitutionally mandated to remain non-partisan in order to preserve that quaint old notion of Justice for All have been infiltrated and commandeered by neocon pod-people.

Scared yet?

AFFIRMATIVELY AND ACTIVELY UNGRATEFUL

USSCOTUS Associate Justice Clarence Thomas is bitter and resentful. He claims that his Yale law degree was tainted because of Affirmative Action policies which made it difficult for him to get a job after he graduated.

The egotistically driven logic is stunning: Thomas is actually saying that the fact that Yale extended a helping hand to minorities who previously hadn't had the same opportunities as whites -and which allowed him to attend Yale Law School- meant that the prestige his law degree had was somehow diluted because while those policies allowed him to attend, they also let other minorities... uh...attend. Make sense? No, not to me either.

This is one of the nine most brilliant legal minds in the nation?

Tragically Trapped

Andrew Sullivan, with whom I disagree more often than not on a multiplicity of issues, has posted perhaps the most eloquent "eulogy" for Senator Larry Craig (R) of Idaho I've seen yet.

Sullivan is himself gay, and a conservative, so it's interesting to see how he pities the lot Craig finds himself in, while not condoning his actions or forgiving his hypocrisy.

BUT...BUT...BUT

David Brooks and Roger Cohen have recently published Op-Eds in the New York Times that typify the diaspora from the right.

Neither of these guys has any idea what they'retalking about.

The first (Brooks) wants to redefine conservatism and disown the collapse of its failed idiology. the plain truth is that regardless how Brooks wants to define it, conservatism -"creedal" or "dispositional" stands on the belief that government needs to be restrained. When that restraint then leads to failures like Katrina, the decline in healthcare and education, and policy blunders committed by factions within that weakened government, conservatives then turn on a dime and say "see, look at these problems government has wrought."

If you reduce government to "the size where it could be drowned in the bathtub" as Grover Norquist is so fond of saying, you can't then be surprised when it cannot handle any crisis (deluge) larger than a bathtub.

The second guy (Cohen) wants to claim that the term "neocon" has become a generic insult for anything "the left" (whatever that means) doesn't like. A sort of "Auslander" for liberals. This of course is horseshit.

"Neocon" refers specifically to the group decended from the teachings of Leo Strauss, the University of Chicago professor who believed that the"liberal" cultural economic and political ideals of the west (particularly the USA) that had risen in the first half of the 20th century had resulted in its decline in the latter half. He thought that the only counter to that collapse was to create cultural myths that (though made up entirely) would scare the dumb public into acting properly. The public of course was too stupid to be able to think for itself.

The most elemental of those myths was that there were Really Bad Guys out there who were organizing to attack us, and that we needed to defeat them by any means necessary.

Strauss' disciples included Wolfowitz, Perle, the Kristols (Irving and later Bill) the Pipes (Richard and then Daniel) Cheney, Rumsfeld, and all of their successive proteges. The irony is that, somewhere along the line the disciples actually started to believe the myths they'd created, and like religious fanatics, followed their beliefs right off the cliff despite any evidence to the contrary.

Neocon then is not simply a generic slur, but refers to all who advance a certain set of principles:

1. Liberalism leads to collapse of social order
2. Therefore society needs to be "scared-straight"
3. Evil Ones want to defeat us
4. They must be prevented by any and all means including offensive wars ("offensive" meaning opposed to defensive rather than offending) .
5. American hegemony.

Others might add unquestioning support for Israel, though I don't think this is required because I don't think that all neocons place Israel's interests as equal to ours (kinda defeats the hegemony idea). Many conservatives have become neocons since 2000 (Giuliani) , others have supported the neocon agenda though they have not themselves been historically neoconservative (McCain, Hatch, Specter, Graham), and even some liberals have become neoconservatives (Lieberman. Zell Miller, the Brookings institute douche-bags O'Hanlon and Pollock.)

Both of these columns show how many on the right are desperately trying to diffuse the damage they've wrought on this country. They can't ignore it or spin it away any more so they try to explain it, and their explanations are pathetic.

ENOUGH ALREADY

I've about had enough about this "MoveOn NYT ad" thing.

Aren't there a couple of more important things the senate should be concerned with? And honestly, the dem feeding frenzy is ridiculous -does it really matter if a few Democratic senators voted "yes" on a non-binding "sense of the Senate" resolution that means absolutely nothing? Seems to me it's a even sum game:

• If they vote "no" they get hammered by the noisy right-wing money/press machine.
• If they vote "yes" they get to hold it over the heads of the republicans when the elections roll-around and the GOP start bashing the democratic candidates.
• Also they can say "Ok, whatever, you actually want to vote on this? Great. Let's pass it and then can we please debate something serious?"

The only way they lose is if the democratic voters take the bait and start condemning them for it -i.e. start eating their own, rather than just ignoring a meaningless resolution.

The only reason this is any controversy at all is that some smart-ass over at the MoveOn marketing department thought it would be catchy to print the phrase "General Betray-us".

It's not. It's juvenile sounding and invokes the language of schoolyard bullies. It also allows people to say that MoveOn is calling a decorated soldier a traitor. I know, I know "But OP -that's what THEY do all the time!" But the add would have been just as powerful (if not moreso) without that phrase. The addition of that phrase only weakens the ad because it makes fun of his name and not his actions/writings/credibility.

Kudos to MoveOn for getting the message out that Petraeus was a lackey, but next time get a proof reader or a marketing rep or whatever who understands the difference between name-calling and clever catch phrases that Move your message On.

PETRAEUS IS IRRELEVANT

The Petraeus Crocker coming out party is quaint but entirely irrelevant. What difference does it make what they tell Congress? The Democratic majority is either too powerless or too scared to do anything about it. Nothing will change and we'll keep losing lives and pouring money into the quagmire until at the earliest 2009. And yes, when we leave things will completely meltdown over there.

The time to prevent the meltdown was pre-invasion. And no, not because the war was "wrong" or "based on lies" (though it was), but because the idiots in charge -Wolfowitz, Rumsfeld, Feith, Cheney, et al. actually were stupid enough to believe that things would magically fall into place if they could just knock off Saddam. This was despite and in the face of fervent and informed dissent from everyone across the spectrum from academics to military strategists.

The key to this whole operation was maintaining order and security AFTER Saddam was gone. That would have required at least half a million troops (not simply "the army you have" as Dumbsfeld arrogantly put it) and hundreds of billions of dollars.

That's why none of the cheerleaders can ever define what "victory" or "success" in Iraq means, because if they do then the next thing they have to admit that it's at the best too costly and at the worst impossible.

There was no way the Congress or the American people would have gone along with it had they been told the truth. It would have been laughable. The only way they would have gone along with such a scheme was if the threat was imminent, so the WMD lunacy was created and coupled with assurances (despite all evidence and history to the contrary) that we could do it on the cheap.

Now we're stuck because even if we were to go ahead and put half a million troops there and spend half a trillion, things have spun so far out of control that it will take decades to repair, and we can't stay there and still function as a country here -already things are starting to crumble, infrastructure, disaster preparedness, etc. In ten years at this pace we'll look like the USSR of the 1980's.

So we're forced with three shitty choices: 1) leave now and let things blow up, 2) leave when the Democratic President takes over in 2009 and let things blow up (and guess who'll take the blame) or 3) stay the course until we blow up.I know what the cheerleaders want and I know what the Bush administration wants. I choose option one, but who knows -maybe Petraeus is right and the pony is just around the corner!

HOLY HORSES**T BUCK-MAN

Fresh from reminiscinces about the NYC aristocracy and wincings about the porcelain activities of closeted Republic party senators, comes this charming book review from William F.Buckley.


Either the old man has finally suffered a stroke, or his column has been once again "jacked" by neocon thugs. I've had my suspicions in the past, and this is another piece of evidence in the chain linking to the idea that he's cacked and yet his column, like Tupac's albums, survives.

To work then:

"I am informed that French pacifists, ensconced in the French Academy in 1939
and determined to understate Nazi military exercises (even those being done as
close by as Czechoslovakia), refused to acknowledge such a creature as a
"bombardier."

Ding! Ding! Ding! Godwin's Law Alert! Can't start a fearmongering Islamophobic rant without first invoking the spirit of the Nazi's. WFB even takes the extra step of equating any dissenters from the crusade as namby-pamby Frenchies.

"Norman Podhoretz, a gifted writer and analyst,"

Also:

• one of the original signatories of the Project for the New American Century
• the author of the recent piece in the WSJ "the case for bombing Iran"
• was mentored by neocon cappo di tutti cappi Irving Kristol.

Kind of taints the "analyst" part a tad.

But wait - now the real fearmongering horses**t starts:

"The Islamists have:

"-- A potential access to weapons of mass destruction that could devastate Western life.

"Potential" access? Who doesn't have potential access? Here's an analogy: I hate all Raiders fans and I have potential access to a gun. I mean -all I have to do is go to a gun shop and buy one, right? You gonna lock me up?

Notice the subtle whitewashing here too: He's implying Iran, and thereby labeling the entire nation of Iran "Islamist" .

"-- A religious appeal that provides deeper resonance and greater staying power than the artificial ideologies of fascism or communism.

That's like saying all Irish Catholics might join the IRA.

"-- An impressively conceptualized, funded and organized institutional machinery that successfully builds credibility, goodwill and electoral success.

This is pure horses**t. There is no evidence of this. None. At all. There are Islamic terrorist groups, including Al Qaeda, but there has been no credible evidence that they are linked in any other way than their dislike for the actions of the US. Some hate the "liberal" freedoms of the west, some have "beefs" with particular actions the US has taken (e.g. Bin Laden's outrage at US bases on Saudi land which was his own professed reason for 9/11), some hate our blind support of Israel, but any assertion that they are linked in any other way than cheerleading each other's "successes" (much less "institutionally") has been easily debunked.

Remember however that this sentiment is brought to you by the same people who previously tried to argue that the USSR was the power-seat of the very same type of "terror network" and that every terrorist organization and "communist" government from the IRA and PLO to Cuba and China were all part of an elaborate plot to dominate and enslave the west. It's paranoid fantasy on steroids.

"-- An ideology capable of appealing to Muslims of every size and shape, from Lumpenproletariat to privileged, from illiterates to Ph.D.s, from the well-adjusted to psychopaths, from Yemenis to Canadians."

Again "capable of appealing" ? WTF does that mean? OK let's use another analogy - can we then say that Christian fundies like the Branch Davidians followed an idiology "capable of appealing" to Christians of all stripes? What makes an idiology capable of anything? It's nonsense.

Now to the "math" portion:

"If Islamists constitute 10 percent to 15 percent of the Muslim population
worldwide, they number some 125 million to 200 million persons, or a far greater total than all the fascists and communists, combined, who ever lived."

Let's put that sh*te out of its misery:

"If"?

Who has said that "Islamists" are 10 to 15 percent of ALL muslims? This is known as recycling guesswork. The neocons have completely fabricated this number.

Quite frankly, how could you possibly ever determine the number of "islamists"? The definition itself is constantly shifting and open to personal interpretation. You can inflate or decrease the numbers to suit your agenda. E.g. sometimes Iran is included and sometimes it's not depending on who's arguing and what they're trying to "prove".

All of the typical elements
are here:

• Create a strawman
• attack critics ad hominem
• create/inflate statistics to support the strawman.
• warn of the dire consequences of not supporting the strawman 100%
  

Finally, to address the dopes who will inevitably name call:

This is not to say terrorism is not an important concern. In fact today a story has once again shown that John Kerry was right: the most effective solution is vigilent intelligence gathering and well trained law enforcement.


As I said yesterday, what we are witnessing here are the initial stages of the fall-rollout of the campaign against Iran.

Apparently Buckley is on board -though he can't seem to muster his own arguments so he's parroting Podhoretz'.

Shameful and sad.

DICK'S NEW BROOM

So now it becomes clear.

Cheney has been cleaning house of all of the folks who had a direct line to W's ear. Rove, Gonzo, Snow (although that might actually be the cancer) to clear a path for his Iran ambitions.

Look for Condi to resign before the year's up -to spend more time with her husband , family, conscience.

ABU-GONZALEZ RESIGNS

Damn -I'd hoped the #$%^ *&^ might actually stick around long enough to be impeached. Nope, he's gone. It looks like Dick's cleaning house of all of W's BFF's to prevent having to spend some time in jail after he leaves. First Rove now Gonzo. The plot thickens.

Of Course that's just my OPinion

-OP