Much That Is Hidden

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I presume most professional writers run a spell check on their work upon completion. At the end of its spell check routine Microsoft Word offers the option of presenting certain figures regarding readability, and to a journalist a few of these are important while the others are possibly interesting.

My experience with the MS Word Readability Statistics caused me to find interest in a recent item on HuffPo that compares Barack Obama’s first press conference on Monday night with that of George W. Bush on Feb. 22, 2001. The Obama effort was deemed superior in terms of intellect - no surprise there.

Obviously there are several factors outside of the readability paradigm that account for the difference in the two PCs, primarily the subject(s) at hand. For Bush it was the schwinging out of his saber on Iraq (ineffective sanctions, Sadaam bad, WMD, Chinese presence in Iraq).

Obama’s was well over twice as long, with long-winded answers primarily about the economy but with a few switches to foreign policy and bipartisanship.

Just for shits and giggles let’s look at it from a journalist’s point of view, as I have been told by editors numerous times to KISS (Keep It Simple Stupid), a concept that, for newspaper articles, is anchored in readability.

First, the Obama presser:



Here is Bush’s:



You can see that both run very close in sentences per paragraph (rather subjective, especially in a spoken press conference) and in characters per word, the latter being somewhat surprising with regard to my assessment of Bush’s vocabularial contentificationism. Of course the big news is the grade level and the related “reading ease,” both determined by brainy linguists under the auspice of the Flesch-Kincaid Readability Test.

Considering that the room is full of journalists, certainly all college graduates, one might presume that it’s a good thing to have your press conference rated at a 10th grade level. But oh no says Mr. Editor – KISS for our reading public, who average about an 8th grade reading level. The reading ease figures translate thusly:

90–100: easily understandable by an average 11-year old student

60–70: easily understandable by 13- to 15-year old students

0–30: best understood by college graduates

I continue this incredibly fun comparison by offering up the stats on a long-winded article of my own:



I have acknowledged that I am a not-so-successfully recovering wordaholic, addicted to sesquipedalian pursuits of the most grandiloquent order. Few of my articles have reached that holy grail of an 8th grade reading level.

The final criteria to cover here is the use of passive voice, to be avoided as much as possible in news writing for the purposes of, say it with me, "Readability" (I consider myself doing well to keep my articles under 12 percent). Obama’s press conference likely had more passive sentences than Bush’s because it was much longer, but credit must be given to Shrubster for his simplisticosity on this one. Those 7th grade Republicans would be proud.

I, on the other hand, appear to be a lost cause:


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Labels: Bush, journalism, Obama, words, writing

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Book of the prophet Daniel 5:26-28:

"This [is] the interpretation of the thing: MENE; God hath numbered thy kingdom, and finished it. TEKEL; Thou art weighed in the balances, and art found wanting. PERES; Thy kingdom is divided, and given to the Medes and Persians."

Did I mention that Bible prophecy is a little hobby of mine? Quite small, in fact. I'm not sure how Perez Hilton gets the Medes and Persians in on this, but it's sure to be interesting.

For a perhaps more balanced assessment of the today's exchange of power, you can't get more spot-on than this anonymous idiot (whose blog link will, out of respect, remain on the left for the first 100 days of the Obama administration - thanks AI!)

And just so it's in my record, my Obama/Favreau faves:

"On this day, we gather because we have chosen hope over fear, unity of purpose over conflict and discord. On this day, we come to proclaim an end to the petty grievances and false promises, the recriminations and worn-out dogmas, that for far too long have strangled our politics."

"We will restore science to its rightful place."

"The question we ask today is not whether our government is too big or too small, but whether it works."

"This crisis has reminded us that without a watchful eye, the market can spin out of control — and that a nation cannot prosper long when it favors only the prosperous. The success of our economy has always depended not just on the size of our Gross Domestic Product, but on the reach of our prosperity."

"As for our common defense, we reject as false the choice between our safety and our ideals. Our Founding Fathers, faced with perils we can scarcely imagine, drafted a charter to assure the rule of law and the rights of man, a charter expanded by the blood of generations. Those ideals still light the world, and we will not give them up for expedience's sake. And so to all other peoples and governments who are watching today, from the grandest capitals to the small village where my father was born: know that America is a friend of each nation and every man, woman, and child who seeks a future of peace and dignity, and that we are ready to lead once more."

"Recall that earlier generations faced down fascism and communism not just with missiles and tanks, but with sturdy alliances and enduring convictions. They understood that our power alone cannot protect us, nor does it entitle us to do as we please. Instead, they knew that our power grows through its prudent use; our security emanates from the justness of our cause, the force of our example, the tempering qualities of humility and restraint."

"For we know that our patchwork heritage is a strength, not a weakness. We are a nation of Christians and Muslims, Jews and Hindus and nonbelievers."

"To those leaders around the globe who seek to sow conflict, or blame their society's ills on the West — know that your people will judge you on what you can build, not what you destroy. To those who cling to power through corruption and deceit and the silencing of dissent, know that you are on the wrong side of history; but that we will extend a hand if you are willing to unclench your fist."

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Labels: Bush, histoire, milestones, President Obama

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Labels: Awww Hyit ME, Bush, fun, Iraq, shooz

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Rep. Dennis Kucinich will soon be submitting the online petition of Congress to impeach President Bush. The deadline is Wednesday night, so if you feel that this is a worthwhile pursuit for our legislators, please go to http://kucinich.us/ and sign the petition by then.

Thanks to Congressman Kucinich turning up the volume on the voice of the people, the House Judiciary Committee met last week to discuss the Bush Administration's abuse of executive power. For the first time the case for impeachment was discussed in front of a Congressional committee, in depth, at length and with authority. Twenty members of the Judiciary Committee attended the six hour hearing, during which twelve witnesses, including Kucinich and four other members of Congress, testified.

Are we better off than we were 7.5 years ago? Not just no, but HELL NO!

Labels: Bush, impeachment, Kucinich, You

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By Brad Reed at Sadly, No!

10: Bush Gets Re-elected

Bush ran as a "compassionate conservative" who promised to be a "uniter, not a divider" who would run a center-right administration like his father did. By 2004, the myth of Bush the Uniter had been demolished by his exploiting the 9/11 terror attacks for political gain, by dropping poison pills into bills to make Democrats vote against their own proposals, and by supporting needless and divisive initiatives such as a constitutional amendment banning gay marriage. On top of this, the Bush re-election crew ran one of the nastiest and most negative campaigns in recent memory.




9: Alberto Gonzales' Congressional Testimony

One of the Bush administration's favorite pastimes over the past eight years has been gleefully urinating in the faces of the other two branches of government. This tendency is best exemplified by Ex-Attorney General Alberto Gonzales' appearance before the Senate Judiciary Committee to answer questions under oath about whether a group of eight federal prosecutors had been fired for partisan reasons. Gonzales responded to questions by answering "I don't recall" a total of 64 times.

Although several GOP senators called on Gonzales to resign in the wake of his testimony, Bush said Gonzales' performance had "increased my confidence in his ability to do the job" and that he would stay on as attorney general.


8: North Korea Conducts a Nuclear Test

In his 2002 State of the Union Address, Bush stated forthrightly that "the United States will not permit the world's most dangerous regimes to threaten us with the world's most destructive weapons." And to show how serious he was, Bush decided to invade Iraq, a country whose vast stockpile contained precisely zero weapons of mass destruction.

But while Bush was busy freedomizing the Iraqis, North Korea - a country best known for being home of the world's worst government - steadily built up its nuclear capabilities and eventually conducted a nuclear test in October 2006. Naturally, Condi Rice declared that the test was actually a significant win for Bush administration policy, thus proving once again that down isn't just up for the Bush administration, but sometimes sideways as well.


7: Colin Powell's Bogus WMD Presentation at the U.N.

In February 2003, Powell gave a presentation before the U.N. Security Council that was instrumental in convincing both the American public and large swaths of the international community that Saddam Hussein had large stockpiles of weapons of mass destruction that posed an immediate threat to global security. During his speech, Powell told scary tales of mobile biological weapons labs, chemical weapons stockpiles and aluminum tubes that could be used in a nuclear weapons program. All of these claims turned out not only to be wrong, but based on sourcing that even Powell acknowledged was "deliberately misleading" in some cases.

And what's more, Powell knew how shaky a lot of the intelligence was before he made his infamous presentation to the United Nations. Years after feeding bogus intel to the Security Council, Powell said his performance was a "painful" "blot" on his record. I'm sure that's a fine comfort to the hundreds of thousands of people who died needlessly as a result of Powell's Security Council boo-boo.


6: The Terri Schiavo Affair

In what will no doubt go down in history as one of the craziest things our federal government has ever done, the U.S. House and Senate both passed an emergency law to save the life of a woman who had been near-brain dead for more than a decade. The case of Terri Schiavo, who collapsed in her home and who later lost oxygen to her brain after her doctors misdiagnosed the cause of her collapse, was undoubtedly tragic for everyone involved; it was also undoubtedly none of the federal government's business.

After numerous state courts had sided with then-husband and guardian Michael Schiavo and ruled that Terri's condition was irreversible and that her feeding tube could be removed to end her life, the Christian Right launched into an epic freak-out the likes of which America has not seen since 17th Century Salem. After much Tasmanian devil-style screeching and hollering from the GOP base, the Republican Congress passed a bill transferring jurisdiction of the Schiavo case to federal court. Bush, who seemingly never misses an opportunity to take a naked ride on the crazy train, interrupted one of his frequent Texas vacations to sign the damn thing into law.

Ah, if only he'd been this swift and alert when Hurricane Katrina hit (see #4 below).


5: Bush and Condi's Excellent Gaza Adventure

The trouble began when Bush started stamping his feet and throwing a hissy fit about having elections in the Palestinian territories. Essentially, Bush's desire to be seen as a "freedom president" meant forcing various swarthy third-worlders to vote in elections that would presumably result in U.S.-friendly regimes around the world. After Hamas predictably defeated Fatah in the elections, Bush decided he didn't like democracy in the Middle East so much after all, and he had Condi Rice tell Fatah leader Mahmoud Abbas that "America expected him to dissolve the Haniyeh government as soon as possible and hold fresh elections." Apparently, Condi believed that having an American-backed leader dissolve a democratically elected government would warm the Palestinians' hearts to American aims. Long story short: The U.S. government decides to bolster Fatah by sending them a bunch of arms. Word of these shipments leaks to a Jordanian newspaper. All hell breaks loose; Hamas defeats Fatah and proceeds to use the American-supplied arms it confiscated from Fatah against Israel. The entire ordeal was an amazing illustration of the administration's complete inability to anticipate entirely predictable outcomes.


4: "Brownie, You're Doing a Heckuva Job"



Yes, we're getting into Bush's real crowning achievements here. The Think Progress blog has done an admirable job of chronicling the entire affair.






3: Abu Ghraib

In its May 10, 2004 issue the New Yorker magazine published an explosive report by renowned investigative journalist Seymour Hersh detailing the systematic torture of prisoners by U.S. military personnel at the Abu Ghraib prison in Iraq. Administration apologists used two distinctly different strategies to push back against the inevitable bad press that ensued: One was to condemn the guilty parties but refer to them merely as "a few bad apples" who weren't reflective of American policy; the other was to dismiss the entire scandal as "an out-of-control fraternity prank."

But it turned out, of course, that the crimes committed at Abu Ghraib weren't merely the work of a few rogue soldiers. Indeed, it turns out that the tactics employed in the infamous Iraqi dungeon were first taken out for a test spin at the U.S. military prison at Guantanamo Bay, Cuba. And where did they get the idea to use these techniques? Why, from senior Bush administration officials, of course, with the full approval of Bush himself! As ABC News reported earlier this year, "the high-level discussions about these 'enhanced interrogation techniques' were so detailed, these sources said, some of the interrogation sessions were almost choreographed."

Amazingly, the Bush administration tried to justify its decisions by claiming that even waterboarding was perfectly legal and did not constitute torture. Despite the fact that, you know, it was deemed illegal 40 years ago by U.S. generals in Vietnam.

This particular scandal was so bad that even the John Birch Society concluded that the administration and its flunkies were war criminals.


2: 9/11

The terrorist attack of Sept. 11, 2001, was one of the most terrifying and traumatic moments in American history. But while the loss of life on that day was indeed a major tragedy for all Americans, what happened afterward was in many ways more disturbing: In essence, the politicization of 9/11 caused us to lose our collective minds for a long period of time.

By the time the 2002 midterm elections rolled around, Bush and his GOP minions were milking 9/11 to get as many votes as they could. When Senate Democrats tried to extend union rights for workers in the newly created Department of Homeland Security, for instance, Bush issued a pissy veto threat, and then-spokesman Ari Fleischer described the Dems' proposal as "a step backward, not forward, in protecting the country." And that's just a mild example. There are many other choice GOP attacks that accused Democrats of helping al Qaeda win by not kissing Bush's ass with the sufficient level of enthusiasm.

The Republicans' "The Democrats Want to Help al Qaeda Kill You" gambit worked for two consecutive elections before finally running out of gas in 2006. But even so, the ability of one political party to garner votes simply by yelling about treason incessantly is incredibly depressing.







A lot has been written about Bush's aircraft carrier stunt over the past few years, and with good reason. After all, no other incident better illustrates how Bush's presidency was built entirely on hubristic arrogance, shameless propaganda and a destructive disregard for reality. In what Noam Chomsky correctly called "the opening of the year 2004 election campaign," George W. Bush delivered a so-called "victory speech" for the Iraq War after landing on the aircraft carrier USS Abraham Lincoln aboard an S-3B Viking jet dressed in full flyboy gear.

Bush's posturing as a war hero was, of course, laughable. During the Vietnam War, Bush used his family connections to obtain a gentleman draft dodger's assignment flying planes in Alabama for the Air National Guard -- a cushy assignment that he didn't even do very well. But no matter! As long as he gave off an aura of steely resolve, and as long as he wore a ridiculous outfit to emphasize his "manly characteristic," our ever-watchful pundit corps endlessly praised him as the gin-you-wine article.

A sample of the atrocities, painstakingly compiled by Media Matters:

"(T)hat's the president looking very much like a jet, you know, a high-flying jet star. A guy who is a jet pilot. Has been in the past when he was younger, obviously. What does that image mean to the American people, a guy who can actually get into a supersonic plane and actually fly in an unpressurized cabin like an actual jet pilot?" -- Chris Matthews

"A little bit of history and a lot of drama today when President Bush became the first commander in chief to make a tail-hook landing on an aircraft carrier. A one-time Fighter Dog himself in the Air National Guard, the president flew in the co-pilot seat with a trip to the USS Abraham Lincoln." -- Wolf Blitzer

"And two immutable truths about the president that the Democrats can't change: He's a youthful guy. He looked terrific and full of energy in a flight suit. He is a former pilot, so it's not a foreign art farm -- art form to him. Not all presidents could have pulled this scene off today." -- Brian Williams

And in the time since Bush performed this grotesque PR stunt, roughly 4,000 troops have been killed in action along with tens of thousands of Iraqis, with nary a WMD in sight to justify the carnage. Heck of a job, all around.


Brad's full article, compiled painstakingly over the course of two months, is at Alternet, and includes a beefy list of also-rans for those incredulous that the Plame affair or warrantless wiretapping didn't sink as low as these. And Brad, I'll keep some Arrogant Bastards cold for you because after all we still have more than half a year to go.
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Labels: Bush, Lies and Lying Liars, nuff said

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I assume from the cleverly dated heading below that this badly written piece of wingnut fantasy has been mucking up the InnerTubes for at least a couple of weeks. A friend’s client, crossing a line in true rabid wannabe extremist fashion, sent it and she forwarded it for my reaction (it is thus).

Welcome to Toastmasters, June 13, 2033

That's right: 2033.

Yeesh, we've got Judge Smales at the Bushwood Country Club narrating

Today Rick Campbell, one of our senior members at age 87, is here to reminisce a bit and give us a history lesson. He says he is so old that he learned to drive an internal combustion engine car (remember those?) with a manual transmission. He once owned a typewriter. He remembers when bicycles had one speed, phones had two-party lines, and cameras had something called film. As incredible as this may seem, he says that when he was young, it was common for people to smoke in restaurants and public places. He is from a different time; almost a different world. Gee, our old La Salle ran great! It's just 25 freakin' years from now - surely you remember the "evil empire" and "Strategic Defense Initiative?" Or is this Toastmasters club of the future also the Junior High Republicans?

I'm sure all of us are familiar with the tragic events of 2010, so Rick is not going to plow that fertile field again. Instead, he is going to give us a personal look back at the conditions which led up to that fateful year, in a speech titled "2010 Was Not A Good Year To Be President."

"2010 Was Not A Good Year To Be President"… Okay, got it.

Yes, 2010 was long ago and far away. As we look back on history, it appears that some Presidents had an easy ride; times of growth and stability. Teddy Roosevelt, Warren G. Harding and Dwight Eisenhower come to mind. Those were good years to be President. I can't believe you passed on the Bill Clinton "easy ride" pun, dude.

Others were elected just when the country was facing terrible crises: Abraham Lincoln, Woodrow Wilson, Franklin Roosevelt, George W. Bush. They rose to the occasion, even though they were controversial and widely hated while in office. Not such good years to be President. FDR? Perhaps intensely hated by the wealthy but very popular otherwise. And just what crisis was Bush facing when he was elected? The dot.com bubble bursting? Oooohh...

Just prior to 2010, in 2008 yahey, the country began foundering. Began? We were in the sixth year of the Iraqi Occupation excellent choice of words, mon ami and the economy was flat. The mainstream press clearly wanted a Democrat elected. Pffft! What about the PEOPLE?

Although we didn't know it until some years later, oil producing nations had colluded to secretly buy their own oil on the open market, driving oil prices to shocking levels above the true demand price - reaching a high of $162 a barrel in October, 2008, just before the general elections.

Their purpose was simple: to effect a regime change in the United States. The noive! The U.S. economy was already in a real estate slump and also suffering the curse of stagflation; slow growth and high inflation. There were a million home foreclosures. Independent truckers went under by the thousands. Airlines failed. Airlines with names now long-forgotten: United, Delta, Northwest, American. All now merged, of course, into the one lone government-run U.S. carrier. You mean that 25 years later your loan arrangers haven't hi-ho silvered this back into line? For shame! A more realistic scenario for the record: a couple or three of the savvy discount/low overhead carriers end up with most of the marbles. The free market rides again!

Against this backdrop of weariness of the war on terror, and economic distress, the American people were ripe for a demagogue, and they certainly got one in Barack Hussein Obama. He and his running mate, Kathlene Sebelius, inspired them with vague notions of hope and change; of a world in which diplomacy settled all international problems, of free universal health care, of abundant alternative energy, of peace and love. It was a vision too good to resist. "Where there is no vision, the people perish: but he that keeps the law is happy." Proverbs 29:18 (great sport, whipping some bible out on the wingnuts)

The Republican nominee was a name you probably haven't heard in years: Anyone? Yes, it was John McCain, a Senator from Arizona who had no clue how to run a presidential campaign, Um, seems he did pretty well with that comeback in the primaries and with a platform nearly as liberal as Obama's. Stop it, you're hurting me!

The selection of former Secretary of State, Condoleeza Rice, as his running mate looked brilliant at first. Puleeze Unfortunately, black voters viewed her as white, and women voters viewed her as one of the establishment guys. How could this be?!!

Even so, the McCain/Rice ticket would have won the election if it weren't for the fact that 16 percent of conservatives (mostly Republicans) voted for: (Anyone remember? 2000? Anyone?) That's right, Bob Barr, another name that's a footnote in history... for having the temerity to eschew a lockstep with the two-party system, especially that liberal platform that McCain was touting.

After Obama's narrow win, thanks to four recounts in Broward County , Florida , the liberals were positively giddy. A Democrat House, Senate, and President. At last an end to gridlock in Washington . Camelot had arrived! Let's not go there - it's a silly place!

When Congress convened in January, 2009, the 44th President of the United States did something unique ??? in history: he made good on his campaign promises. Certainly most voters never really thought he was serious during the campaign. But whether because of inexperience, idealism, or simply incompetence, he followed through. ??????

The following three paragraphs are conjecture and bullshit of the mightiest stink - half of it isn't even on Obama's plate and the other half is so off-base it’s laughable.

In Obama's first One Hundred Days, the Congress passed his initiatives; and he signed them into law as he said he would. He repealed the Bush tax cuts, and doubled the capital gains taxes. He enacted a windfall profits tax, and instituted price controls on gasoline and diesel fuel. He passed universal health care, which added an additional 10 percent income tax increase on all working Americans. He signed the Immigrant Amnesty bill which created 12 million new citizens instantly, each with entitlements.

He closed the terrorist detention facility at Guantanamo Bay , and summarily released all the detainees. He repealed the Patriot Act, and cut funding for espionage, and eliminated all terrorist listening and wiretaps. At the same time, he began the complete and immediate withdrawal of all American troops from Iraq .

He ignored the advice of the Joint Chiefs of Staff, [reminiscent of prior presidents LBJ and Carter and Bush II] who wanted to retain bases in Kuwait and Qatar .

Instead, he went with the recommendation of Secretary of Defense Dennis Kucinich, and ordered all troops back to USA soil. Viva DK! Except he would be head of his proposed Department of Peace.

Viola! In One Hundred Days, by May of 2009, it was all done, and the initial vision was completed. He did exactly what he said he would do. And so it was in the summer of 2009 that things began to unravel for Obama. Of course, the economy needed a tax cut, not an increase, and unemployment quickly rose to 12 percent. Even attorneys and economists were put in the bread lines. Hard times ensued.

Price controls on gasoline immediately led to shortages and gas lines. The global cooling trend we have seen for the past 25 years first became obvious in 2009, exposing the CO2 global warming fraud. People were justifiably angry. ["See, I told you so," I said, crack pipe still warm in my hand.]

Federal deficits increased massively because thousands of baby boomers whoa, thousands, eh? This guy is certainly no economist (but I'd be glad to see him on a bread line), facing job loss and much higher taxes, simply gave up and took their social security.

The once superb U.S. health care system was thrown into disarray when the government created the Federal Department of Health care, and the immediate hiring of 250,000 administrators, inspectors and auditors, the only job growth in any sector of the 2009 economy. Could someone help me out here? I was rendered unconscious when my head smacked the keyboard...

By February 2010, the U.S. military withdrawal from Iraq was complete. If only...

Hold on to your seats, kids. More blatant Fear Mongering coming right up! (Cue patriotic music...)

It was a very expensive undertaking. One month later in March, the gradual Shiite insurgencies from Iran turned Iraq into a true Iraqi civil war. In May, Iranian tanks crossed the border and quickly took Baghdad . Although the exact number is not known, at least 230,000 Sunni Iraqis died after we withdrew. You know, it's still plagiarism even if you rip it from your hero's playbook and change just a couple of words

Iran also quickly moved into undefended Kuwait . President Obama did exactly what he said he would. He sent Secretary of State Maria Cantwell note to "Rick Campbell": do not attempt fantasy baseball before your 87th birthday. Do not attempt actual politics before then, either to Tehran to meet with Iranian President Ahmadinejad. After two weeks of high level talks, the United States agreed to allow Iran to retain Iraq and Kuwait to create stability in the Middle East, with the understanding that Israel would not be disturbed. Cantwell returned to Washington , and explained the agreement in her famous speech, in which she proudly noted that the Obama administration had finally achieved "peace in our time" in the Middle East .

So there was some surprise by the Administration at the rocket attacks on Tel Aviv on August 14th. President Obama said, "This is not the Mahmoud Ahmadinejad I knew." The Obama Administration decided it would be de-stabilizing to take sides in the conflict, and approximately 29,000 Israeli civilians died during that summer and fall.

American Jews were appalled at the inaction. Yes, in 2010 most American Jews were still Democrats; but because of 2010, they are solid Republicans today, [obediently accepting their lot to be slaughtered like goats at Armageddon.]

As awkward as it was, everything might have turned out all right for the Obama Administration going into the fall mid-term elections of 2010, if it hadn't been for the dirty bomb explosion in the Port of Long Beach. The Obama Administration had cut funding for the inspection of containers ...even more than Bush? Maybe he should have brought Ports of Dubai back in... because they felt it showed a "lack of trust" in the international trading community. It wasn't a large nuclear device. But nonetheless it contaminated [a bunch of crap from China and] some expensive real estate - Newport Beach , Palos Verdes - and ultimately caused the death of 14,000 Americans [evacuated to FEMA trailers]. People were especially annoyed that Disneyland had to be closed for decontamination. Oh, the humanity!

And so, in the midterm elections, conservative Republicans regained control of both the House and Senate, and the rest is history. Considering the previous 1,431 words we can only hope so

The impeachment proceedings against President Obama for "failure to protect and defend" were swift and nearly unanimous. Once again, the GOP shows the Dems how to git 'er done! Vice President Sibelius resigned. Newly-elected Speaker of the House, J.C. Watts, became the 45th President of the United States . Excuse me - SNORT!

But you know the rest of the story well. Elected conservatives finished the war on Islamic fundamentalists, largely by aiming ICBM's at Mecca and Medina. That'll learn 'em! No Democrat has been elected President since Obama. See video below

Conservatives have held both Houses of Congress. Correct history of Western Civilization and Economics are now taught in all public schools, and in English only. Marriage is defined as one man and one woman. And there are border fences, north and south Marvelous - our transformation into a continental version of East Berlin is complete

We old codgers remember the ancient Confucian curse: "May you live in interesting times." Well, 2010 was an interesting year, but it was not a good year to be President.

Same as 2008, where certain morons think that a fantastic, simplistic reiteration of a "speech" given 25 years from now creatively and accurately provides insight to where America is/ought to be heading.

This kind of shit is what tends to make me disappointed in Obama's "hands across the aisle/purple state America" vision (which in my humble opinion is too far right), because I have a hard time believing these people will ever take their heads out of their asses no matter how much you foist reason upon them.

For You, “Rick”:

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Labels: analysis, Assholery squared, Bush, fiction, humour, Kucinich, Lies and Lying Liars, Obama, politix

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The gentleman from Ohio rises to the occasion and he has it right - "The House is not in order."

That Rep. Kucinich intended his opening proclamation to be so metaphoric of our nation's current condition is debatable, but it is highly relevant to the 35 articles of impeachment he presented against George Bush this evening (Raw Story has an article, C-Span video and partial transcript HERE).

UPDATE: A pdf version of the entire 65-page document is HERE

WTG, DK! Bush smugly says history will be his judge, and this will be one of the main reference points for the historians. It is in fact an excellent capsule. Thirty-five articles: torture, fraud, rendition, war crimes, obstruction, the Bill of Rights, the Constitution and international law. He’s throwing every book he can find and I say BULLY!

What are the chances that this gains traction? Perhaps very slight, but I don’t think Dennis has any illusions about what he’s doing. Perhaps I gush a bit, but I'd like to think his contemporary 35-part summary is being posted for posterity as forceful as Luther's 95 theses were attached to the Wittenburg gate. Maybe he could tack them to Nancy Pelosi's forehead.

Now some (maybe most) Democrats are saying the primary objective is to elect Obama president, and I don't dismiss that sentiment out of hand. By pursuing impeachment now the Democrats will at least help fill the insatiable news void and show that they are actually doing something, that being to stand up for the rights of law. Think about it - Congress goes after the criminals and Obama goes after the heir apparent to the familia. It could also put the entire GOP on their heels trying to save their own ass and not allowing them to sharply focus on going after Obama. And what could better bring along B.O.'s call for change than to pursue not only throwing the bums out but convicting them and incarcerating them as well? Hell, it should be part and parcel of every Democrat's House and Senate campaign this fall, and for what it's worth would be a huge bandage (with antibiotic ointment) on the sore they've left me with in the past year and a half.

I exhort you to call The Madam Speaker at (202) 225-0100 to let her know you want impeachment back on the table. She just might take to it now that the wife of the last impeached president is not going to be her party's nominee this year.

Hit it, Neil!

Labels: Bush, histoire, impeachment, Kucinich, politix, terms of enragement

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"In remembrance of the 4,000 brave men and women who sacrificed everything for us -and the two men who would continue this great tragedy, despite the cost to our soldiers, our military, and our nation. "

- Nico Pitney at Huffington Post

Senator John McCain looks to be the Republican Party's nominee for president, so in the interest of helping undecided voters who may be considering a pull for the GOP this November, let’s examine some facts* about the Senator’s record on the Iraq war. While McCain has presented himself as a maverick and a critic of the war, a close read shows that his position has consistently matched that of the Bush administration.

Before The War:

McCain said that a policy of containing Iraq to blunt its weapons of mass destruction program is “unsustainable, ineffective, unworkable and dangerous.”

“I know that as successful as I believe we will be, and I believe that the success will be fairly easy, we will still lose some American young men or women.” [CNN, 9/24/02]

McCain co-sponsored the Use of Force Authorization that gave President George W. Bush the green light - and a blank check - for going to war with Iraq. [SJ Res 46, 10/3/02]

McCain has constantly moved the goal posts of progress for the war—repeatedly saying it would be over soon. “But the point is that, one, we will win this conflict. We will win it easily.” [MSNBC, 1/22/03]

McCain argued Saddam was “a threat of the first order, and only a change of regime will make Iraq a state that does not threaten us and others, and where liberated people assume the rights and responsibilities of freedom.” [Speech to the Center for Strategic & International Studies, 2/13/03]

McCain echoed Bush, Cheney and Rumsfeld’s rationale for going to war. McCain: “It’s going to send the message throughout the Middle East that democracy can take hold in the Middle East.” [Fox News, Hannity & Colmes, 2/21/03]

During The War:

McCain echoed Bush, Cheney and Rumsfeld’s talking points that the U.S. would only be in Iraq for a short time. “I believe that this conflict is still going to be relatively short.” [NBC, Meet the Press, 3/30/03] “It’s clear that the end is very much in sight. ... It won’t be long...it’ll be a fairly short period of time.” [ABC News, 4/9/03]

McCain praised Bush’s leadership on the war. McCain: “I think the president has led with great clarity and I think he’s done a great job leading the country...” [MSNBC, Hardball, 4/23/03]

McCain voted against holding Bush accountable for his actions in the war. McCain opposed the creation of an independent commission to investigate the development and use of intelligence leading up to the war in Iraq. [Vote # 284, 7/16/03]

McCain defended Bush’s rationale for war. Asked if he thought the president exaggerated the case for war, McCain said, “I don’t think so.” [Fox News, 7/31/03]

McCain praised Donald Rumsfeld two weeks after the Abu Ghraib prisoner abuse scandal broke in April 2004. Asked if Rumsfeld can continue to be an effective secretary of defense, McCain: “Yes, today I do and I believe he’s done a fine job. He’s an honorable man.” [Hannity and Colmes, 5/12/04]

McCain repeatedly supported President Bush on the Iraq War - voting with him in the Senate, defending his actions and publicly praising his leadership.

At the 2004 Republican National Convention, McCain, focusing on the war in Iraq, said that while weapons of mass destruction were not found, Saddam once had them and “he would have acquired them again.” McCain said the mission in Iraq “gave hope to people long oppressed” and it was “necessary, achievable and noble.” McCain praised President Bush on the war “For his determination to undertake it, and for his unflagging resolve to see it through to a just end.”

“The terrorists know that this is a very critical time.” [CNN, 6/23/04]

“Overall, I think a year from now, we will have a fair amount of progress [in Iraq] if we stay the course.” [The Hill, 12/8/05]

“We’re either going to lose this thing or win this thing within the next several months.” [NBC, Meet the Press, 11/12/06]

McCain opposed efforts to end the overextension of the military that is having a devastating impact on our troops.

McCain voted against requiring mandatory minimum downtime between tours of duty for troops serving in Iraq. [Vote #241, 7/11/07; Vote #341, 9/19/07]

McCain was one of only 13 senators to vote against adding $430 million for inpatient and outpatient care for veterans. [Vote #98, 4/26/06]

McCain has consistently opposed any plan to withdraw troops from Iraq, repeatedly voting against a timetable for withdrawing troops from Iraq [Vote # 322, 11/15/05; Vote #182, 6/22/06; Vote #181, 6/22/06; Vote #182, 6/22/06; Vote #182, 6/22/06; Vote #252, 7/18/07; Vote #345, 9/21/07; Vote #346, 9/21/07; Vote # 362, 10/3/07; Vote # 437, 12/18/07; Vote #438, 12/18/07]

McCain called proponents of a congressional resolution opposing the troop surge in Iraq intellectually dishonest. [Associated Press 2/4/07]

McCain has consistently demonized Americans who want to find a responsible way to remove troops from Iraq so that we can take the fight to al Qaeda.

“I believe to set a date for withdrawal is to set a date for surrender.” [Charlotte Observer, 9/16/07]

McCain continues to maintain that the occupation of Iraq is a good idea. “The war, the invasion was not a mistake.” [Meet the Press, 1/6/08]

McCain has been President Bush’s most ardent Senate supporter on Iraq. According to Michael Shank of the Foreign Policy in Focus think tank, John McCain was at times Bush’s “most solid support in the Senate” on Iraq. [Foreign Policy in Focus, 1/15/08]

Asked if the war was a good idea worth the price in blood and treasure McCain said, “It was worth getting rid of Saddam Hussein. He had used weapons of mass destruction, and it’s clear that he was hell-bent on acquiring them.” [Republican Debate, 1/24/08]

The Future:

McCain now says he sees no end to the presence of U.S. troops in Iraq.

“Make it a hundred” years in Iraq and “that would be fine with me.” [Derry, New Hampshire Town Hall meeting, 1/3/08]

“A thousand years. A million years. Ten million years. It depends on the arrangement we have with the Iraqi government.” [Associated Press, 1/04/08]

So please, fence-sitters, don't be responsible for bringing four more years of this nightmare to bear. A hat tip to Archer for the link to the mosaic.

* source: VoteVets.org

Labels: analysis, Bush, dead bodies, John McCain, Lies and Lying Liars, terms of enragement, violence inherent in the system, war

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Study: Bush, aides made 935 false statements in run-up to war

WASHINGTON (CNN) -- President Bush and his top aides publicly made 935 false statements about the security risk posed by Iraq in the two years following September 11, 2001, according to a study released Tuesday by two nonprofit journalism groups...

... The overview of the study also calls the media to task, saying most media outlets didn't do enough to investigate the claims.

Read the full story...

P.S. - And Clinton got a blowjob


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Labels: Bush, Lies and Lying Liars, nuff said

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I know that I recently posted about fighting the good fight, but seeing the way the Bush administration gets a pass on every-fucking-thing, I can't help but be feelin' a little Todd tonight.



And instead of putting a countdown ticker in my sidebar, I'm going with one constructive idiot's dedicated method of reminding me/us that the days left to impeach Bush and Cheney are dwindling.

Labels: Bush, politix, protest, Todd Snider

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I am grateful to Aiko Annie for turning me on to SF Gate columnist Mark Morford, and like her I now can't help but link to his masterful progressive commentary.

There's been a lot of outrage fatigue going around in the progressive neighborhoods of Blogovia through which I commute, and in my own household the calmer, smarter half has expressed concern over my anger at all things Bush. To some degree she is justified, and so it was with great relief that I came across this paragraph about outrage that Morford wrote in the above-linked column:

"It is, for me, all about modulation. It is about remembering that outrage does not necessarily equal misery. Outrage does not mean you must wallow in fear and fatalism and yank out your hair and wake up every morning hating the world and hating yourself and hating humanity for being so stupid/numb/blind and wondering how the hell you can escape it all."

Maybe I wasn't as wigged out as all that, but I was definitely considering the next exit toward despair. It's going to take so long to fix this shit, but Morford has inspired me to chill and thereby take stock of my reality to determine a reasoned course for contributing to the restoration with healthy outrage.

Here's how it's done (Keith Olbermann, October 18, 2006 and worth all 8 mins):


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Labels: Bush, journalism, politix, rants, terms of enragement, words

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Regarding my last post on a reaction to Islamic culture in America, I concede up front that radical Islam is currently head and shoulders above any other violent, zealous terrorist sect of any other religion. But we’ve the U.S. has got this “War on Terror” all backasswards. I forthwith strike “we” from my discussions of this as I’m tired of inferring that average citizens share responsibility for this debacle. And while it’s unfortunate that sometimes all we average citizens seem to have left is Monday morning quarterbacking, still I gotta say it takes an idiot of a leader to request that the enemy “bring it on.” Seems to me you should keep your damn mouth shut and bring it to them. If we had wise leaders who didn’t play act success and revel in “shock and awe” but instead rallied the free nations to form an effective coalition of the seriously pissed off, we’d be mopping up the very last of things here in year five.

In 2005 my dropped jaw was lonely among the nodding heads in a room where a certain U.S. senator compared Iraq to the struggle of the American colonists rebelling against Britain in the late 18th century. Yet even leaving that one to wallow in its absurdity, others who have gulped the neocon’s Kool-Aid® in mass quantities have claimed the struggle is on par with our role to liberate Europe and the Pacific from Axis tyranny. Equally absurd (still, it must be mighty tasty, OH YEAH!), but since we just had the luxury of a historical fast forward of 165 years or so, let’s do the run down from there to now.

One big difference between 1941 and 2001 is that the latter came upon us a just a bit more quickly. World War II was raging hard for a couple of years before the U.S. had no choice left but to commit troops. But in watching Ken Burns’ The War I was astounded by the much closer look at the motivation and sacrifice of Americans back then. Not only did the U.S. emerge from the greatest modern economic catastrophe to defeat major industrialized enemy nations on two huge fronts (and contributed vast amounts of materiel to help the Soviets on a third), it produced the most fearful weapon of mass destruction ever imagined, and then paid handsomely to rebuild the countries that it vanquished. Franklin D. Roosevelt didn’t execute the political end of things flawlessly, but he knew the Axis powers were on a tear, and when the hour came at Pearl Harbor he knew it was go and that go was nothing less than balls to the wall. Add to that his leadership qualities that got the essentially complete cooperation and motivation of the nation behind the cause, combined with the luck of developing the A-bomb first, and it was just a matter of time (and bodies) for an Allied victory.

One fact I learned from Burns’ documentary demonstrates the radical shift the country went through in record time: in 1941 U.S. automakers manufactured well over one million cars, while in the three years following only a few hundred new cars were made. The Ford plant in Ypsilanti, Michigan took just a few months to retool for building B-24 bombers, which had more than 10 times the number of parts of a car. At its peak the plant ended up cranking each one out in just over an hour. All I can think to say of that is Fuck. Ing. A.

But within five years of that great and terrible victory America plunged into another conflict that cost it 130,000+ casualties and achieved a mere stalemate that firmed up the roots of the Cold War to drag on for decades. Before two of those decades passed there would be yet another conflict in eastern Asia with American combat casualties in excess of 360,000 and millions of civilians killed or wounded. What happened? Perhaps it was that these conflicts presented a nebulous concept of a cause to fight for, and that American capitalism, in its zeal for wartime profit bolstered by jingoist propaganda to fight communist expansion, got outfoxed by the more nuanced approach of the Soviet Union (who never committed combat troops to either Korea or Vietnam). But O’Tim, Ronald Reagan defeated communism in the end. Um, right... that’s for another post, now run along sonny.

So now we are in the midst of the vaguest war imaginable. Monty Python stalwart Terry Jones put the neo-conceit of the “War on Terror” in humorous perspective. “How is ‘terrorism’ going to surrender?” he wrote in his 2005 book Terry Jones’s War on the War on Terror. “It’s very hard for abstract nouns to do anything at all of their own volition.” On the political side, if George W. Bush had as much acumen for command as FDR had in his fingernail things would be a whole lot different. Ulterior motives have also been the order of the fight against terror, making it far from a just or even credible war and therefore subject to a great probability of failure at worst or readjustments that will take many decades at best. What with war being hell and all, the fight needs unequivocating SOBs like George Smith Patton Jr. and, if you’ll permit a brief throwback to the 1860s, William Tecumseh Sherman running the show, not ambitious executive branch lapdogs like Petraeus and Tommy Franks. Let’s pause here for a couple of juicy quotes from the aforementioned battle-hardened dudes:

“You cannot qualify war in harsher terms than I will. War is cruelty, and you cannot refine it; and those who brought war into our country deserve all the curses and maledictions a people can pour out...You might as well appeal against the thunderstorm as against (the) terrible hardships of war.” - Gen. Sherman, to the city fathers of Atlanta prior to evacuating the populace and burning the city down.

“If everybody is thinking alike, then somebody isn’t thinking.” - Gen. Patton, probably to some subordinate whom he smacked and made cry.

Another part of the puzzle is the media and its lack of curiosity about the neoconservative thinking on how the U.S. should step up its presence in the Middle East. One of the most glaring examples is in a report that neocon think-tank Project for the New American Century (PNAC) released in 2000 called Rebuilding America’s Defenses (the complete report is at http://www.newamericancentury.org/RebuildingAmericasDefenses.pdf). PNAC, which deems itself “a nonprofit, educational organization whose goal is to promote American global leadership,” put forth in this report some startlingly prescient analysis, stating, “While the unresolved conflict with Iraq provides the immediate justification, the need for a substantial American force presence in the Gulf transcends the issue of the regime of Saddam Hussein,” and “The process of transformation, even if it brings revolutionary change, is likely to be a long one, absent some catastrophic and catalyzing event - like a new Pearl Harbor.”

Holy full circles, Batman! That’s some frightening shit. Jones explained how this and other salient facts get the media gloss-over. “The problem with the media is they are primarily owned by corporations, and corporations are pro-establishment. Newspapers and television start using the vocabulary of politicians, and that’s the way bias creeps in.”

PNAC fellow Director Gary Schmitt acknowledged that they were up front about regime change, but maintained that Saddam’s removal was U.S. policy predating the Bush II administration, and that the left had cherry-picked such quotes from the report since its release. “I see it all the time,” he said. What I’m pretty sure was a less common sight for Schmitt and certainly for the mainstream media was any candor about cherry-picked evidence used in the run up to Iraq part deux.

The final piece is us, and I have to strike my previous statement about striking “we” from this discourse, for in the end we are all to blame, not just Bush and his Republican cronies. We’re well aware of this administration’s shortcomings and goings, and so is Congress, who is still taking every opportunity to avoid taking any opportunity to get something done to correct our erroneous course. Can the 2008 national elections bring about any sensible results? Despite my doubts, I’ll be voting, if only to claim my right to 1,400-word rants.

So then enough of that, and on to more important things. In honor of our “War Is Hell” edition, try some XTC and “Sgt. Rock” (complete with that Top of the Pops lip-synching that would give anyone stage fright!):


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Labels: Bush, dead bodies, politix, rants, terms of enragement, turrists, war

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...goes to Vanity Fair's James Wolcott, from The Simple Life: White House Edition:

"Following Abu Ghraib, Katrina, the Valerie Plame scandal, his flyboy showboating on the aircraft carrier with the MISSION ACCOMPLISHED banner as backdrop, the ongoing evisceration of Iraq, and the shaming embarrassment of Alberto Gonzales as attorney general, the majority of us can't wait for Bush to drag himself back to Dodge bearing the invisible stigmata of permanent disgrace to wind down his days in the infernal glow of wildfires heralding the wrath of the global warming he did nothing as president to forestall."

Hell, I'll give Wolcott runner-up this month as well, from the same article:

"The chrome peeled off of Bush's halo as national healer in the post-Katrina tragedy of errors, the commendation 'Heckuva job, Brownie' tied like a tin can to his legacy no matter how they try to paper things over at the future Bush presidential library and car wash."

Nice work, James.
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Labels: Bush, vitriol, words, work, writing

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Here are some random thoughts (I thought about apologizing to any readers who don’t give a crap, but then as they say, "if you’re not enraged, you’re not paying attention").

The bottom line, politically, is that the Bush administration has mismanaged this war beyond repair. I am a from-the-starter and was scratching my head at the split from Afghanistan to go start up Iraq. The neo-cons persuaded the president to go for it, and have gotten it wrong from square one.

In retrospect I believe that, since Iraq was a decision that few (including Congress) seemed willing to turn back from, we should've instituted the draft. The spirit was there to build up the forces necessary, but then we would've needed leaders who knew what the fuck to do with the mightiest army on the planet. My best guess is that Rumsfeld and Bush, even if they truly believed in the WMD theory, knew that invasion was a half-baked plan but simply hoped that we, as the hand of the Almighty, would prevail. When I say our leaders squandered a lot of goodwill in the world, I hear it argued that if other countries can't stick with us beyond just the sympathy phase of 9-11, then fuck 'em. But if we had leaders who were really looking out for the security of the citizens, I think we would be pursuing a much wiser spending of $430 billion (so far), with the world on our side and Al-Qaeda on the run if not already vanquished. I don’t know - is this naïve?

I am officially tired of the phrase is “freedom isn’t free.” It gets bandied about nearly as much as “they hate our freedoms” and “we fight them there blahblah...” I was recently reading excerpts from Ronald Reagan’s White House diaries. He wrote that after the terrorist truck bombing of the Marine barracks in Lebanon, a father of one of the deceased asked him whether what we were in Lebanon for was worth his son’s life. The president did not write about what answer he may or may not have given. Leaders send the rank and file to die “for our freedom.” I put that in quotes because, while no grave decision is cut and dried, since World War II the U.S. has been cowboying about with military and covert operations with nary a care for how the big boot of karma will come back around to swiftly kick our ass. The use of our military strength to enforce political views has cheapened the lives of citizens who’ve become soldiers, ostensibly to protect our country from physical threat. Such is the case again in Iraq, so when people say “freedom isn’t free,” if the time and place is appropriate I try to remember to say “I agree,” then ask them if they think what we’re there for is worth the cost of lives of parents, brothers, sisters or friends. When it comes to that aspect of our freedom, I’d like to see our nation economize a lot more.

Labels: Bush, giant douche, Iraq, politix, rants, shit sandwich, war

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click HERE to embiggen

Labels: Bush, Doonesbury, Iraq, nuff said, politix, war