How do I know? The Pope, having finally bothered after three years to visit God’s Greatest People, is now speaking before the general assembly of the United Nations.
Seriously, since Jimmy Carter gets criticized for meeting with members of Hamas, I think the Pope should get some flak for meeting with George W. Bush.
Last night’s 60 Minutes featured a stunning revelation from former Undersecretary of Defense for Policy Douglas Feith; during the run-up to the invasion of Iraq, defense secretary Donald Rumsfeld told Bush that it was possible that the U.S. would not find weapons of mass destruction in Iraq.
OK, to be fair, Feith does not actually say this on camera, but 60 Minutes correspondent Steve Kroft does say, Feith "says even Rumsfeld conceded privately that the U.S. might not find any weapons of mass destruction on the ground. And he told the president so in a memo that outlined all of the things that could possibly go wrong."
It isn't clear if Kroft is getting this from his conversation with Feith and/or Feith's soon to be released book War and Decision: Inside the Pentagon at the Dawn of the War on Terrorism (Harper). I suppose Kroft could be engaging in mischaracterization here, but I can find no evidence that Feith or anyone else has disputed this characterization, which if true is damning. If George and Rummy did not know that they would find WMDs in Iraq then there can be absolutely no doubt that the Bush Administration dishonestly justified the invasion and occupation of Iraq, not that there should be any even before this.
In a world that made sense, a congressional committee or two would immediately subpoena Feith and Rumsfeld and get them to answer questions under oath. Rumsfeld would be asked if had written such a memo or expressed such thoughts and, if so, who would have read the memo or heard him express such thinking. Feith would be asked if such a memo really did exist and who would have seen the memo. Then this committee would gather all named by Rumsfeld and Feith and they would asked if they had seen this memo or heard Rumsfeld say that there was possibility that weapons of mass destruction would not be found in Iraq.
Just as detectives do not wait for months to start conducting an investigation after a crime, these committees should be able to do all of this with great speed. Maybe there would be some legal delays, but that would a cop out if used to justify moving like a Hare at the big Hare vs. Tortoise race. After this is done, I suspect I would start to seriously contemplate whether I should make a onetime only exception to opposition to capital punishment.
But none of this is going to happen. Democrats, who sadly probably make up the vast majority of people who even claim to be opposed to the Bush Administration, do not have much interest in this story. I can find no mention of Feith on the front pages of AlterNet, Daily Kos or Eschaton. There is a post on The Huffington Post on Feith (Lionel Beehner, April 7) but it has nothing about WMDs.
I have a theory that if Bush came out and said, "Yes, I lied about weapons of mass destruction in Iraq and I thought you were all fucking stupid for not picking up on it" that we would be plunged into a national conversation on whether or not it is acceptable for a U.S. President to say "fucking" in public. And if Bush left out that particular profanity, almost no attention would be paid to the statement.
Democrats apparently will take just about anything from Bush, and they will do the same from their own presidential candidates. Over the weekend, Barack Obama campaign spokesperson Jen Psaki said, "John McCain is not a warmonger and should not be described as such" (quoted in AP, April 5). Actually, "warmonger" is an objective description of McCain and people of decency and intelligence would be wary to support the presidential candidacy of anybody who did not agree with this assessment. Suffice to say, the major liberals sites mentioned above are even less interested in this matter than they are in Feith.
Democrats won't stand up to the Bush Administration just as they will not stand up to advocates of Team Bush’s war(s).
I am not sure which is worse.
Sources tell me the assault/demolition of Basra and Sadr City is scheduled to begin as soon as U.S. and Iraqi military officials are done consulting with Janet Reno.
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Iraqis are demonstrating against Maliki and calling for him to resign (The Real News, March 28), but to no effect. These people are excessively ambitious for an American style democracy.
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Great Britain’s Ministry of Defense said yesterday that its Real British Heroes tortured nine Iraqis in September 2003 and that one of these Iraqis died (Kim Sengupta, The Independent, March 28). In other words, Gitmo detainees should stop complaining.
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In light of Dick Cheney's infamous "so" comment last week that he explained meant he did not care what people in the U.S. of A. think of U.S. policy towards Iraq and Dana Perino explaining that Bush didn't care either, I found it a bit odd that Bush gave a speech yesterday trying to justify U.S. policy towards Iraq. Is this just an example of a totalitarian's prerogative to give speeches? Or does Bush actually enjoy coming across as an idiot while knowing that no professional journalist will come out and say this?
I think it is great for America that the governor of the state where all the journalists live has been caught in business dealings with women who prostitute themselves.
This news will discourage regular clients of prostitutes, as well potential news clients, from utilizing these services and instead they will be forced to explain to their lovers and spouses that watching panda porn is the only way they can get aroused. This will bring couples closer together as people try to accommodate the sick perversions of their one and only, or perhaps split them up leading to a necessary realignment. America will eventually be a much happier place as a result.
More importantly, due to decreased demand for their services, men and women will leave the prostituting arts for more lucrative careers in let us say bank robbing. This in turn will lead to an increase in the number of dead bank tellers that is both stark and dramatic. Cemeteries will be forced to expand by purchasing new tracts of land. This will bid up the price of real estate and therefore will end our nation's housing crisis and bring us out of the economic troubles that threaten to make us a place the terrorists won't even bother to want to destroy.
Or, at the very least, Kandy will now believe me when I tell her I am the governor of a state in some other part of the country.
Dear Mr. Nader,
I hate you and blame you for stealing the 2000 presidential election away from the only Vice President cool enough to do a voice on Futurama and keeping a Jewish man from being the veep. Your are the reason are soldiers have died in Iraq and the president is not a smart man. You suck.
I believe a third party would be nice, but now is not the time. Maybe you could do it in 2004 2008 2012 or whenever
Republicans do not exist. You should not run for president this year
because you have already done enough damage and I don't like you and we
have an exciting candidate this time. John Kerry Barack Obama isn't like Al Gore John Kerry. We've got a good progressive candidate this time.
Also, I think you did good things once in your life but now you are just an egotistical, crazy, foolish, evil, senile old man who should be hit by a car after he retires. Oh yeah, you should retire now.
Wait a second, I'm not a Democratic idiot. I think some of the work from my day job as a member of the Democratic Party (yes, I know I should transfer to Wal-Mart, but I find dignity to be overrated) has accidentally been pasted here. So now, with no further delay, here is the irregularly scheduled post...
I'm Micah Holmquist and I am having a hard time deciding what to think of Ralph Nader's officially announced yesterday presidential campaign. I believe that Nader is the best candidate the anti-war left can put forward this year in terms of reaching people, but, at the same time, I do not think he will reach many new people this year.
Four years ago should have been wonderful time for a Nader presidential bid. Congressional Democrats had done very little to keep a check on the Bush Administration and its authoritarian bellicosity –even less than they have done now- and the Democratic nominee was the pro-occupation of Iraq John Kerry. And yet roughly one percent of the presidential votes went to candidates not named Bush or Kerry (AP, November 24, 2004).
Similarly, it seems to me that 2008 should be great for a third party anti-war candidate due to the Democrat Party's established record of not doing much to end the occupation of Iraq even though they control the U.S. Congress. But then I see the vicious attacks directed at Nader by the likes of Joshua Micah Marshall (February 24), John Mashek (U.S. News & World Report, February 25) and the Daily Kos crowd, and I start to believe that Nader’s campaign is unlikely to have any positive progress this year.
That said, perhaps I am really horrible at political prognostication, in which case maybe, just maybe, this current run will help some people see how Democrats and Republicans work together for glories of war.
Two things I would like to see from Nader are more emphasis on the Iraq war and more straightforward denunciations of the Democratic Party as a misnamed party of war. Another is a more confrontational tact with hostile journalists. Take this exchange from yesterday's Meet the Press where, as always, Tim Russert represents every single journalist there is:
MR. RUSSERT: How would you feel, however, if Ralph Nader's presence on the ballot tilted Florida or Ohio to John McCain and McCain became president, and Barack Obama, the first African-American who had been nominated by the Democratic Party--this is hypothetical--did not become a president and people turned to you and said, "Nader, you've done it again"?
MR. NADER: Not a chance. If the Democrats can't landslide the Republicans this year, they ought to just wrap up, close down, emerge in a different form. You think the American people are going to vote for a pro-war John McCain who almost gives an indication that he's the candidate of perpetual war, perpetual intervention overseas? You think they're going to vote for a Republican like McCain, who allies himself with the criminal, recidivistic regime of George Bush and Dick Cheney, the most multipliable impeachable presidency in American history? Many leading members of the bar, including the former head of the American Bar Association, Michael Greco, absolutely dismayed over the violations of the Constitution, our federal laws, the criminal, illegal war in Iraq and the occupation? There's no way. That's why we have to take this opportunity to have a much broader debate on the issues that relate to the American people, as, as, as a fellow in Long Island said recently, Mr. Sloane, he said, "These parties aren't speaking to me. They're not speaking to my problems, to my family's problems."
Nader’s response is fine, I guess. He gives the people of the land of the free way too much credit, but I understand why he is not going to say, "If John McCain is elected, people will deserve what they get."
Still, I would like to see him take a different tact and respond along the lines of, "Well Tim, are you going to ask the Republican nominee how it feels to be yet another good white Christian man trying to keep a darkie out of a job? Or if Hillary Clinton somehow recovers and becomes the nominee are you going to ask the Republican how it feels to be actively working to beat a woman? Moreover, have you ever asked any candidate why they do not want a Lebanese man to be president? If not, shut the fuck up and let me give a speech on important matters."
OK, that probably wouldn't work but I do not believe it would hurt the campaign any and it would get people talking.
Politico (February 8) and ABC 7 (which looks to cover the general Washington DC area) are asking people to submit the questions they would like to see Hillary Clinton and Barack Obama asked. So I figured I would list some that are on my mind…
-Why have you not actively used your position as a member of the U.S. Senate to end the occupation of Iraq?
-Given that you support the death penalty, do you favor a law that turns a president lying in order to justify war into a crime punishable by death?
-What is your opinion of the Federal Communication Commission's enforcement of prohibitions against profane broadcasts?
-Why have you voted for the USA PATRIOT act?
As you can probably gather, I was not trying to be funny with these questions. I wanted them to be inquiries that I would like to hear Clinton and Obama's answers to and yet, while reasonable by the standards of mainstream political discourse, probably will not be asked. Save for one obvious exception, I believe my questions meet these criteria.
Also, if I asked the last question, I would be strongly tempted to add, I mean, why not just come out and say, "the Bush Administration is a fine group of trustworthy fellows?"
With his victory in the caucuses of Iowa and apparent lead in the opinion polls of New Hampshire, Barack Obama has proven that he is the bright, young, youthful, optimistic leader that America needs right now at this moment in time when we need fresh ideas like raiding a Pakistani village and rummaging through all the houses because we have some info suggesting Osama might be there. (I assume that is what acting upon "actionable intelligence" means since nobody seems too interested in finding out for sure.)
The only problem with this endorsement that I can possibly see is that it encourages the bandwagon effect, a little known, rare occurrence where something becomes even more popular as a result of something becoming more popular.
Nonetheless, I have to go with Obama because, unlike Ralph Wiggum, the candidate I'd support if electability were not such an important issue, he is a serious candidate.
The U.S. military has a new program to provide Iraqis with public works jobs, such as in sanitation, with the aim of lessening the appeal of anti-occupation forces (Elena Becatoros, The Associated Press, January 2).
So apparently it took Uncle Sam nearly 70 months to think that maybe, just maybe, Iraqis might like paychecks and non-lethal drinking water.
-Internet usage will fall by at least 50 percent. People will instead spend more time whacking piñatas and reciting poetry. Some people will try to whack piñatas while reciting poetry, but the general public will consider them crazy and rightfully so.
-The most popular television show will be Jenna Bush: From Afghanistan to Iraq. This reality show will follow the first daughter and a 12 year old Afghan girl who lost seven toes to U.S. bombs as they travel from Afghanistan to Iran and then onto Iraq. Along the way, the couple will learn how to cultivate and harvest opium poppies, enrich uranium for peaceful purposes and name a teddy bear according to the dictates of Islamic law.
Given the genre of this show, there will no doubt appear to be sexual tension between the Jenna and the Afghan girl. Whether the two win a mighty struggle to remain professional or this apparent tension was merely the product of creative editing will be a topic hotly debated by the few remaining users of the Internet for the next couple of years.
Whatever the truth of this matter, the penultimate episode of this series will feature Jenna introducing her friend to a nice 13 year old Iraqi boy who is missing six of his fingers and one thumb. The doctors had to cut them off in order to save his life after he had an ugly encounter with some weapons and ammunition left out by Uncle Sam to lure in dangerous terrorists such as this boy. The Afghan and Iraqi kids hit it off and decide to get married.
The final episode shows Jenna, who is now widely known as "the woman every single American would like to fornicate with," going to great lengths to put on an elaborate wedding ceremony. She even arranges for Billy Ray Cyrus' daughter to perform at the proceedings, which are indeed magnificent. For better or worse, the U.S. military accidently bombs the wedding party and kills every non-American there.
Although some see this ending as a bit of a downer, Jenna Bush: From Afghanistan to Iraq is universally regarded as one of the greatest programs in the history of humanity and its ratings far exceed that of every other television show, including the Super Bowl. "This show taught us all how to cry again," Bob Costas will say. "But more importantly it taught us how to love for the first time."
Some accepting gossip magazine sold at supermarkets to people with no shame will intend to publish a story about how the Afghan girl, who like her late husband will never be named in the tv series due to security concerns, was pregnant before the two got married. Bill O'Reilly will rail against this publication and the authorities will step in and crush the magazine.
-A Republican will win the 2008 presidential election in the land of the free. In unrelated news, New Zealand will experience a violent revolution.
-NASCAR baffles everyone when it hires Ikue Mori and Tom Waits to collaboratively compose and record a new theme song for the automobile racing organization. There is some acrimony between Mori and Waits over whether Marc Ribot should record a fierce electric guitar solo or play a banjo in an odd rhythm, but the end result, which features both contributions from Ribot and sounds like the crazy wails of a computer that refuses to believe it is out of date just because it was built in 1994, is one of the most beautiful pieces of music ever.
Attendees at a February pre-race concert see things a bit differently, however, and express great displeasure. All of the musicians on stage -Mori, Waits, Ribot as well as Greg Cohen and Casey Waits- die in the violence that follows.
Such a tragedy is the last place you would expect to look towards for good news, but there will be some. People finally see how awful NASCAR is and they are out of business before the start of baseball's regular season.
Sensing a void, Micah Holmquist Enterprises Inc. Ltd. steps in with the FASTCAR racing league. (FASTCAR will stand for something, although I have no idea what. Can any readers get me in contact with the person responsible for coming up with what the USA PATRIOT Act stood for?) FASTCAR will do things a little bit differently "Because we love auto racing!™"
We will allow drivers to race any kind of vehicle they want and limit their driving only to the limits they set for themselves even as we strictly enforce our rule that weapons may not be fired unless they are contained within, deployed on or otherwise affixed to the racing car. No deviations from this rule will be permitted and our punishments will be harsh.
We will also give our fans a chance to be part of the show. One car will be driven by a needy child bound to die within the next 12 months. We will let them drive the car until they die. Additionally, one lucky racegoer will be randomly chosen to drive another car in the race until they are unable to do so, at which point another more or less randomly challenged attendee will get a shot at the big time.
Most importantly, at the end of each lap, each driver will be required to consume a shot of hard liquor before he, or perhaps even she, can start the next lap. We will have originally intended to require the consumption of a randomly selected hard drug, but will decide that this rule might cause us to run afoul of the law. With alcohol, we will be able to say that "It is the responsibility of each driver to know when to say when enough is enough™."
FASTCAR is a huge success and I become a multi-millionaire as a result. And I certainly do not mean one of those poor multi-millionaires either. I will have enough money so that I can get Keith Olbermann to admit that he enjoys covering celebrity stories even when a comedian does not join him. (Actually, now that I write that, I wonder how much money that would actually take.)
Therefore, I will sell the company in order to become a respectable fraction of a billionaire and to pursue my true calling – going out on a date with Winona Ryder.
-The Republican Party’s vice presidential nominee is Dick Cheney.
President George W. Bush showed why he is one of the greatest living Americans yesterday when, speaking about Lebanon and how it decides who should make up its government, he said, "majority plus one ought to determine who the president is."
What a brilliant statement! President Bush understands that if Lebanon were to model their electoral system after that of the United States of America, we would run the risk that Lebanon might be able to compete with us in the greatest country contest within a few years.
And if we lost that, we would have nothing to be proud of as Americans.
Seriously, Bush comes across in press conferences, like the one where he made the above comment, like he is making up what he is saying as he goes along even as he repeats things he has said in public many times before. So why does he do them?
I suppose there might be some great explanation involving how press conferences allow the media to look tough and feel good about themselves, while Bush's supporters can think that the press is ganging up on the president and thus they feel greater support for Bush.
But what I really believe is that Bush gets sent out there because Cheney finds it funny to see the president look like a complete idiot in public and know that nobody is going to do anything about the actions of the current presidential administration. Reporters will not ask tough questions and demand answers. There won't be any impeachment and congress won’t be cutting off war funds. And there certainly won't be any mass uprisings. If Uncle Sam bombed Iran with nuclear weapons tomorrow, it would probably be a wash for Bush's poll numbers.
Perhaps the only positive out of all of this is that Cheney gets to laugh and that should be good for his health.
