Take a look at Wallstreetwinnersonline.com

RickJ

Perhaps I should have been less naive; as I extend my blogging experience, I expect to keep on learning. The 160,148 that I thought was the number of visits to this site — and I was astonished by the lack of feedback — is in reality the number of hits on neo-neocon’s home site, from which sprout a number of tentacles, of which this is one. The fact is that there’s no way — unless I’m making yet another newbie mistake — of tracking the visits to this particular blog — of how many visits are coming here, rather than to ne–neocon in general in all her multitudinous forms, but it’s a safe assumption that not many of them are being directed here.

All right, so it’s not a dialogue but an online diary; I can live with that. It’s been fun.

tequilamockingbird

It’s unpatriotic! Back the President! Rush, are you calling Dick a liar? Your disrespect for the President is disgusting. If you don’t like it, move to Russia. You’re giving comfort to our enemies by opposing the President. You and all your faggot Al Qaeda-loving buddies deserve a taste of life in Gitmo. You’re being taken in by those lying extremist left-wing weirdo media outlets like Fox. Next thing we know you’ll be taking away our guns and forcing us to have abortions. Why do you hate America so much? Can’t you see you’re just a bunch of bitter losers? Bush was vindicated in 2004 — get over it, you crybabies! Stop bitching and do something positive — support the President! You probably cheered when the Twin Towers fell, you anti-Bush scum. You’d support anything to drag the President down! If you’re not with us, you’re against us! You’re not anti-Bush — you’re anti-American!

Peace and love,
tequilamockingbird

I’ve just recently read a scathing report on Powell’s career by Robert Parry from commercialnews.com. Parry claims that throughout his career and his involvement with the My Lay coverup, with the Iran/Contra scandal as chief aide to Caspar Weinberger, and on to the present day, Powell always carefully tries to be all things to all people, deliberately avoiding taking strong stands on controversial positions, as a leader sometimes must.

An interesting read. I knew nothing about Powell’s military career, but I always thought his performance as Secretary of State was cowardly. It became obvious early on in his term that he couldn’t stomach the Neo-Con idealogues in the Pentagon and the White House, and the correct thing to do, ethically and morally, was to resign, something it seems to me was more common years ago. It seems pretty rare nowadays for people to resign on principle.

Well, Retired Army Lt. General William Odom, now a scholar at the Hudson Institute, agrees with me. He said yesterday: “The invasion of Iraq was the “greatest strategic disaster in United States history,” He said the invasion of Iraq alienated America’s Middle East allies, making it harder to prosecute a war against terrorists.

I said it was the worst military decision made by anyone since the Japanese attacked Pearl Harbor.

The U.S. should withdraw from Iraq, he said, and reposition its military forces along the Afghan-Pakistani border to capture Osama bin Laden and crush al Qaeda cells.

“A new inquiry launched in August by the Pentagon’s inspector general finally will answer the family’s questions:

“Were witnesses allowed to change their testimony on key details, as alleged by one investigator? Why did internal documents on the case, such as the initial casualty report, include false information? When did top Pentagon officials know that Tillman’s death was caused by friendly fire, and why did they delay for five weeks before informing his family?

“There have been so many discrepancies so far that it’s hard to know what to believe,” Mary Tillman said. “There are too many murky details.” The files the family received from the Army in March are heavily censored, with nearly every page containing blacked-out sections; most names have been deleted. At least one volume was withheld altogether from the family, and even an Army press release given to the media has deletions.

“The documents contain testimony of the first investigating officer alleging that Army officials allowed witnesses to change key details in their sworn statements so his finding that certain soldiers committed “gross negligence” could be softened.

“A fiercely independent thinker who enlisted, fought and died in service to his country yet was critical of President Bush and opposed the war in Iraq, where he served a tour of duty.

“Tillman’s parents have avoided association with the anti-war movement. Their main public allies are Sen. John McCain, R-Ariz., and Rep. Mike Honda, D-San Jose, who have lobbied on their behalf.

“Drafted by the Arizona Cardinals, Tillman earned a bachelor’s degree in marketing from Arizona State and graduated summa cum laude in 3 1/2 years with a 3.84 grade point average. He worked on a master’s degree in history while playing professional football.

“His 224 tackles in a single season (2000) are a team record, and because of team loyalty he rejected a five year, $9 million offer from the St. Louis Rams for a one-year, $512,000 contract to stay with Arizona the next year.

“Moved in part by the Sept. 11, 2001, terrorist attacks, Tillman decided to give up his career, saying he wanted to fight al Qaeda and help find Osama bin Laden. He spurned the Cardinals’ offer of a three year, $3.6 million contract extension and joined the Army in June 2002 along with his brother Kevin.

“A personal letter from Secretary of Defense Donald Rumsfeld, thanking him for serving his country, now resides in a storage box, put away by Pat’s widow, Marie.

“Instead of going to Afghanistan, as the brothers expected, their Ranger battalion was sent to participate in the U.S.-led invasion of Iraq in March 2003. The Tillmans saw combat several times on their way to Baghdad. In early 2004, they finally were assigned to Afghanistan.

“Although the Rangers are an elite combat group, the investigative documents reveal that the conduct of the Tillmans’ detachment appeared to be anything but expert.

“Tillman’s death came at a sensitive time for the Bush administration — just a week before the Army’s abuse of prisoners at Abu Ghraib in Iraq became public and sparked a huge scandal. The Pentagon immediately announced that Tillman had died heroically in combat with the enemy, and President Bush hailed him as “an inspiration on and off the football field, as with all who made the ultimate sacrifice in the war on terror.”

“Not until five weeks later, as Tillman’s battalion was returning home, did officials inform the public and the Tillman family that he had been killed by his fellow soldiers.

“On April 22, the family was told that Tillman was hit with enemy fire getting out of a vehicle and died an hour later at a field hospital.

“Although there was ample testimony that Tillman died immediately, an Army report — dated April 22, 2004, from the field hospital in Salerno, Afghanistan, where his body was taken — suggested otherwise. While it stated that he had no blood pressure or pulse “on arrival,” it stated that cardio pulmonary resuscitation had been conducted and that he was transferred to the intensive care unit for further CPR.

“On April 23, all top Ranger commanders were told of the suspected fratricide.

“On April 29, four days before Tillman’s memorial, Gen. John Abizaid, chief of U.S. Central Command, and other top commanders were told of the fratricide. It is not known if Abizaid reported the news to Washington. Mary Tillman believes that with her son’s high profile, and the fact that Rumsfeld sent him a personal letter, the word quickly reached the defense secretary. “If Pat was on Rumsfeld’s radar, it’s pretty likely that he would have been informed right away after he was killed,” she said. White House, Pentagon and Army spokesmen all said they had no information on when Bush or Rumsfeld were informed.

“On April 30, the Army awarded Tillman a Silver Star medal for bravery, saying that “through the firing Tillman’s voice was heard issuing fire commands to take the fight to the enemy on the dominating high ground.”

“On May 2, the acting Army Secretary Les Brownlee was told of the fratricide.

“On May 7, the Army’s official casualty report stated incorrectly that Tillman was killed by “enemy forces” and “died in a medical treatment facility.”

“On May 28, the Army finally admitted to Tillman’s family that he had been killed by friendly fire.

“The administration clearly was using this case for its own political reasons,” said the father, Patrick Tillman. “This cover-up started within minutes of Pat’s death, and it started at high levels. This is not something that (lower-ranking) people in the field do,” he said.

“The files show that many of the soldiers questioned in the inquiry said it was common knowledge that the incident involved friendly fire.

“After they received the friendly-fire notification May 28, the Tillmans began a public campaign seeking more information. But it was only when the Tillmans began angrily accusing the Pentagon of a coverup, in June 2005, that the Army apologized for the delay, issuing a statement blaming “procedural misjudgments and mistakes.”

“The Tillmans demand that all avenues of inquiry remain open.
“I want to know what kind of criminal intent there was,” Mary Tillman said. “There’s so much in the reports that is deleted that it’s hard to tell what we’re not seeing.”

“Patrick Tillman drily called the new Army probe “the latest, greatest investigation.” He added, “In Washington, I don’t think any of them want it investigated. They (politicians and Army officials) just don’t want to see it ended with them, landing on their desk so they get blamed for the cover-up.” The January 2005 investigation concluded that there was no coverup.

“Throughout the controversy, the Tillman family has been reluctant to cause a media stir. Mary noted that Pat shunned publicity, refusing all public comment when he enlisted and asking the Army to reject all media requests for interviews while he was in service.

“Mary Tillman said a friend of Pat’s even arranged a private meeting with Noam Chomsky, the antiwar author, to take place after his return from Afghanistan — a meeting prevented by his death. She said that although he supported the Afghan war, believing it justified by the Sept. 11 attacks, “Pat was very critical of the whole Iraq war.”

“Baer, who served with Tillman for more than a year in Iraq and Afghanistan, told one anecdote that took place during the March 2003 invasion as the Rangers moved up through southern Iraq.

“I can see it like a movie screen,” Baer said. “We were outside of (a city in southern Iraq) watching as bombs were dropping on the town. We were at an old air base, me, Kevin and Pat, we weren’t in the fight right then. We were talking. And Pat said, ‘You know, this war is so f— illegal.’ And we all said, ‘Yeah.’ That’s who he was. He totally was against Bush.”

“Another soldier in the platoon, who asked not to be identified, said Pat urged him to vote for Bush’s Democratic opponent in the 2004 election, Sen. John Kerry.

“Senior Chief Petty Officer Stephen White — a Navy SEAL who served with Pat and Kevin for four months in Iraq and was the only military member to speak at Tillman’s memorial — said Pat “wasn’t very fired up about being in Iraq” and instead wanted to go fight al Qaeda in Afghanistan. He said both Pat and Kevin (who has a degree in philosophy) “were amazingly well-read individuals … very firm in some of their beliefs, their political and religious or not so religious beliefs.”

“Baer said Tillman was popular among his fellow soldiers and had no enemies. “The guys who killed Pat were his biggest fans,” he said. “They were really wrecked afterward.” He called Tillman “this amazing positive force who really brought our whole platoon together.
He had this great energy. Everybody loved him.”

“Mary Tillman says that’s how Pat would have wanted to be remembered, as an individual, not as a stock figure or political prop. But she also believes “Pat was a real hero, not what they used him as.”

*************

I’d highly recommend reading the whole article. It goes into considerable detail about the fatal firefight, the failures and mistakes of the leadership, and the coverup.

One part I could scarcely believe was that on Tillman’s death, Anne Coulter called him “an American original — virtuous, pure and masculine like only an American male can be.”

Shades of Josef Goebbels and the Aryan superman, circa 1933-1945! I said earlier Coulter is a lunatic, but fascinating to watch, like a rattlesnake; that remark is somewhat less than fascinating.

Good luck to the Tillman family with the inquiry. I hope everything can finally come out.

tequilamockingbird

The Washington Post reports “The Heritage Foundation, usually respectful of Republican Party officeholders, recently noted that the party’s ascendancy has coincided with an extraordinarily expensive Medicare prescription drug bill, the most costly farm bill in modern history, a 51 percent increase in spending on veterans and an increase in the annual number of pork projects from 6,000 in 2001 to 14,000 this year.

“Who should be held responsible for runaway government spending? Mr. DeLay is certainly a good place to start. His governing principle was not to stand on principle but rather to rain taxpayers’ money on every lobby that could return the favor with campaign contributions. But the biggest responsibility lies … with Mr. Bush.”

On Bush’s reluctance to veto:
“…. Bush has been too cowardly to do that. He is the first president since John Quincy Adams to have served a full term without once exercising his veto, and his second term has so far been no different. This summer Mr. Bush promised to veto the transportation bill if it cost more than $256 billion. His threat brought the bill’s size down quite a bit, but in the end he caved and signed a package that cost $295 billion …. Mr. Bush’s father had the courage to veto 44 bills in four years, and President Ronald Reagan once vetoed a transportation bill because it contained about 150 pork projects. But the bill that Mr. Bush just signed contained at least 6,000 pork projects.

“The president’s defenders plead that it’s hard to veto bills when his own party controls Congress …. President Franklin D. Roosevelt held office at a time of huge Democratic Party majorities in Congress, but that didn’t stop him from vetoing a record 635 bills. Presidents John F. Kennedy, Lyndon B. Johnson and Jimmy Carter also coexisted with large Democratic majorities, yet Kennedy vetoed 21 bills during his short presidency, Johnson vetoed 30 and Carter vetoed 31.”

Well, that’s all bad enough, but how about this. Bush won’t veto barrels of pork, but “… the administration threatened Friday to veto a defense bill if …. it contained language outlawing cruel and inhuman treatment of foreign detainees.”

So he’ll let slide billions in pork, but balks at outlawing torture of prisoners. Lovely man. Lovely administration.

tequilamockingbird

Is there anyone who believes that to be true? It’s an out-and-out lie.

tequilamockingbird

154,899.

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“Among Americans, support for the war continues to dwindle, while growing numbers conclude that troops should be withdrawn partially or completely. Only 32 percent of people surveyed for a CNN/USA Today/Gallup Poll released last week approved of Bush’s handling of Iraq, compared with 40 percent last month and 50 percent earlier this year.

“The survey also showed that 59 percent now consider it a mistake to have sent U.S. forces to Iraq, up from less than half earlier this summer. And 63 percent believe troops should be withdrawn partially or completely, up 10 points from August. Just 21 percent of those surveyed believed U.S. forces would win the war, while 34 percent said they consider the war unwinnable”.

It’s a tragedy that we’re there. History will condemn Bush for putting us there in the first place. The “War on Terror” — an idea supported by civilized people everywhere — was supplanted by Bush’s misguided invasion of Iraq.

It seems a little hard to forgive him his trespasses when you consider the magnitude of the results of his trespasses compared to that of yours and mine. Are there any biblical scholars out there who can justify all the death and destruction our esteemed Commander in Chief has made the decision and chosen to wreak on the innocent Iraqis? I mean civilians, not rebels or insurgents. The civilian death toll — how many died in that pyrotechnical display we saw on TV that was shock and awe? — by the most conservative count is upwards of 20,000, and counting — although nobody’s really counting; they’re just Iraqis, after all.

tequilamockingbird

“If you wanted to reduce crime, you could, if that were your sole purpose, you could abort every black baby in this country, and your crime rate would go down.”

Just to put that in context:

‘He went on to qualify his comments, which were made in response to a hypothesis that linked the falling crime rate to a rising abortion rate. Aborting black babies, he continued, would be “an impossible, ridiculous and morally reprehensible thing to do, but your crime rate would go down”.’

This is the self-righteous pillar of rectitude (a guy with a multi-million-dollar gambling habit, but let’s not cast personal aspersions) who wrote “The Death of Outrage: Bill Clinton and the Assault on American Ideals”; and “Why We Fight: Moral Clarity and the War on Terrorism”, and of course his seminal work, “‘The Book of Virtues’, a compendium of parables snatched up by millions of parents and teachers across the political spectrum.”

Thank you for that, Bill. You’re a moral inspiration for us all.

May I put my hands around your throat?

tequilamockingbird

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Hey, that’s still pretty quick on the draw; Sundance Saddam. It’s something that most countries — though not the U.S., of course — would be proud of. When it comes to a massive WMD attack, what’s a factor of 60 between friends?

tequilamockingbird

tequilamockingbird

Bush lied: True or False?

Well, I guess that depends on what the meaning of “is” is — whoops, sorry; I was thinking about the Master Prevaricator there. I guess it depends on what the meaning of “lied” is.

If you’re presented with a whole bunch of conflicting information, some of which supports your ideological position and some of which doesn’t, and you cherry-pick that information and ignore the opposing view, and then you publicly and forcefully present your side as though it’s definite and uncontroverted — and by doing so, persuade the American public to support a “pre-emptive” military invasion; we’re not talking about some harmless and insignificant exaggeration here — is that lying?

A whole lot of people were convinced by the admittedly very convincing performance of Colin Powell at the UN. Some people who were extremely suspicious of the Administration believed implicitly in Powell.

“It’s a blot,” Powell said. “I’m the one who presented it on behalf of the United States to the world, and [it] will always be a part of my record. It was painful. It’s painful now.”

Powell claims that he believed at the time what Tenet told him, and that he believes now that Tenet believed what his minions told him.

Did Powell lie? Well, not exactly; it depends on what the meaning of the word “lie” is. Did Bush lie? As our friend Rush might say: Ditto. Did Cheney lie? Without a shadow of a doubt, IMHO.

It’s a good thing the insurgency in Iraq is in its last throes.

tequilamockingbird

Isn’t it a great day, and hasn’t it been a great week? DeLay’s indicted; Frist is being investigated; Judith Miller is out of jail and testifying, with possible serious repercussions for Turdblossom or Scooter, or both; and unknown numbers of slimy Republicans are quivering in their Guccis about what Abramoff might spill to the Feds if he pleads. (Just the slimy ones, mind you).

Things are definitely looking up.

tequilamockingbird

I’m leaving the subject of Pat Tillman, though I’ll be back to it, because there’s lots to say. I hope the inquiry gets lots of media coverage. Pat Tillman was a great man, and I don’t blame the Administration for trumpeting his recruitment in the Rangers. Their shameless manipulation of the circumstances of his death is contemptible, but by now, who’s surprised when this Administration does contemptible things?

It brightened my day to see that Tom DeLay was indicted. Now let’s go after the Big Guy — impeach Bush for war crimes.

One of the conclusions of the Nuremberg War Trials was that the principal war crime, within which all other war crimes are contained, is the waging of aggressive war.

The Administration was at great pains to characterize the invasion of Iraq — entirely different from the UN-sanctioned invasion of Afghanistan, now; as always, let’s keep that difference prominent — as not an aggressive but a “pre-emptive” war. The premise was that Iraq was bristling with weapons of mass destruction, and according to British Intelligence, was capable of mounting a WMD attack on Britain within 45 seconds. (Looking back,it seems impossible that naive people were taken in by such transparent lies). Of course, the Administration are soft-pedalling the WMD premise now. When Iraq turned out to have about as many WMDs as Sri Lanka or Costa Rica, they tried to bolster their lies with tales of Saddam’s ties to terrorists and by linking him to 9/11. By now they’re pretty much stuck with the premise that the “regime change” was in order to free Iraq and bring democracy to the Middle East.

Now, tell me, if that indeed was the reason for the invasion (it’s not, of course; we all know that, but the Administration have backed themselves into the corner where that has become the horse they’re backing), then how about some war-crime trials for the waging of aggressive war?

I hope you end up in the Crowbar Hotel, Tom, and I hope you get lots of company from your yet-to-be-indicted contemporary politicians. I’m an equal-opportunity, non-partisan jailer, by the way; there’s lots of room for Democrats back there too.

tequilamockingbird

But enough nonsense. Back to the real world, and a name I’m sure the Administration and the military are sick of by now: Pat Tillman.

After the murk and lies and coverup in earlier investigations into Tillman’s death, there was a new inquiry launched in August by the Pentagon’s Inspector General, and there’s a great article about the subject at sfgate.com.

Really all I knew about Tillman was that he had given up a pro football career to volunteer for the military out of a deep belief in the rightness of the “War on Terror” — heroic by any standards. I didn’t realize he was such an exceptional person (or that he opposed Bush and the war on Iraq).

More on this later — much more.

tequilamockingbird

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Never mind that; if you are opposed to the War on Hurricanes, if you think it’s a tragic mistake on the part of the President and the Administration, you’re an anti-American piece of filth. Support the President and our troops! And let’s not dishonor the memory of the brave soldiers who were sent by the Administration to die on the beaches and who were drowned by the storm surge! We can’t quit now, or it will be a victory for the hurricanes!

tequilamockingbird

tequilamockingbird

Readers may be surprised to learn that I hardly ever read leftist blogs, but I visit the Drudge Report pretty well daily.

Full disclosure: My bookmarks include MichaelMoore.com and Aljazeera — try it! You’ll be surprised — but that’s the extent of my lefty reading, and the fact is that I hardly ever visit those sites. (Aljazeera is particularly good when the U.S. media is focusing completely on some piece of crap like Michael Jackson, and if there was an all-Iraq 24-hour channel, I’d subscribe.)

On Drudge, however, I read Tony Blankley, David Broder, David Brooks, Tina Brown, Pat Buchanan, Bill Buckley, Ann Coulter, Christopher Hitchens, Molly Ivins, Michael Kinsley, Joe Klein, Krauthammer, Paul Krugman, David Limbaugh, Rush Limbaugh, Peggy Noonan, Bob Novak, Bill O’Reilly, Wes Pruden, Andrew Sullivan, Helen Thomas, and George Will. On the “World Front Pages” — which I don’t get to at all lots of times, because I don’t even have time to read the columnists — I read Fox News, Weekly Standard, and WorldNetDaily. If I’m pushed for time, I first read Ann Coulter, Christopher Hitchens, Molly Ivins (my absolute favorite — can’t do without her), and Paul Krugman. (Two left, two right, of the last four). I just this very day read that Phyllis Schafly is a “well-known conservative commentator” — I confess my ignorance; I’ve never heard of her; how do you pronounce that, anyway? — so I’ll check her column out as soon as I’m finished here.

Anyone have any recommendations for
“must read” conservative sites?

Some left, lots and lots of right — I want to know what you guys are talking about. I have my political predispositions, but I really do try to keep an open mind. Ann Coulter, the Limbaugh twins, and Wes Pruden are lunatics, but I find them fascinating, like rattlesnakes. (I’ve read David Corn’s column twice, and he’s the left-wing lunatic equivalent; I won’t go there again.)

Following a link from the leftist pinko faggot Washington Post — oh, I should say that have electronic subscriptions to the WP and the NYT — I came across an article in that bastion of free speech, the National Enquirer, that said that the pressure has got to Bush and he’s drinking again.

If he’s drunk, at least he’s got an excuse for his incompetence. Maybe Boris Yeltsin can visit him at Crawford?

Jose Cuervo, you are a friend of mine …

tequilamockingbird

tequilamockingbird

(And that includes previewing the message.)

tequilamockingbird

All these hits without a comment. Interesting, but puzzling; no?

tequilamockingbird

Exquisite. A new book, “The West’s Last Chance”, by Tony Blankley (I won’t offer any sarcastic comments; we all know Tony’s political views; right?) is reviewed in glowing terms by Pat Buchanan (I won’t offer any sarcastic comments; we all know Pat’s political views; right?).

In closing, to encapsulate the wisdom of the views expressed in Tony’s book, Pat says the following:

“If government does not act, he warns, vigilantes will, but that will not save Western Civilization. An unabashed Atlanticist, he concludes on a Churchillian note:

“‘If the United States and Europe act together as the West, in defense of our common values, we can undo the nightmare scenario of the Islamists and defeat this new threat of global tyranny that is every bit as dangerous as the Nazi threat that the Greatest Generation met and extinguished more than 50 years ago.’”

Tony! Pat! Mes amis! Comrades! Companions in arms! I agree entirely and without reservation! We’re on the same team, guys!

Just one thing: If the U.S. had stayed on course in the war on terror and Islamofascism as a followup to the attack on Afganistan — when “the United States and Europe acted together as the West, in defense of our common values” — instead of veering off into Iraq for Bush’s personal, political, and idelogical reasons, the West would have remained united, and Blankley’s hopes would have been realized.

tequilamockingbird

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tequilmockingbird

The basis for my takeover of your site on the premise that “the energies of the U.S. government should be directed unstintingly toward the masterminds and organizers behind 9/11″ … is far too narrow. As someone once said, back when others participated in this site, the threat is more than just Al Qeada, the organization that allegedly perpetrated the actions of 9/11; the enemy is Islamofascism.

That’s a very much thornier problem, complicated enormously by the fact that although they weren’t in Iraq when W and the boys waged their immoral, illegal, distastrous invision, believe me, baby, they’re there now.

Where do we go from here, N-N? I don’t give a damn if W et al succeed in Iraq — in fact, I hope that thehy fail so badly that W is impeached, prosecuted for war crimes and hauled off to jail, and the whole disgusting bunch of them are discredited for a generation — but I hope that some kind of an Iraqi-agreed consensus can be achieved and the Sunnis, Kurds and Shia can work this out for themselves rather than at the end of a democratic American rifle.

More later.

There’s an aspect to National Guard service that may not be known to younger readers of this blog. Is everyone aware that during the Vietnam War, service in the National Guard was a gold-plated insurance policy against having to serve in combat? That’s not the case now, as the hillbillies and hilljillies (sorry; I just like the expression too much to pass it up) in Abu Ghraib have ably demonstrated. In the Vietnam years, the National Guard did not get sent overseas into combat. No way in the world would Bush have seen combat in Vietnam. He was keeping an eagle eye, so to speak, on any possible offensive from Mexico — or maybe Oklahoma.

tequilamockingbird

“I’ve lived in Europe for the past six years (and, by the way, in Europe we get media reports that I consider more ‘fair and balanced’ than the fearful, obsequious, flag-waving, drum-beating reports that flooded U.S. media after 9/11 — e.g., the pro-Administration reports by Judith Miller in that hotbed of liberal pinko faggots, the NY Times).

Huge mistake. I did not mean “after 9/11″, when my sympathies lay entirely with the traumatized U.S. general public and the media response was just fine, in my view; my reference to “fearful, obsequious, flag-waving, drum-beating reports that flooded U.S. media” referred to their shameful performance beating the drums in late 2002 for an Administration hell-bent on invading Iraq.

tequilamockingbird

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No?

tequilamockingbird

tequilamockingbird

Now that I’m the only participant in this blog, although I see from the counter that thousands of people have visited the site, and the site has become a monlogue rather than a discussion, I’d like you to rename the site and turn it over to me, the de facto owner.

The new name of the site will be “The Sensible Liberal”. The premise will be that the energies of the U.S. government should be directed unstintingly toward the masterminds and organizers behind 9/11 — remember them? Where are they now? When is the last time you heard of any search for them? They’re long forgotten in the shambles that is Iraq.

“Neo-Neocon”? How long will it take for you to acknowledge that this gang in the Administration is a disaster for the U.S. and the world? They were and are wrong. But they are malovelent. You’re a naive dupe.

tequilamockingbird

Wow! What a difference a couple of days can make! Is Turdblossom working his magic again after his bout with kidney stones? (Any of us who have had them can tell you that there’s not much you can do except whimper in pain). For some reason, against all the odds, Bush has done a couple of things right. What’s going on? Two remarkable things have happened.

First, although Bush was two weeks too late in making the speech he did Thursday night in Jackson Square, and five years too late in finally taking responsibility for one of his numerous mistakes and failures, nevertheless, I thought the speech was excellent. If his actions match his words, Bush can turn this around. (It’s going to cost a hell of a lot, though, and some legislators are already balking at the price tag; it can also get sidelined by corrupt and greedy Administration friends — Allbaugh, this means you — who will undoubtedly grow rich on the fat reconstruction contracts, wallowing around in the trough).

Now, let’s not get carried away with adulation for W on the strength of one good speech. I don’t think the speech was Bush’s heartfelt reaction because he’s a good and compassionate person (if that was the case, it would have come two weeks earlier); I think he initially didn’t care because he didn’t realize what a political shitstorm Katrina was going to become, and now he’s into damage control big time. That’s why I suspect that it might be Turdblossom’s work. Nevertheless, it was a good speech.

Even more important was Bush’s performance at the U.N. He was the opposite of the arrogant, blustering bully he was in 2002, when he scornfully addressed the U.N. in his thinly disguised charade of seeking their support for his planned invasion of Iraq. Bolton’s attempt to derail the whole show — why is it not obvious to everybody that the man is a walking catastrophe? — was thwarted by wiser heads, and Bush, in his humble and modest presentation, said three things that amazed me: “We are committed to the Millennium Development Goals”; “I call on all the world’s nations to implement the Monterrey Consensus”; and “The United States is ready to eliminate all tariffs, subsidies and other barriers to free flow of goods and services as other nations do the same. This is key to overcoming poverty in the world’s poorest nations”.

Remarkable! Outstanding!

I can honestly say that in his entire term, I don’t think Bush accomplished anything of value other than — at least for a while — eliminating the Taliban, and we’ll see on Sunday and subsequently if that was truly an accomplishment. (Eliminating Saddam is a benefit, but nowhere near worth the price).

I mean that literally. I believe he’s accomplished nothing. He’s damaged the U.N., Nato, and the E.U.; he’s been a disaster on environmental issues; he’s brought in tax cuts that benefit his wealthy corporate backers and fund-raisers enormously but hurt low-income Americans; he’s turned Clinton’s record surplus into a record deficit and turned the U.S. economy into a basket case; he’s appointed large numbers — not just Brownie and Allbaugh, but dozens — of unqualified supporters to well-paid influential positions; he’s damaged relations with friends and allies so badly that there is no international reservoir of goodwill for Bush’s America; and above all, he’s chosen — chosen — to plunge the U.S. and the world into the disastrous hellscape that is Iraq.

He’s totally unqualified to be president. As I’ve said in an earlier post, if he had a job that suited his ability, he’d be pumping gas in Crawford, Texas. He has no previous lifetime accomplishments — other than sobering up, which is not to be derided. He used family connections to start a couple of oil companies that he ran into the ground, made a bunch of money on inside trading that was borderline then and would definitely be illegal today, was given a baseball team to play with, and used family and political connections to smear his opponent and wind up as governor of Texas, where the legislature sits — what is it, 40 days every two years? His accomplishments as governor of Texas include signing more execution warrants than any governor in history and granting clemency to Henry Lee Lucas. His lack of intellectual curiosity is astounding; he reads Mad Magazine and Sports Illustrated and watches ESPN. I wonder if he’ll do any book reports on that “reading list” he supposedly accomplished on his vacation. He said he was reading an Elmore Leonard novel — my guess is that that’s about as intellectually challenging as his reading gets. His holiday briefing in August 2001, which included an item titled something like “Bin Laden Intends to Strike Inside U.S.”, was six double-spaced pages, because he doesn’t like to read anything longer. (I’d be willing to bet that an equivalent briefing for Clinton would be 40 or 50 pages, single-spaced). I’ll grant you that Kerry is no prize pig, though I think he’d be better than Bush, but Al Gore, the man deprived of the presidency by Bush Sr.’s Supreme Court, is far superior to W — as a politician and as a man.

That speech in New Orleans — if backed up by action — and that expression of support for the Millennium Development Goals, the Monterrey Consensus, and the Doha Round — if backed up by action — are, in my opinion, the only good things he’s done.

Well done, W! You’ve been a terrible president for five years, but you did a couple of things right this week.

tequilamockingbird

“Hatred” is not a word that I would use to describe my feelings about W, but “disgust” and “contempt” come to mind.

Here’s a little anecdote for you. As I’ve said in earlier posts, I’m a Canadian who has been, generally speaking, pro-American all my life. I’ve lived in Europe for the past six years (and, by the way, in Europe we get media reports that I consider more “fair and balanced” than the fearful, obsequious, flag-waving, drum-beating reports that flooded U.S. media after 9/11 — e.g., the pro-Administration reports by Judith Miller in that hotbed of liberal pinko faggots, the NY Times).

A Canadian friend called at my house one Saturday morning; we were going to go downtown in our little town in the Netherlands. I came downstairs wearing a Hard Rock Cafe sweatshirt from Washington, DC. (This is the summer of 2000, pre-Bush). He said to me, “Aren’t you worried that people will think you’re American?”

Now, as soon as I open my mouth, at least half the Europeans who hear me think I’m American, probably because American tourists in Europe outnumber Canadians about ten to one. Though I speak pretty close to news-announcer American (Peter Jennings was Canadian, of course), most Americans and almost all Canadians can tell the difference. But the anti-American spirit that underlay my friend’s comment came as a complete surprise to me; after a year and a half of living in Europe, I had honestly never considered the idea that I might be the victim of anti-Americanism.

I replied, “I don’t care if I am mistaken for an American. If I’m badly treated by small-minded Dutchmen because they think I’m American, to hell with them.” (Or words to that effect).

(Incidentally, Canadian troops played a very large role in liberating the Netherlands from the Nazis, so Canadians are especially well regarded there.)

You often hear that “9/11 changed everything.” Well, Bush changed everything. In December 2002, before the Iraq invasion, I sent to Canada for a quantity of Canadian flag emblems and lapel pins that I could wear, with the object of differentiating myself from that contemptible gang in the White House.

The whole world stood with the U.S. after 9/11.