BottleOfBlog

The Man Who Wasn't There, Part III

The Nation -- In the edgiest debate of the Democratic presidential race, Barack Obama and Hillary Clinton repeatedly engaged on Monday night in bitter and at times personal exchanges with one another.

And John Edwards effectively pointed to the heated squabbling between the two frontrunners in anticipation of Saturday's South Carolina Democratic primary as a deviation from the issues that matter…

Clinton accused Obama of doing legal work for a Chicago slumlord and charged that her opponent "did the bidding of the insurance companies" when health care was debated in the Illinois legislature.

Obama told Clinton he was fighting to help workers in Chicago when "you were a corporate lawyer sitting on the board of Wal-Mart…"

Way to go, Obama! Way to go, Hillary! Way to get on a national stage and make a powerful case that Democrats are a bunch of hypocritical stooges for corporate interests!

Karl Rove couldn't have said it better! Or for a bigger audience.

Christ, it's like having Joe Lieberman back in the Democratic primaries. Only worse.

I mean, only centrist Democrats, with their DLC Democratic strategists, could unbelievably make the party, whose leading candidates are a woman and a black man and the son of poor mill worker, look like a bunch of sexists and racists, and corporate lackeys.

In a primary of unprecedented, historical, and progressive firsts--where, for the first time in the history of our country, the two leading candidates for President of the United States were candidates simply as people without regard to their race or their sex--and these two idiots have managed to make race and sex an issue.

They seem unable to stop tarring Democrats as racist, sexist, unreasonable, uncivil hypocrits, all the while singing the praises of Ronald Fucking Reagan.

I can barely stand to listen to either one of them.

The Republicans have handed them this election. It's a Democratic White House. And not because of anything Democrats have done. Lord knows they haven't fought against having troops in Iraq until 2018 and beyond. They haven't fought against that appalling Iran resolution. They didn't fight against that awful bankruptcy bill. If their constituents hadn't howled bloody murder--along with Republicans--Democrats would have "compromised" on privatizing Social Security.

Jesus, Obama was bringing it up even after we shouted it down.

The two of them have no stomach whatsoever to fight the worst Republican president and Congress in the history of our country, but they are ready to go bareknuckled at Democrats every chance they get.

In short order, Edwards had gotten the best of both his opponents. That was the order of the night. Again and again, Edwards took the side of one of the frontrunners against the other, effectively serving as an arbiter between the two.

It was an ideal position for Edwards, the outsider candidate who is struggling to distinguish himself from two opponents with more money and better poll positions.

Not to mention the fact that they, as far as Americans know, apparently exist.

But the former senator from North Carolina had to fight for it. More than half an hour into the debate in South Carolina, where voters will participate in a high-stakes Democratic primary on Saturday, CNN moderator Wolf Blitzer had presided over what was essential a showcase for Clinton and Obama.

"Are there three people in this debate, not two?" interjected Edwards. The 2004 Democratic nominee then delivered what may have been the most effective soliloquy of the night. Referencing the bitter back-and-forth between his two opponents, Edwards asked, "This kind of squabbling -- how many children is this going to get health care? How many people are going to get education because of this? How many kids are going to get to go to college because of this?"

"I respect both of my fellow candidates," he continued, "but we have got to understand this is not about us personally. It's about what we are trying to do for this country,'

Of course, Blitzer interrupted. But Edwards held his ground. "Let me finish here," he said. "Lord knows, you let them go on forever."

The crowd cheered as loudly as it had for anything said by Obama or Clinton.

Anyway, there is actually a liberal media. It's tiny and hard to find. But that's how they saw the debate: Edwards won, while Obama and Clinton continued to act like jackasses who'd throw their own mothers under the campaign bus to get elected.

Course, if you, like most of America, read the corporately owned, conservatively dominated, imaginary "liberal" media, you'd know who the real winner in last night's Democratic debate was:

MYRTLE BEACH, South Carolina (CNN) -- The gloves came off quickly Monday night as Hillary Clinton and Barack Obama traded blows just days before the South Carolina primary, and two weeks before voters in 24 Super Tuesday states weigh in on this wide-open presidential contest...

Still, there was no clear winner in this Democratic slugfest, the most contentious yet, unless you count John McCain, the Arizona Republican senator who took the gold in last Saturday's South Carolina Republican presidential primary.

That's right--John McCain.

And it shouldn't surprise you that a Republican, in a field of really sorry hopeless Republicans, won a Democratic debate. If you recall, back in November of 2007:

He was nowhere to be found on stage, but Rudy Giuliani's campaign shrewdly rushed to declare victory after Tuesday night's Democratic debate in Philadelphia - chiefly because the former New York mayor emerged as the preferred whipping boy among the seven Democratic rivals.

Shrewdly, said your liberal media, approvingly.

In November of 2007, the presumptive Republican nominee was the clear winner of the Democratic debate in Philadelphia. In January of 2008, the new presumptive Republican nominee was the clear winner in the Democratic debate in South Carolina.

With such a pathetically weak and unpopular Republican field, one can only guess which Republican will win the next Democratic debate!

And that's what Democrats are up against.

And neither Obama, nor Clinton seem to notice or care.

In our time, there is a very real struggle for the soul of our country.

And neither Obama nor Clinton seem to want to fight for it.

They want to talk about unity and civility and inclusiveness, and whatever.

Four years ago, the highest ranking military officers in this country were publicly discussing turning our country into a military dictatorship.

In seven years, we've gone from a $230 billion surplus to nearly doubling the national debt.

We have secret prisons, "First Amendment Zones", millions of missing White House emails, billions of missing dollars, two hopelessly mismanaged wars, warrantless wiretaps, we torture people and destroy the tapes.

This is not the time to be all fucking touchy feely.

This is a time to scrap. And not with the people--Democrats--who didn't create this godawful mess.

John Edwards was a lousy Senator. And he was a lousy Vice Presidential candidate. But he strikes me as a man who tried to play the game and wound up getting played himself. And he's a little smarter now, and little bit bitter about it, and a little bit angry about it. And he doesn't need the money, and he doesn't need the fame, and all he wants to do is feel his fingers wrap around the tape.

And we ought to put the bat in his hands.

He might be full of shit. But, honestly, he's the only one promising to swing it.

The End Of The Road

The Gilbert and Sullivan charade of statesmanship played out by George W. Bush and his enabler, Condoleezza Rice, as they wander the Middle East is a fitting end to seven years of misrule. Despots stripped of power are transformed from monsters into buffoons. And this is the metamorphosis that is eating away at the Bush presidency…

It is the end of the road for George Bush. The world takes less and less notice of him. He strutted and swaggered across the stage. He bellowed and raged. He plundered and murdered. And now he wants to be anointed as a peacemaker. His presidency, like his life, has been a tragic waste. But he at least he has a life. There are tens of thousands of mute graves in Gaza, Lebanon, Iraq and Afghanistan that stand as stark testaments to his true legacy. If he wants to redeem his time in office he should kneel before one and ask for forgiveness.

That's Chris Hedges. He wrote a pretty good book.

In 2003, Americans booed him, and turned their backs on him, and shouted him down, and finally unplugged him to shut him up.

Some people in the audience even cried, because he insulted war, which in 2003, was an American value.

Though, you know, everything he said was true.

Dude's spot on again.

Screw 'em Both

Between reinvigorating Bush's Social Security "crisis", and contemplating putting Powell in your cabinet, and pulling this kind of horseshit on a fellow Democrat in a primary...

Bleh.

These are people who've got more stomach to fight Democrats than Republicans.

Vote Edwards.

Any guy who is willing to spend $400 to make sure his fucking hair is right is a guy who'll pay attention to details.

That's a guy who is on top of everything.

And he wants everything done right.

Wouldn't that be a nice change from eight years of a President who didn't pay attention to any details? Even Presidential Daily Briefings?

Oh, and also, Edwards spent a lifetime fighting for people he represented.

And he mostly won.

Obama and Clinton?

They mostly seem to enjoy fighting Democrats and progressives, while doing their best to woo conservatives who hate their guts and will never, ever, ever vote for them.

Enough of that.

Vote for a guy who understands what "represent" means.

And "adversary".

And "win".

Short, Sharp, and Shorter

I don't know where he goes, but when he feels like coming back, the dude is fucking awesome.

This Is All There Is

There is no more:

This is a very touching story about Bush's many weeks of agonized deliberation and careful thought about whether he should pardon Libby or commute his sentence. It is a portrait of a man wracked by the weight of presidential responsibility. It was, after all, among the most important decisions a leader ever makes. A man's life was at stake.

    Because the deliberations were so closely held, those who spoke about them agreed to do so only anonymously. But by several different accounts, Mr. Bush spent weeks thinking about the case against Mr. Libby and consulting closely with senior officials, including Joshua B. Bolten, the White House chief of staff; Fred F. Fielding, the White House counsel; and Dan Bartlett, Mr. Bush’s departing counselor.

    “They were digging deeply into the substance of the charges against him, and the defense for him,” one of the Republicans close to the White House said.

That's truly moving. The president dug deeply into the substance and consulted with many people to determine what the right and just thing to do would be. It's a tribute to his seriousness and his integrity

But it is just a teensy bit odd considering this

    During Bush's six years as governor 150 men and two women were executed in Texas—a record unmatched by any other governor in modern American history. Each time a person was sentenced to death, Bush received from his legal counsel a document summarizing the facts of the case, usually on the morning of the day scheduled for the execution, and was then briefed on those facts by his counsel; based on this information Bush allowed the execution to proceed in all cases but one. The first fifty-seven of these summaries were prepared by Gonzales, a Harvard-educated lawyer who went on to become the Texas secretary of state and a justice on the Texas supreme court. He is now the White House counsel.

    [...]

    Gonzales's summaries were Bush's primary source of information in deciding whether someone would live or die. Each is only three to seven pages long and generally consists of little more than a brief description of the crime, a paragraph or two on the defendant's personal background, and a condensed legal history. Although the summaries rarely make a recommendation for or against execution, many have a clear prosecutorial bias, and all seem to assume that if an appeals court rejected one or another of a defendant's claims, there is no conceivable rationale for the governor to revisit that claim. This assumption ignores one of the most basic reasons for clemency: the fact that the justice system makes mistakes.

    A close examination of the Gonzales memoranda suggests that Governor Bush frequently approved executions based on only the most cursory briefings on the issues in dispute. In fact, in these documents Gonzales repeatedly failed to apprise the governor of crucial issues in the cases at hand: ineffective counsel, conflict of interest, mitigating evidence, even actual evidence of innocence.

The little man who resides in the big White House is a deeply defective human being.  His character, his honesty, and his judgment are so questionable that it is actually frightening that The People of the Great United States have to endure this incompetent sociopath for another eighteen months.

Funny

On the 19th, I'm nothing but ketchup.

Wershington Globetrotters

June 14, 2007 | I returned from Europe a week before President Bush departed for the G8 summit in Germany. In Rome and Paris I met with Cabinet ministers who uniformly said the chief issue in transatlantic relations is somehow making it through the last 18 months of the Bush administration without further major disaster…

High officials of European governments describe U.S. influence as squandered and swiftly eroding (one minister went down a list of Bush administration officials, rating them according to their stupidity), the country's moral authority nil…

Bush's procession through Europe was a pageant of contempt, disdain, delusion, provocation and vanity masquerading as a welcome respite from his troubles at home…

In Rome, on June 9, a reporter asked Bush about setting a deadline for Kosovo independence. "What? Say that again?" "Deadline for the Kosovo independence?"  "A decline?" "Deadline, deadline." "Deadline. Beg your pardon. My English isn't very good." Bush then declared, "In terms of the deadline, there needs to be one. This needs to come -- this needs to happen." The next day, asked when he would set a deadline, he replied, "I don't think I called for a deadline." Reminded of his previous statement, Bush said: "I did? What exactly did I say? I said, 'Deadline'? OK, yes, then I meant what I said."

Oh, God.  Still drunk.  How embarrassing for America.

…And where in the world is Condoleezza Rice? While Bush was in Europe, the secretary of state was at home. Instead of attending the summit, she delivered a speech at the Economic Club of New York, announcing that the new doctrine of the administration henceforth should be called "American realism." Until that moment, we were supposed to refer to it as "transformational diplomacy." Rice, the former realist turned neoconservative fellow traveler, seemed to have come full circle. But what was it exactly that she was doing with her rhetorical adjustment?

…As she shuttles endlessly and meaninglessly, neoconservatives within the White House undermine her foredoomed initiatives. Elliott Abrams, the deputy national security advisor for policy, in briefing a meeting of Jewish Republicans, said that Rice's "talks are sometimes not more than 'process for the sake of process,'" the Israeli newspaper Haaretz reported on May 14. According to Haaretz, "Those attending the meeting of Jewish Republicans understood Abrams' comments as an assurance that the peace initiative promoted by Secretary of State Condoleezza Rice doesn't have the full backing of President George W. Bush."

Elliott Abrams is assuring people that the initiatives of Bush's Secretary of State do not have the backing of the White House.

Incompetence doesn't even begin to describe it.

It's like if you had a basketball team and one guy was trying to put the ball in the hoop, while a second guy was trying to pull the first guy's shorts down, and the third guy was trying to pull up the floor boards, and the fourth guy was trying to take down the backboard, and the fifth guy was underneath the bleachers.

With a bomb.

It's Been A Long Time Coming

WASHINGTON (CNN) -- The House of Representatives on Thursday passed a $96 billion war spending measure, despite a veto threat from President Bush.

You turn the handle, and the funny little monkey dances.

And that is the way it works. 

Bushed

I'm beat.  Been blogging too long.  I need a break before the next stupid war.  But if you're hungry for news:

KABUL, Afghanistan (AP) -- A suicide bomber attacked the entrance to the main U.S. military base in Afghanistan Tuesday during a visit by U.S. Vice President Dick Cheney, killing up to 23 people and wounding 20 more...

"I heard a loud boom," Cheney told reporters. "So, naturally, I just assumed I shot somebody in the face."

I'm going to go dogear my thesaurus right around "incompetent", "corrupt", "dishonest", and "dangerous".

Then, I'll be right back.

On The Upside

In the 110th Congress, the House Committee on Government Reform will be chaired by Rep. Henry Waxman (D-CA).

America's Greatest Congressman finally gets The Big Hammer.

He doesn't look like a bulldog for nuthin'.