BottleOfBlog

Be Afraid. Be Very Afraid...

This is perhaps the worst, most embarrassing moment in the history of the United States.

This guy is not even pretending to address facts and argue a position.  He is simply saying completely untrue things, without shame, to the nation.

I have never seen anything like this. 

He isn't even trying.  He is completely making things up.  Repeatedly.  He is repeatedly saying things that are objectively untrue.  Things that are easily proven to be untrue.  Things that have already been proven to be untrue.

This is the worst thing I've ever seen on television, in a government building.

This is the biggest liar who has ever resided within the White House.

I didn't like this guy before tonight.  But he's upped the ante.  He's upping it with each new paragraph.  This is appalling.  This is a new low for a guy who's set records for "lowering expectations".

I've watched this guy deliver any number of "sincere" addresses to this nation which turned out to be untrue in ways that cost this country hundreds of billions of dollars and thousands of lives.  But this might be the worst one he's ever delivered.

Considering the disasters the others resulted in, what, in the name of all things holy, do you imagine this one might result in?

Why We're So Damn Dumb

I’m watching the State of the Union on ABC, and just now some blithering talking head said, “There’s the Chief Justice John Roberts, and the newest Chief Justice Alito, which is a tremendous victory for President Bush…”

You can argue about this and that, but you have to admit, it is a tremendous victory for Bush to be the first president to nominate--and have confirmed--two Chief Justices to the Supreme Court.

For our entire history, we've only had one Chief Justice.  But Bush, in the last year, has successfully nominated two!  At the same time!

It isn't only an amazing political feat, but it promises to be totally awesome and interesting TV viewing, watching our several Chief Justices battle it out for who's Cheiftest!

Prime time TV.  All America.  And this is the kind of subtle Constitutional nuance that we get from our "liberal" media.

Stop Me Before I Lower The Tone In Washington Again

WASHINGTON - Heading into Tuesday's State of the Union address and the beginning of the 2006 political season, President Bush faces an electorate that continues to be dissatisfied with his job performance, increasingly wants U.S. soldiers to come home from Iraq, and believes the Republican Party is associated more with special interests and lobbyists, according to the latest NBC News/Wall Street Journal poll…

The poll, however, contains a slice of good news for the Bush administration: A small majority approves of the administration’s controversial use of domestic wiretaps without a court order to track calls between terrorist suspects and U.S. residents. But a majority also believes that these wiretaps could be misused.

The survey, which was conducted from Jan. 26-29 of 1,011 adults and which has a margin of error of plus or minus 3.1 percentage points, shows Bush’s approval rating at 39 percent, which is unchanged from last month’s NBC/Journal poll. (Other recent national surveys have shown his approval rating to be slightly higher, in the low 40s.) In addition, only 25 percent say they want to see Bush take the lead role in setting policy for the country, while 49 percent say they prefer Congress…

Hmmm...do Americans really approve of warrantless wiretaps?  It seems like most of them disapprove of this.  Yeah, frame the question in a stupid way, 99% of Americans are going to say, "Tap that ass!"  When you actually ask them if they approve of what Bush is actually doing? 

At least more than half of us say, "Get a warrant, dude."  But, then, why would Bush care about what more than half of Americans say?  Hell, more than half of Americans said they didn't want to see Bush in the White House and he moved in anyway.

In a brief preview of his address Monday morning, after he met with his Cabinet, Bush seemed to suggest he’ll be seeking the middle ground. “I'll do my best to elevate the tone here in Washington, D.C., so we can work together to achieve big things for the American people,” he said.

Oh, Gawd.  Here's Bush again talking about elevating the tone in Washington.  Without mentioning he's been the most negative, most divisive Preznit in the history of our country.  Gee, George, you want to elevate the tone in Washington?

Then shut the fuck up.

Or tell your turd blossom to stick a sock in it and concentrate on beating his federal treason rap.  Instead of making shit up about Democrats.

There is no single thing, in the country, in the world, in the history of the universe, that could elevate the tone in Washington more than George W. Bush and his turd blossom leaving town.

Back By Unpopular Demand

"Clearly the al Qaeda leaders and other terrorists are on the run. They're under a lot of pressure," White House spokesman Scott McClellan said. "We do not negotiate with terrorists. We put them out of business."

We don't negotiate with terrorists.  We put them out of bidness.

Feb. 6, 2006 issue - American officials in Iraq are in face-to-face talks with high-level Iraqi Sunni insurgents, NEWSWEEK has learned. Americans are sitting down with "senior members of the leadership" of the Iraqi insurgency, according to Americans and Iraqis with knowledge of the talks...

The groups include Baathist cells and religious Islamic factions, as well as former Special Republican Guards and intelligence agents, according to a U.S. official with knowledge of the talks…

"We want things from the U.S. side, stopping misconduct by U.S. forces, preventing Iranian intervention," said one prominent insurgent leader from a group called the Army of the Mujahedin…

An assortment of some of Iraq's most prominent insurgent groups also recently formed a "council" whose purpose, in addition to publishing religious edicts and coordinating military actions, is to serve as a point of contact for the United States in the future…

In case you're keeping score at home, those "insurgents"--nee terrorists--are the people who have helped kill two thousand Americans. 

The Very Worst People In The World, Part 2006

President Bush will use his new budget to propose cutting the size of the Army Reserve to its lowest level in three decades and stripping as much as $4 billion from two fighter aircraft programs…

And, no shit, if you can believe it, Bush ran a campaign against John Kerry for cutting defense spending.

Bush campaign spokesman Terry Holt defended the statements made by convention speakers, though he declined to address details beyond supplying the campaign's citations of votes. "Whether it was in the '70s, '80s or '90s, Sen. Kerry has demonstrated a general pattern of hostility to a strong national defense," Holt said…

Cheney, at the time defense secretary, had scolded Congress for keeping alive such programs as the F-14 and F-16 jet fighters that he wanted to eliminate. Miller said in his speech that Kerry had foolishly opposed both the weapons systems and would have left the military armed with "spitballs." During that same debate, President George H.W. Bush, the current president's father, proposed shutting down production of the B-2 bomber -- another weapons system cited by Miller -- and pledged to cut defense spending by 30 percent in eight years…

Asked why the campaign was attacking Kerry for having similar positions as Cheney, White House communications director Dan Bartlett responded: "I don't have the specifics of [when] then-Secretary of Defense Dick Cheney was in charge of the Pentagon, but I think we'd be more than willing to have a debate on whether Dick Cheney or John Kerry was stronger on defense."

Yep, the Republicans heaped scorn on John Kerry for voting for Dick Cheney and George H.W. Bush's defense cuts. And Bush actually ran a television ad showing weapons disappearing on the battle field as they would if John Kerry, who voted with Dick Cheney and George H. W. Bush, became president.

The message was clear:  John Kerry, who actually fought to defend this country, can't be trusted to defend this country because he would vote to cut defense spending.  Which George "I Can't Be Bothered To Show Up For Guard Duty" Bush would never do.

And after finally, allegedly, being elected, what does Bush do?  He cuts defense spending.

Under the plan, the authorized troop strength of the Army Reserve would drop from 205,000 -- the current number of slots it is allowed -- to 188,000, the actual number of soldiers it had at the end of 2005.

Because of recruiting and other problems, the Army Reserve has been unable to fill its ranks to its authorized level.

Army leaders have said they are taking a similar approach to shrinking the National Guard. They are proposing to cut that force from its authorized level of 350,000 soldiers to 333,000, the actual number now on the rolls…

And not just any defense spending.  But he proposes to cut defense spending for the Guard and the Reserve.  And why?  Because he already wrecked them both.

The Joint Strike Fighter engine is being built by General Electric and England-based Rolls Royce, and the plan to dump them as suppliers has triggered intense lobbying, including a handwritten note from British Prime Minister Tony Blair to Bush.

On the home front, the close to $2 billion cut would hit General Electric engine plants, and possibly jobs, in Ohio and Massachusetts and a Rolls Royce plant in Indiana. The proposal would benefit Connecticut-based Pratt & Whitney, which got the original contract for the Lockheed Martin aircraft, and delivered its first engine last month.

I wonder how well Tony Blair sleeps at night, knowing how he trashed his party and his place in history for a guy who won't return his phonecalls and probably laughs at his handwritten notes.

Though, the Pratt & Whitney thing, that probably explains Joe Lieberman.  Or part of him, anyway.

Don't Get Sick

WASHINGTON, Jan. 28 — More than 12 years after President Bill Clinton unveiled his plan to remake the nation's health care system, President Bush is moving the issue once again to the top of the national agenda and is expected to push a series of health care proposals in his State of the Union address on Tuesday.

Where Mr. Clinton was driven by a desire to guarantee health insurance for every American, Mr. Bush is focusing primarily on health costs, which he says are swamping employers and threatening economic growth. Where Mr. Clinton favored a larger role for government, Mr. Bush has a fundamentally different philosophy, built on the idea that placing more responsibility in the hands of individuals will create market pressure to hold down costs…

Or, in other words, where Clinton favored trying to provide health care for everyone, Bush is embracing the "There are only enough lifeboats on the Titanic for people in First Class" approach.  It's a classic case of triage, though you usually only see that kind of thing where the stakes are people's lives, not corporate pre-tax dollars.

But some policy experts, Republicans and Democrats alike, say the Bush proposals, which are built around tax breaks, may further drive up health spending and costs by fueling the demand for health care. Such unintended effects show how difficult it is to apply economic theory to the complexities of the current health care system…

Good Gawd, Almighty.  Bush's proposals are built around tax breaks?  What a surprise!  And I'm sure it's going to be a smashing success!  Just look what his tax breaks did for the United States!  They benefited virtually no one and they turned a two hundred and thirty billion dollar surplus into annual three and four hundred billion dollar deficits!

We won't even touch the fact that "unintended effects" show the "complexities" of our health care system.  Except to say, maybe:  "We're doomed!  Doomed!"

We're talking here about the Master of the Unintended Effect.  The guy who comes to Washington to change the tone and restore honor and integrity to the White House, which results in the most bitter, nasty, partisanship and most corrupt leadership in the history of our country.

The guy who was tired of swatting flies, though he never "swatted" any, and those flies blew up the World Trade Towers.

The guy who invaded Iraq because of it's massive stockpile of Weapons of Mass destruction and the danger of the proliferation of those weapons.  Though, it turned out that Iraq had no weapons of mass destruction, but what weapons it did have, were endlessly looted by terrorists after Bush's invasion to be used to kill Americans.

We're talking about the guy who invaded Iraq to battle terrorists, but whose stupid war has not only resulted in increased terrorists in Iraq, increased world-wide terrorism, but has turned Iraq into a recruiting poster and training ground for terrorists and a net terrorism exporter.

This is a guy who mapped out a road for peace and democracy in the Middle East--because God told him to--and then Hamas comes to power in Palestine, Iranian allied fundamentalist theocrats are consolidating their power in Iraq, and, somehow, amazingly, Bush managed to increase bin Laden's favorability rating among Muslim's all over the world.

The unintended effect is this guy's forte.  It's Bush's unsinkable Titanic, his Achilles heel, it's his telegraphed roundhouse right, it's his three hundred pound fullback on fourth and one, it's Tom DeLay screaming "partisanship" every time he gets investigated or arrested for breaking the law.

If you don't see the "unintended effect" coming with Bush, you're either too stupid to breathe or a member of the Washington Press corps.

Only to the New York Times or the Washington Post, or Chris Matthews is the "unintended effect" Bush's derringer under the table.

As for "complexity", well, this is a guy who invaded an entire country and figured he'd wing the aftermath.

Opening his campaign for "health security," Mr. Clinton said, "Our medical bills are growing at over twice the rate of inflation." He warned that "rising costs are a special nightmare for our small businesses," and that "health care costs will devour more and more and more of our budget."

The Clinton plan died in Congress, after months of criticism from small businesses, health insurance companies and Republicans, who called it a costly, complex "big government" scheme.

Since then, national health spending has doubled, to $1.9 trillion. Health care now accounts for one-sixth of the nation's economy. Medicare and Medicaid, which accounted for 15.5 percent of federal spending in 1993, now consume almost 21 percent.

Good thing those Republicans defeated Clinton's health care reform.  Saved us a lot of money, didn't they?  Whether Clinton's proposal would have worked or not, I have no idea.  But you know what, unlike the Iraq War fiasco, I don't remember the "liberal" media at the time universally discounting Republican opposition because they weren't proposing an alternative.

In Mr. Bush's first term, the number of people without health insurance increased more than a million a year, to 45.8 million in 2004, the last year for which official figures were available…

But employers have been clamoring for policy makers to address the needs of the uninsured. Employers say they indirectly pay for the uninsured, because the cost of their care is factored into the prices charged by hospitals and other health care providers.

And Bush's proposal, which will undoubtably create more uninsured Americans and unpaid medical bills, is going to somehow lower medical costs?  Shit, if Bush does something as awful and stupid as what he wants to do, it's going to lead to hundred of billions, maybe trillions, of uninsured medical costs.

Either Americans will just flat out die from lack of medical attention, or it'll lead to states or average Americans making up the sky-rocketing difference in costs.

How in the world, in the wealthiest country in the history of the earth, governed by the people, did we ever wind up with a reckless, sociopathic aristocrat grinding his heel into the face of the American people?

It's Ironic How Things Keep Turning Out The Way We Expected

Apparently, today is Write About What A Tool Tim Russert Is Day.

I didn't even know.  And I had planned on writing about what a tool he was anyway!  I didn't really have a reason or anything, but he's such a smug, self-satisfied fraud that I plan on writing about him everyday.

I hardly ever do.  But I always figure if there's nothing else to write about, there's Russert.  I mean, other things, you might have to think about.  But Russert?  He does the work for you.

So, again, before I even knew it was Write About What A Tool Tim Russert Is Day, I had planned on writing about what a tool he is.  And when I got up today, I wasn't sure why Tim Russert was a tool or what kind of a tool Tim Russert was, but I was sure Tim Russert, himself, would show me the whole garden catalogue with him in every digging, raking, potting, trimming position.

He's that much of a tool.

And he didn't disappoint:

Tim Russert: [The Hammas victory] is a major boulder in the roadmap to peace.  There’s no doubt about it. It has set the process back several years from where it was just 24 hours ago.  The Israelis won't negotiate with Hamas because they’re calling for the destruction of Israel.

There’s always a risk when you have a free election.  When your side wins, it's good news, but sometimes the other side wins.  It’s kind of interesting and a bit ironic that President George W. Bush’s mission of having free elections take place in the Middle East turns out this way.

Democracy can sometimes be very complicated.

Hahahahahaha!

And that's why he makes the big money!  "Democracy can sometimes be very complicated."

That's the kind of keen insight into politics that makes him the Washington Bureau Chief for NBC.  Not any dumbass on a bus, or in a diner, or cutting your hair at the mall could possibly draw on history, current events, human nature, and their limited range of human contacts to tell the American people that, "Things can sometimes be very complicated."

Doesn't this remind you of that incredibly uncomfortable talk you had with one of your parents when you were twelve or thirteen, and they discovered a pornographic magazine under your bed, or read something in your diary, and came into your room, all red faced and awkward, and hemming and hawing, and you didn't want them to talk to you about what they didn't want to talk to you about and then, after saying a bunch of things which were incredibly embarrassing to both of you and made no sense to either of you, finally, that parent sort of coughs and looks at the ceiling and says, "Things can sometimes be very complicated..." 

And then they bolt from your bedroom.

There's Tim Russert:  our national uncomfortable and totally uncool dad.

And, though he knows we children of our American democracy are getting fucked for money like runaway teenagers from Indiana who end up in Hollywood with no money and a meth habit, he would prefer to not discuss why it's wrong.

"It's complicated...what's happening to you..."

But my favorite thing he says is:

"It’s kind of interesting and a bit ironic that President George W. Bush’s mission of having free elections take place in the Middle East turns out this way."

No, Tim, it isn't interesting.  It's a fucking disaster.  If by interesting, you mean, "wasn't it interesting how those Trade Towers imploded?"   Well, then, yes, it's interesting.   Otherwise, it sucks.  It's about the worst thing that's happened to the mid-east since H.W. layed the pipe to Barbara.

And it isn't ironic at all.  Again, I don't believe in irony, but even if I did, this sure wouldn't be ironic to me.

I mean, my understanding of irony involves events which result in the suprisingly unexpected.

Why would it be even the least bit ironic that free elections which are the result of George "I Lost The Election But I'm Still President" Bush's mission end in a catastrophe for the archetect of the Roadmap For Peace, which he drew after launching an unprovoked, unjustified war in the mid-east?

Why would it be ironic at all?  Bush is the inverse Midas monkey. Has Bush ever done anything that ended in the result he said it would?  Ever? 

He promised investors millions.  He bankrupted their bidnesses. 

He said he was tired of swatting flies, and those flies blew up the Trade Towers.

He said he would smoke bin Laden out of his hole, and bin Laden, five years later is still on the loose. 

He cut taxes to increase revenue, and turned a two hundred and thirty billion dollar surplus into an annual three to four hundred billion dollar deficit. 

He proposed the biggest Medicare reform in the history of the program, and it's costing states and seniors three or four times what they paid before his idiotic "reform".

He said he would restore honesty and integrity to the White House, and the highest ranking official in the history of the nation has been indicted for compromising national security.  While very nearly every single high ranking member of his party is under investigation for fraud, bribery, or some other form of corruption.

Bush said he was a "uniter" not a divider.  And this nation is more divided than it's ever been.  In fact, polls have shown that we're equally divided on how divided we are.

Bush invaded Iraq, allegedly, to battle terrorism, but, because of his Iraq War, worldwide terrorism has grown and Iraq, formerly a nation without terrorists, is not only teeming with them, but it's exporting them now to other countries.

Hell, Bush invaded Iraq because the country was overflowing with Weapons Of Mass Destruction and it turned out that Iraq had no WMDs.

Bush rejected the Clinton approach to containing North Korea's nuclear ambitions, and, today, North Korea not only has more nuclear weapons than during the Clinton years, but North Korea is exporting its nuclear and missile technology.

And on and on and on.

What's ironic???

Is there one single result in Bush's life or political career that even remotely approximated his claims?

Don't bother thinking about it.  The answer is:  No.

If Bush promised you something, and he delivered, that would be ironic.

And I don't expect Tim Russert to come out and say that.  I don't expect the New York Times or The Washington Post or the major networks to flat out say that every single thing Bush has told the American people has ultimately turned out to be the exact opposite. 

But I would expect the Washington Bureau Chief of the National Broadcasting Company, who hosts his own show every Sunday morning, to, in some way, explain why it would be, after six years of what ordinarilly would be termed "ironic" failures, that the latest predictable, horrendous failure by the Bush administration is somehow "ironic".

I mean, again, it's only ironic if it doesn't happen that often.  It if always happens, it isn't ironic.  It's pathetic.  It's stupid.  It's mindboggling.

But it's not ironic.

What's ironic is that the Washington Bureau Chief of the National Broadcasting Company, despite a six year unprecedented record of failure, doesn't bother to mention that this kind of horrific result is, well, par for the course. 

Six years into the Bush administration, and, hardly anyone, aside from Hammas or bin Laden, or the RNC, can really claim to have benefited at all from the politics of George W. Bush.

And that isn't ironic.  And Tim Russert never mentions it at all.

Can't Stop Not Making Sense

WASHINGTON (AP) -- President Bush defended anew his program of warrantless surveillance Thursday, saying "there's no doubt in my mind it is legal."

Good Gawd.  Why do statements like this from Bush continue to carry any weight at all???  Why are they even worthy of being reported? 

There was no doubt in Bush's mind that he was gunna smoke bin Laden out of his hole and bring him back dead or alive.  There was no doubt in Bush's mind that his tax cuts were going to increase gubmint revenues.  There was no doubt in Bush's mind that Saddam had weapons of mass destruction and that Saddam was about to just give 'em away to his tearist allies.  There was no doubt in Bush's mind that Harriet Miers was a super cool nominee for the Supreme Court.  There was no doubt in Bush's mind that no one in his administration had anything to do with outing Valery Plame.  There was no doubt in Bush's mind that God had drawn him a road map to peace in the Middle East or that Freedom was on the march in Palestine and Lebanon.

It's really not a question of whether there's a doubt in Bush's mind.  The question is really whether there's anything in Bush's mind.  A doubt.  A thought.  The sound of the ocean, if you press your ear against his ear.  Whatever.

So, there's no doubt.  Big deal.  There isn't anything else either.  He's got a big, dumb hollow head.  You couldn't carve him on Mount Rushmore unless you discovered some giant helium pocket right underneath the granite.

You know why he doesn't have any doubt?  Because he's too stupid and lazy to read anything except My Pet Goat.  He might have a doubt, if he ever read anything, like PDBs, or NIE reports, or the Constitution, or reports from Congress, or even newspaper articles like this:

"A report by Congress's research arm concluded yesterday that the administration's justification for the warrantless eavesdropping authorized by President Bush conflicts with existing law and hinges on weak legal arguments...The 44-page report said that Bush probably cannot claim the broad presidential powers he has relied upon as authority to order the secret monitoring of calls made by U.S. citizens since the fall of 2001…The report also concluded that Bush's assertion that Congress authorized such eavesdropping to detect and fight terrorists does not appear to be supported by the special resolution that Congress approved after the Sept. 11, 2001, terrorist attacks, which focused on authorizing the president to use military force."

But he doesn't know anything, and he doesn't read anything, and he doesn't listen to anyone who doesn't think he's the most brilliant man in the world, so he remains doubtless and thoughtless, and our Ignoramus In Chief.

Asked if he would support efforts in Congress to give him express authority to continue the program, Bush cited what he said was the extreme delicacy of the operation.

Isn't that a fucking hoot?  Bush says he isn't interested in express authority from Congress because of the extreme delicacy of the operation.  It's amazing.  Bush is amazing in his capacity to generate horse manure from a human man's mouth.  Bush can't go through Congress because this program is too top secret.  And, yet, here's what he said at a press conference about this same program:

Do I have the legal authority to do this? And the answer is, absolutely. As I mentioned in my remarks, the legal authority is derived from the Constitution, as well as the authorization of force by the United States Congress...

This program is carefully reviewed approximately every 45 days to ensure it is being used properly. Leaders in the United States Congress have been briefed more than a dozen times on this program...

We have been talking to members of the United States Congress. We have met with them over 12 times. And it's important for them to be brought into this process…

And we're guarding the civil liberties by monitoring the program on a regular basis, by having the folks at NSA, the legal team, as well as the inspector general, monitor the program, and we're briefing Congress…

We're talking to Congress all the time, and on this program, to suggest there's unchecked power is not listening to what I'm telling you. I'm telling you, we have briefed the United States Congress on this program a dozen times…

And we'll continue to work with the Congress, as well as people within our own administration, to constantly monitor programs such as the one I described to you, to make sure that we're protecting the civil liberties of the United States.

Yep, that's right.  In a press conference, on the White House website, Bush says Americans shouldn't be alarmed at this totally illegal program and why?  Because he, Bush, is working with Congress, and he's briefing Congress, and he's talking to Congress all the time, and because Congress has already given him express authority to conduct this program.

Ow, ow, ow, my head.

One more time, in case you're a Republican and shit like this escapes you:  Bush is saying he has express authority from Congress for warrantless surveillance, that he's completely informing Congress about his warrantless surveillance, and that he's working with Congress on this warrantless surveillance.  But at the same time, he rejects the need for express authority from Congress to conduct warrantless surveillance, to inform Congress about his warrantless surveillance, or to work with Congress on warrantless surveillance.

It's gets better.

"But it's important for people to understand that this program is so sensitive and so important that if information gets out to how we run it or how we operate it, it'll help the enemy," he said. "Why tell the enemy what we're doing?"

Yes, why tell the enemy?  Without express authority from Congress, al Qaeda could never imagine that the NSA might be trying to monitor their phone calls.

"Let me give you an example about my concerns about letting the enemy know what may or may not be happening. In the late 1990s, our government was following Osama bin Laden because he was using a certain type of telephone. And then the fact that we were following Osama bin Laden because he was using a certain type of telephone made it into the press as the result of a leak. And guess what happened? Saddam -- Osama bin Laden changed his behavior. He began to change how he communicated…

And again, I want to repeat what I said about Osama bin Laden, the man who ordered the attack that killed 3,000 Americans. We were listening to him. He was using a type of cell phone, or a type of phone, and we put it in the newspaper -- somebody put it in the newspaper that this was the type of device he was using to communicate with his team, and he changed. I don't know how I can make the point more clear that any time we give up -- and this is before they attacked us, by the way -- revealing sources, methods, and what we use the information for simply says to the enemy: change."

Okay, nevermind for a second that this is complete and utter bullshit, just accept it as one of the few things that exist as a fact in the magical Candy Land inside Bush's skull, like he's a War President, that he's a Straight Shooter, that he's a Texas rancher. 

It doesn't matter that it's complete nonsense.  It only matters that it came out of the national Air and Space Museum we call the Presidential Skull.  Maybe he believes it.  Maybe not.  It doesn't really matter, because it's that dumb and that dishonest.

The President is telling the American people that he's reluctant to get express authority from Congress--the People's representatives--because it might tip off the "enemy" to what we're doing.  And what we're doing is listening to telephone calls.

And, to give an example of how dangerous it would be to allow Congress to authorize wiretaps, Bush gives a horseshit story about how bin Laden, nearly a decade ago, learned the United States was monitoring his phone calls and then stopped using his phone.

Does anyone or everyone get how stupid what this jackass is saying is?

Again, it's a bullshit story.  But Bush pretends to believe it.  Ten years ago, bin Laden learned that the United States was monitoring his phone calls and stopped using his phone.  Therefore, Bush is reluctant to get express authority--which he also claims he already has--from Congress to monitor phone calls because al Qaeda, which was alerted to NSA phone call monitoring a decade ago, might become aware of NSA phone call monitoring.

Get it?

Maybe I'm looking at this all wrong.  I mean, after all, Bush is saying he sees no reason to alert the "enemy" to phone taps.  I'm just assuming he's talking about al Qaeda.  I'm giving him the benefit of the doubt.  Maybe I shouldn't.

More than a dozen current and former law enforcement and counterterrorism officials, including some in the small circle who knew of the secret eavesdropping program and how it played out at the F.B.I., said the torrent of tips led them to few potential terrorists inside the country they did not know of from other sources and diverted agents from counterterrorism work they viewed as more productive.

"We'd chase a number, find it's a school teacher with no indication they've ever been involved in international terrorism - case closed," said one former FBI official, who was aware of the program and the data it generated for the bureau. "After you get a thousand numbers and not one is turning up anything, you get some frustration…"

But in bureau field offices, the N.S.A. material continued to be viewed as unproductive, prompting agents to joke that a new bunch of tips meant more "calls to Pizza Hut," one official, who supervised field agents, said.

I mean, when Bush says the "enemy", maybe he means it in the true aristocratic tradition--the rabble, the commoners, the People. 

No need to tell them what you're up to.

Still Don't Know Now What We Didn't Know Then

WASHINGTON (CNN) -- Defense Secretary Donald Rumsfeld on Wednesday disputed a Pentagon-commissioned study that warns the Army needs more troops for Iraq and Afghanistan, telling reporters the service is nowhere close to its breaking point.

The study by Andrew Krepinevich, a military analyst and former Army officer, found that the Army's manpower needs for those conflicts "clearly exceed those available for the mission…"

Rumsfeld said he has not read the study but took issue with its conclusions.

And that's what you really look for in a Secretary of Defense in a time of "war":  a guy who doesn't read reports commissioned by his own Pentagon, but amazingly is still able to conclude those reports are wrong.

In other words, Donald Rumsfeld can't define pornography for you, but he knows it when he doesn't see it.

With this guy in charge, it's frankly a miracle how well the Iraq disaster has gone.

"There isn't any reason in the world why we shouldn't be able to maintain -- with an active and reserve total-force concept of 2 million people -- why we shouldn't be able to maintain 138,000, even though I don't expect we will maintain 138,000 in Iraq," he said.

No reason in the world, huh?  Nothing?  At all?  How about...

The 136-page study warns that the strain on what it called the Army's "thin green line" -- not the improvement of Iraqi and Afghan forces -- are driving plans to withdraw some troops in 2006. Rumsfeld called that "just false."

Apparently, a Pentagon commissioned report managed to fill up one hundred and thirty six pages without coming up with one single reason why we can't maintain an army of occupation in Iraq for a dozen years, or so.

I don't know which is more amazing--that the Pentagon could issue a 136 page report that says nothing or that Rumsfeld, without reading it, can confidently say it's false.

I don't know why we should doubt Donald Rumsfeld about this.  I mean, after all, he didn't read a bunch of other stuff, which he proclaimed to be false, as well, and nothing bad happened then.

For instance, he didn't read the reports from the CIA which argued that reconstructing Iraq was likely to be difficult and result in armed opposition:

Veterans of other conflicts soon identified security as the most important requirement for early relief and long-term stability…

Similarly, the intelligence agencies, especially the CIA, were "utterly consistent in arguing that reconstruction rather than war would be the most problematic segment of overthrowing Saddam," a senior administration official said. In classified written and oral reports, the official continued, the intelligence community warned the administration "early and often" about obstacles U.S. authorities were likely to face.

In particular, the agencies repeatedly predicted that Hussein loyalists might try to sabotage U.S. postwar efforts by destroying critical economic targets, the official said. One analysis warned that Iraqis "would probably resort to obstruction, resistance and armed opposition if they perceived attempts to keep them dependent on the United States and the West."

Those concerns, however, were secondary among the principal architects of the Iraq policy, who were concentrated in the Defense Department…

Without reading that, Rumsfeld determined such concerns were false.

And Rumsfeld also, without reading, determined that the State Department's exhaustive "Future of Iraq" project report, which predicted an armed insurgency and detailed the necessary steps to reconstruct Iraq, was also false.

The circle of civilian Pentagon officials given the task of planning the occupation was small. From its early work, it all but excluded officials at State and even some from the Pentagon, including officers of the Joint Staff.

"The problems came about when the office of the secretary of defense wouldn't let anybody else play -- or play only if you beat your way into the game," a State Department official said. "There was so much tension, so much ego involved."

The Pentagon planners showed little interest in State's Future of Iraq project, a $5 million effort begun in April 2002 to use Iraqi expatriates and outside experts to draft plans on everything from legal reform to oil policy. Wolfowitz created his own group of Iraqi advisers to cover some of the same ground.

Defense rejected at least nine State nominees for prominent roles in the occupation; only after Powell and others fought back did Rumsfeld relent. Tom Warrick, leader of the Future of Iraq project, was still refused a place, at the reported insistence of Cheney's office.

In fact, not only did Rumsfeld not read the Future Of Iraq project report, but, hell, he didn't even read the memos telling him he should read it:

One month before the U.S. invasion of Iraq, three State Department bureau chiefs warned of "serious planning gaps for post-conflict public security and humanitarian assistance" in a secret memorandum prepared for a superior…

Many senior State Department officials are still bitter about what they see as the Pentagon's failure to take seriously their planning efforts, particularly in the "Future of Iraq" project…

In the memo, the three bureau chiefs offered to provide technical assistance to help the Central Command develop new plans to ensure law and order as well as humanitarian aid after the invasion…

What else did Rumsfeld tell us was false without even bothering to read?  Concerns by his Chief of Staff that several hundred thousand troops would be needed to occupy Iraq and that the occupation might be prolonged:

A senior administration official who briefed reporters Monday on condition of anonymity said Rumsfeld "has right along said that he thought that fighting was likely to last weeks, not months." Rumsfeld told troops last month that "it could last, you know, six days, six weeks. I doubt six months." Rumsfeld also contradicted the Army chief of staff, who told the Senate that "several hundred thousand" troops would be needed to occupy Iraq. "Far off the mark," Rumsfeld said.

Far off the mark.  Just false.  What else did Rummy tell us was just plain old false, and far off the mark and a waste of time even thinking about?

WASHINGTON (CNN) -- The number of U.S. troops that would be required to administer Iraq after a U.S.-led military campaign is "not knowable" because of the large number of variables in how a conflict might unfold, Secretary of Defense Donald Rumsfeld said Thursday…

He also said it "makes no sense to try" to come up with cost estimates for a war in Iraq because the variables "create a range that simply isn't useful."

However, Rumsfeld said the post-war troop commitment would be less than the number of troops required to win the war. He also said "the idea that it would take several hundred thousand U.S. forces, I think, is far from the mark."

In September, White House economic adviser Lawrence Lindsey estimated the cost of a war at more than $100 billion. After Lindsey was asked to resign in December, Mitch Daniels, the director of the Office of Management and Budget, said it was impossible to know how much a war might cost…

A report from the Congressional Budget Office released last fall was far more modest in its estimate of the cost of war with Iraq. That report said it would cost between $9 billion and $13 billion to deploy troops to Iraq and that it would take up to another $9 billion a month to run the war.

Everything, Rummy tell us, is not knowable, flat out false, far off the mark, and a waste of time to even think about.  The only source of information, according to Rumsfeld, that's reliable at all is Rumsfeld's mouth.

And, yet, Lawrence Lindsey wasn't all that far off the mark.  And Shinseki, today, is looking like Casandra.  And how about those monthly costs for Iraq?

The Pentagon is spending nearly $5 billion per month in Iraq and Afghanistan, a pace that would bring yearly costs to almost $60 billion. Those expenses do not include money being spent on rebuilding Iraq's electric grid, water supply and other infrastructure, costs which had no parallel in Vietnam.

Not quite the nine billion the CBO said, but then again, we don't really know the true cost for Iraq. 

As a result, the survival rate among Americans hurt in Iraq is higher than in any previous war - seven to eight survivors for every death, compared with just two per death in World War II.

But that triumph is also an enduring hardship of the war. Survivors are coming home with grave injuries, often from roadside bombs, that will transform their lives: combinations of damaged brains and spinal cords, vision and hearing loss, disfigured faces, burns, amputations, mangled limbs, and psychological ills like depression and post-traumatic stress…

…As of Jan. 14, the Defense Department reported, 11,852 members of the military had been wounded in explosions - from so-called improvised explosive devices, or I.E.D.'s, mortars, bombs and grenades…

So many who survive explosions - more than half - sustain head injuries that doctors say anyone exposed to a blast should be checked for neurological problems. Brain damage, sometimes caused by skull-penetrating fragments, sometimes by shock waves or blows to the head, is a recurring theme.

More than 1,700 of those wounded in Iraq are known to have brain injuries, half of which are severe enough that they may permanently impair thinking, memory, mood, behavior and the ability to work.

Medical treatment for brain injuries from the Iraq war will cost the government at least $14 billion over the next 20 years, according to a recent study by researchers at Harvard and Columbia.

Tack on another 14 billion dollars for the last three years, and we're pretty close to nine billion a month.  And I'd bet almost anything that this administration is hiding an assload of other costs for Iraq.  Costs we won't know about until after Bush is back on the ranch, getting brush faced.

What's the point?  I don't even know.

Sure, Rumsfeld, the Secretary of Defense, at a time of "war", can't be bothered to read Pentagon reports about his army, or massive State Department reports about Iraq, or memos about how he isn't reading reports about his army and Iraq, and the cost of all that.

But he's part of the Bush administration.  Not reading important gubment related thingies is apparently a job requirement.  Katrina?  Missed the memo.  WMDs?  Missed that footnote in the NIE.  Reports about terrorists trying to blow up the Pentagon with airplanes?  Didn't read them.  PDBs about bin Laden attacking America?  Bush was on vacation.  That's when he likes to read about salt.

Six years in the White House, the two worst intelligence failures in the history of the world, two fighting wars--neither finished--and a perpetual "War On Terra", which requires rescinding the Constitution, and through all of this, the only thing anyone has bothered to read?

Yep, that's right.  My Pet Goat.

Great.  If terrorists, insurgents, "Saddamists", dead-enders, suiciders, or militant fundamental Islamists attack us with pet goats or salt, this administration is ready to rock and roll. 

But if anyone, anywhere, tries anything that's been thoroughly documented in a thousand page government report, forwarded with frantic memos, and publicly discussed on live TV, we're fucked.  Because there isn't any chance in hell anyone in the Bush administration has bothered to read any of it.

Everyone in the Bush administration takes their cue from the Great Ignoramous.  Their motto seems to be:  "You can only blame us for things we know about.  And since we go out of our way to know nothing, you can't blame us for anything."

Or:  "We're so incompetent and ignorant, we couldn't possibly have known anything.  And it's grossly unfair to suggest otherwise."

And that's fine.  That is the Bush administration.  They don't know shit.  They don't even pretend to try to know shit.  In fact, rather than being embarrassed by it, rather than their utter ignorance of everything that has to do with their jobs being a political liability, the Bushies get on television or testify before Congress and brag about how they don't know anything about anything. 

That's the Bush administration.

But, come on! 

Rumsfeld says something, anything, and your liberal media reports it like it might actually be true?  Has the guy ever been right about anything???  By this time, shouldn't every newspaper story in the country that quotes Rumsfeld include the reasonable disclaimer that, "Rumsfeld said...but he is generally acknowledged to be wrong about everything"?

After all this, Christ, Donald Rumsfeld couldn't convince me that my face was on fire even if he was holding the lighter and spraying gasoline in my eyes. 

Whatever.  Sleep tight America.  Your military is in fine shape.  Donald Rumsfeld says so.

Arch Misdemeanor Mastermind Walks

WASHINGTON — An independent counsel who investigated possible tax violations by former Housing and Urban Development Secretary Henry Cisneros charged Thursday that the Clinton administration thwarted his efforts to get to the truth.

David M. Barrett, appointed in 1995 to investigate potential felonies committed by the one-time Clinton administration secretary released his final report Thursday, but stated clearly he is not pleased with the result.

In a press release from Barrett's office, the counsel complained that "an accurate title for the report could be, 'What We Were Prevented From Investigating.'"

Oh, my gosh!  Another Clinton cover-up!  Those Clintons!  They covered up Hillary murdering Vince Foster.  They covered up Whitewater.  They covered up the dozens of other people they murdered in their savage, cruel, relentless and merciless ambition to create AmeriCorps or raise the minimum wage.

They'd stop at nothing--not even murder--to force Americans to choose to volunteer.  Or not.  Sick fuckers.

Christ, the Clintons even covered up the whole Ruby Ridge fiasco.  Which just shows you how utterly corrupt the Clintons were since Ruby Ridge occurred when George H.W. Bush was president.  But the Clintons covered it up anyway!

That's right.  The Clintons covered up criminal behavior that they had nothing to do with!  They just like covering up crime.  They've never seen a crime that they didn't want to cover up!  They covered up all kinds of shit in Little Rock.  Sometimes it was murder, sometimes it was rape, sometimes it was fraud--sometimes a guy would be double parked in a fire-zone and fucking Clinton would send out his goons and murder the meter maid!

The Clintons didn't care.  If it was a crime, they covered it up.

How the fuck do you think O.J. walked, guilty as that guy was? 

Clinton. 

He covered it up. 

Though, maybe O.J. wasn't guilty.  Hillary might have killed Nicole.  While not her style, a bloody knife murder isn't beyond her.  Christ, in Little Rock, once she ran over a couple of boys with a fucking train.  You think she wouldn't cut somebody's throat? 

What else did the Clintons cover up, you ask.  I can't tell you.  Because they covered it up.  But it was a bunch of stuff.  How do we know?  We know because the Clintons were never indicted for murder or rape, or fraud, or any other crime.  If the Clintons weren't covering up their thirty year crime spree, please explain why they're not in jail?

If the Clintons weren't covering up something, why haven't they been indicted for anything???

One or the other:  either they're guilty of something or they're covering up a crime.  Either Clinton is a felon, or he's a felon.  Pick one.  Which ever you like.  But Democrats can't have it both ways. 

Since Republicans spent about a decade investigating every aspect of the Clintons lives, since they poked through Hillary's panty drawer, since they wanted to see Bill's penis in a line-up, since they spent over a hundred million dollars and thousands of FBI man hours looking into everything the Clintons ever did and talking to everyone the Clintons ever knew, there can be only one reason why every Clinton, including Chelsea, is not in prison for life:

The Clintons covered it up.  All of it.  Stuff they did.  Stuff other people did.  Stuff the Clintons weren't even aware of.  Stuff in the future--Enron?  Iraq? The geometric expansion of Barry Bonds' skull?  The Clintons covered it up.

Though, some people insist on remaining crazy, some people insanely continue to insist that the Clintons didn't cover up anything, despite the damning evidence that the Clintons are still free today:

The independent counsel, David Barrett, was appointed to investigate charges that Cisneros had lied about payments he made to his mistress…

Nonpartisan career lawyers in the department's Criminal Division and in the Tax Division studied the independent counsel's application in great detail over several weeks. They met with his office, reviewed documents and interviewed witnesses. Each of them concluded that, with the exception of a single year's tax return, there were no reasonable grounds to investigate Cisneros for tax violations.

These career lawyers found that the independent counsel's submission was full of legal and factual errors. For example, the independent counsel claimed that Cisneros had failed to report over $100,000 in income during 1991, but he was unable to produce evidence that there was any unreported income at all…

The conclusions of the career lawyers were reviewed in detail by other officials including myself, up to the attorney general. Every single lawyer in the Justice Department who reviewed this matter concurred in the analysis. As a result, Barrett's jurisdiction was expanded to permit him to investigate one tax year, for which there was barely adequate evidence -- although as it turned out, he never brought any tax charges.

Ironically, jurisdiction to investigate one year's tax violations in effect permitted the independent counsel to investigate all tax years. Under established legal principles, evidence of conduct in one year can be relevant to show tax evasion in another year. Everyone at the department recognized this; apparently, the independent counsel did not…

It is the independent counsel's behavior that warrants examination here. His completely unfounded investigation into the alleged obstruction of justice lasted over six years and cost the taxpayers tens of millions of dollars -- even though the issue was simple and straightforward, and even though the statute of limitations expired during his investigation.

This guy spent nearly nine years and twenty million taxpayer dollars investigating a "crime" that the defendant had already pled guilty to. He spent twenty million taxpayer dollars investigating a "crime" that resulted in, years ago, a misdemeanor plea.  He continued to investigate it after the guilty plea.  He continued to investigate it after the Statute of Limitations expired.

He gave himself a cushy job for ten years, at taxpayer expense, investigating a misdemeanor that had already been pled out.

And at the end of all that?  He accuses criminal mastermind, Bill Clinton, of thwarting his investigation.  Without proof.  And, in fact, he makes this accusation despite ample proof that he had access to whatever he stupidly wanted.

Twenty million dollars.  A decade.  Bupkis.  Nothing but wingnut, unsubstantiated Clinton coverup crap.  And he was investigating a crime.

You know what the crime is?  A twenty million dollar, ten year fraud at the expense of the American taxpayer.  We paid for it.  We got shit for it.  And the guy can't justify it at all.

If anyone should be sitting at the defendant table, facing twenty years in prison, it's Barrett.  This sonofabitch just ripped you and me off to the tune of twenty million dollars. 

The Brinks job was two and a half million.  Lufthansa was six million.  Barrett?  Twenty million.  And he'll walk.

A couple things here:

One, insane right wingers, and by that I mean "Republicans in Congress", keep telling you that your taxes are so high because Ronald Reagan's imaginary Welfare Queen is driving around in a Cadillac and humping out extra kids for cash.

There has never been a single Welfare Queen who ever took the American taxpayer for twenty million dollars.  I doubt all the imaginary Welfare Queens in the history of public assistance have taken the government for twenty million dollars.  But, even if they have, they've never done it with the full backing of every single Republican in Congress.

Two, insane right wingers have been telling us for twenty years that our taxes are so high because those darn liberals in Congress keep spending our hard earned money.  And, hey, you know, liberals in Congress do spend our hard earned tax money.  But you know what they spend it on?

Us.

You know what "fiscally conservative" Republicans in Congress spend our money on?  I don't either.  You know why?  It's all fucking secret.  Private security contracts.  National Security contracts.  Military contracts.  Hundreds of billions of dollars.  Without open bids.  Gone.  Sometimes literally.   And that's when Republicans aren't pissing away hundreds of millions of dollars investigating the Clintons--which, again, they did for a decade and produced not one single felony indictment.

Christ, Democrats can't hold a single hearing in Congress, they can't demand a single independant prosecutor, and the highest ranking public official in a century has already been indicted.  With zero hearings.  With zero FBI or Justice Department help.  And yet these bastards are so corrupt that high ranking administration officials are being indicted, Tom DeLay has been indicted, "Duke" Cunningham has already pled guilty, and the whole Abramhoff thing is about to explode.

Too bad they weren't nicer to the Clintons when they had the chance.  Otherwise, the Clintons could cover everything up and save their guilty asses.

Too late, bitches!  You're on your own!

And, three, if the Clintons were so freakishly good at covering up every crime from rape, to murder, to fraud, to tax evasion, with the entire Republican Congress looking into it, with the FBI interviewing every person the Clintons ever knew, with dozens of Congressional hearing--if the Clintons were that good...

Well, fuck, what the hell were conservatives bitching about?  If what they're saying is true, the Clintons were the smartest people who ever lived in the White House.  If they can murder dozens of people, commit rape and fraud and whatever else, and do it all under the microscope of what was the '90s liberal media? 

They're super geniuses! 

Bill Clinton?  He shouldn't be President.  He should be King or Grand Moff or Karl Rove.  Clinton should run everything.  He's that goddam smart.

And, unlike Karl Rove, Clinton would beat the rap.

He's that good.

And finally, it's just a fucking hoot to listen to conservatives, from the asshole at the diner, all the way up to the asshole in the Rose Garden, bitch and moan about how the gubmint is taxing us to death.

You want lower taxes?  A good place to start would be stopping fiscally conservative Republicans from running our gubmint.  A good place to start would be stopping fiscally conservative Republicans from throwing away a hundred million taxpayer dollars to investigate a misdemeanor plea and a shitty real estate deal.

A great place to start would be stopping fiscally conservative Republicans from turning a two hundred billion dollar surplus into a three hundred billion dollar deficit. 

And if you've got to kill a few people to do it, well, so be it. 

Bill Clinton might be done in politics.  But Hillary's still there, in the Senate.  With her crazy ambitions.  It ain't like she forgot how to kill a few people.

Or get away with it.