BottleOfBlog

Rice Regrets Her Lack Of Intelligence

WASHINGTON – Secretary of State Condoleezza Rice said Sunday she regrets the U.S. relied on flawed intelligence as the basis for going to war in Iraq and took partial responsibility for mismanaging the post-invasion occupation.

Oh, brother.

Aside from the Idiot in Chief, who is likewise taking a much deserved Defeat Lap and saying similarly stupid and nonsensical things, is there anyone as despicable as this woman?

She was the National Security Advisor.  It was her job and her greatest responsibility to assess whether or not the basis for going to war, which she peddled non-stop on every Tee Vee show for months in 2002 and 2003, was flawed.

And the intelligence that was the basis for going to war in Iraq was so flawed that it required the Bush administration to make nine hundred and thirty five public and intentional misstatements and misrepresentations of that intelligence in order to sell the American people on the idea that immediate war in Iraq was necessary.

The intelligence was so flawed that when the Bush administration provided Colin Powell with evidence to present to the United Nations Security Council it was so laughable that even the good soldier Powell threw pages of his speech into the air and declared:  "I'm not reading this.  This is bullshit!"

The intelligence was so flawed that, nine months before the illegal and un-Constitutional war Bush declared on Iraq, the British had determined that it was bogus and being manipulated by the Bush administration.

The intelligence was so flawed and so weak that, just weeks before Bush and his National Security Advisor kicked the weapons inspectors out of Iraq and rushed the United States into a disastrous and unnecessary war, sixty percent of Americans still thought we should give weapons inspectors more time to determine if war was really necessary.  

The intelligence was so flawed that the man who provided it to Bush and his National Security Advisor was disgraced by being forced to accept the "highest civil award given to men and women of exceptional merit, integrity and achievement", the Medal of Freedom.

The intelligence was so flawed that the Chairman of the House Select Committee on Intelligence, whose only job was oversight of our intelligence agencies during the the rush to war, was likewise disgraced by his failure to ensure that the CIA provided reliable and accurate intelligence to the President and his National Security Advisor.  As a result of his  profound and regrettable incompetence, he was appointed to head the CIA.

The Bush administration did not rely on flawed intelligence.  The Bush administration, including Condi Rice, manufactured flawed intelligence.  They made it up, they packaged it, and they sold it to the American people.  And it was still so shitty and weak and flimsy, that after a nine month and mulit-billion dollar media blitz, most Americans still weren't entirely sold on this lemon.

And now Bush and his Magic Eight Ball want to express their regrets at relying on "flawed intelligence"?  They want to act like they were victims of "flawed intelligence"?

Fucking assholes.

We certainly had an "intelligence" failure during the tenure of Bush and his moronic National Security Advisor Rice.  But it didn't involve information gathering.

It involved having having total idiots running our government.

Off To A Great Start

WASHINGTON (CNN) — Sen. Joe Lieberman retained his chairmanship of the Senate Homeland Security and Governmental Affairs Committee Tuesday following a lengthy and often heated debate over what — if any — price the Connecticut Democrat-turned-Independent should pay for his vocal support of Republican Sen. John McCain's presidential bid.

The Senate Democratic caucus, meeting behind closed doors, voted 42 to 13 to allow Lieberman to keep the high-profile chairmanship…
 
"It's all over with," Majority Leader Harry Reid said at a news conference following the vote. "Joe Lieberman is a Democrat. He's part of this caucus."

But Joe isn't a Democrat, Harry.  The Democrats of the state Joe Lieberman represents voted to not return him to the Senate.  Joe only returned to the Senate because Republicans voted for him.  And now Joe is an Independent Democrat, which is something else entirely different from being a Democrat.  It's something that allows you to campaign against other Democrats in the Senate and speak at the Republican National Convention on behalf of a Republican presidential candidate.

And Joe did that while being part of the Democratic caucus. 

So, no, Harry, Joe is not a Democrat.  And I have no idea what supposedly is over.  Does that mean he is going to support his party now that he's part of the Democratic caucus, when he campaigned against his party all this year while he was part of the Democratic caucus?

What is over?  The Democratic leadership pretending to address the concerns of the Democrats they represent?   I suppose so.

Reid dismissed vehement criticism of the decision from elements of the party's more liberal base, which has insisted that Lieberman be punished for failing to support President-elect Barack Obama's campaign…

The party's more liberal base!  There it is!  The hippies, and the nutroots, and the potty-mouthed bloggers!  The wild eyed lefties!  Reid dismissed their criticism!  Because they are crazy!  And they're out of synch with the more centrist mainstream American! 

Joe Lieberman represents Connecticut in the Senate.  Wanna know how the people of Connecticut feel about Joe?

The numbers are worse for Lieberman, a self-described "independent Democrat": 53 percent disapprove and 41 percent approve of his performance. Lieberman could not be reached for comment.  

Fifty three percent of the people in Joe's own state disapprove of Joe's performance.  Okay, but it's been a tough year to be in gubment.  What does that really mean?

Lieberman lost the Democratic nomination, then won re-election as a petitioning candidate. He remains a registered Democrat — though not in the eyes of voters.
 
Fifty-two percent consider him an independent, 22 percent a Republican and just 15 percent a Democrat.
 
Seventy-one percent of Republicans approve of his performance, and 76 percent of Democrats disapprove.

Fifteen percent of all voters in Connecticut, the state Joe represents, consider him to be a Democrat.  A whopping seventy one percent of Connecticut Republicans approve of his performance.  And a monstrous seventy six percent of Connecticut Democrats disapprove of Joe Lieberman's performance.

And Reid dismissed criticism from the party's more liberal base!  All seventy six percent of it!

These are the Democrats Joe Lieberman "represents".  And they hate him and they don't consider him to be a Democrat.  But Harry Reid, and 42 Democratic Senators, dismissed the crazy concerns of that fringe seventy six percent of the party and announced that Joe, despite a year campaigning for Republicans, is a solid Democrat and an asset to the party.

Speaking at the same press conference, Lieberman called the resolution allowing him to keep the Homeland Security chairmanship "fair and forward leaning."

"It's a resolution… of reconciliation and not retribution, and I appreciate it," he noted.

Well, we can all hope Joe Lieberman appreciates it as much as he appreciated Barack Obama campaigning on his behalf in the Connecticut primary.

The best we can take away from this horrendous rebuke to the desires of The People is that, apparently, 42 Democratic Senators are having affairs with their staffers and Joe Lieberman is aware of each and every one.

The worst is that the Democratic leadership is so removed from reality that they actually believe their ineffectual, stupid, weak, and submissive behavior of the last eight years is the reason they are back in the majority.

For myself, I pretty much fear the worst.

Don't These People Ever Get Tired Of Looking Stupid?

Obama thinks he is a good talker, but he is often undisciplined when he speaks. He needs to understand that as President, his words will be scrutinized and will have impact whether he intends it or not. In this regard, President Bush is an excellent model; Obama should take a lesson from his example. Bush never gets sloppy when he is speaking publicly. He chooses his words with care and precision, which is why his style sometimes seems halting. In the eight years he has been President, it is remarkable how few gaffes or verbal blunders he has committed. If Obama doesn't raise his standards, he will exceed Bush's total before he is inaugurated.

That's Monday.  From the Big Thinker of Time Magazine's 2004 Blog Of The Year!

The demented and deranged faithful ask, the high almighty Garblemouth delivers!  Right on schedule:

Nov. 12 (Bloomberg) -- President George W. Bush said he regrets the display of the ``Mission Accomplished'' sign as backdrop for a speech he gave about a month after the March 2003 U.S. invasion of Iraq.
 
``To some, it said, well, `Bush thinks the war in Iraq is over,' when I didn't think that,'' he said in a CNN interview today. ``It conveyed the wrong message.”
 
``I regret saying some things I shouldn't have said,'' Bush said. He cited comments he made after the Sept. 11 attacks, when he said of al-Qaeda leader Osama bin Laden: ``I want justice. There's an old poster out West that said, 'Wanted, dead or alive.'''
 
He also said he regretted telling Iraqi insurgents in 2003: ``There are some who feel like that the conditions are such that they can attack us there. My answer is, bring 'em on.''  

Bush, of course, left out his regrets at nearly and accidently declaring war on China a month into office, getting a good sense of Putin's trustworthy soul, mocking a blind man for wearing sun glasses, invoking a "Crusade" before deploying American troops to Muslim countries, idiotically and bizarrely extolling the virtues of a "peeance and freeance" Iraq on live Tee Vee, flexing his MBA credentials by explaining machines come from a "machine making place", stressing for four years that we have sufficient troops in Iraq before insisting that what we need in Iraq is more troops, promising the American people that anyone involved in the treasonous and national security damaging outing of Valerie Plame as a CIA operative would be fired and then keeping Cheney, Rove, and Libby on the gubment payroll, repeatedly insisting that the U.N. inspectors had been kicked out of Iraq by Saddam Hussein even though they were still in Iraq when Bush announced his intention to attack and invade Iraq, and on and on...

I mean, Christ, Bush says so many stupid things on such a regular basis, there's an entire industry devoted to documenting it.

Everyone in the world knows Bush is an inarticulate, garble mouthed, gaffe machine.

And, still, here's one of the most influential conservative bloggers, without irony or embarrassment, asserting that Bush "never gets sloppy" and "chooses his words with care and precision" when publicly speaking.

It goes a long way to explaining Sainted Ronny Rotten's reputation for his sunny optimism, mythic popularity, and wildly successful presidency, which nearly ended in prison terms for everyone, gubment bailouts, and, until Bush, historic fiscal irresponsibility. 

And what is John Hinderacker's reward for being so willfully idiotic in defense of a president for whom he has an inexplicable and creepy and often laughable man crush on?

The same as everyone else who has ever supported this world class, incompetent, fraudulent turkey.

Honest to God, it's like battered wife syndrome or something.

(Post post:  

Oh, geez, I got so distracted trying to remember just a fraction of the careless, public, and imbecilic things Bush has said that I forgot this great part of the interview:

In the interview yesterday, he said, ``My wife reminded me that, `hey, as president of the United States, be careful what you say.'''

Frankly, I think that's bullshit.  I think that's a really calculated made up thing, like his story about his conversion to Christianity, that Bush or his handlers stupidly thought would make him sound "folksy" and humble--jus' like all ya regular jerks out there, I need the l'il misses to keep me in line!  (wink, wink, smirk)

But whether it's true or more horseshit, it certainly tells you something awful about the man of "remarkably few verbal gaffes and blunders", doesn't it?

Either,  three years into a four year term, after meeting very nearly every important head of state in the world, after engaging the United States in two wars, this cretin had to be reminded by his wife that "hey, as president of the United States, be careful what you say."

Because it either hadn't occurred to Bush that he was the president of the United States or that he should be careful about what he said after three years in office.

Or, after eight years in office, it still doesn't occur to this jackass how horrifying it is to anyone not named Hinderacker that the fucking president of the United States has to be reminded, after three years in office, that he is the president of the United States and, as such, he shouldn't talk like a belligerent drunk at a bar while on Tee Vee.

He thinks that's a good story.

Honestly, by 2012, Hinderacker's penis is going to be rubbed raw from polishing his "Sarah Palin is a master at the concise articulation of the unification of issues beneath her Nobel prize worthy Umbrella Of Job Creation theory" post.)

I'm Actually Going To Miss Her

In Wasilla, Alaska, to vote on Tuesday, Palin sounded like the old governor when asked by a reporter about her future role nationally.

“You know, if there is a role in national politics it won't be so much partisan,” Palin said. “My efforts have always been here in the state of Alaska to get everybody to unite and work together to progress this state ... it certainly would be a uniter type of role.”

Her campaigning was atrocious, even by Republican standards.  She mocked community service at a national convention that devoted an entire night to  community service.  She called her Barack Obama a socialist for proposing a 39% top marginal tax rate, as opposed to the 35% one she was supporting.  She accused Obama of palling around with terrorists.  She maligned a scholar and private citizen.  And she suggested that who you know, who lives in your neighborhood, who your kids go to school with, and what you hear should be considered part of your "record".

She hosted rallies where she happily stirred up such ugly sentiments that her supporters were shouting "kill him" and "traitor" and "treason" and "he's a nigger".  It was so out of hand, McCain had to try to put a lid on it. Even the secret service had to get involved.  Though, she never did.

She talked about "real" Americans.  As opposed to Democrats.

She was briefly and profoundly appalling.  

And she did all that to win an election.  She stirred up that kind of hate and race and class consciousness and divisiveness for purely partisan reasons.

And now she says, if she gets back into national politics, which she just got overwhelmingly kicked the fuck out of,  it'll be in a "uniter type of role".

Jesus Christ.  Can Katy Couric follow up with an exit interview and please ask the question we're all dying to hear the answer to:  "Governor Palin, people want to know:  are you out of your mind?  Do you even have a mind?"

And she doesn't!  Because after just getting thrashed in a national election in a large part because she was so offensive to so many people and because her ticket was rightly associated in so many voters' minds with George W. Bush, who ran as a "uniter" and then governed like he was single handedly trying to tear our great union into the tiniest pieces measurable by astro-physicists, she still thinks it's a good idea for another folksy, vicious, divisive, phony, disinterested, unqualified, incompetent, garble mouthed Republican Governor to run for national office as a "uniter".

Has she not noticed that the current version of that has a 20% approval rating and is likely to be remembered as the Worst President Ever?

If scientists can someday manage to harness the power of stupid, Sarah Palin may actually prove to be the one politician who can pave the way for energy independence for our entire nation.

All by herself.

In A Weird Way, I Wish This Could Somehow Go On Forever

After being ambushed with the "gotcha!" question of "what magazines and newspapers do you read" left Alaskan Governor Einstein looking like a moose in the headlights, she gave it a couple of weeks of hard thought, spent $150,000 of RNC money on a crack team of College Republican periodical researchers, and then took a second shot at a question so impossible to answer it should only be asked by holy men in the Himalayas.

Palin told FOX News on Friday that she reads the same newspapers and magazines as everyone else, "including The New York Times and The Wall Street Journal and The Economist."  

And so, of course, you know what happens next:

For all the shortcomings of the campaign, both John McCain and Barack Obama offer hope of national redemption. Now America has to choose between them. The Economist does not have a vote, but if it did, it would cast it for Mr Obama. We do so wholeheartedly... 

The New York Times, as well, endorsed Mr. Obama.

As expected, the editors of the Wall Street Journal went with Mussolini, for the nineteenth consecutive election.

It was a grotesque lie to throw The Economist in there.  Nobody reads The Economist.  Not even its copy editors.  The thing is so boring it has to be proof read by robots.  

But the moron who thinks health care reform falls under The Umbrella Of Job Creation totally enjoys reading articles about what we can still learn from medieval English landholding and Sahelian nomadism. 

It doesn't really mean anything that she ridiculously lied about reading a magazine that endorsed Obama--I mean, maybe Obama reads the Wall Street Journal.  He probably does.  Because it's a pretty good paper. Except for its Editorial pages, which are insane.

It just made me laugh that she said such a stupid thing.  For no reason at all.  Because not only doesn't anyone read The Economist, hardly anyone has ever even heard of The Economist.  But then, since she stupidly brought it up, now a whole bunch of people have heard about The Economist.

And now a whole bunch of people who never even heard of The Economist are interested in what The Economist has to say.

And what The Economist has to say is:  Vote For Obama!

So Sarah Palin has helped bring yet another Obama endorsement to all kinds of people who never would have heard it otherwise.

If she hadn't lied about what magazines she reads and instead just said, "Um, People. Some porn. That's pretty much it."

She's a nightmare and an idiot.  But she's almost too much fun to send back to Alaska.

Maybe when Barack's president, he can expand the federal government to include a jester.  And he can hire Katy Couric as Secretary of the Jester, and she can, once a week, gather the Washington Press corps to watch her feed Sarah Palin questions, like a Marine World trainer throwing fish to a seal.  Couric could ask her questions like: "Name a whole movie you've seen" or "Is your closet scary at night" or "How many shoes would it take to leave none of your feet without a shoe?"

And then Sarah Palin could answer.

And we could all laugh, and laugh, and laugh!  We'd laugh at the silly things Sarah Palin says!  Every week!

I think that would be good for the nation.  To laugh like that.

Capitalists Share While Socialists Spread

The state that she governs has no income or sales tax. Instead, it imposes huge levies on the oil companies that lease its oil fields. The proceeds finance the government’s activities and enable it to issue a four-figure annual check to every man, woman, and child in the state. One of the reasons Palin has been a popular governor is that she added an extra twelve hundred dollars to this year’s check, bringing the per-person total to $3,269. A few weeks before she was nominated for Vice-President, she told a visiting journalist—Philip Gourevitch, of this magazine—that “we’re set up, unlike other states in the union, where it’s collectively Alaskans own the resources. So we share in the wealth when the development of these resources occurs.” Perhaps there is some meaningful distinction between spreading the wealth and sharing it (“collectively,” no less), but finding it would require the analytic skills of Karl the Marxist.

Yes, the Sarah Palin, who just two months ago was proudly bragging to a journalist about how the people in the state she governs collectively own the resources and share the wealth, has been running around the country calling Barack Obama a socialist.

I don't recall the Obama speech or policy wherein he proposed that under his presidency all Americans, including children, would collectively own the resources of this great land and share in the wealth.

I heard Barack say he'd like policies that spread the wealth around, which, really, isn't much more radical than when corporations pay dividends, or give their employees bonuses.  It's certainly not a departure from the income taxation policy we, Americans, have had since we, Americans, have had an income tax.

And Obama's tax proposals are nowhere near as redistributive as that total communist--and last honest Republican President--Dwight David Eisenhower.  

Seriously, you can look it up.

And while I'm too lazy to look it up, I'll bet you Barack Obama's tax proposals are less redistributive than, yep, Ronald Reagan's.

Okay, I'll look it up.  

Oh, gee!  In seven out of eight years of Reagan's presidency taxes were higher than what Obama proposes! What a surprise!  

Not really.  Since Reagan was such a fervent communist.

At least, according to the proud and popular governor of America's only socialist state.

What do you call a person like Sarah Palin?

I mean, I know she's stupid.  And I call her that.  And I know I'm not alone:

I’m sympathetic to Eskew and Wallace, and not just because they’re decent people. They’ve held their tongue from leaking what a couple of McCain higher-ups have told me—namely, that Palin simply knew nothing about national and international issues. Which meant, as one such adviser said to me: “Letting Sarah be Sarah may not be such a good thing.” It’s a grim binary choice, but apparently it came down to whether to make Palin look like a scripted robot or an unscripted ignoramus.

Apparently, the people who put her on the ticket and worked closely with her and tried and failed to coach her on how to answer such hardball questions as, "What newspapers or magazines do you read?" also think she's a total moron.

And, of course, that begs the question, "What kind of political party puts an idiot like this on their ticket again and again and again and then does its best to hide it from Americans so that our country can be governed by a moron?"

Whatever.

But what's truly abhorrent about Palin is not her stupidity.  Her loose grasp of facts and history, total disinterest in policy, and complete lack of curiosity or understanding about economics, our government, or the world have been pretty much a job requirement for a Republican presidential candidate in my lifetime. 

No, what's grotesque about Palin is that she is a person who believes in nothing and can bring herself to say anything.  And whatever she's saying, even if she knows it's untrue, even if she doesn't personally agree with it, she says it with total, visibly emotional conviction.

She gets fired up!  About just goin' on out there!  And saying things!  She knows aren't true!  You betcha!

And that's a dangerous person.  

I guess that's what you'd call her.

Though, if we, Americans, know what's good for us and our grand democracy, what we'll call her for a few more years is "Governor".  

And then, if we really do right by ourselves, "trivia".

It Makes It All Worthwhile In So Many Hundreds Of Billions Of Ways

BAGHDAD (AP) — Iraq's largest Sunni party said Saturday that it has suspended official contacts with American military personnel and civilians after the killing of a man near Fallujah.

 The Iraqi Islamic Party accused the raid of having a "hidden political motive" in an indication of rising tensions in Anbar province ahead of provincial elections, due to be held by the end of January.

Iraq's largest Sunni party is the Iraqi Islamic Party?  That's great.  Because the Sunni's are the secular Iraqis.  Iraq's largest Shiite party is The Supreme Council For Islamic Revolution in Iraq.

While I think theocracy anywhere, including the kind the nutballs at the Heritage Foundation or the AEI and many other right wing organizations would like to establish here in America, is a sign of insanity, I personally couldn't care less if people in far away countries want to be governed by Zeus or Thor or whatever other crazy Super Hero they think is peering down on us from a Cloud Castle and casting curses and lightning bolts and magically making things happen here on Earth.

If you'd like to think that pouring over the ancient scriptures and prophesies or speaking in tongues or picking through bird entrails or seeking the blessings of Holy Men in super huge stupid looking hats is a better method of coming up with a tax code than, say, using math, have at it.  

It's silly and it's stupid, but normally, as long as you keep your primitive superstitions on the other side of the world, I don't care.

Unless I have to pay for it.

Over twenty thousand American soldiers have been wounded, over three thousand of them have been killed, and about a trillion dollars of taxpayers' hard earned money has been spent so that the Iranian friendly Supreme Council for Islamic Revolution in Iraq can govern the country, while the minority Iraqi Islamic Party can hold anti-American demonstrations.

And we're paying for this.

And what's worse, the Americans who brought us this mess that empowered the Supreme Council for Islamic Revolution in Iraq and the Iraqi Islamic Party and who continue to be this war's most enthusiastic supporters, did and do so because they feared the spread of radical Islamic governments in the Mid-East.

It's insane.

The people who support and continue this war are insane.

Why Libertarians Are So Cute, And Why, By Cute, I Mean Stupid

“In a market system based on trust, reputation has a significant economic value,” Mr. Greenspan told the audience. “I am therefore distressed at how far we have let concerns for reputation slip in recent years.”

As the long-serving chairman of the Fed, the nation’s most powerful economic policy maker, Mr. Greenspan preached the transcendent, wealth-creating powers of the market.

A professed libertarian, he counted among his formative influences the novelist Ayn Rand, who portrayed collective power as an evil force set against the enlightened self-interest of individuals. In turn, he showed a resolute faith that those participating in financial markets would act responsibly.

Does everybody over the age of four understand why "enlightened self-interest" will never, ever, ever cause individuals to act responsibly? If you don't, or if you're age three or less, or a libertarian, I'll give you a hint:

In the first Congressional hearing into the financial crisis, the former CEO of the bankrupt Lehman Brothers, Richard Fuld, became the poster boy for Wall Street greed today as he defended the $484 million he received in salary, bonuses and stock options since 2000.

I know a lot of people who value their reputations. I don't know any people who value their reputations at four hundred and eighty four million dollars.

Given the choice between trust and reputation, and even one million dollars, 99.99% of people are going to take the cash and deal with the shame.

They always have. They always will. And you know why?

Because making enough money to free you from relying on "trust" and "reputation" is the very height of "enlightened self-interest". Why? Because absent regulations, trust and reputation are all that's left of "collective power".

Libertarianism and magic free markets are all well and good, as long as everybody is making fifty to a hundred thousand a year. But once some asshole discovers he can make eighty million a year by wrecking his company, his reputation, and the global economy, well, they're like a "Please Take Only One" sign at a $1.99 All You Can Eat lobster tail buffet.

It's fucking stupid. You have to be an idiot to believe in this stuff.

The Stupidest Girl I've Ever Seen

About a year ago, Barack Obama gave an entirely reasonable answer to a question:

Asked whether he would move U.S. troops out of Iraq to better fight terrorism elsewhere, [Obama] brought up Afghanistan and said, "We've got to get the job done there and that requires us to have enough troops so that we're not just air-raiding villages and killing civilians, which is causing enormous pressure over there."

Any halfway intelligent person would understand that Obama is saying that we require more troops in Afghanistan so that we don't have to rely on air strikes, which are sometimes inaccurate and wind up killing innocent people. And when American air strikes accidentally kill innocent people, it makes the very people we are trying to help angry at the United States and makes the American military's job that much more difficult.

Anybody who isn't a moron or entirely full of shit would understand that.

So, of course, Gubner Shitforbrains, who knows so little about anything that she thinks Afghanistan is in Canada, read or heard those comments and put on her heels and took off her gloves!

“Some of his comments that he has made about the war that I think may — in my world– disqualifies someone from consideration as the next commander in chief.” Palin said, “Some of his comments about Afghanistan and what we are doing there supposedly– just air raiding villages and killing civilians. That’s reckless…”

So you know what happens next. I don't even have to tell you. You just know how this is going to turn out.

WASHINGTON (AP) — U.S. airstrikes in Afghanistan on Aug. 22 killed some 30 civilians, far more than the military has previously acknowledged, defense officials said Wednesday.

A new probe found that the strikes against a suspected Taliban compound in the western province of Herat killed about 30 civilians…

The issue of civilian deaths has caused outrage among Afghans and strained relations with foreign forces there to help fight the insurgency. Afghan President Hamid Karzai has warned U.S. and NATO for years that they must stop killing civilians on bombing runs against militants, saying the deaths undermine his government and the international mission.

That's right. The American military--not Barack Obama--has recklessly determined that American air strikes have killed a bunch of civilians. And the President of Afghanistan--not Barack Obama--has stated that these air strikes, which sometimes kill civilians undermine his government--that's the one we, Americans, support for you Sarah Palin fans out there--and the international mission, which, again, for you Sarah Palin fans, is the one we Americans are fighting for.

And who recklessly asked for this new probe into civilian deaths? Was it Barack Obama?

...[NATO Commander Gen. David] McKiernan ordered a second U.S. investigation into the deaths because pictures and video images surfaced that appeared to show 30 to 40 victims laid out in a village mosque, including at least 10 dead children.

D'oh!

And what has General David McKiernan taken away from these most unfortunate events?

McKiernan has said there aren't enough U.S. ground forces in Afghanistan, so the military is relying more heavily on air power — a greater risk in a conflict where insurgents don't wear uniforms and intentionally mix with the general population for protection.

Oh, geez! Now, in Sarah Palin's world, better known as "Planet Stupid", Hamid Karzai and General David McKiernan are disqualified from being considered for Commander In Chief. Which is okay by me, since Hamid Karzai wasn't born in the United States and I don't know jack shit about General David McKiernan. But clearly, on Planet Stupid, American generals are not qualified to command the American military. And the President of Afghanistan is making reckless remarks about what we are doing to support his own government.

Can these people be any more retarded? I mean, Palin and McCain and the entire modern Gee Oh Pee are mocking Obama for saying things as sensible as "You really ought to tie your shoes after you put them on."

For instance, is there really a single American who doesn't think we have the moral authority to go into any country in the entire world and catch or kill Osama bin Laden, who killed 3000 Americans in broad daylight in downtown Manhattan, whether or not the country he's hiding in likes it or not?

I mean, aside from John McCain.

Sarah Palin is reckless. She's stupid and she's foolish. She's a person who would make it the official policy of the great United States to do things that harm American interests and get Americans killed just because she thinks it would be fun, you betcha, to just go on out there and be Vice President, don't you know!

I know I'm using the word "stupid", over and over and over again. But what are you going to do? It's like trying to blog about water without being repetitive about how "wet" it is.

What About The Training Wheels?

Palin, recharged after last week's debate against Democratic vice presidential nominee Joe Biden, is animating the party's conservative wing with harsh attacks against Obama. She's courting high-dollar donors for campaign cash. And she is looking to wrestle away women and independent voters from the Democrats.

"The heels are on, the gloves are off," she declares, a threat delivered with a smile.

Oh, brother.

Tough talk from a nitwit who's afraid of people asking her questions.

Rick Davis, campaign manager for Sen. John McCain, R-Ariz., just told Fox News Channel's Chris Wallace that McCain running mate Gov. Sarah Palin won't subject herself to any tough questions from reporters "until the point in time when she'll be treated with respect and deference…"

"Sarah Palin will have the opportinity to speak to the American people," Davis said. "She will do interviews, but she'll do them on the terms and conditions" the campaign decides.

She's a regular ol' pit bull, all right!

Grrrrrrrr! Wink! Wink! Grrrrrr!

Unless that mean Katie Couric scares her with impossible to answer hard-ball questions like, "What newspapers or magazines do you read?"

It's no surprise McCain had to go all the way to Wasilla, Alaska to find someone this stupid.