James Wolcott understands Bob Corker better than he understands himself. (It’s a masterpiece. Read it.)
I’ve always felt that the macho Republican closet was probably a spacious walk-in. After all, this isn’t exactly subtle:
LIDDY: Well, I—in the first place, I think it’s envy. I mean, after all, Al Gore had to go get some woman to tell him how to be a man [Official Naomi Wolf Spin-Point]. And here comes George Bush. You know, he’s in his flight suit, he’s striding across the deck, and he’s wearing his parachute harness, you know—and I’ve worn those because I parachute—and it makes the best of his manly characteristic. You go run those, run that stuff again of him walking across there with the parachute. He has just won every woman’s vote in the United States of America. You know, all those women who say size doesn’t count—they’re all liars. Check that out. I hope the Democrats keep ratting on him and all of this stuff so that they keep showing that tape.
Glenn Greenwald did a thorough deconstruction of Peggy Noonan’s noxious latest, but I do want to emphasize the most important point about it. She is signaling (along with a lot of others) that it’s time to purge the Bushmen and, as Glenn says, we shouldn’t let them do it:
There remains a broad, reflexive, and very Republican kind of loyalty to George Bush. He is a war president with troops in the field. You can see his heart. He led us in a very human way through 9/11, from the early missteps to the later surefootedness. He was literally surefooted on the rubble that day he threw his arm around the retired fireman and said the people who did this will hear from all of us soon.
Images like that fix themselves in the heart. They’re why Mr. Bush’s popularity is at 38%. Without them it wouldn’t be so high.
But there’s unease in the base too, again for many reasons. One is that it’s clear now to everyone in the Republican Party that Mr. Bush has changed the modern governing definition of “conservative.”
He did this without asking. He did it even without explaining. He didn’t go to the people whose loyalty and support raised him high and say, “This is what I’m doing, this is why I’m changing things, here’s my thinking, here are the implications.” The cynics around him likely thought this a good thing. To explain is to make things clearer, or at least to try, and they probably didn’t want it clear. They had the best of both worlds, a conservative reputation and a liberal reality.
And Republicans, most of whom are conservative in at least general ways, and who endure the disadvantages of being conservative because they actually believe in ideas, in philosophy, in an understanding of the relation of man and the state, are still somewhat concussed. The conservative tradition on foreign affairs is prudent realism; the conservative position on borders is that they must be governed; the conservative position on high spending is that it is obnoxious and generationally irresponsible. Etc.
This is not how Mr. Bush has governed. And so in the base today personal loyalty, and affection, bumps up against intellectual unease.
“He did it without asking.” Poor Peggy, she was given a political Roofie and taken against her will. I’ve said it before but I’m going to say it again. Conservatism can never fail, it can only be failed.
The Republicans have fielded five presidents since 1968 and only one of them can be considered politically successful. One out of five. The rest have crashed and burned each time on incompetence, corruption or some combination of the two. I think it’s fair to say that neither the modern Republican party or the conservative movement is capable of governance. And there’s a reason for that.
The movement conservatives are not really very comfortable on the inside. Witness their absurd appeal above. It’s all about the “permanent revolution” for them, even to the extent that they could ridiculously defend Tom DeLay as innocent, upright and under seige from powerful liberal factions less than a year ago. They seem to have realized that it won’t work any longer and it’s time to begin the conservative purification rituals if they want to keep the revolution alive.
This is why I don’t want any of us to think for a moment that winning and losing elections means the same thing to us as it means to them. Democrats believe in government and they want to make it work. Republicans see government purely as a means to exert power. Unfortunately, they are not very good at that because in the modern world sheer, dumb might is no longer possible. The best they can do is loot the treasury and leave the rest of their mess to be cleaned up by the Democrats.
What they really excel at is politics. Governance just hangs them up. And don’t think for a moment that they will be chagrined or ashamed and crawl off into a hole to lick their wounds. Being defeated liberates them to do what they are really good at — destroying the opposition and pushing their agenda with sophisticated, scorched earth political rhetoric. It’s not natural for them to be on the defense and they don’t like it. They are going back to their natural state — victimhood and the aggressive attack.
Get ready. The Democrats will not only have to govern, but they will have to fix all the problems they’ve created while fighting them every step of the way. They’re not going away. And they will pull out every stop to win every election, not because they necessarily want to govern but because that’s how you keep score. For a long, long time they’ve been able to get their way whether they win or lose and they see no reason to doubt that will continue. And unless we put a stop to this they might be right.
LET THE HEARINGS BEGIN! Subpoena Envy by Michael Crowley
As the Lord High Executioner said in The Mikado, ‘I have a little list.'” So says John Dingell, the 26-term Michigan House Democrat who spent 14 years as a mighty committee baron before the 1995 Republican Revolution booted him into the powerless minority. At last poised to reclaim his House Energy and Commerce Committee gavel, the 80-year-old Dingell now sounds like a man who can’t wait for 2007. Though he knows a House Democratic majority won’t pass much legislation, especially given George W. Bush’s veto pen, his chairmanship means he can subject the Bush administration to high-profile committee hearings–lots and lots of them.
“Privacy,” he begins. “Social Security-number protection. Outsourcing protection. Unfair trade practices. Currency manipulation. Air quality. We’ll look at the implementation of the Energy Policy Act of 2005. We’ll take a look at climate change. We’ll take a look at [the Department of Energy’s] nuclear waste program, where literally billions of dollars are being dissipated. We’ll look at port security and nuclear smuggling, where there’s literally nothing being done. We’ll look at the Superfund program. We’ll take a look at EPA enforcement.” He pauses for a breath–but he’s just getting started: “On health, we’ll take a look at Medicaid and waivers. The Food and Drug Administration. Generic drug approval. Medical safety. We’ll also take a look at food supplements, where people are being killed. We will look at Medicare Part D [prescription drugs].” Is that all? “Telecom. We’ll look at FCC actions. … Media ownership. Adequate spectrum for police, fire, public safety, and addressing the problems of terrorism. … We will look also at the overall question of Katrina recovery efforts.”
As Democrats have gained in the polls, Republicans are predicting that a Democratic majority will mean a frenzy of political witch hunts directed at them by newly installed chairmen like Dingell. “You can expect two years of all-out investigations and attacks and anything they can bring to bear,” Newt Gingrich warned on Fox News last March. Clearly aiming to calm the hysteria, George H.W. Bush recently warned it would be a “ghastly thing” for the United States if “wild Democrats” were put in charge of congressional committees. A Washington Times article fretted that “key administration officials will be so busy preparing for testimony that they will not be able to do their jobs.”
But the curious thing about Dingell’s little list is that it targets policies–not people. While some Democrats may dream of hauling Karl Rove to the Hill to discuss Plamegate or forcing Dan Bartlett to testify about Dick Cheney’s hunting accident, Dingell is one of a number of future Democratic chairs who plan to focus on substance, not sideshows. And, as strange as it sounds, this may not come as a relief to Republicans. The GOP would love nothing more than for Democrats to go off on half-cocked, mean-spirited inquisitions that generate sympathy for the hapless Bushies. Alas, the GOP’s conduct during the Clinton years has provided Democrats with a near-perfect what-not-to-do manual.
If they have the guts to do this, and do it right, if they win the Democrats will have it in their power to end this cycle and shut the door on this era of conservative politics. Otherwise we will remain their cats-paws no matter which party is in the majority.
Jane’s feeling Clarkie today and for good reason. Wes Clark has made a helluva good commercial for Ned Lamont. Jane sez:
Nice to see someone with guts who isn’t intimidated by No Show Joe’s petulant threats against the Democratic party.
As some of you may remember, I was a Clarkie in the last round of primaries and I still like the guy. He’s spent the last two years working tirelessly for candidates all over the country and he is, as Jane points out, not intimidated by ossified GOP enablers or the Democratic establishment.
He also respects actual Democratic voters. I think that one of the reasons the netroots backed Dean and Clark in great numbers during the primaries was that simple fact. They both respected the base of the Democratic party — the people who devote their energy and their money to the party and believe in Democratic principles. That’s a rarity in Democratic establishment politics, as Joe Lieberman has demonstrated for us once again.
Clark’s campaign fizzled and Dean’s went out with a bang, but they were the first glimmer that the base of the Democratic party — the netroots, in particular — had had it with Washington’s game. It’s a lesson that still hasn’t completely sunk in. But it’s beginning to. And we’re not going anywhere.
Good for Clark for being smart enough to see the future and gutsy enough to act on it.
You’ve got to give George Allen credit for gall. He’s making his pitch that Webb’s a pervert by trying to tie it to Webb’s 1978 (admittedly misogynistic) article about women in the military academies. Allen is using a feminist argument to accuse Webb of being a sex fiend. (His novels are “servile, subordinate, inept, incompetent, promiscuous, perverted, or some combination of these.”) It’s an interesting tactic coming from a man who is well documented as having a proclivity to literally spit on women:
I stepped near the governor and smiled, told him my name and that I wrote for the local newspaper. Then I asked him a softball question, what some reporters call a “set-up.”
“Does Southwest Virginia need these jobs?” I asked.
He stopped and looked straight at me. He had to look down at me, because he stood so tall in those cowboy boots. I thought I spotted a twinkle in his eye, and for a moment, I suspected he might give a humorous, light-hearted answer. Then he leaned forward and looked all the way down at the pavement. I figured he was planning a perfectly crafted answer to my question. I put pen to paper, ready to take it down. His lips puckered as if he might speak.
Then, the Governor of the Commonwealth of Virginia gathered up a glob of tobacco-laced saliva. He used his lips to squirt it out, as if he had practiced. The spit landed just at the tip of my shoe. He grinned, but didn’t say a word. Then he walked into the building.
From the sound of the other stories related at the above link, it isn’t only african americans who piss Allen off, it’s women too.
Allen has refused to release his divorce records and his arrest records. It’s not a stretch to assume that when his best behavior as a potential candidate for president includes bullying and intimidating dark skinned folks and women, his past is filled with some really disgusting episodes.
Jennifer Allen, documents many cases of her brother’s bullying in her book Fifth Quarter: The Scrimmage of a Football Coach’s Daughter. Read the excerpts below.
Explaining why she is scared of heights, Ms. Allen writes that “Ever since my brother George held me over the railing at Niagara Falls, I’ve had a fear of heights.” [Fifth Quarter: The Scrimmage of a Football Coach’s Daughter, page 43]
Referring to George’s relationship with one of her boyfriends: “My brother George welcomed him by slamming a pool cue against his head.” [Fifth Quarter: The Scrimmage of a Football Coach’s Daughter, page 178]
Referring to George’s early leadership skills, Jennifer wrote: “We all obeyed George. If we didn’t, we knew he would kill us. Once, when Bruce refused to go to bed, George hurled him through a sliding glass door. Another time, when Gregory refused to go to bed, George tackled him and broke his collarbone. Another time, when I refused to go to bed, George dragged me up the stairs by my hair.” [Fifth Quarter: The Scrimmage of a Football Coach’s Daughter, page 22]
Referring to George’s early career aspirations, Jennifer wrote “George hoped someday to become a dentist. George said he saw dentistry as a perfect profession – getting paid to make people suffer.” [Fifth Quarter: The Scrimmage of a Football Coach’s Daughter, page 22]
Referring to George’s habit of terrorizing a Green Bay Packer fan in their neighborhood, Jennifer wrote that the fan’s mailbox often “lay smashed in the street, a casualty of my brothers’ drive-by to school in the morning. George would swerve his Mach II Mustang while Gregory held a baseball bat out the window to clear the mailbox off its post. . . . Lately, the Packers fan had resorted to stapling a Kleenex box to the mailbox post to receive his mail. George’s red Mustang screeched up beside us, the Packers fan’s Kleenex mailbox speared on the antenna.” [Fifth Quarter: The Scrimmage of a Football Coach’s Daughter, page 16]
Humans have a very complex, highly evolved way of interpreting a speaker’s intent, which includes an instinctive understanding of paralinguistics and body language. I think that one of the things that struck most of us on a gut level about the macaca video was the expression on Allen’s face and the tone in his voice. There was look in the eye that most of us can recognise right away as nasty, derisive bullying, no matter how bland his actual words. You can feel it. You know it when you see it. And the documentary evidence bears out what we saw. He’s a nasty prick.
Here is how the kewl kidz look at politics. I was just watching Washington Week with Gwen Ifill and they did a segment on the attack ads we are seeing this cycle. They led off with the Harold Ford Playboy ad and the Michael J. Fox ad in Missouri.
Did you see the Fox ad as an attack ad? Did he disparage Talent’s character or imply that he was a bad person? Was he appealing to peoples baser nature by playing to their prejudices? Or, as the nation’s premiere advocate for Parkinson’s disease, did he just ask people to vote for Claire McCaskill because she supported stem cell research and Talent didn’t — a straighforward, endorsement based upon a single issue. I don’t see any attack in it at all.
I suspect the sad truth is that the kewl kids think it’s hitting below the belt for a disabled person to appear in an advertisement — just as Rush does. They obviously think it’s manipulative and wrong to show the actual results of an illness for which you are advocating. After all, somebody might be having dinner and they don’t want to have to look at that icky sick stuff that makes them feel all guilty and uncomfortable. Therefore, tt’s an attack if someone endorses a particular candidate and he isn’t “normal.”
These DC elites really need to get out more. Sick, disabled, elderly imperfect people are very common out here in the real world. I would imagine it could even happen to some of them too — and when it does I don’t want to hear about their conversions to the cause. If you have to personally experience something before you have compassion for it or understand it you are an immature, shallow person. Which is what they are.
Update: Hah. Here’s an audio remix of real attack ads.
A number of commenters have objected to my characterization of Katie Couric’s interview with Michael J. Fox. yesterday. Obviously I need to explain why I think it was wrong.
First of all, this is not actually a “controversy” in any legitimate sense. It was ginned up by Rush and the right wing noise machine to try to discredit a powerful spokesman for this issue, which is a very dangerous one for the Republican party. Now, it may be that the backlash against Rush will prove to have been worse than the fake one he and the press tried to create, but that’s a testament to the basic decency of most people and the class act that is Michael J. Fox.
From the moment that Rush began his tirade (for which he has not apologized, despite the press’s insistence that he has) the issue became whether Fox was faking his symptoms or failing to control them, whether it was right for him to show them at all, whether people should be “playing the gimp card” etc. All this is part and parcel of the right’s ongoing program of character assassination. (Coulter recently took on the 9/11 widows, you’ll recall.) Rush made this explicit earlier this week:
This is a script that they have written for years. Senate Democrats used to parade victims of various diseases or social concerns or poverty up before congressional committees and let them testify, and they were infallible. You couldn’t criticize them. Same thing with the Jersey Girls after the 9-11 — and in the period of time when the 9-11 Commission was meeting publicly. Victims — infallible, whatever they say cannot be challenged. I don’t follow the script anymore.
That’s absurd, of course. The right holds up all kinds of people as being unassailable, particularly (Republican) veterans and religious figures. But that’s not even the point. Nobody says you can’t criticize a “victim’s” point of view or disagree with their take on the issue. Rush could have made a straightforward argument that stem cell research is wrong. But the right wing almost never does this on any issue anymore. Virtually every time, they attack the person’s character.
They do this for a number of reasons. The first is to give their followers some reason to reject a compelling argument like that set forth by Fox. They send this idea into the ether that Fox is faking it and create a controversy that suddenly makes what seems to be self-evident — Michael J. Fox is suffering horribly from a dread disease that might be cured with stem cell research — into a matter of interpretation. It furthers their meme that Democrats are phonies and flip-floppers who don’t stand for anything. It helps their base come to terms with their own internal contradictions. They have turned spin into a worldview.
But they also want to advance the idea that the message always depends upon who is delivering it and you can accept or reject it purely on the basis of tribal identification. (“Don’t think, meat.”) And to do that they’ve introduced a form of congitive relativism in which there is no such thing as reality. The press’s lazy “he said/she said” form of journalism reinforces it.
We’ve seen quite a bit of this in the campaign. In this case they are trying to make people feel ok about selling sick people down the river with the religious right’s irrational devotion to saving embryos and the braindead at the expense of everyone else. In another, just a couple of weeks ago we saw James Dobson of Focus On The Family and many Republican politicians make a case that the Mark Foley scandal was a political dirty trick or that the pages had set him up.
Katie Couric becomes part of the problem when she validates these ginned up controversies or gives credence to accusations for which there is no evidence. She knows very well that nobody can really doubt Fox’s sincerity. He’s raised tens of millions of dollars for the cause and it’s evident to anyone with eyes to see and ears to hear that he’s got this horrible disease. He should not have to prove that he’s not faking his symptoms and it’s unconscionable that the media is allowing the issue to be framed that way.
If it was necessary to refute Limbaugh’s ridiculous claims, she should have had a leading expert in Parkinson’s come on to discuss the symptoms and then interview Fox about the issue itself. Instead she presented it like a “he said/she said” by interrogating Michael J. Fox about whether it was proper for him to go ahead with the shoot when it appeared that he was going to look like a Parkinson’s sufferer on camera. In doing so she validated the accusation that he might have been faking it when the only “evidence” was Limbaugh’s noxious ravings.
Yes, Fox was articulate and well able to defend himself because he has been in the public eye nearly his entire life, he’s a professional and he has guts. And every time he appears he probably helps the cause of stem cell research because of that. But that doesn’t change the fact that this method of dealing with phony right wing noise machine controversies leads to all those who oppose Rush Limbaugh’s version of reality being constantly on the defensive over nothing. The press knows it, just as they know without doubt that Michael J. Fox is a sincere and legitimate spokesman for stem cell research who isn’t faking a bloody thing. They persist because it’s an easy way to pretend they are not biased. But it is biased in itself and it’s a major reason why the rightwing has been so successful.
Even after that interview, the CBS web-site is running a poll today that asks:
Was Michael J. Fox exaggerating his Parkinson’s disease symptoms for political effect?
Here’s an email from a reader on this subject:
I cannot explain to you how seething mad I am over the remarks made by Limbaugh and his friends in the conservative shithole universe. I thought I reached the boiling point when I was able to view the Limbaugh video of that fatass druggie mocking, MOCKING Fox’s symptoms. Then, I thought I would lose it when Lauer said “Didn’t Limbaugh just say what everyone was really thinking?”. All wrong, the final nail was the Couric interview and the portion you wrote about. What the hell is the matter with people in this country when they’re questioning the authenticity of a person with a horrible, progressive disease?
As a 23yo male who’s been battling against a progressive disease(Cystic Fibrosis) all his life and will continue to do so until a cure is found, the original Michael J. Fox ad was both moving and forceful. I’ve been singing the hopeful benefits of stem cells for years now and have even managed to sway a few decent republicans my way; indeed, my political transformation was mostly spearheaded by the stem cell issue in 2001 and subsequent utter failures by the.worst.president.ever.
People with progressive diseases already wear different masks for different occasions, but when it comes to treatments for our diseases, we’re supposed to put on a happy face and say, “hey, maybe one day if congress comes around something fruitful will happen!!”? Not in my lifetime. It’s bad enough I feel as if I have to compose myself as a somewhat healthy person during school, social events or else face stares and neverending questions, but when people like Fox are attacked in a very public way for “coming out of the closet” so to speak, then I seriously start to question and worry for this country. Like you said, should we just stay in our rooms and hope one day those without disease will champion our causes?
It’s like war; who do you want leading the fight? Some general with battlefield experience or the ivy educated whizkid? I think the current events answer that one.
I’m mad. I’m pissed. I literally want to throw something at the TV every time I see some offthewall commentator proffer up his/her worthless opinion on what Fox should and shouldn’t be doing and how it’s so “political.” You’re left with one option against a progressive disease — to stay alive using every option, treatment possible. And in this current “war,” the patients with diseases such as Fox’s and mine are stepping onto the field not only without any armor, but without a gun too.
How sad America has become when science is simply a tool to bludgeon the head of those who advocate its welcome benefits.
-Stephen
That’s what Rush and the cynical political creeps he represents don’t want people to hear. They know they are on the wrong side of this issue.
If you want to see the full depth of Limbaugh’s depravity and media complicity on this, Media Matters has documented the whole thing.
I don’t do candidate fundraising here because I assume that you all read the big blogs that do it and get involved through their Act Blue pages. But for the rarest among you who only read this blog today, I urge you to go to some of the major blogs like Eschaton, Kos, FDL,MYDD, C&L and others who are all asking for donations today for the final push to election day. If you haven’t done it yet, now’s the time.
For those who’ve already done so or are looking for other ways to contribute there are many needs. The little button from the DNC over there in the left column gives you something to do every day until the election. You can volunteer for your local congressional campaign and do phone banking or canvassing. Here’s a very handy web-site called “Do More Than Vote” that makes it easy to figure out where and how.
This is it, kids, for all the marbles. It’s time to change the world.
They’re so desperate they’ve dragged Lynn Cheney out of her hive to go on CNN and screech “you are not a good man” to Wolf Blitzer, or something to that effect. She’ll be swooping in in a few minutes. Tune in, if you have the stomach.
The promo I just saw had Wolf pointing out that innocent people have been captured and imprisoned and “aggressively interrogated” and then set free. Her reply? “How do you know they’re innocent?” Wolf rather confusedly said, “well — they’re walking around free…” and she went on to say that one of then alleged innocents had had a bookstore in London that sold radical Islamic texts. So apparently, selling certain books now can get you kidnapped, waterboarded and imprisoned without trial until they’re done with you. Good to know.
Wolf just asked Jack Cafferty what he thinks of her criticisms of the CNN show he’s been involved with “Broken Government” (which she describes as Democratic talking points) and Cafferty said “Who cares?”
She’ll be on in full harpy costume (you won’t believe the bizarre outfit she’s wearing — it looks like one of those “tapestries” you see in Parade magazine every Sunday) in a few minutes.
Update: She’s spitting mad. She doesn’t like Blitzer reading from a DNC press release that says her novel “Sisters” was racy just like Jim Webb’s (which she describes as “triple X”.)
I sure wish he’d have brought up her husbands right hand man, Scooter Libby’s, book:
He said that boys from the village took the merchant’s daughter places, and word spread that she had many lovers. There were odd tales of her sexual prowess, and they said she had coupled with dogs and men and several of the boys at once. Then to their village came a young samurai, who spotted the girl as all did, and she folded him into her. She took other lovers in the village, which enraged him, but he would not be done with her . . .
The young samurai’s mother had the child sold to a brothel, where she swept the floors and oiled the women and watched the secret ways. At age ten the madam put the child in a cage with a bear trained to couple with young girls so the girls would be frigid and not fall in love with their patrons. They fed her through the bars and aroused the bear with a stick when it seemed to lose interest. Groups of men paid to watch. Like other girls who have been trained this way, she learned to handle many men in a single night and her skin turned a milky white . . .
“They taught her how to draw pubic hair on her mound,” Ueda laughed, “because she was still too young to have any of her own.” A fat woman on the far side of the fire laughed out until tears streamed down her face and her sides rocked. She reached into her clothes while she was laughing and pulled sharply and made a little cry and her mouth opened and then, laughing harder, she pulled her hand out with pubic hairs stuck between her swollen fingers and flung them at the men around the fire. “No ink here,” she gasped, laughing, “No ink, no ink” and the laughing men beside her made grasping motions above the fire as if to catch the pubic hair she had thrown. Some clung unnoticed in her moist palm.
The women who embraced in the wagon were Adam and Eve crossing a dark cathedral stage — no, Eve and Eve, loving one another as they would not be able to once they ate of the fruit and knew themselves as they truly were. She felt curiously moved, curiously envious of them. She had never to this moment thought Eden a particularly attractive paradise, based as it was on naiveté, but she saw that the women in the cart had a passionate, loving intimacy forever closed to her. How strong it made them. What comfort it gave.
I don’t say it’s nauseating because of the content — it’s nauseating because of the writing. Dear God.
This whole argument is absurd, of course. George Allen is passing around explicit passages from Webb’s book like a 12 year old boy at summer camp. This is not a real issue. It’s completely stupid. John McCain, for god’s sake, gave the books glowing reviews as did a whole bunch of others. This is a meaningless controversy that is only getting oxygen because the dipshit kewl kidz are all reading them and it makes them feel funny down there.
(Donna Brazile just gave a typically lame response by saying that she hasn’t read the books and has no plans to. Bullshit. She should have said, “I’m going out to get them right now. John McCain and Tom Clancy both recommend them as gripping depictions of the wartime experience.”)
Jim Webb is an adult and he writes for adults. Most of us have had sex and aren’t shocked by literary depictions of it in fiction. Scooter’s book may be terrific, I don’t know, it’s not my thing. My problem with him isn’t that he wrote those passages, it’s that he works for a party filled with racist morons like George Allen who pretend that they have a problem with it. All this santimonious sexual hypocrisy is too much to take from the party that couldn’t care less about their own representatives trying to seduce teen-aged boys three at a time.
Update II: You really have to see this interview. She’s a piece of work. She’s acting all indignant about answering these questions as if she was really invited on “The Situation Room” today to talk about her children’s book and Wolf is sandbagging her. The Queen of the Harpies is something else.
Update III: Amato has the whole thing up at Crooks and Liars w/ transcript.
On the extremely remote chance that Diebold’s voting machines will fail to overcount Republican votes in some future election and a non-Republican gets sworn in as president, someone should be archiving all the times the network has refused to run ads for documentaries, features, and other media critical of Republicans, like this one.
Call me cynical, but I suspect that if the Republicans are out of office, they still won’t have any problem getting their propaganda publicized like mad on all the major networds, no matter how vicious, how false, or how un-American.
What to do in the here and now? Well, I’d boycott NBC except for one thing. I can’t remember the last time I watched anything on NBC. The closest was a few Olbermann web clips that didn’t have any commercials, so I guess I’ve just been given one more very good reason to ignore NBC’s programming.
Gen. John Abizaid (“one of the really great thinkers”) was the one who “came up with” the recent construct about the enemy in Iraq, “If we leave, they will follow us here.” Bush then explains that this is what makes the Iraq struggle “really different from other wars we’ve been in.”
More “the oceans don’t protect us anymore” and “this is the biggest threat the world has ever known” crapola. I don’t know what in the hell he thinks he knows but it bears no relationship to reality. The US was seriously concerned with an invasion during WWII and had reason to be:
In Autumn of 1940, the attack on the US was fixed for the long-term future. This appears in Luftwaffe documents, one of which dated October 29, 1940 mentions the “extraordinary interest of Mein Führer in the occupation of the Atlantic Islands. In line with this interest…with the cooperation of Spain is the seizure of Gibraltar and Spanish and Portuguese islands, along other operations in the North Atlantic.”
In July 1941, the Führer ordered that planning an attack against the United States be continued. Five months later, on December 11, 1941 Germany declared war on the United States.
[…]
(Fall Felix) and Operation Sealion, planned the occupation of Ireland and Operation Ikarus, would have provided some support bases for installing the Wehrmacht and Kriegsmarine infantry seaborne or Luftwaffe Airborne forces for the invasion.
These units, with proper support from the Kriegsmarine and Luftwaffe, were to capture coastal areas in Maine, New Hampshire, Massachusetts, Connecticut, Rhode Island, New York, New Jersey and Delaware.
On the other hand, the invasion could have come from airborne landings on the Atlantic coast of Canada in the Northwest Territories, Quebec, Newfoundland, New Brunswick and Prince Edward Island, with the army then continuing into U.S territory. The Saint Lawrence River was also considered to be a major possible entry point into North America. Another option involved launching seaborne rockets, long range missiles or aerial bombardments, against U.S. territory. The Germans were also considering the development and use of an atomic bomb against the United States.
Air strikes with heavy long range bombers would have not only put the coastal targets of New Jersey, Pennsylvania, Washington, D.C., Boston, and New York within range, but also targets in Ohio and even Indiana.
[…]
For Japanese Naval strategists, an invasion of American, Mexican, and Central American Pacific coasts would have required naval bases in the Aleutian and Hawaiian islands, as well as the Mexican Revillagigedo and French Clipperton islands.
From the Aleutians, Japanese forces would have landed in Alaska and Canada, from Hawaii naval or airborne landings in Washington state, Oregon, and California were considered. From these bases, long-range heavy land-based bombers or flying boat attacks on U.S. territory could be launched. The High Command staff considered bombing San Francisco, Panama, Los Angeles, the Texas oilfields, in coordination with German naval strikes against Boston, Washington D.C. or New York. The use of biological and chemical weapons was also considered.
“The first lesson is, is that oceans can no longer protect us. You know, when I was coming up in the ’50s in Midland, Texas, it seemed like we were pretty safe. In the ’60s it seemed like we were safe.”
The Soviet Union had thousands of ICBM’s pointed at us and we had many more pointed at them. We lived under a doctrine of Mutually Assured Destruction. I honestly don’t know where this bozo got the idea that our oceans protected us or that fighting someone “over there” keeps them from getting “over here,” but we haven’t been “safe” in those terms since — well, ever. It’s utter pablum and I can’t believe that even Rush and his mouthbreathers believe it. (That General Abazaid coined the silly phrase explains a lot about why everything is so screwed up in Iraq.)
We desperately need some leadership that at least knows the world they grew up in and live in today. But at the very least we need leadership who didn’t watch a bunch of bad cowboy and war movies on TV when they were kids and think they learned history. This is the second Republican president in the last 25 years who has routinely confused Hollywood product with reality and it’s got to stop.