My Nominee for Post of the Year

From Steve M. at No More Mister Nice Blog:

JANUARY 20 WAS BARACK OBAMA'S "MISSION ACCOMPLISHED" DAY

His troops were valiant and he'd had a brilliant plan for taking the capital, but now we can look back to January 20, 2009, and realize that Barack Obama was naive to think major combat operations had ended. He never saw the insurgency coming. He and his people seemed to think that there simply wouldn't be that kind of factional strife after the old regime fell; they believed that, despite years of tension between the factions, it would end in an instant and the citizens of the country would immediately see themselves as united.

As the insurgency grew and began to make the country ungovernable, the Obama team and its allies downplayed it as a ragtag collection of end-timers who'd soon be irrelevant. His troops knew how to wage a traditional campaign, but hadn't given serious thought to the problem of dealing with a chaotic aftermath. When it came to the "postwar" period, Obama never really had a plan.

His forces simply have no training in this kind of warfare. Now they have to learn on the fly, and their learning curve seems to be slow. They appear to believe that the forces they're now fighting are thinking traditionally -- they can't seem to accept the fact that the enemy genuinely wants anarchy and a failed state.

How Obama deals with this insurgency will be the main test of his presidency.

Bipartisanship is a crock. I didn't vote for Charles Grassley for Congress, but Obama seems content to let that rightwing nutjob write the healthcare legislation. Get off the mat and fight Baracky or yours will be a one-term Presidency.

Third Graders Debate Iraq War

An excerpt from a presidential debate in Mr. Faustmann's third grade class, Alma Michigan.

Veteran's Day

President-Elect Obama marked Veteran's Day yesterday in a quiet ceremony with Iraq war veteran and Illinois Veteran's Affairs Department Director Tammy Duckworth.

yahoo: U.S. President-elect Barack Obama and double-amputee Iraq war veteran Tammy Duckworth place a wreath at a veterans memorial in Chicago November 11, 2008. Duckworth is director of the department of veteran affairs for Illinois.
REUTERS/Kevin Lamarque (UNITED STATES)



I always think of this poem on Veteran's Day. In my hometown this was always read at the cemetery on Memorial Day.

In Flanders Fields
By: Lieutenant Colonel John McCrae, MD (1872-1918)
Canadian Army

In Flanders Fields the poppies grow
Between the crosses row on row,
That mark our place; and in the sky
The larks, still bravely singing, fly
Scarce heard amid the guns below.

We are the Dead. Short days ago
We lived, felt dawn, saw sunset glow,
Loved and were loved, and now we lie
In Flanders fields.

Take up our quarrel with the foe:
To you from failing hands we throw
The torch; be yours to hold it high.
If ye break faith with us who die
We shall not sleep, though poppies grow
In Flanders fields.

The Legacy Of Bush's War of Lies

A sobering and powerful ad for Tom Udall, candidate for Senate in New Mexico. The young soldier's name is Erik Schei.

Sarah Palin: "Cocky Whacko"

Dependable Renegade

That's what former Republican Senator from Rhode Island Lincoln Chafee called Sarah Palin yesterday. He also called her dangerous. He's right on both counts.

She holds whacky and dangerous views. In saying goodbye to her son who was deploying to Iraq, she said Iraq had caused 9/11 -- a view so extreme that even George W. Clusterfuck doesn't say that any more.

In her series of interviews with Charlie Gibson, she said that if Russia invaded Georgia, we would go to war (bottom of page, continues on to page 3). And starting World War III didn't phase her one bit. She delivered her answers in her bizarrely chirpy cheerleader voice as though it were perfectly normal to contemplate World War III. She'd be a war president.

Sarah Palin isn't lipstick on a pig. She's George W. Bush in lipstick, ready to be a war president but having no idea or concern about what that would mean for the country and for the world. A dangerous cocky whacko.

But That Wasn't On The Study Sheet!

With her vast foreign policy experience, somehow Caribou Barbie does not know what the Bush Doctrine is. I guess two weeks in a room with Karl Rove's minions is not enough to become familiar with the depth and breadth of American's foreign policy. Preemptive war? Never heard of it.

Now we know why they've been hiding her from the press. She is not ready to be Vice President. She's not ready to teach current events in a high school history class. Charlie Gibson doesn't let her hang out there very long; he gives her the answer after she says the Bush Doctrine is "his worldview".

My friends, this ill-informed dolt is John McCain's choice to be one heartbeat away from the Presidency.

Charlie: Do you agree with the Bush Doctrine?

Palin: In what respect, Charlie?

Charlie: What do you interpret it to be?

Palin: His worldview.

Charlie: No, No, the Bush Doctrine. He enunciated it in September 2002, before the Iraq War.

Palin: I believe that what President Bush has attempted to do is to rid this world of Islamic extremism, terrorists who are hellbent on destroying our nation. There have been blunders along the way, though. There have been mistakes made. And with new leadership--and that's the beauty of American elections and democracy--with new leadership comes the opportunity to do things better.

Charlie: The Bush Doctrine, as I understand it, is that we have the right of anticipatory defense. We have the right to preemptively strike any other country that we believe is going to attack us.

No More War

John McCain wants to be a war president, just like George W. Clusterfuck. He expects more wars. He wants more wars in more places. He thinks there is a military solution to every problem.

No to more wars. No to four more years. No to McCain. (Warning, graphic scenes of violence in this five minute film. The violence the Pentagon has erased from the media for six years now.)

McCain Is A POW, All Hail McCain

Hilarious.



Dissent is treason.

Boondoggle

wikipedia: Cost of War

The U.S. taxpayer is paying to rebuild Iraq, while the Iraq government has $79 billion dollars sitting around in bank accounts unused. That nonfunctioning government is sitting on a huge pile of cash while the Iraq people do not have clean water, reliable electricity, or any of the things that constitute modern life.
Remember when Paul Wolfowitz said the war would pay for itself? Only if you are Exxon, or Halliburton, or the Iraq government.

NYTimes: As Iraq Surplus Rises, Little Goes Into Rebuilding

John McCain's Daily Bald-Faced Lie

McCain has a new campaign ad out attacking Obama. It's getting a lot more attention in the media than he's paid for, as it is only running in a few markets:

“Barack Obama never held a single Senate hearing on Afghanistan,” the ad’s announcer says. “He hadn’t been to Iraq in years. He voted against funding our troops. And now, he made time to go to the gym, but cancelled a visit with wounded troops. Seems the Pentagon wouldn’t allow him to bring cameras. John McCain is always there for our troops. McCain: Country first.” It concludes with the candidate’s voice: “I’m John McCain and I approve this message.”

Of course, Obama has attended more Afghanistan subcommittee meetings in the last two years than McCain.

Both McCain and Obama have voted against troop funding bills that contained provisions they didn't like.

It was McCain came out against the new GI Bill and its increased educational benefits for veterans, then didn't bother to vote when the final bill passed, while Obama made a special trip in from the campaign trail to vote for increased funding for veterans.

McCain voted against improved health care for disabled veterans.

McCain is against the very concept of VA healthcare and wants to shunt veterans into the private healthcare system where they will stand in line with (or behind) the rest of us.

Obama only canceled the hospital visit at the last minute after the Pentagon said at the last minute that he could only go with Senate staff (nothing was said about cameras, and Obama had visited wounded troops a couple of weeks ago at Walter Reed -- with no cameras present.). Since Obama was on a campaign visit and traveling with campaign staff, that was impossible.

(And on a related note, when John McCain was in Europe in March, he didn't go to the hospital in Landstuhl either, even though he was just as close to the hospital as Obama was.)

On the whole, the lowest point yet of a very low campaign.

hat tip to
Carpetbagger Report: When the going gets tough, McCain gets disgraceful where I got a lot of these links.

An actual truthful headline from the corporate media: New McCain Ad Bashes Obama for Not Visiting Troops Using Footage of Obama Visiting Troops (credit where credit is due, it's Jake Tapper of ABC News).

Corporate Media Misleading

Third World Traveler

I've briefly summarized these posts about the horrible media coverage of politics we get here in the old U S of A. Click on the links and read the entire articles because I'm just giving you a flavor of these pieces.

Here's something you'd only read from the international press: Obama impresses a reporter for the Jerusalem Post; while McCain & Bush are surrounded by aides when interviewed, Obama goes solo and understands the nuances of Middle East issues.

Devastating critique of the media by Digby; these two passages are my favorite:

After watching them have a mass four year orgasm over George W. Bush standing on a pile of rubble with a bullhorn saying "Ah hear you. And the people who did this are gonna hear from us real soon! yuk, yuk" like he was reciting Shakespeare's Henry V St Crispin's day speech, it's a little bit hard for me to take seriously the idea that they have anything but a bias toward cheap, shallow ignorance (which naturally favors movement conservatism.)

The problem with our media isn't that they like or dislike a politician that we also like or don't like. It's that they treat politics like a celebrity game show and it makes it very difficult for the people to even know what their interests are, much less who best represents them.

In a ridiculous article spammed out to all the media outlets who use AP, two "journalists" declared that the U.S. is winning the war in Iraq. JurassicPork at Brilliant at Breakfast let's 'em have it:

I read the news today, oh boy. The Yankee army has just won the war.

Imagine my surprise when I clicked on this article entitled “Analysis: US now winning Iraq war that seemed lost” that began with this breathtakingly ballsy sentence: “The United States is now winning the war that two years ago seemed lost.” Well, gee, there are very few people who would like to believe that more than yours truly. Still, I wanted to see who’d drawn up this analysis but after several paragraphs it was obvious that this “analysis” was cooked up by the same two guys who wrote this article, Robert Reid and Robert Burns.

Indeed, the breezily optimistic opening line was immediately deflated with the next sentence: “Limited, sometimes sharp fighting and periodic terrorist bombings in Iraq are likely to continue, possibly for years.” Considering that our involvement in World War II lasted just over four years against two awesome war machines across two continents, it would seem to me that this 5½ year-old war isn’t close to being over if we have several more years of terrorist and insurgent activity to look forward to.

Yet, to Burns and Reid, the insurgency is (let’s all say it together, people, with feeling and harmony) in its last throes. So how have we beaten or won over the insurgency that we’d created by disbanding the Iraqi Army?

They launched the insurgency five years ago. They now are either sidelined or have switched sides to cooperate with the Americans in return for money and political support.

So we’re buying their loyalty with cold hard American taxpayer dollars and political favoritism. Yeah, that’s certainly a firm foundation for a lasting, peaceful alliance.

John McCain's Neverending War

I posted this last night, but I'm putting it up again to make sure every who visits here regularly gets to see it. John McCain's own words on the war in Iraq:

John McCain's Neverending War

Another excellent compilation video on John McCain's war war war 4-eva position by the Jed Report (a little less than 10 minutes in length.)

To see the juxtaposition of his foolish comments before the war ("The success will be fairly easy.") with his recent claims to have opposed the Bushies conduct of the war is stunning.

As someone says in the comments on this video on dailykos, McCain HAS been consistent with his Iraq policy. Throughout the runup to the war until today, at every turn, McCain believes whatever Bush is doing is right.

I don't know who this Jed guy is, but he's doing a great job with these videos.

President Obama's Foreign Policy Plan

Obama gave an excellent speech yesterday laying out his foreign policy plan.

Full text here.

The corporate media will not tell you this, but yesterday John McCain threw out his previous positions on Afghanistan and adopted Barack Obama's position. Now McCain thinks we should increase our troop presence in Afghanistan. Of course, he also wants to stay in Iraq forever, so where he will get the troops is an open and unanswered question.

Read McCain's foreign policy speech of yesterday here. My favorite part, the part I laughed out loud at, is when he said "I will not bluster, and I will not make idle threats" and then he said he would get Osama bin Laden.

Won't it be nice to have a President who can speak the King's English, and isn't a hothead moron?

A Little Light Reading

flickr: SI Neg. 77-13915. Date: 1977...A close-up of the face and hands of the statue of President Abraham Lincoln which sits in the Lincoln Memorial. Created by American sculptor Daniel Chester French, the sculpture was completed in 1920. ..Credit: Dane A. Penland (Smithsonian Institution)

This should have led every national news program: NASA scientist Dr. James Hansen testified to Congress on Monday that we have one year -- one year -- to deal with climate change. One year, or it will be irreversible and too late for the planet. One year. In 2006 he gave us 20 years, but things have gotten much worse so quickly. Here's a pdf of his testimony;

The Boston Globe reports that military contractor KBR exposed Americans in Iraq to a form of chromium -- the stuff in the wells in the movie Erin Brockovich -- and now they're getting sick. The only small justice here is that KBR has been playing games & claiming their employees were employed by a shell corporation in the Caymans so they didn't have to pay unemployment & social security taxes. As a result, these employees may be able to sue KBR directly rather than being limited to worker's compensation.

The networks are spending two minutes a week covering the wars in Afghanistan and Iraq. A near total news blackout.

Former Homeland Security Secretary Tom Ridge (and John McCain top adviser) lobbied for the government of Albania for two years without registering as a lobbyist. Laura Rozen asks, "curious if Ridge knows something about the strange DOD-US embassy-Albanian government-AEY-mothballed $300 million Chinese ammo weapons deal[?]" You can read all about that bizarre $300 million dollar contract being awarded to a bunch of 20-something losers here at TPM.

Surprise, surprise: The Bushies have loaded the Justice Dept. with unqualified Republican hacks, by illegally hiring on political grounds. Wingnuts in, liberals out. Dday at Hullabaloo points out that there will be a host of landmines awaiting Barack Obama when he gets to the Oval Office, crazed Regent University lawyers waiting to sabotage any Democrat.

Steny Hoyer is the Democratic sellout of the year, sez Digby. Farewell to the Fourth Amendment thanks to hack Steny.

RIP George Carlin

George Carlin on war:


NYTimes: George Carlin, 71, Irreverent Standup Comedian


Seven Dirty Words You Can Never Say On Television
Shit, piss, fuck, cunt, cocksucker, motherfucker, tits (later he added fart, turd, & twat to the list):

In The News

Kookaburras
Flickr: Powerhouse Museum Collection

Just as the DFHs said, the Bush Administration is building permanent military bases in Iraq. Bush wants to stay in Iraq 4-eva, no matter what platitudes he mouths.

Not only did Bush and Cheney authorize torture, McClatchy reports that the United States hid tortured prisoners from the International Red Cross. Prosecutors will call that "consciousness of guilt" when these murdering psychopaths are finally put on trial for war crimes at the Hague.

You won't hear this on gasbag TV, but polls show Obama leading in Florida, Ohio and Pennsylvania. Haven't they been telling us all year that Obama was doomed in Florida because the Dem primary there didn't count? Not. Even pundits who acknowledge Obama's lead see danger up ahead for Obama. Or maybe that song was playing in the background while Jake Tapper was reporting typing.

Former Bush speechwriter Michael Gerson (another groundbreaking white male addition to the white-male-dominated WaPo opinion pages) calls Al Franken "vulgar" in his column today. You heard that right, the man who dressed up the Psychopath-in-Chief in pretty words, leading to the deaths of hundreds of thousands of innocents around the world, that man calls Al Franken vulgar. Atrios knocks Gerson's phony argument out with two photos.

Speaking of the Psychopath-In-Chief, that MF who hasn't ever gone to the funeral of one of the men and women he sent to their deaths by lying us into Iraq, he went to the funeral of Saint Timmeh of Punditry. Some deaths count, and some are shoved under the rug.

How old is John McCain? He's older than carbon dating.

The will.i.am video putting Obama's New Hampshire primary speech to music, "Yes We Can", won an Emmy. (Watch it here)

Elect Better Democrats

Billions for pointless war. Nothing for unemployed Americans. Pitiful.

Read Liberally

Democratic presidential hopeful, Sen. Barack Obama, D-Ill., speaks during a primary election night rally in St Paul, Minn., Tuesday, June 3, 2008. Obama claimed the Democratic presidential nomination Tuesday night in a long-time-coming victory speech that minced no words about his opponent in the fall campaign, Republican John McCain.
(AP Photo/Chris Carlson)

Democrats have a lot to be proud of today: Brilliant at Breakfast: I am so proud of my party and my country right now

Great photo essay by diarist Al Rodgers at dailykos, including many front page headlines about Obama's win. Kayakbiker has a photo diary of the Obama speech last night in Minnesota.

Atrios sez, quite rightly, it's all about the war. No Iraq, no war, no war vote, no candidate Obama, Clinton wins.

McCain has reversed his position of six months ago and is now fully in favor of illegal spying and untrammeled executive power. He can now be called Multiple Choice McCain, running to be Tyrant King.

Check out this photo. Celebrate!

Media Sheeple

Ann Telnaes cartoon, Washington Post