I normally avoid right wing websites for more than amusement. It's not normally worth getting into flame wars with them. It's not really my intent now. I found this on Bill Hobbs website, Hobbs is a true Wingnut Chickenhawk who has turned down my many offers to administer his Oath of Enlistment so he can join our troops in Iraq. I post this comment I left on his blog because he has a tendancy to erase or "edit" comments he deems "unfavorable".

The guy who wrote this sleeps each night unendangered by nuclear holocaust thanks to Reagan, but he can't find one nice word to say.

Yeah Bill, I was not doing much during the Beloved One's tenure, just.. let's see... deploying off the coast of Iran; flying SSSC/recon missions against Soviet warships, supporting battlegroups off the coast of Vladivostok; standing the duty one night when that OPREP-3 came in telling us about an accident that claimed the lives of four friends who flew into the water; watching a squadron-mate hit the ramp, no, me and other ex-military types who don't particularly like Reagan weren't doing much. I wasn't doing much. Oh, except for that Seven Years pretty much back-to-back at sea.

What were you doing while we were not doing anything that earned us the right to speak our minds in the way we want? Ah, nothing, just like you are now.

One I wonder if the Post really pays attention to. This far into the Mesopotamian Misadventure I'm happy that the Post still cares enough to pay someone to do the job of keeping up with the tragedy of the needless deaths of US Forces in Iraq. I wonder how long they will consider it "worthwhile"...I wonder why this is not a bigger part of their coverage of the War. After all, they had a pretty damn big role in selling the lies, something history will not judge them well for.

The death notices from Iraq come across my computer screen by e-mail and always follow the same format. Each states the name of the dead soldier and his or her rank, age and hometown, as in: "Pfc. Melissa J. Hobart, 22, of Ladson, S.C." It also identifies the unit, and so tells you whether this was an active-duty soldier or a part-time reservist or a National Guard member.

As the Coast-to-Coast Casket Fest ends, I have wonder about this written by Knotheaded Dead Ronnie Apologist, Krauthammer:

The second-greatest president of the 20th century dies (with Theodore Roosevelt coming a close third)...

1. People claiming to be unusually enlightened with regard to a subject.
2. Illuminati Any of various groups claiming special religious enlightenment.

Heh.

Speeches at the funereal:

George H.W. Bush's self-penned speech was conversational...

Preznit Mostly Incoherent:

George W. Bush's speech, more than twice as long, was stylishly crafted by White House speechwriters; "Ronald Reagan belongs to the ages now, but we preferred it when he belonged to us," he said, paraphrasing Secretary of War Edwin Stanton at Abraham Lincoln's death.

I wanna fly it. So cool. The Orteig Prize did a lot for the growth of Aviation in the first part of the last century, maybe the X Prize will do the same in this one.

Think of it as an elaborate badminton shuttlecock. Put a pilot in it, take it up in the air and fire it 62 miles straight up into suborbital space at three times the speed of sound -- a spectacular trip undertaken with the knowledge that as the spacecraft plummets back to Earth, it will always be pointing in the right direction.

Feeney noted that while Rutan has, in Allen, one of the world's richest men for a sponsor, Da Vinci is being developed on a shoestring by volunteers, with help from in-kind corporate contributions. And while the 220-foot-wide balloon may be awe-inspiring, Feeney said its chief attraction was low cost.

All day long I had all these John Prine songs rattling around in my head. I don't know why, but after hearing "Your Flag Decal Won't Get You Into Heaven Anymore" for the 14th time, I figured it was probably my way of 'blocking' out NecropheliaFest 2004.

Then as I was driving home, this hit me...

Made me laugh stuck in traffic. Feel free to add your own verses...

Happy Friday and Thank the Hairy Thunderer:

The Corpse has Left the Beltway...

It's about the time of the second anniversary of DemVet so I have Just One Question, it's midnight, I'm doing the internet sort-of-dorm-room-in-College thing and contemplating my navel...and wondering, how do folks find this site?

I peer at my sitemeter stats and see where folks come from, but how are you getting here?

Now, back to the navel or is it naval? Let me think about that....

Sullivan makes fun of people by using their words against them. All's Fair...etc.

John Ashcroft has pledged that he will "not make sexual orientation a matter to be considered in hiring or firing" at the Department of Justice. (In case you're wondering, I'd still vote to confirm him, because I think more is to be gained by holding him to his current promises than rehashing the ugly past.) --Andrew Sullivan, Friday January 26, 2001

Howard's writing is an almost perfect representation of someone so stuck in East Coast intellectual and social snobbery that she can't even begin to conceive of why an intelligent person might have preferred Bush's modest conservatism to Gore's phony populism. (my emphasis)
--Andrew Sullivan, Tuesday, January 16th, 2001

As regular readers know, I've long advocated cutting France out of any post-war Iraqi settlement.
--Andrew Sullivan, Friday, February 23rd, 2003

We may not have unanimous global support for an attack but to describe the coming war as "unilateral" is simply false. Ditto the hyperbole about the deficit. In non-adjusted dollar amounts, it might be near a historic peak. But that's deeply misleading. As a proportion of GDP, it's under half its peak in the Reagan-Bush years. I'm not saying it isn't a problem.
--Andrew Sullivan, Friday, February 23rd, 2003

Fish. Barrel. Shoot. I could go on, but my head would explode, and it's Friday.

Remember, they impeached Clinton for consensual fellatio. This porn will earn the highest accolades of all republicans: a vote to reelect in November.

U.S. intelligence personnel ordered military dog handlers at the Abu Ghraib prison in Iraq to use unmuzzled dogs to frighten and intimidate detainees during interrogations late last year, a plan approved by the highest-ranking military intelligence officer at the facility, according to sworn statements the handlers provided to military investigators.

A military intelligence interrogator also told investigators that two dog handlers at Abu Ghraib were "having a contest" to see how many detainees they could make involuntarily urinate out of fear of the dogs, according to the previously undisclosed statements obtained by The Washington Post.
...
Master-at-Arms 1st Class William J. Kimbro, a Navy dog handler, said he was summoned to Tier 1 one night in November to help search a cell for explosives using his dog, Nicky, a black and tan Belgian Malinois. Earlier that night -- records indicate it was Nov. 24 -- a prisoner had allegedly been found with a weapon. When Kimbro and Nicky concluded the search, they were called to the second floor of the cellblock to search another cell.

"There was a bunch of yelling going on in the cell and my dog started going ape," Kimbro told investigators, adding that interrogators were yelling at a detainee in the corner. "I remember one of the males saying to the detainee, if the detainee did not provide the information the guy was asking about, then he would have me let . . . my dog go on him."

Kimbro said he was surprised by the comment and tried to calm Nicky down. He soon left, he said, upset that interrogators had tried to use his dog as an interrogation tool.

"I was leaving because this is not what my dog is trained for," Kimbro said in one of three statements he provided to investigators. "We do not use our dogs for interrogation purposes."

Kimbro was singled out for praise in Maj. Gen. Antonio M. Taguba's report about abuse at the prison for refusing "to participate in improper interrogations despite significant pressure from the MI personnel at Abu Ghraib."

I wonder how some of the 'tough-guy' 1600 Crew officials would have held up with a snarling 80 lb set of teeth in their face? My bet, they'd have been peeing on the floor so fast they wouldn't have realized it was happening. I guess it's lucky for them that they'll never have to find out, as they leave the country in ruins and head off to their over-inflated salaries in lobbying outfits when the 1600 Crew is turned out in November.

I hope that MA1 Kimbro makes Chief, he's obviously a leader, and has the guts to prove it.

Only Der Volkisher Beobachter would give this clueless fool space to write an editorial . Yeah, so he's a national leader. He's also an idiot. No wonder Fearless Leader likes him, birds of a feather.

Africans will be objects of compassion and contempt until such time as we have become demonstrable masters of our own destiny.
...
We ask that the West abandon its neo-mercantilism -- its hoarding and protectionism

When you start your editorial with a quote from Henry the K, it can only get worse from there.

And it's what he does best. Hard to understand really, and trust me I've tried to break the code on the Duchess. Todays columns have to be among the best of Andrew-does-Sybil bits. It might just make it to the Hall o' Fame. Start with the "take-down" of the French (what else is new). Entirely missing the point that democracy is a product of some weird combination of culture and necessity, Andrew still believes we can "export" democracy like we export agricultural products. He sticks to the republican party line, just couched in slightly nicer terms that the cheese-eating-surrender-monkeys are all hosed up and blew their chance at empire because they were not tuff-enuff. Who now has designs on Tyranny and Colonialism in the [region] middle-east? Not France, they've got the T-Shirt.

But then the Duchess rolls over to and shows his soft white belly, hoping for a few pats for being "tough" on the 1600 Crew and his fellow Republicans. Taking righteous exception to some old Gipper-era press transcripts about AIDS that have surfaced, he's appropriately indignant. Fucking Duh. Those transcripts are the pornography of indifference; and remember Andrew waxes rhapsodic over the guy who directed the porn...so appropriately indignant and transparently pandering to other conservatives who want to sit on the fence with him and express outrage with at no cost. Gee.

And the best for last: yeah, Sullivan and writers block ... he doesn't believe in writers block, it's like "safer sex" ... someone elses cross to bear and affectation.

Another Neocon bubble burst...that the Iraqis could do it all, with no planning or anything else.

Misguided U.S. training of Iraqi police contributed to the country's instability and has delayed getting enough qualified Iraqis on the streets to ease the burden on American forces, the head of armed forces training said Wednesday.

"It hasn't gone well. We've had almost one year of no progress," said Army Maj. Gen. Paul D. Eaton, who departs Iraq next week after spending a year assembling and training the country's 200,000 army, police and civil defense troops.

"We've had the wrong training focus — on individual cops rather than their leaders," Eaton said in an interview with The Associated Press.

A credible, well-equipped national security force is crucial to America's plans to pull its 138,000 troops out of Iraq, along with the 24,000 soldiers from Britain and other coalition countries.

Everybodys favorite Patriot, General JC Christian has a great post which even includes the Snoop Dogg Shizzolator and this great comment from that post:

Ronald Reagan: the man, the myth, the vegetable. I suggest we rename ketchup 'Reagan' in his honor. He should be buried face down with his butt cheeks above ground so the media can continue to lick his ass.
Mike | Email | Homepage | 06.09.04 - 7:05 pm | #

I'll have ketchup with my Rapture Rings, please; right here in the apex of the pyramid.

In his continuing Virtual Necrophelia, Andrew attempts to make a point about how Dead Ronnie was just a well, color-blind kinda guy. Magnificently inclusive, a true believer in the rights of everyone. Certainly not someone who would have ever subscribed to to oh, say, Richard Nixon's infamous Southern Strategy. Or opposed the Civil Rights Act.

Which is of course why The Worlds Most Famous Corpse kicked off his 1980 Presidential Campaign in Philadelphia, Mississippi. Maybe Andrew is suffering from the same thing that brought down Reagan...pay no attention to those civil rights workers Andrew, you were probably nothing but a zygote and certainly not a citizen when all that was going on here.

Does Fear Trump Reason? It would appear so.

To win the War on Terra™ we must become who we fear.

Here's the text of the document that would subvert the Constitution and grant George his fondest wish. To be a Dictator.

GODDAMNMOTHERFUCKINGSONSOFBITCHES I want my country back.

The Grand Experiment must not end with the likes of this Miserable Failure. Or because of him.

Too bad this did not happen in Texas...I guess that Delay can only threaten so many people at a time or something.

The battle over a new Congressional map for Colorado, one of the country's most closely watched redistricting cases, ended Monday in a Democratic victory at the Supreme Court. Falling one vote short, the justices refused to hear the Colorado Republicans' appeal of a state high court ruling that invalidated an unusual second redistricting plan the Republicans had pushed through the legislature in the closing days of its 2003 session.
...
Chief Justice Rehnquist's opinion, which the other two signed, was reminiscent of his opinion in Bush v. Gore, the Florida case that decided the 2000 election. He said the state court decision, "while purporting" to be based on state law, actually made a "debatable interpretation" of federal law in validating the initial court-ordered redistricting. The decision should be reviewed, he said.

Preznit Lucky Sperm thinks that the UN vote will make his little Iraq problem go away on June 30th. I did not realize that the white stuff under his nose was cocaine. Silly me.

The U.N. Security Council gave resounding approval Tuesday to a resolution endorsing the transfer of sovereignty to Iraq's new government by the end of June. President Bush said the measure will set the stage for democracy in Iraq and be a ''catalyst for change'' in the Middle East.
...
The resolution spells out the powers and the limitations of the new interim Iraqi government that will assume power on June 30. It authorizes the multinational force to remain in Iraq to help ensure security but gives the Iraqi government the right to ask the force to leave at any time.

Bush claimed victory before the vote, telling reporters at the Group of Eight summit in Sea Island, Ga., that a unanimous approval would tell the world that the council nations ''are interested in working together to make sure Iraq is free, peaceful and democratic.''
...
But his administration lowered expectations of gaining other countries' military support one of the original hopes behind the resolution. Four members of the Group of Eight summit France, Germany, Russia and Canada have said they won't send troops to take the burden off the 138,000 American soldiers and the 24,000 troops from coalition partners.

Miserable Failure.

As the 1600 Crew moves closer and closer to that Alien moment, you know the one where no one can hear you scream as you are tortured for your non-republican beliefs or at least locked away forever without charges...Der Snake-handler won't release a memo that might have a profound effect on how we are perceived as a country for decades to come...

Attorney General John D. Ashcroft told Congress today that he would not release to members a 2002 policy memo on the degree of pain and suffering legally permitted during enemy interrogations, but he said he knows of no presidential order that would allow torture for al Qaeda captives.
...
While he would not comment on the contents of the memo, he said, "It is not the job of the Justice Department or this administration to define torture." That, he said, has been done in explicit fashion by the Congress in enacting law that bars intentional infliction of "severe physical or mental pain or suffering."

Ashcroft said he would not be drawn into a discussion of the legal boundaries of aggressive interrogation, in part because it would reveal too much to al Qaeda.

What a brain-trust we have running our government. Makes me proud to be a 'mur-kan knowin' manly men like Asssscrack are watching the walls.

Just a bit more to help you get through another week ... another listing of Commander Corruption's Amazing Flip-Flops and one of which would make a great commercial...

BUSH PROMISES TO FORCE OPEC TO LOWER PRICES..."What I think the president ought to do [when gas prices spike] is he ought to get on the phone with the OPEC cartel and say we expect you to open your spigots...And the president of the United States must jawbone OPEC members to lower the price." [President Bush, 1/26/00]

...BUSH REFUSES TO LOBBY OPEC LEADERS With gas prices soaring in the United States at the beginning of 2004, the Miami Herald reported the president refused to "personally lobby oil cartel leaders to change their minds." [Miami Herald, 4/1/04]

It will be kind of amusing to watch the explanations if this is the Saudi "October Surprise."

When you have the choice of "shooting my eardrum out" going to Canada or having Daddy help you get into the ANG as a substandard candidate (and not showing up for duty), you never really ever have to worry about such things as getting turned into a POW. So imagine the shock of future American servicemen and women as they are tortured by oh, say, some future adversary, as the torture guy reads them something like this: "What I am about to do to you is because:

A team of administration lawyers concluded in a March 2003 legal memorandum that President Bush was not bound by either an international treaty prohibiting torture or by a federal antitorture law because he had the authority as commander in chief to approve any technique needed to protect the nation's security.
...
One reason, the lawyers said, would be if military personnel believed that they were acting on orders from superiors "except where the conduct goes so far as to be patently unlawful."

"In order to respect the president's inherent constitutional authority to manage a military campaign," the lawyers wrote in the 56-page confidential memorandum, the prohibition against torture "must be construed as inapplicable to interrogation undertaken pursuant to his commander-in-chief authority."

Let the games begin. Jeebus. What Nuremberg Defense?

Number of posts Sullivan relates to Reagan: 12 so far (2,760 words)

Number of posts Sullivan points out/mentions Reagans AIDS policies: None One, (five words)

Updated, thanks to SullyWatch for the pointer to the five words.

So is it desertion or not? This story from the Asia Times about an alleged deserter in Korea makes for some interesting reading.

The issue of an American soldier defecting or deserting to North Korea some 44 years ago has become nettlesome in otherwise sunny US-Japan relations: The Charles Robert Jenkins saga. Was he, is he, a deserter, a defector, or a captive of Pyongyang?
...
The Bush administration repeatedly has made clear that it intends to court-martial the Cold War defector, while Tokyo wants him pardoned or at the very least given "special consideration".
...
The ongoing military conflicts in Iraq and Afghanistan make it impossible for President Bush to be lenient with Jenkins. Even though Jenkins deserted in 1965, the statue of limitation is 40 years. Wartime desertion is punishable by long confinement or the death sentence. Senior military figures say that not to convene a court martial would be seen as betraying the millions of military personnel who perform their duties in dangerous circumstances and would erode military moral. However, some argue that living in North Korea for 38 years is probably punishment enough for any human being.

How about tandem courts-martials?

If Preznit C+ Augustus can't get on the Illinois ballot at all, does that give all the electoral votes to Kerry by default? Interesting situation caused by the republicans wanting to have their convention close to 9/11, in more ways than one, and the Illinois legislature failing to act in regular session.

Well, if it all goes to the Supremes, we already know how they'll rule. Democracy indeed.

More on the Friends of Ahmed. An Iraqi judge has issued an arrest warrant for an American Bidnessman, who has ties to guess who...highly placed republican party operatives.

An arrest warrant has been issued for Ahmed Chalabi's right-hand man in Baghdad, the American consultant Francis Brooke, who tried to stop the recent raid on the politician's headquarters in the Iraqi capital.
...
"He stopped the raid by telling the police they didn't have the legal power to do it because he was an American and they were Iraqis," said Judge Zuhair Al-Maliky, of the central criminal court in Baghdad. "

As a result, the raid didn't go as planned. The warrant is for interfering with the work of the Iraqi police in their legitimate business.
...
Mr Brooke, who is an evangelical Christian, has worked with Mr Chalabi since 1990 - first as a consultant paid by the CIA and most recently as a consultant for BKSH and Associates, a company run by Charlie Black, a Republican Party veteran. (emphasis added)
...
Mr Brooke has boasted of engineering the war on Iraq by providing America the evidence it was seeking on weapons of mass destruction. "I'm a smart man," he told The New Yorker magazine last week. "I saw what they wanted, and I adapted my strategy."

Update: that would be this Charles R. "Charlie" Black, Jr..

This is interesting...

Earlier this year, 60 percent of Maine's 2,300 Army Guard troops were deployed. "The current pace isn't sustainable," said the state commander, Brig. Gen. John W. Libby, who said that pace appears to be damaging his efforts to raise manpower. "Our recruiting is down significantly from last year, and our retention rates are down also," he said. The biggest problem, he said, is that parents are discouraging their children from joining. "We've got a level of reluctance with parents this year that we haven't seen in the past."

Some soldiers in West Virginia's 1092nd Engineering Battalion got home in April from 14 months of duty in Iraq -- only to be activated in the past few days for weeks of flood-relief work in Mingo County and other southwestern parts of the state. One soldier told the state commander, Maj. Gen. Allen E. Tackett, that he had been back to his civilian job for exactly one day. "The spouses and the employers are raising hell with me," the general said.

Tackett said he is especially worried that his most seasoned soldiers are getting out. "A lot of my experienced people are coming back from deployments and retiring," he said. "They've paid their dues."
...
The last time the U.S. military engaged in sustained ground combat, during the Vietnam War, it could rely on a draft to provide new personnel. Now, lacking conscription, the Pentagon is relying on other tools to find enough soldiers to fight in Iraq and Afghanistan. It has imposed controls such as "stop-loss" to keep active-duty troops from leaving. It has extended the tours of duty in Iraq for some soldiers from a planned year to a possible 15 months. It is reorganizing itself to create more units that can be deployed.

If that's so, this war just got a lot more expensive, on a lot of levels, unless you complete the headline...A-F-T.

The SCLM, who bought and sold the whole Iraq-as-patsy scenario of the NeoCons and the 1600 Crew really thought that in addtion to the candy-and-flowers offered by the "brown-skinned" oppressed Iraqi's they'd be able to pick up something else: Pulitzers. No, really, read between the lines in this piece.

Iraq is different. Good reporting is as urgently needed as ever, with lives and the political futures of perhaps two countries at stake. But it has never seemed more dangerous. Kidnappings and ambushes have driven most foreign civilians out of the country, or into bunkers guarded by U.S. soldiers.
...
After more than a year of relative freedom to follow questions wherever they led -- often into the heart of Iraqi experiences -- the media have renewed their reliance on embedding themselves with the U.S. military and on filtering reports from Iraqi stringers who can go where they cannot.
...
Broadly, reporting Iraqi experiences of the invasion and occupation over the last year has been the key to understanding what is going on. Intimate portraits of Iraqis won The Post's Anthony Shadid a Pulitzer Prize earlier this year (he is now on leave to write a book) and conditioned the way journalists assessed the challenges, successes and failures of the occupation.

The SCLM are as much as any force in America responsible for this war by their non-coverage and non-debate of any of the "facts" they presented in the run-up to "Mission Accomplished". For any member of the press to whine about not being able to "get the story" is disingenuous indeed. Feh. I doubt that they are judged as 1600 Crew tools by their lack of body armor as much as they are by their lack of responsibility for keeping the war-makers honest in the first place. Double Feh.

No documents, no dollars. How hard would that be to do? The Senate (money-giving folks) want to see the Pentagon-Boeing documents about certain transactions. The Pentagon (money-getting folks) don't want to release them. Gee, could it be there is something to hide there? Naw. Not with the 1600 Crew involved.

Defense Secretary Donald H. Rumsfeld has sharply limited the information he is willing to let Congress see on a controversial defense contract that is the focus of multiple investigations.

Rumsfeld took a hard line even with fellow Republicans who want information from him about a proposed $23 billion deal for the Air Force to buy and lease 100 Boeing 767 aerial refueling tankers. Rumsfeld's refusal to give senators all the materials they requested could provoke a rare congressional subpoena.
...
n a letter to Sen. John Warner, R-Va., chairman of the Senate Armed Services Committee, Rumsfeld said Warner's committee would get only a sharply limited release of internal Air Force e-mails and documents.

McCain said Rumsfeld's response would "eviscerate the responsibility of Congress to provide oversight in such matters."

"There is not one single element in that letter which is acceptable to me," he said.

I know that the Senate can't directly affect funding to the Pentagon, but politics being what it is, there's always a way to gain a desired net effect with patience and time. Besides, I'd love to see the SASC committe subpoena something from the 1600 Crew Pentagon, just for the practice...

Heh. Indeed.

A nuke sub named for Jimmy Carter. Cool. Carter being a Nuclear-Power Officer and Submariner of the Rickover-era Navy was notably thrilled.

Former President Jimmy Carter was in high spirits today as he announced Saturday's christening of a Navy submarine that will be named in his honor.

"This is beyond my wildest imagination, so yes, this a great, unexpected honor, and I'm delighted to be the recipient of it," says Carter.
...
"I look on this as a major contribution of peace and the conservation peace and not war and the killing of others," say Carter.

Politics of the moment or Anything But Iraq; something which I am sure would sound better in say, French. Alternate titles: The Domestic Culture Crusade (yes in that sense), anyone?

In his best preacher's voice, Bush spoke of souls lost and found, the power of the Good Book, and the need to surrender one's life to "a higher being." But his larger goal: Reminding the audience of what a key friend he has been. Stressing his commitment to government funding of religious groups, Bush noted that, when an obstinate Congress tried to block his plans, he outsmarted them by signing an executive order. (Take that, you godless legislators!)

The more illuminating speech, however, came from Jim Towey, Bush's faith-based czar, who helpfully focused the crowd on the fierce "culture war" still raging in this country. Iraq may be getting all the press these days, he allowed, "but there's also another war that's going on ... that really gets to the heart of the questions about what is the role of faith in the public square." If the anti-Bush forces wind up carrying the day, Towey reportedly warned, "you could almost wind up creating a godless orthodoxy." For peddling such divisive, partisan rhetoric at an official White House event, Towey most likely earned a cookie and a pat on the back from the dark wizard.

I guess Towey must have either his actual or honorary degree from PAT U on his wall, that's the Robertson line of attack almost verbatim. Robertson, no student of American History has been braying for years about the "myth" of seperation of Church and State. As it gets to be more evident that this culture war is the one that the Christo-Fascists want, perhaps it's time to give it to them...President Kerry has but to appoint Supreme Court justices who won't meddle with the constitution on religious issues, and the C-F's lose for a long, long time.

The scariest thing about a gathering like that described? Everyone of the attendees has probably read and believes the "Left Behind" books. Be afraid.

Just this to say, Reagan died. Hardly an unexpected event; there was some "chatter" about it before it was announced the other night. So blogtopia might have gotten word before Big Media was either ready to announce it or even had it.

What can be said about a guy who ruined an economy, shredded the constitution, and was objectively the father of the Christo-Fascist and the "Starve-it" wings of his party simultaneously? His Cowboy persona was the lead-in to Junior's Macho Trip, and he was the least knowledgeable president about the government in a Republic until Turkee showed up. A man who embodied a Greed is Good ethos, and tried to make Ketchup a vegetable to save money, while trying to build a 600-ship Navy. (We always wondered where we would get the sailors for that).

It's ironic that his widow is now fighting with the same Christo-Fascists that she and Hubby empowered to have Stem-Cell research used to help with Alzheimers research. I guess you get what you pay (and play) for. Millions for faith-based outreach. Not a penny for scientific-medical outreach for improving the human(ist) condition...a position a guy like Ronnie could have gotten behind; especially if it meant votes.

Update: Alice Marshall at GOTV has a good Reagan piece. Check it out.

Sullivan gets it ummm, wrong I think. Going on another SGR™ (Sour Grapes Rant), he rises from his knees to mount another spirited, but factually challenged defense of his hero; Preznit Needza Knobber.

Funny. I haven't read anywhere of the Bush administrration severely restricting the ability of various Iraqis to run their own ministries, control their own police forces, use their own revenues, etc.

Of course, the U.S. will retain strong levers of influence — its military presence that will remain the basis of the new government's security, and the largest American embassy in the world which will control the purse strings of the lion's share of the reconstruction budget (which as things stand will come from Washington).

Checked out the trailer. Can't wait for the movie. If this is what one determined voice can show about the 1600 Crew with publically available information, imagine what's in the "hidden" parts of the government.

I especially liked the scene where Moore asks the congressman to have his kids enlist to go to Iraq. The guy looks at him like he's got two heads and wants him to sell the kids to a satanic cult...although maybe the 1600 Crew is one.

Damn.

1. What Technorati saw
   
2. A hard job
   
3. Okay just a little more
   
4. Just one more bit o'VN
   
5. Wicked Cool
   
6. Oldies are evil
   
7. OK, I admit it...I'm curious
   
8. Glass Houses. Stones.
   
9. Sicker
   
10. Mendicants Anonymous