Beast Of The Week and other goodies on The Muppet Show, Episode 1, Season 2, with guest star Don Knotts.

Grab your popcorn, put your feet up on the seatback in front of ya, and no spitballs aimed at the ushers please. This is Late Late Night FireDogLake, where off topic is the topic … so dive in. What’s on your mind?

General Gary M. Jones, center (Special Operations Command photo)

The Huffington Post has a copy of a letter Patrick K. Tillman, father of Pat Tillman and a lawyer, sent to General Gary M. Jones in response to a report issued by General Jones on the killing of his son. Mr. Tillman calls it dishonest and deliberately misleading, and in good lawyerly fashion, supports that conclusion by citing multiple untrue statements. Here is his conclusion:

There is no way a man like you, with your intelligence, education, military experience, responsibilities (primarily for difficult situations), and rank (authority – both apparent and real), believes the conclusions reached in the March 31, 2005 Briefing Book. But your signature is on it. I assume, therefore, that you are part of this shameless bullshit. I embarrassed myself by treating you with respect March 31, 2005. I thought your rank deserved it and anticipated something different from the new and improved investigation. I won’t act so hypocritically if we meet again.

The Rangers stand for something – to this day, in my mind, the best. None of the five (5) soldiers on the ground, nor anyone in a discretionary capacity involved in the “Briefing Book” deserve to be affiliated with the Rangers. If your uniforms are so decorated, you should remove those items.

In sum: Fuck you … and yours.

Patrick K. Tillman wants one thing: accountability. Is it too hard for the government to hold accountable the people who killed his son and those who covered it up? Apparently it is.

Tom Ashbrook of On Point, the NPR syndicated national talk show, discussed the Robert Gibbs comment on professional leftists. A guy calls in, two tours of duty in Viet Nam, worked in State Government, called himself a moderate Republican, and said that he was disgusted by the failure of the President to hold anyone accountable for torture, not one person. Ashbrook noted that the left had gone silent on this issue, and his guests, including Byron York, couldn’t be bothered discussing it.

The Obama Administration, just like the previous crowd, is unwilling to hold anyone accountable for anything. Screw up the financial system? Here’s a few trillion to make it all better. Screw up the regulatory system so the banksters can wreck the financial system? Hey, you’re a great adviser and mentor; let me hire some of your protégés. Can’t find a bubble with both hands? How about re-appointment to the Fed? Hand billions to Goldman Sachs? You’d make a great Treasury Secretary.

But. Can’t pay your house mortgage and want to walk away? That’s a moral issue, and you should be held accountable.

Pat Tillman’s Dad speaks for me.

Photo by ruminatrix

Used to be that only Republicans could say things contradictory and incoherent enough to make my head explode.  Not any more:

Addressing the issue four days after he initially chastised liberal (cable news) critics for having demands of the White House that he deemed “crazy,” [White House Press Secretary Robert] Gibbs once again stood by those remarks.

“There are a small number of people on cable and elsewhere who will never be happy, who will never give the President credit for anything, and who will always look for some cardinal sin to be upset about,” the press secretary said in an email to the Huffington Post.

But, from there, he offered a far more conciliatory if not diplomatic reflection on the riff that briefly dominated macro-political debate within the Democratic Party.

“I also stand by my statement… that the vast majority of progressives and those on the left, whether that’s bloggers or groups or what have you, do not hold those beliefs and are pushing in good faith for a better country as they see it,” Gibbs added. “The President has urged those who want change to push for it and hold him accountable, and that’s how he feels.”

So let me see if I have this straight: The White House’s official spokesman criticizes “the professional left” for pointing out that Obama has broken his promises on the public option, Medicare drug reimportation and price negotiation, EFCA, DADT, closing Gitmo, restoring government transparency and respect for the Constitution, cleaning up Wall Street, challenging “the broken system in Washington” and, arguably, immigration and climate reform… and then tells us that Obama wants us to push for change and “hold him accountable”?

But what does pushing for change mean if not demanding more than incrementalist status quo-preserving weak tea?  And what does holding Obama accountable mean if not calling him out for all his broken promises?

Obama can’t have it both ways, trotting Gibbs out to brag about how much his boss wants progressives to hold him accountable… while simultaneously smearing everyone who’s tried to do so as irrational commie whiners.  Either he wants to hear what we have to say, or he doesn’t.

Maybe if Gibbs had just said that Obama is a “fierce advocate” for change and accountability, I would have been a lot less confused.