Who Say What Who Now?

"The nine most terrifying words in the English language are, 'I'm here from the government and I'm here to help.'"
B-Movie Wanker and Arms Dealer to Iran, Ronald Reagan

"I wanted to let them know that this government would help them*."
B-Movie Chimp and Worse Prez Evah!, George W. Bush


*'Help' in this context means slamming the door on the buttocks of the poor as they are ushered out of town Rambo style while flipping their low-rent property into casinos and abstinence-only casinos.

You know how I know -

You know how I know Giuliani and Romney are both wingnut-Republicans?

Because they both paid millions of dollars for their delegate(s) and as usual it got them nothing.

Romney, who must be the fiscal conservative of the two, spent only about $1.16 million per his 200 or so delegates. Giuliani, who evidently spends like George W. Bush, dropped a cool $50 mil per his ONE delegate!

We are talking FEMA trailer money-smarts with these two buffoons.

Can We Even Talk About this?

Remember the "Run, Jesse, run" bit? Eddie Murphy's take on if a black man ever became President, wherein the Black President, while giving a presser, would continually have to keep moving from side-to-side to evade the bullets heading his way. Ha-ha, very funny, and I suppose at the end of the skit Stevie Wonder runs into a tree and dies.

A laughing matter, not so much, especially when put into a larger, historical context. The Nation columnist, Alexander Cockburn, gives his readers a brief history of the New Frontier, vis-a-vis the Mafia, the F-111 fighter jet, and shitloads of dough. If Barak is the new JFK, then shouldn't we remember how JFK left the Presidency?

To wit, Cockburn writes: "Oliver Stone should junk his movie about Bush and start hammering out the script for JFK: The Sequel, in which the CIA knocks off Obama for trying to pull the money out of Iraq."

I'm not so sure how strenuously Barak will really try to end the US occupation of Iraq, but it seems to me that if he were to get too uppity, the Good Ol' Boys and their stock portfolios may have sumptin' to say about it.

I can't even begin to fathom the fall-out in this country if Barak goes the way of JFK, MLK and Bobby.

I'm just saying.

Lock the doors and bar the windows

Did you ever have the crazy-ass, older brother who was always in trouble with the law? He's got an addiction problem and gets shit-faced drunk and turns violent? He used to show up at your house late at night and drunkenly threaten you and your mom and sisters, all crazy-eyes, doped up on some shit.

Your mom is too weak and ineffectual to control him and your dad is really just a waste of space and in truth, it was your Dad's habit of always beating your Mom and you and your sisters and his alcohol problem that made your brother so bat-shit crazy to begin with.

Then finally that brother gets thrown in the big-house for several years and you and your family finally feel safe and secure.

That psycho big-brother may be getting his walking papers and might be coming back home to terrorize the shit out of you again. That big-brother is Bush's own mercenary force, the religious-right Blackwater private army, er, security force. Seems like Iraq has had enough of Blackwater playing target practice with their civilians and have revoked their license to hunt human prey.

And just picture your weak, ineffectual mom, who couldn't control your brother, as Congress.

And your dad, the guy who helped to create your crazy-ass brother? Yep. That would be George W. Bush.

This is just what we need: hundreds of thousands of crazy, violent older brothers returning home with an itchy trigger finger.

Check please.

Bush is The Predicter

Rachel Maddow recently had a great riff on a particularly curious portion of Bush's Latest-Greatest Razzle-Dazzle. I just had to look it up for myself. Even for Bush it's a doozy.

So I sat down at the laptop all in a tizzy, ready for the snark and the irony and the vulgarity of it all.

Then I realized, after reading and re-reading this passage, that I had nothing. These statements are so intrinsically ridiculous and mendacious that it's inane to even try to rebut or prove them wrong. Bush is making a series of predictions on what would happen if the US military were to leave Iraq. To be sure, Bush is less Nostradamus and more Barney Fife.

But since I dabble in the inane...

Let's jump right in.

"If we were to be driven out of Iraq, extremists of all strains would be emboldened. "


"...would be emboldened." Is there any debate that extremists of all strains are already emboldened? Am I missing something? Is there a certain strain of Muslim extremist who is like, "Eh, the Americans bombing and killing Muslims for the oil, it's not so bad." And forget the extremists. I'd say about every moderate Muslim is emboldened to kill and destroy Americans by this point.


"Al Qaeda could gain new recruits and new sanctuaries. "

Seriously, what the fuck? Is there any debate that Al Qaeda has already gained new recruits and sanctuaries by our invasion? Not even the wingnuts can deny it. Shit, Bush has said our biggest enemy in Iraq is Al Qaeda.

"Iran would benefit from the chaos..."

Haven't we been saying Iran has been the big winner so far?

"Iraq could face a humanitarian nightmare. "

Okay, this one put me over the edge. The fact that hundreds of thousands of Iraqis are dead; that millions are refugees; that communities have been ethnically cleansed; that a civil war is occurring; that they have no electricity and no clean water and food; that most of the doctors have left the country; that unemployment is over 50%; that they have an increasing infant mortality rate; that their lives are shattered with no hope for any recovery anytime soon.

Bush is saying that since we are there, Iraq is not facing a humanitarian nightmare?

Seriously, what the fuck?

"Democracy movements would be violently reversed."

Such as the US support of Fateh to overthrow the democratically elected Hamas? Such as our support for Musharraf, a dictator vis-a-vis a military coup? Such as our support for the authoritarian leaders of Saudi Arabia? Such as the rumblings of overthrowing the democratically elected President of Iraq?

"We would leave our children to face a far more dangerous world. "

Gee, you thinks so, President Bush? For that you deserve all of the credit. Just consider the US foreign policy for the next generation Operation Blowback.


"And as we saw on September the 11th, 2001, those dangers can reach our cities and kill our people."

Yeah, we saw, Mr. President. We saw you sit there in a classroom full of children not knowing whether you should shit or wind your watch. You screwed the pooch on 9-11 and now you are screwing us. You have robbed us of our treasure and spilled our blood and mortally wounded multiple nations. Including the one you swore to protect.

To recap, according to Bush, as long as we are in Iraq: Extremists will not be emboldened; Al Qaeda will not gain new recruits or sanctuaries; Iran will not benefit; Iraq will not face any humanitarian crises; no democracy movements will be reversed; our children will be safer; and absolutely no attacks will occur on US soil.

In the spirit then, Mr. President, let me look in the crystal ball and make a Bushian prediction:

Regardless of whether we stay or leave Iraq, George W. Bush will be recorded as the single worst President in the history of the United States. History will place him as one of the most dangerous and destructive leaders of the 20th century.

The Soft Underbelly of the Atrophied Warrior Class

Glenn Greenwald has another excellent post exposing the leaders of the American war culture in this country, and it is not pretty. How these Great Warriors came to power, advocating war, while never actually being in a war (or much less the military) is simply astounding. It is the Fred Kagans and Bill Kristols of the world who drive our foreign policy. And their idea of foreign policy can be summed like this: War and more war. Then, more war.

I find these people reprehensible.

Bush says he listens to the Boots on the Ground. I guess those Boots are penny-loafers and the Ground is a berber-carpeted Townhouse in a tony-suburb somewhere.

To the Kagan's of the world, soldiers are really nothing more than game pieces in their Global Game of Risk. Soldiers die in war, they say, because that is what soldiers are supposed to do: die in war. The soldiers die in the wars that Kagan, Kristol, et al, proposed and planned and pushed knowing they would never actually have to see that war or sacrifice for that war.

Penny-loafers are not meant for blood and bits of brain and body parts; they are for accelerating the gas-pedals of their German-made sedans as they rush to make their Oh-So Important Dinner-Date with other Masters of the Universe.

These Great Thinkers swirl around at cocktail parties regaling each other with how insightful they are and with mutual slaps to the back as they sip on a chardonnay and browse through the Robb report envisioning themselves as the Great Warriors here to finally save America from its weak-kneed liberalism and aversion to the Great Everlasting Wars that will finally bring Everlasting Peace.

These Great Thinkers, coddled by corporate-supported Think Tanks, sit at their mahogany desks with a brass bankers lamps and Important Books on their shelves written by other coddled, fleshy, Keyboard Warriors.

They submit white papers and treatises and reports and bask in the glow of their own greatness as they are congratulated and highly-praised by the other incestuous factions in their own little New World Order cabal of The Never-ending War. This war to prove the exceptionalism of the True American Spirit of spreading Peace and Democracy with a gun. Then it's off for a two-hour power lunch with some brandy and a cigar and a massage before a nap. Then it's back off to the cocktail parties and mutton and whiskey and more slaps on the back and woeful tales of sacrifice becaus the new masseuse just wasn't as good as their regular girl.

They are Warriors, they will tell you; instead of an AK-47, their weapon is the keyboard. They sacrifice, they will tell you, because it is hard for them to hear of all of the death on the TV screen. They would go fight, they will tell you, but their talents are better utilized here, protecting the Homeland, with their Ideas and Intelligence.

Marvel at Our Brilliance, they will tell you, Because We Certainly Do!

That these Geniuses have been completely and totally wrong on every single aspect of this War in Iraq does not discount their Brilliance but only amplifies it. Because you see, they were not and they are not wrong, they argue. This war will be won. If only they are listened to and obeyed and praised but most importantly: not questioned.

We, that cut and run crowd, can't see the Truth that they alone possess and only they can see. For they cannot be wrong. It is so decreed - by them. They are the Creators of this reality we are expected to live under. They alone are judge, jury and witness to this war. Progress is being made; we are in fact winning. Therefore, no other conclusion is even possible other than their conclusion. All of the actual facts and evidence to the contrary is nothing but shrill bellyaching from the left-side of the Unserious Spectrum and deserve no attention whatsover. Those who have been correct are not invited to the cocktail parties.

I think if you were to just threaten one of these Great Warriors with serving anywhere near a military zone that their bowels would open up and purge uncontrollably for hours and their weak knees would turn to jelly until they collapsed into a heap of their own putrid waste.

Yet they would still possess their townhomes and sedans and penny-loafers; penny-loafers with no stain of blood or brain or body parts.

The Fountainhead needs new glasses.

I find this article from CNN startling. The headline is as follows:

Greenspan: I didn't grasp subprime threat
Former Federal Reserve Chairman says he didn't see early on the damage that lending to those with questionable credit could do to the economy.

I did a quick Wikipedia search for Alan Greenspan and this is what I found:

...is a wealthy, short-statured retiree who gets into a series of sticky situations as a result of his nearsightedness, compounded by his stubborn refusal to admit the problem. Affected people (or animals) consequently tend to think that he is a lunatic

That sounds about right. Greenspan's policies of being a corporate fluff-girl is stuff of free-market, cultish legend. Kind of puts in perspective Bush's ownership society. Guess we can now call it Bush's Foreclosure Society.

Update: Evidently the above Wiki reference was not of Alan Greenspan, but this character:

Apologies to Mr. Magoo.