“This Sunday, the New Orleans Saints, with running back Reggie Bush, will play their first home game since Hurricane Katrina in the Superdome against the Falcons. It will also be the first time in recent memory the people of New Orleans be will cheering someone named Bush.” –Jay Leno

“The Venezuelan President went to the U.N. and called Bush the devil. You could tell Bush was offended, because his tail stopped wagging. Bush said, ‘I would love to answer your ridiculous charge that I’m the devil, but I’m a little too busy this week trying to unite my party behind torturing people.’.” –Bill Maher

“The U.N. says that there is more torture going on in Iraq than when Saddam was in power. Bush shot back. He said, ‘That is just the opinion of one individual who doesn’t know the difference between regular torture and freedom torture.’.” –Bill Maher

“Bill O’Reilly is apparently on al Qaeda’s death list. al Qaeda said they don’t even think of him as an infidel. They just want to cut off his head, so he’ll shut up.” –Bill Maher

“The number one and number two best selling books on the Amazon list are attacks on President Bush. Both books call him incompetent and a liar. I tell you something, if President Bush read books, he’d be furious.” –Jay Leno

“Oil has fallen to $60 a barrel. Experts predict it will continue to fall until exactly one minute after the polls close on November 7th.” –Jay Leno

“The situation might be improving in Dhi Qar, but conditions continue to deteriorate in the capital of Bagdad. So with sectarian violence spreading, U.S. forces have approved an Iraq plan to protect Baghdad by digging trenches around the entire city, completely protecting Baghdad from World War I era soldiers.” –Jon Stewart

“Not only that … the president of Venezuela called Bush the devil. Then today, he called him a cowboy. President Bush was upset and said, ‘He’s making it really hard for me to choose my Halloween costume.’” –Conan O’Brie

“In his speech, Bush said the United Nations is in danger of losing its credibility. And believe me, when it comes to international affairs, President Bush is an expert on losing credibility.” –Jay Leno

“President Bush’s approval rating has rebounded to 44%. Unfortunately, the other 56% were at the U.N. yesterday.” –Jay Leno

“The president of Iran also spoke at the U.N., and you could tell he was trying to get under Bush’s skin, too. Did you notice? When he walked to the podium, he was whistling a Dixie Chicks tune.” –Jay Leno

“George Bush was in town this week. He was over at the U.N. speaking to the General Assembly. He was supposed to be here anyway for Ventriloquist Week.” –David Letterman

“Willie Nelson and the boys were on the road, and they stopped them and found a pound and a half of marijuana. bin Laden is still loose, but we got Willie Nelson.” –David Letterman

“According to the latest poll, Bush’s approval rating has rebounded to 44% — the highest level in a year. The White House says it’s thrilled that Bush has gone from an overwhelming dislike to a general dislike.” –Conan O’Brien

“The Pope said those weren’t his words. He said he was just quoting a 14th century Byzantine emperor. And today Mel Gibson said, ‘Yeah, me too.’.” –Jay Leno

“New Rule: Someone must tell President Bush where his heart is. [photo shown of President Bush and Laura Bush; she has hand over her heart; he has his hand over his stomach] … Most people don’t clutch the wrong organ, but then again, most people don’t invade the wrong country.” –Bill Maher

“General Colin Powell shocked a lot of people in Washington by speaking out against President Bush’s policies, saying that the world is beginning to doubt the moral basis of our fight against terrorism. That’s what I think he said — it was hard to hear him because he was being hustled out of the room to his cell in Guantanamo Bay.” –Jay Leno

From DIRECT, created by Bob Jellison for the San Diego Democratic Party newsletter.

From Bush or Chimp?

Animation

On Vacation, Back Soon!
A Mark Fiore Animation

A Brand New War!
A Too Stupid To Be President Animation

MSNBC (cable) just reported that in “State of Denial”, a new book by Bob Woodward, he says that Bush is deliberately lying to the American people about the Iraq War.  They also said that he told Henry Kissinger, who is advising Bush that the only acceptable outcome is victory, that he will stick with it even if his wife and dog are the only support he has left.

The book, “State of Denial, Bush at War, Part III” will be released October 2nd, 2006.

Incidentally, I once saw a documentary on Viet Nam in which Kissinger used the “only acceptable outcome” argument when referring to Viet Nam.  Kissinger also insisted that the Viet Nam war was winnable, if not for the protestors in the U.S.  Now I understand the inexplicable stubborness that Bush shows concerning the Iraq war.

Update: It’s not yet on msnbc.com, but I did find confirmation on Raw Story, which also says Woodward is set to appear on 60 Minutes this Sunday.

The actual CBS News story is entitled, “Bob Woodward: Bush Misleads on Iraq“.

During a Cheney visit to Davenport, Iowa this Summer, small American flags were confiscated from elderly protestors for fear that the flag stick may pose a threat to Cheney.

From The Progressive

‘[Cathy] Berta [a 66 year-old retired elementary school teacher] was carrying a sign that said: “No, You Can’t Have My Rights, I’m Still Using Them.” And she was also holding a little American flag on a stick. But the police wouldn’t let her, or anyone else, carry the flags. “I’m going to have to take your stick,” one officer told her, she says.’

‘Davenport Police Chief Michael Bladel defends his officers. “They thought the Vice President might stop, and because these were fairly long wooden sticks with points on them, they thought they might be a threat to the Vice President,” he says. “This could be considered a weapon.”

Can you imagine the uproar from right-wingers if Dems had confiscated American Flags to protect a Democratic Vice President???

Keith Olbermann is a god! In an incredibly well-researched report (that should be emailed to every Dem out there to use as talking points), KO takes on the myth that there was nothing Bush could have done to predict 9/11 or to stop it.

C&L 

“The political debate still raging over Mr. Clinton’s remarks in a Fox News interview Sunday has overshadowed the debate Mr. Clinton suggested the nation ought to have… a discussion of what steps the Bush administration took to get Osama bin Laden or destroy al Qaeda before September 11th.” 

“Our goal in this report is to rise to Mr. Clinton’s challenge, and assess the record of Mr. Bush’s efforts against al Qaeda in his first eight months in office.”

Read the full transcript at Crooks & Liars, or better yet, watch the video they’ve posted and get the satisfaction of knowing that you can say “in your lying face, Bush!”

As students across the country returned to college campuses this month, political organizations began organizing outreach events. Republican students came up with some pretty offensive ways to attract members.

KSDP

‘In “Catch an Illegal Immigrant Day,” a party volunteer would hide somewhere on a college campus while others searched them out. “Guns for Fun” included shooting BB guns at pictures of Democratic leaders, including Senators John Kerry and Hillary Clinton. These events were planned for University of Michigan, Penn State and in North Texas.’

Kicking Ass Ann Arbor, the U of Michigan’s blog, reports that Morgan Wilkens, the woman who created “Catch an Illegal Immigrant Day” and “Fun with Guns” was seen protesting at a rally for Debbie Stabenow and other Democratic women candidates with a sign that read “Debbie Kills Babies”.

CNS News explains that there have been controversial Republican campus events in the past, such as one called “Affirmative Action Bake Sales”.

‘The sales, intended to criticize affirmative action policies, offer baked goods priced on a scale that makes them cheaper for women, Latinos and African Americans, and more expensive for men, Caucasians and Asians.’

DNC Chairman Howard Dean wrote to RNC Chairman Ken Mehlman to complain about the most recent offensive events, to which Mehlman replied that the games were “reprehensible” but said the RNC had no control over the students’ actions.

It’s no surprise that Republicans appeal to the dark side in people. But in their attempts to convert the so-called “liberal” campuses, these types of offensive tactics will only help the Dem’s recruiting efforts.

This past week a genuine full-blown tempest broke out in blogdom. It represented one of those moments that makes blogdom such an interesting, novel and important place and yet also illustrates how far we have to go. The main point of the discussion focused on whether the Democratic Party should center this term’s campaign on the economy or the Iraq War. The outburst apparently was triggered by a Roll Call article that began, “Forced to play defense on national security for the third election year in a row, Congressional Democrats have been huddling in recent days to sharpen their attacks on the one issue they believe puts the Republicans on the run: the economy.”

Arianna Huffington wrote “The Dems are like a bunch of crack addicts who know that the stuff is killing them, but keep reaching for the pipe. The closer they get to Election Day, the more they desperately crave a hit of ‘It’s the economy, stupid!’. Repeat after me: It’s NOT the economy, stupid!” Mathew Yglesias added, “Pardon me while I go vomit. I mean, look, people who feel their economic circumstances are super-dire are going to vote for the Democrats one way or the other. They will, that is, unless they’re convinced that voting Democratic will get their family killed by terrorists.” Finally came Kos himself, “For the record, we heard this in 2002. We heard it in 2004. I gave the argument the benefit of the doubt those years. I think I actually bought it in 2002. But apparently our vaunted leadership in DC is incapable of learning lessons.”

All three of these are bloggers I respect. Their work first showed the Democratic Party – and the mainstream media – that there were people out there who were not being heard. But having said that, the past does not make them immune to criticism.

…In essence neither the Roll Call Democrats nor the royalty of blogdom have it right - the Democrats have lost every national election since 2000 because of one thing – values!

Read the full story…

Yesterday, I listened to anchors on various CNN programs and network news shows and was surprised by the repeated attempts to bash President Clinton, while supporting Chris Wallace of Fox News Sunday. Some of the terms used to describe Clinton included “Clinton’s Rage”, “blow-up”, “temper tantrum”, “finger-wagging”, “jabbing”, “purple-faced”, and “vein-popping”. Many of these could have been used to describe a visibly frustrated Paula Zahn, who tried unsuccessfully to get James Carville and Paul Begala to admit that they had witnessed Clinton’s temper at it’s worst. In true 90’s Democrat fashion, they were united in their support of President Clinton.

It’s likely that these conservative news anchors were coming to the rescue of another conservative. It’s also possible that they needed to show support for their fellow news anchor. Whatever the reason, the event was a win-win for Democrats, and here’s why:

First of all, it redirects attention from the bogus fight and compromise over detainee interrogations and trials, as well as the (unfunded) immigration bill to build the House’s border fence.

Second, it lays out what President Clinton did to try to get Bin Laden, but more importantly, it makes everyone ask themselves what Bush did, if anything, to prevent the 9/11 attacks.

Third, people empathize with President Clinton. Most people remember the good times of the 90’s, especially when compared to current times under a conservative government. And in a poll by CNN (Sept 24), Clinton enjoys a 60% approval rating, the highest of any ex-president. A July Times poll showed Clinton’s approval even higher at 66%.

And finally, most people hate the media. Conservatives think the media is too liberal, and liberals think big media corporations are too conservative. I believe most people enjoyed watching a prominent news anchor being “spanked” so badly by President Clinton, or by anyone for that matter.

Big media’s conservative news anchors can criticize all they want. In the end, this will be a net positive for the Dems. And to that I say, “nice job Mr. President!”

Watching Monday Night Football brings one of those eerie contradictions that seem to characterize our times. Several days ago, the Metropolitan Museum of Art opened an exhibition of photographs by Robert Polidori titled After the Flood. Taking hundreds of pictures with a large format camera, Mr. Polidori lugged his equipment down the debris-strewn streets of a New Orleans devastated by Katrina. One photograph shows what looks to be a single house with a storm-scarred white Ford resting diagonally on the street in front, its dull paint crossed by stripes that look like geological layers marking the flood waters as they slowly receded. But your eyes are drawn back to the house. Then you notice that the two front windows are as unmatched as a pair of jeans with a tuxedo. One has long, lean green shutters that appear as though they have been freshly painted. The other is a nine-paned white double-hung window holding a dilapidated air conditioner. Is this a mis-matched duplex or has the violence of the storm somehow crushed two separate dwellings into one? In the catalog of the exhibit, photography curator Jeff L. Rosenheim writes that the pictures testify “to a city that care forgot.”

Yet tonight the fans crowd the Superdome, that breeder of the ugliest urban legends the media brought back from Katrina as if the place were a picture painted by Hieronymous Bosch and their brush strokes were unconsciously guided by atavistic prejudices from the darkest regions of America’s subconscious. The theme of the evening is to paint over that past the way one redoes a living room wall. The commentators speak of the Dome as if it were one of those people in a before and after ad for a miracle drug. No one seems to remember that most people who lived in New Orleans back in the idyllic past they seek to evoke could not have afforded the price of a ticket to a single game because a goodly number could not even afford a car, but hoarded dimes and quarters so they could ride the buses that would never come for them when they needed them most.

The commissioner of the National Football League has decreed that the dome must be ready for this Monday Night Football extravaganza and somehow the governor of Louisiana and assorted other sources have found the money to rebuild the dome. I cannot help thinking in between the replays and shots of cheering fans that maybe the NFL Commissioner should be running FEMA or that our president who likes to issue decrees about faraway Baghdad never issued one like this for New Orleans.

The New York Times reports that the dome has had trouble finding tenants for the luxury boxes that now are the bread and butter of any professional sports team, elaborately furnished suites that would put to shame even the most chic loft apartment. The rebuilt Superdome’s suites are incomplete, empty of tenants, some of them containing only card tables and makeshift carpeting. Somewhere that evening as the television cameras roll, families lie awake in the dark, looking at the stars through the holes that remain in unrepaired roofs, wishing for even a card table.

As the Washington Post reports, the GOP plans to complete their so-called “compromise” on the detainee bill by the end of this week. Republicans believe this will solve their own party’s very public fight and put Dems in a difficult position before the November election.

An OpEd News editorial asks the question, why is the Bush administration so eager to torture detainees in the first place? One possible conclusion is “The Bushites are so deeply possessed by their lust for power that they are drawn to torture for the sadistic jollies they get from exercizing such utter power over other human beings.”

But there’s one part of the story on the detainee bill that is getting no mainstream media press whatsoever; the compromise legislation includes a provision that would “block prosecutions for violations already committed during the five-year-old “war on terror” and “prohibit detainees from citing the Geneva Conventions as a legal basis for challenging their imprisonment or for seeking civil damages for their mistreatment.”

What this means is that all senior Bush administration officials, including the president himself, are immune from prosecution of war crimes or human rights crimes they may have committed in the war on terror.

As reported by Alternet, the compromise legislation “bars criminal or civil legal action over past violations of Common Article 3 of the Geneva Conventions, according to press reports. Common Article 3 outlaws “violence to life and person,” such as death and mutilation as well as cruel treatment and “outrages upon personal dignity.”

So while many of us thought the big story was the bogus interparty GOP squabbles followed by a last minute compromise, it turns out the real story is blanket amnesty for Bush and his cronies on their actions related to the war on terror. They may be starting to accept the possibility of a Democrat in the white house in ‘08, which would rule out pardons for this administration, so why not take care of it now?

I was expecting to watch Meet The Press, which wasn’t televised in my area due to the coverage of the Ryder Cup. So I paged through the channels and came upon Fox News Sunday, a right-wing cluster-f*ck that I never watch, and realized they were interviewing President Bill Clinton. And then I saw what Dems long for from our Democratic leaders, but never get from the likes of Pelosi and Reed - someone who stands up for himself!

Mike Wallace attempted to give Clinton the typical “Path to 9/11″ bullshit scenario; why didn’t you try to get Bin Laden? And then Clinton gave it to him, setting the record straight and giving him, Fox News, and the right-wingers a few extra slaps for trying to rewrite history and put all the blame on Clinton. It was a thing of beauty.

MSNBC has a piece that includes some of the footage. Unfortunately, corporate NBC chose to take a conservative slant and criticize Clinton at the end. As much as I hate to send any traffic their way, Fox News Sunday does have the full, unedited interview (except for the 10 second video ad that they insert in the middle of the interview).

Some of Clinton’s responses included:

“That’s the difference in me and some, including all of the right-wingers who are attacking me now. They ridiculed me for trying. They had eight months to try, they did not try.”

“I want to know how many people in the Bush administration you asked, ‘Why didn’t you do anything about the Cole?’ I want to know how many people you asked, ‘Why did you fire Dick Clarke?”

“We contracted with people to kill him. I got closer to killing him than anybody’s gotten since.”

He also gave it to the host, Mike Wallace, saying, “And you got that little smirk on your face and you think you’re so clever, but I had responsibility for trying to protect this country. I tried and I failed to get bin Laden. I regret it, but I did try and I did everything I thought I responsibly could.”

In any case, it was amazing to see Clinton stand up for himself so forcefully and to set the record straight on what he did and what Bush has not done to catch Bin Laden. Our current group of weak-willed party leaders could learn something here.

Ralph’s analysis of the Lamont v.s Lieberman campaign in Connecticut shows that Lamont can still win, if he can refocus his campaign to include his base and traditional Dems.

See the full story…

That is Natasha as in Boris and, the two bumbling cartoon spies created by the immortal Jay Ward as foils for Rocky the Flying Squirrel and his dim-witted sidekick, Bullwinkle the Moose. Boris and Natasha spoke some generic foreign accent that sounded “Russian” (they were the bogeymen of the time) and hatched various ridiculous schemes to take over the world on behalf of one “Fearless Leader,” who bore a spooky resemblance to Heinrich Himmler. Boris was the Lou Costello part of the team, a chunky guy with a pencil moustache who had trouble tying his shoes. Natasha not only was the brains of the outfit, but also could get off some great one-liners that cut into someone (usually Boris) like a knife.

Ward’s brilliance lay in taking a venerable Hollywood stereotype and turning it into, well, a cartoon. The stereotype, of course, was the femme fatale whose major weapons were her mind and her tongue as much as they were her abilities to mix a potent poison or stick a gun in someone’s back at just the right time. All of us can name a long line of Hollywood stars who made fortunes (and Oscars) playing this role from Marlene Dietrich (Natasha’s voice was a parody of hers), through Betty Davis and Joan Crawford to Dynasty and even “reality”: shows like Survivor. James Bond films have always have a Natasha as does just about any modern thriller or disaster film.

The idea of a woman who is pretty, smart and talks with a potty mouth is an archetype that resonates with something deep in the American psyche on the same level as the barroom bully who argues about everything and will back it up with his fists. That these two archetypes should become the staple of what I term the Raucous Right is fascinating. Many years ago William F. Buckley and William Rusher were the archetypal right wing ideologues, men with impeccable manners, a vocabulary honed as sharp as a rapier, and nimble minds that could tie an unwitting victim in the fallacies of their own logic.

Today the Raucous Right has made a very conscious decision to take discourse from the living room–or the drawing romm–to the barroom or even the dark alleys “outside,” as in the “you want to take this outside” taunt of any dingy saloon. This has been a major contributor to the Era of Bad Feelings and has run in parallel with a similar development in sports talk shows. Unlike Buckley, who loved to intellectually best his opponents, these guys don’t care. They just outshout them and out insult them, daring them to “step outside.” It’s a Hollywood script, not “news” or “journalism.” The words come from actors, not reporters or thoughtful commentators. The implications of this are obvious–the opponents in a political debate are worth neither the time nor the respect. Although Rush Limbaugh and company like to think of themselves as John Wayne, they are, in fact, Liberty Valence.

Ann Coulter pushes this increasing confusion between Hollywood and information to the next extreme. I have no idea what she is like personally (Joan Crawford could be even nastier in person than on the screen according to various bios), but clearly in her books and in front of the media she is playing a role. That the media and the public should buy into this role has more to do with Coulter’s ability to play Natasha well than with anything she actually says or does. As in any Hollywood drama (Dynasty comes to mind) her appeal comes from the audience wondering how far she will go. When Coulter appears on talk TV, she is a failure if some absolutely nasty soundbite does not come out of it and make the papers the next morning. My guess is, going in, she knows what that soundbite will be, and like any good actor, knows that timing is everything. Throw the punchline out there right away and the drama is over, wait too long and the audience gets bored.

If we follow this thread, we have to ask why does the Republican Counterrevolution feel compelled to hire actors to serve as its intellectual voice, to talk with everyday Americans about why they should support the Counterrevolution? To begin with, it shows they think, contrary to what they say, that most of us Americans are not very bright, that invective and twisted facts and hate speech are what we crave. An Austrian corporal thought the same thing. We also need to ask why should the Counterrevolution feel a need to muddy the line between Hollywood and journalism? The more that line is muddied the harder it is to determine whether the playing field is level. Everything becomes sham when we all life is the equivalent of Disney World where white-gloved mice walk the streets and a new illusion is around the corner.

Finally, why is the media buying these acts? In the days of the Fairness Doctrine, Rush Limbaugh would have a lost a rather hefty lawsuit (see the Supreme Court’s Red Lion decision if you don’t believe me) and any repubtable publisher would have shown Coulter the door because their fact checkers would have rejected all the distortions and falsehoods in her books. Fox maintains they are only giving the people what they want, but if people really do want bread and circuses, doesn’t the media have a higher obligation? After all we own the airwaves.

As for Coulter/Natasha, the question is, who is her Boris? And where is Fearless Leader?

Remember Again
A Mark Fiore animation

From Bush or Chimp?

And saving the best for last…

The Tragedy Central Roast of George W Bush (funny!)
A Too Stupid To Be President animation

DNC

Even in Iraq, Bush’s cronies work hard to ensure they hire only Bush supporters, regardless of their qualifications. Apparently, U.S. employment laws don’t apply in Iraq, even though U.S. taxpayers foot the bill.

‘Department of Defense political appointee Jim O’Beirne had been tasked with filling positions in the organization which is to rebuild Iraq, the Coalition Provisional Authority. “Applicants didn’t need to be experts in the Middle East or in post-conflict reconstruction. What seemed most important was loyalty to the Bush administration. O’Beirne’s staff posed blunt questions to some candidates about domestic politics: Did you vote for George W. Bush in 2000? Do you support the way the president is fighting the war on terror? Two people who sought jobs with the U.S. occupation authority said they were even asked their views on Roe v. Wade.” Jim O’Beirne is married to conservative commentator Kate O’Beirne. [Washington Post, 9/17/06]

Read the full story on some seriously unqualified employees.

Nancy Pelosi and Charles Rangel pulled the rug out from under Dems today with rally-around-the-president press conferences.

Speaking about speeches made at the UN by the leaders of Venezuela and Iran, Rangel said “…you don’t come into my country… and you don’t condemn my president…”. Pelosi’s comments were similar.

The GOP was already gaining momentum with their bogus fight on detainee interrogation and last-minute compromise (CNN just showed a press conference with Bill Frist saying they should have an agreement worked out within 48 hours). They’re sure to complete passage of a bill to construct a border fence. The confrontation with Iran and Venezuela can only help Bush’s numbers. And then there’s the promise of an “October Surprise”.

Sadly, the best we can hope for from Nancy Pelosi, Charles Rangel, and Harry Reid is that they’ll keep their typically weak, passive comments to themselves. So the one time that they decide to stand strong against personal attacks is not when the the attacks come from the right… oh, no, that would require some backbone. Instead, in a move that would make Joe Lieberman proud, they chose to hold a press conference to jump to Bush’s defense!

This collosally stupid move, combined with the events of the past few weeks, will move the numbers of Bush, and by extension the GOP, up. History may very well show that our own Democratic leaders gave the GOP the bump they needed to continue their strangle-hold on our government. Howard Dean must be furious.

According to The Raw Story, conservative websites Newsmax and The American Spectator claim Karl Rove has promised GOP insiders that there will be an “October surprise” before the November congressional elections.  There are also plans for the two weeks before the election to flood the airwaves with ads, and deploy waves of all-expenses-paid “volunteers” in key areas. 

In addition to that, Bush plans to come up with a few “wedge issues” to help Republicans out, so look for some executive orders along those lines in the final weeks.

I get a kick out of listening to Michael Ware of CNN reporting on the REAL situation in Baghdad.  In a recent interview when asked about Bush citing General Casey and Ambassador Khalilzad as ‘reliable sources for honest assessments’, Ware stated, “These are men who could not be more divorced from the Iraqi reality.”

C&L has a video clip of Ware’s full interview.

I watched the Chavez speech at the UN today, and I’ve been watching CNN’s outrage over the speech.

Chavez said of Bush, “the devil came here yesterday”, to which the audience laughed (I think that’s what irritated CNN the most, the laughing).  Is that really that different from Bush calling several nations an axis of “evil”, or calling people “evildoers”?  Reagan called the old Soviet Union the “evil empire”.  Devil… evil… evildoers… sounds pretty much the same to me.

By the way, does anyone doubt that Cheney is the devil (only half-kidding there)?

Chavez also said that Bush talked to the UN “as if he was the owner of the world”, asked if Bush had the right to define Democracy for the world, and referred several times to U.S. “imperialism” under Bush.  Even if you hate Chavez, isn’t that all fairly accurate?

At the end of the Chavez speech he drew applause from the mainly Latin American crowd, to which Richard Roth at CNN said Chavez “serves as a prominent and easy outlet for those who can’t publicly criticize the Bush administration.”  CNN did at least get one thing right, when they said that U.S. foreign policy in this hemisphere, specifically Latin America, is “seriously lacking”.