You can find my latest burp of disgust with the Congressional Democrats by clicking here.
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November 30th, 2007 at 9:02 am
Hugo Chavez, El Presidente for Life, deserves to be shot.
Holy Shit! Did I say that out loud?
November 30th, 2007 at 10:58 am
Yes, Venezuela joining dozens of other countries in disallowing term limits, that means an excuse to use a demeaning term and joke about assassination. Way to go.
No one in the States is talking about the 35 hourwork week which is being voted upon, pensions and social security for the informal sector that takes up 40 percent of the Venezuelan workforce, more stringent taxation on foreign business etc. Not to mention that as we speak – see today’s Democracy Now, etc. – the CIA is formenting unrest in Venezuela, with the help of someone named Stalin.
Yes, Stalin Rodriguez, .and other Maoists and Stalinists are putting a leftface on counterrevolution. First tragedy, then farce, then Zucker brothers satire. Meanwhile, Chavez was bucked by Uribe right when he was about to succeed in hostage negotiations. Perhaps Venezuela knows where the bodies are buried?
November 30th, 2007 at 11:43 am
Hey, I watched Man In The Moon last night, so my humor’s a little mean this morning, O.K.?
But I’m with you on the other stuff…
November 30th, 2007 at 1:35 pm
Workers Held Hostage At Clinton Office In N.H.
Man With Bomb Holding Campaign Volunteers
Didn’t Stalin create crimes and blame his opponents? And, oh yeah, Vince Foster.
November 30th, 2007 at 1:40 pm
Yes, and so did Hitler.
November 30th, 2007 at 1:42 pm
Back to the topic, Rep. Jack Murtha said yesterday, “I think the ‘surge’ is working.” Of course, you might have missed that had you just tuned into the Big 3 networks. But, wasn’t it only a few months ago that Harry Reid told our soldiers that we had lost in Iraq? The Democrats sure keep me confused. Saying one thing on Iraq to get elected and flip-flopping back and forth on it now.
November 30th, 2007 at 2:28 pm
The only thing the Dems have accomplished is to impose the obligation to keep a scorecard against which we can measure progress toward achieving progress in Iraq–the “benchmarks.” Any claims of “success” as a result of the troop surge must demonstrate progress in achieving the goals established by the benchmarks. Can the administration do this? I don’t think so. As Cong. Murtha pointed out, the surge has not resulted in the Iraqi government or military taking over the job that is being done by the Americans. So while the surge and concomitant local diplomacy has lessened the violence, for now, it has also effected a step backward by increasing the Iraqi reliance on American troops to fight the insurgents.
If the administration wishes to declare an interim “mission accomplished” again, we must recognize that it is doing so only as a result of revising the definitions of “mission” and “accomplished” over and over again until it found a goal we finally could meet.
The triumph the right is claiming is not only pyrrhic, it is wikipediatric.
November 30th, 2007 at 5:51 pm
What exactly did Murtha say? He is open to a deal? What does that mean? More to the point, what does Dave Obey say?
November 30th, 2007 at 7:11 pm
Well, if I read Sam Stein at HUFFPO right all Murtha said was the surge showed progress which was to be expect since a lot of troops were poured in but the basic problem of Iraqi political deals was still elusive. And he intimated that Congress was open to dealing on funding but there should be a mechanism for troop cuts.
Poor Murtha! He gave a nuanced answer to a complex question. Does’nt he know that our media don’t do nuance? We like bumper sticker answers or “Gotcha!” rhetoric. What a sad joke our politics have become.
November 30th, 2007 at 9:12 pm
Democratic Country. “Where never is heard an encouraging word, and the skies are all cloudy all day.”
Is the populace really ready for four years of the hand-wringing depression party? How many of our citizens are going to be pushed over the edge into suicide from all the nervous-nanny worry-wart nihilistic crap that it thrives on.
Your country is beginning to do well in a tough war and what to hell do you do? Work your fool heads off trying to find something to whine about anyway.
November 30th, 2007 at 9:20 pm
It’s not about a half-full or half-empty cup attitude. It’s always about pissing away half of a full cup so you can have reason to be depressed, bringing down every one around you.
The classic defintion of losers.
December 1st, 2007 at 8:40 am
OT – to reg-
I think we discussed – was it reg or RLC – Dwight MacDonald. As of last week there is an archive of Dwight at Marx.org. – tremendous polemics with Trotsky….the original anarcho-communist….I am hugely indebted to him, regardless of his brief CIA sojourn.
http://marx.org/history/etol/writers/macdonald/index.htm
December 1st, 2007 at 11:48 am
Look, if the past week hasn’t convinced you that Marc Cooper is a right wing tool, he’s just going to have to go over the John Birtch Society and open a lighting fixture with his nostril.
December 1st, 2007 at 12:03 pm
A few interesting points among the ususal nonsense: It’s funny that when Jack Welch’s million dollar hit men go after the Democratic Front runner, it’s no harm, no foul. But the Republicans are supposedly worthy of a GOOD debate.
Listed among the things Republicans aledged don’t care about( Guns, Religion) was the curious non-issue of what will happen to doctors and women if Abortion is criminalized, something ALL the Republican candidates are FOR. So JUST HOW EASY does Cooper want to make it for right? He doesn’t want them asked about the obvious results of laws they want to change? It almost makes you think think, golly, he wants them to be able to present themselves as nice guy middle of the roaders, which is what brought Bush to power in 2000(Remember that convention?) Gosh, it wouldn’t be Cooper actually is pulling for Republican pals, would it?
Cummings, I took you apart on Waco last year; you know nothing of what you speak. I’ll also say a guy playing Mr. Senstive about Dick Cheney might want to avoid “sick jokes jokes about children tragicly burned to death at the hands of their parents, but common decency long ago fell round these parts in the rush to get the evil Clintons by any means nessesary.
Finally, as to Bill’s supposed rewriting of History on the war (the NY Times piece, unlike FAIR, was fair) take a look at Cobra II. Clinton told Bush in thier only briefing he though he should stop making a big deal about Iraq. That means more, really, than his usual playing both sides against the middle.
As for Cooper’s utterly ignoring the hudge significance of Rove’s amazing balderdash (Hey, why consern yourself with the people who actually STARTED the war?) it looks like Rove will attempt to stick by his wacked out story. Will Cooper continue to cover for him, as usual, by his generious silence?
December 1st, 2007 at 12:13 pm
♫ “It’s showtime..at the Apollo!” ♫
Live at the Apollo with Obama
“My opponent will not be able to say that I voted for the war because I didn’t. As president of the United States, I will bring our troops home in 16 months.â€
Sixteen months?!
December 1st, 2007 at 4:56 pm
“Showtimes at the Apollo”
Well it sure beats the “Grand Ole’ Oprey”
I don’t know about “Grand Ole’ Oprah”
December 2nd, 2007 at 2:46 am
Frank Rich’s column in the NY Times today should be of interest to all Obama fans. As we all know, Clinton is the candidate the Republicans want to run against, and Rich points out that they wouldn’t even know how to deal with an Obama candidacy.
December 2nd, 2007 at 7:41 am
The only thing missing in Obama’s talk at the Apollo was that they needed that clown to come out who drives bad talent off of the stage and for that clown to be wearing a Hillary mask.
Have you guys seen all of the fawning that the press has done over Hillary’s hostage crisis and saying that she was regal and was so presidential in how she handled it? Barf.
December 2nd, 2007 at 8:58 am
Michael – Rich’s and Dowd’s columns in today’s NYTs are a great study in “punditry” that attempts to project some substantive opinion/analysis versus that which drowns itself in trendy ephemera and reductive cliches – like poor Barack’s current “uneasy quest to claim his place in the black community” – surely one of the Dowdiest lines ever. Of course, if Obama wasn’t splitting the black vote with Hillary, it would be proof of conventional wistom about black people’s alleged political herd instincts. Given the failure of that aspect of “conventional wisdom,” it’s treated as evidence of Obama’s having an “uneasy” relationship with black people rather than the obvious – that black Democrats are overwhelmingly pragmatic and rather conventional within party context, like most voters.)
In a further “insight” Maureen notes that Cornel West kept calling Obama “brother” at the Apollo event – deducing this was a way of offering him the mantle of racial authenticity (clearly a major concern of Ms Dowd’s.) What’s funny about that is that Cornell West serially and pretentiously calls ANYONE, white or black, he’s engaging or introducing “brother.” It’s like a verbal tic with the professor. But Dowd manages to wring entire columns out of such meager stuff.
December 2nd, 2007 at 9:23 am
“brother” is not a verbal tic with Brother West. I happened to see him speak and met him and he called EVERYONE brother this and brother that. He’s foursquare a genuine article.
December 2nd, 2007 at 9:46 am
That’s exactly what I said – he calls everyone “brother”. That’s a verbal tic, IMHO, rather than a use of the term to denote something particular about the person other than that he happens to be in the same room with them. Kind of like stoners pronouncing everything “awesome” or “cool.” Brother West is “the genuine article” if we’re talking about folks who have “genuinely” constructed an elaborate and distinct public persona. I generally like the guy – I guess he could be considered “genuine” in the rarified atmosphere of African-American Ivy League academics. Certainly more so than “Brother” Henry Gates. But pair him up with, say, Glenn Loury and West would come off as a pretentious blowhard.
December 2nd, 2007 at 10:18 am
‘Michael – Rich’s and Dowd’s columns in today’s NYTs are a great study in “punditry†that attempts to project some substantive opinion/analysis versus that which drowns itself in trendy ephemera and reductive cliches…’
The funny thing is that Rich used to be as Dowdy as Dowd, judging candidates mainly on their stage presence, transient coolness etc., interested in no policy issues other than those few which immediately concerned the Broadway community. He helped toboggan Al Gore with that sort of Dowdiness — too bad he didn’t get religion sooner.
December 2nd, 2007 at 11:16 pm
Regardless of his not at all salient racial categorization in the realm of philosophy and political theory, he’s done very innovative work, be it on attempting to synthesize Dewey and Marx or simply in his extremely influential (to me and what I’m doing) work on ethics in Marxist thought.
December 2nd, 2007 at 11:18 pm
And be it a tic or not, the term “brother” is an endearing means of which to adress someone.
December 3rd, 2007 at 12:02 am
I agree that “brother” (like “sister”) is a very endearing form of address – and it speaks to Cornell West’s impeccably Christian values that he uses it freely. My point was that Maureen Dowd is more often than not a clueless hack who barely knows what she’s talking about.
December 3rd, 2007 at 1:13 pm
He Ain’t heavy Reg, he’s just being Cornell West. I have noticed that, lately, he’s been cuting down on 50 cent words when Penny words will suffice. Been talkin’ to “Brother” Michael Eric Dyson?
December 3rd, 2007 at 1:36 pm
To West’s credit he took issue with Dyson on the Cosby “controversy.”
December 4th, 2007 at 6:19 am
To watch Bush ‘lead’ the leaderless Congress is a case in ……well leadership. I swear, if he were President instead of a Democrat during the Vietnam War, the South Vietnamese people would not be doomed to 100 years, at least, of North Vietnamese totalitarianism.
To watch Nancy and Harry (this could be made a sitcom….no, actually the real thing is more entertaining. I mean, who could actually write a script more satirical) bob, weave, wiggle, and sway around their prior demands for more troops, then a different direction, then retreat/defeat (this demand was the same as the preceding in different words I think), then finally settle on the last and least acceptable to the American people at a time when their initial demand seems to be working, is a case study in short term politicos up against long term leadership.
I actually think Bush may be as bad as many think. He may very well have a dark side, as shown in the way he toys with this two, sort of like a cat plays with mice, before the inevitable end.
Where to hell is FDR, JFK, and Truman type Churchill leadership in the Democratic Party? Instead we have Nancy and Harry. Lower Management political types who belong administrating social programs like HHS, or HUD, or WIC as a the reward from an actual leader.