Over There: or Maginot Line Redux All Over Aagin
If, as so many Neo-cons have it, 'we're fighting them
over there, so we don't have to fight them
here,' does that mean that after they kick our asses over there (thanks to the cowardice, cynicism and myopia of the WHIG) they'll come over here and kick our asses some more? Just asking.
Fluffer-in-Chief
John "Assrocket" Hinderaker, one of Powerline's Brain Trust. apparently went to see W yesterday in the courtly circumstance (surrounded by just a handful of kneepadded sycophants) which brings out the best in Prince Bunnypants. According to John at least. Remember, this is the same guy who, about a year ago, went out on a limb to declare W a "
genius":
"It must be very strange to be President Bush. A man of extraordinary vision and brilliance approaching to genius, he can't get anyone to notice. He is like a great painter or musician who is ahead of his time, and who unveils one masterpiece after another to a reception that, when not bored, is hostile."
So I suppose we shouldn't be surprised that Assrocket goes all swoony when admitted to the Royal Chambers. Still, perhaps they should, as we used to say, "get a
room, fer Chrissakes."
John found it, "an absolutely riveting experience." It seems though, as if John imagines
himself as rescuer, White Knight riding to the defense of his embattled liege, for he goes way out of his way to fluff up W in the gravitas department.
"The conventional wisdom is that Bush is not a very good speaker. But up close, he is a great communicator, in a way that, in my opinion, Ronald Reagan was not. He was by turns instructive, persuasive, and funny. His persona is very much that of the big brother. Above all, he was impassioned. I have never seen a politician speak so evidently from the heart, about big issues--freedom, most of all. "
Why it's as if he's responding to the way even brownshirts like
Joe Scarborough are asking "Is Bush an idiot?" Or possibly to other wholly credible reports (like U. S. News and World Report's) that he's a total lout:
"He loves to cuss, gets a jolly when a mountain biker wipes out trying to keep up with him, and now we're learning that the first frat boy loves flatulence jokes. A top insider let that slip when explaining why President Bush is paranoid around women, always worried about his behavior. But he's still a funny, earthy guy who, for example, can't get enough of fart jokes. He's also known to cut a few for laughs, especially when greeting new young aides, but forget about getting people to gas about that."
Yeah, who doesn't find it funny when somebody wipes out on their bicycle? Who doesn't like to cut the cheese for their subordinates? Who doesn't like to ride a bike alongside the people he's forced to run in
100-degree heat, taunting -- in a "good natured" way?
One wonders if John is an S/M bottom and so really gets into the spirit of these hijinks, and perhaps that accounts for his hyperventilating hagiography. You have to wonder though, when Ass Rocket says that W's "persona is very much that of the big brother," have we entered that Orwellian irony-free zone, where we all have to pretend that Orwell never existed?
GOP Criminals Lose Another War
Many have invoked the notion of Chamberlain-esque appeasement in recent years, almost always in chearleading of the various wars the Royalists have thought useful for diversionarty and remunerative purposes. As usual the conventional wisdom has it exactly ass-backwards. Certainly the country has been deeply wounded by the Democrats' appeasement -- of the GOP. Every Democratic Sentator and Representative should have been implacably opposed to the loathsome and illegitimate Bushites, starting the dawn after Election Day 2000. No Bush appointee should have been confirmed, no Bush program passed, no moneys disbursed without a bruising fight predicated in the dubious legitimacy White House tenant, and hence his dubious authority to appoint et cetera. This at least might have ensured more palatable appointees and programs, more honest elections. But the chickenshit Dems caved, and caved, and caved. And now the system is on the brink of complete ruin.
Still, even the Booboisee are starting to figure out that the Bushites are despicable ass-clowns, and incompetent losers. But Cheney is still bullhorning his Defeatocrat meme. The Democrats if they had any brains or balls could easily hit this one out of the park by saying, "Republicans have control of the White House, both Houses, and the Supreme Court -- the entire government. Republicans sold the war, planned the war, started the war, and ran the war -- right into the ground. Republicans started the war, ran it, lost it. Republicans lost the war."
Republican losers. Just like Tricky Dick. Tough talking losers. Repeat as necessary.
Written for the 8th Graders
Should we pity the poor journalist? In the name of objectivity he must refrain from saying anything witty or insightful, sticking instead to the obvious, the safe, the agreed-upon. In this he is like the beauty who, in pursuit of modesty, stuffs herself life a
foie gras goose. Or the beauty who takes the burkha.
The Moment It All Went to Hell
When he took office through a rigged election and biased Supreme Court, George W. Bush was, by the evidence in the public record: a
lout,
liar,
coward,
fool and
thief. Thanks to the delerelictions of the "journalists" and the mealymouthed cowardice of the Democrats, much of the public didn't realize this. Bush was treated with respect, therefore he must be respectable, our bovine, incurious people seemed to conclude.
Again, he
started as lout, liar, coward, fool and thief. Then the events of September 11th conferred on him nearly absolute power, and this has corrupted him immeasurably, turned him into a monster of arrogance and ignorance, spite and self-righteousness, who now spends $250 million a day of our money to avenge the crime of 9/11 on people who had nothing to do with it, to rubble a country that was absolutely no threat to us. His agenda has taken or maimed hundreds of thousands of lives and accomplished absolutely nothing even remotely worth the sacrifice. More than any other man in history he has utterly squandered American blood, treasure and honor.
There really is no issue worth discussing in American politics today except this : how do we hold Bush, his cronies and his enablers responsible for their crimes and blunders? If we could attend seriously to this, much ancillary good would follow naturally. Until and unless we do so there can be no truly salutary developments in American politics -- just further devolution and imperial decline.
Send in the the Secret V-Weapons
I made the mistake of watching Gwen Awful on the News Hour last night as I was lacing up my running shoes. She had on a center-right former State Department wonk and an ass-clown from the American Enterprize Institute by the name of Michael Rubin. Rubin himself was a prize exhibit -- he raised again, for the Umpteen-millionth time the question: do people embrace Rovism because they totally lack animal magnetism? Is it some sort of hypercompensation for people who feel shortchanged in the sexy department? Rubin looks like the love child of Mussolini and The Rock, and his face does something really weird when he talks; it looks animatronic somehow. Which is fitting, becuase he has totally drunk the Kool-Aid. I had to wonder, in the case of both guests actually, were they reading from a teleprompter? Were the questions and answers pre-scripted? Both guys could spew up a whole lot of highly predogested rhetoric on command, not a bit of straight talk in any of it. (Transcript
here.) Rubin at one point totally lifted off from any known planet, with this:
MICHAEL RUBIN: I think you need to have a commitment from the Lebanese government that they will fill the vacuum in the south and that they will be in charge of any relief operations for humanitarian aid, and only then will Israel agree to have a cease-fire, because if it's a cease-fire that leaves Hezbollah on its borders then Aaron is exactly right.
Now, the vaunted kick-ass IDF can't really wrest the south of Lebanon from Hizbullah control, but the Lebanese, with their infrastructure in ruins, and their incentive for doing so
nil, is somehow supposed to step up and make the region peaceful and insurgent-free. Sure, just as soon as they unleash their feared Unicorn Division and Dragon Wing. This is what passes for thought on the right now, kind of like the toy armies on the big map in the underground bunker that are somehow going to
turn it around.
