In what was the deadliest day for US troops since the war in Iraq began, 5 American troops were killed by insurgents, and 31 marines died in a helicopter crash in Iraq’s western desert:
A Bush administration official said the cause of Wednesday's crash was not immediately known but that there was bad weather at the time.
[…]
A search and rescue team has reached the site and an investigation into what caused the crash was under way.
Who knows what the truth about this accident is—we’ll probably never know. But of all the likely scenarios, bad weather seems to be the most improbable. That is not to suggest that it’s impossible—sand in the gears, high winds, all that—but in a war zone with insurgents regularly attacking troops, multiple reports of poorly performing equipment, and accounts of troops performing tasks for which they are not properly trained in attempts to delay a (probably inevitable) draft, I’m just saying that bad weather is maybe not the real reason for this tragedy. (See: Occam’s Razor.)
And it’s a shame that we will probably never know the truth, only instead the official story—a designed truth conveniently conforming to the war narrative the administration is touting that day. It’s a shame because if it really is anything but the weather, there’s a responsibility to the troops who will take those marines’ places to make sure the same thing doesn’t happen again. But you’ve got to know what happened in the first place.
Bush expressed his condolences for the deaths. "The story today is going to be very discouraging to the American people. I understand that. It is the long-term objective that is vital — that is to spread freedom."
Hoo-rah.
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The Rude Pundit on absolutes. He's absolutely right.
UPDATE: I had the wrong link there before. It's right now. (Thanks, Mr. Shakes.)
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There’s something really quite charming about a group of Christians blackmailing the President, isn’t there?
Well, maybe not so much charming as extraordinarily satisfactory.
It turns out that the Arlington Group, which is, apparently, a coalition of major conservative Christian groups, including Dr. James C. Dobson of Focus on the Family, the Family Research Council, the Southern Baptist Convention, the American Family Association, Jerry Falwell, and Paul Weyrich, is none too happy about Bush’s recent interview with the Washington Post where his exact position on the “protection of marriage” amendment was, ahem, less than consistent.
In a confidential letter to Karl Rove, Mr. Bush's top political adviser, the group said it was disappointed with the White House's decision to put Social Security and other economic issues ahead of its paramount interest: opposition to same-sex marriage.
Oops! Now the groups says it will withhold support for Social Security reform if Bush doesn’t quit screwing around with his boring old economic plans and get moving on legislating bigotry.
"We couldn't help but notice the contrast between how the president is approaching the difficult issue of Social Security privatization where the public is deeply divided and the marriage issue where public opinion is overwhelmingly on his side," the letter said. "Is he prepared to spend significant political capital on privatization but reluctant to devote the same energy to preserving traditional marriage?”
Goodness gracious. What’s a poor little president-who-pretends-to-be-a-Christian-but-really-only-cares-about-the-votes-of-religious-wingnuts-to-further-his-economic-ruination-of-the-middle-class to do?
Asked to estimate the level of discontent with the White House among the group on a scale from one to 10, [Tony Perkins, president of the Family Research Council] put it at 8.
Ouch! They sure have put Bush and his Un-Svelte Svengali in a corner. Although, considering that Bush is now on his second and final term, and Dark Lord VP Cheney has indicated no aspirations to the presidency, it looks like they don’t really need to care what the Arlington Group, or any other religious nutjob who foolishly saw Christian sincerity in the president’s empty rhetoric, has to say.
The White House response was probably not as reassuring as the Arlington Group might have hoped.
Trent Duffy, a spokesman for the White House, said on Monday […] the "president remains very committed to a marriage amendment" and added, "We always welcome suggestions from our friends."
Translation: Tears in a bucket, motherfuck it. Bad news, hatemongers…you got punk’d.
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Several Democratic Senators stood up alongside Barbara Boxer and John Kerry against the confirmation of Condoleeza Rice as Sec. of State. These included Ted Kennedy and Evan Bayh (of IN). Kennedy accused Rice of providing Congress with "false reasons" for going to war. Had she not, he said in a speech, "it might have changed the course of history."
However, some Dems are still not interested in having balls. Among them, good old Joe Loserman defended Rice. Ho hum.
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The Bush Administration seems to be living in Bizarro World, where everything is a twisted, funhouse mirror version of what it should be. They hawk Social Security reform on the basis that there’s a fiscal crisis, when there is none. And they sell their rose-tinted vision of Iraq as crisis-free, when everything from protection for troops to fiscal responsibility is in deep crisis.
Now, Bizarro Bush is asking for an additional $80 billion for his non-crisis adventures in Afghanistan and Iraq. In an exchange that was prescient of all those would follow between war supporters and anyone even tangentially associated with reality, economic adviser Lawrence Lindsey predicted the invasion of Iraq would cost between $100 billion to $200 billion, but was handily dismissed and contradicted by the administration.
We see now that even he was underestimating our commitment to this folly.
While the Congressional Budget Office estimates that our budget deficit will soar to $386 billion this year (excluding war costs), Bush spends indiscriminately on lavish inaugural celebrations and seeks a constant influx of funds for his wars, despite the fact that they are being spent to line the pockets of war profiteers and create an underclass even within our military, even though we can’t even get the fucking water running for the people we are ostensibly liberating from oppression.
And perhaps my favorite part of the request for more taxpayer-provided booty is this:
It also was expected to include money for building a U.S. embassy in Baghdad, which has been estimated to cost $1.5 billion.
That’s one wicked expensive bull’s-eye.
Of course, in Bizzaro Bush World, the terrorists hate us for our freedom, so indefinitely enslaving us to inflation, joblessness, and the desperate struggle to maintain an American middle class probably seems like our best defense.
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The Razzies, which are the Oscars’ antithesis, celebrating all the worst movies of each year, have released their nominations, and there’s a special someone who got two nods this year, proving once again he’s nothing if not versatile.
Although Ben Stiller really ran way with the Worst Actor category, getting nominated for Along Came Polly, Anchorman, Dodgeball, Envy, and Starsky & Hutch, our special someone also garnered a nomination in the category. For his star turn in Fahrenheit 9/11 as “President Doofus,” George Bush has received a Razzie nom for Worst Actor.
The other nomination for the cowboy pin-up came in the category of Worst Screen Couple, for which he was nominated with either Condoleezza Rice / Fahrenheit 9/11 or His Pet Goat / Fahrenheit 9/11.
Not a man who forgets the little people when he makes it to the big time, his pals received some nominations of their own. Condoleezza Rice was also nominated as Worst Supporting Actress for her role as star-crossed lover “Condi” in Fahrenheit 9/11, but the competition in the category is stiff, as her co-star in the film, Britney Spears, has also been nominated for her performance as “Patriotic Stepford Slut.” It’s just too bad only one can take home the prize. Tough break, girls!
Dapper Don Rumsfeld also made the cut, as the tough but mean-spirited “Defense Secretary Don,” also in Fahrenheit 9/11. One can only hope that if he wins, he won’t forget to mention the other exceptional supporting actors in the film, like Paul “Spittle-Head” Wolfowitz, who must have made choosing just one quite the dilemma.
Winning will be no easy feat for Donny-boy with such impressive competitors as fellow Republican fuckwit Arnold Schwarzenegger, who has been nominated as Worst Supporting Actor for his appearance in Around the World in 80 Days. The bookies are no doubt betting on Arnie, who happens to be the all-time Razzie nomination leader, with eight nominations in his spectacular career.
George “Seven Minutes in Stupor” Bush is off to a great start with two this year. You know, his being recognized for some of the worst scenes put on film kind of makes you think–he might really be the true heir of the Reagan legacy after all.
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The Democrats have been found lacking in a lot of areas lately—strategy, gumption, electoral success—and part and parcel of each of their individual difficulties seems to be the larger problem of refusing to play the same game as the Republicans. It’s an understandable resistance; the game the Republicans play is dirty, unethical, and avaricious. But it’s also undeniably successful.
Democrats often seem to able to sufficiently console themselves with “it’s how you play the game,” forgetting that “it’s not whether you win or lose” isn’t especially applicable to politics. In fact, it is whether you win or lose. Winning or losing makes all the difference in how this country is guided into her future. Are we going to hit the same stride as many of our allies, seeking to attain as close to an egalitarian society as is possible, or are we going to slip into what effectively amounts to a capitalist theocracy, where a single man’s interpretation of God’s will defines our collective ethics? Well, it all depends on who wins, doesn’t it?
There’s also a certain sense among Democrats that moral rectitude will always win out in the end. Maybe in the movies. Maybe, if you believe in that sort of thing, in the afterlife, God or karma or the fates will dish out what’s due each of us. But here in the corporeal world, it’s just not true. Life ain’t always fair, and the good guy doesn’t always win.
So here’s my proposal. You don’t have to be quite as nasty as the opposition, but they make the rules, so let’s play by them. And to get us started on the right track (pun intended), I suggest we turn to one of their familiar tools to help guide our way.
Unless you’ve been trapped under a rock for the past few years, or if you’re one of the few lucky bastards so isolated in blue state utopia that you’re unaware of trends among the wacky Right, you’ll have instantly recognized the What Would Jesus Do? bracelet that’s become all the rage among devotees of a particular brand of Christian doctrine. When faced with a temptation or difficult decision, all the wearer has to do is glance at his wrist and think about what Jesus would do, then it’s off to the races. Or not, depending on whether one thinks Jesus would approve of betting on the ponies.
Our bracelet will say WWRD–What Would Republicans Do? When faced with the choice of mindlessly confirming, oh, say, a torture-endorsing Attorney General that the administration has nominated, even if his confirmation is a foregone conclusion, or raging and howling and picking on every little detail on his résumé then casting a protest vote, even if it will ultimately be little more than symbolic, let WWRD? be your guide.
When faced with the choice of approving a conservative judge or filibustering, even though Bill Frist has strongly advised against it, let WWRD? be your guide.
When asked to approve a total failure of a National Security Advisor into a new cabinet position that amounts to a significant promotion, let WWRD? be your guide.
When asked to support an amendment codifying discrimination into the Constitution, let WWRD? be your guide.
There’s no need to lie or swindle or abuse your power; just think of W the RWD in the same situation and act accordingly. And when they cry foul, let WWRD? be your guide. Call them traitors and go on Air America to impugn their credibility. Because they’re Republicans, you won’t even have to lie to do it, which makes playing by their rules a lot easier to justify, doesn’t it?
And remember, even if WWRD? does seem a little bit hard to swallow, it’s got to be easier than swallowing our pride for the rest of our lives while the country goes down the shitter. They count on us being above their ridiculous antics. They take it for granted. But now it’s time to get down in the dirt. Saying you played a fair game while the winners run off with America’s soul isn’t much consolation anymore.
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HaloScan has been nominated for the Best Application for Weblogs in the Bloggies Awards. If you like this free and (in my opinion) highly awesome comments engine, go on and give them your vote. They deserve it.
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Paging Barbara Boxer…and any other Dem with balls to do the right thing. Let’s smack this down with the contempt it deserves:
Wasting little time in asserting the GOP's new strength nationwide, U.S. Sen. Wayne Allard of Colorado today reintroduced a constitutional ban on gay marriage.
"We need to continue with the momentum from the election. Support has grown in the Senate and the nation," the Republican lawmaker said.
[…]
"Right now we have all the leadership on the bill on the Republican side. A fifth of the Senate has signed on for sponsorship," he said.
One-fifth is so not even close to what they need, but the last time it was put up to a vote, it ended up with 48 Senators’ support.
We don’t just need votes against this proposed amendment; we need strong Democratic voices to define this amendment as immoral, inequitable, and a despicable attempt to codify discrimination into the United States Constitution.
And by the way, Mr. Allred and all you other Republican wankers who plan to support this piece of bile—don’t you have anything better to do? The president said he’d extend the assault weapons ban if you sent it to him…how’s that going? The troops mentioned they could use some better armor…how’s that going? And what about fixing that Social Security crisis you’re all screaming about…how’s that going?
Pricks.
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Perhaps an imaginary mandate isn’t quite the political chain mail King George had assumed, because there appear to be kinks in the armor as his grand plans for Social Security reform seem to be derailing (I note with a dose of reserved optimism). As more Republicans express doubt about the claims of a crisis, Acme, Inc. is now resorting to misquoting Dems to bolster their argument. And not just any Dems:
With their push to restructure Social Security off to a rocky start, Bush administration officials have begun citing two Democrats -- former President Bill Clinton and the late senator Daniel Patrick Moynihan -- to bolster their claims that the retirement system is in crisis.
[…]
In public speeches recently, N. Gregory Mankiw, chairman of Bush's Council of Economic Advisers, and White House budget director Joshua B. Bolten, both cited the same passage of a 1998 Clinton speech at Georgetown University.
"This fiscal crisis in Social Security affects every generation," Clinton said in the speech.
But neither Mankiw nor Bolten cited another passage from the same address: "Before we spend a penny on new programs or tax cuts, we should save Social Security first. I think it should be the driving principle . . . Do not have a tax cut. Do not have a spending program that deals with that surplus. Save Social Security first."
I imagine the conventional wisdom on this one will be that it’s little more than an attempt to craft the appearance of bipartisan support for the administration’s ridiculous reform proposals. But it also has a whiff of desperation. I’d really like to think that at least the most radical of the reform ideas are not long for this world.
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On a tangential note…
It’s hardly shocking anymore when anyone even remotely associated with the administration deliberately miscontextualizes a statement from anyone on either side of the aisle on any policy issue. What is a little bit shocking is that they chose to misquote Clinton, whose opinions are of no value whatsoever in garnering support from Bush supporters.
Somewhere in the far reaches of my consciousness, I wonder whether choosing Clinton specifically wasn’t at least in part a means of sending out feelers to see just how committed they are to an ’08 run for Hillary. It will be interesting to see how vociferously Clinton defends his own statements, or whether he even sells himself out as further illustration of the bipartisanship that Hillary seems ever more keen on demonstrating. Am I fishing? Well, let’s see how Bill responds to having his words twisted in a way that supports a program he clearly made laudable efforts to save during his own tenure at 1600.
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Last night, I had a very long and vivid dream that America had descended into a cultural civil war—and not a cold war, but a real, full-on, violent war. The two sides were known as the Christians and the Scientists. In the dream, I was standing outside the gates at a Christians rally, led by William Donahue of the Catholic League, and the war was about to begin in earnest.
So now that I’ve offered this peek into my disturbed psyche, imagine my terror when I read this post at Blogenlust!
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Check this kid out. He's running for President in 2020, which is the first election in which he'll be old enough to run.
Should abortion be legal? YES Here's why
Is affirmative action still necessary? YES Here's why
Should the death penalty be abolished? YES Here's why
Does Matt Cooper support gay marriage? YES Here's why
Does Matt Cooper support increasing the minimum wage? YES Here's why
Should drugs from Canada be legal? YES Here's why
He totally rules.
(Link via AMERICAblog.)
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Newly added is Julien’s List. Ms. Julien, who, after gracing those of us lucky enough to be recipients with Julien’s List via email for some time, has now got her blog up and running.
I’ve deemed 2005 the Year of the Blogrrls (no offense to the guys, but let’s face it—political blogging has been kind of a sausage fest thus far), and Ms. Julien is one of the charter Grrls. She’s just getting started; give her some love. Go, Julien, go!
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Political Strategy’s Drew Johnston reminds us that Conservatives have outed the insidious gay agenda in children’s television before. And Gordon at The Alternate Brain posts Maureen Dowd’s response to the SpongeBob SquarePants hubbub:
Once again, the lovable and malleable president seems to be soaking up the martial mind-set of those around him, almost like ... a sponge.
SpongeBush SquarePants!
We can only hope that Dr. Dobson doesn't pick up on the resemblance. SpongeBob, as his song goes, "lives in a pineapple under the sea/absorbent and yellow and porous is he!" SpongeBush lives in a bubble in D.C./absorbent and shallow and porous is he!
Heh.
And I was thinking…if Dr. Dobson has decided he wants to be the moral authority on cartoon characters, how about leaving the lovable SpongeBob to his harmless gay antics and put out an APB for this fucking rapist?
Plus, he’s FRENCH!!!
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After nearly an entire weekend with no internet access, and much wrangling with our service provider, I’m finally back online. And the first headline I see is that Johnny Carson has died. I won’t attempt to write any kind of tribute; anyone who knew his work knows that it speaks for itself.
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What lesson do you think Hillary Clinton has learned most pointedly from her enduring marriage to Bill? Forgiveness? Tolerance? Patience? Or maybe political opportunism:
In a speech at a fund-raising dinner for a Boston-based organization that promotes faith-based solutions to social problems, Clinton said there has been a "false division" between faith-based approaches to social problems and respect for the separation of church of state.
"There is no contradiction between support for faith-based initiatives and upholding our constitutional principles," said Clinton, a New York Democrat who often is mentioned as a possible presidential candidate in 2008.
Addressing a crowd of more than 500, including many religious leaders, at Boston's Fairmont Copley Plaza, Clinton invoked God more than half a dozen times, at one point declaring, "I've always been a praying person."
She said there must be room for religious people to "live out their faith in the public square."
There’s nothing technically wrong with what Clinton is saying; it’s true that there isn’t an inherent contradiction between support for faith-based initiatives and upholding our constitutional principles. In fact, there are many religiously-based organizations that do incredible work (namely those who do their work
without proselytizing or requiring the beneficiaries of their charitable work to adhere to a particular faith), and they should never be barred from receiving federal funding because they were founded by people of faith. But likewise, non-religious groups shouldn’t be excluded from a list of organizations approved to receive federal funds—and that’s what’s happening under the orders of this administration. Hillary’s decision to ignore that reality is truly disingenuous.
And when she says that there has been a “false division” between faith-based approaches to social problems and respect for the separation of church of state, she’s right—the administration has made repeated attempts to
minimize that division, using their support of faith-based approaches to mollify those who falsely claim a Christian foundation as part of this country’s history. But that’s not what Hillary’s saying. Hillary is scolding those who resent and criticize the Bush Administration’s preferential treatment of Christian social service organizations.
Hillary is trying to distance herself from secular liberals.
Personally, I’m not a praying person, but I’m gonna start. I’m gonna pray every day between now and 2008 that the Clintons FUCK OFF and take their bullshit, opportunistic, sell-out centrism with them. Amen.
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Go check out this video at OliverWillis. Just when you think Fox has reached the bottom of the no-shame barrel, they manage to dig just a little bit deeper.
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Once, twice, three times the fuzzy...
Big Jim, like his mum, is a Star Wars geek.
Something tells me this picture of Matilda would be especially frightening to John Ashcroft.
You wouldn't believe the havoc wreaked by such a wee, innocent-looking thing.
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I’ve got a few new additions this week, and there are more waiting on the list, but I’d rather keep it to a couple new ones each week in the hopes that highlighting a couple will encourage other people to check them out, as opposed to adding 10 at a time with no endorsement. I feel guilty leaving some bloggers off the list when I myself am reading them every day, but I think there’s definitely method to the madness. (Basically, if you know I’m reading you, please don’t get offended if you’re not on my blogroll yet; I’m just going chronologically.)
First up: Brilliant at Breakfast. Jill’s great, which I say with all due narcissism, as I happen to agree with her on most things, I thought an inauguration photo essay was a nifty idea, too (hers is better), and I’m no stranger to Wilde quotes myself.
Next: Middle Earth Journal. Ron offers consistently good stuff and also has swell contributors, a nice example of which is Jazz’s current post on how Conservatives don’t understand the Bible better than anything else they purport to.
And finally: Blogenlust. Always good. Read John’s latest; you’ll no doubt agree.
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