Thursday, March 30, 2006

Via Froomkin:

" Q Are you optimistic you can resolve the softwood dispute today?

" THE PRESIDENT: I'm always optimistic."


And his rug said: You go, boyyyy!

more Howie bashing

Howie discusses impeachment.

Politically speaking, this idea seems way overstated to me. The Democrats are going to try to impeach Bush in his seventh year rather than mobilizing to seize the White House the following year? Remember the last partisan attempt to impeach a president? How'd that work out? Bill Clinton remained popular, and the Republicans lost seats in '98.


This is the worst kind of false equivalence. Truly outrageous.

Clinton's impeachment. A possible impeachment of Bush.

Clinton gave a squirrelly answer when asked a question under oath about his sex life.

Bush started a war, in which, last count, a LOT OF PEOPLE HAVE DIED. The war was started for reasons that are still unknown. There is plenty of evidence showing that Bush was set on invading, regardless of the reasons given in public. There is evidence that Bush lied about the reasons given in public, and hid the doubts and questions about the reasons given in public. And the invasion has led to a point where Iraqis are killing Iraqis, whether you call that a civil war or not.

Tell me that is equivalent. And in return, you will get from me a bitter, sarcastic bark of a laugh. And that's more of a response than is deserved.



And as an added bonus, here is Howie advocating for affirmative action for conservative writers at big media outlets.

"It's the perception that MSM outlets are hostile to non-liberals that stops conservative journalists from signing up with their liberal peers -- or counterparts. It's a self-reinforcing bias."

If that is indeed the perception, then the big news outlets need to do something to change it.


As if this needs saying, here is an alternate theory. Conservative writers don't go into big media outlets because they are not interested in doing unbiased research and reporting. They see that if they look at all the evidence, their preconceived conclusion blows up. And they can't have that. So they stay away altogether.

Wednesday, March 29, 2006

jumping all over an aside

Howie Kurtz:

Never mind that most Americans don't know who Card is. (In fact, he may be most famous for that scene from the Michael Moore movie; television kept replaying the footage of Card interrupting Bush's reading of "My Pet Goat" to tell him about the 9/11 attacks.)


"That scene from the Michael Moore movie."

One could also call that documentary footage of an actual event. But I guess "scene from a Michael Moore movie" is technically accurate. Moore did in fact take that documentary footage and use it in his film.

"Scene from a movie." As a choice of words, it puts a little distance to the event, doesn't it? The video shows the real time reaction of Bubble Boy, panicked into inaction, frozen with the realization that his job matters and that all he knows is the politics of back-slaps and rat-fucks. But "scene from a movie," that indicates something a bit unreal. It's only a movie, you see.

Moore featured that event in his movie because he felt that the public was not aware of it. So, we wouldn't even associate this documented event with Moore's movie if it had been shown in its entirity, discussed, evaluated, talked out until we all said, "enough already." We associate it with his movie because none of those things happened.

And there is another level of distancing happening here. Michael Moore's name has become code word among the wingnuts; a code word for what, I don't know. Just - a code word. Leftist. Pinko. America hater. FAT! (TM, The Editors) Take your pick.

There are depths of unreality here that are disturbing. An actual recorded event becomes "a scene from a movie."

If you see a hookah smoking character around, tell him to get a damn job.

Tuesday, March 28, 2006

Your Republican government

Link 1

The memo also shows that the president and the prime minister acknowledged that no unconventional weapons had been found inside Iraq. Faced with the possibility of not finding any before the planned invasion, Mr. Bush talked about several ways to provoke a confrontation, including a proposal to paint a United States surveillance plane in the colors of the United Nations in hopes of drawing fire, or assassinating Mr. Hussein.


Link 2

American intelligence agencies and presidential commissions long ago concluded that Saddam Hussein had no unconventional weapons and no substantive ties to Al Qaeda before the 2003 invasion.

But now, an unusual experiment in public access is giving anyone with a computer a chance to play intelligence analyst and second-guess the government.


Bush knew there were no WMD. Bush* publicly said there were WMD. Bush pulled the UN inspectors out and invaded Iraq.

No WMD were found. Bush* said that everyone thought they were there. Official reports said, nope, no WMD. Reports also said that there were questions about the evidence that was offered in public.

Bush said he would have still invaded if he knew there were no WMD. And, as stated before, he knew there were no WMD.

Now, Hackstra orchestrates this document dump. "Go find those WMD," is the mandate from Hackstra to the bloggers.

So, instead of facing up to this colossal and tragic mistake that it is our invasion and occupation of Iraq, we have an official government action meant to confuse the issue all over again.

Ladies and gentlemen, your Republican government.


*(or others in his administration - I'm not interested in splitting hairs here)

Monday, March 27, 2006

Bush Was Set on Path to War, Memo by British Adviser Says

In case you don't remember, here are two crucial points.

Bush and Blair attempted to get another UN resolution, giving them the OK to invade. They didn't get it.

The US and allies pulled the UN arms inspectors out in order to invade and, in general, didn't care that they were finding no WMD.

Sunday, March 26, 2006

Election Whistle-Blower Stymied by Vendors

The maverick elections supervisor in Leon County, Fla., last year helped show that electronic voting machines from one of the major manufacturers are vulnerable, according to experts, and would allow election workers to alter vote counts without detection.

Now, however, Sancho may be paying an unexpected price for his whistle-blowing: None of the state-approved companies here will sell him the voting machines the county needs.

...

A spokesman said Diebold will not sell to Sancho without assurances that he will not permit more such tests, which the company considers a reckless use of the machines.


Diebold makes a powerful statement to the voters of Florida: Bend over.