Friday, October 27, 2006

From Froomkin:
Bush reiterated that latter point in the Wednesday interview: "Remember the pictures in the Oval Office, with them sitting over the maps, picking out the targets in Vietnam? That's not happening in this war. The Commander-in-Chief, through the Secretary of Defense, must empower the military people on the ground, and the embassy, to . . . implement the strategy. And if tactics need to change, change them. Just keep us posted. And that's what's happening."

Emphasis added.

Keep us posted. Write me a memo. Leave a message with the girl at the desk.

Your President of the United States, everyone. Let's hear it for him.

From the same Froomkin column:
Kathleen Parker , one of the conservative writers who was invited to participate in the interview, writes today: "Bush tried to clarify what 'winning' is. . . .

"This is a little tricky, so pay attention.

"First, 'winning' is closely tied to 'staying the course,' another term seeking definition the past few days. As of this writing, 'staying the course' means 'winning,' which means 'not losing,' but you knew that.

"And what does 'not losing' mean? According to Bush, it means not leaving. Which no one wants to hear, but there it is. . . .

"At this point, the only real question, said Bush, is whether we can help the Iraqi government succeed. 'Not only can we help them, we must help them,' he said.

"Which means not leaving. Which means not losing. Which means winning, maybe, as currently defined."

The level of detail and complexity on display here is staggering. A simple layman such as myself cannot hope to comprehend ... ah, fuck it.

Since when is foreign policy described in terms that a kindergartener could understand?

Your President of the United States, everyone.

Wednesday, October 25, 2006

The scanner ate my National Intelligence Estimate on the global terror threat and the war in Iraq.

Clearly, the shit storm that would rain down from the Cheney/Bush White House if this report had been distributed had nothing to do with anything. No, it was a technical issue with a scanner. There was no partisanship going here, just equipment failures.

Why do these Republicans run for office, if they clearly hate the process of government and the duties of their offices?

Tuesday, October 24, 2006

Kurtz actually calls BS on a couple of hacks in his column today.
I don't know how this became the new Republican talking point. I mean, I'm all for criticizing the media for, say, overplaying the Foley scandal or running too many polls-say-Democrats-will-win stories. But what journalist even thinks about convincing voters to stay home?

Yet there was the star of "Hannity & the Other Guy" on Friday--the same Sean Hannity who is campaigning for Republican Michael Steele today in the Maryland Senate race--declaring that "the media seems somewhat complicit. I argue that there's even sort of an institutionalized bias to sort of suppress voting and take away initiative from people -- that's how I feel -- based on the news coverage."

Okayyy. And now comes Fred Barnes , executive editor of the Weekly Standard [...]

Wow. Rather than letting the crackpottery pass without comment, Kurtz actually points it out. Nicely done.

Monday, October 23, 2006

From the "other" Congressional race in the area, the one in which they actually (hold on to something) had a debate. McNulty (or McNutty, if you're a fan of The Wire) and Redlich.
Even though he's a Republican like Sweeney, Redlich acknowledges he identifies closely with Gillibrand.

"I think that's a completely baseless reason to avoid a debate," Redlich said of Sweeney's insistence that Gillibrand release her tax returns.

This has been your "no shit" moment of the day. John Sweeney doesn't care about the tax returns - he simply doesn't want to face his opponent.