Magpie

Friday, September 7, 2007

Step right up folks! See the amazing disappearing benchmarks!

Although our Dear Leader doesn't recall the benchmarks that he himself set up for judging the success of the surge in Iraq, Salon's Tim Grieve remembers them quite well indeed.

This magpie wants to think that the Democrats in Congress will remember Dubya's benchmarks—and how very few of them have been met—when they pass judgment on the surge later this month. I'm not holding my breath, though.

Labels: Dubya, Iraq, Memory failure, Surge

| | Posted by Magpie at 12:12 AM | Get permalink

Wednesday, September 5, 2007

Earth to Dubya, Earth to Dubya ...

This magpie really has to wonder what planet our Dear Leader is on after reading this account of his arrival in Australia:

"We're kicking ass," he told Mark Vaile on the tarmac after the Deputy Prime Minister inquired politely of the President's stopover in Iraq en route to Sydney. [Emaphsis and incredulity added]

The word 'delusional' doesn't even begin to cover it.

Via Sydney Morning Herald.

Labels: Australia, Cluelessness, Delusions, Dubya, Iraq, Occupation

| | Posted by Magpie at 3:30 PM | Get permalink

Tuesday, September 4, 2007

No future.

And I thought I was pessimistic about the state of the US. I've got nothing on Chris Floyd, who's already willing to write an obituary for the American republic:

The annus horribilis of 2007 has turned out to be a year of triumph for the Bush Faction -- the hit men who delivered the coup de grâce to the long-moribund Republic. Bush was written off as a lame duck after the Democrat's November 2006 election "triumph" (in fact, the narrowest of victories eked out despite an orgy of cheating and fixing by the losers), and the subsequent salvo of Establishment consensus from the Iraq Study Group, advocating a de-escalation of the war in Iraq. Then came a series of scandals, investigations, high-profile resignations, even the criminal conviction of a top White House official. But despite all this -- and abysmal poll ratings as well -- over the past eight months Bush and his coupsters have seen every single element of their violent tyranny confirmed, countenanced and extended.

he war which we were told the Democrats and ISG consensus would end or wind down has of course been escalated to its greatest level yet -- more troops, more airstrikes, more mercenaries, more Iraqi captives swelling the mammoth prison camps of the occupying power, more instability destroying the very fabric of Iraqi society. The patently illegal surveillance programs of the authoritarian regime have now been codified into law by the Democratic Congress, which has also let stand the evisceration of habeas corpus in the Military Commissions Act, and a raft of other liberty-stripping laws, rules, regulations and executive orders. Bush's self-proclaimed arbitrary power to seize American citizens (and others) without charge and hold them indefinitely -- even kill them -- has likewise been unchallenged by the legislators. Bush has brazenly defied Congressional subpoenas -- and even arbitrarily stripped the Justice Department of the power to enforce them -- to no other reaction than a stern promise from Democratic leaders to "look further into this matter." His spokesmen -- and his "signing statements" -- now openly proclaim his utter disdain for representative government, and assert at every turn his sovereign right to "interpret" -- or ignore -- legislation as he wishes. He retains the right to "interpret" just which interrogation techniques are classified as torture and which are not, while his concentration camp at Guantanamo Bay and his secret CIA prisons -- where those "strenuous" techniques are practiced -- remain open. His increasingly brazen drive to war with Iran has already been endorsed unanimously by the Senate and overwhelmingly by the House, both of which have embraced the specious casus belli concocted by the Bush Regime. And to come full circle, Democratic leaders like Hillary Clinton and Carl Levin are now praising the "military success" of the Iraq escalation -- despite the evident failure of its stated goals by every single measure, including troop deaths, civilian deaths, security, infrastructure, political cohesion and regional stability. This emerging "bipartisan consensus" on the military situation in Iraq (or rather, this utter fantasy concealing a rapidly deteriorating reality) makes it certain that the September "progress report" will be greeted as a justification for continuing the "surge" in one form or another.

It is, by any measure, a remarkable achievement, one of the greatest political feats ever. Despite Bush's standing as one of the most despised presidents in American history, despite a Congress in control of the opposition party, despite a solid majority opposed to his policies and his war, despite an Administration riddled with scandal and crime, despite the glaring rot in the nation's infrastructure and the callous abandonment of one of the nation's major cities to natural disaster and crony greed -- despite all of this, and much more that would have brought down or mortally wounded any government in a democratic country, the Bush Administration is now in a far stronger position than it was a year ago.

How can this be? The answer is simple: the United States is no longer a democratic country, or even a degraded semblance of one.

I know I say this a lot, but ... it's really worth your time to go read the entire post.

My view of our current political situation in the US isn't quite as dark as Floyd's, but he makes a very persuasive argument about the degree of danger to democracy that Dubya, his minions, and his Democratic enablers represent. Dismissing his argument as paranoia only makes it more certain that the tombstone will soon be placed over the grave of the long democratic experiment in the US.

Via The Sideshow.

Labels: 'War on Terrorism', Dubya, Fascism, Iran, Iraq, Paranoia, Telling It Like It Is

| | Posted by Magpie at 1:20 PM | Get permalink

Monday, September 3, 2007

Little or no blogging today.

Faced with having to comment on Dubya's ~~visit to~~ photo-op in Iraq or—even worse—having to say anything about this, taking the day off seems to be a wise move.

See y'all tomorrow.

Labels: Dubya, Iraq, Petraeus, Propaganda

| | Posted by Magpie at 12:04 PM | Get permalink

Thursday, August 30, 2007

This could be tinfoil hat stuff ...

... or it might be that the much-rumored attack on Iran may be coming up Real Soon Now.

Here's part of a post by Barnett Rubin at Informed Comment Global Affairs:

Today I received a message from a friend who has excellent connections in Washington and whose information has often been prescient. According to this report, as in 2002, the rollout will start after Labor Day, with a big kickoff on September 11. My friend had spoken to someone in one of the leading neo-conservative institutions. He summarized what he was told this way:
They [the source's institution] have "instructions" (yes, that was the word used) from the Office of the Vice-President to roll out a campaign for war with Iran in the week after Labor Day; it will be coordinated with the American Enterprise Institute, the Wall Street Journal, the Weekly Standard, Commentary, Fox, and the usual suspects. It will be heavy sustained assault on the airwaves, designed to knock public sentiment into a position from which a war can be maintained. Evidently they don't think they'll ever get majority support for this--they want something like 35-40 percent support, which in their book is "plenty."

Of course I cannot verify this report. But besides all the other pieces of information about this circulating, I heard last week from a former U.S. government contractor. According to this friend, someone in the Department of Defense called, asking for cost estimates for a model for reconstruction in Asia. The former contractor finally concluded that the model was intended for Iran. This anecdote is also inconclusive, but it is consistent with the depth of planning that went into the reconstruction effort in Iraq and Afghanistan. [Emphasis added]

You should really read the whole post, in which Rubin (a well known expert on Afghanistan and Central Asia) draws some scary comparisons between what happened in the weeks ahead of Dubya's attack on Iraq, and the stuff that's going on now.

Labels: 'War on Terrorism', Cheney, Dubya, Iran, Paranoia

| | Posted by Magpie at 6:26 PM | Get permalink

Wednesday, August 29, 2007

Shame? What shame?

On the second anniversary of Hurricane Katrina's devastation of the Gulf Coast, Dubya had the nerve to visit New Orleans and tell people that feds are 'paying attention' to the reconstruction of the city and other places hit hard by the storm.

"It's one thing to come and give a speech in Jackson Square; it's another thing to keep paying attention to whether or not progress is being made. And I hope people understand we do, we're still paying attention," he said.

The prez was referring, of course, to his own speech in Jackson Square in 2005, part of a visit aimed mainly at controlling the damage caused by the feds' inadequate response to Katrina—a response that was highlighted by his own failure to do anything but give New Orleans a fly-over in the days immediately after the hurricane.

Ninth ward residents give thumbs down to President Bush

It's thumbs down for Dubya as his motorcade passes thorough the Lower Ninth Ward of New Orleans.
[Photo © Lee Celano/Reuters]

Dubya's latest visit to the Crescent City appears to be yet another PR ploy, as the prez failed to mention how inadequate the federal response to Katrina continues to be, two years after the event. The LA Times has noticed New Orleans' continuing problems, however, although the paper loses points for burying their rebuttal to Dubya's speech at the bottom of their story on Dubya's speech:

his motorcade route took him past the lingering evidence of the long-lasting damage: blocks where some rebuilding has taken place but other homes remain deserted. Many are boarded up and bear the spray-paint markings left by those seeking the storm's victims, alive and dead, two years ago.

Off his route in the Lower Ninth Ward, there was even more evidence: entire blocks deserted, with no sign of rebuilding attempts, and store after store boarded up -- Family Dollar, Walgreens, St. Claude Hardware.

Pushing up against Bush's upbeat remarks are statistics: The city's pre-storm population was 455,000; it is now about 274,000. Of the 184,000 people who sought help from the government grant program created to help with rebuilding, 43,000 have been sent checks. The program is $5 billion short of what it needs to help the others, and at the start of the year fewer than 1% had received any money from the plan.

More than half the city remains in disrepair....

Reflecting the confusion over how much federal assistance has been disbursed, the RFK Center and the Institute for Southern Studies estimated in a recently published joint report that the Bush administration was overstating overall federal funding for the Gulf Coast rebuilding campaign by as much as 300%, with roughly $35 billion of an estimated $114 billion actually spent. The White House said the spending had reached $96 billion. [Emphasis added]

As many observers noted right after Katrina hit New Orleans (and continue to note), the feds would undoubtedly have responded faster and more adequately if the city had been wealthier, white, and Republican. New Orleans' continuing difficulties, coupled with the lack of adequate federal aid, has resulted in a huge number of the city's poorer residents having to go into what increasingly looks like permanent exile, kept away from their homes by skyrocketing rents and lack of essential city services.

But if you're a Republican president, those are hardly bad things.

Labels: Big fat liars, Dubya, Hurricane Katrina, New Orleans

| | Posted by Magpie at 2:10 PM | Get permalink

Monday, August 27, 2007

Another rat leaves Dubya's sinking ship

I see that attorney general Alberto Gonzales resigned from his post this morning.

The rumor is that his replacement will be Michael Chertoff, the current head of the Department of Homeland Security. The prez apparently feels that Chertoff's major role in bungling the federal response to Hurricane Katrina makes him ideally qualified to lead the Department of Justice.

Via Agence France Presse.

Labels: Al Gonzales, Attorneygate, Dubya, Incompetence

| | Posted by Magpie at 10:29 AM | Get permalink

Saturday, August 25, 2007

I'd walk away from a nut case, too.

In the current issue of the New Yorker, Adam Gopnik has an interesting piece on the new French president, Nicolas Sarkozy and how France is changing under his presidency. Buried at the end of the article is what I'd argue is the most important part of Gopnik's whole piece—for those of us who live in the US, anyway:

The catastrophe in Iraq has had an unlooked-for effect: not to stoke anti-Americanism in a new generation but to make America seem almost marginal. For almost two hundred years, Americanization in Europe has been synonymous with modernization—that’s why the Statue of Liberty stands in New York Harbor, as a gift of the Third French Republic, the fraught state that appeared after Louis-Napoleon’s Second Empire failed. It was a gift not from a complacent old world to a nascent new one but from a newborn republic to one that, after its civil war, was firm and coherent. The point wasn’t that Europe would not abandon us; it was that we would not abandon old Europe to the despots.

Now, for the first time, it’s possible to imagine modernization as something independent of Americanization: when people in Paris talk about ambitious kids going to study abroad, they talk about London. (Americans have little idea of the damage done by the ordeal that a routine run through immigration at J.F.K. has become for Europeans, or by the suspicion and hostility that greet the most anodyne foreigners who come to study or teach at our scientific and educational institutions.) When people in Paris talk about manufacturing might, they talk about China; when they talk about tall buildings, they talk about Dubai; when they talk about troubling foreign takeovers, they talk about Gazprom. The Sarkozy-Gordon Brown-Merkel generation is not unsympathetic to America, but America is not so much the primary issue for them, as it was for Blair and Chirac, in the nineties, when America was powerful beyond words. To a new leadership class, it sometimes seems that America is no longer the human bomb you have to defuse but the nut you walk away from. [Emphasis added]

Yet another thing we have Dubya's administration to thank for: Going from being the so-called world's only superpower to a new life as the crazy guy on the international block in only six years.

Labels: 'War on Terrorism', Dubya, France, Iraq

| | Posted by Magpie at 1:13 PM | Get permalink

Thursday, August 23, 2007

I think the press is finally noticing ...

... that Dubya is pulling reasons for staying in Iraq out of his butt.

Dubya's speech to the VFW yesterday (see this earlier post) seems to have finally pushed a number of US reporters over the edge. Good examples are this video clip featuring MSNBC's David Shuster [WMV file, thanks to Crooks and Liars], and this commentary by Joseph Galloway, McClatchy's senior military correspondent:

This week we saw two President Bushes in action. In a news conference in Canada, he acknowledged that while security has improved somewhat thanks to the surge, the Iraqis have made little progress toward meeting the benchmarks. Two days later, speaking at the National VFW convention in Kansas City, the president spoke at length about the need to stay the course in Iraq indefinitely.

He pleaded for the patience he said is needed to win in Iraq, and surprisingly put forward the example of the Vietnam War and our withdrawal from there after 10 years and 58,249 dead American troops as a reason why we must stick to our guns in Iraq.

He trotted out his administration's now shopworn fear tactics, arguing that persisting in this senseless war will prevent a massacre of millions in Iraq and attacks on us at home by a reinvigorated al Qaida.

The more things change in this administration, the more they stay the same. [Emphasis added]

In fairness, though, I should point out that McClatchy (and its previous incarnation as Knight Ridder) has been almost the only mainstream US news organization that's been critical of Dubya's Iraq adventure right from the start.

Via McClatchy Washington Bureau.

Labels: 'War on Terrorism', Big fat idiots, Dubya, Iraq, Surge

| | Posted by Magpie at 12:01 AM | Get permalink

Wednesday, August 22, 2007

Iraqi insurgents = Al-Qaeda = Khmer Rouge.

To most people, the logical leaps needed to make that equation would be impossible, but nothing is too difficult for our Dear Leader.

In a speech given to members of the Veterans of Foreign Wars earlier today in Kansas City, Dubya unloaded some of the most preposterous misunderstandings (and outright lies) about the world's history since the Second World War that this magpie has had the misfortune to hear. For example, the prez said that the US was responsible for the decolonization of Asia and after 1945. (It wasn't.) He likened the 'war on terror' to the war against Japan and the Korean war. (As a historian, I can't think of any significant similarities.) And he attributed the murderous rule of the Khmer Rouge regime in Cambodia to the fact that the US withdrew its troops from Southeast Asia at the end of the Vietnam War. (In fact, the success of the Khmer Rouge was due to a CIA-sponsored coup that replaced a neutralist government with one more sympathetic to US war aims in Vietnam. The Khmer Rouge wouldn't have had a chance without a US-backed enemy to fight against.)

However, all that pseudo-history pales when compared to Dubya's main contention: If the US withdraws from Iraq, Al-Qaeda will not only wreak destruction on the Iraqi people like that suffered by Cambodians in the Khmer Rouge years, but Osama bin Laden will bring a similar reign of terror here to the US.

Bin Laden has declared that "the war [in Iraq] is for you [the US] or us to win. If we win it, it means your disgrace and defeat forever." Iraq is one of several fronts in the war on terror -- but it's the central front -- it's the central front for the enemy that attacked us and wants to attack us again. And it's the central front for the United States and to withdraw without getting the job done would be devastating.

If we were to abandon the Iraqi people, the terrorists would be emboldened, and use their victory to gain new recruits. As we saw on September the 11th, a terrorist safe haven on the other side of the world can bring death and destruction to the streets of our own cities. Unlike in Vietnam, if we withdraw before the job is done, this enemy will follow us home. And that is why, for the security of the United States of America, we must defeat them overseas so we do not face them in the United States of America.

This, of course, completely ignores the facts that 1) there was no al-Qaeda threat in Iraq prior to the US-led invasion; 2) Iraq had nothing to do with 9/11; and 3) the US occupation of Iraq is what has turned that country into a terrorist magnet and training ground. But hey, facts never get in Dubya's way when he's trying to support some stupid policy that he's already committed himself to.

If you have a strong stomach, I strongly suggest reading Dubya's whole speech. I'm sure the GOP is already sending out talking points based on what he said, so you might as well get a good handle on the arguments for the occupation that the 30-percenters will be tossing at you between now and when the administration has to make its Iraq progress report to Congress next month.

Labels: 'War on Terrorism', al-Qaeda, Dubya, Ignorance, Occupation, Surge

| | Posted by Magpie at 10:05 AM | Get permalink

Tuesday, August 7, 2007

The sun won't be setting on warrantless wiretapping any time soon.

Yeah, I know that the 'Protect America Act' (PAA) passed by Congress a few days ago contains a provision that sunsets the law in six months. Unfortunately, the law was crafted by the White House, and you know they'd never give up the right to spy on ~~victims~~ citizens so easily.

Constitutional scholar Marty Lederman points out a little-noticed provision of the law that shouldn't surprise any of us:

Although section 6(c) provides that the operative provisions of the Act "shall cease to have effect 180 days after the date of the enactment of this Act," i.e., on February 1, 2008, there is an express exception in section 6(d), which reads as follows:
AUTHORIZATIONS IN EFFECT.—Authorizations for the acquisition of foreign intelligence information pursuant to the amendments made by this Act, and directives issued pursuant to such authorizations, shall remain in effect until their expiration. Such acquisitions shall be governed by the applicable provisions of such amendments and shall not be deemed to constitute electronic surveillance as that term is defined in section 101(f) of the Foreign Intelligence Surveillance Act of 1978 (50 U.S.C. 1801(f)).

Thus, "acquisitions" authorized by Attorney General Gonzales will be permissible for one year, even if that period extends beyond the ostensible February 1, 2008 sunset date. I think it's fair to assume that the Attorney General will authorize a system of such acquisitions on or close to February 1, 2008, which will mean that the warrantless surveillance can continue until . . . February 1, 2009, or twelve days after the next President is sworn in.

That's right. Dubya and Attorney General Gonzales didn't get a six-month window in which to spy on everyone and everything—the PAA gives them 18 months. If you (like this mapgie) was worried about all the backdoors that the feds could order installed over the next six months at internet providers, telecommunications networks, and search engines, just think about the permanent spying infrastructure that Dubya's regime will be able to get up and running in 18 months.

And while Congress could decide to pass a law preventing Gonzales from extending warrantless wiretapping until 2009, the cowardice that some Democrats showed when they aided the passage of the 'Protect America Act' speaks volumes about the likelihood that Congress will suddenly grow a spine and start protecting the Constitution.

Via Balkinization.

Labels: 'Protect America' Act, 'War on Terrorism', Al Gonzales, Dubya, Internet, Police state, Spying, Surveillance

| | Posted by Magpie at 10:38 AM | Get permalink

Monday, August 6, 2007

About those 190,000 weapons missing in Iraq.

This magpie wasn't surprised to hear the news, given that Dubya's military has this longstanding problem with keeping tabs on armaments.

If our Dear Leader couldn't see that arms were kept out of the hands of Iraq's insurgents in 2003 and 2004, why should his minions be doing anything different now?

Labels: Dubya, Incompetence, Insurgency, Iraq, Occupation

| | Posted by Magpie at 1:35 PM | Get permalink

Give Dubya an inch.

And he'll come back for the rest of what's left of the Constitution.

Here's some of what our Dear Leader had to say as he signed the so-called Protect America Act, in which spineless Democrats in both houses of Congress helped the GOP ram through an ill-considered expansion of the feds' spying powers under the FISA law:

While I appreciate the leadership it took to pass this bill, we must remember that our work is not done. This bill is a temporary, narrowly focused statute to deal with the most immediate shortcomings in the law.

When Congress returns in September the Intelligence committees and leaders in both parties will need to complete work on the comprehensive reforms requested by Director McConnell, including the important issue of providing meaningful liability protection to those who are alleged to have assisted our Nation following the attacks of September 11, 2001. [Emphasis added]

Obviously, having the right to intercept any phone call, text message, or email that passes through a US network without a warrant isn't enough for the prez. Nor is having six months to turn the internet and domestic phone networks into permanent spying architecture. Dubya has put us on notice that he wants to make his illicit spying program retroactively legal, getting his corporate accomplices out of any responsibility for assisting the ~~regime~~ government poke into the private affairs of its ~~suspects~~ citizens.

Aren't you ever so glad that we put the Democrats in control of the Congress? After all, god knows what would have happened if the elections had left the GOP in charge of protecting the Constitution and our civil rights ...

Labels: 'Protect America' Act, Civil liberties, Dubya, FISA, Police state, Spying

| | Posted by Magpie at 12:13 PM | Get permalink

Thursday, August 2, 2007

The 1-35 bridge crumbles in Minneapolis.

And, as Brendan points out at Suburban Guerilla, it's partisan politics as usual at the White House.

Labels: Dubya, Hypocrisy, I-35 bridge, Infrastructure, Opportunism, Politics

| | Posted by Magpie at 10:22 AM | Get permalink

Wednesday, July 25, 2007

Adding insult to injury.

In its continuing quest to discover new ways of making life miserable for people who already have a world of trouble, Dubya's administration decided to cancel thousands of disaster loans to people affected by Hurricane Katrina.

Wrongly. And without notice.

The agency canceled nearly 8,000 loans without calling the borrowers or mailing them a notice, according to the audit by the agency’s inspector general. The homeowners did eventually receive a letter contending that they had voluntarily given up their loans, the report says, even though many told auditors that they actually needed the money.

The loans were canceled last year, after the agency had come under fire for being slow to give out rebuilding money, according to the audit. Former agency employees have complained that they were pressured to withdraw the loans to cut the number of applicants whose loans had been approved but not paid out.

A spokeswoman for the agency declined to comment on the report. [Emphasis added]

Like I always say, every time I figure that Dubya and his cronies couldn't sink any lower, they do.

Via NY Times.

Labels: Dubya, Housing, Hurricane Katrina, Incompetence

| | Posted by Magpie at 11:29 AM | Get permalink

Monday, July 23, 2007

Great news!

I just heard over the radio that four of the five polyps removed during Dubya's colonoscopy the other day have turned out to be non-cancerous. The fifth turned out to be the prez's head and apparently doesn't count.

I'll go back to my room now.

Labels: Attempted humor, Dubya

| | Posted by Magpie at 12:03 PM | Get permalink

Friday, July 20, 2007

Are you scared yet?

Remember that executive order about "Continuity of Government" that Dubya issued back in May? The one that put the prez in charge of running the government after a massive terrorist attack or other major disaster? And which gave the prez the authority to determine just what constitutes a major disaster?

If you're like this magpie, that executive order made you a bit nervous about the future of constitutional government in the US, and just a bit suspicious about the prez's motives. And I'll bet you weren't all that reassured when 'common wisdom' said that Dubya's executive order was just a routine housekeeping measure.

Here in Oregon, some people were sufficiently worried about the executive order that they asked US representative Peter DeFazio to look into whether anything sinister was lurking in order's classified portions, which describe in detail how the executive branch would run the government after a major disaster. DeFazio asked the White House to have those classified portions delivered for viewing in a special secured room at the Capitol building — a request that he's definitely entitled to make as a member of the House's Homeland Security Committee. After initially giving the nod to DeFazio's request, something — no one knows what — changed at the White House, and permission to see the classified documents was withdrawn.

A good case could be made that the White House's refusal of DeFazio's request is just another example of the Dubya/Cheney regime's penchant for secrecy. Or maybe it's just another case of the prez giving Congress the finger. But maybe the reason that the White House doesn't want these documents to be seen by anyone outside the prez's immediate circle is that there is something sinister hidden in Dubya's executive order.

Indulge this magpie's paranoia for a moment and consider: Dubya's domestic political problems continue to get worse and his popularity is showing signs of dropping below Nixonian levels. The Iraq occupation is not going well. Congress is beginning to shine some light on the dark and illegal deeds that have taken place under Dubya and Cheney's watch. Almost half the country supports the impeachment of Dubya, and even more support impeaching Cheney.

In the midst of this political environment, consider the timing of Homeland Security secretary Michael Chertoff's recent 'gut feeling' that the US is in danger of a terrorist attack this summer. And, finally, reconsider the fact that the White House doesn't want a member of Congress to see documents that explain how a president — Dubya, for example — will run the goverment in the aftermath of a terrorist attack.

Taking all of that into account, don't the phrases 'suspending the constitution' and 'executive coup d'etat' sound less like stuff that belongs only in the ramblings of paranoid conspiracy theorists and a bit more like possibilities that we all should be concerned about?

Labels: 'War on Terrorism', Dubya, Fascism, Paranoia, Politics, Presidency, White House

| | Posted by Magpie at 12:54 PM | Get permalink

Wednesday, May 2, 2007

Is Dubya brilliant or what?

The prez, from a speech about Iraq he made earlier today:

Either we'll succeed, or we won't succeed.

To be fair, Dubya's speech was longer than that one sentence. But if you go read it, I defy you to prove that the summary of the prez's speech would amount to much more than what I quoted.

Labels: 'War on Terrorism', Cluelessness, Dubya, Iraq

| | Posted by Magpie at 9:42 AM | Get permalink

Tuesday, April 24, 2007

Fascism in the US?

No problem, says Naomi Wolf. Just follow these steps.

What? You say that someone's already done all 10 steps?

Via UK Guardian.

Labels: Dubya, Fascism, Paranoia

| | Posted by Magpie at 1:56 PM | Get permalink

Monday, April 23, 2007

Another hostage crisis is in progress.

Paul Krugman bears the news in his latest NY Times column:

There are two ways to describe the confrontation between Congress and the Bush administration over funding for the Iraq surge. You can pretend that it's a normal political dispute. Or you can see it for what it really is: a hostage situation, in which a beleaguered President Bush, barricaded in the White House, is threatening dire consequences for innocent bystanders — the troops — if his demands aren't met.

If you're a Times subscriber, you can read the whole thing here. If not, the column has been kindly bootlegged here at Welcome to Pottersville.

Labels: Congress, Dubya, Iraq, Supplemental

| | Posted by Magpie at 9:07 AM | Get permalink