Waah

Pity poor President Bush. For six years, he had a Congress who did everything his way, no questions asked. Allow indefinite imprisonment and torture of anyone whenever the president feels like it? Sure! What about rubber-stamping permanent war in Iraq? No problem. And blowing any hope of budgetary sanity out of the water and putting us in hock to other countries? You got it.

But now the Democrats are in charge of Congress. (It's hard to tell that sometimes, given how often they roll over and play dead, but that's another story.) And the president doesn't like that.

Bush basically threw a hissy fit outside the White House yesterday after meeting with Republican (and only Republican) Congressional leaders, complaining that the mean old Democrats aren't letting him win. In other words, they're acting like an actual opposition party and not just a pale imitation of one.

How dare they try to oppose him, the Maximum Leader of All He Surveys? Don't they know there's a war on? Don't they know that Bad People are holed up in their caves, watching C-Span and chortling to each other? How can we expect to win the War on Terror™ if all these namby-pamby wimps keep yapping about useless stuff like "freedom" and "accountability?"

Um...George? You might have forgotten this, but America is still a democracy, and opposition to your policies and priorities is in fact allowed.

So grow up.

Build Your Own Press Conference, FEMA Edition

Remember Hurricane Katrina two years ago, when FEMA and its director Michael "Heckuva Job, Brownie" Brown botched the situation and gave up information only when publicly shamed into doing so? Well, in response to the California wildfires, FEMA management was determined not to make the same mistakes twice and held a full press conference Tuesday to be more responsive to the public.

Sounds fine, but there was one tiny problem - the press conference was fake.

After all, when you have one of these things you run the risk of reporters asking uncomfortable questions. I mean, who wants to be asked something like, "Why were so much of the California National Guard's resources sent to Iraq?" It's much easier to put on a phony press conference in which you look good for the cameras and you know for certain what the questions will be.

So FEMA employees simply pretended to be reporters and put on a show. The cast included:

• Cindy Taylor, deputy director of external affairs
• Michael Widomski, deputy director of public affairs
• John Philbin, director of external affairs

Together, they lobbed the softest of softball questions at deputy administrator Harvey Johnson. For example, take this hard-hitting query and its equally piercing response:

Q: Are you happy with FEMA's response so far?
A: I'm very happy with FEMA's response so far.

And this nonsense was carried live on Fox, MSNBC and other channels.

Every time you think these guys can't get any more cartoonish, they go and top themselves. Unreal.

We Promise Not to Kill Anyone This Time

Remember Blackwater USA? The American company that has about a thousand armed mercenary soldiers - oops, I mean private security contractors - in Iraq? The guys who are winning hearts and minds by indiscriminately killing Iraqi civilians? And one of whose employees killed an Iraqi vice presidential security guard while on a drunken rampage?

Well, considering what a terrific job they've done keeping the peace in Iraq, they are now offering their help in California, keeping order amid the wildfires. For a fee, of course.

Really.

You can't make up stuff like this. Can you imagine what would happen the first time someone who's trying to get back to the burnt-out shell that used to be their home gets frustrated and tells off a mercenary?

Torture or Die

"This program has produced critical intelligence that has helped us stop a number of attacks - including a plot to strike the U.S. Marine camp in Djibouti, a planned attack on the U.S. consulate in Karachi, a plot to hijack a passenger plane and fly it into Library Tower in Los Angeles, California, or a plot to fly passenger planes into Heathrow Airport and buildings into downtown London... Those who oppose this vital tool in the war on terror need to answer a simple question: Which of the attacks I have just described would they prefer we had not stopped?"

President Bush defending the use of torture to extract information, not mentioning that most of the supposed terrorist "plots" were stopped by law enforcement without using torture or were already revealed as fakes to begin with

Lowering the Bar

If you watched President Bush's press conference last week - or if, like me, you can't stand the prospect of seeing all that smirking, giggling verbal flatulence and read the transcript instead - you may have noticed a very significant change in the official line on Iran.

It used to be that attacking Iran is essential because they're working on building nuclear weapons. But that excuse fell apart because the United Nations weapons inspectors - you know, the guys who were 100% correct on Iraq not having banned weapons but who were shoved aside so Bush et al could get their longed-for revenge on Saddam - all insist that Iran is not actually building a bomb. Now the rhetoric has changed: attacking Iran is essential because they know how to build nuclear weapons.

Heck, that's no secret. Anyone with Internet access and two minutes to run a Google search can find instructions on how to build one of the damn things. So since the knowledge of how to build a nuke is so readily available, does that mean Bush reserves the right to attack anyone at all?

This is a frightening ratcheting up of the official war line. Who cares whether Iran is actually building a bomb? Merely knowing how to build one is enough for this crowd.

Two failed wars aren't enough for this bunch. Do we really need a third?

GOP Hates Americans?!

There was a quite telling moment during last night's Republican presidential debate. Ron Paul pointed out, very accurately, that the American people are sick of the endless war in Iraq and want our troops to come home. So what happens? The audience boos him.

Oh, For Pete's Sake

Today, the House failed by thirteen votes to override President Bush's veto of the SCHIP bill. Had it passed, it would have expanded the federal program providing health insurance to kids from working families who otherwise could not afford it.

And now we know why, courtesy of Representative Steve King (R-IA):

Is there any excuse these guys won't use for political bashing?

Take Your Finger Off the Button, George

"The president was not making any war plans. He was not making any declaration. He was making a point."

White House Press Secretary Dana Perino, trying to reassure people that President Bush's "World War III" reference did not mean he's hot to nuke Iran

Irrelevant

President Bush must know what he's become in the eyes of the American people - a whining and petulant man desperately begging us to support him just one more time. That's the impression I got from watching his press conference yesterday.

Why else would he lamely insist "I am relevant" when explaining why he wielded his veto pen to cut off the health coverage of millions of children? Or mutter darkly (while snickering, no less) that "if you're interested in avoiding World War III, it seems like you ought to be interested in preventing [Iran] from [having] the knowledge necessary to make a nuclear weapon."

(Note that he changed the script slightly - he did not accuse Iran of actually trying to build a bomb, only of getting the required know-how. It seems that his handlers realize the old scare tactics aren't working and are changing to new ones.)

He doesn't get it. There's a reason why the latest poll shows him with a 24% approval rating, why his saber-rattling against Iran isn't selling, why the public is upset over his denying health care to working-class kids.

Perhaps it's because he continues to insist that the United States does not torture when everyone knows prisoners are routinely beaten and waterboarded. Maybe he really believes that he can get away with torture by redefining it, but he's sure not convincing anyone else.

Q: A simple question.
THE PRESIDENT: Yes. It may require a simple answer.
Q: What's your definition of the word "torture"?
THE PRESIDENT: Of what?
Q: The word "torture." What's your definition?
THE PRESIDENT: That's defined in U.S. law, and we don't torture.
Q : Can you give me your version of it, sir?
THE PRESIDENT: Whatever the law says.

Perhaps it's because he's asked when he's going to admit the Iraq War cannot be won militarily and responds by raising the specter of al Qaeda and demanding that Congress hand over even more spying power to him.

Or perhaps he insists that "I feel good about many of the economic indicators here in the United States" when all but his super-rich pals are falling further and further behind.

But it's really all of the above. Bush comes across as someone denying the reality that is staring him in the face, pushing one more lie, hoping to deceive the American people just one more time. No one believes him anymore, and even he knows it.

And we have four hundred and sixty days left to go until someone else becomes president.

Some People Just Never Learn

Now that their attempted smear attack on 12-year-old Graeme Frost and his family has imploded in the face of public revulsion, you'd think Michelle Malkin and company wouldn't try it again, at least not this soon. Well, guess what - they're at it again.

Bethany Wilkerson was born with a serious heart defect and receives health coverage through the SCHIP program which has driven the right wing so bonkers.

She is two years old.

That has not stopped Malkin et al from frothing at the mouth, attacking not only Bethany but her parents as well. Malkin sneeringly called Bethany a "child-sized human shield." Mark Hemingway of National Review went further, taking Dara and Brian Wilkerson to task basically for procreating while poor.

What is it with these supposedly pro-life people that actual children drive them so crazy? Do they hate kids that much?

So Much for the Whole "9/11" Excuse

Remember back when the White House got caught secretly spying on our phone calls, E-mail messages, and so on? The number one excuse given by President Bush and his fellow fear-mongerers was that it was all because of 9/11, that we should get used to Uncle Sam watching everything we do rather than risk another attack. It was a blatant appeal to our fears, but it made a perverse sort of sense.

Well, guess what? Along with everything else from this Administration, that was a crock too.

The Daily Kos website is reporting that in February 2001, the White House started recruiting American telecommunication companies to facilitate government eavesdropping without all those pesky judicial warrants.

In case your math is a bit rusty, that was a full seven months prior to the 9/11 attacks. So Bush et al came to power and immediately started in on a massively illegal domestic spying program.

Out of the various companies pressed to cooperate, Qwest was the only one to refuse, and it seems just a tad suspicious that shortly thereafter, the company was abruptly denied government contracts and its CEO investigated for insider trading.

Will Congress look into this latest outrage? Hold their feet to the fire!

Two Minutes Hate, GOP-Style

Before the Hate had proceeded for thirty seconds, uncontrollable exclamations of rage were breaking out from half the people in the room. The self-satisfied sheep-like face on the screen, and the terrifying power of the Eurasian army behind it, were too much to be borne: besides, the sight or even the thought of Goldstein produced fear and anger automatically. He was an object of hatred more constant than either Eurasia or Eastasia, since when Oceania was at war with one of these Powers it was generally at peace with the other. But what was strange was that although Goldstein was hated and despised by everybody, although every day and a thousand times a day, on platforms, on the telescreen, in newspapers, in books, his theories were refuted, smashed, ridiculed, held up to the general gaze for the pitiful rubbish that they were - in spite of all this, his influence never seemed to grow less. Always there were fresh dupes waiting to be seduced by him. A day never passed when spies and saboteurs acting under his directions were not unmasked by the Thought Police.

George Orwell, 1984

Orwell would either be horrified or grimly satisfied at the way the Republican Party and the conservative movement in general - Rush Limbaugh, Fox News, Sean Hannity, and so on - have absorbed the concept of the Two Minutes Hate. In the novel, the Hate is used to channel the emotions of the Oceanian populace into hating this person or that, rather than have them start thinking about why life is as miserable as it is.

So it is with today's conservatives. Watching them switch their hatred from topic to topic and from person to person is like watching Orwell's dark vision come to life. One week, the object of their fear-and-loathing agenda is Mexican migrants looking for work. The next week, it's MoveOn.org. The week after that, it's a boy who asked why President Bush wants to take away his health care. Today, it's FreeThought Radio, a new atheism-centric show on Air America Radio, about which Fox News is screaming that it's a "war on God." And every year around this time, it's the "War on Christmas."

But the basic pattern of the Hate never changes, even if its target does so regularly. It's always a dire threat to civilization as we know it. We are always under attack from someone or other, and the latest target is always - always - the most evil and blackhearted enemy in the history of everything, topping only the one that came before it. And once the Hate has run its course, whether it is refuted by simple facts or met by public revulsion or simply runs out of steam, it switches effortlessly to its next target.

And it is always used to distract the American people from asking questions, from thinking for ourselves. Why run the risk of people wondering why our soldiers are needlessly dying in Iraq when they can be told to hate Sean Penn instead? What better way to prevent people from asking why the United States is the only industrialized nation in the world which does not provide some form of national health coverage than by focusing their worries and fears on a twelve-year-old boy with brain damage? It can certainly backfire temporarily, as with this week's aborted smear campaign against Graeme Frost and his family, but then it simply changes direction to target the next threat.

One wonders if the Republicans' Two Minutes Hate strategy will ever run its course, whether the people being so callously manipulated will ever wake up to that simple fact.

I hope it will, but I fear it won't.

UPDATE: With the Frost smear having gone down in flames, the Two Minutes Hate has switched to Al Gore, who in 2000 won the popular vote and this morning won the Nobel Peace Prize for his climate-change work. To nobody's surprise, Fox News and various right-wing blogs have started attacking Gore en masse.

We Love the Jews So Much, We Want Them to Stop Being Jews

"We just want Jews to be perfected, as they say... We consider ourselves perfected Christians. For me to say that for you to become a Christian is to become a perfected Christian is not offensive at all."

Ann Coulter on CNBC's The Big Idea to (Jewish) host Donny Deutsch, explaining why she wants all Jews to convert to Christianity

Suffer the Little Children

We all know that the American right wing makes a big deal out of publicly claiming to be pro-family and pro-child while privately doing everything they can to screw America's not-wealthy families to the wall. The hypocrisy is expected if not exactly welcome. But even I thought they wouldn't stoop to going after sick kids.

Boy, was I wrong.

Two weeks ago, Graeme Frost, a twelve-year-old boy from Baltimore, gave the Democratic response to President Bush's weekly radio address, asking Bush to sign the bill expanding SCHIP health insurance to include more children who need it. As we all know by now, Bush vetoed the bill, claiming it would deprive the insurance industry - currently in desperate straits and forced to sell blood to pay its bills (that's a joke, by the way) - of profitable customers.

Graeme happens to know something about SCHIP. Three years ago, he and his sister were badly injured in a car crash and left comatose. Both children have brain injuries and need special care, especially the daughter. Their parents don't have thousands of dollars a year to buy health insurance, and even if they did, no company would cover them due to the kids' "pre-existing conditions." It's only SCHIP that allows them to get the health care they need.

For the crime of speaking out, of opposing Maximum Leader Bush and his plans to turn America into an "ownership society" where you're SOL if you don't have the scratch, Graeme and his family have been targeted by the right wing.

An anonymous post on the hard-right Free Republic bulletin board accused the Frost family of being pretty well-off and not needing the SCHIP insurance. They go to a private school which costs $40,000 a year for the two of them! They own their own home! Others in the right-wing media landscape, from Rush Limbaugh to Michelle Malkin and everyone in between, picked up on the theme and attacked Graeme and his family for being fake poor people. The right-wing blogs are full of vitriol, hatred and even death threats. The family also has to deal with various wingnuts harassing them at their home and place of business.

Of course, all these shrieking nutjobs don't bother to mention a few salient facts:

• Graeme is able to attend the school only because he gets a full scholarship
• Graeme's severely disabled sister can go to the same school only because Maryland is required by state law to pay for her education
• The family was able to buy the house for $55,000 in 1991 only because it was in a rough neighborhood

But that doesn't matter to these people. Like the sheep-like citizens of Oceania in 1984, they have been given a target. Who cares if the facts aren't with them? The Hate is on!

The whole thing makes me want to throw up. How can anyone attack children, let alone sick children? Is there really no depth to which they won't sink? These are truly loathsome people.

Gitmo Who?

"Reports about very innocent people being thrown into detention, where they could be held for years without any representation or charges, is distressing."

White House Press Secretary Dana Perino, finally admitting that arbitrarily imprisoning hundreds of people at Guantanamo Bay indefinitely without charges or trial might not be the best approach - no, wait, she was actually criticizing the military crackdown in Myanmar.

"Compassionate Conservatism" in Action

"On this day it is also appropriate to recognize the important role the State Children's Health Insurance Program (SCHIP) has played in helping poor children stay healthy. To preserve that role and ensure that poor children can get the coverage they need, SCHIP should be reauthorized."

President Bush proclaiming "Child Health Day" on October 1

"[U]nder this bill, government coverage would displace private health insurance for many children. If this bill were enacted, one out of every three children moving onto government coverage would be moving from private coverage."

President Bush just two days later, putting insurance company profits over kids' health by vetoing SCHIP