The aroma of hypocrisy

We know that most politicians practice hypocrisy, but this administration has taken it to an art form! Today the president said that the war spending bill proposed by Congress would "be to accept a policy that directly contradicts the judgment of our military commanders...." However, a Washington Post article from January states:

"Pentagon insiders say members of the Joint Chiefs of Staff have long opposed the increase in troops and are only grudgingly going along with the plan because they have been promised that the military escalation will be matched by renewed political and economic efforts in Iraq. Gen. John P. Abizaid, the outgoing head of Central Command, said less than two months ago that adding U.S. troops was not the answer for Iraq." January 10, 2007, by Michael Abramowitz, Robin Wright and Thomas E. Ricks

This president can't ever bring himself to any kind of honesty or reality. What are we going to do with him as walls go up in Iraq and more people die every day?

No seems to mention....

We are, understandably, shocked and horrified at the Virginia Tech shootings (I work just a few miles from where Cho went to high school). However, I read in washingtonpoat.com today that in the capitol of Somalia, Mogadishu, there are hundreds dead due to "this week's battles pitting militias and Islamists against Somali and Ethiopian troops." The link to the story is:

http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/content/article/2007/04/21/AR2007042100244.html?hpid=moreheadlines)

These kinds of stories, along with the genocide in Darfur, are reported but don't seem to emotionally affect us here in the United States in the same way. If it did, maybe this world wouldn't be so much of a constant charnel house. If I may (seriously) quote the original Star Trek, if we cared as much about suffering in the rest of the world as we do close to home, it might "render [our] history a bit less bloody."

Umm... Err... Let me see... I don't recall

After Alberto Gonzales' testimony yesterday, we're left with two options: either he's a political hack trying to cover for a white house unconcerned with justice and law, or he's an inept fool who shouldn't be in the office of Attorney General. He used some variation of "I don't recall" 64 times during his testimony! I tend to lean to the idea that he is a "loyal Bushie" who is in over his head, just like the president himself.

The shootings....

What an awful tragedy. It makes you sick in the gut. No commentary here, just a moment of remembrance.

Of all people...,

This also from Dan Froomkin's page on washingtonpost.com:

"Gordon Trowbridge writes in the Detroit News: 'Lee Iacocca, author of the original business management best-seller, is giving President Bush an 'F' in leadership.

"'In a book to be released Tuesday, the former Chrysler CEO -- who supported Bush's first campaign in 2000 but backed Sen. John Kerry four years later -- accused Bush of leading the nation to war 'on a pack of lies' and lacking the basic components of good leadership.

"'"I think our current President should visit the real world once in a while,'
Iacocca writes, according to excerpts from "Where Have All the Leaders Gone?
released on the Web site of publisher Simon & Schuster. . . .

"'Am I the only guy in this country who's fed up with what's happening?' Iacocca writes. 'Where the hell is our outrage? We should be screaming bloody murder.'"

Wow, I couldn't have said it better!

How clear can it be!?

I saw this on Dan Froomkin's column on washingtonpost.com today:

"...personnel working on behalf of the EOP [Executive Office of the President] are expected to only use government-provided e-mail services for all official communication."

The handbook further explains: "The official EOP e-mail system is designed to automatically comply with records management requirements."

And if that wasn't clear enough, the handbook notes -- as was the case in the Clinton administration -- that "commercial or free e-mail sites and chat rooms are blocked from the EOP network to help staff members ensure compliance and to prevent the circumvention of the records management requirements."

Now they are going to try to get us to believe that the staff "didn't know" that it was doing anything wrong. What will be Rove's latest excuse?

Imus... ugh

I don't know why this guy hasn't been busted earlier. Slate.com has compiled a list of some of the more gross things he's had to say. Here's the link:

http://www.slate.com/?id=2163872

I'm a member of the ACLU, and I believe in his right to say anything he wants. I also believe that I have the right to say what a vile and disgusting person he can be, and it's also the the right of the people that he's slurred to (metaphorically) call for his head!

All news is good news

The Decider seems to have decided that any news is good. First, his aides cite anti-American protests in Iraq as progress (because, they say, Hussein wouldn't allow it), and now he says that the decrease in apprehensions of illegal immigrants along the Mexican border is progress because "When you apprehended fewer people, that means fewer were trying to come across.... And fewer were trying to come across because we’re deterring people from attempting illegal border crossings in the first place.” However, according to

http://thinkprogress.org/2007/04/09/bush-immigration-apprehension/

Bush in November 2005 declared:

"Our actions to integrate manpower, technology and infrastructure are getting results. And one of the best examples of success is the Arizona Border Control Initiative, which the government launched in 2004. In the first year of this initiative — now, listen to this, listen how hard these people are working here — agents in Arizona apprehended nearly 500,000 illegal immigrants, a 42-percent increase over the previous year."

See, all the news to him is good!

Those who cannot remember the past....

"Congress shouldn't tell generals how to run the war,...Congress should not shortchange our military. Congress should not use an emergency war-spending measure as a vehicle to put pet spending projects on that have nothing to do with the war."

No, this isn't a quote from the Vietnam War, it's from President Bush, regarding the Democrats' insistence on a withdrawal date from Iraq. Sometimes it's like living in a time warp... imagine the map of Iraq morphing into the map of Vietnam, and all the rhetoric about terrorism changing back to communism. The details have changed, but the story stays the same. It's like a bad remake of a bad war movie. Some of the details have been modernized, but it's the same old, bad story, with a very bad director named Dick Cheney and an awful starring actor named George Bush.

A worry

Okay, does anyone think that the Bushies will try to use the British captives in Iran as a causes belli to attack Iran? I think it's unlikly, but still way too possible for this "administration!"