Mighty Forces

Today is the fourth anniversary of George W. Bush's "Mission Accomplished" speech. And where I used to have anger and bewilderment, all I have left now are questions.

How did we get here? How could we let this happen? Why are we still letting it happen? Do we care? What the hell do we do now?

“Victory means exit strategy, and it’s important for the president to explain to us what the exit strategy is.”

-George W. Bush, 4/9/99, Houston Chronicle, on Kosovo

Getting your opinions about evolution from the Bible is like reading a Barney book to teach yourself about dinosaurs.

I've long been ambivalent at best about hate crimes laws. That may seem strange coming from a gay liberal, but maybe it's because I chafe at anything that can be considered "special consideration" - even if that's not ultimately the case.

So now George W. Bush is poised to whip out the veto pen again to squash adding "sexual orientation" to federal hate crimes laws, joining race and religion. This quote from a digg.com commenter really opened my eyes to what hate crimes legislation does, and why it's important:

A hate crime IS different than a simple murder or assault as it incites fear into a specific community. If a group of KKK members came into your community and lynched an African-American man this would incite fear among African-Americans. Similarly, if a Neo-Nazi spray paints a swastika on a synagogue this would incite fear into the Jewish community. An essential part of our judicial system is to ensure public safety and maintain public order. A hate crime affects more than just the one person who gets physically harmed -- it provokes fear into an entire community. That is the difference.

And stepping back into my Madison liberal shoes, would these same right-wingers complaining about "thought crimes" when it comes to icky gay people also want to rescind laws that increase penalties for, say, the synagogue episode? I don't think so.

"I want a self important president with the condescension on the world stage that befits the chief executive of the greatest and most powerful state on earth.I am waiting for the first president who can tell the secretary general of the United nations to STFU and come off looking cool doing it."

-random commenter on Dean's World, celebrating the cigar-chomping non-candidate actor Fred Thompson.

They've got it right - the thing we Americans need more of on the world stage is condescension.

"Does that mean the faggots will have to quit calling us 'breeders'?"

-mouth-breathing Free Republic commenter, on a new poll that says a large majority of American people believe federal hate crimes laws should be expanded to include sexual orientation.

I'm something of a renegade, even in the liberal bubble of Madison, for always being a Michael Moore fan. Fact is, I'm more than a fan - I think the man is a hero. It's fashionable, even among liberals, to screw up your face like you've just eaten a lemon when Moore is mentioned.

To me, then and now, the man has been one of the few people with the balls to stand up and say, we have to draw a line. This is wrong. This is crazy. This is not America. How many people are actually willing to do that? Congress won't. The voters won't. The press won't. And after corporate scandals, campus shootings and our President at lower-than-Nixon approval levels, perhaps he was right all along, eh?

Now "Sicko" is coming out, Moore's indictment of the American health care system. And predictably, the righties already have their panties in a bunch. He went to Cuba! Yes, the man took some ailing 9/11 rescue workers to get some decent health care, an offense that apparently rates right up there with genocide (I was going to say 'torture,' but we Americans like that now.).

I for one am looking forward to "Sicko" and whatever else Moore comes up with in the future. His making Dean Esmay apoplectic is just a bonus.

If Michael Moore made a movie about how puppies are cute, the right wing crapweasels would tie themselves in knots finding new ways to hate those ugly goddamned puppies.

It's rare for right-wingers to actually come out and say what they mean. They don't say they hate gay people, they say "gay marriage undermines the family." They don't say they are afraid of brown people, they say "America must protect its borders."

And they don't come out and say that the public school system exemplifies everything they hate in American society: multiculturalism, community, free thought. Just like with abortion, attacks on public schools and public school teachers are really meant to chip away at the foundations until there's nothing left. But they rarely admit their true goal of shutting the whole system down.

So that's why this piece reprinted on FreeRepublic is so refreshing:

A World Without Public Schools

Even the Freeper commenters realize that such bracing honesty might not go over so well with the masses. I can only hope that they follow this up with "A World Without Mexicans" and "A World Without Abortion." Let's put our cards on the table, people.

The phrase "marriage license" makes about as much sense as "worship permit."

1. "Family values"
2. "Support the Troops"
3. "Protecting marriage"
4. "Follow us home"
5. "9/11 changed everything"
6. "War on Terror"
7. "Gay lifestyle"
8. "Secular progressive"
9. "Criminalization of politics"
10. "Bush Derangement Syndrome"

Why is it that the rightwing crapweasels bray at the moon whenever any left-leaning celebrity expresses an opinion, but a fourth-rate comedian like Dennis Miller is treated like a rock star because he writes pompous ad hominem trash about Harry Reid?

Wait, I just answered my own question.

Car bomb kills 78 in busy Baghdad square

Can we go home now, please?

New Newsweek poll question:

Do you think Saddam Hussein’s regime in Iraq was directly involved in planning, financing, or carrying out the terrorist attacks of September 11th, 2001?

Yes: 41 percent.

Jesus H. Christ.

Actually, we're not dumb so much as deluded. (I mean, we're plenty dumb, but bear with me here.) When people have endured nearly six years of hearing "9/11" and "Saddam" in the same sentence, it's no wonder we think the way we do.

When I say Volvo, what word comes to mind?

I think "Dr. Atheist Von Gay of France" is the best. name. ever.

Well, at least Dana Milbank got the "beast" part right.

Dick Cheney is a floor wax.
No, he's a dessert topping!
No - he's both.

Or neither. Can we please just go ahead and impeach the guy now?

I was fortunate enough to attend the Wisconsin Women in Government banquet last month, and I heard an intelligent, heartfelt and personal speech from Elizabeth Edwards. I have tremendous respect for her and her family, and I was horrified at the way people pontificated about her health and her family's decisionmaking while knowing precious little about either.

If it's even possible for me to love her more, it happened when I watched this clip from Hardball where Mrs. Edwards calmly and forcefully takes that shrieking harpy Ann Coulter to school.

An excerpt:

Edwards: I’m going to ask you again to politely stop using personal attacks as part of your dialogue.

Coulter: Okay, I’ll stop writing books.

Edwards: If you can’t write them without them, that is fine.

Bush just commuted Scooter Libby's 30-month prison sentence for perjury and obstruction of justice.

More to come, people. More to come. This is just a taste of what we will experience in the next 18 months. Just a tiny taste. These fuckers are going to wring every last drop of blood from the body politic while they still can. Of course, that includes the real blood of thousands more Iraqis and American soldiers.

They can say anything, do anything - because they know that no one will stop them. Dick Cheney a fourth branch of government? Sure, why not. The "surge" is a great success? Yeah, I guess, who cares. The President of the United States is above the law? Absolutely. Pass the potato chips.

He has refused his Assent to Laws, the most wholesome and necessary for the public good...

He has obstructed the Administration of Justice, by refusing his Assent to Laws for establishing Judiciary powers....

He has made Judges dependent on his Will alone, for the tenure of their offices, and the amount and payment of their salaries...

He has erected a multitude of New Offices, and sent hither swarms of Officers to harass our people, and eat out their substance...

He has combined with others to subject us to a jurisdiction foreign to our constitution and unacknowledged by our laws...

For depriving us, in many cases, of the benefits of Trial by Jury...

For transporting us beyond Seas to be tried for pretended offences...

These are charges against England's King George III. In 1776. Written into the Declaration of Independence.

Maybe we should write our own, huh?
Happy Fourth of July, everyone.

Frankly, I don't want to know what's inside that head of his.

Why do I get the sneaking suspicion that among the leading candidates for President, Rudy Giuliani would win the race for "Worse than Bush" handily?

And that's saying something, people. That's saying something.

Last night Bill O'Reilly called DailyKos.com a "hate site," run by "far left hatemongers." He rattled off some random comments from the site, like how someone said "Better luck next time" when Dick Cheney was almost blown up in Iraq. And then O'Reilly said this about the site:

"It's like the Ku Klux Klan. It's like the Nazi party. There's no difference."

I swear, irony is lost on these people.

It reminds me of this story from the late Molly Ivins:

I have a correspondent named Irwin Wingo in Weatherford, Texas. Irwin and some of the leading men of the town are in the habit of meeting about 10 every morning at the Chat'n'Chew Cafe to drink coffee and discuss the state of the world. One of their members is a dittohead, a Limbaugh listener. He came in one day, plopped himself down, and said, "I think Rush is right. Racism in this country is dead. I don't know what the niggers will find to gripe about now."

If we have any sort of real terrorist attack in the U.S. before January 2009, it seems to me the American public could react one of two ways:

1. Oh my God! The President was right! We have been underestimating the Islamofascist threat all along! How could we have been so stupid? Thank God we have Bush and Cheney to protect us, and strike back at our enemies.

2. Bush said he was going to protect us, and obviously he can't. Maybe all those people were right who were saying the war in Iraq was creating more terrorists than it was killing. And what has the Bush administration *really* done to combat terrorism? Why did they divert from Afghanistan into Iraq? Can they be trusted with our security now that we've had two major attacks during their regime?

I wonder which one we will choose.

Wait, that's too easy. We will choose #1. And fall all over ourselves giving up any freedoms the President asks of us. Count on that.

Next year, Americans will be making a choice.

And just like the last two times, they're going to choose the hair. No doubt in my mind.

Just when you think they can't stoop any lower, they dig a trench. Sickening.

Remember all the news stories about those "terrorist dry runs" at U.S. airports? With the wires in the cheese and whatnot? PSYCHE!

We vote the Democrats into power in 2006 so they can stop the war.

Instead, we get a "surge."

We vote the Democrats into power in 2006 so they will hold the administration accountable.

Instead, even though all sides agree that the Attorney General of the United States is a liar, nothing is done.

We vote the Democrats into power in 2006 so they can rein in Bush's power grabs.

Instead, we get expanded wiretap powers.

What the hell?

Did you hear the one about Florida state Rep. Bob Allen, (R-of course), who was caught trying to offer an undercover cop a blowjob for $20 in a public restroom? His explanation? He was intimidated because there were a lot of large black men around the area and he "was about to become a statistic."

Uh-huh.

My post title comes courtesy of Jon Stewart and The Daily Show, whose writers are a damn sight cleverer than I will ever be. Stewart also had one of the best lines of the night when he imagined Allen saying to the intimidating black undercover cop, "Hey, you wouldn't hit a guy with a cock in his mouth, would you?"

I guess to right-wingers, being thought of as a racist is much better than being thought of as gay. How sad is that?

"In the past six years, we have lost about 250,000 people to traffic accidents and about 3,000 people to terrorists. Can we get some perspective here?! I am sick to death of the John Wayne crowd being so terrified of being hit by lightning that they’re willing to panic us into multiple wars just to quell their inner quaking."

-a Crooks and Liars commenter, in the discussion about a Philadelphia Daily News columnist calling for "another 9/11"

That's all I've got tonight - my version of the Karl Rove joke.

Also, I had to clean off about 40 spam comments from the site today. Aren't I popular?

Answer: no.

UPDATE: Is it just me, or does Karl Rove bear a creepy resemblance to a giant baby?

Conservatives want another 9/11.

Is there any doubt anymore where these sick fucks are coming from? They want enough Americans, preferably liberals, to die horribly so we can "be united again" and "remember the pain." Is that the country you want to live in? Who really hates America around here?

"I'm not gay, but I think my right foot might be."

-caller to The Stephanie Miller Show

From commenters at Kim du Toit's weblog:

I will never forget or forgive and only wish my youth again so that I might kill Islams and “other fifthe columnist” we have as enemies...not as critics exersizing free speech but active agents attempting to take down America.

I was much too young to actually remember 12/7/41. But I’ve read and learned what Japs really are. There’s always a bit of contempt in my heart and in my eyes whenever I encounter a Jap. That’s what I still call them and I don’t care who it offends.

Those who still think it's OK to consider gay people second-class citizens are on the wrong side of history. Too bad history takes so damn long.

Idaho Sen. Larry Craig, who pled guilty to soliciting gay sex in an airport bathroom, submitted a recipe to the "Congress Cooks!" cookbook (the exclamation point is theirs) called the "Super Tuber."

It involves, and I am not making this up, shoving a hot dog into a hollowed-out Idaho potato.

A commenter on Balloon Juice, about rightwing screecher Michelle Malkin's contention that the Democrats used 12-year-old Graeme Frost as a political prop in the debate over the SCHIP children's health insurance program:

It's a shame Graeme Frost didn't jump out the window of a burning skyscraper. Malkin would be posting pictures of that every day.

Not that it would be a political prop, of course.

Why does anyone invite Ann Coulter on their TV show? Why does anyone write a single word about her? The only way to kill her is to starve her of attention. Why aren't we doing that?

And yes, I realize this post is about her. I hope it's my last.

With Al Gore winning the Nobel Peace Prize, and J.K. Rowling announcing that Dumbledore was gay, it's been quite a week for watching right-wingers' heads explode.

This is not without its pleasures.

So let's tally it up. Right wingers, by their own (sometimes indignant) admission, are officially against:

-Gold Star mothers of veterans killed in action
-Health care for veterans
-Protecting the environment
-Giving poor sick kids health insurance

and as of this week, we can add

-the Nobel Peace Prize (even though Henry Kissinger [seriously] won it), and
-children's literature.

My initial thought was, what are they going to say they hate next - cute puppies? But then I remembered that Ellen Degeneres is a selfish hedonist lesbian. So maybe now they hate puppies too. Who can say? Maybe we should ask Bill Kristol.

I've come up with the ultimate U.S. presidential candidate:

The Hostess Twinkie.

Think of the advantages:

• It's attractive, with a smooth unblemished appearance.
• It will outlast any human candidate.
• It can stonewall any reporter's question.
• It has no past.
• It won't invade another country without Congress' approval.
• It's delicious and sugary, and thus appealing to children and the overweight - 90 percent of Americans right there.
• It won't lie or spin.

Priceless.

I've been looking at some of the YouTube clips from the Republican debate last night, and I have to say there were some great questions asked. When a retired gay brigadier general asked the candidates why they thought U.S. soldiers weren't professional enough to serve with openly gay people, Rep. Duncan Hunter essentially said he didn't want to offend the conservative sensibilities of soldiers. Poor babies.

That reminded me of one of my favorite exchanges on "The West Wing," where Percy Fitzwallace (John Amos) wandered into a meeting where they were discussing the role of gay people in the military.

MAJOR TATE
Sir, we're not prejudiced toward homosexuals.

FITZWALLACE
You just don't want to see them serving in the Armed Forces?

MAJOR TATE
No sir, I don't.

FITZWALLACE
Because they pose a threat to unit discipline and cohesion.

MAJOR TATE
Yes sir.

FITZWALLACE
That's what I think too. I also think the military wasn't designed to be an instrument of social change.

MAJOR TATE
Yes sir.

FITZWALLACE
The problem with that is that's what they were saying to me 50 years ago. Blacks shouldn't serve with Whites. It would disrupt the unit. You know what? It did disrupt the unit. The unit got over it. The unit changed. I'm an admiral in the U.S. Navy and chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff...Beat that with a stick.

Isn't it humorous that Mitt Romney feels he has to champion the separation of church and state to a hard-line Republican base? Of course, when your base isn't sure whether your religion is a cult, what other choice do you have?

Meanwhile, if Southern Baptist minister Mike Huckabee spent his campaign events speaking in tongues and handling snakes, that would probably *increase* his popularity among the same people who consider MItt's religion a cult.

What a world.

1. Jo
2. Tootie
3. Natalie
4. Blair

Holy fuck, Mitt. Seriously. You just jumped up neck-and-neck with Rudy as "scariest Republican presidential candidate." And that's a high bar.

"The problem with our Baptists is we don't hold'em under water long enough."
-Molly Ivins

I miss you, Molly.

The mug shot of Mike Huckabee's son David that the press is using to discuss how Huck Jr. tortured, stabbed and hanged a dog while he was a teenager comes from this year, when Huck Jr. was caught at the airport with a loaded Glock pistol in his carry-on luggage.

Family values, people.

Between this and how Mitt Romney left his dog in the roof carrier on a 12-hour drive, should we be worried about Republicans' dogs in general?