The Cheese Sandwich

October Surprise

2008-10-10T19:22:00.009-04:00

"I'm not quite dead."

Road to Nowhere

2008-04-08T17:55:00.015-04:00

Here's some more stuff we should probably ignore.

A new assessment of U.S. policy in Iraq by the same
experts who advised the original Iraq Study Group
concludes that political progress is "so slow,
halting and superficial" and political fragmentation
"so pronounced" that the United States is no closer
to being able to leave Iraq than it was a year ago.

And how many US soldiers have died in Iraq since a year ago?
Answer: 755

But why listen to experts when we've got Joe Lieberman?

This is not happening.

2008-03-27T17:24:00.014-04:00

CNN:

Forty-two people were killed Thursday in Kut,
southeast of Baghdad, Iraq's Interior Ministry
said, the latest casualties in three days of
clashes between militias and Iraqi security
forces.

[...]

Since Tuesday, clashes in Basra and throughout
Iraq's Shiite heartland have left more than 100
dead and many wounded in Basra, Baghdad, Hilla,
Kut, Karbala and Diwaniya.

Jeesh, what's with these Iraqis?

Don't they know that the civil war is sooo over?

It's Official

2008-03-11T17:36:00.014-04:00

According to the Pentagon: Sky is blue. 2+2=4. And there was
no link between Iraq and Al Qaeda before U.S. invasion.

An exhaustive review of more than 600,000
Iraqi documents that were captured after the
2003 U.S. invasion has found no evidence that
Saddam Hussein's regime had any operational
links with Osama bin Laden's al Qaida terrorist
network.

The Pentagon-sponsored study, scheduled for
release later this week, did confirm that
Saddam's regime provided some support to other
terrorist groups, particularly in the Middle
East, U.S. officials told McClatchy. However,
his security services were directed primarily
against Iraqi exiles, Shiite Muslims, Kurds
and others he considered enemies of his regime.

The new study of the Iraqi regime's archives
found no documents indicating a "direct
operational link" between Hussein's Iraq and
al Qaida before the invasion, according to a
U.S. official familiar with the report.

Why does the Pentagon hate America?

President Facebook

2008-03-02T23:33:00.019-05:00

George W. Bush thinks we are all really, really stupid.

Sitting down at the table, having your picture
taken with a tyrant such as Raul Castro, for
example, lends the status of the office and the
status of our country to him. He gains a lot from
it by saying, look at me, I’m now recognized by
the President of the United States.

Click here for big, juicy pictures of Dubya lending out some
of that precious status to abusive tyrants and petty dictators
from all over the world... except Cuba.

Googling Goeglein

2008-02-29T13:29:00.014-05:00

Tim Goeglein, plagiarist

It amazes me that any high-profile writer (even one that
works in the Bush Administration) could be stupid enough
to commit plagiarism in the modern age of Google.

How embarrassing.

[h/t Atrios]

The Times, They Are A-Suckin'

2008-02-22T21:39:00.030-05:00

Leave it to the pinheads at the NY Times to print an article
that is so poorly sourced and edited, it makes them look
like even bigger tools than usual -- while simultaneously
rallying conservatives around McCain.

But the real kicker is they actually expected to get
high-fives from Democrats.

Q. I must say that the McCain article left
me embarrassed for your paper. So little
substance, but trumpeted prominently as
though you somehow had the goods on him
or were raising burning questions. It
makes it look like your reporters or
editors had an ax to grind. I hope they
didn't. Question: Do you read the coverage
of your coverage? Did you see the piece
at slate.com ridiculing your paper for this?
Doesn't it smart?

— Brian Mullaney

A. I think we all expected the reaction
to be intense. We knew from our experience
last year, when word leaked out we were
pursuing this story, that Senator McCain's
operatives would set out to change the
subject by making the story about The
New York Times rather than about their
candidate.That's a time-honored tactic for
dealing with potentially damaging news
stories. We knew some readers would
disagree with our decision to publish this
information. After all, we wrestled with
our own doubts on that score. We anticipated
that it would provoke at least a brief media
firestorm — and that our efforts to put
Mr. McCain's relationship with a lobbyist
in a bigger context would probably get lost
in the retelling.

Personally, I was surprised by the volume
of the reaction (including more than 2,400
reader comments posted on our Web site).
I was surprised by how lopsided the opinion
was against our decision, with readers who
described themselves as independents and
Democrats joining Republicans in defending
Mr. McCain from what they saw as a cheap
shot.

Whitewater... Wen Ho Lee... Jason Blair... Judith Miller...
And an op-ed page that is truly an intellectual sewer.

Yet the Times editors are surprised that no one from the
left is standing up to defend their shoddy journalism
against a livid Rush Limbaugh.

Hilarious.

Less Jobs, More Wars

2008-02-06T17:52:00.000-05:00

The Republican Party has spoken, and they want John McCain
for their president. I'll admit the logic behind that decision
is a bit hard for a dirty, liberal hippie like me to understand.
But luckily, we have conservatives like Pat Buchanan and
Joe Scarborough to explain his unique appeal to GOP voters.

BUCHANAN: Here’s a guy, basically, what
does he say? The jobs are never coming back,
the illegals are never going home, but we’re
gonna have a lot more wars.

SCARBOROUGH: We’re gonna start a lot of
wars! He has promised, for the record Keith,
John McCain’s platform — and it certainly
looks inviting for the fall — he has promised
less jobs and more wars. Now that’s something
we can all rally behind.

"Less jobs, more wars." It's got a nice ring to it, no?

Sock It To Me!

2008-01-16T14:59:00.000-05:00

Thank the Lord, our prayers have been answered!

That's right. Sprezzatura is back -- and he's pissed.

So watch out, all you latte-drinking, baseball cap-wearing,
iPod-listening punks. This sock puppet is holding a big ol'
can of whoop-ass and he ain't afraid (or ashamed) to use it.

Busted!

2008-01-09T20:26:00.000-05:00

Chris Matthews, the biggest loser of last night's primary, shares some
face time with Hillary.

Honestly, I still haven't decided on a candidate yet (though I'd
be happy with just about any of the Democrats). But any election
that highlights the sheer stupidity and foolishness of the media
whores who call themselves "pundits" is a victory in my book.

Thank you, New Hampshire.

Men In Black

2007-12-17T19:54:00.000-05:00

ABOVE: Actual photo from recent meeting of College Democrats (Princeton, NJ)

Sure, it's easy to dismiss most College Republicans
as a bunch of slack-jawed, bed-wetting, chickenhawk
cowards who prefer to let others fight their dirty
little wars for them while they empty another keg
and jerk-off to old Chuck Norris movies.

But that wouldn't be fair.

Especially once you learn about guys like Francisco
Nava, who do so much to advance the cause of American
Conservatism by exposing dangerous, new enemies that
are poisoning our institutions of higher learning:

Imaginary Hippie Ninjas!

Clueless Joe

2007-12-07T16:51:00.000-05:00

For anyone who hasn’t been following the latest rounds of
Joe Klein’s increasingly desperate War Against Journalism
(or if you just can’t get enough), check out this excellent
analysis by John Cook at Radar.

Klein's reactions on Swampland to his FISA critics
are precious goldmines of self-aggrandizing pretense
that must be savored at length to appreciate their
rich subtleties and overtones. His first response
acknowledged--in an insufferably cloying way--that
although partisan murk clouded the issue, he "may"
have made a mistake, before going on to claim that
if he indeed had made a mistake, "we are talking
about relatively obscure and unimportant technical
details." In other words, Klein sat down to write
a column about obscure and unimportant technical
details.

Klein's next weigh-in on the blog, two days later,
was headlined "FISA: More Than You Want to Know,"
as though his responsibility to assess the veracity
or lack thereof of the claims he made in his columns
involved some kind of burdensome slog through
legislative thickets beyond the comprehension of
mere mortals. Why are you making me do this? This
is hard! His post artfully shifted the issue from
whether the bill says what he said it says to whether
his Republican sources or Democratic sources were
correct in their interpretations (who knows? This
law stuff is complicated) before actually committing
to pixels the following words, which will live on as
one of the finest specimens of sheer journalistic
hubris ever issued from one of the genre's most
accomplished practitioners: "I have neither the time
nor legal background to figure out who's right."
I don't have time find out if what I write is true,
people! I'm too busy claiming that other things are
true. And even if I did have time, I'm not qualified
to say whether the things I write are true anyway!

Of course, it’s not news that Joe Klein is an incompetant
stooge who can never admit when he is wrong. The real
headline here is that Time continues to employ this hack
while denying its readers a chance to learn the truth from
others who actually do understand what the hell they’re
writing about. Glenn Greenwald covers it all, here.

Scary Shit

2007-12-04T17:56:00.000-05:00

Cheesy Question: Which is most frightening?

- The fact that the warmongers in Washington brought us
thisclose to starting another war with a country that
gave up trying to develop nukes years ago.

- The fact that Congressional Democrats were so easily
duped into supporting this reckless policy.

- The fact that President Bush claims he did not know
this information until the story broke this week.

- The fact that the Beltway Media still does not recognize
its essential role in creating this horror show.

Choose carefully. Write your answer on a 3x5 postcard,
and mail it to 7 years ago, where there might still be
someone in a position of power who hasn’t completely
lost his fucking mind.

Democracy, Pakistani Style

2007-11-21T15:54:00.000-05:00

As you sit around the table tomorrow with friends and
loved ones, be thankful that we (like our pals in Pakistan)
are blessed with a president who is so deeply committed
to the ideals of democracy.

President Bush yesterday offered his
strongest support of embattled Pakistani
President Pervez Musharraf, saying the
general "hasn't crossed the line" and "truly
is somebody who believes in democracy."

But as is often the case with Bush and his BFFs, actions
speak louder than words.

Bush spoke nearly three weeks after
Musharraf declared emergency rule, sacked
members of the Supreme Court and began a
roundup of journalists, lawyers and human
rights activists. Musharraf's government
yesterday released about 3,000 political
prisoners, although 2,000 remain in custody,
according to the Interior Ministry.

The comments, delivered in an interview
with ABC News anchor Charles Gibson,
contrasted with previous administration
statements -- including by Bush himself --
expressing grave concern over Musharraf's
actions. In his first public comments on
the crisis two weeks ago, Bush said his
aides bluntly warned Musharraf that his
emergency measures "would undermine
democracy."

But hey, what's wrong with a little Constitution-breaking
among friends?

Bush was asked in the interview if there
is any line Musharraf should not cross.
"He hasn't crossed the line. As a matter
of fact, I don't think that he will cross
any lines," Bush replied, according to an
ABC transcript. "...We didn't necessarily
agree with his decision to impose emergency
rule, and... hopefully he'll get... rid of
the rule. Today, I thought, was a pretty
good signal, that he released thousands of
people from jail."

Tom Malinowski, Washington director of
Human Rights Watch, said that "it's hard to
imagine how the administration will be able
to achieve anything in Pakistan if the
president is so disconnected from reality."

"Almost everyone in Pakistan who believes
in George Bush's vision of democracy is in
prison today," Malinowski said. "Calling
the man who put them in prison a great
democrat will only discredit America among
moderate Pakistanis and give Musharraf
confidence that he can continue to defy
the United States because Bush will forgive
anything he does."

Happy Thanksgiving, everybody!

Carlin on Countdown

2007-10-25T04:22:00.000-04:00

A master comic tackles the absurd -- from Governor Bush,
to cellphones that make pancakes.

Colbert '08

2007-10-21T15:08:00.000-04:00

You'd think that after a performance like this, the news
media would get the hint that the joke is on them.

But of course, you'd be wrong.

Stark Contrast

2007-10-18T21:54:00.000-04:00

Rep. Pete Stark (D-CA) exposes the mean-spirited lunacy
of President Bush's veto of legislation that would expand
the SCHIP program:

First of all, I'm just amazed that they can't
figure out-- the Republicans are worried that
we can't pay for insuring an additional ten
million children. They sure don't care about
finding $200 billion to fight the illegal war
in Iraq. Where are you gonna get that money?
You gonna tell us lies, like you're telling us
today? Is that how you're going to fund the
war? You don't have the money to fund the war
or children, but you're going to spend it to
blow up innocent people, if we could get enough
kids to grow old enough for you to send to
Iraq to get their heads blown off for the
President's amusement.

Sadly, Stark's speech couldn't convince Republicans to do
the right thing and override President 24%. I guess they
were afraid it might make him feel irrelevant.

Pot meets Kettle

2007-10-17T21:11:00.000-04:00

I love the smell of hypocrisy in the morning!

The guy who directed Jack, Captain EO, and a Dracula
movie starring Keanu Reeves is disappointed with the
career choices some of his peers have made recently.

I met both Pacino and DeNiro when they were
really on the come," Coppola tells GQ's
Nate Penn. "They were young and insecure.
Now Pacino is very rich, maybe because he
never spends any money; he just puts it in
his mattress. DeNiro was deeply inspired by
(Coppola's studio American) Zoetrope and
created an empire and is wealthy and powerful.

Nicholson was -- when I met him and worked
with him -- he was always kind of a joker.
He's got a little bit of a mean streak. He's
intelligent, always wired in with the big
guys and the big bosses of the studios.

I don't know what any of them want anymore.
I don't know that they want the same things.
Pacino always wanted to do theater... (He)
will say, 'Oh, I was raised next to a furnace
in New York, and I'm never going to go to
L.A.,' but they all live off the fat of the land.

[...]

I think if there was a role that DeNiro was
hungry for, he would come after it. I don't
think Jack would. Jack has money and influence
and girls, and I think he's a little bit like
(Marlon) Brando, except Brando went through
some tough times. I guess they don't want to
do it anymore.

The horror... the horror.

I Will Survive

2007-10-04T20:16:00.000-04:00

Sen. Larry "Wide Stance" Craig decides, on second thought,
he won't resign.

Idaho Sen. Larry Craig lost a bid Thursday
to withdraw his guilty plea in a men's
room sex sting but defiantly vowed to
finish his Senate term, prolonging a
headache for Republican leaders already
facing a tough political climate.

Craig had announced plans to resign his
seat by Sept. 30, but wavered when he went
to court in hopes of withdrawing his plea.
He issued a statement Thursday on staying
in the Senate shortly after Idaho Gov. C.L.
"Butch" Otter, R, relayed word that he had
selected a replacement for Craig in the
event of a vacancy.

This should prove interesting. But for now, I have to
agree with Josh Marshall that Craig has done a
masterful job at containing and defusing a scandal that
should have ended his career in politics the moment it
hit the front page.

Let's review, news breaks that Craig, a
social conservative and strong opponent
of gay rights, got nabbed for propositioning
a man for sex in a public restroom -- a
misdemeanor to which he later pleaded guilty.
That's just a bad news day.

So Craig's fellow Republicans basically do
everything short of physically forcing him
to resign. He "resigns". Only it's not a
resignation. Rather, it's a rather ingenious
ploy to let the temperature ease off on the
story, a post-dated resignation. Then it's
not a resignation. He's going to fight the
guilty plea -- something of a novelty in the
annals of jurisprudence. He'll stay in office
if he can get his plea withdrawn. And now he
can't get his guilty plea withdrawn so, well,
too bad. He's staying anyway.

Hmm... a resignation that isn't really a resignation.
Kind of like torture that isn't really torture. It may
sound crazy to the rest of us, but it all makes perfect
sense to the beautiful minds of the GOP.

Amazin'

2007-10-01T21:33:00.000-04:00

You really got to hand it to the Mets -- always finding new
and interesting ways to lose when it counts the most.

Yesterday, the Mets completed one of the
most stunning collapses in baseball history
with an embarrassing 8-1 loss to Florida.
The season-ending nightmare began almost
immediately, as sugarplum dreams of a
weekend revival quickly dissolved. The “Let’s
Go Mets” chants that rocked the stadium
15 minutes before the game quickly gave
way to cries of despair.

On Sept. 12, the Mets had a seven-game
lead over Philadelphia with 17 games to play.
A confident David Wright said: “You couldn’t
have picked a better time to peak. This is the
best baseball we’ve played all season.”

But then came the tailspin, and no amount
of huffing and puffing, no amount of bravado,
could pull the Mets out of it. On Saturday,
they appeared to keep hope alive with a 13-0
victory. As it turned out, that victory was
simply a last-gasp thank you to Mets fans for
hanging in. Yesterday, there was nothing left
from a team that has now humiliated itself and
its fans.

And with that, the horrible memories of 2004 are washed
away from the minds of Yankees fans throughout the city.
New York has a new definition for the word choke, and it
looks a lot like Tom Glavine and José Reyes.

As the Phillies closed in this month, the Mets
forgot the brand of baseball that had brought
them to the cusp of another division title. If the
biggest culprit was the poor showing by the
pitching staff, which posted a 5.96 earned run
average over the final 17 games, then Reyes’s
noticeable descent ranked second. Over the last
two months, he batted .240 and committed the
sort of mental mistakes that come with a gap in
maturity. The fans, who so often chanted “José,
José, José,” are left wondering what has become
of their favorite player.

“They wanted me to do good, so that’s why they
booed me,” Reyes said.

And all summer long, Eric Alterman has complained about
the lack of Mets coverage in the NY Times compared to
their pinstriped rivals in the Bronx -- despite holding the
division lead for nearly the entire season. Well, with a story
like this one, I think that ratio is due to change -- at least
until the playoffs. Be careful what you wish for, bub.

Treehugger

2007-09-25T03:37:00.000-04:00

Whoever said Dick Cheney doesn't care about the environment
was obviously unaware of his deep commitment to preserving
our nation's trees.

Speaking last week at the Gerald R. Ford
Presidential Library and Museum in Grand
Rapids, Mich., Ford's one-time White House
chief of staff said: "Researchers like to
come and dig through my files, to see if
anything interesting turns up."

"I want to wish them luck," the vice president
said to a laughing audience. "But the files
are pretty thin. I learned early on that if
you don't want your memos to get you in
trouble someday, just don't write any."

Even Stevens

2007-09-20T19:53:00.001-04:00

Will Sen. Ted Stevens be the latest member of the GOP
to lose his day-job over an embarrassing corruption
scandal? It's never a good sign when the FBI is recording
your phonecalls.

I'll bet they tapped his tubes too.

Bedtime for Gonzo

2007-08-27T21:07:00.000-04:00

Well it sure did take a while, but at long last, it
appears we won't have Fredo to kick around anymore.
All I can say to the man who designed the Patriot Act,
legalized torture, and supervised warrantless
surveillance on American citizens is good riddance.

Considering how his partners in crime like Libby &
Rummy have managed to walk away unscathed from
the twisted, burning wreak that was once our American
democracy, I have little hope that Abu Gonzales will
ever be brought to justice. But though this incompetent
stooge, like some horrible disease, cannot be
eradicated, he can at least be contained within an
environment where he can do less harm to fewer
people. A place already familiar with this deadly strand
of compassionate conservatism. A place like… Texas.

But of course, no resignation by a disgraced White
House official is complete without the standard Lewis
Carroll-esque commentary by President Bush. And once
again, he does not disappoint.

"After months of unfair treatment that has
created ... a harmful distraction at the Justice
Department, Judge Gonzales has decided to
resign his position, and I accept his decision,"
Bush told reporters as he prepared to board
Marine One. "It's sad that we live in a time
when a talented and honorable person like
Alberto Gonzales is impeding (sic) from doing
important work because his good name was
dragged through the mud for political
reasons."

I actually had to stop typing for a moment to wipe the
tears off my keyboard.

Not surprisingly, Jon Stewart figured out the Gonzales
playbook a long time ago and spelled it out perfectly in an
interview with Bill Moyers.

JON STEWART: For instance, Alberto Gonzales,
and you've been watching the hearings. He is
either a perjurer, or a low-functioning pinhead.
And he allowed himself to be portrayed in those
hearings as a low-functioning pinhead, rather
than give the Congressional Committee charged
with oversight, any information as to his
decision-making process at the Department of
Justice.

And I used to think, "They're doing this based on
a certain arrogance." And now, I realize that it's
because they believe there is one accountability
moment for a President, and that is the four year
election. And once you get that election, you're
done.

BILL MOYERS: They're right, are they not?

JON STEWART: They're completely not right. The
election moment is merely the American public
saying, "We'd rather you be President than that
guy." That's it. The next four years, though, you
still have to abide by the oversight process that is
there to prevent this kind of bizarre sort of cult-
like atmosphere that falls along. I mean, I accept
that kind of veil of secrecy around Tom Cruise and
Katie Holmes, but I don't accept that around our
government.

BILL MOYERS: Tens of thousands, hundreds of
thousands of words were written about Gonzales'
testimony last week in Congress. And I still don't
think a lot of people get it. And all of the sudden,
there on THE DAILY SHOW that evening, you
distilled the essence of it.

[…]

JON STEWART: And by the way, that was all just
-- that was a game, and he knew it, and the guys
on the committee knew it. And for the President
to come out after that and say, "Everything I saw
there gave me more confidence in him," that
solidified my notion that, "Oh, it's because what
he expected of Gonzalez was" it's sort of like, do
you remember in GOODFELLAS? When Henry Hill got
arrested for the first time and Robert DeNiro met
him at the courthouse and Henry Hill was really
upset, 'cause he thought Robert DeNiro would be
really mad at him. And DeNiro comes up to him and
he gives him a $100 and he goes, "You got pinched.
We all get pinched, but you did it right, you
didn't say nothing."

BILL MOYERS: Gonzales said nothing.

JON STEWART: Right. And "you went up there and
said nothing. You gave them no legal recourse
against you, and you made yourself a smart man,
a self-made man look like an utter pinhead on
national television, and you did it for me."

That's what friends are for.

Finally, for those of you keeping score, Paul Kiel has a nifty
rundown of the numerous Justice Department resignations
that have occurred in the wake of the U.S. attorney firing
scandal. It’s a ridiculously long list. In fact, it might have
been easier to just announce who’s left.

Dude, Where's My Government?

2007-08-25T21:08:00.000-04:00

Uniters, not dividers: Bush & Maliki

Awesome.

Escalating a political crisis that has paralyzed
the Iraqi government, three secular cabinet
members will formally resign Saturday,
according to a senior member of the group.

The Iraqi National List, an umbrella group of
several political parties composed of secular
Sunnis and Shiites, had boycotted cabinet
meetings since Aug. 7 because of frustrations
with what they saw as Prime Minister Nouri al-
Maliki's divisive leadership style. The party,
headed by former prime minister Ayad Allawi,
will now submit the official resignations,
National List member Iyad Jamal al-Deen said.

* * *

The largest Sunni political bloc has already
formally withdrawn from the cabinet, while the
party loyal to powerful Shiite cleric Moqtada al-
Sadr continues to boycott government meetings.
All told, nearly half the cabinet members are not
attending meetings.

And let’s not forget that Iraq’s parliament has been
out-to-lunch all month. Could someone please remind
me what the surge was supposed to accomplish?

756*

2007-08-08T00:42:00.000-04:00

Well Barry, you got your record.

I hope it was worth it -- because now it’s pretty much all
you've got. And if A-Rod stays healthy and productive,
you won’t even have that for very long.