The Last Bastion of America's Liberal Media
19 Apr, 2004
Turd of the Week
John Ashcroft, welcome back to the glistening stencher! Your 9/11 committee implication that terror was due to our inadequately policed police state stinks all the way to hell.
Blabbering
Bush Head
Click
head for fresh random quote from
Jacob Weinberg's The Complete Bushisms - Netscape users hit reload
This data is an accounting
of civilian deaths in Iraq to date.
See Iraqbodycount.net
for statistical methodologies
Sponsors:
Growing
fat off juicy Iraqi rebuildin' contracts. Did you know the bin Laden
group is one of our top investors?
screw
all the other stockholders, we're cashing out!
Hey, what do you know? We make money from American militarily screwed
up countries in the Middle East!
We're
already negotiating with the “new Iraqi democracy” for oil
rights!
Selling
weapons all over the globe to ensure civilian death and instability
which in turn ensures a strong market for years and years...
President
Bush's "Press
Conference"
Our investigative
interns have discovered a lot from digging through the trash at 1600 Pennsylvania
Avenue. The latest treasure? The President's flash cards from the
recent surreal question and evasion session.
Flash card Buzzphrases: not poll-driven, gathering storm, war footing, moving heaven and earth, steadfast, stay the course (flashback!!!), finish the work of the fallen, Now = time & Iraq =place, change the world
...and for those of you who missed the confab, here's a cliff notes version of how things went down. We apologize for the surreal disconnect between question and answer, but then, we owe that to the curious results of 49% of the votes tallied in November of 2000.
Question: Is
Iraq another Vietnam? and why don't most Americans support your war?
Evasive Response: Nope and war is tough.
Q: How long will
U.S. troops be in Iraq and will you have to add troops?
ER: I'm not saying and it's up to the brass.
Q: What happened to being greeted as liberators and Iraqi oil revenue
paying for the reconstruction and WMD?
ER: Iraq = gathering storm. Saddam = evil. UN = sissies.
Q: Do you feel any sense of personal responsibility for Sept. 11?
ER: I'm sad.
Q: Do you ever admit a mistake?
ER: We're on a war footing, Saddam is evil, ObL wanted to get us.
Q: Aug 6 PDB?
ER: That was historical.
Q: Do you owe America an apology for 9/11, ala Dick Clarke?
ER: I'm sad. It's ObL's fault.
Q: Is coalition a sham?
ER: That's insulting. We gotta be strong. Democracy not just for honky
skinned (zing!!!).
Q: Why
does Cheney have to hold your hand at 9/11 commission?
ER: So we can both answer.
Q: Who are you going to hand Iraq over to on 6/30?
ER: We'll find out.
Q: What's the threat level warranting a military response?
ER: We weren't on a war footing. War is last resort. Kaddafhi's my bud
now. Iraq is theatre.
Q: Is Iraq worth it?
ER: I'll be back in 05-08. I hug & weep with 9/11 families. I ain't
chicken.
Q: What's your biggest Presidential mistake?
ER: Saddam knew how to make WMD. Can't think of a mistake.
Q: What about new domestic counter-terror guys?
ER: We'll beat terror.
Q: Have you failed as a communicator?
ER: That's politics. We're strong.
Bush
Supports Sharon - Ariel not Osbourne
Oh greaaaat. Bush is all up in Ariel's poop hole. This time he's supporting
the settlements in the West Bank, essentially endorsing the permanent annexation
of the preponderance of the West Bank in direct defiance of Palestinian
territorial claims. You gotta give it to Bush, he's consistent in supporting
positions that deliberately burn bridges and spurn options, leaving only
a single bellicose, blundering route to solving problems with enormous
historical inertia.
We here at SOTC.com are not trying to take sides in ancestral homelands disputes (Lord knows we get enough hate mail). However, we disparage any solution that is unilateral in its scope. In particular, we abhor any movement by the powerful (e.g., Israel) that seeks to subjugate the disenfranchised (e.g., Palestinians). It's one thing to respect Israel's right to repel invaders and use the invasion routes of enemies as buffers from further attack (Gaza from Eqypt, West Bank from Jordan, Golan Heights from Syria, if I recall my history correctly), but when you invite permanent settlement of those buffers, you quickly remove all wiggle room. Now with Israelis occupying the buffers as homelands, there is no negotiating nuance. It's ALL personal.
Mr. Bush, a peace plan offered by an outside party, in this case the US, requires that both sides trust the outside party. George, you have blown all credibility with the Palestinians. I don't suppose you give a shit that this further inflames the Arab world's opinion of America's designs for the Middle East? Nah, didn't think so.
So thanks, George for once again supporting an over-simplified position that completely ignores the myriad factors behind a very complex issue.
It's
Scalia's World, We Just Cower in it
Supreme Court Neanderthal Antonin Scalia was delivering a speech last week
in a Mississippi church. As he began his string of heartfelt bromides on
the Constitution and the freedoms it guarantees, two reporters turned on
their tape recorders, to ensure they were honoring the responsibilities
concomitant with the rights guaranteed by the very same first amendment
about which Mr. Permanent 5 O'clock Shadow was waxing lustily.
Within a few minutes, they were ordered by a Deputy United States Marshal to relinquish their taping equipment. They protested, but ultimately the thought of federal prison was more compelling than their rights as journalists. Yoink! - their recorders were confiscated.
What the hell is going on here? Is the irony of this move too obvious for everybody? Here's a guy trampling the very instrument of freedom he is supposed to defend. Why? 'cause that's what he wants. Who holds him accountable for this? Gee, let me consult my junior high school civics book... Hmm, according to this it would be, the Judicial branch of the United States.
Not only was it an affront to the Constitution to seize and erase the recordings, Ms. Kirtley believes it was also a violation of the Privacy Protection Act, a law passed by Congress in 1980.
"It protects journalists not just from newsroom searches," she said, "but from the seizure of their work product material, things like notes and drafts, and also what's called documentary materials, which are things like these tapes, or digital recordings."
In
Order to Move Heaven and Earth...
My sickeningly favorite Bush defense about 9/11 culpability is that nobody
ever did the math for him. Sure, the White House knew AQ hated the US.
Sure, the White House knew they had intentions to target the US, Sure the
White House knew they were interested in hijacking planes, Sure the White
House knew they were training in flight schools, Sure the White House knew
that they had contemplated crashing planes into buildings, but hey, nobody
told them explicitly that Al Qeada was planning on using those 4 planes
on September 11, 2001 to crash into the WTC, the Pentagon and (presumably)
the Capital Bldg.
Ya know, I don't even blame them for not doing the math. After all, can we believe Clinton would have put it together, just because he did pretty much that for the Millennium bombing? No, the biggest crap sickener is the insistence that there was nothing he could have done, no way he could have known. How about just saying you wish you could have been more imaginative in putting those many somewhat disparate clues together? I sure wish you had.