Profile in Cowardice

Responding to former CIA Director George Tenet's appearance on 60 Minutes last night, former CIA officer Larry Johnson and five of his ex CIA colleagues blasted Tenet for not speaking up about the cooked information on WMD and a link between bin Laden and Saddam Hussein that Dead Eye Dick and Commander Codpiece used in the run up to the invasion of Iraq. "He could have stood up and spoke [sic] out when he had the job. . . .instead, he kept silent." And when he kept silent, he allowed the propaganda for the war to go unchallenged, and consigned over 3,200 - - and counting - - servicemen and women to their deaths. He collected the Medal of Freedom from the Preznit as a "thank you" for keeping quiet.

He doesn't bear quite the responsibility as Bush, Cheney and the neocon cabal, but he's really not far behind them at all.

The Hapless Mr. Hadley

The Bush Assministration's comical search for a "War Czar" continues. Several top candidates have turned the position down, including former Marine Corps General Jack Sheehan, who said that "the fundamental issue is, they don't know where the hell they're going." In today's New York Times, it's disclosed that Bushie National Security Advisor Stephen J. Hadley is in charge of recruiting the Czar. The task of War Czar would, as the Times says, "ordinarily fall to Hadley himself," but it appears the slippery Mr. Hadley wants to outsource that thankless role to someone else. Hadley, who was a Washington lawyer before joining Condi "Ment" Rice's crack National Security Council team, has no military experience and is an odd choice to be the recruiting officer. Then again, his bosses, Commander Codpiece and Five Deferment Dick probably wouldn't do much better. The Daily Show's John Oliver had a good summary of the situation a couple of weeks ago, which still holds today.

Hope for MSNBC?

Today begins Stephanie Miller's tryout on the a.m. MSNBC time slot vacated by Don Imus. Judging from this morning's effort, Stephanie (an Air America broadcaster) would be a welcome voice -- not to mention face -- in MSNBC's lineup, which currently has Keith Olbermann as the sole progressive voice in a wilderness of Tweetys, *uckers, and other creatures, mostly small. She would be a vast improvement over Michael Smerconish, the wingnut world's candidate host from the last two weeks whose head is as clear inside as it is outside.

Grim Old Party

Piling on is so much fun when it comes to Rethuglicans!! NYT's David "Mister Bobo" Brooks gives us this tasty dish about the fortunes of that party we love to hate (see below). "Grim Old Party." Yeah, we like that. And Down With Tyranny gives us this and this to fill in the GOP's Hieronymus Bosch landscape. (Must...stop...Schadenfreude ...from...overcoming...bwwaahahahahahaha!!)

Who Is A Republican?

On April 10, we ran a piece, "What Is A Republican?" Today, we look at who is a Republican. As with the "what," the "who" also isn't a pretty picture. But it is instructive. If you're a Republican, here's a representative look at the company you keep:

Pols
The Preznit, Dead Eye Dick, Karl "Turdblossom" Rove, "Man Tan" Boehner, Mitch "Mitzi" McConnell, "Opie" Putnam, L'il Pat McHenry, Jim "Oily and Gassy" Inhofe, "Bridge to Nowhere" Stevens, Walnuts McCain, Willard "Muff" Romney, Perfesser Newt "I'm on Number 3" Gingrich, Rudy "So Am I" Giuliani.

Pundits and Fillosofers
Rush Limpballs, Bill O'Really?, Glenn Beck, Field Marshal Hannity, Wee Willie Kristol, *ucker Carlson, Bow Tie Will, Kraphammer, Michelle (Jesse) Malkin, Krazy [D]Ann Coulter, Doughy Pantload, Brent "Bozo" Bozell. Junior Varsity: (most of whom don't rate nicknames) Melanie Morgan, Cal Thomas, Michael Wiener Savage, Pammy Jugs, Dennis Prager, R. Emmett Tyrell III.

Cons Past, Present and Future
Jack Abramoff, Scooter Libby, Tom DeLay, Duke "Not So" Cunningham, Bob Ney, Mark Foley, Claude "Lightfingers" Allen, Grover Norquist, G. Gordon Liddy, Ollie North, Reps. Renzi and Doolittle. Demeritus (R.I.P.): Richard Nixon, Spiro Agnew, John Mitchell, Maurice Stans.

Ayatollahs
Jerry Pharisee Falwell, "Diamond Pat" Robertson, James Dobson, Wm. Donohue, Richard Land, Tony Perkins, Gary Bauer, Ted Haggard. Deacons: Rupert Murdoch, Roger Ailes

Wannabees
Joe Lieberman (Likud-CT), Tweety, Broderella, Washington Post (Fred Hiatt), CNN, L'il Russ Russert, ABC/Disney.

Front Organizations
NRA, Focus on Family, Catholic League, U.S. Chamber of Commerce, Faux News, NAM, Southern Baptist Convention, Rev. Moon Inc. (Washington Times, etc.), WSJ

A scary, sickening bunch of crackpots, sociopaths, hypocrites, liars, cowards, elitists, bedwetters and knuckledraggers, huh?! Makes us glad we're not who they are.

Saturday Trifecta

Three items that give a pretty good picture of how things are going in Preznit Chimpy's war on terror:

* Bomb blast in Karbala kills at least 55. Angry crowds later threw rocks at Iraqi police who failed to stop the bomber.

* Shiite militias vow to capture British Prince Harry when he is stationed in southern Iraq. A Mahdi militia commander says "every person who hates the British and Americans will try to get him, the mujahedeen in Iraq, the al Qaeda, and the Iranians."

* A Taliban supporter sets off a bomb during a meeting in northwest Pakistan involving the Pakistani interior minister and his son. At least 28 are reported killed.

"Only" 632 days left in this disastrous Assministration.

News You Won't See on Fox - Weekend Edition

Adding new meaning to the term "foreign aid," Bushie director of the U.S. Agency for International Development (A.I.D.) Randall Tobias resigned Friday after admitting he had used the "massage" services of Central American women, as well as the services of a high-priced call girl ring operated by the "DC Madam," a.k.a. Pamela Martin, a.k.a. Deborah Palfrey. Another in a long line of Rethug hypocrites, Tobias is 65 and married, and will doubtless be the subject of multiple news stories on Fox, as soon as they break into their 24/7 coverage of every "terrist" plot foiled, treasonous Democrat action, or candidate haircut/weight/accent/middle name humor.

BTW, just two days before, Tobias was at the White House, where Preznit Chimpy (always on top of things) praised his efforts coordinating global AIDS relief ("Heckuva job, Tobie"??).

Wolfie the Visionary

There are reports that a George Washington University law professor, Lewis D. Solomon, has a book coming out in June, entitled: "Paul D. Wolfowitz: Visionary Intellectual, Policymaker, and Strategist." Wait, hold on just a second. . . . bbwwahahahahahahahahah ahahahahahaha. . . . Whew! OK, there, that's better.

Professor Solomon has apparently written either a marvelous piece of satire, or a marvelous piece of, um, fiction. Perhaps he's drawing upon his areas of expertise at GW law in writing his book: corporate and securities law, taxation, business and estate planning. Certainly, he can't be aware of Wolfie's role in planning and executing the disastrous war in Iraq, which diverted resources from the fight against al Qaeda in Afghanistan and is wrecking our armed forces. Nor can he be aware of his misadventures at the World Bank, where his philosophy seems to be "do as I say, not as I do" in his purported fight against Third World corruption.

Professor, there's still time to edit the book/novel/love poem you've written. At least change the title; something like "Paul D. Wolfowitz: Neocon Artist, Wrecker of Our Military, and Lover." (photo: Wolfie playing "Eve of Destruction" on his comb)

Haul Her Butt In

Secretary of State Condi "Mushroom Cloud" Rice is announcing that she will not condescend to appear, under subpoena, before Chairman Waxman's committee to investigate the use of bogus intelligence to justify the invasion of Iraq. Instead, she says that she'll answer the questions "again" in writing, as if they were honestly answered before in her confirmation hearings. This, of course, would not allow cross examination and follow up questions by the committee, which is no doubt what Rice intends. This is becoming a pattern with the Rethug regime: stonewall, lie, and avoid accountability. The pattern needs to be interrupted by forcing her to come to the hearing, sit in the witness chair under oath, and answer questions about why this Assministration lied about WMD, Saddam's connections to al Qaeda, etc. She can't handle that.

Go for it, Chairman Waxman.

Who's Laughing?

This is one of the best posts we've seen anywhere. Ellis Weiner totally nails the wingnut buffoon-ocracy in this Huffington Post piece.

"Buying the War"

Update on yesterday's post: here's the link to the Bill Moyers Journal "Buying the War," broadcast last night on PBS. Wow! This should be required viewing for every journalism 101 class in America (and as a refresher/reminder for every MSM "journalist" of what their profession is supposed to be).

Poll Finds Public Sides With Dems Overwhelmingly

A new NBC News/Wall Street Journal poll just released shows that the Bush Assministration's Iraq policy is a "loser," with 55% saying that victory is not possible and that the war is going worse (49%) or about the same (37%) rather than better (12%) since the "surge" began nearly 3 months ago. The poll also found that 66% of the American people think the country is on the wrong track vs. 22% who think it's on the right track (and who also, coincidentally, are rooting for the Rapture). This is the lowest "right track" number in 15 years, since Poppy Bush was in office, and reveals the approximate dead-ender, hard-core Rebunglecan segment of the population.

Also notable, 56% support the Democrats' Iraq troop withdrawal deadline vs. 37% who support the Preznit's position. Maybe "9% Dick" Cheney should STFU?!

The Independent David Broder

We've seen how luminaries in the MSM world have been so very eager to play ball with the Rethug apparatus. As noted in the previous posting, tonight Bill Moyers will shed light on this phenomenon as relates to the lead up to the war. Another example of the coziness that has compromised independent journalism is the David Broder/Karl Rove association. This was Broder, "dean" of the Washington press "corpse", in 2003:

"I like Karl Rove. In the days when he was operating from Austin, we had many long and rewarding conversations. I have eaten quail at his table and admired the splendid Hill Country landscape from the porch of the historic cabin Karl and his wife Darby found miles away and had carted to its present site on their land." (5/18/03)

How nice. Broder needs to push himself away from "Karl's table" and check out what this Mayberry Machiavelli has been doing to undermine freedom and political discourse in this country (U.S. attorney firings, Hatch Act violations, etc.). Not that he really cares. For a good dressing down of the "dean", read Scott Horton's piece in Harper's. (photo: Broder strumming on friend Karl's porch)

Bill Moyers Is Back

Tonight, PBS is broadcasting the first of Bill Moyers' new series, "Bill Moyers' Journal." According to the preview, this report will deal extensively with the Bush Assministration's selling of the war with Iraq, and the MSM's role in cheerleading that disastrous enterprise. Some of the intrepid pundits who pushed the invasion from the start refused to be interviewed by Moyers, among them Chuck Kraphammer, Judith Miller, and Wee Willie Kristol. But Moyers gets a good knee in the groin, for example, with Kristol, who "led the march to Baghdad behind a battery of Washington microphones. . .[and] has not responded to any of our requests for an interview, but he still shows up on TV as an expert, most often on Fox News."

Watch it and weep.

Quote of the Day

"I'm not going to get into a name-calling match with somebody who has 9 percent approval rating" - - Senate Majority Leader Harry Reid, referring to Dead Eye Dick Cheney's mudslinging over the Iraq war funding bill. (photo: Dead Eye spreading the love)