McCain Running Dishonorable Campaign

Worse, It's The Political Equivalent Of A Michael Bay Movie.

Lately I have heard that McCain supporters take issue when he is called "dishonorable". They insist that no man with his war record could ever act dishonorably.

Just because John McCain, failed in his mission, crashed his plane (for the fifth time) and as a result got the shit kicked out of him by a band of malnourished Communist Asians, to whom he revealed classified information in exchange for special treatment doesn't mean he isn't dishonorable.

It certainly doesn't mean that he is beyond serial infidelity, unconscionable corruption, political cowardice, and promoting baseless lies designed to provoke violent racism and xenophobia.

Lately at his rallies, McCain has been prompting some outrageous reactions from his supporters.

For instance,when McCain utters the name of his opponent, Senator Barack Obama (D- Illinois), the crowd has been shouting utterances like "terrorist!", or they say "kill him!" or "off with his head".



They do this without the any admonishment or disapproval from John McCain, who just peels back his lips to reveal his damp, gray and crooked grin, through which his rancid breath escapes in subdued cackle.

Every election year, it seems like someone says that it's about the most dirty election season ever, and usually that notion is just misguided hyperbole. But we live in times where what was ONCE misguided hyperbole is now the most clear and truthful way to describe the world in which we live.

John McCain's campaign is the political equivalent of a film by Michael Bay or Jerry Bruckheimer. It's over budgeted and under developed, it's loud, it's irrational, it's flashy, it's over hyped, it plays to the lowest common denominator and its hard for anyone with cognitive fortitude to watch it for even a moment.

Sarah Palin, the suspension of his campaign, Joe the Plumber: These are overproduced set pieces in a campaign that should never have been. It appears that in this election, people know garbage when they see it, and they are holding their nose at the sight of it.

Still, I worry.

Armageddon and Pearl Harbor each opened at #1.

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Obama & McCain Respond To Bailout Failure

Candidates Show Difference In How They Will Govern

Obama:

Obama said he's confident a deal will be reached on a bailout plan, despite it failing in the House.

Explaining why he was delayed at the start of his event, he said in this town about 20 minutes outside Denver, "I was on the phone with Secretary Paulson as well as the Speaker of the House and the Congressional leaders, because they are still trying to work through this rescue package. And obviously this is a very difficult thing to do. It's difficult because we shouldn't have gotten here in the first place.

"We meet here at a time of great uncertainty for America. The era of greed and irresponsibility on Wall Street and in Washington has led us to a financial crisis as serious as any we have faced since the Great Depression. They said they wanted to let the market run free but instead they let it run wild, and in the process they trampled our American values of fairness, balance, and responsibility to one another. Now, because of speculators who gamed the system and regulators who looked the other way, your jobs, your life savings, and the stability of our entire economy is at risk."

McCain:

When McCain boarded his campaign plane with Rob Portman in preparation for his flight to Des Moines, just as the bailout legislation was defeated on the House floor, he ignored questions shouted by reporters from under the wing about the fate of the bill.

It's unclear if he could hear the questions, but when he heard reporters shouting his name he turned and waved.

Question:

How long before Obama gets 60% in the polls?

Source: NBC News.

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McCain Wants To Be A Part-Time President

In Difficult Times, Americans Want An FDR, Not A Hoover

Imagine that if after the bombing of Pearl Harbor that President Franklin Roosevelt didn't address the Congress and the American people by inspiring confidence and strength, but rather he decided that he could only attend to one crisis at a time.

FDR was already taking on The Great Depression when the United States was attacked. After he described December 7, 1941 as "a day that will live in infamy", he went on to say,

"With confidence in our armed forces - with the unbounding determination of our people - we will gain the inevitable triumph."

Even though the United States was struggling through double-digit unemployment and a shaken economy during The Great Depression, FDR knew that he had to mobilize the nation and the world against dire threats to their liberty, sovereignty and safety.

John McCain, ever the maverick, decided that approach wasn't for him.

Upon what has been described as one of the worst economic crisis' since The Great Depression, John McCain has decided to focus on one thing while ignoring another important thing.

This week, John McCain said that he would suspend his campaign, and he had requested to delay the Presidential Debate scheduled for Friday at 9PM E.S.T.

Apparently Sen. McCain who has been the Congress' most absent Senator is in a rush to fix the economic crisis that he, Bush and the Republicans in Congress helped to create.

McCain insists on ignoring one important task to work on a crisis that he is admittedly not qualified to handle. He does this despite the fact that whoever wins this election will have to be a full-time Commander-In-Chief, a full-time steward of the economy, and a full time President.

If FDR didn't multitask and show a willingness to take on one of the worst domestic crisis' in US history along with the greatest crisis' of war simultaneously, we would be a very different country today.

Would we have been better off if FDR decided not to fight World War II so that he could focus on the economy? Probably not.

McCain's decision is further evidence of his poor temperament and erratic decision making process, which has recently disturbed even the most conservative political observers.

The President of the United States doesn't get an excused absence. When a candidate for President asks for one, he shouldn't be taken seriously.

Barack Obama on the other hand, has called McCain out. He remarked that it is especially important for the American people to hear from the people who will eventually be responsible for this mess.

In about 40 days, the American people will have their say on who is best equipped to lead through this and every crisis we will endure for the next four years. Because of this, it is now especially important for Sen. McCain and Sen. Obama to have an audience with the voting electorate about where they intend to lead this country.

Barack Obama understands that, if elected, he will have to be a full-time President.

McCain doesn't.

Do We Need A Hoover or Do We Need A Roosevelt?

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John McCain Est Un Sac De Douche
Insults Are An Important Part Of The French Language, No?

The other day in French class, we were learning how to describe things. (Il est/Elle est = He is/She is).

One of the exercises included finding five ways to describe a celebrity. The choices included Will Smith, Michael Phelps, Charles De Gaule, George Bush, Barack Obama, Sarah Palin, and John McCain among others.

A fellow that sat behind me said that he was going to describe John McCain and said "Il est indépendant, Il est intelligent". Which, of course, is total bullshit in any language.

When he was done, I said "John McCain? Il est douchebag!". Most of the class laughed including the youngish instructor. I admit that it was a cheap shot and that a majority of the class was more impressed by my used of the word "douchebag" than my criticism of John McCain.

After class, the guy who lavished praise upon McCain in the language of romance walked by my desk as I was packing up to leave.

" [COUGH]douchebag[COUGH]faggot[COUGH]" he muttered.

Yep, he did the thing where he coughed an insult. What's worse is that as he did it he walked away. I was mostly offended because he thought he could insult me and that I would pretend that I didn't hear it just to avoid escalation. As Bugs Bunny said, "He don't know me too well, do he?"

"Excuse me?", I said to him. He didn't acknowledge me, and his back was to me was he walked to the teacher.

"Excuse me! Did you have something to say to me?" I said to him as I picked up my pace without his acknowledgement.

Finally, I stepped in front of him and leaned over into his face.

"Excuse me? Did you have something to say to me?"

He looked at me, but he didn't say anything. Still in front of him, I reiterated.

" Because I am right here."

"Uh, your outrageous comments, uh. . ."

"Outrageous? I think what you said was outrageous! You put your opinion out there, and so did I. I even did it in French! But you, you went ahead and insulted me, and you thought I would ignore it.

He was silent and clearly jarred.

"Maybe next time if you have something to say to me, you'll say it to my face? How's that sound?"

He didn't say anything.

I jetted off in a fuming rage, because this Pugsley Adams looking bastard draped in his American Eagle reminded me of every half-thinking spoiled Detroit-burb moron who thinks that John McCain is the cats pajamas.. He looks like the kind of guy whose interests, outside of Republican politics, include taking dates to Fazoli's and then raping them in the Pontiac Vibe that his dad, an Oakland Country lawyer, bought for him.

Obviously, politics shouldn't escalate to this kind of personal confrontation. But, I am emotionally invested in this election, and after seeing how mean spirited and ruthless the Republican's have been in winning elections and fighting the culture war, I decided that I should be no less cruel or dangerous.

It's a shame that this Preidential election has become so contentious that it almost came to fisticuffs in a French class.

But, that fucker will probably never cough & walk ever again.

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McCain Voted For Banking Deregulation Bill
The bills author is his chief economic adviser.

In response to the fall of Lehman brothers and the sixth worst day ever on Wall Street, John McCain said, "I promise that we wont put America in this position again. . .this is a failure".

John McCain should know, he voted for the Gramm-Leach-Bliley Act which led to the banking deregulation that allowed the mortgage industry to adopt predatory loan practices that offered mortgages to those with a poor or thin credit history who had unreliable or low incomes.

The legislation also permitted spikes in the interest rates and monthly payments of these mortgages, which led to millions of Americans losing their homes.

Basically, John McCain voted to allow the Mortgage Industry to become Check-N-Go.

So much for "the ownership society" Bush campaigned on in 2004.

What is worse is that the author of the bill, former Texas Senator Phil Gramm, is John McCain's chief economic advisor. You might remember Phil Gramm as the guy who said that people who complained about economic hardship are "whiners".

Not only did John McCain support this catastrophic deregulation upon its inception, he has made its author his chief economic adviser. John McCain clearly lacks the judgment and desire to give America a new direction on the economy and give Americans a better quality of life.

I guess he wasn't kidding when he said he didn't know much about the economy.

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Whatever Happened To Wartime Prosperity?

Those who are out to discredit Franklin Roosevelt and progressive government always remark that it wasn’t the New Deal that pulled America out of the Great Depression, but rather World War II. The people who espouse this platitude do so because it gives them an opportunity to criticize liberalism AND endorse war.

In the story All My Sons by Arthur Miller, Chris, a World War II veteran remarks about the guilt that he has about post-war prosperity. He somehow feels that his newfound wealth, his new car, his new appliances, and even his new woman came out of the tragedy of World War II. He said that there was blood on all of it. He felt that all there was to enjoy out of the war was somehow loot born out of death and destruction.

But where is the wartime prosperity today? We have blood on our hands but nothing in our pockets. You would think that Bush’s vision of perpetual global war would mean perpetual American prosperity, but this is not the case. Those who have been lucky enough to keep their jobs see their wages are in decline, especially against an alarmingly rapid rate of inflation. Four dollar a gallon gas hurts not only those who commute regularly, but it also hurts anyone who buys food or anything else at the store that is shipped by truck, rail, or air. It costs more to ship produce, dairy and meat; so the cost is of the shipping is passed along to the consumer at the checkout lane; it’s a phenomenon called cost-push Inflation.

At onetime there was a widely held belief that under Republican governance you would have competent stewardship over foreign affairs, even if you had to put up with economic mismanagement, legislative proselytizing, and garish jingoism. There is no longer any reason to subscribe to the illusion that there is a positive trade-off under GOP rule; because today the middle class and the truly destitute endure a gradual genocide of negligence as America loses two foreign wars. Still, there will be people who insist, as Barack Obama says, “that John McCain serve-out George Bush’s third term”.

The reason I’m thinking about this is because this weekend I am visiting my hometown of Muskegon, MI. Muskegon is along the coast of Lake Michigan, and it has great beaches and woodlands. Trough it runs two major highways, a river, and railroad. It even has an airport. It has much of the same things as many of America’s great cities, but somehow this town has not only failed to leap ahead but it has fallen behind.

Like so much of the Midwest it is still an aging Rustbelt town. Its local economy is dominated by industrial parks that feed the tragically faltering auto-industry. The only other work available is seasonal employment in the tourism industry, which is basically low paying jobs at campgrounds, amusement parks, and resort restaurants. And the tourism industry of course takes a major hit as it becomes more expensive to travel. There are no opportunities for an educated person here, despite it’s clear geographic advantage.

Whenever I travel any distance, I try to take my meals at a place that is unique, at a place I can’t get anywhere else. It irks me that anyone would go to McDonald’s when traveling to L.A. given the availability of In-And-Out and endless other opportunities. On this particular visit, I decided to visit Mr. Quick’s because it’s not something I can get in East Lansing. In fact, I started writing this while sitting in line at the drive-through.

Allright, I got my cheeseburgers. Let me explain Mr. Quick’s to you. It is an exclusively Muskegon franchise. It’s a burger joint, and I can’t really say that any that stuff is better than McDonald’s, it’s certainly less processed-tasting. They have four locations, but they used to have more. It has somehow managed to not go under, possibly because it is a popular location for the elderly because of its senior discounts. There are often old folks in there before 11am ordering Biscuits and Gravy and full breakfasts including fried eggs, the quality of which I can’t remark upon because I haven’t tried it. They do have a quality Pork BBQ sandwich that’s on special every Wednesday; I used to pick one up now and then on my way to my third-shift as a security guard at Michigan Adventure.

But what I really go to Mr. Quick’s for is the infamous Bargain Bundle. No one who values their own life would order the Bargain Bundle more than once every year or two. The Bargain Bundle is five cheeseburgers and a quarter-pound of fries that in the mid-nineties cost less than five dollars. I went though the line today and I paid about 7.50 for the same deal. I suppose that isn’t a bad deal in era of $4.00 a gallon gas.

Mr. Quick’s though has a reputation for being skuzzy. While a student at Fruitport Middle School, I was exposed to a popular rumor that Mr. Quick’s used road kill to make its burgers. I was always in disbelief about this rumor chiefly because I figured that the burgers would be bigger. My disbelief was the product of my own youthful innocence and a less cynical time. If I were a pre-teen during the Gee-Dubya Bush Administration, I would have easily believed that there were assholes out there that would not only serve you road kill, but that they would also undersell road kill. I don’t know if I am less skeptical or if I am more cynical today, but as a seventh grader, I would never have believed that anyone would both poison you and rob you at the same time. These days, I don’t write it off.

I ate the burgers hours ago, and I report that I am slowed down and nauseous but I am still alive.

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You Get What You Deserve

Hillary Clinton, the former first lady will most likely win the Pennsylvania Primary on Tuesday, but probably not by the crushing margin she had thought six-weeks previous.

Barack Obama the Senator from Illinois is poised to win Guam, Indiana, North Carolina, Oregon, Montana and South Dakota in the weeks ahead, and by June 3 all the contests will be over. At the end of all the nominating contest he will be ahead in overall delegates, pledged delegates, the popular vote, states won, and he will still be polling better against John McCain than Hillary Clinton.

History will judge Hillary’s campaign for the White House as a failed experiment in girl-power. Looking back on the past twenty years it will be clear that the Spice Girls did more to promote a positive view of feminism and woman-empowerment than Mrs. Rodham-Clinton.

It's better for womankind though that the first female nominee for President from a major party not be the spouse of a former President. It's not just because it is a formula for defeat but because it would be regarded by the masses that the first woman to have a serious shot at the White House would only have had made things happen by virtue of nepotism and a certain sentiment of socially engineering affirmative action enabled by a certain core constituencies of the Democratic Party.

To be fair though, Hillary Clinton is in many ways a better candidate than most of the choices that were available in 2004. But in this most recent contest the fiery populist John Edwards 2008 (2.0) was a far superior product to not only the establishment hack Hillary Clinton, but also to the establishment lightweight John Edwards of 2004 (BETA). But what is most important is that Senator Barack Obama is better than them all.

It's no wonder Hillary is out for blood. She knew that in 2004 a White House run would have started in haste and ended in disaster. She would have lost as badly or worse than John Kerry. She had all along been counting on a John Kerry defeat so that she could have her time in the sun four years later. Even given the tragedy and disgrace that has ensued since November 2004, she would probably have still been crossing her fingers that John Kerry would sink his prospects of winning by eating escargot and almond-crusted brie at a Red Wings game if it could mean she had a shot at George Bush's job in 2008.

However, she didn't count on the fact that the Bush Administration would implode the way it did. Even those of us who saw it coming didn't have a clear idea about the complete clusterfuck of an economy he would leave us with and how our energy crisis would have persisted completely unabated. Nor would we have ever predicted that Hurricane Katrina would have exposed such disgraceful poverty and governmental incompetence. We didn't know that the Jihad For Jesus would have made a giant stink about Terri Schiavo leading to a repugnant and repulsive government overreach that came to be known as "Schiavo's Law". In looks as though like Iraq, which is the greatest foreign policy disaster in U.S. History, is only one part of the dystopian story that has unfolded over the past 7 1/2 years.

Because Hillary Clinton didn't count on these things, she didn't anticipate that the 2008 electorate would shift in such a way that provoked people to do more than demand a replacement for George W. Bush. Rather, they have been inspired to demand a candidate who as President could deconstruct the institutions and thwart the culture of Government that have made the failures, corruption, and malice of the Bush Administration possible. Voters at the moment seem generally wise to the fact that you can't fix the problems of establishment hackery with another brand of establishment hackery. Indeed, they finally appear wise to the fact that you can't fix your cavities by switching from Pepsi to Coke.

It is this change in sentiment that inspires Hillary to so viciously assault Barack Obama. Her blood-lust isn't inspired by an aversion to the defeat of higher ideas, but rather her own personal defeat. She probably has a good idea that she isn't going to win the nomination in 2008 and she also knows that if Barack Obama wins in November that she wont be able to run in 2012 when she will be 65 years old. And thus she understands that such a victory of her opponent would be a nail in her political coffin, as she is unlikely to pursue the White House in 2016 when she will be 69 years old. She is biting, clawing, and throwing sand in Obama's eyes every chance she can get in an effort to soften him up for John McCain in an effort to preserve the faint possibility that she might be the party's nominee in 2012.

In 1958 former candidate for President Adlai Stevenson (perhaps the Al Gore of his time) said, "people get the kind of government that they deserve". The retrospective context in the time since Stevenson made those remarks reveals them as a cruel, damning, and perhaps completely valid assessment of American Democracy and the American electorate itself.

But maybe, just maybe this time the people will get both what they deserve as well as something good. Just Maybe.

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"Well, look, I find it amusing that those who helped to authorise and engineer the biggest foreign policy disaster in our generation are now criticizing me for making sure that we are on the right battlefield and not the wrong battlefield in the war against terrorism.”

Sen. Barack Obama when several of his fellow Democrats critisized his remarks about his willingness to attack Al Qaeda targets in Pakistan.

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Obama Has It Right On Foreign Policy

"The time for us to ask how we were going to get out of Iraq was before we went in. And that is something that too many of us failed to do". - Senator Barack Obama

Barack Obama understands that the most important job for the next President of the United States will be to restore the integrity and moral authority of the U.S. throughout the world. The Bush administration's policy of unilateralism, stonewalling, and non-engagement has made America more vulnerable and less strong.

At the now famous "YouTube Debate" on CNN, Sen. Barack Obama was asked if he would meet with leaders of nations likes Syria, Iran, Cuba, Venezuela and North Korea. He said that, "we need to talk to Iran and Syria because they're going to have responsibilities if Iraq collapses."

Obama knows that you can't make peace with your friends, that you must make peace with your enemies.

Sen. Hillary Clinton called Obama "naive" for holding this belief. She said that it would be unwise to engage our enemies about the potential consequences of a failed state in Iraq.

Bill Clinton engaged with North Korea, and though the Bush administration initially abandoned this policy, they have since returned to it. Apparently they found that their policy of pretending that North Korea didn't exist was not effective at stymieing weapons proliferation in the region.

Richard Nixon, who was a skilled diplomat engaged Communist China, which led to a normalization of relations between that country and the U.S.

Both Ronald Reagan and John F. Kennedy engaged the Soviet Union during the cold war. This was important during Kennedy's time because it helped him navigate through the Cuban Missile Crisis without a nuclear exchange that would have destroyed both our countries. Reagan's engagement of the Soviet Union helped to end the Cold War.

The Bush policy of unilateralism and non-engagement is a radical fringe idea that has failed to unite the civilized world against America's enemies. It is worrisome that Sen. Clinton, the current frontrunner for the White House is embracing these policies.

This isn't the only foreign policy difference between the two candidates. Hillary Clinton supported George Bush's sloppy crusade in Iraq, Obama didn't.

On the same day that Sen. Clinton was voting to support President Bush, Barack Obama gave a speech in Chicago where he said,

"That’s what I’m opposed to. A dumb war. A rash war. A war based not on reason but on passion, not on principle but on politics".

He added, ". . .even a successful war against Iraq will require a US occupation of undetermined length, at undetermined cost, with undetermined consequences. I know that an invasion of Iraq without a clear rationale and without strong international support will only fan the flames of the Middle East, and encourage the worst, rather than best, impulses of the Arab world, and strengthen the recruitment arm of al-Qaeda."

Obama made this speech on October 22, 2002, six months before the U.S. invasion. Looking back, he sounds less like an experienced statesman, but more like a prophet.

The judgement and wisdom of Sen. Barack Obama is far stronger than the so called experience of Sen. Clinton, and on this basis alone he should have our support.

For More Go: www.TheTruthOrSomethingLikeIt.blogspot.com

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An Endangered Species.

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"George W. Bush took our assent, and re-configured it, and honed it, and shaped it to a razor-sharp point and stabbed this nation in the back with it."

Keith Olbermann

The other day at work I saw a woman wearing a bizarre tee-shirt. On that shirt was a picture of Jesus, Mary, some saints and a heavenly backdrop. In the middle was a picture of George W. Bush praying, and underneath it said, "We are a blessed nation." I called the attention of my coworkers to the utter ridiculousness of this shirt. To my surprise, they defended both the shirt and George Bush. In that room at that moment, George Bush had 66% job approval and 33% disapproval, which is the exact inverse of what it is nationally.

Most polls from the last several months put George W. Bush’s job approval in the high 20s to low 30s. More importantly his job disapproval has been consistently around 65%

Less than one-third of all American’s like George W. Bush. We have a national consensus that this guy is a total fuckwit. Yet there is a segment of the population that is holding on to the notion that he possesses a level of competence that allows him tie his own shoes unassisted.

The war in Iraq is not only an obvious failure, but it is the worst foreign policy mistake in U.S. history. As a nation, we are less safe, and less secure than before Bush's belligerent, baseless invasion of that country. Iran, North Korea, Russia and others have exploited our weak position in the world to work for their national interest at the expense of ours.

Nearly 4,000 troops have been killed. Tens of thousands of Iraqi civilians have been killed, and an equal number of American service-people have been maimed. These sacrifices were not necessarily, and in fact they have impeded America's ability to confront its real enemies.

But alas, the Bush presidency is not just about Iraq.


It is about an administration that so much lusts for power and control that in insists that it needs the power to randomly incarcerate American citizens indefinitely without being required to tell them or any court with what they have been charged.

It is about an administration that has promoted a culture of greed through corporate giveaways, tax cuts for the wealthy, and no-bid contracts for companies that profit from war and that keep members of the administration on its payroll to this day.

It is about an administration thats permits oil companies to receive tax-payer funded subsidies while they continue to post record profits, keep refinery capacity low, and gasoline prices artificially high.

It is about an administration with such warped priorities that it doesn't think that taxpayers should support potentially life saving therapeutic stem-cell research, but insists that they should spend $100 billion per year to kill Iraqi's.

It is about a President whom as Governor of Texas refused to commute the death sentences of five men who are mentally retarded, but somehow found the compassion to commute the sentence of Scooter Libby who protected an administration that committed treason through its character assassination of CIA operative Valarie Plame and her husband Joe Wilson.

It is about a President who exploited 9/11, whom took our well wishes and support and as Keith Olbermann has said, "re-configured it, and honed it, and shaped it to a razor-sharp point and stabbed this nation in the back with it."

Geroge W. Bush took a nation at peace, and made it a nation at war with the world.

He took a prosperous nation and gave us the largest budget deficit, the largest national debt, some of the worst job and wage growth we have ever known.

Who are these people who think he is doing a good job? I suspect that it takes the same detachment from reality to deny the utter calamity that is the Bush Presidency as it does to enable a person to deny the existence of global warming, evolution, and Eskimos.It quite possibly could be indicative of a mental illness. Perhaps support of George W. Bush should be added to the DSM IV.

It takes a rare breed to defend George W. Bush. Those who do are an endangered species for sure. They are either too obstinate to die, or too rabid to understand their survival instinct.

The S.S. George W. Bush is sinking. These ignorant predications of support are merely some final desperate gasps for air from those who will surely go down with the ship. I however which that goddamn thing would just sink already.

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Is it okay when the truth does not properly convey your opinions?

I don't typically endorse Wikipedia vandalism, but on election night 2006 I could not help myself. More than I wanted a Democratic majority in the Senate, I wanted the Senators Rick Santorum of Pennsylvania and George Allen of Virginia to be defeated. These are two fellows whom, after 9/11 were under the impression that there was a conservative realignment in the United States. They used this as an excuse to espouse the most vulgar misogynistic, racist, and homophobic bigotry that any prominent politician has said in my lifetime.

By August 2006 I knew that Santorum was toast, mostly because he was a right wing lunatic in a blue state, and that a well known byproduct of gay sex*1 was named after him.

*1 I am aware that this can also be a byproduct of man-on-woman anal-sex, but I haven't been able to make this work - yet.

George Allen had long been considered a contender for the Presidency, though I have no idea why. Apparently, he was a popular governor and people thought that he had a good personality. I have been watching him for years on the Sunday talk shows, and partisan differences aside, I couldn't help but feel like he personified the very essence of the political douchebag, many of whom I know on a personal basis.

Senator Allen flaunted his racism because he thought it would work in Virginia. He was known to drop the "N" bomb quite a bit in his youth. In college he got his kicks by blowing up black people's mailboxes, and presumably went to his Confederate Flag adorned house, and participated in much shirtless rednecking. During the election, he in fact used the term "Maccaca", (a Tunisian racial slur) against dark skinned Virginia residences to impress his political base of toothless backwoods crackers. Well apparently people figured out that Senator Allen was just saying "Nigger" in Tunisian, and word got around about this.

Well, despite all this I think that what really won the election for his Democratic opponent was my Wikepedia vandalism.



I don't know why, but I thought that perhaps before people went out to vote that day that they would look up George Allen on Le Wìk. I figured that if people saw that he was raped in front of his children by werewolves that voters would decide that he was not fit for office. Worse it was another non-disclosure along with his college racism and that his mother was a French speaking Jewish African. Now the Virginia electorate would have to weigh his werewolf rape against all this plus his unfortunate unwavering support of the Bush administration.

You might say to me, "Dave, retarded stuff like this is why you no longer work in politics". To you I would say, "No, it is the fact that American political culture is filled with people who inspire me to do retarded stuff like this...this is the reason I no longer work in politics." And then to me you would say, " Touche sir, you are my better".

Besides, if I ever want to get back into politics, I will call in a favor from newly elected Senator Jim Webb (D-Virginia)


*1 I am aware that this can also be a byproduct of man-on-woman anal-sex, but I haven't been able to make this work - yet.

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Continued From Part 1.(CLICK HERE)




Dave F.A.Q. Originally aired Friday January 12, 2007
© NBC News


Matt Lauer: What should we do about the war in Iraq?

David: This kind of escalation is not the answer. The only hope we have is securing Baghdad with a troop ratio from 3 to 1 to 5 to 1 like we had in the first Gulf War. This could allow the Iraqi government to operate without the threat of violence and it would allow the Iraqi police to recruit and appropriately train forces without being attacked. Increased troop strength does not guarantee success as it does not necessarily mean that the Government will be able to get its shit in order. Increased troop strength definitely will not end sectarian violence, it holds only the narrow possibility of allowing the Iraqi government to handle said violence on its own in the long term.

Matt Lauer: [Chuckles] That's nutty! Why don't we do that then?

David: Ultimately the troop strength would have been more helpful early on as it could have helped prevent the culmination of strength of the insurgency. The reason we couldn't do it then and we can't do it now is because the man-power just isn't there. Remember, the first Gulf War we had a coalition of 34 nations and the good will of the world behind us. The first conflict was much smaller in scale in terms of area and goals. Back then we were overturning an invasion, in this one we were ourselves staging one. Our need for and our inability to produce a large number of troops ultimately shows that Geroge W. Bush's arrogant unilateralism has led to the worst foreign policy disaster in American history.

Matt Lauer:: True but, who could have predicted this? No one, that's who!

David: You don't know the history of the Iraq War, I do. In a 2002 column I wrote,

"If the United States invaded Iraq, it would require more than the 600,000 troops (400,000 of them were American) used in Desert Storm. Indeed, if we stage an invasion, it may take up to a million or more troops to successfully decapitate the government and keep the peace." - Detroit Free Press, 10/16/2002

Matt Lauer: Whatever, dick. Why not just withdraw troops or redeploy?

David: Redeployment and withdrawal is what we probably should do right now, and ultimately what we will have to do. Just because that is the best idea, it doesn't mean that it is without consequences. It is popular to say that "Defeat in Iraq will be devastating for the United States." That is true, but thanks to Bush administration there really is no solution that will prevent such madness. It is what foreign policy experts call a "clusterfuck".

If we do a withdrawal or redeployment, the sectarian civil war will exacerbate and it will probably make Darfur look like Seattle. It will be similar to the Soviet Invasion of Afghanistan. The eventual Soviet withdrawal led to an insurgency, a rise in Islamic fundamentalist rule. From Afghanistan, extremist groups still train fighters and terrorists to cause Russia major problems in Chechnya. Also, this was the base of Al Qaeda and Osama Bin Laden whom operated in comfort to plan attacks on the United States.

A withdrawal will probably lead to a similar climate in Iraq. I am not saying we can prevent this in the long run, but I am saying this is a consequence of withdrawal. It would not be the fault of those who oppose the war and want a withdrawal, it would be the fault of those who supported the war and planned it poorly.

If we stay in Iraq and escalate, we are going to endure more casualties, inflame tensions with Syria and Iran, and we will further deteriorate our relationships with regional allies. To add insult to injury is it likely that the sectarian violence will ultimately persist. In the end, the scenario above will probably happen anyway.

Were are damned if we do, damned if we don't.

Matt Lauer: You seem like a John Edward's guy to me.

David: Right now I can't imagine supporting anyone other than Barack Obama for the Democratic nomination. I have reservations about the other candidates for the same reasons I had reservations about John Kerry in 2004.

Matt Lauer: Do elaborate.

David: While I worked on John Kerry's presidential campaign, I did not support him in the primary. I was worried about his electability, sure, but I favored candidates like Howard Dean and Wesley Clark because they had good judgement that going into Iraq, and going in the way Bush wanted us to go in would be a colossal mistake. Guys like John Kerry, John Edwards and Hillary Clinton made the popular decision to support the war in 2002, and now they are making the popular decision to oppose the war in 2007 in anticipation of the Iowa Caucus. Obama is only decent candidate to have the same wisdom that I did as a junior in college when we both laid out our case against invading Iraq.

Matt Lauer: I was the first guy to call Iraq a civil war, did you know that?

David: That is not exactly true, you announced that NBC would now characterise the sectarian violence in Iraq as a civil war. I guess that it is a good thing you call it that, because even if you did not call it that, that is still what it would be.

Matt Lauer: [Shuffles papers, stares confidently.] I also told Roker to get the gastric bypass. Why do you keep a blog and why didn't you just revive your old one?

David: I keep a blog because I have long been looking for a creative outlet that allows me to be full faceted. My old blog was all political stuff, and it was a catalogue of my writings, speeches, and policy positions. This blog touches on politics, but it also allows me to do social commentary. There was no room for fiction, metaphor, or humor in the old blog, and I wanted to dabble in those things.

Matt Lauer: Tell me the story of that knife fight that you had in Chicago?

Check back soon for part 3!!!!!!

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John Kerry apologized to the troops in Iraq. Will Bush?


Sen. John Kerry, as you well know, spoke at a college in Southern California. With bitter humor he told the students that he had been in Texas the day before, that President Bush used to live in that state, but that now he lives in the state of denial.

He said the trip had reminded him about the value of education — that “if you make the most of it, you study hard, you do your homework, and you make an effort to be smart, you can do well. If you don’t, you can get stuck in Iraq.”

The senator, in essence, called Mr. Bush stupid.

The context was unmistakable: Texas; the state of denial; stuck in Iraq. No interpretation required.

And Mr. Bush and his minions responded by appearing to be too stupid to realize that they had been called stupid.

They demanded Kerry apologize to the troops in Iraq.

And so he now has.

So now John Kerry has apologized to the troops; apologized for the Republicans’ deliberate distortions.

Thus, the president will now begin the apologies he owes our troops, right?

This president must apologize to the troops for having suggested, six weeks ago, that the chaos in Iraq, the death and the carnage, the slaughtered Iraqi civilians and the dead American service personnel, will, to history, “look like just a comma.”

This president must apologize to the troops because the intelligence he claims led us into Iraq proved to be undeniably and irredeemably wrong.

This president must apologize to the troops for having laughed about the failure of that intelligence at a banquet while our troops were in harm’s way.

This president must apologize to the troops because the streets of Iraq were not strewn with flowers and its residents did not greet them as liberators.

This president must apologize to the troops because his administration ran out of “plan” after barely two months.

This president must apologize to the troops for getting 2,815 of them killed.
This president must apologize to the troops for getting this country into a war without a clue.

And Mr. Bush owes us an apology for this destructive and omnivorous presidency.

We will not receive them, of course.

This president never apologizes.

Not to the troops.

Not to the people.

Nor will those henchmen who have echoed him.

Taken from a monolauge by Keith Olbermann
_________________
Shawn Denny Wrote To Me:

Are you that stupid?!? Anyone in the military knows that at any point in time there can be a war and that they might die in that war. They know that they have to protect and serve for your freedom to speek poorly of your countries leader. If you knew anything then you would know that it is not the people of Iraq bombing the troops. It is the insurgents from other countries. Our troops know what they singed up for and they still give 100%. Enjoy your freedom.

_________________
My Reply:

Shawn,

The note I posted is not an original work but a condensed monologue from an opinion journalist that I think embodies how many people feel about the war in Iraq. The writing does not criticize that George Bush sent people into war but that he sent them into a war that was based on falsehoods and that that war has been poorly managed.

Of course the United States must sometimes use military force in the world. Thank god they did against the Nazis and the Japanese Empire.

The vast majority of Americans who do not feel as though the war in Iraq was the best idea believe this because we have seen every rationale for this conflict since discredited.

First, administration officials wanted Americans to believe that Saddam Hussein had a role in the attacks of 9/11. This is a hugely erroneous assertion as demonstrated by the bipartisan 9/11 commissions

Second the administration made the assertion that the threat of being attacked by the Iraqi regime by chemical, biological and nuclear weapons was immanent. No WMDs have been found in Iraq or anywhere since. Attack was not imminent.

Third they want us to believe that Iraq was a training ground for terrorists and that it was a safe haven for Al Qaeda as protected by Saddam Hussein. The truth is Iraq didn’t become a training ground for terrorism until Saddam Hussein was deposed from power and about a dozen-hundred insurgent factions developed violent means to seize power in a Saddam-less Iraq.

We also believe that he owes an apology to the armed forces for the poor planning of the war. While George Bush bared responsibility for the decision to go to war, Donald Rumsfeld is most responsible for its poor management. It was just plain stupid for the soon-former Secretary of Defense to go into this conflict with tragically low troop levels, to have gone in without the proper supplies, and to not have anticipated the extremely viral insurgency. These are just the very worst of his decisions and poor planning.

Also, I am of the belief that George Bush owes not just an apology to those fighting in this war, but the American citizens whom on behalf he sent them to fight.

It is the blood guts and tears of the armed forces whom bare the most brutal brunt of the bad decisions made by the Bush administration. While each of us back home does not bare the sacrifice of previous generations, we do have reason to be miffed.

The conflict has cost the U.S. about 100 billion dollars per year which is about 20 billion more than we spend on education every year. It is more than the U.S. spends on Veterans benefits and unemployment assistance combined. It is about 100 times what our leaders spend on achieving energy independence.

These would be tolerable sacrifices if this were a just war with real goals and real achievements. These sacrifices would be fine if benefits of having started this war outweighed the costs.

Do not take this as a belief that we want a catastrophically disadvantageous pullout. The result of the recent elections means that we back home want the leaders in Washington to set real goals in Iraq and to make the Iraqi government there understand that continued American support comes with conditions that indicate success.

I do not know what your role in the military is but I commend your willingness to serve and sacrifice on behalf of others. It is what I think everyone who is active in public affairs hopes to do.

Take care, and God bless.

David Tibergien

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