Tuesday, March 06, 2007

Hippie roundup

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I went into the bombed out liberal wasteland again...

TPM Muckraker

Nineteen of the first 20 postings are dedicated to the story about ousting federal prosecutors. It reminds me of the Nataleeeee Holloway coverage on Fox (repetitive, nauseating, boring).

AmericaBlog

A post titled "Gays declare war on Coulter" begins with, "Let the fun begin."

And John Aravosis believes he can see the future for Scooter Libby:

    It's a done deal, Libby is getting pardoned. Hell, I'd be surprised if he doesn't get a medal. No one, no one, no one is ever held responsible for anything in this administration, and if George Bush has to put the final nail in the coffin of his political legacy by pardoning Libby, trust me, he will. It's a tale of lawlessness. Of an adminstration that thinks it's holier than thou. Holier than the laws of this great country, holier than the courts, the Congress, the Constitution. Nothing gets in the way of a zealot, and Scooter Libby is just the latest zealot in a long line of Republicans in the Bush White House and Congress who simply don't believe in the rules that govern our country, our society, and our world.

I'll check back to see if John is correct.

Old John is an excitable sort:

    Just got back from CNN. I suspect I'll have more to add tomorrow, but the Hotline perhaps summed up best my feelings on Ann Coulter: If conservatives really think her hate doesn't represent them, then stop inviting her.

Such powerful, insightful writing from John.

Crooks and Liars

Nicole Belle on the Walter Reed scandal:

    Grover Norquist famously said he wanted to shrink government to the point he could drown it in a bathtub. Therefore, in honor of this pillar of the Party of Coulter, I dub the latest salvo on the part of the Republican party to deflect accountability and rationalize corruption and ineptitude "The Norquist Defense."

SilentPatriot gets his news from Jon Stewart, as do most hippies:

    In the second bit, Jon digs through the Bush administration video vault and shows how the "party of responsibility" blames everyone else for their screw-ups (missing WMD, lack of body armor, Abu Ghraib, troop levels, etc.). And we all know there are plenty of those to go around.

Hippies are calling Ann Coulter's "faggot" comment "Coultergate". Strange that a single word uttered by a far-right writer warrants "gate", as if Coulter has the power to destroy an entire ideology.

    I know most of you are probably sick of Ann Coulter already (I don't blame you), but I thought this clip was really worth posting. Air America's Rachel Maddow was on Countdown last night and hit all the right notes, making the important point that Ann is the face of — and represents and speaks for — the rabid CPAC crowd and young conservative movement that continues to encourage the Ann Coulters of the world and allows them to thrive. That's the lesson we should all take away from this.

John Amato is breathless after hearing Libby's guilty verdicts:

    Breaking…Libby found guilty on 4 of 5 counts…Sentencing date…June 5th…Up to 25 long, hard years..

    Harry Reid calls for the " no pardon" rule on Scooter…Wells is very disappointed in the jury. Really? He does believe in the justice system still…Wells gave a minute statement and ran away from the cameras…

    FOX NEWS is trying to figure out all the angles how Libby can get off…Another host is telling us how busy his life is and he couldn't remember much of his own conversations…

"Up to 25 long, hard years..." John is demonstrating a common problem with liberalism -- he's confusing the liberal utopia he dreams about with reality. I predict Libby will get 2-3 years at a federal country club because this isn't very important.

SilentPatriot on Coulter's first TV appearance after the slur:

    In her first television appearance since the CPAC slur (she bailed on Paula Zahn tonight), Coulter ventures into friendly territory to "explain" herself. Colmes gets first crack and, of course, she dances around, downplaying it as just another example of her conservative "humor," and even goes so far as to say it's like "the old Soviet Union" because people are trying to silence her — the standard (and laughable) Melanie Morgan/"I'm the victim" defense. As predicted, Hannity assumes the role of Apologist-in-Chief and deflects blame onto, who else, Democrats.

I don't approve of Coulter's use of the word "faggot", but if it rattles hippies this much, it can't be all that bad.

Daily Kos

Daily Kos founder Markos Zuniga believes "the conservative movement craves ... a steady diet of hate and rage," citing Michael Savage as an example of that "hate and rage". Markos also says Savage's views are what most conservatives think.

And Markos is still fighting to kill the Nevada debate because it's on Fox News:

    The issue is to deprive the right wing's premier propaganda outlet an easy opportunity to take cheap shots at our guys.

It's easy for Democrats to shun right wing TV news outlets because there is only one in the entire nation.

ThinkProgress

Faiz is beating the impeachment drum:

    According to a new report in Esquire magazine, Sen. Chuck Hagel (R-NE) has suggested that Congress may consider the impeachment of President Bush before his term ends.

The hippies at ThinkProgress are still mistaking "redeployment" for "withdrawal":

    Americans want redeployment -- 60 percent of Americans “want Congress to set a timetable to withdraw all U.S. troops by the end of 2008,” according to a new USA Today/Gallup poll. “The share of people who now call the war a mistake is 59 percent — the same as September 2005 and the highest level in the 58 times the question has been asked since the war began.”

Hippies choose to live in an obscure version of reality. The poll mentioned in the short blog post says "withdrawal," but the post's headline says "redeployment". Geeez, talk about clinging to talking points.

FiredogLake

Among all the hippie blogs I read today, Eli at FiredogLake had the best offering. I disagree with most of what he says, but at least he's thinking and writing, rather than just complaining about the right (and, yes, I realize my blog does a great deal of bashing liberals):

    There is nothing, absolutely nothing, more destructive to our electoral process than our current campaign finance system. Thanks to the ever-increasing costs of saturation advertising, candidates are becoming more consumed with chasing money than chasing votes. And most of that money is not coming from (financially) ordinary citizens like us, but from wealthy individuals, corporations, and industry PACs. In the so-called "money primary," we don't get much of a vote. And if, as the defenders of the status quo like to say, money equals speech, then we don't get much of a voice, either. Our elections should not be decided by who can raise the most money; that's way down there on my list of Skills It Is Important For My Elected Officials To Have, unless they want to use their fundraising powers to start chipping away at the national debt.

Jane Hamsher (hamster?) invites hippies to "take a victory lap" after learning of Libby's guilty verdicts. I think that's code for "fire up the bong".

Liberal Values

This was included under a post titled "Fairy Tales of The Right":

    While libertarians and fiscal conservatives are correct in their opposition to many of Bush’s policies, the Republicans have never been the champions of small government which they claim to be. In past years they often blamed Democrats who controlled part of government, promising that things would be different if they could really do what they wanted. Finally we had several years of complete government control of all three branches of government, as well as a news media which allowed them to get away with virtually anything without meaningful exposure. We saw the nightmare which came of that.

And they're championing John Kerry:

    The Washington Post reports that the problems with health care provided to veterans are not only occurring at Walter Reed. It is also not only Iraq and not only 2007. John Kerry reported the same type of problems in his testimony before the Senate in 1971. Kerry testified to represent the views of veterans who “feel we have been used in the worst fashion by the administration of this country.”

If anybody lacks credibility on all things military, it's a guy (Kerry) who threw down his fraudulently obtained medals and worked tirelessly to weaken our country during a time of war (twice).

Welcome to Pottersville

Jurrasicpork has this strange bit of rambling:

    There’s just something at once mournful yet strangely uplifting seeing children playing among ruins, youth and vitality triumphing over destruction. When it’s the ruins of a war zone, however, no poetry is possible and it’s just plain mournful.

How much time elapsed between his last bong hit and writing that graph? Three seconds? Five?

And supporting a presidential candidate who has only one thing going for him -- charisma:

    The conventional wisdom about Barack Obama is that he’s smart and charismatic but so inexperienced that we should feel jittery about him in the Oval Office.

    But that view is myopic. In some respects, Mr. Obama is far more experienced than other presidential candidates.

    His experience as an antipoverty organizer in Chicago, for example, gives him a deep grasp of a crucial 21st-century challenge — poverty in America — that almost all politicians lack. He says that grass-roots experience helps explain why he favors not only government spending programs, like early childhood education, but also cultural initiatives, like efforts to promote responsible fatherhood.

If I understand this correctly, being an "antipoverty organizer in Chicago" is sufficient experience to be president of the United States. Hmmmmm.

On the Iraq War:

    Certainly the answer to the question, “What does support the troops mean to you” depends largely if not entirely upon how we proceed in Iraq. Does it mean being honest with the troops for a change and admitting that the surge only has a one in four chance of succeeding as Gen. Petraeus let slip out or does it somehow involve continuing to lie to them when they’re up against virtually impossible odds fighting an insurgency of smoke and shadows in a foreign land?

"Insurgency of smoke and shadows" is nice imagery, I must admit. Rather than complain about how the stabilization of Iraq is progressing, why not offer something other than "run away"?

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