Thursday, November 03, 2005

Mixed bag

Good evening and we'll start things off with Democracy Now!

Carter Criticizes Bush Administration on Torture, Iraq War
In light of the Washington Post revelations, Bush administration officials insist they will not tolerate the use of torture at home or in any foreign prisons. Attorney General Alberto Gonzales said: "We're doing everything we can to protect America but we obviously do everything we can to do it in a way that's consistent with our legal obligations." Yet there are no indications the Bush administration has dropped a controversial proposal that would exempt CIA agents from a Senate ban on torture. Speaking in New York yesterday, President Jimmy Carter criticized the Bush administration's stance: "The insistence by our government that the CIA or others have the right to torture prisoners in Guantanamo and around the World is just one indication of what this administration has done that's a radical departure from past policies." Carter also lashed out at the Bush administration's justifications for the war on Iraq. Carter said: "I think that the claims that Saddam was involved in 9/11 and the claims that he had massive weapons of mass destruction that would threaten our country were manipulated at least to mislead the American people into going to war."



U.S. Launch Lethal Air Strikes While Attacks Kill Dozens in Iraq
In Iraq, separate incidents claimed the lives of at least 53 Iraqi civilians and six U.S. troops Wednesday. Two U.S. troops were killed near Ramadi when insurgents reportedly shot down their helicopter. The Washington Post reports U.S. aircraft returned and dropped bombs near the crash site, killing at least 20 people. Elsewhere in the country, a suicide bomber exploded a minibus in an outdoor market in the town of Musayyib, killing 20 people and wounding 60 others.

It's good that Jimmy Carter is still alive to fight this corrupt administration but anyone else read something he says and think, "Where is Bill Clinton?" Thought Bully Boy was the one who went AWOL. We could use some strong words from Bill Clinton but I guess, like his wife, everything has to be factored into Hillary Clinton's 2008 run.

I don't think she's going to get it. I called C.I. about some stuff I was hearing at college and C.I. said, "That's Hillary's weakness. Not a smear from the right but if those people speak out, she's sunk."

So what's Hillary weakness? Ha! Liked I'd tell. But I bet she knows it. She was trashed by the right for it. But if the left went after her on it, especially people who feel they got stabbed in the back, she wouldn't have a shot.

I didn't pay attention in Bill's first term. I was a little kid. But Hillary better find a position on the war that pleases the base soon because if the left criticizes her, she's over.

I don't even like the idea of her being president because I'm sick of the Bush-Clinton-Bush cycle. I don't see the point in furthering it by having Hillary Clinton as president. No family should have a lock on the presidency. And she's such a chicken hawk that I really don't care for her.

So it's left to Jimmy Carter to act as the responsible adult. Hillary won't. She's too busy trying to assure America that she's in the center. She is with corporate America. She's just not with the grass roots in the Democratic Party.

If she finds a voice to speak out against the war, I'd consider her but with her track record, I doubt she'll have anything worth saying about the war until after 2008 when she loses (hopefully in the primary) and she realizes she sold herself to be reasonable to all the wrong people.

It's too bad because if she could speak out against the war, I'd go for her in a minute. It might just be words, empty words, but I'd probably give her the benefit of the doubt.

She's just a coward. Most of the people who can't find their voices on the war are cowards. If she's not a coward, then she's a war cheerleader with the war lust and needs to get honest about it.

"Hey, I'm Hillary and I want your vote so I can start wars over all the globe. I'll fight smart and often. Vote for me!"

In class, people were making jokes about the kind of speeches she'd give. "I'm Hillary Clinton, some of you know my husband . . ." which would bring up the Monica jokes. The only bigger joke than Hillary today was a photo of Laura Bush that C.I. told me about. It's at Delilah's A Scrivener's Laments and you should check it out because Laura's all bugged eyed and her hands look like a really old man's.

I really don't know much about Jimmy Carter. I wasn't even born when he was president. But I know he's speaking out now and being counted. Lots of leaders are acting like they're afraid of being shipped to a gulag so I'll say thank goodness for Jimmy Carter. Our prof told us his son (Chip?) might run for office.

As for Hillary, it'll be fun to watch the little bitty minds supporting her and the ones supporting John Edwards duke it out online. Who'll cry uncle first? Who'll cite TD Jokes (as Billie calls him) first to prove they are "inclusive"? We already know who'll do that the same idiot who didn't know a damn thing about Cindy Sheehan but felt the need to write a factually incorrect, long post on Cindy Sheehan and when confronted on the many errors, respond something like, "It's not my role or Cindy's to determine foreign policy." Uh, yeah, it is. This is a democracy, you stupid freak.

I'm so glad everyone in the community delinked from that freak. Sometimes I'm tempted to visit the freak's site especially since the freak didn't have the brains to mention once that Rosa Parks died. I thought that was so great of Cedric to point out that the morning after Rosa Parks died, the freak was writing about a death from three years ago.

I love how the freak and others use terms like "magazine" to describe their blogs. :D

I guess if the magazine is called I Love John Edwards! then it could be a magazine. Or maybe it could be called Council of Foreign Relations -- I'm For 'Em Because I Don't Know Anything! But the gentle chidings of David Brooks are like swatting a dog on the snout with a kleenex. What can you expect from a freak who links to Free Republic and Andrew Sullivan?

What a freak.

Always has to check John Edwards' position before the freak can figure out their own.

Elaine and I both find the freak disgusting. While Rebecca was on vacation, we'd talk about how disgusting the freak was.

Let me tell you that if you haven't read Rebecca's "ted koppel go away already" you better. Rebecca don't need talking points from nobody! :D She's smart enough to figure out where she stands all by herself. And that's why she's so popular. She's not C.I. popular and she'll tell you that herself and that she doesn't want that kind of popularity.

I don't blame her on that because I used to think how cool it must be to be C.I. I don't anymore. Jess and Ava help with the e-mail there and it's just too much even with them and C.I. I can get online and figure out what I want to write before I start but C.I.'s got all these requests and all these suggested links. I like being a community offshoot and not the leader of the community because I get to write about whatever and blow off a post if I feel like it and I only have to post once a day. If C.I. posts only three times a day, there are e-mails asking, "Hey, am I missing a post?"

I'm not griping at members of the community. (But I do think it would be great if more started their own sites.) But there are all kinds of pressures on C.I. that I don't have and the more I hear about them from Ava and Jess, the more glad I am that I'm not like that. I can take a day off and I'll get "I missed you" at the most now. Used to I'd get more than that. But C.I. . . .

I really admire C.I.'s hard work and never missing a day. I know C.I. has a demanding job and is usually speaking to college students or high schoolers several times a month. So I really appreciate The Common Ills a lot more than I did before I started this and if you ask any member from that time, they'll tell you I was high on The Common Ills back then. But doing this site and also learning what all it took to do The Common Ills, I really appreciate our community flagship all the more.

And Wally beat to me quoting C.I. today. But I'll quote it anyway because I go down to the kitchen this morning and Ma and Dad are singing "Victim of Romance" and I'm all, "What?"
and rubbing the sleep out of my eyes and they go, "Read it!" So I read "Other Items" and am laughing and wide awake.

This is from "Other Items:"

There's a "White House Memo" that Carl e-mails about. He wonders whether it will get the sort of ridicule that it deserves and that a "White House Letter" by Elisabeth Bumiller would? Good question.
It's entitled "Press Secretary on Trial in the Briefing Room" and attempts to provide you with the crashing waves that have threatened the love tunnel that exists between the press and Scott McClellan. Stretch praises him. Elite Fluff Patrol squad member Richard W. Stevenson blows air kisses. See, Scotty said Karl Rove and Scooter Libby weren't involved in the outing of Valerie Plame and now that the "public record" demonstrates that this is false, poor Scotty and poor press just aren't sure, as Dionne Warwick once sang, what to do with themselves.
It's a tough time for both sides. All those expectations. All those laughs. Could it all be coming to end? He fed them, they stroked him. It was a mutal love affair born of self-interests on both sides. So Stevenson uses terms like "unwilling or unable" (is he charting on patients?) to attempt to explain the bind Scotty finds himself in (although it applies equally as well to what passes for the press). If Scotty comes out and speaks the truth (highly unlikely considering the administration he serves in), Karl Rove might go ballistic on him.
What's Scotty to do?
Stevenson frets and worries.
It's all so very "Victim of Romance:"
Homeroom studyhall
I knew that I was gonna fall
Late at night I weep
Mumble in my sleep
Yeah knock on wood
Say I never felt so good
Heaven above
It must be love
Victim
Victim
I'm a victim of romance
Sing it, Stevenson, sing it!
("Victim of Romance" is written by John Martin. I'll plug Michelle Phillips' version which is available on her album of the same name and which Hip-O Select released this year on CD.)
"A member of a prominent Texas political family, he was viewed by many reporters when he took the job as genial and straightforward but difficult to knock off the White House's talking points," Stevenson all but sobs into pillow.
Stevenson reassures us that, in all the madness, Scotty's high roaded it and "has instead appealed to the better instincts of his journalistic inquisitors." Yes, Stevenson can't stop singing "Victim of Romance:"
Cold blooded felony
Murder in the first degree
It's a crime
What he's done to my spine
It certainly is. It certainly is a crime what Scotty's done to Richie's spine. A victim . . . a victim. . . Stevenson's just a victim of romance.
Hopefully, it will all be worked out in time for home coming. I'd hate to think Richie might miss getting pinned by Scotty.

Be sure to read Wally's "World Can't Wait (but national media can on Bully Boy and Florida and probably everything else)" about conditions in south Florida.













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