Tuesday, February 28, 2006

Peter Galbraith on WHITE HOUSE LEADERSHIP VACUUM (via Josh Marshall)

Josh Marshall @ talkingpointsmemo.com posted this quote from Peter Galbraith. It's so well said, I'm cut/pasting the whole bloody thing:
Peter Galbraith: "In his State of the Union address, President Bush told his Iraq critics, 'Hindsight is not wisdom and second-guessing is not a strategy.' His comments are understandable. Much of the Iraq fiasco can be directly attributed to Bush's shortcomings as a leader. Having decided to invade Iraq, he failed to make sure there was adequate planning for the postwar period. He never settled bitter policy disputes among his principal aides over how postwar Iraq would be governed; and he allowed competing elements of his administration to pursue diametrically opposed policies at nearly the same time. He used jobs in the Coalition Provisional Authority to reward political loyalists who lacked professional competence, regional expertise, language skills, and, in some cases, common sense. Most serious of all, he conducted his Iraq policy with an arrogance not matched by political will or military power."
And a follow-on comment from Mr. Marshall:
"A pretty crisp and concise description of a man who has been an utter failure as a leader, in almost every respect unimaginable. Hubris, ignorance, inability to lead or make hard decisions. The list is as bleak as it is long."
Well said, and... said-well!
I've got nothing to add...
Thank you, Herb.

Okay: Stupid AND arrogant,
spoiled brat, frat-boy fool
...

Save the ANIMALS!

LIED into a "FRIVOLOUS & UNNECESSARY WAR..."

Harper's magazine has an article titled,
"The Case For Impeachment"
(of President George W. Bush.) It's a preview, on-line, of a longer, thourough article in an upcoming print-edition. The article covers: Iraq, the obsessions before, the deception-campaign to gain support, the WMD lies, the U.N., etc. Check it out via the link. Here's a couple paragraphs:
...(it was) a conspiracy to commit fraud, the administration talking out of all sides of its lying mouth, secretly planning a frivolous and unnecessary war while at the same time pretending in its public statements that nothing was further from the truth...(H)aving spoken, more than once, about seeking revenge on Saddam Hussein for the tyrant's alleged attempt to “kill my Dad,” (Bush) appoints to high office in his administration a cadre of warrior intellectuals, chief among them Secretary of Defense Donald Rumsfeld, known to be eager for the glories of imperial conquest...
The "cadre of warrior intellectuals" are the neocons (AEI, PNAC, etc.), and certainly includes Dick Cheney, who was obsessed with Iraq('s oil). They're NOT exactly "intellectuals." I'd call 'em, "warrior wanna-bes," or chickenhawks.THEY GOT THEIR DREAM-WAR, AND THEY FAILED! They failed miserably, and they were completely WRONG about EVERYTHING... The neocons are (were) fools & idiots, and Junior (unwisely) put 'em in charge. How embarrassing for the Country.

[God Bless Our Soldiers (and their families)! The troops have done remarkably-well... despite the DECEPTION & LIES from Washington; and despite INCOMPETENT civilian-leadership: No plan, no clear mission, a war scheduled around domestic-elections/politics, no exit-strategy, no clue, etc.]

Read the Harper's article..., Herb.

Sunday, February 26, 2006

(Re-post) PRESIDENT BUSH: "...People don't need to worry about security."

FROM AN EARLIER T/J POST:
Bush at cabinet meeting:
"And so people don't need to worry about security.
This deal wouldn't go forward if we were concerned about the security for the United States of America
."
I commented, "Wait 'til October, they'll want you to worry about security..." ('specially if them Dem'crats might win the House or Senate). The FEAR card, it's really all they' got!

Then low & behold, today here, we find... WILLIAM GREIDER FROM (THE NATION) UK GUARDIAN Excerpt:
Bush has peddled hysteria as a way of governance, so it's hysterical to see him trying to play down the Dubai Ports controversy...
:::
Bush was the principal author, along with his straight-shooting vice-president, and now he is hoisted by his own fear-mongering propaganda.So why is the fearmonger-in-chief being so casual about this Dubai business?Because at some level of consciousness even George Bush knows the inflated fears are bogus. So do a lot of the politicians merrily throwing spears at him.He taught them how to play this game, invented the tactics and reorganised political competition as a demagogic dance of hysterical absurdities, endless opportunities to waste public money. Very few dare to challenge the mindset. Thousands have died for it... (William Greider)
For what it's worth, some dude's opinion...

I dunno? I sorta like these guys, the current administration. "Straight-shooters" you'd (maybe) like to have a beer with! Right?
Yeah-that's-right, Herb.

Saturday, February 25, 2006

Don Knotts, 1924-2006, will be missed!

Beloved television and
movie character-actor,
(and WWII Veteran!)
Don Knotts, dies...
(1924-2006)

'Loved him as Barney Fife!
One of the BEST.
(And the landlord, Furley?)
Bummer, Herb.[We should have a National Day of Mourning]
...He's an American ICON!
SO BE IT: Okay...

Update:
(from: da' Pope.)
Tomorrow it is...
Sunday, we mourn.


UPDATE 2 (Eulogy): He starred in "The Andy Griffith Show," from 1960-1968; "Three's Company," from 1979-1984; in addition to numerous movie roles.

Andy Griffith on Don Knotts' passing: "Don was a small man... but everything about him was large..."

Rove CIA-Leak Investigation / Libby Trial NEW DEVELOPMENTS...

White House 'Discovers' 250 Emails Related to Plame Leak
By Jason Leopold
t r u t h o u t | Report

Friday 24 February 2006
The White House turned over last week 250 pages of emails from Vice President Dick Cheney’s office. Senior aides had sent the emails in the spring of 2003 related to the leak of covert CIA operative Valerie Plame Wilson, Special Prosecutor Patrick Fitzgerald revealed during a federal court hearing Friday.

The emails are said to be explosive, and may prove that Cheney played an active role in the effort to discredit Plame Wilson’s husband, former Ambassador Joseph Wilson, a vocal critic of the Bush administration’s prewar Iraq intelligence, sources close to the investigation said.Sources close to the probe said the White House “discovered” the emails two weeks ago and turned them over to Fitzgerald last week
It is 'xplosive if the VP, and/or Rove, Gonzales(our 12 year old mexican-kid Attorney General, who gave 'em a few days to delete shit while he sat on the subpoena.) Card, and Libby, who was still there... if they conspired to DESTROY (delete) the RELEVANT (incriminating) evidence.I've stated before that I think Fitz already had the emails in question -- and now I speculate that's WHY they "found 'em," and turned them over last week to Fitzgerald. Read the whole thing at truthout, here.

Ol' Dick seems to have a few P/R problems, lately... 'specially since that day he shot his friend in the face. It seems, Herb

Morrisey, Solo Singer, Formerly of "The Smiths" Interrogated

United Press International, NEWSTRACK:
"Morrisey questioned by agents..."
LONDON, Feb. 24 (UPI) -- British rocker Morrissey says agents from the FBI and Britain's Special Branch picked him up for questioning after he labeled President Bush a "terrorist."

"They were trying to determine if I was a threat to the government(s)...
"But it didn't take them very long to realize that I'm not."
:::
He said his experience proves freedom of speech is an illusion.
:::
"You can't really speak your mind and if you do you're investigated."

Thanks AMERICAblog. Interesting, Herb.

Thursday, February 23, 2006

PRESIDENT BUSH on SECURITY: "...People don't need to worry about security."

Wait until November, then Bush, Cheney, and Rove will be telling us we'd better "worry-about-security" (and re-elect their stooges in Congress).

Here's the entire Bush
quote from today,
defending his outsourcing
of our ports (Thx, Josh/TPM):
Bush at cabinet meeting: "And so people don't need to worry about security. This deal wouldn't go forward if we were concerned about the security for the United States of America."
Hee-hee hee, Herb.

CIVIL WAR IN IRAQ!

NOT: "On the verge..."
NOT: "On the brink..."
"It's CIVIL WAR in IRAQ!"

The picture below is the proverbial:
...straw that broke the camel's back:Compare to picture in the previous post.
Iraq IS a DISASTER... Sadly, Herb.

INEVITABLY & UNFORTUNATELY: The Lid BLOWS Off The Pot... The Long Feared IRAQI CIVIL WAR

Some idiots (probably AQ stoking the fire) in Iraq blew up one of Shyite(?) Muslims' Holiest shrines: The GOLD DOME Mosque, in Samarra, pictured here. [It's totally destroyed now.]That was it, folks: The shot-heard-around Messopotamia! We need to get Our Troops the hell outta there! [F*** Halliburton!] Sorry, but it's not our war to fight anymore.

HELL... Job; done.
You (literally!) did a HELL-OF-A-JOB-Rummy.
Mission accomplished! (A couple times actually, but then POLITICIANS{Bush/Rumsfeld/Cheney} changed the "mission" a buncha times 'cuz Dick wanted to stay and suck free-oil...) Argggh! Right, Herb.
Juan Cole, here, usually has a good on-the-ground, there, perspective...
More here, from AP, (Thx Americablog).

Just a Comment on W.H. OUTSOURCING Operation of East Coast PORTS to FOREIGNERS

Glad I'm not on the east-coast(!), Herb.

"CLASSIFIED:" To cover-up Bush/Cheney FAILURES & EMBARRASSMENTS...

REGARDING: The Bush administration (ab)using the national Classification process to cover-up their lies, failures, and embarrassments... (and misdemeanors.)
From Jon Stewart, on The Daily Show:
You know... In hindsight, President Clinton should've just stamped his c@ck "CLASSIFED!"

...It would've saved everyone
a whole-lot of
trouble
!
The End... (That quote says so much about the last TEN YEARS... about the "news" media, Congress, and Bush Jr.; and nothing really about Bill Clinton.)

Tuesday, February 21, 2006

EXCERPT: "The Mensch Gap," by Paul Krugman:

"Be a mensch," my parents told me. Literally, a mensch is a person. But by implication, a mensch is an upstanding person who takes responsibility for his actions.

The people now running America aren't mensches.

Dick Cheney isn't a mensch. There have been many attempts to turn the shooting of Harry Whittington into a political metaphor, but the most characteristic moment was the final act -- the Moscow show-trial moment in which the victim of Mr. Cheney's recklessness apologized for getting shot. Remember, Mr. Cheney, more than anyone else, misled us into the Iraq war. Then, when neither links to Al Qaeda nor W.M.D. materialized, he shifted the blame to the very intelligence agencies he bullied into inflating the threat.

Donald Rumsfeld isn't a mensch. Before the Iraq war Mr. Rumsfeld muzzled commanders who warned that we were going in with too few troops, and sidelined State Department experts who warned that we needed a plan for the invasion's aftermath. But when the war went wrong, he began talking about "unknown unknowns" and going to war with "the army you have," ducking responsibility for the failures of leadership that have turned the war into a stunning victory -- for Iran.

Michael Chertoff, the secretary of homeland security, isn't a mensch. Remember his excuse for failing to respond to the drowning of New Orleans? "I remember on Tuesday morning," he said on "Meet the Press," "picking up newspapers and I saw headlines, 'New Orleans Dodged the Bullet.' " We now know that by Tuesday morning, he had received -- and ignored -- many warnings about the unfolding disaster.
:::
I could go on. Officials in this administration never take responsibility for their actions. When something goes wrong, it's always someone else's fault...
:::
Where have all the mensches gone? The character of the administration reflects the character of the man at its head. President Bush is definitely not a mensch; his inability to admit mistakes or take responsibility for failure approaches the pathological. He surrounds himself with subordinates who share his aversion to facing unpleasant realities. And as long as his appointees remain personally loyal, he defends their performance, no matter how incompetent. After all, to do otherwise would be to admit that he made a mistake in choosing them. Last week he declared that Mr. Leavitt is doing, yes, "a heck of a job."

But how did such people attain power in the first place? Maybe it's the result of our infantilized media culture, in which politicians, like celebrities, are judged by the way they look, not the reality of their achievements. Mr. Bush isn't an effective leader, but he plays one on TV, and that's all that matters.

Whatever the reason for the woeful content of our leaders' character, it has horrifying consequences. You can't learn from mistakes if you won't admit making any mistakes, an observation that explains a lot about the policy disasters of recent years -- the failed occupation of Iraq, the failed response to Katrina, the failed drug plan.

Above all, the anti-mensches now ruling America are destroying our moral standing. A recent National Journal report finds that we're continuing to hold many prisoners at Guantánamo even though the supposed evidence against them has been discredited. We're even holding at least eight prisoners who are no longer designated enemy combatants. Why? Well, releasing people you've imprisoned by mistake means admitting that you made a mistake. And that's something the people now running America never do.
THE END...
Thanks Paul Krugman, NY Times.
Later, Herb.

Monday, February 20, 2006

...Worth a Thousand Words? Oh, at least 1000: How 'bout, "DUCK!"

...I thought we's huntin' "quai---"

REPUBLICAN & War Veteran, Senator Chuck Hagel TAKES SWIPE at CHENEY in public square...

On the infamous Cheney hunting "accident":
...Sen. Chuck Hagel of Nebraska, a Republican and Vietnam war veteran, told The Omaha World-Herald, "If he'd been in the military, he would have learned gun safety."
Good one! From the G.O.P., Dick takes one!Thanks AMERICAblog(Joe) for the quote, and link to the original Omaha Herald story. I agree with Joe: Hagel's comment says so much!
Ouch! (Tou'che'?) Read it again, Herb.

Saturday, February 18, 2006

Karl Rove, George Bush, and Darth,uh; Dick Cheney: The dark side?

Friday, February 17, 2006

CHENEY, DICK... DRUNK!

Dick Cheney had a "drinking problem" in college. He's got 2 DWI's on his record, but he still drinks; even though he takes tons of medications, and has a fake heart. He even drinks when he plays (hunting) with real guns. Scary, Herb.

Thursday, February 16, 2006

ARTS & LEISURE: New World-Record Price Paid at Auction for a PHOTOGRAPH...

GUARDIAN UK story here, on world record price paid recently in NY for a single photograph... almost three-million dollars!

"The Pond-Moonlight by Edward Steichen..."
...taken on Long Island in 1904, broke the world record price for a photograph when it was sold for more than $2.9m at a two-day Sotheby's sale which began in New York last night. The previous record for a photograph at auction, $1,248,000, was set in November by Richard Prince's "Untitled (Cowboy)".
More than double the previous record! We needed a break from politics as usual, Herb.

Dick Cheney: Miserable FAILURE & Possibly The STUPIDEST Person In History!

AOL online-poll, in conjunction with USA Today, NY Times, Washington Post, others. Re: VP Dick Cheney's overall job performance...
(NOT his hunting skills):
What grade do you give Cheney for his handling of domestic policy?
F 51%
A 20%
B 12%
D 9%
C 8%
Total Votes: 67,596
:::::::::::::::::::::::::::::
What grade do you give Cheney for his handling of foreign policy?
F 56%
A 22%
B 9%
D 6%
C 6%
Total Votes: 45,646
:::::::::::::::::::::::::::::
What grade do you give Cheney for his overall performance?
F 56%
A 21%
B 10%
D 7%
C 6%
Total Votes: 44,562
:::::::::::::::::::::::::::::
Final Grade: F-
Comments: WORST (VICE) PRESIDENT, EVER!Dick might even be more inept, incompetent, and unqualified than Condoleeza Rice...
(If that's possible!).
Have a Nice Day, Herb.

Wednesday, February 15, 2006

BYRD SHOT Hits White House's CONTEMPT for Oversight & The Rule of Law... {"Just trust us!"}

Atrios here, has a transcript of a speech by that wise old coot, Senator Robert Byrd.
Here's a sample (pictures added):
Because the President says “trust me.”...In the name of “fighting terror” are we to sacrifice every freedom to a President’s demand? How far are we to go? Can a President order warrantless house-by-house searches of a neighborhood, where he suspects a terrorist may be hiding? Can he impose new restrictions on what can be printed, broadcast, or even uttered privately, because of some perceived threat to national security? Laughable thoughts? I think not. For this Administration has so traumatized the people of this nation -- and many in the Congress -- that some will swallow whole whatever rubbish that is spewed from this White House, as long as it is in some tenuous way connected to the so-called war on terror....I plead with the American public to tune-in to what is happening in this country.
Amen, brother Bob! Preach on!
More at the link above, Herb.

Tuesday, February 14, 2006

VP's Office claims 2002 Congressional resolution "authorizing force" IMPLICITLY allows Dick Cheney to shoot people, at HIS discretion!

Just kidding... probably, Herb.

Monday, February 13, 2006

Jack Abramoff & Karl Rove overseeing their empire: THE FIRST ABRAMOFF W.H. PHOTO

Okay, this is the first W.H. photo of Jack Abramoff and Bush (of dozens?). (Found and published by Time Magazine.) Bush claims he doesn't know Jack'off, and Karl Rove has had the SS working overtime to seize any of these taxpayer-funded photos they can find...

I cropped the bottom and left-hand portions and added the arrows, pointing to Rove and Abramoff. On msnbc, they showed the picture that Time Magazine gave them -- BUT IT HAD KARK ROVE CROPPED OUT! Wonder why, or whose idea THAT was. The context of Karl Rove and Jack'off overseeing the whole thing is important. Bush just does what Karl tells him too, being the idea. And of course what Jack'off's clients paid for...

By the way, that's an Abramoff-client Indian Chief shaking hands with the President... And HE PAID $25,000 for that blowjob, 'er "HANDSHAKE." Government truly FOR SALE. SOLD! Feel safer? Me neither, Herb.

Sunday, February 12, 2006

Dick Cheney "accidently" Shoots & Injures Fellow Hunter on TX Hunting Trip... Seriously.

UPDATE: See here, for AMERICAblog's ("Cheney's Chappaquiddick") summary of the W.H. & Cheney stonewalling any reporting of the incident. Dick didn't take a sobriety test and answer Qs for LOCAL law-enforcement officials, for example.

Once again proving the obvious: This man KNOWS NOTHING about COMBAT (people, guns, crossfire...) and probably shouldn't be invloved in SENDING American TROOPS into WAR(S)!
"A stretch," you say?
I mean REALLY, C'mon!

"...in fact, we'll be greeted as liberators..."
"the insurgency is in it's last-throes, if you will."
Etc., etc., etc. The Vice President of the U.S. is a moron. He makes Dan Quayle look like The Professor on Gilligan's Island. Hmmm, Herb.Safety First! (Don't shoot orange!)
File under: "You Can't Make This Stuff Up."

Saturday, February 11, 2006

"St. Patrick's Day," from the UK Observer Magazine ...Re: Prosecutor Patrick Fitzgerald & the Rove-CIA-Leak(Libby trial)

From the UK Observer Magazine,
an in-depth look at who Prosecutor Patrick Fitzgeral is, professionally and personally. He's the guy prosecuting Scooter Libby in the Rove CIA Leak (treason) trial. He is still investigating Karl Rove, VP Dick Cheney, and Bush himself. Mr. Fitzgerald, "...gives George Bush sleepless nights!"
(Enter Jim Beam?)
SAINT PATRICK'S DAY
He is the relentless scourge of mobsters, terrorists, corrupt city bosses and even the White House. Paul Harris profiles Patrick Fitzgerald, the tenacious workaholic special prosecutor, who gives George Bush sleepless nights...
:::
...Fitzgerald is the man investigating 'Plamegate'. In his hands an obscure investigation into the public unmasking of CIA agent Valerie Plame has become the most far-reaching political scandal since Whitewater, perhaps even Watergate. It was the ticking time bomb under George W Bush that blew up last October, when top White House official Lewis 'Scooter' Libby was indicted on perjury charges.

Plamegate was not really about who leaked what and when; it was about the war in Iraq. It was about how mythical weapons of mass destruction led to the bloody loss of tens of thousands of Iraqi lives and the death of more than 2,000 US soldiers. It was about a political spin machine that brooked no criticism and smeared its critics in the rush to war
...
It's a good summary of Patrick Fitzgerald's uncorrupted approach, and the whole lie-then-smear-critics approach from the Bush administration (Cheney) during the public-deception campaign to "sell" the "war" in Iraq. What a disaster their personal obsessions have become! ...For ALL of us, Herb.God Bless The U.S. Troops...

Danish CARTOONS blamed for RIOTS on the streets of... WHO CARES!!!

Does anybody else see the IRONY in fanatical Muslims protesting (against the U.S.?) when a couple newspapers in Denmark depict the Muslim prophet Muhammed unflatteringly?

These are the same fanatical Muslim protesters who burn American/British flags for cameras all the time. They do it to OFFEND people they disagree with ("the west"). So who cares if some country (Denmark!) with a free-press, prints a cartoon to prove a point, and happens to offend them -- the same OFFENDING fanatics??? The end, Herb.

Thursday, February 09, 2006

Cheney himself is GUILTY in Rove CIA-LEAK Treason Investigation...


The National Journal has BREAKING NEWS on the CIA leak treason investigation...from the ongoing-delayed Libby TRIAL:
(Scooter) Libby, testified to a federal grand jury that he had been "authorized" by Cheney and other White House "superiors" in the summer of 2003 to disclose classified information to journalists to defend the Bush administration's use of prewar intelligence in making the case to go to war with Iraq, according to attorneys familiar with the matter, and to court records.
:::
Libby testified to the grand jury that he had been authorized to share parts of the NIE with journalists in the summer of 2003 as part of an effort to rebut charges then being made by former U.S. Ambassador Joseph Wilson that the Bush administration had misrepresented intelligence information to make a public case for war.Wilson had been sent on a CIA-sponsored mission to investigate allegations that the African nation of Niger had sold uranium to Iraq to develop a nuclear weapon. Despite the fact that Wilson reported back that the information was most likely baseless, it was still used in the President's 2003 State of the Union speech to make the case for war...
See the whole NJ article, it's good and there's lots more juicy stuff. It'll make you wonder how in the name of God, Dick Cheney can (be allowed to) LIE & intentionally-mislead the American Public in his job as "VP."
Everything Starts to make much more sense if you think of Cheney STILL being the evil, self-serving CEO of tax-dodging-weasel-corporation Halliburton. LIKE: Iraq-occupation secrets, Ken Lay Energy meetings, Oil Co. profits -- gas prices, and the Bush Administration's disdain for Global-Warming or other international concerns (treaties, laws, etc.). As George Herert Walker Bush (no relation) said, when as President he signed the law,
"...people who expose the name(s) of our (CIA agent) sources are the MOST INSIDIOUS of TRAITORS..."
Treason? That's what he said.
Hmphh... Insidious? Oh yeah, Herb.