Consistent Liars

Whats the point of harassing poor Alberto Gonzales for lying to Congress? Wouldn't it be more effective for Congress to pass a resolution stating that any Bush Official's statements will be presumed to be lies?

The President is fighting with Congress to protect Karl Rove and Harriet Miers from being held accountable for doing what everyone in the world knows they have to do, LIE! Why do we play these games pretending that they would tell the truth if put under oath before Congress. There is certainly no chance of that. Obviously telling the truth about anything they have done since 2000 would land every one of them in jail.

Right Wingnuts will defend these liars to their last breath so there is no chance of convincing loyal Bushies that lying under oath is wrong. In Scooter Libby's case right wingnuts are still defending him despite a conviction and a mountain of evidence that he deliberately lied. Observe the absurd defense Lorie Byrd makes when arguing why Rove should not have to testify:

"Scooter Libby was questioned under oath, as were various other administration officials and reporters, until his recollection of events in the Plame matter were found to be inconsistent with others. With a Libby perjury conviction the only Bush administration scalp Democrats have to wave, it makes sense they would want to go back to the well by questioning as many Bush administration officials under oath as possible, about anything"

Sadly, it seems clear that even their strongest defenders have accepted that putting a member of the Bush Administration under oath is a recipe for disaster. It has become a tragic comedy. Congress has to go through the process necessary to force these pathological liars into a corner, but the Whitehouse's ridiculous arguments shouldn't be treated as though they are credible.

Bush Learned from the Libby Mistake

George Bush has finally learned from one of his mistakes and found a way to fix it. After watching Scooter Libby get caught up in a web of contradictory statements, he is insuring that won't happen with Karl Rove and Harriet Miers. He has announced that Rove and Miers will testify about the U.S. Attorney firings but not under oath, with no transcript, and in secret. He has set the table for his henchman, and henchwoman if there is such a word, to lie and deceive until their little black hearts are filled with joy. They can blame anyone and claim they had no knowledge of anything that has happened in the last four hundred years with no fear of prosecution. That Libby mistake will surely not happen again.

It is quite clear now that the Whitehouse staff lied about their involvement in the firings. Alberto Gonzales blatantly lied to Senator Mark Prior in this instance:

"In an interview Tuesday on a news network program, Pryor said that, when he asked Gonzales to send Griffin through the confirmation process, Gonzales said he would, and that was the intent of Justice Department officials.

But Pryor said e-mails between Justice Department officials that were recently released by the agency show that the department never had any intention of nominating Griffin and going through the confirmation process."

It should be obvious by now that this Administration has no respect for Congress, the American People, or the rule of law. It is a hopeless task to try and straighten this group of conniving thieves out between now and January of 2009. We can only hope Congress will stop them from destroying this country by attacking Iran.

I Agree With George Bush

I must admit that the man has got it 100% right this time. His assertion that withdrawing from Iraq would be catastrophic is right on the money. The only problem being that the alternative, not withdrawing, is creating a catastrophe of equal proportion. This is the reality that is rarely discussed. Simply stated: We can't possibly leave Iraq and we can't possibly stay.

Just before the invasion I wrote that the best case scenario after invading Iraq would be catastrophic. Well here we are, holding a tiger by the tail. The best analogy I've heard is that of having driven off a cliff. This is appropriate because when you are in the air travelling at 32 feet per second downward, there aren't whole lot of effective solutions. If you have a gun handy, you can always shoot yourself in the head before you hit, short of that you are about to die on impact.

The truth is, contrary to what you hear in the mainstream media, we aren't in a war. Media outlets outside the United States correctly refer to the "occupation" rather than the "war". We are in an occupation and you can't WIN an occupation. You just occupy a country and at some point you are no longer occupying it. The Presidents call for victory is misleading hogwash.

I would argue that if this is considered a win or lose scenario, we have already lost. To win a military campaign you must achieve the political goals which you believe created the need for military intervention. Our goal was to seek and destroy WMD's and then somehow morphed into creating a stable democracy. The WMD's never existed, and any hope of a Western style democracy evaporated with the Samara bombing in February of 2006. So by the standards of achieving political and military goals, we have no chance of either. It's hard to argue that a country who sets forth military and political goals, launches an invasion to achieve those goals, and fails to achieve any of them hasn't lost the military campaign. Now we just stay and watch the horrific slaughter, then eventually leave and watch more horrific slaughter.

If this is freedom, I suspect that most Iraqis would rather be alive than free.

Tortured Confessions

What a shock, after months of torture Khalid Sheikh Mohammed has confessed to 29 separate terrorist incidents. You can go to this link to see the list of terror plots he has admitted to have either planned or participated in.

Now I must ask the question, since obviously the mainstream media won't. If you were tortured for a significant period of time, wouldn't you admit to all 29 of those terror plots? I must be honest here, I am no tough guy and I would admit to every one of those and many more after about five minutes of torture. Heck, even the threat of torture is enough to get me to admit to just about any crime in world history.

If you review this list carefully you will find that the only crime he did not confess to was the killings of Nicole Simpson and Ron Goldman. But if they had asked he likely would have admitted to those too and told investigators that he's been running from golf course to golf course in South Florida hiding from OJ. Incidentally, George Bush may as well join OJ is his quest to find the real killers by inspecting Miami's golf course circuit. Maybe OJ can help him find his WMD's on the 12th Hole at Killian Greens. They're right in between the unicorn and the tooth fairy.

Seriously, is there anyone besides me that suspects that maybe a few of those confessions could have been influenced by the repeated blows to the head while being hung upside down and urinated on? Regardless of how you feel about torturing Al Queda suspects, isn't it pretty logical that confessions made as a result of torture are extremely unreliable at best. Who amongst us would not confess to stop the torturers ruthless beatings?

Tortured confessions are only valuable to Governments who wish to fool ignorant people into believing that they are accomplishing things which they clearly aren't. If this guy was so cooperative, why didn't he give up the location of Osama Bin laden? He was, according to the Bush Administration, Al Queda's number two guy. Which in itself raises the question, how the heck many number two guys does Al Queda have? Every month we capture the number two guy in Iraq. Why can't we find the number one guy for crying out loud.

I'd trade the 27 number two guys that we have captured in the last 27 months for the number one guy any day. We'll just do it like draft picks. We'll give 'em a number two, 2 number threes, and a terrorist to be named later in return for Osama and a backup terrorist. A role player will be fine. Not necessarily a planner but maybe just a bombmaker or the guy who edits the film for their monthly videos.

I'll just end this by congratulating the CIA for their confessions. I am sure they can get Khalid Sheikh Mohammed to confess to killing JFK and being the man behind global warming within the next few weeks.

In the "Lessons Learned" Category

Republicans in Congress have announced that their plan to give up more Congressional seats and hand over the Whitehouse to Democrats is proceeding as planned. These politically suicidal idiots are "proud" to proclaim that they have the votes to defeat Democratic Legislation which would require the President to withdraw all troops from Iraq within 12 months. Apparently, when they got their clocks cleaned in the recent midterm elections they learned absolutely nothing. To make matters worse, their fearless (or should I say feckless) leader is supporting them with a veto threat. Good work guys, you continue to pull closer to a guy with a 30% approval rating. Once again Bill Clinton's statement that "when republicans dig themselves in a whole, they justgo out and get a bigger shovel" is proven to be true.

Senate Republican Leader Mitch McConnell said passage of the withdrawal measure "would be absolutely fatal to our mission in Iraq". No Mitch, our mission in Iraq is absolutely fatal to our mission in Iraq. This thing went flatline right about the time the first American soldier drove across the Iraqi border in the original invasion. There was never any possibility that this horrendous mistake could have succeeded in anything other than icnreasing the ranks of Al Queda. Unlike you, the American people have figured out that the patient is dead. Time to figure out how to dispose of the body. Some want to walk away and leave it to rot in the sun and others want to chop it up and hope noone can connect the parts and finger the US as the killers. But regardless of the metaphor, Iraq is destined to suffer far greater disaster than we have witnessed thus far. I am fairly certain the voters will be happy to express their feelings on the matter at the polls in the 2008 elections.

Baghdad Violence Decreasing

The Whitehouse is touting the amazing success of the infamous Surge strategy. The violence in Baghdad has decreased significantly, but unfortunately it has skyrocketed elsewhere. Just as has happened every other time in Iraq, the insurgents have moved from areas where military operations have intensified and attacked lesser defended targets. It was a result easily predicted and likely the military leaders have advised the Whitehouse it would happen. However, the Bush Administration will happily take a few months of fake success at a time when their time is so short.

While Representatives from neighboring countries met in Iraq over ways to address the violence, insurgents demonstrated their ability to carry out attacks almost at will.

Here's a great article about people like me. It's about time someone said:

"What we should also do is celebrate the people who opposed the war from the beginning. In the face of severe opprobrium and intimidation, a sizable number of Americans saw the charade for what it was and rued the oncoming disaster. They should be cheered, time and again"

Those who claim there was an intelligence failure seem to conveniently forget that Scott Ritter said:

"There simply is no evidence of a factual nature that sustains the allegation by the Bush administration or British government that Iraq today possesses weapons of mass destruction," Ritter told The Chronicle in late March 2003."

How could one guy be right and the Bush Administration claim that with all of the intelligence available to them, they were completely in the dark. The truth is that many of us are sitting around saying I told you so while the right wing pundits seem befuddled as to how they could have been so wrong.

Clearly the Surge is failing just as every other strategy put forth by the neoclowns. How shocked they'll seem in six or seven months when they ponder how another plan failed so miserably.

EVERYONE THOUGHT SADDAM HAD WMD'S

I am tired of hearing those who supported the Iraq disaster stating that Bill Clinton, Ted Kennedy, France, and everyone around the world thought Saddam had WMD's as if that is an excuse for the ill fated invasion. While it may very well be true that others were just as wrong as the Bush Administration, it serves no purpose as a defense. The inference seems to be that if everyone else thought Saddam had WMD's then President Bush had a valid reason for war. Which, to go one more level down, rests itself on the argument that if Saddam had WMD's then it was in fact valid to invade the country.

Lets start with the first argument that if everyone believed Saddam had WMD's then the invasion was justified. The problem with that argument is obvious. Though these other countries and people believed that Saddam possessed these weapons, they clearly disagreed that the solution was an unprovoked invasion. So the fact that most agreed that the WMD's were there in itself raises the question why they all so strongly disagreed with The Bush Administration's solution. Rather than a valid defense for the invasion, this fact demonstrates that the Bush Administration was out of step with world views on the solution to a mutually agreed problem.

What we had here were facts and theories. The facts were that there was no clear evidence that the WMD's existed and that the inspectors received access to Iraq to Search for them. There was no rush and Saddam was cooperating with the UN and posed no threat to anyone. The theory was that he had WMD's particularly a Nuclear Weapons program. When confronted with the decison of what action t take. Most of the world wanted to act based on the facts. The Bush Administration ignored the facts and acted on the theory. Of course this argument rests on whether you believe that the WMD's issue was the impetus for war in the first place or merely a convenient ruse.

The second part of the argument infers that if Saddam had WMD's then an invasion was justified. This argument would justify invading 30 or more nations around the world. Are we to believe that Saddam would attack Israel or the United States with Mustard Gas and face nuclear retaliation? Further, are we to believe that the massive facilities necessary to enrich uranium could be hidden in Iraq? Either of these arguments are too preposterous to even consider. Saddam like Israel, Libya, Iran, Syria, and the United States would not use his weapons because the retaliation would be much too costly.

Before the invasion I felt the same as Bill Clinton, France, Ted Kennedy, and the rest of the world. Even if Saddam had weapons of mass destruction, an invasion would make the world more dangerous rather than safer.

World War III Right on Schedule

The Bush Administration continues to push for another war and eventually they are going to unite everyone in the world other than Israel against the United States. Recently Russia, China, and India met over local economic issues but addressing the US threats to Iran were quite high on their "things to do" list. They have certainly noticed the stepped up plans for an unprovoked attack on Iran and no doubt see it as a personal threat. Countries around the world are preparing for the disaster so of course they are also.

It has come out that Vice President Cheney was recently in Pakistan paving the way for the upcoming attack on Iran. Meanwhile, one of the most vicious, psychotic, warmongering neocons in the world, Eliot Cohen, was recently promoted to Counselor at the State Department. Glen Greenwald of Salon.com recently remarked:

"It is not hyperbole to say that Cohen is as extremist a neoconservative and warmonger as it gets,"

Anyone who thinks that this is not a clear sign of the Administrations plans is being naive. As the world comes to the conclusion that the neocon's permanent war strategy has been a complete failure, President Bush promotes the most rabid of the bunch to the highest positions of Government. Just consider that for a moment. The people of America are tired of the Iraq debacle and everyone who has a brain recognizes that an attack on Iran would be economically, politically, and likely militarily disastrous for the Unites States. But President Bush places his principle war enthusiasts in power. Be afraid America, be very afraid!

Obama Cutting Hillary's Lead

If you have been paying attention you will have noticed that Barack Obama is rapidly catching up to Hillary as the preferred candidate for the 2008 Presidential campaign among Democrats.

Democratic Presidential Primary Contenders
Feb. 22 Feb. 8 Feb. 3


Clinton 37% 28% 34%
Obama 26% 23% 18%

The latest polls show Hillary remaining fairly stable and Obama climbing 8% during the month of February.

Apart from all the Rhetoric about him being African American and her being a woman, there is a very solid reason for this trend that I suspect will continue. Very few people know Obama other than through a few sound bites on the news. However, as people hear the message and the clear political differences between the two, they are flocking towards Obama. Hillary appears to be either trying to out-republican the Republicans or she really is a right winger at heart. She refuses to admit that her vote for the authorization of the use of force for Iraq was a mistake and she continues to take positions that are clearly imperialistic in nature.

Obama's campaign kick off in the town where Lincoln gave his famous "House Divided" speech against slavery was no accident. He often speaks of Lincoln and if you listen to his message it is remarkably similar. Obama compared himself to Lincoln stating:

"In Lincoln's rise from poverty, his ultimate mastery of language and law, his capacity to overcome personal loss and remain determined in the face of repeated defeat--in all this, he reminded me not just of my own struggles."

Hillary better hope that this campaign is not about issues and the true positions of the candidates on the problems facing working class America. If it is she doesn't stand a chance against Obama. However, if she can count on her financiers and the mainstream Democratic machine then she has a great chance. I perceive that we are seeing the difference between politics as usual and man who would ultimately turn the old school political process on its head.

I believe that Obama's politics are comparable to the views of Lincoln and JFK while Hillary's are probably comparable LBJ. My view is, it's time for America to change directions.

OBAMA '08