AOL is like a broken clock, it's RIGHT every now and then.

Andy Card can go home to Boston an "spend more time with his family."

They is only Polly-Wags...

A last word on the last thread - 14 to 56.

Excerpted from: Robert Parry: 'Time to talk war crimes'
Posted on Tuesday, March 28 @ 10:01:13 EST

[...]

"If you really believe that the only thing that happened on 9/11 was people flew airplanes into buildings, I think you have a very narrow view of what we faced on 9/11," Rice said. "We faced the outcome of an ideology of hatred throughout the Middle East that had to be dealt with. Saddam Hussein was a part of that old Middle East. The new Iraq will be a part of the new Middle East, and we will all be safer."

Rice's argument - that Bush has the right to invade any country that he feels is part of a culture that might show hostility toward the United States - represents the most expansive justification to date for launching the Iraq War.

It goes well beyond waging "preemptive" or even "predictive" war. Rice is asserting a U.S. right to inflict death and destruction on Muslim countries as part of a social-engineering experiment to eradicate their perceived cultural and political tendencies toward hatred.

Despite the extraordinary implications of Rice's declaration, her comment passed almost unnoticed by the U.S. news media, which gave much more attention to her demurring on the possibility of becoming the next National Football League commissioner.

Yet Rice's new war rationale, combined with the British memo on Bush's determination to invade Iraq regardless of the facts, should be more than enough evidence to put Bush, Rice, Blair and other U.S. and British officials before a war crimes tribunal.

But that would only happen if Justice Jackson were right about the universal application of the principle against aggressive wars - and if all nations and leaders actually lived by the same rules.

********************

It was kind of funny watching Andrea Mitchell (Mrs. Alan Greenspan) acknowledging the Downing Street minutes, and Phillipe Sands' revelations belatedly on the news last night.

looks like a woodpecker AND frog

Robert, Isn't there a vacant suite in the Hague?

I don't get it. Which one is the woodpecker and which the frog? Looks like a frogpecker to me.

Recently vacated...

What with the hermaphortization of the wild frog population, frogpeckers might be very endangered, actually.

I won't be happy until I see Rove, Rumsfeld and Chaney go. Oh ya, and Bush too.

I still prefer poli-wags:

1) denotes immaturity,

2) political-mouthpieces.

12 Me too Robert. Touche.

"President Bush today announced the resignation of his chief of staff, Andrew H. Card Jr., in the first major staffing change of his troubled second term. . . But while many of Mr. Bush's problems are related to increasing public uneasiness over Iraq, it was Mr. Card who took the blame for the slowness of the White House staff's response to Hurricane Katrina and to criticism of the Dubai ports deal. " NYT 3/28/06 (link)

We the Sheep
Source: The Reactionary Utopian
URL Source: http://www.sobran.com/columns/2006/060307.shtml
Published: Mar 28, 2006

Am I dreaming, or what? The Republicans are on the ropes, and everyone is surprised that the Democrats canմ seem to take advantage of the situation.

But isn't this in the nature of a two-party system when both parties have already failed to give satisfaction? When you're tired of dysentery, does that mean you should prefer to go back to the nausea that preceded it?

Suppose the two big parties were the Prohibition Party and the Vegetarian Party, even though most people like both meat and drink. Are you with me so far? Okay, so the Prohibition Party rules for a while, but prohibiting the consumption of alcohol turns out to be a dubious idea in practice. The voters decide that prohibiting the consumption of meat couldn't be any worse, so they put the Vegetarians in power.

Still with me? Now it's illegal to eat meat, but the Vegetarians leave all the laws against alcohol in effect. This comes as an unhappy surprise to the people who thought that either party would at least offer relief from the other one.

Civics for Suckers, Lesson One: In a two-party system, you can get the evils of both parties at the same time. Maybe you voted Republican because you hated the way the Democrats always inch in the general direction of socialism. The joke's on you! The Republicans start a war and simultaneously accelerate the drive toward socialism.

Have you learned anything? If you are a typical American, probably not. So you buy a ticket to Brokeback Mountain and try to forget. At least in the movie the world makes some sort of crazy sense for a couple of hours. It's a world where you know right from wrong and the scenery is gorgeous. The men can choose between women like Anne Hathaway or any of thousands of sheep, so, given the alternatives, they choose each other. Did I mention the great soundtrack music?

Back in the real world, as it is affectionately nicknamed, the war in Iraq is steadily losing favor. Even Bill Buckley, the retired founder of a pro-war magazine, says it's time to admit defeat. This causes the magazine's current editors, who favor nuking Mecca, to write that Buckley's opinion is premature. After all, the war is not yet three years old, and you have to give these cakewalks at least a decade to work.

Politics is actually a lot of fun, if you observe it with a sense of humor and don't get your hopes up. After all, politicians are basically just like the rest of us, and they behave just the way you or I might behave if we had the power to jail or shoot our creditors. In a democracy, the creditors are called citizens and the really gullible ones are called voters. Look in the mirror and ask yourself, honestly now, which category you fall into. Keep the number of your local suicide hotline at hand.

It's bad enough being a citizen, so I decided some time ago not to compound my troubles by being a voter too. This enabled me to see the world with an exhilarating clarity. Suddenly all the politicians bidding for my vote became comical little butts, like the figures in a Bruegel painting. At least I didn't feel I was their butt anymore. Their slave, maybe, but no longer their butt.

Not that politicians really laugh at us. Humor isn't their long suit. Does the wolf laugh at the sheep? In the movie I just mentioned, the sheep are protected by guys who shoot at the wolf. These guys are called shepherds, though in the so-called real world they are called assassins or even terrorists. And the wolf can shoot back, which brings us to Lesson Two: Don't even think about shooting that wolf.

So when the wolf pounces on your lamb, just ignore the pitiful bleating and remind yourself that this is a democracy, where every sheep can freely express its preference for which kind of wolf it wants to be eaten by. Many sheep, perhaps understandably, prefer a wolf in sheep's clothing, which is after all the basic idea of democracy. So far it has worked pretty well. The wolves all agree on that, and they want to spread democracy everywhere.

Joseph Sobran
-------------
Funny, in a sad sort of way.

so, who would you guys vote for in an election with pee-wee herman on one side and pauly shore on the other? oh, that's not an accurate analogy?
how about dr. evil v simon bar-sinister?

Go hither to the gnu thredith.

Judicial Committee Hearings
on illegal NSA spying on US Citizens

Carl Levin obviously believes that it is perfectly acceptable for the President to break the law just as long as it turns out that his illegal conduct is driven by good intentions. To Sen. Levin, this is what the NSA scandal is about:

the question is is it legal, or do you have to modify the law in order to make it legal.

If it turns out that they were not abusing the eavesdropping power, then it is perfectly fine with Sen. Levin if the President broke the law. If the President broke the law, then the duty of the Senate is to "modify the law in order to make it legal" because, after all, the President broke the law for the "right reasons." As Daniel Webster warned: "Good intentions will always be pleaded for every assumption of authority. It is hardly too strong to say that the Constitution was made to guard the people against the dangers of good intentions."

(link)

From WRH

The Final Say

U.S. President George Bush again reassured Americans last week they were winning the war in Iraq.

Please, Mr. President, no more "mission accomplished," no more victories. Your debacle in Iraq recalls King Phyrrus' famous lament, "One more such victory and we are ruined."

Frog? Woodpecker? Nope. Card was trying to imitate cheney's snarling face but forgot, "Do I turn the corner of my mouth up or down?" Either way, he ended up looking like a dick.

Gee, I posted on the previous thread.

Way to go, David. You probably just got that editor fired.

Is that a George you going down my man, photo?