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Ramblings From the Ragged Crumbling Edge Of The Reality-Based Community

Tuesday, February 20, 2007

The Outrage of Bush-Style Troop Support 

...forget all those stories about the inadequate logistics train for our troops in Iraq that resulted in some outposts having insufficient food. Forget about this administration's inability or unwillingness to provide adequate supplies, body armor, or vehicle armor, even though suppliers repeatedly said that they could meet a far more rigorous delivery schedule than the Pentagon asked for. Forget about Rummy and his "going to war with the Army you have" nonsense. We are all the way beyond that now, and it is time for bone-deep heart-felt outrage over this story...

It is even more outrageous, here at the outset, that the status of Britney Spears' hair and rehab are felt to be at least as important, if not more so, than the fact that our troops - those props that Gee Dub is always so anxious to use when the polls are down and he needs to growl at those wimpy Defeatocrats to show that the wheelbarrow that he carries his balls around in is way bigger than any Democrat's - are being treated in a manner that looks more like something we would expect to see in a migrant laborer camp than in a medical facility serving people that we all call heroes. The story has been out there for quite a while now, but two WaPo reporters have put it all together in a tight little package that simply cannot be ignored. And yet, even though Dana Priest has been seen everywhere except at the foot of my bed talking in earnest terms about the despicable treatment being laid on people who did exactly what this country asked them to do, cable news - the engine driving the instantaneous news cycle - is still so enamored by the disposition of Anna Nichole Smith's body or Britney's fractured psychic state that they can't begin to focus on raw simple absurdity of the outpatient treatment of wounded American soldiers. The fault for not knowing more about this sick situation may reside with the media; it is, after all, comprised of simple creatures who have turned journalism into another form of entertainment. The root-deep fault, however, resides with this administration with all its slick cold-blooded hucksters that allowed our wounded troops to be treated this way...

"Support the troops" has been a cheap lie that Bushco told from the outset to try to steal the high ground from those who opposed Gee Dub's Grand Iraqi Nation-Building Adventure. The WaPo story is just another example of how empty that line has been all along, but it is the most damning example yet. It's time for some outrage...
Posted by: Jack K. / 8:06 PM 0 comments

Monday, February 19, 2007

The Politics of McCain's Changable Mind 

...in the battle for the 2000 Republican presidential nomination, John McCain said:
''I'd love to see a point where'' Roe ''is irrelevant and could be repealed because abortion is no longer necessary,'' McCain told the Chronicle. ''But certainly in the short term, or even the long term, I would not support the repeal of Roe v. Wade, which would then force ... women in America to illegal and dangerous operations.''

It is said that with maturity comes the ability to develop more refined views and opinions. Apparently that's true, because in the period from his late 60's to his early 70's John McCain has matured and refined his views on this subject, to the point that yesterday he said:
“I do not support Roe versus Wade. It should be overturned...”

This change of heart is a remarkable display the the bone-deep power that the hunger for presidential power has on mere mortals. Seven years ago, McCain tried to hew to the middle ground, making a play for those Republicans not in the grip of social concervatism and casting himself as the iconclastic independent "straight shooter". That gambit didn't sell, though, and there's every chance that the bus called "The Straight Talk Express" is rusting away out here in Oregon in some bog with Ken Kesey's "Further", for all the use he plans on getting out of either the bus or its slogan...

McCain understands as well as we do that this is his last chance at that big brass ring, and the only way he is going to get his hands on the bugger is to reach out to the religious conservatives that he disdained and disrespected back in aught-aught. Those members of that demographic with long memories and a taste of revenge aren't really buying his newfound passion for their causes, but that's not stopping him from laying it out there anyway. Kind of makes you wonder why it is we only hear about Democrats when it comes time for discussions about flip-floppers...
Posted by: Jack K. / 12:38 PM 0 comments

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