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

Thursday, September 13, 2007

Back To The Well, Ver. 2007.09 

...aside from the obvious problems with knowing where to start in talking about Gee Dub's little fireside chat this evening, there is this one thing...ok, so maybe two things:

1) We will not, between now and Jan. 20, 2009, have any hope of hearing a speech by this exceedingly promising current candidate for the title of "Worst President Ever" that does not include references that link al Qaeda, 9/11, and the need to invade Iraq in order to bring the bright shining beacon of freedance and democratocraty to that country so we don't have to fight Islamic terrorists in the mini-malls of Butte, Montana. That line of reasoning passed its "best if sold by" date way back down the road, but the gang that went into business crafting what passes for George W. Bush's strategy on the GWOT rather than stick around for those tougher college-level critical thinking courses know in their guts that this is a winning line of discourse. There's no reason to throw empty beer cans at the TV anymore; it won't help, because they are going to stick to this story...

2) Iran is the next target. "Next target" for what is certainly up for speculation, but it is hard for even a stoic like me to shake the suspicion that sometime between tonight and 1/20/09 there will be some sort of military action directed against Iran. Tonight's speech should have been about why we need to stay in Iraq and it was, but it was passingly strange that one of the reasons offered for staying was the much ballyhooed threat of the nuclear threat that Iran represents. While the Taliban are a resurgent force in Afghanistan and the nuke-possessing regime in Pakistan teeters on the edge of sliding down a slope far more dangerous and threatening than anything we faced in Iraq to begin with, Bushco is still fooling around with the "attack Iran" option when that country poses far less threat to our internal security than what is happening on the original playing field in the GWOT that Gee Dub and the gang basically abandoned in early 2003...

The speech was, in general, entirely predictable, filled with the sort of half=truths and platitudes intended to try to solidify the base and sway those in the majority who oppose the Iraq War who aren't likely to fall into the category of 'informed voter'. It was "Mission Accomplished" without the banner, aircraft carrier, and flight suit, trying to go back to the well one more time with the same tired old themes that seemed to work so well for the first couple of election cycles. It provides a sad thin sort of cover for incumbent Republicans more concerned about keeping the base intact than about the general electorate that they will be facing 14 months from now, giving them talking points to oppose spare Democratic majorities and show the folks back home how tough they are in making sure that Kansas farm wives won't somewhere down the road be forced to wear burka's in public...

It's the same old thing, one more time, and only a change of party in the White House or impeachment is going to make it go away...
Posted by: Jack K. / 7:09 PM 0 comments

Sunday, September 09, 2007

The Gift That Keeps On Giving, ver. 2.0: Larry Craig 

...times are tough for my old friend Larry Craig. His world has collapsed into rubble around him; none of his old friends, allies, and barbershop quartet compatriots will even return his calls anymore; Senate Republicans seem anxious to an almost unseemly degree to dig his cold, dead political body up just so they can hang it one more time in an Ethics Committee hearing just to be safe. Larry still has gas in the tank, though, and miles to travel before he lays down his burden for the good people of the Great State of Idaho, so he's going to fight those ugly accusations the Minneapolis DA laid on him in an effort to reclaim his rightful place in the upper ranks of Republican Senatorial seniority...

Good on him, I say! Clearly an ugly cabal of gay activists and overzealous left-wing prosecutors are conspiring to take out one of the towering (ok, so maybe not so towering, but still an important looming offstage presence, even if all those young un's east of the Missippippi have never heard of him) members of the Republican caucus. Despite all the years of scandalous rumors, the strange insistence of innocence in a Congressional page sex scandal in which he hadn't even yet been implicated, and the surprisingly quick marriage to an underling with a pre-manufactured family, my ol' buddy Larry has been a stalwart defender of the values, rights, and interests of...well, at least of the conservative voters in the more populated southern part of the state who give Idaho its sharp red tint. Transcripts don't matter; police reports don't either, and neither do recordings of his interrogation by the arresting officer who talks with that sort of odd lilting cadance that would make any long-time Idaho resident suspicious of his motives, if not his sympathies (Idahoans don't trust themselves to be caught alone with upper Midwesterners as a rule just because of this)...

Larry is going to make his stand, as well he should. The day when simply tapping your feet to your own internal life music in some lefty liberal eastern public restroom is criminalized will be a dark day for every God-fearing American in the overpoweringly manly Intermountain West. It is the failing of overly familiar, sexually indistinct lefty east coast liberals that men's room stalls have become so narrow that a fella can't adequately see through the door cracks for a few minutes to determine whether they are occupied or find enough room to place luggage anywhere but right in front of the door. My old friend Larry is doing the right thing, the righteous thing, in fighting this blight on his character and assault on his career. I'm confident that any right-thinking American, especially anyone of a progressive persuasion who believes in the supremecy of an individual right to privacy and the ability of a little guy to fight against the Abusive Power of Big Brother, will join me in wishing Larry Craig the best of luck in his efforts to clear his name and retain his seat in the United States Senate as the senior Republican Senator from the Gem State...
Posted by: Jack K. / 8:47 PM 0 comments

Fred Thompson, The Gift That Keeps On Giving 

...what the Republican party didn’t need, any more than it needs another hole in its figurative head, was another presidential candidate in the upper reaches of the horse-race polling who has the sort of baggage that makes oppo-research gremlins absolutely writhe on the ground with orgasmic pleasure. Too bad for the GOP, then, that they now get to witness the triumphant descent from heaven’s clouds, accompainied by the angels and archangels of DC pundrity, of Fred Thompson, hero of stage, screen, television, and the Senate Watergate hearings, come to save the party from its own self...

Aside from all the rumors about the behind-the-scenes “management” by his trophy wife that make the John McCain campaign look like the very definition of stability and Nancy Reagan look like the model political spouse, aside from all the “I was agin it even though I may appeared to be fer it” flip-flopping on abortion, and aside from the rather loud stage whisperings about whether Thompson is too lazy to even be an effective candidate, much less an effective president, this little bit of late-breaking news is just the sort of thing that is going to play nicely for whoever is standing at some other podium in any candidate debate that ol’ Fred may drive his old red pickup down to take part in. The Base may be hungering for a true-blue rock-ribbed Old School Man to steer the Grand Old Party back onto the proper course, but they may not be all that cool with someone who provided anything that even looked like assistance to a regime like Libya or any of it’s minions that past Republican administrations worked hard to portray as the example you might find in the Oxford English Dictionary for “ultimate evil”. It’s a cinch that the rest of the voting population would be provided the opportunity to consider that very question if Fred made it into the Big Game, especially when that “everybody deserves representation” argument is pounded to small peices by the fact that several other law firms refused to even take the case...

Fred Thompson was already shaping up to be another GOP presidential candidate who all by himself had more things to explain away, just like most of the other leading candidates, than all of the Democratic candidates put together. This latest bit of news, while possibly playable as just an insignificant moment, is just another bit of information that build the case that -as a lawyer - was simply a principle-free legal Paladin, playing the game of “Have Money, Will Travel” for anyone with the ability to cover the cost for billable hours. Fred Thompson is, indeed, a worthy inclusion into the roster of Republican presidential nominees...
Posted by: Jack K. / 8:34 PM 0 comments

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