Posts from ‘October, 2006’

About four years ago, when we first became interested in blogs, John Cole’s Balloon Juice was among the first we visited regularly. Not that we agreed with him politically most of the time.



What made Cole’s blog especially interesting and worthwhile was that he was fair-minded and reasonably civil with those who expressed opposing views in a civil way. Balloon Juice still exhibits those good characteristics, but oh what a difference a few Bush & Co. years have made.



In a post titled “This Is No Fun,” Cole tells how he got into the swing of Republican politics as a teenager in the mid-1980s. But now he’s one of many millions who’ve had more than enough of neoconservative Republicanism.

Quote: “For decades, activist judges have tried to redefine America. Just this last week in New Jersey, another activist court issued a ruling that raises doubt about the institution of marriage. We believe marriage is a union between a man and a woman, and should be defended.”

It’s always the same with the neoconservative Republicans, isn’t it? Don’t believe your lying eyes, they say, pay attention to what we tell you.



Recall 2000. They didn’t want to talk about foreign affairs, about which their candidate George W. Bush was woefully ignorant. They didn’t even want to get into national security, about which their candidate knew almost nothing.



No, in 2000 neocon Republicans wanted to talk about how Democrat opponent Al Gore had supposedly sought undeserved credit for inventing the Internet.



Recall 2002. Republicans didn’t want to talk about Bush’s already lackluster record as president, and certainly not about his and their own screw-ups that left us wide open for the 9-11 attack. . .

CNN’s rare gem, Jack Cafferty, committed a steel-tipped, serrated-edged disembowelment of Wolf Blitzer’s whole sorry “Situation Room” program today. And, Cafferty did the deed during that very program, with — incredibly — Blitzer calling him “a good man” afterward.



We believe this only because we actually saw the whole surreal thing.



To appreciate this incident you have to understand some background. Despite all that’s going in domestic politics, the war, the international situation, etc., Blitzer’s show was almost entirely devoted to letting Vice President Dick Cheney’s right-wing-zealot wife Lynne vent about recent developments. . .

Well, what do you know? It turns out the captive who described Saddam Hussein’s Iraq as being in cahoots with al Qaeda was tortured. The guy was tortured into making things up.



Just think, this tortured prisoner’s misinformation formed the basis for then-Secretary of State Colin Powell’s erroneous charges against Iraq at the U.N. The same bad information helped see to the U.S. invasion of Iraq and all the terrible things that have resulted for both countries.

President Bush and his enablers and excusers in right-wing Republicanland have truly dodged a bullet.



Two or three weeks ago it dawned on Karl Rove, or somebody, that branding opponents of Bush’s open-ended Iraq quagmire was backfiring. So they’ve mostly cut it out.



Good thing for Bush & Co. they did, because the latest bunch to start speaking up against staying the failed course would present a likely insurmountable trash-and-bash challenge even for Rove and the right-wing noise machine.

Rush Limbaugh is to political discourse as projectile vomiting is to a hearty appetite — and twice as disgusting.



The multimillionaire blowhard’s latest contribution to the politics of personal destruction is attacking Parkinson’s disease sufferer Michael J. Fox for, Limbaugh charges, faking tremors in a political ad Fox appears in.



Limbaugh lacks qualifications to render expert opinion on anything but conning hirelings into buying drugs for him illegally. Nevertheless, he’s now providing the droolers, creeps and cranks who suck up his daily spew with supposedly expert medical opinion.

Pssst! Hey, pal, wanna buy some electronic voting machine software? Diebold’s very own, on mini flash drives, floppies, whatever’s your pleasure.



Just show me the money, honey, and they’re all yours.



Think that’s farfetched? You’d better think again. The damned stuff could show up next as prizes in Cracker Jacks or boxes of cereal. . .

Leader Pelosi’s statement is sure to be met with angry cries of “cut ‘n run,” with special vehemence since right-wing powers that be have singled her out for special attention — read “demonizing” — this election season.



There’s just one problem for Republican trash-and-bash specialists: polls show about 80 percent of Americans solidly agree with Pelosi. . .

Lou Dobbs’ CNN show this afternoon included an item on the immigration control bill Congress passed so hastily a few weeks back. Dobbs was obviously annoyed that President Bush hasn’t signed it into law, so work can commence on the 700-mile border fence Dobbs seems to think will keep Mexicans from becoming illegal immigrants.



On hearing Bush has been dawdling over signing it, our first thought went something like this. . .