Posts from ‘October, 2007’

Predictably, the cable squawk shows are going to town on Sen. Hillary Clinton’s drop-jaw moment during last night’s candidates debate.

In case you’ve been out of the Western Hemisphere since last night, Clinton, responding to a question about it, stuck up for New York Gov. Eliot Spitzer and his plan to issue driver’s licenses to illegal aliens.

What nonsense could be less newsworthy than Britney Spears’ latest self-destructive antics? Try this, for a piece of utterly worthless, manufactured controversy.

When it’s Sunday with an election approaching, it’s time to watch Tim Russert do his gotcha routine on yet another Democratic candidate during “Meet the Press.”*

Russert’s M.O. is simple: go over the guest’s record looking for any apparent inconsistencies that, taken out of context months or years later, make the person appear to be a hopeless flip-flopper or unprincipled pol who shifts with any change of public opinion.

Quote: “The Congressional Budget Office estimates the future additional costs of these wars over the next 10 years at between $481 billion to $1.01 trillion, depending on how fast the wars in Iraq and Afghanistan are wound down.”

One wonders, looking back, if the U.S. might have done better to hold a secret meeting with Saddam Hussein and offer him $2 billion a year for life to behave — with strings, of course.

The new sanctions will be piled on top of old sanctions that have done nothing but make average Iranians see the U.S. as their enemy, not just their government’s foe. Decades-old sanctions haven’t caused Iran’s regime to alter course in any discernable way.

The linked story indicates that aside from being unlikely to work, the new sanctions will probably further alienate what remains of U.S. allies in opposing Iran’s alleged nuclear weapons ambitions.

What happened on the way to Gerberding’s appearance reads like something out of the old Soviet Union, with Kremlin political hacks doctoring with a heavy hand what could be released to the public. In Bush-occupied Washington, the Office of Management and Budget does the censoring.

If Iranians are hellbent on having nuclear weapons — on making their country a potential nuclear target, by the way — there’s only one way to stop them for sure: invade and change the regime.

This begs a host of questions, beginning with, Is the U.S. prepared to invade another country and contend with another open-ended quagmire? Or, for that matter, is the U.S. prepared to do that to a whole series of countries it might not want to have nuclear weapons?

Currently, some 38 million American households are unable to meet their need for home heating during winter. Two thirds have annual incomes of less than $20,000. Many consist of the elderly and/or people with disabilities.

So, here’s the scene: President Bush, probably accompanied by his “torture’s-no-big-deal,” assistant, David “Attaboy” Addington, puts the Dalai Lama face to face with “Deadeye Dick” Cheney for a little friendly chit-chat.

Randi Rhodes was back on Air America today, “putting the broad in broadcasting,” as feisty and full of political pushback as ever.

Rhodes kicked off her return with a quick rundown of her harrowing experience. Some details are at odds with news accounts.