Poor Josh Marshall only likes one side of a story being told- his side. Isn’t that stifling dissent?
Archives for 2003
Senatorial Lunacy
This post by Matt Stinson is so important I am copying the whole thing and pasting it here, because he is absolutely right, and this is so damn infuriating everyone should be outraged:
It’s time for a new caucus in the Senate and the House: Democrats and Republicans United on Behalf of Saddling the Iraqi People with Crippling Debt. Why? Here’s why:
Defying weeks of intense White House lobbying, a narrowly divided Senate voted last night to convert half of President Bush’s $20.3 billion Iraq rebuilding plan into a loan that would be forgiven if other donor nations write off the debt incurred by the ousted government of Saddam Hussein.
The 51 to 47 vote came an hour after the Republican-controlled House defeated a similar loan amendment, 226 to 200, setting up potentially difficult House-Senate negotiations next week as lawmakers rush to conclude a final spending plan for Iraq before an international donors conference next Thursday in Madrid.
This reckless and unilateral move — what other country in the world supports this decision, hmm? — by the Senate will doubtless alienate our allies. It also stands to anger the Iraqis themselves, who already must toil under the burden of Saddam’s debts to Russia, France, and other countries. Democrats who are likely to dance with glee after the passage of this amendment are dancing on the backs of Iraqi people. But Democrats aren’t the only villains of this piece. Lest I forget to mention it, Sen. Lindsey Graham (R-SC), a Republican co-sponsor of the loan amendment, is an ass for waxing populist with this quote about the legislation:
“I don’t want to give in to a great lie. You can’t buy your way out of this problem. . . . You can’t take $10 billion of taxpayer money, [while] people are losing their jobs, to buy your way out of a great lie. It would be terrible if the people of this country who have sacrificed so much wound up not getting a dime back.”
By “great lie,” Sen. Graham means the charge by the left that the war was “all about the oil.” How much do you want to bet, however, that the left will seize upon this loan as evidence that the US really is out to rape Iraq? (Wouldn’t the left do that, regardless? –ed. Yes, but that’s besides the point.) Thank you, Lindsey, for making us look like tools.
Stepping away from the name-calling, two questions come to mind in the wake of this amendment. First, where were all the debt relief lobbyists and activists while this amendment was being discussed? What, is third-world debt not third-world debt when it’s Iraqi debt? Second, if this amendment doesn’t get defeated in conference, will other countries refuse to give money to Iraq unless they, too, can get loans? Haven’t 43 Democrats and 8 Republicans effectively crippled international aid for Iraq by going this route?
Postscript: When the Iraqi government emerges and democracy is consolidated, I’m all for negotiations with the government to see if they’ll be willing to pay the US back for our investment in Iraq’s future. But I am morally opposed to forcing someone to choose between debt and anarchy, especially when we, by invading Iraq, were responsible for creating the conditions that made the anarchy possible.
Think of what all the America haters (both the ones overseas and within our borders) are going to say about this- they are going to claim this is nothing more than a racket, we occupy a country, destroy it, rebuild it, and charge them for the construction. Cute deal. Here is what Matt left out of his post:
Bush had sternly warned Congress yesterday not to convert any part of his rebuilding plan into a loan. “The administration strongly opposes efforts to convert any portion of this assistance to a loan mechanism,” the White House said in a statement. “Doing so would slow efforts to stabilize the region and to relieve pressure on our troops, raise questions about our commitment to building a democratic and self-governing Iraq, and impair our ability to encourage other nations to provide badly needed assistance without saddling Iraq with additional unsustainable debt.”
That argument won the day in the House, although 18 Republicans voted for a Democratic amendment to turn half of the reconstruction aid into a loan. House Majority Leader Tom DeLay (R-Tex.) used a parliamentary tactic to prevent a GOP loan amendment from reaching a vote, then he appealed to his colleagues’ patriotism.
“We will pay any price and bear any burden to advance the cause of human liberty,” DeLay told lawmakers. “And after the shock and awe of major combat, the price and burden of human hope shifted from the battlefield to the town hall and the town market. And that hope cannot come in the form of a promissory note.”
Bush, the dummy, and DeLay, the evil Nazi, making more sense than any of the asshats that voted to saddle a nation that does not even really exist with 10 billion in debt. Jackasses. I wish I could express how angry this makes me, and I can guarantee you that Matt Stinson is angrier. BTW- If you thought Senatorial grandstanding was limited to the camera, check out the number of amendments offered to this bill.
And if you guys aren’t ready Matt’s Fearful Symmetry every day, you are missing out.
Maddy Talks Again
Note to former Clinton officials- Shut the F— Up.:
US President George W. Bush’s foreign policy “is not good for America, not good for the world,” Madeleine Albright, the former US secretary of state under Bill Clinton’s presidency, told French radio.
In an interview with the Europe 1 station Albright heavily criticised the actions of the Republican leadership that replaced the Democratic administration she worked for, and notably the “chaos” that reigns in Iraq.
“America is much stronger in a multilateral system, we must be on the same side, work with other people in the world. It shouldn’t be America versus the others,” Albright said, speaking in French.
“It’s difficult to be in France and criticise my government. But I’m doing so because Bush and the people working for him have a foreign policy that is not good for America, not good for the world,” she said.
Yeah, it must be REALLY difficult to criticize the United States while relaxing in Paris. Has to be KILLING you. BTW, Ms. Albright- when are we going to have elections in Kosovo? This graf just infuriates me:
On Iraq, Albright said “I fear that there really is chaos there. We don’t know what’s going to happen. One or two Americans a day are killed.”
Bush’s insistence before and after the war that Saddam Hussein had ties to Osama bin Laden failed to convince her — “I didn’t really think that there was a link” — but, she said, the situation was getting to a point that Iraq was becoming a magnet for anti-US militants.
HUNH? Bush’s insistence that Osama and Hussein were tied together? Did I miss something?
Every time I am so damn sick and tired of Republicans (like I was about 2-3 weeks ago), the Democrats just start saying and doing whatever the hell they think they have to in order to get elected, and it invariably pushes me back to the GOP. Why can’t there be a viable Libertarian party?
Cats and Dogs
This will raise some eyebrows:
VV: I’m curious. What did you think of the Rush Limbaugh incident? I wrote an article [in Slate] essentially in support of what Limbaugh said, that Donovan McNabb was in fact overrated and that a lot of sportswriters were rooting for him to succeed because he was black. I admitted that it was certainly true in my case. My liberal friends were horrified. Several of them won’t speak to me now. That’s certainly an indication that in one form or another, the subject of race is still a hot button in sports.
LR: I think that’s true, and I thought of that when I heard about what Limbaugh said. Of course a lot of people, myself included, rooted for black ballplayers because they were black. I don’t know why that should be considered a controversial statement. That leads, inevitably, to overrating certain players. I’m not defending Limbaugh’s politics, but I think he just said out loud what some people were thinking. I don’t see anything particularly wrong with it.
VV is Allan Barra of the Village Voice, LR is Lester Rodney, described in the piece as “the sports columnist and sports editor for The Daily Worker, the largest and most influential Communist newspaper in the U.S. For more than a decade he was one of the leading agitators for the breaking of baseball’s color barrier.”
Communists to the defense of Rush Limbaugh. It’s a mad, mad, world out there.
(Via Max Sawicky)
Is He Senile?
My brother, after the BoSox manager left Pedro in through that painful 8th inning, stated:
“They are not cursed- they are stupid.”
*** Update ***
Yankees won. Grady Little should be jobless before his plane lands in Beantown.
That Will Leave a Mark
Allan Colmes, the liberal half of Hannity and Colmes, just made Zack Exley, a smirking, condescending twerp from MoveOn.Org, look like an utter fool and a babbling idiot on national television. I can’t wit for the transcripts. Exley did not have one serious respnse to Colme’s questions, and instead had all sorts of cutesy words and phrases like ‘misunderestimated,’ etc.
In other words, it was like listening to Alec Baldwin without the acting talent.
Odd
Not sure what to make of this, but I notice that my referral logs show a number of hits from John Kerry’s blog. Oddly enough, it was not simply a mistake.
Also, it is important to note that Kerry has posted an explanation on his blogsite why he is against the 87 billion request for Iraq. it is the standard DNC boilerplate:
The best way to support our troops and take the target off their backs is with a real strategy to win the peace in Iraq – not by throwing $87 billion at George Bush’s failed policies. I am voting ‘no’ on the Iraq resolution to hold the President accountable and force him finally to develop a real plan that secures the safety of our troops and stabilizes Iraq.
The Administration has wasted every opportunity to build an international coalition in Iraq.
They sure are sticking to the talking points- they still think there is no plan, and they still refuse to admit there is an international coalition. The unanimous Security Council vote today probably really pissed them off, but why let reality get in the way of rhetoric.
With our soldiers dying on a daily basis, the President needs to change course. But rather than putting in place a real plan, he has spent months drifting and zigzagging.
From dictionary.com:
dai