Come for the politics, stay for the snark.
by John Cole| 18 Comments
This post is in: Democratic Stupidity
The only real comments I have about the Swift Boat Veterans for Truth is that:
A.) Kerry brought this all on himself.
B.) Kerry brought this all on himself.
C.) Kerry brought this all on hismelf.
D.) The delicious irony that the party whose main platform is “Anyone But Bush” now has a group countering with “Anyone But Kerry.”
by John Cole| 13 Comments
This post is in: General Stupidity
I guess character only matters when you are attacking Democrats. That is why the libs are gleeful about their newly funded ‘fact-checker,’ David Brock.
And how many ways to not get something are these guys going to come up with before they figure out what people are talking about? The right is generally not concerned with errors in OPINION PIECES. It is when the opinions are masquerading as news that the right gets pissy.
Would we bother to fact-check Air America? Hell, no. First, we wouldn’t want to pay a fact-checker to double their audience, second, who has that kind of patience to listen to that all day long?
by John Cole| 48 Comments
This post is in: General Stupidity
So Ted Rall pens an offensive cartoon about Pat Tillman, and MSNBC pulls it. Business as usual, although this statement from MSNBC made me giggle:
MSNBC.com pulled a cartoon by syndicated political cartoonist Ted Rall on Monday.
Rall
by John Cole| 33 Comments
This post is in: Republican Stupidity
I am getting a little tired of these mid-occupation internecine blame games about Iraq:
Rumsfeld’s War, Powell’s Occupation: Rumsfeld wanted Iraqis in on the action – right from the beginning.
he latest post-hoc conventional wisdom on Iraq is that Defense Secretary Rumsfeld won the war but lost the occupation. There are two problems with this analysis (which comes, most forcefully, from The Weekly Standard). First, it’s not Rumsfeld’s occupation; it’s Colin Powell’s and George Tenet’s. Second, although it’s painfully obvious that much is wrong with this occupation, it’s simple-minded to assume that more troops will fix it. More troops may be needed now, but more of the same will not do the job. Something different is needed – and was, right from the start.
A Rumsfeld occupation would have been different, and still might be. Rumsfeld wanted to put an Iraqi face on everything at the outset – not just on the occupation of Iraq, but on its liberation too. That would have made a world of difference.
It is not the State Department’s occupation. It is our occupation, and the blame, if things are going poorly, does not fall on Rumsfeld or Powell. It falls on Bush/Cheney, and not to get all high and mighty, but this is more important than a blue dress.
Cripes- I am as big a Bush supporter on this issue as you can be, but these idiotic turf wars that keep getting ginned up are stupid and pointless, and as irritating as the Monday morning quarterbacking being done by the Democrats regarding 9/11. Bush is the President, Bush made the ultimate decisions. If you think there is blame to be spread around, it starts and ends with Bush.
It is called accountability. You know, after all, Bush did choose Powell and Rumsfeld.
by John Cole| 5 Comments
This post is in: Politics
When I saw yesterday that Kerry was extending an invitation for Al Sharpton to speak at the DNC, the only reason I could think for this was:
In all seriousness, this probably means that the Democrats have some seriously troubling internal polling data regarding the African-American vote.
From the NY Times today:
For weeks, Senator John Kerry savored a Democratic Party that was unified in rallying behind his presidential candidacy. But in recent days, influential black and Hispanic political leaders whom the campaign had counted on for support have been openly complaining that Mr. Kerry’s organization lacks diversity and is failing to appeal directly to minority voters.
Even as Mr. Kerry spoke here on Thursday to the National Conference of Black Mayors – an appearance his community outreach team viewed as critical to building a network of minority support – two influential Latino leaders circulated harsh letters expressing concern about the campaign’s dealings with minorities.
And in interviews over the last week, more than a dozen minority elected officials and political strategists voiced concerns about what they said was the dearth of representation in Mr. Kerry’s inner circle and worried that he was taking black and Hispanic votes for granted.
“The reality is that we’re entering May and the Kerry campaign has no message out there to the Hispanic community nor has there been any inkling of any reach-out effort in any state to the Hispanic electorate, at least with any perceivable sustainable strategy in mind,” Alvaro Cifuentes, the chairman of the Democratic National Committee’s Hispanic Caucus, said in an e-mail message to party leaders provided by a recipient who insisted on anonymity. “It is no secret that the word of mouth in the Beltway and beyond is not that he does not get it, it is that he does not care.”
That is what I thought. The man can’t even rally his base.
by John Cole| 5 Comments
This post is in: Humorous
Jeff Goldstein is a genius.
by John Cole| 9 Comments
This post is in: Domestic Politics
Good news for the internet:
The Senate voted overwhelmingly to restore a ban on taxing Internet connections for four years, stopping short of the permanent ban approved by the House.
The two chambers will try to work out their differences over an issue that pits a U.S. telecommunications industry trying to expand a range of services against state and local governments worried they could lose billions of dollars in tax revenue.
Voting against the ban:
Voting against the Senate bill were Democratic Sens. Jeff Bingaman, New Mexico; Bob Graham, Florida; and Frank Lautenberg, New Jersey.
Apparently, Kerry did not want his patriotism questioned again, so he declined to vote.