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You are here: Home / Politics / Republican Stupidity / Spooky

Spooky

by Tim F|  July 12, 200710:59 am| 84 Comments

This post is in: Republican Stupidity

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Sullivan on Bush’s press conference today:

He’s saying he agrees with his Republican critics. He’s blaming the generals for all the combat decisions that have made this war a failure. His blaming Tommy Franks specifically for the troop levels was particularly piquant.

The Onion:

DC—Departing from his usual hopeful rhetoric during a question-and-answer session with reporters in the White House Rose Garden, President Bush suggested Tuesday that the war in Iraq has not been successful because the nation’s armed forces are “just not very good.”

“When the decision was made to liberate Iraq, I was going on what my advisers were telling me and what everyone has said for nearly a century—that the U.S. military is the best in the world,” Bush said. “But if that were the case, and we did have the most powerful army, navy, marines, and air force on the globe, we would be winning, right?”

The major thing the Onion got wrong is that Bush held his press conference on a Thursday.

***Update***

A relevant excerpt from the transcript:

Well, I asked that question, “Do you need more?” to General Tommy Franks.

In the first phase of this operation, General Franks, you know, was obviously in charge.

And during our discussions in the run-up to the decision to remove Saddam Hussein after he ignored the Security Council resolutions, my primary question to General Franks was: Do you have what it takes to succeed? And do you have what it takes to succeed after you succeed in removing Saddam Hussein?

And his answer was yes.

It is funny how commanders who tell the president what he doesn’t want to hear tend to get fired. Ask Peter Pace, or Eric Shinseki. It’s easy to rely on the advice of commanders who know they will lose their job if they contradict you.

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Reader Interactions

84Comments

  1. 1.

    Dreggas

    July 12, 2007 at 11:06 am

    The Onion started as satire, then satire became reality.

  2. 2.

    Grumpy Code Monkey

    July 12, 2007 at 11:10 am

    Satire is dead; these chuckers killed it.

  3. 3.

    ThymeZone

    July 12, 2007 at 11:12 am

    I watched the entire pressers, as I stated to another thread, even taking the wireless laptop into the bathroom so I could listen in the shower.

    These were my impressions:

    1. This man is seriously mentally ill. Totally delusional

    2. He has no respect for the people whatever

    3. He takes no responsibility for the giant train wreck

    4. He is coached and rehearsed to use big lies and inversions to talk his way out of anything and everything

    5. He has no respect for democracy, but wants to pimp it in a faraway land that has never had it before

    6. He claims that we are safer today and that Al Qaeda is diminished, in the face of evidence to the contrary

    7. He is trying to muddy the magical “September” thing where we look at the surge and ascertain its effects

    8. He constantly tries to separate Congress from the people, when in his job, Congress IS the people

    9. He resorts to fearmongering about once every five minutes, while at the same time telling us that he’s made us safer

    It was a true visit to the Twilight Zone. Material that could have been written by Joseph Heller.

  4. 4.

    Mr Furious

    July 12, 2007 at 11:12 am

    Here ya go, Andrew, a nice big mug of “We Told You So” and a chaser shot of “Shut the Fuck Up.”

    Seriously, it IS heartening to read Sullivan and others like him (John included) fianlly seeing through the bullshit. As satisfying as that paragraph is, it is also infuriating. That “dim” “out of his depth” moron emperor has been naked for fucking years and you only get so much credit for finally looking up at him now.

  5. 5.

    Zifnab

    July 12, 2007 at 11:19 am

    The major thing the Onion got wrong is that Bush held his press conference on a Thursday.

    The articles aren’t based in reality, John. If everything they said was true, it wouldn’t be comedy, it would be journalism. And we don’t tolerate that shit in the US.

  6. 6.

    Jake

    July 12, 2007 at 11:22 am

    Nice post Tim. I saw this in the print version of The Onion and thought “Ha ha, even Bush would never explicitly blame the troops!”

    Whoops.

    It appears that he sees Shiite militias, Hezbollah, al Qaeda, Hamas and the Sunni insurgents as indistinguishable.

    They all look alike.

    He’s arguing he didn’t decide to go to war; Saddam did … He’s blaming the generals for all the combat decisions that have made this war a failure.

    Shorter Bush: “Nuh-uh! Another little boy did it and ran away!”

    I’m just surprised there’s no mention of how the filthy, evil rat fink Dems screwed everything up.

    We have a president who seems unable to understand the critical dynamics of the war he is allegedly waging.

    Seems unable? SEEMS? With whatever respect that is due to Mr. Sullivan, what the hell would it take to convince the man? A signed affidavit from the President, witnessed by Cheney and the USSC?

    “I George W. Bush, have no bloody idea what I’m doing.”

    Cripes.

  7. 7.

    Tsulagi

    July 12, 2007 at 11:36 am

    So this is what we get from the fountain head of the party of responsibility and accountability, the Commander Guy leading the Sisters of Perpetual Victimhood: Saddam made me do it and Tommy Franks fucked it up. Amazing.

    Would like see him keep on that Tommy Franks fucked it up meme. Stay that course. If he does, Franks just might show up to bitchslap the idiot with his Medal of Freedom calling him the fucking stupidest Commander Guy on the face of the Earth.

  8. 8.

    Rob

    July 12, 2007 at 11:49 am

    The people surrounding the president (and I suspect Andrew as well) have a near-religious faith in the ability for the military to fix whatever is broken. Ergo, if we fail then it is either:
    1) The fault of the military (generals) – which is the view of the administration or
    2) The fault of the civilian leadership – which is the view of Andrew & like minded others

    I don’t recall ever seeing him write anything that conceived of the possibility that there are some conflicts which cannot and will not be resolved through military means. Just like Vietnam, we’ll be hashing through this over and over again for the next 40 years.

  9. 9.

    Chad N. Freude

    July 12, 2007 at 11:52 am

    The Onion started as satire, then satire became reality.

    Actually, it’s prophecy. The Onion is the Voice of God.

  10. 10.

    Ellison, Ellensburg, Ellers, and Lambchop

    July 12, 2007 at 11:55 am

    Odd…no one else who was there heard anything like what Andy is claiming he heard. Not CNN, not Harry Reid, not CBS, not BushIsHitlerAndIHATEHIMSOMUCH!.com. No transcripts bear it out, and Andy posts no quotes.

    Did Andy’s dog translate the presser for him? Or does Andy communicate with Bush secretly through the TV, taking private clues from Bush’s blinking patterns that only Andy can decipher?

  11. 11.

    Dreggas

    July 12, 2007 at 12:00 pm

    Mr Furious Says:

    Here ya go, Andrew, a nice big mug of “We Told You So” and a chaser shot of “Shut the Fuck Up.”

    Seriously, it IS heartening to read Sullivan and others like him (John included) fianlly seeing through the bullshit. As satisfying as that paragraph is, it is also infuriating. That “dim” “out of his depth” moron emperor has been naked for fucking years and you only get so much credit for finally looking up at him now.

    I started reading Sullivan a few months ago. While I don’t agree with him on everything he seems reasonable enough but like I said I only started reading him a few months ago.

  12. 12.

    jrg

    July 12, 2007 at 12:02 pm

    “I’m driven with a mission from God. God would tell me, ‘George, go and fight those terrorists in Afghanistan.’ And I did, and then God would tell me, ‘George go and end the tyranny in Iraq,’ and I did.”

    Now that it’s obvious that “God’s Plan” was idiotic, all of the sudden it was “Saddam’s Plan”?

    “We’ll succeed unless we quit.”

    Now that it’s obvious that “success” is not possible, it was Tommy Franks’ fault from the beginning?

    I’ve got a theory… Maybe unhinged Christian fundies make bad leaders. To hear the Republicans talk, we’d be better off with a silver-spoon, born-again ex-crackhead in office than a liberal veteran or statesman.

    At least Bush hates the gays, so he’s doing his part to protect the sanctity of marriage.

  13. 13.

    chopper

    July 12, 2007 at 12:04 pm

    “it was like that when i got here”

  14. 14.

    D. Broder

    July 12, 2007 at 12:05 pm

    This is clearly a watershed moment in the Bush presidency. By taking full responsibility for the war even though, as he has at various times noted, he was hampered by bad information and bad advice from the CIA, the State Department, the FBI and now the Pentagon, in short: by every agency and department in his administration that had a hand in the toppling of Saddam, Bush is signaling a turning point in his administration. If Lincoln could glance forward through the space of a hundred fifty years, he might count himself lucky to only have had to find the right General to win his war; Bush’s challenge is to find the right SecDef, the right CIA Director, the right AG, the right Congress, the right General, the right officer corps, the right non-coms, the right private soldiers, the right provisional government, and the right people to be liberated. Now that the core problem has been identified, it can be addressed, and, barring partisan interference from the “hate Bush” crowd, we should see a turnaround on all fronts in the very near future.

  15. 15.

    Dantheman

    July 12, 2007 at 12:11 pm

    As Tom Lehrer said, doing political satire became impossible when Henry Kissinger won the nobel Peace Prize.

  16. 16.

    ed

    July 12, 2007 at 12:14 pm

    Well, Clinton invaded Monica with a cigar and didn’t have a plan for getting out either! (The best I could do for the obligatory “Clinton did it too” chorus.)

  17. 17.

    Chad N. Freude

    July 12, 2007 at 12:17 pm

    Clinton would have done it but he didn’t have a four-and-a-half-year war to do it with.

  18. 18.

    Rusty Shackleford

    July 12, 2007 at 12:25 pm

    “D. Broder” deserves some props. That post is hilarious.

  19. 19.

    Chad N. Freude

    July 12, 2007 at 12:27 pm

    The fault of the military (generals) – which is the view of the administration

    Think about that – What president — even Lincoln, Roosevelt, or Truman — is going to say “Well, things went badly, but only because I didn’t listen to my generals and went against their advice”?

    I don’t recall ever seeing him write anything that conceived of the possibility that there are some conflicts which cannot and will not be resolved through military means.

    Well, there’s always the conflict over gay marriage.

  20. 20.

    The Other Steve

    July 12, 2007 at 12:38 pm

    Lambchop… Here’s the transcript

    QUESTION: Thank you, sir.

    You have spoken passionately about the consequences of failure in Iraq. Your critics say you failed to send enough troops there at the start, failed to keep Al Qaida from stepping into the void created by the collapse of Saddam’s army, failed to put enough pressure on Iraq’s government to make the political reconciliation necessary to keep the sectarian violence the country is suffering from now from occurring.

    So why should the American people feel you have the vision for victory in Iraq, sir?

    BUSH: Those are all legitimate questions that I’m sure historians will analyze. I mean, one of the questions is: Should we have sent more in the beginning?

    BUSH: Well, I asked that question, “Do you need more?” to General Tommy Franks.

    In the first phase of this operation, General Franks, you know, was obviously in charge.

    And during our discussions in the run-up to the decision to remove Saddam Hussein after he ignored the Security Council resolutions, my primary question to General Franks was: Do you have what it takes to succeed? And do you have what it takes to succeed after you succeed in removing Saddam Hussein?

    And his answer was yes.

    Now, history is going to look back to determine whether or not there might have been a different decision made. But at the time, the only thing I can tell you is that I relied upon military commander to make the proper decision about troop strength in acting.

    And I can remember meeting with the Joint Chiefs, who said: We’ve reviewed the plan, and seemed satisfied with it.

    I remember sitting in the PIAT (ph), or the situation room, downstairs here at the White House. And I went to commander and commander, that were all responsible for different aspects of the operation to remove Saddam.

    He’s clearly blaming the military for the failure.

    Which is not surprising. The modern Republican party is all about blaming someone else.

  21. 21.

    Tsulagi

    July 12, 2007 at 12:39 pm

    “D. Broder” deserves some props. That post is hilarious.

    I’ll give some; that was pretty good.

    Now that the core problem has been identified, it can be addressed, and, barring partisan interference from the “hate Bush” crowd, we should see a turnaround on all fronts in the very near future.

    No doubt in September. A Friedman unit after that at the latest.

  22. 22.

    The Other Steve

    July 12, 2007 at 12:40 pm

    I’d love to hear lambchop’s spin on that answer. He’s basically saying “Not my fault. I went to the military, and they told me they had this handled.”

  23. 23.

    HyperIon

    July 12, 2007 at 12:42 pm

    His blaming Tommy Franks specifically for the troop levels was particularly piquant.

    piquant? sullivan is a pretentious asshole. just because he has finally come to his senses on iraq does not change that.

  24. 24.

    Rob

    July 12, 2007 at 12:52 pm

    Think about that – What president—even Lincoln, Roosevelt, or Truman—is going to say “Well, things went badly, but only because I didn’t listen to my generals and went against their advice”?

    Fair point. I was under the impression Kennedy & Eisenhower took (publicly) personal responsibility for the Bay of Pigs & the U2 incident respectively.

  25. 25.

    Tulkinghorn

    July 12, 2007 at 12:53 pm

    Bush must realize that that all of these commanders, from Shinseki to Franks to Petraeus, each must have a few inches of internal memos and reports supplied to the White House and the Pentagon that warn Bush that troop levels have always been inadequate. Now that Bush is blaming the generals directly, I am sure a lot of those memos will find their way to the newspapers.

    Between this, the statements in support of Gonzo the perjurer, the self-serving commutation of Libby’s sentence, and the felonious directive to Meiers to skip out on her subpeona, I am beginning to believe that he wants to be impeached. His 24% will always believe him and support him and love him, so the rest of the country can go to hell as far as he is concerned.

    Is this just a cry for help? If we fail to impeach him will he just take poison like the doomed headmaster from Delderfield’s To Serve Them All My Days?

  26. 26.

    HyperIon

    July 12, 2007 at 12:53 pm

    this is how AS explains his support of Bush…

    I trusted a president after a national catastrophe in a time of war. I had become completely inured to the evidence of Saddam’s WMDs, and mindful of our under-estimating his WMD potential in 1990. I assumed that no president would launch a war without sufficient troops to keep the peace therefater. I was unaware we had effectively withdrawn from the Geneva Conventions. I was deeply suspicious of the motives of those who opposed the president, many of whom, I suspected, would have opposed him under any circumstance

    this sounds a lot like Hillary’s explanation, no? except for the last bit where Sullivan just comes out and admits that he assumed those opposed to Bush had bad motives.

  27. 27.

    caustics

    July 12, 2007 at 1:02 pm

    Odd…no one else who was there heard anything like what Andy is claiming he heard. Not CNN, not Harry Reid, not CBS, not BushIsHitlerAndIHATEHIMSOMUCH!.com. No transcripts bear it out, and Andy posts no quotes.

    We shouldn’t be so hard Lambchop’s knee-jerk hysteria and lack of interest in facts.
    His hold on reality has an elevated threat level.

  28. 28.

    Billy K

    July 12, 2007 at 1:04 pm

    I started reading Sullivan a few months ago. While I don’t agree with him on everything he seems reasonable enough but like I said I only started reading him a few months ago.

    Sullivan IS reasonable – and a great writer. I read his blog every day. But his view is so tainted by ideology and wishful thinking, he is very slow to get things right, or sometimes to even have an opinion. It was only last week (or maybe two weeks ago) he claimed he had finally lost ALL respect for Bush.

    It says right on his masthead, “To see what’s in front of one’s nose needs a constant struggle.” Sullivan struggles a lot.

  29. 29.

    caustics

    July 12, 2007 at 1:10 pm

    I meant “hard on”, of course…damn shrinking keys.

  30. 30.

    The Other Steve

    July 12, 2007 at 1:10 pm

    Sullivan IS reasonable – and a great writer. I read his blog every day. But his view is so tainted by ideology and wishful thinking, he is very slow to get things right, or sometimes to even have an opinion.

    Ideology is a bad bad boy.

  31. 31.

    RSA

    July 12, 2007 at 1:23 pm

    Here’s my favorite question from the presser, from (of course) Helen Thomas:

    Q Mr. President, you started this war, a war of your choosing, and you can end it alone, today, at this point — bring in peacekeepers, U.N. peacekeepers. Two million Iraqis have fled their country as refugees. Two million more are displaced. Thousands and thousands are dead. Don’t you understand, you brought the al Qaeda into Iraq.

    Bush’s response: Saddam started this war, the world’s a better place without him, war is hard, kill the bad guys there so they don’t come here. I didn’t see it, but I can only imagine his pursed lips and squirming as he listened to the question leaking into his bubble.

  32. 32.

    Andrew

    July 12, 2007 at 1:36 pm

    Sullivan IS reasonable

    Bwhahahahahahah. Sully goes into a gay panic whenever he sees a penis shaped building, a lesbian panic whenever he hears about Hillary, and a Hayekian panic whenever he reads about universal health care.

  33. 33.

    LITBMueller

    July 12, 2007 at 1:37 pm

    I’m sure, if he saw the press conference, Franks could be quoted as saying, “WHAT THE FUUUUUUU…….???????????”

    For, it was RUMMY (you know, the guy Bush didn’t wanna fire) who was the driving force between “let’s go in lean,” along with the ever-optimistic Wolfie and Feith:

    Obsessed with minimizing the size of the invading force, Secretary Rumsfeld dismissed advice from experts inside and outside government who argued for a larger contingent than the 140,000 or so troops sent into Iraq. His efforts “played havoc” with the military’s preparations, according to the authors, and sowed the seeds for the anarchy that followed the fall of the Hussein regime. The plan that Central Command wrote under Secretary Rumsfeld’s close supervision was also based on hopelessly optimistic Central Intelligence Agency predictions that Iraqi units would capitulate — i.e. not merely surrender but also change sides. “Rarely has a military plan depended on such a bold assumption,” the authors write.

    So, that was an AMAZING re-write of history by The Decider. I would never expect the dodos in the press corps to call him on it, but will there be a story or two out there tomorrow perhaps?

  34. 34.

    The Other Steve

    July 12, 2007 at 1:40 pm

    The biggest dilemna that I have in mindset coming from Bush is the whole notion of “killing the bad guys”.

    Sure, he’s right. The world is better off without Saddam. Nobody wants a brutal dictator. But the problem comes in that the cure has become worse than the disease.

    I keep thinking about Russia. My girlfriend is Russian, and she’s a very nice person. So is her family, and her friends.

    Had we gone to war to get rid of Communism, what would have been the end result?

    Sure, maybe it would have worked. But the end result would have been destablizing to the country. And while Communist asshats were brutal to hundreds of thousands, an invasion would have been brutal to the millions who lived there. In balance, the people are better off if we left the dictator.

    This bleeding heart mentality of Bush lacks so much realism, and it doesn’t see through to the negative consequences of his “Saddam is bad” black & white mentality.

    That’s not to say I want the dictators to remain, but it seems that the better option is to push them in other ways. To encourage the people to rise up, either militarily, or emotionally. Russia and China are now on roads to progress. The road is bumpy at times, and they don’t always swerve how we would like. But at least they are driving their own car.

  35. 35.

    Mr Furious

    July 12, 2007 at 1:41 pm

    General Franks, you know, was obviously in charge.

    So, um, Tommy Franks is/was The Decider™?

  36. 36.

    Chad N. Freude

    July 12, 2007 at 1:47 pm

    an AMAZING a typical re-write of history by The Decider

    Fixed. Amazing would be recounting history as it actually happened.

  37. 37.

    The Other Steve

    July 12, 2007 at 1:47 pm

    Following up on my previous point, I just want to say by letting people drive their own car, they have more invested in the path they take.

    I’m still amazed at how Republicans can complain about welfare at home, and then embrace the same mistakes abroad.

  38. 38.

    The Other Steve

    July 12, 2007 at 1:50 pm

    So, um, Tommy Franks is/was The Decider™?

    No it makes him The In Charger(tm).

  39. 39.

    Mr Furious

    July 12, 2007 at 1:53 pm

    Sullivan IS reasonable – and a great writer. I read his blog every day. But his view is so tainted by ideology and wishful thinking, he is very slow to get things right, or sometimes to even have an opinion. It was only last week (or maybe two weeks ago) he claimed he had finally lost ALL respect for Bush.

    Sullivan has always been a good writer, and even before his anti-Bush Epiphany, he was worth reading for the occasions he nailed something. Over the last several weeks/months his blog has become a must-read for me, and I check it all day long.

    I link to him all the time in my own writing, and he mixes in a good amount of pop culture and humor posts as well.

    More often than not it is satisfying to see another one turned against the Dark Side and I want to offer Sullivan a hearty handshake, yet at times, and this post was one, where that handshake evolves into a need to shake him by the shoulders and maybe mix in a few backhands and ask “Why couldn’t you see this two, three, four or more years ago? Why!?!”

  40. 40.

    RareSanity

    July 12, 2007 at 2:00 pm

    So, um, Tommy Franks is/was The Decider™?

    No it makes him The In Charger™.

    Bush = Scapegoater™
    Franks = Scapegoatee™*

    *also refers to the skin around the mouth and chin of a lighter color than the rest of the face just after shaving off a goatee in the summer.

  41. 41.

    Jake

    July 12, 2007 at 2:01 pm

    Fixed. Amazing would be recounting history as it actually happened.

    Nice. Very nice.

  42. 42.

    Justin

    July 12, 2007 at 2:02 pm

    In defense of Sullivan, he figured out that the Bush presidency was heading over a cliff in 2004, and supported Kerry as a lesser-of-two-evils choice. He’s been beating on the Bush administration consistently since then, and has been consistently apologizing for his initial support (and calling out other conservatives who’ve “seen the light” far later than they should have).

    Not that he isn’t prone to hysteria on, well, everything, but he was way ahead of the curve (even ahead of our beloved John John) on the Iraq War.

  43. 43.

    Rob

    July 12, 2007 at 2:02 pm

    “Why couldn’t you see this two, three, four or more years ago? Why?

    I read his stuff all the time too, but he’s definitely got blinders on about a few things:
    1) Iran – he’s often slow to challenge or even question any of the wingnuttery about the threat posed by Iran.
    2) Health care – As a pretty hard-core libertarian, he’s really eager to grasp at anything that indicates the current system works well.

  44. 44.

    Mr Furious

    July 12, 2007 at 2:11 pm

    In defense of Sullivan, he figured out that the Bush presidency was heading over a cliff in 2004, and supported Kerry as a lesser-of-two-evils choice. He’s been beating on the Bush administration consistently since then…

    By and large, yes. It’s actually tough to pin exactly what shifted him, but I wouldn’t say he started kicking Bush too hard until he was down. He still grants Bush the benefit of the doubt far too often only to regret it mere hours or days later. He’s been more consistant about Cheney.

    Andrew’s like Bush’s battered wife.*

    *And not because he’s gay, please. I just can’t think of a better way to desribe how slowly he’s learned Bush will just hit him again.

  45. 45.

    Mr Furious

    July 12, 2007 at 2:13 pm

    1) Iran – he’s often slow to challenge or even question any of the wingnuttery about the threat posed by Iran.

    How ANYONE outside the 28 percenters can fall for that shit is beyond me. Sullivan ain’t cured until he realizes Iran is just “Iraq 2: Electric Boogaloo.”

  46. 46.

    Zifnab

    July 12, 2007 at 2:19 pm

    2) Health care – As a pretty hard-core libertarian, he’s really eager to grasp at anything that indicates the current system works well.

    To be fair, if you’ve got a premium PPO, a large nearby medical community, and a giant sack full of money then the American Health Care system works great. And who doesn’t have any of that?

    I just like the “Oh no! Long lines!” argument more than anything because it somehow implies that a) waiting on a list for a year to get a hip replacement is worse than showing up at the emergency room repeatedly for hip fractures because you never got one at all, and b) the doctors in the US will leave if we increase their business.

  47. 47.

    Blue Neponset

    July 12, 2007 at 2:26 pm

    It is pathetic how the Commander in Chief hides behind the decisions of those who supposedly work for him. I hope the Dems start making that point in a public way.

  48. 48.

    Dreggas

    July 12, 2007 at 2:27 pm

    Mr Furious Says:
    How ANYONE outside the 28 percenters can fall for that shit is beyond me. Sullivan ain’t cured until he realizes Iran is just “Iraq 2: Electric Boogaloo.”

    He might be falling for the idea of the “threat” of Iran but he is also just as vehement in putting the breaks on the the crew already agitating for war with them. Hell I think Iran is a threat too, we made them one by taking out Saddam and removing the last check on them and by being beligerent. That doesn’t mean I advocate bombing them into last century.

  49. 49.

    Rob

    July 12, 2007 at 2:29 pm

    To be fair, if you’ve got a premium PPO, a large nearby medical community, and a giant sack full of money then the American Health Care system works great. And who doesn’t have any of that?

    Well, I’d probably check at least 2/3 the boxes and I still think it sucks. Yeah, you get a lot of stuff if you’re covered but if you lose your job you can burn through tons of $$ in a hurry. That’s why I have such a hard time with Sullivan – his medications must cost a fortune but he doesn’t seem to realize how precarious the situation is. Dunno, maybe he makes a ton of money.

  50. 50.

    Dreggas

    July 12, 2007 at 2:33 pm

    Zifnab Says:

    To be fair, if you’ve got a premium PPO, a large nearby medical community, and a giant sack full of money then the American Health Care system works great. And who doesn’t have any of that?

    I just like the “Oh no! Long lines!” argument more than anything because it somehow implies that a) waiting on a list for a year to get a hip replacement is worse than showing up at the emergency room repeatedly for hip fractures because you never got one at all, and b) the doctors in the US will leave if we increase their business.

    I’m torn on the healthcare thing, I get robbed every paycheck paying for a health/prescription plan that more often than not doesn’t cover X thing that I need and I get bent over every 3 mos with a 600 drug bill for our meds.

    Now at another job I worked at the meds were cheaper and were covered and so was the co-pay on dr. visits but the premiums were a bit higher. It’s just confusing as hell and I do firmly believe that someone with more power and leverage needs to get involved in order to reign in the pharmaceutical companies and health insurance companies since all they care about is the bottom line.

    It’s even more egregious with big-pharma since they could care less about curing things since there is no profit in a cure, the real profit is in the “latest” treatment.

  51. 51.

    chopper

    July 12, 2007 at 2:34 pm

    I meant “hard on”, of course

    heh.

  52. 52.

    D. Broder

    July 12, 2007 at 2:35 pm

    No doubt in September. A Friedman unit after that at the latest.

    Damn! Too true – I completely missed the F.U. boat there.

    I’d like to see a satire where Friedman, Broder and the rest of the Kool Kids sagely advise medics tending battle wounded not to rashly apply tourniquets (you could lose a leg that way!) but instead to let the blood flow for another two minutes – six at the most! – to give the cold compresses a chance to work.

    Don’t you support the cold compresses?

  53. 53.

    Dreggas

    July 12, 2007 at 2:43 pm

    D. Broder Says:

    No doubt in September. A Friedman unit after that at the latest.

    Damn! Too true – I completely missed the F.U. boat there.

    I’d like to see a satire where Friedman, Broder and the rest of the Kool Kids sagely advise medics tending battle wounded not to rashly apply tourniquets (you could lose a leg that way!) but instead to let the blood flow for another two minutes – six at the most! – to give the cold compresses a chance to work.

    Don’t you support the cold compresses?

    I’t not a matter of supporting the cold compresses, it’s about the progress of the leeches!!!!

  54. 54.

    Chad N. Freude

    July 12, 2007 at 2:48 pm

    not to rashly apply tourniquets (you could lose a leg that way!) but instead to let the blood flow for another two minutes – six at the most! – to give the cold compresses a chance to work.

    Don’t you support the cold compresses?

    WHAT??!! This is satire?? It sounds like a cost-cutting approach from one of the insurers whose mediation between patient and doctor is so essential to medical care.

  55. 55.

    Chad N. Freude

    July 12, 2007 at 2:52 pm

    By the way, the blood flow treatment was applied through staff negligence at the profoundly troubled [really, not satire] King-Drew Medical Center in Los Angeles recently. It was a great success, but unfortunately the patient had the incredibly bad taste to die on the Emergency Room floor.

  56. 56.

    Third Eye Open

    July 12, 2007 at 2:54 pm

    Hey Blue, I saw your little pissing match over at RedState…funny shit man. I just wish there was an emoticon for sticking one’s finger’s in their ears.

  57. 57.

    Teak111

    July 12, 2007 at 3:00 pm

    Heard some of the presser and thought, this guy is so over. Its interesting that Iraq doesn’t seem to wiegh on his conscience at all. He still throws around that fratboy smile and wellshucks crap while Iraq is a complete bloodbath grinder FUBAR clusterfuck. Johnson agonized over vietnam, Kennedy did the same over the Bay of Pigs, and you could see the toll the stresses of the office took from those man and others. But not our Bush. He’s still got the smirk, still the authoritarian padantic smirk that is just over the top. Shame on the GOP and conservatives for proping this guy up and electing him in the first place. Truely the GOP Jimmy Carter, but I doubt Bush will win a nobel for clearing bush when he’s done.

  58. 58.

    jenniebee

    July 12, 2007 at 3:08 pm

    Just read the RedState swill…

    I must go now and weep for the Republic; it is being done to death by Republicans.

  59. 59.

    chopper

    July 12, 2007 at 3:23 pm

    Hey Blue, I saw your little pissing match over at RedState…funny shit man. I just wish there was an emoticon for sticking one’s finger’s in their ears.

    i know. well, it’s a stupid thread to begin with. “we need to put politics aside to win in iraq, and by ‘put politics aside’, we mean that the dems need to go away forever because they’re jerks.” any thread that starts based on that idea is doomed to be chock full of idiotic posts by definition.

    i especially like the dude who took a pelosi quote about hussein from 1998 (back when the situation was far different than it was in 2003) as proof she’s disingenuous about iraq II. the idiocy never ceases to amaze me when it comes to redstate.

  60. 60.

    Lee

    July 12, 2007 at 3:56 pm

    The more I see of the current Republicans the more I believe Tim F’s idea of the GOP becoming the party of the nutjobs as actually occuring.

  61. 61.

    Zifnab

    July 12, 2007 at 3:56 pm

    It’s even more egregious with big-pharma since they could care less about curing things since there is no profit in a cure, the real profit is in the “latest” treatment.

    And some of the treatments have been getting kinda weak. I mean, restless leg syndrome? Seriously, wtf is that? How many sleeping pills does America need? How many types of viagra? And between the prozac, the ridalin, and the vallium, I’m still waiting for them to release a drug called “I can’t believe its not heroin”.

  62. 62.

    sglover

    July 12, 2007 at 4:03 pm

    “Fifth Column” Sullivan? Meh. Long on gall, short on factual knowledge, utterly devoid of judgement or integrity. Fuck him. If he didn’t have the Gay Tory Catholic Brit freak show schtick, he’d be lucky to be stringing for the Sunday supplements.

    Instead, check out James Fallows’ assessment. It’s only a link away from darling Andy:

    It is hard to know what is the most contemptible part of President Bush’s press conference (ongoing as I write — and as I listen to it, on a Cspan internet feed, in Shanghai). But it’s going to be hard to top what he just uttered: the most blatant attempt so far to blame everything that went wrong in Iraq on the advice of the military.

    Don’t have the transcript in front of me now, but the point was: Hey, I asked Tommy Franks if he was ready to go — including the postwar phase; and he said Sure, no problem. So (says the President), Don’t blame me! I was listening to the experts!

    Yes, as Donald Rumsfeld and Paul Wolfowitz so notably listened to Gen. Eric Shinseki. And yes, the president’s laser-like assessment of Gen. Franks’ shortcomings must have lain behind his decision to give him the Presidential Medal of Freedom. Talk about “personal accountability” and “supporting the troops.” (Franks does deserve a good share of the blame, and so do other military commanders — but not for reasons the President apparently even grasps.)

    Close second in the most-contemptible derby, half way through the press conference: Catechism-like repetition of the idea that we have to “fight them in Iraq so we don’t fight them here.” I wonder if anyone has ever dared challenge the logic of this to the President’s face. (Ie, what are you talking about??? Why should people bother to plant bombs in Baghdad if they thought they had a chance of planting them in DC?) My oh my.

  63. 63.

    Chad N. Freude

    July 12, 2007 at 4:05 pm

    I had never heard of it until the time I wasn’t quick enough with the Tivo FF button and saw the bigpharma commercial, but according to NIH, it’s real.

    Restless legs syndrome (RLS) is a neurological disorder…

    (Or maybe NIH is just doing Big Ph’s bidding, who knows?)

    How many types of viagra?

    There will never be enough.

  64. 64.

    cain

    July 12, 2007 at 4:11 pm

    Sullivan isn’t even done yet with his introspection. He’s got another blog post going back to the reasons why we went to war. The press conference really set him off.

    I like reading Andrew because I sometimes like to hear a conservative point of view that isn’t insane. “Conservative” sites aren’t really conservative as much as some kind of deranged, tunnel vision point of view where everything Bush does is right and everyone who disagrees are stinkin liberals.

    A lot of my conservative friends now find themselves stuck with a “liberal” label. They exclaim, I didn’t stop being conservative, the republican party just left me behind. That is the legacy of not only George Bush but of the “Contract with America” and of Newt Gingrich and his ilk.

    cain

  65. 65.

    sglover

    July 12, 2007 at 4:16 pm

    Heard some of the presser and thought, this guy is so over. Its interesting that Iraq doesn’t seem to wiegh on his conscience at all. He still throws around that fratboy smile and wellshucks crap while Iraq is a complete bloodbath grinder FUBAR clusterfuck. Johnson agonized over vietnam, Kennedy did the same over the Bay of Pigs, and you could see the toll the stresses of the office took from those man and others. But not our Bush. He’s still got the smirk, still the authoritarian padantic smirk that is just over the top. Shame on the GOP and conservatives for proping this guy up and electing him in the first place. Truely the GOP Jimmy Carter, but I doubt Bush will win a nobel for clearing bush when he’s done.

    My memories of the start of this disastrous war are generally tainted with dismay and despair. But I also vividly remember how the Idiot Prince made a point of saying how well he slept after giving the order to launch the damn thing. Of course, our Pravda media painted that as evidence of his mystical awesomeness, but it seemed to me to be clinical evidence of a stunted child who didn’t have the faintest clue about what he was starting.

    Anyone who voted for this… person, ever, would do the republic a favor by burning his voting card, and never engaging in political life again. It was always pretty clear that he was an empty suit, and a miserable little shit besides….

  66. 66.

    sglover

    July 12, 2007 at 4:18 pm

    And between the prozac, the ridalin, and the vallium, I’m still waiting for them to release a drug called “I can’t believe its not heroin”.

    I thought that was Percocet.

  67. 67.

    sglover

    July 12, 2007 at 4:26 pm

    I like reading Andrew because I sometimes like to hear a conservative point of view that isn’t insane. “Conservative” sites aren’t really conservative as much as some kind of deranged, tunnel vision point of view where everything Bush does is right and everyone who disagrees are stinkin liberals.

    Even though I’m pretty far left, I wouldn’t insult genuine conservatives by lumping darling Andy in with them. All Sullivan does is go into hysterics, and more than anything he’s a narcissist. But if you want a thoughtful conservative, try here or here or here.

  68. 68.

    Stang88

    July 12, 2007 at 4:30 pm

    Andrew Sullivan’s blog has been fascinating to watch over the past several years as he has metamorphisized from a right-of-center, pro-Bush, pro-war, anti-Democrat writer to a left-of-center, anti-Bush/war, pro-Democrat ideologue.

    The turning point against Bush came for Sullivan (who is gay), not with the war, but with Bush’s support for a constitutional amendment against gay marriage. After that, came immediate disillusionment to the point where he now doesn’t write a positive word about the administration nor barely a criticism of the Democratic Congress.

    As a gay libertarian myself, I originally felt a bond to Sullivan and his writing, but I now find that his views are merely justifications of his personal preferences, grievances, and fetishes — and, for the latter, I mean that literally and figuratively. What’s “good” for Andrew and what he likes is the primary consideration in most of his posts.

    For example, check out his views on the gas tax, circumsion, bears, Rx drugs, gay marriage, DC Statehood (to name just a few) and find that it dovetails nicely with his lifestyle. Thus, to me, it’s become not serious social and political commentary, but more of a “My Space” page.

    And once you’ve crossed him on a issue, you’re on his “list.” Bush, Guiliani, Hillary Clinton, Romney, especially Cheney, the Pope, and any vocal conservative Christian — none get a fair shake with Sullivan. On the other hand, he has enormous blindspots for John Kerry and Barack Obama — apparantly neither have committed a “sin” against his personal preferences yet … but give it time.

  69. 69.

    chopper

    July 12, 2007 at 4:36 pm

    I thought that was Percocet.

    i thought it was oxycontin.

  70. 70.

    Zifnab

    July 12, 2007 at 4:54 pm

    If it doesn’t have a comments section, I’m loathe to read it. And Sully doesn’t have a comments section. :-p

    Sorry, but in the blogosphere, not having comments is the rough equivalent of not knowing how to shut the hell up and let someone else talk. I think one reason the NYT, Washington Post, and WSJ have such questionably sane editorial pages relates directly to a newspaper’s lack of a comments section. God bless the man who gave Joe Klein a blog, so the rest of the world could tell him he’s wrong, personally.

  71. 71.

    cain

    July 12, 2007 at 5:14 pm

    Even though I’m pretty far left, I wouldn’t insult genuine conservatives by lumping darling Andy in with them. All Sullivan does is go into hysterics, and more than anything he’s a narcissist. But if you want a thoughtful conservative, try here or here or here.

    Thanks, I appreciate the pointer.

    BTW I was reading RedState and boy, those guys are really off-base. A global caliphate where a Sunni organization like Al-Qaeda in charge and the Shiites would willingly be ruled by them? That’s what they think Al-Qaeda is up to.

    They seem to have a completely different interpretation than I do. Wow. Just wow. I don’t know I would be able to reach people like that short of divine intervention.

  72. 72.

    ThymeZone

    July 12, 2007 at 5:35 pm

    And once you’ve crossed him on a issue, you’re on his “list.”

    Why does that sound familiar?

  73. 73.

    HyperIon

    July 12, 2007 at 5:37 pm

    Zifnab says:

    I think one reason the NYT, Washington Post, and WSJ have such questionably sane editorial pages relates directly to a newspaper’s lack of a comments section.

    WaPo online HAS comments at the end of all opinion columns and even some news articles. And the commenters excoriate Novak, Krautheimer, Broder, etc. Seriously, they trend anti-Bush > 95% of the time. I’m not sure they have any effect on the “journalists” but they sure warm the cockles of my heart.

    But i get your general drift about comments.

  74. 74.

    Dreggas

    July 12, 2007 at 5:38 pm

    cain Says:

    BTW I was reading RedState and boy, those guys are really off-base. A global caliphate where a Sunni organization like Al-Qaeda in charge and the Shiites would willingly be ruled by them? That’s what they think Al-Qaeda is up to.

    They seem to have a completely different interpretation than I do. Wow. Just wow. I don’t know I would be able to reach people like that short of divine intervention.

    That sounds like my dad and I am sure he hangs out there. I tell everyone there is a reason I put a continent between my family and myself.

  75. 75.

    Dreggas

    July 12, 2007 at 5:43 pm

    Stang88 says:

    For example, check out his views on the gas tax, circumsion, bears, Rx drugs, gay marriage, DC Statehood (to name just a few) and find that it dovetails nicely with his lifestyle. Thus, to me, it’s become not serious social and political commentary, but more of a “My Space” page.

    Actually, for me it’s informative to hear about “Bears” being in the Leather community and such. And while I agree he does quite often go on a tear especially WRT circumcision (pun intended) it’s not much different than someone posting about a TV series they watch all the time in between hammering the idiots in washington. Of course in the case of his infatuation with circumcision, it’s just strange.

  76. 76.

    DecidedFenceSitter

    July 12, 2007 at 8:21 pm

    restless leg syndrome? Seriously, wtf is that?

    Well as my wife suffers from it (though a minor case) it means it is a bitch some nights to sleep anywhere near her on the bed as her legs are continuously trembling and twitching. Thankfully, her case is mild enough that she can try and stretch it out of her legs, but that’s always a crap shoot.

    Just cause you haven’t heard of it doesn’t me it doesn’t exist.

  77. 77.

    SGEW

    July 12, 2007 at 8:33 pm

    I’ve been reading Andrew Sullivan’s blog for almost six years now, and I’ve always appreciated his writing, even when it makes me want to rip my hair out and scream excrecations at him. What I appreciate the most is his ability to re-think his position, and actually change his mind in light of new information… which is neccessary for him, considering some of his positions (it almost seemed like he was about to write glowingly of Rudy Giuliani for a little while there!).

    Although he has no comments section, he certainly reads his email, and often responds. His “dissent of the day” posts are probably some of my favorite bits.

    And in all fairness to Mr. Sullivan, male genital mutilation is a contentious issue, with a very good case to be made on either side (either for its continuation or abolishment), and I applaud the fact that he has occasionally brought it up for discussion. At the very least, he has made me think seriously about my support for the tradition (and I have Jewish heritage).

  78. 78.

    ThymeZone

    July 12, 2007 at 8:37 pm

    I mean, restless leg syndrome? Seriously, wtf is that?

    Consider yourself very lucky that you don’t suffer from it.

  79. 79.

    Justin

    July 12, 2007 at 8:47 pm

    [quote]restless leg syndrome? Seriously, wtf is that?[/quote]

    I get it too. It’s a minor irritation where your legs are trembly and tingly. The problem is that it occurs when I’m in bed, when a minor irritation becomes a real pain in the ass because I can’t fall asleep.

  80. 80.

    Cain

    July 12, 2007 at 10:19 pm

    Is it like pins and needles? I get that sometimes and I have to stretch my legs out a bit.

  81. 81.

    ConservativelyLiberal

    July 12, 2007 at 10:48 pm

    RLS is real, my Mom has had it for years now. She describes it as a kind of tickling, almost cramping feeling where she has to stretch her legs to get a moment of relief, but it comes right back. It makes her want to jump out of bed in frustration as it makes it difficult to fall asleep. She found that a heating pad on low works wonders for her, and has one on a timer so it turns off about an hour after she goes to bed. Once asleep, she is fine.

    In other medical news:
    I heard that Sen. Vitter has RPS (Restless Penis Syndrome), and he looks for ladies who suffer from CRVS (Cash Register Vagina Syndrome) as he has found that this is the only thing that gives him relief. Seems that he can’t find the ladies who suffer from FVS (Free Vagina Syndrome)…

  82. 82.

    Justin

    July 13, 2007 at 1:03 am

    Is it like pins and needles?

    More subtle than that. It’s on the itch level of distraction.

  83. 83.

    Zifnab

    July 13, 2007 at 10:06 am

    Just cause you haven’t heard of it doesn’t me it doesn’t exist.

    Ok, ok. I will concede that restless leg is an actual condition that affects a respectable number of John Cole blog readers. But do I really need an ad on TV to sell me the damn pills?

  84. 84.

    Formerly Wu

    July 13, 2007 at 3:30 pm

    Ok, ok. I will concede that restless leg is an actual condition that affects a respectable number of John Cole blog readers. But do I really need an ad on TV to sell me the damn pills?

    What are you, a communist?

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