Come for the politics, stay for the snark.

Peak wingnut was a lie.

Jesus, Mary, & Joseph how is that election even close?

No one could have predicted…

If senate republicans had any shame, they’d die of it.

People are complicated. Love is not.

A democracy can’t function when people can’t distinguish facts from lies.

Don’t expect peaches from an apple tree.

Republicans in disarray!

A snarling mass of vitriolic jackals

Russian mouthpiece, go fuck yourself.

Hot air and ill-informed banter

A consequence of cucumbers

Yeah, with this crowd one never knows.

Motto for the House: Flip 5 and lose none.

Historically it was a little unusual for the president to be an incoherent babbling moron.

It may be funny to you motherfucker, but it’s not funny to me.

Something needs to be done about our bogus SCOTUS.

They’re not red states to be hated; they are voter suppression states to be fixed.

Accused of treason; bitches about the ratings. I am in awe.

We still have time to mess this up!

Battle won, war still ongoing.

Ah, the different things are different argument.

I see no possible difficulties whatsoever with this fool-proof plan.

Impressively dumb. Congratulations.

You are here: Home / z-Retired Categories / Site Maintenance / Open Thread

Reader Interactions

55Comments

  1. 1.

    Dug Jay

    Several have stated that they have never seen a race like the current one with Obama and Clinton fighting hard for the win. This excerpt from Wikipedia highlights a remarkably similar battle fought back in 1976 between Ford and Reagan for the Republican nomination:

    Defying expectations, however, Ford narrowly defeated Reagan in the New Hampshire primary, and then proceeded to beat Reagan in the Florida and Illinois primaries by comfortable margins. At this point Reagan’s campaign ran low on money, and many pundits believed that another loss would force him to quit the race. However, Reagan upset Ford in North Carolina, and then proceeded to win a string of impressive victories, including Texas. From there the two men engaged in an increasingly bitter, nip-and-tuck battle for delegates. By the time the Republican Convention opened in August 1976, the race for the nomination was still too close to call.

    The 1976 Republican National Convention was held in Kansas City. As the convention began Ford was seen as having a slight lead in delegate votes, but still shy of the 1130 delegates he needed to win….

  3. 3.

    Brachiator

    Just Some Fuckhead Says:

    And how did that end, Dug Jay?

    Like this (Republican Party Nomination):

    The 1976 Republican National Convention was held in Kansas City. As the convention began Ford was seen as having a slight lead in delegate votes, but still shy of the 1130 delegates he needed to win. In a bid to woo moderate Northern Republicans, Reagan shocked the convention by announcing that if he won the nomination, Senator Richard Schweiker of Pennsylvania, a moderate, would be his running mate. The move backfired, however, as few moderates switched to Reagan, while many conservative delegates were outraged. Ford defeated Reagan by a narrow margin on the first ballot….

    The 1976 Republican National Convention was the last time a presidential convention opened without the nominee having already been decided in the primaries.

    Hmmm. Reagan tried some shennagans in an attempt to wrest the nomination from Ford and was slapped down.

    There is also this from the 1980 campaign:

    Carter’s approval ratings jumped in the 60-percent range in some polls, due to a “rally ‘round the flag” effect and an appreciation of Carter’s calm handling of the crisis. Kennedy was suddenly left far behind. Carter beat Kennedy decisively in Iowa and New Hampshire. Carter decisively defeated Kennedy everywhere except Massachusetts, until impatience began to build with the President’s strategy on Iran. When the later primaries in New York, Pennsylvania, and Connecticut came around, it was Kennedy who won largely due to such impatience.

    Carter was still able to maintain a substantial lead even after Kennedy swept the last batch of primaries in June. Despite this, Kennedy refused to drop out, and the 1980 Democratic National Convention was one of the nastiest on record. On the penultimate day, Kennedy conceded the nomination and called for a more liberal party platform in what many saw as the best speech of his career. On the platform on the final day, Kennedy for the most part ignored Carter.

    (Sigh). Good times…

  4. 4.

    Krista

    By orders of the commenters.

    Glad to see we’re keeping you in line. ;)

    I’ve never understood blogs that don’t allow for comments. It just seems…weird. You’re spouting your opinions, you know that people are reading them, via your page hits, but the people reading them are utterly silent. No feedback. No questions. No agreeing or disagreeing. I guess I just don’t see the point.

  5. 5.

    Brachiator

    And here’s something a little different. This is from Editor and Publisher. I couldn’t get the link to behave, but the story itself is sad and timely.

    A Five-Year Look at the Media and Iraq: From Judy Miller to Stephen Colbert

    By Emily Vaughan

    Published: March 29, 2008 1:10 PM ET

    NEW YORK Back in 2004, when E&P Editor Greg Mitchell first proposed the idea of compiling his columns about Iraq war coverage, he met resistance. According to book editors, by the time such an anthology was published, the war would be over — and people just wouldn’t be interested.

    Yet in 2008 the war is still on, and Republican presidential hopeful John McCain famously said the U.S. could be in Iraq for the next 100 years.

    Last year, when Mitchell pitched the idea again — with many more columns he had written in the interim — he found success. The result, “So Wrong for So Long: How the Press, the Pundits — and the President — Failed on Iraq”(Union Square Press), which has just been published to wide acclaim, features his best E&P columns plus a lot of new material and a lengthy introduction, from the patriotic run-up in early 2003 to cynicism about the surge near the end of 2007. His ninth nonfiction book, it features a preface by Bruce Springsteen, a foreword by famed war correspondent Joseph L. Galloway, and major endorsements from Bill Moyers and others.

    This is hardly the first book about the Iraq invasion and occupation, but it may be the first to provide a full overview. While other books have covered pieces or aspects of the war, Mitchell chronicles the war in its entirety. “It may be through my sensibility, but it does get at the entire ups and downs of the five years,” he says.

  6. 6.

    Calouste

    So the Surge is working so well that “Baghdad’s military command has extended a round-the clock curfew in the city for an indefinite period. ” according to the BBC

    So after 5 years of Dubya’s occupation, ordinary Iraqis can’t even go on the streets of their capital. And you wonder why they are pissed off?

  7. 7.

    ThatLeftTurnInABQ

    Just Some Fuckhead Says:

    And how did that end, Dug Jay?

    Ford lost.

    It is hard to determine how much of that was due to Reagan’s challenge.

    Ford was already carrying the stigma of having pardoned Richard Nixon, which counted for far more in the general election than it did in the GOP primaries.

    The economy was already in the outhouse, courtesy of debt problems and the OPEC oil embargo.

    Also, Ford made a notable gaffe during one of the debates with Carter when he fumbled a question about the Yalta agreement in a way that implied Poland wasn’t located in Eastern Europe. The press flayed him over it, in part because if played into a pre-existing stereotype that Ford was a dimbulb.

    1976 was a year when even a mediocre Democrat was probably going to win.

  9. 9.

    The Grand Panjandrum

    Thanks to the telecoms and all the patriotism we can afford.

    Cox Communications, for instance, charges $1,500 for a 30 day wiretap or for 60 days of real-time call record information. Some telecoms have even shut off wiretaps after the FBI repeatedly failed to pay their spying bill.

    So patriotism is as deep as the taxpayer pockets?

  10. 10.

    Dennis - SGMM

    So the Surge is working so well that “Baghdad’s military command has extended a round-the clock curfew in the city for an indefinite period. ”

    Think about it:
    Out of food and/or water? Too bad.
    Sick? Too bad.
    Sick child? Too bad.
    Go to worship? Too bad.
    Need meds to control your diabetes? Too bad.
    School? Too bad.
    Work? Too bad.
    Giving birth? Too bad.

    They have, at long last, hit upon a strategy to make every last person in Baghdad hate America. Bravo!

  11. 11.

    Dennis - SGMM

    From the Gorilla’s Guides website so take with however many grains of salt you need to.
    Translated from the Sadrist nahraine site:

    They say further that many GZG police and army have mutinied and gone over to the JAM and that Maliki is in fear of his life that security has been tightened around al-Maliki and the rest of the GZG military leaders, and that they are preventing many of the officers from entering the building where he is fearing that some GZG officers loyal to the Mahdi army and the Sadrist trend would target and kill him.

  14. 14.

    Dennis - SGMM

    Petraeus was supposed to report to Congress in March or early April. Wonder how he’ll spin it this time. My guess is that Bush will state that the surge is working so well that Petraeus can’t get over here to report as scheduled.

  15. 15.

    myiq2xu

    So the Surge is working so well that “Baghdad’s military command has extended a round-the clock curfew in the city for an indefinite period. ”

    Maybe they should rename it “Operation Market-Garden.”

    That was such a success we nearly lost the war.

  16. 16.

    Brachiator

    They have, at long last, hit upon a strategy to make every last person in Baghdad hate America. Bravo!

    The ungrateful wretches. Don’t they know that Bush is bringing democracy to them? Now, new and improved, without infrastructure.

  17. 17.

    Just Some Fuckhead

    Think about it:
    Out of food and/or water? Too bad.
    Sick? Too bad.
    Sick child? Too bad.
    Go to worship? Too bad.
    Need meds to control your diabetes? Too bad.
    School? Too bad.
    Work? Too bad.
    Giving birth? Too bad.

    At this point, Saddam Hussein is looking like a god-king from whom all wonderful things flowed. You’d think the right-wing authoritarians that created this mess would realize at this point that only a tyrannical strongman is going to be able to hold that country together, and takes steps to get that dude in power.

  18. 18.

    scrutinizer

    Maybe they should rename it “Operation Market-Garden.”

    That was such a success we nearly lost the war.

    Eh? First time I’ve ever heard that Monty’s not so brilliant plan put us in danger of losing the war. I thought that it just meant that Monty had to STFU for a while. And pretty much spelled the end of large-scale Airborne operations for, like, forever.

  19. 19.

    w vincentz

    Dennis,
    Didn’t Cheney set up Maliki’s offensive a couple of weeks ago to preevent Sadr from winning big in Oct?
    Looks like Maliki is holed up right now. Many cities have erupted. Oh, and lest I forget to mention, did anyone notice how current events in Iraq are absent from MSM reporting today?

  20. 20.

    jake

    So the Surge is working so well that “Baghdad’s military command has extended a round-the clock curfew in the city for an indefinite period. ”

    What happens if a government orders a curfew and all of the citizens say “Fuck you?”

    We may soon find out.

    As an added bonus, here’s the weather forecast. Good luck appealing for calm and cooperation.

  21. 21.

    myiq2xu

    Eh? First time I’ve ever heard that Monty’s not so brilliant plan put us in danger of losing the war.

    Losing the war was an exaggeration, but it comes from a quote by one of the senior British officers.

    The end of the war was a foregone conclusion, because the Soviets would have beaten the Germans eventually even if we had not invaded France.

    We didn’t want to let them control all of Europe though, so we attacked from the West.

  22. 22.

    ACK

    A Five-Year Look at the Media and Iraq: From Judy Miller to Stephen Colbert

    By Emily Vaughan

    That march to war, starting with Cheney’s speech in August of 2002, and continuing all the way to March of 2003 will be forever seared into my memory. It was almost like a sense of dissociation watching the whole thing unfold — the country had gone insane yet very few were seeing it.

    And then how can you ever forget stuff like “better to fight them in Baghdad than in Boise” and “freedom is on the march.”

  23. 23.

    Wilfred

    This has to help the old ‘hearts and minds’ effort:

    Charges against a US Marine allegedly involved in the killing of 24 Iraqi civilians in the town of Haditha were dropped on Friday ahead of his trial, the military said in a statement.
    A court martial for lance corporal Stephen Tatum had been due to start on Friday on charges of involuntary manslaughter, reckless endangerment and aggravated assault.
    However in a statement released from the Marines Camp Pendleton base outside San Diego, the military said the charges had been dismissed “in order to continue to pursue the truth seeking process into the Haditha incident.”

    Tatum had been accused of shooting dead two unarmed children as Marines cleared houses near the scene of a deadly roadside bombing in Haditha, 260 kilometers west of Baghdad, on November 19, 2005

    You got that? In order to ‘pursue the truth seeking process’ a c#nt accused of murdering two children goes free. “Pursue the truth seeking process” – Orwell would be proud – America should be, too.

  24. 24.

    Dennis - SGMM

    Dennis,
    Didn’t Cheney set up Maliki’s offensive a couple of weeks ago to preevent Sadr from winning big in Oct?

    There’s been some speculation about that. The fact that Bushco is denying any foreknowledge of the attack on Basra pretty much proves that they signed off on it in advance.

    As an added bonus, here’s the weather forecast. Good luck appealing for calm and cooperation.

    Yes, those 100° temps are conducive to staying indoors 24/7. Most Baghdad residents are dependent on generators to furnish their electricity. No fuel for the generator – no electric. They are also reliant on propane for cooking. Running out of propane won’t be such a big deal though because their food will have already spoiled due to the lack of refrigeration.
    The US military has ordered up a humanitarian disaster.

  25. 25.

    scrutinizer

    Weather > Middle East > Iraq > Baghdad

    Current conditions as of 12:55 am AST:

    Smoke

    That’s creepy, that is.

  26. 26.

    Svensker

    That march to war, starting with Cheney’s speech in August of 2002, and continuing all the way to March of 2003 will be forever seared into my memory. It was almost like a sense of dissociation watching the whole thing unfold—the country had gone insane yet very few were seeing it.

    And then how can you ever forget stuff like “better to fight them in Baghdad than in Boise” and “freedom is on the march.”

    Yes. Very much an “I Have No Mouth But I Must Scream” kind of feeling. Horrible. And now look where the poor s.o.b.’s in Iraq are.

  27. 27.

    Dennis - SGMM

    Congrats, ZMULLS! And, thanks for giving us something to be pleased about. It’s a refreshing change from being buffeted by outrage.

  28. 28.

    w vincentz

    Looks like Sadr will win, Maliki out. US forces can’t be everywhere all the time. The US forces will be in withdrawl.
    Since there is NO way for a US “victory” at this point, Iraq will no longer be a topic for McSame to base his campaign on, other than to explain why we lost. So what’s he going to make the focus of his campaign…his understanding of economics maybe? Sympathy vote for a Viet POW? If he “bomb, bomb, bombs Iran” as well as he did the North Vietnamese, this country is DOOMED!!

  29. 29.

    Dennis - SGMM

    Looks like Sadr will win, Maliki out. US forces can’t be everywhere all the time.

    Military people in Iraq admitted that their forces were already too thinly stretched to handle security in the southern part of the country.
    See my post on MSR Tampa (If you haven’t already) to understand the possible repercussions of the al-Maliki regime’s attack on the Sadrists in Basra.

  30. 30.

    Brachiator

    Here is a piece of another Editor and Publisher article on looking back at 5 years of the war in Iraq. Again, linking is problematic, so apologies.

    Note the bit about how some journalists were almost giddy over the idea of US troops administering a little butt-kicking in Iraq.

    5 Years Ago: Press Saw Hints of Iraq Slog to Come

    By Greg Mitchell

    Published: March 29, 2008 4:00 PM ET

    NEW YORK Coming when it did, the photograph seemed like a cruel joke, or a Photoshop prank, just as nearly everyone in America (except perhaps a few Fox News commentators) was awakening to the bone-chilling reality of a quick war that was threatening to turn into a longer slog. And there, splashed across a spread in The New York Times, five years ago this week, during the second week of the invasion of Iraq, was a picture of a smiling Donald Rumsfeld bending over to shake the hand of an equally buoyant Robert S. McNamara.

    Unfortunately, it did not look like McNamara was whispering, “What part of the word Vietnam don’t you understand?”

    It was a Pentagon luncheon for former defense secretaries hosted by Rumsfeld to discuss the war in Iraq, which seemed to be undergoing more “Vietnamization” by the hour. We had seen it all before: the apparently false claims that we had won the “hearts and minds” of the people; the charges that the enemy was not fighting fair; and a rising toll of dead, wounded, or missing military personnel—and journalists. And that was even before a postwar occupation.

    I wrote the above, and what follows below, here at E&P at the end of March 2003. A month later, after Saddam fell but as the insurgency began in Iraq — and it started to look like we might, indeed, be there for awhile — I may have been the first writer to predict that this would turn into a “quagmire.” I was roundly ridiculed for that. Flash forward to earlier this month. In an article marking the fifth anniversary of the war, famed correspondent John F. Burns in The New York Times dryly referred to the “Iraq quagmire” — as a fact, not an assertion.

    Here is … [a bit] … of my March 31, 2003, piece. It also appears in my new book, “So Wrong for So Long: How the Press, the Pundits — and the President — Failed on Iraq.”

    Of course, it is absurd to compare a war of less than two weeks with one that lasted decades. But still, many hear echoes, faint or strong, of Vietnam. Only a few days have passed since CNN’s Walter Rodgers, in Iraq in the early moments of the war, told anchor Aaron Brown, “It’s great fun,” but that seems like a year ago now.

    With the conflict under way—and getting nastier—we thought we’d check back with some well-known reporters we had visited during the long run-up to war.

    As with Vietnam, too many in the press follow the Pentagon line, says Joseph L. Galloway, the Bronze Star winner and author who is now military-affairs correspondent for Knight Ridder. “One thing not lacking,” he adds, dryly, “is optimism for the game plan, but if it hasn’t been cleared with the enemy, it tends not to work.” He called the press briefings “bullshit….”

    What amazes me is the numb acceptance on the part of many Americans that the war must continue, without point or purpose.

  31. 31.

    ACK

    Yes. Very much an “I Have No Mouth But I Must Scream” kind of feeling. Horrible.

    Exactly.

  32. 32.

    Wilfred

    What amazes me is the numb acceptance on the part of many Americans that the war must continue, without point or purpose.

    Why does it amaze you?

  33. 33.

    zmulls

    Thanks everyone….and thanks to John for giving me the unasked-for attention on the front of the thread. Makes me blush!

  34. 34.

    w vincentz

    Dennis,
    Thanks for the info about MSR Tampa. You’re right.
    Today’s events are the biggest fucking news about what’s happening Iraq, and the only story I’ve seen on MSNBC is about the curfew.
    Shame on the American “journalists” for keeping the populace ignorant on the unfolding Iraq debacle.

  35. 35.

    Dennis - SGMM

    What amazes me is the numb acceptance on the part of many Americans that the war must continue, without point or purpose.

    What amazes me is that I keep hearing various assholes insist that more troops must die in vain so that the ones who were already killed didn’t die in vain.

    That same line of shit was going around when I was in Vietnam. More than fifty thousand Americans died, hundreds of thousands of Vietnamese died, and the outcome was the same as if we’d never been there. We could have left at any time, but the “Not died in vain” crowd and the “Peace with honor” crowd kept us in long after it became clear that the Vietnamese were going to write their history their way whether we liked it or not.

  38. 38.

    scrutinizer

    What amazes me is the numb acceptance on the part of many Americans that the war must continue, without point or purpose.

    Well, if we stop the war then we lose, and we don’t lose wars. We declare peace (Viet Nam), we say we won when we actually accomplish none of our stated war aims (War of 1812), or we say we aren’t going to be cowed by terrorists, then quietly redeploy out of the theatre (MNF in Beirut). But we do not lose. Nossir. Cause we are Merkins, and Merkins are winners. And we don’t want to fight those towelheads over here, cause if we leave, they’ll travel over the sea right behind up in those little speedboats they have, then set up an Ayatollah here.

  39. 39.

    maxbaer (not the original)

    Congrats, Zmulls. But, my question, is the song directed toward John “my friends” McCain?

  40. 40.

    Brachiator

    Wilfred Says:

    What amazes me is the numb acceptance on the part of many Americans that the war must continue, without point or purpose.

    Why does it amaze you?

    Because, sometimes Americans have a hard-headed common-sense that re-emerges even if they accept teh bullshit for a while.

    But something happens when we are attacked. If the US is bombed, we go nuts, because the rule seems to be that no one is ever allowed to violate our territory (even though it is OK for us to bomb the crap out of whomever we choose).

    And so the Administration keeps capitalizing on how they will keep us safe, and “how we will carry the war over there so we don’t have to fight them over here.”

    And Americans who once found hope in the reminder that “the only thing to fear is fear itself” now embrace fear like it is a security blanket, and continue to allow our leaders to lull us into a fitful sleep with the a false lullabye of “war against terror.”

    McCain promises victory more of the same. Senator Clinton (shades of Nixon) has a secret plan. Obama appears to be straight-talking, but some voters appear to be more concerned with the worst words of Obama’s former minister than they are with the prospect of more lives — American, Iraqi and others — being thrown away so that we can all … feel safe.

  41. 41.

    t jasper parnell

    What amazes me is the numb acceptance on the part of many Americans that the war must continue, without point or purpose.

    Define many.

  43. 43.

    Brachiator

    t jasper parnell Says:

    What amazes me is the numb acceptance on the part of many Americans that the war must continue, without point or purpose.

    Define many.

    For starters, all those who voted for McCain.

  45. 45.

    Face

    As an added bonus, here’s the weather forecast. Good luck appealing for calm and cooperation.

    It says “smoke”! What kind of weather forecast is that? too weird.

  46. 46.

    TenguPhule

    What kind of weather forecast is that?

    Preferable to the one that says “It’s all on fire”

  47. 47.

    t jasper parnell

    For starters, all those who voted for McCain.

    Well almost true

    John McCain, the Republican Party’s most relentless and unapologetic guardian of an enduring American presence in Iraq, has become the favored candidate of antiwar voters in the Republican primaries, according to exit polls.

    Exit polls found 64 percent of Tuesday’s Republican voters still support the conflict — and Romney, whose criticism of Bush’s management of the war has been muted, led McCain among those voters. But among the 34 percent who said they disapproved of the war, McCain had a wide advantage over the GOP field — even over Texas Rep. Ron Paul, the sole advocate of a U.S. withdrawal in the Republican field.

  48. 48.

    t jasper parnell

    And:

    But there’s a bizarre disconnect in the warm embrace between McCain and the electorate’s mavericks. They hate the Iraq war, while he’s willing to fight it for another century. The most pro-war presidential candidate in a decade is winning the 2008 GOP nomination thanks to the antiwar vote.

    A full 66% of independents think that the U.S. should completely withdraw from Iraq no later than 12 months from now, according to a Jan. 18-22 L.A. Times/Bloomberg poll. McCain, meanwhile, said last month that the U.S. might stay in Baghdad for another 100 years. He continually expresses bafflement at the idea that that might not be such a good thing. “It’s not the point! It’s not the point!” he snarled at reporters recently. “How long are we going to be in Korea?”

    Funny old world aint it? People believe what they want to believe.

  50. 50.

    The Other Steve

    Funny old world aint it? People believe what they want to believe.

    Same thing happened with Lieberman in CT. The people who wanted out or Iraq now voted for Joe by wide margins.

  51. 51.

    The Other Steve

    Not that it matters but the war from the perspective of those fighting it. via The Poor Man

    This is good stuff. We hardly ever get footage of the war on TV. It was quite different from the BBC when I was in Britain. They were showing footage of battles from that day.

  52. 52.

    Brachiator

    t jasper parnell Says:

    For starters, all those who voted for McCain.

    Well almost true

    Totally irrelevant to my point. I noted in another thread an NPR story about voters in Altoona, Pa. There were hardcore Republican voters who “hope” that McCain will end US involvement in Iraq despite anything that he says to the contrary. I find this to be delusional, but I do note it.

    t jasper parnell Says:

    Not that it matters but the war from the perspective of those fighting it. via The Poor Man

    Unless it includes the perspective of Iraqi fighters, you’re right: it doesn’t matter. After all, it is only THEIR country.

  53. 53.

    Conservatively Liberal

    Rooting around online and found this slideshow of Obama pics. Obama giving the high five to the toddler is cute.

    Here is a link to a clip from the stop in Altoona, Pennsylvania. It is great that he is taking the time to hit the smaller towns. I can’t remember ever seeing a candidate cover ground like he has.

  54. 54.

    Conservatively Liberal

    Hillary may be broke: Chicago Sun-Times

    It would be interesting if it is true. It would mean that the race is over, and she is only blustering now in a last ditch attempt to raise more cash. If she is in debt as they say she is, IMO she may only want to stay in this to raise enough cash to pay it off instead of getting stuck with the tab. She is in to it for $5 million that her and Bill loaned her campaign. She may want to get that back…lol

    Interesting.

Comments are closed.

Trackbacks