Come for the politics, stay for the snark.

The willow is too close to the house.

Republicans are the party of chaos and catastrophe.

Democracy is not a spectator sport.

American history and black history cannot be separated.

If rights aren’t universal, they are privilege, not rights.

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

They want us to be overwhelmed and exhausted. Focus. Resist. Oppose.

Every decision we make has lots of baggage with it, known or unknown.

The cruelty is the point; the law be damned.

A snarling mass of vitriolic jackals

The words do not have to be perfect.

If ‘weird’ was the finish line, they ran through the tape and kept running.

Technically true, but collectively nonsense

You cannot love your country only when you win.

The party of Reagan has become the party of Putin.

Hot air and ill-informed banter

Too often we hand the biggest microphones to the cynics and the critics who delight in declaring failure.

“They all knew.”

You come for women, you’re gonna get your ass kicked.

There are some who say that there are too many strawmen arguments on this blog.

Giving in to doom is how authoritarians win.

Oppose, oppose, oppose. do not congratulate. this is not business as usual.

I’d like to think you all would remain faithful to me if i ever tried to have some of you killed.

You are so fucked. Still, I wish you the best of luck.

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Archives for 2008

RIP, William F. Buckley

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The NY Times is reporting that William F. Buckley has died. Probably heart-broken at what his party has become.

As always with obits, if you can’t say anything nice, don’t say anything at all.

*** Update ***

Link to the NY Times Obit added. I really am sad.

*** Update #2 ***

Watching the right-wing lunatics who destroyed conservatism wrapping themselves up in Buckley’s cold, dead embrace over the next few weeks will be disgusting. Start here, where K-Lo asserts she and the band of frothing brothers at NRO will continue Buckley’s “work”, and then read Malkin. And yes, you are reading Malkin correctly– she did just take the death of one of society’s most privileged members of the last century and use it to… declare that conservatives are victims.

These people are a disgrace and a sick joke.

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Another Take On Kurdistan

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Matt Yglesias notes that the Turkish-American-Kurdish conflict will put an especially painful squeeze on Nouri al-Maliki.

Given the Iraqi government’s dependence on the U.S. military, a Turkish invasion of Iraq that the United States approves of isn’t something the Iraqi government can or will do anything about. Thus this incident becomes one more case where U.S.-supported Iraqi leaders see their credibility as national leaders leeched away. If you think of the goal in Iraq as helping to prop up a government that’ll be able to stand up on its own, this sort of thing is a disaster.

At one point non-Kurdish Iraqis looked at the world with more of a nationalist than a secularist perspective. Intermarriage was common and Shiite officers and enlisted men had no problem going to war with Iran. To the degree that an Iraqi national identity still exists a Turkish invasion would create intense pressure from a side that Maliki has until now taken for granted. An opposition figure with a sizable base of support, say Muqtada al Sadr, would be well-positioned to tack towards national unity on a platform of repelling the Turks. Meanwhile America, in in bed with Maliki’s government and blocked by treaty from getting in the way of Turkey’s army, can look forward to an entirely new basis for popular support for the insurgency.

John McCain, foreign policy deep thinker, has declared that “as long as Americans are not being injured or harmed or wounded or killed” we could stay in Iraq for 100 or a million years. Well sure, as long as I only buy winning lottery tickets I’ll be a billionaire. I could really use some straight talk on what McCain will do if our kids keep dying.

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What I Missed Last Night

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I didn’t watch the debate last night, I actually watched a couple old episodes of Angel (yeah, I am a dork), but I did tune in for the dumbest portion of the night:

Aside from the idiocy of Russert, I think this was a clear win for Obama, as his “reject and denounce” after Hillary tried to play “Gotcha!” just made her look foolish. If you listen to video, people are laughing at her when she says “Good, good. Excellent!” it is the same sort of nonsense we have dealt with for years, and Obama was having none of it.

At any rate, I promptly turned the debates off after that, and I wish I had not- apparently Schiavo was mentioned (and K-LO is upset!), but I still can not find a transcript. Oh, well.

So far, the more I see of Obama, the more I learn, the more I like him. I can’t think of another politician like that in my experiences.

*** Update ***

Found it at the NY Times:

RUSSERT: Senator Obama, any statements or vote you’d like to take back?

OBAMA: Well, you know, when I first arrived in the Senate that first year, we had a situation surrounding Terri Schiavo. And I remember how we adjourned with a unanimous agreement that eventually allowed Congress to interject itself into that decisionmaking process of the families.

It wasn’t something I was comfortable with, but it was not something that I stood on the floor and stopped. And I think that was a mistake, and I think the American people understood that that was a mistake. And as a constitutional law professor, I knew better.

And so that’s an example I think of where inaction…

RUSSERT: This is the young woman with the feeding tube…

OBAMA: That’s exactly right.

RUSSERT: … and the family disagreed as to whether it should be removed or not.

OBAMA: And I think that’s an example of inaction, and sometimes that can be as costly as action.

Good for him.

*** Update #2 ***

And, as noted in the comments, just a few weeks ago I said– “Personally, the closer I look at Obama and his unity pony, the less I like.”
A few weeks of the Clinton campaign and starting to listen to Obama rather than his over-the-top supporters can work wonders.

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Governator to President Bush- Stop Stealing Our Shit!

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Seriously:

The Republican governor, in a visit to Washington for the annual meeting of the National Governors' Association, said the California National Guard is missing about half of its equipment - from humvees to radios. That could leave California at risk in an earthquake, fire or other emergency, Schwarzenegger said. "It's not fair to the states for the federal government to go into a war and then to take from us the equipment," he said after meetings Monday with President Bush and Cabinet officials. "Every time our National Guard leaves, they take with them equipment but they don't bring it back."

Good luck with that.

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Strangely Enough, The Weekly Standard Had No Comment

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Silent wingnuts the world over just “missed” this testimony:

Army chief of staff Gen. George Casey, testifying on troop strain before the Senate Armed Forces Committee Tuesday, said there is “no reason to doubt” Sen. Barack Obama’s military shortage story during CNN’s debate in Austin, Texas, last week.

***

War supporters have challenged the story, but Casey said he had “no reason to doubt what it is the captain says.”

“We acknowledged and we all worked together to correct the deficiencies with equipment that we saw during that period, not only Afghanistan but in Iraq,” he said in response to the question posed by Republican Sen. Lindsay Graham, a longtime supporter of GOP presidential candidate Sen. John McCain.

Both Sen. Graham and Sen. Warner tried to play politics with this, and the Army Chief of Staff backed Obama. That has to smart.

So, to recap, Obama didn’t make the Captain up, he most likely was telling the entire truth, and Iraq did distract us from Afghanistan. In other news, water is wet. But hey, nutters- someone just emailed me something claiming Obama was a stealth muslim!

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RIP Myron Cope

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This is really sad:

Myron Cope, the screechy-voiced announcer whose colorful catch phrases and twirling Terrible Towel became symbols of the Pittsburgh Steelers during an unrivaled 35 seasons in the broadcast booth, has died. He was 79.

Cope died Wednesday morning at a nursing home in Mount Lebanon, a Pittsburgh suburb, Joe Gordon, a former Steelers executive and a longtime friend of Cope’s, told The Associated Press.

Cope had been treated for respiratory problems and heart failure in recent months, Gordon said.

Cope’s tenure from 1970 to 2004 as the color analyst on the Steelers’ radio network is the longest in NFL history for a broadcaster with a single team. Cope was inducted into the National Radio Hall of Fame in 2005.

To outsiders, Cope had one of the most grating and annoying voices ever. To Steelers fans, it was like a mother’s lullaby.

Yoy, and double yoy. Thanks for the memories, Myron.

Some Myron audio.

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The Gathering Storm

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I’m feeling unusually generous today, so for the sake of argument let’s deny reality and say that the “surge” has settled the bitter civil war between Iraq’s Shiite and Sunni community. We’re on the glide path to success, right? Well, no. The powder keg that we lit by freeing Iraqi Kurdistan is still burning on a slow match. Sooner or later Kirkuk residents will choose whether or not to join semi-autonomous Kurdistan; in a sense the outcome doesn’t matter since both sides have basically promised a bloody fight if they lose.

Then you have Turkey. As helpful as it might seem to free Iraq’s Kurds to pester Iran*, it really doesn’t help our case to have the same Kurdish groups stirring violent insurgency in Turkey. It has been clear for a while that the Turks would eventually run out of patience and deal with Kurdish insurgent bases just over the Iraq border if we failed to deal with the problem ourselves.

Long story short, we failed and the Turks ran out of patience.

[T]he current incursion is both a warning and a preamble. Turkey is sending a very unsubtle message. “Get off the fence and reign in these Kurdish groups before the Spring thaw in late-March or April or we’ll be over the border in real force and you can kiss goodbye to peace in Northern Iraq. We’ve proven we can and we’ve proven you can’t do anything about it short of breaking up NATO and starting up an actual war with the most moderate Islamic-majority nation in the region.” The unrest which will come from the US and Iraq cracking down on the PKK and PJK will be nothing compared to what would hit the fan then.

Cernig also notes that the Turks have claimed the Bush Doctrine privilege to chase terrorists into countries where they find safe harbor. Even better, a full-scale Turkish invasion would no doubt drive the Kurdish region into bloody chaos, an idea which ought to make neoconservatives like Michael “creative destruction is our middle name” Ledeen clap their infant hands together with glee.

Fans of bloody intractable war will no doubt be thrilled to know that the Kurds have decided not to roll over for Turkey.

The United States is being skillfully handled by the Turks, who are dragging the U.S. into a policy disaster in Kurdistan. The Kurds have moved a lot of fighters and equipment quietly into the area, and are prepared to strike the Turks. Massoud [Barzani, the Iraqi Kurdish leader] has issued all the press comments he can to publicly warn that Kurdish patience is gone. The United States is either ignoring the signals or missing them…The Kurds can and will bloody the Turks badly in a fight.

Ugh. At least the Sunnis and Shiites have finally settled their differences.

***

(*) Maybe not so helpful when you think about the incentive that it gives for Iran to encourage insurgents to cross the border and pester us.

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