"Journalists" Who Are Paid Off By Politicians

Gee. Maybe someone will report that the people at FOX News are paid by Republican interests, too.

If Truth, Honesty, And Accuracy Mattered

See the link.

This Is How It Works

If you give me a credit card with no limit and no obligation to pay off the debt, then I am the Republican Party. Of course, if you do this, you are an idiot. There are almost 60 million of these idiots who voted in 2004. The expiration date, sadly, did not apply.

(Note: I do not know where this image came from; if you do, please let me know so I can give appropriate credit.)


RepubliCard (author unknown) 

Nobody Was Tough On Condoleezza Rice

I have read numerous news articles that used words like "tough" to describe how Condoleezza Rice was treated during her Secretary of State confirmation hearings.

Let me get some terminology in place.

Horrible is being killed in war.

Tough is having to deal with a disability, such as those caused in a war. Missing a couple of limbs is very tough.

A day at the office is dealing with questions at a hearing which won't do anything in terms of whether or not you get the job.

No, if Senators were really being tough on Condoleezza Rice, the whole hearing would have had slide shows of Abu Ghraib and Guantanamo, visuals of troops and Iraqis who have been killed or maimed, a reminder that 9/11/2001 was on Ms. Rice's boss's watch, an explanation of why this all adds up to gross incompetence, and a not-so-polite statement that people who are grossly incompetent don't get the job.

That would still be easier than dealing with a disability caused by a war.

Senator Kennedy Is Incorrect

Ted Kennedy asserted in an interview with the Washington Post that Iraq "is clearly George Bush's Vietnam."

No, it's not so clear. With Vietnam, we're talking about a country and a people from that country, so we can, to a reasonable extent, put parameters around that war.

With Iraq, we're talking about the people of Iraq, other countries with high Muslim populations, and scattered groups around the world who take offense at the invasion.

Oh, it's like Vietnam in that the best Bush can do is claim victory that does not exist and then sugar it over through his propagandists that everything went swimmingly well, all things considered. And a lot of people will buy into that, hook, line, and sinker. But given that his enemies are spread out world wide, it is hard to set parameters on where to find them and how to address them.

And there is no Vietnam equivalent to Osama bin Laden who wasn't even working with Saddam, but was responsible in creating the 9/11 disaster.

The war in Vietnam's shelf life will be nothing compared to this.

Elizabeth Kubler-Ross's Five Stages of Grief

I have always thought that, when it came to dealing with the war in (on?) Iraq, there were three types of Americans.

1. People who understood that Iraq was not a threat to us;
2. People who bought the Bush administration's malarkey, but who, as time passed, would come to understand that all it was was malarkey;
3. People who aren't bright enough to understand that Rush Limbaugh is a propagandist.

Group 3 will never take a dim view of the Bush administration. It is sad, but that's probably how it is. Group 1 has long been outraged, but out of power. Group 2 could make all the difference, but where is that group right now in the court of public opinion?

Elizabeth Kubler-Ross wrote of the "five stages of grief" that one may go through when a loved one dies. They form the acronym DABDA and read:

1. Denial
2. Anger
3. Bargaining
4. Depression
5. Acceptance

The key here is for Group 2 to go from Denial to Anger. Some heads need to roll, and let's be honest--a Republican Congress is not going to investigate transgressions of a Republican President and his cronies. (I think it safe to say that our current leadership, in the executive and legislative branches in particular, has the ethics and morals of... Hmmm, it's hard to find a good comparison.)

So what will it take for people in Group 2 to get downright angry at the current leadership? Will it ever happen? I don't think that most Americans understand the worldwide damage done by this war; I don't think they ever will. I think they treat American body counts as a minor issue and Iraqi body counts as a trivial abstraction.

Then the really scary question: How many people are in Group 3? If the percentage is near or over 50%, this country is in serious trouble. My assumption has been that none of Groups 1, 2, and 3 constitutes a voting majority...

Jackie Speier (D-San Mateo) Rocks

"This land is your land.
This land is my land.
From California.
To the New York Island.
This land is red land.
Paid for by blue land.
This land is paid for you by me....

"We pay for farming.
We pay for mining.
We get back nothing.
But we're not whining.
They elect the president.
We get to pay the bills.
This land was paid for you by me."