Tell me, how far was it, really from this:

http://www.cnn.com/2004/ALLPOLITICS/08/30/... /

To this:

From the PBS Newshour with Jim Lehrer: Testimony from John Daneil Shannon, picture above at the House Congressional Hearing, 3/5/07



Yeah, I guess they really were mocking the recepients of Purple Hearts back at the Republican National Convention back in Aug/Sept of '04.

He was working in the lab, late one night, when his eye beheld an eerie sight. Karl Rove took the soft flannel wipe out of his jacket pocket, wiped his special goggles with it and replaced them on his head. The sight was much less eerie now. Sometimes, there was blow-back in this place from all the slime and it got on the glasses.

"Gillespie, Mehlman, get in here," Rove yelled. The two unctuous Republicans quickly strode into the lab.

"Yes Master," the two toadies said in unison. "How can we serve you?" The two Rethugs, wearing their white RNC issued lab coats with the little "Evil Geniuses" insignia that Halliburton had insisted on putting on all their clothing, glanced adoringly at the slightly porcine figure of Rove.

"Open the Smear Cabinet. I need some more ingredients for this one. The last batch wasn't potent enough," Rove snarled at them.

"Right away Master, I'll do it," Gillespie fawned as he made a dash for the dreaded Smear Cabinet. Unfortunately, he collided with Mehlman and the two knocked heads and wound up on the floor in a heap in front of the massive Smear door. Rove sighed deeply and thought to himself, "Minions. Why can't I find decent minions. Do I have to do every smear myself?"

"You idiots. Get up and open that door." Mehlman and Gillespie haltingly got up and glanced at each other. The Smear Cabinet was nothing to fool around with. All the deadliest smears in the Rethug arsenal were contained in it's air-tight interior. The two henchmen drew out their keys and, in a ritual they had performed many times, entered a code into the security panel, put one key into the slot and turned it right, then the other and turned it right as well. Far, far to the right. They heard a faint click and slowly turned the handle and opened the door.

Whatever Rove was working on had started to smoke a little bit and was emitting a greenish smoke into the dank lab air. Without glancing up, he ordered his henchmen to grab some specific vials and bring them to him.

Gillespie and Mehlman slowly entered the Smear Cabinet and looked around. "Look at that, it's pure fear juice, lethal in it's pure form," Gillespie whispered. "I wasn't around when the Master first learned how to use that, but I heard it was in '88."

"Whatever you do, don't spill it. The fumes alone are enough to curl you up in terror. I once got a whiff of that stuff and I couldn't go into my closet at home for a week. Ah, not that I'm in the closet a lot normally, but, ahm, well, it's fear juice, you know what I mean." Mehlman pushed past Gillespie and reached for another of the vials Rove had requested.

"Wow, Bashing Juice. The Master is cooking up something really evil tonight." The two minions grabbed the deadly vials, left the Cabinet and carefully locked it back up. They approached Rove slowly and waited for further instructions.

"Put the damn vials down and step back, you fools. Now watch and try and learn how this is done. I'm working on something for George Allen in Virginia. The stuff I worked up before wasn't good enough. We need something really potent." Rove laughed evilly. Both henchmen giggled a bit, grabbed gas masks and leaned in for a better view of what Rove was doing.

Rove took the smoking green mixture and poured it into a larger bowl. He then picked up the vial of Fear Juice and uncorked it. He actually paused a moment and inhaled the vile fumes. They didn't seem to affect him, like it did ordinary humans. If anything, he found the aroma of pure fear intoxicating. He tipped the vial ever so carefully and let a few drops of it fall into the bowl.

Rove incanted, "Argumentum in terrorem" as the bowl lit up in flames for a second. He smiled evilly again and then decanted a couple of drops from the other vial, and said, "Argumentum ad baculum!" The mixture in the bowl burst into flames again, this time even higher.

"It's alive! It's alive. My smear is alive!," Rove shouted. "Mehlman, quick get the Allen campaign manager on the phone, tell him I got his smear all ready for him."

Mehlman and Gillespie smiled. The Master had done it again. This potent mixture of fear and the threat of bashing was perfect for that oaf Allen. Just perfect. Let the Democrats try and fend this one off. They'll be in knots for weeks.

"You're a genius Master," Gillespie sighed. "A genius," Mehlman echoed and shot Rove a look of longing.

"Yes, I know," Rove said. "Now, get this to Virginia right away. I got a back order from Tennessee and the order is late. It's going to be a long night boys, we have a lot of work to do, and a lot more smears to concoct. Let's get back to work."

Mehlman looked at Gillespie and sighed, "I'll call for pizza, you call maintenance and tell them it's going to be on of THOSE nights again. Sigh. Thank Gawd for petty cash."

The end

For Karen. Cuz it's Halloween.

US Ambassador to Iraq Zalmay Khalilzad will brief the US Senate Foreign Relations Committee on the how things are going in Iraq.

Anybody want to make a guess about what he will say?

1: Things are going peachy. We're having a weinie roast next week. Sen. Allen, wanna roast weinies with me?

2: So we had a few startup problems. What new country doesn't have birth pangs? We'll be fine. Just keep signing the checks.

3: Well, ahm, see it's like this:


4: Please, please, please don't make me go back to that hellhole. We shouldn't be there. We need to get out as soon as possible. No Govt pension is worth going back there.


What say you?

The Republican unity is a smokescreen. They have rallied around a banner of not 'cutting and running' in one of the first Congressional tests of the Iraq War. That was the easy part for them. They used this first debate in the Senate since Oct 2002 -- and it was the first real debate over the war since then, btw -- to show 'unity' to ahm, something. (But what exactly? Nobody knows.) This is a false unity and is not very strong.

Republicans have rallied around a slogan, not a war. Remember that. They are opposed to the slogan of 'cutting and running' and they fear that anything they do to bring this occupation to a close will look like surrender. That is the box they have put themselves into. They had no choice but to march in lockstep with a policy that has unilaterally and wholly failed. (They know this. They may bellow about all the hope and sunshine they see in Iraq, but don't be fooled by this empty rhetoric. They know the policies of the Bush Admin in Iraq have utterly failed. They know this.) They have pinned their future to a war that cannot be won. They will pull out the '02 and '04 playbook of 'but the other guy is worse and is indecisive' and attempt to sell it to the electorate. They will get a short-term bounce of about 4-6 percentage points out of this as they squeeze the last measures of hope out of a public that desperately wants to believe that the US did the right thing in going into Iraq. But it won't last. It can't, it isn't based in reality and the public wants to see something concrete achieved or it will stop hoping and stop believing in the Republican falsehoods.

The Democrats are beginning the real debate in the country. As in any other war, no one wants to really be the front man in admitting that the country is off course and has made a mistake. Traditionally, Americans only like courageous truth-tellers way after the fact. (We put up monuments and statues to the brave long after their causes are over. You pick anybody in American history that we now think of as brave and forward thinking and I can show you press clippings of the time that showed they were vilified and harassed for 'rocking the boat.' That is how it works in America. We honor the path-finders, but only when it is safe to do so.) Sen. Kerry is challenging the Democratic Party to stand for something. This is very risky and the Democratic Party would much rather not do this. There are many in the Party who believe this will not further the cause of garnering more votes in Nov and might hinder the take-over of at least one branch of Congress. Of course they are yelling, 'Stop doing this John.' They fear that Kerry's stand will endanger them and make the public angry at them.

Sen. Kerry is making a moral argument to a political body. They don't want to have to make moral choices. Those choices are, by definition, subjective, gut-wrenching and carry great risk. They are angry at him for putting them in this position. They would rather not have to consult with God and soul on what is the right thing to do. They would rather play with the consultants and the money and numbers guys and pick issues that are strategically right or that play well with known polling groups. Kerry has muddied the waters. He is a reminder that there are debates that cannot be avoided and issues that cannot be explained away in a briefing book. I can completely understand why he is resented for doing this. But the good and true Senator from Massachusetts is correct to do this. The Democratic PArty must have this debate, we must thrash out our differences. It matters little what the pundits think of it. It matters that we do it and we will. That much is inevitable.

Remember what Kerry said the other night in the dialogue with Sen. Warner because it's meaningful and will have echoes that the straight politicoes can't see right now:



Sen. Kerry and Sen. Feingold are challenging the Democrats to confront reality and to admit in public what they no doubt talk about in private. We cannot stay in Iraq and condemn all these 'kids' to the horrors of war for a cause that is lost. That is salt in the wound and is a terrible thought to bear. But the Dems must begin to see this. And this week, we had a beginning.

Did you ever see how big that Vietnam Memorial Wall is?





I had tears in my eyes when I heard Senator Kerry say these words. I kept thinking about a young girl from my town who just graduated from High School and has enlisted in the US Marine Corp. A girl who is a constituent of Senator Kerry's and whose family has suffered a great deal from this war. I couldn't help thinking about her and wondering if there will be a Memorial Wall for Iraq someday and whose name will be on it. We know we can't win this war, we stone cold know it. I wondered if that young girl's name might someday be on a wall, after the bend, after we knew we couldn't win it. And yeah, I cried.

Sen. Frist: "We need to have a debate on our terms about the War on Terra in Iraq. We need everyone on board and on point for this one."

Sen. McConnell: "Ahm, Chief, we have several Sens who can't remember why we are in Iraq. Ahm, we have explained this to them and re-explained it as we, ahm, changed the reasons for the continued war. I tried several times to explain this to Santorum and Allen. I even used toy army men and an Etch-a-Sketch so they would understand. I drew pictures, mentioned John Wayne movies, nothing worked. I don't know what we can do."

Frist: "Maybe we need something else, something even an idiot .... hey, I have an idea! What about a new guide, 'The Iraq War for Dummies' type thing? That might work. It's certainly appropriate, particularly for those two and for Sessions as well."

McConnell: "Wow, great idea. Wait, wait, we can't do it."

Frist: "Why not? We could get the Pentagon to do it. It's not like their busy getting body armor shipped or anything. They have loads of time to do grunt work for the Republican Party."

McConnell: "Allen could never finish a real book. I don't think he's ever read a complete book in his whole life. He would just flip through it and complain that there weren't enough pictures in it and he got bored."

Frist: "Crap. I keep forgetting about our 'special needs' Senator. Damn. Hey, maybe the drones at the Pentagon could come up with the Cliff Notes version. We could get someone to read it to George and Ricky and Jeff and we could put pictures in it and then tell them that if they memorize the good bitey parts of it, we can give them money to put in their re-election campaigns. Jeff isn't running this year, but he doesn't know that, so I think it will work for him as well. What do you think?"

McConnell: "Brilliant!"

Frist and McConnell together: "Brilliant!"

And so it goes.

Posted in GD as: http://www.democraticunderground.com/discu...

This is my greatest fear in the election fraud issue. It is coming to pass. We have to watch these bastards for more than just the machine issue. They are going to fundamentally rewrite the registration laws in America and no one will ever have to listen to election fraud stories again because everything that happened in '04 will be nice and legal. And permanent.

http://digbysblog.blogspot.com/

This is a very interesting (and depressing) analysis of what is going on in Turkey as a result of the fracturing of Iraq along sectarian lines. Sigh! Pay attention to what the analyst says about the ability of Iraq to even form a government. It doesn't look good. Senator Kerry, in effect, in his recent speeches on dissent, said that one way or the other we have to get out of Iraq. It looks like it will be the 'other way' in that we will have to leave because it is a full-on civil war that we are powerless to prevent, ameliorate or solve. Sigh!

http://www.pinr.com /



Talk about doom and gloom. Again, this is not a situation in which the US can direct the outcome. It's full-on civil war. And Turkey may lose it's secular status and it's EU hopes. This is yet another world political disaster that the Bush Admin is responsible for.

Iran's moves are opposed by the IAEA, the UN and the most of the civilized world. And Iran with nuclear weapons makes the whole world a more dangerous place. The whole world has a stake in making sure that doesn't happen. The whole world. We need some serious diplomacy and the kinds of carrot and stick approach that major trading and economic powers can bring to bear on a crisis.

The US is being unilateral again in it's approach. This is the disaster. It is also about the United States of America and how the country has been revamped in order to wage aggressive pre-emptive war with as little opposition as humanly possible. The President is assuming all power to declare war and make earth-shattering decisions (and this would be an earth-shattering decision) without consultation with Congress. This is very, very bad and makes Bush not just a King, but an infallible Emperor of the Earth. (He is giving himself power that no one else in the history of the planet has accumulated.)

Read this part of Sy Hersh's Iran column from this week's New Yorker:



http://www.newyorker.com/fact/content/arti...

Rumsfeld has brought intelligence gathering operations inside the military. He did so IN ORDER to evade Congressional oversight and make that a private matter of the military. This is in line with the Bush Admin's desire to acquire the absolute right to do anything it wants without oversight, including starting a nuclear war. Who will contradict Rumsfeld's version of what is going on? The CIA is out-of-the-loop and their function to be eyes and ears on the ground and report that back through a structure that includes Congress has been usurped by a military that wants NO OVERSIGHT. This is a silent coup in the US.

Be afraid, be very afraid. This is the dismantling of Constitutional Government and the growth of The Empire.

There are times when we are all mostly on the same side. Then there are times when I think that Bizarro World and the Real World have collided and we are getting cross-overs.

I have found different types of posters here, and they cross categories from people who I agree with with to people I do not. It can be so strange to hang out at DU. (In general and not in specifics.)

Some categories: (But not a definitive list. Open to suggestions.)

New Best Friend: That great feeling you get when you find simpatico people. Great when it happens. Makes you feel not quite so alone in the universe.

People who should be your New Best Friend but, for some reason, you can't stand them: Most puzzling event in the world. We agree on principles, we agree on actions, we agree on tactics and sometimes even on specific people. But you can't stand this person anyway. There's just something about 'em that you can't put your finger on. (Incipient lefty-freeperness? Not sure.)

People who are so depressing, they make you wish the internet had never been born: Seriously, Clarence Angel, 2nd Class, never met these people. No matter how wonderful some event is and how great it might be for the Democrats, these people have the ability to see through it and detect the doom that is coming. Hey, it's looking good for the Democrats this fall, right? No, the Democrats have no chance at all, the machines will steal the vote and it's all hopeless and beyond redemption. BTW, do you want to sign another petition to Washington that I'm sure won't get read? I recommend it, but I'm not really sure why as it won't do any good.

People who want to be my New Best Friend but piss me off instead:
Wow! Kerry sure screwed up everything he ever did, but I think there may be a glimmer of hope for him. Maybe we can now talk about all his shortcomings and then talk about his slim chance of redeeming himself.
Me: Bite me.
But you have to admit, he didn't do everything that a real Liberal Warrior would have done and I know that you have the best interests of the Democratic Party at heart, so I know you will join me in praising him with damning and very faint praise.
Me: Blow me.
I really need your help. I just discovered that Kerry doesn't suck nearly as badly as I thought and I was hoping you would share some 'forgive and forget' time with me and, my oh my, that's some nice access to info that you have there. Will you be my New Best Friend?
Me: OMG! They are trying to blow me. The only thing I'm going to get out of this is an STD.

So, what examples of the human species can you bring back here?

If the Rethugs ad-makers were all hit with Cherry-flavored Extreme Truth Serum, this is what their ad would say: (Additional comments in italics )

Announcer: September 11th changed our country. And it changed how America responds to terrorists. And it gave us a lovely new coloring scheme for showing which days were terrorist-light and which days were terrorist-heavy so we could plan a wardrobe with ot without gas masks and duct tape. Nobody ever remembers to thank us for this. It sometimes gets us down.

President Bush is working to keep American families safe. Sort of. If you discount all those people made homeless and jobless by Katrina. But they don't count because they deserved it and a lot of them are minorities. So, we can really just ignore them and go back to worrying about The Haves and The Have Mores. Like America should.

Passing the PATRIOT Act which has disrupted over one hundred and fifty terrorist threats and cells making sure the US is monitoring terrorist communications. And we don't have to actually tell you which operations that we conducted actually resulted in terrorist convictions, cuz, ahm, that would show we made the numbers up. We could have claimed 200 threats, but it seemed a bit overdone, so we settled on 150. It seems like a nice scary number, but not too scary.

But some Democrats are working against these efforts to secure our country, opposing the PATRIOT Act and terrorist surveillance program. Their leader is Russ Feingold. He eats babies. Seriously, we saw him just last week order a Salad with Fried Baby on the side at the Democratic Cafeteria. We believe that life begins at conception and ends when the batteries run out on the ventilator. He eats babies. Who you gonna trust, him, the baby-eater, or the ones who are pro-life, pro-torture and pro the good clean fun of war.

Now Feingold and other Democrats want to censure the President. Publicly reprimanding President Bush for pursuing suspected members of al Qaeda. This is horrible and traitorous and if it was up to us we would have Dems who talk like this strung up on the Mall in Washington so decent, humble and honorable citizens could whack them publicly with sticks. This is what our Puritan ancestors used to do and they founded a nation conceived in liberty and dedicated to the proposition that whacking people with views opposed to the Great Leader is a Constitutional way of showing you love God. It's the American Way.

Some Democrats are even calling for President Bush’s impeachment. Is this how Democrats plan to win the War on Terror? We told you back at the Republican Convention that the Democrats planned on using spitballs to win the WOT. Now, they've updated their plan to include things like Impeachment to get the job done. Impeachment and spitballs, tsk, tsk, tsk, that is no way to kill, main, torture and intimidate people. Only Republicans know how to do those things and they can't be done with wussies tools like spitballs and impeachment. Tell Sen. Feingold that real men fight with guns, water boards and those little stakes they put under people's fingernails. Impeachment is for those kids who nobody ever chose for basketball in gym class in high school. Yeah, it still hurts. A lot.

Call Russ Feingold and ask him why he’s more interested in censuring the President than protecting our freedom. And tell him that free countries do not hold their leaders responsible for their illegal actions. Only wussy nations like Canada and Lichtenstein do that and nobody takes them seriously in the world. What kind of an impression do we make on the terrorists when we have Senators publicly asking that people be held accountable for their actions. This causes the terrorists to laugh so hard they end up splitting their pants. It's terrible to be laughed at by terrorists. What is Mr. Feingold thinking putting us through that? We are just trying to make an evil living here, we don't need this kind of stress. It's hard enough with all the indictments and hurricanes and Ports Deals and everything. Give us a break, we're only inhuman.

Paid for by the Republican National Committee. The Republican National Committee is responsible for the content of this advertising. (Well, not all of it.)

Btw, for the benefit of the humor-impaired, this is satire. (I have to write this line, there have been letters.)

The King strode to the podium today and boldly attempted to hold 'press' conference with that rabble band of malcontents. He began the day with the patented royal wave, to let the disloyal 'news' people know who was in charge and just how deeply he held them in his Royal disdain.

King George: "Hello, little people. Hello. Now, let's get on with it. Helen, why are you still here? We haven't cut social security yet, retire at once woman and cease questioning your betters immediately. In the interests of charity and respect for the elderly I will permit you to ask me one question. Out with it old woman?"

Helen Thomas: "Sir, ahm, why the hell are we in Iraq and why did you lie to the people about the reasons we are in Iraq?"

KingG: "No, no guards, don't taser her yet, she amuses us. We are in Iraq woman because we want to spread democracy and freedom to the little people of that troubled land. We can't understand why those little people haven't thanked us yet and put up statues to our noble selves in their little town squares, but we assume they are in the works. See, we intend to bring the inncocent people of Iraq the freedoms of democracy, even if we have to force it down their ungrateful throats. We can't abandon them, because they would have no idea what to do without us. We will stay as long as it takes or until freedom rolls over the land like flood waters over a breeched levee. Forced freedom will be my legacy to those poor oil rich folks and I have every confidence that someday they will understand this.
Ah, Carl, First Earl of Fox, what is your question?"

Carl Cameron: "Oh most Noble and Gracious of Rulers, Light of the Universe and Keeper of all Knowledge."

KingG: "Carl, not here. The cameras are rolling. Those titles are for the private interviews for your wondrous and patriotic network."

CarlC: "Oops, sorry Sire, I forgot. Ahm, King, sir, ahm, the lowly and despicable Democratic hordes have decided that they have the right to question your right to issue laws and edicts without checking with them first. How do you plan on punishing these traitors? And will it hurt? And can I film it for a very special episode of 'Cops'?"

KingG: "Carl, as you know, our Loyal Opposition is under the delusion that freedom and liberty mean that you have the right to say whatever what you want, even in a time of war. This is ridiculous. They keep pointing to that silly Constitution and saying that We have to obey some set of inconvenient laws that were written hundreds of years ago, as if that matters to us in the least. We find the Democrats to be in bad taste and We are thinking very strongly of having them restricted to certain areas of Capital Hill away from microphones and other things that might cause them to distract my people from my noble cause of endless war. Really, the Democrats are getting very tiresome with their endless harping on the tiniest things, like you said the war would cost 50-60 billion dollars and it now costs $250+ billion and it looks like there is a Civil War going on over there and other triffles. Honestly, someone must tell them, we are at war because we like it and we have no intentions of quitting any time soon."

Sigh!