Riding the BushCo Duncemobile

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This week's hot blog topics: O'Reilly claims he's "petty" and "small"; conservative bloggers apologize?; Civil War vs. Sectarian Violence: labeling theory gone mad; the Bush Twins' twinkling birthday bash prompts plea to leave the country; and where there's smoke, there's a Jack Abramoff email to prove Bush meant to invade Baghdad in March, 2002. All this and much, much more. Enjoy!

All O'Reilly Creatures Petty & Small

At least O'Reilly now admits that his War On Christmas rhetoric is "petty and small." Think Progress has the hilarious video and transcript from Bill's backpedaling bitchfest with Michele Malkin.

In other WOC (War On Christmas) news...

Jesus in a Tidy Bowl, skimming the azure waves! Yes, Virginia, a peace symbol wreath with a big red bow is OK to display, despite your homeowners' association decision to fine you $25 per day for being "Satanic" and/or "inappropriate." Check out Neural Gourmet's take on the story and be sure to bookmark the site for the upcoming First Anniversary edition of Carnival Of The Liberals on Dec. 6th. Congrats, COTL!

Also dangling from the Stupid Stick this week: right-wing bloggers. Bob Geiger has the details. Here's a snippet:

Right-Wing Bloggers Wrong About AP Story - Will They Apologize?

When I think of every time our right-wing counterparts in the political blog world humiliate themselves, I'm reminded of former NBA star Charles Barkley who, upon hearing that Tonya Harding was calling herself "the Charles Barkley of figure skating," said "I was going to sue her for defamation of character, but then I realized I have no character."

And here we have so many conservative bloggers, after days of castigating the Associated Press for running what the wingnuts claimed was a fictitious story about six Sunnis being burned alive in sectarian violence in Iraq on Friday, having to once again face what a bunch of putzes they really are.

The AP reported last night on eyewitnesses to the immolations, that occurred when Sunni worshippers were leaving a Mosque on Friday and have also substantiated the identity of Iraqi police Capt. Jamil Hussein, who the AP cited as the primary source for its story that the Sunnis were killed while the Iraqi military stood by and did nothing.

The George W. Supreme Court Activist Judges Bombshell

Will George W. and his band of activist judge haters march on the US Supreme Court, now that they've declined to hear that case from Maine families who wanted to use school voucher money for private schools? AMERICABlog has the details. The easy part, which BushCo dunces are incapable of comprehending: public and private are not the same word. And all the smart kids on the corner sing, "Duh duh. Duh. Duh shop shoop duh." If you think that concept is difficult for them to grasp, how about this one?

Civil War vs. Sectarian Violence

While thousands of bloggers argued this week over the textbook definition of civil war and whether or not NBC is correct in labeling the Iraq quagmire as a bona fide one, Josh Marshall consulted the dictionary:

With the back and forth atrocities over the last week we may be on the cusp of that. But what we seem to moving toward -- and perhaps have already been in for weeks or months -- is arguably worse than civil war, by this definition. And that's what strikes me as the shortcoming of the debate over this phrase. Civil war, by most definitions at least, involves some broad level of organization. What we have here is a situation where there is a nominal government (which none of the contending parties seems particularly interested in overthrowing) but in which the country has experienced a complete breakdown of law and order. It's not so much civil war as a descent into anarchy.

Late Update: Out of curiosity I looked up Merriam-Webster's definition of 'civil war', in the unabridged version, and it has the rather brief and unhelpful "a war between different sections or parties of the same country or nation."

While we're on the subject of sectarian violence, it appears that Tricky Dick Cheney was actually summoned to appear before the Saudi leaders, and not the other way around. Both the Washington Post and the New York Times have reported the story, but Editor & Publisher has the best blurb... and the money question:

What does it say about the nature of U.S.-Saudi relations when the Vice President can be "summoned" by the Saudi Crown Prince?

Good question. P M Carpenter has the answer, and the problem isn't just confined to Cheney:

I spy nincompoops

New York Times' top story, top paragraph, top secret!:

"A classified memorandum by President Bush's national security adviser expressed serious doubts about whether Prime Minister Nuri Kamal al-Maliki had the capacity to control the sectarian violence in Iraq and recommended that the United States take new steps to strengthen the Iraqi leader's position."

This was classified? This is how Stephen Hadley and his "senior aides" at NSC spend their days? Shhhh. Don't tell anyone, Mr. President, mum's the word, but we're starting to think that maybe Maliki doesn't have things under control.

(snip)

The ball-busting superspooks and qualified professionals who ponder, write and then classify all this pristine crap do so primarily not to protect national security, but to hide from the public what thorough mediocrity, absolute mystification and downright haplessness reign in the uppermost circles of power.

Just "think" Professor Harold Hill.

Don't you just want to send the White House memo leaker a nice fruit basket? Adding insult to injury, those downright uppity (and be thankful that they are!) Tennessee Guerilla Women have posted Maureen Dowd's scathing rebuke on Hadley & the BushCo dunce team:

Mr. Hadley bluntly mused about Mr. Malaki: "His intentions seem good when he talks with Americans, and sensitive reporting suggests he is trying to stand up to the Shi'a hierarchy and force positive change. But the reality on the streets of Baghdad suggests Maliki is either ignorant of what is going on, misrepresenting his intentions, or that his capabilities are not yet sufficient to turn his good intentions into action."

It's bad enough to say that about the Iraqi puppet. But what about when the same is true of the American president?

No wonder Maliki told Bush to talk to the hand and made the US president wait in the wings for a face-to-face. If you think this sounds like some sick and twisted type of Republican comedy routine, you could be on to something.

KKKonservative KKKomedy

They're not funny. Just creepy. They're making a TV show that's half "Daily Show" and half "Saturday Night Live." And they don't even bat an eye about their blatant plagiarism. Sadly, No! has video clips of so-called conservative comedians and info on FOX's two-episode order for January. Two whole half-hour episodes? Doesn't sound like FOX thinks their comedy show will have them rolling in the Ailes (pun intended).

Almost as... er, (cough) unfunny (cough) is US Secretary of Education Margaret Spellings, who lost on Celebrity Jeopardy to Lenny from Laverne & Shirley. Spellings whined about the hand buzzer, but the kicker came, according to reports at Wonkette, that she couldn't even answer, "What is a circle, Alex?" when describing the shape of Stonehenge.

Also almost as funny is the news of Bush's presidential library plans. Boiling Mad says it best:

Bush to spend one-half billion dollars on presidential library

Is it just me, or is $500 million a helluva lot to spend on comic books?

Now that's funny! As a TCU grad, I'm of course pleased as Texas Tea to find out that rival school SMU is getting stuck with the Pet Goat depository.

Abramoff, Ralston (Rove), & Reed

Has anybody here seen Bush's old friend, Jack? More precisely, has anyone seen his emails or those of Ralston (on behalf of Rove) and pseudo-Christian Ralph Reed? Dems Will Win has put them in chronological order, and the smoking gun rests firmly in Bush's creepy little hand:



Dear Bush Girls, Won't You Please Go Home?

The ABC Blotter blog reports that the US Embassy in Argentina has "strongly suggested" that the Bush Twins leave the country after repeated incidents during which Secret Service agents were nowhere to be found. Don't cry for them, Argentina!

This just in! "Not Jenna" has hightailed it back home, and the US Embassy has rewritten its original statement to reflect Argentina's feelings of extreme joy joy due to the girls' visit: "The Embassy welcomes the visit and has provided close support and cooperation."

Leave it to the twins to muck up an entire country's reputation while celebrating their birthday fortnight. Gag me.

Crystal Ball Prediction?

Hmm. It appears that at least one law firm expects to reap the wild wind of billing hour windfall come January. TPM Muckraker reports on a memo from Covington and Burling:

The new Congress will be busy ferretting out "sweetheart contracts, administrative cost overruns, waste and fraud, and narrow appropriations earmarks," the slick marketing piece predicted. Also at risk are "(c)ompanies that played a role in what are perceived as Bush Administration failures or abuses" like Katrina and the president's warrantless wiretapping program. And even though Enron was a long time ago, Covington also sees "corporate abuses" as a target area.

Are you an executive at a telecom involved in the NSA's wiretapping program? Did your company get a sweet no-bid contract in Iraq? Well, Covington's soon-to-be booming "congressional investigations practice" boasts such luminaries as Lanny Breuer, who was President Clinton's Special Counsel during impeachment proceedings, and Robert Kelner, who has represented the RNC in the New Hampshire phone jamming case.

Gentlemen, start your retainers.

Good times ahead... hearings and depositions and scandal exposures, oh my! Better ask Santa for another TV, or at least one of those picture-in-a-picture deals. You'll need it to keep up with the play-by-play action.

A word of warning, though: our work is not done! We must be ever vigilant in forcing the media, the paid pundits and every BushCo flying monkey to stop painting this long-awaited comeuppance as a "bipartisan problem." It'll take an underground (if you know what I mean) to keep fighting the right!

-- Delilah Boyd

[cspanlovr]

1. Thanks. This was fun reading. I love the memo: * thinks ARABFAT is a liar! Oh, those nicknames!

Of course, it takes one to know one.