Mr Populist
Guess what? The American public is about to get sandbagged again. The latest "gotcha" from George W. Bush is backing down from his good faith agreement to allow a September assessment by General Petraeus to be the basis for evaluating the progress of the surge. Instead the White House is censoring the Petraeus evaluation and issuing its own report card on Iraq.
I'm a member of the Perspectives bi-partisan forum and recently criticized the Bush administration for losing track of 190,000 weapons that were issued to the Iraqi Security to forces. My theory was that those weapons were stolen by members of the Iraq security force and put into the hands of various competing factions waging war against the American military in Iraq.
A fellow who calls himself Conservative Virginian wrote this reply:
He is the Commander In Chief, not an employee in the warehouse. According to the Government Accountability Office the blame is shared between Congress and the Department of Defense. Of course it is still the big evil George Bush's fault right? Is there anything that occurs in this country which is not Bush's fault? Last poll I saw had George Bush's Iraq approval ratings higher than Congresses, explain that away. The reality simply does not support the irrational claims of the Bush Haters.
A video from YouTube which I also saw on MSNBC shows a rare moment when George W. Bush is at a loss for words, even stupid words.
In doing research among the vast archives of Watergate tapes, I stumbled across this little gem of a consversation between Richard Nixon and Donald Rumsfeld. The time stamp on the tape is June 22, 1971 between 11:36 am and 12:28 pm. The tape runs only five minutes or so but part of the conversation has been excised from the tape, for reasons unknown to me. The President does most of the talking as Rumsfeld behaves like a sycophant, laughing on cue to the president's jokes and agreeing with the nuggets of wisdom his boss imparts to him.
I've been running the Pathetic Republican poll at my home forum for a couple of years now but I thought it would be fun to debut it on the Daily Kos. Just post any write-in votes or comments on the thread.
Poll 171 votes Show Results Who the Most Patethic Republican of the Month? (Please select one from list below) SEAN HANNITY announced his all star All American concert in September featuring Hannity, Lee Ann Rhymes, and Lee Greenwood. The eventââ,¬<sup>TM</sup>s sponsor? The Hong Kong Trade Council. BILL O' REALLY who blameed Jessie Davis, the dead victim for her own murder by Bobby Cutts because she was romantically involved with a person who did ââ,¬oechaotic things.ââ,¬Â WILLIAM KRISTOL, neocon leader Neocon leader,who told the Today Show that, CONSERVATIVE EMPLOYEES of the Wall Street Journal who walked off the job for the day to protest the possible sale of the Journal to conservative icon Rupert Murdoch, fearing that Murdoch would cut their salaries and benefits. RUPERT MURDOCH ho admitted that he used the considerable resources of the Murdoch Media Group to rally public opinion to lead the American public into supporting the Iraq War . NEWT GINGRICH who as a spokesman for anti-immigration coalition makes the claim in a television advertisement, QUOTE--- ââ,¬oeMohammad Atta entered the United States illegallyââ,¬Â. Except that the 9/11 ring leader wasnââ,¬<sup>~</sup>t MITT ROMNEY who zealously defended the pardon of Scooter Libby on the grounds that the 3 year sentence for obstruction and perjury was unfair. Mitt himself was the first governor of Massachusetts to never use the pardon once in his term of office. GEORGE W BUSH who uses all the ultra-liberal rationales of the ACLU to commute the sentence of Libby, proving once again that Republicans are the same ultra-liberals as the Democrats if the defendant is Republican. DICK CHENEY who is taking top home secret classified documents that by law and for national security purposes are never to be removed from White House compound. ANN COULTER who refuses to apologize to Elizabeth Edwards for saying John Eduwards had a bumper sticker that said 171 votes Vote Now! Who the Most Patethic Republican of the Month? (Please select one from list below) SEAN HANNITY announced his all star All American concert in September featuring Hannity, Lee Ann Rhymes, and Lee Greenwood. The eventââ,¬<sup>TM</sup>s sponsor? The Hong Kong Trade Council. 5% 9 votes BILL O' REALLY who blameed Jessie Davis, the dead victim for her own murder by Bobby Cutts because she was romantically involved with a person who did ââ,¬oechaotic things.ââ,¬Â 6% 11 votes WILLIAM KRISTOL, neocon leader Neocon leader,who told the Today Show that, 5% 8 votes CONSERVATIVE EMPLOYEES of the Wall Street Journal who walked off the job for the day to protest the possible sale of the Journal to conservative icon Rupert Murdoch, fearing that Murdoch would cut their salaries and benefits. 4% 6 votes RUPERT MURDOCH ho admitted that he used the considerable resources of the Murdoch Media Group to rally public opinion to lead the American public into supporting the Iraq War . 6% 11 votes NEWT GINGRICH who as a spokesman for anti-immigration coalition makes the claim in a television advertisement, QUOTE--- ââ,¬oeMohammad Atta entered the United States illegallyââ,¬Â. Except that the 9/11 ring leader wasnââ,¬<sup>~</sup>t 1% 1 vote MITT ROMNEY who zealously defended the pardon of Scooter Libby on the grounds that the 3 year sentence for obstruction and perjury was unfair. Mitt himself was the first governor of Massachusetts to never use the pardon once in his term of office. 4% 6 votes GEORGE W BUSH who uses all the ultra-liberal rationales of the ACLU to commute the sentence of Libby, proving once again that Republicans are the same ultra-liberals as the Democrats if the defendant is Republican. 31 votes DICK CHENEY who is taking top home secret classified documents that by law and for national security purposes are never to be removed from White House compound. 38 votes ANN COULTER who refuses to apologize to Elizabeth Edwards for saying John Eduwards had a bumper sticker that said 50 votes
An article by Michael Kranish in the July 4th edition of the Boston Globe adds some fresh perspective on Fred Thompson's role as Watergate prosecutor:
Thompson tipped off the White House that the committee knew about the taping system and would be making the information public. In his all-but-forgotten Watergate memoir, "At That Point in Time," Thompson said he acted with "no authority" in divulging the committee's knowledge of the tapes, which provided the evidence that led to Nixon's resignation. It was one of many Thompson leaks to the Nixon team, according to a former investigator for Democrats on the committee, Scott Armstrong , who remains upset at Thompson's actions.
For those of you who have yet to witness Ann Coulter's meltdown on Chris Matthew's Hardball last evening, your dessert is on me today: Link to Video Footage of Coulter Meltdown
Listening is a lost art in America.
Nearly everything I know about the world was learned by listening. When I first worked as a community organizer I was assigned to work in an impoverished all black Fairgrounds Park neighborhood of North St. Louis in the Seventies,. I was a middle class white kid from suburbs barely out of my teens. I hadn’t even gone to college back then. What the hell did I know about impoverished black folks?
I'm pretty much middle of the road on the immigration issue. Organized labor along with the vast majority of Americans don't want corporate America outsourcing or insourcing skilled jobs that could be performed by American citizens. Hiring immigrants from underdeveloped nations has a long term effect of depressing American wages, thus transforming our entire economy into Wal-Mart business model of a serf driven economy where educated workers, skilled trades workers and unskilled and uneducated workers are all paupers under the same feudal oligarchy of global capitalism.
Conservatives say, "Fred Thompson is just like Ronald Reagan!"
The conventional wisdom says, " Yup, Fred Thompson is just like Ronald Reagan ....Without ideas, charisma, passion, experience, hair, sense of humor, political savvy or an age appropriate wife."
I'm going to break with progressive political protocol and comment on the omnipresent celebrity news item of Paris Hilton's "political" imprisonment. I've seen the minds of the greatest journalists of my generation destroyed by Paris Hilton's demand for constant attention. Even the Olbermann Nation at MSNBC has been caught in the grip of Paris madness.
Keith Olbermann will tell you his extensive coverage of Paris is a parody of tabloid celebrity newz,but how do you parody Paris Hilton, a pseudo-celebrity who is already a parody of herself? The best parody of Paris Hilton is Paris Hilton and while Olbermann's parody might bump up his ratings, he can't compete with the the hilarity of Paris' own parody of herself. Kieth Olberman's efforts are a second hand parody of parody.
Even liberal populist like myself, finds a great deal to appreciate about Lou Dobb's appealing lunch-bucket, everyman’s populism on CNN. Even if Dobbs sometimes strays into xenophobic right-wing clap-trap in his commentaries, he is a voice in the wilderness committed to telling the truth. At least that's what I thought until the New York Times reporter David Leonhardt discovered that Dobbs has been playing fast and lose with the truth on his show. http://www.nytimes.com/
In addition, Leonhardt uncovered Dobbs' cult popularity among white supremacist websites and his use of racist guests on his show as uncovered by the Southern Poverty Law Center. In fact since the SPLC has pointed out Mr. Dobbs' ongoing flirtation with the white supremacist movement, I've been switching over to MSNBC when his show comes on CNN. Sorry about that Lou, but your quirky populism falls flat when you start acting like a spokesman for a Christian identity militia. http://www.splcenter.org/...
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