Betsy Devine: Funny ha-ha and/or funny peculiar

http://www.bopnews.com/

http://election.rhetorica.net/

http://election.rhetorica.net/docs/iraq2002.htm

Dateline: Washington, November 17, 2023

The President was having a tiring day. Washington was in the throes of another blackout, and despite the White House’s massive bank of emergency backup generators, the air conditioners in the nursery wing were no longer working. Ten of the fifteen presidential children, with their nannies, their personal aides, and their drama coaches, were milling about the Oval Office.

President Jenna Bush gave a sigh of frustration. “Even in Texas we didn’t need air conditioning in November,” she complained to Vice President Cheney.

“Global Climate Improvement,” said a computerized voice from the massive respirator where Cheney lived these days.

“Global warming,” said Bush a bit crossly, as a toy bazooka bullet bounced off her ankle.

“Global Climate Improvement,” said Cheney’s computer, a bit more forcefully. Rumor had it that the computer itself now handled most Cheney responses.

“Whatever,” sighed the President. “Look, you said you wanted to see me. You asked me to cut short my six-month summer vacation. I had to cancel two golf games and a massage. You guys are supposed to take care of that government stuff.”

“Of course we do.” The computer’s voice was soothing. From speakers around the Oval Office came soothing music, a pop orchestration of Jewel’s Hands song. A light spritz of vanilla and cinnamon from vents in the floor masked the odor of airborne tranquilizer. A hush descended on the president’s children, and several curled up on the carpet to take a nap.

“I don’t want to waste a whole hour in this dump,” said Bush with a yawn.

The rest of the story…

Anti-Bush protesters are now relegated to what are euphemistically called Free Speech Zones. These areas are cordoned off as far as a mile away from the president and the main thoroughfares, so that Bush cannot see the demonstrators, or their signs of protest, nor hear their chants.

The free speech enclosures are only for those who disagree with the administration’s current policies. Those citizens who carry pro-Bush signs are allowed to line the street where the president’s motorcade passes.

Charles Levendosky of the Casper (Wyo.) Star-Tribune

I don’t see why Dean should have to refuse big donors for “moral” reasons–Bush won’t refuse them. What I’d like to see Dean do on moral grounds is refuse special favors to donors–which Bush has not. I worry more about the techinical problem: If Dean limits donations, he gets matching funds. If Dean foregoes matching funds, will big donors give enough to make up for the lost matching funds? OK, I’m an engineer, that’s how I see it.

http://www.deanforamerica.com/

I have heard Dean talk about the guys with Confederate flags and their kids with no health insurance since February at least. I knew what he was talking about, and so did everybody else.

Did Dean offend the black community or southern whites–way back when he first started saying expressing his “big-tent” ideal in this colorful way?

Hell, no. And that’s not what the ruckus at last night’s debate was about.

So now, Dean has apologized for any pain he might have caused to black people or southern whites. That is all the apology he owes anybody, IMO.

But I sure would like to hear some other apologies–from the candidates who tried to twist Dean’s words in a way that is sure to hurt us in 2004–no matter which one of them runs.

Who owes America an apology?

• I’d like to hear an apology from Kerry, for saying that Dean’s ‘pandering’ to the National Rifle Association gave him an inroad to ‘pander to lovers of the Confederate flag.’.
• I’d like to hear an apology from Edwards (“The last thing we need in the South is somebody like you coming down and telling us what we need to do”).
• I’d like to hear an apology from Sharpton (“Imagine if I said that I wanted to be the candidate of people with helmets and swastikas.”).

Those are the apologies I’d like to hear.

Campaign Contributions and Post-War Contracts

Why does anyone waste money on stocks? Check out the fantastic returns being paid on campaign donations.

The Center for Public Integrity just released figures showing that Halliburton pulled in more that $2 billion in bid-free contracts for a measly $2 million campaign donations. OK, this doesn’t include the $1,000,000 a year Halliburton pays our Vice-President, but it’s still a good rate of return.

Poor Bechtel got only $1 billion dollars in post-war contracts, despite $3 million in donations –but before you pity this mere 33,333% return on investment, you should realize that their total government windfall since 1990 is some $11 billion. Here’s hoping they do better work abroad than they did for the Big Dig in Boston.

And what about General Electric? They gave more money in campaign donations than any other company, and the CPI figures suggest they got less than they put in. GE’s $5,927,870 is just for work in Afghanistan–so far they’ve managed to block access to info about their contracts in Iraq, where it is known to be supplying generators and cooling equipment. They also have lots of other lobbying goals.

I don’t think Campaign Finance Reform did much to fix things like this. But if you want to fix it, send money to Howard Dean. Let’s get rid of Bush/Cheney and their Axis of Looters.

Sherman Adams?” you say. In a couple of weeks, the name will be everywhere, folks.

Sherman Adams, a trusted and powerful top aide to President Eisenhower, left the White House only after a massive and long-running scandal about his misuse of power had deeply embarassed the administration.

The Sherman Adams story has everything. The Republican President widely perceived as a likeable guy, too much in the sway of an aide. The right-hand-man who abused enormous power–not for personal gain, he always maintained, but to help a personal friend. The slow public road of revelation, with President and his party taking enormous damage because the President couldn’t bring himself to ask his old friend to resign. The final, humiliating, much too late departure.

As everyone scrambles to get the names of the Wilsongate leakers–is anybody watching the magician’s other hand? Somehow, the other Bush-crony scandal has disappeared from the headlines.

You remember, the story about
contracts to rebuild Iraq, and the way Bush cronies are openly peddling their influence to US companies greedy for a piece of that multi-billion dollar pie.

Insisting that he was not peddling influence, Adams conceded “mistakes of judgment and not of intent” – a point that President Eisenhower emphasized. Ike conceded that his right-hand man had lacked “careful prudence” in “this incident” but added that Adams was “an invaluable public servant doing a difficult job efficiently, honestly and tirelessly.” Ike concluded with pungent but perhaps ill-worded plea: “I need him.”

“For critics of the staff system and for those who liked to picture the president as a boob being led by the rock from the Granite State,” Herbert Parmet has written, “Eisenhower’s three sincere words became the ultimate confirmation of their suspicions.”

“Friendship with shady player brings downfall,” 1999 story in Concord (NH) Monitor

Every society needs a cry like that, but only in a very few do they come out with the complete, unvarnished version, which is “Remember-the-Atrocity-Committed-Against-Us-Last-Time-That-Will-Excuse-The-Atrocity-That-We’re-About-To-Commit-Today!”

Terry Pratchett, Thief of Time, page 174.

One of the few uplifting things about Wilsongate* is that some conservatives** have denounced the White House leak. Next time we want to understand the other side of some complex political issue, we’ll know a couple of honest conservative voices worth listening to.

But from most of the Right, the response is pure Koom Valley.

* The most popular name for the Joe Wilson, Valerie Plame, Robert Novak scandal–although I thought “Intimigate” was better, and if you know who coined that one, please leave a comment.

**For example, the usually conservative Washington Times is now urging Bush to “Out the Outers.”

Hear it for yourself on the new audio file on the Guardian website.* In the latest on Wilsongate, several reporters now want, off the record, to name Karl Rove as the White House leaker who called to tell them that Wilson’s wife was in the CIA.

Are you surprised? If so, did you miss Josh Marshall’s revelation that Rove was fired from the 1992 Bush presidential campaign after secretly planting a negative story with columnist Robert Novak.

Josh got that info from a Ron Suskind article, which has one other very relevant bit:

Inside [his office], Rove was talking to an aide about some political stratagem in some state that had gone awry and a political operative who had displeased him. I paid it no mind and reviewed a jotted list of questions I hoped to ask. But after a moment, it was like ignoring a tornado flinging parked cars. “We will f— him. Do you hear me? We will f— him. We will ruin him. Like no one has ever f—ed him!”

Ron Suskind, Esquire, January 2003, “Why Are These Men Laughing?”

I imagine trying to humiliate the guy and ruin his wife’s career would pretty well fit into that kind of game plan.

*Thanks to BuzzFlash for the link to the Guardian!

Why are the Democrats so negative, so shrill? Because Democrats are nutty hateful haters who hate George Bush–that’s the big Republican meme these days.*

Funny how badly that meme fits Wilsongate–the emerging story that two top Bush staffers, whose names are still unknown, leaked a CIA agent’s identity to six reporters before they found somebody low enough to help them damage the agent’s career and endanger everyone who had worked with her.

If it’s all about hating Bush, how come everyone’s pointing at his staff, not him? You’d think a bunch of paranoid Bush-hating nuts would claim Bush is the one who leaked the story, or at least ordered it leaked.

Or maybe there are a few things wrong in our country–and with the Republican game plan–that one can’t explain by invoking “They just hate Bush.”

* Even David Brooks, who used to be funny and sharp before he drank too much Republican koolade, opines today that “The core threat to democracy is not in the White House, it’s the haters themselves.”

Yes, our nation’s problems are all due to Bush-hating Democrats. The only danger to soldiers in Iraq comes from US reporters who hate Bush.
As for unemployment–rising deficits–kids with no health insurance–they’re not real issues. They’re just Democratic secret code for “I hate Bush.”**

** And in case you’re wondering–no, I do not hate Bush. Driving in Massachusetts gives you a sense of proportion. I dislike Bush more than I dislike suicidal bike riders with cellphones, but less than I dislike limo drivers who dart out from stop signs and block 3 lanes of traffic. I do hate a lot of Bush’s policies though.

Today, ________[CANDIDATE, CANDIDATE, CANDIDATE, ETC] continued their _______ [ADJECTIVE], [ADJECTIVE] attacks on Governor Dean’s record on ___________ [VITAL DEMOCRATIC ISSUE].'”

“‘Governor Dean strongly supports _________ [VITAL DEMOCRATIC ISSUE]. It is one of the most important Democratic achivements of the past century and part of the party’s legacy of standing up for __________ [VITAL DEMOCRATIC CONSTITUENCY].'”

According to Friday’s Note, the Dean team handed out this prebuttal press release, entitled “Dean Libs,” just before the Democratic debates.

You’ve got to admire the way the Dean team can still have fun with the issues, and with their candidate, even as

• Kerry claims Dean plans to raise taxes on poor people.
• Lieberman claims Dean hates Israel.
• Gephardt claims Dean loves Newt Gingrich.

ABC’s The Note went on to call the press release

“a tongue-in-cheek guide to Dean’s message: regardless of the charge, rebut it by being anti-Bush, anti-Republican, beat Bush, take the country back from Bush, beat Republicans, take the country back from Republicans, did we mention, beat Bush, take the country back…”

That’s kind of a negative way to frame the Dean message, but I sure like it better than what Kerry, Lieberman, and Gephardt have been doing lately.