This should be good ...

Condi wants to be McCain's Veep:

...

She's uniquely qualified! Let's see: she's a pro-choice ... uhhhh.... she never anticipated that terrists would fly airplanes into US skyscrapers, she was a champion cheerleader for Bush and the war in Iraq, she wrote an editorial for the New York Times back in 2002 entitled Why We Know Iraq Is Lying, she warned the world about Saddam's "smoking mushroom clouds," compared US commitment in Iraq to the Civil War...

It just gets better. And, related to my post below, how many Dems will like McCain more because he'd have a BLACK WOMAN as his #2? Look, he's liberal!!!!1!!!!1!eleventy-one*!!

*Credit: Maru.

Exactly right ...

For a while now, I've cautioned against too much optimism about the Dems' chances in November. Were the candidates to be judged on equal merits, I would say the Dem candidate would be a shoo-in compared to McCain. Thing is, we have the Democratic Party added to the mix and that's like leaving the door wide open for failure.

...

The article says there is at least one big Hillary donor who doesn't want to spend money for the party unless Clinton's the nominee. And I have also heard that Obama donors don't want to fund any efforts that will be construed as "negative" for fear it will blow back on his campaign. Whatever the reasons, and I suspect it's complicated, this is the stupidest damned thing I've heard yet. It's almost as if the Democrats want to lose.

I don't care which candidate they are supporting in the primary, taking on John McCain will benefit their candidate if he or she wins. Surely they are all maxed out by now, so this is the logical place to put their money either way.

All of this might make some sense if McCain didn't have this ridiculously cozy relationship with the press that's been solid as a rock for more than a decade. He is going to be terribly difficult to redefine. It will take everything they have to do it. And if they don't do it, he could very well win this thing even if he is as old as Methuselah and has the campaign style of a pet rock.

...

Maybe the Hillary and Obama supporters should stop the swipes at each other and look at the big picture. It doesn't matter who wins the nom if they're just gonna give the race away to McCain and the Rethugs.

Think about it, twits, because this is the mindset a lot of Dem voters have:

...

I was talking to a staunchly liberal friend of mine over the week-end who told me that he really didn't worry about the primary because if the party is damaged and McCain wins, it will probably be ok. The reason: he's not stupid like Bush or crazy like Cheney. After I picked up my brains from the floor and put them back in my head, still reeling from the explosion, I tried to explain how that was wrong. It was pulling teeth and I don't think I succeeded. He just likes the guy and doesn't believe he's really capable of being as bad as Bush because he "thinks for himself" and isn't a GOP lackey.

...

I can't believe people still swallow this shit.

Listen to me. McCain is a moron and the best part of him ran down a drain in the Hanoi Hilton. There is nothing good (he's a hypocrite, panderer, and adulterer), nothing heroic about John McCain. He was a cowboy fighter pilot who got himself shot down because he refused to follow procedure. He had the bad luck to get himself captured and he spent the war in jail. While I abhor his treatment at the hands of the Vietnamese, none of his experiences made him qualified to run a country (I would even propose his experiences make him less qualified), let alone a war.

Quote of the Day

I think I'll ease back into this. Holden Caulfield:

Ah, The Two Most Beautiful Words In The English Language: "Yes, Helen"

61% of Historians Rate the Bush Presidency Worst

History News Network

In an informal survey of 109 professional historians conducted over a three-week period through the History News Network, 98.2 percent assessed the presidency of Mr. Bush to be a failure while 1.8 percent classified it as a success.

That sounds like about 2 out 109 historians with no sense of history.

One statement amongst several:

“George Bush has combined mediocrity with malevolent policies and has thus seriously damaged the welfare and standing of the United States,” wrote one of the historians, echoing the assessments of many of his professional colleagues. “Bush does only two things well,” said one of the most distinguished historians. “He knows how to make the very rich very much richer, and he has an amazing talent for f**king up everything else he even approaches. His administration has been the most reckless, dangerous, irresponsible, mendacious, arrogant, self-righteous, incompetent, and deeply corrupt one in all of American history.”

I've said almost the exact same things many times without even knowing I'm a historian. Damn, I'm good!

Note to self: Calm down, self. It don't take no rocket scientist to realize the truth about Bush, just functioning eyes and ears hooked to a minimal brain. Which you've got.

Impressions ...

Back from running around. Shayna's home too so our little fambly is back together once again. Yay!

So, I'm back from vacation. A beautiful two week cruise on Queen Mary 2, a Panama Canal transit, and great ports of call, but there was one thing that struck me more than any other.

The Queen is one of the biggest cruise ships plying the seas; couple thousand crew, couple thousand passengers. Among the crew there are over 50 different nationalities from every continent. Among the passengers, the range was just as great. The three major religions, as well as a good portion of the minor ones, were also represented among our demographic. Guess what? We all got along.

Yeah, I know, the Russians can be obnoxious, the Chinese can be rude, the Japanese and Germans act superior, the English are, well ... English, and I personally know of four Americans who probably got on some peoples' nerves. Heh ... My point is, we were all commingled at the Golden Lion or the Chart Room until the wee hours with one band or another, or just karaoke and you know what we did? We sang. We sang the songs of our parents and grandparents, of war, of love, and of good times and we all sang with one another. We were all in the same boat, so to speak. Whether it be folks who have more money than I could amass in ten lifetimes or folks who saved for years to take this 'cruise of a lifetime', it didn't matter. We were all the same, enjoying each others' company.

Some of us couldn't communicate well but it didn't matter. We got the point across. We met people who shared different opinions and experiences, Indian Sikhs, Muslims from Dubai, Catholics from Italy, Baptists from America, Israeli Jews, and at least four atheists I know of. And we all enjoyed each others' company. It was amazing.

And on Saturday night, our last night aboard, as we sat in the Chart Room with Joe and Annie and a few couples of other nationalities, Mrs. F turned to me and said, "I wish we could bottle what we have here and spray it all over the world. Imagine what it would be like if we could all get along like this all the time?" Amen, sister.

***

And, as always at the end of the trip, there are a few people I have to thank. First and foremost, Gord and the staff here for holding down the fort. Also, thanks to all the readers for coming along with us in spirit. Next, to Dr. Melinda Grove and her staff at Glen Animal Hospital. Without the excellent care they give Shayna while we're away our trips would never be possible. Also, to Commodore Werner and the officers and crew of Queen Mary 2. The ship is run with the usual British precision and attention to detail. And lastly to my in-laws, who put Mrs. F's mind at ease enough, and encouraged her, to take this trip, regardless of mom-in-law's condition, whatever the outcome. It proved to be the worst case, but after the last eight months of caring for mom-in-law since she was diagnosed as terminal, this rest was sorely needed. We could continue on even after we got the news.

It's good to be home and I'll be back tomorrow once I take a couple laps around Blogtopia and catch up what's going on. I think I was able to relax better not being in touch.

And just an aside: This is our 10,000th post. We're prolific, to say the least.

Sir! Chuck E. Cheese, Aye-Aye Sir!

St.Petersurg Times/TampaBay.com

Apparently, long service in the military makes you an expert on kooky fun-houses. The company behind childrens' restaurant chain Chuck E. Cheese picked retired four-star Gen. Tommy Franks to help them expand their brand.

Heh. I'da thought fer sure that with a name like 'Franks' he'da went with Der Wienerschnitzel.

Keep 'em broke and they'll re-enlist

Crooks and Liars

McCain’s mouthpiece, Lindsey Graham went on Face the Nation and used every talking point to support the war in Iraq, but can’t come up with an explanation why McCain will not support Webb’s new GI benefits Bill. It’s for the welfare of our troops that have been ordered into this nightmare situation in the middle east, and as strong war advocates, you’d think McCain and Graham would be first on the list of the Senator’s who have signed to show how committed they are to our troops. Graham has a lot of words to say about everything else and goes off topic because he doesn’t have a good answer. Supporting the troops is nothing but a talking point for McCain and Graham it would appear.

Keeping the troops in the military is more like it.

WEBB: Yes. Well, there are too many people in the Pentagon who are seeing a good GI bill as affecting retention rather than rewarding service, and we need to get those — politics aside, we need to get to those issues to help our troops.

GRAHAM: We want a wining outcome in Iraq so that when we do leave, we’re going to leave behind a country that’s part of the solution, not the problem. That is why people reenlist. That is why I support this new strategy. The old strategy was failing. The new strategy is producing results, and I hope we’ll stay with it.

WEBB: I’ve got to take 30 seconds to respond to what Lindsey said, because I can’t let that hang out there. You know, people don’t reenlist because of the war in Iraq. People reenlist because they love their country and they have family traditions and they love to soldier. And they’ll fight in Iraq, they’ll fight in Afghanistan, or they’ll serve anywhere they are called upon to serve.

Some guys are natural-born soldiers. Most are not. The 100-year Criminal Occupation of Iraq requires the warmongers to keep a certain amount of soldiers in service through re-enlistment since first time enlistment is understandably way down.

If the soldiers think they've got a shot at some higher education in return for their service, a chance to elevate themselves from the socioeconomic underclass, or just plain poverty and no hope of a better life that drove them into the service in the first place, they'll get out and do it when their enlistments expire. Or after their stop-loss shanghai jobs run out, if ever.

I think McCain and Graham are more interested in supporting troop levels than the troops themselves. After all, they've got more wars they plan to start.

Clueless John

Crooks and Liars

McCain once again demonstrates that he’s no straightalker when it comes to the issues that are most important to this country. He makes sure to get the whole Basra/ceasefire incident completely backwards which only undermines his credibility as a foreign policy man. Is he even following the fighting in Iraq? It was Maliki that went to Iran and then asked Sadr to broker a ceasefire.

Olbermann: …that Sadr had only called for the ceasefire after members of Maliki’s government asked Sadr to do so in a during a secret trip to meet with Sadr in Iran.—making McCain wrong about the facts on his signature issue, making Sadr not Maliki the victor in this conflict by McCain’s own reasoning. And making Iran and not McCain and not the US the mediator of choice for Iraq’s two top Shi’a factions. The Maliki government and the Sadrists.

'Foreign policy expert' my ass. He's a warmongering propagandist on the wrong side like the rest of the neocon Repugs.

The Real Final ‘Straw’ That Broke Mark Penn’s Back

"I proposed a commercial in which Hillary was able to stay alert at 3AM...due to the new Colombia trade deal."

Everything to date about how come Penn got his double-dealing conflict-of-interested money-grubbin' criminal ass canned by both Colombia and Clinton here.

I wonder if this will be the straw that breaks Hillary's back as well.

Thanks, Don

Andrew Sullivan: Bush Administration Officials Will Be 'Indicted For War Crimes'

HuffPo, video and links.

Media coverage of the disclosure of the "torture memo" authored by Bush Justice Department official John C. Yoo has been mostly a deafening silence. But on this morning's Chris Matthews' show, someone finally fired a shot. As we mentioned in this morning's liveblog, credit goes to The Atlantic's Andrew Sullivan, for taking the opportunity to ensure that this matter got out into the televised discourse somehow.

SULLIVAN: The latest revelations on the torture front show the memo from John Yoo...means that Don Rumsfeld, David Addington and John Yoo should not leave the United States any time soon. They will be, at some point, indicted for war crimes.

The moment came during a segment on Matthews' show where the panel is invited to "tell him something he doesn't know," though this might be more accurately termed, "something he doesn't know he should talk about." Matthews is hardly alone. [...]

That's a bombshell, but the trick, of course, is to get the media to talk about it instead of how Obama bowls and eats chocolate.

A tip o' the Brain to Andrew Sullivan for saying out loud, where it was at least heard by some, what we've been calling for for years.

Sunday Crazy Redneck Music Blogging

Ha! Thought I fergot, din'tcha? You ain't gettin' off that easy. This is dedicated to Commodore Werner for his amazing shiphandling in turning the equally amazing QM2 360° in basically her own length.

Note to Fixer: There's a reference towards the end of this song that you will like. ;)

Vacation's over ...

I'll have a few closing thoughts on the experience tomorrow, when I'm not so fried but I wanted to get a couple more pics up.

More on the history of Cunard Line and a few more samples of the maritime art displayed aboard the Queen.

The details of a maneuver you wouldn't think the big girl was capable of.

The reason I was out there to begin with.

Some more shots around the ship.

We have some legal stuff to do with dad-in-law tomorrow and have to get Shayna from the vet in the morning. Hopefully, I'll be unpacked by then as well. I'll be back tomorrow afternoon.

As always, great thanks to my pardner Gordon (thanks to the commenters for keeping the old man in line. Heh ...) for keeping a lid on the place and JG for lending his wisdom to the mix while I was gone.

Welcome Home, Fixer!

Patty Loveless

Re-Enlistment Blues

Merle Travis plays, while Burt Lancaster accurately portrays the essence of the U.S. serviceman. In peacetime anyway. In wartime, of course, they're all darlings and you're a traitor to say otherwise.

McCain on Iraq akin to Wile E. Coyote

Daddy Frank on McCain and his senior dementia about the recent civil/Iran proxy war battle in Basra and Iraq in general. A 'must read':

Everything else Mr. McCain has to say about Iraq is more troubling, and I don’t mean just his recent serial gaffe conflating Shiite Iran and Sunni Qaeda. The sum total of his public record suggests that he could well prolong the war for another century — not because he’s the crazed militarist portrayed by Democrats, but through sheer inertia, bad judgment and blundering.

So far his bizarre pronouncements have been drowned out by the Democrats’ din. They’ve also been underplayed by a press that coddles Ol’ Man Straight Talk and that rarely looks more deeply into the “surge is success” propaganda than it did into Mr. Bush’s announcement of the end of “major combat operations” five years ago. The electorate doesn’t want to hear much anyway about a war it long ago soundly rejected.

[...] Mr. Maliki’s move against Mr. Sadr in Basra, done without even consulting Iraq’s “democratically elected” Parliament, was an attempt to take out his opponent by force rather than wait for the October provincial elections.

“We’re succeeding,” Mr. McCain said after his last trip to Iraq. “I don’t care what anybody says.” Again, it’s the last sentence that’s accurate. When General Petraeus and Ambassador Ryan Crocker testify before Congress again this week — against the backdrop of a million-Iraqi, anti-American protest called by Mr. Sadr — Mr. McCain will ram home all this “success” no matter the facts.

The difference between the Democrats and Mr. McCain going forward is clear enough: They want to find a way out of the morass, however provisional and imperfect, and he equates staying the disastrous course with patriotism. Mr. McCain’s doomed promise of military “victory” in Iraq is akin to Wile E. Coyote’s perpetual pursuit of the Road Runner, with much higher carnage. This isn’t patriotism. As the old saying goes, doing the same thing over and over again and hoping you’ll get a different result is the definition of insanity.

Maybe McCain just has to be reminded every day of everything. We've already had a president with Alzheimer's. We damn sure don't need another one.

Home ...

Home again. Tried to blog yesterday but everybody was using the intarwebs aboard ship and the connection sucked. We're gonna head out to see dad-in-law and spend some time with him this afternoon, but I'll be putting up a few posts later from the trip. It always seems the time away is too short but it's always nice to come back to my home. It's why they call it home, ain't it?

Gee, I wonder whose hand was on the throttle?

And, of course, no 'train wreck' analogy would be complete without a few lines from the old gospel number "Life Is Like a Mountain Railroad":

Life is like a mountain railroad,
With an engineer that's brave.
We must make the run successful
From the cradle to the grave.
Watch the curves, the fills and tunnels,
Never falter, never fail.
Keep your hand upon the throttle,
And your eyes upon the rail.

The only thing Bush has done is to hold his ideological wrongheaded fantasy WFO until it derailed us all at high speed.

A video of that number here. Caution: Watch yer blood pressure! These Methodists rock!

Yeah, those are real kneeslappers...

Attytood

The laughs we missed: If only Jay Leno and "SNL" had been there for Nixon, Hoover, and Lincoln

The biggest yuks came when Carson leaned over and said, "With all due respect, Mr. President, what's really on that tape that your secretary accidentally erased?"

Replied Nixon: "I can finally tell the nation that....", and he continued to move his lips for about 45 seconds without uttering a sound, as the audience roared its approval.

Asked by Carson why he agreed to go on the late-night comedy show, Nixon replied: "Because you are completely nuts -- and we ought to know, because we just burglarized your psychiatrist's office!"

Bada bing!

But seriously, folks, I'm wondering how Americans ever elected a president before "SNL" arrived to put it all in the proper perspective for us.

Yeah, I wonder. Note: Under the terms of The Pundit Full Employment Act, the 2012 election coverage will start on November 5th.

More on Randi

Left Talk Radio has a pretty good analysis of Randi Rhodes' suspension by Air America. The video that started the ruckus has been removed from YouTube but you can see it at Green 960.

whore (hôr) n.

1. A prostitute.
2. A person considered sexually promiscuous.
3. A person considered as having compromised principles for personal gain.

from The Free Dictionary.

I see nothing wrong with Randi's use of the word 'whore'. Musta been the preceding adjective...

As for the Rhodes suspension, this is not a free speech issue. It's an Air America issue. While Rhodes made the comments at a live event for one of her affiliates (Green 960), she represented Air America. And Air America has worked hard to curry favor among many in Washington, particularly the Clinton camp. This is a face-saving issue, designed to minimize the damage a controversy can do. I'm also certain that at least a few of Rhodes' listeners were quite shocked at her diatribe, with language so course that Sam Kinison must be blushing in his grave. Even still, as with most controversies, look for Rhodes to return to Air America soon, after the heat has died down. That's par for the course. Nonetheless, perhaps Rhodes stepped over the line a bit. Even with the raucous San Francisco audience, the tirade may have been a bit over the top. And it's appearance on YouTube is likely to scare away some of her fans. But like other controversial media personalities, such as Imus, Coulter, Rush Limbaugh and others, these people have jobs because they're controversial. We expect them to say outrageous stuff. Anyone who expects otherwise is delusional.

Much, much more.

Law Professor: "The president ordered war crimes"

I'm glad somebody besides us commies has finally said it out loud where people can see and hear it: Bush is a war criminal.

BradBlog, with video.

Says Bush Ran 'Premeditated, Carefully Orchestrated Torture Program'

Constitutional Attorney Jonathon Turley Tells MSNBC Congress Refuses To Investigate Because They 'Do Not Want to Deal With That Fact'

Jonathan Turley: It really is amazing because Congress, including the Democrats, have avoided any typed of investigation into torture because they do not want to deal with the fact that the President ordered war crimes. But evidence keeps on coming out - the only thing we don’t have is a group picture with a detainee attached to electrical wires. I mean every time we see more evidence we have more and more high ranking people at the scene of this crime. And what you get from this is that this was a premeditated and carefully orchestrated torture program. Not torture, but a torture program.

Thank you, Professor Turley. You get my "#10 Can O' Balls" award for the week.

I have kind of an off-topic question: Can any of you techie whizzes tell me how to reduce the size of the videos? I've been seeing that a lot lately and it would come in handy sometimes.