Gitmo, to me, is, perhaps, similar to a relationship one has with a (former) significant other, in that your memories of that time are sweet and positive, but today the relationship, if there really is one, is negative.
...
For about an 18 month period, Early Spring 1961 to late Summer 1962, I was in and out of Gitmo many, many times on two different Navy ships. The first ship was a WW2 Sumner class destroyer. I was a third class Electronics Technician, ET3 in Navy speak who maintained radars and equipment associated with Combat Information Center or CIC. I also stood underway watches in CIC. The height of my proficiency was the ability to radar navigate out of Gitmo harbor.
...
Monday, June 2, 2008
Good memories ...
The Chief remembers Guantanamo Bay fondly, but that was before 9/11:
Bad memories ...
The great billmon of the now-defunct Whiskey Bar once (well ... more than once) characterized the Iraq War as "Vietnam on crack," because the same shit was happening, just a lot faster and crazier. It seems we've arrived at 1967 and things are going swimmingly.
I don't get it ...
All day Saturday, I had to sit through the excruciating minutiae and whining of the DNC committee meeting while CNN showed every painful detail. By the time I switched over to the Beeb, I was under the assumption Barack was the presumptive winner. So why is Hil acting like she didn't get the memo?
Now, I voted for Hil in the NY primary but jeez, the writing's on the wall. Let's wrap this up already and focus the party's (and the media's) attention on McSame. Hil's acting like a spoiled child, still wanting to play the game, even though it's over, is very off-putting. It's time to go back to representing the people of New York (and I will be more than happy to help get her reelected).
Now, I voted for Hil in the NY primary but jeez, the writing's on the wall. Let's wrap this up already and focus the party's (and the media's) attention on McSame. Hil's acting like a spoiled child, still wanting to play the game, even though it's over, is very off-putting. It's time to go back to representing the people of New York (and I will be more than happy to help get her reelected).
Sunday, June 1, 2008
Quote of the Day
The Rude One:
It's good to know a little about the process but really ...
...
Are you goddamn kidding that two of the news networks are gonna spend a good chunk of the day on a hearing of the fuckin' Rules Committee of the DNC? Christ, give us a smoke-filled back room, please.
...
It's good to know a little about the process but really ...
McCain’s McClellan McNightmare
Daddy Frank lays it on 'em:
Amen to that, Pop!
The 'press' will never let us know they made an error of moral judgment in their complicity about this criminal war, but they damn sure know they did. If they suddenly start doing their job it's tacit, if not implicit, admission of same. I'll not hold my breath.
As usual, I agree with our Pop. Please read the rest.
THEY thought they were being so slick. When the McCain campaign abruptly moved last Tuesday’s fund-raiser with President Bush from the Phoenix Convention Center to a private home, it was the next best thing to sending the loathed lame duck into the witness protection program.
...
The two men’s furtive encounter on the Phoenix airport tarmac, as captured by a shaky, inaudible long shot on FoxNews.com, could have been culled from a surveillance video.
Americans don’t like being lied to by their leaders, especially if there are casualties involved and especially if there’s no accountability. We view it as a crime story (my em), and we won’t be satisfied until there’s a resolution.
Amen to that, Pop!
That’s why the original sin of the war’s conception remains a political flash point, however much we tune out Iraq as it grinds on today. Even a figure as puny as Mr. McClellan can ignite it. The Democrats portray Mr. McCain as offering a third Bush term, but it’s a third term of the war that’s his bigger problem. Even if he locks the president away in a private home, the war will keep seeping under the door, like the blood in “Sweeney Todd.”
[...] Mr. McCain is hoping that the “liberal media” will once again be complicit enablers. We’ll see. He’s also counting on the press to let him blur his record by accentuating his subsequent criticism of the war’s execution — as if the war’s execution (also criticized by countless Democrats), not its conception, was the fatal error.
The 'press' will never let us know they made an error of moral judgment in their complicity about this criminal war, but they damn sure know they did. If they suddenly start doing their job it's tacit, if not implicit, admission of same. I'll not hold my breath.
As F. Scott Fitzgerald would have it, we will be borne back ceaselessly into the past. Or so we will be as long as Americans continue to die in Iraq and as long as politicians like Mr. Bush, Mr. McCain and Mrs. Clinton refuse to accept responsibility for their roles, major and minor, in abetting this national tragedy.
As usual, I agree with our Pop. Please read the rest.
Saturday, May 31, 2008
If you don't get the judge you want ...
Get another one. Montag:
Far be it for them to let fairness get in the way of a trial.
So to keep the Gitmo trials on their proper and preplanned schedule, the Defense Dept has removed the presiding judge who threatened to suspend the trials for that most frivolous of reasons, fairness for the defendants.
...
Far be it for them to let fairness get in the way of a trial.
Bush Refuses to Read McClellan’s Book, Calling It ‘A Book’
Borowitz
Bush can read just fine. He's 'aliterate', which means he he chooses not to read. That is unconscionable in that office, and much much worse than 'illiterate'.
I want a President who reads everything he can get his hands on, including, say, The Constitution, history, and the opinions of experts instead of listening to neocon ideologues with an agenda and falling for their evil ideas.
“I have no intention of reading Scott McClellan’s book,” Mr. Bush told reporters, “because it’s a book.”
Mr. Bush said he was “surprised” that Mr. McClellan had written a book to criticize him because “if you’re trying to communicate some criticism to me, a book is pretty much the last place you’d put it.”
The president said that he thought the chances of his someday reading Mr. McClellan’s book were “zero,” adding, “If I didn’t read the Iraq Study Group’s report, I really don’t think I’m about to read Scott McClellan’s little book.”
“Scott McClellan would have had a much better shot if he had put his memoir in Xbox 360 format and then slipped it into a package labeled ‘Grand Theft Auto 5,’” he said.
For his part, Mr. Bush said that there was in fact a book published this week that had caught his eye: the new James Bond thrilled entitled “Devil May Care.”
“Now, that book looks like it could be good,” he said. “Maybe I’ll have Laura read it to me.”
Bush can read just fine. He's 'aliterate', which means he he chooses not to read. That is unconscionable in that office, and much much worse than 'illiterate'.
I want a President who reads everything he can get his hands on, including, say, The Constitution, history, and the opinions of experts instead of listening to neocon ideologues with an agenda and falling for their evil ideas.
Top McCain Fundraiser, War Profiteer Sued Over Iraq Fuel Deal
Crooks and Liars
McSame old, McSame old. Yeesh.
A little-noticed civil lawsuit in Florida is shining a light on an unusual but hugely profitable Pentagon contract to ship millions of gallons of aviation fuel to U.S. bases in Iraq through the kingdom of Jordan.
The deal involves a cast of influential characters, including the king of Jordan’s brother-in-law, who is suing Harry Sargeant III, a top Florida-based fundraiser for Sen. John McCain’s presidential bid.
No wonder Senator McCain wants to stay in Iraq for 100 years, one of his top fundraisers is making hundreds of millions of dollars in profits from it — and you can rest assured, Sargent isn’t the only war profiteer who keeps McCain neatly tucked in his back pocket.
McSame old, McSame old. Yeesh.
County clerk to invoke executive privilege
Yahoo! News
Now there's a use of 'executive privilege' i got no problem with! Best of luck, you guys.
BTW, Contra Costa County is called 'CoCo' by the locals. As in 'Chanel' perhaps? ;)
MARTINEZ, Calif. - For 18 years, Stephen Weir has been in charge of the office that hands out marriage licenses in California's ninth-largest county. And for just as long, Weir has been unable to get a license himself because the love of his life is a man.
The irony did not escape him.
"Always the bridesmaid, never the bride," he quips with a rueful smile.
So Weir hopes the citizens of Contra Costa County understand if their clerk-recorder invokes executive privilege and opens up for business a little early on June 17, when same-sex couples may be able to legally wed in California.
He and his partner, John Hemm, want to be first at the counter that day. They plan to be the first to exchange vows and kisses in the conference room Weir converted into a wedding chapel that hosts 1,200 couples a year, but that he could never use.
Now there's a use of 'executive privilege' i got no problem with! Best of luck, you guys.
BTW, Contra Costa County is called 'CoCo' by the locals. As in 'Chanel' perhaps? ;)
The cherry don't fall far ...
From the tree. The sexy, beautiful, Shemekia (daughter of Johnny) Copeland:
Shemekia Copeland - It's 2 A.M.
Saturday whorage
The last chapter of Thirty Days at Zeta is up at The Practical Press.
Let us know what's on your page in comments.
Let us know what's on your page in comments.
Friday, May 30, 2008
Memo to Scott McClellan: Here's what happened
From McClatchy's Nukes & Spooks, many links and comments:
So far, I haven't heard the administration actually deny any of the charges, just try to shoot the messenger and blame others for their failures. Typical Repug spin, slime, and smear.
Looong list follows.
The only new thing I've heard outta McLiellan is that the Chimp couldn't remember if he snorted cocaine. That doesn't pass the, you should please pardon me for this, sniff test. His supporters say he used to drink a lot and that may be why he doesn't remember.
Bull-fucking-shit.
I've snorted cocaine when I was so drunk I could barely stand so I could drink more, but I also snorted it when I was sober. If you do one, you do the other. Period. I don't remember each occurrence of cocaine use, of course. There were hundreds, if not thousands.
Bush is lying about that like he lies about everything else.
Until now, we've resisted the temptation to post on former White House press secretary Scott McClellan's new book, which accuses the Bush White House of launching a propaganda campaign to sell the war in Iraq.
Why? It's not news. At least not to some of us who've covered the story from the start.
But the responses to McClellan from the Bush administration and media bigwigs, history-bending as they are, compel us to jump in. As we like to say around here, it's truth to power time, not just for the politicians but also for some folks in our own business.
Bush loyalists have responded in three ways:
1) Scott, how could you? This conveniently ignores the issue of what Bush did or didn't know and do about intelligence on Iraq, converting the story line into that of wounded leader and treasonous former aide. (That canard was the sole focus of a CBS news radio report Wednesday night).
2) Invading Iraq was the right thing to do. Okay. When do Bush, Secretary of State Condoleezza Rice, et al *not* say that? Dog bites man.
3) It was an intelligence failure. The CIA gave us bad dope on WMD and, well, they're the experts. More on this in a second.
So far, I haven't heard the administration actually deny any of the charges, just try to shoot the messenger and blame others for their failures. Typical Repug spin, slime, and smear.
The news media have been, if anything, even more craven than the administration has been in defending its failure to investigate Bush's case for war in Iraq before the war.
So the Pentagon tells the media what kind of reporting is in- and out-of-bounds?
Hogwash. Hogwash! HOGWASH.
Enough self-aggrandizing trumpet-blowing. OK, Scott, What Happened?
Here's what happened, based entirely on our own reporting and publicly available documents:
Looong list follows.
We could go on, but the rest, as they say, is history.
That's what happened.
The only new thing I've heard outta McLiellan is that the Chimp couldn't remember if he snorted cocaine. That doesn't pass the, you should please pardon me for this, sniff test. His supporters say he used to drink a lot and that may be why he doesn't remember.
Bull-fucking-shit.
I've snorted cocaine when I was so drunk I could barely stand so I could drink more, but I also snorted it when I was sober. If you do one, you do the other. Period. I don't remember each occurrence of cocaine use, of course. There were hundreds, if not thousands.
Bush is lying about that like he lies about everything else.
Heroes and Bums
Brent Budowsky
Amen.
Scott McClellan, and millionaire and Medal of Freedom recipient George Tenet, embody everything that has gone wrong in Washington in the dark age of the Bush years. They stand for the courtier, the sycophant, the seeker of power at all costs. Instead of risking their careers while others gave their lives for policies that were catastrophic, the likes of McClellan and Tenet did the wrong thing first, then the get-rich-scheme later, to make a bundle from their bungles, and a fortune from their bad faith.
Contrast this with the courage and integrity of genuine military heroes such as Adm. Fallon, retired Marine Corps Gen. Anthony Zinni and retired Army Gen. Eric Shinseki.
Fallon, Zinni and Shinseki spoke with clarity and conscience, with integrity and courage. They spoke real truth to power, when the power hated their words and retaliated against them. They put their military judgment, the integrity of their military advice, their honor in what they felt was best for their troops and the nation ahead of personal advantage and career opportunism.
While Fallon, Zinni and Shinseki acted with principle and honor, standing against the unwise polices of a disastrous presidency, McClellan and Tenet courted favor with power first, then peddled their wares for profit later while the number of Gold Star mothers continues to rise.
Make no mistake: Fallon, Zinni and Shinseki are heroes. McClellan and Tenet are bums.
Amen.
The dogs and ponies are doing fine
Think Progress, with video, links, and comments:
McCain did make a correct assessment of the dog and pony shows the administration had the Brass trot out for him. I've stood, and passed, inspections with inoperable gussied-up-to-look-good gear too. Shoot it may, but shine it must.
It's like assessing a used car by its paint job. You'll be sor-ree! It's no basis for foreign policy.
Related:
Thank you, McSenile, for proving my earlier point.
Yesterday, CNN’s Michael Ware dismissed Sen. John McCain’s (R-AZ) recent assertion that Sen. Barack Obama (D-IL) travel to Iraq in order to get a better sense of the war. Ware said that U.S. officials’ trips to Iraq are usually “divorced from reality” adding that its “impossible” to “get much of a real picture.” Ware then noted that McCain’s own trips to Iraq have not helped him get a sense of the realities in Iraq:
WARE: I’ll issue a word of caution, too. I mean Senator McCain has been here, what, more than half a dozen times. And we’ve seen him get assessments of Iraq terribly wrong. So I wouldn’t be hanging my hat on the fact that your opponent has only been here once.
McCain did make a correct assessment of the dog and pony shows the administration had the Brass trot out for him. I've stood, and passed, inspections with inoperable gussied-up-to-look-good gear too. Shoot it may, but shine it must.
It's like assessing a used car by its paint job. You'll be sor-ree! It's no basis for foreign policy.
Related:
McCain falsely claims Mosul is ‘quiet.’
Today at a townhall meeting in Wisconsin, Sen. John McCain (R-AZ) tried to claim that President Bush’s policies in Iraq are “succeeding,” by pointing to the “quiet” in Mosul and other cities:
So I can tell you that it is succeeding. I can look you in the eye and tell you it’s succeeding. We have drawn down to pre-surge levels. Basra, Mosul and now Sadr city are quiet and it’s long and it’s hard and it’s tough and there will be setbacks.
Mosul, however, is not quiet. In fact, today AP reported, “Another suicide bomber driving a police vehicle struck Iraqi commandos earlier Thursday in Mosul, killing three of them and wounding nine other people, according to battalion commander Capt. Aziz Latif.”
Thank you, McSenile, for proving my earlier point.
Racing to the checkered keffiyeh
Forget Rachael Ray, Michelle Malkin Claims Indy 500 Sold Out to Terrorists
"It's just one more example of the Indy-fada."
Thanks, Don.
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