Oh, please.

According to an article in the New York Times, and commented on by the Huffington Post, Hillary Clinton is refuting calls for her to bow out of the race despite recent pressure on her from Democratic party leadership.  In fact, In an interview, the Clintons compared the pressure to “the “big boys” trying to bully a woman”.

“I believe that a spirited contest is good for the Democratic Party,” Mrs. Clinton said in a late-afternoon news conference in northwestern Indiana, a few miles from Mr. Obama’s house on the South Side of Chicago. “We will have a united party behind whoever that nominee is.”

Is that what she thinks this is?  A “spirited contest”?  All I’ve seen is bad-mouthing and mudslinging, most of it from her.  This is more like a classic Bowie knife fight – no holds barred, in a six-foot pit, with the winner burying the loser.  She’s probably right in saying that Democrats will unite behind whoever the eventual nominee is, but that nominee will be too bloodied up by his/her fellow Democrat to make an effective fight against McCain in the fall.

And can we really trust that, if she doesn’t get the nomination, she’ll rally behind Obama and support him all the way?  She is, after all, a Clinton.  And Clintons don’t like to lose.

And if she does somehow clinch it, will she really be able to unite the party against McCain in the fall?  I doubt it.  I’m an Obamaniac – that’s no secret.  I’m also a Democrat.  If Hilllary is the candidate, I will accept it and vote for her, because the alternative is unthinkable.  But I’d much rather have a candidate who inspires hope than one who inspires fear.  I’d rather vote for the man who I think can truly unite the party and the country, and inspire us to better and greater deeds, than the woman who’s repeatedly demonstrated that she’ll do just about anything to acquire and maintain power.

I don’t trust Hillary, and not because she’s a woman.  I don’t trust her because she’s ruthless, divisive and destructive.  And as recent events have shown, a complete and unabashed liar.

It’s time for her to go.

RWCFA Alert!

That’s a new acronym I’m trying to turn into a “meme.” It stands for “Right Wing Christo-Fascist Apocaloon”. Basically it’s anyone who has read Tim LaHaye’s atrocious “Left Behind” series and actually believes it.

It’s anyone who thinks the Christian creation mythology is literal scientific fact.

It’s anyone who thinks if you don’t believe either of these two heresies, then you’re not a true Christian and you’re going to burn in hell on judgement day when God’s true followers are taken up directly to heaven and leave a bunch of empty shoes all over the place.

It’s anyone who thinks that Christians should vote for RWCF Neocon Republicans, force schools to teach “Intelligent Design” or “Creation Science”, and stand opposed to peace and environmentalism because by doing so we are “helping bring about the second coming.” No, really. I’ve heard people say that.

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Realize, though, that this irrational philosophy is actually gaining strength in America today. People seriously believe this garbage.

And worse, they vote. They vote for candidates who’ll do nothing to stop the problems growing under our noses, because they think they’re doing God’s will.

For the record, I am a Christian. I believe that humans were put on this earth to be stewards of the environment and everything in it, not hoarders and wasters of it. Our great intelligence (despite some evidence to the contrary) means that means we have been given great power. And with that comes a responsibility to use that power wisely and effectively, and not shit where we eat just because we can and it’s expedient to do so.

I also don’t believe that Christ’s second coming will be a literal “here I am to take away my people and leave you sinners to rot” kind of thing. For the Bible teaches us that “No one knows about that day or hour, not even the angels in heaven, nor the Son, but only the Father.” (Mark 13:32) And yet, the world is full of false prophets and heretics claiming foreknowledge of events no human can know.

We cannot afford to dismiss them or ignore them. They must be confronted and exposed both for their scientific illiteracy and their religious heresy. And they must be opposed, at all costs.

Our survival as a civilization may depend on it.

This is why I watch “The Daily Show”

From the Huffington Post today:

Comedy Central’s Jon Stewart was in Washington, DC Tuesday night for the USO-Metro Awards Dinner, where the Daily Show host was honored with a Merit Award from Joint Chiefs vice-chair General James Cartwright. If it seems an odd fit for a comic who consistently lampoons the Bush administration, the Washington Post’s Reliable Source informs readers that all the comedic comfort Stewart gives critics of the Iraq War is matched by his efforts to comfort our wounded soldiers:

Turns out the comedian has been quietly visiting soldiers at Walter Reed and Bethesda hospitals, trips he began in 2004 to better understand the Iraq war. “I felt that I was living in a world of theory,” he told the audience, “but I hadn’t touched the reality and the humanity of it.” The first patient he met was “funnier than I was” — and Stewart’s been a regular ever since.

Stewart told the Post, “I certainly get a lot more out of it than they do…If anything, it’s made me angrier… You can be for the war, against the war, but you can’t be uninformed about it. To see the human cost is part of the equation.”

This observation, from a man whose viewing audience was once described as “stoned slackers” by Faux Noise’s Bill O’Really. Add “retired veterans” and “thinking Americans” to that list, Bill.

I really, really, really like Jon Stewart. He’s a true patriot in the same way that sycophantic supporters of Bush and Cheney aren’t.  There is no excuse for being uninformed about this.

Private Clinton reporting for duty, Sir!

No, really! According to the New York Times, Hillary Clinton recently said she tried to join the Marines. According to Senator Clinton, the conversation was less than encouraging:

“You’re too old, you can’t see and you’re a woman,” Mrs. Clinton said she was told, adding that the recruiter dismissed her by suggesting she try the Army. “Maybe the dogs would take you,” she recalled the recruiter saying.

“It was not a very encouraging conversation,” she said. “I decided maybe I’ll look for another way to serve my country.”

Oooh…kay. Maybe this is why she thinks she dodged sniper fire in Tuszla. She was having a flashback to the war she didn’t serve in.

Is anything this woman says true? Anything? Bueller?

The “Surge” is working – a Baghdad update

The chaos continues. As reported in the Washington Post early today, violence continues to erupt across Basra and Baghdad, despite our troops’ and the ISF’s best efforts to contain it. And what does our esteemed Commander-in-Chief have to say about it?

“Normalcy,” President Bush said, “is returning back to Iraq.”

He was referring to the number of soccer games the top general in Iraq had observed recently. I guess soccer is a sign of progress, but wouldn’t a lack of violence and unrest be better?

Speaking about the violence, however, he said

“[It]…shows the progress the Iraqi security forces have made during the surge. Iraqi forces planned this operation and they deployed substantial extra forces for it. They’re leading the operation. Prime Minister Maliki has travelled to Basra to oversee it firsthand. “

Really? Violence is a good thing? Maybe what it really shows is the a resurgence in the extremists’ opposition to the American presence in their country. Maybe it’s really a direct challenge to the authority of the ISF on the part of the extremists.

I take no pleasure in commenting on this. As a former military person, I feel a particular anger toward what I have come to believe is a futile and fruitless endeavor. Our troops have been dropped into a quagmire of a civil war, and what’s worse, it’s a civil war that could have been prevented. The current violence and unrest in Iraq is the direct result of President Bush’s ill-advised, unplanned, and thoughtless military invasion of Iraq.

We went there without planning how to “win the peace”. We went there with no plan for what we would do after the invasion. It was amateurish, short-sighted and wasteful.

And our bravest and best are paying for it. Now that we’re there, we can’t get out without completely disgracing ourselves to the world. For, as a wise man once said, before this whole thing began,

“You break it, you own it.”

Well, we broke it.

Now we’re being owned by it.

And our children will have to pay for it.

Thanks, George.

The “Surge” is working – a Basra update

Once again, the facts on the ground in Iraq have put the lie to the Bush administration’s attempts at wresting success from the jaws of the colossal failure of the so-called War on Terror. As reported in the New York Times, Iraqi security forces have been battling the Mahdi Army, the militia of renegade cleric Moqtada al-Sadr, in a desperate bid to regain control of Iraq’s southern port city of Basra.

Basra, you may recall, is the city that British troops withdrew from last year in the face of increasing violence and factional fighting.

This is the first real major engagement the ISF has led since its formation, and the stakes couldn’t be higher. Failure on the ground in Basra will be a major embarrassment both for the Iraqi government and the U.S. military personnel responsible for training the ISF. It could also lead to further destabilization of the entire country and a downward spiral into chaos and violence. Success will further validate the American presence in Iraq, prove the training we’re providing is working, and give a much-needed boost for the nascent ISF. They really need to prove themselves up to the task of keeping their country safe. Failure could wreck everything we, and the Iraqis, have been working toward, and make it extremely difficult to bring American troops back home where they belong.

Of course, we knew this sort of thing would happen, even before we invaded. During the run-up to the war, General Shinseki warned Congress and then-SecDef Rumsfeld (may his soul burn in hell) that while the initial invasion would only require 100 to 140,000 troops, the post-war occupation and rebuilding would need at least three to five times that.

Rumsfeld disagreed, Shinseki retired, and the uninformed opinion of the most incompetent, bullying and arrogant Secretary of Defense in American history prevailed. Trouble is, Shinseki was right then and history has proven it. Taking a country is one thing. It’s easy and quick, as we showed five years ago. Holding it is another thing entirely. The meager force that Bush & Co. left in place to patrol Iraq and keep the warring factions from killing each other has been fighting a losing battle ever since. The so-called “surge” last year only brought the troop levels up to a third of what they need to be in order to do their job effectively. They’ve been doing an excellent job under extremely difficult, nigh-on impossible, circumstances. But they’re overstretched, overdeployed, exhausted, burned-out, and sick of it all. Many are on their third or fourth deployments. They want to come home, and most of all, they want someone else to do it for a change.

The “surge” isn’t working. It wasn’t even really a surge. It was a band-aid solution to an open-heart surgery problem. If Bush was really serious about winning this thing, if he really gave a shit about the welfare of the troops, he’d take steps to re-institute the draft. He’d put out the clarion call of duty to all able-bodied men and women of recruitment age to get out and serve their country. If this truly is the defining fight of our times, if our national survival truly depends on it, then nothing less than a full mobilization is needed.

But he won’t, because he’s a coward and a liar. He’ll continue to play politics with soldiers’ lives, and make others sacrifice for a cause he isn’t willing to sacrifice for himself.

Just in case you were wondering…

My political compass, courtesy of PoliticalCompass.org:

That makes me somewhat of a Collectivist/Anarchist.

And I used to be so conservative…

Quote of the day… a blast from the past

 

“Y’know, they still call it the ‘White House’ but that’s just a temporary condition.”

- George Clinton and the Parliament Funkadelic, “Chocolate City”

From bad to worse

Remember Dick Cheney saying “So?” in response to the fact that a growing majority of Americans think the War in Iraq wasn’t worth the cost?  It’s worth repeating, in case you’ve forgotten:

Well, according to bland blonde Dana Perino, White House mouthpiece, the American people had their chance and now we should just shut up and color.  Take a look, especially at the 3:40 mark:

Y’all get that?  Every four years, we get our say, and in between we should just sit down and let the President do whatever he wants.  Provided, of course, we elect the “right” people.

During every presidential election in America we’re subjected to the quadrennial “should we scrap it” discussion about the Electoral College.  I’m beginning to think even that’s not enough, and we should change to a Parliamentary system.  In Europe, Bush & Co. would have been booted out on a “no-confidence” vote four years ago.

In Europe, the governments fear the people.  In America, we’ve got it backward.

Liar

Hillary Clinton has come under fire, and according to her, not for the first time. See, as we all know by now, last week she was caught on camera padding her meager resume’ by claiming that during her time as First Lady she was exposed to sniper fire in Bosnia. Trouble is, it didn’t happen, and the facts are all out there for anyone to see. Take a look:

She looks pretty safe to me. Even safe enough to bring Chelsea along with her. Putting aside for the moment the obvious fact that there is no gunfire happening anywhere near Mrs Clinton in the 12-year old footage, does she really expect us to believe that the Secret Service, the U.S. Army, and the rest of the government would have knowingly allowed the First Lady to be exposed to hostile fire in a war zone?

But even more telling is her body language in the recent video footage. Watch her again as she stands up in front of the audience, looks them in the eye, and lies her ass off about her “experience”. She’s stiff and nervous, as if she expects to be caught, but can’t stop herself.

Now, compare her statement at about 0:58-1:01 with this statement from the same era:

Hillary said “that is what happened.”

Bill said “I’m going to say this again.”

Both are displaying classic lying, bullying behavior. They’re telling you what they want you to believe, regardless of the facts. And you’re expected to lap it up without questioning it.

Now, like her husband, she’s been forced to recant her story. Having been caught in the lie, instead of owning up to it, she’s claiming she “misspoke.”

No, misspeaking is saying you bought roses when in fact you bought carnations. Misspeaking is not saying you were shot at by snipers when you actually weren’t. That’s a lie.

Hillary’s entire campaign has been based on her “experience” and “judgement.” Now that it’s increasingly clear she lacks the former, how can we trust that she has the latter?