What is art? Why do we exist?
Open thread.
by Tim F| 28 Comments
This post is in: Open Threads
What is art? Why do we exist?
Open thread.
by John Cole| 72 Comments
This post is in: Election 2008, Republican Stupidity
That better have been a helluva focus group the GOP commissioned, because they have their hands full this year:
The state GOP on Monday issued a press release under the headline “Anti-Semites for Obama” that begins:
“The Tennessee Republican Party today joins a growing chorus of Americans concerned about the future of the nation of Israel, the only stable democracy in the Middle East, if Sen. Barack Hussein Obama is elected president of the United States.”
The release cites Obama’s support from Nation of Islam Minister Louis Farrakhan and other controversial figures.
Smith said today that McCain’s comments do not change the state party’s stance and the state GOP will continue to use Obama’s middle name. That’s no different than saying “Hillary Rodham Clinton” or “Richard Milhouse Nixon,” she said.
Putrid filth from the cesspool that is the modern Republican party.
*** Update ***
What a disgrace. Here is the piece, and via the comments we learn it was written by former blogger Bill Hobbs. No doubt the Instapundit will give this one a Heh-Indeedy!
Really, a day doesn’t go by without me asking myself wtf I was thinking linking to these folks. They couldn’t have always been this vile.
How Not To Appear Like a Bigot, Round TwoPost + Comments (72)
by Tim F| 110 Comments
This post is in: Democratic Stupidity
Professional race pimp and nutpicker extraordinaire Lanny Davis frets about criticizing Obama without sounding like a bigot. You have to admit that it’s a pretty creative way for Davis to maintain the coveted victim status.
Meanwhile normal people manage to do it all the time. Honestly, if you look at a guy and can’t think of a single criticism that doesn’t sound racist then maybe you are a little racist.
by John Cole| 39 Comments
This post is in: Outrage, Republican Crime Syndicate - aka the Bush Admin.
This should not surprise anyone:
After promising last year to search its computers for tens of thousands of e-mails sent by White House officials, the Republican National Committee has informed a House committee that it no longer plans to retrieve the communications by restoring computer backup tapes, the panel’s chairman said yesterday.
The move increases the likelihood that an untold number of RNC e-mails dealing with official White House business during the first term of the Bush administration — including many sent or received by former presidential adviser Karl Rove — will never be recovered, said House Democrats and public records advocates.
The RNC had previously told the House Oversight and Government Reform Committee that it was attempting to restore e-mails from 2001 to 2003, when the RNC had a policy of purging all e-mails, including those to and from White House officials, after 30 days. But Chairman Henry A. Waxman (D-Calif.) disclosed during a hearing yesterday that the RNC has now said it “has no intention of trying to restore the missing White House e-mails.”
They don’t even care, and are busy going about the job of DWTFTW.
This post is in: Domestic Politics, Politics, Popular Culture
The NY Times is reporting that William F. Buckley has died. Probably heart-broken at what his party has become.
As always with obits, if you can’t say anything nice, don’t say anything at all.
*** Update ***
Link to the NY Times Obit added. I really am sad.
*** Update #2 ***
Watching the right-wing lunatics who destroyed conservatism wrapping themselves up in Buckley’s cold, dead embrace over the next few weeks will be disgusting. Start here, where K-Lo asserts she and the band of frothing brothers at NRO will continue Buckley’s “work”, and then read Malkin. And yes, you are reading Malkin correctly– she did just take the death of one of society’s most privileged members of the last century and use it to… declare that conservatives are victims.
These people are a disgrace and a sick joke.
by Tim F| 5 Comments
This post is in: War
Matt Yglesias notes that the Turkish-American-Kurdish conflict will put an especially painful squeeze on Nouri al-Maliki.
Given the Iraqi government’s dependence on the U.S. military, a Turkish invasion of Iraq that the United States approves of isn’t something the Iraqi government can or will do anything about. Thus this incident becomes one more case where U.S.-supported Iraqi leaders see their credibility as national leaders leeched away. If you think of the goal in Iraq as helping to prop up a government that’ll be able to stand up on its own, this sort of thing is a disaster.
At one point non-Kurdish Iraqis looked at the world with more of a nationalist than a secularist perspective. Intermarriage was common and Shiite officers and enlisted men had no problem going to war with Iran. To the degree that an Iraqi national identity still exists a Turkish invasion would create intense pressure from a side that Maliki has until now taken for granted. An opposition figure with a sizable base of support, say Muqtada al Sadr, would be well-positioned to tack towards national unity on a platform of repelling the Turks. Meanwhile America, in in bed with Maliki’s government and blocked by treaty from getting in the way of Turkey’s army, can look forward to an entirely new basis for popular support for the insurgency.
John McCain, foreign policy deep thinker, has declared that “as long as Americans are not being injured or harmed or wounded or killed” we could stay in Iraq for 100 or a million years. Well sure, as long as I only buy winning lottery tickets I’ll be a billionaire. I could really use some straight talk on what McCain will do if our kids keep dying.
by John Cole| 71 Comments
This post is in: Election 2008
I didn’t watch the debate last night, I actually watched a couple old episodes of Angel (yeah, I am a dork), but I did tune in for the dumbest portion of the night:
Aside from the idiocy of Russert, I think this was a clear win for Obama, as his “reject and denounce” after Hillary tried to play “Gotcha!” just made her look foolish. If you listen to video, people are laughing at her when she says “Good, good. Excellent!” it is the same sort of nonsense we have dealt with for years, and Obama was having none of it.
At any rate, I promptly turned the debates off after that, and I wish I had not- apparently Schiavo was mentioned (and K-LO is upset!), but I still can not find a transcript. Oh, well.
So far, the more I see of Obama, the more I learn, the more I like him. I can’t think of another politician like that in my experiences.
*** Update ***
Found it at the NY Times:
RUSSERT: Senator Obama, any statements or vote you’d like to take back?
OBAMA: Well, you know, when I first arrived in the Senate that first year, we had a situation surrounding Terri Schiavo. And I remember how we adjourned with a unanimous agreement that eventually allowed Congress to interject itself into that decisionmaking process of the families.
It wasn’t something I was comfortable with, but it was not something that I stood on the floor and stopped. And I think that was a mistake, and I think the American people understood that that was a mistake. And as a constitutional law professor, I knew better.
And so that’s an example I think of where inaction…
RUSSERT: This is the young woman with the feeding tube…
OBAMA: That’s exactly right.
RUSSERT: … and the family disagreed as to whether it should be removed or not.
OBAMA: And I think that’s an example of inaction, and sometimes that can be as costly as action.
Good for him.
*** Update #2 ***
And, as noted in the comments, just a few weeks ago I said– “Personally, the closer I look at Obama and his unity pony, the less I like.”
A few weeks of the Clinton campaign and starting to listen to Obama rather than his over-the-top supporters can work wonders.