Login Here 
(AP Photo/Haraz N. Ghanbari)
Hmmmm...this whole "last throes" concept sure is confusing. But at least there is no civil war in Iraq, right? As the Iraqis stand up, we'll stand down...isn't that still the talking point du jour?
So, why is it that the last 24-hours has seen headlines like this:
-- Group of Iraqi Soldiers Refuses to Go to Baghdad
-- Radical Militia and Iraqi Army in Fierce Battle
-- Iraqi Troops Battle Shiite Militiamen in Southern City
-- Dozens Killed in Iraq Clashes
-- In Iraq, Fewer Killed, More Are Wounded
-- At Least 100 Die as Militia Force Iraqi Troops Out of Town
But what's a few headlines among friends, eh? Especially when they end like this (for the moment):
Calm returned to a southern city Tuesday after a deal between Shiite militiamen loyal to a powerful cleric and Iraqi government forces ended a fierce 12-hour street battle that killed 40 people.In Baghdad, police said they found the bodies of 24 people who had apparently been tortured and shot before being dumped in two locations.
Eleven of the bullet-riddled corpses, their hands and legs bound, were found near a school in the Shiite dominated Maalif neighborhood in southern Baghdad, police said.
The bodies of another 13 people, believed to have been aged between 25 and 35, were found dumped behind a Shiite mosque in the Turath neighborhood in western Baghdad. All were handcuffed, showed signs of torture and had been shot in the head, said police 1st Lt. Maitham Abdul-Razaq.
Oh sure, no civil war, things are fabulous, and the Green Lantern Theory of Iraq is alive and well. (h/t to Atrios)
And, by the way, it's no wonder that the brass at the Pentagon have started grumbling about Rummy around the edges. I'm not certain that he can see reality through his goofy rose-colored glasses. Although to be completely fair, maybe he's a glass half full kinda guy who is just excited that the Baghdad morgue will be receiving less than last month's 1800 body total, if the numbers stay on the track they are this month.
The troops, many redeployed from hot spots around Iraq, have patrolled the capital, searched houses and made arrests since Aug. 7. Similar sweeps in Baghdad and elsewhere since the U.S.-led invasion in 2003 have reduced violence. But the bloodshed would increase when U.S. forces moved on.Though the U.S. military has not issued a timetable for ending the sweep, officials say that patrolling Baghdad indefinitely would create dependency among Iraq's nascent security forces and tax U.S. resources and manpower.
The U.S. military, with 138,000 troops, is stretched thin in Iraq; many units are on their third deployments. Last week, the Pentagon announced an involuntary recall of as many as 2,500 Marines reservists. The Army has issued recall orders to 10,000 soldiers.
U.S. military leaders say they hope Iraqi police units, paired with American training teams, will be able to maintain security once the troops leave.
Many Baghdad residents, however, think that Iraq's notoriously corrupt and sectarian police forces are part of the problem. U.S. and Iraqi officials acknowledge that Shiite Muslim militiamen, many of whom have infiltrated the police, are responsible for most of Baghdad's slayings, but there is still no plan to disarm paramilitary groups.
U.S. and Iraqi officials describe the Baghdad security plan as a last-ditch effort to stave off civil war and to shore up Maliki's government, which has struggled to contain sectarian violence and deliver essentials such as electricity and gasoline. (emphasis mine)
By employing the Rummy Whack-a-Mole technique of troop redeployment, troops from areas like Ramadi and Fallujah have been moved into Baghdad to shore up the numbers there, and then they'll be moved back into the newly revitalized hot spots of Ramadi and Fallujah, only to see Baghdad's violence shoot back up again. Um...that doesn't sound like lasting progress and last throes to me.
At least Afghanistan is going swimmingly ...oops...
-- 17 Die in Suicide Bombing in Afghan Market
-- Why It's Not Working in Afghanistan
Well, President Bush can at least count on all that loyal GOP support, right? Perhaps not. Heckuva job, Bushie. Your own party has begun running away from you to save their own political hides -- quite a legacy you have there.
Juan Cole, Swopa and Laura Rozen have much more.
Share This 
Spotlight
NED!
Heh. And I didn’t even cheat.
heh heh heh, neither did I.
I’m gonna Spotlight this, too.
Pachacutec @
2
twolf1 @
3
There go your chances for ever getting a job in the Bush administration.
At least Afghanistan is going swimmingly …oops…
Rummy’s escape to Alaska went swimmgly for him too. I’ll have a bit on that in a few minutes.
“Although to be completely fair, maybe he’s a glass half full kinda guy who is just excited that the Baghdad morgue will be receiving less than last month’s 1800 body total, if the numbers stay on the track they are this month.”
It’s like a reverse of the Vietnam body count policy. But with the same myopic mindset.
That’s easy, he uses hair gel.
I’m sick of these idiots….
i can only imagine what kind of hurculean behind-the-scenes work the u.s. must be doing to continue to prop up the central government. since it has become all but irrelevant i’m wondering how much longer until it colapses completely. that would surely be the last straw for the administrations ability to put any sort of positive spin on anything happeneing in iraq.
HAD ENOUGH!!!!??????!!!!!
Sorry, this got EPU’d and it is a bit of good news for Lamont, so is worth repeating here.
orangejumpsuit @ 104
I am sick, sick, sick of Rummy, Cheney and Bush. I wish they’d abandon Planet PNAC and wake up to the real world. They’re so afraid of bruising their own pride that they’ll continue to put our military into no-win situations.
Bush and his gang talk tough, but they’re really little frightened children hiding from the truth. They can’t handle the truth!
But, but …. we are turning a corner, aren’t we? Isn’t this the last throes?
Meanwhile, hair boy Byron York at neocon central (National Review) is trying to do some pre-emptive spin on Corn and Isakoff’s book ‘Hubris’ which discusses the Plame matter. Watch as he protests that Rove and Libby were not contacted (a lie), watch as he whines that the book was rushed out (so what?). This from a man who believes every canard Cheney ever lobbied about Iraq and WMD.
Yet, Timmeh will have this male version of Ann Coulter on Meet the Press and say how non-partisan he is. Incredible.
In a related note, Joe Lieberman has received the public endorsement of Jack Kemp. This is actually one of his more progressive supporters.
I was in the grocery store the other day when a customer greeted an employee, a friend she hadn’t seen in a while, apparently, and said “How’s Mike” (name changed, the lady’s son or husband, presumably). The employee kind sighed and smiled with resignation, and said “Oh he’s over in Iraq”. Everybody in earshot just kind of froze and turned around. I think she said her relative had another six months, the friend stammered out something about prayers, the friend’s husband said something I couldn’t hear, the people who didn’t know the lady turned away, I think a little bit sadly. I wanted to ask out loud: “So how are you all going to vote in November?”, but we’ve got a lot of deep deep red around here. The kind of people who thing the Iraqis started the war.
e.c., is that OUR central government you’re talking about?
Can’t explain, but I’ll complain.
Here’s the problem with “stay the course” and “as they stand up, we will stand down.” As they are standing up, those who don’t run are being cut down. The people dying in Iraq are people who had a right to expect our protection, because we came in and took over their country. Just because our government denies responsibility doesn’t mean that it doesn’t exist and that it won’t persist.
When Iraqi soldiers lose a battle to “insurgents,” running out of ammunition and suffering summary execution while our troops are occupied elswhere, what is a citizen to think? What considerations does an Iraqi citizen have to weigh in charting a course for survival?
The question bears repetition, if only because the Bush administration has gotten away with refusing to give an honest answer: What are our troops doing in Iraq? Whose side are they on? What can they do, and what’s beyond their control? Why are they dying? Why are they killing?
How could we send them to war without answering these questions? How can we keep them there?
Well Jenna and NotJenna need something to do:
http://wizbangblog.com/2004/07.....minder.php
Wonder why they are waiting to sign up to help Uncle Rummy?
I like Matt Yglesias’s Green Lantern theory of geopolitics, but I think he overlooks an important way of detecting its application: shifting goalposts. I propose that there is an inverse and proportional relationship between changing “measures” of success and the threat that a given failure will expose the “application of will” principle for the flapdoodle it is. Moreover, the application of this principle allows us to extend the realm of discussion outside the military/geopolitical sphere than Yglesias specifies. (One can argue, and I will not dispute the point, that Der Shrubbenfuhreradministration never intended for any given policy to produce a positive benefit for the general public, and that they therefore have not “failed.” Since they could never admit to that, however, the need to maintain the facade of positive general benefit remains and continues to drive the shifting-goalposts effect.)
do we have a physician with psychiatric and psychological specialties that would like to weigh in on the sociopathic personality?
one thing that I recall as being common is a “fast on their feet” way to explain everything away as though it never happened.
I would sure like to see the explanation from an expert, but there are notable signs of insanity and personality disorders with most of the people we see on the teevee, that are supposed to be running this country.
wouldn’t it be nice if a junior officer could relieve the superior of command when said superior is acting in a way detrimental to the well being of the rest of the company and in such a way as to cause them harm?
we have no government of the people, we have no checks and balances remaining, and we are owned by corporations (corpses) from countries all around the world that have invested in our way of life so as to control it. guess everyone got what they wanted,
except we the people.
Peterr @
5
I think I lost out on that chance when, in a fit of anger in early 2001 over Bush’s defunding of AIDS prevention programs over contraceptive issues, playing to his base, I sent a sharply worded protest letter to the White House. With a condom enclosed.
I think that’s when they probably put me in a file for monitoring.
twowolf: good on ya!
Dadhusker @ 18
Is it Jenna or notJenna who signed the teaching contract in the impoverished Central American country of Unnamedia, which contract apparently kicks in the on Jan 22, 2009?
On topic, but give it a minute . . .
Inouye’s backing away from Lieberman is a big deal, and not just for Joe. Inouye’s one of the “Gang of 14,” a certified WWII hero, and one of the few in the Senate who participated in the Watergate hearings.
Inouye knows a bit about excessive executive claims of authority. He knows a bit about war from firsthand experience, and about post-war care for those who have borne the burdens of war. He knows a bit about how the Senate and House can hold an executive accountable.
Back in June, he voted for Kerry’s amendment to the defense authorization bill, and here’s a chunk of his press release about that vote:
Bush has no strategic vision for Iraq. He has no tactical plans either, as these articles and headlines make clear. His prime concern is how he is seen and how he will be remembered.
Stephen Colbert hit it on the head at the White House Correspondents Association Dinner:
It’s National Photo-Op Week for the White House . . . let the world watch, and be afraid. Be very afraid.
NED was on C-Span this morning. Were you all aware? Of course he was GREAT! The more I see of him the more I am drawn to him. He’s so sincere and definitely wants to get this country on the right track. If you get a chance check him out online at C-Span. I am not sure if it’s up yet but I am sure it will be soon.
GO NED!!!!!
oldtree @ 20
For what it’s worth, my shrink has told me that armchair diagnosis of Bush and his Amazing Fiends has become something of a lunchtime tradition. The consensus among that group is that Bush himself suffers from a narcissistic, not an antisocial (sociopathic) personality disorder. Not that NPD is the kind of thing that makes for good public service, mind you. I’ll try to remember to ask whether the lunch club has tackled Rummy or Buckshot Dick–but my next appointment is a ways away.
And doesn’t it just warm the cockles of your heart that more and more will be killed and injured because ego and pride prevent these people from - if not openly admitting their errors - at least recognizing the problems by changing the course? Is what’s happening now supposed to be an implementation of “adapt to win?” The only thing that is ever adapted are the stories they tell to justify the losing that they always say is on the verge of victory. Maybe that should be the next slogan: “Victorious in Defeat: We may be Losing, but it’s gonna be the BEST loss EVER!”
Now, looking for something to throw…
Here’s the Spotlight email I just sent:
President GW Clusterfuck, Rummy and the shooter are dusting off their traveling shoes and opening up their campaign to hold congress- and to make it too dangerous for goopers to run against Clusterfuck on the war.
The shooter continues to be the liar extraordinaire- and that with incredible competition.
Lyin fuckin criminals- out on the town at our expense. Fuckheads!
I’m clinically trained, and though I don’t hang out among networks of shrinks, I’ve always armchaired narcissistic personality disorder, with the usual professional caveats that virtual diagnosis is unprofessional, and often more a product of the diagnostician’s projections than reflective of reality. Still, we have a lot of observable behavior over the course of five years to review.
Other energy regimes in the past (England for coal, the Netherlands for water, whales, and wind, the South and Rome for slaves) have shown little ability to switch to a new energy resource. All their infrastructure was set up, and cleverly so, to take maximum advantage of the energy source they were dominant in. When they ran out at home, they went abroad on resource sprees. Eventually their resource wars became counterproductive due to the higher expenses involved in grabbing resources from unwilling parties, their economies became more dependent on finance than manufacturing, and to varying degrees in their very last stages of dominance, they all began to display uncomfortable levels of political incompetence. But I doubt they ever had a dumber, more delusional son of a bitch than Donald Rumsfeld.
Wouldn’t uttering the phrase “God wants me to be President” (among others) pretty much confirm NPD in and of itself?
Jim @ 33
LOL!
Over the weekend, Rummy was in Fairbanks and the Alaska ABM sites. The Fairbanks APRN (Alaska Public Radio Network) coverage was neutral, being critical of Rummy’s decision not to let reporters in when he spoke to families of the Alaska Stryker Brigade, which has been extended and shifted from Mosul to Bagdhad.
The Pentagon chief was meeting privately later Saturday with 172nd Stryker Brigade families at Fort Wainwright, the unit’s home base. Rumsfeld’s aides said they expected as many as 600 people to attend and to have a chance to ask questions.
Reporters who traveled with Rumsfeld from Washington, D.C., were to be excluded from the session.
Asked why reporters would not be permitted to cover the event, Rumsfeld at first replied, “I don’t have any idea. I haven’t addressed the subject.” Later he said he makes it a practice to make all family meetings private.
Then off to Fallon Naval Air Station in Nevada, where he claimed the reason we aren’t perceived as successful in Iraq (and, I presume, Afghanistan) is because the enemy’s press is so sophisticated!
“The enemy is so much better at communicating,” he added. “I wish we were better at countering that because the constant drumbeat of things they say - all of which are not true - is harmful. It’s cumulative. And it does weaken people’s will and lessen their determination, and raise questions in their minds as to whether the cost is worth it,” he said alluding to Americans and other Westerners.
http://hosted.ap.org/dynamic/s.....CTION=HOME
Jim — it’s either NPD or untreated schizophrenia.
Anne 28 - speaking of ‘adapt to win’. Has anyone heard a gooper say that recently? I haven’t. Was it just a test market thing by rove/mehlman?
Pachacutec @ 31
Thanks for that caveat, Pach. I had meant to be clearer on that point, and I should have said so more directly. (Remember Terry Schiavo? Frist would rather not.)
You’re right, though: we’ve had quite a bit to observe, and perhaps even more recently. It doesn’t take very much training to notice that Bush is not a mentally or emotionally well man today, if he ever was.
Art Buchwald is a gem, and today’s column is right on topic here: Cut and Run Amok.
“As I see it, we couldn’t cut and run at this time even if we wanted to. . . .”
Another Watergate vet speaks out!
twolf1 @ 37
I’m still waiting for someone to define what “winning” looks like…
Ed*ard Teller @ 35
OldCoastie @ 40
Exactly.
Comforting to know that the shooter is committed to stayin in Iraq until the job is done–meaning until the last Iraqi is killed.
rwcole @ 43
And then they can beat their swords into drilling rigs.
OldCoastie @ 40
Winning? Look at Exxon and Halliburton profits. That’s ‘winning’.
A while back, MyDD was asking for nominations for one question to ask Bush in a public forum. My entry was, “Mr. President, what would not be a sign of progress in Iraq?”
I think whatever they had cooking over there never panned out. I think someone thought they could get access, but then they couldn’t.
EvilDrPuma @ 26
Actually, if one suffers from a so-called “narcissistic” disorder, this does not preclude also suffering from sociopathic disorders. Psychologists often fall into mutually exclusive fallacy — that a condition has to be either this or that but not both.
To me Bush is sociopathic to the extreme.
Pachacutec @ 31
Pach, the master of understatement….
let us hope the time to observe his behavior is nearing an end.
Another morning of wonderful pieces – thank you ma’am.
Lugar has pranced around like the snackfairy declaring we need to stay even in a civil war. Rumsfeld isn’t Santa Claus. Frist can diagnose Iraq from a video and says it’s fine. Pace can work in a three minute pause before answering that heck no, he never thought of civil war. No one can explain how the AUMF still authorizes our presence there. Roberts won’t do a decent job on the investigation about intel. No one is investigating the biggest revelation I think we could expect from the Plame investigation – that the President himself authorized (mis)use of classified information for purely partisan political purposes to bolster the war. SISMI in Italy is under investigation – but no on on Roberts committee showing any interest. Nat Guard and equipment decimated. How is it that Jon Stewart was the only one to run the video of the Iraqi recently trained /graduated soldiers who, upon learning where they were going to be sent, all revolted and started stripping their uniforms off right there on the parade grounds?
I’m not sharing my Advil with Rumsfeld.
OT – below thread (my connections are very very slow from home) Margot@90 – I really think it could have been so much worse when troops did get there if they had’t had someone like him. It was such a huge relief.
Mui @89 – and I think all remember the African American “looter” pictures and the Causian “desperate survivor” pictures. And the boat with hospital and rescue facilities, sitting around doing nothing for days; the helicopter pilot who, after dropping off his VIP delivery couldn’t stand to see Americans dieing on their rooftops and made the trips to rescue them, only to be reprimanded.
CBL – he rides too? I didn’t see that. Why can’t we have President’s like that?
The elections in two months are the public’s last chance to limit the spread of the GW Clusterfuck cancer.
If dems win the senate- they control the judiciary committee- and there will be no more dipshit supreme court judges. If they win EITHER house- there will be public investigations into Clusterfuck crimes. If the goopers hold congress- it’s business as usual for this pack of liars, thieves, and international monsters.
more ‘winning’:
http://thinkprogress.org/2006/.....s-numbers/
I’m only a gynecologist, but I would peg Chaney as a sociopath. Rumsfeld is just a dumbass.
I’m only a proctologist- but I can diagnose the shooter as an assholee!
Ed*ard Teller @ 34
Yes the enemy’s press IS so sophisticated. Too bad it is run fromCheney’s and Rove’s offices…
From CHS’s link, regarding the Green Lantern Theory of geopolitics, “It used to be the case that the rings wouldn’t function against yellow objects, but this is now understood to be a consequence of the “Parallax fear anomaly” which, along with all the ring’s other limits, can be overcome with sufficient willpower.”
Without mentioning any specific neckwear, I’m just noting this ;-)
phoebes @ #40,
I wonder, have any of the families Rumsfeld met with commented on their meeting?
The radio articles had actualities of family members calling him out. Many feel the brigade is doing work they’re untrained for (sound familiar, that one?).
Apparently, Robert Burns from the AP is one of the five wqriters accompanying the SecDef on his current tour. Rummy said this today in Salt Lake City:
In unusually explicit terms, Rumsfeld portrayed the administration’s critics as suffering from “moral and intellectual confusion” about what threatens the nation’s security and accused them of lacking the courage to fight back.
In remarks prepared for delivery to the American Legion’s national convention, Rumsfeld recited what he called the lessons of history, including the failed efforts to appease the Adolf Hitler regime in the 1930s.
“I recount this history because once again we face the same kind of challenges in efforts to confront the rising threat of a new type of fascism” he said.
http://seattlepi.nwsource.com/.....sfeld.html
Mary, any word from Condi lately?
oh and Lebanon? Tom Lantos is blocking aid to those people… aid that Fartacus promised them.
I can’t stand it– the winning of hearts and minds throughout the world is just going swimmingly!
Ed*ard Teller @ 55
The cabal’s talent for projection is reaching new heights — THEY are the new type of fascism, and surely they know we know this!
========
Had Enough?
========
Condi and Rummy are speaking to their adoring fans here in SLC today…Wednesday a different side will be seen…the not so adoring public
angie @ 57
Isreal first last and always for these people.
From Forbes via HuffPo:
http://www.forbes.com/business.....78817.html
Synopsis: It’s Rover’s show, and his game plan is more of the same-old, same-old. Run the same play until the Dems stop it. An October Surprise shouldn’t be a surprise at all.
I’m more concerned with how much the Dems have learned and operationalized than I am about Junior’s mental state right now. That’s not to denigrate at all the Dems’ commitment or the inherent dangers of an imploding presidency. But the Dems control their own performance, and Junior won’t (probably can’t) change his.
There are 70 days left until the midterms. It’s time to blow those swiftboaters out of the water.
Klyde, it’s not about Israel, it’s about votes.
President of Iran wants to debate Bush–hell- that’s like a contender taking a fight with a guy who has been knocked out every time he laced em up. Why doesn’t he go pick on someone who speaks in whole sentences?
Teddy @ 59
You are so right.
That’s also why they are coining the phrase “islamofacism”.
By attaching a negative religious connotation to facism, they can dismiss the claim without having to defend themselves against it rationally.
TeddySanFran,
Rummy’s Salt Lake City speech this morning was a trimmed down version of the speech he’ll be giving later today at the American Legion convention in Reno (or Vegas?). Talk about a proto-fascist group - the Legion. Sheesh!
that phrase “islamofascism”, T, has been debunked by both people/scholars in the west and the east; but real Americans will never hear it from the admin or the pundits or the bobbleheads…
OS – Condi was recently giving a speech and when interrupted with questions about Katrina answered, “But would you have really wanted to have coffee in NO before Katrina?”
And the msm continues to slobber over republican talking points and casting criminals like rummhell and bush in heroic light.
How come?
Maybe ’cause they’re ALL repugs. ALL OF THEM!
the guy that this story about is a blogger, too– saw him interviewed on cnn once over the weekend.
.
http://www.wnyc.org/news/articles/63716
Mary, I’m sure her mother brought her up better than that. Must be the company she keeps.
The Thing speaks for himself.
New Fascism…the legacy of the Worst.President.Ever.
Had Enough? Vote.
OT - just saw this:
klyde @ 60
I think it was Josh Marshall who pointed out that Lantos is, effectively, blocking American aid to Lebanon so that Iran can establish a stronger presence there. It’s called the Law of Unintended Consequences, I think. It happens when you let emotion rule your politics.
Thanks, Angie.
Is there a site I can visit to read about the debunk?
These wingnuts down here in GA looove that word. Its a shiny new one. At least they finally quit making up sentences to use “root cause”.
Sure wish I could figger out how to work this edit comment button running windows IE….
Is Rumsfeld the Least Credible Person in America?
I think so.
OT - Raw Story has this headline up:
Senate moves to expand Bush power to tap: Soon…
Shorter Rummy - “If I say it is fascist, it IS Fascist!”
meanwhile, back at the Kennebunkport Kompound:
President Bush launched an initiative this month to combat international kleptocracy, the sort of high-level corruption by foreign officials that he called “a grave and corrosive abuse of power” that “threatens our national interest and violates our values.” The plan, he said, would be “a critical component of our freedom agenda.”
Three weeks later, the White House is making arrangements to host the leader of Kazakhstan, an autocrat who runs a nation that is anything but free and who has been accused by U.S. prosecutors of pocketing the bulk of $78 million in bribes from an American businessman. Not only will President Nursultan Nazarbayev visit the White House, people involved say, but he also will travel to the Bush family compound in Maine.
http://www.washingtonpost.com/.....01282.html
Oh, well! Off to my first day of work for fall semester. The limit on my big lecture class has been changed from 110 to 200 students. That’s 2,350 or so quizzes, exams and term papers to correct for that one class!
Former President Jimmy Carter has done an interview for British MSM (which I’ve just blogged about), wherein he says flat out that he would NOT have gone to war against Iraq. Moreover, he blames our pitiful excuse for a premier, Tony Blair for much of this Iraq invasion & occupation nightmare, for so subserviently going along with BushCo.
Here’s a snippet:
** “We’ve never before had an administration that would endorse pre-emptive war - that is a basic policy of going to war against another country even though our own security was not directly threatened,” he said. In his book, President Carter writes: “I have been sorely tempted to launch a military attack on foreigners.”
But had he still been president, he says that he would never have considered invading Iraq in 2003.
“No,” he said, “I would never have ordered it. **
Moral and intellectual confusion says it all about THIS administration.
Sheesh, ET, I hope you have some good grad students working with you.
“I recount this history because once again we face the same kind of challenges in efforts to confront the rising threat of a new type of fascism” he said.
http://seattlepi.nwsource.com/.....sfeld.html
Methinks he’s really talking about the country he’s helping to wreck—-the U.S.
OT - LOL, JBR live presser interrupted by fire alarm.
Ed*ard Teller @ 78
Well, at least with the high priority everyone gives to education these days, I’m sure you’ve got the money for 20 or so TA’s to take care of that grading for you.
OT
The current CNN poll question is: Who would win a debate on world issues between President Bush and Iranian President Ahmadinejad?
Currently with 3900 votes, it is Ahmadinejad 67% to Bush 33%.
T- @ 74
wikipedia has covered the changing definition and criticism of the term “islamofascism” as generally used by politicians and pnac pundits.
Islamofascism is a neologism and political epithet used to induce an association of the ideological or operational characteristics of certain modern Islamist movements with European fascist movements of the early 20th century, neofascist movements, or totalitarianism. Organizations that have been labeled “Islamofascist” include Al-Qaeda, the current Iranian government,[1] the Taliban, the Muslim Brotherhood, Hamas, and Hezbollah. None label themselves fascist, however, and critics of the term argue that associating the religion of Islam with fascism is both offensive and historically inaccurate.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Islamofascism
twolf1 @ 81
I’m processin a little slow this fine morning: JBR?
It’s clear that the only way Clusterfuck and the Shooter can defend themselves on Iraq is to lie- nothing else has a prayer of success.
Jim @ 85
JonBenet Ramsey
The Iranian president offers to debate Clusterfuck with one tongue tied behind his back.
Your assignment, should you choose to accept it:
Check if your senator is on the list of those on the record as denying having placed a “secret hold” on bipartisan legislation
If your senator is not yet on the record, give him/her a buzz and get back to TPMuckraker.
Peterr & Old Sow,
One TA. She’s new. Best I ever had is headed off to earn his MusD. He’ll help train her today and thursday.
rw — you are cracking me up — good to see you this morning. :)
1,256 DAYZ AND THE KILLIN’ GOEZ ON AND ON AND…
Wake up folks!! Rummy and the new American Nazis are tryin to expropriate another word-concept: fascism.
I have been beatin this drum for a good long while here but it’s time to take back the vocabulary of this fight. We must start usin’ “fascism” when talkin’ about Bush and the Bush administration and the political party in power. It is essential that we collect and consolidate the anger in the American electorate and focus it where it belongs. One word does it…when we get the corporate media and the Administration and even some elected Republicrats in positions of power in the Democratic Party engaged in a public debate over the application of the term to the current party in power, then we have won!
We must brand the enemy….it is clear that this election , like so many “watershed” elections in the past, is about gettin’ an angry electorate to vote AGAINST a party not to convince ‘em ta vote for a specific set of articulated political positions or values.
WAKE UP FOLKS!! Start every political discussion, every comment in the supermarket checkout line, every argument in the breakroom with the words “fascist Republicans”. Even if the discussion then degenerates into a debate on the term, we win because by every definition that’s what these folks are…they are fascists.
And don’t worry about alienating long time Republican voters, they either aren’t gunna ever vote for a Democrat or they aren’t gunna vote…but makin ‘em defend their fascist party will demoralize ‘em enough ta get ‘em outta the ring and back in the closet where they belong.
KEEP THE FAITH AND KILL ‘EM WITH LOVE AND THE TRUTH!!!
Jim says
I think it was Josh Marshall who pointed out that Lantos is, effectively, blocking American aid to Lebanon so that Iran can establish a stronger presence there. It’s called the Law of Unintended Consequences, I think. It happens when you let emotion rule your politics
*********************************
I’ve always thought that lantos is, like lie-berman, so conservative a dem that he may as well be a member of the republican party.
Rumsfeld Lashes Out at Bush’s Critics
By ROBERT BURNS
The Associated Press
Tuesday, August 29, 2006; 11:48 AM
A new type of fascism….the infuriating and meaningless neologism aside, let’s focus on the “new”, shall we? Was it twenty-four or twenty-five years ago that Rummy shook hands with Saddam Hussein and Ronald Reagan called him our great ally in the fight against the Islamist hordes from Iran? Rummy can’t tell you what time it is without leaving the truth in his rear-view mirror.