Zero!

I stared zed in the eyes, but backed away slowly.

They should earmark some money and have a permanent “Rubber Stamp” statue put on the Mall by the reflecting pool. Then when future members of congress from either side start acting stupid again, the opposition can go out there and hold their press conferences to make the point.

Best use of an Earmark I can think of.

This symbol of the tidal wave that swept the Rubber Stamp away needs to be a constant reminder (an albatross, if you will) to those that got caught in the wave.

I suggest a professional portrait properly framed and presented to those who are saying bye bye.

They can hang it on their wall as a ‘badge of honor’.

The Rubber Stamp, which symbolizes the successful and historic effort to elect a new Demoratic majority to Congress in the recent election, belongs in the Smithsonian Institution.

IIRC there were a large bunch of the rubber stamps that we ordered yet to be used.

I think that the Dem. Caucus should decorate their Christmas tree with them hanging as ornaments.

Barring that, each of the Dems. can decorate the wreaths on their doors with them.

Perhaps it is the lack of sleep, but this video absolutely cracked me up. It was the music, I think, but I will never be able to hear that song again without thinking about the big rubber stamp. Mwahahahaha.

RevDeb at 5 — oh, they’ll be used. Just wait…

The big one could be tied to Fristie’s bumper for it to drag behind his car as he leaves town.

Christy Hardin Smith @ 8

RevDeb at 5 — oh, they’ll be used. Just wait…

stocking stuffers? kinda like lumps of coal.

TeddySanFran, message for you at the bottom of the ‘Sad’ thread. Thanks for the input.

Christy Hardin Smith @ 8

RevDeb at 5 — oh, they’ll be used. Just wait…

That comment has a most delicious whiff of good things to come…..whatever do you have in mind? ;-)

CHS – Tks for your note downstairs!

I didn’t contribute to the thead with suggestions, maybe this was said before;

bronze the thing, make it a permanent statue and embarrassment to the republican party, add a saying to make it impossible to remove, sonmething like;

let this be a symbol to those in the future, the oversite we provide is the most vital component the framers wrote into our beloved constitution, and let no man or body of men remove this symbol unless they seek to abandon their sworn obligation to constitution and country

that was off the top of my head, so someone should be able to write something much more poetic.

but that’s it, it needs to become a monument

perris @ 13

I didn’t contribute to the thead with suggestions, maybe this was said before;

bronze the thing, make it a permanent statue and embarrassment to the republican party, add a saying to make it impossible to remove, sonmething like;

let this be a symbol to those in the future, the oversite we provide is the most vital component the framers wrote into our beloved constitution, and let no man or body of men remove this symbol unless they seek to abandon their sworn obligation to constitution and country

that was off the top of my head, so someone should be able to write something much more poetic.

but that’s it, it needs to become a monument

shorter version:

Here Lies the 1009th Congress.
May it rest in torment for what it did to America and the World.
Never Again.

The above vid is a howl. I have a suggestion where it might be stored. But my concern is it won’t fit.

O.T.:
From Reuters:

WASHINGTON (Reuters) – The Bush administration is unlikely to allow the incoming Democratic majority in Congress to learn details about its domestic spying program and interrogation policy, a Republican senator said on Thursday.

Game On.

RevDeb @ 14

perris @ 13

I didn’t contribute to the thead with suggestions, maybe this was said before;

bronze the thing, make it a permanent statue and embarrassment to the republican party, add a saying to make it impossible to remove, sonmething like;

let this be a symbol to those in the future, the oversite we provide is the most vital component the framers wrote into our beloved constitution, and let no man or body of men remove this symbol unless they seek to abandon their sworn obligation to constitution and country

that was off the top of my head, so someone should be able to write something much more poetic.

but that’s it, it needs to become a monument

shorter version:

Here Lies the 1009th Congress.
May it rest in torment for what it did to America and the World.
Never Again.

a bronze monument for all time it is then, however we need to give it a saying that will embarrass the republicans from ever removing the symbol

RevDeb @ 16

O.T.:
From Reuters:

WASHINGTON (Reuters) – The Bush administration is unlikely to allow the incoming Democratic majority in Congress to learn details about its domestic spying program and interrogation policy, a Republican senator said on Thursday.

Game On.

I can’t wait to watch as the reviled pelosi and the reviled clinton and the reviled kedendy DRESS DOWN who soever THINKS they will refuse a congressional investigation.

game is on…let them refuse at pain of impeachment

better to impeach then inpugn I always say

(well, i say it now anyway)

neurophius @ 5

The Rubber Stamp, which symbolizes the successful and historic effort to elect a new Demoratic majority to Congress in the recent election, belongs in the Smithsonian Institution.

Where is should soon be joined by a companion piece: A large Sherlock Holmes type magnifying glass.

Which will commemorate (I hope) the intense scrutiny Congress will now give to the workings of all other branches of government.

A few minutes ago NPR had Michael O’Hanlon (liberal) and Reuel Gerecht (neocon) on to discuss the Iraq Study Group report. What is weird about this is that both are members of different working groups of the ISG but they were never identified as such. Indeed except for one offhand comment by O’Hanlon about not supposed to be talking about some of this stuff, they were portrayed as outside commentators, instead of involved actors. Very strange.

RevDeb indicates:

Game on?

Ooooh! I like games.

I also did an analysis of the Bush Maliki presser today but I don’t know what thread to put it on. This one? or wait for another?

Hugh at 21 — I say here. :)

Oklahoma kiddo @ 21

RevDeb indicates:

Game on?

Ooooh! I like games.

I don’t think Pat Leahy likes games . . . . should be interesting.

Oklahoma kiddo @ 21

RevDeb indicates:

Game on?

Ooooh! I like games.

I play rough though

Reminder:
KO is doing a “special comment” tonight.

RevDeb @ 16

O.T.:
From Reuters:

WASHINGTON (Reuters) – The Bush administration is unlikely to allow the incoming Democratic majority in Congress to learn details about its domestic spying program and interrogation policy, a Republican senator said on Thursday.

Game On.

Oh, this ought to be good. Now, ladies and gents, we MUST MAKE SURE that our own beloved Dem magority does NOT FAIL to perform full and fair oversite. Lots of it.

RevDeb @ 26

Reminder:
KO is doing a “special comment” tonight.

Why… I think I’ll be there.

Thanks, Christy. The Bush Maliki presser Part I

Reading through the statements and answers during their news conference today in Jordan, I noted that although Bush glossed over the criticism of Maliki contained in the Hadley memo its recommendations still served as the basis for the discussion. Muqtada al Sadr, greater and faster transfer of power (and responsibility) over security functions, even our “chasing down” al Qaeda, it was all there. So it seems a little strange that while the content of the memo should be kept, its spirit should not be, and I think that Bush’s strong statement of support for Maliki should be seen in this light, and taken with a large grain of salt.

Much of what was said consisted of recycled talking points but there were some new, often bizarre, and unintentional examples served up today. I couldn’t help but get the feeling as I read that this was all a script to a bad Marx Brothers movie and I kept expecting a chorus somewhere to break into refrains of “Hail, Fredonia”.

Bottomline: Bush continues to deny we are not going to leave Iraq any time soon. Bush said this in the usual way:

So we’ll be in Iraq until the job is complete

with all the variants

the presence of the United States will be in Iraq so long as the government asks us to be in Iraq.

etc. Of course, one never knows. Perhaps Bush will declare the job completed tomorrow, you know, the way he declared Mission Accomplished back in 2003.

One circumlocution that I had not heard before was the “graceful exit”. He used it twice. This was my favorite formulation of it because of its unintended and painful humor.

And that’s why this business about graceful exit just simply has no realism to it at all.

Nothing about our presence in Iraq has been “graceful”. Along these lines, Bush also took on timetables once again in his inimitably incoherent way:

Q Sir, there are no time limits here?
PRESIDENT BUSH: As quick as possible, Martha. As quick — I’ve been asked about timetables ever since we got into this. All timetables mean is that it — it is a timetable for withdrawal. You keep asking me those questions.

I think people keep asking “those” questions because they would like to have an answer to them, but that’s just me. After 3 1/2 years, “as quick as possible” just doesn’t cut it for me.

Keeping on the “it’s already been 3 1/2 years” issue, Bush did finally admit that creating an army did entail something more than giving people guns and showing them which was the business end, a point I have often made here with regard to command and control, logistics, discipline, heavy weapons, esprit de corps, and allegiance. But I lack the President’s skill with the English language:

In other words, this is a sophisticated operation to get a unifying army stood up.

RevDeb @ 26

Reminder:
KO is doing a “special comment” tonight.

I love what he has to say, but he risks turning himself in Howard Beal if he does this every time he wants to goose his ratings.

Special Comments should be just that, “special” as in rare, as in because soemthing out of the ordinary requires it.

Special Comments should not become a ‘regular feature”

Oklahoma kiddo @ 28

RevDeb @ 26

Reminder:
KO is doing a “special comment” tonight.

Why… I think I’ll be there.

Booman has a tidy little story about Keith’s sudden notoriety.

I trotted over to their web site and left the suggestion that it belongs in W’s half-a-billion-dollar Presidential Library, with his copy of My Pet Goat and all his coloring books, housed in the “My Bestest Legacy Ever” wing. I just wish that you could see the other suggestions on their site… because I’ll bet that some of them are howlers!

looseheadprop @ 27

RevDeb @ 16

O.T.:
From Reuters:

WASHINGTON (Reuters) – The Bush administration is unlikely to allow the incoming Democratic majority in Congress to learn details about its domestic spying program and interrogation policy, a Republican senator said on Thursday.

Game On.

Oh, this ought to be good. Now, ladies and gents, we MUST MAKE SURE that our own beloved Dem magority does NOT FAIL to perform full and fair oversite. Lots of it.

I want check and then I want mate.

I say enshrine it in the Lincoln Memorial as the disgrace that it is to the party as it should have been.

Abe would like that– he tried so hard and was tormented and did much good.

btw, apropos of the last thread, distribute this video throughout the South.

It’s very good.

The Bush Maliki presser Part II

In the news conference, Bush clearly prefers some phrases over others. I couldn’t help but notice that he mentioned “safe havens” for terrorists 7 times. “Civil war” on the other hand, was not used by anyone, including the press, even once. Instead the internecine conflict in Iraq was cast as a “law and order” issue. This is a novel, even radical, use of language, especially coming from our own unilateral/unitary, signing statement, I don’t need a warrant executive.

In referencing the civil war, “breaking (or violating) the law” was used 7 times. “Rule of law” or a variant appeared 4 times, “criminal” 5 times. So it’s not a civil war. It’s an episode of Iraq CSI. In truth, I have my doubts how well this new terminology will sell. For one thing, the TV shows are better made, and, unlike Iraq, they always get the bad guy.

Anyway, back to the rhetoric of inadvertent admissions (with translations given as needed)

Part of the Prime Minister’s frustration is, is that he doesn’t have the tools necessary to take care of those who break the law.

Translation: Maliki: You need to give me tanks, helicopters, artillery so I can win this civil war, errr law thing, whatever.

Bush in praising Maliki also doesn’t seem to know when to stop and ends up saying the reverse of what he intended:

My plan, and his plan, is to accelerate the Iraqis’ responsibility. See, here’s a man who has been elected by the people; the people expect him to respond, and he doesn’t have the capacity to respond.

Shorter form: Maliki was elected to do what he can’t and hasn’t done. Thanks, thanks, Mr. President for that vote of confidence. But perhaps I should let Mr. Maliki speak for himself:

Some people might not understand the successes that we have as we daily face terrorism in Iraq

I expect not. I guess I have a few difficulties squaring your current impotence on the one hand with your claims of success on the other. Perhaps it all comes down to what success means for you and Mr. Bush:

He was explaining to me that occasionally the house in which he lives gets shelled by terrorists who are trying to frighten him.

If this represents success that your house is only occasionally being shelled, then I stand corrected and progress is being made.

http://www.whitehouse.gov/news…..130-1.html

perris @ 25

Oklahoma kiddo @ 21

RevDeb indicates:

Game on?

Ooooh! I like games.

I play rough though

I play my cards close to the chest.

looseheadprop, my guess is that he’ll be teeing up Newt Gingrich and the idea that freedom of speech is an overrated idea, which I believe is worthy of a special comment. Just a guess, though…

Looks like the Rubber stamp congress is going try to make a last ditch attempt to reduce abortion rights, as its final emergency after-session measure. We’re bogged down in a futile war in which hundreds of thouands of people have died/are dying, someone’s planting radiactive poisons on airplanes, people who shouldn’t have nukes are testing them, their president is now arguing that he’s not accountable to Congress at all, on issues like his right to torture people to death (http://news.yahoo.com/s/nm/20061130/pl_nm/security_spying_specter_dc_1).. and, what, the rubber stamp rethugs are going to make banning abortion their last, final and top priority?????

http://www.cnn.com/2006/POLITI…..index.html

…. the Rubber Stamp Congress:– a club for thieves to debate the ethics of barn door locks after their members have stolen all the horses and burned down the barn. Twice.

Send the rubber stamp to Iraq!

looseheadprop @ 27

RevDeb @ 16

O.T.:
From Reuters:

WASHINGTON (Reuters) – The Bush administration is unlikely to allow the incoming Democratic majority in Congress to learn details about its domestic spying program and interrogation policy, a Republican senator said on Thursday.

Game On.

Oh, this ought to be good. Now, ladies and gents, we MUST MAKE SURE that our own beloved Dem majority does NOT FAIL to perform full and fair oversite. Lots of it.

It’ll start right here

I do solemnly swear (or affirm) that I will support and defend the Constitution of the United States against all enemies, foreign and domestic; that I will bear true faith and allegiance to the same; that I take this obligation freely, without any mental reservation or purpose of evasion; and that I will well and faithfully discharge the duties of the office on which I am about to enter: So help me God.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/O…..ted_States

7&7 at 7 with Olbermann.

Marion in Savannah @ 32

I trotted over to their web site and left the suggestion that it belongs in W’s half-a-billion-dollar Presidential Library, with his copy of My Pet Goat and all his coloring books, housed in the “My Bestest Legacy Ever” wing. I just wish that you could see the other suggestions on their site… because I’ll bet that some of them are howlers!

LOL! That’s a great one.

Blub @ 38

… the Rubber Stamp Congress:– a club for thieves to debate the ethics of barn door locks after their members have stolen all the horses and burned down the barn. Twice.

Fabulous! That’s the phrase that should be mounted over the rubber stamp wherever it winds up being displayed. Distills the whole ghastly mess down to a neat 30 words. I’m impressed!

If Clusterfuck really (as Specter is now hinting) intends to try to keep the Dem Congress in the dark about torture and intelligence surveillance matters, I say we do a Truman.. subpeona them, padlock the doors to the hearing room behind them and keep’em in there until they talk. Have (bad) food brought in, in the meantime.

The Baker group “laid an egg”. Scarborough a few ago.

Oh Hugh, thank you.

“Graceful exit” was what raised my hackles the most.

He’s an assholian of epic proportions.

“I shall never be blamed, Yo Nouri– ’tis you and yours.”

duck, duck– GOOSE.

looseheadprop at 19:
Which will commemorate (I hope) the intense scrutiny Congress will now give to the workings of all other branches of government. And as well, that we will now give to Congress.

Gawd. Stay the course. Bush has two more years.

We don’t have two more years.

How about adding R.I.P to Rubberstamp Repub Congress and then bronzing the stamp. But where to put it? Maybe in a display case as a memento. But where? Hmmm.

Margot @ 49

We don’t have two more years.

no we don’t and neither do the Iraqis, Afghans, the victims of Katrina, the Palestinians or the “peace process, the people of Darfur, or the Lebanese.

Time is running out quickly.

Marion in Savannah @ 32

I trotted over to their web site and left the suggestion that it belongs in W’s half-a-billion-dollar Presidential Library, with his copy of My Pet Goat and all his coloring books, housed in the “My Bestest Legacy Ever” wing. I just wish that you could see the other suggestions on their site… because I’ll bet that some of them are howlers!

I can’t find the suggestions that have been written. Is there a link?

I want a fresh face for the Democratic nomination for president in ‘08.

Mui @ 52, there isn’t a link there that I could find, just the form. I do wish that we could see all the suggestions. Maybe if enough of us ask (politely, of course) they’ll publish them somewhere.

The Rubber Stamp Republicans

“A nation can survive its fools, and even the ambitious.
But it cannot survive Treason from Within.
An enemy at the gates is less formidable,
for he is known and carries his banner openly.
But the traitor moves amongst those within the gate freely,
his sly whispers rustling through all the alleys,
heard in the very halls of government itself.
For the traitor appears NOT as a traitor;
he speaks in accents familiar to his victims, and
he wears their face and their arguments,
he appeals to the baseness
that lies deep in the hearts of all men.
He Rots the Soul of a Nation,
he works secretly and unknown in the night
to undermine the pillars of the city,
he infects the body politic so that it can no longer resist.
A murderer is less to fear.”

~ Marcus Tullius Cicero

Oklahoma kiddo @ 53

I want a fresh face for the Democratic nomination for president in ‘08.

Oh, wouldn’t that be grand? The problem with “fresh faces,” however, is that they get torn to shreds for not having enough “experience,” or “gravitas,” or whatever other buzzword is popular that week for “not an insider.” Sigh.

john in sacramento @ 55

The Rubber Stamp Republicans

“A nation can survive its fools, and even the ambitious.
But it cannot survive Treason from Within.
An enemy at the gates is less formidable,
for he is known and carries his banner openly.
But the traitor moves amongst those within the gate freely,
his sly whispers rustling through all the alleys,
heard in the very halls of government itself.
For the traitor appears NOT as a traitor;
he speaks in accents familiar to his victims, and
he wears their face and their arguments,
he appeals to the baseness
that lies deep in the hearts of all men.
He Rots the Soul of a Nation,
he works secretly and unknown in the night
to undermine the pillars of the city,
he infects the body politic so that it can no longer resist.
A murderer is less to fear.”

~ Marcus Tullius Cicero

I’m certainly not a classical scholar, but was Cicero a time traveler, and did he ever meet Lieberman?

To hell with these people trashing Webb on Tucker (hosted by Scarborough).

both from the dem dong and the thug biatch.

I want Webb to continue to be raw and truthful.

Go Webb!

Marion in Savannah @ 54

Mui @ 52, there isn’t a link there that I could find, just the form. I do wish that we could see all the suggestions. Maybe if enough of us ask (politely, of course) they’ll publish them somewhere.

THIS administration? Publish folks criticizing them? Not on your life.

The post-KO timeslot on MSNBC could do well with a Washington Journal (C-Span) style call in and interaction program. The insertion of documentaries in those time slots was something that happened after Dan Abrams was moved up the foodchain.

Rachel Sklar on Scarborough. I really like Sklar. She tells us there is NOT two sides to global warming.

I like Danny DeVito too.

Jacqrat @ 59, it’s the 30 Something Dems Working Group that doesn’t have the link to the comments on what to do with the rubber stamp, and maybe if we ask THEM politely they’ll publish them. I probably should have quoted Mui’s whole comment, but I fear The Dreaded Ziggurat.

rumi @ 60

The post-KO timeslot on MSNBC could do well with a Washington Journal (C-Span) style call in and interaction program. The insertion of documentaries in those time slots was something that happened after Dan Abrams was moved up the foodchain.

I think that would be grrreat. KO will stimulate great conversation.

I cannot abide Larry King’s rude treatment of callers.

Blub @
44

If Clusterfuck really (as Specter is now hinting) intends to try to keep the Dem Congress in the dark about torture and intelligence surveillance matters, I say we do a Truman.. subpeona them, padlock the doors to the hearing room behind them and keep’em in there until they talk. Have (bad) food brought in, in the meantime.

Maybe play some John Ashcroft music.

-GSD

rumi, that’s a great idea. I can’t change channels fast enough once Olbermann is over, I detest serial killers, murderers, and prison shows they throw in there for a couple of hours night after night, after night.

A call in show would be cool. I would really love to see a Blogger Panel show with rotating guests to review and discuss the happenings of the day being highlighted in the blogoverse. If Abrams is smart he’ll do something, anything, to get something more topical at least in that hour following Keith.

GSD @ 64

Blub @
44

If Clusterfuck really (as Specter is now hinting) intends to try to keep the Dem Congress in the dark about torture and intelligence surveillance matters, I say we do a Truman.. subpeona them, padlock the doors to the hearing room behind them and keep’em in there until they talk. Have (bad) food brought in, in the meantime.

Maybe play some John Ashcroft music.

-GSD

Let the eagle soar again and again and again

GSD @ 64

Maybe play some John Ashcroft music.

-GSD

Well, the grammarian in me would suggest that you put quotation marks around “music.” And I wonder if that kind of treatment would be allowed under the Geneva Conventions…. Oh. Silly me. Sorry, they’re “quaint,” and no longer apply. Never mind… But please do put the quotation marks around “music.”

OT – Al-Maliki faces revolt within government

Iraqi Prime Minister Nouri al-Maliki faced a widening revolt within his divided government as two senior Sunni politicians joined prominent Shiite lawmakers and Cabinet members in criticizing his policies.

Vice President Tariq al-Hashemi said he wanted to see al-Maliki’s government gone and another “understanding” for a new coalition put in place with guarantees that ensure collective decision making.

twolf1 @ 68

OT – Al-Maliki faces revolt within government

Iraqi Prime Minister Nouri al-Maliki faced a widening revolt within his divided government as two senior Sunni politicians joined prominent Shiite lawmakers and Cabinet members in criticizing his policies.

Vice President Tariq al-Hashemi said he wanted to see al-Maliki’s government gone and another “understanding” for a new coalition put in place with guarantees that ensure collective decision making.

the poor Iraqis and we are scr*wed.

angie @ 69

twolf1 @ 68

OT – Al-Maliki faces revolt within government

Iraqi Prime Minister Nouri al-Maliki faced a widening revolt within his divided government as two senior Sunni politicians joined prominent Shiite lawmakers and Cabinet members in criticizing his policies.

Vice President Tariq al-Hashemi said he wanted to see al-Maliki’s government gone and another “understanding” for a new coalition put in place with guarantees that ensure collective decision making.

the poor Iraqis and we are scr*wed.

Yes, this is troubling too:
Government rates travelers for terrorism

I want out of Iraq and I want a Palestinian homeland. For starters.

raw story

“Humans must leave planet to survive”

And subject another part of the universe to the human curse?

A species who can produce a Hitler- or a GW Clusterfuck has no business polluting another planet.

Marion in Savannah @
62

Jacqrat @ 59, it’s the 30 Something Dems Working Group that doesn’t have the link to the comments on what to do with the rubber stamp, and maybe if we ask THEM politely they’ll publish them. I probably should have quoted Mui’s whole comment, but I fear The Dreaded Ziggurat.

uh, sorry. I am really not myself today. I thought you meant the Bush Library site – NEVERMIND!

Josh Marshall schools Mort Kondracke and his ilk:

Let’s first take note that the ‘blame the American people for Bush’s screw-ups’ meme has definitely hit the big time. It’s not Bush who bit off more than he could chew or did something incredibly stupid or screwed things up in a way that defies all imagining. Bush’s ‘error’ here is not realizing in advance that the American people would betray him as he was marching into history. The ‘tragedy’ is that Bush “bit off more than the American people were willing to chew.” That just takes my breath away.

… the repudiation of Bush’s tough policies that have led to the international axis of evil states rising against us. Is he serious? The world has gone to hell in a hand basket since the election? In the last three weeks? The whole column is an open war on cause and effect.

This is noxious, risible, fetid thinking. But there it is. That’s the story they want to tell. The whole place is rotten down to the very core.

Well, English common law used to take a grim view toward contempt. If one refused to plea (to a criminal charge), they would be subject to increasingly harsh forms of physical pressure until they agreed to purge themselves of their contempt. “Peine forte et dure” was an especially interesting method, in use until the late 18th century…

Marion in Savannah @ 67

GSD @ 64

Well, the grammarian in me would suggest that you put quotation marks around “music.” And I wonder if that kind of treatment would be allowed under the Geneva Conventions…. Oh. Silly me. Sorry, they’re “quaint,” and no longer apply. Never mind… But please do put the quotation marks around “music.”

new thread

angie @ 63, Shez @ 65 ,, thanks!

I’ve been a regular viewer of Countdown from the earliest days. Keith was the only one to address current issues with common sense. He took it up a notch after the 2004 (s)election vote discrepancies and he’s been gaining a greater following all along.

I can’t even watch Larry King. I tried a few times back when the Plame investigation had folks on all programs at all times.

C-Span’s Wash Journal has been a tion of fun to follow over the past few years. It’s great to see/hear people from all walks of life and see how public opinion changes and evolves. A similar style call-in show should be fairly cheap to do. Hell…we’re known for entertaining ourselves… :-)

On Hardball, a clip of Bush saying, “we’re going to stay in Iraq until we get the job done–as long as the Iraqi government wants us there.”

So, now the United States of America has ceded authority to an unstable, inexperienced Middle Eastern government to decide the fate of our women and men in uniform, with more dying or being injured every day? We won’t leave Iraq until the Iraqis say we can go?

During the presidential debates in 2004, I recall, Bush was very critical of an inference that John Kerry thought we should consult other countries in making our foreign policy. He criticized Kerry for wanting a “global test” for such decisions.

Now, Bush calls for an *Iraqi test* for our exit from that country. I guess he doesn’t have the guts to make such an important decision for himself.

Hi y’all! I just read the entirety of The Mother of All Threads and ended up too exhausted to post anything.

So I’ll just jump into the regular flow here –

Regarding the idea that Keith’s “Special Comments” are too frequent these days, I have to disagree.

I was just a wee thing during the latter days of Edward R. Murrow’s stellar career, but I’ve heard lots of description of his program(s) from my elders.

When Murrow was in his prime, and at his most effective (in terms of his influence on the national discourse) — which I consider to be during the take-down of Joseph McCarthy — he had “Special Comments” to make virtually every time he appeared. [Not that they were called “special comments” at the time, of course.]

I think Keith calls his editorial piece a “Special Comment” just to give a heads-up that this is a moment reserved for him, separated apart from his pithy remarks throughout the rest of the different types of segments he hosts, to rear back and let loose with his view of the most urgent dangers facing us at the moment regarding the survival of our democratic republic.

I don’t believe they are overdone. Despite the reported pressure from higher-ups for him to do MORE of this, he holds off until the time is right, organically and in accord with events, for him to have something worthwhile to say.

IMO there hasn’t been a single one of these commentaries which were superfluous or gratuitous. Each one, IMO, was timely.

Bush:

“My plan, and his plan, is to accelerate the Iraqis’ responsibility. See, here’s a man who has been elected by the people; the people expect him to respond, and he doesn’t have the capacity to respond.”

Whenever I hear Bush start a sentence with the word “see,” aside from the rudeness, I anticipate an attempt to obscure our vision of the facts.

Blub says,

“…. the Rubber Stamp Congress:– a club for thieves to debate the ethics of barn door locks after their members have stolen all the horses and burned down the barn. Twice.”

But what I want to know is, does the winner of the “What to do with the Giant Rubber Stamp” contest get a pony?

I’m afraid that the stolen horses are dead. Cheney used them to stock the ranches where he hunts.

neurophius @ 81

Blub says,

“…. the Rubber Stamp Congress:– a club for thieves to debate the ethics of barn door locks after their members have stolen all the horses and burned down the barn. Twice.”

But what I want to know is, does the winner of the “What to do with the Giant Rubber Stamp” contest get a pony?

Marion in Savannah @ 56

Oklahoma kiddo @ 53

I want a fresh face for the Democratic nomination for president in ‘08.

Oh, wouldn’t that be grand? The problem with “fresh faces,” however, is that they get torn to shreds for not having enough “experience,” or “gravitas,” or whatever other buzzword is popular that week for “not an insider.” Sigh.

I’m holding out hope the great Al Gore could be persuaded to throw his hat in the ring for I have no doubt he would be re-elected president.

I think that stamp should be in a museum (eventually the Smithsonian Museum of American History) along with the kiss float. Anyone know the fate of the kiss float?

I think the Rubber Stamp should make a national tour. It should be on display in every U.S. state capital at least for a day. And when it shows up at every state capital, there should be at least one leader representing the Democratic Party promising that the GOP games will never be repeated.

I’d like to put it in my toilet.
PS.
My friend you have got bawlz! I wish more of us had the courage to tell the truth and stop worrying about being silenced, or kidnapped, tortured and killed by our own government. Be safe and keep up the good work. Maybe one day you’ll have company (safety in numbers). Until then, at least remain a moving target.