dogponycostume.jpgLast night, as I was laying in bed trying to shut off my brain from the barrage of news and go to sleep, I started thinking about how much I truly miss Steve Gilliard and Billmon.  Really, desperately miss them.  That outrage and reality that cut through the bullshit like a hot knife through butter…I could use a heaping helping of that this morning.

Because this is the sort of thing that incites outrage:

Rations have been reduced by 35 percent, and of the 5 million Iraqis who depend on them (about a fifth of the country), two million are having trouble receiving the rations because they live in high-risk areas. Now the news is that with Ramadan looming, where square meals at sunset and in the morning before dawn are all that keep people going during the fast, the rations may not be available in nearly the required amounts. Iraqi foodstuffs are increasingly threadbare or rotten, and delivering the rations to risky areas is very difficult. (Imagine the difficulty in feeding the 200,000 Fallujans, 80 percent of whom are unemployed, given that no one is allowed to drive vehicles in that city).

And so is this:

” . . . Oxfam estimates that 28 percent of Iraqi children are malnourished, compared with 19 percent before the U.S. invasion. . .”

What in the hell are we doing? I mean that honestly, it has been years — YEARS — and things are still getting worse.  No amount of the Bush stalling for time extravaganza changes the fact that the piss poor planning at the start has screwed things royally in an occupation that should never have occurred in the first place.  And today, Patraeus (H/T to MoveOn.org) is going to ask for another FU.  (Testimony begins at 12:30 pm ET on C-Span3.  And, not to be missed, Athenae has a note for the originating FU.)

For what, exactly? More FU’s for failure and Bush CYA. Boo yah.  As Swopa says, the problem with more FUs is that the burden falls on other people’s lives. 

Speaking of failures, MyLeftNutmeg has a helpful chronology of the idiocy that is FU Joe.  The Homeland Security committee is finally having a hearing on the DHS failures under Michael Chertoff — only six years after 9/11/01.  Heckuva job with the oversight, Joe.  (C-Span1 looks like it is broadcasting this.  FYI.)

Here’s a clue — something I learned from Britney — life isn’t a series of rehearsals, and when you show up with a half-assed effort, there is a penalty to be paid.  And no amount of WH-directed PR initiative and manufactured faux outrage erases the mental image of a tarted up failure in flashy, sequined outer package that forgets to take the substance of the performance altogether seriously.  (And how in the hell do you mess up lip synching, anyway?  Oh wait, let’s go to the tape…)  And you know it.

While I’m thinking of it, it doesn’t help when President Short Attention Span swaggers around and plots new ways to poke at various factions without giving a thought to the long-term consequences of his idiocy.  Stop taking behavioral cues from Kid Rock and Tommy Lee, and grow the hell up.   And stop being so afraid of shadows. 

For the sake of my blood pressure, here’s hoping for some public calling on the carpet today, and much less of the dupes on parade.  Because, honestly, the dog and pony show doesn’t work.  And we ought to say so, loudly and often.  Enough already.

Have you called your Senators and Representative today?  Please do — because the wingnuts are, and you don’t want their voices to be the only ones that our legislators hear, now do you?  (Toll free numbers via katymine.)

1 (800) 828 – 0498
1 (800) 459 – 1887
1 (800) 614 – 2803
1 (866) 340 – 9281
1 (866) 338 – 1015
1 (877) 851 – 6437

(Why yes, that is a corgi in a pony costume.  Why do you ask?  Photo via crows to burnaby.  And adding a belated congrats to Patrick at Making Light for his Hugo win — well earned, and very well deserved for his great work at TOR.)

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