Thoughts About the Clinton's

It is fairly common knowledge that a good sized group of conservatives(that's what they call themselves) don't really care much about Bill and Hillary Clinton. Yes, yes I know, an understatement, but I want to look as objectively as a commie,anti-Christian, anti-Israel, terrorist loving, God-hater can...oh I forgot, moron, too.

Why would Republicans detest the Clinton's so much? The Clinton's were not only swiftboated but swiftboated with the whole swiftboat fleet for 8 straight years until 2001 when Bill left office and 5 more years since, while Bill is out of office and Hillary has been a N. York senator. I think it could be considered a swiftboat war.Why that kind of concentration? What is it?

Now, it has been said that Bill's nasty habits with willing women is the reason. You know the routine. What about the children? Oral sex. Adultery. What about the children?

Washington D.C. has had plenty of great sexcapade stories to go around, lots of Republicans and some Democrats doing all manner of acts prohibited by Judeo-Christian law. I mean, come on now, Karl Rove used a male homosexual prostitute, Jeff Gannon, who was pretending to be a White House correspondent. So the idea that Bill is nasty as the justification for such vitriol is not credible.

Well, what about their policies, you know, what they stand for? Could that be the reason for all the attacks on them? My observation is that many politicians in and around D.C. hold similar views as the Clintons. Bill and Hillary's political viewpoints are pretty mainstream, so I don't think that's it.

What is unique about this couple? And what is unique about this couple about which, Republicans are afraid, at least politically? I mean, Karl can destroy just about anybody, Max Cleland, a triple amputee, John Kerry, a true Democratic statesman patriot, John Murtha, the closest throwback U.S. military patriot ever, and on and on, but why the extra for the Clinton's?

Consider: Hasn't the current Bush crime element demonstrated their control of information and the media? You know, paying newspaper columnists and others to get favorable press and of course my all time favorite, "embedding" the journalists with the military in Iraq. Really objective huh? And you know what goes on when the word embedding is the verb? Think about it. Could there have been an incestous relationship with our military(read executive branch) that produced DNA challenged offspring news columns that just weren't quite right? But I digress. Point being from all apparent evidence and political history, the Republican disinformation and echo chamber media campaign hasn't met with much resistance. The media has not been a match for Rove. He 's controlled the narrative in main medialand for at least 6 years.

I said all that to say this: Bill and Hillary are rock star politicians and the media cannot and will not refuse to cover them. Karl will not be able to dictate the news narrative as well. The media, I suggest, just like they act with all other celebrities, will continually cover Bill and Hillary. Bill and Hillary on TV are perfect, they are camera friendly and believable, credible. They make good TV content. Content is all the rage. And in this fantasy TV land we are currently in, the Clinton's come off as your friends. And here's the kicker, the media likes the Clinton's. The media hated Al Gore and never really tried much with Kerry, but the Clinton's, they are not only liked but admired by media. What's a Karl Rove to do? His campaign has been a steady drumbeat of slander, hyperbole, outright lies,dirty tricks and who knows what the fuck else for 15 years all because Rover knows his normal good time buddies, the bosses in media CEO-land,normally dependable echo chamber syncophants for conservative causes will not be able to resist covering the Clinton's,and the Clinton's will help shape the narrative. This is the real reason for the swiftboat fleet sailing into battle for 15 years. The Republicans are scared to political death over the most popular political couple ever. 08 is gonna' be something to behold.

Discussion With a Libertarian

Here's a back and forth covering Iraq, Afghanistan and the whole "terrorist" thing. The first comment is from Rubberrat.

"The argument over whether the Iraq war has bred more terrorists (it has), or whether the Afghanistan war has bred more terrorists (it has), or whether US support for Israel has bred more terrorists (it has), or whether our relationship with Saudi Arabia has bred more terrorists (it has), etc, etc, is all rather beside the point to me, because it presumes that without any of those things that the terrorists wouldn't be doing what they are doing, and that is a complete fallacy. That list of terrorist attacks that I posted is only a fraction of the total number of terrorist attacks by Islamic extremists. They will attack anyone and anything that disagrees with them in their quest for power. The only way to avoid those attacks is to succumb to the terrorists, which is unthinkable. The ONLY thing we can do is fight them. We can't negotiate, we can't bargain, we can't use diplomacy effectively. We can't use butter instead of guns. All of this has been tried and tried, and the results were only to allow the extremists to acquire more power. Now we have an Islamic extremist country on the verge of nuclear power, and instead of dealing with this problem, which includes the use of that horrible word 'war', we choose to argue with each other over tactics. I guarantee you that Ahmadinejad is laughing his butt off over all this indecision and controversy, which is seen by him as a sign of extreme weakness. The reality of the situation is that it's not a question of whether we are going to war with the extremists, it's only a question of when and how. If we fail in Iraq, that will be a victory of monumental proportions for the terrorists.

The list of Democrats who endlessly speak out against the Iraq war is very long, and many of the top Democrats are doing it. A couple days ago, Harry Reid said all the money we are 'wasting' in Iraq could be used to rebuild New Orleans. Of course that was a political statement made to cater to the black vote, but that only makes it more despicable. Democrats have courted failure in Iraq ever since Saddam was toppled. Just because the job isn't a snap doesn't mean the job should be abandoned. It remains to be seen if the american people have the stomach for this fight in the long run (most times I think we don't), but I can assure you, the terrorists do. It's up to us to decide what kind of world we want, and if we can't work up the nerve to confront this type of enemy without collapsing into dissent among ourselves, we are in for a rude awakening down the road.



Bluester responds:

No it doesn't. I'm not presuming anything here. You say I'm presuming that ALL extremists would have just gone away if we hadn't gone into Iraq, supported Israel, etc. No one is saying that. Of course that wouldn't be the result. There would still be extremists, but by God there would be fewer of them. And isn't that what Bush said? He wanted a comprehensive approach to the extremist problem?

You say diplomatic approaches have been tried and tried. With who and by who.?I haven't seen ANY direct talks with N.Korea, Iran, Syria to name just three. And tell me why our country can't talk to Hamas and Hizbollah? That's ridiculous in this day and age.

For what reason would anyone believe Iraq is "winnable", whatever that could mean at this point? The plan, as I understand it is to keep doing, basically, what we are doing. Which allegedly is "standing them up, so we can stand down"( a great political phrase by the way). It has gotten worse for 3 straight years now but we are to just accept the cul-de-sac argument that says we just can't leave the mess we made. Is that leadership? More importantly, is that a plan that's credible? Don't our actions from March 2003 until the present represent the Bush administration leadership? No Democrats resposible for any of this mess. And if our nation's actions from March 2003 until now in Iraq represent a clear case of Bush administration leadership, why would anybody still believe they have ANY right answers?

Finally, I don't share the idea that middle eastern countries with nuclear capability, in itself, is that threatening. I just don't. Here's why. Pakistan has nukes and we just approved them getting more. Israel has nukes but no one is allowed to talk about them. What right does the U.S. have in picking and choosing? And I think the logic runs contrary to conservative and libertarian usual logic. If I am to believe that guns and carrying guns and not registering guns will all be a deterrent to crime; wouldn't it also follow that if all nations had nukes, international rogue acts would be deterred? It's not my argument, I'm just sayin'.

Emphases are Bluester's but thanks for asking. On a related front, I encourage the viewing of the movie, "The Island". Cloning gone corporately wild. Great thought provoking stuff.

This N' That

I was away this past weekend but here are three recent postings of mine from another site.


More Family Values

Here's the kind of values the far right religionists want to bring to your state.

KANSAS CITY, Missouri (Reuters) - A Missouri couple who must get married, or move, in order to comply with a housing ordinance in Black Jack, Missouri, sued the town on Thursday, claiming rules prohibiting the unmarried couple and their children from living together are unconstitutional.

snip

Black Jack, a town of about 7,000 that prides itself on a city Web site for its "character and stability," refused to grant the couple and their children an occupancy permit for their home because they do not meet the definition of "family" as set forth by the city, the complaint alleges.

Read the rest.

Conservatives Just Need Their Daddies

Others have posted about John Dean's new book on conservatives, Here's a piece of Glenn Greenwald's book review of Dean's latest. As you read this one paragraph, do you recognize yourself in the words??

"Dean contends, and amply documents, that the "conservative" movement has become, at its core, an authoritarian movement composed of those with a psychological and emotional need to follow a strong authority figure which provides them a sense of moral clarity and a feeling of individual power, the absence of which creates fear and insecurity in the individuals who crave it. By definition, its followers’ devotion to authority and the movement’s own power is supreme, thereby overriding the consciences of its individual members and removing any intellectual and moral limits on what will be justified in defense of their movement."

Bluester says: The "removing any intellectual and moral limits" seems uncannily on the mark, no?

That Crow Tastes Good


Big mouthed conservative pundits need to learn a lesson about what to expect in November. Do you think Bill Kristol and Fred Barnes like their crow broiled or deep fried?


The Weekly Standard, May 5th:

The other bit of comforting news comes from lefty blogger Markos Moulitsas. A recent poll from Quinnipiac put Sen. Joe Lieberman ahead of his super-liberal primary challenger, Ned Lamont, by some 40 points. A new Rasmussen poll says that Lieberman's lead is 20 points. Here comes the good news. Yesterday Moulitsas eagerly told his readers that Lamont is "within striking distance."

If the Democrats keep up that kind of wishful thinking, maybe they will find a way to lose what should be a big electoral victory for them in November.

Minipundit, May 2:
It's worth pointing out: Joe Lieberman is going to be a Senator from Connecticut at least until 2012. The polls are definitive. He's defeating his antiwar primary challenger, Ned Lamont, by 65% to 19%. Lamont can't possibly close a 46% gap. No candidate can.

Bluester: No candidate can but Ned Lamont did. Wake up neo-cons. America is now against the neo-con faith and the Bush presidency. There's a change coming.

This Isn't a Coincidence

A few comments about Lamont's win on Tuesday followed by the clusterfuck airplane scare the rest of the week.

These two events go together. Lamont's win by 4% was the "let's roll" command for Karl Rove and Company. I predicted last Sunday a Lamont win would indicate nothing but gloom and doom for Republican hopefuls this November. The Rover didn't let me down.

Now we know that Bush, Rove and the Dick had prior knowledge that Britain was going to roll up a six month investigation into an alleged plot by two dozen Muslim extremists, British citizens with alleged Pakistani connections. Whether the neo-con amigos actually participated in the determination of when to roll up the investigation is still unknown at this time. We do know for sure that Bush talked repeatedly with Tony Blair through the weekend about it. My money is on the three neo-con leaders calling the timeline shot.

Now look at what happened, not the hysteria, but what actually took place. What the misdirectionists want you to focus on is the new no liquids, gels,or shampoos part. The alleged extremists were said to have been infiltrated earlier by a British operative. That means many things but for sure it means that this was an ongoing, slow buildup investigation. Good police work actually. But there are problems with the narrative. We know these conspirators had not bought any plane tickets yet. We know that intelligence believed a trial run was only a few days off. Would either one of those tidbits be reason to chaotically congest American airports and schedules with "urgent" new carry on rules? Now answer the same question knowing the alleged threat was only for planes leaving Britain, not for planes leaving America. Couple those two points with the fact that plans to use liquid type chemical explosions on airplanes were well known by U.S. officials since 1994, thus in no way was the alleged plot shocking or surprising. We also know that the British officials responsible for the roundup began very, very early Thursday morning and announced what they were doing to the media before 8am.

Here's what it looks like to me. The three neo-con amigos rightly concluded the media, after the Tuesday night Lamont win, would be headed into highly descriptive coverage of the "whys" which determined Lamont's win. Do you know how damaging that could be? Lamont won because he disagrees with Bush on the Iraq debacle just like 60% of the country disagrees with Bush on Iraq. Lieberman lost because he told Democrats when they criticize Bush they do so at the nation's peril. Lieberman lost because he agrees with Bush's "stay the course" plan. The prospect of those being the discussion points of every newspaper article and every Sunday morning news show was just too much for Karl. When the Dems grasp the media moment Karl knows he has to get it back.

Remember Katrina? Karl slipped on that one, he let his guard down, probably because everyone was on vacation at the time. The media told truth and Bush ratings plummeted. The Rover couldn't recapture the media narrative until December after Katrina and only then with the Harriet Myers laugh-in. If you only take one point with you from this post make it be this one: With all the facts thus far, the only motivation behind ordering the Chinese fire drill we witnessed at our airports in such an urgent, almost hysterical way was to capture the media attention with a big splash, therefore blunting the potential media damage from Lamont's win.

And if you think I'm nutty(well I am) pay attention to a few news programs in the next few days and listen to what's being talked about. Your honor, the prosecution rests.

UPDATE Sunday, Aug 13 AM

Here's the first bit of evidence which suggests my theory is correct.

From TPMMuckraker.com

"NBC News has learned that U.S. and British authorities had a significant disagreement over when to move in on the suspects in the alleged plot to bring down trans-Atlantic airliners bound for the United States.

A senior British official knowledgeable about the case said British police were planning to continue to run surveillance for at least another week to try to obtain more evidence, while American officials pressured them to arrest the suspects sooner. The official spoke on condition of anonymity due to the sensitivity of the case.

In contrast to previous reports, the official suggested an attack was not imminent, saying the suspects had not yet purchased any airline tickets. In fact, some did not even have passports."

Bluester says: "...pressured them to arrest the suspects sooner." Hmmm. I wonder why U.S. officials would have wanted that this past week???

Update

Well now, hot summer, hot Middle East, hot upcoming election season. Bush has remained at 35-40% approval ratings for the last six months. Most polls look like the Republicans are in trouble. The immediate direction sign to the future is coming into view this Tuesday in Connecticut. Joe Lieberman, the incumbent, against Ned Lamont, the business man. If Lamont wins, as the polls show he will, by a clear majority over Joe Lieberman, a three term Senator, and I said if...then the Democrats are going to rout the Republicans and recapture the House and very possibly the Senate in November. Jot it the fuck down if you can't remember. Bluester says landslide in November if Lamont wins big Tuesday, August 8th, 2006.

Why would I say that? The explosiveness of this potential political upset is definitely tide turning capable. To come out of abso-fucking-lutely nowhere and lead a three term senator by 10 points approaching the finish line is nothing short of miraculous. Yes, it is because of the war, sorry, use of military force in Iraq differences between Lieberman's "stay the course" approach and Lamont's "let's start getting out now" view but that doesn't explain it all. Others have said Lamont is ahead because Lieberman is actually a neo-conservative when it comes to foreign policy and presidential power, actually telling other Democrats they might be jeopardizing the nation's safety if they spoke out against the Commandeer in Chief. That is also true and a good reason to throw Lieberman out but I think it is simpler than that.

I believe Connecticut Democratic voters also see what I see when I watch and listen to Lieberman on TV or radio. He speaks and acts like a spoiled brat whiner. I honestly believe Lieberman blames his own party, and thus all Democrats for his failed 2000 run with Al Gore. Big Joe had his most excellent opportunity and those dumb-ass Democrats lost it for him. Those same dumb ass Democrats are speaking out against Bush now and Big Joe doesn't think that's what Democrats should do. He knows better, you see, cause he is who he is, after all, are you a three term Senator? Lieberman's pompous, elitist, entitlement minded, arrogant, condescending, prick act needs to have the curtain drawn on it. That's what I think Connecticut Democratic voters can see and are going to do come Tuesday.

If that happens. The good news will be that November will look good for Democrats. The bad news will be that November will look good for Democrats. WTF? Dick Cheney will tell Karl Rove to tell W. to push the red buttons, the ones with "destination Iran" written on them. The one thing I've said and I have said it til I'm blue in the face....would that be because all the blood ran out of your face from screaming but then, your face would be red not blue if you were screaming, so, these sayings fuck me up....the one thing I've said is this: If Democrats win back the House the Superbowl of Impeachments is on and Karl and Dick and the Chimp cannot allow that to happen.

In conclusion, Tuesday is big. Let's call it Super Tuesday. Oh..you say that's already taken....well...fuck that...I'm taking it now. Maybe Tuesday will be Super but what happens after...that's what I'm concerned about. And that's what every American and Iranian need to be concerned about too.