This so totally not surprising.
He is, and always has been, a self important, sanctimonious, self serving hypocrite.
Category: Hypocrisy
Friday, “Man, that is One Un-Hip Cat” Blogging
5 Years Ago, Colin Powell, Lied and Showed That He Had No Honor or Dignity Left
Attaturk reminds us that five years ago today, we had A Day which will live in Wankery, when Colin “The Most Overrated Man in America” Powell lied through his teeth to the world.
The US Is Intent on Pursuing a Child on War Crimes Prosecutions
He was 15 years old when arrested, and the US government, and the US military is determined to prosecute Omar Khadr, who was 15 when he was apprehended by US forces.
Khadr is charged in the Guantanamo war court with murder, attempted murder, conspiring with al Qaeda, providing material support for terrorism and spying by conducting surveillance of U.S. military convoys in Afghanistan. He faces life in prison if convicted.
Kuebler argued that U.S. and international law assume that children involved in an armed conflict are not there voluntarily, because they lack the experience and judgment to understand the risk of joining armed forces. Defense attorneys contend that any charges against Khadr should be pursued in a civilian court in a juvenile system where the goal is rehabilitation rather than punishment.
This is repugnant beyond belief. It refutes the principles upon which the republic was supposed to be founded, and it makes us less safe, because this war crime, and it is a war crime, inspires other people to become Jihadi.
Mr. Straight Talk Weasels out of Public Financing Limits
Yep, he’s opted out after opting in.
Mark Schmitt has a fairly detailed analysis of the legalities, and it basically comes down as follows:
- There has been an advisory ruling that candidates can change their mind until they actually receive the matching funds.
- He took out a loan for his campaign, but it was not contingent on matching funds, and he is not in the position of renouncing, “an asset if it’s entangled in another transaction”.
- Because there is no quorum for the FEC, there can be no rulings.
So he appears legal, although he also appears to be a hypocrite.
911 Panel Ececutive Driector Had Close Ties to Bush and His Evil Minions™ and Regularly Talked to Karl Rove
What a bloody surprise. Neocon, and former Concoleeza Rice aid Philip Zelikow is hired as the executive director of the 911 commission, and it turns out that we was working to protect Bush, not the country. (here, here, and here)
The problems:
- “In his book, Shenon also says that while working for the panel, Zelikow appears to have had private conversations with former White House political director Karl Rove, despite a ban on such communication, according to Holland. Shenon reports that Zelikow later ordered his assistant to stop keeping a log of his calls, although the commission’s general counsel overruled him, Holland wrote.”
- Staffers accuse him of refusing to allow a report showing Rice to be incompetent to be submitted.
- Zelikow was responsible for demoting Richard Clark, but never told the committee members about this.
- His resume given to the 911 commission omitted details of his involvement in the events leading up to 911.
- He told his secretary to stop logging his phone calls.
Zelikow claims that, “Out of 85 staffers, half a dozen were disgruntled, Zelikow told ABC News. “Under the circumstances, that was a pretty low fraction,” he said. “But they all talked to Shenon.”
No for whistleblowing, 1 out of 500 is a low fraction. 1 our of 15 is insanely high.
Bush’s Phoney War on Earmarks
When Republicans were in power, he never batted an eyelash at earmarks, which are something like ¾% of the budget, but now he’s decided it’s a good time to go to war against them.
Oh…me bad…He’s thinking that NEXT fiscal year is a good time to start this “war on earmarks”, so he’s just “announcing” them at this SOTU speach.
Even the Republicans are calling weak:
But if he was seeking to placate the fiercest foes of earmarking, he failed. Rep. John Shadegg (R-Ariz.) called Bush’s plan “weak.” Thomas A. Schatz, president of the conservative Citizens Against Government Waste, labeled it “fiscal snake oil.”
Well, I guess it meats steroids.
And In the “Real America”
Daniel Dean Thompson, a man at the heart of the effort to strip out profanity from PG-143 and R rated DVDs, has been arrested for paying 14-year-olds for sexual favors.
Once again confirming that the blue nose brigades are driven by their own personal demons more than anything else.
And in the Department of the Amazingly Obvious,
Bush and His Evil Minions™ are lying sacks of sh$@!
Lying about the Iraq, here, and here.
NINE HUNDRED AND THIRTY FIVE LIES
Bush comes in number two on the lie parade, but number two is a bit of a surprise:
The study says Bush made 232 false statements about Iraq and former leader Saddam Hussein’s possessing weapons of mass destruction, and 28 false statements about Iraq’s links to al Qaeda.
…
The study, released Tuesday, says Powell had the second-highest number of false statements, with 244 about weapons and 10 about Iraq and al Qaeda.
Yep, the most overrated man in America lied to us more than anyone except for Bush himself.
Can we please stop calling “respected”.
Another Day, Another Obama Embrace of a Right Wing Meme
Well, now Obama is declaring himself to be a “committed Christian”.
I understand that he is trying to answer a disgraceful internet rumor about his being a crypto-Muslim. I’m not exactly sure what the best response is, but this is is the worst response.
He is essentially responding to a demand of an oath of Christianity to qualify for public office. You shouldn’t capitulate to that, you should fight that.
You need to show the people who make this request are un-American, and they need to be removed from mainstream political discussion through ridicule and justified outrage.
Pandering is not the solution.
Orwell Moment of the Day: MLK Memorial Outsourced to Paragon of Human Rights, China
While I understand that the protests of the Vermont congressional delegation (see also here) is largely an issue of local pride and economics for them, the idea that we are outsourcing this to a government that routinely imprisons dissidents, suppresses free speech, and aggressively uses the death penalty boggles the mind.
This isn’t from The Onion. This is a real story.
Happy Martin Luther King Birthday Holiday everyone.
Obama is Trying to Be the Worst Sort of Democrat, a Phony Republican
And as Harry Truman once said, “Given the choice between a Republican and someone who acts like one, the people will vote for the real Republican every time.”
His talk to Reno Gazette editorial board exemplifies this.
Barack Obama and I are alike in some significant ways.
We are nearly the same age, he was born in 1961, and I was born in 1962, and we both missed the 1960s, we was in Hawaii and Jakarta during the decade, and I was in Fairbanks, Anchorage, and Juneau (though after August 1969, I was in Virginia for a time.
As such, we were in some very real ways separated from the cultural goings on of the 1960s by virtue of geographic separation.
We thus both became politically aware at the same time, though I might have done so earlier, as both my parents were politically involved, and I had a summer without cartoons while my mom watched the Watergate hearing.
For most of my generation, any political awareness came around the time of Jimmy Carter, who was, and is, truth be told, a depressingly sanctimonious downer.*
So there are a lot of people, and I am not one of them, who have some fondness for Reagan, if just because Carter was so depressing.
I remember him running a blatantly racist campaign, and opening up the White House for the personal profit of his friends.
He won by keeping the hostages in Iran until after the election.
In any case, he gave a talk to the Reno Gazette editorial board on Monday, and it was caught on tape for posterity.
In any case, he gave a talk with Here is a transcript of the relevant portion of his talk, (H/T Open Left)
I don’t want to present myself as some sort of singular figure. I think part of what’s different are the times. I do think that for example the 1980 was different. I think Ronald Reagan changed the trajectory of America in a way that Richard Nixon did not and in a way that Bill Clinton did not. He put us on a fundamentally different path because the country was ready for it. I think they felt like with all the excesses of the 1960s and 1970s
This, of course would be the Voting Rights Act, the Civil Rights Act of 1964, Medicare, the opening of social welfare programs to black and brown people, and to a large degree the elimination of childhood malnutrition in the United States?
Yep, that’s REALLY excessive.
and government had grown and grown but there wasn’t much sense of accountability in terms of how it was operating.
You like how the American people forced the US to withdraw from a wasteful, stupid and useless war?
You mean like how a corrupt and dictatorial President was forced from office because the American people would not tolerate a crook in the White House?
When people like Ronald Reagan refered to the excesses of the 1960s, they mean that they did not want people with your complexion to be able vote in the South, and that Lynching and church bombings were the God given right of the white man.
You think those were excesses?
Well, Ronald Reagan certainly made it explicit that he was running on behalf of people who that that they were.
Or to quote Jane Hamsher of Firedog Lake:
No, Ronald Reagan didn’t appeal to people’s optimism, he appealed to their petty, small minded bigotry and selfishness. Jimmy Carter told people to tighten their energy belts and act for the good of the country; Ronald Reagan told them they could guzzle gas with impunity and do whatever the hell they wanted. He kicked off his 1980 campaign talking about “state’s rights” in Philadelphia, Mississippi — the site of the murder of three civil rights workers in 1964’s Freedom Summer. He thus put up a welcome sign for “Reagan Democrats,” peeling off white voters who were unhappy with the multi-ethnic coalition within the Democratic Party.
One of his first acts was to fire 11,000 air traffic controllers in 1981 — one of the most devastating union busting moves of the past century. And his vision of deregulation didn’t free the country up for entrepreneurship, it opened it up for the wholesale thievery of the savings & loan crisis. He popularized the notion that all government is bad government and in eight short years put in place the architecture for decades of GOP graft and corruption.
There’s enough hagiography of Reagan on the right, I don’t think Democrats really need to go there.
*I also consider him a war criminal, along with Zbigniew Brezinski, for quite literally buying a civil war in Afghanistan just to screw with the Soviets.
Sally Quinn Is Concerned
Oh my, Sally Quinn is shocked.
It appears that the House of Representatives has passed a resolution (H.R. 847) declaring that “Expresses continued support for Christians in the United States . . . acknowledges and supports the role played by Christians and Christianity in the founding of the United States . . . rejects bigotry and persecution directed against Christians, both in the United States and worldwide; and expresses its deepest respect to American Christians.”
She expresses concern that, “Earlier this year the House also passed resolutions honoring Islamic and Indian holidays but nothing that so equated a single faith with America and Americans”.
Gee, I wonder who might have created this.
I don’t know, maybe those people who valued pleasant DC cocktail party conversation over real discussions of issues and real values.
Maybe those who favored phony protestations of faith as a good way to “play the game” of politics”, because, of course, inside the Beltway, where all the important people live, policies don’t matter.
Whether you are a Washington Post editor (or just married to one), a congressional page, a lobbyist, a reporter, or a Washington DC pundit, you make decent money, are guaranteed steady work, have excellent health care benefits, and a pretty good retirement package.
You can’t take policy seriously, it gets in the way of your parties. It makes conversation stilted. It makes people think that you aren’t a “very serious person”.
Sound like anyone you know?
Krugman Goes After Obama
Mark Twain is supposed to have said, “Never pick a fight with someone who buys ink by the barrel.”
After Paul Krugman made some relatively mild, and completely accurate criticisms of Obama’s health plan, the Obama campaign decided to go with some remarkably bogus oppo research where they selectively quoted, and misquoted Krugman.
Stupid move, but typical of a candidate who has never had a serious electoral challenge from a Democrat.
So, now the most popular, and most widely read liberal commentator in the United States has decided to go further, and criticise the most basic theory of Barack Obama’s campaign, his call for an “end to partisanship”.
It’s no one’s fault but Obama’s. He took a mild difference in policy, and
This shows just how unprepared Obama is for the big time.
Mr. Edwards replied, “Some people argue that we’re going to sit at a table with these people and they’re going to voluntarily give their power away. I think it is a complete fantasy; it will never happen.”
This was pretty clearly a swipe at Mr. Obama, who has repeatedly said that health reform should be negotiated at a “big table” that would include insurance companies and drug companies.
On Saturday Mr. Obama responded, this time criticizing Mr. Edwards by name. He declared that “We want to reduce the power of drug companies and insurance companies and so forth, but the notion that they will have no say-so at all in anything is just not realistic.”
Hmm. Do Obama supporters who celebrate his hoped-for ability to bring us together realize that “us” includes the insurance and drug lobbies?
It gets better. Go read it.
Lieberman Endorses McCain
Of course, the fact that Lieberman promised to endorse a Dem for president won’t be noted by the Washington punditocracy*, because Lieberman is the only honorable Democrat.
*Which might be better described as a Kakistocracy.
House Ways and Means Committee Chairman Charles B. Rangel (D-N.Y.) accuses Senate Democratic leaders of developing “Stockholm syndrome”
Well, at least one Democrat gets it:
House Ways and Means Committee Chairman Charles B. Rangel (D-N.Y.) accuses Senate Democratic leaders of developing “Stockholm syndrome,” showing sympathy to their Republican captors by caving in on legislation to provide middle-class tax cuts paid for with tax increases on the super-rich, tying war funding to troop withdrawal timelines, and mandating renewable energy quotas. If Republicans want to filibuster a bill, Rangel said, Reid should keep the bill on the Senate floor and force the Republicans to talk it to death.
Bill Donohue and His Merry Band of Bigots Call “Golden Compass” Anti-Catholic, American U.S. Conference on Catholic Bishops Disagrees
The Catholic League has represented itself as the voice of American Catholics while ignoring statements by the religious hierarchy. This time, it’s directly disagreeing with the Bishops, calling for a boycott, while the USCCB, “thought that series helped reinforce faith, and finds value in Golden Compass.”
At some point, I’d like to see someone in the Catholic church with legitimate religious authority disavow Donohue and the rest of those anti-Semitic bastards.
Obama and Abortion: Profile in Cowardice
It turns out that when Barack Obama had the opportunity to take a stand on abortion rights, in the state senate, when called to make a vote on the proposed ban on the DNX procedure, he voted “present”. (see here,
here, and here)
During Senator Obama’s 2004 senate campaign, the Illinois NOW PAC did not recommend the endorsement of Obama for U.S. Senate because he refused to stand up for a woman’s right to choose and repeatedly voted `present’ on important legislation.
As a State Senator, Barack Obama voted `present’ on seven abortion bills, including a ban on ‘partial birth abortion,’ two parental notification laws and three ‘born alive’ bills. In each case, the right vote was clear, but Senator Obama chose political cover over standing and fighting for his convictions.
“When we needed someone to take a stand, Senator Obama took a pass,” said Grabenhofer. “He wasn’t there for us then and we don’t expect him to be now.”
At the time, Obama represented what was arguably the most liberal senate district in Illinois, so there was no need for him to duck and cover, but duck and cover, he did.
Of course, he did it on the Petraeus/Moveon vote too, he showed up for Barbara Boxer’s amendment, but was not in the hall later that afternoon for the Moveon condemnation.
He’s very well spoken. He’s telegenic.
But it appears that when the going gets tough, and let’s be clear in his Hyde Park senate district, being unapologetically pro choice is actually pretty damn safe, he is AWOL.
His dog whistle gay bashing behavior with his gospel tour appears to be a part of a pattern.
No guts, and the moreI hear him going on using Republican talking points like “hostility to religion” and :social security crisis”, the more he sounds like Joe Lieberman with a better tan.
As to the Presidential race…He’s still ahead of Mike Gravel in my mind, but if push comes to shove, I vote Hillary instead of him*.
*Yuck…I think that I just threw up in my mouth.
Oral Roberts’ Son Resigns as President of Oral Roberts University
Shades of Elmer Gantry. They go into the more prosaic stuff, like a nearly $40 thousand shopping spree, and a nearly $30 thousand senior trip for his kids, repeatedly remodeling their home, and requiring students to work on a political campaign for a specific candidate.
There are also allegations that his wife had an inappropriate relationship with an underage student, or students, at the university.
There is a lot to be found, now that the rock has been turned over. I could see a reprise of the Jim and Tammy Fae Bakker PTL ministries.
McCain: Campaign Finance Reform for Thee, but not for Me.
McCain is arranging for a large campaign loan, and coordinating (under the table) with 527 organizations.
Hypocrite