RantDuJour

Boy, does this prove every single thing that people have said about Bush. He’s a moron. He’s psychotic. He’s delusional. He’s jingoistic. He’s really, really dumb and completely out of his depth.

From TPM…

Among the anecdotes in “Wiser in Battle: A Soldier’s Story” is an arresting portrait of Bush after four contractors were killed in Fallujah in 2004, triggering a fierce U.S. response that was reportedly egged on by the president.

During a videoconference with his national security team and generals, Sanchez writes, Bush launched into what he described as a “confused” pep talk:

“Kick ass!” he quotes the president as saying. “If somebody tries to stop the march to democracy, we will seek them out and kill them! We must be tougher than hell! This Vietnam stuff, this is not even close. It is a mind-set. We can’t send that message. It’s an excuse to prepare us for withdrawal.”

“There is a series of moments and this is one of them. Our will is being tested, but we are resolute. We have a better way. Stay strong! Stay the course! Kill them! Be confident! Prevail! We are going to wipe them out! We are not blinking!”

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Reading Glenn Greenwald is like catching a breath of fresh air after the stinking, putrid stench of listening to people like Limbaugh and reading the Washington Post. This is a must read. http://www.salon.com/opinion/greenwald/2008/01/31/mukasey/index.html

[…]

I long ago stopped blaming the Bush administration — at least exclusively — for what has happened to our political system. They were responsible in the first instance, but the rest of the country’s institutions — its media, its Congress, the “opposition” party, even the courts — all allowed it to happen, choosing to do nothing — or to endorse it — once it all began to be disclosed. It wouldn’t have surprised the Founders that we would have corrupt and lawbreaking political leaders, including in the White House. The idea was that there would be numerous checks on that corruption. But when those other institutions fail, or are complicit, the fault is collective.

[…] 

We have allowed it to continue, and now these “theories” are ones which people who are considered to be “reasonable,” squarely within our political mainstream, can openly espouse — just as Mukasey repeatedly pointed out yesterday. We live in a system of government where the President seized the power to act without restraints and we allowed that to happen, and so Bush’s signing statement and Mukasey’s defiant posture are all now normal.

Pathetic. Feinstein. Pathetic. Rockefeller. Pathetic. Reid. Pathetic. Pelosi. Pathetic. And, yet, in my heart still beats optimism. If Democrats increase their control on Congress. If a Democrat wins the presidency. Perhaps, then, the broken laws can be fixed. Perhaps then the lawbreakers can be punished. Perhaps then the massive illegalities that have been foisted on the American People for the last 7 years can be exposed.

Sigh. Not very likely.

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You learn about the “case” against Padilla. Here’s the guy that Ashcroft flew home from Russia early to trumpet loudly that caught a ‘dirty’ bomber. Here’s a US citizen that bush put away in a Navy brig without a lawyer for 4 years. Here’s a US Citizen who was tortured by bush. Here’s a US Citizen who has been left a virtual zombie after being tortured for years. Here’s a US Citizen who bush prevented from getting his day in court for years. bush fought all the way the Supreme Court, more than once, before finally agreeing, well after that lying scum Aschroft went home, to let Padilla have his day in court. All the while, they were torturing him and preventing this US CITIZEN from having any of his civil rights.

And, what does the US federal attorney finally present as evidence of what an evil terrorist-loving guy this is. 7 phone calls that barely even _imply_ _ANYTHING_ and a fingerprint, of undetermined age, on the top of document that doesn’t say anything about terrorist activities.

So, after 4 years incommunicado in prison, the US trumpeted that they had the goods on Padilla being connected to terrorism. This was after 4 years of claiming that he was planning on blowing up a dirty bomb. And, the evidence that they finally do present? Nothing more than some wire-taps, which prove nothing and a stupid piece of paper that they could have shoved under his hands while they were torturing him.

Disgusting, anti-American scum run this country.

Here are a couple of links for more information ->

Daily Kos

Christian Science Monitor

And, if you are even half as outraged as I am, please sign Sen. Durbin’s petition, Petition

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I’m finally getting around to reading (actually listening the book on tape) Bob Woodward’s Plan of Attack. This is the book about the leadup to the War in Iraq. I resisted reading it because Woodward has shown that he’s not a serious journalist and that he loves the halls of (rightwing) power so much that he sucks up to them. I took a little solace from the fact that the bushies didn’t like his book. But, I figured that that was really just them whining about not getting as idealized a picture as Woodward gave them in his first book.

I’m about halfway through the book. Right now what is clear, despite a bunch of glorification by Woodward is that bush is clearly, oh so painfully clearly, out of his league. He just doesn’t have the mental capacity to deal with the complications of the world. He doesn’t have the mental capacity to deal with what was going on Iraq. I just read through a part where Powell went into great detail during a lengthly 1 on 1 with bush about how and why the proposed invasion was wrong and how it wasn’t going to help us in oh so many ways. Woodward asks bush about this conversation 18 months later and bush had a completely different take on it. He was oblivious to what the potential problems were. He listened to invasion plan after invasion plan given to him by Tom Franks and asked no questions.

Condi comes off as an enabler. She has no opinion, she just does what bush says. Rumsfeld comes off as a psychotic. He has no clue how the military works and he keeps talking about having to ‘think outside the box’. Rumsfeld started working on Iraqi war plans before bush’s inauguration.

Cheney is truly the evil force. Bush is a clueless idiot. Cheney basically does whatever the hell he wants. And, he is insane.

Tom Franks let himself be pushed around by Rumsfeld. He came up with these idiotic plans just to make Rumsfeld happy. Bush could not care less. He was oblivious.

Powell comes across as the only sane one. But, he’s probably just trying to save his own legacy. He enabled bush himself. If he really thought that the war in Iraq was insane, as  he claims in the book, he should have resigned. But, not only didn’t he, but he collaborated in the lie about WMD. He knew that there was no WMD.

It’s still really not clear what the reason was for bush’s obsession with Iraq. It’s a small not very unique country. It had a brutal dictator. But, so do dozens of others. He attacked his own people 12+ eyars before (with our help), but so have other countries. He wasn’t a threat to us. The claim was that he had WMD, but bush didn’t care enough about WMD to allow the inspectors to actually do their job. He had to have his war.

It’s just such a tragedy that had no way of being stopped.  You have the villiage idiot in charge. You have him surrounded by sycophants who don’t even think about the ramifications of a war. You have the evil rightwing cabal that is pushing bush to invade. And, you have the lone rightwing sane guy who didn’t have the courage of his convictions to do the right thing. It was inevitable. And, it was exacerbated by the cowardice shown by the Democrats. If they had had a backbone, bush still would have had his war.  There was no way to stop it. But, at least, they’d all be on the right side.

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So much to rant about. So little time.

Gonzales: What a full and complete idiot. And, bush, has there ever been someone so incompetent, so corrupt, so banal, so odious in such a position. He looks at what Gonzales has done (or not) and ‘concludes’ that this is all a partisan battle. It defys belief. I knew that this guy was the worst combination of stupid and evil before the 2000 election. But, even in my worst nightmare, I never envisioned him being this bad. This is really something that will take decades to fix.

On the plus side, it’s clear that most of the public now realizes what a complete and unmitigated disaster the gop is. Their approval ratings and their re-elect numbers are further down than they’ve ever been. In addition, they still have more seats to defend in ‘08. And, they’re having a tough time getting people to run. I mean, who would want to vote for such a rancid and incompetent group of people?

Even with the beltway media so blatantly in the pocket of the gop, it’s not clear that they can overcome the disaster for the gop that is coming. It’s a hurricane of historic proportions. It matters not who the Democrats nominate. It matters not who the GOP nominate. bush has left such slime in his wake that nobody will be able to pick up his sceptre.

Too bad we have to wait another year and a half to get his sorry ass kicked out.

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There isn’t much to say here, really. Bush has apparently convinced himself that he is actually fighting terrorists over there. Given that alternate set of reality and, of course, ignoring all facts to the contrary which is what bush does best, his veto makes perfect sense. Frankly, I think that bush is the only one stupid enough on this planet to actually believe what he is saying. I believe that all of his remaining psycophants just spout the arguments knowing full well that what they’re saying is trash.

Now, I have to hope that the Democrats hold on strong and pass something similar for him to chew on. It’ll be interesting watching him veto a 2nd (and 3rd and 4th) bill to fund the troops. However, I don’t think that there is enough intestinal strength in enough Democrats to continue going down that road. Despite the fact that the vast, vast majority of the population believes in time-tables and believes that bush is dead wrong and believes that the Democrats are doing the right thing, I fear that they will cave and give bush his no-strings funding bill. Since the current bill didn’t even have a binding date for withdrawal, it’s hard to imagine what the Democrats could pull from the bill that might give bush enough cover to sign it and still emphasize how wrong he is.

The liberal Democrats were pissed that they couldn’t get an enforced withdrawal into the bill and they split. And, the republicans are so deep up bush’s butt that they just do whatever he says. Talk about your lemmings. These people are the reason why I’m optimistic about the ‘08 elections. It’s really evolution in process. These people are too stupid to survive. I’m looking forward to a Lieberman-free Democratic majority in the Senate in ‘08.

Anyway, this is the tenuous thread upon which the current bill was passed. And, now some conservative Democrats will jump ship. And, that’s all that’s needed to make it impossible to pass another one of these bills. Reid’s threat of passing a more serious withdrawal bill is most likely a bluff. He’s got a tough job with his one seat majority (and, that one being suck-ass Lieberman.)

Even Pelosi has some challenges with the next round.

So, we’ll see.

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Today’s Rant is pionted towards bush, the insane one. It’s clear that his “plan” for Iraq has no basis in reality. His reasons for his expansion of troops are unclear. Here are my thoughts as to what they could be;

• He’s insane (My personal favorite)
• He genuinely believes that a troop increase will do something (’win’?) (see reason #1)
• He’s unwilling to accept reality and he’s letting his ego run rampant (see reason #1)

Anything else? I can’t seem to be creative enough to find one. The fact that even his military doesn’t support  him and he’s got to go fire the general in charge who he’s been lauding for years.

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