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Archive for October 2005
Another Neocon Man
Posted by Clif on 10/31/05 at 10:18 pm
Category: America's Shittiest Website
Neo-conner Michael Ledeen is the loudest critic at America’s Shittiest Website™ of the indictment of Scooter Libby. This criticism by Ledeen of the indictment clearly indicates that he is too stupid or lazy to read the document itself. For example:
I still don’t understand why there isn’t a section in the indictment that would say, in turgid legalese, “We asked Libby if he leaked Plame’s identity to any journalist, and he (falsely) said he had not.”
From pages 20-21 of the indictment:
Q. And at the same time you have a specific recollection of telling him, you don’t know whether it’s true or not, you’re just telling him what reporters are saying?A. Yes, that’s correct, sir. And I said, reporters are telling us that, I don’t know if it’s true. I was careful about that because among other things, I wanted to be clear I didn’t know Mr. Wilson. I don’t know – I think I said, I don’t know if he has a wife, but this is what we’re hearing.
In truth and fact, as LIBBY well knew when he gave this testimony, it was false in that. . . LIBBY [did not] advise Cooper or other reporters that LIBBY did not know whether this assertion was true.
In fact, as the indictment points out at page 8, Libby confirmed without qualification that Plame worked for the CIA. Hmm, so let’s see — they asked Libby if he confirmed Plame was CIA and Libby (falsely) said that he did not. It sure seems that they asked the question and got the lie that Ledeen denies ever happened.
Of course, the reason that Ledeen is so adamant about spewing nonsense here is that he is, himself, knee deep in the Niger document mess that started the whole Plame affair. Recent reports in a La Reppublica three-part exposé (English translations here, here, and here) make clear that Ledeen was involved at almost every step in the process of spiriting the forged documents from Rome to the White House. Ledeen, of course, never tells this to his readers but what would you expect from a guy who lost his job at Washington University for plagiarism?
Yet Another Bush Lie
Posted by Clif on 10/30/05 at 4:21 pm Category: White House
This is what Bush had to say back in 2004 at his press conference after the G8 Summit:
Q Given — given recent developments in the CIA leak case, particularly Vice President Cheney’s discussions with the investigators, do you still stand by what you said several months ago, a suggestion that it might be difficult to identify anybody who leaked the agent’s name?THE PRESIDENT: That’s up to –
Q And, and, do you stand by your pledge to fire anyone found to have done so?
THE PRESIDENT: Yes.
From paragraph 21 of the indictment of Scooter Libby:
On or about July 10 or July 11, 2003, LIBBY spoke to a senior official in the White House (“Official A”) who advised LIBBY of a conversation Official A had earlier that week with columnist Robert Novak in which Wilson’s wife was discussed as a CIA employee involved in Wilson’s trip. LIBBY was advised by Official A that Novak would be writing a story about Wilson’s wife.
So why does Karl Rove, a traitor, still have keys to the White House?
Picture swiped from Princess Sparkle Pony.
Mr. and Mrs. Shapiro Should Ask Harvard for Their Money Back
Posted by Clif on 10/29/05 at 4:38 pm Category: Town Hall Watch, America's Worst Law Student
A particularly dim-witted column posted by Ben Shapiro over at Clown Hall proves yet again why he completely deserves the title America’s Worst Law Student™. Ben is beside himself that the Kansas Supreme Court overturned a Kansas law which punished gay sex between minors more severely than heterosexual sex between minors. The Kansas court relied on the Equal Protection Clause of the 14th Amendment, so Ben feels compelled to tell us what the 14th amendment really means:
The 14th Amendment states, “No State shall … deny to any person within its jurisdiction the equal protection of the laws.” The amendment was specifically designed to protect freed slaves in the aftermath of the Civil War. In particular, the amendment was designed to prevent states from refusing to enforce criminal and civil laws when the victim was black. The 14th Amendment did not abolish segregation in any way, shape or form.
To call this a pile of crap would be an insult to self-respecting piles of crap the world over. The Fourteenth Amendment was not passed just to prevent states from “refusing to enforce . . . laws when the victim was black.” The 14th Amendment was passed to nullify Black Codes passed by southern states after the Civil War. “Black Codes” prohibited blacks from, among other things, voting, attending public assemblies, living in town, visiting certain parts of town without permission, and from testifying against whites. Black codes forbade blacks from practicing certain professions, from “preaching” to black assemblies, and from engaging in as many activities as different state legislatures and city councils could imagine to prohibit.
Of course, Ben’s myopic viewpoint leads him to decide that Brown v. Board of Education was wrongly decided because, of course, school segregation has nothing to do with refusing to enforce laws:
Over time, the Supreme Court broadened the scope of the “equal protection” clause of the 14th Amendment. The original meaning of the clause was discarded in favor of more expansive interpretations, most notably in Brown v. Board of Education. In ruling state-sponsored segregation unconstitutional under the 14th Amendment, the Supreme Court disconnected the “equal protection” clause from its history and context.
Ben no doubt is delighted by the idea of a return to segregated schools, but he probably hasn’t thought through all the results of his narrow view of equal protection. Here’s one he wouldn’t like nearly as much as segregated schools: President Gore. It was after all the Equal Protection clause that the U.S. Supreme Court invoked to overturn the Florida Supreme Court and put Shrub in office. Somehow I don’t think we’re going to hear this little Bush bootlicker criticizing that decision anytime soon.
Of course, no wingnut argument can ever be complete without invoking “The Slippery Slope.” You know, if men can marry men well, then, they can marry dogs too. And so here’s what Ben thinks will happen if the “equal protection” is used to treat gays as deserving of equal rights:
“Equal protection” now means that any law classifying groups differently must meet the Supreme Court’s moral standards. Of course, all laws inherently classify groups differently. Murder laws will classify murderers differently than law-abiding citizens.
That’s right, if you treat gays as equal human beings then, next thing you know, activist judges are going to declare murder laws unconstitutional. There you have it. The. Stupidest. Slippery. Slope. Argument. Ever.
You know, if God actually answered my prayers, Ben Shapiro would be Scooter Libby’s lawyer.
The Night Before Fitzmas*
Posted by Clif on 10/28/05 at 8:35 am Category: White House
Twas the night before Fitzmas, and in the White House
Every one was scared shitless, and Bush was quite soused
The indictments were hanging like Damoceles’ sword
As verminous oxen prepared to be gored
The perps were all sleepless, curled fetal in bed
While visions of prison cells loomed in each head
And Dick in his jammies, and George in his lap
Were sweating and swearing and looking like crap
When out on the web there arose such a clatter
The blogs and the forums were buzzing with chatter
Away to the PC Rove ran like a flash
He booted his browser and cleared out his cache
The rumors that flew through the cold autumn air
Made Dubya shiver with angry despair
When what to his horror-filled eyes did he spy?
A bespectacled man with a brown suit and tie!
With an impartial manner that gave Bush the shits
He knew in a moment it must be St. Fitz!
With unwavering voice, his indictments they came
He cleared out his throat and he called them by name:
Now Scooter, Now Libby,
Now Blossoming Turd,
Now Cheney, dear Cheney,
Yes, you are the third
To the bench of the court
Up the steps, down the hall
Now come along, come along,
Come along, all!
He then became silent, and went right to work
He filed the indictments and turned with a jerk
And pointing his finger at justice’s scale
Said, “The people be served, and let fairness prevail.”
He then left the room, to his team gave a nod
And the sound could be heard of a crumbling facade
And we all did exclaim, as he faded from sight
“Merry Fitzmas to all, and to all a good night!”
- © Daryl W. Permission granted to repost. Please include this attribution.
*Yeah, I know that it’s not going down quite like this. Apparently Libby gets indicted today and Rove appears to have been spared for the moment. For the moment. So maybe instead of having Fitzmas this year we will have Fitzukah and will get to open up presents on different days rather than all at once.
The Flying Double Fristback
Posted by Clif on 10/27/05 at 8:45 am Category: Lying Republicans
Because Republicans have an inherent tendency to fib or to say loathsome things, an essential component of Republican training is instruction in the various techniques of wiggling out once caught. Many of these techniques are well-known and frequently used.
A technique particularly favored by Republicans is to say that they were misconstrued when, in fact, their remarks were perfectly clear and not even capable of being misconstrued. Kay Bailey Hutchison recently used this technique when she claimed that her remarks that perjury is only a “technicality” had been “misconstrued. ”
Another oft-used play is the Republican Tourette’s Syndrome Defense, or RTS. The essence of this method is for the Republican to say that he hadn’t meant to say what he said, that it just sort of popped out of his mouth unbidden and that he was just as appalled to hear what was coming out of his mouth as his audience was. My favorite example of RTS is when Bill Owen, the Republican governor of Colorado, told a demeaning joke about Indians to a roomful of Indians and then said he hadn’t meant to tell the joke.
Now the ever inventive Bill Frist has added a brand new squeeze play to the Republican repertoire. Frist, as you remember, went on television and swore on a stack of Bibles that he had no idea, absolutely no idea what stocks were in his blind trust fund. This, of course, was one the juiciest Republican whoppers since Dick Nixon proclaimed “I am not a crook.” Once it was discovered that Frist’s trustee was regularly reporting to him what stocks were in the “blind” trust, Frist had to do something. So Frist employed a brand new move which I believe should be named in his honor and ever hereafter be known as the Flying Double Fristback. The Daily Tennessean brings us a play-by-play account of Frist demonstrating the Flying Double Fristback:
Senate Majority Leader Bill Frist acknowledged yesterday that he could have been “more precise” two years ago when he told the public in a televised interview that he wasn’t sure if he still owned any HCA stock because his holdings had been placed in a blind trust.Frist claimed in 2002 and on television in 2003 that he didn’t know how much HCA stock he owned, and might not have owned any. But in fact, since 2001, Frist received notification 15 times of sales or deposits into his trust accounts of various stocks, including HCA shares.
“I could have been more precise.” Which is to say “I could have been more precise if I hadn’t been lying my ass off.” If only Clinton had used the Flying Double Fristdown — “When I said I didn’t have sex with that woman I could have been more precise.” — we could have avoided the entire impeachment business.
Tapped by God
Posted by Clif on 10/25/05 at 8:56 am Category: White House
So, who on earth is the first person who comes into your mind when you read this quote?
He’s a vile, detestable, moralistic person with no heart and no conscience who believes he’s been tapped by God to do very important things.
Wrong! I know who you were thinking, and it’s not him. Instead it’s an anonymous “White House ally” talking about Fitzgerald. Now that even Cheney is involved, the White House has started up its smear machine and pointed it in Fitzgerald’s direction. And it was just the other day on the Today Show that Bush called the investigation dignified.
DISCLAIMER: Neither the White House, nor George W. Bush, nor the Bush twins, nor Barney, nor Miss Beazley, nor anyone now connected or ever connected with the White House has ever endorsed, or will ever endorse, this post, this blog, me, or anything I’ve ever thought, said, sold, or written. The White House Seal on the right is not an endorsement but only a trick to make you think that the vile person referred to in the quote was George W. Bush. Not that the trick, of course, was strictly necessary.
Writing While Intoxicated (Again)
Posted by Clif on 10/24/05 at 9:03 am Category: Wankers
Unkempt tosspot Christopher Hitchens wrote a nasty piece about Harold Pinter’s Nobel Prize last week for the Wall Street Journal. In that column Hitch repeats a libelous remark about Pinter which he had previously been forced to retract. Of course, since Hitch was almost certainly blind-eyed drunk when he wrote the column, it is not altogether surprising that he would forget little things like his own name, how to get home and a couple of forced retractions.
In his WSJ article, Hitchens, aping all the other wingnuts, is jumping up and down mad that Pinter got the Nobel. Hitch pretends to base his objections on Pinter’s literary merit, although his column offers scant evidence that Hitch is actually familiar with more than a sentence or two of Pinter’s writings. In actuality, Hitch is upset about Pinter’s Nobel because he doesn’t like Pinter’s politics.
And sinister mediocrity has become Mr. Pinter’s stock-in-trade. Is it really believable that a conclave of righteous Scandinavians should have honored a man who said, in loud terms, that the mass murder in New York in September 2001 was a justified “retaliation”?
Problem is that Pinter never said the 9/11 was justified and Hitchen knows it. What Pinter said was that 9/11
didn’t come of the blue. It was an act of retaliation against a background of a whole tapestry of U.S. power and manipulation of power throughout the world for many years.
I don’t necessarily agree with Pinter here, but saying something was retaliation is not saying that it was justified.
Back on September 26, 2001, Hitchens said pretty much the same thing about Pinter:
Get ready for more stupidity: the brave American civilians who fought off the hijackers over Pennsylvania would now not be allowed the in-flight cutlery or the cellphones that permitted them to mount a desperate resistance and to inform their families and friends that they weren’t going gentle. Had it been otherwise, I would be looking out at a gutted Capitol or charred White House, and reading Pinter or Pilger on how my neighbourhood had been asking for it.
The following day the Guardian issued this correction:
In a column. . . . yesterday, Christopher Hitchens wrote that if one of the hijacked aircraft had crashed into the Capitol or White House, he would have found himself “reading Pinter or Pilger on how my neighbourhood had been asking for it.” In fact Harold Pinter has not written or suggested any such thing. The reference to him was an editing error. We apologise to all concerned.
The day after that, the Guardian published a letter from Hitchens in which admitted his own error and apologized:
Having been informed that Harold Pinter had made an incautious statement in the wake of September 11, I included two disobliging references to him in my column. Discovering I had been wrongly apprised, I asked the relevant editor for the mentions of Harold to be removed. Only one was spotted and excised and so I have inadvertently done him an injustice.At a time like this, it is very important that there be no jeering or witch-hunting, so I would be grateful if you would give this retraction the same prominence you gave my original remarks.
Several years and thousands of vodka tonics later, the time for jeering and witch-hunting has, apparently, returned.
Seeing the War through Rice-Colored Glasses
Posted by Clif on 10/22/05 at 2:37 pm Category: White House
On Friday, Condi gave a speech in Tuscaloosa in which she sent the world another strange telegram from that secret place that she alone inhabits. You know, that secret place where Saddam Hussein flew jets into the World Trade Center. The world where it’s okay to buy Ferragamo shoes in New York City while Katrina was killing people in Louisiana. And now apparently it’s also the world in which the War in Iraq is pretty much the same thing as the civil rights struggle in the 60s.
Surely, you say, I jest. Condi didn’t compare Baghdad and Birmingham, did she? Sadly, yes, she did. You can read the whole speech here if you don’t believe me, but this little snippet should make the point:
Across the empire of Jim Crow, from upper Dixie to the lower Delta, the descendants of slaves shamed our nation with the power of righteousness and redeemed America at last from its original sin of slavery. . . .And today, we face the same choice in the world that we once confronted in our country: Either the desire for liberty and democratic rights is true for all human beings or we are to believe that certain peoples actually prefer subjugation.
President Bush has chosen. He believes, as do I, that all people deserve freedom and democracy. . . .
At one point, not that long ago, the promise of democracy seemed distant here in Alabama, here in Tuscaloosa, here on this campus, and throughout America. But when impatient patriots in this country finally demanded their freedom and their rights, what once seemed impossible suddenly seemed inevitable.
So it was in America. . . . And so it shall be in the Middle East.
Of course, there are just a few minor little differences between the two. No lies needed to be told to justify granting civil rights to African-Americans in the South. No foreign government invaded Alabama in the process. No Southerners were sodomized with glow sticks by the invading force. No airplanes bombed any southern cities back into the stone age (although arguably for many that would not have been a long trip). Thirty thousand Southerners didn’t die in the civil rights struggle. Almost every country in the world approved of the civil rights struggle. But, other than that, the two things are, of course, completely identical.