McClellan and media complicity

Apparently those in the national media tend to pout when they are called out on their sins of ommission… Must be why they’re being so conspicuously quiet now that the rug has also been pulled back to reveal their sins of commission in the run-up (and on-going cheerleading) for the Iraq War.

Unfortunately, while our nation may eventually recover its sullied reputation on the world stage, all our brave GIs who’ve sacrificed so much won’t find much solace even if the media realizes once again it ought to be the Fourth Estate (keeping a check and a balance on the three official branches of government) instead of zombie-like stenographers… McCain barbecue sauce and flowers for mum or not.

Goodnight nobody

One of our kids’ favorite books is “Goodnight Moon” by Margaret Wise Brown. They love looking for the mouse and they always whisper “hush” right along with the little old lady. Their favorite page is the blank one that reads “Goodnight nobody.”

And so it was with rather loud laughter that I just noticed … “Goodnight Bush.”

Obama errs. Cons pounce, make fools of selves.

On Memorial Day, Sen. Obama was speaking and told the story of his uncle, a veteran of the 89th ID, and his recollections of WWII. The 89th liberated Ohrdruf, a part of the Buchenwald concentration camp. Sen. Obama mistakenly said they liberated Auschwitz, which was actually liberated by the Soviets.

He immediately owned up to the error and noted the correct information.

That didn’t stop the attack poodles at the Republican National Committee and all across conservative partisandom from pouncing by inhumanely pitting one concentration camp against another as if such torture and murder were a contest from which they could somehow extract political points.

Jeff Lieber notes there is no difference between the deaths endured at Auschwitz and those at Buchenwald and implies that the Republican partisans ought to be ashamed of themselves, if they had consciences that is. And this comment about Dachau is particularly poignant… just read it.

This is what the Republican National Committee calls “an exaggeration”?

The only things the RNC managed to “win” in this is to both clearly illustrate how desperate they are to twist whatever they can and to also get the media to avoid talking about Post-Traumatic Stress Disorder, the original point behind Sen. Obama’s retelling of his uncle’s story.

In fact, Sen. Obama’s veteran uncle spent days alone in his attack and didn’t leave his house for 6 months to cope with what he’d witnessed in the war and at Ohrdruf.

…But all the Republicans can do is act “gleeful,” as MSNBC puts it.

Disgusting.

Night of the Living Braindead

This is so wrong on so many levels:

Wife of founder of Ozarks Minutemen pleads guilty to fake rape claim

[Angela] Wilburn is the wife of Brian Wilburn, who helped form the Ozarks Minutemen. [...]

Angela Wilburn told investigators that three Hispanic men broke into her mobile home and that one of the men sexually assaulted her in the hallway, then shot her in the knee with a handgun.

She soon retracted her story and said she heard a noise, and grabbed her husband’s gun. She told police the gun went off as she reached for a flashlight.

By the time Angela Wilburn made the admission, Greene County deputies had already spent more than 100 man-hours investigating the fictitious attack.

The sheriff’s department said in December it would seek restitution from Angela Wilburn for the wasted time. [...]

There is the obvious problem that a woman with this many … ahem … “issues” related to paranoid fantasies probably shouldn’t be allowed near a gun in the first place, at least not one that doesn’t have a trigger lock on it.

But there are more subtle indications that this woman has lost her bearings. Indeed, maybe I missed that day in 2nd grade geography but I’ve always had the impression that the Ozarks — including Greene County, Missouri — did not meet any international borders and are instead in the middle of the country.

Speaking of borders, most estimates indicate that at least half of illegal immigrants are not from Latin America. Inexplicably, the rabidly anti-immigrant forces always seem to forget that a whole bunch of illegal immigrants fly over any walls we put up using these things called commercial jets and that they arrive here on a legal visa and simply stay past their time.

These same forgetful people also seem to forget that there’s no wall on our northern, more Caucasian Canadian border… Not that race would ever have anything to do with their rhetoric and their false police reports. Nope. Never.

(h/t Kos)

Political Correctness, crazy conserv-o-partisan style

Mmm… donuts.

Count Rachel Ray as the latest victim to Big Brother the uber-partisan, wild-eyed rantings of the Cult of Malkin. Obviously, not enough EVOO in their diets…

Shame on Dunkin Donuts for falling prey to such mind-numbing, bile-spewing dunceness from the likes of knee-knocking fraidy cat hyperpartisan Michelle Malkin (who once stalked a 12-year-old disabled boy because she was so afraid that he may have been a secret agent for KAOS intent on destroying apple pie … or something).

I wonder if Fail Blog would cover this 30 minute empty-calorie meal from the Kooky Conservative perspective — failure to possess any shred of common sense let alone capacity to put things in perspective — or the Gotta Make the Donuts perspective — failure to anticipate that a fringed paisley scarf on a perky brunette talkshow/cooking show host might send a handful of conservative pundit crackers into spasms of oversensitive, overhyped, over politically correct pantsuit-wetting.

Who’s more moronic? Michelle Malkin for promoting such blatant idiocy or the people who treat her like a goddess of goop by buying into this bollix (and thus allowing her to earn a living pimping such propaganda)?

Dial B for Bean

Daily Herald reporter John Patterson writes that he just received a robocall targeting Melissa Bean, but it was with a 217 area code number.

Nevermind that the call apparently tried to mislead citizens by tsk-tsking the Congressional recess before a vote on military pay (implying our soldiers would somehow have to go unpaid in the interim — wholly untrue, the vote is for future pay).

Mr. Patterson’s surprise wasn’t over the implied fallacy, it was over the 217 area code since it covers central Illinois and doesn’t even come close to Melissa Bean’s 8th district…

Oddly enough, Melissa Bean is sponsoring legislation that would require full disclosure listing exactly who is calling on Caller ID. If it were law, Mr. Patterson would know [who] that someone that called him is.

In light of that sponsorship conservative partisans, who typically claim they favor responsibility and honesty, have been railing against her ever since … replete with slimey over-the-top essays comparing this soccer mom Member of Congress to a brutal dictator in their feigned rage. (And with crackers like that poisoning the well it’s little wonder the American people by and large are rejecting such venomous rhetoric.)

(Disclosure: I’ve done some work for past Bean campaigns. Who knows if I will again this cycle. She’s a great person and seems to be coming into her own as a legislator.)

McCain supporters may think laws may only apply to Dems…

If we have no rule of law, we have only anarchy. But, this doesn’t seem to matter to self-proclaimed “law and order” conservative partisans.

To wit: McCain Message Coordination w/ Anti-Obama “Veterans For Freedom” organization

If the coordination (which seems obvious) is proven, it is illegal based on current election law. This, of course, comes after the McCain campaign apparently violated his own campaign finance law.

Rep. Bill Foster on supporting our military

A good thing to see this week of Remembrance Day…

US Rep. Bill Foster on remembering our GIs and their families. He wants to take Lt. Gov. Pat Quinn’s Illinois program national.

Living up to our responsibility and debt to those who defend our rights and our nation is walking the walk, not just talking the talk, when it comes to “supporting our troops” … something those opposed to the Modern GI Bill would do well to remember.

To borrow a phrase from a friend who spoke yesterday during one of the nation’s countless Memorial Day ceremonies: our vets don’t want to be held up as heroes, they want to be held tight as family and friends.

All these humble men and women ask is that we remember them in our prayers and thoughts, not idly lionize them with jingoism and cliches.

Quote for Memorial Day Weekend

Let every nation know, whether it wishes us well or ill, we shall pay any price, bear any burden, meet any hardship, support any friend, oppose any foe, to assure the survival and success of liberty.

– John F. Kennedy

God bless our troops and their families.

Kirk supporters’ apoplexy over Seals’ successful gas promo is a gift that keeps on giving

The other post was getting too long to keep updating but there are two more interesting developments.

First, for those who enjoy Inside Baseball, Prairie State Blue blogger ‘bored now’ notes the manner in which the Kirk campaign went “ballistic” over Dan Seals’ overly successful gas station PR event and analyzes why this may be so (O-b-a-m-a…). It’s as good a breakdown of the raw numbers as any to date.

Second, in an irony of ironies, the Lincolnshire police chief tells the Pioneer Press that the last car to pull up for the discounted gas during the Seals event was full of (drumroll please) … Mark Kirk staffers.

Obviously this means that not all Kirk supporters thought it was a “stupid” idea or were so concerned about this legal activity being somehow portrayed as “illegal” (some of the more tame epithets Kirk’s partisans have used to smear Dan Seals).

No word on whether or not they were in a clown car.

…Couldn’t resist.

Team Am goes batty while going to bat in the 10th, Updated x4

Check out Team America and friends carrying water (or should I say “carrying gas”) over at Rich’s place while trying to spin his best baloney about Dan Seals gas price promo at a Lincolnshire station the 10th district.

Two points while TA and Co try to come up with more hollow rants opposing Seals..

- First, despite TA’s willful, partisan-induced ignorance, Mark Kirk also “gives away” things of value and material benefit to voters. There are plenty of Kirk for Congress shirts and caps on parade routes, and folks who go to his events are treated to free goodies like cookies, pop, etc.

All politicians give away items of value.

All.

- Second, a Republican in neighboring Indiana gave away gas for free — yes, for free — just last month.

Republican Luke Puckett, also a challenger just like Dan Seals, pumped free gas a month ago in South Bend while bending drivers’ ears about his plans to drill for oil in pristine natural areas of California and Alaska. (Wouldn’t weening our nation off what Pres. Bush calls an “addiction” to oil be smarter in the long run? Even if we destroyed God’s Creation to get at a few more barrels of oil, even those rigs will eventually run dry — and then what?)

Which Is It #3: Either they’re bigots or they aren’t

The Republican party’s conservative base can’t both be mum when a well-known Iraqi immigrant to America (who also happens to be the Imam of the largest mosque in America) visits with and even advises Pres. Bush — in the White House no less — but then get hopping mad with hysteria when Presidential candidate Sen. Barack Obama meets with that same guy for a few minutes…

So which is it, either conservative partisans hate Muslims even if Pres. Bush and Sen. Obama meet with them or they don’t…

From DHinMI, in his reaction to reporting by Oliver Willis:

It makes sense that Obama would meet with the Imam.  Qazwini came to the United States in 1992.  He was first in California, but eventually ended up in Dearborn Michigan, home of the largest population of Middle Eastern Arabs outside the Middle East.  The Arab-American population in Detroit—between a quarter and a half million—is diverse, but the largest group is Lebanese Shiite Muslims.  Beginning in the 1990’s, the Shiite Lebanese were joined by Iraqi Shiites.

Like these new immigrants, Qazwini is from Iraq.  His Grandfather was an Ayatollah in Karbala who Saddam arrested, and he died in prison.  The family fled Iraq, Hussein Al-Qazwini came to the US, and unlike most of the Arab-American community, was a strong advocate for overthrowing Saddam. Eventually, however, even many of the Arab-Americans who supported the invasion of Iraq—always a small group–became disillusioned with the US occupation of Iraq and turned on Bush and the GOP.

Which brings us to the fun part about the wingers going crazy over Obama’s meeting with Qazwini.  How many of the wingers were going crazy in 2003 when Qazwini gave an opening prayer before Congress?  Who complained that Qazwini met with staffers of the Bush administration’s National Security Council to talk about the overthrow of Saddam?  Where were the complaints about the four or five invitations to visit Bush at the White House extended to Qazwini?  Did the wingers flip out when Qazwini participated in the roll-out of Bush’s Faith Based Initiative, an event that took place at the White House?

(links are original)

Oliver Willis even has photos of a hug and a kiss between Pres. Bush and his friend and advisor, Imam Qazwini. The Imam has even met with Pope Benedict for crying out loud.

But a handshake and a chat with Sen. Obama causes frantic fits among the cons?

Hypocrites.

…Actually, this round of “Which Is It” has a clear-cut answer.

Hard-line con hack Debbie Schlussel, no stranger to conspiracy theories and the originator of this most recent infopimped malarkey, has been attacking Bush, the Pope, and now Obama for the same reason — they’ve met with this Imam from Michigan her rabid, paranoid fear of Muslims…

What one person labels ‘vigilance against all Muslims’ is what most mainstream Americans refer to as “bigotry“… and clearly now the Pope, Bush and Obama are all automatically Muslim Manchurian Candidates simply for being in the same room as this Iraq escapee.

Oy.

Since SNL is on summer break…

John McCain had to write his own jokes for this YouTube piece.

I wonder why the national press following his campaign doesn’t pick up on this more… (Could you pass that sweet BBQ sauce … and a beer?)

And his ideas are different than Pres. Bush’s failed conservative policies how?

Pass the BBQ Sauce — McCain’s Scandalous Lobbyist Connections

Someone pass the ribs basket while we wait for the not-so-liberal media to report on the many shady deals McCain’s chief campaigner and lifelong lobbyist Charlie Black has under his belt…

Is McCain’s chief Charlie Black a…

(a) Lobbyist to the Dictator Stars?

(b) Lobbyist Cashing in on Taxpayer-funded Pork?

(c) Lobbyist with ties to Fake Astroturfing PR Efforts?

(d) All of the Above…!

Congrats John McCain — thanks to the lobbyists you’ve hired to run your Double Talk Express your “maverick judgment” is going the way of those used wetnaps from your Sedona Resort BBQ For the Media… and it’s unlikely any SNL sketches are going to help.

Deep End

There must’ve been a run on coo-coo puffs lately…

Despite the fact the bottom is pretty far down on that side of the pool, desperate con partisans are still managing to bonk their beans as they jump off the deep end to wallow in their mucky, vile hatred of Sen. Obama.

If you scroll down at that post, you’ll notice frequent critics of reality and reason such as Citizen Wells and Pat Hickey make an appearance with comments supporting the tripe.

Remember the good ol’ days of oddball but cute/fuzzy presidential sideshows? Why do the conservatives feel the need to act so blatantly desperate?

While it’s fun to joke about this sort of tinfoil hat tripe, we also have to realize that this tripe is precisely why rational people have to be just as engaged and take their right and responsibility to vote just as seriously as these wackos.

If wackos like these are the only ones talking and voting… we all end up living in the same hateful, wacko world in which they appear to be ensnared.