John McCain is insane in the membrain

Johnny Mac was in South Carolina yesterday. From Drudge:

At the campaign rally, McCain was asked if an attack on Iran is in the works, the GEORGETOWN TIMES reports.

McCain began his answer by changing the words to a popular BEACH BOYS song.

“Bomb bomb bomb, bomb bomb Iran,” he sang to the tune of Barbara Ann.

I guess this is the kind of rhetoric (lyric?) that one needs to get reep primary votes in the South. OTOH, this is completely demented. I really think that McCain is losing it.

Richard Perle on Crossroads/PBS: WTF?

What the hell was PBS thinking by giving Richard Perle an infomercial last night?

More on the gun control conversation

Yesterday, I posted that the horrible tragedy at VaTech represented an opportunity to discuss control. It appears the right wants nothing to do with such a conversation; they think gun control sucks and want to keep the dirty gummint off our gun racks.

Here are a pair of comments I got when I posted on Digg yesterday.

Perhaps if the gun control movement wasn't a pack of blatantly dishonest demagogues leading masses of ignorant, emotion driven dupes threatening (and often acting on the threat) of destroying liberty and persecuting the tens of millions of law-abiding, gun-owning, Americans, we could have a civil conversation. But I doubt that.

And this pithy reply

Sure, but it'll be short. The first time you disagree with me, I'll pull out my 9mm and blow you away.

Instapundit blames gun control laws. If only professors and students were packing, so many people would be alive.

I somehow think these are mainstream right wing views. Because it gets even loonier:

Early details about the horrific school shooting at Virginia Tech strongly indicate that these events represent a Columbine-style black-op that will be exploited in the coming days to push for mass gun control and further turning our schools into prisons.

So, like I said its time for a conversation. My POV is hunt your little ass off with rifles. OTOH, I don't like or see the need for handguns in our society. However, with - what is the number? - 100,000,000 guns in circulation, it will be tough to really do much of anything. At least until there is political will to do so.

Did I mention political will? That's something the dems have in short order right now when it comes to gun control. This cowardly stance seems odd. Polls show strong majorities - or pluralities favor tougher restrictions on guns. Look at the numbers - sentiment on gun control is consistent over time.

The problem is gun owners care more about keeping their guns than gun control advocates do about limiting the supply of guns and ammo. Gun owners are widely credited with many big electoral wins over the years, such as when George Deukmejian upset Tom Bradley for the California governorship in 1982.

Again, I'm trying to start a responsible conversation here. The right wingers seem to care only for polemics. Its really too bad.

Death of the neocons: Part 2 (continued)

Richard Perle and Wolf square off on CNN. See the clip for yourself here at Raw Story. My take: Perle is shameless; may he rot in hell.

Neocon deathwatch: part 2

Part 2 on the individuals of a dead school of political thought - the neocons.

Richard "The Prince of Darkness" Perle. This guy really screwed the pooch. He was a major cheerleader for war, and now points his finger directly back at BushCo after they turned Iraq into a steaming mess. In 2002, Perle infamously predicted only 40,000 troops would be needed to overthrow Saddam.

Perle's hubris hit a high water mark right before the invasion, when he wrote:

Saddam Hussein's reign of terror is about to end. He will go quickly, but not alone: in a parting irony, he will take the UN down with him.

Perle served in the administration on the Defense Policy Board, when he tendered his resignation in 2004.

"We are now approaching a long presidential election campaign, in the course of which issues on which I have strong views will be widely discussed and debated," Perle wrote. "I would not wish those views to be attributed to you or the president at any time, and especially not during a presidential campaign."

Perle didn't return a telephone call seeking comment on his resignation, and a Pentagon spokesman would confirm only that he had resigned.

By 2006, Perle was ripping BushCo on the job in Iraq in a famous Vanity Fair article.

Perle and I [writer David Rose] [met] at his home outside Washington, D.C. ... Perle is unrecognizable as the confident hawk who, as chairman of the Pentagon's Defense Policy Board Advisory Committee, had invited the exiled Iraqi dissident Ahmad Chalabi to its first meeting after 9/11. "The levels of brutality that we've seen are truly horrifying, and I have to say, I underestimated the depravity[.]" ...

According to Perle, who left the Defense Policy Board in 2004, this unfolding catastrophe has a central cause: devastating dysfunction within the administration of President George W. Bush. Perle says, "The decisions did not get made that should have been. They didn't get made in a timely fashion, and the differences were argued out endlessly.… At the end of the day, you have to hold the president responsible.… I don't think he realized the extent of the opposition within his own administration, and the disloyalty."

Perle followed up on that with a NewsMax interview in February of this year. I've highlighted a few items - the interview is longish - but telling about the dark soul of this man.

[P]erhaps folks would better appreciate Richard Perle ... discussing how we got where we are in Iraq with the best and brightest leading the way.


Perle: We just don't have the best and the brightest. I think Colin Powell was a disaster. He never liked the president's policies. He did almost nothing to get them implemented. Condi [former head of the National Security Council and now Secretary of State Condoleezza Rice] was in way over her head from the beginning, and the president gave much too much weight to her views. The administration was full of people even in the White House at the National Security Council who were hostile to the president's policies.


NewsMax: On the subject of your "America at a Crossroads" segment for PBS: In one of your filmed confrontations with protestors on the National Mall, you tell a woman, "I'm sorry for your loss, but I'm not the president." You're saying to her that you are not the architect of the war and you didn't make the decisions. But you were a powerhouse on the Defense Policy Board.


Perle: As a matter of fact, I was not at all happy with the conduct of the board. Now people can differ about what approach would have been more effective. I think we got ourselves, unfortunately, into an occupation [of Iraq] that we could have avoided. We could have avoided it by turning things over to the Iraqis more or less immediately, which is what I was arguing for.


NewsMax: How do you see it playing out on Capitol Hill?


Perle: The House and the Democratic leadership have decided to make Iraq a partisan political issue. They are using it to rally Democrats, and it seems to me that they have lost all sight of the national interest.

NewsMax: Now that Al Franken has declared for the U.S. Senate...

Perle: ...Franken was hung up on the fact that we didn't find stockpiles of weapons of mass destruction, and that whole thing gets a little tedious after a while.


The president didn't create [the intelligence organizations]. He made the mistake of keeping [former CIA chief George] Tenet in place, but that is another matter.

So, in the end, Perle is one of the key architects of the war, yets minimizes his own role - certainly after Iraq turns into one hell of a FUBAR wrapped in an enigma. And not only is he saddled with the burden of his gross mistakes, he turns around and blames BushCo for the problems.

I suppose that Perle really believes that the Iraq war - if run competently - could have turned out far better than it has. What a terrible misreading of the situation. But these kinds of misreadings are why the NeoCons are consigned to the kitty litter box of history.

Perle Status: Richard Perle is dead to George Dubya Bush.

John McCain: A soft touch down back to reality

Johnnie "do the stroll" McCain returned late this week from the alternative universe where Iraqis shower Americans with candy and flowers. The New York Times covers the flip-floppery on-line:

After a week of public pummeling, Mr. McCain, one of the Republican candidates for the 2008 nomination, now says he misspoke about the situation on the ground in Baghdad. In an interview to be broadcast on CBS News’ “60 Minutes” on Sunday, Mr. McCain said he wished he had been more measured in his remarks.

“Of course I am going to misspeak and I’ve done it on numerous occasions and I probably will do it in the future,” he told CBS correspondent Scott Pelley. “I regret that when I divert attention to something I said from my message but you know, that’s just life.”

I, along with thousands of bloggers and those Iraqi merchants (who were described as "astonished" when appraised of Johnnie Mac's initial sunny comments) gave McCain the business over the stupidity of those remarks. McCain took the heat especially heavily because he is a top tier presidential candidate, but moreso because he's the self-proclaimed straight talk express.

That sure was some straight talk, eh? Johnnie Mac's initial comments were right out of a Dick Cheney speech - That's just how Looney Tunes he sounded. So, it was a great deal of relief I read McCain's new comments. I may not particularly like McCain, but I do greatly prefer that top tier presidential candidates be of sound minds.

He certainly does now sound grounded. Oh, of course he hasn't budged one inch on his stance to the war. But, at least he has left Limbaughland and returned to the reality-based community (or some far flung burg - somewhere in the galaxy).

Where ever McCain turns these days, things turn into gooey dog turds. Its like the Midas Touch, only reversed. Call it the Dubya Touch. Think of any important issue over the past two and half years. If Dubya is for it, campaigns for, uses his bully pulpit, then public support craters. Now McCain has the Dubya Touch - in spades.

This Dubya Touch effect is purely McCain's own doing. He decided a long time ago that he was going to run between Dubya's butt cheeks. I always thought it was an insane strategy given his history with Dubya, but McCain's pollsters probably told him Dubya was popular within the Republican Party.

The Straight-Talk Express is now the Flip-Flopping Train That Couldn't. Republicans hate McCain. Dems have grown to hate him, and I would be willing to bet that Independents are at best scratching their heads.

Let's see if Johnnie Mac' new Phoenix Rising campaign strategy is going to work. It did for Kerry in 2004, but that was a far different situation. Right now, the McCain campaign is on life support. He doesn't seem like such a top-tier candidate anaymore.

Happy Easter to Bill Donohue

Raise your hand if you are sick to death of Bill Donohue. This guy makes Ann Coulter seem sane. No really.

Bill, if you are going to get pissed, its probably best not to let the South Park dudes in on your rant. Can you please go die in a fire?

My suggestion about this asshat is the same with Ann Coulter. Ignore.

Duncan Hunter plays to his base: Blackwater

Yesterday, I wrote about how Tom Tancredo is working to wrap up the Dog Chapman vote. Today, we learn that Duncan Hunter is playing to the mercenary crowd. Raw Story covers the story where Blackwater wants to turn a chicken farm into a mercenary training camp for Blackwater. They report former California congressman and current presidential candidate Duncan Hunter is a client of Blackwater. They also raise questions about whether Hunter was lobbying for the project.

So, that got me to thinking about Duncan Hunter. Who is he? What does he stand for? Here's a recent clarifying editorial from Michael Reagan (Ronnie's son, the conservative one):

Rep. Duncan Hunter, former chairman of the House Armed Services Committee and now its ranking Republican member, appeared on the Hannity and Colmes show on Fox, and I was astonished to hear him castigated for failing to see that our troops in Iraq needed equipment[,] ... specifically ... on [the] matter of the alleged lack of body armor for our troops in Iraq[.]

Ignored were certain inconvenient facts such as the amount of body armor that was available under Bill Clinton, which was zero. Today ... thanks to Duncan Hunter's work ... the armed services have one million sets of body armor. That's one million!

Wow! Duncan Hunter supports the troops! Iraq equipment shortages must be blamed on Bill Clinton. Okay, check.

Chris Reed is a conservative op/ed-er San Diego U-T. He must be a huge Hunter fan, having gotten to view him close up over a long time, particularly as Reed gives Hunter the honorific of NOT being a Reagan Republican (in case anyone missed it, reeps have no interest in being Reagan Republicans anymore - well, except maybe the folks on Fox and Friends, but I digress):

Periodically, I get e-mails from supporters of the presidential candidacy of Alpine Rep. Duncan Hunter who express disbelief, befuddlement or fury, or a mix of all three, at my flat contention that he is a populist demagogue and anything but a principled conservative. These folks cannot fathom any talk that he's not free-trade, small-government Ronald Reagan reincarnated.

Okay, Hunter is not Ronald Reagan Reincarnated. Check.

Here's a synopsis of Hunter on Iraq (from Congressopedia):

On November 18, 2005, in response to Pennsylvania congressman John Murtha's resolution to terminate the deployment of United States forces in Iraq, to redeploy the forces already involved in Iraq, and to "pursue security and stability in Iraq through diplomacy",Hunter and other Republicans drafted a two-sentence counter-resolution which read:

"Expressing the sense of the House of Representatives that the deployment of United States forces in Iraq be terminated immediately.

"Resolved, That it is the sense of the House of Representatives that the deployment of United States forces in Iraq be terminated immediately."

Democrats condemned the bill as a political stunt. As expected, it was soundly defeated, 403-3, in the House of Representatives.

Okay, Hunter is simultaneously pro-blood bath, but wants our troops home now. That's presidential timber; Oh, yeah!

What else. Hunter hates illegal immigrants. Hates the Chinese government. Runs strongly on the Three G's platform (Guns, God and Gays).

On the other hand, Hunter batted oh for 19 on the Jeff Flake amendments to stop earmarking. However, when he was a congressman, Hunter did at least make his earmark requests public. From the Sunlight Foundation:

Hunter has decided that [earmark] transparency is necessary to defend the practice. Transparency also allows me to point out that two of his earmarks are to one of his biggest campaign donors, Titan, Inc. For more information Hunter's ties to Titan -- a very controversial defense contractor -- check out this blog post by Jason Vest at POGO.

So, that's it on Hunter, the dream candidate of military contractors and mercs. Which brings me back to Tancredo and his support for Dog Chapman. Bounty hunters and mercenaries. Seems like a similar demographic. Could Tancredo be a stalking horse for Hunter? Or the other way around? Will either candidate top 1% in any Republican Primary?

Strolling through the streets of Baghdad with John McCain

I really wonder about McCain. The so-called straight-talk express seems to have run off the road and crashed into a ditch. McCain is seemingly wandering around, injury to head, babbling incoherently. On Monday, McCain was a guest on Bill "Doubling Down on Morality" Bennett's radio show where he said:

There are neighborhoods in Baghdad where you and I could walk through those neighborhoods, today.

Hmmm. Well, Sadr City would be a good choice - you might get to see a Katusha Rocket attack.

Or, you could go to the Doura (Dora?) District to dodge roadside bombs.

Wait, how about going to the Abu Dsheer neighborhood? Mortar attacks are the thing to see. If you dare.

I wouldn't got to Mustansiriyah University where a policeman was killed and three wounded in a suicide car bomb attack.

I would avoid the Zayouna district of eastern Baghdad. Gunmen killed a police lieutenant working in the Serious Crimes Unit. No, I wouldn't stroll there.

And, I would seriously avoid the al-Maalif district of western Baghdad. Gunmen opened fire on a police patrol, killing one policeman and wounding two others.

Oh. Uh. Do also avoid the Ghazaliya district in eastern Baghdad. An Iraqi soldier was killed and two wounded in a roadside blast.

Do avoid the Bayaa district. A car bomb killed two civilians and wounded ten others at a major intersection.

Unless you can stomach floating bodies, I would suggest avoiding a stroll along the famed Tigris River.

Alright, so you don't want to go strolling around Baghdad. How about the Green Zone. Everyone knows the Greeen Zone is safe. Right?

Uh, not really. Insurgents have been bombarding the Green Zone with mortar attacks. Nine people were wounded and two killed in three mortar or rocket strikes since Monday. On Tuesday a U.S. contractor and a U.S. soldier were killed, and one U.S. state department employee was wounded.

Maybe McCain was talking about some other part of the country. Nah - mortar attacks, car bombs, suicide bombers, chlorine gas attacks, sectarian reprisals, and tortured bodies are everywhere. No, I'm not citing it - read the gosh danged front page of your newspaper.

Senator McCain, I strongly suggest you burn your particular version of Fodor's. We don't want you going and getting kidnapped out on the streets of Baghdad. Do we?

Tom Delay disses Dick Armey in book, then denies he wrote it

Tom DeLay is too much. There are days I really wish he were back on congress - if only to put a face on the insanity of the extreme right these days.

From Taegan Goddard's Political Wire (a site I highly recommend):

Appearing on Hardball with Chris Matthews to promote his new book, No Retreat, No Surrender, it's clear former House Majority Leader Tom DeLay (R-TX) didn't write it and perhaps never even read it before it was published.

Matthews asked DeLay about passages in his book where described former Rep. Dick Armey (R-TX) as "drunk with ambition." Amazingly, DeLay denied writing that, even after Matthews showed him the underlined passage in his own book.

Tom DeLay has absolutely no shame. Here's the You Tube clip.

What about Ron Paul?

I received some comments about not including Ron Paul in my presidential candidate mojo rankings. Fair point; let's take a closer look at U.S. Congressman Paul. Here's a self-description from his website:

Congressman Ron Paul of Texas enjoys a national reputation as the premier advocate for liberty in politics today. Dr. Paul is the leading spokesman in Washington for limited constitutional government, low taxes, free markets, and a return to sound monetary policies based on commodity-backed currency. He is known among both his colleagues in Congress and his constituents for his consistent voting record in the House of Representatives: Dr. Paul never votes for legislation unless the proposed measure is expressly authorized by the Constitution. In the words of former Treasury Secretary William Simon, Dr. Paul is the "one exception to the Gang of 535" on Capitol Hill.

He served in congress in the 70s and 80s, went back to his doctor's practice a while and returned to congress in 1997 representing the Galveston, Texas area. Dr. Paul represents the libertarian wing of the Republican Party, although he is firmly pro-life (Its worth noting that Libertarian Party members are conflicted on the issue of abortion). Dr. Paul voted against the Patriot Act - both times, and is firmly against the war in Iraq.

A review of recent speech in New Hampshire had this:

[Dr. Paul] noted that some people had accused him of not being a “strong leader,” but he rebutted that accusation: “Sometimes being a strong leader means resisting the temptation to use power.” During his time spent in Congress, Paul has consistently resisted the temptation to use power.

That certainly is in keeping with libertarian principles. Now for my mea culpa as to why I didn't include Paul in my presidential candidate mojo rankings list - I thought Paul was running as a Libertarian. I now realize that Paul is running as a (small-l) libertarian Republican. There's really a world of difference between being the libertarian candidate and a republican candidate - even a minor republican candidate.

Paul occupies an interesting space - one shared with, I believe Chuck Hagel (oh great, I also forgot to include Hagel on the mojo list). Many conservatives are fed up with the anti-libertarian elements of the Republican Party, including those who would curtail individual freedoms through the Patriot Act and foreign entanglements like the Iraq War.

Hagel is seemingly despised by many party faithful. However, there seems to be more enthusiasm for the Paul candidacy than for Hagel. Maybe its because Hagel is regularly on Meet the Press and Paul isn't. Maybe its because there are other issues which Paul is perceived to be strong on, and Hagel isn't.

Recent polls have Paul either off the charts or down at the bottom. A recent CNN poll of republican voters gave Paul 2%. Hagel polled the same level.

Its early, but Paul is at least positioned apart from the rest of the republicans, and could gain traction if more Patriot Act abuses are uncovered, Iraq continues to festers, and republican voters decide they want more dramatic change at the top.

Mojor Rankings:

Paul 1.0
Hagel 0.7
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Much credit for this article goes to the Big Soccer Politics and Current Events forum, and more specifically the thread on Ron Paul. See here.

Mitt Romney: El Gringo Stupido!

File this under, what the hell was he thinking about? From the Miami Herald:

Cubans in Miami are steaming mad at former Gov. Mitt Romney for shooting his mouth off in stumbling Spanish, mispronouncing names and erroneously associating a notorious Fidel Castro-spewed Communist catch phrase with freedom fighters.

Politicians in South Florida have lashed out at the former Massachusetts governor and 2008 presidential hopeful for describing the socialist saying “Patria o muerte, venceremos” as “inspiring” and for claimingthe phrase was swiped from liberty-seeking Cubans by leftist admirers of Castro.

The phrase, which means “Fatherland or death, we shall overcome,” was bellowed as a political speech sign-off by the dictator for decades.

At another point in the speech to the Miami-Dade Republican Party, Romney bungled the names of prominent Cuban GOP politicians, referring to Florida House Speaker Marco Rubio as “Mario.”

Romney also garnered criticism for his hard-line stance on immigration and ending the talk with the phrase “Libertad, Libertad, Libertad,” a revolutionary saying made famous in the gangster movie “Scarface,” which many Cubans feel plays on cultural stereotypes.

But it was the former Bay State governor’s use of an infamous Fidel Castro line that sparked the most controversy.

So, what was Romney thinking about? He was trying to play Panda Bear to the nuthead Cubans in South Florida. The upshot: Romney probably lost the Cuban vote. Too bad.

Newt comes clean (after all these years)

As you probably know, Newt Gingrich finally came clean that he was cheating on his second wife during the Clinton impeachment. Nice guy sure, but no surprise whatsoever. This is the guy who served his first wife her divorce papers while she was in the hospital.

Here's Newt with Russert recently:

MR. RUSSERT: But do you, do you regret pressing the impeachment of President Clinton so hard?
FMR. REP. GINGRICH: President—you know, I’m—I’ve been divorced twice.

Both times I’ve been deposed. Both times I was told, “Perjury is a felony. You should tell the truth under deposition.” President Clinton lied under oath as a lawyer in front of a sitting federal judge in a civil rights case. This was not about his personal behavior in the Oval Office. That’s a matter of judgment, and people can render judgment. The question is, do you want to go down the road of Nigeria and corruption and have a country in which, as long as he’s popular, he can break the law? And if Clinton gets to commit perjury on this topic, then what does the next president get to commit perjury on, and then what does the next president get to commit perjury on? This was entirely about something I knew personally. We have an obligation as citizens to tell the truth to a federal judge under oath. The president failed that.

The Newtster does make an interesting point - and Clinton DID look at the camera and said I never diddled that woman with a cigar. A lie under oath - and to the American people - is certainly serious business, and people are right to criticize.

That said, three important points:

1. Clinton's behavior didn't hurt anyone, outside of his family.

2. This same standard should be applied to the Bush administration, particularly Dick Cheney, and the rationale used for the run-up to the war, and long after. For Dubya, I tend to give him a break; he's an empty suit and only recites what others tell him to say.

3. I've heard ONE conservative commentator* say that Libby got what he deserved. The double standard here is incredible. The dems are no better on this score, so I'm not defending the dem position. What I am saying is this: the reeps are beyond outrageous. Its this attitude that led to their defeat in 2006, and for the reeps taking the mantle as the party of whackos and misfits.




*David Brooks on the News Hour last night said Libby deserved his punishment. He then went on to say that despite Libby's lies and obstructions, his intent was only to correct Joe Wilson's lies. LOL.

Right Wing Nutheads and Hillary Clinton - What makes them go nuts?

Greg Sargent has a great take on the latest Anti-Hillary rant by the right-wingers. This one's a classic. It seems that Drudge was running a headline Kentucky fried Hillary: NY Senator adopts southern drawl in church service.

Greg goes on:

The Drudge headline links to this audio of Hillary speaking yesterday. If you listen to it, the main thing you'll hear is Hillary speaking in a southern drawl, saying phrases that sound like her own words:
"I don't feel no ways tired..I come too far from where I started from...Nobody told me that the road would be easy...I don't believe he brought me this far to leave me."
As you can see, this clip makes it sound like Hillary is adopting not just this drawl, but this language and this down-home grammar, as her own. The righties have been waving this around to prove what a phony Hillary is. This audio was promoted by, among others, PowerlineBlog, Free Republic, Instapundit, and Fox News, which linked to it under the headline, "Will the real Hillary please speak up?"
But as always, a simple fact-check shows this latest wingnut preoccupation to be highly dishonest. The audio clip Drudge linked to cherry-picked that quote and removed it completely from its context, which would have shown that Hillary wasn't adopting this accent or grammar or language as her own at all.

Rather, it turns out that Hillary was actually quoting the hymn lyrics of someone else -- while clearly and very openly imitating (not very well, it turns out) the cadences she thought the lyrics would traditionally have been delivered in. There was nothing phony about it at all. ...

Unreal. I'm willing to bet that 99% of the right wingers haven't gotten a clue on the real deal yet.