Malkin = Fearmongerer

Ken AshfordRight Wing Punditry/Idiocy, War on Terrorism/TortureLeave a Comment

Excitable rightwing blogger and occasional-Bill-O’Reilly-substitute-on-Fox Michelle Malkin castigates NY Mayor Bloomberg and New Yorkers in general for being "ostriches" about the whole foiled JFK bombing plot.  What set Malkin off?  This quote from Bloomberg:

"There are lots of threats to you in the world. There’s the threat of a heart attack for genetic reasons. You can’t sit there and worry about everything. Get a life."

And that’s why Malkin took Bloomberg to task, calling him an ostrich.

This metaphor is stupid.  Bloomberg’s sentiments are not ostrich-like.  An ostrich sticks his head in the ground because he is afraid of threats.  Does Bloomberg’s quote sound like he is afraid?  No, just the opposite.

Sorry, but the frightened one is Malkin.

The Mahablog (in NYC) has the proper retort to the fear-baiting whines of Lulu (Malkin’s nickname):

The Usual Screechers, naturally, are outraged. Michelle Malkin says non-worriers are “ostriches.” “Add NYC mayor Michael Bloomberg to the gathering of ostriches,” she sneers.

In other words, according to Lulu, if one is not living in a constant state of terror, one is an “ostrich.”

I’ve got news for you, toots: People can’t live that way. And some of us, you know, live here. And if we choose to stay here, we must expose our precious flesh to the dangers of subways and tunnels and bridges and high-rise office buildings and Muslim taxi drivers every single damn day.

But just because we are not in a constant state of mind-numbing, inchoate fear, does not mean we are not mindful of what can happen. A whole lot of of watched the worst that terrorism can do with our own eyes. We were not sitting safely in our living rooms watching a little picture on a television. We were there. We lived with it. And we lived with the shrines and the smell and the sorrow for weeks after.

Believe me, you don’t forget something like that.

***

As I wrote a couple of days ago, I’m very happy that law enforcement is watching our airports so vigilantly that even half-assed plots are nipped in the bud. I fly into and out of New York City airports from time to time.

However, I don’t see anything useful about fear-mongering. Fear does have its uses, of course. If you confront a snarling dog, for example, fear gives you that nice shot of adrenaline that might help you climb a tree to safety. But the reality of modern life is that most of the scary things we face are things we can’t run away from. If we’re going to live our lives as we choose to live them, fear is an obstacle that must be overcome. Stirring up more fear isn’t helping anyone.

Well, stirring up fear only helps those politicians who benefit from fear.  You know the drill: "The evil bad terrorists want you kill you and your family.  I’m the daddy who will protect you.  So vote for me."

Here’s a final thought:

Remember, the whole point of terrorism is to sow terror. Every time a conservative or the Bush Adminsitration freaks out at a potential act of terrorism, the terrorists win. They don’t actually have to set off the bomb, they just need to scare people. So every freak out is a victory for the enemy. Fox News? One of the terrorists’ biggest allies. The Bush Administration? The terrorists couldn’t have done it without them. And those “manly men” conservatives that are perpetually wetting themselves in fear?

Well, when even the most hapless, incompetent, laughably unworkable plots [Note: the JFK "terrorist plot" falls into this category] get them riled up in a tizzy, you don’t even need competent terrorists to be effective.

Conservatives are truly the terrorists’ greatest allies.

– Markos Moulitsas Zuniga, aka "Kos"

Michelle Malkin and her terrorized bedwetter buddies need to shut up.

Outside The System

Ken AshfordAttorney FiringsLeave a Comment

Released yesterday:

Goodlingmemo

She wanted the memo giving her unprecedented and virtually unchecked hiring and firing authority over non-civil service DoJ employees (the existence of this memo was revealed only last month by Murray Waas of the National Journal).

Moreover, she okayed the memo to be sent to her "outside the system".  Why would she ask that?  Because she knew that it was, shall we say, not kosher.

Flashback to Monica’s testimony before Congress a few weeks ago:

"I believe I crossed the line, but I didn’t mean to"

Not "mean to"?  Honey, when you take steps to cover up what you did, then you know it was wrong.

Think Progress has more.

Ignoring The Evidence

Ken AshfordIraqLeave a Comment

Bob Geiger:

Which makes the report issued by the Senate Intelligence Committee before the Memorial Day holiday even more interesting because Prewar Intelligence Assessments About Postwar Iraq (PDF) shows not only that Shinseki was right about troop levels, but also — as if more evidence is needed — that the Bush administration ignored critical pre-war intelligence in their rush to invade Iraq.

The report, which the previous Republican Congress successfully kept from being produced for two years, shows that months before the Iraq invasion, the White House knew from U.S. intelligence agencies that a civil war would likely erupt after Saddam’s ouster, that al-Qaeda would quickly move to exploit the American occupation and that Osama bin Laden’s organization would actually gain strength globally due to Bush’s action.

"Prior to sending troops to Iraq, the Bush Administration promoted the terrorist nexus between Iraq and al-Qa’ida (and the attacks of 9/11) as a central part of its case to the American people that Iraq posed an imminent threat that only military action could extinguish, despite the Intelligence Community’s view that Iraq and al-Qa’ida viewed each other with suspicion and were not operationally linked," said Senate Intelligence Committee Chairman Jay Rockefeller (D-WV) in the report.

"What the Administration also kept from the American people were the sobering intelligence assessments it received at the time warning that the post-war transition could allow al-Qa’ida to establish the presence in Iraq and opportunity to strike at American it did not have prior to the invasion."

The report reinforced Shinseki’s original contention — which further bolsters the image of a Bush White House that wanted to do the war their way regardless of expert opinion — that up to 400,000 troops might be required to "keep the peace" after the initial invasion due to a severely damaged national infrastructure and the virtual certainty of sectarian violence.

"Sunni Arabs would face possible loss of their longstanding privileged position while Shia would seek power commensurate with their majority status," says the report. "Kurds could try to take advantage of Saddam’s departure by seizing some of the large northern oilfields, a move that would elicit forceful responses from Sunni Arabs. Score-settling would occur throughout Iraq between those associated with Saddam’s regime and those who have suffered most under it."

The report also pointed out that with such an overwhelming U.S. focus on maintaining the Iraq occupation, Osama bin Laden and Company would be allowed to flourish and operate with greater ease in other countries, saying that the White House should expect "…many countries — including some US allies — to slacken efforts to hunt down al-Qa’ida and its associates within their borders."

And now that the Congress is in Democratic hands and once again back to the business of actually performing their Constitutional oversight role, the Intelligence Committee’s report makes very clear that George W. Bush got ample warning that an Iraq invasion would require far greater military might than they had planned and that the action itself would embolden the terrorists — as the GOP has so often accused those now against the war of doing.

History will show that the U.S. intellegence agencies got it right about Iraq.  And the Bush Administration ignored them.

Drop Dead Gorgeous

Ken AshfordPopular CultureLeave a Comment

An interesting art exhibit by an artist named Daniela Edburg, showing women dying at the hands of food (mostly).

Below is Death by Gummi Bears:

09

Like a lot of art, I’m not sure I "get" it, but I am intrigued by it.  The artist explains her work:

It’s not really about the products, but the relationship of love and then hate that we have with them. When you look at a beautiful package of Oreos everything is new and shiny and attractive, and there is the promise of the sweetness and the pleasure, and then you go and open it and eat it and all you have are a stomachache, crumbs and garbage.

Well, ooookay then!

The “Bush-Is-A-Liberal” Meme

Ken AshfordBush & Co., Republicans, Right Wing Punditry/IdiocyLeave a Comment

Two great back-to-back posts by Glenn Greenwald — here and here — about the current "great rightwing fraud to repudiate George W. Bush". 

His thesis?  That the conservative moment, upon (finally) admitting the failures of the Bush Administration, are now trying to prop up the theme that "Bush is not a real conservative" or — amazingly — that "Bush is actually a liberal".  (Here’s a popular hardcore conservative denouncing Bush’s "neo-socialist" programs!)

Well researched and written, Greenwald’s pieces are a must-read:

The great fraud being perpetrated in our political discourse is the concerted attempt by movement conservatives, now that the Bush presidency lay irreversibly in ruins, to repudiate George Bush by claiming that he is not, and never has been, a "real conservative." This con game is being perpetrated by the very same conservatives who — when his presidency looked to be an epic success — glorified George W. Bush, ensured both of his election victories, depicted him as the heroic Second Coming of Ronald Reagan, and celebrated him as the embodiment of True Conservatism.

***

What is going on here, quite transparently, is not any assertion by conservatives of their alleged "principles," but rather a craven rehabilitation project. Bush’s presidency cannot be salvaged, but the reputation of conservatives and conservatism can be — but only by separating the former from the latter.

In his second post, he concludes:

One of the few things more dishonest than the administration itself is the conservative movement which built and sustained it and now wants to pretend that it didn’t.

Greenwald has many examples, including this:

Jonah Goldberg, May 29, 2007 (Bush approval rating – 32%)

Bush, The Liberal [Jonah Goldberg]

Richard Cohen discovers something some of us on the right have been saying for a while: if you hold your head just so and look at Bush from the right angle, he looks an awful lot like a liberal.

Jonah Goldberg, November 8, 2003 (Bush approval rating – 60%)

But it is now clear that Bush’s own son takes far more after his father’s old boss than he does his own father, at least politically speaking. From tax cuts (and deficits, alas), to his personal conviction on aborrtion (sic), to aligning America with the historical tide of liberty in the world, Georrge (sic) W. Bush has proved that he’s a Reaganite, not a "Bushie."

Of course, as Greenwald notes, this was somewhat predictable, and people such as Digby knew it over a year ago when he wrote:

"Conservative" is a magic word that applies to those who are in other conservatives’ good graces. Until they aren’t. At which point they are liberals.

Six years ago, conservatives got the hardcore conservative president that they wanted since 1992 (and possibly even 1988).  He was able to operate for most of the years with a conservative majority in Congress, and a compliant timid Democrat opposition.  In other words, conservatives ruled the day.  The fact that things are not going well in this country, and the war, cannot be blamed on any political ideology other than the one that has been in place since the beginning of the millenium.

But watch for more of the "Bush ain’t conservative" meme in the weeks and months to follow.

Breaking News: Iraq War Not Just A “Civil” Internal One Anymore

Ken AshfordBreaking News, IraqLeave a Comment

Turkey invaded?  Oh, great.

UPDATE:  Avarosis gives the 30-second background and analysis about the possible implications:

In a nutshell, Turkey is worried, has been worried, about the Kurds in northern Iraq. (You’ll recall that Iraq is mainly made up of three groups, Kurds, Sunnis and Shias.) Turkey has a good number of Kurds in eastern Turkey – 20% of Turkey’s entire population is Kurdish, and 50% of the entire Kurdish diaspora is in Turkey. Some of those Kurds started a violent separatist movement in the 1980s…

Turkey does not want to see the Kurds in northern Iraq gain their independence, lest the Kurds in Turkey choose to join them, splitting Turkey in two and leading to all-out civil war. But if Turkey invades Iraq in order to quell the anti-Turk insurgents there, the question remains as to how many troops Turkey will send, how far into Iraq they will go, and just how long they plan to stay. Will Turkey effectively annex northern Iraq? And what will that do to US efforts to quell the growing civil war nationwide? In effect, we’d have yet another all-out war to deal with in the north. And it’s not clear whose side we’d choose – Turkey is a NATO ally and we could not accept the division of Turkey, but are we really going to start down the path of dividing up Iraq, which not only could make the current civil war explode even bigger, it could end up creating a Shia state that sides with Iran.

UPDATE:  Details still sketchy.  In fact, the Kurds are denying they’ve been invaded (yet).

Where Kangaroos Came From

Ken AshfordEducation, GodstuffLeave a Comment

How did kangaroos, indiginous to Australia only, survive the Great Flood depicted in the Bible?  Were they on Noah’s Ark?

Fortunately, Conservapedia (the conservative alternative to wikipedia) has the answer:

Their entry on kangaroos, for instance, says that, "like all modern animals . . . kangaroos are the descendants of the two founding members of the modern kangaroo baramin that were taken aboard Noah’s Ark prior to the Great Flood."

You may not recognize the word "baramin." It’s a 20th-century creationist neologism that refers to the species God placed on earth during Creation Week.

***

"After the Flood, these kangaroos bred from the Ark passengers migrated to Australia. There is debate whether this migration happened over land with lower sea levels during the post-flood ice age, or before the supercontinent of Pangea broke apart, or if they rafted on mats of vegetation torn up by the receding flood waters."

Who knew?

Who knew indeed.  Somehow, I love the image of an armada of kangaroos traveling on grass mats from Mount Ararat (in Turkey) to Australia, a sea journey of over 8,000 miles.  It must have taken a lot of discipline for those kangaroos not to eat their rafts.

RELATED:  The newly-opened Creation Museum is looking for a geologist.  To get the job, you have to, among other things, adhere to their Statement of Faith:

No apparent, perceived or claimed evidence in any field, including history and chronology, can be valid if it contradicts the Scriptural record.

Apparently, an actual degree in geology is only "preferred".

“The Check Is In The Mail” And Other Excuses

Ken AshfordIraqLeave a Comment

Six months ago yesterday, we were told (for the umpteenth time) that things in Iraq were just about to get better:

BAGHDAD, Iraq Dec 5, 2006 (AP)

The U.S. military expects all of Iraq to be under the control of Iraqi forces by mid-2007, the top American military spokesman in the country said Tuesday.

"We would expect to see the entire country having reached provincial Iraqi control by early fall of next year," Maj. Gen. William Caldwell said at a news conference. "We should see the complete transfer of command and control of all Iraqi army divisions by late spring, early summer."
…

Al-Maliki, in an interview with ABC the day of the summit, said Iraqi forces would be ready.

"I can tell you that by next June, our forces will take over the security of the country," he said.

Well, here it is in June — six months (and 615 dead Americans) later.  And what does General Petreus say?

We haven’t started the surge — the full surge — yet. So let me have a few months.

Groan.

Gas Price Watch

Ken AshfordDisastersLeave a Comment

Think gas prices are bad now?  Well, look what’s bearing down on the Middle East:

Gulfhurricaneiran

That’s a category five, and its heading for Oman and Iran — two oil-producing countries.  These places haven’t been hit with a storm like this in 60 years, so they’re not even close to being prepared.

From an oil blog:

Considering the region has never experienced a hurricane, let alone a strong one it is highly unlikely the loading facilities or platforms were constructed to withstand the forces – both wave action and wind force – that they will experience. Significant, damage will occur. How much long term damage, and the volumes associated with it – can not be determined at this time.

Hi There!

Ken AshfordBlogging, Bush & Co., Election 2008Leave a Comment

Such an interesting week politically — two NH Democratic debates, another GOP debate, Scooter getting jail time.  And I’ve been on the sidelines for all of it.  Probably just as well — I can keep my two cents and donate to a worthy cause.

Sad news about Steven Gilliard, a popular liberal blogger — he passed away this weekend at the age of 42.  Nice write-up in the New York Times.  He was one of the original writers at what has become the most popular political blog of all-time, Daily Kos — long before 95% of the country knew what a blog even was — and he’s one of the very few who actually made a living as a political blogger.

Interesting new data from the Pew Research Center.  It shows Bush at his lowest approval rating (29%) for their polls (this hardly qualifies as "news" anymore).  My favorite graph shows the drop he has among his "base" — the evangelical Christians:

33412

What was interesting was the recent Democratic debate held by the "liberal" Christian group, the Sojourners.  It wasn’t a debate as much as a "forum", with only three candidates (Clinton, Obama, and Edwards) in attendance.  I think it is good, and smart, for the Democrats to address religion.  And it apparently made an effective broad-based impact, even on some Christian conservatives.

The Pew poll also shows that actor Fred Thompson has widespread Republican appeal.  I think it is a mistake for those of us on the left side of the aisle to dismiss him (as some already have).  I think Guiliani is a time bomb waiting to crash in approval, and Thompson will fill in the gap.  I think he will be the GOP candidate for President, and this new data supports that notion.  He’s also benefitting from not debating, as the others in the GOP pack are now doing.

Anyway, things have slowed up at work, and maybe I can pick up my blogging pace (seeing as how, you know, there ain’t much else to do at the moment).