jazzoLOG: Now What! |
Category: Articles 12 comments 13 Nov 2006 @ 11:57 by swanny : Damage Control?Well you would seem to have those wanting to do damage control and those still willing to inflict more damage. Ah but life goes on... Hope you had a good weekend swanny 13 Nov 2006 @ 16:12 by quinty : Oh, oh, there they go again the Looney Left. With their hearings and investigations. "Payback time?" Only through projection. Never mind we have suffered in silence for more than four years as the scandals have accumulated. Many of us knew Bush lied as he lied us into the war. As well as Colin Powell and Condee Rice and Rumsfeld and all the rest. No one dares whisper the "I" word. There's no need to at this time. But if the hearings and investigations take their natural course there may be a day when everyone uses it. Except those still denying that anything ever happened. When the accumulation of apparent crimes is so great that there will be no other route but impeachment. And perhaps those shouting "payback" and "unfair" today are sensitive because they recognize this danger? 13 Nov 2006 @ 18:09 by celestial : Jazz, my warning to Mr. Bush on January 01, 2005 Dear Mr. President, "Big Brother can be a harsh task master, especially when he delivers the Word ov The Father and Uncle Sam refuses to comply." In "A Public Apology" October 11, 2006 I stated, "If the United States of America permits President George Bush to retire from the presidency and collect the presidential pension, then America will be adjudged to have approved everything he has done to Iraq. Therefore, we all are just as guilty as he is." You ask, "Now what?" I declare, EVERYONE shall be punished if they do not impeach him. This nation will be humilated. We have two years left to let the world know we do not approve of what he did. Will America wise-up before it is too late? 13 Nov 2006 @ 18:45 by jerryvest : I agree but disagree that we must start with impeachment procedures. Once impeachment processes get started, we will be spending the next 2 years fighting the "R's" and the war will continue to bog us down as a nation. Let's set some priorities and get out of Iraq, then we can impeach Bush and bring the others up on charges appropriate to fit their crimes against our nation and humanity. I remember an old adage -- "Patience jackass, Patience!" (This is in no way meant to reflect on any of our posters.) 13 Nov 2006 @ 19:15 by celestial : He-Haw He-Haw I agree, we need to do it in that order. EXCELLENT PRIORTIES. Now, where is Balaam's donkey? 13 Nov 2006 @ 19:38 by jobrown : Yes, Jerry, I agree on your "in-which-order-to-go-about" -thing the Nation should go. Right on! 13 Nov 2006 @ 19:55 by celestial : The Democrats Better be listening! 13 Nov 2006 @ 19:58 by jmarc : Impeachment “An impeachable offense is whatever the majority of the House of Representatives considers it to be at any given moment in its history.” -Gerald Ford A conviction though, requires two thirds of the Senate's approval. -the constitution Considering that the dems may loose lieberman, and give a simple majority ( with cheney's tie breaking vote) back to the republicans, I think you're a long way from a conviction. You could get your show trial, as that's all it would in effect be, but that could turn out to be a public relations nightmare for the democrats in the long run. Just ask Newt Gingrich. The democrats had better come up with something better than what's been exhibited in the comments above. They are going to have to prove their mettle by actually passing some legislation that works for the american people instead of continueing down this road as the anti Bush party. Quite frankly, I don't think they can even overcome a veto. 14 Nov 2006 @ 00:16 by quinty : Curious but the world news has informed us, here, in the Land of the Free, that Rumsfeld may be indicted for war crimes in Germany. And will Bush ever be able to leave our borders? Will a warrant be sent out for his arrest by the World Court in the Hague? Will the world at large (which we constantly condescend to: note the recent UN vote on Israeli war crimes and our solitary veto) let the Twig off the Old Bush off fancy free once again? And what will George do? Buy a villa? Hang out with the rich and powerful? Parlay his position and power to build up a personal fortune in the grand old manner? (The Republicans definitely have an edge there.) There's a sense of deja vu all over again about all this. We know GWB deserves to be called up to account. But now that his party has been (temporarily?) toppled out of power he has lost his impunity. It must feel odd to him. After all, they have behaved for the past several years as if they would never have to answer. And with that kind of sense of impunity one may eventually grow to believe that one can actually get away with anything. That power is a substance in the air one can always draw closer. Since, after all, you can stomp on anyone with less power. (Joe Wilson is a good example.) Someone now , in the current Congress, even in the news media, may actually ask GWB to please explain himself. Will being "dumb" and "inexperienced" count? Can he say, "Ah gee, I didn't know. I was just a kid up from Texas when these Neoooconks hooked up with me. And showed me a thing or two about the world. How was I to know?" If there is a real indictment it might be on the American people, for buying his snake oil in the first place. That ongoing (election after election) tragedy is really sad. Duke Cunningham may be in jail, but his constituants will vote for someone just like him, sooner or later. Do i speak in the past tense? Perhaps I shouldn't. We still have a long way to go, even if most of the world is celebrating. Now we have to rely on the Democrats not to make a mess of things. Can we, should we? They come clean and purified after so many years, but how long will that last? Just like the Stygian stables - let the clean sweep begin! 14 Nov 2006 @ 10:15 by jazzolog : The President's Cock-Up As usual I want to thank you all for these comments. Before the Senate became a realization, I was quite content merely to spend the next 2 years observing House investigations. I prefer research before presentation of a bunch of bills. The last 6 years have been a dizzying spin job by a bunch of merry pranksters in the pay of pirates and buccaneers. The Treasury has been emptied and I want details on who and how...indictments, convictions, if possible---and some fines. It's impossible all this pilfering of the public trust has been legal. But if it turns out---and I think careful investigation should take time---these guys legislated and then took the money...all legal just like the Mob...then we need legislation to undo it. We will need appeals and repeals. Yes, the desperate plight of Iraq and the environment are issues that cannot wait...but I hesitate to call for a lot of legislation until we assess all the crime. So for a while I shall be content to see them all hauled before House committees on this and that and everything. I want it clear this country is scolding these people and moving them to jail cells if possible. For a scolding there is no better place to go than to Graydon Carter at Vanity Fair. The new issue arrived yesterday, and there's Brad Pitt, soaking wet in his underwear, on the cover...but if it sells magazines so people will read this column, I'm for it. Besides, let's see the neocons put one of their guys on the cover wearing something like that! Editor's Letter The President's Delicate Condition by Graydon Carter December 2006 Given the complete cock-up the president has made of his job during the past six years, I wouldn't be surprised if Bush in Rehab were the title of the next volume in Bob Woodward's topsy-turvy history of this administration. As I've said before, if the president's hitting the bottle these days, who could blame the poor fellow? He's got a catastrophic war on his hands; his budget deficits are in the stratosphere; his poll numbers are lost in the carpet somewhere; his fellow Republicans have been avoiding him in the run-up to the midterm elections as if he had just farted; he's got a sex scandal involving male pages staining the front pages and a crazy man in North Korea with a nuke who's sticking his tongue out at him. Under normal circumstances, the president could fall back on his base: Christian fundamentalists. Except that a new book by a former deputy director of the administration's religious-outreach office claims that the Bush administration fawned over dignitaries from the Christian right to their faces, then snickered behind their backs, mocking them and all but taping KICK ME signs to their jackets. Whether the president is wetting his lips or not, he might need the all-purpose alcohol excuse just to get out of the public doghouse he finds himself in. It might work for Mel Gibson. It might even work for Mark Foley. Bush in late 2008: I was drunk when I invaded Iraq—there, I've said it. Then it's off to Silver Hill for two months of drying out, followed by a book contract with Simon & Schuster, a teary confession on 60 Minutes, and the $250,000-a-pop speaking circuit. Experts differ on the subject of the president's drinking. Alcoholics Anonymous veterans of my acquaintance say that Bush is a "dry drunk"—someone who quit one day and is just holding on for dear life. My esteemed colleague Christopher Hitchens claims that the president was no more a heavy boozer than any other wealthy layabout his age—but that he used drinking as a hurdle to overcome in order to be saved by the Lord, and thereby get in good with Christian evangelicals. The Mark Foley scandal has given Americans a delightful insight into the actual values of the party of family values. As The New York Times put it in an editorial, "When there is a choice between the right thing to do and the easiest route to perpetuation of power, top Republicans always pick wrong." The Foley affair has been particularly vexing for House Speaker Dennis Hastert—a politician in the Tammany Hall ward-heeler mode that only 19th-century political cartoonist Thomas Nast could have dreamed up. When the page scandal broke, Hastert's immediate reaction was to take the lead of Sergeant Schultz in Hogan's Heroes, the popular 60s sitcom: I know nothing! The president, for his part, simply followed the tack he had taken when he told FEMA chief Michael Brown, after Hurricane Katrina had leveled New Orleans, that "Brownie" was doing a "heck of a job." As the swirling Foley scandal began to center on exactly when Hastert had first been informed about the congressman's indiscretions, Bush told reporters, "Denny is very credible, as far as I'm concerned. And he's done a fine job as Speaker." A fine job, I suppose, as long as you don't happen to be a teenage male page being sexually stalked via e-mail by a Republican congressman from Florida—the pivotal state in the 2000 election. Foley himself was quickly hustled offstage to rehab for the duration of the election, but not before playing another card in his effort to get back into the public's good graces: he said that he had been abused as a teenage altar boy, and went on to identify the priest who did it. Party mandarins were uncharacteristically sympathetic about Foley's lurid tale. Can you imagine what would have happened if he hadn't been a Republican? (In a momentary bout of wishful thinking, Fox News's O'Reilly Factor even briefly labeled Foley a Democrat.) One shudders to even contemplate his fate at the hands of the Bible-thumping Republican attack squads were it so. That Foley was chairman of the Congressional Missing and Exploited Children's Caucus is an absurdist jolt of irony that even a writer of fiction wouldn't go near. The other irony that is difficult to overlook is that the party that, in the 2004 presidential election, so manipulated the issue of traditional morality got mired itself in a truly tawdry Capitol Hill sex scandal just weeks before another election. And tawdry it is. In one instant-message exchange with a teenage male page, Foley said that he had masturbated while waiting to cast a vote in the House. When it's time for C-SPAN to issue parental advisories, you know that Washington has become overly louche. In many respects, it's like 1968–72 all over again, when American opinion about the Vietnam War took a permanent downturn following the Tet offensive. You've got the good Dr. Henry Kissinger back roaming the White House's corridors of power, spouting the same catastrophic bilge he did during Vietnam. You've also got a possible what-did-they-know-and-when-did-they-know-it? cover-up (the Watergate break-in then; the Foley-Hastert scandal now). And, as it was during Nixon's final innings, you've got a president who may well be as mad as a hatter—isolated, deluded, and paranoid. In his latest book, State of Denial, Bob Woodward reported the president saying that, even if it comes down to just Laura and the family dog Barney believing in him, he's still going to hang in there on Iraq. Funny, but that doesn't seem to me like a fitting statement by the head of a representative democracy. I suggest that after the 2008 election—after the president has sold his hobby ranch in Crawford—he, Laura, and Barney should head to Anbar Province and "stay the course" there. Bush is not alone in his delusions. Coming very close to Einstein's definition of madness (doing the same thing over and over again, but expecting a different result), the vice president told Tim Russert on Meet the Press that not only was Iraq the right thing to do, but "if we had it to do over again, we'd do exactly the same thing." There is one marked difference between Iraq and Vietnam: the number of major books on the subject during the period of the war. In the decade that American troops slogged it out in the jungles of Southeast Asia, just two books on the conflict made it onto the New York Times best-seller list: David Halberstam's epic The Best and the Brightest and Frances FitzGerald's Fire in the Lake. And those hit the list just months before the signing of the Paris Peace Accords, in January 1973, which ended the U.S. involvement in the war. Other masterpieces, such as Michael Herr's Dispatches, didn't come out until four years later. In the past three years, the Times best-seller list has been littered with numerous books about the Iraq war. In addition to State of Denial (and Woodward's two previous books, Bush at War and Plan of Attack), there is Cobra II: The Inside Story of the Invasion and Occupation of Iraq, by Michael R. Gordon and Bernard E. Trainor, and Fiasco: The Military Adventure in Iraq, by Thomas E. Ricks. There is also Frank Rich's The Greatest Story Ever Sold: The Decline and Fall of Truth from 9/11 to Katrina, and Michael Isikoff and David Corn's Hubris: The Inside Story of Spin, Scandal, and the Selling of the Iraq War. Also on bookshelves: Blind into Baghdad: America's War in Iraq, by James Fallows, The End of Iraq: How American Incompetence Created a War Without End, by Peter W. Galbraith, The Assassins' Gate: America in Iraq, by George Packer, and The Fall of Baghdad, by Jon Lee Anderson. (And that's not even counting books such as Ron Suskind's two best-sellers The Price of Loyalty and The One Percent Doctrine, which drilled down into the administration's incompetence in general.) If sales and titles are any indication, it is going to be a long and brutal conflict. As Election Day loomed, Bush was taking a page from that classic episode of the British TV sitcom Fawlty Towers when the Germans came to stay at the hotel, and Basil ran around telling Sybil and Polly, "Don't mention the war!" Not Bush, nor Cheney, nor Rumsfeld has yet to attend the funeral of a single U.S. soldier killed in action. And they've had upwards of 2,800 chances in the past three and a half years. "Ultimately, when this chapter of history will be written, however, it's going to be a comma," the president famously declared this fall about the Iraq debacle. A comma. Unless you happen to be one of the fallen—in which case, it's most certainly a period. Leaders of the U.S. and British military have declared the administration's strategy a disaster. And who could argue: Iraq was the result of insufficient diplomacy, insufficient due diligence, insufficient planning, and insufficient ground troops. It was a war done on the cheap that has cost us dearly and will for decades to come. The president still commands official respect in his international travels, but it is the respect you accord the 17-year-old with a Kalashnikov rifle. British prime minister Tony Blair has been ridiculed at home for his slavish devotion to Bush, and has been all but hounded from office, announcing this fall that he will step down sometime next year. Aside from Saddam, he is the only leader the U.S. has managed to topple since the war on terror began. The other side isn't faring much better. It could safely be said that Iraqis are dying at a faster clip since the American-led invasion and occupation than they did during the last decade of Saddam Hussein's rule. A team from the Johns Hopkins Bloomberg School of Public Health released a study building on a 2004 survey by the British medical journal The Lancet that sought to determine the Iraqi death toll since the war began. In a door-to-door survey covering 1,849 households, the Johns Hopkins study estimated that as of July 2006, 650,000 Iraqis had died as a result of the war—an overwhelming majority of them from gunfire. That's 20 times the number the Bush administration has been claiming. NBC News reported that coffin-makers in Baghdad have been working around the clock to meet demand. That's Bush-era diplomacy and economics in a nutshell. Graydon Carter is the editor of Vanity Fair. His books include What We've Lost (Farrar, Straus and Giroux) and Oscar Night: 75 Years of Hollywood Parties (Knopf). http://www.vanityfair.com/magazine/2006/12/graydon200612 14 Nov 2006 @ 18:30 by quinty : Pelosi and the "I" word Pelosi taking impeachment "off the table" may have been a purely political move on her part. To calm the agitated nerves of uncertain voters before the election. Those of us who sometimes listen to the creatures of the night sing are familiar with the apocolyptic soundings with which rightwing talkshow hosts describe the "San Francisco liberal" (who will undoubtedly intrude a gay man within the sheets between you and your spouse) who will be Speaker. Ie, Pelosi. And how these hotheads on the looney left (John Conyers especially) will surely impeach our beloved president. If they don't crucify him first upside down. In their world this is known as the "unthinkable." But those of us who have quietly watched (well, not always quietly) from the sidelines over the past several years know that the mountain heap of felonies, crimes, and misdemeaners the Bush administration has perpetrated can not be easily swept under the rug. No matter how reliant on the power of faith Bush's unflinching supporters are. (Just wish it and it will be....like WMD.) I suspect Pelosi, a shrewd lady if there ever was one, knows full well that the evidence may eventually become overwhelming. And that impeachment proceedings will in due course be inevitable. That is, if the hearings are allowed to proceed normally. But I think we should become accustomed to the chorus of the right: that hearings, accountability, oversight are only liberal "payback." There was Republican resistance against impeaching Nixon, too. Until finally the evidence became so overwhelming that even they broke down too. 14 Nov 2006 @ 19:24 by celestial : I see on the horizon Not one but two clouds in the shape of large mushrooms over America. One was east of the Mississippi and one was west of the Mississippi. Get your hearts right with your creator and do it quick! Other entries in Articles 4 Jan 2009 @ 11:04: Pray For George Bush 5 Aug 2008 @ 19:24: A Shocking Indictment 18 Apr 2008 @ 10:02: Jeff Goodell Shines The Light On Big Coal 2 Feb 2008 @ 12:59: The Tough One: Population 20 Nov 2007 @ 02:23: Who Will Be US President In 2015? 6 Aug 2007 @ 11:40: America The Vindictive 5 May 2007 @ 10:44: The 6th Great Die-Off 4 Apr 2007 @ 09:58: Iran/Iraq: Oil's Final Trickle 4 Feb 2007 @ 06:50: Government For Sale 3 Aug 2006 @ 11:06: Fundamental Madness
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