WTF Is It Now?!?

One of the Lazy W's cows eagerly waits for the start
of his owner's one-month vacation.


QUOTE
"The president could not have reassured anybody yesterday when he said he remained committed to making his fiscally disastrous 10-year tax cuts permanent. It seemed especially surreal to mention this, as he did, after saying that he would ask Congress to show some fiscal restraint." - From a NY Times op-ed.



SPRINGTIME FOR HITLER, cont.
Defense Secretary Donald Rumsfeld has ordered an acceleration in covert missions in the U.S.-led "war on terrorism" because he is impatient with the pace at which al Qaeda fighters are being captured or killed, The Moonie Washington Times reported today. These new operations will be outside restrictions of traditional law enforcement.

"Rumsfeld wants to stay as far away from law enforcement as possible" one source told the paper, adding that the defense secretary wanted "new thinking." - Yahoo news.


BOMBING FOR POLL NUMBERS - THE CONTINUING SAGA
It's the middle of a Bush administration, so it must be time to distract a recession-battered public with saber-rattling tirades equating Iraqi leader Saddam Hussein with Adolf Hitler. How else can Bush get his approval rating back up from 65 to 92 percent?

The rationale for attacking Iraq changes by the day, according to administration insiders. First came the unfinished-business argument: Saddam invaded Kuwait in 1990, used chemical gas and remains a threat in the Middle East. Never mind that the Iraqi dictator worked for our CIA when he did that stuff, and that nothing worse has transpired in the last 12 years than garden-variety Third World repression. Then Bush declared Iraq a member of an "Axis of Evil" along with Iran and North Korea, unrelated countries that share neither common ideological nor geopolitical aims. Finally, Defense Secretary Donald Rumsfeld implied a link between Iraq and Al Qaeda in planning September 11th. Rummy says "absolute proof" isn't necessary to justify an invasion, which merely confirms that they don't have any.

"[The Bushies] don't seem to have a cohesive message to describe the threat," a U.S. government analyst commented to Reuters' Carol Giacomo. "They seem to be throwing things at the wall to see what might stick and nothing's taking hold."

As if it wasn't bad enough that we have no moral justification for or strategic interest in attacking Iraq, the Bushies' irresponsible war talk is hurting an economy already battered by accounting scandals, the dot-com hangover and fleeing foreign investment. War rhetoric and the resulting increased threat of terrorist attacks against the U.S. are driving up oil prices and making markets more volatile, says Allen Sinai, chief global economist at Decision Economics in Boston. "An invasion of Iraq raises a huge number of unanswered questions, and that kind of uncertainty is deadly for financial markets." - From Ted Rall's column, at yahoo news.