Bush flip-flops again

The United States signaled its readiness to put up with an Islamic theocracy in future sovereign Iraq, with Secretary of State Colin Powell saying the US administration "will have to accept" any government created as a result of free and fair elections there.

The remark, made in an interview with NBC television, marked a policy reversal for the administration of George W. Bush, which up to now had vowed to fight tooth and nail any attempt by Iraqi Shiite leaders to follow in the footsteps of their brethren in Iran.

RimJob's circlejerking freetards have gone absolutely batshit:

The US should force them to choose pluralistic democracy. Period.

I agree, and I'm glad somebody here has the won-tons to say it! We should make absolutely certain, by covert means if necessary, to make sure this country is a democracy.

We put all of this effort, blood, money and tears into Iraq, and rebuild it too, just so we can go back and blow it all up again?

Jebus.

In other news

U.S. Battles Shiites in Iraq; 5 GIs Die

Rumsfeld Approved Iraq Interrogation Plan

Knowledge of Abusive Tactics May Go Higher

United States Adds Afghanistan to the Axis of Forced Sodomy

Red Cross Report Criticizes Guantanamo Prison

Evidence May Prove Berg's Execution Video Was a Fake

US Pushes World Court Immunity Amid Iraq Scandal

and Jebus, about time:

Poll: Bush Job Approval Hits New Low

Update: Senator Pat Leahy is demanding that Rumsfeld must produce the videos of the 'brutal attacks on Guantanamo Bay' prisoners this week.

George W. now has his own sex scandal
Maureen Dowd explains:

The administration's demented quest to conquer Arab hearts and minds has dissolved in a torrent of pornography denigrating other parts of the Arab anatomy. George Bush, who swept into office on a cloud of moral umbrage now has his own sex scandal -- one with far greater implications than titillating cigar jokes. {...snip...}

Officials blurred the lines to justify ideological decisions, calling every Iraqi who opposed us a "terrorist"; conducting rough interrogations, perhaps to find the nonexistent WMD so they would not look foolish; rolling all opposition into one scary terrorist ball that did not require sensitivity to the Geneva Conventions or "humanitarian do-gooders," to use the phrase of Sen. James Inhofe, a Republican.

In a related story, Tony 'Piddles' Blair and the Squinting Moron will visit Baghdad 'in a desperate bid to quell mounting anger over the treatment of Iraqi prisoners.

'They fear the scandal over the torture of captives by US and British troops is threatening to wreck the coalition mission and destabilise the Middle East.'

Did Hell freeze over??
"There is something even more important to the Bush crowd than getting Iraq right, and that's getting re-elected and staying loyal to the conservative base to do so. It has always been more important for the Bush folks to defeat liberals at home than Baathists abroad." - from an article by I guess former Bush toady Tom Friedman.

WTF?!?

Heh
Palm Beach Post columnist tells hypocrite/junkie Rush Limbaugh to grow up.

The face of evil
...needing his next fix real bad (thanks to sheeptramp).

Powell criticizes Arab governments
Secretary of state says response to Berg killing insufficient

Oh fer.... as if we're not hated enough...

Secretary of State Colin Powell scolded Arab governments Sunday for not expressing more outrage over the videotaped beheading of American civilian Nick Berg in Iraq.

He also said Arab leaders need to reform their own societies.

Whoa
An aide to Colin Powell ordered a halt to an interview and directed a camera to shoot a palm tree during "provocative questioning" by Meet the Press's Tim Russert.

Transcript from drudge:

TIM RUSSERT: Finally, Mr. Secretary, in February of 2003, you placed your enormous personal credibility before the United Nations and laid out a case against Saddam Hussein, citing.

(Camera moved off of interview subject)

EMILY MILLER, STATE DEPARTMENT PRESS AIDE: You're off.

SECRETARY POWELL: I am not off.

EMILY MILLER, PRESS AIDE: No. They can't use it, they're editing it.

SECRETARY POWELL: He's still asking the questions.

EMILY MILLER, PRESS AIDE: He was not ...

SECRETARY POWELL: Tim, I am sorry I lost you.

MR. RUSSERT: I am right here Mr. Secretary. I would hope they would put you back on camera. I don't know who did that.

EMILY MILLER, PRESS AIDE: He was going to go for another five minutes.

SECRETARY POWELL: We've really scre... {"screwed"? As in "we've really screwed up in Iraq" or "we've really screwed the American people"? - huh. Ed.}

MR. RUSSERT: I think that was one of your staff Mr. Secretary. I don't think that's appropriate.

SECRETARY POWELL: Emily, get out of the way. Bring the camera back please. (Camera returns to the interview subject) I think we're back on Tim, go ahead with your last question.

MR. RUSSERT: Thank you very much, sir. In February of 2003, you put your enormous personal reputation on the line before the United Nations and said that you had solid sources for the case against Saddam Hussein. It now appears that an agent called "Curve Ball" had misled the CIA by suggesting that Saddam had trucks and trains that were delivering biological chemical weapons. How concerned are you that some of the information you shared with the world is now inaccurate and discredited?

SECRETARY POWELL: I'm very concerned. When I made that presentation in February 2003, it was based on the best information that the Central Intelligence Agency made available to me. We studied it carefully. We looked at the sourcing and the case of the mobile trucks and trains. There was multiple sourcing for that. Unfortunately, that multiple sourcing over time has turned out to be not accurate, and so I'm deeply disappointed.

But I'm also comfortable that at the time that I made the presentation it reflected the collective judgment, the sound judgment, of the intelligence community, but it turned out that the sourcing was inaccurate and wrong and, in some cases, deliberately misleading. And for that I'm disappointed, and I regret it.

MR. RUSSERT: Mr. Secretary, we thank you very much for joining us again and sharing your views with us today.

MR. RUSSERT: AND THAT WAS AN UNEDITED INTERVIEW WITH THE SECRETARY OF STATE, TAPED EARLIER THIS MORNING FROM JORDAN.

WE APPRECIATE SECRETARY POWELL'S WILLINGNESS TO OVERRULE HIS PRESS AIDES' ATTEMPT TO ABRUPTLY CUT OFF OUR DISCUSSION AS I BEGAN TO ASK MY FINAL QUESTION.

Under a blood-soaked flag
'George Bush has defined himself as a war president, and it's fitting that he should die by the sword - in fact fall on it, and quick.'

The irreducible truth is that the invasion of Iraq was the worst blunder, the most staggering miscarriage of judgment, the most fateful, egregious, deceitful abuse of power in the history of American foreign policy. If you don't believe it yet, just keep watching.

Since the defining moment of the Bush presidency, the preposterous flight-suit, Fox News-produced photo-op on the Abraham Lincoln in front of the banner that read "Mission Accomplished," the shaming truth is that everything has gone wrong. Just as it was bound to go wrong, as many of us predicted it would go wrong--if anything more hopelessly wrong than any of us would have dared to prophesy. Iraq is an epic train wreck, and there's not a single American citizen who's going to walk away unscathed.

Somewhere in hell, Goering and Goebbels toasted each other with a schnapps.

Holy crap. A must-read by Hal Crowther.

Busted!
Sy Hersch pulls the rug out from under Rummy

“Some people think you can bullshit anyone.”

The roots of the Abu Ghraib prison scandal lie not in the criminal inclinations of a few Army reservists but in a decision, approved last year by Secretary of Defense Donald Rumsfeld, to expand a highly secret operation, which had been focussed on the hunt for Al Qaeda, to the interrogation of prisoners in Iraq.

Rumsfeld "authorized the establishment of a highly secret program that was given blanket advance approval to kill or capture and, if possible, interrogate 'high value' targets in the Bush Administration’s war on terror."

According to interviews with several past and present American intelligence officials, the Pentagon’s operation, known inside the intelligence community by several code words, including Copper Green, encouraged physical coercion and sexual humiliation of Iraqi prisoners in an effort to generate more intelligence about the growing insurgency in Iraq.

“The White House subcontracted this to the Pentagon, and the Pentagon subcontracted it to Cambone (Stephen Cambone, Under-Secretary of Defense for Intelligence - a new office that had been created by Rumsfeld). “This is Cambone’s deal, but Rumsfeld and Myers approved the program.”

- snipped from Sy Hersch's new piece in The New Yorker.

Not pissed-off enough yet?
Here. Let me help:

Bush had three opportunities, long before the war, to destroy a terrorist camp in northern Iraq run by Abu Musab Zarqawi, the al-Qaida associate who recently cut off the head of Nicholas Berg. But the White House decided not to carry out the attack because, as the story puts it:

[T]he administration feared [that] destroying the terrorist camp in Iraq could undercut its case for war against Saddam.

The implications of this are more shocking, in their way, than the news from Abu Ghraib. Bush promoted the invasion of Iraq as a vital battle in the war on terrorism, a continuation of our response to 9/11. Here was a chance to wipe out a high-ranking terrorist. And Bush didn't take advantage of it because doing so might also wipe out a rationale for invasion.

The story gets worse.

Oh man...
Did a post by one of RimJob's frothing, masturbatory troglodytes cause Nick Berg's arrest?

"The family firm of beheaded American Nick Berg, was named by a conservative website in a list of 'enemies' of the Iraq occupation. That could explain his arrest by Iraqi police -a detention which fatally delayed his planned return from Iraq and may have led directly to his death.

New research by BreakForNews has uncovered a plausible explanation. The FreeRepublic.com web site has a reputation for right-wing views, fanatical Republicanism and relentless pro-war activism. On 7th March, 2004 an 'enemies' list of anti-war groups and individuals was posted on the Free Republic forum. It began: 'Here you are, FReepers. Here is the enemy.'... Among those listed as having endorsed the call to action was this entry: 'Michael S. Berg, Teacher, Prometheus Methods Tower Service, Inc.' That's Nick Berg's father."

Effing typos...

Follow-up
The city of La Crosse is going to bill the Bush/Cheney campaign nearly $50,000 for expenses incurred during the fascist punk's rally there last week.

"If this was John Kerry, I suspect that Republicans would be furious if we subsidized (his visit)," said Mayor John Medinger. "These are rallies, and we have to treat them the same."

Dubuque and Prairie du Chien also plan to bill. - from the La Crosse Trib.

USA Today founder says the 'self-proclaimed "war president"' should NOT run for 're'election

Maybe Bush should take a cue from a fellow Texan, former president Lyndon Baines Johnson, who also had some cowboy characteristics.

LBJ, after mismanaging the Vietnam War that so bitterly divided the nation and the world, decided he owed it to his political party and to his country not to run for re-election. So, he turned tail and rode off into the sunset of his Texas ranch.

Fun fact: USA Today is owned by Gannett, which is a primarily Republican corporation.

Milestones
Things I'm waiting for this spring:
1. The first hummingbird of the season
2. The big cicada invasion
3. Fireflies
4. The pea harvest
5. Signs that our box turtle is still alive in the garden. Hopefully the two rows of pea plants that never made it is a good clue.

Sigh. Condo compares terrists to the KKK
Wothless national 'security' advisor Condoliar Rice, speaking at Vanderbilt University's Senior Class Day on Thursday, said that terrorists 'are driven by the same hatred' that inspired Klansmen.

Ironically, some students and faculty had signed a petition to protest Rice's selection, describing her as a "person who repeatedly misrepresented the truth to tragic effect."

Sex, lies, and videotape
'The American public continues to be deluged by an endless series of big lies.'

Initially, we were misled into war based on president Bush's assertion that Saddam possessed weapons of mass destruction. We now know that this was but one of Bush's big lies. When we couldn't find the weapons, Bush pounded his flag-draped chest and re-justified the invasion as "cleansing the world of a brutal dictator" and bringing "freedom and democracy" to Iraqis.

Now our country is reeling from the collapse of what we were assured was our superior moral justification for the American invasion of Iraq. With the revelation of the atrocities committed by American soldiers and "contractors" at Abu Ghraib prison, it is Americans, not Saddam Hussein, who are torturing and killing Iraqis. These atrocities, which are being witnessed worldwide, are perceived as merely replacing one sadistic, murdering regime in Iraq with another.

- more here.

Rehnquist's corporate jet trip questioned
Good crap. These people just don't care anymore:

American Electric Power is flying Chief Justice William Rehnquist to Ohio at the request of the Ohio Supreme Court, which plans to pay for the $3,800 flight. The cost is more than three times the most expensive round-trip ticket between Washington and Columbus.

The propriety of the flight is being questioned by the watchdog group Ohio Citizen Action because AEP is being sued by the Environmental Protection Agency and Justice Department for allegedly violating the Clear Air Act. The case could reach the Supreme Court.

Absolutely disgusting
Bush, in panic mode, tries to save his lying, maleficient ass by using Nick Berg's killing to justify his Iraq fiasco.

The miserable lying fascist punk on Friday blamed al Qaeda supporter Abu Musab al-Zarqawi for beheading Berg and 'cited him as an example of Saddam's "terrorist ties" before the US-led war in Iraq.'

Bush's revival of accusations linking Saddam to terrorism comes as the president faces growing doubts among Americans over his Iraq policy.

At a fund-raising lunch in Bridgeton, Missouri, Bush said Zarqawi was an example of the threat posed by the ousted Iraqi leader. "We knew he (Saddam) had terrorist ties. The person responsible for the Berg death, Zarqawi, was in and out of Baghdad prior to our arrival, for example," Bush said.

God, what a snake. The man is without any scruples whatsoever. I can't even think of anything bad enough to call him.

Heads should roll
'The dreadfulness at Abu Ghraib was one scandal, its handling, from the cavalierness with which the military's own investigation was handled to the crass, clumsy spinning by the White House, has been another.'

[T]heir cavalier reaction to a horror that shocked the world should be enough to seal their fate. Thursday, visiting Iraq, Rumsfeld told cheering troops that Americans supported them - true, but beside the point - and to ignore the furor back home as "politics."

The furor caused by this scandal isn't just back home, though, and it's not just "politics" at all. What U.S. soldiers did, under orders and over time, makes the mission of U.S. soldiers throughout the Middle East far more dangerous. So did the reaction by Rumsfeld et al.

- Geov Parrish.

Arrhh, matey!
Female sex tourists hard on scuba instructors with small dinghies - actual headline. Bonus points for including the words "weekly foam party" in the article.

Ho ho!
"After three and a half years of disappointing leadership under George Bush, we need to change course in November and elect a president with a real record of supporting police officers and a lifetime of standing with law enforcement." - the International Brotherhood of Police Officers endorse John Kerry!



So fuck you, Zell Miller, you little toad.

Why do they hate America?
Syria on the US: "They interfere in everything... they even want to change the headlines on Syrian papers."

The Pentagon bans Nick Berg's parents from witnessing the arrival of his coffin.

Straining credulity almost beyond belief

Watching president Bush and Donald Rumsfeld this week, it was hard to avoid the sinking feeling that they had already moved on from the Abu Ghraib prison mess and were back to their well-established practice of ignoring all bad news and marching blindly ahead as if nothing unusual had happened. That was the impression that emerged from Bush's disconnected performance on Monday, when he viewed photos and video stills of the atrocious treatment of prisoners by soldiers under his and Rumsfeld's command, and then announced that the defense secretary was doing a "superb job."

It was stronger than ever yesterday, during Mr. Rumsfeld's road trip to Iraq, where he drew a curious parallel between himself and Ulysses S. Grant and announced his approach to the prison scandal: "I've stopped reading newspapers." {snip} In closing…

Mr. Bush and his Republican allies in Congress should stop trying to evade responsibility by accusing those who want to ask tough questions of being disloyal to the troops and the war effort.

– from a NY Times op-ed.

Oh please oh please oh please
Hero/patriot Wesley Clark is being considered for the VP spot by the Kerry camp. I could siiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiing!!!

Trusting the people

King George Bush's bus trip across western Wisconsin closed schools and roads, prevented residents from moving freely in their own communities, and prevented citizens from exercising their free speech rights.

Along the route of the Bush bus trip from Dubuque to La Crosse, the Bush team created a "no-free-speech" zone that excluded any expressions of the dissent that is the lifeblood of democracy.

Hundreds who sought to express dissent were videotaped by authorities, told they could not make noise, ordered not to display certain signs and forced to stand out of eyesight of Bush and his entourage. Again and again, they were told that if they expressed themselves in ways that were entirely protected by the First Amendment to the Constitution of the United States, they would be "subject to arrest."

La Crosse mayor John Medinger is adding up the full cost of the visit and will send the bill to the Bush/Cheney campaign.

News from Operation FUBAR

Rumsfeld upbeat in Iraq despite torture claims

Iraq prison abuse a 'failure of leadership': Powell

Pricetag for US operations in Iraq to rise steeply: Wolfowitz

Senators oppose Bush control of war fund

Bremer raises possibility US may bug out of Iraq

Winning hearts and minds one day at a time
Oooh! I know! Let's destroy a Shi'ite cemetary! THAT'll help things immensely!

US puts 3 holes in the dome of the holiest shrine in Najaf.

America’s Junkie loses it - again

“I find it amusing that opinions disturb Rush Limbaugh.” - Palm Beach Post editor Edward Sears, after the vile pigboy – in two full-page ads - complained about a column that mentioned his drug case and his comments over the prison abuse photos.

Maybe he should blow off some steam by engaging in some all-American, frat-boy-style sadomasochistic homoerotic sex acts.


Yuck.

The unredeemingly stupid
“Have we any memory of a man in a suit and tie, nearly three years ago wading through the din and panic amid the morning rubble, assuring millions of stunned Americans that the national headquarters of their armed forces was still intact and capable of defending us after the mass murder of 3,000?” – Bush asskisser and deluded fuckwit Victor Davis Hanson.

Gee, no. I remember Poppy’s Widdle Bunnypants bunker-hopping around the country like a fwightened wabbit, finally consenting to poke his stupid head up three days later, where he stood on the graves of close to 3000 for a shameless photo-op. Is that what you meant?

“Please boycott the movie "Troy: that releases today. Brad Pitt, a rabid Bush hater and support of "Traitor" Democrat John Kerry needs to take a beating in this movie. If the movie does not do well at the box office Pitt is toast as an actor!” - actual quote from one of RimJob’s bushmoonies this morning.

“This movie was made for the GAY audience” – another mouthbreathing troglodyte replied. Why do I keep going over there??

Bush amorata and drooling nutsack Zell Miller.

E-mails show Berg in custody of the US military
"My son died for the sins of George Bush and Donald Rumsfeld. This administration did this." - Michael Berg.

The Bergs said they want to know if the government had received an offer to trade Iraqi prisoners for Nicholas Berg. On the videotape of his death, Berg's killers made a reference to a trade offer, but U.S. officials have said they knew of no such offer.

Michael Berg said he wanted to hear president Bush address the issue.

"I would like to ask him if it is true that al-Qaida offered to trade my son's life for the life of another person," Michael Berg said. "And if that is true, well, I need that information... and I think the people of the United States of America need to know what the fate of their sons and daughters might be in the hands of the Bush administration."

- More here, here and here.

The cube-banshee is exchanging baby-poop stories with another serial breeder over jelly donuts. Now they're discussing their weight gains. At the top of their lungs. It's amazing they can spawn - you would've thought their sperm-donors' testicles would have been shrunken to useless, defeated appendages a long time ago.



Just feed me, slave
SCRANTON, PA – Nine-year old tabby cat, Tiger, sometimes known as Tiger-boy, Ti-Ti or simply Mister T, steadfastly refuses to learn his owner's name. Disgruntled former pet-lover Ted Buntkins is not amused, complaining "He knows his OWN damned name. How hard is it learn MY name? For criminy sakes!" Animal experts confirm Buntkins' suspicions, pointing out that to Tiger, Buntkins is just "that guy." – from the Dilbert Newsletter.

Mail
I got a nice letter from Chris B:

I tell you what--I stumbled onto your site only about 2 months ago and now I gotta get a fix everyday. It really cracks me up. Viciously funny. Keep it up. What's your background? What do you do?

The details of my life are quite inconsequential.

Very well, where should I begin? My father was a relentlessly self-improving boulangerie owner from Belgium with low-grade narcolepsy and a penchant for buggery. My mother was a fifteen-year-old French prostitute named Chloe with webbed feet. My father would womanize, he would drink, he would make outrageous claims, like he invented the question mark. Sometimes he would accuse chestnuts of being lazy. A sort of general malaise that only the genius possess and the insane lament.

My childhood was typical. Summers in Rangoon, luge lessons. In the spring we'd make meat helmets. If I was insolent, I was placed in a burlap bag and beaten with reeds. Pretty standard, really. At the age of twelve I received my first scribe. At the age of fifteen, a Zoroastrian named Vilma ritualistically shaved....

Ummmm...sorry. I obviously watch too many movies in between surrepticiously looking out my windows with high-powered binoculars.

I was raised in a cave by republicans, and became an Independent with Democratic leanings after reading The Handmaid's Tale, which scared the bejebus out of me. Summers were spent at the Jersey shore (the part frequented by French-Canadians with impeccable hair and aromatic cigarettes) - other than that, the above is almost right on. Right now I work on a computer most of the day , when I'm not going to soul-destroying meetings. Below is a pic of me that I created for my buds at Chapel Perilous. And thanks for your kind note!

Mail
tsn sent in a link to From Texas to Abu Ghraib: The Bush legacy of prisoner abuse -

While administration officials express shock and outrage over allegations of the torture and murder of Iraqi prisoners by US forces, a deeper look into Bush's stateside prison-system record shows disturbing similarities. {...}

Conditions inside Texan prisons during Bush's reign were so notorious that federal Judge William Wayne Justice wrote, "Many inmates credibly testified to the existence of violence, rape and extortion in the prison system and about their own suffering from such abysmal conditions." {...}

As Texas governor, Bush oversaw the executions of 152 prisoners and thus became the most-killing governor in the history of the United States.

Gnutty
Gnaughty garden gnomes cause uproar in English gneighborhood.

New jobless day
Bush's economic recovery is so strong that 13,000 new Americans filed for unemployment last week.

No clear exit strategy
Losing Iraq
‘In a remarkable series of interviews in the Washington Post, senior American army officers have openly expressed doubts about whether the United States will win.’ – from the BBC. Developing…


What a waste...

Assad: Bush is full of shit
Says ‘put up or shut up, you lying assclown‘

Syrian President Bashar Assad challenged the basis of US sanctions on his country and said he would not expel Palestinian militant groups as demanded by Bush. Assad disputed the case that the Bush misadministration had made to impose the embargo, saying Syria does not have weapons of mass destruction and there is no evidence of foreign fighters crossing the border from Syria to Iraq.

"We have always asked the administration to give us one passport or one name or evidence of that (border infiltration) happening. So far, we have not had that happen," Assad said. “So #uck ‘em.”

And yes, "asshat" IS one word
The Pew Research Center took a new poll asking respondents for one word to describe Bush. "Incompetent" responses doubled.

Bush's ‘steady leadership'
Leading the world straight to hell.

This is unbelievable:

'I don't watch the nightly newscasts on TV, nor do I watch the endless hours of people giving their opinion about things,' Bush said. 'I don't read the editorial pages; I don't read the columnists.'

Yet Mr. Bush regularly monitors the news pages of a select few daily publications. 'He does not dwell on the newspaper, but he reads the sports page every day,' Mr. Card said with a chuckle.

What a card! Yeah - real funny.

Bush thinks that immersing himself in voluminous, ‘mostly liberal-leaning news’ coverage might cloud his thinking and even hinder his efforts to remain an optimistic leader.

'I like to have a clear outlook,' he said. 'It can be a frustrating experience to pay attention to somebody's false opinion or somebody's characterization, which simply isn't true.'

Talk about scary. Everything that's different from his opinion is false. Good Lord.

Time for a full accounting
From the Accountability Administration

What strikes terror in the hearts of the administration isn't just the squalid photographs of the abuse of Iraqi prisoners at Abu Ghraib prison, but also a fear that a slumbering, complacent Congress might awaken and begin doing its job for the first time since Sept. 11, 2001.

{…}

With total control comes total responsibility. So we know where the buck stops when things go wrong.

- Joseph L. Galloway, the senior military correspondent for Knight Ridder.

Inflaming tensions
New photos could compromise Napoleon Bonehead’s chances this fall.

GOP leaders have opposed the release of more abuse images, calling them "horrifying.”

"Take our word for it. They're disgusting," said Sen. Mitch McConnell, who speaks from experience (see Majority whip, covered with santorum, found cowering in Sen. Frist’s closet, 2/14).

"What we saw is appalling," said Frist, who sat through three screenings and even brought his own hand lotion.

"I think the only hope that we have, really, of redeeming ourselves here and winning back some of the support that this incident has cost us [is] if we act as an open society that will deal with problems openly," said Sen. Carl Levin, seemingly echoing Bush’s comments from Monday.


You know it’s bad when…
Hastert rips White House a new one.

Republicans are so frustrated with the White House that when ineffectual Speaker/towel boy Dennis Hastert criticized the misadministration at a House GOP meeting last week, the caucus burst into applause.

“That does it – I’m putting that boy back on the leash,” Tom ‘Bugsy’ DeLay (R-Psycho) mumbled. “And the rest of ‘em are going to find Mitch McConnell in their boo-dwars.”

Repukes to Kerry: why do you hate our troops?
John Kerry said Wednesday the war in Iraq is a failure and that a shake-up is needed to end the Bush misadministration's mistakes and incompetence. Bunnypants’ campaign chairman Marc Racicot (Isn’t that a French name??) promptly and predictably accused him of playing politics and undermining military morale.

Gee, I don’t know, but if I was one of the soldiers out in that hellhole I’d be panting at the thought that either someone was going to call us home, or do something to bloody well fix the situation. But that’s just me.

Kerry rejected the charge that he had politicized the war. "They had no plan for winning the peace and now Americans are paying the price," he said. "That is disgraceful."

Kerry said responsibility for the abuse of prisoners in Iraq extends all the way to the Oval Office and that Bush must accept responsibility for setting a tone that allowed the abuse to take place. In addition, he warned that a few low-ranking soldiers shouldn't be made scapegoats for a broader policy that led to the abuse.

Racicot again, predictably, hyperventilated:

"To blame the abuse on Bush and the armed forces is to blame all of America for the disgusting actions of a few. It's striking to see the ease with which John Kerry thrusts an important moment into the campaign's daily spin cycle, compared to the president's steady leadership and focus on doing what he believes is right.”

**cough**bullshit**cough**
What a tool.
Does he listen to himself?? Does he really think we’re all idiots? There are so many things wrong with what he said that I don’t know where to start. I'm going out for a drink.

Storms yesterday knocked out my power at home. Maybe the ones coming today will knock it back on.
/whimper



Make him go away, unca Dick
Rummy gets packed off to Baghdad with a “kick me” sign on his back, as the US faces a ‘huge loss of credibility’ across the Middle East.