Miserable Failure On Terrorism and Homeland Security

Nooners is half-right. Bush is a miserable failure both foreign and domestic.

The latest Newsweek poll:

His image as an effective leader in the war on terror is tarnished, with less than half the public (44 percent) approving of the way he's handling terrorism and homeland security. Despite a series of presidential speeches meant to bolster support for the war in Iraq, as well as the announcement of a major military offensive when the poll was getting under way, only 29 percent of the people questioned approved Bush's handling of the situation in Iraq. Fully 65 percent disapprove.

It seems Newsweak failed to ask about censure:

The NEWSWEEK poll shows that only 5 percent of Republicans would support impeaching Bush, while 94 percent would not. Among Democrats, almost half (49 percent) support impeachment, while 48 percent oppose it.

Dim Some

A.P. writer Jennifer Loven illuminates the rhetorical cheap trick used by the miserable failure:

WASHINGTON - "Some look at the challenges in Iraq and conclude that the war is lost and not worth another dime or another day," President Bush said recently.

Another time he said, "Some say that if you're Muslim you can't be free."

"There are some really decent people," the president said earlier this year, "who believe that the federal government ought to be the decider of health care ... for all people."

Of course, hardly anyone in mainstream political debate has made such assertions.

...

The device usually is code for Democrats or other White House opponents. In describing what they advocate, Bush often omits an important nuance or substitutes an extreme stance that bears little resemblance to their actual position.

He typically then says he "strongly disagrees" — conveniently knocking down a straw man of his own making.

All true, except that Bush is such an intellectual flyweight that he doesn't knock down the strawmen himself. His speechwriters do.

(Thanks to a reader for the tip.)

Peggy O'Furniture

What's drunk and sits in the back yard all night, trying in vain to write an intelligent column?

Peggy Noonan's Thursday column wasn't the result of celebrating St. Paddy's Day a day early; it's the consequence of celebrating St. Paddy's Day 2005 for twelve months too long.

Peg O' My Failing Liver managed to type the following sentence in an article charging that President Bush spends your tax money like a drunken Wall Street Journal columnist who took an unpaid leave of absence to work for the election of Bush years after his profligacy was known to anyone not living in an alcohol-induced coma:

"Yesterday USA Today ran a front-page story that seemed almost designed to give every conservative in America a Grand Klong, a fanciful medical condition that has been described as a great onrush of fecal matter to the heart."

Uh, Peg, I think you're thinking of a Dirty Santorum, or maybe one of John Yoo's favorite forms of torture.

Somewhere someone is collecting money on a bar bet, at your expense.

Does that include the legal defense fund?

John Hindlicker, An Ad Hoc Tool

John Hindlicker, who should still be reeling from the well-deserved bitchslapping received at the hands of Wonkette (and the new Wonkette, no less!), rises to dishonestly slander Justice Ruth Bader Ginsburg.

Herr Hindlicker's critique of Justice Ginsburg's speech on that wingnut boogeyperson, consultation of foreign law, contains multiple misrepresentations. Let's focus on one:

Take, for example, the issue of homosexual sodomy. The Supreme Court recently ruled, in Lawrence v. Texas, that there is a constitutional right to commit acts of homosexual sodomy. Was this ruling informed by reference to foreign jurisprudence? If not, why not? On Ginsburg's approach, the justices apparently get to pick and choose when they will look abroad for guidance. And, if foreign guidance had been sought in the Lawrence case, would the justices have looked to the law in Muslim countries where commission of such acts is a capital crime? If not, why not? There is no coherent answer to these questions, and, Ginsburg does not offer one. In reality, reference to foreign law is nothing more than an ad hoc tool to be invoked or ignored at will by justices who want to advance a left-wing agenda.

Hindlicker, being equally aroused and terrified at the thought of executing sodomites (but only the gay ones), doesn't bother to read the part, buried in the second paragraph of the speech, where Ginsburg states:

The U.S. judicial system will be the poorer, I have urged, if we do not both share our experience with, and learn from, legal systems with values and a commitment to democracy similar to our own.

Why isn't that plain enough for the Hindlicker? Though no doubt many of 'Licker's wingnut pals wish it were otherwise, the United States is a secular Nation. (Read all about it in the Bill of Rights, Johnny.) Thus, a "Muslim country," that is, a nation governed by the laws of a religion, would not have "a legal system with values and a commitment to democracy similar to our own."

Only a lying sack of shit could conclude that Justice Ginsburg's speech doesn't answer the idiotic question Hindlicker poses.

The speech also specifically addresses the other matters on which Hindlicker professes ignorance, including whether the Lawrence court considered foreign jurisprudence.

Hindlicker states that "[y]ou really have to read it [Ginsburg's speech] to appreciate how far removed it is from American laws and traditions, and how demagogic it is in both tone and substance."

Yes, you do.

And no, you didn't, Toolboy.

Wouldn't It Be Nice

I haven't seen any other blogger comment on this article, which reveals the Angry Left's greatest fantasy: Condoleezza Rice and other Bush Administration warmongers forced to testify under oath:

WASHINGTON, March 13 -- A subpoena list identifying Bush administration officials including Secretary of State Condoleezza Rice as prospective defense witnesses in a federal criminal trial in Virginia was briefly posted on a computer court docket on Friday before being modified and sealed, court records show.

The trial is of two former lobbyists, Steven J. Rosen and Keith Weissman, who are accused of disclosing classified information. Entries in a computer docket at the court in Alexandria, Va., named Ms. Rice and nine others who had been sought as potential witnesses by lawyers for Mr. Rosen and Mr. Weissman, former officials of the American Israel Public Affairs Committee, a pro-Israel lobbying group.

The two men, whose trial is scheduled to begin next month, are accused of receiving classified information about terrorism and Middle East strategy from a Defense Department analyst, Lawrence A. Franklin, and passing it to a journalist and an Israeli diplomat. Mr. Franklin has pleaded guilty.

...

Among other current and former Bush administration officials identified were Stephen J. Hadley, the national security adviser; Richard L. Armitage, the former deputy secretary of state; and Elliott L. Abrams, a deputy national security adviser who has focused on the Middle East.

Elliott Abrams. Now there's a witness you can trust.

Wouldn't it be lovely if the pals of Pajamaites Mikey Ledeen and Roger el-Simon brought about the downfall of the Bush Administration? Of course, Condi and her neocon undersecretaries would take the Fifth before testifying, and would tie up the proceedings with so many appeals that Bush would be out of office before a jury was selected.

But it doesn't hurt to dream.

Dick Cheney Can Pay For His Own Damn Surgery

LOS ANGELES (Reuters) - Concerned about politicizing her favorite charity, singer-actress Jessica Simpson on Wednesday turned down a invitation to meet with U.S. President George W. Bush, a snub that left Republicans dismayed.

The apparent final word that Simpson would be a no-show at a major Republican fund-raiser with Bush and congressional leaders on Thursday night came after a day of conflicting reports from her camp and organizers of the event.

The blond star of the film "The Dukes of Hazzard" still plans to visit Washington on Thursday to lobby members of Congress on behalf of Operation Smile, a non-profit venture offering free plastic surgery for disadvantaged children overseas with facial deformities.

There's No Fighting In The War Room

Yeah, that's the obscenity:

The [Baltimore Sun] ran this correction today: "A photograph published yesterday with an article about the court-martial of a guard at Abu Ghraib prison showed a book cover that contained an obscenity. The obscenity went unnoticed during editing and should not have been published. Publication of the photo violates The Sun's guidelines. The Sun apologizes for the oversight."

Roger's TeeVee Guide

Not many people know this, but I am the ultimate Hollywood insider. I was coked-up and making obscene phone calls when Pat O'Brien was still a sportscaster.

One of my highly-placed connections in show business has tipped me off to the plot of next Sunday's Law and Order: Criminal Intent, which, of course, bears no resemblance to any persons living or represented by counsel:

SLAYING OF SECRET SERVICE AGENT HAS DETECTIVES SNIFFING AROUND LOBBYIST, CONGRESSMAN AND INDIAN CASINOS -- The brutal beating murder of a female Secret Service agent in her home has Detectives Logan (Christopher Noth) and Barek (Annabella Sciorra) sniffing around the many clients of her husband Jay (guest star David Alan Bashche), a well-connected lobbyist who is working both for and against an unpopular tribal Indian gaming casino on Long Island. But the detectives want to know why the victim's husband hid their laptop and shredded files soon after discovering her body -- and his curious dealings with a slippery congressman widen the police investigation to include more hidden crimes. Jamey Sheridan and Courtney B. Vance also star.

Hmm... no Adam Kidan, or "Big Tony" Moscatiello or Konstantinos "Gus" Boulis as the corpse. So much for verisimilitude.

I'll probably watch, simply because someone bothered to e-mail me, thinking I might be interested. (Thanks for the tip.) And Jamey Sheridan's a good actor.

By the way, last week's Law & Order: Original Recipe featured stand-ins for Rupert Murdoch, Wendy Deng and Rupe's two families... with Malcom McDowell as Old Rupe. Unfortunately, I didn't watch beyond the first scene, but I've a feeling they didn't go for my preferred ending: Rupe in a bowler and a pair of long johns, warbling "Singin' In The Rain" and kicking Sean Hannity in the nuts, repeatedly.

Christmas Shopping With Claude

Also according to police:

-- On the morning of Dec. 24, Allen was filmed selecting a $237 Kodak printer that he paid for with his Visa card. Hours later he obtained a refund at a Target store in Germantown for an identical printer.

-- On Dec. 30, Allen bought a $60 jacket, a $25 pair of pants, two shades worth $15 each and two unspecified items worth $2.50 each. Hours later, he received a $125.94 refund for identical items.

-- On Jan. 1, he purchased an $88 RCA stereo at a Target store in Gaithersburg. About an hour later, he was videotaped selecting an identical stereo at a Rockville Target store, and he obtained a refund using a receipt that corresponded to the one from Gaithersburg.

I'm sure Claude used all of his booty for the purpose of homeschooling his kids. ("If you spend $130.00 on purchases, and only get a refund of $125.94 when you shoplift the identical items from the store, how much has Target ripped you off?")

The most amusing part of the story is all the wingnuts, from Bush down to the idiot bloggers, moaning about how sad the Allen story is. Apparently Claude is the archetypal "good man who did a bad thing." If you're a bad person who does a bad thing, you deserve prosecution, ridicule and hellfire. However, if you espouse righteousness and damn others for their moral failings, it's merely a bummer if you don't act accordingly.

My favorite wingnut on the story is James Taranto, who simpers as follows:

Allen is said to be [sic] something of a moralist, and left-wing bloggers are, predictably enough, exultant. Typical is this comment from Daily Kos diarist "DarkSyde":

Allen was a big abstinence only crusader and led several assaults on AIDS service organizations as well. This paragon of moral values was recruited by Karl Rove.

It's a familiar theme: Left-wing antimoralists attack right-wing moralists when the latter are found engaging in some crime or sin or vice. But a moralist's own propensity for immoral behavior does not discredit his moralism. After all, the temptation to do wrong is a universal human trait. Perhaps those in whom that temptation is strongest also have a more acute awareness of the need for social restraints to prevent bad acts.

First, Taranto simpers that those who support compassion and care for AIDS victims, but oppose shoplifting, are "antimoralists." He also characterizes DarkSyde's comments as an attack, when they're merely an observation that Allen wasn't as moral as he claimed to be. (Brutal!)

But the topper is the claim we should pay heed to phony moralists because they more than anyone have divine knowledge of how depraved we are.

By Taranto's reasoning, we should look to Chas. Manson and Eric Rudolph to define the morality of killing, and Don Rumsfeld and Abu Gonzales to define the morality of torture.