Happy Hour Discurso

Today's opining on the public discourse.

Elections have consequences.  Such as, improving our standing in the international community once more.  Will Cons celebrate our return to #1?  Probably not.  In fact, they're already after the next bogus attack:

Periodically, conservatives latch onto a new line of attack against President Obama. Apparently, the new one is "narcissism." Marty Peretz talked it up yesterday in a bizarre piece, and George Will endorsed the argument in his column today.

In the Niagara of words spoken and written about the Obamas' trip to Copenhagen, too few have been devoted to the words they spoke there. Their separate speeches to the International Olympic Committee were so dreadful, and in such a characteristic way, that they might be symptomatic of something that has serious implications for American governance.

Both Obamas gave heartfelt speeches about . . . themselves. Although the working of the committee's mind is murky, it could reasonably have rejected Chicago's bid for the 2016 Games on aesthetic grounds -- unless narcissism has suddenly become an Olympic sport. [...]

[snip]

The speeches are online, and reading them, it's tempting to wonder if Will even read the remarks before using them as the basis for a cheap column.

The president told the International Olympic Committee, for example, "I've come here today to urge you to choose Chicago for the same reason I chose Chicago nearly 25 years ago -- the reason I fell in love with the city I still call home." It was a springboard for the president to reflect, not on himself, but on his hometown -- the diversity of the city, the "rich tapestry of distinctive neighborhoods," Chicago's history of hosting major events, and its ability to be "a bustling metropolis with the warmth of a small town."

These people have been beyond pathetic for a long time, but they're really scraping the bottom of the barrel now.

Speaking of pathetic bogus attacks, check out Hannity playing the NAMBLA card in his quest for scalps:

Sean Hannity still wants Kevin Jennings' scalp so he can keep up with Glenn Beck.

But since his smear has been debunked about as thoroughly as a right-wing smear job ever can be, he's getting a bit, ah, desperate.

Last night he not only was still clinging desperately to the false notion that Jennings should have reported a teenager's sexual affair to authorities, but he came up with a new line of attack -- borrowed directly from the fine fools at Powerline -- claiming that Jennings, in "a 1977 speech," had praised "one of the founders of NAMBLA," a gay-rights pioneer named Harry Hay. Hannity calls him a "big supporter of NAMBLA."

As usual, the fine researchers at Media Matters have the whole story:

Power Line's Hinderaker cited Jennings' speech, NAMBLA. In an October 1 post, Power Line's John Hinderaker noted Jennings' 1997 speech and wrote: "Obama nominee Kevin Jennings actually said that the founder of NAMBLA -- the North American Man-Boy Love Association -- Harry Hay, is '[o]ne of the people that's always inspired me,' " ... Hinderaker's claim that Hay founded NAMBLA is false. As the Associated Press noted in 2002, Hay "in 1950 founded the secret network of support groups for gays known as the Mattachine Society." Hay wrote in the Gay Community News (retrieved from Nexis) in 1994, "I am not a member of NAMBLA, nor would it ever have been my inclination to be one."

You know, I know that Faux News is just a two-bit propaganda operation, and I know they like to make shit up, but this is low even for them.

In other hysteria, Nancy Pelosi dressed down General McChrystal for being a total assclown:

This one should stir up Nancy Pelosi’s critics on the right: Towards the end of an interview with Charlie Rose that ran late last night, Pelosi took a surprisingly hard shot at General Stanley McChrystal for publicly airing his views on Afghanistan, and called on him to stop.

“Let me say this about about General McChrystal, with all due respect,” Pelosi said, according to a transcript sent my way by a Pelosi aide. “His recommendations to the president should go up the line of command. They shouldn’t be in press conferences.”

Leading Cons to play the "woman's place is in the home" card:

So what is the NRCC’s solution to dealing with Pelosi? It wants McChrystal to “put her in her place“:

What place does the NRCC think that this accomplished woman — the first female Speaker of the House in U.S. history — deserves to be in?

Betcha Bob "Women Shouldn't Work" McDonnell could answer that one.  And unlike him, Cons are doubling-down on the he-man woman hating:

The National Republican Congressional Committee is unapologetic for its claim today that taxpayers should hope Stanley McChrystal puts Nancy Pelosi “in her place” in response to her criticism of the general. NRCC spokesman Ken Spain emails this defense:

“The Speaker of the House is taking on a highly decorated general who has outlined a strategy in Afghanistan that she once claimed to advocate. This is the same San Francisco liberal whose military foresight — or lack thereof — led her to oppose General Petraeus’ successful surge strategy. Up until it became politically inconvenient, Pelosi and her puppets were referring to Afghanistan as the ‘real central front’ in the war on terror, now their excuse is that there is just not enough political will to keep America safe. Nancy Pelosi might think she’s a general, but she’s playing out of her league and she knows it.”

Um.  Congress has the power to declare war and such, one.  Two, the good general was playing politics rather than doing his job, so it's his own damned problem if he gets spanked by a politician.  Three, well, just see the Think Progress link, where Cons get their proper spanking.

And keep in mind, this is the general they're so eager to defend:

We've posted a ton of information about the Pat Tillman saga on C&L as heartbreaking as it is and I wanted to remind everyone that the man who is going public with his views on how to handle Afghanistan was deeply involved with torture and Pat Tillman's cover up.

The parents of slain Army Ranger and NFL star Pat Tillman voiced concerns Tuesday that the general who played a role in mischaracterizing his death could be put in charge of military operations in Afghanistan. In a brief interview with The Associated Press, Pat Tillman Sr. accused Lt. Gen. Stanley McChrystal of covering up the circumstances of the 2004 slaying. "I do believe that guy participated in a falsified homicide investigation," Pat Tillman Sr. said.

He later apologized for his role in the cover up.

The Daily News:

The general taking over the Afghan war said Tuesday he was sorry for the coverup of ex-NFL star Pat Tillman's friendly fire death.

"I was a part of that, and I apologize for it," Army Lt. Gen. Stanley McChrystal told a Senate hearing.

[snip]

And then there is his role in our torture policies.

The Nation:

When an anonymous Army interrogator "at great personal risk" blew the whistle to Esquire in August 2006 on an extensive torture enterprise at Camp Nama, he described the then unknown McChrystal as being an overseer who knew the ugly truth. Torture at Camp Nama included using ice water to induce hypothermia. It was not a rogue operation unless we consider Generals like McChrystal "rogues." As Esquire reported:

Once, somebody brought it up with the colonel. "Will [the Red Cross] ever be allowed in here?" And he said absolutely not. He had this directly from General McChrystal and the Pentagon that there's no way that the Red Cross could get in--they won't have access and they never will. This facility was completely closed off to anybody investigating, even Army investigators.

Later in the piece, when asked where the colonel was getting his orders from the interrogator said, "I believe it was a two-star general. I believe his name was General McChrystal. I saw him there a couple of times."

I'm glad Nancy Pelosi spanked that lying, torturing son of a bitch.  If she'd ever like to borrow the Smack-o-Matic for use on his ass, she's more than welcome to it.  The fucker should be fired.

And the Cons who think they're such manly-men need to stop playing armchair political general and remember that every fucking military fiasco we're in right now is due to their egregious stupidity.  In other words: Shut the fuck up, you douchebags.

Moving on, then.  I see there's quite a bit more stimulus stupidity taking place:

Every single Republican in the House voted against the $819 billion Recovery Act in January. Among the Republican senators who voted against the stimulus were Texas’ Kay Bailey Hutchison and John Cornyn. Both of them complained that they wanted to see more tax cuts rather than government spending.

But now, both Hutchison and Cornyn are pressuring the Obama administration to give Texas $3 billion in stimulus funds. The co-signers on the letter are a bipartisan group of the Texas delegation in the House, including 19 Republicans, all of whom also voted against the funds for which they’re now begging. The letter was drafted and circulated by GOP Rep. Pete Olson.

Go read the letter.  It's a classic in the annals of asshattery.

Speaking of asshattery, if there are any Feingold constituents in the audience, you might want to ask him why he's being such an asshat himself:

Dems watched in puzzlement last month as Senator Russ Feingold announced plans for hearings into the Obama administration’s use of alleged “czars.” Feingold claimed his constituents were worried about the czars and formally asked the White House to “identify these individuals’ roles and responsibilities,” applying bipartisan legitimacy to an attack largely waged from the hothouses of the right.

Now the White House is slapping back at the criticism. In a lengthy letter to the Senator, White House counsel Greg Craig politely lays out the reasons why he thinks the “czar” line is ridiculous, saying none of the alleged czars “raises any valid concerns.”

Translation from the lawyerese: Stop trafficking in crazy.

The Cons are quite capable in trafficking in all the crazy they could ever want without your help, Russ.  Thanks anyway.

And, finally, here's another reason why I don't watch even supposedly "liberal" teevee:

Richard Wolffe returned to Countdown this week, absent from MSNBC airwaves for only a month after Glenn Greenwald pointed out that his full time employer was no longer Newsweek, but a lobbying firm:

Having Richard Wolffe host an MSNBC program -- or serving as an almost daily "political analyst" -- is exactly tantamount to MSNBC's just turning over an hour every night to a corporate lobbyist. Wolffe's role in life is to advance the P.R. interests of the corporations that pay him, including corporations with substantial interests in virtually every political issue that MSNBC and Countdown cover. Yet MSNBC is putting him on as a guest-host and "political analyst" on one of its prime-time political shows. What makes that even more appalling is that, as Ana Marie Cox first noted, neither MSNBC nor Wolffe even disclose any of this.

This is a conflict so severe that it's incurable by disclosure: who wouldn't realize that you can't present paid corporate hacks as objective political commentators?

Um.  Every single fucking network?

Between the assclowns in Congress, the assclowns heading the Cons, and the assclowns on teevee, I'm feeling America's rather overstocked on assclowns.  I'd ask if we could export some, but I like the rest of the world too much for that.