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02 May, 2008

Happy Hour Discurso

Today's opining on the public discourse.

A mind-numbing amount of stupid's been coming across my bar lately. Phones have smart-chips: mine needs a stupid chip to help me keep track. Actually, give me two: one for John McCain, and the other for everyone else combined.

The latest numbskullery comes from McSame's pathetic attempts to put a little distance between his own self and his good buddy Dubya:


Slowly but surely, Republican presidential candidate John McCain is putting some distance between himself and unpopular President George W. Bush.

This week it was the ill-timed "Mission Accomplished" banner that the White House hung behind Bush five years ago when Bush declared major combat operations over in Iraq.

"I thought it was wrong at the time," McCain said in Cleveland on Thursday...

(Ahem. John? No you didn't. In fact, when Neil Cavuto observed in June 2003 that "many argue the conflict isn't over, you said, "Well, then why was there a banner that said mission accomplished on the aircraft carrier?" And you didn't stop there. You said, "The major conflict is over, the regime change has been accomplished..." Smells like Mission Accomplished! to me.)


Last week, McCain surprised some in the White House by declaring Bush's leadership "disgraceful" during the crisis over the 2005 Katrina hurricane that walloped New Orleans.

"Never again," McCain declared.

Well, that's nice. Although I have to say, it certainly looked like you weren't at all bothered by his disgraceful leadership at the time:







Oh, but you have more, you say? By all means, let us hear the criticisms, then.
On the Bush administration's treatment of terrorism suspects, McCain adamantly opposes any interrogation techniques that might be construed as torture. And he rails constantly about "out of control" government spending that has soared under Bush.

No and no. Actions speak louder than words, numbnuts.

Seems all you've got left to distance yourself from Bush with is global warming. How's that going? Oh, deary me:
McCain was recently asked to name the issues where he’s different from Bush. After hemming and hawing a bit, McCain could point to exactly one issue: “[W]hat‘s an area of disagreement? Climate change. I believe that climate change is real. I think we have to act.” Shortly thereafter, wouldn’t you know it, Bush said he believes climate change is real and we have to act — removing the one subject on which Bush and McCain allegedly disagreed.

Thank you for playing "John McCain Is Just Like George W. Bush Only Smarmier." Join us for the after-hours Bush-McCain Challenge!

We now turn our attention to other matters. The Bush Administration's merry purging of any bureaucrat who displays the slightest bit of competence continues apace:

On Thursday, following months of internal bickering over Mary Gade's interactions with Dow, the administration forced her to quit as head of the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency's Midwest office, based in Chicago.

Gade told the Tribune she resigned after two aides to national EPA administrator Stephen Johnson took away her powers as regional administrator and told her to quit or be fired by June 1.


She must have been evil, indeed! Let us see what got so far up the Administration's nose they felt compelled to sneeze her out:

Gade, appointed by President Bush as regional EPA administrator in September 2006, invoked emergency powers last summer to order [Dow] to remove three hotspots of dioxin near its Midland headquarters.

She demanded more dredging in November, when it was revealed that dioxin levels along a park in Saginaw were 1.6 million parts per trillion, the highest amount ever found in the U.S.

The nerve! Imagine asking a major chemical company to clean up their mess! Doesn't she know that doing the right thing is absolutely taboo in this Administration?

After all, even Democrats are expected to toe the Bush line and work hard to protect gigantic corporations from ever facing consequences for their despicable actions:

According to the ACLU, there is rumor of a backroom deal being brokered by Jay Rockefeller on FISA that will include retroactive immunity. I've heard from several sources that Steny Hoyer is doing the dirty work on the House side, and some say it will be attached to the new supplemental.

There doesn't seem to be any greater priority for this administration than to get Dick Cheney and the other criminals in the Bush administration retroactive immunity for themselves and their teleco cohorts on their way out the door. Much fear mongering, ads and robocalls in the districts of freshmen House Democrats, and lookie here -- Trent Lott crawls out from under his slimy rock:

AT&T is among charter clients of Breaux Lott Leadership Group, a firm established by former Senate heavyweights John Breaux (D-La.) and Trent Lott (R-Miss.). Their sons are also involved in the family business.

The telecom giant has given BLLG the mission to back the controversial Foreign Intelligence Surveillance Act.

Of course it has. AT&T, after all, doesn't think it could afford the gargantuan slug to its public relations gut that would result if the lawsuits against their collusion in government domestic spying ever saw the light of day. They're frantic. So are the other telecoms. And I say, if they're this scared, there must be something they're afraid of.

What don't they want us to know? If Bush-licking Blue Dog Democrats like Steny Hoyer and Chris Carney have their way, that juicy bone of outrage will be buried forever.

Hoyer's motives, then, appear to be two-pronged: (1) he and the House Democratic leadership simply want to grant amnesty to telecoms -- they favor it -- because they do not want the lawsuits relating to illegal spying to proceed to resolution; and (2) they are deferring to the tiny number of Blue Dogs who favor amnesty and warrantless eavesdropping.

Gear up for another FISA fight, my darlings. It's going to be a long, hot summer.

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