Happy Hour Discurso

Today's opining on the public discourse.

Just what we need: yet another fucking war:

Today the New York Times reports that Russia is escalating its war with Georgia, “moving tanks and troops through the separatist enclave of South Ossetia and advancing toward the city of Gori in central Georgia” and even bombing parts of Tibilisi, the Georgian captial.

Russia’s increasing aggression is putting a spark into American neoconservatives. Today on the Times op-ed page, one of their leaders, William Kristol, claims the U.S. must “defend” Georgia’s sovereignty as a reward for its participation in Iraq, while the conservative Washington Times is calling for “maximum pressure” on Russia:

Bill Kristol: [Georgia] has had the third-largest military presence — about 2,000 troops — fighting along with U.S. soldiers and marines in Iraq. For this reason alone, we owe Georgia a serious effort to defend its sovereignty. Surely we cannot simply stand by as an autocratic aggressor gobbles up part of — and perhaps destabilizes all of — a friendly democratic nation.

[snip]

Writing in the Washington Post today, Robert Kagan goes even further, suggesting that the Georgia-Russia conflict may be the start of World War III:

Do you recall the precise details of the Sudeten Crisis that led to Nazi Germany’s invasion of Czechoslovakia? Of course not, because that morally ambiguous dispute is rightly remembered as a minor part of a much bigger drama. […]

The mood is reminiscent of Germany after World War I, when Germans complained about the “shameful Versailles diktat” imposed on a prostrate Germany by the victorious powers
and about the corrupt politicians who stabbed the nation in the back.

Correct me if I'm wrong, but isn't our military severely overtaxed, our economy tanking, and the United States scrambling to try to scrounge up enough troops for the two wars we have now? How the fuck are we possibly supposed to start wars with Iraq and fucking Russia in this condition? More importantly, why the fuck are we assuming war's the only answer?

Might be because Condi Rice would rather have a vacation than do her fucking job. Taking a cue from her boss, I see, who's had more vacations than any other president, especially for one who's fighting two wars at once. Stupid fucking assclowns.

And the asshattery doesn't end there, my darlings. Oh, no. Georgie Bush has biiiig plans for endangered species - he'd like to keep them that way:

Today, the AP reports on new draft rules being proposed by the Bush administration to gut the Endangered Species Act. This would be the biggest change to the groundbreaking legislation since 1988, and would not require the approval of Congress.

Currently, federal agencies are required to consult with an independent agency — the Fish and Wildlife Service (FWS) or the National Marine Fisheries Service — to determine whether a project would harm an endangered species. The AP reports that under the new rules, agencies would simply be able to “decide for themselves”...

Oh, that's a great idea. Put the self-interested fuckers with no experience in conservation in charge of conservation. Brilliant. That's the best of Bush, right there.

My dad worked for a coal mine. You know what they would've decided were conservation up to them? Strip mining is conservation. It "helps" the native species. Really. Just ask the folks who say the oil pipelines in Alaska are beloved of the caribou. Endangered species luuurv encroachments on their territory.

Republicons are getting so outrageous, even their most favoritest network, Faux News, is engaging in a wee bit o' actual journalism. You know it's bad when Fox Fucking News makes a Republicon look bad:

Of all the various interviews on the Sunday morning shows, McCain campaign manager Rick Davis’ appearance on “Fox News Sunday” was likely to be the least interesting. The head of the Republican campaign on the Republican network? Not exactly must-see TV.

But FNC’s Chris Wallace was actually at the top of his game yesterday, and raised hard-hitting questions that left Davis looking unusually bad.

[snip]

There was no doubt the McCain gang was inviting this; I’m just surprised someone in the media was willing to bring it up. McCain’s new ad says the nation is worse off now than it was four years ago, but as Wallace noted, McCain, as recently as a year ago, was voting with the Bush line 95% of the time. Given this, shouldn’t McCain bear some of the responsibility?

“Well, look, if you want to talk about history, then you can make all of the cases you want to make,” Davis responded. He added that McCain has been a maverick and “the biggest irritant” to the Bush administration. I haven’t the foggiest idea what that means — if McCain votes with Bush 95% of the time, then he obviously isn’t an irritant or a maverick; he’s the opposite of an irritant or a maverick.

“But I’ve got to come back at you,” Wallace said. “If you say the country is worse off than it was four years ago, clearly the president has got to bear some of the responsibility, and by his own record, his own admission, John McCain voted with the president, last year, 95% of the time.”

Point, set, match. Davis said something about those votes not mattering too much, but it was too late — Wallace had already destroyed the McCain campaign’s claim.

"McCain's votes don't matter much" is not exactly the type of thing you want to hear from the Moron Who Would Be President's campaign. Give me a fucking break.

If Republicons get any more stupid, we're going to have to institutionalize them for our own safety.