Running start

So far I have been pleasantly surprised by Obama. In his first two days he has

Announced he is closing Gitmo
Put all of GW's last minute regulations on hold
Undid Bush's assumption of secrecy in government document requests
Ordered all black sites/secret prison closed
Put all Gitmo prosecutions on hold to review/ maybe scrap Bush's tribunal system.

My hope is that the follow through is as good as the swing.

George Bush was the best President ever, and recent polls prove it.

George W Bush might be the best, most under-appreciated President in history. Americans have such short attention spans that we really counted him out too soon. 8 years ago, he made a campaign promise to be a uniter and not a divider. We all waited for him to bring the country together, and after 9/11 there was a time where it looked like he might do just that. But alas, it was too short lived for Americans to be satisfied. Still, George Bush persevered through the adversity, and followed his heart in doing what he knew was right, trusting the American people and history to fully appreciate his efforts as time would inevitably vindicate him. Almost a decade after those heady Florida days, there is a fledging democracy taking root in the heart of the Middle East, America has stood strong, and the terrorists have not dared to attack us again. It took many years and much hardship, lo! the trials and tribulations may have seemed interminable, but at long last truth and justice are prevailing and George Bush has managed to bring his dream to fruition. No longer a bitter and divided nation, George Bush has finally turned his hopes and aspirations into a tangible national unity. What proved elusive after 9/11, and impossible after the war in Iraq, is now reality.

George Bush has finally united the country, nay the world, together behind Barack Obama.

Obama goes to Washington

Lets spend 8 hours covering the train ride live and call it 'The Obama Express'. I think a name change is in order from CNN to CON (Cable Obama Network). To give it some credit though, it is better than The Cheney Express from 8 years ago:




An Update: Now that the train ride is over, The Obama Inauguration special has begun, dubbed Obama-Stock. My DVR won't let me only record the part with Beyonce.

Another Update: I checked CNN a minute ago (around 4) and if it wasn't for the CNN logo and absence of Carson Daily I would have thought it was TRL.

More confirmation questions

Another NYT, another hypothetical question list for confirmation hearings. Today's was for Holder, the AG nominee. The esteemed JEFFREY ROSEN, a law professor at George Washington University and the legal affairs editor of The New Republic had this to ask:


1. What will you do when liberals, over Mr. Obama’s objections, encourage Congress, the courts and the Justice Department to pursue investigations and prosecutions concerning the Bush administration’s surveillance and interrogation policies?

Because as everybody knows, only liberals think Bush's surveillance and interrogation policies should be investigated. It is also assured that Obama will object to it since he's no crazy librul. Tell me how you will pacify them please without actually conducting real investigations. Next, former OLC'er JACK L. GOLDSMITH, a Harvard law professor, the author of “The Terror Presidency,” and an assistant attorney general from 2003 to 2004 had this to ask:

3. Attorney General Michael Mukasey has suggested that the threat of criminal investigations is impairing the ability of the intelligence community to make good-faith decisions about how best to protect the country. How much does this worry you and what, if anything, will you do about it?

Our intelligence community needs to know that there will never be investigations for anything, or else they will be wary of breaking laws. It must be hard to protect the country if you think someone is looking over your shoulder to make sure you don't do illegal things. We simply can't expect our dedicated protectors to be worried about silly things like that, if they let their guard down for a second the terrorist just might escape.

Another one from JEFFREY ROSEN, a law professor at George Washington University and the legal affairs editor of The New Republic cut to the core of Supreme Court nominee dilemmas:

4. Do you agree with Mr. Obama’s implication that the Supreme Court needs someone who will side with the powerless rather than the powerful? What if the best nominee happens to be a white male?


Yes that's a tough one...If the best nominee is a white male, well since we know white males are genetically incapable of siding with the powerless then if you stay true to your implication you will have to choose someone who is not the best nominee. Oh what a pickle! Have fun scratching your head over that one and no, don't bother answering since I designed it to so that it is impossible to form a logical thought in response. But remember I'm watching you.

A rose by any other name is still a failure

Today had some confirmation hearings for Obama's cabinet picks. One of them was for Hillary Clinton. The NYT had various esteemed intellectuals write in some questions they would like to ask Hillary. MICHAEL SANDEL, a professor of government at Harvard, had some deeply insightful analysis:

1. Some say “war on terror” is a misnomer that has led our policy astray. They argue that terrorism is a tactic, not an ideology or a cause, and that a war against it is bound to be ill focused and inconclusive. Do you think we should drop the term “war on terror,” and describe our policy more precisely as a war to defeat Al Qaeda and violent Islamic extremism?

What a different world it would be if "war on terror" were called something else. Obviously the name has caused us to go astray! I'm sure Bush would have waged a much more intelligent and strategically strong war on X if the name was better. Maybe his suggestion, war to defeat Al Qaeda and violent Islamic extremism, would have been better. On the other hand, maybe the addition of the word global would have helped. Perhaps 'global struggle against violent extremism' would have made the difference. Islamofascism maybe? It's hard to predict. Hopefully Obama and Hillary will pick a better name that will let them make more focused decisions.

On the subject of going astray, his 3rd question probed the ill effects of the Iraq war:

3. One of the most damaging legacies of the Iraq war is that it has given idealism and internationalism a bad name. How will you persuade the American people, and the world, that the United States can be a force for democracy and freedom? [force for peace excluded]

Yes, the most damaging legacy is the death of idealism and internationalism. What the fuck is internationalism, in the sense he is using it, and in what conceivable way did Iraq give it a bad name? If anything, Iraq is probably one of the more compelling arguments for "an appreciation for the diverse cultures in the world, and a desire for world peace" rather than one against it. If he meant the marxist interpretation, though he probably didn't, I don't see how it is even remotely related. I am glad someone finally asked this question since I have been struggling with one of my own. I have been trying to convince edgrimly for years now that the worst legacy of Vietnam is that it gave containment and cross-border bombing a bad name. How should I persuade him and the world that we can still defeat communism?

Petulant Asshole

Today was George Bush's last press conference. If you want to watch the whole thing you can start here. I think Keith Olbermann's bit on it was pretty good:



The most notable thing I saw was when talking about torture and eavesdropping (near the end), he seemed to blame all the things he did on the press. "You remember what the enviroment was like in Washington [after 9/11]? I do. When people were hauled up in front of Congress. When members of Congress were asking questions..." and "All these debates will matter not if there was another attack on the homeland"

You see, he did these things because the press and Congress was mean to him after 9/11. You all made him feel so bad that he had to do these things so you wouldn't be mean to him again. You see how it is your fault, not his? He was just connecting dots. He was just doing what he thought you wanted so you wouldn't be mean to him again.

An Update: I really should have noted something about Bush's statement of "All these debates will matter not if there was another attack on the homeland"

Apparently, if there was another terrorist attack after 9/11, GW thinks no one would care one bit about all that controversy over torture, eavesdropping, etc. Had there been another attack, well then the gloves would have came ALL the way off. I can only imagine what that would have been like.

Duo of Doom, concerned for your safety

Bill O'Reilly and Karl Rove have a lengthy discussion about how bad it will be if Obama stops using torture, wiretapping, and rendition.

Typical of FOX News's treatment of this subject, it is assumed that our 'coercive interrogation techniques' are what has saved us from another terrorist attack. Also typically, the claim is made that Obama desires to end the practice of rendition, and no distinction is made between regular rendition - taking someone in one country and moving them to another, not much objectionable about that - and the aspects of rendition Obama and many others disagree with, namely when the country they are taken to is one that is known to torture prisoners. And of course, for the trifecta, opposition to secret, illegal, warrantless wiretapping and data mining is dumbed down to mean you don't want to spy on terrorists at all.

As the icing on the idiot cake, it is hilarious when Rove criticizes Obama's pick of Panetta due to his lack of experience, considering the track record of the Bush White House he was a part of on picking qualified candidates for important jobs. Heckuva job Rove. Most of the people I have seen object to Panetta are people who likely have dirt under their nails with respect to the enhanced interrogation techniques. Seems like they are afraid of being called out for that and possibly going to jail and being subject to some enhanced sodomy techniques.

Al Franken Wins

The MN canvassing board certified it today.

#1 search result on google

if you type in the words:

george w bush dumb shit buffoon

I wish I had some aeroplanes

So that I could use them to drop some bombs on edgrimly's apartment and not be a terrorist. I was reading today in the NYT that Israel has bombed the house of a Hamas leader and killed him along with 6 of his family members, 4 of them children.

The Israeli air force on Thursday afternoon bombed the house of Nizar Rayyan, a senior Hamas leader, killing him along with two of his wives and four children, Palestinian hospital officials said. Mr. Rayyan was the first high ranking Hamas figure killed so far in the Israeli campaign.

Of course, this shouldn't be misunderstood as bombing of civilian areas, since he was a high ranking member of Hamas and a very bad man, as the next paragraph explains.

The Israeli military confirmed the strike and described Mr. Rayyan, who was 46 and lived in Jabaliya, north of Gaza City, as an extremist who had helped plan suicide bombings and had sent his own son on a suicide mission in 2001.

As you can see, it is clear that this was a military target, as evidenced by use of the words extremist and suicide mission. After all, only an extremist would order suicide bombings that kill innocent civilians. We know that Israel is to civilized a country to do anything resembling what those extremist barbarians do.

In Gaza, medical officials said the number of Palestinians killed in the Israeli bombardment had reached 400. While many of the dead were Hamas security personnel, the United Nations said a quarter of those killed were civilians. Israeli officials have put the number of Palestinian civilians killed at closer to one in ten.

I guess the ratio is in dispute somewhat, the only specific numbers given here are for the attack that killed the Hamas leader, and it had a ratio of civilians killed at about 6 out of 7. But again since it killed such a bad man it was probably justified and I am sure that the others had ratios skewed much higher in the other direction. Just to remind you again how bad he was,

In Gaza, Mr. Rayyan was known as an influential figure in the military wing of Hamas, particularly in the north of Gaza, and as someone who extolled and championed the idea of martyrdom.

What further proof do you need that this was a savage that needed to be taken out? He championed martyrdom. Everyone knows that civilized people use more sophisticated and expensive weaponry to make it less likely that they themselves die when they are killing others.

Civilized people do not do things like launch small rockets indiscriminately at whatever is within range. As George W Bush knows, and changed his final (i would hope, with less than a month left) vacation to a 'working vacation' by making a phone call to Ehud Olmert from Crawford to tell him so, these rockets really are the dealbreaker. They are the whole reason this whole thing is going on, similar to his take on the Israel-Lebanon conflict a few years ago. These terrorists are launching rockets at Israeli civilians, and that has to stop before the bombing and blockade will let up. Listen to how horrible these rockets are making daily life for Israelis trying to go about their business:

For its part, Hamas continued to fire rockets into southern Israel, hitting an eight-story apartment building in the port city of Ashdod at noon on Thursday, causing extensive damage but no serious injuries.

Compare that to the civilized and humanitarian conscientious actions of the Israeli govt. in the aforementioned air campaign or in their trade and travel blockade:

Israel on Wednesday rejected a proposal by Foreign Minister Bernard Kouchner of France for a 48-hour lull in fighting for humanitarian purposes. An Israeli official, who was speaking on condition of anonymity because he was not authorized to comment publicly on the French proposal, called it “unrealistic,” “hasty” and bordering on “offensive,” saying that Israel was already allowing humanitarian supplies into Gaza every day.

The sentiment was echoed by Israel's foreign minister, Tzipi Livni, who recently did an interview on Meet the Press. Only wackos like Jimmy Carter disagree. If people like him would just give Israel some time and stop harping on about war crimes and humanitarian crises, it will all be worth it in the end, when victory is achieved and there is a ticker-tape parade:

Speaking to reporters on Wednesday in Sderot, an Israeli town near the border with Gaza that has been targeted by Palestinian rocket attacks for years, Ms. Livni appealed to the international community to give their support to Israel and to give Israel time, “so that at the end of this military operation, the outcome will be victory for those who believe in our values.”

It is all about shared values coming out on top in the end. Values that the international community shares withi Israel. Those without those values, those who would do things like firing rockets into the town I am in now, need to be defeated. The barbarity of the rocket attacks is evident:

Israel’s stated goal for its military operation is to halt the rocket fire from Gaza and to create a new security equation in southern Israel, where three civilians and a soldier have been killed in rocket attacks in the last six days.

Those with those values need to be given some short leeway, so that they can be victorious where those values can flourish once and for all time. Those with those values are clearly more civilized and who would only relectantly and temporarily bomb Gaza killing 400 Palestinians or blockade food shipments and travel.

Israel stepped up its diplomatic activity on Thursday, possibly to try to gain more time for its rolling military offensive against Hamas in Gaza while keeping up airstrikes against the radical Islamic group’s infrastructure for a sixth day.

How much time should be given and how temporary will it be?

But as she left for Paris on Thursday, Ms. Livni told Israel Radio that Israel would not agree to a cease-fire at this point and would continue with its military operation, the radio said. The radio cited Ms. Livni as saying “This is not a short battle and it is not a single battle, and we have long-range goals.”


Update: The article had some revisions made to it after I wrote this so some of the quotes will be a little bit different.