The View from Vulcan: July 2009

Best news story of the month

Nutbars, to paraphrase edgrimly

You may have heard about the "birther" movement, which is a group of fucksticks that think Obama wasn't born in the US and have "questions" about his birth certificate. Lou Dobbs can be counted among their esteemed membership. That's right, Lou Dobbs, taking his immigrant paranoia to a whole new level.

This week has seen some interesting developments in the saga. An increasing number of GOP Congress members have slyly encouraged the birthers, as can be seen in this entertaining short story:

John Stewart, as usual, did a hilarious debunking of it all that you should see.

When asked about the controversy, Gibbie-san had a pretty good rebuttal:

Today, Democrats in Congress came out with a resolution to honor Hawaii's 50th that also mentioned the Obama was born there, only to find it temporarily blocked. It is good to see them calling the crazies bluff, the frivilousness of it all notwithstanding. One can only imagine whats next with these crazy antics. This stuff is almost as good as Road Rules/Real World Challenge, and also almost as mind numbing, if not more.

Don't they use the buddy system over there?

Retired cheesedick Ralph Peters had a case of verbal diarrhea on the air and wished for the execution of an American soldier taken hostage. Shortly thereafter, he went on The Factor to regurgitate his shtick. I hope this pathetic excuse for a man was never actually in charge of a combat unit of any size. I think I will classify him as the asshole of the year.

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Hotter Press Secretary:

Dana Perino or Dee Dee Meyers?

Ode to Sanford

Amid a clamoring cacophony of calls for SC Gov. Mark Sanford to resign after word of his Argentinian amorè became public, he braved the meta mælström with this op-ed apology; proudly proclaiming his deep shame and regret for his prurient purlieus, and tempering the lamentations with a pledge to humbly do his part in God's larger plan for him throughout the remainder of his term in public service.

If sincere, perhaps Sanford- who was considered a GOP up-and-comer- and fraulein McCain could begin a new generation of Republican politicians, free from the overcompensation complex suffered by so many hypocritical puritan peoples' representatives, able to tolerate and forgive all the various and sundry godless sodomites out there.

Then again, perhaps not.

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What about empathy?

So there has been a big furor over the Sotomayor SC nomination. There's been much squawking from the GOP about this 'empathy' word and the necessity of the "objectively applying the law" where personal feelings play no part. Ironic coming from the political party that wants no criminal inquiry into Bush's interrogation policies that include some obvious war crimes, since there were the good intentions of protecting us.

During Sotomayor's confirmation hearings this week, one GOP senator after another took the opportunity to grandstand about judicial neutrality and empathy and race politics. And that is all it was--grandstanding. It's established wisdom that she will get confirmed, and many of them even hinted they would still vote to confirm. No one expected her confirmation not to go through. If the Senate Republicans were actually interested in criticizing her they would not have had turned down this guy to come testify. Jeffrey Deskovic was wrongly convicted and Judge Sotomayor refused to hear the evidence based on a late paperwork technicality. After seeing the facts of that case, is there anyone who would have serious concern about her 'empathy'?

Instead, they have dyslexic Frank Ricci testify since his case is more of the GOP base red meat about affirmative action than about wrongful convictions (something the pro-death penalty part would rather ignore). The whole uproar over empathy and race politics has been an opportunity to grandstand and has little to do with the actual nominee.