The Big Delusion

Or is it "The Big Lie?" Being a charitable guy, I'll call it a delusion. We all have them (how else to explain 90+% belief in an old man with a beard running the world?) so I guess maybe this is the Right's: That The Reagan Legacy was good for the country economically.

Being less watchful during Ronnie's Big Adventure than I am now, I just remember the 80's (politically) as a sort of attack on my values unpleasantly bolstered by the good feelings that seemed to flow through the body politic and a nagging sense that "maybe I've missed something". I remember longing for a Democrat that made me want to believe in him like Reagan did for his followers. If you think I was wrong then, I only have to point out the Cult of Ron showcased last night. I swear to Buddha there are more versions of 'Reagan conservative' than there are versions of 'Christian'.

Anyway, before the Rep Debate (held in the shadows of Reagan's Air Force One - imagine having to sell yourself while staring at the ass-end of your Idol's airplane) there was another debate in Washington at the National Press Club. this one Featured the remarkably wrong ("anyone who thinks that the Sunni's and Shia don't get along is engaging in shallow pop-psychology") Willian Kristol and Robert Kuttner, founder of the American Prospect.

TomPaine.com takes it from there:

Kristol helped build the alternate universe in which nearly all of the Republican candidates, with the exception of libertarian Rep. Ron Paul, spend most, if not all, of their time.

In this universe, the conservatism of Ronald Reagan—whose library served as the stage for the debate—has ushered in what Kristol called “very impressive economic growth over the last quarter century” that has not only benefited America but much of the world. Countries like China and India, by implementing Reagan’s formula of supply-side economics, deregulation and open markets “brought hundreds of millions of people out of poverty.”

... This is, of course, not the world the rest of us live in ...

... Kristol scoffed at “stagflation” and “70 percent marginal tax rates” under President Jimmy Carter, but according to government data compiled by Spriggs, job growth during the Carter administration was actually higher (3.1 percent) than under Reagan’s two terms (2.1 percent). During the Clinton administration, job growth was 2.4 percent. Job growth during the terms of both George W. Bush and his father has been well under 1 percent. Median family incomes, in constant dollars, rose faster under both Carter and Clinton than they did under Reagan and the two Bushes.

...But while progressives like Spriggs have statistics, Kristol claims a whole city—New York City, in fact. “We had a very interesting test case in New York,” he said, of a city governed under “liberal principles” that he characterized as unsafe and dysfunctional until Giuliani cleaned up the city, cut the tax rates, got tough on crime and forced people off the welfare rolls.

Funny, though, that Giuliani’s experiment with urbanized Reaganomics coincided with the Clinton economic boom, a rising tide that lifted liberal and conservative ships alike. And yet, a report prepared for the New York City council noted that under Giuliani median incomes in Manhattan, the Bronx and Queens actually fell between 1999 and 2002, and rose only by a few dollars in Brooklyn and Staten Island. If Giuliani-style conservative economics were so great for New York, how do he and Kristol explain the finding in the report that “the annual earnings and hourly wages dropped for New Yorkers at the bottom of the earnings ladder from 2003 to 2004 by 5.1 percent and hourly wages declined by 5.5 percent?”

That was just one of the areas in which the conservative analysis of the last three decades, as laid out in the Kuttner-Kristol debate, failed to connect with reality. Many of us remember how Reagan made it seem real—Reagan says, “Mr. Gorbachev, tear down this wall,” and the Soviet Union falls—but how quickly we forget that Reagan was a trained actor working with an admittedly skillfully written screenplay, and that the Soviet Union would have fallen without the dramatics and the billions of tax dollars diverted from domestic needs and spent on weaponry.

The screenplay, however, is no longer resonating with voters who want policies that speak to the economic stresses they and their neighbors are experiencing. “Fewer and fewer and fewer voters are buying either the ideology or the incumbent,” Kuttner said, citing a recent Gallup poll that indicated the percentage of voters who believe the rich have too much money and that the government should do more for the poor “are at their highest since 1939.”

A Precis' On The Precipice

Mr Dan and I often laugh about conversations that we have overheard on the Train between DC and NYC but we never ride the high-speed, high-roller Acela. Adriana Huffington does and so does GT12 bete' noir William Kristol. And she eavesdrops too...

Kristol was sitting a row behind me, talking on his cell phone with someone who apparently shared his optimism. "'Precipitous withdrawal' really worked," I overheard him say, clearly referring to the president's use of the term in that morning's press conference. "How many times did he use it? Three? Four?" he asked his interlocutor, and the conversation continued with a round of metaphorical back-slapping for the clever phrase they had "come up with."

I, of course, have no idea who was on the other end. Tony Snow, perhaps? After all, he and Kristol were colleagues before Snow left Fox. But whoever it was, the emphasis during their conversation on the significance of the "clever" phrase has been emblematic of the White House prepping of the president.

Instead of sending their boss out with the real facts or logical arguments, Bush's aides and their friends (see Kristol) concoct some nonsense phrase in the spin lab, hand it to him and tell him to go out there and repeat it as often as he can. The latest is "precipitous withdrawal." It's the new "cut and run." It's actually not all that new: back in January 1969, Richard Nixon used it again and again in his famous "Silent Majority" speech: "The precipitate withdrawal of American forces from Vietnam would be a disaster not only for South Vietnam but for the United States and for the cause of peace." Again and again throughout the speech, Nixon used the phrase to paint the nightmarish consequences of a "precipitate withdrawal" from Vietnam.

Ms H reviews the the sordid trail of lies that Bill has been shamelessly hoisting on the public.

I know it's a pretty high bar, but Bill Kristol, the founder of the Project for a New American Century that spawned the Iraq war, the man whose editorials often seem to be inserted directly into the president's speeches, and who once boasted that "Dick Cheney does send over someone to pick up 30 copies of [The Weekly Standard] every Monday," has now just written the single most deceptive piece of the entire war.

The charitable view is that he's lost his mind. The less charitable view is that he's now officially surpassed Dick Cheney as the most intellectually dishonest member of the neocon establishment (the highest of all high bars). The truth-shattering piece appeared yesterday on the front page of the Washington Post Outlook section. It is entitled "Why Bush Will Be A Winner."

....

It isn't pretty. In fact, the Washington Post should have put some kind of warning on the piece for pregnant women, heart patients, and anyone with an allergy to bullshit. And if the pipeline from Kristol to the White House works the same for this piece as for "precipitous withdrawal," the country is in even worse shape than we thought.
So what did he say? I'll take it in order, and focus on national security.

After allowing that the war has been "difficult," he writes that "we now seem to be on course to a successful outcome."

Really? Not only does he give no evidence for this, not only does he ignore all the overwhelmingly contradictory evidence; he also conveniently neglects to even define what a "successful outcome" would be.

Then comes an onslaught of lies:

Read it all here and know why he should be jailed.

Because Somebody (Pat Buchanan, HRC) Might Bring This Up

William Kristol, who does no research and is always (no, really, he's always) wrong is discussed by Think Progress:

In his New York Times column [yesterday], Weekly Standard editor Bill Kristol tried to find reasons for conservatives to be optimistic about 2008 elections, despite the claims of some Republicans that “the Republican brand is in the trash can.” To support his argument, Kristol pointed to Sen. Barack Obama’s (D-IL) 41-point loss in the West Virginia primary:

On Tuesday night, while the G.O.P. Congressional candidate was losing in a Mississippi district George Bush carried in 2004 by 25 points, Barack Obama was being trounced in the West Virginia Democratic primary — by 41 points. I can’t find a single recent instance of a candidate who ultimately became his party’s nominee losing a primary by this kind of margin.

Apparently Kristol didn’t look hard enough. Writing at Room Eight, New York political consultant Jerry Skurnik says it took him “all of 2 minutes to find what Kristol couldn’t find.”

On Feb. 5, former Massachusetts Gov. Mitt Romney beat presumptive GOP nominee Sen. John McCain (R-AZ) by 85 points in the Utah primary.

In fact, on the same day, former Arkansas Gov. Mike Huckabee beat McCain by the same margin Kristol touted as unprecedented — 41 points — in the Arkansas primary.

As did Mitt Romney in the Colorado caucus.

Luckily, He's Always Wrong

This from the never accurrate Billy-The-K

On Fox News Sunday .., Weekly Standard editor Bill Kristol said that President Bush is more likely to attack Iran if he believes Sen. Barack Obama (D-IL) is going to be elected.

However, “if the president thought John McCain was going to be the next president, he would think it more appropriate to let the next president make that decision than do it on his way out,” Kristol said, reinforcing the fact that McCain is offering a third Bush term on Iran.

“I do wonder with Senator Obama, if President Bush thinks Senator Obama’s going to win, does he somehow think — does he worry that Obama won’t follow through on that policy,” Kristol added. Host Chris Wallace then asked if Kristol was suggesting that Bush might “launch a military strike” before or after the election:

WALLACE: So, you’re suggesting that he might in fact, if Obama’s going to win the election, either before or after the election, launch a military strike?

KRISTOL: I don’t know. I mean, I think he would worry about it. On the other hand, you can’t — it’s hard to make foreign policy based on guesses of election results. I think Israel is worried though. I mean, what is, what signal goes to Ahmadinejad if Obama wins on a platform of unconditional negotiations and with an obvious reluctance to even talk about using military force.

Dispatching Bilbo

Scott Horton gives us the real whys and wherefores

The Sacking of Bill Kristol

Kristol’s writing wasn’t compelling or even very careful. He either lacked a talent for solid opinion journalism or wasn’t putting his heart into it. A give-away came in the form of four corrections the newspaper was forced to run over factual mistakes in the columns, creating an impression that they were rushed out without due diligence or attention to factual claims. A senior writer at Time magazine recounted to me a similar experience with Kristol following his stint in 2006-07. “His conservative ideas were cutting edge and influential,” I was told. “But his sloppy writing and failure to fact check what he wrote made us queasy.”

Kristol also regularly commented on political developments in which he was personally engaged—without disclosing the depth of his engagement. The Daily Beast previously highlighted his deep involvement in selection of Alaska Governor Sarah Palin to be John McCain’s running mate. In the campaign season that followed, boosterism about Sarah Palin became a staple of his writing, even at the expense of his relationship with McCain and leading figures in the McCain campaign. This conduct blurred the distinctions between being an actor on and observer of the political stage, raising some concern among the guardians of The Times’ credibility.

Succubus

Of Course, as Steve Benen notes, just listening to Bill Kristol demonstrates a near criminal inability to recognize idiocy.....

Toldja:

McCain aides privately call Palin a ‘total disaster.’»

On Salon Radio this morning, Glenn Greenwald asked Harper’s Scott Horton about his recent reporting on how Weekly Standard Editor Bill Kristol lobbied the McCain campaign to select Gov. Sarah Palin (R-AK) as the Republican vice presidential nominee. Horton explained that the McCain campaign is now regretting following Kristol’s advice, calling the Palin pick a “total disaster“:

HORTON: We’ve got a lot of finger-pointing going on within the camp, and I’d say there’s a pretty broad agreement amongst a number of the senior-most advisors to McCain that the Palin pick is worse than disappointing. It’s a total disaster, as one describes to me. And there is a sort of blame game going on there. […]

I would say the anger and irritation between a number of the senior people in the McCain camp and Bill Kristol is become really acute. … They view this man as the guy who gave them this albatross, Sarah Palin. I think there’s a lot of real anger about it. There’s also recognition that it’s too late to do anything.

Horton said neoconservatives are “now just proceeding to develop Palin as their candidate, as somebody they want to bring up in 2012, as the neo-con favored Republican.”

Last month, a former Republican White House official, who now works at the American Enterprise Institute, said, “She’s bright and she’s a blank page. She’s going places and it’s worth going there with her.”

FAIL 2.0

Fresh New Recycling from the brainpower behind Iraq, the Aborted Afghan Mission and the Patriot Act

Think Progress

A newly-formed and still obscure neo-conservative foreign policy organisation is giving some observers flashbacks to the 1990s, when its predecessor staked out the aggressively unilateralist foreign policy that came to fruition under the George W. Bush administration.

The blandly-named Foreign Policy Initiative (FPI) - the brainchild of Weekly Standard editor William Kristol, neo-conservative foreign policy guru Robert Kagan, and former Bush administration official Dan Senor - has thus far kept a low profile; its only activity to this point has been to sponsor a conference pushing for a U.S. “surge” in Afghanistan.

Though it’s not mentioned on their Foreign Policy Initiative (FPI) bio page, Kristol and Kagan were co-founders of PNAC in 1997. Matt Duss writes at the Wonk Room that Kristol and Kagan seem to be re-naming their old organization because it became “inextricably bound in the public’s imagination to one of the worst foreign policy blunders in American history,” the invasion of Iraq.

Not Just A Hobgoblin

Consistency can also be the proof of a foolish mind.

Like consistently being fact-impaired.

That's our Kristol!

HuffPo reports:

Eight paragraphs into his new stint as a New York Times op-ed columnist, William Kristol, it turns out, has already made an embarrassing error.

His column, which suggests that the Democrats not underestimate Mike Huckabee's chances to win it all, includes this graf just past the midway point, quotes the "conservative writer Michelle Malkin" as saying, "For the work-hard-to-get-ahead strivers who represent the heart and soul of the G.O.P., there are obvious, powerful points of identification."

There's just one problem: She never said, as she was quick to point out herself on her michellmalkin.com site: "Since I never usually appear on the New York Times op-ed page unless someone's calling me a fascist, I was pleasantly surprised to see the quote. Unfortunately (or fortunately, depending on how you look at it), I didn't write what Kristol attributed to me. A different MM-Michael Medved-was the author."

Support Barry O And Make A Bad Man Morose!

In a New York Times op-ed, Neocon William Kristol appears depressed by the current assumption that Obama has the election in the bag -- but what seems to annoy him most are the "got hope?" bumper stickers adorning even expensive cars in his Washington suburban neighborhood.

"I relapsed into moroseness," Kristol complains, wondering "Are my own neighbors’ lives so bleak that they place their hopes in Barack Obama?" ... "Do they really believe their fellow citizens who happen to prefer McCain are hopeless?"

Get Your Own Bumper Sticker Here And Piss On Bill Kristol

Party-son

Bill Kristol let's us know what really at stake in Iraq. And of course it ain't the honor of our soldiers sacrifice. Bill Kristol is just a piece of shit. I understand why people support the death penalty when I think of Bill Kristol. Unlike him and his ilk, I understand that 'feeling' does not trump law and order. National or international.

Why on earth pull the plug now? Why give in to an insane, irrational panic that will destroy the Bush administration and most likely sweep the Republican party to ruin?

Sarah: Not So 'Out Of The Blue'

via London Telegraph:

Neoconservatives plan Project Sarah Palin to shape future American foreign policy

Sources in the McCain camp, the Republican Party and Washington think tanks say Mrs Palin was identified as a potential future leader of the neoconservative cause in June 2007. That was when the annual summer cruise organised by the right-of-centre Weekly Standard magazine docked in Juneau, the Alaskan state capital, and the pundits on board took tea with Governor Palin.

Her case as John McCain's running mate was later advanced vociferously by William Kristol, the magazine's editor, who is widely seen as one of the founding fathers of American neoconservative thought - including the robust approach to foreign policy which spurred American intervention in Iraq.

[To Review GT12's coverage of the Biblically Stupid Bill Kristol click here]

In 1988, Mr Kristol became a leading adviser of another inexperienced Republican vice presidential pick, Dan Quayle, tutoring him in foreign affairs. Last week he praised Mrs Palin as "a spectre of a young, attractive, unapologetic conservatism" that "is haunting the liberal elites".

Now many believe that the "neocons", whose standard bearer in government, Vice President Dick Cheney, lost out in Washington power struggles to the more moderate defence secretary Robert Gates and secretary of state Condoleezza Rice, last year are seeking to mould Mrs Palin to renew their influence.

Sarah: No Surprise

From Tina Brown's new onliner 'The Daily Beast'

A writer for London’s Daily Telegraph interviewed one of the participants in the Juneau junket about the meeting with Palin:

“She’s bright and she’s a blank page. She’s going places and it’s worth going there with her.” Asked if he sees her as a “project,” the former official said: “Your word, not mine, but I wouldn’t disagree with the sentiment.”

A key organizer and participant in the Palin meeting was Weekly Standard editor Bill Kristol, who can fairly lay claim to having “discovered” Palin for Washington political circles. Palin’s name appeared in fifty-seven Weekly Standard articles since the Juneau meeting—starting with a paean entitled “The Most Popular Governor” that ran right after the reception.

Indeed, Kristol, who was a loyal McCain supporter in 2000 and is often thought to have suffered exclusion from Bush’s inner circle as a result, may have played a key role in McCain’s decision to tap Palin as his running mate. A McCain campaign insider described to me a tight three-way competition between Palin, Joe Lieberman, and Mitt Romney in the final days. McCain himself, it was no secret, wanted Lieberman to be his running mate, but his senior advisors were adamant that Lieberman could not be sold to the Republican base. A Lieberman nomination might risk exposing serious fissures in the party at the convention in Saint Paul.

Lindsey, Bill - Maybe You Should Follow The Money

Senator Graham insisted that military re-enlistments show the faith that service-families have in our Iraq adventure. Bill Kristol, purveyor of Kristol-Meth, insists that we must support the families wishes by hanging in ther with 'em and their efforts.

But ... I wonder if the $50k, tax-free re-enlistment bonus has anything to do with the re-ups.

And I think that this fact may suggest where the families' idea of suppport lies (from iraqslogger.com):

The Presidential campaigns just released their quarterly campaign finance reports, leaving much of the mainstream media remarking on Paul's surge in online donations from his healthy Internet following, though the $2.3 million he raised still has him trailing far behind the front runners.

But a closer look at the reports reveals a less obvious but more remarkable development--the antiwar Republican received nearly 50% of the money donated by employees of the US military.

The Change We've Been Waiting For

At the end of Bill (The Buffoon) Kristol's NYT column today this Notice:

This is William Kristol’s last column.

To Review Why Bilbo today brings us such joy, review GT12's coverage here.

Predictions You Can Depend On

Bill Kristol has begun writing a column for the NY Times.

Because Kristol has been as reliably wrong as a People magazine Record Review GT12 takes heart from this paragraph from his first column for The Grey Lady

Some Democrats are licking their chops at the prospect of a Huckabee nomination. They shouldn’t be. For one thing, Michael Bloomberg would be tempted to run in the event of an Obama-Huckabee race — and he would most likely take votes primarily from Obama. But whatever Bloomberg does, the fact is that the Republican establishment spent 2007 underestimating Mike Huckabee. If Huckabee does win the nomination, it would be amusing if Democrats made the same mistake in 2008.

Even Bill Kristol Can Find Some New Outrage To Create

John McCain? Not so creative (via Wonkette):

Stylish wordsmith Barack Obama had an op-ed in the New York Times last week, which is kind of a big deal. He could be the next David Brooks or Bill Kristol or even Maureen Dowd! So then Grampa Walnuts McCain was all, “Argghhh, I should get a column in the New York Times, I was tortured,” so the Times is all, “Okay, submit one, we guess?”

According to Drudge:

or where-ever he got this from, Op-Ed editor David Shipley cold rejected McCain’s submission because, instead of being an op-ed for the NYT, was just some rehashed campaign talking points against Obama.

Drudge reports: 'The Obama piece worked for me because it offered new information (it appeared before his speech); while Senator Obama discussed Senator McCain, he also went into detail about his own plans.'

Shipley continues: 'It would be terrific to have an article from Senator McCain that mirrors Senator Obama's piece. To that end, the article would have to articulate, in concrete terms, how Senator McCain defines victory in Iraq.'

Anals Of Discourse

That's not a typo.

A couple of things came together to help us remember how far we still have to go to wipe away the stain of the Bush years.

Andrew posts this today

The Barbarian Inside The Gate
"I was very struck also by Janet Napolitano’s comment, I hadn’t read it before to see her say that, that the number one priority is to bring [Hasan] to justice is such a knee-jerk comment and such a stupid comment. He’s going to be brought to justice. He is not going to be innocent of murder. There are a lot of eyewitnesses to that. They should just go ahead and convict him and put him to death," - William Kristol, appearing on Fox News.

Let us be clear: this is a fascist statement.

You begin to understand now why these goons instituted torture. They have total contempt for the Western system of justice, utter contempt for the rule of law. Kristol here is all but calling for a lynching. This is what "conservatism" has come to: the worship of violence and revenge. It makes the Cheney years more comprehensible, doesn't it?

Yesterday I chatted with a particularly pungent example of the authoritarian follower on the Twitter:

HULAgate @GoToTwlv I'd make the argument that the ACLU and the rest of the Diversity First crowd should be tried right next to the 9-11 thugs.

HULAgate @GoToTwlv "The Nuremberg Trials dealt w/ officials of an actual state." Bin Laden says he's king of the camels. Who would argue with that?

HULAgate @GoToTwlv It is about lib Political Correctness run amok, just as Fort Hood was the victim of leftist stupidity playing enabler to terror.

HULAgate @GoToTwlv "Being terrorized can do that" Enough about the brave Dutch, how much did you give to Obama in 2008 to appease the PLO in 2009?

HULAgate @GoToTwlv And still, even after your jive, NO MERIT to AG Holder's stupid decision to re-terrorize the 9-11 victims. Some change, that one.

HULAgate @GoToTwlv So you're saying these were just more late term abortions, on 9-11? I can see how the loon left might take comfort in that, sure.

HULAgate @GoToTwlv Your lost liberal logic is rounder than Oprah's head. Holder has given Al Queda EXACTLY what they wanted, on a Tiffany TV platter.

Because liberals believe in an open and free society with transparency I will post the last 4 messages I sent Mr @HULAgate (the name is some sort of jab at Obama's heritage or something ... I don't know. The man's got a bunch of Beck/Limbaugh/Hannity buzz phrases bouncing around in his skull and they pop up throughout his feverish postings - in lieu of reasoned conversation) You can decide if I wound up as crazy as him. (The posts are printed here in reverse chronological order)

@HULAgate hey, F-the victims right? NY & DC R overwhelmingly liberal/socialist/muslim lovers right? Prob lots of ACLU mbrs too! U think bad about 16 hours ago

@HULAgate I'm sorry that after 233 years this country's resilience and strength has not yet become apparent to you. I gotta go. about 16 hours ago

@HULAgate Friend, for anarchy/death/fear to occur a terrorist needs *us* to be scared, die or abandon our society's rules.They care abt us about 16 hours ago

@HULAgate How come you guys flit from one topic to another? A lack of commitment 2 serious discussion. Being terrorized can do that to a guy about 17 hours ago

@HULAgate You are classy. And you're responding just the way a terrorist would want you too.

And they're not too bright. I found a tongue-in-cheek GT12 post being cited on an pro-Obama Impeachment Website.

(Side note: I remember starting a new job in September of '93. My new boss, an idiot of the first order, had a homemade 'Impeach Clinton' bumbersticker on his ratty Honda. 1993!)

27% of the country still likes Palin.

27% of Illinois voted for Alan Keyes over Obama in 2006.

27% of humans are just genetically wired to think like that.

AMY GOODMAN: [John Dean,] talk about your research, going back in time, what social science you drew from.

JOHN DEAN: Right. What happened in looking for answers, I first went down a lot of bad alleys, where nothing was there. Then I ran into this body of research that really commenced after World War II, where social scientists were trying to figure out if we could ever have in the United States what had happened in Italy and Germany under Hitler and Mussolini. And the short answer was, they found, yes, we could have that. There is clearly an authoritarian personality.

The initial research was very Freudian-based. Other researchers quickly, who debated that and didn’t think that was the most solid, began asking empirical questions, asking surveys of people, and developing scales to determine, you know, which personalities were more likely to become followers and those that are leaders.
So they did develop—now we have 40 years of this material, and it has been replicated time and time again, and we know an awful lot about this type of personality. There are people who submit very easily to an authority figure. They do it because they’re frightened. 9/11 drove an awful lot of people into submitting to authoritarianism, and they’re very aggressive once they submit. This explains a lot of the incivility, the nastiness, the mean-spiritedness. They’re not self-critical, and they become true advocates, not unlike the clips you saw earlier in the show, of whatever position they’re advocating and pushing.

AMY GOODMAN: One of the quotes you begin with is Jonathan Schell. “The administration of George W. Bush is not a dictatorship, but it does manifest the characteristics of one in embryonic form,” he writes.

JOHN DEAN: Yes, well taken. I must say that as somebody who was in a White House where it was dubbed an imperial presidency, which had its own authoritarian nature, we now have a presidency that is the imperial presidency on steroids. They have really bulked it up. It is unchecked by the Congress.

I found when I started looking and applying this research, Amy, that it really starts in the Congress, and it blossoms there in the congressional leadership, setting up a very almost dictatorial system within the House. And then, when Bush and Cheney come in in 2000, they give all this a new legitimacy. 9/11, they exploit that further and give it more legitimacy. And it’s a very troublesome thing, because it is proto-fascist behavior.

Now, are we on the road to fascism? No. The problem is we’re not very far from it. And I’m told by the experts in that area that if it comes here, it will come with a smile on its face, and we’ll give up things that we’ll wish we’d never given up.

Our goal is to to worry about the other 73%

Scum

I know that Barry O doesn't want me to think this way anymore but ... well isn't this just the nineties all over again?

Andrew:

Byron York confirmed that it was Republican partisan pressure that forced Gregg to pull out. The idea that a Republican could help give Obama cover on entitlement reform and that he would preside over a big increase in Hispanic representation in the Census was too much for the Rovian partisans. Shill Kristol lets the cat out of the bag:

they were worried that clever “post-partisan” or bipartisan tactics by Obama could split and weaken an already uncertain and demoralized GOP.

Party first. Country always always last. Welcome to today's Republicans.

Not An Honest Man, Not An Honorable Man, Just Gollum (or HRC) With A Bad Haircut

Mr Straight Talk-Anti-Torture (except when I have to vote against it) hires a true blue enthusiast for waterboarding your enemy.

This is A Third Bush Term On Steroids

Glen Greenwald reports:

Newest McCain official: President has "near dictatorial powers"

Bill Kristol today proudly announces that one of his Weekly Standard staff members, Michael Goldfarb, was just named the Deputy Communications Director of the McCain campaign. Last April, this newest McCain official participated in a conference call with former Senator George Mitchell, during which Mitchell advocated a timetable for withdrawal from Iraq. Afterwards, this is what Goldfarb wrote about what he thinks are the powers the President possesses in our country:

Mitchell's less than persuasive answer [to whether withdrawal timetables "somehow infringe on the president's powers as commander in chief?"]: "Congress is a coequal branch of government...the framers did not want to have one branch in charge of the government."
True enough, but they sought an energetic executive with near dictatorial power in pursuing foreign policy and war. So no, the Constitution does not put Congress on an equal footing with the executive in matters of national security.

And:

The Times indicts the Bush administration for exposing terrorists captured abroad to "head-slapping, simulated drowning and frigid temperatures." Boo hoo.

And

[I]f federal agents show up at a corporate headquarters for a major American company and urgently seek that company's officers for assistance in the war on terror, the companies damn well ought to give it as a matter of simple patriotism, whether the CIA wants a plane for some extraordinary rendition or help in tracking terrorists via email. . . . [T]o expect a company to resist a plea from the government for help in a time of war is ridiculous.

Anti-Kristol

Read this prediction from one year ago ...