Cue The Zither Music ... Minced Garlic: New Keith Olbermann Special Comment

The Entire Government Has Failed Us On Iraq

Another Keith Olbermann Special Comment this evening, about shame, and the bi-partisan governing exhibited by our President and Congress over the past day in regard to the Iraq War Spending Bill.

He called it a "betrayal" and, for the Democrats, "their Neville Chamberlain moment"

"That’s what this is for the Democrats, isn’t it?

Their “Neville Chamberlain moment” before the Second World War.

All that’s missing is the landing at the airport, with the blinkered leader waving a piece of paper which he naively thought would guarantee “peace in our time,” but which his opponent would ignore with deceit.

The Democrats have merely streamlined the process.

Their piece of paper already says Mr. Bush can ignore it, with impunity.

The Garlic thanks to a confluence of events, sees it more like the classic "The Third Man", with George Bush taking on the Harry Lime role (so deliciously portrayed in the film by the great Orson Wells), with a haunting score of zither music.

Last night, taking on the Holly Martins role, the U.S. Congress, with not enough cynicism, and wanting to believe so much in their Bush-as-Harry Lime, capitulated and gave him a toothless Iraq War Spending Bill.


This morning, the stalwart of justice, Monica Goodling, certainly taking on the part of Anna Schmidt, all misty-eyed in love with Harry, took her turn before the House Judiciary Committee, to, alternately defend Lime and his cohorts, and, at the same time throw a few people under the bus - and hope, just as Anna in the movie did, she doesn't get arrested, but will do so, willingly, for her Harry.

Today, The Commander Guy goes to the Coast Guard Academy, to raise the curtain - again - on fear, playing the Osama bin Laden and Al Qaeda card - with, at least, two-year old intelligence, only recently declassified for The Decider's usage - telling how Iraq will be used as a launching pad for attacks on the United States - the same Iraq that Osama bin Laden and Al Qaeda wasn't in when the Bush Grindhouse unleashed their "Shock and Awe" to invade and occupy the country.

Lime, in post WWII Vienna, was trafficking in bad penicillin, along with other unsavory activities, including murder.

Bush-as-Lime, in the post Sept.11th world, is trafficking in bad intelligence, illegal wiretaps, the politicization of the Justice Department, as well as the aforementioned invasion and occupation of a sovereign nation.

Lime, in a famous scene, runs through the Vienna sewer system.

Bush-as-Lime, by his actions, has dragged the United States of America down in the sewer, with his attack on the U.S. Constitution, the suspension of habeas corpus, governing via Signing Statements, and his lying.

Lime, in the movie, doesn't get away with it.

Our Bush-as-Lime, thanks to the Congress, playing the passive Martins, half wanting to stop him, and half, wanting to see him succeed, may just get away with it, keeping us, and our soldiers, in harms way, right up to January 20th, 2009.

But all the Commander Guy could come up with today was to pull out the tired, well-worn, fear mongering speech, nothing even remotely close to the classic riff Harry Lime gives Holly (with a bit of fear mongering of his own - "... I carry a gun...I don't think they'd look for a bullet wound after you'd hit that ground...") at the top of the Riesenrad, the large Ferris wheel in the Prater amusement park;

HARRY
Don't be so gloomy...After all,
it's not that awful. Remember what
the fellow said...

- in Italy, for thirty years under
the Borgias, they had warfare,
terror, murder, bloodshed, but they
produced Michaelangelo - Leonardo
Da Vinci, and the Renaissance...In
Switzerland, they had brotherly
love. They had five hundred years
of democracy and peace, and what did
that produce?...The cuckoo clock.
So long, Holly.

Olbermann, for his part in this play, came out swinging.

Few men or women elected in our history—whether executive or legislative, state or national—have been sent into office with a mandate more obvious, nor instructions more clear:

Get us out of Iraq.

With bullet points, Olbermann blasts the Dems, with punches that likely were felt down in the Beltway, before going on to;

A President, Mr. Bush, uses the carte blanche he has already, not to manipulate an overlap of arriving and departing Brigades into a ‘second surge,’ but to say in unequivocal terms that if it takes every last dime of the monies already allocated, if it takes reneging on government contracts with Halliburton, he will make sure the troops are safe—even if the only safety to be found, is in getting them the hell out of there.

Well, any true President would have done that, Sir.

You instead, used our troops as political pawns, then blamed the Democrats when you did so.

Olbermann finishes (and I won't ruin it here for you) with a flourish, a heated "we’re not going to take it", while laying down a challenge, to, well, someone, stop the lies, and stop the war.

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