About Those "Seeds of Democracy"

Well, this isn't, exactly, a Captain Renault moment;

Defector admits to WMD lies that triggered Iraq war

The defector who convinced the White House that Iraq had a secret biological weapons programme has admitted for the first time that he lied about his story, then watched in shock as it was used to justify the war.

Rafid Ahmed Alwan al-Janabi, codenamed Curveball by German and American intelligence officials who dealt with his claims, has told the Guardian that he fabricated tales of mobile bioweapons trucks and clandestine factories in an attempt to bring down the Saddam Hussein regime, from which he had fled in 1995.

"Maybe I was right, maybe I was not right," he said. "They gave me this chance. I had the chance to fabricate something to topple the regime. I and my sons are proud of that and we are proud that we were the reason to give Iraq the margin of democracy."

Since Obama has chosen not to look in the rearview mirror, we can only hope that history will not be so kind, and place the Bush Grindhouse and their Legacy in the appropriate light - The President of Shitdom.

And the Flying Monkeys over at the Right Wing Freakshow still wants to headline it was those "planting seeds of Democracry" bullshit.



Bonus Riffs

John Cole: You Told Me you Loved Me, But I Don’t Understand

Adam Serwer: Conservatives keep hogging credit for Mideast protests

For The Want Of A Lie

It Will Never Be A Happy "Mission Accomplished" Day

"Son of A Dog!"

Rumsfeld Goes With The Lies He Wish He Had

Who knew!

Lenny Bruce used to do a bit where he offered this advice;

"Whatever happens, deny it. Flat-out deny it! If you really love your wife, deny it. If they walk in on you, deny it. Even if they got pictures, deny it. Even if she catches you with a chicken, deny it."

I just can't picture Old Snowflakes being into Bruce, so he must have just taken his own advice and said "You go to write a book with the lies you have---not the lies you might want or wish to have at a later time."

Yes, yet another of the Bush Grindhouse, one of their most prolific warmongers, has penned a "Not Me, Not My Fault" book, hitting the streets this week.

UGH!

From the NYT;

“Two weeks after the worst terrorist attack in our nation’s history, those of us in the Department of Defense were fully occupied,” Mr. Rumsfeld recalls. But the president insisted on new military plans for Iraq, Mr. Rumsfeld writes. “He wanted the options to be ‘creative.’ ”

[snip]

His biggest mistake, Mr. Rumsfeld writes, was in not forcing Mr. Bush to accept his offers to resign after the abuse of Iraqi detainees by American military jailers came to light in early 2004. Mr. Rumsfeld insists that the abuses were the actions of rogue soldiers and that they did not reflect any approved policies, but nevertheless he offered to step down.

[snip]

While generally defending the Bush administration’s counterterrorism legal policies, Mr. Rumsfeld expresses some regrets. He suggests several times that some criticism and setbacks could have been avoided if the administration had gone to Congress for legislation authorizing the policies instead of relying on the president’s war powers.

"Oh, if we only didn't didn't have contempt and scorn for our critics (you know, the "Appeaserrs ... the morally and intellectually confused" ), and only if we didn't piss on the Constitution and make up our own laws, maybe things would have turned out better."

Will Bunch, over on his Attytood doesn't mince words;

Heh, that's funny. Of course, since there were no weapons of mass destruction in Iraq and in fact there apparentrly had not been any for a number of years, the reason that Rumsfeld would like to take "that one" back is because he was lying. Maybe someday someone will free the Washington Post from the tyranny of the inverted pyramid and they can actually say that.

Donald Rumsfeld lied.

Jack Stuef, over on Wonkette weighed in as well;

America’s Grandpa of Death Donald Rumsfeld is having his memoir published on Tuesday, serving as an addendum to George W. Bush’s book in that it has actual, alleged facts, opinions, and memories in it. So: Abu Ghraib? Not his fault, but he really wanted to resign over it and feels very emo that big meanie Bush wouldn’t let him. Initial troop levels? Not his fault, nobody in the military ever asked him for more troops. Guantanamo? Not his fault the jail existed, and actually he made sure there was less torture and fewer prisoners. Hmm, anything we’re forgetting here? Oh, that one war. What was it called again? Anyway, not his fault, Bush came to him about Iraq before the U.S. even invaded Afghanistan, but at the same meeting, he also talked about Rummy’s son’s drug addiction, so all Rummy could do was cry about that. Whoops!

And this;

Ah, there you have it. Rumsfeld could have said, “What the fuck are you talking about going to war with Iraq for? Our country was just attacked by a foreign terrorist organization we need to go try to destroy. Iraq has nothing to do with this. Aren’t you more concerned with winning this war we haven’t even begun yet?” But instead, his son had done some drugs. Sure thing, Rumsfeld. Perfectly good excuse. You should drop some leaflets on the families of people, American and Iraqi, whose children have died in that war. “Sorry, my son was doing drugs. I was emotional at the time. Not my fault.”

Stuef also had a suggestion for those plans to invade and occupy Iraq to be "creative" that "Rummy says Defense was preparing for offense on Afghanistan at the time, but Bush asked him to be “creative.” Creative! Perhaps the military could stage a production of Grease for the people of Iraq before taking a bow and dropping a bomb on them?

No instead we just got greasy lies, at the time, and more polished greasy lies now, with the book.

I wonder if his Lie Tour will interfere with his, and his former Shadow President's Armageddon weekends?

Like we said above, Ugh!

Bonus Rummy Riffs

Top Ten Cloves: What Would Be Different If Rumsfeld Was A Dog, But Still Secretary of Defense

Leave It to Rumsfeld ... There's Not Enough Lying Going On!

“They’re coming here for the American experience” ...Rumsfeld Weighs In On Immigration Battle; Won’t Tie It To War With Iran ...Suggests Army Recruiting Woes Could Be Solved With Mandatory Service By Illegal Aliens

Rummy On The Run? ... Let's Give Him Some Chase Music!

Thank God It's Friday

There an old Oscar Brown Jr. tune, 'Hymn To Friday' (from his 'Between Heaven and Hell' album), a calypso-beat number;

"It's the eagle fly day ... It's my day to get high day ... If you see what I say ... Thank God it's Friday ..."

It may (or may not) have become a bit clearer, why President Obama so eagerly wiped the floor with the PartyofNoicans last Friday, and, perhaps, left Baltimore singing "Hymn to Friday".

It was their GOP House Issues Conference, they extended the invitation to the President, but did not, initially, agree to have it televised.

This, from Steve M, on No More Mister Nice Blog, quoting an NYT article;

Although he and other presidents have addressed opposition caucuses before, they usually close the doors for questions, but this time the White House insisted on letting the news media record the give and take.

Hmmm .. Why would they insist? .. Let's see if we can come up with a reason ...

Ahh! ... It would dominate the news cycle for the rest of the day, perhaps two, or three?

Bingo!

It did, including MSNBC, who preempted Olbermann and Maddow on Friday night, to have them, with Tweety, rerun the event, adding their commentary.

And, what was thrown out on the Friday Night Trash Dump?



Obama's DOJ Clears Torture Memo Authors John Yoo, Jay Bybee of Professional Misconduct

The Truthout post culls from a report in Newsweek, "Holder Under Fire";

try the alleged 9/11 conspirators in New York City and his handling of the Christmas bombing plot suspect. Now the left is going to be upset: an upcoming Justice Department report from its ethics-watchdog unit, the Office of Professional Responsibility (OPR), clears the Bush administration lawyers who authored the “torture” memos of professional-misconduct allegations.

While the probe is sharply critical of the legal reasoning used to justify waterboarding and other “enhanced” interrogation techniques, NEWSWEEK has learned that a senior Justice official who did the final review of the report softened an earlier OPR finding. Previously, the report concluded that two key authors—Jay Bybee, now a federal appellate court judge, and John Yoo, now a law professor—violated their professional obligations as lawyers when they crafted a crucial 2002 memo approving the use of harsh tactics, say two Justice sources who asked for anonymity discussing an internal matter. But the reviewer, career veteran David Margolis, downgraded that assessment to say they showed “poor judgment,” say the sources. (Under department rules, poor judgment does not constitute professional misconduct.) The shift is significant: the original finding would have triggered a referral to state bar associations for potential disciplinary action—which, in Bybee’s case, could have led to an impeachment inquiry.

Jack Balkin cuts through the crap;

That is, the torture memos were written not to define "torture" with respect to new situations where the statute was unclear; rather they were written to allow the CIA to get around the legal ban on torture, even to the point of arguing that the torture statute would be unconstitutional if applied to persons acting under the direction of the President as commander-in-chief. The torture memos were not a hypothetical lawyer's exercise to guide future conduct. They were written in order to ensure that members of the CIA would never be prosecuted for torture.

Obama can end the recession, personally find every unemployed person a job, perform, himself, medical operations that save lives, but letting the Bush Grindhouse, and their cronies, get off scott free, from their illegal actions and war crimes, he will be wearing that failure, that "not looking in the rearview mirror" like a scarlet letter.

And it doesn't help his obtuseness, when other countries take action, that he doesn't;

International Arrest Warrants Requested

Professor Francis A. Boyle of the University of Illinois College of Law in Champaign, U.S.A. has filed a Complaint with the Prosecutor for the International Criminal Court (I.C.C.) in The Hague against U.S. citizens George W. Bush, Richard Cheney, Donald Rumsfeld, George Tenet, Condoleezza Rice, and Alberto Gonzales (the “Accused”) for their criminal policy and practice of “extraordinary rendition” perpetrated upon about 100 human beings. This term is really their euphemism for the enforced disappearance of persons and their consequent torture. This criminal policy and practice by the Accused constitute Crimes against Humanity in violation of the Rome Statute establishing the I.C.C.

This might mean that these dwarfs, finks, phonies and fraud can't summer in Europe, or attend the Cannes Film Festival, but they are free to roam this country, weigh in on current events, continue their lying, smear the President and, otherwise, enjoy their lives, unfettered with any annoyances, any accountability, for their heinous crimes.

Now, during the State of the Union Address, again in his emasculation of the PartyofNoicans, Obama, as the suddenly naked GOP and Right Wing Freak Show, pointed out, Obama did quite a bit of "Bush Bashing".

He inherited the financial shit train from The Bush Grindhouse.

The Commander Guy, and his cronies, took us from surplus, to trillions-of-dollar in debt.

Obama hasn't been shy of falling back on that, and it surely, pisses off the PartyofNoicans, because it is true, it is fact.

Also, true, and also anchored in a boatload of facts, is the illegal activities, and war crimes, of the previous administration.

Mr. President, you are becoming hypocritical, to single-out the financial mess, but, when it comes to holding your predecessor, his Shadow President, Rumsfield, the two former Crony Generals, Condi Rice, Addington, Libby, Yoo, et all. accountable for the laws they violated, you, suddenly, can only look forward, you can't turn your neck, to look in the rearview mirror.



Glenn Greenwald tackled this, earlier this month, in his "The crime of not "Looking Backward";

Every Obama-justifying excuse for Looking Forward, Not Backwards has been exposed as a sham (recall, for instance, the claim that we couldn't prosecute Bush war crimes because it would ruin bipartisanship and Republicans wouldn't support health care reform). But even if those excuses had been factually accurate, it wouldn't have mattered. There are no legitimate excuses for averting one's eyes from crimes of this magnitude and permitting them to go unexamined and unpunished. The real reason why "Looking Forward, Not Backwards" is so attractive to our political and media elites is precisely because they don't want to face what they enabled and supported. They want to continue to believe that it just involved the quick and necessary waterboarding of three detainees and a few slaps to a handful of the Worst of the Worst. Only a refusal to "Look Backwards" will enable the lies they have been telling (to the world and to themselves) to be sustained. But as Horton's story illustrates, there are real victims and genuine American criminals -- many of them -- and anyone who wants to keep that concealed and protected is, by definition, complicit in those crimes, not only the ones that were committed in the past, but similar ones that almost certainly, as a result of Not Looking Backwards, will be committed in the future.

Yeah, we have a recession, astronomical unemployment, you're on the verge of blowing Healthcare Reform, so many things, all so much piled on the plate.

Ahhh, you probably think that we're going to tell you to get off your ass, and start rounding up these creeps, hauling their "no-bid-contract" asses into court and getting it on with them, right?

Wrong.

Since your so busy, since you have so much on your plate, we have an easier solution.

Let The Hague indict them, and all you have to do is not stand in the way of extraditing over there for trial, say the United States will cooperate, and stand behind whatever decision comes from The Hague.

All in the name of justice, and the rule of law.

Heck, you'll even authorize a gang of U.S. Marshals go out and get them, and, in a rather ironic twist, you can use one of those CIA "Extraordinary Rendition" airplanes, to get them over there.

If you want to put a little lead in the "Hope You Can Believe In' pencil, you'll be able to write your own ticket, as the person that didn't let them get away with it.

Whaddya say, there, Mr. President?

Photo of the Day!

Wet Eyes/Handkerchief Alert.



Little Soldier Girl "Didn't Want to Let Go"

Four-year-old Paige Bennethum really, really didn't want her daddy to go to Iraq.

So much so, that when Army Reservist Staff Sgt. Brett Bennethum lined up in formation at his deployment this July, she couldn't let go.

No one had the heart to pull her away.

Redmond, over on Bob Cesca's Awesome Blog! Go!, asked "Explain No-Bid Contracts to Her"

Or, how's about The Bush Grindhouse's cruel Stop-Loss Policy, for his criminal lies to invade and occupy a country so his NeoNitwit cronies can get boners over America's Might?

Let's hope we see another picture of little Paige Bennethum, wrapped in her daddy's arms, upon his safe return.

Still Utterly Clueless

There must be a certain calmness in it.

Walking around, in the new bubble, out of office, almost universally heralded as the WORST PRESIDENT EVER.



Earlier this week, the former Court-Appointed President gave an interview with the Dallas Star-Telegram, and added to his roster of The Commander Guy, The Decider Guy, Ek-A-Lec-Tic Reading Guy, a new one;

Former President Bush says his new title is 'retired guy'

And this portion of the interview stuck out like a like a neocon at a peace rally;

Time in office: "Some days were good, some days weren’t so good," Bush said. "Every day was a glorious experience of serving our country. . . . When we lost a soldier, it was a dark moment." But even then, "I could always see light."

[snip]

Nervous moment: Standing on the mound in Yankee Stadium, getting ready to throw out the ceremonial first pitch of a game in October 2001. He said Yankees infielder Derek Jeter asked whether he’d be throwing from the mound or from in front of it. Bush said he told Jeter that he’d throw from the mound. "He said: 'Don’t bounce it. They’ll boo you,’ " Bush said, adding that he was nervous. "I got it across the plate and it was a fantastic moment, a moment of relief, then a moment of high energy."

He could "see the light?"

His most nervous moment was throwing a baseball?

It wasn't about lying, and orchestrating the lying, and fabricating the evidence, to invade and occupy Iraq?

It wasn't that his Vice President, and staff, purposefully, and blatantly, exposed the identity of an undercover CIA agent?

Or, that he illegally spied, and wiretapped, innocent American citizens?

That his policies of war, and giving tax cuts to the wealthy, and doing all he could to end oversight and regulation, his warped vision of an "Ownership Society" all but plunged this country (well, nearly the entire planet) into a second Great Depression?

No, his biggest worry, the thing that made him most nervous, was throwing a baseball.

Only the WORST PRESIDENT EVER could maintain that level of clueless consistency.

Ignorant Dolt of The Day: Ross Douthat

I was surprised, to some extent, that there wasn't a big roll out.

You know, trumpets blaring, long, ego-pumping press release.

But, no, nothing.

Only his column announced that NYT columnist Russ Douthat had jumped aboard the Bush Legacy Team, earning him a spot on the ever-growing roster of The Garlic's, Ignorant Dolts.



It was a doozy today, going well beyond the "when life gives you lemons, you make lemonade" kind-of-thing.

Douthat actually praises The Commander Guy for the disasters he created, in short, for the Invasion and Occupation of Iraq, Bush aces it because he escalated the war, and as to the Nightmare On Wall Street, The Ek-A-Lec-Tic Reading Guy decided to let Heistin' Hank Paulson turn over the U.S. Treasury to his old cronies, bailing them out from their own greed.

Here's some gems from Douthat's "The Self-Correcting Presidency";

But if Bush is destined to go down as a failed president, come what may, he looks increasingly like an unusual sort of failure.

America has had its share of disastrous chief executives. But few have gone as far as Bush did in trying to repair their worst mistakes. Those mistakes were the Iraq war — both the decision to invade and the conduct of the occupation — and the irrational exuberance that stoked the housing bubble. The repairs were the surge, undertaken at a time when the political class was ready to abandon Iraq to the furies, and last fall’s unprecedented economic bailout.

Both fixes remain controversial. But for the moment, both look like the sort of disaster-averting interventions for which presidents get canonized. It’s just that in Bush’s case, the disasters he averted were created on his watch.

[snip]

It’s true that Bush didn’t personally formulate the surge, or craft the bailout. But he was, well, the decider, and if he takes the blame — rightly — for what Donald Rumsfeld wrought, then he should get credit for Gen. David Petraeus’s successes in Iraq, and for blessing the sweeping decisions that Hank Paulson and Ben Bernanke made in last September’s desperate weeks.

And if we give Bush credit on these fronts, it’s worth reassessing one of the major critiques of his presidency — that it was fatally insulated, by ideology and personality, from both the wisdom of the Washington elite and the desires of the broader public.

[snip]

And perhaps his best decisions, on the surge and the bailout, were made from the bunker of a seemingly-ruined presidency — when his approval ratings had bottomed out, his credibility was exhausted and his allies had abandoned him.

This is not a blueprint that future presidents will want to follow. But the next time an Oval Office occupant sees his popularity dissolve and his ambitions turn to dust, he can take comfort from Bush’s example. It suggests that it’s possible to become a good president even — or especially — when you can no longer hope to be a great one.

You would have thought some editor at the NYT would have walked the copy back to Douthat, reminding him, that "Hey, no way, Worst-President-Ever!", and give him the choice of rewriting it, or having some advertisement run in his column space.

And, if you think The Garlic is being tough on him, that Douthat isn't deserving of the IDOTD ...

From Blue Texan, over on Firedoglake;

I never thought I'd write this, but I'm starting to miss Bill Kristol.

Put another way, if I get totally wasted on smack, pass out on the couch with a lit cigarette and set the house on fire, but am shaken out of my drug-induced stupor by the billowing smoke in time for me to pull one of my children out of the conflagration -- that makes me a "good" parent not a "great" one.

Some sliding scale! And I thought conservatives opposed affirmative action.

Brad, at Sadly No;

Yeah, OK, so Bush fucked up everything he touched, but at least he had the good sense to scramble around at the very last minute while spending lots of lives and money to avert a complete zombies-roaming-the-streets type of disaster. In conclusion, Bush was a good president.

Even Glenn Greenwald, on his Twitter, weighed in;

Ross Douthat, every week: I'll explicitly renounce right-wing myths to prove I'm reasonable, then spend the whole column justifying them

Yeah, Douthat, we know that the NYT brought you in to replace Little Billy Kristol, that you are one of the young tigers of the Right Wing Freak Show (the non-screaming division), but Jesus, were you in a coma for the past 8+ years?

One thing if you playing around with this idea, over cocktails (you could always blow it off that you were drunk).

But, to run this Bush Legacy Package as your column?

Only an Ignorant Dolt would do such, and you, Ross Douthat, are today's Ignorant Dolt.

Must Read: Why I threw the shoe

Remember when The Commander Guy was over in Iraq, giving some kind of press conference, and the Iraqi journalist who stood up, likely knowing his fate for the act he was going to commit, threw his shoes at the War Criminal Court-Appointed President?



Muntazer al-Zaidi is his name, and he has a post up on the Guardian UK, a tremendous read, from the heart, from the perspective we have had too little of, from our own, warmongering, cheerleading Corporate media.

Why I threw the shoe - I am no hero. I just acted as an Iraqi who witnessed the pain and bloodshed of too many innocents

I say to those who reproach me: do you know how many broken homes that shoe which I threw had entered? How many times it had trodden over the blood of innocent victims? Maybe that shoe was the appropriate response when all values were violated.

When I threw the shoe in the face of the criminal, George Bush, I wanted to express my rejection of his lies, his occupation of my country, my rejection of his killing my people. My rejection of his plundering the wealth of my country, and destroying its infrastructure. And casting out its sons into a diaspora.

If I have wronged journalism without intention, because of the professional embarrassment I caused the establishment, I apologise. All that I meant to do was express with a living conscience the feelings of a citizen who sees his homeland desecrated every day. The professionalism mourned by some under the auspices of the occupation should not have a voice louder than the voice of patriotism. And if patriotism needs to speak out, then professionalism should be allied with it.

I didn't do this so my name would enter history or for material gains. All I wanted was to defend my country.

Muntazer al-Zaidi is an Iraqi reporter who was freed this week after serving nine months in prison for throwing his shoe at former US president George Bush at a press conference. This edited statement was translated by McClatchy Newspapers correspondent Sahar Issa www.mcclatchydc.com

We covered it here, on The Garlic;

"Son of A Dog!"

Leave it to The Commander Guy, to go off on a "Mission Accomplished" victory lap and be greeted, as The Bush Grindhouse long propagandized, like a "liberator".

It would be fitting, especially with the Court-Appointed-President's party attempting to kill off unions, to stand by and watch Detroit sink (reprising their positions of Katrina-battered New Orleans), if the UAW workers, as well as all American, sent their old shoes to Dubya, in a symbolic gesture of supporting the sentiments of the Iraqi journalist, Muntathar al Zaidi

[snip]

I'll be waiting, watching, to see how soon The Worst President Ever makes another one of those mocking videos, ducking shoes, much like he pretended to look for WMDs under his desk.

For all the lies, the deception, the careless disregard for all things good, the White House should have turned into a veritable shoe warehouse.

Instead, our media all but got on their hands-and-knees, and fit them with velvet slippers.

With all the troops still stationed in Iraq, and the call for more troops to be rushed into Flintstonesville (aka Afghanistan), perhaps we should emulate Muntazer al-Zaidi, or, at least, in spirit, start practice whipping off the shoes and flinging them.

(H/T to Jeremy Scahill, for his Twitter post on this)

Rebecca Solnit: How 9/11 Should Be Remembered

It was nearly two-years ago that we highlighted Rebecca Solnit here on The Garlic, and, on this specific day, we are compelled to have her return.



Over on TomDispatch, Ms. Solnit has a fantastic post, an excerpt from her new book, that should be read by one-and-all;

How 9/11 Should Be Remembered - The Extraordinary Achievements of Ordinary People

For this eighth anniversary of that terrible day, the first post-Bush-era anniversary, let's remember what actually happened:

When the planes became missiles and the towers became torches and then shards and clouds of dust, many were afraid, but few if any panicked, other than the President who was far away from danger. The military failed to respond promptly, even though the Pentagon itself was attacked, and the only direct resistance that day came from inside Flight 93, which went down in a field in Pennsylvania on its way to Washington.

[snip]

We failed, however, when we let our own government and media do what that small band from the other side of the Earth could not. Some of us failed, that is, for there were many kinds of response, and some became more radical, more committed, more educated. Mark Fichtel, the president of the New York Coffee, Sugar, and Cocoa Exchange, who scraped his knees badly that morning of September 11th when he was knocked over in a fleeing crowd, was helped to his feet by "a little old lady." He nonetheless had his Exchange up and running the next day, and six months later quit his job, began studying Islam, and then teaching about it.

[snip]

Far more people could have died on September 11th if New Yorkers had not remained calm, had not helped each other out of the endangered buildings and the devastated area, had not reached out to pull people from the collapsing buildings and the dust cloud. The population of the towers was lower than usual that morning, because it was an election day and many were voting before heading to work; it seems emblematic that so many were spared because they were exercising their democratic powers. Others exercised their empathy and altruism. In the evacuation of the towers, John Abruzzo, a paraplegic accountant, was carried down 69 flights of stairs by his coworkers.

[snip]

Many New Yorkers that day committed similar feats of solidarity at great risk. In fact, in all the hundreds of oral histories I read and the many interviews I conducted to research my book, "A Paradise Built in Hell: The Extraordinary Communities That Arise in Disaster", I could find no one saying he or she was abandoned or attacked in that great exodus. People were frightened and moving fast, but not in a panic. Careful research has led disaster sociologists to the discovery -- one of their many counter-stereotypical conclusions -- that panic is a vanishingly rare phenomenon in disasters, part of an elaborate mythology of our weakness

[snip]

New Yorkers triumphed on that day eight years ago. They triumphed in calm, in strength, in generosity, in improvisation, in kindness. Nor was this something specific to that time or place: San Franciscans during the great earthquake of 1906, Londoners during the Blitz in World War II, the great majority of New Orleanians after Hurricane Katrina hit, in fact most people in most disasters in most places have behaved with just this sort of grace and dignity.

[snip]

After the 9/11 storm struck, the affected civilians in New York were seen as victims; after Katrina, those in New Orleans were portrayed as brutes. In both cities, the great majority of affected people were actually neither helpless nor savage; they were something else -- they were citizens, if by that word we mean civic engagement rather than citizenship status. In both places ordinary people were extraordinarily resourceful, generous, and kind, as were some police officers, firefighters, rescue workers, and a very few politicians. In both cases, the majority of politicians led us astray. All I would have wanted in that September moment, though, was politicians who stayed out of the way, and people who were more suspicious of the news and the newsmakers.

[snip]

The dead must be remembered, but the living are the monument, the living who coexist in peace in ordinary times and who save one another in extraordinary times. Civil society triumphed that morning in full glory. Look at it: remember that this is who we were and can be.

September 11th may never become the holiday, or, day-of-remembrance, it should be, chiefly due to the dwarf, finks, phonies and frauds of The Bush Grindhouse, and all the cronies - the Flying Monkeys of the Right Wing Freak Show, and the cheerleading Corporate Media - how they exploited the tragedy for the masturbation of their own warped ideology (ironically, killing hundreds-of-thousands more).

It takes ordinary people - like Rebecca Solnit, and many, many others - to put it in the right perspective.

Go read Rebecca Solnit's "How 9/11 Should Be Remembered - The Extraordinary Achievements of Ordinary People", and leave a comment, if you were able to keep your eyes dry while absorbing it.

And, you can go here to purchase her book, "A Paradise Built in Hell: The Extraordinary Communities That Arise in Disaster"

Where Did We See This Before?

Seems that The Washington Post is giving Stephen Hayes a run for his money, of being the Chief Cheney Fluffer, with an enormo article today, essentially, endorsing the Shadow President's view that torture is good.



But it is the Politico article that has rung bells for me;

The story -- which seems sure to provoke an intense reaction from the many critics of President Bush's interrogation policies, and comes just before Dick Cheney's appearance, taped Friday, on Fox News Sunday ...

Hmmm ...

I guess with Little Timmy Russert gone, MTP isn't quite the friendly place for Shadow President Cheney to go promote his propaganda (not that David Gregory would, necessarily, do anything different in making Cheney as comfortable as he could, tossing big, ol' Russert-like softballs).

Now granted, the Politico piece notes the interview was taped on Friday.

You have to figure that Shadow President Cheney has his sources, if not given an advance copy outright, so it will be interesting to see how much of it Cheney quotes, or, coincidentally, states in similar, if not the exact same language.

Not as sharp as the old NYT/Judy Miller days, but, you have to figure, not actually still being in power, they have to work a little harder to pull those strings.

And, Little Timmy Russert must be smiling in his grave.


Bonus Links

Greg Sargent - Stephen Hayes: Cheney Himself Didn’t Actually Torture. So There!

DougJ: Post goes pro-torture

Emptywheel: The WaPo Declares Itself Unable to Find the Truth

Melvin A. Goodman - Exposed: The WPost’s One-Sided Account of Torture and Abuse

Good Parody ...

This thing has been making the rounds today, from the Onion News Network.

It pretty funny, and remarkably, watching it, brings to mind watching almost any cable news show, (and in particular, Faux News).

Check it out.

Is Using A Minotaur To Gore Detainees A Form Of Torture?


Is Using A Minotaur To Gore Detainees A Form Of Torture?

Anger Gumbo

I'm just angry that New Orleans, which did not bring about its own disaster, is watching a second consecutive president trash his glib promises to "rebuild it better".

[snip]

Obama's remarks about New Orleans during the campaign were anodyne boilerplate, and what he's giving us now is more of the same. He won't even do the obligatory photo-op in the city on 8/29; he told the Times-Picayune he'll come down "before the end of the year". He didn't say which year.

Apparently, it isn't only the War Crimes of the Bush Grindhouse that President Obama is putting in the rear view mirror.

It seems that the City of New Orleans, also, is not in the forward-looking view.



So writes, in a great post, Harry Shearer today, telling his tale of lobbying on behalf of the still-devastated city, how he, reluctantly, used his connections to reach inside the Obama White House, only to get nothing.

Playing the Inside Game -- A Cautionary Tale

Any regular reader of my stuff here knows I've been relentless in calling for first the Bush administration and lately the current group to get serious about addressing the problems of what nearly destroyed New Orleans -- namely, the twin challenges of (a) reversing the man-caused destruction of the coastal wetlands which reduce the severity of oncoming hurricanes and (b) rebuilding the tattered federally-built "hurricane protection system" which failed so disastrously four years ago this Saturday. After I started noticing the absence of any public words (let alone actions) on this subject from the new administration, several commenters here criticized me for, in essence, just running my mouth. "You're a celebrity," they mis-advised me, "go talk directly to the White House about it, like Brad Pitt." I thought I should start my Pitt emulation slowly at first, maybe by wooing Angelina Jolie, but after a couple of weeks, I took the challenge to play the inside game. I haven't written about it until now, because I wanted to see how it would play out before drawing conclusions.

I don't want to provide any additional snips, as it is well-worth reading the entire post.

We're coming up on the fourth anniversary of Hurricane Katrina all but wiping out New Orleans, and it looks like we may have to pin to the new President, the not-flattering moniker of "Heck of a job there, Obama ..."

He's leaving the residents of New Orleans to having to cling a little longer to the "Hope" and "Change" thing.

Go read Harry Shearer's "Playing the Inside Game -- A Cautionary Tale"


Bonus Link

More Than A Few Cloves ... The Garlic Special - Hurricane Katrina Redux

"DUH" News of the Day

Clutch Cargo, aka, former Homeland Security Chief Tom Ridge is out, teasing his new book, with a "blockbuster" that is about as fresh as reading last weeks box scores.

The Bush Grindhouse exploited the War on Terrorism, with phony Terror Alerts for political purposes.



Ridge admits Bush administration pushed to raise security alert for political reasons on eve of re-election

Among the headlines promoted by publisher Thomas Dunne Books: Ridge was never invited to sit in on National Security Council meetings; was “blindsided” by the FBI in morning Oval Office meetings because the agency withheld critical information from him; found his urgings to block Michael Brown from being named head of the emergency agency blamed for the Hurricane Katrina disaster ignored; and was pushed to raise the security alert on the eve of President Bush’s re-election, something he saw as politically motivated and worth resigning over.

What, did Ridge, either while in the Bush Crony Gang, or out of it, not watch television or read newspapers?

Or, how about just staying awake at the office?

Probably more people than needed to bust a filibuster in Congress was out with that news, years ago, it was so obvious.

Among them, Keith Olbermann, who beat this horse to the point it could have triggered an SPCA investigation;

October 12, 2005 - The Nexus of Politics and Terror

August 15, 2006 - The nexus of politics and terror revisited

(And, yes, Olbermann was all over it again, this evening)

You come close there, Clutch Cargo, of garnering Ignorant Dolt points, if you are fishing for sympathy, with that "worth resigning over" crap.

It became common knowledge that you didn't get a job in the Bush Grindhouse unless you were a "Loyal Bushie", so it's a little late to come out with the "I'm shocked ... Shocked that gambling is going on here ...", as if you didn't know you were expected to play ball.

Yeah, you eventually did resign - bully for you - but you sat there like having "stupid" taped to your forehead, letting that terror alert fly out there, effectively, influencing the 2004 Presidential Election.

Jeez ... All this time we were pinning the blame on Ohio.

Perhaps there, Clutch, you can offer some help now.

When they release your book, have the publisher put a mirror on the dust cover.

That way, President Obama, maybe, will have to look backwards.


Bonus Tom Ridge "Duh" Riffs

Glenn Greenwald: Fringe leftist losers: wrong even when they're right

John Amato: Tom Ridge admits terror alerts were used for political reasons. What about the Osama video right before the '04 election?

Eric Martin: Just Because I'm Paranoid...

Dave Anderson: Trust the Dirty F*cking Hippies, they're right

emptywheel: Red Alert! Bush Was Going to Lose!

Lackawannabes ... The Bunch of 'Em!

This is a post we intended to get up earlier in the week

We've slowly entered into the zone, of thinking about what stopped The Shadow President, Dick Cheney, from using one of his assassination teams, to take out The Commander Guy.

Afterall, he nearly deep-sixed his hunting buddy there, a few years ago, and with that, he wasn't even really trying very hard.

Look at all the opportunities he had, if not in the White House, itself, then down on the ranch, with all the time Mr. Ek-A-Lec-Tic Reading Man spent there.

A mortal bicycle mishap, a freak drowning, and the clearing brush horrible accident, all things that the Cheney Death Squad could pull off, without raising an eyebrow as to it being anything but tragic.

I mean, Mr. Court-Appointed President (H/T Barry Crimmins) seems, much like a Texas Inspector Clouseau, tripping all over himself, but in the process, totally upsetting, and ruining, the dastardly plans of Cheney.

News broke on this last Friday (but got pushed off the radar by The Birthers, and The Blue Dogs), how it was given to debate of using the U.S. Military to shuffle off to Buffalo, and round-up a group of wannabe terrorists, the people that became known as the Lackawanna Six.



Well, it wasn't so much a debate, but rather, Shadow President Cheney looking to take a long piss on the Constitution.

From the NYT;

Some of the advisers to President George W. Bush, including Vice President Dick Cheney, argued that a president had the power to use the military on domestic soil to sweep up the terrorism suspects, who came to be known as the Lackawanna Six, and declare them enemy combatants.

[snip]

A decision to dispatch troops into the streets to make arrests has few precedents in American history, as both the Constitution and subsequent laws restrict the military from being used to conduct domestic raids and seize property.

The Fourth Amendment bans “unreasonable” searches and seizures without probable cause. And the Posse Comitatus Act of 1878 generally prohibits the military from acting in a law enforcement capacity.

Yeah, and guess who The Shadow President got to say it would be okay - None other than the Crony General, and Mr. Torture, John Yoo.

And here's Professor Jonathan Turley, on 'Countdown' Monday evening, with guest host Lawrence O'Donnell.

Constitution no obstacle for Cheney ... Prof. Jonathan Turley talks about allegations that Dick Cheney sought to deploy U.S. troops in Buffalo, N.Y. to arrest the Lackawanna 6.

Visit msnbc.com for Breaking News, World News, and News about the Economy

Now, it would sure be nice, to see President Obama, come alive, with fire and animation, the way he did responding to the Skip Gates - Officer Crowley Debacle, with holding The Bush Grindhouse accountable for their crimes.

If we don't see perp walks and indictments before the end of this first term, then he doesn't, no matter what else he succeeds at, deserves a second.


Bonus Links

Glenn Greenwald: The Cheney plan to deploy the U.S. military on U.S. soil

Steven D: Thank God Bush Was Lazy

Zandar vs. The Stupid: It's Just A Goddamn Piece Of Paper

Well ... It Is True ...

Let's get this out of the way, right up front;

"Way to go, Marcy Wheeler!"

With the avalanche of new news, and reports, detailing the lawbreaking, and illegal activities, of The Bush Grindhouse, the PartyofNoicans, and Flying Monkeys of the Right Wing Freak Show are frantically stroking their tiny violins, that any investigation, let alone prosecution, of the dwarfs, finks, phonies and frauds, would be damaging to the country, that it is just partisan politics by the liberal Democrats, and just avoid all realism whatsoever.

So yesterday, on MSNBC, they had a segment that included Marcy Wheeler, aka Emptywheel, from Firedoglake.com, pitted against Townhall Flying Monkey Matt Lewis, discussing this this weekends' CIA news, of how, at the direction of Shadow President Dick Cheney, Congress was left in the dark as to certain programs the spooks were undertaking.



And, right near the end of the segment, in a calm, factual tone, Marcy spoke what just about the entire world knows, the hypocracy of the PartyofNocians, and Right Wing Freak Show, pointing out how Bill Clinton was hounded, and, impeached (by the Newt Gingrich-led House) for a blow job.

“Your idea is that after investigating Bill Clinton for a blow job for like five years, we shouldn’t investigate the huge, grossly illegal things that were done under the past administration, only because Alberto Gonzales was too much in the back pocket of Dick Cheney to do it while he was still in office.”

Marcy Wheeler on MSNBC to Discuss Possible Probe of C.I.A. Actions



Marcy's boss on Firedoglake, Jane Hamsher, pithily posted the video, offering only "And oh yeah Dick Cheney was ordering a whole bunch of illegal shit ... Howard Kurtz takes to the fainting couch."

Over on her The Impolitic, Libby Spencer had the right angle on it;

As Jane Hamsher later pointed out, it's pretty effin' comical that after weeks of making tea bagger jokes, the hosts felt compelled to apologize for Marcy's "outburst." Screw that. Blowjob is a word in the dictionary. It made perfect sense in context. And it's not on the fabled 7 dirty words list.

Oh don't worry, this doesn't even count for a warm-up.

The cacophony is building up, and it will be deafening, especially as more, and more, shit comes out (on top of what's already been shaken loose) on the whole gang of them - Bush, Cheney, Libby, Addington, Yoo, Gonzales, et. all.

If Obama wants to start making this world good again, he better, if not turning around and looking backwards, start glancing in the rear view mirror.

The objects in that mirror are closer than they appear.

Retro Garlic: Yeah, But Will He Be Getting Paid?

We missed out, chiefly due to events here on the homefront, the entire brouhaha, death snake dance of the Washington Post firing writer extraordinaire Dan Froomkin (often linked here on The Garlic).



It was a doozy, with the WAPO being egged and toilet-papered by a better part of the blogosphere.

Here's Paul Krugman;

Thus we still live in an era in which you have to have been wrong to be respectable. You’re not considered serious about national security unless you were for invading Iraq; you’re not considered a serious political analyst unless you spent the last 3 years of the Bush administration predicting a Republican comeback; you’re not considered a serious economic analyst unless you dismissed the idea that the Bush Boom, such as it was, rested on a housing bubble.

That’s why the firing of Dan Froomkin now makes a perverse sort of sense. As long as the right was in power, he was in effect the Post’s designated moonbat, someone who attracted readers but didn’t threaten the self-esteem of the self-perceived serious people at the paper. But now he looks like someone who was right when the serious people were wrong — and that means he has to go.

Glen Greenwald, Andrew Sullivan, dday, Jane Hamsher, The Raw Story, and Down With Tyranny all wailed on the WAPO, in similar fashion.

So, the clock was started, the wait was on, to see who would pick up, or, where Dan Froomkin would land.



Today, the buzzer went off - Huffington Post gets the wreath of roses.

Both Emptywheel, and Glen Greenwald broke with the news this morning.

Emptywheel, gleefully, with charts, noted that "So the WaPo wanted to silence Dan Froomkin. And instead, their stupid decision has led to Dan Froomkin getting hired by an outlet with greater online circulation than them."

Greenwald;

In yet another sign of how online media outlets are strengthening as their older establishment predecessors are struggling to survive, The Huffington Post has hired Dan Froomkin to be its Washington Bureau Chief and regular columnist/blogger. Froomkin will oversee a staff of four five reporters and an Assistant Editor, guide The Huffington Post's Washington reporting, and write at least two posts per week to be featured on its main page and Politics page. I learned last night of the hiring and spoke to both Arianna Huffington and Froomkin this morning.

[snip]

While this pairing is, in some ways, a natural one (even the Post Ombudsman suggested that "Web sites like The Huffington Post or Politico would seem a perfect fit"), there are also potential sources of tension. As a practitioner of what he calls "accountability journalism" -- "explaining how Washington works; pulling no punches" -- Froomkin has been a vehement critic of the Obama administration for the last several months, while The Huffington Post frequently trumpeted (some might say "cheerleading") the Obama campaign and even his presidency (though it has become mildly more critical of Obama in recent months; its screaming, red headline today: "White House May Cave on Public Option"). Will Froomkin's harsh criticisms of Obama alienate an Obama-loving HuffPost readership?

And given the central importance of Arianna Huffington's personal relationships with key media figures and those in power, will Froomkin's unrestrained criticisms of many of those same people undermine a key aspect of The Huffington Post's business and promotional strategies? Both Huffington and Froomkin insist that he will have full editorial freedom, though that commitment is often more easily embraced in theory than in practice.

Jamison Foser, at MediaMatters, has a good post up, taking a look at the ashes left at WAPO

And, Glynnis MacNicol, over on Dan Abram's new digs, Mediaite, offers "HuffPo Aiming For DC Dominance? Makes Room For Froomkin".

Here at The Garlic, we wonder about Froomkin getting a paycheck ... You know, with the unique Huffington Post's business model.

The Retro Part;

Breaking News! GM Cancels UAW In Favor of Adopting Huffington Post Business Model ... Celebrities, Auto Enthusiasts and Bloggers To Build Cars For Free; Huge Spike In Profits Forecast

Good Luck there Dan ... Hope you get a check, once-in-awhile ...

Maybe you can hip Arianna on how to use Google ...