The Garlic: Lies and Errors

Showing posts with label Lies and Errors. Show all posts

Wednesday, December 12, 2007

Retro Garlic ... We Told You So!

Well, things have been moving along this week like an Alberta Clipper.

'Tis the season, and in our world that means a bevy of Bush Grindhouse scandals (and if you are having a hard time keeping track of them all, Keith Olbermann has started a new feature - Bushed - on his 'Countdown' program ).

And today, we have the opportunity to go Retro Garlic, and a short Retro it is.

With a prolonged drumroll earlier this week, breath was held to see if I. Lewis "Scooter" Libby would be on the list for a Presidential Pardon, being he - hint, hint - announced he was dropping the appeal of his trial, and would ride as a convicted felon, until ...

This had many-a-pundit, as well as a good chunk of the blogosphere, salivating that the Bush Grindhouse's brick wall would come down, and The Commander Guy would have to comment on the treasonous scandal his staff engaged in - the exposure of covert CIA agent Valerie Plame.

Alas, it didn't come.

Ahh, but The Garlic held on to its' skin, kept our powder dry, not seeing this as a condition the Bush Grindhouse would break its' pattern of lying, stonewalling, and obfuscation.

From The Garlic, on Monday;

"And, for all of you waiting to hear The Scooter, or The Bush Grindhouse, spill their guts, now that the appeal process is over, think again.

There's still the matter of Valerie Plame's possible lawsuit and, no doubt, they will continue to clam-up, citing that "litigation", if the Wilson's can revive their case, after it was thrown out last summer."

From Think Progress today;

What did Perino say in the gaggle? The Washington Post reports Perino found another convenient excuse to punt on answering about the White House’s involvement in the Plame leak. Perino said that she hadn’t spoken to Bush yet, but she cited the Wilson’s ongoing civil case as a reason not to comment:

I did talk to our counsel’s office because I forgot that there is a civil case that is pending on this issue. I did forget. The Wilsons have filed a case in civil court, it was dismissed, and they are on appeal."

And, even if the Wilson's announce they are dropping their appeal, the Bush Grindhouse will mow through legal cases, as many as they have to (and don't rule out the Hauptmann Case) to find something they can hid behind and stay silent.

That means, it's time to Cue up Que Sera Sera...

Links

Al Karmen: Being There

The Democratic Party: White House Still Won't Answer Libby Questions

Think Progress: White House Offers Convenient New Excuse For Not Talking About Plame Leak

Associated Press: Bush Pardons, Commuted Sentence

Thursday, December 06, 2007

Minced Garlic - New Keith Olbermann Special Comment - Bush: Pathological liar or idiot-in-chief?

Or, "I Could Be Lying About The NIE Report On My Spare Time"

The Garlic has, in the past, tied the Bush Grindhouse to the Keystone Cops, and, of course, the Marx Brothers.

But this new, NIE fiasco, man, they are playing this as straight-up Monty Python!

The infamous "Argument" routine, but instead of arguing about arguing, they're arguing about lying, like "when did he lie and what did he lie about?"

And our MSNBC Countdown hero-host, Keith Olbermann, came riding in tonight, with a red-hot smackdown of The Commander Guy, Darth Vader, the Nitwit Neocons and Ruppert's WSJ Editorial Board.

On the technical side, the production staff must have employed some kind of device, or camera trickery, so as not letting the viewer see, not steam, but billowing smoke coming out of Olbermann's ears.

Not with a flinch, but a forceful, 1-2-combo body blow, Olbermann called out our Court-Appointed President (h/t Barry Crimmins) with "You, Mr. Bush, are a bald-faced liar ... And moreover, you have just revealed that John Bolton and Norman Podhoretz and the Wall Street Journal editorial board are also bald-faced liars."

And that was near the end of the Special Comment.

For, he didn't pull any punches in the opening, either;

"We have either a president who is too dishonest to restrain himself from invoking World War III about Iran at least six weeks after he had to have known that the analogy would be fantastic, irresponsible hyperbole, or we have a president too transcendently stupid not to have asked, at what now appears to have been a series of opportunities to do so, whether the fairy tales he either created or was fed were still even remotely plausible.

A pathological presidential liar, or an idiot-in-chief. It is the nightmare scenario of political science fiction: A critical juncture in our history and, contained in either answer, a president manifestly unfit to serve, and behind him in the vice presidency an unapologetic warmonger who has long been seeing a world visible only to himself.

If you are just getting hip to Olbermann's Special Comments (and he has a new book out on them), this is a good one to jump into.

Olbermann was controlled, precise, yet raging with passion.

It was almost as if he took on the persona of John Coffey, from "The Green Mile" (played by Michael Clarke Duncan) and inhaled all the bile, the pent up anger and outrage of the country, the seven years of lies and bullshit, the asleep-at-the-wheel, enabling MSM, and spewed it back at the Bush Grindhouse.

Olbermann even embraced criticism of himself to make a dead-on point;

My comments, Mr. Bush, are often dismissed as simple repetitions of the phrase “George Bush has no business being president.”

Well, guess what?

Tonight: hanged by your own words, convicted by your own deliberate lies....

You, sir, have no business being president.

Ahhh, if only we could encourage Nancy Pelosi to go table shopping ... And Harry Reid to stop issuing blank checks...

But, then again, the Bush Grindhouse isn't going to let getting caught in a whopper of a lie, slow them down.

They'll just continue on with their Monty Python role-playing.

Mr. Vibrating: That's it. Good morning.
Man: But I was just getting interested!
Mr. Vibrating: I'm sorry, the five minutes is up.
Man: That was never five minutes!!
Mr. Vibrating: I'm afraid it was.
Man: It wasn't...
Mr. Vibrating: I'm sorry, but I'm not allowed to argue any more.
Man: WHAT??
Mr. Vibrating: If you want me to go on arguing, you'll have to pay for another five minutes.
Man: Yes, but that was never five minutes just now! Oh Come on!
Mr. Vibrating: (Hums to himself.)
Man: Look this is ridiculous!
Mr. Vibrating: I'm sorry, but I'm not allowed to argue unless you've paid!
Man: Oh all right. (Pays.)
Mr. Vibrating: Thank you.
Man: Well...
Mr. Vibrating: Well WHAT?
Man: That wasn't really five minutes just now.
Mr. Vibrating: I told you, I'm not allowed to argue unless you've paid!
Man: Well I just paid!
Mr. Vibrating: No you didn't!
Man: I DID!!!
Mr. Vibrating: No you didn't!
Man: Look, I don't want to argue about that!
Mr. Vibrating: Well, you didn't pay!
Man: Ah HAH!! If I didn't pay, why are you arguing??? I've got you.
Mr. Vibrating: No you haven't!
Man: Yes I have! If you're arguing, I must have paid.
Mr. Vibrating: Not necessarily. I could be arguing in my spare time.

Read Keith Olbermann's Special Comment: Bush: Pathological liar or idiot-in-chief? Olbermann: Timeline for Iran’s nuclear ambitions was clear, but he kept on

Watch the video of Keith Olbermann's Special Comment here

Bonus Bush Lying Links

Monty Python - Argument Clinic (extended)

Think Progress: Perino Defends Bush’s Lie: ‘The President Was Being Truthful!’

Dan Froomkin: A Pattern of Deception

The Carpetbagger Report: After NIE revelations, what did Bush know and when did he know it?

Brilliant at Breakfast: Seymour Hersh is always right

Shakespeare's Sister: The Dog Ate My Intelligence Report

Saturday, December 01, 2007

Well I'll Be Darned ... The Etch-A-Sketch Shaking Has Begun (Sort Of)

Well, Well, Well ... Who would have thunk it ...

First off, I am completely bowled over that someone took The Garlic's call-of-action to stand-up and shake, shake, shake Karl Rove's Etch-A-Sketch so quickly.

And who did it , is another head-turner.

It was none other than Rove's former comrade, co-principle architect of the Iraq Study Group("We don't make the war, we make the war more gory"), the in-grindhouse marketing agency whose mission was to sell the legend of WMD's and Mushroom Clouds, to put the evil Saddam Hussein in all our closets, to label critics as appeasers and terrorist-huggers, Mr., Andrew Card.

Appearing on Scarborough To Ruin Your Morning, or whatever they call it, Card was asked about Rove's recent revisionism of blaming Congress for getting us mired in Iraq;

From Think Progress:

SCARBOROUGH: We have to start with something that we all are talking about a couple of days ago where Karl Rove went on Charlie Rose and he blamed the Democrats for pushing him and the president into war. Is that how it worked?

CARD: No, that’s not the way it worked.

SCARBOROUGH: What the heck? Seriously, what the hell was that about?

CARD: Democrats pushed us a lot of stupid things, but they didn’t push us into war.

SCARBOROUGH: Yeah, yeah. You worked with Karl. Is that just Karl spinning beyond the White House?

MIKA BRZEZINSKI: Spinning out of control?

CARD: Well, Karl is very smart. He’s — sometimes his brain gets ahead of his mouth. And sometimes his mouth gets ahead of his brain.

Too bad Scarborough and Brzezinski couldn't stop laughing, for a good follow-up to that would have been to ask Card, who was in the thick of it as Chief-of-Staff, what, exactly, over the past seven-years, the Democrats "pushed us into" that was stupid?

With the Bush Grindhouse, and rubber-stamp Republican Congress in place, nothing jumps to mind.

And even now, that they hold the majority, the Democrats (led by NancyOffTheTable and Harry "Give'em What They Want" Reid) haven't exactly been doing a lot of pushing (though we can't vouch on the "stupid" thing).

Are the Bush Regime Talking Points about how we got railroaded into Iraq simply to become fodder for making jokes?

And it's not exactly clear, from Card's response, that he was dissing and putting down the Turd Blossom, or rather, scolding him for talking off-point ... For letting this new spin out too early.

Hmmm... Perhaps Card has his own Etch-A-Sketch that he wants out there.

After all, it was Card, along with Rove, that set forth the "marketing" of going off into Iraq

From NPR:

What else should reasonable people make of these facts? In June, a floppy disk found near the White House turned out to contain a presentation used by Karl Rove on White House strategy for the midterm elections. Focus on war was a key point in a talk that centered on the White House's desire to, quote, "maintain a positive issue environment." Around this time, Rove was criticized for telling a Republican group that the war and terror themes could play to the GOP's advantage in the November elections. Not long after, White House Chief of Staff Andrew Card was asked why the administration waited until after Labor Day to try to sell the American people on military action against Iraq. Card replied, `From a marketing point of view, you don't introduce new products in August.'

Perhaps Rove was, merely, introducing this new revisionist spin just in time for the holiday shopping.

Better yet, why didn't Scarborough and Brzezinski throw a hardball, or two, at Card on the entire "marketing" business? Why was he let off-the-hook? No, what am I saying, that would be real, responsible journalism. That wouldn't give a lot to laugh about.

Note to Santa: Coal in those three stockings

By late in the day, yet another comrade of the Turd Blossom's came storming in to shake his Etch-A-Sketch.

Ari Fleischer, the former Grindhouse Press Secretary - the guy that was out front, retelling all the lies Rove and Card came up with to the adoring MSM stenographers (Note: Check to see if the Ari-Man got immunity to come out and speak against Rove).

This was promulgated in a Joe Klein-type article today, by Peter Baker in The Washington Post.

Just the title - "Rove's Version of 2002 War Vote Is Disputed" - is giving credence to Rove's dillusion and Baker runs down the this-side-this-and-that-side-says that, as if "The Google", Lexus-Nexus, and even the Bush Grindhouse's own website doesn't exist and he couldn't come out and say, flat out, Rove is lying.

Note To Baker: Check out the competition - "The NYT's Michael Cooper demonstrates what real reporting is".

God helps us if this is how the MSM is going to treat the wagon train of former Administration people come out and start spinning their stories, ostensibly, in an attempt to get the stench off themselves.

Addendum to Santa: Coal for Fleischer and Baker as well.

Bonus Etch-A-Sketch Doodlings

Nov. 30: War blame-shifting fall out - If the White House knew that Karl Rove had lied on Charlie Rose, on national TV, about the war, why wouldn't they correct the record the very next day? MSNBC Political Analyst Lawrence O'Donnell talks to Keith Olbermann.

Steve Benen: Rove against the world

T-REX: The Love That Won't Shut Up

Greg Sargent: Washington Post Editors Again Refuse To Label GOP Falsehoods What They Are: False

Rare photograph, capturing Karl Rove looking, longingly, into the horizon, for the lost truth, part of the price he paid for selling his soul for the purpose of evil

Wednesday, November 28, 2007

"I have neither the time nor legal background to figure out who’s right." ... Joe Klein and Time (Stood Still) Magazine Follow-Up

Power comes from lying ... Lying big and getting the whole damn world to play along with you ... Once you got everybody agreeing with what they know in their hearts ain't true, you get them by the balls

Senator Roark, from “Sin City - That Yellow Bastard”

Yes, we have to employ one of our favorite lying quotes again, only to begin to capture the conflagration raging over Joe Klein and Time Magazine's obtuse behavior in intentionally misrepresenting - lying - about the FISA Debate and pending legislation.

We weighed in on it yesterday with "Top Ten Cloves: Reasons Time Magazine Hasn't Corrected Joe Klein's Egregiously Error-Filled FISA Articles", but that wasn't even a thimble-full of scorn that is being flung around;

Jane Hamsher/Firedoglake: Shorter Time Magazine: Equal Time For GOP Propaganda

emptywheel/The Last Hurrah: Time Gives Up on the Truth

Crooks and Liars: Joe Klein: Accuracy??? We don’t need no stinkin’ accuracy!

Klein, along with editors Priscilla Painton, Josh Tyrangiel and Rick Stengel don't have their heads buried in the sand, their walking around with sandboxes encasing their alleged brains.

Here's Stengel, taking the helm, adding "the correction" to Klein's original smear piece;

In the original version of this story, Joe Klein wrote that the House Democratic version of the Foreign Intelligence Surveillance Act (FISA) would allow a court review of individual foreign surveillance targets. Republicans believe the bill can be interpreted that way, but Democrats don't.

This is after Klein himself offered "I have neither the time nor legal background to figure out who’s right."

Ohhh Boy! ...

While Glenn Greenwald has been all over this, as well as numerous other writers and bloggers, just in case the folks at Time Magazine are confused - by their own work and writing - U.S. Representative Rush Holt, writing on The Huffington Post, offers them "What's Really in the RESTORE Act", even though Editor Stengel and Klein appear completely disinterested in getting the facts straight.

We'll cue up Que Sera Sera, while you peruse Part II of the Joe Kleinpalooza

Glenn Greenwald: Everything that is rancid and corrupt with modern journalism: The Nutshell

Marty Lederman/Balkinization: All You Need to (Not) Know About the Proposed FISA Fix

Think Progress: Time’s false balancing act.

Kagro X/Daily Kos: More on the Time idiocy

Glenn Greenwald: Demand answers from Time magazine; (Updated below - Update II, Update III: "Response" from Rick Stengel Update IV, Update V)

Digby: Time After Time