Come Back, Shane! ... Come Back!

Good Evening Garlic Fans ...

Once again, we come (and being the day after the 4th), it can be said, with a firework barge-full of apologies, for our extended absence.

When last we popped in, some three-weeks ago (not counting the First Day of Summer, and our prognostication on the recently fired cock-waving, muscleheaded military commander, General Stanley A. McChrystal), we had been diagnosed with a Herniated Disc (in the L4 region), and was soon off to a second Ortho Guy, for a shot in the back.

Well, we received said shot-in-the-back, and since, only marginal improvement.

Some of the pain has been mitigated, however, numbness of the foot goes on, and, the cramping has been virtually unabated, disrupting sleep to the point of not being able to call it sleep (We would gladly pay you Thursday, for some sleep today).



We've been carrying on with our homefront project, as best we can (and that is behind schedule, as well), and none of this has had us in a creative mood to write, missing, for the first time since we started writing The Garlic, our annual tirade of a July 4th Garlictorial.

Most fortunately, and unknowingly, someone picked up the slack on that front for us.

Our good friend Barry Crimmins, who has an awesome post up for the Annual Pap Holiday, "Fourth of July Remarks For Any Occasion (in the form of notes for the platform speaker)";

Continued remarks about how we wouldn't be able to play golf or even go to a mall this morning without our supported dupes' absolutely needless sacrifice in inordinately far-flung places. Places where the locals have learned that, to Americans, appreciation for democracy can only come at the cost of the arms, legs, eyesight, mental health and even the lives of countless innocents whose only prior crime was to have never thought of our nation in any terms, at all. But now they know us, thanks to the, at times, literal human sacrifice of our very children to a heartless yet absurdly self-righteous foreign policy that is enforced by retaliation against almost anyone who makes the mistake of passing through somewhere, where someone we really hate might also pass through at some point.

That's what makes us different from the terrorists.

And if Barry's post wasn't enough, a War of Words erupted in the Comments Section, and a few dwarfs, finks, phonies and frauds perhaps Wannabe Flying Monkeys, since their blather was little more that the tired-and-tattered, Right Wing Dale Carnegie toast of "if you don't love this country, you should leave it", attempted to lecture and humble Barry with that tripe.

I mean, that's like showing up to a Rave, in a John Travolta-Saturday-Night-Fever-white-bell-bottomed-suit, and thinking you're major cool.

I think Barry handled, dealt with, and settled, that particular Right Wing lament back when Nixon was in office, so he swatted that away like a home run hit at Home Run Derby (easy-as-pie, for our baseball-challenged readers - you can go read our Special Essay to bone-up on the Grand Ol' Pastime)

So inane were these voices from Nitwitville, that James Wolcott had to use his Vanity Fair column, to call out, specifically, Darlene Click's vapidness, which will likely, draw in all of Click's Wannabe Flying Monkeys, to read Wolcott, and then click over to read Barry post, for the context.

Hum Stars and Stripes Forever to yourself, as those Wannabe Flying Monkeys suddenly feel like they don't whether to piss, or wind their watches.

Back to business, with a Heatwave settling in this week (ask me in a few days how that "God doesn't give you more than you can handle" thing is workin' for me), and the Back/Herniated Disc thing still playing havoc, and feeling like we have lost our writing mo-jo, we can't say when we will resume regular posting, other than the nebulous "soon".

So, go dig into Barry Crimmins' delicious holiday treat and keep checking back for any fresh post we sneak in.

Al Giordano - "Mr. President-Elect: Judge Abner Mikva Is Right About Sen. Clinton as Secretary of State"

Well, to steal from Michael Corleone, "Just when I thought she was out... they pull her back in ..."

It's the Hillary Clinton Show (co-starring husband, ex-Prez, Bill) again, as we are now in about Day Six of Hillary-as-Secretary-of-State, Def Con 5-mode.

If this is abstruse, or perplexing, and you find yourself shaking your head, saying "WTF", just fire up that TIVO in your mind, go back a few months, and cue up the Hillary Clinton Show when it was Hillary-as-Vice-President, Def Con 5-mode.

Ahhh, but there are voices cutting through the din.

There were two people that had the presidential election nailed to the wall.

One, was Nate Silver, over on FiveThirtyEight.com.

The other was Al Giordano, over on The Field.

Nearly a year before the election, Giordano laid it all out, the Obama ground troops and field game, the wave the was building (and, obviously ignored or underestimated by the Clintonistas, and later, the Dead Campaign Express).

Today, Giordano offers another flare up, hoping to get the attention of President-Elect Barack Obama;

Mr. President-Elect: Judge Abner Mikva Is Right About Sen. Clinton as Secretary of State

Here's a few snips, but go read the post, it's a good one.

Like so many of those here, below, at the grassroots base that refuse to believe the noise machine that seeks to demoralize us and make a lie of your own statement, if - and we say "if" because we have never believed the noise machine's spin, and that is why you are president-elect today - but if you are at all persuaded by the pressures upon you turn your foreign policy over to a media freak show, we invoke the immortal words of Oliver Cromwell to the Church of Scotland in 1650 when it sought alliance with the Crown: "I beseech you, in the bowels of Christ, think it possible you may be mistaken."

Few are the voices - like the brave and wise Abner Mikva - with the wisdom and courage to stand up to the sycophants being rolled at present by the Mighty Wurlitzer!

And this;

There are better uses and positions for someone of the undeniable talent of Senator Clinton in your cabinet, or even on the Supreme Court, but the discretion and diplomacy required of the next Secretary of State to undo the grave messes already created cannot, should not, must not be placed in the hands of someone who - even if it is through little or no fault of her own - is a magnet for the kind of media circus that the mere suggestion of her appointment has drawn already.

Do not wake up on January 21 - or soon after - with the words of the great Abner Mikva ringing in your ears, lamenting that you did not heed them when you could:

"It's more than a legal problem - there are ethical problems and appearance problems."

Put me in the camp that believes it will be disastrous to have Hillary running the State Department (Geez, just look at the way she ran her campaign, Amtrak doesn't have train wrecks as bad as that).

The Hillarylanders have already warmed up their throats, to start singing Hillary as TMFOITW, accompanied by the Grand Central Station Locker Creatures ("Hillary is back! The keeper of the light! All hail Hillary! All hail Hillary! Oh Hillary can you see by the dawn's early light...").

And, let's not forgot a most keen observation from James Wolcott, back in the primaries;

For them, Hillary’s time had come, she had paid her dues, she had been thoroughly vetted, she had survived hairdos that would have sunk lesser mortals, and she didn’t let a little thing like being loathed by nearly half of the country bum her out and clog her transmission. Not since Nixon had there been such a show of grinding perseverance in the teeth of adversity, and Nixon in a pantsuit was never going to be an easy sell contrasted with the powerful embroidery of Obama’s eloquence—his very emergence on the political scene seemed like a feat of levitation. Hillary’s candidacy promised to make things better; Obama’s to make us better: outward improvement versus inward transformation. With Hillary, you would earn your merit badges; with Obama, your wings. Hillary’s candidacy was warmed-over meat loaf—comfort food for those too old or fearful to Dream.

Yes We Can, President-Elect Obama, we can do better for Secretary of State.

Give us the "Change we can believe in".

Choose someone else!

(And, pray, this comes true, if need-be)

Go read Al Giordano's Mr. President-Elect: Judge Abner Mikva Is Right About Sen. Clinton as Secretary of State


Bonus Hillary Riffs

Top Ten Cloves: Things About Hillary Clinton Becoming Secretary of State

Made It Ma, Top of the Campaign! ...

Al Giordano Handing Out Campaign Sheepskins ... To Hillary Supporters

Hillary's New Campaign Slogan: Keep Hopelessness Alive! ... The Results - The Garlic's Weekly Poll

Ari Berman: Hillary Inc.

A Wolcott Howler!

If you need a "pick-me-up" today, we got one for you.

It peels back the curtain for a glimpse, a fleeting glimpse, of the Washington insiders, the Tim Russert/Golden Calf worship, Sally Quinn, the always-apocalyptic Bill Donohue, Jon "Jesus Saves, And I Write About It" Meacham, and more.

A hearty H/T to Barry Crimmins, for pointing to this gem from James Wolcott;

Think Twice Before Joining the Buffet Line

The tempest in a chalice began when Quinn, co-creator of the Washington Post's On Faith website (an accident waiting to happen), paid memorial tribute to Tim Russert and went a bit overboard with the best of intentions, telling her readers...

At Tim's funeral mass...communion was offered. I had only taken communion once in my life, at an evangelical church. It was soon after I had started "On Faith"; and I wanted to see what it was like. Oddly I had a slightly nauseated sensation after I took it, knowing that in some way it represented the body and blood of Jesus Christ. Last Wednesday I was determined to take it for Tim, transubstantiation notwithstanding. I'm so glad I did. It made me feel closer to him. And it was worth it just to imagine how he would have loved it.

Leonard Pinth Garnell would be so proud.

Go read Wolcott's Think Twice Before Joining the Buffet Line ... It will make your day!


Bonus Riffs

Remembering Russert - What media eulogies remember--and forget

The Canonization of Saint Russert: The media overdo the death of a journalist

We've Gone Well Past The 15-Minutes Thing ...

Developing Story - MSNBC Making Pitches To Become Eulogy Channel

"Talk about the despot calling the kettle "Barack."

We feature him often, and deservedly so, as Barry Crimmins has come up with the line of the week.

"Talk about the despot calling the kettle "Barack"

Crimmins wrote on Friday, much like a bevy of others (The Garlic hit it late Thursday night) on our Court-Appointed President's (a Crimmins introduced-moniker) smear job on Barack Obama, and anyone else that doesn't embrace his "You're With Us, or Against Us" turd blossoms.

I'm beginning to think that he lost a bet with Cheney, and, as a result, had to go into the Knesset, breaking the long-standing protocol of a President not bringing domestic politics abroad, and spew his bile.

As it was noted on MSNBC, by David Shuster, of the many depressing issues brought about by his comments, one is that it is insulting to the citizens of Israel, especially the survivors, to equate the Nazi horror with the Mid-East terror, that it diminishes the truly, unprecedented, horrific, barbaric, sub-human actions of the Nazis.

The solemn Jewish promise of "Never Again" can now have a additional meaning, extending to they won't have to invite The Commander Guy, ever again, to speak over there.

That, by itself, could bring a few bodies to the peace table.

Here's a few more gems from Crimmins' "Suicide-pieing";

Mr. Bush ought to be more respectful of his own heritage, which is blotted with forbears who didn't just appease Nazis, they fucking sided with them! Don't believe me? Well then as Dabyahoo would say, use the Google. Considering the clan's traitorous past, the Bushes are lucky that Jenna didn't get married at the family compound in Argentina.

After the speech, American pundits were calling Bush's bellicosity a "veiled reference to Obama." Try as you might, you just can't slip anything past these crack analysts. Whether Bush was discussing Hamas or Iran or both, he was saying that you should never practice diplomacy with people regardless of how much mayhem you have visited upon their homelands. One of the best things Obama has advocated is a reintroduction of the concept that the first line of defense is diplomacy and discussions.

After watching both speeches, I spent the rest of the day mockingly repeating Bush's fear-mongering phrase "the false comfort of appeasement" while daydreaming about the true comfort of impeachment.

Go over to Barry's site and read the entire "Suicide-pieing".




Elsewhere ...





It became a throwback to 1950's television and their weekly broadcasts of The Friday Night Fights.

A full-fledged donnybrook broke out, with Obama responding, bashing both Bush and McCain, the Bush Grindhouse attempting to back away from the statements, McCain, clutching tightly to the 29% coattails, attempting to hit back on Obama

Chris Cizzilla hits the bullseye on all of this, in his post "Knesset Kerfuffle Shows Obama Not Afraid to Engage";

Obama, to our mind, took the smarter course by not simply answering the inherent critique offered by the president but also pivoting to try and make McCain answerable for the foreign policy pursued by the United States over the last eight years.

James Wolcott earns runner-up status for his descriptive offering of the Obama-Bush-McCain fisticuffs;

That was one of the chords Obama struck today in his response to Bush's "Nazi appeaser" accusation before the Israeli Knesset--he firmly, deftly mummy-wrapped Bush and McCain together and dropped them off at the pier. It's rather impressive to see a first-term senator chastise the President of the United States and the presumptive nominee of the Republican Party as if he were the headmaster and they the ones guilty of infractions unworthy of upperclassmen. That's one of the benefits of having an oratorical voice that sounds tall--it automatically adds height to every utterance, allowing them to drop like acorns and make a nice thunk when they bounce off of the nearest thick skull."

MSNBC's Chuck Todd, Mark Murray, and Domenico Montanaro called it "Bush's gift to Obama".

And McCain lost this before he even got out of the starting blocks.

Obama on McCain: Hypocrisy and fear-mongering;

"That’s exactly the kind of appalling attack that’s divided our country and that alienates us from the world, and that’s why we need change in Washington," he said, going to repeatedly link Bush and McCain.

"That was frustrating enough," he said of Bush's words. "Then John McCain gives a speech. He gave a speech in the morning where he talked about the need for civility in our politics. He talked about elevating the tone in our country.... Not an hour later, he turned around and embraced George Bush's attacks on Democrats. He jumped on a call with a bunch of bloggers and said that I wasn’t fit to protect this nation that I love."

McCain "accused me of not being fit to protect this nation – a nation my grandfather served in World War II– a nation that’s given me everything that I have," Obama said, then pivoted to attack Bush and McCain on a series of issues: Iraq; the survival of Osama bin Laden's and the Al Qaeda's leadership; Iran's strength; and Hamas's and Hezbollah's ascendancy.

Elrod, over on The Moderate Voice, has video of Stumblin' Bumblin' John McCain, and his hipocracy regarding dealing with Hamas

And what also nudged its' way into the discussion, rather prominently, is the Bush Family ties to Adolph Hitler and the Nazi's via The Commander Guy's grandfather, Prescott Bush;

Michael Stickings, on The Reaction, picks up on The Guardian's "How Bush's grandfather helped Hitler's rise to power".

J. Peter Scoblic, in an L.A. Times Op-Ed today writes "Bush, McCain and other conservatives are on the wrong side of history when they dismiss Obama's foreign policy", to which Ron Beasley on The Newshogger notes (along with highlighting Eisenhower's Military-Industrial Complex speech);

Since 1961 very little and at the same time a great deal has changed. The most dangerous change has been the Industrial part of the equation. It is even bigger and more powerful and now controls the media and as we saw in the lead up to the invasion and occupation of Iraq is often little more than a government propaganda source not unlike Pravda in the old Soviet Union. The television journalists have been replaced by millionaire celebrity talking heads who's major concern is the welfare of their corporate employers and their own six and seven figure salaries. They are cheerleaders for war because there is nothing like a war to increase viewer ship and at the same time increase the profits of the corporate parents. Negotiation is bad because perpetual war is profitable.

And, tying this all up in a nice little bow was Glen Greenwald, pointing out, how the new Republican Icon, The Great Communicator himself, was pounced on - by some of the very same nitwits opining today - for being an appeaser.

And the GOP makes jokes about the Democrats and their infighting ...

Stay tuned to this one folks ... It's likely to resurface, maybe a few times, on the road to to November

Wolcott: Nixon in a pantsuit

Last month, The Village Voice gave us a look at the Right-Wing Blogosphere ("A confederacy of dunces", along with their headshots from Tom Tomorrow).

This month (actually, for the June issue), in Vanity Fair, James Wolcott pulls back the curtain to take a peek at the Liberal Blogosphere, warts and dirty laundry included, as well as a ton of snark.

When Democrats Go Post-al

Subtitled "The vicious Clinton-versus-Obama rupture at Daily Kos, the most activist site in the liberal blogosphere, reflects a party-wide split. What really rankles, as Democrats tear at one another, is the free pass they’ve given McCain—and the White House."

If you are already hip, than this is a pleasant stroll through the familiar, smiles and chuckles along the way ...

If you have never ventured off your AOL or Yahoo homepage, or looked beyond the boundaries of MySpace or Facebook, you're in for a loud, crashing, rollercoaster ride, that will leave you either shaking your head and running for the hills, or, or "Oh Boy, where do I sign up" ...

One passage I especially liked, for it nails HRC in a manner that seems so obvious, yet we missed it up until now;

For them, Hillary’s time had come, she had paid her dues, she had been thoroughly vetted, she had survived hairdos that would have sunk lesser mortals, and she didn’t let a little thing like being loathed by nearly half of the country bum her out and clog her transmission. Not since Nixon had there been such a show of grinding perseverance in the teeth of adversity, and Nixon in a pantsuit was never going to be an easy sell contrasted with the powerful embroidery of Obama’s eloquence—his very emergence on the political scene seemed like a feat of levitation. Hillary’s candidacy promised to make things better; Obama’s to make us better: outward improvement versus inward transformation. With Hillary, you would earn your merit badges; with Obama, your wings. Hillary’s candidacy was warmed-over meat loaf—comfort food for those too old or fearful to Dream.

Nixon in a pantsuit ...

Oh, how rich that is ...

If John McCain is the new Bob Dole, it makes for a wonderful yang to that ying that Hillary be the new Nixon.

Oh My!

Can't wait to hear her Checkers Speech.


Dissenting views, and non-Wolcott fans, here, here, here, here, here and here

This from Dan Collins (and be sure to click the link when he was in Wolcott's spotlight)

And one Bonus Link: Tinkerbell Meets Norma Rae - The Daily Kos Strike

"We Still Had Manners" ... Barry Crimmin's Year In Review

You could go with Parade Magazine, or some other MSM fluff.

Or, you can go to the source.

What better way to ring in the New Year than with Barry Crimmin's annual Year-In-Review?

Crimmins has been doing this for so long, has been so prescient, insightful and dead-on-target, he makes Theodore White's Making-of-a-President series look like hack National Enquirer tripe.

And this year, there's no change in that status, with On the national affront: An inescapable year reaches its inevitable conclusion.

"Could 2007 somehow have been avoided? Where does one begin to recap 12 months of such willful self-parody? Isn’t it insulting to explain why, say, waterboarding is wrong, especially when one of the few people who needs this clarified is the new attorney general of the United States?

Corporate and political hoodlums spent the year doing three things: planning crimes, committing crimes, and covering up crimes. If this is news to you, no summary will bring you up to speed. So here are just some highlights of 2007, because it would be cruel and indecent to make you remember it all."

Crimmins mows down the list, from unreal real estate, to Saddam Hussein ("We still had manners"), to the cowering Congress and, of course, our pop culture pap that passes in so many outlets as hard news ("On February 8, the news-o-tainment divisions caught a break when hillbilly superwidow Anna Nicole Smith died of a drug overdose."), and, of course the ever-growing violence in our ever-growing police state ("While American children spent the year playing Russian roulette with Chinese toys, teens and alleged adults dabbled with even deadlier devices.")

Senator Larry Craig and the Bush Regime don't escape unscathed, as well as the Presidential Marathon, err , Campaign, complete with the numbing addition of the "Ewe tube"

"These confabs were sometimes said to be revolutionary because they employed the popular video-sharing Web site YouTube to collect questions from regular Americans, thus cutting out the mainstream media. Except for one thing: the mainstream media vetted the questions. So what we got were either inane stunt queries, included to underscore the Earth-shaking newness of this approach, or the same stupid questions the hacks could have asked more succinctly than some narcissist with a Web cam hamming it up on technology that produced video about two notches below Neil Armstrong’s viral “One Small Step” work in 1969."

So, ring out and shed your old, scaly 2007 skin with Barry Crimmin's Year-In-Review!

Read: On the national affront: An inescapable year reaches its inevitable conclusion

Visit Barry Crimmins website

Other Barry Crimmins on The Garlic

Bonus Barry Links

Picking up on a Crimmins post, Vanity Fair's James Wolcott's "Huckabee in the Bonnet"

Wolcott, again, quoting from Crimmin's hilarious "review" of Wolf Blitzer and his Situation Room program in his The Year of Tragical Thinking

Boppin' Around The Christmas Blogs (Herb Caen-Dot-Dot-Dot Style) ...

Well, coming off the, seemingly, long holiday break (and being freed from cooking and baking for nearly two-straight days), it's back to posting ... But, we go gently this day, warming up the engine and defrosting the windows, so to speak ... Think of it like stretching before a run or workout ...

While you were unwrapping gifts, downing the eggnog, and otherwise kickin' back, The Garlic was on-duty, taking a stroll through the blogosphere, checking up on who was naughty and who was nice ...

Carol Gee, on her own South by Southwest, as well as The Reaction, offered a wistful (and pragmatic) look at the Christmas holiday .... And Libby Spencer, also crossposting on The Reaction and The Impolitic tells of her own mini Christmas miracle ...

Joe Gandelman, over on his The Moderate Voice doesn't let us forget Brenda Lee... While Dr. Clarissa Pinkola Estés (she of the great Burma posts earlier this Fall), also on TMV, details her emotional Christmas Eve...

Dennis Perrin checks in with a post on how Christmas touched him this year ...

The ever-digging Glenn Greenwald, on Salon, posts about the Christmas Political wishes... Digby gives us her A Sec-Prog Christmas Redux, while Spencer Ackerman, on TPMmuckraker, presents A Special Christmas Message from Blackwater...

Think Progress shoots out their Year In Review: The 10 Most Popular Posts Of 2007...

Firedoglake's Jane Hamsher lays out the Mike Huckabee-Rush Limbaugh dust-up... While Larisa Alexandrovna, on her at-Largely (crossposted at Huffpo) fills Jonah Goldberg's Christmas stocking will a well-deserved pile of coal ...

But The Winners Are ....

Plural, as is two, rip-roaring, well-written, hysterical posts ...

James Wolcott's, on his Vanity Fair blog, Distinguished Poet Confronts the Ghost of Christmas Pus, is a fall-on-the-floor laughing dissection of an NYT Op-Ed of Christmas Day (and after you read it, after reading Wolcott, Wolcott's take is even funnier, so pad your floor for the second fall) ...

The op-ed page of The New York Times dropped quite a meatball into the Christmas stocking this morning--a poem by Paul Muldoon titled Myrrh that syrrh was awful. If I didn't have a touching faith in human nature, I'd suspect a put-on, and yet I fear the poem and poet are sincere. It begins:

And our good friend Barry Crimmins rings up Sir! Bah Humbug! Sir! in his ever-brilliant style;

At CNN they even squeezed in their Chief Pentagon Apologist Barbara Starr (you know her, she 's the one with a face that warns: don't lie or you'll end up looking like this) filing her annual report concerning NORAD's heartwarming 'tracking' of Santa's Christmas Eve journey. (He's currently over Australia!). What a charming way for the military to endear itself to impressionable children it can't start openly recruiting until junior high school.

Starr told us the military was tracking the "intruder" but she assured us that Santa's movements would only be monitored. How magnanimous of Pentagon brass not to scramble jets to shoot down St. Nick! Do we ever stop benefiting from a strong military? God bless us, every one!

And to all, a good night ...