Joe Says Relax

Joe Conason has a great piece today for those of us who see doom in recent poll numbers.

The liberal tendency to assume the fetal position upon hearing any bad news not only creates a damaging psychological environment for those who indulge it, but also repels undecided and independent voters who are seeking strong, confident leadership. Nobody wants to join a team that obsesses more about losing than winning.

Thank you! Yes exactly! Why else did Democratic leadership roll over so quickly in 2000 despite having the will of the voters on their side? Even when we win we act like losers.

Republicans: The No.1 reason the rest of the world thinks we’re deaf, dumb and dangerous.

This is a great piece of writing by Garrison Keillor. I've been meaning to send this link to various relatives of mine who have recently taken to bringing up Abraham Lincoln as a rationalization for supporting the Republican party, and citing "The Blue and the Gray" as a softer, gentler way of looking at the Civil War from the point of view of the Confederacy.

The party of Lincoln and Liberty was transmogrified into the party of hairy-backed swamp developers and corporate shills, faith-based economists, fundamentalist bullies with Bibles, Christians of convenience, freelance racists, misanthropic frat boys, shrieking midgets of AM radio, tax cheats, nihilists in golf pants, brownshirts in pinstripes, sweatshop tycoons, hacks, fakirs, aggressive dorks, Lamborghini libertarians, people who believe Neil Armstrong’s moonwalk was filmed in Roswell, New Mexico, little honkers out to diminish the rest of us, Newt’s evil spawn and their Etch-A-Sketch president, a dull and rigid man suspicious of the free flow of information and of secular institutions, whose philosophy is a jumble of badly sutured body parts trying to walk. Republicans: The No.1 reason the rest of the world thinks we’re deaf, dumb and dangerous.

Jeez, do I really share the same genes as people who could support these nimrods? Hmmm...as number 12 in the line-up, there's only a slim chance that I was adopted.

Thanks to chicanaontheedge for the link.

From Newsweek via Kos:

..Sixteen months after the war's supposed end, Iraq's insurgency is spreading. Each successful demand by kidnappers has spawned more hostage-takings?to make Philippine troops go home, to stop Turkish truckers from hauling supplies into Iraq, to extort fat ransom payments from Kuwaitis. The few relief groups that remain in Iraq are talking seriously about leaving. U.S. forces have effectively ceded entire cities to the insurgents, and much of the country elsewhere is a battleground. Last week the total number of U.S. war dead in Iraq passed the 1,000 mark, reaching 1,007 by the end of Saturday.

...Yet U.S. officials publicly insist that Iraq will somehow hold national elections before the end of January. The appointed council currently acting as Iraq's government under interim Prime Minister Ayad Allawi is to be replaced by an elected constitutional assembly?if the vote takes place. "I presume the election will be delayed," says the Iraqi Interior Ministry's chief spokesman, Sabah Kadhim. A senior Iraqi official sees no chance of January elections: "I'm convinced that it's not going to happen. It's just not realistic. How is it going to happen?" Some Iraqis worry that America will stick to its schedule despite all obstacles. "The Americans have created a series of fictional dates and events in order to delude themselves," says Ghassan Atiyya, director of the independent Iraq Foundation for Development and Democracy, who recently met with Allawi and American representatives to discuss the January agenda. "Badly prepared elections, rather than healing wounds, will open them."

Of course we've "created a series fictional dates and events to delude ourselves." We elected were saddled with a fictional president who created a fictional reason for going to war with Iraq and then declared a fictional victory. Why should anything about this war be real except for the people who are dying in it?

President Bowel Movement on the Pantleg of History

I can't even imagine the gnashing and grinding of teeth that would be all over primetime if even a fraction of this stuff was being alleged against John Kerry.

...Bush’s charge sheet for alleged wrongdoing has got it all – sex, drugs, cowardice, cruelty; his alleged failings and foibles are imperial in stature.

But then Jesus forgave George for every transgression and, of course, being born again, and all, he came to embrace Christianity.

Perhaps the most disturbing example of Bush’s zeal for the Death House was shown in 1998 when he was governor of the state of Texas. Karla Faye Tucker was then facing execution by lethal injection. The former teen prostitute had committed murder after a three-day drug binge and later underwent a religious conversion in jail. As a born-again Christian – just like Bush – many religious leaders wanted her life spared. Tucker even appeared on Larry King’s TV show to discuss her case. Bush was caught out by a reporter mocking the condemned woman. Sneering at her, he put on a whiney voice, pouted his lips and whimpered: “Please, don’t kill me.”

Thanks to Smirking Chimp for the link.

Bumper Sticker polling

If it's any consolation to those of you who are becoming increasingly discouraged about the election--on a roadtrip to and from NYC just after the Repuglican convention, (and, yes, this did involve moving Lenora to Brooklyn), the political bumper stickers for Kerry/Edwards were twice the Bush/Cheney stickers. And that's driving across Indiana, Michigan, Ohio, and Pennsylvania.

Didn't see my personal favorite: "I Brake Like a Little Girl"
I might have to produce that one myself.