The many moods of Pam

Pamela Geller manages to range the entire "rage spectrum," from being charmingly delusional:

Dr. Nancy (my sister) suggests we do a Humphrey:

LET'S PULL A HUMPHREY

In 1968 President Johnson had eventually decided not to run because of the Vietnam quagmire and the prominent figures in the primary were Eugene McCarthy who won some states and amassed delegates and the dynamic senator from New York Robert F. Kennedy who it was said had a good chance of winning the nomination if he could add California to his wins and have that momentum at his back. This he did, but moments later was shot to death. Vice President Humphrey wound up entering and winning the nomination despite not having participated in the primaries or amassing delegates because he had the support of the incumbent president Johnson and party insiders. Let's do it too. Tell Cheney to jump in, W should support him and we just need party insiders I guess. Or can we never pull what the Dems do a la Lautenberg?

to out-and-out genocidal:

Islamic practices must be utterly shunned, denounced and eradicated from our societies. No taquiya, no sharia, no Islam in the houses of government[.]

And she can hit all the points in between.

Conservatives on crack

In case you were curious as to why no one in their right mind (pun so-not-intended) would ever hire National Review blogger Kathryn Lopez as a political consultant:

I do think the veep is going to matter — and especially to conservatives. Early match-ups wouldn't be a bad idea. If Rudy had Bill Bennett or Rick Santorum running with him, he'd get a second look from pro-lifers who are sick over the prospect of a pro-choice nominee, for instance. A solidly conservative Dick Cheney like figure (is anyone Dick Cheney like though) could help Romney, to ease any concerns about this able guy folks feel like they just met....

To re-cap - for Rudy or Romney to solidify their potential GOP candidacy, the should consider for veep a) a moralistic scold/compulsive gambler, b) a Christianist former senator who was just tossed out on his ass by voters in an important swing state, or c) someone like the most unpopular vice president ever. And you're telling me no campaign is waiting to snap K-Lo up?

For ash

Boo-fucking-hoo

Dick Cheney is not the guy you want to have out their trying to drum up sympathy on your behalf:

Cheney also disclosed that he recently had dinner with his former chief of staff I. Lewis "Scooter" Libby, whose 30-month sentence for perjury and obstruction of justice was commuted by Bush. Cheney said earlier this week that he disagreed with the verdict.

"He's doing well," Cheney said. "He obviously went through a very, very difficult time, very hard for him and for his family. I think having the commutation of sentence decided has been a huge relief for him, but he still has a very difficult road. He's got -- obviously he needs to find work. He's got legal bills. He carries the burden of having been convicted. All those are not easy problems. But he's clearly in -- he's in good spirits and getting on with his life."

Poor Scooter. He's sure got it rough.

He's unemployed - at least until the good folks at the AEI offer him some cushy fellowship.

He's got all those legal bills - which that $5 mill in his legal defense fund won't come close to covering, I'm sure.

He carries the millstone of having a conviction on his record - at least until the full pardon comes through at around ten till noon on January 20, 2009.

But he's in good spirits. He doesn't lose any sleep over sliming a public servant in order to exact revenge on his political enemies. There's no stain on his conscience for helping sell a senseless, immoral, and profoundly damaging war.

Nope, good ole Scooter is going to be a-ok.

Cry me a fucking river, Dick.

The decider

I suppose I should be heartened that Bushco is doing something to try to avert the disaster in Darfur, despite being somewhat cynical about the whole sanctions business, with reason. But something towards the end of Bush's prepared comments really rubbed me the wrong way:

The people of Darfur are crying out for help, and they deserve it.

I've long ago accepted that most popular media sources will present news as a narrative where there are good people and bad people, people who deserve our sympathies and those who've earned our enmity. The decision about what color hat a person wears is made by a small number of people, usually in their own interest, unless a determined collective effort by the general public forces the elites to pay attention, as may be the case with Darfur.

It's a fucking travesty that George W. Bush, Dick Cheney, and their cabal are the people making the decisions of who is worthy of the Imperial Benevolence of the United States. And it's even worse to know that they probably really believe that they're imposing a pax Americana.

But he's the Decider.

This isn't happening, is it?

Sy Hersh has been on top of Bushco's barbaric single-mindedness with regards to Iran for some time now. The Guardian pulls out this little tidbit in their summary:

Elements of the tough new approach towards Tehran outlined by Hersh include:

· Clandestine operations against Iran and Syria, as well as the Hizbullah movement in Lebanon - even to the extent of bolstering Sunni extremist groups that are sympathetic to al-Qaida...

In case you didn't follow that: the new Bush strategy involves us forming alliances with supporters of the people who attacked us on 9/11 so that we can destabilize not just one, but three other countries (in addition to Iraq) who had nothing to do with 9/11!

These sorts of contingencies demonstrate how dangerously unhinged Dick Cheney and his bloody-minded colleauges really are. Is he allowed to get away with growling out one side of his mouth about giving comfort to al Qaeda while handing cash out underneath the table to Bin Laden's allies in Iraq? Why do I have this weird sense of déjà vu?

Hersh claims that the former director of national intelligence, John Negroponte, resigned his post to take a parallel job as the deputy director of the state department because of his discomfort with an approach that so closely echoed the Iran-contra scandal of the 1980s.

Oh... that would explain Elliott Abrams hanging around the White House again.

In bizarro world

It's been the Bush administration's M.O. to turn their own weaknesses into attacks on their opponents. Cheney has just taken it to stunning new heights:

Vice President Cheney today repeated his charge that House Speaker Nancy Pelosi's approach toward the Iraq war would benefit al-Qaeda, saying that he was not trying to impugn the speaker's patriotism but instead hold her accountable for the consequences of her policies.

[...]

"She accused me of questioning her patriotism. I didn't question her patriotism. I questioned her judgment," Cheney said during a trip to Australia.

"If you are going to advocate a course of action that basically is withdrawal of our forces from Iraq, then you don't get to just do the fun part of that, that says, well we're going to get out and appeal to your constituents on that basis. You have to be accountable for the results..."

You'll have to excuse me for thinking that Cheney's the last person who should be giving finger-wagging lectures on accountability.

Summoned

Any remaining doubts that the credibility of the Bush Administration is hovering around zero should be put to rest with an observation buried in this article:

Saudi Arabia is so concerned about the damage that the conflict in Iraq is doing across the region that it basically summoned Vice President Cheney for talks over the weekend, according to U.S. officials and foreign diplomats. The visit was originally portrayed as U.S. outreach to its oil-rich Arab ally.

When the leaders of "the most powerful nation in the world"™ are being summoned to the courts of other world leaders and being lectured about the mess they've made, it might be time to re-visit our attitude vis-à-vis the rest of the world.

Post #666

The Blogger tells me that this is my 666th post here at medulla noodle. Understanding that this blog wouldn't be the titan of blogospheric opining that it is without a midnight visit to the crossroads, I want to take this opportunity to give a shout-out to the Dark Lord who made all of this possible:

Here's to you, Prince of Evil.

Precious bodily fluids

I've had Dick Cheney (who, may I remind you, not so long ago was shooting people in the face) pegged as an antiseptically paranoid control-freak for quite some time, picturing his remodeled Naval Observatory digs done up in stark white, with visitors required to undergo extensive decontamination upon entering, and for godsakes remove your shoes!

The NYT isn't dispelling that particular notion:

Like so many other people involved in politics these days, Mrs. Ryun has become obsessive about using hand sanitizer and ensuring that others do, too. She squirted Purell, the antiseptic goop of choice on the stump and self-proclaimed killer of “99.99 percent of most common germs that may cause illness,” on people lined up to meet Vice President Dick Cheney this month at a fund-raiser in Topeka.

When Mr. Cheney was done meeting and greeting, he, too, rubbed his hands vigorously with the stuff, dispensed in dollops by an aide when the vice president was out of public view.

In fact, the use of hand sanitizers by the Bush administration and those who must deal with it seems downright cult-like:

“Good stuff, keeps you from getting colds,” Mr. Bush raved about hand sanitizer to Senator Barack Obama, Democrat of Illinois, at a White House encounter early last year.

Mr. Obama, who recounts the episode in his new book, says that after rubbing a blob of it on his own hands, the president offered him some, which he accepted (“not wanting to appear unhygienic.”)

Mr. Obama has since started carrying Purell in his traveling bag, a spokesman said.

Say it ain't so, Barack! Say it ain't so!

And who, you ask, in a hail of awkward puns, will champion the unwashed masses?:

[Governor Bill] Richardson [D-NM] said that if he ran for president, as he is considering, he had no intention of conforming to the norms of his antiseptic peers.

“I just won’t use the sanitizer,” he said. “I’ve been offered it, but I’ve turned it down.”

This positions Mr. Richardson as the early hygienic maverick of 2008.

“I’m not afraid to get my hands dirty,” he said.