Want to know what's making be cranky this morning? Let's take a look.
First, there's this story about Pat McCrory's announcement that he'll run for governor of my home state, North Carolina. That's a screen shot of the graphic that accompanied the email announcement.
Most of you probably noticed the misspelling of governor, right? Hey, it happens to the best of us. It even happened to one of the Democrats running. Someone pointed it out and the campaign fixed it. No big deal, right?
Except this was a big deal. When notified of the mistake, Victoria Smith, McCrory's campaign manager, huffed, "There's no way this was misspelled ... somebody must have sent that out and hacked into that masthead."
Even after another person with the campaign said that the designer just screwed up, Smith insisted that it was a liberal hacker who hated America, hated the troops, and wanted to make them look bad because they're Republicans.
Then McCrory told reporters that it was just a design mistake and promised they would look into adjusting Smith's medications.
Bush, worried that his legacy will be noted as just one failure after another, from his time in the Texas oil biz to his disastrous presidency, has made a last-minute attempt at getting the Israelis and the Palestinians to make nice. Good luck with that, Mr. President.
While in the Mideast, he stopped by Saudi Arabia to see his old pal, Prince Bandar. You may remember Bandar was one of the first people to visit the White house after 9/11 and convinced Bush that no Saudis were involved in the terrorist attack and that all Bandar's friends should be allowed to scoot back to the kingdom before being questioned by those nosy FBI guys. This included some members of a well-connected family named bin Laden.
Anyway, Bush asked his old pal if maybe OPEC couldn't increase production and bring the price of oil down a bit.
Bandar said fuck no.
Thanks, pal.
Mitt Romney won the Michigan primary by demonstrating just how far he's willing to stretch the truth to be president.
And finally, Robert Rodriguez, the CIA guy who ordered the interrogation tapes destroyed, has been called to testify before Congress about possible obstruction of justice. Apparently the tapes show interrogators using waterboarding on a couple bad guys.
The administration and its dwindling number of defenders insist that waterboarding isn't torture, in spite of the fact that we said it was torture in WWII, the Army manual of interrogations says its torture, the Geneva Convention says it's torture, and the guy who waterboards SEALS in order to train them to endure torture said it was torture.
Then there is the JAG officer who resigned his commission, saying, "Waterboarding was used by the Nazi Gestapo and the feared Japanese Kempeitai. In World War II, our grandfathers had the wisdom to convict Japanese Officer Yukio Asano of waterboarding and other torture practices in 1947 giving him 15 years hard labor. Waterboarding was practiced by the Khmer Rouge at the infamous Tuol Sleng prison. Most recently, the United States Army court martialed a soldier for the practice in 1968 during the Vietnam conflict."
Yet, in spite of all this, Bush, Cheney and every GOP candidate except John McCain still say that waterboarding isn't torture. Hmm, I wonder what John McCain knows about the subject that those other guys don't?
Could it be that people in the White House (I'm looking at you, Dick) could be in serious legal trouble if waterboarding is declared torture, and is therefore a crime?
I think we should pick a few suspects (I'm looking at you, Dick) and waterboard them to find out the truth. I mean, according to the director of national intelligence, Mike McConnell, it's like swimming without nose plugs. Which, he says, “would be torture.”
So, those are the stories that have me feeling a little irritable this morning. How about you? What's crawled up your pantsleg lately?
6 comments:
The fact that Richard Cohen of the WaPo is miffed because Barack Obama's minister's daughters gave some sort of award to Louis Farrakhan. Cohen has his panties all in a bunch because all Obama has said is that he disagrees with his minister on the subject of Farrakhan and left it at that.
This is not enough for Mr. Cohen, who wants Obama to do the Deploring Dance until he, Cohen is satisfied. I am sick to fucking death of Democrats being asked to "distance themselves" from every whacko on the planet, when no one is asking Romney or Rudy or Huckabee to distance themselves from Ann Coulter or Michelle Malkin.
Dusty,
It's never enough. Just as John Kerry didn't bleed enough to deserve that Purple Heart.
It'll never be enough for those bastards.
(and I should have checked your blog post before posting this snippet about Bandar.)
Not to worry....great minds, etc.
It usually takes a bit to get me riled up, but last night I watched (for the second time) PBS's Frontline about Cheney and his crusade to invest more power in the presidency. That was all she wrote. Went to bed fuming. Not good for the ole REM sleep cycle.
Hey, Dave, just found your blog and have been enjoying reading about your life. I'm sure you'll remember me from Morgantown days, back when we were friends with benefits (as "the kids" say nowadays).
Deb D.
Hi Deb. Happy to hear from you.
My oh my, those Morgantown days were so very long ago.
Drop me an email and tell me what you're up to.
Wow! All this time I thought waterboarding was like playing with a wave rider in a swimming pool; just disappointing. You’re probably also right about how Mitt Romney won the Michigan primary, and I figure Hillary won New Hampshire, and… they all win that way, don’t they?
Was there something about Bush’s visit with Bandar that surprised you? And, as far as McCrory having a loose shingle on his staff? We have a few of those where I work; even some bent nails. I’m glad my employer weighs the pros and cons of having us on staff. I bet yours does the same. I’m going to have some hot chocolate and count my blessings. Things could, and probably will, get worse.
Dread
Post a Comment