Feith, Rove, Just Full Of It

There are those who think that life has nothing left to chance
A host of holy horrors to direct our aimless dance

A planet of play things
We dance on the strings
Of powers we cannot perceive
'The stars aren't aligned
Or the gods are malign...'
Blame is better to give than receive


You can choose a ready guide in some celestial voice
If you choose not to decide, you still have made a choice
You can choose from phantom fears and kindness that can kill
I will choose a path that's clear
I will choose freewill
Rush ~ Freewill

A tautology for the ages from the master of Teh Stupid:

A lot of poor commentary has framed the Iraq war as a conflict of "choice" rather than of "necessity." In fact, President George W. Bush chose to remove Saddam Hussein from power because he concluded that doing so was necessary.

Heh. Nice word play. Lemme see if I can do as well.

How about this: "In fact, President George W. Bush chose to conclude that it was necessary to remove Saddam Hussein from power." See? Easy and I used fewer words too!

After all this time, they're still offering up bullcrap arguments to justify the worst decision in American history. This ain't flying at all, and BooMan does an admirable job of explaining why.

Feith pushes a false narrative on us, but it's a familiar one. We had no reliable intelligence in 2001 that suggested that Saddam Hussein was reconstituting his biological, chemical, or nuclear weapons programs. His armed forces were weak, disloyal, ill-paid, ill-equipped, and totally unable to project force towards any of his neighbors. Insofar as the Intelligence Community worked on the issue of Iraq, they were mainly concerned with an international disinformation campaign to heighten the threat from Saddam in order to maintain support for a crumbling sanctions regime. Belief in Iraq's WMD's was nothing more than a convenient case of believing our own hype. How many times did the Bush administration point to misinformation put out by the Clinton administration to bolster their case for war (and to justify their decision after the fact)?

But there is a key difference between the lies of the Clinton administration and the lies of the White House Iraq Group (WHIG) of Douglas Feith. Clinton administration lies were intended to keep Saddam Hussein from rearming and/or slaughtering internal dissidents. Bush administration lies were intended to justify actions that have now cost over 4,000 American soldiers and hundreds of thousands of Iraqis their lives, created over 2 million refugees, and cost a trillion dollars.

That was a choice that George W. Bush made. He chose to lie in the service of a policy that created all this tragedy and waste. And to think that Feith would quote Rumsfeld's concern about the loss of a single pilot as justification for the necessity of doing this! No wonder General Tommy Franks said of Feith, "I have to deal with the fucking stupidest guy on the face of the earth almost every day."

As for Karl "The Math" Rove, well . . . other than still being worshiped by the likes of one of the most self-deluded bloggers in Reich Wing Blogistan, he not only fails completely of offer any analysis in his long-winded and tiresome essay other than how McCain and Obama are spending their money -- cuz it's all about the cash of course -- he can't even get the simple facts right about who's spending what, when.

Honestly I don't know if this is a deliberate fake-out, willfully ignoring the dynamic shifts in the electorate as a direct backlash against the dismal failures of Rove's former boss's administration because of their complete politicalization of public policy due mainly to Rove's own advice and advancement within the White House.

That or maybe Rove is just stupid too.

Limbaugh Inciting Riots and Other Fright Wing Idiots

The first item on the list of Friday's Fabulous Fright Flingers comes from Richard Blair's tip that "El Rushbo" Limbaugh is exhorting his retarded followers to stage riots at the Democratic Convention in Denver this summer, proving that the hatemonger is the undisputed champion of despicable pond slime everywhere .

“Riots
in Denver, the Democrat Convention would see to it that we don’t elect
Democrats,” Limbaugh said during Wednesday’s radio broadcast. He then
went on to say that’s the best thing that could happen to the country…

…Limbaugh said with massive riots in Denver, which he called “Operation Chaos,” the people on the far left would look bad.

Just so we're clear on the mind-set here. Riots staged by mouth-breathing fans of Rush Limbaugh will make the left look bad? ... Right?

Steven D. at Booman Tribune has the definitive take-down on this embarrassment to the human race:

He's
the right wing media's version of Emperor Nero, divorced from reality,
fiddling while less fortunate Americans than himself, fat and happy
with the millions of dollars generated by his caustic brew of hatred,
spite and ill will, slowly burn. Ten percent of Ohioans are on food
stamps and he merrily calls for riots at the Democratic convention.
What kind of man does such a thing? For there is a word that describes
this type of person and I don't mean sociopath, for that gives Rush an
out, makes his foul deeds the result of a diminished moral capacity.
No, the word is one any right wing conservative ought to recognize
since they use it themselves so often. That word is traitor. Rush
Limbaugh is an evil toad and a traitor to democracy, to our
Constitution and to our Nation. He doesn't participate in the violence
he glorifies, but he is its primary advocate on the right, and for
Bush's wars as well. So convinced of the righteousness of "his cause"
he willingly appeals to the worst sides of our nature, hoping to
inspire others to do the deeds he lacks the spine to do himself.

Limbaugh wannabee, Hugh Hewitt, in an episode of Teh Stoopid interviewing the Really Fucking Dumb, had Doug Feith on his show promoting Feith's new coloring book, War and Decision.

TBogg's
reporting on this Great Moment In Delusion includes the observation
that the Feith says the reason we gave up on going after Al Qaeda and
invaded Iraq was because our C-Plus Augustus "decided immediately after 9/11 that our main goal was not retaliation, but preventing the next attack."

Come
again Mr, Feith? Did you guys have intel that Osama escaped Tora-Bora
and got on a bus to Baghdad and was going to book another jet ride to
Poukeepskie from there?

Doug Bandow pens an analysis of John McSame's approach to foreign policy and concludes it's "a form of neoconservatism squared."

All
you have to do is threaten everyone around you, and they will kowtow.
Talk a little more loudly, brandish your military stick a bit more
tightly, and you'll get what you want. If you don't, no problem, just
bomb away and you will emerge victorious, so long as you are determined
and willing to spill as much blood and treasure as necessary. That's
clearly McCain's position in Iraq and likely would govern his approach
to any other conflict.

If you ever need to make the case that "warmonger" is an appropriate label for "Ace" McSame, there's your link.

And
in a rare Twofer, the septuagenarian (that's "old" for those of you who
went to school in Ann Arbor) makes the list again for his musings on
what to do about post-Katrina New Orleans.

We need to go back to have a conversation about what to do: rebuild it, tear it down, you know, whatever it is.

That's not an example of a Fright Winger deliberately trying to use fear, but it sure is scary as hell to think John "Let Them Eat Cake" McPain has a chance to be in charge.



Meanwhile, Swopa notes that the rationing of rice
by Wal-Mart to a year's supply per person per day is the cause of
speculators, not any kind of shortage. And yet instead of trying to fix
the problem by coming down on the speculators, the usual suspects see
another opportunity to put their disaster capitalism ideas to work
while people panic needlessly.



Fear is Good, at least for hedge fund managers.

I Always Hated Doug Feith

I will probably never tire of saying, Bite Me Dean Esmay. Doug Feith, Undersecretary of Policy for the Defense Department, "a minor official" my ass. The guy ran his own intelligence department, he was the architect for the Office of Special Plans who took orders directly from VP Cheney in an effort to give Bush, and the rest of us, no choice but to go to war -- despite what every non-Kool-Aide drinking intelligence expert urged against.

Let's put it this way. As you might guess from his long title, Feith was Rumsfeld's top policy advisor. He was the guy who determined and executed official policy -- the party line -- for the entire U.S. Military. Accountants and car-pool managers are "minor officials." This guy was seriously, deadly, important.

This is the guy who gave us CURVEBALL. This is the guy who sent his deputy, Franklin, off with intelligence secrets to give to AIPAC -- who gave us bogus stories of al Qaeda meeting with Iraqi intelligence in Prague. So cloak and dagger, so dangersous and mysterious, so damned deceitful.

This is the guy General Tommy Franks called, "THE STUPIDEST FUCKING GUY." Who tried to get Colin Powell, who called Feith's operation the "Gestapo," to paint even bigger fantasies then he did.

He's a dangerous neo-con utopian, and always has been.

You don't rise to that level of collosal incompetence and remain merely a "minor official."

We've known since the Downing Street Memos that they cooked the books and lied us into a war. It is now the official finding of the United States Government that Feith was the Chief Chef and mouth-breathing bottle-washer who cooked up those books, who dreamed up the war and what lies to spread, to whom, to get us here today.

There's blood on his hands that cannot be washed away by simply saying his actions were "inappropriate." And there's blood on every single GOP enabler, wingnut apologist, and conservative talking-head that have covered for these Neo-Napoleons.

Dean lists what he thinks are the left's unfounded gripes as he tosses off the Inspector General's report as just another witch-hunt by the hippies.

1) A majority of Americans were led to believe that Saddam was behind 9/11
2) Bush lied about Weapons of Mass Destruction
3) We only went for the oil
4) Bush, Cheney, and Rumsfeld never listened to the opinions of generals who disagreed with them
5) Iraq's new government is our puppet
6) We had no plan for after the invasion
7) Abu Ghraib proves that our military condones torture.

Dean, there's more, as you know -- most of which can be directly traced back to Doug Feith.

But those aren't myths, but conventional wisdom based on clear, convincing evidence which is common knowledge to everyone without a stake in the he-said/she-said world of partisan bickering. And once again, you are deluded if you think that doesn't describe you.

Put down the beer-bloody-mary and seek professional help, Dean. You've been hallucinating.

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