Us Versus Us
Who wants us dead? Well, the Islam-inspired terrorists of course. And then, the Arkansas head of the GOP...so people have more appreciation for the jerk in The White House with the approval rating in the porcelain bowl for lying us into Iraq. From a piece by Josh Catone on RawStory:
In his first interview as the chairman of the Arkansas Republican Party, Dennis Milligan told a reporter that America needs to be attacked by terrorists so that people will appreciate the work that President Bush has done to protect the country."At the end of the day, I believe fully the president is doing the right thing, and I think all we need is some attacks on American soil like we had on [Sept. 11, 2001]," Milligan said to the Arkansas Democrat-Gazette, "and the naysayers will come around very quickly to appreciate not only the commitment for President Bush, but the sacrifice that has been made by men and women to protect this country."
Milligan, who was elected as the new chair of the Arkansas Republican Party just two weeks ago, also told the newspaper that he is "150 percent" behind Bush in the war in Iraq.
In his acceptance speech on May 19th, Milligan told his fellow Republicans that it was "time for a rediscovery of our values and our common sense."
Such as having our citizens mass-murdered to make a really bad decision look better? Of course, being in Iraq is fomenting terrorism, not preventing it.
Thanks, Patrick!
Wouldn't another attack on American soil completely disprove the slogan "Fight them there or fight them here" which has been the most current justification of the war, which would then prove the president has not been doing the right thing, which is the opposite of what Milligan stated? That was a fun run-on.
Amy at June 8, 2007 9:49 AM
Good point! I'm not accusing the guy of being intelligent, just creepy.
Amy Alkon at June 8, 2007 10:25 AM
I'd like to see Milligan "150%" deployed to Iraq as soon as possible.
Rebecca at June 8, 2007 10:35 AM
What a dumb shit. I think I’ll stick a needle in my eye so I can benefit from the latest techniques in laser surgery.
Roger at June 8, 2007 10:38 AM
Values like due process, speedy trails, the right to representtion, free speech, privacy, these cant be the values he is talking about, can they?
As for common sense - in a war you kill soilders right? Or do you arrest soilders charge them of crimes agaist the US even though said crimes occurd outside of US jurisdiction? Then go on to try them under US laws and tribunls with out giving them the rights those very laws you are using to prosocute them garuntee.
lujlp at June 8, 2007 12:02 PM
> and the naysayers will come around...
A 9/11-type attack would probably cause folks to rally around Bush out of desperation; perhaps even give him a temporary poll-number boost. But the operative word is "temporary."
Doobie at June 8, 2007 4:02 PM
> Wouldn't another attack on
> American soil completely
> disprove
No... Not unless you know, via some metaphysical, trans-cosmic omniscience exceeding anything in Christianity, Judaica or Hinduism, just how many attacks America was supposed to expect in the years since the attacks of 2001.
If you do know that, it would be fun to read your proof. Otherwise I think you're just in a mood to be pissy.
> A 9/11-type attack would
> probably cause folks to
> rally around Bush out of
> desperation
It's cute when people pretend that these forces are predictable and mundane, like the ebb of seasons or the changing of boy's voices. But the truth is that if America is attacked again and the White House gets a whole lot of support, it means that people think that our national project in the moment before the attack deserves restoration, and they have faith that our servants (ie, Boosh) deserves support.
I hate people who think Americans are stupid. Thank you for your attention to this matter.
Crid at June 8, 2007 8:41 PM
> But the truth is that if America is attacked again and the White House gets a whole lot of support, it means that people think...
...immediately after the attack with their emotions and not their heads. Has everything to do with biology; nothing to do with stupidity.
> the ebb of seasons or the changing of boy's voices.
The metaphors are cute, too.
Doobie at June 8, 2007 10:22 PM
Riiiiiight... Sure. Other people are senselessly emotional and twitchy. But you, with your commanding intellect, granite rationality and courageous heart, are rewardingly detached from the trenches of the human experience and float overhead with a view beyond the horizon.... It'd be fun to look at your investment portfolio.
The peeps will call you if they need you. Don't wait up.
Crid at June 9, 2007 12:35 AM
"...so people have more appreciation for the jerk in The White House with the approval rating in the porcelain bowl for lying us into Iraq."
One more time: Congress has the Constitutional duty to declare war and provide all funding. You are giving a complete pass to those geniuses in Congress, especially those members of committees charged with evaluating the statements by the Executive and the information gathered by intelligence services, merely because you wish to complain to/about the manager - not some lowly "staffer".
Turn your memory back on, and you will find widespread support in Congress for the present path forward. If you are going to claim someone is wrong about what America is doing in Iraq, the term, "someone" is not a single person you actually know little about and have chosen to hate.
Now, I expect someone to hallucinate some position of mine since I said that. My position is simple: that the military is NOT police, and NOT a construction company, and that they surely do not deserve the widespread contempt of comfortable and pink people sitting by a pool somewhere for not doing a job the way it would go only in a fantasist's head.
Radwaste at June 9, 2007 4:35 AM
> One more time:
Who are you kidding, you say that all the time and you're going to say that again just as soon as you can! I think sociological change means that people prefer just to offer their support (or not) to the White House instead. Maybe it ain't right, but....
> they surely do not deserve
> the widespread contempt of
> comfortable and pink people
Exactly. Exactly.
Crid at June 9, 2007 5:40 AM
Question: Since (according the Arkansas head of the Republican Party and colossal idiot) we need 9/11s to make the country appreciate Bush more, isn't this a candid admission that Bush is pretty a failure on every other front?
What amazes me is that anybody ever expected Bush to be anything but a disappointment. This man, in spite of all the advantages of wealth and privilege has nothing, nada, zip, zilch that he can point to in the way of personal accomplishment. Now think about it. If you were born to a family as affluent as Bush's, you'd be able to go up to your parents at any time and say, "I want to be a [insert dream job here]..." and you would have had the best training in that field that money can buy. And Bush's parents were probably invested in their son's future, since he went to Andover. But Bush has nothing in the way of personal accomplishment that he can point to. In fact, bad decisions, moral lapses and poor judgment is the recurring theme of his life. When he owned the Texas Rangers and traded Sammy Sosa...when his oil company went bankrupt due to his inability to find oil in Texas.
We elected stupid, we got stupid. "Garbage in, garbage out." Why anyone who looks at the history of our narcissist in chief and expected anything but disappointment is beyond me.
Patrick at June 9, 2007 2:16 PM
> Other people are senselessly emotional and twitchy.
I never said "other."
> But you, with your commanding intellect, granite rationality and courageous heart
The essence of your schtick.
Doobie at June 9, 2007 4:09 PM
> I never said "other."
If you were speaking for yourself, you should have said so.
> schtick.
Well, tell you what... Instead of another round of didso/didnot, why don't you tell us why you think the hoi polloi are so given to whimpering at such at hour, other than to exempt yourself from their ranks by having taken notice? Why do people suddenly trust the government more when shit hits the fan?
> our narcissist in chief
Huh?
Crid at June 9, 2007 6:21 PM
"Our narcissist-in-chief" is a reference to the President. A narcissist is characterized by unconscious deficits in self-esteem, lack of empathy and self-absorption. Based on his actions and appearances, and those Bush surrounds himself with, whether by choice or accident of birth, Bush is clearly a narcissist.
Patrick at June 9, 2007 8:09 PM
> If you were speaking for yourself, you should have said so.
It's not my job to spoon-feed people.
> other than to exempt yourself from their ranks
Human nature, period. Everyone included. What part of that don't you understand?
> Instead of another round of didso/didnot
Admit it...you love it. It's all too obvious.
Doobie at June 9, 2007 8:46 PM
Wow. What happened ? Bush-bashing is now o.k. Let me rile up the population with ridiculous - supposedly - ideas. Was the deal where the Saudis got to kidnap the labour force for building the largest honking 'Embassy' on the planet ; and keep them so poorly that they were drinking untreated river water ( water in Iraq puts a whole new low bar for 'drinkable' at the best of times ); and had no change of clothes supposed to parade American values to the world ? ( just the current ones )
The project is coming in on time and within budget : must be the only one in the country. And the designers were proud of their design and posted it online : only to have it immediately pulled because they would aid targeting for the ongoing mortar attacks.
Should be interesting when most troops are pulled back into bases and the locals start genocide.
opit at June 9, 2007 9:00 PM
> unconscious deficits in
> self-esteem, lack of
> empathy and self-absorption
Amy likes Psychology Today magazine; I loathe it on principle, and haven't read a word of it since Ford was president. The modern fascination interior lives hasn't yet crested beyond a schoolchild's fascination with the notion that there are forces at work within each of us that we're not aware of. But to then presume that you know the interior workings of some distant figure's mind, even though you've never met him, is nothing but teenage snark. I mean, c'mon now... "Unconscious deficits in self-esteem"? Puh-leeze. In the next breath, he's insufficiently humble. This is just silly. If you want just want to say that Dubya's an asshole, then say that. No one could disagree!
> It's not my job to
> spoon-feed people.
Yes! It is your job! Be clear or go away
> Everyone included.
Not me. One of the neat things about being born in 1959 is that my cohort got to sail around a lot of history's pylons during the bio-years when everyone has other things on their mind anyway (i.e., chasing tail). So on the morning of 9/11, it was suddenly apparent that we'd not been excused from humanity's obstacle course. If you happened to be working the overnight shift in LA when the word came, you had to figure out who's who and what's what within a few minutes so you'd know what to say when you'd call your Eastern seaboard loved ones. I had faith that after some period of bumbling and inefficiency, the government would get around to responding. And what do you know, that's what happened! Was this faith misplaced?
There are some sharp people in government. Maybe not as many as in Hollywood, and certainly not as many as in the Silicon Valley. But the sugar on the Potomac is pretty sweet, and the people who work there have their butts on the line no less than the rest of us. More so, given the transparency of their ambition. To expect the White House to respond in such an hour is not a twitchy, fear-blinded prayer; it's what we pay them for. And in America more than anywhere else in the world, people deliver the goods when you pay their wage.
> What part of that
> don't you understand?
The part you didn't share in your original comment. Even then, it's not that I don't understand, it's that you're wrong. The aggregate of American opinion knows more than you do. It's confounding that more people can't muster some respect for it, especially in light of their manifest reliance on it.
> Admit it...you love it.
It is a lot of fun to ridicule you!
Crid at June 10, 2007 1:45 AM
As far as I know, Bush-bashing was always okay. I've always indulged it. If it was ever against decorum to do so, I've never noticed it, except possibly for a few weeks after 9/11.
I didn't presume to "know" anything. I viewed the evidence at hand and made my best guess. But it's a little ridiculous to describe Bush as someone I've never met, as if I were making guesses about someone passing by on the street, ala Miss Cleo.
Bush makes public appearances, speaks to the population, and we are all spoon-fed an account of Bush's actions, public policy, and opinions on a daily basis. It's a little ridiculous to liken someone who's face is smeared on the television screen daily to Joe Shmoe is Bumfolk, Texas I've never even heard of. How could anyone NOT see ("Not see"? "Nazi"?) Bush's staggering lack of empathy?
"Hurricane Katrina? Don't bother me now. I'm trying to sink this putt. Tsunami strikes the Indian Subcontinent? Yawn."
And let's not forget his mother of the "it's all working out very well for them" fame.
And there is Karl Rove, which no human being with any conscience whatsoever could suffer in the same room, much less include as a trusted advisor.
And of course, let's not forget about 20,000 dead Iraqi civilians, 4.2 million more displaced. But hey, Halliburton's gotta make money, right?
Regarding the "unconscious deficit in self-esteem," seems only natural that he would suffer with it, having nothing in the way of personal accomplishment he can point to his entire life, particularly considering his affluence.
Patrick at June 10, 2007 2:23 AM
But Bush has nothing in the way of personal accomplishment that he can point to.
And he ran the country like all those businesses he ran into the ground...as a guy of privilege who had everything handed to him, but still wrecked it all, and then appealed to people as a "regular guy." We get the guy who we deserve because we vote for him.
Amy Alkon at June 10, 2007 4:19 AM
All true, all true... But we've got to get out of the habit of saying the president "runs the country." He does no such thing, he's just the chief executive. It's a powerful gig, but he's not "in charge." Bad language about this confuses people and helps make it so, especially for immigrants from places where government figures really do run their country.
Also Patrick, what's your source for the 4.2 million number? There's certainly a brain drain and a 'decency drain' going on today, but we were told that after the invasion, far more people returned for repatriation than moved out.
Crid at June 10, 2007 4:43 AM
GAAAAH! Well, of course you don't like Psychology Today, Crid! Reading it would necessitate thinking! And even worse, trying to discern Bush's character based on what you see would necessitate thinking for yourself! I'm sure you'd rather choke to death on your own vomit.
Crid, if you're not going to think for yourself, at least learn the basic meanings of words. I didn't say "defected;" I said "displaced!" You know, like Hurricane Katrina victims who lost their homes? Yes, that displaced. Where did you get the idea I was talking about Iraqis leaving the country, that you would counter with some irrelevant undefined "far more people" seeking repatriation? (Kind of like Bush's "By far, the vast majority of my tax cuts go those at the bottom end of the spectrum." Gotta love it when a politician crams three vague, undefined weasel phrases into one sentence, especially to make a statement that's a naked lie.)
Now that you know what I actually said (I hope, but I have my doubts), I'd be happy to share where I got it. Click (that's the thing you do with the left button on the mouse) here.
Easy enough to find, too! I just Googled (that's much harder to explain; I'll go over that when you've mastered mouse-clicking) "Iraqis" and "Displaced" and there it was, 3rd or 4th link down.
Patrick at June 10, 2007 7:35 AM
Patrick, calm down. I asked for your source.
> Click (that's the thing
> you do with the left
> button on the mouse) here.
That's Twelve words of sarcasm with two for utility. Is this page how the information came to you? It seems unlikely, but what the heck.
So what the fuck is Reliefweb?
Summary: ReliefWeb is a UN-based and funded information service that works closely with the NGO network to promote their reports, agendas and campaigns under the guise of humanitarian aid and human rights. This service claims to have 70,000 subscribers, and its website is used by many more. While the official UN affiliation provides the image of credibility and objectivity, as the following analysis demonstrates, this is often not the case. Many of the reports on Arab-Israeli issues are copied directly from biased NGOs pursuing an anti-Israel agenda. As a result, ReliefWeb should also be viewed as biased and unreliable. http://tinyurl.com/27hq7n
We note that the Reliefweb page offers no names or other sources for its numbers.... It simply published them. Their own organization and personnel are the only ones mentioned. It seems sort of onanistic. Anyway, I'm disinclined to trust the United Nations on these matters. As in so much of their horseplay, it's actually All About Israel.
Crid at June 10, 2007 9:49 AM
I should have not postponed the instructions for Googling. Had I done so, Crid could have actually attempted to find the information for himself, and come up with other sources, like this one. But as it is, poor Crid is so destitute of even basic search engine functions that he must rely upon us to find the links for him, rather than attempting to Google the two words I gave in my previous post.
Patrick at June 10, 2007 11:28 AM
So Patrick, that was your source? I just want to know... How did this information come to you? You don't seem like a fellow who browses the Foggy Bottom website for fun.
It's a painful time, but nobody ever disputes that civil war was in Iraq's future anyway. What else did you have in mind for Iraq, besides "don't invade"?
Crid at June 10, 2007 11:42 AM
BTW, we should note that Dobriansky is quoting that same damn press release....
Crid at June 10, 2007 11:43 AM
It's from the Federal Government, Crid. I don't consider that to be a reliable source for anything, but you, apparently do.
Regarding what you think I browse and what I don't browse, I'm have no idea why it's so important to you. Is this something to deflect from the fact that you've pooh-poohed something as bogus, when the Federal Government now supports it?
I couldn't tell you where I got it from, to be perfectly candid. I actively participate on a news message board, which is where I first heard this statistic. I recall there was some link that I was able to check, but I couldn't tell you where it came from now, and I don't really care enough to go sifting through the various posts on the various threads to find it.
I'm not sure why the exact source I gleaned this information from is so important to you. Are you just lazy? Is there some reason, if you doubt this statistic, you couldn't just Google the information for yourself? I found two sources with this just by Googling the words "Iraqis" and "displaced." Are they both so lacking in credibility?
Patrick at June 10, 2007 5:27 PM
> it's not that I don't understand, it's that you're wrong.
> if you're not going to think for yourself, at least learn the basic meanings of words
Welcome to the club, Patrick!
Doobie at June 10, 2007 5:48 PM
(Just to clarify: first quote above was Crid to me; second was Patrick to Crid)
> after some period of bumbling and inefficiency, the government would get around to responding. And what do you know, that's what happened! Was this faith misplaced?
During Katrina, yes.
> But you, with your commanding intellect, granite rationality and courageous heart
> But to then presume that you know the interior workings of some distant figure's mind, even though you've never met him, is nothing but teenage snark
Care to reconcile these?
> It's a powerful gig, but he's not "in charge."
I know...they just refer to him as "Commander-in-Chief" for shits and grins.
Doobie at June 11, 2007 6:51 PM
> During Katrina
You're adorable!
Let's consider, Doobie: What does a natural disaster --four years later and a thousand miles from the scene of the attacks-- have do with 9/11? (Well, it lets you whine like a teenage daughter of divorce in unresolved bitterness, which is probably all you ask of it.) But if you want to talk about Katrina, then rather than dropping the name inanely and pretending it's a Get Out of Jail Free card, you'll be expected to offer thoughts about the following points.
All thoughtful people knew it was coming. We'd heard warnings about the levees for years. The erosion of the barrier islands over the last thirty years was something most of us didn't know about, but it's hard to imagine what we could have done to protect the city without warping the national economy.
Nobody really wanted to spend the money. New Orleans was no longer a national capital for anything but drunken conference revelry, and hadn't been for more than a century. No corporations or industries of note were headquartered there, and it had been some time since it was a destination for ambitious immigrants looking to make good (Mexicans excepted... maybe). When the city did collapse, the effect on the national economy was incidental. As Cosh said at the time, Americans let the city drown because we could afford to in a way that other coastal nations could not have. People still don't want to spend the money, because the city will always be at even greater risk than it has been since our nation's infancy, and there's nothing to invest in there.
I'd expect that if you disagree with any of this, you're prepared to list your writings and conversations from before August 2005 arguing that we should be doing more to beef up the the levees and prepare for disaster, and to offer receipts from your own charitable contributions to relief and reconstruction efforts. Dear members of my family were down their in the April heat to hammer on houses; I've not found the nerve to tell them it's a mistake.
And again, bad weather has what to do with our response to a murderous attack by foreign terrorists?
> Care to reconcile these?
I would if they were discordant.
> they just refer to him
> as "Commander-in-Chief"
> for shits and grins.
He's commander-in-chief of our nation's armed forces. He's not your king, and he's not your dad.
Also- Excepting the radiant "Another Park Another Sunday," the Doobie Brothers were always overrated.
Crid at June 11, 2007 7:57 PM
> I had faith that after some period of bumbling and inefficiency, the government would get around to responding
> But if you want to talk about Katrina, then rather than dropping the name inanely and pretending it's a Get Out of Jail Free card
Oh, I didn't know your faith in the government was situational. You need to be more clear.
> And again, bad weather has what to do with our response to a murderous attack by foreign terrorists?
(Look two lines up.)
> I would if they were discordant.
Hmmm...
> But you, with your commanding intellect, granite rationality and courageous heart
> But to then presume that you know the interior workings of some distant figure's mind, even though you've never met him, is nothing but teenage snark
Whattya mean...they ARE discordant!
> He's commander-in-chief of our nation's armed forces. He's not your king, and he's not your dad.
Damn shame that he thinks he's both. But you did say the following:
> He does no such thing, he's just the chief executive. It's a powerful gig, but he's not "in charge."
> Also- Excepting the radiant "Another Park Another Sunday," the Doobie Brothers were always overrated.
Especially after Michael McDonald joined.
The AKA has nothing to do with them.
Doobie at June 12, 2007 9:39 PM
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