Category: Politics

I know the 9/11 report is out today but I am not going to deal with it. The process has become too politicized to even remotely hope for good advice to come out of it; the best we can hope for is some tidbits of useful information.

I wish I were half the writer Billmon is. Whiskey Bar puts the smack down on Ralph Nader. Go read it. It’s even better than the smacking Matt Yglesias laid down on Nader not too long ago.

A sample:

If the robber baron economics, constitutional obscenity and foreign policy lunacies of the past four years haven’t convinced progressives of the need for a united front against Bush and the authoritarian right, then nothing I can say now will, either.

But up until the past few weeks, I’ve never questioned Nader’s motives or his sincerity. As destructive as I think his actions have been, and as much as I detest his stubborness and his increasingly bizarre egoism, I’ve taken it for granted that Ralph’s objectives were exactly what he said they were: to give the voters a progressive alternative to the Republicrat political duopoly.

I may have thought he was wrong – disastrously wrong – but I always assumed Nader was basically an honest person, and a man of the left. And as high as I know the stakes are in this election, it still made me uncomfortable to see the Dems using hardball tactics to try to keep him off the ballot in as many of the key states as they could. In my book, the Democratic Party was (and still is) just an instrument, a tool – a weak one, but the only one we’ve got – for fighting the movement conservatives. Ralph, on the other hand, was more like a crazy uncle – a real pain in the ass, but still, when it comes right down to it, family.

But Nader’s increasingly open and shameless alliance with the GOP – as demonstrated so flagrantly in Michigan – leaves me with the sinking feeling that I’ve misjudged him.

Per Atrios, a reminder of how good The West Wing used to be:

We all need some therapy, because somebody came along and said “liberal” means soft on crime, soft on drugs, soft on Communism, soft on defense, and we’re gonna tax you back to the Stone Age because people shouldn’t have to go to work if they don’t want to. And instead of saying “Well, excuse me, you right-wing, reactionary, xenophobic, homophobic, anti-eductaion, anti-choice, pro-gun, ‘Leave it to Beaver’ trip back to the fifties,” we cowered in the corner and said “Please, don’t hurt me.” No more.

You can not make stuff like this up even if you tried:

The US navy spokesman put up to answer journalists

Not that I’ve ever used the stuff, but if you do use SlimFast, you should know:

Slim-Fast has dropped Whoopi Goldberg from its advertising after the comedian made a sexual joke about George Bush.

Per Atrios. He has contact info if you want to give the SlimFast folks a piece of your mind.

Speaking of other bloggers who are better and/or funnier writers than I am, check out this great bit in fafblog:

In the meantime because I was tricked into believin in Joe Wilson, I also believed that Saddam Hussein’s nuclear program didnt exist when in fact it must have because Joe Wilson got his job from his wife! Even now I am trembling in fear in the knowledge that somewhere out there Saddam Hussein is sittin on a giant pile of Nigerien yellowcake uranium. “Ho ho ho,” laughs Saddam Hussein as he takes a bite of rich, creamy uranium. “Soon I will grow ten thousand times my current size, spewing radioactive fire breath across Mesopotamia, until as Nuculo-Saddam I shall control the Middle East!” “Oh no Saddam don’t do that!” I say. “It is too late!” he laughs. “And I owe it all to you, Fafnir – to you and all the other hapless peaceniks deceived by the nepotism of Joseph and Valerie Plame-Wilson!”