Links
Posted on January 24, 2009
Filed Under Politics | 2 Comments
- The pope sanctions Holocaust denial. Not that I give a shit about the pope. He strikes me as increasingly irrelevant.
- NPR abets John Boehner’s lie. In its noon newscast on Saturday NPR played a clip of Rep. John Boehner citing a CBO report as evidence against the efficacy of the Obama stimulus plan. No such CBO report exists. [See also, this post from Digby.]
- NPR’s execrable Juan Williams, helped along by sentimentalist Scott Simon, advanced the developing conventional wisdom that Now That He’s Sitting Behind The Big Desk, predisdent Obama has come to Understand That Doing Away With Torture Isn’t So easy & that, well, really, we all know we will have to keep using torture. What is it with these guys in the media? Sadists much? They then ended by turning Obama into a sentimental symbol of the victory of civil rights, thus turning a policy debate into a feel-good moment for white folks. Ain’t we special, now, electing a black man & all. Let’s give ourselve a big ole pat on the back. (And by the way, he’s gonna have to torture them nasty Muslims no matter what he says.) [See also.]
- The war in Iraq was & remains unwinable: “Second, Biden’s prophesy is still correct. The trap was always that a new president had to keep a large number of troops in Iraq or risk the place falling apart — and risk being blamed for what happened if it did. The escalation was pretty much designed for just that purpose. It was politically crafted to create the illusion of “victory” which could only be maintained by maintaining the occupation.” [Emphasis added.]
- More conventional wisdom: Look, everybody knows you can’t have civil liberties & be safe from terrorists–take your choice.
Comments
2 Responses to “Links”
Just read this recent blog entry with this song playing in the background-
“Everybody knows that the dice are loaded
Everybody rolls with their fingers crossed
Everybody knows that the war is over
Everybody knows the good guys lost
Everybody knows the fight was fixed
The poor stay poor, the rich get rich
Thats how it goes
Everybody knows”
Signed,
Wary and Cynical
David, that’s one of my favorite LC lyrics. I’m wary & cynical, too, though I feel better about the president these last few days & worse about the media & the Republicans, who seemed to have missed the fact that Obama has 68% approval ratings right now — even in Texas. I don’t know if Obama can pull us out of the current nosedive, but I am damn certain that Juan Williams & the Republicans in Congress haven’t got a freaking clue.