If the Shoe Flies....

When Iraqi journalist Muntadhar al-Zeidi threw his shoes at President Bush last fall, he instantly became a hero to many of his fellow countrymen. This wasn't surprising, since many Iraqis consider the Americans to be occupiers, not liberators.

Today al-Zeide was sentenced to three years in prison for his actions. Many Iraqis are upset by what they consider to be a surprisingly harsh verdict.

Meanwhile, the man who invaded their country under false pretenses and then lied about the reasons for remaining there, whose reckless actions directly or indirectly caused the deaths of hundreds of thousands of Iraqis, and who managed to destabilize a strategically vital region of the world, remains scot-free and enjoying a comfortable retirement in Texas.

Bush's Legacy

Here's what columnist Mark Shields had to say on this week's "Inside Washington" about George W. Bush's eight years in office:

"Mr. Bush leaves with the lowest job rating of any President since Richard Nixon. The reason is, and it will be history's judgment of him, that George Bush took the United States to war against a country that constituted no threat to us, on a totally bogus claim that the country possessed weapons of mass destruction that constituted a threat to us, which it did not. And in doing it, and in the conduct of the war, he violated one of the most sacred and honored of American values: That is that war truly demands equality of sacrifice. He demanded no sacrifice of any of us. All the sacrifice and suffering was done, and continues to be done, by less that one percent of Americans.

And that is fundamentally unamerican."

Bush's Farewell Address(For the B.S. Impaired)

Bush's Farewell (Closed-Captioned for BS Impaired) - watch more funny videos

Turning Point

In an interview in Vanity Fair, several Bush aids are pointing at Hurricane Katrina as the turning point of the Bush administration (September of 2005). According to them, the American public lost faith in Bush during his botched response to the storm, and the President never regained the public's trust after that.

An interesting theory, but wrong. As I've said before, the big turning point actually came in the spring of 2005 during the Terry Schiavo case.

You may remember her as the woman in Florida who was in a vegetative state, and who's family became embroiled in a bitter battle over whether to disconnect her feeding tube. The then Republican Congress got involved and passed legislation seeking to keep her on the feeding tube. President Bush, in a dramatic gesture, hopped on Air Force One and flew from Texas to DC to sign the legislation. He did this even though he could just as well have signed the bill while at his ranch where he was vacationing at the time.

Americans in general were horrified by this exhibition of political opportunism. Many of us have had to deal with such decisions within our own families. It's an intensely personal and--yes--difficult choice to make. And while it was unfortunate that the Schiavo family could not arrive at a consensus on their own, the United States Congress and the President had absolutely no business getting involved.

It was during this tragic circus that most sensible Americans finally realized that the Republican party had gone too far in pandering to the lunatics of the religious right. It was also the moment that began the downfall of the Republican party and led to their eventual loss of both Congress and the White House.

More Evidence That We Were Lied to

Back in his 2003 State of the Union address, President Bush said that Iraq had been trying to buy uranium from the African country of Niger. That statement has since been proven to be false, and the situation has devolved into a classic case of who knew what when.

In 2004, then White House Counsel Alberto Gonzalez told a Senate committee that the CIA had approved the inclusion of that assertion in Bush's speech. The CIA, on the other hand, said it never did any such thing. In fact, according to the CIA, it repeatedly tried to have that statement withdrawn from the speech because it had been found to be unproven.

Now a different congressional committee looking into the matter has concluded that Gonzalez deliberately misled the Senate in 2004. Even worse, then National Security Adviser Condoleezza Rice may have also lied when she also said she was unaware about the CIA's doubts.

This is just more proof that when President Bush and his defenders blame the Iraq war on bad intelligence, it's just a flat out lie. They knew full well that their claims about Iraq's WMD's were false.

A mistake is one thing. If a bad decision is at least arrived at in good faith, it can almost be excused.

A deliberate, outright lie is quite a different matter. It can not, under any circumstance, be forgiven.... Especially when the lie leads to the loss of tens of thousands of lives.

He's Got Sole

The Arab world has a new hero: The guy who threw the shoe at President Bush a few days ago. In the middle east, throwing a shoe is considered a major insult, and Muntadar al-Zaidi's act of frustration has made him quite popular. Even in Iraq itself--the country that's supposed to be in love with us for getting rid of Saddam--crowds are demonstrating in the streets demanding that al-Zaidi be released from prison.

This leaves the U.S. backed government in quite a pickle. If they do release him, they risk insulting the Americans. On the other hand, if they leave them man in jail and ultimately put him on trial, they risk pissing off their own citizens. And given the current government's tenuous hold on power, that's something they can ill afford.

A Reason to Wear Shoes That Are Too Big

As his presidency winds down, President Bush has made one last visit to Iraq as Commander-in-chief. While answering questions, Bush was the near-recipient of a traditional Iraqi gesture of gratitude when a reporter for Al-Baghdadia TV threw a shoe at him. When he missed with the first one, the reporter threw a second one. That one missed too.

Presumably this means the guy had extraordinarily small feet. Other reporters in the room began snickering, as Arab custom suggests that this usually indicates a small penis as well.

"This is from the widows, the orphans and those who were killed in Iraq," shouted the man as he launched his errant footwear.

Bush, clearly moved by the outpouring of goodwill, wiped a tear from a cheek as expressed remorse for not having had the chance to create more widows and orphans in Iran.

D'OH!

In an interview with ABC News' Charlie Gibson, President Bush says that his biggest regret was the intelligence failure over Iraq. He went on to say that while it was unfortunate, there were a lot of people who agreed with the flawed intelligence.

What Bush conveniently forgot to mention, however, that there were also a lot of people in the intelligence communities of both America and Britain that doubted that same information. And rather than listening to them, the Bush administration chose to either ignore them or brand them as unpatriotic. Also, no word on whether Bush "regrets" trying to falsely connect Saddam to the 9/11 attacks.

But hey, that's okay. It's not like any of that caused the deaths of almost 5,000 American service members, the lifelong maimings of thousands more, the deaths tens of thousands of Iraqi civilians, the destabilization of the entire Middle East, the rise of Iran, and the waste of over a trillion dollars (and counting).

Yeah, it's probably all just a coincidence.

White House Yard Sale

Time for Some Classic TV

A Different Remembrance

Ahhh, He Remembered!

Okay, So I'll Miss Bush's Inspiring Speaking Style

By most accounts, Barack Obama delivered a stirring acceptance speech last night. Unfortunately I had completely forgotten about the convention, so I missed it. If only someone had sent me a text message as a reminder....

Anyway, one of the criticisms about Obama has been that while he's a great speaker, is that necessarily a quality America needs in a President?

After eight years of Bushisms, I would have to say yes. It's time we elected a President who has at least a minimal understanding of the English language.

I Know the Feeling

Makes Me Proud to Be an American

A Severe Case of Irony

President Bush, currently visiting Asia, yesterday delivered a speech condemning China's poor record on human rights.

This means a lot coming from the man who legalized the torture of prisoners, and whose spokesman once famously said, Americans "need to watch what they say, watch what they do."

Did a Forgery Lead Us into War?

I still encounter people who, in defiance of all reality, think that Saddam was somehow behind the 9-11 attacks. Just six months ago I noticed I was getting hits from some site I had never heard of. Upon checking it out, the author had written something along the lines of "Another liberal who's forgotten we were attacked on 9-11." Which, needless to say, I found infuriating for a couple of reasons.

First, I'm only a liberal if you also believe Barry Goldwater was a liberal. I consider myself a conservative, but a conservative who favors a smaller Federal government. George W. Bush and the Republican party of the last 20 years have forgotten their conservative roots, and done more to destroy the movement than any number of gay weddings ever could. There is nothing "conservative" about increasing the power of government to control our daily lives. Chipping away at people's personal freedoms is NOT what the conservative movement used to stand for.

Secondly, what do the 9-11 attacks have to do with Iraq? Not a damn thing. Fifteen of the 19 hijackers were from Saudi Arabia, which is an American ally. The group's leader was from Egypt, also a friendly nation. Two more were from the United Arab Emirates, also an ally. The remaining one was from Lebanon, which at the time was largely under the control of Syria. If the 41% of Americans who continue to believe Saddam was somehow behind the attacks would simply take their heads out of their asses long enough to look for themselves, they might finally realize they were duped into this war.

It remains to be seen what effect--if any--the new book from Ron Suskind will have on public opinion. Unfortunately, I'm guessing none.

Suskind, a Pulitzer winning investigative journalist, alleges in The Way of the World, that the Bush White House ordered the CIA to forge a letter linking Saddam's government to Al Qaeda in order to justify the attack on Iraq. If true, this is nothing short of a criminal action that justifies impeachment.

The existence of this letter has been known for years. It first surfaced in late 2003 and treated as a genuine article at the time. Over the coming months it soon became apparent that the letter was actually a fake, but its origins remained unknown.... Until now.

But does it really matter at this point? No, and don't look for Congress to suddenly grow balls and seriously pursue these allegations. Besides, in another six months Bush will be gone, and by then he will have pardoned pretty much everyone in his administration--including himself.

And if There's Anyone Who Knows About Getting Drunk....

Why Bush Hates Trees