or Powell's or me• • •
"Mike and Jon, Jon and Mike—I've known them both for years, and, clearly, one of them is very funny. As for the other: truly one of the great hangers-on of our time."—Steve Bodow, head writer, The Daily Show
•
"Who can really judge what's funny? If humor is a subjective medium, then can there be something that is really and truly hilarious? Me. This book."—Daniel Handler, author, Adverbs, and personal representative of Lemony Snicket
•
"The good news: I thought Our Kampf was consistently hilarious. The bad news: I’m the guy who wrote Monkeybone."—Sam Hamm, screenwriter, Batman, Batman Returns, and Homecoming
June 19, 2008
Ms. Rice Speaks Out On The Threat Posed By Saddam's Terrifying WMD
Here are some statements by Ms. Rice in the lead up to the invasion of Iraq:
"I think he [then Secretary of State Colin Powell] has proved that Iraq has these weapons and is hiding them, and I don't think many informed people doubted that." (NPR, Feb. 6, 2003)"We need to be ready for the possibility that the attack against the U.S. could come in some form against the homeland, not necessarily on the battlefield against our forces. And I think there, too, is an area where the American people need to be better prepared by our leadership. ... It's clear that Iraq poses a major threat. It's clear that its weapons of mass destruction need to be dealt with forcefully, and that's the path we're on. I think the question becomes whether we can keep the diplomatic balls in the air and not drop any, even as we move forward, as we must, on the military side." (NPR, Dec. 20, 2002)
"I think the United States government has been clear since the first Bush administration about the threat that Iraq and Saddam Hussein poses. The United States policy has been regime change for many, many years, going well back into the Clinton administration. So it's a question of timing and tactics...We do not necessarily need a further Council resolution before we can enforce this and previous resolutions." (NPR, Nov. 11, 2002)
Of course, this sounds like Condoleezza Rice. But in fact all those quotes are from Susan Rice, Assistant Secretary of State in the Clinton administration and now part of Obama's newly formed "Senior Working Group on National Security." These quotes are from an examination of the Working Group done by the Institute for Public Accuracy, here.
I'd long believed that black women named Rice who are willing to be appalling hacks to rise to the top of the foreign policy establishment are a precious national resource. However, I thought we faced serious supply constraints. Apparently I was wrong.
—Jonathan Schwarz
Posted at June 19, 2008 01:39 PM100 years from now, everyone will have forgotten this bit of unpleasantness in Iraq.
Posted by: donescobar at June 19, 2008 04:33 PMThe Rice name lives on into history. (twice or more)
Posted by: Mike Meyer at June 19, 2008 05:04 PMIf there is a demand, there will be a supply.
Posted by: Monkay at June 19, 2008 05:28 PMGot any spare change brother?
Posted by: jm at June 19, 2008 07:56 PMThe Public Accuracy link just scratches the surface of how odious these people are.
It doesn't mention that Roemer is a "distinguished scholar" at the Mercatus Center, a Scaife funded think tank.
And Perry is a senior fellow at Hoover -- just like Condi Rice.
This is just off the top of my head. I'm sure we could find a lot more disgusting things if we all put our Googles together. (Hours of fun for the whole family!)
Ahh, further proof that Digby and her cavalry of liberal bloggers have dragged the Dems screaming and kicking to the left.
Posted by: Rob Payne at June 19, 2008 10:53 PMSo Jon, since it's so obvious you HATE Barack Obama, and want him and some of the people he's trying to choose to help him out, to NOT be the next President of The United States (and his advisors), please tell all of us - everyone, including the folks you barfed all over at TMW...
Why do you want John McCain to be the next President of the United States?
Because like it or not, Jonny-boy, it's gonna be one or the other, McBush or Obama. And while everything Barack does, and every advisor he picks aren't always my favorites either...
On any planet, on any day, at any time, in any history, in any part of any universe where evil does not reign supreme, Barack Obama - along with some of his advisors who suck - will be a better President and his posse than John "McBush" McCain will EVER be.
If you hate the other Ms. Rice so bad, and think she and others would be horrible advisors to Mr. Obama, than do what others have already done; find something smarmy and politically intolerable about her (which you've done), and then find her lobbyist connections (???) and then make sure the reich-wing assbags pick up that story and run with it. Mr. Obama will likely throw her under the bus so fast, she won't even get tire treads on her backside.
But the petty sniping and "Obama sucks" attitude you seem to be spewing only makes you look like an idiot. Sure, some of the people who will be advising him suck; they're in Washington D.C. Trying to pick as many advisors as you'd need to be the President, in an environment like Washington D.C., will guarantee you that SOME of the people you pick will be clueless assbags, who can't count their eyeballs and get the same number twice.
This one just happens to be an African-American named Ms. Rice, just like another clueless assbag of the same name and description in the current administration. Bet you could also easily find some OTHER asshole advisors in D.C. with the last names of Gonzalez, Mitchell or Baker (#'s 38, 41, and 37 on the "Most Common Surnames" list from 1990 http://names.mongabay.com/most_common_surnames.htm ).
Of course, the question is... are ya just gonna bitch about 'em on your blog (and other people's blogs)? Or are you gonna DO something about it?
Cause if it's option #1... please STFU. All you do by just bitching is help those who want to elect McBush. Sure Obama has issues, and sure he should use some quality help to fix those issues. But if all you do is bitch about Obama now, BEFORE he gets elected, Faux Noise and reich-wing will simply have further ammunition about how "even lefties hate Obama", to help further convince that 1/3 of the U.S. population who are all mouth-breathing imbeciles, who voted for G.W., and think whatever Rush Limboob and Bill Orally tell them to. You're shooting those of us who are progressive, in the feet, with your bitching. Don't worry - we'll have plenty of time to help Mr. Obama get it right, once he's in office. I mean, hell - Bush 1 was an assbag extraordinare, and liberals and progressives were even able to keep him from completely f-ing everything up in 4 years. Obama is one hell of a lot closer to what we want. He gets in, you're halfway to a better system than the one we've got already.
So let's say you're not just gonna bitch. If you choose option #2..."Do SOMETHING", great. Do whatever it takes to get ahold of Mr. Obama or his TOP non-assbag advisors, and notify them of the assbags in their midst. Hell - if Obama e-mails to Scarlett Johannson, I bet a professional blogger with great connections like yourself could get through to him, if you wanted to.
But please, Jonathan... if all you're gonna do for the next 21 or so weeks is bitch about Obama? STFU. 'Cause if McBush gets in, you'll be lucky to even have a job to pay for your electricity, so you can have a blog and bitch about him.
Be part of the solution, not part of the problem.
Thanks.
Just a coincidence that "Silversmith" is an anagram of "VR shit slime"? No, I think not.
Personally - and I don't want to knock SV's faith and all, faith is beautiful from an anonymous distance - but I'm impressed by Jon's intestinal fortitude for the lesser evil here. I only made it as far as Sam Nunn - after some near misses on the Albrights and Christophers - before I had to excuse myself to the toilet and do this thing I sometimes do when I'm feeling ill.
This alphabetical order business gets more sickening as one goes along, pardon me while I excuse myself to, ah, do something some more.
Even if I supported Obama I wouldn’t want Silversmith on my side. It’s always amazing the amount of hate that spews out of peace loving liberals like Mr. silversmith.
Posted by: Rob Payne at June 20, 2008 04:10 AMWas "assbag" the word of the day yesterday or something? Because my homepage went with "cogent", but I still didn't run out and look to use it fifteen times in a paragraph.
Posted by: . at June 20, 2008 08:15 AMhttp://www.eschatonblog.com/2008_06_15_archive.html#2084236303916215441
Posted by: me at June 20, 2008 09:19 AMAnd I suppose it was fuckers like Silversmith who ensured that fuckers like Obama thrived early in the race, ensuring his perseverance. Now he intends to lecture us? Please. No one here said Obama wasn't superior to McCain. If creating non-arguments like this is the height of your intellectual capacity, may I recommend a variety of right-wing blogs where you will feel more at home.
Indeed, turning a blind eye to Obama's immoral policies makes it likely that you will find both more intellectual and cultural comfort on a right-wing site. Don't let the door hit your anti-democratic, pro-empire ass on the way out.
Posted by: No One of Consequence at June 20, 2008 09:25 AMThen there's the real Rice, interviewed by Jay Nordlinger in NR on Aug. 30, 1999 on Henry Kissinger: "I'm very fond of him. I think he's one of the smartest people I've met."
A little over a month after NR published its "Why W?" issue on July 17, 1999.
What almost everyone can't quite digest, yet?, is the "Why" in the history of the good American people: Why Nixon 2x; Why Reagan 2x; Why Clinton 2x, Why Bushes 3x. Who benefitted? Who chose to fool themselves, over and over? But then, maybe not. You are whom you choose to lead you.
That's a pretty unconvincing rant, silversmith. On the purely pragmatic level, I haven't noticed too many rightwingers ever using far lefty arguments against a centrist liberal--in the rightwing world, there is very little difference between a centrist liberal and Noam Chomsky. Some of us lefties were bothered by the flagwaving jingoistic crap that Obama spouted when he threw Jeremiah Wright under the bus--rightwingers, otoh, claimed then and now that Obama is secretly still a leftist militant America-hater just like his pastor is supposed to be. If anything, rightwingers would find the leftwing attacks on Obama inconvenient for them , because it shows Obama to be a centrist, not a lefty.
I voted for Obama and will do so again, because he is less evil than McCain, but your notion that bloggers wait until after the election to criticize him is silly. Then the argument will be that we can't criticize him because we have to defend him against the Republican slime machine. It's the way politicians behave-don't state your opinion, just say what you think is expedient and then get angry at people who state their opinions honestly. It's what's scary about many mainstream liberals--on some issues ( the bipartisan support for US imperialism and that of its allies like Israel) their outrage is buried so deep it seems to vanish altogether, if it ever existed at all. You'd expect this. It's hard to support a politician with enthusiasm if you're also disgusted by some of the things they do. One emotion or the other is going to prevail.
Posted by: Donald Johnson at June 20, 2008 09:59 AMWe should start calling our elections the "lesser of two evils" game and let go of the burdensome and mostly irrelevant ideological and social leftovers from the past.
What's so stunning in a country obsessed with money is the inability or unwillingness to understand economic reality and how money and power work. There is hardly any interest in questioning how US capitalism functions, for what purposes, for which individuals and groups, and for whose benefit. Even political power play is of fleeting interest, each election merely another episode in a public (somewhat) soap opera.
Obama is most likely the lesser evil. A few crumbs will fall off the table if he's the next POTUS. The table and what's on it will remain in the same hands.
How's that gonna change?
"How's that gonna change?"
That's the question of the age. I have no idea.
I don't either.
Read Camus again and pretend there's a Resistance to join. Oy.
What's so stunning in a country obsessed with money is the inability or unwillingness to understand economic reality and how money and power work.
So here's an excerpt attributed to The Washington Compost:
The Washington Post reported yesterday that although Americans’ perceptions of the economy are very negative, two key measures show that the economy is not as bad as it may seem: unemployment is at 5.5 percent and inflation at 4.2 percent.
My take is that many in the knowledgeable public (those that take the time to be neurotic in following the stories) don't trust 1) The Washington Post, 2) The NYT, 3) The WSJ, or 4) The government numbers.
We feel that 5.5% and 4.2% are funky numbers that drop off things that they should include (i.e. you constantly need to cross reference Dean Baker to these people).
It's not so stunning because the story being presented is being presented by consolidated media with a specific agenda designed to obfuscate the relationships of economics and power.
Where should the public turn? Should we all rely on our Yale/Harvard education to get us through that? Keeping the public clueless is a part of the strategy to maximize.
Posted by: Labiche at June 20, 2008 11:04 AMLabiche
Obfuscation by the establishment-owned media, keeping the public clueless...all true.
Add to that a public eager to remain clueless in pursuit of private "happiness," better abs and thinner thighs.
Harvard and Yale grads? The most eager embracers and enablers and poobahs of the "strategy to maximize."
Silversmith: WE should all bitch about, scrutinize and discuss, report to each other, EVERYTHING, every tiny detail about ANYONE running for office. Keeping shut (STFU) IS WHAT GOT US HERE.
Disclaimer: I'm voting for Michael Meyer.
The time to show your colors was while Kucinch was campaigning. He was the real progressive but most dems found a reason to support the faux liberals, now we have the same ol', same ol'. Byebye Constitution.
Posted by: john in california at June 20, 2008 11:34 AMWhen Lesley Stahl asked "We have heard that a half million children have died [in Iraq from the sanctions]. I mean, that's more children than died in Hiroshima. And -- and you know, is the price worth it?" Albright replied: "I think this is a very hard choice, but the price -- we think the price is worth it." (CBS News, May 12, 1996).
I want this quote to follow her all the days of her life and to be etched on her headstone (well, her family isn't likely to do it, but perhaps the Midnight Etcher can do it).
Posted by: catherine at June 20, 2008 02:14 PMWell, at least white males named Kissinger are a rare resource, but it seems to be lasting us a long time.
Posted by: En Ming Hee at June 20, 2008 09:23 PM
