CANNONFIRE: 03/01/2008

Monday, March 31, 2008

Who are the real censors?

I am going to have to put off my big piece on Obama's lies until later this week. Tomorrow I should have an important expose on another topic -- one which may surprise you. Today, another matter demands our attention:

Progblog censorship.

Yes, I've deleted a (rather small) number of comments. Some of those comments should have remained; their authors have my apologies. I don't regret getting rid of the quickie "drive-bys" -- the mindless, two-line insults from anonymous cowards -- but I do have respect for the more thoughtful pieces, even when offered by people who hate me and/or are hated by me. I have spent a great deal of time answering the more substantive arguments offered by Obama supporters. Those debates came at no small personal cost, since hours spent writing detract from the earning of lucre. Alas, the only alternative is to let the smear merchants commandeer my blog. Ain't gonna happen.

But if you think I'm bad, hip thyself to what's going down on the larger progblogs. If you do not parrot the party line, you become an unperson.

To repeat a point I've made often in the past: This humble blog is the equivalent of a private home. I write for the sake of writing, not to please an audience. The high-traffic sites -- Huffington Post, Buzzflash, TPM Cafe, and the Mighty Markos Money Machine -- are public places. Different rules apply.

Josh Marshall, alas, is one of the worst offenders:

Veteran political writer Linda Hirshman says she was cut as a TPM Cafe contributor for “not making the case for Obama.”

McCain fever...catch it.

Jen again...

While stuck in traffic behind a mini-van with an old Gore sticker on it the other day, a strange thing occurred to me.

I haven't seen a single McCain sticker, sign or t-shirt anywhere in my area yet.

I do live in the somewhat Democrat-friendly wilds of Western Oregon, so perhaps the lack of visible support for McCain is more about demographics than anything else, but I wanted to ask our readers what the climate looks like for McCain where they are. Is it as dismal as it seems to be around here?

Sunday, March 30, 2008

Coloring Jesus

As you will recall, this blog sometimes addresses non-political topics on the weekend. Our subjects today are art, religion, and race. Although this post will not focus on Barack Obama or the Reverend Wright, one of Wright's stated beliefs does relate to our present topic.

As you know, Wright refers to Jesus as "a black man." Was he?

The question was once of some practical importance to me. A few years ago, I was asked to create a series of historically accurate religious paintings. My partner in this scheme thought that he could market prints of these works. Although hardly a church-goer myself, I have always loved the religious art of the Renaissance, and enjoyed the idea of diving into those waters.

Unfortunately, said partner showed some signs of becoming a tad... Hmmm. How to put this charitably? Let's just say that his eccentricity level began to exceed my comfort level. Also, to be frank, a painting of this sort takes a ton of work -- with no guarantee of recompense. Not a very motivating situation.

Thus, the project ended before the completion of the first image -- a Pieta, reproduced here in four variants. (Click on each to enlarge.) Although painted in Photoshop, the work was done in a rather traditional fashion. No models, no photographic reference of any kind -- just color applied to drawings done from imagination.

Since the goal, at first, was historical accuracy, an obvious question presented itself: What did Jesus and Mary look like, physically, ethnically?

The art world doesn't need another fancifully honkified Jesus. On the other hand, Wright's notion of a Mighty Black Jesus also seems absurd: Gallilee is not in Africa. The gospels do say that Jesus spent time in Africa -- presumably in Alexandria, which had a massive Jewish community -- but he was not born there.

The gospels give no physical description of either Jesus or Mary, although the Apocalypse makes a (perhaps metaphorical) reference to Jesus having bronze skin and wooly hair.

The Marian visionaries in Kibeho, Rwanda (a recent, Church-approved apparition) tell us that Mary is a beautiful black lady. Saint Juan Diego, an Indian who encountered Our Lady of Guadalupe in 1531, saw her as an Indian like himself. Bernadette Soubirous, a pretty 14 year old girl in the Pyrenees, saw a pretty teenaged French girl.

Obviously, supernatural "evidence" couldn't help. In the end, the only logical answer was to make the characters in this drama look like modern Palestinians -- with bronzed skin, woolly hair, and Semitic features.

Over the course of painting, historicism started to seep out of the thing. Mother Mary would have been in her mid-to-late 40s, and she would have aged poorly, given the harsh conditions of her era and place. Artists depicting the crucifixion have always fudged her age. She looks about 20 in Michelangelo's Pieta -- a problem he explained away by declaring that virgins keep longer!

(Michelangelo's Mary is also some seven feet tall, even though women of that era tended to be around five feet. At least I got that part right.)

In the Middle Ages, blue and red became associated with the Virgin's costume, but -- intent on a warm color scheme -- I turned to an older artistic tradition which associated her with red and purple. That tradition stems from the once-popular Protoevangelion of James, which refers to her sewing red and purple cloth at the time of the Annunciation.

After doing a great deal of research into the costume of First Century Judea, I tossed out most of what I learned. The rough, thick cloth worn at that time is no fun to paint. Renaissance and late Medieval artists tended to wrap everyone in silk and other thin, texture-free materials, because they loved getting lost in the intricate, expressive folds. Perhaps I should repaint Mary's costume more realistically -- the folds defy gravity in order to reflect her inner turmoil. But that factor seems to have a psychological rightness.

Actually, I never did find the correct overall color scheme, and the background underwent several reworkings. The result still looks all wrong. This might one day turn into a decent painting, if I can figure out how to solve the problems.

Until then, I give you this work-in-progress to demonstrate how one artist confronted the question of what he looked like. This painting does not give the Wright answer...but do you think it is the right answer?

Saturday, March 29, 2008

The ultimate Kossack comment

"Hillary Clinton killed Vince Foster? OMG! Get this to Keith!"

Care to compose your own? Each entry should end with the words "Get this to Keith!"

Friday, March 28, 2008

Former Secretary of the Army Togo West confirms Hillary Clinton's Bosnia account

Keep this video in mind when you read the forthcoming expose of Obama's lies. It may appear over the weekend -- however, I may save it for Monday morning.

Conason misses the point

Joe Conason -- who used to be one of the few sane observers of things Clintonian -- has this to say in his latest:

Of course "Obama and company" have said much that is unkind and untrue about the Clintons before and since, but it is all too easy to imagine the outrage of the Clinton spokespersons if the Illinois senator had started mailing around old clips from the American Spectator.

Conason was bothered by the Clinton campaign's citation of stories concerning Obama spokesperson General McPeak, about whom I have written previously. McPeak has a history. The man is a butcher, and Clinton supporters have been far too kind to him.

Joe Conason, have you lost all sense of perspective? Obama is relying on the Daily Fucking Kos, which has a much higher readership than the American Spectator ever did. Compare the Kos diaries published on any given day to the '90s-era right-wing smear machine described in David Brock's Blinded By the Right. By any rational standard, Moulitsas and his compatriots have less conscience and more power than Scaife did or does.

And you say that Clinton has crossed a line? Are you also going to argue that Poland invaded Nazi Germany?

If she beats the odds and wins, this kind of behavior will taint her victory.

What about Obama's behavior? I'm scarcely the only former Obama supporter so repulsed by the Obama/Kos smear machine that I will refuse to vote Democratic in November, should he be the candidate.

If Obama's tactics have proven so divisive in the primaries, then how can he hope to unite the entire country?

Krugman, "Clinton rules," and the reason why Wright matters

Many became infuriated with me when I turned against the Savior From Illinois. I have become disaffected with the entire left -- not so much over issues of ideology or policy, but because I will never tolerate the left's embrace of Limbaugh-ism -- i.e., the politics of smear and vitriol.

In this country, anti-Clintonism is -- like anti-Catholicism -- a socially acceptable form of hate. That's why Kos echoes Fox News talking points. You'll read David Brock's Blinded By the Right with new eyes, now that far worse pseudo-journalistic atrocities occur every day in progressive blogs.

Paul Krugman thinks much as I do, although he has not given public voice to so deep a disaffection.

Why, then, is there so much venom out there?

I won’t try for fake evenhandedness here: most of the venom I see is coming from supporters of Mr. Obama, who want their hero or nobody. I’m not the first to point out that the Obama campaign seems dangerously close to becoming a cult of personality. We’ve already had that from the Bush administration — remember Operation Flight Suit? We really don’t want to go there again.

What’s particularly saddening is the way many Obama supporters seem happy with the application of “Clinton rules” — the term a number of observers use for the way pundits and some news organizations treat any action or statement by the Clintons, no matter how innocuous, as proof of evil intent.

The prime example of Clinton rules in the 1990s was the way the press covered Whitewater. A small, failed land deal became the basis of a multiyear, multimillion-dollar investigation, which never found any evidence of wrongdoing on the Clintons’ part, yet the “scandal” became a symbol of the Clinton administration’s alleged corruption.

During the current campaign, Mrs. Clinton’s entirely reasonable remark that it took L.B.J.’s political courage and skills to bring Martin Luther King Jr.’s dream to fruition was cast as some kind of outrageous denigration of Dr. King.

I call it Clinton rules, but it’s a pattern that goes well beyond the Clintons. For example, Al Gore was subjected to Clinton rules during the 2000 campaign: anything he said, and some things he didn’t say (no, he never claimed to have invented the Internet), was held up as proof of his alleged character flaws.

For now, Clinton rules are working in Mr. Obama’s favor. But his supporters should not take comfort in that fact.

For one thing, Mrs. Clinton may yet be the nominee — and if Obama supporters care about anything beyond hero worship, they should want to see her win in November.

For another, if history is any guide, if Mr. Obama wins the nomination, he will quickly find himself being subjected to Clinton rules. Democrats always do.

I agree: Clinton Rules will become Obama Rules after the convention, should he prevail. The Obama-as-Muslim fib gives us a presage of what is to come. I will have zero sympathy for Obama, no matter how ludicrous or unfair the charge against him. He who lives by the smear...

Those who think the Wright controversy is over are fooling themselves. They've been so thoroughly brainwashed by ludicrous progblog lies -- "The DLC is an all-powerful monster, and Clinton is its creature!" "The Clintons are racists!" "The Clintons run Fox News!" "Vince Foster! Vince Foster! Vince Foster!" -- that they've come to inhabit a reality that has few points of contact with the actual world.

The left refuses to understand that the media is, at present, playing according to Clinton Rules. That is why the Bosnia flap was immediately puffed up to seem far more important than Wright.

In the general (should Obama win), Clinton will no longer be a factor. Everyone will sense the atmospheric shift as Obama Rules kick in.

That is when we will see the real Wright firestorm.

McCain probably won't touch the issue -- not personally. But the swiftboaters will feast. More than that. Rezko will become a name known to everyone, not just to political junkies. And we will encounter a whole host of other scandals -- real, hyperbolized and imaginary.

Those who think that Obama's over-rated Great Speech has put the Wright issue behind us simply do not recognize reality. That speech was delivered under Clinton Rules. The pundits consider Hillary Enemy No. 1 -- and the enemy of one's enemy is, at least temporarily, one's friend.

If he secures the nomination, Obama won't be able to play the game he's playing now -- pretending to be the candidate of unity while heading up a vicious campaign of hate and smear. He can play that game as long as his foe is Hillary, a socially-sanctioned smear target.

If he tries that same shit against McCain, the public will see him as a slick manipulator besmirching Everybody's Grandfather.

And now for something completely different

Jen here...

For anyone who hasn't heard, the HBO mini-series about John Adams is excellent!

It's a charming, exciting and mostly historically accurate portrayl of Adams' role in the formation of what I still sometimes call this great country. Amazingly non-schmaltzy. Laura Linney rules. Based on the depiction of Adams found in David McCullough's book, which I listened to during a long road trip to Berkeley in 2005 and found to be quite engaging.

Normally, I don't encourage people to watch HBO. Its programming is the television equivalent to heroin. But I'll make an exception in this case because the series is worth your time. Indulge responsibly. Those folks make too many fun things to ignore your problems with.

Thursday, March 27, 2008

Unforgivable

Rev. Wright on the Italian people:

"Italians Look Down Their Garlic Noses -- Gave Jesus Public Lynching Italian Style"

What an ignorant, inarticulate oaf. Note especially that Wright made reference to Italy, not Rome. Clearly -- and I am being deadly serious here -- Wright intended his remarks to be taken as an insult to all the sons and daughters of the land that gave us the Renaissance. My mother. Her parents.

Thought experiment:

Let's say that I attended a racist "Identity" church" for twenty years. Let's say that my pastor once made a remark about "niggers" having "watermelon grins."

Let's say that I decided to run for office.

Let us further posit that news of my pastor's history caused a media firestorm. To douse it, my supporters pointed out that my pastor had been a Marine, that he had done charitable works in the community, that he had once participated in a surgical operation on a former president.

Let us further postulate that I gave a speech to the nation. In this speech, I claimed that I did not personally hear the offensive "watermelon" remark, that I did not agree with everything my pastor said, that the world has been given an incomplete glimpse of the man's true qualities, that the whole controversy had somehow been engineered by my opponent, and that the time has come to put this matter behind us.

Would any of this mollifying, qualifying commentary have a calming effect on the citizenry?

Wouldn't the public continue to judge me by the cleric I had chosen?

"But that's a completely different situation!" I hear some of you saying.

!!!NO!!!
!!!IT!!!
!!!!ISN'T!!!!

Joe Wilson on Mendacity

I was preparing a piece on that horrendous Bosnia "prevarication" which the Eeeeeevil Hillary tried to foist upon the world. But Ambassador Joseph Wilson and others have already done the task. So let's let Wilson and company take the stage. Tomorrow or the next day, we'll have an excellent time dissecting some of the many lies told by "Professor" Obama.

In the immediate aftermath, the Obama campaign dispatched several foreign policy surrogates to blitz the airwaves, supposedly to offer alternatives to Clinton's recommendations. But that's not what happened. Instead, Hillary was subjected to yet another round of personal abuse, denigration and ridicule rather than a serious debate of the issues. The real subtext of the Obama campaign was to attack Hillary in order to distract from Obama's association with his anti-American preacher. National security went un-addressed. Rather than filling in his largely absent record, Obama had his surrogates engage in what can be termed the mendacity of hype.

Senator John Kerry, another Obama surrogate, offered the startling observation that Obama is better equipped than anyone else to bridge the divide between the U.S. and the Muslim world and end Islamic extremism and terorrism -- "because he's a black man." There is absolutely no empirical evidence to sustain that claim, the notion that a single individual, even one with a resume filled with appropriate experience, would be able to halt terrorism because of the color of his skin. It is patently absurd. But Kerry presented nothing to back up his astounding racial reasoning. And the Obama campaign was remarkably silent on Kerry's racialization of the foreign policy discussion.

Big John, I've never been disappointed in you before, but that is dumb. In fact, that statement is as dumb as saying that Hillary can best solve the economic crisis because she is white. What the hell does skin color have to do with matters of that sort?

But what about Bosnia? I hear you asking. Gettin' to it...

Then, there was retired Air Force General, Merrill "Tony" McPeak, whose media appearance last week consisted of making the outrageous charge that Bill Clinton was using "McCarthy-like tactics" simply because he mentioned, in the event of a Hillary-McCain match-up, that Hillary and McCain are good patriots and that the campaign should be devoted to a substantive debate of the issues. Even the right wing National Review's Kathleen Parker, who was at the event, felt compelled to correct the record. "Bill Clinton was saying that Hillary and McCain are both good patriots who love their country, not that all those unmentioned are something else."

Bill Clinton, of course, was not using McCarthy-like tactics," but the Obama campaign was eager to smear him. Which was guilty of "McCarthy-like tactics"? Attack the character of your adversaries; demean them; turn them into caricatures; while lying about someone, claim they are liars.

Finally, the Obama campaign pushed a compliant press corps, all too eager to do its bidding rather than maintain its standards of objectivity and skepticism, into hyping a mini-pseudo-scandal: whether Hillary "misspoke" about being under sniper fire when she paid a visit to Tuzla in Bosnia in 1996. In fact, the then-First Lady was told the plane was diving to land to avoid possible sniper fire. Whether there was or not is irrelevant. Anybody who has been involved in these situations, as I have, knows this. The threat was apparently real enough for U.S. military on the ground, the pilot and her security detail to engage in evasive procedures. That should have been the end of the matter. But the cable TV talking heads nattered the Obama campaign talking points endlessly.

Thank you, Ambassador. But there's more to be said. (The following is not from Wilson.)

For Senator Clinton's exaggeration to be a lie, there would have had to be no danger in the situation. No snipers anywhere, much less firing. However, we know the situation was dangerous, and that there were indeed snipers. How do we know this?

Because numerous contemporary reports confirm the situation was dangerous.

The Deutsche Presse-Agentur reported on March 24, 1996:
The First Lady is scheduled to travel Monday to the northeastern Bosnian town of Tuzla, the headquarters of the U.S. contingent in the Balkan conflict zone. She will visit troops and Bosnian government officials.

The trip is the first independent visit to U.S. troops overseas by a first lady since one was made by Eleanor Roosevelt.
USA TODAY reported on March 25, 1996:
First lady Hillary Rodham Clinton launched her latest venture onto the international stage Sunday with a visit to offer support for families of U.S. troops in Bosnia-Herzegovina. Today, she travels to Bosnia, where she will meet U.S. soldiers and religious and community leaders in Tuzla and two nearby outposts. Her trip, her sixth overseas tour without the president, includes stops in Turkey and Greece -- for ceremonies lighting the Olympic torch -- before returning home March 31.
USA TODAY reported on March 26, 1996:
First lady Hillary Rodham Clinton paid tribute Monday to U.S. troops serving in Bosnia, touring remote outposts not even her husband has seen.
...
Not even President Clinton, whose January visit to Bosnia was curtailed because of bad weather and security concerns, got the first-hand glimpse of the war's aftermath and the U.S. military presence here.

The White House said no first lady since Eleanor Roosevelt has made a trip into such a hostile military environment.
...
The first lady visited a Mobile Army Surgical Hospital called Bedrock, where she observed how doctors use teleconferences with Army hospitals in the USA for diagnosis.

Soldiers said she was the first dignitary to visit them since the deployment began about three months ago.
...
In helicopter hops between the main U.S. base in Tuzla and the outposts, the effects of the war were vividly, unforgettably clear to the Clinton party.

House after house was either roofless or in rubble. Fields had been ravaged; whole areas were stripped to the soil.
The Daily Telegraph (Sydney, Australia) reported March 27, 1996
Protected by sharpshooters, Hillary Clinton swooped into a military zone to deliver personal thanks to US troops.

"They're making a difference," the US First Lady said yesterday of the 18,500 Americans working as peacekeepers in Bosnia.

Mrs Clinton became the first presidential spouse since Eleanor Roosevelt, wife of wartime president Franklin D. Roosevelt, to make such an extensive trip into what can be considered a hostile area.
All articles from 1996 can be found via LexisNexis. It is obvious that the area was dangerous. Senator Clinton was protected by sharpshooters (ie. snipers). Moreover, we know that it was the first independent trip by a First Lady into a military zone since Eleanor Roosevelt.

So what's the bravest thing ever done by Obama?

I don't know if more need be said. Yes, I can visualize you right now, dear reader. You must be hopping up down, crimson in cheek, screaming "But...she's still a liar liar LIAR! This is the single most important lie ever!" No. She made, at most, a slip.

Obama is the true liar -- about important matters. We'll discuss the details soon. Not that Obama's fibs will matter to you. This election season, the Savior From Illinois gets to play his own version of Calvinball -- he gets to choose which fibs count and which do not.

But this one can't wait...

I am confident — as you surely are — that after the mainstream media sees the following, all of these stories will lead all the newscasts, as the Bosnia story has, repetitiously, for two days. RIGHT?

Jackie, a friend in Arizona, sent me an e-mail after hearing this March 25, 2008 NPR report from Don Gonyea. Gonyea reported on Obama’s now-famous 2002 anti-war speech. Jackie wrote:
Obama’s ad on anti-war speech is staged.

The speech was given at an anti-war rally on Oct. 2, 2002... Jessie Jackson was the main speaker. Obama’s speech went mainly unnoticed. He had not yet announced his run for the Senate, although now he claims he risked his political career. Of course we know that there was NO risk in running against Alan Keyes, all Obama had to do was breathe.
Gonyea says...
In an age of YouTube there is no video of the speech and only a snippet of audio. The Obama campaign has reenacted the speech in a campaign AD they are now running.

If there is no video available it would seem the entire Obama anti-war speech on which he is basing his Ad campaign may be faked. In fact the entire speech could be distorted.

Unlike Kos, I'll be quick with an admission if this allegation is proven wrong. Please note, though, that I do not make the claim. In fact, I remain wary of it. Interested, but wary.

Even if no fakery has taken place, note the fascinating picture that here emerges. Obama's 2002 anti-war speech looks like less of a plea and more of a stratagem. He delivered his message in the softest possible way. Nobody noticed him. Obama did not put anything in writing. He took no real chances. If the war had gone well and remained popular, no-one would have recalled that speech and his political career would have remained unharmed. If the war went badly (as in fact it did), he could point to the little-known speech and look like a prophet.

As we have noted previously -- in 2004, speaking before the Democratic National Convention, Obama (unlike Bill Clinton) was careful not to question the basis of the war; he merely disagreed with the way it was being handled. Obama turned against the war decisively only in 2005.

(Note: In the first version of this story, I forgot to link to Wilson's piece.)

Wednesday, March 26, 2008

Obama's mentor funded Pol Pot

Senator Edward Kennedy, brother to our most beloved political martyr, ran against President Carter in the 1980 primary. Although Kennedy had acquired only a few hundred delegates, leftists of that era urged him to fight to the end. And so he did.

The left now takes a very different stance. Even though Hillary Clinton will probably enter an undecided convention, progressives urge her to concede in the name of "unity." Paradoxically, the ones invoking "unity" have divided the party by spreading unforgivable lies.

(A Rove-style propaganda barrage has attempted to convince the public that the Clintons appealed to racism at a time when Hillary was well ahead in the polls and in possession of the black vote, the Hispanic vote and the working class vote. We are expected to accept the absurd proposition that racism was thought to have an appeal to Obama's base -- affluent liberals and the young.)

In 1980, Kennedy's delegate count didn't get him near the winner's circle, but it did secure him a prime-time spot for his big speech, which was a showstopper. (I recall seeing VHS copies prominently displayed in video stores as late as 1992.) The most intense moment occurred when Kennedy mentioned Carter's much-despised National Security Advisor, Zbigniew Brzezinski, toward whom many Democrats felt a revulsion exceeding their disdain for Henry Kissinger.

Upon hearing Brzezinski's name, the crowd did not just display antipathy -- they damn near gave a standing boo. He, not Reagan, was the man truly hated by that audience. Brzezinski was, in large measure, the reason why many liberals backed Teddy, and later turned to John Anderson or (in my case) Barry Commoner.

Carter's National Security czar was seen as a murderous reactionary -- what we might today call a "proto-neocon." Some of his associates of that time -- Daniel Pipes, Paul Wolfowitz -- are now infamous.

The neocon label may seem odd, since Brzezinski has, in recent years, denounced neoconservatism. During the Bush tenure, he has given himself the most stunning political makeover in recent history. To his credit, he has shown a refreshing willingness to criticize Israel. He has defended Mearsheimer and Walt, denounced the war in Iraq, and castigated George W. Bush.

I consider this makeover both superficial and calculatedly deceptive, and I still would classify Brzezinski alongside the neocons he now affects to disdain. Although this man hypocritically (and deceitfully) harps on Clinton's Iraq vote in 2002, he cannot escape his own past.

Back in the days of Scoop Jackson, the neocon movement was a much more bipartisan affair, primarily defined by cold war aggression and brinksmanship. Brzezinski's foreign policy outlook prefigured that of the Reagan administration. He certainly gravitated toward more "hard right" positions than did Kissinger or Nixon. Then as now, his tactic has always been to talk like a liberal and to act as an imperialist.

More than anyone else, Brzezinski bears responsibility for ending the policy of detente. Repeatedly calling for an aggressive military posture vis-a-vis the Soviet bloc, he sent Special Forces into Nicaragua to combat the revolution against the bloodthirsty dictator Somosa. His hopes for military intervention were stymied only by the memory of Vietnam.

To fulfill his grand geopolitical vision, he demonstrated a willingness to destabilize an entire region and to risk nuclear war:

In 1977 Zbigniew Brzezinski, as President Carter’s National Security Adviser, forms the Nationalities Working Group (NWG) dedicated to the idea of weakening the Soviet Union by inflaming its ethnic tensions. The Islamic populations are regarded as prime targets. Richard Pipes, the father of Daniel Pipes, takes over the leadership of the NWG in 1981. Pipes predicts that with the right encouragement Soviet Muslims will “explode into genocidal fury” against Moscow.

Brzezinski laid the groundwork for our present problems by initiating an alliance with Muslim jihadis in Afghanistan. In order to topple the closest thing to a functioning modern government that country has ever had, Brzesinski fomented a rebellion of thugs, zealots and terrorists, who later turned on the United States. Osama Bin Laden first came to prominence in Brzezinski's war.

An interviewer once asked Brzezinski if supporting the Mujahadeen might be a mistake. Brzezinski's answer:

"What's a few riled-up Muslims?"

His obsession with the Soviet Union led to Islamic revolution in Iran:

In November 1978, President Carter appointed George Ball head of a special White House Iran task force under Brzezinski. Ball recommends the US should drop support for the Shah of Iran and support the radical Islamist opposition of Ayatollah Khomeini. This idea is based on ideas from British Islamic expert Dr. Bernard Lewis, who advocates the balkanization of the entire Muslim Near East along tribal and religious lines. The chaos would spread in what he also calls an “arc of crisis” and ultimately destabilize the Muslim regions of the Soviet Union.

Few on either the right or the left understand that, until roughly a year-and-a-half before the revolution in Iran, the Socialist Tudeh party and the constitutionalist National Front commanded wide public support in that country and stood an excellent chance of gaining power when the Shah's tyranny ended. When the CIA learned of the Shah's precarious health, Brzezinski had the Agency covertly aid the exiled Ayatollah Khomeini, a Shi'ite theocract. The goal was twofold: Preventing a Socialist or nationalist government from taking power, and fomenting a jihad against the Soviets.

Brzezinski's "great game" compelled him to support Indonesia's murderous repression in East Timor. Some 200,000 East Timorese were slaughtered.

And then there was Cambodia...

IIn 1981 Brzezinski revealed that he encouraged the Chinese to support Pol Pot. This was part of a wider policy of forcing the Vietnamese out of Cambodia by funding anti-Vietnamese guerrilla groups that the U.S. helped create.[18] Between 1979 and 1981, the World Food Program, which was strongly under US influence, provides nearly $12 million in food aid Thailand. Much of this aid makes its way to the Khmer Rouge.[19] In January 1980 the US started funding Pol Pot while he was in exile. The extent of this support was $85m from 1980 to 1986.

Younger readers may not know that Pol Pot's regime murdered some 2 million opponents -- and that these atrocities had received wide publicity throughout the 1970s. Brzezinski did not care. His obsession with the USSR led him to support one of the worst murderers in human history -- though of course, that support was delivered by proxy.

Those who consider Iraq the sole issue have no sense of history. Barack Obama has allied himself with the man who funded Pol Pot. That fact can be neither denied nor excused.

I've not seen any confirmation for the claim that Obama first came into Brzezinski's orbit at Columbia University, although Obama did attend at a time when Zbig headed something euphoniously called the Institute on Communist Affairs at Columbia. Brzezinski has bragged about being the "onlie begettor" behind the 2002 speech made by the then little-known Barack Obama, condemning the decision to go into Iraq.

Don't presume that his current realism on Iraq signifies that Brzezinski is a leopard who has changed his blood-red spots. The man who succeeded Frank Carlucci as the head of Rand's Center for Middle East Public Policy has not morphed into Gandhi.

Few on the left understand the current splits within the neoconservative movement. Some neocons have argued that the Iraq invasion was an error, since it diverted the country from the more important task of conquering Iran. (Michael Ledeen appears to have arrived at this view; characteristically, he pretends that he has always held it.)

The Iranian revolution occurred on Brzezinski's watch -- indeed, it was largely his doing. I believe that, whatever his public pronouncements, he wants to see his great blunder undone. Just as only a Nixon could go to China, only an Obama could initiate war with Iran, if a suitable pretext or casus belli should occur. The public attitude toward Bush has become so cynical that any such triggering event would be instantly disbelieved by wide sections of the public. Obama can sidestep those credibility problems.

If this theory has any validity, and if Obama should win the White House, then the outline of future history is easy to prophesy: Zbigniew Brzezinski (or whichever of his creatures gets into a position of power under Obama) will first take great pains to re-establish American "moral authority." That would mean withdrawal from the Iraq debacle and a few superficial moves toward Israeli-Palestinian peace negotiations. These preliminaries will renew America's political standing in the world, and thus clear the way for aggression -- if not against Iran, then perhaps against Russia, Brzezinski's idee fixe.

And if not Russia, then perhaps Pakistan. Brzezinski is the force behind Obama's militaristic stance toward that nation. Any American incursion into that country would, of course, result in jihadis gaining control of a nuclear arsenal.

Of Hillary Clinton, Brzezinski has said:

Clinton's foreign policy approach is "very conventional...I don't think the country needs to go back to what we had eight years ago.

Of course not. We had peace under Bill Clinton. Brzezinski obviously has something different in mind.

Today, the "progressive" candidate is a creature of Zbigniew Brzezinski. And a naive generation who never saw Teddy's big speech will applaud the man who wants foreign policy to recapitulate the worst mistakes of the Carter years. The so-called "left" now backs the guy who once got a standing boo.

(This is the first in a series on Obama's strange associates.)

Tuesday, March 25, 2008

Vile

My antipathy for progressives may morph into a dislike of the Democratic party (though it will never cause me to join the Republicans). Why? Look at today's Daily Kos.

That site is enough to make me vomit. Can you honestly tell me that the left has not copied the right's playbook? Moulitsas and his cronies give me the same ill feeling I used to get whenever I peeked into Lucianne Goldberg's web site circa 1998. It's the same feeling one might experience while watching a scorpion crawl across the cheek of a sleeping infant.

Compare Kos and DU to My DD. Now there's a refreshing reminder of what a Democratic public forum used to be like. At the moment, My DD has one pro-Obama story up toward the top and no pro-Clinton material. That's fine. My point here does not concern the candidates. What I want you to concentrate on is the style, the methodology, the decency, the lack of mob mentality, the eschewing of mindless hate-mongering, the refusal to ape the barbarisms of Scaife and Limbaugh.

Daily Kos is bigger than Fox News. If you didn't like the right-wing smear tactics described in the books of David Brock, how can you justify Moulitsas' embrace of the same practices? If the Democratic party will not explicitly denounce that obscene man -- by name -- then the party deserves to lose. Filthy politics, if rewarded, will be repeated.

Dream team

Being both racist and sexist (according to a certain former co-writer), I am very pleased to note rumors that a deadlocked convention may turn to Gore.

But...Gore/Clinton? Gore/Obama? Screw that. Gore/Kerry!

Monday, March 24, 2008

"Barbara Ehrenreich, super-idiot. I like the sound of that: Barbara Ehrenreich, SUPER-idiot."

A number of you have insisted that I read Barbara Ehrenreich's hit piece on Hillary -- a piece which located HC at “the sinister heart of the international right.”

Actually, Ehrenreich is the one who has been doing the work of the right. In 2000, she did her best to get George W. Bush elected.

By now, we’ll assume that everyone sees how badly many pundits misjudged when they insisted, during Campaign 2000, that Bush and Gore were two peas in a pod. Needless to say, Ehrenreich was one of those brainiacs. Indeed, in the November 20, 2000 Time (published on November 13), she was happily boasting about her bad judgment.

Some of you have chided me for being unwilling to vote for Obama, should he win the nomination. These same critics think that it was perfectly fine for the Nader-enchanted Ehrenreich to write in 2000:

They didn't even notice us Naderites for months—until, of course, their candidate decided to prove he isn't "wooden" by demonstrating how fast he could sink. Then, quicker than you could say, "Florida's Electoral College votes," that great, flabby, inchoate entity, the Democratic Party, morphed into a disciplined Leninist organization, dispatching its leading cadre with the message, "Vote for Nader, and you'll never eat lunch in this country again."

According to Ehrenreich, you can't complain about W's win in 2000, because Gore and Bush were as alike as makes no difference.

What I fear most about a Gore victory--yes, I said victory--is its almost certainly debilitating effect on progressives and their organizations.

Yes, in 2000, many lefties really were that stupid. Ehrenreich's foolishness is not what astounds me: Fools, like the poor, are with us always. What stuns me is that no-one on the left holds her history against her.

According to Ehrenreich, Hillary is a foul rightist for supporting something called the Workplace Religious Freedom Act, a proposed piece of legislation co-sponsored by John Kerry, known leader of the international rightist movement. Kerry supports Obama, which only proves just how sneaky those international rightist bastards can be. (He was motivated when he heard from two constituents who were forced to work on Christmas.)

We have previously discussed how Ehrenreich attacked Hillary on religious grounds. Ehrenreich swiped all of her material from a single (bad) article by another writer who, in turn, relied on a single (unnamed) source -- who did not say what Ehrenreich would have you believe she said. In prog-vision, it is fair to attack Hillary (a boring old Methodist) for her religious dalliances -- which have gone in all sorts of directions over the years -- yet it is dastardly to mention how Obama lied about Wright.

Why? Because, unlike the fiendish Gore, Obama doesn't associate with those dreadful international rightists.

Well, okay, except for Austan Goolsbee, Obama's chief economic advisor. He's as much of an unfettered free trade enthusiast as Dubya is. And then there's Jeff Liebman, the Cato Institute's favorite guy. He wants to privatize Social Security.

You'd think that a troop like that would not make Ehrenreich swoon. But rationalization springs eternal in the Naderite breast.

General Merrill McPeak doesn't seem like the kind of guy who normally would appeal to a former Naderite. McPeak is the fellow who recently smeared Bill Clinton with that "McCarthy" remark. In the 1991 Iraq war, Former Air Force Chief of Statt McPeak -- a Poppy appointee -- initiated the infamous "bomb now, die later" campaign agaisnt civilians:

On top of the massive bombing, we have now a new kind of war: bomb now, die later. The precision bombs which did manage to hit their targets destroyed precisely the life-sustaining economic infrastructure without which Iraqis would soon die from disease and malnutrition. George Bush's remark on February 6, 1991, that the air strikes have "been fantastically accurate" can only mean that the destruction of the civilian economic infrastructure was, indeed, the desired target and that the U.S. either made no distinction between military and civilian targets or defined the military area in such a broad manner as to include much civilian property. In both cases, it is a war crime.

(By the by, McPeak is also a member of the CFR, if you're into that sort of conspiracy theory -- which I am not. And yes, I do know that a Rense article has made much the same point. I do not link to Rense; the information is easily verifiable elsewhere.)

But the Savior From Illinois embraces McPeak, and so McPeak is thereby rendered cool. Al Gore, on the other hand, is the devil. Or so sayeth Ehrenreich. Bill and Hillary made millions off of Whitewater, and they killed Vince Foster! Vince Foster! Vince Foster! Or so say the Kossacks. And Bill did to black people what he did to Monica. Or so says the Reverend Wright.

Have I told you lately how much I have come to loathe progressives?

God, I wish Carol Moseley Braun were running. I could support her without hearing cries of racism or sexism. And I like her.

Inauguration

My sources tell me that the Obama campaign has already planned out the inaugural speech. After the Sainted One delivers his message unto his people, he will levitate into the sky and across the mall, landing within the White House grounds. At that point, a creepy bald-headed little girl in a black dress will assume the podium and say: "And how can this be? For he IS the Kwisatz Haderach!"

Willful misinterpretation

A couple of posts down, we looked at the inoffensive remark by Bill Clinton which the Obama campaign has twisted into logical pretzels. Even Andrew Sullivan seems to find this reading strained. This TPM writer (who appears to suffer from a serious mental illness) actually scries racism into the quote -- which he does not quote, knowing full well that the text does not justify his reading.

I wrote: "The willful misinterpretations of innocent commentary is all all all ALL coming from the Obamabots."

Well, that's not true. I forgot about the ridiculous fracas over Obama's trifling "typical white person" remark. But that's the only instance I can think of, going in that direction.

I defy any human being to utter twenty consecutive, extemporaneous sentences without saying something that cannot be construed as either an unintended insult or sexual double entendre. The original statement is rarely an act of bad will, but the misinterpretation always is. We often encounter this phenomenon when marriages go bad: One party says "The salad was great," and the other answers: "So you hated the roast?"

Saturday, March 22, 2008

The sex magick of Jesus Christ

This blog post can make you rich.

I'm not kidding.

The success of Dan Brown's rather silly novel The DaVinci Code proves that a large public hungers for late-breaking news about Our Lord's wee-wee and the manifold uses thereof. In popular imagination, Mary Magdalene has become God's main squeeze. If you want your book to become a surefire seller, put "Mary Magdalene" in the title: Cooking with Mary Magdalene, Lose Weight the Mary Magdalene Way, Mary Magdalene's Guide to Southwest Vacation Spots, Mary Magdalene and the Goblet of Fire...

With all the recent literature capitalizing on the popularity of the MM+JC relationship, you may think that this lowly blog could offer no new revelations. Not true. The most shocking part of the story is -- you should pardon the expression -- coming.

A rotten pun, yes, but it contains more meaning than you can guess.

If you jump to the next page, I shall give you the foundation of your own bestseller, should you choose to write it. This is the Sacred Penis story to end 'em all. As Richard Burton says at the beginning of Hammersmith is Out: "Listen to me: I shall make you rich and strong, strong and rich..."

Hit PERMALINK for the Big Damn Secret of Sex Magic

In The DaVinci Code, Brown -- who is to scholarship as a molecule is to the Matterhorn -- offers a few observations about sex magic, most of which were cribbed from Clive Prince. But anyone who has studied the various sex magick traditions could instantly see that Brown was bluffing.

Why do I use the Olden Tymes spelling "magick"? Because such was the preference of Aleister Crowley, the foremost sex magician of the modern era. He argued that the K stands for kteis, Greek for "vagina."

Contrary to what Brown tells you, sex magick is not simply a matter of 'really feeling it' and respecting your partner and all that other New Agey claptrap. A specific physical practice is involved.

Grade 9 from inner space

Crowley headed, but did not originate, an occult group called the O.T.O. -- Ordo Templi Orientis. Membership within that group now numbers between 2,000 and 3,000. I used to date a fairly high-ranking member of the order, which is one of the reasons I know what I know. (Although I never joined, she was the blabby type.)

(Actually, the O.T.O is not just one organization, due to incessant schisms. Those squabbles need not concern us.)

The Order is a hierarchical organization, in which members slowly climb from grades one through nine. The tenth level is held by the leadership.

The Big Damn Secret of Sex Magick is supposed to be revealed only to those who make it to the Ninth Degree, when one becomes an Initiate of the Sanctuary of the Gnosis -- although nowadays, even the lowliest members usually get advance word of what is to come. Various publications have also given the game away. Crowley's diaries have been published.

Of course, few things are truly secret in the information age. If you want to read the text of the Ninth initiation, you could search out Francis King's ultra-rare volume The Secret Rituals of the O.T.O -- or you could just go here. At the other end of that link, you will find the text of the incantation -- which you won't comprehend unless you know the Big Damn Secret.

Before we get to that, let us first note a few things about this text. You will note that Crowley -- widely reviled as a Satanist -- makes some surprising references to Jesus:

O thou on whom the grace of our Lord Jesus Christ hath fallen!

Hence is Jesus Christ Alpha and Omega, the symbol of the union of GOD and man

Not what you might expect from Crowley, eh wot? You don't hear this sort of diabolical dialog recited during the "black mass" scenes in those old Hammer horror films. The text traces the Secret back to Jesus, because

Our Lord Jesus Christ established it through the mouth of the Beloved Disciple.

If you think that "Beloved Disciple" is a reference to John, think again.

A Wagnerian side-trip

Another point of interest is the text's reference to Richard Wagner, said to be an adept of The Secret. This claim requires some explanation.

The head of the O.T.O. before Crowley was a German named Theodore Reuss. He was a fascinating footnote figure -- an occultist, an author, a Socialist, a spy for Bismarck, and an opera singer. Although he once played Donner in Das Reingold, his musical career did not prosper. Even so, he managed to meet Wagner himself in 1873, at the age of 18 -- and in later years, the two men became fast friends. (Or so Ruess claimed; I've seen no confirmation by any Wagner biographer.)

Reuss later bragged that he sang in the premiere performance of Wagner's last and most mysterious opera, Parsifal. Alas, he is not listed in the cast, although he may have been in the chorus. Crowley, in his book on tarot, offhandedly asserts that Reuss provided Wagner with the entire thematic basis for Parsifal.

What on earth did he mean by that?

Ruess himself explained what he considered to be the hidden meaning of Parsifal in an ultra-secret, hush-hush document that is supposed to be made available only to ranking members of the O.T.O. And here it is.

The piece is long and abstruse. Here's the gist: Reuss believes that the opera Parsifal (which was really his idea, dammit!) has embedded within it a coded version of the Big Damn Secret of Sex Magick, which is "the true secret of the Graal, to serve the sexually mature and courageous development of the German people."

Oh dear. Yes, I fear that Reuss went veering off into that territory.

I know Parsifal well, as most O.T.O.-ers do not. (Best recordings: Knapperstbusch '62, Von Karajan '80, and Armin Jordan's version for the Syberberg film.) In my opinion, Reuss' essay doesn't do much to explain the actual mysteries within Wagner's text, which allows for multiple interpretations. Nevertheless, you may want to study Reuss while listening to the "transformation" music in Act I.

Man, I love those bells. But I have never played that CD during lovemaking. That would be a weird trip even for me.

Herr Reuss meets Mr. Crowley

As a young man irresponsibly blowing his inheritance, Aleister Crowley joined many occult societies. In those days, occultists routinely joined each others' cults "on paper," a formality akin to businessmen exchanging cards. After a brief period of dabbling, Crowley usually lost interest in the tiny sects in which he held ostensible membership.

One such organization was the O.T.O.

You can imagine Crowley's surprise when, one fine evening in 1910, Theodore Reuss came knocking at his door in order to lodge a serious complaint: Crowley, in one of his recent writings, had given away the Big Damn Secret! That was a very naughty thing for a low-level initiate to do.

This news surprised Crowley, who had almost forgotten his O.T.O initiation. He replied that he had learned about sex magic on his own, while traveling in the East.

The offending Crowleyan text was Psalm 69 of The Book of Lies (Falsely So-Called), titled "How to Succeed."

If this title confuses you, then perhaps I should note that my former ladyfriend -- the O.T.O. adept -- had read this text and knew very well how to succeed. BOY HOWDY did she know how to succeed. So successful was she that I have now withdrawn from the world to devote myself to peaceful and pure contemplation of the universe.

Reuss made AC a high-level initiate, in order to seal him to secrecy and stop him from giving away the whole store.

How did AC really learn the Secret? One theory holds that he received it from sages belonging to ancient mystical orders that have covertly survived throughout the ages in far-off Eastern lands. The other theory holds that he found it in the library.

It's there, if you know where to look.

(Incidentally: In Jacques Tourneur's classic film Night of the Demon, a character obviously modeled on Crowley is seen hanging out at the library of the British Museum, where the real AC probably learned the Big Damn Secret.)

Back to Jesus

What was the book that came to AC's attention? I believe that he encountered a copy of the Medicine Chest Against Heresies written by Epiphanius of Salamis. He was born around the year 310, and died circa 403. At one time, you had to visit a large library to locate this book. At present, the only online translations are partial.

In that work, Epiphanius references a now-lost work called The Gospel of the Greater Questions of Mary. Scholars believe that this text is not the same thing as the now-familiar Gospel of Mary Magdalene, which has come to us by way of the Berlin codex, and in even more fragmentary versions. (We can't be absolutely certain that we're dealing with two separate books, since pages are missing -- torn out? -- of the Berlin codex.)

The Greater Questions must have been one heck of a read. Epiphanius shocks his readers with an X-rated summary. (WARNING: If you are easily offended, find some other web site RIGHT NOW.) In essence (so to speak):

The Greater Questions portrays Jesus as taking Mary up to "the mountain." Jesus prays with her.

Then he reaches into his side and disgorges a full-grown woman. Just like that.

Then he begins to "mingle fluids" with the woman. That means fucking.

Oh, but it gets worse...

After Jesus ejaculates into the woman, he sucks out the semen -- now thoroughly admixed with the vaginal fluids -- and consumes the concoction. Then he turns to Mary and says the only logical thing to say:

"We must act thus, so that we might live."

Now Mary (according to longstanding report) is a girl who has been around. Not easily shocked, or so you would think.

However, this tableau stuns her so much that she faints dead away.

Jesus awakens her, raises her up, and announces: "O person of little faith, why did you doubt?"

I'm not sure that doubt is what made her pass out, but the text reads the way the text reads and I cannot change it. I have no idea as to what happened to Jesus' sex partner; presumably, she disappears into a wormhole in space.

Note that our beloved Magdalene plays only an observational role in all of this. We have no indication that she and JC went on to "act thus."

Epiphanius says that the Greater Questions was a text used within a certain notorious Christian cult of his day, whose female members had several times tried to seduce him into undergoing an, er, initiation. Fortunately, the sage of Salamis resisted those hussies.

"Take, eat..."

And that, folks, is the Big Damn Secret: Felching.

If you don't know what the verb "to felch" means, ask your mother.

According to Crowley, the Pure and Concentrated Thought held in the minds of both parties during mutual orgasm will invariably become manifest in the material world, if the resultant co-mingled fluids are consumed by both parties. If you want a new pair of roller skates, just concentrate, copulate, felch and gobble. The skates will soon come sailing at you out of the clear blue sky.

(Or so runs the theory. I've not made the experiment. According to his diaries, Crowley often did this when the rent came due.)

The most propitious time for this ritual is during the woman's menses. As the O.T.O.-ers like to say: "First 'e loves 'er, then elixer!"

Of course, it is very difficult for most people to concentrate on something other than orgasm during orgasm. That's the tricky part.

(Jackie Kennedy always struck me as the type who could do it easily. "Oh, those curtains have got to go...")

If you're gay, you can still get in on the magick. Crowley teaches a cognate technique in his ultra-ultra secret Eleventh Degree of initiation, which I should have told you about before but didn't, and which is purely voluntary and only for those who are into that sort of thing. In this form of magick, the participants...

...oh, why bother? I'm sure you get the picture by now. As the immortal Robert Williams says, "It's a retrieval system!"

Back to Epiphanius. What stuns me about his report is that he is not the only person who informs us that ancient texts ascribe this practice to Jesus.

A number of old documents claim that the Carpocratians were also given to such practices. They were another group of naughty early Christians, said to have held their wives in common and to have eaten aborted fetuses in order to prevent the "divine essence" from escaping. (Rumor also held that they possessed a portrait of Jesus painted by Pilate himself.) The Carpocratians are said to have possessed the so-called Secret Gospel of Mark, in which Jesus engages in what some consider a gay sex magick ritual. (This is the origin of the "back to Jesus" movement.) Unfortunately, that document may well be an elaborate hoax by Morton Smith; the jury remains sequestered.

The Romans formed the impression that all Christians went in for this sort of "fine dining," which is one reason the early church was so brutally persecuted, even by the otherwise-decent Marcus Aurelius. The Christian communion bread was thought to contain semen and menstrual blood.

The proto-Orthodox church insisted that they were innocent, that all such vile rituals were a purely Gnostic thing.

As you probably know, Gnostics were mystical Christians opposed by the proto-Orthodox party. There were many different Gnostic communities. A few appear to have done the deeds described in this article, but the majority considered such practices as shocking as you surely do. (Contrary to the impression Dan Brown gives you, most Gnostics lived ascetic lives.)

In a Gnostic text called the Pistis Sophia, we read:

Thomas said: "We have heard that there are some on the earth who take the male seed and the female monthly blood, and make it into a lentil porridge and eat it, saying: 'We have faith in Esau and Jacob.' Is this then seemly or not?"

Jesus was wroth with the world in that hour and said unto Thomas: "Amēn, I say: This sin is more heinous than all sins and iniquities. Such men will straightway be taken into the outer darkness and not be cast back anew into the sphere, but they shall perish, be destroyed in the outer darkness in a region where there is neither pity nor light, but howling and grinding of teeth.

Poor Aleister!

Of course, no canonical Scripture suggests that Jesus had an opinion of this practice one way or the other.

Even so, I invite the reader to consider the chronology. The Pistis Sophia -- which, at the very least, proves that "elixer" consumption was a hot topic of debate in early Christian communities -- was written around the year 200. (Or so scholars guess; the date might have been later. Some say much earlier.) Epiphanius encountered those hussies in the middle of the Fourth century. Conclusion: For at least a hundred years, many people associated Jesus with the Big Damn Secret of Sex Magick.

And some people still do.

Furthermore, the Secret seems to have found a home in other religions as well. See this page, which (warning!) opens with a graphic that surprised even this jaded observer.

Think ye upon these things as you plan out your shocking, sensationalized bestseller.

And Happy Easter.

(Jen will never forgive me for this post. I think I've lost my last friend.)

Surrealism (Added note)

I had promised myself not to make another political post today, but the latest has my mind reeling. Bill Clinton offered these words of inoffensive boilerplate, vis-a-vs a potential Hillary-McCain matchup:

I think it would be a great thing if we had an election year where you had two people who loved this country and were devoted to the interest of this country. And people could actually ask themselves who is right on these issues, instead of all this other stuff that always seems to intrude itself on our politics.

Liberals have been saying the same thing for ages. They've written entire books decrying Republican use of wedge issues.

Alas, progs and Obama supporters will twist any words by Bill Clinton into weird knots.

Many Obama supporters have interpreted Bill's comments as a subtle slam on their candidate's patriotism. "I grew up, I was going to college when Joe McCarthy was accusing good Americans of being traitors, so I've had enough of it," McPeak said, as he stood on the stage with Obama.

I've seen David Lynch movies that were less surreal than that reaction.

Added note: With the aid of a now-deleted comment, I finally figured out the (highly irrational) rationale behind what McPeak said.

When Bill said (vis-a-vis a McCain/Hillary match) "I think it would be a great thing if we had an election year where you had two people who loved this country...", the Obamabots took these words (or pretended to take these words) as an implication that if the contest comes down to McCain-v-Obama, only McCain would love his country.

What an absurd misinterpretation!

The full context of BC's remark makes clear that he was saying something that many liberals have been saying for ages -- that it would be nice to have a general election race based on issues, not on snide aspersions cast on the Democrat's patriotism.

This reminds me of an old 70's sitcom exchange. Cloris Leachman tells a friend: "I know I shouldn't be concerned about this, but -- my daughter wants to marry a boy whose parents are midgets."

And the friend answers: "Has she found one yet?"

My point being: If you are sufficiently motivated, you can willfully misinterpret any statement, whatever the wording. As dear old Uncle Aleister once put: "Never forget how easy it is to make a maniac's hell's-broth out of any proposition, however plain to common sense."

And that is why I have forevermore turned against Obama and his robot army. I've had quite enough of the "hell's broth" they have been spooning up, thank you very much. No, the Clintonites have not been feeding me any such broth. The willful misinterpretations of innocent commentary is all all all ALL coming from the Obamabots.

Yes, it really is that simple. No, I don't care if you call me biased. History will prove me right.

Read the informative ad to your right. Read the piece that it links to. What part of that don't you fanatics get?

Brief film note

I finally saw No Country For Old Men. Amazing film. A couple of points:

1. Early on, Josh Brolin's character establishes that he has counted the money. Why didn't he find the you-know-what?

2. You can't pull $14,000 out of an ATM today; you certainly couldn't do so in 1980. As I recall, ATMs didn't appear (at least in my state) until a couple of years later -- and they were then called InstaTellers.

Friday, March 21, 2008

Obama's strange fans: Barbara Ehrenreich and Michelle Bernard

If you think that I should be impressed by the Barbara Ehrenreich hit piece in The Nation, read what Bob Somersby has to say.

(Back in 2000, a lot of people on the right and the left laughed at Somersby's non-stop defense of Gore. They don't laugh now.)

I'll add this: Everyone seems to be under the impression that Ehrenreich did original research. She did not. She simply re-hashed one (1) sensationalized article in Mother Jones, which, in turn, relied on one (1) unnamed source. And that source did not say anything to justify Ehrenreich's hyperbolic screed.

Notice how judging a candidate by his or her religious associations suddenly becomes perfectly acceptable to progressives when the candidate is Hillary.

Bottom line: Although the former First Lady has had a peek down a number of differing spiritual paths -- remember when the right damned her as a "new ager" and a "witch"? -- she has remained a boring old Methodist for over twenty years.

Michelle Bernard: Progs routinely screech about Hillary Clinton's supposed ties to the right. Have they not noticed that right-wingers have been pushing Obama? On MSNBC, his biggest fan may be Michelle Bernard. Somersby:

At present, Bernard is CEO of the Independent Women’s Forum, a conservative women’s group founded in 1992. (According to Wikipedia, the IWF grew out of an ad hoc group created to support Clarence Thomas.) The groups directors emeritae include such conservative stars as Lynn Cheney, Wendy Gramm, Midge Decter and Kate O’Beirne. To peruse the group’s web site, just click here.

The IWF, like many such groups, is founded as a non-partisan 501(c)(3) group. As such, the group does not endorse candidates. But it does promote a range of conservative causes.

All that is well and good—and Michelle Bernard is the group’s CEO. Which leads us to a puzzling question: As a major conservative, why is Bernard appearing on Hardball so often—to gush about Obama?

(Emphases added.]

ADDED NOTE: Looks like Obama also has friends on Fox. That said, I don't blame Chris Wallace for his walk-out. As much as I dislike Obama, I don't think he should be castigated for that "typical white person" remark. Subjecting each phrase uttered by a candidate to hyper-critical scrutiny is inane. Obama supporters should end such practices, and so should Obama's opponents.

Obama is responsible

With one sentence, Obama could employ the moral force necessary to stop Kos and the other prog-bloggers from spreading smears. The fact that he does not do so proves his complicity.

We now know that the Bush State Department has peeked into the passport data of McCain, Huckabee -- and Hillary Clinton. I was curious to see how the Kossacks would handle this revelation.

As always, they did not disappoint:

Wasn’t it reported that in Hillary’s case there was no real breach but her name was used during a training session?

Then we have McCain which looks like it was done as a cover up.

As though that "training exercise" explanation would suffice if offered in the Obama case.

yep this smells to high heaven

What better way to cover up a political hit-job than to show equal disdain for all the candidates of both parties.

No one wants McCain's passport records. And I seriously doubt if anyone really wanted Hillary's.

The Kossacks have pounced on one "damning" piece of info, which, in their view, proves Hillary's perfidy:

The supervisor was Maura Hardy, a former Clinton appointee (a former Ambassador),

To which Kagro X, one of the few sane voices left in progland, responded:

Maura Hardy? The Maura Hardy who's worked for the State Department in every administration since Reagan?

Now she's a Clinton crony because she got a career civil service appointment as ambassador to that plum assignment, Paraguay?

Keith Obermann himself has decided to blame Hillary before learning the facts. I do a pretty good Murrow impression myself: FOR SHAME, SIR!

Can anyone name any a single sin committed by the Republican smear machine that has gone unreplicated by the "progressive" media? The left has degenerated into an unreasoning mob. I began this blog to argue the case for John Kerry. Four years later, I find that that the people I used to see as comrades have decided to mount a particularly harrowing production of The Crucible.

The ghastly erosion of principle and decency on the left is no trivial story -- arguably, this development is more important than is the election itself.

I hold Barack Obama himself partially responsible for the left's transformation into a slavering pack of beasts. Look at his latest campaign announcement:

In a “60 Minutes” interview, Senator Clinton refused to confirm that Senator Obama is a Christian, even though she knows the facts.

An utter lie. Here is the transcript:

Q: You don't believe that Senator Obama's a Muslim?

A: Of course not. I mean, that, you know, there is no basis for that.

And:

Q:No. No, there is nothing to base that on. As far as I know.

Q: It's just scurrilous…?

A: Look, I have been the target of so many ridiculous rumors, that I have a great deal of sympathy for anybody who gets, you know, smeared with the kind of rumors that go on all the time.

When they progblogs recount this tale, you don't see the words "smeared" and "ridiculous rumors" and "scurrilous," do you? (Yes, "scurrilous" was the interviewer's word, but Hillary ran with it.) To repeat one of my favorite Oscar Wilde-isms: "Quotation can be slander/When you gerrymander." Anyone who can parse Clinton's words in such a way as to justify the Obama campaign's smear-job is simply being inane -- and history will judge harshly.

Much else in the recent Obama mailer deserves to be deplored. I will here note only this:

A new Gallup poll...shows a staggering figure: far fewer Americans think Clinton is trustworthy than think she isn’t, by a margin 44-53 percent.

Yes -- and for years, the polls also said that the vast majority of Americans believed that Saddam Hussein engineered the 911 attacks. In 2000, polls showed that the majority of Americans were affected by the unconscionable "Gore the liar" meme.

(Incidentally, the most recent polls also say that the American public prefers McCain to Obama. McCain beats Clinton as well.)

The anti-Hillary numbers are the way they are because the Clintons have been subjected to the most vicious, long-running smear campaign in American history. As the old Rogers and Hammerstein song says: "You have to be carefully taught..." They were "taught" about Gore, they were "taught" about 9/11, and they've been "taught" about the Clintons. Has the nation profited from this education?

A few years ago, the previous paragraph would have been uncontroversial on the the left-wing sites. But now the progs feel no remorse in repeating all of the old fabrications and innuendos.

Those Gallup numbers show only that the Obama/Limbaugh/Murdoch/Kos/Moon/DU/Free Republic/TPM smear tactics have worked.

I cannot keep company with the Obama supporters because they now keep company with the very people I have sworn to fight.

Why did Obama rely on the politics of prevarication? Because he brings nothing else to the discussion beyond a reliance on emotionalism:

IMO, he is grossly underqualified and unprepared for the presidency. I base that viewpoint on a thorough study of his life and resume. Obama himself has acknowledged his relative dearth of experience, even though his more fanatical supporters never will. I reject the argument that experience is not an important factor in job performance. Obviously, it is not the only factor.

IMO, the claim that his "good judgment" will compensate for any deficiency in experience may be comforting, but my study of his speeches and policy positions convinces me that there are all too many examples of "poor judgment," not adequately tempered or illuminated by experience.

He advocates a "coalition of faith and bipartisanship." The latter is impossible except for an occasional, isolated issue. The former is a deplorable intrusion of religious thinking into public life. I do not want a Democratic Ministry in Washington, any more than the Republican Ministry that currently exists. Obama has not clarified how his congregation's racist doctrine (published on their website) would or would not influence his policies or decisions as president.

His economic proposals are weak and mostly a rehash of positions previously developed by Clinton. He has repeatedly articulated an unsound linkage between foreign policy decisions and domestic initiatives. His excessively broad finger-pointing at Corporate America and Big Business will make it impossible for him to enlist these powerful interest groups in participating in his agenda.

Whereas Clinton's team features policy-wonks and pragmatists, Obama's advisors and campaign feature his personality and appeals to emotion. We badly need a wiser, more rational citizenry to decrease our vulnerability to propaganda and disinformation. As an educator, Obama should understand that need.

Obama's claim to strong anti-war credentials is a gross exaggeration and based almost entirely on one tepid speech given in 2002 as an Illinois State Senator.

Obama's foreign policy ideas, as reiterated in his Iraq speech this week, are dangerous in their naiveté and advocacy of unilateral military adventurism. He proposes a new "central front" for the war in the Middle East, along the Pakistani and Afghanistan border, with or without the consent and cooperation of our crucial regional ally, Pakistan.

This otherwise fine analysis errs when describing Obama's economic views as a xerox of Hillary's. What about Social Security? When did that stop being the untouchable "third rail" of American politics?

Obama has allied himself with economic aides who rely on the libertarian Cato Institute's argument that Social Security needs "fixing." As Al Franken demonstrates in his most recent book, the Cato crowd have spewed fake numbers for ideological reasons.

Somehow, Barack Obama has become a Rorshach test onto which the gullible project their hopes and dreams. One day the dreamers will awake, and they will discover that the Obama of their hallucinations is not real.

Note: If you have something new and relevant to say, then say it. But don't just repeat the old lies. Progs seem to be under the impression that certain fibs, such as the "Fairy Tale" hoax and the "darkened video" falsehood, can win the day through sheer repetition. Check first to see whether I have already addressed your point; the search engine is at the top of the page. I will delete any comment that goes over old ground.

I will also delete any comment that simply insults me without mounting an argument. If you know how to argue, then you may also heap denigration on my head, if doing so makes you feel better.

I will delete any comment that dodges and switches subjects.

If you feel these rules are unfair, simply go away. I neither need nor want you -- and I have a phobic reaction to mobs.

Global warming? Blame Hillary

You probably already know about the two aides at the Bureau of Consular Affairs who were (justly) fired for sneaking a peek at Barack Obama's passport. Just to be clear, we are talking about the Bush State Department. The same filthy trick was played on Bill Clinton back in 1992 -- by the other Bush State Department.

My first thought, naturally, was "How many minutes will pass before the Kossacks blame Hillary Clinton?" The Kos kooks did not disappoint:

Interesting Clinton connection there

Of course, with the incestuous infolds of Penn, Black (and Rove and Mehlman), all information is probably shared between the McBush and Clinton teams at any rate. Bush probably sells it to them.

Also would be interesting to see whether the Somali picture’s release is tied to this somehow.

And here come the DUmmies:

How about DLC interests?

Ah yes. The all-powerful DLC. Everyone knows that the Bush State Department answers to them.

Or maybe Hillaburton?

For some reason, the Hill-Haters want to tie this matter to the now-notorious photograph of Obama in traditional costume...

The timing of the picture of Obama in the African dress came out around one of the times of the breaches didn't it?

Apparently, Evil Hillary needs the assistance of the passport office to find out when Obama went traveling. Even though that information is available on the internet or at the library.

Well....as a MATTER OF FACT... the photo of Obama came from Clinton campaign . . .

traced back by Randi Rhodes ---

bless that woman!!!

Randi Rhodes did no such thing. The only person claiming that Clinton was behind that photo was Matt Drudge, the same guy who peddled the Kerry-and-the-intern yarn. Randi "confirmed" the Drudge account by citing this Politico story -- which simply repeated the Drudge claim. The Randroids insist that Clinton's campaign never denied the Drudge charge, even though the campaign did just that after they (quite properly) took a little time to check.

The Clinton campaign was quick to release a photograph of Hillary wearing traditional costume while on a foreign visit. Needless to say, the Obama photograph would impact only Republican evangelicals, not any Democratic voting block.

When one lone voice of reason on DU noted that "there is no proof that the Clinton camp planted that picture," this answer soon arrived:

There is no proof? That is a strange way of defending them.

I see. The burden of proof is no longer on the accuser.

You know what that means, don't you? It means that when the visionary girls of Salem Village point at you and cry: "Goody Proctor is a witch!" -- they are not required to offer evidence. You are.

You know what's really amusing? Some of my critics accuse me of having lost my reasoning abilities.

I'm also amused by the sight of Obamabots accusing "Hillaburton" of peddling smears and trafficking in insults. How can anyone have such an utter lack of self-awareness...?