04 August, 2008

Happy Hour Discurso

Today's opining on the public discourse.

From the department of Why Am I Not Surprised? comes this juicy tidbit:

Last week, Bruce Ivins, a government scientist who researched anthrax and was expected to be charged in connection with the 2001 attacks, reportedly committed suicide. As Glenn Greenwald has noted, President Bush and his administration initially attempted to link the anthrax attacks to Iraq.

The New York Daily News has a new twist in the administration’s attempt to peg the anthrax attacks to its own bellicose aims. Immediately after 9/11, the Daily News reports, “White House officials repeatedly pressed FBI Director Robert Mueller to prove it was a second-wave assault by Al Qaeda,” according to a former FBI official:

After the Oct. 5, 2001, death from anthrax exposure of Sun photo editor Robert Stevens, Mueller was “beaten up” during President Bush’s morning intelligence briefings for not producing proof the killer spores were the handiwork of terrorist mastermind Osama Bin Laden, according to a former aide.

“They really wanted to blame somebody in the Middle East,” the retired senior FBI official told The News.

[snip]

As press reports have indicated, while the source of the attacks is still unknown, a large body of evidence points towards Ivins’s lab in Ft. Detrick, Maryland. For the Bush administration, however, the evidence doesn’t seem to matter until after the case for war is made.

Really doesn't, does it? This is the Bush universe we're dealing with: the only reality they like is the one they make up. And they like to drop bombs. Lots and lots of bombs.

Speaking of people who get fixated on their own version of reality, this is a fucking pathetic example:

How do you know for sure when House Republicans have gone completely over the edge? When the Bush White House looks responsible and mature by comparison.

Republican Study Committee Chairman Jeb Hensarling (R-Texas) and Rep. Mike Pence (R-Ind.) sent the president a letter on Friday, asking Bush to use his authority to convene a special session of Congress. “Since Speaker Pelosi has decided not to keep the House in session to allow this vote to take place, we urge you to use the power vested in you by the
Constitution to convene an immediate energy special session of Congress,” the letter said.


Today, the White House responded.

The White House has rejected calls from House Republicans that it convene a special session of Congress on energy, saying it wouldn’t make a difference.

“We don’t have plans to call Congress into session — it won’t make a difference if Democratic leaders are unwilling to bring up a bill for an up-down vote,” said White House spokesman Tony Fratto.

And yet House Republicons are still at it. Despite the lack of a session, cameras and common sense, they're in there right now speechifying the masses. I've heard of beating dead horses, but seriously, there comes a time when you have to put the bat down and admit defeat.

Whether that day will come for these fuckwits during my lifetime is an open question.

At least they're willing to give us free tire gauges:
Atrios asked this morning, “Does anyone understand why Obama suggesting that people keep their tires properly inflated is some sort of hilarious gaffe?”

I’ve been trying to figure out the same thing for days. As the Obama campaign kicks off “energy week” with a new contrast ad and a policy speech in Michigan, Time’s Mark Halperin reports, “McCain supporters in Michigan will distribute tire gauges at Obama’s energy speech in Lansing. The RNC will also deliver gauges reading ‘Obama’s energy plan’ to Washington newsrooms.”

I don't even have words for how pathetic this is. I've seen the Republicons desperate before, but this... This is such a lameass attempt to make themselves look clever, it's unbelievable. Nothing says "We're completely empty on the issues and the ideas" quite like this.

I hope voters get the message.

3 comments:

Anonymous said...

Grasping at straws... I have a feeling, however, that for anyone who still intends to vote Republican at this point, nothing they do is going to make much difference...

george.w said...

'Flip-flops' worked for them before, and that aspersion was no more apropos than this one.

Really, I worry that The Simpson's arch-conservative 'Sideshow Bob' was right when he opined that voters were 'distracted by bright lights and shiny things'. Are the tire gauges shiny?

Anonymous said...

I'm amazed that the RepubliCONS are that dense!!
Anyone with half a brain knows that a correctly inflated tyre has less rolling resitance, requiring less effort to move and therefor requiring less energy. It is a demonstrable fact that you use less fuel to drive from one point to another in a car with properly inflated tyres that it is to drive the same route in a car with under-inflated tyres, and if your going on a long trip, it is a well known tactic to slightly over inflate your tyres to return better fuel economy.
Maybe someone could produce a tyre gauge for the GOP so we all know just how much pressure they are under, to be clutching at such lame arsed straws.......