Alterman: Buffoonery in context

[dArKeR]

I love torture ... in context:  Pill-popping moralist Rush Limbaugh is whining that he was quoted “out of context" when he defended the vicious torture and sexual humiliation of innocent Iraqis as just so much fraternity hijinx and not unlike your average Madonna or Brittney Spears act.  I wonder if Rush’s audience is beginning to tire of his combination of hypocrisy and buffoonery, now that it’s laced with sadism.  In New York at least, Al Franken is creaming rush in the Arbitron ratings, and that’s being done, as everybody keeps pointing out, with a semipro operation surrounding him.  Imagine what Al and Air America will do to Rush once they know what they are doing?

Quote of the Day: "I wake up thinking about the astonishing amount of harm these people have done to our national interest on every level, and it takes a tremendous act of will not to write about it every day."
-Gary Trudeau

Alter-review:  EJ Dionne has a first rate analysis of the president’s precipitous fall in popularity here.   I’m just about finished with his new book, "Stand Up Fight Back."  I have long been a fan of EJ’s and I find myself constantly amazed at his ability to retain his calm demeanor and rational good sense in the middle of a political discourse that is designed to drive someone of his insights and ability mad with fury—or at least to an argument-oriented Weblog every morning.

http://msnbc.msn.com/id/3449870/

[tomreedtoon]

1. Please quote: I don't want to register with the Moonies!

It's unusual that the Washington Post, a completely owned subsidiary of Reverend Moon, prints something critical about Republicans. But even that isn't enough to get me to be entered in the Rev's database by registering to see what E.J. Dionne has written. I don't need to buy any flowers, or steak, or frozen shrimp, or whatever Moon has his mind-controlled slaves selling these days. And that will happen if I give the Post my personal info.

So to save us from that messy business, how's about quoting at least a little of the article here in the forum, dArKeR? I'm sure you have a few minutes before the doorbell rings again with an offer to buy magazine subscriptions to the Reverend's approved publications.

[NYCGirl]

2. Moon's paper is the Washington TIMES,

not the Washington Post.

[montanacowboy]

4. The Washington Post is not

owned by the Moonies - it's the Washington Times - and EJ is one of the shining lights in journalism today as opposed to the rank and file whores.

[oasis]

5. Washington Post or Washington Times?

[papau]

3. EJ's The President: Paying the Price . . . column below

The President: Paying the Price . . .

By E.J. Dionne Jr.

Sunday, May 30, 2004; Page B01

When presidents take big chances, they have two choices. They can take all the responsibility on themselves and hope that when things go well, they will reap allthe rewards. Or they can choose to draw in the opposition from the beginning and count on some help and a feeling of solidarity if things start to go wrong.

President Bush took his big chance in Iraq without buying himself an insurance policy. He could have patiently built a coalition of the many -- not only abroad, but also at home -- rather than slapping together a coalition of the few, including the not-entirely-willing. He could have made clear, as his father did a decade earlier, that a decision to go to war is so momentous that Congress should consider the matter under circumstances that would encourage genuine deliberation.

Legislators from both parties will tell you that the congressional debate over the 1991 Persian Gulf War was one of the most ennobling experiences of their political lives. You don't hear much of that this time around. That's because approval was shoved through Congress by a president only too happy to turn war into a campaign issue.

Instead of reaching out to doubters, Bush derided them. On the campaign trail in September 2002, he characterized Democratic members of Congress who wanted a strong mandate from the United Nations -- exactly what the administration is seeking now -- as evading responsibility. "It seems like to me that if you're representing the United States," he said, "you ought to be making a decision on what's best for the United States." Didn't his opponents think that defending the interests of the United States was exactly what they were doing? Bush continued: "If I were running for office, I'm not sure how I'd explain to the American people -- say, 'Vote for me, and, oh, by the way, on a matter of national security, I'm going to wait for somebody else to act.' "

No wonder the country is so polarized. Behind the president's plummeting poll numbers and public restlessness about the war is an emerging truth about the administration's way of doing business. Iraq was a preemptive war pursued by a president who governs by preemption.<snip>


But Bush chose aggressiveness over conciliation. At one point, in the debate over a bill creating a permanent Department of Homeland Security, he even said that "the Senate" -- meaning the bare Democratic majority that existed at the time -- was "not interested in the security of the American people." Don't doubt for a moment that every Democrat in the Senate remembers Bush saying that. You can play political hardball or you can call for national unity. You can't do both.<snip>

Author's e-mail: [e-mail]