I Don't Like You Either.

McCain Yanks Off Bush's Crown; Tries It on For Size

by Teh Nutroots | Riddle me this:  Wasn't it only 2-3 weeks ago that the Republicans were moaning about the presumptuousness of Barack Obama?  If so, how do they explain McCain's sudden accession to an authoritative role in Georgia---so much of one that he is sending his own "envoys" to deal with the situation?

Was it not presumptuous after all?  Or...are they applying the hoary old "it's different when Republicans do it" rule?

All Barack did was make a speech.  John McCain is speaking every day to Georgia's loose cannon-in-chief, his friend "Misha," despite "Misha's" calling him out the other day ('very cheering...Words, not deeds."  Doesn't Bush mind?  F*** me.  I'd mind.  For once I kind of admire Bush's restraint.

I'd be like, "Dude?  Excuse me; I believe I am still president here?"

Consider this:

Andrew Sullivan on McCain

by Teh Nutroots | As he mulls over his former support for the war in Iraq, provides a summary of McCain's militarism  in a nutshell .

For him, it is always 1938 somewhere; America's duty is to control, occupy or intervene wherever any rival seeks influence and any group does not share our alleged values. And so American power must be brought to bear in Georgia and Iraq and Iran and Burma and Darfur and Bosnia and anyplace else where American interests are threatened or democratic allies seek help. And for militarist American exceptionalists, this all makes sense. This is the higher purpose McCain lives for: the glory of liberation, the thrill of conquest, the adoration of the soldier, the defeat of evil.

I've never understood in the first place why this attitude was ever meant to be "conservative."   The only thing they're conserving is American arrogance at the expense of everything else.

Arkansas Chair Bill Gwatney is Shot in His Office; Collateral Damage: Malkin's Feelings Get Wounded

Posted by Blue Stockings | Deb Cupples deals with this tragedy at our sister blog, Buck Naked Politics, here.

To add to the anguish, poor little Malkin received a mean email accusing her and her wingnut cronies of complicity.  In a post entitled "I Shot the Arkansas Democrat Party Chairman," she was so upset by a mean email arguing that her gospel of hatefulness might have something to do with this that she "forgot" to remove the emailer's address.  Well, that emailer will know better next time. 

It's way premature to be talking about complicity since nobody even knows the gunman's motive.

Irony Alert: McCain: "In the 21st Century, Nations Don't Invade Other Nations"

Damozel & Teh Nutroots | Would that he were right. You can see the video (via Think Progress) below.

Not only does John McCain not know any Russian history, he also apparently doesn't remember as far back as 2003 or know what's going on now.

This quote is so free from any sense it's actually a little bit awesome.

Far Right Rhetoric & The Tennessee Valley Shooter

by Teh Nutroots [Moonbat from Hell] | First off, I don't think Fox News caused Jim Adkisson to shoot those Unitarians.  If Fox News didn't exist, I'm sure he'd have found other crazy rhetoric to justify the yowling demon inside him.  I don't agree that Fox 'pushed him over the edge'---based on a certain amount of experience, I suspect he jumped.  Hatred of others is the disease; Fox is just the symptom.

McCain: "Only a Fool or a Fraud Talks Tough or Romantically About War" (Video)

Where have you gone, John McCain?

A DVD You'll Want to Rent: "No End in Sight"--Award Winning Documentary About the Iraq War

Posted by Damozel | If you haven't already seen it, do please check out this preview of the winner of the best documentary at the Sundance Film festival:  No End in Sight: Iraq's Descent into Chaos.  Here's the synopsis.

The first film of its kind to chronicle the reasons behind Iraq’s descent into guerilla war, warlord rule, criminality and anarchy, NO END IN SIGHT is a jaw-dropping, insider’s tale of wholesale incompetence, recklessness and venality. Based on over 200 hours of footage, the film provides a candid retelling of the events following the fall of Baghdad in 2003 by high ranking officials such as former Deputy Secretary of State Richard Armitage, Ambassador Barbara Bodine (in charge of Baghdad during the Spring of 2003), Lawrence Wilkerson, former Chief of Staff to Colin Powell, and General Jay Garner (in charge of the occupation of Iraq through May 2003) as well as Iraqi civilians, American soldiers, and prominent analysts. NO END IN SIGHT examines the manner in which the principal errors of U.S. policy – the use of insufficient troop levels, allowing the looting of Baghdad, the purging of professionals from the Iraqi government, and the disbanding of the Iraqi military – largely created the insurgency and chaos that engulf Iraq today. How did a group of men with little or no military experience, knowledge of the Arab world or personal experience in Iraq come to make such flagrantly debilitating decisions? NO END IN SIGHT dissects the people, issues and facts behind the Bush Administration’s decisions and their consequences on the ground to provide a powerful look into how arrogance and ignorance turned a military victory into a seemingly endless and deepening nightmare of a war. 

Reviews are here.  The cast list (major players in the real-world "descent into chaos") is here.

Scrooging London's Homeless: No Soup for You!

[cross-posted to Buck Naked Politics] Cockney Robin, who is having a jolly holiday in an exotic location,  recently turned me on to Brit blog Blood and Treasure.  He's now sent me this link.   The link came with this note:  "Just in case you think Ebenezer Scrooge ain't alive and well on this side of the Atlantic or that we don't still have a homeless problem."  "Scrooge with a little added pecksniff" remarks Jamie K. in re: a BBC News article called  "Do soup kitchens help the homeless?" 

Jamie K deadpans, "Here's festive."

As charities launch their annual drive to help the homeless at Christmas, Westminster Council in central London is pursuing plans to ban soup kitchens from its streets. It has won some surprising support....[A]ccording to Westminster City Council, soup kitchens are drawing former rough sleepers out of hostels and back onto the streets.  (BBC)

R-Candidates Rely on Discredited War-Rhetoric

AT BN-POLTICS BY D CUPPLES  They aren't old enough for Alzheimer's, yet they speak with no hint of short-term memory--making themselves easy targets for ridicule. According to the Boston Globe, Republican presidential candidates are falling back on President Bush's war rhetoric, including simplistic sound bytes that have been repeatedly doused with doubt . . . .

Continued at Buck Naked Politics

Remembering Vietnam. The Age of Aquarius and the Flesh Failures. Two Music Videos from YouTube.

I stumbled on these clips at YouTube.  It nearly broke my heart to see them again.  It's been years, but when I was a teenager, I used to turn on the record player (it was a record player) in my room and sing along with Hair at the top of my voice.  It was all true, and all false.

These scenes are from the film Hair.  Many people consider it inferior to the play, but I think it was a brilliant rethinking of it.  Every American should see it.  I've put the two scenes in reverse order, because these are backwards times.  Ask yourself:  are there worse things than free love and drugs and a spirit that still believes in the words "free" and "love"?    Let the sun shine in the flesh failures!

How it really was.  Watch it to the very end and tell me you're not affected, even if you didn't see the film and don't know why Treat Williams was shit-scared and John Savage overwhelmed with remorse.  Never mind the Swift Boat gang; this is the piece that's missing from the Iraq War. 

I lost two friends in Vietnam.   The war memorial isn't enough. This musical was part of my personal memorial; how did I forget about this scene for all these years? 

What we had hoped it would become.  This is really what it was like sometimes and how it felt.  It's what we thought it would be like always.   Listen to this and tell me you don't want to step into the film and join in the dance.  This is the peace and the movement that's missing now.  Would today's children dance outside the White House gates with such verve and certainty and conviction?  And it wasn't like that all the time, obviously, but to experience even one minute would be enough.

I was too young to do anything that important (it was.  It was).   But here's to the dawning of the Age that died being born, the film "Hair" (which captures very well the joy, despair, hope, and sorrow of that time), and to new dawnings.  I wish we could recover some of the joy and hope of those days to mitigate the despair, sorrow, and cynicism.