Jimmy Carter. American nebbish.

Not only did Carter put on a cardigan sweater and talk about "malaise" while Iranian theocrats held (and tortured, don't forget) our embassy employees, but under his administration, the US started its "tilt" towards, of all things, Iraq. So Carter is responsible in large part for the twin problems we face--the Batthists and the far more important problem of the rise (or, more accurately, the rebirth) of reactionary Islamic fundamentalism.

Jimmy Carter: worst American president of the 20th century, and with NO competition. (Bush is 21st century, and in all fairness, he's got a long, long, long way to go before he can match Carter's incompetence, which was transcendent at times.) And all Carter's holier-than-thou Habitat for Humanity crap is grating as ... well, hell. We want to put a deck on our house; maybe I'll write Carter and ask him if he'll do it. I'm human, I'm humane (well, to dogs and cats), and I want expanded habitat.

Billy, his late, lamented booze-hound of a brother, on the other hand, might have made a damn fine president. (His evangelist sister, Ruth Stapleton, who's also dead, would probably have made a better president as well.) I'm sure Billy would have flattened Teheran 48 hours after the hostages were taken, sucking down beer all the time. That's what we should have done; just told the Soviets what we're doing, and there you go. The hostages would have died, of course, but I'm pretty sure that would have saved 2,800 lives on 9/11. Nip it in the bud.

Jimmy Carter is the Mister Rogers of American presidents.

Speaking of religious nuts, why is even Fox new failing to focus on shithead Asan Akbar, the murderer in the rear, and his beliefs? Here's the US military spin:

"George Heath, a spokesman for the division's home base at Ft. Campbell, Ky., said Akbar had been "having what some might call an attitude problem." Max Blumenfeld, an Army spokesman in Kuwait City, said the suspect's motive "most likely was resentment."

Here's something a bit more pertinent:

"Akbar graduated from Locke High School in Los Angeles. He also studied at the Masjid Bilal Islamic Center, a predominantly African American mosque in South-Central Los Angeles."

Islam is a religion of peace, right Mr. Bush?

There's entirely too much focus on goofy anti-war protestors and "human
shields," and not nearly enough on whether this military action is the SMART thing to do.
I know we have smart weapons; I don't think those include some members of this Administration or its so-called brain trust..

The "embedded" reporters have been awfully silent over the past few days.

In lieu of three-day old CNN human interest stories, or Faux News cheerleading interviews with third-tier Heritage Foundation functioinaries, or MSNBC interviews with top brass who've been TV commentators since Kosovo, here's
some of what's going on:

According to a BBC reporter in central Iraq, "a large convoy of US marines remains stalled about a 100 miles south of Baghdad after encountering heavy resistance from Iraqi forces. Further shelling took place this morning,
aimed at Iraqi convoys, before the marines switched location. The warm greeting these men received as they entered Iraq has all but evaporated. The Bedouin tribesmen and their toothy grins have been replaced by tenacious and
well-armed groups of Iraqi fighters, seemingly determined to halt the advance on Baghdad."

Even in Shiite-controlled Basra, an area certainly not fond on Saddam, the city has not fallen yet. Some reports are attributing this to elements of the RG who are intimidating the local population. Could be. But the city is surrounded, and I would think that if the local population was really happy that we were there, they wouldn't be quite so intimidated by some Batthist thugs left behind; they'd be looking at this opportunity to get even for years of tyranny.Of course, they remember how we sold them down the river (almost literally) in '91, so I'd be reluctant, too. And this is the BBC, which didn't like the fact we went into Afghanistan, for chrissakes, never mind Iraq.

Despite our admirable policy of minimizing Iraqi civilian casualites (and possibly endangering our own guys in the process), the hearts and minds don't seem to be all a flutter at our incursion. All this talk about "liberation" fails to
take into account that we are invading another country. We are not invading Saddam's living room; from some of the admin shills, you'd think we were doing just that. One guy's liberation is another's threat. That's not moral relativity; that's reality. One that the right wing doesn't seem to get. There's been a great deal of debate on how righteous this is; there should have been more on how prudent it is.

BTW, Rumsfield's and Wolfowitz's confidence that shock and awe would cause the Iraqi leadership to cave belies their ignorance of military history. Bombing doesn't do it. We leveled every city in Japan with conventional bombing, and the Japs were still ready to fight. They were ready to keep at even after Hiroshmia and Nagasaki, but Hirohito knew the game was up, and because he was god on earth, when he talked, the Japanese followed, and the adverbly "timidly" soon followed.

Here's another report:

"British Royal Marines have moved into positions along the Iraqi border with Iran. It is the furthest east that they have deployed and is a sign that Britain and America are worried that Iran may try to exploit the chaos caused by the war. RAF Chinook helicopters dropped hundreds of Marines, many looking tired after days moving through the desert into the border region. We went with them into an area pitted with shell holes. They are not from the current conflict, but are the scars left by eight years of fighting between Iraq and Iran during the 1980s. Now the Marines are trying to make sure Iran can't exploit Iraq's current weakness. The Marines have complained already they've come under fire from Iranian machine guns, a charge denied by Iran."

This shouldn't be surprising. Iran is much more of an enemy to us than Iraq, since it is run by religious theocrats who are far more of a danger to this country than a tinhorn Arab nationalist dictator. Expect more of this kind of thing. I wouldn't be surprised if we were in a full scale (if undeclared) war with Iran with a couple of weeks. Who knows what kind of WMDs the Iranians might have. Certainly its military is more imposing than Iraq's. (What about those Silkworm missles?) The Iranians will feel that we are overextended and could try to take advantage, by embarrassing Uncle Sam and giving the Muslim world
a quick thrill. The optimistic scenario is that by this time Iraq would be "conquered" and Saddam and his gang consigned to the dustbin of history. It'd be nice if we had a coalition of troops from other countries who could serve as peackeeepers so that we could turn our military to use on any repercussions (i.e., any Iranian incursion) that results from this war. But
Micronesia hasn't offered its crack Tahitian divisions yet, as far as I know. And our "coalition of the willing" is mostly that kind of thing (the Brits excepted, of course.)

Meanwhile, Turkey moves against the Kurds to the north. Many supporters of this war thought we were going to somehow "save" the Kurds; now they are coming to the belated realization that this Administration doesn't give two
turds about the Kurds. And rogue Russian criminal (or quasi-criminal) elements are giving night vision goggles to the Iraqis. Bush is telling Putin to crack down. Bit of history here. Last year, Putin agreed with Bush on massive cuts on our nuclear arsenals and, at considerable domestic political risk, Putin went along with Bush on Star Wars. Putin, naturally,
felt Bush owed him one. In the run up to Iraq, however, the morons who run our administration took Russia completely for granted (I thought Condi Rice was a "Russian expert") and assumed the bear would line up behind us obediantly. Bears are not noted for obediance. (Read Theodore Rex, which I just got finished with, and you'll see how even Teddy Roosevelt, who
is to Shrub what a sequoia is to milkweed, had to handle the Russians with diplomatic nuance.) This hurt Russian pride; our Adminstration didn't seem to give a damnt. We don't seem to give a damn about anyone's pride but the Weekly Standard's.
Well, here's the blowback: Putin is not going to put himself out cracking down on unauthorized (we hope) arms shipments to Iraq.

This is making all the continued grumbling about human shields and Blimpie Moore a bit dated.

.

One of the princesses of the right, Peggy "Dolphins" Noonan, better hire herself a new editor.

A VERBATIM quote from her recent article in the WSJ (boldface mine):

It is going to mean, first, that something good happened. This sounds small but is huge. The West has been depressed since Sept. 11, 2001. It has been torn, riven. It has been a difficult time. The coming victory is going to be the biggest good thing that has happened in the world, the West and the United States since the twin towers fell.

Why is "West" capitalized and "twin towers" isn't? And then there's the matter of how this reads.

Whatta dimwit. And that's being kind.

Meanwhile, here's a guy blogging his ass off, breaking stories way before the cable channels or major websites are. Worth a long look.

Update on Farmer Wright. He was "distraught," and that included because his dog died. I got a lot of sympathy for people who grieve over their dogs. And, yeah, our right to protest, and it's under seige, possibly. Still, this guy did claim to have a bunch of explosives in his truck, so that separates him out from your run-of-the-mill protestor. And he drove it into the
reflecting pool, which I'm sure violates many an ordinance; I don't think you can get a permit to do that kind of particular
"protesting." So "nonviolent" is not applicable in Old McDonald's case, even though "violent" might be stretching things. There's a gray area in between.

While I agree there's more than a hint these days that anyone who dares to protest anything is an enemy of the state and subject to, at the least, summary execution, this hayseed was going quite a bit beyond the exercise of his First Amendment rights as well as anything that could reasonably be allowable under any standard of "civil disobedience."

Besides, it's personal. He's a religious fanatic (knock, knock), the type of guy always complaining others getting the
gummit handout when he's gettin' plenty himself, and he caused me to be late to an appointment. Red state/blue state, round 7646. If his f*****g farm is going up in smoke, he should go learn how to grow soybeans or something. Or move to
Iowa and get on the ADM ethanol gravy train.

Daschle's gotten a lot of grief for his remarks the other day, and it's probably deserved, but I'm much more interested in what is worse.

People have mentioned that Lott got a bit of the shaft, given that "Bringin' Home the Bacon" Byrd's resume includes a stint in the KKK. You know the ground is shakin' when Trent Lott becomes a object of relative sympathy.

I "weep for my country" whenever I realize Byrd (Lott, too, for that matter) is (still) a member of the "World's Greatest Deliberative Body."

Like the article says, it's just one guy, so it might not mean there's widespread disaffection. And it's not like the intelligence services deserve the benefit of the doubt, since they, like everyone else, are culpable in 9/11.

The money passages (b/f mine)::

WASHINGTON, March 19 (UPI) -- The top National Security Council official in the war on terror resigned this week for what a NSC spokesman said were personal reasons, but intelligence sources say the move reflects concern that the looming war with Iraq is hurting the fight against terrorism.

Rand Beers would not comment for this article, but he and several sources close to him are emphatic that the resignation was not a protest against an invasion of Iraq. But the same sources, and other current and former intelligence officials, described a broad consensus in the anti-terrorism and intelligence community that an invasion of Iraq would divert critical resources from the war on terror.



This is a very intriguing decision (by Beers)," said author and intelligence expert James Bamford. "There is a predominant belief in the intelligence community that an invasion of Iraq will cause more terrorism than it will prevent. There is also a tremendous amount of embarrassment by intelligence professionals that there have been so many lies out of the administration -- by the president, (Vice President Dick) Cheney and (Secretary of State Colin) Powell -- over Iraq."

Bamford cited a recent address by President Bush that cited documents, which allegedly proved Iraq was continuing to pursue a nuclear program, that were later shown to be forgeries.

"It is absurd that the president of the United States mentioned in a speech before the world information from phony documents and no one got fired," Bamford said. "That alone has offended intelligence professionals throughout the services."

This loon shut down DC traffic for two days.

Two questions:

1/This guy's worried about tobacco price supports, or whatever, and creating a public menace, at a time of war. Where's John Ashcroft? I guess he's too busy opening people's mail. If we're going to start throwing around words like traitor, I've got the first name for the list: Dwight W. Watson.

2/What does this say about our ability (or inability) to respond to potential terror attacks

The difference between reactionary-right charlatans on the Supreme Court and those "f*****g Hollywood/leftist communists" who are so scorned these days--and I'll scorn 'em right along with everyone else, since I despise the celebirty culture in general--is that the Hollywood left has no real power, and anyone who thinks otherwise knows nothing about power. "Shaping the cultural climate" of the nation is just geek-speak of those with a social agenda only slightly less restrictive than the Taliban's.

So let's go after things that matter, OK?

Scalia, one of the most important men in the country, yesterday said that we should suspend, or amend, or otherwise traduce, the Bill of Rights. (I thought Scalia was a "strict constructionist." Tony S., by virtue of his membership in the USSC, is in a bit more of a position to do harm to the country than, say, Martin Sheen is.

So where are the libertarians on this one? Can Neil Boortz stop shilling for the Administration long enough to notice this?
And the "liberal" Washington Post, where is its editorial outrage. First Amendment is usually the first one to go, after all. That's why so many are so absolute about it.

Someone sent me an email by someone who had spent evidently hours tracking down the educational achievements of Susan Sarandon and Alec Baldwin and that lot, and compared that to the educational backgrounds of people in this administration. Funny, that, on many levels, not the least of which is that so many people spend so much time assailing academia, but then don't hesitate to haul out academic credentials when it "supports" their argument. (I'll leave aside for the time being that one of the educational titans this email listed was our famously intellectual President.) Funny, also, that this guy didn't look up the educational background of, say, Ted Nugent, or Reba McIntyre, or Charlton Heston, or any other celebrities who are Republicans Party supporters. {Being an actor didn't seem to disqualify Reagan from being President, did it?}. If Martin Sheen should shut up, then so the f**k should Little Teddyboy Nugget. At least Martin Sheen has made a couple of good movies.

Back to Tony Soprano. Don't think when he starts talking about scaling back individual rights in time of warfare (Has Congress declared war yet? How can it be wartime) that he's just going to limit it to Muslims. That would, of course, involve religious profiling, which I fully support, but which isn't going to happen any time soon. If the choice is casting a look at an organized monotheistic relligion or just de facto (and, eventually, de jure, no doubt) shaving back on a few rights, which option do you think Tony Soprano and Ashheap will pursue? That ilk has been gunning to do this quite a while; read Robert Bork's "Slouching Toward Gomorrah" to get an idea of their agenda.

This crowd was looking with admiration, in fact, at fundamentalist Muslim societies, until 9/11 made such sympathities a bit unseemly. Remember Grover Norquist's advise to the Republican Party to actively recruit in mosques (so 1990s, but there it is.) Or Dana Rohrbacher playing Disraeli with the Taliban literally weeks before the Towers fell?

I tell you, if getting rid of Saddam means giving Scalia, Ashcroft, Poindexter, and that crowd carte blanche to gut our freedoms, it ain't worth it. Meanwhile, 150 billion deficits, the threat of turning Iraq (which had been, for that part of the world, a relatively secular society) into another maniacal bunch of Muslims (read http://this-- especially the last couple of paragraphs) ticking off the rest of the world (who'll we'll need somewhere down the line both to reconstruct and pay for the reconstruction of, Iraq, and to continue to pursue Islamic fanatics) and on and on and on. These are tough questions, and should make anybody ambivalent about this little adventure we're launching into. I'm not saying we shouldn't, and we have to now, we've come too far. But that doesn't diminish the gravity of these issues. But the right wing just lays the smackdown on the surrender monkies a bit, and laughs o' million, and over 50% of people in this country think most of the 911 hijackers were Iraqis, and meanwhile Scalia does his Machiavellian-cum-Capone act. With Clarence Thomas featured as the enforcer .... naah, that doesn't work. He's fat, but it's a pudgy fat; he ain't Clemenza, in other words.

Not all is lost. Here's something from a real libertarian and not that poseur Boortz down in Atlanta.

Yesterday, Tony "sopranos" Scalia handed down this pearl of legal legerdemain:


UNIVERSITY HEIGHTS, Ohio (AP) -- Supreme Court Justice Antonin Scalia said Tuesday night that government has room to scale back individual rights during wartime without violating the Constitution. "The Constitution just sets minimums," Scalia said at John Carroll University. "Most of the rights that you enjoy go way beyond what the Constitution requires."

That's lovely. Compare to the Bill of Rights, which has generally been thought as superceding the random burblings of a SCJ.

Amendment IX: The enumeration in the Constitution, of certain rights, shall not be construed to deny or disparage others retained by the people.
Amendment X: The powers not delegated to the United States by the Constitution, nor prohibited by it to the States, are reserved to the States respectively, or to the people.

But after all, the French and Hollywood has-been Hollywood actresses are the REAL threat here, huh?

What's anti American here, that Dixie Chick (who are they, anyway?) saying that Bush is an embarrassment, or
this?
Where's Bill O'Blather now?
Where's Neil Bore-tz?

This country's gone through the looking glass. You'd think we were at war with Hollywood celebrities and
French-American citizens instead of Islamo-nuts.
This is every bit a "hate crime" as burning a cross on a black family's lawn. If we're gonna prosecute something as a "hate crime" (and I'm not generally comfortable with that whole idea, but that's another issue for another time) then these pr***ks should be brought to account. Make 'em sit in a room for a year and watch Jean-Luc Goddard films, and having nothing to eat but sweetbreads.

The yahoos who do this kind of thing take their lead directly from chest-thumbing cretins like Hannity and Mike "Savage," who define balls as the ablility to insult Barbara Streisand, and indirectly from Rumsfield, who defines balls as the ability to target Iraq the day the worst attack on American citizens in history. The former are evil scoutmasters manipulating their easily fooled listeners; Rummy is just increasingly dangerous to our national security.

Chirac is manipulative scum and totally irresponsible, but there are plenty of people of France who are worried about their own problems with Muslim Immigrants (look at how well Le Pen did) and we shouldn't be alienating them by spending taxpayer dollars debating whether the Congressional cafeteria should rename French fries "Freedom fries." What garbage.

Chirac, with his dunderheaded attempts at strong arming Eastern Europe, is alienating the entire world even more quickly than Bush, Jr.is, and he'll be consigned appropriately shortly. Meanwhile, we're alienating a liberal democracy with whom we've got a shared 200+ year history where we've helped each other out of several jams (usually because it was in our own respective national interests), while staying mum on our theocratic friends like the Saudis or our authoritarian friends (who are perilously close to become theocracies themselves) like the Pakis.

These French bashing jokes were funny, but it's getting old.