McCain Will Reach Out to Anyone ... Anyone Who Doesn't Disagree with Him

John McCain just told his audience not to pay attention to any "static" or "ground noise" after being interrupted several times by Iraq War protesters during his speech.  The problem is that he had just told them that he was going to extend his hand to "any patriot" regardless of political persuasion.

Hence, he intends to extend his hand only to those who agree with him.  Those people are John McCain's idea of "patriots."

By the way, I've counted 3 protesters now.  How are these people getting by the generally tightly orchestrated GOP machine?


UPDATE: Josh Marshall's impressions of the heavy-handed mob response of GOP delegates to the protesters:

I loved the part with the ritual slaughter of the protester. That rocked. That was the best thing since the Lord of the Flies interlude between the Rudy and Palin speeches last night.

UPDATE: Ooops. Flubbed transition between "students" and "parents" in the education portion. Wonder if it was a teleprompter breakdown. If so, John McCain has a whole new profile in courage. Teleprompter problems are tests of character.


UPDATE:  Back to "wants to share credit" mode where he says he will work with Democrats and Independents.  Wonder if he'll work with those war protestors who got thrown off the floor and into some remote "free" speech zone if they weren't taken into custody several minutes ago.


UPDATE:  Oh, no, he didn't!  He did not just seriously encourage people to "teach, minister to people, feed the hungry, and defend the oppressed," did he?  He did not say those things after last night's attack on community organizers!  That's exactly what community organizers have done for over a century.  Has he no shame?


UPDATE:  At speech's end they're playing Heart's Barracuda, no doubt in tribute to Sarah Palin whose high school basketball nickname was "Sarah Barracuda."  However, the lyrics are not fortunate for Gov. Palin, given her current ethics problems in Alaska and flip flop on the "bridge to nowhere":

If the real thing don't do the trick
You better make up something quick

UPDATE: Christian Grantham has photos of the protesters who disrupted the necktie party and subsequently got mugged out of the hall. They were from Iraq Vets Against the War and Code Pink.  The vet's sign reads "McCain Voted Against Vets."

Not So Willing to Win a War and Lose an Election After All

In using her Iraq-bound son as campaign prop last night, Sarah Palin may have also violated Operational Security, according to VetVoice.com. Generally, disclosing the date of deployment is illegal. But Governor Palin may not have technically violated the law since she wasn't telling the truth: Track Palin is not going to be deployed on September 11, like she claimed. He's going to be part of a ceremony, "though one Public Affairs Officer said that any details of the upcoming ceremony hadn't been made public yet by the military." So, either she knowingly didn't tell the truth or she doesn't understand sensitive Operational Security protocols, even though the McCain campaign argues that her executive experience with the Alaskan National Guard qualifies her to be next in line to be commander-in-chief.

Even if Governor Palin isn't exactly threatening our security, the so-called "patriotic" right-wing blogosphere is. According to VetVoice, conservative bloggers have gone viral and they are circulating information on locations where Track Palin is scheduled to be deployed. Following VetVoice's lead, I will not link to those sites out of respect for our national security and the rule of law.

Would Palin Be Ready To Face Iraq?

Republican VP selection Sarah Palin on the Iraq War:

I've been so focused on state government, I haven't really focused much on the war in Iraq.

She goes on in the interview to say that she supports Bush and sees the need for an exit strategy; but seriously, no one expects the Governor of a remote, small state to be ready to tackle the war in Iraq. However, that is the very reason why Americans rely on presidential nominees to choose wisely running mates who do have experience and who could step in to deal with the war.

The irony of John McCain's unwise choice is that he is set on staying in Iraq 100 years. I would think he would pick someone who could carry on that battle rather than someone who hasn't thought very much about it and needs to be coached on foreign policy.

While Private Defense Contractors Should Make Out Like Bandits in Both Russia and Georgia

The party's over for investors in non-defense foreign industry:

Russia's invasion of neighboring Georgia has resurrected concerns about the geopolitical risks inherent in emerging markets.

But if the morally sawed-off Republicans yell loud enough about their selective grasp of injustices in Eastern Europe we won't notice the market forces driving the latest war and funding their candidates for office.

Do these guys have any short term memory when it comes to overthrowing a government, occupying a capital, knocking over their statues, stacking their prisoners, referring to the horrific level of civilian casualties as the "birth pangs of democracy"?

Hiring KBR for Wiring Proves to Be a Fools Errand

Error-prone private contractor electrocutes and injures U.S. soldiers stationed in Iraq.  And they'll probably overbill the taxpayers for their faulty wiring.  All hail, privatization!

Mission Finally Accomplished

Big oil scores no-bid contracts to pump Iraq's oil for the first time in 36 years.

58 Military Bases Demanded for a Country the Size of California

Osama bin Laden used Poppy Bush's establishment of U.S. military bases in Saudi Arabia as a pretext to the 9/11 attacks on American soil. Now Dubya intends to establish almost 60 military bases in Iraq, and he is demanding immunity from prosecution for the Pentagon's civilian military contractors. Free get-out-of-jail cards for all DoD friends to do whatever rocks their socks. These conditions would run indefinitely, which dovetails nicely with John McCain's wish to stay in Iraq 100 years.

The Iraqi government considers the terms unacceptable. So should Americans. It's going to cost us financially, and it could lead to another terrorist attack on our soil.

Ballsy Last Night, Emasculated Today

CNN correspondent Jessica Yellin, who candidly confessed that she had been forced by "corporate executives" to write propaganda for the Bush war effort last night, backtracked this afternoon saying that "senior corporate leadership never asked" her to take out a line or re-write an intro. I'd guess someone spooked Jess into submission.

Karma, Thy Name is McClellan

Amidst all of the knot-tying that the mainstream media is doing to itself over former Bush mouthpiece Scott McClellan laying responsibility for failing to discourage the march to war at its feet, one finger-pointing, blame-shifting moment was also most significant: CNN congressional correspondent Jessica Yellin told Anderson Cooper tonight that during the run-up to the Iraq War, she was forced by "corporation executives" when she was at "another network" to write only positive stories about the Bush Administration and its justifications for invading Iraq. Just as we suspected for some time.

Memorial

Facing South has the up-to-date Iraq War casualties:

STATE / INJURED / KILLED / TOTAL CASUALTIES

ALABAMA / 514 / 67 / 581
ARKANSAS / 448 / 59 / 507
FLORIDA / 1384 / 177 / 1561
GEORGIA / 856 / 124 / 980
KENTUCKY / 464 / 63 / 527
LOUISIANA / 582 / 79 / 661
MISSISSIPPI / 276 / 49 / 325
NORTH CAROLINA / 819 / 97 / 916
SOUTH CAROLINA / 384 / 49 / 433
TENNESSEE / 574 / 84 / 658
TEXAS / 2891 / 386 / 3277
VIRGINIA / 706 / 117 / 823
WEST VIRGINIA / 214 / 22 / 236

When Right-Wing Talk-Show Hosts Get Their Intellectual Teeth Kicked In

Somebody needs to scrape this pathetic conservative talk-show host off the pavement after showing that he has no idea who Neville Chamberlain was even as he tries to tie him to Barack Obama:

It's further evidence that listening to right-wing radio only dumbs down your intelligence. The blowhard bases his history on "Pathway to 9/11," which producers conceded was a fictionalized account (you had to know that the vast right-wing media machine was going to spin it into truth).

Compare right-wing talk radio ignorance to a progressive grasp (in 2006) of Neville Chamberlain, who looks more like he would have been right at home in the Bush Administration:

Yep, Bush looks a lot like Chamberlain for demonizing Barack Obama in the same way that Chamberlain attacked Winston Churchill as an internal enemy for criticizing British foreign policy.

And yet, how much more audacious is it for George Bush to stand on foreign soil, link a loyal American and honorable Senator to Nazi appeasers, and then take cover behind the right-wing media machine which would not know the history of war from a hole in the head? Joe Biden had the spot-on analysis of the backstabbing tactic: "That is bullshit."

Bush Takes a Mulligan on His Ultimate Sacrifice in the War Effort

He gave up golf for the troops before he played golf again. Hitting the links in flip-flops really hurts your game.

The Local Costs of the Iraq War

According to the National Priorities Project, the Iraq War has cost the State of Tennessee over $8 billion ($1 billion = $1000 million). President Bush's new funding request for 08-09 will cost the Volunteer State over $2 billion, which according to NPP would buy Tennessee 21,714 afforable housing units, 41,906 elementary school teachers, or health care coverage for 435,808 adults.

NPP has a page for calculating costs to towns and cities:

Taxpayers in Nashville, Tennessee will pay $838.9 million for total Iraq war spending approved to date. For the same amount of money, the following could have been provided:

• 175,099 People with Health Care for One Year OR
• 621,137 Homes with Renewable Electricity for One Year OR
• 23,303 Public Safety Officers for One year OR
• 15,699 Music and Arts Teachers for One Year OR
• 149,218 Scholarships for University Students for One Year OR
• 65 New Elementary Schools OR
• 8,724 Affordable Housing Units OR
• 293,209 Children with Health Care for One Year OR
• 116,531 Head Start Places for Children for One Year OR
• 16,837 Elementary School Teachers for One Year

Happy "Mission Accomplished" Day!

Five years down,





one hundred more to go.

It's the Century, Stupid: There Is Really Nothing Else More Effective

Josh Marshall encapsulates:

Why doesn't every Democrat, when saying anything about the presidential race, start their remarks by saying: John McCain says he'd be happy to see our troops in Iraq for another hundred years. I just can't agree with that.

That's really all you need to say. Keep it simple.

The Foolhardy Express

LA Times points out that John McCain's support of the surge belies other problems he has on Iraq, including:

Before the war, McCain predicted a quick and easy victory, not a vicious insurgency. He issued dire warnings about Saddam Hussein's supposed weapons of mass destruction but didn't read the full 2002 National Intelligence Estimate that showed gaps in the intelligence.

So, he was among the chocolates-and-flowers-for-the-liberators crowd that lacked intelligent foresight in the run-up to war. Four years of McCain is just four more of Bush.

Today's Cascading Economic Crisis

It is hard not to look at the horrible economic events upon us and wonder whether someone in al-Qaeda is watching and proclaiming, "Mission Accomplished." Forget analogies to Waterloo. Will the Iraq War be to American global power what the 1980s Afghanistan War was to Soviet global power?

It's Not a Question of Losing, Because This Is What We've Already Lost

From Democracy Arsenal:

Almost 4,000 American troops have died, approximately 30,000 have been wounded, we've appropriated more than $500 billion with the costs to the actual economy estimated to be well over $1 trillion and possibly heading towards $3 trillion. For all of this we have gotten a more powerful Al Qaeda, a more powerful Iran, a more unstable Middle East, and an overstretched military.

And we have the neglect of domestic policies and the emboldening of elected representatives who choose not to fight for any more federal money to be spent at home as the mortgage crisis is bringing our national house down.

Bad for the Troops, Good for the Republicans

According to Pew, both the quantity of news coverage and the keenness of public awareness of war fatalities (let alone causalities) are sinking like stones. Bad things happen when people stop paying attention.

Short-Sighted Disaster Response

During the panel discussion portion near the end of this "Houston and Katrina" podcast (February 25, 2008 at Rice University), a case management panelist points out that past government's "model for displaced people" is based on only a three-year program, and the program set up for Katrina's displaced was "only ever thought to be a two-year program."

The Bush Administration has committed us to helping Baghdad for a longer time than he planned to help New Orleans (or Houston).