Tuesday, February 14, 2006
Valentine's Day Blog
So V.P. Cheney shot a man, as the world knows by now.
This is one of those big, meaningless stories that cover the airwaves at first glance, like what Paris Hilton wore to the latest celebrity party. But there are a couple of little nuggets in this that actually are enlightening.
First off, Cheney didn’t tell anyone about this. Or, more precisely, he waited a while and then whispered it in the ear of someone to make a discreet phone call long after it happened. Scott McClellan was peppered with critical questions about this fact (incidentally, isn’t McClellan’s name eerily reminiscent of a certain union general in the Civil War that was famed for his conservative and slow-moving command? McClellan must be some kind of cosmic karmic reincarnation, a conservative, stonewalling kind of political version of the old general.). McClellan refused to elaborate on whether or not he was completely aware of the Vice President’s Office’s decision to delay and then not issue a press release.
This is vintage Cheney: secretive to the point of obsessive. From the man who refused to say who he met with to form our nation’s energy policy comes this reluctance even to issue a press release about an apparently banal hunting accident. The man was quickly treated and released from the hospital. It was not, altogether at least, Cheney’s fault. No big deal.
Until we get information that the man had been sleeping with Cheney’s wife, or they had been drinking, I won’t revisit this story. Thinkprogress.org has information on Cheney’s hunting trip that might raise eyebrows, including the fact that Cheney was hunting illegally, if that matters to you.
In more important news today, the U.N. released a report saying that U.S. practices at Guantanamo Bay amount to torture. The administration, of course, dismissed such charges, as it has done in the past. The Don and Roma show on my local WLS was quick to mention that the U.N. people never visited Gitmo, omitting the fact that U.S. officials refused to let them meet and interview prisoners, thus making the potential visit useless. This is typical tendentious reporting from conservative news outlets, the Pravda Press that keeps at least 40% of the electorate completely blind about what is going on in their own country.
The U.N. did what any ethical committee should do, ruling against a party in an investigation when the party essentially refuses to defend itself, based on the corroborated testimony of witnesses they did interview. The United States will never be a voice in the world of human rights until it stops flouting international norms. Even worse, as I have written before, it will serve as an example and an encouragement to other nations to flout international standards of human rights. This has been and will be a legacy of the Bush Administration.
In miscellaneous news, David Brooks, the resident conservative apologist at the New York Times, said to Chris Matthews that democrats have more nuts in their party than Republicans, and that dems insist on a “Stalinist line of discipline.” The amazing hypocrisy here is too large to address right now, but suffice it to say that Ann Coulter disagrees. She mentioned recently that "There is more dissent on a slave plantation then amongst moderates in the Republican party," a sentiment with which I agree, sadly enough.
That’s right, moderates: you are Ann Coulter’s bitch. We’ve been saying it one the left for years now. Now you can hear it straight from the horse’s mouth.
For all you conservatives out there who loooove your ad populum arguments, more bad news: Bush is at 39%. But I’m sure, as you have maintained for a year, the turn around is right around the corner! Any day now!
There’s a great story over at Crookslandliars.com about the silence of righty bloggers concerning Ann Coulter’s repugnant remarks at CPAC recently. Though Michelle Malkin, among some others, did condemn them.
While I’m happy Michelle found a conscience, I must take note of the commentator. Malkin is an Asian-American and prominent conservative blogger who has defended the internment of Japanses-Americans in WWII. I can’t help but think that Malkin, an Asian and a woman, is suffering from a rare variation on Stockholm Syndrome and really repressing some things, belonging to a party that has been hostile to women and minorities for generations. Like Andrew Sullivan and some prominent African-American conservatives, I don’t think she understands that her party wants to destroy her. Liberals shed blood, sweat, and tears in the fifties and sixties and seventies (and continue to do so) so women and minorities like her could have a voice and an opportunity in this country, and she repays them with a kick in the ass and books written slandering liberals. There is a special place in Hell reserved for people like her: in Dante’s Inferno, Caina, in the ninth circle of Hell, was reserved for those treacherous to kin.
So Michelle, I have news: no matter how loudly you mouth their politics, the bigoted white men still want to destroy you. I know it’s scary, but you are just hurting others with what you are doing right now. If this was 1940’s America and we went to war with the Philippines you would be put in a concentration camp where you might find it difficult to blog how you agree with your internment.
# posted by BitterHarvest @ 9:37 AM 
