Some Speculations – Moon of Alabama

July 14, 2005

Some Speculations

Rove is political dead meat. There is now way out of this and short of bribing (others tried and failed) or killing prosecutor Fitzgerald, there is nothing to do about this.

Sure they can spin and scream for a while, or bomb Iran, or Philadelphia. It will only be short time relieve. Even Bush is not defending Rove anymore – this after a thirty-two year old successful relation.

The real aim of the Fitzgerald investigation has changed some time ago. The only higher up that has not been called before the Grand Jury yet is Cheney. He is the real center of gravity and that center will be taken down in a devastating Shock and Awe attack after the skirmishes are done.

Another short-term sideshow will be started by Bush naming a radical, female Supreme Court nominee on July 21 (new Abu Ghraib pictures to be published on July 22 will be publicly water-boarded for a while) – it may well fail.

The big exculpating move before the 2006 elections, reducing the U.S. forces in Iraq by some 50% (again against the advice of the professionals), will not help either. Those U.S. forces left behind in Iraq will by then live on poor air support and under constant attack. The line of communication to the Iranian harbor of Basra will be effectively closed through the lack of UK troops.

While some major Democrats still believe in the salvation of the Iraq project, calling for some 80,000 new troops to keep that (and other) projects going, the reality based Republicans have given up.

The purge around the impeachment of the Vice President for criminal deeds will only be half hearted. Only the breakdown of the U.S. economy a few years from now in a 1929 fashion will cleanse some of the damage done to the U.S. by the Cheney administration.

Posted by b on July 14, 2005 at 20:31 UTC | Permalink

Comments

Wow, now don’t go getting too optimistic there.

Posted by: Greg | Jul 14 2005 20:47 utc | 1

Now, what’s your worst case scenario?

Posted by: Colman | Jul 14 2005 20:49 utc | 2

Here is the now infamous RNC “Talking Points” web page for your amusement:

http://www.gop.com/News/Read.aspx?ID=5627

Watch them stack up behind ole Karl to lend their (temporary) support!

Posted by: Diogenes | Jul 14 2005 20:53 utc | 3

What wrath of gods, or wicked influence
Of tears, conspiring wretched men t’ afflict,
Hath pour’d on earth this noyous pestilence
That mortal minds doth inwardly infect
With love of blindness and of ignorance?
Edmund Spenser, Tears of the Muses

Posted by: Uncle $cam | Jul 14 2005 20:54 utc | 4

bring it on

Posted by: annie | Jul 14 2005 21:01 utc | 5

David Gregory, the NBC News’ chief White House correspondent is asked about the Rove issue

Is this a case of the curse of the second-term scandal?
No, it would be the curse of the first term. This happened in the first term. This is perhaps the curse of a controversial basis for going to war.
Really what this is about is the case for going into Iraq. The issue is really the debates about the war, the evidence that was used to go to war, and the claims that were made by this administration that proved to be false.

He is right – Rove is a sideshow. The real questions are: Cheney, Energy task force, decision to invade Iraq – that is a very, very direct line.

Posted by: b | Jul 14 2005 21:01 utc | 6

I have three dogs, two male and one female. The boys occasionally fight over her affections. She doesn’t care.
One male is a big Alsatian; and one is a pit bull, about half his size.
When they fight, the Alsatian roars, dances and bites, prances and barks and growls and slashes at the little dog’s flanks like a master swordsman. You can hear it a mile away.
The little dog just slides in close, picks himself a leg or the throat, and commences this steady chewing, chewing, oblivious to all the swordplay. Not a growl or wasted motion in it. Just chomp, chomp, chomp, implacably devouring his prey.
The Alsatian panics, gets really loud, really scared, howls and cries until I can get the terrier off. The little dog will simply eat him if I don’t.
Fitzgerald is in close now. Chomp, chomp, chomp, no matter the noise.
Maybe, may be, this nation of laws will come out on top of these crooks after all.

Posted by: Antifa | Jul 14 2005 21:06 utc | 7

Agreed that there has to be a bigger target here than Rove, and I think the real investigation is about classified information and how it’s been thrown around. That may be a reason why Miller is taking jail time.
It would be about time for Republicans– like Fitzgerald?– to do something for real after they’ve been complaining about classified leakage for years.
And isn’t it clever of Fitzgerald to get the press focused on Rove? Keeps the heat off his grand jury and the Slime Machine off his back until maybe it’s too late.

Posted by: Altoid | Jul 14 2005 21:11 utc | 8

There is now way out of this and short of bribing (others tried and failed) or killing prosecutor Fitzgerald, there is nothing to do about this.
If worse comes to absolute worse, they can still fire him. (See: Cox, Archibald)

Posted by: Billmon | Jul 14 2005 21:20 utc | 9

NBC’s David Gregory: “Really what this is about is the case for going into Iraq. The issue is really the debates about the war, the evidence that was used to go to war, and the claims that were made by this administration that proved to be false.”
Jeeze, what did they put in the guy’s coffee today? He finds out that Scotty McClellan told him a few clever lies, and suddenly he sounds like Michael Moore.
Amazing.

Posted by: Billmon | Jul 14 2005 21:24 utc | 10

Fuck Billmon! Not only does your delivery astound me, but you just made me spit green tea all over my favorite white dress shirt with that comment!
Now whose gonna clean up this mess!

Posted by: Uncle $cam | Jul 14 2005 21:36 utc | 11

Que bueno, David Gregory!

Posted by: chris in california | Jul 14 2005 21:55 utc | 12

At the Left Coaster, they theorize that Fitzgerald is bulldogging because he knows that the damage resulting from the Plame outing is significantly greater than has been publicly disclosed.

Posted by: OkieByAccident | Jul 14 2005 22:04 utc | 13

Not only does your delivery astound me, but you just made me spit green tea all over my favorite white dress shirt with that comment!
I take it you didn’t read the “we are not responsible for dry cleaning bills” disclaimer.

Posted by: Billmon | Jul 14 2005 22:25 utc | 14

Seriously, though. What’s up with the WH press corps? They’re acting like Helen Thomas. Or as Jon Stewart noted this week, “we have secretly replaced the WH press corps with real reporters!”
I don’t get it. Why the sudden interest in GOP scandal??

Posted by: gylangirl | Jul 14 2005 23:25 utc | 15

Key reading for the day on the Rove scandal:
Sidney Blumenthal in Salon
Left Coaster definitively refuting RNC talking points trash here, here and especially here
And,
Mark Kleiman has been on fire, discussing violations under the Espionage Act among other topics. I won’t link any particular post, just go and read the whole lot.

Posted by: Bubb Rubb | Jul 14 2005 23:34 utc | 16

i am sorry but i feel none of the optimism of the comrades here. not at all – – what this empire of fools have already done is irreparable & what they still plan to do is unforgiveable
when the red brigades fought agains what represented the italian state at the time – which was only a collection of criminal interests converging & sometimes colliding – it was done connected to a deep dissatisfaction of the people of italy in general & the italian working class in particular. indeed the violence was heavily rootted in in working class history. it was as it always was, an unwinnable war. but it was a quantum leap morally for people to take the interests of the people above their own – even if their reading of the discontent was not correct. perverse as they may have been they were humanist of the highest order – they were neither fanatics or ideologues. they wanted better. they demanded better. they died & some of their enemies died to make it better. & it did become better for a time – the criminal conspiracies of the mafiosi andreotti & the small time crook craxi & their legions were for a small time totally defeated but then they transmuted into the berlusconi mafia crime family & all that valiant history has become a sorry & sad tale
but what is happening in america, in england & in australia is unbelieveable on almost every level one can name – everything that has been constructed out of decency fairness & justness that was fought or for over a century has beeen defiled of destroyed or is in the process of being destroyed
the so called middle class too stupid & too self interested to see they are the next in line & it will not be a long time coming – they can be assured of that – the most basic services will dissapear as possibilties – the circle of beneficiaries will get smaller & the people do nothing & the people who should fight for their interests squabble over politcal crumbs
if this whole criminal administration was shamed – it would be sufficient even tho they should serve long periods in prison for their crimes – they will not do so & we all know that
their criminal conspiracy will continue & we will be brought down into the shit with them. there were once giants who walked this earth & now for the most part we live with small men, hollow men ripping the guts & heart out of our futures
daily, hope is constructed breath by breath & that is our saddest defeat

Posted by: remembereringgiap | Jul 15 2005 0:06 utc | 17

…they can still fire him. (See Cox, Archibald) .
Yes they can, and perhaps they will. Or perhaps they won’t. For one thing, Watergate is still very fresh in the minds of many, and a gesture of this kind would bring certain ruin to the Republican Party (not that it really exists, but that’s a topic for another thread). For another thing, I’m absolutely certain that Damaged W. Goods, Cheney’s great enabler, has kept himself out, and let himself be kept out, of the micromanagement of his own administration. And rightly so, since he was never equal to the task in the first place, and others have always been more than willing to do his work. Now watch this absentee–this
AWOL Reserve Pilot–function in the only way he can: he will deny any knowledge of the thing, he will refuse to take any responsibility, and may even be allowed to continue in office, however humiliating this is for everyone. Have we forgotten that famous interview of fifteen months ago? This is guy who’s never acknowledged making a mistake in his life: because denial is his one and only survival skill, and there’s nothing suicidal about him.

Posted by: alabama | Jul 15 2005 0:16 utc | 18

at what point can he be held liable for what transpires from members in his cabinet? assuming he can’t be dragged into plamegate can he be held responsible for lying to get us into iraq? he will refuse to take any responsibility but can he be held liable or can he just say, they led me astray? maybe it’s a stupid question.

Posted by: annie | Jul 15 2005 0:25 utc | 19

NBC’s David Gregory: “Really what this is about is the case for going into Iraq. The issue is really the debates about the war, the evidence that was used to go to war, and the claims that were made by this administration that proved to be false.”
So, when the Economist for the Labor Dept. in BushBaby’s 1st term stands up in the National Press Club & says it looks like 911 was an inside job or the result of massive incompetence done to manufacture consent for war, things’ll start to heat up – esp. when that happens on same day as release of AbuG photos…He’s so far right that he’ll play very well in military towns all over the country.
The massive incompetence argument will be heard a lot differently now that the masses have witnessed the disastrous incompetence w/which the Headless Figure ran the war, killing so many of their loved ones in the process.
Soros et al paying to put together the 911 Truth Movement with the Soldiers Parents against the War Movements is a good idea. (I noticed in the list was even an Okla. Rep. who was on the Commission looking into that bombing!! Oh dear…) The bummer is that they might so overheat things, that it may result in an enraged herd driving the “evil doers” of the admin. out of office, followed by commissions to shove reality back in the closet – in the name of healing, of course – so we’ll never find out the real story.
The irony is that just as the Pirates are running out of earth to plunder so they’re bringing their thievery back home; so Soros, having refined his techniques for over-throwing governments in Eastern Europe is bringing that knowledge back home as well. A very high price to pay for getting rid of Bu$hCo.
Expect things to get very ugly very quickly at home – as the Let the Pirates Steal Our Utility Companies provision in the Energy bill, backed heavily by Buffet portends. Expect new taxes to steal even more money from those of us from who’ve they’ve stolen so much, in the form of Carbon Taxes, new repression & increasing plunder of Everything at an accelerated pace. After all the first order of business will be reducing the budget deficit.
Since the share of the Revenues paid by business has fallen from 40% in 1940 to 7% today, and the share paid by the rich is similarly ridiculous that’s obviously who must pay. Unfortunately the blogosphere is far too busy hashing out minutae & anyway far too much in the thrall of the Pirates to be planning for this…They’ll happily go along w/Carbon Taxes…and the war against Americans will accelerate from there. (It goes w/out saying that I’d be delighted to be proven wrong…and find people working out a real Progressive Agenda to take our country back from the Pirates.)

Posted by: jj | Jul 15 2005 0:27 utc | 20

but what is happening in america, in england & in australia is unbelieveable on almost every level one can name
You can’t imagine. This morning I awoke to discover Starbucks had installed a store in my apartment. And I don’t even drink coffee, though one of the cashiers was confident I’d soon take up the habit. She gave me a frappucino sampler.
I wish they’d stop playing Aimee Mann and insipid putombo world music.

Posted by: slothrop | Jul 15 2005 0:27 utc | 21

Photo collage of the scandalized media at D.Kos. I especially like the one from Countdown with the yellow arrow going through Rummy’s head (ala Steve Martin) to point to Rove.
I’d like to invite everyone to join the “Moon of Alabama Short the Cover Singers” so that we can release a cd to sell on TV. The songs on the cd would only consist of the lines heard on the advert.
Here are some of my suggestions for the first one:
Drop the Soap (ode to Karl Rove) to the tune of “Rock the Boat.”
I Got a Crush on You (ode to Karl Rove, sung by Vinnie Walnuts)
Harper Valley PDB (The day Osama socked it to the woodchopper’s PDB)
Turd Blossom Special (instrumental)
special guest appearance by Tom Waits singing a medley of “Cold Water,” “That Feeling,” and “Romeo is Bleeding.”

Posted by: fauxreal | Jul 15 2005 0:28 utc | 22

Annie, He can be dragged into “Plamegate”. He clearly knew about it – why else would both he & Cheney have sought Outside Counsel? But that’s a long path. That’s why Soros is helping build a popular movement outside of the backrooms of power. 42% already favor impeachment simply based on the Downing Street Memos. Wait a month of 2 – it’ll hit critical mass.

Posted by: jj | Jul 15 2005 0:32 utc | 23

Posted by: annie | Jul 15 2005 0:51 utc | 24

or will he be out there flapping in the wind w/out cheney?
btw fauxreal thanks for the link, and waits!!!i read you were listening to him earlier, me to. maybe he could write a song for the funeral, cheney’s i mean. he’ll check out before they drag him away.

Posted by: annie | Jul 15 2005 0:56 utc | 25

I suggest that everyone should go over and read AmericaBlog right now.
It seems that Rove Co.’s insistence on exploiting nat’l security for the election blew a British investigation into a terror plot. The WH terror alert and information broadcast before the Dem convention exposed a plot in Britain based on Luton. The British, now burned by the WH, had to arrest the whole group immediately, blowing their surveillance. The group arrested were then able to put their backup plan into play and viola, the tragic events of last week in London.
These fucks never cared about security, only politics. Whether is was Rove burning a CIA agent or Rove burning a British terror investigation leading to the worse case of terrorism in London history, the story is exactly the same: how can we make cheap political points now, without any concern for future consequences.
Fuckers!

Posted by: Bubb Rubb | Jul 15 2005 0:59 utc | 26

@rememberinggiap
Take heart. The same thing that is happening to law here in America is what happens in all colonized countries. What is uncanny now is that this colony has colonies and so we are seeing something new and strange: when European settlers blinded themselves to the humanity of the natives here they (and we, their cultural descendants) learned new subtleties of how to hate the claims of law and humanity. That contempt evolved within our colonial culture, and now that colonial culture (this culture) is the scaffolding that has built the world’s leading power. The way that law and humanity are being both used and abused is not new exactly, but it is for a first time both colonial and metropolitan.
We will have to despair of our righteousness not merely as people of the Enlightenment and people of progress, but also as god’s chosen people of “Jerusalem on the Hill”. We are paying a debt of causes and effects, of kharma, to the notion that there is any kind of chosen people anywhere in the world, or that anyone chooses for us. And we are in need of learning respect for something more than law and order, but actual respect for the life of law, the people who rely on and transmit actual laws of society. As comfortable citizens of the planet, we colonial metropolitans will only learn this respect by learning the need we have for fellowship toward and from those we and our forebears continue to cast into destitution.
Perhaps we will have to beg the Cubans for knwoledge of how to farm, the Iraqis for knowledge of how to survive radiation, and our own poor for knowledge of how to try again today despite yesterday. That seems to be our path.
So yes, there were once giants who walked the earth. But we are all going have to stop worshipping those giants and start sharing the legacies of unknown and unfamiliar giants if we are to learn enough respect to survive.
rgiap, the work you do here of sharing our giants with us is invaluable. Stay strong brother.

Posted by: citizen | Jul 15 2005 1:00 utc | 27

what about neal sedaka’s scoobie doobie DOWN doobie do DOWN DOWN breakin up is hard to do….
don’t take your love away from me

Posted by: annie | Jul 15 2005 1:00 utc | 28

rgiap, the work you do here of sharing our giants with us is invaluable. Stay strong brother.
i second that.
thanks for your post citizen, you earn your name everyday

Posted by: annie | Jul 15 2005 1:07 utc | 29

@jj carbon taxes are not some kind of elite plot but a serious proposal to limit fossil fuel squandering. whether they would be implemented honestly or fairly in the US is of course dubious, but please don’t taint the whole concept by association with either the BushCo regime or the Soros gang…

Posted by: DeAnander | Jul 15 2005 1:10 utc | 30

even if 90% favor impeachment doesn’t it take the house and the senate? that’s what i’m wondering, he can’t be arrested even if he friggin murders(and he has) someone. are there any exceptions. do you think the rethugs would ever impeach….under any circumstance. or possibly have to wait til 06 ?
Posted by: annie | July 14, 2005 08:51 PM | #
Exactly, there will be no Chimpeachment.
However, I would not be surprised if W goes down as one of the most craven Presidents of all time. Even more medacious than typical shits like Coolidge and a rehabilitated Nixon. I mean lets see what he has done, oversaw the largest intelligence failure in US history, leading to the largest attack on US soil by foreigners since the Revolution. Then he engages in a war of choice based on lies and no clear or coherent strategy destroying the military and hurting nat’l security as the N. Koreans and Iranians build nukes right under their noses. All the while engaging in recleckless fiscal policy and refusing to even acknowlege that 100% of all non-quack scientists believe that global warming is a real and serious problem that needs immediate attention. With only three major domestic legislative victories (1) No Child Left Behind (a huge unfunded mandate on local school systems focussing more on testing than on education and learning as the average U.S. child becomes less competitive than the average Indian child); (2) Medicare prescription drugs (a scandal on itself, not to mention the cost); and (3) Department of Homeland Security (spends more time reorganizing, developing and issuing color coded alerts, makinng you take off your shoes at the airport and wasting money than enacting smart and effective security for ports, transit and high risk facilities).
I don’t think this is a legacy that anyone wants to have. Ever.

Posted by: Bubb Rubb | Jul 15 2005 1:16 utc | 31

MSNBC has a poll: Should Bush fire Rove?
Currently, YES is at 88% out of ~100,000 votes.

Posted by: Outraged | Jul 15 2005 1:17 utc | 32

osama’s head on a pike would give Bush a bit of a reprieve.
he sure needs a WOT success story, fast.

Posted by: slothrop | Jul 15 2005 1:22 utc | 33

ô i am strong citizen especially in these hours & a art of that strength derives from the communications here. of that for me there is no question. & citizen as annie sd you show what that means – & it is clear that someone like you – takes responsibility
the work i do here – tho it is based on creation – begins with breath – but is wholly concerned with the responsibilisation of people – of demanding, of fighting, of pushing people to take their destiny in their own hands. i have had a an algerian boy who was considered permanantly psychotic unable to speak – who now has started university – who commences a history while not denying what he once was – in fact honouring what he once was & taking responsibility for it – bot the careless & brutal father, not the constantly destressed mother -, not the brother imam who suicided but he begins really to take responsibily & who now writes forms of sufi poetry heavy with eroticism & dread but living
& we are surrounded by these ‘leaders’ who cannot accept one ounce of responsibility. who believe we are so dumb that we cannot remember the lie they told last week – when rumsfield sd on a wednesday it was close to ginished then on sunday that it coould last 12 years – they really do not expect us to remember
in their minds we are detrius – not worthy of a moments notice – their own allies they would comprimise & their enemies they carpet bomb with armnaments or lies produced by murdoch. day & night
& alabama is correct – this culture who so easily calls anyone different – a loser – get a life – whatever – has as its chief – someone who made losing an almost transcedental theology. the fuck up of fuck ups & he sneers at us at every press confernece or sends his stooges to repeat words so ban in their offering but hiding the deepest of indecencies & done so casually “i’ll take that questionbob – we know each other well – you know i cannot answer……” & the dullards for the most part sitting there as if in some mad baptist meeting – where after every lie every repetition of that lie – they all cry out halleluja & call it an op ed
citizen – work & love have built the man but his context has always been political, civic – to be a citizen & from my mothers breast – i accepted responsibility as one of our deepest virtues

Posted by: remembereringgiap | Jul 15 2005 1:29 utc | 34

he sure needs a WOT success story, fast.
Posted by: slothrop | July 14, 2005 09:22 PM | #
I think the problem is that he is out of options for success stories, because they themselves have defined success in the WOT as “a stable and democractic iraq”.
You tell me what needs to happen to have some success to trumpet those goals?
Furthermore, people are not biting the terror bug like they used to. I was shocked to hear a letter writer to NPR say today that they were tired of the heavy coverage of the London bombing. A major terror alert here in the US would probably not draw much notice anymore and a major attack would probably lead to huge negatives at Bush for not keeping us safe.
As for finding Osama, who knows what the impact would be. They have spent so much time downplaying his importance and ignoring his name that I doubt it would rally anyone other than the 101st fighting keyboarders.

Posted by: Bubb Rubb | Jul 15 2005 1:30 utc | 35

Porter Goss: We have an excellent idea where he is…
Milton Bearden: I would suggest that if Porter Goss knows where Osama bin Laden is, I’d just say go get him.
The Osama Blues:

Now some say he’s doing
the obituary mambo
and some say he’s hanging on the wall
perhaps this yarn’s the only thing
that holds this man together
some say he was never here at all
Some say they saw him down in
Birmingham, sleeping in a
boxcar going by
and if you think that you can tell a bigger tale
I swear to God you’d have to tell a lie…

Posted by: slothrop | Jul 15 2005 1:31 utc | 36

& annie as ever our sister in struggle
venceremos companero

Posted by: remembereringgiap | Jul 15 2005 1:31 utc | 37

Porter Goss: We have an excellent idea where he is…
Milton Bearden: I would suggest that if Porter Goss knows where Osama bin Laden is, I’d just say go get him.
The Osama Blues:
Now some say he’s doing the obituary mambo and some say he’s hanging on the wall perhaps this yarn’s the only thing that holds this man together some say he was never here at all
Some say they saw him down in
Birmingham, sleeping in a
boxcar going by
and if you think that you can tell a bigger tale
I swear to God you’d have to tell a lie…
Posted by: slothrop | July 14, 2005 09:31 PM | #
It makes me wonder if Osama was not in fact the inspiration for Kaiser Soze, or maybe the other way around.

Posted by: Bubb Rubb | Jul 15 2005 1:39 utc | 38

“I Wanna Be Your Dog” sung by Rick Sanitarium and The Stooges
“Treason Blues” by Blind Lemon Bush

Posted by: fauxreal | Jul 15 2005 1:56 utc | 39

faux
hehe.

Posted by: slothrop | Jul 15 2005 2:05 utc | 40

DeA-, of course, but it’s in context. If the Context is to the effect of – well, my fellow citizens, America has been largely developed since the Industrial Revolution, and built overwhelmingly in the last 50 yrs. when USA controlled the world – and of course, the oil – and now we realize that was but a blip in human history. We must take everything apart & re-imagine a new civilization. We must produce & consume locally, so our factories are coming home to begin regional production. Agribusiness consumes 10kcal of fossil fuel energy for every kcal of energy it produces, so we will now begin a new program to promote & subsidize as necessary family & community organic & permaculture systems of food production. Our Military, fine machine though it may be (or Not!!) would be the 7th largest consumer of oil in the world, were it a country. Thus we will begin slashing their budget because it’s an even more urgent priority to spend the money on a Manhattan Project, if you will, to get everyone off the grid in the next years. Of course, we must entirely rethink our cities & transportation system. We will be cutting subsidies for airplanes & examine funding high speed rail. VW has in the research stages a car that goes up to 70mph & gets 238mpg. . We’ve also asked them to examine a vehicle for local use that goes say not more than 40mph & could get up to 400mph…As soon as practical, we will be mandating 200mpg autos… Obviously, for a Major Transformation of all the institutions of our culture that this entails, so-called “market based” solutions would be a cruel joke….
Or whatever the specifics –
Fine, then let’s start discussing carbon taxes. But to merely dump the costs on the individual for the entire re-direction of absolutely everything is unspeakable. Not to mention that this deficit was created by tax cuts for the rich & corporations, so they must take responsibility for it. To merely put McCain in as VP/Pres. w/out Blogville figuring things out a bit is very frightening. To overthrow them based on “National Security” Breaches in “time of war” & then let the Pirates take over is to have a country run by Totalitarians & Bandits.

Posted by: jj | Jul 15 2005 2:20 utc | 41

Since the share of the Revenues paid by business has fallen from 40% in 1940 to 7% today, and the share paid by the rich is similarly ridiculous that’s obviously who must pay. Unfortunately the blogosphere is far too busy hashing out minutae & anyway far too much in the thrall of the Pirates to be planning for this…They’ll happily go along w/Carbon Taxes…and the war against Americans will accelerate from there. (It goes w/out saying that I’d be delighted to be proven wrong…and find people working out a real Progressive Agenda to take our country back from the Pirates.)
jj, I like your posts immensely, but you have lost me here. What do you mean by Carbon Taxes (simple gas tax?), and how would a war against us accelerate from there? And who are the Pirates? And who do you mean when you say it’s obvious who must pay — the poor and midle class, or the rich who have been unfairly de-taxed?

Posted by: Thaxter | Jul 15 2005 2:53 utc | 42

You may want to revisit the sentences that follow. Hate to be too anal, but if the wingnuts get a hold of this they may hold it against us (in there normal stupid fashion).
“There is now way out of this and short of bribing (others tried and failed) or killing prosecutor Fitzgerald, there is nothing to do about this.”
“It will only be short time relieve.”

Posted by: matt | Jul 15 2005 3:12 utc | 43

here’s the link to that AMERICAblog post
and’s here’s a little something for the language police… fuck them fascists & the wingers they rode in on

Posted by: b real | Jul 15 2005 3:21 utc | 44

For b, yeah, screw language, lets sound like a bunch of idiots who don’t even know how to speak English correctly. That will really make us sound like we know what we are talking about. Who cares if we sound like illiterate bumpkins, well, we are right, the rest of the world should just go along and try to figure out what we are trying to say. I have no idea why they would do this though.
If we go that route, why not make our arguments in a random mix of English, Spanish, and Pakistani. I am sure that would persuade even more people that we are right.

Posted by: matt | Jul 15 2005 3:38 utc | 45

matt- not that it matters, but this site is not run by an American and has many people here who are not Americans. that said, their grasp of English is better than many wingnuts I’ve heard, and, btw, how many Americans are even fluent enough in a second language to read other nations’ presses and know points of view beyond the AM radio dial?
this site is not here to “make us sound like” anything. Who are “us” anyway?
maybe you’re confused and came here by way of some CNN recommendation (which I read about concerning a post on the Whiskey Bar.) if so, you’re totally unaware of the reasons for this site (it’s not Billmon’s site.) …this is the after hours bar the regulars use when the tourists go home for the night.
anyway, if you’re some flunkie from the dems who is here to scold people into correctness, please go to dailykos…this site is not kos. As far as bumpkins, you, again, are ignorant about this site.
It’s rude to come into someone’s establishment and start criticizing it and them.
People carry on conversations here and sometimes make typos and oftentimes don’t use up bandwidth to correct them, but most people on this site can “get” the comment.
It’s really amazing to me to see you come onto this site and talk about “us” making “our” arguments…people here do not agree about many things, do not march in lockstep, and most trolls don’t stick around here for…well, who knows, tho I have my own ideas on why they don’t stay around.
Why don’t you think of something interesting to say rather than acting like the grammer police?

Posted by: fauxreal | Jul 15 2005 4:04 utc | 46

If it worked for James Joyce, matt, then it can work for the rest of us, too. And anyway, who’s trying to “persuade people that we’re right”? To borrow a great phrase from Walter Benjamin, Uberzeugen ist unfruchtbar.

Posted by: alabama | Jul 15 2005 4:07 utc | 47

and’s here’s a little something for the language police… fuck them fascists & the wingers they rode in on
YES, well said Bernhard.. As well as the nameless corrupt, co-opted and quiescent lowlife sewer-crawlers that enabled or allowed America to become a beacon to the world of how to destroy the Rule of Law, mock the concept of Democracy, wage Aggressive War for power and greed, dump on Human Rights and piss on the Constitution !
Or how about It’s Not Fascism When We Do It ! from Project for the Old American Century

Posted by: Outraged | Jul 15 2005 4:09 utc | 48

Any political theorists in the house?
The comment below comes from someone over at Kos. It struck me as interesting and odd, having no knowledge what so ever of Russian history, I was hoping someone here could elaberate on it.
Destruction was always the goal!
Let us remember that the United States government is now in the hands of folks referred to as “neocons”. That means neo-conservative, or new conservative.Let us further remember that these folks were originally Communists. They were part of a Trotsky movement in the 1930’s. They and their offspring, genetic and otherwise, over time morphed from the extreme left to the extreme right. (A political theorist will tell you that this is not such a bold step, the two ideologies being quite close.) Of course, the Trotsky folks wanted to restore Leon to the Kremlin. They also wished to destroy the United States as part of their goal of world domination. It looks as if their handles may have changed but their goals are exactly the same as they have been for over 70 years.

Posted by: Uncle $cam | Jul 15 2005 4:10 utc | 49

matt,
around here “b” is not an abbreviation of “b real” but of “bernhard”.
Thought you’d want to know.

Posted by: citizen | Jul 15 2005 4:12 utc | 50

I’m working on a longer response re “Impeachment”. I don’t have more time tonight. I’ll post this weekend.
Let me just clarify this: I strongly think, that if Chimpy doesn’t made radical changes very soon, beginning almost certainly w/asking for Cheney to go worry about his health & putting McCain in to run things, that his Administration won’t last. Whether it’s impeachment, resignations, or whatever… I’m less focused on the mechanisms than on:
1) The Situation of America at home & abroad & whether it can withstand 4 more yrs – the amount of time it’ll take to have the next Admin. up & running.
2) The Institutions of Power Arrayed Against the 3 Stooges et al.
3) The Monstrous Hurricanes their enemies are lining up on the Horizon against them.
It probably sounds like I’m being loopy here – have perhaps had a few too many…actually I’m betting on the odds. I do not see that they can be left in office for 4 more years under the circumstances. I’ve seen glimmers of an entirely new agenda that the Oligarchs/Pirates – call ’em what you will.. are working out. And I cannot bet against that much power, which is increasingly organized & focused, simply because our political imagination is focused on the bottleneck in Congress.
(Think of a river – ordinarily it stays w/in it’s banks, but when there’s too much water racing down all at once it bursts its banks. Same thing w/too much power organized & arrayed against an administration. Under those extraordinary circumstances, it can burst over, around or through that Congressional bottleneck. Don’t ask me the details. I would never have thought that the Prosecutor could amount to this much.)
Chimperor’s Administration has no plan to address the urgent problems facing the nation. And eliminating their legitimacy is easy, when the right people wish to do so. No government stays in power w/out legitimacy – at least not yet in this country.
(I am NOT addressing the possibility of them pulling another caper & declaring Martial Law to stay in power. Anyway, if I were betting, I think they’re too weak now – though if the theocrats makes more inroads in the military & CIA we’ve got a whole new ballgame. I think that’s another important reason they want to throw them out now, before that situation gets any worse.)

Posted by: jj | Jul 15 2005 4:13 utc | 51

… though if the theocrats makes more inroads in the military & CIA we’ve got a whole new ballgame. I think that’s another important reason they want to throw them out now, before that situation gets any worse
Recall I posted about this in long past previous discussions with pat … the consequences of replacing intelligence analysts and officers, as well as key military commanders, who are for all thier various percieved failings ‘realists’, with theocratic ideologues is a ‘Clear and Present Danger’ to any rational individual, regardless of political persuasion or beholdeness(?) to vested-interests … especially with the evidence of the consequences of Iraq and all the rest of the insane actions of Bush&Co right before ones eyes …
A little over the top, however:

“Mr President, if God instructed you in a dream to push the big red button and release the cleansing fire of nuclear war in order to ‘win’, would you ?“

Posted by: Outraged | Jul 15 2005 4:31 utc | 52

NYTimes
Here’s a rather strange article in tomorrow’s Timeson the subject of Mr. Rove. On the one hand, it’s clearly an exercise in damage control by a friend of Mr. Rove; on the other, it’s clearly an exercise in the infliction of damage on Mr. Rove by the Times. It’s not an article that can bring any real clarity to the affair, because too much of the picture is missing. Perhaps its chief significance lies, first, in the fact that someone is trying to leak Fitzgerald’s stuff (but isn’t a member of Fitzgerald’s team, and hasn’t much to say), and, second, in the fact that the Times is trying to get its arms around the investigation–if only to protect Judith F. Miller–and this attempt is bound to fail. And why? Because the investigation is much bigger and more complex than the Times can possibly comprehend. Or so I’m prepared to believe….

Posted by: alabama | Jul 15 2005 4:41 utc | 53

Source: Rove got C.I.A. ID from media
Here comes the grand defense…….

Posted by: Nugget | Jul 15 2005 4:53 utc | 54

@Nugget – still an open question – who gave it to the media?

Posted by: b | Jul 15 2005 5:32 utc | 55

A droll proceeding, Nugget, wouldn’t you say? Rove’s friend has spoken to two outlets, one of which (the Times) is trying to keep the plant at arm’s length, and the other of which (the AP) apparently couldn’t care less (since it only cares about running a good story). Or to put it another way: though the press is trying to treat this affair as if it were Watergate, the two are not the same; for where Watergate was a densely populated nest of serpents, each of them being handled singly (more or less) by one or another reporter from one of twenty or thirty outlets–snakes dropping from the rafters and coiling up through drains, the connections between them being anyone’s educated guess–the whole Plame affair seems to be flowing through the hands of Fitzgerald, who’s running the show like a truly skilled monopolist, sectioning his single, giant snake into fifty different segments, each of them secreted in a place apart from the others.

Posted by: alabama | Jul 15 2005 6:47 utc | 56

Only one person (Fitzgerald himself) apparently knows the whereabouts of those segments, and no shenanigans by Rove and his allies will tempt him from the scope or tempo of his investigation (for he, too, has his powerful patrons). The Times , like Judith F. Miller, will just have to wait in its cell. How very different from Watergate!

Posted by: alabama | Jul 15 2005 6:48 utc | 57

to the language cop, you might want to take your own advice.
you said – “in there normal stupid fashion”
“their” is the correct form

Posted by: gmac | Jul 15 2005 16:00 utc | 58

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