Democracy is ugly

The problem with these Washington State Democrats is that they're too damned democratic. Every viewpoint is heard, and, unlike my beloved GOP, there is a multiplicity of them. Then they have to vote on them.

Our Leader doesn't allow this kind of messiness to occur in His party. He crushes dissent. It makes our conventions nicer.

Liveblogging the WA State Democratic Convention

Shod in Birkenstocks and sporting a beret, I've infiltrated the Washington State Democratic Convention. I'm posting this from the press room, now. Andrew is here as well and posting his poison, live, with video.

Oh, the foreign policy plank is next on the agenda. I better go.

Update: N from Peace Tree Farm is here as well.

Mrs. Malkin's Morality Primer

The Green River Shiller targets placenta litterbugs

Rep. Dave Reichert (R-Psilocybin) engages a new kind of enemy.

A reading from the Gospel of Mary Maglalang

More gospel goodness from Our Lady of the Concentration Camps (helmet tip to Crooks and Liars)

Republican Jesus tees and mugs available here

Republican Jesus Archives.

Fido doesn't live here anymore

Sen. Rick Santorum
United States Senate

Dear Sen. Santorum,

You're down 23 points in the latest polling. Perhaps it's time to reconsider how you're handling the controversy surrounding your place of residence. People just aren't buying your claim that you live in a house that has no curtains or furniture.

If I were you, I'd start telling people that you lived in a van down by the river. That way, no one could check up on you. If anyone tried, all you'd need to say is that you move your van every day because hobos are constantly trying to steal the mason jar in which you've interred your little fetus-American.

I'd buy it. God damned hobos.

Heterosexually yours,

Gen. JC Christian, patriot

Update: Ok, ok, ok, I admit it. I ignored my instincts and went a bit overboard on this post. For those of you who are horrified that I sent this to Santorum, don't worry. I didn't. I'm out of town again (I'm starting to really hate hotels) and for reasons I won't get into here, I never email these things while I'm on the road--I wait until I get home. I won't be mailing this one.

But I still think Murtha's a traitor and Kline is blameless.

But he's a Republican, dammit!

Bob Owens, Confederate Yankee
Biggus Dickus, Blue Crab Boulevard

Dear Mr Owens, and Mr. Dickus*,

Thanks for getting back to me, but I'm afraid that you misunderstood my email. For some reason, you seem to believe that I was criticizing you for attacking Rep. John Murtha for his comments about al Haditha while ignoring similar comments made by Rep. John Kline.

Nothing could be further from the truth. Rep. Kline is a Republican. There's nothing to be gained politically by attacking him. In fact, it would be counter-productive, because it would weaken our message that John Murtha and his ilk are America-hating dupes of the Islamunist menace.

Although I can't help but be a little upset over this misunderstanding--I worry that someone might be left with the impression that I lack the capacity for fear needed to fully support the Iraq Phase of Our Eternal War to Resubjugate the Brown People--I do believe that something good came about because of it. It forced you to write better talking points to justify your disparate treatment of the two Congressmen (although "because Kline's a Republican" is good enough for us, it might not play as well with a less partisan audience).

You did well, Mr. Yankee. How could anyone argue with this:

I called for Murtha's censure because he attempted to short circuit the military criminal justice system, prejudging these Marines guilty without the benefit of due process, and potentially compromising the integrity of the criminal proceedings. I made no complaint against Kline, because Kline never even approached improperly interfering in this case.

Of course there will be those who would claim that this statement by Kline also prejudges the Marines:

This was not an accident. This was not an immediate response to an attack. This would be an atrocity.

But those who would say such a thing are likely traitors or worse yet, Islamintern agents bent on destroying our will to bleed the Iraqi people into submission.

And besides, Rep. Kline is a Republican.

Heterosexually yours,

Gen. JC Christian, patriot

*I really don't have anything to say to Mr. Dickus. I just like writing his name. I find it very exciting for some strange reason. It touches me in a very special place and awakens things I thought had died long ago.

In a related development, Jay Tea of Wizbang betrays himself as a Gallic infiltrator by attacking me in French. Anyway I think he attacked me. Since I don't speak French, I can't be sure. I suppose that the phrase he used, "folie a douchebag" could be a shout out to John Hinderaker.

This isn't the first time he's used that phrase. He wrote the same thing in an email responding to August J. Pollak's 2006 George W. Bush Dead Kitten Survey.

God damned Frenchmen.>

Why do ex-Marines hate America

Hugh Hewitt, Hugh Hewitt Show
Bob Owens, Confederate Yankee
Gary Gross, California Conservative
Biggus Dickus, Blue Crab Boulevard

Dear Mr. Hewitt, Mr Owens, Mr. Gross, and Mr. Dickus,

About a week and a half ago, each of you published scathing posts attacking Rep. John Murtha for his comments about war crimes at Al Haditha, Iraq. Mr Owens called for Murtha's censure; Mr. Dickus demanded his resignation; Mr. Gross wants him frog marched off the Hill.

What seemed to enrage you the most about Murtha's comments was that he had made them before it has been established by the Marine Corps that a crime had been committed. I couldn't agree more. I mean we aren't talking about a goatherd at Gitmo here, we can't jump to any conclusions until Our Leader and Sean Hannity tell us it's acceptable to do so.

Maybe it wasn't a war crime at all. The final report might show that the victims were all terrorists. Who knows? Perhaps the 6 year old was shouldering an RPG and the 3 and 4 year olds were manning a .50 cal machine gun. We won't know until the final report is issued.

But as much grief as you gave Murtha for his remarks, you haven't written a word about these remarks attributed to Rep. John Kline:

"I was saddened, surprised and outraged that this could happen," Kline said. He said he thought the incident would be regarded as "a horrific aberration" for the Marines.

or these:

This was not an accident. This was not an immediate response to an attack. This would be an atrocity.

Why have you been silent? Isn't he jumping to the same conclusion as Murtha? An official report hasn't been issued. He can't be certain that a war crime was committed, can he.

Worse yet, like Murtha, Kline is a retired Marine. Why is it that these ex-leathernecks seem to be the angriest about what happened at Haditha? Does leaving the Marine Corps cause you to hate America? Maybe you should look into that.

Oh wait. I just realized that Kline is a Republican and one of Our Leader's most loyal servants.

Never mind.

Heterosexually yours,

Gen. JC Christian, patriot

Note: I added the second quote after I sent the email. Confederate Yankee obviously didn't see it before he wrote this post.

Thanks

Thanks to Molly The (Liberal) Girl Next Door, Darryl of Hominid Views, Carl the man behind the Washington State Political Report, and the Jivester, MJS at Correntewire for filling in for me while I vacationed at this lakeside estate:



Surrounded by great works of art:





God-fearing neighbors:







And first class recreational facilities:



My Inner Frenchman hated it.

Governor Theodore

Ted Nugent
China Spring, Texas

Dear Mr. Nugent :

I was delighted to see you announce your candidacy for Governor of Michigan this weekend. Overall, I though you did a splendid job in getting your message across and defining your political philosophy in this, your inaugural interview as a gubernatorial candidate. Even so, I thought I could offer you some helpful pointers that will maximize the utility of future interviews.

Handling the Media

When you announce your run for political office, consider doing so in a U.S. publication. While the readers of The Independent will, no doubt, become big boosters of your bid for Lansing, sadly, few of them will be eligible to vote in the Michigan election.

When doing political interviews, it is probably best not to preemptively deny rumors…particularly when the reporter has no idea what you are talking about. For example, this exchange:

Nugent: "Neither did I poke my erect penis through a map of West Virginia - did you read that?"

Reporter: "No."

During media interviews, refrain from teaching the journalist how to shoot an AK-47, and don’t pull out a hunting knife to trim your nails. These behaviors will not help with the urban vote.

I cringed a little while reading:

He fires at a Styrofoam bear using his weapon of choice, a traditional bow and arrow. "Straight through the heart... dead bear," says Ted, as his heavily pitted target submits to yet another onslaught. "Both lungs... dead bear." The arrows, which he makes himself, keep flying. "Dead bear... dead bear... dead bear."

I recommend that the next time you experience a maniacal bout, first ask any journalists to step outside the room. And, certainly avoid this type of behavior during a debate.

When a reporter asks:

"What do these deer think when they see you coming?" …"Here comes the nice guy who puts out our dinner? Or, there's the man that shot my brother?"

Reconsider your response:

"I don't think they're capable of either of those thoughts, you Limey asshole. They're only interested in three things: the best place to eat, having sex and how quickly they can run away. Much like the French."

I mean, just consider the heat that Arnold Schwarzenegger took from calling some legislators “girly men….”

The same can be said for your rather strongly stated philosophy:

"Remember the movie Old Yeller? Everybody loved him. He brought us our slippers. We gave him cookies. But when Old Yeller gets rabies, you shoot him in the fucking head."

This won’t play well among voters with young children--on a number of levels.

Finally, firing a .22 out of the window of your pick-up truck while shuttling members of the media may be constructive while running for office in Texas; however, voters in Michigan view this as falling outside the range of normal behaviors for a politician.

Foreign Policy

A well-formed foreign policy platform can be an asset in running for Governor of Michigan, but your statement that "[o]ur failure has been not to Nagasaki them [the Iraqi insurgents]," is just not really an appropriate start to such a platform.

As governor, your chief foreign policy issue will be trade. Saying that you "don't have to placate some Arab numb-nut because he holds all our fuel" doesn’t leave much room for trade negotiations.

You mentioned that you:

"visited Saddam Hussein's master war room. It was a glorious moment. It looked like something out of Star Wars. I saw his gold toilet. I shit in his bidet."

Certainly, the more conservative voter will be able to appreciate the rich metaphor of defecation on the “French throne” of the ex-dictator. However, scatological discussions are best avoided unless they somehow pertain to agricultural productivity.

Crime and Punishment

While being tough on crime is considered a positive attribute by Michigan voters, some might find disconcerting your statement:

“I say if somebody robs you, shoot 'em. I'd like all thieves killed. And all rapists. And carjackers. No more graffiti. No more ‘snatch-pursing.’"

At the very least, your suggestions of shooting graffitists will not play well with urban voters who would prefer to have fewer episodes of gun violence in the city.

Simple policy statements are always the most effective--especially with conservative voters. Even so, your statement

"How do you get peace, love and understanding? First of all you have to find all the bad people. Then you kill them."

will cause some voters to question your ability to work through complex issues.

I’m not sure you can refine the talking point:

"I saw the riding crop. A lot. I felt it, I think, just once. But corporal punishment is real good. It teaches dogs not to shit on the couch."

Consider leaving this out of future interviews.

Think about these points as your campaign progresses, Ted. With just a little refinement of your message (a little rephrasing here, a little behavioral modification there) I think there is an excellent chance that one day I will have the privilege of shaking the hand of the Governor of Michigan--the Governor who personally kills all the meat he eats.

Yours verily,
Darryl
hominidviews.com

My Inner Frenchman thinks about Memorial Day

I'm miles from an internet connection as I write this. I'll sneak into town later tonight and steal a few minutes of wifi bandwidth to post it, but I probably won't have time to find links to some of the things to which I'll refer. Sorry about that. It’s the best I can do from here.

I've been thinking about what I'd post for Memorial Day this year. I really liked last year's
photo essay (I've republished it below). It expresses many of my feelings about this war: the sadness, anger and frustration I feel as I see fathers, mothers, sons, and daughters sacrificed for little more than to fulfill a spoiled rich kid's oedipal-fueled desire to escape from beneath his father's shadow.

But as much as I like the essay, it falls far short of adequately expressing the true horrors of this war. The young Americans who lost their limbs, their health, and their sanity are not represented. Neither are the carefree boys we grew to love as they camped out in our living room, vying for the attention of our daughters. Now, they’re returning from war, souless, their psyches destroyed forever.

And what about the Iraqi people? Thousands of innocents have paid the price for W's hubris, families--fathers, mothers, children, infants--torn apart by neocon greed and shrapnel. They are absent from the essay as well.

The American people are also missing. I watched the documentary, Control Room, again last night. One of the scenes featured an Al Jazeera reporter, Hassan Ibrahim, discussing the run-up to the war with a number of Iraqi intellectuals. He told them that he did not believe that the American people would allow the war to happen. He said that we were a rational people and a people who revered justice above all else. I once thought that too. With all of our faults, I believed that we were a people who truly believed in reason, justice, and the principles of democracy, and maybe we did, but it is no longer true.

We became vengeful and bloodthirsty, striking out against the innocent and the weak to ease our groundless fears. We are now Fox News. We are a nation of Malkins, Hewitts, and Charles Johnsons, frightened of everything that is different or alien to us and reacting violently.

My America is dead. Or perhaps more accurately, The America I believed in, and the people Ibrahim thought he knew, never existed. As saddened as I am at this realization, I now understand that I must fight even harder to ensure that we do not lose our way again.

That's why we must do everything in our power to ensure that America understands not only what happened at Hadditha, but why it happened. For those of you unfamiliar with that name, I urge you to read We found the Real Villain, the Republican Jesus post I did last week or look for an article titled "Details Surface of US ‘atrocity’ in Iraq" in Saturday's Globe and Mail." In short, a squad of Marines, distraught over losing a comrade to an IED, murdered at least 20 people, including a 61 year old, one-legged man and at least four children, the youngest two being 3 and 4 years old.

Although I’m disgusted by the Marine’s actions and believe that they should spend the rest of their lives in prison, I also feel very sorry for them. They were placed in a very bad situation and snapped. They’ll have to live with the knowledge and consequences of what they’ve done for the rest of their lives.

Unfortunately, those who bear the most responsibility for what happened that day, the president, vice president, Rumsfeld and the rest of the administration (including Colin “the ultimate ‘yes man’” Powell) will likely never be made to pay for sending young people like these Marines to be consumed in this shitty fucking war. That’s a terrible injustice. The evil fucks deserve life imprisonment at one of their secret Eastern European prisons.

War is a horrible thing. It destroys generations. It puts soldiers into terrible situations where they are forced to mortgage their souls. It is not something that should be entered into unless no other option is available. That’s Bush’s crime. War with Iraq wasn’t his last option. It was the only one he pursued.

So on this Memorial Day, please take a few moments to remember all of the casualties of this war and take a vow that those responsible will not go unpunished. It’s the only right way to truly honor the dead, the disabled, and the damned.

Remember

Defending us from the Constitution

Diane Tebelius
Chair, Washington State Republican Party

Dear Ms. Tebelius

Thank you so much for putting your opposition to the 14th amendment into your platform. Now the Republican Party can finally put down any vestige of being the party of Lincoln behind us. We're now the party of, well warrantless wiretaps, torture, war, and hating immigrants. Thank goodness; those have always been our country's greatest values.

But I love how you went after the Constitution in such an out and out way! That's great! The Constitution has been holding us back for far too long. I think the next provision you should go after is Article 1. Who needs a legislature, when we all know the President is just going to do whatever he wants anyway?

Consider it!

Carl Ballard
Washington State Political Report