GOP soothsayers

(Cross-posted at Hullabaloo)

Josh Marshall picks up on a key Ron Paul moment in Sunday's debate:

It's sort of obvious now that he said it. But I had not quite thought of it that way. The same people now continually raising the stakes on the price of redeployment from Iraq with increasingly lurid tales of genocide, ethnic cleansing and regional implosion are pretty much exactly the same people who gamed us into this mess in the first place with another bunch of fairy tales.

It is -- and has been -- obvious. Outside the GOP base, the people who dreamed up this nightmare have no credibility, whatsoever. Even if someone had the ability to accurately predict the future of Iraq, why would anyone think these people could? They've already demonstrated they possess the opposite of ESP.

Paul is right to mention Vietnam, the last example of a prophesied domino effect that was never to be. Somehow, nothing quells the war mongers' imaginations, though, when it comes to impending doom. The Washington Times' Tony Blankley delivered the ultimate domino rant on KCRW's Left, Right & Center back in January:

Nobody can predict. But an awful lot of experts who are not supporters of the president think there's a high likelihood that if civil war breaks out completely and were not there to contain it in any way, that Turkey will get sucked into Kurdistan, that Syria will be lapping over to support the Shias, that the Saudis, Egyptians and other Sunni countries will be giving more and more support to the beleaguered Sunni 20 percent. And in the middle of all this of course is little Israel, which according to the London Times last week, a paper of some repute having been in business for a few centuries, that they have a plan, not that they're necessarily planning to execute, they have a plan to use nuclear weapons to destroy Iran's nuclear capabilities. Now, you can't... you know, plus 19 million barrels of oil flowing through the Hormuz Straights, keeping the world's economy functioning, all in jeopardy, the Saudi oil fields, which are unfortunately for the Saudis or those Sunni country, the Shias happen to live on the Saudi oil, the danger there... so that is the most flammable possible setting.

Amazing how nobody in the White House Iraq Group or any of the president's supporters ever considered that a possibility before the invasion. At least, they never said as much. Some, like Jonah Goldberg, weren't too concerned:

Obviously, Saddam's overthrow could destabilize the region, but since when is stability the highest standard for American foreign policy? Destabilizing a stable system of cruelty and oppression sounds pretty good to me. We're all for destabilizing the mob, right?

Excellent analysis. Of course, Goldberg is now using the potential for post-departure chaos as a rhetorical weapon against the left:

Liberals used to be the ones who argued that sending U.S. troops abroad was a small price to pay to stop genocide; now they argue that genocide is a small price to pay to bring U.S. troops home.

Nobody is making the argument Goldberg assigns to liberals and, beyond that, there's little reason to believe our current strategy in Iraq is sustainable.

But let's face it, nobody who said this can claim to truly care about the Iraqis:

Q: If you're the leader of a peaceful and prosperous nation which serves as the last best hope of humanity and the backbone of international stability and a bunch of fanatics murder thousands of your people on your own soil, what's one of the smartest thing you can do?

A: Knock the crap out of Iraq.

Why Iraq? Well, there are two answers to that question.

The first answer is "Why not?" (If it helps, think of Bluto burping "Why not?" in Animal House.)

The second answer: Iraq deserved it.

Now. Here's the important part: Both of these are good answers.

More compassion from Goldberg:

"In the weeks prior to the war to liberate Afghanistan, a good friend of mine would ask me almost every day, "Why aren't we killing people yet?" And I never had a good answer for him. Because one of the most important and vital things the United States could do after 9/11 was to kill people."

The people who support this war don't care about the Iraqi death tolls. They're not motivated by any kind of real fear for the Iraqis' well-being. Of the millions displaced, only a few hundred have been allowed into the United States. The Iraqis are second-class citizens in their own country. Instead of concern for any Iraqis who might have been abused, the Right attacks anybody who alleges misconduct. They attack the credibility of any serious efforts to quantify the loss of Iraqi lives.

I'll not be lectured on compassion or history by any of them. But my point is that, aside from their cataractous crystal balls and pathological lack of empathy, the proponents of this debacle all have ample motives to push this looming-crisis meme, even if they don't actually believe it (assuming they even bothered to consider its validity as opposed to marketability).

We hear about the risks of leaving, but the risk of staying is clear. Every single day our troops are in Iraq, they are an unfortunate incident away from triggering a war with Iran. Thanks to the Lieberman Amendment passed a few weeks ago, our troops now have a Congressional mandate to increase their potential interaction with Iran. The last thing the PNAC signatories want to see happen is our troops leaving that powder keg. Anything they say to dissuade our egress should be viewed through that lens.

And for whatever GOP dead-enders there are whose thirst for blood is nearly quenched, there has to be a set-up for the "I told you so" that will inevitably come with every death after we walk. The "party of surrender" must be held to account for every problem that ensues after the order to leave is signed. The GOP enablers who allowed Bush to turn Iraq into the mess it is today won't be satisfied until they pin all the responsibility on the liberals.

Could the Iraqis suffer more if we leave? It's a possibility. But they don't want us there and the fools who started this war and the lunatics who want to expand it just can't be taken seriously when the question is debated.

Is our Cheney learning?

In my quiet, but urban neighborhood, after the sun goes down, you don't hear a lot. Pretty much any sound you hear is the result of a human. The loudest noise invariably comes courtesy of the LA Times, who, I'm convinced, deliberately remove the mufflers from their delivery vehicles.

Unless the earth does something to remind you that you are on it, it's easy to forget that's the case. Despite the most obscenely expensive 3-D computer-animated weather reports on the local news, you could go months without hearing a forecast here and it would have absolutely no impact on your life. The only time I've seen more than 12 stars in the sky here was after the 1994 Northridge earthquake knocked out all the power.

Last night, I was lured outside by an eerie conversation. Under the light of a nearly-full moon, I discovered that the nonsensical blathering was actually a pair of insane cats. I had no idea they could make noises like that.

What a relief. For a moment, I was convinced that Tucker Carlson and Jonah Goldberg (another example of the LA Times amplifying a dull roar) were continuing their bromidic paean to Dick Cheney right outside my door.

Asked by host Tucker Carlson why some critics have such a strong distaste for Cheney, Goldberg offered this penetrating analysis:

I have no idea. I truly have no idea. I like Dick Cheney — love to have a beer with the guy. I think he is a smart, serious man in American life. I think one of the things that bothers them is he doesn’t care. … He looks like he should be eating a sandwich while he’s [giving a speech]. That’s just the sort of matter-of-fact, eating lunch over the sink, oh yeah and by the way, here’s my view of the world. I love that!

As it turns out, the cats might not have just been howling at the moon. They might have been inspired to join our lunar companion in the Carlson-Goldberg celebration:

It's hard to know what these events really are, but if they're the result of gas seeping from the interior, we might learn some interesting things about the Moon by studying them. Like most people, I normally think of the Moon as a dead, unchanging place, but if it's outgassing from time to time, that view may not be so accurate.

Glenn Greenwald, typically, wrote a brilliant post about the segment:

But I want to focus on one specific exchange between Tucker and Jonah as they explored the Greatness of Dick Cheney:

[...]

GOLDBERG: And you know, but I do think that what Cheney has learned after a lifetime in Washington as a power player, is that the person who holds the secrets has power. And he is using that for what I would say, or probably what he believes to be certainly good ends. A lot of people disagree on that, but he's trying to do best as he can and he sees holding onto power as a tool to do that.

That, of course, is the defining mentality of the Authoritarian Mind, captured in its purest essence by Jonah. Our Leaders are Good and want to protect us. Therefore, we must accept -- and even be grateful -- when they prevent us from knowing what they are doing. The less we know, the more powerful our Leaders are. And that is something we accept and celebrate, for our Leaders are Good and we trust that the more powerful they are, the better we all shall be.

The part that jumps out at me in that jewel of wisdom from Goldberg is the word "learned." I guess we're finally discovering what, exactly, Cheney "learned" at the "refresher courses on ethics and handling classified materials" everybody in the administration was ordered to attend back in 2005.

Cheney "learned" that adhering "to the spirit as well as the letter of all rules governing ethical conduct" is the same thing as accumulating even more power for himself.

As was the case with "[t]he British government has learned that Saddam Hussein recently sought significant quantities of uranium from Africa," the Cheney administration has disabused me of the notion that something had to actually happen for you to "learn" that it did.

After all, I also "learned" that our government was created with three branches.

Debates: Reagan

The name "Reagan" was mentioned 30 times, sometimes referring to Nancy, in attendance.

Giuliani said the name five times, with McCain and Romney coming in tied for second with four mentions.

The most ridiculous mentions?

MR. GIULIANI: It really depends on what our intelligence says. I mean, the reality is, the use of military force against Iran would be very dangerous. It would be very provocative. The only thing worse would be Iran being a nuclear power. It's the worst nightmare of the Cold War, isn't it, the nuclear weapons in hands of an irrational person, an irrational force. Ahmadinejad is clearly irrational. He has to understand it's not an option. He cannot have nuclear weapons. And he has to look at an American president, and he has to see Ronald Reagan. Remember the -- they looked in Ronald Reagan's eyes, and two minutes they released the hostages.

Sigh.

UPDATE: Think Progress also notes that George W. Bush's name was uttered only once, and barely that.

Also, by their count, the candidates mentioned former President Reagan 19 times. DB had included "Nancy Reagan" and also moderator Chris Matthews' mentions in the 30 total. Giuliani still wins with five.

Narcissism

DB learned today that FEMA and the Center for Disease Control, among other agencies, exist only to make me feel better about myself.

Beam them all up, already

A quick Google search for the utter prick who sent white powder to Nancy Pelosi, Keith Olbermann and others yields this dilithium crystal, apparently sent by him to SciFi Channel:

With the passing away of Lexx ends an intriguing albeit smarmy experiment in sci-fantasy. One that breaks with conventions, or should I say, cliches of TV sci-fi of the '90s. The politically correct pabulum, the multicultural indoctrination, the Bladerunner motifs, and not the least—the steroid mutated superbabes that can punch the lights out of men, but never get punched back in return!?

How about creating a new sci-fi anthology with none of the puerile baggage of Rod Serling, Gene Roddenberry, Rockne O' Bannon, etc., etc. It is time to end their reign of Left-wing innuendo, their anti-American, anti-mankind cynicism and fatalism.

Yes, please SciFi Channel, return us to a world where liberals don't regulate how we spend our quatloos. Oh yeah, and more scenes with women getting punched by conservative men.

Let us create a future of infinite possibilities devoid of the agenda of the social engineers who work their corruption on us through the one-way world of television (kind of how the liberal-left have always worked). A world where anything is possible but not everything is possible. Anything can happen, but not all things can happen at once. That is what time is for, to keep all things from happening at the same moment. That shall be the only rule of our new fantasy world. That an event happens only once. What has been done, cannot be undone. There is no turning back the sands of time. You can review the past but you cannot change the past. That a vision of a possible future, to the present, must be taken in the context of the present. A cosmos not governed by compassion or tolerance or equality, but common sense and merit. A universe of strange and totally new lifeforms and not distorted reflections of human characters in our present world, just to make some social allegory—that is the insipid barren road of Political Correctness that sci-fi entertainment has been a slave to for so many years.

The future is not the current events of our world thrown into outer space. The future is not with the Liberals, not with the Multiculturalists (both hate America), and it is certainly not to be found in Canada! The future is not written, the future is unformed.

Is it any wonder that the romulan wine-drinking followers of the modern conservative movement are on the frontlines in the war against liberal control of comic book reality? That Jonah Goldberg thinks George W. Bush should kill a bear and eat its "still beating heart" to show the Democrats who's boss?

Yeah, this Jonah Goldberg:

In a recent issue of Prospect, a high-brow British political magazine, authors Charles Shaar Murray and Mike Marqusee make many of the same points I've just made about the story arc of the "Trek" universe. But that's where our agreement ends.

They believe "Enterprise" is another example of exhausted writers lacking the confidence of the original series.

"What will become of 'Star Trek's' visionary liberal humanism?" they ask. Their answer is nothing. "… by retreating into the prehistory of its own mythos in 'Enterprise,' it seems to be telling us that we no longer have much of a future at all."

And, because they are liberals writing in a liberal egghead journal, they suggest the real culprit is … George W. Bush.

Of course, this is a stretch, not least because "Enterprise" was conceived and filmed mostly before Bush was elected.

But if we are going to score political points, there is another interpretation. "Enterprise," with its rediscovered emphasis on "human" (read American) values and its revived enthusiasm for the thrill of exploration, is, to me, good news for American culture. The 1990s were more aimless, corrupt and materialistic than the so-called "decade of greed" that preceded them. With the end of the Cold War, and the election of a straightforward, honest and non-intellectual president, we could have said America was "getting back to basics" even before the patriotism we've seen since Sept. 11.

That's how I see "Enterprise." Flawed - as is all science fiction, like all mortal things - but its heart is in the right place, and it is unconfused about its priorities. And that's good news for "Trek" fans and normal Americans alike.

UPDATE: A sleuth has discovered that this criminal was also a regular on FreeRepublic and used similar language. Shocking.

Subsidize this

DB told the LA Times to stop sending the paper when they replaced Robert Scheer with Jonah Goldberg. That was the last of many straws.

Today, as Los Angeles' biggest paper lays people off and swirls in turmoil, this blogger feels happier than ever not to be paying for bottom-feeding crap like this (Goldberg, at NRO):

How Bush Should Handle Loss
I think James Baker and Dick Cheney should take Bush out to the woods around Camp David. After 24 hours in a sweat lodge, he should be given only a loin cloth, a hunting knife and a canteen of water. Bush should then set out to track and kill a black bear, after which he should eat its still beating heart so he can absorb its spirit. He should then fly back to Washington in Marine 1. His torso still scratched from the bear's claws, his face bloodied and steaming in the November chill, he should immediately give a press conference at which he throws the bearskin on the front row of the press corps, completely enveloping Helen Thomas, declaring, "I'm not going anywhere."

This will send important messages to Democrats and well as to our enemies overseas, who are no doubt high-fiving as we speak.

These GOP shills really think the world is one big comic book, don't they? Somebody put a valium in Jonah's tube of Pillsbury.