Frank Rich: Bush Smaller Than Life

The Bush Presidency, in their own words, comes down to "stuff happens". Looting in Baghdad? Levies breaking in New Orleans? Housing bubble?

As Frank Rich lays out the end days for W, even a tragic hero, Bush has let us down. Not so much the obvious villain he is, Rich finds him too small and banal for the category calling him "smaller than life".

"The joke was on us. Iraq burned, New Orleans flooded, and Bush remained oblivious to each and every pratfall on his watch. Americans essentially stopped listening to him after Hurricane Katrina hit in 2005, but he still doesn’t grasp the finality of their defection. Lately he’s promised not to steal the spotlight from Barack Obama once he’s in retirement — as if he could do so by any act short of running naked through downtown Dallas. The latest CNN poll finds that only one-third of his fellow citizens want him to play a post-presidency role in public life.

Bush is equally blind to the collapse of his propaganda machinery. Almost poignantly, he keeps trying to hawk his goods in these final days, like a salesman who hasn’t been told by the home office that his product has been discontinued. Though no one is listening, he has given more exit interviews than either Clinton or Reagan did. Along with old cronies like Karl Rove and Karen Hughes, he has also embarked on a Bush “legacy project,” as Stephen Hayes of The Weekly Standard described it on CNN."

And even as Bush tries to pass the blame off all his blunders and re-write his legacy, he will be too inept to even come close.

"The man who emerges is a narcissist with no self-awareness whatsoever. It’s that arrogance that allowed him to tune out even the most calamitous of realities, freeing him to compound them without missing a step. The president who famously couldn’t name a single mistake of his presidency at a press conference in 2004 still can’t."

Bush: the wreckage that stretches from the Middle East to Wall Street to Main Street.

Source: NYT

Bush Doctrine Dividends: Israeli Troops "Move Into Gaza"

How bad is Condi Rice checking caller ID?

Israeli ground troops have started to enter the Gaza Strip, Israeli military officials have confirmed, a week after the offensive against Hamas began.

An Israeli military spokeswoman said the intention was to "take control" of areas from which Palestinian militants have been firing rockets into Israel.

Here's to learning lessons from your mistakes! Foreign Policy for idiots, the Bush Doctrine pays off again.



Source: BBC

Obama's Weekly YouTube Address

In this week's address, President-elect Barack Obama discusses solutions for our struggling economy in the new year.



Source: http://www.youtube.com/user/ChangeDotGov

Why Does Chickenhawk John Bolton Have A Say?

Why does anyone listen and reprint what John Bolton has to say? It's always about pre-emptive war and how we should strike Iran. Broken record, John. Think of something new to say.

What is his military background? Umm, nothing.



Source: Think Progress

Bush And Republicans: No Honor Among Thieves

Paul Krugman's scathing analysis of Bush and the loser Republican party. Have some honor, own up to your mistakes:

"As the new Democratic majority prepares to take power, Republicans have become, as Phil Gramm might put it, a party of whiners.

Some of the whining almost defies belief. Did Alberto Gonzales, the former attorney general, really say, “I consider myself a casualty, one of the many casualties of the war on terror”? Did Rush Limbaugh really suggest that the financial crisis was the result of a conspiracy, masterminded by that evil genius Chuck Schumer?"

As Paul points out this was not just bad luck, or the stars didn't line up, this was many years in the making:

"The fault, however, lies not in Republicans’ stars but in themselves. Forty years ago the G.O.P. decided, in effect, to make itself the party of racial backlash. And everything that has happened in recent years, from the choice of Mr. Bush as the party’s champion, to the Bush administration’s pervasive incompetence, to the party’s shrinking base, is a consequence of that decision".

With all of Bush's disregard for our Liberty and Rule of Law, why did so many people, including Democrats, go along with it?

Source: Paul Krugman

Liberals Are Cool Wishes You A Happy New Year

Happy New Year from me to you. Here's to a great 2009!

Thanks to everyone for checking out my blog the past few months. 2008 was the first year I started blogging and I hope next year, Liberals Are Cool will be on your daily stop for news and insights.

With all the obvious bad things in the headlines, I am opting for a posting about the things I'm happy about on this the last day of 2008:

Obama is our next President
The Yankees signed CC Sabathia and Mark Teixeira
My family is less politically divided these days
The NY Football Giants have home field throughout the play-offs
My Mom's eye operation went well
My brother Stephen is happily married since December 17
Science is back in vogue
Notre Dame won a Bowl game, after losing 9 straight
Ashlee got her stolen Blackberry back, minus SIM
My Dad and VOTF are going strong
Dunkin Donuts coffee is still good
Curb Your Enthusiasm Season 6 DVD, the new Season 7 in 2009!
Dick Cheney is out of office in 20 days

I'll add more as I think of them. Comment your own if you'd like.

May your next 12 months be happy and healthy, with just the right amount of truth, vice, humor and politics from Liberals Are Cool.

Scarborough Pwned

Zbigniew Brzezinski to Joe Scarborough:

"you know, you have such a stunningly superficial knowledge of what went on that it's almost embarrassing to listen to you."

Joe lives in the world of 24 and slogans, he sees no consequences for horrible Bush policies for the past 8 years and their ambivalence toward a peace process, then mocks the guy who schooled him.

Full disclosure: Co-host Mika Brzezinski is Zbigniew Brzezinski's daughter. Maybe that's why Joe held back and didn't pull an O'Reilly.

Bush: Quote Of The Day

"President Abbas and Prime Minister Olmert, I pledge to devote my effort during my time as president to do all I can to help you achieve this ambitious goal. I give you my personal commitment to support your work with the resources and resolve of the American government."

- President Bush, November 2007, at the Middle East summit in Annapolis

This was a personal pledge. 13 months later, zilch.

With the recent violent activity between Hamas and Israel, the worst in 40 years, Bush has not even put in a formal statement for restraint, choosing to stay on vacation instead.

Shit eating grin of a sociopath from that day.

You Can Have Your Scandals, I Want My Money Back

Say what you will about scandals and Presidents: Nixon had Watergate, Carter had hostages in Iran, Reagan had Iran-Contra, Bush 41 had the S&L crisis, Clinton had Monica Lewinsky. They were men of weakness.

What effect did those scandals have on your life savings?

Now we have the mother of all scandals. George W. Bush defies just one scandal, he administration ideology embodies the entire meaning. His life is one big scandal. He is so good at what he does, that, regardless of your political affiliation, he has crushed your life savings, single-minded-ly and with extreme success. Don't mess with a man's money? Bush took that next level, that's the big difference here.

Through his monetary policy, his horrendous spend and borrow tactics and subsequent bailouts of entire industries, he will weaken whatever dollars you even have left.

Bush was in charge with our economy and crushed it. He softened oversight and let Wall St. crush itself. He started a war and cut taxes. He pushed ownership and increased our need to borrow. He attacked countries and crushed their economies. His policies effected gas prices which effected real prices of goods around the globe.

All around the world, Bush has taken what people had and halved it.

Yes, Presidents are capable of weak moments. But George Bush is the first President in a long time to take your money as he is committing his scandals.

John Lennon Brought Back To Life

John Lennon's likeness and voice are used in the latest OLPC ad. I like the program, just think the fake voice and use of "imagine" are lame.

Another questionable decision by Yoko.



Source: http://laptop.org/en/

If Only Bush Treated Katrina Like Terri Schiavo

Mother Jones has a great piece on the recent Vanity Fair article on Bush's mishandling of Katrina and how it killed his Presidency:

"I think this is only half right. I've long believed that what really killed Bush was the contrast between his handling of Katrina and his handling of the Terri Schiavo case, which had come only a few months earlier. It was just too stark. What the American public saw was that when the religious right was up in arms, the president and the Republican Party acted. Bill Frist performed his famous long-distance diagnosis; Tom DeLay fulminated on the floor of the House; Republicans tried to subpoena both Terri and Michael Schiavo; and President Bush interrupted his vacation and made his famous midnight flight to Washington DC to sign a bill transferring the case to federal court. It was both a whirlwind and a political circus.

And it showed that Bush could be moved to action if the right constituency was at risk. It wasn't just that Bush was mostly MIA during the early stages of Katrina, but that he was plainly capable of being engaged in an emergency if it was the right kind of emergency. But apparently New Orleans wasn't it. And that was the final nail in the coffin of his presidency."

Wiping out New Orleans was not enough for Bush, he wanted to add "wiping out your savings" to the list.

They are all nails in the Iraq coffin. Thank you George Bush for not caring.

Source: Kevin Drum

VIDEO: Peter Schiff On CNBC 12.29.08

Peter Schiff on CNBC 12.29.08. We squandered our wealth, let our infrastructure and industrial base decay, borrowed and spent too much, we still have over-valued assets and have people employed in sectors that shouldn't be.

Part 1:
Run away from the dollar! It's being inflated by the Fed. Going to collapse. Substitute "inflation" for "stimulus". Commodities is what Peter likes.



Part 2: [starts around 2:30]
Government is forcing us to borrow, substituting Government debt for private debt, pouring gas on our inflation worries. We need to pay off our debt. Buy gold!

Lee Camp: Say It Ain't So

Hilarious list of contradictions by Lee Camp. If you're going to do crime, go big.

* After having a few drinks, Dick Cheney shoots a man, Harry Whittington, in the face nearly killing him. Result: the victim gives a press conference on the steps of the hospital apologizing for causing his would-be killer so much grief. Cheney will live out the rest of his life in a mansion in an undisclosed location swimming through a pool of gold coins.

* Plaxico Burress shoots himself in the leg. Result: he is charged with criminal possession of a firearm. He will likely spend time in jail.

The difference between these two incidents seems to be that unlike Harry Whittington, Plaxico Burress was shot by a black man.

and

* The Bush administration permits the use of dogs in interrogation and torture of suspected terrorists. This is a violation of the Geneva Conventions. Result: none except that Bush's Scottish terrier Barney occasionally gives him the stink eye.

* Michael Vick gets convicted of helping to run a dog fighting ring. Result: he's sentenced to 23 months in federal prison.

So if you use dogs to harm dogs, you're sentenced to jail time. If you use dogs to harm humans, you receive no repercussions except a moderate grilling on Meet The Press.

Source: Lee Camp

Six Degrees Of Bernie Madoff Gets Kevin Bacon

Six degrees of Kevin Bacon is apparently not a good think when your investments are linked with Bernie Madoff's Ponzi scheme. Looks like that Footloose money is gone.



Source: NYMag

Dick Clark Is Not Rockin'

Walker? Wheelchair? Let it go.

350 Dead In Four Days, Rinse, Lather, Repeat.

Would any other country get away with this?

Israel continued to launch airstrikes against Hamas targets in Gaza on Tuesday, one day after Defense Minister Ehud Barak told Parliament that Israel is engaged in an “all-out war with Hamas.”

Hamas killed 4 Israelis with rockets, Israel killed 350 [60 of them civilians] with F-16s.

Substitute any country for Israel.

Iran continues airstrikes?
Russia continues airstrikes?
China continues airstrikes?
Syria continues airstrikes?
North Korea continues airstrikes?
Cuba continues airstrikes?
Pakistan continues airstrikes?

Bombing a smaller population, with more powerful weapons? WTF?

Hamas was democratically elected. [Remember Condi Rice said she couldn't see it coming] Why is there no active diplomacy?

Ex-Aides Finally Take On Bush

Ex-Bush aides grow balls after 3 years and critique their old boss about his handling of Katrina:

"Katrina to me was the tipping point," said Matthew Dowd, Bush's pollster and chief strategist for the 2004 presidential campaign. "The president broke his bond with the public. Once that bond was broken, he no longer had the capacity to talk to the American public. State of the Union addresses? It didn't matter. Legislative initiatives? It didn't matter. P.R.? It didn't matter. Travel? It didn't matter."

Dan Bartlett, former White House communications director and later counselor to the president, said: "Politically, it was the final nail in the coffin."

Poor W, never recovered from the death of New Orleans. Trouble is, neither did New Orleans.

More to come in the February issue of Vanity Fair. I'm particularly looking forward to Colin Powell's former top aide and later chief of staff, Lawrence Wilkerson, and his take on Cheney.

"He became vice president well before George Bush picked him," Wilkerson said of Cheney. "And he began to manipulate things from that point on, knowing that he was going to be able to convince this guy to pick him, knowing that he was then going to be able to wade into the vacuums that existed around George Bush _ personality vacuum, character vacuum, details vacuum, experience vacuum."

Cheney knew what a mental lightweigh Bush was and played him like a fiddle.

We all knew Bush was a joke in 2000, we on the Left all saw this coming. The Republicans, on the other hand, seem to only want to talk about it now after all the damage has been done.

Thanks, but no thanks. Your fate is sealed. Your hindsight is worthless.

Source: HuffPo

Bush: Clown Or Villain

Bush and his two biggest objective surrogates, his wife Laura and second-wife, the invisible Condi Rice, are pushing hard to have us think long-term about his presidency. That one day we will be thankful.

Don't get caught up in his failed wars, horrible foreign policy, his out-of-control spending, his massive debt, his lack of oversight, his cronyism, the fact that 9/11 happened on his watch, his federalizing of the financial, mortgage and banking industries, his shredding of the Constitution, his torture policies, his contempt for Rule Of Law, his undying loyalty to massive failures like Rumsfeld and Cheney, his warrantless wiretapping, his choice of Alberto Gonzales, his handling of Katrina, his handling of Climate Change and the environment, his banning of stem cell research, his hatred of science, his handling of Wall St [how's your 401k?], and even his real failures like privatizing Social Security, nominating Harriet Myers for the Supreme Court and pushing for Constitutional changes for marriage.

The Three Banditos are using the "you'll see" approach. We've got absolutely nothing now, but somehow through time, this shit will turn to gold. But is this lying? Delusional, yes. Deceptive, yes. Denial, yes.

The facts are he lied about most everything. Why would he stop now?

History will be most cruel toward the Bush posse. His supporters, we'll call them close family and inner-circle political incompetents, will still find him folksy and more of a clown. His detractors, or people who like truth and facts, let's just called them carbon-based lifeforms, will find him a villain.

And the worst kind of villain. The one who does it with a smile. The one who spends all the money. The one who stokes fear to help only his agenda. The one who thinks "if only they had tried harder of believed in me more, this would have worked". That last line sounds better in German.

Maybe for some, being the worst villain isn't enough.

Seems Bush has spent the most effort trying to predict how people will think of him in 20 years then by actually doing his job now.

Source: Washington Monthly

VIDEO: The Prosecution Of George W. Bush

Donald Trump, Vincent Bugliosi, Mike Gravel, Dennis Kucinich, Sean Penn, Ralph Nader, Joe Biden and Naomi Wolf chime in.

Impeachment is over, January 21, 2009 we can start the prosecution.



Source: BuzzFlash

Teen Abstinence Oxymoron For Moronic Conservatives

If it wastes money and has negative results, it has the GOP stamp of approval. Conservatives pass their hypocrisy on to their kids:

Teenagers who pledge to remain virgins until marriage are just as likely to have premarital sex as those who do not promise abstinence and are significantly less likely to use condoms and other forms of birth control when they do, according to a study released today.

The new analysis of data from a large federal survey found that more than half of youths became sexually active before marriage regardless of whether they had taken a "virginity pledge," but that the percentage who took precautions against pregnancy or sexually transmitted diseases was 10 points lower for pledgers than for non-pledgers.

"Taking a pledge doesn't seem to make any difference at all in any sexual behavior," said Janet E. Rosenbaum of the Johns Hopkins Bloomberg School of Public Health, whose report appears in the January issue of the journal Pediatrics. "But it does seem to make a difference in condom use and other forms of birth control that is quite striking."

So take the pledge, promise your parents to wait, end up having sex, but use fewer condoms and partake in more dangerous sex. Sarah Palin must be so proud.

Bush and his GOP policy makers have spent the past 8 years with this experiment of teen abstinence and their social experiment has failed. The one thing you can count on is that when you have hormones raging through your body, you're going to want to have sex. It's nature, it's science, it's survival.

You think the Jonas Brothers and their phony promise rings, or go back to Britney Spears and n*sync, are having any effect? What about Jamie Lynn Spears learning from big sis?

By denying proper education through federally funded programs you are giving "ownership" to celebrities and urban legends to teach your kids about sex.

And what it the rationale for no condoms? The church? Does the Church deliver babies, does the Church treat sick babies? Do priests know how effective condoms are? Are they contemplating if they can afford a pregnancy?

When I want an opinion on how not to have a sexual identity, to never have sex and to never have a relationship with a woman, I'll ask a priest. He'll give me a Bronze Age perspective based on anonymous texts translated and edited by Emperors and misogynists, based on zero experience.

Source: WaPo

Detroit Goes Winless

Sort of fitting that the same year Detroit's car industry takes a hit, it's hometown football team, the Lions, set a record for going winless in a season, 0-16.

First time a team has lost all 16 games in a season.

At least they manned up, unlike wimps like Bush:

“I think the record speaks for itself,” said their stone-faced coach, Rod Marinelli, adding, “We have nobody to point a finger at other than ourselves.”

Stalin Still Has That Tyrannical Charm

I posted the other day about Hollywood's fascination with Che Guevera. Despite being a conformist anti-artist known to hunt down creative types and have them put to death, Che t-shirts are seen ubiquitously.

Seems the Russians have the same problem with Josef Stalin. He was voted third most popular Russian. His resume': "millions of Soviet citizens perished from famine during forced collectivization, were executed as 'enemies of the people' or died in Gulag hard labor camps during Stalin's rule which lasted for almost 30 years until his death in 1953."

Trivia: His real last name is Jughashvili, he was born a serf in Gori, Georgia and choose his nom de guerre, Stalin, because it means "steel". More like steal.

At the top of the list was 13th century prince Alexander Nevsky, who defeated German invaders, followed by Pyotr Stolypin, a prime minister in the early 20th century known for agrarian reforms and a clampdown on leftist revolutionaries.

Source: Reuters

Stiglitz: Capitalist Fools

Great article by Nobel-laureate economist Joesph Stiglitz in January's Vanity Fair. Behind the debate over remaking U.S. financial policy will be a debate over who’s to blame. Stiglitz, who co-authored The Three Trillion Dollar War, identifies five key mistakes under Reagan, Clinton, and Bush II.

Here is just a brief recap of the five points:

No. 1: Firing the Chairman
"Greenspan presided over not one but two financial bubbles."

No. 2: Tearing Down the Walls
"The deregulation philosophy would pay unwelcome dividends for years to come. In November 1999, Congress repealed the Glass-Steagall Act—the culmination of a $300 million lobbying effort by the banking and financial-services industries, and spearheaded in Congress by Senator Phil Gramm."

No. 3: Applying the Leeches
"Then along came the Bush tax cuts"

No. 4: Faking the Numbers
"Meanwhile, on July 30, 2002, in the wake of a series of major scandals—notably the collapse of WorldCom and Enron—Congress passed the Sarbanes-Oxley Act. The scandals had involved every major American accounting firm, most of our banks, and some of our premier companies, and made it clear that we had serious problems with our accounting system."

No. 5: Letting It Bleed
"The final turning point came with the passage of a bailout package on October 3, 2008—that is, with the administration’s response to the crisis itself. We will be feeling the consequences for years to come."

Stiglitz sums it up:

"The truth is most of the individual mistakes boil down to just one: a belief that markets are self-adjusting and that the role of government should be minimal".

Republican capitalism is dead.

Source: Vanity Fair

The Iceland Bubble

How did a whole country become insolvent? I know things are tough here, but at least our dollar is not valueless like the krona.

"Iceland is an extreme casualty of an era in which it became extraordinarily easy to borrow money. But it was more than that: An examination of the nation's banking system, which collapsed over about 10 days this autumn, reveals the degree to which Iceland was one of the international financial bubble's most enthusiastic players. Home to fewer people than Wichita, Kan., Iceland became so leveraged and so deeply intertwined with the global financial infrastructure that its collapse has rattled the world from Tokyo to California to the Middle East."

Source: WSJ