Author: Thomas More

So Scooter Libby’s testimony in the Plame leak case says that Bush authorized leaking classified information in the effort to discredit Plame’s husband, Joe Wilson. Then, of course, came months and months of posturing. Of course leaking is bad, says the President. Of course I’m going to get to the bottom of this, says the President. Anyone caught leaking will be shown the door, says the President.

But like so much else coming out of his mouth since he took office, that was a lie.

But hey, it’s OK. These days, we can’t even agree what a lie is. We can’t agree what torture is, or what treason is. Hell, we don’t even know what “war” is. Until Bush took office, I thought these were pretty easy concepts to understand. But no more. 9/11 changed everything, didn’t you hear? Christians are now the persecuted ones. Up is down and green is blue. War is, literally, peace. Unless we say otherwise. And if you even start thinking that the Emperor has no clothes, we’re going to drag you into the town square and set you on fire, you dirty terrorist-lover!

Does anyone care? Is anyone even listening anymore? (This morning, the day after Libby’s testimony became public, the infamous “liberal press” didn’t ask Scottie McClellan a single question about the Plame case. Not a single one.)

Not much else to say.

“It is simply amazing how some people will take the silk purse that is Iraq and try to mangle it into a sow’s ear, based on nothing but press accounts and pessimistic analysts.”

–Dean Esmay

Bonus bugfuck insane comment on Dean’s “silk purse” post:

“If this is Vietnam, it’s Vietnam done right.”

Call McMann and Tate! We have a winner!

From Eschaton:

Kudos to Feingold for supporting gay marriage. It’s the right thing to do, and we’re the party of the gay anyway so we might as well be right on the morality. It’s not as if we’re gonna capture the hate the gay vote anyway, so it’s time we had some political leaders who, you know, lead.

The endless waffling on these issues trying to find some incoherent middle ground makes politicians look bad.

I would add, it shames us all.

Rush Limbaugh, after calling an alleged rape victim a ‘ho’, said this by way of apology:

“I regret that you heard me say it.”

Yes, Rush, we all regret every day that you don’t keep most of your thoughts to yourself. Work on that and get back to us, OK? Thanks.

BONUS STUPID RIGHT-WING COMMENT:

As part of his remarks today announcing his resignation from Congress (yay!) Tom DeLay said that Democrats are “drunk with power.”

While I’m waiting for some video of Feingold on FNS this morning, here’s a bonus link where Salon’s Joe Conason discusses the “Saddam wouldn’t let the inspectors in” lie that Bush told repeatedly.

Of course looking at it now, it’s weird to call it a lie. Usually a lie is something told when the real truth, one way or another, isn’t known by the people being told the lie. This is more like your next door neighbor meeting you on the sidewalk in a torrential downpour and exclaiming, “I love this sunny weather.” It’s a strange denial of a reality we all understand.

Still, in this Through the Looking Glass world we live in, we are surrounded by this sort of stuff. “Who you gonna believe – me or your lying eyes?” We don’t torture. Saddam and Osama were friends. The war will be swift and cheap. Global warming is junk science. Gays are destroying marriage. Terri Schiavo is conscious.

We should be used to it by now.

That’s the word for Russ Feingold’s performance in the lion’s den of Fox News Sunday earlier today. Here are some other words: forceful, strong, clear, commanding, ethical. He destroyed Chris Wallace’s barrage of right-wing talking points on the censure, one by one.

This isn’t about spying on terrorists. It’s about whether we will require the President to act within the law.

I’m desperately hoping that someone like Crooks & Liars puts up video of Feingold’s appearance, so I can link to it. If this man isn’t the country’s next President, we will all be the poorer for it.

I love the new rhetoric of the right that the only thing the President has done wrong in Iraq is he’s not good enough at “selling the war.”

Selling the war. Hmmm. To me, Iraq isn’t a used car, or a set of encyclopedias. It’s a generational commitment to expend potentially unlimited amounts American blood and treasure in order to install democracy in the Middle East at the point of a gun. (It used to be about protecting America, but that’s *so* 2003.)

I don’t think that the American people should have to be “sold” on a war. The case should be so clear, so obvious that no “selling” should be involved. A war should be scuba equipment in the ocean, not a Hummer in the suburbs.

People who live in America are Americans. People who live in England are English. People who live in France are French.

But people who live in Holland are Dutch.

What’s up with that?

When George W. Bush took office, the national surplus was $236 billion.

After six years of Republican control, the national debt is now $400 billion.

Recently, Congress approved raising our debt ceiling (think of it like filling out all those pre-approved credit card apps that come in the mail – all at once) to $9 trillion. According to the London Times, that amount of money would buy you 28 full-size replicas of the Eiffel Tower – in pure gold. (Or 9,000 Buckingham Palaces. Presumably, not in gold.)

Thanks to Democratic Underground, which basically wrote this post for me. But I thought it was too good not to share.

Well, now that RedState founder Ben Domenech has been forced to resign from his job as the WashingtonPost.com’s resident conservative blogger because of a rather extensive history of plagiarism, the knives are out as usual. This is my favorite line from a commenter:

I repeat: Should the entire American Left fall over dead tomorrow, I would rejoice, and order pizza to celebrate. They are not my countrymen; they are animals who happen to walk upright and make noises that approximate speech. They are below human. I look forward to seeing each and every one in Hell.

You first, buddy.