Category: Uncategorized

Here’s my memo to Democrats. It’s pretty simple:

Stop apologizing. Stop giving in. Stop pandering. Stop biting your tongue. Stop trying to be something you’re not. Stop being afraid. Stop being ashamed. Stop being a victim.

Stop it stop it stop it.

Fight back. Stand up for what you believe in. Speak out, clearly and simply. Take back the word “liberal” – right now. Step up.

There’s a lot more, but you get the point. The more we act like we don’t know or stand behind what we believe in, the more we lose. Americans value confidence and belief much more than they care what those specific beliefs are. The whole point of being a progressive is fighting for what you believe. Let’s start fighting.

“Never give up. Never surrender.”

-Capt. Peter Quincy Taggart, Galaxy Quest

HOMER: Marge, it takes two to lie – one to lie, and one to listen.

———

LISA: Dad, did you know that in China they use the same word for both “crisis” and “opportunity”?

HOMER: Yes! Crisatunity!

———-

HOMER: Not a bear in sight. The Bear Patrol must be working like a

charm.

LISA: That’s specious reasoning, Dad.

HOMER: Thank you, dear.

LISA: By your logic I could claim that this rock keeps tigers away.

HOMER: Oh, how does it work?

LISA: It doesn’t work.

HOMER: Uh-huh.

LISA: It’s just a stupid rock.

HOMER: Uh-huh.

LISA: But I don’t see any tigers around, do you?

[Homer thinks of this, then pulls out some money]

HOMER: Lisa, I want to buy your rock.

———–

MARGE: I wonder if he’s going to say anything about that horrible fish.

HOMER: Oh, Marge. What’s the big deal?

I bet before the papers blew this out of proportion,

you didn’t even know how many eyes a fish had.

— Watching Burns’ campaign advertisement,

“Two Cars in Every Garage, Three Eyes on Every Fish”

———–

MARY BAILEY: My worthy opponent thinks that the voters of this state

are gullible fools. I, however, prefer to rely on their

intelligence and good judgement.

REPORTER: Interesting strategy.

“It can’t be bargained with. It can’t be reasoned with. It doesn’t feel pity or remorse or fear. And it absolutely will not stop – ever – until you are dead.”

“For an awful lot of people on the losing side, there’s going to be a sense of alienation, of, is this the country we thought it was?”

-David Gergen

Unfortunately, my answer is yes.

“In tomorrow’s election, which would you choose: the Massachusetts liberal, or the Texas rancher?”

-random Bush flack, on “Fox and Friends” this morning

Interesting question. The problem is, neither of those guys are on the ballot. (Well, he got one out of four right – Kerry is from Massachusetts.)

The most expensive ad buy of this obscenely expensive Presidential campaign is all about Bush hugging a girl who lost her mother in the World Trade Center attacks.

Yes, I of course agree that we should be electing a President based on whether (or perhaps how vociferously) he hugged a girl whose mother died at the WTC, based on a snapshot taken by the girl’s father, a Republican marketing executive.

And yes, of course a hug from the Leader of the Free World has done more for this girl’s grief than anything her family could have done. And of course, this proves he will keep Ashley and all the other little girls across this great land safe in their pink canopy beds tonight and every night.

This is Republican repudiation of reality taken to its absurdist extreme. Illegal, immoral wars don’t matter. Deficits don’t matter. Job losses don’t matter. The most secretive administration in the modern era doesn’t matter. Lying to the American public doesn’t matter.

Hugs matter.

I feel in my bones that this election, however it goes, won’t be close. On November 2 the American public is going to wake up, and they are going to choose. They will choose the path of this country. Reality or fantasy. Democracy or authority. Peace or war. Life or death. Truth or hugs.

We’ll see. We’ll see.

Jon Stewart went on CNN’s Crossfire yesterday, and kicked ass. Here are some highlights:

TUCKER CARLSON: Wait. I thought you were going to be funny. Come on. Be funny.

STEWART: No. No. I’m not going to be your monkey.

---

CARLSON: You need to get a job at a journalism school, I think.

STEWART: You need to go to one.

---

CARLSON: What’s it like to have dinner with you? It must be excruciating. Do you like lecture people like this or do you come over to their house and sit and lecture them; they’re not doing the right thing, that they’re missing their opportunities, evading their responsibilities?

STEWART: If I think they are.

---

STEWART: Now, this is theater. It’s obvious. How old are you?

CARLSON: Thirty-five.

STEWART: And you wear a bow tie.

Jon Stewart fucking rocks. He is both my ongoing and current hero. Media Matters has the whole transcript, which is worth a read. Amazingly, I was flipping through channels and happened to catch most of Stewart’s appearance; I rarely watch CNN normally. And it was bracing and fantastic and overdue.

(Headline stolen from my friend Mike Benedetto)

How interesting has this Mary Cheney flap been? The hypocrisy of the Cheneys and the Bush campaign in general has been epic, and that’s saying something coming from them. Plus, as usual, the media follows along like drooling lapdogs, amplifying Lynne Cheney’s fake rage until she becomes some sort of mother bear in a Nancy Reagan suit.

Lynne, you didn’t have a problem when your husband brought up on the campaign trail that your daughter is….what is she again? Oh, yes. A LESBIAN. Lynne, you apparently didn’t have a problem when Alan Keyes said your daughter was a “selfish hedonist” simply because she’s a lesbian. And Lynne? How do you feel about your husband’s administration trying to amend the Constitution so your daughter can never marry her long-term partner? Not too concerned about that one, huh? How about Rick Santorum, huh, Lynne? Is he a “good man”?

And then come the yapping masses called conservative bloggers, who are just outraged at John Kerry’s mention of Mary Cheney. How dare he! Well, all of them, and Lynne too, can just shove their fake outrage. They all know that the only reason this is an issue is because 1) lots and lots of people, including the Cheneys themselves, think being gay is something to be ashamed of, and 2) it just throws the Republican hypocrisy about gay issues into sharp relief.

Although I’ve always considered Lynne Cheney to be a particularly evil satellite of the Bush team, this latest escapade has me wondering when she’s going to rip her face off and reveal the hissing reptile beneath. It can’t come too soon.

How much bullshit does the American public have to swallow before they choke?

The latest:

-When Paul Bremer said we didn’t have enough troops to win the peace in Iraq, he was speaking “off the record.”

-We invaded Iraq because of Saddam’s misuse of the Oil for Food program.

-The final weapons report, which confirms what the U.N. inspectors said before the war – that Saddam had no weapons and no ties to al Qaeda – justifies going to war.

-Public documents found in Iraq in July justify a non-specific threat warning to American schools in October.

-When Donald Rumsfeld said he knew of no real evidence linking Saddam and al Qaeda, he was “misunderstood.”

-The weapons report said Saddam had no nuclear program, and his capability to start anything up again was diminishing, not gathering. But to Condi Rice, “people are still debating.”

When are people going to start getting sick of being fed this stuff?