Fat Charlie: March 2007 Archives

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March 29, 2007

Thinking About Bush Always Makes The Head Hurt

Thought: Both John Dean and Hunter S. Thompson did opine that Bush was worse than Nixon. Really, doesn't that just say it all? But I am confused. Part of the meme on the Bush admin. is that they are incompetent. Well, if they were, they wouldn't be able to hide any criminal behavior from us (and yet part of me thinks: give it time.) But maybe the "incompetency" masks a deeply sinister criminal operation. Which one is it!?!

It's the same thoughts you have about Karl Rove. Logically, he was just lucky. He BARELY won in 2000, did a wee bit better in 2004... and people were scared shitless in '02 and '04 because of 9-11. 9-11 was the butter on his bread. Without that, would Bush have ever won reelection? No. So Karl Rove: really not that brilliant. But maybe he's lulling me into thinking that... to suprise me with Re-Animated Reagan/Re-Animated Goldwater '08.

You don't know with these peeps whether they are evil, incompetent or both. Nixon was evil. I don't know of a president in modern history more incompetent than George W. Bush... maybe Hoover? (And that's not even modern history.)

BTW, don't watch Karl Rove rap. It'll make you vomit in your mouth.

Posted by emily at 7:33 PM | Comments (0)

March 26, 2007

A Letter to The Panel of The Chris Matthews Show

Dear Sirs and Madams,

Much internet hubaloo has gone on over your dismissal of the attorney-gate. I didn't make it all the way though the show the first time around... I had to venture over to the more bipartisan and fair musings of one George Will. But having watched it again, I am perturbed.

Mostly, I am upset at one Norah O'Donnell. (Or Noran, as she is referred in smarter quarters.) Look, lady, I'm sure you talk to a lot of people in DC. I'm sure all of you go to cocktail parties and weenie roasts and tailgates and whatever the hell else you people do.

But you don't speak for us. Nobody elected you, but beyond that, we never trusted you, either. Just because you don't care about it doesn't mean the ENTIRE rest of the country doesn't care about it. You're not there to CARE. It's an issue and you are supposed to report on it in some fashion or another. But I don't give a hoot about what all of you preening peacocks care about, okay?

You all drooled in the 90s over Congressmen shooting pumpkins and Christmas card lists and stained dresses. Because you didn't like Bill Clinton. He just wasn't your type of guy. You didn't care for him. But you like Bush, or at least, you feel he's more... cocktail party amendable. I don't know what you see in him. It's like the friend with the boyfriend that beats her and sleeps with the cocktail waitress. We see that you're being used, but you keep staring at the bulge in his flight suit.

To recap: Don't tell us what to care about. You have been derelict in your duties for years. Every new Bush escapade that comes to light the Washington MSM treats either as a complete suprise, a complete affront or a complete insult to their dignity. Put the pieces together. Stop sipping on your cocktail and nibbling at the weenie.

And if you can't do that, in the words of the glorious Henry Rollins concerning Ann Coulter, then just shut the fuck up.

Sincerely,
Angry Viewer #5252

Posted by emily at 10:14 PM | Comments (0)

March 23, 2007

Suck It Up, Moveon.Org

I agree that the war is immoral. But you have to give Pelosi credit. I forget who, but someone smart (ah, I remember Tom Friedman. Okay, someone somewhat smart...) said that the triangulation of Bush/Gates/Pelosi helps the Iraq war.

The Dems are doing something about Iraq. They are trying. Give them credit, lefties.

By the way, this MSNBC person is moron. But everyone but KO is there.

Posted by emily at 12:44 PM | Comments (2)

March 20, 2007

Today's Presser

I have never heard George W. Bush so mad.

Posted by emily at 5:49 PM | Comments (0)

March 19, 2007

Surge This

The MSM gets punked again. "The Surge Is Working!!"

You put an extra amount of police officers in any city and crime will go down. That doesn't mean a unity government. That doesn't mean the middle class is returning. Sadr has not been captured. And these police officers aren't permenant.

I just don't think it's a simple answer of work or not work. The death toll going down is good, great news. But there was a chemical weapon attack over the weekend. That's new, not an IED.

Posted by emily at 3:33 PM | Comments (0)

March 15, 2007

Glenn Beck calls Hilary Clinton a bitch

This is what the right is about? Namecalling?!?

I fully admit to calling George W. Bush a "motherfucker" everyday between brushing the tops and bottoms of my teeth, but I don't do so on CNN. I do so on this blog, not read by many.

And, not a month after the right threw a shitfit over anonymous posters at HuffPo saying they wished Dick Cheney dead, the anonymous rightie posters are out today saying they wished KSM had succeeded in killing Bill Clinton and Jimmy Carter. Howie Kurtz, you gonna write about this?

Poor right wing. Poor MSM. They're going down hard and they don't know what to do anymore. They're like Donnie being told by Walter to shut the fuck up.

Posted by emily at 11:40 PM | Comments (0)

March 14, 2007

David Frum Makes A Funny!

Did he actually make the argument that Gonzales should stay so Bush can appoint him to THE BENCH! Man, would that make Harriet Miers pissed!

To be fair, even K-Lo isn't buying that one. But to even hint that the Stevens seat (and I'm sadly assuming it would be Stevens) would got to Gonzales... with what Senate? Please tell me what senate would confirm Alberto for SCOTUS. Try to find one on this planet, if you could.

Posted by emily at 1:12 PM | Comments (0)

March 13, 2007

Alberto On Defense

I do agree with some lib-lefts who are making a salient point: nobody got this pissed about the torture debacle. However, you go to politcal war with the unethical behavior you have.

Not going well for the Bushies, huh? Well, after Travelgate, Foster, Whitewater, the hair cut, etc... I'm going to sleep well at night. Maybe the lesson of the Clinton years is to spread your bruhahas out through-out the years, instead of all in one burst.

Posted by emily at 7:12 PM | Comments (0)

March 12, 2007

Coo Coo Ca Choo, Mrs. Greenspan

Andrea Mitchell, on Harderballs sans Tweety, said that the public supports a pardon for Scooter Libby. Well, CNN polled aforementioned "public" and only 19% supported a pardon. Question: Did she poll the other "ps" in our putrid capital, like pols, pundits and parasites?

Andrea Mitchell is MSM like yesterday's Cobb Salad. The blue cheese is rather stinky. My mixed feelings on Davey Brooks continue, but at least he said that he doesn't support a pardon and that Libby was probably guilty AND that Libby was a nice guy. All of these MSM Washingtonians blathering about how Libby gave twelve kidneys to orphans and carried Mother Theresa across hot coals to rub aloe on lepers... that does not change the goddamn motherfucking FACT that he was found guilty by a jury of eleven of his peers.

Wanna increase public confidence in the media? Don't do what Andrea Mitchell did. Don't go on the air with no numbers and say that the public wants Libby pardoned, when the public does NOT want Libby pardoned.

Don't whine about what a nice guy he is. We know. We don't care. "Nice guy" is not a defense of perjury. "Nice guy" doesn't get you a pardon.

Next time you say these things, Beltwayheads, say this, too: We've put many an innocent man to death in this country. We've exonerated people (see Innocence Project) through DNA evidence after. So, if you want to gripe about injustice in the judicial system, maybe you should start there. Because nobody's giving Scooter a lethal injection anytime soon.

Posted by emily at 10:53 PM | Comments (0)

March 9, 2007

Running Towards The Lizard King

I guess if the left can have Bill Clinton nostalgia, the right is allowed Newt Gingrich nostalgia. I suppose it would be idiotic to remind them he wasn't that fab of a speaker. They rammed TANF down Clinton's throat, but remember the shutdown? Tactical blunder, big time.

He's an idea man. I don't doubt Gingrich is very, very intelligent. But can anyone honestly see Newt as president?

(BTW, if you think Rudy has family problems... forget the affair with Newt. He left his first wife when she was ill with cancer, in the hospital.)

Posted by emily at 5:05 PM | Comments (0)

March 8, 2007

Oh. Of Course.

Gingrich had affair during Clinton probe

By BEN EVANS, Associated Press Writer 11 minutes ago
WASHINGTON - Former House Speaker Newt Gingrich acknowledged he was having an extramarital affair even as he led the charge against President Clinton over the Monica Lewinsky affair, he acknowledged in an interview with a conservative Christian group.

Posted by emily at 10:02 PM | Comments (0)

March 7, 2007

Family Values?

Weekly Standard has a blurb about America's Mayor™ and his family troubles. Anyone who saw the Post or Newsday in the late 90s on the MetroNorth into Grand Central already knows about Donna Hanover, etc... It was interesting that they compared the Andrew kerfluffle to Ron Reagan's famous "problem children". (Patti in Playboy, Ron in the ballet, both are liberals, Patti was growing weed during War on Drugs, etc, etc, etc...) But why then does the GOP always run on strong families when their best-liked pols have dysfunction up the wazoo?

I guess the GOP idea is that you don't have to get along with your adult children. Maybe. Or maybe Rudy should have just let the kid climb up the damn podium back in 1994.

The ice in Iceland is very... icy. Sipping vodka on a fjord...

Posted by emily at 6:43 PM | Comments (0)

Go Tweety!

Chris Matthews is KILLING Kate O'Bierne over this Libby thing. Making the argument about Clinton that was burning my ass yesterday. And Kate O'Bierne has no fucking idea what a pardon is. It is an admission of guilt. It is by the grace of the executive. It's not a nullification, bitch!

Signing off from Bjork's kitchen...

Posted by emily at 5:44 PM | Comments (0)

March 6, 2007

The Fired Lawyers

Another GOP shitstorm brewing. It's not illegal, but it's highly unethical. Moreover, it points to what an asshole Karl Rove is. If we needed anymore proof.

I'm beyond sick of this administration. I was sick of them in February 2000. Now I'm just considering moving in spirit and mind (body doesn't have the cash) to Iceland. They've got Bjork.. plus, with the global warming, it'll be beach property in a few years.

See you in the Reykjavík funny papers.

Posted by emily at 11:18 PM | Comments (0)

Long Term Memory Loss

Fuck bipartisianship. Fuck it, fuck it, fuck it. I've watched too many righty-rightys on the tube today flat out ignore events of the 1990s. Fucking hypocrites, one and all. I wasn't so angry when all this was happening to Bill Clinton as I am now.

Whitewater/Travelgate/Vince Foster/Monica Lewinsky
Prosecutor with a political agenda? Check
Millions of taxpayer dollars spent? Check
No one found guilty of any underlying crime? Check, check, check and check (Especially check on Vince Foster. FIVE independent investigations found that Vince Foster committed suicide.)
Perjury? Check

Bunch of fucking hypocrites. And, mind you, none of the Clinton events had to do with a war in which thousands of people died. None of them concerned national security. And yet the right today has paraded around like this is the worst travesty of justice they've ever seen. And if you think that, fine. But then come out and repudiate at least PART of the Clinton escapades in the 90s. It's the decent thing to do.

Silly me. I thought the right could be decent. They're showing a remarkable lack of that quality recently, heh?

Posted by emily at 7:37 PM | Comments (0)

Another Brick In The Wall

Scooter convicted on 4 of 5 counts. One thing that's been interesting on this: the DC Beltway establishment and what hypocrites they are. (One big exception: Chris Matthews.) Seems like everyone in the "in" goes on about how there's no real crime, he's a nice guy, Wilson is scum, blah, blah, blah. Look, Wilson is no angel. Neither was Ken Starr or Linda Tripp. Extra-martial blow jobs are not against the law. Bill Clinton, by many accounts... nice guy.

So where were you in '98, guys?

Posted by emily at 1:33 PM | Comments (0)

March 5, 2007

The Iraq-Capades

It's been a fine shitstorm of fuck-ups, eh? And as we approach the glorious five year mark to our great misadventure in Mesopotamia, Fat Charlie looks back and piles on.

(not in chronological order... well, in somewhat chronological order)

Overture
1998- PNAC letter to President Bill Clinton urging action on Iraq. Signed: Bill Kristol, Donald Rumsfeld, Fred Kagen, Paul Wolfowitz, Richard Perle...
Clinton bombs Iraq- 1998 Operation Desert Fox.
Bush V Gore
9/11
Afghan war
Taliban "falls"

Act I
Link to Al-Queda
WMDS
Regime change
mushroom cloud
"he's the guy who tried to kill my Dad"
"slam-dunk"
"The British government has learned... yellow-cake from Niger."
"greeted as libertators"
Shock and Awe
Mission Accomplished
Troop movements in the sand
Jessica Lynch
statue goes down
"What I didn't Find in Niger"
looting
Viceroy Bremer
Order to de-baathify Iraq
Order to disband the Iraqi army
Fallujah
Five contractors burned and hung from a bridge
No-bid contracts go to Halliburton
Medal of Freedom to George Tenant
Finding Saddam in a spiderhole
Insurregency
Al-Sadr
Democracy for Iraq

Act II
Killing Saddam's sons
"Bring 'Em On"
Sunni Triangle
Abu Musab al-Zarqawi
Mahdi Army
a whistleblower
Sy Hersh
Abu Ghraib
Lyddie England
"college pranks"
purple fingers
Saddam's trial
Scooter's trial
Bob Woodruff nearly killed
no body armor
"you go to war with the army you have"
"last throes"
The Downing Street Memos

Act III
Al-Askari shrine bombing
"civil war?"
"I'm the decider"
The generals revolt
"civil war..."
bodies with holes drilled in the head being found in Baghdad
Malaiki
"brain drain"
training the Iraqi army
missing billions in reconstruction money
2006 midterms
Rumsfeld fired
Iraq Study Group report
"cut and run"
"defeatocrats"
The Surge
civil war
Iranians are behind this
British pulls troops
Walter Reed
Kevin Kiley
38 die, 105 hurt in Baghdad market blast, AP Wire, 15 minutes ago...

And no end in sight.

Posted by emily at 11:15 PM | Comments (1)

Go Ahead, CPACers... Nominate Romney

And I will look forward to the historic day when we swear in Barack Obama and Joe Biden.

Posted by emily at 4:35 PM | Comments (0)

March 3, 2007

Any Dem Candidate: Feel Free To Use This Quote

What I Would Say:

"I hope someday Ann Coulter insinuates that I'm gay, as she has with Bill and Hillary Clinton, Al Gore and, now, John Edwards. You haven't made it in the Democratic party unless Ann Coulter has called you gay."

Posted by emily at 3:55 PM | Comments (0)

March 2, 2007

Father Mulcahy and the Connecticut Screech

"I was going to talk about John Edwards but these days, you have to go into rehab if you say the word 'faggot,'" - Ann Coulter, at CPAC today. (hat tip: Andrew Sullivan).

I don't know why I found this shocking. It came out of the mouth of Ann Coulter; she hasn't been reasonable or polite since... hmmm.... And maybe I'm just naive and sheltered when it comes to the modern state of conservatives. I don't know many. I know a fair amount of libertarians, people who may come down hard on taxes and size of government issues. But I can't think of a single person in my life who would ever make a statement like this. I don't know many people who even use that word anymore, except in England, where it means something else.

All polls indicate that the GOP is going to lose ground on the gay issue the older our generation gets. We are signifigantly more tolerant of gays than our elders. Most in the conservative mainstream that you hear from on a regular basis (Sullivan (obvious) Will, Brooks, Krauthammer (sp?), Kristol, Barnes, Instapundit, K-Lo, J-Pod, et, al) don't use words like that, ever. Even if they're against gay marriage.

Yes, I know, it's ANN COULTER. She's to the right what the sad, pathetic fools at HuffPo who were lamenting Dick Cheney not being blown up are to me and my reasonable lefties. Many in my above list (including Sullivan and Brooks) are on record with their profound dislike for the woman. (I think Brooks once said something like nothing creates more liberals in America than Ann Coulter.) But she was on the same stage as George Will (whom, when I was younger, I used to confuse with Father Mulcahy from M*A*S*H) and Rudi Guiliani. (Rudi, who lived with two gay men. Rudi, who has dressed in drag... and I support him 100% on those things. Have you ever lived with gay men? I highly recommend it. And I like wearing a suit and tie... well, off subject again.)

And she was endorsing Mitt Romney, who I believe in '94 said he'd be more of a friend to gays than Ted Kennedy. Which, short of actually coming out, I don't know how you accomplish.

The fact that CPAC had her sharing the stage with such people just shows what the GOP and conservative movement have become. Yes, there are smart, wonderful conservatives out there. But look what it's come to.

Andrew Sullivan (a conservative) says it best:

"When you see her in such a context, you realize that she truly represents the heart and soul of contemporary conservative activism, especially among the young. The standing ovation for Romney was nothing like the eruption of enthusiasm that greeted her. One young conservative male told her he was single and asked for her cell-phone number. Other young Republicans were almost overwhelmed in her presence. "When are you going to get your own show?" one asked, tremulously. Then there's her insistence on Christianism as the central message for Republicans: "There are more people voting on Christian moral values than on tax cuts." This from an unmarried woman who wears dresses that are close to bikinis on the morning news. Hey, it's Democrats who are Godless.

Her endorsement of Romney today - "probably the best candidate" - is a big deal, it seems to me. McCain is a non-starter. He is as loathed as Clinton in these parts. Giuliani is, in her words, "very, very liberal." One of his sins? He opposed the impeachment of Bill Clinton. That's the new standard. She is the new Republicanism. The sooner people recognize this, the better."

Posted by emily at 5:06 PM | Comments (0)

Watch Your Toes For Rolling Heads!!

God, Gates is better that Donald "Dickhead" Rumsfeld. He just fired the Secretary of the Army over the Walter Reed scandal.

Rats in the rooms of brain damaged vets from this "pro-military" administration? At least Gates has his blade out.

Posted by emily at 4:18 PM | Comments (0)

MoDo and The Gang

The power of MoDo (Maureen Dowd, NY Times columnist, author of "Are Men Necessary?, answer:no) was apparant last week with the whole Geffen/Clinton/Obama flat-foot shuffle. Did it really mean anything in the long run? No.

That people are suprised by the cat claws of MoDo is truly shocking. Just because she like to flog "Rummy" and the Bushites doesn't mean she's holding water for the other side. She won a Pulitizer snarking on the Clintons, remember? And the column prior to that about Obama was pure lukewarm snark.

I don't mind the Crazy Lady™. Nick Kristoff, Mr. International, seems to disappear in the pages. Bob Herbert doesn't seem to have a role. I have lots of love for the Krug and Frank Rich... who on the left doesn't? Tom Friedman I'm meh about. (I think he said 6 more months in Iraq 6 months ago; why doesn't he say leave now...) Davey Brooks, well, he wrote his Sunday column on hip parents. Neo-cons apparently have nothing left to say.

Crazy Lady doesn't talk about ideas, she snarks about personalities. She's writing the meanest slam book entries of all time. It's funny and you can see a bit of Dorothy Parker peaking out. Does that mean I trust her judgment? No, I don't. Even though she dated Aaron Sorkin. Even though she slayed Judy Miller.

(Coda: I think my new favorite columnist may be Eugene Robinson of the Washington Post. I don't know, he seems so friendly and kind and even-tempered.)

Fat Charlie