Ye olde double standard

The Brew City Brawler reports that Chuckie Sykes and Paddy Mac are very disappointed in the way liberals dis (it feels so good to write this) EX-President G.W. Bush.

How disrespectful, singing "Na, na, na, na ... Goodbye." Some even booed him -- and innocent, saintlike EX-Vice President Dick Cheney, too. Imagine!

I'm trying to find the posts where they condemned the yahoos at the McCain-Palin rallies who were reportedly yelling what would be the equivalent of "Kill Whitey" if applied to Bush.

So far they haven't turned up.

Bush Did The Right Thing, Sykes Complains

From the prodigal Brawler:

What does it take for Charlie Sykes to turn on George Bush?

Torture? No. War? No. Huge deficits? No?

How did George W. Bush earn one of Charlie Sykes' deep tunnel awards? Throw a lifeline to the Big Three. The winners? The UAW (although they are looking at making serious givebacks). The losers, in Sykesland? The taxpayer (who apparently would be "winners" if the U.S. auto sector tanked.

It's odd. Charlie seems to think that -- at least he claims to think -- that a modest sales tax increase or a sick day mandate would decimate jobs in Milwaukee.

But in his eyes an effort (imperfect, yes, but an effort) to prevent the destruction of potentially hundreds of thousands of jobs (though job loss in the the U.S. based auto sector will measure in the tens of thousands in the coming years even in a best-case scenario) in the midst of a recession is a shitty thing to do...

Read the rest here.

Comparing Wax Apples To A-Bombs

Today, on his blog, PaddyMac invents a straw man, and yet still manages to lose to it.

Paddy first claims that Obama is trying to perpetuate the fiscal crisis caused by Bush and his failed economic policies, which Paddy just loves. His criticism is that Obama isn't doing enough to fix Bush's mistakes, even though he's not even sworn into office yet. (Imagine how loudly PaddyMac and his buddies would be squawking if Obama took an even more assertive stance.)

Paddy then shows his true lack of integrity by repeating an outright lie:

Look, the outgoing administration, having itself come into office after a vindictive transition that saw Clinton staff trashing offices and peeling W’s off keyboards, appears to want to make things smooth. The economy’s in crisis, the Treasury is asking how the new guy wants to proceed so it doesn’t set up something at loggerheads with where we’ll be going in the next four years – and Obama can’t even involve aides of “sufficient rank” on the conference call?

First of all, the whole trashing the White House and the keyboard stories have all been debunked:

Accounts that departing Clinton administration officials destroyed office equipment and committed other acts of vandalism in the White House during the presidential transition were significantly overblown, a manager at the General Accounting Office, the investigative arm of Congress, said yesterday.

The General Services Administration found nothing unusual about the condition of White House offices after Clinton officials left, and President Bush's staff said it had no records that indicated damage or subsequent repair work, the accounting office manager said.

But even if PaddyMac was telling the truth for once, I say so what? He is going to mince about a few keyboards being vandalized, when the Bush administration has raped and left to ruin not one, but two separate countries.

I feel safe in saying that I would rather have to replace a couple of keyboards and scrub a few walls than to deal with the damage from Hurricane Katrina (which Bush still hasn't done), a full blown recession (if not already a depression), the mess in Iraq, strained relations with most of the world and the multitude of other messes Cowboy George has created.

What Sykes Won't Be Saying Today

It just seems like yesterday that Sykes was crowing about how the stock market was on the verge of breaking the 14,000 barrier. He was putting all the credit on George Bush's economic policies and the big tax breaks for the rich.

Today, after the Dow Jones has dropped more than 800 points in the last three days, and is opening at 10,600, even Sykes has to admit that the economy is falling apart. Somehow, he fails to see the relation between the economy now and Bush's policies.

Could it be because McCain voted with Bush 90% of the time? Could it be that McCain has morphed his economic policy to be the mirror image of Bush's?

Of course, we can't expect that type of intellectual honesty from Sykes. That's why we are here.

This Explains It

Charlie Sykes likes to think of himself as an author and a well-read man. So much so, that he has gotten into the silly habit of posting the "hot read" of the day, which usually consists of a copy and paste of someone else's work, with only enough of his own writing to provide a link.

Today's "hot read" shows the level of sophistication Charlie has in his reading choices.

It also shows why he feels such affinity towards Bush.

They have common reading skills.

How Does He Do That?

Sykes this morning was going on a wild rant full of self-contradiction, hypocrisy and outright lies regarding the whole Georgia/Russia affair that is going on.

First he talked about how great McCain was for standing up for the Georgian people, and that his words brought them such great comfort. Yet this is the same guy that got his panties in a bundle about Obama doing a speech in Germany. In fact, the right wing is still in a tizzy about the whole thing. So much so that they are going to the extreme of violating Godwin's Law.

He went on how the liberals should be ashamed of ever trusting Russia, and that McCain's machismo is why people should vote for him in November. Sykes however failed to mention that it was Bush, who is hardly a liberal, was the one that peered into Putin's eyes and liked what he saw. He also willfully neglected to tell his audience about McCain's chief foreign policy advisor is on the take from Georgia. You can read about all of Bush's and McCain's cognitive dissonance at my other home, Cognitive Dissidence.

How Sykes can be so hypocritical and blatantly lie to such an extreme, and not have his head explode is beyond me. Jay Bullock believes that it is the right wing's campaign strategy to be full of double talk, which would explain why Sykes' head hasn't imploded. For me, I'm thinking it's the hair spray.

Breaking News: James T. Likes Gore Over Bush

While looking for the links for the previous post, I made an interesting find.

To quickly recap:

• The right compares Al Gore to the Joker
• The right compares George Bush to Batman

Now I notice this post, from James T., which he titled:

The Dark Knight Gets Trumped

and goes on to say how the Joker was better than Batman.

Somedays, I love this job.

This Should Be Interesting

First, the right wing squawkers and their lackeys have been circulating a cartoon portraying Al Gore as the Joker for the most recent Batman movie.

Now, a couple of them, like James T. is comparing George W. Bush to the Dark Knight.

Since the right appears to be stuck in their developmental growth, and can only relate to comics, I can't wait to see how they try to measure up John McCain to the upcoming movie involving cartoon heroes. It should prove to be thoroughly enjoyable.

Wrong On So Many Levels

Who knew that one post could tell us so much about the fragile psyche of Kevin Fischer? Zach's post from Sunday takes a look at how little Kev knows about the Constitution but let's take a look at what else the shrill shill spills.

He's got a crush on the Pornographer, Ann Coulter.

Liberals, if you gotten this far down in the blog (I doubt it) here’s
Coulter’s entire column if you care to pick up any pointers on how
a truly captivating writer does it.

He's captivated, simply captivated by her premise that GWB may be the ginchiest, most niftiest President ever, wever, ever. Why? Because there hasn't been a single attack on American soil since 9/11. That's why.

Ann Coulter writes about what I’ve been saying for years on radio and TV.
George Bush has been amazing because after 9-11, he protected this
country……..PERIOD!

That's right. Bush has been a Daddy-President and he hasn't let anyone...What? What's that? Five people dead from an anthrax attack on Congress and several media outlets. Apparently, Kevin and Coulter put their heads together and decided that 5 dead isn't really enough to call it a terrorist attack. And Kevin's been saying it all along. Daddy is good.

What else can we learn from reading Fischer?

He's firmly mired in the 70's.

The incense and sandals crowd has no life, so to inject a bit of excitement,
they read conservative blogs (like mine) and listen to conservative talk radio
so they can rush to their keyboards ...

Kevin can't stand to believe that anybody but those damned dirty hippies might want to see that troops come home and our economy made whole.

We know he can't count.

I have a kajillion liberal friends and associates...

And doesn't understand his readers.

...(who, by the way, don’t want me to step in front of a train and don’t
hate me) who admit readily they love to read conservative blogs and listen to
conservsative talk radio to, of course, hear what the other side is saying, but
also because it’s GOOD STUFF! THEY ARE INTERESTED! THEY ARE ENTERTAINED!

Memo to Kevin: People are entertained by all kinds of things that aren't really valuable. You can draw a pretty good crowd downtown just by flopping around on the sidewalk and hollering, "Potato, potato." People are just drawn to a train wreck to reaffirm their gratitude that they weren't involved. Sometimes they aren't laughing with you.

Throw in his lack of understanding of basic government principles, his pitiful strawman understanding of Liberals and his appalling lack of humility in the face of his inadequacies and you have a good look at a 51 year-old man using the power of his position and a major, once-influential newspaper to say a quick, "neener-neener" to the 74% of America that disagrees with Coulter and Kevin.

He's right about one thing, though. It's really hard to read all the way to the end of his posts when you have to stop to clean the schmutz off your shoes all the time.

More Cognitive Dissonance From McBride

In an ongoing case of chronic dissonance, McBride gives us another textbook example in her latest column for GMToday. She complains that the left is attacking McCain on his age and by comparing him to Bush. She then launches a tirade against Obama on serious issues like his being too charismatic. She also complains about his wanting peace and wanting to follow the people's will. That rotten thug!

I could dissect her whole column, but frankly there is just too much she got wrong, as usual.

Instead, I will focus on this tidbit:

There’s a two-pronged liberal strategy for November: Morph McCain into Bush. And talk about how McCain’s really, really old.

Well the old part I can understand. After all look at all the things that are younger than McCain. There is even an entire blog dedicated to listing all the things that are younger than McCain.

McBride, later in her column revisits this issue, with this weird paragraph:

Talking about McCain’s age just emphasizes how young and inexperienced Barack Obama is. Secondly, have you seen McCain’s mother? Third, maybe it’s just me, but John McCain doesn’t really seem that old. He seems mentally sharp and vigorous to me. He’s looked the same way for the last 15 years anyway, which probably helps.

OK, the first line would be a good argument for her to go with, but what does his mother have to do with anything? And I won't go into the validity of McBride's powers of perception, but I would point out that the pyramids pretty much look the same for the last 15 years as well.

Now for the McCain/Bush comparisons.

Well, both Bush and McCain feel it's real important to stay in Iraq, even if it's for 10,000 years. This is in spite of the fact that a vast and ever increasing majority of Americans want us out of there.

And McCain has said that he is now willing to commit to Bush's tax cuts for the rich (even though he was originally against them-can you say flip-flop? I thought you could).

Even cementing their sameness is that they both don't know what the heck their talking about a lot of the time. Who could forget Bush's "Mission Accomplished" buffoonery. Well, McCain, the self-proclaimed expert on foreign affairs, especially Iraq, doesn't even know what's going on over there, despite all of his trips.

And for your viewing pleasure, here is the sinker if there is any kind of bond between the two:

Mission Accomplished

Five years ago today, Bush gave did his infamous stunt of landing on the USS Abraham Lincoln and giving his "Mission Accomplished" speech.

The AP is reporting on the anniversary, and it shows that Bush still is unable to tell the truth:

"President Bush is well aware that the banner should have been much more specific and said `mission accomplished' for these sailors who are on this ship on their mission," White House press secretary Dana Perino said Wednesday. "And we have certainly paid a price for not being more specific on that banner. And I recognize that the media is going to play this up again tomorrow, as they do every single year."

She said what is important now is "how the president would describe the fight today. It's been a very tough month in Iraq, but we are taking the fight to the enemy."

Meanwhile, on Wednesday, in the state capitol, a group of veterans, military families and state progressives gathered to point out the fallacies that is still being spewed by the White House. You can see a small blurb on it here.

Whallah! is proud to present some rare shots from that fateful day. The first is a shot of Bush giving the "Mission Accomplished" speech, but making sure he had an out:



Also, something that was not reported by the media was that Dick Cheney was with Bush on that day. Here is a photo of the two of them last was attained at great peril to life and limb:




I would also be remiss if I did not point out how Senator John McCain feels about that day:

Just Leave Them Alone

Something that was not covered by the right wing mainstream media, was the President's immediate reaction to Congress questioning General Patraeus regarding Iraq:




This led to criticism of Bush by some parties which led to this press release:

Is There A Fact Checker In The House?

Fischer, yet another self-proclaimed journalist (when will they ever stop with this silly line?), has put up a post with a whole bunch of numbers that he believes proves that Bush's economic policies are more friendly to the taxpayer than those of President Bill Clinton. He then warns us that those nasty old Democratic presidential candidates, Senators Hillary Clinton and Barack Obama, want to repeal all of Bush's tax policies.

However, being the great king that I am, I have fact checkers that eagerly wait for such easy mistakes that these self-proclaimed award-winning journalists try to foist upon us.

Like any good blogger would do, Fischer is kind enough to provide us with a link to his source for these numbers. However, what he fails to do is look beyond the first click. On the site he links to is yet another link, which leads the good reader to this site, which has a certain disclaimer written on it (emphasis mine):

While the basic message of the comparison is correct (federal income taxes have indeed fallen under George Bush for groups at all points on the income spectrum), the chart created by the author of this comparison contains some mathematical errors. Furthermore, the comparisons are exaggerated by the fact that annual inflation adjustments in the tax code would have lowered tax bills in 2008 relative to 1999 under a constant nominal income amount.

However, my diligent fact checker was still not satisfied. This clever scribe also provides us with further information, showing that the correction was still incorrect:

The Tax Foundation's claim of ever-increasing tax burdens is in direct contradiction to evidence from the two leading sources of tax information for Congress — the Congressional Budget Office and the Joint Committee on Taxation. These authoritative sources find that taxes on typical middle-income families are substantially lower than the taxes the Tax Foundation claims Americans pay on average. Moreover, CBO and the Joint Committee on Taxation find that taxes on middle-income families have been declining in recent years, not rising as the Tax Foundation reports would lead the public to believe.

Would someone please be kind enough to inform that "journalist" Fischer that he shouldn't always go with the first click he finds. If he keeps that sort of behavior up, the next thing you know, he'll be posting about how he will be receiving millions of dollars from a prince/businessman/widow from Nigeria/Ethiopia/Bangladesh. Also, someone could provide him with another link he might find useful: http://snopes.com/

Fischer's Not Into Voting Rights Either

Fischer, like most of the squawking heads, likes to think he knows of which he speaks (or types).
He put up a post saying, basically, that the voter should be informed before he or she goes to the polling place. Whallah! concurs, for the most part.

The one exception is where Fischer writes:

If you’re voting for the challenger because you feel it’s time for a change, you should stay home.

That's just wrong. McCain is promising more of the same failed economic strategies and even worse than failing foreign policies that this country has suffered for the past seven years. I want a change. I don't care if it's Senator Clinton or Senator Obama, I will be voting for them, as that I want a change. I want to return this country to greatness. That would require a change from our current course of affairs.

Locally, I see the parks in shambles, people unable to get to work because of bus cuts, people unable to get mental health services, people unable to get AODA services. I see delays in court hearings denying people of their legal and civil rights. I see inmates escaping from supposedly secure facilities. I want that to change. I will be voting for state Senator Lena Taylor, as that Walker has repeatedly shown that he is unable to effectively or wisely run the county government. I want to change that.

Fischer also forgot one thing in his tirade. If you get your news and/or opinions only from local talk radio, you should stay home.

An Answer For McIlheran

McIlheran poses a question, which was stimulated by another conservative blogger (What? You thought McIlheran has original ideas of his own? It is too laugh!):

Freedom Eden wonders why, when George W. Bush says he prays a lot, it's enough to make Madeleine Albright freak about his "certainty," while when Barack Obama says he prays to Jesus every night, it's a whole different ball game.

Here's your answer, Patrick: It's probably because Obama won't use his God as an excuse to cause unjust wars that cost hundreds of thousands of people their lives.

Another Area Where They Don't Really Want To Go

Sykes, as I figured he eventually would, put up a post that has been circling the right side of the Cheddarsphere. It highlights a YouTube video of state Senator Lena Taylor having a moment of confusion during a session at the Senate.

Is this where they really want to go? After eight years of them promoting this guy for POTUS, and then apologizing for him for all of those years?



And with Sykes starting to advertise his "Incite 2008" squawkfest, who can forget his wonderful blunder from last year, when he started accusing Michael McGee, Jr. of saying things that weren't said. It still warms the cockles of my heart to remember him having to apologize the the "Alderthug" for his false and malicious statements.

Of course, in retrospect, it was probably just Sykes having a Freudian slip, and he meant to put down the Jewish religion.

Deceived By The Deceiving Deceived

McBride, oh how we missed her, is at it again, but in her true form. Here is her entire post:

Saddam, not Bush. Bush was deceived, not the deceiver.

To bad for McBride that reality is not on her side. It was Bush that had the intelligence reports that said that there were no WMDs, not Hussein. It was Bush who said that they knew exactly where the WMDs were even thought he couldn't find them, because they didn't exist. not Hussein.

In fact it wasn't Hussein, but Bush and his posse, that lied 935 times to get us into the war that shouldn't have been.

But why let facts get in the way? That would only cramp her style.

Who Would Know Better

Not too long ago, PaddyMac tried to defend the use of waterboarding, scrambling to find ways to defend this indefensible position. Mike Mathias of Pundit Nation easily refuted his inane rationalizations.

One source that PaddyMac won't be using to bolster his wrongheaded arguments is an actual columnist and author, Joseph Galloway. Mr. Galloway is a military columnist and former senior military correspondent for Knight Ridder Newpapers. He wrote a column titled "Memo to Media: I Witnessed 'Waterboarding'-And Yes, It is Torture". Here is an excerpt from that column:

Waterboarding was torture when it was used during the Spanish Inquisition; it was torture when it was used on Filipino rebels during the 1890s; it was torture when the Japanese Army used it on prisoners in World War II; it was torture when it was used by the Khmer Rouge in Cambodia; and it's torture when CIA officers or others use it on terrorists.

When George W. Bush was the governor of Texas, the state investigated, indicted, convicted and sentenced to prison for 10 years a county sheriff who, with his deputies, had waterboarded a criminal suspect. That sheriff got no pardon from Gov. Bush.

Waterboarding is torture in the eyes of all civilized peoples, no matter how desperately President George W. Bush tries to rewrite the English language, with which he has only a passing familiarity, anyway. No matter how desperately his entire administration tries to redefine the word "torture" to cover the fact that not only have they acquiesced in its use, but they also have ordered its use.

Broken Promises

Over the past several weeks, Charlie Sykes has been leading every segment of his show with an audio of Governor Jim Doyle saying:

Going forward, my mind will be open to every solution -- except one. We should not -- we must not -- and I will not -- raise taxes. Wisconsin's problem is not that we tax too little. It is that we spend too much.

This was picked up and parroted by almost everyone on the right, from PaddyMac to McBride to various bloggers. There is just one problem with this. They make it seem like Doyle made this statement recently, say, as a campaign promise in last year's election.

In reality, it came from his 2003 State of the State Address. Even the slowest on the right should have figured out that was almost five years ago. But no. They still use it to hammer on Doyle as they carp about the 2007-9 budget. They complain about how high taxes are going to be, complete with the obligatory hair-pulling, teeth-gnashing and frothing at the mouth.

Too bad they weren't a little more selective in the speeches they chose. If they raised the same ruckus about the real lies told in 2003, they could have saved the country hundreds of billions of dollars, thousands of American lives, and the integrity of the nation. All they had to do was call out Bush for the lies he told on January 28, 2003 in his State of the Union Address.

But they didn't. They chose to do the "right" thing, instead of the proper thing.

UPDATE: A commenter on McBride's side brought up the fact that the quote that she and others on the right are using was from Doyle's 2003 speech. She and her followers respond with a "So what? He lied other times too," type of response. Again, it is a shame that they choose to focus on the "right" thing, instead of the proper thing, and holding the true liar's feet to the fire.

Meet the new boss, same as the old boss

Story: Its strategies shattered, a desperate Washington is reaching out to the late dictator's henchmen.

Here's a sample:

When Gen. David Pet­raeus, commander of the multinational force in Iraq, appeared before Congress with Ambassador Crocker to testify about the results of President Bush’s “surge” strategy, he talked a lot about these tribal militias and the success of Anbar. It is the only progress the U.S. has made in Iraq for years. It’s unclear whether the additional 30,000 troops that make up the surge have had much effect on the Anbar Awakening. But watching Gen. Petraeus, I was struck by how familiar his words sounded. The general talked like every Sunni I’ve ever met in Iraq—hell, he sounded a bit like Saddam. The old tyrant would have had one of his characteristic chest-heaving guffaws watching Petraeus as he intoned the old Baathist mantra about the dangers to Iraq: Iran, Iran, Iran. Bush took up Gen. Petraeus’s views a few days later in a nationally televised speech about Iraq, in which he talked about the threat Tehran posed. It seems that Petraeus and Bush have come to the same conclusion as Saddam: the main enemy is Iran, and you can’t govern Iraq without the Sunni Arab tribes, even as you encourage anti-Iranian nationalism among the Shia. This is what Saddam did during the Iran-Iraq war of the 1980s, and what Washington is trying to do now. One of the main problems with this strategy is that both the Sunni tribes and Shia nationalists are profoundly anti-American and don’t trust each other—a potential recipe for further disaster.

Hat tip: McBride's Media Matters. (She just wanted you to look at the picture, not read the article.)