Rangelife

Dubya's last week

For those who don't understand why conservatives hate CNN, I give you the current lead story on cnn.com:

"Boiling anger," eh?

OK, the framing isn't entirely inaccurate. If the four Americans shown above were picked at random, about 3.2 of them would think Bush is an incompetent sack of shit, or worse. But as Bush enters his last week of "public service," CNN decided to flush away any pretense of deference to his office. So long, Bush. Try not to fuck anything else up before next Tuesday.

Bush was delivering his final press conference yesterday morning when my clock radio went off. And he was so amazing, so defiant, so galling that a raging mattress fire couldn't have pried me from my bed. Yes, he classified Abu Ghraib and not finding WMDs as possible mistakes but more accurately things that "didn't go as planned."

"Things didn't go as planned"? You mean, you planned shit? Pray tell, what plan went awry at Abu Ghraib?

Oh mama. But this... this was Bush's prime kick to America's genitals. This quote defines all that has been sick and corrupt and mega-fail about the reign of Bush 43:

I've thought long and hard about Katrina -- you know, could I have done something differently, like land Air Force One either in New Orleans or Baton Rouge. The problem with that and -- is that law enforcement would have been pulled away from the mission. And then your questions, I suspect, would have been, how could you possibly have flown Air Force One into Baton Rouge, and police officers that were needed to expedite traffic out of New Orleans were taken off the task to look after you?

He thinks we're pissed about him choosing not to land his plane in Louisiana. Not about putting Brownie -- whose primary qualifications were being (1) the former head of a horse-judging association, and (2) a loyal Republican -- in charge of FEMA. No, we totally didn't notice that because we were so fixated on the location of Air Force One.

Now we're seeing the White House charm offensive in all its offensive glory. Sure, Bush, Rove, Cheney, and their ever-diminishing pool of loyalists have the obligation to defend their legacy. But America can see only eight years of ugly regression in our rear view mirrors.

We see the results of unadulterated cronyism in Iraq and at the Justice Department (and -- if Bush had had his way -- the Supreme Court).

We see an economic crash that's not just a normal cyclical contraction, but a revelation of the debt-fueled falseness of the growth that preceded it.

We see a middle class that's ever more hollow, and an upper class that's consolidating its wealth and got a tax cut.

And we see a federal government that this year will have spent about $3,000 per capita more than it collected -- and will push all those expenses into the future, again. 

Good riddance, George W. Bush. Bye bye. Have a shitty time at the Carlyle Group or wherever the hell you end up.

Who Will Blow Us Up When Al Qaeda is Gone?

Yay! Al Qaeda is dying!

The Unraveling: The jihadist revolt against bin Laden

Why have clerics and militants once considered allies by Al Qaeda's leaders turned against them? To a large extent, it is because Al Qaeda and its affiliates have increasingly adopted the doctrine of takfir, by which they claim the right to decide who is a "true" Muslim. Al Qaeda's Muslim critics know what results from this takfiri view: First, the radicals deem some Muslims apostates; after that, the radicals start killing them. This fatal progression happened in both Algeria and Egypt in the 1990s. It is now taking place even more dramatically in Iraq, where Al Qaeda's suicide bombers have killed more than 10,000 Iraqis, most of them targeted simply for being Shia. Recently, Al Qaeda in Iraq has turned its fire on Sunnis who oppose its diktats, a fact not lost on the Islamic world's Sunni majority.

Additionally, Al Qaeda and its affiliates have killed thousands of Muslim civilians elsewhere since September 11: hundreds of ordinary Afghans killed every year by the Taliban, dozens of Saudis killed by terrorists since 2003, scores of Jordanians massacred at a wedding at a U.S. hotel in Amman in November 2005. Even those sympathetic to Al Qaeda have started to notice.

Well, that is just lovely. Muslims are turning against terrorism. Are you less scared now?

You are?

UNACCEPTABLE!!!

Chertoff: Hezbollah Makes Al Qaeda Look 'Minor League'

Homeland Security chief Michael Chertoff warned Thursday that the radical Islamic group Hezbollah "makes Al Qaeda look like a minor league team," and poses the greatest threat to national security.

"Someone described Hezbollah like the A-team of terrorists in terms of capabilities, in terms of range of weapons they have, in terms of internal discipline," Chertoff told FOX News. "To be honest, they make Al Qaeda look like a minor league team.

Got it? Al Qaeda is the Durham Bulls. But Hezbollah is... The A-Team. Which is good for America, because it means their baddest-ass member is afraid of airplanes.

Hey, is there some way we can still fuck this up?

Marines pass out Gospel verse to Iraqi Muslims

At the western entrance to the Iraqi city of Fallujah Tuesday, Muamar Anad handed his residence badge to the U.S. Marines guarding the city. They checked to be sure that he was a city resident, and when they were done, Anad said, a Marine slipped a coin out of his pocket and put it in his hand.

Out of fear, he accepted it, Anad said. When he was inside the city, the college student said, he looked at one side of the coin. "Where will you spend eternity?" it asked. He flipped it over, and on the other side it read, "For God so loved the world, that He gave His only begotten Son, that whoever believes in Him shall not perish, but have eternal life. John 3:16."

"They are trying to convert us to Christianity," said Anad, a Sunni Muslim like most residents of this city in Anbar province. At home, he told his story, and his relatives echoed their disapproval: They'd been given the coins, too, he said.

Some dipshit church is sending these gimmicks to soldiers so that they'll become Christians, get into Heaven, and love America. What could possibly go wrong?

Weekend Head Cheese

Three questions that George Stephanopolous forgot to ask at Wednesday night's debate:

• Do you think that Disney should already be writing High School Musical 4, when part 3 is still in production?
• Should the NFL have taken harsher punishment against the New England Patriots for Spygate?
• Does anyone really think I should be moderating this critical debate when I owe the entirety of my career to one of your spouses?

***

I spotted this multimedia collage across the street from the Mint. I call it 1944.

***

Karl Lagerfeld appears in GTA4. And Ricky Gervais, too. I have this game on pre-order, mofos. It may be the last thing I ever buy. Highest possible review score from OXM.

***

Speaking of reviews, the new Pacino thrilla 88 Minutes is scoring a 12/100 on Metacritic. That ranks it lower than Tom Green's Freddy Got Fingered.

Christ, what was Pacino's last good movie? The Insider? I keep expecting Pacino and DeNiro to reunite for a movie adaptation of Falcon Crest or some Laser Cats thing.

***

John Edwards was phenomenal on Colbert last night. Jet skis for everyone!

***

"It's the incorrect context, stupid."

OK, let's fix this once and for all. From Reuters this morning:

It's still 'the economy, stupid' in Pennsylvania

In 1992, Bill Clinton used the phrase "it's the economy, stupid" to win the White House amid a recession. Sixteen years later, his wife Hillary Clinton and Barack Obama are fighting for the Democratic presidential nomination by promising relief from more hard times.

No no no no no. I'm going to kill myself if I ever read this again.

"It's the economy, stupid" was not a Clinton campaign slogan. The phrase was one of James Carville's tenets for keeping the campaign on message, as seen in the documentary The War Room. Pinned to the wall was:

Change vs. more of the same
It's the economy, stupid
Don't forget healthcare

***

Here's how Carville would write those for the Hillary '08 campaign:

More of the same vs. more of the other same
It's my turn, assholes
Please forget Hillarycare

And for McCain:

Sunnis vs. Al Qaeda (what?)
Five years in captivity, stupid
Don't forget Bush hates me

***

Punks and Rockabillies vs. Emos. With violence. Mexico-style.

***

A picture of a package on the package? That's the Droste Effect, my friend.

***

And praise to you. Have a happy matzo-filled weekend.

It Bites Hope

Some people are saying that Joe Lieberman has lost his got damn mind. You be the judge:

***

Some people are saying the GOP is hoping to make serious inroads among African American voters in 2008. You be the judge:

Yes, the NAACP Republican candidates' forum consisted of Tom Tancredo and nine empty lecterns. It's as if Kanye West is running the RNC.

***

Chris Chambers' Publicist's Remarks on His Client's DWI Arrest

To the press, the fans, and Dolphins ownership,

I know that you are disappointed in my client, the superior wide receiver Chris Chambers. But you shouldn't be. The problem is not Mr. Chambers. The problem is the Charlotte Police Department.

The Charlotte PD is, in a word, amok. My client was innocently enjoying a pleasant Friday night in Carolina, trying to squeeze in a last mojito before the annual heat-rape that is Dolphins training camp. And as we have all heard by now, the jack-booted po-po hauled my client away with a DWI in spite of a blood alcohol level of 0.6.

Some have suggested that my client, an accomplished athlete who for the seventh consecutive year is poised for a breakout season, should be embarrassed about failing the physical and mental sobriety tests while legally sober. But he has perfectly good excuses. For example, let's look at the unfairly negative media reports:

Chambers... initially refused to take the test at the scene of the arrest. He later blew an .06 -- which is below the legal limit of .08 in North Carolina -- when he arrived at the jail, a police report said.

Look, my client is like a lot of you were back in school. He's good, but he just doesn't test well. Remember when that stupid and biased trig teacher gave you a C because you bombed her stupid final? My client did what you should have done back then -- he skipped the test, and tried to rely on the quality of his other work. It's not his fault the police are stupid and biased like your trig teacher.

And .06? That's barely a Michelob Ultra. That's half a swig of Robitussin. Back to the reports:

During the ''ABC'' test, the officer instructed Chambers to begin with the letter J and end with W. Blanton wrote that Chambers "missed letters and got letters out of sequence, among other indicators.''

If not knowing the alphabet is a crime, then go ahead and lock up every skill position player in the Big 10 and Big 12. Remember: my client was not even drunk.

He was also given a ''Walk and Turn'' test, but Blanton noted Chambers ''kept starting before being told to start.'' He would then "walk about 15 steps then just stop.''

My client, in spite of being one of the NFL elite-any-minute-now receivers, has never been known for his precise route-running. And with good reason. Imagine for a moment that you were a brain surgeon in an earthquake-heavy region like Paso Robles. Every day you'd crack open some yokel's head and meticulously manipulate the tissue, all while the earth was shaking like Andy Rooney. Can you imagine what that might do to your brain surgery technique? That is what six years of catching balls from Jay Fiedler, Ray Lucas, A.J. Feeley, Sage Rosenfels, Brian Griese, Gus Frerotte, Cleo Lemon, Daunte Culpepper, and Joey Harrington did to my client.

In sum, let's give my client a break. He did not shoot a strip club bouncer, electrocute a dozen pitbulls, or record a rap album. He's just a little clumsy and illiterate. And if those people aren't allowed to drive, then enjoy life after taxis.

Live Free or Die Hard: False Dichotomy?

I'm sure I'm not the first person to notice this, but isn't Live Free or Die Hard a stupid title? I know it's a riff on New Hampshire's license plate, but:

1. As near as I can tell, the movie doesn't take place in New Hampshire -- although that would be pretty awesome. Yes, how about a terrorism movie that's not in NY, DC, Vegas, or California? Eh? Charlotte and Houston are looking pretty soft these days, for example. Just saying.

2. Shouldn't it be Live Free and Die Hard? Those are both very admirable actions to abide. The movie title seems to demand that we choose between liberty and life. Now that Will Smith ruined the pursuit of happyness, why should we kick aside one of our last two unalienable rights.

What kicks ass about America is that we live free and we die hard. The Economist gets it:

Bad ass, isn't it?

You see, we can gluttonously gorge on foreign goods purchased with easy credit, while all our primary survival skills are exported overseas to be forgotten. Our military can be overextended in a global clusterfunk. Our public health, our carbon-burning lifestyles, our popular culture can be so stagnant that our brains and bodies reveal nothing but sweaty flab. Our big questions can consist entirely of "Is science real?" and "Is he or is he not the father"? Our minds can be sedated with bullshit**. Our leading presidential candidates can be uniformly underqualified twats who have never run any organization more complex than the Yale Law Review.

But check the papers. We're still the Dapper Don of the world, and nothing gets done without us. OK, nothing gets done with or without us, but you get the idea.

Why is this so? Why will our precious idiocracy continue to pummel the rest of the world's wannabe powers? It's not just because God loves us most. We also sport a dynamic economy with liberal labor laws, a powerful work ethic (don't laugh until you spend five minutes looking at western Europe); the closest thing to an actual meritocracy by human standards; and the prospect of new leadership in a little more than 18 months.

In other words, America dies hard by living free(ly).

---

** This perfect phrase is from a lovely post by Rob of Demonbaby. I like his idea: Next time somebody asks you, "Did you hear what Paris Hilton did?" respond with "Do you know who your Senators are?"

John vs. Jon -- a Catastrofu**

Update: Big ups to Michael Weiss of Slate for the quote and link.

Last night's scuffle with John McCain was easily the most exciting and worst-conducted interview Jon Stewart has ever perpetrated.

Sen. McCain came out ornery, as if he wanted to instantly and simultaneously alienate the host, the studio audience and pretty much everyone in America. He led off with joke about bringing Stewart the gift of I.E.D. from Iraq, which went over like a lead I.E.D. Five seconds later, he talked about his desire to kick a dog. Way to go, McCain!

The discussion devolved into a gory death spiral, with McCain spewing the usual platitudes about the US role in the Iraqi Civil War, and Stewart bludgeoning him with the types of questions that the press should be asking. But sadly, Stewart went all O'Reilly on McCain, steamrollering him when he should have shut up to listen to him. Honestly, it was embarrassing.

Bear witness, parts 1 & 2:

Superman, RIP

Do you remember where you were when you heard Boris Yeltsin died? If not, you should probably give the wake-n-bake ritual a rest.

I first got to know Boris Yeltsin (from afar) during a trip to the Glasnost-era USSR in 1990. Here I was, meeting the good people of Moscow and Leningrad with the naive American (well, Floridian) assumption that the Russians were as engorged about Gorbachev as we were. But nothing could have been further from reality -- the Russians I met thought Gorby was letting the air out of the great Soviet Empire, and the post-commie economy was permitting citizens to enjoy all the shortages and inefficiencies of the '80s without any of the fun of being a superpower. "Boris Yeltsin," one Russky after another told me. "He will bring Russia back."

Well, Boris didn't really bring Russia "back," but he did concoct the DNA for the sick monster that the Russian Bear has become. And he drank. And he danced. One time, he danced so hard (pictured above), that it took a month of convalescence to recover.

But one thing Boris Yeltsin didn't do, improbably, was die. No matter how he staggered (literally) through his years as leader, no matter how many times his staff had to prop him up (literally) for his brief "not dead yet" television appearances, Boris just lived on, pickled beyond decay like Keith Richards. You wanna know how Boris lost those two fingers? He broke into a Red Army ammo depot in his teens and attempted to dissect a grenade. How you like them apples, Ronnie Lott?

And so it was in a Virginia IHOP that I made a morbid bet with my friend "Dove." It was February of 1997, the day after Ron Goldman won his civil case against O.J. Simpson. To my lying eyes, O.J.'s expressions were those of a man contemplating his own end. The conversation went as such, to my foggy memory:

Seamus: I don't like how O.J. is looking these days. I think he's going to die soon.

Dove: No way; the guy's convinced of his own innocence. Maybe we should wager on this.

Seamus: OK, what's the bet?

Dove: I bet O.J. outlives Ronald Reagan. I'll even give you Boris Yeltsin. Your choice.

Seamus: Boris Yeltsin will never die; picking him wouldn't be sporting. I'll take Ronald Reagan. O.J. dies before Reagan.

Long story short, O.J. is still enjoying the good life two blocks from where I went to high school, so I lost that bet twice. I still owe Dove the crushing wager of "lunch."

But what possibly could have taken out the indestructible Yeltsin? Did Putin dump some polonium in his Stoli-and-vodka?

Nah. It must have been Kryptonite.

Message Failure

Yesterday's protests marking the fourth anniversary of Operation Iraqi Freedom were impressive enough, but there's a counterproductive word on that banner above.

No, not "FUDNING," although that's just inexcusable. I mean, really.

The wrong word is "WAR."

Let's just get this out of the way: I supported the invasion of Iraq. My enthusiasm for the action is well-documented and inescapable. But the failure there was a failure of leadership, strategy, planning, and execution.

Of course, the ensuing years have been a Great Middle East Disaster. Unfortunately, any real debate about the course of the occupation has, like every other issue in America, been destroyed by loaded terminology.

We first smelled it in late 2003, when Howard Dean arose as the "anti-war" presidential candidate. And then an insurgency of "dead-enders and hangers-on" exploded into a full-blown civil war among sects and clans and foreign ideologues, with American troops impossibly trying to keep the peace until a cobbled-together government of factions could build an army.

In other words, this is not an American war anymore. To say you're "against the war" is like saying you're "against the Internet."

For those who want to change strategy in Iraq, whether it's bringing all the troops home or just setting a deadline to redeploy to friendlier countries, calling this a "war" only enables those who want to extend this tragic misadventure. Because a "war" implies an enemy, and implies victory or defeat, and allows The Hammer and The Prince of Darkness to go on Meet the Press and say ridiculous stuff like:

DELAY: Some say that the terrorists are coming to us because we're in Iraq. Wouldn't it be better--isn't it better to fight them there than over here or spread out all over the world? They're coming to fight us there. We are killing--and if you put up the chart of how many terrorists we are killing and how many terrorists we are capturing and how much information we are getting in this war, it, it, it would be a legitimate comparison...

PERLE: The enemy are people who are placing roadside bombs, suicide bombers who are recruited often from outside Iraq because they're very much a part of the war on terror, very much a part of the terrorist threat that we face. The enemy is identifiable...

DELAY: I think [setting a withdrawal date] is aiding and abetting the enemy. When you tell the enemy what your strategy is, that's aiding and abetting the enemy because they can use that strategy to come back and harm your soldiers.

With Sunni insurgents and Shia death squads and dwindling foreign terrorists slaughtering each other for their own ends, there is no "enemy" in Iraq. So if you really want to be anti-war, then you need to be pro-Iraqi security, because the day the US pulls out, the war will go on without us, probably in a bloodier, less restrained form. If you want to be anti-occupation because you think that the occupation and the surge are wasteful and useless, then be anti-occupation.

But stop talking about "the war" as if we're fighting someone. It's not helping the cause.
'

Say "Cheese."

I Love a Parade

They were all wearing t-shirts that read (in Spanish) "A Day Without Immigrants," which was just about the most inaccurate thing the half million t-shirts could read.

The Chron ludicrously wrote: "Several thousand immigrant rights supporters marched up Market Street this afternoon." That word "several": I do not think it means what you think it means. This is what "several" thousand people look like from 22 stories up:

And from the street... Note the office workers peering from above.

Impressive display, no?

More pics on Flickr. Better pics by Matt at 1115.org.

WATITH: The Terrorists are Making Us Stupider

Okay, so the GWOT is flagging, mucked down in a war that the American Idol crowd has grown bored with. That whole attempt to spin off the GSAVE (Global Struggle Against Violent Extremism) had all the impact of Joanie Loves Chachi. And the whole "Saddam would have still been in power" thing doesn't seem so compelling compared with the scary fundamentalists that will running the show soon.

If I may lower myself to quote the terrifyingly influential Donald Trump:

"Does anybody really believe that Iraq is going to be a wonderful democracy where people are going to run down to the voting box and gently put in their ballot and the winner is happily going to step up to lead the country? C’mon. Two minutes after we leave, there’s going to be a revolution, and the meanest, toughest, smartest, most vicious guy will take over. And he’ll have weapons of mass destruction, which Saddam didn’t have."

But we were fighting "them" over there so we don't have to fight "them" here, right? Oops.

Newsweek's Howard Fineman suggests that with the current "global war on terror" script bombing, White House image makers are tuning a new script in which the president reprises his role as an American hero by declaring war on faint-hearted Democrats and the unpatriotic media.

"The revamped story line is WATITH (the 'war against terrorists inside the homeland')" and Bush's "enemies will be different: not just the terrorists themselves, but also [faint-hearted] lovers of legalistic niceties that get in the way of investigations and MSM news organizations that focus obsessively on explosions and mayhem in Iraq, even as they print or broadcast classified information and ask nasty, argumentative questions at hastily called press conferences...

"It takes some chutzpah to do this rewrite," writes Fineman.

Our government may be running massive deficits, but chutzpah is always in surplus. And so there's your 2006 GOP mid-term election gameplan, ladies and gentlemen: WATITH. It's going to be so pervasive, so intelligence-insulting, that every thinking person in America will, like Adam Morrison, reduce themselves to uncontrollable weeping before its even over.

Of course, the MSM's major problem is not over-reporting Iraqi mayhem. It's barely bothering to report anything.

CNN, once the gold standard for news in the cable age, has been a disaster for years, allocating most of its attention to missing persons and minor distractions. Yesterday's west coast breakfast newscast was dedicated to a press conference regarding two disappeared boys in Milwaukee. I just got a "CNN Breaking News!" alert in my email box about some woman killing her husband in Tennessee, which really should only be newsworthy to 30 or 40 people. And you get your celebrity parking tickets, your cruise ship fires, your runaway brides in spades. Thank you, CNN, you national treasure.

And then there's the downward spiral of print. Take a gander at today's SF Examiner, which arrived unsolicited on my and my neighbors' doorsteps this and every morning. Here's the approximate breakdown of front-page real estate, in order of prominence on the page:

• 16%: Masthead
• 7%: Paris Hilton wants a new boyfriend
• 12%: A new Jodie Foster/Denzel Washington movie is coming out
• 21%: A crooked doctor got 7 years in prison
• 27%: UCLA won an NCAA tournament game, and it's hard to get tickets
• 6%: President Bush called for a program to allow illegal immigrants to become "guest workers"
• 11%: Advertisement for ING-sponsored Bay to Breakers race in May

In other words, some asswipe littered my sidewalk by throwing 32 pages of garbage on it. Can I sue?

Sadly, it's only going to get worse. An exclusive and extensive Rangelife investigation has revealed what the Examiner's next redesign is going to look like:

.

.

.

Why do the Liberal Educated Hollywood Elite Latte Yuppie MSM Democrats hate freedom? Because freedom's just another word for nothing left to spend.