Re: Terror in the Skies?

Does this explain it?

P.S. This is the 3,333rd entry at The Blog from the Core.

[Follow-up: "Terror in the Skies, Again?" Part III.]

Lane Core Jr. CIW P — Wed. 07/21/04 08:13:27 PM
Categorized as Social/Cultural.

"Hello, God? It's Me, Dubya"

Democrats in Self-Destruct Mode CCCXXXIII

I'm so very glad we didn't miss this.

Are you there, God? It's me, George W. Come in, Almighty. Do you read me?

It's about 8:00 pm and it's just after my last bubble bath of the day and here I am again, kneeling here in the Oval Office all by myself in my most favoritest PJs, the funny ones with the little M-1 tanks and baseball players all over them. I gots some problems, Lord.

Look, I've done everything you asked. I've been good. Haven't I?

I take the message to the people, don't I? I spout that evangelical born-again crap in pisswater Podunk conservative churches across this burned-out fear-drunk nation like I was emceeing a freakin' rodeo in Crawford. And they eat it up, Lord. They eat that stuff up. Hell, I even believe a lot of that fire-breathin' Second Comin' evildoer-hatin' stuff myself.

And looky here! Look how much dough I induce those evangelical suckers to cough up into the coffers of the GOP (that's God's Own Party — just for you, Lord!). Doesn't that cut me a little slack fer when I skip over the part where Jesus says "Blessed are the peacemakers?"

Or when he says to turn the other cheek? Or love thy enemies? Or when the Bible says, "The fruit of the Spirit is love, joy, peace, patience, kindness, goodness, faithfulness, gentleness and self-control"? Or any of that other pointless pacifist hippie junk?

I mean, forgive me 'cuz I know your boy Jesus was great and all, but did he have the Carlyle Group breathing down his neck, screaming for more war profits? Did he have a million neat-o bombs at his instant disposal? Did he have Rummy scowling down his hawkish nose at him during naptime? No, he did not.

Look. I behave. I never have sex and I hate that sicko porno gay pagan naked sexual stuff, and to this day I'm damn proud that those disgustin' dildo thingies are still illegal in Texas.

Heck, I even want to change the freakin' U.S. Constitution to prevent them icky gays from ever gettin' legally married and thus soiling the precious institution of uptight heterosexual man-woman Christian marriage counseling. I want to codify right-wing homophobia, Lord! Don't that count for somethin'?

Hell, I'm a former raging alcoholic who stopped binge drinking years ago (I attributed it to you! Remember?) 'cuz I got so drunk I fell into a fever dream wherein I coulda swore I saw Jesus chattin' with Buddha and Shiva and Allah and Isis, and they was all sighing and shaking their heads and agreein' to send me back in the next life as a smelly tree fungus. And that can't be good.

Remember, Lord, back in the '00 debates when they asked me to name my favorite philosopher, and I said, "Jesus"? Remember how cheesy and obnoxious and cop-outy that was, given how Jesus was actually the Original Liberal and given how everyone knows I haven't read a single "real" philosopher of any note since they made me stand up in Philosophy 1A back at Yale and read a passage from that pagan homo Plato guy when I could barely focus due to all the gin? Wasn't that good?

We bombed them nasty Iraqis in Your name, Lord! Afghanis, too! Hell, I've even gone so far as to tell anyone who'll listen that it was your very will that we invade those countries, that you were pretty much speaking to me, through me, when I told General Whatshisname to go ahead and bomb the living crap outta them evil evildoers and never you mind the women and babies you just git me some war on terror, beeyatch! Whoops, sorry.

Oh, I know what them liberals say, that your son Jesus Christ was a card-carrying pacifist, hated war and hated bloodletting and hated hate. But damn, your boy certainly didn't know about the price of crude, you know? I mean, a Christian's gotta do what a Christian's gotta do to fuel up the SUV and keep the Saudis happy and keep the Lockheed stock from steppin' in a financial cow pie, am I right, Lord? Can I get a "Hell yeah"? Whoops, sorry again.

Lord, I just don't understand. I know I'm not much of a businessman, or a leader, or a public speaker, or a humanitarian, or a foreign-policy expert, or a lover of nuance, or a deep thinker, or much of anything positive or life affirming that anyone can name, really. But I'm a darned nice guy. A "decent man." This is what everyone says. And I thought we had a deal.

I thought we had an understanding that if I took my narrow hypocritical bloody misinterpretations of the Good Book's teachings and spread them all over this planet like Johnny Ashcroft anoints himself in Crisco every night, I thought if I mocked the separation of church and state at every turn and brought a twisted version of your Word to the huddled masses who weren't blessed enough to be in me and my daddy's tax bracket, you'd sorta, you know, help me out a little.

Like, maybe you'd finally get this ugly Iraq quagmire thing taken care of for me. Maybe get those scary godless Islamic peoples to see the born-again light. And maybe in the process guarantee me a first-class seat on the glory train to salvation? Or at least a friggin' second term?

Hello? Lord? You still there? God's Own Party, remember? We're all about you, baby. Except for the blood and the tortures and the warmongering and the homophobia and the misogyny and the raping of Your glorious planet on a daily basis. Besides that, you rock!

So, again, before I rush off to bed so Laura can read me another page of "Goodnight Moon," I just gotta ask: What gives, Sir? I pray every night that you'll smite my enemies and hold back the heathen liberals and Democrats and also them idiot environmentalists, the ones who want to protect the forests and clean up the air and save the freakin' whales, when, hellfire, I ain't seen a whale here in D.C. since Teddy Kennedy cannonballed in Senator Leahy's pool. Haw! See? I still got my God-given sense o' humor! People love that hokey Texas crap! Bless me, Jesus!

But nothing seems to be working anymore. S'cuze my French, Lord, but dammit, why you lettin' that cheap Catholic wanna-be Kerry hone in on me? Why is that commie Michael Moore's 9/11 movie so damn successful, despite all of Uncle Dick's promises that the party would shut it down? Why is my "easy" little war only getting worse, and bloodier, and more confusing, and why is it giving me rashy itches in my nether parts? Why are my approval ratings slipping down lower'n a altar boy's pants in a Catholic rectory?

Don't you approve of my religious zealotry? Of how we slam Islam every day? Didn't you like it when I let Gen. William Boykin say, when talkin' about hammering them nasty Iraqis, that "my God is much bigger than their Allah," and it got splashed all over the Arab media? Two million Muslims hate me like a cancer, Lord! If that don't get me some bonus points in your book, I don't know what does.

And yet you're still lettin' scandal after scandal stain my pure, holy name. Rummy and his rape and torture, Wolfie and his Chalabi, Cheney and his Halliburton, Ashcroft and his Guantánamo Bay, Powell and his vial of anthrax, Rove and his very existence. Why, it's a gul-dang rogue's gallery of beady-eyed mean-ass misprision! Hey! Check it out! I said a neat word! Misprision! I wish I knew what it meant.

You hafta save me, Lord. You have to pump up my poll ratings, get the damned liberal media off my back (but not Fox News! Never them), make the people believe again.

See, they're not falling for the fear crap quite so much anymore. The bogus Orange Alerts and terror warnings ain't having the same effect. They're seein' through the dumb-guy schtick. They ain't buying any of the 1,001 reasons we made up to launch war on Iraq. Seems most 'Murkins don't really like being internationally loathed, disrespected, mocked, being made into a sad global joke. Go figger.

Maybe it'll help when we "capture" Osama bin Laden just before election time, when we finally "discover" him in a remote hilltop cave deep in Afghanistan -- a.k.a., a secret basement somewhere in Jersey where we've had him stashed for months for just this occasion. You think that'll help? Rove says it's a lock. I ain't so sure.

I guess that's it for now, Lord. I'm getting' sleepy from all this hard thinkin'. Thank you for listening, Lord. I know you're up there, right now, waving a little American flag and admiring your NRA lifetime membership plaque and voting Republican and givin' them icky gay people some nasty STDs and completely ignoring the rest of this big scary unpronounceable planet. Gul-dang heathens!

You're the best, Lord. Bless me, one more time, OK? I'm gonna need it.

The Blog from the Core asserts Fair Use for non-commercial, non-profit educational purposes.

You know, Faithful Reader, I can hardly wait until November.

(Thanks, Terry.)

Lane Core Jr. CIW P — Wed. 07/21/04 08:11:56 PM
Categorized as Democrats in Self-Destruct Mode.

Trousergate :-)

Sandy Berger swiped top-secret documents from the national archives. Why? Here's a couple of clues. First, a house editorial from today's OpinionJournal

.... Written by Richard Clarke for the NSC, the key document was called the Millennium After-Action Review because it dealt with al Qaeda attacks timed for the eve of the Millennium celebrations. In his own 9/11 testimony, Mr. Berger described these al Qaeda plans as "the most serious threat spike of our time in government." He went on to say that they provoked "sustained attention and rigorous actions" from the Administration that ended up saving lives.

But Attorney General John Ashcroft, who has the advantage of having read the document in question, had a different take. In his own 9/11 testimony in April, Mr. Ashcroft recommended that the Commission "study carefully" the after-action memo. He described it as laying out vulnerabilities and calling for aggressive remedies of the type he and the Bush Administration have been criticized for. Mr. Ashcroft further noted that when he took office, this "highly classified review" was "not among" the items he was briefed on during the transition.

Maybe that is because of the potential for embarrassment at the mentality the memo reveals. Mr. Ashcroft testified that the Justice Department's "surveillance and FISA operations were specifically criticized for their glaring weaknesses." The most glaring, of course, were the restrictions on the sharing of critical information between intelligence and law enforcement — even within the FBI itself. This was the infamous "wall of separation" that Clinton Deputy AG Jamie Gorelick instructed the FBI director should "go beyond what is legally required." ....

Second, an article by Byron York at NRO today:

.... The report was the result of a review done by Richard Clarke, then the White House counterterrorism chief, of efforts by the Clinton administration to stop terrorist plots at the turn of the year 2000. At several points in the September 11 commission hearings, Democrats pointed to the millennium case as an example of how a proper counterterrorism program should be run. But sources say the report suggests just the opposite. Clarke apparently concluded that the millennium plot was foiled by luck — a border agent in Washington State who happened to notice a nervous, sweating man who turned out to have explosives in his car — and not by the Clinton administration's savvy anti-terrorism work. The report also contains a number of recommendations to lessen the nation's vulnerability to terrorism, but few were actually implemented.

The after-action review became the topic of public discussion in April when Attorney General John Ashcroft mentioned it in his public testimony before the September 11 commission. "This millennium after-action review declares that the United States barely missed major terrorist attacks in 1999 and cites luck as playing a major role," Ashcroft testified. "It is clear from the review that actions taken in the millennium period should not be the operating model for the U.S. government."

In May, a government official told National Review Online that the report contains a "scathing indictment of the last administration's actions." The source said the report portrayed the Clinton administration's actions as "exactly how things shouldn't be run." In addition, Clarke was highly critical of the handling of the millennium plot in his book, Against All Enemies....

Lane Core Jr. CIW P — Wed. 07/21/04 07:02:11 PM
Categorized as Political.

Marriage Protection Act of 2004

Thanks to Margaret for calling our attention to this fine idea:

HR 3313 RH.... To amend title 28, United States Code, to limit Federal court jurisdiction over questions under the Defense of Marriage Act.... No court created by Act of Congress shall have any jurisdiction, and the Supreme Court shall have no appellate jurisdiction, to hear or determine any question pertaining to the interpretation of section 1738c of this title or of this section. Neither the Supreme Court nor any court created by Act of Congress shall have any appellate jurisdiction to hear or determine any question pertaining to the interpretation of section 7 of title 1.

It's about time.

She also helpfully directs us to this useful list.

Lane Core Jr. CIW P — Wed. 07/21/04 06:49:01 PM
Categorized as Political.

Ending the Brightness of the Year II

Still, two of the swiftest months in the calendar.

See The Brightness of the Year II and Ending the Brightness of the Year.

Lane Core Jr. CIW P — Wed. 07/21/04 06:04:24 PM
Categorized as Other.

$200 Reward for Proof that Joe Wilson Lied

How touching.

See also Mr. Wilson's Defense.

I am reminded of something that occurred to me the other day. Face it: many left-wing attack blogs, and other partisan forces, would have us believe that George W. Bush & Co. deliberately lied about Saddamites' possession of WMD, knowing full well that they would not be discovered once the Saddamites' had been removed from power. (Another of those cases that apparently prove somehow that Bush is simultaneously the stupidest man alive and a stunningly bold & scheming manipulator of the entire world.) Little did we know that, by doing so, they were unwittingly revealing the tactics of their own side: for Joe Wilson lied — yes, he lied — about Africa and his wife, though he must have known that, sooner or later, the truth would come out. Of course, Wilson also knew he could rely on his MM comrades to (1) trumpet his lies as loudly as possible and (2) look the other way when he would be revealed as a liar.

P.S. Captain Ed didn't take the bait. But I was in a "What the Heck" mood. :-)

Lane Core Jr. CIW P — Wed. 07/21/04 07:40:33 AM
Categorized as Political.

Girlie Men. Girlie Men? Girlie Men!

The Governator speaks (quoted ellipsis in original):

Gov. Arnold Schwarzenegger mocked his opponents in the California Legislature on Saturday [Jul. 17] as "girlie men," and called upon voters to "terminate" them at the polls in November if they don't pass his $103-billion budget.

Using tough rhetoric that borrowed from his days as a bodybuilder and actor, the governor said state lawmakers are telling "lies" and are "back to their old habits" after a post-recall burst of bipartisan collaboration.

Legislators, he said at a rally in the food court of the Ontario Mills shopping center, are "part of a bureaucracy that is out of shape, that is out of date, that is out of touch and that is definitely out of control in Sacramento."

Schwarzenegger added, "They cannot have the guts to come out there in front of you and say, 'I don't want to represent you. I want to represent those special interests: the unions, the trial lawyers'.... I call them girlie men. They should get back to the table, and they should finish the budget."

Democratic lawmakers, gay and lesbian advocates and feminist groups bristled over the governor's comments, which were greeted with sustained applause by hundreds of people who were invited to the rally through automated phone calls put out by Schwarzenegger's camp....

Girlie Men?

Thanks to Drudge for assembling the photos (embedded ellipsis in original):

.... Hugs, kisses to the cheek, affectionate touching of the face, caressing of the back, grabbing of the arm, fingers to the neck, rubbing of the knees...

John Kerry and John Edwards can't keep their hands off each other!

In the past 48 hours, "candidate handling" has become the top buzz on the trail.

News photographers have been going wild with photos of the two Johns.

"I've been covering Washington and politics for 30 years. I can say I've never seen this much touching between two men, publicly," e-mailed one wire photographer....

Lane Core Jr. CIW P — Wed. 07/21/04 07:23:52 AM
Categorized as Political.