Holy Joe is being sent to live on a farm upstate

John McCain made a statement on the floor of the Senate today about the retirement of Joe Lieberman. This was the first sentence: “Mr. President, one of the most overused quotes about Washington is Harry Truman’s observation that if you want a friend here, get a dog.” He then proceeded to talk about “a departing colleague whose friendship has been and will always be one of the great treasures of my life.” Who’s a good boy, Joe, who’s a good boy?

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The purging of the Lieberdouches

Holy Joe Lieberman: gone.

Unholy Avigdor Lieberman: gone.

Let us never speak of them again.

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A fair fight

Maverick John McCain & Holy Joe Lieberman issue a statement from a refugee camp for Syrians in Turkey, saying the usual stuff. Including that the international community needs to supply the Syrian rebels with arms because “The slaughter in Syria has now claimed more than 10,000 lives. And it is not a fair fight.”

No one who uses the term “fair fight” about a war deserves to be taken seriously.

Guess who wants to start a war with Libya? No, go on, guess.

John McCain & Joe Lieberman, who you will be scared to hear are in the middle of a diplomatic tour of the Middle East, issued a statement about Libya yesterday, calling for “a no-fly zone to stop the Qaddafi regime’s use of airpower to attack Libyan civilians.” Obviously such a thing could only be enforced by a military force ready and willing to shoot down Libyan planes.

Bet that name’s looking a little limiting now, huh?

Officials of the Connecticut for Lieberman Party have spent the day frantically cold calling everyone named Lieberman in the Hartford phone book, looking for a new candidate to run for Senate under its imprimatur.

A crucial time

John McCain posted this picture with the caption “@JoeLieberman @Grahamblog & I had good meetings with Iraqi leaders in Baghdad today at a crucial time.”


Judging by McCain’s appearance, I think by “crucial time” he meant that he needed to go to the bathroom.

Can we do better than John McCain? CAPTION CONTEST!

Caption contest

Posted by John McCain, this is him, Huckleberry, Holy Joe and Colonel Combover in Afghanistan.


See also his pics inspecting Afghan troops, and at a shura with locals in Kandahar, in which the Three Amigos are dressed like they’re on a fishing trip in Boca. At least take off the baseball cap when sitting – indoors – around a table with Afghan leaders.

That’ll show ‘em

Reports say Obama is planning military strikes in Yemen in retaliation for the Underpants Bomber. Personally, I am definitely in favor of a tit for tat retaliation: let’s send Joe Lieberman to Yemen and have him set his leg on fire. I say an eye for an eye, a flaming doofus for a flaming doofus.

Why is it

that whenever I hear a news story about American drones killing people, I think of Joe Lieberman?

Does every post have to have a clever title? I think not.

Headline of the Day (London Times): “Oldest Butter in the World Found in Robert Scott’s Antarctic Hut.”

Sarah Palin, who certainly isn’t pandering for a 2012 presidential run, has a post about the true meaning of Hanukkah on her Facebook page. Since it was written by her ghost writer, the moral of the story of the oil that burned for 8 days is “With hope and dedication nothing is impossible, and the Almighty never abandons those who seek the light” and not “drill, baby, drill.”

If Obama thought that we’d accept moving some of Guantanamo’s prisoners to Illinois while continuing the Bushian system of extra-legal indefinite confinement to be the fulfillment of his campaign promise to “close Guantanamo,” he could have just changed Guantanamo’s name, put up a few new signs, and saved a whole lot of money.

Ben Bernanke named Time’s Man of the Year. Joe Lieberman will have his revenge for this, oh he will have his revenge.

Now for another electrifying edition of Here Are Some News Stories, Write Your Own Damn Jokes, I Have a Headache: The D.C. city council voted 11-2 for marriage equality. One of the dissenters was Marion “Bitch Set Me Up” Barry.

Annotated White House Flickr feed.

Two headlines that could be shortened

Extraneous words in strikeout:

WaPo: “Afghan Government Not Keeping Promises to Insurgents Changing Sides.”

CNN: “Lieberman Opposes Medicare at 55.”

In the end the people of Connecticut will respect me for that

Holy Joe Lieberman says that his constituents overwhelmingly support the public option because they are “confused.” He just hopes that when he votes against their wishes, “in the end the people of Connecticut will respect me for that.” If they do, I guess it proves his point about them being confused. Really, really confused.

My favorite anti-public option line, which Mary Landrieu and Lieberman and others have used, is that the public option is so popular because people think it’s performed gratis by the health care elves. Landrieu: “I think when people hear public option they hear free health care. Everybody wants free health care. Everybody wants health care they don’t have to pay for.” I’m not surprised that they’re so contemptuous of the American public, but I’m a little surprised that they feel free to express it so openly.

George Bush, speaking in India, said that because there was a law calling for regime change in Iraq (“It was a law passed by the Congress and the previous administration”), it was his “official duty” to invade Iraq. So that’s okay, then.

WHO GEORGE DOESN’T HATE: “Please don’t let the propagandists tell the people that George Bush and America hate you [Muslims].”

WHO GEORGE DOES HATE: “I hate people who hijack a great religion to murder innocent people.”

That’s why he’s a United States senator, and you’re not

Joe Lieberman puts his finger on the problem with a government-run health insurance option: “If we create a public option, the public is going to end up paying for it.” Gosh, I never considered that. I feel so foolish now.

I think that “If we create a public option, the public is going to end up paying for it” is going to go down in history as the new “God made Adam and Eve, not Adam and Steve.”

Speaking of chronic diseases

I see all these attacks on Governor Palin. I don’t live in a bubble.

Last night NBC aired part I of an interview with McCain and Palin.

Asked whether she’d release her medical records, Palin said people, who she called “curiosity seekers,” would be reassured “if” she released them.

They’re trying to make hay over Joe the Biden’s stupid comment about foreign countries creating a crisis to test Obama, although McCain was remarkably unprepared to respond to being confronted with Joe the Lieberman’s similar remark that “Our enemies will test the new president early.” McCain: “I -- look, I don’t know when Joe Lieberman said that. [WIIIAI: June] Joe Lieberman is supporting me.”

McCain did make a guarantee of his own: “And when I’m president, there’s not going to be an international crisis that he can -- that Senator Biden can guarantee.” Elect John McCain, nothing can go wrong can go wrong can go wrong.

Palin added that Biden’s was “the most telling comment that has been made yet on this campaign trail in all of these months.” She didn’t say what it told.

Addressing Colin Powell’s remarks about Palin being totally unqualified, McCain testily dismissed them as ill-informed, saying that Powell hadn’t even bothered to meet Palin and “obviously... does not know Gov. Palin’s record.” In fact, everyone who criticizes her “obviously are either not paying attention to, or don’t care about, the record of the most popular governor in the United States of America.”

McCain and Palin are showing increasing exasperation with anyone who dares to question them or otherwise show less than the deference they feel due them. People who want medical records are “curiosity-seekers,” people who think Palin unqualified are “obviously” ignorant. The Chimperial Presidency lives.

Tom Toles:

Presidential debate: There were others who took a hike

There should be more transparency in the process by which debate rules are decided. For tonight’s “town-hall” debate, who was it who insisted on no follow-ups, going so far as to require that the questioners’ mikes be cut off immediately after they ask their question, and that cameras aren’t allowed to show their faces while the candidates respond to their question? Indeed, in previous debates, did the campaigns dictate where the cameras could and could not point?

Well, let’s see how that works.

Transcript.

McCain: “Let’s not raise taxes on anybody today.”

More items on the ever-growing list of things McCain “knows how to do”: “give some trust and confidence back to America,” “get America working again”.


Who would McCain appoint treasury secretary? Not you, Tom. Ha ha. No, seriously, “the first criteria, Tom, would have to be somebody who immediately Americans identify with”. Oh good, another hockey mom.

Some black dude named Oliver asks how the bailout will help the people he knows. McCain corrects him: it’s not a bailout, it’s a rescue. And for a little extra condescension (McCain loves telling black people that they don’t understand things), he tells Oliver that he probably never heard of Freddie Mac and Fannie Mae before this crisis. He adds that Freddie and Fannie (which he seems to think were responsible for the Great Crash of Ought Eight) were making risky loans “with the encouragement of Sen. Obama and his cronies and his friends in Washington... There were some of us -- there were some of us that stood up against it. There were others who took a hike.”

Obama actually tries to explain to Oliver how the bailout would affect him, answering his actual, you know, question. Oops, spoke too soon; he quickly changed to returning McCain’s fire in kind, mentioning Rick Davis’s lobbying for Fannie Mae. Then said “but, look, you’re not interested in hearing politicians pointing fingers.” Technically, pointing fingers doesn’t make a lot of sound.


McCain’s new favorite example of pork barrel earmarks, now that we’re all tired of the bear DNA, is an overhead projector for the Chicago planetarium. Who doesn’t like planetariums?

McCain keeps talking about how he reaches across the aisle to work with Joe Lieberman. Dude, if you want to touch Joe Lieberman, you just have to reach under your desk.

Asked what sacrifice they’d call for from the American people, McCain said many good projects – not crap like that overhead projector for groovy astronomy shows for stoned teenagers – would have to be scrapped. Medicare, Medicaid, that sort of thing. Okay, he didn’t specify Medicare and Medicaid, but that’s what he means. Obama suggested we need to save energy in our homes. Oh, and the Peace Corps, “so that military families and our troops are not the only ones bearing the burden of renewing America.” How exactly are our troops renewing America?


McC: Obama wants to raise taxes – just like Herbert Hoover!

Brokaw asks an alarmist question about the “ticking timebomb” of Social Security. McCain says “Social Security is not that tough”: all we have to do is just “sit down together across the table.” And it’s just “a little tougher” to fix Medicare: “have a commission, have the smartest people in America come together.” “And let’s have the American people say, ‘Fix it for us.’” See, and you thought this shit was complicated.

He’s calling for “a whole bunch of” nuclear plants, for the third time this debate. But he accuses Obama of “say[ing] that it has to be safe or disposable or something like that.”


Obama twits McC for voting against alternative energy 23 times, so McC responds about one, which was loaded down with pork, and who voted for it? “That one,” pointing at Obama. That one?

McCain insists his $5,000 tax credit will more than make up for taxing health benefits except for those with “these gold-plated Cadillac kinds of policies, you know, like hair transplants.” Somewhere, Joe Biden sheds a tear.

Is health insurance a right, a responsibility or a privilege? McCain: a responsibility, “in this respect, in that we should have available and affordable health care to every American citizen, to every family member.” How is that a responsibility? Obama: a right, except for the people my plan doesn’t cover.


Both agree that America is a force of good in the world. So at least that’s settled.

Asked about intervening in humanitarian crises where US national security is not at stake, Obama asks, “If we could have intervened effectively in the Holocaust, who among us would say that we had a moral obligation not to go in?” Pat Buchanan? Also, pretty much everyone in power in the 1930s and ‘40s.

Asked about invading Pakistan to get bin Laden, Obama says we have to change our policy to Pakistan, we can’t coddle a dictator. This is his first un-adept response, since I assume he knows that Musharraf is out of power. He adds that “We will kill bin Laden, we will crush Al Qaeda.” McCain accuses him of failing to carry a big stick like Teddy Roosevelt. “Senator Obama likes to talk loudly.” He does?

Obama says that McCain suggests that Obama is “green behind the ears,” which is an interesting image, but that it was McCain talked of annihilating North Korea, and sang of bombing Iran. McCain says that was a joke. A hilarious, hilarious joke.


Obama drops the name Gen. McKiernan, just to prove he knows the name, unlike whatshername.

Is Russia an evil empire? (Brokaw amusingly insisted this question only required a yes or no answer). Obama: they do some evil things. McCain: maybe.

Q: if Iran attacked Israel, would we invade it before or after going to the UN Security Council? McCain: bomb, bomb, bomb... Obama ignored the Israel part, and talked about the unacceptability of Iran having nuclear weapons.

Last question: “What don’t you know and how will you learn it?” Obama: ask Michelle, she’ll tell you what I don’t know. McCain: “what I don’t know is what the unexpected will be.”

Oh, I didn’t mention, Obama came with a prepared response to McCain’s predictable “you don’t understand” theme, a long thing about yes, you’re right, I can’t understand why you’re such a dick. Something like that, I’m tired.

Oh, and evidently we’re not rifle shots here, we’re Americans.

Also, my friends my friends my friends my friends my friends my friends my friends my friends my friends my friends my friends my friends my friends my friends my friends my friends my friends my friends my friends.

And Obama should really see a doctor about that green behind the ears thing.

And that concludes the second McCain-That One debate.

Just some leftover pictures I haven’t used yet... oh, all right, CAPTION CONTEST!

Peace in the Middle East, one dirt mound at a time

Finally, a definition of the 50 “roadblocks” in the West Bank which Condi so fulsomely praised Israel for promising to remove. They are dirt mounds. Israel has now taken what they call the “concrete step” of removing those 50 dirt mounds (of course before they agreed to remove 50 of the mounds, they added 30).

On Fox News yesterday, Holy Joe Lieberman defended McCain confusing (slash lying about) Shiite and Sunni as “mis-speaking,” not one minute after himself saying, “If we did what Sen. Obama wanted us to do last year, Al-Qaeda in Iran would be in control of Iraq today.” (h/t Matt Browner Hamlin).

Thief of the day: In Spain, a burglar broke into a funeral parlor, but was overheard. When the police arrived, he pretended to be a corpse, but was caught because 1) he wasn’t in a coffin, 2) he was in dirty work clothes, 3) he was breathing.

Priest of the day: In Florence, a priest gained £3m through fake exorcisms. That’s the sort of thing that ruins it for the real exorcists. The priest denies that he practiced exorcism without... wait for it... a license.

Headline of the day, from the Times: “Teenage Thai Ladyboys Warned over £65 Castrations.”

In Europe, Bush learns that, as is so often the case, it’s all about the hats.

Courage and common sense

An email from Moldy Joe Lieberman today asked for donations to McCain, saying, “When others were silent, and it was thought politically unpopular, John had the courage and common sense to sound the alarm about the mistakes we were making in Iraq and to call for more troops and a new strategy there.” 1) No one likes an I-told-you-so. 2) McCain didn’t tell us so, at least not in the, you know, real world. 3) Lieberman certainly didn’t tell us so, claiming over and over that everything was going swimmingly in the quagmire, so he should really be asked if he lacked the courage and common sense he claims McCain had.

Mike Huckabee says our response to the situation in Pakistan should be to “have an immediate, very clear monitoring of our border, and particularly to make sure, if there’s any unusual activity of Pakistanis coming into the country.” In fact, he’s calling for a fence to be built along the US-Pakistan border.


(I originally made that joke in a comment on Left I, before hearing that the Huck thinks Afghanistan is to the east of Pakistan.)

Scene from a New Zealand-Bangladesh cricket match.

It’s not more important than friendship

King Abdullah of Saudi Arabia has generously pardoned the gang-rape victim sentenced to six months and 200 lashes. See, women in Saudi Arabia don’t have it so bad after all.

Holy Joe Lieberman, wearing a Christmas-y sweater, has endorsed John McCain, thus making his election well nigh inevitable.


Sez His Holiness, “Political party is important...” The Connecticut for Lieberman Party? “...but it’s not more important than what’s good for the country and it’s not more important than friendship.” Awww, fwendship. Because it’s all about you, Joe, and who’s nice to you.

McCain: Say, you really are circumcised.
Lieberman is pretending that he might have endorsed a Democrat – because he’s an independent, you know – but none of them asked him.

Reached for comment, Al Gore just sighed and rolled his eyes.

I believe a CONTEST is called for: what position should Holy Joe get in a McCain administration? And don’t all say “fluffer.”

Unafraid to make moral judgements about the world beyond our borders

Benazir Bhutto is being held under house arrest, but only “for her own security.” So that’s okay, then. (Update: she’s been released.)

Holy Joe Lieberman waxes nostalgic: “The Democratic party I grew up in was unafraid to make moral judgements about the world beyond our borders.” Good times, good times. Democrats today, however, “are viscerally opposed to the use of force – the polar opposite to the self-confident and idealistic nationalism of the party I grew up in.” So idealistic nationalism = the use of force. And how is that different from jingoistic thuggery?

The White House is having its annual Thanksgiving contest, in which the two turkeys to be spared the ax are named by the great American public. The choices offered by the White House this year are less creative than ever: Wing & Prayer, May & Flower, Gobbler & Rafter (Rafter?) (evidently a flock of turkeys is called a rafter), Wish & Bone, Truman & Sixty (the pardon-the-turkey thing was initiated by Truman 60 years ago, when I believe the turkeys were named Hiroshima & Nagasaki), or Jake & Tom. Surely we can do better. I declare this a CONTEST and open with my own entry: Water & Board.