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.”

You can look inside my mouth if you want

Although Israel’s Wall has annexed the land of many Palestinians to Jerusalem and thus to Israel, Israel has decided
not to give the residents of that land Israeli residency rights such as the right to work in Israel. Charming.

I’m so glad our presidential candidates are selected in Iowa. Today Hillary Clinton campaigned in a cattle barn in which auctions are normally held, saying she felt like she was being bid on and “I know you’re going to inspect me. You can look inside my mouth if you want.” So now we can all have that image in our heads.

Romney on God and abortion and his irrational fear of the color pink

On Meet the Press, Twitt Romney explained that his “freedom requires religion” line wasn’t really him, it was actually a paraphrase of John Adams and maybe George Washington as well. This is what happens when our upper classes no longer read Latin and Greek: Romney has mistaken the Founders’ classics-inspired discussion of the role of virtu in a republic for an endorsement of the Christian religion. Sez Twitt: “We, we believe, as a nation, from the founding of this nation, that God gave the individual certain inalienable rights.” Shorter Twitt: America believes in God.

He did admit that “on an individual basis, you have many individuals of great morality and--that, that don’t have any particular faith.” Two things about that sentence: 1) he describes atheists as if they just hadn’t yet chosen from among the many fine branches of Christianity available to them. 2) Note his repetition of the word individual: he’s prepared to tolerate some people not having any particular faith, but they are to be considered mere isolated individuals; collectively, he defines Americans as a God-bothering people.

He says he heard the decision letting blacks be full members of the Mormon church on his car radio when he was 31 (he doesn’t say if his dog was tied to the roof at the time), and had to pull over to weep. Russert fails to ask why, if the church’s previous racist policy was so repugnant to him, he never did a damned thing to change it or protest in any way.

His mother ran for the Senate in 1970? How did I not know that?

On his flip flop on abortion, he says “I was always personally opposed to abortion, as I think almost everyone in this nation is.” No, “almost everyone” is not.

Says Huckabee’s criticism of Bush’s foreign policy as arrogant and exhibiting a bunker mentality “went over the line” and he should apologize.

For some reason, it was very important to him to deny a report that his house is pink.

2007 in pictures

It’s time for the annual selection of the pictures that defined 2007, as far as this blog was concerned. And if those pictures were, as in previous years, mostly pictures of George Bush looking goofy, that’s something we’ll all just have to live with.

Getting tough in a diplomatic-pressure way

Hillary Clinton: “I also believe we have to get tough in a diplomatic-pressure way with Iran, and I think that helps us do it. If it saves American lives by labeling them a terrorist organization, I’m going to label them a terrorist organization.” For the children. For the children.

Speaking of our children, our dirty, dirty children, does anyone else see a giggling attempt to insert irony into this WaPo headline: “Abstinence Programs Face Rejection”? The article quotes one Stan Koutstaal, director of the Office of Abstinence Education in the Dept of Health and Human Services, deploring the increasing number of states pulling out (ahem) of federal abstinence-only programs: “It’s the youths in these states who are missing out.” No comment.

They deserve... action!

Bush’s radio address today is yet another attack on Congress for failing to pass war funding, with a Christmas-y theme: “Congress’ responsibility is clear: They must deliver vital funds for our troops -- and they must do it before they leave for Christmas. Our men and women on the front lines will be spending this holiday season far from their families and loved ones. And this Christmas, they deserve more than words from Congress. They deserve... action!” (Punctuation tweaked to give it the proper Buzz Lightyear vibe.)

Really, action. For Christmas. Kind of a crappy gift-giver, isn’t he? Must have been hell on the twins growing up. “Jenna and Not-Jenna deserve more than the Malibu Barbie Dream House, they deserve... action!”

Less than one week per stab

Lance Cpl. Delano Holmes has been sentenced to the time he served awaiting his court-martial, less than 10 months, for “negligently” stabbing an Iraqi soldier 44 times.

Stop the Hand Shows!

I’ve just received an email from the Fred Thompson campaign with the above subject line (I added the exclamation point; obviously Fred Thompson doesn’t do exclamation points, they plum tucker him out). In it, Fred’s campaign manager says Ronald Reagan’s “I paid for this microphone” line in 1980 was a “defining moment” and that “Fred had a defining moment on Wednesday in the Iowa debate, when he refused the liberal moderator’s demand to raise his hand to say yes or no to a complex question. The similarities were incredible.”

Freezing Cabinet members, what we just need to know, and what the Peruvian people understand

This morning, Bush met with his Cabinet, then made them stand behind him in the Rose Garden while he blathered.

He and the Cabinet, he reported, “discussed the priorities that we’re working on to meet for the needs of the American people”. Always nice to hear that they’re working to meet for our needs.


One of those needs: baseball. He wants to put “the steroid era of baseball behind us”. Which just sounds kinky. Unlike this: “And I just urge our -- those in the public spotlight, particularly athletes, to understand that when they violate their bodies, they’re sending a terrible signal to America’s young.”


Earlier this week, Bush sent a letter to Kim Jong-Il, who sent a letter in response, which Bush evidently does not plan to read have someone read to him: “you know, I got his attention with a letter, and he can get my attention by fully disclosing his programs, including any plutonium he may have processed and converted -- into whatever he’s used it for; we just need to know.”

He cut it short after two questions, saying “I’ve got freezing Cabinet members out here”. Insert Condi joke here.


In the afternoon, he met with President Alan Garcia of Peru to sign a trade treaty. “I thank those from the -- who care about trade, who’ve joined us today.”


What will the free trade treaty bring Peruvians? “Peruvians will benefit from more choices and more lower prices -- or better prices.”

What do the Peruvian people understand? “The Peruvian people understand that expanding trade with the United States will improve their lives; that’s what they understand.”

Negligent

Marine Lance Cpl. Delano Holmes has been found guilty of negligent homicide, but not of unpremeditated murder, for stabbing an Iraqi soldier 44 times. Sorta gives a new meaning to the word negligent.

I said I wasn’t going to watch the last Democratic debate, and I didn’t. But here are the pictures I would have run, featuring the many hand gestures of the Democratic party.

Republican Debate: You can’t really respect ‘em if you’re killing ‘em in the womb

I thought we were done, but today there was another tedious debate (tedious transcript), there’s always another tedious debate – indeed, it seems that there’s a Democratic debate tomorrow, which I will happily watch and write about upon receipt of one million (1,000,000) dollars via the PayPal link. Even with the added crazy that only Alan Keyes can bring, it was not exciting, is what I’m saying.

The first question was about the national debt. Giuliani said that he’d solve the national debt by cutting taxes. Oh, he also wants to cut non-military spending 10%, which I guess is what you say if you don’t want to go through all the tedious effort of actually examining programs and figuring out what should be spent on them. Asked how people affected by those cuts should manage, he said they’d have to “figure out other ways to do it” and not rely on “the nanny government”. This is the guy who had cops walking his mistress’s dog.


Romney said the sacrifice he’s calling for from the American people is to “let the [government] programs that don’t work go. Don’t lobby for them forever.” Gosh, that doesn’t sound like very much sacrifice at all.

Asked who is paying more than their fair share of taxes, Alan Keyes said we need to get rid of incumbent politicians (Keyes wasn’t big on saying anything relevant to the actual questions). McCain said that poor people don’t pay any taxes except for the payroll tax, which will come as a surprise to poor people. Huckabee said we should have a “fair tax,” “and that means the rich people aren’t going to be made poor, but maybe the poor people could be made rich”. Whatever the hell that means. Romney said he doesn’t lie awake at night worrying about the taxes rich people are paying. Thompson said he’d like to be in Romney’s situation so he wouldn’t have to worry about taxes either. Romney said he’d like to be in Thompson’s situation. Thompson said Romney’s gettin’ to be a pretty good actor. This is what passes for wit in a presidential debate. Make that two million (2,000,000) for me to watch tomorrow’s debate. I don’t want to have to worry about taxes either.


Giuliani says we should have a flatter tax that you could file on one page. He then held up a piece of paper to show us what that would look like, in case we were unfamiliar with the concept.

Huckabee on regulation: “I can’t part the red sea, but I believe I can part the red tape.”

Asked whether the US should have economic trade with human rights abusers, McCain said hell yes, promising to “open every market in the world to Iowa’s agricultural products.” Of course he said it as a throwaway applause line, but, putting the question of human rights abuse to one side, don’t other countries have the right to set their own trade and economic policies, to not take Iowa’s agricultural products against their will?


Romney: “We call it global warming, not America warming. So let’s not put a burden on us alone and have the rest of the world skate by.” Oh I don’t think anyone will be doing much skating.

McCain said we can solve global warming with “capitalist and free enterprise motivation.” Which is like O.J. Simpson looking for the real killers.

We’ll never know what Fred Thompson thinks, because he refused to do a show of hands on whether he believes in global warming.

On education, Duncan Hunter thinks the problem is “bureaucratic credentialing” of teachers and that Jaime Escalante was hounded out of school by the Cylons unions. Alan Keyes thinks it’s that judges drove God out of the schools and that children aren’t told that their rights come from God not from the Constitution or our leaders. Huckabee wants to unleash weapons of mass instruction, which he also said in the last debate, and which shows incredible tone-deafness. Who is impressed by a line like that? Ron Paul thinks it’s the federal government and the Dept of Education getting in the way. Thompson thinks it’s the teachers’ union.

Keyes: “People talk about our prosperity, but you can’t really respect ‘em if you’re killing ‘em in the womb, it doesn’t make any sense.”


Giuliani says he has led an open, transparent life. Although what he seems to mean is that he keeps getting caught.

I wasn’t a knee-walking drunk

My new favorite name, a guy on McNeil-Lehrer yesterday talking about malaria: Dr. Ripley Ballou.

Bush tells ABC, “I doubt I’d be standing here if I hadn’t quit drinking whiskey, and beer and wine and all that.” Is it wrong of me to wish I had a time machine and a bottle of Wild Turkey?

He says that he was never a “knee-walking drunk.” That’s right, when he was drunk he usually preferred to drive. He does say he had an “addiction.” Is this the first time he’s admitted that?

What really got him to quit was that it was interfering with... his mountain biking: “Alcohol can compete with your affections. It sure did in my case. Affections with your family, or affections for exercise.”

Until they look at it, from a, just experience beyond human, they’ll never figure it out

Mike Huckabee says (video below) of his growing poll numbers, “There’s only one explanation for it, and it’s not a human one.” Zombies? Aliens? Southern Baptist androids? “It’s the same power that helped a little boy with two fish and five loaves feed a crowd of five thousand people.” Heroin? “There literally are thousands of people across this country who are praying that a little will become much, and it has.” Coincidentally, that’s the subject line of half the spam email I get. “And it defies all explanation, it has confounded the pundits. And I’m enjoying every minute of them trying to figure it out, and until they look at it, from a, just experience beyond human, they’ll never figure it out.” Which is why Bill O’Reilly is uniquely qualified.



Iraq’s Shiite-run Interior Ministry has ordered all policewomen to turn in their guns, or lose their salaries. The women were recruited by the Americans. Now that the Iraqis are in charge of recruitment, there are no more women being recruited.

Bush had a meeting about teenage drug use today. He explained the economics of the drug trade: “It’s one thing to affect supply, but when you reduce demand, it affects the capacity of people to supply. If we have people -- fewer people using, there’s not going to be a need to supply as much.”

Later in the day he explained to Italian President Napolitano, “Iran is dangerous.” But not that sexy, bad-boy kind of dangerous.

George ’n Jews

Bush met some Jews today at the White House. Betcha he didn’t know they came in black.


It’s International Human Rights Day, so Bush talked about the only human right he really cares about, religious freedom, while unwittingly practicing the right to mangled speech: “We discussed how America must remain engaged in helping people realize the great blessings of religious freedom; and where we find societies in which religious freedom is not allowed to practice, that we must do something about it.”

This AP picture was taken through the magic of Hasid-o-cam.


Then he celebrated Hanukkah, and what’s Hanukkah without a honking big Christmas tree? (And a shout-out to Reuters photographer Jim Young for framing the shot so as to take in the entire tree.)

Republican debate, Hispanic-style: It’s no picnic to be living as an illegal immigrant

At the Univision debate (transcript), which would have been a lot more fun if Tancredo had shown up, the Republican presidential candidates evoked a special bond (or “peculiar connections,” as Romney put it) between their party and Hispanics. Romney noted that “Hispanic Americans serve in the military and care about our military,” while Duncan Hunter compared JFK, a Democrat who failed to provide air support at the Bay of Pigs, with Ronald Reagan, a Republican who supported El Salvador’s government and death squads as they massacred peasants and nuns.



Everyone thought immigration should be more like a credit card. Huckabee: “If you can get an American Express card in two weeks, it shouldn’t take seven years to get a work permit to come to this country in order to work on a farm.” Don’t leave your hovel without it. Romney: “Isn’t it amazing in this country, with the fact that American Express or Visa or Mastercard can tell you that fast whether the card is authorized or not,” but there’s no system for employers to verify immigration status.

Everyone was asked whether it was right that children with American citizenship because they were born here should be separated from their parents. No one really answered, mostly suggesting that the issue should wait until after the border is secured or the Second Coming, whichever comes first.

Giuliani: “It’s no picnic to be living as an illegal immigrant.” Although many of the agricultural products utilized in a picnic are picked by illegal immigrants. That’s what we call a paradox.

Asked about foreign rulers, Giuliani said “I actually agree with the way King Juan Carlos spoke to Chavez.” McCain actually quoted the hereditary monarch in Spanish (“Por que no te callas?”) (yes, the king used the familiar tu form, as if speaking to a child). Fred Thompson, asked about Castro having survived 9 American presidents, said, “I’m going to make sure that he didn’t survive 10 U.S. presidents. (LAUGHTER)” Ha ha, assassination is funny!

McCain on health care: “Ronald Reagan said nobody ever washed a rental car. And that’s true in health insurance. If they’re responsible for it, then they will take more care of it.” So if the government provides health coverage, we’ll all stop washing, is that what you’re saying?



The Huck uses the health care discussion to offer that he wouldn’t mind shipping Michael Moore to Cuba. At the last debate, he said he’d put Hillary on the first rocket to Mars. I’m beginning to see a pattern here.

The Huck also sent this important message: I am wearing an orange tie.



On education, Thompson says “if families would stay together, if fathers would raise their children, especially young men when they get into troublesome ages, we would solve a good part of the education problem in this country.”

Asked what role Hispanics will play in the development of American society, most suggested that they stop being so Hispanicky and become more like reg’lar Amurricins. Only McCain, from Arizona, said that “We will be enriched by their music, their culture, their food, their language”. The Huck: “Our equality is not based on our ancestry, our last name, it’s not based on how much money we make.” Last name, Huckabee, you don’t need me to make a joke out of that one. Hunter said their role is to become Republicans. Fred Thompson praised Hispanics’ work-ethic. You don’t need me to make a joke out of that one either. He added, “The Hispanic community is known for their values. They know that marriage is between a man and a woman, for example.” Romney: “The Hispanic community, like all other communities in this great nation, need to come together and strengthen America. Because this is the land of the brave and the home of the free. And Hispanics are brave and they are free, as are all of the people of this great nation.” Just as long as they’re not free to bravely mow his lawn.

Bombs or BlackBerries?

The Archbishop of York cut up his dog collar – I saw it on the BBC news – and won’t wear one again until Robert Mugabe is out of office in Zimbabwe. Well if that doesn’t do it I don’t know what will.

Watch the footage... IF YOU DARE!



McCain was on Fox News Sunday. He said that face-to-face negotiations, for example with Iran, are overrated. “BlackBerries work. Emissaries work. There’s many thousands of ways to communicate.” Including his favorite way to communicate: “I’d remind you that when we stopped the bombing in Vietnam, we were going to talk in Paris. It took 2.5 years because of the shape of the table. Bombing started of Hanoi. And guess what? Negotiations started again.”

Can’t find a transcript of the Republican debate on Univision, but I think this picture perfectly sums up the attitude of Republicans when confronted by Hispanics:

Giuliani, dressing normally and very, very empathetic with people

Giuliani went on Meet the Press this morning. He defended his business dealings with the government of Qatar: “This is a country that’s modernizing. It’s a country that’s moving in a direction we want it to move in. ... You and I can have dinner there. We can have dinner there, and we can dress normally.”

He said that he doesn’t believe, as Huckabee does, that homosexuality is aberrant. As long as they don’t have any, you know, homosexual sex: “It’s the acts, it’s the various acts that people perform that are sinful, not the, not the orientation that they have. Which includes me, by the way. I mean, you know, unfortunately, I’ve had my own sins that I’ve had to confess and had to deal with and try to overcome and so I’m very, very empathetic with people, and that we’re all, we’re all imperfect human beings struggling to, to try to be better.” See, being gay is just like cheating on your wife, then “dealing with it” by dumping your wife, and... okay, you’re not paying attention because you’re still laughing at Giuliani saying he’s very, very empathetic with people, aren’t you?


AP headline: “Pope Laments Christmas Consumerism.” Why, when I was a kid we got a new Hitler Youth uniform and we were happy to get it.