Wednesday, October 05, 2005

Hottest fires in hell are for the neutral

Mike will NOT be noting the same things from Democracy Now! so don't look for it tonight.
Mike is sick as a dog. He's got the flu. He had a flu shot but, like I told him on the phone tonight, it takes a bit of time to build up in the body and he obviously was already infectious before he got the flu shot yesterday. He did his post and was hurrying because he also had a friend, Tony, who was doing a debate tonight. He goes to post his entry and gets this huge error message. Why? Blogger's gone down again. (Again!) He calls me and asks if I'm posting. I was, I was about to start on the "Peace Quote." He said do not hit publish because I will lose everything since Blogger is down yet again for maintance. The same thing would happen if I tried to save it. So I just let the compose screen stay up. Hopefully I've waited long enough and I won't lose this when I try to post.

But he's sick as a dog. I told him he shouldn't go to the debate but it's his best friend and he couldn't miss it. He should have then gone home and gotten into bed (truly, I made those doctor's orders). So don't expect a post from him tonight. I told him I would tell everyone in my post and no one was going to be upset because a) Blogger is the problem and b) he's sick as a dog. He really sounds bad on the phone. Then he remembers Rebecca and has to call her because she usually posts around the same time.

we spent 2 hours on the phone together, Rebecca and i, talking as we waited for the Blogger program to be up and working. She said she was going to put the actual time on her post, she was leaving her's up in the compose screen as well. I'm not changing the time. The time on this is when I started the post. It's now 11:52 p.m. If anyone's wondering during the whole time Blogger's down, "Where is Elayne?" I couldn't post because Blogger was down. If I lose this, I was able to save a copy outside of Blogger but this really is nonsense.

Mike shouldn't have to be sick and upset because Blogger can't give people a head's up to when they're going down. The introduction is new and I did add on the "Peace Quote" but otherwise, I'm not changing anything about my post which would have been up on time were it not for Blogger going down.

Bush Fails to Answer Questions About CIA Leak (Democracy Now!)
At the same press conference President Bush was questioned about the ongoing investigation into the outing of CIA agent Valerie Plame. On Sunday, ABC News host George Stephanopoulos said his sources told him that President Bush and Vice President Dick Cheney were involved in the discussions about Plame. Meanwhile the Washington Post has reported special Prosecutor Patrick Fitzgerald may be planning to bring criminal conspiracy charges against White House officials, possibly Karl Rove and Lewis Libby. On Tuesday Bush refused to answer whether he had discussed the case with Rove or Libby.

Fitzgerald may be trying to bring conspiracy charges against the White House. And this isn't big news in every outlet? Am I crazy or were missing files "national interest" during the Clinton era? One scandal after another the press teased out, whether they had any facts or perceived facts, it was all fodder. But now it's not even a big news item.

Bully Boy may have spoken to Rove and Libby but that's not important to most news outlets, nor is his refusal to answer the question big news.

C.I.'s been noting George Bush's early lie. Though his daughters weren't born for many years after, he had to keep quiet about his drunk driving conviction because what if they modeled his behavior? So is he keeping quiet because he feats that if he isn't, someday Jenna and Barbara may want to out a CIA agent and he doesn't want to inluence them?


Bill O'Reilly Calls For Assassination of Syrian President (Democracy Now!)
For the second time in two months a prominent conservative television host has called for the assassination of a foreign leader. Fox News host Bill O'Reilly said the U.S. should consider assassinating Syrian President Bashar al-Assad if he fails to help the United States with the war in Iraq. That was Fox News host Bill O'Reilly. In August, teleevangelist Pat Robertson called for the assassination of Venezulean President Hugo Chavez during a broadcast of his show the 700 Club.

What is it with these blowhards with a mcrophone calling for the assassination of foriegn ledears? They don't think they're sitting in the stolen oval office, do they?

So Patty Robertson gets away with issuing his fatawa against Hugo Chavez and now Bill O'Relly wants an ear from his "kill."

This isn't a big deal to the Repubes. Janet Jackson's breast was a big deal to them. But they've never minded violence.

Is any government agency looking into Bill O'Reilly's statements?

This is why our image is so poor in the world. To others it appears that we operate under one standard for ourselves and another for everyone else. So if someone in another country makes a threat against Bully Boy, don't be surprised when the rest of the world yawns.

It's this nonsense that explains why Dick Durbin shouldn't have backed down. He didn't say anything wrong but the right-wing attacks started and he backed down. Democrats need to quit backing down. I'm not going to slam Durbin for it because if he'd had any prominent Democrats coming to his defense, he might not have felt so alone.

When Dick Durbin got attacked, Harry Reid should have gone on the offensive but Harry Reid is a lousy minority leader. He has no spine and he's not a fighter. The only fight in the party comes from the grassroots. They could be riding high in poll after poll if they'd stop apologing every time the Republicans whined.

Instead, Rush can make jokes and justify Abu Ghraib and no one really holds him accountable but Dick Durbin makes a wise statement and is forced to apologize.

It's not just foreigners that see the double standard, it's also people in this country.

And when they see Democrats back down time and again, some don't think the party is strong enough to represent us.

Yesterday, I wrote about Diane Feinstein and all but one e-mail was pleased with the post and that Feinstein was being held accountable. However, one e-mailer felt the need to accuse me of planning my posts with Seth. (Seth went on to post about Hillary Clinton.)

It was orchestrated. I've never spoken to Seth (or e-mailed him). I think he's doing a great job and he's a community member so we share opinions like others in the community.

Seth wrote about Hillary Clinton earlier and he was responding (last night) to an e-mail he had received. If someone needs to see that "as a conspiracy."

Both women were held accountable. The visitor who e-mailed felt that neither Seth nor myself should have written about either woman.

If either woman had been called on it strong and hard (their positions on the war) maybe they'd grasped how unpopular their stance it?

Have you read Betty's latest?

"The lies Thomas Friedman tells" (Thomas Friedma Is a Great Man):
I was a chapter into my book when Thomas Friedman shoved the coloring book at me. Thinking maybe he had managed to stay inside the lines, I took it only to find his latest op-ed "A Letter From the Shores of Iraq."
I was appalled. He was still pretending to be in Iraq. "You can't lie like this," I told him but he just giggled, rolled over on his back, played with his belly and started singing, "There ain't no more room here, no more room here, no more room on this planet to go."
I have no idea what he was singing but he said the song held the answer to why we were in Iraq.
I told him a shorty robe did not make him the Dahli Lama. I then told him, quoting from a Carly Simon song "Love You By Heart," that:
The lies that you tell
Will leave you alone
They'll keep you down
They'll catch you
And trip you up.
Thomas Friedman told me I just didn't "get it." If I "got it" I would understand that no one was ever in real trouble for schilling for the administration. Sure Judy Miller got her bangs singed but only because she wanted to go "mano o mano with Fitzgerald." If she'd just done like Tim Russert and the others and testified to the grand jury to begin with, no one would say a word. Look at how pleasing the tales became about Matthew Cooper once he came around?
"We all protect each other," Thomas Friedman said ignoring my disbelief.
"Even old Cohen," Thomas Friedman said pointing to the man he'd urinated on who was now to be found splashing himself with ocean water, "he won't say one word. That's the game, Betinna, that's the way it works."
"But Thomas Friedman, the war is wrong. I was in D.C. and I can tell you that the country has turned against it."
"Doesn't matter," Thomas Friedman said digging lint out of his belly button before examining and then tasting it. "The administration wanted a war and people like me gave them the war, got the public to taste it and want it. That's the way it works."
"Well that is just disgusting."
"That's life," Thomas Friedman chuckled.
We really had nothing else to say to one another after that.I was aware he made up the cabbies and airline passengers and all the rest. But that he would deliberatly lie about something other than imaginary people feeding him compliments honestly shocked me.
Even when we went back to the car and saw the police had put a boot on Billy's car, we had nothing to say to one another. One of us asked, "Cab?" and the other shrugged.
I had seen the face of true malice, a face with an unruly, ungroomed mustache over yellowed teeth, a face that would never be lined with concern over the mounting casualities and fatalities.
I had a feeling nothing would ever be the same.

That's a sample. Things are heating up in the online novel Thomas Friedman Is a Great Man. You won't want to be miss out.


"Peace Quotes" (Peace Center)
The hottest fires in hell are reserved for those who remain neutral in times of moral crisis.
Edmund Burke









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