The US government defunds ACORN, but not Blackwater. I guess that’s what ACORN gets for helping brown people instead of killing them.

…except for the catastrophic events of 9/11, and the anthrax attacks against Americans, and terrorist attacks against U.S. allies, and the terrorist attacks against U.S. troops in Iraq and Afghanistan, and Bush’s inability to capture those responsible for 9/11, and waging an unnecessary war that inspired more terrorists, and the success terrorists had in exploiting Bush’s international unpopularity, the Bush/Cheney record on counter-terrorism was awesome.

Go. Read more.

I’m pretty critical of Fox News, and I make no apologies for that. Fox News, as an entity, as a business, and as a news outlet is almost completely devoid of integrity of any kind. Their most popular anchors are all far-Right radicals (yes, radicals) and the vast majority of their daily reporting contains a gross conservative bias they’re not even trying to hide anymore.

That said, this guy Shepard Smith has gotten my attention recently. He appears to be the lone voice of reason in the black hole of Fox News insanity. I’m sure he’s just as personally conservative as the rest of the crew over there, and I’m sure he and I would disagree on countless issues. But he seems to at least display the kind of sense and sensibility that one would hope for from all prominent journalists.

If you have a few minutes, visit this link and watch both of the embedded videos. In the first video (the YouTube embed) Smith goes up against Iraq War cheerleader Judy Miller (formerly of the New York Times) and some conservo-douchebag who does nothing but equivocate about what is and isn’t torture. Shepard Smith is rightfully dismissive of said douchebag, who keeps citing the meritless and oft-debunked “24 scenario” so popular with torture advocates.

The second video clip is from a discussion on FoxNews.com’s online show The Strategy Room. Smith pretty much goes off, slamming his hand on the desk and yelling, “I don’t give a rat’s ass if it helps. We are AMERICA! We do not fucking torture!!”

(Torture doesn’t “help,” by the way.)

And Smith’s admonishment to anyone who thinks torture is no big deal: “If we are going to be Ronald Reagan’s Shining City on the Hill, we don’t get to torture. We don’t do it.”

Nothing gets the conservo-sphere’s attention like invoking Saint Ronnie. (Actually, the notion of a “Shining City on the Hill” was first proffered in a sermon by 17th century Puritan leader John Winthrop and later cited in speeches by Kennedy and Reagan. It is one of the few ideas on which I agree with Reagan. That is, if I understand it correctly to mean that the United States must lead by example and be a government and a society that others would want to emulate rather than fear. As such, yeah, torture is pretty much off the table.)

Sorry for the massive blockquote, I just couldn’t pare down what he’s saying any more than this. It’s all so good and, as they said in My Cousin Vinny, dead-on-balls accurate.

As far as I can tell these days, there are only three events Republicans remember throughout history, and those three events are the basis for every decision they make. The events are WWII (in which a damned furriner, Churchill, is the conservative hero), the Reagan administration, and the Republican take-over of Congress in Clinton’s first term. It doesn’t matter that they “misremember” those three cherished memories and don’t seem to have the ability to accurately assess those time periods. If you are wondering why the Bush administration and the past eight years is not one of those three memories, it is because they decided the day he left office that he is not a true conservative. Down the memory hole with you, George, and take those damned dogs with you!

Let’s just take one of these to prove the point. As WWII is one of the pivotal moments Republicans remember, every enemy is Hitler.

Saddam Hussein? Hitler.

Putin? Hitler.

Kim Jong Il? Hitler.

Barack Obama? Hitler.

Likewise, anyone who does not do precisely what the wingnut crowd wants is instantly an appeaser and akin to Chamberlain.

Barack Obama- appeaser and Chamberlain.

Iraq War Critics- Appeasers.

Olympia Snowe, Susan Collins, and Arlen Specter- Appeasers.

And on and on. So what you have is a movement centered on a fictional history based on three events they don’t remember too well, and they are completely at the mercy of the echo chamber, which has them completely dumbed down by talk radio and the circle jerk of self-referential pundits that tells them exactly what they want to hear. If you remember correctly, the wurlitzer was telling us after the last electoral drubbing that this is a center-right nation, despite the fact the GOP got hammered.

Balloon Juice

We didn’t have a friendly media outlet promoting our every move. The media was hostile and interpolated us in a way that was unrecognizable…. We were alone.

When I protested the war I was made out to be the scum of the earth. Oh, what must it be like to show up for a protest, denounce your Country, bad mouth the President, threaten armed revolt, and have your very own media outlet there to brand you a patriot.

Balloon Juice

Unbelievable.

The temerity and prevarication of the Bushies never ceases to amaze.

Condoleezza Rice has lied to the American public before, of course. But she was on Charlie Rose Wednesday night and she flat out lied about her lies.

She said, “No one was arguing that Saddam Hussein somehow had something to do with 9/11…I was certainly not. The President was certainly not…We were not arguing that.”

This, of course, is false. She herself and numerous other Bush administration officials (including Bush himself) made several statements attempting to connect Iraq to 9/11, implicitly and explicitly. Many of these came in the form of attempts to link Saddam Hussein to Osama bin Laden and al Qaeda, whom the 9/11 Commission concluded had “no collaborative relationship.”

Nevermind the fact that as recently as last week, Bushies were still pushing a Saddam-9/11 link. Ari Fleischer asked Chris Matthews, “After September 11th having been hit once how could we take a chance that Saddam might strike again?”

There are numerous other examples. Frankly too numerous to list, but here are a few:

…on October 14, 2002, Bush announced that “We know that Iraq and Al Qaeda have had high-level contacts that go back a decade.” On the eve of the war, the President told Americans that Iraq “has aided, trained and harbored terrorists, including operatives of al Qaeda.” And as hostilities commenced, Cheney on March 21, 2003 decried Iraq as the “geographic base of the terrorists who have had us under assault now for many years, but most especially on 9/11.”

When you say something that you know is false, that’s called lying. Condoleezza Rice is a well-educated, relatively smart person. It is nigh impossible for her not to remember the statements she and her colleagues have made in the past. Therefore, it is clear that Condoleezza Rice is lying.

Fuck you Condi.

PS: And fuck Charlie Rose for not calling her on it. There’s nothing biased about a journalist who points out when someone is lying. Rice is on the record making these statements! There’s video in most cases! What’s so fucking hard, Charlie?

But after September 11, having been hit once, how could we take a chance that Saddam might not strike again?

- Ari Fleischer on Hardball, March 11, 2009

Memo to Mr. Fleischer:

Amount of Saddam Hussein’s involvement in 9/11: ZERO. Apparently, everyone knows this except Fleischer.

And don’t get me started on that “we haven’t been attacked since 9/11″ garbage. We weren’t attacked for the 10 or so years before 9/11 either, and we didn’t have domestic spying, Guantanamo, or two wars to pay for.

link

Today marks the sixth anniversary of Colin Powell’s shameful speech to the United Nations in favor of a pre-emptive attack on Iraq.

UPDATE: Oops. It was yesterday (Feb. 5). Happy belated!

From February 26, 1993 through Janurary 20, 2001 there were no Islamic terrorist attacks. This was accomplished without illegal invasions, torturing, renditions or eavesdropping on American citizens.

[Incoming Senate Intelligence Committee chair] Dianne Feinstein (D-CA) today:

My position has consistently been that I believe the Agency is best-served by having an intelligence professional in charge at this time.

Senator Feinstein in 2004

I believe the President should have the prerogative to appoint who he wants to be the DCI, or for any other senior position, subject only to the requirement that the person be qualified for the job.

The worst part? In 2004 she was talking about Bush’s appointment of Porter Goss, a man who famously admitted, “I am not qualified. I don’t have the language skills… Uh, so, the things that you need to have, I don’t have.”

Feinstein is in a snit at the moment because of Obama’s choice of former Clinton White House chief of staff Leon Panetta to head the CIA. She complains that she and [outgoing Senate Intelligence Committee chair] Jay Rockefeller (D-WV) were not consulted and were not “informed about the selection.” Furthermore, although Panetta has a reputation as an excellent administrator, there are complaints that he has no career national intelligence experience (which, it must be pointed out, is not officially a requirement for the job.)

However, my sympathy runneth dry because of Feinstein’s inconsistency (as demonstrated above) and because, as Bob Cesca puts it, “when it came to approving of Bush nominees who defended torture, illegal wirteapping, and the Iraq war, Feinstein and Rockefeller never complained.”

Check out their voting records at the link:

Bob Cesca

UPDATE: It bears mentioning that a large part of the reason Panetta was chosen is because he is completely removed from the culture of torture and abuse that is rampant in the CIA. Very few (none?) of the possible candidates from within the agency could show clean hands when it came to such violations.

UPDATE 2: Feinstein Explains Her Reticence About Panetta Nomination