OTHER FLAG OFFICERS APPLAUD OBAMA FOR WANTING TO CLOSE GUANTANAMO

Unlike the talk radio gasbags, they KNOW what they are talking about and they have impressive military backgrounds. James P. Cullen was a brigadier general who served under the Judge Advocate General, John Hutson was a Rear Admiral and Judge Advocate General and David Irvine, "a Republican attorney and retired Army brigadier general from Utah who spent two decades teaching soldiers how to interrogate war prisoners."

MORE WINGNUT HYPOCRISY

This might turn into a series of posts if enough wingnuts keep on attacking Pres. Obama. I noted 2 below and here's a 3rd one:

Former Bush chief speechwriter Marc Thiessen ... ratchets up the rhetoric a couple dozen notches in a post at National Review:

The CIA program he is effectively shutting down is the reason why America has not been attacked again after 9/11. He has removed the tool that is singularly responsible for stopping al-Qaeda from flying planes into the Library Tower in Los Angeles, Heathrow Airport, and London’s Canary Warf, and blowing up apartment buildings in Chicago, among other plots. It’s not even the end of inauguration week, and Obama is already proving to be the most dangerous man ever to occupy the Oval Office.

OBAMA TAKES A SWIPE AT ANOTHER GASBAG

He's taken a couple at Hannity and now he does the same to Fats Limbaugh.

PREZ ZINGS GOP FOE IN A $TIMULATING TALK
By CHARLES HURT, BUREAU CHIEF
NY Post

Last updated: 10:37 pm
January 23, 2009
Posted: 8:13 pm
January 23, 2009

WASHINGTON -- President Obama warned Republicans on Capitol Hill today that they need to quit listening to radio king Rush Limbaugh if they want to get along with Democrats and the new administration.

"You can't just listen to Rush Limbaugh and get things done," he told top GOP leaders, whom he had invited to the White House to discuss his nearly $1 trillion stimulus package.

FAUX News has a slightly different version:

Obama Says His View on Taxes Prevailed Because 'I Won'
Democrats called it a light-hearted moment that drew laughs around the table, while Republicans said there was laughter but couldn't recall if any of it came from their ranks.

By Major Garrett

FOXNews.com
Friday, January 23, 2009

Obama invoked conservative talk radio host Rush Limbaugh in a discussion about the danger of allowing partisan differences block progress on the stimulus bill, which currently costs $825 billion.

Obama explained that lawmakers were closer together than the public realized on the stimulus package but warned of pitfalls if Congress and the White House don't work together. Again, according to participants in the meeting, Obama said this about rising above typical partisan differences: "We're all political animals, we've all got political bases," the president is reported to have said. "If we don't get this done we (the Democrats) could lose seats and I could lose re-election. But we can't let people like Rush Limbaugh stall this. That's how things don't get done in this town."

MATTHEWS IS CORRECT

Caribou Barbie is going to "write a book" and Chris Matthews doesn't think she has the ability to do so. Matthews is undoubtedly correct and even better, he's pissed off the wingnuts.

WHINING ABOUT GITMO

The war whore wingnuts (see here and here) are upset that Obama wants to close Guantanamo within a year despite professional military opinion that it should be closed.

YES, SWEDEN'S EXAMPLE OFFERS A WAY OUT OF THIS MESS

The ideologues in the Bush regime refused to nationalize the banks and as a result we've poured billions into rat holes that provide bonuses to the morons who helped create the mess. Sweden found a better way.

ANOTHER GOOD MOVE BY OBAMA

Bush pandered to the Fundies by prohibiting U.S. aid to go to any foreign group:

Obama Reverses Abortion Funds Policy

NPR.org, January 23, 2009 · President Barack Obama on Friday quietly ended the Bush administration's ban on giving federal money to international groups that perform abortions or provide information on the option.

In a move related to the lifting of the abortion rule, Obama also is expected to restore funding to the U.N. Population Fund, or UNFPA, probably in the next budget. Both he and Clinton had pledged to reverse a Bush administration determination that assistance to the organization violated U.S. law.

This makes U.S. policy mirror the majority opinion in America.

A REPOST FOR THE WINGNUTS

Pres. Obama signs an executive order calling for the closing of Guantanamo within a year and the wingnuts start whining again about how this move is a threat to our national security. Let's remind them what the Chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff said about 1 year ago:

Top U.S. officer would like Guantanamo shut down
Sun Jan 13, 2008 7:35pm EST
By Andrew Gray

GUANTANAMO BAY U.S. NAVAL BASE, Cuba, Jan 13 (Reuters) - The top U.S. military officer said on Sunday he would like to see the detention center at Guantanamo Bay closed because its image has damaged America's international standing.

"I'd like to see it shut down," said Adm. Mike Mullen. "I believe that from the standpoint of how it reflects on us that it's been pretty damaging."

USA Today also reported on Mullen's remark, so the wingnuts can't claim it wasn't public knowledge:

Joint Chiefs chairman: Close Guantanamo
Posted 1/14/2008 6:08 PM
By Robert Burns, AP Military Writer

GUANTANAMO BAY NAVAL BASE, Cuba — The chief of the U.S. military said he favors closing the prison here as soon as possible because he believes negative publicity worldwide about treatment of terrorist suspects has been "pretty damaging" to the image of the United States.

"I'd like to see it shut down," Adm. Mike Mullen said Sunday in an interview with three reporters who toured the detention center with him on his first visit since becoming chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff last October.

ANOTHER CAPITALIST PIG

John Thain, the man who took over the failing Merrill Lynch, decided that billions in BONUSES should be paid to Merrill's MOTU. He also decided that his office needed a $1.2 million re-decoration, including a $25,000 table. The NY Times asks "What is it with American bankers and their sense of entitlement?" and my reply is that it's not just the bankers, it's just about all of Wall Street.


Maybe their morals will improve if we hang a few of the MOTU, kind of like the fate of Admiral Byng?

TWO UNFORCED ERRORS

I get annoyed when liberals say stupid things that the wingnuts can pounce on to attack them. The latest blunders came from Rev. Lowery and Robert Reich. At the inaugural, Lowery made this comment:

...help us work for that day when black will not be asked to give back, when brown can stick around, when yellow will be mellow, when the red man can get ahead, man, and when white will embrace what is right."

To me, this is clearly a dig at white people for past injustices and I don't understand why Lowery included that line. It's not that whites haven't been guilty, it's that it gives the wingnuts fuel to stoke up the resentment of "angry white males."

Back on January 8, Robert Reich made this statement on his blog and the wingnuts have used it to accuse the Democrats of being racists:

And if construction jobs go mainly to white males who already dominate the construction trades, many people who need jobs the most -- women, minorities, and the poor and long-term unemployed -- will be shut out.

I think Reich is correct but he's got to phrase this a bit differently so the wingnuts can't use his statement for propaganda.

ANOTHER GOOD MOVE BY OBAMA

Obama decided to re-take the oath of office from Justice Roberts because Roberts didn't get the words in correct order. This will stop some of the loons from filing idiotic lawsuits claiming that Obama isn't legally the President, just as they tried to show that he wasn't a natural American citizen. Leave it to Drudge to try to keep this "scandal" alive by pointing out that on the 2nd try, Obama didn't put his hand on the Bible.

FRANKS SEES THE SAME THING AS ATRIOS

Atrios has often pointed out that whenever the Villagers blather about the glories of bi-patisanship or centrism, they really mean "don't govern as a real liberal." Of course, for them it's fine for the GOP to be uncompromising and Thomas Franks points out that Tom Delay realized this:

And what happens when a strong-minded movement encounters a politician who acts as though the truth always lies halfway between his own followers and the other side? The dolorous annals of Clinton suggest an answer, in particular the chapters on Government Shutdown and Impeachment.

That's why it is so obviously preferable to be part of the movement that doesn't compromise easily than to depend on the one that has developed a cult of the almighty center. Even a conservative as ham-handed as former House Majority Leader Tom DeLay seems to understand this.

As he recounted in his 2007 memoirs, Republicans under his leadership learned "to start every policy initiative from as far to the political right as we could." The effect was to "move the center farther to the right," drawing the triangulating Clinton along with it.

The diehard (that may be redundant) movement conservatives will almost never support Obama, so he really has nothing to lose by at least trying to fake being a real liberal.

BILL KRISTOL STILL DOESN'T GET IT

He writes in the NY Times:

But I don’t think keeping us safe has been Bush’s most impressive achievement. That was winning the war in Iraq, and in particular, his refusal to accept defeat when so many counseled him to do so in late 2006. His ordering the surge of troops to Iraq in January 2007 was an act of personal courage and of presidential leadership. The results have benefited both Iraq and the United States. And the outcome in Iraq is a remarkable gift to the incoming president, who now only has to sustain success, rather than trying to deal with the consequences in the region and around the world of a humiliating withdrawal and a devastating defeat.

Iran is the only "winner" of the Iraq War.

ANOTHER WINGNUT NARRATIVE BREAKS DOWN

If Obama is a Marxist, as many wingnuts claim, then why did so many private jets show up for his inauguration? Have you ever gotten a ride in a poor person's jet?

Dulles Closes Runway to Handle Influx of Inaugural-Bound Jets

By John Hughes

Jan. 17 (Bloomberg) -- ... The four days of festivities also will bring so many private jets that airport authorities are closing a runway to park them.

The 9,400-foot runway at Washington Dulles International, one of three major airports serving the capital, closed at 5 p.m. yesterday to allow as many as 100 small planes to park there beginning today, said Tara Hamilton, a spokeswoman for the airport operator.

Hamilton’s Metropolitan Washington Airports Authority is expecting 500 small jets to land at Dulles between yesterday and Jan. 21. That would set a record, topping the 300 the airport accommodated for President George W. Bush’s 2004 inaugural, Hamilton said.

THE FUNDIES WON'T LIKE THIS

This may be the first time an incoming President acknowledged the existence of Americans like me:

We are a nation of Christians and Muslims, Jews and Hindus, and nonbelievers.

LET'S NOT FORGET THESE REMARKS

The wingnuts have been whining about how the liberals attacked Pres. Fredo from his first day in office. Let's make sure these two clowns don't forget their own remarks.

Joseph Farah, WorldNetDaily:

"I want Obama to fail because his agenda is 100 percent at odds with God's. Pretending it is not simply makes a mockery of God's straightforward Commandments."

Fats Limbaugh:

"I hope he fails."

FINALLY!!!

"On this day, we gather because we have chosen hope over fear, unity of purpose over conflict and discord.

On this day, we come to proclaim an end to the petty grievances and false promises, the recriminations and worn out dogmas, that for far too long have strangled our politics."

I DON'T RECALL WHO SAID THIS...

but it's a nice criticism of conservatism: Conservatism can't fail, it can only be failed. A Free Market Fairy ninny at Forbes applies similar logic to capitalism:

This weekend, I caught a BBC radio program on the meltdown in “The City”--London’s financial district. The program quoted many young Brit bankers who said morality was a barrier to personal success in The City. Better to have the sociopath gene if one wants to become a billionaire.

What we are hearing and seeing, in other words, is a failure of morality, not of capitalism.

J. K. Galbraith wrote that conservatives NEVER quote the statements of Adam Smith that directly deny the existence of the Free Market Fairy and the Forbes ninny is another one. He asks:

How do we get back to the old Adam Smith/Benjamin Franklin idea of free enterprise based on a moral foundation?

Can you imagine someone as sophisticated as Smith ascribing morality to capitalism?

WE CONTINUE TO LOSE "HEARTS AND MINDS"

Especially in Afghanistan.

Karzai urges West to review Afghan war strategy
Tue Jan 20, 2009 4:39am EST

By Sayed Salahuddin

KABUL, Jan 20 (Reuters) - Afghan President Hamid Karzai said on Tuesday the killing of civilians by foreign troops was a main source of instability in Afghanistan, and urged the West to review its strategy in fighting the Taliban and delivering aid.

"This persecutes us," Karzai said of the killings. "Our international friends should know that it is a physical and mental obsession," he told the annual opening of parliament.

The speaker of the upper house of parliament, Sibghatullah Mojadidi, warned of further unrest if civilian casualties were not stopped.

"We are fed up ... this is really an important issue and I fear that, God forbid, the Afghan nation will rise up. I have told my American brothers and friends to exercise caution and if the nation does rise, the situation will be worse than Iraq," he told parliament.

Karzai said administrative corruption, the booming drugs trade and attacks by Taliban insurgents were the other main sources of instability.

ANOTHER MOTU EPIC FAIL

This time in Great Britain...

RBS Plummets Amid Concern Bank May Be Nationalized (Update2)
By Jon Menon

Jan. 19 (Bloomberg) -- Royal Bank of Scotland Group Plc slumped by the most in two decades in London trading on concern the government may have to take full control of the bank after forecasting the biggest loss ever reported by a U.K. company.

RBS has been crippled by former Chief Executive Officer Fred Goodwin’s 14.3 billion-euro ($19 billion) acquisition of ABN Amro Holding NV’s investment banking assets three months before the credit crisis began. Goodwin was ousted in October after the government agreed to take control of RBS. Chancellor of the Exchequer Alistair Darling today called the ABN Amro takeover “disastrous” on BBC Radio 4.

“I am angry at the Royal Bank of Scotland and what has happened,” Prime Minister Gordon Brown told reporters in London today. The bank took “irresponsible risks,” in investing in U.S. subprime mortgages and ABN Amro, he said.