Sooner Be Blue

Mostly politics, a few current events, a squirt of seltzer down yer pants .. a little blog for my rambles and rants.

2008/3/30

Take THAT Sean Hannity!

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@ 05:45 AM (3 months, 11 days ago)

From Bill Maher's "Real Time" on HBO:

"When Barack Obama didn’t hear Reverend Wright say those awful things about America, he still should have rushed the stage, smite Reverend Wright with the cross, and left the church. If there’s anything the right wing can agree on, it’s that. And that gays are going hell, right after they suck them off in the airport bathroom.

But it raises an obvious question, one that I haven’t heard asked, which is strange because it’s so obvious: If you leave a church when the head of the church says bad things about America, what do you do when your church hierarchy is caught up in a systematic and decades-long sex abuse scandal? And did I mention the people being sexually abused were children? Hundreds of them?

How about when the head of that church, or Pope, associated with and promoted members of the clergy who not only facilitated the sexual abuse and rape of hundreds and hundreds of children, but engaged in a decades-long cover-up of those crimes?

Reverend Wright associated with Farrakhan. The Pope works with Cardinal Law. Which is worse? Isn’t it the man who shuffled "priests" like Shanley and Geoghan and many others from parish to parish with the full knowledge of their crimes, and then claimed he had no idea?

Yes, by Sean Hannity’s own logic, Catholics like him, en masse, would be expected to abandon their church. Which shouldn’t be a problem, because they worship Reagan anyway.

COLMES:Then shouldn’t John McCain say he doesn’t support the views of a man who makes anti-Catholic statements?

OBENSHAIN: He did, I believe. He said I’m not–I don’t agree with everything — a..

COLMES: And Obama says he does not support anti-Semitism, as expressed by Louis Farrakhan.

HANNITY: Leave the church.

Well, what about it, Sean? Shouldn’t you leave your church? I mean, like, five years ago?

And since you haven’t, how do we know you’re not also a secret child f**ker? Again, just using your logic:

HANNITY:…What if he really deep down in his heart thinks like Pastor Wright?

LUNTZ: It’s not for anyone to answer that question.

HANNITY: Well, is that dangerous for this country? I think that would be dangerous. That would mean we would have — if he agreed with Wright, and I don’t know that he does, but if he did, that would mean a racist and an anti-Semite would be president of the United States.

Side note: Does it occur to anyone that, for the past five years, the nuts every politician has been busy distancing themselves from–Reverend Wright, Reverend Falwell, Reverend Hagee, Reverend Haggard, Reverend Robertson–are all, you know, reverends?

Why don’t we just go back to the days when politicians kept their religions to themselves? Wasn’t that better?"

 

2008/3/27

Old Fogey Warrior

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@ 06:52 AM (3 months, 14 days ago)
 
Bill Maher went hard after John McCain for his repeated misstatements on the Iran/al Qaeda connection on last Friday’s episode of Real Time, here's some of it:
 
New Rule: Old soldiers never die, they get young soldiers killed. This week John McCain said for the third time in two days, that Iran, a Shi’ite stronghold was training al Qaeda a militant Sunni organization. That the Hatfields of the Muslim world would be working with the McCoys is so not true even Dick Cheney hasn’t said it.
 
Now the press, which loves McCain because he feeds them BBQ, dismissed this as just one of those senior moments. Not to worry, he’s only going to have his finger on the nuclear trigger.
 
But it’s not just a ‘gaffe,’ it’s what McCain really thinks. And therein lies the paradox of this campaign: McCain’s strength is really his weakness. He’s a warrior who’s dumb about war.
 
Whoever read The Art of War, chapter three of The Art of War says, “Know thy enemy.” And John McCain plainly doesn’t. He thinks the solution is our presence in the Middle East. No, the problem is our presence in the Middle East.
 
That’s why I don’t care if John McCain is better than Bush on global warming or torture or campaign finance, because he’s exactly the same as Bush on the war. They both don’t get the same thing. As long as we’re setting up shop in the heart of the Arab world, we’re not keeping America safer.
 
Bin Laden goes ballistic over cartoons in Danish newspapers, and Goober and Grandpa want to put up a Hooters in Fallujah.
 
They don’t “hate us for our freedom,” they hate us for our fiefdom. Winning the War on Terror comes down to this: what will make us safer from pissed off Arab teenagers who are willing to die? There are a number of good answers to that question, but occupying their land for the next 100 years is not one of them.
 
Some people look at McCain and see a tough guy who is going to protect us from the “Islamofascists.” I look at him and see a walking Tom Clancy action figure who is going to get us all killed.
 
And yet a new poll shows that a majority of Americans believe John McCain is the candidate best qualified to answer when that red phone rings at 3:00 a.m., because he’d be up anyway, trying to pee.
 
Yes, 55% of Americans think it’s McCain who should answer that phone, because they know John McCain is a warrior. He will not waver or hesitate. He will answer that phone and give the order that sends men to die ....and it will turn out to be a recording asking him if he’s happy with his mortgage."
 
Bill has plenty more to say about current events here:
 
http://youtube.com/watch?v=i5taiDbxJWs
 

2008/3/25

Sticky tape it back together again?

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@ 08:06 AM (3 months, 15 days ago)

The other night on Bill Maher's TV show "Real Time" one of his guests was Australian CNN International Correspondent Michael Ware. The interview was live via satellite from Iraq. He's one of the few journalists who has been there for the entire war, not only with the soldiers, but also does interviews with the bad guys...was even kidnapped and survived.
 
Anyway, it was a very interesting discussion. I appreciate and respect Ware, he was the first mainstream journalist I ever heard say that the war in Iraq was lost, but yet he makes a case to Maher against a US pullout.
 
Even though I want the US out of Iraq as quickly as possible, I have to seriously ponder his words. Here’s an excerpt:
 
“Well, I guess, unfortunately from a purely self interested view from, say, the United States, you can pull out of here tomorrow. And lets forget about the moral horror that would ensue as everyone just starts hammering in to each other, you’ve also got to think about whatever disaster takes place here is sitting atop some of the world largest oil reserves. You reckon filling up at the bowser is expensive now, just imagine a regional proxy war here involving all the big oil players like Iran and Saudia Arabia and Iraq.
 
I mean, that’s just a nightmare from the hip pocket. Let alone those people who will die. Let alone the fact that Islamic Extremists and terrorists on both sides of the Islamic fence will just be having a field day. There’ll be more terrorist camps than you can shake a stick at.And you don't think that’s not going to come home and bite America. I’m sorry, America broke this country and for better or for worse, it’s going to have to work out how to sticky tape it back together, at least long enough for the world to breathe.”
 
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=JSP0CYEvq4w
 
It was a thought provoking interview...Ware kept resonating the hopelessness of the situation. Yes, the USA broke that country but there is almost no way to fix it. The"Surge" was supposed to give the new government time to do their part, but its just as greedy and corrupt as Saddam ever was.
 
There is no exit strategy that will get us out without a lot more blood being spilled. Catch 22. Our military presence in the mid-east is also the reason we were attacked in the first place.
 
The scariest thing Michael Ware said was--" ...you’ve also got to think about whatever disaster takes place here is sitting atop some of the world largest oil reserves. You reckon filling up at the bowser is expensive now....."
 
So, our soldiers need to stay to protect the oil....
 
4000 dead soldiers to get to this point. A military expert said on TV this morning that we'll likely lose 5,000 more before we can leave.