Tuesday, May 06, 2008

Where Is Everybody?

Some of you may have heard about Helen Thomas' recent question "where is everybody?" referring to the lack of inquiry about Mr. Bush's recent admission he knew and approved of the use of torture. As the same old lies poured forth from Dana Perino's mouth, Helen appeared alone, although in a room crowded with "reporters."

But other reporters were there, and they were holding the Bush administration to account, demanding answers. Try to imagine a questioner of Stalin, Mao, Hitler, or the Dear Leader in North Korea asking a more fawning question:

Q Thank you, Dana. Two questions. The AP in Kuwait quotes Secretary of State Rice as saying, "The United States is not going to deal with Hamas. And we had certainly told President Carter that we did not think meeting with Hamas was going to help." And my question: Since the result of this telling was that Mr. Carter proceeded directly to violate this U.S. policy and meet with these terrorists, what is President Bush prepared to do to put an end to this one-man defiance of our policy which so gratified the terrorists?

MS. PERINO: Well, former President Carter is a private citizen, and he made a decision to not comply with what the State Department asked him to do. What I think the President would focus on is, if you go back to what reportedly Hamas said to former President Carter, that they were willing to take these steps for peace, that the very next day, that they went ahead and murdered many people at the Gaza crossing. And I think actions speak louder than words, and we remain very concerned about the situation. That's why Secretary Rice was in the region.

Q If the President, as our nation's chief law enforcer, fails to order Mr. Carter's passport revoked, how many more people like Carter may want to plot U.S. policy in this regard, do you imagine?

MS. PERINO: I don't know, you'll have to take a national survey.

Left is right, white is black, war is peace, and we're all free. Imagine revoking the passport of a former President of the United States - could anything be a clearer signal of how out of control and dangerous this Bush administration truly is, how threatening Bushco is to our liberty, to our freedom, to our United States? Ms. Perino should have angrily denounced the very idea of Bush revoking President Carter's passport merely because he disagreed with Bush policy. She did not.

This reveals how radical and extremist the Bush administration has become in its last months in office. We all hope that Bush won't harm us even more - but that is all we have to prevent him from doing so, mere hope.

But of course my saying that only helps the terrorists win.......

5 comments:

FDChief said...

The sad truth is that, outside of the GOP-C.H.U.D. Right, I suspect that everyone realizes this malfunction. Saying that our press is down the crapper is like being adrift in a lifeboat for three weeks and, looking around, commenting "Gee...I always thought that the Pacific Ocean was...bigger...that this."

Not that I'm faulting you for pointing it out. Just that I'd be tearing around screaming this like my hair was on fire if I thought it'd have the effect of raising the citizenry. But I believe that the citizenry - excuse me, the subjects - already know and don't give a rat's ass.

It's not that the press isn't helping to murder the Republic. It's just that they're hard put to keep up with the suicide in progress.

Anonymous said...

I'm going to have to disagree with you on the specifics of the situation, JD.

Ex-Presidents have had a long-standing general agreement with every administration going back to Washington that they do not do things that would wreck the current administration's policies. Truman and Eisenhower, for example, both hated what was going on in Vietnam but kept quiet about it.

Carter is an activist ex-Prez and is going out of his way to cause this administration problems. What can the Bush administration do under these circumstances? If I were them I'd make him an official representative and have Condi go do something else because Carter can't possibly make the situation any worse than it currently is.

But the Bushie's are long on being autocratic and short on imagination so they can only think of punishing Carter. But they've got VERY few levers they can use against him so it comes down to this.

I note that, at least in the snippet that you included, it was the press that suggested pulling Carter's passport. That they'd discuss such an action as a rational plan says even more about how far this country has fallen than your previous comments about the military spying on our own citizens.

Now you do describe the general situation quite well and, like FDC, I'd do something about it if I thought it would be worth more than a fart in the ocean.

There comes a point when the tidal wave of history gets so large that you need to stop organizing the people to fight it and start figuring out what you can do to survive it. We haven't reached that point yet but I wouldn't be surprised if we're pretty close to it. We will hit the point of no return by 2016 unless some miracle intercedes and we could hit it as soon as 2010 if McCain gets elected and does as well as Bush did.

So have you got a miracle in your back pocket?

Anonymous said...

One of the few things that disappoint me about Sen. Obama is his comment on Carter and Hamas. That Hamas is a terrorist org. and needs to denounce violence and recognize Israel's right to exist, the usual stuff we've been hearing for years.

His position on Israel:

http://www.barackobama.com/issues/foreignpolicy/#onisrael

There is no specific statement on what his actions in re Hamas and Hizbollah would be.

Carter did oversee the election that brought Hamas to power, so he has that basis for talking to them.

Anonymous said...

I meant to leave my name up there in the previous comment.

:)

.

Almost Drafted said...

Just another case of misinformation from the administration. According to Foreign Policy In Focus at:

http://www.fpif.org/fpiftxt/5219

"Eighteen American war veterans kill themselves every day. One thousand former soldiers receiving care from the Department of Veterans Affairs attempt suicide every month. More veterans are committing suicide than are dying in combat overseas."
.
.
.
"Shh!" begins one e-mail from Dr. Ira Katz, the head of the VA's Mental Health Division, advising a media spokesperson not to tell CBS News that 1,000 veterans receiving care at the VA try to kill themselves every month.

"Our suicide prevention coordinators are identifying about 1,000 suicide attempts per month among the veterans we see in our medical facilities. Is this something we should (carefully) address ourselves in some sort of release before someone stumbles on it?" the e-mail concludes.

And on a related topic from the same article:

"Another set of documents presented in court showed that in the six months leading up to March 31, a total of 1,467 veterans died waiting to learn if their disability claim would be approved by the government. A third set of documents showed that veterans who appeal a VA decision to deny their disability claim have to wait an average of 1,608 days, or nearly four and a half years, for their answer."

Profanity is too weak to describe these people.

Cheers,

JP