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All I Want For Christmas...

World's most remiss blogger, checking in. Wow. What a week, huh? Let me start by taking a little trip down memory lane. Back, to before the 2000 election, back when the "Impeach Dubya blog" wasn't even a 'huh? ...blog???' gleam in my eye.. See, my attitude back then-- when I fatalistically resigned myself to the thought that, despite eight years of peace, prosperity, and the undeniably competent rule of Bill Clinton, there was a decent chance we might be saddled with the Alfred E. Newman dipshit motherfucker in the White House-- was one of, essentially, the Republican Party has earned themselves a nice slice of turnabout is fair play. In my mind, they had railroaded and unfairly impeached a decent man over something that was no one else's business but his family's, and I figured that any Republican President -the next one- should be subject to the same treatment. You know, what's good for the goose, and all that.

...In related news, we have word that Linda "Lucianne Goldberg can pay for a platoon of plastic surgeons, your SOUL will still be ass-pimple-ugly, you miserable skeez" Tripp is currently engaged in a Bratwurst-peddling - Yes, Insert Joke Here- venture, the valence of being the world's most unpleasantly scolding media hag being apparently taken already by Dr. Laura. Is it me, or does that bratwurst look kind of like a poo? Hmmmm, maybe she's trying to curry favor... or shall we say, 'flavor'? with the current occupant of the White House?

Lest any of our too-eager conservative readers flip out-- like they did when I suggested Bush might be back on the sauce-- please allow me to say that I have no credible evidence that George Bush has eaten poo, eats poo, or that he particularly enjoys enthusiastically eating poo while sitting alone in the White House dining room, pumping his fist in the air violently to Bad Company's self-titled debut album-- cranked up full volume on a shitty battery-powered boom box made by 5 year old midget slave laborers in a cave on Fiji.

Some may have said these things, but not me.

And, in case any of our right-wing friends with nothing better to do (like protect our constitution from the out of control nut they 'elected' twice) missed it, the word "satire" is clearly written, twice, there at the top of the page. So, maybe I'm just funnin' ya.

And, yet, maybe...

Because there is some shit going down, if you'll 'scuse the pun, right now that, from my perspective, is as serious as a constitutional heart attack. Like you've got Ben Franklin jammed sideways into the carotid artery of Thomas Jefferson. But more on that later. As I was saying, when Bush was running for President in 2000, it occured to me -naturally- that the first thing we should try to do when if he took office, was impeach him. Just like I still want Arnold Schwarzennegger recalled- if these bastards are going to flagrantly disregard the results of elections they don't win, well.. I guess we don't have to worry about that anymore- now that they've near-perfected the art of stealing 'em. Yeah, so, I freely admit that my pro-chimpeachment stance was motivated by sheer, lowest-chakra desires for revenge. I was pissed about what they did to Bill Clinton, I still am, although if anyone thinks that'll make me support his wife in the primaries after the way she's been behaving lately, they've been smoking a little too much American Flag.

But after Bush stole- clearly stole- the 2000 'slection, then used obvious, cheap lies and even cheaper jingoism to bully the country into the unprecedented step of pre-emptively attacking a nation that had never attacked us, the idea of impeachment started to take on a new meaning. Shit, I thought, I knew this guy was an idiot.. but, maybe he really deserves to be impeached.

I know.. "Duh!" But wait- I remember talking to friends, co-workers, and assorted twentysomething slackers who were being paid six figures to play twister and ride down sleds all day in shiny dot com office buldings, and being vaguely disconcerted to discover that these -kids, really- didn't have any clue as to what a Republican administration might entail. They certainly didn't remember Nixon, but likewise they had no memory of Reagan, or Iran-Contra, or Ollie North, or "The A Team" for that matter.. Shit, they didn't even remember Poppy throwing up on the prime minister of Japan. (Who'da thought those would ever be the 'good old days', huh?)

And what they were really, really unclear on, was why any of it mattered. Clinton had been in the White House for eight years, and despite the offenses of the Mighty Clenis, things were pretty damn good. Bush, Gore.. what difference does it make? Who cares?

Noooo, I said, you don't understand. They get into power and always the same thing happens. The same gaggle of goons and ginkuses -even though the names and faces occasionally change, the stench is always the same- start skulking around the WH basement, hatching plans, drafting papers, watching old Nazi Propaganda films.. you know, the usual.

But even I didn't really buy my own storyline.. No, I, too had been lulled by the relative calm of the Clinton years. I thought that the Mainstream Press was accurately reporting Bush's positions when they palmed him off on us as a 'moderate'; and, nevertheless, I figured the American People -having voted for Bill Clinton twice- were far too sophisticated to buy into any agenda too far to the right, even as I warned people about the loony 'left behind' religious right crowd who seemed awfully close to Mr. Bush.

So. What a difference 5 years makes. Today, it is clearer than ever to this blogger that Mr. Bush is not only an embarrassment and a stain on the office of the Presidency, his continued reign- and it is a reign- presents a clear danger to our constitutional system of government. This, too, is not new- his behavior with regards to Iraq, with regards to the electoral process, with regards to the system of checks and balances- have all indicated a flirting with overreaching executive power in the extreme, for quite some time. But the recent news is, in my mind, different. And catapults the whole thing into another dimension, perhaps a bizarro one where most of us probably figured we would never get, again, in our lifetime... not since Dick Nixon hauled his sulky jowls onto that helicopter for his flight out of Foggy bottom.

Former Nixon Counsel John Dean told Senator Barbara Boxer that he believes Bush is "The First President To admit to an impeachable offense". Those are big words, not to be taken lightly. What, precisely, did Bush do? Well, if you've been spending too much time listening to the Press soft-pedal this, you might think that Bush 'fudged the rules', with this wiretapping thing. The "liberal' San Francisco Chronicle's Tuesday headline had Bush 'playing hardball' on the subject. As the magnitude of what Bush has casually, and belligerently, admitted to has become more apparent, and the story has stubbornly refused to go away, the press has grudgingly begun to accept that pesky, irritating words that piss off the Bush-friendly corporate boardrooms.. words like "impeachment".. may, actually have to be aired in the press, if only to be pooh-poohed as, like anti-war stances, the provence of the unconnected, uninformed, liberal, 'little people'. (Wait.. I'm confused. I thought we were the "elite"!)

See, folks, let me make it real clear. Bush broke the law. He's admitted he broke the law, and he's said he fully intends to continue to break the law. We're not talking about fudging the definition of 'sex', in front of a grand jury, either- and we're not talking about a violation of the Boland Amendment. And if you recall, with regards to the Late President "I Don't Recall" Reagan, his staff understood that flagrant lawbreaking had to be contained well away from the office of the Presidency.

Finally, George Bush has taken responsibility for something, and it aint pretty. The 1978 FISA law is extremely clear, and the blubberings of a dwindling circle of come hell-or-high-water Bushco apologists notwithstanding, if a President can just randomly wiretap whoever the fuck he wants for any reason, the whole purpose of the court, and the law, is rendered effectively moot. The FISA judges understand this, which is why they've called for an immediate briefing on this situation. You don't have to be Nostrafuckindamus to know what's coming next: Look for the right wing to complain about the 'bureacracy' inherent in the 'unwieldy' FISA process, the unfairness of having a clan of 'liberal, activist judges' hampering the superheroes in the Administration who are always valiantly out there in red, white and blue tights defending us from the slovenly, unshaven, turban-wearing 'brutal killers' who are so crafty that defeating them constantly seems to require the jettisoning of ever-greater constitutional freedoms and civil liberties. This shit has started already, of course. Rabid pinhead attack dogs of the right going, "Osama Bin Laden could be calling a phone sex line in El Segundo, and our law enforcement people couldn't listen in because of the paperwork, delays and red tape assosciated with this outdated, 1970s era (that's the new meme, right there) Law."

Don't believe it. Not a fucking word. The FISA court may not be a rubber stamp, but it's pretty fucking close. Conservative shitheads at The Weekly Standard whine about how the ACLU protested, legitimately, that the number of FISA requests skyrocketed in the past decade- before 9-11. As American Enterprise Institute Assgoblin Gary Schmitt correctly notes in a miraculous, time-traveling Weekly Standard Article dated 1-2-06, "Out of the thousands of applications put forward by the Department of Justice to the panel over the years, only a handful had ever been rejected.". Schmitt uses that as a justification to say that the ACLU, and, by extension, any liberal moonbat like John McCain who questions the President on these activities, must be disingenuous in protesting the President's illegal spying because- get this- they didn't like the law he was breaking, either! So There.

And it is upon these rocks of wisdom that the Church of Neoconservatism is built.

The question Gary Schmitt plainly doesn't want to ask is this; given the fact that

a) The FISA court has pretty much always done whatever-the-fuck the President has asked (like certain parents some of our lucky friends had in high school- the kids could get away with just about anything, so long as they told the folks what they were up to: "Okay, so, you're gonna be over at the hot blonde cheerleader's house, smoking weed and hopefully banging her twelve ways to Sunday. Okay, son, go get 'em. Use a condom, and call if you're going to be late")

and

b) this is the kicker- the Government could go ahead and DO the spying, and then get a warrant for it retroactively up to 72 hours later.. How fucking sweet is that? This idea that Osama could be ordering Domino's and the NSA would have to "hang up" because they didn't have a warrant or couldn't get one--- Kids, that's what's known in the Journalism profession as a "Fucking Lie".

Right- so, given both those things... WHY THE FUCK would George Bush decide to go around FISA and do something that clearly- unequivocally- broke the law, and would doubtless precipitate a constitutional showdown of sorts? Could it be, as Dick Cheney mentioned, the Administration is deliberately trying to "restore the legitimate authority of the Presidency"? (Cheney has certainly been working overtime on that one, too. Secret meetings that, executive torture orders this. Funny, isn't it, that only some eight years ago, the President didn't even have the right to keep what he did with his own god-damn Johnson private?) Certainly, some of the creepy things they keep trying to do, like holding American Citizens without trial or floating trial balloons about suspending democracy and elections seem like they're just trying to find the limits of exactly WHAT they can get away with. But this, clearly, criminal action strikes me as a little bit beyond merely testing the waters. It smells like the behavior of someone not entirely rational and drunk on his own "God-ordained" hubris (Like Bush) but it also makes me wonder just who, precisely, was being listened to. If it was people for whom they couldn't even provide the FISA court with the requisite "name and reason" that apparently posed such a pain in the ass, onerous paperwork hurdle for the Bush team.. then who was it? What kinds of 'terrorists' were falling into this net? Political opponents? Anti-fur activists? Cancer-Stricken Grannies calling their pot brownie dealers? Has-been television actors last seen in dog food commercials?

It's weird, and the silver lining to all this is that Bush's continual miscalculations combined with his arrogant 'fuck you' attitude, delivered to both friend and foe alike (but particularly foe) seems to be catching up with him. See, he took the proverbial whizz on congress with this spying deal, along with that Judicial Branch he's been so intent on demonizing for the past year. Congress, especially the United States Senate, doesn't take kindly to would-be Ceasars peeing on their heads.

Team Bush knows they're in trouble, which makes me wonder just how smart they actually are. They keep stumbling into these just righteous fucking disasters- The Iraqi Reconstruction, Hurricane Katrina, this.. that a sedated, blind monkey would have seen coming. It makes me think that they really don't have any clue as to what they're doing, and the ones that do are so busy making sure all the ill-gotten gains they've carted off from the American People are stashed away safe and secure for when the shit finally hits the fan and the curtain falls, as it inevitably must, on this train wreck of an Administration, that they can't be bothered to give a shit. But they've flailingly started to cobble together a defense, the first salvo of which came during the week. In which they argued that, well, the President has the Authority to spy on whoever he wants as part of this law passed 3 days after 9-11. (Quality legislation, clearly. Obviously another one which Congress spent a lot of time reading. They want to bitch about these '1970s, post-Watergate Laws', but I'd bet 100 silver plated minature statue of liberty paperweights that when the history of our time is written centuries hence, if the oceans haven't completely boiled away into space, the Laws passed 'post 9-11' will be widely regarded as one of the most noxious sub-chapters in the history of American Democracy.. when justified outrage and fear on the part of the American People were co-opted by unscrupulous administration hacks to steamroll un-Democratic, anti-American, anti-civil liberties legislation for the clear benefit of the folks in power who regard constitutional rights, checks, balances, and even the most meager sort of oversight whatsoever as a 'pain in the ass'.

So, they said that this Sept. 14, 2001 law gives them the Authority to do this. Tom Daschle, displaying way more fucking spine than he ever showed while he was 'our guy' in the Senate, called bullshit on that, saying that the Administration- in typical creepy fashion- tried to insert phrasing allowing the President total, unilateral power to engage in 'all necessary' conduct vis a vis the nebulous, never-defined 'war on terror'... on American Soil.

"This last-minute change would have given the president broad authority to exercise expansive powers not just overseas ... but right here in the United States, potentially against American citizens,"

Wow. Maybe Daschle is mad because, even with all this extra, illegal wiretapping and clearly unbounded, unaccountable, unlimited power of the Executive Branch which King Bush has magnanimously accorded himself--- no one in the government has been able to figure out who tried to kill him by mailing anthrax to his Senate office.

Seems to me like certain Republican Senators, like Specter and McCain, are pissed off- and rightfully so. I doubt these questions are going away, no matter how pliant Bush may think a media is that buried this story, like so many others, right before the 2004 election.
So, we shall see.

Which only leaves the right-wing punditry. Conservatives like George Will, who are frequently, mind-bogglingly wrong, (as he was recently when he tried to make some farting argument about how opposition to drilling in ANWR is about 'collectivism') yet who nevertheless still retain some modicum of a functioning cerebellum and a shred of intellectual honesty, were pretty plainly appalled by Bush's open defense of the Imperial Presidency, one which, when distilled down to its core, amounts to "Merely by saying the magic words National Security, I can do whatever the fuck I want, whenever I want, to whoever I want.."

Then you have perennial Bush Apologists like David Brooks, who are smart enough to know that something is mighty rotten in Denmark, and it's bad enough that another cute column about baseball or movies or how great the Catholic Church in the 14th Century was for free thought just aint gonna cut it for a distraction.. Brooks takes the tack that we should sympathize with poor old George, put ourselves in his shoes. I mean, what would YOU do?

Hmmm. Shit- I'm a possibly sociopathic megalomaniac with anecdotal evidence of cruelty in my past to both animals and humans.. I'm arguably the most powerful human on Earth by virtue of the multi-trillion dollar military machine at my fingertips, but I'm also convinced that God has specifically chosen ME for the job (thereby making my enemies- or anyone who even disagrees with me- an agent of Satan) ... I'm clearly drunk on Jesus and dubious, single-digit IQ televangelist theology, and possibly back on the hooch to boot. Yes, Dave, I'm putting myself in his shoes right now, Dave. No, I can't do that Dave. I can't open the pod bay doors.

Brooks calls what Bush did "legally dubious", which is sort of like calling chopping your neighbor's head off with an axe "unfriendly". I can't, as of yet, link to the Brooks piece, because the NYT's content is now all premium stuuuuufff, man. Yep, they gotta pay the bills- keeping crack reporters like Judy Miller happy- and maintaining the kind of polished standards of journalistic integrity which allow holding a story about criminal wrongdoing by the President until after the election... those things aint cheap, man. Well, we do know David Brooks has integrity positively oozing out of his ass. So good for him to equivocate so eloquently, sort of, on the side of mealy-mouthed lukewarm protestation.

Then, the most fun of all, we have guys like Cal Thomas. I mean, Bush is THE golden boy for these culture war clusterfucks. They're just so wet in the panties to have a President pounding the pulpit for their uptight, homophobic, hate-filled, war loving, sex and woman-fearing, cartoon sunday school version of the Divine, that Bush can simply do no wrong. Seriously. Bush could show up on prime time TV from the oval office, clearly drunk, wearing assless leather chaps (of the kind we frequently envision Mr. Thomas wearing, actually) eating poo sandwiches and biting the heads off live bats, all the while gibbering incoherently about the Book of Revelations and Jimmy Hoffa's testicles... and Cal Thomas would be out there, the next day, defending the guy from people saying 'bad things about our country'.

(No, I think we know what the only thing Bush could do to alienate the Cal Thomas crowd is. Name someone Pro-Choice to the Supreme Court.)

I mean, just read this bubbling cauldron of bullshit. He's pissed because some people who clearly hate America, like Senator "I spent Vietnam in the Hanoi Hilton.. Where the fuck were you, Cal?" McCain, are, quote, "preoccupied with civil liberties and charges of torture". Yeah. One irony is that you know- you KNOW- that if the President who was pulling these unconstitutional, unbounded power hijinks had a (D) instead of an (R) after his name, Thomas's head would be exploding with Black Helicopters coming from Mena Airport to force our virginal white daughters to put condoms on black dildos and worship the horned god Baal.

But this part, really, is the best:

Those relatively few who were spied on and had their cell phones monitored must have demonstrated their intention to aid in another terrorist attack on U.S. soil. It often takes too long for a judge to permit monitoring a suspect's cell phone. Before a court order can be obtained, the terrorist suspect can disconnect, or change numbers and the trail quickly grows cold.
The law -- especially the Foreign Intelligence Surveillance Act (FISA) -- has lagged behind the technological innovation and cunning of our enemies. President Bush did what he swore he would do in his oath of office: protect this country and its citizens from all enemies, foreign and domestic.
You can't win a chess game when only one side plays by the rules.

I'd like to propose another rule, Cal. You can't have your column printed in major fucking newspapers when you out and out LIE. Oh, I know, you crackhead motherfucker left behind dipshit nitwits are used to being able to change 'facts' around wherever it suits you.. you know, evolution hasn't been 'proven', global warming 'needs more study', the shroud of Turin isn't an obvious fake with ridiculously bad human proportions to boot...

But, shithead, when you're dealing with the RULE OF LAW and the CONSTITUTION, two things which your spittle and cheesy moustache filled babble totally fail to take into account, you can't just change- or ignore- the facts to suit your agenda. To wit; everything EVERYONE knows about the FISA law blows all that bullshit about the 'trail quickly goes cold' right out of the water. There are 72 hours- 72 hours, shit-for-brains!!! ..during which the NSA can RETROACTIVELY obtain one of those rubber stamp warrants. We don't have anyone galloping on horseback around DC anymore, although due to your neo-luddism you can be forgiven for not knowing that, so the idea that in the age of instantaneous communication and cell phones these extremely pliant FISA judges are somehow 'holding up the process' and 'letting the bad guys get away' is just.. fuck, there's no clever way to say it...

It's a LIE, and you should be FIRED for trying to peddle that sort of shit off in the public media.

So, that's where we stand. President broke the law, clearly intends to keep breaking it, also asserts that he has the right to do whatever the hell he wants. All he needs is a scepter, a big throne, and a maniacal laugh. So, what do I want for Christmas, if not this year--- maybe, please, next?

Impeach Dubya. For real, now. He's more than earned it.


Now, a little fun, then I gotta go. This will probably be my last rant for a while, so I'd like to wish my loyal readership happy holidays, merry Christmas, Happy Hannukah, Happy Kwanzaa, Happy Solstice, and go get drunk, laid, and gnaw on a big leg of lamb without wiping your face off, because it's Saturnalia, dammit. And Happy New Year.

And to the dolts who keep leaving real estate spam in my comments, a Very Merry Go Fuck Yourselves.

Now, I promised, a little Christmastime fun. I don't want to make fun of those abstinence only programs, even the religious ones, because lord knows in a world of sinful flesh, fleshful sin, and Victoria's Secret catalogs that clean the clocks of the cheap Sears underwear ads I had to furtively steal and masturbate to as a lad, it's damn hard to remain abstinent and properly focused on God, purity, and.. oh, who the fuck am I kidding--- Of course I'm gonna make fun of that shit.





The Mainstream Press, including the New York Times, demonstrating the kind of hard-hitting story they're not afraid to publish, has been running several puff pieces of late extolling the virtues of these "Abstinence-Only" programs, which take millions of your tax dollars and use them to buy thumping amplifiers, flashing strobe lights, and stupid fucking guys with bad haircuts to try to sell teens on a thinly-veiled Christian message heavy on the 'just say no- getting off' message, and light on anything having to do with anything Jesus ever said.






I did a little more research, and looking at these fucking abstinencepalooza things is downright frightening, and not just in a George Orwell "Junior Anti-Sex League" sense. But one thing I couldn't help noticing, while looking at the pictures...




Here's a couple more, see what you think..






Notice anything about these kids? Particularly the boys?


Something about their expressions, maybe?


Perhaps you detect, as I do, a distinct, er... lack of enthusiasm for what they're doing- or at least for having their picture taken holding these inane fucking rings... proclaiming loudly to the whole world,


"Nope! No Sex For Me, Thanks!"


Yeah. They're positively fucking THRILLED to be there. I'm certain.





And these are the kids that the folks behind these programs picked to represent the face of enthusiastic chastity to the world. One can only imagine how thrilled the kids whose pictures they didn't post were to be there...




Some of the girls look a little, er, ambivalent about the whole thing, too. Or maybe that's the best smile you can produce when you're surrounded 24-7 by bible thumping, Jesus-drunk parents spouting gobbledygook about 'honoring God's gift of your purity'



This kid on the right.. he's, like, "Uh- no- don't take my picture, really. I gotta go. Um, yeah- right now."






Poor kids. Can't say I blame 'em, either. Parents traditionally force kids to get into a lot of goofy, lame, shit- but this is pretty bad.

Wait, you gotta see one more. This is BY FAR the best one:




Yeah. These kids really look "abstinent", to me. And they're clearly taking the whole thing VERY seriously.. Right. I see this picture and I hear-- "Absti-whaaaaaat? We were just pulling bongs out in the parking lot, heh heh. Get this- We thought this was the fucking Pizza Hut!"



I like this paragraph from the article, because it contains one of those axiomatic 'truths' that everyone is supposed to accept as fact, when in fact it's total bullshit:

Most chastity rings from retailers are sold with pledge cards bearing religious messages such as "Remember to hold tight to what God has asked you to keep pure."

Parents often present the rings to sons and daughters teetering on puberty. "I can't think of any parent out there that wouldn't value the sentiment behind the ring," says Julie Lee, who sells purity rings online at JuliesJewels.com, from Graham, Texas.

Really, Julie? I don't know how things are down thaaaaar in Graham, Texas, but I happen to know LOTS of parents who, if cornered, would say that while they certainly encourage their kids to wait until they're emotionally ready before getting in a sexual relationship, they would sure-as-shit YES prefer that their kid NOT marry the FIRST human being on the god-damn PLANET that they have a sexual encounter with.

As for the parents you refer to, the ones pushing their kids to commit to sexual "purity" until marriage... Why only rings? Shit, the kink and fetish world is way ahead of you, folks. Why not outfit those kids with new, improved, high-tech Chastity Belts? You know, stick a picture of Jesus on there to remind the kid how this is done out of love for their eternal soul and yadda yadda yadda. Then lock 'em up, and you won't have to worry about the youngins' sinnin' before marryin'!

Ah, some liberal activist ACLU judge would probably find a reason to keep god-fearing parents from being able to adopt such reasonable measures. Except, maybe, in Texas. Maybe Julie from JuliesJewels should get into THAT market.




Or, I guess, they could keep doing what they're doing... namely, using millions of our tax dollars to peddle this unrealistic, Jesus-laden (I would hope God cares more about the people freezing to death in Pakistan right now than he does about the hymenic integrity of virginal high school debutantes in suburban America) 'just say no' bullshit to kids.

Yes, they've sure got a wonderful recipe there for unplanned pregnancies, STDs, abortions, and bad marriages between dumb-ass people... for all the wrong reasons.

Ho Ho Ho!

Okay, some nonsense is so irritating it even causes this much-remiss blogger to come out of his hibernation-like stupor. As we head into the season of yuletide, and warmth by the fire, and the subtle hints of nasty, sinful premarital sex contained in the lyrics of Walkin' in a Winter Wonderland, I feel I just have to address this "War on Christmas" bullshit.

In case you haven't heard, every far right kook and culture war waterhead, and his bastard cousin Bob, is beating the 'liberals are at war on Christmas' drum.. Again.

Yes, that funky feeling you have in your head is Deja Vu, or else it's that Wicked Eggnog your brother makes with lighter fluid. Because long-time, ever-patient readers of the blog may recall that I covered a similar situation, just about a year ago.

Oh, I guess last year it wasn't a "war on Christmas".. It was "Take Back Christmas".. Yes, what better time than the season of, at least, lip service to Peace on Earth and Good Will Towards Men to ramp up agitation and anger towards those of different, or no faith, to use the fact that check-out clerks at Target say "Happy Holidays" as reason #2305 to hate them gul-durn sekyooolar humanist librul ACLU monkeys?

Last year, it seems "Liberals" were trying to "Take the Christ out Of Christmas". This year, it's that everyone is forced to say -and even worse, to be told while signing their credit card receipt- "Happy Holidays". I suppose it's a measure of how desparate the fucking right wing is getting in this country that now, they don't even bother to worry about the overt anti-Semitism contained in this particular Jihad. After all, the majority of the folks in this country who might be celebrating a holdiay other than Christmas during the "Holiday Season" are probably celebrating Hannukah. Was a time when the religious right- which is, lets be honest, mostly made up of Jesus freaks- would at least go through the motions of trying to appease Jewish conservatives in this country, what with all the talk about returning the nation to its "Judeo-Christian" Roots (unless, of course, you're looking at the Texas GOP platform, which declares the USA a "Christian" nation- we don't take muchuva cotton to em Jooo-day-yos down here, boaaah) ...However, it should be clear that when the chips are down, Jews get jettisoned overboard with the rest of the sinners, paganists, secular humanists, sex deviants, Democrats, hybrid owners and everyone else bound for the bubbly, fiery furnace.

Um, paging Ben Stein. Are you paying attention to any of this, asshole?

But- I digress. Because if the War on the 'War on Christmas' being waged by FOX News, O'Reilly, The AFA, FOTF, and the other usual pinhead suspects on the fringe right wasn't enough to piss me off, this little gem in the morning paper sent me over the TOP:

George W. Bush Q&A on Iraq, 12-12-05


...See, in the middle of a rehash of his same old bullshit about the war, while attempting to garner great big gobs of gushy, gooey press praise for doing what Presidents are normally expected to do as a matter of course, namely actually fielding a few god-damn questions about stuff, George Bush had a watershed moment. No, I don't mean when he acknowledged that our invasion of Iraq had 'liberated' some 30,000 (a conservative estimate) Iraqis right off the face of the planet- No, I mean when President George W. Bush actually admitted that some blame was appropriate for the Iraqi insurgency, and the resultant problems with his dipshit, dumb-ass war.

Who did he blame? Good question. Lets see the quote:

Look, I recognize we got an image issue, particularly when you got Arabic television stations that are constantly just pounding America, you know, saying, America is fighting Islam. Americans can't stand Muslims. This is a war against a religion.

And we've got to, obviously, do a better job of reminding people that ours is not a nation that rejects religion.

I would lay 100-to-1 odds that "Ambassador To Islam", Karen "Our Constitution Says Under God" Hughes wrote that gem. Not reading between the lines? Since I'm fluent in asshole, I will translate it for you:

"The reason we're hated by so many in the Middle East? It's the fault of the ACLU- and secular humanists"

It has nothing to do with years of supporting dictators like the Shah and the Family Saud, or a bullshit invasion based on lies coupled a horribly bungled reconstruction 'effort'... Noo, see, it's a perception that we 'reject religion'.

See, if it wasn't for the check-out people at Target saying "happy holidays", there wouldn't BE an Iraqi insurgency.

Funny how, we're never allowed to ask what, specifically, 'they' are so mad about- because that would be 'enabling' them.... but Bush throws out this kind of shameless bullshit, essentially asserting that we need to hand our country over to our fundamentalists--- in order to placate theirs... and, as usual, he gets a free pass.

• Leonard Pitts: "That's not persecution. It's a persecution complex."