Posts by Blue Texan

Blue Texan is a regular contributing blogger for FireDogLake.

Palin Warns Against Withdrawal in Iraq (Apparently Ignorant of U.S. Withdrawal Agreement With Iraq)
Posted by Blue Texan, Firedoglake on September 25, 2008 at 10:45 AM.

Sarah Palin told Katie Couric this in an interview that will air on CBS News tonight.

So, again, I believe that… a surge in Afghanistan also will lead us to victory there as it has proven to have done in Iraq. And as I say, Katie, that we cannot afford to retreat, to withdraw in Iraq. That's not gonna get us any better off in Afghanistan either.

In the interim, someone might wanna tell her that Bush has already agreed to retreat:

Read the rest of the post on the flip side »

Karl Rove Warns Obama Against Negative Political Attacks
Posted by Blue Texan, Firedoglake on September 19, 2008 at 3:02 AM.

Turd Blossom, who no doubt wants to see Obama do well in November, writes:

It is a mistake for Mr. Obama to spend a lot of time attacking Mr. McCain.

Yes, we all know it's always a mistake for Democrats to attack Republicans. But TB must’ve missed yesterday's polls (CBS/NYT +5, Zogby +2, Gallup +2). And those polls were taken after Team Obama unleashed a barrage of -- wait for it -- wait for it -- negative attacks.

Read the rest of the post on the flip side »

Three Years After Katrina, Bush's FEMA Still Sucks
Posted by Blue Texan, Firedoglake on September 16, 2008 at 3:33 AM.

Good to see that George W. Bush has learned the lessons of Katrina.

The Federal Emergency Management Agency came under fire Sunday as emergency workers were left undernourished and dozens of trucks of water and food had yet to be set up at distribution centers around Houston and surrounding communities.

But somehow that "personal responsibility" thing never seems to apply to Republicans.

Earlier in the day, a FEMA spokesman said delays in setting up staging points to hand out needed provisions had been caused by blocked roads.

By the evening, Homeland Security Secretary Michael Chertoff said it was the fault of state officials who handed his department the "unexpected challenge" of having to prepare distribution points in addition to delivering supplies.

The important thing to remember with BushCo is -- it's always someone else's fault.

Palin Pumps Up Numbers in Florida ... For Obama
Posted by Blue Texan, Firedoglake on September 9, 2008 at 3:17 PM.

Team McSame can't be happy about this.

Republican John McCain and Democrat Barack Obama are tied at 48 percent in a new Rasmussen poll conducted Sunday and released late Monday.

Before both parties held their conventions, an August Rasmussen poll showed McCain with a 46-43 lead in Florida.

48% is Obama's best showing yet in the Rasmussen, and McSame has had the lead in 8 of the past 9. And while it's true Palin's favorables are still strong there, and McSame is also up a couple points since last month, you've got to wonder how Pentecostal Palin is going to play in Boca:

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Republican National Convention: Whitest in Forty Years
Posted by Blue Texan, Firedoglake on September 4, 2008 at 5:01 PM.

Last month, the wingnuts freaked when Howard Dean called the GOP "the white party." But chances are if you saw the convention last night, you didn't see much color.

Organizers conceived of this convention as a means to inspire, but some African American Republicans have found the Xcel Energy Center depressing this week. Everywhere they look, they see evidence of what they consider one of their party's biggest shortcomings.

As the country rapidly diversifies, Republicans are presenting a convention that is almost entirely white.

Only 36 of the 2,380 delegates seated on the convention floor are black, the lowest number since the Joint Center for Political and Economic Studies began tracking diversity at political conventions 40 years ago. Each night, the overwhelmingly white audience watches a series of white politicians step to the lectern -- a visual reminder that no black Republican has served as a governor, U.S. senator or U.S. House member in the past six years.

"It's hard to look around and not get frustrated," said Michael S. Steele, a black Republican and former lieutenant governor of Maryland. "You almost have to think, 'Wait. How did it come to this?' "

How'd it come to this, Mike?

Read the rest of the post on the flip side »

Thuggish Cops Get Physical with ABC Reporter in Denver
Posted by Blue Texan, Firedoglake on August 29, 2008 at 8:27 AM.

As Jane noted yesterday,

Police in Denver arrested an ABC News producer today as he and a camera crew were attempting to take pictures on a public sidewalk of Democratic Senators and VIP donors leaving a private meeting at the Brown's Palace Hotel.

... Eslocker and his ABC News colleagues are spending the week investigating the role of corporate lobbyists and wealthy donors at the convention for a series of Money Trail reports on ABC World News with Charles Gibson.

See for yourself. Ugly stuff.

Kennedy, Michelle, and Two Little Obamas Make Dems' First Night a Win
Posted by Blue Texan, Firedoglake on August 26, 2008 at 10:11 AM.

I'm a little puzzled by some of the hand-wringing about the tone of the convention last night. I've argued that the Democrats need to attack this week, but last night wasn't the time to do it.

Ted Kennedy's seriously ill, and you don't trot him out on that podium to hit McSame with gotchas and zingers. You don't ask Michelle Obama, who right-wing assholes are still caricaturing as an angry America hater, to use her speech to deliver political attacks.

My favorite moment of the night was the interplay between Obama and his adorable little girls. You can't build up to that moment with a night of "John McSame suxxxxx!!1!!11!!"

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Border Fence To Keep Out Illegals Being Built By Illegals
Posted by Blue Texan, Firedoglake on August 12, 2008 at 5:02 AM.

I'm going to file this one under "shit about the Bush administration you couldn't possibly make up."

Is it possible to build a border wall without the help of the very people it is intended to keep out?

That's an open question all along the border, and especially in the Rio Grande Valley, where the wall is widely unpopular but is now becoming a reality ...Valley longtimers have cracked wise about the barriers, saying they not only won't thwart illegal immigrants intent on entering the country but that illegal labor will probably help build them.

People in South Texas know what the deal is. It's happened before, after all:

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Bush Administration Putting Immunity For Blackwater Over The Lives Of Our Troops
Posted by Blue Texan, Firedoglake on August 9, 2008 at 11:17 AM.

While McSame runs around accusing Obama of wanting to "forfeit" Iraq, the Bushies are finalizing the negotiations for forfeiting Iraq by 2011. But the negotiations have hit a snag.

The sticking point?

The U.S. officials said U.S. Secretary of State Condoleezza Rice spoke with al-Maliki on Wednesday to try to resolve the issue of legal immunity for U.S. contractors working in Iraq.

The officials described the phone call as tense.

Read the rest of the post on the flip side »

Bush Joins In: Says Economic Woes Are All in Our Heads
Posted by Blue Texan, Firedoglake on July 15, 2008 at 4:43 PM.

Mr. 26% gave a totally pointless presser this morning to screw with the coverage of Obama's excellent speech and repeated the latest wingnut talking point on the Bush Recession: the serious economic and energy problems the country faces are just all in everyone's head. Quoth President Arbusto:

"I readily concede that it's [drilling] not going to produce a barrel of oil tomorrow, but it's going to change the psychology."

And don't you know it -- McSame said exactly the same thing a couple weeks ago.

Read the rest of the post on the flip side »

100-Year McCain Has a Sadr Moment (As Does Joe Lieberman)
Posted by Blue Texan, Firedoglake on April 2, 2008 at 11:12 AM.

St. McCain is quickly becoming the Lauren Caitlin Upton of the GOP with yet still another Iraq gaffe:

In an interview with CNN earlier today, Sen. John McCain (R-AZ) claimed that he has long understood the influence of Iraqi Shi'ite cleric Moqtada al-Sadr:

I said he was still major player and his influence is going to have to be reduced and gradually eliminated.

But in a report on The Situation Room today, the network noted that just two weeks ago McCain -- trying to paint a rosy picture of Iraq -- described Sadr very differently while speaking to CNN's John King in Baghdad:

His [Sadr's] influence has been on the wane for a long time.

Yikes.

Meanwhile, Joe Lieberman, pimping his BFF on Fixed News, seems to be equally confused.

Read the rest of the post on the flip side »

100-Year McCain Yet Again Compares Iraq to Germany, Japan
Posted by Blue Texan, Firedoglake on April 1, 2008 at 11:08 AM.

St. McCain is increasingly annoyed that his "100 Years In Iraq" pledge is predictably biting him in the ass.

Responding to Obama's frequent mocking of McCain's suggestion that U.S. troops might remain in Iraq for 100 years, the Republican nominee-in-waiting said the Illinois senator failed to understand that America has kept forces in Korea, Japan, Germany and Kuwait long after wars in each country ended.

"In all due respect, it displays a fundamental misunderstanding of history, of how we've maintained national security, and what we need to do in the future to maintain our security in the face of the transcendent challenge of radical Islamic extremism," McCain told reporters on his campaign plane.

Someone who favorably compares Iraq -- three religiously and culturally distinct countries crammed into one by British after World War I -- with the ethnically, culturally and largely religiously united societies of Germany and Japan, displays a fundamental misunderstanding of history.

Someone who favorably compares the United States' peaceful occupation of Germany and Japan, neither of which were resulting in American casualties 5 years after our arrival, displays a fundamental misunderstanding of history.

Someone who asserts that occupying Iraq for 100 years is the solution to "radical Islamic extremism" displays a fundamental misunderstanding of history.

Read the rest of the post on the flip side »

McCain on War in Iraq: "We're Succeeding, I Don't Care What Anybody Says"
Posted by Blue Texan, Firedoglake on March 25, 2008 at 1:07 PM.

Just like Vice President Last Throes, St. McCain doesn't give a rat's ass what the American people think about his awesome war:

Returning from his eighth trip to Iraq, McCain didn't back down on his promise to see the war through despite yesterday's tragic milestone of 4,000 deaths. "We're succeeding. I don't care what anybody says. I've seen the facts on the ground," the Arizona senator insisted a day after a roadside bomb in Baghdad killed four U.S. soldiers and rockets pounded the U.S.-protected Green Zone there, and a wave of attacks left at least 61 Iraqis dead nationwide.

Recent polls indicate that over 60% of the American people 1) oppose Bush/McCain's handling of the war, 2) want our troops out within a year, 3) think the war wasn't worth fighting, and, screw you St. McCain ---4) think neither side is winning. To summarize, the American people hate the war and want it over, yesterday. But St. McCain doesn't care. And he continues to dishonestly talk about "success" when even Petraeus admits the surge has objectively failed.

The arrogance is staggering.

****

UPDATE by Scarecrow:

I agree with Glenn Greenwald that the US media cannot let go of the myth that John McCain's years in the US Senate and his frequent trips to Iraq make him an "expert" on Iraq and foreign affairs. Washington pundits excuse his repeated "misstatements" confusing Shia with Sunnis, al Qaeda with Iran, while Fox News ominously calls this astonishing ignorance a "senior moment."

Yet almost every day, McCain says something that shows his "expertise" is nothing more than ideology divorced from the actual facts. Consider only McCain's statements yesterday on Iraq:

Read the rest of the post on the flip side »

GOP: Only Our Pastors Can Say Crazy Sh*t
Posted by Blue Texan, Firedoglake on March 18, 2008 at 1:13 PM.

As the wingnut chorus predictably disses Obama's eloquent speech, it's important to remember how completely ridiculous and manufactured this whole Wright "controversy" is:

...the idea that America deserves terrorist attacks and other horrendous disasters has long been a frequently expressed view among the faction of white evangelical ministers to whom the Republican Party is most inextricably linked. Neither Jerry Falwell nor Pat Robertson ever retracted or denounced their view that America provoked the 9/11 attacks by doing things to anger God. John Hagee continues to believe that the City of New Orleans got what it deserved when Katrina drowned its residents and devastated the lives of thousands of Americans. And James Inhofe -- who happens to still be a Republican U.S. Senator -- blamed America for the 9/11 attacks by arguing in a 2002 Senate floor speech that "the spiritual door was opened for an attack against the United States of America" because we pressured Israel to give away parts of the West Bank. The phrases "anti-American" and "America-haters" are among the most barren and manipulative in our entire political lexicon, but whatever they happen to mean on any given day, they easily encompass people who believe that the U.S. deserved the 9/11 attacks, devastating hurricanes and the like. Yet when are people like Falwell, Robertson, Hagee, Inhofe and other white Christian radicals ever described as anti-American or America-hating extremists? Never -- because white Christian evangelicals who tie themselves to the political Right are intrinsically patriotic.

Well, yeah. Duh.

By all accounts, George Bush had private conversations with Pat Robertson about matters as weighty as whether to invade Iraq. Isn't that a big scandal -- that the President is consulting with an American-hating minister -- someone who believes God allowed the 9/11 attacks as punishment for our evil country -- about vital foreign policy decisions? No, it wasn't controversial at all.

Read the rest of the post on the flip side »

Petraeus Admits the Surge Has Failed
Posted by Blue Texan, Firedoglake on March 14, 2008 at 11:13 AM.

Proconsul Petraeus, Who We Must Never Question, on the Bush/McCain Surge:

Iraqi leaders have failed to take advantage of a reduction in violence to make adequate progress toward resolving their political differences, Gen. David H. Petraeus, the top U.S. commander in Iraq, said Thursday.

Did you get that? Failed.

Petraeus, who is preparing to testify to Congress next month on the Iraq war, said in an interview that "no one" in the U.S. and Iraqi governments "feels that there has been sufficient progress by any means in the area of national reconciliation," or in the provision of basic public services.

No one, except of course, for St. McCain and the war cheerleaders.

Just as a reminder, here's Bush 14 months ago:

I've made it clear to the Prime Minister and Iraq's other leaders that America's commitment is not open-ended. If the Iraqi government does not follow through on its promises, it will lose the support of the American people -- and it will lose the support of the Iraqi people. Now is the time to act.

Since that speech, 1034 Americans have been killed in Iraq.