Distinction Without A Difference

From McClatchy News, by way of The All-Seeing Eye Of Froomkin:

The White House has sought to frame the Iraq debate as a choice between Bush's plan and abject failure.

Good luck with that one.

Bush Makes A Strategic Retreat

...From his generals. He also invents a new title for himself, although frankly I think "The Strict Adherer" lacks pizzazz.

When President Bush goes before the American people tonight to outline his new strategy for Iraq, he will be doing something he has avoided since the invasion of Iraq in March 2003: ordering his top military brass to take action they initially resisted and advised against.

Bush talks frequently of his disdain for micromanaging the war effort and for second-guessing his commanders. "It's important to trust the judgment of the military when they're making military plans," he told The Washington Post in an interview last month. "I'm a strict adherer to the command structure."

But over the past two months, as the security situation in Iraq has deteriorated and U.S. public support for the war has dropped, Bush has pushed back against his top military advisers and the commanders in Iraq: He has fashioned a plan to add up to 20,000 troops to the 132,000 U.S. service members already on the ground. As Bush plans it, the military will soon be "surging" in Iraq two months after an election that many Democrats interpreted as a mandate to begin withdrawing troops.

(...)

It may... be a sign of increasing assertiveness from a commander in chief described by former aides as relatively passive about questioning the advice of his military advisers. In going for more troops, Bush is picking an option that seems to have little favor beyond the White House and a handful of hawks on Capitol Hill and in think tanks who have been promoting the idea almost since the time of the invasion.

(...)

There is little question that more troops for Iraq seemed far from the conventional wisdom in Washington after the beating Bush and the Republican Party took in the midterm elections Nov. 7....

(...)

Another problem for the administration was the Iraq Study Group, the prestigious bipartisan panel headed by former secretary of state James A. Baker III, a Republican, and former congressman Lee H. Hamilton (D-Ind.). Soon after Bush returned from Jordan, the group delivered its recommendations, including proposing a high-level dialogue with Iran and Syria to help stabilize Iraq and setting a goal of early 2008 for the removal of almost all U.S. combat troops.

Although the president was publicly polite, few of the key Baker-Hamilton recommendations appealed to the administration, which intensified its own deliberations over a new "way forward" in Iraq. How to look distinctive from the study group became a recurring theme.

As described by participants in the administration review, some staff members on the National Security Council became enamored of the idea of sending more troops to Iraq in part because it was not a key feature of Baker-Hamilton....

(...)

In the end, the White House favored the idea of more troops as one visible and dramatic step the administration could take. One senior White House official said this week the president concluded that more troops are not the only ingredient of a successful plan -- but they are a precondition to providing the security the Iraqi government needs for political reconciliation and other reforms.

Tonight, this source said, the president will explain "that we have to go up before we go down."

Fascinating stuff. the surge is nothing more than a combination of psychodrama and political theater. Surgio has apparently become completely obsessed with his grandiose self-image as the Bold, Resolute Decider Who Bucks The Overcautious Conventional Wisdom, With History His Only Judge (And He Doesn't Even Care About History 'Cuz We'll All Be Dead. So now he can't listen to anyone who doesn't agree with him, not even 70-90% of the American people, because that would be weak. (Yes, only in BushWorld can ignoring dissent be viewed as courageous...)

In addition to demonstrating his Trumanesque independent spirit, Bush also wants to make it clear that he's an original thinker. So not only are the Iraq Study Group's recommendations too timid for his tastes, but they also have the fatal flaw that they're not his. For Bush, the only thing worse than failure would be success with someone else's plan.

So if you add the two imperatives of "Must Be Original" and "Must Be Biggest Possible Fuck-You To Stupid Wimpy Pacifist Voters" together, with a little "Run Out The Clock Until 2009 And Hope Something Good Happens" thrown into the mix, the surge is the inevitable result.

As for the surge itself, I think it's possible, though not probable, that there was a window of time (now closed) where additional troops might have eased Iraq's transition from secular dictatorship to Shi'ite theocracy (anyone who sincerely thought post-Saddam Iraq was ever headed anywhere else is naive or delusional), but the numbers would have had to be a lot bigger, in the ballpark of Shinseki's 400,000, or even more. There would need to be enough troops to seriously inhibit insurgent activity, and they would need to be trained and disciplined enough not to create potential terrorist recruits every time they encounter live Iraqis. This megaforce would also have to include enough trainers to provide intensive training to Iraqi troops and police. Flying motorcycles would be good, too.

Of course, this is all hypothetical pie in the sky, as there would be no way to muster that many troops without a politically suicidal draft, and even then, everything would have to go just right, which is an impossibility under the current administration. The reality is that we're coming up short by a hell of a lot more than 15-20%, and a small bump in troops isn't going to mean squat.

Wednesday Why-I-Love-The-Weekly-World-News Blogging

Oh my:

Glen Ordneau's striking resemblance to almost all voodoo dolls has brought him decades of agony--a condition only recently addressed by a skeptical medical community.

"We are combating some of the external conditions with moisturizing conditioner for his strawlike hair and body butter for his burlap-like skin," said Dr. Stilton Warnes, a cosmetic surgeon at Sidleigh Hospital. "But we'll have to resort to surgery and skin grafts to correct his pillowy limbs, stubby neck, and the birthmarks over his heart, liver, and other major curse zones."

(...)

Ordneau's black, button-round eyes teared-up as he recalled the discovery of his illness as a youth. "I was traveling with my parents, who bought me a voodoo doll in a New Orleans gift shop," he said. "On our flight back from Louisiana, a pen broke in my carry-on and I turned royal blue for a week. That was the first clue."

Despite Mr. Ordneau's declining health, doctors have postponed his surgery until further tests can be conducted. "Well, he looks like a giant voodoo doll," Dr. Warnes observed. "We're a little hesitant to start sticking needles in him."

It's a tragic story, really. Thank God this poor man is finally getting some help.

Who Is More Foolish: The Fool, Or The Fool Who Follows Him?

The Richard Cohen Rehabilitation Tour proceeds apace.

It would be a lot easier to pat him on the back for this sort of thing if he hadn't been one of the enablers way back when. Or if he would, y'know, abjectly apologize and beg forgiveness for his role every time he complains about how insane everyone else is.

Educating Froomkin

The All-Seeing Eye Of Froomkin (And Friends!) have some questions about Emperor Surgio:

Here are some of the things to keep an eye out for [in Surgio's All-New & Improved Iraq Strategery Address]:

* Will he acknowledge the real, specific concerns that many Americans have with this particular war and the way it's been waged? Or will he once again belittle the public angst by ascribing it to too much carnage on TV and a general aversion to warfare?

* Will he engage and address the actual arguments voiced by critics? Or will he simply fight straw men of his own creation?

* Specifically, will he acknowledge the argument that the presence of American troops makes things worse in Iraq, rather than better?

* Will he acknowledge the message American voters sent about Iraq in November, and explain why he doesn't feel obliged to heed the public will? Will he explain why he and the public seem to have reached such different conclusions?

* Will he agree to engage in dialogue -- not just consultation -- with those who disagree with him, and possibly even in public?

* Will he be up front about the possible consequences of a failed escalation -- specifically, the cost in human lives? Will he acknowledge the human suffering?

* Will he be honest about the difference between tactics, strategy and goals, and will he explain why he seems willing to consider only a change in tactics?

* Will he be forthright about how we got here? Will he acknowledge any mistakes, beyond tactical errors that were not his fault personally? What lessons will he say he has learned? Will he take any blame for anything?

* Will he explain where the additional troops will come from? Will he call for volunteers? Will he call for anyone else to sacrifice?

* Will he say where the money will come from -- for the escalation, for the reportedly billion-dollar jobs program, or for the entire war for that matter?

* Will he say anything about how long either the escalation, or the war, will last? If he establishes benchmarks, will they be accompanied by timelines and consequences? Will there be any accountability, for either the Iraqis or the Americans? At the end of the speech, will the American military commitment appear larger but still equally open-ended?

* Will he say not just that he still believes the war in Iraq is winnable, but why he believes that, and why he discounts the evidence to the contrary?

* Will he be up front about who we're fighting and why? Will he acknowledge that the chief mission of existing and supplemental troops will be fighting well-armed rival Muslim factions?

* Will he acknowledge how the mission in Iraq has changed, from ostensibly being about weapons of mass destruction all the way to tamping down a civil war?

* Will he address the hideously botched execution of Saddam Hussein, which provided such a gripping view of the vicious sectarianism plaguing the country?

* Will he acknowledge that Iraqi Prime Minister Nouri al-Maliki has repeatedly made promises and not delivered in the past, and explain why he trusts Maliki this time?

* Will he acknowledge that Iraqi forces have never taken their share of the responsibility in Iraq, and that training has thus far been problematic?

* If he says this is a turning point, will he explain why, in contrast to all the previous turning points, he believes this one is for real?

* Will he describe how his view of the situation in Iraq has changed over time, if at all? Will he address the concern that he has been in a state of denial?

(...)

Liberal blogger Josh Marshall looks at the past four years and asks whether anyone "can point to even a single Bush administration decision in Iraq, either strategic or tactical, that didn't turn out to be either a bad idea or a complete disaster? Anything? One good call?"

(...)

Sally Quinn writes in a Washington Post op-ed: "I hope that when President Bush discusses sending more troops to Iraq, knowing that we will have to pull out sooner rather than later, that the conversation comes around to the human suffering. Does anyone at the table ask about the personal anguish, the long-term effects, emotional, psychological and financial, on the families of those killed, wounded or permanently disabled?"

No.

Liberal blogger Arianna Huffington proposes "a diagnostic checklist" to evaluate the level of Bush's delusion.

"Does he exhibit signs of the classic layman's definition of insanity: repeatedly doing the same thing but expecting a different result?...

"Does the patient -- I mean, the president -- demonstrate magical thinking, signs of a belief that merely wishing for something can make it so?"

Yes.

This has been another edition of Simple Answers To Simple Questions.

Who Needs An iPhone?

...when you can have an iPod/DVD projector shaped like R2-D2? (NOTE: Make sure the motivator is under warranty)

I'm... an enormous geek.

*hangs head in shame*


Did I mention that the remote is shaped like the Millennium Falcon?

(Or that Blogger is run by monkeys? And not the smart kind, either.)

Everybody Dance Now!

Well, it's official: I am the sweatiest mammal on Earth.

And this is supposedly somehow a good thing.


Also, Dr. Jablonski is pretty cool-looking, in a vaguely New-Agey, Professor Annie Lennox kind of way.

Blogger is run by monkeys, you know.

Shittiest. Prize. Ever.

Literally.

It's no B.S. - a Staten Island woman who won a sweepstakes ended up with 7-1/2 tons of horse manure.

Ina Adamshvili of South Beach considered herself blessed when she found out she won Turkey Hill Ice Cream's 75th anniversary contest.

(...)

Some winners got 75 homemade apple pies. Others scored Amish buggy rides. Adamshvili won the manure.

The married mother of two quickly decided to trade her dung in for dollars. The company found that manure was going for $9 a ton, so they paid her $67.50 for the glop.

Adamshvili had no complaints.

The Russian immigrant said she hadn't felt so lucky since she won an immigration lottery giving her the right to come to the United States.

"The first time we [won a] green card, second time we [won] this prize," she told the Staten Island Advance.

Adamshvili had few doubts about what she would do with the money....

"I'm going to buy more ice cream," she told the Advance.

I wish I were that easy to please. I would have preferred the pies. The apple pies.

Also, Blogger is run by monkeys.

Brain... Hurts. Does... Not... Compute.

It's disconcerting to even think about...

George Clooney may get his ultimate revenge against Bill O'Reilly if he is willing to be cast way against type. The author of "The Man Who Would Not Shut Up: The Rise of Bill O'Reilly," out today from St. Martin's Press, wants the activist actor to play the conservative Fox TV host, who's jousted with Clooney more than once, in a movie version.

TV critic Marvin Kitman spent five years researching the book, interviewing O'Reilly 29 times. He says Clooney, who directed "Good Night, and Good Luck," about the great journalist Edward R. Murrow, could do it. "That's why they call it acting," Kitman said.

This, despite Clooney telling us in the past that O'Reilly "mistakenly sees himself as Murrow."

He also compared O'Reilly to redbaiting Sen. Joe McCarthy - unfavorably.

"Unlike McCarthy, O'Reilly was never elected to public office. What's more, Joe McCarthy was never accused of telling one of his female staff members she should use a vibrator" - one of the sex-harassment claims of a former Fox News staffer.

For his part, O'Reilly has said, "Many of the ideologues on the left - George Clooney, these people - all are underestimating the danger we are in. ... They don't believe we're in the middle of World War III, they don't understand Islamic fascism and jihad." He also has said, "I don't recommend Clooney as a human being."

"Recommend"? What is that even supposed to mean? Do people regularly ask O'Reilly to make human being recommendations? ("Try the Ann Coulter - insouciant but very nutty.")

Perhaps some lighthearted gossip will soothe my aching brain.

Michael Sheen uncovered an interesting tidbit while researching his role as U.K. Prime Minister Tony Blair for "The Queen."

"I met [Blair's] daughter a couple of days before we started filming," Sheen told us. " 'What does your dad wear in bed?' That was the first question I asked her. And she just got very blushed. And she said in the summer, he doesn't wear anything."

Or not...

Blogger is run by monkeys.

Spam Vs. The Man

This is a bit more... subversive than usual:

your man betrothed your men and your shastabolicious Republican.

white-hot honkies imitated one fascist. the pimp needed to dance, so conformists should never self-destruct and could do party tricks.

Power to the people!

("Shastabolicious"???)

More Sanitation Photoblogging

I imagine that being insane for sanitation is somewhat akin to being cuckoo for Cocoa Puffs.


The ancient bollard graveyard.


Some kind of entrance archway thingy.


Insert Hitchcock theme music here.


My feelings exactly.

Help Me Out Here

He looks really familiar, but I'm having trouble identifying who this is singing at Woodstock, because he's so young.

I think I've narrowed it down to Joe Lieberman, David Broder, Joe Klein, or maybe Richard Cohen, but I could be way off. Can someone please help jog my memory?

Simple Answers To Simple Questions

Lieberman Edition:

Given what [Susan] Collins had to say about the Senators' discussions with commanders, you have to conclude that it's perfectly possible that [Oliver] North, of all people, is being more candid here than Lieberman is. And that possibility is a pretty astonishing one, isn't it?

No.


(h/t Atrios)

Quick Surge Question

If "as the Iraqis stand up, we will stand down," what does it mean that we're the ones doing the additional standing up?

It almost looks like a tacit admission that the Iraq situation is going in the opposite direction of what it was supposed to be, but surely that's unpossible.

Eli's Obsession With The Google

On the first page of blog search results for masturbation soldiers.

You laugh, but if deployed properly they can be absolutely devastating to enemy morale.

Maybe this is the "surge" we so desperately need.


UPDATE: Also the #1 search result for an unauthorized scientological pageant.

Timeless Wisdom Of The Ancient Spam Lords

This stuff is going to make me the most enlightened mofo on the planet.

A chess board self-flagellates, because the cashier pours freezing cold water on a bartender.

A fraction living with a diskette is hardly slow.

The polygon sanitizes a pit viper. Another globule is Alaskan.

Casey's Canadians did rodeo clowns and police!as usual, that woman gave birth to the men! A chess board self-flagellates, because the cashier pours freezing cold water on a bartender.

Notice how it comes around full circle to the self-flagellating chessboard. That shit is PROFOUND.

Inadvertently Revealing Front-Page Headline Of The Week

Conservatives Decry Laws

Conservatives who supported President Bush's reelection have joined liberal groups in expressing outrage over his administration's broad use of anti-terrorism laws to reject asylum for thousands of people seeking refuge from religious, ethnic and political persecution.

The critics say the administration's interpretation of provisions mandating denial of asylum to individuals who give "material support" to terrorist groups is so broad that foreigners who fought alongside U.S. forces in wars such as Vietnam can be denied asylum on the grounds that they provided aid to terrorists.

Advocates for refugees add that people who were forced to aid terrorist fighters at gunpoint could be labeled as supporters and turned away; such cases include a nurse who was abducted and told to treat a guerrilla fighter in Colombia and a woman in Liberia who said her father was killed and she was raped and forced to stand by as rebels occupied her home for several days.

"This is so indefensible," said Michael Horowitz, a fellow at the conservative Hudson Institute and a former lawyer in the Reagan administration. "It is causing heroes who fought for the United States to be afraid of being deported."

"It's outrageous," said Barrett Duke, vice president of public policy for the Southern Baptist Convention's Ethics and Religious Liberty Commission. "I think it's essentially a reaction of fear to the current terrorist danger." The language in the laws, he added, is "a knee-jerk reaction."

Gary L. Bauer, president of American Values, a conservative public policy group, said the anti-terrorism thrust of laws such as the USA Patriot Act and the Real ID Act is supported by most conservatives, "but the enforcement of it has lapsed into ludicrousy. The concept of material support is being distorted, and even the definition of the term 'terrorism' is being turned on its ear." [This was too heartless and extreme for Gary Bauer??? Also, everyone knows that "ludicrousy" is not a word. The correct term is "ludicrosity."]

(...)

[Lam Kim] was jailed for two years after arriving in the United States in 2004, and her asylum request was rejected by an immigration judge. "If I go back to Burma," she said softly over the telephone, "I have to give my life. I am not terrorist. I say it not fair."

A Colombian nurse living in California who declined to give her name said she was abducted by the Revolutionary Armed Forces of Colombia (FARC) outside Bogota and forced to treat one of their soldiers. She fled Colombia with her daughter in 2000 after her life was threatened in a note to her family. Her asylum request was rejected last year.

"I had no option," she said. "What will happen if I go back? I will be killed. They look for people. They know when they arrive at the airport. They have names."

(...)

"I will completely own up to wishing we had done more, but it's a big department," [Homeland Security advisory committee chairman Paul Rosenzweig] said....

Jennifer Daskal, a program director for Human Rights Watch [said,] "The administration presented a proposal... and basically said, 'Trust us.' It's been two years, and the administration hasn't done a whole lot to instill confidence."

Wow, where have we heard that before...

Based on the front-page headline (as opposed to the more correct article headline), I really thought that the story would be about conservatives finally taking Bush policies to their logical conclusion and rejecting their obligation to obey U.S. laws in general. But it's actually sort of heartening to know that even hard-core conservatives are uncomfortable with some (repeat, some) of the administration's crueler policies. Why, they almost sound compassionate, even.

Great Moments In American History

Thankyou. Thankyouverymuch.

This isn't exactly newsworthy, but it's something that's always tickled me.

The meeting between two of the most improbable cultural icons of the 1970s lasted all of 30 minutes, but it has fascinated the nation for years.

A photo of a cloaked and bejeweled Elvis Presley solemnly shaking hands with a grim-faced President Nixon remains the No. 1 requested document from the National Archives, nearly four decades after the secret meeting took place on Dec. 21, 1970.

Now, on what would be the King's 72nd birthday, the Richard Nixon Presidential Library & Birthplace is giving the curious public a good, long look at the relics of the coming together of The King and The President -- and it's got Elvis fans all shook up.

The free exhibit Monday includes the outfit Elvis wore (a black velvet overcoat, a gold-plated belt and black leather boots); Nixon's outfit (a gray woolen suit, tie and size 11 1/2 black shoes); letters; and a World War II .45-caliber Colt revolver that Elvis gave to Nixon.

''The two of them together somehow is almost incomprehensible,'' said Bud Krogh, Nixon's former deputy counsel who set up the impromptu meeting that day 36 years ago. ''The king of rock and the president of the United States shaking hands in the Oval Office doesn't compute for a lot of people.''

The chain of events that led to the meeting began when a stretch limousine carrying Elvis pulled up outside the White House. One of his guards handed over a letter from Elvis addressed to Nixon requesting a meeting to discuss how the rock star could help Nixon fight drugs -- including getting credentials as a ''federal agent at large.''

''I will be here as long as it takes to get the credentials of a Federal Agent,'' Elvis wrote. ''I have done an in-depth study of drug abuse and Communist brainwashing techniques and I am right in the middle of the whole thing where I can and will do the most good.''

(...)

About 2 1/2 hours later, Elvis walked into the Oval Office wearing his flamboyant outfit, as well as sunglasses and two huge medallions....

Elvis and Nixon talked for about 30 minutes, during which Elvis showed Nixon pictures of his daughter and a pair of cufflinks given to him by Spiro Agnew. He also showed Nixon police badges from around the country and asked again for a badge from the U.S. Bureau of Narcotics and Dangerous Drugs.

(...)

''Oh man, we were set up! But it was fun,'' said Krogh. ''He said all the right words about trying to do the right thing and I took him at his word, but I think he clearly wanted to get a badge and he knew the only way he was going to get it.''

There's really nothing I can add to this.

Monday Media Blogging

This is another video that I thought was gone forever. A friend of mind had a bunch of brilliant short videos of mysterious origins at the end of an SCTV tape, which I was never able to determine the exact provenance of, much less obtain copies of. Until now.



This is the brilliantest of them all, a parody of 50's sex-ed films, and one of Paul Reubens' finest moments. "Aw, that stuff's strictly squaresville. I know how to handle chicks!"

NYC Sanitation Photoblogging

There probably aren't very many photographers who yell "Score!" when they find NYC Department Of Sanitation headquarters...


Umm... Traffic thingies?


Nicely maintained physical plant.


Inexplicable little mini-pier thing. Actually before the Sanitation Department, but I like to save the verticals for last.


See above.