All roads lead to damnation

At least they do if you're Barack Obama.  Threaten to impeach if he intervenes in Syria or Libya and threaten to impeach if he hasn't.  I keep saying it but now perhaps I don't need to illustrate it. Representative Jack Kingston, R-Ga shouts it from the rooftops the day before yesterday, or at least from the Capitol steps.  Anticipating the presidents speech, and a great one it was, Kingston told reporters it doesn't matter how it goes,

”It’s an election year. A lot of Democrats don’t know how it would play in their party, and Republicans don’t want to change anything. We like the path we’re on now. We can denounce it if it goes bad, and praise it if it goes well and ask what took him so long.” [italics mine]

There you have it, the Republican strategy in a nutshell or the Republican turd in the punchbowl if you prefer.  Sure some people see these saboteurs and insurrectionists as patriots simply because they hate civilization so much but sorry, I'm not drinking that punch.

This is a test

Well it happened, just like the campaign ads threatened it would -- that three AM phone call. OK, so it was 4:30, but close enough. The phone call from the Press Secretary woke Mr. Obama to say that North Korea had launched a multi-stage rocket which shortly afterward crossed over Japan and landed in the Pacific Ocean.

It's not quite the Cuban Missile Crisis, but it woke the president, who presumably was not reading about goats and didn't sit frozen in fear for 7 minutes. Instead, he talked to Secretary of Defense Robert Gates, Vice Chair of the Joint Chiefs of Staff General James Cartwright, National Security Advisor General Jim Jones, Chief of Staff Rahm Emanuel and various other intelligence officials. You know, president stuff.

As the launch was advertised as a communications satellite experiment it must be seen as a failure, since it did not enter orbit at all, much less the 22,500 mile orbit it would need to be geosynchronous. As we recall, their nuclear test was a bit of a dud as well, although it did go bang, but the DPRK ( I won't insult the Beloved Leader by calling it D-PRICK) like certain American presidents of recent memory does not admit to failure. They've declared it a success and I'm sure that in the Democratic People's Republic of North Korea nobody will act like the Dixie Chicks and show shame.

Does the DPRK now pose a credible nuclear threat? It doesn't look like it, but they're trying. It doesn't look like we're going to give the John Wayne response we might have expected by that same president of recent memory, but much will be made of Obama's reaction and his ability to communicate our disapproval in a way that the Little PRK in charge of North Korea won't be able to refuse. I'm sure jaws will be flapping and huge Palm Beach billionaire behinds will be bouncing up and down in radio studios over this, making conclusions and drawing inferences and expostulating on myriad ramifications, but this is a test -- a real one, and unlike Mr. Limbaugh, real Americans hope he succeeds.

Will the real man please stand up?

There's a divide and you're either on one side or another and whether genetics or experience is the greater factor, one can tell your polarity even without discussing politics. No, I'm not talking about Liberals and conservatives; I'm not quite sure what those things mean any more, I'm talking about the cultural divide that puts John McCain in the same camp as the fellow I know who lives in a shack out by lake Okeechobee, whose tattooed torso is shirtless all Summer and who has never owned anything but old, beat-up trucks. Those in the category I know personally, include a retired engineer who used to design ordnance, several retired military pilots and others who share very little in life but the "me against the world" attitude, an appreciation for John Wayne movies, authoritarian governments who never the less govern less - and the distrust of intellectuals.

Now that the media has decided to tell us that violence in Iraq has declined dramatically, it seems that such people are seeing John McCain as someone who can be most obstinate and forceful in dealing with the Iraqi Government's desire for the kind of freedom and independence and sovereignty we have made such a fuss about giving them. Barry says we're going while the Maverick shows his "maverisciousness" by saying "not so soon" to the colonials. That's what we can see John Wayne doing and that's what they fear Obama will not do: give us a settlement that seems more forced than negotiated; a settlement that makes us look more victorious than negotiated; that makes the whole misguided enterprise look like a glorious demonstration of imperial power.

Whether or not violence has decreased and whether or not the Iraqi government is now strong enough to fight its own battles, the gap between McCain and Obama, at least in the polls, seems to be closing as it becomes more likely that the glorious and victorious peace with honor we were denied in Vietnam is more likely with the former than the latter, under whom it might just quickly and quietly end.

An accord has apparently been reached however and if the Iraqi Parliament approves, the matter may be settled before any election. Perhaps McCain will have to invent a new attitude for himself as regards the 100 year occupation he's apparently comfortable with. Regardless of what that might be, the below average pilot who nearly flunked out of the academy his father got him into, will be seen as better be too many people simply because he wore a uniform than the far more intelligent and accomplished Obama.

McCain's last stand

Setting a timetable is like "waving a white flag to al Qaeda" according to John McCain who seems unaware of the difference between the Saudi millionaire living unmolested in a cave in Afghanistan and the religious militants blowing up American troops and Iraqis of various backgrounds in Baghdad.

It's a wonderful analogy of course and to me reminiscent of the strategy that cost General George Armstrong Custer his life and the lives of his troops. Custer, of course, was subsequently reinvented as a hero, but I think the chance McCain once had to be seen as valiant is long gone, what with his fatuous support of every idiotic, lunatic element in the Republican party. His knee-jerk resort to vicious ad hominem attacks doesn't help either. Replying to Senator Obama's comment on McCain's need for a flak jacket when visiting Baghdad, his staff tossed out

"Obama wouldn't know the difference between an RPG and a bong."

The comment of course is meant to both smear Obama with the taint of drug use while inflating McCain's military background in another pathetic and untenable occupation but it also reminds us of the much decorated Custer's military background and how much it helped him make good military and moral decisions. It reminds me that fighting the Indians "over there rather than here" worked out better for the Indians.

A moronic and irrelevant comment indeed -- and it begs us to speculate as to whether McCain knows Integrity isn't a Japanese car. I wonder if he's actually stupid enough to think Bush's "surge" isn't like trying to fight a forest fire by adding a squirt gun to the fire hoses and that no matter how much time you give it to work, you'll only lose the forest and probably get burned in the process. No, I don't think he's that stupid by nature. I think he's just so greedy to be President that he will reduce a situation far more complex than he admits; far more costly of human life, far more likely to inflame the world and far more difficult of resolution to stupid analogies, slogans and infantile name calling. Sitting Bull and Custer; slinging bull and McCain -- different battlefields, same results.

How dare you call me articulate?

To call George Bush a delusional incompetent or Karl Rove a miserable bastard could be taken as being insensitive to their feelings. To call the junior Senator from Illinois a brilliant orator is, as we are told, insensitive to his feelings and insensitive to the feelings of a "Community" that we are simultaneously told he belongs to and does not belong to. Nobody seems to care what Mr. Obama actually thinks.

Words, you see, have to be interpreted in a strictly racist way in order to avoid the appearance of racism. People must be stereotyped, pigeonholed and treated as groups so that people of a racist mind won't call those who are not, racists.

We're all supposed to be "sensitive" and because this is America, we need to carry it to ridiculous and self-defeating extremes. Because this is America, we can no longer depend on words meaning what they mean - they can only be interpreted by the political priests who represent "communities" and because this is America, anyone objecting to anything becomes a "community" even if its a community of one. So what do you do to point out that Barak Obamaindispensable talents for a Statesman, you don't say anything; you ignore the man, lest some ad hoc "community" put words in your mouth. Best not to be impressed by his intelligence and capability, because the inquisition will assume some heresy no matter how sincere the compliment. Is there a sneakier way to enforce bad stereotypes than to suppress open admiration?

Carl Rove, of all people, should know better than to put his foot in his mouth and there is probably something "ulterior" about everything he says, but I can't disagree that Obama is articulate. I may delight in everything unpleasant that happens to Rove, but I'm sick to death of the crepuscular and rebarbate semantics. If nothing we say can be taken to mean what it means anymore, if nothing can be understood without implanting an ulterior motive chosen by the listener; if everything must be deconstructed and reconstructed as a contradiction, then language is useless and there is no point to being articulate and no point to free speech.