Sadly, No!

Because Bill Clinton’s 100-ton anvil-drop on FOX News flunky Chris Wallace is a gift that keeps on giving:

Unedited vid of Bill Clinton on FOX (11:10)

Now available in our ever-transmogrifying store, Der Sad Café:

10″x3″ bumper sticker

…And for non-leet-enabled vehicles:

Slightly less tragically hip 10″x3″ bumper sticker

UPDATE: Smiling Mortician just posted a link to Olbermann’s Monday stem-winder, in comments. Apparently, the wingnuts sent Olbermann a fake anthrax letter yesterday. (Note the tone of the piece, in the NY Post gossip section.)

[&BTW: I’m back in effeck.]

Above: On the Internet, no one knows your pants
are down past your knees.

UPDATE: Oh also, I’m somehow reminded of this. I’ve been wanting to make a small run of these. (See below the fold). Does anyone know where to source some cheap plastic whatsits like the one in the mockup? And just as importantly, what should the female version be?

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To hear poor Brendan Nyhan tell it, being dubbed “Wanker of the Day” by Dr. Atrios is like some hideous Internets death sentence that ruins your on-line nerd life forever. Check it:

Last Wednesday, controversy broke out when I slammed two liberal blogs for using an airline employee’s suicide after 9/11 to take a cheap shot at President Bush. My post, which initially contained a minor factual error, prompted one of the bloggers, Atrios (aka Duncan Black), to label me the “wanker of the day” and to call on TAP editors to “rethink things a bit.” Hundreds of Atrios readers filled the Prospect’s comment boards with vitriol.

So now I’m curious- just what happens to someone when they’re named “Wanker of the Day?” Does their dog stop loving them? Does their girlfriend call them up and say, “I thought u were kewl, but then I saw that some guy on the Internet called u a ‘wanker.’ We r so, so ovar.” Do they sit in their closet eating donuts and sobbing because they received 350 e-mails informing them that they’re “teh gayest-assed fagort?” Really, I want to know.

Above: The cruel Dr. Atrios, who doesn’t understand sticks and stones break bones, and that calling people names on the Internet RUINS LIVES.

[Gavin adds: Aieee! No matter how many times I fix the color on that picture, the original AWFUL RED ONE keeps coming back…]

So how about it, Atrios? Make me “Wanker of the Day.” Go ahead. I can take it. I double-quadripple-dog dare you, ya bastuhd.

And just to give you extra incentive…

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Well, this is neat:

The Bush administration today released excerpts of a leaked U.S. intelligence report that concludes the U.S. invasion and occupation of Iraq has fueled Islamic extremism and contributed to the spread of terrorist cells. It also finds that terrorist groups around the world are adapting to counter-terrorism strategies. […]

The report, which reflects the consensus of 16 government intelligence services, also suggests that a U.S. victory in Iraq could weaken the will of terrorist groups.

“Should jihadists leaving Iraq perceive themselves, and be perceived, to have failed, we judge fewer fighters will be inspired to carry on the fight,” the report said.

“Maybe, like, three fewer. But hey, it’s a start.”

The report argues that the spread of democracy in Muslim countries “would alleviate some of the grievances jihadists exploit” and erode their support.

But there’s a catch, right? And that catch is…?

But the Iraq conflict “has become the ’cause celebre’ for jihadists, breeding a deep resentment of US involvement in the Muslim world and cultivating supporters for the global jihadist movement,” the report said.

Nifty. So our presence in Iraq makes them hate us more. Our supposed “plan,” then, is to stay in Iraq until… when? They magically change their minds?

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Hey all, I’ll be at Drinkin’ Liberally tomorrow (Tuesday) night at the Middlesex Lounge in Cambridge. I’ll gettin’ outta work late, so I won’t be there ’til ’round 7:30 or so. But come along for the ride, y’hear?

The weekend’s news out of Iraq was predictably grim. Here are some gruesome tidbits:

*BAGHDAD – A car bomb killed 26 people and wounded 29 others when it exploded in Baghdad’s Shi’ite slum of Sadr City, police said.

*NAJAF – Gunmen shot dead Fadhil Abu Seybi, the head of a local tribe and a member of the Supreme Council for the Islamic Revolution in Iraq (SCIRI), a prominent Shi’ite party. Police said Abu Seybi was killed outside his home in the holy city of Najaf, 160 km (100 miles) south of Baghdad.

*MAHMUDIYA – Police found five bodies bearing signs of torture and bullet wounds, in different parts of the small town of Mahmudiya just south of Baghdad, police said.

I’m sure The Left will use these attrocities to bolster its case that the Iraq war cannot be won. The Left, helped by their enablers in the mainstream press, will say that the entire country has degenerated into a bloodbath of sectarian violence and is quickly sliding toward a full scale civil war. “Oooh, look at how bad things have gotten in Iraq!” The Left will shriek. “You seriously can’t expect us to take sides in a full-scale civil war, can you?”

This reminds me of another time when America stood by and watched as a brutal war of attrition unfolded right before our eyes. Much like the current situation in Iraq, the United States failed to act decisively to end the conflict, mostly due to The Left’s inherent moral weakness. “It would be immoral to take sides in sectarian fighting,” The Left moaned at the time. “I’m just going go home, hide under my bed and sob myself to sleep! Wah, wah, wah, I am such a big vagina!”

I’m sure that many readers are scratching their heads, wondering what conflict I’m talking about. This is unsurprising, since today’s history classes spend an inordinate amount of time discussing the angry homosexuals who marched against America’s liberation of South Vietnam in the ’60s. So for those of you still in the dark, let me spell it out for you: I am referring to The Left’s failure to learn the lessons of the Cola Wars.

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There’s bullshit even-handedness — being, purposefully, too fair with the radical right — as practiced and perfected by Sensible Liberals. Awful stuff. Then there’s something like the following, which is fair in the ‘giving the devil his due’ sort of way. Consider these passages:

From Wolcott’s Attack Poodles, which I just finally got a copy of the other day:

The one old pro who exemplifies what CNN was and still could be is Lou Dobbs, the rotund host of Lou Dobbs Tonight and a forceful battering ram. So full of self-assurance himself that it seems to be spilling out of his shirt collar, so confident in his opinions that he acts as if he’s bowled a ten-strike every time he delivers a smart comeback to some pencil-neck economist, Dobbs nevertheless is not your average cable news know-it-all demagogue. He has become what Bill O’Reilly, Neil Cavuto, and Chris Matthews only pretend to be, a broadcaster outraged on behalf of the screwed American worker, fleeced investor, and betrayed pension-holder. A champion of capitalism whom no one could accuse of being a liberal weenie, Dobbs has been pounding the beat on the outsourcing of American jobs and the hollowing-out of the industrial base with an unswervable fervor that sets him apart from everyone else on financial news. While they’re orgasming over every jump in the stock market, he’s outpaced them in comprehending the slow-motion convulsions and dislocations under way. Each night he holds apologists and guilty parties responsible for their answers without making it all about him and his amazing interrogation techniques. There’s nothing wrong with CNN keeping a few attack poodles such as Tucker Carlson and Jonah Goldberg around as pets, but if it is to depose Fox News from the throne CNN once held, it must let more lions like Lou Dobbs out of the den. Because the wrath over what George Bush has done to the country and its economic future is going to feed a hungrier roar in the years ahead, and his defenders and fellow decievers will become prey for the big cats…

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Finally, someone’s makin’ sense. First, the set up:

Democrats have decided that the way to win in November is — I kid you not — to make the economy the central issue of the campaign.

“We’ve got to go on the offensive,” explained a senior Democratic aide, “and keep our eye on the ball — and that’s the economy”

“We’re not going to win 15 seats on the war in Iraq,” said another Democratic staffer, insisting it is the economy that will, in the words of Roll Call, “bring the party across the goal line.”

Sen. Debbie Stabenow is quoted as saying the 2006 election “is all about jobs.”

And, in a memo sent to Democratic staffers, the party’s Senate leadership claimed “while Iraq may be high among the concerns of the American people, it is a distant reality in comparison to the day to day challenges many families face filing their gas tanks, paying for college, saving for retirement and securing a job.”

A distant reality? Oh. My. God.

Yeah, I know. It’s like they’ve learned nothing from the past six years. Rooting for the Democrats is like being a pre-2004 Red Sox fan. But wait, there’s some hope. Check it:

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E.J. Dionne writes the following:

The decisive question is whether Democrats can seize the initiative back from Bush in early October, after the Republican Congress returns home. Democrats plan to marry the themes of national and economic security — think of their economic platform as a dose of Klobuchar and a dash of Brown — and hope that splits among Republicans on torture, which were resolved only yesterday, will dampen GOP gains from the resurgence of the terrorism issue.

Sounds like a plan to me.

The thing is, the Democrats have been running a woefully incompetent “campaign” thus far. They are not taking the fight to the GOP- instead, they are holding Medicare press conferences while relying on McCain and Warner to try feebly and pathetically reining in the administration’s torture plans. I wish I could say I saw a plan of some kind here, but so far I don’t see anything.

Please say you’ve got something up your sleeves, guys. I mean, my God. Congress is yours for the taking if you’re willing to go on the damn offensive. Get going.

After a party-line vote in June, the House Intel Committee made public yesterday (ahem) a cut-and-pasted campaign brochure, intended to scare the bejeebers out of those whose bejeebers have long since flown off in a panic, over the unanimous objections of its Democratic members:

“There are a growing number of groups building the capability to attack the United States, our allies and our interests abroad,” said the report, which was detailed Wednesday by Rep. Peter Hoekstra (R-Mich.), chairman of the committee, in a speech at a conservative think-tank in Washington.

In their rebuttal, Democrats said Americans “do not need the House Intelligence Committee to remind them” that Al Qaeda posed a serious threat, and that the assessment added “no new information to the nation’s understanding of the challenges or to the U.S. government’s ability to address them.”

Au contraire, Hoekstra says (link is to NPR report so, if you’re verifying my work, you’ll have to listen to the audio or read the PDF – sorry):

A significant portion of the American public seems to have forgotten that the threat remains … We continue to be a nation at war against a very, very dangerous enemy and, in some cases, I think perhaps we’ve become a little bit complacent.

If by “have forgotten” and “complacent,” he means “not constantly scared witless,” then I suppose he’s got a point. But, on the other hand, I don’t see much benefit of being scared witless all the time. My wits keep me from making bad decisions (void where prohibited by booze).

It’s becoming more and more apparent that the Republican approach to fighting terrorism is pretty similar to Barney Fife’s approach to fighting crime (comical haplessness, making citizen’s arrests, wide-lens paranoia, eagerness to imprison people, bugged-out eyes, waving a pistol around, etc.). If only there were some way to ration their bullets, too, in the interest of public safety.

“There once was a deputy called Fife, who carried a gun and a knife. The gun was all dusty and his knife was all rusty, because he never caught a crook in his life.”

Guys. I’m going to vote for you no matter what, OK? Heck, after watching six years of Republican rule, I’d vote for a crazed pack of horny centaurs instead of the GOP.

Above: Senator Centaur has a nice ring to it, no?

But between now and November, could you please refrain from doing things that actively piss me off? You know, stuff like this (my emphasis):

The House Judiciary Committee just reversed itself, calling a re-vote and passing a controversial detainee treatment bill that has White House backing, according to House sources.

Earlier today, the panel had voted down the measure, 18-17, with three members not voting. The re-vote swung the tally to 20-18 in favor of the bill.

Update: WSJ’s Washington Wire has more details (and a better vote tally — we’d originally reported 17-20). “The amendment might have passed had two Democrats not missed the vote; the two were at a news conference on the Medicare drug benefit.”

Guys. We’re trying to block Bush from legalizing torture here. That is, needless to say, a pretty important task. Please, please, please do not miss crucial votes on it to talk about the fucking Medicare drug benefit. Assholes.