The Sweet Smell of Sour Grapes

by Distributorcap

I love the smell of racism sour grapes in May

 Osama bin Laden on May 1, 2003 - when President Bush declared "Mission Accomplished"

Osama bin Laden on May 1, 2011 - just before President Obama gave the order to invade his compound

Four months since the American population (well those that bothered to vote) opted to give the Teabag Republican party another chance to mess up America (after all 8 years of Bush, and 6 years of Congressional majorities was not enough) - it is quite apparent that the GOP (and their leaders patrons allies on the right like Fox, Rush, Koch Industries) have jumped right back to the future with same bag of one trick pony policies:

1. cut taxes for the rich
2. dismantle any social safety net for the not-so-rich

However, the brainiacs on the right have a new Prime Directive for their Federation of Nutjobs:

• 3) say anything and everything to disparage and ruin Obama.

As stupid as most Republican leaders are (and they are) - they are smart enough to realize that saying the most reprehensible, false and hateful things about President Obama is the one thing that will generate the most media attention.

In this short period of time - the lunatics Republicans in the House have managed to pass bills on abortion, eliminating Medicare, and subsidizing the insanely profitable oil companies. They have also managed to spend lots of money for an law firm to defend DOMA. What they haven't done of course is produce any sort of policy to help turn the economy around or set a path for job creation (but they do want to eliminate Unemployment - insurance that is, not real unemployment). On top of their complete ineffectiveness as a governing party and outright lies to the electorate, the lengths the Republicans will go to - to confirm their own self-aggrandized superior talent - is nothing short of incredible.

This includes some of the most utterly overtly disparaging and covertly racist things about Obama they can dream up or find in the Honolulu Hall of Records.

When President Obama announced the death of Osama bin Laden last Sunday, it brought the soap opera known as the All My GOPs to a new low in American history.

The words and thoughts that have been coming out of the mouths of the GOP/Right this week reminds me of Hitler in the bunker - despite a world crashing around them from their own insane policies - they will fight to the end to justify their own past actions no matter how wrong they were or how much they have destroyed in their wake.

It didn't take long before the usual cast of characters began their blatant and not-so-subtle trashing of the President for doing exactly what their hero, President George W. Bush, only wished he could have done.

Let's start with the King of Insanity himself - Glenn Beck. Beck called Obama's trip to Ground Zero "slimy" and "disgusting" on his radio show. Beck of course said that the visit to the WTC site was "shameless" and nothing more than victory lap and a political stunt.

Of course walking around the rubble of the collapsed towers with a bullhorn shouting " I can hear you! I can hear you! The rest of the world hears you! And the people -- and the people who knocked these buildings down will hear all of us soon!" is a case study in subdued, classy behavior.

Next AT BAT is Andrew Card, Bush's former Chief of Staff. Card is a man obviously not playing with a full deck. Andy, who likes to give the appearance of moderation, thoughtfulness and integrity - proved this week that he is nothing more than Glenn Beck in a nicer suit.

In an interview with German newspaper Der Spiegel, Card said that Obama has "pounded his chest" too much over the death of Osama bin Laden, particularly by going to Ground Zero earlier this week, the site of the 9/11 attacks. "He can take pride in it, but he does not need to show it so much."

Of course landing on the deck of an aircraft carrier in a flight suit and declaring "Mission Accomplished" in front a giant banner hanging on the ship (before the mission is accomplished) was really a solemn ceremony meant to honor the victims on 9/11, and had nothing to do with politics.

All of us - liberal, moderate, conservative, non-political should get down on our knees and starting thanking whichever-god-you-want that the GOP never exploited 911 for political gain.

Card is an ass^nth - I wonder why he didn't give this same interview to an American paper - a little cowardly methinks. Card further stepped into Barney's poo when he said his issue is not with anything Obama has said about his decision to launch the raid on bin Laden's compound, but rather with Obama's actions. Amazing.

Next up in murderer's row is John Yoo - the world's biggest cheerleader for torture. The man who somehow see things in the Constitution that us mere mortals could not see and decided that the President (Republican only, not Obama) has the right to do anything he wants - anything. Yoo-hoo said that Obama had made a serious mistake by not capturing bin Laden and milking him for information on potential future terror attacks.

Of course Yoo's main man - Bush - is the one who said "Who knows if he’s hiding in some cave or not. We haven’t heard from him in a long time. The idea of focusing on one person really indicates to me people don’t understand the scope of the mission. Terror is bigger than one person. He’s just a person who’s been marginalized. I don’t know where he is. I really just don’t spend that much time on him, to be honest with you."

That was just the tip of the iceberg.  Other reactions from the GOP, teabaggers and those on the Right, while less obvious on the hate, are just as nauseating in their tone.

Rick "Man on dog" Santorum said "9/11 families and everybody else in America should be furious at this president that he’s walking abound taking credit for, you know, getting Osama bin Laden. He didn’t get Osama bin Laden! The president of the United States simply said — courageous act, give him credit for saying yes — but that’s all he did, is say yes. He didn’t do the hard work. The people he’s going after did the hard work. And that is an outrage."

David "I never met a politician I couldn't buy" Koch gave Obama zero credit for the successful mission, telling reporters, “I don’t think he contributed much at all.” Koch called the president “a hardcore socialist” and minimized his role in the operation, explaining, “All that Obama did was say ‘yea’ or ‘nay.’”

Trent Franks said on Frank Gaffney’s (another fine example complete whack-o racist) Secure Freedom Radio show, said "President Obama is too concerned with exploiting the issue for political reasons to do what’s necessary to protect this country”

Not to be left out of the party - the Princess of the North Country Sarah Palin never mentioned President Obama by name, instead she said, ‘We thank President Bush for having made the right calls to set up this victory.”  Nothing like a little revisionism to pepper up the plotlines.

Former hack mouthpiece to Commander Codpiece himself, Ari Fleischer, was more "polite," saying “both presidents deserve credit.”

What's interesting about the words from entitled folks like Beck, Card, Yoo, Santorum, Koch, Franks, Palin and Fleischer (not leave out Trump, Limbaugh, Krauthammer, Ingraham, Malkkkin, and others) is that none of them have ever learned the meaning of "graciousness." Imagine being Andrew Card or David Koch, supposedly mature adults (Palin and Beck are most definitely not mature adults), who never ever have to admit they have made a mistake or apologize. They can make all the racial insinuations against the President they want and due to their stance or clout (or money) never have worry about being called out on their evil.

In the GOP's world, no Black [Muslim, Kenyan, Socialist] man was ever supposed to be elected to the job they own (the Presidency) and then - OMG - beat them at their own game, with his own rules. This is exactly what this whole post-Nov 2008 GOP meltdown has been all about. This is also why the Republicans simply can not handle the truth about the past week. Koch, Santorum, Beck, and Palin are fine with Jamaican nannies and NBA centers, but a Black president protecting the security of the country - that is just way too much for such simpletons to process.

I wish these clowns on the right would stop with the euphemisms and just call him the "N-word" already. You just know that they are biting their tongues not to let it slip out. It's killing them that the Black/Muslim/Kenyan/Socialist President can succeed so spectacularly where they have failed so miserably.

The jealousy we are witnessing before our very eyes is a great plot device for Erika on All My Children - but is such an ugly emotion when coming from a bunch of incompetent and evil nincompoops bent on leading the country. They gushed over President Bush when he carried out a plastic turkey to the troops fighting the war he lied his way into - but can not even thank President Obama for taking out the man that killed 3,000+ innocents - and gave their Dear Leader the excuse he needed to go to war.

Anyone with half a brain can see how incredibly childish the right wing and Republican leadership has become - and the elimination of Osama bin Laden was just the straw that broke the elephant's back. I can only hope the very people that voted for these clowns also see it.

Somehow I doubt it.

Reality bites (Rick Santorum in the ass)

By Michael J.W. Stickings

At Thursday night's GOP "presidential" "debate" in South Carolina, Rick Santorum said that President Obama deserves zero credit for killing Osama bin Laden:

9/11 families and everybody else in America should be furious at this president that he's walking abound taking credit for, you know, getting Osama bin Laden. He didn't get Osama bin Laden!

Basically, Obama just gave the order, which was easy enough to do (as if there were no question at all, as if the mission weren't risky at all -- clearly Santorum has no idea what it means to be president and to have to make decisions like this). It was Bush who did all the work. 

It's predictable enough that all five Republicans went after Obama and that Santorum in particular, who is so desperate to gain traction (but who really doesn't have much of a shot of actually winning), said something so ridiculously stupid, something that goes beyond even what most other conservatives are saying in response to the mission. This isn't just denying Obama full credit, or trying to share some of the credit, this is saying that Obama did virtually nothing and is shamelessly taking undeserved credit for something he knows he didn't do.

Aside from the facts that Obama was closely involved in the planning stage of the mission and was making the key decisions all along -- and, indeed, there were other options and things could have gone differently -- what Santorum gets wrong is just how differently Obama has approached the "war" on terror compared to Bush:

[A]s Michael Hirsch writes today in the National Journal, President Obama was sucessful in catching Bin Laden precisely because he broke with Bush's terror policies. The conservative "assessment couldn't be further from the truth," Hirsch writes. "Behind Obama's takedown of the Qaida leader this week lies a profound discontinuity between administrations — a major strategic shift in how to deal with terrorists," from Bush's bombastic and overly expansive "war on terror," to Obama's "covert, laserlike focus on al-Qaida and its spawn."

In other words, the mission to kill Osama bin Laden was planned and succeeded not in spite of Obama, or regardless of Obama, but because of Obama. This is not to say that another president wouldn't have made the same or similar decisions and wouldn't have similarly succeeded, but it's just plain wrong to suggest that Obama deserves none of the credit or even just some of the credit.

This is politics, I know, and the truth matters little to extremist partisan ideologues like Santorum. But it's yet another example of just how reality-denying the Republicans really are.

And it's only going to get worse.

(photo)

Photo of the Day: Osama martyr march in Pakistan

By Michael J.W. Stickings

Photo from The New York Times: "Hundreds offered prayers for Bin Laden on a street in Karachi, declaring him a martyr."

Just a reminder, if we needed one, that killing Osama bin Laden does not mean killing "Osama bin Laden," or what he stood for, and fought for, and killed for. And while this means that the so-called "war on terror" isn't over (even if it doesn't make sense to think of it as a war in any conventional sense, or even as a war), what it really means, or should mean, is that there are still so many hearts and minds to win -- not to turn them into us but to turn them away from Osama (and "Osama").

Osama bin Laden is dead

By Michael J.W. Stickings

(Watch President's Obama's remarks below, as well as CNN's OBL obituary.)

Truly shocking news:

Osama bin Laden, the mastermind of the most devastating attack on American soil in modern times and the most hunted man in the world, was killed in a firefight with United States forces in Pakistan on Sunday, President Obama announced.

In a dramatic late-night appearance in the East Room of the White House, Mr. Obama declared that "justice has been done" as he disclosed that American military and C.I.A. operatives had finally cornered the Al Qaeda leader who had eluded them for nearly a decade and shot him to death at a compound in Pakistan. 

Wow.

I'm not sure what to say. Many will applaud this, and, in my own way, I will too. But I won't do so with glee. Because I just don't think the situation warrants it. Not after all that has happened, after all the death, after all the suffering. The gravity of the situation is simply too immense. Perhaps we call all breath a sigh of relief, but, of course, it -- everything bin Laden stood for and fought for, and the movement he led -- does not end with his death. He will be just as powerful, if not more so, in death than he was this past decade in life.

I'm watching CNN now. People are cheering. Flags are waving. I understand that. I think back to 9/11. And I realize, remembering the horrors of that day, along with so many other horrors bin Laden caused, I do feel a sense of relief. What else was to be done? How else could this, this stage of the war against al Qaeda and its partners, end?

Wolf Blitzer just used the word "thrilled" to describe how Americans feel. Well, not just Americans. No doubt a lot of people are thrilled by this news. And people are celebrating. There are scenes of champagne flowing. People are celebrating around America and around the world, says Wolf. No, not everyone, but it's certainly an astonishing thing. And the scenes from outside the White House, and at Ground Zero, are incredible.

Sorry, I'm just sorting out my thoughts...

I feel great joy. I'm just not in such a celebratory mood. Because as big as this is, I remain filled with sadness that the world is as it is. And war, even in victory, such that this is a victory, is always sad. Given the gravity of it all, I cannot quite let myself go.

But let me also say this: This is an incredible triumph for the U.S. and its allies, as well as for President Obama personally. After so many years, after the disastrous war in Iraq that took America's attention away from what it should have been on, namely, the war on those who were truly at war with America, after the endlessly up-and-down Afghan War, largely forgotten once Bush took the country into Iraq, now seemingly a quagmire, there is finally a moment of definite triumph. Forget the toppling of Saddam. This is well beyond that. The "war" is not over, and it would be a huge mistake to think that, but there is at least a sense of justice tonight, and that's what has been missing throughout the "war on terror."

Details of the operation in Pakistan are still scant, but from what I can tell, from the reports coming in, it was both incredibly risky and incredibly well-executed. And President Obama deserves enormous credit for his leadership. For all the failures of the post-9/11 period, when the U.S. seemed to let bin Laden get away, he knew what had to be done and, when the time came, he made the decision to act.

(Update: Apparently, planning for the operation, based on key intelligence leads and clues, had been underway for a long time. Ultimately, U.S. special forces (Navy SEALS), reportedly with Pakistani support, raided a compound, in a fairly densely-populated area in Abbottabad, just north of Islamabad, where Osama was thought to be living. Efforts were made to avoid civilian casualties. A firefight broke out and, according to reports, Osama was shot in the head. Of course, we have reason to be skeptical. We're only getting the White House's and military's good-news spin. Still, it does seem that the operation was undertaken with enormous care.)

How can one not look at this through a political lens? Certainly Obama succeeded where Bush failed. Certainly Obama should be able to benefit politically from this. Republicans, including those running for president, will no doubt find fault with Obama. They'll try to find something, anything. Maybe they'll say Obama should have acted sooner. Whatever. We're already hearing that this operation was weeks, if not months (and of course the search for bin Laden goes back years and years), in the making, and that the president and his chief advisors, including Joe Biden and Hillary Clinton, was deeply involved throughout. Ultimately, the call was his. And this is the result.

Visit msnbc.com for breaking news, world news, and news about the economy

I'm beginning to lighten up a bit. Yes, I'm thrilled. Yes, there is good reason to celebrate. Let us all feel not just a sense of relief but a sense that justice has been done. Let's just not get ahead of ourselves. Bin Laden was the leader, or a leader, of this jihadist war against not just America but our entire way of life in the West (and much of the non-West, including modernization in the Islamic world), but it was not all about him. And it will continue, and perhaps even worsen, as bin Laden becomes a martyr, and, again, more powerful in death than he was post-9/11.

Let us celebrate, and let us applaud President Obama and those involved in this operation, but let us also remember the gravity of the situation. This is bigger than Osama bin Laden, and we haven't "won" anything, and, yes, war is hell no matter what. But at least, at the very least, after years and years of struggle, we can raise our hands in celebration, however qualified, whether uproarious or muted or somewhere in between. 

Osama bin Laden is dead.


********** 
1:55 am: Yes, I do understand that this represents a certain "closure" for the families of 9/11 victims, as well as for all those connected personally to those attacks. But what is closure to them -- and I think all of us who watched what happened that day and felt so deeply about it can feel similar closure -- is not necessarily closure in terms of the larger war, and that's the point I was trying to make above. Some are enthusiastically referring to this as "Mission Accomplished." No way. Yes, a mission was accomplished, but it is dangerously wrong to think that Osama's death means that all is now well. 

2:00 am: Let me also say that I understand the need to celebrate, to feel good about this, to wave flags and drink champagne and all that (and even to chant USA! USA! USA!). There has been so much fear and terror, so much death, so much suffering, so much uncertainty this past decade. And people need to let loose. And in a way I wish I were there in New York or Washington, or anywhere else where people are gathering and celebrating, where people are coming together and not just raising hands but joining them. I have no time for jingoism, whether American or otherwise, and that's why I tend to be reserved and cautious, but this is indeed a time when we should be joining hands, across America and across the world, not just to celebrate the death of a man (and I'm not sure it's ever good to celebrate death, even Osama's, though, again, it probably had to come to this) but to pledge ourselves to a better future, a future of peace, and to work together towards it. 

2:11 am: All over the media, there are reports of speculation of possible retaliation for Osama's death, whether by al Qaeda or others (and it does seem likely that there has been preparation for this possible eventuality). We need to be careful not to succumb to fearmongering manipulation, but there is indeed legitimate concern in this case.

2:19 am: Stay tuned. We'll have a lot more on this later today and in the days to come. In the meantime, everyone, take care.

Just wrong

By Carl 

It makes little sense to spread democracy around the globe if we are not going to practise democratic ideals:

The Daily Telegraph, along with other newspapers including The Washington Post, today exposes America's own analysis of almost ten years of controversial interrogations on the world’s most dangerous terrorists. This newspaper has been shown thousands of pages of top-secret files obtained by the WikiLeaks website. 

[...]The files detail the background to the capture of each of the 780 people who have passed through the Guantanamo facility in Cuba, their medical condition and the information they have provided during interrogations.

Only about 220 of the people detained are assessed by the Americans to be dangerous international terrorists. A further 380 people are lower-level foot-soldiers, either members of the Taliban or extremists who travelled to Afghanistan whose presence at the military facility is questionable.

At least a further 150 people are innocent Afghans or Pakistanis, including farmers, chefs and drivers who were rounded up or even sold to US forces and transferred across the world. In the top-secret documents, senior US commanders conclude that in dozens of cases there is "no reason recorded for transfer".

However, the documents do not detail the controversial techniques used to obtain information from detainees, such as water-boarding, stress positions and sleep deprivation, which are now widely regarded as tantamount to torture. 

Now, let's see what the Framers had in mind with respect to "democracy":

We hold these truths to be self-evident, that all men are created equal, that they are endowed by their Creator with certain unalienable Rights, that among these are Life, Liberty and the pursuit of Happiness.

Words you and I, if you're American, had to learn by heart. This doesn't mean that some men who are not American do not have the same rights and privileges as Americans. It says that the Creator made all men equal, that all men are entitled to life and that all men are entitled to their personal freedom. It also says that even a Teabagger ought to recognize these rights, that it doesn't require deep thought or evidentiary hearings. All men are entitled to these rights. Period.

The Framers were smart enough to elucidate these points and outline these rights in a supporting document to this Declaration, our Constitution.

Right up top in the first Ten Amendments, the Bill of Rights, the Framers delineated what is liberty. Liberty is the protection of the individual from the tyranny of the majority, that beautiful phrase of John Stuart Mill. That majority can take the form of mob or governance by mob rule.

It means that any man in the entire world should be free from the depredations of our exertion of American will and might over him. One can make the case that in war, these rules should be suspended, and perhaps there is a point to be made there but it seems to me that if you can't have a higher batting percentage than roughly .500 in the application of that suspension versus harming innocents, you have no business being in the business of war in the first place.

The willful negligence... and that's being overly polite... of the Bush and Obama administrations in the pursuit of the aims of their aggressions in Afghanistan, Iraq and now in Libya will come back to haunt American citizens. How can it not? How can Americans expect to live a life of freedom in a world where freedom is a slogan and not a philosophy? How can we expect to continue to presume that what we own and what we enjoy cannot be taken from us at a moment's notice, not just by those who would do us harm, but also by those who wave the flag of "freedom" in our faces?

How can we in good conscience say we are bringing freedom to the world, but only to the part of the world that agrees with us? For if one man is not free, they I am not free. And if I am not free, then my fellow Americans are not free. 

(Cross-posted to Simply Left Behind.)