For finally stating the obvious:

Retired U.S. Army General Wesley Clark, an adviser to Democratic presidential candidate Barack Obama, said Republican contender John McCain has oversold his military and national-security experience.

~~~

“I don’t think riding in a fighter plane and getting shot down is a qualification to be president,” Clark said.

The presumption that being shot down — which can only be considered a failure, even if one for which McCain is blameless — somehow qualifies McCain as a “war hero” and innately better suited to lead our nation in a time of conflict is one of the most baffling media conventions, along with the “Maverick” tag which McCain claimed before spending 8 years as Bush’s batman and rifle carrier for purposes of supporting each of his disastrous policy initiatives.

Sargent York was a “war hero” — he cleaned out a series of 32 machine guns nests pouring murderous fire on his fellow infantrymen, killing 28 enemy and capturing 132 others, almost singlehandedly. McCain was shot down while attempting to bomb a target.

But even Sargent York, while a truly heroic figure, was not any better suited to be President. And yet in terms of war accomplishments he is vastly more qualified than McCain, who claims that being shot down and confined to prisoner of war status somehow confers strategic judgment and wisdom, like manna.

K-Lo, all wound up crazy with nowhere to go:

I may be crazy. But Bill Clinton is not going to let himself be humiliated. He’s in talks with McCain before long if he’s not already. He’s going to salvage his name before this election is over.

If K-Lo thinks Bill Clinton is going to press his lips against John McCain’s angry ass and give him the kind of hug-and-blow-job McCain gave to Bush 8 and then 4 years ago, “crazy” doesn’t even begin to describe her.

Talk about “humiliation.” Clinton kissing McCain’s hand would be a humiliation worthy of the “Gimp” from Pulp Fiction.

While David Brooks may have been busy earlier this week publishing the latest “Mission Accomplished” screed in the pages of the New York Times, Reality continues to rear its ugly head, suggesting that whatever improvements teh Surge may have accomplished, they are not enough to justify the level of gratuitous mutual dick-sucking Brooks and other war advocates have engaged in to celebrate the perceived vindication of their costly and still-ruinous war:

Two insurgent bomb blasts struck at pro-American Iraqi targets in Anbar province just west of Baghdad and in the northern city of Mosul on Thursday, and the police said at least 30 people were killed and 80 wounded.

Iraqi police officials said three American marines were among the dead in the Anbar attack, which came just as the American military command was preparing to hand control of the province, once considered the hotbed of the insurgency, over to Iraqi forces.

The bombings extended a pattern of multiple-casualty attacks in recent days that are clearly intended to kill local Iraqi leaders, in particular those who are believed to have collaborated with American forces against insurgents.

Yes, thanks to what Brooks called Bush’s “courageous and astute decision” in Iraq, we’re standing at the brink of victory in Iraq, it is said. Unfortunately Kamil al-Showaili, a judge on one of Iraq’s top two appeals courts, won’t be there to see it:

Top judge assassinated in Baghdad

A leading Iraqi judge has been ambushed and shot dead by gunmen in Baghdad.

Kamil al-Showaili, head of one of the capital’s two appeals courts, was driving home in the east of the city when the attack happened.

Police said masked assailants used two vehicles to block the judge’s path, before opening fire and driving away.

Mr Showaili, who was in his 50s, was one of the country’s most important judges, charged with handing criminal cases for eastern Baghdad.

Imagine if a US Supreme Court Justice was gunned down by assassins, and you get the picture.

And the day following Brooks’ triumphalist wankery, four Americans were killed at a meeting in Sadr City:

Ten people, including two US government workers and two US soldiers, were killed yesterday when a bomb went off at a council meeting in the Baghdad stronghold of the Iraqi Shia cleric Muqtada al-Sadr.

Six Iraqis died and 10 were wounded in the attack on a local authority building in Sadr City. The US military blamed the bombing on renegade Shia militias called “special groups” – jargon for rogue elements of Mr Sadr’s Mehdi Army that America claims is supported by Iran. Tehran denies the charges.

To top things off, the GAO report casts doubt on the ability of Iraqi forces to act independent of US military support. More than a year after the surge was announced, it’s been so successful that we’re more committed to continuing our occupation than we were before its started, and have yet to withdraw all the forces committed to increase our troop presence.

Purple fingerz=freedom

Or not so much.

Zimbabweans voted Friday in a runoff presidential election with only one candidate - President Robert Mugabe - and some said they had been coerced, fearing punishment or even death unless they could produce a finger colored with red ink as evidence of having cast a ballot.

But even so, participation at many locations was sparse, a contrast with the long lines of people who voted in the March 29 election in which, by the official count, Morgan Tsvangirai finished ahead of Mugabe, 48 percent to 43 percent.

~~~

In some other suburbs of Harare, the capital, residents said they had been rounded up Thursday night, forced to chant pro-Mugabe slogans until daybreak and then force-marched to the polls. They were told to copy the serial numbers off their ballots so it could be confirmed later that they had voted for their 84-year-old president.

Muskrats brought down a levee:

Residents and flood fighters were saddened after a burrowing muskrat brought down the saturated Pin Oak levee shortly before dawn. But within hours, a new defense was in the works — a quickly constructed 4-foot-tall sandbag levee to protect 100 homes in the floodwaters’ path.

“We’re not quitting — the Army doesn’t quit,” said National Guard Col. Michele Melton, who was coordinating the sandbagging effort. “That’s why we’re here — to try and save these people.”

Many of the 720 residents of Winfield and people from surrounding communities have spent the last several days helping the National Guard patch one trouble spot after another.

In the end, their efforts were undone by an animal that weighs no more than 5 pounds. Officials said holes bore by a muskrat that was either seeking food or building a den led brought the levee down.

While Bush was vapidly complimenting Philippine President Arroyo on the excellence of Filipino servants, he overlooked an American of Filipino descent who served his nation in a somewhat higher capacity than-cook-or-other-domestic — Antonio Taguba:

Tony Taguba knew something about prisoners in wartime long before the Pentagon ordered him to investigate the torture and shameful mistreatment of Iraqi detainees revealed by those soldier photographs taken inside Abu Ghraib prison.

You see, his father, Sgt. Tomas Taguba, was a soldier in the famed Philippine Scouts and was, briefly, a prisoner of the Japanese after Bataan fell in the opening days of our war in the Pacific. Sgt. Taguba escaped during the Death March and spent the next three years spying on the Japanese and relaying the information to U.S. forces.

~~~

Maj. Gen. Anthony Taguba would undergo his own trial by fire when, in 2004, he was named by the Pentagon to conduct a carefully walled-in investigation of the abuses of prisoners at Abu Ghraib.

By regulation — and no doubt by the design of those who appointed him — Taguba could not investigate any uniformed or civilian official whose rank was higher than his own two stars.

Taguba and his investigators sifted and probed and assessed the blame as high as they were permitted to go. Taguba believed — no, he KNEW — that the responsibility for this outrage went much higher. He knew it reached to the office of then Defense Secretary Donald H. Rumsfeld and likely beyond to the lawyers who served President George W. Bush and perhaps even to the president himself.

~~~

For his honesty in both the investigation and in sworn testimony before congressional committees Tony Taguba became persona non grata in the halls of the Pentagon. The career of one of the Army’s more talented and honorable officers ended with an untimely retirement.

~~~

In the preface to a damning report on the treatment of Guantanamo detainees by a group called Physicians for Human Rights — which had examined and interviewed 11 former Guantanamo detainees freed without charges — Taguba declared that there was no longer any doubt whatsoever that President George W. Bush and others in the White House had committed war crimes.

“The only question that remains to be answered is whether those who ordered the use of torture will be held to account,” Taguba wrote. “The commander in chief and those under him authorized a systematic regime of torture.”

~~~

My thoughts keep returning to a little speech Gen. Taguba made to his team of investigators as they first began their work in 2004: “Bottom line: We will follow our conscience and do what is morally right.”

Would that our President and his unindicted co-conspirators had done the same.

Perhaps understandable, given the administration’s eagerness to sweep General Taguba under the rug, along with all the implications and consequences of Bush’s own condoning and implementation of torture regimes in its overseas prisons and secret Gulags. Moreover, Bush is known for cashiering officers who fail to rubber stamp poor bad decision-making, or implement his flawed plans. Just ask General Shinseki.

If only those generals had cooked the President’s dinner, instead of pointing out his flawed plans or criminal conduct.

A batshit crazy like Michelle Malkin could say something this asinine:

Anthony Kennedy and the leftists on the Supreme Court ruled. . .

Yes all those “leftists” on the Supreme Court, 7 of whom were appointed by known Pinko Bastards like Gerald Ford, Ronald Reagan, George H. W. Bush, and The Decider himself.

Just 6 months, 28 days, 18 hours and 42 minutes until this kind of embarrassing stupidity is at an end:

PRESIDENT BUSH: Madam President, it is a pleasure to welcome you back to the Oval Office. We have just had a very constructive dialogue. First, I want to tell you how proud I am to be the President of a nation that — in which there’s a lot of Philippine-Americans. They love America and they love their heritage. And I reminded the President that I am reminded of the great talent of the — of our Philippine-Americans when I eat dinner at the White House. (Laughter.)

PRESIDENT ARROYO: Yes.

PRESIDENT BUSH: And the chef is a great person and a really good cook, by the way, Madam President.

PRESIDENT ARROYO: Thank you.

Yes, that’s right. Bush complimented the President of the Phillipines on what terrific domestic servants Filipinos make.

Has anyone other than Geraldine Ferraro more outlived his or her usefulness than Ralph Nader?

Just sayin’.

Trainwreck Media lead dumbkopf Roger Simon:

Whatever one thinks about the neocons, they had virtually the only program, the only idea of how to right the world after 9/11.

Me:

If they have such a program of how to right the world, as Simon claims, it’s about time they tell us what it is, and try to implement it in place of the humongous clusterfuck of death, incompetence, and costly ruin they’ve inflicted on the US and the world the last 7 years.

My suspicion, however it that the program of how to right the world about which Simon speaks is every bit as imaginary as the non-existent Iraqi WMDs Roger claimed was transported through the mythical tunnels into Syria with the help of the Russians.

Via Instaputz.