Feeding the Beast

Leaving his digs at TPM, Josh Marshall has a post today at The Washington Monthly that is worth reading.

But I take issue with this:

When Baghdad finally fell, reaction in the Arab world took many forms, each intense and ambiguous. But one unmistakable variety was a sort of chagrin over the fact that it had taken the tanks of a Western power to rid Iraq of what was an unmistakably hideous regime. Antiwar liberals, if they were frank with themselves, couldn't help but feel a parallel moral unease. As much as President Bush had acted as a bully on the international stage, as much as the lead-up to war had been destructive, clumsy, and dishonest, by early April the war he started had brought down a regime of death squads and secret police, foreign aggression, and internal oppression. Those are things liberals are supposed to oppose, and usually do. Yet those who opposed Bush's war--even with good reason--had to concede that their preferred course would have left the torture chambers running indefinitely.

There is nothing stated here to argue with, except the logical consequences of the position!

Shall we invade Darfur? Genocide is happening there every day while the entire world stands by silently.

How about Zimbabwe? Certainly Mugabe’s brutality towards his own people is no less heinous than Sadam’s was.

So why Iraq? If the United States is going to set itself up as the moral police in the world, why make Iraq our first example? The Republicans had hissy fits when Clinton finally – belatedly – decided to act in Yugoslavia…. So why the sudden urge to become the world’s primary defender of human rights?

Oh, that’s right, the oil.

Every time a liberal writer “admits” that if leftists had their way Saddam Hussein would still be in power they feed the distortion machine of the right – leaving us all in peril.

Either the US is taking on the role of the world’s policeman – fighting war after war in countries that most American citizens can’t find on the map – or we join the world of realpolitic and intervene only when we must.

None of the abuses of the Hussein regime in Iraq ever rose to the level we have all read about in our newspapers happening every day in Darfur. If the US was going to play policeman of the world’s morality – why not there?

Oh, that’s right, they had no oil.

Refreshing Our Memories

In response to Russia's invasion of Georgia McCain said, among other things, that NATO should have taken heed of GW's urging and accepted Georgia into NATO, and that they should "revisit" their decision and do so now.

Had that happened, we would be engaged in ANOTHER WAR right now. Do you think McCain doesn't understand that? Of course he does, he is all for MORE WAR.

Be Very Afraid

And be glad that John McCain isn't already President.

Hell Freezes Over

Mark your calendars, I am actually linking to a video with Paris Hilton. If you haven't seen this, you must.

Let us all do our part to help this move viral. It's exactly the sort of response the McCain camp deserves.

See more funny videos at Funny or Die

Fight Back

First the disclaimer: I only agree with about 90% of this post, and I think the language is way over the top in describing Obama. Having said that, this blog assumes a certain Democratic orientation that permits -- nay requires -- this type of inside-the-family critique when it's called for.

If Obama doesn't begin to fight back a little harder against the slime being lobbied his way, we could actually wind up losing this thing.

I promise to organize some really interesting dirt on McCain to post very soon.

Just Shoot Me

I have to admit, this ad is effective in its own way, but PLEASE STOP! Nothing is more galling to progressives that lived through the Reagan era than the deifying of the man that has occurred since he left office.

Reagan was not responsible for the fall of the Soviet Union; the Soviets were -- by stupidly spending their nation into near bankruptcy by overspending on military expenditures they couldn't afford (among other things). Sound familiar?

Reagan carved the words "tax and spend liberal" into the media granite while racking up the highest deficits of any President in history. Sound familiar?

And Reagan was a public embarrassment for much of his time in office. Remember the great line about trees emitting most of the carbon dioxide in the air? Remember catsup as a vegetable in school lunches? Sound familiar?

And Reagan was another Republican who couldn't let little things like the law stand in the way of what he wanted to do oversees, like sell weapons to Nicaraguan terrorists, oops, I mean, Freedom Fighters. Sound familiar?

And the Reagan administration was also full of people who were never held accountable because....... they couldn't remember! Sound familiar?

And only Reagan had Alzheimer's disease; the rest were just liars.

So now Obama is going to sell himself to the American people by comparing himself to Reagan?!

Just shoot me, please?

Big Brother at the Border

The Washington Post exposes a little-known aspect of our new no-privacy country.

Federal agents may take a traveler's laptop computer or other electronic device to an off-site location for an unspecified period of time without any suspicion of wrongdoing, as part of border search policies the Department of Homeland Security recently disclosed.

If this was going to be applied in China during the Olympics, I guess it would be getting more media attention.