The Magic General Speaks

With out the false dilemma, W’s arguments are too easily seen through by even the most eager to believe idiot. No sense in giving a real alternative when a genuinely stupid wrong one can be poised.

You are either with us or against us.
If we don’t fight them there we will have to fight them here.

Finally, an explanation for why we’re surging in Iraq and kind of keeping quiet about what we’re doing in Afghanistan.

The Fellowship of the Willing is keeping the Enemy’s eye on them while Frodo and Sam walk all the way to Afghanistan, where they must destroy the One Beard by “painting” it so the Eagles can home in on it.

It all makes perfect sense now, Adam, thanks!

I think the critical question, Pogo, is who am us? Why is there the need to fight here or there? Is it economic or is it philosophical? Somebody smart has to answer these questions now so we can start figuring out how to get out of this quagmire.

9-11-07

Dear Diary,

Things are looking pretty dark in DC these days. Cheney is having another one of his Grand mal depressions and won’t come out of the bunker. Larry Craig just will not go away. And with everyone else occupied Bush is taking charge of choosing a new Attorney General when Gonzo leaves next Monday. He first called Harriet Miers, but she screamed hideous obscenities into the phone and hung up on him. I think the magic may be out of that relationship.

Anyway, I was walking by the Oval Office today and I heard what I took to be W talking to himself. “Laurence Silberman; (thump) Ow!!; yes. George Terwilliger III; (thump) Ow!!!; no. Ted Olson; (thump) Ow!! yes.”

I stepped into the Oval Office. “Hey, Cowboy (my new nickname). Sit down, I’m choosing my next Attorney General. I got this list of candidates that Clarence Thomas gave me and I’m going through it and deciding which ones will stay on the list and which will go. It’s really neat - I saw this on “Gomer Pyle” last week. You choose someone’s name and then you take your first two fingers and whack them down hard on the desk. If your pointer finger hurts the worst, the answer is “yes”; if your gig finger hurts the worst, the answer is “no”. Gomer used this method to pass his test for Officer’s Training School. If it’s good enough for Gomer, it’s good enough for me.”

“Larry Thompson; (thump) Ow!!, yes… Oh good! I’m glad he’s still in the running. I want to see those Democrat senators say “No” to a negro. Heh heh.”

Yes, sad times, indeed.

Dirk

David, that sums it up pretty neatly. Though it does remind me of my morning drive to downtown Seattle, taking the Mrs. to work. Cellphones… can we drive and not talk? Please. Two hands on the wheel, at ten o’clock and three o’clock, the way Lobster meant it to be.

All of his protestations of independence [what a pathetic joke] aside, it seems to me that Petraeus is not only this war’s William Westmoreland but also this administration’s Monica Lewinsky, especially since by Team Bush’s prescription everyone serves at [and for] the pleasure of the President. I guess the only question is whether Petraeus, while on bended knee, was in front of or behind the President, and quite honestly I think the latter is truly reprehensible, while the former would just be suggestive of a particular orientation, so strike the Lewinsky image in favor of good old-fashioned subjugation of one’s intellectual honesty and integrity to one’s subservience to professional ego and tunnel vision. Or perhaps, in a paraphrase of a line from a Joan Baez song, one should ask, How can someone so smart be so goddamned dumb?

That Petraeus feller’s good. See, he’s all about th’ nuance. It’s not just that al Qaeda over there in Iraq; no, it’s also “other extremists” with “Taliban-like ideologies …”

Not to be confused with the real al Qaeda, over there in that Pakistan … or the real, um, Taliban … y’know, th’ one in Afghanistan …

Course, he runs the risk of people askin’ questions like, what about Osama bin Laden and the Taliban, anyways?? And by that, of course, I mean people might ask those questions, as opposed to, I dunno, the people’s elected representatives. ’Cuz God forbid they should upset poor li’l Gen. Petraeus. (Cue “One Tin Soldier.”)

(By the way, on “Mythbusters” they dispelled that whole air-bags’ll-take-yer-arms-off canard. So, 10:00 and 2:00 are as safe as ever …)

At least they’ve gotten the Mordor orcs to turn against the Uruk-Hai in Angmar province.

(sorry, that was pretty serious nerd humor).

I do not watch very much TV at all. Really. But I do admit to taking a bit of decadent pleasure from The Ellen DeGeneres Show. Daniel Radcliffe was on not long ago and, I must say that for a boy, he shows some really promising talents.

I’ll take some of that rain, wf. I just bought 12 hosta plants on sale and I’m going to need dynamite to get them into the ground any time soon.

Perhaps the WWDTM crew will bring some with them when they show up for a taping tomorrow night. Roy, Mo and Kyrie are the panelists. Adam. of course, is soooooooo busy writing for Real Time that he can’t be bothered to visit us here in the heart of the Triad. No more Maker’s Mark for you, buster, so don’t go askin’ Emily if there is.

Oh, and Nader … don’t diss the ’Busters, man. They totally rawk.

So says my eleven-year-old.

Mr. waterfowler, I’ll take some of that rain, starting next Monday. I’m off to the coast for the weekend and it’s really not worth the drive, if we wind up just sitting in the room the whole time.

No, I’m thinking Arkancide is usually self-inflicted, isn’t it?

Ohh, hairy toes!

And the answer to the question about the good Gen. Betrayus:

“Fallon told Petraeus that he considered him to be ‘an ass-kissing little chickenshit’ and added, ‘I hate people like that,’ the sources say. That remark reportedly came after Petraeus began the meeting by making remarks that Fallon interpreted as trying to ingratiate himself with a superior.”