Category Archives: insanity on the right

Truck drivers are being recruited by the DHS to keep an eye out for “suspicious behavior.” You’ll never guess how it’s playing out: After the session in Little Rock, two newly initiated Highway Watch members sat down for the catered … Continue reading →

This place is frequently referred to as “the Ikea of art”—it’s got a well-packaged, easily-navigable collection of attractive, inexpensive art. Beats posters!

George W. Bush’s characteristically ham-handed attempts to gain political advantage by claiming the legacy of Ronald Reagan are as risible as virtually everything else he does (when last I checked, the George Bush for President website redirected to a tribute … Continue reading →

Remember when in testimony before a grand jury President Clinton said, “it depends on what the meaning of ‘is’ is?” Remember when in defending fund-raising calls made from the White House Al Gore pointed out the lack of a “controlling legal authority”? If you follow politics even a little bit, you do remember, because these phrases were repeated over and over and over again in the media echo chamber. They were alleged to reveal the essential character of those men. Through sheer repetition, they entered our modern apocrypha. They are now legend. Continue reading →

Bush’s speech is a target-rich environment, a farrago of feints, fibs, and red herrings sufficient to make the most hardened skeptic gasp. The best comprehensive debunking I’ve seen is here, by the Center for American Progress, whose website you should … Continue reading →

March 2003: Weapons of mass destruction. June 2003: Weapons of mass destruction programs. October 2003: Weapons of mass destruction-related programs. January 2004: Weapons of mass destruction-related program activities. Yeesh.

Political dialogue in our country these days, such as it is, just baffles me. After Saddam Hussein was caught cowering in a hole, everyone celebrated the good news. The guy was a prick and the world will now have a historical chance to hold a dictator/butcher accountable for his crimes, while he is present at the proceedings to hear from his victims. There will be much to learn (not only about Saddam’s crimes, but about the best way to conduct such trials) and much resolution and healing, one hopes, for the Iraqis.

But. A few days after the capture Howard Dean gave a major foreign policy speech asserting, among many other things, that we in the U.S. are “no safer” now than we were before Saddam was captured.

This is, on the face of it, quite obviously true. Continue reading →

OK, I could forgive the Bush administration for not penalizing SUV drivers. I could forgive them for not raising CAFE standards so that big gas-guzzlers are forced to become more fuel efficient. This would be short-sighted, but it’s a tough political row to hoe. But it turns out, in Bush’s recent economic stimulus package, there’s a huge tax break for buying cars “above 6000 pounds.” Continue reading →

As information comes out about the lead-up to the war, the intelligence failures along the way, and the grossly mishandled occupation, it becomes more and more clear that-contrary to conventional wisdom about the State Dept./Pentagon axis-the real power broker behind U.S. foreign policy is Dick Cheney’s office. Almost entirely behind the scenes, with little interaction with the media or the public, the VP and his staff have pushed hard for a maximally aggressive, ambitious, and unilateral pursuit of U.S. interests (very narrowly construed, in my opinion). Continue reading →

The country’s focus is on terrorism and war, and to a lesser extent, on recent bills regarding medicare and energy. The environment has moved to the back burner. That’s unfortunate, because Bush is racking up perhaps the worst environmental record of any President this country’s ever had. Continue reading →