When wounded liberal bloggers attack


Michelle Cottle and Walter Kirn are guest guest blogging for Andrew Sullivan, and it's taken exactly 10 hours and 44 minutes before the first big debate has broken out. To be resolved: who hates the 20th highjacker more? Cottle, channeling Ann Coulter, says execution is too good for the terrorist who was found guilty of covering up the Sept. 11 terrorist plot.
"So while I personally believe that, in a just world, Moussauoi would be torn apart by angry ferrets, I can?t help but question our rush to turn him into a shining example of martyrdom for all his aspiring terrorist pals. Better to throw the failed jihadist into a cell with a large, surly redneck with a scorching case of xenophobia and let him spend the rest of his miserable life learning about pain and terror firsthand.
Ouch! Cue Dueling Banjos.

But wait, Kirn hates Moussauoi even more:
Honestly, I don't care what they do with him. Let the system work its will -- I have dishes to do, wet laundry to dry. If a bulletin comes on the radio announcing that Mr.M (my contempt for whom is such that I've never bothered to learn to spell his name) has been sentenced to die, I'll probably just open up the dryer and toss a sheet of Bounce into the load.
Oh no, not passive aggression!

There's something a little self conscience and apologetic in both of their "arguments", as if the answer is so easy, it practically begs to be examined and mulled over. Red meat conservatives don't have that problem. To them, the only argument is what kind of oil to boil Moussauoi in, followed by an examination of flax seed oil production and the utter stupidity of farm subsidies.
14.4.06 02:59


Chinese heckler


It was a made for TV, man-behind-the-curtain moment.

President Bush and Chinese President Hu Jintao were exchanging diplomatic hugs on the White House lawn today, with just enough barbs to make things interesting. Bush spoke first, praising human freedom, and linking free speech to peace and prosperity. When it was Jintao's turn, he reminded Bush that China has 1.3 billion people, and that while peace and prosperity are desirable, China can chart its own course, thank you very much.

Then the heckling started. A middle-aged woman had slipped by security, and positioned herself among the foreign press. She screamed in Chinese, with the anger and passion born of oppression. "President Bush, stop him from killing," she yelled. And "Hu, your days are numbered!" Wu, unfazed, continued lying. Bush, a less accomplished liar, shifted uncomfortably, and briefly looked off stage as if to say "Is someone taking care of this?" Freedom, apparently, can march a little too fast at times.

It took 30 seconds, an enternity in secret service years, before a uniformed guard escorted the woman away. It took even less time for Chinese government censors to black out live coverage of the state visit. Bush's foreign policy, like 1.3 billion Chinese people, can't be wronged.
20.4.06 15:42


Heraldblog announces BOLD CHANGES


It's time to shake things up.

Heraldblog hereby announces a series of bold steps which are destined to shake the blogosphere to its core. We're talking Earth shattering, grab your sorry butt by the collar and slam you up against the wall bold. First of all, I've added Wonkette to my blogroll. Yeah, you read that right. Deal with it. The queen of snark is in da house. But wait, there's more! The knives are out! I've cut Bongo News from the Fake News heading. Sorry dude, hit the virtual super highway or whatever the hell it's called these days. You haven't made me laugh since your Terri Schiavo joke page.

And check out this bold change. A picture of a monkey.



So that's about it for now. Be glad. Bold changes aren't pretty, but a decider's got to do what he's got to do.
21.4.06 23:17


Decisions, decisions

There's something defining, and maybe a little apocryphal, when our CEO President described himself as "the decider." It is such an amazingly dumb use of English, void of even a pretense of artfulness, or irony, or even nihilism. It's just Bush being Bush.

Time was when Presidential brain farts meant something. Herbert Hoover famously promised "a return to normalcy", a quote that transcended generations, and I'm quite certain, inspired Yogi Berra and Dan Quayle. Hoover, desperate to take the public's mind off soup lines and financial panics, turned to bamboozlement, reassuring the public that things would return to just the way they used to be. It will be a return to normalcy

The phrase stuck, and became shorthand for an insincere promise by a bumbling chief executive.

But "decider" will not survive. It was stillborn the moment it left the cranial lacuna that passes for Bush's brain. It is a meaningless udderance, a "sputterance" in Bush speak, meant to make the questions go away.

And for now, it's working.
22.4.06 03:10


A Hu done it


In Communist China, Dr. Wang Wenyi would be locked up in some hellhole, and forgotten.

Fortunately, the courageous Chinese national who disrupted Hu Jinghao's state visit last week will get her day in an American court. And she will prevail.

Hu Jinghao, the President of Communist China, kills innocent Chinese people, imprisons political opponents, censures media and controls the media with bribes and threats. I'm quite certain that President Bush disapproves of that type of leadership, but Bush, whose spine has the consistency of soggy egg rolls, can't press the issue. China is a trading partner, after all. The Chinese freedom march begins in the Wal Mart parking lot, and ends on the West Lawn of the White House.

Dr. Wang, who holds both a PhD and a medical degree, was charged Friday with "a misdemeanor of willfully intimidating, coercing, threatening and harassing a foreign official". Apparently the good doctor crossed the line when she yelled ""Your Time is running out," and "Anything you have done will come back to you in this lifetime."

Both "threats" sound benign enough to find their way into a fortune cookie. Hu answers to others in his government, and if he does a bad job, his time will be up. Dr. Wang is obviously of the opinion that Hu's time is running out, and let's hope she's right.

"Anything you have done will come back to you in this lifetime" sounds like something Michael Stipe would sing. It must have been shouted in Chinese, because the sentence is too clunky in English. By the time the secret service guys were finished going "Huh?", the heckler could have been long gone. A more free translation might be "What goes around comes around", hardly enough to get worked up about.

In China, the government puts on show trials of political dissenters. In the US, we have show arraignments, followed by media circuses, acquittals, and finally interviews with Katie Couric.

I just hope everybody pays attention. The case stinks, and so does Bush's foreign policy.

His time is running out. Anything he does will come back to him in this lifetime.
23.4.06 01:23


President Bush's doppelganger


Australia's Prime Minister John Howard says that Iraq is not a disaster:
But Mr Howard said it took Australia years to embrace democracy and Australians could not expect Iraq to do the same in just a few hundred days.

"I think we impose unreasonable standards," Mr Howard told ABC radio.

"I don't believe the verdict on Iraq is by any means in, and I don't accept that it's been a disaster."
But then again, who are you going to believe, the Prime Minister of Australia, or the previous prime minister of Iraq, quoted recently as saying "...if this is not civil war, then God knows what civil war is."
25.4.06 16:47


Grand old party, dude


Congressman John Sweeney, R-Hammered, has some splainin' to do. Fortunately, he has spokespersons to do the heavy lifting.

A college newspaper has published a story that the congressman was seen drunk at a Union College frat party last weekend. Oh, and there's photos, and they're really funny.

But there's a really good explanation - he was connecting with constituents! Take it away, Sweeney spokesperson Melissa Carlson:
"As a committed representative of the people throughout the area where he lives and works, he enjoyed the discussion he shared with the students from Union College. he congressman was impressed with the energy and enthusiasm the students displayed - particularly on a Friday evening. Where better to receive feedback than on their own tuff at the college itself?"
Hmmm. How would that feedback go?

Drunk Sweeney: Border shecurity is critically imbor - important, and our first line of defensh must be to arrallocate limited resources directly at the border.

Frat boy with greasy hair: Me and my roommate, we partied down in Cancun over spring break. That's, like, in Mexico man!

Sweeney: I am still not convinshed that constructing a checkpoint 100 million miles inland in the hopes that we catch people who are already in the country is a wise use of tash, tax dollars.

Frat boy in Coldplay t-shirt: Like, I saw this homeless dude the other day, and I think he might have been Mexican.

Sweeney: Our focush must be on the firsht point of entry, not arbitrary checkpoints that impede ecoranomic vitality.

Frat boy with Yankees cap and big arm muscles: I got your vitality right here, dude. Take a hit off this bad boy!
28.4.06 16:16


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