Keith Olbermann's Sacrificial Comment, Gerry's Farewell Continues, The Ex-Prezdents Club, and Maureen Dowd's Hilarious Thought Bubbles .....

"It was Gerald Ford, after all, who gave America the gift of Dick Cheney and Donald Rumsfeld, the gift that keeps on taking."-Maureen Dowd

First, I want to say again that I love Keith Olbermann. His special comment last night was incredible and I encourage everyone who visits this site to click below and listen to it. Someone commented last night on the Seditionists blog that Keith was on fire...and he was...he burned the house down in his disgust and glance downward with his final "good night and good luck..." This is a long one, but worth every minute.
John Amato got this right up on Crooks and Liars last night, (one of my desert island blogs,) not 10 minutes after it was spoken but I had to go to sleep before it appeared on youtube...Thanks to everyone who is posting these things....And
as I scream to the rafters of the top new executives at Air America Radio, distribution of shows and clips does not take away from your audience; rather it helps the cause and grows the audience at the same time!! MSNBC is very smart in allowing this...Comedy Central, in their cease and desist to YouTube, not so much!


Its always nice to be agreed with...and between listening to Sam Seder podcasts while driving very, very far today, and now today's Maureen Dowd column (,also podcasted via NYTimes Select Podcasts, which I believe should be free as well,) I feel like, in a world where people are somewhere between trying to be respectful of the dead and feeling sort of torn about the whole Watergate issue and how to best "heal" anything, I've come down on what might be the side of less respect for old white men of former power and more on the side of truth...In other words, others see this too andI'mm not really crazy. I spend a little too much time wondering if I am just maybe a little over the edge on things, so when I find people who I respect who agree with me...I'mm glad and I sleep better too!
Its true that I keep thinking that maybe it's just me who cant stand the condescending attitude of George W Bush, Tony Snow, Rummy, Cheney...Shalll I go on? Do we bestow some sort of sainthood on some guy who fell into a job...?...Becausee he never had to stand up much for anything except the party line and whatever the plan ended up being.
...And especially when interviews that he gave out quite a while ago with the understanding that they not be released until his death, are suddenly flying around...and it seems like our late hero Gerry wanted to assure some sense ofdeniabilityy..Whichh he no doubt learnt from his brief boss-in-chief....and tore apart the Iraq war and his old friend's handling of same. Way to go Ger..Veryy brave of you! I'm sure that there is always that Ex-Presidents club rule thingy that might prevent one from speaking up along with the 50's mentality of keeping up appearances. But, then there was also the Third Reich and those whodidn'tt speak up...and those who did because what they were seeing was so morally reprehensible.
Surge and....Sacrifice, indeed!
I wish that people who consider what the course of actionshould'vee been would hang on a sec before they jump into any quick fixes and look at the big picture. To say that America wouldn't have HEALED if Nixon and his gang had been held accountable in the old fashioned way, is just plain wrong and sort ofpresumptuouss. What else would have come out and who else would have come out if good old Gerry had not pardoned Nixon? Would Rummy and Cheney have escalated as they did? Would we then have been as likely to put up with shenanigans of any sort and would we see the kind of ethics violations we have seen in the government in the past years? Did Gerry or anyone have the RIGHT to take the course of real justice away from the country? He did by law, but I believe that it set us on a course that ended us up here. It certainly empowered a very young Rummy and Cheney, and on they went....
It seems to me that starting back then, it became clear around that there was a different set of rules for certain people, and it encouraged certain other people to feel untouchable and less like there might be repercussions to their actions, beyond just living with one's conscience, which seems to be out of style these days.
Look, I love Betty Ford, and its clear that she was also less likely to be able to put up with the crap before finally having to get real. Idon'tt know how she stood the fact that her husband, old and in failing health, would keep mum on such an important issue. People are dying because of this administration as surely as they were dying of alcoholism and breast cancer when shedecidedd to speak up!
Anyway,I'mm glad that they can finally let her rest now. They have dragged heraroundn for days, and the family is lovely..Butt, honestly,I'vee thought that she might actually expire right there at times. She is one tough broad but I wonder how longshe'ss gonna make it now. The old coot had a better and longer life than most, andI'mm glad that our national funeral is over.
Speaking of the funeral:
Maureen Dowd wrote a column in today's NY Times that is one of the most fantastic things thatI'vee read in a long time (...and then listened to on podcast when, to my delight, I discovered that the magical iPod had auto-loaded it!)
Enjoy!

January 3, 2007
Op-Ed Columnist
Stained Glass and Strained Egos
By MAUREEN DOWD

Washington

It was a scene that Mary McCarthy could have written the devil out of: a funeral for a fine, bland fellow that filled everybody with unfine, unbland thoughts. The formal serenity of the service disguised, but only barely, the virulent rivalries and envies and grudges and grievances that have roiled this group for many decades.

None of the eulogists noted the irony that the man who ushered out one long national nightmare had ushered in another, the one we'’re living in now. It was Gerald Ford, after all, who gave America the gift of Dick Cheney and Donald Rumsfeld, the gift that keeps on taking.

The two former Ford administration officials, who doomed Iraq to civil war and despoiled American values, were honorary pallbearers yesterday, as was that other slippery and solipsistic courtier, Henry Kissinger.

The group was even more on edge because of a remarkable trellis of peppery opinions that had tumbled out of the man in the coffin, posthumously. The late president, hailed as the most understated and decent guy in the world, had given a series of interviews on the condition that they be held until his death — a belated but bracing smackdown of many of his distinguished mourners.

It was impossible not to wonder what the luminaries were truly thinking, as they sat listening to fugues of Bach and Brahms and encomiums to the ordinary-guy leader.

Nancy Reagan's imperturbable expression behind her big sunglasses did not disguise the gloating words visible in the bubble over her head: “And they call this a funeral?

It could not compare, of course, to the incredible Princess of Wales treatment that her husband had for his state funeral. And Nancy, hypersensitive to any slights to her Ronnie, would not have been pleased with Mr. Ford's interview with Michael Beschloss published in Newsweek, in which he blamed Ronald Reagan for costing him the 1976 election by challenging his nomination and then failing to hit the trail for him.

It was good of Mr. Ford to bring 41 and 43 together in a solemn respite from their uneasy competition over Iraq.

"Told you so, you sons of guns, we were right to stop at Safwan and stay out of Baghdad," the father'’s bubble read, as he watched Rummy and Henry the K, both of whom had treated Poppy with such veiled contempt, as though he were a feather duster. "“Those vicious Moktada-loving Shiites dancing around Saddam’s dead body prove that Brent and I were right."

Lynne Cheney glared at Poppy as he gave his eulogy, knowing that he privately thinks that the vice president has destroyed not only Iraq and American foreign policy, but the Bush family name. Her storm cloud of a bubble is expurgated.

Hillary"s bubble was full of mockery for another New Yorker in the National Cathedral: "You think you're so smart, Rudy, but you leave your entire presidential battle plan in a hotel room for your rivals to find? The victim role doesn'’t suit you." Condi's bubble was as opaquely dark as Hillary's was visibly light , drooping with the inchoate fear that her nearby erstwhile mentor, Brent Scowcroft, had been right about Iraq after all.

As Poppy spoke from the altar, praising Mr. Ford's generosity, he must have been mulling that his predecessor was ungenerous in spitting on him from the grave. Mr. Ford told Mr. Beschloss that Bush Senior had sold out the party to the hard right and had taken a phony, pandering position on abortion.

Poppy had to have enjoyed watching Dr. K get up and lavish praise on his old boss, after Mr. Ford had sniggered to Bob Woodward that the "coy” Bavarian diva had the thinnest skin of any public figure I ever knew."

W. graciously walked Betty Ford down the aisle, even as he must have curdled inside about her husband'’s telling Mr. Woodward that it had been "a big mistake on the part of W., Dick Cheney and Rummy to justify the Iraq war with nonexistent W.M.D. I just don't think we should go hellfire damnation around the globe freeing people, unless it is directly related to our own national security," he said.

Ex-presidents weren'’t supposed to criticize sitting presidents. Adding insult to injury, Woodward himself was in the cathedral. How did he manage to get all these deathbed confessions, W. had to wonder.
"Jeez"
” his bubble read, "does he have an interview with my old man in the can?"

Rummy'’s pop-up was as cocky as ever: "Golly, I've been gone three weeks and things are really looking up in Iraq."

James Baker'’s secret thoughts belied his poker face: "I tried to help you out, son, but you're too dang stubborn. Or resolute, as you say. Stubolute. A clear case of TMC " too much Cheney."”

Dick Cheney'’s bubble was trouble: "I'm surging, I'm surging, I'm surging."

Happy New Year and Krugman on healthcare!

Its 2007....
2006 was a pretty horrible year for me... and also for the country, and I'm just plain glad its over. Not that I put much stock in the artifice of marking time, but I have to allow myself a little crack of light around the door at some point or its all just too dark.

We have the majority at long last...Yeah, it should be more of a majority than it is, in that one guy has an aneurysm and we're all saying that as long as he can blink, he can vote! It shouldn't be this close, but I'll take what I can get at this point.

The Bush White House is spinning out of control in a really interesting way for those of us who have ever studied psychology....And the investigations and hearings upcoming will be enough to keep any political junkie happy for many, many months of CSPAN reruns. Grab a beer and set a spell...Its going to be an interesting ride.


The country and now the government is finally waking up to global warming...Its almost as if someone removed the muzzle from the mouths of the scientists of this country...The same goes for the military specialists, and most conservatives, who have all been finding their voices again. Its nice to not be one of the few tin hat wearing bleeding liberals sounding like a fool out there all alone while the karate teacher tells me that it cant be true because Faux news tells him so! Now Faux will jump on the bandwagon long enough to save the polar bear and then blame us for the melting! As Colbert said, he's glad we won the majority because now we can start to get us out of this war that we got us into! Time to step up and take the responsibility, and yes, the blame....Because we have to know its coming.

The Republicans are going to have a very interesting primary season beginning shortly....All I can say is, Thanks Rudy! This country is in desperate need of some comic relief, and you running for president is gonna be not just funny, but fun! It couldn't be any better if we had Frist and his dead cats to pick apart.


As long as Bush keeps being his same old, old-boy self, and Joe Lieberman keeps acting as his butt boy mouth piece, well, enough said....There is little reason to have to explain things to anyone anymore, unless they are somehow mentally damaged or just really, really rich and lacking in moral compass and real American values. In which case, fuck em anyway!...I'm done trying to reason with, or even find the 30% who like Bush....

And in totally unimportant yet heartening news, 24 is coming back this month....And FX has ordered another season of Rescue Me, which is my favorite show on television! Check out the beautiful Rescue Me site here. I'm also a little hopeful about Dirt, which starts tomorrow (Tuesday Jan. 2nd,) on FX, at 10PM EST....Prison Break will be back on Fox Jan 22nd also....And hopefully the funerals will all die down this week so we can get back to the business of pressuring Bush to end this war and perhaps even impeach his ass!!

Remember, what happens when we go out of our way to "heal the nation" is that we end up with a culture that allows the disgusting behavior of many of our politicians and the actions of this president and his cabinet. Lets kick some ass this time round....We cant afford to show our children anything less if we want real healing.

Al Franken reported yesterday, in the Minneapolis Star Tribune about his ongoing USO tour and what he's seeing out there in the war zone... How the reporting seems skewed in favor of the larger picture and about the frustration of the troops that more good news isn't reported. His point is that when Laura Bush makes her "tsk-tsk" little statements about how the press should be reporting the wonderful little victories...The "little miracles,".... We have to realize that it is nearly impossible to focus on those shiny stories when they occur in front of a backdrop of such dysfunction and horror. To ask the American people to focus on every child saved or every sewage system repaired in a place where we created the problem, asks us to ignore that if we had not done this thing in the way we did, there would not be a need now to be saving children's lives and to be providing basic necessities. Then we are told that we must not dwell on the mistakes of the past and that we must move ahead in order to "heal" the rifts.
Well, as much as anyway can say that we have to find a way to move on in life, I think that anyone who moves on without fully understanding the problem in the first place is not really moving on, but is assuring that the mistakes of the past are going to be repeated. And perhaps the "mistakes" of the past are less mistakes and more a part of human nature, be it to enrich oneself or to conquer land or resources, or to try to "share" our way of living "free" with the rest of the world who must really want it. The thing is that people who feel like they have the answer about how to live are usually pretty sure that their way is IT. If you add a groupthink mentality to this and maybe even a God-telling-you to do it, then you're in trouble.

So, we have to go over the end of the year statistics and the old Lang syne and vomit in Times Square.... But surely that doesn't usually include looking at what went into the fact that WE elected these people and they are doing all of these things in our names...That the 50/50 split is crazy in that half of the country is in some sort of delusional state of fear, or stupidity, or just bamboozled into voting against everyone's best interests by the likes of Karl Rove!!
The environmental issue is enough to tell us all that any vote for these clowns is a vote against the survival of our planet. Its that clear and stark...Just ask Al Gore who's movie is available on DVD now, or take a look at Who Killed the Electric Car? for not only the environmental problems of our vehicles but how large corporations and the oil industry have manipulated the market to prevent us from being able to do much of anything about this stuff.
Its human nature to stick with what seems safe, and we are so comfortable here in our bubble that the urgency hardly gets through. Be it learned helplessness or the dumbing down of education, we are failing to take the reins on our world and engage in society and our future.
So rather than focusing on the next People Magazine cover story or the next baby in the well who strikes a chord in the hearts of Americans, I would say that we need to spend a hell of alot more time looking at the big picture and what we've done. We need to understand what it means when we want a dumb cowboy as our leader; our mouthpiece talking to the rest of the world....Nothing against cowboys; I've known a few...But, hell, everything in the world and universe is not akin to clearing brush and roping cattle from your truck....And war (especially this war) is not like the Dick Cheney hunt where you hire some Mexicans to flush out the quail from the bushes as you swagger from your transport....
Next thing you know you've shot a friend in the face and the friend is apologizing to YOU for being a burden and getting his face in the way....And its a FAKE hunt!!!
I suppose that there are parallels.... Follow the money...Follow the oil....
My year end thought is a bunch of questions: How could we be so stupid? Who are we anymore? What do we want to be as Americans? How do we want to fit in the world?...And is this horrible year over with yet?
Its time to get with it, because push is coming to shove and every cycle that we empower a George Bush or a Joe Lieberman, we lose something that we might not get back so easily. People tend to think that the cyclic market forces will always bring things back around, but I sense a real feeling of defeat in everyone lately. And what's really important here is the children...And education....And healthcare for all.....

So, here's to a better year...To sweet baby birds and snorty dogs getting into stuff...And maybe some snow here in the new south!

Here is Krugman:

January 1, 2007
Op-Ed Columnist
A Healthy New Year
By PAUL KRUGMAN

The U.S. health care system is a scandal and a disgrace. But maybe, just maybe, 2007 will be the year we start the move toward universal coverage.

In 2005, almost 47 million Americans — including more than 8 million children — were uninsured, and many more had inadequate insurance.

Apologists for our system try to minimize the significance of these numbers. Many of the uninsured, asserted the 2004 Economic Report of the President, “remain uninsured as a matter of choice.”

And then you wake up. A scathing article in yesterday’s Los Angeles Times described how insurers refuse to cover anyone with even the slightest hint of a pre-existing condition. People have been denied insurance for reasons that range from childhood asthma to a “past bout of jock itch.”

Some say that we can’t afford universal health care, even though every year lack of insurance plunges millions of Americans into severe financial distress and sends thousands to an early grave. But every other advanced country somehow manages to provide all its citizens with essential care. The only reason universal coverage seems hard to achieve here is the spectacular inefficiency of the U.S. health care system.

Americans spend more on health care per person than anyone else — almost twice as much as the French, whose medical care is among the best in the world. Yet we have the highest infant mortality and close to the lowest life expectancy of any wealthy nation. How do we do it?

Part of the answer is that our fragmented system has much higher administrative costs than the straightforward government insurance systems prevalent in the rest of the advanced world. As Anna Bernasek pointed out in yesterday’s New York Times, besides the overhead of private insurance companies, “there’s an enormous amount of paperwork required of American doctors and hospitals that simply doesn’t exist in countries like Canada or Britain.”

In addition, insurers often refuse to pay for preventive care, even though such care saves a lot of money in the long run, because those long-run savings won’t necessarily redound to their benefit. And the fragmentation of the American system explains why we lag far behind other nations in the use of electronic medical records, which both reduce costs and save lives by preventing many medical errors.

The truth is that we can afford to cover the uninsured. What we can’t afford is to keep going without a universal health care system.

If it were up to me, we’d have a Medicare-like system for everyone, paid for by a dedicated tax that for most people would be less than they or their employers currently pay in insurance premiums. This would, at a stroke, cover the uninsured, greatly reduce administrative costs and make it much easier to work on preventive care.

Such a system would leave people with the right to choose their own doctors, and with other choices as well: Medicare currently lets people apply their benefits to H.M.O.’s run by private insurance companies, and there’s no reason why similar options shouldn’t be available in a system of Medicare for all. But everyone would be in the system, one way or another.

Can we get there from here? Health care reform is in the air. Democrats in Congress are talking about providing health insurance to all children. John Edwards began his presidential campaign with a call for universal health care.

And there’s real action at the state level. Inspired by the Massachusetts plan to cover all its uninsured residents, politicians in other states are talking about adopting similar plans. Senator Ron Wyden of Oregon has introduced a Massachusetts-type plan for the nation as a whole.

But now is the time to warn against plans that try to cover the uninsured without taking on the fundamental sources of our health system’s inefficiency. What’s wrong with both the Massachusetts plan and Senator Wyden’s plan is that they don’t operate like Medicare; instead, they funnel the money through private insurance companies.

Everyone knows why: would-be reformers are trying to avoid too strong a backlash from the insurance industry and other players who profit from our current system’s irrationality.

But look at what happened to Bill Clinton. He rejected a single-payer approach, even though he understood its merits, in favor of a complex plan that was supposed to co-opt private insurance companies by giving them a largely gratuitous role. And the reward for this “pragmatism” was that insurance companies went all-out against his plan anyway, with the notorious “Harry and Louise” ads that, yes, mocked the plan’s complexity.

Now we have another chance for fundamental health care reform. Let’s not blow that chance with a pre-emptive surrender to the special interests.