brainrow

The big problem with Barack Obama is his lack of experience. He’s only been in the U.S. Senate for a little more than two years. Does he have what it takes to deal with the tough issues?

Via John Moltz, here’s an interview from 2002, shortly after Congress gave Bush authority to attack Iraq:

Watch this and ask yourself who looks smarter on foreign policy in retrospect: Obama or Dick Cheney? Obama or George Bush? Obama or Colin Powell? Obama or Hillary Clinton?

Supporters of the Bush Administration have often complained that we’re not hearing the good news from Iraq — we’re not hearing about the schools and reconstruction and all the success stories. So, how’s it going?

In a troubling sign for the American-financed rebuilding program in Iraq, inspectors for a federal oversight agency have found that in a sampling of eight projects that the United States had declared successes, seven were no longer operating as designed because of plumbing and electrical failures, lack of proper maintenance, apparent looting and expensive equipment that lay idle.

The United States has previously admitted, sometimes under pressure from federal inspectors, that some of its reconstruction projects have been abandoned, delayed or poorly constructed. But this is the first time inspectors have found that projects officially declared a success — in some cases, as little as six months before the latest inspections — were no longer working properly.

The inspections ranged geographically from northern to southern Iraq and covered projects as varied as a maternity hospital, barracks for an Iraqi special forces unit and a power station for Baghdad International Airport.

One of the eight projects is still “operating as designed.” I’m betting the person responsible for that project gets fired.

I’m trying to meet George W. Bush half-way. I don’t expect greatness. I don’t even expect mediocrity. Competence in government is a musty relic of a bygone era. But, please, George — stop making a religion of incompetence.

This old song keeps running through my head. The tune is catchy, but I don’t think I’ve heard it since it made the Top 40 back in 1968.

It’s a strange, strange world we live in, Master Jack.

Oh, it’s a very strange world. Listen:

British Airways has airbrushed a scene of arch-rival Sir Richard Branson out of its in-flight James Bond movie “Casino Royale”, sources close to the company said on Monday.

The Virgin Atlantic chief is briefly featured in the original 007 film at an airport security scanner, but can only be seen from the back in the edited version.

Shots of the tail fin of a Virgin plane have also been obscured.

“Everything I need to know I learned in kindergarten,” apparently.

Via Ed Brayton, they have different concerns in Utah, where a Republican delegate wants his party to pin the blame for illegal immigration squarely on Satan.

Don Larsen, a district chairman, has submitted a resolution equating illegal immigration to “Satan’s plan to destroy the U.S. by stealth invasion” for debate at Saturday’s Utah County Republican Party Convention.

Referring to a plan by the devil for a “New World Order … as predicted in the Scriptures,” the resolution calls for the Utah County Republican Party to support “closing the national borders to illegal immigration to prevent the destruction of the U.S. by stealth invasion.”

“Everything I need to know I learned in Sunday School?”

Meanwhile, a school teacher in Indiana fights to keep her job. Why?

The column in the student newspaper seemed innocent enough: advocating tolerance for people “different than you.”

But since sophomore Megan Chase’s words appeared January 19 in The Tomahawk, the newspaper at Woodlan Junior-Senior High School, her newspaper adviser has been suspended and is fighting for her job, and charges of censorship and First Amendment violations are clouding this conservative northeastern Indiana community. …

[Newspaper advisor Amy] Sorrell has been placed on administrative leave and the school district has recommended she be fired. A public hearing is scheduled April 28, and the school board expects to vote May 1.

Kindergarteners aren’t cute at that age.

You want fresh thinking? Look to the U.S. armed forces:

The armed forces, already struggling to meet recruiting goals, are considering expanding the number of noncitizens in the ranks — including disputed proposals to open recruiting stations overseas and putting more immigrants on a faster track to US citizenship if they volunteer — according to Pentagon officials.

Foreign citizens serving in the US military is a highly charged issue, which could expose the Pentagon to criticism that it is essentially using mercenaries to defend the country. Other analysts voice concern that a large contingent of noncitizens under arms could jeopardize national security or reflect badly on Americans’ willingness to serve in uniform.

Remember those old movies about the French Foreign Legion? Our fresh thinking is French thinking. But our fries — those are freedom fries.

It’s a very strange world, and I thank you.

Remember, people: this country was attacked. Thousands died. This is an emergency. There’s no way the Bush Administration can do what it wants to do if citizens are thinking. Via The Lantern:

Isn’t that a load off your mind?

Cartoonist Tom Tomorrow takes a look at the pundits’ track record.

They’re still making predictions, still rendering harsh judgment of those who disagree.

“Past performance is not a predictor of future results.” These visionaries are probably all 100% correct now.

From Monday night, The Daily Show on Alberto Gonzales’ congressional testimony.

Legally, Gonzales had to appear before Congress. So, his choice was either to expose the Administration’s political machinations, or appear to be a functioning pinhead. He went with pinhead, and if I may say, nailed it.

This video will expire on May 24. I wonder who will be the Attorney General then?

I think I’ve figured out what Donald Rumsfeld has been doing since he stepped down as Secretary of Defense.

John McCain was on The Daily Show on Tuesday night. Here he’s talking about his visit to a Baghdad market:

Things are safer than they were. Are they safe? No. Are they safer? Yes. Are they better? Yes. Have we got a long way to go? Yes. Is it long, is it hard and tough? Yes. Am I saying “last throes?” No. Am I saying “mission accomplished?” No. Am I saying “a few dead enders?” No.

Yes, it appears that Rumsfeld has been teaching the art of public speaking.

Bob Geiger has video of a George W. Bush Collector’s Plate Series. (Warning: strong language.)

Via Crooks and Liars, here are 15 embarrassing photos of George W. Bush.

I’m embarrassed.

Q: What happened to cartoonist Ward Sutton and his Sutton Impact comic strip?

A: He’s retiring the strip and “branching out in new directions artistically.” Rats.

I hope there aren’t any electrodes attached to those artistic branches.

This is a video response to a Fox News obituary trashing Kurt Vonnegut:

Cartoonist Tom Tomorrow compares then and now.

Well, we didn’t say it was a perfect analogy.

Maybe I’m just being nostalgic, but I’d sure love to see a “Bush Resigns” headline.

Cartoonist Ruben Bolling brings us the adventures of Li’l George.

With the army stretched the the breaking point, wrecked by the War in Iraq, people are starting to talk once again about reinstating the draft.

I used to be utterly opposed to the military draft. Now I’m not so sure.

In the current war, only a fraction of the American public — the all-volunteer military and their families — have a life-and-death interest in what happens in Iraq. They bear the burden for all of us. George W. Bush tells the rest of America to “go shopping.”

Bush treats the military like a remote control, casually pointing and clicking. Does the all-volunteer military encourage our political leaders to use other people’s lives recklessly? Or is the problem Mr. Bush himself?

Mark Shields, on the PBS NewsHour on Friday:

George Wilson, who’s a wonderful military journalist, did a book called … The Infantryman. It was a landmark book. And he interviews a man in there, Colonel Steve Siegfried, combat veteran of Vietnam. And he made the argument that, in a time of war, extended war — this is four years — that the country had to have a draft.

And Steve Siegfried said this: Armies don’t fight wars. Countries fight wars. And if a country isn’t willing to fight a war, it should never send an army.

It’s a debate worth having.

The words are famous now.

They weren’t famous thirty-seven years ago this evening, when they came down from the spacecraft Odyssey, the Apollo 13 command module. Astronaut Jack Swigert said, “Okay, Houston, we’ve had a problem here.”

CAPCOM Jack Lousma radioed back, “This is Houston. Say again, please.”

On the private voice communication loops of the flight controllers, you can hear this:

Astronaut Swigert: Okay, Houston, we’ve had a problem here.

Unidentified voice #1: What’s the matter with the data, EECOM?

Unidentified voice #2: We’ve got more than a problem.

And “Houston, we have a problem” became a part of American language.

Lead flight director Gene Kranz told the team of flight controllers working to solve the problem that “Failure is not an option,” and that phrase, too, has become a part of the language. It is a phrase that has been mightily misused.

Kranz did not say “Failure is not a possibility.” At that moment, failure seemed highly probable. The astronauts were about 200,000 miles from earth, headed away from home and safety. They had only the supplies and equipment aboard the spacecraft. The flight controllers had to figure out how to make those supplies last long enough to bring the spacecraft all the way back to earth.

Nobody knew whether success was even possible. It might have happened that there was simply not enough air, or water, or electricity. It might have happened that the spacecraft’s heat shield was fatally damaged by the explosion that had rocked the ship. It might have happened that the Apollo 13 astronauts never had a chance.

Kranz’s point was this: if your calculations say there’s not enough water, try again. Did you make a mistake? Did you overlook something? How about the cooling water that circulates through tiny tubes in the moon suits? Is there enough if we come back faster? What can we can do to come back faster? Maybe this task is impossible. But if we lose these astronauts, it won’t be because we stopped thinking.

Advocates of the continuing tragedy in Iraq like to say, “Failure is not an option.” But George W. Bush has made failure the only option. The Iraq Study Group worked the problem and came up with new approaches that might have offered just the ghost of a chance of salvaging the situation. Their recommendations — including diplomacy with Iraq’s neighbors — were bipartisan and unanimous. Bush crumpled up those recommendations and ordered up more of the same policies that had utterly failed so far.

If George W. Bush had been lead flight director 37 years ago, he would have insisted that the Apollo 13 moon landing go ahead as scheduled.

We’ve got more than a problem.

Sometimes the only thing you can do is howl:

I’m sitting here trying to find the words I need to describe these emotions that I feel because I know how I feel. I know I’m not the only one who feels that way. And I know that the man — the person — the allegedly human being — responsible doesn’t have a single damn clue about what he’s doing to real people.

And I don’t think he’d care if he did.

He’s an active voice decider in the first person, but things only go wrong for him in the third person passive. He’s the one who’s right and anyone who disagrees is wrong, and he knows that’s the way it really is way deep down in his twisted little truthy gut. He’s right, the rest of us are wrong, so it’s fine to sneer at opponents and blame them for the things that he’s doing now.

And that’s why I read this morning that 15000 troops will be extended in Iraq. That’s why I read this morning that 13000 troops in National Guard and Reserve units that have deployed once already are being told that they’re going back into the box. And that’s why I read this morning that President George W. Bush said today that if Congress doesn’t do what he — George Bush — wants Congress to do, “some of our military families could wait longer for their loved ones to return from the front lines” and other military families “could see their loved ones headed back to war sooner than anticipated” and that “this is unacceptable.”

Yes, he really said that.

…

And this is where words leave me, and where emotions overwhelm me. People I know, people I love, are caught up in this madness, but this twisted little freak is acting like it’s a game. He’s standing up there, he’s ignoring his mistakes that got us there, he’s demanding that we ignore his mistakes and let him keep doing whatever the hell he wants because he’s the Decider-in-Chief, and real people, real families, are left twisting in the wind because we’re the leverage that he hopes will force Congress to bow to his royal will.

The writer’s wife is serving in Iraq now.