My Zen Arcade

No, you twit. Liberals hate what you’ve done to the word. Patriotism used to mean beliving in your country and standing up for it. You and your cronies have changed the definition to mean “blind obedience, regardless to consequence or even fact, to the standing powers that be and hatred for those who don’t fall in line”.
Michelle Malkin » NPR journo suggests politicians quit using the P-word.

So, politicians, please make no mention of patriotism on Independence Day. Liberals hate it when you say the P-word.

I think I love these guys (sorry that I’m late on this one)

McCain has already done this to a degree, and he will probably up the ante on it as well.
I believe GW honestly feels his own stances on homosexuality are right. While I think that position is insane, it is at least sincere. McCain, however, is willing to treat an entire section of humanity as trash to get votes.
Think Progress » Fred Barnes’s Advice To McCain: Revive Your Struggling Campaign By Using Gay-Bashing As A Wedge

BARNES: In particular, gays in the military for one. We know Barack Obama is for allowing gays in the military, and Bill Clinton tried to do, but backed off. This is not a popular issue. Gay marriage is another one. These are both issues that I think McCain’s going to have to use. You can’t ignore the right. If he does, he’ll lose.

Yes, don’t forget, it looks like McCain may be breaking federal law

Of course, that doesn’t matter.  What matters is Obama changed his mind, completely legally, to do his own fundraising, completely legally.  Again, there’s these cries of ‘flip-flop’.  I don’t understand that.  I suppose mindlessly sticking to whatever decision you made in the past, no matter what changes, is admirable if, say, you are…wait…no, it really isn’t admirable at all, is it?  It borders on suicidal.  And, in the case of Still-President-Bush, homicidal.

But I digress.

Obama takes part in legal activites and people smack him around.  McCain may have broken federal law, no one cares.

Our media, ladies and gentlemen.

So, in case you missed it, yes, we know, we were lied to, and have continually been lied to, about the Iraq war.
Here’s a couple snippets from the NYT article.

Most of the analysts have ties to military contractors vested in the very war policies they are asked to assess on air.

–
John C. Garrett is a retired Marine colonel and unpaid analyst for Fox News TV and radio. He is also a lobbyist at Patton Boggs who helps firms win Pentagon contracts, including in Iraq

At the same time, in e-mail messages to the Pentagon, Mr. Garrett displayed an eagerness to be supportive with his television and radio commentary. “Please let me know if you have any specific points you want covered or that you would prefer to downplay,” he wrote in January 2007, before President Bush went on TV to describe the surge strategy in Iraq.

–
A few expressed regret for participating in what they regarded as an effort to dupe the American public with propaganda dressed as independent military analysis.

“It was them saying, ‘We need to stick our hands up your back and move your mouth for you,’ ” Robert S. Bevelacqua, a retired Green Beret and former Fox News analyst, said.

–

Kenneth Allard, a former NBC military analyst who has taught information warfare at the National Defense University, said the campaign amounted to a sophisticated information operation. “This was a coherent, active policy,” he said.

As conditions in Iraq deteriorated, Mr. Allard recalled, he saw a yawning gap between what analysts were told in private briefings and what subsequent inquiries and books later revealed.

“Night and day,” Mr. Allard said, “I felt we’d been hosed.”

More than anything, this shows the absolute contempt the Bush Administration feels towards the people they serve.

But we knew that.

And how horrible the media is for helping them.

And we knew that too.

Well, some of us did.

I would like you to consider the following quotation from Bill Clinton before you go to the voting booths.  Then look at how Ms. Clinton has been campaiging.

“Now one of Clinton’s Laws of Politics is this,” Mr. Clinton says. “If one candidate’s trying to scare you and the other one’s trying to get you to think; if one candidate’s appealing to your fears and the other one’s appealing to your hopes, you better vote for the person who wants you to think and hope. That’s the best.”

Of course.  Because we always think about the children.

On the plus side, it looks like the states are about the tell GW to go to hell.  It stuns me that an elected official would put restrictions on how states dole out healthcare.  Oh, right, don’t want to screw those big insurance companies that donate so much money and have such powerful lobbyists.

GAO says Bush violated federal law (again)

The Bush administration violated federal law last year when it restricted states’ ability to provide health insurance to children of middle-income families, and its new policy is therefore unenforceable, lawyers from the Government Accountability Office said Friday.

I guess I’m confused

Moveon.org endorsed [Sen. Barack Obama] — which is like a gusher of money that never seems to slow down,” Clinton said to a meeting of donors. “We have been less successful in caucuses because it brings out the activist base of the Democratic Party.

Isn’t this how it is supposed to work.  I mean, I would have thought that, if you want to ‘bring out the vote’, you would appeal to the activists.  Now, it is possible that the ‘activist base’ (what does that even mean?) doesn’t represent the general views of the rest of the party.  But if it doesn’t, then why are they successful? 

If you are so alienated by the activist base, then who are you representing? 

Clinton, of course, claims they are bullying her supporters.  Apparently, the people who support Clinton are so strong in that support that they can be talked out of it on the fly.  I wonder, Ms. Clinton, could it be that you simply don’t measure up to Obama?  I know that seems unlikely, but you really should consider it as a possibility.

Since 9/11, there’s been a theme in the U.S. that if you are critical of U.S. policies, you are basically a terrorist.  This, of course, has dimished significantly as those people opposed to things like the Iraq war have been shown to have been correct in their predictions.

But in a similar vein, it seems that if you oppose Israel’s policies you must then be an anti-semite.

Now, as a jew (and a rational person), I find that pathetic. 

Most people in the U.S. disapprove of the policies in place in China (many of them).  Does that mean most people in the U.S. hate the Chinese?

I think that England is being too soft on the issue of Sharia law.

Does that mean I’m anti-anglo?

I think that Communism doesn’t work.  Do I then hate all communists?

Obviously, the situation is extreme.

Tossing around extreme words does not help.

During the summer, McCain proposes that the $0.18 per gallon tax be dropped.  Now, lets just forget how much this will cost and how many government programs will suffer.

Lets also forget

The federal gasoline tax represents a flat fee of 18.4 cents a gallon nationwide. With gasoline currently averaging $3.39 a gallon, the tax represents a mere 5 percent of today’s pump price. While that’s not trivial, consider that gasoline prices have more than doubled since 2004.

The problem is that lowering gasoline prices at the pump would encourage more consumption. So in the long run, it would push prices up.

Here’s what will happen.  As above, the price drops, then, as consumption increases, the price rises.  At the end of the summer, the tax is returned so the price rises another $0.18.  Everyone complains, the oil companies say “Hey, it isn’t out fault the price is so high.  They brought the tax back.”  Neglecting to remember that they raised prices all summer. 

So, in effect, this plan will really allow the oil companies to raise prices without the bad PR.

McCain, please, leave economics to people smarter than you.