From the GREAT STATE OF MAINE…
Out of the Billowing Smoke and Dust: Santorum!
On January 12, 2005, it was reported that George W. Bush's justification for the Iraq war had hit a snag:
The hunt for biological, chemical and nuclear weapons in Iraq has come to an end nearly two years after President Bush ordered U.S. troops to disarm Saddam Hussein. […] Four months after Charles A. Duelfer, who led the weapons hunt in 2004, submitted an interim report to Congress that contradicted nearly every prewar assertion about Iraq made by top Bush administration officials, a senior intelligence official said the findings will stand as the ISG's final conclusions and will be published this spring.
Asked if the ISG had stopped actively searching for WMD, White House spokesman Scott McClellan said today: "That's my understanding."
It was a big blow to Bush, who had become personally involved in the search:
"Those weapons of mass destruction have got to be here somewhere. Maybe under here???"
Ha Ha Ha Ha!!! Naw, he was just goofin' around, see? When you're commanding a war in which thousands of soldiers and civilians are getting blown up, jokes can lighten the mood, y'know? (That's why Obama's re-election is in doubt---he takes our armed conflicts so darned seriously.)
I bring this up not as a reminder of Bush's musky wartime leadership, but rather to point out that an authentic American hero now running for president refused to take "Zilch, zip, nada" for an answer. Sitting astride a beast from Hertz Rent-A-Camel, Rick Santorum set out to find the WMDs he knew were in Iraq. In June of 2006, parched, windburned and victorious, Santorum straggled up to a microphone and announced:
"Congressman Hoekstra and I are here today to say that we have found weapons of mass destruction in Iraq."
Nothing equivocal or tentative about that. After everyone else had failed, Santorum and Hoekstra stepped up to the plate and found the WMDs!
But leave it to the killjoys at the Pentagon Schmentagon to piss all over our freedom fries:
Fox News’ Jim Angle contacted the Defense Department who quickly disavowed Santorum and Hoekstra’s claims. A Defense Department official told Angle flatly that the munitions hyped by Santorum and Hoekstra are “not the WMD’s for which this country went to war.”
Yeah, right. And these "aren't the droids you're looking for."
I hate to admit it, but it's not looking likely that Rick Santorum will become our 45th president. But perhaps that's for the best. It would give him the opportunity to go back to Iraq and continue combing the sands and marshes and canyons and prairies with a garden trowel to find the rest of the WMDs that all good neocons know are still there. Even if we never see or hear from him again, we'll feel confident knowing that Rick Santorum is out there.
Way, way out there.
Cheers and Jeers starts below the fold... [Swoosh!!] RIGHTNOW! [Gong!!]
Cheers and Jeers for Thursday, January 12, 2012
Note: Oakey (with hints of peppermint and elderberry)
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By the Numbers:
Days 'til the South Carolina primary: 9
Days `til the second annual Flurrious! Winter Festival in Buffalo, New York: 9
Percent of U.S. adults who smoked in 1965: 42.4%
Percent who smoke today: 19.3%
(Source: CDC)
Number of Vietnamese who have been killed or injured by mines and other explosive devices since the war ended in the early '70s: 104,295
(Source: Time)
Estimated amount of soda Americans collectively consume per year: 13.8 billion gallons
Estimated amount of revenue that would be generated and healthcare costs saved, respectively, by enacting a penny-per-ounce tax on soda: $13 billion / $17 billion
(Source: WonkBlog)
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Your Thursday Molly Ivins Moment:
Contrary to the paranoid fantasists on The Wall Street Journal's editorial page, populists are not motivated by some burning resentment of the rich---we don't spend our lives in an envious funk that someone else is better off than we are. "No skin off my nose" is the general attitude, with others coming in at "Lucky them" or "Good for them." The problem is that the rich are screwing up our democracy. Less than 0.1 percent of the U.S. population gave 83 percent of all itemized campaign contributions for the 2002 elections, according to the Center for Responsive Politics. According to the Houston Chronicle, just 48 wealthy Texas families provided more than half the campaign funds for the major Republican state candidates this fall.
How dumb do you have to be not to be able to connect the dots here? Law, policy and regulation are consistently shaped to favor the rich over the rest of us, and that, dammit, is not fair, it is not right, it is not the country we want and for which we are asked to sacrifice.
---January, 2003
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Puppy Pic of the Day: Amazing rescue at sea…
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CHEERS to a helluva haul. Elizabeth Warren is so sweet---she sends me emails that make me want to go do a Glee-style production number in the CVS parking lot across the street:
I'm overwhelmed by the support our campaign has earned over these last few months. In the last quarter of 2011, we raised $5.7 million---with an average contribution of about $64. The dollars and cents are important, but here's the statistic that really makes me proud: now approximately 23,000 people in Massachusetts are contributing to our campaign to help us stand up to Wall Street and the big banks and level the playing field for middle class families. In fact, there's so much enthusiasm from Massachusetts supporters that when Seth from our campaign office plotted all our in-state donations on an interactive map, it crashed the computer program.
I like having you on my side.
Meanwhile her opponent, Scott Brown, only raised $3.3 million, but he has $12.8 million on hand thanks to his Wall Street backers. That works out to a dollar for each bead of sweat on their foreheads because Elizabeth Warren is on our side.
CHEERS to staying alive. The good news: for the first time in 45 years, you now have a lesser chance of getting murdered:
Of the 2.4 million total deaths reported in 2010, there were 16,065 homicides, down from 16,799 a year earlier, according to the report, which gathers data from death certificates provided by the states. … Between 1990 and 2010…homicides in New York dropped 76%; they were down 70% in Los Angeles and 49% in Chicago during the same time period.
The bad news: for the first time in four years, your TV set has a greater chance of getting murdered during a GOP debate.
CHEERS to the master of humungo signatures. John Hancock turns 275 today. His is the largest signature on the Declaration of Independence, apparently because he really wanted to rub it in King George's nose. Pay your respects here. But please don’t ask him for his John Hancock---he's really sick of hearing that one.
P.S. Rush Limbaugh turns 61. I hope he likes the new trough we got him.
CHEERS to slipping a poncho on the little fella before his close-up. In a move that's been called "historic," the Los Angeles City Council voted to require porn stars to use condoms before they start shooting. Fearless prediction: whoever's in charge of screening applications for the new LAPD Porn Inspection Bureau is about to get buried in resumes.
JEERS to circus time. 17 years ago today, the O.J. Simpson trial got pre-started with pre-trial hearings. My view of it has completely changed. Back then I was like, "He got zero years? I am so pissed!" But today I'm like, "He got zero years 17 years ago? I am so old."
CHEERS to the growing pot of evidence. I remember a few years ago there was a study that, surprisingly, suggested smoking pot wasn't harmful to the lungs, but that more study was needed before anyone could do a celebratory toke. Well, here's more study based on 5,000 people puffin' stuff for twenty years:
A large new government study has found that smoking marijuana on a regular basis, even over many years, does not impair lung function. … The test, a measure of pulmonary obstruction that looks at the amount of air a person can force out in one second after taking a deep breath, is typically worsened by smoking tobacco.
Okay now you can do a celebratory toke. But hang on, first let me synch up Dark Side of the Moon and The Wizard of Oz.
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Five years ago in C&J: January 12, 2007
JEERS to gaseous gasbags. Yesterday Senator Ted Kennedy was called a "hostile enemy" of the United States by FOX News anchor Gretchen Carlson. Or, as she's better known, a hostile enemy of the brain cell.
JEERS to Scrooge McRepublican. After ten years of inaction by Tom DeLay's goons, the minimum wage got a li'l bump yesterday...by the Democrat-led House. Lexus dealers are bracing for a stampede.
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And just one more…
CHEERS to a job well done. I've done some things in my life of which I'm not proud. Like raiding the teacher's candy jar in third grade. Scrawling profanity on our neighbor's station wagon with chalk when I was nine. Once thinking Victoria Jackson was funny. The list is long. But this week I learned that I did something amazing…borderline miraculous! It's an accomplishment of which I'm so proud that I'm thinking of etching it on my gravestone: Kicked Pat Buchanan's Ass. Yes, I, a light-in-the-loafers loser nobody nincompoop, helped get Pat Buchanan booted from MSNBC. To all of my fellow militant gay and civil rights comrades in arms: [Plants flag at top of hill] Mission Accomplished!!!
Have a nice Thursday. Respect Governor Christie's AUTHORITAH! Floor's open...What are you cheering and jeering about today?
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Today's Shameless C&J Testimonial:
For a little over $100 you can now buy an eight-ounce bottle of pool water used by Bill in Portland Maine on July 16, 2011.
---Jonathan Turley
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