The Gods and Goddesses of apathy are speaking to me here in the wee fucking hours, They are making great sense.

Politics is a strange interest to have in a Democracy that celebrates individualism. You really shouldn't care a worm's ass what other people think as you pursue happiness. Eat what you want. Who cares what the restaurant reviews say. Get strength or amusement out of whatever entertainment you choose. You really shouldn't take comfort in being in synch with the masses. They loved Milli Vanilli for chrissakes. So why in a two party system where the policy interests of each party are as defined as the differences in a fast food hamburger stand and a vegetarian cafe, as well defined as the difference between a heavy metal band and a string quartet, should we give a shit about the wishy-washy assholes who take us from an Obama 4 point lead to a McCain 1 point lead?

Christopher Beam put this together in Slate. His intro...

The Barack Obama presidential campaign introduced a new site last week, FightTheSmears.com, that it hopes will debunk persistent myths about the senator: that he's a Muslim, that he won't say the Pledge of Allegiance, etc. As we have argued before, restating the myths often reinforces them, no matter how persuasively they've been refuted.

Rather than restate untruths about Obama, the campaign would do better to start some rumors of its own. Here's a template e-mail the Obama campaign might consider disseminating.

I've taken his advice and began forwarding it and forwarding it and forwarding it. It is below the fold.

McCain had to rummage through his 71 year old brain to come up with a classic early example of what Atrios calls "the stupid" in our political discourse. McCain in Miami:

"Roosevelt didn't talk with (Adolf) Hitler, Reagan didn't talk with (Soviet leader Leonid) Brezhnev or his two successors until (Mikhail) Gorbachev was ready to change his position. Reagan didn't do what Jimmy Carter did. Carter went over and kissed Brezhnev, remember?" he said.

Obama must renounce, deject kissing enemy leaders so the Democrats do not lose ground on national security issues. Republican President might hold hands with foreign leaders but it stops right there. We all remember Nixon holding off a passionate Kruschev during the famous "bedroom debate" of 1959.

So I head out to the driveway this morning to get the news the old fashioned way. Picking up the paper in the driveway. I expect the Bush veto of the SCHIP bill will be a top story. You would think you would see a headline reflecting how Bush is going against the will of the public with the veto. That presents a problem for the "balanced" Los Angeles Times. As Stephen Colbert has said, sometimes facts have a liberal bias. So the headline for the Times top story about the veto reads...

Child Health Veto Risky To Both Parties

The story  (which really didn't reflect the headline that was in the paper edition) jumped to another page. The headline there...

Bush's Veto Poses Risks To Both Parties

Bush's trip to Anbar was not just a photo-op start to the September PR blitz in support of the surge. According to Fred Kagan, proud author of the surge, it was somehow akin to Lincoln at Gettysburg. Even if he has to say so himself.

The Gettysburg Of This War: The Bush Visit Could Well Mark A Key Turning Point In The War In Iraq And The War On Terror.

The wingnuts are loving it. So forget comparing this to Vietnam. It has nothing to do with a major power bogged down in the quagmire of an insurgency. It's like Normandy. No. It's like the Battle Of The Bulge. No. It's like fucking Gettysburg. And we can compare Bush's visit to the Sermon On The Mount. No. We can make it seem reminiscent of the Gettysburg Address. After 4 1/2 years of "Mission Accomplished" and "The Last Throes" there is little that can be done to resell this war to the vast majority. So they are going to go completely over the top in trying to sell it.

Tonya Harding won the award for the Most Pathetic Plea For Fairness in the 20th Century when, after being accused of hiring a thug to break the leg of her rival Nancy Kerrigan, she begged for fairness from judges after a lace broke during an olympic skating competition (Youtube link of grand moment of hypocrisy).  It looks like Paul Wolfowitz, who played a major role in lying us into a disastrous war and who used his power to get his girlfriend (and others - see after the fold) cushy jobs at the World Bank, is looking for fairness and mercy from the World Bank board, putting an early claim in for the 21st Century Award for the Most Pathetic Plea For Fairness.

Paul Wolfowitz made an emotional appeal to stay on as World Bank president in a last pitch before the bank's board decides whether he has the credibility to lead the poverty-fighting institution.

Lucille Bluth: I'll be in the hospital bar.
Michael Bluth: Uhh, you know, there isn't a hospital bar, mother.
Lucille Bluth: Well, this is why people hate hospitals.
       - Arrested Development

A tenant of the conservative approach to health care is that the insured tend to overuse medical services, driving up medical costs. Always struck me as a talking point that really doesn't hold up under the examination of common experience. Who are these people that love doctor and hospital visits? Via Ian Welsh at The Agonist, Wageworks has a study that has this interesting finding.

The survey found that more and more insured Americans are behaving just like the uninsured and simply ignoring their health needs as a way of coping with rising health care costs.

After the testimony of Kevin Tillman and Jessica Lynch yesterday, the public will not have a hard time believing that the Iraq civilian death toll is being manipulated for political reasons.

UN Raps Iraq For Holding Back Death Toll Figures

The United Nations rebuked Iraq's government on Wednesday for refusing to disclose politically sensitive civilian casualty figures in what it described as a "rapidly worsening humanitarian crisis".

We are suppose to believe that even though US military deaths are rising and car bomb attacks are rising, somehow simultaneously we are seeing a reduction in civilian deaths in Baghdad. The UN reported a continued high level of attacks on academics, making the reduction in civilian Baghdad deaths seem like quite the anomaly.

Issue is the lack of al-Maliki support for a timetable for the withdrawal of U.S. forces.
From the AP.

Iraqi Cabinet ministers allied to radical cleric Muqtada al-Sadr threatened Wednesday to quit the government to protest the prime minister's lack of support for a timetable for U.S. withdrawal, according to a statement.

Such a pullout by the very bloc that put Prime Minister Nouri al-Maliki in office could collapse his already perilously weak government. The threat comes two months into a U.S. effort to pacify Baghdad in order to give al-Maliki's government room to function.

Al-Sadr's political committee issued the statement a day after al-Maliki rejected an immediate U.S. troop withdrawal.

"We see no need for a withdrawal timetable. We are working as fast as we can," al-Maliki told reporters during his four-day trip to Japan, where he signed loan agreements for redevelopment projects in Iraq.

TPM has a great post about the secrecy of the the Office Of Vice President. He cites a Laura Rosen piece in the Washington Monthly that mentions the secrecy of the OVP regarding employees. Public servants all.

Laura Rozen has a piece in the current Washington Monthly titled "Cheney's Dead-Enders" that is worth a read. But I wanted to hone in on this parenthetical:

   

(When I inquired about a staffer’s rumored move to the Veep’s office, a Cheney press officer answered sweetly, "If we have a personnel announcement we’d like you to know about, we’ll tell you.")

This is not the first time I've seen a reporter denied information about who even works in the Office of the Vice President

According to the trustworthy US Military

"Preliminary results revealed the five detainees are connected to the Iranian Revolutionary Guard - Qods Force (IRGC-QF), an organization known for providing funds, weapons, improvised explosive device technology and training to extremist groups attempting to destabilize the Government of Iraq and attack Coalition forces," the U.S. military said in a statement.

No evidence produced, but just in time to have Sunday talk show hosts solicit bipartisan support for our next miltary misadventure in Iran.

Maybe I missed this in the exit polls from the November election. Did the voters want Democrats to do this:
From Newsweek, ‘We Can’t Afford to Leave’

In a surprise twist in the debate over Iraq, Rep. Silvestre Reyes, the soon-to-be chairman of the House Intelligence Committee, said he wants to see an increase of 20,000 to 30,000 U.S. troops as part of a stepped up effort to "dismantle the militias."

This does not seem particularly helpful to have Reyes line up with the McCain-Leiberman forces as Democrats try to pressure  Bush to change his policy. His position here (especially after being billed as someone who was against the War from the start) is definitely from the department of WTF?.

BAGHDAD, Iraq (Reuters) -- Iraq is vital to the world's future and the West cannot cut and run despite growing anxiety over the relentless bloodshed there, Deputy Prime Minister Barham Saleh said on Monday.

Apparently Bush and his buddy Blair had used Saleh before to help create the myth of the Al Qaeda- Saddam link.
Iraqi Official Testifies to Links Between Saddam and Al Qaeda

"I would just suggest that you go back and read the 9/11 commission report on the efforts of the Bush administration in the eight months - things like working to get an armed Predator [drone] that actually turned out to be extraordinarily important," Rice added.

Juan Cole has an excellent link filled post on the Israeli actions in Gaza and the protests it is encouraging worldwide against Israel and it's friend the United States.

Time Magazine has an excellent opinion piece on how Israel's friend the United States is no longer playing the role it has played in the past in influencing and moderating Israeli behavior.

At the time of his death, Abu Musab al-Zarqawi was still trying to transform his organization from one focused on the Iraqi insurgency into a global operation capable of striking far beyond Iraq's borders, intelligence experts here and in the West agree.

His recruiting efforts, according to high-ranking Jordanian security officials interviewed Saturday, were threefold: He sought volunteers to fight in Iraq and others to become suicide bombers there, but he also recruited about 300 who went to Iraq for terrorist training and sent them back to their home countries, where they await orders to carry out strikes.

Although the role Zarqawi played in the multi-tag team wrestling match that we created in Iraq was exaggerated, his effect on the rest of the world still remains to be seen.

----------------

Holy Treasonous Shit

BAGHDAD (Reuters) - An American described as a security contractor arrested by police in a northern Iraqi town was carrying weapons in his car, a provincial official said. Abdullah Jebara, the Deputy Governor of Salahaddin province, told Reuters the man was arrested in Saddam Hussein's hometown of Tikrit on Monday. He was removed from the provincial government building by U.S. forces on Tuesday, Jebara said. The Joint Coordination Center between the U.S. and Iraqi military in Tikrit said the man, whom it described as a security contractor working for a private company, possessed explosives which were found in his car. It said he was arrested on Tuesday. The man was stopped by police for violating a daytime curfew in Tikrit, a security source said. American security personnel rarely travel alone. U.S. officials had no immediate comment.

In the early days of the Katrina Debacle, the White House response was being coordinated by none other than Claude Allen. ... Maybe he was too busy waiting in the return line at Hecht's to focus on the hurricane stuff.