Partisanship 1, Civil Liberties 0. The House GOP ride to the administration’s rescue and, by means both fair and foul, block a critical challenge to the Patriot Act with a 210-210 tie vote. “Rep. C.L. Butch Otter (R-Idaho), a conservative and an advocate of the defeated provision, told reporters after the vote: ‘You win some, and some get stolen.’“
…And Pointing the Finger.
Similarly, GOP Senator Pat Roberts covers Dubya’s back by making Tenet the fall guy for the WMD fiasco in the Senate Intelligence Committee report, while preventing any further investigation into White House efforts to arm-twist the CIA into the right conclusions. “‘The Republicans ultimately and effectively, at the end of the day, controlled this investigation. There’s no doubt about it. And they tried to put a bipartisan patina on it, but anybody who accepts that on face value is out of touch,’ said [a] former Democratic aide.”
In the Shadows.
What were you doing? Sneaking… Slate‘s Clive Thompson ruminates on the rise of “stealth” games. I spent much of the July 4th weekend skulking about Splinter Cell: Pandora Tomorrow, and thought it was a nice change of pace from the usual shoot-em-up. That being said, the haphazard alarm system could also get quite frustrating.
Deserter, meet Shredder.
Hmm. So the military records that would theoretically prove that Dubya was not AWOL and hiding from a drug test in 1973 have been “inadvertently destroyed” by the Pentagon. Funny, that. (Via Princess Diana/Medley.)
Onward, Christian Soldiers.
Speaking of Dubya and “shared values,” I neglected to post this earlier, so the links are kinda stale now. (Compounding my bad form, I also forgot where I saw them originally.) Nevertheless, much to the chagrin of many pastors and theologians, the Dubya campaign is leaning heavily on churchgoers to join an ecclesiastical voting army this November. “Even Richard Land, president of the Southern Baptist Convention’s ethics and religious liberty commission and a prominent Bush supporter, recoiled at the idea of churches becoming directly involved in a political campaign. ‘I am appalled,’ Land said in a statement. ‘I suspect that this will rub a lot of pastors’ fur the wrong way…It’s one thing for a church member motivated by exhortations to exercise his Christian citizenship to go out and decide to work on the Bush campaign or the Kerry campaign. It’s another, and totally inappropriate for a political campaign, to ask workers who may be church members to provide church member information through…directories.” Will Karl’s Crusade against Kerry-Edwards falter before it’s even begun?
A word about values, from the 3-DUI Ticket.
In his first riposte against his new Dem adversary, Dubya questions Edwards’s qualifications for the Presidency. Good God, man, we let you take the position (although admittedly it did take some prodding by the Supreme Court.) For the Dems’ part, Kerry had a pretty solid response: “He was right that Dick Cheney was ready to take over on Day One, and did, and he has been ever since, folks.“
Apparently, the Bushies are also keying in on “shared values” as their answer to the threat of Kerry-Edwards. Shared values? Puh-leeze. Playing bait-and-switch on the American people? Wading neck deep in corporate cronyism? Handing the rich tax-cut candy at the expense of everyone else? Those ain’t my values, bub.
Two-Minutes Fear.
Aigh! Attack, attack! No, we don’t know when. No, we don’t know where. No, we’re not raising the threat level. No, we’re not sorry we let Osama slip away so we could dink around Iraq. Just be afraid, and, remember, the terrorists want to “disrupt the democratic process” and make you vote Kerry-Edwards. You have been warned. Good day.
Kobespiracy Theory.
As NBA teams around the league rush to SoCal to prostrate themselves before Kobe, ESPN columnist Frank Hughes wonders aloud about Bryant’s rumored interest in the Denver Nuggets. “Could it be that [Denver GM Kiki] Vandeweghe, in his attempt to garner positive public relations for his own organization…has unwittingly contaminated a potential jury pool of Bryant’s ‘peers?’ Could it be that Bryant, whether intentionally or unintentionally, either on the advice of his lawyers, agent or neither, is playing a card that may have desired affects [sic] beyond the basketball court?” Hmm. That sounds entirely too conspiratorial to me. But, then again, there’s a reason Team Kobe gets paid the big bucks…
Top of the Food Chain.
Kenny Boy, Your pants, your pants are falling. Ken Lay, former Enron CEO and Bush’s prime corporate sponsor, is indicted on 11 counts of fraud. Says Lay’s lawyer, “Obviously, Andy [Fastow] and his group were not telling the boss that they were stealing from Enron. That’s as obvious as can be . . . It was done by stealth and deceit and of course, in a company as big as Enron, you have to trust someone and obviously trust was placed in the wrong place.” Ok, then explain why Lay dumped $24 million in Enron stock while telling his employees to buy. Throw the book at him, already. (But, by all means, let him speak his mind first.) Update: Dubya can’t handle the truth.
PSY-OP Symbolism.
Is there any aspect of the Iraq war that holds up to scrutiny? As the LA Times reports, the famous toppling of Saddam’s statue, probably the high point of the whole excursion notwithstanding Saddam’s capture, apparently didn’t happen as advertised either. “It was a Marine colonel — not joyous Iraqi civilians, as was widely assumed from the TV images — who decided to topple the statue, the Army report said. And it was a quick-thinking Army psychological operations team that made it appear to be a spontaneous Iraqi undertaking…Ultimately, a Marine recovery vehicle toppled the statue with a chain, but the effort appeared to be Iraqi-inspired because the psychological team had managed to pack the vehicle with cheering Iraqi children.” Clever, clever. (Via Rational Enquirer.)