The Onion: Al Qaeda Also Fed Up With Ground Zero Construction Delays

It was forty years ago today...

The masterpiece "Sgt. Pepper's Lonely Hearts Club Band" was released.

A few days before Bush was inaugurated in January 2001, The Onion ran one of the greatest satirical pieces of the decade: “Mere days from assuming the presidency and closing the door on eight years of Bill Clinton, president-elect George W. Bush assured the nation in a televised address Tuesday that ‘our long national nightmare of peace and prosperity is finally over.’”

I thought of that piece yesterday when reading about Rudy Giuliani’s latest attack on Hillary Clinton.

In a potential preview of next fall’s presidential contest, Mr. Giuliani, who is seen as the front-runner for the Republican nomination, directly attacked the leading Democratic candidate, Mrs. Clinton, over a speech she gave Tuesday in New Hampshire bemoaning the return of “robber barons” and promising to pursue “shared prosperity” by increasing taxes on Americans making more than $200,000 a year.

“This would be an astounding, staggering tax increase,” Mr. Giuliani told reporters yesterday after a visit to a restaurant on the edge of California’s Silicon Valley. “She wants to go back to the 1990s…. It would hurt our economy. It would hurt this area dramatically. That kind of tax increase would see a decline in your venture capital. It would see a decline in your ability to focus on new technology.”

First, most of the country would love to go back to the ’90s. Second, as Steve M. explained very well, telling a bunch of venture capitalists in Silicon Valley that a return to the ’90s would be awful demonstrates an almost comedic confusion: “The 1990s? Er, wasn’t that when everyone with a pulse over the age of 13 was a Silicon Valley venture capitalist, or the recipient of a Valley VC’s money? Is it even humanly possible to have had more high-tech entrepreneurial capitalism than we had in the 1990s?”

David Sirota:

I attended the ExxonMobil shareholder meeting this week down in Dallas as part of some reporting I am doing for my book. When the issue of global warming and climate change came up at the meeting, ExxonMobil CEO Rex Tillerson pulled what was a pretty hilarious Don Rumsfeld impression - even though he probably didn't even realize it. Read on...

The right wing noise machine is really digging deep to find some new form of---liberal media outrage to fawn over---and so we know have the "Al-Qaida does it, too routine," when it comes to torture. James Tarnato from the WSJ let's his readers know that he's watching us.

Greenwald:

The thought of replying to Taranto's "point" never even occurred to me. Taranto is baffled -- and thinks he has discovered a highly revealing disparity -- because it is news that the United States tortures people, whereas it is not news that Al Qaeda tortures people. What is there even to say about that? Why take up readers' time responding to an "argument" that, completely on its own, provokes equal amounts of disgust and scornful laughter?...read on

John Cole has the perfect response.

Why Compassionate Conservatism is a lie---example-53987 Chicago Tribune: (h/t bascombe)

Several mothers who have lost children at war in Iraq took part in a new talk show today on National Public Radio.

One of them, Elaine Johnson, recounted a meeting that she had with President Bush in which he gave her a presidential coin and told her and five other families: "Don't go sell it on eBay."

An excerpt from the interview on NPR's Tell Me More can be heard here.

Conservative radio talkie, Laura Ingraham was discussing Bush's immigration plan and the attacks he's making on conservative vocal critics of it with John Roberts of CNN, when she weakly tried to play the CNN is liberal elite card on Roberts. John Roberts was like, "say, what?" Her proof? She was characterized as being "outspoken."

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INGRAHAM: ...But to insult his base, I mean, I hope he thinks he's going to be saved by the liberal elites at CNN, John, because if he is, then I'll be wrong about this. But I think it's kind of silly.

ROBERTS: Excuse me, what was that last comment?

INGRAHAM: By the way, John, how did you introduce me for this segment before the break. The outspoken Laura Ingraham. Do you guys introduce liberal commentators that way? I'm going to check.

ROBERTS: Yeah, we do actually.

That's a pretty tough depiction of her, wouldn't you agree. I guess I'd be bummed if I was called an outspoken blogger...The Nitpicker has more. "This post is dedicated to the memory of the Myth of the Liberal Media, born April 6, 1954, died October 24, 2006."

Then, this morning, Laura Ingraham made snide comments about the supposed liberal slant of CNN to American Morning host John Roberts. She even had proof from that very interview, in fact: John Roberts had called her outspoken. Never mind that Al Franken was called an "outspoken comedian and liberal" by CNN. Or that Hugo Chavez is an "outspoken leftist". Or that Cynthia McKinney, Michael Moore and Nancy Pelosi were all referred to as "outspoken liberal(s)." None of those things matter. In the minds of the Republican hothouse flowers, any word used to describe them--other than heroic or beloved--can be seen as an attack by the dastardly liberal media...read on

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Wonkette:

Iraq veteran and honorably discharged Marine Sgt. Adam Kokesh has been the Pentagon's biggest public relations nightmare this year, because he's some kind of magical Cindy Sheehan - people actually like him! [..]

Kokesh and his anti-war veteran buddies have pulled several picture-perfect stunts in Washington, including a mock military funeral at the Hart Senate building and keeping score of how many times Alberto Gonzales said "I don't recall" during his Senate grilling last month.

The funeral stunt earned the protesters a coveted "political protest" arrest - apparently it's now illegal to protest anything for political reasons - and your favorite Marine was also charged with "Unlawful Assembly - Loud and Boisterous," despite the fact that he was silent during the performance.

For this, the Marine Corps is now "investigating" Kokesh, even though he's officially out of the Corps and banished from reenlistment due to bringing home an Iraqi pistol for his war souvenir - that's against the rules if you get caught!
On Monday, Kokesh has to show up at a hearing so the Corps can re-discharge him, this time dishonorably.

It's unbelievable how churlish this adminstration is.

Oh please oh please oh please, let Sean Hannity invite Adam Kokesh to his show to ask him why he hates America.

In a NOW on the News web-exclusive audio interview from May 31, Cindy Sheehan tells NOW on PBS Host and Senior Editor David Brancaccio that she plans to rest up, spend time with her family, and then continue her struggle against the Iraqi war. "We're going to pull back and regroup and figure out a better way to come at this," Sheehan told NOW.

Sheehan - whose son, Army Spc. Casey Sheehan, died in Iraq in 2004 - announced on Memorial Day that she was done being the public face of the movement. "I think my mission, my activism has reached a brick wall," she tells Brancaccio. Sheehan gained national attention when she camped outside President Bush's Texas ranch in August 2005 demanding to talk with the President.

Stream or podcast the interview for free here

As quirky poll questions go, this is actually kind of interesting.

What would Americans say to President Bush if they could talk to him about the situation in Iraq for 15 minutes?

The majority of Americans — if they could literally file through the Oval Office and talk to the man they elected to be the top executive and commander in chief of the country — would tell President Bush to focus on developing an exit strategy from Iraq and removing U.S. troops from that country. A smaller group of one in four would tell the president to stay the course or even to be more aggressive in Iraq. Six percent would tell the president to own up to his mistakes in Iraq and apologize. About 7% would advise the president to work with study groups or the United Nations to figure out a solution to the Iraq dilemma. Only 5% would have nothing to say to Bush about what Americans’ currently rank as the nation’s most important problem.

The real fun, though, is reading over the literal responses to the question. Dan Froomkin has examples