The Heretik

SUNDAY BARBEQUE AT LEFTY'S LOUNGE

GOOD NIGHT, AMERICA, FROM EVERYONE AT LEFTY'S LOUNGE  Tonight we see . . . The Heretik guestblogging at FREIHEIT UND WISSEN . . . S is for STUPID . . .release the HOUNDS . . .

. . . REMEMBER . . . . . . oh, OUR WORD . . .  . . .and don't FORGET . .  . . .support THE ELEPHANT
MORE TO FOLLOW  . . .

Enjoy our cheery chum with all our chums.  The Heretik knows it will be a week you will be hard at work while your President clears his mind and some brush on another vacation so he is putting the all the drinks on his tab so drink and comment freely.

 

CONDI RICE: IRAQI WOMEN SCREWED

WE JUST CAN’T ADMIT THAT YET Even Though It Is in Writing. Disrerarding facts is a dangerous way to conduct foreign policy, but it is Standard Operating Procedure in the Bush White House. Iraqi women are screwed.  Some day people will look at this disastrous CONDOLEEZZA RICE PBS INTERVIEW WITH JIM LEHRER and ask how that woman ever held such a position of power. 


JIM LEHRER: . . . .In some way, it [A NEW IRAQI CONSTITUTION] would deny women rights that they had even during Saddam Hussein's regime. Can the U.S. permit that to happen?

CONDOLEEZZA RICE: Well, let me start by saying that obviously the United States stands for equality for women worldwide. I think I've been out there even in some places where equality for women seems quite far away, saying that the United States believes that you cannot be half a democracy.
And we've communicated that very clearly to the Iraqi government. More importantly, I think there are many, many Iraqis who feel exactly that way.
And I would caution against reading drafts. This is an intensely political process and there is a lot of staking out of positions. There are still a lot of negotiations to go. There are going to be a lot of coalitions mobilizing on important issues. And so let's give the Iraqis a chance to work through some of these very difficult issues without focusing on early drafts.
I just want to note one thing, Jim, because this notion that women had certain rights under Saddam Hussein. Well, yes, Saddam Hussein was an equal opportunity oppressor. I don't think it is right to talk about rights of anyone, male or female, in Saddam Hussein's Iraq. [PBS]

THE HERETIK NOTES RICE IS RIGHT ON ONE THING. There are still a lot of negotiations going on, but if history is any clue the negotiations will lead to more restrictions on women’s rights, not less. An Islamic revolution is taking place in Iraq, an Islamic Republic is replacing Saddam’s secular rule.  As the current DRAFT is discussed, the most EXTREME positions will define the agenda for discussion. The best hope for women in Iraq may be NO CONSENSUS.   Iraq is falling apart.  Even Bush's handpicked pupper Ilyad ALLAWI says CIVIL WAR looms . BLOWBACK, unintended consequences, inevitably follow even with the most wise leaders.  With fools we get far worse.  Yet Bush continues to mouth that freedom is on the march.

RICE WOULD CAUTION AGAINST READING If things continue the way they do in Iraq, maybe women in Iraq won’t be able to read at all.

RELATED HERETIK POSTS: [ON THE THOUGHT OF GOD AND THE AFTERTHOUGHT OF WOMEN] [MONSTER POLICY] [WHY FLYPAPER WON'T FLY] [MUKHTARAN MAI:SHADOW AND LIGHT]

RECOMMENDED READING
[MEDIA GIRL] George W. Bush has it half right: Freedom is a compelling idea and something that can transform the world. His error is in thinking that we can impose freedom at the point of a gun. It doesn't work. Guns tend to make people mad ... or dead. Freedom requires not fear or rage or hatred, but reassurance and trust and deeds ... and people power. Just look at the democratization that's been happening in the former Soviet states.

WHY DOES JIMMY CARTER HATE AMERICA?

 

AND SOME OTHER THOUGHTS ABOUT GUANTANAMO The Guantanamo of Long Ago Used to Be Known as the Place of the Pretty Song GUANTANAMERA, but now the JIMMY CARTER comments that GUANTANAMO IS A DISGRACE to the will be considered  reason enough for RIGHT WING apologists of moral abomination to ask: why does Jimmy Carter hate America?  Better to ask why some American leaders hate America when they do not see that the ROTTEN FRUIT hanging from this POISONED TREE feeds terrorist hunger for revenge.

Called GITMO, Guantanamo is a land of American moral question marks. Guantanamo itself is the rotten HARVEST of another DUBIOUS WAR, a Cuban war which may have a SEQUEL. America does not do CARIBBEAN ADVENTURE well.

RELATED HERETIK POSTS ON GUANTANAMO: [A NOT APPROVED EVENT]  [DICK CHENEY'S FANTASY ISLAND]  [DARKNESS VISIBLE] [THE WRITING ON THE WALL]

ADDITIONAL RECOMMENDED READING
[AP] CARTER ON GUANTANAMO "I think what's going on in Guantanamo Bay and other places is a disgrace to the U.S.A.," he told a news conference at the Baptist World Alliance's centenary conference in Birmingham, England. "I wouldn't say it's the cause of terrorism, but it has given impetus and excuses to potential terrorists to lash out at our country and justify their despicable acts."

[AVEDON CAROL] Jimmy Carter can't do or say anything without the wingnuts rising up to sneer at him. Put that together with such a moment of real moral clarity as noting that the Guantanamo detentions are DISGRACEFUL and you're ready for an outbreak of so much FRUITCAKE you'd think it was Christmas.  "Jimmy Insults American Military On Foreign Soil," says CAPTAIN ED, typically unable to distinguish the troops from the policy-makers.  BETSEY NEWMARK says, "Jimmy Carter is a disgrace." She apparently thinks it's a myth that things are bad at Guantanamo. News for Betsy: Yes, it really is a violation of the Constitution to hold people indefinitely without charging them, and that is outrage enough. And guess what - it doesn't fight terrorism, either. POLPUNDIT says: "Modern-Day Leftism is *Not* a Political Ideology - It's a mental disorder." As if we needed more evidence of right-wing projection.

[BLOGENLUST] The New York Times reports this morning that the Administration went ahead with their "non-existant torture policy" in spite of "VIGOROUS DISSENTS" from the military. . . .  When are we going to understand that the "few bad apples" are the ones leading our country?

[DED] Then there is "Gitmo." What a perfectly ridiculous name, when it takes so little time to say "Guantanamo." And how adorable--to give a nickname to a torture chamber.

SCOTT McCLELLAN'S SECRET PAST REVEALED

REPEAT AFTER ME I will not drink the Kool Aid.  I will not drink the Kool Aid.  [SEE: SHAKESPEARE'S SISTER]

UPDATE: To watch a White House Press Briefing now goes beyond a surreal event. McClellan is asking us to continue to participate in a national hallucination. By the time this is done, someone will come up for a new metaphor that describes what we have here.  Kool Aid has been done to the point we now face a national hangover or a wicked root canal to get out the rot in the mouths of national discussion, the Emperor's New Clothes is getting frayed from so much use.  Bush likes to fashion himself a cowboy on a horse. What these guys throw at us is naked lies. Lady Godiva rode on a horse naked. Bush's lies are naked lies from a guy who fashions himself  a cowboy.  The Heretik suggests all the spin and lies now be called Going Godiva on us.  Leave your suggestions in the comments.

PREVIOUS HERETIK POSTS ON SCOTT McCLELLAN [ACTUAL REPORTERS SIGHTED AT WHITE] [BUSH: SORRIER AND SORRIER]

RELATED HERETIK POSTS ON PLAME/ROVE/COOPER/MILLER: [JUDY, JUDY, JUDY MILLER (AND MAYBE CONDI TOO)] [KARL ROVE EXCLUSIVE] [HERE'S LOOKING AT YOU KID] [KING RAT] [DO YOU FEEL LUCKY, PUNK?][TWO TICKETS TO PARADISE] [WHEN THE FAT MAN SINGS] [ONE SINGS, THE OTHER DOESN’T] [CASABLANCA 2005][GEORGETOWN] [ACTUAL REPORTERS SIGHTED AT WHITE HOUSE] [ANIMAL WHITE HOUSE]  [ANIMAL WHITE HOUSE TWO] [WHITE HOUSE CON]

GREAT ADDITIONAL READING [DRINKING THE KOOL AID] What does drinking the Kool-Aid mean today? It signifies that the person in question has given up personal integrity and has succumbed to the prevailing group-think that typifies policymaking today. This person has become "part of the problem, not part of the solution."
What was the "problem"? The sincerely held beliefs of a small group of people who think they are the "bearers" of a uniquely correct view of the world, sought to dominate the foreign policy of the United States in the Bush 43 administration, and succeeded in doing so through a practice of excluding all who disagreed with them. Those they could not drive from government they bullied and undermined until they, too, had drunk from the vat. [HAT TIP: TALK LEFT]

WHERE WE HAVE TRAVELLED DEEPLY

 

HOKUSAI, THE OLD MAN MAD WITH PAINTING, Looked at Mount Fuji from All Angles and All Times of Year  Hokusai here looks at Fuji in the chill of days short in winter.  In the changing seasons we see the changing of our lives, in the passing days the march of time up a hill or into a ditch.  All your days may pile up on you like logs in a funeral pyre or your days may release like startled doves at dawn.  Sometimes I believe I endure the hell heat of summer only so I may feel winter’s cold caress upon my cheek, more kind than you might think.

I LIVE BY METAPHOR In crisp air is sharp thought, in steep terrain is stark relief.  When people ask how did you end up in the LAND OF ZION, I tell them I came for the snow and what the snow teaches me.  For ten years I worked in the magical kingdom of LITTLE COTTONWOOD CANYON.  For five years I lived at a place called SNOWBIRD.  In such places time is a different thing and man but one animal among many.  For five years I have been a stranger but this year I will again be a friend.

WHERE WE HAVE TRAVELLED DEEPLY never lets go of us completely, whether it is a favored corner or a lover lost long ago.  When we return it is familiar, and yet never quite the same.  Hokusai in his view of winter reminds me of where I have been and where I yet might be again in the cold caress of memory, delicate but strong.

WHAT DO YOU KNOW?

 

WHAT DO YOU KNOW And How Do You Know It? Do you know something others do not?  While it is a leftover feel good sentiment of the Sixties that we are all alike, human nature moredarkly suggests we all suffer from EXCEPTIONALISM.  This is the idea that while rules and order must apply to others, our own particular circumstances or talents give us a pass to do what we must. Or whatever the hell we like.  Excuses and explanations are for people less than exceptional.

WHERE DOES THIS SENSE OF ENTITLEMENT COME FROM  and what does it mean for the world? Some would say it comes from a native NARCISSISM in a nation or a person.  Narcissism simply is the curse of only being able to see one’s own self, one’s own image. Most tragically it means a connection only with the self, never with others. One connected only to the self sees only the light and shadow of a single soul, of only one way.  Nothing can challenge the self deluded, least of all facts or the lessons of history.

HISTORY’S IMPORTANCE FOR THE NARCISSIST, for the exceptionalist, lies not in the past, but in a world remade, a world made right in the present. Those who claim the mantle of DESTINY rarely see their future FATE as DOOM.  The self annointed AVATAR may find victory or exact vengeance with seeming impunity.  The righteous have left little for the rest of us in this world.  If our leaders feel exceptional in circumstance and talents and they act narcissistically among us, democracy and the rule of law may be lost with the wave of an imperial hand, life and death determined by the turn of a thumb.

HISTORY CYCLES  between reason and passion, between shared purpose and secret knowledge.  More than we may realize, we are creatures of MYTH.  Or perhaps myth only describes our condition.

QUESTION OF THE DAY: What do you know and how do you know it? How are you exceptional?

SOME LINKS THAT GOT THE HERETIK THINKING
[JOHN STEINBERG/RAW STORY] “What did the President know, and when did he know it?” An important question, to be sure, but I would like to suggest another, perhaps more revealing question: how did he know it?

[GUARDIAN UK] A police source has told the Guardian that there is no need for officers to verbally warn a suspect before opening fire.
The source said: "If the firearms team are reasonably certain the person is a suicide bomber then there is no need to issue any warning.
"Experience from other parts of the world shows that if a suicide bomber knows they are being followed by police, they will detonate."

MORNING LINKS AND SAUSAGE

IT'S MORNING IN AMERICA SOMEWHERE  The Heretik is glad to be alive, mostly because the other option has no upside. The Heretik has often thought that life is like eggs, not in a chicken or the egg way, but sometimes in chicken and the egg way.  If there could be a chicken first or an egg first, why can there not have been a chicken and an egg there together first at the same time?

UPSIDES AND DOWNSIDES Why does everything have to be so serious?  Life doesn't have to be serious, if you see life as seriously funny.  Give me my eggs over easy please.  You can have yours soft scrambled if you like. Or you can skip the eggs completely and avoid the cholesterol. 

WHEN YOU LEAVE this blog which is not yet an online magazine, you may leave your home or office as well. You may step off a curb and step into the beyond. Life is short, so don't worry too much about the cholesterol.  Be French for the day and do everything that's bad for you.  You will feel a lot better. Then stop it immediately. Because all that crap will kill you.

PIMP YOUR BLOG and everything else in your life as well. If you don't believe you have something to say, who the hell else will?  The Heretik loves whores, in a bloglike kind of way.  So leave a link and tell me about the sausage in your life.

I LOVE COOKIE JILL   The greatest thing about the internets is finding friends you never knew you had who you have never even met who you know you can never live without.  Bless Jillian Johnson and everything she brings into this world and everything she is giving me, even when she doesn't know it.

THE CARNIVAL OF THE UNCAPITALISTS IS COMING And The Heretik is honored to be The Seventeenth Host. So if you haven't sent your link to BIONIC OCTOPUS, e mail me with your post. Or use your secret telepathy thing.

IF YOU DON'T KNOW IT YET, I love reading THE TATTERED COAT, THE ALL SPIN ZONE, and IDYLLOPUS.  The Heretik Joe Ivory Mattingly loves people who pour their hearts and souls on the line, one line at a time, day after day.  Give me a link and a reason to love you too. I am easy that way.

WHAT'S SO FUNNY ABOUT PEACE, LOVE, AND UNDERSTANDING? This is one of the greatest songs of all time.  What song says it for you today?

 

FREAKY FRIDAY AT LEFTY'S LOUNGE

GET SOMEBODY ELSE'S FREAK ON TONIGHT AT LEFTY'S LOUNGE.   Grab your links and down those drinks.  It's hard work!   The Heretik will be joining our Boy President for his month long vacation in Crawford, Texas but before he goes he sees . . . .if they DRINK over there . ..we need some TUNES . . .JOIN in the cause . .  FACE OFF. . . on MOTHERS. . . .super JUSTICE . .  imagine PEACE. . . . . .REMEMBER . . . . . . oh, OUR WORD . . .  . . .and the CARNIVAL is still burning up the town and don't FORGET. . .  . . .support THE ELEPHANT
MORE TO FOLLOW  . . .

Enjoy our cheery chum with all our chums.   Be ready for the shark feeding contest in the Bay of Confusion.  LEFTY LOUISE is serving up all your drinks and Betty Blogger is putting the whole check on her tab so drink and comment freely.

QUESTION OF THE DAY

 BOLTON, BUSH AND THE COWBOY WAY When people ask many years from now how America got where it is today, they will say The Cowboy Way.  When people ask how did we piss away a budget surplus and end up on the way to trillions in debt, they will say The Cowboy Way. When people ask how did we get in Iraq with no clear reason in and no easy way out, they will say The Cowboy Way.  Yippie Yi Oh Ki Ay.  Let’s ride off into a sunset without a clue because doing something bold and stupid is better than doing nothing smart.    That’s the cowboy way.  Just ask General Custer.

Now it seems we will have George Bush will give a recess appointment to John Bolton to be Ambassador to the United Nations.  A more unsuited candidate could not exist, unless you had Dracula running a Red Cross blood drive. Even Trent Lott seems to be seeing the Cowboy President bears a remarkable resemblance to the hindquarters of a horse, at least in making the recess appointment of Bolton.

[KNIGHT RIDDER]"I suspect he will, but I do think it's a little bit of a thumbing of the nose at the Senate, which will cause you more problems down the road," Lott said. "We are a co-equal branch; he doesn't get to make his choices in a vacuum."

LOTT IS WRONG. Bush does make his choices in a vacuum.  There are wide open spaces in Texas where a man who manages month long vacations can hear what he wants to hear. Or not hear about Osama Bin Laden because there is brush clearing to do.  The President has his vacuum and his vacuum has become ours. If in his own head in those wide open spaces he hears nothing but his own voice, what will he ever hear from us?

ANOTHER POINT OF VIEW
BUSH IS A GENIUS! [POWERLINE] It must be very strange to be President Bush. A man of extraordinary vision and brilliance approaching to genius, he can't get anyone to notice. He is like a great painter or musician who is ahead of his time, and who unveils one masterpiece after another to a reception that, when not bored, is hostile.

THE HERETIK AGREES WITH POWERLINE'S HINDROCKET: It must be strange to be President Bush!

[SHAKESPEARE'S SISTER] Yeah, it’s real unusual for a rich, spoiled, narcissistic, over-indulged, under-criticized, belligerent assmonkey who’s been handed more power than he deserves to be flummoxed by others’ inability to see him for the man of extraordinary brilliance that he is.

[BLOGENLUST] The inaugural Idiot Wind award goes to Power Line.  This one will be hard to beaT. [HAT TIP: CROOKS AND LIARS]

QUESTION OF THE DAY: Are all our judgements preconceived?  Has your opinion about George Bush changed over time?  Is George Bush Blogenlust's Idiot or Powerline's Genius? Is George Bush a Genius who acts like an idiot?  Or an idiot some people mistake for a genius?  Or is he just some lonesome cowboy?  What do you think?

 

STEALTH NOMINEE JOHN ROBERTS ABOUT TO BOMB

BUSH GAMBIT ON UNKNOWN STEALTH NOMINEE ROBERTS NOW STEALTH BOMB ABOUT TO EXPLODE. And the self congratulation the Bush Administration lathered itself with over the “well qualified” John Roberts will now be viewed with more than qualified reservations. The John Roberts becoming known is not the John Roberts sold.  Big surprise there.   Two years on the Federal bench may not mean as much as Roberts coming off the bench in the Reagan era to make some key plays throwing out opinions.  Expect Republicans to defend Roberts as merely doing his job for the Reagan administration. Expect the White House to claim all needs for keeping more information about Roberts to come out.  Expect Democrats to act possibly like Democrats. Expect Lieberman to move to whatever position he can take credit for.  Another shock and awe campaign is about to go shocking and awful. John Roberts in the House of Wax begins to melt.

PREVIOUS HERETIK POSTS ON JOHN ROBERTS
[JOHN ROBERTS IN THE HOUSE OF WAX ONE] [JOHN ROBERTS IN THE HOUSE OF WAX TWO] [WHO IS THIS GUY?] [OLDE HERETIK TIMES] [LEFTY LOUISE] [BUSH NAMES ROBERTS]

RECOMMENDED READING
[NY TIMES] On almost every issue he dealt with where there were basically two sides, one more conservative than the other, the documents from the National Archives and the Ronald Reagan Presidential Library show that Judge Roberts, now of the United States Court of Appeals for the District of Columbia Circuit, advocated the more conservative course. Sometimes, he took positions even more conservative than those of his prominent superiors. [ROBERTS MEMO PDF]

[WASHINGTON POST] "The question is: Who is John Roberts? What does he really believe?" said Theodore M. Shaw, director-counsel of the NAACP Legal Defense and Educational Fund, during an appearance at the National Urban League convention here yesterday. "What we're finding out is troubling. I've moved from a position of neutrality to being deeply disturbed."
Wade Henderson, executive director of the Leadership Conference on Civil Rights, speaking at the same forum, echoed that sentiment. He said he found the documents "to be extremely troubling. They seem to reflect the work of a deeply committed ideologue."

MORE TO FOLLOW