change of scenery

Chicken Doves

Taibbi:

Quietly, while Hillary Clinton and Barack Obama have been inspiring Democrats everywhere with their rolling bitchfest, congressional superduo Harry Reid and Nancy Pelosi have completed one of the most awesome political collapses since Neville Chamberlain. At long last, the Democratic leaders of Congress have publicly surrendered on the Iraq War, just one year after being swept into power with a firm mandate to end it.

Solidifying his reputation as one of the biggest pussies in U.S. political history, Reid explained his decision to refocus his party's energies on topics other than ending the war by saying he just couldn't fit Iraq into his busy schedule. "We have the presidential election," Reid said recently. "Our time is really squeezed."

There was much public shedding of tears among the Democratic leadership, as Reid, Pelosi and other congressional heavyweights expressed deep sadness that their valiant charge up the hill of change had been thwarted by circumstances beyond their control — that, as much as they would love to continue trying to end the catastrophic Iraq deal, they would now have to wait until, oh, 2009 to try again. "We'll have a new president," said Pelosi. "And I do think at that time we'll take a fresh look at it."

Pelosi seemed especially broken up about having to surrender on Iraq, sounding like an NFL coach in a postgame presser, trying with a straight face to explain why he punted on first-and-goal. "We just didn't have any plays we liked down there," said the coach of the 0-15 Dems. "Sometimes you just have to play the field-position game...."

...

How much of this bullshit are we going to take? How long are we supposed to give the Reids and Pelosis and Hillarys of the world credit for wanting, deep down in their moldy hearts, to do the right thing?

change

i'm going to be focusing more on salto mortale, so go over there to read my profound ruminations on the universe.

but check out my links to your right. good times to be had by exploring them.

painful

via roger ailes, i found the national review's top 50 conservative rock songs of all time:

1. "Won't Get Fooled Again," by The Who
2. "Taxman," by The Beatles
3. "Sympathy for the Devil," by The Rolling Stones
4. "Sweet Home Alabama," by Lynyrd Skynyrd
5. "Wouldn't It Be Nice," by The Beach Boys
6. "Gloria," by U2
7. "Revolution," by The Beatles
8. "Bodies," by The Sex Pistols
9. "Don't Tread on Me," by Metallica
10. "20th Century Man," by The Kinks
11. "The Trees," by Rush
12. "Neighborhood Bully," by Bob Dylan
13. "My City Was Gone," by The Pretenders
14. "Right Here, Right Now," by Jesus Jones
15. "I Fought the Law," by The Crickets
16. "Get Over It," by The Eagles
17. "Stay Together for the Kids," by Blink 182
18. "Cult of Personality," by Living Colour
19. "Kicks," by Paul Revere and the Raiders
20. "Rock the Casbah," by The Clash
21. "Heroes," by David Bowie
22. "Red Barchetta," by Rush
23. "Brick," by Ben Folds Five
24. "Der Kommissar," by After the Fire
26. "Capitalism," by Oingo Boingo
27. "Obvious Song," by Joe Jackson
28. "Janie's Got a Gun," by Aerosmith
29. "Rime of the Ancient Mariner," by Iron Maiden
30. "You Can't Be Too Strong," by Graham Parker
32. "Keep Your Hands to Yourself," by The Georgia Satellites
33. "You Can't Always Get What You Want," by The Rolling Stones
34. "Godzilla," by Blue Oyster Cult
35. "Who'll Stop the Rain," by Creedence Clearwater Revival
36. "Government Cheese," by The Rainmakers
37. "The Night They Drove Old Dixie Down," by The Band
38. "I Can't Drive 55," by Sammy Hagar
39. "Property Line," by The Marshall Tucker Band
40. "Wake Up Little Susie," by The Everly Brothers
41. "The Icicle Melts," by The Cranberries
42. "Everybody's a Victim," by The Proclaimers
43. "Wonderful," by Everclear
44. "Two Sisters," by The Kinks
45. "Taxman, Mr. Thief," by Cheap Trick
46. "Wind of Change," by The Scorpions
47. "One," by Creed*
48. "Why Don't You Get a Job," by The Offspring
49. "Abortion," by Kid Rock*
50. "Stand By Your Man," by Tammy Wynette (or Motorhead)

the rude pundit discusses:

The entire list - fuck, the entire effort - is sad and embarassing, like watching Grandpa do the Macarena now, thinking that he's still hip, that he's been hip for the last 30 years. Because to come up with fifty songs, the readers and editors of the National Review had to neglect, almost entirely, the politics and lifestyles of nearly every single one of the music acts on the list, like, say U2, the Clash, and the Sex Pistols, just for kicks, or noted cross-dressing androgyne David Bowie. They had to twist the meaning of lyrics so that vague references to "freedom" all of a sudden became calls to a modified libertarianism (you know, no taxes, but also no fucking). And, of course, the mention of every fucking song they could find that seems to oppose abortion or alludes to the fall of Communism or doesn't like taxes. This leads them to have to include the Scorpions, Kid Rock, Rush, Creed, After the Fire, Sammy Hagar, and Jesus Jones in a great huge pile of suck.

hee hee.

new gig

you can also find me over at salto mortale on occasion.

let's let tom friedman just ride out six more months before we kill him

why does anybody listen to tom friedman? he makes me want to tear my eye-balls out. via FAIR, here is a laundry list of tom's own make or break deadlines that conveniently keep getting pushed back six months:

"The next six months in Iraq—which will determine the prospects for democracy-building there—are the most important six months in U.S. foreign policy in a long, long time."
(New York Times, 11/30/03)


"What I absolutely don't understand is just at the moment when we finally have a UN-approved Iraqi-caretaker government made up of—I know a lot of these guys—reasonably decent people and more than reasonably decent people, everyone wants to declare it's over. I don't get it. It might be over in a week, it might be over in a month, it might be over in six months, but what's the rush? Can we let this play out, please?"
(NPR's Fresh Air, 6/3/04)


"What we're gonna find out, Bob, in the next six to nine months is whether we have liberated a country or uncorked a civil war."
(CBS's Face the Nation, 10/3/04)


"Improv time is over. This is crunch time. Iraq will be won or lost in the next few months. But it won't be won with high rhetoric. It will be won on the ground in a war over the last mile."
(New York Times, 11/28/04)


"I think we're in the end game now…. I think we're in a six-month window here where it's going to become very clear and this is all going to pre-empt I think the next congressional election—that's my own feeling— let alone the presidential one."
(NBC's Meet the Press, 9/25/05)


"Maybe the cynical Europeans were right. Maybe this neighborhood is just beyond transformation. That will become clear in the next few months as we see just what kind of minority the Sunnis in Iraq intend to be. If they come around, a decent outcome in Iraq is still possible, and we should stay to help build it. If they won't, then we are wasting our time."
(New York Times, 9/28/05)


"We've teed up this situation for Iraqis, and I think the next six months really are going to determine whether this country is going to collapse into three parts or more or whether it's going to come together."
(CBS's Face the Nation, 12/18/05)


"We're at the beginning of I think the decisive I would say six months in Iraq, OK, because I feel like this election—you know, I felt from the beginning Iraq was going to be ultimately, Charlie, what Iraqis make of it."
(PBS's Charlie Rose Show, 12/20/05)


"The only thing I am certain of is that in the wake of this election, Iraq will be what Iraqis make of it—and the next six months will tell us a lot. I remain guardedly hopeful."
(New York Times, 12/21/05)


"I think that we're going to know after six to nine months whether this project has any chance of succeeding. In which case, I think the American people as a whole will want to play it out or whether it really is a fool's errand."
(Oprah Winfrey Show, 1/23/06)


"I think we're in the end game there, in the next three to six months, Bob. We've got for the first time an Iraqi government elected on the basis of an Iraqi constitution. Either they're going to produce the kind of inclusive consensual government that we aspire to in the near term, in which case America will stick with it, or they're not, in which case I think the bottom's going to fall out."
(CBS, 1/31/06)


"I think we are in the end game. The next six to nine months are going to tell whether we can produce a decent outcome in Iraq."
(NBC's Today, 3/2/06)


"Can Iraqis get this government together? If they do, I think the American public will continue to want to support the effort there to try to produce a decent, stable Iraq. But if they don't, then I think the bottom is going to fall out of public support here for the whole Iraq endeavor. So one way or another, I think we're in the end game in the sense it's going to be decided in the next weeks or months whether there's an Iraq there worth investing in. And that is something only Iraqis can tell us."
(CNN, 4/23/06)


"Well, I think that we're going to find out, Chris, in the next year to six months—probably sooner—whether a decent outcome is possible there, and I think we're going to have to just let this play out."
(MSNBC's Hardball, 5/11/06)

in 2050, tom friedman will be saying, "let's just ride it out, another six months and we'll know if we'll have to push the deadline back another six months..let's just ride this one out...come on people, this is worth the wait..."

another friday. another bondage photo.

it's all a class act here at weasels rip my flesh.