Petty Grievances

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What Hunter said.
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The Real Bush Legacy

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Just in case you haven't seen Froomkin's summation in the Washington Post, Eschaton and DailyKos have noted this excerpt:

Here is Bush's legacy, in part:

He took the nation to a war of choice under false pretenses -- and left troops in harm's way on two fields of battle. He embraced torture as an interrogation tactic and turned the world's champion of human dignity into an outlaw nation and international pariah. He watched with detachment as a major American city went under water. He was ostensibly at the helm as the worst financial crisis since the Great Depression took hold. He went from being the most popular to the most disappointing president, having squandered a unique opportunity to unite the country and even the world behind a shared agenda after Sept. 11. He set a new precedent for avoiding the general public in favor of screened audiences and seemed to occupy an alternate reality. He took his own political party from seeming permanent majority status to where it is today. And he deliberately politicized the federal government, circumvented the traditional policymaking process, ignored expert advice and suppressed dissent, leaving behind a broken government.

Leaves not much to be said, doesn't it? Oh, but Bush intends to have his final say-so tonight.

Unfortunately, I won't be able to tune in. There's an all-important batch of puppy poopsicles in our snowy front yard that needs tending.

Come to think of it, pretty much all of the same....
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Women and Children Last in Palin Country

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The statistics are grim.

Alaska leads the nation in reported forcible rapes per capita, according to the FBI, with a rate two and a half times the national average -- a ranking it has held for many years. Children are no safer: Public safety experts believe that the prevalence of rape and sexual assault of minors in Alaska makes the state's record one of the worst in the U.S.

She didn't just do nothing, critics say. Sarah Palin proactively stalled the effort to tackle sexual violence in Alaska. Because she was more interested in settling a personal grudge, she abused the power of her office, and put women and children at risk. Some family values.

Oh, and don't forget, Screechy Sarah expects rape victims to pay for their own rape kits.

H/t to Kagro X at dailyKos for the signpost about this ABC News report.
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Prairie's Reading: SusanG on the Palin Pick

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SusanG at DailyKos pulls together the reaction from those who know her best...the local newspapers in Alaska on the Sarah Palin pick by John McCain in yet another example of his lifelong style of recklessness and inadequate prepping. A style of living I'm callin' The Gambler...sing it, Kenny Rogers....

Just one example, from the Anchorage Daily News:

"She's not prepared to be governor. How can she be prepared to be vice president or president? said [State Senate President Lyda Green, a Republican from Palin's hometown of Wasilla]. "Look at what she's done to this state. What would she do to the nation?"

And this editorial from the Fairbanks Daily News-Miner:

McCain seems to have put his political interests ahead of the nation's when he created the possibility that she might fill it. It's clear that McCain picked Palin for reasons of image, not substance.

Meanwhile, the usual Rethuglican suspects are falling all over themselves to say what a great choice this is. Let the investigative journalism begin....
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UPDATE: More meanwhile, Paul Begala offers his take "Is McCain Out of his Mind?" Insane McCain? Ya think?
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Prairie's Reading: FISA & Brandeis

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The words of Justice Brandeis echo down thru the decades...via McJoan at Kos. And Christy's keepin' us on our toes, what a patriot looks like, over at firedoglake. FISA matters, precisely because of Brandeis' words:

If the government becomes a law breaker, it breeds contempt for law; it invites every man to become a law unto himself; it invites anarchy. To declare that in the administration of the criminal law the end justifies the means 'to declare that the government may commit crimes in order to secure the conviction of a private criminal' would bring terrible retribution.
[From dissenting opinion in Olmstead vs. United States, in which the court upheld the use of wiretaps in a case involving an investigation of bootlegging. Brandeis strongly defended the individual right to privacy from government intrusion.] -Louis D. Brandeis, 1928

Hunter Is My Hero

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Hunter over at DailyKos is my hero this morning. He does a great job of summing up the whole abomination that is what used to pass for journalism.

The president says his Principals micromanaged torture and he knew about it.

The presidential candidate says "bitter," orders orange juice, bowls lousy.

The media reported on.... Yep, you guessed it.

Who could have anticipated....
Yeah, I'm bitter. At the "journalists."

Bridge over Troubled Waters

We’re looking for a bridge these days—oh, not a bridge to the 21^st Century. That’s been pretty abysmal for most folks so far. And not a tongue kiss or handhold to the family Saud…[you’ll have no trouble finding those pictures on the web, not dragging them into the garden this day.]

Every time we go to the gas pump, we’re at the mercy of that “bridge” between 9/11 terrorists and the black gold that funds them.

We’re looking for another bridge…a bridge buffeted by the fogs of fate, yet still able to stand strong, sure. And we surely need him. Because we have been buffeted, too, these past seven years, caught between Iraq and a hard place that is the American economy.

Our bridges are in sorry shape…real bridges collapsing in rivers, others so ruinous they are shut down.

Campaigns that will need to bridge their differences once the primary season is past are now being sorely tested as well.

This week we have an opportunity for some bridge building… Will we build it strong? It’s up to each one of us. We are the bridge-builders … and we will be the bridge users. So, it’s up to us…Will we use the strong steel of our forefathers to build? Or lay back and say let someone else do it?

The buzz is already building out there on the web, launched by the folks at DailyKos, but a swarm of others of us join in the call cutting through the fog. Won’t you join in? Support the Edwards campaign on Friday, January 18. And today as well can’t hurt….

Someone else is dying for us in Iraq. Or coming back shattered in mind or body. For the foolishness of a President whose Napoleonic ego drives him to fearmonger and false promises.

Someone else is watching their neighborhoods boarded up and ruined…by the waters driven by the winds of selfishness and greed. In New Orleans. In Michigan.. In cities where “subprime” destroys lives so rich men may dance. Dance, Karl. Dance, David. Dance, dance, dance.

Someone else is dying on the sidewalk in front of the Bishop’s house in Fargo Sunday night while the city races to finish up a new shelter…homeless, needy, in despair? Chronic addiction, transient lifestyle, they say. It’s someone else.

Until it’s not.

Time, past time, to take a stand. Build a bridge on solid ground to span the troubled waters and unite again this nation divided. It’s an epic battle…and we are the nuts and bolts that will build the bridge…if we have the will.

UPDATE: You'll find commentary updated on the 1/18 campaign for Edwards at DailyKos ... or just stop by the Edwards site direct and help build this bridge. Now would be good.