George Hearts Cheney, Happy Birthday the Gaddafi and Khamenei Way

Dana Milbank
Ezra Klein

Paul Krugman

"The debate ended as it began: with Democrats offering moderate plans that draw heavily on past Republican ideas, and Republicans responding with slander and misdirection." - Paul Krugman

"Republican legislators these days see the purpose of federal office as something that an individual trades on for personal enrichment... Some elected Dems practice the GOP approach as well." - jprs

"It's interesting to watch you try to understand the right, but if you really understood it you wouldn't be on the left in the first place." - cpurick

“I’m reminded of that every day.” - John McCain

So France's Prime Minister Nicolas Sarkozy went to Rwanda to begin healing the rift between their two countries, while Barack Obama invited Democrats and Republicans to meet to heal the rift between them over health reform. Mr Sarkozy spend a whopping three hours in Rwanda and Mr Obama spend seven hours under the television lights of CSPAN. Of the two, which do you think was more effective? The mood that the right wing has been in this past year, you'd think they, too, are ready to commit genocide by killing off all of the moderates in their party, you know, starting over from scratch with a blank piece of paper...

Former President George W Bush has come out publically making a statement in praise of Dick Cheney: "George W. Bush has said publicly that he approves of former Vice President Dick Cheney’s high-profile role in defending the past administration’s national security policies.


“I’m glad Cheney is out there,” Bush said Friday morning at a reunion breakfast that was the inaugural event for the Bush-Cheney Alumni Association." Dick couldn't attend because he is still recovering from his fifth heart attack. By now, he is like the landscape of California, he just rolls them off. But get well, Dick, get well.

"Former Vice President Dick Cheney was released from the hospital today after being treated for a mild heart attack, his fifth heart attack. Next one's free." –Jimmy Kimmel

"Something weird happened in the hospital. When they were putting the electrodes on him for the EKG, he suddenly started screaming, 'Stop! I'll tell you everything you want to know!'" –Jimmy Kimmel

Some other words of wisdom that George is supposed to have said: “Don’t swagger. Sometimes I got carried away rallying the country. I think the swagger criticism was fair. A lot of others weren't. I hope I conveyed a sense that I was a lowly sinner who found redemption. I'm not better than anyone else. What makes me different from others is that I realized I needed help.”


“I’m religious — I confess,” he continued. “One of the challenges in life is: Maintaining religious piety is harder when the pressure is off than when it is on. But now there is still a dependency in a greater grace.”


Bush made it clear he plans to continue to keep a low profile: “I have no desire to see myself on television. I don't want to be a panel of formers instructing the currents on what to do. I'm trying to regain a sense of anonymity. I didn't like it when a certain former president — and it wasn't 41 or 42 — made my life miserable.” That was a reference to Jimmy Carter, the 39th president.

"Newt, I am Your Father!"

cake and ice cream, too...

Happy Birthday to the Prophet, May Peace Be Upon Him. Today, many leaders took it upon themselves to address this great occasion in sermons to the masses. Instead of the usual,  how Islam is the religion of peace and love, the crazier among them had to be mean and cruel, lashing out at their opponents, both imaginary and real.

We begin with the imaginary, which centers in Libya and Moammar Gaddafi. Gaddafi raised his son Hannibal to be like the chip off of the old block. A couple of years ago, Hannibal Gaddafi was arrested in Geneva, Switzerland, for abuse and assaulting two servants. In the Mid East, where foreigners are considered less than dirt, you can get away with this kind of treatment, and it is quite common in every country. But not in western countries that give lip service to the idea of human rights. Mr Gaddafi was humiliated and asked to leave.

Then, right wingers in Switzerland passed a law recently, banning the construction of new mosques. They have three so far, and maybe less than a hundred Muslims, so it was a rather bizarro thing to do, unless you once were a skinhead now grown up into a local politician.

This morning, Hannibal's father, the esteemed gentleman known to have had packed up his tent in the middle of the night in New Jersey, spoke these celebratory words: "Let us wage jihad against Switzerland, Zionism and foreign aggression. Any Muslim in any part of the world who works with Switzerland is an apostate, is against Muhammad, God and the Koran." Some folks were amused, the UN was not. They pointed out that Mr Gaddafi is not a cleric, just some fake bedouin who cannot issue a fatwa or call for jihad...

Not to be outdone, the Supreme Burrito of Iran took this august occasion to also blast his enemies, hinting broadly that they might be rounded up next and thrown out of the country. From the BBC: "Iran’s supreme leader, Ayatollah Ali Khamenei, dismissed the possibility of compromise with opposition leaders, saying in harsh language that they had no right to participate in politics, the official IRNA news agency reported.

Ayatollah Khamenei’s remarks at a meeting in Tehran with members of the Assembly of Experts, a clerical body, followed a challenge to the government on Monday by Mehdi Karroubi, one of the opposition candidates who ran in the disputed presidential election in June. Mr. Karroubi called for a national referendum to gauge the popularity of President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad’s government.


Without naming Mr. Karroubi or another opposition leader, Mir Hussein Moussavi, Ayatollah Khamenei said “... they have lost their credibility by denying the results of the elections. They did not surrender to the law and committed a great sin,”  The Ayatollah Khamenei, whose comments appeared to be his toughest yet about the opposition leaders, referred to the Islamic government as a rescue ship. He said those who had not accepted the results of the June 12 election “have stepped down from the rescue ship and have lost their credibility to remain within the framework of the Islamic establishment.” Of course, he may have been wearing his tinfoil hat and referring to the mothership, docked just behind the planet Jupiter... Don't forget to whack that festive pinata of the Great Satan... What's so funny about peace, love, and understanding, eh elvis?