The Democrats' idea of a compromise with Bush is to bend over and say "you can stick it in, just please not too far."

We're not leaving Iraq for years. Depressing.

Oy vey:

Al Hurra television, the U.S. government's $63 million-a-year effort at public diplomacy broadcasting in the Middle East, is run by executives and officials who cannot speak Arabic, according to a senior official who oversees the program.

That might explain why critics say the service has recently been caught broadcasting terrorist messages, including an hour-long tirade on the importance of anti-Jewish violence, among other questionable pieces.

Facing tough questions before a congressional panel last week, Broadcasting Board of Governors member Joaquin Blaya admitted none of the senior news managers at the network spoke Arabic when the terrorist messages made it onto the air courtesy of U.S. taxpayer funds. Nor did Blaya himself or any of the other officials at the Broadcasting Board of Governors, which oversees the network.

(emphasis added)

[ via Crooks and Liars ]

Evites are apparently out.

What a silly city.

Careful with your cigs, Ethan.

The Buzzsaw on "the little toad" Falwell.

Justin Raimondo on the Republican debate:

In response to Ron Paul’s reasonable and informed contention that our interventionist foreign policy created the “blowback” that gave rise to Al Qaeda, and 9/11, Rudy Giuliani burbled “I don’t think I’ve ever heard that!”

Of course he hasn’t heard it: he’s so busy pandering to the worst instincts of red-state fascists Republicans, calling for a national ID card, and drooling at the thought of torture that he has no time for a reality-based assessment of American foreign policy. That bullying would-be Mafia don, who looks and acts like someone out of “The Sopranos,” demanded that Ron Paul “withdraw his remarks and tell us he didn’t mean it.”

Paul’s answer,

“I believe the CIA is correct when it warns us about blowback. We overthrew the Iranian government in 1953 and their taking the hostages was the reaction. This dynamic persists and we ignore it at our risk. They’re not attacking us because we’re rich and free, they’re attacking us because we’re over there.”

In effect: screw you, Rudy!

What is interesting, and sort of gives me a tiny bit of hope, is that 25% of FOX News viewers thought Ron Paul won the debate:

Texas Rep. Ron Paul, who ignited controversy at the debate with remarks that U.S. policy had invited the Sept. 11, 2001, terrorist attacks, came in second with 25 percent. Former New York City Mayor Rudy Giuliani, who strongly admonished Paul for his comments, came in third place with 19 percent. Arizona Sen. John McCain, who is the frontrunner in South Carolina polls, came in sixth with 5 percent.

You Decide GOP Primary Poll Results

— 29% Former Massachusetts Gov. Mitt Romney

— 25% Rep. Ron Paul, R-Texas

— 19% Former New York City Mayor Rudy Giuliani

— 8% Former Arkansas Gov. Mike Huckabee

— 5% Rep. Duncan Hunter, R-Calif. Hunter

— 4% Sen. John McCain, R-Ariz.

— 3% Rep. Tom Tancredo, R-Colo.

— 1% Sen. Sam Brownback, R-Kan.

— 0% Former Virginia Gov. Jim Gilmore

— 0% Former Wisconsin Gov. Tommy Thompson

(btw, I'm sure Ethan is crying about Tommy Thompson at 0%.)

The bestial roar from the crowd whenever someone advocated torture was frightening. Digby:

It was quite interesting watching the Republicans debate down in South Carolina tonight. I think it's clear that this group has come to fully understand that winning the GOP nomination is all about the codpiece. These guys have just spent the last fifteen minutes of the debate trying to top each other on just how much torture they are willing to inflict. They sound like a bunch of psychotic 12 year olds, although considering the puerile nature of the "24" question it's not entirely their fault.

This debate is a window into what really drives the GOP id. The biggest applause lines were for faux tough guy Giuliani demanding Ron Paul take back his assertion that the terrorists don't hate us for our freedom, macho man Huckabee talking about Edwards in a beauty parlor and the manly hunk Romney saying that he wants to double the number of prisoners in Guantanamo "where they can't get lawyers." There's very little energy for that girly talk about Jesus or "the culture of life" or any of that BS that the pansy Bush ran ran on. (Brownback's position, forcing 14 year old girls who've been raped by their fathers to bear their own sibling, will have to suffice for the compassionate "life" crowd tonight.)

John McCain is the only adult on that stage and that scares the living hell out of me considering that he's half nuts too. Wow.

Go read.

Clip here.

Romney says we should "double Guantanamo."

Just listen to the applause he gets when he says that.

Our country is truly disgusting.

Tonight people are holding an anti-memorial in the Castro for a dead guy that apparently lost his virginity to his mother in an outhouse.

Oh dear.

This video is probably not for the squeamish. The bear rips open the moose and eats its heart as a couple film it from their deck, 20 feet away. That's why city livin' is the life for me. You can keep that crazy-ass countryside.

[via Pharyngula]

I've never been a big fan of DCCC Chair Rahm Emanuel. However, after reading The legend of Rahm in Salon (sorry, you'll have to click through the ad if you're not a Salon subscriber) I have some new respect for the guy. A couple snippets from the Salon piece:

[Rahm] had once owned a consulting business devoted to finding skeletons in Republican closets. At a Clinton victory dinner in Little Rock in 1992, Emanuel celebrated by reciting a hoped-for necrology of Democrats who had "fucked" the president-elect. After every name, he stabbed a steak knife into a table and screamed, "Dead man!"

I also enjoyed his message to the Republicans after the Dems took back the House in '06:

On Election Night, 10 minutes after CNN called the House for the Democrats, Emanuel climbed up on a table in DCCC headquarters and addressed his cheering, victory-starved staff, celebrating the party's biggest win since 1992. He wanted to wrap up the campaign with a message for the Republicans.

"Since my kids are gone, I can say it," he shouted. "They can go fuck themselves!"

I like it.

Monday crack blogging:

A woman forced an 83-year-old housemate to smoke crack cocaine so she could steal personal information to get a credit card in her name and run up more than $3,000 in charges, authorities said.


Pasco County sheriff's investigators have accused Theresa M. Stanley-Morgan, 41, of getting the older woman to smoke the drug at least twice to make it easier to exploit her financially.

...

Hathaway and a witness told investigators that Stanley-Morgan forced Hathaway to smoke a lit crack pipe -- telling her it was the "hooty, " the report said.

Christopher Hitchens discusses, among other things, Karl Rove's atheism.

Almost makes me want to become a believer...

[ via No More Mister Nice Blog ]

Saddest blog post ever.

[ via The General ]

Behold the genius of Tommy Thompson.

Read this sentence and goggle:

A New York Times/CBS News poll conducted April 20-24 found that 76 percent of Republicans said they approved of Mr. Bush’s job performance.

It's unreal, isn't it?

It's from an article from the Times about the quandary GOP hopefuls face with Fucktard in office.