The Bush administration has developed an amazing ability to exterminate debate by redefining issues through framing techniques. It is akin to a magician using prattle and misdirection to hypnotize an audience to believe the most fantasic illusions.

Abbot: "Herd of cows?"

Costello "Of course I've heard of cows."

Beginning as a child, words always have held a fascination for me. At the toddler stage I was already a bibliophile, forcing my Grandfather to read the same Giant Golden Books to me over and over. My favorite was "The Sorcerer's Apprentice," a picture book with Mickey Mouse stealing a magician's wand and, with it, provoking much havoc. My grandfather would patiently read it to me as many times I wanted -- which was a lot. After hearing the same pages so often, I memorized the words by rote and which page those words were on. One day my Grandfather, who was quite the trickster, had me "read" the book to my parents. At two, my parents thought my Grandfather had performed a miracle in teaching me to read.

After nearly four years of bombings, from the air and from roadside ditches, after four years of blood, death, murder, torture, rape, beheadings, and a host of other unspeakable acts perpetrated on a daily basis by one faction, or militia or clan, or sect upon a rival clan or sect or militia, the Iraq study group is talking of threatening the Iraqi Government with....Ready?...Sanctions?


This from the Iraqi Study Group's "Executive Summary:"

"If the Iraqi government does not make substantial progress toward the achievement of milestones on national reconciliation, security, and governance, the United States should reduce its political, military, or economic support for the Iraqi government," the report's executive summary says.

This, in a country where the electric power is on for maybe six hours a day, clean water is sometimes available, three thousand people a month are being slaughtered, major portions of the physical and social infrastructure have been destroyed ,  remain unrepaired and the National Regatta is a Sunny Saturday spent watching bloated corpses drifting lazily down the Tigris.

President Bush likes to claim that the economy is doing really well, citing record highs in the stock market and relatively low unemployment as proof. Things are going so well that this year the Forbes 400 richest people are all BILLIONAIRES. But the reality for the working class in America is much different and the canary in the coal mine may just have fallen over.

One of the most eye-popping parts of Al Gore's inconvenient truth was when he boarded a crane to illustrate the unprecedented rise in carbon dioxide levels. The inconvenient truth of our economy could be equally well illustrated as the fabulously rich have gotten fabulously richer, while the working class has gotten (to name another pop culture hit) "Left Behind."

I have an idea of a way to get out of Iraq in about a year. I've outlined it here and really want to know what other people think. So - check it out!The basic idea is this. Get about 400,000 Iraqis to sign up for a new national security force. Sunni, Shia, Kurd, whatever.

Take all 400,000 out of the country to places like Quatar, Egypt, England, Germany, Japan, the United States, anywhere that a massive military training can be set up. Train the Iraqis for up to six months, making sure that they work together regardless of ethnicity or religion, just like we try to do in our own US military training.

What can we do to stop this guy?

News of the White House's "Change of Course" and a new strategic plan for Iraq should probably not have ended up in the New York Times. After all, while it is a great newspaper, it lacks the best venue for the actual news coming from team Bush. The New York Times carries no comic strips - and most importantly, lacks the strip most appropriate for this particular news.... Dilbert!

For the millions who work in corporations where Dilbert's pointy-haired manager graces every cubicle wall, the Bush administration's corporate-clone plans for Iraq would surely fit right in.

Having worked in corporate America for many years, I can relate. The idiots in one department create a perfectly awful product and the marketing folks create glitzy brochures and plans to sell that perfectly awful product. The salespeople hit the streets trying to sell the perfectly awful product and the customers want nothing to do with it. Corporate leaders discover that their new product isn't selling and ask why. Sales tells them the product is garbage, and without major renovations, they can't sell it.

What does the CEO do?

Update [2006-10-24 13:20:49 by Tom Ball]: It's clear that this story must receive maximum exposure, so I've brought it back to the top for another go at the world.

It's been clear from the beginning that the warentless wiretaps aren't needed because the FISA court was already set up to allow instant access to any possible "known terrorist."  So we already knew that the wiretaps were more about grabbing power than stopping terrorists.

But here's something you might not have realized.  The wiretaps themselves are worthless.

It was the day after President Bush had stood in the center of Jackson Square in New Orleans to promise that the Federal Government was going to help all the victims of the hurricane, and that he was counting on "Armies of Compassion" to help do the work. The next morning, I got on the phone to call the Office of Faith Based Initiatives to let them know that I was reporting for duty, along with an organized group of churches, but we needed a little funding.

White House: Good morning this is the White House, how many I assist you?

Craig: Could you connect me to the Office of Faith Based Initiatives please.

White House: Hold on please.

Ring....ring....ring

OFBI: Office of Faith Based Initiatives, How can I help you?

Craig: I heard President Bush's speech last night and I've got a bunch of churches here in the Bay Area of California already lining up to help about 50 families that have evacuated to here.

OFBI: That's great.

Craig: Thank you. But here's the thing, we need some money.

From Mark Weisbrot:

One of the nice things about a blog is that you can provide a few details that don't fit in columns or op-eds that the mainstream press runs. Below is a column I wrote that ran during the past week in a number of US newspapers. It provides some background, missing from almost all press coverage, about why President Hugo Chavez might see George W. Bush as "the Devil:" namely, the Bush administration's involvement in the 2002 military coup that briefly overthrew Venezuela's democratic government, and the administration's continued intervention inside Venezuela, to this day.

10/13/06 Bush Crucified in New Book, "Tempting Faith"

"Forgive me Lord, for I know not what I do" Bush stated

Washington, DC (APE) - "Just get me a F---ing Faith-Based thing. Got it?!?" said chief presidential adviser Karl Rove to Bush aide Don Willet in 2001, according to the new book, Tempting Faith, by David Kuo. The book is scheduled to be released in print on Monday, but quotations from advanced copies have the White House screaming about Democratic political machinations, three weeks before the elections.

CLICK TO ENLARGE




"The Camp X-Ray Tango"




[DICK]

Cock.

[SCOOTER]

Fitz.

[DENNY]

Swish.

[GEORGIE]

Uh uh.

[DONNY]

Gitmo.

[TOMMY]

Dipshits!

[ANCHORMAN]

And now the six merry treasonists of the Guantanamo Bay Facility in their rendition of "The Camp X-Ray Tango"...

When it comes to Iraq, Republicans have no choice but to continue singing the lyrics taught to them by Bush.  They start off with a verse of "stay the course" and finish with a chorus of "we'll stand up when they stand down."  It's the silliest song this side of Weird Al, but so long as they can use "Cut at Run" as the flip side to this comedy single, they get to keep up their karaoke act without anyone grabbing away the mike.

That's not because Democrat plans for Iraq are anywhere near as ridiculous as the 'Publicans "stay in there until they get tired of killing us" plan, but because the Democratic plans too often fall into the "you're telling me too much" trap.  A "just over the horizon strike force" is an admirable idea, but in emotional resonance, it's no match for "cut and run."  Instead, Democrats should turn to a simple way of discussing their ideas, one that's surfaced several times, but which should be the standard response.

CLICK TO ENLARGE

Washington, DC (APE) - Billed as an event that might have descended into international slapstick, the White House today announced that President Bush's dinner meeting last night with Afghanistan President Hamid Karzai and Pakistani President Pervez Musharraf went off without a hitch. White House spokesperson Tony Snow stated that the president had become further impressed with his two allies, describing them as a couple of very "wise guys".

President Hugo Chavez made an important and constructive speech at the UN. The US corporate media is now busily casting his address as "Extremist in Nature". President Bush also made a UN speech in which he presented such a distorted view of the world's condition that one must truly question his sanity. Chavez received 5 minutes of sustained applause; Bush got brief but polite ovation.

In an apparent concession to shifting thermal air masses (and to Al Gore's "Inconvenient Christians"), George W. Bush, as  reported by the UK Independant today, will announce a U-turn on US Global Warming policy mid next week : a momentous event to shake up the American political landscape in unpredictable ways. Demonization of environmentalism, typically seen as the wedge of a crypto-socialist or communist program aimed at the destruction of private property rights, plays an important role in the ideology of many on the hard US and Christian right. For a Republican president to openly acknowledge a human role in changing the earth's climate - for the worse - can hardly be welcome news for political blocs deeply entrenched in their opposition to the prospect that human activity is impacting the global climate : especially for the IRD and the Interfaith Stewardship Alliance.