So we know President Bush the man. And what President Clinton said is absolutely true — to know the man is to like the man, because he’s comfortable in his own skin. He knows who he is. He doesn’t put on any pretenses. He takes his job seriously, but he doesn’t take himself too seriously. He is a good man.
--Barack Obama, speaking at the dedication of the George W. Bush Presidential Library, 04.25.13

The dedication of the George W. Bush Presidential Library this week gave the US media a chance to engage in one of its current favorite pastimes: rehabilitating the public images of thoroughly loathsome and reprehensible public figures. They’d hardly had time to catch their breath after canonizing Margaret Thatcher before it was time for their toughest challenge ever — rehabilitating George W. “The Decider” Bush. Yeah, that’s right, it’s Shark Jumping Time.

Y’know the worst thing about this wretched speech, though? He’s paraphrasing Bill Clinton, f’cripesake. Between this and the Thatcher veneration and Chelsea Clinton interviewing the GEICO Gecko, I’d say this pretty much indicates the death of the US media.

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For your further entertainment, here’s a couple of classic op-ed stinkburgers from the Washington Post from this past week. Feel their sliminess wash over you.

“George W. Bush, A Principled President”, Michael Gerson, Op-Ed Scribbler; author, Heroic Conservatism, The Washington Post, 04.25.13

“George W. Bush Is A Victim Of A Rush To Judgement”, Stephen Knott, Professor, U.S. Naval War College, The Washington Post, 04.25.13

Continue reading "Was George W. Bush Really That Bad?" »

When I saw the initial reports on the Newtown school shootings, I knew I could pretty much skip any “news” coming out after that as I’d seen the same cycle of public hair-pulling, slobbering media frenzy (including cartoonists), and wacky-assed “solutions” every time this had happened — going back to Columbine High, if not earlier.

I’d pretty much gotten to the point where I could guess almost exactly what was going to happen, and when — from the initial round of wailing, moaning and candlelight vigils. to the media putting on a circus, to El Presidente giving a variation of the usual smarmy speech about Our Murdered Children, to the cockamamie suggestions from mainstream Liberals and the NRA, to Pat Robertson saying something intensely stupid, to Liberals wasting time getting bent out of shape over whatever stupid shit Pat Robertson said, to some weasly legislative “solution” that does absolutely nothing to address the fact that American society was built on violence from the ground up… and finally to the media deciding they’ve milked it for all they can and going back to hyping other bullshit, like the next phony budget crisis.

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Continue reading "How America Deals With Gun Violence" »

Seen above here is the famous Ben Ali’s Chili Bowl on U Street, a landmark of historic black DC, as spotted on the morning of Inauguration Day. Sadly, the window display is presented entirely without irony.

A little later, though, at Malcolm X Park… what better way to celebrate Martin Luther King’s Birthday than with an anti-drone warfare protest? Who would King bomb?

Continue reading "“I Have A Drone”" »