Jumping the Sharknado with Jenghazi Rubin

Sure, Jengahzi. What the world needs now is Governor Goodhair.

Jan. 12, 2006

The governor of Texas is despicable. Of all the crass pandering, of all the gross political kowtowing to ignorance, we haven't seen anything this rank from Gov. Goodhair since … gee, last fall.

Then he was trying to draw attention away from his spectacular failure on public schools by convincing Texans that gay marriage was a horrible threat to us all. Now he's trying to disguise the fact that the schools are in free-fall by proposing that we teach creationism in biology classes.

- Molly Ivins

May Fred Hiatt be infested by the fleas of a thousand camels for hiring this whackjob. Jenghazi's approach to any politician is simple: Is this person more or less likely to get America to bomb the Likud's enemies? By October of 2011, she'd become convinced that Mitt Romney was the man, so she relentlessly attacked Rick Perry. The GOP bench is looking thin for 2016, so now she's warming up to him.

I have a theory that Brian Kilmeade's purpose on "FAUX and Fiends" is to make Steve Doocy seem slightly less moronic by comparison. I suppose Rubin serves the same function at the WaPo for Fred Hiatt and Jackson Diehl.

P.S. Relief from the hackitude:

Cross-posted at Whiskey Fire. Mouse over pics for captions, and click them for larger versions.
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November 23 Birds and N.S.F.H. Day

P.S. I declare November 23 of every year to be N.S.F.H. Day (National Slap Fred Hiatt Day). Here are just the latest reasons why: Exhibit 1, Exhibit 2, Exhibit 3, Exhibit 4, and of course, everything the wanker has ever scribbled himself. If you see this man on the street, at a store, or in a restaurant, rear back and slap him as hard as you can.

Cross-posted at Whiskey Fire. Mouse over pics for captions, and click them for larger versions.
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Mr. Andrea Mitchell Speaks, You Listen

Why don't you warm up the crowd with a few jokes, Sir Alan?

In his new book "The Map and the Territory," to be released on Tuesday, Mr. Greenspan, 87, goes on a hunt for what has gone wrong in American politics and in the U.S. economy. He doesn't blame the current administration for today's partisan divide. The culprit? "It's the benefits," he says, pointing to the disagreements between Republicans and Democrats over how to deal with the growth of entitlements.

Everything will be fine, once we put granny on a catfood diet.

He said he is baffled by all the blame that has been piled on him. Since the recession, critics have said the increased money supply and low interest rates during his tenure at the Fed from 1987 to 2006 led to bubble investments. Mr. Greenspan first heard that theory, he says, in 2007, when John Taylor, a professor of economics at Stanford University who has advised Republicans, made the connection between easy money and the housing bubble.

Here's a tip for you, WSJ: There are other critics who don't buy the magic of the markets, greed is good claptrap that you do.

"I've always considered myself more of a mathematician than a psychologist," says Mr. Greenspan. But after the Fed's model failed to predict the financial crisis, he realized that there is more to forecasting than numbers. "It all fell apart, in the sense that not a single major forecaster of note or institution caught it," he says. "The Federal Reserve has got the most elaborate econometric model, which incorporates all the newfangled models of how the world works—and it missed it completely."

Oh, sure.

Mr. Greenspan set out to find his blind spot step by step. ... Studying the minutiae of the events leading to the financial crisis brought to mind some lessons from his famous friendship, from the 1950s on, with the late Objectivist philosopher Ayn Rand. He says that Rand didn't influence him politically—he was always a libertarian—but she did point out tensions in his philosophy about life. "She caught me in contradictions, which shook me, and I said, 'My God, she is right,' " he says.

That first blind step was a doozy. A shame that you didn't retrace far enough.

With his new book, Mr. Greenspan hopes to provide politicians and the public with a road map to avoid making the same mistakes again. His suggestions include reducing entitlements, embracing "creative destruction" by letting facilities with cutting-edge technology displace those with low productivity, and fixing the political system by encouraging bipartisanship. He hasn't yet sent a copy to Janet Yellen, the nominee to be the next Fed chief. Though they are good friends, he says, "she and I don't agree on lots of things and never have, but I enjoy talking to her because she has arguments and logic behind it."

While you have a crazy lady's 'philosophy' and a burning desire to make granny pay for the mess. And of course, a Nobel Prize that ought to be rescinded.

P.S. The crooks were allowed to abscond with the loot. This does not mean there were no crooks.

Cross-posted at Whiskey Fire. Mouse over pics for captions, and click them for larger versions.
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Your WaPo Headline of the Day

Headlines coming to the WaPo soon:

"No clear answers why Social Security hasn't been cut despite my demands" by Fred Hiatt

"No clear answers why Iran and Syria haven't been bombed back to the Stone Age despite our wildest dreams" by Hiatt, Diehl, Lane, Krauthammer, Gerson, Thiessen, and Rubin

P.S. Seen at Atrios' place:

From McClatchy: Obama’s crackdown views leaks as aiding enemies of U.S.

Government documents reviewed by McClatchy illustrate how some agencies are using that latitude to pursue unauthorized disclosures of any information, not just classified material. They also show how millions of federal employees and contractors must watch for “high-risk persons or behaviors” among co-workers and could face penalties, including criminal charges, for failing to report them. Leaks to the media are equated with espionage.

Cross-posted at Whiskey Fire. Mouse over pics for captions, and click them for larger versions.
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Send in the Clowns - Obama's Wanker Summit

Just to add to Thers' thought about this ("Much more booze please"), please note the distinguished punditogree of the group:

Thomas Friedman, the New York Times columnist and THE ONE TRUE WANKER OF THE DECADE

Fred Hiatt, the editorial page editor of the Washington Post and WANKER OF THE DECADE - 1st Runner Up

Joe Klein, the Time Magazine columnist and WANKER OF THE DECADE - Runner Up #3

Poor Andy Sullivan...he used to wank with the big boys, now he's reduced to beaching about Glenn Greenwald.

P.S. Re: the comments: I'll fish what I can out of the spam filter, when I see them. Or you can post them at my place, which uses (free) blooger. Where is your Typepad God now, Therses?!?!

Cross-posted at Whiskey Fire. Mouse over pics for captions, and click them for larger versions.
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Ongoing Poetry Slam at Jenghazi Rubin's Place

Happening daily over here.




P.S. Hagel / Bagel is hard to resist.

For further commentary, here's Charles Pierce. Furthermore, Media Matters:


Also: A little more Soft Light.




UPDATE: The Post Moderator has been busy this morning on Jenghazi's spirited tribute to Senator Lindsey Graham.


She/he/it/postmoderator got this one, too.


Cross-posted at Whiskey Fire. Mouse over pics for captions, and click them for larger versions.
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Inauguration Trolling, Jenghazi Style

UPDATE: Speaking of war criminals, who does Jenghazi quote criticizing the Administration for national security management failure on 9-11? That's 9-11-2012, silly people, not that other one (whatever it was):

Secretary of State Hillary Clinton’s testimony yesterday vividly demonstrated that competence is as critical as ideology when it comes to the highest ranks of national security officials.

Former deputy national security adviser Elliott Abrams writes, "Having worked as an assistant secretary of state and a deputy national-security adviser, I can report that even in those posts one is entirely swamped by cable traffic and needs a system to cope with it — to be sure that the really important ones get through. From all the available evidence, Hillary Clinton failed to establish such a system for herself, and that management failure is a far more important fact about her tenure than being the third woman to hold the post or having flown more miles than Condoleezza Rice."

P.S. I recommend Charles Pierce's take on all this.

Cross-posted at Whiskey Fire. Mouse over pics for captions, and click them for larger versions.
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The Tug of Hiatt

Eschaton's WANKER OF THE DECADE - 1st Runner Up shows how it's done. Again.

But his ambivalence about making a commitment to Afghanistan was evident in the long and tortured decision-making process that led to the surge and the deadline for withdrawal that accompanied his escalation. And the Afghan decision was followed by a retreat from Iraq and near-total passivity as fighting engulfed Syria, with 60,000 people killed so far.

Darn President Obama for not getting us into (even) more wars, and expanding (further) the ones we're already graced with!

Those who argue for a more vigorous international role are sometimes caricatured as war-loving and unilateralist when, in fact, an activist stance has been favored by Democrats from Harry Truman to Madeleine Albright and Republicans from Richard Nixon to Colin Powell. It would be no fairer to label them all bellicose neocons than to call Obama a pure isolationist.

Some people say neocons are chickenhawks and war profiteers, but it's all so quiet when the goldfish die.

Thanks in large part to its openness to immigrants, the United States is far less demographically challenged than many countries in Europe and East Asia, where aging populations will impede innovation and initiative. What’s in doubt in the United States is the political will to solve its fiscal problem, not whether the problem is manageable. Given the strength of the U.S. economy, posting 20,000 or 30,000 troops in Afghanistan even indefinitely would pose no challenge.

On the other hand, on most days ending in a "y", Fred Hiatt or one of his staff wankers will write about our searing need to cut Social Security right now.

When America last turned its back on Afghanistan, two decades ago, civil war followed, with al-Qaeda close behind. Clinton responded with cruise missile attacks, the 1990s’ equivalent of drone strikes. America learned on 9/11 how inadequate that response had been.

Awesome. Not a single mention of Bush and Cheney, the people who ignored warnings about 9/11, invaded Afghanistan on October 7 of that same year, and then forgot the whole thing just two months later. In order to pursue a war they'd been hoping for since their inauguration...a war that Fred Hiatt helped them sell.

Cross-posted at Whiskey Fire. Mouse over pics for captions, and click them for larger versions.
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A Wretched Hive Of Scum And Villainy

Obi-Wan: Mos Eisley spaceport - You will never find a more wretched hive of scum and villainy.



Speaking of wretched hives...



Jennifer Rubin at the War Criminal Post:

This is a sobering reminder for those who think it’s too expensive to wage a war against jihadists. I spoke to Gary Schmitt of the American Enterprise Institute, who has been critical of proposed cuts in defense and of President Obama’s Afghanistan withdrawal plan. “There has been a lot of talk over the past few months on how we’ve got al-Qaeda on the run and, compared with what it once was, it’s become a rump organization. But as the attack in Oslo reminds us, there are plenty of al-Qaeda allies still operating. No doubt cutting the head off a snake is important; the problem is, we’re dealing with global nest of snakes.”

The Washington Post no longer employs an ombudsman (whether the last quit in despair or was fired as a useless expenditure, I do not know). But the WaPoop can't just go full shrieking harpy, can it?

Update: Ms. Rubin has issued her nonpology.


I won't quote any of it, Thers has a fine shorter. If the WaPo had a shred of dignity left, it would fire this woman immediately (of course, if it did she wouldn't have been hired in the first place).

Here's a picture of the jihadist (h/t M.B.):



Last Update: That armpatch.


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More B.S. from the Washington Post

Fred Hiatt and company published an editorial in the WaPo the other day regarding Bibi Netanyahu and his visit. It is simple crap, I'm not even going to link to it or waste space quoting it.

Hasbara

That is all Fred Hiatt and company have to add to the discussion: Pro-Likud party propaganda.

Perhaps some of you remember when the Washington Post was a respected newspaper, I do.

Clearly this is no longer the case.

Here's Robert Parry

May 21, 2011

Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu’s Oval Office rebuke of U.S. President Barack Obama – and the Republicans’ immediate attempt to exploit the dispute to peel away Jewish voters – suggest that American politics may be in for a replay of Campaign 1980.
...
Israel “cannot go back to the 1967 lines,” Netanyahu lectured Obama on Friday, “because these lines are indefensible. They don’t take into account certain changes that have taken place on the ground, demographic changes that have taken place over the last 44 years.”

In other words, now that Likud has helped move hundreds of thousands of Israeli settlers onto what was Palestinian territory, the internationally recognized boundaries of Israel are no longer relevant.

The saddest part of all of this? The suggestion that the Obama-Clinton position, (i.e. let Israel do whatever they want to the Palestinians, while providing billions in aid, cover at the U.N., and at most an occasional finger wag) is not craven enough already.

UPDATE: Will the Washington Post endorse John Bolton / Shrieking Harpy 2012?

Media Matters for America - Following Netanyahu Speech, Fox Hosts Potential 2012 GOP Presidential Candidate Bolton To Bash Obama



P.S. Fox's Bolton Falsely Claims Every President "Since Johnson" Has Rejected "Idea That The '67 Lines Have Any Political Signifigance"
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The War Criminal Post

Shorter: G. W. Bush gave speeches about Freedom™! But Obama has ignored the ordinary people of the arab world whom I and my fellow chickenhawks, liars, torture enthusiasts, and genocide fans pretend to care about whenever it suits our purpose.


I see Fred Hiatt and Jackson Diehl have neglected to mention much of Elliott Abrams' history. I can't imagine why.

One Abrams specialty was massacre denial. During a Nightline appearance in 1985, he was asked about reports that the US-funded Salvadoran military had slaughtered civilians at two sites the previous summer. Abrams maintained that no such events had occurred. And had the US Embassy and the State Department conducted an investigation? "My memory," he said, "is that we did, but I don't want to swear to it, because I'd have to go back and look at the cables."

But there had been no State Department inquiry; Abrams, in his lawyerly fashion, was being disingenuous. Three years earlier, when two American journalists reported that an elite, US-trained military unit had massacred hundreds of villagers in El Mozote, Abrams told Congress that the story was commie propaganda, as he fought for more US aid to El Salvador's military. The massacre, as has since been confirmed, was real. And in 1993 after a UN truth commission, which examined 22,000 atrocities that occurred during the twelve-year civil war in El Salvador, attributed 85 percent of the abuses to the Reagan-assisted right-wing military and its death-squad allies, Abrams declared, "The Administration's record on El Salvador is one of fabulous achievement." Tell that to the survivors of El Mozote.

But it wasn't his lies about mass murder that got Abrams into trouble. After a contra resupply plane was shot down in 1986, Abrams, one of the coordinators of Reagan's pro-contra policy (along with the NSC's Oliver North and the CIA's Alan Fiers), appeared several times before Congressional committees and withheld information on the Administration's connection to the secret and private contra-support network. He also hid from Congress the fact that he had flown to London (using the name "Mr. Kenilworth") to solicit a $10 million contribution for the contras from the Sultan of Brunei. At a subsequent closed-door hearing, Democratic Senator Thomas Eagleton blasted Abrams for having misled legislators, noting that Abrams's misrepresentations could lead to "slammer time." Abrams disagreed, saying, "You've heard my testimony." Eagleton cut in: "I've heard it, and I want to puke." On another occasion, Republican Senator Dave Durenberger complained, "I wouldn't trust Elliott any further than I could throw Ollie North."

Even after Abrams copped a plea with Independent Counsel Lawrence Walsh, he refused to concede that he'd done anything untoward. Abrams's Foggy Bottom services were not retained by the First Bush, but he did include Abrams in his lame-duck pardons of several Iran/contra wrongdoers.

UPDATE: The question I'd like to ask at 11 A.M. on Tuesday is:

"Are there any Reagan or Bush era war crimes enablers who HAVEN'T yet gotten an Op-Ed in the WaPo?"

But I'm sure this would not get past the mods. How about the slightly more subtle:

"Do you think we'll see the release of any CIA prisoners that were renditioned to Egypt?"
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