“A Success That Hasn’t Occurred Yet”

It has been a common fact for years now that One Hundred Percent of the blather spoken so earnestly by current White House bobbleheads on cable “news” shows is absolute bullshit. However, this whopper—if we had a functioning media—should have stopped the presses. Try to believe you live in a country in which a White House spokesflack could spout this ducksplatter on national television and get away with it, unchallenged. White House honker Frances Fragos Townsend chats with CNN’s White House correspondent Ed Henry:

HENRY: You know, going back to September 2001, the president said, dead or alive, we’re going to get [Bin Laden]. Still don’t have him. I know you are saying there’s successes on the war on terror, and there have been. That’s a failure.

TOWNSEND: Well, I’m not sure -- it’s a success that hasn’t occurred yet. I don’t know that I view that as a failure.

(emphasis mine)

Hands down, that is the dumbest, most ridiculous statement I’ve ever heard, and considering some of wingnut sludge tossed at the wall this year, that’s really saying something.

Let’s not even get into what the Cheney Administration considers a “failure.” More U.S. soldiers are now dead than all of the people killed on 9/11. Not to mention the thousands with missing limbs, eyes, brains... and to say nothing of the hundreds of thousands of innocent Iraqi civilians killed in this immoral, illegal “war.”

Glenn and Jane expound further.

h/t TPM

2006: Is It Over Yet?

Since we’re in end-of-the-year wrap-up mode, and since every publication under the sun seems to be overflowing with year-end “best of,” “hottest trends,” etc. lists, let’s saunter on over into the gutter for a moment and take a salacious look back at the past year’s most grimace-inducing, indigestion-causing and downright embarrassing (as in: “damn I’m embarrassed to be a part of the human race at this moment”) events and trends that the past year has thrust upon us. Mel. Paris. Rosie. Screech. And more of...ehem, Britney than any of us ever wanted to see.

Click here, if you dare.

And, as a bonus, for those of you out there—you know who you are—who love a good catfight, here’s a roundup of some of the year’s best!

Return of the King

Ever wonder why that vast, and I do mean vast, sad pile of often-promised, endlessly delayed and usually never delivered software, game ideas and profoundly useless metal things with too many buttons—all usually promised to improve our lives or, at the very least, the entertainment value of such—didn’t occasion its own award show to celebrate the worst of the worst?

Wonder no more. Wired offers up its Vaporware ’06 Awards.

The Dank Horror

Quoth Wolcott, on one of the worst of the warbloggers:

Finally, Charles Johnson has taken a long, hard look into a glass darkly and registered the dank horror of his site's maggot-ridden soul.
Fear not; go read.

“Three...Two...One... You’re On The Air!”

Well, it figures I’d start this thing the day former President Gerald Ford finally dropped dead. If we can’t forgive him for pardoning Nixon, we can at least give him props for inspiring one of the funniest headlines in history. With his passing, we can officially say that moderate Republicanism died with him. Of course, please don’t anyone be shocked if we’re not treated to an absolutely insufferable, week-long hagiography a la St. Ronald. It’s not that Ford wasn’t a decent enough fellow, who ably steered the nation along without making waves. It’s just that he wasn’t a big enough war criminal, delusional maniac or simply enough of an outright bastard to make good coverage. Considering the incalculable damage the current GOP “leadership” has wrought on the country over just the past six years alone, I’d give anything to have Jerry running again on the GOP side in ’08, and I'm a liberal Democrat. He may not have had any answers, but at least he wouldn’t go actively to the mat to make things worse, and the resulting pablum of the presidential “race” would at least give the nation a chance to breathe, rub its eyes, come to its senses, and try to begin cleaning up the mess the fanatical extremists currently in power have made.

Of course, mentioning Ford’s death without mentioning another recent one would truly be criminal: James Brown, the Godfather of Soul. What else can possibly be said about this man that his spectacular music doesn’t already say for him? For all you young ’un’s who’ve never experienced him, get your asses over to iTunes and start downloading, pronto.

As for me, I’m electrolite, host of this particular just-barely-functional-at-this-point little bit of the Internet, and the main (though not the only) writer that will be appearing here. Expect the site to undergo visual changes fairly soon, and I’ll have the “About Me” section updated eventually. Probably quicker than that, but you know how it is.

Update: Walter Shapiro has a good piece in Salon on Ford. The title says it all.