“A new poll shows that 66% of Americans think President Bush is doing a poor job of handling the war in Iraq, and the remaining 34% think Adam and Eve rode dinosaurs to church.”

-Tina Fey, SNL, October 29, 2005

A fair and balanced look at how Fox News would have covered the past.

This would be great news, if only it were last year. Or if only we were voting for federal offices this year. At least it’s good news for Matt Santos, who I guess has a good shot against Vinick after all.

I regret to inform you that the American casualty count for the war has now reached 2,000 (as you can see at the bottom of the left-hand bar.)

That’s 1,863 since “Mission Accomplished”.

Senator Kay Bailey Hutchison (R-TX), talking about the Plame case, says she hopes

…that if there is going to be an indictment that says something happened, that it is an indictment on a crime and not some perjury technicality where they couldn’t indict on the crime and so they go to something just to show that their two years of investigation was not a waste of time and taxpayer dollars.

This is the same person who voted to impeach Clinton – for perjury – after years of investigation wasted time and taxpayer dollars, saying

…I do not hold the view of our Constitution that there must be an actual, indictable crime in order for an act of a public officer to be impeachable. It is clear to this Senator that there are, indeed, circumstances, short of a felony criminal offense, that would justify the removal of a public officer from office, including the President of the United States.

(And who pointed this out? Alec Baldwin in the Huffington Post.)

Good to know that Hutchison doesn’t think you have to be guilty of a felony to get impeached. We’ll remember that as the Plame case continues, and as we find more and more parties involved further up the ladder.

Quagmire in Iraq. Staggering deficit. Rove, Frist, DeLay under investigation. Good thing the White House is going after the real problems our country faces.

Jon Stewart is my hero.

O’Reilly: There’s a lot of wrongs we have to right in this world. We have to take on a lot of bad people. We have these people, people like –

Stewart: When are you going to start doing that?

 

Stewart: I will say this. We do add insult to inury.

O’Reilly: You do. [to audience] He’s an honest man.

Stewart: But you add injury.

I’d heard the audio version of this clip before, but it’s much funnier with the video as well.

It sure is fun to paint the Catholic Church as the Big Evil Inquisitorial Church and all, but then the Catholic bishops of Britain say that

“We should not expect to find in Scripture full scientific accuracy or complete historical precision…”

The Bible is true in passages relating to human salvation, they say, but continue: “We should not expect total accuracy from the Bible in other, secular matters.”

They go on to condemn fundamentalism for its “intransigent intolerance” and to warn of “significant dangers” involved in a fundamentalist approach…

Of the notorious anti-Jewish curse in Matthew 27:25… the bishops say they have had “tragic consequences” in encouraging hatred and persecution. “The attitudes and language of first-century quarrels between Jews and Jewish Christians should never again be emulated in relations between Jews and Christians.”

As examples of passages not to be taken literally, the bishops cite the early chapters of Genesis, comparing them with early creation legends from other cultures, especially from the ancient East. The bishops say it is clear that the primary purpose of these chapters was to provide religious teaching and that they could not be described as historical writing.

Similarly, they refute the apocalyptic prophecies of Revelation… “Such symbolic language must be respected for what it is, and is not to be interpreted literally. We should not expect to discover in this book details about the end of the world, about how many will be saved and about when the end will come.”

The Bible is not literal? Genesis and Revelation are allegories? You shouldn’t use the Bible to justify hate and racism? The Catholics are starting to sound downright progressive. Which is great, given how crackpot dangerous some of the evangelical Protestants are getting.

Bush’s administration ends up in trouble, followed by a terror alert warning and/or an arrest. Happens over and over. Coincidence? Keith Olbermann wonders in “The Nexus of Politics and Terror”.

Ordinarily I would never link to an 11-page PDF of charts and graphs. But trust me, this one’s worth it. The Heritage Foundation – no one’s idea of a left-wing group – has published this chilling report about federal spending.

Watch as the budget starts off decent in 2000 and quickly goes to hell! Observe as the number of pork-barrel projects more than triple at the hands of a GOP-run Washington! Marvel that our fearless leader is our first former CEO, yet has the fiscal responsibility of a Hilton sister!

(link via Adam, who’d have posted it himself if his browser weren’t unhappy)

I have to find a wormhole to escape from this parallel universe where I agree with many conservatives. But in bizarro world, which I seemed to have accidentally slipped into, Ann Coulter appears to be my ally. Granted we only support the same cause for vastly different reasons, but this is getting a little erie.

George Will and I usually don’t see eye to eye, but his latest Newsweek column has me nodding my head all the way along.

Agriculture subsidies increased 40 percent while farm income was doubling. Conservatives concerned about promiscuous uses of government were appalled when congressional Republicans waded into the Terri Schiavo tragedy. Then came the conjunction of the transportation bill and Katrina. The transportation bill’s cost, honestly calculated, exceeded the threshold that the president had said would trigger his first veto. (He is the first president in 176 years to serve a full term without vetoing anything. His father cast 44 vetoes. Ronald Reagan’s eight-year total was 78.) In 1987 Reagan vetoed a transportation bill because it contained 152 earmarks—pork—costing $1.4 billion. The bill President Bush signed contained 6,371, costing $24 billion. The total cost of the bill—$286 billion—is more, in inflation-adjusted dollars, than the combined costs of the Marshall Plan and the interstate highway system.

Now my sympathy for these folks only goes so far, however. I haven’t bothered to check, but I suspect I know who they endorsed in last year’s election and it wasn’t the guy I voted for. They’re now reaping what they sowed. Unfortunately, the rest of us have to suffer too.

Theodore Heller was a true American, discharged from the Army during WWII for his injuries – then demanding to be let back into the National Guard since “no one tells him when to serve his country.”

There’s an even better reason to remember Mr. Heller fondly, and see if you can spot it.

(Link via Metafilter)

At last, Governor Haircut and I agree on something:

…Governor Mitt Romney yesterday told a largely Republican audience that [extremists] ”want to bring down our government” and ”want to put in place a huge theocracy…

Among the various reports I’ve read… there are some who wish to bring down the [democratic government] and put in a more fundamentalist, religious leadership.”

Of course, I’m not sure that he’s talking about the same thing I am.

(Thanks to Shani for the pointer.)

Think Harriet Miers and Michael Brown are alone? Far from it. The New Republic posts this great article on the Bush administration’s 15 least-qualified but well-connected officials.

In contrast to the four most recent VA heads–who had previously held leadership positions with Disabled American Veterans, the Department of Defense, a state-level VA department, and VA itself–Jim Nicholson brings a refreshing lack of experience to veterans’ advocacy. Although he is one of the country’s 25 million military veterans, Nicholson–who, after Vietnam, went into real-estate law and development in Colorado–is best known as a campaign veteran. He chaired the Republican National Committee from 1997 to 2000, raising close to $380 million for the 2000 cycle.

It’s appalling. Thankfully, it’s written in a humorous style to keep you from punching your monitor.

(The article requires registration, but you can grab an ID at BugMeNot.)

An end to the war, universal health care, corporate reform… I think this candidate would be better than the President we’ve got.

Check out this clip of what I take to be an Australian interviewing Americans about who the U.S. should invade next.

I weep.

Crooks and Liars gives us this great QUicktime of Dick “Scarface” Cheney.

Audio NSFW.

Andrew Sullivan, Liberal

As to the term “prominent liberal,” well, I think it tells you more about what has happened to conservatism than what has happened to me. I am now and long have been for small government, low taxes, a balanced budget, welfare reform, the Afghanistan and Iraq wars, a flat tax, states’ rights, and an increase in defense spending. I believe abortion and affirmative action are immoral and would have voted in dissent on Roe vs Wade. I’m a believing Christian. Right now, that makes you a “prominent liberal.” Think for a minute what that says about what conservative orthodoxy has now become. You are a “prominent liberal” even if you believe all these things, but also believe that there should be a clear separation between church and state, that abuse and torture of people in captivity is wrong, that soldiers deserve civilian leadership that allows them to fight and win wars, that minorities deserve civil rights, and that presidents are accountable for what happens on their watch in their own government and military.