CASEY'S MOM HAS GOT IT GOIN' ON ...
the Left's in love with Casey's Mom ... (Bespoke Memetics)
Author Robert Bryce, writing in Salon compares DUBYA with LBJ, stating that Bush's inability to feel the pain of others - highlighted by Cindy Sheehan's peace vigil -- is a stark contrast to the anguish LBJ felt over casualties in Vietnam
... When it comes to the second Iraq war, Bush displays no doubt, no anguish. And therein lies the key: It is that quality that made Johnson, for all his faults and failings, a great president. It's the same quality that exposes Bush as the wrong president at the wrong time, fighting the wrong war in the wrong place.
But these similarities are as nothing when comparing the two men on a more intangible quality: the ability to feel the pain of others. And it has taken a woman like Cindy Sheehan to reveal this stark difference. Sheehan is the antiwar mother of a soldier, Casey Sheehan, who was killed in Iraq last year. She has set up a camp outside Bush's ranch in Crawford, Texas, in the hope that Bush will meet with her to discuss the war. Bush has refused. On Saturday he told reporters that while "it's important for me to be thoughtful and sensitive" to people like Sheehan, it is also "important for me to go on with my life." (Mark these words - they will be an important part of this hollow president's legacy).
... Johnson felt the ruin that came with the deaths of American soldiers in Vietnam. And he was devastated by it. In early 1968, according to Nick Kotz's magnificent book, "Judgment Days: Lyndon Baines Johnson, Martin Luther King Jr., and the Laws That Changed America," the war in Vietnam was going from bad to worse. "Since the Tet offensive had begun the previous month, five hundred American soldiers were dying every week. Often, late at night, the president would go down to the White House Situation Room to check on casualty reports. At times, when Johnson sat with visitors in the Oval Office, he would weep openly as he read from the previous day's casualty lists."
Johnson felt the pain of others. And his courage and determination (along with the sharp prodding that came from Martin Luther King Jr.) to help the less fortunate forced Congress to pass the Voting Rights Act and Civil Rights Act. In doing so, Johnson achieved one of the great political -- and human rights -- victories of the last century.
W. doesn't do human rights. He doesn't do casualty lists. Nor, apparently, does he cry. And ... that's what makes Sheehan such a powerful figure. Sheehan has rendered the complexities and carnage of the war into a simple question: Are you on the side of a grieving mother of a dead soldier? Or are you on the side of a president who continues to insist that this war is, in some way, noble?
... Like the born-again Bush, Johnson was a man of faith. But he was a man of many faiths, often attending two churches -- one Roman Catholic and one Protestant -- on a given Sunday. Raised a Baptist, he became an elder at the Disciples of Christ Church near his home in Johnson City. Johnson's intellectual curiosity led him to see that one religion, one worldview, didn't hold all the answers. As Johnson's biographer, Ronnie Dugger, put it, LBJ was "an ecumenical movement all by himself."... Bush's blind faith in his own path -- religious and military -- leaves no room for ecumenism, or doubt. And that lack of doubt, that lack of anguish over the lives being lost in Iraq, is emerging as his fatal flaw. Cindy Sheehan has placed that flaw into the spotlight for all to see.
Yes, Cindy Sheehan has seemed like a Jane Doe rising out of Middle America to point to the Emperor and proclaim that there's less to him than his public posturing would have you believe. Conservative John Podhoretz offered begrudging praise for the Cindy Sheehan media attention boomlet, writing in National Review:
"Cindy Sheehan's makeshift protest camp near the president's ranch in Crawford is a brilliant piece of political theater, and it's beginning to make people say things they almost surely know they shouldn't say about a grieving mother, but just can't quite help themselves. One blogger over at redstate.org used a term relating to prostitution to describe her, and Fred Barnes -- one of the nicest men on earth -- called her a "kook" on Fox. By allowing her to get their goat in this fashion, Mrs. Sheehan and her friends are getting exactly what they want, which is a cultural confrontation between a mother who lost a son in Iraq and some pundits (like me) who don't seem to have her moral authority."
CINDY SHEEHAN FOR PRESIDENT here (No shit!)
YEAH - BUT ...
Over @ , NRO's blog The Corner it appears that David Duke has made an ENDORSEMENT:
... Courageously she has gone to Texas near the ranch of President Bush and braved the elements and a hostile Jewish supremacist media to demand a meeting with him and a good explanation why her son and other’s sons and daughters must die and be disfigured in a war for Israel rather than for America. Recently, she had the courage to state the obvious that her son signed up in the military to protect America not to die for Israel.
We may wince and cringe and try to ignore the occasional anti-Israel dig from some of the elitist lefties who have attached themselves to Casey's Mom and who, along with Ms. Sheehan, blame Israel for the rise of the Jihadist extremists. Cindy Sheehan has had the "innocence by virtue of victimhood" thing going for her and her cause which struck a universal chord - for a while. While the right-wing nuts have blustered and sputtered for a week over the involvement of MoveOn.org and other lefty groups with her grassroots protest, I think it's time now for rational liberals, moderates and Anti-War-for-Empire activists to take off the blinders and recognize that Sheehan is not the best person to continue making these arguments.
She's tired and angry and lacking the good judgement to know when to STFU! Her anti-Israel rhetoric strikes many as anti-Semitic. Now she has received an "ATTA-GRRRL" from none other than the ultimate slimeball racist David Duke.
It's time to fold the tent and pack up the bandwagon, Cindy. Get the hell outta West Texas before more fruits and nuts arrive to distort your small message into something so big and ugly as to make the Texas Dauphin look good by comparison.
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CHRISTOPHER WALKEN FOR PRESIDENT 2008 - The Official Homepage
"Our great country is in a terrible downward spiral. We're outsourcing jobs, bankrupting social security, and losing lives at war. We need to focus on what's important-- paying attention to our children, our citizens, our future. We need to think about improving our failing educational system, making better use of our resources, and helping to promote a stable, safe, and tolerant global society. It's time to be smart about our politics. It's time to get America back on track."
(Click to enlarge images)
I think Christopher Walken's decision to run as an independent will keep his candidacy poor and ineffective. The site doesn't offer any answers on his positions on anything. They should have held off the announcement until they had something to say.
Wouldn't Walken be a helluva trip as Prez, though? Too cool. Maybe we could all learn to DANCE!
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PEOPLE FORM A GUMMINT FOR PROTECTION, RIGHT?
Privacy is a tricky concept. It's not specifically addressed in the Constitution. On the other hand, the primary purpose for the Constitution is to protect the citizens from the gummint.
Read it again if you didn't get it - the Constitution protects the individual, enumerating the rights of the individual that can't be violated by the gummint. The degree of personal autonomy enjoyed by American citizens is greater than accorded individuals in any other country.
Americans have always assumed a certain level of privacy - but does the Constitution imply a right to individual privacy? That's the question. (Do we still have a 4th Amendment?)
Does privacy necessarily follow logically from the concept of autonomy that most certainly is guaranteed by the Constitution? The Roe/Wade case has been written to build such a case. While legal minds may differ as to whether that decision meets various criteria for permitting a woman to choose abortion free of gummint interference - I think most will agree that privacy depends upon and follows logically from what Americans consider a birthright - personal autonomy - the right to be left alone by the gummint.
What do YOU think?
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GIVING ELECTIONS MEANING
Robyn Blumner, St. Pete Times Perspective Columnist writes:
" ... Imagine what our elections would look like if voting districts were created without partisan, racial or ethnic considerations. Imagine if district lines didn't snake a hundred miles or look like bug splats, to ensure victory for an incumbent. The term "competitive election" might have to be dusted off. It would be very healthy for this country to have it back."
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"I hope our wisdom will grow with our power, and teach us, that the less we use our power the greater it will be." [Thomas Jefferson]
<= FRANKENCHRIST
Jesus is man-made . . .
Wonkette observed:
Zell Miller Blows Smoke at Justice Sunday II
Justice Sunday II was apparently a rousing success, reaffirming the already held beliefs of thousands. Among the speakers was duel enthusiast Zell Miller, who offered this evangelical koan regarding the Supreme Court's finding against displaying the Ten Commandments: "How is it that the government thinks we need a no smoking sign by gas pumps to remind us of that danger, but not think we need a reminder of the danger of a sinful lifestyle."
Just a guess here, Zell, but that might be because adultery (or whatever) does not result in one bursting into flames. Not unless you're fucking really fast.
Good fortune. COMMENT!!
Please spread the meme. Don't smoke in bed ...
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