Bits and Pieces

The bully pulpit

The Senate was, apparently, prepared to pass a Iraq war funding bill that did not emulate the House and include withdrawal timelines but at the last minute did vote to let those time limits remain in its bill.

I can’t help but think that Mr. Bush’s threats of veto, and the bullying manner in which he delivered that threat, played a role in that change. When you say, “Nyah, nyah, nyah I dare you to…” people often respond by doing precisely whatever it is you are daring them to do.

Another McCain delusion

I’m booking an airline ticket to Baghdad so that I can stroll around the neighborhoods as John McCain says is now possible, and watch General Petraeus cruising in his unarmed humvee.

Um, perhaps not.

McCain now claims, when confronted on CNN, that he never said that you could stroll those neighborhoods without protection, merely that you could stroll them. Well, shit, I’m glad we got that cleared up so that I can sign up a contingent of armed troops to go with me.

Anyone got the phone number for Blackwater?

But he still maintained on CNN that Petraeus “does go out into Baghdad because there has been significant progress.” Nothing in that interview about unarmed humvees, though.

And he might want to talk to the people who live in the “Green Zone” who, as of today, are required to wear helmets and flak jackets whenever outdoors within the zone since the zone is receiving rocket and mortar fire daily. Two were killed by that fire on Tuesday, inside the Green Zone. Big improvement.

The guilty flee…

Monica Goodling is taking the fifth, and the reasons that her lawyer gives for her doing that are a real hoot. Basically they boil down to saying that it’s because the questioners are likely to be hostile.

A little gem in the story is that she is a graduate of Pat Robertson’s university.

I wish I could get more information on the circumstances under which it is actually legal to take the fifth. I know, for instance, that you cannot do so to protect other people or simply to avoid testifying. It also goes out the window if you are given immunity, which has been suggested.

Demagoguery again

“The Bush” is all excited about the pork in the Vietnam Iraq funding bill and is prepared to veto it, supposedly, for that reason. Strange. Six years of bills containing far larger amounts of Republican pork resulted in how many vetoes? How many outraged statements and threats of vetoes?

Swiftboater sunk

Sam Fox is out as Ambassador to Belgium. Dana Perino said that the administration felt he was well qualified but withdrew him because partisan politics had gotten in the way of his confirmation.

Well, I should think so.

Of course the administration claims it was partisan politics in the Senate that blocked his confirmation, but actually it was his own, since funding the “Swiftboat Ads” could reasonably be called partisan politics. He got, to mangle a metaphor, sunk by his own petard.

And “St. Louis Citizen of the Year” forsooth. That’s the best they could come up with as qualification for Ambassador to Belgium? I was West Allis Jaycees Man of the Month once, maybe I should send that resume to 1600 Pennsylvania Ave.