The Cheney Visitor Logs Exposed

WASHINGTON - A federal judge has ordered the Bush administration to release information about who visited Vice President Dick Cheney's office and personal residence, an order that could spark a late election season debate over lobbyists' White House access.

The Washington Post asked for two years of White House visitor logs in June but the Secret Service refused to process the request. Government attorneys called it "a fishing expedition into the most sensitive details of the vice presidency."

"Sensitive details," you wonder? What's so sensitive about knowing who visits Darth Cheney? Well prepare yourself, dear reader, for shocking revelations, exclusive to RadicalHead.com, about the daily routines of the Vice President.

Some names appear daily on the VP's visitor list. We were able to track down one such person, Doris Whittaker, at a D.C. area petshop. When asked why she merits a daily audience with Dick Cheney, Ms. Whittaker was cagey at first, but loosened up over a bottle of cabernet.

Turns out that every weekday, at 7am sharp, Doris delivers a basket full of puppies to the VP. For a long time, Whittaker was too intimidated to ask why Cheney required so many puppies. When she began to ask questions, Doris' only reply was in the form of a menacing hiss from the Vice President, just before slamming a door in her face.

"Once I threatened to stop delivering puppies until I knew who or what they were for," Whittaker told us, "the Vice President's security detail simply started to hand me envelopes full of cash when I left. I stopped asking questions again for a while."

But curiousity got the better of her, and Ms. Whittaker again began to ask questions. A staffer she could not identify finally took her aside one day and explained that the Vice President has some "unusual" stress-relief techniques. "Apparently, he keeps a cage next to his desk where the daily supply of puppies go. Whenever he needs to blow off steam, he picks one up, gives the puppy a name, usually the first name of a political opponent or unfriendly journalist, then snaps its neck while shouting an obscenity at it. I guess the carcass is incinerated somewhere in his bunker or something."

When asked why she never told anyone about this before, Ms. Whittaker insisted that she considers herself a patriotic American, and didn't want to "embolden the terrorists or anything."

"I really hate the idea of all those poor puppies being killed, but if that's what the Vice President needs to do so that he can stay sharp and keep us safe, then I guess my personal comfort with that is a sacrifice I'm willing to make," Ms. Whittaker explained.

[ to be continued ... come back for part II in the series, in which we learn of Cheney's dark, secret need for a quart of caucasian virgin blood every day -- 'you know...for his ticker' -- and the long list of young, abstinence-vowing college Republican coeds who line up to provide it.]

Metro Transit Embraces Religious Intolerance

The twin cities' Metro Transit is now making special allowances for a bus driver who finds the concept of homosexuality so odious that she claims driving a bus with a gay-friendly advertisement on it violates her freedom of religion.

I repeat: this bus driver refuses to drive any bus that has an ad on it promoting a local gay periodical, because it's 'against her religion'. What religion is it that mandates 'thou shalt drive no bus bearing gay-oriented advertising'? Does this mean that catholic bus drivers can start checking passengers' pockets and handbags for evidence of birth control devices and deny passage to fornicators? Can a Muslim bus driver pull the bus over 5 times a day for prayer breaks? Perhaps Scientologists bus drivers should be permitted to...um...sell Amway products to bus riders (or whatever those freaky cultists do)?

This God-hating bus driver gives
two thumbs up to the Gay Agenda.

The article makes a comparison to Muslim cab drivers who refuse passengers carrying alcohol, but that's misleading. Cab drivers are like freelancers, and they can deny any passenger for any reason. Just ask any black guy. If a cab driver passes a fare because of personal beliefs, it's money out of his pocket; he can be an asshole, but there's an immediate and tangible consequence. Bus drivers don't have that option. It's not ok for a bus driver to pass right by a stop if the only people waiting there are black men. The bus is a public service, and as such its drivers are expected to serve the public.

This loony-tunes bus driver clearly has a problem with living in a pluralistic culture. No allowances should be made for people who expect the public sphere to conform to their religious dogmas. The only proper reponse to this lady telling her boss that she doesn't want to drive a bus with a gay ad on it for religious reasons is: "I'm sorry you feel that way, Doris. Which do you prefer: acting like a spoiled little child and demanding to live in a little 19th century bubble, or having a job?"

I've seen the Christian Bible, and it seems that their God has no problem with human slavery, but guess what? The real world does! Tolerance is a two-way street, folks. We should all strive to tolerate religious people and their traditions and practices, but not without a reciprocal tolerance for public displays of reason, pluralism, and sanity.

The Orgy of Incompetence that is D.C.

If you're ever called upon to defend the position that the Bush Administration celebrates ignorance and incompetence, and, in fact, promotes it, and you've momentarily forgotten all about Hurricane Katrina and its aftermath, like most Americans seem to have, then all you need to do is bookmark this link and pass it around.

Michele Bachmann, Fool for Christ

Here in Minnesota, we're delighted to see polls showing that the 6th Congressional district race is leaning Democratic. Not because we're such big fans of the DFL, mind you, but because the Republican candidate Michele Bachmann is a rabid, gay-bashing, 'hot for Jesus', theocratic loony-tunes whack job who once hid in some bushes to spy on a gay-rights rally. And you know I didn't make that shit up, because if I had, it would've involved her trying to camouflage herself by smearing her own feces all over herself. Which is really not too far off from how batshit this lady is.

Over the weekend, Christ's own candidate gave some stump-speech-sermons at a church in the Twin Cities metro area. The church's pastor told everybody he'd be voting for Bachmann, and at least one concerned citizen took it upon himself to remind the IRS that we have this thing called the Constitution which prohibits this sort of thing. This isn't really the most interesting part, even though it's the focus of the story in the local paper. Church leaders have been endorsing political candidates like crazy in recent years, and only the more liberal ones have gotten into hot water with the IRS.

The part I got a kick out of was this:

In her talks, Bachmann said that she and her husband fasted and prayed for three days about whether to run and "that on the afternoon of day two, [God] made that calling sure."Who in their right mind would spend two years to run for a job that lasts two years?" she said. "You'd have to be absolutely a fool to do that. You are now looking at a fool for Christ."

Just how clear could God's message have been if she and her husband went on fasting for another day after He gave her the thumbs' up? Did Michele think maybe she heard Him wrong, or that perhaps, if given another day to think about it, the big guy upstairs might change his mind? What does that say about her faith? Going around doubting God's word like that? I propose a letter-writing campaign to all church leaders in the 6th District, alerting clergy to this lack of faith on Michele Bachmann's part, because clearly she is the wrong person to bring God's message to the floor of the US House of Representatives.

The other part I enjoyed was:

Jonathan Collegio, a spokesman for the National Republican Congressional Committee, said he does not think the controversy will hurt Bachmann. "I don't think a liberal strategy of attacking a candidate for her faith or siccing the IRS on a church is going to work in the Sixth District," he said.

What 'strategy'? Who attacked Bachmann for her faith, Collegio? The IRS was alerted because it's illegal for a tax-exempt church to go around advocating political parties and candidates! I can just hear the sneer behind the word 'liberal' too, but that sort of bullshit ad hominem attack doesn't pack the whallop it used to. I don't know how much money Collegio makes as a spokesman for the RNC, but I'll bet it's a respectable amount. Seems like a pretty sweet gig to me -- getting paid handsomely to spew the most vapid bullshit day in and day out. It might get boring quickly, but it sure would be easy, wouldn't it? They've only got three simple communicative modes: denial, smear, and self-righteous indignation. That's it. And it's usually obvious which one to use. Come to think of it, I'm sure the only reason the Republicans haven't replaced RNC spokesmen with souped-up, voice-activated speak'n'spells is because they rake in so much cash from criminals, stooges, and rich bastards happy to pay for more tax cuts that they have no strong motivation to cut costs.

I'll prove to you how easy it is to do the job of an RNC spokesman: post a comment containing some kind of a charge against a Republican candidate, real or imagined, and I'll respond just as they would without even pausing to think (or listening to the actual substance of the allegation), just like the pros.

Misc. Retorts

In case you needed an updated definition for the word 'irony', click here. The Justice Dept declares, "Do as we say, not that of which we tacitly approve."

Dick Cheney is fond of going around telling supportive crowds that "the hopes of the civilized world ride with us". He tells supportive crowds because audiences made up of people who live in the reality-based community would no doubt laugh out loud at the notion that Dick Cheney comprehends the word 'civilized'.

Don't miss this one about Cheney's biggest fan, a six-year-old who is no doubt just as mature and intellectual as any other Cheney supporter, and who, I predict, will grow up to be the next Ann Coulter. The story is just about as creepy as trailers for that new documentary Jesus Camp.

I dare you to try to wring some kind of sense out of this piece by Christopher Hitchens. How long must he be in a persistent vegetative state before somebody pulls the plug? It's embarrassing. He sounds more and more like the President. About the Lancet's recent publication of a report that estimates over 650,000 dead Iraqis since the invasion, Hitchens rebuts, "but how many of those were bad guys, or bystanders in the killing of bad guys?!" He doesn't seem to challenge the number so much as the notion that it's wrong to kill all the people who became insurgents after we invaded their country in order to spread democracy all over the place, and, failing that, their entrails.

Hitchen's charges of "moral idiocy" sound like just a fancier way of saying the President's new pet declaration, "unacceptable!" N.Korean nuclear test? "Unacceptable!" Altering the 'strategy' in Iraq? "Unacceptable!" Illegal immigration, genocide in Sudan, rising health care costs... all "Unacceptable!" Please note, dear reader, that the President conspicuously does not declare "Unacceptable!" the notion that Democrats will retake one or both houses of Congress after the November election. Regarding that, Dubya states quite simply and declaritively, "We'll have a Republican speaker and a Republican leader of the Senate." Period. Next question. Do you suppose that's because he's completely detached from reality, or because he knows something, or someone, that we don't? It couldn't have anything to do with this, could it?

Finally, there's been some hubbub about a new book written by a former Faith-Based Initiative Bushbot, in which he claims Rove and staffers go around the White House calling the right-wing evangelicals 'nuts' and the like. Rove, shockingly, denied it. Which is a shame, because it's just about the first thing I've ever heard about these fucking cretins that actually seems sane.

"He reminds me of one of those guys at the gym who plays about 40 chessboards at once."

-- Tony Snow, on his boss, George W. Bush.

I'm assuming the reason that's an apt description is because a) Dubya is totally overwhelmed by the job, just as anyone trying to play 40 simultaneous chess games would be, and b) Dubya is perpetually, profoundly confused, just as you would be on discovering dozens of chess boards set up at the gym.

Maybe the 'gym' he was talking about was one of these. And maybe by "40 chessboards at once", what he actually meant was "400 games of Tetris per day". That would make a lot more sense.

Now that he's dead, Ken Lay is no longer guilty of any Enron-related crimes. His convictions have been wiped from the record. Let's hope St. Peter gets RSS feeds at the Pearly Gates, so Kenny Boy can ascend to his rightful place in Heaven. "Wait a minute, there, bub. Didn't you defraud thousands of people and destroy their pensions? Eh? Let's see here.L, L, L, Lay, Ken... sorry-o! Silly me! Must've been thinking of somebody else. Says here you're clean. Welcome to the Eternal Paradise, Mr. Lay!"

Six Questions for Frank Anderson on the Middle East

[ reprinted from Harpers.org ]

Posted on Thursday, October 12, 2006. Frank Anderson worked for the CIA from 1968 until 1995. According to his unclassified biography, he served three tours of duty in the Middle East as an agency station chief, headed the Afghan Task Force (1987-1989), and was chief of the Near East Division. He now runs a consulting practice that focuses on the Middle East. We recently met for breakfast and talked about Iran, Iraq, and how the Bush Administration devises foreign policy. By Ken Silverstein.

Sources

1. What will Iraq look like five years from now?
There is no prospect under which we will depart from Iraq in better circumstances than we entered. It's probable that every month we stay there our position will be worse than it would have been if we had left the month before. The conflict that is underway in Iraq will continue until a new order is established and there's an equilibrium based on the new reality. In five years, it's not unlikely that U.S. Special Operations forces will be working with Sunnis in western Iraq against a Shiite-dominated pro-Iranian government that controls much of the country. And that's the optimistic scenario, because it assumes that we have the resources and the friends in the area to make those deals with western Iraqi tribes that find it in their interest to work with us.

2. What's the diplomatic fallout from Iraq and the Bush Administration's general Middle East policies?
Our enemies are comforted and our friends are looking elsewhere. The policymaking group that decided to invade Iraq regarded the strategic relationship between the United States and the Saudis as a problem, not an asset. And now the Saudis are quietly shifting their diplomacy and their economic outreach to the Far East—China, Malaysia, Indonesia, Japan. Saudi Arabia is not going to become our enemy, but they are coming to believe that they can live in a world in which the United States is less relevant.

3. And what's the fallout on the home front?
The war in Iraq is going to haunt us for a long time. When we manage to extract ourselves from Iraq, all the problems that we faced in March 2003 are still going to be there, only worse: the Arab–Israeli conflict, the divide between the rich and the poor, the budget. The Army is stretched to the breaking point, our legitimacy has been expended, and our alliances have been weakened.

4. How did we get dragged into this mess?
It was a group of smart people with a coherent policy. They'd been beaten down during the Reagan and Bush I Administrations. Every great idea they thought they had was stymied by the policy review process. During the Clinton years they were active in the foreign-affairs chattering community, writing monographs and working in think tanks like the Project for the New American Century, and it put them in a strong position when George W. Bush was elected.

And then 9/11 happened. In the traditional foreign policy system, the principals got together and just put the seal on products that had been kicked around and chewed up in the review process. After 9/11 the principals were meeting every day. So instead of policy moving up through the ranks, you had knee-jerk reactions coming from the top.

5. As it turns out, Iraq under Saddam Hussein did not pose any significant threat to American security. How do you evaluate the case of Iran?
Iraq was not a strategic threat—it was in a box for eleven or twelve years. But Iran is not in a box. Iran is stronger in the region than it's been in a long time—and that should be a concern to everyone.

6. So if Iran poses a real dilemma, what's the best course of action?
There was a Defense Science Board task force in 2001 that looked at homeland defense. The board proposed that we look at terrorism in the same way we look at jurisprudence—that we examine means, motive, and opportunity. Look at Iraq. Iraq was not an enabler, nor was it a chief supporter, of terrorism. The invasion of Iraq did not attack the means of terrorism—but by invading we provided a major motive for terrorism and an enormous opportunity by putting 190,000 soldiers there as targets.

Now look at Iran. It hasn't had any fingerprints on international terrorism since the Khobar Towers bombing in 1996. Their capability of hitting us with a strategic weapon is remote. But any military attack on Iran will provide a motive for terrorism in many parts of the world, yet we'll achieve no significant reduction of means with military action. We gain very little, but there's great potential harm.

I divide the world into copers and fixers. The former say, “There's a mess but we can cope with it.” The fixers say “Let's take a risk and try to fix it.” My attitude is that it's better to cope with Iran.