What's Worse

Rush Limbaugh and Tom DeLay may view the current batch of Iraqi photos like nothing more than common garden variety porn and frat party stuff, but according to MSNBC and Rumsfeld's testimony today, what we haven't seen makes these pictures pale in comparison. For example:

American soldiers looking on while Iraqi soldiers rape young children
Rapes of adult prisoners by American guards and others
Beatings to the point of death (and here, just the ones caught by camera)
Bodies of those who succombed to abuse
Full blown torture

Ever Helpful CNN

CNN, ever trying to be as helpful as possible to an administration that proves itself again and again no friend of the American people, seems to have a constant theme today: haven't the pictures of Iraqi abuse been overblown by the media?

This joins the many other great CNN suggestions like:

1) How can this president possibly lose in 2004?
2) Isn't it time to force Howard Dean out?
3) Isn't John Kerry as exciting oatmeal?
4) How can the Iraqi people - even with these stories of abuse - possibly distrust the good intentions of the American people?

And don't forget:

5) How can our Wolf Blitzer be more of a whore to this White House?

Color-Coded Rumsfeld

Wonkette points us to this color-coded Rumsfeld uh... job future.... chart by the Daily Gusto blog.

A Little Here, a Little There

Over the past week or so, I've been striving to add some additional great resources to the various compilations you'll find at left, including MediaMatters.org (the new David Brock well-funded enterprise to reply to wingnut attacks), The Daily Cookie (oft recommended by the great Skippy and now we see why), the funny Mad Kane, including her infamous Dubya's Dayly Diaries, the Democratic Congressional Caucus Campaign, and a slightly left-of-right Bush2004 site.

If you see glaring omissions, drop me a note. I'm always looking for another good site to visit ... and many of you seem to be as well. Nor do I discriminate against moderate or conservative sites (there are just too few of them, IMHO). However, it seems like everytime I start to add one to my links, they come out with a headline blaming Clinton for teenage pregnancy or Rush's drug problem.

Bernie Sanders (I-VT)

Thanks to the ad on Atrios, I've just signed up to volunteer for Bernie Sanders' campaign to win another term as Vermont's sole Rep. Bernie's been good to the people of Vermont, and he's been a clear voice against some of the Patriot Act/Ashcroft/secrecy abuses. The one time I asked Mr. Sanders for help, I got a call almost immediately. That's representative government.

Who's to Blame?

Women, of course.

Forcing the poor military to take women is the root of the problem in Iraq say great minds like Ann Coulter and to a lesser degree, Linda Chavez, and the regular whacko conservabots they send out when they don't want to make it appear that men are saying women are at fault.

One of the stories goes is that the woman most famously pictured in the Iraqi abuse pictures is a young woman who's pregnant by one of the GIs in the photo. Saith the neo-right, this is clear evidence that female hormones have made a mockery of This Man's Army and ruined it for the guys.

I dunno. I've traditionally worked mostly in male-centric industries and, to my knowledge, my hormones have not driven the men involved to torture.

Job Reports

Atrios covers today's job report:

Employment report out. We'll look at it more detail later. But, so far so good - 288,000 new jobs in April. For those keeping score at home, that's still below the 306,000 average per month the Bush administration predicted would occur if their latest tax cut package passed. And, still below that 320,00 per month they were predicting last December.

But, all in all it's good news for the job market. Though, we'll open up the box later and see just what those jobs were...

I'd feel more confident about this if every encouraging employment figure set wasn't massively but quietly reforecast downward two or three forgotten months later.

Newsday: Clean the Entire House

Newsday doesn't think we should stop at cleaning the American experience of Mr. Rumsfeld. They've got some additional suggestions:

The long knives are out for Secretary of Defense Donald Rumsfeld. In the wake of the news about the abuse and torture of Iraqis detained at a notorious prison outside Baghdad, United States senators and even columnists for The New York Times are calling on President George W. Bush to give his defense secretary the heave-ho.

The reality is that, if Bush is going to clean house, it makes no sense to stop with Rumsfeld. Considering how the Bush administration has made a mess of the situation in Iraq - from the wrong intelligence about weapons of mass destruction to the incredible lack of planning for the post-war situation to the entirely unnecessary alienation of allies - the whole national security team should be fired.

It's just not Rumsfeld and his deputy, Paul Wolfowitz - and his deputy, Douglas Feith - it's also the director of central intelligence, George Tenet, and national security adviser Condoleezza Rice. They were wrong about the reasons for going to war; they were wrong about the danger of a terrorist attack before Sept. 11, 2001; they were wrong about how easy it would be to rebuild post-war Iraq, and they have been wrong about how Iraqis detained and imprisoned should be treated - not to mention denying U.S. citizens held in terrorism investigations their basic constitutional rights.

And we're not even talking here about the No. 1 honcho on every aspect of the war: Vice President Dick Cheney. He can't be fired, of course. But why does he have to be on the Republican ticket come November? Then again, the last president to shake up his government in a dramatic fashion was Jimmy Carter, and look where it got him. Once you take the top people out, there is only one person left to blame.

Bush, who has demonstrated unusual loyalty to his team, made it clear yesterday that, while he had criticized Rumsfeld publicly for not informing him of the pictures of the abused Iraqi detainees, he was not about to get rid of him. Maybe Bush is really angry about how Rumsfeld handled the prison matter. Or maybe he's just making a good show of separating himself from a situation that is not only going to hurt the United States' reputation in the Mideast, but hurt Bush's own re-election chances come November.

Rumsfeld has plenty to answer for. In the private world he would be out of a job by now. But he's in the world of politics and it's an election year. Then again, we are all members of the board of directors, and we get to vote come November.

True Majority: "He's Got to Go"

To paraphrase an old protest chant, "Hey hey, ho ho. Donny Rumsfeld's got to go."

At least, that's what you may think if you go over to sign True Majority's petition to wave goodbye to The Scarier Donald.

Bushes to Skip Graduation

As a long-standing tradition in the Bush Administration showing a lack of reverence for education, Mr. Bush and his wife will skip the graduations of their twin daughters later this month.

Don't sweat it though: Barbara and Jenna (the daughters) skipped most of their four years at Yale and UofT respectively. Just too many parties, man.

Rumsfeld, Not a Bead of Sweat Showing

I have to grant Rumsfeld that he seems very cool throughout these open hearings on the Hill. From the so-called heckler (I prefer to think of her as a passionate member of the public who sent these dweebs up there) to John McCain's look of consternation, you'd think he was explaining why the Black Hawk helicopter should be black rather than pink.

FDA: No OTC Morning After Pill

In another measure designed to make the president's ultra-nut wingbase happy, CNN via AP reports this:

WASHINGTON (AP) -- The government rejected over-the-counter sales of morning-after birth control Thursday, citing concern about young teenagers' use of the pills. But regulators left open the possibility they will reconsider.

Proponents immediately accused the Food and Drug Administration of bowing to conservative political pressure -- noting that the agency had overruled its own scientific advisers, who had overwhelmingly called easier access to emergency contraception a safe way to prevent thousands of abortions.

Let's be sure that we can't even stop a pregnancy while it's still just a microscopic speck. After all, fat, old, women-chasing, white men are always the best judge of what a woman should do with her uterus.

The Onion on the Other Side of the Atlantic

The intrepid Skippy points us to .The Spoof, Britain's version - so to speak - of The Onion.

I was pleased to see from their breaking news headline that President Nixon is still dead. The last thing we need is him coming back right now. I was also pleasantly surprised to see the following picture with the headline: Rumsfeld Sacked.

More Vote YES

Regarding Mr. Rumseld's possible resignation, namely the cover of London's The Economist - I know, I know, you're thinking was a leftist liberal rag that must be - and this petition by the DCCC asking for your signature.

Did Rumsfeld or Congress Take Over FedEx?

I ask because I notice that the reason my overnight package did not arrive today is that someone at FedEx, in their wisdom, decided the best route between a package sent from New York to Vermont is via Newark, NJ and Memphis, TN. It then took more than a day to make it back up to East Boston to begin its three hour drive over.

Now, if history repeats itself, the package will sit in Williston, located on the other side of Boston from me, until sometime next week. Then they may send it over to St. Johnsbury, slightly closer to me than to East Boston, to have them drive an hour to deliver it.

I'm glad I paid all that extra for next day.

Warning: Truly Terrible Joke

I'm told - I got this second hand - that this is a cleaned up version of one on Colin Quinn tonight:

Do the Iraqi people really have to choose between Saddam or sodomy?

We Hate Your T-Shirt; Off the Plane

A Southwest Airline pilot objected to a t-shirt (saying "Good Bush, Bad Bush") being worn by a passenger (a Republican passenger, btw), so he had the crew tell the passenger that unless he covered up the t-shirt, he would have to leave the plane. According to the passenger, however, although he offered no argument and buttoned up his overshirt to completely obscure the t-shirt, he and his wife were both removed from the plane once the passenger asked the crew to whom he could write and complain about the treatment.

"Get a Grip"

That's the comment from Neocon ne'er-do-well Frank Gaffney to the country (via Deborah Norville's MSNBC show) re: the Iraqi abuse scandal. He said it would have been worse if we'd actually seen any evidence of torture in these photographs or word of miserable death. The current pictures, he insists, really aren't that bad. Arabs go through this sort of thing every day, he adds.

But we do see torture and we're told from reports of some of the GIs involved that there were deaths. To this, I'd suggest Mr. Gaffney get a grip, and on more than his limp putter. Ahem.

Nope, I Didn't Miss it

No direct apology (Bush) ever happened (hell, we can't even say for sure he actually said it to Abdullah - he just says he said it), according to various news programs (MSNBC) and online news sites I've read. There's also word tonight that Rumsfeld was fully alert to this situation with prisoners more than two months ago (not just the Taguba Report he says is too thick to have read in two months but more) and rejected underlings attempts to get him to make it stop.

"Why Blame America First?"

No kidding, that's what Congressman J.D. Hayworth (R-Porcine) said about the Iraqi abuse scandal. Why should America always be blamed first by these Democrats?

Gee, I dunno, J.D. Should we blame Lithuania? How about Clinton? We can say Clinton made these GIs do this. Would that work for you? This way, no thought (mind you, I didn't say additional thought because it's clear you give as much attention to your work as a great, non-partisan people's representative as you do your svelte figure and your spiffy looking hairpiece) about the situation is required, like "America might be the one to blame because the officers are all identified as American, in a country occupied by America, and because America established itself as the governing and punishing authority under which these people live."

Please, J.D., leave the comedy to others. Go back to doing what you do best: being the poor man's less successful, more weight challenged Rush Limbaugh. Ass.