Dana Perino: Just Absurd And Very Offensive

On November 30, 2007, in an exchange about the war in Iraq, White House spokeswoman Dana Perino told journalist Helen Thomas:

It is an honor and a privilege to be in the briefing room, and to suggest that we, at the United States, are killing innocent people, is just absurd and very offensive.

You can enjoy (and re-enjoy!) this absurd and very offensive statement (as many times as you like!) starting at 1:09 of the following short clip:

Thanks, Dana. What would we do without you?

Recent Supreme Court Rulings Make America Even Meaner

(cartoon by Kevin Siers of the Charlotte Observer)

Helen Thomas sums up the flurry of rulings by Supreme Court

WASHINGTON -- The new Supreme Court is more conservative than it has been in decades. It's also meaner.

The terms "conservative" and "mean" have always been more or less equivalent; they only difference here is degree.

It is a dream come true for Republican presidencies dating back to the "strict constructionist" court aspirations of President Richard Nixon and now made possible by the conservative George W. Bush.

In fact it's a dream come true for anti-humanitarians dating back centuries.

Before closing down for the summer last month, the high court tossed out a flurry of decisions that overturned or reinterpreted long-standing liberal precedents.

But it's not only about liberal vs. conservative.

The court under Chief Justice John Roberts seems intent on rolling back advances in race and gender relations that have helped America achieve a more equal and humane society.

It's also about morality and humanity.

The 5-4 decisions of the conservative court dealt with race, abortion, free speech, church-state relations and a host of other issues. They also showed a pro-business and anti-consumer slant.

And rich and poor...

The majority justices are running counter to the current trend against rightwing ideologues and a power-grabbing unilateral presidency.

... and the people vs. the government ...

On race, the court apparently has decided to return to the "good old days" when separate was considered equal when it came to racial segregation, a concept that the high court discarded in the 1954 landmark decision of Brown vs. the Board of Education of Topeka, Kans., which desegregated the nation's schools.

... which is doing everything it can to divide us ...

Last week, the Supreme Court junked the Brown rule when it struck down the use of race in school admissions in Seattle and Louisville. Officials had used race as a factor in school assignments in order to build diversity.

... and to discourage diversity, especially diversity from the standards they think they set ...

The historic Brown ruling paved the way for the banning of segregated public facilities, hotels, restaurants and theaters.

"... but that is not all we can do," said the court.

The Roberts court also upheld an unconditional ban on the procedure that opponents dub "partial birth abortion." Supporters of abortion rights see this decision as a harbinger of doom for the 1973 Roe vs. Wade ruling that legalized abortion.

... that is not all ...

The court also ruled that public school principals and teachers can discipline students who display signs or wear t-shirts that carry messages counter to the schools' anti-drug policies. The decision overturned a 1969 ruling that students do not shed their rights "at the schoolhouse door."

... oh no! that is not all!

And the justices threw out a 1911 ruling that barred manufacturers from setting minimum retail prices on goods.

It just goes on and on and on ... even Dr. Seuss would run out of rhymes!

In a blow to the principle of separation of church and state, the court rejected a challenge by the "Freedom From Religion Foundation" against a White House program that helps church charities competing with government programs obtain federal grants.

The ruling is a bow to the president who for the first time in history set up a White House office to promote faith-based entities.

Now for the deeper questions, such as Why is all this happening?

The conservative jurists who have won the day in most cases included the usual suspects -- Roberts, Antonin Scalia, Clarence Thomas, Samuel Alito and Anthony Kennedy. So much for the hope that Kennedy would be as moderate as former Justice Sandra Day O'Connor in pivotal cases.

The liberal justices -- who were outraged at the court's far-right swing -- included John Paul Stevens, David Souter, Ruth Bader Ginsburg and Stephen Breyer.

Breyer summed it up when he said: "It is not often in the law that so few have so quickly changed so much."

How often have I heard or thought the very same thing after 9/11? The New Pearl Harbor was indeed a catastrophic and catalyzing event, which showed -- among other things -- how fragile civilization was in America.

And now for a token sign of meaningless resistance ...

In a surprise ruling, the Court agreed to review whether Guantanamo Bay detainees can use federal courts to challenge their imprisonment, reversing a decision in April not to hear arguments in the case.

It will not matter, of course, as the hateful little man in the Oval Office has made it abundantly clear that he will not abide by any court ruling he doesn't like.

Helen Thomas Talks To Tim Russert

Helen Thomas spoke with Tim Russert recently. Here's the video.

You'll notice that she doesn't duck any questions, no matter how stupid ...

... and she asks some tough ones herself!

I've been watching some of the wingnut sites where people rant and rave against her, mostly based on her physical appearance. Every now and then they get down to substance, if you can call it that. Mostly they either highlight some of her statements, as if merely casting them in boldface were the same as refuting them:

The former UPI correspondent slammed Reagan declaring, "I think that the poor did not prosper under him at all," and charged the press was too soft on George W. Bush demanding that they should've asked the hard question: "How can you justify killing thousands of people to get one man? Who are we to depose anyone?'" But when it came to the Clinton administration, Thomas thought the press was too hard on the Clintons saying Whitewater amounted to "nothing," and pouted: "the Clintons suffered a lot."

But what else can they do? Those who try to refute her only display their terminal ignorance:

She knew we were heading to war, even though the opportunity was given for Saddam to avert it by complying with the UN mandates. She claims it was "unprovoked" so apparently thinks that failure to abide by terms in a cease fire agreement don't count as provocation.

In short she is a extreme liberal twit and the best argument for mandatory retirement that I've seen in many many years.

Rock on, Helen.

We'll Have Troops In Iraq For Decades Because Iraq Is A Sovereign Nation ... Or Something!

Helen Thomas is by far the most experienced member of the White House press corpse, and she draws an awful lot of flak for the questions she asks -- the sort of questions all White House reporters used to ask, back when she was a young woman.

Unlike many other White House scribes, who would be happy to retire at half her age, and despite the flak, she continues to ask pesky questions and she keeps writing columns critical of the president and his war in Iraq. But like so many of the other more-or-less dissident journalists we've mentioned here lately, she lays out a series of relevant facts but doesn't quite seem to know what to make of them.

Here's her most recent column, from the Salt Lake Tribune:

President Bush and his spokesmen continue to say that Iraq is a "sovereign" nation and that the U.S. is there at the invitation of the Iraqi government.

At a May 24 news conference, the president also said U.S. troops would go home if the Iraqi leaders asked them to leave. Does anyone believe a nation under foreign military occupation is really sovereign? Not likely. There are other indications that the U.S. is in Iraq for a longer haul than the American people would like.

"We are there (in Iraq) at the invitation of the Iraqi government," Bush told reporters. "This is a sovereign nation. We are there at their request."

What a charade.

Much as I agree with the sentiment, this is not the word I would use. This is much more fragrant, and much more deadly, than any charade. But then again I am not writing for corporate publication.

The president also told reporters it would be "catastrophic" if the U.S. pulled its troops out of Iraq. And he made it clear that the U.S. would be very persuasive in urging the Iraqis not to ask American forces to leave Iraq in its present chaotic stage.

He explained it this way: "We work closely with them to make sure that the realities are such that they wouldn't make that request."

... which shows how sovereign they really are ...

I asked a White House press spokesman whether the U.S. would support a referendum among Iraqis on whether the U.S. occupation should continue. He declined to answer.

What can he say? If he says "Yes", that's a promise he cannot keep. And if he says "No", that's telling the truth, one thing White House press spokesmen do as infrequently as possible.

At the same time, Bush knows that his victory in winning congressional approval for a $120-billion war-funding bill is a temporary triumph.

But that's not a problem -- this is the only kind of triumph he needs. One temporary triumph after another will get him all he ever wanted. I'm surprised that Helen Thomas doesn't see this.

After all, he only needs to keep the war-crimes rolling for another 18 months -- or as long as he decides to stay in office, if he can swing it.

Time is running out for his disastrous policies in Iraq.

Oh, no! I beg to differ! Time may be running out on his term of office, but in the meantime he's still getting what he wants and we still can't do anything about it. And I'm very surprised she doesn't see that.

The political pressure even from Republican ranks is growing for a change in U.S. policy.

But it won't matter in the slightest. Nor will the fact that American public opinion is now solidly against this president, and his war -- unless We The People can subvert the will of the Congress, which at this point seems decidedly unlikely.

The New York Times reported last week - and White House press secretary Tony Snow confirmed - that Bush has told recent visitors he is seeking a model for Iraq similar to the American presence in South Korea.

And Reuters is saying more or less the same thing at this very moment!

The three-year Korean War ended with a ceasefire in 1953 and the U.S. still has some 28,000 troops in South Korea. A Korean model would mean that American troops will remain in Iraq for years to come. Snow would not discuss the possibility of permanent U.S. bases in Iraq.

The silence on this point tells you everything you need to know.

We are NOT leaving!!

Why don't we get that yet?

Meantime, the Senate Select Committee on Intelligence - now under the new chairmanship of Sen. Jay Rockefeller, D-W.Va. - is issuing a series of reports about U.S. intelligence and its role in the lead up to the war. A recent report from the panel said that analysts had warned Bush in January 2003, a couple of months before the U.S. attack, that a war in Iraq could provoke sectarian violence and cause Iran to assert its regional power in the Persian Gulf. The analysts also predicted a surge of hostility in the Arab world as the result of any U.S.-led military operation.

When asked about the report, Bush replied, "We were warned about a lot of things, some of which happened and some of which didn't happen."

That may or may not be so, but this line of discussion is quite meaningless, for several reasons.

First, we already know the "intelligence" was bogus -- deliberately bogus. This has been demonstrated over and over. The decision to go to war was made in advance of the intel, and the intel was fabricated to give the prior decision diplomatic cover, so to speak.

Furthermore, it is becoming increasingly clear that Bush welcomes the destruction he was "warned" about. The "warnings" would have come across as "green lights" to any sociopathic drunk, let alone one commanding the largest killing machine ever built.

And beyond all this morality, there's the cold hard logic of the statement: Whether or not he was warned about things that did not come to pass is irrelevant.

The president said he made the decision to depose Saddam Hussein after weighing the risks and rewards.

But Saddam Hussein is gone. He's been gone for a long time. And we're still there. This is not about Saddam Hussein. Why doesn't Helen Thomas see that?

This was an issue that transcended "the issue of the regime of Saddam Hussein", remember?

And speaking of things that are often forgotten, how can Helen Thomas -- or anybody else -- write column after column about this war and not mention oil? Is this a make-work project for bloggers?

Listen, friends: The war in Iraq is not about Saddam Hussein. It's not about weapons of mass destruction. It's not about bringing democracy to the Middle East. And it's not about terrorism.

This war is about OIL.

But Bush won't say so, and neither will Helen Thomas, and so the lies and their half-hearted refutations continue, but we come no nearer to the truth.

[Bush] added: "I firmly believe Iraqis are better off without Saddam Hussein in power ... (and) I think America is safer."

Tell that to the families of 3,433 American dead and to the 25,549 Americans who have been wounded and to the tens of thousands of Iraqis killed in the war.

Again I applaud the sentiment but not the choice of words. Tens of thousands of Iraqis? It must be more like a million by now. But what does Bush care? There are no Bushes dying, no Cheneys either.

Bush said he will await an assessment in September from Gen. David Petraeus, the U.S. commander in Iraq, to determine his next move. Apparently the buck will stop with Petraeus, who also will report to Congress.

Or else the buck will never stop at all, as it never seems to do in this administration. In which case the current move serves mostly as an excuse for the president to spend the bulk of the summer working hard clearing brush back at the ranch.

"I don't micromanage the war," the idiot boy can say, "I leave that to the generals."

So in addition to an excuse to head back to Crawford, it's also a slap at the Democrats, who by and large have done nothing to deserve it. But Helen Thomas doesn't see it this way at all. She writes:

The administration is obviously looking for a bone to toss to the outmaneuvered Democrats and to appease those restive Americans who want the U.S. to pull out of the Iraqi debacle.

Wow! It takes a lot of rose tint in the glasses to see the Democrats as "outmaneuvered". "Out to lunch" is more like it -- but even that is inexcusably polite.

This is not a bone. This is not an appeasement. It is, just like the most recent "blank check" from Congress, a temporary victory. One of a series. All this vicious little man has ever wanted. Just a long series of temporary victories.

Now, when General Petraeus comes back with his assessment, the decider will have a number of options. For instance, he can spend a few more months deciding to send another General into the crucible for another six months and another assessment. We have no basis for assuming he will do anything else. It will be another temporary victory, against which the Democrats can prattle and posture but do nothing responsible or restrictive. And meanwhile this is still a war we should never have started, and meanwhile this war is still killing people every day, and meanwhile the demolition of Iraq continues. If Helen Thomas, one of the best White House reporters, is leaving out all this context, what are the rest of them writing?

Oh, never mind. I know what they're writing. They're doing the same thing she is, but without any of the critique: just quoting the president and his spokesmen verbatim and letting the readers sort it out. Helen Thomas seems like she's trying to sort it out but she doesn't have a very good handle on it. Maybe she should read Chris Floyd. Then she wouldn't write sentences like:

In a sign of growing desperation, Bush is falling back on the al Qaida threat and the need "to fight them there," not here.

In my view the "desperation" is bogus. The president may be "falling back" on a talking point he has used for a long time, but how does this indicate "growing desperation"?

And that "need" -- the "need" to fight them there so we won't have to fight them here -- that's bogus, too! Once again Helen Thomas falls in with the maddening crowd by neglecting to mention two very obvious facts: [1] the war in Iraq in no way prevents terrorists from striking at the United States, and [2] continuing to wage this unprovoked war crime -- against people who never harmed us, and never intended to harm us -- provides motivation for people to become terrorists and attack us.

"They have made it abundantly clear what they want," he said. "They want to spread their ideology. They want safe haven from which to launch attacks," he added. "They are willing to kill the innocent to achieve their objectives, and they will fight us."

Speaking of ideology, Bush should look in the mirror. He bought into the neoconservative ideology which maintained that the U.S. is the only superpower and should dominate the Middle East.

No kidding. But that's not all the neocons wanted. And look what they're getting! And look what they're doing!

Some of the leading neocons have found their escape hatches at colleges and think tanks and other safe havens, now that their grandiose geo-political plans have collapsed in disaster.

Again I disagree. They've gone to their next cushy jobs, via the revolving door of graft and corruption. Their plans are not collapsing. The only thing that's collapsing is the support for those plans among the American people...

... who don't matter anymore. Why doesn't anybody seem to understand this?

Bush and Cheney have made it abundantly clear that they refuse to be constrained by such quaint notions as the will of the people. Did we think they were kidding when they said that?

Meantime, the White House has become a tight little sanctuary for a few remaining hawks. And Bush seems determined that the war he started will not end on his watch.

Of course it won't. The decider has decided.

Why is this so difficult to grasp?

'So Many Wrongs To Right': Helen Thomas At McDaniel College

Helen Thomas got right to the point in her address at McDaniel College in Westminister, MD, last week, as you can see in this video:

William Hughes reported on the event for Media Monitors Network. Excerpts from his report follow:

“How primitive can you get to start a new century with a war--a war of choice? We have a President [George W. Bush Jr.] who decided to attack a country that did nothing to us. I say: ‘Cry the beloved country!’ So, we have so many wrongs to right before our country gets back its honor. Hopefully, the American people will not accept this President’s primitive drive for war without end. What can he be thinking? More than that: Why do Americans tolerate such a dumbing down of our country? The American people will soon say: Enough is enough! It is wrong to ask the ultimate sacrifice of friend and foe without a good reason--an acceptable reason. We have yet to hear the real reason why we went into Iraq. I say: Truth took a holiday!”
...

“President Bush struck a match across the Middle East, which is always known as a tinder box. He invaded Iraq under false pretenses. We now occupy that destroyed country and we’re warning them if they don’t shape up and do what we tell them to do, we might just pick up our marbles and go home. They should be so lucky. Who are we? What have we become? Whose war is this? Thousands are dead, thousands are wounded. And to this day, we can’t get a straight answer on why we attacked a Third World country. We had a choke hold on Saddam Hussein. He couldn’t make a move. We had the tightest economic sanctions, satellite surveillance. We were bombing Iraq, every other night in the ‘No-Fly’ zone--so-called. Now, we have had four years of this.”
...

“We know that terrorism has to be fought,” Ms. Thomas said. “We are the target. But, first we have to find out: What is terrorism? What causes it? Is it politics? Religion? Is it our foreign policy that has compelled this hostility against our country? It never existed before. We are no longer the most admired country, one to be emulated in the world. This is the time to begin thinking about peaceful solutions to set our world right again...You cannot shoot people in their own country to liberate them... As you can tell, I’m against the invasion and occupation of Iraq because it is illegal, immoral and unconscionable to wage a war against a country that did nothing to us. The war is in its fifth year, now, and the killing still goes on. I’m sorry to be such a downer. But, it is your world we are talking about. No man is an island.”

“We have a President more and more ‘isolated’ and ‘speaking of victory in Iraq.’ He has two years to go and he has a right to worry about his legacy...There is no other place to go, so one should always want to try to do the right thing. But, time is running out...The President is ignoring the will of the people to cut our losses. They are keeping up the charade at the White House that we were ‘invited’ into Iraq. I remember asking Ari Fleischer, Bush’s former White House press secretary: “If they asked us to leave, would we leave?”

Ms. Thomas emphasized: “There is no question that ‘9/11’ has brought on a dramatic change in our country. For alleged security, we seem willing to forego our privacy and our great sense of justice. We have allowed ourselves to go to war based on untruths. No WMD. No ties to the al-Qaeda terrorist network. No threat from a Third World country. We have permitted ourselves to be wiretapped, our e-mails pried into, our mail opened. We have tolerated torture of suspects and prisoners at Abu Ghraib, and at other prisons in Iraq and Guantanamo Bay, where human beings are humiliated. Surely, that is not worthy of a great country. We’ve allowed Congress to take away the ancient right of Habeas Corpus, which goes back to Magna Carta...We pickup people with dark skin. We imprison them. We never charge them or try them. We keep them in limbo and send them to secret prisons to be tortured and interrogated. Is that America?”
...

“We are spending our national treasury on war, while 48 million people in this country have no health insurance. Children go to school with no breakfast. Schools are falling down. Government programs to alleviate the suffering are being cut. And yet the biggest tax cuts go to ‘the richest people’ in our country. Surely, something is wrong with this picture.”

As a matter of fact, many things are wrong with this picture. And if we ever begin to put it right, we will owe no small debt of gratitude to Helen Thomas, who remained a journalist while most of the people around her were becoming stenographers.

Helen Thomas: Give The Voters A Choice -- Out Of Iraq Now!

I haven't written anything about Helen Thomas lately; that was a mistake. Her column today, for Hearst Newspapers, comes to me via the Falls Church News-Press, and -- great big surprise!! -- it's a good one.

Bush Should Explain Why He Invaded Iraq

As the nation marks the fourth anniversary of the war against Iraq, we still await an explanation from President Bush about why he invaded that oil-rich Middle Eastern country.

Every reason he cited for launching of the war on March 19, 2003, has proved to be fictitious. There were no weapons of mass destruction, no ties to the al-Qaida terrorist network and no threat from that third-world country against the U.S., the world's only military superpower.

Doesn't he owe an apology to the country or at least an explanation, particularly to the families of loved ones who made the ultimate sacrifice for reasons he seems incapable of explaining?

Under international law, the only reason to go to war is when a nation is attacked or when it has a treaty with a nation under attack. Those weren't the circumstances four years ago when this president made the decision to take the nation into war, with the backing of a rubber-stamp Republican-led Congress.

She has a way with words, doesn't she?

Nearly 3,200 Americans have died in the war so far. The Pentagon says it has no idea how many Iraqis have been killed. A Pentagon spokesman says: "We don't track them."

According to a survey published in the British medical Journal The Lancet, more than 650,000 Iraqis have been killed during the war.

The four years of "Operation Iraq Freedom" have been expensive, costing the United States close to $500 billion, with costs expected to run up to $1 trillion or more.

And yet Bush persists in this inhumane misadventure, pouring more troops and money into the occupation of Iraq which he, incidentally, claims has not shown us enough gratitude.

How much would be enough? Could they possibly show this idiot enough gratitude for all the death and destruction he has caused?

The Iraqis are being warned that American patience may run out. They should be so lucky.

It's true, isn't it? They should be so lucky!!

And what about us?? We should be so lucky, too!! Get this woman a front-row seat!

In his weekly radio address Saturday, Bush said "Congress has no greater obligation than funding our war fighters." He also threatened to veto any legislation setting a timetable for a pullout from that benighted country.

I think the president has no greater obligation than to explain to the American people why they should kill and be killed in U.S-occupied Iraq.

Well, exactly! Forget the front row seat; Helen Thomas should be running the five-sided madhouse!

The fallout from the war has been devastating for the White House.

Yes, and ...

The administration is circling the wagons ...

Ummm... I'm sorry to disagree -- on this one point -- but what wagons? Do you mean this one wagons over here?


It's just a minor quibble; more a joke opportunity than anything else, and I still want you to read the whole column, but I know you probably won't, so I'll cut to the chase. Helen talks about how the Bush White House is more isolated than ever, runs the list of developing scandals which threaten to burst the chimperor's bubble once and for all, and winds up on a bittersweet refrain:

The Republican Party knows it could face a devastating election defeat in 2008 unless Bush calls a halt to the Iraqi debacle.

To give voters a choice, the Democrats better forget about timetables and benchmarks. The time to leave is now, before more have to give up their lives.

As regular readers of this page will attest, I heartily approve of the "leave now" sentiment, and I'm happy to see it in all the papers the Hearst chain represents.

But I love her closing bit even more; did you catch what she said?

To give voters a choice!!

It would be good to have a choice, wouldn't it?

Some people have been saying the same thing for decades, and they've been thought of as lunatics.

Now it's right out in the open. Lunatics my foot!

If Helen Thomas writes it, and Hearst Newspapers publishes it, and the Falls Church News-Press goes with it, it can't be a big secret anymore, can it?

But that's an easy question; here's a hard one:

What are we gonna do about it?