Mo Dowd hits the nail on the head

I know this is a bit late, but I really liked Maureen Dowd's Op-Ed on Saturday. It was a nice change from her usually over-the-top, trying-to-be-cleverly-funny-without-any-coherent-thought style. She makes some excellent, excellent points, partly because she came to the same conclusions that I made just a day before I had read her article. I liked the way she describes how the Bush Administration plays the "terror card" time and time again. Whenever opinion polls dip too low or the Bush adminstration does something illegal or unethical, we hear of some attempted or thwarted terror plot that likely never existed -- the most recent being the Los Angeles "terror" plot (I rolled my eyes in complete disbelief and disgust at this so-called "terror" plot when I heard it at the gym on Thursday). My favorite excerpt from Dowd's article is:

"At the Bush White House, the mere evocation of the word 'terror' justifies breaking any law, contravening any convention, despoiling any ideal, electing any Republican and brushing off any failure to govern."

Well said, Mo! I did not know this little bit of news that Miss Maureen concludes her article with:

"A final absurd junction of dysfunction was reached on Wednesday, when Republican Party leaders awarded Tom DeLay with a seat on the Appropriations subcommittee overseeing the Justice Department, which is investigating Jack Abramoff, including his connections to Tom DeLay."

Grrrrrr.....

Waiting for the snow to start...

I wish I had a fireplace in times like these...

Bill O'Reilly to Darfur

Nicholas Kristof, yesterday, wrote yet another Op-Ed smoking Bill O'Reilly. This time he called out dear ole Bill for his lame excuse on why he can't go to Darfur. Kristof asked Times readers to donate money to fund O'Reilly's trip to Darfur. I liked the following update from Kristof's blog:

"I'm just headed out the door to Columbia University to speak about -- what else? -- Darfur. But as of 7:38 a.m. this morning the pledges to finance Bill O'Reilly's trip to Darfur totalled $75,799.61. (That does not include a considerable number of people who are only willing to pay for a one-way ticket.) I'll have more updates tomorrow."

Dick Cheney is menopausal

I thought this line of Maureen Dowd's Op-Ed in the New York Times today was pretty funny:

"But as the G.O.P. tars Hillary as hysterical, it is important to note that women are affected by lunar tides only once a month, while Dick Cheney has rampaging hormones every day."

NYT Op-Ed

I rather enjoyed this paragraph in Sarah Vowell's Op-Ed in the New York Times:

"In fact, it has been said that God is currently angry with America. But according to God's publicist, the Supreme Being would like to clarify that He's not angry, but that 'He would like His name taken off the credits.' "

State of the Union

No surprise here, the state of the union really annoyed me. Bush went on and on about having freedom in other countries while he's trying so hard to take away freedoms at home. He looks like a hypocrite, preaching about democracy while eroding the very principles our country was founded on. I guess I was a little surprised about how tame his stance was on Iran. He didn't say, "You disarm or we will" (from my 2004 Bushisms page a day calendar). I guess he can't threaten them the way he did with Iraq because our military is already overextended. Really I have no objection to Iran pursuing its nuclear weapons program because many other nations (including the U.S. of course) have lots of nuclear weapons, so why shouldn't Iran. It's a complete double standard that Bush expects Iran to disarm, while we won't and while we have far more nuclear weapons than all other nations combined.

Bush praised the memory of Coretta Scott King, but I don't think that he really cares about social equality in the U.S. I was surprised that he mentioned human trafficking and human rights in other parts of the world -- seemed very unRepublican of him. I think his spiel about exploring alternate energy sources was just lip service. Actually, that is the way I feel about most of his talk.

Other Observations:

John McCain looked like he was sucking on a sour lemon during Bush's speech. Coincidence? I think not.

Alito looked dazed and confused, like being present for the State of the Union in a robe was a surreal experience.

When Bush was talking about the wiretapping, there was one part where he was not reading from his prompter and it was so obvious. He was like, "If people is talking, we gotta know about it". Ha! That point was made really badly though. He was like, "Two of the hijackers made phone calls to Al Queda abroad." It's like WHAT? If you didn't suspect something was going to happen, how does the ability to eavesdrop on two phone calls out of millions make a difference? You would have to know where to look. I find it insulting that Bush implies that 9-11 could have been prevented had he had the ability to spy on civilians.

The Democratic response was not delivered well -- Tim Kaine is not a good speaker.