Blood in the Water, a primary-source document on the continuing shark attacks of the summer of 2005 --- "Great Summer Beach Reading!" sez TBL

Click here, print this out, and read it at the local beach or pool and feel free to laugh and cringe at the good parts. Everyone loves a good story about the circling and feeding frenzies of the sharks when there's blood in the water.

Following the blueprint laid out for such things in the early seventies, once the sharks finish with devouring of the contents of Karl Rove's malodorous skin, the next target needs to be Spiro "Ted" Agnew ... sorry, I mean Richard "Dick" Cheney.

Most of the questions about Rove were answered with the same "ongoing investigation" boilerplate ("I appreciate your question. I think your question is being asked relating to some reports that are in reference to an ongoing criminal investigation. The criminal investigation that you reference is something that continues at this point. And as I've previously stated, while that investigation is ongoing, the White House is not going to comment on it. The President directed the White House to cooperate fully with the investigation, and as part of cooperating fully with the investigation, we made a decision that we weren't going to comment on it while it is ongoing"), but one question about Karl Rove was answered in yesterday's press briefing:

Q One follow-up. Considering the widespread interest and the absolutely frantic Democrat reaction to Karl Rove's excellent speech to conservatives last month, does the President hope that Karl will give a lot more speeches?

MR. McCLELLAN: He continues to give speeches. He was traveling this weekend talking about the importance of strengthening Social Security. And he has continued to go out and give speeches.

Here's my question. How did Jeff Gannon get back into the press pool?? He'd better watch out swimming in that bloody water or the sharks will get him too!

Do I need to point out that I'm rootin' for the sharks?
True Blue Liberal

McClellan finds himself suddenly speechless when asked about the pudgy pasty-faced red-state Rasputin behind our Terror Czar (aka Commander-in-Chief)

"White House Won't Comment on Rove"
- New York Times
- 11 July 2005:

''The prosecutors overseeing the investigation had expressed a preference to us that one way to help the investigation is not to be commenting on it from this podium,'' McClellan said said in response to a barrage of questions about Rove and the previous White House denials.

''I'm well aware, like you, of what was previously said,'' McClellan said. ''And I will be glad to talk about it at the appropriate time.'' He said the appropriate time would be when the investigation is completed [and the evil little troll who spreads fear through the government and its embedded media stenographers is safely stored away in some Federal Country Club for Republican and Other White Collar "Criminals"].

"London bombs need calm response" from the BBC's John Simpson. "There are no short cuts to proper justice ... "

Please read this column from John Simpson, the BBC World Affairs Editor, in light of Karl Rove's famous statement contrasting American Conservatives' lust for war and revenge versus Liberals' desire for legal justice and understanding: BBC NEWS | 11 July 2005 | "London bombs need calm response". After describing London's reaction to the most recent bombings, he discusses the wrong way to respond to political violence:

. . . The first British response to IRA violence was the worst. The IRA was identified as an enemy which had to be destroyed.
In 1972, the British Army fired into the crowd at a big demonstration in the city of Derry, killing 14 innocent people.
There were undercover killings of IRA volunteers later, and a team of three IRA people were summarily executed when they were caught on an operation in Gibraltar.
All these things did was to convince many people in Northern Ireland that the British Government operated on the same low moral level as the IRA itself.
Fortunately, there was another strategy as well; and this one worked. It was to treat political violence like any other crime.
Painstaking police work caught the people who set the bombs; and when, in fits of panic and dishonesty, the wrong people were arrested and jailed, it was necessary to right the wrongs publicly - no matter how painful and damaging the results might be.
There are no short cuts to proper justice, just as there are no short cuts to decent government.
Slowly, people throughout Ireland realised that the IRA, and the Protestant militia groups which had grown up in imitation of them, had nothing to offer but violence and chaos. It was the effective end of the IRA.
Countering political violence isn't easy. It takes rigid self-discipline on the part of government and people. And it takes a degree of proportion and self-awareness too. Thursday was a terrible day for London; yet we mustn't forget that much the same number of people died that day in Iraq, and no one dedicated acres of newsprint to them.
We must hunt the bombers down, because they have committed a vicious crime against society. But we mustn't throw away the calm and self-possession which every decent society needs. It's not weakness; it's our greatest strength.

At least the British goverment, in their earlier iron- and hamfisted overreaction to the IRA, actually committed its mistakes in Ireland. Our current conservative government left the Saudi Arabian home of our attackers intact and invaded a nation that had nothing at all to do with the crimes of September 11, 2001, using September 11, 2001 as its implicit rationale. Even though the Blair government was stupid enough to follow Bush into Iraq, I don't think we'll see them invading Syria or Iran with a battle cry of "Remember 7.7.2005!".

-True Blue Liberal

I guess it's a good thing for McClellan and Rove (and too bad for the rest of us) that they weren't under oath when they answered these questions!

Click Here for Billmon's "Vouching for Karl" on This Modern World where the relevant lies and denials are quoted (with links) in chronological order.
More of Billmon on the pudgy Rasputin's outing of Valerie Plame here at The Whiskey Bar.

Stating the obvious

But who isn't?
TBL

... fifties, sixties, seventies, eighties, nineties, and .... naughties? Can't our powerful leaders and media tell us what to call this awful decade?

It's not just the English language that's having this problem. I ran across an article in German this afternoon: "(K)ein Name für diese Dekade," in SPIEGEL ONLINE. Do we have to wait for VH1 to start running its nostagia shows about this decade's pop stars in 2010 before there's a general consensus on what to call this decade of war and incipient fascism (and the coming sixties-like backlash against them)? Here are some suggestions published in January 2000, but none seem to have stuck even though we're more than five years past the big millenium fireworks displays. Do you have a label you use for the current decade without feeling self-conscious when using it? I'm just curious, because I don't. (And will the "Teens" begin in 2010? Or will we have to wait until 2013?)

--true blue liberal

[update @ 2:24pm: Wikipedia's artice on the current decade lists more possible names, but points out that this span of ten years "lacks an accepted name". I'm going to cast my vote for The Naughties, and I think it will take hold once these neo-Sixties finally get up a head of steam. After all, even The Sixties didn't really get started until 1967.]

regarding this morning's bombings in London . . .

<< ... the truth is that every morning war is declared anew. Thus those who wish to continue it are as guilty as those who started it, perhaps more so, for the latter may not perhaps have foreseen the full horror of it. >>

-from Finding Time Again by Marcel Proust
(p. 105 of the Penguin UK paperback)

Peace

Eyes of a Weasel

Do you honestly believe this man would have any trouble exposing one CIA agent in order to help sell his boss's war?

See the latest Conyers letter to the White House here.

Here's proof that 18- to 22-year-old Republican interns Support Our Troops® with more than just lapel flags and the magnetic yellow ribbons!

Click here: village voice > news > This Modern World by Tom Tomorrow

The Runaway Bride® might be fast out of the gate, but she doesn't have the stamina or endurance of the Downing Street Memo

Anyone who visited True Blue Liberal last month saw that I was haphazardly tracking three search terms on news.google.com. I made my first check on June 2 simply to dramatize the point that the mainstream media were totally ignoring the issues of war and peace raised by the Downing Street Memo in favor of trivial entertainment, but the trend of increased media interest was surprisingly positive all month long. This morning I logged on (after a few days of computer neglect) and saw that a seemingly impossible milestone was passed.
Here are the results from 8:00 am edt on 7/6/05 compared to my first check at 8:15 am edt on 6/2/05:

"Downing Street Memo" -- 2,310 hits (UP since last check and rising consistently from 288 hits on June 2nd).
"Runaway Bride" -- 1,630 hits (DOWN precipitously from 5,260 hits on 6/2, and continuing its dramatic fall, which can't be good news at all for all those Runaway Bride® book deals, fashion dolls, and made for Lifetime movies).
"Michael Jackson" -- 20,800 hits (DOWN from 21,400 hits on 6/2, and way down from a peak close to 50,000 right after his trial) .

Hey Kids! Take heart from this classic variation on the tortoise and the hare fable. We should be proud of our part in keeping this story alive.

True Blue Liberal