oh fuck.

i am one of the original subscribers to charlie's rag.

when they hired you, i allowed my sub to lapse.

you are an idiot. the rag has become ruled by idiots

I have a subscription, and I will maintain it. Hell. after years of not subbing I resubscribed to TNR (but on line only). I'm doing my small best to support liberal jouralism, and even the stuff that approaches it.

WM does pretty well, all things considered.

And, yes, I support The Nation and Mother Jones. You all must do something to get the attention of the hoi polloi though, or we're all just preaching to the choir.

A suicide bomber just blew himself up outside Bagram, where Cheney is staying - four dead, injuries unclear.

Red Girl, Blue State (aka Global Citizen): "A suicide bomber just blew himself up outside Bagram, where Cheney is staying - four dead, injuries unclear."

But why should we hear about body bags, and deaths, and how many, what day it's going to happen, and how many this and what do you suppose? Or I mean, it's, it's not relevant. So why should I waste my beautiful mind on that? And watch him suffer?
-- Barbara Bush, interviewed by Diane Sawyer for Good Morning America (March 18, 2003)

Cheney's ability to be on the wrong side of so many issues has always amazed me. I mean, look at his record in Congress: Fervent opposition to the Martin Luther King Day legislation; voting against Headstart at a time when Ronald Reagan was holding it up as an example of what a poverty program should be.

The guy was always a loony.

In the Rocky Mountain west, we have always known about this small group of wingnuts who seemed to be able to attract enough votes to get elected on occasion. When they were able to parlay a majority in the Colorado House of Representatives into an effective veto, they were known as the "House Crazies" and even seemed to adopt the name with a sort of pride.

This movement has supplied a steady stream of dunces into recent Republican administrations. And Cheney parlayed his appointment into a kind of "senior wise man" reputation that was entirely out of line with his accomplishments (look at what he did to Haliburton, after all).

But it never ceases to amaze me how thoroughly the national press managed to ignore the widely known history of such a confirmed wacko.

Liberal! LIBERAL!
Whatever you're smoking Dude!

Rotten creeps like you and that moron over at TPM are busy every day trying to prop up the worlds biggest bureacracy and the worlds worst evil empire.

This is straight-out consumer fraud to call authoritarian fascist pigs like you and Josh 'liberals'.
Cheats never prosper Drum and so neither should you, you political pet rock and liar. You stink - Go die.

It doesn't take long for a given politician to get pegged with his or her own brief story line. And those facts and stories that get attention tend to be those that conform to the established narrative.

Is that true! Listen to this interview of Michelle Cottle from TNR by Brian Lehrer of WNYC.ORG. Cottle hits all the familar notes on the Clintons, Obama and Gore. Cottle is able to mention high school clicks, rock star (the new gravitas), billing records, tired of defending, and wooden in just a few minutes. She said drug running from Arkansas and Vince Foster's suicide were Clinton scandals.
Cottle finished by killing Gore as a "disaster" and a "running joke" in 2000 and the new "jolly" Gore would return to form (story line?) if he decided to run again.

Wow. I was just thinking about this article, then I go to check out Washington monthly and Kevin's talking about it.

This may be true for any person, not just politicians. As they say, the first impression is always the one that sticks. But, then again, in politics, we have the wonderful word called spin, and anyone can be made to look unlike themselves.

Why do you think Bush got re-elected? Because Kerry was wishy-washy, and Bush is tough on terror right?....

Obama is being spinned left and right at the moment, so an eloquent speaker such as Obama, is now being made into a muslim fundamentalist...

It's a malicious falsehood to brand Cheney as the weakest link in the administration. Cheney is definitely the President's intellectual equal, and their appointees are of uniform calibre. There is no weakest link in the administration.

Right Al, and Beavis is Butthead's intellectual equal too. No weak link there. But at least, they have not lied repeatedly, made false predictions, contradicted themselves, and tried to ruin the country. I say B and B for the Republican ticket in 08.

"of uniform calibre"

Yeah, and in comparison, a .410 is an elephant gun.

Kevin - why would I waste my time reading garbage like that??

The one thing that Josh was wrong about is that there's never a guarantee that the Official Story will change, no matter how much facts, and poll numbers, conflict with it.

For instance, right now, the crazy, far-left, antiwar Dems are running amok, despite having the support of a mere 60% of the voting public.

And the surge is moderate lan because John McCain and Joe Lieberman both support it.

I don't know what "moderate lan" means. But I said it, so I'm stickin' by it.

Incontinent One supra forgot to add, "when I can create my own."

They don't call it VICE president for no good reason in Dick's case.

...during the first few years of the Bush administration Dick Cheney was widely viewed as a wise old man...

Years? Try months. It wasn't long into 2001 before Cheney was being portrayed as the evil vizier whispering in the ear of the enfeebled sovereign.

Well, I guess that's a kind of "wise old man."

Dick answers all questions at dailydick.blogspot.com.

Get the Impeach W postage stamp at http://cat.dmocrats.org

a widdle cat will lead them. just take a black ink pen and black out the letters you don't want to see on the stamp :)

Just last week, Cheney criticized the Democrats' attemps to pass a non-binding resolution against the "surge" would "validate the al Qaeda strategy." shows him to be utterly inept. After all of this time, he still doesn't understand that Osama Bin Laden's entire strategy of gradually escalating attacks on U.S. interests in the late 90's culminating in the WTC attacks in 2001 were an effort to sucker the U.S. into a land war in the Middle East and do to us what the Afghans had done to the Soviet Union in the 70's and 80's.

Bin Laden made the mistake of underestimating the U.S. military, and if we would have done Afghanistan and Tora Bora right, it would have been the end of him. But instead, Cheney/Bush lost focus, committed the opposite sin of hubristically overestimating the power of military, and expanded the "war on terror" to include Iraq and allowed ourselves to be manipulated into the exact position bin Laden wanted in the first place -- a long, hard land war that would drain the power and fortune of this great country.

If someone is "validating al Qaeda strategy" it is Cheney and Bush who have been played by bin Laden and brought us to the tragic trap we now find ourselves in. That they are oblivious even now to how they were played shows a relentless stupidity I never thought anyone elected to such high office would be capable of. It is a tragedy for all of us.

It's hard to evaluate the performance of a VP, since he has no power.

Regarding scotus's observation that Cheney opposed Head Start, research has shown that regrettably that Head Start has failed.

Head Start has failed. The federal preschool program for 4-year-olds was supposed to "level the playing field" for poor children, and it has not done that.

Educationally and linguistically, poor children are behind from the beginning. Parents with professional jobs speak about 2,100 words an hour to toddlers; those in poverty only about 600. Not surprisingly, a 5-year-old child from a low-income home has a 5,000-word vocabulary, while a middle-class child already knows 20,000 words.

One reason for its failure was the misguided practice at some Head Start centers, where teaching the alphabet was actually banned, in favor of teaching social skills. But the dominant reason for the persistent gap is the fervor with which middle- and upper-middle-class parents embrace preschool.

The Taliban have failed, too.

One reason for its failure was the misguided practice at some Head Start centers, where teaching the alphabet was actually banned, in favor of teaching social skills.

Oh golly.

You mean they were actually trying to us Americans not to litter?

Good luck with that.

fk: why would I waste my time reading...

so you won't keep getting used?

From ex-liberal's link:

By contrast, fewer than half of children whose families fall below the poverty line attend preschool, not because their parents don't want them to, but because we haven't created enough Head Start programs. To serve all the eligible children, we'd need twice as many as we have. Once again, we're talking the talk when it comes to helping poor children, but not walking the walk.

ex-liberal, what sort of person are you? When you consider the sorts of deceptions you routinely engage in here you must conclude that you are lying scum. That must feel terrible. I'm sorry for you.

You get button-holed for a man/woman-on-the-street reaction. Reporter holds the mike in front of you. The hand-held camera is focused on your face.

Reporter: "What was your reaction when you heard there was a suicide bombing at the camp in Afghanistan where Vice President Cheney was staying?"

Most people better take the fifth.

obscure, here's another cite. According to this study, Head Start has worked a bit for whites, but has provided no lasting benefit for blacks.

The impact of participation in Head Start is investigated using a national sample of children. Comparisons are drawn between siblings to control for selection. Head Start is associated with large and significant gains in test scores among both whites and African-Americans. However, among African-Americans, these gains are quickly lost. Head Start significantly reduces the probability that a white child will repeat a grade, but it has no effect on grade repetition among African-American children. Both whites and African-Americans who attend Head Start, or other preschools, gain greater access to preventive health services. (JEL I38, H43)

Head Start is a federal matching grant program that aims to improve the learning skills, social skills, and health status of poor children so that they can begin schooling on an equal footing with their more advantaged peers. Begun in 1964, as part of the "War on Poverty," Head Start has enjoyed great public and bipartisan support. Presidents George Bush and Bill Clinton both pledged to increase federal funding so that all eligible' children could be served. Today 622,000 children, roughly 28 percent of eligible 3–5-year-olds, are served at a cost of $2.2 billion per year, or approximately $3,500 per child, per year (Anne Stewart, 1992).

Policyrnakers and the general public appear to believe that the benefits of Head Start are well known and well documented. However, a careful reading of the literature reveals that credible studies that demonstrate lasting effects of Head Start are limited. The studies that do exist are typically restricted to small geographic regions and specific racial groups.

http://www.lrainc.com/swtaboo/taboos/headst01.html

Regarding scotus's observation that Cheney opposed Head Start, research has shown that regrettably that Head Start has failed.

As obscure rightly points out, if you'd read the article you linked to you'd know that it states Head Start has "failed" in its mission to "level the playing field" for poor students because of opposition to that program and others like it that Cheney has shown, ostensibly for misguided ideological reasons, that has prevented it from being implemented more widely and extending benefits to more children.

There is no concensus on the effectiveness of Head Start among those who've studied it. But even a cursory examination of the Wikipedia entry on Head Start shows dozens of studies concluding that Head Start provides positive benefits for the children who participate in it.

While I'm sorely tempted to vote with obscure for "lying scum," I'm guessing there's a strong element of stupidity at play as well, in addition to a knee-jerk response to defend if not fellate members of the Bush administration no matter how egregrious or indefensible the charge.

I agree with most of the "Vice Grip" article.

However, Cheney CAN be fired. Much of Nixon's Cabinet & his VP (Spiro Agnew) were "forced to retire" due to criminal indictments against them. Also, any Federal official, elected or appointed, can be impeached. Read the Constitution for the necessary info.

Ex-liberal: It's hard to evaluate the performance of a VP, since he has no power.

Cheney has no power? Your head is either in the sand or up your butt. This is the same no-power VP who prevented anyone from finding out who he had been caucusing with on energy issues and the same no-power VP who now claims to be immune from any scrutiny because he's both legislative and executive.

And he GETS AWAY WITH IT. But he has no power. Get a clue.

However, Cheney CAN be fired. Much of Nixon's Cabinet & his VP (Spiro Agnew) were "forced to retire" due to criminal indictments against them. Also, any Federal official, elected or appointed, can be impeached. Read the Constitution for the necessary info.

Cheney can be impeached (and should be, immediately). He cannot, however, be fired, as he is an elected official in his own right. Agnew retired at a different time in our country, when there was still a sense of shame and a sense that Republican office-holders shouldn't be grasping criminals. These days, however, that's par for the course, and Cheney can drunkenly shoot an old man in the face without it being more than a week or two news story.

Short of being caught snorting heroin off the skulls of young boys in a love nest with Mullah Omar and Osama bin Laden there's nothing that can make Cheney resign -- and hell, even if he was caught in that manner there's still about 25% of dead-ender rightwing nuts who'd defend him.

ex-liberal,

I'll repeat my question: what sort of person are you?

You presented as evidence that "Head Start has failed" an article which defended Head Start and specifically pointed to lack of funding for Head Start as the cause of "failure."

If it is true that Head Start has not been shown to benefit blacks as much as it has benefited whites, then maybe--just maybe--lack of funding might have something to do with that as well.

Here's my theory: right-leaning persons such as you have looked in the mirror and seen a bottomless pit of petty selfishness and your response, accordingly, has been to recoil in horror. The twist is that you take out your hatred of yourself on others, specifically those who show through their words and deeds a largeness of spirit that you are lacking.

Feel free to give your own account of your dreadful behavior.

Gummitch, I recommend you read this.

obscure, I don't believe you are a racist. I think you're just misinformed.

Education is perhaps the most vital step needed at this time for African-American advancement. The failure of Head Start, as it's now constituted, is an important problem. It won't help black children if we sweep this problem under the rug.

and hell, even if he was caught in that manner there's still about 25% of dead-ender rightwing nuts who'd defend him.

He was undercover... somebody had to fill in for Plame.

ex-lib, I have to thank you for exposing to me to that site!
I don't suppose you took a look yourself, just to get a sense of what kind of bias the author might have? Didn't think so.
I love this one ...
http://www.lrainc.com/swtaboo/library/ncdt.html

obscure, I don't believe you are a racist. I think you're just misinformed.

What is your evidence that I am racist?

kenga, since I haven't read the study you cited, I have no idea if it's biased or not. I asssume your position is that studying the impact of race and immigration is taboo.

Folks, please stop taking ex-liberal's bait. This is a thread about Cheney's manifest incompetence, not about Head Start.

Stefan, I'm not convinced Cheney is incompetent.
Bush is a pretty good argument that the Peter Principle is valid, but I think Cheney is not.
You could easily convince me that he had his fingers crossed during the whole "swear to uphold and defend the Constitution ..." bit, but not that he's a clueless fuckup.
Yeah, I think he's fucking things up, but not by accident.

On the bait front, I felt compelled to make sure the casual comment reader didn't leave with doubts about Head Start, without at least having a chance to realize the doubts were engendered by someone whose motives bear examining.
And whose full name only brings up 2 hits on Google, with no association with any educational or scientific organizations listed. Stormfront, maybe, but I didn't dig deep enough to find out.

I should have been more specific - the site owner where x-l's citation came from is a person whose motives bear examining.

Stefan, I'm not convinced Cheney is incompetent. Bush is a pretty good argument that the Peter Principle is valid, but I think Cheney is not. You could easily convince me that he had his fingers crossed during the whole "swear to uphold and defend the Constitution ..." bit, but not that he's a clueless fuckup. Yeah, I think he's fucking things up, but not by accident.

Cheney's good at tactics -- that is, making people do what he wants them to do. He's terrible, however, at strategy -- that is, making sure that his tactics lead to a desirable result.

Case in point, he was quite successful at gulling the country into a completely unnecessary and illegal war in Iraq. But the end result of that war has not been what he wanted, and he's spent the last few years blindly flailing.

Caveat: he has, however, been quite successful at what may be his main goal, destroying American civil liberties and turning the Presidency into a de facto and de jure kingship.

Case in point, he was quite successful at gulling the country into a completely unnecessary and illegal war in Iraq. But the end result of that war has not been what he wanted

Huge contracts for Halliburton, the new oil law, expansion of practical executive power. Sure, it hasn't been the main things the administration has sold to the public (or even the main public goals of PNAC, even though the means are PNAC's), but who says the results aren't want Cheney wanted?

Stefan,

I think it is worthwhile to ask ex-liberal why he/she cites as evidence that Head Start is a failure an article which defends quite the opposite point of view.

obscure, as I said, I don't think you're a racist. Improved education is perhaps the most important area for African American advancement. If we find a way to fix Head Start, that would be a huge gain. I think we all should support making Head Start more effective. Acknowledging the limitations of the current program is the first step toward improving it.

Huge contracts for Halliburton, the new oil law, expansion of practical executive power. Sure, it hasn't been the main things the administration has sold to the public (or even the main public goals of PNAC, even though the means are PNAC's), but who says the results aren't want Cheney wanted?

Well, I did say "Caveat: he has, however, been quite successful at what may be his main goal, destroying American civil liberties and turning the Presidency into a de facto and de jure kingship."

However, I don't think the results in Iraq right now are what Cheney wanted. He got the oil law and the profits, but he thought he was also getting a puppet government headed by Chalabi and a withdrawal of almost all US forces by the end of 2003. He wasn't planning for, and didn't count on, a years-long raging guerilla campaign and civil war. He wanted a nice quiet client state led by US minions who would let us trample over them and give us a free hand to intimidate the region. Instead of strengthening the American hand in the Mideast, though, he's fatally weakened it.

Vice President Cheney is a proof in the power of the will to start wars, create societal chaos, and funnel billions of dollars of taxpayer money to his friends and benefactors. His life is a testament to the triumph of the will.

Dick Cheney is a superman, whose volition is so certain, that he does not even have to invoke a divine mythology to justify it.

"ex-liberal," you lying neocon toad, as has been pointed out to you, you haven't established that Head Start has failed at all. Given your track record, your deliberate obtuseness could only be attributed to your dishonesty.

And, just as obviously, your dishoensty is clearly in the service of the manifestly corrupt and failure-ridden neocon agenda; in this case, desperate hand-waving to distract attention from Cheney's incompetence and corruption.

(As for your assertion that Cheney has no power, what a laugh. Your lies are beyond transparent, "ex-liberal," and you shame yourself with your every post. Why do you bother?)

obscure, as I said, I don't think you're a racist.

If you don't think I'm racist, then why did you bring it up? You could just as easily have said you don't think I'm a member of the Official Russian Travelling Circus.

And while you're busy avoiding pointed questions, why did you take an outrageously deceptive quotation from an article on Head Start and completely misrepresent the jist of the article?

Why would you do such a thing?

(Feel free to do as cowards do and continue to ignore the question.)

However, I don't think the results in Iraq right now are what Cheney wanted. He got the oil law and the profits, but he thought he was also getting a puppet government headed by Chalabi and a withdrawal of almost all US forces by the end of 2003.

I think you are confusing means with ends; I think he wanted the perception that US forces would be out by the end of 2003, because that helped sell the war. I think he thought Chalabi would be a useful tool to get changes like the oil law, but he managed to get it without Chalabi.

He wasn't planning for, and didn't count on, a years-long raging guerilla campaign and civil war.

Maybe, maybe not. I don't think he cares much, either way: stability secures the gains on the oil side, instability guarantees businss on the defense contract side. It's win-win.

Instead of strengthening the American hand in the Mideast, though, he's fatally weakened it.

Again, I don't think Cheney cares about America or American influence except as a means, and is more than willing to sacrifice for the short-term results he is acheiving. I see Cheney more as a looter on a grand scale than an empire builder.

I see Cheney more as a looter on a grand scale than an empire builder.

But don't you think he believed most of that PNAC stuff?

There's a nice article in the most recent GQ laying out why we should impeach Dick. It's a pretty strong case.

don't you think he believed most of that PNAC stuff?

This is the difference between mere men and Dick Cheney. Cheney does not 'believe' in the PNAC themes, he lives them.

If you don't know or haven't worked with Texas oilmen or oilmen in general, you won't understand Dick Cheney. But if you have, you certainly will.

These folks are secretive (their greatest fear is being found out on oil pricing thus they move exclusively in their own tight circles and admit folks into these golden circles with the utmost caution and reserve);

-- arrogant (if you're not for us, you're against us);

-- bullies (that's the price, take it or leave it);

-- ruthless (if you're not for us, we'll get you);

-- condescending (my way or no way, l'il buddy);

-- corrupt (they buy and sell political leaders, judges and anyone else who might add to their profits or get in their way as though these folks were a commodity like beans);

-- disrespectful of government for the people, by the people, and of the people mainly because they are perfectly aware of how simple it is to corrupt government and how truly ignorant and uninformed are most of the people, including those who went to "collidge");

-- and very, very dangerous (we have our ways).

They mask their anti-competition and price-fixing ways in super patriotism and whatever else is likely to keep the l'il folks in the corral.

They are war-mongers and always have been because war means enormous easy profits to their businesses. No Texas oil millionaire has ever seen a war he doesn't like.

Of course, they are liars and even are fond of jokes among themselves about how relatively effortless it is to sucker most folks. Their entire industry is built upon lies, lies and more lies and within their tight little circles, they laugh about it, laugh even at themselves, laugh about how easy is the con.

That's Dick Cheney and to a lesser extent George W. Bush, a lesser extent because the hapless Bush is more of a tool of the oilmen rather than actually being a part of them; Bush essentially is a pitchman, something any oilman instantly recognizes as though he were standing in front of a mirror and viewing himself).

So, folks, when you turn your government over to Texas oil millionaires, what else can you expect?

Yee, Haw!