- Republican National Committee Chairman Michael Steele needs a history lesson. Thursday night, at a Republican fundraiser, Mr. Steele argued for leaving Afghanistan immediately, and faulted President Obama for starting the war. He claimed that Afghanistan "was a war of Obama's choosing" that America had not "actively prosecuted or wanted to engage in." Huh. I didn't realize that Obama had been president since 2001 when the war started. Hello, Mr. Republican National Committee: This is Bush's war that he neglected for 8 years which has allowed Osama Bin Laden (the one who actually attacked America) to escape and live freely. Chalk this up to another Bush failure that the Republicans would like to make people believe is Obama's fault. Whatever happened to the "party of personal responsibility?" Bill Kristol of The Weekly Standard has called for Steele to resign over his latest gaffe, but I want him to stay on forever!
- The Tea Party "movement" is little more than the organizing of the farthest of the far right fringe of the Republican Party. Everyone knows this except the mainstream media, which still paints it as something independent of the GOP. Often times, it is the tea party members themselves (and their enablers on talk radio) who claim a separation from the Republicans, and claim they were just as upset by President Bush. This, of course, is false - and demonstrably so. Nevertheless, Bush's brain, Karl Rove, has shattered the illusion. On Fox News, Rove proudly claimed that the tea party loves President Bush, "Well, first of all, look, I've just come through a 111-city book tour and I ran into a lot of Tea Party people. I didn't get that animus toward President Bush that you got. In fact, I got a lot of people who said 'We miss him terribly, we wish he were back in office.'"
- The annual poll of presidential historians and scholars ranking the US Presidents has placed President Obama at #15. The scholars are asked to rank the presidents based on "20 attributes ranging from legislative accomplishments to integrity and imagination." Franklin Roosevelt ranked #1. Of the more recent presidents, George W. Bush came in at #39 (among the worst of all time), Bill Clinton at #13, Ronald Reagan at #18, and Jimmy Carter at #32.
- It seems the geniuses at DC Comics have decided that Wonder Woman needs a re-vamped look. The new costume features leggings and a long coat - no short-shorts and push-up bras. Consider me opposed to the idea, as Wonder Woman was just fine as she was.
- Van Halen are on schedule to release a new album featuring David Lee Roth on vocals at the beginning of 2011 according to website Brave Words & Bloody Knuckles. A new single is slated to come out before the end of the year. Yay!
- Well, cry me a fucking river! George Washington University will no longer have maid service in their freshman dorms. Whoah, times must be tough to cancel maid service for freshmen. When I was in college, my room was like a prison cell with concrete walls. If you wanted something cleaned up, you did it yourself. I think these students will cope.
- As if one needed another reason to hate Mel Gibson, Mel gives us another one anyway. First, there was Gibson's continued defense of his father's holocaust denials, then came his horrible Passion of the Christ movie, and this was followed by his anti-Semitic rants to Los Angeles police. Now he is on tape pitching a fit at his wife, saying she is an embarrassment, threatening to burn her home ("I am going to come and burn the f**king house down... but you will blow me first."), and hoping she would get "raped by a pack of n***ers." Gibson, celebrated by conservatives for being "one of them" in Hollywood, has not made a statement regarding this latest outburst.
- Last, but not least...Have a great 4th of July!
5 comments:
FDR at #1? Seriously? How is FDR better than Washington or Lincoln, who have traditionally been at the top spot. FDR was good, but not that good.
Steele is a complete and utter failure. He is so bad that I wonder if he is actually a Democratic agent.
Rove is on drugs. Most all of the people I have read, met, or seen that are Tea Party supporters are equally ticked at Bush as they are at the other progressives that have steered this country towards the impending train-wreck for which we are heading.
I saw this presidential poll and have come to the conclusion that this is why we need REAL historians instead of the revisionist kind. FDR is number 1?!?! Woodrow Wilson is high up on the list too. Obama who has done NOTHING of note thus far comes in at 15?!? Reagan was responsible for actuallly restoring the economy after Carter's mess and winning the cold war and yet comes in behind OBAMA!?! Yeah, these "scholars" need to lay down the crack pipe and look at original sources of historical documents instead of revisionist derivatives written by their ivory tower colleagues.
I am once again hugely dissapointed by Gibson. He really needs some serious help. That being said, I am curious why you thought The Passion of The Christ was "horrible". It was scripturally accurate in all regards. Pope John Paul II even was quoted as saying, after a private screening, that "It is as it was."
Happy 4th!
Actually, Paine, they used real historians. You seem to feel that there is always bias when someone comes to a different conclusion than you do. Besides, historians look at the big picture, and only now are we seeing the true consequences of Reagan's trickle down economics, massive de-regulation, and putting political hacks into non-political government agencies. Should those historians put aside all the negative consequences of Reaganism just to appease the radical right. Frankly, he was higher than I would placed him.
RE Gibson's film: Scripturally accurate and historically accurate are not necessarily the same thing. You and I both know that Pope John Paul II was not actually there, so for him to say "It is as it was" is just as much of a guess as you or I or Mel Gibson. I just didn't like the film. It's not for everybody.
In the context of the movie, scripturally and historical accurate are indeed the same thing.
Further, there was NOTHING wrong with the Pope's mind. He had Parkinson's disease which affected his motor function, sir.
The movie itself was quite intense though, and I could understand it not appealing cinematically to everyone though.
I didn't say anything about the Pope except that he was not there 2000 years ago when the events depicted in the film were to have taken place.
Post a Comment