More On the Pro-Torture Newsmax:
Last night, the Rude Pundit pointed the way to conservative "news" site Newsmax (motto: "We're first with the bugfuck insane shit Fox'll be talkin' about next week") and its odious editorial saying that "torture worked" with John McCain when the now-Senator was then a POW being beaten several times a day by the North Vietnamese. Say the gleeful Newsmaxers, "And - as McCain has publicly admitted at least twice - the torture worked!" (And, really, the stupid fuckers use the exclamation point, like they came torrents at the climax of an editorial circle jerk when they figured out this "revelation" of McCain's alleged hypocrisy for calling for an end to U.S. torture policies.)

Problem is, of course, here's what worked: his captors got McCain to sign a statement that, as McCain recalls, "was in their language, and spoke about black crimes, and other generalities." McCain's original statement was rewritten by his "stupid" captors, and even that, he says, "was unacceptable to them." So, like, not only did McCain not reveal anything that, say, helped the North Vietnamese, but it was worthless to the very people torturing him. How, again, does this prove "the torture worked"?

Ahh, there is one way it might have worked: It'd be interesting to find out how the North Vietnamese used McCain's signed statement, because perhaps all that torture, while not giving them anything militarily strategic, did give them a piece of useful propaganda. And, at the end of the day, ain't that all the Bush administration has gotten from its victims?

Here's an e-mail the Rude Pundit received today: "During the Vietnam War, myself and thousands of other servicemen were put through Survival Evasion Resistance & Escape training (SERE). One element of this was a 24 hour stay in a mock POW camp, where we were subjected to coercive techniques in order to give us a taste of the kind of treatment we could expect at the hands of godless communists if we were captured. This included being hooded, subjected to physical assault, shut up in tiny boxes, hyperthermia and, of course, the waterboard.

"You can hold out on the waterboard...for about as long as your breath holds out. Then, cued by the lack of oxygen, the body's autonomic nervous system goes into panic. This is quite different from mind panic, which can be consciously controlled with practice. Body panic is beyond the control of your mind. What the mind is doing is frantically spinning, trying to think of ANYTHING that could be said to make it stop....just for a moment, for a full breath.

"Porter Goss might not 'know' if waterboarding is torture, but thousands of veterans can personally testify that it is exactly that."

So, again, it needs to be said: If you believe that the U.S. has the right to do what it does (whether you wanna call it "torture" or not) to its captives, then you, and Newsmax, believe that Iraqi insurgents, legitimized by the Arab League memorandum, can deprive any captured American soldiers of sleep, that they can be hooded and stripped nude, have cold water thrown on them as they kneel on concrete, beat them, use doctors to discover their exploitable weaknesses, and place their heads under water until they're gagging. If we can do it, then they can do it, no? If you support the Bush adminstration's policies, you support the torture of American soldiers, purely and simply.

The Newsmax "writers" are starved, crazed vipers in a pit that's had a frothing mad warthog tossed in it. They can't slither fast enough to kill it and dine on its salty blood.

Quick Note On Bush's Strategy and Speech:
Apparently, all that's needed for "Victory in Iraq" is a shiny cover on the same old shit.

Newsmax Says Torture Worked On John McCain, So He Should Shut Up About Its Effectiveness:
No, really. The editorial is titled "John McCain: Torture Worked on Me," and oughta be required reading for anyone who thinks these wads of fuck on the conservative side deserve anything more than scorn and bile.

Here's the end: "That McCain broke under torture doesn't make him any less of an American hero. But it does prove he's wrong to claim that harsh interrogation techniques simply don't work." They are lower than the scum under the Rude Pundit's refrigerator. They're the dirt the scum eats to grow.

More on this tomorrow.

Bannin' Books, Kansas-Style:
You need a larf in these tragic times? You need a little political sorbet to cleanse the mental palate as the mindboggling parade of scandals, from Duke Cunningham to more Rove to whatever the fuck is going on with Iraq, starts to get to ya? Then click on over to the website for the Overland Park, Kansas group, "Citizens for Literary Standards in Schools," and get ready to double over, 'cause it's a motherfuckin' blast.

See, the group of parents, which calls itself, it seems, "CLaSS," (or, more, properly, "classKC") wants to bring "decency" back to the required reading materials for students in the Blue Valley district. The coolest part of the site? Why, CLaSS provides a list of offending passages from each of the books it wants banned. No more do the students, hands grimy and unwashed after masturbation, have to underline and giggle at the bad words. CLaSS has done the works for them. Wanna know where the narrator talks about her vagina in Maya Angelou's I Know Why the Caged Bird Sings? CLaSS helpfully provides it.

And, look, CLaSS gives a list of all the dirty words in Tim O'Brien's Going After Cacciato: "bitch, shit, Jesus Christ, fuckin’, bastard, for Christ sake, Jesus, son of a bitch, shitting, fucking, good shit, shit, sorry ass, happy-assed, bad shit, piss tube, shitter, shithead, fucker, dink, gook." Notice the nuance there: "fucking" is different from "fuckin'." It's the kind of post-structuralist ellision of meaning that'd do Gilles Deleuze proud. (And, yes, racism offends CLaSS, but it's certainly an afterthought to a "good shit.") Oh, and CLaSS lists the violence of this novel about, well, fuck, the Vietnam War.

Once upon a time, in a school district in a Southern state, the Rude Pundit's mother was the secretary to the Superintendent of Schools. This was back in the 1970s, when a large majority of citizens actually believed that teachers and educators were best qualified to decide what was the proper way to ensure that students were learning. This was when declaring war on public schools was seen as a product of either fringe ideology or wealthy elitism. Of course, even in these enlightened times, movements would get under way for something that stuck in the craw of the Christian right.

In this case it was a book, Catcher in the Rye, with its copious use of "goddamn" (186 times), its failure to condemn prostitutes, and its six uses of the word "fuck" (numbers courtesy of the CLaSS website), that got the rabble a-rumblin' for its ban from the classrooms of the county. Rude Mom told stories of the Superintendent standing up to the upset parents for he knew this to be true: they did not represent what most of the kids cared about, nor did they represent what the teachers cared about, nor did they represent what most of the parents cared about; they only represented what they cared about, and that was moral purity, man, against all this hippie-influenced open-mindedness. He also knew that to let them get a foot into the door of the classroom was to let them burst in and "fuck" check the libraries of the school district.

The Super stood firm, against protests and angry letters, calls, threats, and more. And the school board backed him, for he stayed Super for the next eight years.

In Kansas, the Blue Valley school district gave in and removed the book that had gotten the whole ball rolling, Tobias Wolff's memoir, This Boy's Life. The act, of course, empowered CLaSS to push for many more exchanges of "bad" books for "good" ones, like ones by Zane Grey, noted proponent of anti-violent conflict resolution, and, of course, by that teacher of good moral values, Mark Twain. So far the exchange has failed.

Of course, the motives of hypocrites and cowards are always easily revealed, and, as ever, the words "values" and "traditional" mean "Christian." 'Cause, like, in no realm of legitimate literary study are the works of, say, Catherine Marshall considered superior to the much-banned Toni Morrison. And, while violence in Vietnam is problemmatic for CLaSS, gore in the Civil and other wars is just dandy (check out the list for all the strangely violent works).

And, oh, ho, ho, we've all had a good liberal laugh at the fuck-tards from Kansas, haven't we? Ah, shit, how much we love ribbin' ol' creation-lovin', book-burnin' Kansas. Then you dig just a little further into the site, and you come across the section on "Blogs." And you read this: "[W]e believe that 'what you let your mind dwell on, you become' and 'garbage in, garbage out' are very apt statements. The profanity, obscenity and vulgarity that our children are bombarded with today from all directions easily become part of their everyday thoughts, conversations and actions. Therefore, classKC has decided to also 'shine the light' on what we believe are the many dangers of teen blogging (in particular, xanga) in our geographic area."

You look over the list of blogs of teenagers, of current and former Blue Valley High School students, and you see that everything is lumped in together, from the blogs of members of the band and cheerleaders and debate club, with the "Niggas In Blue Valley" blog ring, with the alumni blog, and you realize, in the pit of your gut that what the Super also realized long, long ago: it's about thought control, man.

And then the sorbet is done because you connect the fuckin' dots, between the parents of Overland Park, Kansas, the federal government spying on us, even the latest "let-me-see-your-I.D." movement in Miami, and you realize that those kids don't stand a fuckin' chance. 'Cause all they're gonna learn is that power can strip away rights indiscriminately, all under a mad rubric of "protection," from terrorists, from impure thoughts, from each other. And they're gonna learn it's just easier to give in than to fight it.

(Note: link to classKC.org from Americablog. And the Rude Pundit won't link to individual students' blogs - they ain't writin' fer us.)

The Pre-Emptive War Against Christmas:
Yessiree, the Rude Pundit's a-startin' a war against Christmas. Fact is, he feels so threatened by Christmas, with its stockpiles o' evil ornaments of mass destruction, the reindeer o' doom, the candy cane clouds in the sky, and the fruitcake o' sugary death, that he's declarin' a pre-emptive strike on the Happy Holiday o' Christmas. My, my, my, people, for too long we have suffered with Christmas - now it's time for Christmas to do some sufferin'.

First thing the Rude Pundit's gonna do is order in shock n' awe, motherfuckers, shock n' awe - carpet bomb that fuckin' North Pole, man, blow the shit out of the train tracks of the ol' Polar Express, take out that toy factory 'cause it's got elf rape rooms, yeah, you know it, and, aw, shit, sure, there might be some collateral damage of an Esk-i-mo or a polar bear or two takin' one fer the team, but, goddamn, the Rude Pundit wants to blow some Christmas up. That's right, bitches, the Liberal Army of Rudeness is gonna fuck Christmas up.

We got us a deck o' cards, we do, with a bunch of fuckin' elves on 'em, eight motherfuckin' regular reindeer, one goddamn red-nosed one, Mrs. Claus, Jack Frost, motherfuckin' Heat Miser, and the Ace o' Spades hisself, Santa Claus. Yeah, we'll be goin' mall to fuckin' mall, checkin' to make sure each Santa there ain't in disguise. We'll leap through glass roofs of yer food courts, rappel down into the Winter Wonderlands, faux North Poles, and round up everyone in costume, all the little fuckin' photo-takin' helpers, and every mall Santa we can find.

We'll take 'em back to our network of dingy liberal basements and warehouses, strip that fuckin' red suit off those fat, bearded fucks, shave 'em down 'cause it offends their beliefs, use newspaper reprints of "Yes, Virginia" to wipe our asses. We'll strap 'em to boards, shove marsmallows in their mouths, and dip their heads in vats of hot chocolate 'til they're drownin', attach electrodes with jingle bells on 'em to their nutsacks so when they do that shimmy-shake it can sound like we're on a one-horse open-sleigh. We'll keep askin' 'em, over and over, "Where's the real Santa? What's he plannin'? Give us the big fat man and we'll stop fuckin' you with Prancer's femur bone." We'll keep those poor fucks locked up for years, lettin' out only a few whose beards turned out to be fake, whose bellies were pillows, to show we have mercy.

Holy shit, a war on Christmas is gonna be fuckin' fun, man, with everyone starin' at the shiny lights and low prices at a Wal-Mart, thinkin' that the white phosphorus we're droppin' is just snow, snow, let it fuckin' snow. It'll smart, but it'll clear out the lines at the cash registers. Yeah, we'll be goin' into your Marts of Wal, uzis pointed, impalin' everyone who says "Merry Christmas" with a fake pine tree and stringin' 'em up like mistletoe as an example to others. Who's gonna give us a kiss under the corpses of Christmas?

And you might ask, but what about Jesus? Oh, don't worry about that cave-dwellin' motherfucker. He's in the mix still. See, the links between Jesus and Santa are absolutely clear. Santa's just one battle in the war on Christmas. Sure, you may think that Jesus might find Santa an odious commercialization of his holy birth, an anathema to faith, but, man, it's a war on Christmas, motherfuckers, and anyone who's connected with Christmas has gotta go. Yeah, don't you worry. One day, we'll find Jesus. And we'll gut 'em like a fish. 'Cause that's what liberals do. Right? Right?

Why Ann Coulter Is a Cunt, Part 3507:
When the Rude Pundit was a freshman in college, he had a roommate who was an asshole frat guy and the kind of Deadhead who loved the band for the drugs, but was hard-pressed to name a real album by Jerry and the boys beyond Greatest Hits. The Rude Pundit had one request, a simple one, he felt: no dope smoking in the dorm room. It wasn't for any bullshit reasons of morality or fear of the Man; the Rude Pundit, who was not lackin' fer mind-alteration, just didn't want his clothes to smell like pot smoke all day long. The roommate, who regularly dropped acid and snorted coke sittin' on his loft bed or at his desk, though he never attained the state of overdose that would have given the Rude Pundit a private room, could not abide this simple request. Each time it happened, the Rude Pundit would tell him again, a little more angrily, "Dude, c'mon."

Then one day the Rude Pundit walked in after a particularly hard Statistics exam to find the stoned roomie laying on the floor and ashes and roaches all over the Rude Pundit's bed. The Rude Pundit snapped, and he dragged the roommate up and started beating the fuck out of him, tossin' him around like a rag doll, slappin' him in his mohawked head. He was a limp, babbling noodle, tryin' to explain why he'd fucked up the Rude Pundit's bed, but the explanations didn't matter as foot was put to ass: the bed was fucked up and the clothes stunk. It was a pathetic fight, not much of one at all, with the roomie barely able to put up his hands to stop the blows, but you know what? It felt soooo fuckin' good, man, like the first cold beer in a bar in Little Five Points after walkin' through the hot streets of Atlanta on an August day. And it was easy. Just like, well, shit, just like critiquing an Ann Coulter "column." So, c'mon over to the barrel and let's start shootin'.

For in her latest "column" (if by "column," you mean "the blood blots of self-mutilated flesh from a loathsome, foamingly rabid she-wolf on shredded toilet paper"), Coulter packs in so much bullshit about Iraq that you can see the turds slipping through the cracks. It's useless to take on her "argument" that much good has been done through the war because one can't see where the spin and lies stop and the delusion begins.

She even drags out the corpse of the dead connection between Iraq and al-Qaeda and Niger uranium: "As we now know, Saddam Hussein was working with al-Qaida and was trying to acquire long-range missiles from North Korea and enriched uranium from Niger." You may do a double take and think, "Um, forged documents? No real contact?" But you'd be caught then in the web of inference and bugfuck nuttery that is the cuntistry of Ann Coulter. However, shit, since Coulter is the same kind of whoredog for the Bush administration as Bob Woodward and Judith Miller (it's a question of presentation, not degree), here's Donald Rumsfeld to Wolf Blitzer's question about the alleged nexus of swarthy eeevil: "Zarqawi was physically in Baghdad." It's like saying that because you have a toothbrush at your girlfriend's place, you wanna move in. In other words, really, and, c'mon, is that the best you got?

But Coulter's bizarre rah-rahing, like the cheerleader of the damned, continues. She shakes her little pom-poms for all the elections and, in general, behaves as if Iraq is just a car bomb or two away from gettin' all that nasty resistance out of its lil' ol' system.

Then she gets to the real blood and meat of her "argument," that those who advocate for withdrawal, immediate or otherwise, are traitors: "It is simply a fact that Democrats like Murtha are encouraging the Iraqi insurgents when they say the war is going badly and it's time to bring the troops home." So, like, these'd be the same insurgents that Iraqi leaders just declared a legitmate resistance and that U.S. soldiers are legitimate targets? Fuck, encouragement is havin' something to shoot at and blow up. And how does Coulter know that dissent in America gives comfort to the enemy? Why, 'cause former North Vietnamese soldiers, who, you know, would have no reason to sow conflict in the U.S., said that war protesters during the Vietnam War gave them the warm fuzzies.

But once Ann Coulter gets somethin' in her craw, she ain't done with it until she's masticated that fucker with all ten sets of her viperous teeth: "The Democrats are giving aid and comfort to the enemy for no purpose other than giving aid and comfort to the enemy. There is no plausible explanation for the Democrats' behavior other than that they long to see U.S. troops shot, humiliated, and driven from the field of battle." And, most bizarre, she holds Democrats in contempt for voting down the un-debated House Republican stunt bill on immediate withdrawal from Iraq: "They fill the airwaves with treason, but when called to vote on withdrawing troops, disavow their own public statements. These people are not only traitors, they are gutless traitors." Well, fuck it. Take it to its logical conclusion. Round us up and waterboard us, bitch, 'cause we're part of this country, too.

You can dismiss Coulter's mad brain as a belfry filled with those flying rats, but she is the seething evil id of the right, daring others to cross her line. It's sad, too, really, how hard she works to show she's got the biggest balls in the room. For the only thing that pleases the monsters in Ann Coulter's brain, the ones that press her to go further, be more wicked, press more buttons, is more dead, more blood, more bodies, and it doesn't matter whose they are as long as they provide sweet sustenance.

Thanksgiving For the Conquerors:
On this war-torn Thanksgiving, with the possibility of a couple of thousand more bodies being found along the Gulf Coast in the forgotten wreckage of Katrina, let us pause to remember the Narragansett, the Indian tribe that believed something fucked up was happening when the pasty-ass English arrived in Massachusetts. Not only did a deal with the British allow the Puritan-allied Mohegan to tomahawk the Narragansett sachem Miontonimo, but during King Philip's War in 1675, the Narragansett, who had been allied with Philip's Wampanoag people, holed up in a fort in Kingston, Rhode Island. There, an army of 1000 colonial soldiers, along with some Mohegan's, essentially wiped out the Narragansett.

And then they all sat down and ate corn, turkey, and mashed potatoes together. With pie. Everyone loves pie.

Here's the Narragansett Prayer of Thanksgiving:

We walked here once, Grandfather.
These trees, ponds, these springs and streams,
and that big flat rock across the water over there.
We used to meet you over there, remember, Grandfather?
And we would dream, dance, and sing
and after a while, make offerings.
Then we would sing the traveling song and would go our ways
and sometimes we would see your signs on the way to our lodges.
But something happened, Grandfather.
We lost our way somewhere, and everything is going away.
The four leggeds, the trees, springs and streams, even the water,
where the laughing whitefish goes,
and the big sky of many eagles is saying goodbye. Come back, Grandfather, come back!
Thank you, Great Spirit, for all the things that Mother Earth gives!

Eleven Things the Rude Pundit Learned While Getting Fellated By a Catholic Priest:
-- The poor priest seems to believe that being a sucker of cock rather than the one getting his cock sucked allows him to keep his vows.

-- Hard for the priest to hear confession when there's hands on his ears, slamming his holy face home.

-- Harder for the priest to give someone penance when there's a cock in his mouth.

-- Although it feels awfully sweet on the Rude Pundit's urethra when the priest tries to say the "Our Father."

-- Difficult to get stains out of the wool cassock; always wear the cotton/poly blend when you're fellating away.

-- It's distracting to keep hearing the bishop getting blown in the pews.

-- Swinging rosary beads tickle one's balls.

-- The priest likes to think he's eating the body of Christ.

-- The wooden grate of a confession booth is really easy to poke a larger hole through.

-- A man who keeps sucking off little boys is easily impressed.

-- Remember: it's Benedict, not "Been a dick."

Yankee Go Home (In Time For the Midterm Elections):
When the Rude Pundit listened to all the Bush administration officials and Republicans in Congress declaring that timetables for withdrawal of U.S. troops from Iraq were worth about as much as chimp shit in the monkey jungle, he wondered, "What do the Iraqis think about this?" 'Cause, in essence, Republicans were declarin' that the Iraqis are a bunch of pussies who can't handle anything on their own; they are our children, it seems.

Vice President Dick Cheney said as much in his lil' ol' speech to the American Enterprise Institute (motto: "Give us more tax breaks and then go blow some shit up, motherfuckers") yesterday: "In light of the commitments our country has made, and given the stated intentions of the enemy, those who advocate a sudden withdrawal from Iraq should answer a few simple questions: Would the United States and other free nations be better off, or worse off, with Zarqawi, bin Laden, and Zawahiri in control of Iraq?" Now, if the Rude Pundit were an Iraqi, he'd read that to say: "Hey, you semi-dark-skinned savages are such weak little shits that you couldn't hold off an attack by poorly-armed kittens." And, whether or not that's even partly true, it's still pretty fuckin' insulting.

The Rude Pundit wondered what the putatively sovereign Iraqi leadership might have to say about the whole situation. Now they've responded, and the answer is simple: Yankee, go the fuck home. And take your shit with you. And don't worry about the mess you've made - we'll clean it up. Oh, and if Sunni militias use rocket-propelled grenades on your military convoys? That's just legitimate resistance, so stop callin' it terrorism.

This all happened at an Arab League meeting in Cairo where Sunni, Shiite, and Kurdish leaders from Iraq, including the President, agreed to a communique that said, in part, it was time for "the withdrawal of foreign troops according to a timetable, through putting in place an immediate national program to rebuild the armed forces ... control the borders and the security situation."

The agreement also adopted the U.N.'s language about resistance, that it is a nation's right to resist an occupying power. However, in delineating the difference between resistance and terrorism ("Although resistance is a legitimate right of all peoples, terrorism however does not represent legitimate resistance, so we condemn terrorism and acts of violence, murder and kidnapping targeting Iraqi citizens and humanitarian, civil, government institutions, national resources and houses of worships"), what becomes pretty explicitly clear is that it's okay to fuck with the Yankees in uniform.

There's a couple of ways to see this: one would be a kind of "in-yer-fookin'-gob" to the Republicans for condemning anyone seeking withdrawal from Iraq, and that way feels so goddamn good, like a nice, round titty in your mouth. And chances are that some Republicans will be the kind of parents who can't let go of their kids, a kind of pat on the head reaction, like "Oh, it's so cute that you wanna be left at home without a babysitter, but we're sure you'll set the house on fire if we do that."

But then there's the bad side of the good of the Arab League statement on withdrawal (other than the whole "it's-okay-to-blow-up-American-soldiers" thing): that the Bush administration has an out now. They can say, "Well, fuck, they wanted us to go, so we left." And when can that happen? Shit, Jack Murtha knows the score when he told Wolf Blitzer yesterday that by next year's Congressional midterms, "I would say most of them would be out of there. They could have them all out of there."

That's the timetable suggested by the Iraqi Interior Minister, Bayan Jabr, when he said, "By the middle of next year we will be 75 percent done in building our forces and by the end of next year it will be fully ready."

Now, the Rude Pundit's no conspiracy theorist. He believes more in coincidence and chaos than design, intelligent or stupid. But, man, Karl Rove could not have planned a better timetable for flag-wavin' parades down Main Street.

Wolf Blitzer Bitch Slaps Donald Rumsfeld:
Fuck last night's bullshit Larry King interview with disgraced White House tool and ersatz "journalist" Bob Woodward. Instead, read Rummy's squirmin' blatherings as Blitzer tries to corner the Defense Secretary by doing what Dick Cheney said should be done: throwing his words right back at him.

A Brief Look At How We Got To Where We Are In the Debate About Iraq:
Let us say, and why not, that you're a gay guy, and you've just started dating another dude. Call him "Jake" (if you want to be au courant, you can call yourself "Heath"). You've gone out for a couple of nights: dancin' with friends, dinner with just the two of you. And Jake, who's just fuckin' ripped and looks like he's got a package marked "Special Delivery," has told you on several occasions about how great a cock he has. But you, man, you're playin' a little hard to get, havin' been burned before on the hot cock with no balls behind it. Still and all, you end up back at your place, and Jake asks you, "Would you like to see my cock?" You question the meaning of that sentence, being coy. Jake says, "If you see my cock, we're gonna wanna do something with it." You agree. Yes, let's see this cock.

And so Jake unzips and takes out his cock. And it's a pretty magnificent cock - an impressive show of shape, girth, and length. Jake says, "Is my cock not splendiferous?" Yes, you say, it is. "Now that you've seen my cock, can we agree that we're going to do something with it?" Oh, most certainly, you say. And there you are: Jake's got his cock out and you both know that with his cock on display, well, there's a whole smorgasbord of possibilities of what you can do with Jake's cock. When you tell Jake you'd like to take a closer look, Jake says, "Okay, but it's a cock. What else do you need to know?" And you're thinking about the things you'd like to do with that cock: you're thinking about moving cautiously - perhaps fondling the cock for a while, cupping Jake's shaved balls (which have popped out with the cock), maybe then move on to putting the tip of the shaft in your mouth, gently before pulling it in deeply, to the back of your throat. Yes, there's paths that can allow you comfort with Jake's cock and that'll surely accomplish what Jake wants, which is sweet semen release.

But Jake's got other ideas. He takes you and forces you face down on your futon, yanking your D&G jeans to your ankles, pulling your boxer briefs with it. Then Jake slams that cock again and again into your asshole until you can receive it all. You're confused at first, as your head bounces precipitously close to the arm of the futon frame. Sure, you're down with the ass fucking, but no, this isn't what you wanted now. You weren't ready. You thought you could both agree on the terms of what was good cock usage and the timing of it. You tell Jake to stop. Jake says he's not gonna. You tell him again to stop. Jake says he ain't stoppin' until he's done.

You try to fight Jake off you, but those pecs just ain't for show, and Jake holds you down, telling you that you agreed that you'd both do something with his cock and you'll leave him all blue balled if he stops now. No, you shout, that didn't mean you gave him the authority to fuck you in the ass, that he's raping you. "Bullshit," Jake says, "And it's reprehensible to accuse me of raping you now" as he thrusts even harder. No, you insist, it's rape. "Look," says Jake, "we can argue about whether or not I'm raping you or not but the fact of the matter is, I'm gonna keep fuckin' you, so why don't you stop whining and enjoy it." Jake won't stop raping you 'cause as far as Jake's concerned, you gave him a blank check, and he's cashin' that motherfucker large. You, on the other hand, can't take back what you've already said, but you can sure as shit say it was a mistake to say it and that Jake got it wrong. The question is simply what's it gonna take for Jake to listen.

When Donald Rumsfeld says of leaving Iraq, "[T]he important question is ask yourself what the world would look like if we pulled out precipitously," when Dick Cheney says, "Some of the most irresponsible comments have come from politicians who actually voted in favor of authorizing the use of force against Saddam Hussein," when George Bush says of Iraq, "[L]eaving prematurely will have terrible consequences, for our own security and for the Iraqi people. And that's not going to happen so long as I'm the President," what they're really saying is that they're gonna go on with the rape, of America, of Iraq, as long as they goddamn well please and you pussies can do fuck-all to stop them.

Murtha Was Right About the War Back In 2002:
Check out this article from the September 24, 2002 edition of USA Today, also reprinted (sans attribution) at Veterans For Common Sense. Seems that crazy ass traitor Representative Jack Murtha was offering advice and warnings about the rush to war back then. Can we get a shout out for consistency? Can we get these quotes out there as the pre-war attitude of Democrats?

Congressman who led the charge in '91 hangs back for now
by Kathy Kiely

WASHINGTON -- In 1991, John Murtha helped lead the charge on Capitol Hill for war with Iraq. This year, the Pennsylvania congressman is among the doubters.


Eleven years ago, Murtha was one of the first President Bush's chief Democratic supporters in the effort to win congressional approval for plans to take on Saddam Hussein. He was a member of the president's inner council, advising Bush and his aides on congressional strategy. It was a role that put Murtha at odds with the leaders of his own party.


Today, the powerful backroom dealmaker finds himself in an even more politically lonely position: questioning a war-powers resolution that even most Democratic leaders seem reluctant to oppose. "All of us want to get rid of Saddam," Murtha says. But he believes that the younger Bush "went about it the wrong way."


Bush's father "had his coalition built before he came to Congress," Murtha says. As a result, most of the first Persian Gulf War's cost was shared by U.S. allies. Those nations shouldered more than $ 53 billion of the $ 61 billion war burden, according to the White House budget office.


This time, "it will all be expended by the United States," says Murtha, the top-ranking Democrat on the House panel that funds the Pentagon. He says another war with Iraq will cost at least $ 50 billion. Other estimates say the price could rise as high as $ 200 billion.


Murtha's concerns are all the more striking given his impeccably hawkish credentials. Murtha, 70, is one of the military's best friends on Capitol Hill. He's also one of the few lawmakers who has experienced ground combat firsthand, which is one reason his views command so much respect. Murtha enlisted in the Marines during the Korean War, then volunteered for another two-year stint in Vietnam.


His western Pennsylvania district suffered more casualties than any other in the Gulf War he supported. A Greensburg, Pa., reserve unit, assigned to water-purification duties, was hit by a Scud missile that killed 28 soldiers.


"One guy lived a block away from me," Murtha says. Another casualty he remembers: a young woman who was called up for duty just as she was about to enroll in college, the first member of her family to do so.


Murtha says a key reason for questioning a second Iraq war is strategic. He's worried that it will cost the United States not only money and lives, but also important allies. By moving without international support, Bush could alienate Arab allies, and "we could lose access to the intelligence we need to fight the war on terrorism," he says.


However, as a veteran of wars both legislative and literal, Murtha is puzzled by all the bellicose talk in Washington. Fewer than one-third of members of Congress are veterans; the percentage was more than double that when Murtha arrived on Capitol Hill 30 years ago. He thinks that makes a difference. "I have found that the guys who haven't been there are more likely to vote to go to war," he says.


Nothing he has seen in intelligence reports has convinced him that Bush needs to rush through a resolution, Murtha says. Even so, he has not yet decided how he will vote. Although he has doubts about the president's plans, Murtha says he's reluctant to leave his commander-in-chief isolated in the face of the international community.


"I don't know whether it was intentional or not, but he has put the country in such a box," Murtha says. "He can say, 'You'll undercut me if you don't vote for this resolution.' "


The casualties could be much higher this time, particularly if there is "street-by-street" fighting in Baghdad, Murtha says. But he has no doubts about who will win: "We do have adequate military force to pull this off."

Republicans To America: We Wish To Kill Your Children:
Hey, here's an idea: let's just cut to the fuckin' chase here. Let's just give Republicans pistols, say, a Glock 30 - compact, easy to conceal, simple loading - really, any Republican worth his or her salt ought to own one of these babies. And then just set the Republicans free to go house to house to start the killin' spree. Some of 'em will drag out members of the military residing in each home.

Howzabout lettin' David Dreier do that? That way he can continue to deny he's queer, right? Right? And Dreier, who yesterday in response to Democrat Jack Murtha's call to get out of Iraq, said, "I believe that it would be an absolute mistake and a real insult to the lives that have been lost and those today who are continuing this struggle for freedom if we were to withdraw." Dreier can get goons accompanying him to drag some twentysomething piece of trailer trash who signed up for the National Guard to get a little extra scratch and a benefit or two out of the double-wide and put three bullets into his skull. And then move on to the next trailer, the next house.

Dennis Hastert, who said of Murtha and others who believe in withdrawal, "They would prefer that the United States surrender to the terrorists who would harm innocent Americans. To add insult to injury, this is done while the President is on foreign soil...They want us to wave the white flag of surrender to the terrorists of the world," can do what he so deeply desires in the sweaty folds of his corpulence: he can just walk right into the home of an Army corporal and, in front of her children and husband, pump that Glock like a cock, puttin' her to rest. It's easy, see? And it doesn't even require that she's sent to Iraq.

And it can spread from there, the Republican murder rampage, for, surely, they do not only wish death upon the men and women in uniform. House Budget Committee Chairman Jim Nussle can saunter into a housing project in Dubuque, Iowa and take all the food out of the kitchen of some single mom's dumpy apartment and burn that shit. Then, as he shoots each of her three kids, he can tell the mom that it's easier this way, now that he's led the charge to cut food stamps and Medicaid. He can say to the sobbing mother, "This unchecked spending is growing faster than our economy, faster than inflation, and far beyond our means to sustain it," adding that of course her children can no longer live because otherwise Republicans would have to actually allow some taxes to continue and, as Nussle said, "The death tax is fundamentally unjust because it results in double taxation." Surely, this will comfort the grieving, blood-coated mother as Nussle, whistling "God Bless America" to himself, saunters over to the next dumpy apartment.

Yep, Republicans wandering the nation, loaded Glocks holstered, in purses, in pockets, can simply make the statement that each and everyone of their policies, on Iraq, on the budget, on global warming, on so much more, is making: we want you fuckers dead. And if we can't experience the sublime pleasure of actually walking into your houses and shooting you in the face, we'll do it slowly, incrementally, until, really, there's no one left but us and our families behind a walled fortress, and then, ah, sweet, what a glorious nation it will be.

'Cause, see, what Jack Murtha said yesterday was that he wants Americans to live, to survive: "They don't deserve to continue to suffer. They're the targets." And Democrats in the Congress who opposed the cruel budget cuts (and it's still a savage budget, even after the "compromise") are making the simple statement that people deserve to stay alive.

No, no, the Republicans say, as they pass out the loaded Glocks, the war, the cuts, it's for the good of the nation, the good of America. Then they cock those fuckers and head down the steps of the Capitol for there's only so much time before the Congressional session ends.

Late Day Correction: An earlier version of this post contained the gun name "Glock .30," as if it was a .30 caliber. As frightening poin' and rude reader Chet says, there's very few .30 caliber guns. However, the Rude Pundit meant the Glock 30, a .45 caliber, perfectly capable of fulfilling all of the Republicans' citizen-shootin' needs.

Dick Cheney Rises and Slimes:
The viscous, shit-smelling goo that forms the life ooze of netherworld evil that pollutes the soil of the earth once again shifted itself into the shape of Vice President Dick Cheney yesterday when it opened its horrible maw and spat forth at the Ronald Reagan Gala of the Frontiers of Freedom Institute. This'd be the same group that, in its recent "Freedom Report," said of war protesters and others who dissent with the Bush administration, "Who benefits from this constitutionally protected, but irresponsible speech? The terrorists and their recruiters."

The Vice President slouched to the dais to honor former Wyoming Senator Malcolm Wallop, crazed dog founder of the FFI, who said in an interview, "The concept of minimum wage is crazy, if you really stop to think about it. If $8 an hour seems right, why not $20 an hour? If it's coming by order of the government, why stop at any level? Why not just say everyone should get what Gates gets?" and other bugfuck insane shit.

Waving his barely defined arm, staring at the crowd in that half sneer, half smirk, all contempt look on his face, seeming for all the world like a constipated Sidney Greenstreet in a penguin suit, the tuxedoed Cheney held forth about Democrats who dare to ask the Bush administration to explain how it came to its rationales for war. Fortified with a dinner of sweet poppy-encrusted Afghani children and utensils made from phosphorus-cleaned bones of former citizens of Fallujah, Cheney spat, "[T]he suggestion that's been made by some U.S. senators that the President of the United States or any member of this administration purposely misled the American people on pre-war intelligence is one of the most dishonest and reprehensible charges ever aired in this city." Oh, how the gathered conservatives applauded this show of force against Harry Reid and others, how they handjobbed and fingerfucked each other under the tables, wiping themselves with napkins made from the skins of desert-dried illegal immigrants who failed to make the big crossing.

Then Cheney, sipping Syrian blood from a crystal wine glass, continued, "What we’re hearing now is some politicians contradicting their own statements and making a play for political advantage in the middle of a war. The saddest part is that our people in uniform have been subjected to these cynical and pernicious falsehoods day in and day out. American soldiers and Marines are out there every day in dangerous conditions and desert temperatures –- conducting raids, training Iraqi forces, countering attacks, seizing weapons, and capturing killers –- and back home a few opportunists are suggesting they were sent into battle for a lie."

He promised to "throw their words back at them," and then he promised to make sure more American soldiers die in Iraq: "They and their families can be certain that this cause is right and just, and the performance of our military has been brave and honorable. And this nation will stand behind our fighting forces with pride and without wavering until the day of victory."

Upon being told of these remarks by Wolf Blitzer, Nancy Pelosi slammed back, "Let me just say this about the vice president -- and again, all due respect to his office. Almost everything he has said to the American people has not been accurate. Just because he says it doesn't make it so. And there are pages, pages of statements that he has made that have been factually incorrect. So it's interesting that he's taking this tact. It's not surprising."

Let us not leave out Wallop himself, whose remarks on that fine Wednesday evening included an attempt to take the blackness away from Rosa Parks. Speaking against hyphenate racial and ethnic identity in America, Wallop said, "Did we not see a spectacular example of that a couple of weeks ago when Rosa Parks lay in state in the Capitol? She lay in state not as an AFRICAN AMERICAN but as a true American heroine whose quiet dignity and courage expanded the freedom of each of us. She was recognized not for her race but for her defense of liberty. No hyphens here. Only her national stature, earned in front of us all, brought the thousands of Americans by to celebrate her life." Except, you know, of course, for the fact that had she not been African American, she wouldn't have had to defend her liberty.

Cheney smiled as Wallop held forth, bloviating about reducing the size of government, saying, "The public educational system is also stripping us of civilization" and "Prayer has been banished from schools, abortion imposed, criminals empowered and lewdness been made normal against the common sense of the country" and so much bonkers nonsense that you thought it was 1985 all over again.

And when it was over, Cheney was whisked away where he could give off his shape, melt back into the pool of vile, gelatinous savagery that is his true form, and be stored away until he is needed again.

Gang-Raping Liberty:
Once upon a time, the Rude Pundit was called upon to plan a bachelor party, and he was challenged by the groom to make it a "wild, end of my single days" bash. So, being the good party planner, he rented a house for the evening and hired a stripper to come out and entertain the troops at the house, figuring that titties in private is better than titties in public. The party went off without a hitch, with the crazed wedding party males going berzerker and tearing up all the houseplants in the rented space, with so much beer and scotch and whatever downed that people were pukin' in the icebox, in the fish tank, everywhere they thought pukin' would be funny. There was porn goin' on the different televisions around the place. The Rude Pundit stayed sober, outside the decadence, figuring someone needed to be able to, say, drive if called upon. For the most part, he was an observer, bemusedly watching the decadence.

Then it was time for the stripper, and, man, she was good. She shook her titties in everyone's faces and shoved her kooz up and down, back and forth on the crotch of the nearly disabled-drunk groom. It was all well and good, since if the completely fucked-up groom had gotten a hard-on, he'd've been like unto a mad god of erections. When she started pantsing the groom and humpin' him on his underwear, the Rude Pundit heard a rumble begin to go through the crowd of horny, drunk, doped-up, jacked-up-on-porn asshole guys: if she reaches into his Fruit of the Looms, it means she wants a gang bang, it means she wants to be fucked backwards, forwards, by a train, man. The assholes began to lean in to the center area where the stripper fantasy fucked the groom, who was nearly passed out.

When you know such things are about to occur, when you realize that violence and rape are going to rear their ugly heads, you are left with precious few options. You can jump in and join the fun. You can walk away, deciding, "Fuck it. Not my crime, not my business." Or you can put a stop to it.

Americans from members of Congress down to Jimmy Nascar Fuckmydaughter are making that decision now. With the growing horrible understanding of just what exactly is happening in this country, to this country, by this country, there's an understanding of one's own complicity in the degradation of the nation. Unfortunately, the Republicans in Congress still wanna either jump in or walk away as the Bush adminstration continues its prolonged gang rape of the body politic, its savage sodomizing of the ass of Lady Justice, its unbelievably vicious fucking of Lady Liberty's sweet face, all the while making the Founders of the nation watch, aghast, as the Bush adminstration gleefully sports its hooked demon cock so as to tear the flesh of those it rapes.

But more and more, the choice of the vast majority of Americans, a real mandate, is that this must end. That we've sat on the sidelines long enough. That those responsible must not only be told to stop, but they must be thrown against a wall, that they must be excised like a cancerous tumor, hoping and praying that it's not too late, it's not too late, to cease this before it drags us all down. And that those who enable it are complicit in the rape even if they keep their dicks in their pockets.

Back at the bachelor party, the Rude Pundit stopped the music. He headed into the middle of the circle and let the stripper take a bow before putting a robe around her and leading her away, quickly gettin' her dressed and drivin' her back to the strip club. He wondered if, when he returned, the boner-sportin' partygoers would have fucked the prone groom, but the only rage that had ensued was that one of the party boys, no doubt in a mixture of mitigated lust and coke, head-butted a hole in the wall and sat there bleeding, demi-erect cock still throbbing through his jeans. And half the group had left to potentially kill people on the road and the other half were sittin' silently, watchin' porn, waitin' to go home to jack off.

No, it wasn't exactly heroic, but no one was harmed that didn't have it coming.

Fun With Context: Where Did the President Get Those Democratic Quotes?:
Let's be a little bit wonky today: Yesterday, in another one of his pathetic little whines about critics of the Iraq war, George Bush, making a not-unlike-Nixon trip to Asia, stopped in Alaska to say: "Let me give you some quotes from three senior Democrat leaders: First, and I quote, 'There is unmistakable evidence that Saddam Hussein is working aggressively to develop nuclear weapons.' Another senior Democrat leader said, 'The war against terrorism will not be finished as long as Saddam Hussein is in power.' Here's another quote from a senior Democrat leader: 'Saddam Hussein, in effect, has thumbed his nose at the world community. And I think the President is approaching this in the right fashion.' They spoke the truth then, and they're speaking politics now."

Since Bush dared not speak the names of the Democrats in question or offer any context for their quotes, hey, why not do some good bloggy work here?

The first quote is from Senator Jay Rockefeller, which is the closest to a money quote in the whole thing. Rockefeller said this in the mini-debate over the Iraq War Resolution on October 10, 2002, which Rockefeller voted to approve. Also in the speech is Rockefeller's belief that war with Iraq would lead to greater terrorist threats against the U.S. And he was played for a sucker by the administration when he said, "Preventing a war with Saddam Hussein -- whether now or later -- must be our top priority, and I believe this resolution will strengthen the president’s hand to resolve this crisis peacefully. By my vote, I say to the United Nations and our allies that America is united in our resolve to deal with Saddam Hussein, and that the U.N. must act to eliminate his weapons of mass destruction. By my vote, I say to Saddam Hussein, 'Disarm, or the United States will be forced to act.'"

But that wish for the U.N. to stay involved and for the administration to try for peace doesn't stop the Rockefeller line from showing up on every nutzoid right wing blog and website claiming that Democrats wanted 'em some warrin', too. But Rockefeller has now unequivocally said that he was wrong back then, that he wouldn't have voted for the war if he had seen all the intelligence (and let's be clear here: saying that the Congress saw "the same" intelligence the President saw is not the same as saying the Congress saw all the intelligence the President had access to. It's like seeing your best friend's wife in a thong and your best friend insists that you've seen his wife naked. No, you may have seen her ass, but there's so, so much more that's been hidden. You've both seen the same ass, not the same body).

The second quote is from Senator Carl Levin, who was not really beatin' the Iraq war drums when he said, on CNN's Late Edition With Wolf Blitzer on December 16, 2001, in answer to Blitzer's question about whether or not Saddam Hussein was a terrorist: "I agree, but exactly the way Senator Kyl put it. The war against terrorism will not be finished as long as he is in power. But that does not mean he is the next target. And the commitment to do that, it seems to me, could be disruptive of our alliance that still has work to do in Afghanistan. And a lot will depend on what the facts are in various places as to what terrorist groups are doing, and as to whether or not we have facts as to whether or not the Iraqis have been involved in the terrorist attack of September 11, or whether or not Saddam is getting a weapon of mass destruction and is close to it. So facts will determine what our next targets are."

The third quote is from Senator Harry Reid who was being interviewed by Judy Woodruff on CNN's Inside Politics on September 18, 2002. Reid was asked about Democrats and their approach to the upcoming "quick vote" on a resolution to give the President authority to go to war. Woodruff wondered,"Are Democrats apparently all just jumping on this bandwagon? Or there is going to be a real debate, the kind that the American people deserve on this"

Reid responded, "As you know when his father went into Iraq, we had a very good debate. Some said one of the best debates in the last 40 years in Congress. We're going to have a debate. But I think we have to acknowledge what's gone on in Iraq. Saddam Hussein, in effect, has thumbed his nose at the world community. And I think that the president's approaching this in the right fashion. He's now trying to get the international community to join. Secretary Powell is basically living in New York, working with international community. And we have made progress...Right now, we're kind of speaking in a vacuum. The Democratic leadership and the Republican leadership, House, and Senate met with the president today. They talked in some generalities, but even today, I don't think the administration knows what they want to do. To get to -- to be very direct and specific, if we wanted to invade Iraq, it's going to take months to get that ready, not days, or weeks. So this isn't anything that's going to happen tomorrow. I think we should get this resolution out of the way. Maybe it would help the administration focus on the domestic policy if we did that."

Then, Reid added, cutely, now, in retrospect, "Oh, I don't think you're going to see blank check. And I don't think the president will ask for a blank check."

So there it is: one quote from a Senator who now says he's wrong, one from a Senator who said war in Iraq would disrupt the effort in Afghanistan, and one from a Senator who believed that the administration had no plan and was going to take it's time and that there would be a great and mighty debate. Now, tell us again, oh, shiny and wonderful Bush administration, how were you not manipulating these people?

Rude Advice To Democrats: Resistance Is an Agenda:
There's precious few things we can say about the American people in general that'd be true, especially when it comes to politics. Yer pundits like to talk about Americans loving strength, commitment, and shit like that in their leaders. But that's not really entirely true: Americans like things to be concrete. They like practice, not theory. It's why Bush will never, ever recover public support on the Iraq war: it was sold to the U.S. based on a couple of concrete things - WMDs and and Iraq/Al-Qaeda nexus of eeeevil. It is now being waged based on something abstract: spreadin' democracy to freedom lovin' people.

See, you tell your average American that a man with brownish skin who talks a weird moonman language that he wants to blow your shit up, well, what are you gonna do? Say "No" to blowin' him up first? 'Course not. It's a simple, economical equation: kill or be killed. But when you gotta come back to that average American, that idealized version of a citizen that doesn't really exist, and say, "Hey, man, our shit wasn't about to be fucked up, but, lookie, we're 'spreadin' democracy' with our troops," well, you may as well start jackin' off now 'cause you'll be told repeatedly to "Go fuck yourself."

Americans hate utopianism. It's one reason why liberalism failed in this nation: for too long, the practical, actual, real things that liberals did got caught up in utopian bullshit that was easily manipulated to sound faux communistic. Without the nukes, without the photos of Hussein and Bin Laden playin' grab ass, the President has had to say, repeatedly, that the Iraq war is about "building democracy," and that those who are fighting the U.S. troops there are trying to stop democracy from being built. Ideal Average American thought the troops were there to stop the bad man and his bad bombs.

So what poll numbers indicate is that the vast majority of Americans believe not only that Bush is as worthless as a midget trying to fuck an Amazon warrior, but that Republicans are busy harming America, and they want the Republican agenda stopped. Now. Americans want resistance, active, ongoing resistance to the crazed machinations of the now obviously evil people running things.

The right loves to say any time the Democrats resist or block a Republican bill or nominee or idea, "Well, Democrats, why don't you tell us what you'd like to do? What's your plan?" That's like a rapist getting kicked in the nuts by his potential victim and then asking her, "Well, okay, since you don't want to be fucked, what would you like to do?" The only proper response is not for the victim to suggest alternate activities ("Well, rapist, we could play a lively game of whist"), but to say, "I'd like you to be dead. No, no, even better, I'd like you to be buried alive. In a small coffin. Filled with scorpions. And covered in shit."

Resistance is an agenda. It's simply explained: hey, the bag of douche Republicans won't even allow Democratic ideas to be debated, so we're gonna filibuster the shit out of these assholes on most of their extreme shit and force compromise or implosion. And if you wanna have new ideas, then get rid of these crazy motherfuckers who want to wreck the country for this strange, endless utopian vision they have that they can't really explain to the rest of us.

Democrats in the Senate need to filibuster, constantly, because they can. Because, like David only havin' a little fuckin' rock in a leather sack against big-ass Goliath, they have God on their side in the form of poll numbers that say the direction of the country is wrong. You may say, "But, oh, dear, if Democrats simply stand in the way of things being done, they will be portrayed as obstructionists." And the Rude Pundit would get all Zen and shit and say, "Is a dam obstructionist to a river that would wash away a town?" Then he'd smile as you try to figure that out as he comes on to your boyfriend or girlfriend.

Resistance leaders are revered as heroes in other nations, especially when they take on a monolithic, seemingly undefeatable opponent. Their rewards are power with which they can then either imitate the foul leaders just ousted or forge a new bond with the average citizen.

President Bush - We Will Win This War That We Can't Ever Win:
The Rude Pundit's not sure, but did the President of the United States admit today, in his great and mighty Veterans Day speech, that going into Iraq ain't gonna do jackshit to stop Islamic fundamentalist hatred of America? Bush said, in answering his critics (like, you know, his own State Department) that going into Iraq has increased the amount of anger against us, "We were not in Iraq on September 11, 2001...[The hatred] existed before we were in Iraq, and it will exist after we're gone." [Quotes are approximate - no transcript yet.]

So, like, let's see if we've got this straight: Bush essentially stated that nothing will change for Americans because of our Iraqi venture. That wasn't off the cuff, that wasn't in answer to a question, that was his goddamned prepared speech. Yet, as he continues to say, we must stay the course. And that course would be to ensure that nothing changes for the United States, save the loss of thousands of lives, limbs, and minds, and, of course, our national identity and treasury.

If this is the opening salvo in a fight to regain the credibility Bush has lost, it was limp, like when you've had too much cocaine and you've told the hooker you paid good money for that you're gonna fuck her so hard she'll forget every other john she's ever fucked, but after you drop your pants you realize you can't get it up any more and you just end up flaccidly slapping the hooker in her face with your dangling dick until she just gets tired and leaves. What's more pathetic? That you couldn't get it up? That you had to hire the hooker? Or that the hooker got bored with your limp prick?

The best Bush could offer was the same shit he's been flingin' since the campaign: "Hey, Democrats said I could go to war." In other words, Congress gave him the cocked gun; blame them if he shoots it. He pronounced that "Congress approved with strong bipartisan support" the authority for Bush to wage war, and that now it's "irresponsible to rewrite the history of how the war began." Which is odd, since Senator Jay Rockefeller and now John Edwards are saying not that their votes for the war didn't happen, but that they were wrong. That ain't revisionism. It's an apology for a grave error, a way of saying let's find out why we made such a stupid decision. Bush continued the lie that Congress saw the "same intelligence" that he saw, even quoting John Kerry (who he would not name) about the vote for the war. It's his last fig leaf before his tiny, raisinette balls are revealed.

Oh, but don't you dare expect such an admission of wrongness from Bush, though. If you're against the war, motherfuckers, you're against the troops. The soldiers, Bush said, "deserve to know that their elected leaders who voted to send them to war continue to stand behind them." And, of course, we're gonna keep making sure Americans die until the job is done. By the way, if you didn't support the war, Bush said, you "didn't support the liberation of Iraq." God, we're such terrible people, we who think the war is a sham and a failure. And we'd better gird our loins for the coming war with Syria.

It was a ridiculous attempt to rally the loyal troops, to give himself the mantle of morality, to blame others, and to remain that stubborn fucker the nation sees him as. What's out there now about Bush is that he lied, his administration lied, and that Americans are dying for those lies. And assuring people that there's gonna be a fuck of a lot more death before he's done with this country, the U.S., not Iraq, sure as shit ain't gonna make up for poll numbers that say two-thirds of the nation think Bush is a festering wad of fuck.

Bush got all movie-quotable again, saying, "We will never back down. We will never give in. We will never accept anything less than complete victory" against that thing that he said will be there when we're gone from Iraq. And anyone who expects anything like conciliation or recognition of past mistakes by this White House better toss those dreams out the window. Like the Rude Pundit said yesterday, the Bush administration is gonna fight like a cornered wolverine. Time for Democrats to break out the tranq gun.

(Advice to Democrats on Monday. Give oral pleasure to a veteran today. It's the polite, liberal way to say, "Thanks.")

Awaiting the First Mad Weasel Slashings:
The Rude Pundit is waiting for Bush's Veterans Day speech to comment on how the crazed Republican wolverines will attack and how Democrats can brain those cornered fuckers to use their skunky fur to keep them warm through the cold winter months.

Back around noonish.

A Warning To Democrats: Beware of Large, Cornered Weasels:
The wolverine is the largest land-dwelling member of the weasel family. It's a crazed, vicious little fucker that can carry a carcass three times its size. Shit, it can bring down a caribou or a small bear, if it wants to. And its jaws can crush bones. Typically, all a wolverine has to do to drive away other predatory animals is growl, raise the hair on its back, and bare its teeth; that'll scare cougars and wolves shitless. And if you corner it, you better watch out: those bastards'll fight until they tear their way through your body, leaving you stunned and staring at your own viscera steaming on the snow below you. It's better to kill it than try to fight it. Or, if you're all scientific or protective of endangered species, put it into a deep sleep and cage the sharp-toothed weasel.

It is advice best heeded by Democrats in the coming months. For right now, the Republicans are wounded, corner wolverines, and Karl Rove has months of suppressed destructive urges to unleash on the Democrats for the 2006 elections. It's probably not gonna start in earnest until after the holidays, but wolverines do not hibernate. They troll the snowy countryside for deer and rabbits so they can sink their teeth in and taste that warm, comforting blood and soft, rubbery meat.

We do know that the White House is about to launch an offensive against Democrats on big issues like misuse of WMD intelligence. But that's just the start. 2006 is gonna be savage and bloody in ways that'll make 2002 and 2004 seem like prances through perfumed daisy patches. Remember: when the Republicans went after the blown-up limbs of Max Cleland and the corpse of Paul Wellstone, they were ridin' high poll numbers and majorities in Congress. Now, they know they're clinging on by their fingernails and there's only a couple of strategies available: bail on Bush or fight like large weasels.

And with Karl Rove treating their political careers like Saddam Hussein treated the families of any straying Republican Guard members, you can bet the claws are being sharpened by GOP loyalists to stay the path of destruction.

So Democrats have to take a page from Rove and Bush and engage in pre-emptive strikes. It's not time to walk to a neutral corner and let the Republicans get a standing eight count. No, it's time to not only take off the gloves, but to throw those useless fuckers in the garbage and bare-knuckle the bruised faces and broken ribs of the GOP. Because if you let a wolverine get the first blow, as sure as you're reading this, you'll be staring at your saggin' intestines. No, no, it is time to step on those grasping fingernails so that these Republican fuckers fall off the ledge.

How to do that? Ahh, that's advice. And that's for tomorrow.

Harbingers of Republican Death:
In folklore around the world, there are figures, symbolic entities and beings whose appearance means death to those they appear to. Irish mythology tells of the banshee, a spirit woman who appears to signal imminent and usually violent death. Sometimes the banshee looks like a washer woman, scrubbing blood out of the clothes of those about to perish. Often, the banshee's voice announces her arrival, and, depending on where you are in Ireland, that voice can be a sweet siren's song or it can be a glass-shattering piercing scream. That is her wail, her eternal mourning for what is about to be lost.

Other cultures have gods, like the ancient Greek Thanatos or the Hindu Lord Yama. Yama's mere glance can result in one's death, and his appearance to wicked men is frightening, with huge limbs and breath of fire, a harbinger of the awful fate they must suffer. Indeed, for evil men in Hinduism, the fate of death is horrible, according to the Arthasastra: "'The hard-hearted men of Yama, terrifying, foul-smelling, with hammers and maces in their hands' come to get the deceased, who tremble and begin to scream. Filled with terror and pain, the soul leaves the body. 'Preceded by his vital wind, he takes on another body of the same form, a body born of his own karma in order for him to be tortured.'"

Sometimes reading the harbingers are difficult - looking at bones or tea leaves to suss out the meaning. But other times, it's as easy as hearing a woman's terrible, ghostly scream or seeing a fire-breathing Indian. And after last night, it's time to say that, for Republicans, it's time to put away the tarot cards and pay attention to the banshee wails crying out, "You're fucked, motherfuckers, you are so, so very fucked."

For it's not so much that the gubernatorial elections last night went to Democrats. It's not even that Bush campaigned for doomed Virginia Republican Jerry Kilgore. It's that it wasn't even close. Democrat Tim Kaine won in Virginia by 6 points (which counts as a mandate these days, no?) in a state that Bush had won in 2004 by eight points. More expected, despite the attempt to spin the race as close, Jon Corzine beat Republican Doug Forrester by nine points in New Jersey. Throw into the pile the let's-hate-the-fags amendment defeat in Maine, the go-fuck-yourself-Arnold results in California, and the we-got-your-intelligent-design-hangin' evolution win in Pennsylvania, and the banshee is a-screechin' loud, man, fuckin' loud, for the blood of Republicans, and you've got the beginning of a rejection of not only a party, by a way of governing. (Yeah, yeah, Texas passed a redundant anti-gay marriage amendment, but, you know, fuck Texas for now. We'll get to Texans soon enough.)

And if that wasn't enough, the pile-on of the Republicans continues unabated, with the non-Fox media perhaps showing a sign or two of rejecting the GOP spin. For instance, there's been a few increasingly common moments on CNN, when, after presenting the Republican spin, a reporter or host actually states not only the counterspin, but the outrage at the issue. This morning, at the end of his report on the GOP's attempt to change the story from the existence of secret torture prisons to a story about the leak about the existence of secret torture prisons, Ed Henry added, "Lawmakers in both parties starting to say not just -- there shouldn't just be investigation of the leak of secret prison, how about a probe of whether or not these secret prisons exist and whether they should stay open."

To this statement, which a year ago would have simply been left alone as evidence that CNN provided a semblance of "balance," American Morning host Miles "Stop Lookin' At Soledad" O'Brien said, "Yes, let's not forget we're talking about a network of secret prisons which ignores all the civil rights we hold dear to us. And perhaps an investigation should be focused there." What? A news anchor standing up for civil rights? How the fuck did that happen?

Henry quickly agreed, saying, "Absolutely. And in fact there's debate in the Senate this very week, because Senator John McCain, as you know, has been pushing to make sure that the torture standards, the anti-torture standards, are strengthened in the United States to make sure these terror suspects are not actually tortured at secret prisons or elsewhere."

It's doom and damnation for the wicked men and women of the Republican party. They tied their destinies to that Bush express back in 2004, and that motherfucker's gone off the tracks. We won't know the full body count until a year from now, but it ain't lookin' pretty. And as Democrats have been learning, the path back from the realm of death is long: "The evil man becomes born as an animal, among the worms, insects, moths, beasts of prey, mosquitoes, and so forth. There he is born in elephants, trees, and so forth, and in cows and horses, and in other wombs that are evil and painful. When he finally becomes a human, he is a despicable hunchback...When there is none of his evil left, and he is filled with merit, then he starts climbing up to higher castes."

Democrats may not be Brahmins yet, but, for certain, they have reached the level of higher beasts or lower humans while the Republicans are about to discover that there's only rocks to land on at the end of the tumble into death. The harbingers are there. Death is coming. The only thing Republicans can do is to try to change their wicked ways so that the afterlife is kinder. Or those rocks'll be sharpened into points.

George Bush's Addiction To Himself:
Since we can never stop comparing Bill Clinton to George W. Bush, here's another: when you're President, it's time to give up some old habits. With Clinton, even acknowledging that Republicans went monkeyfuck insane about it in order to find one thing to attempt to bring down his presidency, it was his bad habit of fucking chicks with bigger hair and less power. Whatever you thought about Paula Jones, there's no denying Clinton fucked (and fucking the face counts as fucking) Gennifer Flowers and Monica Lewinsky (and if you know any other names of alleged Clinton fuck dolls, you need to get a fuckin' job). So there's a good many of us that say about Bill Clinton: would it have been that fuckin' hard to keep your dick out of the mouths of the interns or, indeed, any orifice not belonging to Hillary for eight fuckin' years? (And we might add: Man, Monica must have sucked the Clinton crank like a Hoover set on deep pile for it to be worth it.)

With Bush, there's his schedule and his beddy-bye time. If you're the goddamn President, despite whatever whines and protestations you wanna make about "me time," your ass belongs to the American people, and if the event demands it (even if it's not a fundraiser), suck it up and lose a wink or two. Take, for instance, this from Elisabeth "Oh, Sweet Jesus, If I Can't Blow Him In Person, I'll Do It In Print" Bumiller's New York Times article about Bush's feckless visit to Argentina: "[T]he always-on-time, early-rising Mr. Bush found himself so much at the mercy of Argentina's late, leisurely scheduling that on Friday he sat down to a dinner with Western Hemisphere leaders at 10:15 p.m., already past his bedtime, and did not get back to his hotel room until nearly 12:40 a.m. The next day, an administration official said Mr. Bush would skip a two-hour lunch with the leaders because of 'time served' at dinner the night before." Later, Bumiller writes, since the lunch was canceled due to the frustrating, worthless summit (due, in no small part, to the United States), "[B]y 3:30 p.m., evidently on an empty stomach, Mr. Bush said he was sticking to his itinerary - a 4:05 p.m. Air Force One departure from Argentina to go to Brazil - and he did, leaving an assistant secretary of state behind to sweat out the trade talks. They ended hours later in failure."

Look at that: Bush simply didn't care. And even if he wants to claim he did care, well, fuck, like in Florida classrooms and during Texas holidays, what you say is worthless compared to what you do. Let's say you're, like, the President of Uruguay and you hear that the U.S. President feels like he's done "time served" with your Latin American ass. You can either go begging, tail between your legs, to the assistant secretary of state or you can tell the U.S. to go fuck itself. Jesus, allegedly the Free Trade Area of the Americas actually meant something to Bush. Can you imagine how he reacts to something he doesn't give a shit about? Oh, right, that'd be the bodies in the streets of New Orleans.

Bumiller has been the chronicler of the leader of the free world's inability to veer from his schedule. In January 2002, she wrote, "Mr. Bush is usually in bed by 10 p.m., meaning his social dinners are early and quick. Guests arrive at the White House about 6:30 p.m., around the time that the president walks back to the residence from the Oval Office. Dinner is at 7:30 p.m. and lasts only an hour." In March 2004, Bumiller writes of the horrible rigidity of the President's day:

"[T]he president is generally awake by 5 a.m., when he has coffee and reads the newspapers in bed with his wife. By 7 a.m. he is in the Oval Office, where he makes calls, often to leaders overseas or his parents, before his national security briefing at 8.

"For the rest of the day, Mr. Bush is in more meetings -- with the National Security Council, his campaign staff, his domestic policy staff, his speechwriters. He often eats a lunch of salad alone while he channel-surfs in a small dining room off the Oval Office. He exercises in the White House gym, usually in the late morning or early evening. Either way, he's back at the residence around 6 for dinner at 7. The teetotaling president retires around 9 p.m., even when he has guests, and takes to bed a giant briefing book to read as preparation for the following day. Lights are out at 10."

Now beyond the obvious lies about "reading," whether it be the "newspapers" or the "giant briefing book" (which, one imagines, might be so giant because it requires lots of big letters and pictures), there's something stomach-churningly disconcerting about having a President who is not just predictable, but addicted to his schedule, like, say, an alcoholic or cokehead has to have regular infusions of liquor or coke. The thing about addicts? Every junkie and long-gone hobo will tell you that you need more and more shit in your body to get that high. A couple of weeks ago, in the Huffington Post, Nora Ephron wrote that she sees Bush's ever-intensifying exercise regimen as a non-medicated way to stave off depression.

But let's take this a bit further and posit the Bush uber-schedule, including the exercise, in a couple of ways: if one is a recovering addict, one needs to be kept to a tight schedule so that one's mind doesn't stray to the sweet release of Lady 'Caine or the warm nuzzle of Gentleman Jack. Or, to go in another direction, that addicts transfer that addictive personality to something else. Ever seen the end of an AA meeting? Those fuckers are two-fistin' the cigarettes, heavingly inhaling that nicotine as fast as possible. With our dear President, perhaps it is the schedule that's the addiction - the desire for control over all elements around him, the monomania with which he governs. That would include the exercise.

And the basic fix of the rigid schedule is no longer good enough. It has to be more intense, more disciplined. And fuck everyone else, even the leaders of the Western Hemisphere, for interfering with that schedule. The presidents of Argentina, Peru, and certainly Venezuela can eat his dust as he makes sure that his time on earth is his own.

The only exception? A campaign rally, which Bush veered off to in Virginia to try to "help" Republican gubernatorial candidate Jerry Kilgore. What could be a better fix for the unleashed ego, the wild-eyed, selfish child, than a large crowd screaming how wonderful he is? Sure as hell beats all those fuckin' Argentineans burnin' shit and chantin' that he's useless and/or evil.

Dick Cheney Will Destroy Us All:
Oh, for the days when Dick Cheney was Secretary of Defense, when he was only a demi-demon in the hierarchy of Hades. Back then, in the adminstration of Bush the Less Stupid, he could appear on a show like CBS This Morning on January 21, 1991 and tell Paula Zahn, in reference to Iraq's "plan" to use American POWs as human shields, "Iraq is party to the Geneva Convention. They have a solemn legal obligation to abide by the Geneva Convention, in terms of the treatment of prisoners. To do anything else would, in fact, constitute a war crime." Man, it was nice when Cheney could say with a straight face (well, let's be fair: it's Cheney - his face always has a semi-stroke victim crooked sag), "[W]e hold Iraqi prisoners. I expect we're going to hold a lot more, before this is over with. We will treat them in accordance with the Geneva Convention."

How fuckin' nice it must have been, back in that first Gulf War, when the moral high ground didn't seem quite as Everest-like, so that Cheney could say, in reaction to the parading of American POWs on TV by Iraq, gleefully broadcast by the American media, "To exploit prisoners the way he is doing is a clearcut violation of the Geneva convention and in effect is a war crime."

Or that Cheney's British counterpart, Defense Minister Tom King could intone at a press conference on that cold January day, without it seeming ironic, "I would therefore like to make absolutely clear that any attempt to parade or display prisoners of war is a total breach of the Geneva Convention, that any attempt at physical or mental torture or coercion to try and compel people to say things which they would otherwise not wish to say is a total breach of the Geneva Convention." Oh, how charming, how quaint, even.

Of course, to assert any kind of moral authority in that war would require us to disregard the many and sundry atrocities committed by the United States during that first Gulf War, like, you know, burying perhaps thousands of Iraqi soldiers alive in the desert, the indiscriminate bombing of civilians, the "turkey shoots" of unarmed civilians, but, you know, for the sake of argument, let's just say that those war crimes are "the-type-of-shit-that-happens-during-war-you-pussy-pacifists" or some such bullshit. And then, voila, we have the moral authority because we didn't actively enact a policy of torture.

But this isn't about torture, per se, as much as it's about Dick Cheney, whose career of criminality is nicely summarized by James Carroll in the Boston Globe. Dick Cheney is a moral and ethical vacuum in a couple of senses: he not only is completely devoid of anything that stinks of morals and ethics, but proximity to him actually results in Cheney sucking away the moral and ethical souls of those around him, making him stronger, more sinister, and emboldening him to stretch his viper tentacles to engorge on the sweet meat of the entire national identity so that it might be demonically remade in his depraved image. Back in the old days, he'd have been the Inquisitor who fucked young Jewish boys while the screams of their fathers being sodomized with hot pokers (under his orders) created the romantic soundtrack for his throbbing, unabated lust. It is a rare thing, indeed, to be able to so clearly and unabashedly point one's finger and name evil, and that is something we can, of course, do with Dick Cheney.

You may ask, How does the Rude Pundit know that Dick Cheney is most assuredly evil? And the Rude Pundit would stare at you for a moment before slapping you and saying, "Well, duh." Here's the Washington Post this morning: "Over the past year, Vice President Cheney has waged an intense and largely unpublicized campaign to stop Congress, the Pentagon and the State Department from imposing more restrictive rules on the handling of terrorist suspects." This is how evil gets done - through phrases like "more restrictive rules." Because in order to believe that the Congress, et al, want to be "more restrictive," you have to believe that decades of U.S. policy on torture have been wrong. In fact, the idea of "restriction" sounds like we wanna tickle prisoners with feathers and offer them blow jobs for information (which would probably be more effective than a fluorescent tube up the anus).

Has any reporter actually looked at the Army Field Manual's guide to the interrogation process, the one that John McCain wants the United States to follow again? In Appendix H, on "Approaches," it lays out pretty clearly how intense an interrogation can get: "In the fear up (harsh) approach, the interrogator behaves in a heavy, overpowering manner with a loud and threatening voice. The interrogator may even feel the need to throw objects across the room to heighten the source's implanted feelings of fear. Great care must be taken when doing this so that any actions taken would not violate the Geneva Conventions. This technique is to convince the source that he does indeed have something to fear and that he has no option but to cooperate." Not harsh enough for you? Then fuck it - go live in Uzbekistan and boil your heart away.

When the President of the United States said today in Panama that "We do not torture," he prefaced it by saying, "We are finding terrorists and bringing them to justice. We are gathering information about where the terrorists may be hiding. We are trying to disrupt their plots and plans. Anything we do to that effort, to that end, in this effort, any activity we conduct, is within the law." In other words, by definition, as long as we are trying to find out shit about terrorists, it doesn't constitute torture. Is that not a vast narrowing of the definition of torture? Is that not an invocation of Alberto Gonzales's memo about the President saying what is and is not legally torture?

But it all cycles back to Cheney, not to Bush the Stupider. "Cheney's camp says the United States does not torture captives, but believes the president needs nearly unfettered power to deal with terrorists to protect Americans. To preserve the president's flexibility, any measure that might impose constraints should be resisted," says the Post, or, in other words, we don't torture but we torture, but if we say we don't torture, then we must not torture, even though we don't want any laws that would prevent us from torturing, although we don't torture. See? Get it?

Ahh, the viscous goo that hulks like a human, Dick Cheney, and his staff of gorgons and demons, giggling madly as they wipe their asses with the Geneva Conventions and toss the feces-smeared documents around the room. They will try anything to ensure that they can disappear who they like when they like. For if they cannot, who knows what truths might be spoken out loud? If you let the damned out of hell, who knows what horrors they may speak of?

(Tip of the rude hat to Luke B. for the heads up on the Carroll column.)

Karl Rove Contemplates His Leather Slave:
Goddamn, this should go on forever, thinks Karl Rove as he receives a rim job from his leather slave. Karl Rove keeps his leather slave in the basement of the White House, right next to Woodrow Wilson's drool bucket and the cabinet that holds John Tyler's "Ladies' Surprise" dildo made from dead slave bones. Yes, Rove removed the ball gag from his leather slave's mouth and before he could say anything, Rove shoved his White House-sitting ass right in the leather slave's face and commanded him, "Start lapping."

Karl Rove's leather slave has been so obedient all these years, even though he doesn't realize that Rove would rather slit his throat than willingly turn him over to another Presidential aide. Oh, sure, sure, Rove'll share his leather slave, masturbating furiously in the corner as he watches a latex-cocooned Stephen Hadley or a strap-on packing Condi take turns fucking away on his leather slave's willing anus. But these are done to please Rove, not to give pleasure to anyone else. Should he be forced to leave this White House, should he lose access to this basement, rather than think about someone else using his leather slave for their orgasmic glee, he'd gut the leather slave and dance with his entrails, whooping like a mad pagan running crazy-legged on too much peyote into the desert sandscape.

Rove is feeling the bitter sting of rejection. His leather slave's sphincter has been tighter than usual - typically, Rove would see this as an opportunity, a chance to fuck away and love the squeeze on his dick. But something's different this time. He thinks his leather slave senses weakness. He thinks his leather slave has seen how the end of the relationship is imminent. But in Rove's strange mind, every other time he was revealed to be the puppet master behind the Herman Miller chair in the Oval Office and his leather slave resisted his cock and balls, Rove saw it as a tease, a little game that said to him that the leather slave was demanding more punishment. And so he made sure that he broke out the bullwhip, the spiked glove, the branding irons to teach his leather slave that he, Rove, will decide when his leather slave is fucked and how hard.

Now, though, oh, now. Rove wonders, as he farts on his leather slave's face, if maybe he should do something graceful. If he should just walk away, head back to Texas, become a consultant. If he should tell the puppy dog President, who bows his head and looks at Rove sad-eyed these days, as if he's thinking that Rove wants to put him to sleep, that the President will have to go on without him. And then he'll set his leather slave free, release the straps and chains that have held him down here for these long years. Yes, grace and honor, such things are not alien to him, but they are mere concepts, not practicable. No certainly not practicable. Not with Fitzgerald out there to be crushed and discredited. Not with Democrats to be stomped on like so many hamsters by so many spiked boots. And certainly not with this huge boner he's gotten from the rim job.

Karl Rove turns around and faces his leather slave, gives him a sip of water. "You've been so good to me," Rove says, caressing his leather slave's cheek, pulling the hair away from his eyes. The leather slave smiles, expectantly, like perhaps he's finally going to be freed, because he's so, so tired of the sodomizing. It is a terrible turn of events, you know, when the slave no longer wishes to serve the master for, indeed, he is just a slave, and there is no safe word. "And you look so very tired." The leather slave nods, his eyes saying, Yes, yes, too tired to do this anymore.

"That's too bad. Because now I'm gonna fuck your face," says Karl Rove before yipping insanely and plunging his cock into his leather slave's mouth, slapping that chin with his nutsack. For indeed, at day's end, all Karl Rove knows is how to treat his leather slave like a leather slave, and until the day one of them dies, the leather slave will not escape Karl Rove.

Seeking Permission To Speak From the Right:
So, like, tell us, Fox "News," if we're running a gulag, is it okay to call it a "gulag"? 'Cause, sure, maybe Gitmo ain't exactly a "gulag," but the former gulags in Eastern Europe where the CIA is "interrogating" al-Qaeda "operatives"? Those would be, um, gulags. If Dick Durbin dares to call these hidden prisons "gulags" on the floor of the Senate, Bill O'Reilly, would he be forced to apologize?

Since ninety senators believe that the United States should abide by the Army Code of Conduct and the Geneva Conventions in regard to the treatment of prisoners, is it alright, Michelle Malkin, if we say that it's more than crazy leftists and the ACLU that opposes torture? And since Bush administration members are fighting among themselves about torture policy and military tribunals at Gitmo, do you mind, Ann Coulter, if we talk about torture in a way that's about torture and not about who is calling something "torture"? Can we ask, Jonah Goldberg, why we need such secret and closed detention facilities without it being perceived as merely a liberal attack on the good intentions of the U.S. government?

And since Dick Cheney and others are asking that the CIA be specifically allowed to torture prisoners, oh, good men and true over at Powerline, can we drop the line that the President wants prisoners treated humanely?

Of course we can't. Because, as on so many issues, the barbaric cocks and cunts of the right desperately have to cling to the bugaboo of liberal ill-intentions for, if they believe otherwise, if they have to argue on an issue instead of merely intoning the words "liberal" or "secular" in lieu of a response, if they have to actually own up to the fact that America is now, to most of the world, no better than a third-rate Latin American dictatorship when it comes to treatment of prisoners, they'll be forced to eat a meal of their own shit.