BYE BYE, JACKASS

At the risk of posting the obvious, but someone has to do it:



I thought about commissioning Def National Affairs chief Lucky Bensonhurst to write a farewell address looking back at the Bush years, but he and I both agreed that it was a waste of everyone’s time. We all know what he did. And someone's probably already written the definitive kiss-off.

It’s almost 2am here in Hong Kong, so I’ll save further commentary (should any even be necessary) until tomorrow.

For now, here’s hoping that Obama 44 has what it takes to undo the damage wrought by the Smirker. And it had better be good.

Loser leaves town,

This is dF

GREAT MOMENTS IN MOTIVATIONAL SPEAKING, PART 23

So yes, I was up until two o’clock in the morning watching Obama 44 take the oath and rock the mike.



[Click the picture for a full size hi-rez version]

Not that I’d planned on doing so, if for no other reason that I really didn't want to have to watch Rick Warren ask Jesus to bend the laws of the universe for America's convenience. (Whatever you think about Warren's views, I've never felt comfortable with the idea of millions of people praying publicly in the name of politics as though Jesus actually cares what country yr from and who runs it. Something about the separation of church and state. Still, nice of Obama to chip in a word for the "non-believers", whatever that means.)

But it was as if I had no choice but to watch. All four local TV channels covered it live. That’s how big a deal this is. You know how many Hong Kong TV stations ran live video of Bush’s two inaugurations? Zero. Maybe one, the first time. I forget. And I didn't watch it in any case.

As I expected, I went to sleep and awoke to find that the inauguration had already spurred important and lengthy debate about the two biggest issues facing America: who really screwed up the oath, and OMG where did Michelle Obama get that ball dress?

I was hoping there’d be just a little more focus on what was for me (and apparently figmentj  and isis_lives ) the golden quote of the entire speech:

As for our common defence, we reject as false the choice between our safety and our ideals. Our founding fathers, faced with perils we can scarcely imagine, drafted a charter to assure the rule of law and the rights of man, a charter expanded by the blood of generations. Those ideals still light the world, and we will not give them up for expedience's sake.

(Unlike some people we could mention sitting ten feet away looking sullen.)

See what he did there?

Indeed, Obama summed everything that was wrong with the Bush Posse in three short sentences. Bush was stupid and wrong about a great many things in his time, but the worst thing he ever did – the thing that did the most damage, and the one I’d want him held accountable for above all else – is selling out the rule of law as much as possible in the name of fighting Teh Terrors. Gitmo, torture, renditions, warrantless wiretaps, library card searches, no-fly lists and much much more – all justified by the spectre of “the next 9/11”.

All up, fear was Bush’s business. And business was good.

Until the economy collapsed.

Anyway, it had to be said, and I’m glad Obama took the time to say it – and in Bush’s presence.

Not that it matters. Bush seems ready to spend his retirement pretty much the way he spent his presidency – blissfully unaware that he ever did anything wrong. And sadly, he’ll have plenty of company. But whoever said life was fair?

Back on track,

This is dF

TEAM DEF SPECIAL REPORT: THE BUSH AND I

BULLETIN: Due to overwhelming demand for crack political analysis on this blog, TFI National Affairs Sensei Lucky Bensonhurst has sent in the following missive from an undisclosed location:

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re: Junior’s so-called legacy

Good evening, citizens.

I just got off the phone with Keith Olbermann, who wouldn’t stop calling me until I gave him a fucking comment on Junior Bush’s legacy. I shouted something about keeping Gitmo open long enough to send Bush’s entire crew there for a short five-year vacation during which they could be treated to Slayer, sleep-dep, waterboarding and all the additional fun they could stand short of organ failure, after which they would be shown the exit that just happens to lead to a room full of gay Spanish-speaking leopards – which seemed to satisfy him.

But as long as I’m dispensing justice, I thought I might as well give the fans something to ponder –

My instinct is to say that Junior's presidency was the kind of era that could only have gone better if he'd never given up whiskey and cocaine in the first place. Apart from that, there’s really little left to say about the Bush Dynasty that hasn’t already been said.

In fact, pfarley  has as good an assessment as yr likely to hear: the problem wasn’t Bush so much as the neocon think tanks that festered around him. If Bush was guilty of anything, it was letting these dingbats set up a boiler room in the Oval Office basement.

Listen:

What made 2005 the bleakest year of my life was the realization that I lived in a Post-Truth America. The Neo-Cons had created an environment where truth not only didn't matter, truth was outright impossible. If I don't like the facts, I'll invent my own facts was the apparent motto of the Bush White House and indeed the whole Conservative movement. And it *seemed* that the majority of Americans were okay with this. Could you, for example, have found ten people who agreed that WMDs were (or were not) discovered in Iraq? Could you have found ten people who agreed that Saddam Hussein was NOT responsible for the attacks of 9/11? When the administration itself was incapable of giving a straight answer to these questions, there was no way of establishing the truth or falsehood of any lunatic belief at that time. It was like watching a burglary in broad daylight, where none of the neighbors -- in fact, not even the homeowner being burgled -- was interested in calling the police.

Sounds about right. And he doesn’t even mention Fox News, which did its part to legitimize these kooks in ways that talk radio never really could.

What it all means for Junior’s legacy is anyone’s guess. There is talk that Junior will be judged to be the worst president in US history. Maybe. The worst presidents to date were a collection of crooks, nitwits, paranoids and underachievers. Where Bush fits into that crowd depends on how much of Junior’s accomplishments you think were due to malice, naivete, blind panic or general buffoonery.

As a professional Libra, I tend to believe it’s an alarming mix of all four. But yes, so what? Let us not split hairs over rankings. Unless you have money riding on it, it doesn’t really matter if Junior Bush was worse than Harding, Nixon, Buchanan and the others that tend to make the Worst Presidents list. Either way, historians will look back and see that Bush 43’s reign was a selective reality bubble of pre-emptive war, torture, economic collapse and general dumb madness – which is what happens when you believe that science books and condoms can be replaced with Bibles.

If that doesn’t get him on the list, then yr future is already doomed.

Bensonhurst out.

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ITUNES FUCKS FREE SPEECH LIKE THEY MEAN IT

BAD: In December, Apple refused to allow author David Carnoy to sell his novel, Knife Music, on the iTunes App Store because it contains “objectionable content and is in violation of Section 3.3.12 from the iPhone SDK Agreement”.

Specifically, content like this:



WORSE: Knife Music is now available on iTunes – because Carnoy censored his own book and removed all the naughty stuff.

CONCLUSION: My own novels will NEVER be available on iTunes.

There is just so many things wrong with this story that it’s hard to know where to begin. For a start, Apple’s policy makes zero sense, especially when it already had a section for mature content before Carnoy submitted his book the first time.

Second, the real obscenity here is the spectacle of an author censoring his own work to enable it to be sold. Carnoy says he did it because “it wasn’t that big a deal” and that he’d rather people read the censored version than to not read it at all.

It’s his book, and therefore his call, but I strongly disagree that it’s not a big deal.

I’ve written before that books are one of the last forms of media in which you can tell a story as raunchily and graphically as you like without worrying about censorship from the MPAA or the FCC or Wal-mart or the local church busybody. Caving into Apple’s zero-tolerance SDK user agreement legitimizes the idea that books are no different from films, TV shows and music and MUST be censored to avoid either offending moral people or turning children into sex-crazed drug addicts – and that someone like Apple gets to decide what words you can or cannot use.

I’m sure some will argue that it’s no different from “FCC-friendly” versions of songs or editing all the nipples and swearing out of feature films for TV broadcasting. But then I never supported those practices either.

Not safe for real life,

This is dF