Beautiful Photograph du Jour

Barack Obama shakes hands with John Sidney McCain IV
at U.S. Naval Academy graduation ceremony.
Photograph by Alex Wong/Getty Images

Not Your Ordinary Memorial Day Poem

WAIL OF A BEATEN WOMAN
By Smith Dawless

My war-weary Willie is back home again,
Decidely psychoneutortic.
Afflicted with strange paranoic desires
Acquired in locations exotic.

Emibttered, frustrated, he cannot relieve
His desperate nervous condition
Unless he is staging an amateur bout
With me on the floor of our kitchen.

The eminent experts explain that I must
Be patient and most understanding,
Regardless of where my anatomy's hit
Or how I get battered in landing.

So beat me, dear daddy, sixteen to the bar,
My floating ribs part from their mooring
Oh, cave in my clavicle, shatter my shin,
Assured that my love is enduring.

At least, until I can rise from the floor
And get from the cabinet shelf
A rolling pin, darling, to knock you out cold.
I've a few inhibitions myself!

Hat tip to MicroKhan

Another (Parenthetical) Holiday

Tomorrow is Memorial Day (Observed) in the U.S. If you don't already know, "Observed" is a euphemism for pulling up our national holidays by their roots and plopping them down into three-day weekends that have nothing to do with why they are supposed to be celebrated.

This one originally was called Decoration Day. It was a day of remembrance for Union soldiers who died in the Civil War. After World War I, it was expanded to include soldiers who died in any war. Nowadays it is called No Money Down and No Payments Until 2010 Day, at least down at the mall.

Meanwhile, the Year of Lincoln posts will resume next Sunday and Kiko's House will return to the real world on Tuesday.

Why Dick & Liz Cheney Won The Day

My thoughts keep drifting to our first foray to the beach of the season this weekend, but I just can't shake the horror I have felt from the mainstream media "reaction" to the Dick Cheney-Barack Obama national-security cage match on Thursday. And the media's fawning obeisance to Liz Cheney, who is her father in a pants suit.

Lest I not be clear, as highly unusual as it was I think the former vice president had every right to defend at length the Bush torture regime, although I subscribe to the view that his out-of-the-bunker road show that commenced with the Obama inauguration is an effort to inoculate himself against possible future legal action and not just the work of a bald-faced saboteur. I believe that his daughter has no such standing or right, let alone any expertise.

But what keeps bothering the hell out of me is that a news media that was deeply complicitous in allowing Bush administration excesses -- from an immoral war to assaults on the rule of law -- to go substantially unchallenged once again rolled over in viewing the dueling speeches as a "debate," as if the subject were global warming or bank bailouts, and the dutiful daughter's nonstop media appearances to reinforce that view as really big news.

Lincoln-Douglas was a debate. Cheney-Obama most certainly was not. But by framing it as such, that complicit media tacitly endorses the former vice president's view that the administration did not torture and to declare its extreme interrogation methods as such is to libel the torturers and their dungeon masters.

At the end of the day Dick and Liz won the day by successfully framing the day in daddy's terms and not even a long soak in the ocean is going to wash that reality away.

Cartoon by Pat Oliphant/Universal Press Syndicate

'Take All You Need To Live Inside'

BURN DOWN THE MISSION
By Elton John and Bernie Taupin

You tell me there's an angel in your tree
Did he say he'd come to call on me
For things are getting desperate in our home
Living in the parish of the restless folks I know

Everybody now bring your family down to the riverside
Look to the east to see where the fat stock hide
Behind four walls of stone the rich man sleeps
It's time we put the flame torch to their keep
Burn down the mission If were gonna stay alive

Watch the black smoke fly to heaven
See the red flame light the sky
Burn down the mission
Burn it down to stay alive
Its our only chance of living

Take all you need to live inside
Deep in the woods the squirrels are out today
My wife cried when they came to take me away
But what more could I do just to keep her warm
Than burn burn burn burn down the mission walls

Photograph by Blinked

Wayne Allwine (1947-2009)

The voice of Mickey Mouse passes.

The Monster of Mahmoudiyah Is Spared Death While Bush & Rumsfeld Go Free

Green and only known photo (below) of gang rape victim

While it was never in doubt that the Monster of Mahmoudiya would die in prison, it has been decided that his death should come later rather than sooner.

That is the result of the four-week trial of Steven Green, the boy-man ringleader of the gang rape and murder of 14-year-old Abeer Qassim al-Janabi, her parents and young sister in a village south of Baghdad on March 12, 2006.

The nine woman and three male jurors deliberated over two days before declaring themselves hung yesterday on the question of whether Green should be given the death penalty, so he will serve life in prison without parole.

* * * * *

The Army first engineered a cover-up, then claimed that Abeer was much older as if to excuse the crime, and finally washed its hands of one of the most repellent acts committed by American troops against occupied Iraqis, leaving it to a civilian federal court jury in Paducah, Kentucky to decide the fate of Green, who turned 24 five days after the trial began on April 27.

The trial-phase verdict -- guilty on all 16 felony counts -- was never in doubt.

Green, who was the first former U.S. soldier to face the death penalty for war crimes in a civilian court, has never denied what happened. The then-private first class had matter of factly explained to a journalist three weeks before the rape-murders that "I came over here to kill people," had repeatedly informed his commanding officer that he needed to be taken out of action because he wanted to kill Iraqis, and told the FBI agents who arrested him that "You probably think I'm a monster."

That is an apt description:

Green herded Abeer's father, mother and her sister into a bedroom of the family's modest home. Her brothers were at school.

Green shot the father several times in the head, the mother several times in the abdomen and the sister several times in the head and shoulder with an AK-47 that the family was legally allowed to keep in the house, proudly announcing to his buddies, "I just killed them, all are dead."

Green then turned on Abeer, whose dressing gown and bra were torn from her body and her legs tied. Green and two other soldiers then took turns raping her. By the time they had finished, blood was flowing from her vagina. Green then shot Abeer in the head two or three times, threw a blanket over her torso and set her body afire in a crude effort to cover up the atrocity.

"Steven Green failed to live up to his duty," Prosecutor Marisa Ford declared during trial-phase closing arguments. "He didn't show mercy to Abeer Al-Janabi, he took away the two orphaned brother's hope for a normal life, and by doing so he lost the honor of calling himself a U.S. soldier; Steven Green doesn't deserve mercy."

That left lead defense attorney Pat Bouldin to convince jurors that Green did deserve mercy during the penalty phase.

Bouldin successfully did that through a legal concept called residual doubt. That is, having found Green guilty beyond a reasonable doubt, enough jurors could be convinced that others also were to blame and they would sentence him to life without parole and not death, or in the case of a hung jury there would be a similar outcome.

This effort was helped along by efforts to humanize Green, including testimony that he was born to a wastrel mother and beaten regularly by an older brother, once so badly that "his head swelled up like a pumpkin." A psychiatrist testified that Green had a damaged brain that made it all the more likely that he would suffer from post traumatic stress disorder and eventually snap when repeatedly confronted with the horrors of combat.

"He works well in a structured environment," explained Dr. Ruben Gur, "But in a chaotic environment, he behaves chaotically."

Among those snared in the defense's blame-game net was a psychiatric nurse-practitioner whom Bouldin claimed failed to see that Green was a ticking time bomb. In fact, Lieutenant Colonel Karen Marrs well understood that, but the Army was desperate for bodies without regard to whether they were able.

Marrs testified that Green's platoon, which had been taking extremely heavy casualties as it battled Sunni insurgents in the so-called Triangle of Death, had the worst morale that she had ever seen. She said the unit was "red," meaning it was "mission incapable" because the troops were "hostile, vengeful and needed increased control and command," without which there was a greater likelihood of misconduct.

The nurse-practitioner probably would agree that the blame game did not extend nearly far enough.

If it did, also implicated would be an Army that encouraged a sociopath with a criminal record to enlist, fast-tracked him through basic training and sent him off to Iraq where his homicidal tendencies were merely acknowledged and dealt with by medication and "Atta boys" as he was repeatedly sent back into the hell hole that was Mahmoudiyah, one of the three points in the triangle.

Additionally implicated would be former President Bush and former Defense Secretary Rumsfeld.

Both knew there were not nearly enough troops for a war that had been started to satisfy a neoconservative wet dream, required no sacrifices at home and would be over in a nonce, changed the rules of engagement to suit their political caprices when the war dragged on and on, and presided over only half-hearted efforts to win over a people for whom a never ending occupation had become a two-way nightmare.

Green showed little emotion during the trial, but his eyes did widen when a sister and brother of Abeer's father took the stand.

The sister testified that Abeer's orphaned twin brothers no longer attend school and often talk of committing suicide. The brother, while stopping short of asking for the death penalty as the Iraqi government had demanded, asked for justice for his nephews and wished peace upon the courtroom.

Prosecutor Ford and defense attorney Scott Wendelsdorf made very different pleas at the conclusion of the penalty phase, which took twice as long as the trial phase.

Said Ford: "Green's crimes were unthinkable and outrageous . . . finish what he started by putting him to death."

And Wendelsdorf: "America does not kill its broken warriors. Spare this broken boy, for God's sake. Spare him."

News media and blog coverage of the trial was virtually non existent.

CNN was the only major outlet to provide a semblance of regular coverage, a reflection of the fact that a mainstream media that was complicitous in the lies that Bush and Rumsfeld peddled has tried to wish away a war that has left the public consciousness -- and consequences like the rape and murder of Abeer Qassim al-Janabi.

* * * * *

Please click here for "Happy Birthday, Abeer," my widely read takeout on the events leading up to the crime and the cover-up, and here for a profile of soldiers like Steven Green by noted psychologist Dr. Clarissa Pinkola Estés.

This post was compiled in part from dispatches from Agence France Presse, The Associated Press, CNN, Houston Chronicle, Louisville Courier Journal and The Huffington Post.

The Biggest Lie About Closing Gitmo

The biggest of the big lies being told by the congressfolk, Dick Cheney and others who are trying to scare people spitless over the closing of the prison at Guantánamo Bay and transfer of terrorism suspects to the mainland is that they were put on that godforsaken spit of Cuban land because they were so dangerous.

Wrong, wrong, wrong!

They were put there so the cowardly, rule of law-averse Bush administration could devise a rump "legal" system that would not have to hew to U.S. law since it was not in the U.S.

* * * * *

The news media has, for the most part, been a helpmate in Cheney's efforts to move the torture debate from one of Right and Wrong to one of Our Policy versus Their Policy, and he certainly has succeeded judging from the reaction to his national-security cage match with Barack Obama.

Cartoon du Jour

Nick Anderson/Houston Chronicle

California There It Goes

Mick Jagger famously remarked on his first visit to California that "It's not like the rest of the country, is it?" Righto, Mick, and while it is a place of incredible beauty and diversity, it's government and citizenry have conspired to drive it into the ground.

I do not join the pundits who have tired of California's rank ungovernability and wish that it would just slide into the Pacific Ocean, but I'm really sick of reading about its myriad problems, most of them self-inflicted. And then John Cole hit on what might be its biggest problem: California's constitution has been amended over 500 times in 159 years and now runs to 175 pages.

Contrast that with the U.S. Constitution, which has been amended a mere 27 times in 223 years.

Your World In Charts

Housing starts: 1998-2009

David Herbert Donald (1921-2009)

We've been excerpting the preeminent Lincoln scholar's

biography of the great man each Sunday here.

Cheney Defends Bush Administration Offal; Obama Pledges To Clean It Up

Two things were certain beforehand about the Barack Obama-Dick Cheney national-security cage match today: No minds were going to be changed by the back-to-back speeches delivered by the president and former vice president, and it would be beyond obvious that these two men live in very different universes.

If you found justifiable the extraordinary and extralegal excesses of the last eight years, including a torture regime coordinated by Cheney and a military tribunal system that could claim a mere three convictions out of nearly 800 detainees while disgracing America in the eyes of the world, then you took heart in his latest effort to sabotage the Obama presidency before a friendly audience at the conservative American Enterprise Institute.

If you believe that it is time to begin cleansing the government stables of the Bush administration's offal, then you took heart in Obama's speech at the National Archives, the home of the the Constitution and other bedrock documents that embody America's system of government and justice but were observed in the breech, and often ignored, over the last eight years.

The president reiterated his determination to close the prison at Guantánamo Bay despite growing pressure from scaredy-cat congressfolk, and without using the word "excesses" or other loaded language, stressed that the Bush administration had undermined rather than strengthened America's safety.

Obama reaffirmed his determination to provide the resources for the war in Afghanistan that his predecessor had diverted to Iraq. He noted, which the news media has not, that his administration's hands have been substantially tied by judicial rulings flowing from all of the offal and did not note, as the news media has, that he still reserves the right to use some of his predecessor's more execrable practices.

The former vice president had no time for niceties and his nuance-free bunker mentality and passion for castigating and mischaracterizing his enemies was on full display. He also barely mentioned George Bush in relentlessly beating his own drum.

Cheney accused the Obama administration generally and House Speaker Nancy Pelosi specifically of feigned outrage and using a false narrative to misrepresent the Bush administration's efforts to make American safe. He defended the use of torture as necessary, yet again asserted that thousands of American lives had been saved since there have been no attacks on the homeland since 9/11, and criticized the decision to close Guantánamo as hasty and ill-thought.

The subtle but familiar subtext of Cheney's speech was that those who did not support the Bush terror regime were unpatriotic, as well as Al Qaeda coddlers, and by even debating torture we are playing into terrorists' hands.

Excerpts from Cheney's speech:

"Here is the great dividing line in our current debate over national security. You can look at the facts and conclude that the comprehensive strategy has worked, and therefore needs to be continued as vigilantly as ever. Or you can look at the same set of facts and conclude that 9/11 was a 'one-off' event -- coordinated, devastating, but also unique and not sufficient to justify a sustained wartime effort. Whichever conclusion you arrive at, it will shape your entire view of the last seven years, and of the policies necessary to protect America for years to come. . . .

"There is never a good time to compromise when the lives and safety of the American people are in the balance. . . .

"Behind the overwrought reaction to enhanced interrogations is a broader misconception about the threats that still face our country. You can sense the problem in the emergence of euphemisms that strive to put an imaginary distance between the American people and the terrorist enemy. Apparently using the term 'war' where terrorists are concerned is starting to feel a bit dated. So henceforth we're advised by the [Obama] administration to think of the fight against terrorists as, quote, 'Overseas contingency operations.' In the event of another terrorist attack on America, the Homeland Security Department assures us it will be ready for this, quote, 'man-made disaster' -- never mind that the whole Department was created for the purpose of protecting Americans from terrorist attack.

Another term out there that slipped into the discussion is the notion that American interrogation practices were a 'recruitment tool' for the enemy. On this theory, by the tough questioning of killers, we have supposedly fallen short of our own values. This recruitment-tool theory has become something of a mantra lately, including from the president himself. And after a familiar fashion, it excuses the violent and blames America for the evil that others do. It’s another version of that same old refrain from the Left, 'We brought it on ourselves.' "

And from Obama's speech:

"I believe with every fiber of my being that in the long run we also cannot keep this country safe unless we enlist the power of our most fundamental values. The documents that we hold in this very hall . . . are not simply words written into aging parchment. They are the foundation of liberty and justice in this country, and a light that shines for all who seek freedom, fairness, equality and dignity in the world. . . .

"Unfortunately, faced with an uncertain threat, our government made a series of hasty decisions. And I believe that those decisions were motivated by a sincere desire to protect the American people. But I also believe that -- too often -- our government made decisions based upon fear rather than foresight, and all too often trimmed facts and evidence to fit ideological predispositions. Instead of strategically applying our power and our principles, we too often set those principles aside as luxuries that we could no longer afford. And in this season of fear, too many of us -- Democrats and Republicans; politicians, journalists and citizens -- fell silent. . . .

"Right now, in distant training camps and in crowded cities, there are people plotting to take American lives. That will be the case a year from now, five years from now, and -- in all probability -- ten years from now. Neither I nor anyone else can standing here today can say that there will not be another terrorist attack that takes American lives. But I can say with certainty that my Administration -- along with our extraordinary troops and the patriotic men and women who defend our national security -- will do everything in our power to keep the American people safe. And I do know with certainty that we can defeat al Qaeda. . . .

"This must be our common purpose. I ran for President because I believe that we cannot solve the challenges of our time unless we solve them together. We will not be safe if we see national security as a wedge that divides America -- it can and must be a cause that unites us as one people, as one nation. We have done so before in times that were more perilous than ours. We will do so once again."

My sum-up is that there was an utterly weird dynamic at work here that has been bubbling beneath the surface for some time now: Obama inherited a mess, including myriad foreign-policy failures beyond the Iraq and Afghan wars, that were substantially Cheney's doing, but the former vice president in so many words castigated the president for trying to clean up his mess.

Cheney flailed and castigated, as always has been this demagogue's wont, while Obama was sober and teacherly, as has been his. There were no surprises in either speech, but we can thank God that it is Obama who is in charge and not Cheney.

Photographs by Mark Wilson/Getty Images
and Charles Dharapak/The Associated Press

Oh Those Feckless Demoquacks

This blog has been relentless in its attacks on Republicans, who deserve every bit of the scorn heaped on them for being the Party of Obstruction at a time when all Americans have to pull together. But today I'm looking across the aisle at congressional Democrats and down Pennsylvania Avenue to the president, who are doing a pretty good imitation of losing their minds over two seemingly unrelated issues: Stripping funding for closing Guantánamo Bay and allowing people to carry concealed weapons in national parks.

Now I understand that it is better to concentrate on what you are winning, and there is a heap of that this week alone, notably a terrific credit card reform bill and long overdue new federal fuel economy emissions standards.

But it speaks volumes about how ineffectual the Democrats can be that they rolled over on the concealed weapons provision, which was a rider to the credit card legislation. Obama is expected to sign the bill, and I guarantee you it will only be a matter of time before some gun nut goes wacko at Yellowstone.

The Gitmo funding flap is even more outrageous because it reveals those Democrats to be cowards.

The administration had asked Congress to $80 million to fulfill the president's pledge to close the detention facility for terrorism suspects, but majority leaders Harry Reid and Nancy Pelosi caved in to pressure from Republicans -- yes, the crowd whose power is so diminished that they could fit into a men's room stall at the Minneapolis-St. Paul Airport -- and unwarranted fears that those suspects will be transferred to county prison farms where they can easily escape to buy firearms at the nearest Wal-Mart. (Then there's those scary Uighurs.)

Reid and Pelosi know full well that this is horse hockey and those suspects will be incarcerated at maximum-security federal facilities like those that house terrorists such as Eric Rudolph, John Lee Gacy, the Unabomber, and Ramzi Yousef and three other 1993 World Trade Center bombers that are escape proof.

Cartoon du Jour

Signe Wilkinson/Philadelphia Daily News

Tivo Alert: Dick & Barry Go Mano A Mano

IT SHOULD BE INTERESTING.

Guns, Germs, Steel & Lies

Jared Diamond's Guns, Germs and Steel became a seminal work of scholarship for me when it was released in 1997. Diamond, an volutionary biologist, posed an intriguing question: Why did the Spaniards sail to Peru and conquer the Incas and not the other way around?

His answer is complex, but basically boils down to geography, demography and luck, also known as ecological happenstance.

Guns, Germs and Steel was a bestseller and subject of a terrific PBS documentary, but Diamond has been dogged by controversy, including allegations that he is a racist.

I happen to think that much of the criticism is garden-variety peer envy, but Diamond now finds himself in some pretty deep do-do.

Guns, Wars, Stealth & Lies

The silence from the conservative punditocracy over new revelations by George Bush's semi-official biographer that Donald Rumsfeld was evil incarnate as defense secretary is deafening.

So leave it to David Frum to go where his peers won't in writing that while most of the media attention has focused on Robert Draper's revelation that Rumsfeld supervised rosy PowerPoint presentations for The Decider on the Iraq war that included passage from the Bible, here's the clincher:

"Conservatives should be focused instead on a very different question -- an unpleasant one, but one absolutely essential to our indispensable, inevitable but still postponed reckoning with the legacy of the Bush administration. The question is: Why did Iraq go so very badly wrong -- and why, having gone wrong, did it take so ruinously wrong for the administration to shift to a more successful course? Conservatives rightly take pride and comfort in the achievements of the surge. But the surge does not banish all the antecedent questions about Iraq. The surge may have rescued the American position in Iraq from total disaster, but nobody would describe the present situation in Iraq as anything like satisfactory."

GOPs, Teabags, Steele & My Mys

There is something cosmic about having an extraordinarily able black man in the White House and an extraordinarily disabled black man as the head of the Party of Cranky Old White Men.

I'm just not sure what it is.

In any event, Michael Steele is a gift who keeps on giving, and a day without a gaffe from this lawn jockey is like a day without sunshine for the Demoquacks, who could never have inflicted as much damage on the Republicans as have he and Limbaugh and Perry and . . . well, you get the idea.

You just know that Joe "Bunker" Biden prays each night that Steele will outstupid him the next day.

God, Jews, Wackos & Hypocrisy

Let's see: Mel Gibson is an anti-Semite and wacko right-wing Catholic who cheats on his wife and then impregnates his mistress with his demon seed.

This leads the insufferably pious Ron Dreher to moan:

"The harder they come, the harder they fall. This really is a tragedy. He once made something beautiful for God. And now he has destroyed his witness and his credibility, and given a great victory to people who sneer at Christianity. He has ultimately given a great victory to the Enemy."

You Know That Society Is Doomed . . .

When the president uses Dijon mustard on a burger.

When conservatives worship Ronald Reagan for the wrong reasons.

When a father calls the cops because his son won't clean up his room.

When most Americans can't explain what cap and trade is.

When the president emphasizes the private nature of religious observance rather than beating the Judeo-Christian drum on National Prayer Day.

When Bill Murray plays LBJ in a new movie.

When sportswriting is declared dead because no one is having fun anymore. (But writing about sportswriting being dead is alive and well.)

When concerns are raised over the president being too empathetic.

When a nutria attacks a woman shopping at a Wal-Mart, causing her to have a panic attack.

When a newspaper owner proposes that American newspapers might be saved by running bingo games.

When small banks get screwed by Washington because they're merely doing their job well.

When a real cop on his way to work is pulled over by a fake cop.

When a state legislature passes a bill stating that it can ignore any federal law it damned well pleases.

When someone markets bacon vodka.

When someone invents a synthetic substitute teacher.

When a protégé of Henry Kissinger calls him for what he is -- a war criminal.

When inmates complain that they want new mug shots on a sheriff's website.

When a student at a fundamentalist Baptist high school is facing suspension for attending his girlfriend's prom at a public high school.

When 9th graders are assigned homework to come up with a terror attack plan.

When the Muslim world -- you know, those people who dress funny, worship a false God and want to kill Americans -- have good feelings for the president.

When a Catholic priest is caught having a romantic public romp with a woman.

When a leading Republican pundit says the party shouldn't waste time trying to improve its wretched image and should just keep saying "no."

When an aspiring rapper robs a convenience store to get some street cred.

When a woman has sex with a boy who is both his teacher and godmother.

When Dick Cheney, who refused to talk to Congress when he was vice president, now says he's more than willing to talk to Congress.

When a man dining at a TGI Friday's finds a snake head under his broccoli.

When it is revealed that Major League baseball's two highest paid players are dopers.

Click here and here for tother installments
of You Know Society Is Doomed . . .

Cartoon du Jour

Michael Ramirez/Investor's Business Daily

New Economy Standards A Win For All

Except for people who oppose government regulation of any kind, the new national fuel economy and emissions standards announced by President Obama are a win for all: For the first time, all 50 states will hew to the same standards, those standards are easily attainable and both environmentalists and car manufacturers are on board.

Photo illustration from the Economist

Economic Stimulus Dinero At Work

Click here and start scrolling.

A Fossil Stokes The Media Machine

Remember when archaeologists labored in obscurity and their discoveries seldom were made public, let alone stoked the media machine?

Well, meet Ida, a 47 million-year-old fossil of a monkey-like creature who was introduced yesterday at a media extravaganza at the Museum of Natural History in New York that was more like the release of a new U2 album.

The big hook -- and that was mandatory -- is that as the most complete early fossil yet found, Ida may provide a key link in the evolution of early primates and tell us gobs about how they developed into modern humans.

I'm quite sure that already has been determined, but we'll be kept in suspense while the media machine chugs madly away: Ida, like a NASCAR racer, is sponsored by the History Channel. There is a film detailing the secretive two-year study of the fossil, a book release, as well as an exclusive arrangement with ABC News and an elaborate Web site.

Photograph by Mario Tama/Getty

Paris Hilton: The Worst Neighbor Evah

HERE'S WHY.