Now there are Republican ads calling Sotomayor a friend of terrorists (still trying to get that tack to work). They are calling her “radical” – of course her judicial record is anything but.

The word “perseveration” keeps coming back to me. Having grown up around someone with Asperger’s syndrome, I know what perseveration looks like. For those who don’t, here’s the Wikipedia definition:

Perseveration is the uncontrollable repetition of a particular response, such as a word, phrase, or gesture, despite the absence or cessation of a stimulus, usually caused by brain injury or other organic disorder.

If an issue has been fully explored and discussed to a point of resolution it is not uncommon for something to trigger the re-investigation of the matter. This can happen at any time during a conversation. This is particularly true with those who have had traumatic brain injuries.

Those with Asperger’s syndrome also display a form of perseveration in that they focus on one or a number of narrow interests.

I am wondering if the happy little Wikipedia elves shouldn’t add a line in here about super-right-wing-nut Republicans.  They keep revisiting these ideas over and over, even after their repeated failure and even after being shot down by the majority of Americans.  Is it that they believe if they say them often enough they’ll find a sufficient number of sheep to follow?  I suppose it’s possible this could work, but their arguments are so distasteful and obnoxious that they make a mockery of intelligent discourse in American politics. I am convinced these are the people who truly hate America. They claim they are the ones who really love America, but what they really love are their batshit crazy ideas.  I’m not sure there is a group that shows more disdain for Americans, and what is America but Americans?

Basically – terrorists are people WE call terrorists. torture is what WE define as torture.

All other definitions be damned. Certainly if there is one thing that is most embarrassing about current American political culture it is the mindless, self-serving, self-deluded rants of the Radical Right.

Anyone unfamiliar with Malkin should thank their lucky stars – it’s really depressing that people listen to the ramblings of those with apparent mind-rot.

Is Hannity really trying to say that poor planning and bad management by Rumsfeld et al. have nothing to do with how the war is going – all the problems can be blamed on a couple of sentences stated by Democrats. The human ability to delude oneself is truly remarkable – it knows no bounds.

Sean went on to chat about military confrontation with Iran. Sheesh. I think he must have a really active imagination if he thinks our military could take another engagement!

It’s hard to believe, but this may be the first administration to ruin the country in a mere 8 years. Other administrations have done damage during their reign, but this looks like one that will undermine our economic and military might for decades to come.

An excerpt:

Everything President George W. Bush knows, he learned here, as the product of a system rigged to assure the political progeny needed to perpetuate itself with minimum interference from the nuisances of liberal democracy. You remember liberal democracy: the rule of law, the protection of individual and minority rights, checks and balances against arbitrary power, an independent press, the separation of church and state. As governor, Bush was nurtured by the peculiar Texas blend of piety and privilege that mocks those values. With the election of 2000, he and his cohorts arrived in Washington like atheists taking over the Vatican; they had come to run a government they don’t believe in.

The results have been disastrous: reckless tax cuts, a relentless assault on social services, monumental debt, pre-emptive war, an exhausted military, booming corporate welfare and corruption so deep and pervasive it has touched every facet of American government.

Read the rest

Chickenhawks everywhere are coming up with desperate responses to the obvious discordance between what they say about war and what they are willing to do about it.

Maybe these pro-war young Repubs are afraid if they sign up to serve they will take jobs from the underprivileged?

Operation Yellow Elephant offers do-it-yourself yellow elephant hunting tips.

The obvious is about as fun as a rash when you believe you are fighting a so-called war of ideas.

Check out OYE and have some fun watching what its like for a bushie to have an itch they can’t scratch.

Robber-barons Rockefeller and Flagler paid others to take their spots in the Civil War. Powerful Americans today continue in this tradition – they have “better things to do.”

Maybe he should have continued with some ideas on how to penalize them: “For example, we could make them wait three or four days for life-sustaining supplies such as water and food. Let me tell you, when a person gets that thirsty and their babies start dying, next time around, they are going to think twice about not evacuating.”

FYI – many people who tried to leave NO by bus as soon as the evacuation orders were issued found the bus station CLOSED. Here is a quote from a tourist who ended up in the Superdome.

“On Sun. 8/28 I was awaiting word from the New Orleans Mayor to see if the city was to be evacuated. The moment he gave the order I hopped in a cab to go to Amtrak and Greyhound. The cabbie said it looks like they’re closed. I said no way and had him drop me off. Sure enough both were. (I later learned that both had closed on Saturday, 2 days before the hurricane. I also learned that people were flown in to the airport on Saturday but not informed that there would not be flights for them to leave after Saturday.) All rental cars were gone and no hotels or motels seemed to be open.”

Essentially, Escape from New Orleans was impossible unless you had a car.