Libospheric Morsels

I bet you'd never have suspected that a former Grand Exalted Illustrious Omnipotent Stomper of the Ku Klux Klan itself would ever make such a willing and eager dhimmi. I know I wouldn't have, at least in years past. But "Sheets" Byrd has become....um...."versatile" in his old age:

Mr. President, last week the Senate voted on an amendment to the Defense Authorization bill that designated a portion of the Iranian armed forces as a terrorist organization. I joined twenty-one of my illustrious [snicker] colleagues in voting against that amendment. It was a dangerous, unnecessary provocation that is escalating the confrontational rhetoric between the United States and Iran. In response to the passage of that amendment, the Iranian parliament on Saturday designated the U.S. Armed Forces and the Central Intelligence Agency as terrorist organizations. Would someone please explain to me what has been achieved by this exchange of international verbal spitballs?

To the degree that this isn't highly indicatory of why the West Virginia senior senator (and {GULP} third-in-line to the presidency) shouldn't be wheeled off to the dementia wing of the nearest D.C. convalescent home - probably an awfully small degree, actually - can he really be so ignorant of the Iranian crisis that he actually rips off Zell Miller's 2004 GOP convention speech to describe it? Byrd sounds like he either isn't aware of the nature of the Iranian regime or is a willing ingestor of their ludicrous propaganda.

Seeing as how he's been in the Senate for over twenty years longer than the mullahs have been in power, I can't fathom (apart from senility) how the former could be true; he was there when they stormed our Tehran embassy in 1979 (their first act of war against us) and held fifty-three American hostages for over a year; he was there when the mullahs had Hezbollah attack our Marine barracks in Beirut, slaying 241 American servicemen; he was there during their rash of hostage-taking in Lebanon during the mid-to-late '80s; and he's been at least partially there over the past two years of the Islamist fuehrership of Mahmoud Ahmadinejad, who just the other day once again called for Israel's destruction and our "death". And he questions our designation of the Iranian Republican Guard as a terrorist organization? And is all hot & bothered at the mullahs' laughable tit-for-tat counter-dubbing of our military and the [snort] CIA?

Bob Byrd has been witness to the entirety of Iran's thirty-year (and counting) war against the West in general and America in particular from his high Senate perch. He has zero excuse - not even the mentally debilitating effects of acute, advanced geezerhood - for feigning such cluelessness. And at some dim, Grandpa Simpsonesque level he must be aware of that, because he went onto say this:

I am no apologist for the Iranian regime any more than I was for Saddam Hussein. But I fear that we may become entangled in another bloody quagmire.

No, Senator Byrd, your party is the bloody quagmire, because it always and forever stands in the way of winning wars we cannot afford to lose in the mercenary belief that doing so will help it win elections it lustfully covets. You don't care if the realm is completely poisoned (or irradiated), as long as your party gets to rule over it.

Never mind seriousness on national security; what Democrats really need, if Sheets is any indication, is consciousness on it.

See the video for yourself.



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While twenty-one "illustrious" Senate quislings were giving Adolph the Younger a figurative tongue bath, the leak war of the New York Times and its CIA and Foggy Bottom co-horts rolls on:

The disclosure of secret Justice Department legal opinions on interrogation on Thursday set off a bitter round of debate over the treatment of terrorism suspects in American custody and whether Congress has been adequately informed of legal policies.

Democrats on Capitol Hill demanded to see the classified memorandums, disclosed Thursday by the New York Times, that gave the Central Intelligence Agency expansive approval in 2005 for harsh interrogation techniques.

Senator John D. Rockefeller IV, the West Virginia Democrat who is chairman of the Senate Intelligence Committee, wrote to the acting attorney general, Peter D. Keisler, asking for copies of all opinions on interrogation since 2004.

“I find it unfathomable that the committee tasked with oversight of the C.I.A.’s detention and interrogation program would be provided more information by the New York Times than by the Department of Justice,” Mr. Rockefeller wrote.

The ranking Republican on the panel, Senator Christopher S. Bond of Missouri, said Thursday night in a statement that the committee had been briefed on the Administration’s “legal justifications” for interrogation.

{*YAWN*} Seriously, don't most street theater performers eventually move on to a different act, or at least a different street corner? Here come two more "secret Bush Administration memos" that allegedly "authorize torture" of "terrorism suspects" and "Congress was not informed of them". It's gotten so lame and tiresome that even Republicans aren't wasting any time in crying "bullbleep" and not so subtely - how should I put this? - questioning the veracity of their Donk "colleagues".

And lost in it all, of course, is why we should give a rat's ass how "terrorism suspects" are "treated," and why "harsh interrogation techniques" - which [drumroll please] is NOT the same thing as "torture" - shouldn't be used against them.

This is "battlespace preparation" for the upcoming Michael Mukasey attorney-general confirmation hearings, mark my words.

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And then there are the goods-delivering stories on the Defeatocrats that are witty by their sheer brevity:

A Fox News poll finds that 19% of Democrats believe the world will be better off if the U.S. loses the war in Iraq. Another 20% say they don't know. Only three-fifths of Democrats were able to disagree with the proposition that the world would be better off if we lose in Iraq.

Wow. Frankly, I would have thought that number a lot lower.