Buzzzed Blog Blue Musings from the Deep Dark Scary South

The Real Gen. George Patton was a major player in the original Operation Cobra. But like George C. Scott (left) Bush, Cheney & Rumsfield are merely 'playing' at war, playing at leadership and coming nowhere near the level of performance that Scott delivered.

Listening to General Bernard Trainor and Michael R. Gordon, authors of Cobra II: The Inside Story of the Invasion and Occupation of Iraq -- on the Diane Rheem Show on NPR. I've seen them interviewed on several news shows but his format affords a more in-depth exchange, in addition to audience participation. I hope to see/hear more of these interviews because what they have to say is vital for American (and world) citizens who still have an open mind to hear.

Another must-read, particularly with the newest revelation in today's NY Times that "Bush Was Set on Path to War, Memo by British Adviser Says."

The book is sitting in my Amazon.com cart, but I think today it gets ordered along with American Theocracy by Kevin Phillips and that way I get free shipping (every pinched penny counts these days!).

Speaking of which, everyone I heard on the Sunday morning news shows completely missed a major underlying piece in the immigration issue: the economy.

I like and respect Katrina Vanden Heuvel but I don't think she's a very effective spokesperson for the 'left' -- she's not very fact- (or life-experience)-based, makes clichéd arguments that are not fact- or experience-based, sounds like the stereotypical 'bleeding heart liberal' and is easy to dismiss. So why does ABC keep having her appear -- exactly for those reasons. There are others who would be more effective -- she's typical of the ineffectiveness of the dems and the left, which I'll continue to critique.

Fareed Zakaria is actually a far better, more thoughtful, analytical, and effective spokesperson, but he apparently represents...the middle? Intellectuals? I don't know, but he's much more highly informed than anyone else on that show, indeed many of those MSM venues, including well-meaning but ineffectual Vanden Heuvel along with pipsqueak Stephanopolous.

Here's the point they missed entirely: If American workers weren't so (justifiably) anxious about their/our own economic well-being, xenophobes and security-freaks notwithstanding, people would be more rational about immigration issues and the corresponding, linked security issues. (Dan Balz at WaPo mentions this link briefly in his online chat today.) Immigrants have become easy targets and scapegoats when once again, it's the rich, powerful men behind the curtains pulling the levers who ought to be 'outed' and who almost never are.

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Meanwhile, I'm still waiting on the definitive book that documents how Robert Rubin was in large part the real genius behind the economic boom days of the Clinton presidency -- with large doses of pragmatic, progressive input from Robert Reich. I'd like to see more of both on those talk shows. Chris Matthews ('spitball') seems to favor the Dem numbnuts like major failure Bob Schrum (sp?) and then just loves to talk about how he votes republican -- that is, when you can decipher his nonsensical bullshit. No wonder he and Schrum get along -- they're both idiots. I try to limit my dose of Matthews to about 2 minutes per week. He's the himbo equivalent of the Faux News bimbos. I'm hopeful his airhead will continue grow so full of hot sycophantic narcissistic hot carbon monoxide that it will soon explode and the world will be rid of him for good. He's outlived his usefulness. Either that or they should shuttle him off to Faux News ASAP.

I'll stick with Keith Obermann, the only person on MSNBC with any gravitas or credibility. (okay maybe Dan Abrams but only in the legal-coverage sense, not journalism. He often provides thoughtful analysis -- because he originated at CourtTV -- and his father is the well-respected Floyd Abrams, a first amendment legal eagle. Of course, Matthews is no journalist in any sense. He's not even a thinker. He's...like I said, a male himbo, at best.

I definitely wish we could hear and read more by Martha Radditz of ABC news who shared on Capitol Week in Review (PBS) that things really pretty much are as bad as we all suspect in Iraq, if not worse. Ditto the gorgeous and talented Lara Logan of CBS news whose reality-based information countered the propagandists for the right that things are oh-so-swell-but-the-media-isn't-covering-the-'good'-news by telling Howie Kurtz of the WaPo on his CNN show yesterday that what 'good news' may be happening is far outweighed by the danger and lack of security there which makes it difficult, if not impossible, for journalists to cover the 'joyful' news.

Here's part of what Logan shared:

When journalists are free to move around this country, then they will be free to report on everything that's going on. But as long as you're a prisoner of the terrible security situation here, then that's going to be reflected in your coverage.
And not only that, but their own figures show that their reconstruction project was supposed to create 1.5 million Iraqi jobs. To date, 77,000 Iraqi government jobs have been created. That should give you an indication of how far along they are in terms of reconstruction...
I mean, I really resent the fact that people say that we're not reflecting the true picture here. That's totally unfair and it's really unfounded...
our own editors back in New York are asking us the same things.
They read the same comments. You know, are there positive stories? Can't you find them?
You don't think that I haven't been to the U.S. military and the State Department and the embassy and asked them over and over again, let's see the good stories, show us some of the good things that are going on? Oh, sorry, we can't take to you that school project, because if you put that on TV, they're going to be attacked about, the teachers are going to be killed, the children might be victims of attack.
Oh, sorry, we can't show this reconstruction project because then that's going to expose it to sabotage. And the last time we had journalists down here, the plant was attacked.
I mean, security dominates every single thing that happens in this country.

I suspect if we had the interruptions to and lack of reliable electricity, water, gas, utilities, etc -- not to mention bombings, murders, beheadings, executions -- we'd be pretty damn upset too and expect the media to report on it every single day until it wasn't happening anymore.

Footnote: Even the self-proclaimed 'last blue-state skeptic', Richard Cohen of the Washington Post has conceded Bush wanted war. His own account of what made him 'fold' makes for interesting reading.

I don't agree with Cohen that the evidence is that Bush did not lie; I think there is plenty to conclude that Bush, Cheney, Rumsfeld, Rice, Powell, Tenet and many others did lie. However, Cohen concludes:

...the one thing that's so far missing from the record is proof of him looking for a genuine way out of war instead of looking for a way to get it started. Bush wanted war. He just didn't want the war he got.

On that we can definitely agree.