Right Wing Avoids Accountability By Attacking Soros

The hypocrisy of the right wing is amazing. Hyperbole is virtually the norm in their writings. We regularly see attacks on those who oppose the war as being unpatriotic and traitors. Liberal supporters of the free market are called socialists while they ignore the corporate welfare policies of the right. Support for free choice in one’s life is equated with immorality, and support for a woman’s right to control her body is called baby killing. However, if a liberal makes a reference to Nazis with regards to the right they go ballistic. The latest example of this is in the New York Post and The New Republic with an attack on George Soros which is being echoed through the right wing blogosphere (such as here and here).

The problem with using references to Nazi Germany is that it is too often done with hyperbole comparable to the right wing examples noted above. To simply call George Bush a Nazi is certainly a gross exaggeration which diminishes the horrors of the Nazi years. The context of any comparison is important. The Post reports:

After asserting that the United States is recognizing the error it made in Iraq, Soros said, “To what extent it recognizes the mistake will determine its future.” He went on to say that Turkey and Japan are still hurt by a reluctance to admit to dark parts of their history, and contrasted that reluctance to Germany’s rejection of its Nazi-era past. “America needs to follow the policies it has introduced in Germany,” Soros said. “We have to go through a certain de-Nazification process.” Soros spokesman Michael Vachon told Page Six: “There is nothing unpatriotic about demanding accountability from the president. Those responsible for taking America into this needless war should do us all a favor and retire from public office.”

For George Soros to draw on comparisons to the Nazi-era is not surprising as this is part of his personal past. It is notable that Soros is not making a general statement comparing America to Nazi Germany but is referring to a specific example that American leaders need to admit the grievous mistakes made during the Bush years. Naturally those who supported this unjustified and disastrous war, including both publications attacking Soros, are going to take offense and they try to avoid taking responsibility for their mistakes. This is the typical right wing strategy of demonizing those who criticize them while avoiding discussion of the true issues, in this case of the American mistakes in Iraq which they supported. (more…)

Vilsack Calls For Cutting Off Funds For War

After the 2004 election it seemed like many Democrats were rushing towards the middle. People spoke of potential centrist candidates such as Tom Vilsack. As public opinion has become clear on getting out of Iraq, Vilsack apparently is no longer concerned about being seen as the centrist alternative. Speaking at the Democratic National Committee, Vilsack took a position beyond that of the other candidates in calling for Congress to cut off funds for the Iraq war:

“Those in Congress who voted for the war, those in Congress who have voted to continue the war, and those in Congress who have funded the war, can surely vote to end the war,” Vilsack told members of the Democratic National Committee during the second day of a presidential candidates’ forum in Washington.

Vilsack’s comments made him the first major presidential candidate to urge Congress to use its spending power under the Constitution to bring U.S. fighting in Iraq to an end. Former Sen. John Edwards, D-N.C., the party’s 2004 vice presidential nominee, has called on Congress to use its spending power to block President Bush from adding 21,500 additional U.S. troops to Iraq.

But Vilsack went one step further today, calling on Congress to use the power of the purse to completely end U.S. involvement in the Iraq war.

“Congress has the constitutional responsibility and a moral duty to cut off funding for the status quo,” said Vilsack. “Not a cap — an end. Not eventually — immediately.”

According to a Vilsack aide, the former governor still supports keeping a U.S. troop presence in the northern Kurdish part of the country in an effort to dissuade Iran from moving into any power vacuum created by the end of U.S. military engagement in central Iraq. Asked how many U.S. troops Vilsack would keep in the north, his aide said Vilsack would rely on the advice of U.S. military commanders…

Vilsack’s camp is hoping he will be a more credible messenger on the Iraq war than Edwards or Sen. Hillary Clinton, D-N.Y., since he is not tainted, as they are, in the eyes of some Iraq war opponents, by having voted to authorize the use of force in 2002.

Vilsack’s aides are hoping to differentiate him from Sen. Barack Obama, D-Ill., the consistent Iraq war opponent who is still serving his first term in the U.S. Senate, by pointing to Vilsack’s experience as a chief executive during eight years as governor of Iowa.

Without identifying anyone by name, Vilsack used the non-binding nature of the Iraq resolution that the Senate plans to debate next week to imply that Clinton and Obama are ineffectual on the war.

“What is the point of a non-binding resolution?” Vilsack told ABC News. “Does that save a single life?”

Update: The Washington Post reviews the statements of several Democratic candidates at the DNC meeting, noting that those not in Congress are pressing Clinton and Obama to do more. Among others urging stronger action from Congress is Bill Richardson:

“As someone who served in Congress for 14 years, I know the power they hold, should they choose to wield it,” New Mexico Gov. Bill Richardson told the DNC yesterday at the Hilton Washington hotel. “The Congress passed a resolution authorizing war. They need to pass another one that overturns that authorization and brings our troops home by the end of the calendar year.”

Update II: Discussion of Obama’s speech here.

God and the Super Bowl

The Carpetbagger Report actually went thru a recent Fox News poll to find these questions:

35. Do you believe God plays a role in determining which team wins a sporting event?

Yes: 27%
No: 66%
Don’t know: 7%

36. Which team do you think God wants to win the Super Bowl this year?

Chicago Bears: 14%
Indianapolis Colts: 11%
Same/No difference: 16%
God’s too busy/doesn’t play favorites: 33%
Don’t believe in God: 1%
Don’t know: 25%

Why didn’t they check out which type of beer God drinks while watching the game?

Posted in Polls, Religion, Sports and Games. Tags: . 7 Comments »

Bushisms

Just because I haven’t posted any Bushisms lately, here’s a few from the past year.

30 Days Hath September, April, June, and February:

“This morning my administration released the budget numbers for fiscal 2006. These budget numbers are not just estimates; these are the actual results for the fiscal year that ended February the 30th.”—referring to the fiscal year that ended on Sept. 30, Washington, D.C., Oct. 11, 2006.

Yet he keeps on trying:

“You know, one of the hardest parts of my job is to connect Iraq to the war on terror.”—Interview with CBS News, Washington D.C., Sept. 6, 2006

He prefers to read books about goats:

“And truth of the matter is, a lot of reports in Washington are never read by anybody. To show you how important this one is, I read it, and our guest read it.”—speaking along with Prime Minister Tony Blair about the Baker-Hamilton Report, Washington, D.C., Dec. 7, 2006

Is violence the tool or the goal:

“No question that the enemy has tried to spread sectarian violence. They use violence as a tool to do that.”—Washington, D.C., March 22, 2006

One Less Moonbat in Existence

Hat tip to Swift for picking up this portion of an interview with Deepak Chopra in which we hear him tell the interviewer that he doesn’t exist!

Q: What happens when you die, Deepak?

Chopra: What happens when you die, is you return to where you always are. If you realize right now that there’s no such thing as a person, you’ll be all set.

Q: What do you mean, I’ll be all set?

Chopra: Then if you shift your identity to that consciousness that is differentiating as observer and observant, you’ll know there’s nothing to fear.

Q: You have no fear of death.

Chopra: No Sir! Why? Because I don’t exist in the first place!

Q: Can you get reincarnated as a soul?

Chopra: [Sighs] Wisps of memory and threads of desire, which are specks of information, latch onto specks of consciousness and show up as recycled human beings. But in the bigger picture, the observer, the observed, the process of observation, is a single reality.

Q: So… Deepak Chopra, as I know him [questioner taps the sitting Chopra solidly on the knee for effect] my friend Chopra… doesn’t exist?

Chopra: A transient behavior of… the total universe.

Posted in Religion. Tags: . No Comments »