Accidental Blogger

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  • An Equal Opportunity Insulter

    Insult_left Whatever you are – white, black, Jewish, Indian, woman or a stamp collector, George Allen has an insult for you.  He also has a weasely explanation for his loose lips. Play the game and see how the George Allen Insult Generator treats you.

    (I checked it out twice – there are more than one insult for most categories. They are not all terribly funny but I wonder what the current media focus on his stupidity means for his chances of winning re-election.)

    Update: Now see who else is feeling insulted by George Allen!

  • Unmarked In Their Flesh

    Fingerprints Before genetic fingerprinting became a common forensic tool, our real "fingerprints" were about as close as we came to establishing a unique identity. In the past hundred years or so since this peculiar individual trait was discovered, fingerprints have played a vital role in criminal investigation and in establishing identity. Up until now, the fingerprints of no two individuals, including identical twins, have matched in billions of manual and computer aided comparisons.

    A handful of people in the population though are born without this common identifying marker. The underlying genetic cause for this rare omission has been determined by scientists – a defect in the protein "keratin 14." The lack of fingerprints is not the most serious effect of this condition. Those with the defect, are afflicted with two rare and related ailments known as Naegeli syndrome and dermatopathia pigmentosa reticularis (DPR), which in some affected individuals can cause life threatening conditions such as heat stroke.

    "Two rare and related diseases leave their sufferers with no fingerprints. Now scientists may have cracked the genetic code behind the inherited ailments.  Researchers at the Technion-Israel Institute of Technology in Haifa and Thomas Jefferson University in Philadelphia report that defects in the protein keratin 14 may be responsible for both diseases, known as Naegeli syndrome and dermatopathia pigmentosa reticularis (DPR).   

    The lack of fingerprints can cause vexing social problems, which are magnified because few people have heard of the condition. Cheryl Maynard of Fairfax, Virginia, is part of the fifth generation of her family to have inherited DPR from her mother’s side.

    "My father was in the military and he had top-secret clearances," she recalled. "We moved a lot, and everywhere we went they’d say, What do you mean your wife doesn’t have fingerprints? What do you mean that you have kids without fingerprints?"

    Maynard has personally experienced many fingerprint-related snafus, often related to employment.  She works as a flight attendant and noted that a standard background check by the U.S. Federal Aviation Administration, which took about 2 weeks for most of her peers, took 14 weeks in her case….

    For the handful of people without fingerprints the physical impacts are few. Maynard has normal feeling in her fingers, though the lack of fingerprints deprives her of some grip, which makes dealing cards or turning pages more difficult.

    But the lack of fingerprints is not the diseases’ only, or even most serious, impact. Patients also experience thickening of their palms and soles of their feet. They suffer from anomalies in the development of their teeth, hair, and skin, where pigmentation can appear patchy and uneven.

    Most dangerously, they have skin issues that can inhibit their ability to sweat normally.

    "That’s the only really serious manifestation as far as potential harm," said professor Eli Sprecher of the Technion-Israel Institute. Sprecher is co-author of the study that discusses the conditions in the October issue of the American Journal of Human Genetics. "Because they cannot evacuate heat, they can develop heat stroke." ….

  • Conception More Important Than Delivery

    I said he is a mindless brute, didn’t I ?  Michael Kingsley says it better.

    "It was, I believe, Rep. Barney Frank (D-Mass.) who first made the excellent, bitter and terribly unfair joke about conservatives who believe in a right to life that begins at conception and ends at birth.

    This joke has been adapted for use against various Republican politicians ever since. In the case of President Bush, though, it appears to be literally true. … "

    The rest of the article here.

  • “Busharraf”: Tweedledee & Tweedledum In The Fake War On Terrorism

    Fearless truth teller and Bush nemesis, Maureen Dowd hits the nail on its head again regarding Bush-Cheney’s mind boggling hypocrisy and disregard for the truth.  She comments on the spurious bill of goods that Pakistani president Parvez Musharraf has sold to the US since 9/11/2001 and the wilful ignorance with which the Bush adminstration has bought it.   
    (The NYT column is Time Select. I read it in Houston Chronicle where it appeared in syndication. Here I am mooching off another blogger who has published it on his blog). The article is so accurate in its analysis that I will copy it here in full.

    Axis of Sketchy AlliesBusharraf

    By MAUREEN DOWD

    Published: September 23, 2006

    Pakistan is at the heart of the Faustian deal the Bush administration has made.

    It helps to plug your book at the White House.

    After Pervez Musharraf coyly sidestepped a question at a news conference with President Bush about his claim on “60 Minutes” that Richard Armitage threatened to bomb Pakistan back to the Stone Age if it did not cooperate in routing the Taliban in Afghanistan, noting that he had to save such juicy tidbits for his book’s publication next week, he shot up over 1,000 spots on Amazon.com.

    General Musharraf told Steve Kroft he found the Stone Age crack “very rude,’’ and Mr. Armitage was on the defensive yesterday, explaining that he had been tough with Pakistan just after 9/11 but had not made any Flintstones threats.

    The former deputy to Colin Powell needn’t apologize. That was the last time our foreign policy was on track, when we were pursuing the real enemy. It’s all been downhill from there.

    The Pakistan president is a smooth operator, a military dictator cruising around the capital with his elegant wife and enormous security contingent, talking about how much he likes democracy, which he won’t yet allow.

    He may have more respect for checks and balances than Dick Cheney, but that’s not saying much.

    On the subject of Osama, he’s so slippery you want to lock him in a room with the muscle-bound Mr. Armitage. General … General, as W. called him in that famous campaign pop quiz, tried to persuade Mr. Bush that the shabby truce he recently made with tribal leaders, agreeing that the Pakistani Army would stay out of the wild border area next to Afghanistan — where Osama and other Al Qaeda and Taliban members are believed to be hiding — was really “against” the militants.

    The Pakistan government has, in effect, simply turned over the North Waziristan area to the militants. ABC News quoted Maj. Gen. Shaukat Sultan Khan of Pakistan as saying that the deal was an implicit amnesty, and that Osama “would not be taken into custody” as long as he was “being like a peaceful citizen.”

    American officials are dubious about Mr. Musharraf’s commitment to destroying Al Qaeda and the Taliban. But at the press conference, W., who no doubt thinks he has seen into General … General’s soul, acted as though he were willing to believe the Pakistani president when he says he is “on the hunt” for Osama and the Taliban at the same time he’s setting up a safe haven for them — and getting huffy at the idea that American forces have the right to go into Pakistan to track Osama.

    “Americans who are concerned about a recurrence of 9/11 are worried about the Axis of Evil when the real problem is the Axis of Allies — Saudi Arabia, Pakistan and Britain,’’ the British historian Niall Ferguson says. “The terrorists are funded in Saudi Arabia, they’re trained in Pakistan, and they organize their plots quite easily in London.’’

    Mr. Ferguson, who analyzes evildoers and despots in his new book, “The War of the World: Twentieth-Century Conflict and the Descent of the West,’’ observes that Mr. Musharraf could not survive if he truly tried to break up the cozy relationship between militants, tribal leaders and some in his Army and intelligence service.

    The Paks, as W. and Vice like to call them, are at the heart of the Faustian deal the Bush administration has made. The justification for invading Iraq was that they couldn’t allow a dictator who might be harboring terrorists to stay in power. But their great ally in the war on terror is General Musharraf, a dictator who appears to be harboring terrorists, including the one we want most.

    Hamid Karzai, the president of Afghanistan, who is coming to the White House next week to dine with W. and General … General, expressed a sly skepticism about his neighbor’s protestations that he is strategizing against militants. As David Sanger reported, the Afghan leader told Times editors and reporters at a meeting Thursday that he had tried to get Pakistan’s help in repelling the resurgent Taliban by giving the Pakistanis “information on training ground, on operation, people, their phone numbers, their G.P.S. locations.’’

    “Our friends come back to us and say this information is old,’’ Mr. Karzai continued. “Maybe. But it means they were there.”

    Asked where Osama was, he smiled and replied: “If I said he was in Pakistan, President Musharraf would be mad at me. And if I said he was in Afghanistan, it would not be true.”

    We may not have Osama, but at least W. helped General …General with his Amazon ranking. “Buy the book,” the president recommended as the two allies wrapped up.

  • Memo To Democrats: How To Talk To The Right Wing Slime Machine

    To all the spineless Dems who have been tongue tied and clueless on how to engage the Bush administration on Iraq, here is a lesson from the master. See also the transcript of the finger wagging, eyes flashing, vein bulging, in your face interview that Bill Clinton gave to Fox News’ Chris Wallace who asked him the following question: (Democrats should pay special attention to what Clinton says towards the end of the interview about Rove and the Republicans’ tactics)

    WALLACE: When we announced that you were going to be on "Fox News Sunday," I got a lot of e-mail from viewers. And I’ve got to say, I was surprised. Most of them wanted me to ask you this question: Why didn’t you do more to put bin Laden and Al Qaeda out of business when you were president?

    There’s a new book out, I suspect you’ve already read, called "The Looming Tower." And it talks about how the fact that when you pulled troops out of Somalia in 1993, bin Laden said, "I have seen the frailty and the weakness and the cowardice of U.S. troops." Then there was the bombing of the embassies in Africa and the attack on the Cole.

    CLINTON: OK, let’s just go through that. …

    And boy, did he go through that! Although I don’t believe that Clinton did "everything" he could to get Bin Laden and neutralize Al Qaeda, he probably did more than the current occupant of the White House has done. I doubt that if 9/11 had happened on Clinton’s watch, we would have gone on a capricious wild goose chase after an imaginary enemy and squandered lives and resources in a trumped up war, neglecting the real culprits.

    George Bush got away with smear, innuendos and cheap shots against John Kerry- heck, he has got away with murder! Still he continues to get a free pass from the US Congress where opposition to his whims and fancies is nearly non-existent.  The nearest that anyone had come to challenging Bush was Hugo Chavez with his juvenile taunts. Until this Sunday. Clinton showed his legendary temper which we have heard about but rarely seen. Clinton may be egoistic enough that he reserves his outrage only to salvage his own reputation. But this bravura performance of rage and fact filled outburst should serve as a template for the cowardly Dems to emulate.

    The usually glib White House Press Secretary, Tony Snow (job) could say only this when asked to comment on the interview in which Clinton unflinchingly accused the Bush administration of gross failures and incompetence in the war against terrorism.

    [Snow]: "Well, he retorts, you decide.  It’s my view that — well, not my view. President Clinton clearly had strong feelings, but I’m going to let — we’re just not going to engage."

    We have decided, Mr. Snow.  Monica may have been Bill Clinton’s problem but Osama is the albatross around George Bush’s neck alone. No amount of spinning, blame spreading and buck passing is going to change that incontrovertible fact now — or for the history books.

  • Who Taught Him Punctuation?

    Our Commander in Chief doesn’t get it – or he is an exceptionally adept liar. The invasion / occupation of Iraq has become a nightmare for Iraqi citizens (nearly 5000 dead between June and August of this year) and for the confused and dispirited US troops who no longer believe that Iraq is a legitimate and necessary front on the war on global terrorism. As Joe reported in his recent post, the outlook on the war on terrorism has been made grimmer due to the illegal and mishandled war in Iraq.

    "The classified National Intelligence Estimate attributes a more direct role to the Iraq war in fueling radicalism than that presented either in recent White House documents or in a report released Wednesday by the House Intelligence Committee, according to several officials in Washington involved in preparing the assessment or who have read the final document."

    But rather than take the assessment of experts seriously and recalibrate its misguided and dishonest policy, the Bush administration and its right wing henchmen are doing what they do best. They are hitting back by discrediting the Intelligence report and claiming that terrorism’s spread has nothing to do with the Iraq war. (link: Sujatha)

    "The White House on Sunday sharply disagreed with a new U.S. intelligence assessment that the war in Iraq is encouraging global terrorism, as Bush administration officials stressed that anti-American fervor in the Muslim world began long before the Sept. 11 attacks.

    Peter Watkins, a White House spokesman, declined to talk specifically about the National Intelligence Estimate (NIE), a classified analysis that represents a consensus perspective of all 16 U.S. intelligence agencies. ….  In it, the agencies concluded that the war has only worsened the U.S. effort to defeat global terrorism. They said that the war is spreading radicalism from Iraq throughout the Middle East and that the longer it continues, the more likely it is that it will provide fresh training grounds for future terrorist plots.

    But the White House view, according to Watkins, is that much of the radical fundamentalists’ deep anger at the United States and Israel goes back generations and cannot be linked to the U.S. invasion and occupation of Iraq.

    "Their hatred for freedom and liberty did not develop overnight,” Watkins said. "Those seeds were planted decades ago.”

    A predictable reaction from the same bunch whose dishonest claim it was that Saddam had WMD, including the nuclear kind and a direct hand in 9/11. That this dangerously arrogant  administration would lie tirelessly to cover up its incompetence and indecency is not news. But what effect this obstinate denial of truth will have on our national security planning ought to make us very afraid.  See the cavalier attitude George Bush displays towards the murderous choice he made.

    "In the CNN interview (recorded earlier this week and aired today), Wolf Blitzer asked about the continuing setbacks in Iraq. Bush, with a slight smile, replied, "Yes, you see — you see it on TV, and that’s the power of an enemy that is willing to kill innocent people. But there’s also an unbelievable will and resiliency by the Iraqi people — 12 milion people voted last December. … I like to tell people when the final history is written on Iraq, it will look like just a comma because there is — my point is, there’s a strong will for democracy. … The unity government is functioning."

    A comma? Just a comma? Was he joking?  How will Bush’s presidency figure in history? As a giant exclamation mark, probably. Future generations will surely wonder how far out of their minds Americans were to have elected such a mindless brute for president – twice!  And it is not just Iraqis and Americans who have been the victims of his sadistic adventure.

  • Hurricane, Hüzün & Holy City – Book Reviews (Part II)

    This is the second of the three part book review I began a little less than a month ago. This time the H word in the alliterative title is Hüzün.

    Istanbul : Turkish author Orhan Pamuk's excellent book, Istanbul is a double layered memoir. In one the author composes a loving tribute to the city of his birth – the historic Istanbul. The second is a critical look at his own life as an artist, a life long Istanbullu and a man.

    The autobiographical portion of Pamuk's book has the feel of a biography – as if written by someone who has observed his own life as an outsider. We get a taste of this detached narrative in the  opening page  of the book where Pamuk writes:

    "From a very young age, I suspected there was more to my world than I could see: Somewhere in the streets of Istanbul, in a house resembling ours, there lived another Orhan so much like me that he could pass for my twin, even my double. I can't remember where I got this idea or how it came to me. It must have emerged from a web of rumors, misunderstandings, illusions, and fears. But in one of my earliest memories, it is clear how I've come to feel about my ghostly other… "   

    That feeling of otherliness about himself could have been the result of the disconcerting early childhood experiences of occasional displacements from his home and anxiety about the strained relationship between his parents, both of whom Pamuk loved. It was also bolstered by something that happenend when as a five year old, Pamuk went to live with some relatives during one of his parents' many separations. The relatives had a picture of an unknown boy in their home – a photo that came with a frame they had purchased during a holiday in Europe. Someone jokingly told the young Pamuk that it was he in the photo. The young stranger resembled Pamuk just enough that he came to half believe the teasing. He began to wonder about his parallel self not quite knowing if he would some day meet him on an unknown street corner or in a familiar room.   

    Orhan Pamuk is a celebrated Turkish author of many famous works and one notorious political controversy.  He was born in an aristocratic family of Istanbul whose glory days were already fading when Pamuk was a child. He shared his home with several relatives – parents, uncles, aunts and a formidable grandmother who all lived in different apartments of a building owned by the family and where to this day, Pamuk continues to live as an adult. The Pamuk family was wealthy, westernized and lived in privileged isolation. The relationship between his beautiful mother and handsome and suave father was difficult – Pamuk hints at his father's infidelities and his mother's anger and sorrow. (The book is dedicated to his father) We learn of the author's childhood, adolescence, education, religion (or lack there of) and his first serious romance. We trace the trajectory of the author's career from the initial foray into painting, architecture and eventually settling down to the life of a writer. The memoir is knitted together through a series of events dredged from memory without much commentary – good, bad or ugly. We learn the story of Pamuk's life through his laconic telling and are left to make our own judgements. The author cautions us time and again – "these are the words of a fifty-year-old writer who is trying to shape the chaotic thoughts of a long-ago adolescent." But those chaotic and somewhat opaque thoughts pertain to the human relationships of the memoir. The other part, which is much more emphatic in its truthful recollection supported by numerous scholarly works of recorded history, black and white photographs and the author's own observations, deals with Pamuk's lifelong attachment and fascination with his beloved city of Istanbul.

    The first thing that strikes the reader in Pamuk's writing about Istanbul is that it is a tragic city – seeped in history and melancholy. And it is not just ordinary melancholy he assures us, but an all pervading collective melancholy, a "black passion" that grips all Istanbullus  – rich, poor, old and young. There is a special word in Turkish for this communal, constant, low level grief – its name is hüzün. Hüzün is defined by the Sufis of old as the sorrow caused by the separation of the human soul from God. It is a desirable emotion to possess – a pleasurable pain. It is the acknowledgement of what is precious that we may be missing in our existence and striving to find it. The lament or the hüzün that the author and his fellow citizens feel for Istanbul is caused by the realization of what the city once was at the epoch of its power, what it could have become — but did not. During his endless walks in the city, with an ever present cigarette between his fingers, Pamuk takes us through its roads and alleys and across the glittering waters of the Bosphorous.  From the prosperous westernized quarters of post WWI Istanbul of Kemal Pasha, to the derelict mosques, churches and synagogues of the Ottoman and Byzantine eras, we go up, down and across the intersecting geographic and historic grids of the city. Like Pamuk, Istanbul too seems to have a double – a forward looking, happy but gauche modern city perpetually under the shadow of the hüzün of an elegant and ancient city of unfulfilled promises.   

    Does a city have a soul of its own?  An organic identity that is separate from the lives of its inhabitants? I too was born and raised in an ancient city whose streets bear the scars and triumphs of numerous people of numerous races, religions and nationalities. Delhi's history like Istanbul's, too is a palimpsest of many, many centuries of war and peace, prosperity and devastation, rise and fall of indigenous and invading powers. Ancient monuments, songs, poetry and history books chronicle that history. Delhi has seen horrendous bloodshed, invasions, political intrigues followed by repeated and vigorous renewals. It has served as the capital of successive emperors and conquerors including most recently, the Mughals, the British and now independent India. Except for the disappearance of the broad, shaded, leafy boulevards of the Delhi of my youth, I never experience a feeling of melancholy when I visit Old and New Delhi. The new shiny buildings, congested roads, grand and crumbling mansions, fading old colonial gardens or its still proud and imposing medieval and colonial fortresses, all blend into a vibrant whole which always gladdens my heart. Could that be due to my own usually sunny outlook or is Delhi really a bustling, optimistic city?  I have never been to Istanbul and would love to some day. I am not entirely sure if the dark pall of hüzün indeed envelopes Istanbul or if it is the author's own personal melancholy he transposes on the city's character.  But that melancholy too may be somewhat in doubt.  The last chapter of "Istanbul" is entitled "To Be Unhappy Is to Hate Oneself and One's City". Pamuk repeatedly tells us how much he "loves" Istanbul, a city he has never left.  Although Pamuk doesn't tell us if he hates himself, being fifty percent on the right side of a loving equation is not all bad.  So, we can conclude that he too could not be totally unhappy.

  • New estimate: WOT countereffective (Joe)

    Lend anything enough weight and credibility and it becomes important, right?  And in this case, we’re talking about a lot:

    National Intelligence Estimates are the most authoritative documents
    that the intelligence community produces on a specific national
    security issue, and are approved by John D. Negroponte,
    director of national intelligence. Their conclusions are based on
    analysis of raw intelligence collected by all of the spy agencies.

    What does the estimate say, you ask?  Well you remember how leading up to the invasion of Iraq intelligent people noted that not only would said invasion be unjust, but that if we wanted to deal with terrorism maybe we should stop and try to understand the driving forces behind terrorism rather than simply assaulting the Middle East?  Those people were dismissed as, I believe, cowardly bleeding-heart soft-on-"terror" liberals.  Well as it turns out, George Bush got to fire his guns, and I’m sure that’s worth something to the people who actually have to deal with the unbelievably aggressive psychopath, but in for the rest of us, things have been made much, much worse:

    A stark assessment of terrorism trends by American intelligence agencies has found that the American invasion and occupation of Iraq
    has helped spawn a new generation of Islamic radicalism and that the
    overall terrorist threat has grown since the Sept. 11 attacks.

    The classified National
    Intelligence Estimate attributes a more direct role to the Iraq war in
    fueling radicalism than that presented either in recent White House
    documents or in a report released Wednesday by the House Intelligence
    Committee, according to several officials in Washington involved in
    preparing the assessment or who have read the final document.

    The
    intelligence estimate, completed in April, is the first formal
    appraisal of global terrorism by United States intelligence agencies
    since the Iraq war began, and represents a consensus view of the 16
    disparate spy services inside government. Titled “Trends in Global
    Terrorism: Implications for the United States,” it asserts that
    Islamic radicalism, rather than being in retreat, has metastasized and
    spread across the globe.

    An opening section of the report,
    “Indicators of the Spread of the Global Jihadist Movement,” cites the
    Iraq war as a reason for the diffusion of jihad ideology.

    The report “says that the Iraq war has made the overall terrorism problem worse,” said one American intelligence official.

    More than a dozen United States government officials and outside
    experts were interviewed for this article, and all spoke only on
    condition of anonymity because they were discussing a classified
    intelligence document. The officials included employees of several
    government agencies, and both supporters and critics of the Bush
    administration. All of those interviewed had either seen the final
    version of the document or participated in the creation of earlier
    drafts. These officials discussed some of the document’s general
    conclusions but not details, which remain highly classified.

    Officials
    with knowledge of the intelligence estimate said it avoided specific
    judgments about the likelihood that terrorists would once again strike
    on United States soil. The relationship between the Iraq war and
    terrorism, and the question of whether the United States is safer, have
    been subjects of persistent debate since the war began in 2003.

    Not that this should be surprising, mind you.  But it’s important because of who’s saying it — it should almost, almost, force wingnuts to stop and listen.

  • Quack Quack (Sujatha)

    Now a news report suggesting that Osama bin Bogeyman may have expired peacefully in his bed from a virulent bout of typhoid.

    Curiosity had me googling to check out the original French article which detailed the leak of classified French document which claimed that Saudi authorities ‘would have ‘ acquired information regarding Bin Laden’s demise  ( See Google translation of above article.) To get all pedantic about the article, it struck me as strange that the original article used the words ‘auraient acquis‘ , translated as ‘would have acquired‘ as opposed to ‘ont acquis‘ which would translate to ‘have acquired‘. In other words, the Saudis might have acquired information regarding OBL’s death.

    Does this mean the whole report is just a canard, or is it an early leak of Rove’s promised October surprise?  If it walks like a duck, and talks like a duck, it must, well…. be a canard!

    Update:
    The plot thickens. Could it be that this report might have squashed the possibility of parading a gold framed and perfectly matted blow up of OBL’s face ( like what was done for Zarqawi’s capture- just my inner conspiracy theorist piping up, irrepressible.) "OBL wasn’t killed in a precision bomb strike by the US military, he just gave up the ghost due to natural causes." But wait, the death hasn’t been confirmed yet, so I shouldn’t quack about this.

  • Torturous Religious Roots

    Jack Balkin has the funniest post on the George Allen – Jewish brouhaha.  It involves another George.

    "Senator George Allen isn’t the only politician to be surprised about his religious heritage.

    Yesterday former First Lady Barbara Bush revealed to her son George that she had been raised as a Muslim. The President immediately went to Congress and demanded the right to waterboard himself."

  • The new “If you don’t like it here then GIT OUT!” (Joe)

    Subtitled: There’s a reason liberals hate Democrats.

    More on the US/Chavez drama at the UN: Democrats warn Chavez: Don’t bash Bush.  Charles Rangle, a Democrat from New York, had a few choice words for the Venezuelan President:

    You don’t come into my country; you don’t come into my congressional district and you don’t condemn my president.

    You know, good humanist, caring, intelligent things to say such as:

    If there’s any criticism of President Bush, it should be restricted to Americans, whether they voted for him or not.

    and:

    I just want to make it abundantly clear to Hugo Chavez or any other president: Don’t come to the United States and think, because we have problems with our president, that any foreigner can come to our country and not think that Americans do not feel offended when you offend our chief of state.

    Nancy Pelosi chimes in:

    Hugo Chavez abused the privilege that he had speaking at the United Nations.  In doing so, in the manner which he characterized the president, he demeaned himself and demeaned Venezuela.

    And so the so-called Democrats follow Hillary’s lead and wrap themselves in the flag.  When in doubt, go patriotic.  Heck, go jingo!  Say things about "foreigners" and defend "our" Leader from all these mean things the foreigner is saying about him!  How dare someone who is not us, i.e., one of them, how dare he question the legitimacy of Bush’s elections, how dare he call the President an imperialist, a wannabe John Wayne cowboy who doesn’t understand politics, a threat to the world, and a thug! 

    I mean, it’s not like all those things are TRUE, or anything.