Sunday Morning Comin’ Down – Part 1.

By the wankers of Babylon.

All quotes approximate and for entertainment purposes only.


On Fox:

Gen George Casey talks Iraq, here, there and everywhere, except…

Hey, it’s Noot! And Representative Jane Harmon. Dan Senor (Former Advisor to the US Presidential Envoy in Iraq.) Talking about Dubya's upcoming Camp David War Council.

Harmon: What would help? Well, no Dems were included, so lets just begin with two, little things – Firing Rummy’s Loony ass and start getting the troops the hell out.

Senor: Baghdad is important. The center of all things. We have to retake it...

But, but, the statue? What about that statue of Saddam that we knocked down about a century ago?

Wallace: More troops? Fewer? This huge, new project to hold Bagdad? WTF is going on?

Noot/Senor: Iraqis are waiting to see which side do they bet on. Can’t cut and run. Only way to stop insurgents is to kill ‘em. Kill ‘em all. Hang ‘em high.

And if the gravity well of our presence mints a dozen fresh insurgents for every one we kill?

And if everyone is therefore either an insurgent, or a protoinsurgent, isn't it inevitable that we'll kill...eveyone?

You do the math.

Harmon: The only solution is political. Whack-a-Mole with insurgents ain’t working.

Senor: More troops. In Baghdad. The citizen-to-soldier ratio is 700-to-1.

Noot: Me running? Probably. If it’s a wide-open field.


On This Week... Paul Bremmer. Tom Reynolds and Rahm Emanuel.

Stephanopoulos: What went wrong?

Abject Failure and Presidential Medal of Honor Winner, L. Paul Bremmer: The, uh, insurgency was, uh, more cagey than we, uh, thought. Gotta get that darned insurgency. Gotta get the militia. Gotta get some sweet-sweet strategery going on in this sonofabitch. Gotta unsurgency the insurgency.

There we’re gonna have lunch!

More than three years into this tragedy and Holy Shit: Bremmer’s says the Big Plan is the Big Hats are gonna get together and brainstorm up a new plan for winning.

Mission Accomplished 2 (or is it 3? or 4? or 12?): This Time We're Serious. Really.

BTW, from running stats on the population ratios, to the “I’m making no judgment about whether troops should go up or down” to the idea or “redeployment” into Baghdad, Bremmer is A) straddling every fence in the tristate area and, B) reiterating the Party Line that Casey is running on other frequencies almost down to which syllable he stresses.

Bremmer: The Army is not nearly as penetrated by militias as the police. The police are just a fright.

George Will: You can talk a lot of Hoo-Ra about the death of Zarqawi...if you equate AQ in Iraq with the insurgency. They are not synonymous.

Brazile: There is no doubt that the US Government needs to really weigh into Iraq.

Gotta love it when Brazile had the nerve to use the phrase "There is no doubt..." in any sentence.

Will: The strategery is….the Reconquest of Baghdad.

George Will interviews Destroyer of Worlds, Grover Norquist.

I’m all a-quiver.

Shorter Norquist:

For everything there is a season, and a time for every tax cut under heaven:

a time to for a tax cut, and a time for a Death Tax cut; a time to invest, and a time to cut taxes on that that which was invested;

a time to kill, and a time to cut taxes; a time to break down, and a time to cut taxes;

a time to weep, and a time to cut taxes; a time to mourn, and a time for some more tax cutting;

a time to cast away taxes, and a time to gather tax cuts together; a time to embrace tax cuts, and a time to refrain from spending one thin fucking dime on the poor;

a time to seek more tax cuts, and a time to let major cities drown; a time to let billionaires keep every cent they have, and a time to cast away the sick and the weak;

a time to tear a new hole in anyone who does not value tax cuts above their fellow man, and a time to sew up some more tax cuts; a time to smirk in silence (as when the government is too broke to outfit soldiers poperly), and a time to speak…about the next round of tax cuts;

a time to love tax cuts, and a time to hate anyone who doesn’t love tax cuts more than their nation; a time for war…which as it turns out is a perfect time for more tax cuts.

Face the Nation... Gen. Casey somehow finds the time to reprise his role from Fox.

Tom Friedman: The best PR for us in the Middle East would be to win.

Me: And, again, explain exactly what “winning” actually looks like and how exactly we get from Operation Enduring Clusterfuck to Operation Jeffersonian Democracy?

Please cite three examples, and remember this will count for 75% of your final grade.

Crickets. Tumbleweed. Crickets and tumbleweed...dying of boredom.

Capt’n Obvious: We shoulda torn down Abu Ghraib and Guantánamo. Guantánamo is the anti-Statue of Liberty. Bad for our status.

Yeah. Ok. Fine.

But. What. Should. We. Do. Now?

Oh...well...that’s for Military Lawyers to decide…but something should be done.

Ah, to live the Life of Capt’n Obvious!

Presuming to hector despicable people painfully evident running sores about which they clearly already know. In a Moses-Descending-A-Staircase-With-Tablets tone of voice. And then making for the tall grass when pressed to actually stand up, name names and call a liar a liar to his face.


Meet the Press…

was preempted – or post-empted -- into the predawn hours when I was still dreaming of Lucy Liu. By Tennis. From France.

Oy.

But NBC streams their site so, just for this post and armed only with a diminishing cache of 312 beers, I dove in.

Amy Walters was there. And Markos! Byron York (Thus solving the mystery of “Third Darrin”). John Alter.

General Casey begged off…due to a Pentagon “scheduling problem”. I guess his Media BubbleYum Flavor goodness got all chewed out on every other talk show he dropped in on today…

McCaffrey: Guantanamo. I don’t know how we get out of this. The three suicides were a political attack. Like suicide bombers. (Uh, except, y’know, zero casualties). But we have to figure out how we “back out of this.”

End Part the First…