End of Silence

1. A WSJ editorial from Virginia senator-elect Jim Webb who defeated racist incumbent George “Macaca” Allen. I have no illusions that any of the democrats are going to make it better for the vast majority of the working and middle class, but it can’t be any worse. The fact that this senate race was as close as it was is a sad commentary on the state of things.
2. Keith Olbermann with a commentary on Bush in Vietnam and his answer to the question of whether or not lessons from Vietnam could be applied to the current situation in Iraq. He’s a bit overly dramatic, but he makes some really good points. I’m glad someone’s doing it.
3. An excerpt from reporter Patrick Cockburn’s book, The Occupation: War and Resistance in Iraq (Verso, 2006) on Nevada Thunder, an excellent repository for articles pointing out the myriad of problems with the current administration’s policies.
4. And Texas proposes a clue but continues to show incredible stupidity thanks to Governor Goodhair and The Hammer.

It’s a good thing Crooks and Liars posts segments from Bill Maher’s show so I can enjoy them without forking over the dough to HBO since I probably wouldn’t watch much else. I opted to wait for the last season of The Sopranos to come out on DVD instead of paying the extra monthly fee.

Check out the last two clips:

Maher on Neocons.

Maher on Bush, Bolton, Foley, Hastert, Republicans, Democrats, and… maybe, you.

[tags]crooksandliars, realtimewithbillmaher, billmaher, newrule, hbo, commentary[/tags]

Glenn Greenwald on the still unfolding Mark Foley scandal:

The Big Revelation has not yet occurred. That is going to be the first confirmed report of Foley’s having actual, in-person sex with one of the pages. At this point, there is no doubt that he did so. He wasn’t inviting them over to his apartment to drink alcohol in order to watch television with them. Still, that hasn’t been reported yet. We’ve been building up to it incrementally and Brian Ross is, I have no doubt, scouring his inbox at this moment for the lead that will take him there.

These endless, incremental disclosures are much more painful for the Republicans — not unlike Chinese Water Torture (which, coincidentally enough, is a technique that the President now has the power to use, thanks in part to legislation approved last week by Denny Hastert, John Boehner, Tom Reynolds and Mark Foley).

[tags]markfoley, glenngreenwald, scandal, torture[/tags]

There were tons of opinions and articles written over the last week to coincide with the 5 year anniversary of the 9/11 attacks. I posted something of my own on the Austin Metblog. My del.icio.us posting setup does a decent job of echoing links now, so I’d like to try and avoid that, but here’s the best of what I saw this past week.

• Mahablog links the transcript and video of Keith Olbermann’s commentary.
• This Modern World comments on that commentary and points out the Twilight Zone reference. Awesome.
• Washington Post article on the still-at-large Osama Bin Laden
• Matt Lauer grows a pair and confronts Bush on his policies.
• NY Times’s Paul Krugman on Promises Not Kept