I can assure you that the diary I was going to post today was a treasure of erudition, snark and insight, and would have redirected the political discourse in this nation to a higher plane. But screw that – I’ll post it tonight. This is more important:

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So Former Naval POW John McCain walks into the American Presidential audition room and proceeds to shuck and jive through his entire schtick, twirling his POW flag around while telling you that he's not, and trying to convince America to vote for him because everybody tells him he'd be a swell president.

Gen. Wesley Clark, sitting in Simon Cowell's chair, can't take any more and raises his hand to stop the music.

"You're a terrific juggler," Gen. Clark says, "but

your future involves not being president."

Well, after the Supreme Court’s stellar 5-4 decision today in D.C. v. Heller (PDF file), I am saving all my pennies for the day when Antonin Scalia decrees that I can legally possess a TOW missile – because, as his majority opinion makes clear, he gets to decide what weaponry I get to own.

While I must say I'm mildly encouraged by Russ Feingold's rather circumspect hinting that he might maybe sorta filibuster the current FISA bill never mind - there's a possibility that the Senate won't even get to the bill before the recess - BUT WHATEVER: I still think we need to be prepared in case this steaming turd passes. And - entrenched as I firmly am in the when-it's-inevitable-you-might-as-well-enjoy-it camp - I figure we should try to make the best of what will otherwise be a bad situation. To wit:

In all of this talk about telco immunity in the FISA bill, the same question keeps popping into my mind:

It’s the 1970s all over again! I swear to god, I just saw David Frost – or was that Dick Cavett; no, no, I’m sure it was David Frost – interviewing Richard Nixon – or was that Rahm Emanuel; no, no, I’m pretty sure that was Richard Nixon, ‘cause listen to what he just said:

When the president does it that means that it is not illegal.

OMG, these Republican morans never learn.

Some of you with memories longer than a fruit fly’s may recall that, oh, last week (and, for that matter, every week since September 11, 2001), every right-wing neocon legislator screamshow host Supreme Court justice  BushCheney clone was fulminating about how Islamofashionists posed an imminent  threat to your personal safety and that of your children and dog.

The guy behind the ultra-successful marketing campaign known as "IRAQ HAS WMDs!!!! IRAQ HAS MOBILE WEAPONS LABS!!!!" believes he should have been better-rewarded for his efforts.

In a series of interviews with Los Angeles Times reporters John Goetz and Bob Drogin, the Iraqi Intelligence Salesman Formerly Known As Curveball whined about how he isn’t appreciated in his own time.

The guy has a point. I mean, when you think about how much money has been made by leveraging the dubious-at-best assertions made by a guy who graduated with a D average from university – and, just to be clear, I’m talking about Curveball here, not any leaders of the free world – you’d think someone, somewhere could’ve seen fit to at least throw the guy a half a pallet or so of shrink-wrapped $100 bills, right?

Sunday is Fathers’ Day. I know, I know, it might be a cooked-up holiday and all (or maybe not), but I still buy into it, a little. So yes, I still have the construction-paper necktie that my older daughter made when she was 5 (the one with her photo in the middle of it and the string from which you hang it on your neck), and the little origami "box" with the goodies inside made by my younger daughter a few years later (now minus the goodies, of course), and all the cards, homemade and store-bought before and since.

And it’s not just my relationship with my own children that chokes me up on Fathers’ Day – I also get a lump in my throat when I think about my late father.

Reposted, with minor edits, from February 2008


The story of a once-proud warrior
with one last battle left to fight.



Ulysses
by Alfred, Lord Tennyson

IT LITTLE PROFITS that an idle king, By this still hearth, among these barren crags, Match'd with an aged wife,

I mete and dole Unequal laws unto a savage race,

The L.A. Times is characterizing the replacement of Gen. T. Michael Moseley (who was fired last week as Air Force chief of staff) by Gen. Norton A. Schwartz as a blow to the traditional "fighter" and "bomber" power structures within the service. All previous Air Force chiefs of staff have come from one of those two arms of the service, while Schwartz rose through the ranks of the transport command:

The nomination of Gen. Norton A. Schwartz, who is currently head of the Pentagon's transportation command and rose through the ranks as a pilot of military cargo planes, marks a significant break for the Air Force, which has been led by fighter and bomber pilots almost since its inception after World War II . . .

In bypassing the Air Force's "fighter mafia" in filling the chief of staff's position, [Defense Secretary Robert] Gates appears to be sending a message to the service that it needs to prioritize missions that support the current ground wars in Iraq and Afghanistan, such as transport flights, in-air refueling and overhead surveillance, according to Pentagon officials.

A closer look at Schwartz, though, might provide a more ominous reason:

We are living, as the Chinese curse portends, in interesting times.

The LA Times and New York Times are reporting tonight on the testimony of one of Italy's top counter-terrorism cops in the rendition trial in absentia of 26 Americans. From the LA Times:

Testifying in the trial of 26 Americans, most of them CIA operatives, who are accused of abducting a radical Egyptian cleric in Milan, the senior officer described tracking massive amounts of cellular telephone traffic to piece together Europe's only prosecution of the much-disputed practice known as extraordinary rendition.

O

M

G!!

Whatever it is Arnold's smokin', I want some of that. Check this out:

A public relations consultant for Frauscher, a European yacht manufacturer, says Gov. Arnold Schwarzenegger will attend the unveiling of the world’s first hybrid yacht engine this Friday morning, May 16, at San Francisco’s St. Francis Yacht Club...

The date was even changed to accommodate the governor's schedule . . .

(Note: a recent diary on this by DanK Is Back is scrolling off the "Recent Diaries" list, and this needs to be played up. - o.h.)

Wow. Who knew a terrorist attack on the U.S. was a "correction"?

Who knew? Donald Rumsfeld, that's who.

In light of the official announcement of former Georgia Republican congressman Bob Barr's candidacy for president as a Libertarian (as diaried today by rerutled and hinted at the other week by The Termite), all I can say is -

Heh®.

The construct is not mine; you can thank Charles Dodgson for that.

Not that Hillary's campaign bothered to thank him - my guess is they adopted the Mock Turtle's curriculum strategy all by their brilliant selves. I mean, it does seem like it was tailor-made for the campaign they ran, doesn't it?

"I got a DNC Rulebook and I'm not afraid to use it!!"

Having been backed into a corner by the delegate tally to date, Hillary Clinton officially took the Democratic Party hostage today, pointing the Credentials Committee straight at its collective head and threatening to detonate the "Delegate Selection Rules for the 2008 Democratic National Convention" if the superdelegates don't cough up enough votes for her by June 3.