I started a series called "Danse Macabre" to illustrate the dangerous signs and trends of the Bush Administration and their neoconservative ideology. The third installment to the series has now been posted on the ePluribus Media Journal. It's entitled "Danse Macabre: The Return of Ja(a)far [Donald Rumsfeld]."  

This diary serves both as an invitation to check it out if you haven't seen it yet (it's long, bring coffee) as well as an opportunity to touch upon the various artists responsible for the images found within. Come on inside, and learn a little more about the artists and their works.

Once again, Charles Krauthammer has jumped into the Iraqi quagmire  debate with both feet firmly in his mouth.   The amazing part is he can  do that without pulling his head out of his ass.  I'm telling you, the  guy deserves his own Cirque de Soleil act.  They could call it "Pretzel  Logique" and make a fortune.

Normally I hurry past his crap the way I pass puddles of vomit outside  of frat houses.  I hold my breath and quickly move on, hoping none of  the ooze will stick to my shoes.  Occasionally, he outdoes himself and  you just can't help but stop and gawk in amazement.

Today was one of those days....

The Foley pedo scandal ate up so much bandwidth most people don't even know Baghdad is under a daytime curfew.  Therefore, it's no surprise this shocking exchange on FOX News fell completely off the table.  It's so tasty, I just had to pick it up, transcribe it, and share it around.  This is a dog bites man kind of story.

Shep Smith is a popular FOX News anchorman, yet even this avid supporter of the war, Bush, and all things conservative finally got so enraged, he stomped Bill Kristol like a grape.  Talk about making Kristol whine.   Shep started off calling this administration's policies horrifying and repulsive and it went downhill from there.  By the end of the segment, Shep was holding Bush responsible for any deaths that occur in Iraq between now and the mid-term elections!  In so many words!  On FOX NEWS!  This is Must See TV.  Transcripts and links to this "come to Jesus" talk are below the fold.  

I am not surprised to see right wing thinkers attacking the win of Ned Lamont as the Democratic cadidate for Senator from Conn, after all he took the radical rights best friend off the ballot, Senator "Sweet Lips" Lieberman.

What I was shocked to see was who wrote the article and the organization for which he works, a non-partisan think tank supposedly for "fighting terrorism and promoting freedom through, research, communications, education and investigative journalism". It sounds nice, but when you look atthe list of members, it looks like a new home for PNAC, you all remember the group who brought us the war in Iraq, Richard Perle, William Kristol, Donald Rumsfeld, Dick Cheney et al.

You gotta love the cosmopolitan parochialism of New Yorkers, so smug in their Steinbergian view of the world.  Preaching the inevitability of the New American Century, the neo-cons forgot the warning of Yogi Berra, the great Yankees philosopher,  "In theory there is no difference between theory and practice. In practice there is."   The last time Bill Kristol was on Comedy Central, he was doing victory laps.  He even went slumming and appeared on The Daily Show, taunting Jon Stewart "It's not too late to join us."  

Then the wheels came off...  

[Crossposted everywhere.]
The recent diary "They Want to Hit Iran" by jorndorff on DailyKos reiterates and forewarns of the impending expansion of hostilities by the US against the Middle East.  Please read it.

This is ~not~ the first time we've heard warnings about the inevitability -- in spite of the rhetoric to the contrary -- of such a strike, nor is it the first time that the spectre of nuclear war has manifested in the form of a "precision tactical strike".  Jorndoff does an excellent job of explaining the internal "neo-justification" of the why & how such a plan could be considered viable by our criminally-inclined leadership.  And for a great summation of just how "awry" this Administration has gone, and the underlying ideo-theology behind it, check out "Pentagon insider speaks:  NeoCons LIED early and as often as possible." by Yellow Canary.  

Given the grave nature of the situation, and the quickly diminishing timeframe in which we can act to avert disaster, I'd like to briefly recap my take and suggestions.  With any luck, we can interrupt this ongoing danse macabre before Iran's dance card is punched.

So often, the world seems like a jigsaw puzzle -- one where you've long ago lost the box.  You can see an edge piece here, a critical corner over there, but you don't have a good idea what picture the whole thing forms when assembled.  Worse, you may have the wrong idea, and you keep trying to force together pieces that don't fit.  

That's how it is with the story the Bush administration sold us on Iraq.  You can tell there's something wrong.  Many of the pieces clearly don't go together.

Then you snap in the last piece, and it all becomes clear.

I don't usually prowl around Newsmax, but I took Tom's quiz (humph) in Template for Invasion, and bumped into this interesting article, Bush WMD Response to Target Bill Clinton.  

The next counter-offensive to squash Bush's war critics is presented here:

U.S. News & World Report says the RNC ad will spotlight Clinton's Feb. 17, 1998 speech on Iraq, where the former prez "guaranteed" that Saddam Hussein would use his weapons of mass destruction.

I had wondered where the winger's recent interest in Bill was going, since he is not someone on the WH's A list.  A quick snoop around the net produced a few details, but nothing coherent.  Here they are in case they do, or do not, have any relevance to the latest anything but the truth White House.