The Judy Miller Standard

/in /by

Yup. David Shuster was watching the same Scooter Libby trial I was.

There are worse things for Obama than if John McCain becomes indelibly connected with Judy’s mindless war-mongering.

Update: Here’s McCain’s op-ed, now posted at NY Post. Shorter McCain: "According to political appointees (but not the non-partisan GAO), the Iraqis have achieved 15 of 18 benchmarks. But somehow, military self-sufficiency was not one of those benchmarks, so I get to stay here regardless of what Maliki has to say about it."

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    • JamesJoyce says:

      never……. It is all about mainataining a “colonial presence” in Iraq for the benefit of those in the “Energy Meeting,” with scumbag Cheney!

      It is about continuing America’s dependence of petroleum for the nest 100 years. This is not Natural Selection in an energy sense. This is about keeping “middle men” in control of the form of stored potential energy as Americans shell out 700 800 billion dollars a year for energy costs. T.B. Pickens is correct. The largest transfer of wealth via the hands of Exxon Mobile et als. Corporations have no shame or National sense in the lust for endless profit! Jefferson distrusted corporations with good reason! Think one might figure why he distrusted corporations. Our founders where not status quo types….

      Natural Selection, Corporate T(r)eason and the Iraq Oil Plot!!!

  3. JimWhite says:

    the Iraqis have achieved 15 of 18 benchmarks

    That’s pretty amazing language creep. I could have sworn that only a couple of weeks ago the RWA talking point was that progress was now adequate on that many benchmarks. These guys are really desperate to switch over just lying about the benchmarks outright.

    Must be time for the Center for American Progress to do their own independent assessment again. Here is their warning from last April:

    The American people should be wary of conservative claims that the Iraqi government is now delivering political progress. Even the most charitable interpretation of events suggests that U.S. congressional benchmarks are only partially met. Implementation of laws will be critical, for it is implementation that will affect the core conflict in Iraq—a conflict over Iraq’s fundamental national identity.

    For a little fun, I just put up a pair of photos on my blog comparing the Obama Middle East press conference to McCain’s. Click my name.

  4. FrankProbst says:

    I’m far more interested in how Bush is going to handle this than I am about what McCain is going to do. My take is that Bush really has only two options:

    1. Argue that Maliki and Obama are wrong, and he and McCain are right, and that we should stay in Iraq forever. He may very well do this, because it links Maliki to Obama (both names sound “ferrin”) and Bush to McCain (good “Amerrican” names), and he and his advisors may think that this will win the election for McCain in the fall.

    2. Assume that since Maliki has now called for a troop withdrawal, his war in Iraq is going to end shortly after his (Bush’s) Presidency does. We know that Bush is now concerned about his “legacy”. If he accepts the fact that his war is over, he may very well go out and declare victory (again). He could try to spin himself as a brilliant leader who launched–and won–a war against the evil terrorists who attacked us on 9/11, despite waning support from the public. In other words, he may try to trade his permanent bases for a better place in history. Would that work? I doubt it. But he’s narcissistic enough to try it, and I don’t think he really gives a shit about McCain. McCain was one of Bush’s political opponents, and in Bush’s black-and-white world, I think he views McCain pretty much the same way he viewed (and still views) Ann Richards and John Kerry.

    • brendanx says:

      he may try to trade his permanent bases for a better place in history. Would that work? I doubt it. But he’s narcissistic enough to try it, and I don’t think he really gives a shit about McCain.

      I think this is falling into the trap of viewing the war through the lens of personalities, as if Bush were the one deciding things, as if his “narcissism” were a factor. Bush couldn’t “trade” his permanent bases if he wanted to; they’re going to be there when Obama takes office and it’s an open question as to whether he’ll have the power or will to abandon them. There’s too much at stake for the constellation of interests that gave us the war to just pack up and go gently home. Remember that Clinton, not Bush, established the principle of “regime change” and first withdrew the inspection regime from Iraq. Our pirate ship of state doesn’t just turn on a dime when we get a new president.

      I’m interested, by the way, in whether Obama fires Petraeus. I’m not optimistic.

  6. freepatriot says:

    let the repuglitards declare victory, and prove beyond a doubt that the repuglitard party is on the way to the trash heap of history

    face it folks, our troops are coming home

    and Iraq is gonna settle it’s own future without us

    It doesn’t matter how long we stay, once we leave, shit is going to hit the fan

    the repuglitards have been using this to keep our soldiers in harm’s way, but there isn’t any way to prevent the carnage

    now America has decided to allow the Iraqis to settle their civil war by themselves (I bet maliki doesn’t live a year)

    A lot of people say that war is unpredictable. This one has been easy to predict. From the day that donald dumsfeld announced his “Small Footprint” doctrine, this outcome was all easily foreseen by many non-experts (Like Me)

    you wannna know what the future has in store for Iraq, get ready to say hello to Supreme Leader Sadr

    heck of a job, georgie

    btw, Sadr isn’t going to be a puppet like Saddam was

  7. FormerFed says:

    Shuster seems to be sort of an enigma to me. Sometimes he is off the wall and sometimes he makes some sense. Maybe it is a ‘growing process’.

    McCain probably didn’t write his piece. Although maybe his new found knowledge of ‘The Net’ included a cut and paste lesson from his aides on his previous drivel.

    • MarieRoget says:

      Written/put together for him, of course. I would imagine that’s SOP in McBush Camp, as w/many pols.
      He approved it, so he owns it.
      More fun if he didn’t read it himself, but “delegated” the read to someone else, then approved it…

      • MarieRoget says:

        I guess I’m just looking for the fun today in anything that might have fun. Even McCain’s written crap o’rama. eecumings does come to mind sometimes these days.

        Sorry. Have a CovHouse memorial service to attend.
        As ECahn said over on the mothership- TTFN.

        • MarieRoget says:

          Mislaid the quote I was after & mis-spelled yr. name. My fault, ee:

          To be nobody but yourself in a world that’s doing its best to make you somebody else, is to fight the hardest battle you are ever going to fight. Never stop fighting.
          e. e. cummings

  9. brendanx says:

    I like this:

    Sen. Obama seems to have learned nothing from recent history. Indeed, he’s emulating the worst mistake of the Bush administration by waving the “Mission Accomplished” banner prematurely.

    Brilliant. McCain’s got Obama right where he wants him.

    • freepatriot says:

      yep, pretty much

      I was watchin a discussion about this on chicken noodle network

      one former editor, a woman from Time Magazine, (I think) said they wouldn’t run this dreck

      and some dumb woman from the washington times chimed right in, saying “We Would”

      the other members of the panel laughed, because the dumb woman from the washington times didn’t realize that she revealed the bias of her publication

      if you’re willing to run a partisan hit piece that no other paper would touch with a 10 foot pole, you’re a fish wrapper, nothing more

  11. timbo says:

    They’ve met some of the standards but…the standard that they ask us to leave wasn’t one of the criteria. It’s a US Protectorate, folks, a concept that McCain is very familiar with having been born in the Panama Canal Zone. He wants more folks to grow up to be President who are born in the Iraqi War Zone?

  13. wigwam says:

    Per President Bush:

    The principle guiding my decisions on troop levels in Iraq is “return on success.” The more successful we are, the more American troops can return home.

    We currently have more troops in Iraq than we did when the surge began, indicating that it has had negative success. We are the mainstream chatterati going to understand that?

  14. freepatriot says:

    yo bmaz

    words fail everybody

    you can’t reason with these idiots

    it’s like they adopted the “Argument sketch” as their leading moral principle

    to which they would reply “no we didn’t”

    my motto is:

    “When logic fails, knock em on their ass”

    some of these ‘tarded fuckers need to be put on reset

  15. Leen says:

    Judy “I was fucking right” Miller set the bar very low. Judy should be tried at the Hague