Glass Houses

The hypocrisy is enough to choke an elephant.

As reported by Politico, the RNC is going to attack Barack Obama for having attended a prep school in Hawai’i.

I immediately wondered what sorts of schools John McCain attended, being the son and grandson of four-star admirals after all. Wikipedia informs us that since his father had numerous postings during John’s childhood, John attended about 20 schools … when the family settled in Northern Virginia in 1951, “McCain attended Episcopal High School, a private preparatory boarding school in Alexandria.”

Maybe the thrust of the RNC ad is that Obama, being a Democrat, isn’t entitled to attend an “elite” school. It’s only okay for Republicans like John McCain and George W. Bush (graduate of Phillips Academy).

Memo

To: The So-Called News Media
From: The Reality-Based Community
Re: Priorities

The Olympic Games are about the athletes.

Not about how much fun George W. Bush is having.

The Games are, in fact, not about George W. Bush at all, and just because he’s trotting around the Olympics as if the Games are being held in his honor doesn’t mean you have to enable his galaxy-sized sense of entitlement.

Please make a note of this.

[Added August 10] NBC interrupted its coverage of the athletic competitions to broadcast an interview with President Little Boots. Sigh. Nobody ever listens to me.

US armed, prepped Georgia for war

Via Avedon Carol, Nathan Hodge of Wired Mag:

Georgia and Russia are careening towards war. And the U.S. isn’t exactly a detached observer in the fight. The American military has been training and equipping Georgian troops for years….

So why should we care? Oh, just the prospect of a larger regional war that could drag in Russia – and involve the United States as well. Since early 2002, the U.S. government has given a healthy amount of military aid to Georgia. …

One of the U.S. military trainers put it to me a bit more bluntly. “We’re giving them the knife,” he said. “Will they use it?”

So, I guess the US monopoly on senseless wars is intact… though we have managed to partially outsource the stupidity.

Also, via Atrios, our state-directed press on the issue:

There are over 2,000 American citizens in Georgia, Pentagon officials said. Among them are about 130 trainers — mostly American military personnel but with about 30 Defense Department civilians —assisting the Georgian military with preparations for deployments to Iraq.

The American military was taking no actions regarding the outbreak of violence, according to Pentagon and military officials.

For the record, the reporters on this piece are MICHAEL SCHWIRTZ, ANNE BARNARD and C. J. CHIVERS.

A much more valuable synopsis by Marcion at Kos, including a link to photos from Reuters.

Newt Gingrich, Rees

What is the reverse of a seer? I think it’s a “rees”. Or should be.

Whatever it is, it’s also Newt Gingrich.

Everyone’s favorite serial adulterer, former congresscritter, current lobbyist and reject from the Psychic Friends Network has uttered another Sybillic profundity:

He led Republicans into government shutdowns in the 1990s, and now, former House Speaker Newt Gingrich indicates his party is seriously considering another shutdown threat to force a vote on offshore oil drilling in September.

House Republicans brought Gingrich to the Capitol on Wednesday, partly to revive media coverage of their speech-making protest in the chamber, now in its fourth day.

The rest of Congress is gone for August recess, but several Republican House members have been speaking on the floor of the closed-down chamber, calling for a special session to vote on drilling and energy.

Don’t laugh — he got it right when he said the 1993 Clinton tax hike would destroy the economy in six months, and that the Democrats would get blamed for the 1995 shutdown he engineered and Clinton would lose his re-election campaign, and that CoupGate (aka the Blue Dress Thing) would give the GOP 60 House seats in 1998.

Oh, wait. None of that actually happened, did it?