VA Lady2008's Comments (22)

“Novak was for a good many years an excellent reporter, with "sources" all of the rest could barely imagine. His writing was clear and understandable. Perhaps that is why he lasted as long as he did.

HIs job, as is the job of ANY reporter, was to GET and PUBLISH the story, and when I write "story" I'm not referring to fairy tales. He broke a major scandal, something about the former Soviet Union, in the Ford administration. He pursued, like a terrior, the repulsive H.R. Haldeman, in part, I've read, because Haldeman refused to become a "source" in the Nixon Administration. He published Valerie Plame (and others) names after they were leaked to him by someone in the Bush II administration.

The late reporter long ago crossed the line from straight reporting to commentary, and in the end to shilling--quite possibly without ever realizing it, or admitting it, even to himself-- for a thoroughly unworthy President Bush II and his administration.

The bottom line is that they used him, and he let himself be used. Whether he colluded knowingly in lies and treason is for someone higher up the intellectual chain to decide. There is a huge difference between old fashioned reporter, one of the best of which he was, and "commentator" which he became, and paid shill, such as we might see raving on Fox or MSNBC.

Novak's biggest mistake was that he either didn't recognize or more likely appreciate the difference.”

“The treatment of female veterans is deplorable, but as the mother of a young male Iraq war vet (two combat infantryman tours, USMC, in Fallujah) I can add that the VA is a true "equal opportunity" offender, and the treatment of male Vets, at least from Iraq and most likely Afghanistan, is equally deplorable. They're just trying to save a dime. I wonder sometimes if the satraps in the VA manage to pocket the savings, personally.

When caught out, something is published, and someone (most recently Eric Shinseki) promises that "things will change and heads will roll, if necessary" but if ANY heads in the VA have rolled, I see no evidence of it.

I didn't see the "noncontributors" in Congress, or in the Bush Administration, volunteering to serve or lining up to help, either. Most of the "noncontri­butors"--b­y whom I refer specifically to the rah-rah contingent who were hot to trot with this filthy war and then under funded and mis planned it and generally did everything in their effort to NOT PAY FOR IT--will go direct to the 7th level of hell, when the time comes.

Whether you consider the war misguided or not--we ought all to be down on our knees in gratitude to these men and women who were willing to risk their lives for their country.”

“Secondary to our author's lament about the completely MIA films are those for whom a decent transfer doesn't exist. I think a large part of this is that the original film stock has deteriorated to the point where a decent transfer is no longer possible, and the deterioration affects not just very old films, but those released since I've been around to see them.

A prime example of one thought lost, but which has been painfully (and I suspect expensively) recovered is A Star Is Born: sections of it feature just a single photo showing with the voice track, which remains.

The trouble with restorations is that it's easy to go too far: MGM, in it's "colorizing" of originally black and white films, is a prime example.”

“ASU: your initials, sadly say it all, except for one thing:

Words have meaning. Real meaning, not whatever d@mned thing you want to make up. And actions have consequences, real ones.

You might put down your collective hagiography of George Bush and Dick Cheney long enough to realize that times have changed.”

“I'm surprised they aren't forcing him to enter via the employees entrance, the one where all the other non-party school attendees enter, to do the real work, and to pickup after the party kids.”

“Perhaps Mr. Cuomo's next move should be a full investigation of Jim Cramer's activites from his days as a hedge fund manager. Mr. Cramer has already admitted, on the air, in various interviews, and in his own 2003 book that he manipulated and bent what few rules existed to the very edge of what he though was legal in his exhaustive efforts to make money, no matter what.

I believe that Mr. Cramer may be just days from finding out that that he overestimated the amount of room in the term "legal."

Go get him, Andy, before the statute of limitations runs out.”

“I was actually surprised to read that David Brooks, well known Grand Obstructionist Party apologist and enabler, but a conservative who, I thought, actually had some intellectual capacity, would have written that drivel about Mrs. Obama in the first place.

Then I woke up and smelled the coffee: what I had mistake for intellectual capacity, along with expression, was nothing more than facile: a very thin coat of paint on a very rough veneer consisting of base wood, the scrub, the ugly material generally not seen in public.

The Grand Obstructionist Party might have earlier been likened to the Mafia: pretending to elegance, legality, and intellectual capacity, and moral correctness which it neither felt nor believed in, but which it used to put itself out of the gutter (and jail) in which it both belonged and in each cases generally occupied. The Mafia actually DID have some class, however: they never went after the wives and children of their fellow, target thugs. The GOP lacks even that scintilla of good breeding.

If there is anything that should be covered up, it's not Mrs. Obama's arms, which have emerged as the leading edge of what I consider an unfortunate style trend, since I can't wear it, but one which has appeared previously, back when I was in college.

What should be covered up is David Brooks' obvious inanity.

Next topic, please?”

“Simple: most are jealous.”

“As an "anti-Republican" I would love it if there were any way for the Democratic party to claim any credit for Gov Bobby's fiasco, but the fact of the matter is, he auditioned for a part he wasn't qualified to play, and the party had to administer the hook.

Next contestant, please!”

“The heck with it. Even in our GOP generated fiscal enfeeblement, we ain't that poor.

Leave that crap to dry out in the desert. Bring the troops home now.”

“Americans choose, or should choose, a President to do some of the heavy thinking and decision making for us. In that, it's incumbent on all of US to choose someone we think actually has the intellectual firepower to do the job.

President Elect Obama is that man. Calm, cool, collected, intellectually rigorous. He actually has READ the Constitution of the United States, and taught "Con" Law at Chicago, when the phrase was a short-hand for "Constitution" not convicts getting away with murder.

So, we can gripe. We can think better of it, We can disagree. All of this, which requires actual thought, goes along with our support for a man who does so.

The Republicans, on the other hand, nominated someone they'd like to sit down and have a beer with, with predictable and disastrous consequences, and then elected him twice. Then, somewhat burned, they nominated someone that the right wing of the party could barely tolerate, and left him out to dry.”

“So the question du jour would be: Did they call you a traitor?”

“I have a great deal of difficulty imagining that the files aren't available somewhere, and I suspect our Mr. IT Specialist may know where. I'm not suggesting that he was a party to the"disappearance" just that we need to find someone who actually can sit down with a pencil and piece of paper and draw a diagram of the existing systems.

The heart of any computer is its basic operating system. It isn't human, but has every reason to appreciate the "next life" will it will live on, essentially forever, somewhere on a back up drive.”

“General Colin Powell was a fine man, a loyal and intelligent officer, and one who--despite the rocky start he had in life--managed to drive his way all the way to the top, based on his ability, honesty, and integrity, three attributes the current administration would know ONLY if they tripped over them in a dictionary. He was a combat infantryman in Vietnam, so he knew the real cost of war, having men in his command die in his arms. He also was the architect of the last war we actually won, no small point, and one which was not lost on George Bush, who made him--and he was singularly ill suited for the task--Secretary of State. By accounts of my friends on the inside, he did a VERY good job, and was highly respected.

Mr. Powell's BIG mistake was to actually BELIEVE in compassionate conservatism and to think that it was "for real" instead of just a trick to delude people into voting against their best interests. He fell for it up to giving that infamous PowerPoint presentation he made to the UN claiming that Saddam Hussein had weapons of mass destruction. When he found out he'd been had, he eventually started talking about it, and from there, his days in the administration were numbered. He was replaced by Ms. Rice, who never heard of Al Quaeda, but who didn't make the administration uncomfortable.”

“I don't believe John McCain possesses either the temperament or intellectual qualifications to be President. Neither do I.
I do believe that he is...or was...esse­ntially a moral man who loves his country. So do I. Sadly, he lately has been unable to reconcile that love of country with something he loves even more: the idea of being President of the United States, for which he has demonstrated he will do anything, and sacrifice anything and anyone.
Mr. McCain has had moments of morality erupt, even in the heat of a badly failing campaign: telling the woman who claimed that Mr. Obama was untrustworthy and an "Arab" that she was wrong.
That moment didn't last long, and he has been unable to silence the nutcake followers that he has permitted Sarah Palin to stir up. The name calling won't stop until politicians and religious and civil leaders in prominence make it pikestaff plain to their followers and adherents, and their sycophantic "surrogates" that this kind of behavior is simply UNACCEPTABLE.
The step from "he's palling around with terrorists" to "he's a terrorist" to "off with his head" to "kill him" and actually picking up a rifle (something the GOP has conveniently made much easier, with the connivance of the NRA) is a very short one.
This election will be over, mercifully, in three weeks. STOP THIS NOW. You're going to have to actually LIVE with yourself for a long time, I hope. You're better than this.”

“My son did two combat tours in Fallujah, Iraq, back when the "highways" outside that dump represented the most dangerous roads on the planet. That's COMBAT tours, Mrs. McCain, and while I'm sure you're proud of your sons, and want to keep them from harms way, the fact of the matter is that your husband fought most of the war he claims makes him fit to be president from a safe, high altitude.

It's pretty easy to be "rah rah" when all you see is puffs of smoke and fire, and I'm sorry, although I thank your husband for his service, I don't happen to believe that either it, or his unfortunate tour as a POW, entitles him to be president.”

“The trouble is, that with 30 years of intensive, GOP training, they not only are ignorant, but aggressively so, certain they are right, and everyone else is wrong.

You can work with ignorance. You can present facts and information. You might even teach someone how to do some simple analysis so he or she could draw his or her own conclusions, based on the facts.

Facts are pesky things. They have a real history of getting in the way of prejudices. Prejudices lead to hate. Hate abhors information, for it is, at it's bottom, essentially not only ignorant, but lazy.

McCain/Palin and their advisors seem to think the way to "win" this thing is to stir up hate. I doubt that the country will fall for it again, but some of their more hot headed, ignorant adherents are quite likely, now that anybody can own a gun, to pick one up.

Let's home it gets turned on one of them, but the odds are, it will be turned on one of the rest of us.”

“More important than the headline "It's time to cut the crap" is for the American people, the vast majority of whom will be paying FOREVER to bail the country out of this mess, to realize that there is NOTHING Hank Paulson or ANYONE in this administration CAN do.
Winston Churchill famously wrote "You can always count on Americans to do the right thing - after they've tried everything else. " In part, Mr. Churchill knew he could count upon us because he believed, deeply, that we were essentially just people. And in part, he knew that no matter how badly we blundered, how stupidly we acted, how foolish our temporary policies might be, we had the "means" to recover, moral, intellectual and financial.
Sadly, those days are over. America, with it's secret prisions, renditions, approval of torture, disavowal of the Geneva conventions, all applicable not just to battlefield combatants, but now applied to American citizens who DARED to object to George Bush and his policies, no longer occupy the high ground. Our politics are dominated by light-weight Republicans, whose only interest is in stopping abortion and perpetuating themselves. And now we're bankrupt. We could turn this thing around, in a decade or so, except now we're bankrupt in every way imaginable, and those holding our debt, including the Chinese, don't much like us.
Prepare to squirm, for a long, long time. Oh, and all you Republicans, prepare to see your taxes go up to PAY for this mess.”

“Recent history shows us we have to prepare for a "worse possible case:" McCain wins, and then inconveniently (for the Republic) dies, or becomes so disabled that Ms. Palin becomes president. The woman is very smart, extremely ambitious, extraordinarily (even for a politician) both self assured and sure of her opinions, and isn't interested in being confused by information and facts, so she's incredibly ill-informed.
Pushing her into the presidency means that SOMEONE will have to be running the country, because she'll be kept too busy with picturesque photo-ops (killing moose from a helicopter, hello PETA? where are you when we need you) and campaigning to end abortion, and then birth control, elevating the "Jews for Jesus" to putlic acceptability, and I don't even want to think about what she's going to do to that poor librarian, back in Wasilia, except to suggest that she (and the moose) run for the hills.
Who will that SOMEBODY be? Well, we already know it will be some kind of next gen right wingnut, someone she owes her elevation to, to whom she'll be forced to turn for advice and counsel, and who will, quite quickly, seize control of the country. A next-gen Dick Cheney? I'm sure there is one. There always is. It's October, folks, time for the wonderful Republican­-generated "October surprise." This thing isn't over until the votes are counted, and as we learned from Bushco, not even then.”

“Eight years ago, my Republican husband characterized John McCain as a loose cannon ball, rolling around on the deck, and entirely capable of putting a hole big enough into the side of the boat the sink the ship.

Every single thing he does derives from this character failure. His basic "flyboy" mentality has now combined with old age, crankiness, and unlimited assurance the EVERYBOYD is wrong, except him, to produce a man who wants, more than anything, including the safety of his country, to become president.

To this end, he will do anything. One of those things has been to try to veneer over his basic bad temper with a kind of paternalistic kindness. The problem with veneer is that it has a tendency to peel away when under the figurative "moisture" caused by pressure, questions, and actual attention from the voters.”

“What John McCain is doing is repeating exactly what George Bush and his Constitution gutting fiends have said for the past 7 3/4 years: "Anyone who doesn't agree with me 100 percent is a traitor."

Been there. Been accused of that. Still have the scars.”

“MSM, like the DNC has a real problem in "dealing" with the Moose Killer: it indicted and convicted itself of utter, complete misogyny in its coverage of Hillary Clinton's campaign.

In so doing, you "dissed" pretty much every thinking fiscally conservative, socially moderate woman in America. Is it any wonder that a lot of us don't see a dime's worth of difference in HOW WE WILL BE TREATED by John McCain, compared to HOW WE HAVE BEEN TREATED by the Democrats?

Now, because MSM has already been convicted in the court of public opinion, it is utterly unable to take on the Moose Killer in any meaningful way, for fear that the Republicans will accuse them of doing what they already did. In point of fact, the RNC and John McCain and his cronies have already done so, and MSM has backed down.

It's a little late in the game for MSM to get all holier than thou.

You had your chance previously, and were far more intent on fawning (there is absolutely no other word for it) over Mr. Kumbayah, never asking HIM the hard questions, which would have revealed earlier...­when there was still time to do something about it...a fundamental truth: MR. OBAMA HAS NO ANSWERS.

Practice saying the following: President McCain. And if you actually believe in God, say a prayer for his continued good help, which might mean you won't have to say the following: President Palin.”