Quote of the day

America's favorite legacy warmonger, Liz Cheney, decided to offer the President some suggestions on what he should do during the Nobel ceremony if the logical option of swearing fealty to her father was out of the question:

"The notion that this White House says he will go to Oslo to accept this prize just adds to the farce," Cheney said on "Fox News Sunday." "But I do think he could send a real signal here. I think what he ought to do frankly is send a mother of a fallen American soldier to accept the prize on behalf of the U.S. military and frankly to send the message to remind the Nobel committee that each one of them sleeps soundly at night because the U.S. military is the greatest peacekeeping force in the world today."

Yes, I'm sure he'll get right on that. But this just speaks to one thing I'd like to address. It's easy to criticize and mock the President and the Nobel committee surrounding this whole "awarding a guy you don't like an award you don't like" thing. It's ridiculously easy. But if you are going to do it, could you at least understand the basic concept of the award? Sure the "I hear Obama is going to get a Best Picture Oscar for his intent to make the best film ever" joke is great, but "he should accept it on behalf of war starter X", or "how come they never gave the award to war starter Z", or "he should accept it on behalf of all wars", or "start a war....now" largely misses the point of a PEACE Prize. Go back and read those last two words and see which one doesn't fit with war. Also, I'm fairly sure that other countries fought to liberate Europe in WWI and WWII, unless you think the Iraqi army posed a real invasion risk to Denmark.

Let me get in one final cheapshot: Liz, how about instead of going on Fox News to criticize the Nobel Peace Prize, you go to the funeral of one of those Iraq War soldiers you revere so much and ask them if they're thankfull for all the lies your father had to tell to get put them in that pine box. Now go away.

Cheap Blogging Crutch 09.28

As Seen On TV! Birthermercial Asks, Where Was Obama Really Born?
I kind of wish I thought of this. No, not the "Obama is a Kenyan, show us the birth certificate" conspiracy. As you can see from our Broken News and Broken in Brief pieces, Sean and I aren't that creative. No, the part where I create a bullshit infomercial about it and then charge suckers $30 for a bumper stickers and a fax to 50 state attorney generals and Eric Holder. Though this might create a problem where state attorney generals are just being forwarded a list of the craziest individuals in America with disposable incomes and free time. At least that's helpful to the rest of America.

Tea Party Founder Announces: "A Huffington Post Of Our Own"
You people do not disappoint. Now I'm not going to have to read up to 10 different sites to keep track of all the bizarre conspiracies that the government is involved in. Now I can get my crazy content aggregated. If I can also get some critiques of red carpet fashions, a site runner with an accent, and video of stuff that happened on TV, I can just jettison the HuffPo entirely.

France, Poland want Polanski released on bail
Just a word of advice to any French cultural ministers, actors, film buffs, and the two HuffPo bloggers that already have decried Polanski's arrest: stop wasting my time with bullshit about how he's the real victim, and sure rape is bad but everyone else affiliated with the case is worse, and "isn't being forced to live abroad as a millionaire director punishment enough?". Just say "Rosemary's Baby and Chinatown were really fucking good, I don't care how many 13 year-olds he drugs, rapes, and sodomizes" and be done with it. It's a lot easier than going through 700 words to find out that's what you really wanted to say anyway.

A Presidential Olympic Bid
Hey, I don't have any real idea of the Presidential schedule, but doesn't Barry have better things to do than to fly over to Copenhagen to push for Chicago's Olympic bid? I mean sure, I hate the time delays as much as anyone, but really, a special trip? Is Chicago in dire need of a world class diving arena? Ah, what the hell, it's Yom Kippur, government's probably shut down. You go get Chicago that cycling velodrome its wanted, Barry. You go get it.

New Cheney Taking Stage for the G.O.P.
Whew! I was worried for a while that this country would have to go on for too long without the amoral, crooked, grunting spawn of the hellbeast lying to the American public from a position of influence within the GOP. If only some state would bless us with Liz Cheney in the House of Senate, I think I could die happy....in whatever nuclear conflict she'd invariably provoke us into. C'mon, doesn't George H.W. Bush have any ignorant grandkids we could pair her up with?

Like father, like daughter

In the torture debate we've heard from many sources debating the merits and legality of torture. Except one: Dick Cheney's kids. Liz Cheney has a notion and she wants you to hear it. Her contention? Of course: it's not torture even if it was done, which it wasn't. She's gotta make a full throated defense, because she really doesn't want to make that weekly trek over to the federal pen to see her dad and put $50 bucks in his prison account.

O'DONNELL: Well Liz, we'll get to that argument in a minute, about whether the means justify the ends, whether torture justifies itself...

CHENEY: Well, it wasn't torture, so that's not the right way to lay out the argument.

O'DONNELL: Ok.

CHENEY: Everything that was done in this program, as has been laid out and described before, are tactics that our own people go through in SERE training.

Later in the interview, Cheney insisted that "We did not torture our own people. These techniques are not torture."

As we see the Cheney genes fully kick in, we get to see her move from basic lying to baldfaced lying, replete with invented "facts" to bolster her lies. SERE training (which stands for Survival, Evasion, Resistance, and Evasion. Apparently they couldn't come up with a different second E.) is quite different than the torture that her old man got pushed through. It's so different that even the Bush Justice Department was kind enough to point that out....in their own torture memos. The CIA was kind enough to make the distinction as well.

But that misses the central point: soldiers go through SERE trailing to help them experience torture and learn to resist any possible torture by the enemy. But once your so deep into lying, that kind of stuff doesn't penetrate the mental undisclosed location you've sent your sense of morality or honesty to. I hope one day when I have children, or possibly midget hostages, that we'll have shared interests. Hopefully those intersts will be sports or a fondness for reading and not a shared affinity for enacting, covering up, and excusing torture. But then again, different strokes for different folks.