CAN WE GET SOME REAL COMPETITION, PLEASE?

I know, I know, it's corny...

One of the sad facts of paltalk life is that liberals and progressives will never really have any true competition. When the best the conservatives have to offer is people like Vic Ferrari, Virginia_1776, and MosesKnows, you're guaranteed to see nothing but blowouts. When Notre Dame scores 174 points by halftime against East Bumfuck U., that is the scale of these match-ups.

Nothing compares, however, to the intellectual wreckage that is S_LINK90. Imagine you're cloning human beings, and you're forced to reuse the same DNA for hundreds of generations. The crippled, slope-browed humanoid that shambles out of the Gene-O-Tron would obliterate S_LINK90 on Celebrity Jeopardy, and that's playing against Sean Connery. How is it possible for a sentient being to write a post about 2 political topics, and get EVERY FACT wrong? You'd almost have to be trying to be so stupid, and I'd almost believe LINK's idiocy is a giant practical joke, except I've heard him speak. You all know that he is, if anything, dumber than rock salt.

First, LINK tries to opine on the media's discussion of our monitoring of suspicious banking transactions. He has apparently only heard about this New York Times story from the terminally flaccid Rush Limbaugh or other right wing blogs. Had he seen any real news, he'd know, as we all do, that the SWIFT banking program discussed in the NYT was NOT classified, and the NYT did not reveal and operational details. Bush himself has talked publicly about tracking terrorist financing. As Richard Clarke said today in an op-ed titled "A Secret The Terrorists Already Knew":

The current debate about United States monitoring of transfers over the Swift international financial system strikes us as a case of over-reaction by both the Bush administration and its critics.
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So, too, however, are the Bush administration's protests that the press revelations about the financial monitoring program may tip off the terrorists. Administration officials made the same kinds of complaints about news media accounts of electronic surveillance. They want the public to believe that it had not already occurred to every terrorist on the planet that his telephone was probably monitored and his international bank transfers subject to scrutiny. How gullible does the administration take the American citizenry to be?
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While this was not news to terrorists, it may, it appears, have been news to some Americans, including some in Congress. But should the press really be called unpatriotic by the administration, and even threatened with prosecution by politicians, for disclosing things the terrorists already assumed?

In the end, all the administration denunciations do is give the press accounts an even higher profile. If administration officials were truly concerned that terrorists might learn something from these reports, they would be wise not to give them further attention by repeatedly fulminating about them.

There is, of course, another possible explanation for all the outraged bloviating. It is an election year. Karl Rove has already said that if it were up to the Democrats, Abu Musab al-Zarqawi would still be alive. The attacks on the press are part of a political effort by administration officials to use terrorism to divide America, and to scare their supporters to the polls again this year. The administration and its Congressional backers want to give the impression that they are fighting a courageous battle against those who would wittingly or unknowingly help the terrorists. And with four months left before Election Day, we can expect to hear many more outrageous claims about terrorism — from partisans on both sides. By now, sadly, Americans have come to expect it.

Clarke asks an interesting question. How stupid does Bush think Americans are? Well, if LINK represents the mean intelligence of a Bush supporter, then they are very stupid indeed. The WSJ published the same story the NYT did, but since the WSJ is conservative, LINK doesn't attack them. Many reporters are now coming forward with statements made by Bush and other administration officials that revealed far more than the NYT ever did. That is the pattern of Bush's team. Leak info when it helps them (Valerie Plame, prewar intel to Judy Miller), and howl when disclosures hurt them politically. They don't care about our safety. they only care about attacking political opponents. Just like LINK.

LINK also makes an ass of himself talking about John Murtha. This despicable swiftboating of Murtha is the lowest Republican slime yet. LINK repeats the claim that Murtha said that the US was the greatest threat to world peace. Oh really? Here is the Sun-Sentinel's retraction:

Correction: An article in Sunday's editions misinterpreted a comment from U.S. Rep. John Murtha, D-Pa., at a town hall meeting in North Miami on Saturday. In his speech, Murtha said U.S. credibility was suffering because of continued U.S. military presence in Iraq ,and the perception that the U.S. is an occupying force. Murtha was citing a recent poll, by the Pew Global Attitudes Project, that indicates a greater percentage of people in 10 of 14 foreign countries consider the U.S. in Iraq a greater danger to world peace than any threats posed by Iran or North Korea.

How about that. Murtha wasn't saying what HE thought, he was talking about a poll of world opinion. And well he should, since the image we have overseas affects how much cooperation and support we get in the War on Terrorism. I don't expect LINK to understand that. Holy shit, LINK, are you brain damaged or something? How could you write such a stupid post when the retraction was already out there? This is just further proof of how the right wing operates, and its effect on intellectual lightweights like LINK. The right wingers trumpet a story like this to the heavens, but do you ever hear them trumpet the retraction just as loudly? Hardly. And idiots like LINK suffer, because they are too stupid to seek out the truth, and so they are left with the lie alone. No wonder LINK still supports Bush. As far as he knows, Bush is doing a great job! Where would LINK ever find out that Bush is really a terrible president, possibly the worst in American history? Fox News sure as hell isn't going to tell him.

LINK, in all seriousness, politics is not for you. You don't have the ability to seek out reality under all the spin. Republicans lie to you and you swallow the mounds of shit like it was ambrosia. You are best suited for a life of manual labor, or possibly as a food source for your overlords. Just a modest proposal...

JC