Dumb Letters: The Narcissist

I reckon we see what we want to see. I'm loving this letter to the WaPo about The Prez's announcement of an assassination you may have heard about.

When the happy announcement that Osama bin Laden had been killed was made, it was disappointing to hear the president report the event by drawing so much attention to himself. He practically made it seem as if he had been there and pulled the trigger. Even if credit is due to him, it was immodest at best not to give all the attention to the men and women of the intelligence and Special Operations services who ushered bin Laden out of the world.

So much of contemporary life is sullied by politicians seeking advantage from situations largely outside their control. The country needs good news more than it needs the president’s preening.

Really? Do I even need to comment on this? He neither said nor implied that he did it. Or anything even close to it. He said "The United States" has done this. And then he went to New York City and didn't say a freaking word. Contrast.

I suppose the president, commander-in-chief of our military and supposed leader of all of us, was supposed to have one of the Navy SEALs do the talking. Because he shouldn't seem immodest. The dude gave a speech and announced what the hell happened. Get over yourself and your fantasies about the guy.

Crikey, this is about as preen-free a president as you can get.

Freedom of Religion*

* Some restrictions may apply. Not valid for muslims within a two-block radius of specific construction sites.

Oh no! The president has stated matter-of-factly that our constitution means more than the paranoid ramblings of Newt Gingrich, Sarah Palin and everyone else who thinks that allowing a muslim community center to be built (and really, do they need our permission?) is tantamount to treason.

"As a citizen, and as president, I believe that Muslims have the same right to practice their religion as everyone else in this country. And that includes the right to build a place of worship and a community center on private property in lower Manhattan, in accordance with local laws and ordinances. This is America. And our commitment to religious freedom must be unshakeable."

Really, in a sane society this would be about the most non-controversial thing a president could say. And all of you "strict constructionists" out there may want to stop and think how you feel about this. But, as much as a non-issue this should be, the people on the news seem to have another thing that they can milk for ratings. Controversy!

Visit msnbc.com for breaking news, world news, and news about the economy

"Will this be an issue for Obama and the Democrats in the fall?" Crikey, I hope so. Let's have them point out just how bigoted and non-strict-constructionist the knuckleheads on the right are being here. Can we please please please have this debate with the tea party people who are soooo in love with our constitution? I'd love to see them attempt to defend their position on constitutional grounds. That'd make a fine and tasty pretzel, I'm sure.

Listen, people. There is nothing remotely controversial about saying we should follow the law and let private citizens build a legal building on a site that they own. And do not bring up the sensitivity thing. It shouldn't come into play. That's not a legal argument. If we need to be sensitive then should we knock down the existing mosque (not community center, like this new "controversial" thing, but an actual mosque) that sits just four blocks from the "sacred ground"? And what should the sacred perimeter be? Ten blocks? Twenty? Slippery slope, anyone?

Dumb Letters: It's All So Simple If You're Not Nuts

From today's LA Times:

So U.S. border security officials learned enough about alleged Nigerian bomber Umar Farouk Abdulmutallab while Flight 253 was airborne that they planned to question him when he landed. I guess they wanted to be sure the horses were well clear of the barn.

Had a sky marshal been aboard this high-risk flight, as we were promised by our government after 9/11, it would have been a simple matter to have the airline send the flight crew a data message while en route, whereupon the sky marshal could have handcuffed the suspect, then searched him -- while the horses were still safely in the barn.

Is this administration nuts, or is it me?

It's you.

It's always a simple matter, isn't it? That 20/20 hindsight sure makes things nice and clear, doesn't it? Damn, if I ran the circus we'd have some awesome shit.

There are over 30,000 commerical flights in the air every day in this country. Let's just say one air marshal can handle being on two a day. That means we'd need 15,000 trained air marshals in action every day. So, taking weekends, vacations and personal days into account, we really need about 25,000 air marshals.

How much does an air marshal make? If answer.com is to be believed, between $36,400 and $83,900. You can do the math. Nah, I will. If we take a pure average, we're looking at $1,503,750,000 a year. I suppose that's chump change when you compare it to the bank bailout or, heck, any of our foreign wars. But do we really want to add this to our already anxiety-ridden flights?

So, after sending everyone through a full body scan, removing their shoes, digging through all of their bags and making them sit quietly in their seats for at least the last hour of the flight with no book to read, no iPod to listen to and no snacks, stress-reducing grippy things or barf bags we'll have a sky marshal in there to whom we can send a text message so he'll know which dude got through all of the other stuff. Oh, and rather than watch the dude like a hawk, he'll just cuff him. 'Cause that's how we roll now.

Yep, it's you.

Dumb Letters: Betraying America by Upholding American Ideals

It's a sign of how low we've sunk that bringing criminals to trial is now considered by some to be a capitulation to terrorists. I would have thunk that letting them go and giving them Hershey's Kisses would be capitulation. But apparently putting them on trial in a court of justice is now tantamount to surrender. I guess the lynch mob is a sign of progress for some people.

A story in the NYTimes about the impending 9/11 trials in New York City elicited letters ranging from those proud of our (occassional) adherence to our own standards of human rights to those out for heads on a stick. This is my favorite.

The plan to bring the terrorists to New York City is an abomination and easily the most pernicious step the Obama administration has taken to date.

Wow. Strong language. Merriam-Webster's defines "pernicious" as "highly injurious or destructive" and notes that it infers "irreparable harm done through evil or insidious corrupting ior undermining". The implication here is not one of poor judgment but of actual conspiracy. It's a willful act of treason against the president's own country. Beyond that, the writer calls it only "the most pernicious" of what are presumably many pernicious things the Big O has done. This guy must really hate America. I won't even get into abomination.

It is almost certain that such a monumentally misguided decision will have a chilling and deleterious effect not only on our ability to prosecute current and future detainees, but also on our ability to prosecute the overall war on terror. These are war criminals, not American citizens.

So if you aren't an American citizen you must be a war criminal. It's one or the other. And if you aren't an American citizen you apparently have no rights whatsoever. That's us, America, the shining beacon for the rest of the world, where all men are created equal, as long as they were born here. (And white.)

The reason you have a Guantánamo in the first place is to avoid the circus that this will inevitably become.

Actually, no. The reason we have a Guantanamo in the first place is because we needed a place where no laws exist. We can't give people American trials there because they aren't in America. And we can't give them Geneva Convention rights because they aren't in Cuba. They aren't anywhere so we can just make up whatever rules suit our purposes.

And any trial has the potential to become a circus. If that potential was a factor in whether to prosecute any trial then we wouldn't bother with half of them. I guess we shouldn't have tried O.J. Simpson or Bernie Madoff or David Berkowitz or Charles Manson or Timothy McVeigh. Can't risk a circus now.

In so doing, the president has placed politics above principle and consequently has violated his most sacred oath: the protection of American citizens.

Politics? What politics? There's nothing more boring than justice, dude. The Idiot had no problem trampling on our constitution for political reasons. The principles that Obama and Attorney General Eric Holder are dealing in here are the ones in that same constitution. You know, the one that says that everyone (everyone) gets their day in court. And their day in court is also ours. They get to plead their case but we get to plead ours too. Don't like it? You can leave.

And here's some news for you. I know that listening to The Idiot for 8 years may have given you some goofy ideas about what our government, and specifically our president, is supposed to do. But, putting aside the fact that this decision will not endanger American lives in any way (do we really think that they'd let this go to trial if they didn't have a slam-dunk case? or that they'd really let them go if they were actually acquitted?), no American president has ever taken an oath to protect the American people. They take an oath to uphold the constitution. You can read it here. It's short and sweet. Our ideals are more important than any life or lives. And way more important than yours.

Dumb Letters: They're Going to Kill Us All (An' ah helped!)

Here's another one from the They're-Going-to-Kill-Us-All-and-You-Pansies-Are-Going-to-Not-Just-Let-Them-Do-It-But-Actually-Help-Them file.

From the LA Times.

I'm sure CIA chief nominee Leon E. Panetta is a good, decent man -- who unfortunately lives in an ideological world and not the real world.

He says that if Osama bin Laden were captured, "We would find a place to hold him. ... We would debrief him and incarcerate him." Panetta will be singing that tune until an American city is under siege from a terrorist attack masterminded by the man he "incarcerated" and "debriefed."

Unfortunately, by the time Bin Laden gets his Miranda rights read to him, it will be too late.

Carlos Bermudez
Granada Hills

Okay, then. We start with the back-handed compliment; he's a "good, decent man", I'm sure. This always sets the tone that "I'm not really some right-wing nutjob but a fair and decent person who simply has an opposing viewpoint." Then the word "unfortunately", which is also intended to substitute for "The guy's a freaking idiot."

Next comes one of the rhetorical devices that annoys the crap out of me. Professional scumbag Karl Rove and his ilk jave been staggeringly successful at using language to "frame the debate". In other words, they use words to lie. Or at least make it sound like the other side is guilty of exactly what they're guilty of. (e.g. When poor people complain about the class warfare being waged on them, the right says "We don't want to get involved in class warfare.") The writer calls Panetta's world an "ideological one". What this means is anyone's guess. We all live in an ideological world to some extent. But what ideology are we talking about? The word has been used most often in recent times to describe The Idiot and his gang of thugs. As in "Ideology trumped sound policy once again in the Bush White House." So, by using this word, Panetta gets tossed in with the people who are generally considered the bad guys by most of the populace, even as he makes the bad guys' case. Cute.

And what is the opposite of the ideological world? Why, the real world, of course. I could just as easily say, "In the real world, torturing people and denying them due process tends to breed resentment and create more terrorists." But that's just my real world. It's not the real world, where They're-Going-to-Kill-Us-All-and-You-Pansies-Are-Going-to-Not-Just-Let-Them-Do-It-But-Actually-Help-Them.

Shoot, that's just the first sentence. I can't go on. I'll go on.

Okay, next we discuss just how ludicrous the idea of locking up criminals is. Because we couldn't possibly put bin Laden in solitary. He'll be masterminding terrorist attacks from inside our top-security prisons.

"Incarcerate" and "debrief" are put in quotes as if they were some bizarre made-up locution. And the writer doesn't mention the alternatives. He doesn't have to. We're supposed to know. Apparently the only satisfactory response for apes like this is "kill", "smash", "destroy" and "anally rape". But we won't say it in our letter. Might sound like one of those right-wing nutjobs.

We close with another "unfortunately", which is still annoying and also pre-supposes that this argument is a done deal. No ambiguity. When bin Laden is incarcerated, "it will be too late". Really? Does this guy have the plans? Does he know when the next strike is going to be? What if we lock him up tomorrow? Too late already?

And by the way, Miranda rights don't enter into this. They're for American citizens arrested in the United States. Not one person has ever mentioned reading them to Osama bin Laden.

Idiot.