Limbaugh et al spread lie about General Giap

For more than a decade now, the pseudo-patriots among us have been peddling a false quotation from a non-existent book said to have been written by former North Vietnamese Gen. Vo Nguyen Giap.

The bogus claim is that Giap said America lost the Vietnam War because of its biased domestic media.

The quotation has been thoroughly debunked, but that hasn't stopped Rush Limbaugh from trotting it out again as recently as earlier this month, which will only give it new life among the booboisie.

POSTSCRIPT: This matter reminds me of the fake Lincoln quotation used earlier this year by right-wingers all across the fruited plain to impugn the patriotism of those in Congress who dared to dissent against our glorious war in Iraq.

Mitt weeps at thought of his sons in war, which hasn't actually happened, thank God

Although Mitt Romney's been a backer of George W. Bush's war in Iraq all along, none of his five sons has ever bothered to join in the fighting. As Mitt has previously noted, the boys are serving their country in their own way -- by working on dad's presidential campaign.

But that doesn't mean that Mitt can't get all weepy at the thought of one of his sons coming back from Iraq in a flag-draped casket. Just yesterday, he recalled having endured such thoughts and emotions.

He's a great American, that Mitt Romney. The man's been through so much. I can hardly bear to write about it.

Most military families oppose Bush's war

Barely one-third of U.S. military families approve of George W. Bush's war in Iraq.

These people must be dirty, commie, hippie scumbags, right? True patriots stand behind our president in a time of war, right? That's what I hear from the folks on Fox News and on talk radio.

Damn! Does this mean no war with Iran?

Now they're telling us that Iran shut down its nuclear arms program four years ago.

Jeez, just when I was getting pumped about another glorious U.S. military adventure in the Middle East.

Oh, well. We'll always have Iraq, won't we?

No! This is too funny! Stop! I can't take it!

That Karl Rove is one hell of a humorous guy, as he demonstrates here.

We won the war?

Roy Edroso over at Alicublog isn't so sure about that.

Two years ago today...and now

They don't understand the Constitution

In his radio address today, President Bush faulted Congress for passing a war-funding bill that includes a condition setting goals for withdrawal of U.S. troops from Iraq.

"We do not need members of Congress telling our commanders what to do," Bush said.

Lots of people who support Bush in this controversy have the mistaken notion that the only constitutional roles for Congress in matters of war are to authorize the war and provide the funds. Their theory is that only the commander-in-chief and his generals have any authority under the Constitution to prosecute the war.

But these people, Bush included, are woefully uninformed on the constitutional niceties of such matters.

Consider these remarks by legendary American statesman Daniel Webster during the Mexican War of the late 1840s:

If the war should become odious to the people, if they shall disapprove the objects for which it appears to be prosecuted, then it will be the bounden duty of their representatives in Congress to demand of the President a full statement of his objects and purposes, and if those purposes shall appear to them not to be founded in the public good, or not consistent with the honor and character of the country, then it shall be their duty to put an end to it, by the exercise of their constitutional authority. . . . If Congress, in whom the war-making power is expressly made to reside, is to have no voice in the declaration or continuance of war, if it is not to judge of the beginning or carrying it on, then we depart at once from the Constitution.

Or consider these words from Henry Clay during that same period:

Must we blindly continue the conflict without any visible object, or any prospect of a definite termination? . . . If it be contended that war having been once commenced, the President of the United States may direct it to the accomplishment of any object he pleases, without consulting and without any regard to the will of Congress, the Convention will have utterly failed in guarding the nation against the abuses and ambition of a single individual. Either Congress or the President must have the right of determining upon the objects for which a war shall be prosecuted. There is no other alternative. If the President possess it and may prosecute it and may prosecute it for the objects against the will of Congress, where is the difference between our free government and that of any other nation which may be governed by an absolute czar, emperor, or king?

Why are two-thirds of Americans anti-American?

I heard a right-winger on local radio this morning express pleasure at the lack of "anti-American" comments on some country-music awards show on television last night.

By "anti-American," the guy doubtless meant antiwar, which got me wondering. Why do some conservatives persist in the fiction that opposition to the war in Iraq is confined to a small, radical, leftish element of the populace?

The truth, as we see here, is that two of every three Americans -- including countless Republicans, military veterans, barbers, lawyers, plumbers, sports nuts, Kiwanians, devout religionists, Southerners, business executives, hunters, coin collectors, construction workers, moms, dads, uncles and aunts -- are opposed to this war.

Are these folks all anti-American? Or are the real anti-Americans the ones who impugn the patriotism of those who dare to speak out against the war? Fascism is an ugly thing.

Twelve brave Army captains

Pseudo-patriotic pukes like Rush Limbaugh probably think of these Army officers as "phony soldiers."

Limbaugh: Lots of U.S. troops are '"phony"

Recovering drug addict and serial prevaricator Rush Limbaugh, the talk radio blowhard who tells America's dimwits what to think, says the thousands of U.S. troops who have indicated any misgivings about the war in Iraq are "phony soldiers."

One wonders if this slander of our men and women in uniform will engender the kind of umbrage among Republican conservatives occasioned by the recent MoveOn.org newspaper add questioning the veracity of Gen. David Petraeus.

FLASH: THE WAR IS OVER! WE WON!

The number of Iraqi insurgents who have been killed or captured now exceeds the number the U.S. military said we were fighting.

By God, this is cause for celebration. George Bush's manhood finally has been validated after decades of doubt in the wake of his chickenshit avoidance of service in the Vietnam War, which he had otherwise enthusiastically supported.

Watch your local media for times and locations of the victory parades.

Oh, and stand by for the start of the war against Iran, which will happen any day now.

Katie gets a well-deserved smackdown

How did this person ever get the seat once filled by the likes of Walter Cronkite on the network where Edward R. Murrow once worked?

Eyes Wide Open

A project of the American Friends Service Committee, Eyes Wide Open is an exhibit in which empty boots represent American troops killed in Iraq and empty shoes represent dead Iraqi civilians:

Country music stars desert Bush

Toby Keith (left) and various other country musicians suddenly are turning out antiwar songs -- much to the dismay of some pseudo-patriotic diehards among their fans.

Let's not forget, however, that the Dixie Chicks were dissenters before dissent was cool.

The Revolt of the Generals

John Batiste (right) and more than 20 other retired U.S. generals have spoken out against the war in Iraq, putting the lie to the slander that antiwar activism is the exclusive province of leftists, academics and shirkers.

One of those generals, John Johns, says it's "a moral duty for us to speak out in a democracy against policies which you think are unwise."

Greenspan says the war is about oil

Alan Greenspan, lifelong Republican and former chairman of the Federal Reserve, says in his new book that the war in Iraq is "largely about oil."

Gee, I always thought the war was about defending my right to dissent against it. That's what the pseudo-patriots usually say: Our troops are in Iraq defending our freedom. If they weren't there, I wouldn't have the right to speak my mind.

But now Greenspan says it's all about oil. Gosh! Who knew?

Your "liberal" media

The popular theory among conservatives that the mainstream media tilt toward the Democrats, especially with respect to the war in Iraq, is demolished at length in this piece by Jamison Foser.

A math lesson

This is from MoveOn.org:

Prebuttal to Bush's speech

This is from the National Security Network: