Via Hetty Litjens: here is Dubya, the Movie.

Only one actor can play him.

You’ll laugh. You’ll cry. Then you’ll really cry, when you realize that this is our president.

Thomas Friedman on Thanksgiving Day:

In my next life, I want to be Tom DeLay, the House majority leader.

…I want to wear a little American flag on my lapel in solidarity with the troops, while I besmirch every value they are dying for…

If I can’t be …, then I want to be just a simple blue-state red-state American. I want to take time on this Thanksgiving to thank God I live in a country where, despite so much rampant selfishness, the public schools still manage to produce young men and women ready to voluntarily risk their lives in places like Iraq and Afghanistan to spread the opportunity of freedom and to protect my own. And I want to thank them for doing this, even though on so many days in so many ways we really don’t deserve them.

Predictions: Colin Powell will write a book.

Shortly thereafter, the White House will launch a program of character assassination against Mr. Powell. They will object to certain passages in his book. What those passages might contain, no man can say.

My mystic psychic prognosis: the objectionable passages will raise doubts about George W. Bush’s honesty, his competence, and/or his intelligence.

Okay, I confess. I’m not really psychic. I’m just imagining a repeat of the White House response to books from former Secretary of the Treasury Paul O’Neill and former anti-terrorism chief Richard Clarke. This White House has a limited playbook, and they always go back to the classics.

He may be a crook, but he’s our crook:

Moving to protect Majority Leader Tom DeLay, House Republicans want to change party rules to ensure that DeLay retains his post if a Texas grand jury indicts him as it did with three of his political associates.

An indictment is not a conviction. Tom DeLay hasn’t even been indicted yet. But current Republicans seem awfully willing to change the rules to get whatever they want, whenever they want it. Ultimately, that’s the problem with Alberto Gonzales and his torture memos. Tailoring the law to suit current convenience is no law.

Still trying to understand the election. Still trying to come to grips with an America so completely different from the one I thought I lived in.

A few more maps to try to shed some light. The population-adjusted cartogram in shades of purple is really interesting—why, there’s hardly any red at all!

Tom Negrino on Condoleezza Rice:

Rice was arguably the most feckless, ineffectual, and powerless National Security Advisor in modern history. Under her watch, America suffered the worst terrorist attack in our history. Did she work to find out why, root out the problem, and make sure that it never happened again? She did not.

Rice is an extraordinarily gifted person, but we all have our weaknesses. It’s uncanny that all her weaknesses seem to be in the area of her job.

Personally, I don’t think she is the problem. It’s hard to do good work providing advice to a man who doesn’t take advice.

People who have had an impact on the lives of the Iraqi people: Saddam Hussein. George W. Bush. Abu Musab al-Zarqawi. Margaret Hassan.

Only one person in that list has ever cared about the lives of ordinary people in Iraq. Margaret Hassan didn’t work for Saddam Hussein. She didn’t work for George Bush or Tony Blair. She was a true humanitarian worker, employed by CARE International. She had lived in Iraq for thirty years.

Now it appears she is dead—murdered by kidnappers who would like us to believe they are Iraqi patriots, insurgents fighting the hated American occupation of Iraq.

By murdering this true friend of the Iraqi people, they have unmasked themselves. There can be no doubt that these killers are enemies of Iraq.

At last, a logo for those who admire George W. Bush’s leadership.

Via Backup Brain: The Jesusland T-Shirt.

Warning: Looking around their site, I’m starting to suspect that the t-shirt sellers don’t fully accept Bush’s Doctrine of Infallibility. Plus, they say mean things about Ohio.

Interesting software for the Religious Right. This may make it easier for them to re-purpose some old Taliban documents.

More on the censors and Saving Private Ryan:

From The Journal News:

“Ryan” is an hours-long treatise on selflessness — which is to say that it stands apart from the television chiefs who Thursday decided to buck ABC network plans to run the film. Without a shot being fired, more than a dozen stations across the nation buckled under financial pressure — the mere hint of fines — and decided to air something else. They might as well have run and hid at Omaha Beach.

Ellis Henican in Newsday:

viewers in Dallas, Atlanta, Phoenix, Orlando and a bunch of other American cities got to fill their evenings with socially uplifting fare like “The Apprentice” (NBC) and “Survivor: Vanuatu - Islands of Fire” (CBS). Instead of experiencing this gripping film about courage, loss and humanity, they were snickering at some pushy moron getting fired by Donald Trump or watching some dimwit being dismissed from the tribe.

This is protecting us from ... what?

Ken Schram from KOMO TV:

I honestly don’t know who’s more at fault for this stupidity.

The FCC?

...

How about those simpering, whimpering broadcasters?

They regularly air crap that doesn’t tweak what conscience they might have, but an honest depiction of war leaves them legally queasy.

...

for all the veterans who fought and died preserving freedom; for all those who are fighting and dying today, I wish Private Ryan could have been saved for you.

Instead, we’re becoming a nation of the self-righteous and self-absorbed who’d better start looking to save ourselves.

As the pundits keep pointing out, George W. Bush won the election thanks to the Religious Right, and it’s time for disappointed Democrats to stop pouting and start obeying the Big Guy.

The Bible has replaced the Constitution as the supreme law of the land, and all those trial lawyers that President Bush hates so much are scurrying around in confusion. Clearly, we benighted souls who have lived our lives under secular laws need to seek guidance from those whom God has chosen to rule over us.

I was emailed an open letter asking President Bush for help in understanding how to apply some of the laws. One of the many important questions:

I have a neighbor who insists on working on the Sabbath. Exodus 35:2. clearly states he should be put to death. Am I morally obligated to kill him myself, or should I ask the police to do it?

I hope President Bush (or perhaps his new Attorney General) will answer these questions. They have been asked before—a Google search showed me the same questions being asked of Dr. Laura Schlessinger and Rev. Jerry Falwell, but I haven’t been able to find any indication that either of those arbiters of morality has responded. We need their wise guidance. Without it, we’re in danger of living our lives just as we choose. Too dreadful to contemplate.

The Moral of the Story: If you’re going to be selective about which Biblical laws you observe, maybe you shouldn’t characterize your own choices as God’s immutable law.

At long last, the FCC’s new anti-obscenity drive is achieving the intended “chilling effect.” A number of ABC affiliate TV stations are refusing to carry the network’s broadcast of “Saving Private Ryan.”

“Would the FCC conclude that the movie has sufficient social, artistic, literary, historical or other kinds of value that would protect us from breaking the law?” WOI-TV President Raymond Cole said in a statement appearing on its Web site. “With the current FCC, we just don’t know.”

An FCC spokewoman said the agency wouldn’t tell stations whether the program would run afoul of indecency rules “because that would be censorship.” She added, without irony, “If we get a complaint, we’ll act on it.”

Among the balking stations are Sinclair Broadcasting’s six ABC affiliates (including the ABC affiliate here in Columbus, Ohio). This seems to fit right in with Sinclair’s decision earlier this year to ban Nightline’s tribute to fallen U.S. soldiers in Iraq.

Take that, Janet Jackson!

The Attorney General is the chief law enforcement officer of the United States. He has a duty to enforce federal laws and to preserve and protect the Constitution.

If you want to know what President Bush has in mind for his second term, take a look at his nominee for Attorney General, Alberto Gonzales. Gonzales has dismissed the Geneva Conventions as “quaint.”

Still, Gonzales is quite a step up from John Ashcroft.

Ashcroft is out.

Bush is going to have his hands full finding someone worse than John Ashcroft to serve as Attorney General. “It’s hard work,” as the president often says with a pained scowl, as if he himself would do the heavy lifting. Ashcroft will be a tough act to follow.

Disappointed Democrats! Heartbroken Kerry supporters! Before you do something desperate like killing yourself or fleeing to Canada, consider this: Every time an anti-Bush voter kicks the bucket or leaves the country, Bush’s political mastermind Karl Rove celebrates by treating himself to a tasty devil’s food cupcake.

Don’t give him the satisfaction! Stand and fight!

My sister sent me Michael Moore’s 17 Reasons Not to Slit Your Wrists.

If you had 58 yards to go before you reached the goal line and then you barreled down 55 of those yards, would you stop on the three yard line, pick up the ball and go home crying -- especially when you get to start the next down on the three yard line? Of course not! Buck up! Have hope! More sports analogies are coming!!!

Democrats seem to be heading for extinction when you look at the electoral maps showing red and blue states. There’s a different map here, showing every county in shades of red, blue and purple, based on how the vote was divided in that county. Except for that angry red welt in the west, America seems to be fairly purple.

A Slashdot user named Concerned Onlooker has this signature line:

Since Bush has won it’s time to put away our differences and support him. Just like the Republicans did for Clinton.

Why I’m not falling in line behind the president: Been there. Done that. Still have souvenir knife in my back.

Fool me once, shame on you. Fool me twice, shame on me.

Good questions from Mark Schmitt, discovered via Earl Bockenfeld:

The right question, I think, is not whether religion has an undue influence, but why it is that the current flourishing of religious faith has, for the first time ever, virtually no element of social justice? Why is its public phase so exclusively focused on issues of private and personal behavior?

It’s been quite a few years since my heavy Bible-reading days. I remember Jesus. He was a healer and a great teacher.

He said, “Judge not, that ye be not judged.” And “Him that is without sin among you, let him first cast a stone.” I’ve been out of touch. Listening to the voices from the Religious Right these past few days, I guess they must have a different guy in there now.

Personally, I liked the old guy.

A few election day stories from The Other Paper, a free news and entertainment tabloid here in Columbus, Ohio:

In Whitehall, a woman in line became faint, and officials called the squad. The medics arrived and put her on a gurney, but she insisted they not take her away until she voted. They put an oxygen mask on her and hooked her up to IVs, then wheeled her over to the booth so she could vote.

It started raining pretty hard at Thurber Towers on Neil Avenue, but even then no one left. Some people took out umbrellas, others just stood there in the rain. One old guy, probably 80 or 85, came out of the retirement center carrying a little folding chair and set it up at the end of our line, in the rain, to wait. No one seemed upset. One woman said, “I’ve waited four years for this. I can wait another two hours.”

A fifth-grader making homeroom announcements at Hubbard Elementary School asked the students to stand for the Pledge of Allegiance, at which point everyone waiting to vote stopped talking, took off hats, turned and faced the flag, and said the pledge together.

I heard from several people there that one of the voting machines at Rosehill Elementary School in Reynoldsburg showed up with 500 votes for Bush already “in,” but they were quickly erased.

It’s discouraging to lose an election. It’s hard, sometimes, to keep fighting. But we have to do it. For all the people, right or wrong, who waited in line to cast a vote.

Recently there’s been a lot of attention paid to the words “under God” in the Pledge of Allegiance. They were added to the pledge in the 1950s, and there has been a debate lately about whether they belong there.

We’ve been worrying about the wrong words. Based on the eleven states that amended their constitutions to alienate selected citizens from their inalienable rights, we should have been worrying about “liberty and justice for all.”

Something tells me George W. Bush is finally trying to complete his Air National Guard obligation.

Bob Herbert writes that it’s time for progressive-minded folks to get back to work:

Here’s my advice: You had a couple of days to indulge your depression - now, get over it. The election’s been lost but there’s still a country to save…

Democracy is a breeze during good times. It’s when the storms are raging that citizenship is put to the test. And there’s a hell of a wind blowing right now.

Tom Paine said it well:

These are the times that try men’s souls: The summer soldier and the sunshine patriot will, in this crisis, shrink from the service of his country; but he that stands it Now, deserves the love and thanks of man and woman.

Finally, from Harriet Tubman:

Children, if you’re tired, keep going. If you’re hungry, keep going. If you’re scared, keep going. If you want to taste freedom, keep going.

At a press conference about the election and his second term, George W. Bush said, “I earned capital in the campaign, political capital, and now I intend to spend it.”

Actually, George, you’ve already spent your political capital. You lost the election of 2000, yet you acted as if you had a mandate for a radical political agenda.

The Senate was divided 50-50, so you used the vice-president’s tie-breaking vote to prevent any kind of power-sharing with Democratic senators. You pushed your agenda with such little regard for bipartisan cooperation that Republican Senator Jim Jeffords quit your party in disgust, became an Independent, and started voting with the Democrats.

When the attacks of 9/11 united all Americans—all the world—you immediately started looking for ways to turn that tragedy into a partisan bonanza. The day after the attacks, Secretary Rumsfeld argued against striking Al Qaeda, using the tragedy instead as the pretense for an attack on Iraq, even though they’d had nothing to do with the terrorist attacks.

You’ve spent your political capital, George. You’ve blown through it just like you blew through the budget surplus you inherited from the Clinton Administration.

You’ve got a deep deficit, George. You owe us.

On Tuesday, we had the highest voter turnout since 1968. The American people came out to speak loud and clear. I’m still having these little “aw, crap” moments, when I get a new perspective on what Tuesday’s election means:

• George Herbert Walker Bush, the grown-up, the World War II fighter pilot, couldn’t get a second term. It’s his son—who ducked out of his National Guard obligations, who turned surpluses into deficits in Texas and in Washington, and whose Doctrine of Infallibility makes him incapable of learning from experience—he’s the one who gets the second term.
• On September 12, 2001, the entire world was united against the terrorists. Today, the entire world is united against the Americans. And the voters have said, “That’s the way (uh-huh uh-huh) we liiiiike it (uh-huh uh-huh).”
• In eleven states, voters amended their state constitutions explicitly to deny certain American citizens their inalienable right to the pursuit of happiness. Once, the American ideal was to extend freedom to more and more people. Those days are gone.

George W. Bush will probably name at least three new Supreme Court justices during the next four years. With GOP gains in the Senate, he can push through extremist judges who will blight our laws for thirty years to come.

I’m 52 years old. I’m not likely to live to see the end of the darkness that fell on Tuesday.

Abraham Lincoln:

It is said that an Eastern monarch once charged his wise men to invent him a sentence, to be ever in view, and which should be true and appropriate in all times and situations. They presented him the words: “And this, too, shall pass away.”

How much it expresses! How chastening in the hour of pride!—how consoling in the depths of affliction! “And this, too, shall pass away.”

And yet let us hope that it be not quite true. Let us hope, rather, that by the best cultivation of the physical world, beneath us and around us; and the intellectual and moral world within us, we shall secure an individual, social, and political prosperity and happiness, whose course shall be onward and upward, and which, while the earth endures, shall not pass away.

God help us.