I, Robot

Commentary by Lightning Rod - RIP 2/6/2013
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Lightning Rod
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I, Robot

Post by Lightning Rod » July 13th, 2005, 11:46 am

Image
I, Scott McClellan

I, Robot
for release 07-14-05
Washington D.C.

It's usually not the big mistakes that can take down a presidency, but the dumb small blunders that smart people make when their confidence becomes distended, when the only learning curve they know about is the curve that their assprint makes in the seat of their new Esplanade.

The last person in the world that I would want to be right now is Scott McClellan. The man is in a tough position. His job depends on his ability to stonewall when the red, glaring facts are being hurled at him?

It's funny how our experiences run in a random but parallel synchronicity. Yesterday our NetFlicks package arrived and we watched I, Robot. Then today I read the transcript of Scott McClellan facing the White House press corps on the subject of Karl Rove and the Plame case. These two experiences were eerily similar.

The Poet's Eye has long seen Scott McClellan as a robot, endlessly and flawlessly repeating the recorded messages. He also reminds me of those old Clutch Cargo cartoons with the cheap animation where only the lips of the characters moved.

For years now Scott McClellan has faced a largely compliant and complacent White House press corps. They have accepted and broadcast his slogans and talking points (many of which I'm sure were written by Karl Rove.) But an odd thing has happened recently. Goaded by their competition in the blogosphere, the White House press corps has started to remember what a journalist is supposed to do. A real journalist doesn't just dumbly repeat the party line, a real journalist has a hard-on for the truth, and the truth has been mightily abused by this administration.

On Monday McClellan reached into a rhetoritician's bag of tricks and decided to hide behind the old "we are not going to comment on an ongoing investigation" ruse. This translates into simple English as: "We are not going to answer any embarrassing questions because if we did we might be exposed for the hypocrites and liars that we are."

The reporters grilled poor Scott and he kept dutifully repeating the party line--"we are not going to comment on an ongoing investigation." He must have said it twenty times. And on Tuesday the rotisserie was still turning and Scott kept repeating the stock answer. You could tell that the reporters were becoming impatient with this preposterous stance. He might as well have just said, "Fuck you, we're not talking about it."

And to add injury to insult, Judy Miller, a Pulitzer Prize winning journalist, has been locked up for not divulging her source in the Plame case and she never even wrote an article about it. The Press is feeling uneasy, as we should be. Bob Woodward has stepped fourth and offered to serve some of Miller's jail time. Good on him. I'll serve some too. How about you? If every journalist worth his salt stepped up, we would only have to serve Warhol's fifteen minutes apiece.

I suppose a robot doesn't know when he's lying. He just responds with the stock answer. It's programmed in. So I suppose that Scott is the perfect man for the job he does. I couldn't do it.

I met Bill Moyers once. I was a young journalism student and he had just resigned as Johnson's press secretary. I'll bet he couldn't do it either. Journalists have a nasty habit of getting stuck on the truth. McClellan doesn't appear to have this fault.

The Poet's Eye will watch the press briefing today, because I want to see a robot sweat.



First Law:

A robot may not injure his administration, or, through inaction, allow his administration to come to harm.

Second Law:

A robot must obey orders given by the administration, except where such orders would conflict with the First Law.

Third Law:

A robot must protect its own existence as long as such protection does not conflict with the First or Second Law.

--paraphrased from Isaac Azimov-- I, Robot
"These words don't make me a poet, these Eyes make me a poet."

The Poet's Eye

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mnaz
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Post by mnaz » July 13th, 2005, 2:26 pm

None of it will ever matter with these people. They seem absolutely bulletproof. This Administration has been caught in such an ongoing prolific preponderance of belligerent deception and lies -- the hits just keep on coming-- yet nothing can touch it.

Latest No. One Smash Hit.... Pres. Bush previously promised to fire whoever broke federal law and compromised national security by "outing" Plame.... but not Rove, of course.... I mean, where would Bush be without Rove? Bush is often said to be Rove's "robot" (not sure how true this is, but it is a popular theory). With Rove gone, where would the skillfully-woven, "opposition-is-evil-by-definition", buzzword talking points come from? It won't happen, I tell you. It can't happen....

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Lightning Rod
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Post by Lightning Rod » July 14th, 2005, 10:16 am

mnaz,
your observations are always so acute
no, I didn't say cute :lol:

I wish you would write a column
travels with mnaz
"These words don't make me a poet, these Eyes make me a poet."

The Poet's Eye

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Zlatko Waterman
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Post by Zlatko Waterman » July 14th, 2005, 11:48 am

Interestingly, LR:


One of Nixon's rather celebrated "blurmeisters", Pat Buchanan, not only survived crafting lies and blurs for the Tricky One, but even ran for President himself with more than the tiniest scintilla of success, and has written one of the most succinct comments on suicide bombers in Baghdad I have read.

PB's column yesterday is based on the book "Dying to Win" by Robert Pape:


(paste)







Why Are They Killing Us?

by Patrick J. Buchanan
Who carried out the London massacre, we do not know. But, as to why they did it, we are already quarreling.

President Bush says that the terrorists are attacking our civilization. At Fort Bragg, N.C., he explained again why we are fighting in Iraq, two years after we overthrew Saddam Hussein. "Iraq is the latest battlefield in this war," he said, in "a global war on terror."

"Many terrorists who kill … on the streets of Baghdad are followers of the same murderous ideology that took the lives of citizens in New York, Washington, and Pennsylvania. There is only one course of action against them: to defeat them abroad before they attack us at home."

Bush was echoed by Sen. John McCain. Those terrorists in Iraq, McCain told Larry King, "are the same guys who would be in New York if we don't win." We fight the terrorists over there so we do not have to fight them over here.

But is this true?

Few Americans have given more thought to the motivation of suicide bombers than Robert Pape, author of Dying to Win: The Strategic Logic of Suicide Terrorism. His book is drawn from an immense database on every suicide-bomb attack from 1980 to early 2004. Conclusion: The claim that 9/11 and the suicide bombings in Iraq are done to advance some jihad by "Islamofascists" against the West is not only unsubstantiated, it is hollow.

"Islamic fundamentalism is not as closely associated with suicide terrorism as many people think," Pape tells The American Conservative in its July 18 issue. Indeed, the world's leader in suicide terror was the Tamil Tigers of Sri Lanka. This secular Marxist group "invented the famous suicide vest for their suicide assassination of Rajiv Ghandi in May 1991. The Palestinians got the idea of the vest from the Tamil Tigers."

But if the aim of suicide bombers is not to advance Islamism in a war of civilizations, what is its purpose? Pape's conclusion:

"[S]uicide-terrorist attacks are not so much driven by religion as by a clear strategic objective: to compel modern democracies to withdraw military forces from the territory that the terrorists view as their homeland. From Lebanon to Sri Lanka to Chechnya to Kashmir to the West Bank, every major suicide terrorist campaign – over 95 percent of all incidents – has had as its central objective to compel a democratic state to withdraw."

The 9/11 terrorists were over here because we were over there. They are not trying to convert us. They are killing us to drive us out of their countries.

Before the U.S. invasion, says Pape,

"Iraq never had a suicide attack in its history. Since our invasion, suicide terrorism has been escalating rapidly, with 20 attacks in 2003, 48 in 2004 and over 50 in just the first five months of 2005. Every year since the U.S. invasion, suicide terrorism has doubled. … Far from making us safer against terrorism, the operation in Iraq has stimulated suicide terrorists and has given suicide terrorism a new lease on life."

Pape is saying that President Bush has got it backward: The Iraq war is not eradicating terrorism, it is creating terrorists.

The good news? "The history of the last 20 years" shows that once the troops of the occupying democracies "withdraw from the homeland of the terrorists, they often stop – and stop on a dime."

Between 1982 and 1986, there were 41 suicide-bomb attacks on U.S., French, and Israeli targets in Lebanon. When U.S. and French troops withdrew and Israel pulled back to a six-mile buffer zone, suicide bombings virtually ceased. When the Israelis left Lebanon, the Lebanese suicide bombers did not follow them to Tel Aviv.

"Since suicide terrorism is mainly a response to foreign occupation and not Islamic fundamentalism," says Pape, "the use of heavy military force to transform Muslim societies … is only likely to increase the number of suicide terrorists coming at us."

What Pape is saying is that the neocons' "World War IV" – our invading Islamic countries to overthrow regimes and convert them into democracies – is suicidal, like stomping on an anthill so as not to be bitten by ants. It is the presence of U.S. troops in Islamic lands that is the progenitor of suicide terrorism.

Bush's cure for terrorism is a cause of the epidemic. The doctor is spreading the disease. The longer we stay in Iraq, the greater the number of suicide attacks we can expect. The sooner we get our troops out, the sooner terrorism over there and over here will end. So Pape says the data proves. This is the precise opposite of what George Bush argues and believes.

COPYRIGHT CREATORS SYNDICATE, INC


( end paste)


I have read no clearer or more straightforward analysis of this topic. Pape's book and PB's commentary are based on exhaustive research, but even better, on common sense.


--Z

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Post by stilltrucking » July 14th, 2005, 2:18 pm

Just a cut and paste, what would Burrough's say

I myself have decided to listen to more BBC, I have deloped an avid interest in cricket since the London Bombing.
Graham Thorpe's Test career could be over, after he was omitted from the first Test squad to face Australia at Lord's
McCain told Larry King, "are the same guys who would be in New York if we don't win." We fight the terrorists over there so we do not have to fight them over here.
McCain must be one hell of a conflicted man, not for me to judge, the campaign for 2008 has begun, at this point I don't know what to think of McCain's pained expressions.
Suicide-bomb attack from 1980 to early 2004. Conclusion: The claim that 9/11 and the suicide bombings in Iraq are done to advance some jihad by "Islam fascists" against the West is not only unsubstantiated, it is hollow.
Usama said he was inspired by the bombing that killed all those Marines in Lebanon in the 80’s when Reagan saint them there, and then very quickly pulled them out.

"[S]uicide-terrorist attacks are not so much driven by religion as by a clear strategic objective: to compel modern democracies to withdraw military forces from the territory that the terrorists view as their homeland. From Lebanon to Sri Lanka to Chechnya to Kashmir to the West Bank, every major suicide terrorist campaign – over 95 percent of all incidents – has had as its central objective to compel a democratic state to withdraw."
What ever I think about Zionism, I believe the country of Israel has a right to exist. The bombings started with the King David Hotel, 1948 such a pivotal year, India and Pakistan same time, I was almost eight, big deal in my family, strange little pocket of Jews between the Blacks and the Catholics of little Italy.

Yes what about the Jews, those same people who are going to stop the suicide attacks when we back out of Iraq faster then Regan did from Lebanon will they stop the violence there?



I think I understood the article, but I been feeling a lot like Rose Roseanna Danna these days

I agree with you
I have read no clearer or more straightforward analysis of this topic. Pape's book and PB's commentary are based on exhaustive research, but even better, on common sense.
I did miss the bit about Israel?

Stop me if yu heard this one:

Did you know old Pat’s father died in a Nazi death camp. He fell out of his guard tower and broke his neck.

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Post by jimboloco » July 14th, 2005, 2:41 pm

Image

One wonders what effect, if any, this will really have, the outing of the first source, Rove, and the continued coverup of the second source, Mama Miller's, some say it is Dickie, as the stubborn tendency is to get even deeper into this quagmire.

I heard today that the voter turnout in America is the lowest of all the western democrazies.....

When will the dam break?
[color=darkcyan]i'm on a survival mission
yo ho ho an a bottle of rum om[/color]

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Post by Zlatko Waterman » July 14th, 2005, 3:40 pm

Buch ( anan) the Nixon-Spinner is no political ally of mine, Stilltrucking, I agree.

It's just that sometimes some plain common sense leaks through his pasturizing of right-wing rhetoric-- a philosophy of "principles"-- don't you know?

It's a dangerous thing to try to do politics and think and talk at the same time, like chewing gum and patting yourself on the head while walking-- a tough gig.


--Z

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Post by Lightning Rod » July 14th, 2005, 3:49 pm

Great cartoon jimbo :D and funny joke, jack.

Z-ko, I rarely miss Pat Buchanan's column. I many times don't agree with his politics but I admire his writing and thinking greatly.

It seems that in the past few years he has separated himself from the neo-con right and gone in a more independent and free-thinking direction. Or maybe it's just that he is adhering to the basic principles of real conservatism, the Barry Goldwater variety.
"These words don't make me a poet, these Eyes make me a poet."

The Poet's Eye

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Post by stilltrucking » July 14th, 2005, 5:28 pm

Long article about terrorism don't mention Palestine, I got stoned just binged out buddha , i thought it was odd
Iran gets a bomb, now Israel don't have to feel so lonely as the only nuclear power in the near east. Geez whiz you sound annoyed Herr professor. Maybe it just my jew paranoia, I am seeing a therapist, I expect to be cured very soon.

I am the one who is very annoyed professor you are the sweet voice of reason here, I got no gripe with Pat, just another voice, sometimes he makes sense. sorry for projecting, I am trying to find a few simple pleasures to help me deal with it. excuse my tantrum

Jimbo nice picture, we are dealing most of all with a bunch of crooks, I got to get that iggy pop album

I don't know what will come of it either jimbo, we too many people with their own a agenda, whether it be it socialism, marxism, Maoism, christism, jewism, and our worse enemy seems to be consumerism

How we going to keep them from stealing another election, got three years to get ready, what am I going to do. I can vote this time, yeah I had a partner from belgium he told me that the cops come get you on election day if you don't vote, wonder how that would go down in the land of the free and the home of the clueless

Last Edit, somebody shoot me while i am happy

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Post by jimboloco » July 16th, 2005, 12:15 pm

http://feeds.feedburner.com/radioactivity?m=13

RadioActivity for 07/15/2005
15 Jul 2005 00:00:00
RadioActivity for 07/15/2005

on line feed of the wmnf radioactivity show rob lorei
call in show re: rove, and stuff

works well with real player, starts with the end of democracy now,
democracy alive in Tampa Bay
[color=darkcyan]i'm on a survival mission
yo ho ho an a bottle of rum om[/color]

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