Conflicts concerning Bhutto’s death

I’ve not written too much about the Bhutto assassination thus far, chiefly because my familiarity with the topic isn’t sufficient. I may not always succeed at it, but I try to avoid writing about something unless I’m fairly certain I have all the pertinent information.

Fortunately, I don’t need to know everything about Pakistan’s future prospects to know that the conflicting stories about how Bhutto died tells us something is up. The list, at this point, is that either she was shot, died from the explosion, or surprisingly died by hitting her head trying to dodge said explosion.

CNN national security analyst Ken Robinson, who worked in U.S. intelligence in Pakistan during the Clinton administration, said he suspects Bhutto’s enemies are attempting to control her legacy by minimizing the attack’s role in her demise.

“They’re trying to deny her a martyr’s death, and in Islam, that’s pretty important,” Robinson said.

I think that’s really playing semantics on what is or isn’t a martyr’s death, but then for the type of people who would cause such a furor I suppose such definitions are the entire purpose.

Why I have no compunctions about celebrating Christmas

I had a good Christmas myself, and while writing that last little obligatory “how was yours” post, I was reminded of a little flak I tend to get annually around this time of year. Near without fail, someone ends up asking me how in the world I can celebrate Christmas. I don’t believe in the religious end of it, so how can I feel fine about celebrating the day of the savior’s birth?

Such things usually come in two forms. The first is the angry Christian who thinks I have no right or I’m hypocritical by observing the holiday when I don’t worship the guy it was named after. The other is the bullheaded nonbeliever who refuses on principle to do anything with a religious theme to it and thinks I’m betraying myself.

I’ll start with the first. Anyone making the “you don’t worship Christ so you can’t celebrate Christmas” is making two assumptions: that Christmas is inherently Christian and that its celebration today is the same. Both are completely wrong.

A history lesson is in order.

Christmas!

Hope you all had a good Christmas/Hannukah/solstice. Get and give some good presents? I know I spent a hell of a lot more this year than I should have.

That’s right, Virginia, you don’t have to be a Christian to love Christmas.

Things that baffle Hanlon: Bush and Hillary “admired”

Polls are generally little more than an excuse to reaffirm something you believe (hey, people think 9/11 was an inside job, that means it’s true!), but at the same time they do give a good look at how people think. In this case, we find that, according to the public, President Bush and Hillary Clinton are the most admired man and woman in America. When I saw the headline I assumed it meant in terms of politicians. Not so!

When people were asked to name the man they most admire, 10 percent picked Bush, his lowest figure in the seven years he has been president. Bill Clinton got 8 percent – within the poll’s margin of sampling error – while Nobel Prize winner and former Vice President Al Gore had 6 percent and Illinois Sen. Barack Obama, a presidential hopeful, was chosen by 5 percent.

Whoever is president has won the most-admired title every year since 1981.

Sen. Clinton, hoping to be president-elect by the time of the next poll, was named by 18 percent as the most-admired woman, the 12th time she’s been in the top spot. Talk show host Winfrey came in a close second with 16 percent. First lady Laura Bush and actress Angelina Jolie were each selected by 3 percent.

You really have to wonder how hard people really thought. If this was an open-ended question, how many people just picked a name that sounded respectable?

White House: “hold off” on inquiring about destroyed CIA tapes

If you ever needed a story that perfectly encapsulates everything that’s wrong with the Bush administration, you’ve found it. In response to legal filings ordering a hearing about destroyed CIA tapes, they have said to “hold off” on the inquiry.

[U.S District Justice Henry H.] Kennedy, appointed to the trial court by President Clinton, is considering whether to delve into the matter and, if so, how deeply.

The hearing marked the first time that administration lawyers were to speak in public and under oath about the matter since the CIA disclosed this month it destroyed the tapes of officers using tough interrogation methods while questioning two al-Qaida suspects.

Okay, now let’s think this over. Accusations of prisoner abuse have been rampant over the past few years. The CIA admits to destroying tapes that show interrogation of terrorist suspects. The White House says there should be no inquiry into what happened.

Yeah, that’s not at all suspicious.

EDIT: TownHall writer Linda Chavez wrote that the CIA official who destroyed the tapes “deserves a medal” for what he did, saying that he “protected” us. Apparently knowing how horribly the United States is breaking the law is a bad thing, so it’s better that we don’t know about it.

The Dems are going to pull off the impossible: alienate EVERYONE

I caught an article on Daily Kos recently that asked whether Nancy Pelosi should step down. Even at the end there’s a poll that asks if you’d support a progressive candidate running against the Speaker. Out of 1450 votes, 1327 (as of this writing) say they would.

Now I know one could say that Kos is not exactly indicative of national sentiment, but it’s still worth noticing that the biggest Democratic blog has almost universal support against a woman who barely a year ago had everyone cheerleading behind her.

That’s not limited to Pelosi, either. Reid has been slammed over his general right-leaning standpoints, and I’ve obviously espoused some fairly negative opinions of the Democratic frontrunners. What we’re finding is that the Democrats are managing to alienate pretty much everyone through a useful combination of progressive rhetoric and spineless legislating.

Dodd’s filibuster succeeds! Kinda.

I’m not sure why Dodd doesn’t get much notice in terms of presidential candidates. He’s got all the right standpoints, despite a few hiccups, and unlike all of the frontrunners he’s still interested in fixing the damn country as opposed to making nonstop public appearances. Yeah, it’s not great “politician” behaviour, but then it’s a sad state of affairs when a candidate can actually hurt himself by doing the right thing instead of just going around making speeches.

Anyway, Dodd’s greatest accomplishment this campaign season was, undoubtedly, his filibuster of FISA bill with telecom immunity. And it has succeeded! Kind of, anyway.

The bill’s been tabled until the new year, and as the current FISA sunsets in February it’s a safe bet that something’s going to get pushed through. But the fact is, he got the bill tabled and proved that something can be done to stop the rampant abuses of power we’ve seen over the past two years. The Democrats, if they’d band together finally, could actually make a change and Dodd’s proving it.

Sure he won’t get the presidential nod, which is a shame. He’s not “electable” enough.

Joe Lieberman turns his back on the Democrats. Again.

My how times have changed. It feels like yesterday that Joementum was aiming for the Democratic nomination, then paired up with the Liberal with a capital “L” Al Gore. Now? Well aside from aligning himself with the conservatives on everything and running as an independent, he’s now put his support behind John McRage for the presidency.

“Being a Republican is important. Being a Democrat is important. But you know what’s more important than that? The interest and well-being of the United States of America,” the Democrat-turned Independent said in announcing his decision Monday morning in New Hampshire.

“Let’s put the United States first again, and John McCain is the man as president who will help us do that,” he said.

Lieberman, the Democrats’ vice presidential nominee in 2000, said the next president needs to “break through the reflexive partisanship that is poisoning our politics today and stopping us from getting anything done in Washington.”

I find it hilarious that Lieberman is on the “no more partisanship” gravy train, given that he and the people he is now aligning himself with are chiefly responsible for the wave of bitter partisanship that’s wrecked American politics as we know it.

The only reason he still caucuses as a Democrat is because it gives him leverage. If he hopped to the GOP the party would rip him to shreds over his more liberal stances and he’d have no pull in Congress any more. Ridiculous.

Now I *Heart* Huckabee even more!

I got this bit of news today and nearly leapt out of my chair with glee. As crazy as I had already known Mike Huckabee to be, the fact that his kid is even crazier just made my damn day.

Two boy scout counselors, 17 year old Clayton Frady and 18 year old David litickabee, the son of Arkansas Governor Mike Huckabee, have admitted to catching a stray dog during their summer session at Camp Pioneer in Hatfield, AR, and hanging the dog by his neck, slitting his throat and stoning him to death.

Camp officials, who did not report the crime to law enforcement officials, have admitted that the act did occur and have fired the boys from their positions. However, no charges have been filed against the young men.

Sha-ZAM! Of course, now I’m starting to think this isn’t the kind of crazy that will help him in the primaries. The “Jesus freak and I hate minorities” crazy will help, but “my son slaughters innocent animals” probably won’t help.

Although on second thought, I have a feeling most who’d vote for him anyway would consider that a “charming childhood prank” or something along those lines.

Turkey attacks Kurds in Iraq

No alarmist introductions from me this time, I’ll let the story speak for itself. The Turkish military has crossed the northern border of Iraq, and launched an attack on the PKK Kurdish rebels this morning.

The air attack, which began around 1 a.m. and last for more than three hours, targeted Kurdistan Workers’ Party (PKK) outposts in the Qandil mountain, the statement said.

Turkish ground troops launched long-range missiles at the PKK positions after the air attack, the statement said.

All warplanes returned safely to their bases in Turkey, the military said.

The tension between Turkey and the Kurds in Iraq has been a real hot spot for quite a while now, and I doubt there was a worse outcome than an actual air attack. Hopefully this can get quashed fairly quickly, last thing we need is yet another blowup.