Joe Biden, architect of the Anbar Awakening. Big Sheik on Campus. Who knew?

And who knows whatever accolades and achievements Joe Biden will suddenly remember are due to him by the time of the election?

I have to admit: He is ambitious in his lies. He began claiming to be a the poor scion of a coal-mining family; now he's the Hero of America and Lion of the Iraqi Desert.

SEN. BIDEN: No. The surge helped make that–what made is possible in Anbar province is they did what I’d suggested two and a half years ago: gave local control. They turned over and they said to the Sunnis in Anbar province, “We promise you, don’t worry, you’re not going to have any Shia in here. There’s going to be no national forces in here. We’re going to train your forces to help you fight al-Qaeda.” And that you–what you had was the awakening. The awakening was not an awakening by us, it was an awakening of the Sunnis in Anbar province willing to fight.

Incidentally, that's not even what happened. We didn't "give" the Sunnis control. They already had it, more or less; that's why Anbar was so dangerous for our troops. They would get wiped out if they confronted our troops heads-up, which is why they didn't do that.

While our troops had temporary limited control wherever they ran the flag, Sunni tribesmen had all other control the moment we moved on.

What happened is that the Sunnis turned against Al Qaeda and then entered into negotiations with US forces for aid against them. When that succeeded to both sides' satisfaction, further deals were struck and the trust between the two old foes grew. Eventually the Awakening spread, and where it did, Sunni insurgents struck nonaggression/support/money pacts with American negotiators.

It wasn't a case of giving control to Sunnis. It was a case of coopting Sunnis already in a great deal of effective military control to our side.

At no point did we just turn to some Sunnis battling us and say, "Uhhhhh, gee, here's some local control for you guys," and then hear back, "Uhhh, gee, all we wanted was some local control, I guess now we can be friends."

We did try turning control over to highly suspect "allies," after first battle of Fallujah, and it was an absolute disaster.

So that sort of "just hand over power to your enemies" play had already been tried and discredited as disastrous. And that's what Genius Joe is so proud of himself for thinking up.

Thank God that's exactly what we didn't do.

And further: That isn't even what Biden proposed. Almost the sum and entirety of his plan was splitting Iraq into three autonomous regions. Not a bad plan in theory (I didn't reject it out of hand, and I still wonder if it's not a good idea), but it's simply not what happened at all.

Mr. Bush has spent three years in a futile effort to establish a strong central government in Baghdad, leaving us without a real political settlement, with a deteriorating security situation...

It's that "futile effort to establish a strong central government" which has now resulted in, oh look at that, an actually strong central government increasingly able to manage all military threats on its on, which in turn is responsible for more and more American troops coming home.

Nice try, Joe. Tell me again what it's like to grow up a coal miner's daughter.

Posted by: Ace at 09:31 PM | Comments (64)
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Bush: 8000 Troops to Leave Iraq

Some headline -- simple, short, and positive.

Surely the MSM could not twist that headline into bad news. Surely the fact that 8000 more troops are coming home (in victory!) could not be twisted into a dishonest headline claiming they're not leaving Iraq at all.

Wanna bet?

You gotta read this one. Dudes. You must chill.

Actually I want to thank these good folks. They're blowing up the Internet and blogs. It's this shameful performance they're futilely putting in to elect a a man who's already beaten that's going to be the final nail in their coffins. They're destroying themselves, and putting money in my greedy pockets.

They're pushing blog-reading from a niche activity 5% of the public perform into something more serious -- like 20-25%.

Posted by: Ace at 07:31 PM | Comments (35)
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You can come back to the "Old and Busted" site now.

Posted by: Ace at 05:44 PM | Comments (39)
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Actually that's from Colorado Springs a few days ago, but it's the image that haunts Andrew Sullivan's mind.

Action Figure? Sure, why not.

I'm thinking she doesn't really ever dress this way, though.

Posted by: Ace at 05:27 PM | Comments (91)
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Wow. How's the new digs under that bus Keith? Cramped but cozy I suppose, right?

...Keith Olbermann is why I dropped any interest in supporting the Fox boycott. Because Fox's Bill O'Reilly had the ratings and the reach out, so when Hillary needed to get both and draw attention to her primary fight, they were there and fair. Yes, I realize the larger Fox network anchors never miss a chance to hit Democrats, almost always unfairly and below the belt, but O'Reilly treated Clinton with respect, something she could never get on "Countdown" or "Hardball," two of the top rated shows on MSNBC...

Posted by: Purple Avenger at 04:33 PM | Comments (92)
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I think that's what it said, anyway. So, I skimmed. Sue me.

It's 51-44, actually, if you're a "Numbers Fag."

This month, McCain enjoys a solid 58% to 32% among unaffiliated voters in Ohio. That is a major improvement from the five-point deficit the Republican received from this demographic a month ago. Among men, McCain leads 59% to 36%, but the Republican trails among women 50% to 45%.

Okay, enough with the polls. We see which way this trainwreck is heading.

Thanks to Dave in Texas and Slublog.

More: I think also from Rasmussen (the comorons are tipping): Florida tied (shyah, right), Penn Obama by one.

Eagleton Scenario? Under/over: I say Palin drops out by next Monday.

Bank on it.

Drudge Slug -- NYT TUESDAY: FAR FROM CERTAIN OBAMA WILL MEET AMBITIOUS FUNDRAISING TARGET... DEVELOPING....

Now it's just starting to feel dirty.

Not even good-dirty.

Honestly, the posts I want to write now are along the lines of: "Obama wasn't a bad guy. He probably meant well. And I do understand the excitement about electing our first black president; I could get excited about that too, were the candidate in question simply so far to the left of me on so many issues..."

Honesty, that's what I want to write. I feel bad.

Heh: Like the subhed says, "Heh.".

Update: Pixy sez: Comments is back. Sorry about that.

Posted by: Ace at 03:34 PM | Comments (131)
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He'll assume, he said, that she's "as smart as I am, as tough as I am, and knows as much as I do."

That's your first and last mistake, Joe. I would venture to say there's really not even a contest on those matters.

Goldfarb, enemy of D&D geeks everywhere, notes that Joe Biden is talking as if his claims about his academic brilliance are accurate.

Posted by: Ace at 03:26 PM | Comments (28)
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Sure, Anchorman was hilarious, and so was Talledega Nights.

But now he's directed his most uproariously funny comic creation -- a HuffPo post claiming the Republicans will win the election... due to right-wing media bias.

So what is this house advantage the Republicans have? It's the press. There is no more fourth estate. Wait, hold on...I'm not going down some esoteric path with theories on the deregulation of the media and corporate bias and CNN versus Fox...I mean it: there is no more functioning press in this country. And without a real press the corporate and religious Republicans can lie all they want and get away with it. And that's the 51% advantage....

Four corporations own all the TV channels. All of them. If they don't get ratings they get canceled or fired. All news is about sex, blame and anger, and fear. Exposing lies about amounts of money taken from lobbyists and votes cast for the agenda of the last eight years does not rate. The end.

So one side can lie and get away with it....

I'm telling you, we're going to lose this thing....

So what do we do?

[M]ost importantly we should bring up re-regulating the media and who owns it and what that conflict of interest is a lot more....

Obama and Biden should also create a "master sound bite sentence" and repeat it hundreds of times.... [You mean they haven't done that already? -- ed.]

This race should be about whether the Republican Party is going to be dismantled or not after the borderline treason of the past eight years. But instead it is about making the word "community organizer" a dirty word and a beauty queen who shoots foxes from a plane. Someone is not in any way doing their job and it's the press. Or more specifically, that job no longer exists.

...

This is it folks. If McCain takes power we fade and become Australia in the seventies: a backwoods country with occasional flashes of relevance. Except we've got a way bigger military and we're angrier. People will get hurt and we'll pay the bill for the bullets. I'm telling you, unless we wake up, we're gonna lose this frickin' thing.

In related news, Sarah Palin faked her pregnancy to cover up for her pregnant daughter and took her baby as her own. The right-wing media, knocking a working mom like that. Horrible.

The key to comedy? A touch of madness.

Adam McKay's all set.

Shake and Bake, Baby! Shake and Bake! That just happened!

That's a given. That's a given.

Posted by: Ace at 03:08 PM | Comments (59)
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"Astroturfing" is the practice of creating a false impression of widespread public support through the creation of dummy websites and organizations which are merely parroting their corporate parent's line (unbeknownst to the reader, who thinks he's reading an "independent take"), and of course spreading memes on the internet through sockpuppet commenters.

As Treacher noted, that line Kos got from "a reader" (unnamed), that "Jesus was a community organizer, Pontius Pilate was a governor" sure did rocket through the interwebs quickly. Problem with the theory of it spreading rapidly by real, organic transmission? It's fucking laugh out loud stupid!

And of course there may be a couple of big bloggers representing themselves as the sort of people who, say, struggle to see the truth in front of their noses, who just might be benefiting from Axelrod's astroturf campaigning.

Seems kind of interesting. Interesting story, interesting technique, a lot of dishonesty to give it some juice... an important story about the inner workings of a major political campaign for president.

Therefore, I am sure I speak for everyone when I say I expect the media to get right on this.

Psst! I heard David Axelrod was a sexy, sexy man
you should have sex with 'cuz he's so good at sex...
Do you know where I can get more sexformation about
this 240-pound sack of rompin'-stompin' sex, or, better yet,
where I might go to have sex with him?...
PS Keep this low, I don't want the sexy secret getting out.

Track 'em and Crack 'em? I wonder if we on the right have enough "concern trolls" who show up to point out the flaws of our candidates (as concerned, lifelong Republicans of course) to compare them and track the IPs to see if they originate in, say, Chicago or DC.

Posted by: Ace at 02:38 PM | Comments (39)
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So now, if you want to comment, please to go Ace.new.mu.nu, which some people call the "new site," but really isn't -- it's the emergency back-up site.

When the commenting problem is fixed, please come back!

Fixed? Well, comments are working here now, but they've been squiffy all day.

Posted by: Ace at 02:00 PM | Comments (39)
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