TSP interviews Cheney Chief of Staff

Vice President Dick Cheney's office has been instrumental in promoting policies that skirted the Constitution by promoting the idea of "unitary executive power" in time of war, attempted to destroy the Central Intelligence Agency, burned agents who questioned Administration policies and took the United States into a vicious occupation of Iraq under false pretenses. Mr. David Addingon is currently Chief-of-Staff to Mr. Cheney and gained additional notoriety when he showed contempt for the rule of law as he testified before the House Judiciary Committee on June 26th. Mr. Addington agreed to sit down with The Schadenfreude Post for a brief interview after we told him that we were researchers looking into the biological causes of lack of recall from criminal suspects.

TSP: Mr. Addington, please tell our readers a bit about your background.

DSA: Well first of all, I was born and raised in Albuquerque, New Mexico. I went to Duke University where I hung out with the lacrosse team. I'm sure you've heard how rowdy those guys can get sometimes. It wasn't until I served as counsel to Congressman Dick Cheney as we tried to hide all that Iran-Contra business in the eighties that I really developed the cast iron balls that I have today.

TSP: According to Jack Goldsmith, the head of the Office of Legal Counsel from 2003 to 2004, you once said that "we’re one bomb away from getting rid of that obnoxious court,” referring to the secret FISA court that oversees clandestine wiretapping. Is that accurate and did you mean that another terrorist act would be helpful in further destroying the Constitution rights of Americans?

DSA: I don't recall making that statement. Is doesn't sound like a statement that I would likely make. As you know, I have suffered some selective memory loss in recent weeks. Perhaps I might have made the statement that "we're one bowl away from getting rid of that obnoxious Frosted Flakes." That sounds like me.

TSP: As someone who has served in government for your entire career, don't you feel a little bit nostalgic about the Constitution?

DSA: The Constitution has been the bane of my existence. Once, I had our special ops guys kidnap some North Korean women for interrogation purposes. I had them placed in a room with a giant bed and made them do things that no West Point graduate has ever had performed on... Well, some pointy head lawyer told me that what I was doing was unconstitutional. That's bullshit. The Constitution only applies to Americans and I can tell you those North Korean women were happy to do what they did. I think they really liked my beard.

TSP: You seem to recall so much detail about certain acts you have committed but can't even remember whether you discussed torture on a trip to Gitmo that was designed to discuss torture.

DSA: It depends on what you mean by torture. Do you mean the scratching the chalkboard kind of torture or the burying guys alive kind of torture?

TSP: The latter.

DSA: Well, we have to defend democracy by any means necessary.

TSP: But isn't the erosion of civil rights, secret detentions and going to war under false pretenses sort of a contravention of the Constitution?

DSA: I'm sure you'd be happy if I said yes. But no, its not because the President is all powerful and Congress and the courts must bow before his majesty.

TSP: Where do you plan to go after President Bush leaves office.

DSA: Leave office. We're just one bomb away from another four more years. You'll see.

Linguistic tricks used to dull costs of war

Since the mid-1970s, conservative think tanks have offered sophisticated tactical advice to Republicans to influence public opinion and interest groups to act in ways that are inimical to their own interests. The use of the words "blood" and "treasure" to describe the costs of the Iraq occupation is one way that think tanks are using word choice to soften the blow of the vast costs of continued occupation of the oil rich nation.

The wide-spread use of the words began strategically and worked its way into the lexicon via mainstream news analysts. First, the words appeared in the low-readership but influential journals of the think tanks. Top journalists and policy analysts rely on the journals to understand the complex policy arguments on which they report. Then the Bush Administration began using "blood and treasure" as a stand-in for death and war debt to describe its foreign policies. The journalists and bloggers picked up the phrase because it sounded pithy and literary. Shockingly, even Democratic and progressive writers innocently picked up the phrase as it reached its usage arc.

Words are symbols. They have meaning and consequences.

George Carlin's rebuke of religion

Iconoclast George Carlin died on June 22nd and it seems fitting to recognize his views on religion as he moves on to the next stage of his existence. My theory is that Carlin is kicking the shit out of St. Peter right now and will soon take over the post of "invisible man in the sky." His first acts as the Supreme Leader will be to vaporize all houses of worship and tell people they are free to live as natural beings. This announcement will be followed by mass suicide as people will not be able to comprehend a world without some invisible spirit controlling their actions. Rest in peace, George Carlin.

When it comes to bullshit, big-time, major league bullshit, you have to stand in awe of the all-time champion of false promises and exaggerated claims, religion. No contest. No contest. Religion. Religion easily has the greatest bullshit story ever told. Think about it. Religion has actually convinced people that there's an invisible man living in the sky who watches everything you do, every minute of every day. And the invisible man has a special list of ten things he does not want you to do. And if you do any of these ten things, he has a special place, full of fire and smoke and burning and torture and anguish, where he will send you to live and suffer and burn and choke and scream and cry forever and ever 'til the end of time!

But He loves you. He loves you, and He needs money! He always needs money! He's all-powerful, all-perfect, all-knowing, and all-wise, somehow just can't handle money! Religion takes in billions of dollars, they pay no taxes, and they always need a little more. Now, you talk about a good bullshit story. Holy Shit!

But I want you to know something, this is sincere, I want you to know, when it comes to believing in God, I really tried. I really, really tried. I tried to believe that there is a God, who created each of us in His own image and likeness, loves us very much, and keeps a close eye on things. I really tried to believe that, but I gotta tell you, the longer you live, the more you look around, the more you realize, something is fucked up.

Something is wrong here. War, disease, death, destruction, hunger, filth, poverty, torture, crime, corruption, and the Ice Capades. Something is definitely wrong. This is not good work. If this is the best God can do, I am not impressed. Results like these do not belong on the résumé of a Supreme Being. This is the kind of shit you'd expect from an office temp with a bad attitude. And just between you and me, in any decently-run universe, this guy would've been out on his all-powerful ass a long time ago. And by the way, I say "this guy", because I firmly believe, looking at these results, that if there is a God, it has to be a man.

No woman could or would ever fuck things up like this. So, if there is a God, I think most reasonable people might agree that he's at least incompetent, and maybe, just maybe, doesn't give a shit. Doesn't give a shit, which I admire in a person, and which would explain a lot of these bad results.

So rather than be just another mindless religious robot, mindlessly and aimlessly and blindly believing that all of this is in the hands of some spooky incompetent father figure who doesn't give a shit, I decided to look around for something else to worship. Something I could really count on.

And immediately, I thought of the sun. Happened like that. Overnight I became a sun-worshipper. Well, not overnight, you can't see the sun at night. But first thing the next morning, I became a sun-worshipper. Several reasons. First of all, I can see the sun, okay? Unlike some other gods I could mention, I can actually see the sun. I'm big on that. If I can see something, I don't know, it kind of helps the credibility along, you know? So everyday I can see the sun, as it gives me everything I need; heat, light, food, flowers in the park, reflections on the lake, an occasional skin cancer, but hey. At least there are no crucifixions, and we're not setting people on fire simply because they don't agree with us.

Sun worship is fairly simple. There's no mystery, no miracles, no pageantry, no one asks for money, there are no songs to learn, and we don't have a special building where we all gather once a week to compare clothing. And the best thing about the sun, it never tells me I'm unworthy. Doesn't tell me I'm a bad person who needs to be saved. Hasn't said an unkind word. Treats me fine. So, I worship the sun. But, I don't pray to the sun. Know why? I wouldn't presume on our friendship. It's not polite.

I've often thought people treat God rather rudely, don't you? Asking trillions and trillions of prayers every day. Asking and pleading and begging for favors. Do this, gimme that, I need a new car, I want a better job. And most of this praying takes place on Sunday His day off. It's not nice. And it's no way to treat a friend.

But people do pray, and they pray for a lot of different things, you know, your sister needs an operation on her crotch, your brother was arrested for defecating in a mall. But most of all, you'd really like to fuck that hot little redhead down at the convenience store. You know, the one with the eyepatch and the clubfoot? Can you pray for that? I think you'd have to. And I say, fine. Pray for anything you want. Pray for anything, but what about the Divine Plan?

Remember that? The Divine Plan. Long time ago, God made a Divine Plan. Gave it a lot of thought, decided it was a good plan, put it into practice. And for billions and billions of years, the Divine Plan has been doing just fine. Now, you come along, and pray for something. Well suppose the thing you want isn't in God's Divine Plan? What do you want Him to do? Change His plan? Just for you? Doesn't it seem a little arrogant? It's a Divine Plan. What's the use of being God if every run-down shmuck with a two-dollar prayerbook can come along and fuck up Your Plan?

And here's something else, another problem you might have: Suppose your prayers aren't answered. What do you say? "Well, it's God's will." "Thy Will Be Done." Fine, but if it's God's will, and He's going to do what He wants to anyway, why the fuck bother praying in the first place? Seems like a big waste of time to me! Couldn't you just skip the praying part and go right to His Will? It's all very confusing.

So to get around a lot of this, I decided to worship the sun. But, as I said, I don't pray to the sun. You know who I pray to? Joe Pesci. Two reasons: First of all, I think he's a good actor, okay? To me, that counts. Second, he looks like a guy who can get things done. Joe Pesci doesn't fuck around. In fact, Joe Pesci came through on a couple of things that God was having trouble with.

For years I asked God to do something about my noisy neighbor with the barking dog, Joe Pesci straightened that cocksucker out with one visit. It's amazing what you can accomplish with a simple baseball bat.

So I've been praying to Joe for about a year now. And I noticed something. I noticed that all the prayers I used to offer to God, and all the prayers I now offer to Joe Pesci, are being answered at about the same 50% rate. Half the time I get what I want, half the time I don't. Same as God, 50-50. Same as the four-leaf clover and the horseshoe, the wishing well and the rabbit's foot, same as the Mojo Man, same as the Voodoo Lady who tells you your fortune by squeezing the goat's testicles, it's all the same: 50-50. So just pick your superstition, sit back, make a wish, and enjoy yourself.

And for those of you who look to The Bible for moral lessons and literary qualities, I might suggest a couple of other stories for you. You might want to look at the Three Little Pigs, that's a good one. Has a nice happy ending, I'm sure you'll like that. Then there's Little Red Riding Hood, although it does have that X-rated part where the Big Bad Wolf actually eats the grandmother. Which I didn't care for, by the way. And finally, I've always drawn a great deal of moral comfort from Humpty Dumpty. The part I like the best? "All the king's horses and all the king's men couldn't put Humpty Dumpty back together again." That's because there is no Humpty Dumpty, and there is no God. None, not one, no God, never was.

In fact, I'm gonna put it this way. If there is a God, may he strike this audience dead! See? Nothing happened. Nothing happened? Everybody's okay? All right, tell you what, I'll raise the stakes a little bit. If there is a God, may he strike me dead. See? Nothing happened, oh, wait, I've got a little cramp in my leg. And my balls hurt. Plus, I'm blind. I'm blind, oh, now I'm okay again, must have been Joe Pesci, huh? God Bless Joe Pesci. Thank you all very much. Joe Bless You!

(Copyright 1999 by George Carlin. Printed without permission.)

Fareed Zakaria's robust defense of liberalism

Fareed Zakaria's new book, "The Post-American World," shines a bright light on the hand-wringing and defeatist lies about the state of America that are used by neo-conservatives and anti-globalist leftists to support their radical positions by infusing Americans with fear. Indeed, Mr. Zakaria decisively shows that America is the sole ideological superpower in a world that has wholesale adopted our culture and economic values. We are now witnessing a global transformation that is the result of the most dramatic export of culture in the history of the world. We won.

Mr. Zakaria was born in Mumbai, India and attended Yale University, where he was tapped for the elite senior fraternity Scroll and Key, a club whose members included my former boss Bobby Shriver and his father Sargent. He is currently the editor at Newsweek and is considered a moderate realist. His writings promote his vision of a world that moves towards liberal democratic societies with free markets. His latest book makes a persuasive case that the world is moving in the right direction, that the world is less violent than anytime in human history and that United States should utilize its strengths to keep a strong position in the world while realizing that a multi-polar world is at hand in the coming decades.

Mr. Zakaria notes that most nation-states are transforming their societies into relatively open societies that mimic the Anglo-American classical liberal philosophy and are aggressively implemented free market principles. The transformation is paying off and vast swaths of humanity are rising out of poverty and mimicking our consumer oriented economy. America is not declining. The rest of the world is rising.

Instead of pissing our pants in fear, we need to accept the fact that the world is becoming more like us and, as a result, nations like China, India, Russia, Brazil, South Africa and Indonesia will capture a larger share of the world's economic pie. This transformation is a sign that we won the idealogical war. Mr. Zakaria argues that it is in America's interest to take a collaborative approach to foreign policy that restores a sense of respect (instead of fear) to the growing economic nations. He advises that America should look more to a Bismarkian foreign policy that ensures every nation has better relations with us than any other competitors. Instead, we have spent the last eight years buying into the imperialist mindset of 19th Century Britain that operates by fiat.

Finally, Mr. Zakaria notes that America is not the lost cause that naysayers seem to portray. Our higher education system is the greatest in the world, by many magnitudes. Further, the conventional wisdom is that our elementary and high schools are dismal. In fact, America's educational system produces graduates who are less adept at rote memorization but with creative thinking skills that enable American workers to innovate and adapt far quicker than our Asian and European competitors. The problem is not quality but access for more young Americans. According to Mr. Zakaria, America is a successful economic power. Our weakness lies in our political system that is unable to make relatively minor changes that will strengthen our position of power (e.g., health care and retirement funding).

I hope that thinking Americans will read "The Post-American World" and that right and left-wing fear-mongering will release its hold on our still great nation.

LA teacher fired for being Afro-centric

Los Angeles Unified School District has a history of tone deafness with regard to best practices, not to mention maintaining a minimal level of safety for its students. While the district may not have resources to ensure that students are safe from gang warfare or have drinking water that is not polluted with toxic levels of lead, it finds the resources to implement a commissar system to weed out teachers who may actually care about the student's education. The Schadenfreude Post has learned that a teacher was just fired for being too "Afro-centric."

In March 2007, The Schadenfreude Post reported on the bizarre firing of two teachers at Celerity Nascent Charter School in Watts for allowing students to do a class project on the murder of Emmett Till, an African-American child who was tortured and murdered for allegedly whistling at a white woman. Administrators further disciplined students and employees for participating in a petition protesting the cancellation of the project.

...for a school principal to tell mostly African-American children that they can't present a project to the school on Emmett Till because he whistled at a woman, which is sexual harassment is simply obscene. By inference, the principal is saying that 14-year old Till deserved to be beaten to a pulp and thrown still alive into a river to die, because a black boy whistling at a white woman constituted sexual harassment (Sexual harassment, by the way, did not exist as a cause of action in 1950s Mississippi. Furthermore, the facts in this case do not warrant such a characterization, even by today's standards.).

TSP noted that charters served a role in helping to keep the traditional-style schools more competitive but needed oversight to prevent further capricious and wrongful terminations. At the time, we assumed that LAUSD would be free of such racially-tinged discrimination of teachers. We were wrong. The LA Times reported today that:

Students and fellow educators are rallying behind a fired Jordan High School teacher they say was sacked for encouraging political activism among her students.

About 60 students rallied Wednesday at the Watts campus, while a colleague of the fired teacher said he and 15 other instructors planned to resign or transfer to other schools to protest the dismissal of Karen Salazar, a second-year English teacher.

When a school district can't even find the competency to print out pay checks for its teachers (for many months), why would it terminate a teacher who is dedicated to her job and who had the audacity to use course materials that "include 'The Autobiography of Malcolm X,' which is approved for students... [and who] sprinkles in lyrics of slain rapper Tupac Shakur and the poetry of Langston Hughes?" Is it really that out-of-bounds to teach African American and Latino kids in Watts about the recent history of their nation with regard to racism and prejudice? Apparently so.

My advice to the district would be the following: 1) send Admiral Brewer on a one way cruise to somewhere sunny and far away; 2) fire the administrator who terminated Ms. Salazar; 3) fire the rest of the administrators as well; 4) put a poster on each teacher's desk that reads "teach. serve. use common sense"; and 5) put a second poster on each administrator's desk that reads "above all else, don't make things worse."

Editor's note: it is ironic that conventional wisdom says African-Americans and Latinos in Los Angeles are incapable of living in peace with each other. Ms. Salazar appears to be of mixed Latino/African-American ethnicity. Protesters from both groups are vigorously protesting her firing. All Angelenos should join them in their protest. Good schools and fairness are causes that transcend race, class and politics; they are the embodiment of American values.

McCain declares war on liberal blogs

In a sweeping declaration of war, Senator McCain is organizing a "massive blitzkrieg to crush the vermin liberal bloggers." It is unclear whether McCain gave the launch codes of his anti-blog weapons to the military wing of his campaign or whether a rouge element of "Mad Max" Mel Gibson fans have stolen the codes in a attempt to create a blog war that will leave the leather-clad Gibsonites in charge of the Internet after the Republican and Democrat bloggers have killed each other off.

In fact, it is now clear that McCain's followers are pulling a play straight from Charlie Manson's play book and seek to create the blog equivalent of a race war between conservative and liberal bloggers. It is well known that McCain detests both liberals and traditional conservatives.

It is now becoming apparent that McCain secretly supports the Charlie Manson philosophy and plans to move people from the cities to rural love dens after he becomes president. Only woman who bear a striking resemblance to McCain mistress Vicki Iseman will be allowed in President McCain's personal love ranch. The blog division of his campaign has been tasked with the destruction of both liberal and conservative voices and are secretly negotiating with Mel Gibson to join the ticket for the general election.

After the McCain revolution, men and women will be required to wear Mad Max clothing and Mel Gibson will release daily diatribes against undesirables. After McCain dies of old age, Mr. Gibson would become President and he is expected to use his remarkable oratory skills to keep Americans in a trance-like state. The text below was passed to The Schadenfreude Post by a traditional conservative who was afraid that the Presidency might pass to a "bunch of spandex, leather cod piece wearing, nut jobs."

"Sons of America! I am Mel Gibson, and I see a whole army of my countrymen here in defiance of sanity. You've come to fight as Manson followers, and Manson followers you are. What will you do with that freedom? Will you fight? Aye, fight and you may die in a hail of liberal blog arrows. Run and you'll live. At least awhile. And, dying in your beds, many years from now, would you be willing to trade all the days from this day to that, for one chance, just one chance, to come back here and tell the liberal bloggers that they may take our lives, but they'll never take our cod pieces!"

Chavez denies Bush charges of copycat spy program

Venezuelan President Hugo Chavez backed down today after encountering withering criticism of his plan to revamp the oil nation's intelligence agencies. The intelligence plan would have required citizens to answer questions under arbitrary interrogations and generally lowered the bar even further on the civil rights of its citizens. However, The Schadenfreude Post has learned that the Chavez plan was suspiciously similar to the intelligence transformation that President Bush pushed through Congress in the months after September 11. Bush's is said to be "fighting mad" that the Bolivarian dictator copied the American reorganization.

"You are not only a donkey, Mr. Danger, you are a cassava because your brain is inorganic and your private parts are crooked and yellow like a feral banana," Chavez announced in a press release, apparently referring to President Bush.

Chavez has been trying to cement control over the institutions of Venezuela as his popularity weakens after nationalizing several industrial companies and economic and foreign policy initiatives in Iran and elsewhere that siphoned funds away from his ambitious plans to improve the living conditions of working class residents, who make up his base of support.

A source in the White House told TSP that President Bush feels that Chavez is a scoundrel for stealing his rendition, eavesdropping and invasive intelligence techniques without giving him any credit for the visionary plan.

"The President feels that if Chavez wanted to clampdown on his citizens and create a police state, he should have thanked Bush for inspiring the proposal," said the source. "The President even likes the guy. After all, how can you really be mad at a dictator who calls you 'Mr. Danger.'"

Chavez reportedly plans to work towards detente with the United States if Bush allows his intelligence officers to learn interrogation techniques from U.S. contractor Blackwater.

Wisdom of the (little) Prince

St. Exupery is one of my favorite writers and the Little Princeis one of the more profound books of the 20th Century. While our foreign policy thinkers suck the marrow out of that Machiavelli fellow's Prince and pick at the dried carcasses of theoreticians such as Leo Strauss and George Kennan, we would all be better off if they spent an afternoon in Saint Ex's world.

"And now here is my secret, a very simple secret:
It is only with the heart that one can see rightly;
what is essential is invisible to the eye."

"What is essential is invisible to the eye,"
the little prince repeated,
so that he would be sure to remember.

"It is the time you have wasted for your rose
that makes your rose so important.

"It is the time I have wasted for my rose--
"said the little prince
so he would be sure to remember.

"Men have forgotten this truth," said the fox.
"But you must not forget it.
You become responsible, forever,
for what you have tamed.

by Antoine de Saint-Exupery

Before President Bush sent our military to overthrow the Hussein regime in Baghdad, Iraq was just another country. But it is our very act of wasting time, lives and money on the desert kingdom that has made it so valuable to us. We can not turn our backs on the fox. We are responsible for what we have tamed. Before we tamed the animal, it survived on its own ingenuity and resourcefulness. Now that it is a domesticated animal, it can not live without our care. We have a duty to care for it. And in the future, it would do well for us to ponder the consequences of taming any more animals.