Click thing to read bigger, grunt!

A new page of Wanderlost. Full of sharks. We all need more sharks in our lives.

Setting aside the obvious point that even mobsters and drug lords deserve representation in a court of law, we should not get sucked into Thiessen’s argument that The Public Has a Right to Know when Justice Department lawyers have experience advocating the rights of the accused. He’s created a false equivalency that would seem to mine new depths in intellectual dishonesty were it not for this next question:

Where was the moral outrage when fine lawyers like John Yoo, Jay Bybee, David Addington, Jim Haynes, Steve Bradbury and others came under vicious personal attack?

That is the dumbest question I have ever read in the pages of WaPo — a feat, given the other members of the op/ed brain trust over there. But I’ll humor him. Here’s the obvious answer: we were too busy being outraged by the unethical and illegal advice the “fine lawyers” gave to an administration too eager to apply techniques favored by the Khmer Rouge and Augusto Pinochet’s thugs. Besides, it is hard to get too vicious in attacking a guy like John Yoo who can be so cavalier about massacring villagers and crushing little boy’s testicles.

UPDATED to include this excellent riposte by Dahlia Lithwick:

Ten years ago, if some paranoid hysteric accused you of being an al-Qaida sympathizer or a jihadist, you could find a lawyer to help you make the case that you were not. But in the ever-expanding war on the Bill of Rights being waged by Liz Cheney, once you’re designated a terrorist, you lose your Sixth Amendment right to counsel. Because just by representing you—even if you’re acquitted—your lawyers become terrorists, too!

Read the whole thing, cuz Dahlia brings the pain. Also, Glenn Greenwald jumps on Thiessen and takes down Fred Hiatt.

And that positive outcome is that Iraq will be the first Arab country to have a genuine functioning democratic system with a free press, open economy and that is something of a revolution in the Middle East.

So what Iraq has to demonstrate is that the majority, which will inevitably be largely Shia, has the capacity to give some form of representation to the various minorities within Iraq. Iraq has to show that it understands that democracy is not just majority rule but pluralism and inclusion for the various minority groups.

So in the long arc of history was this worth it? You probably do need a little more time and perspective, and you do need to see how it turns out. But I think we could be heartened by the fact there are things we can place on the positive side of the ledger to balance the enormous costs that both the Iraqis and the Americans have paid.

How reasonable. That Fareed is a reasonable centrist guy. He takes out a ledger and draws two columns, one labeled “Pluses” and the other “Minuses.” In the negative column: Abu Ghraib, hundreds of thousands of dead civilians, destabilized Middle East, Halliburton, Blackwater, civil war, balkanization, American soldiers killed or traumatized, including a rise in domestic violence and suicide. In the plus column: neocon talking points. See? It all balances out. Just ask Ahmad Chalabi.

Meanwhile, the U.S.-led GWOT has new fronts in Somalia and Yemen. When I say “Yemen,” you say, “underpants bomber” and “Ft. Hood shooter.” When I say “Somalia,” you say, “pirates.” When I snap my fingers, you will have no recollection of this conversation. Currently, the U.S. is assisting a Somalian military effort to retake Mogadishu from Al Shahab and al-Qaeda control.

Most of the American military assistance to the Somali government has been focused on training, or has been channeled through African Union peacekeepers. But that could change. An American official in Washington, who said he was not authorized to speak publicly, predicted that American covert forces would get involved if the offensive, which could begin in a few weeks, dislodged Qaeda terrorists.

“What you’re likely to see is airstrikes and Special Ops moving in, hitting and getting out,” the official said.

Perhaps I have been reading too much John le Carré that it’s making me all cynical about the motives and competence of everyone involved, but this tidbit toward the end of the article offers some amusing trivia:

There seems to be a qualitative difference, too. Somalia’s forces are now led by General Gelle, a colonel in Somalia’s army decades ago who most recently was an assistant manager at a McDonald’s in Germany. He is known among Somali war veterans as one of the best Somali officers still alive.

I have nothing to add to the parting words of Kai Eide. But I think the Google Ad accompanying the article adds something to the conversation, don’t you?

Um, words on technique: I used dry brush for shadow and texture effects. I feel like I should have made the dung ball more poopy, but the reference photos I used showed some rather bland balls of dung.

See what I mean? Look more like balls of straw and gum. Again, I tip my hat to dung beetle mad skillz. I should just accept that as a cartoonist, I am not bound by reality.

Click it to embiggen it!

Friday’s caricature will arrive later today. Targets — I mean, subjects will be Liz Cheney and Bill Kristol.

Mr. Rove adamantly rejects allegations that the administration deliberately lied about the presence of weapons in Saddam Hussein’s Iraq. But he acknowledges that the failure to find them badly damaged Mr. Bush’s presidency, and he blames himself for not countering the narrative that “Bush lied,” calling it “one of the biggest mistakes of the Bush years.”

Too bad it’s the wrong lesson.

Anyhoo, nothing new. Remember – “it was just a matter of emphasis.” (Link found via Mikhaela.)

I wrote about this tool earlier. Rendered with a humble Pilot Precise 5 pen. Those are great for sketches. I like the bite of the line work here. I wonder if I can duplicate it in a more finished product. The challenge is to not tighten up, but respond to the line you are putting down. I’ll be using different tools — a couple of Hunt crow quills — so the line will feel different. But those quills have plenty of teeth. We’ll see.

Glad that sideshow’s over. I have not lived in New York in 15 years, but I still take its politics very seriously. I didn’t want no Teabagging Palinites and I don’t want no Carpetbagging Blue Dogs.

FWIW, I was born in Tennessee, but I’d be totally happy to send Ford back home. I doubt he wants to go back. Can you blame him?

Kentucky GOP senator Jim Bunning screwed over 1.2 million jobless Americans with one filibuster. And that ain’t all:

“This means that construction workers will be sent home from job sites because federal inspectors must be furloughed.”Federal projects shut down include more than $38 million in project funding for Idaho’s Nez Perce National Forest and Fernan Lakes Idaho Panhandle National Forest and $86 million for bridge replacements in the Washington, D.C., area. Bunning’s home state of Kentucky has no projects affected by his action.

However, nearly 1.2 million unemployed workers, including 14,000 in Kentucky, would lose federal jobless benefits this month if Congress doesn’t extend them, according to the National Employment Law Project, a liberal-leaning research group. The U.S. Labor Department estimates that about a third will lose benefits in the first two weeks of the month.

I’m glad the press has found the ovaries/cajones to confront this dill-hole. “Excuse me! This is a senators-only elevator!” should be the new “get off my lawn.”

David Rees already has an excellent Halloween costume in Bunning’s honor. (Link via Brian McFadden tweet.)

UPDATE: Jon Kyl of Arizona says people on unemployment are lazy shits anyway. Kick ‘em off the rolls, make ‘em desperate for a job. Oh, sorry; that wasn’t fair. Let his own words hang him:

“I’m sure most of them would like work and probably have tried to seek it, but you can’t argue that it’s a job enhancer. If anything, as I said, it’s a disincentive. And the same thing with the COBRA extension and the other extensions here,” said Kyl.

See? He was being nice. As he takes away their food and rent and health care money, he makes sure to say polite things about their hard-workiness.