They avidly, eagerly helped perpetuate militarist tyranny, torture, death squads and corruption in Latin America during the high and palmy days of the Reagan-Bush years – and now they're back in the saddle, riding as hired guns for the democracy-killing coup-coup birds in Honduras: Leader Ousted, Honduras Hires U.S. Lobbyists (New York Times):

In the months since soldiers ousted the Honduran president, Manuel Zelaya, the de facto government and its supporters have resisted demands from the United States that he be restored to power. Arguing that the left-leaning Mr. Zelaya posed a threat to their country’s fragile democracy by trying to extend his time in office illegally, they have made their case in Washington in the customary way: by starting a high-profile lobbying campaign.

The campaign has had the effect of forcing the administration to send mixed signals about its position to the de facto government, which reads them as signs of encouragement. It also has delayed two key State Department appointments in the region.

As the Times note, these retreads from the genocidal policies spawned and embraced by that beloved old pixie with a twinkle in his eyes, Ronald "Why No, This Isn't Rouge, I'm Just Flushed With Love for America" Reagan, are being joined by fresh (well, fresher) meat recruited from the courtiers who flit around imperial factionists Hillary Clinton and John McCain. (Bipartisan foreign policy in action!):

The campaign has involved law firms and public relations agencies with close ties to Secretary of State Hillary Rodham Clinton and Senator John McCain, a leading Republican voice on foreign affairs.

It has also drawn support from several former high-ranking officials who were responsible for setting United States policy in Central America in the 1980s and ’90s, when the region was struggling to break with the military dictatorships and guerrilla insurgencies that defined the cold war. Two decades later, those former officials — including Otto Reich, Roger Noriega and Daniel W. Fisk — view Honduras as the principal battleground in a proxy fight with Cuba and Venezuela, which they characterize as threats to stability in the region in language similar to that once used to describe the designs of the Soviet Union.

Naturally, the Obama Administration has been completely cowed by this fluttering of batwings from the far-right cave, and has continually diluted its already tepid opposition to the coup, no doubt in the earnest search of achieving "consensus" on Honduras policy:

...to placate its opponents in Congress, and have its nominations approved, the State Department has sometimes sent back-channel messages to legislators expressing its support for Mr. Zelaya in more equivocal terms.

“There’s been a leadership vacuum on Honduras in the administration, and these are the people who’ve filled it,” said [Chris Sabatini, editor of Americas Quarterly] of the Micheletti government’s backers. “They haven’t gotten a lot of support, but enough to hold the administration’s policy hostage for now.”

It is remarkable to see how in every case, the Obama Administration acts as if it is a minority government which won the White House by the slimmest of margins, and now must appease a powerful opposition party in control of Congress in order to get even watered-down fragments of its putative agenda passed – when in fact it was swept into office by one of the largest electoral margins in recent years and enjoys a comfortable majority control of both houses of Congress.

If Obama and crew actually had an agenda – as the hyper-militarist Dick Cheney had, when he and his front-man seized power in 2000 – then they could have pushed through any number of genuine, substantive reforms, with strong public support. But it should be clear to anyone by now that Obama, like Clinton before him, has no real idea of what he wants to do in government, or what he wants government to do: he just wants to enjoy the props and perks of power for awhile, to play the role of president, like Michael Douglas or Martin Sheen in a Aaron Sorkin fantasy, then bask in celebrityhood the rest of his days. The only real agenda of the Obama Administration is keeping Democrats in office, as Joe Biden revealed the other day, and winning a second term for the Prez. And then? Big book contracts, lucrative speaking engagements, corporate directorships, some charity PR....whatever.

The main thing is not to upset the golden applecart of the Empire and its Establishment. Thus the appearance of "weakness" consistently shown by the Administration is not due (or not solely due) to its own pusillanimousness; rather it comes from the inherent disconnect between the vague rhetoric of reform that it was forced to adopt to win popular support, and its real business: servicing the most powerful elements of a militarized, oligarchic state.

Try and name any powerful interest that Obama has taken on. The Pentagon? Whatever minor internal squabbles there may be about the exact details of escalating the "Af-Pak" war (which Obama firmly assures us will go on and on, apparently forever; pulling out is "not an option," he says), the American war machine (and the mercenaries and servicing industries that augment it) continues to grow unchecked -- in terms of size, scope, budget, destructive power and political influence. The health-care conglomerates, bane of most ordinary Americans? We all know that Obama has cut a cynical deal with these barracudas, pledging to protect (and expand) their profit margins in exchange for vast wads of cash for Democrats. The security organs? Obama has been steadfast in his support and protection of the torturers, death-squadders and black-opsters of the intelligence services, and his legal minions are constantly in the courts, seeking to uphold and expand the authoritarian encroachments of the Bush Regime. Wall Street? Please. In his cabinet choices and his "bailout" policies, Obama has given Wall Street the keys to the Treasury, to use as they please to cover up – and continue – the criminal recklessness that has plunged millions of people into misery around the world.

But let's give credit where it is due. Obama has bravely taken on one very powerful faction which exercises enormous, dominant sway over American society: poor blacks. Time and again, he has used the "bully pulpit" to admonish black men for being bad fathers, and to exhort black folk in general to quit whining about the deeply ingrained, systemic injustice and inequality of American society, which perpetuates an ever-deepening cycle of deprivation and abandonment that undermines generation after generation. They should get over this already, he says – while his wars and his Wall Street bailouts and his health-care corporate aggrandizement plans drain billions upon billions of dollars that could go to, oh, say, supporting education, nutrition, economic opportunity, neighborhood security, transportation, infrastructure legal aid, prison reform, recreation, culture and much else that could that could improve the lives and chances of the poor, of whatever race – as well as everyone else outside the tiny golden circle of the elite and their sycophants.

No, he's not afraid to stand up to African-Americans and tell them to get their own house in order. But to the Pentagon, Wall Street, war criminals, and corporate barracudas, the only message is: "Can I take your order? What do you need? Here's a blank check; just fill it in."

Thus it is not surprising to see the Administration waffling and dithering over the militarist coup in Honduras -- where the president, a wealthy businessman and member of the elite, made some noises about addressing, in some measure, a few of the immense inequalities of his society and was immediately branded a dangerous, radical Marxist whose extremism threatened the very soul and existence of the nation. Our own militarists and oligarchs (miligarchs?) have always reacted in the same way to even the slightest attempt to begin to think about the possibility of potentially taking some tiny steps toward finding a way to consider at some point in the distant future a few minor measures of limited scope and brief duration that could possibly be seen as trying to ameliorate slightly some of the deprivations of the useless and undeserving poor.

Indeed, because of the very, very faint noises that Obama himself made in this direction during his campaign, he too has faced identical charges from the Homeland miligarchs and their Fox-fed shock troops: a rich and bitter irony for a man whose obsequious services to the High Commanders of militarized Crony Capitalism are second to none.

But such charges, ludicrous as they are, do their job: they give fair warning to the current Oval Office occupant that he is there on sufferance, and that he must take the greatest pains to avoid any substantive deviation from the miligarch agenda. And so the little criminals of the Reagan-Bush years have re-emerged to re-assert the standard militarist line on Latin America: Coups R Us.

But "re-emerge" is perhaps the wrong term. These people never really go away; they are permanent representatives of the permanent American power structure: dull-witted, hard-hearted, cold-blooded apparatchiks of empire. 

Comments (21)

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Ch. Anderegg said:

	... Another superb, heart-wrenching post, Chris, which makes me seethe with outrage at Obama and his minions. At the same time, however, I am filled -- as I am after reading all your posts -- with a feeling of complete despair and omnipotence. What can one do even to begin to put an end to this criminal madness?
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October 08, 2009
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i on the ball patriot said:

... From your post; “It is remarkable to see how in every case, the Obama Administration acts as if it is a minority government which won the White House by the slimmest of margins, and now must appease a powerful opposition party in control of Congress in order to get even watered-down fragments of its putative agenda passed – when in fact it was swept into office by one of the largest electoral margins in recent years and enjoys a comfortable majority control of both houses of Congress.” This is a bullshit statement and plays right into the hands of the ruling elite by giving the scamerican ‘electoral process’ a dignity and credibility that it in no fucking way deserves! The implication of your “fact” is wrong. Obama was not elected by the people. Obama was appointed on “power's own turf, using power's own distorting terms, and making power's case, not yours.” All of this lip service and attention given to the charade Republican and Democrat theater -- which is funded, owned and controlled by the ruling elite -- only serves to perpetuate it. Its time to take the blinders off! They are ALL fucking sell out low life stooges. Just as you make the case for not using the phony ‘intelligence’ produced by lackeys of the ruling elite because it frames the debate, it is time to see the parallels and stop giving credence to the spawn of the scam ‘electoral process’. No meaningful change will ever take place until the electoral process is reformed. Honest and open elections are key to removing the aggregate generational corruption that exists in the scamericain ‘rule of law’. It is the corrupt scamerican ‘rule of law’ that produced, allowed, and perpetuates, the scum bag players that had a hand in forging the Honduran uptight and anal ‘rule of law’ that Zelaya is accused of corrupting. Deception is the strongest political force on the planet.

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October 08, 2009
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Yankee 30 said:

... Barack's mojo ain't workin'... "No, he's not afraid to stand up to African-Americans and tell them to get their own house in order." Detroit is America's 'fastest dying city'. Detroit is over 80% African-American. I don't have numbers, but the heathens on Wall Street must be well over 90% white(no, not much slave progeny in that group of shysters). The subprime mortgage crisis caused African-Americans their greatest collective loss of wealth in U.S. history. -Look down the road 'Fer as my eyes could see Hey-hey, yeah 'Fer as my eyes could see And I couldn't see nothin' Looked like mine, to me- Skip James, 1930 something...

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October 08, 2009
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Donald L. Smith said:

Partisan? I have never felt that this site upheld the illusory crap which sustains "American Politics". The barb that using the terminology of the state perpetuates that state may have some merit, though if one were to examine the years of writing which the esteemed Mr. Floyd has produced, I am sure that no major party would find any comfort. So far as removing blinders may go, I would suggest that there are far more targets than this site. This site gives comfort only to those that are trying like hell to escape from the psych job which is the corporatist state. A small breath nof liberty in a swamp of terror.

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October 08, 2009
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Bill Jones said:

surely some mistake: MSNBC has a little segment actually telling the truth! http://dailybail.com/home/vide...of-na.html Highlights * "The beneficiaries of an ongoing $24 trillion taxpayer-funded bailout...$24 trillion dollars." * "That is national capital that is being sucked into a broken banking system at the expense of the rest of our country. They continue to use "Too Big To Fail" as blackmail to the taxpayer in order to get us to provide capital to them." * "It is a system that takes resources from the citizenry and redistributes it to a tiny elite." * "A handful of weak, un-competitive, outdated companies and industries are purchasing control of the American political system in order to stay in business using their cronyism. * "It is coming at the direct expense of the rest of us in this nation. And it's a total betrayal of everything that represents America."

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scott douglas said:

Sausage This is a powerful statement which pulls in a lot of history and slaps it out cold, like a slab of lard, while drawing in all the bits and pieces of reality it requires to attempt to represent the situation as it actually is... HA! Chris has been watching this machine as long as I have and, having a superior education and a superior mind, he knows all of the Plutocrat's "The Miligarch's" maneouvres. You will not be fooled if you check in here to reckon with what is REALLY happening. That's a fact.

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October 08, 2009
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Chris Floyd said:

... The remarks concerning what Obama could have done are predicated on two purely rhetorical assumptions: first, that he would have WANTED to do these things; and second, that anyone who really did want to do these things would have been allowed by the power structure to be a "serious" candidate in the rigged political system in the first place. Both of these assumptions are obviously false -- as I have pointed out time and time and time and time and time again on this site, and in other forums, on-line and in print, month after month, year after year. The particular rhetorical devices used in this particular post, in regards to Obama's electoral mandate, were aimed at those who do still believe in the false assumptions noted above. As I said in reference to a comment on an earlier post, one cannot spell out everything about everything in every single outing on a blog. If you found the rhetorical devices to be a "bullshit statement," it seems to me that either you did not understand their use in this context, or that you are not familiar with my work in general, or both -- or, yes, that I did not make myself sufficiently clear on this point in this particular post. Although, I must say, it is tedious beyond words to have to spell out every little nuance and context in every post. In any case, if I offended your eye-balling patriotism, I apologize most heartily.

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October 08, 2009
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Ovid said:

Inside the National Security State Chris I don't know whether you're fed up or have a ghostwriter, but you've gone a little astray from your usual clarity there. As you well know, the military, intel agencies, and the rest of the National Security State are powerful. Presidents do not "take on" the Pentagon, and when the Pentagon takes them on they leave office sooner rather than later, one way or another. A President can take on a general or two or even a few more in some cases, but no President successfully takes on The Pentagon. There are some signs indicating that Barack Obama didn't have anything to do with the coup in Honduras and I would bet wasn't even in the loop, though of course the US military was. Hugo Chavez didn't have any grudge against Obama at the UN. In fact, he praised him. Yet Zelaya was thrown out of office just a few months ago, and Chavez has said that the US clearly had to be involved. Why wouldn't Chavez hold that against Obama? Because Hugo Chavez knows who was calling the shots in Honduras. He has said that US Generals were behind the coup. Now, I don't expect many people in the media to have the cojones to say that the US military topples governments without even asking the President for his opinion on the subject, but be flattered, because I expect more from you. When a President, or Vice President, wants to do what the militarists want him to do, he can be very powerful in amplifying the power of the military and National Security State. That's entirely different from trying to shrink or weaken the military and the National Security State. Why? Because powerful interests don't mind someone increasing their power, but they feel quite differently about someone reducing it. That's really pretty simple. And it explains why someone sitting in the same chair in the White House can be either the most powerful person in the world or, it sometimes seems, barely able to find someone to sharpen his pencils. When your readers "seethe at Obama and his minions," they have become confused. In our time, the National Security State is Tolkien's Ring of Power. Obama could become vastly powerful just by doing what the National Security State is whispering in his ear. As soon as Obama gives in to that whispering, he'll be orders of magnitude more powerful, and be seen as much more powerful, especially in the media. Even a fool like George Bush looked powerful once he became a War President. It is Obama's reluctance to let the full power of the National Security State flow through him that keeps him weak in the public eye. That's really about all he can successfully do. That secret spot where the National Security State was forged, and as Tolkien fans would realize the only place where it can be destroyed, is now guarded by several thousand hydrogen bombs, Predator and Reaper drones, aircraft carriers, hundred of thousands of troops, hundreds of military bases around the world, stealth aircraft, several intelligence agencies, a homeland and an empire, bioweapons, disinformation specialists, propagandists, legions of corrupt politicians, an apathetic public, and thousands of professional liars. Not even Frodo and Gandolph could through that wilderness of mirrors and jungle full of monsters to find it. So I'm just glad for Obama not putting on the damn ring.

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Chris Floyd said:

... OK, I'm flattered by your high expectations. But I'm a little confused. Are we supposed to applaud Obama for not "putting on the Ring of Power," even though he is happy to stand as a figurehead for all those sinister forces who ARE using the Ring? And how exactly is overseeing -- as figurehead or not -- a vast Terror War churning up the lives of innocent human beings all over the world, day after day, NOT considered "putting on the Ring of Power"? I honestly don't get it. If, as you say, the source of the Ring's power is now unassailable, and Obama still willingly, nay eagerly seeks the highest office in such a system -- a system in which, as we noted above, he will stand as the emblem of all those who "put on the damn ring," whether he does or not, then what does that say about him? What is there to applaud or be glad for with such a man? And what powers has he renounced -- he who has gone to court over and over to preserve and expand the authoritarian encroachments of Bush, he who has kept Bush's War Machine leadership intact, he who is maintaining and expanding the wars Bush started, he who is using the public purse to bail out the elite that Bush once jokingly if revealingly called "my base"? Again, I just don't understand the need to find some way to cut Obama some kind of slack, however small. No one put a gun to his head and made him run for president in such a system. I may be fed up -- although I'm not a ghost yet - but I still hold with what Thoreau said so many years ago, which I have repeated so many times: "How does it become a man to behave toward this American government to-day? I answer that he cannot without disgrace be associated with it."

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October 09, 2009
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Ovid said:

Ok, I'll ditch the analogy Chris I don't think it's necessary to applaud Obama. I'm perpetually disappointed with the government, especially the National Security State, and Obama is its titular head. But the Generals aren't happy with him, and though he is fumbling around trying to change this and that with less than dramatic results that include only a few modest successes, I don't think it's accurate to say that he has been trying to "preserve and expand the authoritarian encroachments of Bush." Even if he tried to reverse all Bush's initiatives, he couldn't; the bureaucracy doesn't turn on a dime, especially in that direction. That's one of my points. Obama is of course not living up to his rhetoric, and he's a politician, not Henry David Thoreau, so I'm not under any illusions that he has something other than a political agenda. But I'm not seeing enthusiasm on his part for being a War President or otherwise becoming Evil. He could do that, and I think he would profit politically from it if he did because he would then have a great deal more Power behind him, so I give him some credit for not doing it. I probably should just have left the Ring of Power out of it, beacuse I don't mean to suggest that Obama doesn't care about power. He obviously sought it out, but he didn't seek it out unconditionally, however many compromises he has made to get it. If he wanted a lot more power, he could have it by taking the Pentagon's lead, and then his fighting with the Generals would be over. He is described as running the risk of antagonizing his base if he were to do that, but I don't believe it. The public certainly isn't going to turn decisively against Obama because of Afghanistan, no matter what the polls show. We have become a passive people, and that war is too remote from the lives of most people. On the other hand, the elites of the National Security State and their corporate patrons can ruin Obama, and I'm sure he knows it. He's definitely smart. By the way, Henry David Thoreau only spent one night in jail, and he didn't exactly become John Brown. Abraham Lincoln, on the other hand, a rhetorically gifted politician who took only one unpopular political position in his entire career and suspended habeas corpus during the Civil War, made a much bigger contribution to the advancement of human freedom and happiness. Presidents can rise above their record. I can understand the point of view that anybody who takes a job as head of an empire, with supervisory responsibility over immoral invasions and mass murder and all that brutalilty and injustice, can't be any good. Maybe that's right, and God or Whatever can sort that out in the next world, but you don't have to be Gandhi to be an improvement over the militarists in the National Security State. A President can turn out to have some backbone and refuse to do the wrong thing, which back in the day often involved starting a nuclear war. These days it probably more often involves escalating wars or attacking Iran or something else they get deftly maneuvered into doing. The folks who run the National Security State are good at that. If you read some Peter Dale Scott and some Franz Schurmann and some Bruce Cumings, to name a few, you can get a very good feel for that. Stubbornly defiant or resistant Presidents usually end up being presented with rotten choices to pick from, but more often than you'd think in the past the choice that the public viewed as warmongering was the least violent realistic course of action open to them. You've probably read enough Daniel Ellsberg to know what we'd have for a planet now if the Generals in the Pentagon had made some of those decisions. So I've just grown sick of the politicians taking all the blame when they aren't really the prime movers, sometimes aren't even in the loop, and sometimes have actually tried to avoid what they ultimately got maneuvered or boxed into doing. Like Arthur Silber, I don't feel like enough people will ever figure it out to do anything about it, but I feel compelled to say it anyway. The Pentagon and the National Security State are the problem, and no President will ever do anything to fix these problems until their power is drastically reduced. It's probably either going to be a long, hard slog, or its going to come about quickly as a result of enormous and violent social chaos, but that's the problem.

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Jenny said:

	... But Obama does have the power to veto or pass any law that comes down the pipeline and so far, he's vetoed bills that would've immeadately closed Guantanamo, given the U.S. universal healthcare, continued to support the employee free choice act, etc. So yes, we have a right to be angry at him.
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Ovid said:

	... Jenny Those facts are a little off, but I get your point. Sure, be angry at Obama if that motivates you. Demand real change. Just make sure you get rid of the National Security State and bring the military and intel agencies under real, meaningful civilian control when you do or nothing will end up being different. That's the problem.
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Ovid said:

	And your Nobel Peace Prize Winner is. . . I guess this is the Nobel folks way of telling W how much they miss him. I can't wait to read the posts around this place today. P.S. It wasn't me! I didn't get a vote!
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jason said:

... ovid, you are wrong in that obama is the one standing in front of the cameras every day. "obama can't do xyz." ok, fine. but all this talk about obama finessing his relationship w/the "real powers" is sheer nonsense. if obama had an iota of interest of changing one damn thing about the power dynamics in the US, the only way he can do that is by opening his mouth to the american public about the true nature of those power dynamics. of course that will never happen. and why not? because obama is an abject coward and has already joined the league of the most grotesque beasts humanity has already spawned. obama is fully in the Club and will do nothing (intentionally, anyway) to hurt its interests. why do you deny obama his own agency? only an informed & motivated public can thwart the militarism of the US, and obama is doing everything he can to prevent such a public from ever materializing.

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October 09, 2009
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scott douglas said:

REALLY Ovid, I grew up on Strategic Air Command reservations, and I can assure you that there is nothing even remotely romantic, epic, redeeming or glorious about the State's business of hair-trigger mass annihilation -- not even in the sense of all things encompassing or implying or engendering the seeds of their opposite: just Destruction. Nor is there any hidden narrative of 'good-guy struggling within or inside or under the radar of the system to right the wrongs of history' -- no, not anywhere within a parsec of the apparatus of the Imperial war machine: only warping and schizoid-dealing impending Death; personal, familial, social, spiritual, and final. You must not project your own humanity into or onto the Emperor. Nor imagine yourself in his place, The White House, the epicenter of the actual Death machine where you will find the real Mr. Barry -- a slick charlatan who, as has every other such high-climber, long ago taken his vows. And he didn't tie the knot with you and yours. Your analysis will clear up if you snap to that. The adolescent quest thing has to be shelved. Believe me, I know. Sorry.

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Sean O'Neil said:

	... Ovid's perspective is so unique, I can't discern it from Arianna Huffington's, or Markos Moulitsas Zuniga's.
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October 09, 2009
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i on the ball patriot said:

... My apologies if I appear to harsh. I am generally familiar with your writing, and applaud what I have seen of it. I did get the context but felt that it was still suggesting that the people of scamerica have the ability to have someone “swept into office” and thereby implied veracity to the electoral process itself. This would be especially so for newer readers who were not familiar with your writing and unaware of the context. We are all on different parts of the trail. Nuance? Yes. But it is an important nuance. Almost the entire political discourse in scamerica has been co-opted and focused around this false political ruling elite theater. Few incessantly question the veracity of the rigged electoral process itself, and few again incessantly suggest that changing it is key to wiping out the aggregate generational corruption embodied in the scam ‘rule of law’. No, instead we unwittingly, or intentionally through rhetorical device, give lip service to the process, and the scum it produces, by jumping from one amazing hypocrisy to another amazing hypocrisy, almost on command, leaving very little time for remedial calls to action that would consolidate and make louder our individual voices. This system will never be changed from within, the wealthy elite have designed it that way. It is time to get out on the streets and burn voter registration cards! It is time to loudly proclaim; ‘No Confdidence’ in this scam electoral process and the governments it produces. It is time to organize that effort free of the daily distractions of the machinations of the sell outs that this scam system produces. Deception is the strongest political force on the planet.

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John Flyger said:

... Jason: You wrote: "only an informed & motivated public can thwart the militarism of the US, and obama is doing everything he can to prevent such a public from ever materializing." I'm with you on the first part, but not on the second. I don't see that at all. Scott Douglas: Maybe the adolescent "quest thing" you're talking about is my Ring of Power analogy. I ditched that, since it had some problems, but the point behind it remains the same. You seemed to have taken my metaphorical dramatic language to another level, which I deserve but doesn't get us anywhere. I don't really understand how your having grown up as an air force kid has much too do with anything unless you had some great childhood security clearances. What I said doesn't have anything to do with Obama being a "good guy struggling within the system." You don't have to be a good guy to not be the real problem, which is systemic and institutional. I just don't think anyone should have thought Obama could change the National Security State very easily or very much. Some people love to give Obama big sloppy kisses, others like to rant about how evil he is. I think that's just the other side of the same coin, and it keeps people from recognizing the real problem. To switch analogies, right now we have on one side of the "political power teeter totter" the military, intel agencies, all or nearly all large corporations, the GOP, the major media, Blue Dog Dems, conservatives, and on the other side we have some lefty bloggers, pacifists, and that part of the public not persuaded that we should be so free about killing innocent people in foreign countries. The truth is worth something, but in politics not nearly as much as money, and it's pretty obvious that all the wealthy and powerful forces are on the side of the National Security State. Obama is a politician. He has to have a viable political position to change anything. He doesn't have a lot of power to call upon to help him fight the National Security State, so it doesn't surprise me he is cautious about it and that he doesn't have dramatic success. Go build a movement. If you build it, they will come. And by they, in this instance, I mean leaders. Maybe one who already has a Nobel Prize will even turn up.

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Ovid said:

	... Sean O'Neil: It certainly doesn't surprise me that you can't tell anything from anything else, but the idea of putting my words in Arianna Huffington's mouth is sort of funny. She would lock herself in her room and pretend to have laryngitis for as long as it took to get rid of those words.
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2Truthy said:

	Didn't Gore Also Buy One of These Things? This news comes as no surprise. Obama is working for the tech lobby, and BFF Al Gore (he of GIM global carbon trading fame) is a partner at Kleiner Perkins.
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October 10, 2009 | url
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Sean O'Neil said:

	... Ovid, your spite is almost as attractive as your empire-defense. Which is the act? Both? One? The other?
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October 11, 2009
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