Friday, March 09, 2007

Official No Blood for Hubris Mental Health Interlude No. Eleventy-Twelve


"Yesterday, I. Lewis Libby, a.k.a. 'The Scooter', the vice president's chief of staff found guilty on four of five counts ranging from obstruction of justice to lying to a grand jury. Yes, we got the guy -- the one-man cancer on this White House has been removed." --Jon Stewart

"Obviously, this has come at a bad time for the White House. Usually, you want the conviction of a high-ranking official and the veterans-sleeping-in-moldy-rat-holes stories on different days." --Jon Stewart

"The White House feels very strongly this is yet another case of activist jurors destroying the lives of the disabled. These $5-a-day zealots were determined to put a man in jail just because a few details slipped his feeble mind." --Daily Show correspondent Samantha Bee

"This whole scandal came to light when Robert Novak became the first person to publish details outing the CIA operative. And it really would be a shame if amidst all the legal wrangling and the heated words about this case we lost sight of the one essential truth that I think all parties can agree on: Bob Novak is a HUGE douche bag." --Jon Stewart

"In the Valerie Plame case, Scooter Libby was found not guilty . . . on one of the five charges. . . . But the media is instead focusing, of course, on the four counts of perjury, lying to the FBI and obstruction of justice for which Libby was convicted. It's typical. They always see the glass as 80% guilty." --Stephen Colbert

"We have received word that many hundreds of American troops are being held in deplorable, squalid conditions. What kind of people would treat our soldiers in this horrible manner? Funny story -- turns out, it's us.

In a bombshell story, the Washington Post has reported that several buildings at the military's Walter Reed Medical Center are so poorly maintained that they are pits riddled with water damage, black mold, and in the case of the notorious Building 18, rampant infestation of cockroaches and rodents at Walter Reed. I can understand this kind of thing if you were running, I don't know, some kind of fast-food restaurant. Or, let's say, a hospital for cockroaches that had been injured in some kind of vermin battle.

"Why aren't we hearing the other side of this issue? Yes, there is tons of black mold growing in the walls where we house our wounded soldiers. But nobody mentions, mold can be used to make cheese . . . and penicillin. You might say Walter Reed's walls are dripping with medicine." --Jon Stewart

"The president has said no one supports the troops more than him. So, if you take him at his word -- and I see no reason not to -- anyone leaving the army is necessarily going into a less supportive environment, and that can't be an easy transition. . . . [These shoddy conditions] are a halfway house, so that soldiers can get accustomed to their terrifying, new Bushless world. You just can't throw them back to their family and friends, where God knows what will happen to them. You need to ease them into it with six months to a year of squalid aftercare in some type of bureaucratic limbo" --Daily Show correspondent John Oliver

"Those brave Americans who put themselves in harm's way. . . . I'm talking, of course, about the members of Congress who toured Walter Reed last week. Someone had to have the courage to walk through that hospital and then have the press document their disapproval. These folks have been fighting to improve the conditions for our wounded soldiers ever since the very beginning of two weeks ago." --Stephen Colbert

"It's hard for us civilians to understand the kind of sacrifice it takes for a congressman to respond to a Washington Post article, so let me put this into perspective for you: They can't just look out their window to see what's happening at Walter Reed. No, they have to get into a car. Walter Reed hospital is more than six miles from the Capitol. . . . Getting to Walter Reed from the Capitol is a march through hell, one that evidently takes more than four years to make" --Stephen Colbert

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