Whimpers

The first whimper is the one that comes after “not with a bang but…” — President Obama has announced all U.S. troops will be withdrawn from Iraq by the end of this year.

It really is good news, but it seems a bit … anticlimactic, yes? See also Digby, who points out that we’ve got the Mother of All Embassies in Baghdad, and it’s going to take a small standing (and probably mercenary) army to protect it.

Sell the bleepin’ embassy to a mall developer, I say. Who needs it?

The next whimper is from Eric Cantor, who canceled a speech at the University of Pennsylvania’s Wharton business zchool today because he was afraid … of increased attendance? That’s what Ben Smith says … “Cantor spokesman Brad Dayspring said the decision to cancel was made as a result of the increased attendance.”

“Increased attendance” may have referred to the this —

Occupy Philly, the Center for American Progress and Keystone Progress, in addition to Penn students, planned a protest outside the event with an expected crowd of 500 to 1,000.

The third whimper is more of a bleat — Lindsey Graham thinks we need to get people on the ground in Libya, fast, because there is money to be made there. And oil! Seriously. Just listen:

Via Annie Laurie, here is a partial transcript:

If we could have kept American air power in the fight it would have been over quicker. Sixty-thousand Libyans have been wounded, 3,000 maimed, 25,000 killed. Let’s get in on the ground. There is a lot of money to be made in the future in Libya. Lot of oil to be produced. Let’s get on the ground and help the Libyan people establish a democracy and a functioning economy based on free market principles.

Yes, let’s invade another Muslim country because it has oil. Charles Pierce:

Jesus H. Christ on a catamaran, he could’ve waited a couple of days.

But Senator Huckleberry Grabitall is an impatient fellow. There’s oil under them that corpses, and it’s by god our oil, so we should just go in and drink that damn milkshake before our plucky allies decide that, just because it’s under their sand, they have some sort of legal right to the stuff. Sorry so many of them got killed — Psst! A lot more of them would have been alive if Mighty Man Me had been running things — but we’re past all that now. Sweep ’em aside and let’s go to work.

Sometimes I wonder if people like Huckleberry actually know how ludicrous they sound, not merely to us, but to the rest of the world. Right now, whatever government exists in Libya is rolling bandages, collapsing from exhaustion, and just trying to keep seven or eight light bulbs burning at once. That’s okay, though, because Senator Huckleberry wants to air-drop the Economics Department from the University of Chicago in there to set up a “government based on free-market principles” — which, in this case, means don’t even think about nationalizing your own oil, Achmed.

Elsewhere — Rupert Murdoch could be whimpering after some of his investors get hold of him.

Things Fall Apart

A lot of the negative news about OWS is coming from Fox News and the New York Post, and I tend to disregard both sources. But what Alex Klein reports for New York magazine seems credible to me. Apparently there is friction in Zuccotti Park between people who are serious about building a movement and the usual spoiled attention whores who so often show up at lefty events.

Apparently some among the OWSers are trying to keep some kind of discipline and order, partly so as not to give the city an excuse to evict them, and it’s being resented. One 19-year-old male complained that “They are becoming the government we’re trying to protest.” (Like the government, or his parents?)

The serious ones are hoping cold weather will drive out the un-serious, but in my experience the really freezing weather sometimes doesn’t show up until late December in Manhattan. A lot can happen in two months. I hope for their sakes they can figure out a way to keep it together, but they ought to consider encouraging people to leave if they aren’t willing to respect some community rules.

Our Glorious News Media

Once upon a time — apparently yesterday — the First Family bus tour stopped at a pumpkin farm. The First Lady bought some pumpkins for the White House, including a whopping 70-pound “full moon” white pumpkin. The President said, “[Where] are you going to put it? In the back of the bus?”

Headline at U.S. News: Obama Sends White Pumpkins to the ‘Back of the Bus’

Seriously. And the dog whistlers are out in force. If you have the stomach for it it, see comments here and here.

It’s possible the U.S. News headline writer was just trying to be cute, but the rabid racists of the right don’t get jokes. And it really wasn’t funny.

Another shining moment for rightie media.

See David Sirota’s account of his wife’s run for school board. Unreal.

Labor Winning, Jobs Losing

Go Ohio

Labor is poised for a big victory in Ohio next month- PPP’s newest poll of the state finds that voters intend to reject Senate Bill 5 by a 56-36 margin.

See also Kay at Balloon Juice:

This was never about balancing a state budget or public employee benefit packages. It is now and was always about destroying organized labor in both the public and the private sector. If conservatives can eradicate unions in the Rust Belt states, they can kill them anywhere.

Liz Cheney, Karl Rove and the media personalities at Fox News don’t go to war over teachers in Ohio paying 10% more out of pocket for health insurance. None of them live here. Why on earth would national conservatives be pouring all this energy and all these assets into a state budgeting issue? That’s nonsense, and an insult to the intelligence of the voters in this state. Unions, both public sector and private sector, represent their members in Ohio and nationally, hence their (huge) presence here, during this campaign. Who are Cheney and Rove working for, and why?

Republicans obstruct even pared-down jobs bill. Are you paying attention to this, America?

See also — Pay data — fewer jobs, lower pay. Plus a great cartoon.