Susan Sarandon’s mother is a rabid Republican.

Susan Sarandon’s mother is a rabid Republican.

Michael Moore has a stupid open letter to George W. Bush on his web site today.

I know it should be beneath me, and it’s an arcade game full of targets for cheap shots, but it’s just too much fun. Just in time for the President’s address, I herewith give it the fisking for which it begs:

George W. Bush
1600 Pennsylvania Ave.
Washington, DC

Dear Governor Bush:

“Governor” Bush? Isn’t that the guy down in Tallahassee? You know, the President’s brother? He’s certainly gotten this letter off on the right (so to speak) foot.

So today is what you call “the moment of truth,” the day that “France and the rest of world have to show their cards on the table.” I’m glad to hear that this day has finally arrived. Because, I gotta tell ya, having survived 440 days of your lying and conniving, I wasn’t sure if I could take much more. So I’m glad to hear that today is Truth Day, ’cause I got a few truths I would like to share with you:

This is pretty rich, coming from a guy who has a best-selling book that competes with John Pilger’s in terms of numbers of lies per page. It’s worse than the pot calling the kettle black–it’s more like, ummmm…someone with the girth of, say, Michael Moore, calling Kate Moss morbidly obese.

1. There is virtually NO ONE in America (talk radio nutters and Fox News aside) who is gung-ho to go to war. Trust me on this one.

“Trust me on this one”? Trust you, the man who still claims that Eric and Dylan went bowling that morning?

Yup, we’ll just ignore all those opinion polls, Mikey, and trust a published purveyor of falsehoods.

Walk out of the White House and on to any street in America and try to find five people who are PASSIONATE about wanting to kill Iraqis. YOU WON’T FIND THEM! Why? ‘Cause NO Iraqis have ever come here and killed any of us! No Iraqi has even threatened to do that. You see, this is how we average Americans think: If a certain so-and-so is not perceived as a threat to our lives, then, believe it or not, we don’t want to kill him! Funny how that works!

Of course, this is a stupid strawman argument (putting it on par with most of his arguments), since even the most PASSIONATE supporter of the war has NO DESIRE TO KILL IRAQIS. The goal is to REMOVE SADDAM HUSSEIN. In order to do so, we will have to drop some bombs, and some of Hussein’s minions will be killed, and perhaps even some innocent civilians, but many more will die at his hands than ours, and unlike him, we’ll greatly regret it. Funny how that works.

2. The majority of Americans — the ones who never elected you — are not fooled by your weapons of mass distraction.

Did Bill Clinton ever get a majority of the vote, let alone a majority of Americans, Mike? My vague recollection is that he only got 43% the first time, and couldn’t break fifty percent the second time, the one that was supposedly a “landslide.” After more than two years, this “selected, not elected” crap is getting stale, and covered with mold and flies.

We know what the real issues are that affect our daily lives — and none of them begin with I or end in Q.

Of course, judging by this, and his life’s CV, Mr. Moore’s thing beginning with I and ending with Q seems to be single digit.

Here’s what threatens us: two and a half million jobs lost since you took office, the stock market having become a cruel joke, no one knowing if their retirement funds are going to be there, gas now costs almost two dollars — the list goes on and on. Bombing Iraq will not make any of this go away. Only you need to go away for things to improve.

In what way would the president’s “going away” make any of those things improve, Mike? Have you ever taken a course in logic, and premises, and causality, and not mistaking correlation with causation?

You literally don’t have to answer that question.

3. As Bill Maher said last week, how bad do you have to suck to lose a popularity contest with Saddam Hussein?

I don’t know, Mike.

Maybe you can answer this one. How much does it suck to be part of a political movement that’s continually outwitted by a retarded monkey?

The whole world is against you, Mr. Bush. Count your fellow Americans among them.

Oh, no, the government that rolled over its own people with tanks fourteen years ago is against us. What, oh what, are we doing wrong?

When you say “fellow Americans,” which of the sixty-plus percent that support the war would those be again, Mike?

4. The Pope has said this war is wrong, that it is a SIN. The Pope!

And since when do you consider the Pope a moral authority? Do you agree with his stand on birth control and abortion, too?

What?! You mean you’re a cafeteria Catholic (not to mention one who was asked to leave the seminary)?

So why should we be interested in your hypocritical invocation of his authority in this matter, when you don’t accept it in many others?

But even worse, the Dixie Chicks have now come out against you!

But even even worse, the Dixie Chicks’ fans have come out against them! They’re having CD-smashing parties, complete with dreaded SUVs and tractors (you know, what know-nothing yahoos, and heretofore fans of the Dixie Chicks, drive?).

They’re off many C&W radio stations’ playlists. Run a poll of Texans as to which native they’re prouder of. If you believe that Natalie Maines will come out ahead of Dubya, you’re beyond delusional, Mike.

How bad does it have to get before you realize that you are an army of one on this war?

Well, one plus sixty-plus percent of the American people. Pesky things, those facts.

Of course, this is a war you personally won’t have to fight.

Quick, grant the South their independence! Reenslave the blacks! Lincoln never personally fought in the Civil War!

Just like when you went AWOL while the poor were shipped to Vietnam in your place.

Mikey, we understand your ignorance of the military, having never even been in appropriate physical condition to have served, even if you’d ever evinced a desire, but AWOL means “Absent Without Leave,” not “flew jets in the National Guard.”

5. Of the 535 members of Congress, only ONE (Sen. Johnson of South Dakota) has an enlisted son or daughter in the armed forces! If you really want to stand up for America, please send your twin daughters over to Kuwait right now and let them don their chemical warfare suits. And let’s see every member of Congress with a child of military age also sacrifice their kids for this war effort. What’s that you say? You don’t THINK so? Well, hey, guess what — we don’t think so either!

I’m sure he will, Mike, just as soon as you put your own pudgy lardass on the line and head over to be a human shield. Perhaps you could put your body in front of Saddam himself. Hell, with the shadow your blubbery corpus casts, I’ll bet you could personally protect his whole thuggish, torturing family and half of the tens of thousands of Republican Guardsmen.

Of course, you could only cover them from one direction at a time, and you wouldn’t be able to waddle around in time to help them from the rear if the Evil Enemy decided to come from that unexpected direction. But still, you’d be doing what you could to defend Saddam, and betray America and the Iraqi people, and the rest of the world that doesn’t want to get nuked by madmen.

Despite your intrinsic ineffectiveness as a human shield, I’ll even raise the money for the airfare myself–just losing you in the cause would be worth it. Maybe we can take the funds that were never used for the Shropshire Challenge, and buy a ticket for you.

6. Finally, we love France. Yes, they have pulled some royal screw-ups. Yes, some of them can pretty damn annoying. But have you forgotten we wouldn’t even have this country known as America if it weren’t for the French? That it was their help in the Revolutionary War that won it for us? That our greatest thinkers and founding fathers — Thomas Jefferson, Ben Franklin, etc. — spent many years in Paris where they refined the concepts that lead to our Declaration of Independence and our Constitution?

Yes, Mike, I think that even the President knows that. I think we repaid that bill with usurious interest last century. What have they done for us lately?

That it was France who gave us our Statue of Liberty, a Frenchman who built the Chevrolet, and a pair of French brothers who invented the movies?

Yes, Mike, France has produced some great men, but note that many of them (like Mssr. Chevrolet) had to come to America to achieve their greatness. We are always greatful to all countries that send us their best and their brightest, but that also serves to explain the poor behavior of the dregs left behind. That’s what Mr. Rumsfeld called so fittingly, “old Europe.” One of the reasons that Eastern Europe is so vibrant (and not anti-American or anti-Bush) is because, having thrown off the stultifying yoke of communism, many expatriates are returning there. I don’t see a lot of emigration to France and Germany from America, though.

And now they are doing what only a good friend can do — tell you the truth about yourself, straight, no b.s. Quit pissing on the French and thank them for getting it right for once. You know, you really should have traveled more (like once) before you took over. Your ignorance of the world has not only made you look stupid, it has painted you into a corner you can’t get out of.

Oui, oui, we are so simplisme. Praise the heavens that we have friends that lecture us, and chide us and some of our European friends for missed opportunities to shut up, all the while making their own oil deals, selling banned weapons to Saddam, and calling us “arrogant.”

Well, cheer up — there IS good news. If you do go through with this war, more than likely it will be over soon because I’m guessing there aren’t a lot of Iraqis willing to lay down their lives to protect Saddam Hussein. After you “win” the war, you will enjoy a huge bump in the popularity polls as everyone loves a winner — and who doesn’t like to see a good ass-whoopin’ every now and then (especially when it ‘s some third world ass!). So try your best to ride this victory all the way to next year’s election. Of course, that’s still a long ways away, so we’ll all get to have a good hardy-har-har while we watch the economy sink even further down the toilet!

Yes, Mike. We’ll see who has the last “hardy-har-har”…

So far, it’s always Mr. Bush, and that just has you eating your ample liver, doesn’t it?

But, hey, who knows — maybe you’ll find Osama a few days before the election! See, start thinking like THAT! Keep hope alive! Kill Iraqis

Now, finally, here it comes, the obligatory chant, without which no mindless leftist spew would be complete. I was afraid that he was going to leave it out, but it just turned out he saved it for the very end…

they got our oil!!

Ah, the world is in balance once again.

Dave Barry has some helpful hints and phrase guides to help mend the rift between us and the French.

”Parole! Vous ne sentez pas demi aussi de mauvais que j’ai prevu!” (“Say! You do not smell half as bad as I expected!”)

”Qui s’inquiete qui court darned le monde?” (“Who cares who runs the darned world?”)

These talking gefilte fish are getting out of hand.

The Israeli man who opened the gefilte fish jar, Garel S. Karp of Bnei Brak, said that the voice was speaking in English, but with a Yiddish accent. “I twisted the cap off the jar, there was a little pop, and suddenly there was a squeaky little voice saying: “Oy, vey, tomorrow’s the day. Time has come for Mister Saddam to show his bomb.” Karp expressed uncertainty over whether the last word might have been “bum.”

Karp’s wife, Sadie, confirmed his account. “I couldn’t believe it. Garel and I were sitting around the dinner table and we hear this little voice coming from the jar, just after he opened it. I looked inside the jar and I could see the jelly still quivering.”

There was no independent confirmation of the Karps’ claims. The gefilte fish was unavailable to answer this reporter’s questions, since the couple apparently consumed the fish soon after its utterances. “I don’t know whether its remarks were in good taste,” Sadie noted, but it sure tasted good.”

Iraq has rejected Bush’s ultimatum. I was afraid he might have delayed things by saying he’ll “think about it.” Does this mean that we don’t have to wait any longer?

“The only option (to secure peace) is the departure of the warmonger number one in the world, the failing President Bush who made his country a joke,” Sabri said on Monday.

Someone should go back and compare this kind of stuff to the nonsense that the Taliban was spewing just before the bombing started. These guys seem long on bluster and insults, and short on much of anything else.

The French say that, despite their differences over the war, they will help rebuild Iraq afterward. I think that means “maneuver to try to salvage their contracts with Saddam.”

Not if I have anything to say about it.

Saddam says he wants to die in Iraq.

His wish is our command, hopefully pronto.

There were two absurd analogies today by those who think we’re making a tactical, if not strategic blunder in taking on Iraq. Both of them involve invasions of Russia.

First, in the LA Times, Margaret Atwood says that for us to remove Saddam is equivalent to Napoleon’s invasion of Russia.

Napoleon’s second big mistake was invading Russia. There’s no one clear explanation for this. He didn’t need to do it. Russia wasn’t attacking him, though it had in the past and might in the future. Maybe he just wanted to add it to his set. In any case, he invaded. When his horse stumbled as he crossed the Dnieper — a bad omen — a voice said from the shadows: “A Roman would have turned back.”

Warfare at that time meant forcing your opponent to stand and fight, resulting in victory on one side or the other. But the Russians merely retreated, burning crops as they went and leading Napoleon deeper and deeper into the same huge Russian landmass and awful Russian weather that also defeated Hitler.

When Napoleon reached Moscow, he thought maybe he’d “won,” but the Russians burned Moscow and retreated again. Napoleon hung around the cinders, expecting the czar to sue for peace, but no message arrived. Thus the retreat, the “1812 Overture” and the decimation of the Grand Army. As others have learned since, it’s very hard to defeat an enemy who never turns up.

Where does she think that the Iraqi army is going to retreat to, where it will be beyond the reach of modern spy satellites and precision-guided munitions? Does she think that we will be defeated by the “brutal Iraqi summer” as Napoleon was by the Russian winter, for which he was utterly unprepared and overextended?

It’s a laughable analogy.

Even more amusingly, in the midst of her own absurd analogy, she criticizes that of those promoting the liberation of Iraq:

The occupation of Japan after the Second World War has been proposed as a model for Iraq. It’s not a helpful comparison.

First, the religious fervor of the Japanese soldier was attached to the emperor, who thus had the power to order a surrender. Iraq will have no such single authority. Second, Japan is an island: No Russian-style, Afghan-style retreat was possible. Third, the Japanese had no neighbors who shared their religious views and might aid them. They had only two choices: death or democracy.

Iraq on the other hand has many coreligionist neighbors who will sympathize with it, however repugnant they’ve previously found Hussein. A foreign occupation — not immediately, but in the long run — is less likely to resemble MacArthur in Japan than Napoleon in Spain.

What neighboring nations share Ba’athist religious views? I ask again, does she think they’ll take harbor in Iran, a Shi’ite state that was invaded by Iraq only a decade and a half ago, or secular and modernizing Turkey, or Kuwait, who tasted Saddam’s forced brutality a dozen years ago, or the Wahhabist Saudis? Only one nation shares Saddam’s Nazi-like ideology–Syria. Will they be willing to bring on the wrath of the US by sheltering him and his minions from justice?

She’s living in the wrong century.

The other foolish analogy can be found in this inadvertently hilarious piece in the Independent, in which they compare a siege of Baghdad to Stalingrad.

This too is absurd.

Both analogies fall down on several levels. First, Iraq in summer is not Russia in winter. Second, both the French and the Germans vastly overextended themselves, and ran short of provisions, with no ability to withdraw. Does anyone seriously believe that this will happen to a modern American army, whose foremost (among many) formidable features is logistics?

Even more importantly (not to imply that the aforementioned is not important), both Napoleon and Hitler were dictators, and the Russians in both cases were defending their national sovereignty. In fact, had the SS managed to be just a little less brutal and cruel, the Russians, or at least the Ukrainians, might have welcomed them with open arms, given the fact that they were ruled at the time by the butcher Josef Stalin. But they couldn’t even manage to be less vicious than Stalin, which is saying something.

The Iraqi people are under the grinding bootheel of a dictator of their own, and they have plenty of word-of-mouth experience of how surrendering soldiers were treated by Americans the last time around. They are waiting to be liberated. Sadly, they have waited too long, partly because of nonsense like that written, and eagerly published in places like the LA Times.

French Ambassador to the US, Jean-David Levitte reassures us with the message that the inspections are working.

Which is correct, from the French perspective, since the goal of the inspections is to delay us from removing Saddam as long as possible. Thus, I don’t think they’re going to work for more than a couple more days.