This may be one of the oddest stories I’ve read in a long time, a true candidate for News of the Weird. Be sure to click the link at the end of the post to see some of Zhang’s work, and to read about his, um, unusual approach to art.

Just because it made me laugh….

This is really rich. The man named the “Godfather” of the Swift Boat Cretins for Bush, Ted Sampley, levelled parallel charges of cowardice and lack of integrity against — are your ready — George Herbert Walker Bush! You simply have to read this to believe it. Apparently it wasn’t only Vietnam vets who were given undeserved medals, but WWII vets as well. Have they no shame? None at all? Hell, why don’t we just condemn all US veterans as lying, cowardly bastards?

And these men, the SBVFT, are dominating the news. These little pieces of shit, led by Ted Sampley and blatant anti-Semite/anti-Catholic Jerome Corsi. Read the Digby post and and check the other links, and you will see this is one of the ugliest, sleaziest smear jobs in American history, carried out by scumbags who live to slander. It’s unbelievable! And, of course, it’s pure, vintage Karl Rove. It’s his modus operandi, 100 percent.

One day we will look back at this with the revulsion and anger we feel when we look back at McCain’s character assassination in 2000. This is a sick episode in US politics, rivalling the crimes of Nixon’s CREEP back in the 70s. We will wonder how we ever allowed ourselves for even an instant to be sucked into this bullshit.

UPDATE: Yet more on Sampley. Unbelievable.

Thanks to a reader’s comment, I see that the Three Gorges Probe has actually put on its site the entire text of Yangtse! Yangtse!, the 1989 book that anticipated many of the Three Gorges Dam’s worst problems, including 10 new chapters. The author Dai Qing was arrested during the post-Tiananmen Square backlash and the book was banned (though I’m not certain whether it still is).

You can browse through this for hours. It offers a wonderful look into how the CCP operated then, and I suspect it’s not dramatically different now. From the preface:

The materials in this book condemn the Chinese government’s plan to build the world’s largest dam in the scenic Three Gorges area of the Yangtze River. These documents are also an indictment of the political system that produced this decision. The contributors to this volume are generally not liberal, Westernized dissidents. Many are long-time loyal communists; others are veteran members of China’s normally compliant satellite parties. These are not the young idealists who filled Beijing’s streets in the democracy movement of 1989, but largely elderly officials with scientific and technical backgrounds who have opposed the dam out of a genuine concern for China’s economic health and political stability.

The criticisms that fill the following pages focus on a closed decision-making process that grossly distorts technical data and analyses to meet the political needs of a self-sustaining elite. Despite high-level rhetoric since the inauguration of China’s reforms in 1978 about creating more “open” (kaifang) and “democratic and scientific” policy-making, this book portrays a Party-state apparatus that remains profoundly authoritarian in structure and function. Outspoken opponents of the project have been silenced, especially since June, 1989, as key decision-making arenas deliberating on the Three Gorges dam have been packed with obedient and technically illiterate supporters.

Opposition views are not treated as mere differences of opinion, but evidence of disloyalty and “counter-revolutionary” intent. The political atmosphere surrounding the controversy over the dam is no different from the late 1950s when early critics, such as Chairman Mao Zedong’s ex-secretary Li Rui, were branded as “anti-Party.” Yangtze! Yangtze! itself has been a victim of the intense politicizing of this issue and the book was banned in 1989. Crushing students in Tiananmen Square not only allowed the communist leadership to remain securely in power, but also provided convenient cover to purge the Party and state apparatus of dam opponents.

The following documents, in short, portray a bare-knuckles political battle in which opposition to construction of the dam involves enormous risks. Western observers who portray policy-making in China as a process of “consensus-building” and “bargaining” must confront the realities described in the following pages. The fundamental lack of checks and balances in the Chinese political system is made explicit through the proliferation of committees that are used to confound and confuse rather than to enlighten. Newspapers carry only “positive reporting” on the dam; microphones at the National People’s Congress (NPC) meeting considering the issue are shut off; and prominent opponents, such as the eminent scientist Qian Jiaju, are left with no choice but exile.

In the book’s afterward, Dai Qing pleads, “There is only one Yangtze River and we have already subjected it to many stupid deeds. Such stupidity must not be repeated.” While the book is credited with delaying construction of the dam, it obviously failed: the dam is being built, and much of the misery predicted by its authors is materializing right on schedule.

No, that’s not my own opinion. It is apparently the opinion of all those Republicans who are now accusing Kerry and the US Navy of commisserating to doctor his war record and assign him medals he didn’t deserve. That’s how Digby sees it.

It has struck me lately what a terrible indictment of the military these charges are and how once again the Republicans have absolutely no limits in terms of how fully they are willing to trash the American institutions they allegedly love in order to win. What these people are saying is that the US Navy awarded some of its highest medals for bravery to a coward. The many officers who signed those glowing fitness reports and awarded those citations are either liars or they are incompetent. The word of his shipmates, even the man whose life he saved, are worth nothing. You can’t believe military documentary evidence. It was all bullshit, every last piece of it.
And because of this it can now be said that all medals awarded for bravery are suspect. A superior military record is no longer a recommendation. Who can ever believe the government on this issue, now?

…
The conservative attack on the military is, on the other hand, so small minded, so parochial. For puny, partisan reasons they are accusing the military of widespread corruption — merely to excuse the behavior of their less than stellar candidate.

…
Too bad for the men and women who are risking their necks as we speak for Junior’s Big Adventure. Any act of bravery on which the military might bestow a medal is now subject to interpretation. Nothing is sacred to these people.

Even more shocking is what these conservatives are now saying about John McCain. You simply have to see this to believe it — McCain slandered by the right and even accused of treason and cowardice. Why? Because he’s still decent to John Kerry and condemns the Swift Boat Cretins for Bush attack ad against his friend and fellow war hero.

I can’t wait for the elections to end.

This is big news — it blows up the meme they want us all to believe, namely that this was just the aberrant behavior of a few “bad apples.”

NBC News has learned a military investigation into prisoner abuse at Abu Ghraib prison now implicates military intelligence officers in addition to military police already charged.

Pentagon sources tell NBC News the investigation by Maj. Gen. George Fay recommends punitive action, which could include criminal charges against several military intelligence officers who were at least aware of the abuse.

At a pre-trial hearing for Pfc. Lynndie England last week there was direct testimony by a military intelligence officer that three intelligence officers were present during the abuse of three prisoners at Abu Ghraib. The officer testified he was summoned to the cellblock to, “see something cool.”

Photos show the prisoners stripped naked, handcuffed and forced to simulate sex acts. At least one intelligence officer is seen throwing a toy football at the prisoners.

It will be much harder now for the military to whitewash this. And if it comes out that these MI officers were actually ordering the “bad apples” to terrorize the prisoners, the lid will really come blowing off this story, which Rumsfeld has been praying would simply evaporate in the mist of memory.

I know a winner when I see one. Spoken by James Carville today on Crossfire:

John Kerry, Tim Russert, Chris Matthews, Katie Couric, CBS, NBC are all communists. Hillary Clinton is a lesbian fat hog with fake hair. Al and Tipper Gore are terrorists who are part of the Taliban. The pope is senile. And pedophilia is fine with him as long as it’s not reported in the liberal press. If you think all this sounds nutty, well, it is.

According to the organization Media Matters For America, all this has been written by Jerome Corsi. Why do we care what Jerome Corsi says? Well, we don’t. But as co-author of the book “Unfit for Command” about John Kerry and his service in Vietnam, some people are making the mistake of taking him seriously. In the world of putrid right-wing pond scum, Corsi is one of the biggest bottom-feeders of them all.

So much for the “salt-of-the-earth” SBVFT who wrote this book. They may all be splendid men, but the fact that they turned to this POS to do their writing certainly says something.

[Link via Duncan.]

….While Tim “Pumpkinhead” Russert sits and watches. (He was supposed to be moderating.) There’s a great analysis of this journalistic embarrassment over at the best blog out there. You’ll see just how pathological O’Reilly is (in case you need to be reassured). Good comments, too.

The story isn’t over, and the reports I’ve been reading are worse than what came out a few months ago. Much worse. Why are stories like this being ignored and/or sanitized?

We all know that Lee Kuan Yew and his family own Singapore and always will, and no one much minds. After all, he’s one of those rare benevolent dictators who actually improved his people’s lives.

Still, I couldn’t help chuckling when I read this piece on his son Lee Hsien Loong taking over as prime minister.

Lee’s ascent to premier could stir talk of a concentration of power in the Lee family. With the elder Lee remaining in cabinet and his son as premier, the two occupy two of the top government posts in Southeast Asia’s wealthiest country.

The younger Lee’s wife, Ho Ching, is executive director of powerful government investment arm Temasek Holdings, which owns stakes in a crop of Singapore firms such as Singapore Airlines and Singapore Telecommunications, whose chief executive is Lee’s brother, Lee Hsien Yang.

“Stir talk of a concentration of power”? Whatever could lead the reporter to that silly conclusion? Dumbest thing I ever heard. Two strokes of the cane for that journalist.

And remember, Singapore is by far the least corrupt country in Southeast Asia, and one of the least corrupt in the world.