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Thursday, November 30, 2006 THE STUPIDEST BLOG POST EVER WRITTEN You know what? I overstated the case when I originally put this up. This isn't the stupidest post ever written, and it's ostensibly just predicting others' (as I originally put it) rat-brain-level hate, not the author's own. (There is, however, a subtext of sheer glee in the author's unfolding of his scenario.) If you still care, here it is. And, yes, it's instructive to learn that the right-wing dogs still drool and spread memes whenever the RNC Pavlovs ring the bell. posted by Steve M. | 6:57 PM | Er, why are the Young Conservatives of Texas getting their ideas from year-old Sadly, No! posts? (Scroll down to Item 989-50-10 in the S,N! link.) **** (YCT link via Memeorandum.) posted by Steve M. | 4:41 PM | THE REAL WAR I'm not the least bit surprised that President Bush today rejected the notion of significant troop drawdowns. But I don't think it's just because, as Atrios says, Bush thinks leaving is losing -- I think, on one battlefield, this war is going well. I'm talking about Bush's mind. As I've said in reference to Orson Scott Card's new fighting-the-left-wing-terrorists novel and Robert Ferrigno's recent battling-the-Muslim-overlords novel, many right-wingers crave the feeling of being under siege. They want the world to be in an evil conspiracy against people who think like them; they want to be at war with everyone in the world except the small group of people who agree with them. Well, that's Bush right now. How exquisite -- not only is he (in his mind) the bulwark again global takeover by Musloterrorofascism, but now the sandal-wearing hippie Democrats have taken over Congress and (holy Oedipus!) his father's henchmen want him to reject firmness. It's him against the world! What could be more glorious? Recall Bob Woodward's words: "Late last year he had key Republicans up to the White House to talk about the war. And said, 'I will not withdraw even if Laura and Barney are the only ones supporting me.' Barney is his dog." That was a threat -- but it was also a fantasy. And now it's come true. And if he keeps the troop levels essentially where they are until January 20, 2009, it's total victory on the American and European fronts! That's almost better than winning in Iraq! After all, Dad won in Iraq and didn't even get reelected! posted by Steve M. | 2:06 PM | From the joint Bush-Maliki press conference today in Amman: PRESIDENT BUSH: ... Part of the plan in Baghdad was to prevent -- prevent killers from taking innocent life. Q Including sectarian violence? PRESIDENT BUSH: Well that's -- killers taking innocent life is, in some cases, sectarian. I happen to view it as criminal, as well as sectarian. I think any time you murder somebody, you're a criminal. And I believe a just society and a society of -- that holds people to account and believes in rule of law protects innocent people from murderers, no matter what their political party is. What?! Good heavens, it almost sounds as if he's saying that terrorism is a law-enforcement matter. I thought the only people who said anything like that were "Kumbaya"-singing hippie appeasers like John Kerry. **** (Quote via TS.) posted by Steve M. | 11:13 AM | From AP today: ...The federal government today is unveiling 144 draft questions that it plans to try out on immigrant applicants next year in 10 cities.... The redesign is aimed at making sure applicants know the meaning behind some of America's fundamental institutions and historical events.... Immigrants now are asked "What are the three branches or parts of government?" The answer: executive, legislative and judicial. But a draft test question asks: "Why do we have three branches of government?" Acceptable answers might be, "so that no branch is too powerful" or "to separate the power of government," Rhatigan said. And we're sorry, Vice President Cheney, but "So the executive branch can have two other branches of government to crush underfoot like so many noxious worms!!!" would not be considered an acceptable answer. posted by Steve M. | 10:34 AM | Wednesday, November 29, 2006 FUN WITH EDITING From the latest column by George Will, as published at Townhall.com (boldface mine): ... Jim Webb, Democratic senator-elect from Virginia, has become a pompous poseur and an abuser of the English language before actually becoming a senator. Wednesday's Washington Post reported that at a White House reception for newly elected members of Congress, Webb "tried to avoid President Bush," refusing to pass through the reception line or have his picture taken with the president. When Bush asked Webb, whose son is a Marine in Iraq, "How's your boy?" Webb replied, "I'd like to get them (sic) out of Iraq." When the president again asked, "How's your boy?" Webb replied, "That's between me and my boy." ... A lot of you already know where I'm going with this, but for those who don't, here's the Washington Post story Will is quoting (again, boldface mine): ..."How's your boy?" Bush asked, referring to Webb's son, a Marine serving in Iraq. "I'd like to get them out of Iraq, Mr. President," Webb responded, echoing a campaign theme. "That's not what I asked you," Bush said. "How's your boy?" "That's between me and my boy, Mr. President," Webb said coldly, ending the conversation on the State Floor of the East Wing of the White House.... Will just edits Bush's rude, infantile, snappish rebuke right out of the record. And after that he goes on to call Webb a "boor," while characterizing Bush as someone who "asked a civil and caring question, as one parent to another." There's more. Will harrumphs about Webb's recent Wall Street Journal op-ed -- not just the economic populism, but the prose style. Misused words! And class anger! Oh, it's all simply de trop. Webb is just not our kind, Muffy. You want boorish, George? Well, in honor of Webb's Scots-Irish roots, let me just say: Pog mo thoin, George. Tha thu 'nad fhaighean. You're lan dhen cac, you tolla-thon. ***** (Apologies: That last link is unsuitable for work visually as well as verbally, assuming you get the sidebar ads I seem to be getting.) ***** UPDATE: I naively hoped that The Washington Post might not let Will get away with this utterly dishonest editing of the Bush-Webb exchange, but here's the WaPo version of Will's column, and the deceit is still there. What a disgrace. ***** UPDATE: If it's true that, "As President Bush is well aware, a couple of weeks before this dinner the tank riding next to [Webb's son] Jimmy's in Iraq was under fire and three marines died," then Bush's boorishness was even worse than usual. ***** UPDATE: Oh, and let's not forget:  (From the front matter of the paperback edition of Webb's Lost Soldiers, via Amazon Reader.) posted by Steve M. | 11:04 PM | Atrios, Brad at Sadly, No!, and (most enjoyably) Roy at Alicublog are among the bloggers who've been having fun talking about the new Instapundit-endorsed novel by Orson Scott Card, in which "heroic red-state protagonists ... draw on their Special Ops training to take down ... extremist leftists" who've seized control of New York City after a terrorist attack. Atrios writes: ... I've found it to be a fairly consistent them among many gun nut libertarians (who I call "might makes right" libertarians) that they fantasize about the breakdown of civil order and the rise of Road Warrior style society. It's weird. Especially since most of them are such losers. Why would that be? Why would such people -- and many other conservatives as well -- actually fantasize about societal beakdown? I think you can find part of the answer in an exchange between two of my favorite commenters, in response to a post of mine about a right-wing preacher who fantasizes about an attack on Iran that will lead to Armageddon centered on Israel: Aimai said: well, I think about this the way I think about the gay marriage issue. Here in MA its not that the anti gay bigots are worried that gay marriage means the end of civilization--they are afraid that it *doesn't* mean that. They've had two years of gay marriage and the world hasn't spun out of its orbit and none of the hideous things they've been ranting about to each other have come to pass. That makes their whole world view look pretty useless. Similarly, I think, whatever fantasy these religious nuts are entertaininga bout the world as it is, or sex, or israel, or whatever the most important thing is that their obsession be proved to *matter* in the world. I occasionally watched pat robertson or one of the other goons, back in the day, and what I noticed most was the insistence on the facticity of biblical prophecy. He lectured, on his show, like a dime store college professor. I thought at the time that the certainity and the almost tedious focus on maps/details/dates/numbers and sins was meant to help anchor his followers against a tide of random history and against the meaninglessness of their own lives. D. Sidhe replied: ... It's apparently the conservative mindset--are they going to feel somehow cheated if the democrats *don't* try to impeach Bush or surrender to the terrorists? They always seemed so pissed off that Hillary never held Pride Day parties in the Rose Garden, or that Clinton actually kept giving them so much of what they wanted. On some level, I really do have to wonder if they want to feel oppressed because it means they're right enough that people are trying To Shut Them Up. You hear it a lot from the creationists, where they explain that the only reason anyone is trying to keep them out of the schools is that we don't want the kids to know they're right, and hey, you know, they persecuted Jesus too, we'll be vindicated just like he was. It's like drama queens, taken to the absolute extreme.... Why cataclysm porn? There's your answer, or at least part of it: These people need to believe that they're the ones who are staving off cataclysm, or who will stave it off if it approaches, or who'll put an end to it if it arrives. And they desperately need to believe cataclysm can come, because, as aimai says, "the most important thing is that their obsession" -- with guns, with opposing "Islamofascism," with opposing immigration, with denouncing secularism, et cetera -- "be proved to *matter* in the world." And they crave the feeling of being hated. Their lives would be meaningless otherwise. posted by Steve M. | 4:51 PM | Separated at birth?   Yeah, I know -- it's just too easy to compare Saddam-era visual propaganda with the Republican National Committee's official 2007 calendar. So, what the hell, I'll do it again:   Hey, I'm having fun. No Saddam this time -- let's shoot the works:   S.Z. at World-O-Crap brought the calendar to our attention and is running a caption contest for the March photo of Bush. Most entries are in the Bush-as-idiot mode. Understandable -- but I have to tell you, as a Free Republic/Lucianne lurker of long standing, I think these kitsch images still pack a wallop on the right. I have no doubt that right-wingers look at March and still see Manly Bush standing up to the forces who would drag him and thus America down. And August, as S.Z. notes, shows us Manly Rancher Cheney. As a member of the party of Barack Obama and Bill Clinton, I suppose I should be careful about criticizing the other side for having a personality cult. But I can't find any evidence that the Democratic Party itself, in the case of either Clinton or Obama, has fanned the flames of a personality cult in quite this way. I can't find any item made or sold by the party that allows one to moon dreamily over images of its leaders as sexy and/or steadfast; as far as I can tell, you can't even buy a calendar of any kind from the Democrats. But that's the GOP -- it's the Party of Ideas, prominent among them the idea that "oooooh, W is so dreamy!" posted by Steve M. | 1:26 PM | I know I spend way too much time thinking about Giuliani, but this is weird: Philip Klein points out at The American Spectator's blog that Rudy has the highest ratings among religious-right voters of all the politicians measured in that new Quinnipiac "thermometer" poll. Among self-described "white evangelical/born again Christians," Giuliani has a 66.3 rating, ... the highest in the survey. That puts him ahead of Condoleezza Rice (64.4), President Bush (58.1), John McCain (57.1) and Newt Gingrich (47.8). Mitt Romney's rating among evangelicals/born again Christians was 46.4.... I realize I just got through telling you that unswerving absolutism is a hallmark of religious-right thinking -- but maybe anger is what's important, and absolutism is just the usual (but not the only) means to that end, rather than the end itself. Anyone who lived in New York during Rudy's years as mayor knows that he divides the world into two groups: people who agree with him and mortal enemies. I think that's coming through in the appearances Rudy has made in recent years (it certainly came through in his '04 convention speech, which hit self-righteousness notes that rivaled Zell Miller's). Maybe, if you draw enough lines in the sand that make religious-conservative voters feel good, they don't care whether you cross some of their other lines in the sand. posted by Steve M. | 10:13 AM | Added to the blogroll: AlterNet PEEK. posted by Steve M. | 7:26 AM | Tuesday, November 28, 2006 Crooks & Liars has video of Ed Rogers, a White House staffer in Poppy Bush's administration and subsequently a GOP lobbyist, trying to taint Barack Obama on MSNBC's Harball by stressing Obama's middle name, which happens to be Hussein: Hardball's David Shuster: Barack Obama is going up to New Hampshire. He's somebody I imagine Republicans should be fearful of -- he's a great speaker… Ed Rogers: Count me down as somebody who underestimates Barack Hussein Obama. Please.... Watch the video -- Rogers very carefully stresses the foreign-sounding nature of the name and hammers that "Hussein." Which is odd, because Ed Rogers will certainly consort with people who have names like that when it suits him: A group of businessmen linked by their close ties to President George Walker Bush, his family and his administration have set up a consulting firm to advise companies that want to do business in Iraq, including those seeking pieces of taxpayer-financed reconstruction projects. The firm, New Bridge Strategies, is headed by Joe M. Allbaugh, Mr. Bush's campaign manager in 2000 and the director of the Federal Emergency Management Agency until March. Other directors include Edward M. Rogers Jr., vice chairman.... Shortly after leaving the White House, Mr. Rogers was publicly rebuked by the first President Bush after he signed a $600,000 contract to represent a Saudi, Sheik Kamal Adham, who was a main figure under scrutiny in a case that involved the Bank of Credit and Commerce International. Mr. Rogers canceled his contract to represent the sheik, former head of Saudi intelligence.... Yet here's Rogers saying "Hussein" as if any name derived from the Muslim world is the vilest of curses. No shame. These people have absolutely no shame. posted by Steve M. | 9:58 PM | Two disturbing religious stories have been developing this month. One involves right-wing outrage at Keith Ellison's statement that he will probably take his oath of office on a Koran when he is sworn in as the first Muslim elected to Congress. Anger among idiots on the right has been building for a while, but now it's found voice in a chillingly fascistic column by radio talk-show host Dennis Prager: America, Not Keith Ellison, decides what book a congressman takes his oath on Keith Ellison, D-Minn., the first Muslim elected to the United States Congress, has announced that he will not take his oath of office on the Bible, but on the bible of Islam, the Koran. He should not be allowed to do so -- not because of any American hostility to the Koran, but because the act undermines American civilization. First, it is an act of hubris that perfectly exemplifies multiculturalist activism -- my culture trumps America's culture. What Ellison and his Muslim and leftist supporters are saying is that it is of no consequence what America holds as its holiest book; all that matters is what any individual holds to be his holiest book. ... Insofar as a member of Congress taking an oath to serve America and uphold its values is concerned, America is interested in only one book, the Bible. If you are incapable of taking an oath on that book, don't serve in Congress.... I'll stop before we get to the part where Prager compares the Koran to Mein Kampf. As Barbara at the Mahablog points out, there's no legal requirement that a Bible be used for an oath of office, the Constitution forbids any religious test for holding office, North Carolina law specifically calls for the use of the Koran if the officeholder is a Muslim, and two U.S. governors have forgone the use of the Christian Bible, one in favor of a Torah, the other using a set of Jewish prayer books. The Republic still stands. Elsewhere, there are widespread howls of protest at the decision by Rick Warren, the wildly popular preacher and author of the massive bestseller The Purpose Driven Life, to allow Barack Obama to appear in his pulpit to talk about combatting AIDS. Obama is verboten because he's pro-choice. (Warren also invited an anti-choice Republican senator, Sam Brownback, to join him on the same Sunday.) Outrage is coming from prominent right-wingers -- Phyllis Schlafly, for instance, and the American Family Association. At the Carpetbagger Report, Steve says, ... these religious right leaders and activists genuinely seem terrified of Obama speaking to an evangelical audience. Why else demand that Warren pull the invitation? It’s not enough for these conservatives to simply challenge Obama's ideas, or critique his policy prescriptions; they want to make sure Christians in Warren’s church not hear what Obama has to say. I don't agree that this is happening out of fear. I think religious conservatives are just doing what they do regularly -- staking out an absolutist position and not giving an inch. Why didn't that South Dakota abortion law include rape and incest exceptions? Why weren't years of judicial decisions in Michael Schiavo's favor enough to settle the case of his wife Terri? Why is stem-cell research using tissue from embryos that will never come to term utterly intolerable? Why is the anti-abortion movement now targeting the use of even non-abortifacient contraception? Why is the use of "Happy Holidays" -- a greeting that acknowledges not only the many belief systems in America but the many holidays that take place at the end of the year -- now deemed an act of war? I could, of course, ask a similar series of questions about right-wing intransigence on secular issues, starting with Iraq. That's just what right-wingers do: They get angry and they stir up anger in one another. They've built a politics of rage, and a few seat switches in Congress aren't going to change that. **** UPDATE: As it turns out, Prager was going of half-cocked while overlooking the fact that House members don't swear on any book at all. posted by Steve M. | 6:41 PM | WHEN I DESCRIBE YOU AS AN INVASIVE WEED THAT NEEDS TO BE DESTROYED, I MEAN IT IN THE NICEST POSSIBLE WAY From yesterday's New York Daily News: A Brooklyn judge is courting controversy with a new illustrated children's book that some critics are calling a thinly veiled anti-immigration screed. Criminal Court Judge John Wilson's "Hot House Flowers" warns of "effects of unregulated immigration" in a plot line about beautiful flowers that wither when dandelions sneak into their greenhouse. "It's intended to describe defense of home and defense of country, and the reasons for that defense," said Wilson, who self-published the book, listed on Amazon.com at $15.99. The story tells of jealous weeds that hog all the water and soil in the greenhouse. The other flowers suffer, but don't do anything until it's almost too late -- because they don't want to appear intolerant. In what Wilson admits is a religious flourish, the flowers are saved at the end by a benevolent master who plucks out all the dandelions. The flowers learn never to let dandelion seeds grow in their greenhouse again. ..."They shouldn't call me anti-immigration, because I'm not," he said. "I know we're a nation of immigrants. But illegal immigration is making a mockery of the rule of law." ... Y'know, I get the rule-of-law part. It's the ethnic-cleansing-of-the-dandelions part that has me a tad squeamish. Oh, and the hogging-all-the-water-and-soil part? In my world, it's these folks who are doing that, while illegal immigrants clean their toilets. A press release asserts that this is a book "that can be enjoyed by adults and children alike." (I really don't want to meet any adults who actually enjoy this book.) It adds: Readers concerned about the effects of unregulated immigration on the daily lives of American citizens and who support the active defense of their country will find the lessons in Hot House Flowers potent and potable for minds young and old. Er, I don't think "potable" means what these folks think it means. For whatever it's worth, Judge Wilson did work with an illustrator whose other work isn't exactly wingnut-friendly. And, who knows -- perhaps his next book will be about another, er, flowering plant in which he has taken an interest. **** In a review at Amazon, Jonathan Cohen says that the climax of the book comes when the hothouse flowers "burn a vitamin spike on the dandelions' front lawn." I think he's just funnin' us. Or maybe not. posted by Steve M. | 1:01 PM | AN ALTERNATE EXPLANATION Police experts have suggested "contagious shooting" may have played a role in a deadly New York incident when five officers fired 50 rounds at a man. The experts said the phenomenon, which is characterized by gunfire spreading among officers who suspect they are being threatened, may have come into play in the shooting of Sean Bell outside a strip club, The New York Times reported Monday.... --UPI *** WASHINGTON (API) -- A senior administration official insisted today that the situation in Iraq was not a "civil war," and suggested an alternate explanation for the increasing bloodshed. "It's 'contagious terrorism,'" said the official, who spoke on condition of anonymity. "Iraqis see violence and react by impulsively planting their own IEDs, or by spontaneously kidnapping other Iraqis, torturing them with power tools, beheading them, and leaving their bodies in ditches. "It's simple human nature," the official went on to say. "You see bloodshed all around you, and naturally your first impulse is to set up a checkpoint, drag people out of their cars, and execute them in cold blood. Or to blow up other people's houses of worship. Or to set off mortar rounds in their neighborhoods. "Isn't that obvious?" posted by Steve M. | 9:50 AM | ABC's Hillary Brown reporting from Baghdad: Yesterday, [a] well-known Sunni Web site posted a ten-point plan on how to defend neighborhoods against Shiite death squads on the rampage. "Put snipers on high buildings," it says. "Be ready with your AK machine guns." "Have roadside bombs ready at every entry point." But remember: It's not a civil war. **** By the way, I love the fact that this New York Post editorial takes a swipe at the guy who announced NBC's decision to use the term "civil war," Matt Lauer ("'Today' Show host Matt Lauer -- last heard from describing the progress of Scooby-Doo and SpongeBob SquarePants down Broadway during Macy's Thanksgiving Day Parade...") while favorably citing criticism of NBC from that serious political scholar Don Imus.  
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Monday, November 27, 2006 On the way home from work tonight, I walked by the festivities that were taking place along Broadway in the West 60s. People were having a swell time, even though the whole shindig goes by the name Winter's Eve at Lincoln Square and includes the lighting of a "holiday tree," and thus is evil and Satanic and the source of moral depravity. Nevertheless, everyone seemed to be having good, wholesome fun (although it was nearly 60 degrees out, which wasn't very good for the ice sculptures; I blame global climate change, but I'm sure I'm just deluded and it was Lucifer sending up fire from the pit of Hell). posted by Steve M. | 10:11 PM | I keep telling you that Republicans might throw out all their litmus tests and go with Rudy in '08, and now here's Frank Luntz explaining to England's Telegraph just why that might happen: ..."He is exactly the change the Republican party needs," said Frank Luntz, a leading Republican strategist. "They can't run the same kind of candidate they have run in the last four elections. They have to do it differently. Giuliani would do well to study Tony Blair's campaign for the Labour leadership. He will need to transform the party in the same way. If he follows Blair's strategy and focuses on electability then it could be easier than people think. "Republicans have lost Congress and there is a tremendous fear in the GOP [Republican party] that they could lose it all to Hillary Clinton... 2008 is not going to be a liberal versus conservative fight. It's going to be about who's got the goods to make things happen." ... There it is: They're afraid of Hillary. They think this month's election results mean she's even more unbeatable than they feared she was before November 7. And some of them are gravitating to Rudy as a result. I think it's fairly obvious what's really going to happen if Hillary's the nominee: She's going to be subjected to the nastiest campaign in living memory, and the press will be only too happy to help Republicans put the boot in, while embracing whoever the GOP puts up against her -- Rudy, St. John, Romney, Gingrich -- as just the tonic America needs to regain its manly fortitude, which we'll be told we desperately need to regain after two years of that nasty testosterone-depleting shrew Nancy Pelosi. (By 2008, it will be common to hear that everything that went wrong in Iraq is the fault of Pelosi's unnatural coven of emasculating Democrats.) Even after eight years of Bush, we'll be told that the solution to our problems is to elect a Republican strutter and blusterer. And that could be just about anybody. As a resident of the state where an unknown schlub named Pataki beat Mario Cuomo Superstar a dozen years ago, I can assure you that having a marquee name won't be necessary if the conventional wisdom is that Hillary is a tired old Democratic throwback who has an overinflated reputation and needs to be taken down a notch. Well, fine -- maybe they'll tear the party apart and do too much damage to themselves to prevail in putting forward someone they think can beat our highly beatable favorite. That would be nice. Unfortunately, Rudy does have Liebermanesque appeal to swing voters, and that's why I worry -- they may coalesce around him out of desperation and win. posted by Steve M. | 3:35 PM | OF COURSE! WHY DIDN'T WE THINK OF THAT? In a poll about Iraq at Free Republic, the vast majority of respondents think we should "do whatever it takes to win." See? Everyone thinks it's so complicated, but it's really very simple. **** UPDATE: See The Booman Tribune for results of a similar poll, at Red State, in which "Can we unleash hell yet?" is the overwhelming favorite. (Via Cursor.) posted by Steve M. | 10:59 AM | I don't understand people who feel the need to insist that it's categorically impossible for someone like Ann Coulter to be a serious influence on our political life, but here's Jacob Heilbrunn, in this weekend's New York Times Book Review, making the case while reviewing recent anti-Coulter books by Susan Estrich and two other authors: ...Estrich is herself confusing ubiquity with actual influence, constantly asserting but never demonstrating that Coulter actually wields political power.... The truth is that unlike Rush Limbaugh or Bill O'Reilly, Coulter cannot mobilize millions of listeners and viewers each day. Er, let's see: Coulter has attained "ubiquity," yet she can't mobilize viewers "every day" -- presumably because her "ubiquity" puts her on TV twice some days and not at all on other days. Yeah, that makes sense. You know, al-Qaeda doesn't have a regularly scheduled series on Arab-language TV, but somehow its videos manage to have an influence. I wonder if that baffles Heilbrunn also. ...Not one of Coulter's arguments is original to her; each is cribbed from the conservative press.... Even a cursory look at her books shows that she essentially functions as a kind of right-wing weathervane. ...Nor are Coulter's remarks about liberals all that new. As others have pointed out, they have a long pedigree on the right. In 1936, Elizabeth Dilling published "The Roosevelt Red Record and Its Background"; after World War II the vicious gossip columnist Walter Winchell saw Communists everywhere and championed McCarthy. ... [Coulter's] detractors supply no evidence that she has ever had an original thought. And they can't. Instead of exposing Coulter as a mortal threat to the Republic, the only thing they expose is their own credulity. In the end, these witless little books don't puncture the Coulter myth. They inflate it. How is originality in any way relevant to a discussion of Coulter? The American public isn't weighing her suitability to chair a department of political philosophy -- it's asking her to deliever entertainment by seeming to make sense of what's going on in the news, and her audience believes she delivers. Give her this: She has some comedy timing, and her glib laugh lines aren't quite what the typical big-time TV interviewer is expecting, so she gets the best of the Matt Lauers of the world. This is odd, because the Matt Lauers know going in that she intends to say, for instance, that the anti-Bush 9/11 widows are societal leeches and that only Democrats have ever used a victim to make a political point. But the Lauers somehow can't be bothered to ask their staffs to help them rebut these arguments -- or maybe they don't want to because angry blonde provocation with the occasional laugh line is considered great television, and you don't want to stand in its way. And so Coulter injects ideas, original or not, into our political dialogue. And Jacob Heilbrunn either doesn't notice how they got there or assumes that the public really got those ideas from some seventy-year old pamphlet he found in the stacks. posted by Steve M. | 7:45 AM | Sunday, November 26, 2006 STRAY THOUGHT I HAD AT A MALL FOOD COURT THIS WEEKEND WHILE SCOPING OUT THE MENU SELECTIONS Er isn't the Flushed Away Happy Meal a rather disgusting concept? posted by Steve M. | 9:26 PM | OFF MY CHEST A post I put up just before the holiday got some attention from the blogosphere, and thus reached a few more readers than most of what I post here; alas, some of those readers were offended that I dared to criticize Ralph Nader for his 2000 campaign. OK, here's what offends me. It offends me that I'm considered to be a traitor to the progressive cause if I say that there is a right wing in the Republican Party that is an absolute menace, and that has no full-fledged equivalent in the Democratic Party. I know -- that's heresy. Just as Galileo's torturers demanded that he acknowledge geocentrism, just as fundamentalist Christians demand the rejection of Darwin, so do Naderites demand the rejection of any notion of a difference between the two major parties. Furthermore, Naderites declare that it was a betrayal of progressivism in 2000 to weigh the possible long-term benefit of a Nader vote against the likely short-term harm from turning the entire federal government over to the right wing of the Republican Party -- to Naderites, one simply wasn't permitted to say that was too high a price to pay. I don't care that Gore won the popular vote, or that more people in Florida thought they'd voted for Gore than thought they'd voted for Bush -- the fact is, the election shouldn't have been stealable, and wouldn't have been if Nader had read the polls everyone else was reading and chosen not to campaign in swing states, recognizing the very real possibility that the candidate eagly embraced by the Falwells and Norquists of the world would win. (The political press now thinks that Gore lost the election, seeing the election and post-election periods as one shrewd campaign ultimately won by Bush and Rove and their party. This has helped contribute to the notion, possibly now dissipating somewhat, that not only Democrats but progressives are pathetic out-of-step losers. That's what Nader helped accomplish for the left.) I also don't want to hear that Gore screwed himself by doing this or that, because anyone who claims to know by gut instinct with absolute certainty that a particular change in strategy would have gained him progressive voters without losing him as many or more centrist voters is blowing smoke. This country hasn't elected an insurgent-party candidate to the presidency since 1860; anyone who was angry about what I said concerning Nader needs to tell me why my principal concern going into a presidential election shouldn't be the relative acceptability of the major candidates. That's what presidential elections are about -- electing presidents, not making grand statements. I've always thought it was ironic that if Gore had won an unchallengeable victory, in the long wrong it might have actually opened up the system to candidates like Nader. Here's why: The press would have to deal with the fact that a GOP dominated by the right wing had lost three straight presidential elections. Pundits and party professionals take this sort of thing very seriously. Three straight losses and the GOP just might have said, "Why are we excluding the Colin Powells and the Christie Whitmans from our national tickets? Why does everyone have to pass the litmus tests of Jerry Falwell and Grover Norquist?" And then we really might have a Tweedledum party and a Tweedledee party at the national level. And a left candidate could then rise up without inevitably threatening to put right-wing extremists in the driver's seat. Sorry, folks, that was my priority in 2000 and it's my priority today: making the GOP's right wing as marginal as possible. The GOP right is the largest, nastiest tumor on our body politic. I think the last six years have made painfully clear that that's so. So yes, Ralph, go to hell. I still resent the hell out of you for what you did. **** Fire away, commenters. However, I won't respond. I've said enough. posted by Steve M. | 9:18 PM | I'm back. Thank you, guest bloggers. posted by Steve M. | 8:45 PM | Saturday, November 25, 2006 Holiday Greetings: An Etiquette Guide [Tom Hilton here, from If I Ran the Zoo. Because we've begun the Most Baby Jesusest Time of the Year, and because I think the message bears repeating, and (most of all) because I'm a lazy bastard, I'm reprinting a piece I posted last year around this time.] It's not about politics, despite the desperate efforts of scum like O'Reilly and Gibson to make it so, and it's not about religion. It's about courtesy. Here, then, is a simple, handy guide to the etiquette of holiday greetings.
Friday, November 24, 2006 Black Friday These two stories were right next to one another on MSNBC's webpage. I'm trying to think of something poignant to say, but I'm coming up empty. posted by Bulworth | 9:26 AM | Thursday, November 23, 2006 Happy Thanksgiving And this time, we have so much to be thankful for. posted by Tom Hilton | 12:35 AM | Wednesday, November 22, 2006 (Hi -- this is Kathy from Birmingham Blues. I'd hoped to post something uplifting first, but the news didn't cooperate.) Fred Phelps Plans To Picket Student Funerals Four students have died as the result of a horrendous bus crash in Huntsville AL on Monday. I just received an email telling me that Fred Phelps and his sicko "church" are planning to picket their funerals, three of which are scheduled for Friday and Saturday. I hate to even link to this creep's site, but here is the flyer announcing his intentions. Fred is known for sending out this incendiary crap and then not showing up, and I pray that's what happens this time. And if not, I hope the Patriot Guard Riders show up to protect the families from these evil, depraved people. posted by Kathy | 3:41 PM |I'm heading out of town soon. Thank you, readers and linkers. I'll be back Sunday night; there'll be (I hope) some guest posts while I'm gone.... posted by Steve M. | 12:43 PM | Marshall Wittmann has been hired as Joe Lieberman's spokesman. The New York Times story on Wittmann seems as if it's meant to be "poking gentle fun," but I think if you were a typical Times reader -- reasonably well informed but not a political maven, and heretofore unaware of Wittmann -- he'd come off as a jerk with no real convictions, and you might be wondering (admittedly, way too late) about Lieberman's judgment: Senator Joseph I. Lieberman announced Tuesday that he had hired a new spokesman, which is not in itself that noteworthy, except that the said spokesman, Marshall Wittmann, is one of the great career vagabonds, ideological contortionists and political pontificators ever to inflict himself on a city full of them. To say that Mr. Wittmann defies classification is like saying Paris Hilton defies modesty.... Mr. Wittmann ... is a Trotskyite turned Zionist turned Reaganite turned bipartisan irritant turned pretty much everything in between -- including chief lobbyist for the Christian Coalition, the only Jew who has ever held that position.... You know, I think a lot of moderate and even liberal Connecticut voters persuaded themselves that Joe's war stance wasn't extreme -- he wanted the troops home, too, didn't he? But the Christian Coalition -- that's weird. That's extreme. (And if they're thinking that, this time they're right.) Here's more: "I think I'm the only person who has worked for both Cesar Chavez and Linda Chavez," Mr. Wittmann said of the union pioneer who inspired him in the 1970s and the conservative Republican whose Senate campaign in Maryland he joined in the 1980s. "I think I'm the only person who's worked for both Ralph Reed and Bruce Reed," Mr. Wittmann added, referring to the former executive director of the Christian Coalition and the top lieutenant to former President Bill Clinton. Ick. In addition to being politically shallow, Wittmann comes off as a grade-schooler who's trying to be clever for the grown-ups so they'll pat him on the head and give him a lollipop. More: ...He suffered through a two-year dry patch from 2002 to 2004 when he was a spokesman for Senator John McCain, the Arizona Republican, a job that largely required him to suppress his inner quotemeister for his boss's even-more-impressive knack for drawing attention. ...After leaving Mr. McCain's office, he joined the moderate Democratic Leadership Council as a senior fellow, a position whose mandate was not exactly clear but allowed him to once again be quoted.... The ego has landed! This part of Wittmann's C.V. brings up another question: If John McCain somehow gets the GOP nomination, do you think he might pick Lieberman as his running mate? McCain's need to please GOP litmus-testers will clearly be diminished after the primaries. And really, why not Joe? Right-wingers have proved this year that they love him. (A tangential thought: Isn't the right-wingers' embrace of the pro-choice, pro-gay rights Lieberman a sign that Giuliani has a chance with them?) A McCain-Lieberman ticket would alienate social conservatives, but unless there's a serious third-party challenger on the right, those voters will have to hold their noses and vote for McCain to prevent the rise of (probably) The Evil Hitlery. And, of course, the commentariat will plotz -- if John picks Joe, the paroxysm of ecstasy among elite Beltway scribes will be measurable on seismological equipment half a continent away. I don't think we'll ever get to find this out, however -- I think the GOP nominee will be either a litmus-test passer or, if the party wants a superstar, Rudy rather than John. But if John does get it, my money's on Joe for the #2 slot. **** UPDATE: At Tapped, Mark Schmitt speculates that McCain will lose the Republican nomination and then conduct a third-party run with Lieberman. Sorry, but that's just not going to happen. Both men have too much respect for the GOP to do that; all the right-wingers who pal around with Lieberman and all the right-wingers McCain is desperate to pal around with will tell them not to do it -- mustn't help elect Hillary! And so they won't. (Also, for Lieberman, doing whatever hurts the '08 Democratic nominee, even if it's the centrist Hillary, will be not just a favor to his GOP pals but revenge for '06, served cold.) posted by Steve M. | 10:17 AM | Tuesday, November 21, 2006 I see that the right's philosophy toward campus outreach is -- unsurprisingly -- that it's easier to catch flies with toxic waste than with honey or vinegar. There's this, from Boston University: BU group offers white scholarship Looking to draw attention to what they call the "worst form of bigotry confronting America today," Boston University's College Republicans are circulating an application for a "Caucasian Achievement and Recognition Scholarship" that requires applicants be at least 25 percent Caucasian. ...The scholarship, which is privately funded by the BUCR without the support of the university, is meant to raise awareness, group members say. BUCR member argue that racial preferences are a form of "bigotry." ... The application for the $250 scholarship, due Nov. 30, requires applicants be full-time BU undergraduate students and one-fourth Caucasian and maintain at least a 3.2 cumulative GPA. Applicants must submit two essays, one describing the applicant's ancestry and one describing "what it means to you to be a Caucasian-American today." ... The article goes on to note that the BU College Republicans borrowed the idea from College Republicans at Roger Williams University. The RWU 'pubs sponsored a similar award three years ago, but the scholarship was discontinued after its first year when the national and state Republican parties severed ties with RWU College Republicans.... "The RNC under [former chair] Ed Gillespie disagreed with me," [former RWU College Republicans president Jason] Mattera said. "For Ed Gillespie to be dismissive or to imply that there was racism, he lacked any type of -- to put it bluntly -- balls in standing up against racial preferences. It would have been a great opportunity."... Y'know, when you're too obnoxious for the Bush/Rove-era national GOP, maybe you should ask yourself if you've gone a wee bit too far. And over at Oberlin, there's this: Republican Griffin Critiques Feminism Chair of the Republican party of Virginia Kate Obenshain Griffin delivered a lecture titled "The Failures of Feminism" Thursday to a large audience. The lecture was the final event of this semester's controversial and well-attended Ronald Reagan Lectureship Series, sponsored by the OC Republicans. ...Griffin's distaste for feminism grew as she entered a professional life in politics. She worked for then-governor and now departing U.S. Senator George Allen, first as a campaigner and later as an educational advisor. It is here that she first encountered "hypocritical liberal Democrats," who she criticized as attacking her integrity and expertise based on her being female. Furthermore, as she rose to the seat of Republican Party Chairman (she prefers the title "chairman") in Virginia she was accused by Democratic opponents of "shrill and hysterical rantings," adjectives Griffin claims are targeted at women alone. Women in politics are subject to sexist remarks? You've noticed that? Wonderful. Kate Obenshain Griffin, meet Nancy Pelosi. But I'm not sure why Griffin is complaining -- after all, she clearly thinks feminists are much worse than sexists: Apart from the hypocrisy she sees in feminism, Griffin argues that successful feminism is damaging and even dangerous to American society.... "We have forgotten the victims [of feminism]," she said, "and these are the children." ... Under the umbrella of the harm inflicted upon children by feminism, Griffin included abortion, under-nurtured "latchkey kids" and babysitting arrangements that take children away from their own homes. In particular Griffin feels that young boys find themselves in a damaging situation: made to feel ashamed of "natural boyishness" and forced to "get in touch with their feelings" in a way unsuited to their natures.... Y'know, I could be wrong, but I suspect some of the Democrats who referred to her "shrill and hysterical rantings" (if these people existed) were merely expressing their "natural boyishness." ...Griffin believes that feminism has been primarily targeted at dismantling the family, as it is seen as an institution of male oppression.... Excuse me, is it 1971 in here, or is it me? Yeah, the contemporary left hates the family. That's why we keep trying to expand its definition to include gay couples, especially gay couples raising kids -- because we hate gay people, and we want to force them into an institution we see as evil. Er, that was sarcasm. I wonder if Griffin would be able to tell. posted by Steve M. | 7:30 PM | Hmmm ... it occurs to me that the real-life equivalent of The Office's Dwight Schrute might not be Christopher Hitchens. Schrute's real-life twin might be Newt Gingrich: "You still don't get it, do you?" he asks.... "I'm going to tell you something, and whether or not it's plausible given the world you come out of is your problem," [Gingrich] tells Fortune. "I am not 'running' for president. I am seeking to create a movement to win the future by offering a series of solutions so compelling that if the American people say I have to be president, it will happen." Same delusions of grandeur, right? Same sense of himself borne aloft by the hand of history? Same sneering contempt for those who don't share his vision? And is the process of "creat[ing] a movement to win the future" anything like the process of building the Dwight Army of Champions? **** (Quote via the Carpetbagger Report.) Oh, and if you want a Newt Gingrich Presidential Campaign Drinking Game, this'll get you started: Every time Gingrich uses the phrase "change agent" during the primaries, all players have to drain their glasses. You may need to pick a designated driver. posted by Steve M. | 2:46 PM | One thing which has long puzzled me is why Afghanistan wasn't enough for all the "liberal hawks" ... The Beinarts of the world wanted a war and a grand humanitarian mission. They had one. It was Afghanistan. It was justifiable. We went and kicked some ass. And then we abandoned the grand humanitarian mission and went chasing after a shiny new war. ...We had a chance to do all the things the Quiet Americans wanted us to do. Invade a country, get rid of their bad leaders, pave the streets with gold, and create a wonderful paradise which could be an example for the world. Why couldn't we do that in Afghanistan? --Atrios Um, because Afghanistan didn't give the "liberal hawks" the exquisite satisfaction of bashing sandal-wearing hippies? Because too many of us actually supported the mission in Afghanistan, and thus the "liberal hawks" needed a different war that would give them the chance to turn on us and impress the right-wingers whose "manliness" they so envy? This has been another edition of simple answers to simple questions. posted by Steve M. | 11:43 AM | A while back, liberal hawk George Packer got a clue and declared that the Bush administration had screwed up the Iraq war -- but now Packer is back on more comfortable ground, happily bashing what he considers to be his own side. In this week's New Yorker, he attacks dirty filthy hippie Democrats like John Murtha who've called for a full-scale withdrawal of troops, arguing that even withdrawal from individual cities has been a bad idea: ... wherever American troop levels have been reduced --in Falluja and Mosul in 2004, in Tal Afar in 2005, in Baghdad in 2006 -- security has deteriorated. In the absence of adequate and impartial Iraqi forces, Sunni insurgents or Shiite militias have filled the power vacuum with a reign of terror. Democrats! Why do they want to cut and run? Er, but elsewhere in The New Yorker we have this, in Seymour Hersh's article: In August, according to [a] former senior intelligence official, Rumsfeld asked the Joint Chiefs to quietly devise alternative plans for Iraq, to preempt new proposals, whether they come from the new Democratic majority or from the Iraq Study Group. "The option of last resort is to move American forces out of the cities and relocate them along the Syrian and Iranian border," the former official said.... In a subsequent interview, [a] former senior Bush Administration official said that he had also been told that the Pentagon has been at work on a plan in Iraq that called for a military withdrawal from the major urban areas to a series of fortified bases near the borders. The working assumption was that, with the American troops gone from the most heavily populated places, the sectarian violence would "burn out." "The White House is saying it’s going to stabilize," the former senior Administration official said, "but it may stabilize the wrong way." Yup -- Democrats want to pull troops from Iraq. What cowards! Not like those brave Republicans -- they're just talking about pulling troops from all the dangerous parts of Iraq. Much more steadfast! posted by Steve M. | 7:32 AM | Monday, November 20, 2006 I see that Rupert Murdoch has cancelled Judith Regan's O.J. book, If I Did It, Here's How It Happened, and the accompanying Regan-Simpson TV special. However, there are apparently no plans to force Regan to cancel publication of the following: * If I Helped Turn Iraq into an Open-Air Abbatoir for Human Beings, Here's How It Happened by Douglas Feith * If I Invented Ideological Ambulance-Chasing, Here's How It Happened by Larry Klayman * If I've Become Rich Spewing Bigotry and Enabling Some of the Worst Political Leaders on the Planet, Here's How It Happened by Neal Boortz * If I'm Responsible for the Rise to Power of the Worst President in American History, I'm Going to Avoid Talking About How It Happened by Ralph Nader * If My Pomposity Back in the 1980s Helped Make It Acceptable for the United States to Openly Embrace Brutality Overseas, Here's How It Should Happen Again by Jeane Kirkpatrick All of these books are real; all will be published by Regan and Murdoch next year. I may not have the titles exactly right. posted by Steve M. | 6:49 PM | Oops -- this wasn't supposed to happen: ...the movie business climbed its way out of a dismal pattern of declining audience to more solid footing in 2006. With most of the year's movie receipts counted, the box office is up 6.5 percent over last year, and attendance has risen nearly 5 percent.... Wasn't Hollywood supposed to remain in permanent decline until the liberals all left town and turned the place over to people who'd make lots and lots of movies about Jesus and Islamofascism? Instead, recent moneymakers include Saw III and Borat (the latter is well on its way to making $100 million domestically), The Da Vinci Code has made the Baby Jesus cry by becoming a domestic and global box-office smash since spring (more than half a billion dollars' worth of tickets have been sold worldwide), and even the cartoon that's currently #1 at the U.S. box office, Happy Feet, is anti-religious, pro-UN, pro-gay, pro-Gaia propaganda (so says Michael Medved, and no, I'm not exaggerating). Hollywood and the Democrats making a comeback? Get the behind me, Satan! Ah, but soon we'll have The Nativity Story, which certainly ought to be morally uplifting -- after all it's by the director of ... oh, never mind. posted by Steve M. | 2:35 PM | "GOOD NEWS" The Wall Street Journal's online editorial page, October 25, 2004: ...A roundup of the past two weeks' good news from Iraq. ...The media expose us on a daily basis to the idea that things [in Iraq] are not as good as they seem. Below are some stories that suggest things aren't as bad either: ...From sublime to ridiculous, Iraqi TV has a new most popular show: ... Caricateera--or Caricatures--is Iraq's answer to Saturday Night Live, a variety show driven by biting political satire. It's must-see TV for millions of Iraqis every Friday at 2:35 p.m. Thousands more catch the show on bootleg videodiscs, which sell for less than $1. The show's popularity stems from the shots it takes at topics ranging from Iraq's interim government and the nation's violence to the lack of electricity and the U.S. military presence. Such criticism was taboo under the regime of former leader Saddam Hussein. It certainly beats watching the never-ending speeches of the Great Leader.... Reuters today: BAGHDAD - The body of an Iraqi actor was found with three bullet wounds in the head in al-Yarmouk district in western Baghdad, police and al-Sharkiya channel said. Waleed Hassan was known for his popular sketch show "Charicature". Oh well.... (Second link via Atrios.) posted by Steve M. | 11:27 AM | "EVERY TIME YOU SAY 'HAPPY HOLIDAYS' INSTEAD OF 'MERRY CHRISTMAS' AN ELF DIES" The culture wars go icky-poo cutesy. posted by Steve M. | 8:00 AM | Sunday, November 19, 2006 It's been, oh, weeks since one of our "liberal" elite newspapers has said that successful career women (and the evil liberals who think women should have careers) are causing societal rot. So I guess we were overdue for "The Real Marriage Penalty" by Annie Murphy Paul, in today's New York Times Magazine. What are liberals and these unnatural she-creatures responsible for now, according to Ms. Paul? Oh, just the apportionment of wealth in modern society: Over the past generation, the liberal notion of egalitarian marriage -- in which wives are in every sense their husbands' peers -- has gone from pie-in-the-sky ideal to unremarkable reality. But this apparently progressive shift has been shadowed by another development: America's growing gap between rich and poor. Even as husbands and wives have moved closer together on measures of education and income, the divide between well-educated, well-paid couples and their less-privileged counterparts has widened, raising an awkward possibility: are we achieving more egalitarian marriages at the cost of a more egalitarian society? Yup -- inequality is rising not because the tradition of progressive taxation has been reversed since the Reagan era, or because union membership is dwindling, or because we've shipped all the manufacturing jobs overseas and replaced them with greeter jobs at Wal-Mart, or because the pay top executives receive is a much larger multiple of ordinary workers' pay than ever. Nope -- it's liberals and harpies! The damn broads are getting successful in business and the professions, so well-off men aren't marrying their secretaries anymore! Paul does cite statistics to support her thesis: In an article published last year in the journal Demography, [sociologists Christine Schwartz and Robert Mare] reported that the odds of a high-school graduate marrying someone with a college degree declined by 43 percent between 1940 and the late 1970s. In our current decade, the researchers wrote, the percentage of couples who are "educationally homogamous" -- that is, share the same level of schooling -- reached its highest point in 40 years. But then she quotes an economist named Gary Burtless who all but says those numbers are meaningless: Burtless ... says he believes that "the tendency of like to marry like has remained roughly unchanged over time. What have changed are the labor-market opportunities and behavior of women." In this conception, men have always married women of their own social class, but such stratification was obscured by the fact that the female halves of these couples often did not work or pursue advanced degrees. Makes sense to me. Yet Paul essentially ignores this explanation. And all this leads to a truly bizarre passage: ...as the current clash over gay marriage demonstrates, private choices about whom we marry -- or don't marry, or can't marry -- can have loud public reverberations. Not long ago, the marriages of whites and blacks, and the lifting of laws that once prohibited such unions, revealed a nation beginning to open its mind on matters of race; likewise, rates of marriage across lines of education and income provide an index of social mobility. What on earth does that "likewise" mean? The only way the word has any meaning at all, the only sense I can make of it, is that Paul believes upscale people are oppressing the less well-off by refusing to marry them -- oppressing them the way laws against interracial marriage oppressed African-Americans. So if you marry a fellow lawyer, it's the moral equivalent of burning a cross on the lawn of a black man marries to a white woman? If you want to reduce inequality, start repealing tax cuts for the well-to-do -- don't wag a finger and tell them not to marry. posted by Steve M. | 11:22 PM | OK, AFTER THIS I'LL STOP In a poll on Rudy being conducted at Free Republic ("Would you be for or against Rudy Giuliani for president?"), the "no"s are winning, 60%-40%. So maybe that means I'm crazy to think Rudy can win the nomination. Then again, most reasonable people think McCain can win it, and (as I've mentioned), the "no" vote in McCain's poll at FR was 90%. I think 40% of the crazies is rather impressive -- and remember that these are people who actually discuss Rudy's social-liberal positions (and divorce and predilection for drag) with one another; they know what they're voting for. I'm sticking with my prediction. posted by Steve M. | 8:27 PM | The American Family Association, which led campaigns to punish CBS for broadcasting curse words uttered at Ground Zero as the Twin Towers fell and punish Fox for allowing the word "shit" to inadvertently go out over the air during a NASCAR broadcast, now brings us word of a new threat to civilization as we know it, as reported by another Christian-right group: 'Implied Cursing' in TV Ads Concerns Christian Activist Recent television advertising that used "bleeped" profanity as to grab attention and shock viewers is being compared to the Bible's warning concerning seduction and deception getting worse and worse. ... In a Dodge commercial for its Caliber model, for example, a Muppet-like character shares that the car "scares the [bleep] out of me." ...A Comcast ad promoting high-speed Internet service portrays a man who, after getting a "power boost" from the cable line, blitzes through a kitchen clean-up chore at lightning-fast speed -- to which his wife exclaims: "Holy ...." ...How about a Volkswagen ad promoting the built-in safety features in one of its models? Passengers in a new Passat blurt out "Holy ..." after surviving a crash. Instead of hearing a profanity, viewers hear a voice-over saying "safe happens." ....Citing a Bible passage in the third chapter of 2 Timothy, [Bill] Johnson [of the American Decency Association] says he is reminded that deception will grow worse during the last days. He thinks Christians should therefore make choices in media consumption that keep them on "God's side" -- by remaining pure in spirit and being much more discerning than in times past. Yup -- ads that say "Holy (bleep)" are a sign of the Last Days. I look forward to the joint AFA/ADA campaign to ban Satan-influenced comic strips in which people say "%@#&*@!!!" when they hit their thumbs with a hammer. **** (By the way, I see no sign that either the AFA or the ADA has had a word to say about a true obscenity that's about to go out over the air -- the O.J. interview.) posted by Steve M. | 8:59 AM | Saturday, November 18, 2006 OUR PALS THE PAKISTANIS Providing R&R to the Taliban: PAKISTAN is allowing Taliban fighters wounded in battles with British and other Nato forces in Afghanistan to be treated at safe houses. The Sunday Times found Taliban commanders and their fighters recuperating in the city of Quetta last week and moving freely around parts of the city. ... they lounged on cushions, sipping green tea and sucking at boiled sweets while laughing at Nato reports that they have sustained heavy casualties.... Thanks for the unflagging support, Pervez! (Via DU.) posted by Steve M. | 11:48 PM | Fox News host Mort Kondracke, the "left-leaning" counterpart to Weekly Standard editor Fred Barnes on Fox News' The Beltway Boys, said last night that incoming House Speaker Nancy Pelosi (D-CA) should be nicknamed the "Wicked Witch of the West." --Think Progress Shakespeare's Sister says: Mmm…refreshing. Hearing the first ever female Speaker of the House called a witch within 24 hours of being elected to the role goes down smooth. The Photoshops of a green-faced Pelosi with her winged monkeys Hoyer and Murtha will be a splendid chaser. A green-faced Pelosi? Coming right up, courtesy of the Family Research Council's blog!  (That's been up for a while, by the way -- it's a Halloween-themed post, and I first saw it in October.) I know I'm asking a lot of the press corps, but this ought to be a story -- the unabashed sexism of the attacks on Pelosi. (See also the New York Post's "Nancy Shrew" piece.) I know it's not as much fun as, say, castigating lefty bloggers, but is anyone going to write a handwringing, responsible-serious-person assessment of this? **** (Well, Maureen Dowd starts by castigating the sexism -- then joins the catfight. Thanks a lot.) posted by Steve M. | 11:56 AM | I don't know what to make of the rumor that was reported by Think Progress yesterday-- that Karl Rove may leave the White House within weeks. The story cited by Think Progress quotes "a key Bush advisor" who says Rove is an impediment to the bipartisanship Bush so desperately craves. Right there, credibility is strained. (Let's see: Since the elections, we've had Bush renominating John Bolton, resubmitting six far-right judicial picks, choosing an anti-birth control looney for a family planning post, and sticking with the stay-the-course message on Iraq. Yeah, right -- Bush wants to extend olive branches, but Rove just keeps forcing him to do these things, practically every day, and Bush just submits meekly.) (By the way, Peggy Noonan also believes Bipartisan Bush is going to show up any day now; scroll to the end of her current column.) But Bush, of course did make a testy joke that seemed to blame Rove after the electoral loss (I don't think it was good-natured; watch the video). Rove made Bush look bad. Rove made Bush unhappy. That can't be acceptable. Surely it's just about time for Rove to leave so he can start doing whatever he's going to do in the 2008 campaign. (I can't believe he'll sit it out -- he's only 55 years old, and he's not going to want this campaign to linger on his record as his last act.) Now, let me return to my recent obsession -- Giuliani. I think you might see Rove working for Rudy. Back in '05, Radar Online reported that Rudy was "working closely with Rove to build a Presidential platform against presumed Democratic front-runner Hillary Clinton." More recently, Rudy hired an ex-Rove staffer as a fundraiser. The Radar report said Rove was thinking of Rudy as a VP candidate. That I consider implausible -- Rudy's ego is massive; he'd never accept the #2 job. But I can believe that Rove sees Rudy as someone who can be molded into Flight Suit Man Version II -- a cartoon hero spouting patriotism and wielding wedge issues. I think -- I worry -- that they'd be perfect together. **** UPDATE: Interesting theory from Steve Gilliard: ... I think Rove and Cheney are not long for the WH. Why? Poppy's men want them out of the way. They are in crisis mode, desperate to save Junior. Because someone just realized that the house committees are unfriendly ground for them. Hmmm -- maybe. Maybe Dad would twist his son's arm, demanding bipartishanship (and the rejection of these two partisans) because too many investigations could get Junior and Senior in trouble. But even if that's what's going on -- and I have serious doubts -- I think W would resist, because if there's one area in which W probably is a sophisticated and subtle battler, it's playing off Mommy against Daddy. For W, I think Rove and Cheney are pseudo-Barbaras -- hard-assed, uncompromising, and stubborn. I think W would hear out objections to Rove and Cheney from Poppy's people, just as he's lewtting Baker's Iraq group meet, but, just as he's resisting any notion of withdrawing from Iraq that may come from Baker, I think he'd resist personnel ideas from Poppy. So if Rove is on the outs, it's because of W, not Dad. posted by Steve M. | 10:26 AM | Friday, November 17, 2006 Peggy Noonan on the Republican reaction to the election results: There is a general sense the loss was not undeserved--this is an unusual attitude for runners just back from the race.... I don't know what athletes she hangs out with, but they've got to be serious whiners. In my world, when people lose a race, they assume the winner was the best runner, at least that day. To tell you the truth, I don't see any evidence that Republicans are thinking, "We deserved to lose." I think, at best, a few of them are thinking, "They [i.e., everybody who deviated from the Correct Republican Path, whatever that is] deserved to lose. Maybe now they'll come to their senses, like me." Or they blame the media. Or Rove. Or Bush, for not firing Rumsfeld sooner. And speaking of Rumsfeld, we know he thinks he has an inalienable right to victory on the squash court, so he reserves the right to cheat. I suspect Peggy's acquaintances have a similar sense of entitlement -- on race day and on Election Day. **** (Yeah, I know: McCain said Republicans deserved to lose. But that's a trick shot intended, if it goes right, to appeal to the base -- "We betrayed our principles" -- and the middle -- "You're right, we suck these days.") posted by Steve M. | 6:32 PM | Digby and Glenn Greenwald are doing a fine job of cataloguing all the catty talk about Nancy Pelosi among top-tier Beltway journalists and pundits -- but in today's New York Post, Deborah Orin-Eilbeck just cut to the chase and called Pelosi a "shrew." CALL HER 'NANCY SHREW'? FORGET "The Devil Wears Prada the hot show in Washington is "The Shrew Adores Armani." ... What decade are we living in? Sometimes I forget. posted by Steve M. | 3:50 PM | Glenn Beck of Headline News got a lot of attention this week (e.g., Keith Olbermann's "Worst Person in the World" award for asking the newly elected Muslim congressman from Minnesota, Keith Ellison, to "prove to me that you are not working with our enemies," but most people seem to have overlooked another Beck gem: his attempt this week to mainstream the linking of Hillary Clinton to Hitler. A couple of nights ago, in discussing reports that that Church of England now believes it is sometimes appropriate to withhold treatment from severely disbled premature infants, Beck began to talk about Nazi Germany -- and then segued: BECK: ... Hitler later signed a decree permitting the euthanasia of disabled infants ... and creating a panel of "expert" referees, which judged the infants and found out which ones were eligible for death. Once he was through with the babies, the elderly were next. As it has been said over and over again with tragedies regarding the Holocaust: never again. So, when you see politicians making statements like this one yesterday -- CLINTON [video clip]: But the whole issue of health care is coming back. That may be a bad dream for some, but for others, it's a very welcome possibility, because we are on an unsustainable course. I think that we have to come up with a uniquely American solution. BECK: OK. When you see statements like that, be afraid. Be very, very afraid. It's not a bad dream for me; it is a nightmare.... I don't really care that he walked the point back somewhat, suggesting after the clip that what really scared him about the Clinton health plan was its bureaucratic nature. Like Bush saying "Saddam" and "September the 11th" in the same sentence every chance he gets, Beck got his point across without actually having the integrity to say what he meant plainly. If this is what we're getting now on a CNN channel, what do you suppose we're going to get if Hillary runs for president? What are we going to get if, by some fluke, she actually manages to win? If Hillary is elected president, I have a feeling that the rules of "respectable" discourse in the mainstream media are going to be obliterated. I think calls for physical harm to the president are going to become almost routine. It'll happen gradually, and it'll be accompanied by suggestions that desperate measures may sometimes be necessary to deal with the "tyranny" or "totalitarianism" of her presidency. Don't hold your breath waiting for any denunciations of this talk -- what we'll get instead is serious consideration of the notion that her presidency is totalitarian ("Has She Gone Too Far?"). posted by Steve M. | 1:55 PM | So this is how it works now? If you get sufficiently lawyered up, you can convince a court to force public schools to send utter nonsense home to parents? SILVER SPRING, Md. -- A flier from a group called Parents and Friends of Ex-Gays and Gays, or PFOX, has started a controversy in Silver Spring. The flier was handed out during homeroom to students at Montgomery Blair High School. ...The school said it had no choice but to pass it out. PFOX says it reaches out to gay teens offering unconditional love and support to homosexuals who want to become straight. Promoting a way out of a gay lifestyle, the nonprofit group offers to expose teenagers to "ex-gay" people. "What we're saying is that, if you have unwanted same-sex attraction -- and there is a difference -- then there are alternatives, and homosexual feelings can be overcome," said Regina Griggs of PFOX.... This isn't about exposure to ex-gays -- it's about exposure to "therapy" that's supposed to make gay people straight. An L.A. Times story from May explains how this happened: ...The ex-gay movement's biggest victory came last year, when a federal judge sided with Parents and Friends of ExGays and Gays, or PFOX, in a lawsuit against a Maryland school district. PFOX, a national advocacy group based in Alexandria, Va., had sued to block the district's new sex-education curriculum, arguing that its treatment of homosexuality was one-sided. The judge agreed that students should hear other perspectives, and PFOX took a seat on the committee charged with drafting new lesson plans.... And I guess the literature drop was part of the settlement. Oh, you thought we were winning the battle against pseudo-science, superstition, and claptrap because we beat back intelligent design in Dover? Forget it -- these people just keep coming, like movie zombies. I sure hope the judge in this case will be happy if the Flat Earthers, Holocaust revisionists, and 9/11 "truth"ers see an opening here and pounce. (The right-wing Christians at Agape Press are happy about the literature drop, the folks at Ex-Gay Watch not so much.) **** Well, it's a good month for pseudo-scientific claptrap, what with Bush's appointment of a guy who thinks too much sex causes your brain chemicals to make you unable to fall in love....) posted by Steve M. | 10:27 AM | "OH, DONALD, I LOVE HOW YOU SNEER IN THE AFTERGLOW" This is funny. (But Midge and ... a realist? I dunno....) posted by Steve M. | 7:24 AM | Thursday, November 16, 2006 The Bushies play word games: Hungry Americans No Longer 'Hungry,' Government Says A key government report on hunger in America has eliminated that word from its findings, but not because there are no longer people in need of nutrition. ...Last year, families without enough money to buy food, or where parents skip meals so their children can eat were labeled as having "food insecurity with hunger" and now they simply have "very low food security." ...Hundreds of miles away in Chicago, at the Holy Family Food Pantry, the people lining up for assistance know exactly what hunger means. "I'm running out of food, so I got to find somewhere to get some food," Terry Sutton said. But according to the new government report, that doesn't necessarily make him hungry. Sutton and others like him have "very low food security." ..."I'd say it passes the common sense test, in that it does identify there is a need and we do recognize that there are individuals in this country who face need from time to time," said Katie Coler, the undersecretary of the USDA.... Paging Mr. Orwell.... posted by Steve M. | 10:37 PM | PEOPLE WHO WANT THE TERRORISTS TO WIN They worked for Bush and Tom Ridge: Security checkpoint managers at San Francisco International Airport were warned when undercover inspectors came to test how well screeners detected fake bombs and weapons, a government report said Tuesday. The report, obtained by The Associated Press, confirms allegations brought in February 2005 by a whistleblower who formerly worked for Covenant Aviation Security. ...The Transportation Security Administration, which is in charge of airport security, asked its watchdog agency to investigate the charges by the former worker, Gene Bencomo. "We confirmed the allegation," said the report by the Homeland Security Department's inspector general, Richard Skinner. The report said the company used surveillance cameras to track testers as they made their way through the airport, and told the screeners before the testers arrived at the checkpoints. The inspector general concluded that activity took place between August 2003 and May 2004... The whistleblower was fired by Covenant after making his allegations: ... [CNN'S JEANNE] MESERVE: ... Bencomo was a supervisor for Covenant. In a wrongful termination lawsuit, he alleges the company's security is full of holes. BENCOMO: Individuals who are not certified by the federal government are sitting at X-ray machines, walk-through metal detectors, working explosive trace detection machines. I can remember a small chain saw made it through one of our checkpoints, icepicks, firearms, knives, box cutters. MESERVE: But Bencomo's most explosive allegation, that when undercover federal auditors with concealed weapons showed up to test screener performance, Covenant cheated. BENCOMO: It would take physical descriptions of the auditors at the airport, for example, what they were wearing, how tall they were, were they blonde, did they have blue eyes? The rest of the checkpoints throughout the airport were tipped off to look for these individuals.... Covenant still has the security contract at San Francisco International. Everything's fine now, we're told. posted by Steve M. | 7:02 PM | So I understand that O.J. Simpson's interviewer on Fox will be Judith Regan, who'll also publish his book through her publishing imprint (which, like Fox, is part of a Murdoch company, HarperCollins). I seem to recall that a guy named Bernie got that same package a few years ago -- both a Regan book and a Fox TV special hosted by Regan. That arrangement was, er, not strictly business. I'm trying not to think about the possibility that history is repeating itself. posted by Steve M. | 4:07 PM | Jeremy Dibbell at the Moderate Voice, Steve Clemons at the Washington Note, and a couple of congressmen are urging President Bush to appoint defeated GOP-centrist congressman Jim Leach as UN ambassador. Yeah, I guess that's understandable -- just as it's understandable that some battered wives wake up after the latest in a six-year series of beatings and think, "Maybe he'll change soon." It's understandable, but it's preposterously naive. Look, guys, there are two possibilities for Bolton's replacement: (1) someone at least as distasteful to liberals and moderates as Bolton (if not more so) or (2) Lieberman (to get the Senate seat back for the GOP). That's it. Full stop. Don't waste any more bandwidth on this exercise in futility. And no, I don't care about the fact that, as these guys say, Leach could be confirmed unanimously. Do they understand nothing about Bush and Rove and Cheney? Obtaining consensus isn't the point. For Bush, Rove, and Cheney, obtaining consensus is the exact opposite of the point. (Via Memeorandum.) **** IN FACT: If Bush were to pick any defeated Republican for the UN job, he'd probably pick this guy. And yes, I'm serious -- I absolutely could imagine that. posted by Steve M. | 10:37 AM | Why is the Guardian story about the Bush/Iraq Study Group plan to increase troop strength by 20,000 (and say "Fuck you, I won't do what you tell me" to Democrats) headlined "US Plans Last Big Push in Iraq"? This isn't Bush's "last" anything in Iraq. And why does "a former senior administration official" tell us that Bush "knows he's got less than a year, maybe six months, to make it work. If it fails, I expect the withdrawal process to begin next fall"? Bush is never, ever, ever going to acknowledge failure, or begin the withdrawal process -- not next fall, not in 2008, never. And in reference to a planned push for increased international cooperation ("This could involve the convening of an international conference of neighbouring countries or more direct diplomatic, financial and economic involvement of US allies such as Saudi Arabia and Kuwait"), why even bother to quote the following? "The extent to which that [regional cooperation] will include talking to Iran and Syria is still up for debate," said Patrick Cronin, of the International Institute for Strategic Studies. "Externally, US policy is focused on what is achievable. Some quarters believe Syria in some ways could be helpful. There are more doubts about Iran but Iran holds more cards. Some think it's worth a try." Yesterday, a top state department official, David Satterfield, said America was prepared in principle to discuss with Iran its activities in Iraq. Bush's administration is never going to talk to people he's already decided it's never going to talk to, because he's already decided, and he's the decider, and so it's not going to happen. Why did we even let the word "bipartisan" pass our lips? Why did we fall for the image of Wayward Son W being brought to heel by his daddy's retainers? The thing about incorrigibly defiant children is that you can't control them. If the Iraq Study Group hadn't given him this out, well, he was going to do what he wanted anyway -- after all, he'd hastily convened his own pseudo-Iraq Study Group to tell him what he wanted to hear. I don't know how bad this would have to get before anything changed. I'm afraid we're going to get to find out. **** And I guess now we know why Rumsfeld had to go. His version of "stay the course" was, very precisely, to "stay the course." It wasn't "do whatever will piss the Democrats off most and most clearly make the case that Bush is The Man, but only after the election, and it mustn't require a draft or imply that anything up to now has been a mistake." posted by Steve M. | 7:37 AM | Wednesday, November 15, 2006 THE UNDEAD One thing about Republicans: they never believe they're not wanted. I just got off the phone with former congressman and talk show host Bob Dornan, who is considering ... a run for President. ..."I've got one mission left in me, to come up to New Hampshire and tell the truth, and tell the Republicans you better find yourself a fresh face and not Rudy Giuliani who took his mistress around with him and then divorces Donnna who learns she was divorced sitting at home watching TV with her children. "We need a fresh face if the Republican Party is going to appeal to an Orthodox Jewish, Evangelical or practicing Catholic." Aside from adultery, Dornan's other issue is homosexuality, which he called "a cancer in my party." ... Yeah, I'm sure he does -- you recall what he said in '92, when he was still in Congress: "Every lesbian spearchucker in this country is hoping I get defeated." He also called Russian journalist Vladimir Posner a "disloyal, betraying little Jew" -- on the House floor. More fun quotes here; charming nuggets on Dornan's anger management problems and other character flaws here -- yup, he's another Republican who's pro-wife-beating, which I guess isn't a mortal sin like divorce. posted by Steve M. | 11:19 PM | Yeah, James Webb's Wall Street Journal op-ed was quite a blast of old-style concern for the little guy: ...Incestuous corporate boards regularly approve compensation packages for chief executives and others that are out of logic's range. As this newspaper has reported, the average CEO of a sizeable corporation makes more than $10 million a year, while the minimum wage for workers amounts to about $10,000 a year, and has not been raised in nearly a decade. When I graduated from college in the 1960s, the average CEO made 20 times what the average worker made. Today, that CEO makes 400 times as much. ... Trickle-down economics didn't happen. Despite the vaunted all-time highs of the stock market, wages and salaries are at all-time lows as a percentage of the national wealth. At the same time, medical costs have risen 73% in the last six years alone. Half of that increase comes from wage-earners' pockets rather than from insurance, and 47 million Americans have no medical insurance at all. ... I'm counting the days until the Journal editorial page, or some other right-wing organ, strikes back. The response won't be from a Republican -- that would be too obvious. No, a Democrat will be found -- maybe Robert Rubin or Robert Reich, or some other believer in the basic structures of the current economic order. That Democrat will harshly denounce Webb, focusing in partcular on his critique of globalization and outsourcing, and warning the new Democratic congressional majorities that questioning the status quo in this way is a "dangerous road" that must not be taken. I don't care. If Webb is going to point out that this system isn't working for ordinary Americans, I'm with Webb. Give 'em hell, Jim. posted by Steve M. | 4:17 PM | McCAIN AND GIULIANI The people who run the Rasmussen polling operation reminded us yesterday of something they first reported just after Election Day: Giuliani is leading in their '08 presidential poll among Republican voters -- and McCain is third. (Condi is #2.) And more bad news for McCain: In a poll at Free Republic that asks, "Would you be for or against McCain?," more than 90% are "against." John's in trouble. At the very least, a Giuliani candidacy will split the votes of Republicans who are interested in electability. Regarding Giuliani, the crazies and semi-crazies of the online right are split. Debbie Schussel loves, among other things, his anti-Arafat grandstanding; Philip Klein at The American Spectator's blog thinks he has a good shot as a security candidate (but Klein is responding to David Hogberg on the same blog, who thinks Republicans need to run right). And Terence Jeffrey at TownHall gives us a column called "Forget It, Rudy" -- but spends the first half of it praising Giuliani. But please note the second comment in response to that TownHall column -- it begins: "Just what would you give up to keep Hillary from being president?" This was the question posed on the Hugh Hewitt show by his stand in Jed Babbin.... The commenter who quotes this actually thinks it's crazy to compromise -- but the desperation of the question is what I find significant. A lot of people on the right are terrified at the prospect of a Hillary presidency. They think she's unstoppable. When it comes to Hillary, they're deranged. (By the way I really wish some of the cool bloggers on the left would start using the term "Hillary Derangement Syndrome," because that's what these people have). And yet these people can't bring themselves to support McCain, who could beat her handily. (In a McCain-Clinton race, the mainstream press would display a pro-GOP bias that would make Bush-Gore look like a fair fight.) I think they're going to be desperate for a winner come '08 primary season. I think they're going to hold their noses and vote -- the only question is, will they decide to ignore Rudy's positions on the issues or the myth of John McCain's evil that they've built up in their heads? I really, really don't know. But I think they really might find it easier to ignore Rudy's positions, just because they want A Man On A Horse. **** One more point: I don't know if I've said this before, but I really think '08 could be a three-way race, or even a four-way race a la 1948. The three most popular Republicans (per Rasmussen) are, in varying ways, unacceptable to the party's base (Condi's anti-abortion bona fides are considered suspect). Hillary is looked at warily by war opponents. I could really see a McCain or Rudy nomination leading to a minor-party candidacy by a litmus-test right-winger. (Tancredo?) And I seriously think Nader's vote totals will be more like 2000's than 2004's if Hillary gets the nomination and still hasn't repudiated her vote for the war. (C'mon, you just know Ralph will drag his sorry ass back into the ring.) I don't know who wins a four-way race. I don't know how the winner will be able to govern. And I'm not sure I want to find out. posted by Steve M. | 1:38 PM | THE COMPANY BUSH KEEPS Yesterday The New York Times ran a story by David Kirkpatrick about support for Israel among evangelicals. Figuring prominently in the story was John Hagee: As Israeli bombs fell on Lebanon for a second week last July, the Rev. John Hagee of San Antonio arrived in Washington with 3,500 evangelicals for the first annual conference of his newly founded organization, Christians United For Israel. ...Mr. Hagee read greetings from President Bush and Prime Minister Ehud Olmert of Israel and dispatched the crowd with a message for their representatives in Congress. Tell them “to let Israel do their job” of destroying the Lebanese militia, Hezbollah, Mr. Hagee said.... The next day he took the same message to the White House.... Administration officials say that the meeting with Mr. Hagee was a courtesy for a political ally.... I wish Kirkpatrick had mentioned the fact that Hagee, at a pre-election rally on November 5 that was attended by Governor Rick Perry and many other Texas politicians, said that non-Christians are "going straight to hell with a non-stop ticket." I also wish Kirkpatrick had managed to mention the sequence of events Hagee believes will follow the attack on Iran he so hopes for: ...He argues that a strike against Iran will cause Arab nations to unite under Russia's leadership, as outlined in chapters 38 and 39 of the Book of Ezekiel, leading to an "inferno [that] will explode across the Middle East, plunging the world toward Armageddon." ... The strike will provoke Russia -- which wants Persian Gulf oil -- to lead an army of Arab nations against Israel. Then God will wipe out all but one-sixth of the Russian-led army... To fill the power vacuum left by God's decimation of the Russian army, the Antichrist -- the head of the EU -- will rule "a one-world government, a one-world currency and a one-world religion" for three and a half years.... The "demonic world leader" will then be confronted by a false prophet, identified by Hagee as China, at Armageddon, the Mount of Megiddo in Israel. As they prepare for the final battle, Jesus will return on a white horse and cast both villains -- and presumably any nonbelievers -- into a "lake of fire burning with brimstone," thus marking the beginning of his millennial reign.... This is a man Bush reaches out to. This is a man who has meetings at the White House. And they said Ned Lamont went over the line when he accepted Al Sharpton's support. **** (Yes, I'm recycling material from this post.) posted by Steve M. | 9:57 AM | Stupid on so many levels: FEMA homes were destroyed in storage NEW ORLEANS -- Hundreds of modular homes bought by FEMA for victims of last year's hurricanes were damaged beyond repair as they sat unused and, in many cases, unprotected from the elements, the agency said Tuesday. The failure to protect the homes from the sun and rain while they were in storage was outlined in a report by the Homeland Security Department's inspector general. The Federal Emergency Management Agency bought the homes as emergency housing for victims of Hurricanes Katrina and Rita. But many sat unused for months at an Army depot in Texarkana, Texas, because of restrictions on where such homes could be erected, FEMA said. A June inventory had 1,790 homes at the site. ..."For future planning, given that some modular home units are designed to be assembled soon after they are received rather than stored, many modular home units are questionable choices for emergency housing," inspector general Richard Skinner wrote. posted by Steve M. | 7:32 AM | Tuesday, November 14, 2006 I wouldn't have done this. I would have assumed that it wasn't the right time or place, and that there was no chance of changing anyone's mind. However, Deanna Bernstein felt otherwise: Deanna Bernstein of Summerville wanted to spend a night at the Coastal Carolina Fair eating the food and enjoying the rides and playing the games. Instead, she ended up in jail. When Bernstein passed a vendor selling a T-shirt Wednesday with Confederate flags and the words "Confederately Correct Civil Rights for Southern Whites," her stomach turned.... She asked the vendor to remove the shirt and complained to fair management. When the T-shirt wasn't put away, a friend bought one for Bernstein and she stood outside the fair gates with the T-shirt in hand to ask people coming in what they thought about it.... Charleston County sheriff's deputies asked Bernstein to leave. When she didn't, she was arrested on a trespassing charge and fined $440, and she said she spent about eight hours in the county detention center.... Bernstein, by the way, is originally from California. She was being well-mannered, we're told, but it seems she violated a rule (unwritten, the fair's president says) about making political statements on the fairgrounds. (That rule apparently extends to people who are just outside the fairgrounds, but doesn't extend to merchandise sold on the fairgrounds.)  Now here's what's happened since then: Hate-filled messages have been pouring in at The Post and Courier after a story was published about Bernstein's arrest.... Her address was posted on a blog with the comment, "Prediction: We'll see backwards swastikas painted on her house soon." ...More than a dozen readers called the newspaper and about 90 sent e-mails to express opinions on the story about Bernstein. The response was mixed. One couple sent a $100 check to help with her legal fees, while others offered to help pay for her flight out of town. One e-mail from Bill White, who identified himself as commander of the American National Socialist Workers' Party, said, "The only tragedy in this case is that her count of trespassing doesn't carry a sentence of execution. Lynching her and burning her home in the manner of the Union armies she so loves would set a just example for the community." Bill White? He's not some nut hiding behind a nondescript pseudonym -- he's a well-known racist leader. Here's his Wikipedia entry. The Southern Poverty Law Center says he runs "the second most popular racist site on the Internet." And he has no fear openly recommending death for this woman in an e-mail using his own name. But as the Wikipedia page notes, he openly calls for the violent death of all sorts of people: ...He was in the news ... in 2005 when the New York Times quoted him as having "laughed" when the husband and 89-year-old mother of United States district court judge Joan Lefkow were murdered. Lefkow had previously ruled against white supremacist Matthew Hale in a trademark dispute. The paper quoted White as having written on his website: "Everyone associated with the Matt Hale trial has deserved assassination for a long time. I don't feel bad that Judge Lefkow's family was murdered today. In fact, when I heard the story, I laughed." ... He wrote that the [Columbine] massacre was an expression of Friedrich Nietzsche's "will to power," and that: "[h]ad this shooting occurred outside a police station, or outside the NATO conference, or outside the White House, it would have been much more effective." ...In the summer of 2005, the director of a commission investigating the 1979 Greensboro massacre complained to police after White posted commissioners' addresses on the Web. White hinted he would like to shoot the commission members, a comment he later claimed was meant in jest.... I guess you can make statements like these in America with impunity, under your own name, and nothing will happen to you. (Notice, by the way, that White had the good sense to call for violence at the White House when Clinton was in office and threatening the president with serious physical harm was OK.) Meanwhile, here's an interesting comment on the county fair: Linda Willis of Summerville wrote the fair organizers to urge them to ban similar merchandise. Willis said she's lived all over the United States, recently moving back to the area, and has never seen so much Confederate paraphernalia. "We've come back over the years and thought, 'God, I can't believe that still exists here,'" she said in a phone interview. She says there's more than ever. So I guess that hip new American centrism isn't catching on everywhere. posted by Steve M. | 5:38 PM | I keep hearing that centrism is the hot new thing, but some people apparently didn't get the memo: JEFFERSON CITY, Mo. (AP) - A Republican-led legislative panel claims in a new report on illegal immigration that abortion is partly to blame because it is causing a shortage of American workers. The report from the state House Special Committee on Immigration Reform also claims "liberal social welfare policies" have discouraged Americans from working and encouraged immigrants to cross the border illegally. The statements about abortion, welfare policies and a recommendation to abolish income taxes in favor of sales taxes were inserted into the immigration report by the committee chairman, Rep. Ed Emery. All six Democrats on the panel refused to sign the report.... All 10 Republican committee members signed the report.... "We hear a lot of arguments today that the reason that we can't get serious about our borders is that we are desperate for all these workers," Emery said. "You don't have to think too long. If you kill 44 million of your potential workers, it's not too surprising we would be desperate for workers." ... (I guess all these unborn drones-who-never-were would have been vastly different from Americans who did manage to get born, and would have happily taken backbreaking jobs with low wages and minimal or nonexistent benefits.) Wait -- there's more: The report also includes short essays by Emery about the history of immigration, the purpose of immigration laws and the importance of a common language. In those, he notes "the issue of illegal immigration does not lend itself to compromise." That quote appears to be from this essay -- which is practically a wingnut cheat sheet, published under the aegis of the state of Missouri. A couple of excerpts: The original migration of Europeans onto this continent was by those seeking to move from religious oppression to religious freedom. Immigrants were predominantly characterized by a Biblical and Christian worldview, which resulted in other freedoms, such as the right to own property, the right of economic pursuit, freedom of speech, and the establishment governments that are subject to the will of the people. Translation: We have capitalism, free speech, and self-government because the Pilgrims loved Jesus. (Yeah, I know -- most of the GOP's voting base sees nothing odd in what I just typed.) According to their writings, America's founding fathers were skeptical of massive immigration. Thomas Jefferson was concerned that, "they will bring with them the principles of government they leave." ... Those of us concerned about America's slide toward socialism and "big brother" government can identify with Thomas Jefferson's prophetic quote. Translation: Those damn Jews brought their communism over here and screwed everything up. And then there's my favorite: A quote from the Washington Post is particularly reflective of today's immigration concerns, "In earlier years of the Republic immigration was not at a rate that negated absorption, and most of those who entered did so with the intent and purpose to make themselves Americans...[But for] decades now immigrants...have obviously been bent on seizing the opportunities offered by America but without disposition to adapt themselves to ...American ideals and concepts of government and citizenship in return. The record is crowded with instances in which groups of immigrants have stoutly resisted Americanism, have resented the suggestion that they learn the language of the land, and have maintained their foreignisms...at the present time, in certain areas, immigrants constitute a substantial percentage of the population, and drifting together and holding aloof from Americanization, hold themselves as foreigners in America." The most profound thing about this quote is that it is from a 1924 Washington Post edition. Is Emery really this stupid? Does he even realize he's undermining his own point? This 1924 article is talking about my Italian grandparents and great-grandparents and the immigrants of their era. These are the very people we now say did assimilate. If the same things were being said about them as are being said about the current immigrants, doesn't this imply that the newer ones will become American? I'm struck by the fact that it isn't enough for Emery to oppose abortion, immigration, liberalism, socialism, and the notion that the idea of America is largely a product of Enlightenment thinking -- he has to construct a Grand Unified Theory tying them all together. People with this kind of energy and drive aren't going to go quietly. (Via Feministing and the Moderate Voice.) posted by Steve M. | 1:42 PM | I see that John Tierney is leaving the New York Times op-ed page. It's always amused me that the most prominent libertarian in print journalism got screwed by capitalism. A few months after he got his gig on the op-ed page, the Times put it behind the TimesSelect pay firewall. Paul Krugman, Tom Friedman, Frank Rich, Maureen Dowd, and David Brooks were nationally known commentators who'd written bestselling books when TimesSelect hit, but Tierney had yet to build a readership. Yet how could he complain? By definition, he believes the marketplace and the profit motive are always forces for good. Even though he gives other reasons for the career move, I suspect the situation did frustrate him. If so, boo hoo. Hoist on your own petard, John. posted by Steve M. | 10:00 AM | Monday, November 13, 2006 GIULIANI If you're a regular reader, you know that I disagree with a lot of very sensible people about Rudy's chances of getting the GOP nomination in '08. I think he can win it, but regardless of who's right, let me tell you one thing that isn't going to be a dealbreaker: his appearances in drag. You think drag is some strange, freaky city thing? Hell, at the high-water mark of countrified television in my '60s childhood, Roy Clark -- then and now a much-loved heartland entertainer -- appeared on TV in drag, in both The Beverly Hillbillies and Hee Haw. (Max Baer Jr. also made a drag appearance on The Beverly Hillbillies, as Jethrene.) And remember, that was the '60s entertainment that wasn't considered subversive, transgressive, taboo-shattering, or part of the great wave of decadence and moral rot -- it was seen as good, clean, goofy fun. (A guy in a gingham dress! And a bonnet! Har har har!) For red-staters who want to believe, Rudy in drag will be seen as just a citified version of that. What saves it for Rudy is that you never believe for a second that he's a woman. There's no androgyny, no frisson -- none of that crap. It's just a guy looking like a gross old broad. If he's tapping into anything subconscious, it's misogyny, the sense that some women are comically monstrous -- the same thing all that talk of Scary Nancy Pelosi and Hillary the Witch is tapping into. How can that hurt him with the GOP base? **** UPDATE: No, I'm not (as this New York Times blog post initially had it) "a Rudy fan." "Not a Rudy fan" is putting it mildly. But thanks for the correction. **** UPDATE: Second Roy-Clark-in-drag link belatedly fixed. posted by Steve M. | 11:37 PM | I'm late getting to this, but I just got my copy of the November issue of Church & State, the newsletter of Americans United for the Separation of Church and State, and I learned from it that I missed all kinds of swell stuff at the Family Research Council's Values Voter Summit in late September. For instance, I missed this: U.S. Rep. Katherine Harris (R-Fla.), who is seeking to move up to the Senate, offered the crowd her personal religious testimony and begged for support. Harris, down 20 points in the polls at the time, insisted she would win and that God would deserve the credit. (Harris also told attendees that separation of church and state is a lie and that 34 percent of the Constitution comes from the Bible.) Not 33, not 35 -- 34. (No word on whether she provided documentation for this.) I missed William Bennett encouraging the U.S. to behave more like Saddam: Former Education Secretary William Bennett called for escalating the Iraq conflict and even suggested extending the warfare to civilians. He recommended leveling whole cities to bring them under control -- "When four Americans are hanged...you take out Fallujah. You flatten the city!" Oh, and I also missed this: Although the Bible actually has little to say about the Antichrist –- he is mentioned by name only five times –- interest in this evil figure has always been intense.... one speaker espoused one of the more unusual theories about this mysterious opponent of Christianity: The Antichrist, the Rev. Dwight McKissic said, may be gay. McKissic, pastor of Cornerstone Baptist Church in Arlington, Texas, put forth slim evidence for the assertion, citing a murky passage in the eleventh chapter of the Book of Daniel. Interestingly, the verse in question, Daniel 11:37, does not mention the Antichrist by name. It talks instead about a prophecy concerning a Persian king who will amass great power and oppress God’s people. This monarch, the King James Version of the Bible says, will not share "the desire of women." Although other translations of the scripture differ radically, to McKissic, the KJV text is proof enough. He asked the crowd, "Could it be that the Antichrist himself may be homosexual?" Assailing the gay rights movement, he added, "I believe it's from the pit of hell itself that this movement is inspired, that it has a satanic anointing." There's quite a bit more at the links. posted by Steve M. | 10:17 PM | Is it just me, or does the Pentagon have a lot of nerve trying to cop a little more reflected glory from the memory of Pat Tillman? posted by Steve M. | 7:32 PM | If it turns out that Chas Castagana, the California man charged with sending threatening letters containing white powder to Nancy Pelosi, Keith Olbermann, Chuck Schumer, Jon Stewart, and others, really is a longtime contributor to Free Republic, how long do you think it's going to be before reporters start filing stories in which Castanaga's crime is "balanced" with references to the netroots' unsuccessful campaign on behalf of Ned Lamont -- as if both are merely equivalent examples of how the influence of online political amateurs may not be as "transformative" as previously believed? If you don't know what I'm talking about, see Raw Story and Seeing the Forest for details on Castagana and Freeper Marc Costanzo, who seem to share interests, hometowns, e-mail addresses, and catchphrases. Scroll down here and read Castagana's "SF Has No Space for PC" ("With the passing away of Lexx ends an intriguing albeit smarmy experiment in sci-fantasy..."), then go to this Free Republic thread started by Costanzo ("With the passing away of LEXX ends an intriguing albeit tawdry experiment in Sci-fantasy..."). A Daily Kos e-mail search reveals that Castagana/Costanzo apparently also posts on the Net as Jeff Costigan -- compare this selection of Costigan blog comments (e.g., "Malkin, Laura Ingraham, and Ann Coulter ... ARE FEMININE AND CHAMPION WOMANHOOD AND ALL WOMANLY VIRTUES") and Costanzo's FR profile ("Ann Coulter is a Goddess and I worship Laura Ingraham and Michele Malkin"). (By the way, I linked the Lexx rant several months ago; I found it so bizarre I couldn't say a word about it.) **** UPDATE: Oops, Marc Costanzo's account has been suspended by Free Republic and his profile has been taken down. Here's the cached version. posted by Steve M. | 3:55 PM | Is this (from right-leaning New York Daily News columnist Michael Goodwin) the version of the election story that's going to take hold? The rise of the Mommy Party Pelosi's at the helm, Hillary's in the wings and - for now - Bush is in the doghouse ...Republicans, with their macho men and muscular policy prescriptions, are in decline because they are out of answers. Dems are getting better at seizing their opportunities, and doing it with women playing a leading role. Put another way, Mommy is taking over because Daddy screwed up. Nancy Pelosi is a case in point. Despite attacks on her fitness to lead in a time of war, voters made her the first female speaker of the House. The belief that Dems, as the "nanny" party, are squishy on security was trumped by fury at the Bush administration's incompetence in Iraq.... Goodwin seems to be using "Mommy Party" as a compliment, which may make him the first member of the political class ever to do so, and maybe that's good -- but I worry, because if voters think the Mommies have taken over, soon this will be declared a huge problem, a threat to our national greatness, and pundits (seemingly from across the spectrum because they'll include quite a few who claim to be liberals) will be scanning the horizon looking for signs that the demasculinized national nightmare is not permanent and "men are back." (You remember that phrase from the fireman-fetishizing immediate aftermath of 9/11.) The last thing we need right now is a punditocracy-wide search for macho men to make everything all better -- that's basically how we got into this mess. Of course, it's a bit odd to say that Democratic "Mommies" are on the rise when this year's victors included James Webb, Jon Tester, and Heath Shuler. Really, what happened is that people who have no sense of personal responsibility were defeated and people (female and male) who seem to believe messes need to be cleaned up were chosen to replace them. The winners also believe that life is tough for ordinary Americans, and that a steady diet of wedge-issue rage isn't what people need to pay the bills. A real depravity in our culture is that the shocking lack of personal responsibility in Bush/Rove-style politics is seen by so many people as consistent with manly virtue. If that's what it means to be a man, then hell, maybe Webb, Tester and Shuler are "Mommies." **** Incidentally, according to Goodwin, it appears that we've already won the 2008 presidential election, too: I think the mood of the country has shifted so sharply that Hillary Clinton has gone from being the front-runner for her party's 2008 nomination to being virtually unstoppable. This echoes the words of John Wilson, editor of the Christian-leaning journal Books & Culture, in yesterday's New York Times Book Review: At the moment, it appears unlikely that a Republican of any stripe will win the White House in 2008.... Can you take those predictions to the bank? Oh, sure -- just as you could safely the bet on the reelection George H.W. "91% Approval Rating" Bush in the immediate aftermath of the Gulf War, and just as you could bet the farm on Bill Clinton's defeat in '96 after Newt cleaned his clock in '94. I know that new Newsweek poll shows a hypothetical unnamed Democrat beating a hypothetical unnamed Republican for president, 48%-28% -- but it also shows McCain and Giuliani running nearly as strong as Hillary (with less positive response but also less negative response). It's especially ridiculous at this particular moment to make predictions two years out -- it really seems right now that voters, more than I can ever remember, will vote in the next cycle based on what the parties do (about Iraq, economic anxiety, and so on), rather than on some ginned-up phony issue. And we simply don't know what's our pols, Democrat and Republican, are going to do. So right-leaners should back off and stop volunteering to help Hillary measure the drapes. posted by Steve M. | 11:20 AM | Sunday, November 12, 2006 FUZZY MATH Well, if you don't like the hard numbers ... An hour of vote tabulation reveals a stunning fact: Democrats won the popular vote for the Senate by an overwhelming 12.6% margin - 55%/42.4%. ...do what Tom Elia of the New Editor does -- just throw out the data you don't like and declare that the rest of the numbers prove your point: What Eskow either forgets, or neglects to point out, is that 33 Senate seats are up for election every two years, and that among this year's seats were three in California, New York, and Massachusetts -- seats that Senators Feinstein, Clinton, and Kennedy won by about 4 million votes, most of the Dems' 6.6 million vote margin of victory in the aggregate US Senate vote. I'm sorry -- why is that relevant? Why couldn't Republicans have managed to mount effective challenges to the senators from those states? All three of the states currently have Republican governors. Yes, New York and Massachusetts just elected Democrats by wide margins, but only after Republicans had occupied the state houses for more than a decade. And California just reelected a Republican governor. And the New York and Massachusetts seats are seats are held by senators who are routinely described as among the most polarizing political figures in what is routinely described as an increasingly conservative America. So why were the Clinton and Kennedy seats safe and, say, Rick Santorum's wasn't? And if Republicans get to rejigger the math by throwing out New York, California, and Massachusetts, why don't Democrats get to throw out Texas, a populous state where a Republican incumbent, Kay Bailey Hutchison, cruised to victory? And who decides what's a safe seat anyway? In 2000, Dianne Feinstein won 56% of the vote. Hillary Clinton won 55%. Mike DeWine won 61%. Why were the first two seats safe and the third wasn't? Also in 2000, John Kyl won 79% of the vote in Arizona. Why didn't he win a blowout this time around? Democrats had those safe seats, and were competitive elsewhere, because the Democratic Party now has broad nationwide appeal. The GOP, by contrast, has made itself radioactive over the last several years in large swaths of the Northeast and also in Ohio, while disillusioning large numbers of voters in states all over the country. Sorry, Tom -- the numbers count. All of them. (Via Memeorandum.) posted by Steve M. | 6:45 PM | Yeah, that's how it feels. **** (Via Greg T.) posted by Steve M. | 3:51 PM | EVERYTHING IS STILL OUR FAULT From today's New York Times: Democrats, of course, had their chance to resolve the prescription drug problem in the past -- their party held the Senate for a brief period in 2001-02 -- and few issues have been more divisive on Capitol Hill. Oh, sure, that makes sense. Even though they didn't control the White House or the House of Representatives, the Democrats could have just up and solved this problem in the 19 1/2 months they controlled the Senate (by one vote) -- 16 1/2 of which were post-9/11, with the president at or near his pinnacle of popularity. Obviously, they just didn't have the gumption! posted by Steve M. | 2:31 PM | MEASURING THE DRAPES According to Newsweek, Bush was right -- a loser-to-be really was assuming victory prematurely: Two weeks before the elections, Rove showed NEWSWEEK his magic numbers: a series of graphs and bar charts that tallied early voting and voter outreach. Both were running far higher than in 2004. In fact, Rove thought the polls were obsolete because they relied on home telephones in an age of do-not-call lists and cell phones. Based on his models, he forecast a loss of 12 to 14 seats in the House -- enough to hang on to the majority. Rove placed so much faith in his figures that, after the elections, he planned to convene a panel of Republican political scientists -- to study just how wrong the polls were. Arrogant jerk. And what I find especially satisfying is that Rove, who's always believed he's several steps ahead of the Democrats, was making the same mistake many Democrats made two years ago. We learned back then that it was naive to look at troubling polls and say, "Oh, the pollsters are missing our big base of support among people who don't have land lines." We learned that, but the Boy Genius never figured it out? Tee-hee. posted by Steve M. | 10:54 AM | What's wrong with this passage (from Adam Nagourney in the Sunday New York Times)? Answer below: ... the campaign of 2006 has, to put it mildly, clearly diminished the prospects of three once-big-name prospective candidates. [George] Allen leads the list. He ran a campaign that was marked by missteps, and he may well be remembered as the man who cost Republicans control of the Senate this year. That is not going to endear him to Republican activists or contributors. Senator John Kerry of Massachusetts, his party’s contender in 2004, underlined doubts about his political skills when he told what he described as a botched joke, which President Bush pounced on and tried to portray as an insult to American troops. Mr. Kerry’s associates said they were resigned to the fact that he would have headed the Democrats’ blame list had they lost this time; at least he avoided that designation. Finally, there’s Senator Bill Frist, the majority leader who is retiring but who just last spring won a Republican straw poll in Memphis that he portrayed as a sign of his strength as a presidential contender. No more. A contentious Senate session that failed to produce much major legislation — followed by this loss — has led many Republicans to cross Mr. Frist off their 2008 list. What's wrong with it? Well, notice who's not mentioned. Apparently Rick Santorum is such a big loser he couldn't even get a mention on Nagourney's list of big losers. posted by Steve M. | 12:07 AM | Saturday, November 11, 2006 Here's my favorite passage from a story in the current Nation about the Quiverfull movement, the movement that encourages religious conservatives to attempt to breed an Army of God by having as many children as possible: Rachel Scott, who calls herself a "one-woman Quiverfull activist," describes her conversion moment. One night after the birth of her fourth child--their third "oops" baby due to birth-control failures--when the prospect of tuition for four consumed husband Christopher and their pastor was urging vasectomy, Christopher saw a warrior angel in his dream. A "large, worrying warrior angel" with a flaming sword that he pointed at Christopher's genitals, telling him, "Do not change God's plan." Yikes. You know about these people -- David Brooks wrote about them approvingly in 2004, and I wrote a post about them (not approvingly) that year also. As the Nation story notes, they're cultural extremists -- they don't believe in gender equality in marriage or birth control for anyone. They read and write books with titles such as Birthing God's Mighty Warriors. Oh, and there's this: Among the first contemporary Protestants advancing the theory that contraception is anathema to Scripture was Charles Provan, an independent Pennsylvania printer, lay theologian and father to ten who was until recently deeply involved in the Holocaust revisionist movement. He's cited as an inspiration by current movement leaders. So -- naturally -- the Democratic Leadership Council is looking for a way to liaise with them: [Social scientist Philip Longman is] searching--at the request of the Democratic Leadership Council, which published his policy proposals in its Blueprint magazine--for a way to appeal to the same voters. ...Longman's answer ... is for progressives to beat conservatives by joining them, emulating the large patriarchal families that conservatives promote in order not to be overrun by a reactionary baby boom. Any mention of social good occurring in regions with low birthrates is swept away by the escalating rhetoric of a "birth dearth," a "baby bust," a dying hemisphere undone by its own progressive politics. Close your eyes and think of President Hillary. Meanwhile, there's this from the Catholic Church, which opposed contraception when opposing contraception wasn't cool: The U.S. Conference of Catholic Bishops will examine a new document this week that gives an overview of Church teaching on married life and human sexuality. Authored by the conference's Pro-Life Committee, Married Love and the Gift of Life is intended to help Catholics understand God's plan for married life and clarify why the Church cannot condone contraception.... Theresa Notare, assistant director for the bishops' Natural Family Planning Program, tells us this: "... you don't even have to be religious at this point; a thinking person can look at how poorly we treat sexual intercourse and connect the dots to pedophilia, the gross rise in pornography, abortion, divorce, delay in age in marriage, and the number of children we're having." We can have a long discussion about the other items, but pedophilia? That's a consequence of contraception? This suggests that, after getting smacked in the head by reality in its own sexual-abuse scandals, the church still doesn't get it -- it still thinks pedophilia is not a deep-seated tendency but rather a lifestyle choice, one that's the fault of us nasty liberals because we dare to suggest that non-procreative sex can be fun without bringing about the end of civilization as we know it. Then again, it's not just the church that has wacky ideas about all this -- there's also Lionel Tiger, a professor of anthropology from Rutgers University and an atheist, who [at the recent national conference of Pro-Life Action Ministries] showed how the contraceptive mentality has affected men and possibly led to the rise in homosexuality. Yup -- use birth control and you'll make your next-door neighbor gay. People actually believe this. posted by Steve M. | 12:51 PM | Posted yesterday at The American Spectator's blog: [Ken] Mehlman has not publicly stated where he intends to hang his hat, but talk along K Street and elsewhere is that he is going to help former New York Mayor Rudy Giuliani decide whether a presidential run is a good idea. And from the October 25 New York Daily News: Rudy Giuliani has hired a new fund-raiser who used to work for top presidential adviser Karl Rove -- the latest sign the former mayor may be eying the White House. Margaret Hoover, 28, made $10,000 last month as the new deputy finance director for Solutions America, Giuliani's federal political action committee, records show. Hoover's resume includes working on intergovernmental affairs for Rove ... and working for Bush's 2004 campaign operation. Hoover, the great-granddaughter of former President Herbert Hoover, will report directly to Anne Dickinson, Giuliani's top fund-raiser and another veteran of Bush's 2004 campaign.... If you read this blog regularly, you know I worry about Giuliani more than about any other GOP candidate for '08 -- if he makes a pre-campaign promise to the religious right that he'll pick a far-right running mate and far-right judges (likely) and if he survives the primaries (quite possible), I think he'll win the presidency in a landslide, as the white knight the GOP base wants and the camera-ready coastal celebrity the Northeast admires. I worry about him because he's a moral scold and a big believer in government secrecy, and because the jodhpurs and riding crop of the Bush presidency at the height of its popularity fit him like a glove. I think his presidency would be Bush and Cheney's third term -- and reports of Bush-Cheney people working with him make me wonder whether they think so, too. posted by Steve M. | 9:33 AM | Friday, November 10, 2006 Last Saturday, when I quoted Billmon's speculation on the possibility of a quick attack on Iran by the Bush administration in the event of a Democratic victory in the midterms ("War with Iran would not only be the quickest, most effective way to throw the Dems back on the defensive, it would also completely preempt, and bury, any post-election pressures to set a timetable for withdrawal from Iraq"), Skimble asked in comments, Who would fight a war with Iran? Who's left? Er, here's an answer: JERUSALEM -- The deputy defense minister suggested Friday that Israel might be forced to launch a military strike against Iran's disputed nuclear program -- the clearest statement yet of such a possibility from a high-ranking official. "I am not advocating an Israeli pre-emptive military action against Iran and I am aware of its possible repercussions," Deputy Defense Minister Ephraim Sneh, a former general, said in comments published Friday in The Jerusalem Post. "I consider it a last resort. But even the last resort is sometimes the only resort."... Hey, Pelosi -- I got your spirit of bipartisanship, right here! posted by Steve M. | 5:10 PM | I'm sure this is going to solve all the administration's image problems: ... America’s newest good-will ambassador is Michelle Kwan, the figure skater, who, in the words of her new boss, Karen P. Hughes, the under secretary of state for public diplomacy, "combines the power of sports diplomacy with the personal appeal of a unique American story." On Thursday, flanked by Secretary of State Condoleezza Rice and Ms. Hughes, Ms. Kwan, 26, addressed reporters.... Message: Don't hate us! We may send innocent people to secret overseas torture chambers, but our young women are both athletic and perky! I don't know about this: One reporter asked Ms. Kwan how she planned to deal with the hostility that she might meet as the public face of America. Ms. Kwan quickly showed that she was already familiar with the advice, contained in a memorandum from Ms. Hughes, recently published in The Washington Post, that advised State Department employees to hew to government policy while talking to the news media. Hew to Bush administration policy? Oh yeah, that ought to win hearts and minds worldwide. (That memo is here, by the way. Key quote: "You are always on sure ground if you use what the President, Secretary Rice, [State Department spokesman] Sean McCormack or Senior USG [U.S. government] spokesmen have already said on a particular subject." Sure you are.) posted by Steve M. | 2:33 PM | Guess who said this: The obvious lesson for the Republicans is that they can't have some of their members of Congress taking bribes and lusting after teenage boys without losing the support of the family values crowd and honest government types that put them there in the first place. Answer: the most shameless human being in America. Yup, this guy. posted by Steve M. | 12:16 PM | STILL ON THE ISLAND, FIGHTING FOR TOJO You can spot the loonies -- Daniel Henninger of The Wall Street Journal's editorial page, for instance -- because they still say "Bush legacy" as if it's a good thing, as if, up to this point, it's a precious and beautiful thing that must not be destroyed. Henninger also, presumably with a straight face, speaks of "Mr. Bush's generals, to whom he has shown remarkable deference." And he says that "the decision in 2003 to ... abandon the early formation of an Iraqi-led governing structure deprived the Iraqis of desperately needed political experience." Translation: Chalabi would have made all this work just perfectly. Nuts. They're still nuts. posted by Steve M. | 11:48 AM | WHAT ARE RIGHT-WINGERS FREAKING OUT ABOUT NOW? Eeek! Eeek! Eeek! At the victory party for Keith Ellison, who's the first Muslim ever elected to Congress, supporters shouted "Allahu akbar" ("God is great")! Eeek! Eeek! Eeek! Yeah -- this is really scary, because we know the Christian God has never been mentioned at an Election Night party in America. (Click on the first link above to see the video -- yeah, it's Little Green Footballs, but you get to see what led up to "Allahu akbar," which was Ellison giving a graceful victory speech and saying, "God is good, y'all!") **** And, via Memeorandum: Omigod! Omigod! Omigod! Omigod! Members of the congressional Democrats' Progressive Coalition are going to meet with George McGovern next week to discuss Iraq! Yes, it's shocking -- the anti-war progressives (who are only about a quarter of the Democratic delegation) are meeting with an anti-war guy! Let's see -- that's one Nixon-era guy hanging out on our side ... and about 8,000 from the other side working within the Bush administration. (Whoops -- 7,999.) And, of course, McGovern -- unlike many of the star-spangled shriekers who are upset about this meeting -- actually fought in a war. posted by Steve M. | 7:53 AM | Thursday, November 09, 2006 Oh, boo hoo: Shares of health insurance providers, such as Humana Inc., and drug makers, including Pfizer Inc., fell Wednesday after voters gave control of the U.S. House of Representatives to Democrats, who've pledged to cut government health care payments. Shares of Humana Inc., the second-largest provider of Medicare drug benefits, dropped 5.9 percent. New York-based Pfizer Inc., which is the world's biggest drug maker and has major Connecticut operations, fell 2.5 percent, and Merck & Co. declined 3.4 percent... Don't shed too many tears for Big Pharma, however:  (That's from "Pharmaceutical Industry Profits Increase by Over $8 Billion After Medicare Drug Plan Goes Into Effect," a report issued by Congressman Henry Waxman's office; PDF here, HTML here.) As for Humana, its year-over-year quarterly profit tripled in the most recent quarter, one big reason being its Medicare plans. posted by Steve M. | 7:03 PM | Shorter Michelle Malkin: "The Democratic leadership says Bush won't be impeached, but I think they're lying, because a Democrat who hasn't been in Congress since 1981 says it would be a good idea and a Democrat who hasn't been in Congress since 1977 thinks it will happen." **** (If you want to know, I'm not pro-impeachment. What's the point? You'd have to impeach both Bush and Cheney to have any impact, and get both removed from office by a two-thirds margin in a 51-49 Senate, which simply isn't going to happen -- neither one would be voted out, much less both.) **** OH, AND: The title of this blog post makes no sense, except perhaps, in a very weird way, to Dr. Freud. posted by Steve M. | 2:16 PM | BUSH BLAMING ROVE? From yesterday's White House press conference: Q ... Mr. President, may I ask you if you have any metrics you'd be willing to share about your reading contest with Mr. Rove. THE PRESIDENT: I'm losing. I obviously was working harder in the campaign than he was. (Laughter.) From today's New York Times: The congratulatory calls kept coming to Senator Charles E. Schumer's cellphone yesterday -- mostly from grateful Democrats, but also a few from Republicans who do not normally pay homage to the giant of Brooklyn. "The president called and said jokingly, 'I wish you were on my team,'" recalled Mr. Schumer, the head of the campaign committee for Senate Democrats.... Does he think Rove let him down? (We know, of course, that he never thinks anything is his fault.) **** UPDATE: Well yeah, he did say, "I share a large part of the responsibility," as noted by The Washinton Post's Dana Milbank, who ticks off several other culprits Bush blamed -- voters, Mark Foley, clever Democrats, et cetera. But a reference to the Democrats' "very strong turnout mechanism" is a rebuke to Rove, too, because his was supposed to be better no matter what. posted by Steve M. | 1:00 PM | HATED Not just by granola-eating American scum and squishy Euroweenies: Iraqis cheer Rumsfeld departure BAGHDAD, Iraq -- Iraqis on Thursday cheered the resignation of U.S. Defense Secretary Donald Rumsfeld, blaming him for policy failures and scandals they say helped spawn the daily sectarian carnage wracking their nation. "Rumsfeld's resignation shows the scale of the mess the U.S. has made in Iraq," said Ibrahim Ali, 44, who works at the Oil Ministry. "The efforts by American politicians to hide their failure are no longer working." ... "Rumsfeld's resignation is a good step because he failed to keep security in Iraq," said Saad Jawad, 45, a former army officer who also works at the Oil Ministry.... "I am happy with Rumsfeld's resignation because he played a major role in disbanding the former Iraqi army. He participated in building the new army on a sectarian basis," said Louai Abdel-Hussein, 48, a Shiite who owns a small grocery in Baghdad. Ahmed, the civil servant, said Rumsfeld should also be held responsible for crimes by American forces in Iraq, particularly the abuse of Iraqis at Abu Ghraib prison that became known in 2004. "Rumsfeld's resignation is not enough," Ahmed said. "He should be put under investigation for his responsibility in the crimes committed in Abu Ghraib and the killings and rapes carried out by U.S. soldiers against Iraqi citizens, he said.... posted by Steve M. | 11:34 AM | Rick Moran at Right Wing Nut House, on the question of whether Bush's delay in firing Rumsfeld may have cost Republicans seats in Congress: Was it out and out hubris that kept the President from firing Rumsfeld before the election? ... Did the President's stubbornness and overweening pride prevent him from appearing to give in to his political opponents before an election? Yes. And yes. This has been another edition of simple answers to simple questions. (With apologies to Atrios.) posted by Steve M. | 7:35 AM | YOUR "LIBERAL MEDIA," STILL TRYING TO PUT LIPSTICK ON A PIG An NPR reporter just now: "Rumsfeld's silver tongue occasionally failed him." That was a "silver tongue"? And it only "occasionally" failed him? **** UPDATE: The story is here. posted by Steve M. | 7:18 AM | Wednesday, November 08, 2006 "VERY" From today's New York Times: Throughout his career, Senator Joseph I. Lieberman has proudly proclaimed himself an "independent-minded Democrat." But in the closing days of this campaign, Mr. Lieberman added a superlative, promising to be a "very independent Democrat." Hmmm, what does that remind me of? Oh, yes -- Woody Allen doing standup in 1964: We were married by a Reform rabbi in Long Island. A very Reform rabbi. A Nazi. **** (Oh, come on, give me a break -- it's not anti-Semitic. It's Woody Allen, for cryin' out loud. And I'm not calling Lieberman a Nazi. Rabbi is to Nazi as Lieberman the Democrat is to ... Oh, forget it.) **** UPDATE: By the way, I see via Steve Benen that Lieberman gave his first post-election interview to ... Sean Hannity. And while we know now that he won't quit the Senate to become defense secretary, I wonder if he might be appointed to replace Bolton at the UN. See this December 8, 2005, story in the New York Daily News: The Daily News has learned that the White House considered Lieberman for the UN ambassador's job last year before giving the post to John Bolton, a Bush adviser said. Stay tuned -- especially now that AP has called Virginia for Webb ... posted by Steve M. | 7:11 PM | Y'know, I like to provide serious, thought-provoking commentary here, but sometimes I run across something so transcendently stupid I feel there's nothing I can add apart from the traditional that-was-transcendently-stupid response we used to use back in the '90s at Salon's Table Talk. All of this is by way of introducing the last two paragraphs of John Podhoretz's election post-mortem in the New York Post: With Democrats holding some sway on Capitol Hill, Bush will no longer get his way. He will, instead, become a caretaker. And maybe, in the end, that's a good thing -- because he can spend the final 25 months of his presidency focusing exclusively on securing a victory in Iraq. And thereby turn this midterm defeat into a victory recorded by history. To which I respond: BWAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHA!!!!!! ROTFLMAO!!! I mean, really, what can I add? posted by Steve M. | 6:55 PM | LIBERATED Without serving on a case (as usual), I'm off jury duty. Whooppee! One more nice thing that's happened in the past 24 hours. posted by Steve M. | 6:40 PM | The Uniter? Loved W's press conference, especially the part about him being willing to work with the Democrats (I'm already hearing spin about how great he was at bipartisanship when he was governor of Texas). Yeah, right. The same Democrats who want to take away your Bibles, hand your kids over to the homos, cut and run, and cheer for the terrorists? Uh huh. And he never said "stay the course" either. Hey, W, I got your bipartisanship right here: And one more thing.... Who let all those activist judges vote in South Dakota's abortion referendum? posted by Bulworth | 3:11 PM | Buh-bye, Rumsfeld. posted by Phil Nugent | 2:48 PM | What goes around comes around (or visa versa) In terms of pure numbers, this election probably won't equal the magnitude of 1974 or 1994. But the numbers aren't the whole, or even the essential story from last night. The main story is that The Worst Congress Ever got sent home. And for the remaining members of Congress, think hard before publishing that book. J.D. Hayworth and Crazy Curt Weldon both released books this year, demonstrating that as George Will once quipped, indecent exposure can be of the mind or spoken word as much as of the body. But back to my first point, it's hard to overstate just how god-awful this Congress was, and for that matter, what this Congress has been for the past 12 years. The K-Street Project for one, the deposed and disgraced (and indicted) Congressman from Sugarland's primary contribution to American political hyper-partisanship power-mongering, greed and hubris. Not only did the voters punish that whorry-system's architects, but because of it, some of its main brainchilds and beneficiaries didn't even survive to stay on the ballot, as DeLay's replacement had to campaign by write-in (and lost) and Bob Ney's replacement, much like the former Senator from Pennsylvania, another K-Street godfather, had a can of whoop-ass opened on her. And don't forget that other dubious invention of the 1995-2006 Congress--the mid-century, non-Census based, politically manipulated redistricting efforts, which for a time, gave Republicans some seats in Congress, but which now only survives as yet another symbol of political over-reach and heavy-handedness. And how can we forget the midnight votes of this Vampire Congress (as Matt Taibbi labels it) and the holding open of votes sought by the leadership as fifteen minute voting alotments were extended for hours as arm-twisting bribing was conducted on the House floor. But in gaining the whole world, as it were, Congresional Repubs lost their own souls (if they once brought them to Congress to begin with). They temporarily increased their membership in Congress and enacted legislation benefiting their corporate paymasters, but in the end, their "successes" were turned against them. The mechanizations they established to further their goals and aggregandize their position were dismantled. And finally, ultimately, the war that was gained by smoke and mirrors, misinformation, cut and paste "intelligence" and without proper and objective Congressional oversight and that was used to demonize opponents and further divide Americans and win the Republican majority an election in 2002 collapsed as a deck of cards. And those responsible in one way or another for leading it finally paid a fatal, if delayed, penalty last night. And the "glorious" conservative revolution sought by the war's backers in the pulpit, radio booths, and corporate cable television "news" offices has been beached, washed up shore among the flotsam and jetsum comprised of the wrecked Christian Reconstructionist and corporate anti-worker and consumer agenda. posted by Bulworth | 1:58 PM | Bush's press conference gave TV viewers a good, stiff opportunity to see that his metamorphosis into Richard Nixon is coming along just fine. Devoid of brains and competence and awareness, Bush's main appeal to people is supposed to be that he's got that lovable, imaginary-best-friend thing going on; here, he's scowling and cutting people off and correcting their choice of words and generally acting less like a genial Ed Norton than like George Costanza gone postal. The needle on the Nixonomter swings into the red zone when an unusually snotty fellow--sorry, I don't have the names of the press corps members memorized--points out that George said that he never saw these election results coming and asks if this doesn't lend credence to the idea that he's out to lunch? "You didn't know it either," sneers George, reaching for his slingshot and a paper clip. Well, I saw the polls, says the reporter, and Bush replies that he saw them too but assumed they were lies because "I'm an optimist." Then he gurgles, "I thought the American public would understand the importance of taxes and the importance of security." If there's any way to take that other than as his declaration that the people who voted Democratic are idiots who don't understand these things, as opposed to intelligent, informed voters who have defensible opinions that differ from his own, I can't think of what it might be. There have been reports of Bush getting snarky with unfortunate individual citizens who had the chance to get up in reddish face, but I can't remember an earlier occasion where he just flat-out dissed an enormous segment of the American population, a good number of who must have voted for him at some point in the not-too-recent past. Generally, the press conference cleared up one thing straightaway. The end of times are not upon us--George Bush is still a clueless lout who doesn't get anything he doesn't want to get. He gave a pained, strained explanation, leaning heavily on how hard it must have been for those poor folks in Mark Foley's old district who had to actually write in the Republican candidate's name, for why he doesn't see any reason to interpret the election results as any expression of disapproval for anything he's done, certainly not Iraq. (How can anyone have a problem with anything that goes on over there!? They had an election! What do the Republicans have to do, paint their fingers purple again?) He also hammered at the idea that of course he'll try to work with the loyal opposition, even as he persisted in using the calculated insult that is the phrase "Democrat party." (By warning the terrorists, "do not mistake the workings of democracy" as a lucky break for them, he also seemed to pretty unambiguously be saying that a "Democrat" vitory is Good for the Evil-doers.) It's a measure of just how cranky President Gump seemed that when he tried to make a small, mean-faced joke about his reading rate, nobody laughed--at least,not until he elaborated on it and turned it into a knife twisted in Karl Rove's back. posted by Phil Nugent | 1:52 PM |Just a couple quick observations here...
Buh-Bye I'm sure I'll have something more meaningful to say in the days ahead, but for now, please join me in saying good-bye to some of the members of the 109th Congress. House Richard Pombo (CA): Buh-bye J.D. Hayworth (AZ): Buh-bye Crazy Curt Weldon (PA): Buh-bye John Sweeney (NY): Buh-bye Don Sherwood (PA): Buh-bye Nancy Johnson (CT): Buh-bye Chris "The Count" Chocola (IN): Buh-bye John Hostettler (IN): Buh-bye Jim Ryun (KS): Buh-bye Ann Northrup (KT): Buh-bye Melissa Hart (PA): Buh-bye Senate Rick "man on dog" Santorum (PA): Buh-bye Mike DeWine (OH): Buh-bye Jim Talent (MO): Buh-bye Conrad Burns (MT): Buh-bye George "Macaca" Allen (VA): Buh-bye Lincoln Chaffee (RI): Buh-bye And let's not forget our governors and various assorted challengers Robert "Bobby Hairdo" Ehrlich (MD): Buh-bye Dick DeVos (MI-Amway): Buh-bye Lynn Swann (PA): Buh-bye Ken Blackwell (OH): Buh-bye Jim Nussle (IA): Buh-bye posted by Bulworth | 10:49 AM | I pulled jury duty once. I learned a lot about our judicial system, mainly that reading Cracked and porn magazines during the selection process is not enough to keep you from getting picked and that if jury selection drags on for a long time and you end up being the last person agreed on, you might walk into the deliberations room to discover that some gallant went ahead and ate your court-provided lunch for you. So my best advice to Steve is to embrace the whole thing with open arms. I wish I had some advice like that for the newly empowered Democrats, but the concept is still so strange and new to me that my mind's a blank. Actually, that might have something to do with the spontaneous celebration I was at when the news broke last night when I was still at work. If anyone has any good tips on dealing with a champagne hangover, don't feel there's any need to keep them to yourself. This is of course a time for modesty, quiet reflection, and reaching out respectfully to the other side, so that hubris does not overwhelm us. Good thing that's Pelosi's job. I'm so busy working on this mental image I have of President Bush curled up in the fetal position under tear-soaked sheets that it's a wonder that I have enough enough leftover cognitive function to tie my shoelaces properly. (Actually, I just looked down at my feet, and you can scratch that.) George Bush is a child who has no way to judge success or failure on any level beyond "My mandate's bigger than yours!" I have a terrible feeling that he really does look at his pointless, never-ending, bloody mess in Iraq and see it as a Job-like trial that we all have to suffer through so that he can impress God with his steadfastness. But after all his strutting and talk of "political capital", all of it based on numbers a lot less solid than most of last night's results, it's hard to see how even he can "explain" that the loss of the House and the other fallout doesn't really reflect anything he has to take into account. Which isn't to say that he won't try, and that it won't be big fun to see him try. But make no mistake, George: you have risen high, and like Joseph McCarthy, Pol Pot, and Studio 60 on the Sunset Strip, you will always have your little share of cowed, deluded admirers, but as an electorate, a country, a universe, we don't like you. We really don't like you! Knowing that George needs a firm hand to help him govern, the dear little fella, the media has always been eager to try to provide him with a map. Remember when, in the wake of his 2000 non-election, the media was full of confident predictions that, being a moderate and temperament gentleman who was not unaware that he was kind of a dumbass, Bush would of course go out of his way to govern "from the middle," and pack his cabinet with like-minded non-ideological types, probably including a number of Democrats, and depend heavily on their seasoned counsel. Watching the first TV reports after the House tipped last night, I got the impression that the media was signalling that now might be a good time to start pretending that the last six years didn't really happen and we can all be friends now. One theme I heard a couple of times is that this shouldn't be a problem for George since he used to be governor of Texas, and in that position he showed that he was just great at working with Democrats and indeed "enjoyed doing it." Yes, and since those innocent days he's defaced our country's heritage, founding philosophies, moral stature and international reputation while calling the people he now has to work with a pack of whining traitors. With all due respect to the Gandhis of this world, how much respect could you really have for people who could just laugh that off? Bush's last two years in office would most likely have been an extended thumb-twiddling period if he'd retained all the power in the world; after the multiple disasters of the first year of his second term (Katrina, Teri Schiavo, Social Security, et al., never mind Iraq's death of a thousand cuts), he seems to have decided that the best way to take care of what he loves and cares about most, himself, is to just wait out the clock and leave as horrible a mess as possible for whatever poor schlub replaces him. If the change in circumstances re-energizes him, it'll most likely be in the worst way possible; given how well he's always reacted to any kind of reality check, it's easy to expect that he'll spend his last two years in snarling attack dog mode, working hard to undermine any attempt Congress launches to get anything done, just to make himself feel relevant. But if he tries to orchestrate a honeymoon period, going up to the Hill and muttering, "Wow--poor Max Cleland, huh? And how 'bout those Swift Boat bastards, huh? I sure don't know what anybody was thinking there, you know. I barely know what's been going on around here lately, I just switched medications myself. So--friends?"--well, at least it'll be funny. And he might just have the honor of being played by Chevy Chase on Law & Order. posted by Phil Nugent | 10:33 AM |And with that, I'm off to jury duty again. Guest bloggers, if you're there, feel free to jump in anytime.... posted by Steve M. | 9:25 AM | BODY SNATCHERS? All through my adult life, Democrats have been weak, timid compromisers who routinely wave the white flag of surrender before a single shot has been fired. But last night on TV, this morning on the radio, and all night and morning on the Net I've been told repeatedly about the extreme liberal Speaker-to-be and the firebrand lefties who'll soon be committee chairs, all of whom, I'm told, may be too ideologically rigid to work even with newly elected moderates from their own party, much less Republicans. Hunh? Our guys? What the hell are they talking about? Did somebody sneak in at night when I wasn't looking and replace all the "Kick Me" Democrats with a bunch of people who actually have spines? posted by Steve M. | 9:16 AM | WE LOST THE HOUSE, WE MAY LOSE THE SENATE, BUT WE STILL CONTROL THE FREE CONTINENTAL BREAKFAST, DAMMIT! This is just a small taste of how crazy these people are going to get if they lose the whole federal government in '08: Hotel yanks CNN; says network is pro-terrorist ROTHSCHILD [Wisconsin] -- Guests at one local hotel who switch on the TV in search of the latest news no longer have CNN as an option. The Stoney Creek Inn, 1100 Imperial Ave., in Rothschild has dropped the 24-hour news channels CNN and CNN Headline News from its basic cable offerings. Tony Magro, 76, of Barrington, Ill., stayed at the inn Monday night and said he was told by a receptionist that the hotel chain's corporate office had issued a letter calling for the removal of the channels because CNN aids terrorists.... James Thompson, owner and chief executive officer of Stoney Creek Hospitality Corp., made the decision to remove the channels, according to the inn's corporate office in Des Moines, Iowa. Thompson is out of the office today and was not immediately available for comment.... (Via Memeorandum.) posted by Steve M. | 9:12 AM | Tuesday, November 07, 2006 TEE-HEE Mark Halperin in The New York Times, October 1, 2006: ... If the Republicans want to keep their majorities in the midterm elections, their best chance is to stick with the old, base-driven Bush-Rove electoral strategy.... For months, the president was in severe political peril, with approval ratings regularly hovering around 30 percent ... the latest polls show the G.O.P. base is coming home -- and just in time.... The speeches the president gave about national security leading up to the fifth anniversary of 9/11 re-engaged the base and raised his overall approval rating to around 40 percent. He also has shifted the debate back to his favored playing field: national security.... As in 2002 and 2004, the Democrats have been baited into a heated discussion on terrorism and Iraq, blocking out debates that would be more favorable to their cause, like Social Security, the economy and gas prices. The Clintons have whipped up Democrats into a frenzy to fight back, but on Capitol Hill and on television they are largely fighting back on Republican terrain.... Critics of the Bush administration assert that the politics of the base has run its course, and that the Iraq war, the partisan zealousness and the conservative social policies of the administration have made voters yearn for a more centrist, bipartisan government. But Mr. Bush's opponents may be imprudently lulled by the current storyline and broad national polls, both of which miss the power and consequence of a Republican base that may have one more victory to give. posted by Steve M. | 11:50 PM | CBS News projects that Democrats will take control of the House. Details Soon. --CBS News Web site ...and CNN just called the House for the Democrats, too. posted by Steve M. | 11:14 PM | TEE-HEE  Glenn doesn't look happy, does he? (Explanation here.) posted by Steve M. | 10:43 PM | UNBELIEVABLE William Bennett on CNN right now, minutes after CNN called the Pennsylvania Senate race for Bob Casey: "You will see a movement in the grassroots for Santorum to run." I.e., for president. He was serious. And the thing is, the far-right end-timers are so crazy, he may be right. posted by Steve M. | 9:13 PM | Oh, good grief -- eight days ago, in The New York Times, we had Bush Shows Potency in Rallying the Faithful Today, from AP, we have Voter Results Will Decide Bush's Potency They're not even pretending anymore that it's about anything other than his manhood. posted by Steve M. | 5:00 PM | BUSH BOOM! Curiously, still affecting mostly other people: On Wall Street, the rich keep getting richer. For a fourth consecutive year, year-end bonuses are forecast to be highly lucrative, with the payouts rising 10 percent to 15 percent from 2005, according to Alan Johnson Associates, a leading executive compensation consultant. Investment bankers, who give advice to corporations, are expected to experience the biggest percentage jump, about 20 percent to 25 percent this year, from 2005. But it will again be the traders, who make investment bets for their firms, and those who operate in the complex world of structured products and derivatives that will take home the biggest checks this year, with top-end estimates in the range of $40 million to $50 million, Wall Street executives say.... ...And Wall Street giants' compensation still pales in comparison with their hedge fund counterparts. In 2005, the top hedge fund manager took home $1.5 billion in pay.... I seem to recall that the press was being accused of suppressing marvelous news when it didn't shout from the housetops a few days ago that wages and benefits for ordinary workers have gone up a whopping 3.3% in the past 12 months. It was the first report in two years that showed workers' pay-and-benefit increases exceeding the rate of inflation. posted by Steve M. | 3:49 PM | THROWING EVERYTHING AGAINST THE WALL, EVEN FROM THOUSANDS OF MILES AWAY, IN THE DESPERATE HOPE THAT SOMETHING WILL STICK Curiously, Rupert Murdoch's Australian site news.com.au chose to put this online three weeks before the film in question will open in Australia, but just at the exact moment when Americans were about to go to the polls: US 'suburbs more violent than Iraq' MORE fighting goes on in parts of suburban US than Iraq, according to Australian filmmaker George Gittoes who has just finished a documentary set in a Miami "war zone". Gittoes' latest feature, Rampage, contrasts life for a family living in the blue-collar community of Brown Sub, Miami, with ongoing fighting in Iraq. "It is much worse in Miami than it is in Baghdad," Gittoes said in Sydney today.... "Even left-wing Americans ... don't want to recognise the mess they've got in their own backyard," he said.... Reality: * Murders in Miami in a two-year period (2004-2005), according to the FBI: 123. * Conservative count of Iraqi civilians killed in the first two years of the war, made by Iraq Body Count: 24,865. *Current UN estimate of civilian killings in Iraq: more than 100 per day. The right-wing press really thinks its readers -- i.e., right-wing voters -- are mind-bogglingly ignorant. posted by Steve M. | 12:43 PM | I don't know which creeps me out more: the supporters of the South Dakota abortion ban who think Mount Rushmore itself supports what they're doing or the cartoonist who dreams of a Rushmore consisting of four cute bug-eyed fetuses. Polls say the ban is going to be overturned. Let's hope. posted by Steve M. | 11:00 AM | What We Can Count On While we won't know who controls Congress and by how much for another 10-12 hours, there are a few things we can be pretty sure of already. One is that at least in Ohio, the so-called "christian" right is going to get their asses kicked. Remember, Ohio was one of the conservative high points in 2004 as evangelical ministers like this guy helped rally support for an anti-gay marriage amendment and helped carry the state, narrowly, ensuring Bush's re-election. Since then, these politically-centered wolves in sheeps clothing have been trying to galvanize their forces for a theocratic revolution, with the aim of returning their state and our country to the stone age, or at least the dark ages. So it's particularly comforting to know that, barring an collapse of unprecedented proportions, that effort is going to fail, and be set back for at least another four to six years, if not more. And not only are these so-called ministerial men of "faith" about to embarass themselves, their efforts promise to drag the state's entire Republican Party down the drain and into the gutter with them. Not that there's anything wrong with that. The other thing we can be pretty confident in is that the guy who thinks the Pursuit of Happiness is harming America, the guy that wants to control and police your families, wants to dictate to you what you should think, believe and do within the security of your own home, that guy is also probably going to lose. True, his Democratic replacement won't be much better on the abortion issue, but almost any replacement would be an improvement over this tiresome pseudo-moralizing deadbeat. And his replacement will be a vote for Democratic majority leader. Finally, we shouldn't have long to wait for Katherine Harris's concession speech in the U.S. Senate race in Florida. Harris's loss will be sweet for at least three reasons. One, as then Secretary of State, she became notorious for her political handling of Florida's recount in the 2000 election, helping to award George Bush the state's 25 electoral votes and the presidency. Two, Harris is also, conveniently, another self-appointed spokeswoman for god, who thinks she is campaigning with the divine's endorsement and guidance. Can't have enough delusional and egotistical folks like her lose. And finally, Harris, like Ohio's candidates, is going to lose by a lot. A lot. posted by Bulworth | 9:44 AM |  VOTE, DAMMIT! (Via SS.) posted by Steve M. | 8:20 AM | Hey, I'm here, too -- no jury duty today, though I have to go back tomorrow (and who knows how long after that). And no, no one told me before yesterday that I'd be off today. By the way, I find it significant that, through all the disheartening recent polls and the subsequent far less disheartening polls, the electronic betting markets seem never to have wavered in the belief that Democrats would take the House (though not the Senate). Here's the House control price graph from the Iowa Electronic Markets through last night:  (Click for a larger view.) Not a hiccup in the last few days -- no doubt that the Dems would win. (More stats here.) Tradesports has had very similar numbers. So the bettors think the GOP predictions of big mo are a load of hooey. posted by Steve M. | 7:28 AM | Phil Nugent from the Experience here, with an election morning prayer: There's a scene in Borat where two naked men chase each other through the halls of a posh hotel and into a crowded elevator just as the doors close. Everybody in the tiny space tries to remain calm, and then the doors open and everybody but the naked guys hurriedly file out. The elevator doors shut, the camera examines their embarrassed faces, and then it swings left to reveal a third person in still in there with them, patiently waiting for his floor, pretending that everything's normal. I like to think of the pained deadpan on that guy's face as the face of America on election day. Although we're in what most citizens recognize as a bad place, and most people are howling for change, a disturbing number of big races look like ties--and as Hendrick Hertzberg pointed out in The New Yorker recently, this has nothing to do with any genius of Karl Rove's and everything to do with the Republicans' having used their mastery of pinpointing key pockets of ignorance and intolerance and redistricting key parts of the country into a misshapen nightmare. Natural born demagogues from George Bush to George Allen are criss-crossing the red meat districts howling about taxes and treason. Nobody knows if it'll work again. So we spend today, and almost certainly most of the night to come, crossing our eyes from the effort it takes to keep from screaming. No intelligent person wanted the country to be where it is now; a lot of cynical people will still fight to the last breath in their body to keep from admitting having made a mistake or losing their power, which in some cases may be all that's keeping them out of prison stripes. The election of 2000 was, it now ought to be clear to the dimmest bulb, one of those moments that the fates of nations hinge on, but at the time, most people I know and virtually all of the media seemed to see it as a chance to show how good they could yawn. George Bush was handed the presidency by a handful of Supreme Court justices who figured that if America seemed to be doing okay under someone they disdained as much as they disdained Bill Clinton, then it had reached a point where it must run itself, so why not do a favor for George Senior's idiot son? And despite a real committed effort by the religious right, which is something that ought to be a sure fire warning sign for anyone with a still-ticking brain cell, Bush wouldn't have gotten close enough to a tie for the Supreme Court to have been a factor if it hadn't been for the work of all those people who decided that it would be fun, and make them feel really "radical" if they pretended to believe that there was no meaningful difference between Al Gore, a person of unquestioned intelligence and seriousness who was said to seem kind of boring, and a spoiled, mingy-minded idiot dauphin. Many of these same people sometimes complained during the nineties that the world had gotten too settled, that compared to the heroic protest struggles we grew up reading about, there were no great battles to be joined and things seemed, like Al Gore, a little bit dull. Things ain't dull now, glory hallelujah. If you'd like some dullness back in your life, try and remember this much: there are no unimportant political choices. And if the Democratic Party, as it's presently constituted, isn't all we might wish it could be, the Republicans drink babies' blood on a pentagram-shaped altar. posted by Phil Nugent | 4:59 AM |Monday, November 06, 2006 The GOP's mainstream values: Texas Gov. Rick Perry ... was among some 60 mostly Republican candidates for Tuesday's midterm election attending a Sunday service at San Antonio's Cornerstone Church, where pastor John Hagee said in his sermon non-Christians were "going straight to hell with a non-stop ticket," The Dallas Morning News reported. Afterward, Perry told reporters there was nothing in the sermon he could disagree with, prompting quick condemnations from opponents.... And gosh, I can see why a party composed of mainstream people with mainstream values (you know, not like those freaks and weirdos in the Democratic Party) would have so many candidates who'd want to hang out with the oh-so-mainstream Hagee: ... While Hagee has long prophesized about the end times, he ratcheted up his rhetoric this year with the publication of his book, "Jerusalem Countdown," in which he argues that a confrontation with Iran is a necessary precondition for Armageddon and the Second Coming of Christ. ...He argues that a strike against Iran will cause Arab nations to unite under Russia's leadership, as outlined in chapters 38 and 39 of the Book of Ezekiel, leading to an "inferno [that] will explode across the Middle East, plunging the world toward Armageddon." ... The strike will provoke Russia -- which wants Persian Gulf oil -- to lead an army of Arab nations against Israel. Then God will wipe out all but one-sixth of the Russian-led army... To fill the power vacuum left by God's decimation of the Russian army, the Antichrist -- the head of the EU -- will rule "a one-world government, a one-world currency and a one-world religion" for three and a half years.... The "demonic world leader" will then be confronted by a false prophet, identified by Hagee as China, at Armageddon, the Mount of Megiddo in Israel. As they prepare for the final battle, Jesus will return on a white horse and cast both villains -- and presumably any nonbelievers -- into a "lake of fire burning with brimstone," thus marking the beginning of his millennial reign.... Heck, that sounds reasonable to me! Oh, and: Rabbi Daniel Lapin, a prominent Jewish ally of the evangelical right (and friend of Jack Abramoff) has said that Hagee "without question, yes, absolutely" has the ear of the White House. **** (11/15: I've replaced the dead first link with a live one.) posted by Steve M. | 10:28 PM | Think About This When You Vote (Hi -- Kathy from Birmingham Blues here. It's been a crazy day, so I offer no pithy commentary to go with this link. Anyway, it's Shakespeare's Sister, and she does just fine without any embellishment from me.) Reason #593 why the Republicans need to go, courtesy of Shakespeare's Sister. posted by Kathy | 7:12 PM |The former Iraqi dictator Saddam Hussein will be hanged by the end of January, a senior member of Nouri al-Maliki's Dawa party predicted today.... --Times of London Why, what an astonishing coincidence: If next year is like this year, that will coincide almost exactly with the convening of the new Congress -- quite possibly featuring one or both houses in Democratic control. Why, you don't suppose they'd hang Saddam precisely when Nancy Pelosi is becoming Speaker, just to steal her thunder -- do you? Naaah -- Tony Snow assured us that anyone who thinks these things are timed for partisan political advantage in the U.S. is "smoking rope." And we know he can be trusted, right? posted by Steve M. | 6:57 PM | BUSH BOOM (for the drug companies)! Remember: Democrats want Medicare to be able to negotiate lower prices. The Bush administration doesn't, and the GOP Congress agrees. For big drug companies, the new Medicare prescription benefit is proving to be a financial windfall larger than even the most optimistic Wall Street analysts had predicted. ... Companies have raised prices on many top-selling medicines by 6 percent or more this year, double the overall inflation rate. In some cases, drug makers have received price increases of as much as 20 percent for medicines that the government was already buying for people covered under the Medicaid program for the indigent.... Drug makers have tried to play down their gains from the program because they do not want to be seen as profiteering in an election year, Mr. Funtleyder said. "You don't want to draw too much attention to how good it's been." ... [Eli] Lilly, the sixth-largest American drug maker, reported two weeks ago that its third-quarter sales had risen 7 percent, to $3.9 billion, and its profits were up 10 percent, to $874 million, compared with 2005. According to Lilly's published review of the quarter, the sales gains resulted almost entirely from Lilly's prices rising 11 percent in the United States, while actually falling in Europe and Japan. ... But Lilly is hardly alone in benefiting. Pfizer, the world's largest drug maker, said its sales soared 14 percent in the United States in the third quarter, while rising only 3 percent internationally. Over all, Pfizer said its profits more than doubled, to $3.4 billion from $1.6 billion.... Pfizer did not disclose how much of the sales growth came from price increases and how much from new prescriptions, but earlier this year Pfizer raised the list prices of some of its biggest drugs by 5.5 percent or more, well above the inflation rate.... posted by Steve M. | 6:19 PM | [Tom Hilton here, from If I Ran the Zoo] The dirty tricks have begun. Mark Kleiman reports that in New Hampshire, Republicans are making late-night calls to people on the do not call list...while pretending to be Democrats. Even more disturbing: Deborah reports that Republicans appear to have hacked the MoveOn.org effort. It won't stop there, as we all know. Tomorrow could get ugly. If you have any trouble voting, or see any kind of irregularity, you can report it to the Election Protection people. They also have a hotline: 866-OUR-VOTE. Spread the word on these resources; they're one line of defense against the fraud we're all expecting. Update: they're also doing deceptive robocalling in New Jersey. Other update: Kossack debcoop spoke with a NY state Democratic leader who says there are both local (NY) and national reporters eager to speak with NY voters who have received deceptive Republican robocalls. Contact info is in the link. Other other update: And it's happening in Pennsylvania, too. posted by Tom Hilton | 12:35 PM | Election Eve Analysis and Predictions (Updated Below) Hello Bloggers, Senator Bulworth here Thanks again to Steve for the invitation to post while he undergoes jury duty. The Washington Post and the NY Times both have headlines today reporting that the so-called "generic ballot" shows the Democrat's edge shrinking. Two weeks ago, Democrats led among likely voters 51-39; Now that lead is down to 47-43, although the WashPost/ABC poll has the lead at 6%, just one below that enjoyed by Republicans in 1994. Among the reasons to be guarded about tomorrow's outcome are of course the GOP's much vaunted turnout ground game and the continuing important--and some would say disproportionate--role played by rural voters, as discussed in this NY Times op-ed by Brian Mann (subscription required). In addition, some races, particularly for the U.S. Senate, have been marked by the candidate's personalities and advertising battles, which of course the press tends to play up, over and beyond campaign issues. Harold Ford was probably a long shot at best in Tennessee, but the ad wars and debates over the candidate's personality and character have superceded (at least from the outside) issue like the Iraq war. In New Jersey, new Governor Jon Corzine appointed Robert Menendez, a House member, to fill the remaining year of Corzine's Senate term. Menendez was a controversial choice as he has, shall we say, some political baggage, whether deserved or not. Menendez is popular with the state's large Hispanic population, however. Nonetheless, I think Rob Andrews, a House member from Southern New Jersey would have been a better pick. But to top it all off, the Republicans nominated former Governor and 911 Commission Member Tom Kean's son to run against Menendez. There are probably people in New Jersey who think the former governor is the one on the ballot. So the New Jersey race may play out closer than it would have normally under other circumstances. In Maryland, voters chose a bland, white, centrist House member, Ben Cardin to replace retiring Senator Paul Sarbanes while Republicans nominated Michael Steele, the Lt. Governor. Steele is more charismatic and is black, a factor that led to his endorsement by several Black Democrats last week. If Steele maintains his share of the GOP vote and gains among Democratic voters, this race could last through the night. So in New Jersey and Maryland, two traditionally Blue States, what should have been no-brainer Democratic gains in a bad year for the GOP may not turn out that way. Nevertheless, the GOP hasn't had much go its way for the last year and in particular, in the last two months. Just as the Mark Foley scandal was subsiding, another one involving influential evangelist Ted Haggart heated up, leading to his resignation as head of the National Association of Evangelicals and his firing as Senior Pastor of the mega-church, New Life, in Colorado Springs. And of course, the news from Iraq has continued to be bad, despite the sentence declared yesterday in the trial of Saddam Hussein. Which leads to this point by conservative columnist George Will: Passion drives turnout; anger is a passion; contentment is not. Is there anger at incumbents generally, or only at Republican incumbents? For awhile it appeared that Senate Republican incumbents in Montana and Rhode Island looked about finished while one in Missouri appeared to be barely hanging on. Only in Ohio and Pennsylvania, though, did it appear Senate Republican incumbents were in significant, perhaps insurmountable, trouble. Now the Montana and Rhode Island races have tightened. At this point, Democrats might do well to gain Ohio and Pennsylvania while HOLDING Maryland and New Jersey. The House side would normally be even more problematic given the role of rural voters noted above, as well as the effect of redistricting has had on marginalizing minority and other Democratic voters in states like Texas. Yet analysts such as Stuart Rothenberg are predicting a Democratic Party gain of between 25 and 30 seats. That estimate, however, was given presumably before the generic ballot tallies mentioned above were reported. With all of this being said, here are my predictions: U.S. Senate: Democrats +2 U.S. House: Democrats +6 Let's hope I'm being overly pessimistic. UPDATE: Josh Marshall, Steve Benen at TAPPED, and others have documented that the new polls showing a much closer race between Democrats and Republicans nationally are offset either by concurrent or new polls still showing a stronger Democratic lead. So, not to panic just yet. At the same time, so we're not totally flying in the dark here, this Stuart Rothenberg classification from last Thursday gives some structure to the way things might break down tomorrow. It identifies 20 races that are toss-ups, and they're all Republican-incumbent seats. Another 10 Republican seats are listed as toss-up/tilt GOP; another 10 are toss-up/tilt Dem, where seven of the seats are held by the GOP. So at this point, we're already up to 37 GOP seats in play. Next, there are seven seats identified as lean Democratic, with six of these being current GOP seats, making our total of GOP seats in play=43. Finally, there are four seats where the Democrat is favored, three of which are GOP incumbents, bringing our maximum total of GOP seats in play to 46. That appears to be the upper end of this thing, with no Democratic seats listed as toss-ups, tilt GOP, lean GOP or GOP favored. If we toss out the ten seats classified as toss-up/tilt GOP, that lowers it to 33. If you figure half of the pure-toss-ups breaking the Democrats' way, you get 23 seats, which would be sufficient for taking control of the House, albeit narrowly. posted by Bulworth | 10:05 AM | Sunday, November 05, 2006 I'll be on jury duty starting tomorrow -- if I'm lucky, only for a couple of days. I still have no laptop, so I won't be posting during the day, but some of my guest bloggers will be back (I hope). Also, I'm adding Dependable Renegade, The Heretik, and News Hounds to the blogroll. Welcome -- make yourself comfortable. posted by Steve M. | 10:19 PM | "RELATIVE PEACE" A round-the-clock curfew imposed ahead of the verdict against Saddam Hussein kept a relative peace in Iraq's most dangerous regions on Sunday, but the U.S. military announced two more American deaths and police said 72 people were killed or found dead countrywide by daybreak.... --AP posted by Steve M. | 10:18 PM | Juan Cole linked to this AP story, but I want to spread it around a bit more: A series of secret U.S. war games in 1999 showed that an invasion and post-war administration of Iraq would require 400,000 troops, nearly three times the number there now. And even then, the games showed, the country still had a chance of dissolving into chaos. In the simulation, called Desert Crossing, 70 military, diplomatic and intelligence participants concluded the high troop levels would be needed to keep order, seal borders and take care of other security needs. The documents came to light Saturday through a Freedom of Information Act request by George Washington University's National Security Archive, an independent research institute and library.... But Rumsfeld stamped his foot and said "Gee whiz" and "Golly gee," so everybody backed off. And besides, God had cushioned every fall the president had ever taken in his life, so nothing could possibly go wrong.... posted by Steve M. | 10:08 PM | Oh, and I guess today's big news is that, of the 100 to 770 Iraqis who are going to be killed in Iraq on a single day sometime in the future, one will unquestionably deserve it. posted by Steve M. | 4:04 PM | Shorter Michael Kinsley in today's New York Times Book Review: Anyone who doesn't think the Supreme Court stole the 2000 election for Bush is crazy. And anyone who thinks Kenneth Blackwell stole Ohio for Bush in 2004 is crazy. I'm not kidding. Kinsley on 2000: Call me bitter: I am not over it and don’t want to be over it. I still find it shocking that democracy was so openly subverted, and even more shocking that so few others seem to share my shock. Kinsley on 2004: Now and here on out, every election will come with a theory of how the winner stole it (just as, since Vietnam, every war now comes with a medical “syndrome” for soldiers to sue over). ... the whole stolen-election-2004 indictment has that echo-chamber sound of people having soul-searching conversations with each other. Richard Hofstadter's "paranoid style," exhibited mainly on the right when he coined the term in the 1960's, seems to have been adopted by the left, as Nicholas Lemann recently pointed out in The New Yorker. I guess this is more of that vital new centrist eclecticism all the cool kids say is sweeping American politics. posted by Steve M. | 11:36 AM | CHUTZPAH On his blog, referring to Mike Stark's new job at Air America, Jeff Gannon has the gall to put the word "reporter" in quotes. posted by Steve M. | 9:06 AM | Saturday, November 04, 2006 THE IRANIANS MANIPULATED THE U.S. INTO INVADING IRAQ How? They used their very good friend Ahmad Chalabi -- at least that's a (quite plausible-sounding) theory floated by Dexter Filkins in this weekend's New York Times Magazine: ...Amid the debate about Chalabi's role in taking America to war, one little-noticed phrase in a Senate Intelligence Committee report on W.M.D. offered an important insight into Chalabi's identity. One of the principal errors made by the Bush administration in relying on Chalabi's Iraqi National Congress, the report said, was to disregard conclusions by the C.I.A. and the Defense Intelligence Agency that "the I.N.C. was penetrated by hostile intelligence services," notably those of Iran. The Iran connection has long been among the most beguiling aspects of Chalabi's career. [Robert] Baer, the former C.I.A. operative, recalled sitting in a hotel lobby in Salah al-Din, in Kurdish-controlled Iraq, in 1995 while Chalabi met with the turbaned representatives of Iranian intelligence on the other side of the room. (Baer, as an American, was barred from meeting the Iranians.) Baer says he came to regard Chalabi as an Iranian asset, and still does. "He is basically beholden to the Iranians to stay viable," Baer told me. "All his C.I.A. connections -- he wouldn't get away with that sort of thing with the Iranians unless he had proved his worth to them." Pat Lang, the D.I.A. agent, holds a similar view: that in Chalabi, the Iranians probably saw someone who could help them achieve their long-sought goal of removing Saddam Hussein. After a time, in Lang's view, the Iranians may have figured the Americans would leave and that Chalabi would most likely be in charge. Lang insists he is only speculating, but he says it has been clear to the American intelligence community for years that Chalabi has maintained "deep contacts" with Iranian officials. "Here is what I think happened," Lang said. "Chalabi went and told the guys at the Ministry of Intelligence and Security in Tehran: 'The Americans are giving me money. I'm their guy. I'm their candidate.' And I'm sure their eyes lit up. The Iranians would reason that they could use this guy to manipulate the United States to get what they wanted. They would figure that the U.S. would invade. They would figure that we would come and we would go, and if we left Chalabi in charge, who was a good friend of theirs, they would be in good shape." ... Filkins isn't sure this is the truth, but it's hard to discount it. If it is true, allowing it to happen is one more reason this is the worst presidency in American history. posted by Steve M. | 11:32 PM | I love Barbara at the Mahablog, and I urge you to read her regularly -- but I worry that she's being a bit too optimistic in what she says here about the likely aftermath of the midterm elections: ... politicians of both parties will be under pressure to force Bush to change the course.... Any party or politician who wants to win elections in 2008 is going to have to at the very least put some distance between himself and Bush's War.... Republicans in Congress -- especially those outside the South -- ought to realize that they cannot continue to echo Bush's rhetoric and support Bush's every cough and be assured to keep their jobs (or get a better one, like being president) after 2008. ...the loss of a substantial number of seats might shock enough of them into considering the possibility that democracy in America isn't completely dead yet. And in that case, Washington might see a rebirth of genuine bipartisanship. Well, that's more or less what we thought after '98, as I recall -- we thought the midterm gains by Democrats just after the Starr Report was released meant that Republicans might put the brakes on impeachment, right? Fat chance. Two years later, Al Gore put Joe Lieberman on the ticket almost certainly because of his showoffy early denunciation of Clinton. And no impeachment supporter who survived '98 has ever suffered for that support. And look, there's Newt Gingrich, making a comeback. Maybe the Iraq debacle really has brought an era to a close, but I fear that even after Tuesday we'll still be playing by this long-established rule of American politics: Whenever Republicans win, it's a sign that something is terribly wrong with the Democrats; whenever Democrats win, it's a sign that something is terribly wrong with Democrats (and with the voters who elected them). I suspect that even if Democrats win both houses of Congress, Republicans will rush to change the subject from Iraq to Democratic shortcomings -- and the press will hasten to relay that message. This will give cover to Bush and to anyone who's ever supported him, even as Iraq moves ever more inexorably toward chaos. The groundwork is already being laid. Before the votes have even been counted, Ann Coulter and Charles Krauthammer are asking why the Dems didn't do better. Even if there's a two-house Democratic takeover, we'll be told that the results didn't reflect any kind of public dissatisfaction with GOP politics -- just the usual churn in a president's sixth year (in fact, less than usual). I also think that, even as we're told that the results aren't really a Democratic mandate, we'll be told that they are a mandate -- for depravity. Remember the likes of William "Death of Outrage" Bennett telling us in the 1990s that Americans wouldn't do their moral duty and drive Bill Clinton from public life because the dot-com profits in their 401(k)'s had made us morally flabby and weak? I think we'll increasingly hear variations on that in the wake of a Democratic win. As it is, we've been hearing that disillusionment with the war means Americans don't have the stomach for a fight (it's not, in other words, that we think this is the wrong fight); now we'll probably hear that Americans endorse "the Party of Death," out of (as Coulter says) depraved sympathy for Michael J. Fox and his band of baby-killers. Perhaps other pundits will pick up on Richard Brookhiser's analogy to the midterm elections of 1874, which endorsed the racist backlash against Reconstruction. And, of course, if Nancy Pelosi becomes Speaker we'll hear a lot about "San Francisco values" -- in fact, we're hearing that already. (Expect pundits to link Pelosi's ascendancy to one coincidentally popular risque TV show or movie or book to make the point that America has lost its moral compass.) And maybe, as Billmon says, there'll just be an attack on Iran even before the new Congress is sworn in: War with Iran would not only be the quickest, most effective way to throw the Dems back on the defensive, it would also completely preempt, and bury, any post-election pressures to set a timetable for withdrawal from Iraq. This may not happen -- and if any of it does, Democrats can (and must) push back. I'm not trying to spread gloom and doom, really -- I'm just saying that, if Democrats win on Tuesday, the fight is just beginning. **** UPDATE: New Mason/Dixon polls show a number of Senate races looking better for Republicans -- Chafee's up by 1 in Rhode Island, Talent's down by only 1 in Missouri, Burns is tied with Tester in Montana, and so on. (Oh, and Corker's now beating Ford by 12 in Tennessee, but come on, were we smoking crack when we thought a black Democrat could win this race?) Democrats must not let the press turn a failure to take the Senate into a "Democrats lost" story line. If they do, they're putting a "Kick me" sign on their backs.* **** FURTHER UPDATE: On the other hand, should I believe Mason/Dixon when its Ohio Senate poll has a 6-point lead for Dem challenger Sherrod Brown and the locally based Columbus Dispatch poll has the Brown lead at 24? (Via Atrios.) **** *UPDATE, ELECTION DAY: Exactly as I predicted, here's Adam Nagourney of The New York Times (and of course it would be Nagourney) with "For Democrats, Even a Gain May Feel Like a Failure." Er, Adam, what about Bush and Rove's predictions of holding both houses? Why are only the Democrats risking a fall if their most optimistic predictions don't come to pass? posted by Steve M. | 2:12 PM | Friday, November 03, 2006 READ THIS ON AN EMPTY STOMACH Peggy Noonan, writing about Rick Santorum: I end with a story too corny to be true, but it's true. A month ago Mr. Santorum and his wife were in the car driving to Washington for the debate with his opponent on "Meet the Press." Their conversation turned to how brutal the campaign was, how hurt they'd both felt at all the attacks. Karen Santorum said it must be the same for Bob Casey and his family; they must be suffering. Rick Santorum said yes, it's hard for them too. Then he said, "Let's say a Rosary for them." So they prayed for the Caseys as they hurtled south. A friend of mine called them while they were praying. She told me about it later, but didn't want it repeated. "No one would believe it," she said. But I asked Mr. Santorum about it. Sure, he said, surprised at my surprise. "We pray for the Caseys every night. We know it's as hard for them as it is for us." Er, I don't get this. I was Catholic until I quit the church as a teenager. I prayed a few rosaries in my time, so I know how the process works. What happened when one of the Santorums took call? Did Rick or Karen say, "Sorry, we can't talk right now -- we're praying a rosary for our opponent, Bob Casey, and his family, because it's just what Jesus would have done"? If I were still a Catholic and a rosary I was praying was interrupted by a phone call, I hope I'd just stop and take the call. Or I'd let it go to voicemail. Or I'd say, "Can I call you back? I'm busy." I'd like to think, especially if I were a public figure, I wouldn't take exquisite care to make sure my caller knew what an incredibly generous person I was to be praying a rosary for a certain specific person who was my enemy -- my caller, who just so happens to have a friend who is a devout-Catholic columnist with a large national right-wing readership. **** By the way, here's an interesting commentary about making a great dog-and-pony show of your faith: Two men went up into the temple to pray; the one a Pharisee, and the other a publican. The Pharisee stood and prayed thus with himself, God, I thank thee, that I am not as other men are, extortioners, unjust, adulterers, or even as this publican. I fast twice in the week, I give tithes of all that I possess. And the publican, standing afar off, would not lift up so much as his eyes unto heaven, but smote upon his breast, saying, God be merciful to me a sinner. I tell you, this man went down to his house justified rather than the other: for every one that exalteth himself shall be abased; and he that humbleth himself shall be exalted. That's Jesus (Luke 18:10-14). posted by Steve M. | 5:51 PM | Nice roundup of Ted Haggard information here, including the fact that he wrote the foreword to a book called The Faith of George W. Bush. Oh, and this has nothing to do with Haggard, but did you know that a group called Christian Life Missions had a fund-raising campaign -- during the election year of 2004 -- to send copies of The Faith of George W. Bush to the troops overseas? And did you know that Christian Life Missions claimed that donations to this fund were tax-deductible? posted by Steve M. | 3:02 PM | TRUTH CREEP If you've been following the blog discussion of the New York Times story about the online archive of Iraq documents, you know there's one paragraph in the story that's garbled: Among the dozens of documents in English were Iraqi reports written in the 1990s and in 2002 for United Nations inspectors in charge of making sure Iraq had abandoned its unconventional arms programs after the Persian Gulf war. Experts say that at the time, Mr. Hussein's scientists were on the verge of building an atom bomb, as little as a year away. Clearly this is meant to convey the fact that Saddam was perhaps a year away from building a nuke at the time of the Gulf War. But the juxtaposition of "in 2002," "at the time," and "as little as a year away" has led idiots at right-wing blogs to declare that the Times now believes Saddam was a year away from a nuke in 2002. More appallingly, this line is now being spread by the administration -- Digby says Condoleezza Rice and Dan Bartlett have repeated it in interviews today. I tried to give this sort of thing a name back in January -- "truth creep." "Truth creep," I said, is a lie that "sounds like the truth [and] in fact ... is the truth -- but with a few key details (the key details) distorted, muddied, and/or excised." The GOP campaign is now running on nothing but truth creep. The deliberate distortion of John Kerry's gaffe was truth creep. This, from a recent campaign rally, is especially nasty truth creep (though it's been the standard GOP distortion of the Democratic position, i.e., the necessity of due process, for months): THE PRESIDENT: In all these vital measures for fighting a war on terror, the Democrats in Washington follow a simple philosophy: Just say no. (Laughter.) When it comes to listening in on the terrorists, what's the Democrats' answer? AUDIENCE: Just say no! THE PRESIDENT: Just say no. When it comes to detaining terrorists, what's the Democrat's answer? AUDIENCE: Just say no! THE PRESIDENT: When it comes to questioning terrorists, what's the Democrat's answer? AUDIENCE: Just say no! THE PRESIDENT: When it comes to trying terrorists, what's the Democrat's answer? AUDIENCE: Just say no! And now this. Two thoughts: First, the Times needs to wake up and pay attention to the online reaction to its article, which means it needs to issue a clarification of that passage today, in real time. (Why does the Times bother publishing blogs if it's not going to use them well?) And second, I don't care what it's called, "truth creep" or anything else, but somebody has to give this phenomenon a name. That's the first step in beginning to grasp the particular toxicity of lies that share 98% of their DNA with the truth. posted by Steve M. | 1:02 PM | Shorter Ann Coulter and Charles Krauthammer: You Democrats are about to kick our ass, but if you were really tough, you'd kick it even harder. (And what does it say about the Much Respected Krauthammer that he and Coulter wrote essentially the same column this week?) posted by Steve M. | 11:01 AM | THE FISH STINKS FROM THE HEAD By now you've probably seen this story: Last March, the federal government set up a Web site to make public a vast archive of Iraqi documents captured during the war.... But in recent weeks, the site has posted some documents that weapons experts say are a danger themselves: detailed accounts of Iraq's secret nuclear research before the 1991 Persian Gulf war. The documents, the experts say, constitute a basic guide to building an atom bomb. Last night, the government shut down the Web site... Oops. I'm amused by this line in the story: Some intelligence officials feared that individual documents, translated and interpreted by amateurs, would be used out of context to second-guess the intelligence agencies' view that Mr. Hussein did not have unconventional weapons or substantive ties to Al Qaeda. Now where would those "amateurs," those half-crazed social misfits, get a cockamamie notion like that? Thursday, March 30, 2006 1:11 a.m. EST Dick Cheney: Iraq Documents Show Saddam-Osama Tie Vice President Dick Cheney predicted Wednesday that thousands of boxes of documents captured from Saddam's Hussein's former regime will show that the Iraqi dictator had a much closer relationship with Osama bin Laden than was previously known. "I think what we'll find as we get a chance to go through and analyze these documents -- there's some 50,000 boxes of them that are now being made available here over the next few months -- that we'll see a pretty complete picture that Saddam Hussein did, in fact, deal with some pretty nefarious characters out there," Cheney told Fox News Radio's Tony Snow. Asked if he was referring to Osama bin Laden, Cheney replied: "Yes, we don't know the full scale of it there yet, and I don't want to make a hard and fast prediction here. But there is reporting, obviously, that we've seen over the years that there was some kind of a relationship there between the Iraqis and Osama bin Laden." ... Thanks. Got it. ***** (Incidentally, if no one's found a WMD smoking gun in this archive yet it's not for lack of trying on the part of people like this Freeper monomaniac.) posted by Steve M. | 9:46 AM | The Freepers say: Fox & Friends this morning are reporting that Lieberman may caucus with the GOP if he wins re-election to the Senate from Connecticut as an Independent. I didn't see it. I can't vouch for the accuracy. I'm just relaying it. **** UPDATE: Here's the story, from News Hounds: Friday morning during the FOX & Friends show, host Gretchen Carlson said this: "Last week, the Mayor of New York City, a Republican, Mike Bloomberg, had a big fundraising event for [Joe Lieberman]. And now there is talk by some insiders that the GOP is wooing Lieberman because they believe if, in fact, he's elected next Tuesday as an Independent, that he may cross the line and come over and decide to be a Republican. Earlier this week President Bush praised Lieberman for his pro-Iraq stance. Some people say hey look, if the Republicans give him a big job -- one in particular like Chairman of the Budget Committee -- maybe in fact Lieberman would become a Republican." posted by Steve M. | 7:41 AM | CONCEDING DEFEAT ALREADY? Republicans are notably more pessimistic, particularly about the House today. One senior Republican strategist told me their best case is a loss of twenty seats. --George Stephanopoulous on ABC News last night (no Web link available) posted by Steve M. | 7:39 AM | Thursday, November 02, 2006 For whatever it's worth, Ted Haggard may have been a Bush pal and virulently anti-gay even as (according to reports) he had a three-year affair with a male escort, but he was also one of the driving forces behind that move to get evangelicals more involved in environmentalism. (Last year, Cal Thomas sniffed, "Rev. Ted Haggard, president of NAE, says he has become passionate about the issue because he is a scuba diver [but not a scientist] and has seen how 'global warming' affects coral reefs. What about passion for Jesus?") So hell, maybe he was outed by the energy companies. posted by Steve M. | 11:54 PM | Gosh, didn't that Ann Coulter person say that only nasty, evil Democrats use victims as political spokespeople, not not Republicans like Rick Santorum? MICHAEL SARROW, IRAQ WAR VETERAN: I served in Iraq, and I've had thirteen operations on my leg to prove it. The war on terror isn't easy, but it's worth the sacrifice. When I came home I found out that Bob Casey's been investing billions of our state's money in companies that support terrorists -- just like the ones that attacked me and my buddies. Casey's making a tough war even harder. On Election Day, remember that. Yup, Sarrow's saying, in effect, that Casey funds the terrorists who wrecked his leg. But as it turns out, the actual meaning of "companies that support terrorists" is "companies that do business in nations such as Syria and Sudan." The report that's the source of this claim, from a neocon think tank, far from singling Casey's investments out, says they're pretty much standard operating procedure at public pension funds. Oh, and by the way, why is it evil to invest pension-fund money in companies that do business in Syria but not evil to back a president who sends innocent people to Syria to be tortured? posted by Steve M. | 11:11 PM | "16 WORDS" Droll. More about Margo Guryan here. (She wrote and sang the song. Did I make that clear? Well, not the words, obviously.) posted by Steve M. | 5:31 PM | The New York Times reports today that Iraqi Shiites want changes made to the UN agreement that underlies the presence of U.S. troops in Iraq. A quote from the article: "Iraqi leaders are handcuffed" by the United Nations agreement, said Hadi al-Ameri, a member of the committee and the leader of the Defense and Security Committee in Parliament. "We will not tell the Americans to go, but if they stay it should be according to conditions." Spencer Ackerman says: What's significant about this? The speaker. Hadi al-Ameri is not simply the leader of the Iraqi parliament's Defense and Security Committee. He's the leader of the Badr Corps, the militia/death squad of the Supreme Council for the Islamic Revolution in Iraq (SCIRI), the dominant faction of the dominant Iraqi sect.... ... The man who leads the Badr Corps ... is now a crucial decision-maker in telling the U.S. how it may behave that country. If ever you find yourself starting to believe that the militias can be "dealt with" or "cracked down on," remember this basic, basic fact. Ameri has won, and the U.S. has lost. What do you suppose Ameri will do when he and his colleagues are no longer "handcuffed"? posted by Steve M. | 11:22 AM | DO-OVER David Brooks today: Policy makers are again considering fundamental changes in our Iraq policy, but as they do I hope they read Elie Kedourie's essay, "The Kingdom of Iraq: A Retrospect." Kedourie, a Baghdad-born Jew, published the essay in 1970. It's a history of the regime the British helped establish over 80 years ago, but it captures an idea that is truer now than ever: Disorder is endemic to Iraq. Today's crisis is not three years old. It's worse now, but the crisis is perpetual. This is a bomb of a nation.... David Brooks, April 17, 2004: ...Every time they get a chance to vote, Iraqi citizens show they are ready for democracy.... In almost every case, the parties that do best are professional and practical, emphasizing the people's concrete needs. ... Once the political process moves ahead, nationalism will work in our favor, as Iraqis seek to become the leading reformers in the Arab world. We hawks were wrong about many things. But in opening up the possibility for a slow trudge toward democracy, we were still right about the big thing. posted by Steve M. | 10:22 AM | ELITIST ARROGANCE I guess it's OK for Ann Coulter to say, unambiguously, that busy mothers are too stupid to know how to vote, and, as a result, in league with terrorists: As millions of lunatic Muslims plot to murder Americans, some Americans -- we call them "Soccer Moms" -- will cast a vote to save Michael J. Fox this year. In the process, they will put all Americans at risk by voting for a frivolous, dying party. Oh, but I'm sure she'll be pressured to issue an apology -- right? posted by Steve M. | 8:08 AM | Wednesday, November 01, 2006 Former Congressman Mark Foley's stay at an Arizona rehab center has been extended beyond the standard 30 days. --ABC News Till when -- the day after Election Day? posted by Steve M. | 11:46 PM | Atrios has made this point before, I think, and I may have also, but I want to make it again. Here's the president in his interview with Rush Limbaugh today. Suppress your gag reflex and think about the part I've put in bold: THE PRESIDENT: ... One of the interesting things about this war that is different from previous wars, is in previous wars you could leave the battlefield and the enemy would stay close to the battlefield. In this war, if you leave the battle, the enemy follows us home to America -- and that's one of the lessons of September the 11th, and that's one of the reasons why we will win in Iraq. I repeat: the only reason we could lose in Iraq is if we leave, and, therefore, we've got kids sacrificing in Iraq, and when they hear politicians say, "Get out before the job is done," that's discouraging to them, and it's discouraging to the Iraqis, and it's encouraging to the enemy. That's why my voice is so loud in saying to our troops: "What you're doing is noble and important and you're going to win and history will look back and thank you for your sacrifices." "The only reason we could lose in Iraq is if we leave." That's what he thinks: If we're fighting, we're winning -- by definition. He believes that as long as we're fighting, losing is impossible. Notice that he doesn't say, "In this war, if you leave the battle, the enemy follows us home to America ... that's one of the reasons why we must stay in Iraq." You and I would disagree with that, but at least it would make sense. What he actually says is "In this war, if you leave the battle, the enemy follows us home to America ... that's one of the reasons why we will win in Iraq." He thinks committing to the fight and winning the fight are inseparable. He says all the time -- in fact, he says it elsewhere in the interview -- that he's "got a long-term strategy to deal with these threats, and part of that strategy is to stay on the offense." But it's hard to escape the conclusion that that's all there is to the strategy, or all he thinks there needs to be. This is utterly delusional. He thinks failure simply cannot be happening in Iraq as long as we're fighting -- and he's sacrificing our troops' lives and structuring our foreign policy based on this delusion. **** UPDATE: In response to Bush's declaration that Cheney and Rummy will stay, Atrios says today: Bush has reaffirmed the Bush doctrine, which is that leaving is losing.... True, but it's more than that -- it's that not leaving is not losing. By definition. posted by Steve M. | 7:45 PM | Bush: We're absolutely not "staying the course," except in all the important ways: Bush expects Rumsfeld to stay on rest of term President George W. Bush on Wednesday voiced confidence in Defense Secretary Donald Rumsfeld despite demands he resign over the Iraq war, saying he expects Rumsfeld to stay in his job for the two years he has left in office. Bush also said U.S. commanders in Iraq have not yet recommended a troop increase in Iraq. He said at this point they have told him that "the troop level they've got right now is what they can live with." ... Bush will never let Rummy go, even if Rummy falls on his knees and begs to go. He's keeping him on just to piss us off. If Democrats really want Rummy to leave, we should beg Bush to keep him on. Yes, I've suspected that GOP plan for Connecticut is to work for a Lieberman win and then replace Rummy with Lieberman so the state's GOP governor can pick his replacement -- but I think if Joe gets an appointment, it's going to be at the U.N. (See this New York Daily News story from last December, which floated the possibility of Joe-for-John.) Ever meet a bratty little kid whose favorite thing to do was whatever you'd just warned him, in your most authoritative voice, not to do? That's Bush regarding Rummy. posted by Steve M. | 4:02 PM | I can't get the video to work on this computer, but judging from the transcript, Kerry's call to Don Imus this morning was more or less exactly what he needed to do. I know -- you hate it. You hate that he did this and you hate that he went to Imus to do it. But that's how it works -- Imus is a gatekeeper, for better or worse, and the time to challenge a diseased, depraved political culture in which someone like Imus can be a gatekeeper is not a week before an election. Kerry apologized to the troops for botching the joke but spent most of his time defending his criticism of the administration and defending his record: ...KERRY: I'm not going to let these guys distort something completely out of its context solely for the purpose of avoiding responsibility, which is what they’re doing. Look, everybody knows I botched a joke. It's not the first time anybody's done that, Don. Am I right? IMUS: ... the first time you've done it. KERRY: Not the first time I've done it. But on the other hand, it's just a disgraceful thing when people try to assert that somebody like me, who has spent 35 years of my life fighting for veterans, standing up for veterans, fighting for their combat pay, fighting for Agent Orange recognition, fighting for their armor, fighting for their up-armored Humvees, fighting for them to have a strategy that wins, fighting to honor them that the notion that this comment was directed at them is an insult by these guys, and they know it. I mean, that's really the bottom line here. Look, this is a great volunteer army. And the word "volunteer" army means you have to be smart to get in it. They know that. Everybody knows. You can’t get in the military today if you're not capable and not smart. This comment couldn't have been directed at them, because you can't get into the military by doing badly in school. This was directed at the people who didn't do their homework, didn't listen to history, didn't listen to their own advice, and they owe the American people an apology.... The political culture demanded an apology, and he provided one. Impressively, he also kept punching, and hit his targets. You may have a problem with the apology, but it made the things you and I seek a hell of a lot more attainable. posted by Steve M. | 12:34 PM | Hmmm -- I thought securing Baghdad was the key to securing Iraq. Well, conventional wisdom, meet reality: U.S. Military Deaths in Iraq Still Mostly Outside Capital About two-thirds of the deaths among American troops in Iraq in October occurred outside Baghdad, even with a sharp increase in combat deaths in the capital that made it the fourth deadliest month of the war for the United States, Defense Department figures show.... The spike in violence in the capital was accompanied by higher tolls in other parts of the country, notably in Anbar Province, where 37 Americans died and deaths have climbed steadily since this summer.... Oh, and while we're debunking CW, it appears that Bush and Cheney are lying about the recent spike in violence: The jump in combat deaths in October mirrored the annual rise in violence that coincides with the Islamic holy month of Ramadan. Military officers and civilian analysts rejected assertions by some Bush administration officials that the insurgents had planned offensives to influence the elections in the United States next Tuesday.... Lt. Col. Jonathan B. Withington, an Army spokesman for the multinational division responsible for Baghdad and central Iraq, ... also cited Ramadan.... ...Michael S. White ...of ICasualties.org ... wrote, "The current spike, which is indeed the highest in a year, occurred during Ramadan, as did the last spike of comparable magnitude a year ago." He added: "This Ramadan spike is not a one-time phenomenon. It is the fourth that we have experienced since the war began." ... posted by Steve M. | 10:09 AM | AIIIEEEE!!! THEY'RE UNDER THE BED!!! Well, it's nice to see that not every media outlet is running wall-to-wall Kerry coverage. Right-wing propaganda outfit World Net Daily has other priorities this morning: TESTING THE FAITH WorldNetDaily Exclusive Fed-up Wal-Mart worker quits over pro-'gay' agenda Urges Christians to take stand because most people 'unaware' --WND WND.ARCHIVE, SEPT. 20 WorldNetDaily Exclusive America's pro-homosexual giants: 2006 List of companies scoring perfect 100 percent from 'gay'-rights group --WND Orthodox Jews protest Jerusalem 'gay' parade Throw stones at police, hold signs saying city 'won't be Sodom and Gomorrah' --Reuters SPECIAL OFFER How the homosexual agenda affects your family 'The Gay Agenda' lays out implications of same-sex marriage movement --Shop.WND.com LAW OF THE LAND WorldNetDaily Woman's death at hands of 'gay' her fault, says lawyer Trial begins over death of Christian who questioned homosexual lifestyle choice --WND... Obsess much, guys? (The Kerry stories are #10 through #14 on the WND page, right below the ads for questionable dietary supplements.) posted by Steve M. | 7:55 AM | |
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