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Wednesday, February 28, 2007 CHRISTIAN CHIPMUNKS  Oh. My. God. If pressed for time, skip straight to "Jesus Loves the Little Children." (And yeah, I know -- they're supposed to be hamsters, not chipmunks, despite the obvious audio resemblance to Alvin, Theodore, and Simon.) posted by Steve M. | 10:44 PM | RUDY AGAIN I don't know if Giuliani can be stopped, but if so, this is a hell of a lot more likely to hurt him with GOP primary voters than this is. **** UPDATE: This won't help either -- chickenhawks are a dime a dozen in the GOP, but hey generally claim to have supported the war they avoided serving in, unlike Rudy. **** AND: I'd be happy if every right-wing Rudy supporter watched this. posted by Steve M. | 10:12 PM | So can someone tell me why a Bush ambassadorial nominee who gave $50,000 to the Swift Boat Veterans for Truth (and did so months after they were thoroughly discredited) is even getting a hearing? Can someone tell me why his nomination wasn't blocked outright, the way Bill Clinton's nomination of William Weld to be ambassador to Mexico was blocked by Jesse Helms a decade ago? I don't care whether the other Democrats in the Senate like or dislike John Kerry. I don't care if they think he ran an inadequate campaign. And I don't care if they think this is an unpleasant moment from the past they'd rather not revisit. They should revisit it. They should revisit it proudly, while reminding the public in detail what disgusting liars these people were. They should draw this line in the sand and let the Bushies whine all they want. It's called asserting power. But, of course, they're Democrats, so God forbid they should do anything like that. Instead, John Kerry is left to press the case personally, as if it's nothing more than a personal vendetta by a sore loser. It isn't. It's the last couple of decades of GOP character-assassination politics in a nutshell, and, needless to say, it'll be back with a vengeance -- probably successfully again -- in '08. **** By the way, anyone who thinks this is too trivial an issue to focus on at this time doesn't understand why right-wingers have been successful for so long. Yeah, it's a trivial issue compred to, say, the war -- but right-wingers' interest in sustaining the Bush war policies doesn't prevent them from taking time out to, say, attack Al Gore's energy usage. Going after Democrats and liberals on everything imaginable, however trivial, is what works for them; all they care about is whether the attack has the possibility of working to their advantage. We could stand to think that way a little more often. posted by Steve M. | 3:00 PM |  Oy -- if a Hillary Clinton presidency will mean four more years of that creepy, Orwellian (or, more precisely, Rovian) position-the-photographers-so-they-get the-Leader's-head-framed-by-words-conveying-a-big-bold-abstract-concept nonsense, then you can just forget it. Go here for a brief history of the Bush/Rove use of this trick. (Source of the Hillary photo: this post at the New York Times Caucus blog. Compare the previous post -- yeah, John Edwards is trying to position himself as the candidate of working people, but the backdrop is just the logo of the labor union co-sponsoring the forum where he was speaking.) posted by Steve M. | 11:58 AM | STRUGGLING WITH PLAIN ENGLISH From Taegan Goddard's Political Wire:* Update: A new CNN poll finds Clinton leading Obama by 15-20 points among black voters. Er, no. From that CNN link: Among blacks, Obama's chief rival for the Democrat's 2008 presidential nomination, Sen. Hillary Clinton of New York, polls 15 to 20 points better than Obama and benefits from name recognition and deep Clinton roots in the black community. What new poll? There's no poll cited at all -- this is just an estimate gleaned from other unnamed polls. (And, of course, according to the new Washington Post poll, Obama has wiped out that deficit and now leads Clinton among black Democrats.) Which brings us to a problem with the (up to now) very popular do-blacks-support-Obama? story hook: The mainstream press doesn't seem to know exactly what it is that blacks are saying about him. From that CNN story: George Wilson, the host of XM Radio's "GW on the Hill," hears doubts about the Illinois Democrat, the only black currently serving in the Senate, all the time from his black audience. "There is this doubt 'But is America ready for a black president?' " Wilson told CNN. "And the overall consensus from my callers is that America is not ready for an African-American president." Even at a rally for Obama in South Carolina you hear it: "I'm being honest," Akyshia Gantt, an African-American, said. "No, I think -- which is bad -- that America is not ready for that, but I don't think they are." Are these doubts about Obama? Or are they doubts about the rest of America? The two may be interrelated, but it would be nice if CNN's Candy Crowley and Sasha Johnson could grasp the fact that they're not the same thing. To be fair, the story does go on to cite Wilson's belief that there may be African-American mistrust of a black candidate praised by whites (although the new Post poll suggests that blacks are rapidly putting aside any such mistrust). But this comes only after blacks' doubts about the electability of a black candidate are presented as if they're doubts about that candidate himself. Not the same thing, folks. **** *UPDATE: The CNN reference has been deleted from Taegan Goddard post. (I'm not sure that was necessary -- the two stories are related, but one uses old poll numbers and one uses the latest numbers.) posted by Steve M. | 10:23 AM | Tuesday, February 27, 2007 I don't usually pay attention to this sort of thing, but this propsed constitutional amendment banning the practice of Islam in America (and requiring that "all Mosques, schools and Muslim places of worship and religious training are to be closed, converted to other uses, or destroyed" without compensation, plus a possible death penalty for advocating sharia) is rather a standout among Z-list right-wing blog posts written by mouthbreathing bigots. Bonus points to the amendment writer for the not knowing the difference between "tenet" and "tenant," or "prescribed" and "proscribed." And I love the last article: Nothing in this amendment shall be construed as authorizing the discrimination against, of violence upon, nor repudiation of the individual rights of those Americans professing to be Muslim.... Right -- we're banning your religion, but in the nicest possible way. Oh, and there's a link at the blog to something called the Loyalist Party ("A Third Party Against Islamic Hate"), which has a couple of logos that must have looked better in the original German. Leonard Pierce has more. posted by Steve M. | 11:23 PM | ST. GUN Today, by the way, is the day that Catholics commemorate the feast of St. Gabriel of Our Lady of Sorrows, otherwise known as St. Gabriel Possenti. As described in Lives of the Saints for Every Day of the Year, edited by Reverend Hugo Hoever, S.O. Cist., Ph.D. (Catholic Book Publishing Co., New York, 1951-1955), he sounds like an unremarkable saint -- "a very great and truly contemplative soul, whose only preoccupation was to unite himself to God at all times"; he died of tuberculosis at age 24 in 1862. However, there's a bit more to the story:  The St. Gabriel Possenti Society promotes the public recognition of St. Gabriel Possenti, including his Vatican designation as Patron Saint of Handgunners.... In 1860, a band of soldiers from the army of Garibaldi entered the mountain village of Isola, Italy. They began to burn and pillage the town, terrorizing its inhabitants. Possenti, with his seminary rector's permission, walked into the center of town, unarmed, to face the terrorists. One of the soldiers was dragging off a young woman he intended to rape when he saw Possenti and made a snickering remark about such a young monk being all alone. Possenti quickly grabbed the soldier's revolver from his belt and ordered the marauder to release the woman. The startled soldier complied, as Possenti grabbed the revolver of another soldier who came by. Hearing the commotion, the rest of the soldiers came running in Possenti's direction, determined to overcome the rebellious monk. At that moment a small lizard ran across the road between Possenti and the soldiers. When the lizard briefly paused, Possenti took careful aim and struck the lizard with one shot. Turning his two handguns on the approaching soldiers, Possenti commanded them to drop their weapons.... For which he was greeted with acclaim by the grateful townspeople. It's not clear why someone who wasn't actually walking around carrying a handgun should be the Patron Saint of Handgunners, but, er, never mind. It's also not clear that this incident ever happened. But, again, never mind. The Society wants St. Gabriel recognize as the gunners' saint. To support this fine work, the Society will sell you a medallion that looks like the logo above, a book about St. Gabriel called Gun Saint, and a coupon you can download here, which you are encouraged to drop in the collection basket at church (no, I'm not making that up):  By the way, you might have been confused by the wording above about Vatican recognition of St. Gabriel as the patron of handgunners -- the Church hasn't, in fact, gone along with that demand (St. Gabriel is, however, the patron saint of Abruzzi, the organization Catholic Action, clerics, students, and young people in general). It should be noted, though, that Pope John Paul II did accept one of those nifty medallions. posted by Steve M. | 7:28 PM | BY THE WAY There's a distinct lack of interest in the "Jesus' tomb" story here in Left Blogistan. Isn't that odd, given the fact that the existence of any remains of Jesus would contradict Christian teachings, and our primary purpose in life here on the left (or so we're told) is to destroy Judeo-Christian civilization? posted by Steve M. | 6:32 PM | A WOUNDED CELEBRITY JOURNALIST ASKS WHY THE GOVERNMENT IS SHORTCHANGING WOUNDED TROOPS Bob Woodruff -- the ABC anchorman who suffered a brain injury from an IED in Iraq -- is now back on TV and has a new book out. I expected his reemergence to be just a three-hanky tale of triumph over adversity, and it certainly is that, but he's also talking about soldiers who, unlike him, are struggling to get the care they need: ... Woodruff meets soldiers who, after fighting in Iraq and Afghanistan, must fight bureaucratic red tape before receiving the treatment they need, and others who may not even know they're injured, as traumatic brain injury can go unrecognized.... Many of the families Woodruff met with across the country express frustration at the lack of care TBI [traumatic brain injury] patients receive once they leave specialized rehabilitation centers and return home. ... following brain-injured Army Sgt. Michael Boothby from Bethesda back to the soldier's hometown of Comfort, Texas, Woodruff watches Boothby's condition quickly deteriorate as he awaits the arrival of the paperwork that would allow him to continue his treatment.... A Woodruff TV special will air tonight. The New York Times review of the show recounts the disgusting response he gets when he points out that certain numbers don't add up: The film notes that the Department of Defense puts the number of men and women wounded in Iraq and Afghanistan at about 23,000, while the Department of Veterans Affairs has recorded treating more than 200,000 veterans of those two wars. Paul Sullivan, the director of programs at the advocacy group Veterans for America, says, "What you have are two sets of books." Mr. Woodruff politely asks the secretary of veterans affairs, R. James Nicholson, to explain the discrepancy. Citing department reports that list 73,000 mental disorders, 61,000 diseases of the nervous system and others, Mr. Woodruff says, "These are huge numbers beyond the 23,000." Mr. Nicholson, a Vietnam veteran and a former chairman of the Republican National Committee, replies, "A lot of them come in for, for dental problems." Unbelievable. This is not what the Bushies need right now -- a very sympathetic TV reporter on a book tour calling them on their failure to do right by wounded servicemembers. I wonder what they'll do -- accuse him of citing accurate but embarrassing stats just to sell his book? Charge him with undermining the troops' morale? Dig up some years-old story he did and mine it for evidence of political bias? I don't know -- but after this and the Washington Post series, you can expect Bush to be posing with a lot of extremely grateful-seeming wounded troops very, very soon. posted by Steve M. | 1:50 PM | THAT OLD-TIME RELIGION Who said Rudy Giuliani and the GOP base don't see eye to eye on religion? This is from Hotline: Rudy Giuliani delivered the keynote remarks to the Hoover Institution's Overseers' Luncheon at the Willard InterContinental in DC today. Although there were no rah-rah moments for the 9/11 hero, the crowd was instead treated to Giuliani as the champion of free market enterprise -- the tax-cutting, welfare-reducing, budget-balancing descendant of Ronald Reagan. Giuliani was introduced by his camp's new dir. of policy/'02 CA GOV nominee Bill Simon, who called him "a friend, a mentor, a former boss, and a fellow Ronald Reagan Republican." ... Giuliani strayed from the ever-popular 9/11 storytelling session, and opted to focus his address on how the expansion of "freedom" creates the best policies in taxation, school reform, entitlement reform, and health care reform. In each area, Giuliani consistently pressed the case that GOP policies will be successful so long as GOPers stick to the core belief that "free market principles are really the salvation." ... Free-market principles are salvation! Praise Ronnie! An AP story presents this as a conversion narrative; Giuliani doesn't serve the Devil anymore, like certain other people: Republican presidential hopeful Rudy Giuliani addressed his Democratic past on Tuesday and offered one reason for his political conversion -- the economy and taxes. "I don't think anything separates us more right now between Republicans and Democrats than how we look at taxes," the former New York mayor said. "What we understand as Republicans is that, sure, the government is an important player in this, but we are essentially a private economy. What Democrats really believe ... is that it is essentially a government economy." In the days of President Kennedy, Giuliani said, Democrats understood the concept of the private economy and cutting taxes. But, he said, Democrats have "kind of lost that." "It's one of the reasons that I used to be a Democrat and I'm now a Republican," Giuliani said... "I would say to myself Democrats care about the poor and Republicans don't, and how can I join the party that doesn't care about the poor," Giuliani said. "I finally came to the conclusion that we care about the poor more." ... He once was lost, but now he's found! (And please note that this journey out of the Democratic wilderness, as Giuliani describes it, is very, very similar to Reagan's own conversion. Rudy has taken his Democratic past, a potential liability in his party, and is turning it into a potential advantage -- I saw the light, just like Ronald Reagan.) It's often been said that George W. Bush consolidated his support on the right by speaking the language of religious conservatives, larding his speeches with phrases and concepts that told the religious right, "I'm one of you." Giuliani is doing the same thing with the GOP's other religion. And he's declaring unswerving loyalty to the GOP's other Jesus. **** UPDATE: Headline at a big-cheese right-wing blog: "Rudy Going Reaganesque." Hallelujah -- it's a meme! **** UPDATE: Oh, and there's this, from a Politico account of another Giuliani speech: "Ronald Reagan saw the demise of the Soviet Union when nobody else saw it because he could dream it," Giuliani said. "I can see the demise of terrorism." Ronald Reagan was Martin Luther King! He had a dream! posted by Steve M. | 7:43 AM | Monday, February 26, 2007 EVIL SINISTER NAME-SHIFTING HILLARY From today's Boston Globe: ...when it comes to Senator Hillary Rodham Clinton, the name game can be an asset and a liability at the same time. Clinton, an early leader in the race for the 2008 Democratic nomination, apparently has dropped -- or at least deemphasized -- "Rodham," her maiden name. Though her family name remains on her official Senate website, it's not on her campaign website and shows up only occasionally in her news releases. And the T-shirts and buttons promoting Clinton's presidential run boldly declare "Hillary," placing her with Brad and Angelina in the pantheon of first-name-only celebrities.... I got a fund-raising letter from her campaign today. Know what's in the upper left corner of the envelope? "Hillary Rodham Clinton." At the top of the letter itself? "Hillary Rodham Clinton." The script signature is "Hillary," but that's squeezed in between "Sincerely" and -- yes -- "Hillary Rodham Clinton." Supporting the sinister-evil-name-change theory is the fact that the return envelope is addressed to "Friends of Hillary" and the donation form has the heading, "Hillary, Let's Build a New Future!" (Yeah, I hate the tone of these things, too.) However, the letter is "Paid for by Hillary Clinton for President Exploratory Committee," and the Web site is www.hillaryclinton.com. What can we conclude from all this class? That she's definitely calling herself "Hillary." And "Hillary Clinton." And "Hillary Rodham Clinton." Devious witch -- how dare she use different permutations of her name simultaneously! (Via the Mahablog.) posted by Steve M. | 10:44 PM | Charming: VIRGINIA BEACH, Va. -- A Catholic school principal has organized sensitivity training for students who shouted "We love Jesus" during a basketball game against a school with Jewish students. The word "Jew" also was painted on a gym wall behind the seats of Bishop Sullivan Catholic High School students attending the Feb. 2 game at Norfolk Academy, said Dennis W. Price, principal of the Virginia Beach school. Price, who also watched the game, said the rivals exchanged chants, "Then, at some point, our students were chanting, 'We love Jesus.'" "It was obviously in reference to the Jewish population of Norfolk Academy; that's the only way you can take that," he added. Price said he sent a letter of apology to Norfolk. Dennis G. Manning, the academy's headmaster, declined to comment.... Bishop Sullivan may be a Catholic school, but note that it's in Virginia Beach -- home of Pat Robertson's empire and the university he founded, and also home of the Christianist National Legal Foundation and a number of Baptist seminaries. I've never been there, but I'm guessing there's a certain my-God-can-beat-up-your-God attitude in the air. Please correct me if I'm wrong. posted by Steve M. | 2:20 PM | There's not much point in reading Joe Lieberman's pro-surge op-ed in today's Wall Street Journal -- it's filled with just the kind of insufferable happy talk ("We are now in a stronger position to ensure basic security") you'd expect from Lieberman (or whatever team of Republicans is ghost-writing for him). The only interesting detail is the attempt to rebrand the surge as "the battle of Baghdad" -- something that is "under way" (and thus mustn't be reversed). Lieberman says "the battle of Baghdad" is "under way" twice, in case you don't get the message. The problem with Lieberman's use of the definite article -- "the battle of Baghdad" -- is that some of us recall being told that "the battle of Baghdad" took place last summer and fall. At least, that was the message conveyed by America's then-ambassador to Iraq, Zalmay Khalilzad, in (by astonishing coincidence) an op-ed in The Wall Street Journal. That op-ed bore the title ... gosh, what was the title? Oh, yes: "The Battle of Baghdad." None of this is to be confused with the 2003 "battle of Baghdad," which ended with the overthrow of Saddam. And, of course, let's not forget that President Bush referred to the Iraq War as "the battle of Iraq" in his "Mission Accomplished" speech, which would suggest that "the battle of Baghdad" -- whichever one you're referring to -- is actual a sub-battle of "the battle of Iraq." And then there's "the battle of Baghdad" that took place in 1258, but I probably shouldn't confuse matters even more by bringing that up. posted by Steve M. | 10:34 AM | Sunday, February 25, 2007 GIULIANI STANDS BY A PAL Did Rudy Giuliani hire a pedophile priest -- and an enabler of other pedophile priests -- knowing the man's story but wanting to show loyalty to a friend? A few days ago, Rants from the Rookery flagged several less-than-laudatory stories about Giuliani, including this one from Newsday: It had been a few years since Richard Tollner last publicly accused his former teacher Msgr. Alan Placa of groping him in high school, but Tollner recently repeated the charges -- raising an awkward issue for Rudolph Giuliani's run for president. Tollner, now a mortgage banker, appeared at a Feb. 8 Manhasset meeting of Voice of the Faithful of Long Island, a Catholic group concerned about priest-abuse cases, and told how Placa used to corner him. After the accusations first surfaced in 2002, the Diocese of Rockville Centre placed Placa on administrative leave, barring him from priestly duties and from wearing the collar. Placa, who insists he is innocent, has not been charged with a crime. Yet despite the controversy, Giuliani gave his old friend Placa a job at Giuliani Partners, and Michael Hess, a partner at the firm and the ex-mayor's corporation counsel, handled Placa's legal matters.... A 2002 Newsday article went into much more detail about Placa: ...Starting in the mid-1980s, when cases of priest sexual abuse came to national attention, Alan Placa played a central role in how such complaints were handled on Long Island.... Placa, 57, was a chief architect of the diocesan policy and one of its chief executors until he stepped down as vice chancellor in mid-April. ...Investigators are examining complaints that Placa and other top officials placed troubled priests back into jobs where they had contact with children, sometimes against the advice of psychiatrists -- a charge Placa denies. Victims, meanwhile, say that he was evasive and lacked compassion in dealing with their complaints, and that his dual role as priest-confidant and legal counsel to the bishop was not made clear to them, putting them at a disadvantage.... Here, according to Tollner, is Placa as a molester -- with a rather novel way of getting in the mood: Richard Tollner, 43, a mortgage broker now living in the Albany area, said he told prosecutors he had his first encounter with the priest in January 1975, on a day that classes were out, and the teen had come in to help make banners for a Right to Life march in Washington, D.C. He said the priest pulled out some posters in the deserted administrative area as if to show him something, and then began fondling him -- all the while making conversation about the posters. Tollner said the incidents repeated every month or so for the next year and a half. "It was always groping," he said. "He'd draw his hand deliberately to the inside of my thigh, and over my penis. It would go on for four or five minutes, sometimes as long as 10." A high school friend said Tollner told him about one incident soon after it occurred. "This isn't a figment of his imagination 25 years later," said Kevin Waldron of San Francisco. "He told me about it shortly after it happened. I'm certain of it."... And here's an example of how Placa worked to enable molesters, in the case of a 14-year-old ex-altar boy who was being pursued by a priest named Reverend Joseph Mundy: ... the boy said Placa took him aside for a private chat and subtly pressured him to back off of his account. ..."He said to me that he knew kids didn't get much sleep when they went on these retreats, and that was a problem because sleep deprivation could play tricks on one's mind, isn't that right? He never asked me about Mundy."... According to a grand jury report, Father Mundy later took [the] 14-year-old boy to a gay club in New York City where he and other patrons engaged in sexual activity with the boy.... [The] victim has said that what happened to him left him scarred and suicidal. Mundy has left the priesthood. Jimmy Breslin has more, including a grand jury report of a charge that Placa "tried to grope a young man in front of the casket at his father's wake." But hey, Placa and Giuliani go way back, so Giuliani gave him a job. Will we hear this name very much as we approach November '08? I wonder. posted by Steve M. | 10:10 PM | Bloggers across the political spectrum are reacting with disgust to the AP story about polygamy among Mitt Romney's ancestors -- which, by the way (scroll down), is rather old news. I don't have much to add, but this just seems to be part of the press's ridiculous attempt to treat three candidates -- Romney, Obama, and Clinton -- as "the Mormon guy," "the black guy," and "the woman," as if voters will choose or not choose them based exclusively on those attributes. The religion, race, and gender (respectively) of the three certainly do matter to voters, and prejudices absolutely could kick in when voters vote -- but these are absolutely not the only criteria being used to judge these candidates. Yet you wouldn't know that from stories that ask, "Will voters vote for a Mormon?" (or black person or woman). Political strategists focus a lot of their attention on demographic categories, of course -- as do the people who track ratings and circulation figures in the media. So it's no wonder that political journalists sometimes seem to have trouble seeing past demographic categories. They need to figure out, though, that most voters are looking at a lot more. posted by Steve M. | 1:54 PM |  On Friday, The New York Times ran the picture above, of Jose Padilla wearing noise-cancelling headphones and blackout goggles. We first saw this image in December, when it was pulled from a Pentagon video. We were told at the time that this sensory-deprivation regimen was imposed on Padilla for a trip to the dentist. When I saw this picture again, one thing that occurred to me was that in 2004 everyone from Charles Colson to Susan Sontag was telling us that what we saw in the photos from Abu Ghraib was the work of kids from the sticks who were hopped up on Internet S&M porn. Never mind the fact that the techniques used in Abu Ghraib came from the top and migrated to Abu Ghraib from Guantanamo -- we still encounter the porn-inspired-Appalachian-kids theory, and not always from the far right. So, er, who were the porn-drunk holler-dwellers who put that gear on Padilla? That's as S&M as anything we saw at Abu Ghraib -- was that also the work of a few bad apples high on dirty pictures? posted by Steve M. | 12:44 PM | Saturday, February 24, 2007 HUNTING HUMANS I'm pleased to see that the response to the NYU College Republicans' "Catch an Illegal Immigrant" game this week was a massive protest, with demonstrators greatly outnumbering Republicans. (This is the same cheap stunt College Republicans pulled at Penn State last year and the University of North Texas the year before. These people desperately need some new material.) The demo was great, but next time a CR chapter wants to stage this game, maybe protestors should give them a taste of their own medicine. Maybe they could have a game of their own -- a game called "Catch a College Republican Chickenhawk." In this game, one player would wear the CR logo and other players would pose as military recruiters. The winner would be the one who succeeds in catching the College Republican and getting his or his ass shipped over to Iraq. (Extra prizes if you drag the Republican to an actual recruiting center and do it for real!) I think I'd really enjoy playing that game.... posted by Steve M. | 2:00 PM | BUBBLE BOYS I AND II An article in yesterday's New York Times discussed the fact that Rudy Giuliani has been limiting his campaign appearances to venues -- such as firehouses -- at which he'll be worshiped, not asked tough questions. This reminds the Carpetbagger Report's Steve Benen of a certain president of the United States, as Steve explained in a post titled "A New 'Bubble Boy' Emerges." I agree that it's bad for democracy when a presidential candidate, or a president, makes public appearances only before people who think he's the bee's knees. The problem is, it works. It certainly worked for Bush in '04. Abu Ghraib? No WMDs? Escalating violence in Iraq? Bin Laden still at large? Bush had all this going against him, but he was Bubble Boy all through the campaign, and he won. Remember what the point of the Bubble Boy strategy is: not to shield a thin-skinned pol from criticism (or not just that), but rather to convey the impression that the pol is really, really popular, and if you don't like him, maybe you're the oddball. It may not persuade everyone, but I'm sure it kept a lot of swing voters from rejecting Bush outright in '04 -- and it kept the worshipers pumped up, as night after night on the news they saw (apparent) validation of their opinions by big crowds. ***** When I think about Bush's campaign appearances in '04, I think about this bit of entertainment trivia I ran across years ago: Jay Leno had what Oprah Winfrey might call "a light bulb moment" ten years ago when he brought his late night NBC talk show to New York for a week and taped it in a studio that seemed cramped when compared to his spacious work environment in Burbank. When Leno returned to Los Angeles he immediately ordered a redesign for his entire studio, with the primary mandate that the front rows of the studio audience be brought closer to his stage, within touching distance. Leno's changes brought renewed energy to "The Tonight Show" that had been missing following the departure of Johnny Carson, and its ratings began to climb. So there was more energy flowing between Leno and the crowd. Did that make Leno any funnier? No -- but I guess it made him seem funnier, and made it seem, to the home audience, as if the crowd really thought he was hot stuff. You can't blame Giuliani for doing this. All you can do is what the Times and Steve did -- call him on it and try to force him out of the bubble. ***** (By the way, I've always thought the Bush people might have known about Leno's getting-close-to-the-crowd trick -- if you look at photos from the '04 campaign, it's clear that his handlers wanted as many pictures as possible showing him almost packed into an admiring crowd. And remember that the Bush people also designed a "theater in the round" stage for the '04 convention.) posted by Steve M. | 10:22 AM | Friday, February 23, 2007 Thank you, Shakes, for posting this. I think it's really important for the general public to see Giuliani as he really is (and this really is how he is). My only concern is that this will probably make Giuliani seem more appealing to Republican primary voters. posted by Steve M. | 7:06 PM | THEY HATE THE TROOPS This (from the Army Times) is outrageous: The Army is deliberately shortchanging troops on their disability retirement ratings to hold down costs, according to veterans' advocates, lawyers and service members. "These people are being systematically underrated," said Ron Smith, deputy general counsel for Disabled American Veterans.... The numbers of people approved for permanent or temporary disability retirement in the Navy, Marine Corps and Air Force have stayed relatively stable since 2001. But in the Army -- in the midst of a war -- the number of soldiers approved for permanent disability retirement has plunged by more than two-thirds, from 642 in 2001 to 209 in 2005, according to a Government Accountability Office report last year. That decline has come even as the war in Iraq has intensified and the total number of soldiers wounded or injured there has soared above 15,000.... I don't even know why the numbers for the other service branches have remained flat. But the Army's numbers have gone down? That's crazy. Here's an appalling example of what's going on: In May 2003, Army Cpl. Richard Twohig was thrown from an armored personnel carrier in Iraq. The 82nd Airborne Division paratrooper landed on his head, said his lawyer, Mark Waple, of Fayetteville, N.C. Twohig suffers headaches at least once a week that last up to 14 hours, as well as short-term memory loss, and is dependent on pain medication. "This is well substantiated by his doctors -- Army medical doctors," Waple said. But his physical evaluation board rated him only 10 percent disabled for another injury because he had no substantive proof the headaches were a result of the accident -- even though regulations call for evaluation boards to give troops the benefit of the doubt in such instances.... Twohig can't work because of the disabling headaches, and even if he receives VA benefits, his family has lost its medical insurance. And if a physical evaluation board rules that injuries are not related to service or were preexisting conditions, troops are not eligible for VA benefits, either. We're told that the number of soldiers placed on permanent disability retirement is down -- but the number on temporary disability retirement is up. And why is that? In 2005, Ellen Embrey, deputy assistant secretary of defense for force health protection and readiness, told House lawmakers the reason for the comparatively large numbers of troops placed on temporary disability was actually to keep end strength up. A premature medical evaluation board decision, she said, "may negatively impact the individual's ability to continue serving." These guys are massively disabled, and the Army wants to reserve the right to send them back into combat? I found the second part of this week's Washington Post series on Walter Reed in some ways more heartbreaking and infuriating than the first part, because it had stories similar to this. I know Building 18 is undergoing repairs now, but fixing crumbling plaster is easy; reversing a deliberate attempt to screw people through bureaucracy is hard. (Via Democratic Underground.) posted by Steve M. | 3:28 PM | MEMO TO PEGGY NOONAN RE: THE CLINTON-GEFFEN-OBAMA DUSTUP America is not "going to spend the weekend discussing this." Only you suffers of Hillary Derangement Syndrome are. Oh, and the weekend talk-show bloviators -- but I repeat myself. posted by Steve M. | 12:29 PM | SEPARATED AT BIRTH? The Onion article on Rudy Giuliani that was linked here yesterday and this article from today's London Telegraph, which apparently is not meant to be a joke at all. posted by Steve M. | 9:59 AM | This Newsweek article by Michael Hirsh seems like the biggest news of the past 24 hours: ... what few people seem to have noticed is that Gen. David Petraeus's new "surge" plan is committing U.S. troops, day by day, to a much deeper and longer-term role in policing Iraq than since the earliest days of the U.S. occupation. How long must we stay under the Petraeus plan? Perhaps 10 years. At least five.... But don't take my word for it. I'm merely a messenger for a coterie of counterinsurgency experts who have helped to design the Petraeus plan -- his so-called "dream team" -- and who have discussed it with NEWSWEEK, usually on condition of anonymity.... If this is true, then Bush doesn't need a "Plan C" for what happens after the surge because, as far as he's concerned, there is no "after the surge" -- the surge will still be a work in progress that "still needs a chance to work" until the end of his presidency (and President Giuliani will take over from there). Maybe it doesn't mean that the war is unstoppable, but if there won't be an endpoint to this phase of the war at any time during Bush's term, then any attempt at curtailing the war will be portrayed as curtailing this surge, for years, if Hirsh is right. On the other hand, there was this last night on ABC: ... Retired Army Gen. Jack Keane ... is one of the architects of the President Bush's new Iraq policy and an ABC News consultant, and spoke with Charles Gibson ... ...Gibson: And you mention that more Iraqi troops are coming online. Do the American commanders, as you meet with them on this trip, have confidence that these are good troops that can eventually take control themselves? ...Keane: In time, they can do this, but first we have to bring the level of violence down. So we'll need well into the summer to make some genuine progress in Baghdad, where people will feel comfortable. It'll probably take into the fall to secure Baghdad. So Keane says we can see results by fall. But as spring goes on and summer approaches, the light at the end of the tunnel will recede and recede -- from fall to the end of the year, the to '08, maybe beyond that. (It's not as if we have anywhere near the troop strength we need for proper counterinsurgency, even now.) But we'll be told it's a betrayal of the troops to stop this, because it's still the new surge, it's still Plan B, and it'll work if we have the will. posted by Steve M. | 8:17 AM | Thursday, February 22, 2007 IF JOE SWITCHES, HE SHOULD RESIGN Paul Weyrich, June 10, 2001: Let us see how many Vermonters approve of what Jim Jeffords did here. We are being told that support for him is overwhelming, but there is only one way to find that out. If Jeffords resigned and turned around and ran again in a special election as an Independent, then we would know for sure. I wouldn't mind a rule change that would make that a requirement as well. It seems to me that the people ought to have something to say about what these Senators do when their decisions, such as what Jeffords did, will effect all of us for years and years to come. But then, they only speak about doing things in the name of the people. When it comes to actually doing so they are nowhere to be found. I heard a lot of that from Republicans after the Jeffords switch, so let me say it about Joe Lieberman's threat: If you switch parties, Joe, you should resign and run in a special election as a Republican. Did I think Jeffords should resign and run again? No. But the 2000 elections (in which Jeffords won his third term as senator) weren't supposed to lead to partisan warfare. Gore was expected to be a Clinton-style triangulator -- and as for Bush, we were told that he worked well with Democrats in Texas and would be a pleasant fellow and a compromiser as president. It was only after Bush got to D.C. that it became clear that he wasn't even willing to work with moderates in his own party, such as Jeffords. (Hell, he wasn't even willing to work with moderates in his own Cabinet, as Colin Powell, Paul O'Neill, and Christie Whitman learned.) So the Jeffords switch was a reaction to an unexpected set of circumstances -- a surprisingly radical, nakedly ideological presidency. Lieberman, by contrast, was elected in a climate of total partisan war. Everyone knew that he stood with the GOP on the war, but he balanced that by promising to caucus with Democrats. That was a major promise to the voters of Connecticut, which he may be about to break, whereas Jeffords's affiliation with the GOP was incidental in 2000 to the voters who elected him. So if Lieberman wants to be a Republican, Lieberman should quit and run as a Republican. It's the only honorable thing to do. **** ALSO: David Sirota suggests that we should all hope Lieberman makes the switch, while Political Insider says that a Lieberman switch actually won't give the GOP control of the Senate. (Obsidian Wings seconds this, citing this. If it's accurate, then what the hell are we arguing about? Let him go.) posted by Steve M. | 10:48 PM | BRAND THEM This is from Taegan Goddard: Last month, Charlie Cook wrote that "Republican" was a damaged brand. Writing for Congress Daily last week, he supplies the data. Analyzing Gallup survey results on party identification, Cook notes the percentage of Americans calling themselves Democrats increased by 5.8 points, "from a GOP lead of 1.9 points to a deficit of 3.9 points. It's not that Democrats grew that much; it's that Republicans dropped, with the independent column picking up much of the slack." "But the real jaw dropper is when independents are asked which party they lean toward. This is important because historically, independents who lean toward a party tend to vote almost as consistently for that party as those who identify themselves with the party. There are just some people who like to call themselves independents but, functionally speaking, are really partisans." "This category exploded to a 10.2-point advantage for Democrats: 50.4 percent for Democrats, 40.2 percent for Republicans." So here's my question: Why aren't Democrats who are running for president using the word "Republican" every chance they get in reference to their potential opponents -- particularly the ones (McCain, Giuliani, Romney) who seem to have crossover appeal? Why aren't they saying things like "the GOP policies of Republican Rudy Giuliani," just to hammer home the point that this guy is one of them? Why, in other words, aren't they using the word "Republican" the way Republicans have long used the word "liberal"? posted by Steve M. | 1:44 PM | THE ONION ON GIULIANI Absolutely brilliant. posted by Steve M. | 11:22 AM | Er, Donald Rumsfeld did resign, didn't he? Dick Cheney doesn't seem sure. He gave an interview to ABC's Jonathan Karl on Wednesday on his way to Japan; here's one exchange, as reproduced by the Politico (emphasis added): Karl: "So what's your take on where Secretary Rumsfeld fits in?" Cheney: "I think Don's a great secretary. I know a little bit about the job. I've watched what he's done over there for six years. I think he did a superb job in terms of managing the Pentagon under extraordinarily difficult circumstances...." So, um, which is it, Dick? I know it was reported last month that Rummy had set up a well-staffed Pentagon "transition office" and had been declared a "nonpaid consultant." That is the extent of it -- right? posted by Steve M. | 7:47 AM | Wednesday, February 21, 2007 Well, here's a push poll that didn't work. First someone at Free Republic posted this poll question and got just the result you'd expect: Let's just say that Hillary (or someone equally as vile) gets the Democrat nomination and a pro-life, anti-gay marriage, pro-gun, pro-defense, pro-borders, pro-small government, pro-low taxes, peace through superior firepower patriot gets the Republican nod. Who would you vote for in the general? "The Patriot with the big 'R'" won in a landslide. Then there was a follow-up: Looks like our true blue conservative did pretty well in our prior poll. Let's now see what happens if we nominate a social liberal who's okay with abortion, gay unions and gay rights is a gun grabber and is weak on illegal immigration. Who do you vote for in the general? Right now, "The social liberal with the big 'R'" has 32.5%. Surely that wasn't supposed to happen. Surely he was supposed to be in single digits. That tells you how many red-meat, litmus-test conservatives would still vote for Giuliani after learning his positions on domestic issues. We keep being told that all that prevents him from plummeting in the GOP polls is ignorance of those positions, but apparently that's not the case -- here are those positions, presented in the worst possible light, and he still gets a third of the far-far-far-right vote. That's his formula for victory: a big chunk of these people plus a much bigger chunk of the less extreme Republicans -- and remember, in a multi-candidate field, he doesn't need a majority in the early primaries. And then in the general election he picks up independents and Democrats -- see the scary results in the new Quinnipiac poll (emphasis added): Giuliani tops Clinton 55 - 38 percent in Red states, which voted Republican in the 2004 presidential election, and ties her 46 - 46 percent in Blue states, which went Democratic in 2004. He gets 44 percent to Clinton's 45 percent in Purple states, where the margin in 2004 was less than 7 percent.... I'm going to keep saying it: Democrats have to define Giuliani now -- as scary, as Bush Redux, as something. McCain, too, though I see his star fading. Maureen Dowd is defining Barack Obama and (re-)defining Hillary Clinton before they can define themselves; Fox, by sponsoring an early Democratic debate, has the franchise to do the same for the rest of the Democratic field. Who's going to define John and (especially) Rudy? Or are we just going to let them define themselves? **** UPDATE: Jesus' General envisions a fully Fox-framed Democrat(ic) debate. posted by Steve M. | 11:45 PM | A COLONIZED MIND David Geffen, who's supporting Barack Obama, attacked the Clintons in remarks quoted today by Maureen Dowd. (Read her column free here.) Since then, the Clinton and Obama camps have been sniping at each other; go here for the sad details. Ever wonder why deep-blue Massachusetts has had so many Republican governors, or deep-blue New York City keeps electing Republican mayors? I've lived in both and I'll tell you: To a large extent it's because Democrats in Massachusetts and New York fight the way Clinton and Obama are fighting; the resulting bitterness makes it easy for the outnumbered but more collegial Republicans to win. But never mind that. I'm also angry at the content of Geffen's attack. Remember, this is the big Hollywood Democrat. Read what he says, if you haven't already (emphasis mine): ... "Not since the Vietnam War has there been this level of disappointment in the behavior of America throughout the world, and I don't think that another incredibly polarizing figure, no matter how smart she is and no matter how ambitious she is -- and God knows, is there anybody more ambitious than Hillary Clinton? -- can bring the country together. "Obama is inspirational, and he's not from the Bush royal family or the Clinton royal family...." ... Can Obambi stand up to Clinton Inc.? "I hope so," he says, "because that machine is going to be very unpleasant and unattractive and effective." ... “Yet another time when the Clintons were unwilling to stand for the things that they genuinely believe in. Everybody in politics lies, but they do it with such ease, it's troubling." This is one of our guys? This is a Democrat? Reciting every last GOP talking point about the Clintons? I don't care what you think about the Clintons -- this helps to drag down the whole party and the entire opposition to the GOP machine. The GOP doesn't use these talking points to keep the Clintons out of power; the GOP uses these talking points to keep Democrats out of power. And Geffen (with a big assist from Dowd) is helping them do just that. Geffen's mind is colonized by Limbaugh/Murdoch/Scaife propaganda. Either that or Dennis Miller is writing his material. posted by Steve M. | 3:16 PM | I wonder how the guy who put up this site feels today, not to mention these clowns. posted by Steve M. | 10:21 AM | PUSH-POLLING THE WAR Various elements of the Vast Right-Wing Conspiracy -- old veterans, mostly -- have come together to conduct and promote an Iraq War push poll. I don't think it'll work, but give them credit for persistence. Here's Rupert Murdoch's contribution, in a cover story in today's New York Post: AMERICA SAYS LET'S WIN WAR POLL SUPPORTS KEEPING U.S. TROOPS IN IRAQ In a dramatic finding, a new poll shows a solid majority of Americans still wants to win the war in Iraq -- and keep U.S. troops there until the Baghdad government can take over. Strong majorities also say victory is vital to the War on Terror and that Americans should support President Bush even if they have concerns about the way the war is being handled, according to the survey conducted by Public Opinion Strategies.... OK, stop right there. Public Opinion Strategies? It's the well-established partisan Republican firm that brought you the "Harry and Louise" ads during the debate over the Clinton health care plan. Charges of push-polling dog Public Opinion Strategies -- in Texas in the mid-'90s, for example, and in Vermont and Pennsylvania and New York State this past year. POS also conducted a push poll on Net neutrality in 2006, for Verizon. This is a push poll because so much of it is right-wing talking points turned into questions. Example: And, which one of the following would do most to hurt America's reputation as a world power... To pull our troops out of Iraq immediately ...or... To leave our troops in Iraq for as long as it takes to restore order? And these "agree or disagree" questions: Even if they have concerns about his war policies, Americans should stand behind the President in Iraq because we are at war. The Democrats are going too far, too fast in pressing the President to withdraw the troops from Iraq. I support finishing the job in Iraq, that is, keeping the troops there until the Iraqi government can maintain control and provide security for its people. The Iraq War is a key part of the global war on terrorism. A stable Iraq is the best way to protect America from the nuclear threat of Iran. ...Losing the war in Iraq would mean that the United States is no longer a superpower, but just another power. Oh, and I left out one that must have been thrown in at the request of the "Victory Caucus": Republicans in Congress have gone too far in their criticism of the war and the President. (That got an "agree" number of 42%. Do you believe 42% of Americans think Republicans have been too critical of the war and Bush? That result alone calls the entire poll into question.) The quoted questions come from a PDF of the poll results conveniently provided by James Joyner at Outside the Beltway -- who notes in the accompanying post (in small print, in a footnote): *My wife is COO of POS. I got the information as part of a general press announcement of the data. Indeed, I'm told Rush Limbaugh had some of these results earlier today. Indeed. And, indeed, Lucianne.com is promoting the Post article, as are a number of the big kahunas in the right blogosphere. I understand that this may not fit the strict pollsters' definition of "push poll" -- as Mystery Pollster has said, "A push poll is not a poll at all but rather a form of fraud -- an effort to spread an untrue or salacious rumor under the guise of legitimate research. 'Push pollsters' ... only care about calling as many people as possible to spread a false or malicious rumor without revealing their true intent." But this is a different way of spreading untruths -- a legitimate-seeming poll with skewed results that are spread via the right-wing noise machine. Even if it doesn't work -- as seems likely -- it's clear these guys will never rest. **** UPDATE: Steve Benen at the Carpetbagger Report had a very similar reaction to this poll. **** UPDATE: I was wondering why Drudge wasn't in on the fun, but I see I missed his "flash," which went up yesterday. More skepticism from Gawker (here) and the Rockford Rascal (here and here). posted by Steve M. | 7:45 AM | Tuesday, February 20, 2007 GREAT MOMENTS IN BLOG LINKAGE You know, I've been doing this for more than four years, and I've gotten my share of links -- but it doesn't get any better than this. (Possibly NSFW.) posted by Steve M. | 11:40 PM | STOP ACTING LIKE A HATEMONGER! YOU'RE SPOILING IT FOR THE REST OF US HATEMONGERS WHO ARE TRYING TO PRETEND WE'RE NORMAL PEOPLE! I'm running into that message a lot on the right these days: Concerned Women for America: ... Interviewing with a Florida sports radio show, former Miami Heat player Tim Hardaway said that he "hates gay people" and that he distances himself from them because he is "homophobic." ... "Hardaway's comments are both unfortunate and inappropriate," said Matt Barber, CWA's Policy Director for Cultural Issues. "They provide political fodder for those who wish to paint all opposition to the homosexual lifestyle as being rooted in 'hate.' [....] It's perfectly natural for people to be repelled by disordered sexual behaviors that are both unnatural, and immoral [....] Hardaway's comments only serve to foment misperceptions of widespread homosexual 'victimhood' which the homosexual lobby has craftily manufactured."... John Podhoretz in today's New York Post: ...[Richard Mellon] Scaife was the key funder of, and [Christopher] Ruddy a dominating figure in, the '90s effort to cast Bill and Hillary Clinton in the worst possible light in every conceivable way. Their efforts went far beyond criticism of Bill's policies and Hillary's questionable business practices to irresponsible and frankly disgusting hints that either or both of them committed unspeakable crimes -- including murder.... These wild, florid and deeply irresponsible allegations weren't just outrageous in themselves. Ruddy and Scaife (who paid for the "investigative research") also undermined those on the Right who were attempting principled critiques. The scandal-mongering may have stoked vast hatred of the Clintons, but it also gave Bill and Hillary the means to construct a plausible case for their supporters and the media that they were the subjects of crazed and unjust persecution.... The honest ones always ruin it for everyone else, don't they? **** UPDATE: Leonard Pitts of The Miami Herald thinks we should be grateful for Tim Hardaway's bigotry. No, really. Let him persuade you. posted by Steve M. | 3:07 PM | It's in The Washington Post, so I guess it must be true: Cheney's Influence Lessens in Second Term ...There is no evidence that Cheney's close relationship with Bush has been lessened. But there is also little doubt that the causes he has championed -- a tough skepticism of negotiations with dictatorships such as North Korea and the forceful exercise of presidential authority -- are being rethought within the Bush administration, according to officials inside the government and experts outside it.... The article, by Michael Abramowitz, says this happened because of the "unraveling of a Cheney network" -- the departures of Rumsfeld, Wolfowitz, and especially Scooter Libby. Condi Rice, Abramowitz says, has stepped into the void. Maybe this is true -- although if it is, I think the tipping point came when Rumsfeld left. If it is true, then the monster Cheney created (or at least helped create) punished him by escaping from the lab. Cheney helped persuade Bush after 9/11 that, in his mid-fifties, his purpose in life had been thrust upon him: war-presidentin'. Alas for Cheney, Bush liked war-presidentin' so much that by sometime last year he began to feel constrained by Rummy's troop limits and Cheney's insistence that everything is Iraq was still hunky-dory. Hence the firing of Rumsfeld and, perhaps, the decreased reliance on Cheney. Bush liked deploying toy soldiers; he wanted to deploy more of them (though not so many that he'd have to call for a draft or repeal of the tax cuts, or admit that he'd conducted the mission for years with a serious troop deficit). He got his way. And, of course, Cheney and Rummy made Colin Powell unwelcome -- which allowed Condi to increase her influence with Bush. I'll believe Cheney's truly in the doghouse if we get to 1/20/09 without a military strike on Iran. For now, though, he may have diminished influence because he gave Bush a thirst for bloodshed and didn't realize that thirst would break its creator's bounds. posted by Steve M. | 1:46 PM | McCAIN: CULTURAL LEARNINGS OF THE GOP FOR MAKE BENEFIT STRAIGHT TALKER Does anyone understand what the hell John McCain thinks he's doing these days? He panders to the right by saying he'll speak to an intelligent-design group, he argues for abstinence and calls for the overturn of Roe v. Wade -- and then alienates just about everybody he's carefully pandered to by denouncing Donald Rumsfeld. "We are paying a very heavy price for the mismanagement -- that's the kindest word I can give you -- of Donald Rumsfeld, of this war," the Arizona senator told an overflow crowd of more than 800 at a retirement community near Hilton Head Island, S.C. "The price is very, very heavy and I regret it enormously." Plus, it's a flip-flop: The comments were in sharp contrast to McCain's statement when Rumsfeld resigned in November, and failed to address the reality that President Bush is the commander in chief. "While Secretary Rumsfeld and I have had our differences, he deserves Americans' respect and gratitude for his many years of public service," McCain said last year when Rumfeld stepped down. Plus, McCain said this about the war: "I have been saying for 3 1/2 years that we would be in this sad situation and this critical situation we are in today," he said. The war! The sacred war! He sounds like a Defeatocrat! It's as if McCain is the Borat of the GOP: He's trying to communicate with Republican voters without speaking the same language or knowing the simplest customs. He doesn't seem to have the slightest idea when he's offending them. He seems to have picked up what he does know about Republicans from unreliable sources -- and then garbled that. McCain's Kazakhstan, I suppose, is the green room of Hardball. I don't know where else he would have derived the notion that GOP voters want "straight talk" on the war (which for them is a religion) accompanied by obviously opportunistic appeals to their Christian conservatism (which even they can see straight through). All I know is that it's not going to work -- he's not going to be the GOP nominee. posted by Steve M. | 8:50 AM | Monday, February 19, 2007 HELEN HILL A few weeks ago, you may have read about the life and death of Helen Hill in The New York Times; she was murdered in early January in New Orleans, a city she'd insisted on returning to after Katrina. Phil Nugent, who sometimes blogs here, used to live in New Orleans and knew Helen Hill. I urge you to read what he has to say about her and New Orleans in "An American City: New Orleans, Helen Hill and Me." After reading what Phil has to say, I'm sorry I never knew her or the city -- and now they're both gone. posted by Steve M. | 9:20 PM | Glenn Greenwald was recently trying to figure out the source of the logo for the Victory Caucus, a group of right-wingers who believe that America can triumph in Iraq if they, the Caucus members, sit on their fat asses and complain about war opponents ... or something like that. Here's the logo:  Hmmm ... it does look a wee bit like the logo in this Nazi propaganda leaflet, no?  About the leaflet: The Germans seldom used humor in their leaflets, but this one is a rare exception. The front shows the phrase "V1" in a red circle, surrounded by four cartoons. One compares Winston Churchill's "V for Victory" sign with "V1," a second shows London journalists keeping mum about the death and destruction, a third depicts civilians being reminded of V weapons when they see a British corporal's V-shaped stripes, and the final one depicts a British Tommy with his hands in the air in the shape of a "V." The message on the back of the leaflet is: V1 - THE DEADLY BLUFF Britain built up an air defense of enormous proportions, sparing neither cost nor exertion in employing the most modern technical means. With one stroke this whole system of air defense has become worthless with the introduction of flying bomb V-1. V1 has upset all known methods of aerial warfare. Other equally revolutionary new weapons will follow. They will prove to you that V1 FLYING BOMBS AREN'T THE LAST BLUFF. There ya go, Victory Caucus. You're imitating a classic bit of propaganda from "the Good War" -- except from the wrong side. posted by Steve M. | 6:25 PM | BEER, BREASTS, AND EXCRUCIATING AGONY Over the weekend, William Saletan had an article at Slate about a new pain weapon: ...Three weeks ago, the U.S. armed forces tested it on volunteers at an Air Force base in Georgia. You can watch the video on a military Web site. Three colonels get zapped, along with an Associated Press reporter. The beam is invisible, but its effects are vivid. Two dozen airmen scatter. The AP guy shrieks and bolts out of the target zone. He says it felt like heat all over his body, as though his jacket were on fire. The feeling is an illusion. No one is harmed. The beam's energy waves penetrate just one-sixty-fourth of an inch into your body, heating your skin like microwaves. They inflame your nerve endings without actually burning you. This could be the future of warfare: less bloodshed, more pain.... I'm not sure how I feel about this. On the one hand, all military and police weapons cause serious suffering, and Saletan assures us that this one does virtually no long-term damage and drastically reduces collateral damage. On the other hand, I can imagine this being repurposed -- used not just once, to incapacitate, but repeatedly, as an instrument of torture that has the advantage of doing no physical damage. In fact, I can't imagine it not being used that way (and I can't imagine that not doing long-term psychological damage). Typical liberal, right, with my silly qualms? I suppose I should be more like John Tabin of The American Spectator's blog. For him, it's all very simple: If you don't think this is totally awesome, I'm not really sure how you can possibly be male. Ah, the moral clarity of the right. posted by Steve M. | 2:05 PM | DUNCAN HUNTER HIRES ASSOCIATE OF JEFF GANNON'S PUBLISHER FOR PRESIDENTIAL CAMPAIGN An announcement from Michael "A.J. Sparxx" Illions of the righty blog PoliPundit: I am proud to announce that after reaching an agreement with TCV Media, the consulting firm hired by Duncan Hunter's campaign, I will be joining the team working on the Duncan Hunter for President campaign, effective Monday, February 19th. My responsibilities cover both national and state duties.... ...During the 2004 presidential race, I put to good use my being a 10-year professional athlete in the pro-wrestling and sports entertainment industry. Together with Richard Ross, we started the Pro-Wrestling Republican Coalition.... Scroll down here to see who was the "Advisor" to the Pro-Wrestling Republican Coalition: Bobby Eberle. (Link via Becoming Gannon.) Bobby Eberle, of course, was the president and CEO of GOPUSA and Talon News when Talon's star "reporter" was the notorious softball-question-throwing Bush worshiper and onetime sex worker, Jeff Gannon. See also this 2004 Talon News article: ...Bobby Eberle, President and CEO of GOPUSA, who serves on the Board of the PWRC as an Issues and Policy Advisor, sees the potential of tapping into a new conservative audience. "Just as Republicans have seen the benefit in reaching out to 'NASCAR dads,' the PWRC represents a way to deliver a conservative, pro-Republican message to a large and mostly overlooked voting block," Eberle said. Sparxx added, "We are really excited about where we can go with this group and having the stars of Pro Wrestling and the fans come together for something this important is a great feeling of being involved and playing a small role in getting President Bush reelected." I know the press won't consider this as shocking as using the word "Christofascist," but I think it deserves a wee bit of scrutiny, no? **** By the way, the CEO of the consulting firm hired by Duncan Hunter, TCV Media, is Nathan Tabor of The Conservative Voice, who, when he's not writing articles such as "Liberals Hate GOD," can be found arguing that insurance companies should openly discriminate against gay people. Wonder if he'd make an exception for Jeff Gannon. **** MORE: Here's Illions as a bylined reporter for Talon News. SourceWatch also notes that Illions was chairman of the September 16-18, 2004, GOPUSA Issues and Action Conference. posted by Steve M. | 11:32 AM | Sunday, February 18, 2007 You may know that John McCain was in South Carolina today, where he made a campaign appearance at which he said Roe v. Wade should be overturned, then attended a pro-abstinence rally. At that rally, McCain did something rather remarkable: He actually invented a new kind of sanctimonious rabble-rousing. What McCain did was to bring up his own suffering in a POW camp in Vietnam -- and imply that it's analogous to the struggle of members of his audience to remain chaste: He also talked about his experience as a prisoner of war during Vietnam, and described some of the torture he suffered. His captors "wanted to make us do things that we otherwise wouldn't do," including confessing to war crimes, McCain said. He and fellow prisoners were beat up for practicing their religion, but they continued to do it. "Sometimes it is very difficult to do the right thing," he said. That's really new, isn't it? Other right-wing pols or pundits might assert that an American who's told to remove a creche from city property is suffering like someone in a faraway land who's been brutalized or imprisoned for having certain beliefs. But that's an analogy based on a far-off example. McCain was offering himself as the example, and saying that a kid who's tempted by the culture to have premarital sex is just like him when the guards beat him and his fellow prisoners for trying to pray -- which he has to know is preposterous. That's shameless. But it's a new kind of shameless, so give the guy credit. **** By the way, the editors of The New York Times Magazine picked a hell of a day to run this article by Gary Rosen, the managing editor of Commentary: Try a quick political thought experiment. First, form a mental picture of the Democratic front-runners for president -- Hillary Clinton and Barack Obama. Now do the same for the leading Republican contenders -- John McCain and Rudy Giuliani. Next (and this is the key step), imagine each of them in church, sitting in a pew, head bowed, or better still, at the pulpit, delivering a homily or leading the congregation in worship. Strange, no? It's not hard to envision Clinton and Obama among the faithful.... But McCain and Giuliani? You somehow imagine them fidgeting during the hymns and checking their watches. The senator is an Episcopalian, the former mayor a Catholic, but neither man, you have to think, would be caught dead in a Bible-study group or could possibly declare, a la George W. Bush, that his favorite philosopher is "Christ, because he changed my heart." In the piety primary, the Democrats win hands down.... Er, in the case of McCain, apparently not. And how can Rosen say this about Giuliani -- the guy who tried to get the Brooklyn Museum defunded and evicted after it presented the "Sensation" exhibition, which featured a "blasphemous" painting called The Holy Virgin Mary (this despite the fact that slides from the exhibit had been reviewed and approved by Giuliani's subordinates)? Believe me, President Giuliani will play the Catholic card as readily as William Donohue, multiple marriages notwithstanding. Rosen's article is dumb in other ways as well -- he seems to be under the impression, for example, that Daniel Dennett and Jerry Falwell have approximately equal influence on our political life. But this assertion about piety is absurd -- we've been trained for years to discount the piety of all Democrats (even when, like Jesse Jackson, they're actually ordained ministers), while assuming that all Republican ears are touched by God's lips. That's not going to change, no matter who heads the '08 tickets. posted by Steve M. | 11:46 PM | Oh, good Lord -- are we getting another story about President I-Don't-Govern-Based-on-Public-Opinion and his desperate need to speculate out loud about how he'll be judged by history? Yup, from Reuters: In the Lincoln Bedroom, President George W. Bush likes to show off one of the most treasured historical artifacts in the White House, a handwritten copy of Abraham Lincoln's 1863 Gettysburg Address. ...The Queen's Bedroom offers memories of Winston Churchill, who stayed there before and after World War Two, as Bush told C-SPAN, "waddling around ... with a cigar in one hand, a brandy in the other, demanding attention." ...The president believes it will take some time to determine his place in the pantheon of presidents, despite the negative assessments some historians have already made. ...Bush, a Republican, sees historical parallels in Democrat Harry Truman's presidency.... Yeah, yeah, we get it -- Truman was hated during his presidency and is well regarded now. Ditto for Churchill: We know, we know -- he was voted out of office after World War II. The public isn't always right! Not that Bush cares about any of that, of course.... I know the stories of Churchill and Truman give Bush and his fan club hope for his vindication by history, but Bush and the fans seem to be suggesting that negative assessments during one's own time are routinely reversed by history. Let me disabuse them of this notion by throwing out a few names: * Joe McCarthy * Lyndon Johnson * Richard Nixon The consensus on these guys really hasn't changed in (respectively) thirty, forty, and fifty years. (Yeah, people now accept that Nixon on domestic issues was to the left of every president since Reagan -- but that hasn't removed the stench of Watergate and the war, and thus hasn't changed his standing one iota.) So there's no reason for Bush and the Bushites to think a reassessment is inevitable -- it simply isn't. posted by Steve M. | 4:33 PM | Saturday, February 17, 2007 Oh, America, get a grip: With One Word, Children's Book Sets Off Uproar The word "scrotum" does not often appear in polite conversation. Or children's literature, for that matter. Yet there it is on the first page of "The Higher Power of Lucky," by Susan Patron, this year's winner of the Newbery Medal, the most prestigious award in children's literature. The book's heroine, a scrappy 10-year-old orphan named Lucky Trimble, hears the word through a hole in a wall when another character says he saw a rattlesnake bite his dog, Roy, on the scrotum. "Scrotum sounded to Lucky like something green that comes up when you have the flu and cough too much," the book continues. "It sounded medical and secret, but also important." ...The book has already been banned from school libraries in a handful of states in the South, the West and the Northeast, and librarians in other schools have indicated in the online debate that they may well follow suit. ... Wendy Stoll, a librarian at Smyrna Elementary in Louisville, Ky., wrote on the LM_Net mailing list that she would not stock the book. Andrea Koch, the librarian at French Road Elementary School in Brighton, N.Y., said she anticipated angry calls from parents if she ordered it. "I don't think our teachers, or myself, want to do that vocabulary lesson," she said in an interview. One librarian who responded to Ms. Nilsson's posting on LM_Net said only: "Sad to say, I didn't order it for either of my schools, based on 'the word.'" ... If you want to put a warning sign on the book at the library, fine -- but excluding it altogether? For one utterly clinical word? Back in the early '80s, a little boy in the movie E.T. called his brother "penis-breath." This did not lead to the collapse of American civilization -- heck, we even went on to win the Cold War. Many children who heard that shocking expression are now productive adult citizens who vote and own property; some, no doubt, are even Republicans. Ah, but it's the Bush era. I'm sure Dinesh D'Souza would tell us that a society that allows the word "scrotum" in a children's book is just asking to be nuked by jihadists. Steven Speilberg even cut "penis-breath" from a 2002 re-release of E.T., possibly out of fear of just such an eventuality. Would the fact that male dogs have scrotums truly be a shock to, say, any kid who's growing up on a farm? Or any kid anywhere who's ever watched a dog engage in personal grooming? **** UPDATE: The non-Fox News Roger Ailes makes note of a couple of other texts you might need to keep away from the children if you're shielding them from this book. posted by Steve M. | 11:30 PM | THE BLOWHARDS RESPOND  Yeah, "TREASON." If you really care, you can go here to read the accompanying op-ed, which appears under the byline of Ralph Peters (though it was almost certainly punched up, if not actually drafted, by the Post's editorial staff, judging from the fact that, like the paper's unsigned editorials, it's full of italics and larded with one-sentence paragraphs such as "Congresswoman Pelosi, have you no shame?"). I want to flip the script on Peters, the Post, and every other shrill idiot who's going to yell "Treason!!!" now. Talk is cheap. This editorial and all the other fulminating that's to come add up to, well, a non-binding resolution. If the Post really thinks this vote is so bad -- treasonous, in fact -- why doesn't Rupert Murdoch use his huge amount of influence with this administration to demand that Nancy Pelosi and everyone else who voted to condemn the surge actually be brought up on treason charges? Come on, let's have this fight. If what's been done is treason, is anything less acceptable? And shouldn't everyone who's ever told a pollster that the troops should come how now, or soon, also be brought up on treason charges? Surely this administration would be more than willing to demand that polling organizations release the names and/or phone numbers of people who gave such responses to poll questions. Why hasn't Murdoch called on the administration to do so? Aren't those people also giving the enemy aid and comfort? And while we're on the subject, why not try Ralph Peters for treason? After all, the guy who says today The "nonbinding resolution" telling the world that we intend to surrender to terrorism and abandon Iraq may be the most disgraceful congressional action since the Democratic Party united to defend slavery. is the same guy who wrote this in November: And contrary to the prophets of doom, the United States wouldn't be weakened by our withdrawal, should it come to that.... We'll still be the greatest power on earth. Why wasn't that treason, if the House vote was? Have the courage of your conviction, Rupert. Demand that Bush divide the country by trying and hanging, perhaps, the majority of Americans. Your side says that if the Democrats are really serious about ending the war, they should try to cut off funding; I say if you're really serious when you say this is treason, you should demand mass drumhead trials. Otherwise, you're just blowing smoke to rouse the rabble. posted by Steve M. | 11:36 AM | Friday, February 16, 2007 DAVID BRODER'S LATEST COLUMN, AS HE REALLY INTENDED IT TO READ Bush Regains His Footing By David S. Broder Friday, February 16, 2007; A23 It may seem perverse to suggest that, at the very moment the House of Representatives is repudiating his policy in Iraq, President Bush is poised for a political comeback. But don't be astonished if that is the case. Blah blah blah blah blah blah. Blah blah blah. He has been far more accessible -- and responsive -- to the media ..., holding any number of one-on-one interviews, both on and off the record, leading up to Wednesday's televised news conference. And he has been more candid in his responses than in the past. Blah blah blah blah blah blah. And whether the American people will see it, no one knows. Really, everything else in the column as it was actually published is a rationalization for the warm, tingly feeling Broder began to get when Bush started seeming more "responsive to the media" and "candid." Oooooh, he is nice! We were right all along! He's being nice to us again, just like during the 2000 campaign! He isn't, of course, nor is he being "candid," but they'll take whatever emotional crumbs they can get in the Beltway press corps. posted by Steve M. | 4:13 PM | THE RIGHT WING'S MUSLIM DERANGEMENT SYNDROME You may already know that many wingnuts are freaking out after learning that the Utah mall shooter, Sulejman Talovic, was a Bosnian Muslim -- this despite the fact that the FBI has ruled out terrorism as a motive and the fact that, according to the Deseret News in Salt Lake City, There is no record that Talovic attended any of the mosques in the Salt Lake area, according to both Tarek Nosseir, president of the Islamic Society of Greater Salt Lake and Bobby Darvish, president of the Muslim Forum of Utah. Nosseir noted that many Bosnian Muslims are more secular than religious. "Having lived under Soviet Union rules for decades, where religious freedom was not an option, a majority of these people" are not practicing Muslims, he added. "What I hear is that he came a couple of times at most, to Eid prayers, but I can't confirm that he came." Well, now there's a freakout at Free Republic over a videotape taken in the mall during the shootings and broadcast on a Salt Lake City TV station -- according to the Freepers, if you listen to the audio (specifically, the part that plays just as the duration counter passes the "hoo" in "Shooting" in the caption on the TV station's Web site), you hear the shooter shouting, "O.B.! O.B.! Allah Akbar! Allah Akbar!" Here's the video. Try it yourself. What these people are ranting about absolutely does not sound like "Allah akbar" or "Allahu akbar" -- it's not even four syllables, much less five. If it's the shooter speaking Bosnian, I'd say it sounds like "Kamandlakh" (whatever the hell that would mean); if it's someone from law enforcement (as one of the saner Freepers suggests), he might be saying, "Come on up!" Yet I fear this theory will never die on the right. Even Charles Johnson of Little Green Footballs has rejected the "Allah Akbar!" interpretation of what's said on the video. However, he's not ruling out jihad as a motive. (Needless to say, he was one of the first to suggest that the shooter might have been motivated by what righties call "sudden jihad syndrome.") What's maddening is that Talovic's story makes perfect sense based just on what we know. He was a child of war who fled his homeland at age ten. Since then, he's had a history of (non-ideological) violence. Is that sequence of events in any way surprising? posted by Steve M. | 2:15 PM | Number of times Camille Paglia refers to herself in the first person ("I," "I'm," "I've," "me," "my") in her Salon comeback column today: 94. Oh -- she likes Edwards, she'll vote for Hillary if she gets the nomination, but she still thinks the song parodies on Rush Limbaugh's show are a hoot. Oh, and she seems to have a crush on Mitt Romney. In 1994, on my book tour for "Vamps & Tramps," I was sitting late one night in the empty lobby of WBZ-AM NewsRadio.... While waiting to go on the David Brudnoy Show ... I listened intently to the guest on air before me -- Mitt Romney, whom I had never heard of but who was then mounting his unsuccessful senatorial challenge to Ted Kennedy. I was very impressed. When Romney emerged, I shook his hand and said, "You're going to be president!" -- something I have never said to anyone, before or since. And yes, she still thinks Sandra Bernhard is a genius. Don't click over. Please. You'll only encourage her. **** UPDATE: I realize I left out the most bizarre part: This past Sunday night, there was a floating, mesmerizingly sensuous moment on Matt Drudge's radio show as he segued long from the midnight news with Yaz's "Winter Kills" ("Green in your love on bright days/ You grew sun blind/ You thought me unkind/ To remind you how winter kills"). No one but Drudge these days uses AM radio for artistic mood and ambience. People who know Drudge simply through his Web site are clueless about his eclectic musical sensibility. Is this how Camille chills -- a few candles, a glass of Beaujolais and Matt Drudge's radio show? By the way, this is the first and last time Matt Drudge's name and "sensuous" will ever appear in the same sentence. posted by Steve M. | 10:22 AM | Hey, Joe Klein, this is just silly: I suspect that Obama's aim is to rebuild the bonfire of Howard Dean's grass-roots campaign, minus the scream. But raging infernos don't just happen. First comes courage. I give Klein credit for saying that Dean had courage ("Dean never would have had his bonfire if he hadn't opposed the invasion of Iraq in clear, plain, inspiring English") -- but Obama isn't running a Dean-like campaign. He's running a very mainstream campaign as a young man in a hurry, a la JFK or Bill Clinton -- which is a smart move considering what usually happens to Democratic insurgents (Dean, Ned Lamont, Jesse Jackson). So Klein is declaring Obama a likely failure at something he's not even trying to accomplish. Also, who says insurgent "bonfires" happen only when the candidate has "courage"? Is that what George Wallace had in 1968 -- courage? How about Ross Perot in '92 and '96, or, hell, Jesse Ventura in 1998? Joe, stop measuring every Democrat against your misty watercolor '60s memories. Bobby Kennedy died a long time ago, and Eugene McCarthy's been gone for a while, too. posted by Steve M. | 8:45 AM | Thursday, February 15, 2007 Oh, and Doghouse Riley on George W. and Anna Nicole is the funniest thing I've read all week. posted by Steve M. | 11:26 PM | Priorities: Due to federal budget constraints some 3000 patients could possibly be prevented from taking part in cancer trials nationwide, according to Robert L. Comis, president of the Coalition of Cancer Cooperative Groups.... The budget cutbacks will affect trials for all cancers, but especially those studying sarcomas, and head and neck cancers. The Southwest Oncology Group will halt all sarcoma, and head and neck trials. The Eastern Cooperative Oncology Group will eliminate its brain and sarcoma trials. Many other groups will delay various late stage cancer trials, thus, pushing back possible new treatments for needy patients. These recent setbacks are especially hard to swallow considering that many positive trends have materialized over the last couple of years, including the decline of cancer death rates, and the re-thinking of cancer as a chronic condition, rather than a terminal illness.... Enjoy those tax cuts! (You can also watch this report that was broadcast on ABC tonight on the same subject.) posted by Steve M. | 11:16 PM | SLICK MOVE From today's New York Post: Rudy Giuliani, a prostate-cancer survivor who fought the disease seven years ago, will have a "comprehensive" physical exam and release the results, his aides said yesterday.... Asked by The Post about the ex-mayor's plans, a Giuliani campaign source said he had an overall checkup in December and got a "clean bill of health" and is cancer-free. "The mayor will have a comprehensive physical examination, and his doctors will release the results of the examination to the public," said a campaign aide.... Assuming he's still as healthy as he was two months ago, that's very smart. Why? Well, as Tom Bevan of Real Clear Politics noted recently, Giuliani's poll numbers in New York actually weren't at their worst just before 9/11 -- they went up after bottoming out at 37% approval/57% disapproval on April 19, 2000. What happened after that? On April 27, Giuliani announced his cancer diagnosis. He dropped out of the Senate race with Hillary Clinton, and by June 14 his approval/disapproval was 49%/45% -- his best showing in 18 months. (By July 2001, he was at 50%/40%.) Revealing the checkup results is Rudy's way of letting America know he's had cancer -- which a lot of Americans probably don't know, and which is sure to elicit a lot of public sympathy, just as it did here in New York. And, if he's healthy, drawing attention to this fact is unlikely to hurt him in the race, given the fact that his chief rival is also a cancer survivor. The December checkup went by unnoticed, even here in New York, but expect this test to be played up in a big way by Giuliani's unofficial press office, the Murdoch and Murdoch-affiliated media. You'll see trhe results in the Post, on Fox, and on Drudge. I think one key goal of the Giuliani campaign right now is to make him seem appealing and likable (see also the recent kiss cover of the Post) -- probably in anticipation of a campaign in which Rudy and his people plan to get very, very nasty. posted by Steve M. | 4:56 PM | PANDER BEAR McCAIN John McCain, not content to limit this month's shameless pandering to the far right to a speech before the pro-intelligent design Discovery Institute, is planning on Sunday to speak in favor of abstinence-only education at the Carolina Pregnancy Center's Life in the City event at Spartanburg Memorial Auditorium. Yes, because the young, single John McCain was such a model of purity and traditional morality as a young, single man at Annapolis: He proved to be a natural leader, his magnetic personality making him the unofficial trail boss for a lusty band of carousers and partygoers known as the Bad Bunch.... [Chuck] Larson, an ex-officio member of the Bad Bunch, was McCain's closest friend at the Academy and for some years after.... They shared a sense of the absurd and an eye for the ladies. Larson, though, was cautious.... McCain didn't know what the word meant. As one classmate put it, being on liberty with John McCain was like being in a train wreck. And, of course, his later life also wasn't exactly a model of virtue as fundamentalist Christians define it: McCain was still married and living with his wife in 1979 while, according to The New York Times' Nicholas Kristof, "aggressively courting a 25-year-old woman who was as beautiful as she was rich." McCain divorced his wife, who had raised their three children while he was imprisoned in Vietnam, then launched his political career with his new wife's family money. In 2000, McCain managed to deflect media questioning about his first marriage with a deft admission of responsibility for its failure. The event on Sunday is "free for high school juniors and seniors." I hope a couple show up and ask him if he waited until marriage. Either time. (Via Feministing.) posted by Steve M. | 1:28 PM | BECAUSE, I GUESS, BUYING A WHOLE BUNCH OF SCARLET A'S WOULD BE A BUDGET-BUSTER FOR THE STATE From AP: Legislation introduced in Tennessee would require death certificates for aborted fetuses, which likely would create public records identifying women who have abortions. Rep. Stacey Campfield, a Republican, said his bill would provide a way to track how many abortions are performed. He predicted it would pass in the Republican-controlled Senate but would have a hard time making it through the Democratic House.... The number of abortions reported to the state Office of Vital Records is already publicly available.... There's clearly no pupose to this except intimidation through the revelation of the names of women who've had abortions -- but, then again, Campfield is kind of an intimidation buff. A couple of years ago he sponsored a bill to impose David Horowitz's "Academic Bill of Rights" in Tennessee. Oh, and even though he's white, a while back he tried to join the state legislature's Black Caucus -- and, when he was rebuffed, he told AP that his "understanding is that the KKK doesn't even ban members by race." He added the KKK "has less racist bylaws" than the Black Caucus. (In fact, the Black Caucus will grant "honorary membership" to "those persons whose belief and actions contribute to the purpose for which this caucus was formed" -- which, I assume, excludes Mr. C.) I don't know if there's any chance of ever voting this showboating blowhard out, but if it happens, I'm sure he has a great future as a talk-show host on Fox News. posted by Steve M. | 10:18 AM | Wednesday, February 14, 2007 SEPARATED AT BIRTH? Surely I can't be the first person to notice this resemblance:   **** (Those among you who are unfamiliar with the image on the right should go here.) **** UPDATE: Nope, I'm not the first. posted by Steve M. | 9:51 PM | REALLY UPSET ABOUT THAT DRAG THING, AREN'T THEY? Rudy Giuliani is the leading '08 GOP candidate -- in Alabama. posted by Steve M. | 6:23 PM | OOPS -- NEVER MIND Dinesh D'Souza's book just slithered onto the New York Times bestseller list, at #15. Hmmm ... #19 to completely out of the top 35 to #15 in three weeks. The Times hasn't detected any bulk orders, but something seems fishy. **** UPDATE: Incidentally, D'Souza's book is nowhere to be found on USA Today's bestseller list. **** UPDATE: Greetings, Carpetbagger Report readers. The newest list isn't up at the Times site yet; it's circulating via e-mail and will be posted over the weekend. The currently posted (D'Souza-free) list is here; the previous list is here. **** UPDATE: Here's the new list, with D'Souza at #15. posted by Steve M. | 4:38 PM | I might buy the theory advanced today by Harold Meyerson in The Washington Post -- that Hillary Clinton, by being the most lukewarm opponent of the war among major Democratic candidates, could be the Ed Muskie of the 2008 race, the frontrunner who self-destructs -- if not for the obvious difference: Nixon's boys schemed to drive Muskie out of the race and worked to set up a Nixon-McGovern race; this time around, it's clear that Hillary is the major Democratic candidate GOP operatives fear the least, rightly or wrongly. If they really did fear her, believe me, she'd be the one being denounced as bin Laden's helpmeet from half a world away by the Australian prime minister. (They're going to save that kind odf attack on Hillary until after she clinches the nomination, if she does.) posted by Steve M. | 3:46 PM |  I'm a fan of Shakes, I've said things that gave religious conservatives the vapors, so, yes, Driftglass and others: I'm Spartacus, too. posted by Steve M. | 2:32 PM | You know who should be taking Giuliani down a peg? Maureen Dowd. Isn't that her market niche -- that she's the equal-opportunity verbal bomb thrower, scourge of Clintons and Bushes alike? But she won't, will she? How hard is it to imagine that she'll treat candidate Giuliani the way she treated another simulated tough guy, Arnold Schwarzenegger -- especially if, like Arnold, he sweet-talks her? (Read this bit of gush. And this one. As Joan Walsh wrote at the time in Salon, these columns were "valentines to Schwarzenegger, featuring banal banter between them that she seemed to think was politically revealing, but which basically read like flirting.") For now, Dowd's obsessed with Barack Obama -- and I'm not sure if it's because, to her, Obama's a handsome guy who spurned her or a pretty girl who's going to beat her in the prom queen election. It's the former if you assume that Dowd thinks she was nice to Obama in this column and, to some extent, this one, and now she thinks he wasn't sufficiently grateful. (For being called "Obambi" in column #2, presumably -- but hey, she also called him "Senator Clinton’s worst nightmare"! What higher praise is there, coming from Dowd?) Today, here she goes again: ...The Illinois senator didn't have on an implacable mask of amiability, as Hillary did in Iowa. He didn't look happily in his element, like Bill Clinton. But he certainly didn't look as if he was straining to survive the Q .& A.'s, as W. did in the beginning. So, not being like Hillary and Bill is bad, Maureen? I thought you thought they were the biggest phonies going? Oh well -- at least you graded Obama above Bush. Beyond his smooth-jazz facade, the reassuring baritone and that ensorcelling smile, the 45-year-old had moments of looking conflicted. Wow, that's good -- "smooth jazz": both black and phony black, inauthentic, watered down. Dowd ghettoizes him by race and then says he's not enough of a race man. Oh, and "ensorcelling"? First-rate thesaurus work. What it means is "bewitching"; it comes from the same root word as "sorcery" -- because, of course, all Democrats who aren't dolts are cunning, unnatural tricksters. ...Everything was a revelation for him: The advance team acronym RON, for Rest Overnight. Women squealing. "I saw a hat," he noted with a grin, "that said, 'Obama, clean and articulate.'" Raise your hand if you think he's never been squealed at by women until now. ... and he's so slender his wedding band looked as if it was slipping off.... He's married and thin. Wow, Maureen, we know you've disappeared into a cliche, the single woman with low self-esteem, but could you make it any more obvious that you're jealous? ...After talking to high school journalists, he took a sniffy shot at the loutish reporters who were merely whispering where's the beef: "Take some notes, guys, that’s how it's done." That one aspect of Obama's style is pretty much George W. Bush's entire style (cranked up, in Bush's case, to a much higher level of nastiness and snippiness). It worked for Bush for years. But I understand, Maureen -- it's unsettling to see a Democrat who doesn't seem to be wearing a sign that says "Kick me." No fewer than three times last week, Mr. Obama got indignant about the beach-babe attention given to a shot of him in the Hawaiian surf. Using the dreaded third person that some candidates slip into, he told the press that one of their favorite narratives boiled down to "Obama has pretty good style, he can deliver a pretty good speech, but he seems to prioritize rhetoric over substance.” After an ode to his own specificity, he tut-tutted, "You've been reporting on how I look in a swimsuit." First of all, that's not the dreaded third person. The dreaded third person is referring to yourself by your own name. This is Obama quoting the way other people talk about him. When they talk about him, they don't refer to him as "I," they refer to him as "Obama." So when he quotes them, he says "Obama" -- because that's what they say. Am I going too fast for you, Maureen? And did he "get indignant" -- or is this just a terse, effective press-bashing line? I heard him say this on 60 Minutes and it sounded like the latter to me. He poses for the cover of Men's Vogue and then gets huffy when people don't treat him as Hannah Arendt. I guess you'd prefer Muscle & Fitness, Maureen? (See the Schwarzenegger columns above.) For some of us, it's hard to fathom being upset at getting accused of looking great in a bathing suit. Oh, Carrie. Grab a quart of Haagen-Dazs and call Charlotte, Samantha, or Miranda. I guess we've got at least a year of this to look forward to. posted by Steve M. | 12:16 PM | IF WE LEAVE IRAQ, THE TERRORISTS WILL FOLLOW THE TROOPS HOME That's what war supporters say, but I think Quiddity has the perfect solution to that problem. posted by Steve M. | 7:50 AM | According to the latest Gallup poll, Rudy Giuliani has a 16-point lead over John McCain among Republicans and Republican leaners. According to the full results, the lead is 40%-24%. Oh, and another poll says Giuliani is leading the GOP field in Texas. Texas! Gallup says Giuliani would beat Obama in the general election (handily) and Clinton (albeit barely). Scariest number: Giuliani's favorable-unfavorable numbers among all poll respondents are 66%-22%. People think he's just swell. Is anybody -- in the Republican Party or the Democratic Party -- planning to do anything about this? **** Rudy has the ability to dazzle people. I don't what the hell is the problem with people who can be dazzled by him, but he has the skill. A post at The American Spectator's blog: Having read consecutively Brendan Miniter's column in the Wall Street Journal on Rudy Giuliani, and then Cal Thomas's sharing of a message from a soldier friend in Mosul, I am left with little doubt that if the Mayor was president now, we would be kicking butt in Iraq. And to me, as a social conservative, Giuliani comes across as more sincere than Romney when he says he will appoint "strict constructionist" judges. I don't know why; he just does. There you go: I don't know why; he just does. The guy who wrote this is a professional Christianist wingnut, and he's just smitten. We know Rudy can dazzle moderates (Chris Matthews: "How did he get the pee smell out of that subway?"), but the ability to bewitch seems to cut across more lines than a lot of people ever expected. Be afraid. Be very afraid. posted by Steve M. | 7:17 AM | Tuesday, February 13, 2007 CONSERVATIVE SCHOLARSHIP Here's Dinesh D'Souza, the noted conservative scholar, in a recent speech: Ultimately it's up to people in this room, people like us, to make the difference. I want to end with that slogan from the '60s, "If not now, when? If not us, who?" The man who said "If not now, when?" was, of course, Rabbi Hillel, who died in 10 A.D. **** By the way, unless I'm misreading the speech, D'Souza actually believes Sunni insurgents could take over Iraq -- all of it -- if American troops leave. ("... it's a pretty safe bet what would happen if the American protective hand is withdrawn.... The Iraqi insurgents are determined that a second major state fall into their hands, ideally to establish a Sunni model for the vast majority of Muslims in the world. And they've already said that if they get Iraq, their next targets will be Egypt and Saudi Arabia.") I guess they're going to do it with weapons from ... er, Iranian Shiites. And I guess letting Sunni neighborhoods be subject to ethnic cleansing by the Mahdi Army was just a ruse by the Sunnis to conceal their dominance of the country. posted by Steve M. | 4:11 PM | This story with a happy ending is old news -- it's from December -- but I just found it in Church and State, the newsletter of Americans United for the Separation of Church and State (I missed it when it was on the AU blog): A Pagan group in Albemarle County, Va., was recently given permission to advertise its multi-cultural holiday program to public school children -- and they have the Rev. Jerry Falwell to thank for it. The dispute started last summer when Gabriel and Joshua Rakoski, twins who attend Hollymead Elementary School, sought permission to distribute fliers about their church's Vacation Bible School to their peers via "backpack mail." Many public schools use special folders placed in student backpacks to distribute notices about school events, and sometimes extra-curricular activities, to parents. School officials originally denied the request from the twins' father, Ray Rakoski, citing a school policy barring "distribution of literature that is for partisan, sectarian, religious or political purposes." A Charlottesville weekly newspaper, The Hook, reported that Rakoski "sicced the Liberty Counsel on the county," and the policy was soon revised to allow religious groups to use the backpack mail system. Liberty Counsel is a Religious Right legal group founded by Mathew Staver and now affiliated with Falwell. It wasn't long before other religious groups decided to take advantage of the newly opened forum. A group of Pagans who attend Thomas Jefferson Memorial Church, a Unitarian-Universalist congregation in Charlottesville, created a one-page flier advertising a Dec. 9 event celebrating the December holidays with a Pagan twist. They submitted it to the public school and had it distributed through the backpack system. ...The flier invited people to “an educational program for children of all ages (and their adults), where we’ll explore the traditions of December and their origins, followed by a Pagan ritual to celebrate Yule.” It concluded, “Come for one or both parts and bring your curiosity.” ... Go, Pagans! Not surprisingly, some parents are a tad upset that their complaints of religious persecution have helped a bad religion -- but there may not be much they can do about it: Parents in the county have asked Americans United to help the school system draft a new policy governing distribution of religious fliers. That task may be complicated by an opinion from the 4th U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals. Ruling in a case from Montgomery County, Md., the appellate court struck down a policy giving school officials unilateral ability to exclude certain private groups from the backpack system. Don't you just love that Law of Unintended Consequences? posted by Steve M. | 2:39 PM | BUSH ON THE COUCH Odd statement from Bush in a (rather fawning) C-SPAN interview conducted yesterday: THE PRESIDENT: ...The Iranian people are good, decent, honorable people. And they've got a government that is belligerent, loud, noisy, threatening, a government which is in defiance of the rest of the world and says, we want a nuclear weapon.... "Loud"? "Noisy"? Is that part of the reason we're rattling sabers at Iran -- because the regime is loud? Shortly after that, Bush returns to the same imagery, this time in reference to rumors of war with Iran, and Steve Scully, the interviewer, asks him about it: THE PRESIDENT: ... I guess my reaction to all the noise about, you know, "He wants to go to war" is, first of all, I don't understand the tactics, and I guess I would say it's political.... Q You use that word, "noise," a lot. How do you define that? THE PRESIDENT: There's just a lot of chatter here in Washington. I mean, it's hard for some of your viewers to get it, I guess, unless they pay attention to the daily grind of news and comments and press releases. I guess I would just say that there's endless chatter, a lot of people on TV expressing their opinion -- which is fine, don't get me wrong, it's just part of the process -- after all, I'm on TV expressing my opinion with you. (Laughter.) But it's just a lot of chatter in Washington, a lot of people expressing themselves on a regular basis. That's what "noise" is -- "a lot of people expressing themselves on a regular basis." (I thought that was free speech in a democracy, but hey, that's just me.) But why this particular image? What's going on in Bush's brain? Is this Mom's voice shouting "Stop all that noise!" from when he was a kid? Or is it Little Boy Bush demanding that everyone go silent and pay attention to him? posted by Steve M. | 10:57 AM | Monday, February 12, 2007 Added to the blogroll, in many cases belatedly: Spencer Ackerman (Too Hot for TNR), Blue Gal, Blue Wren, Glenn Greenwald at Salon, Instaputz, Liberty Street, Paperwight's Fair Shot, Slacktivist, Jon Swift, Why Now?, and Cintra Wilson. And R.I.P. Billmon, BlogGram, and mfinley. Jon Swift is right to wonder why it was so damn important for several alpha-dog lefty blogs to purge their blogrolls recently. Jon's blogroll is huge, yet somehow there still seems to be bandwidth left in the world. Why can't the top dogs on the left do likewise? What's the point of acting like Heathers? **** UPDATE Also see Tom Hilton's thoughts on this (here and here). I don't get the tendency toward what Tom calls "upward linkage," but then I wasn't particularly popular in high school, either. posted by Steve M. | 11:44 PM | WHY DOES THE EXECUTIVE PRODUCER OF 24 HATE AMERICA? Good article in The New Yorker by Jane Mayer about torture on 24. The article focuses on Joel Surnow, the show's co-creator and executive producer, who's a wingnut pal of Rush Limbaugh and Ann Coulter (and who, we learn, shares Coulter's fondness for Joe McCarthy -- and would actually like to make a pro-McCarthy movie). Surnow fancies himself a great patriot -- but his patriotism apparently has limits: This past November, U.S. Army Brigadier General Patrick Finnegan, the dean of the United States Military Academy at West Point, flew to Southern California to meet with the creative team behind "24." Finnegan, who was accompanied by three of the most experienced military and F.B.I. interrogators in the country, arrived on the set as the crew was filming. ... Finnegan and the others had come to voice their concern that the show's central political premise -- that the letter of American law must be sacrificed for the country’s security -- was having a toxic effect. In their view, the show promoted unethical and illegal behavior and had adversely affected the training and performance of real American soldiers. "I'd like them to stop," Finnegan said of the show’s producers. "They should do a show where torture backfires." ... Several top producers of "24" were present, but Surnow was conspicuously absent. Surnow explained to me, "I just can't sit in a room that long. I'm too A.D.D. -- I can't sit still." He told the group that the meeting conflicted with a planned conference call with Roger Ailes, the chairman of the Fox News Channel. (Another participant in the conference call attended the meeting.) Ailes wanted to discuss a project that Surnow has been planning for months: the debut, on February 18th, of "The Half Hour News Hour," a conservative satirical treatment of the week's news; Surnow sees the show as offering a counterpoint to the liberal slant of "The Daily Show with Jon Stewart." Now, can you imagine if a left-leaning producer of a hit show did something like this -- blew off a meeting with a brigadier general who felt his show was harming America? Can you just imagine the outrage from the right? Can you imagine the trumped up, days-long drumbeat of manufactured outrage, accompanied by calls for the firing of the producer and for boycotts of the show's advertisers? But Surnow's a right-winger with fans throughout the Bush administration (which, of course, doesn't agree with the general), so it's no big whoop. posted by Steve M. | 11:20 PM | ANNA NICOLE SMITH AS METAPHOR I wrote this on Saturday: So, who's going to be the first right-winger to say that Anna Nicole Smith embodied everything that's wrong with liberal culture? In comments, my old pal Donna replied: But she was such a GOOD capitalist. She had no talent whatsoever, much of her beauty was the product of man not nature -- she was a great self promoter. She would have made Ayn Rand proud. I think Rush [s]hould be giving her eulogy. Interesting point. And it turns out we were both right. Another of my commenters, MFA, notes that a couple of readers responding to this Dan Riehl post (which I linked earlier today -- don't worry, this won't all be on the final) seem to admire Anna Nicole -- or at least they respect her much more than the Dixie Chicks: Anna Nicole had more class than those 3 skanks combined..RIP Anna! **** Weeellll...I'm not going to go as far as claiming that Anna Nicole was the classy chick on the street but you know....im not throw her under the bus either. **** At least Anna never undermined our nation.....The left hates country you dumb chicks,that's right tick off your audience you hefers. **** Legal Anna was good at being a girl....The chicks are good at being unattractive crows.....Anna was good for the economy:) "Good for the economy" -- is there higher praise on the right? But on the flip side, you've got this righty blogger: Anna Nicole was the poster child (or pin up girl) for liberalism. She did not want to work too hard so she decided to take money from the rich (bilking billionaire J Howard Marshall). When that did not work she looked in the liberal handbook and went to Plan B, the courts. She even went a far as the supreme court to sue for her bounty. Then of course, no liberal story would be complete without portraying a pole dancing, drug addict as a victim. But when a hero dies in Iraq or Afghanistan you hear a number. Hello America, this is Katie Couric. There was an American Tragedy today. Anna Nicole Smith our liberal soul sister died a martyr for our cause. Followed by a 20 minute lovefest of pictures and interviews. In other news, number 3,115 died today in Iraq. The media fuels the fire of Islamic Extremism and Murtha by giving them hope that America is going to quit the fight. Soon American women even the ultra sexy ones like Anna Nicole will be wearing burqas thanks to the media. Maybe then Ted Turner will wake up and rally the troops in defiance of his seditious wife. Or perhaps, Bill Clinton will walk down the hall and knock on his wife's bedroom door in the White House and urge Madam President to do something. Er, Ted Turner and Jane Fonda divorced in the spring of 2001, but whatever. Conclusion: Anna Nicole Smith was awesome, Anna Nicole Smith was awful, but either way, we suck, and everything is our fault, because we love everything that's awful. posted by Steve M. | 6:17 PM | This is off my usual beat, but I wanted to point out that Lee Siegel -- last seen accusing liberal bloggers of "blogofascism" before being dumped as a New Republic blogger for posing as a fan of himself (and yes, there were some other ugly moments in there) -- has just had his head handed to him by readers of The New York Times Book Review: I was relieved to learn from Dwight Garner's column, TBR: Inside the List, that the Book Review actually has an active and engaged editorial staff, but I wonder where they were when Lee Siegel's review of Norman Mailer's "Castle in the Forest" (Jan. 21) came thudding through the door. Perhaps, understandably, they nodded off while reading the thing. ...Siegel's essay ... is academic, turgid, dense, painful and impenetrable. Siegel writes like an economist or, worse, like a lit-crit professor at one of our leading liberal arts colleges. His review could have been improved immensely by the generous application of a blue pencil and a sharp pair of scissors. Nicholas P. Moros Evergreen, Colo. **** To the Editor: When, in his windy review, Lee Siegel eventually addresses "The Castle in the Forest," he assures us that Mailer has no sympathy for his devil-narrator, Dieter. But since that narrator is the only voice we hear in the novel and is responsible for whatever wit it contains, how can this possibly be true? William H. Pritchard Amherst, Mass. To the Editor: Lee Siegel's essay on Norman Mailer's "Castle in the Forest" is the most addlepated review I have ever read. It is a naked display of idiocy, a crowning achievement of impenetrable nonsense. Marcella Jenkins Danbury, Conn. Oh, don't hold back, Ms. Jenkins. Tell us how you really feel. Impenetrable? Addlepated? Here, try it -- try getting through all 6,299 words of it. It's a self-indulgent disaster that sometimes reads like the most fawningly vapid rock journalism -- This restless vastness of Mailer's ambition (''In motion a man has a chance'') is such that his ''failures'' are seminal, his professional setbacks groundbreaking. His willingness to fail -- hugely, magnificently, life-affirmingly -- expands artistic possibilities. -- and occasionally reads as if Siegel took the brown acid: To not cohere to received axes of fact -- magical phrase! -- to approach life novelistically, is to make connections between the visible and the invisible world, and to transfigure the commonplace. Far out, maaaaaan.... (When Siegel does finally get around to talking about the Mailer novel, he calls it an "utterly strange work of naked, wild empathy" -- the sort of praise you expect to find on a used paperback with 35-year-old pot seeds still stuck under the inside cover.) posted by Steve M. | 2:00 PM | Good news! The folks at Lucianne.com have seen the light at the end of the tunnel:  Yeah, that'll be a great day indeed, won't it? posted by Steve M. | 9:49 AM | Oh, those polite right-wingers -- they're so much nicer than all us nasty lefties, aren't they? posted by Steve M. | 6:49 AM | Sunday, February 11, 2007 EDDIE AND RUDY In entertainment news: ... [Eddie] Murphy's comedy "Norbit" ... opened as the top weekend movie with $33.7 million, according to studio estimates Sunday. ..."Norbit" was the 14th No. 1 opening for Murphy and came in well above the expectations of distributor Paramount, which had projected the movie might pull in about $25 million over its opening weekend. ...Murphy plays mild-mannered Norbit [and] his grossly overweight and overbearing wife... That's the biggest movie opening of the year, even though Norbit was trashed by critics. And two weeks from now, Eddie Murphy's going to win an Oscar for Dreamgirls. Moviegoers spent $33 million to see Eddie Murphy looking like this:  So do you still think America can't handle this?  I'll keep saying it: This kind of drag is not about gender-bending. This kind of drag is about pretending to be making fun of yourself, while actually mocking women tapping into the belief that they (or at least the ones who aren't hot babes) are grotesque and disgusting. This kind of drag is quite palatable to the mainstream. **** Speaking of Giuliani, when is he going to be subjected to the early attacks Barack Obama's dealing with? After all, he's the GOP's Obama -- the guy who's exceeding expectations and looking like a much more serious contender that the convention wisdom predicted. This weekend, Obama took two vicious hits from the right -- William Kristol said his Iraq stance is the moral equivalent of tolerating slavery ("Obama's speech is a 'can't we get along' speech -- sort of the opposite of Lincoln. He would have been with Stephen Douglas in 1858") and Australian prime minister John Howard said he's giving aid and comfort to al-Qaeda ("If I were running al-Qa'ida in Iraq, I would put a circle around March 2008 and be praying as many times as possible for a victory not only for Obama but also for the Democrats"). Prior to that, Mike Allen at the Politico described in detail "the coming effort to dismantle" Obama. What are the Democrats doing to Giuliani? Why aren't they working right now to undermine him? I think they're being like the pre-'06 Democrats -- hoping things will go their way rather than trying to make them go their way. I think they're counting on Giuliani to stumble in the primaries -- and if he doesn't, I half-think they're counting on that drag image to beat him all by itself. If so, that's nuts. They have to assume he can win and start road-testing anti-Giuliani messages now. Meanwhile, here's Giuliani in California: Republican presidential hopeful Rudolph W. Giuliani praised President Bush's war leadership on Saturday.... The former New York City mayor came to Bush's defense as he promoted his White House candidacy at a California Republican convention. Drawing parallels between Iraq and America's Civil War, Giuliani compared Bush's political troubles to Abraham Lincoln's. When the Civil War was unpopular, Giuliani said, Lincoln "kept his eye ahead." "He was able to say, 'I know my people are frustrated, and I know my people are angry at me.' " But after weighing public opinion, Lincoln had "that ability that a leader has -- a leader like George Bush, a leader like Ronald Reagan -- to look into the future," Giuliani said.... Let's start with a message about Giuliani (and McCain and Romney and the whole damn lot of them): No third term. I want to hear prominenrt Democrats saying that. No one whose represents continuity with the Bush's presidency should be president -- and all praise of Bush needs to be highlighted. Right now the public thinks Giuliani is a "moderate" and McCain is a "maverick." We have to hang George W. Bush around their necks -- because, in the general election, whoever emerges will finesse that connection, and the press will either pretend that Giuliani's praise or McCain's hug didn't happen or shrug it off as trivia. That can't be allowed to happen. posted by Steve M. | 7:00 PM | Anti-Deist religious bigotry: Thomas Paine Day Vote Fails in Arkansas Thomas Paine may have helped inspire the American Revolution, but inspiring Arkansas lawmakers to commemorate a day in his honor is another matter. The proposal by Rep. Lindsley Smith, D-Fayetteville, to commemorate Jan. 29 as "Thomas Paine Day" failed in the state House of Representatives after a legislator questioned Paine's writings criticizing the Bible and Christianity. ...Rep. Sid Rosenbaum, R-Little Rock, quizzed Smith about Paine and quoted passages from Paine's book, "The Age of Reason," which Rosenbaum criticized as anti-religion. "He did some good things for the nation, but the book that he wrote was anti-Christian and anti-Jewish," Rosenbaum said.... As Philip Slater recently wrote: Paine, a deeply religious man, who believed in God and tried to model his life after Jesus, wrote a book pointing out that the Bible was written by men, not God, and was filled with absurdities and contradictions, and that humanity should look for God in the beauty of Creation, not in a book filled with the follies of men--that God should be worshiped not because of the 'miracles' of the Bible--mostly imported from older mythical traditions--but because of the miracle of the universe that surrounds us. ...Yet, supposedly for saying these things--which simply placed him in the same religious camp as most of the Founding Fathers--Paine was spat on and vilified by Christians, called Satan, refused food and lodging at inns, prevented from voting, and died in poverty of a lingering illness, supported only by a few friends. And now this. I see, by the way, that Arkansas still has an Arkansas Confederate History and Heritage Month, a Confederate Memorial Day, and a Confederate Flag Day. Apparently being anti-America isn't a dealbreaker if you want a commemorative day (or month) in Arkansas. posted by Steve M. | 12:40 PM | Idiots: It was a novel class exercise: Ask a room full of Montgomery County [Maryland] high school students to take turns chewing the same piece of gum. To demonstrate how sexually transmitted diseases are spread, a visiting speaker invited students to share gum in health classes at four county high schools in December and last month. School officials said a total of about 100 students participated in the lessons, although some declined to chew the gum. Education and health officials say the gum exercise was unsanitary and should not have happened. The speaker and the clinic, a pregnancy counseling center with a religious orientation, are no longer welcome in Montgomery schools, school officials said. ...One or more speakers from Rockville Pregnancy Center had visited Damascus, Albert Einstein and Winston Churchill high schools and possibly others. Clinic speakers had been approved to visit schools since 1998; students said the speaker told them she had taught the same lessons many times.... The Web site of Rockville Pregnancy Center is here. As the linked article notes, the site includes an Am I Going To Heaven?" test; it also includes Dr. Laura's "Is It Love?" test. The site spreads the usual nonsense -- that abortion leads to breast cancer, that many women suffer from "post-abortion syndrome." The site also claims that men suffer a sort of post-abortion syndrome because abortion messes with the "five instinctive drives or motivations that make up their life: 'the ability to procreate, provide, protect, perform, and [enjoy] pleasure.'" Yup, guys, "ability to procreate" is our #1 motivation in life. And you know a guy's hurtin' after abortion because he experiences a wide range of symptoms, including "Masturbation" (something I guess guys never do otherwise). These people were coming into the Montgomery County schools for almost ten years. Why? posted by Steve M. | 11:39 AM | Saturday, February 10, 2007 Was I actually hearing a little while ago reasonable people think Mike Huckabee really has a shot at winning the '08 GOP nomination? Er, no, he doesn't: In recent interviews, he has artfully tied his religious devotion to broader social concerns. For instance, on NPR last week, he said that reclaiming a nation for Christ was not a matter of proselytizing. "It means that we would reflect what he reflected, and that is compassion and love," Mr. Huckabee said. Yet he was also critical of some opponents of abortion rights, suggesting that they focus too much on embryos. "I want to be concerned about making sure every child has music and art education," he said. "There are a lot of things that, to me, are a part of my being pro-life." Compassion and love? Not proselytizing? Music and art education? Sorry -- no red-meat GOP rightist wants to hear about any of that stuff. They want anger; they want hate; they want to hear denunciations of the awfulness of their enemies (jihadists, liberals). The first link above is from The Washington Post's E.J. Dionne -- has he really been covering politics all these years and not figured out that right-wing voters crave hate? Huckabee might be the obvious choice to be Giuliani's running mate -- nice to Rudy's nasty, Protestant and socially conservative and Southern where Rudy is none of these things. But even if Giuliani and McCain split the non-evangelical vote and there's no clear front-runner for a while, Huckabee will never, ever make his way to the front of the pack, or anywhere close to it. posted by Steve M. | 11:02 PM | BIGOTRY!!! (AL DENTE) Last night we ate at a restaurant that serves a variety of pasta called strozzapreti. "Strozzapreti" means "priest strangler" or "priest choker." Strozzapreti come from the Romagna region of Italy. The well-known Italian chef Lidia Bastianich has a rather benign explanation of the name: According to an old tale, these delicious ricotta and spinach dumplings got their name when a gluttonous priest ate too many of them too quickly. But there are somewhat darker explanations: One of the legends created to explain the origin of the name goes back to the tradition of the women from Romagna preparing this type of pasta for the local priest, while the husbands, evidently a little bit more anticlerical, wished the priest would choke while he was stuffing himself with it. Graziano Pozzetto, an expert in tradition and cuisine from Romagna, ... gives one more interpretation of the name, linking it to that sharp and firm movement with which the azdora [the housewife in Romagna] 'chokes' the dough strips to make the strozzapreti: "... in that particular moment you would presume that the azdora would express such a rage (perhaps triggered by the misery and difficulties of her life) to be able to strangle a priest!". Romagna was reluctantly ruled by the Catholic Church for a long time and has a history of anticlericalism and rebellion against Church rule. The more sinister explanations for the name strozzapreti, therefore, seem quite plausible. Under those circumstances, isn't it an act of religious bigotry for a resturant to serve strozzapreti at all? For the love of God, why isn't William Donohue of the Catholic League doing something about this? posted by Steve M. | 11:39 AM | So, who's going to be the first right-winger to say that Anna Nicole Smith embodied everything that's wrong with liberal culture? posted by Steve M. | 9:51 AM | Friday, February 09, 2007 I'm not sure what to make of the fact that one of the names right-wingers have for Hillary Clinon is Oinkubus. It makes me think that maybe, as a follow-up to Pan's Labyrinth, Guillermo del Toro ought to try filming the nightmarescape that is the right-wing subconscious. I'm serious -- I know "Oinkubus" is supposed to be a big funny in Wingnuttistan, but I sense there's an element of fear behind it. A pig plus a being with supernatural powers -- why would this seem like an apt description of Hillary to right-wingers? I'm not even going to assume they know what "incubus" means: In medieval European folklore, the incubus is a male demon (or evil spirit) who visits women in their sleep to lie with them in ghostly sexual intercourse. The woman who falls victim to an incubus will not awaken, although may experience it in a dream. Should she get pregnant the child will grow inside her as any normal child, except that it will possess supernatural capabilities. Usually the child grows into a person of evil intent or a powerful wizard.... The word incubus is Latin for "nightmare". I assume they think it's just some supernatural thing. But why that? Right-wingers do think Democrats and liberals have skills and wiles and subterfuges through which we thwart the laws and the will of the people and ordinary morality (all of which they think they embody). But they also think we're pathetic losers (see their characterizations of Dukakis, Gore, and Kerry, which went mainstream and became the conventional wisdom). Hence, "incubus" + "oink." On the other hand, pigs aren't just funny in a Porky Pig way. They're also repulsive. In addition, they're linked to evil in recent popular culture -- Hannibal, the Nine Inch Nails "Closer" video, the Saw movies -- but I'm not sure that's a factor in this case. In any case, note that an even more popular nickname for Hillary Clinton in some right-wing circles is PIAPS -- "Pig in a Pants Suit." Oh, and another favorite is "the Hildebeast" -- as in (in one series of T-shirts) "Extinguish the Hildebeast." Lefties mock Bush for looking like a chimp (which he does), but I don't know of any mockery of Bush that taps into the notion that he's monstrous in a way that's beyond human. Ditto for Cheney and the whole damn lot of 'em. So what's up with righties and Hillary? **** (Yes, I'm aware of Jenn Rose's "Oinkubus" sculpture -- which, it seems to me, bears more of a resemblance to Dennis Hastert than it does to Hillary. Whoops! Now I'm doing it.) posted by Steve M. | 2:10 PM | If it's been too long since you thought your head was about to explode and you really miss the feeling, maybe what you need to do is go over to RedState.com and read a 3,471-word essay recommending that the Republicans run an '08 ticket of Donald Rumsfeld and John Bolton. Yes, really. What can I say about this except to give you a taste? It's a supersized gift bag of jawdroppers: The fundamental issue here is one of competence. Both Mr. Rumsfeld and Mr. Bolton are enormously accomplished individuals.... **** And then there's [Rumsfeld's] most recent performance as Secretary of Defense. Rather than running away from this record, how about running on it? How about trumpeting the military success of the missions in Iraq and Afghanistan...? **** Neither man is particularly warm and fuzzy -- although I would pay good money to see either on Oprah. **** I want the President and Vice President who are best qualified to protect us from the threat of Islamic jihad and to defend our global position. Mr. Rumsfeld and Mr. Bolton have been consistently demonstrating by word and deed not just for a few months or years but for decades that they would do just that. **** Speaking of the VP, there's the moustache. That's facial hair with attitude. It tells you something about the man. **** Mr. Rumsfeld and Mr. Bolton can grab the cameras and rivet public attention -- and they don’t have to dress in spandex or make a movie to get someone to show up with a microphone. **** I have to wonder from how many the notion of a R-B in '08 ticket elicits a response of "I wish." Well, it seems to me that if we want to win this thing, we have to stop wishing, shake off the cobwebs and focus on what really matters. Do we have to compromise? This guy (he calls himself "Academic Elephant") is dead serious. And you know what, A.E.? I wish, too. (Via Instaputz.) **** UPDATE: Pam from Atlas Shrugs is on board ("The Uber Dream Ticket," she calls it -- not exactly the adjective I would have expected her to use, though Johnny and Rummy do seem rather uber to me.) Oh, and there's a poll at RedState. Go vote! Maybe we can start something here. posted by Steve M. | 8:19 AM | Thursday, February 08, 2007 Tom Hilton makes an interesting point in the comments to this post: One of the members of the Catholic League's board of advisors is Dinesh D'Souza. Wonder if Bill Donohue agrees with his advisor that Americans who watch risque TV and have had premarital sex caused 9/11. Somebody ought to ask him. (The first item here suggests he just might believe that.) posted by Steve M. | 7:34 PM | CAVALRY SCOUT DIPS HIS BULLETS IN I don't know if this is a real soldier or just some stupid wannabe, but either way, this is going to go around the world and he just spawned a hundred more terrorists. Thanks a lot, dumbass. And needless to say, you're also offending the people you're fighting for wherever you're fighting, if you're the real thing. Video here. posted by Steve M. | 7:18 PM | THE HEAD OF THE CATHOLIC LEAGUE WANTS AN EXTRA FIFTEEN MINUTES Bill Donohue is trying to keep this alive -- he just released a statement titled "John Edwards Tolerates Anti-Catholicism." Excerpts: John Edwards has apparently decided that there is more to be gained by aligning himself with the cultural left than by standing on principle and firing the Catholic bashers on his payroll. Had anyone on his staff used the 'N-word,' he or she would have been fired immediately. But his goal is to loot the pockets of the Soros/Hollywood gang, and they -- like him -- aren't offended by anti-Catholicism. Indeed, they thrive on it. "The Soros/Hollywood gang." That's pronounced "Jews," right, Bill? Edwards said today that 'We're beginning a great debate about the future of our country, and we can't let it be hijacked.' I have news for him -- the Catholic League -- not Edwards -- will decide what the debate will be about, and it won't be about the nation. It will be about the glaring double standard that colors the entire conversation about bigotry. Nice of you to admit that you don't give a crap about the nation, Bill. We will launch a nationwide public relations blitz that will be conducted on the pages of the New York Times, as well as in Catholic newspapers and periodicals. It will be on-going, breaking like a wave, starting next week and continuing through 2007. It will be an education campaign, informing the public of what he did today. We will also reach out to our allies in the Catholic, Protestant, Jewish, Muslim and Buddhist communities. They worked with us before on many issues, and are sure to do so again. What Edwards did today will not be forgotten. OK -- after reading this and seeing some of the right-wing blog response (e.g., Sister Toldjah's insistence that Edwards is shooting himself in the foot), I see what's going to happen: They're not going to keep howling for the scalps of Shakes and Amanda. They are, however, going to try to make Edwards's alleged anti-religious bigotry into the first thing that comes up about him in any conversation anywhere in America in which at least one participant is a right-winger. (Cf.: Ted Kennedy and Chappaquiddick, Robert Byrd and early involvement in the Klan.) Will it work? I don't know. But it will at least be a nuisance. The immediate question is how much more airtime the media is going to give Donohue. The media, after all, gets to decide when the acute phase of this is over. **** UPDATE: Feel free to join us in comments -- we're discussing whether the death of Anna Nicole Smith is going to drive this story completely off cable news. I say: absolutely. **** OH, AND: This right-wing blogger read the update I posted above and had this to say: Apparently, Edwards, in his arrogance, has decided to keep them on staff, hoping apparently that the death of Anna Nicole Smith and the resulting 24/7 treatment of it, is going to keep his staff, and his choices thereof, off the front page, as it were.... Apparently, given the distraction of the moment, (Smith, room temp) he's decided that angering everyone else isn't going to be quite as painful, since the majority of the people that would be voting for a man like Edwards, wouldn't be paying attention just now, anyway. Yes, you read that correctly: Our righty friend thinks Edwards timed this announcement to coincide with Anna Nicole Smith's death. No, really. (The Edwards statement on his bloggers was posted at 11:36 A.M. Anna Nicole Smith was pronounced dead at 2:49 P.M.) Or, hey -- maybe Genius Boy thinks Edwards had Anna Nicole murdered just so he wouldn't have to fire Shakes and Amanda! Yeah, that's it -- the fiend! Typical liberal. They're all murderers! posted by Steve M. | 3:56 PM | I hope this John Edwards statement is enough to put the blogger story to rest, but I have a feeling it won't be: "The tone and the sentiment of some of Amanda Marcotte's and Melissa McEwen's posts personally offended me. It's not how I talk to people, and it's not how I expect the people who work for me to talk to people. Everyone is entitled to their opinion, but that kind of intolerant language will not be permitted from anyone on my campaign, whether it's intended as satire, humor, or anything else. But I also believe in giving everyone a fair shake. I've talked to Amanda and Melissa; they have both assured me that it was never their intention to malign anyone's faith, and I take them at their word. We're beginning a great debate about the future of our country, and we can't let it be hijacked. It will take discipline, focus, and courage to build the America we believe in." The media can declare this "asked and answered" -- or the media can continue to let William Donohue throw a fit until he's got his scalps. I hope it's the former, but I've seen too much manipulation of the press by too many full-time umbrage-takers on the right to want to bet the rent money on it. I don't think this will end until he either capitulates or tells his critics in no uncertain terms to take a flying leap. ("We can't let it be hijacked" really might not be strong enough.) posted by Steve M. | 1:08 PM | RUPERT MURDOCH, AGENT OF JIHAD We know what Dinesh D'Souza, that noted expert on terrorism, has told us: Many Muslims point to the "horrors" of "blue" America: homosexual marriage, family breakdown, and a popular culture that is trivial, materialistic, vulgar, and, in many cases, morally repulsive. This latter view is dangerously -- and justifiably -- common in many traditional cultures across the globe. Because it feeds their perception that American values are inimical to their way of life, this attitude can blossom into the kind of anti-American pathology that partly fueled the 9/11 attacks. Now here's the latest from Murdoch: He's smarmy. She's contrived. He leers at girls like an old stage ham. She talks about freezing her eggs and getting her breasts done. Together they’re Mike Jerrick and Juliet Huddy, Fox's new morning pair, who use their unholy chemistry to pervert the breakfast hour on "The Morning Show With Mike and Juliet." ... In its more than three weeks on the air, "The Morning Show" has opted, above all, for creepy prurience. There was Ms. Huddy babbling about her father's fixation on the "[American] Idol" singer Katharine McPhee, and Mr. Jerrick implying the obsession was illegal. There was Mr. Jerrick flashing his own deck of 52 illegal desires. Not to be outdone Ms. Huddy billboarded her lust for under-age men. Each makes innuendos about the other's sex life and off-camera carousing, and in every episode they come across as teenagers or freshly divorced 40-somethings after their first Long Island iced teas.... So what is the relationship Mr. Jerrick and Ms. Huddy are performing? I argue this: They are playing an older man who, because he loves the ladies too much or not enough, shuns long-term relationships, and an attractive over-30 woman who has pursued her career rather than marrying and regrets it.... Why is Rupert Murdoch inspiring the evildoers to launch another 9/11-style attack? Why does he hate America? posted by Steve M. | 10:10 AM | HEY, DINESH D'SOUZA See your book on the New York Times bestseller list? Way, way down there, at #19, below the main list, among the "Also Selling" books? Well, enjoy it while you can, because the new list was distributed last night via e-mail, and your book is already completely off the list. (The new list will be posted by the Times over the weekend.) You've gotten more airtime and column inches that the Super Bowl, Barbaro, Justin Timberlake, and that arrested astronaut combined, and your book's still a stiff. Boo hoo. posted by Steve M. | 7:14 AM | Wednesday, February 07, 2007 POP QUIZ A woman from Texas took a cab ride in New York, paid a $10.70 fare with a $20 bill -- and asked for $9 back. In other words, she gave the cabbie a 30-cent tip. She also left 31 diamond rings in the cab. The cabbie, a native of Bangladesh named Osman Chowdhury-- an honest man who apparently wasn't offended by the cheap tip -- returned them to their rightful owner. Here's your essay question: Who is the stupidest commenter in this Lucianne.com thread about the incident? Is it #12, who says, of a cheapskate from Texas who owns diamonds, She no doubt, votes D, too. -- or is it #6, who says Rudy helped greatly in bringing the best of NYC back! (Note: Rudy Giuliani's mayoralty ended on January 1, 2002.) Discuss. Use both sides of the paper if necessary. posted by Steve M. | 10:46 PM | Remember: Amanda and Shakes are in trouble in the Edwards campaign, but these people can go to the White House and chat with the president and no one says a word. Scroll down to my comment at the link (#5) for a reminder of one of Boortz's greatest hits. posted by Steve M. | 10:32 PM |  ABC News: Because liberal-bashing mixed with sleazy titillation is too good a combination to leave to Rupert Murdoch. posted by Steve M. | 4:11 PM | BLASPHEMOUS SNACK FOODS Melissa McEwan and Amanda Marcotte are being, er, crucified by William Donohue of the Catholic League for bringing their alleged Catholic-bashing blog stylings to the John Edwards campaign. (If you're late to this story, catch up here; Donohue's most memorable utterances are here.) Well, gosh, I certainly hope Donohue's focus on Shakes and Amanda won't mean he'll devote less attention to any of his other vital crusades -- such as this one: A woman named Janice Taylor who considers herself a "weight-loss artist" runs a website called "Our Lady of Weight Loss." Taylor has also recently released a book by the same name, subtitled Miraculous and Motivational Musings from the Patron Saint of Permanent Weight Loss. ... Taylor's artwork is frequently centered around wacky and irreverent pictures of the Blessed Mother. In one, her halo is actually the dial of a scale. In another, the Virgin smokes a cigarette and says, "Darling, please excuse my oral fixation." The website boasts "The Ten Commandments of Permanent Fat Removal." One commandment is "Thou shalt not covet thy neighbor's plate." Our Lady of Weight Loss is quoted as saying, "Should you succumb to the Call of the Cheeto, dust the crumbs off and get back on the wagon. 'All is forgiven. Move on.'" ... Now that Taylor's book has been released and is available in bookstores, ... it is no longer prudent to ignore her. This is even more true because the popular shopping club Costco has featured Taylor in the September issue of its magazine, The Costco Connection. Bill Donohue wrote to Costco and asked that the magazine discontinue promoting Our Lady of Weight Loss. ..."I know Costco has no desire to alienate customers of any religion. Therefore, I wanted to let you know how upset many Catholics were by the article and ask that you discontinue the dissemination of this book. We will notify our 300,000 members nationwide of your decision regarding this matter." Ooooh -- intimidation. (The Our Lady of Weight Loss Web site is here.) I'm not sure how this turned out. I do see that Costco's online newsletter received at least one critical e-mail; Taylor was given the chance to reply, and noted that My artwork has been exhibited in the National Museum of Catholic Art and History in New York [true], and a large Catholic church in Texas asked me to donate 12 copies of Our Lady of Weight Loss for their fund-raising drive. Catholic anti-Catholic bigots! Wonder if Donohue threatened action against them, too. **** Uh-oh -- Janice Taylor's going to be lecturing at a yoga center! In western Massachusetts! She must be an infidel! posted by Steve M. | 12:39 PM | THIS IS NOT A JOKE There's a movement afoot to build a statue to Zell Miller on the grounds of Georgia's capitol. Because, I guess, being on absolutely the wrong side on the most important issue of your final years in office and helping to divide the country by, in essence, accusing half the country of treason in your most famous speech are the perfect qualifications for a statue. **** UPDATE: Over at Practically Harmless, there's a very smart proposed design. posted by Steve M. | 10:50 AM | JUGGER -- NOT. The Booman Tribune thinks it's just right-wing propaganda from a new political site whose principal editors came over from The Washington Post, but I believe this really is an accurate account of what the GOP is thinking -- and if so, Republicans still don't understand the world they've helped to make: GOP Views Clinton As Virtually Unbeatable What many conservatives regard as the nightmare scenario -- President Hillary Rodham Clinton -- is increasingly seen by veteran Republican politicians and strategists as virtual inevitability. In GOP circles, the Democratic front-runner is seen as so strong, and the political climate for Republicans so hostile, that many influential voices -- including current and former lawmakers, and veterans of President Bush's campaigns -- have grown despairing. These partisans describe a political equivalent of the stages of grief, starting with denial, then resentment and ending with acceptance.... "If the conservative movement and Republicans don't understand how massive the Clinton coalition is, she will be the next president," former House Majority Leader Tom DeLay said in an interview last week.... "We do have to get our act together, and I'd agree with Tom DeLay on that," said Rep. Steve King of Iowa. "At this point, short an inspirational Republican nominee, then I would agree that it's going to be very difficult to beat Hillary if she wins the nomination."... If you think an inheritor of the Bush mantle can't win in '08, I have two words for you: Joe Lieberman. If Lieberman was able to sell himself successfully to Connecticut voters in '06 as an "independent Democrat," despite the public's utter disgust with the war, then McCain absolutely could sell himself as a "maverick" -- especially with a gushing national media doing its usual job of selling that notion. (This is what's baffling to me about Republicans -- McCain is so close to what they want, yet so electable thanks to media worship and widespread public admiration, that if they'd just get behind him, they could absolutely win this thing. But the base just won't back him.) Giuliani, of course, can be described as even more like Lieberman -- he's moderate to liberal on social issues. And Flip-Flopper Romney used to be socially moderate. All of this can easily be sold as Not Bush. These guys can all sell themselves as fresh faces, unconnected to the hated current regime. Giuliani and Romney have the advantage of not being creatures of Washington -- and McCain, well, did I mention that he's a "maverick"? The media will happily sell this story because so many people in the media love to mock the Clintons, and the Democratic Party in general, and because so many men in the media feel their genitals begin to shrivel whenever Hillary's name is mentioned. (As for other top Democrats: Edwards is the inexperienced "Breck girl" and a trial lawyer, the press hates Gore, and Obama can be sold as dangerously inexperienced -- though the media attacks on Obama aren't going to be off-the-shelf and prepackaged, so he may have the best chance of overcoming them.) Oh, one other Republican could win: Condi Rice. She's bafflingly popular -- yet who could be more tied to this administration and this war than she is? But I think voters don't want to dislike her, don't like to think of themselves disliking that sweet prim brown woman, so they tells themselves that she hasn't done any of the bad things she's actually done. **** (Via Memeorandum.) posted by Steve M. | 8:15 AM | Tuesday, February 06, 2007 OK -- I'm not the biggest Hillary Clinton fan on the planet, but I don't ever want to hear again that the launch of her campaign was "inauthentic" or too "scripted" -- not after seeing what Rudy Giuliani's campaign and the New York Post cooked up together to commemorate his announcement that he's running for president:  Somebody in his campaign has clearly come to the conclusion that he needs to broaden his appeal by reaching out to the Oprah voting bloc. Someone also thinks that the way to beat Hillary (and deflect social conservatives' questions about his marital history and support for some gay rights) is to show him in a passionate marital clinch. And so the Post -- which is still regarded in many circles as a newspaper rather than an instrument of propaganda -- happily obliges, by putting this on the front page. And there's another twist. Check out the cover story's opening paragraph: Sexy Judi Giuliani is keeping a tight lip-lock on her hubby as he moved even closer yesterday to officially announcing his presidential bid. Now, stop right there. What's wrong with this sentence? I have to give credit where credit is due and note that National Review's much-mocked Kathryn Jean Lopez, of all people, spotted what's odd here (though the ramifications seem to have escaped her): Judi Who? This is not of any great import, and may be me only paying attention to the gossip sections of the local news, but it took me a few seconds to make an identification when I heard "Judi Guiliani" the other day. I swear I had never heard it before -- she'll always be Judith Nathan in the New York Post to me. K-Lo's right -- she's always been called Judi (or Judith) Nathan. Until, apparently, now. Which means she's done one of the very things that gets Hillary Clinton labeled a phony -- she's switched to the use of her husband's surname just as he's launching a big campaign. Oh, but I'm sure Judi'll be called a phony for that, too. Ha ha, just kidding. More from the Post: Judi, 52, insisted that when her hubby takes the plunge, she won't mind playing second fiddle to his political ambitions Gosh, what could that be in reference to? -- and she revealed the famously tough-as-nails former mayor's sensitive side. "I've always liked strong, macho men, and Rudy -- I'm not saying this because he's my husband -- is one of the smartest people on the planet," gushed the former Judith Nathan to Harper's Bazaar in editions due out Feb. 20. "What people don't know is that Rudy's a very, very romantic guy. We love watching 'Sleepless in Seattle.' Can you imagine my big testosterone-factor husband doing that?" Right-wingers love idealizing their manly Republican heroes as husbands and fathers. I think, to them, it's sexy without being dirty, in a Harlequin way. They loved the marriage of Ronnie and Nancy (warning: cheesy music at startup); Laura won't kiss George for the camera as readily as Nancy and Ronnie kissed, so instead we get picture after picture after picture after picture after picture of Bush holding babies. Describing Rudy, a former federal prosecutor, as "the Energizer Bunny with no rechargeable batteries," Judi said, "One of the most remarkable things about my husband, who sleeps three or four hours a night, is his energy level and stamina.... Democrats are freaks; Republicans are superheroes! "When Rudy had prostate cancer in 2000, I knew he'd come through, maybe because we believed he would," said his wife, a registered nurse.... She said she always thinks about that brush with death and 9/11, when her husband was "spared only by the grace of God" from the World Trade Center's collapsing south tower.... Good Lord -- enough. Somewhere in Hell, Leni Riefenstahl and Joseph Goebbels have already sent congratulatory telegrams for this first-rate piece of work. **** In comments, Greg T. notes that Glenn Greenwald and Digby have come around to the notion that Rudy can really win the GOP nomination. Glad they've noticed. posted by Steve M. | 6:33 PM | DADDY'S NOT DRUNK -- HE PASSED OUT IN THE YARD BECAUSE HE DRANK TOO MUCH SUPERHERO JUICE! Writing about the Bush budget in The New York Times, Sheryl Gay Stolberg prints the legend (emphasis added): ...it was a defiant statement of the principles he has championed for years: the power of tax cuts to drive the economy, the need to spend what it takes to succeed in Iraq and in the broader struggle against terrorism and the necessity of reining in spending on much of the rest of what government does. Those last two are among "the principles he has championed for years"? Really? Spending "what it takes to succeed in Iraq and in the broader struggle against terrorism" -- you mean, the guy who's underfunded the war in Afghanistan, underfunded Iraqi reconstruction, underfunded the armoring of Humvees and other equipment needs, underfunded the Department of Homeland Security, and so on and so on? And "the necessity of reining in spending on much of the rest of what government does"? You mean the big increases in spending under Bush, including non-defense discretionary spending, are just a mass hallucination? What's baffling about this is that Stolberg contradicts herself later in the article, on both of these points: ...the plan drew criticism from a leading Republican, Senator Susan Collins of Maine, who is her party’s senior member on the domestic security committee. Ms. Collins said the budget "highlights the chronic and troubling underfunding" of grant programs for first responders. Mr. Bush has long been criticized by some conservatives as being too willing to tolerate a steady expansion in the size of the federal government; some commentators refer to him, usually not admiringly, as a big-government conservative. This budget calls for a 4.2 percent increase next year in overall government spending, down from a 4.8 percent increase between last year and this year. So even though she acknowledges that Bush is a spender and an underfunder of programs connected to the war on terrorism (in paragraphs 22 through 24), Stolberg retypes the dishonest Bush talking points right near the top of the article (paragraph 3). Stay in D.C. long enough and the hype sounds like fact. That's what's happened to Stolberg. posted by Steve M. | 11:33 AM | I like this: Olympia, Wash. -- Proponents of same-sex marriage have introduced a ballot measure that would require heterosexual couples to have a child within three years or have their marriages annulled. The Washington Defense of Marriage Alliance acknowledged on its Web site that the initiative was "absurd" but hoped the idea prompts "discussion about the many misguided assumptions" underlying a state Supreme Court ruling that upheld a ban on same-sex marriage. The measure would require couples to prove they can have children to get a marriage license. Couples who do not have children within three years could have their marriages annulled. All other marriages would be defined as "unrecognized," making those couples ineligible for marriage benefits. The paperwork for the measure was submitted last month. Supporters must gather at least 224,800 signatures by July 6 to put it on the November ballot.... Hey, the only reason marriage exists is for procreation, right? That's what defenders of traditional values tell us. So the logic of this is unassailable, right? As a follow-up, the group plans to propose another initiative that "would prohibit divorce or separation when a married couple has children together." After that, there'll be one that "would make having a child together the equivalent of marriage." Equally logical, no? posted by Steve M. | 7:23 AM | Monday, February 05, 2007 The New York Times Caucus blog has been keeping track of the entrance and exit songs used by Democratic presidential hopefuls at the DNC's winter meeting; the roundups are here and here. Nothing particularly interesting -- Christopher Dodd used "Get Ready" by the Temptations, Joe Biden used John Fogerty's "Centerfield," blah blah snore. Now, will the Caucus do the same for GOP candidates? That's what I'm hoping. I want to know what Tom Tancredo's song will be -- "White Riot" by the Clash? And what about Giuliani? "Under My Thumb," maybe? Or how about Trick Daddy's "I'm a Thug"? I've always thought this should have been Bush's campaign song. posted by Steve M. | 9:34 PM | Digby, David Kurtz at Talking Points Memo, and Steve Benen at the Caretbagger Report have been talking about Dick Cheney --specifically about whether he's been running the show at the White House for six years. Kurtz asks an interesting question: How is it that Bush, who is so caught up in macho public demonstrations of his own personal strength and courage, can tolerate a shadow presidency within his own White House? What kind of spell has Cheney cast that allows Bush to continue to believe he is the decider? Digby answers: It's not hard for me to imagine at all. Arrogant morons are very easy to manipulate. You just tell them what to think and then tell them they thought of it. Steve adds: Bush, for all of his misplaced arrogance, is probably aware of his deficiencies, and gladly turns to Cheney to do the "hard work." You’ll remember, of course, that Bush refused to speak to the 9/11 Commission unless Cheney was there next to him, at the same time. One assumes Bush would let Cheney do presidential press conferences, too, if he thought he could get away with it. The president probably tells himself he's above all of the unpleasant details of governing, and gladly delegates serious responsibilities (which is to say, everything a president is supposed to do) to the old hand who tells him not to worry about anything. I think Steve is basically right -- though "aware of his deficiencies" is not quite how I'd put it. Bush may not trouble his head with details, but I bet he thinks that's a virtue, a sign of his own normality. I'm sure he thinks that sweating the details is for eggheads and monomaniacs. Bush has always kept a lot of people like that around -- brainiacs and people Bush thinks are brainiacs. Rove. Rice. In his mind, probably Harriet Miers. He wants loyal wonks (or wonks manque) around him, but he'd sure as hell never want to be one. And I don't know that I'd say about Bush, "You just tell [him] what to think and then tell [him he] thought of it." Really, how much conflict is there between what Cheney wants and what Bush wants? Cheney wanted war. Bush wanted to be a big hero. Cheney wanted unlimited power for the executive branch. Bush wanted to get his own way all the time. Cheney wanted to direct as much money as possible to the oil companies. Bush ... do I really have to go on? I don't believe he and Cheney disagree much. I bet all Cheney has to do is frame Cheneyesque ideas in Bush-like terms. Forget, for instance, the nuances of the neocon view of power relations in the Arab/Muslim world -- just talk about Evil. Forget the theory of the unitary executive -- just say it's important to keep as much power as possible out of the hands of horrible liberal Democrats in Congress. Yeah, Bush says he's "the Decider," but I bet all he means by that is that he wants is to be the guy at the very end of the process who makes the Big, Important Final Decision. On everything up to that, I imagine he's quite easy to manipulate, as long as you can tell him afterward that he's being a world-historical giant and/or pissing liberals off. posted by Steve M. | 2:47 PM | FUN WITH BLOGGER I've never added tags to my blog posts, but New Blogger is urging me to do so, and offers some examples:  "Scooters, vacation, fall"? Is that just a random collection of topics? Or is it a coded message to Judy Miller? posted by Steve M. | 11:09 AM | Least surprising news of the day: Ralph Nader's thinking about running again in '08, and he hates Hillary. Here's what he said yesterday to CNN's Wolf Blitzer: BLITZER: Let's talk first of all about the presidency. Do you have any plans to run for president in 2008? NADER: It's really too early to say. I don't like long campaigns. But I'm committed to trying to give more voices and choices to the American people on the ballot. That means more third parties, independent candidates and to break up this two-party elected dictatorship that is becoming more and more like a dial for the same corporate dollars. Oh, he's in. He's definitely in. Here he is talking about Hillary Clinton, from Reuters -- he seems fixated on her: "I don't think she has the fortitude. Actually she's really a panderer and a flatterer. As she goes around the country, you'll see more of that," Nader said. On whether he would be encouraged to run if Clinton gets the Democratic nomination, Nader said, "It would make it more important that that be the case." Now, this is the part that's off the wall: He added that Clinton may face a challenge in her own state from wealthy Republican New York Mayor Michael Bloomberg. "I think her main problem may well be right in New York City, Michael Bloomberg. They're talking in the Bloomberg camp of a possible run. I'm saying he'll give more diversity, for sure, and he'll focus on urban problems. But I might say, he's got the money to do it," Nader said. Oh, that's lovely -- he kind of digs Mike Bloomberg. On CNN, Wolf Blitzer quoted a Web posting in which Nader denounced Hillary as "a corporate Democrat who opposes us on the war in Iraq" -- and now Nader's licking his lips at the prospect of a run by Bloomberg, a corporate-billionaire ex-Democrat who writes six-figure checks to the RNC and let Joe Lieberman borrow a significant portion of his staff for the '06 general election? Oh, and Bloomberg will "focus on urban problems"? You mean, the guy whose police force frisks blacks five times more than whites? I think I know what's going on. Did you ever have an aging grandmother with advancing dementia who looked at you and called you by your uncle's name, because she's confusing you with him thirty years ago? I think Nader's got Bloomberg confused with John Lindsay. Look, he has a point about Hillary. But the number-one issue in this country is the war, as it will be in 2008 -- and all of the Democrats running, even Hillary, are overwhelmingly superior to everyone in, or likely to be in, the race on the Republican side (with the exception of Hagel, who absolutely has no chance in his party). I'm worried that -- '06 notwithstanding -- it's going to be very, very tough to beat the GOP nominee for president in '08, especially if it's one of the two media darlings, Saint John or Saint Rudy, and/or if the Democratic nominee is Hillary Clinton or Al Gore. I'm worried that Nader will do better than he did in '04 if Hillary's the Democratic nominee (or Gore, for that matter), and it may be '00 all over again. Here's a newsflash: In 2008, after the primaries and the conventions, the number of people on the ballot for president who will actually be able to win will be very, very small. I'm going to take a wild stab in the dark and say the number will be two. Maybe that sucks, but it's reality. It will be imperative to vote for the least wingnutty of these people, in order to minimize the number of horrible, stupid things that will happen in the ensuing four years, especially in foreign policy. And that least wingnutty person might well be Hillary. Ralph, if you're tired of corporate domination of our elections, if you think there are too many restrictions on ballot access, if you're genuinely upset about the war and about possible equally ill-conceived future wars, why don't you take your mailing list and your name recognition and your access to the media and use them to try to do something -- between elections? That would be much better than floating a fantasy every four years that you can someday ride into D.C. on a white horse and make everything all better with a wave of your hand. posted by Steve M. | 10:00 AM | Sunday, February 04, 2007 I've done a bit of blogroll cleanup -- no purges, but I did move Michael Berube's blog to the R.I.P. list. (Come back, we miss you!) In addition, I plugged in new links for Salon's Blog Report (formerly the Daou Report), Eccentricity, The Horse's Mouth, and Steve Gilliard and Jen's News Blog. I'll add some people soon. posted by Steve M. | 11:35 PM | From The New York Times today: In a rare appearance before an audience of Democrats, President Bush said Saturday that he did not question the patriotism of those who disagreed with his Iraq strategy.... "I welcome debate in a time of war, and I hope you know that," Mr. Bush said. "Nor do I consider a belief that if you don't happen to agree with me, you don't share the same sense of patriotism I do. You can get that thought out of your mind if that's what some believe." The president's words were met with applause from House Democrats.... Sorry -- not good enough. When Bush says he's not questioning Democrats' patriotism, he means only that -- that he personally will not go on record saying, "I question their patriotism." What he'll continue to do is to send flunkies out to say that opposition to his plan emboldens the enemy -- i.e., is an act of treason. He'll also fail to condemn members of the right-wing media who do his dirty work for him by questioning the Democrats' patriotism, and he and members of his administration will continue to grant interviews to those right-wing apparatchiks. I don't care how many conciliatory words there were in Bush's speech -- the Democrats should have looked him in the eye and asked him whether he'd vow to condemn anyone who accuses them of treason by saying they help the enemy. I don't think he would have agreed to that. And then we'd know that his nicey-nicey talk is just talk. posted by Steve M. | 1:02 PM | CREDIBILITY: IS THERE A LOWER NUMBER THAN ZERO? Frank Rich today, writing about Dick Cheney's recent CNN interview: The vice president's on-camera crackup reflected his understandable fear that a White House cover-up was crumbling. He knew that sworn testimony in a Washington courtroom would reveal still more sordid details about how the administration lied to take the country into war in Iraq. He knew that those revelations could cripple the White House's current campaign to escalate that war and foment apocalyptic scenarios about Iran. I guess most of you would agree with this, but I don't. I think the administration's credibility with regard to how it justified the war was completely, utterly shot well before the trial began (except among dogged Bush loyalists), and nothing that's come out (or that will come out) can sink the Bushies' reputation any lower. On the other hand, nothing short of the removal from office of Bush and Cheney is going to stop these guys if they want to attack Iran -- they'll bypass a funding cutoff by sneaking money out of some other budget if that's what it takes, they'll use the Israelis as proxies ... whatever. If they want to do this, they'll do it. Maybe the military can prevail upon them to back off; maybe bad polls will stop them, or howls of agony from congressional Republicans who fear that more war will make 2008 even worse for them than 2006. But none of that is going to be the result of what comes out in the Libby trial. Their credibility is already shot. posted by Steve M. | 11:34 AM | I dunno -- is it just me? This takes up nearly a whole op-ed page in today's print New York Times. It's a brief summary of the reported death toll in Iraq in January accompanying a humongous chart. Do you get anything out of that chart -- I mean, apart from "Wow, there really were a hell of a lot of people killed in Iraq in January"? People sneer at USA Today for its charts, but there's frequently a massive, useless graphic on the Times op-ed page, especially on Sunday. Why? Ten gazillion bloggers out there and the Times can't find enough people to write interesting commentary? posted by Steve M. | 10:15 AM | Saturday, February 03, 2007  I'm back in New Blogger. Wow, that took only minutes -- I read some horror stories from other Blogger graybeards, but I guess that billion-dollar quarterly profit means Google can now make this happen in less than half a day. ...Er, except I lost all the archive links in the sidebar. Anybody know how to restore those? (I think Roger Ailes said this happened to him, too.) posted by Steve M. | 11:48 PM | I think I'm going to try to get this puppy over to New! Improved! Blogger sometime later tonight. Wish me luck. posted by Steve M. | 5:22 PM | DE-LINKED BY ATRIOS Oh, hell, I'm whining. I shouldn't do that. Wrong side of the bed this morning. posted by Steve M. | 1:08 PM | Terror came to Boston this week. I'm sure most of you will never forget exactly where you were when you learned about the utterly harmless Aqua Teen Hunger Force viral ads -- so here's a tribute to those who warned us that the end was near (even though it wasn't), sung to the tune of an Alan Jackson classic. Where were you when the Lite-Brites were blinking on that January morn? Were you listenin' to Limbaugh while eatin' some Cheetos or using Coulter pictures as porn? Did you think that the evildoers finally won? Did you blame some appeaseniks from France? Did a cartoon character giving the finger Cause you to soil your pants? Chorus: You're dumber than a box of rocks. For you that's a point of pride. If someone owns a Koran, you think we should kill 'em just to be on the safe side. You thought that The Big One had fin'lly arrived but it was only some hipster with dreads. We'll sound the all clear now, there's no need to fear now -- you can come out from under the bed. Where were you when the Lite-Brites were blinking... (spoken:) In your parents' basement, as usual.  (Image via TBogg.) posted by Steve M. | 11:41 AM | Friday, February 02, 2007 Sorry -- busy day today. I'll be back tomorrow. Or you could just reread the Super Bowl post (screw it, I like that one). posted by Steve M. | 11:14 PM | Greetings, Atrios comments readers. The Super Bowl recommendations are here. (Thanks, FL.) posted by Steve M. | 10:47 AM | Hmmmm -- this doesn't sound good: ...Snow ranging in colour from light yellow to orange and carrying a distinctive "musty" odour was observed Wednesday in five districts of Omsk province, which lies in western Siberia and borders Kazakhstan, ITAR-TASS said. "Residents are advised not to use snow for their household or technical needs and to limit walking, either by people or their pets, in this area," the official said.... The Omsk province is known as a centre of the oil industry and the provincial capital is among Siberia's largest cities. Ah, but I'm sure that even if a panel made up of scientists and representatives of more than a hundred governments were to conclude that human activity changed the color of this snow, we'd be assured that we were falling victim to a massive propaganda assault, and multiple Drudge-touted books would assure us that it was all perfectly natural. Those who detected the involvement of humans would be compared to Osama bin Laden. Maybe the American Enterprise Institute would even try to bribe scientists so they'd say it was perfectly natural. posted by Steve M. | 10:46 AM | The headline is "FOX News Poll: Voters Most Comfortable With Rudy Giuliani as President," but I think Fox buries the lede: When voters are asked to name which candidate would be toughest on terrorism, Clinton (16 percent) edges Giuliani (15 percent) and McCain (15 percent) for the top spot.... Wow. Also, 53 percent say they would be "comfortable" with a Hillary Clinton presidency. (Haven't Dick Morris, Joe Klein, Chris Matthews, Don Imus, and Mickey Kaus been telling us that number is zero?) And: Overall, when looking at just those saying they would be "extremely" comfortable, it is Clinton who tops the list with 12 percent compared to 8 percent for Giuliani, 6 percent McCain, 6 percent Obama, 4 percent Edwards and 1 percent Romney. As I've said before, I have very mixed feelings about Hillary. But I'm sick of hearing that she makes everyone's skin crawl. She doesn't. That's an allergic reaction felt by a minority of Americans, and those people should consider seeking professional help. posted by Steve M. | 10:44 AM | Thursday, February 01, 2007 WE RECRUIT (INEPTLY) So I guess I'm going to miss out on a wonderful opportunity on Sunday because I don't live in a red state: I'm not going to be invited to a "Super Bowl Watch Party" planned according to this guidebook.  It was written by Tim B. Knopps of the Timothy Institute of Evangelism in Oklahoma City -- and even though it's geared toward the Super Bowl, it's not exactly muscular Christianity. Some inspiring highlights from the text: A Super Bowl Watch Party goes like this: * Get a bunch of people together * Watch a football game * Eat a lot of food * Scream and holler, laugh and giggle and have a great time * Tell people about Jesus "Giggle"? That doesn't sound quite right. A Super Bowl Watch Party is just the occasion you need to tell people about Jesus. Everyone is having great time, the atmosphere is exciting and the next thing you know someone is sharing how great it is to be a believer. Oh yeah -- that's an inevitable progression, isn't it? Not only are we "Evangelicals" but also "Eat'ngelicals". We love to eat on Sundays! Ouch. Use your food as evangelism touch points. Use a computer to print "Jesus Loves you" on labels, and then wrap them around toothpicks. Use them as little flags on all your cupcakes or Hors d'oeuvre. Cupcakes that have little toothpick flags in them. And this complements brutal ritualized violence how exactly? Have things that people can take home with them. Gifts and prizes, trinkets and treasures are all good, but even more important are the witnessing pieces that they take home too. Acquire the best quality of witnessing materials that you can find. Get familiar with it and use it during the party. If you can, have a paperback New Testament available to give to those that make a decision for Christ at the event. People like to leave the party with their hands full. Trinkets? Refer back to the previous question. Balloons, balloons and balloons. One of my Evangelistic Watch Party mottos is "You can't share Jesus too many times, and you can't have too many balloons". Your party locations should be a bastion of balloons with the colors of the competing Super Bowl teams. Each time a team scores, have their fans go pop one of the balloons of the other team. If you have lots, let them pop one for each point! ( Hat pins optional ! ) Tim, how old are you? Do you still live with your mother? Use commercials, half-time and pre/post game shows as opportunities to do Evangelism. Sharing your story or play a NFL player's testimony on the DVD or Tape player. Lay out witnessing material in places that they will be picked up and read. Invite your guests to come to Church with you next Sunday. OK -- enough. I'm assured -- by Baptist Press, by Florida Baptist Witness -- that this stuff really reels 'em in for Jesus. Me, I'd rather be trapped in an elevator for three hours. With Joe Biden. **** Right-wing Christians get all worked up about the notion that gay people "recruit," but I sure don't know any gay people who "recruit" this way. Can you imagine gay people doing something like this? Can you imagine gay men holding an Oscar party and inviting straight guys to come and learn all about gayness? Cooking up a whole bunch of food, leaving gay porn around in prominent places, having "quiet rooms" where gay men can "witness" and the straight guys can learn to see the Truth of the Gay Way? It would probably be about as successful as these Super Bowl parties. posted by Steve M. | 10:40 PM | ALL HEART Amount sick Ground Zero workers and Lower Manhattan residents have sought from the federal government for medical care related to 9/11 toxin exposure: $1.9 billion. Amount President Bush has now, with great fanfare, promised to provide: $25 million. For the math-impaired, that's 1.3% of what was sought. And it's just a promise. I wonder if there'll be backtracking from even this, as there was not long after 9/11. Recall this Paul Krugman column from 2003: Immediately after 9/11 there was a great national outpouring of sympathy for New York, and a natural inclination to provide generous help. President Bush quickly promised $20 billion, and everyone expected the federal government to assume the burden of additional security. Yet hard-line Republicans never wanted to help the stricken city. Indeed, according to an article by Michael Tomasky in New York magazine, Senators Phil Gramm and Don Nickles attempted to slash aid to New York within hours of Mr. Bush's promise. Matters were patched up sufficiently so Mr. Bush could make his triumphant appearance at ground zero the next day. But then the backtracking began. By February 2002, only a fraction of the promised funds had been allocated -- and Mitch Daniels, the White House budget director, accused New York's lawmakers of playing "money-grubbing games."... In the end, New York seems to have gotten its $20 billion -- barely. As for the additional help everyone expected: don't get me started. There wasn't a penny of federal aid for "first responders" -- like those firefighters and police officers who cheered Mr. Bush at ground zero -- until a few months ago, and much of it went to sparsely populated states.... I don't know if this is going to be much help for sick Ground Zero workers, but it certainly seems to be helping Bush here in New York. The Daily News has a front-page story written by the son of a former NYPD officer who worked at Ground Zero and died of pulmonary fibrosis on the night of the State of the Union address; Ceasar Borja Jr. seems to believe Bush's assurances that "It's only a beginning. It's just a beginning." ("Everything I had hoped for came true," Borja says.) Oh, and the local media is making much of the fact that Bush wrote an absence note for Ceasar's 12-year-old sister, who also met with Bush. Awwwww! There's no reference in Borja's story to how far short the Bush promise falls. The New York Times story on the Bush meeting relegates the disappointment of other victims and their relatives to the final paragraphs. So this was a PR win for Bush. Well, no surprise there. The Bushies can't do anything else right, but they still know how to stage a photo op. **** And speaking of photos, thumbs up to the White House propagandists for getting a photo of Bush hugging Ed Koch, with David Dinkins looking on, onto the front page of The New York Times. This is aimed straight at New York-based journalists and pundits: See? Unlike those ideologue meanie Pelosista Democrats, Bush is reaching out across party lines, just the way he did in Texas. Er, no he isn't. He's hugging Democrats. Hugging's easy. Actually working with political opponents is hard. And Koch, of course, actually endorsed Bush, so his willingness to be used for this photo isn't surprising. I don't know what on earth Dinkins was thinking, but he was always too damn gracious for his own good. Wonder where Rudy was. posted by Steve M. | 12:53 PM | ABC CALLS ON POT TO OFFER EXPERT COMMENTARY ON KETTLE Why is ABC News quoting Rush Limbaugh's comments on Joe Biden without telling us anything about Limbaugh's own past remarks? Immediately the conservative media establishment -- Rush Limbaugh, the Drudge Report, bloggers -- publicly pounced.... "'He is a clean African-American'?" Limbaugh asked. "If Biden thinks that Obama is clean then he has to think that others are not clean. Does he mean that he knows that Jesse Jackson is not clean? Does he mean that he knows that Reverend Sharpton is not clean? ... See, folks, this is the problem for the libs. Once they get off script they expose their idiocy, they expose their prejudice." (Video version here.) A lot of you know where I'm going with this, but for everyone else, here goes: ...Limbaugh chastised the media for overrating Philadelphia Eagles quarterback Donovan McNabb. According to Limbaugh, reporters have been soft on McNabb because they are "very desirous that a black quarterback do well. There's interest in black quarterbacks and coaches doing well." Limbaugh added that McNabb, who has been voted by his fellow players to the Pro Bowl three times, is not "as good as everyone says he has been."... As a young broadcaster in the 1970s, Limbaugh once told a black caller: "Take that bone out of your nose and call me back." A decade ago, after becoming nationally syndicated, he mused on the air: "Have you ever noticed how all composite pictures of wanted criminals resemble Jesse Jackson?" ... here is Limbaugh's mocking take on the NAACP, a group with a ninety-year commitment to nonviolence: "The NAACP should have riot rehearsal. They should get a liquor store and practice robberies." When Carol Moseley-Braun (D-IL) was in the U.S. Senate, the first black woman ever elected to that body, Limbaugh would play the "Movin' On Up" theme song from TV's "Jeffersons" when he mentioned her. Limbaugh sometimes still uses mock dialect -- substituting "ax" for "ask"-- when discussing black leaders.... And, more recently: LIMBAUGH: Hey, Barack Obama has picked up another endorsement: Halfrican American actress Halle Berry. "As a Halfrican American, I am honored to have Ms. Berry's support, as well as the support of other Halfrican Americans," Obama said. He didn't say it, but -- anyway, there are those out there -- greetings. Oh, and: LIMBAUGH: The new Survivor is actually a race between races, ladies and gentlemen. It premieres on September 14th. They're going to pit four tribes of people against each other: the African-American tribe, the Asian-American tribe, the Hispanic tribe, and the white tribe.... people at CBS, behind the scenes, who just have heard about this, sort of scratch their heads -- say, "What the hell are we doing? What are we going to do -- the swimming portion, how is that going to be fair?" ...our early money is on [the Hispanic tribe] anyway, because these people have shown a remarkable ability, ladies and gentlemen, to cross borders, boundaries -- they get anywhere they want to go. They can do it without water for a long time. They don't get apprehended, and they will do things other people won't do. ... The African-American tribe, tough to handicap on this one, because you just -- it's -- it's -- there are many characteristics here that you would think give them the lead and the heads up in terms of skill and athleticism and so forth. The Asians, as I say -- the brainiacs of the bunch.... Yeah, good call, ABC, to get that guy's quote in there. posted by Steve M. | 8:03 AM | |
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