FAILING SYMBOLISM 101

Hey, Move America Forward: When you dress up a monkey in a camouflage shirt and put a white flag in its hand, doesn't that sort of suggest you're calling the troops surrender monkeys, not the Democrats?



Story:

LAS VEGAS -- Protesters on both sides of the Iraq war debate rallied Thursday outside Senate Majority Leader Harry Reid's district office, where Reid supporters waved American flags and his opponents gathered around a trained monkey dressed in fatigues and holding a white flag.

"That's what they are -- cheese-eating surrender monkeys," said Steven Saul, a conservative talk show host in Las Vegas, referring to a label for Reid and House Speaker Nancy Pelosi, D-Calif., popular with conservative pundits.

The protest of about a dozen people and a "surrender monkey" named Hobo was organized by the Sacramento-based Move America Forward, a group of military families and administration supporters dedicated to countering anti-war activism....

Oh, and "cheese-eating surrender monkeys," besides really having passed its sell-by date as a joke, doesn't quite work in reference to a guy whose from Nevada rather than France. But hey, feel free to use stale, played-out, misapplied material as much as you want, if that's what you think will win converts to your side.

Ah, but I shouldn't criticize you guys -- you got an AP story out, and prominent placement on the Fox News Web site, for a demonstration with a whopping dozen people. Then again, Move America Forward practically is the vast right-wing conspiracy all by itself, so that's no surprise.

As phleabo notes in the comments to an earlier post, we can probably stop talking about the pan-ideological appeal of a Bloomberg-Hagel '08 ticket:

Gun giveaway thumbs nose at NYC mayor

ANNANDALE, Va. -- Openly armed firearms enthusiasts packed a normally sedate government building, hoping to win a pistol or rifle and at the same time send a defiant message to gun-control advocates, especially New York Mayor Michael Bloomberg.

The Virginia Citizens Defense League, a gun-rights group, organized the "Bloomberg Gun Giveaway" in large part to thumb its nose at Bloomberg, who accuses some shops of allowing illegal purchases of firearms that later were used in crimes in his city.

The city has filed federal lawsuits against more than two dozen shops, including six in Virginia....

A Bloomberg third-party run will take votes away from the Democrat -- period.

By the way, just for the record, I'm looking at 2005 crime statistics (per 100,000 population) for New York State and Virginia. New York has a higher rate of robbery and aggravated assault. Virginia, however, has a higher rate of murder, rape, burglary, larceny/theft, and vehicle theft. Choose your poison, I guess.

Atrios about an hour ago:

Gergen Says Abu G Will Go

"Sooner rather than later," he just said on CNN. That's his opinion, of course, but Gergen is the mouthpiece of the Republican faction of the Wise Old Men of Washington.

Well, maybe, and a Friday (probably at about 7:15 in the evening) would be the perfect time.

On the other hand, David Gergen may be speaking not from inside knowledge, but rather from a sense that this is how Washington works -- once the embarrassment and shame of a scandal hit a certain level, the president simply has to cut the guy loose.

In which case Gergen is utterly clueless about the current president, even after six-plus years, because the current president is incapable of embarrassment or shame.

Especially now that neither Bush nor Cheney will never run for anything again, and now that no midterm election cycle will be a referendum on them, Bush responds to every outraged demand with "Nyah-nyah! You can't make me!" I could be wrong, but I think that's going to be his response with regard to Gonzales until 1/20/09.

FRED THOMPSON: PLAYING TO THE CHEAP SEATS

I actually think Peggy Noonan is on to something here:

...Fred Thompson ... is running a great campaign. It's just not a declared campaign.... It has been going on for months and is aimed at the major pleasure zones of the Republican brain. In a series of pointed columns, commentaries and podcasts, Mr. Thompson has been talking about things conservatives actually talk about. Shouldn't homeowners have the right to own a gun? Isn't it bad that colleges don't teach military history? How about that Sarkozy--good news, isn't it? Did you see Tenet on Russert? His book sounds shallow, tell-all-y.

These comments and opinions are being read and forwarded in Internet Nation. They are revealing and interesting, but they're not heavy, not homework. They have an air of "This is the sound of a candidate thinking."

OK, she lost me with that last one. This is not the sound of a candidate thinking. This is the sound of a candidate pandering.

But, of course, that means it just might work.

Here's some of that Thompson commentary on military history in college:

If you went to college in the sixties, like I did, you might not know how much higher education has changed since then. Universities today are different places. At Vanderbilt, where I got my law degree, I hear you can take courses in third wave feminism or colonial governmentality.

Your guess is as good as mine.

On the other hand, some of the courses that we took for granted aren't around at all. One area of study that's almost disappeared from universities today is military history -- the history of warfare.

Er, Fred? In the spring semester at Vanderbilt this year, you can take the following Military Science courses: Basic Leadership, American Military History: Principles of War, Leadership & Ethics, and Officership. The History Department is offering Sea Power in History and the History of World War II -- and I suspect the undergraduate seminar on the U.S. Occupation of Japan has a few lessons regarding what America's military is tasked with these days. And while we're on this subject, did you take a lot of military history as an undergrad? Or do you just think it's good for other people?

Fred's not thinking. Fred's just looking for clever, smart-seeming ways to press wingnut hot buttons by attacking easy targets, a number of which are made of straw.

As for Peggy, she's wrong about this, too:

Is he anything beyond a standard Republican conservative? Will he have anything beyond a Mideast policy that consists of win in Iraq, support the surge, and oppose any timetable? ... On domestic issues, can Mr. Thompson go beyond standard conservative thought?

... He'll have to show he's not just a rote, pro forma conservative--a dumb conservative....

No, he won't. He won't need to do any of that to get traction with Republicans -- or with the mainstream press. All he'll have to do is show that he's not Hitlery or Obambi or the Breck Girl or Ozone Man -- and that he might have enough mojo to win.

I think he does have mojo. My only question about him is whether his gee-whiz-aw-shucks Reagan imitation is really enough to get him through the GOP primaries in a post-9/11 world. Right now, it seems, Republicans want X-Treme Reagan -- a Reagan who can turn into Jack Bauer. (Please note: I'm talking about affect, not effectiveness. The base wants someone who talks tough. Being able to do something tough with any effectiveness is not necessary -- see Bush's poll numbers among Republicans.)

Can Thompson make voters think he's nice, nasty, and a winner? I wonder. Giuliani seems to have a lot of people believing all that about him, and McCain and Romney are working on it. Thompson might overdo the Reagan and fail to give the voters enough overt nastiness. That would doom his campaign.

But the pandering will help him get close.

Rush Limbaugh and White House spokesman Tony Snow talking about immigration yesterday on Limbaugh's radio show:

RUSH: ... Tony, I've always thought it was a miscalculation, a mistake for Republicans of any stripe, to think that these people are going to become Republicans because we do nice things like this legislation. Simpson-Mazzoli did grant amnesty, as you say, in 1986.

SNOW: Yup.

RUSH: Those people didn't become Republican voters.

SNOW: Well, what I'm saying is somebody who comes here to work and work hard and share in the American dream, they can become Republican voters. We oughta be out there, frankly, doing what you do every day, Rush, which is tell the people exactly how great this country is and the values that make it great...

Yeah, that's right -- if Republicans want to win over new immigrants from Latin America, they should be doing what Limbaugh does every day. Because what better outreach could there be than fine broadcast moments like this (MP3)?

Pablo, I got some great news -- you're no longer an illegal!

No?

No!

(Sings:) You're our guest worker, yes
Put our country to the test
Tie a noose around our neck, ole!
And we'll do all the rest
Why, mi casa is yours
(Don't forget to mop the floors)
Guacamole is delicious
(I can't stand your other dishes)
Time to sing, time to dance
Someday we'll be like France
You're a voting bloc, that's why I love you best
And we don't dare offend you
You snuck in and so
Be our guest worker, yes,
You're our guest...

That's a song by Limbaugh song parodist Paul Shanklin, from his album American Spastic. It appeared on the show in May of last year. (The voice is supposed to be John McCain.)

Yeah, stuff like that is a great way to win hearts and minds, Tony.

(Limbaugh quote via Too Sense.)

****

UPDATE: Ripley in comments directs us to this video. Limbaugh's immigration rant starts at about 3:10. It's even nastier than the audio clip I posted.

GIULIANI'S RICH? WOW! WHO'DA THUNK?

New York Times today:

Mr. Giuliani's $30 million fortune is the most unexpected information to emerge from the disclosure forms so far.

Hunh? To whom is this "unexpected"?

Here's the Chicago Tribune this past February:

Since he left office, Giuliani has leveraged his image as "America's mayor" to his decided financial advantage and in ways that belie his man-of-the-people persona.

He commands $100,000 for a speech, not including expenses, which his star-struck clients are happily willing to pay.

...in his 2002 divorce filing, Giuliani estimated his annual income from public speaking at $8 million. The divorce filing also shows that Giuliani was to receive a $2.7 million advance to write his best-selling book, "Leadership," and a second book.

And here's The Nation last fall:

Conventional wisdom, encouraged by Giuliani Partners insiders, holds that the firm made around $100 million a year, or more than $2 million per employee.... His settlement with his former wife, Donna Hanover, in the summer of 2002 called for him to pay her $6.8 million over three years as well as child support. Hanover's lawyers estimated that Giuliani's income in 2002 was $20 million, a little more than half from speaking fees and book advances.... [He purchased] a $4 million summer house in the Hamptons for himself and Judy Nathan, whom he married in 2003. The couple also have an apartment on Manhattan's East Side worth more than $5 million....

And here's Newsday a year ago:

A year ago, Rudolph Giuliani added his name to the venerable Houston law firm Bracewell & Patterson....

As part of the deal, the former mayor has been guaranteed about $10 million, with some money paid to him directly and some paid to Giuliani Partners to compensate for his time spent at the new firm, according to sources familiar with the transaction...

This is news to The New York Times?

MORE ON FALWELL

Christopher Hitchens to CNN's Anderson Cooper on Tuesday night:

Who would, even at your network, have invited on such a little toad to tell us that the attacks of September the 11th were the result of our sinfulness and were God's punishment if they hadn't got some kind of clerical qualification?

Er, here, from January, is Dinesh D'Souza; he thinks liberals were responsible for 9/11. (He's a guest of CNN's Glenn Beck; he thinks liberals are responsible for all the other evils in the world.) How is what D'Souza says materially different from what Falwell said? And D'Souza hasn't got some kind of clerical qualification. Of course CNN would invite someone who made a statement like this who wasn't a preacher. Like D'Souza, such a person would almost certainly have a book to promote, and CNN would be happy to oblige.

(And yeah, I know -- Hitchypoo isn't upset because Falwell suggests that God would direct his wrath at people like me. Hitchypoo is upset because Falwell suggests that God would direct his wrath at people like himself.)

****

Meanwhile, I see that rightists (and not-so-rightists) are in a tizzy about some of the indelicate reactions to Falwell's death. The Populist on Tuesday:

...to bash a dead man to the point of just being vile, is just plain disgusting and wrong, and totally reprehensible. ... My Point is this, Just because you don't like someone or disagree with his Political stance or Religious Beliefs, it does not give you a license to be uncivil and asinine.

Michael van der Galien at the Moderate Voice, shortly afterward:

I agree completely: some of the comments I read were highly insensitive, rude and, yes, even hateful. Ironically enough, that's exactly what those same people say about Falwell.

Many of them are not much 'better' than Falwell: they are just two sides of the same coin.

Cadillac Tight on Tuesday:

Note the glee at Democratic Underground concerning Falwell's death, and contrast it to most conservative commentary on the death of Molly Ivins. Then tell me the left doesn't have a rage problem.

OK, let's take Point #1: "to bash a dead man to the point of just being vile, is just plain disgusting and wrong, and totally reprehensible." Is that an absolute rule? Speak no ill of anyone who's dead? Let's see: David Duke is going to die someday, isn't he? (Warning: that's a link to his Web site.) Are we not allowed to say bad things about him when he croaks, "Just because [we] don't like [him] or disagree with his Political stance or Religious Beliefs" -- even if it's clear to us that Falwell hated gay people and feminists and liberals in a way that's indistinguishable from Duke's hatred of non-whites and Jews? (And Falwell said nasty things about blacks and Jews, too.) So -- absolute prohibition on speaking ill of the dead, or is there any leeway for hate? What are the rules here? Do we have nice about Duke, too?

The blogger at Cadillac Tight has a point: many right-wingers do try to say nice things when an ideological enemy dies or becomes seriously ill. This is followed in short order, however, by other right-wingers pointing out how much more polite right-wingers are than left-wingers. The righties aren't morally superior; the righties are acting morally superior. I read more right-wing Web sites than most people on the left, and the subtext of every "Pray for the family" remark at the passing of a liberal is "Look at me! Look at what a good person I am! I despised this person, but I wish his/her family well! (Oh, and I do it by invoking religion -- not like those religion-hating liberals!)" It's a slick act, but I don't buy it. It's done just so it can thrown in my face.

And why even fake civility for a hatemonger anyway?

HILLARY

I defend her and Bill against people who think they're a two-headed antichrist, but I can't help rolling my eyes at silly stuff like this:

Add another consultant to the list of those advising Senator Hillary Rodham Clinton: John Kao, a corporate communications consultant who is based in San Francisco and advocates using the techniques of musical improvisation to get the creative juices flowing and leave competitors in the dust.

...The two met in 2004 as part of a Defense Department advisory group to help the military think creatively about "transformation," leadership and other issues.

Mr. Kao, who has taught at Harvard Business School, is the author of "Jamming: The Art and Discipline of Corporate Creativity," in which he explains how members of a work team can adapt the principles of improvisational music to collaborate at a higher, more creative level, a process he calls "getting to cool."

In his "transformation manifesto," Mr. Kao suggests hiring a "chief destruction officer" instead of a "chief innovation officer." ...

First of all: "getting to cool"? I'm cringing. I don't care if you once personally tied off John Coltrane, if you teach at Harvard Business School, or you're a top executive at a corporation, you are not cool. You will never be cool.

This doesn't mean that you can't pick up something about letting go of rigidity from thinking about jazz improvisation. Too bad Hillary hasn't managed to do that -- for 70 grand, you'd think Kao might have succeeded in getting her to loosen up even the slightest bit.

(Unlike the right-wing crazies, I don't think Hillary's careful aversion to spontaneity is a sign of dishonesty, much less of pure evil. I just think she's unnecessarily cautious. But it's a thing she's criticized for a lot, and it really could hurt her in the general election -- presidential candidates who didn't seem as if they could loosen up include Dukakis, Gore, and Kerry -- and so if she's working with a big-bucks consultant whose expertise is allegedly precisely that, why not pump him for some ideas?)

Kao's Defense Department connection intrigues me. What was Rumsfeld paying this guy? And for what? To tell Pentagon careerists they need to loosen up and jam? This was happening under Rumsfeld, the micromanager's manager?

(Maybe they wanted new tunes to play at maximum volume to prisoners who were chained naked in air-conditioning and not allowed to sleep. Anyone know if our jailers have worked Ornette Coleman's Free Jazz into the mix?)

By the way, the Amazon reviews of Jamming are decidedly mixed:

The jazz metaphore flags, the cheerleader-like tones grow monotonous, the new-age recommendations are laughable, and the lack of research is deplorable....

*****

I wasted my time & money on this book!

*****

Also, it is unclear (at least to me) how anyone can proceed from various general ideas in Jamming to specific applications of them in the business world. For example, "Success depends on your ability to infuse, imbue, and instill a respect for and belief in the power of creativity throughout your organization." O.K. but how? "The first step in making your company a happening place [sic] is to kick out the crutches that support a creativity-deadening culture." O.K. but how? ... At one point, Kao quotes Jerry Welch, a former American Express executive: "The most important precondition for creativity is to believe in it." O.K. but then what?

The Clintons, alas, sometimes fall for gurus -- Bill has hung out with both Anthony Robbins and Stephen Covey, respectively the self-styled "world's number one success coach!" and the author of The 7 Habits of Highly Effective People. I'd rather have people with gimmicky notions of how to make personal breakthroughs advising the president of the United States than apocalypse-craving Evangelicals ... but it's a close call.

****

(No disrespect meant above for John Coltrane or Ornette Coleman. To make up for that, I'll direct you to this.)

NO THIRD TERM

Read these excerpts from Ann Althouse's summary of a Giuliani conference call with bloggers and tell me a Giuliani presidency wouldn't be a third Bush-Cheney term:

...[Democrats] don't understand "the nature of the Islamist threat." They'll never even say "Islamist terrorism threat" when they talk about terrorism: "They can't get the words out."

... Giuliani emphasized that he has been studying Islam and Islamic terrorism since the 1970s when he was in the Ford administration, and he knows that the reason they hate us is because of our freedom....

... He said that the question [in last night's debate] was about the definition of torture as contrasted with "enhanced techniques" or "aggressive techniques." His view is that we should figure out exactly where the line is and go right up to it....

A Giuliani would be just like the last six years, only without the brush-clearing.

From the latest Gallup poll:



(Click the image to enlarge.)

Er, folks? Why are the numbers for McCain and Giuliani going up among Democrats? These numbers are going to go down soon ... aren't they?

I don't care if you'd rather have a freaking beer with John or Rudy than Hillary. Resist the siren song, dammit. Otherwise -- as I'm constantly trying to tell you -- don't be surprised on January 20, 2009, when a new Republican president is being sworn in.

JUST WONDERING

May 2004:

...On May 8, top Bush political adviser Karl Rove will be the featured speaker at graduation ceremonies at [Jerry] Falwell's Liberty University in Lynchburg, Va.

...The Liberty U. press release quotes Falwell as saying, "I have known Karl Rove for many years and I am greatly impressed with his wisdom, dedication to President Bush and his love for Jesus Christ." ...

May 2007 interview with Christopher Hitchens:

Has anyone in the Bush administration confided in you about being an atheist?

... Karl Rove is not a believer, and he doesn't shout it from the rooftops, but when asked, he answers quite honestly. I think the way he puts it is, "I'm not fortunate enough to be a person of faith."

So which one is lying here?

IS IT MY BREATH?

One comment so far today. I would have thought something I posted in the past 12 hours or so was worthy of remarking on. Apparently not. What am I doing wrong?

****

UPDATE: Thanks, everyone, for the kind words. And yeah, the recent awfulness of Haloscan is a big part of the problem (I can't get in myself right now).

SATIRE VS. REALITY

Not much difference, really:

"Sure, he has no foreign or national policy experience, and both his personal life and political career are riddled with scandal," said [Washington-based political analyst Gregory] Hammond. "But in the key area of having been on TV on 9/11, the other candidates simply cannot match him...."

--"Giuliani to Run for President of 9/11," The Onion, February 21, 2007

This [applause] is the response Giuliani gets at the slightest mention of his role on 9/11, something no other candidate can match.

--Mara Liasson on NPR this morning

SYNERGY

Awfully clever of Fox News to use last night's GOP debate to insert a subtle but lengthy plug-by-implication for the Fox broadcast network's most popular prime-time drama -- which, what do you know, just so happens to have its two-hour season finale coming up next Monday.

From the debate transcript:

MR. HUME: ...The questions in this round will be premised on a fictional, but we think plausible scenario involving terrorism and the response to it. Here is the premise: Three shopping centers near major U.S. cities have been hit by suicide bombers. Hundreds are dead, thousands injured. A fourth attack has been averted when the attackers were captured off the Florida coast and taken to Guantanamo Bay, where they are being questioned. U.S. intelligence believes that another larger attack is planned and could come at any time.

First question to you, Senator McCain. How aggressively would you interrogate those being held at Guantanamo Bay for information about where the next attack might be? ...

This went on, of course, for some time. Waterboarding was praised. Mitt Romney advocated "double Guantanamo."

The ticking-bomb scenario is a porn fantasy for right-wingers, needly to say; they deeply desire a scenario in which they can put all moral qualms aside and really hurt someone. Brit Hume was playing to the GOP base. But he was also providing a free ad for 24. Nice one, Rupert.

Oh, and I enjoyed all the wide shots of the stage, especially when the TV monitors at either end of the screen flashed Fox's "You Decide" campaign logo.

Can't wait to see what Murdoch does with The Wall Street Journal.

****

I said at the time of the Fort Dix arrests that "we'll ... hear that this proves that 'we have to fight them over there so we don't have to fight them over here,' even though we are fighting them over there and these guys are here anyway." As it turns out, that's exactly what we heard last night from Giuliani.

McCain had said, "If we fail in Iraq, we will see Iraq become a center for al Qaeda, chaos, genocide in the region, and they'll follow us home," and Giuliani picked up on the theme:

And I think Senator McCain is correct, these people do want to follow us here and they have followed us here. Fort Dix happened a week ago.

But, Rudy, we're in Iraq and these guys plotted against us anyway. So they didn't "follow us home," they preceded us home.

****

And yeah, I guess Giuliani got his mojo back in that exchange with Ron Paul. I'm sorry to see that. Taylor Marsh may think Paul won that exchange, but this was a debate aimed at Republicans, and they're loving it -- go here and here, for instance. The Washington Post's Chris Cillizza, who's not a right-winger, was also impressed -- but he gets the award for the absolute dumbest post-debate line:

It was a rare moment of raw emotion for Giuliani, and a good one.

"A rare moment of raw emotion for Giuliani"? That's like saying "a rare moment of egomaniacal bombast for Donald Trump," or "a rare moment of inappropriate taste for Britney Spears."

FALWELL MUSIC

I've posted this before, but today seems the obvious day to post it again: go here and click on the MP3 icon to here to listen to Robin and Crystal Bernard singing "The Monkey Song" and "The Ecumenical Movement" on Jerry Falwell's radio show in 1972. Falwell calls "The Monkey Song" an "answer to the ridiculous theory of evolution":

I'm not kin to the monkey, no no no
The monkey's no kin to me, yeah yeah yeah
I don't know much about his ancestors
but mine didn't swing from a tree....

"The Ecumenical Movement" answers the question "Can we all get along?" with a resounding "No":

We hear a lot of talk about
The ecumenical movement
They say that we should get together
And all be one big family
Catholic, Protestant and Jew
Buddhist, Moslem and Hindu
I guess they want the devil too
In the ecumenical movement....

Oh yeah, Jerry, we'll really miss you.

NOT ONLY THAT, AL QAEDA IN IRAQ WAS BEHIND ALL OF SANJAYA'S WINS ON AMERICAN IDOL!!!!!

This is posted at Little Green Footballs -- and it's being treated as deadly serious:

Muslims Secretly Organizing to Dominate YouTube

A reader who wishes to remain anonymous has forwarded a YouTube message he received, from a Muslim YouTube member who’s organizing a private group to promote Islamic videos and suppress criticism of Islam:

From: ...
Date: May 14, 2007, 11:18 AM
Subject: salam

to all muslim brothers and sisters please read

Our Islamic videos will not get full attention unless they come in the top ranked videos in youtube. For this purpose we all Muslims have to rate the videos to 5 stars and have to add them to our favorites. This will not be achieved if we Muslim Youtubers are scattered, i.e., one muslim rating one video and other muslim rating another. So we have to be highly organized. We will do a massive campaign of focusing to rate a single video collectively at once, so that it can show up on the top videos at least in the “Today’s top videos” list.

Doing this job in an open broadcast or in a public group is not a good idea. So it should be done in a private group. I have made the private group with the name: Burn the Boats. The group URL is in accordance to its goal as:

http://www.youtube.com/group/actnow

...Do not send this message to any person who you doubt if he is Muslim or not. Any brother/sister who wants an invitation to the group, he can send me a short personal message.

JazakAllah.

OMFG!!! And the group, we're told has 131 members. 131!!! That's 20 more members than Cowboy Troy's Hick Chick Video Contest group!!!!! That's two-thirds as many members as the White Castle Craver Video Contest group!!!!!!!! "So this isn’t just a couple of people in their basements," LGF warns us, ominously.

WE'RE DOOMED!!!!!!!!

RUDY'S "MOMMY"

You know what really leaps out at me in this New York magazine profile of Rudy Giuliani's wife? The part about food:

A former associate of Giuliani's from the days when he was a mob-busting federal prosecutor says, "... He absolutely adores her. He doesn't need the expensive Brioni suits she has him wear, or the fancy food she has him eat. He was a cheeseburger-and-martini guy. But Rudy defers to her."

...Before they were married, he indulged her desire to dine regularly at Le Cirque even though the heavy cuisine tended to make him queasy. "It was almost required daily, going to Le Cirque for dinner, and Rudy used to throw up afterward, because the food was so rich," says a witness. "But she wanted to go, because it was the place to be seen, and the treatment by Sirio [Maccioni, the owner] was incredible."

Wait a minute. This is the guy who's going to take terrorism and personally kick its ass -- but he can't tell his own bride-to-be that the food at her favorite restaurant is making him physically ill?

And she's a nurse, right? A steady diet of food that sickened him didn't strike her as a bad idea? Especially if (as I suspect) this was when he was undergoing treatment for cancer?

****

Well, we'll see what the reaction to Judi G. is in the months to come, particularly on the right. But I wonder what right-wingers' reaction would be to a Democratic candidate who was in a marriage like this:

[A] friend added, "I think Rudy’s the one that's sabotaging her. He's out of control. There's too much hand-holding and kissing on the lips, behaving like a couple of 18-year-olds in their first love affair...."

... Today, she doesn't like to leave his side, her arm possessively around his waist at social gatherings such as a buffet dinner last July at Ronald Perelman's East Hampton estate, where I saw the two of them navigating the A-list crowd joined at the hip. Manhattan hostesses have long known that if they invite the Giulianis to dinner, they must be prepared to breach protocol by seating them not only at the same table but next to each other, and Rudy's standard lecture contract explicitly requires that his wife be placed beside him in case his appearance involves sitting through a meal.

A Democratic man in a marriage like this would probably be described as (I'll use the semi-polite form) "whipped" -- but maybe it's perfectly OK if you're in the GOP. Republicans worship Ronald Reagan, and don't care that he deferred to the astrologer consulted by his wife and called that wife "Mommy."

FALWELL DEAD

Forgive me if I'm dry-eyed. The Carpetbagger Report has a fine round-up of his greatest hits. And please read Bruce Wilson at AlterNet on the subject of whether this means the religious right is losing influence. (Short version: no -- this hydra has many heads, and keeps growing new ones, often with government support.)

****

"Every good Christian ought to kick Falwell right in the ass."

--Barry Goldwater


****

Oh, here's an item about Falwell that probably won't show up in most of his obituaries, from 1985, before apartheid was dismantled:

Brisk and confident, treated more like a ranking diplomat than a preacher, Jerry Falwell concluded an inspection tour of South Africa by spending not only six hours with Foreign Minister Roelof F. Botha but an hour with State President P.W. Botha. Upon his return to the U.S. last week, Falwell denounced the drive in Congress for economic sanctions against South Africa and urged "reinvestment" instead of divestment. Falwell opposes apartheid, but professed faith that Botha will dismantle the system eventually, if only everyone is patient. The alternative, he said, is either a more draconian white regime or a Soviet-aligned revolution. Falwell also insisted that nonwhite South Africans agree with him. Referring to one who does not, Nobel- Prizewinning Bishop Desmond Tutu, Falwell said, "I think he's a phony, period, as far as representing the black people of South Africa."

Falwell's bellicose entry into the South Africa tangle produced an unholy uproar. A leading U.S. clergyman, President Philip Cousin of the National Council of Churches, said Falwell is "acting like a segregationist." Even the State Department appeared embarrassed. A spokesman termed Tutu a "recognized black leader" and a "voice of moderation in the midst of violence and repression." Last Friday Falwell said on CNN that his use of phony was "unfortunate," and wired an apology to Tutu. He planned further explanation on his own Sunday TV show.

He was heating up an issue that has engaged churches internationally for a quarter-century. A phalanx of Christian groups in and outside South Africa is demanding an immediate end to apartheid as immoral. Falwell's agreement with Botha and his soft-pedaling of the anguish faced by South Africa's blacks infuriated many commentators. In addition, says Evangelical Historian Richard Lovelace, Falwell's visit "detoured around the local Christian community," and, he concludes, "his reputation is bound to suffer."

Alas, it didn't -- at least not with his many fans.

****

RELATED: "The true Negro does not want integration...He realizes his potential is far better among his own race...We see the hand of Moscow in the background...We see the Devil himself behind it...It will destroy our race eventually..." If Falwell said that in 1958, as the Rude Pundit reports, then I think we've established a pattern.

I should talk about the preposterous main thrust of David Brooks's latest column (available free here) -- that if America is to survive it needs to have excellent schools and a national-service program, but also low taxes. (The elves and fairies, I guess, will pay for the excellent schools and national-service program.)

But instead I want to point this out:

...while some Republicans argue that ... the G.O.P. was in decent shape until [George W.] Bush ruined it, this is a total myth. In fact, it was Bush in 1999 who single-handedly (though temporarily) rescued the Republican Party. He did it not by courting Republican interest groups, but by coming up with something new. On July 22, he delivered a speech in Indianapolis in which he explicitly distanced himself from Washington Republicans and laid the groundwork for compassionate conservatism.

Do you believe that? Can anyone with a functioning long-term memory possibly believe that?

Imagine: It's 1999, but the presidential race is shaping up very differently -- George W. Bush is the no-'count commissioner of baseball and Karl Rove is in prison. Can it seriously be argued that the GOP would have been facing ruin, with the then-rock star John McCain as its almost certain presidential nominee, going up against Al Gore?

The press loved McCain back then. And the press hated Al Gore. (If you need a refresher course on that, go here.) I suppose there's an outside chance that Gore could have beaten McCain, but it's hard to imagine.

Does Brooks think the GOP needed a thesis? Does he think the GOP needed a speech? The GOP needed a winning candidate, and then everyone would have said it was a party in perfectly sound shape (an opinion to which much of the Beltway press was already very much inclined.)

Brooks missed his calling -- he really should have been a mediocre college professor. Typical of him to think that the key to the GOP's health as a party was a text.

Well, this World Net Daily article is mildly amusing because it's by Chuck Norris -- but what's bizarre is the notion that there is a reasonably large readership ready to believe that atheists in America could rise up and actually make Christianity illegal:

This past week an ABC News debate aired on "Nightline," which pitted popular theists against Internet atheists. While I'll have more to say about that battle of wits in my next article, it testifies to the growing number (30 million Americans) of those who profess there is no God. Add to that what I believe is possibly three times the number of functional atheists, those who believe in a God but practically don't show it, and America is facing a new religious horizon in which atheism is becoming a formidable foe.

... Though the U.S. Constitution outlaws religious discrimination, [many] organizations and individuals would love nothing more than to help society look with distain upon Christianity and, ultimately, make its components illegal. In fact, right now, they are coalescing and rallying at least 5 million of their troops to mount counter offensives to Christianity.

For that reason I believe theistic patriots need to be wise to atheists' overt and covert schemes, exposing their agenda and fighting to lay waste to their plans....

Chuck's evidence is what you'd expect: Some people want to take "under God" out of the Pledge of Allegiance and "In God We Trust" off the money (and it was accidentally left off some coins!); a hate-crimes law passed the House; and there's one (1) avowed non-believer in Congress. That it -- we're almost at the outlawing of Christianity!

Obviously, you could no more ban Christianity in America than ban white skin or heterosexuality or the speaking of English -- and yet I bet the same World Net Daily readers believe, or could easily be made to believe, that all those changes could happen someday in the very near future, too.

Or perhaps I'm just being naive -- perhaps the sinister plot to ban Christianity has yet to be revealed:

Stay tuned next Monday when I give the second half of this treatise, "How to outlaw Christianity (steps 2 & 3)," in which I will also convey one of the most shocking, despicable atheistic tactics I've ever seen.

I'll be there.