Yeah, we're overdosing on this 19th century motif here. But we do want you to change your bookmark and favorites to our new location. You can access the new site at
We'll leave this BlogSpot site here as an archive - or as Condoleezza Rice would call it, "an historic document" - immortalizing the muck we've eagerly raked in the past.
"Fiercely proud of their son's achievements, former President Bush said his wife treated the president like any other member of the family, recently telling him after a run to get his feet off the table in their bedroom."
Feet off the table...in their bedroom. Okay, uh...eyyew?
Don't Forget "Human Speedbump," "Waste Of Oxygen" and "The Guy Who Makes The Airbags Deploy In My TV Set"
I'd really like to lock this guy in a room with Jim Carville for three days if it didn't have the potential to make his head implode.
Alan Colmes has been called an on-air punching bag, a runt, wishy-washy, a milquetoast and -- this one must really hurt -- a conservative at heart.
And these words are from people who usually agree with him.
As Fox News Channel's resident liberal and half of "Hannity & Colmes," Colmes must feel a kinship with Internal Revenue Service auditors, process servers or telemarketers.
"People say to me, `Why don't you fight fire with fire?"' he said. "You fight fire with water, not fire."
His liberal critics question Colmes' political commitment and demeanor, and suggest he's fighting a rigged battle.
FAIR has likened Colmes to the Washington Generals, the hapless basketball team hired to lose to the Harlem Globetrotters every night.
"Hannity gives no quarter," said Steve Rendall, a FAIR analyst. "Colmes is often giving points when he should be fighting. When the chips are down, Colmes often concedes."
This was kept pretty quiet - On November 7th, Ted will receive the George Bush Award for Excellence in Public Service:
Former President Bush will present the award, which previously went to former Soviet leader Mikhail Gorbachev and former German Chancellor Helmut Kohl.
Kennedy has been one of President George W. Bush's harshest critics over the Iraq war.
Former President Bush has sole discretion on who receives the award, said Penrod Thornton of the George Bush Presidential Library Foundation.
Does this demonstrate a rift between 41 and 43? Cavernous, according to the Boston Globe's Georgie Anne Geyer, who suggests it's time for dad to publicly spank his son.
An assemblage of politically active Arab Americans gave former Vermont governor Howard Dean repeated ovations Saturday at the windup of a two-day meeting that marked a clear shift of allegiance from President Bush to his Democratic rivals.
Dean got by far the warmest response of any of the seven presidential hopefuls who addressed the 300 people attending the national leadership conference of the Arab American Institute (AAI), a Washington-based advocacy group.
Doubly noteworthy - UPI is owned by the Moonies who also run the neocon Washington Times. Their George W. Bush Happyspin NewsFilter 2003® must've crapped out...
FORT STEWART, Ga., Oct. 17 (UPI) -- Hundreds of sick and wounded U.S. soldiers including many who served in the Iraq war are languishing in hot cement barracks here while they wait -- sometimes for months -- to see doctors.
The National Guard and Army Reserve soldiers' living conditions are so substandard, and the medical care so poor, that many of them believe the Army is trying push them out with reduced benefits for their ailments. One document shown to UPI states that no more doctor appointments are available from Oct. 14 through Nov. 11 -- Veterans Day.
"I have loved the Army. I have served the Army faithfully and I have done everything the Army has asked me to do," said Sgt. 1st Class Willie Buckels, a truck master with the 296th Transportation Company. Buckels served in the Army Reserves for 27 years, including Operation Iraqi Freedom and the first Gulf War. "Now my whole idea about the U.S. Army has changed. I am treated like a third-class citizen."
President Bush's support among older voters has dropped substantially in recent months, eroding recent Republican gains and highlighting the importance of this critical electoral bloc in 2004, political strategists and analysts say.
A poll conducted this month by The New York Times and CBS News showed that Mr. Bush had a 41 percent approval rating among the 65-and-older voters, his lowest among any age group. That was down from 44 percent in July and 63 percent in May.
Bill O'Reilly Just Made It Really Easy For Al Of Us
Thanks to Kevin for pointing this out. In O'Reilly's coulmn linked in the post below, he says the following. I urge all of you to quote him freely here:
My name is no longer Bill O'Reilly, it's "gasbag," "bully," "liar" and "blowhard."
Yeah, it's out of context. And if anyone should know better, it's O'Reilly and his ilk. Too bad, Gasbag.
No, she hasn't made the complete segue out conservatism. But Becky Miller, formerly of Oregon Taxpayers United, at least has opened her eyes enough to read Al's book and see past the facade of her spokespeople...
The leaders we conservatives have trusted have taken advantage of our trust to line the pockets of the wealthy and powerful, and it's time we rose up and drove out these greedy liars. They've hijacked and distorted our belief system for their own gain, and in doing so are destroying our credibility.
And if we decent, honest, hard-working, patriotic, true-blue conservatives of this country neglect the duty we have to our children and grandchildren, we will never be able to work with those decent, honest, hard-working, patriotic, true-blue liberal Americans that these lying creeps have taught us to despise. We will never be safe to debate them or, when warranted, to listen to them and maybe even agree with them. We will never be safe to work out our differences or to work together. And we will never be able to build on the all-American sense of unity that burst forth following 9/11, only to disappear shortly thereafter in a cloud of lying, greedy partisan politics.
I'm still a decent, honest, hard-working, patriotic, true-blue conservative. But Rush Limbaugh, Bill O'Reilly, Ann Coulter, Sean Hannity and the rest of you lying liars -- I'm through with you!
Noel Blanc is honoring his father with a limited-edition lithograph featuring Warner Bros. characters that Blanc helped make famous.
The poster-size "Passing the Baton: A Tribute to Mel and Noel Blanc" lithographs are numbered, signed and will be personalized by Noel Blanc. Produced by Warner Bros. for Great American Ink, they cost $495.
Hate to be the bucket of water here, but Noel Blanc really hasn't set the world on fire with his versions of the Looney Tunes characters. Warner has hardly used him (if at all) in any of their major projects.
If anyone deserves the baton-passing kudos, it's Billy West, Joe Alaskey, Greg Burson, Bob Bergen and the others of a small handful of voice actors who have nailed these characters with their dead-on talents.
Sorry, Noel. We love ya, but your tribute to yourself kinda smacks of self-serving.
South Africa, UK, Switzerland, India and Singapore
If you do a search at Google News, you'll see that these are the only countries which have reported on Bill Clinton's revelation that he told incoming President Flightsuit Osama bin Laden was a major threat to the United States. Flightsuit kept thinking it was Iraq.
No one in the U.S. picked up the story except the National Review and NewsMax who took the opportunity to attack, filet and fry Clinton through their George W. Bush Happyspin NewsFilter 2003®.
Aren't you releived that we're kept safe from news that shows Clinton in a positive light? The George W. Bush Happyspin NewsFilter 2003®! Get yours today!
"What we have here is a form of looting." So says George Akerlof, a Nobel laureate in economics, of the Bush administration's budget policies — and he's right. With startling speed, we've blown right through the usual concerns about budget deficits — about their effects on interest rates and economic growth — and into a range where the very solvency of the federal government is at stake. Almost every expert not on the administration's payroll now sees budget deficits equal to about a quarter of government spending for the next decade, and getting worse after that.
Yet the administration insists that there's no problem, that economic growth will solve everything painlessly. And that puts those who want to stop the looting — which should include anyone who wants this country to avoid a Latin-American-style fiscal crisis, somewhere down the road — in a difficult position.
George W. Bush is like a man who tells you that he's bought you a fancy new TV set for Christmas, but neglects to tell you that he charged it to your credit card, and that while he was at it he also used the card to buy some stuff for himself. Eventually, the bill will come due — and it will be your problem, not his.
Santa Cruz Mayor Emily Reilly is warning her constituents in this liberal beach town not to jump to conspiracy theories about several unusual events involving her bakery in the days since the city council decided to challenge President Bush.
It was Reilly who, after a Santa Cruz City Council vote on Sept. 9, sent a letter to Washington asking the U.S. House Judiciary Committee to consider impeaching President Bush
Four days later, a sophisticated burglar pried moulding off a window at Emily's Good Things to Eat bakery, evaded a motion detector and stole an old computer hard drive and the hard-drive backup.
Then, on Sept. 17, Emily's Good Things To Eat bakery was visited by an agent of the U.S. Food and Drug Administration, who introduced himself, showed his identification, and looked around. He asked if they used artificial coloring (heavens no!) or if they transported anything across the state lines (they've been known to mail cookie-grams).
Reilly isn't convinced there's any link between her recent council stance and the unusual events at her business.
America still has its two lovable losers intact. Unfortunately, it's gonna be the Yankees and the Marlins battling for Major League Baseball's coveted Who Gives A Crap trophy.
"People, decent people, have hearts. They are loyal to their friends and steadfast in time of trouble. Our commitment should be standing by Rush Limbaugh. He has given us hope and help and a way of seeing the world. We are 20 million strong. We can do anything we set our minds to and have the track record to prove it. The operative word here is 'strong' and a healthy, productive Rush Limbaugh, who knows how grateful we are, is the goal."
- Lucianne Goldberg
Hey, since President Marlboro doesn't like the mass media filter, well, you might as well read about the military's lousy morale from the Pentagon's mouthpiece itself.
Yes, it's funny and ironic that President Pilotpants' directive to immediately stop all leaks was leaked to the press today by senior administrative officials.
Then the chilling reality hits you that he's telling his staff that he doesn't want to see any more of his administration's dirty tricks and smear campaigns revealed to the public...
"These guys make Nixon's crowd look like a bunch of kids shoplifting candy at the local grocery store. They have taken the art of character assassination to the point where it is their number-one tool."
- Bob Beckel, Democratic Consultant on the Bush Administration at Buzzflash.com
Bring back high-paying jobs
Be a responsible steward of our nation’s finances
Relieve the crushing burdens on American families
Restore fairness as a guiding principle of American life.
And while a particular actor-turned-governor of a west coast state would stop there, Dean goes into quite a bit more detail. Check it out.
Concerned about the appearance of disarray and feuding within his administration as well as growing resistance to his policies in Iraq, President Bush - living up to his recent declaration that he is in charge - told his top officials to "stop the leaks" to the media, or else.
Yay Me. Woo Hoo. (SFX: My Own Horn Tooting) I Rock. Whee!
Joe Conason noticed the WaPo/ABC News disparity in reporting their poll numbers on President Crackpot (I didn't say "Crackhead") in his column yesterday. We noticed it the day before.
Toot toot. Honk honk. Tooot. (Someone's gotta do it.) Toooot.
(Actually, I'm reveling in the fact that sometimes I have the same brainwaves as smart people like Conason.)
NEW YORK (Reuters) - Former President Bill Clinton says he warned President George W. Bush before he left office in 2001 that Osama bin Laden was the biggest security threat the United States faced.
Speaking at a luncheon sponsored by the History Channel on Wednesday, Clinton said he discussed security issues with Bush in his "exit interview," a formal and often candid meeting between a sitting president and the president-elect.
"In his campaign, Bush had said he thought the biggest security issue was Iraq and a national missile defence," Clinton said. "I told him that in my opinion, the biggest security problem was Osama bin Laden."
Bill, sometimes you're too polite. Sorry you waited so long to defend yourself, but it finally had to be said.
UPDATE: So far, the only domestic releasing of this story comes from the jackasses at NewsMax who immediately grabbed the story by the throat, slashed it to pieces, then shot it through their George W. Bush Happyspin NewsFilter 2003®.
In June of 2002, Jerry Boykin stepped to the pulpit at the First Baptist Church of Broken Arrow, Okla., and described a set of photographs he had taken of Mogadishu, Somalia, from an Army helicopter in 1993.
The photographs were taken shortly after the disastrous "Blackhawk Down" mission had resulted in the death of 18 Americans. When Boykin came home and had them developed, he said, he noticed a strange dark mark over the city. He had an imagery interpreter trained by the military look at the mark. "This is not a blemish on your photograph," the interpreter told him, "This is real."
"Ladies and gentleman, this is your enemy," Boykin said to the congregation as he flashed his pictures on a screen. "It is the principalities of darkness It is a demonic presence in that city that God revealed to me as the enemy."
This June, at the pulpit of the Good Shepherd Community Church in Sandy, Ore., he displayed slides of Osama bin Laden, Saddam Hussein and North Korea's Kim Jung Il. "Why do they hate us?" Boykin asked. "The answer to that is because we're a Christian nation We are hated because we are a nation of believers."
Our "spiritual enemy," Boykin continued, "will only be defeated if we come against them in the name of Jesus."
Who is Jerry Boykin? He is Army Lt. General William G. "Jerry" Boykin. The day before Boykin appeared at the pulpit in Oregon, the Pentagon announced that Secretary of Defense Donald Rumsfeld had nominated the general for a third star and named him to a new position as deputy undersecretary of Defense for intelligence.
Final Word To The Cubs And Their Fans About Game Six
IT WAS A FOUL BALL. NOTHING MORE. IT WASN'T IN FAIR TERRITORY. OKAY? FACE IT. THE CUBS CHOKED. GET OVER IT.
I really wanted the Cubs in the series. It ain't gonna happen. But don't blame the foul ball guy. Put the blame where it belongs. Now go back to your lives if you have one.
In his closing thought on Nightline tonight, Ted Koppel told President Tailhook that if he wants the news filter to start reporting the good news, he must start leveling with the American people - then and only then will we believe the White House's claims of happiness and success.
Between the lines - Ted's saying Bush is a liar. Right on, Theodore.
Rupert Murdoch, chairman of News Corporation, said yesterday he had no intention of stepping down from the global media empire he has spent more than 50 years building.
The 72-year-old said he would have to be "carried out" from the company, which he has developed from a single newspaper into a giant spanning television, film production and publishing companies across the world.
Using the hand signal rooted in ancient times and popularly known today as "shooting the bird" may be rude, but it's not necessarily disorderly conduct, a Texas appeals court has ruled.
At issue for the 3rd Court of Appeals in Austin was whether Robert Lee Coggin incited "an immediate breach of the peace" when he allegedly gestured at a motorist with his raised middle finger two years ago as the former Lockhart resident tailgated a slow-moving vehicle in the left lane of U.S. 183.
Coggin was charged under an obscure state law that says "a person commits an offense if he intentionally or knowingly makes an offensive gesture or display in a public place, and the gesture or display tends to incite an immediate breach of the peace."
A jury last year convicted Coggin, 34, and fined him $250 for making "an offensive gesture by raising his middle finger in a public place," a finding that the appeals court reversed.
It was stupid to compete with Moises Alou for the foul ball. That's a given. But the Chicago Sun-Times, Drudge and The Smoking Gun all have the guy's name, where he lives and where he works this morning, and frankly that sucks.
The Cubs (and anyone else in the majors) are paid tremendously to be pros on the field. That means not taking it out on the fans of the ball goes into the stands (which it did), and not letting something as trivial as a foul ball (and folks, that's all it was) make the wheels of your team fall off.
Yeah, the guy prevented an out, but folks - IT WAS A FOUL BALL. Nothing more. If the Cubs can't recover from what was nothing more than a foul ball, then maybe they don't deserve to be where they are now. And no, I won't accept that the foul ball was the cause of Alex Gonzalez' enormous choke at shortstop. Or Dusty Baker's decision to leave Mark Prior in there after 7+ sensational innings before the Marlins tied the game. Or the decision to have Farnsworth load the bases (pitchers really hate working with loaded bases).
It's easy to blame the guy for all that happened last night. But the real responsibility goes to the guys on the field. The Cubs choked and the Marlins took advantage. That's baseball.
The latest Granite State Poll shows Howard Dean opening up a huge lead among the Dems:
30 percent of likely Democratic primary voters say they will vote for Dean
17 percent say they will vote for Massachusetts Senator John Kerry
10 percent say they will vote for General Wesley Clark
6 percent support Connecticut Senator Joe Lieberman
5 percent support North Carolina Senator John Edwards
5 percent support Missouri Congressman Dick Gephardt
3 percent favor Ohio Congressman Dennis Kucinich
1 percent favor former Illinois Senator Carol Mosely-Braun
1 percent favor Reverend Al Sharpton
2 percent favor some other candidate.
In the June 2003 Granite State Poll, Kerry held a slim lead over Dean, 18 percent to 16 percent.
INTERESTING. The post below is the Washington Post's Bush-positive version of the latest poll. Here's the same story by the WaPo's partner in this poll, ABCNews.com:
Oct. 14— Persistent criticism on the economy and his Iraq policy alike are clouding President Bush's political standing, creating vulnerabilities that combine to lock the incumbent and an unnamed Democrat in a dead heat for the 2004 vote.
An ABCNEWS/Washington Post poll finds that nearly six in 10 Americans — a new high — call U.S. casualties in Iraq "unacceptable," more than double its level when Baghdad fell last April. Bush's approval rating for handling terrorism more broadly, while still high, now matches his career low. And most continue to disapprove of his handling of the economy, a critical election-year benchmark.
Uh-oh. ABC News didn't receive their happy-news filter yet from the White House...
Heartened by opinion polls indicating President Bush's six-month slide may have ended, the White House has launched steps to reassure supporters before the 2004 campaign becomes fully engaged.
Bush aides expressed relief at several polls this week, including a Washington Post-ABC News poll released today, that found the president's approval rating stabilizing after a steady drop since Iraqi president Saddam Hussein was ousted in mid-April. Bush's approval rating in the Post-ABC poll was 53 percent. That's statistically unchanged from the end of last month, and 5 percentage points down from mid-September.
Great reaction by an administration that doesn't govern by what polls say. Even more interesting is despite this hoopla of wonderful vibes for the White House, we see this paragraph much further down in the story:
Among other troubling signs for Bush: 46 percent said they would reelect him if the election were held today, while 47 percent would vote for the yet-to-chosen Democratic nominee. The percentage that thinks the war in Iraq was worth fighting dropped to 54 percent, from 61 percent a month ago. Majorities said they do not believe the Bush administration has a clear plan for handling the situation in Iraq and said they consider the number of U.S. military casualties in Iraq to be unacceptable.
Look, I can't speak for everyone. But when it comes to hearing news out of Iraq, I can choose between the cheery happy gee-whiz updates from Karl Rove's Safe Haven Of Denial, or I can get the real story from someone who's in Baghdad trying to stay out of harm's way.
I'll take the guy in Baghdad. In this case, reporter Patrick Cockburn:
Paul Bremer, the US civilian administrator for Iraq, said in a statement that the Iraqi people were "succeeding in the reconstruction of Iraq", adding that "the terrorists will do anything, including taking the lives of innocent Iraqis, to draw attention away from the extraordinary progress made since liberation".
President George Bush and his senior officials launched a high-profile campaign in Washington last week to promote the view that life in Iraq was returning to normal.
Yesterday's explosion in the heart of the capital, in a street crowded with shops, left those claims looking hollow.
Attach the Don't-Worry-Be-Happy filter on the news out of Iraq. President Flightsuit doesn't like this kind of reporting.
For the third time in a week, suicide car bombers struck in Baghdad, this time outside the Turkish Embassy in yet another blow against those who would help the US occupation of Iraq.
Witnesses said the driver and a bystander were killed, and hospital officials said at least 13 people were injured.
"This is the act of those who want to turn Iraq into a terror paradise," said Turkish Ambassador Osman Paksut, whose government has offered peacekeeping troops to reinforce the US military presence, a move strongly opposed by Iraqis.
"Rush is a fat, pill-popping loser and an undisciplined slob who was turning his maid into a drug pusher, and she's the one who's gonna go to prison, and - as soon as he gets caught - he starts whining. He's going to rehab because he can't get any more pills and he's gonna go to prison. Suck it up, fatso, and stop taking 100 pills a day or whatever . . . and employ some discipline in your life."
The headlines yesterday were screaming how Bush's popularity is soaring again (reality: they notched up 6 points after dropping 8). So...what gives here?
"Next, I'd like to get your overall opinion of some people in the news. As I read each name, please say if you have a favorable or unfavorable opinion of this person -- or if you have never heard of him or her. George W. Bush."
Favorable: 60%
Unfavorable: 39%
No Opinion: 1%
Now, before the neocons pop the champagne, that 60% is his worst rating since August, 2001...and worse than during most of his 2000 campaign.
So how's the Republican-run congress doin'?
"Do you approve or disapprove of the way Congress is handling its job?"
There's something about the mindset of those in the blogosphere that no matter what adversity befalls them, they still need to get the word out.
Don of Blah3.com got the sad news of the passing of one of his sisters late yesterday. In spite of that, he still penned a couple of important entries about the press re-discovering its inner lapdog and new information about the Valerie Plame scandal before joining his family.
Take a short sideroad to his site. His thoughts are important enough to post in the midst of all this. Ours are with him today.
The post below reminds me of how the newspapers in Southern California missed a chance to show their inner Onion. I would've paid ten bucks for a legit newspaper to have as their October 8th headline:
The best kind - the kind that's not manufactured. From the New Haven Register:
"He was just somebody, and it remains true, that people liked to be around. You sort of feel good about yourself around Howard. I think it has something to do with his unpretentiousness," said David Berg of New Haven, his good friend from Yale's Pierson College.
Dean was at Yale from 1967 to 1971, as the war escalated in Vietnam, the civil rights movement advanced, the National Guard patrolled New Haven on May Day and the first women came to the Ivy League campus.
"He was seldom, if ever, a loner. He was always the guy who was getting a group of people together, and he was very inclusive," said Bill Kerns, who is now a family physician in Virginia.
Dean was also the guy who invited you back to his room to finish off the keg that was left over from those socials he helped organize, said good friend Richard Willing, a national correspondent for USA Today.
Classmates, contacted across the country, remember his stamina and the intensity he brought to those late night bull sessions on Old Campus during freshman year and later at Pierson."
Presidentially speaking, this sure beats the hell out of this underachiever:
Bush entered Yale University in 1964, a third-generation legatee, and found himself floundering in yet another highly intellectual environment. Although he was an enthusiastic athlete, he lacked the natural gifts to distinguish himself in any sport. But he did have a gift for winning people. It looked as if it all came so naturally, but he worked hard at it. By studying the student registry and memorizing the names of his classmates, he was able to roam around campus in the first few days of his freshman year and forge many quick friendships.
"George coasted academically," acknowledges Roland Betts. "He didn't work his tail off to get C's." Hannah agrees that Bush devoted the maximum amount of time to doing whatever he wanted to do: "He was in the fraternity and Skull and Bones, and that's a whole lot more fun to do than to have good grades."
And is this (scroll to bottom) the most distinguished picture and best anecdote his alma matter could find of this guy?
That's what they're calling it. I call it desperately trying to save your failing sinking ass. It starts by President Pilotpants blaming the press which - up until now - has been his bitch:
"There's a sense that people in America aren't getting the truth. I'm mindful of the filter through which some news travels, and sometimes you just have to go over the heads of the filter and speak directly to the people."
Then you put on the front of taking responsibility for the quagmire you just a second ago denied you created:
"If the people don't think I'm doing my job they'll find somebody [else]. That's my attitude. Look, I just don't make decisions on polls and I can't worry about polls."
You instead let Karl Rove worry about he polls, and he'll come up with more "public relations" - the euphemism for attention diversion. Don't believe it? It's happening right now.
QUESTION: Whatever happened to the Valerie Plame scandal?
ANSWER: In the last 24 hours, only one brave little newspaper is keeping the question alive: The Modesto Bee. And it's a reprint of a Newsday column.
I've been futzing with this site since day one. The left column has been a sore spot for me. On lower-res screens, the content would just disappear. Over the weekend, it dawned on me that some of the polititoons I've been posting were too wide for the page - and they were squeezing the left column out of sight (or more specifically, to the bottom of the page).
This is a long explanation for what I hope is now an improved and friendlier site (aesthetically speaking). Hope ya like it. I'm sure you'll hammer me if ya don't.
We keep finding magnificent blasts from the past. Here's Rush shortly after the death of Jerry Garcia:
"When you strip it all away, Jerry Garcia destroyed his life on drugs. And yet he is being honored, like some godlike figure. Our priorities are out of whack, folks."
And these gems:
"Drug use destroys societies. Drug use, some might say, is destroying this country. And we have laws against selling drugs, pushing drugs, using drugs, importing drugs. And the laws are good because we know what happens to people in societies and neighborhoods which become consumed by them. And so if people are violating the law by doing drugs, they ought to be accused and they ought to be convicted and they ought to be sent up."
"Too many whites are getting away with traficking in this stuff. The answer to this disparity is not to start letting people out of jail because we're not putting others in jail who are breaking the law. The answer is to go out and find the ones who are getting away with it, convict them, and send them up the river, too."
"Ted Kennedy, whose liver is said to be shaped like a Chivas Rigas bottle..."
These and more (including some e-mail addresses where you can send get-well wishes) can be found at the Italy/Indymedia site.
CNN's White House Press Creds Must Be Up For Renewal
On both CNN-TV and CNN.com, they're proudly proclaiming "Bush approval rating moves back up", but at the same time, they're mumbling that only 38% would definitely vote for him again.
By the way, he went from 58% in August to 50% in September and is now at 56% in October.
Not exactly hot steamy sweaty monkey love there...
Doctors give injured Las Vegas animal trainer and illusionist Roy Horn a 95 percent or better chance of surviving last week's tiger mauling, former boss and casino entrepreneur Steve Wynn says.
This is indeed good news, which takes the sting off this alleged video of the attack.
More than 70,000 Southern California grocery clerks went on strike late Saturday after lengthy negotiations ended between union representatives and grocery store officials. Both sides failed to reach a compromise over several key issues, especially proposed changes by the companies to the scope and cost of employees' health care coverage.
Matt Drudge stops just short of making a marriage proposal in his love letter to Rush Limbaugh.
"[Rush's addiction] is a great tragedy."
"Ah, nobody knew, or nobody was willing to admit in the big media business how interesting, or how big Rush Limbaugh is in this country -- until this story broke! How he is the companion to millions, how he is America's top voice. This makes it all the more painful."
"But it is a heartbreaking story because many of us, again, consider him family and I know it rips us. Because he is so clearly in pain. But the ability to do today's show knowing all this is swirling shows you he really is a pro, and a professional as far as this craft, the medium, goes."
"I think he is being sent up the river and I think we'll see him paddle back down. On this, there's no law against being a hypocrite a few times in your life. And this industry is built on hypocrisy!"
Rush claimed his debilitating back pain was the reason he was put on painkillers. The same back pain was his excuse for continuing to take handfuls of the stuff.
Now anyone who has played the game of golf can tell you it's not for the weak of back - it puts you in positions that the back simply can't do if you're even slightly tweaking there. Believe me. I know. My L5 reminds me of that whenever I hit the driving range (yes...I spank the occasional bucket, as it were).
So imagine everyone's surprise to see this at Golfserv just before his ill-fated stint at ESPN:
No slouch with the sticks himself after only playing for the past six years, Limbaugh is visiting Lake Tahoe for the American Century Championship this year for the first time. Limbaugh has played in the PGA Tour's Bob Hope Chrysler Classic three times and the AT&T Pebble Beach Pro-Am twice, making the cut in 2003 and playing on the weekend with PGA Tour professional Tom Pernice. Nevertheless, Limbaugh strikes an unusually humble pose when describing his chances this weekend.
BULLETIN: We found a newspaper whose editorial board actually scrutinizes the letters it receives. The Olympian in Olympia, WA busted a form letter writing campaign praising the fabulous success of the Iraq invasion.
Six soldiers reached by GNS directly or through their families said they agreed with the letter's thrust. But none of the soldiers said he wrote it, and one said he didn't even sign it.
Marois, 23, told his family he signed the letter, said Moya Marois, his stepmother. But she said he was puzzled why it was sent to the newspaper in Olympia. He attended high school in Olympia but no longer considers the city home, she said. Moya Marois and Alex's father, Les, now live near Kooskia, Idaho.
A seventh soldier didn't know about the letter until his father congratulated him for getting it published in the local newspaper in Beckley, W.Va.
"When I told him he wrote such a good letter, he said: 'What letter?' " Timothy Deaconson said Friday, recalling the phone conversation he had with his son, Nick. "This is just not his (writing) style."
For a decade and a half, Rush Limbaugh has been known to say that drug abusers deserve no sympathy - that when they take that first dose, they're making a choice, and they continue to make that same choice each time they do it again.
Rush is saying the painkillers were prescribed by a doctor for his back, which led to his addiction - thereby conveniently negating the "making a choice" part of his theory.
His recent hearing loss drew an outpouring of pity from many people, both pro- and anti-Rush. It's now known that Vicodin addiction can cause the very malady he suffered. Tragic, yes. But now his minions face an ethical dilemma.
Do the right-wing robots muster up even more sympathy for him, even though he spent a lot of it with his "mysterious" hearing loss? It's easy to say yes. But eventually, these people are going to wise up and demand they stop being lied to by the people who they regard as their moral leaders.
I hope Rush gets help. But I also hope that while the rabid listeners of his daily fairy tales say the prayers he asks of them, they have two epiphanies:
1) That drug addicts need help and not scorn.
2) That not everything said on right-wing talk radio is 100% true.
Wow. What's happening? I thought we're riding this huge tidal wave of conservative Republican ideology! But the highest-ranked wingnut book at Amazon right now is O'Reilly's at #14. Michael Moore's new one is at #2 and Franken's is still hanging strong at #4. Krugman's riding O'Reilly's butt at #15. Molly Ivins' at #17.
Interestingly, the second-highest ranking book from the right, 'waaaaay down there at #71, is former disk jockey Glenn Beck's big book o'jingo with Laura Ingraham at #77...both still well below #51: Michael Moore's PREVIOUS book, Stupid White Men.
Just about every day, we're seeing reports out of Iraq like this one. It's easy to shrug these stories off as the day-to-day trials and tribulations of a chaotic undisciplined Middle East country where this sort of thing happens all the time.
Please - do not be lulled into that mindset. It's a far away place, but it's no longer a rogue state or a banana republic with their respective oddball governments. This country has been invaded by, occupied by and is now supposedly governed by THE UNITED STATES OF AMERICA.
So when you read, watch or hear stories like this, wrap your mind around the fact that this is happening in a place which is being run by THE UNITED STATES OF AMERICA...and filter these reports through your mind knowing that this place is now primarily OUR responsibility:
Iraq's capital erupted in violence again today when suicide bombers crashed an explosives-laden sedan into a police station in the city's worst slum and a Spanish diplomat was gunned down gangland-style outside his home.
Earlier in the morning, an American soldier with the 4th Infantry Division was killed in a rocket-propelled grenade attack near Baquba, northeast of Baghdad.
The three attacks -- which killed at least 11 -- marked the deadliest day in Iraq since August and threatened to reignite tensions in the nation's Shiite community, which has exploded in violence repeatedly in recent months under the U.S.-led occupation.
You just shouldn't do this when you're under the microscope...
A good friend of mine has kids who go to the same school as the Schwarzenegger's kids near the Brentwood area of L.A. There's a strict rule that the cars can't make a left turn into the school from a major street; that they must drive to - and wait in - a long line to drop their kids off. Any variation from this rule receives a reprimand from the school.
Is it necessary to tell you who they made an exception for? The man of the people drove his Hummer right into the restricted area this morning to the delight of the faculty, and to the consternation of the other parents.
Yeah. He's right in there with the common folks. No special privileges for the Arnold.
State Sen. John Burton of San Francisco, now the capital's most powerful Democrat, said he spoke to Schwarzenegger on Wednesday morning and warned him: "It's going to be pretty goddamn tough."
"I'm not sure he knows how complicated and screwed up it is to run a state this size, especially not understanding that there were a lot of cuts made already," Burton said in an interview. "There's not a hell of a lot of soup left in the pot to ladle out."
Bet the house on President Flightsuit suddenly finding loaves and fishes for California now that a Republican's running the state. From the L.A. Times...
Even as national Republicans rejoiced at the ascension of one of their own to the governor's office, Schwarzenegger — facing an $8-billion budget gap — said Wednesday he would pressure the president for help.
"He promised me that he will do everything possible to help California, so I'm looking forward to working with him and asking for a lot, a lot of favors," Schwarzenegger said.
In the news conference, he held off on substantive announcements, not venturing beyond his broad campaign promises.
And in return for those favors? (3 second pause to shudder) Well, at least we've finally found the special interest he'll be beholden to...
There's a spirited conversation going on at the original post where I insist on NO, NO and NO to a recall of Arnold Schwarzenegger.
The main reason I cannot support such a thing is that we have a much bigger problem we need to address before even entertaining the notion of a recall: the quality of our candidates.
Sure, a recall of the recall would display our unwillingness to "roll over and play dead," but we've got to face the truth: defending Gray Davis was a hard sell at best. We needed to mobilize voters and get their asses into the voting booths. Instead, they stayed home in droves. Why?
I'm not buying the complaint of the changes in polling places. I'm not buying the long lines gambit. I'm not buying any other excuse, because the Republicans had the same obstacles.
What happened was we didn't send the right message, and we sent in the wrong messengers. Plain and simple. This was a horrible campaign all around, and it went to an empty flak jacket with more charisma, presence and clever banter than the other 134 candidates - all of which refused to take it seriously enough.
And don't tell me Peter Camejo was doing all the right stuff, either. He was unkempt, shrill and had the stage presence of spackle.
Until we come up with someone who can rise above the fray and shine brightly, a re-recall will be nothing more than vindictive. And folks, we simply have enough image problems without adding that one to the repertoire.
Nobody got slimed more than the Natives. Arnold's hammering of the Indian Casinos and their contributing to his rivals was relentless. He acted as if they were freeloaders on our God-given land...and reduced them to mere special interests.
Guess it's easy to forget we rounded 'em up and shuffled them off to plots of unusable desert land ("reservations") - and now we're miffed that they found a way to profit by it by building casinos there.
A quick perusal of the blogosphere shows that a lot of folks are calling for a recall of last night's election. One word kind of sums up my feelings about that prospect:
NO.
It was an ugly, desperate and polarizing episode by the right, which we argued was usurping a legitimate election. For us to do it makes us no better. We can't do the same and expect any respect from the rest of the country which is already looking at California as a joke. We simply cannot afford to alienate any more voters. Especially for next year's election.
The best strategy will be to let this Governator thing play out. If it fails as much as it looks like it will, we'll have all the momentum. And we'll win it legitimately.
This recall left a huge stain and a lousy taste. And a majority of California's voters didn't bother to show up at all (see post below).
Let's carry that on as the Republicans' legacy. Not ours.
After following the news all day yesterday, you'd think there was a stampede of untold billions heading to the polls. So imagine my surprise when I read this:
THE FIELD POLL estimated Tuesday that as many as 10 million California voters, about two-thirds of all those registered, would vote in the election on recalling Democratic Gov. Gray Davis.
But with 7.6 million voters casting ballots, turnout ended up being 49 percent of registered voters which was less than in last year’s election in which Davis beat Republican Bill Simon.
Seems the recall pissed off more voters than they thought it would. Again - when the voting got tough, California stayed home. What a waste. What a shame.
Recall: The Cult Of Personality Will Rule California
Apparently, California will not learn the lessons of Minnesota. KCBS/KCAL, KTTV and many others are declaring Schwarzenegger the winner.
If you are within earshot of L.A. talk radio, you're hearing that this is a great triumph for conservative Republicans. Nonsense. If that were true, Tom McClintock would be the new governor, but he's pulling a dismal 12% with 14% reporting. Neocons still represent a small minority in this state, thank God, and McClintock is acknowledging that as I write this by conceding.
Unfortunately, 52% of the recall voters bought into the big tough movie star who has not said word one about what he'll do to save the state. He said nothing more than about eleven well-rehearsed lines over and over and over. He has no plan and no visible governing abilities. He's just famous.
Yeah, his politics were over-the-top abysmal - it cost him his relationship with his daughter Rebecca De Mornay. His arguments were baseless and shameless. His show was a cacophany of boorish behavior.
And it was great TV.
In its heyday in the 80s, there was always an indication that Wally George truly believed in what he was saying, but he was always aware that it was just a show. His guests and his in-studio audience never took anything seriously. If a guest did, the verbal gasoline would be doubled on their burning. Thanks to Channel 56's lousy production values, there would invariably be a shot of Wally laughing totally out of context with his guest. Accidentally. Or maybe not.
My Wally George story was during the summer of 1984. In a fit of boredom, I called him up during his short-lived phone-in show as Dave from Venice Beach. When he asked me how the KDOC-TV signal was coming in (the cable system didn't carry KDOC), I said that I only needed four coathangers on the antenna to see him. I killed with that stupid comment. Wally and his crew cracked up and I was "outta here."
In the carnival and wrestling business, "breaking kayfabe" is suddenly jumping out of character to deal with a situation as yourself. Wally broke kayfabe a lot, which gave his show a much-needed wink. Moreover, he continued a genre which was given up for dead in the 70s - rambunctious political discourse on the tube. And his uber-conservative shrieking was custom-engineered for KDOC's Orange County core audience.
His show sucked. That's why we watched. And the best part was, he knew that.
Folks, I did it this morning. Don't let the reports of long lines deter you. With only four choices to make, it's a 20-second operation, tops. The lines move quickly. And with support for the non-candidate Arnold Schwarzenegger waning, you must make your choice known if you're against this recall.
Remember the circumstances. Davis has never been accused or charged with a high crime or misdemeanor. His only crime was not being liked by the right when this thing was launched.
It's a no-brainer in so many ways. If you haven't done so, vote. Now.
I cannot stress how important it is to get out and vote tomorrow.
Too many people think either
- someone else will vote like-mindedly.
- my vote doesn't matter.
- I have two friends whose votes outnumber mine.
or worse:
- I'm not for the recall, so I don't have to vote.
Yes...I have actually heard that one. I almost slapped the guy to death when he told me that.
You MUST vote if you're against the recall. That is the unmitigated truth. And no one's going to do it for you. This election is just too simple. Recall, yes or no. If no, who? Prop 53. Prop 54.
That's it. 20 seconds and you're done. Vote. The future of the state depends on it.
And at the very least as an incentive - if you don't think Gray Davis had the crap scared out of him by this recall, guess again. Vote no. He'll be under the microscope and better do the right thing.
Recall: Gee. Wonder What He Said Here To The Utter Delight Of His Supporters
a) "Ve're going to clean house!"
b) "Ve're going to sveep Gray Davis out of office!"
c) "How about a hand fo' my friend Bill Simon?"
d) "I vill debate dis broom anytime, anywheeya."
e) "What da hell is DIS ting?"
f) "Dis is Gray Davis. Chust a big skinny broom looking doofus guy and all dat stuff."
g) Other
A poll conducted by Elway-McGuire Research for Knight Ridder from Wednesday through Saturday found the percentage of people saying they would definitely vote to oust Davis dropped from 52 percent Wednesday to 44 percent Saturday. Pollsters surveyed 1,000 registered voters, including 284 people on Wednesday and 200 on Saturday. The poll had an overall margin of error of 3 percentage points, but the margin of error for individual days was not given.
Is California waking up to the fact that Arnold has no plan for the state or is it just the sex allegations?
If you're a registered voter in Collie-foo-nya, you MUST vote no on the recall. But if you don't, you must NOT vote for Schwarzenegger.
Recall: A Vast Democratic/Liberal Media Conspiracy Indeed
Sacramento's KXTV reports on one prominent candidate's reaction to Arnold:
State Senator Tom McClintock called on Arnold Schwarzenegger to withdraw from the race for governor if allegations of improper sexual advances prove to be true.
This is what the Founding Fathers worried about, that the masses would be moved by some slick-talking demagogue or lured by fancy tricks instead of substance in making their decisions. The founders planned to control this by severely limiting who could vote.
That, of course, wasn't exactly the "equality" America represented. And so sometimes elections in this country are textbook affairs, based on debates and issues and reasoned opinions. And lots of times they're stranger than fiction.
Californians are moving toward putting Arnold Schwarzenegger, admitted (and contrite) groper, into the governor's mansion. The muscle-bound Austro-Californian conceded he had "behaved badly" in the past after several women accused him of various levels of grabbing, groping and humiliation. Sorry, he says. If he wins, he promises to be a "champion of women."
Is this enough to keep him from being elected? Let's see, first we heard he was smoking pot in a weight-lifting movie and made some references in a magazine interview to group sex and the benefits of sex before competition. Then there was a campaign based essentially on a refusal to face any unpleasantries about plans to solve California's abysmal financial troubles. Then there was that chuckle about sticking a woman's head in a toilet in a movie. And he's still the front-runner. The Gropinator now approaches Election Day. If he wins, the people of California will get exactly what they deserve.
Here's the story Arnold doesn't want you to hear. The biggest single threat to Ken Lay and the electricity lords is a private lawsuit filed last year under California's unique Civil Code provision 17200, the "Unfair Business Practices Act." This litigation, heading to trial now in Los Angeles, would make the power companies return the $9 billion they filched from California electricity and gas customers.
It takes real cojones to bring such a suit. Who's the plaintiff taking on the bad guys? Cruz Bustamante, Lieutenant Governor and reluctant leading candidate against Schwarzenegger.
Now follow the action. One month after Cruz brings suit, Enron's Lay calls an emergency secret meeting in L.A. of his political buck-buddies, including Arnold. Their plan, to undercut Davis (according to Enron memos) and "solve" the energy crisis -- that is, make the Bustamante legal threat go away.
If you don't like reading a lot of words (a benchmark for being an Arnold fan), here's the short version: The $9 billion lawsuit California has against the real crooks in the energy gouge will go bye-bye if Schwarzenegger wins.
For those who feel they're not getting their fair share, Arnold's medicine goes down easy, and it's an amazing thing to observe. A Hollywood actor worth $200 million is telling regular Joes he understands their pain, and they lap it up.
He rails against high electric bills even though he was reportedly hobnobbing with Enron villain Ken Lay at the height of the energy crisis, and Arnold's Army cheers.
He promises changes, but not a plan to make them happen, and the juggernaut rolls on.
What's at work is a combination of Davis' failures, the hypnotic effect of Arnold's celebrity, and the Hollywood-inspired myth that every complex problem has a simple solution — namely, to terminate it.
The Times is right. "Image Just Isn't Enough" (editorial, Oct. 2). But at least it is something. What does Gov. Gray Davis offer? Nothing. Oh, I forgot. Davis offers his experience in raising campaign funds, looking after his contributors and doing nothing about California's economic problems.
Richard Fay
Redondo Beach
It's understandable how popular he is as an actor. It's insane how popular he is to run this state. We don't need a new governor. We need a state psychotherapist.
Another sidelight to this fun: Just before the accusations of groping and fondling, you may have heard about Arnold Schwarzenegger's 11-page missive on what he'll do during his first hundred days as California governor. He has made a huge issue of this and has made it the cornerstone of his campaign in these last few days of the effort. If you haven't seen it, take a look. Not only is it rich with graphics and color - but you'll also find out that the entire plan actually has just as many words as this paragraph.
Drudge has had a lead story of how the sleaze campaign against her husband has taken a tragic toll on Maria Shriver - including some very unflattering pictures. Here's one from the road yesterday afternoon in Modesto with a pretty healthy looking Maria:
A White House Whodunit History shows that most leak investigations go nowhere. This one may be different
Accusations of sleaze at the White House . . . talk of special prosecutors and independent counsels . . . the president hounded by questions about what his staff knew and when they knew it. All part of the Washington soap opera for the past generation. But now, as the Justice Department begins an investigation into the Case of the Outed Operative, key roles in the drama are being played by officials of the Bush administration.
This time the stakes seem higher than usual. That's because the scandal doesn't involve just public careers or individual reputations but, possibly, the safety and effectiveness of America's intelligence agents around the world. This aspect of the case has angered even staunch supporters of President Bush and members of the intelligence community.
To the sounds of enormous jungle roars, a police sniper rappelled down the side of a Harlem apartment building yesterday and fired tranquilizer darts through an open fifth-floor window to subdue — seat belts, please — a 350-pound Bengal tiger.
The daring, and creative, bit of sharpshooting helped end an episode in which the New York Police Department, unaccustomed to bagging big game, nonetheless managed to sedate the beast. Officials planned to send the tiger, temporarily being held at the Center for Animal Care and Control on 110th Street, to a conservancy in Ohio.
What the tiger, along with a four- to five-foot reptile called a caiman, was doing inside a cluttered apartment in the Drew Hamilton Houses at Adam Clayton Powell Jr. Boulevard and 141st Street remained a mystery yesterday.
"Do you approve or disapprove of the way George W. Bush is handling his job as president?" Approve: 51% (was 73% in April)
Disapprove: 42% (was 21% in April)
Don't Know: 7%
"If George W. Bush runs for reelection in 2004, do you think you will probably vote for George W. Bush or probably vote for the Democratic candidate?" Bush: 44%
Democrat: 44%
Can't Say Until Chosen: 7%
None: 1%
Don't Know: 4%
"Do you have confidence in George W. Bush's ability to deal wisely with an international crisis, or are you uneasy about his approach?" Confident: 45%
Uneasy: 50%
Don't Know: 5%
"Do you have confidence in George W. Bush's ability to make the right decisions about the nation's economy, or are you uneasy about his approach?" Confident: 40%
Uneasy: 56%
Don't Know: 4%
And The Right Will Blame It On A Wind Blowing From Berkeley
No. Just blame it on the candidate's incompetence. The Oakland Tribune renounces its endorsement of Schwarzenegger.
GIVEN the accusations of sexual abuse leveled against Arnold Schwarzenegger by six women and his disingenuous admission to such behavior, we strongly reconfirm that our readers vote "no" on the recall, but can no longer recommend they cast their 'if-not-Davis-then' vote for Schwarzenegger.
How horribly wrong it is for the L.A. Times to bring up Schwarzenegger's sexual indiscretions, but how wonderfully right it is to call Joseph Wilson and Valerie Plame "partisan Democrats" as an excuse to shoot their names through the mud.
How the right was duped into pitying Rush Limbaugh's "mysterious" hearing loss which was now disclosed to have been brought on by his inhaling handfuls of ill-gotten painkillers. And how they now pity him for his "illness" of said addiction. Why aren't they shocked by his crapping all over their loyalty? (See comments to a previous post on this site.)
How anyone can still be proud of the actions of this administration after they've been proven time and time again that they base almost all their actions on uneducated guesses which result in either embarrassment or disaster.
I guess I'm off my hiatus. Things are just too screwed up.
I broke my exile to make an obvious observation: I simply do not understand why the Republicans are so high on Arnold Schwarzenegger. I simply don't understand why ANYBODY would be high on him.
Forget the womanizing stuff. Forget the Nazi allegations. Forget all the dirt that's being pulled out at the last minute. Let's just look at the basics.
In the two months of this campaign, we know Arnold will do the following for the State of California:
1) Make Indian gaming casinos pay their fair share of taxes.
2) He'll terminate things.
That's it. Those are the only things he's said he will do about the state's problems.
He told us what he's for (children, a balanced budget and children). He's told us what he doesn't like (Gray Davis, Cruz Bustamante, the stalemate in Sacramento). He told us what the problems are (business leaving, spending spending spending and taxing taxing taxing when you flush the toilet).
But as loudly as I've screamed and screamed and screamed at my TV and my newspapers, for the life of me I have not heard anything about how he plans to fix things...other than taxing the Indian casinos and terminating whatever is in that terminating mind of his.
Throughout his down-to-the-wire campaign stumping, he speaks jingo, waves and leaves. No addressing his plans. No questions from people. No questions by reporters. Nothing.
In fact, this candidate is about nothing. His whole campaign has been about nothing (discounting catch-phrases from his pithy flicks). His message is a whole bowl full of nothing.
What we have here is a big guy who wants to take a whack at running the state I'm living in because he wants to give something back. What that something is has not yet been disclosed. But people are digging the big guy. It's a big job, and the little guy can't handle it. So we'll vote for the big guy.
"I am unaware of any investigation by any authority involving me. No government representative has contacted me directly or indirectly. If my assistance is required, I will, of course, cooperate fully."
No admission, but no denial. And Rush is usually quick with one or the other when it comes to these situations.
Hmmm...call me a cynic (REALLY?!?), but Republican Sen. Tom McClintock - whose advertising was seemingly halted since last Thursday - has suddenly started blitzing the radio and TV airwaves again, and the message to voters is that he's the candidate with honesty and integrity.
And this coincides with the L.A. Times story of Arnold's groping.
Women are lining up to describe how Arnold Schwarzenegger groped them for which he denied and immediately apologized.
Valerie Plame gets outed as a CIA operative by the White House via a conservative columnist.
Rush Limbaugh, on live TV, calls an NFL quarterback overrated because he's black - then is outed as a drug abuser by a tabloid (the same tabloid which hammered Bill Clinton during his "scandal", by the way).
And these are all being brushed off as items which the Democrats and Liberals are cooking up to get the right in a big ol' game of Gotcha.
It sure looks like you're all doing it to yourselves - but thanks for thinking that we're that creative.
BLITZER: But he was a senior on African affairs at the NFC under Clinton?
NOVAK: Under Clinton, that's correct. So that was the story I wrote, was about the details of Ambassador Wilson's mission, which created a great storm. And in the sixth paragraph of a ten-paragraph story I mentioned that two senior administration officials had said it was suggested by his wife, who worked at the CIA.
Okay...let's drag it out and prop it up again. What he really wrote:
"Wilson never worked for the CIA, but his wife, Valerie Plame, is an Agency operative on weapons of mass destruction."
"An agency operative." This is more than just having "worked at the CIA" which has its share of clerical workers, interns, IT folks, managers, etc. Back to Blitzer:
NOVAK: But I just want to say that the word operative that I said in today's column, Wolf, was a mistake, using that word on my part. I have called hack politicians operatives if you read my column carefully over 40 years. And it's just kind of a throw-away word. I had no knowledge whether or not she was an operative.
It's no mistake I want to use the word "parsing" here, Bob. If you thought she was just a CIA employee, you would have said "She works at the CIA." You wrote, spell-checked and proof-read "operative." Deal with it. Finally:
NOVAK: It was what I call a weak request. In journalism we are asked not to use things constantly. I'm sure you have been. 'Don't use that, Wolf.' I was asked by the CIA official not to use it. He did not, at any point, say her life was in danger. He did not press it.
You were asked not to use it. What is "pressing it"? Him coming to your office on his knees? Him saying "Don't use it. Pretty pretty PLEASE for the love of GOD don't use it"? Bob, why would the CIA tell you her life would be in danger when they're trying to keep her identity - her occupation - secret? Isn't the request not to use it enough for you?
Arnold just essentially denied any groping and bad behavior and immediately apologized for it...the ol' "I never did it and I'll never do it again" gambit.
Looks like business here just picked up. Stay tuned...
...The account Cline gave the Enquirer is that she became Limbaugh's drug connection in 1998, nine months after taking a housekeeping job at his Palm Beach mansion.
It started after her husband, David, hurt himself in a fall, and Limbaugh asked how he was.
"He asked me casually, 'Is he getting any pain medication?' I said, 'Yes - he's had surgery, and the doctor gave him hydro-codone 750,'" Cline said. "To my astonishment, he said, 'Can you spare a couple of them?'"
Cline said she gave Limbaugh 10 pills the next day and agreed to give him 30 of her husband's pills each month. When the doctor stopped renewing the prescription in early 1999, Limbaugh allegedly went ballistic.
"His tone was nasty and bullying. He said, 'I don't care how or what you do, but you'd better - better! - get me some more,'" Cline said.
The housekeeper said she found a new supplier and arranged to hide Limbaugh's stashes under his mattress so his wife, Marta, wouldn't find them.
After several months, Limbaugh told her he was going to New York for detox and didn't need any more pills, Cline said.
But a month later, he said his left ear was hurting and asked her for hydrocodone, followed by an order for OxyContin.
Limbaugh, 52, suffered from autoimmune ear disease, a condition that left him deaf and had to be corrected with cochlear implant surgery two years ago.
Cline said she continued to make deliveries to Limbaugh even after she quit as his housekeeper in July 2001 - but he became increasingly paranoid, even patting her down for recording devices, she said.
It's hard enough to drive that bandwagon while the wheels are falling off - it's a lot tougher when you're hopped up on Hillbilly Heroin.
Not one of these gasbags will ever EVER tell me or my loved ones how to run our lives or preach to us what's right or wrong.
MoveOn.org is 89% of the way to collecting the electronic signatures of 300,000 brave souls to help stop the California recall. Click here to see the petition and add your name to this campaign. Thanks.
The lapdog media have jumped off the lap and are finally marking their own territory. Rove and Company have done what they do best - take whatever goodwill they have and squander it.
They took the great outpouring of support from the world after 9/11 and trashed it by bullying.
They took their allies in the CIA and trashed their confidence by bullying George Tenet into taking the bullet for the "16 words."
And the press - who supported them big time in exchange for embedded reportage during the war - has finally had their fill of being bullied into propping up (and being used by) a failing administration.
The media have been holding back. Now the floodgates have opened. You're not going to get away with your crap anymore. Deal with it.
And Hoffmania! and the rest of the blogosphere will keep throwing it at you because payback is a bitch.
Joseph C. Wilson IV, the man accusing the White House of a vendetta against him and his wife, is an ex-diplomat turned Democratic partisan.
President Bush, he wrote in an article in the far-left Nation magazine that was published before the Iraq war began, is not interested in democracy in the Middle East but "this new American imperialism."
"The new imperialists will not rest until governments that ape our world view are implanted throughout the region, a breathtakingly ambitious undertaking, smacking of hubris in the extreme."
His wife is Valerie Plame Wilson, who works for the CIA's directorate of operations, a clandestine service. Her name and spy job, revealed in syndicated columnist Robert Novak's column in July, has become a Democratic campaign issue and triggered a Justice Department investigation of who at the White House leaked that fact, if anyone at the White House did. Federal law prohibits government officials from identifying clandestine CIA employees publicly; it does not prohibit journalists from publishing such information.
A little detail the Times is hiding from its readers here: Novak SAID he got the info from high government officials in his original piece:
Wilson never worked for the CIA, but his wife, Valerie Plame, is an Agency operative on weapons of mass destruction. Two senior administration officials told me Wilson's wife suggested sending him to Niger to investigate the Italian report.
Back to the Times article which adds this important piece of information on how Wilson currently makes a living:
Mr. Wilson now works at the Middle East Institute as a scholar and frequent Bush critic.
One voice in my head tells me I shouldn't give a rat's ass what the Washington Times says - but another knows that this is where a lot of the Pied Piper's minions get their "news" because they've been taught that the Post is evil and (shudder) lib'rul. And these poor souls' naivete is preyed upon by these hacks posing as journalists.
In the wake of his controversial statements regarding Eagles quarterback Donovan McNabb, Rush Limbaugh has resigned from his position on ESPN's NFL pregame show. ESPN has accepted the resignation.
Limbaugh issued a statement late Wednesday night in which he wrote:
"My comments this past Sunday were directed at the media and were not racially motivated. I offered an opinion. This opinion has caused discomfort to the crew, which I regret.
"I love NFL Sunday Countdown and do not want to be a distraction to the great work done by all who work on it.
"Therefore, I have decided to resign. I appreciate the opportunity to be a part of the show and wish all the best to those who make it happen."
George Bodenheimer, President, ESPN and ABC Sports, issued the following response:
"We accept his resignation and regret the circumstances surrounding this. We believe that he took the appropriate action to resolve this matter expeditiously."
Some are reveling in this, but I feel nothing but the highest respect for Limbaugh on making this decision - because it sets an example for his pals in the White House.
Well, let's see if the Valerie Plame affair is newsworthy enough for the Rev. Moon-owned wingnut propaganda sheet, the Washington Times. Front page:
Actual screenshot 3:00pm PT 10/01
Nope. Not a blessed thing. And still nothing from their undoubtedly uncensored AP and UPI breaking news tickers. But there, nestled deep on the Nation page is the same story from yesterday, about Bush gallantly endorsing an investigation about that Democrat-invented CIA operative.
But whoa. What's this? Also neatly nestled in that same area is this little reminder of - why, yes! CLINTON!
YES! That rat bastard Clinton! What he did was horrible...worse than...uh...the, uh...gosh. My attention was diverted and I forgot what the current scandal is. Oh, well...
Quarterback Donovan McNabb said Wednesday he isn't looking for an apology from Rush Limbaugh for a racially tinged commentary because it's too late.
Limbaugh said on ESPN's pregame show Sunday that McNabb was overrated because the media wanted to see a black quarterback do well.
"He said what he said. … I'm sure he's not the only one that feels that way, but it's somewhat shocking to actually hear that on national TV," the Philadelphia Eagles quarterback told reporters Wednesday. "An apology would do no good because he obviously thought about it before he said it."
Before McNabb led the Philadelphia Eagles to a 23-13 victory over the Buffalo Bills on Sunday, Limbaugh said on the pregame show that he didn't think McNabb was as good as perceived from the start.
Here's Jollyboy's quote:
"The media has been very desirous that a black quarterback do well. There is a little hope invested in McNabb, and he got a lot of credit for the performance of this team that he didn't deserve."
The grammar police are calling for his head as well. He, like every other uneducated wingnut with a microphone, does not know "media" is a PLURAL word! Oh yeah, the racial thing's unsettling as well.
CHRIS MATTHEWS: Don't you think it's more serious than Watergate, when you think about it?
RNC CHAIRMAN ED GILLESPIE: I think if the allegation is true, to reveal the identity of an undercover CIA operative -- it's abhorrent, and it should be a crime, and it is a crime.
CHRIS MATTHEWS: It'd be worse than Watergate, wouldn't it?
GILLESPIE: It's -- Yeah, I suppose in terms of the real world implications of it. It's not just politics.
Huh. Guess the Valerie Plame thing isn't really happening...at least according to that standard-bearer of right-wing accuracy, the Washington Times.
Actual screenshot 5:15pm PT 9/30/03
Folks, it is NOWHERE on their website. Not the front page, and not on the Nation/Politics page. It's even been censored from their AP and UPI "Breaking News" sidebars.
Now, let's talk about that bias by the press, shall we?
UPDATE 9:35pm PT: They finally have this elephant in their living room on the Nation/Politics page - ninth story down. Here's their spin on this "minor" story:
Bush endorses probe into CIA leak President Bush yesterday welcomed a Justice Department probe into whether his administration improperly disclosed the identity of a CIA employee whom Democrats described as a covert agent.
Yessir. Valerie Plame's line of work is just a figment of our wacky liberal imagination. And let's not even start with Drudge's continual sliming of Joe Wilson at his little outpost of truth. These people are just insane.
CNN just made the observation that - paraphrasing here, but the message is intact - the Bush administration will try to make this look like a political stunt by the Democrats so the American public won't pay much attention to it.
"Leaks of classified information are bad things, and we've had too many lately in Washington. We've had leaks from the executive branch and leaks from the legislative branch. I want to know who the leakers are."
The right spent the better part of the eight years of the Bill Clinton presidency trying to find anything that resembled a scandal. Real estate deals, travel agency discrepancies, sexual misconduct of female employees, gays in the military, Hillary's health care plan - and they came up empty-handed until ultimately they found an intern who bragged about giving him oral sex. And long after his terms ended, we still heard of vandalism in the White House (untrue), his allowing of terror to grow (untrue again), how Kosovo was a deflection for the aforementioned oral sex, how his hunt for bin Laden was a coverup for the aforementioned oral sex, why his bombing of Baghdad was a diversion for the aforementioned oral sex, and of course the relentless reminder of the aforementioned oral sex.
The result: He was impeached because he got oral sex.
Today, the country's learning of just one in a string of scandals brewing in the Bush White House: How senior administration officials - to avenge for Joseph Wilson's criticism of the administration's acceptance of the flawed intelligence regarding Iraq's supposed purchase of uranium in Africa - revealed to a number of reporters and columnists that Wilson's wife Valerie Plame was a CIA operative.
The ramifications: Plame and everyone she came in contact with during her tenure overseas are now in danger, and could be killed.
Robert Novak, the first to report this information, says, "There is no great crime here." And he's already parsing words: "Nobody in the Bush administration called me to leak this." Okay. So maybe they saw him at a conference. They sent him an e-mail. They got the info to him somehow. He even said so all along.
As much as the wingnut idealists would like to believe otherwise, there is a great crime here. And it's greater than staining a blue dress. And in terms of potential human harm or death, it's definitely greater than Watergate.
Maybe the jig is finally up for this reckless and dangerous administration.
And maybe we'll see the culprits being led away from the White House with their jackets over their heads before they throw more Americans in front of the bus in the name of "patriotism" and "loyalty."
And maybe, just maybe, they'll start at the top: Karl Rove. Then work their way down to Mr. Bush.
...even by Washington standards, there is something particularly odious about an alleged White House leak seemingly designed to destroy the career of an undercover CIA officer married to former Ambassador Joseph C. Wilson IV.
David Kelly, the British government scientist who was skeptical about evidence on Iraqi weapons of mass destruction, committed suicide after being mysteriously outed as a BBC source and later maligned by government officials. The Bush administration's alleged assault on Wilson's wife smacks in the same way of government retribution. If true, White House officials may have thought they were getting back at Wilson, but the thing they will have damaged most in the long run is their own credibility.
Drudge has posted the fact that Joseph Wilson contributed $1000 to the Kerry campaign.
So what is he saying here? That Wilson had it coming to him? That his wife and her contacts around the world deserve to be put in danger? Because they support Democrats?
You snivel-nosed ass. No wonder you wear a fedora. It keeps the crap from escaping.
Bush's Words Come Back To Haunt Him Just Like An Old Flightsuit
"First, we must remember the high standards that come with high office. ... above all, we are all accountable to the law and to the American people. My White House counsel, Al Gonzales, is my pointman on these issues. ... Second, we must remember that high standards of conduct involve not only obeying the law, but showing civility. As we go about our work, there's no excuse for arrogance and never a reason for disrespect toward others.... You'll be my representative. I expect each of you, as an official of this administration, to be an example of humility and decency and fairness."
-- President George W. Bush Conducts Swearing-In Ceremony for White House Staff, 1/22/01
Which one of us wacky looney-lib bloggers dug that quote up?
None. It's been brought back to light by none other than Democratic presidential candidate Howard Dean, who ripped into the Bush thugs in his official blog just moments ago.
"This was a petty and mean-spirited action, but with far-reaching repercussions. National security interests have been jeopardized, sensitive intelligence operations have been compromised, a woman’s career has been destroyed, and the lives of many of her sources could be at risk. This is a grave matter."
Isn't that worth about five or ten bucks to his campaign?
And What Does It Mean For The CIA To Look Into It?
George Tenet took the bullet for the famous sixteen words in the state of the union message under enormous pressure to do so. Bush didn't want to take the responsibility, if you remember. And since the CIA doesn't have the same case of ADD that Bush thinks the rest of America has, it's going to be payback time for him trashing their image.
While the president's press secretary insists that Rove was not involved in this outrage, I can't help wondering how reporters, editors and bureau chiefs in the capital justify their silence. Tim Russert of NBC and Robin Sproul of ABC both said they wouldn't discuss any matter involving sources. That's an ironclad rule of journalism, up to a point. But what should a journalist do when a source commits a serious crime in his or her presence? What if that crime not only threatens to jeopardize human lives, but also harms U.S. national security in the most profound way?
The spiteful unveiling of Plame very likely did both. She is reported to have worked undercover on matters involving weapons proliferation, an issue of the deepest concern at the moment. Those who exposed her, including Novak, ran a great risk of compromising her sources. In many countries where proliferation is a problem, those people could be killed immediately.
Yes. That's how serious this is. Unlike an oral sex episode which did a bit of damage to a blue dress, this could have meant (and still can mean) PEOPLE BEING KILLED. Is it beginning to sink in now?
As if that excuses him from the wrath of his pals on the right. That aside, I seriously do applaud Bob Novak for his journalistic integrity on this matter. He shouldn't cave in to reveal his sources. It's up to the White House or an investigation to uncover this, not him.
"Nobody in the Bush administration called me to leak this. In July I was interviewing a senior administration official on Ambassador Wilson's report when he told me the trip was inspired by his wife, a CIA employee working on weapons of mass destruction. Another senior official told me the same thing. As a professional journalist with 46 years experience in Washington I do not reveal confidential sources. When I called the CIA in July to confirm Mrs. Wilson's involvement in the mission for her husband -- he is a former Clinton administration official -- they asked me not to use her name, but never indicated it would endanger her or anybody else. According to a confidential source at the CIA, Mrs. Wilson was an analyst, not a spy, not a covert operator, and not in charge of undercover operatives"
Can anyone explain what Joseph Wilson being an official in the Clinton administration has to do with anything?
He's probably out looking for Ari Fleischer after today's press briefing. Read it all here at the Crackhouse.gov (whitehouse.gov) site. After pleasant kudos to the New Jersey Devils and happy talk about the Do Not Call registry, the session turned ugly immediately from the first question. The Valerie Plame scandal which is quickly unraveling was the topic throughout most of the hammering session by a suddenly curious press.
I don't think Bush can hide behind the "wartime president" excuse any more. Still, he will never do what the previous 42 presidents had to do in or out of wartime, and that is face the press and the public - warts and all - unscripted - unrehearsed - unknowing of where the questions will come from and what they will be - in the face of this scandal which betrays the trust and mission of our security agencies. The man simply has no guts or discernible leadership qualities to handle such a scenario.
All of you - write, call, fax, e-mail your local newspapers, TV and radio stations and make sure they keep this story on the front burner. Yes. It is that important.
If this administration treats matters such as the identities of CIA operatives this lightly, this marks an egregious breach of national security. It's beyond impeachable. It's treason.
Nothing more. It probably doesn't mean anything. But one major candidate's advertising seems to have ground to a halt. All weekend, this candidate didn't have a single TV, radio or newspaper advertisement.
It's as if he (oops - or she, but she's not the one I've been keeping tabs on, but we'll say "she" just to be fair to him) well - appears as if they either ran out of money, or they're waiting for the very end for an advertising blitz, or maybe (and this is purely speculative) they stopped advertising because they're going to make a major announcement in the next few days.
Or at least that's how one might see it - if one were to believe this warped thinking. Me? I'm too busy to worry about such things.
When syndicated columnist Robert Novak reported on July 14 that "two senior administration officials" had told him that the wife of a prominent White House critic did undercover work for the CIA, it barely caused a ripple.
Former U.S. ambassador Joseph C. Wilson IV talked about the leak in interviews and at the National Press Club soon after, telling Newsday the message was "that if you talk, we'll take your family and drag them through the mud." Nation writer David Corn called the leak a "thuggish act," and New York Times columnist Paul Krugman called it a "criminal act." After Sen. Charles E. Schumer (D-N.Y.) called for an investigation, the New York Times, Washington Post and Buffalo News ran inside-the-paper stories.
But it was not until this weekend's reports that the CIA has asked the Justice Department to examine the matter that the story hit the front page of The Washington Post and the Sunday talk shows, sparking questions not just about White House motives but about media conduct.
Tom Rosenstiel, director of the Project for Excellence in Journalism, said Novak was in "dangerous territory. . . . Journalists should apply a civil disobedience test: Does the public good outweigh the wrong that you're doing? In a case where you are risking someone's life, potentially, or putting someone in danger, you have to decide what is the public good you are accomplishing. Because you have the freedom to publish doesn't mean it's necessarily the right thing to do."
Fred Hiatt, editorial page editor of The Washington Post, one of the papers that published the July 14 column, said that "in retrospect, I wish I had asked more questions. If I had, given that his column appears in a lot of places, I'm not sure I would have done anything differently. But I wish we had thought about it harder. Alarm bells didn't go off. . . . We have a policy of trying not to publish anything that would endanger anybody."
STEP TWO: We came to believe that a Power greater than ourselves could restore us to sanity.
"Arnold is moving and Tom has settled down, but Tom's not dropping. I still contend when this is done, Tom will beat Bustamante. He'll come in second."
You can hear the fireplaces crackling and the shredders grinding at the White House tonight. Folks, this is not a lie about getting oral sex. This is a breach of national security by the Executive Branch. Now which deserves an independent investigation more?
President Bush's aides promised yesterday to cooperate with a Justice Department inquiry into an administration leak that exposed the identity of a CIA operative, but Democrats charged that the administration cannot credibly investigate itself and called for an independent probe.
But the aides said Bush has no plans to ask his staff members whether they played a role in revealing the name of an undercover officer who is married to former ambassador Joseph C. Wilson IV, one of the most visible critics of Bush's handling of intelligence about Iraq.
An administration official told The Washington Post on Saturday that two White House officials leaked the information to selected journalists to discredit Wilson. The leak could constitute a federal crime, and intelligence officials said it might have endangered confidential sources who had aided the operative throughout her career. CIA Director George J. Tenet has asked the Justice Department to investigate how the leak occurred.
Thanks A Pantload For Using Anti-Terror Money For Everything Except
Folks, please remember what's being revealed now when next November comes around. If you let these squatters remain in the White House, we're going to get more of this sort of madness:
WASHINGTON, Sept. 27 - The Bush administration, which calls the USA Patriot Act perhaps its most essential tool in fighting terrorists, has begun using the law with increasing frequency in many criminal investigations that have little or no connection to terrorism.
The government is using its expanded authority under the far-reaching law to investigate suspected drug traffickers, white-collar criminals, blackmailers, child pornographers, money launderers, spies and even corrupt foreign leaders, federal officials said.
I spent the afternoon with my wife (we saw a sneak of "School Of Rock" - two huge thumbs up, so see it next weekend) so I'm catching up on the news right now. Atrios and Talking Points Memo have been doing an outstanding job in covering the Valerie Plame situation.
I'll be looking into more sources as the night rolls on, but if this story isn't the lead tomorrow morning, we'll know with whom the media are in bed with. Keep following this thing, readers...it's unfolding history one way or another.
Ann Coulter has been giddy in calling us treasonous. Here's the story that will show the world what her ilk has been trying to get away with since they stole the White House.
This, along with the unfolding Valerie Plame scandal (which if there's any scintilla of justice left in this country), makes the Wesley-Clark-changing-his-mind-about-Bush crap seem as newsworthy as Gus in Des Moines not getting onions on his Big Mac.
Leaders of the House intelligence committee have criticized the U.S. intelligence community for using largely outdated, "circumstantial" and "fragmentary" information with "too many uncertainties" to conclude that Iraq had weapons of mass destruction and ties to al Qaeda.
Top members of the House Permanent Select Committee on Intelligence, which spent four months combing through 19 volumes of classified material used by the Bush administration to make its case for the war on Iraq, found "significant deficiencies" in the community's ability to collect fresh intelligence on Iraq, and said it had to rely on "past assessments" dating to when U.N. inspectors left Iraq in 1998 and on "some new 'piecemeal' intelligence," both of which "were not challenged as a routine matter."
"The absence of proof that chemical and biological weapons and their related development programs had been destroyed was considered proof that they continued to exist," the two committee members said in a letter Thursday to CIA Director George J. Tenet. The Washington Post obtained a copy this weekend.
The letter constitutes a significant criticism of the U.S. intelligence community from a source that does not take such matters lightly. The committee, like all congressional panels, is controlled by Republicans, and its chairman, Rep. Porter J. Goss (R-Fla.), is a former CIA agent and a longtime supporter of Tenet and the intelligence agencies. Goss and the committee's ranking Democrat, Rep. Jane Harman (Calif.), signed the letter. Neither was available for comment yesterday. The full committee has not voted on the letter's conclusions.
Dear God - I don't ask much of you, but PLEASE, for the sake and safety of this country, don't let this story die...
Leak of CIA Name Being Investigated A senior administration official said two top White House officials called at least six Washington journalists and revealed the identity and occupation of Wilson's wife. That was shortly after Wilson revealed in July that the CIA had sent him to Niger last year to look into the uranium claim and that he had found no evidence to back up the charge. Wilson's account eventually touched off a controversy over Bush's use of intelligence as he made the case for attacking Iraq.
"Clearly, it was meant purely and simply for revenge," the senior official said of the alleged leak.
Wilson, while refusing to confirm his wife's occupation, has suggested publicly that he believes Bush's senior adviser, Karl C. Rove, broke her cover. He said Aug. 21 at a public forum in Seattle that it is of keen interest to him "to see whether or not we can get Karl Rove frog-marched out of the White House in handcuffs."
The CIA has asked the Justice Department to investigate allegations that the White House broke federal laws by revealing the identity of one of its undercover employees in retaliation against the woman's husband, a former ambassador who publicly criticized President Bush's since-discredited claim that Iraq had sought weapons-grade uranium from Africa, NBC News has learned.
THE FORMER ENVOY, Joseph Wilson, who was acting ambassador to Iraq before the first Gulf War, was dispatched to Niger in 2002 to investigate a British intelligence report that Iraq sought to buy uranium there. Wilson published an article in July alleging, however, that the White House recklessly made the charge knowing it was false.
"We spend billions of dollars on intelligence," Wilson wrote. "But we end up putting something in the State of the Union address, something we got from another intelligence agency, something we cannot independently verify, in an area of Africa where the British have no on-the-ground presence."
The next week, columnist Robert Novak published an article in which he revealed that Wilson's wife, Valerie Plame, was a covert CIA operative specializing in weapons of mass destruction. "Two senior administration officials told me Wilson's wife suggested sending him to Niger to investigate," Novak wrote.
The White House has denied being Novak's source, whom he has refused to identify. But Wilson has said other reporters have told him White House officials leaked Plame's identity.
NBC News' Andrea Mitchell reported Friday night that the CIA has asked the Justice Department to investigate whether White House officials blew Plame's cover in retaliation against Wilson. Revealing the identities of covert officials is a violation of two laws, the National Agents' Identity Act and the Unauthorized Release of Classified Information Act.
Let's see if anything comes of this. After all, it does follow the White House M.O. of the feds releasing bad news only on weekends when no one's paying attention. Stay tuned, dear readers...or as one Bush apologist says:
I'm finally watching it this afternoon - Rep. Darrell Issa, the man who bankrolled the recall but failed to remain a candidate on Real Time with Bill Maher last night. WOW, what a stinkburger he brought to the show. Whatever wasn't greeted by stinging silence was met by full and hearty groans.
I can't do it justice here. He brought the show to such a devastating screeching halt that the airbags deployed from my television. Catch the replays all this week on HBO. It's a great opportunity to watch a desperate man trying to salvage what's left of his political integrity by sucking up to Schwarzenegger - and an entire studio audience couldn't possibly care less.
"THE PRESENT administration in the United States seems determined to pursue foreign relations with the finesse of a herd of elephants dancing to samba music in a rose garden."
- Opening line from the editorial in today's Jamaica Gleaner
We're guessing Palmolive's research showed the dish washing industry was due for a much-needed breathtaking jumpstart. So they came up with (drum roll) disposable washcloths with soap already in them.
I reeeeeally want to see the marketing research that showed people WANT to manually wash dishes.
If the Hollywood crowd could pass my quiz and answer my rather boorish questions, I would apologize to them and listen intently as they told me that Hans Blix should have had more time to find anthrax in an uncooperative country the size of California. I would sit enraptured as Sean Penn explained the benefits of living under Saddam, Uday and Qusay Hussein. I would gladly pin the dove on Meryl Streep's lavish gown as she regaled me with her vision of peace and understanding in the age of Al Qaeda.
But most anti-war stars are not real big on confronting complicated historical questions. It is much easier to flash peace signs to like-minded compatriots at award programs and then retire to eat lavish dinners paid for by fawning sycophants.
COULTER: But you don't hear athletes coming out and feeling like, we must have a position. And what are actors famous for? They imitate other people. They're good at imitating other people. Who cares what they have to say?
HANNITY: And look at what Danny Glover said. He called the president a racist. You know something, that's name calling and that's mean-spirited. And these are the types of attacks they are giving the president on a regular basis, on the brink of war.
I see...like these little gems of friendliness from the guy we're about to talk about here?
"If Clinton had only attacked terrorism as much as he attacks George Bush we wouldn't be in this problem."
"I think [Sen. Robert Byrd] must be burning the cross at both ends."
"[Howard Dean] can roll up his sleeves all he wants at public events, but as long as we see that heart tattoo with Neville Chamberlain's name on his right forearm, he's never going anywhere."
Well, read it and weep. The Repubs want none other than Dennis Miller to run for office in California.
The comedian Dennis Miller is being talked about - apparently seriously - as a Republican candidate for a statewide post. Three Republican strategists interviewed in the last week have said they want to draft Miller into politics. One, a prominent Republican operative and Schwarzenegger aide who spoke on the condition of anonymity, said that, once the recall election is over, he plans to recruit Miller to challenge Barbara Boxer for her U.S. Senate seat next year.
"There's a lot of us who'd like to see him campaign," Rob Stutzman, a Republican consultant and Schwarzenegger spokesman, said this week, noting Miller's appeal to younger voters. "Dennis Miller is at the cutting edge of biting political commentary."
Another Republican consultant said simply, "We love him."
Get a room.
Why are they rallying around actors now? Simple. The integrity and image of the GOP's career politicans have been so thoroughly trashed by the Bush administration, they need to get Austrian bodybuilders and stand-up comics to deliver their message on the "official mouthpiece" level.
How is it they go after Wesley Clark for showing support for the president before Bush was proven wrong - but they seem to forget their own reversals in a matter of months? JUST askin'...
More than six months after the war began, loyalists to the former regime of Saddam Hussein have found a multitude of ways to create a sense of insecurity in Iraq, despite the efforts by U.S.-led coalition forces and civilian workers to stabilize the situation.
The loyalists have assassinated politicians, most recently Aqila Hashimi, a member of the Iraqi Governing Council who died Thursday of her gunshot wounds. They are believed to have been involved in suicide bombings, including one at the United Nations' Baghdad headquarters last month that killed chief envoy Sergio Vieira de Mello and 21 others.
They have kept up a daily drumbeat of attacks on coalition forces — one American was killed Friday in a rocket-propelled grenade attack in the northern city of Kirkuk, and another died in a fire in Tikrit, Hussein's hometown. The deaths bring the U.S. military toll to 308, more than half of those since President Bush declared major combat over May 1.
A climate of apprehension pervades many areas of the country. Those Iraqis who work with the U.S.-led coalition routinely receive threats; every day, U.S. forces are targeted by attacks that injure if not kill; and everyone living in Iraq is regularly hamstrung by sabotage of power stations and oil pipelines.
Though the Americans are not necessarily blamed for specific attacks, many Iraqis hold them responsible for the instability.
Seems this administration is so busy looking for the inanimate WMDs, that they never factored the human ones into their strategy.
I know it seems like an obvious observation and a non-prediction, but believe me here - there's going to be a major announcement early next week. Wish I can say more. I can't. Just trust me on this one.
Tell you what - just forget I said anything. Move along. Nothing to see here.
Of course it took some thinking and math, so you'll never hear it on talk radio. From this morning's letters section:
Why does the Republican administration continue to take the American people for a bunch of fools? L. Paul Bremer III, the top U.S. administrator in Iraq, compares his spending plan for rebuilding Iraq to the Marshall Plan, which rescued Europe in 1948-52 (Sept. 23). The Marshall Plan spent $13 billion (that is about $100 billion in today's dollars) over a stated limit of a four-year period. The Marshall Plan money went to 16 nations and benefited 270 million people, including at least 12 of our wartime allies. We will now pour hundreds of billions of dollars into a single country of 26 million people, most of whom resent our presence there and some of whom are killing and maiming American, British and U.N. personnel.
The purpose of the Marshall Plan was to make the devastated European economies viable again and to give the European people the means to reconstruct their own countries. In Iraq, American and a few other foreign interests are doing the investing and rebuilding rather than the Iraqis themselves. Just imagine what all that money could do for creating jobs, improving schools and cleaning air and water in our nation. What a farce!
Okay. Look. Atrios and Blah3 are celebrating this thing. Okay? Fine. I'm not gonna be a part of it. Okay? Not gonna get into it. I won't. It's stupid. It's childish. And it's just...plain...wrong. Okay?
Look. Here's the difference. The difference between them and me is that - in MY opinion - they're all being funded by the DNC and enemies of this country. Okay? That's the difference. I'm more level-headed than this. I'd rather take the high road than roll in the mud with these looneys. They should all just choke on French wine and cheese with their peacenik friends. Or better yet - just SHUT UP.
We smashed cases of French wine.
We chided them for being "Old Europe."
Our government invented "Freedom Fries" and "Freedom Toast."
Neocons crammed my e-mail with frog jokes and French-bashing cartoons.
We boycotted French businesses (jeopardizing American workers).
We embarrassed France at every opportunity.
So of course, there's apoplectic national outrage over this.
Oh, yeah. To make the point that he knows how to fix California's economic infratsructure, Arnold Schwarzenegger made this claim at last night's debate:
"I am the only one here that has run businesses, developed them and met the payroll and has paid for workers' compensation and taken care of the health care of the employees."
And it finally dawned on me...we in L.A. all remember that business very well! Need a reminder?
"Country radio called and wants to know if it's true that you're leaving country music? This one must be a prank call. I mean, how can you leave a party now when the hosts had shown you to the door six months ago?"
"Do you approve or disapprove of the job George W. Bush is doing as president?"
Approve 50% (down from 58% three weeks ago)
Disapprove 40% (up from 33%)
Don't Know 10%
As Hoffmania! reader Gettimout points out, Bush is pulling these numbers all by himself - with his own policies and without the help of a multi-million dollar independent counsel. Well played, Tex.
Wow. Talk about obsessive. Matt's homepage looks like the darkened bedroom wall in a stalker movie.
Actual screenshot from 3:15pm PT
It'll take me hours to wash the slime off my monitor. The crackhead machine has officially launched the attack campaign against a four-star general. Zero respect. None.
Avoid Slapping Yourself In The Forehead When You Read This
Wait. Put your hands at your side. And keep in mind how utterly scripted every nuance of the flightsuit episode was. The turning of the ship to avoid San Diego in the camera shots. The position of the "Mission Accomplished" banner. The camera crew of about 4 dozen waiting for him. Okay? Good. You may continue.
After weeks of Democratic assaults that President Bush was a nitwit for declaring "mission accomplished" in Iraq during his May 1 landing and victory speech on the USS Abraham Lincoln, the White House is bidding to set the story straight. The issue should be a simple one: Bush never uttered those words. "The president," argues communications boss Dan Bartlett, "said exactly the opposite: The mission continues." But Bush stood under a banner declaring "mission accomplished." Why? Bartlett says that the Lincoln's captain had the banner made up to thank his crew for the longest-ever carrier tour, not to declare the war over. "It is something the troops are really proud of," says Bartlett. "Of course they can hang the banner." But the picture was all the Demos needed. "On TV," he says, "they never play the [sound] bite of the president, they just show the image with the banner." Democratic polls show that the public buys their spin, which doesn't really surprise Bartlett. "Look, perception becomes reality," he says. "But the facts don't back it up."
We bet you slapped that forehead at "said exactly the opposite" didn't ya?
Recall Debate: Response From The World's Smartest Mailbag
There isn't a huge crowd of readers to this site, but the ones I do have ROCK. Some e-mail reaction to my recall debate review (scroll down two posts to read it)...
B.I.: "I too have seen the Indian Gaming adds. And everytime he asks "When are they going to pay their fair share?" I yell at the screen "DON'T YOU THINK BEING SCREWED FOR 200+ YEARS IS 'PAYING THEIR DUES'?" Let's take away Arnold's land, give him no way of getting employment. Stick him on an unworkable plot of land and for added kicks make promises of a better life and then don't deliver... See how he feels after that!"
Bossjock: "Well said and written. You may have a future career. Two if you decide to run for office."
Having one career in this economy would be great, thanks.
Finally, spankthedurtyje writes: "Not Only Sex Site makes Huge MONEY!!! Click Here to wrok (sic) at home!!!" I couldn't agree more.
Look for the original piece at Buzzflash later today. You're always welcome to fire back at hoffmanblog@earthlink.net or by posting a public comment with the link at the end of each post. Keep 'em coming.
NBC News/Wall Street Journal Poll conducted by the polling organizations of Peter Hart (D) and Robert Teeter (R). Sept. 20-22, 2003. N=1,007 adults nationwide. MoE ± 3.1.
"All in all, do you think things in the nation are generally headed in the right direction, or do you feel that things are off on the wrong track?"
Wrong Track 50% (worst since poll started in 1997)
Right Direction 38%
Mixed 8%
Not Sure 4%
"In general, do you approve or disapprove of the job George W. Bush is doing as president?"
Approve 49% (worst since Bush took office)
Disapprove 45%
Don't Know 6%
Arnold Schwarzenegger walked into this thing with the M.O. of the Republican party for the new millennium: expectations so low that if he says anything even remotely resembling quasi-intelligent that he'd be hailed as a freaking hero. Tonight's recall debate was supposed to be his Super Bowl, World Series and Stanley Cup Finals rolled into one. Arnold was the 1976 Buccaneers, the 1962 Mets, and the 1975 Capitals. He just plain sucked, saying absolutely nothing new since his Tonight Show announcement.
The question he never answered is the question nobody dares to ask him. Not on the trail and not at the debates:
"What do you plan to do about it?"
To wit:
"When we bring jobs back and the economy is booming, then we create more revenue and then we can afford some of the programs and pay off the debt."
What do you plan to do about it?
"The politicians make a mistake. They keep spending and spending and spending. Then when they realize they made a mistake and they spend the money they don't even have, then go out and tax, tax, tax. You guys have an addiction problem. You should go to an addiction place because you cannot stop spending."
It's "halfway house," Genius. But WHAT DO YOU PLAN TO DO ABOUT IT?
"I just think it is ridiculous for Cruz and for Arianna to say everything's fine and dandy and that everything is perfect. It's not ... You've got to be honest with the people. Remember one thing, in California we have a three-strike system. You guys pulled wool over the people's eyes twice, the third time now you are out. On October 7th you are out."
I have no freakin' idea what he said there, but WHAT THE HELL DO YOU PLAN TO...oh forget it.
By the way, anyone over the age of 11 who still uses "and stuff like that" to end a sentence (as Arnold did repeatedly throughout the night) should be barred from public life. No matter - Schwarzenegger spent so much time quibbling with Arianna Huffington over trivial crap, that he forgot why he was there.
Speaking of Arianna, she was punditing up a storm - which doesn't translate well in a debate for public office. Her remark about how Arnold treats women was met by a gasp with a wind chill factor of -45. But she did succeed in completely derailing Arnold's focus and that alone was worth having her there.
What is it about Green party candidates that keeps reminding me of those weirdass English teachers I had in college? Peter Camejo had all the trademarks: all the stage presence of lint, the screwy hair, and the SHEER VOLUME OF HIS VOICE. The only thing missing were the elbow patches on his jacket. The Green has replaced the Libertarian as the house weirdo of political discourse.
That leaves the only two outposts of sanity for the evening - the career politicians themselves, Cruz Bustamante and Tom McClintock. Now BELIEVE me, I'm in no way a fan of McClintock's politics, but he and Cruz both gave me a new appreciation of slick professional election-time rhetoric. Because the "plain talk" of the other three made me want to jam pencils into my skull to release the pain. I'm an advocate of "No On Recall - Yes On Bustamante" but if the Republicans talk McClintock out of running in favor of Schwarzenegger - especially after tonight - they're even stupider than I've been giving them credit for.
Finally, if you live in this state, you see Arnold's "Indian Gaming" spot ad infinitum on the tube. And all I keep hearing in my head all day like a bad song is him saying how Indian casinos need to pay "theeah feeah sheeah" of taxes. I usually say out loud, "WHATTYA PLAN TO DO ABOUT IT?" - which generally draws concerned stares (or "steeahs") from those around me.
Me? I've made my decision. I'm voting for moving to Las Vegas.
Oh yeah...I almost forgot about this guy! Remember Miniter's porn for wingnuts book about how Clinton failed to get bin Laden when he was offered his head by a "some guy" from the Sudan?
It's out.
And it's flatlining at #119 at Amazon. Looks like Miniter needs to make a third rewrite of this piece of crap.
LOS ANGELES (Reuters) - On Monday night, the American public was apparently far more interested in new comedies and a blowout football game than their president's take on the state of the international effort to rebuild Iraq.
The results showed the Bush interview, conducted by Fox News chief correspondent Brit Hume from the Oval Office of the White House, drew an average of about 4.30 million viewers in the hour, with a 1.6 rating and a 5 share in the crucial audience of adults ages 18 to 49.
"That is a sorry state of affairs," said Robert Thompson, director of the Center for the Study of Popular Television at Syracuse University.
President Bush's approval rating has suffered a double-digit drop among New York voters in five months and about one-quarter of Republicans now say they will vote against him, a statewide poll reported Tuesday.
Bush's approval rating was 44 percent in the New York poll, down from 58 percent in April and a high of 79 percent in December 2001, just three months after the terrorist attacks brought down the World Trade Center towers and sent Bush's approval ratings soaring in New York.
But in the latest Marist poll, 48 percent of New York voters surveyed, including 23 percent of Republicans, said they definitely planned to vote against Bush in the 2004 election.
Gee, Mike...I didn't know Ralph Nader met all these criteria.
So, Howard Dean, if you want my vote, promise me that you'll cut the Pentagon budget and call for a moratorium on the death penalty. Wesley Clark, if you want my vote, tell me how you'll guarantee health care to every single American and that, even though you're a hunter, you'll push for stronger gun control laws. Dennis Kucinich, if it were you vs. Bush today, I'd hope that you would have done the work needed to convince the majority of Americans to vote for you. Carol Moseley Braun, if the moderator at the debate on Thursday ignores you for the first 15 minutes (as George Stephanopoulos did back in the May debate), I hope you won't wait your turn and will just jump right in—we're long overdue for a woman President. And Al Sharpton, just keep being you and cutting through all the b.s. in these debates -- you produce the stinging laugh we all need right now.
I guess I'm just still stinging over the 2000 debacle which (sorry, Mike) was due in no small part to your shilling for the Green party. Hope you'll understand if not all the candidates fall all over themselves just to make you happy.
The Howard Dean campaign is getting close to the first million mark in their September to Remember online contribution drive. Help get the word out by clicking the bats in the left column.
Hoffmania! has set its own goal of just $500. Hey, I get a lot of hits, but not as many as the big blogs. I gotta be real here! Let's see how close I can get. You can donate ANY amount from a dollar on up. Here's my own bat:
GOAL: $500
Raised so far: $65
Okay. So I haven't had any $2000 a plate dinners at my condo. I'm tryin'.
Former international weapons inspector David Kay, now seeking Iraqi weapons of mass destruction for the Pentagon, has privately reported successes that are planned to be revealed to the public in mid-September.
Kay has told his superiors he has found substantial evidence of biological weapons in Iraq, plus considerable missile development.
Senior officials in the Bush administration believe Kay's weapons discoveries should have been revealed as they were made. However, a decision, approved by President Bush, was made to wait until more was discovered and then announce it -- probably in September.
DR. RICE: Well, let me first say that David Kaye has an orderly process for mining the miles of documentation, the hundreds, even thousands of interviews, that need to be done, the physical evidence that needs to be gathered to understand precisely the status of Iraq's weapons of mass destruction, the status of the programs, what became of unaccounted for weapons stockpiles.
Q When will Kaye's report will be public?
DR. RICE: David Kaye is not going to be done with this for quite some time. And I would not count on reports. I suppose there may be interim reports. I don't know when those will be, and I don't know what the public nature of them will be.
MR. SECRETARY GENERAL, Mr. President, distinguished delegates, ladies and gentlemen: Twenty-four months ago — and yesterday in the memory of America — the center of New York City became a battlefield, and a graveyard, and the symbol of an unfinished war. Since that day, terrorists have struck in Bali, Mombassa, in Casablanca, in Riyadh, in Jakarta, in Jerusalem — measuring the advance of their cause in the chaos and innocent suffering they leave behind.
Last month, terrorists brought their war to the United Nations itself. The UN headquarters in Baghdad stood for order and compassion — and for that reason, the terrorists decided it must be destroyed.
Dear friends - I am really really REALLY sick of President Flightsuit believing that all terrorists are all coming from the same place and the same organization. Hence the name (as if it were a crosstown rival team), "The Terrorists." But these are complex times and the president likes simple - because simple people are happy people.
However, there's a problem with his message. He's not talking to red states. He's not talking to a group of awestruck garment workers. He's not talking to the bobblehead choir of talkshow hosts for which he can do no wrong.
He's talking to the leaders of the rest of the planet. They're not as naive as Bush thinks Americans are. They know that all these terrorists of which he speaks are not all from the same team. They know that the terrorists who perpetrated 9.11 are not the ones who blow up buses in Israel. And neither of those were the ones suspected of bus-bombing the U.N. in Baghdad. In other words, he's trying to do to the world what he's done to us - lie.
One minute into his speech, he lied - trying desperately to convince the United Freaking Nations that all the same people are trying to kill us all. He painted the grim picture of terrorists getting WMDs and "nucular" weapons to destroy the rest of the world.
He says this to a gathering of nations which knows the one simple truth that has held up throughout history: TERRORISM DOES NOT WORK. It destroys. It disrupts. It kills. But there has not been an instance where a strong-willed country has ever fallen to terrorists. Just don't tell Bush that. It's his number one campaign point for the next year. And he'll prey on our fears and tap into our nightmares to get votes. Terrorism works against the weak, and it's working like a charm on this president.
Bush would rather send that message of fear and dread (with some global child molestation thrown in for good measure) to the United Nations than one of strength and resolve. Sick minds create and exploit sick scenarios.
It's time to cure America (and the world) of this sickness. It's time to send President Pilotpants back to Crawford, Texas where he can send fear and dread into his ranchhands all he wants to - just to show them who's boss.
Once upon a time, our Secretary of State was very confident about Iraq's ability to produce and deliver weapons of mass destruction.
...the sanctions exist -- not for the purpose of hurting the Iraqi people, but for the purpose of keeping in check Saddam Hussein's ambitions toward developing weapons of mass destruction. We should constantly be reviewing our policies, constantly be looking at those sanctions to make sure that they are directed toward that purpose. That purpose is every bit as important now as it was ten years ago when we began it. And frankly they have worked. He has not developed any significant capability with respect to weapons of mass destruction. He is unable to project conventional power against his neighbors.
Sec. of State Colin Powell at a Cairo press conference - 2/4/01
Verbatim from the State Department website
By now you all know the California gubernatorial recall is back on for October 7th. This has caused major panic in the Republcan party. Seriously.
If the GOP had more time, they could shake out one of their two top candidates who are splitting the Republican vote. Now, that's not going to happen. Schwarzenegger definitely won't drop out - and bouyed by his rising numbers, neocon Tom McClintock has declared he's in it for the duration.
Well, it gets better.
Remember Darrell Issa? The millionaire congressman who bankrolled the recall so he can become governor? He dropped this bombshell on his partymates...
A shocking statement from the man who spent a small fortune to get the California recall effort started. Congressman Darrell Issa now say it may be best to keep Gray Davis in office, after all. Issa claims a split between the two leading republicans could result in a disastrous political climate.
He adds that he would rather have Davis as Governor than Cruz Bustamante, who he call a more liberal leader. Issa said, "When you vote, if there are still two major Republicans, Tom McClintock and Arnold Schwarzenegger, then I advise you to vote no on the recall."
This sends a clear message to the state Repubs. In the Bizarro World, that is. Here on Earth, it's panic and confusion.
At Arnold's request, here are the questions - IN ADVANCE - that will be asked at Wednesday's debate. At least there'll be SOME element of surprise: the candidates can ask each other questions. I kinda like that. Arnold won't.
Chris Andersen of Interesting Times e-mailed a thought out to many of us in the Blogosphere:
I've been thinking long and hard about some of the recent bad blood that is being spilled in the battles between Clark and Dean supporters.
I'm sick of it.
Therefore, I am pledging that from this point onward I will not be a part of any divisive campaign that will tear Democrats apart.
If you've been reading Hoffmania! on a regular basis, I'm all over that concept. I'd like to see Kerry and Gephardt take a similar pledge - Kerry to stop trashing Dean when he thinks microphones are off, and Gephardt to begin by dismantling his "Dean Facts" site. Let's get busy on these, gang.
Keep in mind there's a margin of error of 3% here, so yeah - the neocons are in a mild state of horror. Dean and Clark (as well as Kerry and Lieberman) are in a virtual dead heat with the Rove administration!
If retired General Wesley Clark were the Democratic Party's candidate and George W. Bush were the Republican Party's candidate, who would you be more likely to vote for — Wesley Clark, the Democrat or George W. Bush, the Republican?
Among registered voters nationwide:
Wesley Clark 49%
George W. Bush 46%
If former Vermont Governor Howard Dean were the Democratic Party's candidate and George W. Bush were the Republican Party's candidate, who would you be more likely to vote for — Howard Dean, the Democrat or George W. Bush, the Republican?
Among registered voters nationwide:
Howard Dean 46%
George W. Bush 49%
The Dixie Chicks say they don't want to be a country music band any more.
Violinist Martie Maguire told Spiegel magazine: "We don't feel part of the country scene any longer, it can't be our home any more."
She said she was disappointed other country singers didn't back up the Dixie Chicks in their criticism of George W Bush's politics on Iraq. "A few weeks ago, Merle Haggard said a couple of nice words about us, but that was it," Maguire complained. "The support we got came from others, like Bruce Springsteen."
Going home empty-handed from the Country Awards ceremony also made them decide to break with the scene, Maguire said.
"Instead, we won three Grammys against much stronger competition. So we now consider ourselves part of the big Rock 'n' Roll family."
The attack campaign against Gen. Wesley Clark began practically minutes after his announcement of candidacy. It's no secret that this is Karl Rove's M.O. - to find as many enemies Clark may have and sic them on the right wing propaganda machine.
As Joe Conason pointed out in Big Lies, the machine's heirarchy is to give the story to Drudge, Newsmax, the Freepers and the other bottom-feeders who then feed it to Fox, the Washington Times and NY Post who report it on their "legit" media. Then said bottom-feeders bang the drum loud enough that the other ("liberal") networks and newspapers are "ignoring" the story until they cave in and it becomes "news." See Drudge right now for his headline, "GENERAL CLARK WORE BOSNIAN WAR CRIMINAL'S MILITARY CAP!" for the latest spawn of this machine.
And since the White House has access to all of Clark's military records, we'll get accounts like this from the Pittsburgh Post-Gazette's Jack Kelly - a former Marine who served in the Reagan administration:
Gen. Clark was CINCEUR when the Kosovo war began, and bears much of the responsibility for President Clinton's decision to try to bomb Serb dictator Slobodan Milosevic out of Kosovo. Gen. Clark argued that after a few days of bombing, Mr. Milosevic would fold his tent and slink away. When the Serbs didn't budge after months of bombing, Gen. Clark lost Mr. Clinton's favor.
As the war dragged on, Gen. Clark advocated the use of ground troops. This put him at loggerheads with Gen. Henry Shelton, the chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff, and with Gen. Eric Shinseki, chief of staff of the Army, who thought this was a terrible idea. These generals faulted Gen. Clark for getting America into an unnecessary war, and for having done a poor job of preparing for it.
"NATO did not expect a long war," wrote former Clinton national security aide Ivo Daalder. "Worse, it did not even prepare for the possibility."
The conduct of the war drew unprecedented criticism from Gen. Clark's predecessor, Gen. George Joulwan, and a quiet rebellion by subordinate commanders.
Executive producer John Wells promises that Sheen will get his old job back before long.
But Wells said Goodman's guest-starring role is just one way in which "West Wing," which some have criticized as being too liberal, too Democratic, will become more politically balanced this season.
To represent the Republican point of view, Wells has recruited former Reagan chief of staff Ken Duberstein, along with John Podhoretz, a conservative columnist who wrote speeches for Presidents Ronald Reagan and George Bush senior. Wells said Podhoretz has been one of the show's "staunchest critics" in recent years.
I'm wondering if this has anything to do with Sorkin's "quitting" last May...
There have been suggestions that the show, launched in more peaceful times, lost its course after September 11 as make-believe politics were displaced by real world events. The series' star, Sheen, has also come under attack for his antiwar efforts. After voicing his dissatisfaction with President Bush and the war with Iraq last month Sheen said NBC big-wigs "let it be known they're very uncomfortable with where I'm at" on the war and said the network worried that his vocal antiwar stance would affect the show's ratings--NBC officials swore there was "no concern among top management."
This story points out that Wells was put in place at the request of NBC Entertainment president Jeff Zucker - not the show's creative team or studio.
(MONDAY MORNING UPDATE:) Hope NBC enjoyed what will probably be the last Emmy for "West Wing" if their plan takes root.
Looks like a lot of military folks saw right through the flightsuit. From the Independent U.K.:
White House is ambushed by criticism from America's military community
George Bush probably owes his presidency to the absentee military voters who nudged his tally in Florida decisively past Al Gore's. But now, with Iraq in chaos and the reasons for going to war there mired in controversy, an increasingly disgruntled military poses perhaps the gravest immediate threat to his political future, just one year before the presidential elections.
From Vietnam veterans to fresh young recruits, from seasoned officers to anxious mothers worried about their sons' safety on the streets of Baghdad and Fallujah, the military community is growing ever more vocal in its opposition to the White House.
Newsweek Poll conducted by Princeton Survey Research Associates. Sept. 18-19, 2003. N=377 registered Democrats and independents who lean Democratic nationwide. MoE ± 6.
"Now I'm going to name 10 Democrats in the race for president. After I read you their names, tell me which ONE you would most like to see nominated as the Democratic Party's presidential candidate in 2004. Here are the choice . . . ." (July '03 in parenthesis)
Wesley Clark 14% (n/a)
Howard Dean 12% (12%)
Joseph Lieberman 12% (13%)
John Kerry 10% (10%)
Dick Gephardt 8% (14%)
Al Sharpton 7% (6%)
John Edwards 6% (6%)
Bob Graham 4% (7%)
Carol Mosely Braun 2% (3%)
Dennis Kucinich 2% (2%)
Dean's and Kerry's numbers were unaffected by Clark's numbers here - other than everyone's rank going down a notch with Clark's debut. Gephardt and Graham took pretty big whacks. But with a margin of error of a whopping 6%, this is pretty much a non-story here. Just interesting.
...in the next ballpark. We knew the Howard Dean campaign was going to try to do something spectacular this month, and here it is. They're trying to raise $5 million in web contributions over the next ten days.
I've always wondered how they were able to pull off their past endeavors by targeting both Bush and Cheney in their respective fund-raisers, but they did it. So I'll bury any doubts I have about these folks pulling it off, and we'll just watch the progress from here with the progress meter in the left column.
By the way, contributions made through this site get credited to Hoffmania! - no monetary reward, just an ego pat on the head over our ability to help out. If I get any status update, I'll let you all know. So far, we've already raised $50 since I posted the link several minutes ago. Damn.
Police detained two suspects and were searching for another Saturday in the killing of a 25-year-old San Francisco Giants fan in the parking lot of Dodger Stadium, a shooting that authorities said had been triggered by a decades-old baseball rivalry.
Two families leaving the game during the eighth inning apparently traded words about the teams, police said. The dispute culminated when Mark Allen Antenorcruz, of Covina, was shot twice after a man he was arguing with pulled a .25-caliber semiautomatic handgun from his family's white SUV, police said.
Family "men". Ya gotta love 'em. Always setting a great example in front of their families.
Last night, less extremely, we waited in line at the taxi stop following "Bugs Bunny On Broadway" at the Hollywood Bowl. After waiting 45 minutes, ours came - but some "good dad" tried wedging himself and his snotnose kids between us and the cab, cursing his ass off and screaming that he phoned for that cab (the driver denied it). He almost took off my friend's leg by trying to slam the door when he lost the argument - all this in front of his kids.
You need to go through a rigorous weeklong screening process to adopt a cat today. But any gearhead with reproductive organs can have a kid. And not very many of them are fit to be fathers.
ABU GHRAIB, Iraq -- A volley of incoming mortar fire that has become almost routine at the U.S.-occupied Abu Ghraib prison slammed into the square-mile prison compound Saturday night, killing at least two U.S. soldiers and seriously wounding at least a dozen of the U.S. Army military police who guard and run it.
It was a relatively light attack -- just two 82 mm rounds, after weeks that have seen as many as seven a night. But one was a direct hit, exploding in a tent filled with U.S. soldiers inside the compound in one of the worst single attacks on American forces since they occupied Iraq five months ago.
Every week, we're turning sad corners on this war. Now we're seeing words like "routine" and "relatively light attack" when we read reports of U.S. casualties in Iraq.
Bush entered Yale University in 1964, a third-generation legatee, and found himself floundering in yet another highly intellectual environment. Although he was an enthusiastic athlete, he lacked the natural gifts to distinguish himself in any sport. But he did have a gift for winning people. It looked as if it all came so naturally, but he worked hard at it. By studying the student registry and memorizing the names of his classmates, he was able to roam around campus in the first few days of his freshman year and forge many quick friendships.
