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.
Joe Conason is unlike most other columnists. Where a ton of news sources today are taking the Bush wackos' word that the Iraq project was started by Clinton, Conason will actually read the damned Iraq Liberation Act of 1998. We start with Paul O'Neill's transcript of Donald Rumsfeld in the situation room in early 2001:
"Sanctions are fine. But what we really want to think about is going after Saddam. Imagine what the region would look like without Saddam and with a regime that's aligned with U.S. interests. It would change everything in the region and beyond it. It would demonstrate what U.S. policy is all about." Even then Rumsfeld was formulating the justification for war. "It's not my specific objective to get rid of Saddam Hussein," he said, disingenuously. "I'm after the weapons of mass destruction."
Were Bush and Rumsfeld merely reiterating the Clinton administration's previous commitment to "regime change" in Iraq, as they now claim? Or were they abandoning the Clinton approach for a more muscular policy, as they and their ideologues have often boasted? They'd like to have it both ways. But the Iraq Liberation Act of 1998, usually cited as precedent, provides no justification for an American invasion and occupation. Its final section states:
"Nothing in this Act shall be construed to authorize or otherwise speak to the use of United States Armed Forces (except as provided in section 4(a)(2)) in carrying out this Act." Section 4(a)(2) restricts military action to training and arming indigenous opponents of Saddam, at a cost not to exceed $97 million -- or a bit more than one-tenth of 1 percent of the last supplemental appropriation for the war.
O'Neill also reveals why the administration decided to invade Iraq after 9/11, despite the continuing dearth of any proof that Saddam possessed or produced weapons of mass destruction. At a Camp David meeting following the terrorist attacks, Deputy Defense Secretary Paul Wolfowitz warned that while Afghanistan could turn into a mess, the Iraqi regime was ripe for an easy overthrow.
Iraq might not have been much of a threat, but Iraq was certainly "doable."
Lead article in Salon.com by Eric Boehlert, and it's dead-on. It underscores our post below it on how the press will do the White House's bidding to destroy the Dems over useless crap while BushCo is destroying the rest of the country.
Remember how Gore was dogged in the press by often phony, Republican-crafted stories about how he couldn't be trusted? A classic case in point was the "Gore invented the Internet" story. The facts were simple: In March 1999 Gore gave an interview to CNN in which he artlessly said, "During my service in the United States Congress, I took the initiative in creating the Internet." He was referring to his landmark "information superhighway" speech, as well as his well-known leadership in delivering key government funding to help nurture the Net in the '80s and early '90s. For a few days Gore's CNN comments were ignored in the 24-hour news cycle. Then the RNC issued a press release mocking Gore's statement, and soon the urban legend about Gore having claimed to invent the sprawling Internet took root in the political landscape. Almost five years later, even though it's been relentlessly debunked, it's a weed that can't be killed. Just last month it bloomed again when Gore endorsed the Internet-savvy Dean, and Joe Klein, Clarence Page, Jeff Greenfield, and Tim Russert all reached back and dug it up for public consumption. Lazy media habits die hard.
Today, the parallels between the Dean and Gore press coverage are impossible to miss. There's the charge Dean is constantly trying to "reinvent" himself, which Gore was accused of in 2000. That Dean is "angry"; Gore was tagged a "savage campaigner" during the primaries. There's the often nit-picking obsession with the "gaffes" that supposedly bedevil Dean; for Gore the problem was "exaggerations."
New York Times columnist David Brooks recently ridiculed Dean for beginning "a sentence with, 'Us rural people ...' Dean grew up on Park Avenue and in East Hampton. If he's a rural person, I'm the Queen of Sheba." Somebody might want to tell Brooks (or his editor) that Dean has spent half his life living in Vermont, and his wife still practices family medicine in the tiny town of Shelburne (pop: 6,618). Meanwhile, of course, the Andover, Yale and Harvard-educated Bush's claim to a pure Texas pedigree is rarely questioned.
And instead of schmoozing reporters on the campaign trail and handing out playground-type nicknames the way Bush did in 2000, Dean treats them professionally, but pushes back when he thinks they're wrong.
Perhaps not surprisingly, it's the Washington Post -- particularly its editorial and Op-Ed pages, which double as the house organ of the D.C. establishment -- that has taken the lead role in deriding the surging outsider. But the rest of the press also seems eager to play along with the established, critical Dean narratives.
Worth repeating. This administration has nothing but ripping contempt for the American press. The "lib'rul" media cower to them. They obey them. They jump on their laps and lick their faces. They spread their knees apart and allow themselves to be kicked repeatedly in the balls by them. And still, they do absolutely nothing but fall under their spell of fear - having the threat of not being called during their next press conference hanging over them if they hint at scandal.
I don't know where the "journalists" of today were taught. Unless it's oral sex, labeling a candidate as "angry," or another candidate's flashy sex-appeal sweater, these punks are totally lost. They're aimless. They're useless. Their lives are without any meaning because they let the crackheads in the White House and their majority lapdogs in the House and Senate go unpunished and unchecked. You want miserable failures? Look at the punching bags we call a "press":
He didn't free the slaves.
He didn't rid the world of Hitler.
He didn't even - like his father - preside over the destruction of the Berlin Wall.
Yet George W. Bush tells New Yorker writer Ken Auletta: "No President has ever done more for human rights than I have."
With stunners like that, no wonder he spends so little time with journalists.
The President's eyebrow-raising assertion comes during some Oval Office chitchat after Auletta - writing about the testy relations between the Bush White House and the news media - sits in on an interview with a British newspaper reporter.
In the latest New Yorker, Auletta reports that Bush and his minions have little use for the Fourth Estate.
Political guru Karl Rove claims that the job of journalists is "not necessarily to report the news. It's to get a headline or get a story that will make people pay attention to their magazine, newspaper or television more."
And Chief of Staff Andy Card scoffs: "[The media] don't represent the public any more than other people do. In our democracy, the people who represent the public stood for election."
Card argues that it's not the responsibility of top White House policymakers to provide reporters with facts.
"It's not our job to be sources. The taxpayers don't pay us to leak!" Card tells Auletta. "Our job is not to make your job easy."
Predictably, the reporters who cover Bush aren't happy. The Washington Post's Dana Milbank complains: "My biggest frustration is that this White House has chosen an approach ...to engage us as little as possible." And the New York Times' Elisabeth Bumiller grouses: "Too often they treat us with contempt."
WASHINGTON -- President Bush acknowledged for the first time yesterday that he was mapping preparations to topple Iraqi dictator Saddam Hussein as soon as he took office.
Bush's comments came in response to former Treasury Secretary Paul O'Neill's contention in a new book that the chief executive was gunning for Saddam nine months before the Sept. 11 terrorist attacks and two years before the U.S. invasion of Iraq.
Bush said al-Qaida's surprise Sept. 11 attacks on the United States put him on a hair trigger to take pre-emptive action against Iraq rather than await evidence of a new threat to Americans.
"September the 11th made me realize that America was no longer protected by oceans and we had to take threats very seriously no matter where they may be materializing," Bush said.
People are saying terrible things about George Bush. They say that his officials weren't sincere about pledges to balance the budget. They say that the planning for an invasion of Iraq began seven months before 9/11, that there was never any good evidence that Iraq was a threat and that the war actually undermined the fight against terrorism.
But these irrational Bush haters are body-piercing, Hollywood-loving, left-wing freaks who should go back where they came from: the executive offices of Alcoa, and the halls of the Army War College.
...
So far administration officials have attacked Mr. O'Neill's character but haven't refuted any of his facts. They have, however, already opened an investigation into how a picture of a possibly classified document appeared during Mr. O'Neill's TV interview. This alacrity stands in sharp contrast with their evident lack of concern when a senior administration official, still unknown, blew the cover of a C.I.A. operative because her husband had revealed some politically inconvenient facts.
Some will say that none of this matters because Saddam is in custody, and the economy is growing. Even in the short run, however, these successes may not be all they're cracked up to be. More Americans were killed and wounded in the four weeks after Saddam's capture than in the four weeks before. The drop in the unemployment rate since its peak last summer doesn't reflect a greater availability of jobs, but rather a decline in the share of the population that is even looking for work.
More important, having a few months of good news doesn't excuse a consistent pattern of dishonest, irresponsible leadership. And that pattern keeps getting harder to deny.
LONDON (Reuters) - The United States Air Force says it is investigating how one of its fighter jets dropped an unarmed bomb on the Yorkshire countryside last week.
There were no injuries and only "limited property damage" in the incident which happened around 5:15 p.m. last Thursday, a USAF spokesman said.
The 25 lb practice bomb was dropped by a F-15E Strike Eagle on a routine training run from a base at RAF Lakenheath in Suffolk, eastern England.
The Seeds Of Fear And War Happened Long Before Sunday
Paul O'Neill's appearance on 60 Minutes was at least some validation by someone who was in the administration about Bush's almost psychotic obsession to go after Saddam Hussein.
But the evidence was there all along in the Project for the New American Century, co-authored by Deputy Secretary of Defense Paul Wolfowitz and published in 2000. All they needed was a willing stooge in the White House who would carry out the plan. The rest is history. Go there and do a search on "Iraq" - you'll see many many references to their non-existent WMD programs. And damn it, we're going to flog this document until it sinks in. These people are nuts.
The current American peace will be short-lived if the United States becomes vulnerable to rogue powers with small, inexpensive arsenals of ballistic missiles and nuclear warheads or other weapons of mass destruction. We cannot allow North Korea, Iran, Iraq or similar states to undermine American leadership, intimidate American allies or threaten the American homeland itself. The blessings of the American peace, purchased at fearful cost and a century of effort, should not be so trivially squandered.
Well, congratulations. They were squandered in a huge way instead.
Folks...it's that bad. They've gotten away with murder.
A scathing new report published by the Army War College broadly criticizes the Bush administration's handling of the war on terrorism, accusing it of taking a detour into an "unnecessary" war in Iraq and pursuing an "unrealistic" quest against terrorism that may lead to U.S. wars with states that pose no serious threat.
The report, by Jeffrey Record, a visiting professor at the Air War College at Maxwell Air Force Base in Alabama, warns that as a result of those mistakes, the Army is "near the breaking point."
It recommends, among other things, scaling back the scope of the "global war on terrorism" and instead focusing on the narrower threat posed by the al Qaeda terrorist network.
"[T]he global war on terrorism as currently defined and waged is dangerously indiscriminate and ambitious, and accordingly . . . its parameters should be readjusted," Record writes. Currently, he adds, the anti-terrorism campaign "is strategically unfocused, promises more than it can deliver, and threatens to dissipate U.S. military resources in an endless and hopeless search for absolute security."
Don't know if you're aware of it, but Danziger actually pens two cartoons a day. Guess there's never a lack of material with these fenderheads in office.
Treasury wants O'Neill papers probed Probe to focus on how possibly classified information appeared in a TV interview, spokesman says.
January 12, 2004: 6:03 PM EST
WASHINGTON (CNN) - The Treasury Department said Monday it is looking into how a government document from the very early days of the Bush administration -- marked "secret" and outlining plans for a post-Saddam Iraq -- became part of a CBS "60 Minutes" broadcast Sunday night.
"Based on the '60 Minutes' segment aired Sunday evening, there was a document that was shown that appeared to be classified," said Treasury Department spokesman Rob Nichols. "It was for that reason that it was referred to the U.S. inspector general's office."
Ousted Treasury Secretary Paul O'Neill, now an outspoken critic of the Bush administration, was a guest on the program, along with Ron Suskind, the author of a book for which O'Neill was the primary source. O'Neill said on the program that the administration was preparing plans to move against Iraq "from the very beginning."
Suskind told CNN he had no access to secret documents and O'Neill never improperly took classified papers after leaving the Administration.
And the White House will never - NEVER - show this much vigorous investigating of the Valerie Plame debacle. They're so damned predictable and so damned vindictive. And no one with any gravity as a journalist will have the balls to do anything about it.
Ooo! Well! What could THIS be? Dean snapped? He lost it? Let's read!
OELWEIN, Iowa (Reuters) - Dale Ungerer, a 66-year-old retiree from Hawkeye, Iowa, succeeded on Sunday where eight Democratic presidential hopefuls have failed -- he made front-runner Howard Dean show a flash of his much-discussed temper.
Wow. Dean probably turned purple and started swearing at this defenseless gentleman.
The former Vermont governor had just finished his standard stump speech blasting President Bush for, among other things, his Iraq policy and his stewardship of the economy. He asked, as is his custom, for "questions, comments or rude remarks in the New England tradition."
Ungerer, wearing a T-shirt bearing the words "Mr Fix It," rose to his feet and condemned what he called the incivility of the campaign and the political press. He suggested Dean and the other Democratic candidates stop "tearing down your neighbor" and cut their "slam, bam and bash Bush" rhetoric.
"Please tone down the garbage, the mean-mouthing of tearing down your neighbor and being so pompous," Ungerer, a registered Republican who voted for Bush in 2000, said to scattered hisses and boos from the overwhelmingly pro-Dean audience at the Oelwein Community Center.
Oh, ho, ho! Here it comes! Dean must be ready to just jump ugly!
Dean, whose rivals have suggested his impulsiveness, outspokenness and temperament make him less than ready for the White House but have been unable to provoke him in a dozen or more debates and forums, began by calmly replying: "George Bush is not my neighbor."
But when Ungerer stood and tried to interrupt, Dean shouted: "You sit down. You had your say. Now I'm going to have my say."
Whoa. Okay, the GOP guy's being rude, but you can see Dean's temper brewing. I'll bet the crowd just gasped in stunned silence!
The crowd cheered and Ungerer sat.
Oh. Hmm. Okay then, Dean's about to throw garbage, punches and cussin' at this guy, and he's going to have to be restrained by his handlers! Here it comes! DEAN'S GOING TO GO NUTS!!!
"George Bush has done more to harm this county right here with unfunded mandates, standing up for corporations who take over the farmers' land, making it impossible for middle class people to make a real living, sending our kids to Iraq without telling us the truth first about why they went," Dean said.
"It's not the time to put up any of this 'love thy neighbor' stuff ... I love my neighbor, but I'll tell you I want THAT neighbor back in Crawford, Texas where he belongs."
Uh...
O - kayyy...that was...uh...spirited, maybe. In a way, I suppose. Dean DID tell the guy to sit down after the guy tried interrupting him, so I guess that was...er...testy? Okay, a touch "cranky," tops, but...wow...
I miss the knock-down drag-out politics of my youth. It gave journalists something to do besides dance their asses off to fashion bullcrap stories like this one.
Scouring the blogosphere, we noticed our pals over at Blah3 (okay - "pal" singular. I'm just tryin' to make us all look like we each have an investigative team) found this juicy, crunchy and kinda shocking little thing which we can wrap our jaws around. Actually, it's not so little:
Like this one, from February, 2001... click on 'Plan Colombia' and read down.
Q Ari, according to India Globe, the Taliban in Afghanistan, they have offered that they are ready to hand over Osama bin Laden to Saudi Arabia if the United States would drop its sanctions, and they have a kind of deal that they want to make with the United States. Do you have any comments?
MR. FLEISCHER: Let me take that and get back to you on that.
*gulp* So it sounds like the crackheads were offered a silver platter with bin Laden l'Orange served upon it as they claim Clinton had (note NewsMax refers to Bill O'Reilly as a "newsman"). One difference: King Crackhead was too busy planning to bust a move on Saddam Hussein to worry about the guy who was about to destroy lower Manhattan and part of the Pentagon.
"Paul has earned a reputation as a straight shooter and an innovator. And I'm proud to welcome him as the Chief Financial Officer of this nation. I value Paul's vast experience in the world economy. I value his background in employing American workers. And I value his steadiness, his conviction and his authority."
"Our economy is showing warning signs of a possible slowdown and so it's important for me to find somebody who has vast experience, who has a steady hand, and when he speaks, speaks with authority and conviction and knowledge," Bush said. "I found such a man in Paul O'Neill."
Your homework assignment: Watch 60 Minutes tonight and revel in his conviction and authority.
I read all my rantings from Saturday, and I just want to say - I'm sorry. I'll wake up in a much more cheerful mood. I don't know what my stinkin' problem was, but I'll sleep it off. G'night.
The Bush Administration began laying plans for an invasion of Iraq, including the use of American troops, within days of President Bush's inauguration in January of 2001 -- not eight months later after the 9/11 attacks as has been previously reported.
That's what former Treasury Secretary Paul O'Neill says in his first interview about his time as a White House insider. O'Neill talks to Correspondent Lesley Stahl in the interview, to be broadcast on 60 Minutes, Sunday, Jan. 11 at 7 p.m. ET/PT.
O'Neill, who was asked to resign because of his opposition to the tax cut, says he doesn't think his tell-all account in this book will be attacked by his former employers as sour grapes. "I will be really disappointed if [the White House] reacts that way," he tells Stahl. "I can't imagine that I am going to be attacked for telling the truth."
If I were Karl Rove, I'd dismiss O'Neill's allegations because if he knew the administration as well as he claims, he'd know the White House will attack him as sour grapes. And we all know Karl will never come under media scrutiny for making such a stupid statement.
Dean supporters in the L.A. area are receiving this e-mail, allegedly from Joe Trippi:
Dean for America is currently seeking 5,000 motivated, resourceful, energetic and hardworking individuals of all ages, sizes, and backgrounds for our Paid Internship Madness Program. Due to close sleeping quarters homosexuals will not be accepted for this position.
You've assumed by now that this "homosexuals will not be accepted" edict is a total fabrication, and you'd be right. It comes from a poorly-crafted HTML e-mail from "joe_trippi@yahoo.com" - reminiscent of the fake eBay and PayPal emails. It's cleverly disguised as a missive from Dean for America, but the message is completely bogus.
Right wing trolls have very fertile (and sick) imaginations. This is where they channel their creative energy - on inventing scenarios, names and homophobic mental screenplays. They then carry it out anonymously online in chat rooms, forums and campaign sites, thoroughly immersed in the lie that they come up with the bullcrap you see above. I'm counting the seconds before the NBC News Investigative Team goes into full deployment over this.
This is why the wingnuts rail on the Hollywood Elite. Not having the talent to come up with entertainment, they instead come up with tales of intolerance from the dark recesses of their minds.
The Carnegie Endowment for International Peace Report
Michael O'Brien (whose photography of Washington is viewable down the left column) is also on the staff of the CEIP which released the report on Iraq's WMDs which has Limbaugh, Hannity, Powell and everyone else on the other side in a sweat-induced fit. He sends the link to the report and we're more than happy to pass it along so you can read it unfiltered.
This has been a great week for the wingnuts giving cred and publicity to organizations like CEIP, MoveOn.org, Take Back The Media and many other liberal guerillas and good guys. Apparently, what they have to say and show are important enough for national right-wing talk shows and the Republican party to give them top billing in their talking points. Well played, people.
Read the report. As Michael points out, it's the first scholarly report of its kind without spin or commentary. By the way, the CEIP isn't anything new - it was founded by Andrew Carnegie almost a century ago - in 1910. They have a little more experience than anyone in the White House on the subject of winning hearts and minds.
Joe Trippi Is My Hero. Holy CRAP, did Dean's Campaign Manager ever take it to Paula Zahn on CNN tonight. She tried Heathering it up by rehashing Dean's comments about Bush's prior knowledge of 9/11. Trippi absolutely plastered her up one side and down the other - and gave her a lesson in old fashioned journalism. Here's the CNN transcript of Paula's education:
ZAHN: Final question for you, sir. Your candidate, Governor Dean, has made several references to -- about President Bush having alleged advance knowledge of the 9/11 attacks from the Saudis. Should someone who wants to be president be trading on rumors?
TRIPPI: That's not what the governor said at all. In fact, you're trading on rumors when you keep saying that.
(CROSSTALK)
ZAHN: I haven't said it yet. I'm just repeating what...
TRIPPI: Yes, you're repeating the rumor.
Yes, what happened was the governor said that, when the president and the administration mislead people in the war and the American people start asking questions, there's these rumors out there and that we need to talk about them to shut them down, because he didn't believe it. And he said that on the air in the interview.
(CROSSTALK)
ZAHN: But there was another interview on NPR that has gotten a lot of attention, where he basically said, you know, whether this can be proven or not, he suggested that the president had had advance knowledge of what might unfold on 9/11.
TRIPPI: No.
No, the governor said he didn't believe that and that it was part of the problem. We have this right now with black-box voting. You'll find across the country that there are people all over this nation who believe these paperless computer voting machines are a way that the Bush administration will steal the election, OK? What's not important here is whether that's a rumor or not.
What's important here is that we shut that down, that we prove to people that there's no way that anybody -- that these paperless machines are going to rob people of their vote.
ZAHN: All right.
TRIPPI: Repeating that is not repeating that you believe it. I don't necessarily believe that those machines do that or not.
But if we're going to have a democracy, we have to say so and air it out.
ZAHN: Let me just repeat exactly what came off the transcript of the NPR radio show. And this is Governor Dean's remark -- quote -- "The most interesting theory that I have heard so far," he responded -- quote -- "is that he was warned ahead of time by the Saudis."
TRIPPI: And then can you keep reading, please?
ZAHN: Well, I could go on for the next five minutes for the interview, but you were saying that he didn't say that. I've got it right here.
(CROSSTALK)
TRIPPI: No, no, no. I said that -- if you keep reading, you'll say he said he didn't believe that.
ZAHN: Yes, there is a point at which -- but you were denying that he had suggested...
(CROSSTALK)
TRIPPI: You're forgetting that part, Paula.
ZAHN: No, I'm not forgetting it.
(CROSSTALK)
TRIPPI: Keep reading there.
ZAHN: I just wanted to clarify that he had, in fact, repeated something. And he did say later on...
TRIPPI: Could you keep reading the interview and you'll get to the part where he says he did not believe it.
ZAHN: No, I am not denying that, but I wanted to challenge
(CROSSTALK)
TRIPPI: OK, well, that's not how you started the interview.
ZAHN: Well, I think our audience has a pretty good sense now of what was said and what wasn't said. And, Joe Trippi, thank you for your time.
The Pitbull And The Flea: NBC's Investigative Unit At Work
In an earlier post about the MoveOn "Bush In 30 Seconds" snit, we discussed how the right loves to seize upon a molecule in the ocean, grab onto it and implode it into an all-encompassing obsession. They're doing it again - with no small help from the Gephardt, Kerry and Lieberman camps - this time with a four-year-old videotape of Howard Dean on a Canadian talk show. Here's the quote from that show which has everyone's panties in a knot:
"If you look at the caucus system, they are dominated by the special interests, in both sides, in both parties."
That's it. An observation by a political outsider from 2000. Nothing more, right? Today, that snippet has been played repeatedly, generally referred to as a slap at Iowa caucus members by whoever's reporting (most recently just moments ago by a sneering stringer on Greta Van Susteren's show). Also from that same TV show, they found him saying:
"[George Bush is] in his soul, a moderate."
WHOA NELLY, this is huge, huge, HUGE!
Isn't it?
Please. Not at all. Back in 2000, a LOT of us thought he was sort of a moderate. As time passed, millions of us turned out to be bad judges of the man's character, myself included. Bush has evolved as one of the most dangerous extremists who ever held the presidency. We all know that now. Most of us gave him the benefit of the doubt four years ago.
This is why I'll never understand politics - it never allows for error or a learning curve. Whatever you say three, four, seventeen years ago will bite you in the ass today - even if you've made some growing pains or the winds of history shifted in that time. That's one disgrace.
What about this Canadian TV show, anyway? Well, these tapes were pored over by NBC News, who - in reporting this story - seems to focus on a completely different angle:
...the NBC News Investigative Unit has now obtained the videotapes of 90 of his appearances from 1996 to 2002. They help answer one of the race’s biggest questions: Just who is Howard Dean? Is he the angry, liberal, combustible flip-flopper that his opponents and some chattering pundits claim he is? Is he, as other rivals suggest, too conservative when it comes to guns, trade, and balancing the budget? Is he ignorant on foreign policy issues? Or is he the magnetic, straight-talking candidate his admirers say he is?
As reported by Lisa Myers on NBC's “Nightly News,” Dean comes across in these tapes as having a wide-ranging intellect, a sharp tongue, and shifting views on some key issues.
Yet he also shows that he’s much more consistent on issues — like affirmative action and trade — than some of his opponents give him credit for. And despite the constant complaints that Dean has no foreign policy experience, he demonstrates a good grasp of international affairs.
According to Ann McFeatters, the Washington bureau chief for both the Pittsburgh Post-Gazette and the Toledo Blade who has also been a regular guest on the show, the Dean you see on “The Editors” is the same Dean you see on the campaign trail. “He is very smart, likes an argument, likes to claw around and through a problem, and does speak his mind,” she said.
But is this part being reported by anyone other than NBC? Not from what I've seen today. All I see are pitbulls locking their jaws on the flea - his single line about caucuses. Again, this is from over 90 appearances over six years on this TV show.
I don't know which is more disturbing - that everyone's making a 4-second observation by an outsider out to be some kind of news story, or that NBC News' "Investigative Unit" has nothing better to "investigate" than hours and hours of an old Canadian TV show to try and nail Howard Dean.
They're right. The days of Woodward and Bernstein are dead. They've been replaced by nothing more than Heathers. This is what passes for investigative journalism today. It's disgrace #2 in this post. And that's enough for one sitting for me.
Bob Baker has a great column in this morning's LA Times regarding the Club for Growth's ad campaign aimed at Howard Dean (see Conason, three posts down):
So could there actually be such a person?
I hit the phones and reached Pam Mueller, a recent college grad who's working in Dean's Falls Church, Va., office. She had no piercings but confessed to having an occasional latte, likes sushi, reads the New York Times, admits to the label of left-winger — and owns a Volvo. ("Only because I won it," she protested. "On 'Jeopardy.' ")
She transferred me to an office mate, Don Beyer, a 53-year-old car dealer who sells Volvos. ("But I drive a Subaru.") Unfortunately, Beyer doesn't drink coffee, eats sushi only under pressure and calls himself a "Southern moderate." ("My father was a founding member of NASCAR.")
Thus began a string of largely unsatisfying conversations with Dean volunteers in Los Angeles, Iowa and Wisconsin. It wasn't hard to get them to express support for raising taxes (although they insist Dean would merely roll back President Bush's tax cut) or bigger government (for schools and infrastructure, some insisted). But too many lacked the qualities that make the anti-Dean ad so compelling. Either they weren't Hollywood-loving ("I like independent films," several insisted) or they weren't pierced or they didn't like sushi. "I like sashimi, I don't like seaweed," noted Diana Cotter (two of nine stereotypes), a retired teacher from Pasadena who paid her way to Iowa to work for Dean and had just seen the ad on TV. A Madison, Wis., coffee shop owner, Lindsey Lee (three of nine) proudly offered a line from regional song: "If you think sushi looks a lot like bait/ You're hopelessly Midwestern."
In all, based on an unscientific sample of a dozen Dean volunteers, the average volunteer conforms to 4.3 of the nine stereotypes laid down by the ad.
The closest to perfection I got was a 28-year-old mother of two from Monrovia named Kimmy Cash who last year, bitter at the war in Iraq, started a website called punxfordean.org. It's aimed at disaffected young people and, by Cash's count, has enlisted 13,000 Dean volunteers nationwide and registered 6,000 new voters.
I nearly swooned as I ticked off the Club for Growth criteria and heard nothing from Cash but "Yes…. Yes…. Yep…." (Piercings: "I have four on my nose, one in my tongue, one in my nipple and three that used to be on my lip." Hollywood-loving? "I'm from L.A.!" Left-wing? "Totally.")
Cash fit eight stereotypes. Then came the car problem. "I wish," she laughed when I popped the Volvo question. She drives a '62 Ford Falcon. That's life when your business is selling vintage merchandise on EBay.
Memo to Club for Growth: Buy this woman a Volvo and make her Public Enemy No. 1. Take it from me, you'll never come this close again.
If Bush Makes Overtures To Liberate Your Country, RUN
Today: At least five killed in a mosque bombing and a hotel is attacked. Hate to keep harping on this, but we're still waiting for the flower throwing routine. Is that when we hit 500 in American deaths over there (we're five away)?
By now, you probably heard of the Dean-bashing spot produced by the right-wing group Club for Growth which is running in Iowa now. It's the one which features an elderly gentleman stating, "I think Howard Dean should take his tax-hiking, government-expanding, latte-drinking, sushi-eating, Volvo-driving, New York Times-reading..." and a lady portraying his sweet wife finishing, "... body-piercing, Hollywood-loving, left-wing freak show back to Vermont where it belongs."
Well, Joe Conason takes a look at the glass house and the inhabitants who are doing the major stone-throwing, and finds some truly incredible characters.
[Club for Growth president Stephen] Moore and his club of corporate Republicans have a long history of stirring up Midwestern rubes with demagogic advertising, but this ad's script achieves new heights of hypocrisy. "Hollywood-loving?" Not long ago, Moore declared himself "honored" to accept an advisory position in the new administration of Gov. Arnold Schwarzenegger, an actor not known for his adherence to "Middle America values."
That's only the first layer of phoniness in Moore's attack. There is in fact nothing "middle-class" or "Middle American" about the Club for Growth, an outfit financed and operated by such wealthy ideologues as Thomas "Dusty" Rhodes, Richard Gilder and Lawrence Kudlow.
Rhodes spent nearly two decades at Goldman Sachs. Gilder has been a stockbroker since 1954 and operates his own firm. Kudlow, of course, is the genial CNBC host and Wall Street economist (whose style of Savile Row tailoring is rarely seen in the barbershops of middle-class Middle America). All three gentlemen reside in New York City, a place even more akin to Sodom than Burlington, Vt.
And let's not forget Club for Growth co-founder Ed Crane, the president of the Cato Institute, where Moore himself is a senior fellow. What would Iowa's middle-class Middle Americans think of Cato's ongoing advocacy of full drug legalization? How would that couple leaving the barbershop feel about Cato's staunch opposition to the war in Iraq, and almost every other exercise of American military power abroad?
I wouldn't be surprised if many Iowans and even more Vermonters wish Moore would take his right-wing freak show back to Wall Street and K Street. That would be the most polite way to put it.
Waahh. They Make Commercials Critical Of Our President. Boo Hoo Hoo
The right wing of this country - which like it or not represents barely half of America - is having a kicky-feet whinefest over the entries in MoveOn.org's "Bush In 30 Seconds" competition. And they're miffed for a very good reason: We're not rolling over and quaking in our boots anymore when they try to give us their version of a smackdown.
Take Back The Media has been publicly slimed by the Drudge Report over a two-year-old commercial on their site which documents the well-known ties between the Bush family and factions of Nazi Germany - in addition to the "Bush is Not a Nazi" submission to the MoveOn contest which started the whole "controversy." TBTM's Don Waller lays back some of the smack, and man, it feels great:
They are all afraid of liberals who stand up to them. Each and every one of them are scared to death of people like us.
[RNC head Ed] Gillespie has become accustomed to dealing with Beltway Democrats, who roll over and pee on themselves on his command to show how 'bi-partisan' they are. Gillespie is used to Democrats who go along to get along.
And he, and Drudge and York and all the slime in the swamp of right-Wing Hate Radio are all coming to the same realization - that people like us, and web sites like TBTM and MoveOn, are anything but pee-on-yourself Democrats. and it scares them like they've never been scared in their lives.
I'm sure that Ed and Byron [York of TNR] and Drudge, were they to read this, would cluck their tongues and shake their heads and make some remark about how uncivil and impolite and downright rude we are, and right on cue, they'd all be outraged and appalled and shocked. Like I said at the top of this article, they can dish it out, but they cannot take it. And where they have come to expect Democrats in the past to be remorseful and regretful and apologetic, Symbolman and I - and thousands of other like-minded sites and blogs - have a slightly different message instead.
We're fighting back this year. You won't go unchallenged any longer. We don't care how outraged or shocked or appalled you are, not any more.
To put it in terms you're more familiar with - get over it.
Go read the whole piece - it's brilliant. Then send Don a note of support. He's a good guy and he'll genuinely appreciate it.
WASHINGTON (AP) — Secretary of State Colin Powell acknowledged Thursday that he saw no "smoking gun, concrete evidence" of ties between Saddam Hussein and the al-Qaeda terror network, but insisted that Iraq had dangerous weapons and needed to be disarmed by force.
Speaking at a State Department news conference, Powell openly disagreed with a private think tank report which maintained that Iraq was not an imminent threat to the United States. And the secretary defended the case he made before the United Nations for a U.S.-led war to force Saddam from power.
Look - Home Depot doesn't sell a shovel deep enough to get you out of this, Colin. You used to be such a credible guy, but now you're just tenaciously hanging onto that anvil after they threw you into the drink. Pity.
So Bush is pandering to reaching out to the Latino voters community by suckering welcoming undocumented immigrants guest workers into the club which owes him big time the American working class.
This is just so over-the-top unconservative that it naturally reeks of attempting to win votes. Hey, George - if you want to win hearts and minds (something you've been doing so well in Iraq), spend some of that $170,000,000.00 in your campaign coffers on health care for their kids.
And here comes the "If a Democrat did this" part: Bush's neocon lapdogs would be screaming like kindergarten kids over illegal aliens "stealing our jobs." This has always been a load. I don't know one working wingnut who would have lawn mowing, house painting or hotel room cleaning as a fallback gig if they lost their job. One of the best lines I've ever heard on the subject is that immigrants aren't stealing our jobs - they're doing our jobs.
As promised earlier, here's the political portion of the interview.
Do you ever feel like an outsider in America? A lot of people feel like outsiders, and we're viewed as outsiders by the government. Or as un-American. But I'm way more American than George Bush and Dick Cheney. They have no f---ing idea what it is to be an American. They're f---ing idiots, programmed to have everything in the hands of the few. They think it's right that [they] and theirs have everything and everyone else can just get by on good hard work. There's something charming about a simple man in the White House. But that's what is deceiving; He's not a simple man. He represents the tiniest, tiniest percentage. He got here on the shoulders of giants. And I think much of the Christian world feels an obligation to support him, because he claims to be a Christian. I don't see much of a Christian in him. I think there should be a long line of nuns ready to spank the crap out of him.
Do you think you're more capable of running this country than George W.? Yeah, I'd deal with things a little more delicately.
How so? I understand people a lot better than he does. And I don't want the job - but there's no shortage of people who could run the country better than him. The most important task facing America right now is to get this administration out of power. I think they're a very dangerous bunch, riddled with dangerous minds. There's a very ignorant view in the White House: a thoughtless, fundamentalist, scary view of how to better the world. I'm truly frightened by this administration.
Do you plan to be more politically outspoken in 2004? My focus is to take them out. Hearing myself say that is sort of depressing. I don't know yet who I want to endorse, but I want minds like Kucinich. I want variety. But we're sort of in the avalanche, and we have to stop falling before we can fix it. The Bush administration has squandered everything, and they don't have a f---ing clue.
On CNN, Peter Beinart of TNR just announced their endorsement for president...and Daily Kos is right. The New Republic is only missing the "an" at the end of their name.
Dear GOD, Get These Lying Sacks Of Protoplasm Out Of The White House
35 soldiers were blasted and wounded by a mortar attack near Baghdad today in retaliation for the shelling of a private home in which a couple was killed. 582 total coalition troops are dead. 486 of those Americans. 2809 Americans wounded. For what?
...investigators have found no support for the two main fears expressed in London and Washington before the war: that Iraq had a hidden arsenal of old weapons and built advanced programs for new ones. In public statements and unauthorized interviews, investigators said they have discovered no work on former germ-warfare agents such as anthrax bacteria, and no work on a new designer pathogen -- combining pox virus and snake venom -- that led U.S. scientists on a highly classified hunt for several months. The investigators assess that Iraq did not, as charged in London and Washington, resume production of its most lethal nerve agent, VX, or learn to make it last longer in storage. And they have found the former nuclear weapons program, described as a "grave and gathering danger" by President Bush and a "mortal threat" by Vice President Cheney, in much the same shattered state left by U.N. inspectors in the 1990s.
A review of available evidence, including some not known to coalition investigators and some they have not made public, portrays a nonconventional arms establishment that was far less capable than U.S. analysts judged before the war. Leading figures in Iraqi science and industry, supported by observations on the ground, described factories and institutes that were thoroughly beaten down by 12 years of conflict, arms embargo and strangling economic sanctions. The remnants of Iraq's biological, chemical and missile infrastructures were riven by internal strife, bled by schemes for personal gain and handicapped by deceit up and down lines of command. The broad picture emerging from the investigation to date suggests that, whatever its desire, Iraq did not possess the wherewithal to build a forbidden armory on anything like the scale it had before the 1991 Persian Gulf War.
Democrats and liberals are now being flamed by the right for being angry. Screw angry. This makes me out and out seeing-red white-hot livid. Y'know, it's revelations like this that make me say that it doesn't matter anymore what rabbit this jackass pulls out of his hat from this point forward. This is totally inexcusable. Sending American kids into Iraq to be killed, maimed or harmed in any way under false motives, then shrugging your shoulders and saying "What's the difference?" is the sign of an extraordinarily depraved mind.
A depraved mind with a $170,000,000.00 re-election war chest at that.
I finally got around to reading the Dave Matthews interview in the new Rolling Stone last night, and well...ol' Dave goes after Bush and Cheney and comes away with blood on his fists. You can safely say he's feeling more than just a touch of rage over the behavior and policies of the Crackhead Cartel. The RS website only has the first half of the interview which doesn't include his political comments - otherwise you know I'd point you to it, 'cuz I love ya. I'll post the quotes tonight.
So, why this post, dumbass?
It got me thinking about how once this interview goes "mainstream" (wingnut radio show hosts usually get to Rolling Stone about three weeks late), we'll hear some crap about how we shouldn't care about what some two-bit spoiled rich know-nothing singer says and that he should stick to playing his guitar and keep his trap shut. You know it's coming. (And it'll come from hosts who regard Charlie Daniels as a genuine superstar and national treasure.)
And it gives me the opportunity to say that when it comes to an opinion about our government, I'll take the word of a performer whose life is spent hopping from country to country away from his/her family and who has firsthand knowledge of how the rest of the world lives - before I'm told to ignore what he/she has to say by some ex-disc jockey posing as a political pundit whose global view is confined to the four walls of his/her safe soundproof studio and whose idea of globetrotting is hopping on the internet and reading NewsMax.
And THAT, my friends, is the best run-on sentence I've ever come up with.
HOUSTON — One evening two winters ago, a man in Staten Island, N.Y., absent-mindedly flipped through his mail. Inside one envelope was a stack of fake documents, including United Nations and Defense Department identification cards, and a note: "We would hate to have this fall into the wrong hands."
It had. The package, intended for a member of a self-styled militia in New Jersey, had been delivered to the wrong address.
From that lucky break, federal officials believe they may have uncovered one of the most audacious domestic terrorism plots since the 1995 Oklahoma City bombing that killed 168 people. Starting with a single piece of mail, investigators discovered an enormous cache of weapons in Noonday, in East Texas, including the makings of a sophisticated sodium cyanide bomb capable of killing thousands of people.
Chilling, yes. But the critics are a little off on this one. It's not the focus on foreign threats that have drained the resources domestically - it's (say it with me) THE WAR IN IRAQ which drained resources from everything. And the militia nuts still live among us, using the 2nd amendment as their shield.
CBS Radio News a short time ago reported that the Bush-Cheney campaign will be spending $170 million during the primary season, despite their running unopposed in the primaries.
3. 2. 1. Duh.
They're NOT running unopposed, and they know it.
You can bet $170 million that the money will be spent slamming the Democratic front-runners in an effort to get a truly unelectable opponent to win the primary states.
Case in point: In the last legitimate California gubernatorial election year, there was a contentious Republican primary race between former LA mayor Richard Riordan and businessman Bill Simon. The airwaves were flooded with spots giving compelling (if ot totally true) evidence that Riordan would be terrible for California. These ran relentlessly up to the primary election, where Simon ultimately beat the former shoo-in Riordan. GOP voters bought the message of that commercial campaign simply thinking it was created by the Simon people.
Had they taken the time to read the fine print in the commercials, they would have seen that they were paid for by the Davis re-election committee - NOT Bill Simon. Davis, knowing that Riordan had a strong bipartisan following, threw the primary vote in the favor of the human speed bump Simon, practically assuring a November win.
Rove has GOT to be planning the same strategy for the primary/caucus states. The money will no doubt be funneled to "independent" politcal committees which will buy the time to continue the lie campaign against Dean or Clark or whoever the front-runner ends up being. GUAR-AN-TEED. Think we're blowing smoke? It's started already. (And don't believe the hype that it has "puzzled" the Bush strategists.)
Here's the numerical representation of what they'll be spending during the primaries:
$170,000,000.00
That can buy a lot of propaganda and spread a lot of lies.
What can explain [Bush's] popularity? Can that many people be enamored of what he has accomplished in Iraq? Of how he has fortified our constitutional freedoms with the USA Patriot Act? Of how he has bolstered our economy? Of how he has protected our environment? Perhaps they've been impressed with the president's personal integrity and the articulation of his grand vision for America?
The answer, I'm afraid, is the factor that dare not speak its name. It's the factor that no one talks about. The pollsters don't ask it, the media don't report it, the voters don't discuss it.
I, however, will blare out its name so that at last people can address the issue and perhaps adopt strategies to overcome it.
It's the "Stupid factor," the S factor: Some people -- sometimes through no fault of their own -- are just not very bright.
It's not merely that some people are insufficiently intelligent to grasp the nuances of foreign policy, of constitutional law, of macroeconomics or of the variegated interplay of humans and the environment. These aren't the people I'm referring to. The people I'm referring to cannot understand the phenomenon of cause and effect. They're perplexed by issues comprising more than two sides. They don't have the wherewithal to expand the sources of their information. And above all -- far above all -- they don't think.
Whenever one of my forlorn leftie pals raises the issue, I ask him or her to cite a single example of how the Patriot Act has limited their personal liberty. They never can. Instead, they rail about what-ifs and slippery slopes.
Any volunteers out there want to ask this guy to cite a single example of how Iraq's weapons of mass destruction have blown up his neighborhood? Betcha you get more slippery slopes than downtown Seattle today.
A woman was taken off a Paris-to-Cincinnati flight just before it left France on Tuesday because of suspicious wires poking out of her leather motorcycle jacket. Security officials later determined she was not a threat.
It turned out that the jacket was designed to heat up like an electric blanket to keep the wearer warm, officials said.
However, as a precaution, Delta Flight 43 was kept a half-mile away from the terminal at Cincinnati/Northern Kentucky International Airport after it landed. U.S. officials said they planned to re-screen passengers and baggage.
"YA GOTTA BELIEVE!" was the southpaw's battle cry for the 1973 Mets which many of us remember vividly. Many of his other quotes, courtesy of the Baseball Almanac include:
"I dunno. I never smoked any Astroturf." (Asked for a preference of grass or Astroturf)
"I have no trouble with the twelve inches between my elbow and my palm. It's the seven inches between my ears that's bent."
"Kids should practice autographing baseballs. This is a skill that's often overlooked in Little League."
"Ninety percent I'll spend on good times, women and Irish Whiskey. The other ten percent I'll probably waste."
"Ten million years from now, when then sun burns out and the Earth is just a frozen iceball hurtling through space, nobody's going to care whether or not I got this guy out."
Some great recollections by the people who loved him most - his teamates and opponents - are on that same page at the Almanac.
And the synapses of my thankfully healthy mind remember this tiny bit of trivia: His wit translated into a short-lived but much-beloved comic strip, "Scroogie" - about a (surprise!) lefty pitcher. The artist of the series was Mike Witte. I'm still trying to confirm if it's the same Mike Witte who currently lavishly illustrates just about every major magazine, including the New Yorker, Time, EW, Sports Illustrated and countless others (the example of the current Mike Witte is on the right). An assist here would be appreciated. As I said. Trivia.
Tug was a character in the truest sense of the word, and a real credit to the game. Forever 59 years old, Tug left us yesterday after a battle with brain cancer, and he'll be truly missed.
Another wingnut "opinion-maker" poots out the lie. And we of course being part of the Internet Gestapo will point it out. Ralph Peters of the NY Post scribbles:
Howard Dean and his Deanie-weenies do all they can to restrict the free speech of others. I can predict with certainty that Dean's Internet Gestapo will pounce on this column, twisting the facts and vilifying the writer, just as they do when anyone challenges Howard the Coward.
...Then there are Dean's endless "Big Lies": Liberating 25 million Iraqis was "wrong." Saddam's capture doesn't make any difference. Osama bin Laden should be presumed innocent, despite his own admission of responsibility for the 9/11 attacks...
TWEEEEEEEEEET. Five-minute major for Baldfaced Fact-Twisting. Man, I'm sick of blowing that whistle, but after his first paragraph there, it felt good. Let's make it 10 minutes and a game misconduct. Ass-munch.
Actually, I urge you to read the entire piece by Peters. It's laugh-out-loud prehistoric. Anyone who still uses terms like "Teacup Trotskys," "Howard the Coward" and a "Goebbels" reference has already crossed over into the realm of "Commie Pinkos" and deserves a look - mostly at the Jurassicness* of the writing style.
MoveOn.org has announced the finalists in their "Bush in 30 Seconds" TV commercial competition. They'll be judged by a panel including Jack Black, Michael Moore, Al Franken, Janeane Garofalo, James Carville, Michael Stipe, Eddie Vedder and a whole host of other folks too talented to be right-wing wackos.
You can watch the finalists here. Good stuff - some superb.
Earlier today on Wolf "I'm Sitting At The Epicenter Of Developing Earth-Shattering News!" Blitzer's CNN report, he interviewed New Mexico Governor Bill Richardson. Hoping to trump Tim Russert's drilling of Wesley Clark on whether he'd accept a VP position (Clark gave an emphatic "no") yesterday, Wolf inexplicably drilled Richardson on the same question. Richardson replied with another emphatic "no" which caused Wolf's head to spin off his head declaring, "We have a breaking and developing story I just created!" or something like that.
So this is how breaking news develops - or how developing news breaks. Just ask anyone who pops up on the screen if they want to be the Dem VP running mate, and you get your Boy Scout journalism pin.
Not in the world of Joe Lieberman. His latest cannon fodder for the GOP is the non-issue of Dean's sealed records. Even though Dean answers him, you really discover that even if he dropped the sealed records on Lieberman's head with a bow on them as a Hanukkah gift*, it wouldn't be good enough for Joe:
LIEBERMAN: My question, not surprisingly, is to Howard Dean.
One of the most troubling decisions that Howard has made in this campaign -- made before -- is to close and seal his records, or most of them, when he was governor of Vermont.
And this troubles me because the people of Vermont have a right to know. The people of America, who are judging your candidacy for president now, have a right to know what you did as governor to determine whether you're suitable and capable of being president of the United States.
I have in my hand the memorandum of understanding between you and the secretary of state, which makes very clear that all it takes to open up your records, Mr. Governor...
ANGER: Get your question out, please.
LIEBERMAN: Yes, I will -- is one stroke of a pen.
Howard Dean, every day you tell people across America they have the power, and you're right.
You have the power, with one stroke of the pen, to open up your records to public view.
You have the power; I'm prepared to give you the pen. Why don't you sign this agreement and open your gubernatorial records to full public view?
(APPLAUSE)
DEAN: I am told that Governor Bob Ray, who was one of the most distinguished governors of this state, had his records sealed for his entire lifetime.
Joe, the reason that -- first of all, more than half of my records are open. And I know that because you all have been poring through them for many months to bring up all kinds of details.
(LAUGHTER)
But governors seal records for particular amounts of time -- in my case, some of the records -- to protect people's privacy, to protect the privacy that was given to advisers.
For example, there are apparently in these -- among these records is a group of letters from people who wrote me during the civil unions crisis, or the civil unions bill-passing, which was a crisis in Vermont because it was the most contentious bill that we had for many, many years.
What we have done is we have stepped aside. We have turned everything over to the attorney general of the state of Vermont. And the attorney general of the state of Vermont will go to court, and a judge will look over every document in our records. And they are free to release whatever they'd like, and that's fine with me.
ANGER: Back to Senator Lieberman.
(APPLAUSE)
LIEBERMAN: That is an unsatisfactory and disappointing answer. Why should you have to force a judge to force you to do what you know is right?
Your records ought to be public. Look, there are always exceptions for private matters and for security matters. The Boston Herald reports today that, notwithstanding the fact that you kept your records closed, you have revealed some security matters and, in fact, some personal medical histories.
My question is, as we go into this campaign, how can you and we take on George Bush and Dick Cheney, who have run the most secretive administration in our history, if you refuse to open up the records of your time as governor?
I want to say this: As president, records will be open to the public view. My records when I was in a comparable state position as attorney general are open to public view.
We Democrats are better than Bush and Cheney. And your position on your records has undercut the high ground that we should be on.
ANGER: A quick comment from the governor.
DEAN: I think if somebody is gay and they write me that, and they don't care to have that information disclosed to the public, that's their right.
(APPLAUSE)
LIEBERMAN: That's not the answer you're...
(APPLAUSE)
Excuse me. You are ducking the question. Of course you've got a right to hold back private disclosures like that.
DEAN: Joe, a judge should decide that, because if we decide it, nobody is going to believe us, and they're going to say there's more stuff in the record. Why can't a judge look at every single piece of paper and make that decision?
LIEBERMAN: You are ducking the question. You should not force a judge to force you to do what you know is right, and which will assure public confidence.
Yeah, Tough Guy. Big talk from someone who has nothing in his records except a terse admonition of Bill Clinton's behavior in 1998.
* Disclosure - I celebrate Hanukkah. No nasty comments, please.
"The front-runner in this campaign is George W. Bush and all the powerful people who have given him millions of dollars and benefited from his policies. The underdog is the American people."
We're watching the Sugar Bowl when my wife wondered out loud, "When did Snoop Dogg get eaten up by the machine?" Between Nokia and AOL, Dogg's as recognizable as Santa Claus these days.
(And please don't burn down this blog for saying Snoop Dogg's more popular than Santa.)
We always thought Joe Lieberman sounded like Willie - the dad on ALF. Also, in our opinion, another guy who could fill in for Joe is Andy Murray, the coach of the Los Angeles Kings. We just never brought it up here before because of the obtusity.*
Well, America - it's time to meet Andy Murray. Click if you have broadband, close your eyes and get ready to crack up.
I'm getting weary of the "_________ for Vice-President!" stuff by my fellow Dean supporters every time someone puts in a good performance at a debate.
The veep-to-be this time is Sen. John Edwards, who avoided overtly attacking Dean and put forth some excellent points during the confab. He and Dean actually were extremely civil to each other - almost flirting with each other when Dean apologized for misquoting him earlier in the campaign.
So naturally, there's a choir of voices calling for Edwards to be the V.P. on a Dean ticket. Why? It seems most of us who are like-minded, who read up on the issues, who read blogs. who comment at blogs...are perfectly capable at any given time to put in a stellar performance in a roundtable.
Let's slow down on the VP talk until we have the P.
On Howard Dean's electability: "I can't remember a Democrat who ever got elected president who was for raising taxes..."
Uh...for a guy who invoked Clinton's name over and over during the debate, you sure have a crappy memory.
While we're on the subject - I think Lieberman - if he refuses to drop out of the race - should be banned from using the word "Clinton" for ANY reason in ANY context for the rest of 2004. Lieberman shot morally all over Clinton during the impeachment - tore Clinton a new sphincter. If he ever invokes the name again, the rest of the candidates have my permission to gang-tackle him and beat him senseless.
In all my time in my city I have never seen this many guns. Not just little guns that you fit in a holster. But great big cannons that were being held by men peering out from under helmets and dressed otherwise for battle.
This was on New Year's Eve, after our 140,000 troops captured Saddam Hussein and made America safe for freedom and liberty and democracy.
After Saddam's capture, there was a weekend of propaganda. We examined Saddam Hussein for scarlet fever in front of the world. The Pekingese of the Press raved about the government and its soldiers. Saddam is in the can. We are safer!
On the day he was found, an American soldier was killed. After that, 10 more were killed in a week. We just lost four more on Friday. Bring 'em on, Bush the president says. Yes we will, Iraqis say.
The Homeland Security raised the alert to orange. Planes from other countries were canceled. Specific passengers were the dangers. There was a baby with a rattle that they thought could blow up America. All passengers went undetained and unnamed. If they knew who they are and we know who they are, who are we keeping it a secret from?
On the other side of politics, Howard Dean, Democratic candidate for president, didn't think Saddam Hussein's capture made us any safer in America. The other politicians screamed that was un-American. It was John Kerry who said, How could Dean dare say that we were not safer now? Kerry is so sure we're safe that he mortgaged his house the other day to have the money to say Dean is a traitor. This is only before the first primary and Kerry goes for the roof over his head. He seems ready to go naked on these primaries.
Howard Dean then said that he was old-fashioned and he didn't think you could judge or punish Osama bin Laden until you had a trial and found him guilty.
Suddenly, politicians and the news industry shouted, What are you talking about innocent until found guilty? How can this man Dean say that bin Laden deserves a trial? They said that this was a perfect illustration of Dean talking without thought. And completely un-American, too.
In 1945, they had the Nuremburg trials for Nazis who had killed tens and tens of millions, and had judges, witnesses, evidence and defense counsels. Just the other week, one of the Democratic candidates, Wesley Clark, testified in the Hague at the trial of Slobodan Milosevic of Yugoslavia.
Yet Joseph Lieberman, who is a peripheral candidate now and thus a nasty little man, said that because he relies on the Constitution, Dean is a weakling who would melt in the face of George Bush.
John Kerry and Dick Gephardt were wildly opposed.
Yet all Dean has to do in this big Des Moines debate today is ask each candidate, "Are you in favor of sentencing bin Laden before you have a trial?"
Let them answer in front of a country that is better than they are.
What a good little Bushie he is. From Friday's WSJ:
So here's the Krugman strategy for beating President Bush: Nominate a candidate who
(1) thinks Osama bin Laden may be innocent,
(2) wishes Saddam Hussein were still in power,
(3) wants to raise taxes through the roof, and
(4) says that "dealing with race is about educating white folks."
And while you're at it, divide the party by angrily attacking any Democrat who has the temerity to point out that Emperor Dean has no clothes. It sounds like a great way to build a majority coalition--for the GOP.
Point by point:
(1) I'm really getting sick of this damned lie - Dean NEVER said this or even implied it.
(2) See above.
(3) Stopping tax cuts for the uber-rich and not hitting our kids with a $100 trillion bill isn't exactly "raising taxes through the roof". Such a notion wouldn't have even been floated (or lied about) if we had Gore's much-maligned (but now much-coveted) lockbox.
(4) Even though it makes sense, it was still a humorous ice-breaker. (Is it possible Taranto doesn't even have a clue that it meant educating whites about race - not sending whites to universities?)
(And while you're at it) Whoa. Who's attacking who? I guess Taranto thinks Lieberman, Kerry and Gephardt are the poor innocent bystanders in this mud party they've been throwing.
Five points. Five outright blatant lies. My mom used to give me an Ivory soap mouthscrub for less.
We've got to nail these bastards everytime they try to pull this crap. The one thing we're going to have on our side is the truth. It's the one character trait that the Crackheads in the White House and their lapdogs in the press sorely lack.
Inside Politics reports on a new CNN/Time Poll of 1,004 adult Americans conducted by telephone on December 30 and January 1. Despite constant attacks from the inside-the-beltway pundits and campaigns, who keep charging that Dean is "unelectable," he now trails George Bush by a mere 5 points -- 51% to 46%.
Just to put that into perspective: in April of 1992, Bill Clinton trailed George H.W. Bush by 20 points.
We're still in a too-early-for-conclusions time in the campaigns, but in one month, there'll be clarity. If it turns out to be a horse race between Dean and Clark, our party will be in the driver's seat. The Repubs' only choice will be half the mind and leadership of either of these guys. They'll fight dirty to keep him there, but we will have the truth on our side.
Primal scream therapy. An answer. But not THE answer.
The question is: When the hell are so-called supporters of Howard Dean going to reach over and smack the face of someone who says this on national television (in this case, today's CNN Crossfire):
SEN. JOSEPH LIEBERMAN (D-CT), PRESIDENTIAL CANDIDATE: Some of the things that -- people in New Hampshire are worried that some of the things that Howard Dean has said are going to be turned right back on him by George W. Bush and Karl Rove and make him unelectable.
(END VIDEO CLIP)
NOVAK [to Rep. Jim Moran D-Virginia]: And what Joe is saying that the things like, [Dean] doesn't think we're safer with Saddam Hussein captured; he doesn't know whether Osama bin Laden is guilty; he doesn't know whether his brother is alive or dead. There's just a lot of peculiar things that Dean has said. Doesn't that bother you?
In my dream world (cue harp music):
MORAN: (STANDS UP AND GRABS NOVAK BY THE COLLAR) Look at me, you lying sack of crap. (SLAPS NOVAK)
(LAUGHTER)
(APPLAUSE)
MORAN: Are you telling me to my face that with Saddam captured, we're SAFER? (THROWS NOVAK BACK IN HIS SEAT AND GETS IN HIS FACE) I spent two freaking hours at the airport on the way here undergoing a body cavity search, scared out of my mind because we're in Code Burnt Umber! Because your president went after the WRONG BEARDED GUY.
(CHEERING)
BEGALA: Ha ha ha ha. Jim, I don't think...
MORAN: NO YOU DON'T, PAUL! You let this toad get away with (UNINTELLIGIBLE) day after day and it stops here!
(AUDIENCE GOES INTO APOPLECTIC FIT)
MORAN: And another thing. (THROWS PITCHER OF WATER IN NOVAK'S FACE) You find me the exact quote where Howard Dean "doesn't know whether Osama bin Laden is guilty"! GIVE ME DATES. GIVE ME TIMES. GIVE ME QUOTES. You can't, you lying little weasel...
NOVAK: (GURGLES)
BEGALA: Ho ho. Uh...
MORAN: BECAUSE HE NEVER SAID THAT! NEVER!!! (SLAPS NOVAK REPEATEDLY)
(AUDIENCE THROWS FOLDING CHAIRS ONTO SET)
(UNINTELLIGIBLE)
MORAN: ...said bin Laden was guilty, but that would be up to a jury! WHAT THE (EXPLETIVE) IS WRONG WITH THAT, YOU (UNINTELLIGIBLE)!?!
AUDIENCE: WE WANT TABLES! WE WANT TABLES! WE WANT TABLES!
MORAN: AND HIS BROTHER'S DEAD! That was pretty friggin' conclusive, you heartless ASS... (UNINTELLIGIBLE)
(MORAN OPENS A FOLDING TABLE AND PILEDRIVES NOVAK THROUGH IT)
(CHEERING)
BEGALA: Wow. Gee. When we come back, our RapidFire segment! Then a viewer wants more Michael Jackson coverage. Stay tuned.
Hardliners in Iran's government criticized U.S. relief efforts after the devastating earthquake that killed more than 30,000 people and flattened the ancient city of Bam, accusing Washington of trying to meddle in Tehran's affairs.
The criticism came as the Bush administration considered sending Sen. Elizabeth Dole to Iran as part of a relief mission after the 6.6-magnitude quake, and asked President Mohammad Khatami whether Tehran would allow a Dole-led delegation, an administration official said Friday.
But then I scanned down the page and saw this:
Bush, shortly after the Dec. 26 tragedy, said he was glad the Iranians had accepted U.S. assistance a rare bit of cooperation between the two nations since their relations were broken by the seizure of the U.S. Embassy in Tehran.
But the president added: "The Iranian government must listen to the voices of those who long for freedom, must turn over al-Qaida that are in their custody and must abandon their nuclear weapons program."
Look, if you're going to help out...help out. Grab a shovel and dig some dirt. But don't go there with some bucks and Liz Dole and start doing the pre-Iraq-war chant.
The charity bell just rings hollow when Bush is pulling the rope, doesn't it?
Liberal Oasis gets it where most of the Dem campaigns don't. How to handle the Plame scandal:
There were some Dem attacks at first, but they were reactions to media reports, largely driven by investigators leaking about The Leak. The Dems weren’t driving the story.
So when the leaks stopped dripping, the Dems did nothing, there was no new news and the story faded.
Now, the Dems have a second bite at the apple.
Attorney General John Ashcroft’s recusal from the PlameGate investigation, and appointment of a special counsel, brings the story back to the spotlight.
This is not the time to applaud politely and express pleasant surprise at Ashcroft’s move. Don’t take a crumb and treat it like a five-course meal.
It’s the time for Dems to turn up the heat and say things like this:
- Ashcroft’s recusal, welcome but three months late, is evidence of how disturbingly high this investigation goes.
- There is most likely a criminal working in the Administration who has compromised our national security.
- George Bush should have realized this six months ago, when the CIA agent’s name was first published.
- Instead of immediately locating this cancer on his presidency and removing it, he has done nothing.
- Apparently, it doesn’t disturb his so-called moral clarity that he may well be signing the checks of a criminal working under him.
- Deferring to the Justice Department and effectively saying, there’s nothing I can do about it, is a political response, not a moral one.
- This alleged criminal most likely compromised our national security.
And as Newt once vowed to say “Monica” over and over, Dems should be saying “criminal” over and over.
This is a real scandal, and Bush is exposed. It’s a big deal. Start acting like it.
In the 2000 election, in a campaign that seemed driven more by vanity than by any realistic political vision, Ralph Nader did all he could to undermine Al Gore — even though Mr. Gore, however unsatisfying to the Naderites, was clearly a better choice than the current occupant of the White House.
Now the Democratic Party has its own internal spoilers: candidates lagging far behind in the race for the nomination who seem more interested in tearing down Howard Dean than in defeating George Bush.
The truth — which one hopes voters will remember, whoever gets the nomination — is that the leading Democratic contenders share a lot of common ground. Their domestic policy proposals are similar, and very different from those of Mr. Bush.
Yet some of Mr. Dean's rivals have launched vitriolic attacks that might as well have been scripted by Karl Rove. And I don't buy the excuse that it's all about ensuring that the party chooses an electable candidate.
The irony is that by seeking to undermine the election prospects of a man who may well be their party's nominee, Mr. Lieberman and Mr. Kerry have reminded us of why their once-promising campaigns imploded. Most Democrats feel, with justification, that we're facing a national crisis — that the right, ruthlessly exploiting 9/11, is making a grab for total political dominance. The party's rank and file want a candidate who is running, as the Dean slogan puts it, to take our country back. This is no time for a candidate who is running just because he thinks he deserves to be president.
What screws with my brain is that Lieberman and Kerry have been hammering and hammering and hammering and hammering and hammering on Dean ever since Al Gore's endorsement several weeks back. And Terry McAuliffe, the pillar of pudding who runs the DNC, does nothing to stop the attacking.
With all these factions of the party stomping a mudhole in his gut, Dean finally fights back against what he called the "Washington insiders" - who of course get shocked and indignant over Dean's remarks.
"Washington Wusses" is more like it. This blog has called for Terry McAuliffe to grow a pair back in July. He won't. Because he's still convinced the right wing of the Democratic party is what we need. We hereby declare him irrelevant.
Blogger's been really flaky today. Some blogs remained online (Dean Nation for one) and some went down big time (we were at least in good company with Atrios on this one). Still...it's free and we don't beg for donations so quit yer cryin'. I was able to post during the problems though, so read and enjoy.
And look, George - here's the first military family of this election year who's publicly furious over your war mongering. What follows is the entire Arizona Republic article - cutting anything out of it would diminish this family's message and rage.
Family members of slain soldier Lori Piestewa lashed out at the media Wednesday for practicing "domestic terrorism" by televising a tape of the badly wounded Piestewa in an Iraqi hospital bed shortly before her death.
"This terrorism was not from any foreign group wishing to harm the United States but from our own people wanting to make a quick buck off the misfortune of two young women," a prepared statement from the Piestewa family said of NBC's decision to air the tape on their Nightly NewsTuesday. Several cable channels picked it up, but local affilliate, Channel 12 (KPNX) decided not to air the footage.
Iraqi television never aired the brief tape, which was being kept at the home of a station employee.
The tape also shows a gravely wounded and unresponsive Jessica Lynch in a hospital bed next to Piestewa in the southern Iraqi city of Nasiriyah, where the Army's 507th Maintenance Company was ambushed on March 23.
In the tape, Piestewa is shown with eyes shut and swollen and with a bandage around her head. She licks her lips as someone adjusts her head so the photographer can get a better shot of her.
"We would guess that congratulations are in order," the Piestewa family's statement noted, sarcastically. "The media has again successfully created a sense of fear, anxiety and hurt among the family and friends of those who loved and continue to love Lori Piestewa."
Piestewa's family has attended many memorial services and pro-military gatherings throughout the nation since Lori's death. But the statement contained a number of pointed, antiwar criticisms of the Bush Administration and military.
The statement said the family hopes all top government officials get a copy of "Lori dying in agony so that they realize from the comfort of their homes that war is not the only option."
The Piestewa family also wants a copy of the tape in the hands of legislators who supported the war "because they had to make sure someone pay for 9/11."
The strongest criticisms were saved for commanders at Fort Bliss, Texas, where Piestewa and Lynch were stationed before their deployment to the Middle East.
Each of the commanders should receive a copy of the tape "so they'll never again make the same mistake . . . and, if by chance they do, we hope they won't leave them behind to die the painful death Lori endured."
Pardon us while we sidle up to some very good company - organizations that have been recognized by the newly-formed LiberalForum.org.
We're just folks and firms who don't mind being tagged with the "L" word. Being the kid of a proud liberal family, I guess I just never grew out of those little idealistic tendencies like watching out for the little guy, questioning unchecked authority, helping out those less fortunate, effecting change through what the people want rather than blindly falling behind just one guy's vision, and working to get along with our friends around the world instead of pissing them off all the time.
Y'know. The little things. Thanks, LiberalForum. We wear the badge proudly.
Ingenious TV Programming Idea # - Er - Still Waiting For The First One
NBC is diddling around with their schedule - starting some shows a minute early, expanding some half-hour shows to 31 minutes and essentially just pissing off anyone with a TiVo or VCR (I'm one of the lucky ones with a two-tuner TiVo, but for most of America, this is a royal pain if you want to tape/TiVo something which overlaps this dorkfaced idea).
The always-brilliant Mark Evanier will fill you in on the details at his blog. While you're at it, check out his POVOnline site (link fixed). Mark's a prolific and highly respected cartoon and comic writer 'round these parts, and between his two sites, you can get lost for several days.
Well, DirecTV is still listing Trio in its programming guide for tomorrow. It's still no guaranteee it'll be there when we tune to channel 315, but at least it's some hope. Keep the pressure on.
The kids are still shopping for a college.
Not they're not. We don't have kids.
We got a new HDTV home theater.
All our neighbors moved out.
We ran out of mosquito repellent on the last day of our Jamaican vacation.
We got a cranky Chocolate-point Siamese cat who hates us and our original cat.
But he became fast friends with our border collie.
We walked around our neighborhood every day.
Then we had pie.
If we didn't eat pie, we wouldn't need to walk.
So I tried Atkins. Then mad cow disease was discovered in the U.S.
Hello again, pie.
Oh yeah. I started a blog in 2003.
In the beginning, it was read by about three people.
Since then, our readership has more than doubled.
I think I'll celebrate by eating pie.
Now you know why we don't send these out with our Christmas cards.
Washington -- Attorney General John Ashcroft will recuse himself from an investigation into who leaked the name of a CIA operative, Justice Department sources said Tuesday.
The investigation will be headed by the U.S. attorney in Chicago, Patrick Fitzgerald, who will report to Ashcroft's new deputy, James Comey, the officials said.
It was not immediately clear why Ashcroft made the decision.
Write your theory here: ________________________ (or leave a comment)
DES MOINES — Democratic Party National Chairman Terry McAuliffe has no plans to play referee to what has become a vitriolic presidential primary, saying through a spokeswoman Monday that voters would decide whether the negative campaigning was good politics.
His comments came a day after Howard Dean, the Democratic front-runner, criticized McAuliffe for not stepping in to stem the growing attacks on Dean by other candidates — in particular Connecticut Sen. Joe Lieberman, Massachusetts Sen. John F. Kerry and Rep. Dick Gephardt of Missouri.
Dean's call for a cease-fire to campaign hostilities sparked a new round of assaults.
"I've got news for Howard Dean: The primaries are a warm-up compared to what George Bush and Karl Rove have waiting for the Democratic nominee," Lieberman said. "If Howard Dean can't stand the heat in the Democratic kitchen, he's going to melt in a minute once the Republicans start going after him."
Okay, so let me get this straight, Joe. Your attacks on him are, uh...just to prepare him for Karl Rove? Pal, he's 'way ahead of you there. Stop doing us favors. You did enough in 2000 when you were Dick Cheney's bitch in the debates.
Do you ever feel like an outsider in America?
"YA GOTTA BELIEVE!" was the southpaw's battle cry for the 1973 Mets which many of us remember vividly. Many of his other quotes, courtesy of the 
And the synapses of my thankfully healthy mind remember this tiny bit of trivia: His wit translated into a short-lived but much-beloved comic strip, "Scroogie" - about a (surprise!) lefty pitcher. The artist of the series was Mike Witte. I'm still trying to confirm if it's the same Mike Witte who currently lavishly illustrates just about every major magazine, including the New Yorker, Time, EW, Sports Illustrated and countless others (the example of the current Mike Witte is on the right). An assist here would be appreciated. As I said. Trivia.
