Lower, Lower, Lower

Quiddity at uggabugga alerts us to a charming bit of hate from Yale graduate, intellectual and man of faith Michael Medved.

We are listening to Michael Medved in his first hour proclaiming that the abu Ghraib torture stories show why women and gays should not be in the military. Women? They have urges and when you put them in positions of power over men, what can you expect? Medved is tapping into the woman-as-temptress theme. Gays? Medved asserts that the activities in the prison clearly show that they were "closeted gays". (Sorry, no audio available. Our technical set-up is inoperative at the moment.)

Medved is beneath contempt.

NYT To Rummy: SoD Off

And they finally realized Iraq is a quagmire, too.

For Peggy Nooners, "[T]he most distressing of the scandal photos" is the one showing a female soldier looking "coarse." A good finishing school would have taught that woman the appropriate ladylike for a photograph with a hooded, naked prisoner of war. I guess that's why Nooners was so thrilled when she wrote two years ago that the right kind of people were finally joining the armed forces.

Big Pharma claims: "Nobody got hurt. Nobody got physically injured." Nobody except for the prisoners who died, were beaten or raped. It is impossible for Limbaugh to actually believe this if he's read anything about the Tagbua report. He must be counting on the fact that his listeners can't read.

And Klansboy Wesley Pruden seems upset that the abuses have given wearing hoods a bad name. Pruden's only sorry that "our Arab friends" are uncivilized savages, and that America is forced to beat them for their own good.

Grand Old Police Blotter: Convicted Manslaughterers For Bush Edition

Who says the G.O.P. doesn't believe in rehabilitation?

From the Associated Press:

WASHINGTON -- President Bush helped the GOP raise at least $38.5 million Wednesday at its annual gala -- all of it in donations limited in size -- and smash a one-night record set when political parties could still rake in large corporate contributions.

The Republican National Committee can spend the money as it chooses, from general party get-out-the-vote efforts to direct support for Bush's re-election campaign and GOP candidates down the ticket.

Bush, the keynote speaker, took the stage and shook the hands of several major RNC fund-raisers, including boxing promoter Don King, who waved two American flags. Bush thanked the crowd for setting a record.

From GOP.com aka rnc.org:

Friday, March 26, 2004
Voice of Boxing Great Don King Now Narrates Kerry vs Kerry


FOR IMMEDIATE RELEASE

Contact: Christine Iverson
202-863-8614

Washington, DC-The RNC's popular Kerry vs Kerry Web game now has a new feature, the voice of boxing great Don King on http://www.gop.com/kerryvskerry.

Kerry vs Kerry players will now hear Don King's voice when they log on to go a few rounds with Senator Kerry. A transcript of King on Kerry Vs Kerry is featured below.

From wikipedia:

In Cleveland, Ohio in 1954, King shot and killed a man attempting to rob one of his gambling houses; the death was ruled a "justifiable homicide". King served time for killing a man in 1966 who allegedly owed him money, whom he beat to death. Although convicted of second degree murder, the judge reduced the conviction to nonnegligent manslaughter. King has been investigated for possible connections with organized crime. During a 1992 Senate investigation King took the Fifth Amendment when questioned about his connection to mobster John Gotti. He has responded to these acts by calling them racist.

We can see why King is such an effective fundraiser.

I'll just sit here and wait for the furor from the pro-lifers, the law-and-order types and the manufactured-outrage crowd.

(Inspired by an item on Wonkette.)

Mickey Kaus Demands A Cover Up

Mickey Kaus is the new Oliver North. Without the hair and the service in Vietnam. (The running around his home naked, waiving a revolver, we don't want to know.) To Kaus, the real scandal of the U.S. military's abuse of prisoners of war is not the mistreatment itself, but congressional demands for information and oversight.

Senator Daschle's Outrage: Leave it to a U.S. Senator to confront shameful acts of inhumanity that endanger the nation and get all outraged over ... a disregard of Congressional prerogatives! "Why were we not told in a classified briefing why this happened, and that it happened at all?" asked Senator Daschle, in a complaint echoed by Senators McCain and Warner. "That is inexcusable; it's an outrage." (Why, they had to hear it on CBS! They were unprepared!) Leave it to our get-a-new-angle media culture to play up these self-serving institutional complaints as if they were in the same universe as the abuse itself. No wonder politicians succeed by running against Washington. ....

How, exactly, would briefing senators have helped the situation? It wouldn't have stopped the abuse, which had already transpired. Mainly, it would have multiplied the number of potentially talkative people who knew, increasing the chance that the news would get out and do the damage to America's reputation that it has done, no? Daschle's complaint is a traditional means by which Senators and Congresspersons protect their careers by distancing themselves from a scandal. ('We didn't know!') It's also part of the routinization of horror, in which a jarring and morally charged event gets sucked into a more familiar and arid Washington dispute, losing its valence. Too bad that while America starts to yawn at Daschle's "outrage," the rest of the world is still sputtering with rage at the original offense. ...

Predictably, the Republican Kaus targets his attack on a Democrat, Daschle, though the article to which Kaus links makes clear that Republicans on the Senate Armed Services committee were equally outraged at the Administration's nondisclosure.

Kaus also complains that briefing the Senate would result in the disclosure of the information, increasing the chance that the news would harm the reputation of America (read: the Bush Administration). Does anyone believe for a second that the Iraqi people don't know what is happening in Abu Ghraib prison and elsewhere in their own country?

Not to mention the linked article states this: "Senate Minority Leader Thomas A. Daschle (D-S.D.) complained that when Rumsfeld and other senior Pentagon officials came to Capitol Hill last week -- hours before CBS's '60 Minutes II' first aired photographs of Iraqi prisoners being physically abused and sexually humiliated -- they neglected to mention the coming disclosure." How exactly would disclosure to Daschle hours before the 60 Minutes II program -- which the Administration knew was coming -- "increase[] the chance that the news would get out?"

But the most telling point of Kaus's poorly-written diatribe is his refusal to acknowledge a Congressional role in the prosecution of the War against Iraq. He suggests the Senate Armed Services Committee has no need, or right, to know what the military is doing in Iraq. Congress's demand for information about the war, why, that's just "self-serving institutional complaints." And to Kaus, it would be just fine if the American public never learned of the abuse of war prisoners. (We must consider our rep!)

How would have disclosure to senators helped the situation? Well, any disclosure makes it less likely the same abuses happen again (or, less likely to be photographed again). It makes it more likely that the perpetrators, and those who ordered or permitted those soliders to act, are given appropriate punishments. And it makes it more difficult for the Administration to sell their next brutal venture to the American people.

New Moon Jobless Day

As Atrios points out, Thursday is new jobless day. But not every lost job this week is a matter for concern or sorrow.

Take this feel-good story:

Several dozen employees at Insight, a biweekly news magazine, and the World & I, a monthly educational journal, sister publications of the Washington Times, are out of work today as both publications wind down operations.

On April16, the magazines' owner, News World Communications Inc., a subsidiary of the Rev. Sun Myung Moon's Unification Church, announced it would no longer print Insight and the World & I, as well as Noticias del Mundo, a Spanish-language newspaper in New York City, as of April 30, said News World spokeswoman Diana Banister. A total of 86 people are out of a job, out of 1,200 employees worldwide. A small staff is to stay on to maintain the Insight and World & I Web sites, editors said.

"These are the first significant layoffs in the history of News World Communications," Banister wrote in an e-mail.

Closing the three publications will save News World "millions of dollars," said Banister, and allow News World to "reposition" its other media assets.

...

News of the layoffs surprised many employees. "It's a difficult time," said World & I Associate Executive Editor Eric Olsen, who declined to comment further.

Several top managers of Insight and the World & I are looking into whether a relaunch is feasible, said Banister. The staff of Insight is also searching for a different publisher.

"I'm optimistic about finding new investors," said Insight Managing Editor Paul Rodriguez.

News World's reorganization would not affect any of its other outlets, which include the Washington Times, the Washington Times National Weekly Edition and United Press International. News World also plans to keep publishing Noticias del Mundo in 15 Latin American countries, as well as in Washington and Miami.

...

In its heyday, Insight was a training ground for many of today's top conservative journalists. Among the magazine's notable alumni are Weekly Standard Managing Editor Richard Starr, New York Post columnist John Podhoretz and author David Brock.

Paul Rodriguez shittcanned! Is nothing sacred? This is the biggest loss to journalism since Jack Kelley turned in his last expense report.

Perhaps the Father will consider a lateral hire and tap Paul for a position at one of his handerkerchief dry cleaning stores.

Not The CinC

"Karl Rove, the president's chief political adviser, has told one Bush adviser that he believes that it will take a generation for the United States to live this scandal down in the Arab world, and that one of the dangers of basing a campaign on national security and foreign policy is that events can be beyond the president's control."

Beyond his control? Did Cheney and Rumsfeld invade Iraq without Bush's permission?

Bush needs to get his sorry ass off the Winning The War on Terror campaign tour and start leading.

It's Here

It's the eve of the literary event of the season. Yes, tomorrow is the release discharge of Private Benjamin Shapiro's expose of academia, The Virgin Wore Tennis Shoes. Or Brainwashed In A Thimble. From A Mighty WND Books.

If I had a laptop, I'd review the book in real time at Barnes & Noble. But, compassionate liberal that I am, I refuse to enable Shapiro's idiocy. Besides, I'm saving up for Dick Morris's latest. So you'll have to not read it for yourself.

P.S. Who the hell buys Dick Morris's books?

(Link via World 'O Crap)

Exterminator With Extreme Prejudice

Tom "The Cockroach" DeLay doesn't like investigations, maybe because he's been the target of so many of them.

But while condemnation of the reported abuses [of Iraqi prisoners] came from both sides of the political aisle, members split along party lines over the question of whether Congress should conduct special hearings into the allegations. Several Democrats urged such a move, but Republicans DeLay and Senate Majority Leader Bill Frist of Tennessee opposed the idea, saying regular congressional committees could provide sufficient oversight.

"I'm sure that our committees are going to be asking the right questions," DeLay said. "But a full-fledged congressional investigation -- that's like saying we need an investigation every time there's police brutality on the street."

Anyway, the Texan bug chaser has his own investigation to worry about -- call it Fumigate.

Run, John, Run

John Ramsey, who was investigated by local Colorado authorities following the murder of his daughter, Jon-Benet, but never charged with any crime, is running for state legislative office in Michigan. As a Republican.

His campaign manger says Ramsey may need to run campaign commercials on recent developments that reportedly have exonerated him of the crime. Sounds like a real vote-getter to me. His campaign will focus on the five Es -- economic issues, education, the enivornment and exculpatory evidence.

(Link via BuzzFlash.)

Roger's Media Filler

Tomorrow is the day for National Public Radio's ombudsman, Jeffrey Dvorkin, to post his weekly column at NPR.org. Will he address Barbara Bradley Hagerty's unique methods of covering the right-wing Catholic attacks on Senator Kerry?

Greg Palast will appear live on C-SPAN tomorrow, May 5, at 9:00 a.m..

Here are the latest additions to the increasingly unwieldy Roger Ailes Enemies List:

the raw story

Center for American Progress

Humor Gazette

stranger and stranger

Media Matters for America

Iraq War Reader

Jesse Taylor @ Jerry for Ohio

Fat Bastard

But all of that (see post below) is okay, because of 9/11.

There, but for the fees of Roy Black....

Rape Rooms

From the Report of United States Army Major General Antonio M. Taguba:

Between October and December 2003, at the Abu Ghraib Confinement Facility, numerous incidents of sadistic, blatant and wanton criminal abuses were inflicted on several detainees. This systemic and illegal abuse of detainees was intentionally perpetrated by several members of the military police guard force.... The allegations of abuse were substantiated by detailed witness statements and the discovery of extremely graphic photographic evidence...
[...]

I find that the intentional abuse of detainees by military police personnel included the following acts:

[...]

-- Forcibly arranging detainees in various sexually explicit positions for photographing.

[...]


-- A male MP [military police] guard having sex with a female detainee.

[...]

In addition, several detainees also described the following acts of abuse, which under the circumstances, I find credible based on the clarity of their statements and supporting evidence provided by other witnesses:

[...]

-- Threatening male detainees with rape.

[...]

-- Sodomizing a detainee with a chemical light and perhaps a broomstick.

Consistently Wrong

Memo to all the 'Crackers and other chuzzlewits who, without bothering to read Ambassador Joseph Wilson's book, claim to have found contradictions between Wilson's book and Wilson's statements last year on his findings in Niger:

Here's Wilson's NYT op-ed piece from July 2003. Now, find the inconsistency. And stop wagging your weenies until you do.

And do you really want to rely on Steno Sue, the woman who gave us Private Jessica Lynch as Rambo?

Update: Here's Ambassador Wilson on Meet the Press, explaining the facts so even a cracker can follow.

Blogger All

Blogger has not been working all afternoon. Maybe it's time to take the Roger Ailes media empire to a more reliable service.

If only that didn't involve effort.

Media Matters for America

As you may have already heard, David Brock is heading a new internet effort called Media Matters for America, a "Web-based, not-for-profit progressive research and information center dedicated to comprehensively monitoring, analyzing, and correcting conservative misinformation in the U.S. media." Media Matters joins Fairness and Accuracy in Reporting and many lefty bloggers in casting a critical eye on the corporate media. Media Matters aims to be an accurate AIM, an honest MRC. David Brock will be Media Matters' Brent Bozell, but without the ginger beard and unhealthy obsession with sex in bad televison programs.

The most promising things about Media Matters are talented staff and its rapid response format. They've got Clownhall's columnists, right-wing websites and the cable news nets in their cross-hairs; hopefully they'll take on some larger outlets -- newspapers and network television -- in the coming days. Let's also hope they're grooming some of their contributors for media appearances -- to counteract folks such as J. Batboy Goldberg and the MRC folks who show up on cable all the time.

More On Howie

Surprisingly, in today's online "chat," Howie Kurtz chose not to use my question as to whether the buzz Brit Hume was recieving came from Karl Rove's vibrator. Not surprisingly, Kurtz again revealed what a whore he is. A questioner wrote:

Allegany [sic], N.Y.: Enjoyed today's column. The blind piece from Brit Hume grabbed my interest most. Did he claim to have specific sources on his assertion about Gov. Richardson or was he putting forward idle gossip, engaing in speculation or just making something up?

washingtonpost.com: Toss-Up Time (washingtonpost.com. May 3)

Howard Kurtz: I don't know. It certainly sounded like he knows something that he feels he can't, possibly because it's unconfirmed, repeat on the air. So he's doing it without quite doing it.

Yes, that's right. Howie doesn't know whether Hume's just making something up. It sounds like Hume knows something -- something that's unconfirmed. For the Putz, that's good enough to print.

Later, someone else calls the Putz on his gutter tactics!

"So he's doing it without quite doing it. ": What Brit Hume has managed to do, in my opinion, is to smear Gov. Richardson without being brave enough to actually say so. Faux News, indeed.

Howard Kurtz: Well, I don't know what he was referring to. It reminds me of some of the early '92 whispering that went on about Clinton having a zipper problem -- about which we later learned a lot more. We'll have to see whether anything comes out about Richardson, who insists he wants to remain as governor.

Yes, I still don't know what Hume was talking about, but there once was a rumor about a politician which turned out to be true, so I may, with a clear conscience, smear Richardson by innuendo. Oh, and Clinton's cock!

The next reader asks Howie if he "[c]an ... dissuade me from the opinion that the type of gray-area 'journalism' espoused by ... gossip-mongering Ana Marie Cox (a.k.a. 'Wonkette'), is the epitome of the absolute worst of the 'Fourth Estate'?" Actually, Howie's type of "journalism" is much worse. (Update: Here's an example of Wonkette using standards at least as rigorous as Putzie's.)

And one of Howie's fans reveals Howie's broadcast equivalents:

Atlanta, Ga.: Dear Howard

How would you compare the professional committment of your colleagues to professional excellence in accuracy and objectivity with yourself and the most immediate past generation of same prior to the explosion of cable?

I ask this because I find you to be one of the most professional journalists working today. Yet, I find most in the mainstream press appear to be more concerned with their own particular political agenda and simply report facts consistent with same. If it were not for Fox News Channel and talk radio, I would consider myself ignorant.

Dittohead Mike

You can't call Mike ignorant on the question of where Howie stands.

Kudos to Allegany and So He's Doing It for their questions.

Meet Your Liberal Media: Fox Smears, Howie Transcribes Edition

Superputz Howie Kurtz writes:

As for the veepstakes, Fox's Brit Hume raises about New Mexico Gov. Bill Richardson:

"I'll tell you what the buzz is on that, you dopes. ... The buzz is that as great a guy as he is, and I yield to no one in admiration for him, is that the vetting process has discouraged them. That Richardson has a thing here or there that might be politically incorrect or whatever. And it's thought that he might not make it."

If anyone cares to send me the buzz on Brit and Howie, I will tell everyone what it is.... or at least insinuate about it without actually saying it. And don't forget to compliment the Putz on his high journalistic standards.

This is your liberal media, you dopes.

R.I.P.

After eight fun-filled months of publication, Easterblogg is no more.

Who says The New Republic isn't responsive to its readers' wishes?

First Things Considered

The mighty Atrios and his intrepid readers have uncovered some interesting information (Post One, Post Two) about the recent coverage of Senator Kerry and Catholicism by National Public Radio's Barbara Hagerty. In an April 30 report, Hagerty attends an 8.00 a.m. Mass and interviews three Catholic parishoners there who deem Senator Kerry unfit for for political office. What Hagerty does not disclose is that those three individuals -- Ted Flynn, Phillip Munoz and Carrie Gress -- are (or share names with) rabid-right Catholic authors, academics and think-tank employees.

And there are still more ties -- ties between Gress and Munoz and Father Richard John Neuhaus, who is interviewed in the report and identified only as an editor of First Things magazine. (First Things is a publication of the Institute On Religion and Public Life, a regular recipient of wingnut largese.) In the NPR piece, Neuhaus lumps Kerry in with "politicians ...[who] openly, publicly, persistently and defiantly say, in effect, 'I don't give a damn what the church teaches. Here's the position I'm going to take.'"

In addition to his job as editor-in-chief of First Things, Neuhaus is also a director of the Ethics and Public Policy Center, where Gress is a Program Manager. In fact, Gress is the Program Manager of the EPPC's Catholic Studies Project, which "[w]orks with world-renowned Catholic scholars and writers like William J. Bennett, Avery Cardinal Dulles, S.J., Robert P. George, Mary Ann Glendon, Russell Hittinger, Richard John Neuhaus, and Michael Novak" to produce works that "have helped shape the engagement of the Catholic Church in the United States with the great international and domestic issues of our time." The EPPC's website states, with apparent modesty, that "The Catholic Studies Project is also a prominent Washington reference point for government officials, Members of Congress, and journalists seeking to understand the social doctrine of the Catholic Church and its application to public policy questions."

Meanwhile, Gress's immediate boss at the EPPC, George Weigel, is on the Editorial Board of First Things. And Vincent Phillip Munoz has been published in First Things.

Small world.

Interestingly, tomorrow morning the EPPC is holding a panel discussion, entitled Kerry-Bush (sic) and the Faith Factor, "to talk about the media's coverage of the candidates' faith." Maybe someone will ask about the ethical considerations and spiritual ramifications of cherry-picking.

Update: The EPPC panel will air tomorrow at 9:30 a.m. on C-SPAN3, which is available to approximately 5 television sets in the country, but is also available online.

Update II: Corrected the spelling of Hagerty's name. My apologies.

Update III: In comments, Bolo advises that all three interviewees have confirmed their identities.

Here are the latest reports from The New Yorker, The New York Times and The Sunday Herald on American and British military abuses of Iraqi prisoners of war. I'm inclined to agree this was condoned and encouraged, if not ordered, by persons much higher up than the enlisted men and women shown in the U.S. photographs. How could one M.P. company engage in such widespread abuse without the knowledge of others in the same prison? And precisely what were the killed and abused prisoners being held for that warranted such inhuman interrogation techniques?

Truly Tasteless Jokes

Toward the beginning of his routine at the Correspondents' Dinner last night, Jay Leno showed some fake footage mocking Geraldo Rivera for revealing U.S. troop movements in Iraq during a Fox News Channel broadcast last year. The punchline of the video clip involved Geraldo broadcasting the location of the attic where Anne Frank's family was hiding, then offering to repeat the entire report in German.

In today's New York Times, Maureen Dowd starts her column with the crack, "This administration is the opposite of 'The Sixth Sense.' They don't see any dead people."

The majority of entries on this blog involve a humorous comment on the news, usually in the form of an insult, and many times including a tasteless remark and/or unnecessary profanity. I certainly don't subscribe to the view that political humor must be inoffensive, polite, or even objectively "fair."

Still, I don't understand humor which relies on the suffering of others who are not -- or don't deserve to be -- the target of the joke. Does a humorous portrayal of Geraldo Rivera as a betrayer of Holocaust victims serve any purpose? (Why not depict Geraldo reporting on security weaknesses from Logan Airport, then turning around to help some swarthy men get their carry-on luggage past security?) How does adding a stale pop culture reference to a discussion of the deaths of thousands in the war against Iraq inform, or even entertain?

Bush and Geraldo are certainly deserving of ridicule, and much sharper ridicule than MoDo and Leno can muster. And no one should dictate what jokes people can tell. But it's a pity to see privileged jokers incorporate the suffering of the defenseless and less fortunate into their gags, particularly when (as in MoDo's case) the joker is claiming to champion the cause of those whose plight she diminishes.