Same Old Schmidt

Josh Marshall on Steno Sue:

Finally, down toward the end of Schmidt's article she writes that: "According to the former Niger mining minister, Wilson told his CIA contacts, Iraq tried to buy 400 tons of uranium in 1998."

I read the report's discussion of the whole Niger business. And I didn't see that reference. However, on page 44 there is a reference to Wilson reporting to the CIA that "an Iranian delegation was interested in purchasing 400 tons of yellowcake from Niger in 1998 [but that] no contract was ever signed with Iran." (emphasis added).

Perhaps I missed the reference that Schmidt is noting. But it seems awfully similar to the one the report notes about Iran -- same date, same tonnage. Presumably in this case, Schmidt innocently confused the two neighboring and similar-sounding countries, though it's a goof you'd think an editor would have caught.

The Circle Of Jerks

"I know that if I go more than about five or six hours without posting, or telling people that I'm not going to be blogging for the rest of the day," said Reynolds, readers e-mail him and say, "You haven't posted anything in five or six hours. Are you OK?"

Codependency.

Heh.

(Link via Pandagon)

Kink Aid

I'm going to have to try out one of these sex clubs that are all the rage among conversative columnists.

Only the thought of seeing L. Brent Bozell's bare freckled ass is keeping me away.

I'm not so sure encouraging the IOC to live up to principles is a particularly promising endeavor, but it's worth a try. And -- Bonus! -- Nick Kristof will hate you for it.

The Empty Tent

Q. Name the two places you won't find any member of the Bush Administration -- from any level.

A.

Mayor Bloomberg's party for the Log Cabin Republicans, the gay Republican organization, will be held in Bryant Park on Sunday, Aug. 29, the day before the convention begins.

"The mayor's inclusive message regarding gay and lesbian Americans is perceived outside of New York as being a national role model," said Patrick C. Guerriero, the executive director of the Log Cabin Republicans. Rudolph W. Giuliani, Governor Pataki, Gov. Arnold Schwarzenegger of California and others will be honored at the party.

On Tuesday night, the mayor will be the host of a party at the Sky Club restaurant for the Republican Majority for Choice, a group that supports abortion rights, thus opposing President Bush. Guests should expect cocktails, a great view, and Bo Derek.

In California, only Governor Predator is allowed to degrade females.

Post Hack Ergo Prompter Hack

It's not nice to scam Deborah Orin! Inspector Ellis is on the case of how the N.Y. Post may have been misled into printing its now-famous cover of Kerry and Gephardt. ... P.S.: For a moment I thought it was the Weekly World News: "Kerry Picks Space Alien As Running Mate!" [Apologies to Rick Hertzberg]... Update: Alert reader G. suggests that the story's lack of a byline means that neither Orin--nor anybody else at the paper--was comfortable putting their name on it. Maybe it wasn't a deliberate Kerry feint after all, but just somebody running into a source (e.g., a Kerry fundraiser) who swears up and down that Gephardt's the man.

("Inspector Ellis" is Bush cousin/Faux Ho John Ellis, who called Florida for Bush, just in case you don't read Howie Kurtz's shitty column.)

But the New York Times reports that the Post was misled by a lying sack much closer to the paper, namely, satellite t.v. pornographer Rupert Murdoch:

When The New York Post tore up its front page on Monday night to trumpet an apparent exclusive that Representative Richard A. Gephardt would be Senator John Kerry's running mate, the newspaper based its decision on a very high-ranking source: Rupert Murdoch, the man who controls the company that owns The Post, an employee said yesterday.

The Post employee demanded anonymity, saying senior editors had warned that those who discussed the Gephardt gaffe with other news organizations would lose their jobs.

Even more interesting: If you read the entire Ellisblog entry to which Kaus links, Ellis explicitly says that it wasn't a Kerry mislead:

None of the Above! The editors did it! Which is why the story was so weirdly written and why the "apology" was so opaque.

So the question is: Is Kaus so dense he didn't read (or understand)the entire entry, or did Ellis add the last paragraph later to make Kaus look like even more of a tool?

There is no wrong answer.

Conventional Blogging

This is a bit disappointing:

There will be 15,000 other media people (journalists, producers, and support staff) in Boston [at the Democratic National Convention]and 35 or so approved webloggers, all trying to make sense of the event, and tell the world what happens at it.

Not yet, keep reading.

Dave Winer of Scripting News got the nod and will be blogging from Boston. That's cool.

So expect dispatches from Boston that read like this:

Doc said of fellow Cluetrainer, Chris Locke and his alter-id, Rageboy: "The most out-there and purposely offensive blog. He's a genius, it's brilliant stuff. It's hostile." Then he laughs.

I've heard him say this before, and I've also heard David Weinberger say the same thing. They find Locke's cruelty amusing. I agree that Locke's site is purposely offensive, I might go a little further, but I wonder if Searls and Weinberger would like it so much if they were the targets?

Locke directs his hostility at people. I watched as he humiliated an old girlfriend. How does he get away with this? I wondered. People still seem to be his friend. I didn't say anything for fear that he'd go after me. Then he did. How did I offend him? I honestly don't know.

The Golden Rule comes before The Cluetrain Manifesto. If you aren't trying to treat people as you would like to be treated, you can't possibly do good, imho. You guys have taken a big detour, I think you've lost your way. When I first read the Cluetrain I was cheering, it was exciting. Now it's degraded and sick. Time for an intervention. Wake up guys, people matter. I still believe you're better than this. Much.

Who picked him, Zell Miller?

Anyone who says "Cluetrain Manifesto," much less reads it, is in need of an intervention.

Fortunately, the DNC picked some outstanding bloggers as well, such as Jeralyn Merritt of TalkLeft (who is also on Air America Radio tonight). If anyone has a complete list, please share!

p.s. If anyone cares, I didn't seek credentials, and can, off the top of my head, name 35 more deserving bloggers. (Dave Winer would not be one of them.) Besides, this new monitor is too damn heavy to lug around Boston for a week.

"Kerry managed to choose John Edwards Tuesday without getting the traditional money shot of the both of them holding their hands aloft. NBC's Tim Russert told Brian Williams this was 'very deliberate'--a carefully planned 'rollout' designed to dominate the news for most of the week. They'll hold hands tomorrow! ... Aren't Kerry's strategists severely overestimating the excitement surrounding this ticket? They're also failing to take into account the public's increased ability to swiftly process a less-than-shocking story which will be yesterday's news--an hour and a half ago, actually. Today, the Kerry-Edwards money shot would surely have led all the networks. Tomorrow it might well air after the commercial break in a quotidian campaign story covering both sides. ... When do they kiss?" (Moronic emphasis in original.)

Here's a tip, Mick. Tim Russert just might be talking out of his ass. Again.

Doggy Dick Morris Barks For His Master

Here's the kind of anal-penetrating analysis FOX News Contributor Dick Morris provides ... for a fee!:

This election will hinge on what Americans want in a president.

Okay. It's easy to take a sentence entirely in context and mock it. When it's written by a moron. So let's dig deeper.

Bush has to hope for neither too much success nor too much failure in his efforts to eradicate terror, pacify Iraq and curb the ambitions of North Korea and Iran. Too much success would erode the importance of these issues and let domestic questions come to the fore, to Kerry's advantage. Too much failure would besmirch his ratings on fighting terror and could cripple his key advantage, as April's outbreak of violence in Iraq hobbled him in the spring.

Kerry has to hope Bush will succeed so well in fighting terrorism that it disappears as an issue. Only if voters feel genuinely safe will they be willing to reject the man who brought them safety and take a chance on a man they don't entirely trust on the issue.

Should another terrorist attack hit our shores, Americans will likely react the opposite from their Spanish counterparts — we'll rallyaround the president both as an act of patriotism and as a recognition that his skills at fighting terror are still needed.

So the candidate who hopes the most will win.

The flabby foot fetishist repeats two Administration lies in the guise of analysis: That Bush brought this country safety and that Spanish voters were influenced by terrorist attacks.

His last sentence is a classic: If there's another domestic terror attack, voters will recognize Bush's skills at fighting terror. And if you play fetch with another prostitute, Dick, we'll recognize how much you love your wife.

Dissin' Big Daddy

Maybe the New York Times is a bunch of elite Northeastern snobs:

"A picture caption yesterday with the obituary of C.J. Hart, a pioneer in drag racing, gave a misspelled surname in some copies for a driver pictured with Hart. He was Don Garlits, not Garlitis."

(Correction, July 6 (newsprint edition only).)

Bench and Barr

Tonight, in honor of John Edwards' selection as John Kerry's running mate, CNN played a clip of Dubya at his most profound: "Frivolous lawsuits never healed anyone."

Yes, and medical malpractice never compensated for a lifetime of pain and suffering.

Let it not be said that Republicans hate all lawyers, however. Here's the kind of lawyer the Pukes love:

ATLANTA - The leader of a white supremacist group has pleaded guilty to firearms violations stemming from a raid on his Dahlonega home 10 months ago.

Chester James Doles, a former Klansman and the Georgia leader of the National Alliance, admitted Monday to illegal possession of a dozen guns.

During the 1990s, Doles was sentenced to multiyear terms for battery and burglary in Maryland. Federal law forbids possession of firearms by those who have been convicted of a crime and served more than a year.

...

Former U.S. Rep. Bob Barr, one of Doles' lawyers, said he expects Doles' sentence to be no longer than 10 years.

Bob Barr, the Freeper's Lawyer.

Wesley Pruden, Racist

Poor Wes "Klansboy" Pruden. He's boo-hooing to Howie Kurtz about how big, bad Bill Clinton called him names. The Putz, ignorant of history, plays along.

Washington Times Editor in Chief Wesley Pruden, for example, accuses Clinton of "a little bit of McCarthyism."

Writing about the Whitewater investigation in "My Life," the former president blames in part the "avowedly right-wing" Washington Times, "financed by the Reverend Sun Myung Moon, and edited by Wes Pruden Jr., whose father, the Reverend Wesley Pruden, had been chaplain of the White Citizens' Council in Arkansas and an ally of Justice Jim Johnson's in their lost crusade against civil rights for blacks."

"Typical Clinton," says Pruden, who grew up in Arkansas. "That was my father, who's been dead 25 years. It has nothing to do with me. No one has ever accused me of being a racist. . . . There's certainly a strong implication that I don't like blacks because my father didn't like blacks." Clinton "has a perfect right" to criticize the paper's coverage, he says, but "I don't know why he'd accuse me or the Washington Times of being racist."

President Clinton doesn't accuse Pruden or the Moonie Times of being racists (at least in Howie's excerpt). So stop soiling your sheets, Wes.

And Pruden's wrong about another thing. I accuse Pruden of being racist.

Take this example:

When he sat down for a long interview with Southern Partisan not long after his promotion, Pruden left little doubt about where he would lead the paper.

After singling out the Southern culture warrior, Sen. Jesse Helms, as a political hero, Pruden bragged about his great-grandmother shooting a Union cavalryman and boasted that the Times was the most "in-your-face" conservative newspaper in America. When Robert E. Lee's birthday rolls around every year, he said, "I make sure we have a story" -- especially because the occasion "falls around Martin Luther King's birthday."

...

The Rev. Pruden's son has avoided commenting on his father's politics. But in 1995, the Times ran two long op-ed pieces by the senior Pruden's old Citizens Council cohort, "Justice Jim" Johnson.

As recently as 2000 Pruden called dear Daddy's racist pal "my old friend." And just last year, Prudie protested too much that his old racist friend didn't really want the Klan's endorsement for Governor. Klansboy ... uh ... forgets to quote Johnson's repudiation of the endorsement, perhaps because IT NEVER HAPPENED.

Sorry, Klansboy, you can bury your Daddy, but you can't hide the stench of your racist pals.

Reliable Tools

And here's the Putz's own stab at objectivity:

KURTZ: I got [sic] to jump in here. First of all, I want to mention my pet peeve, which is the film opens with a suggestion that Bush stole the election, and Moore says that few people know that Bush's cousin at Fox News helped call the election for the president. "Washington Post," November 14, 2000, by Howard Kurtz, "Bush Cousin Made Florida Vote Call" for Fox News. So much for that....

You see, it can't be true that few Americans knew about Ellis's relationship to Bush and position at FOX, because that would mean few Americans read Howie's shitty column.

Howie Kurtz: Reliable hackery.

Congratulations to Our Next Vice President, Senator John Edwards

Give 'em Halliburton!

John Leo, Computer Illiterate

John "White Teeth" Leo cheesed off that a "mildly kinky" Republican who can't close the deal has been denied his birthright.

"Judging by the Trib's self-righteous prose, you could be pardoned for thinking we were discussing the Pentagon Papers, not a mildly kinky sexual request that was never acted upon. How is this the business of the news media?"

Maybe Jack Ryan can spend his free time teaching basic computer skills to John Leo.

"It puts 'anything goes' philanderers off limits and targets only the backers of traditional moral values. The hypocrisy excuse was a low hum in the background of the Jack Ryan case. One of the Tribune's legal briefs identified him as a 'family values' candidate (the evidence for this perilous status did not turn up in my computer search), so apparently it was somehow ok to go gunning for him."

Yeah, Johnno. You have to search as far as ... Jack Ryan's website ... to see him identified as a "family values" candidate:

Don't go looking for this show on any network. It's not TV -- it's not even reality TV -- it's real life; the life of Jack Ryan, Republican candidate for U.S. Senate.

It's a life shaped by family values. Jack grew up in a family of 8, went to Dartmouth College, earned degrees from Harvard Law and Harvard Business School. Spent fifteen years in investment banking, made partner, and then Jack gave it all up -- to teach at an African-American high school on Chicago's south side. And last year, 100% of their graduates went on to college.

Jack's values taught him the importance of every child's life and his time in the inner city only made it stronger. To find out more about Jack, visit jackryan2004.com.

And then there's these endorsements.

Oh, well, there's no victim like a Republican victim.

Veep-A-Palooza

Senator Kerry's going to name his anti-Dick tomorrow, or so it's said:

WASHINGTON (AP) -- Sen. John Edwards interrupted his Walt Disney World vacation last week to meet with Democratic presidential candidate John Kerry, adding a new level of intrigue to the vice presidential search, which Democrats expect to end Tuesday.

Kerry must select a vice presidential candidate at the Democratic National Convention, which begins in Boston on July 26. Delegates will be asked to formally nominate his pick.

The Massachusetts senator said Monday he had not settled on a running mate, but that didn't stop the rampant speculation in Democratic circles. Party leaders said they were told to expect a decision Tuesday.

Post your guesses, rumors and hopes in Comments.

It's a safe bet it won't be me, but otherwise I don't have a clue.

I did get these kind words from the next President:

I want to thank you for your support for my candidacy and the Democratic Party. At a critical moment, you and tens of thousands of supporters stepped forward to ensure that I and the party had the resources needed to continue waging the most effective Democratic presidential campaign ever. No words can express how grateful I am for what you have done for this party.

But he still was mum on the veepstakes.

My hope is that it's someone who can take the fight to Dick. Someone unlike Joe Lieberman.

Don't Believe The Stovepipe

The Central Intelligence Agency was told by relatives of Iraqi scientists before the war that Baghdad's programs to develop unconventional weapons had been abandoned, but the C.I.A. failed to give that information to President Bush, even as he publicly warned of the threat posed by Saddam Hussein's illicit weapons, according to government officials.

And the Adminstration was begging the Company for such information, right?

It's like blaming Barney for Karl Rove's flatuence.

Pull the other one.

Column Review: Daniel Okrent Lies About Income Taxes

"The other two complaints about Kakutani's review -- failure to mention criticism of The Times and reference to real estate lies -- would be absolutely appropriate to a news story. But critics exist to have opinions. Short of committing factual inaccuracy, libel or other major sins, they are free -- must be free -- to say what they wish. To my knowledge the R.T.C. and the O.I.C. never concluded that one or the other Clinton did not lie; the two offices found that they had committed no offenses that justified prosecution or taken any actions that would subject them to civil penalties. Thankfully, in the United States justice system, the threshold for establishing criminal behavior or a civil liability is much higher than the threshold for your opinion, my opinion or Michiko Kakutani's opinion."

So, Jokerent. Why don'tcha tell us what lies that President Clinton told about real estate?

Update (7/5): Link added. Thanks, Seb!