Mel, 6:5-6

And when ye p.r., ye shall not be as the hypocrites, for they attendeth the synagogues and taketh full pages in the industry sheets. Verily I say unto you, they corrupteth the awards. But thou, when thou p.r., enter into thy closet, and when thou hast shut thy door, sendeth thou out thy spokesperson with a press release about how ye pander to the Academy in secret, and how ye are therefore morally superior to those who buyeth space in the trades. And the wingnuts, who are gullible dolts one and all, shall prattle on about thy integrity and shall increase thy free press five-fold.

Thus endeth the epistle.

Brian Linse has the appropriate response to Jeff Jarvis's assertion that Dems should work to unite the country and "heal wounds" by making nice with Bush following the election:

Listen, bro, you know that I think you are one sweet cat, and that you have been one of my blog heroes right from the start, but this "Peace Pledge" thingy that you are on about now is really fucking pathetic.

You also ask your fellow Democrats to acknowledge Bush as "our president" and to "push him", but to use "honey" to do it... or something like that. I'm sure you are getting lots of link- love from the Right for this noble, and no doubt sincere effort. But trust me, Jeff, they are clicking over from the Right and laughing at you. Anyway...

Well, Jeff, to paraphrase Michael Corleone, "My offer is this: nothing."

The country won't heal if Bush continues to exploit, divide, infect and destroy it for the benefit of his benefactors. Opposing Bush is the only way to help the country.

Big Game Hunting

Why are the so-called liberal media in large part ignoring the biggest story of the week? I speak of University of California's resounding thrashing of that dark satanic diploma mill, home school of Condoleezza Rice and the Hoover Institution, Leland Stanford Junior College.

"Bears' tailbacks J.J. Arrington and Marshawn Lynch each rushed for more than 100 yards for the second straight week as Cal beat Stanford for the third time in a row. Cal last won three straight Big Games in 1958-60. It also made Cal coach Jeff Tedford 3-0 in Big Games, and the last Cal coach to win three straight was Pappy Waldorf, who won his first three Big Games in 1947,'48 and '49.

"The crowd of 72,981 represented the first Big Game sellout since 1997. The Bears, whose only remaining game is Dec. 4 at Southern Mississippi, ended up averaging 64,019 in home attendance, a Cal record."

You gotta love it when Blue beats Red.

Are there any former Young Republicans who aren't morally bankrupt scumbags?

Update: Link fixed.

Another One Bites The Dust

Finally -- finally! -- an obituary that mentions some of the unpleasant truths about Reed Irvine:

Ideologically, [Accuracy in Media] paved the way for the tide of conservative talk shows, Web sites and news programming that would follow decades later. And while AIM occasionally lived up to its name, it also spent much of its time pursuing conspiracy theories.

In recent years, for example, Mr. Irvine turned his attention to such speculative topics as whether the death in 1993 of Vincent W. Foster Jr., the deputy White House counsel in the Clinton administration, was really a suicide. He also challenged the government's explanation of the crash in 1996 of T.W.A. Flight 800, alleging that it had been caused by a rocket.

Irvine also pimped the theory that the bombing of the Murrah Federal Building in Oklahoma City was the work of al-Qaeda.

Yes, Irvine had no respect for the survivors of tragedy -- or for the truth.

So, ideally, the most fitting tribute to Irvine would be to insinuate that he was killed during an erotic encounter with Dicky Mellon Scaife.

Grand Old Police Blotter: Republicans Lawyered Up Edition

Texan scumbag Tom DeLay's cronies are as scummy as DeLay himself. One of the bugchaser's former staffers, "public relations executive" Tom Scanlon is the subject of grand jury and Senate investigations into influence peddling.

Just imagine how big of a crook you have to be to be the Republican subject of a graft investigation by the Republican-controlled Senate.

The WaPo reports:

A Texas Indian tribe desperate to reopen its shuttered gambling casino paid two Washington insiders $4.2 million to try to persuade Sen. Christopher J. Dodd (D-Conn.) and Rep. Robert W. Ney (R-Ohio) to slip crucial language into a bill, according to documents released at a congressional hearing yesterday.

The language did not end up in the 2002 Election Reform Act, but the tab for doing business in Washington came due anyway for the Tigua tribe of El Paso. The millions went to lobbyist Jack Abramoff and public relations executive Michael Scanlon, who are embroiled in investigations by Congress and a federal grand jury over the $82 million in lobbying and public relations fees they collected from six tribes that operate gambling casinos.

...

Scanlon, 34, a former aide to House Majority Leader Tom DeLay (R-Tex.), was subpoenaed to appear before the committee. Like Abramoff, who appeared at a hearing in September, he declined to answer questions on the grounds that they could incriminate him [sic].

...

The Washington Post previously reported that Abramoff and Scanlon quietly worked with conservative religious activist Ralph Reed to help persuade the state of Texas to shut down the Tigua casino in 2002, then persuaded the tribe to pay the $4.2 million to try to get Congress to reopen it.

... Documents released yesterday show that when the Tiguas were out of money in 2003, Abramoff came up with a plan to provide term life insurance to tribal elders, who would make their beneficiary a Jewish school Abramoff founded in Wheaton. The school would pay Abramoff's lobbying fees at the firm of Greenberg Traurig, from which he was ousted earlier this year.

The tribe also was asked to pay $50,000 for Ney and several others to accompany Abramoff on a golfing trip to St. Andrews, Scotland. According to testimony yesterday, however, two other tribes ultimately paid $50,000 each for that trip. Among those who accompanied Abramoff and Ney was Reed.

It's great to see men of different faiths working together.

As this article indicates, Abramoff and Scanlon are lawyered up with Plato Cacheris and Abbe Lowell, respectively. Did Short Joey DiGs and Brendan Sullivan have conflicts of interest? Pretty soon all of the D.C. criminal bar will be on retainer to G.O.P. operatives.

The key here is ex-Christian Coalition mouthpiece Ralph Reed, last seen working for the Bush-Cheney campaign. It's time to put Reed under oath, and make him squeal. Put your money where your mouth is, McCain.

p.s. As the last link indicates, there's a Grover Norquist connection here too. It sounds like Norquist might have some relevant testimony. At a minimum his cries of "witch hunt" might provide comic relief for the committee.

Sail Away

The Weekly Standard is the latest magazine to sponsor a cruise featuring its lineup of editors and subscription processing clerks as guest speakers. For only $1,675 per person (single occupancy), you can sail the open seas for 7 days and 6 nights with William Kristol, Fred Barnes, Terry Eastland, Claudia Winkler and Victorino Matus.

And Hugh Hewitt's head will be used as the anchor.

Reservations are on a first-come, first to get a refund when the cruise is cancelled due to a lack of interest basis.

A Fool And Her Money

Bob Somerby at the Daily Howler eviscerates Anne Applebaum's unbelievably idiotic column dismissing those who demand a voting machine paper trail as irrational, paranoid, conspiracy-minded kooks. No, seriously. She says that.

Here's her reasoning:

When the ATM asks whether I want a receipt, I usually say no. When a Web site wants my credit card number, I usually say yes. When I pay bills online, there is no paper record of the transaction. In my failure to demand physical evidence when money changes hands, I am not very unusual. Most Americans now conduct at least some of their financial transactions without paper, or at least sleep happily knowing that others do. Yet when it comes to voting -- a far simpler and more straightforward activity than electronic bank transfers -- we suddenly become positively 19th century in our need for a physical record.

Would anybody do business with a bank that didn't offer reciepts for every transaction? Has ATM ever been built which doesn't print receipts? Is there any legitimate online business that doesn't have receipts which can be downloaded and/or printed, except in Applebaum's feeble mind?

Only an upper-class nitwit can afford to be so careless with her money. No one can afford to be so careless with democracy.

M.P.s Behaving Badly

The Conversative Party in Britian has been rocked by a political scandal involving weathly people having sex with each other. Well, not rocked, exactly.

Lady Verushka Wyatt is said to have been incensed by the way [Tory M.P. Boris Johnson] treated her only daughter, Petronella.

Reports that he quibbled over the price of an abortion infuriated her further.

Lady Wyatt leaked news of an abortion which Miss Wyatt underwent after sleeping with the Spectator editor. Father-of-four Mr Johnson last week rubbished reports of an affair but, after Lady Wyatt said the allegations were true, he was fired as the Tory opposition's arts spokesman.

Yesterday, Lady Wyatt, the widow of Tote boss Woodrow Wyatt, said she had no sympathy for the disgraced MP.

Speaking from the $7.2 million London house she shares with Petronella, she said: "I've no views on his dismissal. It's none of my business, really."

...

Mr Johnson has been married to barrister Marina Johnson for 11 years.

The couple began seeing each other while Mr Johnson was married to socialite Allegra Mostyn-Owen, who he left when his new girlfriend became pregnant.

Add a corpse and you've got a P.D. James novel.

Johnson is a blubbery toff who looks like Darrell Hammond impersonating Tweety Matthews. He was the Tories' Shadow Secretary for the Arts, a position which involves licensing the images of Rodney and Del Boy on tea towels. Or so I'd like to think.

Last week, Johnson called allegations of the affair "an inverted pyramid of piffle." And yet British newspapers describe him as "a wit."

Johnson is also the editor of the Spectator, where Petronella "Petsy" Wyatt is a columnist. Her current column offers some advice for working mums such as Ms. Johnson.

The upshot of all this is that the woman who has nothing to occupy her but family matters can end up in the most distressing of positions: by being a dutiful housewife she eventually loses the love of her family. Women thinking about giving up their careers should think again. It is understandable that they should not wish to work long hours in the City or in a solicitor's office, but even a part-time job can do wonders for their long-term felicity.

Apparently there is no Anglican equivalent of James Dobson.

(Story via SullyWatch and Best of Both Worlds.)

David Brooks, Victim of Oppression

Lazy Davy Brooks identifies the real evil of slavery: Coming up with two ideas a week.

Q. You've been an author, newspaper reporter and magazine writer. Is it different writing a column for the New York Times?

[Brooks:] It's totally different. I always swore that I would never agree to be a columnist because it's like slavery. You've got to come up with an idea every three or four days. So I finish my column on a Monday night, and 15 minutes after I'm done I have to think about the next one. That's a challenge.

Pathetic.

Hopefully, the Times will manumit Brooks. That, or beat him to death.

(Link requires registration)

Powell Movement

There won't be a wet eye in the Ailes household when Colin Powell relieves himself of the burden of avoiding responsibility and starts collecting those six-figure speaking fees. General Powell's legacy won't be the "Powell Doctrine," it will be his United Nations Power Point presentation, the one presenting a fictitious case for invading Iraq.

No evidence for the weapons has been found, and Mr. Powell is said to have been dismayed that he made a case for the administration based on faulty information.

Not as dismayed as the Iraqi citizens and American soldiers killed and maimed in Desert Sham, of course. Maybe a little pang of regret when he wakes up in the middle of the night to take a piss.

No, I won't miss Colin, the man who wasn't there. He claimed to have principles but was never seen applying them or standing up for them. His commitment to affirmative action extended only as far as getting his otherwise unemployable son, Michael, a patronage job as America's tit monitor. His devotion to integration of the military was only skin deep. Powell once may have had integrity, but he's long since cut it off and killed it.

Grand Old Police Blotter: Lift Every Face Edition

Republican Linda Schrenko, who in 1994 became the first woman elected to a statewide office in Georgia (!) and advocated the teaching of creationism in Georgia's schools, has been indicted (registration required on most links) on allegations she helped herself to over $500,000 of the people's money.

Not just the people of Georgia's money. That wouldn't be right. In true Republican fashion, Schrenko is accused of redistributing money from the Blue States to her own personal account.

Former Georgia School Superintendent Linda Schrenko, whose groundbreaking political career dissolved into erratic behavior and defeat, was indicted Wednesday on federal charges that she stole more than $500,000 in taxpayer money and spent part of it on cosmetic surgery.

Schrenko, 54; her close friend and chief assistant Merle Temple, 56; and Alpharetta businessman A. Stephan Botes, 47, were named in an 18-count indictment that alleges they were involved in a scheme to steal federal education funds and secretly funnel about half the money to Schrenko's failed 2002 campaign for governor.

In addition, the indictment charges the Republican school superintendent used $9,300 of the money to pay for cosmetic surgery.

Schrenko allegedly filched the funds from programs for deaf students.

The federal funds purportedly were used to purchase computer services for two state schools for the deaf and the Governor's Honors Program, but officials say the services weren't delivered.

I guess we can leave some children behind for the sake of Republican politics and a more youthful appearance. Why waste money on the handicapped?

Fortunately, God is on Schrenko's side.

On Wednesday, Rusty Paul, former chairman of the Georgia Republican Party, said he listened in disbelief to news reports of Schrenko's indictment.

...

"She had a lot of support from the Christian conservatives in the Republican Party, both in her gubernatorial run and in her tenure as school superintendent," he said.

I'm sure she did.

A former teacher and principal whose only prior campaign was a losing race for school superintendent of Columbia County, Schrenko was first elected to head the $6 billion state Education Department in 1994, running a down-home campaign and with a 100 percent approval rating by the Christian Coalition. Once in office, she put personal friends on the DOE payroll, including her pastor and his wife.

Schrenko was popular with the fundies because she advocated teaching the Bible and creationism in Georgia's public schools.

The government alleges that Schrenko issued eleven Department of Education checks, ranging from $45,000 to $49,900, to companies controlled by Botes -- fifty K being the magic number requiring state Board of Education approval. Botes then allegedly funnelled the money back to Schrenko and her election campaigns, with the company hand-delivering checks to Schrenko's bagman. "In one instance, the government says, Temple met Botes and another company official for breakfast at an Atlanta hotel, and the Schrenko aide left with an envelope filled with $32,000 in cash." After an audit began, the govermnent claims, "the conspirators created backdated contracts to cover more than $500,000 in Department of Education payments made to Botes' companies." Schrenko denies the charges.

Give that woman a Darwin Award!

(Thanks to Roger's Blue Ridge, GA correspondent.)

Perhaps someone at amazon.com can explain amazon's advertisement on the Google homepage:

"Buy the late Iris Changs' novels at Amazon, big savings!"

Special Pleading

Earlier this week, some commentators ridiculed David Brooks -- and rightly so -- for using his New York Times opinion column to promote his worst-seller, On Remainder Tables On Paradise Drive. At least Brooks was upfront about his shameless -- and probably fruitless -- self-promotion.

Yet, the following day, another Times columnist engaged in some self-interested writing without disclosing his apparent conflict of interest. And he hasn't been called on it.

In a column published on November 10, 2004, Nicky "Pistof" Kristof decried court rulings ordering journalists to identify confidential sources and threatening contempt sanctions for disobedience. He calls these orders "an alarming new pattern of assault on American freedom of the press." The pissy one wrote as follows:

But now similar abuses are about to unfold within the United States, part of an alarming new pattern of assault on American freedom of the press. In the last few months, three different U.S. federal judges, each appointed by President Ronald Reagan, have found a total of eight journalists in contempt of court for refusing to reveal confidential sources, and the first of them may go to prison before the year is out. Some of the rest may be in prison by spring.

Pistof takes up the cases of Judy Miller and (apparently) the New York Times reporters in the matter of Wen Ho Lee.

Then there's Patrick Fitzgerald, the overzealous special prosecutor who is the Inspector Javert of our age. Mr. Fitzgerald hasn't made any progress in punishing the White House officials believed to have leaked the identity of the C.I.A. officer Valerie Plame to Robert Novak. But Mr. Fitzgerald seems determined to imprison two reporters who committed no crime, Judith Miller of The New York Times and Matthew Cooper of Time, because they won't blab about confidential sources.

...

Then there's a third case, a civil suit between the nuclear scientist Wen Ho Lee and the government. Judge Thomas Penfield Jackson held five reporters who are not even parties to the suit in contempt for refusing to reveal confidential sources.

And Pistof mentions a third case involving the NYT.

In yet another case, the Justice Department is backing a prosecutor's effort to get a record of telephone calls made by two New York Times reporters - uncovering all their confidential sources in the fall of 2001.

Kristof's punchline: "But when reporters face jail for doing their jobs, the ultimate victim is the free flow of information, the circulatory system of any democracy."

Of course any journalist who relies on confidential sources has a self-interest in maintaining the confidentiality of sources. But Pistof may have more of an interest than most.

In July 2004, Pistof was sued by Steven Hatfill for writing columns allegedly insinuating that Hatfill had some connection to the 2001 anthrax mailings. (More here and here.) Kristof's columns were based on the allegations of "authorities" speaking "privately." Kristof doesn't name the authorities, and it's unknown whether Kristof promised them confidentiality (although the word "privately" is a bit of a hint).

Which brings us to this October 22 article in the Baltimore Sun:

Justice Department employees involved in the investigation of biological weapons expert Steven J. Hatfill will be asked to sign a form waiving any confidentiality agreements with reporters, a move proposed by his attorneys to help determine the source of government leaks identifying him as a suspect in the 2001 anthrax attacks.

U.S. District Judge Reggie B. Walton, who has criticized government officials for leaks about Hatfill, agreed to the unusual request in court yesterday.

"I am not prepared to leave this at a status quo," Walton said. "I believe Dr. Hatfill has a right to his day in court."

Hatfill's attorney, Thomas G. Connolly, would not say how he plans to proceed once the waivers are circulated, except that he hopes to narrow the list of 100 or more Justice Department officials and journalists they might want to interview. He would not say whether he plans to call journalists to testify.

Hatfill, who worked at a biological warfare lab at Fort Detrick in Frederick, has never been charged and has long denied any involvement in the anthrax mailings, which killed five people and paralyzed the Postal Service. He is suing Attorney General John Ashcroft and other government authorities who publicly named him as a "person of interest," saying his career and reputation were ruined. Hatfill also has filed a libel suit against The New York Times related to opinion pieces written by Pulitzer-Prize-winning columnist Nicholas D. Kristof.

Under Walton's order, Hatfill's attorneys will make a list of news stories that they want to question FBI and Justice Department officials about, and the government will then circulate the list among employees associated with the Hatfill case, allowing them to sign the waiver if they wish.

(The NYT reported on these waivers here, in a patently defensive news story.)

So Hatfill's case is proceeding in much the same way the Plame investigation is proceeding. Either the FBI/Justice officials agree to talk about their "private" discussions with journalists such as Kristof, or they refuse to sign the waiver and Hatfill requests an order compelling the journalists to identify their sources. It doesn't take an Oxford education to see where this is heading. Surely Kristof knew when he wrote his column that Hatfill's attorneys are seeking to discover purportedly private communications between authorities and journalists concerning Hatfill. And surely he anticipates that Hatfill's lawyers intend to question him about his sources for his anthrax articles, either in their case against the government or in the defamation action against him. Any rational person in Kristof's place would be concerned about the possibility of being ordered to testify about his "private" conversations, and about being held in contempt for refusing to do so.

Apparently none of these facts darkened Pistof's spotless mind when he penned his stirring tribute to journalistic self-interest and exemption from the rules of law applicable to the rest of us. Otherwise, he surely would have mentioned them. Right?

(As a postscript, I have no opinion on the merits of Hatfill's claims against Pistof, or the case (if any) against Hatfill with respect to the anthrax killings. The point here is Kristof's failure to acknowledge his significant self-interest in his column about the purported "assault" on a free press.)