(Five points for each correct answer)
Please proceed to the next section.
(Five points for each correct answer)
Match the Republican with the object of his erection*:
1. Jack Ryan
2. Bill O'Reilly
3. David Smith (Sinclair Broadcasting)
4. Representative Ed Schrock
5. Bernard Kerik
6. Stephen P. Linnen (Republican staff counsel)
7. Dick Dasen, Sr.
8. Tom Wolfe (and his fans, John Derbyshire, Charles Colson, etc.)
9. Unnamed Bush appointee/department head
10. Kerry Dwayne Stevens (American Family Radio)
-o-O-o-
a. Producing child pornography
b. Sex with impoverished crack addicts, minors
c. Cruising phone sex/chat lines
d. Vibrator shaped like a little cock
e. Public sex in sex clubs
f. Deflowering white college students
g. Anal sex with a blogger, for $400
h. Blow job by hooker in company Mercedes
i. Exposing himself and photographing victims' reactions
j. Judith Regan
Please proceed to the next section.
* Note: All persons are innocent until proven guilty, even Republicans.
(Five points for each correct answer)
Who said it?*
Please proceed to the next section.
*"Who said it?" appears courtesy of World O'Crap
(Five points for each correct answer)
Match the Republican with his or her crime*:
1. Governor John G. Rowland
2. State Representative J. Edward Kerns
3. State Senator Renee Unterman
4. James Tobin, Northeast Political Director, Republican Senatorial Committee
5. U.S. Representative Bill Janklow
6. Jim Ellis, aide to House Majority Leader Tom DeLay
7. County Commissioner Ilona Sanders
8. Andrew Fastow
9. State Representative Edwin Sullivan Jr.
10. State School Superintendent Linda Schrenko
-o-O-o-
a. Manslaughter
b. Stealing federal funds
c. Passing bad checks
d. Raising illegal campaign contributions
e. Possession of cocaine and marijuana
f. Drunk driving (aka acting Presidential/Vice Presidential)
g. Conspiracy to steal honest services
h. Stalking
i. Telephone harassment (to surpress voter turnout)
j. Conspiracy to commit fraud
It's almost over, I swear.
*All persons are innocent until proven guilty, even Republicans.
(Ten points for each correct answer)
Fill in the word or phrase:
1. Bin Laden Determined _______________________
2. Men who experience ____________________ for more than 4 hours should seek immediate medical attention.
3. - 5. Not only are we going to New Hampshire, we're going to _________________ and Oklahoma and Arizona and _______________ and _________________, and we're going to California and Texas and New York.
6. _________ mentum
7. It is _______________.
8. It's ___________. I understand how _____ it is.... It is _____________.
9. Want some _________________?
10. Miserable _________________
STOP! You have finished the quiz. Please hand your paper to the proctor and exit the room quietly.
Thank you for reading. Best wishes for the New Year, and I hope you will continue to visit in 2005.
325-350 Points: You would qualify for a MacArthur Genius Grant if you didn't waste so much time reading this blog.
305-320 Points: Karl Rove hates you.
205-300 Points: You are so media savvy you could make L. Brent Bozell wet himself.
155-200 Points: You're ready to give up the G.O.P. Kool-Aid.
105-150 Points: You're smarter than all the members of The Corner, but then again, who isn't?
55-100 Points: A kidney is the only organ Thomas Sowell would buy from you.
0-50 Points: You qualify for a full professorship at the University of Tennessee Law School.
The Washington Post reports on Republican politics as usual:
House Speaker J. Dennis Hastert is leaning toward removing the House ethics committee chairman, who admonished House Majority Leader Tom DeLay this fall and has said he will treat DeLay like any other member, several Republican aides said yesterday.
Although Hastert (Ill.) has not made a decision, the expectation among leadership aides is that the chairman, Rep. Joel Hefley (R-Colo.), long at odds with party leaders because of his independence, will be replaced when Congress convenes next week.
The aides said a likely replacement is Rep. Lamar S. Smith, one of DeLay's fellow Texans, who held the job from 1999 to 2001. Smith wrote a check this year to DeLay's defense fund. An aide said Smith was favored for his knowledge of committee procedure.
Yes, Smith has the procedure down cold.
Poor Rudy Guiliani. He's been replaced by that fathead Dr. Phil as Tim Russert's year-end go-to moral blowhard. It's always heartwarming to see two multi-millionaire Republicans lecturing the po' folks about chastity and entitlement:
MR. RUSSERT: And yet our children are growing up much differently than we did. Our children have much more access, much more privilege, if you will. How do we teach them that they are always, always loved but never, never entitled?
DR. McGRAW: Well, I think that's a tall order, but I think you just embodied what I believe needs to be our North Star right now. I think we need to give them too much love and not enough money, you know, too much time and attention and not enough privilege, in their minds, at least. And what I mean by that is, if our children know that when they arrive at that early adulthood, they're going to start making their own way. They need to understand that they won't start at the standard of living they leave. I mean, they tend to have this belief now that "When I go out on my own, I should have a house that's kind of like where I've lived. I should drive cars like Mom and Dad have." I believe that overindulgence is one of the most insidious forms of child abuse known to man. You don't teach them how the world really works if you're overindulging them.
Dr. Fathead Phil also claims "I'm embarrassed every time I look a teacher in the eye, because we ask them to do so much for so little." Sure, Phil. I'm sure you feel the same way about the folks that buy your weight-loss crap too.
Let's hope these punks got the Christmas they deserve:
The College Republican National Committee is under fire for using front organizations to collect millions of dollars in contributions, including money from elderly people with dementia.
During the 2004 campaign, the group sent out direct-mail solicitations under such letterheads as "Republican Headquarters 2004" and "Republican Election Committee."
One four-page letter asked prospects to send $1,000 together with an American flag pin for President Bush to wear to "Republican Headquarters" to ensure that Bush knows "there are millions who are giving him the shield of God to protect him in the difficult days ahead."
In small print at the bottom of one page, the letter notes: "A project of and paid for by College Republican National Committee."
Many donors complained that they thought the money was going directly to the Republican Party, and not to the college group, which is no longer affiliated with the GOP. The controversy over the letters has produced angry responses from leaders of state College Republican chapters, including those in Washington state, North Carolina and New York.
...
The [Seattle] Times reported that a number of elderly donors gave far more money than they could afford.
"I don't have any more money," Cecilia Barbier, 90, a retired church worker in New York who made more than 300 donations totaling nearly $100,000, told the paper. "That was all the savings. . . . Now I'm scrounging."
Monda Jo Millsap, 68, of Van Buren, Ark., told the Times that she emptied a savings account, then got a $5,000 bank loan to give a total of $59,000.
Hey, the shield of God isn't cheap.
They sold me a dream of Christmas,
They sold me a silent night,
They told me a fairy story,
'Til I believed in the Israelite.
And I believed in Father Christmas,
And I looked to the sky with excited eyes,
Then I woke with a yawn in the first light of dawn,
And I saw him and through his disguise.
I wish you a hopeful Christmas,
I wish you a brave New Year,
All anguish, pain and sadness,
Leave your heart and let your road be clear.
They said there'd be snow at Christmas,
They said there'd be peace on earth,
Hallelujah! Noel! be it Heaven or Hell,
The Christmas you get you deserve.
Let's hope not.
"The school spoke to my mother and I as if we were stupid and with no respect. You wouldn't believe how they acted. When the principle told my boyfriend and I to leave he, I'm guessing, wanted to show his anger and smacked the hood of my boyfriend's mom's car. They acted out in the wrong way trying to use force when we weren't even putting up a fight. I wasn't there to cause problems I was going to do as I was told so that way what they did was all on them and none of this could come back on me. I was so embarrassed by all of this because they wouldn't even let us out of our automobile and yelled and screamed all of these things at my date and myself in front of a large crowd who were mostly there to see me and support what I was standing up for. So after all this I ended up spending my senior prom on the sidewalk in front of my school and danced my first and last dance of my senior year there."
Sounds like academic standards in Kentucky are as lax as those in Tennessee.
Thomas Sowell shows us how to be a conservative intellectual, in a column titled "The Joseph Gobbels Award:
Any number of journalists would rate an "honorable mention" in this year's contest -- or perhaps "dishonorable mention" might be more appropriate. ABC reporter Carol Simpson was one of many who have said that they went into journalism in hopes of making this a better world. That's what Joseph Goebbels thought he was doing. His idea of a better world was undoubtedly very different from Ms. Simpson's but both saw journalism as a vehicle for achieving their political goals.
Interesting.
Of course, Sowell advocates selling the body parts of the poor to make this a better world. See where I'm going here?
A Republican Party precinct committeeman has been defrauding investors using a pitch which included tours of the office of Denny Hastert, Republican Speaker of the House, according to this report. The alleged scum's victims include disabled wards of the state:
CHICAGO -- A Kendall County Republican precinct committeeman has been charged with swindling more than 40 investors out of nearly $2 million, gaining their confidence in part by dropping big names -- including that of House Speaker Dennis Hastert.
Frank T. Devine, 55, of the 0-99 block of Century Drive in Oswego, was charged this week with wire fraud in a criminal complaint announced in U.S. District Court.
The complaint alleges that Devine "used many of his connections he has made through his business and political dealings" to gain investors' trust. He is accused of operating an investment operation like a Ponzi scheme, where early investors are paid off with money put up by later investors and are misled about the funds' actual earnings.
One of the investors allegedly defrauded told FBI investigators that Devine gave the person a tour of Hastert's Washington office, the Capitol building and congressional chambers.
While inside the Capitol, Devine discussed tax shelters and investment strategies. After the tour, the investor put down an additional $85,000 to $100,000 to invest in one of Devine's programs....
Hastert spokesman John McGovern called tours of congressional offices "routine" and said the office knew nothing of Devine's scheme.
"Like most political activists in our district, he is an acquaintance of our office, but we are unaware of the specific allegations contained in these [charges]," McGovern said....
Fox said the fraud started in 2000. Some of the alleged victims include Florida state wards whose accounts are operated by third parties because of their disabilities or injuries and at least two other Kendall County GOP committeemen.
Republican fraud in Florida in 2000. Hard to believe.
Strangely, the FBI has already exonerated Hastert of any wrongdoing, and Hastert denies any complicity, despite Devine's alleged use of the Speaker's office space in furtherance of the con. Perhaps Denny though Devine was using the tours to con people into giving money to the G.O.P., instead of pocketing it himself.
(Thanks to a reader for the link.)
Has there ever been a bigger whiner than Daniel Okrent? (At least one who doesn't have a column at Clownhall.com.) This guy has done nothing in his tenure as Public Editor for the New York Times except bitch about the paper's readers. Here, Jokrent names as the media story of the year the fact that the great unwashed are -- imagine this! -- complaining to him about things they read in the Times:
"We all see things from our own perspective, but I think it was the way both the left and the right were primed and armed to assault the press. I felt this very keenly in my job when complaints came to me. There was a determination, a vigilance that staggered me. There was intimidation and self-dealing.
"It was amazing to me that Adam [Nagourney, the Times' national political reporter] and his colleagues can still keep their eyes on the ball. Obviously, everybody's got to be on their toes all the time to do a fair job and complete job, you have to not be intimidated but also not ignore it. I think it can affect what's in the paper - Ed Wasserman (Washington and Lee University journalism professor) calls it 'negotiated news,' where the response is dictated by efforts to keep people off your back instead of what you deal in - news.
"[The barrage] has tailed off substantially since the election, but it will start up again with the first Supreme Court appointment. I hope it comes after May 31st when I'm done with my job. Hang in there Mr. Rehnquist!"
Assault the press? WTF!?!
Why don't you do yourself a favor, Rent-boy, and quit now? Do something you enjoy -- and something you're qualified for -- instead. I hear Fox News has an opening for a fluffer.
We have a Democrat to thank for breaking up the latest Republican crime wave:
WASHINGTON - Talk about bad economic indicators: A top congressional economist was nabbed trying to steal a fancy plasma TV from a Capitol Hill committee room.
"I guess he was practicing a new theory called trickle-up economics," cracked Dan McGlinchey, a longtime aide to Rep. Barney Frank (D-Mass.) who helped collar the alleged thief after a chase through the Rayburn House Office Building.
Tom Loo, chief economist for the Small Business Committee, was arrested after running into a gaggle of Capitol Hill police officers, who promptly tackled him.
McGlinchey said he had gone to his office at the Financial Services Committee about 10p.m. Thursday to catch up on some paperwork when he saw Loo loading a wrapped-up flat-screen plasma TV onto a cart.
"I didn't recognize the guy," McGlinchey said. "He seemed really agitated. I noticed the TV was gone, and when I confronted him, he started walking really fast down the hallway with the dolly in tow, mumbling, 'Must leave, must leave.'"
...
Capitol Police Officer Michael Lauer said Loo, a former tax consultant who spent nine years as senior economist for the Senate Banking Committee, was charged with first-degree theft.
I blame environmental factors. Working with Jim DeMint, Marilyn Musgrave and Ed Schrock on a daily basis would drive anyone to crime bat-shit nuts.
At last week's meeting, [Republican State Senator Ed] Butcher said "vegetables," in reference to seriously disabled children, should be removed from the traditional school setting and relocated in regional hub schools that can better meet their needs. Butcher said Montana's small schools simply cannot afford to meet the varying needs of all disabled students.
And in explaining his comments about minority student populations, Butcher said "Montana teachers who leave the state for better-paying jobs elsewhere have to deal with groups of Hispanic, Asian and black gangs that are terrorizing schools."
(Via Buzzflash.)
Nick Pistof repeats his Big Lie:
Because I'm embarrassed to say that Democrats have been so suspicious of Republicans that they haven't contributed much on those human rights issues where the Christian right has already staked out its ground.
Take sex trafficking. Paul Wellstone, the liberal from Minnesota, led an effort with Mr. Brownback and others to pass landmark legislation in 2000 to battle sex slavery around the world. But since Mr. Wellstone's death in 2002, the leadership on the issue has passed to the Christian right and to the Bush administration.
So what exactly has occurred since October 2002? Pistof doesn't say, and he doesn't know.
And Katha Pollitt proves that Pistof's full of it:
Here's a list of excellent organizations, some familiar from years past, some new, with an emphasis on ones with a personal touch, a political mission and extremely low administrative costs: ...
Equality Now. This organization fights some of the most flagrant abuses of women's human rights around the world--from female genital mutilation in Africa to Asian sex tours organized in the New York City area. In March it launched a global campaign against laws that discriminate against women--whether by permitting wife-beating and marital rape, tolerating rape and abduction, banning women from voting and inheriting property or, as in Afghanistan, imprisoning very young girls who run away from forced marriages. What I particularly like about Equality Now is its close connections with local groups and with the global feminist movement--including not just women but men. With the Bush Administration redoubling its efforts to undermine the international consensus supporting women's rights and advancement that emerged at the UN's 1995 Beijing conference, Equality Now's work is more essential than ever. Send your check to Box 20646, Columbus Circle Station, New York, NY 10023 (www.equalitynow.org).
I'm embarassed to say that the New York Times gives Kristof a paycheck.
Another crushing blow to those who mistake their mindless worship of BushCo for concern for the troops:
NEW YORK In his first public account of last week's controversy, Spc. Thomas Wilson says that he came up with the now famous armor question for Pentagon chief Donald Rumsfeld on his own, without the help of oft-criticized reporter Edward Lee Pitts. And he adds, "If this is my 15 minutes of fame, I hope it saves a life."
...
After his convoy arrived at Camp Arijan in Kuwait, Wilson found hundreds of fully armored vehicles promised to another unit months down the road. Wilson says he asked if the 278th could use them in the meantime, and was told no. That inspired his question about the shortage of armor, which he showed to Pitts.
The reporter, far from being the protagonist, suggested that he find "a less brash way of asking the question," but Wilson "told him no, that I wanted to make my point very clear."
Of course, the only thing that matters is the answer to the question, not who asked it. Unless you're a servile, knee-jerk Bush apologist.
Given that those arrested in connection with the Charles County arsons have been found to have pale skin, and to be members of a street racing club rather than the ELF, the wingnutosphere has determined that they cannot be terrorists, that they are entitled to due process, and that their alleged activities are no longer of interest to anyone.
Update (12/21): Link fixed.
Nine days after this blog pointed out that Lani Guinier did not employ an undocumented domestic worker, contrary to reports by the A.P., the Washington Post and others, Howie "the Putz" Kurtz finally gets around to noticing the massive incompetence of his media pals. And he leads off the item with a lame quip about how Guinier doesn't look like Zoe Baird, even though they're both women.
It's apparent that the Putz found the story from reading The Volokh Conspiracy blog, which didn't comment on the error until the 13th, two days after this blog noted it. The question is: Does Howie not read this blog, or did he refuse to mention it because it often reports on Howie's gross hackery and conflicts of interest? And if it's the former, can the Post really afford a media reporter who's so ill-informed?
The Putz also pens a gullible puffer on the Iraqthemodel blog, not bothering to question the truth of such factesque assertions by its authors as the claim that a majority of the Iraqis in a particular region make their money from drug running, kidnapping, arms dealing and prostitution because "they have no moral, religious or social values." I suggest Howie go on a fact-finding mission to determine whether Iraq is as peaceful and prosperous as the Fadhil brothers claim.
Another G.O.P. family man tries out his newest gags in his always lame year-ender:
Two movies symptomatic of the temper of the times were "The Passion of the Christ" and "The Passions of the Faculty Clubs" (a.k.a. "Fahrenheit 9/11").Ah ha ha.
It's a very good thing Bernie Kerik was an only child, that is, if nutbag publisher Judith Regan can be believed:
Kerik may have more to work through, as revelations about his personal life are likely to add to questions about his credibility. His affair with Judith Regan, the editor who published his autobiography, "Lost Son," continues to generate headlines. NEWSWEEK has learned that just after Kerik was nominated, Regan told one person that she was contacted by one of his associates, according to a person who knows about the conversation. This person says the associate indicated to Regan how Kerik might characterize their relationship when asked about it during a background check. Kerik, this person says, said he would describe it as a "brother-sister" elationship. Regan took that as code for her to mischaracterize what she has told people was a sexual affair. Regan, through a spokeswoman at her publishing company, declined to comment. Kerik's lawyer says Kerik knows of no such telephone call, and would describe his relationship with Regan only as "close personal friends."
Family man, eh?
These grotesque details raise further questions about the competency of Alberto Gonzales to be Attorney General. Unless Alberto's into that kind of thing as well.
And Newsweak catches Rudy G. in a lie as well:
Giuliani said repeatedly that Kerik's role in the firm is very limited, representing "less than 5 percent" of its business. He also said that Kerik's position was largely limited to their joint venture, Giuliani-Kerik. "He's not part of Giuliani Partners," the former mayor said. But at the firm's Web site, Kerik is described as a "Senior Vice President at Giuliani Partners." Giuliani later explained the discrepancy by saying: "Senior vice president of the group is what Bernie was when we started. I think that remains his title, but that's not the way we primarily relate to him. As you know, he does some work for a few of our clients." He added: "We should probably straighten it out and point out where his ownership interest is and primary work is done."
I expect Rudy will be missing from Pumpkinhead Russert's annual year-end "faith, family and America" circle jerk with Laura Bush and some Catholic bishop, even though Pumpkinhead wouldn't lay a glove on Rudy.
Three more ecoterrorists arrested in the Charles County arsons.
Not.
Is Instafuckwit ever right about anything?
James Wolcott brains James Lil'dik, "a beloved blogger in the daycare community":
I think [Lileks is] right. It [is] just him, he is overly sensitive, and he doesn't get it, whatever "it" is. But then Glenn Reynolds takes a time-out from drooling over digital cameras to poke his head out of the badger hole and amen Lilek's observation. "I've noticed the same thing," he posts, before lowering periscope. So that makes two of them.
James then goes on to debunk the lie that Macy's had banned references to Christmas in its stores. To be fair, Lileks shops at Target which, along with WalMart, worships Satan and his minions.
And Wolcott drops a programming note: He will "be on CNBC Sunday night at 8PM EST, and I only pray the tape editor trimmed my 'joke' about Judith Regan's jaws of steel, which in retrospect could easily be misconstrued."
P.S. Judith Regan hasn't let the Kerik flap interfere with her work, or her delusions -- here's a quote from a press release she issued on Friday:
"Amber Frey's inspiring story is one of unflappable courage in the face of such horror. She is a loving, single mother who was deceived by a monster and she did the right thing: she became the voice of Laci and Conner [sic] in that courtroom so that justice would be served. This is a story where truth, justice and goodness won in the end," says Judith Regan.
Yeah, I can tell how inspired Judy was.
Many websites and blogs are running year-end "Best Of" lists. Not surprisingly, I prefer Worst Of lists, which serve the useful purpose of warning people away from highly-promoted crap.
This post will be dedicated to nominations for the Worst Book of 2004. Nominations should be limited to books actually read -- at least a chapter. For example, I'm sure Michelle Malkin's In Defense of Racist Internment Camps is the actual Worst Book of 2004, but, since I haven't read it (beyond brief excerpts on the 'net), I wouldn't nominate it for this category. Likewise, I'm certain that I Am Richard Simmons by Tom Wolfe, that new Michael Crichton book and anything by Hugh Hewitt suck hard with a vengance, but I'll never waste time or money on those anyway.
(Technically, I guess, we're talking about the Most Disappointing Book, unless you're a glutton for punishment who seeks out bad writing.)
Nominations can be submitted in comments.
The New York Times has an illuminating article on the Army's criminal charges against Muslim chaplains and translators at Guantanamo Bay.
According to the Malkin/Leo/Gaffney/Charen mob, these servicemen were presumed guilty of treason by virtue of their race and faith. It didn't turn out that way.
Maybe the mob can still convict them on the lesser charge of dissing Christmas.
Ohio Republican Mike Ney, Superpatriot-Francophobe, stands accused of telling "Freedom Lies" in the Jack Abramoff matter.
Rep. Bob Ney (R-Ohio), the powerful chairman of the House Administration Committee, has attracted the attention of the House ethics committee for his dealings with disgraced lobbyist Jack Abramoff, said congressional and lobbying sources with knowledge of the matter.
...
Ney has landed in hot water over his decision to try to advance a legislative measure that would help a client of Abramoff's, the Tigua tribe of El Paso, which was hoping that Congress would help it reopen a casino closed by federal court order in early 2002.
Shortly after Ney agreed to help with the issue in spring 2002, the tribe gave him $32,000 in campaign contributions at Abramoff's urging....
"I then asked Jack Abramoff why Senator Dodd was apparently not supporting it and Mr. Abramoff told me that someone had lied to him," Ney said in a statement Nov. 17. "The matter was then closed from my perspective and this provision was not included in the [election reform bill]. At that point, the issue was closed for me.... I, like these Indian tribes and other members of Congress, was duped by Jack Abramoff."
Yet just over a week after that incident, on Aug. 3, 2002, Ney went on a $150,000 golfing trip to Scotland with Abramoff, according to e-mails released at the hearing, and on Aug. 14, five days after returning to the United States, he met with Tigua representatives in his Washington office and reiterated his interest in the measure.
That fall, Ney held a conference call with the Tigua Indians in which he said that Dodd had gone back on his word and nixed their provision from the bill, Tigua representatives testified.
Another spokesman for Ney, Brian Walsh, said Nov. 17 that Ney had no recollection or record of the conference call. He said he could not comment on the August meeting.
Mon Dieu!
Ahem.
Could someone compile a list of all those blogging wankers who asserted that the Charles County arsons were the work of ecoterrorists?
I'll start the list.
(More here.)
The reason every crime, failure, sleazy connection and indiscretion of Bernie Kerik is so important is that it illustrates just how little Bush cares about homeland security. Bush sees Director of Homeland Security as a patronage job to give to a patently incompetent political crony for campaign services rendered rather than a position which requires a competent and ethical professional. Even if Bush could justify his ignorance of all Kerik's other corruption (which he can't), he can't claim ignorance of Kerik's utter failure in Baghdad. And, with all the resources at his disposal, Bush's background check of Kerik was less thorough than would be any sane person's background check when hiring a (non-fictitious) nanny. By nominating Kerik, Bush proved that his rhetoric about being the better choice to protect America from those nasty wolves was nothing but hot, malodorous air.
In a Dec. 10 brief and story about Bernard Kerik's withdrawal as homeland security secretary-designate, The Associated Press reported erroneously that Lani Guinier, who was President Clinton's choice to head the Justice Department's civil rights division in 1993, had not paid taxes for a domestic worker. A spokesman for her at Harvard Law School said there was no such problem, and the White House never indicated that there was. Clinton said he withdrew her nomination because of her legal writings on racial issues. The same incorrect reference to Guinier and unpaid taxes on a domestic worker was in a 1995 AP item about Clinton choices who had problems in the confirmation process.
Friggin' hacks.
I think Miramax will go through with the Kerik biopic.
Rumor has it that the producers are in talks with Glenn Close to portray both Kerik and Judith Regan.
Or is it Harvey Keitel?
This is sort of amusing. Pat Robertson's 700 Club and some fundie websites are giving rave reviews to Christmas with the Kranks, despite the fact that the Christmas film never once mentions the Baby Hay-Zeus.
So much for product placement.
The loathsome Howie Kurtz has some fun playing Kick-the-Corpse with reporter Gary Webb, who committed suicide at age 49. From the title of Kurtz's hit piece -- "Web of Deception" -- to the sneering suggestion Webb's report was nothing more than "allegations that supposedly linked the CIA to cocaine trafficking in America," Kurtz suggests that Webb's story had no substance. Kurtz's article is short on specifics, though, and doesn't identify a single specific untruth in Webb's reporting.
David Corn, who also criticized Webb, both then and now, points out that Webb was right on the basic charge if not in all particulars:
He was wrong on some important details but he was, in a way, closer to the truth than many of his establishment media critics who neglected the story of the real CIA-contra-cocaine connection. In 1998, a CIA inspector general's report acknowledged that the CIA had indeed worked with suspected drugrunners while supporting the contras. A Senator named John Kerry had investigated these links years earlier, and the media had mostly ignored his findings. After Webb published his articles, the media spent more time crushing Webb than pursuing the full story. It is only because of Webb's work--as flawed as it was--that the CIA IG inquiry happened. So, then, it is only because of Webb that US citizens have confirmation from the CIA that it partnered up with suspected drug traffickers in the just-say-no years and that the Reagan Administration, consumed with a desire to overthrow the Sandinistas in Nicaragua, allied itself with drug thugs.
Kurtz's criticism of Webb is particularly laughable in light of his one-coat whitewash of the Washington Post's fictitious reporting of the invasion of Iraq. I'd accuse Kurtz of having a double standard, but I don't think he's got any standards at all.
Update (12/16): More on posthumous Webb-bashing here.
Hard to believe as it may be, two years ago Roger Ailes won the 2002 Koufax Award for Best New Blog.
Last year, I wasn't even a finalist for Best New Blog.
But I'm primed for a comeback this year. Think of it -- the first blog to win Best New Blog in non-consecutive years.
I'm not in it for the glory, or the hits.
I just want a book contract.
And remember, my situation is nothing at all like Ralph Nader's.
The nomination round has just started. If you vote, and you're feeling flush, consider a contribution to defray the costs Mary Beth, Dwight, et al. are incurring, and to recognize the considerable effort they put into the event.
Senator Zell Miller is the latest wingnut to join the Insane Clown Posse that is the Fox News Channel. The demented former Democrat, last seen squirreling away at the Republican National Convention, has finally received his reward for his services to the Bush family.
"We will plug him in wherever we can use him," says a Fox News spokesman. Has Zell signed on as Bill O'Reilly's vibrator?
The old loathsome Mickey Kaus is back with a venegance, resurrecting his fascination with Clinton's cock. Kaus is suggesting that President Clinton pardoned Marc Rich in exchange for sex with Rich's wife, Denise. Kaus's proof? "It's hard to explain Clinton's gross error any other way."
And Slate published this.
If we credit that logic, then it is a certainty there exists in Kaus's apartment a photograph of Charlie Peters, Martin Peretz, Katherine Graham and Michael Kinsley engaged in at least three illegal acts. And Jacob Weisberg underneath Kaus's bed, locked in a steamer trunk.
And include your blog's URL in your e-mail signature. Blood says people should "associate your name with the name of your Web log."
I can't wait to read Mike's blog.
New York Daily News reporter Russ Buettner is smoking crack:
Former NYPD Commissioner Bernard Kerik conducted two extramarital affairs simultaneously, using a secret Battery Park City apartment for the passionate liaisons, the Daily News has learned.
The first relationship, spanning nearly a decade, was with city Correction Officer Jeanette Pinero; the second, and more startling, was with famed publishing titan Judith Regan.
His affair with Regan, the stunningly attractive head of her own book publishing company, lasted for almost a year.
What the ---? I'd rather sleep with Don Regan.
When Judith Regan, the bitter, moralizing Clinton-hater, was on the FOX News Channel, there was a layer of vaseline over the camera lens the density of which was not been seen since Dynasty was in production. Of course, her unattractiveness is due to her vile right-wing views, and her vanity, not her actual appearance. Which makes her the female (other) Roger Ailes. (Although the other Ailes is physically repulsive too.)
More on Regan -- who published a book about how "nightmarish materialism ... threatens to destroy America, as we pursue money, sex, and power at the expense of family life, duty, and goodness" -- here. Perhaps she had a duty to bed Bernie.
Here's the story of a Kaus who served the U.S. during war, as opposed to a Kaus who went to college to avoid one war and spent all his time during a second war bitching about Bob Shrum, Chris Lehane and the L.A. and N.Y. Times.
No relation. Obviously.
It's amazing that the so-called liberal New York Times is still spreading lies on behalf of Bush's 2000 Secretary of Labor nominee, Linda Chavez, who was an employer of illegal labor:
But what is truly remarkable is how closely Mr. Kerik's troubles mirrored Ms. Chavez's. She declined to tell the new Bush administration that nearly a decade before she had given shelter and some modest financial aid to an illegal immigrant as an act of compassion for a Guatemalan woman in trouble. She hid some details from the F.B.I. The fate of her nomination lingered for a few days, until Mr. Card and others pulled the plug. And after her nomination was withdrawn, she said that if she had to provide aid to a needy person like that all over again, she would.
Uh, Kerik claims he thought his employee was legal, and admitted he didn't pay social security taxes on her wages. In contrast, the woman employed by Chavez said Chavez knew she was in the U.S. illegally, and Chavez claimed the woman wasn't an employee. So how are those situations similar, David?
The compassionate Chavez even benefitted from paying the woman so cheaply that she had to work for other families, as confirmed in the second link above.
The best take on Chavez at the time was this one, by Josh Marshall:
But, wait ... could there be something more sinister afoot here? Let's take Chavez at her word. She had an illegal immigrant who lived in her home and performed menial chores for Chavez's family. Yet the woman was not an employee and was paid no money for performing these tasks. Don't we have a word for this sort of arrangement? Forget the IRS or the INS. This sounds more like a violation of the 13th Amendment!
Does Linda Chavez have any ties to the Southern Partisan?
In the Los Angeles Times, Margaret Carlson, overpriced and overexposed media non-talent, gripes about the absence of female network news anchors. Given Maggie's incompetence as a journalist -- here's just one example -- she's got no basis for criticizing anyone's hiring decisions.
Here's part of her idiotic analysis:
"Bloggers are like basketball fans, ready to spray beer on the stars whenever they make a mistake."
Well, there's three mistakes in one sentence:
1. You can't equate all basketball fans with beer throwers, based on a single incident involving a few fans.
2. Criticizing media stars for their dishonesty or incompetence is not the equivalent of assaulting persons with beer.
3. That's not beer.
Here's my question about media hiring. Would the L.A. Times even publish a dimwit like Carlson if she wasn't best pals with Michael Kinsley?
(I've eliminated the criticism of Blogger in the previous post. The criticism remains valid, but doesn't really add anything of substance to the purpose of this blog, so I've gotten rid of it.)
In the category of Republican frivolous lawsuits, we have this:
HAGERSTOWN, Md. -- Wal-Mart Stores Inc., which promotes itself as a seller of clean music, deceived customers by stocking compact discs by the rock group Evanescence that contain the f-word, a lawsuit claims.
The hit group's latest CD and DVD, "Anywhere But Home," don't carry parental advisory labels alerting potential buyers to the obscenity. If they did, Wal-Mart wouldn't carry them, according to the retailer's policy.
But the lawsuit claims Wal-Mart knew about the explicit lyrics in the song, "Thoughtless," because it censored the word in a free sample available on its Web site and in its stores.
The complaint, filed Thursday in Washington County Circuit Court, seeks an order requiring Wal-Mart to either censor or remove the music from its Maryland stores. It also seeks damages of up to $74,500 for each of the thousands of people who bought the music at Wal-Marts in Maryland.
"I don't want any other families to get this, expecting it to be clean. It needs to be removed from the shelves to prevent other children from hearing it," said plaintiff Trevin Skeens of Brownsville.
Skeens said he and his wife, Melanie, let their daughter buy the music for her 13th birthday and were shocked when they played it in their car while driving home.
Apparently the song is a Korn cover, and contains the word fuck, a verb popularized by Dick Cheney on the floor of the United States Senate.
As for young Miss Skeens, I doubt $74,500 will compensate her for the pain and mental suffering resulting from being the daughter of Trevin Skeens.
E-mail Bill at Oreilly@foxnews.com or contact his personal Vibes for Tots website and ask how you can participate in this worthy program.
Contributions are not tax-deductible.
Ah, the nanny problem. Who can't relate to the problem of having to hire undocumented workers to raise your children?
Mr. Kerik, who said he had first uncovered the problem as he and his lawyers went through the paperwork required for Senate confirmation of his job on Friday, had been in contact earlier in the day with the White House counsel's office. He later called Andrew H. Card Jr., the White House chief of staff, and the phone call with Mr. Bush was arranged.
And Rudy Guiliani, Mr. Subtlety and Nuance, marvels at the complexity of modern life.
"This is a sad day for him and his family," he said. "But we all have complex lives. Sometimes it trips you up."
It's funny. You're just minding your own business, when one day an illegal immigrant places herself in your employ and forgets to fill out those 1099s, leaving you in a right mess.
Fucking frauds, both of them.
And here's the A.P., doing a story on past illegal immigrant-related confirmation problems without mentioning Linda Chavez's program to restore the self-esteem of battered immigrant women by having them clean her toilets.
(Is that article correct? I recall Guinier being dumped for writing a law review article on proportional-representation voting, not for employing an undocumented worker. And here's CBS, putting a right wing spin on Chavez, insinuating the woman she employed was merely someone "[Chavez] had given money and shelter to ... who once did chores around her house.")
Of course, this is more of a class issue than a party issue, it's just that more Republicans have no class.
But I have little use for anyone believes that other nations exist solely to provide cheap labor to maintain his or her fabulous lifestyle. I remember the Zoe Baird confirmation and how, at the time, Anna Quindlen tried to justify her own employment of a (legal) nanny by asserting Americans often employed immigrant women to care for children because the womens' homeland cultures value children and child-rearing more than ours does. (I can't find that article online.) Which is true, Anna, to the extent these women love their own children so much they're willing to work for a non-living wage to mind your squalling brats.
As for Kerik, I suspect there are much bigger skeletons he wanted to keep in the closet.
Atrios has a great story about the bigots at Cary Christian School in Cary, North Carolina, where ninth graders were taught that slavery in the American South was biblically sanctioned. As soon as the News and Observer exposed the school's bigoted curriculum, the school went into full false witness mode, publishing this pack of lies on its website:
As you may be aware, today the News and Observer published a rather negative article about Cary Christian School and our use of a small booklet supplement entitled, "Southern Slavery, As It Was". Within the article it stated, "the booklet has received criticism from a number of historians and that it has been pulled from publication because of faulty footnotes and citation errors."Interesting choice of weasel words: We were unaware of the faulty footnotes and citation errors. We pulled the booklet because of those errors. So, between the time the article was published and the time the press release was drafted, the school confirmed the "faulty footnotes and citation errors." Right. Pull the other one. I guess that means they were okay with the main text, only the footnotes and cites were problematic.
We were unaware of these findings and as a result have already pulled this booklet from our curriculum. Let us reiterate that it is always our goal in the secondary grades to present two sides of an argument. At no time has slavery ever been condoned in our curriculum. As Mr. Stephenson stated within the article, "Slavery is wrong, that's not debatable. The South was wrong about the slave trade."
We apologize for this oversight and covet your prayers for our school.
The problem with the school's denial is that it contradicts what Principal Stephenson said earlier.
In the News and Observer piece, Stephenson "said the school is only exposing students to different ideas, such as how the South justified slavery. He said the booklet is used because it is hard to find writings that are both sympathetic to the South and explore what the Bible says about slavery." But the booklet says the Bible "allows" the ownership of slaves. So if Stephenson believes slavery is wrong, how can he say the booklet "explore(s) what the Bible says about slavery?" Surely he's not having a Huck Finn moment, renouncing the Scriptures and condemning himself to hell.
And if Stephenson was previously of the opinion that slavery is wrong, why is he only withdrawing the book for "faulty footnotes" he was allegedly ignorant of until today?
The article also notes that Stephenson is as thick as thieves with one of the authors of the racist booklet, being affiliated with the bigot's church and "accredited" by the bigot's organization, and having invited the bigot to speak at the school's graduation. Are Stephenson and the school going to cut those ties and rescind the invitation?
There's only one word for the school's press release: dishonest.
Oh, and see if you can find an African-American pictured anywhere on the Cary Christian School website. I couldn't.
I thought this was an interesting account of Hannity and Colmes' road trip to Godless California. My favorite bit:
Alan Colmes either doesn't bother with homework (he did mention the Treaty of Tripoli, which says "The Government of the United States of America is not, in any sense, founded on the Christian religion"; Oliver North responded that that was because they were writing a treaty to get some hostages returned, so I guess it's ok to renounce your religion on a case like that)....
Well, Lt. Crmnl. North should know. I hope John Adams got some money transferred to his Swiss bank account and a home security system out of the deal.
I'll admit I've never taken a physics course. Perhaps one of the many Roger readers with a Ph.D in physics can explain the principles at work in the following explanation:
Q: Yes, Mr. Secretary. Our soldiers have been fighting in Iraq for coming up on three years. A lot of us are getting ready to move north relatively soon. Our vehicles are not armored. We're digging pieces of rusted scrap metal and compromised ballistic glass that's already been shot up, dropped, busted, picking the best out of this scrap to put on our vehicles to take into combat. We do not have proper armament vehicles to carry with us north.
SEC. RUMSFELD: I talked to the General coming out here about the pace at which the vehicles are being armored. They have been brought from all over the world, wherever they're not needed, to a place here where they are needed. I'm told that they are being -- the Army is -- I think it's something like 400 a month are being done. And it's essentially a matter of physics. It isn't a matter of money. It isn't a matter on the part of the Army of desire. It's a matter of production and capability of doing it.
I think Rummy was expecting one of those pre-screened Republican audiences from the election. Fat chance of finding G.O.P. operatives in a combat zone.
Every time I see another column whining about the absence of a reporter's privilege, I become more convinced that jail time for certain journalists should be not only a possibility, but mandatory. The latest idiot to weigh in on the topic is that tired-ass Broder-with-a-beard, Richard Cohen. Cohen's column is both illogical and ill-informed. He writes:
Outing an undercover agent is against the law. It could be dangerous for the agent.
It turns out, though, that it has been much more dangerous to the press. Plame, at last report, was doing splendidly, posing for pictures in Vanity Fair and otherwise not running for her very life.
Well, since she hasn't been killed yet, and she's only lost her career, let's just forget the whole thing. Let's do away with that silly crime of "attempted murder" while we're at it. When has that ever hurt anyone?
The special counsel, the Justice Department's own Patrick J. Fitzgerald, has either questioned or attempted to question all manner of reporters, but two stand in special jeopardy -- Matthew Cooper of Time and Judith Miller of the New York Times. What distinguishes them is that neither had anything to do with the leak to Novak. Still, they both face jail terms (as much as 18 months) for refusing to reveal their sources.
As any dumbfuck besides Cohen can tell you, the potential crime was disclosing Valerie Plame's identity to anyone, regardless of whether that anyone subsequently wrote about it. Disclosing the identity of a covert operative to Cooper and Miller would be separate crimes, so it's irrelevant whether they knew about the leak to Novak (or "had anything to do with" it).
At the moment things are a bit spooky. It's not clear why Cooper was subpoenaed. It's not clear why Miller was subpoenaed. It's not clear if Novak ever was or, if so, what he did about it. What is abundantly clear is that somehow a targeted investigation has gone wildly off track, with reporters apparently being asked to account for stories they have not even written.
Follow that? Cohen says, I know nothing about the grand jury investigation, but I know that it's gone wildly off-track.
Congress, the epicenter of leaks, had better set some rules to protect journalists who protect their sources.
Congress had better ... or what? Cohen will write more crappy columns condemning them for not doing so? That will bring them to their knees.
In the meantime, the press ought to remember never to call for a special prosecutor. The trouble with them is that they are, as designed, above politics -- which too often means common sense and compromise. Maybe if Fitzgerald were a politician, like Ashcroft, he would appreciate the value of a leak and how it has become an intrinsic part of our democracy.
Poor Bill ... a special prosecution without a blowjob to liven things up. Politicians -- and reporters should be above the law, unless there's a hummer involved.
Here's the perfect Christmas gift for the right-wing Roman Catholic on your holiday gift list: Send one of these to Joseph Donahue, Kitty J. Lopez, Rudi Guiliani -- even Pumpkinhead or Chris Matthews. See if they get as upset as when John Kerry took communion.
I'd also like to see the owners of the site try to enforce their claimed copyright, given that their creation consists of a work in the public domain and bits of photographs for which the original photographers presumably hold the copyrights.
(Thanks to a reader for the link.)
At Pandagon.net, Jesse Taylor is taking nominations for the Twenty Most Annoying Conservatives of 2004, which is always a high point of the year. I predict Jesse will top last year's classic Jonah Goldberg/Wonder Woman graphic novella.
Reading the nominations in comments brought back fond memories, including some of Annie Jacobsen, who's still at it with her "Lunatic In The Skies" series. Jacobsen is trying her best to make a career out of her ongoing delusions, and she's now got two columns at a website no one reads:
We're excited about our new virtual home and we think you will be too. We'll continue to bring you content favorites such as Ask Jane Dough, Annie Jacobsen's "Safety in the Skies" series, and of course, Daily Cents. We have also been introducing new writers to the site and will continue weighing in on timely issues and how those issues affect women.
We'll also be introducing new columns, such as TaxMama, Frankly Financial and Annie Jacobsen Speaks Out.
I confidently predict that Annie Jacobson Freaks Out will be the most read and beloved online column since Coultergeist.
Correction (12/9): I inadvertently changed of Annie's column in the Women's Wall Street quote from "Annie Jacobsen Speaks Out" to "Annie Jacobsen Freaks Out." That's now been corected. "Ask Jane Dough" and "TaxMama" are, all too sadly, actual titles.
Via Talking Points Memo, we learn that Bernie Kerik's got his own Dick Dasen problem(*):
There's also Kerik's never-fully explained role in the 1990s as head of a New York City Corrections Department foundation that was secretly funded with roughly $1 million of tobacco company rebates from departmental purchases of cigarettes using city funds. Kerik's hand-picked treasurer for the foundation, Frederick Patrick, is now serving a one-year prison sentence after admitting in court that he pilfered nearly $140,000 of the foundation's money to pay for collect-call phone sex from inmates.
Inmate phone sex. It just sounds so Republican.
I couldn't find out much more about Patrick, except that he was a deputy police commissioner as recently as February 2003. Maybe he can become Deputy Director of Homeland Security if he gets out before 2008.
* Dick Dasen is a Wyoming Montana businessman and Republican party donor accused of paying numerous women millions of dollars for sex.
So do wingnuts really believe that religion is an appropriate subject for public school classrooms?
To a point.
As Daniel Pipes detailed in the Nov. 24 issue of FrontPageMagazine.com, the 15th tip in a list of "18 tips for Imams and Community Leaders" from the Islamic Web site www.SoundVision.com is "Establish a parents' committee to monitor public schools." The committee, Mr. Pipes says, is to "arrange for Muslims to deliver talks about Islam and Muslims" in the schools.
Mr. Pipes summarizes other suggestions from www.DawaNet.com, including: "Lobby to include Islamic dates on the school calendar;" "Add books and magazines about Islam... to the school library;" and "Incorporate Islam into class projects. For example, if students are required to give a speech in class and they can choose any topic, an Islamic subject should be selected. Similar opportunities can be created in history, social science, writing and other classes."
So, while the history and faith of our own country is being erased and a spiritual vacuum created, Islamists are rushing to fill that vacuum with the history and faith of another country.
The point that is on their heads, and their headgear.
Meanwhile, eRiposte has the true story behind Pouting Thomas's favorite fairy tale.
The WaPo's ombudsman reports, because the Post won't:
The story that didn't appear in The Post is about a 102-page report by a task force of the Defense Science Board, a federal advisory committee composed of academic, think tank and private-sector representatives who provide independent advice to the secretary of defense. .... Now comes the Pentagon's advisory board with a sharply critical report that says U.S. efforts to separate "the vast majority of non-violent Muslims from the radical-militant Islamist-Jihadists . . . have not only failed . . . they may also have achieved the opposite of what they intended."
Here are some of the key points:
-- "American direct intervention in the Muslim World has paradoxically elevated the stature of and support for radical Islamists, while diminishing support for the U.S. to single-digits in some Arab societies."
-- "Muslims do not 'hate our freedom,' but rather, they hate our policies. The overwhelming majority voice their objections to what they see as one-sided support in favor of Israel and against Palestinian rights, and the longstanding, even increasing support for what Muslims collectively see as tyrannies, most notably Egypt, Saudi Arabia, Jordan, Pakistan, and the Gulf states."
-- Since Sept. 11, 2001, "American actions and the flow of events have elevated the authority of the Jihadi insurgents and tended to ratify their legitimacy among Muslims. What was a marginal network," the report said, is now a community-wide "movement of fighting groups."
-- "Muslims," the board says, "see Americans as strangely narcissistic -- namely, that the war is all about us . . . no more than an extension of American domestic politics and its great game." The critical problem for American public diplomacy, the section concludes, is "a fundamental problem of credibility. Simply, there is none -- the United States today is without a working channel of communication to the world of Muslims and of Islam."
No wonder Rummy got the vote of confidence.
Actually, for most of us, it's work as usual. Those in retail will be working additional hours; those serving in Iraq and Afghanistan will get no breaks. But for the pundit class December 3 signals the end of the working year. The last three weeks of 2004 will be filled with corporate-subsidized feasts, lobbyist goody bags and foreign vacations. The white mens' burden will be braving the traffic between Chris Matthews's Nantucket home and Tim Russert's Nantucket home while celebrating the birth of Jesus Christ. Year-In-Review columns penned in September and updated in mid-November will be downloaded or e-mailed to syndicates by personal assistants. The paeans to George Bush are already penned.(Unavoidably, some television must still be done, as self-promotion never rests and there's always someone else who wants what's rightfully yours.) Every other article will be "The Best Books Written By Our Friends" or "The 100 Best Things That Our Advertisers Sell." The newsfotainment programs will be filled with merchandising tie-ins that make the product placement on The Apprentice look virginal.
Who are we to question the divine order of things? It's what God wants.
And keep rowing. You're lucky you've got a job.
Even the pre-colonoscopy purging, which everyone warned me would be like a bad night in a Turkish cell, wasn't so dire. I spend much of my day in the bathroom anyway--I moved the paperback library in there--so this became an opportunity to spend additional quality time in the Fortress of Solitude. Unfortunately, the batteries in the toilet-paper-dispenser radio died, and I neglected to replace them, depriving myself of Leonard Lopate's in-depth interviews when I most needed them.
It appears that Live Journal has seen fit to delete the journal of Mrs. Tarquin Biscuitbarrel, who posted the entire text of Lynne Cheney's not-that-queer frontier novel, Sisters.
Perhaps the solution is to host chapters, or smaller parts thereof, from the novel on different providers' sites, with a link to the following pages at each site, so as to thwart the censors. I'd be willing to do my bit.
Hey, it worked really well for Napster.
Roger is proud to share the crapulent couplets of Dr. Tommy Craft, beat poet of Cedar Shoals High School in Athens, Georgia. These verses were first broadcast over his school's public address system:
Now I sit me down in school
Where praying is against the rule
For this great nation under God
Finds mention of Him very odd
If Scripture now the class recites
It violates the Bill of Rights
And anytime my head I bow
Becomes a Federal matter now
Our hair can be purple, orange or green
That's no offense; it's a freedom scene
The law is specific, the law is precise
Prayers spoken aloud are a serious vice.
For praying in a public hall
Might offend someone with no faith at all
In silence alone we must meditate
God's name is prohibited by the state
We're allowed to cuss and dress like freaks
And pierce our noses, tongues and cheeks
They've outlawed guns, but FIRST the Bible
To quote the Good Book makes me liable
We can elect a pregnant Senior Queen
And the "unwed daddy," our Senior King
It's "inappropriate" to teach right from wrong
We're taught that such "judgments" do not belong
We can get our condoms and birth controls
Study witchcraft, vampires and totem poles
But the Ten Commandments are not allowed
No word of God must reach this crowd
It's scary here I must confess
When chaos reigns the school's a mess
So, Lord, this silent plea I make:
Should I be shot, my soul please take!
snap! snap!
Timing is everything. If Tommy had read the poem at the school's JagFest, he would've won hands down.
(Thanks to Roger's Blue Ridge, GA correspondent.)
As you may have read, former Labour M.P. George Galloway has won a 150,000 pound ($288,000) libel judgment against the conservative U.K. rag, the Daily Telegraph. The Telegraph falsely asserted that Galloway, an anti-war M.P., had taken secret, illegal payments from Saddam Hussein's regime prior to the war against Iraq. It based its claim on documents it purportedly found in a bombed-out government building in Baghdad.
Some have been downplaying the importance of the judgment, saying, among other things, that the amount of the judgment was not substantial. I'll happily agree with that argument -- with anyone who sends me $288,000. This argument also ignores the fact that under the British rule, the Telegraph has to pay Galloway's attorneys fees and costs, reported to be $2.33 million (1.2 million pounds). Assuming the Telegraph paid its own attorneys a similar amount, the Telegraph is out some five million dollars.
At his blog, Sully Joe sniffs that "the libel verdict (sic) won by Saddam-supporter George Galloway does not depend on the notion that Galloway's ties to Saddam were disproven." Well, that's true, sort of, but only because the Telegraph never asserted that the allegations were true.
At trial, Galloway denied the allegations under oath. It was the Telegraph that took the issue of accuracy out of the case, as this account reveals:
In one of the liveliest clashes, Mr Galloway objected to Mr Price's remark that documents "suggest and amount to strong evidence" that he was receiving money from his campaign and asking for more.
Mr Galloway replied: "If it's strong evidence, why aren't you pleading justification?"
Mr Price: "Because we have not suggested, or sought to say, that the documents are true. We merely say we have found them."
Mr Galloway: "You've just said they are strong evidence."
Mr Price: "They are."
Mr Galloway: "Then why aren't you pleading that they are true?"
Mr Price: "Because that's not what the Telegraph said. They said they were genuine and should be investigated."
Mr Galloway: "A blind man in a hurry might have concluded that from the coverage over those two days. Virtually everyone else in the country and the world concluded something quite different - that you were saying they were true but have not had the guts to plead that in this case."
Sully says that "Such a judgment wouldn't stand a chance in an American court - but then Britain's libel laws are far tougher than America's." Well, it's true the countries' procedural laws are different, but that's irrelevant under the facts of this case. Under U.K. law, the Telegraph would have to rebut the presumption that its allegations were false. Galloway denied the allegations and the Telegraph presented no evidence to support them. (The contents of the documents themselves are of course hearsay, and thus inadmissible to prove the truth of the matter asserted.) Even if Galloway had the burden of proof, as in the U.S., the evidence presented would support only one conclusion -- that the paper's allegations were false.
(Of course, an American plaintiff -- if a public figure, like Galloway -- would also have to prove the defendant's malice, but Sully is addressing only the truth of the allegations, not the defendant's state of mind.)
The judgment was not based on the fact that the Telegraph didn't give Galloway enough time to respond, as Sully claims. The Telegraph's defense was a "neutral reporting privilege," which means it was simply reporting the fact of allegations made by others. But the Court found otherwise, concluding that the paper went beyond reporting the contents of the documents and in fact endorsed the authenticity of the statements made in the documents:
The judge also decided the tone of the Telegraph's coverage was "dramatic and condemnatory... it went beyond the documents and drew its own conclusions".
When it came to the Telegraph's defence of its leader articles - which the paper justified as being fair comment on the allegations - the judge again dismissed the paper's defence.
He said the articles - entitled "Saddam's little helper" and "Galloway's gall" - made assertions that were not restricted to comment.
"I accept the leaders are defamatory of Mr Galloway and that their 'sting' is factual rather than comment. It is the difference between tentative comment and a rush to judgment," Mr Justice Eady said.
In short, the Telegraph admitted that it couldn't prove the allegations against Galloway and Galloway, through his own testimony established the allegations were false. No matter how much Sully -- and Conrad Black's Canuck toady, David Frum -- wish otherwise, the Telegraph libeled Galloway and Galloway proved the paper a liar.
John Derbyshire is the latest wingnut to spontaneously orgasm at the clever bigotry of Tom Wolfe's confessional novel, I Am Richard Simmons. Here's Derb's money shot:
Among the characters in I Am Charlotte Simmons are basketball players named Treyshawn, Dashorn, Cantrell, Vernon, and Andre. Would you care to hazard a guess as to what color they are? A Jewish student, trying to get out of trouble with a Jewish professor, makes sure "to let it be known that his family was Jewish, by packing his great-grandparents, pogroms in Eastern Europe, fear of being forcibly dragooned into military service in Poland, Ellis Island, the Lower East Side, and sweatshops into a single sentence, without losing track of the syntax...." For goodness' sake, Tom, don't you know you're not supposed to notice this stuff?
Ixnay on the ibaltray ewJay onspiracykay, Tom. Don't you realize I've got to work with those devious whiners?!
Derbyshire also consults his source in the academic/jock/frat world, who advises that 30 precent of Ivy girls are sluts, while a full 100 percent of community college girls are slappers. Don't worry, Derbs, when your daughter hooks up with Malik -- or, better yet -- Esther, in a few years' time, we'll pretend not to notice.
