Fast Break

Frankly, when I was soliciting predictions, I thought Coingate was going to explode first, but it looks like Treasongate and CunningScam are developing much more quickly.

Joshua M. Marshall is all over CunningScam. Twenty federal agents -- that is the last thing I want on my doorstep. Koresh didn't even warrant such a welcome wagon.

The John Phillip Souza Frogmarch

An allegation is made.

Indictments, yes. Therapy and understanding are definitely out of the question.

(via Atrios)

Update: TalkLeft has the history.

Update II: In fact, TalkLeft is all over it. Understanding the legal issues involved will be very important.

Zero Intellectual Integrity, Zero Shame

That's the Wall Street Journal editorial page:

"The leak of Ms. Plame's name probably wasn't even a crime at all under the 1982 Intelligence Identities Protection Act. That statute was aimed at stopping the treasonous betrayal of secret agents in the field, not the office-bound spouse of former CIA consultant Joe Wilson, who outed himself in an attempt to assail the Iraq War and damage President Bush."

"Mr. Fitzgerald has also ignored the Justice Department guidelines on pursuing source-names from journalists, which include 'reasonable grounds to believe' that 'a crime has been committed.' And he has never publicly disclosed, even to the two reporters and their attorneys, why he needs their notes. It may be that he too has concluded that talking to the press is no crime, in which case he may by now only be pursuing a perjury rap against the leaker. If that's true, Mr. Fitzgerald will have earned a place in the Overzealous Hall of Fame."

Read those last two sentences again. These people will say anything.

On a regular basis, the most interesting part of this blog is the comments.

Take for example the recent thoughtful and informed dialogue about author Shelby Foote, which begins here. It's a blessing to have such contributors -- both those who agree and disagree with the proprietor. And not just those commenting on that particular post.

Not to mention the absence of trolls.

The Illustrated Dasen

As Dick Dasen awaits sentencing, the Missoula Independent has an interesting article on the case, accompanied by some rather disturbing, yet funny illustrations of the case.

My favorite is Number 3, "The Verdict Is Announced."

Meet Your Liberal Media: Incest Is Best Edition

Mr. Novak has hardly hidden from public view in the midst of the Plame case. On Thursday, he traveled to Mr. Hunt's house for a party for the end of "Capital Gang." Among those on hand were Mr. Strauss, a guest on the program's pilot episode, as well as Senators Edward M. Kennedy, Democrat of Massachusetts, and John McCain, Republican of Arizona.

(link)

"And, finally, number 10, Mallard Filmore will be the daily comic because there's nothing funnier than a duck reading John Stossel transcripts."

Funnier than Day By Day, the less appealing alternative to pancreatic cancer?

Current Huffington Post Blogroll Status: On

Check it out before it changes again.

The only explanation I can think of is a careless or incompetent tech person using an old template.

Or Arianna's back on the bottle.

Mark Fuhrman, Jeb Bush's Conscience?

Steve M. at No More Mister Nice blog predicted it, and now it can be confirmed.

In "his" new "book," Silent Witness, racist shitstain Mark Fuhrman directly calls on George Bush and Jeb Bush to investigate the purportedly mysterious circumstances surrounding Terri Schiavo's collapse. (It's on the second or third to last page, which I read at Target today.) The loathsome L.A.P.D. thug insinuates in the book that Michael Schiavo attempted to kill his wife.

The Shindlers, who cooperated with the shitstain, learned of the shitstain's theory from the shitstain himself.

The Schindlers learned about the discrepancy in Michael Schiavo's recollections recently as a result of a timeline reconstructed by former Los Angeles detective Mark Fuhrman, according to Schindler lawyer Barb Weller.

Fuhrman, known for pleading guilty to perjury after the O.J. Simpson trial, put together a chronology for a book he is about to release on the Schiavo case.

The only questions remaining are: Did Jeb act -- directly or indirectly -- at the urging of a lying racist scumbag? If not, where did Jeb get the lunatic idea?

p.s. -- Amazon is offering a discount for purchasers who order Ed Klein's The Case Against Hillary when they purchase Fuhrman's vile tome. Or, buy both at full price, and get The Turner Diaries for free.

Son of A Snitch

Chris Hitchens recycles.

November 11, 2002:

One hopes that the next implication is inadvertent, but the clear suggestion is that there ought not to be civilian control of the military. What—have callow noncombatants giving brisk orders to grizzled soldiers? How could Lincoln have fired the slavery-loving Gen. George B. McClellan, or Truman dismissed the glorious Douglas MacArthur? During the defense of Washington, Lincoln became the first and last president to hear shots fired in anger. Donald Rumsfeld was at his desk in the Pentagon when the plane hit, but probably is no better and no worse a defense secretary for that.

June 28, 2005:

Much more important than this, however, is the implied assault on civilian control of the military. In this republic, elected civilians give crisp orders to soldiers and expect these orders to be obeyed. No back chat can even be imagined, let alone allowed. Do liberals really want the Joint Chiefs to say: "Mr. President, I'll respect that order when you have a son or daughter in uniform"? It was a great day when President Lincoln fired Gen. George B. McClellan.* It was a great day when President Truman fired Gen. Douglas MacArthur. No presidential brat needed to be on the front line for this point to be understood.

Of course, Hitch's real insult to the reader's intelligence is his repeated claim that identifying armchair warriors who are unwilling to make any personal sacrifice for a supposedly just war is the equivalent of opposing civilian control of the military. This is pure nonsense. In particular, opposing this war means opposing the military brass's promotion of the Iraq war against the will of a growing majority who oppose this war.

Update (6/30): Retardo at Elementropy points out that Hitch's views on chickenhawkery have, uh, evolved and become more nuanced. Yeah, that's it!

"When Caterina Fake arrives at the end of a plane flight, she snaps a photo of the baggage carousel with her camera phone to assure her mother, who views the photo on a Web page minutes later, that she has traveled safely."

Because using the friggin' phone to call her mother would be totally stupid, and a hassle. And because she's got a photosharing website to promote.

If Fake really cared about her mom, she'd do a podcast on the way to the baggage claim.

James Guckert's Doing It, Why Shouldn't She?

Propagandist Judith Miller has started a blog. So far, it's got less original writing than James Guckert's Talon News articles. And she says it isn't a blog, because she's got a full-time job writing for the Times. (And because some other schmuck's doing all the posting.)

According to Editor and Publisher, Miller claims she put the site up yesterday. But the "News" section contains posts dated May 18.

Oh, well. Close enough for government work.

Prediction Time

Which Republican scandal, and developments therefrom, will lead to the first (a) resignation, (b) indictment and (c) conviction? Which will lead to the most, and the highest-level, of each?

1. DeLay/Abramoff
2. Coingate
3. CunningScam (per J.M. Marshall)
4. Treasongate (Plame outing)
5. Downing Street Memo (and other Iraq-fraud related)
6. Other
7. None, due to the Republicans' consolidation of power

This is only an exhibition, not a competition. Please, no wagering.

Son of Safliar

Grammar writer William Safire is back on the NYT editorial page, issuing orders on behalf of his partner in fraud, Judith F. Miller. Here's his list of terrorist demands:

1. The judge should resist the prosecutor's pressure for coercive, lengthy and possibly dangerous confinement. Judy won't crack and should not be made to suffer.

Uh, isn't all confinement coercive?

2. The prosecutor should submit an information bewailing his witness difficulties in fingering sources in false denial, but showing why no major national-security crime had been committed.

So much for the rule of law. Although I appreciate his plea for eliminating all federal prosecutions where "no major national-security crime" has been committed.

3. Mr. Novak should finally write the column he owes readers and colleagues perhaps explaining how his two sources - who may have truthfully revealed themselves to investigators - managed to get the prosecutor off his back.

Interesting. Safliar thinks that Novak's sources control the prosecution.

4. The Congress should urgently hold hearings on shield bills to conform federal practice to the states' laws based on Congress's 1975 directive to the Supreme Court to apply "reason and experience" to extending privilege - which the court did in its 1996 Jaffee decision to psychotherapists.

Uh, why does Congress need to follow its own directive to enact a shield law?

Safliar says "The contempt epidemic is spreading fast." Don't be so modest, Bill. Right-thinking people have loathed you for 30 years.

Now get the hell out of here, and take that jackass John Tierney with you before he summarizes another libertarian policy paper.

One Foote In The Grave

Civil War historian and minor media darling Shelby Foote passed away today at age 88. A native Misissippian, Foote was known most widely for his appearances in the Ken Burns PBS series, The Civil War. He also a darling of C-SPAN, where one could watch to him speak about his love of Proust, his use of old-timey fountain pens and how he wrote in the nude.

Foote's obituaries portray him favorably as an anti-segregationist and "Southern gentleman."

Other reports portray a man who was living in the past. According to one account of a telephone interview between Foote and a writer Foote didn't realize was an African-American,

Foote defended his writings about Black soldiers, reported [San Francisco Examiner writer Noah] Griffin, and "during our phone conversation, he slipped into the Southern patois, referring to them as 'nigra,' then all the way to 'nigger soldiers.'

Griffin wrote an article based on the conversation, and an editor insisted he call Foote for confirmation on the "nigger soldiers" quote.

"He confessed that it was 'deep in his bones,' " wrote Griffin about the conversation that followed.

I haven't read Foote's books, so I can't comment on the claims regarding his writings in the linked article. But I did read the Griffin article (in print; I can't find it online). So whatever the literary merits of his writing, I'd have a great deal of trouble taking seriously Foote's opinions on history.

Bang the Drum, Slowly

Kevin Drum and other highly principled voices have told us we must be very, very sad that the Supreme Court refused to take up the case of Judith Miller and Matt Cooper or, at a minimum, that we must take a principled stand for or against a reporter's privilege and conceal, "posthaste," our glee at the prospect of Judy "Fucking" Miller in the pokey.

Kevin links to Garance Franke-Ruta at TAPped, who manages to mangle the facts in a remarkable fashion:

KUDOS. To Armando over at DailyKos for standing up against the media-bashing hordes and decrying the Supreme Court's decision to refer the question of whether there is such a thing as reporter's privilege back to the D.C. Court of Appeals, which had ruled that there is not.

But as the article Franke-Ruta links to makes clear, the Supreme Court isn't referring anything to the D.C. Court of Appeals. It declined review and the matter goes back to the District Court. And the issue of whether there is a reporter's privilege will not be relitigated in the District Court, or anywhere else in this particular case.

I can't get too excited about the absence of a protection for journalists which no one else enjoys. If you are not a reporter and had the same information that the prosecutor seeks from Miller and Cooper, and you refused to testify, you'd face the same penalty that Miller and Cooper face. And you wouldn't have a privilege to hide behind. I'd like to hear the principled explanation of why Miller and Cooper deserve special protection you and I don't have, solely because of their profession.

(And I'm not talking about that "are bloggers reporters" bullshit. I'm talking about everyone or no one.)

Can the power to compel reporters' testimony be abused, to silence whistleblowers? Sure. But, as the Plame case illustrates, the privilege can be abused to protect lawbreakers inside the government who use leaks to harm others.

As for Miller, the glee comes down to this: if you use anonymous sources to promote lies, especially ones with deadly consequences, you don't deserve sympathy when your promises to anonymous sources (albeit different ones) put you on the horns of a dilemma. And there's no hypocrisy involved in taking pleasure at the fact that Miller doesn't enjoy a privilege which clearly does not exist under current federal law. If Miller ever believed otherwise, she got some very bad advice.

Cheetosexuality

The Maxim campaign, which began as a light-hearted swipe at so-called "metrosexuality", has received huge support from men. It has become so popular that there are even souvenir T-shirts and screensavers carrying slogans such as "don't manicure the man" and "walk like a man".

Screensavers. Can you get any more butch than that?

Next thing you know, a bunch of pasty blowhards will demonstrate their masculinity on the internet by incessantly demanding the deaths of "Islamists" from the safety of their Barcoloungers.

Update: P. O'Neill directs us to this image of the masculine ideal in that wingnutosphere. It's James Taranto, serving as ballast.

Update: The counter appears to be working again. Score one for the power of positive whinging.

Moonballs

Over at Democratic Underground, Cell Whitman suggests that the Republicans might find a billionaire more acceptable than George Soros to purchase the Washington Nationals -- the one True Father, the Reverend Sun Myung Moon.

This could only lead to scandal and tragedy, when Nats' players are caught using their Holy Handkerchiefs to get a better grip on their bats.

As Whitman also points out, the purportedly independent Moonie Times is printing Moon press releases as straight news stories. And, look, the other Moonie rag, Insight has published the same press release. Editorial independence, my ass.

The post also indicates the Moonies owned two Brazilian football clubs, and are looking to purchase up to ten more. Brazilian authorities also suspect the Moonies of tax evasion. Now, there's a surprise.

Il Duce Speaks

Today, Fat Tony Scalia candidly acknowledged his dishonest, undemocratic power grab in the case of Bush v. Gore:

"What distinguishes the rule of law from the dictatorship of a shifting Supreme Court majority is the absolutely indispensable requirement that judicial opinions be grounded in consistently applied principle."

No, of course not. Il Duce would never be so honest.

Dennis Roddy of the Pittsburgh Post-Gazette has a good column on Swift Boat Bigot Jerome Corsi, co-author of the novel Unfit for Command. The disgraced freeper is attempting to portray himself as a champion of an Iranian freedom movement, presumably one populated by Iranians who don't mind being called murderous, child-raping ragheads.

We encourage Mr. Corsi to travel to Iran, so he can share his views with the Iranian people.

Number Four

"We share moral responsibility for the deaths of Americans and Iraqis in Iraq by publishing the lies of William Safire and Judith Miller."