A Cross, A Flag and A Gallon of Ancient Age

Peggy Noonan gives alcoholism a bad name:

"Second, nobody thinks America is overrun with people burning flags, so the amendment does not seem even to be an exotic response to a real problem. There are a lot of pressing issues before the Congress, and no one thinks this is one of them. Voters know it's hard to do a risky thing like define marriage as a legal entity that can take place only between an adult human male and an adult human female. That actually would take some guts."

Yes, it's so hard that the legal codes of all fifty states and the District of Columbia have such a definition in them.

"It's easy--almost embarrassingly so--to make speeches about how much you love the flag."

Especially if it's the rainbow flag, ya big gay-lovin' gaymos.

"Third, Americans don't always say this or even notice it, but they love their Constitution. They revere it. They don't want it used as a plaything. They want the Constitution treated as a hallowed document that is amended rarely, and only for deep reasons of societal or governmental need. A flag burning amendment is too small bore for such a big thing."

Yes, the Constitution should only be played with to define marriage as a legal entity that can take place only between an adult human male and an adult human female.

Frankly, Peg, I think there's a much greater chance of you having your flag burned, but keep hope alive.

(And that's not even the best part. See Steve M. re: Peg's fantasy about the Lactator-in-Chief.)

Today's Worst Person In The World

Not me.

Bill Keller should be prosecuted for allowing this story to be published.

Fun Facts About The Dominican Republic

Natural hazards: lies in the middle of the hurricane belt and subject to severe storms from June to October; occasional flooding; periodic droughts

Environment - current issues: water shortages; soil eroding into the sea damages coral reefs; deforestation

Environment - international agreements: party to: Biodiversity, Climate Change, Climate Change-Kyoto Protocol, Desertification, Endangered Species, Hazardous Wastes, Marine Dumping, Marine Life Conservation, Ozone Layer Protection, Ship Pollution
signed, but not ratified: Law of the Sea

Geography - note: shares island of Hispaniola with Haiti

...

Ethnic groups: mixed 73%, white 16%, black 11%

Religions: Roman Catholic 95%

Languages: Spanish

...

Economy - overview: The Dominican Republic is a Caribbean representative democracy that enjoyed strong GDP growth until 2003. Although the country has long been viewed primarily as an exporter of sugar, coffee, and tobacco, in recent years the service sector has overtaken agriculture as the economy's largest employer due to growth in tourism and free trade zones. Growth turned negative in 2003 with reduced tourism, a major bank fraud, and limited growth in the US economy (the source of about 80% of export revenues), but recovered in 2004 and 2005. With the help of strict fiscal targets agreed in the 2004 renegotiation of an IMF standby loan, President FERNANDEZ has stabilized the country's financial situation. Although the economy continues to grow at a respectable rate, unemployment remains an important challenge. The country suffers from marked income inequality; the poorest half of the population receives less than one-fifth of GNP, while the richest 10% enjoys nearly 40% of national income. The Dominican Republic's development prospects improved with the ratification of the Central America-Dominican Republic Free Trade Agreement (CAFTA-DR) in September 2005.

...

Disputes ... Illicit drugs: transshipment point for South American drugs destined for the US and Europe; has become a transshipment point for ecstasy from the Netherlands and Belgium destined for US and Canada; substantial money-laundering activity; Colombian narcotics traffickers favor the Dominican Republic for illicit financial transactions

(Source: CIA Factbook)

Rush Limpdick

"Three parts Pfizer to one part 'Billysmack and I don't need God's talent"

Rusty "Big Pharma" Limbaugh, the masculine ideal of the rightwing blogosphere, was found smuggling a different brand of Blue Babies into the country in his private plane. Limpdick's attorney, Roy Black, admitted his criminal client didn't have a legal prescription for the contraband.

WEST PALM BEACH, Fla. -- Rush Limbaugh was detained for more than three hours Monday at Palm Beach International Airport after authorities said they found a bottle of Viagra in his possession without a prescription.

U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement examined the 55-year-old radio commentator's luggage after his private plane landed at the airport around 2 p.m. from the Dominican Republic, said Paul Miller, spokesman for the Palm Beach County Sheriff's Office.

ICE officials found a prescription bottle labeled as Viagra, a drug that treats erectile dysfunction, in his luggage, Miller said.

"The problem was that on the bottle itself was not his name, but the name of two Florida doctors," Miller said.

Limbaugh reached a deal last month with prosecutors who had accused the conservative talk-show host of illegally deceiving multiple doctors to receive overlapping painkiller prescriptions.

The matter Monday was referred to the sheriff's office, whose investigators interviewed Limbaugh.

"He said he had the Viagra in his possession for his use and that he did obtain it from his doctors," Miller said.

Investigators confiscated the drugs, and Limbaugh was released around 5:30 p.m. without being charged.

The sheriff's office plans to file a report with the state attorney's office.

"We believe there may be a second-degree misdemeanor violation, which is possession of certain drugs without a prescription, because the bottle does not have his name on it," Miller said.

As Atrios asks, why do you need Viagra for a trip to the Dominican Republic? It would be irresponsible not to speculate, as Peggy Noonan once said. But Limpdick has more attorneys than I do, so I won't even do that joke.

Congratulations to the fine men and women of the United States Immigration and Customs Service for exposing a drug criminal and securing our borders from a true threat to law-abiding Americans.

The New New Pajamas Media

Get ready for the next level of failed wingnut internet enterprises. There's a new Bozo in town, and he's taking over Clownhall.com.

Yes, manssiere model and small-market bloviator Huge Fuckwit plans to transform Clownhall into the WalMart of wingnuttia:

On July 4, Salem Communications, one of the country's largest radio-station owners, will relaunch an old Web war horse called Townhall.com as a hub for its stable of stars (including Bill Bennett, Michael Medved and Hewitt himself). The hope? That "Web 2.0" wherewithal can transform what was once an op-ed clearinghouse into a single nerve center serving the separate conservative communities of talk radio and the Internet. To Hewitt, a valuable White House ally, the math is simple: add 6 million Salem fans to Townhall's 1.4 million unique monthly visitors and you've got an audience six or seven times the size of liberal site Daily Kos, the Web's biggest political blog. "We will overwhelm them," he says.

Leaving aside Fuckwit's assumption that there's no overlap between the two audiences, if you subtract the million Salem listeners who don't own computers and the 3 million who can't read or write, the advantage disappears. Then subtract those who read Clownhall for laughs, and you're approaching negative numbers.

Or Mickey Kaus's buddy list.

Grand Old Police Blotter: Bagging Amy Edition

The Washington Post is reporting that Amy Ridenour and her National Center for Public Policy Research (NCPPR) were willing participants in laundering Jack Abramoff's filthy lucre:

E-mails suggest Ridenour was well aware that [Jack] Abramoff viewed her organization as a convenient pass-through.

...

In September 2002, Abramoff suggested to one of his associates placing $500,000 in client funds with the national center because the group "can direct money at our discretion, anywhere if you know what I mean."

The same morning Abramoff messaged Ridenour: "I might have $500K for you to run through NCPPR. Is this still something you want to do?" Ridenour was enthusiastic: "Yes, we would love to do it."

Ridenour did not respond to requests for comment on the Senate committee report or the e-mails released with it.

Earlier this year, after Abramoff pleaded guilty to conspiring to ply lawmakers with gifts in exchange for favors, IRS Commissioner Mark W. Everson said, "One of the most disturbing elements of this whole sordid story is the blatant misuse of charities in a scheme to peddle political influence."

Tax experts said it is impermissible for a tax-exempt organization to act as a pass-through for money destined for private business purposes.

"It's not a tax-exempt activity to act as a bag man for Jack Abramoff," said Marcus S. Owens, a tax lawyer at Caplin & Drysdale and a former Internal Revenue Service official.

Don't be sexist, Marcus. It's bagperson.

Ridenour was part of a multi-faith coalition of sleazy wingnuts who did Jackoff's bidding:

E-mails show that Abramoff also moved client money through a conservative Jewish foundation called Toward Tradition, run by longtime Abramoff friend Rabbi Daniel Lapin. In January 2000, when Reed sent Abramoff an $867,000 invoice to be billed to a Choctaw official, Abramoff responded: "Ok, thanks. Please get me the groups we are using, since I want to give this to her all at once." Reed responded: "Amy, Grover, Lapin and one other I will get you."

How deeply was Ridenour involved?

Abramoff e-mailed instructions to his assistant, Susan Ralston, and others to conceal the true source of funding for the "very important" trip. "The tickets should not in any way say my name or our firm's name," Abramoff wrote. "They should, if possible, say 'National Center for Public Policy Research.' We should pay using my Visa."

Ridenour readily agreed to help, e-mails show. A Marianas client wired about $25,000 to the center's bank account. Abramoff instructed Ridenour to write checks to cover the travel costs of the congressional staffers and Edwin A. Buckham, a former DeLay top aide and lobbyist.

"We'll call the bank first thing in the a.m. and confirm that the money has arrived, and then I will get checks out to you and Ed," Ridenour wrote.

Laundering lobbyist bribes to Republicans. Sounds exactly like what a tax-exempt, non-profit "nonpartisan analysis, study and research" organization should be doing.

Fasces Flinging Monkeys

This week has turned out to be The New Republic's biggest embarassment since it employed Mickey Kaus Fred Barnes Mort Kondracke Charles Krauthammer Jim Glassman Andrew Sullivan Stephen Glass Ruth Shalit Michael Kelly Gregg Easterbrook.

I mean, since this:

"But one day, Joe Lieberman's warnings in this campaign will look prophetic. And the principles he has espoused will once again guide the Democratic Party. It will be the work of this magazine, to whatever small degree possible, to hasten that day."

Vacation

In a few weeks.

Though it's hard to tell, I'm not already on vacation. I'm going on vacation for approximately 10 days at the end of July. Believe me, I haven't gone on holiday in a long, long time and I'm very much looking forward to it. And, God willing, I will be far, far away from both the old and new mediii for almost all of that time.

Rather that let the site sit vacant for that time, I thought I'd see if anyone (or more than one) would care to blogsit Roger Ailes for that time. In addition to half the post-tax profits, you'd get complete editorial independence and the freedom to do pretty much anything except delete the entire site and/or give the password to Howie Kurtz. No personal information will be requested. (If you can trust people you only know from the internet .....)

So why not apply? The worst thing that could happen is that I'd choose someone (or someones) else and you and I would become bitter internet enemies for life. But that's bound to happen anyway, once I throw my support to Nader/Natural Law Party ticket in the '08 presidential election.

Send all replies and inquiries in confidence to rogerailes -at- fastmail.fm.

p.s. - No, I'm not going to the Sierra's (or the Sierras).

Mickey And The PILF

Does Mickey Kaus have a thing for plagiarists? Back in the day, Kaus was pals with TNR's pug-nosed pilferer, Ruth Shalit.

Nowadays, Kaus poses as a male escort for bile entreprenneur Ann Coulter, whose cut-and-paste hijinx have been ably documented by The Rude Pundit.

Could it be it takes a thief to arouse a midget?

No wonder Jeff Jacoby never visits the West Coast.

Grand Old Police Blotter: Republican Family Values Crossover Edition

We may have found a Gore-hater even more depraved than Deb Saunders and the late Michael Kelly:

EDINBURG -- Political consultant and ad producer Carey Lee Cramer is expected to testify today defending himself against charges he sexually molested two young girls.

Cramer, 44, took the stand shortly before court recessed at 5:30 p.m. Tuesday. He will likely continue today before Visiting Judge Homer Salinas in Auxiliary Court A, where his trial began June 7.

Cramer, who gained national notoriety with an anti-Al Gore commercial in 2000, is facing several counts of aggravated sexual assault of a child.

....

[Cramer's attorney] has argued the girls' allegations are false and stem from a custody battle over the son Cramer has with Whittaker. During her testimony, the girl denied lying for Whittaker and inventing the allegations.

Another 15-year-old testified that Cramer touched her genital area one time when she was visiting the family in Mercedes. Cramer's alleged victims are relatives.

In 2000, Cramer produced an anti-Al Gore television ad accusing the Clinton-Gore administration of giving nuclear technology to China in return for campaign contributions.

Cramer's commercial showed a young girl picking daisy petals and ends with a nuclear blast, a remake of a 1964 ad by Democratic President Lyndon B. Johnson's campaign against Republican Barry Goldwater. Cramer's ad made national news, though he refused to identify who financed the commercial. One of the girls in the ad stands as his accuser now.

More here.

Cramer is even raising a wingnut talking point in his own defense, namely, that he is the victim of his ex-wife's child custody tactic. If he beats the rap, and perhaps even if he doesn't, he can hook up with Phyllis Schlafly.

(Link via Shakespeare's Sister.)

The Power Of The Short Leash

Jason Zengerle posits that people will do absolutely anything to keep on the good side of their financial benefactor.

I think that's a remarkably depraved view of human nature, but then I've never toiled underneath Martin Peretz.

An apt description of Mickey Kaus, from a reader of The Corner:

"Have you read Mickey Kaus in the past five years? Slate's central blogging voice is the Zell Miller of bloggers."

Indeed.

A choice quote from today's NYT article on Enyclopedia Brownshirt:

The volume treads lightly, when it treads at all, on matters of race. It describes the "courtesy and dignity" of Strom Thurmond, who as a South Carolina governor and senator led the South's effort to preserve segregation. It does not mention that Mr. Thurmond had a black daughter whose existence he kept secret.

George C. Wallace, who became governor of Alabama pledging "segregation forever," was "always more complicated than his critics allowed." The discussion of "Southern conservatism" pays tribute to the region's "precious Anglo-American continuity" and says nothing about Jim Crow.

How precious!

The largest entry is on Leo Strauss. Tom DeLay and Karl Rove didn't make the cut.

I'm going to guess they've deliberately omitted Reverend Sun Myung Moon, Roy Cohn and Jeff Davis too.

Grand Old Police Blotter: Safavian Flu Edition

It's slammer time for the Bush Administration's Chief of Staff at the G.S.A.:

"The trial consumed eight days of testimony about Safavian's assistance to Abramoff regarding government-owned real estate and a weeklong golfing excursion the lobbyist organized to the famed St. Andrews golf course in Scotland and London.

"Safavian went on the trans-Atlantic trip while he was chief of staff at the GSA, and other participants included Rep. Bob Ney, R-Ohio, two Ney aides and Christian Coalition founder Ralph Reed.

"The jury found Safavian guilty of obstructing the work of the GSA inspector general and of lying to a GSA ethics official. It also convicted him of lying to the GSA's Office of Inspector General and of making a false statement to the Senate Indian Affairs Committee. He was acquitted of a charge of obstructing the committee's investigation."

It's not the Culture of Corruption; it's the Administration of Corruption. (And the Criminalization of Criminality.)

Bob Ney and Ralph Reed have got severe cases of the Safavian Flu this morning.

Story via Atrios.

Blogging Is The New Retyping Press Releases

From Sully.TimeMagazine.Com:

Quote for the Day
19 Jun 2006 04:51 pm

"I think South Dakota is going to be a huge, probably hard education for what I would call the hard-line pro-life forces ... A lot of people are going to be surprised at what they do when they have to go into that polling place, where no one's watching. How many of them are pro-life themselves but just won't pull the lever in favor of the law?" -- Neil Fulton, a South Dakota lawyer who describes himself as a pro-life practicing Catholic, in the New Yorker.

The magazine has a big piece on South Dakota's looming ballot decision on banning all abortions, including those incurred by [sic] rape and incest. Author Cynthia Gorney's Q and A on the piece can be read here.

From an e-mail press release from The New Yorker, Mon, 19 Jun 2006 10:33 AM:

Now, with a popular vote almost guaranteed to appear on the ballot in November, Neil Fulton, a South Dakota lawyer who describes himself as a pro-life practicing Catholic, tells Gorney, "I think South Dakota is going to be a huge, probably hard education for what I would call the hard-line pro-life forces.... A lot of people are going to be surprised at what they do when they have to go into that polling place, where no one's watching. How many of them are pro-life themselves but just won't pull the lever in favor of the law?"

...

The June 26, 2006, issue of The New Yorker goes on sale at newsstands beginning Monday, June 19th. Selections from the magazine, as well as additional features, including a Q&A with Cynthia Gorney, are available at www.newyorker.com.

And you thought that blogging was hard work. These things almost write themselves!

Cracking The DeCracker Code

In an issue on blogs, The New Republic finally recognizes that InstaCracker is as deep as dishwater:

But [InstaCracker] exposes how the blogosphere, at its worst, values timeliness over thought. After linking to an article on congressional earmarks, he'll add, "Well, that's encouraging. Sheesh." Quod erat demonstrandum. Or he'll carp, "Nancy Pelosi, on the other hand, is just dumb" -- a point that may be perfectly true but probably requires some explanation or proof beyond the simple assertion. In the end, this method provides the intellectual horsepower of, say, an Andy Rooney commentary. To wit, he wrote in December, "A battery recall on the XM portables. Is it just me, or are we seeing more battery recalls lately." Well, no need for The New York Times, then.

Bonus trivia: The 'Cracker began his reign of error in 2001 by "posting messages under a variety of handles like 'AGAndroid' in 'the Fray,' the readers' forum for the online magazine Slate." An early adapter in both trolling and advanced poindexterism.

The Criminalization of Crime

I see that Short Joey DiGs is leading the bandwagon for a Presidential pardon of Scooter Libby. By what must be the most remarkable coincidence ever, Bill Kristol was pushing the same agenda on Fox News Sunday. Thug minds think alike.

p.s. to Josh Marshall: What's up with the advertising on your face? I hope you're getting extra for that.

Joe Lieberman: Victim of Crusading Jihadists

"I know I'm taking a position that is not popular within the party," Lieberman said, "but that is a challenge for the party -- whether it will accept diversity of opinion or is on a kind of crusade or jihad of its own to have everybody toe the line. No successful political party has ever done that."

Seems to me that having a pro-war candidate and an anti-war candidate running against each other within a party is about accepting diversity of opinion. No one's kicked your ass out of the party or kept your name off the ballot, Joe.

p.s. to "the Dean," if you want to know whether someone's going to do something and you're interviewing him, you ask him.

Speaking of Hit A Cop, Suffer The Consequences...

Whatever happened to this desperado?

More Whining From Bigots

Much pantspissing and whining in blogosphere this week about the failure to indict.

I speak, of course, of "Captain" Ed Morrisey, who, blogging from his hospital bed, applies his double-digit i.q. to the case of Representative Cynthia McKinney.

First, the story:

A grand jury has declined to indict Rep. Cynthia McKinney of Georgia for allegedly striking a Capitol police officer in March, the federal prosecutor announced Friday.

The decision ends a case against the DeKalb County Democrat that has been rife with political and racial tensions.

"It is right, just and appropriate," McKinney's attorney, William Moffitt, said of the decision, which he learned about from reporters. "I'm ecstatic."

McKinney, arriving Friday night for the Boost Mobile Rock Corps concert at Atlanta's Fox Theatre, entered without responding to reporters's [sic] questions.

The decision comes more than two months after the Washington Superior Court grand jury was first given the case. U.S. Attorney Ken Wainstein called the investigation by his office and Capitol police "extensive and thorough."

"We respect the decision of the grand jury in this difficult matter," Wainstein said in a statement.

Now, the bloated blogger (warning -- link to an idiot):

In the meantime, someone should get a copy of the dictionary to the grand jury and a Toastmasters club membershio [sic] for the US attorney. If someone hits a police officer with a cell phone while he is performing his duties, and witnesses and even the suspect confirms it, how can that not rise to the level of "probable cause"?

How? Let me count the ways: Accident, lack of intent, self-defense, reasonable self-defense.

Poor, stupid dumbfuck. He simply can't understand that the unverified crap he reads on NewsMax and Instacracker and the drivellings of his commenters isn't a substitute for actual evidence. Of course, Special Ed wasn't present at the incident, doesn't know what evidence was presented and doesn't know what the grand jury knew or thought. But that doesn't stop the dumbfuck from suggesting the grand jury was too Negroid to understand the law and the facts: "Race baiting was the only defense McKinney could offer," says the dishonest seaman stain.

Of course, Ed's commenters take the hint and join in the hate parade:

I think James Joyner at OTB hit the nail on the head, reminding us that, "[t]his is the same jury pool that acquitted Marion Berry on two sets of felony charges and then reelected him twice."

----------------------

And they wonder why we don't treat them with respect.

I doubt "they" wonder that at all.

p.s. to doubleplus dumbfuck James Joyner: Marion Berry is a U.S. Representative from Arkansas, not the former Mayor of D.C. And I won't even bother to point out all the other inaccuracies in the single sentence, "This is the same jury pool that acquitted Marion Berry on two sets of felony charges and then reelected him twice."

The Punch Line

CONVICTED LAWMAKER TIED TO CONTRACT AWARD. The Department of Homeland Security acknowledged for the first time Friday that a former congressman convicted on bribery charges played a role in awarding a $20-million contract to a limousine company with ties to the ex-lawmaker, Newsday's J. Jioni Palmer reports from Washington. After weeks of denying that Randy Cunningham, a California Republican, lobbied federal officials on behalf of Shirlington Limousine and Transportation, the department informed congressional investigators it had recently uncovered correspondence from Cunningham. That admission came two days after it was first reported in Newsday that Shirlington's owner, Christopher Baker, said Cunningham submitted a letter of recommendation on his behalf. "This is yet another example of DHS incompetence," said Rep. Peter King (R-Seaford), chairman of the House Homeland Security Committee.

Give that man a rimshot.

Actually, it's yet another example of Republican and Bush Administration corruption. And neither is incompetent when it comes to corruption.

Klanboy In Their Midst

If you believe him, the attendees at the YearlyKos included that stealthy Son of A Klansman, Wes Pruden.

Wesley's decapitation gag is particularly precious coming from second generation lynching enthusiast.

Apparently Pruden left with his head in place, having cleverly concealed it within his rectum at all times.

All the flophouses on the Strip had better recount their sheets.

The Look Of Love

Yes, it's a stupid caption contest.

(If I was Yahoo!, I would have gone for "Snow Evacuates McClellan")

(No, given his associations, "Goldbergs" is more appropriate.)

If you want to see Howie Kurtz making a putz of himself, read on:

KURTZ: We are just getting word from the National Hurricane Center that Alberto has been upgraded to a tropical storm, the first of the 2006 hurricane season. Alberto is about 400 miles west of Key West, Florida. We'll be tracking that for you in the coming days.

All right. Looks like Amanda Congdon, she looks like a TV anchor, well, except for the T-shirt, but she's not any network. Her daily program called "Rocketboom" is a video blog recorded in a tiny Manhattan apartment and is seen online by an average of 300,000 people which is more than most local newscasts and higher than the circulation of many newspapers. Rocketboom, has, shall we say, a unique sensibility.

(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)

AMANDA CONGDON, ROCKETBOOM.COM: I feel like the 6:00 news just ain't cutting it for you? Maybe it's because they often take so long to discuss irrelevant facts when all you really need to know is in the headline. Let's see how fast we can plow through all of this info.

Praying woman struck by lightning. See, you can wonder why all you want, but that's all you need to know. Praying woman, struck by lightning.

(END VIDEO CLIP)

KURTZ: And Amanda Congdon joins us now from San Francisco. Welcome.

CONGDON: Hello.

KURTZ: We'll start with a personal question. How old are you?

It goes on like that for 8-10 minutes.

I highly recommend you read the whole thing.

And try not to think about what Howie was practicing in front of the mirror.

Why Does John Derbyshire Hate America?

Because it's filled with women, immigrants, non-whites and homosexuals.

John Derbyshite has come out against the Iraq war. He writes:

"Getting on for 3,000 of our troops have been killed, and close to 20,000 maimed. We've spent untold billions of dollars. For what?"

Don't worry, though. Derbs doesn't hate the troops -- or at least not the straight white male ones -- or straight white male America. To be more accurate, Derbyshite's gotten bored with the war, since it turns out the war hasn't been the Muslim Holocaust he'd hoped and prayed and voted for.

No kidding.

"So why am I eating crow? Because I think it was foolish of me to suppose that the administration would act with the punitive ruthlessness I hoped to see. The rubble-and-out approach was not one that this administration, or perhaps any administration in the present state of our culture, would be willing to pursue. The universalist dogmas that rule unchallenged in our media and educational institutions have fixed their grip on our foreign policy, too. When the Founders of our nation said 'all men' they had in mind Christian Anglo-Saxon men. Our leaders, though, want to bring the whole world under the scope of those grand Lockeian principles."

A Muslim Holocaust, pure and simple.

The Six Month Itch

Shorter Tom "My Learning Curve Is Flat" Friedman:

When I said "the next six months will tell us a lot," I meant that the outcome was unclear.

From today's Reliable Sources:

KURTZ: Now, I want to understand how a columnist's mind works when you take positions, because you were chided recently for writing several times in different occasions "the next six months are crucial in Iraq," the next six months. And now you've written a column saying that Americans are simply not going to tolerate this kind of anarchy for another two years and deadlines have to be set. Were you conscious that you were now shifting your position on this?

FRIEDMAN: Not really. You know, the problem with analyzing the story, Howie, is that it doesn't -- everyone, first of all, this is the most polarized story I've certainly written about, so everyone wants, basically, to be proven right, OK? So the left -- people who hated the war, they want you to declare the war is over, finish, we give up. The right, just the opposite. But I've been trying to just simply track the situation on the ground. And the fact is that the outcome there is unclear, and I reflected that in my column. And I will continue to reflect.

KURTZ: Unclear, but you're running out of patience?

FRIEDMAN: Well, it's not that I'm running out of patience. The story's evolving. And what strikes me as I see it evolve, when it drags on, six months after an election we still don't have a government. Then, as a columnist who's offering opinions on what I think the right policy is, it seems to me we have to be telling Iraqis we are not going to be here forever, providing a kind of floor under the chaos, while you dicker over the most minute things when American lives are at stake. So I think it's a constantly evolving thing.

Unlike your bullshit, Tom, which multiplies exponentially.

Viva Las Kosovars!

I had a terribly interesting post about YearlyKos and the forthcoming coverage of it on C-SPAN and a bunch of hilariously snide remarks about the people mentioned in this post:

A CAP-sponsored seminar on media appearances this morning saw the second row populated by The Weekly Standard's Matt Labash, The National Review's Byron York, and The American Prospect's me. Also darting in and out of the session were The New Republic's Ryan Lizza, Time's Ana Marie-Cox (sic), Salon's Michael Scherer, a Chicago Tribune reporter, and Maureen Dowd. And this was not, mind you, a large room.

But Blogger ate it, without warning.

And now we're all paying the price.

Invisible Man

What happened to Armstrong Williams' long-awaited tome, The New Racists: How Liberal Democrats Have Betrayed Minority Americans?

It was originally due out in January 2006, as reflected in this February 2005 report from World O'Crap.

Then, tragedy struck, and the publication date was pushed back a month:

His book, The New Racists, is scheduled for February 2006 release by Eagle Publishing Co., an imprint of Regnery Publishing, said publicist Patricia Jackson.

She said a subtitle for Williams's book was pending. However, on the Amazon.com Web site, this subtitle is listed: How Liberal Democrats Have Betrayed Minority Americans. (The retail price is $27.95 and the ISBN is 0-895-26018-2.) Jackson said the information posted on Amazon would be removed while the editing is being completed and reposted once the subtitle is confirmed.

Williams said his recast manuscript, post-No Child Left Behind controversy, means, "I have taken a critical look at the Republican and Democratic parties and what we all can do to make both parties better, how we can move beyond race and how race has become an industry Democrats and Republicans benefit from."

Yet the book was still publicized with the "old" subtitle on Amazon.com as late as March 2006.

Now, the book has disappeared from Amazon.com altogther. (It's still purportedly available here, with a July 2006 publication date and the old subtitle. I wouldn't send in the money without checking on its availability, but that's me.)

But I can't find any reference to the book on the Regnery site. Williams does not appear in either the Meet Our Authors section or the Complete Catalog section.

I guess the Old Racists at Regnery didn't like what they read.

Twilight of the Hammer of the Gods

The Tiny Toxic Texan exits, not with a bang, but with a whimper:

"Given the chance to do it all again, there's only one thing I'd change," DeLay said in a defiant retirement speech on the House floor. "I'd fight even harder."

Save it for prison, Bugchaser.

Namely, IOKIYAR

Washington Post (6/7/06):

"Tom DeLay has never taken an official act that was not based on his strongly held principles," Cullen said. Buckham and his attorney did not return several telephone calls seeking comment.

Results

Congratulations to my close personal friend, Jerry Brown; my close personal friend, the tax-and-spend, polluting developer, Phil Angelides; and, in CA 50, the Culture of Corruption.

Details here.

We now return to less parochial concerns.

Follow the California returns here.

I'm going to guess turnout was low. I showed up at my polling place at around 8:30 a.m. and I was only the fourteenth voter.

For Those About To Vote, We Salute You

An unnecessary reminder from your friends at Roger Ailes.

At The American Prospect, Charles Pierce cancels John Miller's membership in the Columbia Record and 8-Track Tape Club:

It allowed Miller to establish once again NR's longstanding affection for the Confederate States of America with the inevitable "Sweet Home Alabama" and The Band's "The Night They Drove Old Dixie Down." While it's true that old WFB stood in spirit always with "the guv'nah" in that schoolhouse door, it's also plain that Miller can't possibly ever have listened to the devastation in Levon Helm's voice. Secession, as my friend, Roy Blount, once wrote, was a bad idea at the time and looks even worse in retrospect. Also, it's interesting that Confederate nostalgia rates so high as a conservative value that it rates two songs. None dare call it treason, I guess.

Nashville Killers

You'll not read about this domestic cache of WMDs on the wingnut blogs, but only because the man in custody passes the skintone test:

NASHVILLE -- FBI hazardous material experts searched a home where police found pipe bombs and a jar containing the potentially deadly poison ricin, federal agents said Friday.

The ricin was found in a baby food jar Wednesday in a shed of the home owned by a man who went to jail last week for violating protection orders taken out by his estranged wife, according to local and federal officials.

...

The homeowner, 55-year-old William Micheal Matthews, had not been charged Friday in connection with the bombs or ricin. His wife Carole had sought the protection orders while he was being treated for substance abuse, officials said.

It was Carole Matthews, who still lives at the home, who told police to search the shed, where authorities also found five gun silencers and bomb-making materials.

Of course, if Matthews had a Pakistani roommate, the virtual lynching party already would have begun. Maybe the neighbor with the suspicious name (see end of article) will get their juices flowing.

Hell, Instacracker will probably declare this guy a Second Amendment martyr, while Phyllis Schafly makes him a posterboy for the men's rights movement.

Get Out The Hate

The G.O.P. has kicked off its national campaign for the '06 elections with a get-out-the-hate rally at the White House. Given his miserable failures, both foreign and domestic, it's not surprising that Bush is attacking marriage equality in a desparate effort to prevent Democratic control of Congress.

The funny part is the rabid religious right playing its own anticipation game, setting up Bush to take the fall in the fall:

"I'm going to go and hear what he says, but we already know it is a ruse," said Joe Glover, president of the Family Policy Network, which opposes gay marriage. "We're not buying it. We're going to go and watch the dog-and-pony show, [but] it's too little, too late."

See, if the Democrats prevail in the fall, it's not that the electorate rejected hate, it's that they rejected Bush for not hating enough. That'll keep the checks coming in to the Family Policy Network and the myth of the moral majority on life support.

p.s. to Joe: The dog-and-pony show is over at Senator Santorum's office, 511 Dirksen Senate Office Building.

Frodo Libs

This bit in article about Jim "Big Love" Galley (R-San Diego) caught my eye:

Galley's Republican opponent is Blake Miles, a teacher from El Centro. Dan "Frodo" Litwin, a San Diego software project manager, is the sole Libertarian in the race.

I love a cliche.

Here's Dan's website. Dan's "influences range from Jimi Hendrix and Carlos Santana to Ben Franklin and Harry Browne." And J.R.R. Tolkien.

Hey, at least his nickname isn't Dagney.

Soldier of Fortune

Jed Babbin, human shitstain and former Bush I flunky, makes this odious statement in the midst of an odious argument about the potential tragic consequences of Haditha on the Bush II Administration and Republican party:

If it were up to Cong. John Murtha, Duke University rape case prosecutor Mike Nifong would be transferred to the Haditha case. Fortunately for both the victim and the accused, the military justice system doesn't satisfy media hunger for the bread and circuses of civilian criminal trials.

Yes, that's the first piece of good fortune the victims of Haditha have received since the bullets penetrated their brains. You should be so fortunate, Jed.