Torts for Morons

Let me break this down for the moron in question:

Falsely accusing someone of stealing confidential documents, and of repeatedly engaging in similar misconduct: Defamatory.

Accordingly, I am retracting my claim that Herzig-Yoshinaga "surreptitiously shared confidential documents with" Irons. I have made a note of this on the errata page of my book. Moreover, I am directing Regnery to excise the words "surreptitiously" and "confidential" from future editions of the book.

In addition, I retract the following statements which appeared on my blog:

August 24, 2004:

Contrary to [University of North Carolina law professor Eric] Muller's assertion that the papers shared were "publicly available documents sitting in publicly available files at archives open to the public," the article makes clear that Irons did not obtain permission to receive the papers he acquired from Herzig-Yoshinaga.

August 25, 2004:

As I noted, these records, however, had not been cleared for public use, and Iron's request to copy them had been explicitly denied. By the way, this was not the only time Irons engaged in these sort of shenanigans.

I apologize to Irons and Herzig-Yoshinaga for the errors.

Claiming someone wore a bikini 10 years ago: Not defamatory.

Not even chuckleheads like Hinderaker or Morongoff would take your case, except on a hourly basis.

Top Ten Republican Pickup Lines

10. Do you like gladiator movies, Timmy?

9. Would you like to see my Washington Monument?

8. A/S/L?

7. Did you know that Saddam Hussein has reconstituted his nuclear weapons program, Timmy?

6. Put down that pipe, and get my pipe up! (And I'm not talking about the internet.)

5. Here's $200, Mr. Gannon.

4. No fats, no fems. Bisexual o.k.

3. That's just the Speaker of the House. He's cool.

2. Did you see me on Dateline NBC last Friday?

And the number one Republican pick-up line is:

Is that a Foley catheter in my pocket, or am I just happy to see you?

Bonus Line: I'm Representative Don Sherwood, and I approve this massage.

Grand Old Police Blotter: Meets Republican Family Values Edition

What does a Republican prosecutor do when her tax criminal husband starts banging other women? She calls the graft-taking, Judith Regan-screwing, bogus 9/11 hero, Bernie "Cut and Run" Kerik to illegally wiretap her husband's boat... I mean, to idly chit-chat about completely hypothetical illegal wiretapping.

And not just any Republican prosecutor -- the Republican nominee for New York Attorney General, Jeanine Pirro.

Let's listen in as Pirro and Kerik plan their totally imaginary caper:

[Pirro] suggests, "We can just simply say, if there is an issue, that I am redecorating it for our anniversary." She complains that Kerik's man is, "uncomfortable with that."

Kerik responded by saying, "But Jeanine, I'm having the same fucking problem with everybody. Everybody is panic stricken because it's you. I've gone out on a limb. I had two other people looking at this. It's a problem."

Pirro said, "What am I supposed to do, Bernie? Watch him fuck her every night? What am I supposed to do? I can go on the boat. I'll put the fucking thing on myself."

Don't forget, folks, Kerik was Rudy Guiliani's fucking lieutenant.

Pirro may have had an alternative to wiretapping:

Without her husband, sources said she told Kerik, "I move into the governor's mansion." That's an apparent reference to her aspirations for higher office, the documents said.

You should have spent the extra money, Jeanine, and had old Albert whacked.

Harvard intellectual Marty Peretz has been blogging for two weeks, and he's already reduced to reprinting e-mail forwards with French jokes.

Next week: Blondes, Clinton blow job and dead Palestinian jokes.

Unethical wig-wearing freak Nancy Grace has been caught plagiarizing in her latest "book," I Piss On Your Constitution:

Last year, Hyperion published [Nancy] Grace's book "Objection! How High-Priced Defense Attorneys, Celebrity Defendants, and a 24/7 Media Have Hijacked Our Criminal Justice System."

Grace was happy to hype the book, which spent five weeks on The New York Times best-seller list. She was less eager to draw attention to the fact that she'd lifted huge, verbatim passages in the book from that newspaper.

Grace notes in the book's bibliography that she drew on an Aug. 5, 2002, "Patents" column by Sabra Chartrand about a device that allows parents to track their children. But it was only after the book was out in hardcover that she acknowledged how much of pages 204 and 205 came from the article -- 359 words, to be exact.

Sources say Hyperion president Robert S. Miller was willing to accept Grace's claim that it was an "inadvertent" error. But he insisted that Grace alert The Times in a letter that promised the "error" would be fixed in future printings.

Word is, Grace refused to write that letter -- provoking Hyperion's lawyers to remind her that, under her contract, she was responsible to hold the publisher harmless if The Times sued over copyright infringement.

If only there was a way Grace could get jail time for this.

Smarter monkeys, please.

Maybe he or she can apply for Brendan Nyhan's old job.

Allen Wretch

Salon reports that George Allen (R-VA) is a true Reagan Republican:

WASHINGTON -- Three former college football teammates of Sen. George Allen say that the Virginia Republican repeatedly used an inflammatory racial epithet and demonstrated racist attitudes toward blacks during the early 1970s.

"Allen said he came to Virginia because he wanted to play football in a place where 'blacks knew their place,'" said Dr. Ken Shelton, a white radiologist in North Carolina who played tight end for the University of Virginia football team when Allen was quarterback. "He used the N-word on a regular basis back then."

A second white teammate, who spoke on the condition of anonymity because he feared retribution from the Allen campaign, separately claimed that Allen used the word "nigger" to describe blacks. "It was so common with George when he was among his white friends. This is the terminology he used," the teammate said.

A third white teammate contacted separately, who also spoke on condition of anonymity out of fear of being attacked by the Virginia senator, said he too remembers Allen using the word "nigger," though he said he could not recall a specific conversation in which Allen used the term. "My impression of him was that he was a racist," the third teammate said.

David Frum, Smear Merchant

Apparently while I was missing in action the left blogosphere turned virulently anti-Semitic:

This is -- the Allen-Webb race is one of the two most races most intensely followed by the left wing Web sites in this country. And if you read those left wing Web sites and go into the comment sections, Daily Kos MoveOn.org sites, you will see they are seething with anti-Semitism that is unbelievable to anyone who thought they understand what American life was about.

...And if we're going to talk about anti-Semitism on the campaign trail in 2006, I think people should be reading the comment section at the Daily Kos, where you will see it rich and bold and vivid.

Oh wait, that was just David Frum, the man who thinks Conrad Black is a paragon of virtue.

Never mind.

CNN Hell

Did you know that Hugo Chavez said something mean about The President (sic)?

Did you know that a French newspaper reported a rumor that Osama bin Laden is dead?

Did you know that watching CNN leads to feelings of depression, hopelessness and rage?

For the past three weeks or so, I've had to deal with a persistent but not-particularly-serious medical condition, which is why posting has been light. It looks like it will be a little while longer before I'm back up to speed here.

My apologies.

Ooops, I Sold My Vote Again

The Republicans again prove themselves weak on crime -- both in the execution of the crime and the condemnation of it. Here's John Boehner's limp-dick defense of his fellow Buckeye and future cellmate:

WALLACE: On this same subject, this week Congressman Bob Ney, one of your Republican colleagues in the House, agreed to plead guilty to influence-peddling. Now, he has stepped down as chairman; he's still a member of Congress.

This is a man who is basically admitting that he sold his vote. Should he spend another day in the House?

BOEHNER: Bob Ney clearly admitted to making some big mistakes. And he's going to pay dearly for the mistakes that he's admitted to.

But he's also checked himself in for alcohol abuse. And right now my prayers are with him and his family. It's a sad day for the Congress and a sad day for Bob Ney.

WALLACE: Should he resign from the House?

BOEHNER: That's a decision that he and his family are going to have to make.

There is no longer any dispute that Ney sold his votes as U.S. Representative to those who bestowed gifts on him. Yet Boehner -- the leader of House Republicans -- thinks the decision as to whether Boehner is fit to continue in his position should be left to Ney himself.

David Obey is right. Boehner needs to improve his game if he ever hopes to be a third-rate Joe McCarthy.

The Grand Old Party of Death

At firedoglake, Jane Hamsher points us to this very important article on the mother of all clusterfucks that was the Coalition Provisional Authority (the O'Beirne in question is Snaggletooth's better half):

O'Beirne's staff posed blunt questions to some candidates [for CPA positions] about domestic politics: Did you vote for George W. Bush in 2000? Do you support the way the president is fighting the war on terror? Two people who sought jobs with the U.S. occupation authority said they were even asked their views on Roe v. Wade.

Cronyism thrived; people died.

To recruit the people he wanted, O'Beirne sought resumes from the offices of Republican congressmen, conservative think tanks and GOP activists. He discarded applications from those his staff deemed ideologically suspect, even if the applicants possessed Arabic language skills or postwar rebuilding experience.

Smith said O'Beirne once pointed to a young man's resume and pronounced him "an ideal candidate." His chief qualification was that he had worked for the Republican Party in Florida during the presidential election recount in 2000.

Partisanship thrived; people died.

On the plus side, all those girls killed in the bombing of Baghdad were prevented from growing up and having abortions.

By the way, I don't recall ever seeing a disclosure of Snaggletooth's conflict of interest on any of her many appearances on CNN and Meet the Press. I must be getting forgetful.

More here.

Brendan Nyhan -- Imbecile or Fruitcake?

Has the American Prospect joined TNR in a race to the bottom? They can't be paying Nyhan for this sort of crap:

Sadly, it looks like liberal books are moving in the same direction.

...

That is one annoying and offensive title. Coulter is not "brainless" -- she's obviously very intelligent, and has successfully pandered her way to millions of dollars. In addition, "brainless" and "lunacy" implicitly reference cultural stereotypes of women as dumb or crazy.

Oh no, you can't criticize a woman for her stupidity because others stereotype all women as stupid. (Ann Althouse is mouth-breathing a huge sigh of relief right now.) And who exactly is stereotyping all women as crazy? The closest comparison I can think of is Ann Coulter, Kate O'Beirne, Phyllis Schlafly and their ilk, who stereotype all non-right wing women as insane (and as self-loathing lesbian sluts, among other things).

This whole "criticizing everyone equally" schtick is as tired as the phoney-baloney civility routine. Ridicule is too good for the likes of Coulter. Taking her seriously gives her credibility she doesn't deserve. Just like taking Nyhan seriously.

p.s. to Brendan -- The Duke lacrosse team needs a new towel boy and p.r. flack. Play to your strengths.

Grand Old Police Blotter: Ney'll Bob's Ass To The Prison Door Edition

Of the many things that 9/11 didn't change, rampant Republican criminality is the most unchanged:

WASHINGTON, Sept. 14 -- Representative Bob Ney, Republican of Ohio, has agreed to plead guilty to federal criminal charges related to his dealings with the corrupt lobbyist Jack Abramoff, lawyers and others with knowledge of the investigation said Thursday.

A guilty plea would make Mr. Ney, a six-term congressman, the first member of Congress to admit to criminal charges in the Abramoff investigation, which has focused on the actions of several current and former Republican lawmakers who had been close to the former lobbyist.

People with detailed knowledge of the investigation said Mr. Ney had entered an in-patient rehabilitation center in recent days for treatment of alcoholism, making it uncertain whether he would appear at a court hearing to announce the plea. Lawyers and others would speak only anonymously because of concern that they would anger prosecutors.

They said the agreement with the Justice Department -- and the exact criminal charges, which are expected to include conspiracy and false statement -- would be disclosed in Washington as soon as Friday and would probably require Mr. Ney to serve at least some time in prison.

"Some time in prison" for accepting bribes and selling votes. Well, I guess 20 years is some time.

We can hope.

Now let's kick back and watch the parade of G.O.P. apologists coddle the criminal class.

Care for some some Incarceration Fries?

Wolfowitz [Hearts] Corruption

Marty Peretz, he one spinal cracker, he makes a preemptive strike against those of you who dare criticize him or the highly-revered Paul Wolfowitz: You're raving looney bigots!

Sez Peretz:

I know that most of you know that the president of the World Bank, Paul Wolfowitz, is, as I am, a member in very good standing of the Elders of Zion. So it follows that anything I say in his behalf might be dismissed as an act of fraternity or, worse yet, ethnic clannishness.

Why Marty pulls this sleazy stunt is patently obvious when you read the rest of Marty's post, entitled "Wolfowitz v. Corruption." It's because the rest of his claims are smoke and mirrors.

It seems to Marty that Wolfie's new colleagues at the World Bank hate him because he's a tireless opponent of fraud, waste and abuse. Would that Wolfowitz were so abstemious and eagle-eyed when the money in question was ours.

As Joe C. noted upon Wolfie's elevation to from Fuckhead to Bankhead:

For a would-be banker, he has allowed rather huge sums of money to be squandered both at home and in Iraq. During Wolfowitz's tenure [as Dep. Sec. Def.], auditors from the Government Accountability Office have repeatedly found the Defense Department lagging behind other major agencies in management and fiscal responsibility. Last year, the GAO complained of its inability to issue a clean audit of the entire federal budget because of "serious financial management problems" at the Department of Defense.

Two months ago the GAO again singled out the Pentagon for harsh criticism, reporting that it operates eight of the 25 worst-run government programs. Comptroller General David Walker said that the cost is reckoned "in billions of dollars in waste each year and inadequate accountability to the Congress and the American taxpayer." The failures, which have persisted for many years, relate to financial and contract management, the operation of military infrastructure, and the modernization of Pentagon information technology -- which, in short, are a total mess.

Pentagon traditions of boodling and bungling have been replicated in Iraq, where they have intensified the misery of the country's inhabitants and encouraged the murderous insurgency. According to an audit by the special inspector general for Iraq reconstruction that was released in late January, the Coalition Provisional Authority lost track of nearly $9 billion in spending over the past two years. (Of course, the official directly responsible for this fiasco, former CPA chief L. Paul Bremer, is now wearing the Medal of Freedom that the president pinned on him last fall.) And thanks to the incompetence and carelessness of Iraq's U.S. overseers, far more is likely to be lost as a result of waste, fraud and corruption.

A newly released report from Transparency International, the Berlin-based organization that monitors corrupt practices around the world, warns that Iraqi contracting may soon become "the biggest corruption scandal in history." The group blames the United States for providing "a poor role model" in contracting and auditing. (They've likely heard about Halliburton.)

Far be it from me to question Peretz's expertise on the uses of other people's money, but Spinnin' Marty might wish to be a little less profligate with the bullshit when he praises his neoclown pals.

And once that nine billion turns up again and those responsible are imprisoned, then we can reassess Wolfie's virtues.

Update (9/16/06): Corrected non-working html code in title.

Indict Novak Now

Professional chuzzlewits like Marty Peretz are spinning Novak's recent column on Dick Armitage as vindication for the soon to be convicted Scooter Libby.

Smarter and saner people know that Novak is full of shit. As swopa points out at firedoglake, Novak's previous claim that his source's revelation of Plame's covert status was "offhand" cannot be squared with his current claim that Armitage went into great detail and wanted the information to be published by Novak. Novak now asserts:

First, Armitage did not, as he now indicates, merely pass on something he had heard and that he "thought" might be so. Rather, he identified to me the CIA division where Mrs. Wilson worked, and said flatly that she recommended the mission to Niger by her husband, former Amb. Joseph Wilson.

Second, Armitage did not slip me this information as idle chitchat, as he now suggests. He made clear he considered it especially suited for my column.

Was Novak lying then or is he lying now?

Here's another Novak quote, from a July 2006 column:

In my sworn testimony, I said what I have contended in my columns and on television: Joe Wilson's wife's role in instituting her husband's mission was revealed to me in the middle of a long interview with an official who I have previously said was not a political gunslinger. After the federal investigation was announced, he told me through a third party that the disclosure was inadvertent on his part.

Novak now claims that Armitage was angling to get Plame's name and status into Novak's column, and that he (Novak) knew it from start. Yet he told his readers that the disclosure was inadvertent, instead of telling them it was intentional. (Whether Armitage claimed it was inadvertent is irrelevant if Novak knew it was not.)

And Novak is apparently claiming that he told the same lie in his sworn testimony. If there's any justice, Novak may see the inside of a cell along with Scooter Libby.

More likely, Novak will just get more face time on Meet the Press and continued love from the corrupt pundit corps. And no one -- no one -- from the pundit corps will call him on this.

I was skeptical, but tonight's television programming was first rate.

When Elon Gold quipped that the show was broadcast in HDTV -- Hassidic Dancing Television -- I burst a gut.

If Dennis Prager was on this year, I missed him.

Spinal Crap

Gee, I hope I'm the first to say that.

New Republicans, here is your man of principle (and very little interest):

I am a friend of Scooter Libby. But I do not like his boss. And I do not like his boss's wife. I know this get's me no credit with the all-or-nothing crowd. Still, I like Scooter, who is quite brilliant, very honest, and brave. Also funny. I've contributed to The Libby Legal Defense Fund and have joined the fund's advisory committee, which is not large because in Washington old pals dessert when even their college roommate gets into trouble. In a time when self-styled civil libertarians are giving money to defend Muslim terrorists, I am happy to help defend an American patriot, some of whose politics I do not share and some of whose politics I do, from a cynical onslaught of the special prosecutor who put journalists into jail for not telling him what he already knew.

Marty, it takes no spine to tell a lie. Or many of them.

And hire a senior editor who knows spelling and punctuation, you git.

The Last To Know

Guest blogger "TPM Reader DK" at Talking Points Memo is a little slow on the uptake:

"I figured ABC was mostly guilty of agreeing to air a boneheaded docudrama, but it's starting to look like ABC was also complicit in a right-wing PR campaign."

Starting?

Hasn't that been blindingly obvious from day one, with ABC making the vid available to Big Pharma and wingnut bloggers and hiding it from everyone else? Was there ever a time when this bullshitmentary was in the public consciousness that ABC's pandering to Republicans and the right wasn't evident?

And "complicit in a right-wing PR campaign"? Without the Mouse That Whored and its broadcasting facilities, there isn't any P.R. campaign.

Recommended Reading

Our friend olvlzl has a thought-provoking guest post on religion, the left and politics at Echidne Of The Snakes.

No Royalties, Plenty of Maggots

Speaking of books best left in the loo, the late, unlamented Sam Francis has posthumously published a book deserving a prominent place submerged in the crapper. Among those plaudits from Francis' racist and, unfortunately, breathing friends is this gem:

"When I think of Sam Francis and Shots Fired, I think of what was said about his fellow Tennessean, General Bedford Forrest: 'He bought a one-way ticket to the war.' That means that Forrest, once committed to a good cause -- the defense of his people -- devoted his all to the cause and never looked back. Such a man was Sam Francis." -- Clyde N. Wilson, Professor of History, University of South Carolina

Comparing Francis favorably to a founder of the Klan, war criminal and anti-American traitor -- that's high praise indeed. (By the way, why isn't this ignorant USC cracker getting the Ward Churchill treatment?)

Other bigots praising the corpse include Fran Coombs, head Kleagle of the Moonie Times, and some other douchebag who credits Francis with "exposing Rosa Parks as a professional agitator planted on her famous bus by a pinko training school in Tennessee...." It also appears that Basic Cable's Most Beloved Racist(tm), Pat Buchanan, wrote an intro or foward to the book.

This world became a slightly better place when Francis left it, and it will improve by a much greater margin when all of those who endorse Francis' book return to their highest and best use, as worm shit.

(Link via John Gorenfeld's WIWDCIRM?)

Roger's Campaign Against Adult Illiteracy

If you read only two books this year, make them these:

On sale here.

And

On sale here.

And you might want to start reading more, too. Reading in Anti-Fundementalist.

And if you accidentally take two books into the restroom of your local chain bookstore and forget to return them to the shelves this year, make them The Professors by David Horowitz and Women Who Make The World Worse by Snaggletooth O'Beirne.

Bush Lied, People Died, Part Three Thousand And God Knows How Many

The publication of this report will undoubtedly lead to an increase in the number of Americans who believe the Administration lies of a Saddam-Al Queda ties:

WASHINGTON, Sept. 8 -- The Central Intelligence Agency last fall repudiated the claim that there were prewar ties between Saddam Hussein's government and an operative of Al Qaeda, Abu Musab al-Zarqawi, according to a report issued Friday by the Senate Intelligence Committee.

The disclosure undercuts continuing assertions by the Bush administration that such ties existed, and that they provided evidence of links between Iraq and Al Qaeda. The Republican-controlled committee, in a second report, also sharply criticized the administration for its reliance on the Iraqi National Congress during the prelude to the war in Iraq.

...

The panel concluded that Mr. Hussein regarded Al Qaeda as a threat rather than a potential ally, and that the Iraqi intelligence service "actively attempted to locate and capture al-Zarqawi without success."

The Republican-controlled report focused on the CIA -- Cover Idiotboy's Ass:

The reports did not address the politically divisive question of whether the Bush administration had exaggerated or misused intelligence as part of its effort to win support for the war. But one report did contradict the administration's assertions, made before the war and since, that ties between Mr. Zarqawi and Mr. Hussein's government provided evidence of a close relationship between Iraq and Al Qaeda.

I'd say not so much politically divisive as easily answered by an 8 year old.

As recently as Aug. 21, President Bush said at a news conference that Mr. Hussein "had relations with Zarqawi." But a C.I.A. report completed in October 2005 concluded instead that Mr. Hussein’s government "did not have a relationship, harbor or even turn a blind eye toward Zarqawi and his associates," according to the new Senate findings.

On the other hand, Rummy did have relations with that dictator, Mr. Hussein.

A set of conclusions that included criticism of the administration's ties with the Iraqi National Congress was opposed by several Republicans on the panel, including Mr. Roberts, but was approved with the support of two Republicans, Chuck Hagel, of Nebraska, and Olympia Snowe, of Maine, along with all seven Democrats. Senator Roberts even took the unusual step of disavowing the conclusions about the role played by the Iraqi National Congress, saying that they were "misleading and are not supported by the facts."

Super. Now can we get someone to look into the ties between the New York Times and the Iraqi National Congress?

Just asking.

Psycho Sully, Qu'est-ce Que C'est

At 12:20 p.m. today (if Sully's time stamps can be believed), Andy Sully writes:

I have no idea why the Clinton administration should get a pass in dithering while a mortal threat gathered in the 1990s. I hope ABC stands firm.

At 6:14 p.m., Sully gives John Podhoretz an "Yglesias Award" nomination -- which, in Sully's tiny mind, is a compliment* -- for writing this:

"The portrait of Albright is an unacceptable revision of recent history and an unfair mark on a public servant who, no matter her shortcomings, doesn't deserve to be remembered by millions of Americans as the inadvertent (and truculent) savior of Osama bin Laden."

So what happened to Sully between noon and six?

* The "award" is actually an insult and not a compliment, as it suggest that Matt Y.'s primary virtue as a writer is not his writing or thinking, but his willingness to "criticize his own side." It's sort of like giving a "Sully Award" to those demonstrating a hysterical, pathological fear of the Clenis.

Added: Except in Sully's case, it would be accurate.

The Mouse That Whored

Is there a stupider television critic than Alessandra Stanley (now that Jeff Jarvis is out on permanent disability)? I say no.

Consider this passage from Stanley's review of ABC's "Pathological Lies About 9/11":

"'The Path to 9/11' is not a documentary, or even a docu-drama; it is a fictionalized account of what took place.

But if it's a fictionalized account, it's not about "what took place." It's an account of what didn't take place.

Stanley seeks confused about the difference between reality and fantasy:

"The outside pressure was intense enough to persuade ABC to re-edit one of the more contested made-up scenes in the film. In the version sent to critics, it depicted C.I.A. operatives and their Afghan allies armed with guns and night-vision goggles creeping in the dark to snatch Mr. bin Laden from his compound in 1998. The men are told to stand by, in harm's way, as the C.I.A. director, George J. Tenet and the national security adviser, Samuel R. Berger, cavil by videoconference. Rather than take a firm decision, Mr. Berger flips off his videophone, and Mr. Tenet aborts the mission. (Among other things, ABC agreed to excise Mr. Berger's hissy fit.)

"In reality the C.I.A. got close, but never that close...."

So if the program's version is indisputably fiction, there's no "contest." The show is indisputably a lie. And since there was no conversation, there was no Berger "hissy fit." Yet Stanley treats it as fact ("Mr. Berger's hissy fit") while acknowledging it's a fraud.

Perhaps Stanley's most moronic statement is this:

"In 2001 President Bush and his newly appointed aides had ample warning, including a briefing paper titled 'Bin Laden Determined to Strike in U.S.,' and they failed to take it seriously enough, but their missteps are not equal. It's like focusing blame for a school shooting at the beginning of the school year on the student's new home room teacher; the adults who watched the boy torment classmates and poison small animals knew better."

Bush was fully informed about the threat from Bill Clinton himself, Richard Clarke, etc. and did nothing. If Bush had "ample warning," then how did the Clintonites "know better." What the fuck was the Clinton administration supposed to do, refuse to turn over power until all terrorists were eliminated? Stay in office until Bush passed a reading comprehesion test? If Bush was not prepared to deal with terrorism from day one, he should have never stolen the election in the first place.

And Stanley, like her NYT pals, again demonstrates her endless fascination with Bill Clinton's cock:

"The Sept. 11 commission concluded that the sex scandal distracted the Clinton administration from the terrorist threat."

Well, not in the real world, but don't tell Stanley.

Stanley is as dishonest as ABC, The Mouse That Whored. Her article is a fictionalized account of what didn't take place. But that's good enough for the paper of Judy Miller, Jeff Gerth and Bobo Brooks.

Joe On The Dole

This is from a Moonie rag, so buyer beware:

The White House funneled millions of dollars through major Republican Party contributors to Sen. Joseph Lieberman's primary campaign in a failed effort to ensure the support of the former Democrat for the Bush administration.

A senior GOP source said the money was part of Deputy White House Chief of Staff Karl Rove's strategy to maintain a Republican majority in the Senate in November. The source said Mr. Rove, together with Republican National Committee Chairman Ken Mehlman, directed leading pro-Bush contributors to donate millions of dollars to Mr. Lieberman's campaign for re-election in Connecticut in an attempt that he would be [wtf? -- RA] a "Republican-leaning" senator.

"Joe [Lieberman] took the money but said he would not play ball," the source said. "That doesn't mean that this was a wasted investment."

Seems to me the subliterate Moonie rag could name some of the donors if the story is true. And the rag doesn't quote either Chinless Ken or Triple-Chins Karl with either a confirmation or denial. On the other hand, Joe Fuckyourself undoubtedly got (and continues to get) a lot of right-wing cash; the only question is whether it arrived at the White House's command.

Laughter Is The Best Experimental Therapy

I happened to surf by the Jerry Lewis MDA Telethon this weekend just in time to catch Norm Crosby telling this joke (paraphrased):

But research is very important. Did you know that we're now spending more on breast implants and Viagra than on Alzheimer's research? This is great. In 2024, men and women will be walking around with giant breasts and huge erections and they won't know why.

At least Norm made the effort to keep it topical. Foster Brooks never did that.

She's The One That They Want

Thank you, Florida Republicans, for electing a holy-water worshipping, anti-Semitic sociopath as your Senate candidate. Ms. Harris truly is the mainstream of the G.O.P.

Also Sock Sprezzatura

I pretend to write an e-mail:

Dear Frank:

I hope I can call you Frank, Frank. I feel like a friend because of all those e-mails you send me. Sorry I haven't had the time to respond. I'm short on cash at the moment, but thanks for asking.

I see you have an opening at TNR's "On Culture" blog with the departure of Lee Siegel under unfortunate circumstances. Frankly, Frankie, I thought you would have terminated Siegel for incompetence long ago, but then again TNR still employs Andrew Sullivan as a Senior Editor. Clearly I'm just an optimist.

But that's all in the past, and I'm here to help you. I've been looking to expand my blogging empire, but my present employment keeps getting in the way. So I'd be willing to consider a full-time paid blogging position, even at TNR. I'd pitch in elsewhere too, to justify the expense. I'm afraid I couldn't review television programs for your magazine, but isn't Stanley Kauffmann about 116 now? He's got to retire sometime.

Give it some thought.

Following is a representative sampling of my qualifications:

I have a penis, so there's plenty of opportunity for my advancement at TNR.

And I'm quite pale, so again, no problem.

I can type up and post my blog entries all by myself.

I have voted for Al Gore three times and Joe Lieberman once, and I'd vote for Gore again.

I'm not at all touchy about criticism, and I'm not intimidated by other bloggers, inanimate objects or Uma Thurman.

I'm lead to believe TNR doesn't require any sort of a drug test, at least for the back of the book, so I'm golden there.

The quality of my writing and thinking isn't really first rate, so again, no problem.

Depending on my compensation, I might subscribe to the magazine at the employee discount rate.

And I'd never use an assumed name under any circumstances.

Sincerely,


Roger Ailes

Doctor? This Is John Hinderaker. I Need An Emergency Refill On My Levitra. RIGHT NOW!

Poor Johnny Assrocket. The presence of a Muslim contestant in the Miss World pageant has turned John's tossing towel into a crying towel, and his corndog may never rise again. Says the 'Rocket:

"You may be unaware that the Miss World pageant is coming up next month. The finale will be in Poland at the end of September; the Miss World web site is taking shape.

"Normally, this would be a source of unalloyed pleasure. This year, though, politics has intruded."

It seems the Brits have nominated a Miss England whose dusky hue and refusal to be silent have offended the Minnesotan wanker. Hinderaker only likes women who pass the Warren Jeffs test.

(No link to the PowerLine.)