Monday, June 30, 2003

Career-End Update

Many have commented on Dennis Miller, the political savant who backed H. Ross Perot in 1992 and 1996, and his recent conversion to the Bush Davidians. Miller is already earning his paycheck for Bush 2004:

Bush lost California�s Hispanic population by a wide margin in 2000, and those voters are projected to grow to about 15 percent of the state electorate by 2004. Bush�s advisers said he hopes to appeal to them through his reading and health care initiatives, and his efforts to broaden the legal rights of churches that provide federally funded social services.

Miller is leading the outreach to California Hispanics, making friends with the gift of laughter.

[Miller's] performance earned him a ride on Air Force One down to Los Angeles, where he delivered a similar routine but noted the freeway�s �smooth flow of traffic in the illegal-alien lanes.�

Ahaha. If Dennis brings back his Charo references and adds a couple of "leaf blower" gags, Bush will close the gap in no time.

Homosexual Recruiting

The media is recruiting homosexuals, says Cal "Shoe Polish" Thomas:

"THOMAS: You know the media recruit a lot of these folks, a lot of homosexuals, and I'm wondering if anybody thinks -- it may have to be a rhetorical question because we're almost out of time. If you are a gay activist, if you are openly gay, and you report on the story, should you reveal your own proclivities?"

Get media jobs: I think that was Item No. 3 on the homosexual agenda, right after "drive Chuck Colson batty".

But perhaps Cal is on to something. If reporters and pundits had to reveal their "proclivities" during the Clinton cock hunt, coverage of foreign policy and education would have gone through the roof.

Grand Old Police Blotter: Redick and Weep Edition

Republican Parrothead Dickhead Dennis Redick, mayor of Noblesville, IN, stands accused of attempting to strangle his girlfriend in front of onlookers at a Jimmy Buffett concert.

Hamilton County sheriff's deputies arrested the 57-year-old Republican at 10:30 p.m. Thursday.

According to a police report, Redick had grabbed his girlfriend, Sylvia L. Clemons, "around the collar of her shirt, with his hands on her throat," and pushed her against a limousine.

Clemons told authorities that Redick then pushed her onto the hood of the vehicle and held her there until the limo driver, Russell Holloman, pulled him away.

Holloman and another witness corroborated her account, the report says.

Video of the Republican in handcuffs and a tape of the 911 call can be heard here.

Redick may claim/that there's a woman to blame/but we know/it's his own damn fault.

(Via Buzzflash.)

Conservative Media Bypass

The wingnuts may have C-SPAN on their speed dials, but the American public knows what it likes.

From c-span.org, June 30:

MOST WATCHED VIDEO

Fmr. Gov. Dean (D-VT) Presidential Candidacy Announcement (06/23/2003)

Rainbow/PUSH Democratic Presidential Candidates Forum (06/22/2003)

"Take Back America" Progressive Conference (06/06/2003)

House Hearing on White Collar Job Losses (06/18/2003)

The feeble-minded are off watching FOX, in lieu of actual thought.

Novak says that the legal wingnuts hate O'Connor. Such ingratitude. Bush would be fucking up the State of Texas or some private company right now if it wasn't for Sandy.
British Labor M.P. George Galloway has instituted legal proceedings against the Daily Telegraph. Is the Christian Science Monitor next?
Howie has also broken the story that cable news is covering the Laci Peterson murder a lot. A lesser scribe would have missed that story completely.
Santa Cruz Sentinel vs. the Washington Post

CofI Kurtz is astounded that a paper would forthrightly correct its errors and hold the offending reporter responsible. Howie writes:

The Santa Cruz, Calif., Sentinel has run an astounding three front-page corrections on a story about local nonprofit agencies, which erred on details of loans, audits, deficits and even a photo caption. "We were not quick enough in detailing what the errors were and what the truth was," writes Editor Tom Honig, who has accepted the resignation of reporter Jeanene Harlick.

And the corrections were made within in a week! In an article written by the managing editor, not the original reporter! And without blaming the coastal fog! Thank God that's not how we do things here, Howie must be thinking.

Sunday, June 29, 2003

Reliable Hacks

Here's a textbook example of how to say nothing and avoid embarassing your employer while appearing as if you're "casting a critical eye" on that employer.

On the June 22 Reliable Sources, conflict-of-interest Kurtz was roundtabling Susan Schmidt's tall tales of Private Jessica Lynch with writers from Newsweak (another WaPo property) and the Philadelphia Inquirer and some former Larry King producer. All three guests were on their best behavior, trying very hard not to say anything bad about the Post's coverage.

The Newsweak reporter allowed as how "it [the story] was a mistake," but then blamed it on "the fog of war." (Oh, how I wish I had that excuse in the sixth grade.)

The Inquirer reporter, a television critic, then went off onto an insane tangent, stating "I think the fact that this is a female, I think that the fact that she's a small woman from a small, Appalachian town played into the whole romance of the attraction of the story. It was a natural story for people to go after." What this has to do why the Post reported a false story is anyone's guess.

Then Howie pipes up, saying "I'm not here to defend my newspaper." So of course the next words from Howie's mouth are "'Post' reporters tell me they had relied on very good intelligence sources, who obviously turned out to be wrong in those conflicting accounts during the fog of war."

Ah, there's the fog again. But it's Howie's own smokescreen. There weren't conflicting accounts, if you trust the June 17 Post story. None of intelligence reports said that Jessica Lynch acted as the Post claimed she did in its April story. But Howie's counting on the fact that you don't know that, because he hasn't told you otherwise.

Here we stumble onto the heart of the matter. Howie's actually looked into the story, he says. He's talked with the "Post reporters." And since there were only two reporters on the original story, that means he talked to both Susan Schmidt and Vernon Loeb. Very interesting.

But Howie's not going to tell anyone who the sources are or why Schmidt and Loeb had any reason to rely on them. No, that would be enlightening. Rather, Howie tosses it back to the Larry King producer who helpfully says, "I'll defend your paper."

Nice save. The defense is: "Because I think that it's really easy to look at a story that's so high profile and say we should have known, we should have done this, we should have done that." Really easy. Almost as easy doing it right the first time. You know, professionalism.

Of course, you could say "we should have done this" after any fuckup, so it's not much of a defense to say that fuckup shouldn't be second guessed.

Then Newsweak and the producer pat the Post on the back for "deconstructing" the earlier tale. And they toss in the obligatory reference to Jayson Blair.

At this point, Howie is actually asks a serious question. It was a heroic story of a dramatic rescue, he says. "[I]sn't that when the media ought to exercise some judgment at restraint and not just sort of play into creating or conjuring up a Hollywood extravaganza if the facts don't support it?" But Inquirer has a snappy comeback: "Well, that's sort of a rhetorical question (UNINTELLIGIBLE)." Wow. Now even the transcriptionist is making fun of her. Then Inquirer says "it's all hindsight." Well, yes, what do you think media criticism is? Then she tries to change the subject again, mentioning how the media largely ignored the "African-American woman who was also POW." Unfortunately, she forgets Specialist Johnson's name, making her point at her own expense.

Apparently realizing that Inquirer is a complete dolt, Howie turns to the producer and asks if she "believe[s] there was a hunger for a heroic, uplifting story in a time of war." The producer responds, "No, because that implies that all the senior editors of the networks and of all the different media publications sit around and say, what are we hungry for." Yes, a Larry King producer can't imagine that programmers and editors are looking to peddle an upbeat story for the sake of ratings. It's incomprehensible! Why there's no precedent for it, certainly not at CNN.

That's how the game is played. Howie brings on the guests to ask them the tough (sounding) questions, and the guests either give the answers that Howie wants to hear or are incapable of following the conversation. No need to invite anyone who might have criticized the Post's coverage on Lynch in the past. Better to ask a Washington Post Group employee, a tv columnist with attention deficit disorder, and a talent wrangler for Larry King. Brilliant!

John Lott sez: Give the Iraqis a fighting chance.

Maybe AEI can send Johnny to do some field research in Basra.

The Reliable Source?

Speaking of the Clown Forum launch party, Grovel Grove claims that someone "hollered" an insult about Senator Hillary Clinton when Head Clown Steve Ross stated that "Ann [Coulter] is the matriarch of Crown Forum." No such outburst is heard on the C-SPAN2 tape. Grovel also said that Coulter "headlined" the event. But C-SPAN2 didn't show any speech by her, although it aired lengthy remarks by a rather haggard looking Michael Medved.

Say it ain't so, Grovel. Has a right-wing P.R. flack misled our Lloyd?

Update (6/30): A reader watching the same program did hear the clever quip about Hillary. If the tape is put online I will listen again. I should have known that a columnist cohabiting with a staffer of the Sen. Bill "Man on Cat" Frist would have the skinny on wingnut shindigs.

Insane Clown Forum

Subsersive C-SPAN2 has given us a lot to laugh at by airing highlights from the Washington launch party for Crown Forum, the new conservative imprint of Random House. Highlights include:

Conservative "intellectual" Linda Chavez pronouncing Illini "ee-lee-nee."

Some putz named John Berlau, identified as an "investigative reporter" from the Moonie Insight maganize asking Reed Irvine if Mark Furhman was writing a book about Vince Foster.

Romesh Ponnuru mouth-kissing Ann Coulter and saying, "I just died reading your column" on Hillary Clinton.

John "Thumb" Fund chit-chatting with Bob Novak and pronouncing himself a "radical."

Michael Medved announcing that "oil companies are always anti-semitic."

Be sure to catch it in replays.

Update: It's already run three times this weekend, but they may run it again or archive it at the website.

p.s. I'm not kidding about any of this.

Watching the Sully Watchers

Congratulations to Sully Watch on its first anniversary. Sully Watch is not only a watch site; it transcends the object of its surveillance and stands on its own as important blog of political news and analysis.

Another Sully site is coming up on its one month anniversary. This site chronicles Sully's "lies" from a right-wing perspective. Right now, it gets about 1/1000th of the visitors that Sully Watch receives, but the big publicity boost it receives from this post will probably double, or even triple, the number of visits. (No need to thank me, Bill.)

MoDo writes:

In his dissent to the decision striking down a Texas sodomy law and declaring that gays are "entitled to respect for their private lives," Justice Scalia raved that the court had "largely signed on to the so-called homosexual agenda" and predicted a "massive disruption of the current social order." (Has this man never seen a Rupert Everett movie?)

Yes, Scalia's bigoted worldview is the product of his failure to screen Inspector Gadget.

Loathe as I am to link to the Weekly Standard, this article on Blair Hornstine has a lot more detail than any I've seen.

Most interesting detail: Hornstine plagiarized one of her newspaper articles from the "Family Research Council's i.e. magazine, Christian Teachers Aid."

Yeesh.

Its Reputation Precedes It

"Wie and her parents have insisted that she will attend college, perhaps Stanford, because, she has said, 'they have a really good shopping mall.'"

Saturday, June 28, 2003

Shaming Steno Sue

In today's online edition of the Washington Post, Michael Getler does a halfway decent job of shaming Sue Schmidt for her false tale of the capture and rescue of Private Jessica Lynch. At least he does up until the point where he tries to shift the blame from Schmidt and the Post to the officials whose lies Schmidt reported as fact.

First, he catches the June 17 Post "follow-up," also written by Schmidt (and others) in a lie:

The front-page segment of the June 17 Post story did refer to "initial news reports, including those in The Washington Post, which cited unnamed U.S. officials . . ." That made it appear that The Post was not alone on the initial story. But The Post story was exclusive. The rest of the world's media picked it up from The Post, which put this tale into the public domain.

Then Getler makes some points this site raised when the June 17 story was posted.

The new Post account described itself as a "more thorough but inconclusive cut at history." That is accurate. But it did not address the issues that eat away at the trust of large numbers of readers, many of whom have called or e-mailed to complain. Why did the information in that first story, which was wrong in its most compelling aspects, remain unchallenged for so long? What were the motivations (and even the identities) of the leakers and sustainers of this myth, and why didn't reporters dig deeper into it more quickly? The story had an odor to it almost from the beginning, and other news organizations blew holes in it well before The Post did, though not as authoritatively.

That odor is the Steno Sue Stench�, and we've caught a whiff of it before.

But then Getler starts to go off the track.

How do these unnamed sources explain putting out this information and not correcting it sooner? Did the government intend to manipulate the press? Was The Post itself reluctant to revisit this episode?

The issue is not the unnamed sources failing to correct the story (why would they correct their own lie?), it was about the Post publishing their lies in the first place. And suggesting that the government manipulated the press ignores the reporters' obligation not to repeat administration propaganda without confirming its accuracy.

Most embarassingly, Getler claims that the Post "blew holes" in the story, and also implicitly credits the Post for "knocking [the story] down." But if the Post hadn't told a false tale in the first place, there would be no need to blow holes in it or knock it down. If the Post had wanted to be truthful, it would have named the officials who told the lies about Lynch and published a story about how the administration used the paper to mislead the American public. (The other possibility is that the officials told an accurate story and the paper embellished it. As long as the Post hides the facts, we can't know which is true.)

The Steno Sue story is one about unaccountability. The Post won't name the officials who it claims lied to their reporters, and it won't explain why and how it published a false story in the first place. And, as far as I can tell, it hasn't held its reporters accountable for publishing a false story (it even let Schmidt write her own "correction"). Until it does all three, the Post has no credibility in reporting on the administration or the military.

Note: Written this morning but Blogger was and still is not working correctly.

Downie Post v. Dean

The more I read about Howard Dean, the more I like about him. Like this editorial from the Washington Post:

Pressed [by Tim Russert on Meet the Press] on how much taxpayers would have to pay if he were to succeed in his call to repeal President Bush's tax cuts, he tried to dodge by saying the numbers were provided by "the Republican Treasury Department, which I think has very little credibility in this matter." Mr. Dean rejected as "silly" a question about the number of troops on active duty, and he had a point, but his generally cavalier attitude -- "I will have the kinds of people around me who can tell me these things," he said -- isn't apt to inspire confidence in voters who, particularly after 9/11, want a president with national security expertise. Such events may matter little to most voters so far ahead of voting season. But they do offer an early sense of a candidate's ability to perform under sustained questioning.

And so, Mr. Dean: Welcome to the race -- we suppose.

If the Downie Post has this much contempt for Dean, he must be qualified for the job.

On the point of a candidate who can perform under sustained questioning, the Daily Howler has already demolished that smear. It's sad that the Post can't keep up with the 24 hour whore-debunking cycle any more.

But the editoral isn't all wrong. Since 9/11, people have wanted a president with national security expertise. Less than two years to go.

I'm glad that they cleared this up with President Xbox. He spent most of this morning at www.donotcall.gov trying to order Krispy Kremes....

In two sentences, Tom is funnier than a year's worth of P.J. O'Rourke, a decade of Dennis Miller and a lifetime of Lileks.

Strom Thurmond, Father of The Modern Republican Party

From the Moonie Times:

Few politicians played as a pivotal a role as Mr. Thurmond in the political realignment of the South � which, until the early 1960s, had been one-party, Democratic territory. Mr. Thurmond changed this in 1964, when the Dixiecrat joined the Republican Party and campaigned for GOP nominee Barry Goldwater. South Carolina was one of just six states carried by Mr. Goldwater that year. But that was only the beginning of the Republican ascendancy in the South and Mr. Thurmond's rising star in the Republican Party. In 1968, he helped Richard Nixon win the Republican nomination and stave off a tough challenge from American Independent Party candidate George Wallace. Thirty-two years later, Mr. Thurmond helped George W. Bush fend off a tough challenge from fellow Republican John McCain in the South Carolina primary.

The obitorial also recounts, with no evident disgust, that "[d]uring his first 16 years, he stood like a stonewall against civil rights legislation." And the most significant word describing Strom's legacy is missing from article. Wes and Robt. Stacy will be lighting a cross in memory of Strom.

Friday, June 27, 2003

Howie's on message once again. Good boy.

Thursday, June 26, 2003

Stupid Kaus Statement of the Week

And, believe me, it's hard to choose.

"Miller has gotten in trouble, Kurtz suggests, through her excessive reliance on Ahmed Chalabi's Iraqi National Congress. But Chalabi's organization was good enough for Kurtz when it came to supplying documents that could be used to embarrass UPI's Arnaud de Borchgrave." -- Kausfiles, August 25

Little Mick couldn't spare the intellectual capital to realize that De Borchgrave ADMITTED THAT HE WROTE THE FUCKING LETTER! Kurtz didn't rely on the INC for anything. (He's strictly a GOP man.)

Former Senator Strom Thurmond is dead at 100... Let's hope that his memorial service doesn't generate as many lies and smears from the G.O.P. as Senator Wellstone's did.

The Battle, Not The War

The most important fact about today's success in the Supreme Court that it can disappear in less than two or three years. Remember George Bush's promise to appoint justices like Scalia and Thomas. Bush will say little, if anything, about today's decision, but he will attempt to install new justices who will fulfill Scalia's thinly-veiled promise to overturn Roe and Lawrence. If Bush is elected in 2004, he probably will have the opportunity to fill three vacancies, if not more. Only one of those, Rehnquist, will be a wash. Even if he isn't elected, he might get a crack at two. And if you think the new Chief Justice, Scalia, won't tell Bush who to pick, you're just fooling yourself.

Meanwhile, Operation Enduring Fuckup continues apace:

BAGHDAD, Iraq (AP) American troops and helicopters scoured the desert Thursday for two U.S. soldiers who were apparently abducted from an observation post north of Baghdad. Ambushes and hostile fire elsewhere in Iraq killed two U.S. soldiers and two Iraqi civilians and wounded eight other Americans.

A day after a U.S. Marine was killed responding to an ambush on Americans, reports of attacks on U.S. troops appeared almost hourly too frequent for military press officers to keep up with. Most of the information came from witnesses at the attack scenes.

Read the whole thing. Did the Administration believe its own propaganda or did it just not care? And anyone who suggests that Roger Ailes does not support the American troops or is an anti-semite can kiss my alluring, well-toned ass.

The Virgin Ben and his hand won't be too happy with the Supremes either.

Fwill In The Blank

That was quick. George Fwill already is having a hissy about Lawrence v. Texas. Guess which one of the "myriad of possible permutations of consensual adult sexual activities" is conspicuously absent from Fwill's parade of nasties:

"The question is not whether states are wise to criminalize this or that sex act outside of marriage. Rather, the question is: Once the court has said that some such acts are constitutional rights, by what principle are any of the myriad possible permutations of consensual adult sexual activities denied the same standing?


"Once consent-- 'choice' -- supplants marriage as the important interest served by cloaking sexual activities as constitutional rights, by what principle is any consensual adult sexual conduct not a protected right? Bigamy? Polygamy? Prostitution? Incest? Even--if we assume animals can consent, or that their consent does not matter--bestiality?"

Did you spot it? Purely an oversight, I'm sure.

Even Shorter Than Normal Nino Scalia

When I overturn Roe v. Wade, I'm not even going to pay lip service to stare decisis, you liberal motherfuckers. And the states can criminalize beating off too!

And Ashcroft must be nearly suicidal.

And I Mean Really Pissed

By a separate 5-4 vote, the Supreme Court also overturned its 1986 ruling that upheld a Georgia sodomy law and that declared that homosexuals have no constitutional right to engage in sodomy in private. -- Washington Post, June 26


Fat Tony's Pissed

Chief Justice William H. Rehnquist and Justices Antonin Scalia and Clarence Thomas dissented.

"The court has largely signed on to the so-called homosexual agenda," Scalia wrote for the three. He took the unusual step of reading his dissent from the bench.

"The court has taken sides in the culture war," Scalia said, adding that he has "nothing against homosexuals." -- New York Times, June 26

More to come.

I don't have anything clever for Savage on Savage day; the man is so hate-filled and oblivious that ridicule is wasted on him and his demented followers. But here's some free advice for those who have been sued by Savage's employer: Notice the Weiner's deposition and make him cry:
Take Horowitz's campaign against China expert and writer Orville Schell, dean of the UC-Berkeley Journalism School. In 1998 Horowitz's legal arm, the Individual Rights Foundation, filed suit against the Regents of the University of California on behalf of Michael Savage, a conservative radio commentator who had applied unsuccessfully for the deanship. Schell got the job, but the IRF suit contended that since he was selected through an old-boy network of New Leftists, his appointment constituted political patronage and was therefore illegal under California labor law.

Why was Schell, whom Horowitz has labeled a "Gucci Marxist," unfit for the position? "Although he has written several books on China and authored some op-ed pieces," Horowitz affirmed in Hating Whitey, he is "not a working journalist." Schell's curriculum vitae lists twelve books and 206 articles, including contributions to The New York Review of Books, The New Yorker and Harper's Magazine. The case eventually collapsed when Savage refused to be deposed.

Among Friends

The Moonie Times asks, why does Sully hate America?

The legalization of homosexual marriage has also gained momentum with a bill introduced in Congress by Sen. Hillary Clinton, New York Democrat, that gives homosexual couples the same rights as heterosexual couples. A similar bill has also been introduced in the California legislature.

Despite this current trend, a recent poll shows that the majority of Americans are against the legalization of homosexual marriage, as they should be. For centuries, marriage has been the bedrock of civilization and the foundation of society. Overwhelming data confirms that healthy children flourish best under the nurturing love between a man and a woman. While sexual orientation should not deprive someone of the constitutional provision of equal protection under law, such rights do not imply the right to same-sex marriage. To adopt such policies would devalue and threaten the sacred tradition of marriage. The unique sanctity of the heterosexual family is not only the bedrock of American culture � it is the first principle of all human societies. While the world's great religions all assert this truth, the empirical evidence that it has been embraced by all peoples across all time stands on its own as proof of its validity. Congress should stand ready to take all actions necessary to protect the institution of marriage.

Hetrosexuality is the first principle of all human societies; gays are harmful to children and seek to destroy society through their own selfish demands. A view indeed shared by one of the "greatest religions," from the lips of its god (and publisher) himself:

In order to win the world one has to give up one's own family, nation, and world. Satan is trying on all levels to stop God, especially in the field of family morals. Even homosexual marriage is now allowed in some countries! This is what Satan likes, he's laughing at the perversion of love.

Sully doesn't raise a peep of outrage about the Moonies' vile views, not even at the thought that Senator Hillary Clinton is a champion of equal rights for gay men and lesbians. All he can do is point to an advertisement at the bottom of the editorial, which merely demonstrates that internet ad space, like loyalty, can be bought and sold quite cheaply.

The good homosexuals, in Sully's conservative-bigot world are those grateful to their massas in the conservative hierarchy: they are grateful to Wesley and Tony and the Father; and they know their place.

Jonny, We Yardley Trusted Ye

A correction:

Jonathan Yardley's review of Sidney Blumenthal's "The Clinton Wars" (Book World, June 15) asserted that, as a matter of "plain fact," Sidney Blumenthal was directing the "below-the-belt campaign" against President Bill Clinton's female accusers. The review should have reflected Blumenthal's denials in the book and before the Office of Independent Counsel that he played any such role during his tenure in the Clinton White House. Book World regrets the omission.

Yes, but does Jonny?

More unsubstantiated smears from the Post. Oh well, its not as if anyone would believe a hack like Yardley anyway.

The new Blogger is neither new nor improved.

Discuss.

News for Wankers

From Foxnews.com yesterday:

Your World w/Neil Cavuto

Wed. 1 am ET

Forget the Fed! Neil's got what's really turning heads! Porn star Sunrise Adams reveals why her industry is on the rise.

(Another reference to Ms. Adams' appearance on Neil Cavuto's show is here.)

The website doesn't reveal whether Cavuto preferred the 21-year-old Texan in Up Your Ass No. 17 or Amazing Hardcore - Finally Legal No. 4, or whether Ms. Adams' films are available on Rupert Murdoch's satellite porn networks.

Anyone who says Bush lied about WMD is an anti-semite. You read it here first.

Desparate times call for despicable measures.

Update: Michael Griffin shares an interesting non-response in the Comments. Cablah, blah, blah.

Wednesday, June 25, 2003

Heh.

Here's the reason this site rarely bothers with chumps like the Instapundit. Yesterday, Tennessee Dim wrote:

GEPHARDT UPDATE: Ernie the Attorney writes:

[P]redictably, we now are in the "explanatory phase" wherein the politician's handlers provide information on what he really meant. Fortunately, the blogosphere is impervious to this sort of thing. Unfortunately, we can't say the same thing for the traditional media. But then they've got smaller (but more entertaining) fish to fry.

Ain't it the truth. [sic]
But two weeks ago, Dim was linking to another conservative blogger who was grousing that Paul Krugman quoted Dick Cheney's exact words, but the quote wasn't really what Cheney meant. Sayeth the wingnut, "this quote [Krugman's quote of Cheney] has the virtue of being literally accurate - however, it is also hopelessly misleading." The wingnut then whined that "this misquote [sic] seems to have taken on a life of its own - CNN, Slate, and TIME all have it." Dim accepted the blogger's characterization this as one of "four bogus quotes" by Krugman. Neither Dim nor the blogger cite any statement by or on behalf of Cheney claiming that Cheney misspoke. Rather, the impervious "blogsphere" -- in the form of the wingnut and Dim, by endorsement -- took it upon itself to explain what Cheney really, actually, really, no honestly meant.

Instapundit is nothing more than a right-wing clipping service, with the proprietor endorsing, without thought, whatever half-assed statement some other wingnut blogger makes at the moment. He's also lead man in the circle jerk. Life's too short to waste your time on such crap.

Update (6/30): Tom McGuire, the "wingnut" in quo, offers a reasoned and measured response here; no doubt an underhanded attempt to make me look intemperate. Nicely done! Anyway, Tom should save his big guns for Eugene Volokh, who apparently turned Tom's discovery into big cash money, via a National Review Online article. (In a completely non-tortious and constitutionally-protected way, I'm sure.)

P.P.S. Of course, Reynolds is still a yutz.

Mo Do is really baiting the wingnuts with this column. I would have gone with the hypocrisy on the library porn filters, but, whatever.

Tuesday, June 24, 2003

Meet The White House Mouthpiece

It seems Howie "I'm Not A Whore" Kurtz was too busy downloading onto photos of Morgan Fairchild to report on some real media news: The fact that Tim Russert requested and received talking points from the Bush Administration prior to his Dean interview:

The Bush administration yesterday released a highly selective analysis of the cost to families of rolling back scheduled tax cuts, an early sign of the White House's plan to brand Democrats as tax raisers throughout their race for the presidential nomination.

In addition to using the issue to inject himself into the Democratic campaign, President Bush plans to make the extension and preservation of tax cuts a centerpiece of his general election campaign, senior Republican officials said.

The seven-page analysis, by the Treasury Department's Office of Tax Analysis, asserts that repealing the tax cuts enacted in 2001 and last month would mean a tax hike of $1,933 for a married couple with two children and an income of $40,000. Their taxes would go from $45 to $1,978, for an increase of 4,296 percent, the study said.

....

Howard Dean, a Democratic presidential candidate and former Vermont governor, was confronted with the Treasury Department figures on NBC's "Meet the Press" yesterday. He said they do not account for increases in property taxes because of cuts in federal services and shortfalls in federal aid to education.

"The real effect of the Bush tax cuts has actually been to raise taxes on most middle-class people and to cut their services," Dean said.

The research was prepared at the request of "Meet the Press," NBC and Bush officials said. The analysis does not include single people or lower-income couples, two groups that benefit little from Bush's cuts. Four of the examples involve married couples with one or two children making $40,000 to $75,000 a year, and the other two concern spouses who are both age 65. (Emphasis added.)

Howie was ready, however, to repeat the claim that "the politico-media establishment" views Dean as a "pipsqueak."

Dr. Alterman's assessment of Howie the Whore is much too kind.

And what other parts of Russert's script were written by the White House?

(Via the invaluable Buzzflash.)

Update (6/25):Atrios points out (4:46 a.m. entry) that there's nothing new under the sun.

Iran-Contra, Part Deux?

John Bolton, the man with a plan for Iran, likes his facts a certain way. Or so says a State Department expert on chemical and biological weapons who claims he Bolton pressured him to change his analysis to suit Bolton's purposes.

WASHINGTON, June 24 � A top State Department expert on chemical and biological weapons told Congressional committees in closed-door hearings last week that he had been pressed to tailor his analysis on Iraq and other matters to conform with the Bush administration's views, several Congressional officials said today.

The officials described what they said was a dramatic moment at a House Intelligence Committee hearing last week when the weapons expert came forward to tell Congress he had felt such pressure.Mr. Westermann told lawmakers last week that while he felt pressure, he never actually changed the wording of any of his intelligence reports....

In a second hearing last week with the Senate Intelligence Committee, he made it clear that he had felt pressure from John Bolton, the under secretary of state for arms control and international security, that originally dated to a clash the two had over Mr. Bolton's public assertions last year that Cuba had a biological weapons program. Mr. Westermann argued those assertions were not supported by sufficient intelligence.

Good luck Mr. Westermann, you'll need it.

Radical Interest Groups Target Highly Qualified Hispanic Judicial Nominee

I guess he wouldn't clean Linda's toilets for two dollars an hour. Bad career move, Albie.

Flooding Their Pants

You know, I'm no big fan of Dick Gephardt, but if he can say something that gets so many morons to piss themselves in frenzied displays of fraudulent self-righteousness, he can't be all bad.

What a pathetic circle jerk.

Update, via TBogg: Another pants-wetter thinks Gephardt intends to set himself up as a dictator. Does anyone remember that freeper rumor that President Clinton signed an executive order to suspend the 2000 election and declare martial law? I guess this answers the question, "is there anyone dumber than a freeper?"

Roger's Market Watch

"WASHINGTON, DC �At a stockholders meeting Monday, the Republican Party announced record profits for the second quarter of 2003, exceeding analysts' expectations by more than 20 cents per share.

"The gain marks the GOP's third consecutive profitable quarter, and puts the party on track for its best 12-month cycle since 1991, the year of the first Gulf War.

...

"The GOP posted a net profit of $3.48 per share, outperforming financial analysts' predictions in the $3.25 range. It ended the quarter with a market cap of $340 billion�a 17 percent gain attributed to a war-related rise in emotional investment in the party by the public and a rise in financial investment by such major corporations as Lockheed Martin and Halliburton."

Just remember: When it gets to 2004, sell.

Saddam Suck-Up Watch

Arnaud de Douchebag Borchgrave, the unnaturally tan Moonie stooge and author of one of the worst novels ever written, promised to deliver the Republican Party to Saddam Hussein.

Arnaud de Borchgrave, editor at large of the Washington Times and United Press International, was determined to land an interview with Saddam Hussein.

So determined, in fact, that he told the Iraqi leader 2 1/2 years ago he hoped such a sit-down "would lead to a reappraisal of American policy toward Iraq."

The veteran foreign correspondent also used an Egyptian arms dealer as a conduit to pass copies of his articles to Hussein's government in hopes of winning the interview.

In a Jan. 11, 2001, "Your Excellency" letter -- recently retrieved from Iraqi intelligence files -- de Borchgrave said he could "guarantee" that an interview with him "will have worldwide resonance as well as two entire newspaper pages in The Washington Times, the newspaper of choice of the Republican establishment."
All that sucking up to the Reverend Moon was good practice indeed.

Arnie's intermediary was "Fakhry Arnin Abdelnour, a Geneva-based Egyptian arms merchant who was working on deals with Hussein's government for tank engines and helicopters." And Arnie presented himself to Saddam as pro-terrorist to land the interview:

In the accompanying column [sent to Saddam's intermediary by Abdelnour], de Borchgrave wrote that U.S. aid to Israel should be conditioned on the creation of a Palestinian state and that "to blame Palestinian terrorism as the fount of all evil reflects a failure to understand what terrorism is all about. It is the weapon of the weak against the powerful."

More proof that the Moonie Times hates America.

Monday, June 23, 2003

For Freddy Fans

A Roger reader passes along this link for Freddy the Pig fans:

Freddy the Pig's Home Pen

Hack vs. Hack

Mini-Mick points out a proposition so evident that I didn't bother with it when I read Sully two days ago:

"Daniel Weintraub--blogger of the Bee--makes a good case that Andrew Sullivan has falsely accused Hillary Clinton of being a "waffler" and "prevaricator" when what she's really guilty of is taking a position different from that of Andrew Sullivan. (She's against gay marriage and for civil unions--that might be wrong, but it's a clear position.)"

I don't know how Sully Watch does it, there's just so much crap every day.

P.S. The hacks are Kaus and Sully, not Weintraub, although Weintraub does mangle Sully's words slightly.

There's A Zucker(man) Born Every Minute

Morty Zuckerman has been caught peddling false tales of frivolous lawsuits. Maybe the readers of U.S. News & World Reports can file a class action suit for journalistic fraud.

Hail To The Victors

Update: Not so fast, the WP and A.P. have changed the story. Apparently the law school's program was approved 5-4 while the undergrad program was invalidated by a 6-3 vote. The original article read as follows:

The Supreme Court on Monday upheld a university law school admissions policy that gives minorities an edge, ruling that race can be one of many factors that colleges consider when selecting their students.

The ruling in the law-school case preserves the concept of affirmative action for minorities who might otherwise be underrepresented on top campuses, but makes clear that racial preferences must be used sparingly.

The 5-4 ruling endorsed a program at the University of Michigan law school meant to ensure a "critical mass" of minorities on campus. The program is not an illegal quota, the high court said.

A partial victory for common sense, but a large loss as well. Apaprently only unqualified legacies like Dubya are entitled to preferences in undergraduate admission. It's about time to attack those head-on.

Note: Edited due to massive revisions by the Washington Post.

Putzwatch

The Boston Globe publishes a long article about Senator John Kerry's role in the Iran-Contra investigation, and Howie the Putz Kurtz focuses on the small section about Kerry's divorce and related financial difficulties. The Putz is particularly fascinated by the old news that Kerry dated Morgan Fairchild after his divorce. Kurtz also advises the Democrats that too many of them are running for President, although in Howie's case, one Democrat running for President is too many.

"I think we've all learned by now not to credit early reports from Iraq."

Unless they're reports based on forged documents about George Galloway, that is.

Sunday, June 22, 2003

Porrin Hatch

Is there any truth to the rumor that Clarence Thomas and Orrin Hatch are "porn buddies"? You know, friends who agree that if one gets nominated to a job with lifetime tenure, the other goes to the nominee's house and clears out all his pornorgraphy before the confirmation hearing begins. Highly doubtful, because I just made it up.

But Hatch was caught with his virtual pants down when Wired reported last week that the Utah senator's Senate website linked to "Big Naturals," an adult site which promotes nature's bounty over artificial enhancement. Apparently the owners of a Utah search link which featured on Hatch's site let their domain name registration lapse and an adult site claimed the URL without Hatch's knowledge.

At least that's what Orrin claims. Followers of the Utah Republican's career will recall than a former Hatch staffer, Eliza Flores, later turned up in a sequel to Behind The Green Door. Coincidence?

A word of caution to Hatch's constituents: If you click an "LDS" link on Hatch's website, you might just find yourself face to... uh ... face with one of Hatch's favorite actors, a certain Mr. Silver.

(Note: The above links contain no nudity or obscene content.)

Saturday, June 21, 2003

A Programme Note

For those who despise Hillary Clinton and the so-called liberal media, here's a two-fer: BBC4 will be presenting audio excerpts from Senator Clinton's best-seller, Living History, all next week.

Enjoy.

Kaus Piles

They just get bigger and steamier.

Kaus attempts to clarify his latest slam on Senator John Kerry and fails miserably. The fake quotes are the original comment; the parenthetical is the putative clarification:

Kerry: 'I might have been brainwashed!' ... Whoops, he said "misled." Sorry ... [???-ed. Click here. Search for "Romney." ... Or just go here.] 11:25 P.M.

The first "explanatory" link states:

(In 1968, when Michigan Gov. George Romney claimed that the Johnson administration had "brainwashed" him about Vietnam, Sen. Eugene McCarthy quipped that in Romney's case "a light rinse would have done.")

Well, that explains nothing. John Kerry didn't claim he was brainwashed, he claimed that Bush misled the country about the reasons for going to war. There's no equivalence between claiming to have been brainwashed and claiming to have been lied to (or claiming to have believed a lie). Is Kaus suggesting Bush's statements were so obviously fraudulent that Kerry and the American public shouldn't have believed them? Kaus certainly didn't claim that at the time the statements were made. Is he criticizing Kerry for stating that Bush misled the country? Neither the original comment nor the explanation supports that interpretation, and Kaus offers nothing to demonstrate Bush's veracity. The only thing Kaus's statement reveals is an irrational hatred of Kerry.

It's also interesting that Kaus brings up Vietnam, since Kerry served honorably and with courage in that war while Kaus (legally) avoided service. Kaus chose a particularly poor analogy by which to claim moral or intellectual superiority to Kerry.

In Kaus's case, a brainwash would be flooding the Dead Zone.

The Outrage Continues

"� The introduction to a chart last Sunday listing efforts to remove books from library shelves because of moral or other objections misidentified a book in the 'Captain Underpants' series, among the most frequently challenged books last year. It is 'Super Diaper Baby,' not 'Super Diaper Boy.'" -- New York Times, June 22

Bastards.

What A Sully Wants

Hey, Andy Sullivan "actually want[s] democracy in Iran." That's mighty white of you, Sully. And thanks for sharing.

Meanwhile, Sully fails to mention that the documents he cited as "evidence that [George] Galloway is guilty" of taking $10 million from Saddam Hussein are forgeries. Perhaps he "actually wants" to believe they're real.

Legal Idiots

Here's a frivolous lawsuit you won't hear about from the wingnuts:

DALLAS (Reuters) - "Jane Roe" failed on Friday to overturn the historic decision made on her behalf that legalized abortion in the United States 30 years ago.

A U.S. federal judge on Friday dismissed a suit brought by "Roe," whose real name is Norma McCorvey, in which she sought to reverse "Roe v. Wade."

U.S. district judge David Godbey said McCorvey, who went by the name "Jane Roe" in the landmark Roe v. Wade case, did not bring her motion within a reasonable time. Since being the woman behind the case that made abortion legal in the United States, McCorvey has joined the anti-abortion movement.

"Whatever else may have been done, the Supreme Court's Roe decision 30 years ago ended this lawsuit between these parties," " Judge David Godbey wrote in the decision. "It is simply too late now, 30 years after the fact, for McCorvey to revisit that judgment."

Among the arguments made by the right-wing legal foundation (The Justice Foundation aka Texas Justice Foundation) that brought the motion are (1) the Social Security system is in crisis because 43 million aborted fetuses have not paid Social Security tax, and (2) child abuse has increased because of abortion. (See Notable Cases, McCorvey v. Hill, Docket item 3, page 50 (Note: .pdf files).)

Judge Godbey needs to drop some substantial Rule 11 sanctions on these asses.

Roger's Book Bag

Harry Potter is all well and good, but kids need to read the classics as well. I'm speaking, of course, of Freddy the Detective. Walter R. Brooks, a master of the genre, didn't need 850 pages to tell his tale of crime and punishment on the Bean farm. Of course, Walter didn't have a word processor or his own media empire, so he was probably content with knocking out 250 pages and calling it a day.

Some of the greatest writers of our age owe a huge debt to the visionary Mr. Brooks.

How To Win Enemies And Influence People

After much procrastination, the Roger Ailes Enemies List has been updated. Many of the additions are long overdue. Please enjoy these fine blogs.

Friday, June 20, 2003

Anything's Better Than More Of Those Novels

"Jeffrey Archer is a victim of a miscarriage of justice and press attacks on the jailed peer should not be permitted, according to his wife.

In an interview with the Radio Times, Mary Archer also hints her husband may seek a role in rebuilding Iraq once he is released from prison after serving a sentence for perjury.

'I think I probably see him very concerned about the aftermath of war in Iraq ... and he may well want to pick up on that.'" -- BBC News
Are there unexploded bombs that need clearing?

"June 22, 2003

11:30 a.m. EST -- Reliable Sources (CNN):

Senate Commerce Committee votes against further media consolidation; is the FCC corrupted by money and influence?

Washington Post retracts fabricated story of Private Lynch's capture in Iraq; should Schmidt and Loeb be fired?

Christian Science Monitor reveals its allegations against anti-war spokesman were based on forged documents; is this 'Hitler Diaries 2003'?

Guests: Someone other than Rich Lowry and Laura Ingraham. Host: Someone credible. (Closed captioned)"

(Via Bizarro World TV Guide)

Anatomy Of A Smear

Does the Christian Science Monitor have its own Steno Sue problem? On April 25, 2003, the Monitor wrote about official Iraqi documents that purported to show Labor MP George Galloway received millions from Saddam Hussein.

From the June 20, 2003 edition of the Monitor:

In Baghdad, Monitor reporter Ilene Prusher met with General Rasool, the source of the Monitor's documents. Rasool repeated most of the account he had earlier given Smucker.

As the discussion with Ms. Prusher progressed from there, a number of things became apparent:

� The general was offering other documents alleging malfeasance on the part of a wide array of foreign public figures noted for their support of the Hussein regime. (When Smucker met the general earlier, Rasool denied having documents dealing with any foreign politicians other than Galloway.)

� The papers from Qusay's house also "proved" that six of the 19 Sept. 11 hijackers learned to fly in Iraq, according to the general.

� Rasool did not directly ask for money, but he described current negotiations to sell documents to other parties.

I wonder if Rasool was advising Bush prior to the war, on the Iraq-Al-Queda connection.

And here's the truth:

An extensive Monitor investigation has subsequently determined that the six papers detailed in the April 25 piece are, in fact, almost certainly forgeries.

The Arabic text of the papers is inconsistent with known examples of Baghdad bureaucratic writing, and is replete with problematic language, says a leading US-based expert on Iraqi government documents. Signature lines and other format elements differ from genuine procedure.

The two "oldest" documents - dated 1992 and 1993 - were actually written within the past few months, according to a chemical analysis of their ink. The newest document - dated 2003 - appears to have been written at approximately the same time.

"At the time we published these documents, we felt they were newsworthy and appeared credible, although we did explicitly state in our article that we could not guarantee their authenticity," says Monitor editor Paul Van Slambrouck. "It is important to set the record straight: We are convinced the documents are bogus. We apologize to Mr. Galloway and to our readers."

Lynching Postponed

Meanwhile, let's see who presumed that Galloway was guilty, based on the Monitor story:

GALLOWAY ON THE GALLOWS: Maybe the American press will begin to cover this story properly now. The Christian Science Monitor has become the second news organization to find documents that indicate that Saddam authorized huge pay-offs to the major anti-war leader in Britain, George Galloway. This time the sums are even more staggering, totalling $10 million in almost three years:

[quote from April 25 CSM article omitted]

If you want further evidence that Galloway is guilty, here's a piece by Scott Ritter, defending him. I wonder if Galloway will decide to sue the Telegraph now, after all. And I wonder if the anti-war movement could be more damaged. (The news is also retroactively embarrassing for Diane Sawyer, who cited Galloway as emblematic of British anti-war sentiment earlier this year.) When I first mentioned the possibility of a fifth column, I presumed it would be fueled by ideological fervor. I didn't contemplate it could be fueled by the mighty dollar. You've got to love these Marxists, don't you? -- www.andrewsullivan.com (Emphasis added.)

Whoa, there, Andy, don't hang Galloway just yet.

Yes, maybe the American press will begin to cover the story properly now. I wonder if Galloway will decide to sue the "No. 1 influential blogger," after all. And I wonder if the pro-war movement could be more damaged.

(Story via Atrios.)

Bitch, Meet Slap

Good news from the Washington front:

While it can't yet be said the story has a happy ending, it does have a happy middle. Yesterday the Senate Commerce Committee voted against attempts by the Federal Communications Commission to let Big Media grow much, much bigger.

The committee, under Chairman John McCain (R-Ariz.), voted to overturn changes in media ownership rules that had been championed by FCC Chairman Michael Powell, the best friend a media fat cat ever had. The keystone of Powell's plan would have raised the limit on how many broadcast stations one corporation could own -- from coverage of 35 percent of U.S. households, the current limit, to a new and dangerous 45 percent maximum. -- Tom Shales, June 20

As Shales points out, this is a battle won, not the war. The statue of Rupert Murdoch in front of Re'epublican Party headquarters has not yet been covered with the American flag and toppled. The suitcases of Clear Channel money and caches of Rupert's satellite porn remain safe in Uday Powell's palaces. But this shows the war can be won.

Thursday, June 19, 2003

kf Gets Plugs

Midget Mickey Kaus is back to his usual pointless wanking.

1. He complains that the New York Times was "plug[ging] a band in which Howell Raines' son is a member. In truth, the article mentions the band -- but hardly promotes it -- in an article about numerous acts at a three-day music festival attended by 80,000 fans. Since the festival's promoters put the band on last year's "best of" CD, it's hardly surprising that the band merits a mention in the article. And since Kaus knew nothing about the band except its Raines connection, his bitching is admittedly based on ignorance. I'm certain Jeff is less of a disappointment to the Raines family than Mick is to the Kaus clan.

2. Kaus also notes a six percent drop in the value of New York Times stock Wednesday, and makes the idiotic (and purely speculative) claim that the stock's value dropped because of the Blair, et al. scandals. One could equally claim -- with the same lack of support -- that the stock dropped on word that the new editor, Joe Lelyvald, sold out readers in 1996 by cutting a deal with Dick Morris to promote Bill Clinton for re-election.

3. The low point (though the week is not done) is Kaus's latest comment: "Kerry: 'I might have been brainwashed!' ... Whoops, he said 'misled.' Sorry" Of course, if you click the link, Kerry said neither one. Rather, Kerry said that Bush "misled every one of us" with respect to Iraq's weapons capacity in order to justify his war. The sad part is not Kaus's pathological hatred of Kerry or his pathetic attempt at what he undoubtedly claims is a gag. No, the sad part is Kaus's lack of concern as to whether the Administration misled the public. Kaus is all over trivia such as Gary Condit and Greg Packer, but when a Senator asserts that the President has misled the country on matters of national security, all Kaus can manage is an incoherent crack aimed at the Senator who raised the issue.

P.S.: I'm not talking about hair plugs!

Wednesday, June 18, 2003

The Two Faces of Joe

On the one hand, Gene Lyons says that New York Times managing editor Joseph Lelyveld is an ill-informed Clinton basher, who, while holding that post in the mid-1990s, failed to inform Times readers of information exonerating Bill Clinton in the Whitewater matter.

On the other hand (hopefully one covered with several layers of non-porous gloves), you've got Dick Morris. Morris says that Joseph Lelyveld promised to drop the Times' various investigations of President Clinton in exchange for a softball interview. According to Newsmax.com, Hump-a-Pump Morris claims as follows:

"I was surprised to be asked by Lelyveld and a Times reporter to help them get an exclusive interview with the president," Morris reports.

"We've tried for months and come up empty," the Lelyveld [sic] pleaded. "Can you help get it done?"

When Morris told him that Clinton was unlikely to grant the interview because he was unhappy with the paper's scandal coverage, Lelyveld hinted at a deal.

"A worried frown clouded the editor's formerly sunny face," writes Morris, who quotes the Times decision maker as saying next, "You know, we don't think that the public cares about what happened back in Arkansas."

....

"I wondered if I heard right. Did the top editor of The New York Times just imply that they'd pull their punches over Whitewater, Paula Jones, the Rose Law Firm, Hillary's billing records, the Web Hubbell hush money and the rest of the scandals that had emerged from Clinton's Arkansas Pandora's Box - all in return for an interview?

"I certainly got that impression," the top White House adviser recalls.

Now anyone who has ever believed a word Dick Morris has said should be demanding Lelyveld's dismissal from the Times. Certainly the crimes of Howell Raines pale in comparison to those of an editor who promises favorable reporting to the vile Clinton in exchange for an interview.

Which is it: Is Dick a liar, or should Joe go?

The State of Pennsylvania will not enjoy the benefits of having a man of vision and great intellect in Arlen Specter's Senate seat two years hence. Jim Capozolla of the Rittenhouse Review will not be running for the Democratic nomination in 2004. He has vowed his support for a yet-unnamed Democratic candidate.

On the upside, there's now plenty of time to order bumperstickers and yard signs reading "Capozzola '06: He's Tan, He's Rested And He's Not Ricky."

Mortadullard

That giant sucking sound you hear is Howard Mortman sucking at his chosen profession, political expert. The little weenie was hoist by his own petard while trying to smear Governor Howard Dean. Witness Morty's weaselly retraction:

(Note of clarification: In an earlier version of this column, I cited a third example, the fact that in his new TV ad, in which he talks about health care and jobs, Dean concludes with this line: �That�s why I�m running for President, and why I approve this message.� Turns out, as Dean�s campaign told me today, that under the McCain-Feingold campaign finance reform bill [sic], the candidate is required to make such a statement in television ads. So, it�s the law�s fault, not Dean�s.)

No wonder Morty's no longer at The Hotline, and is now fetching coffee for Tweezer's guests at Hardball.

More Fun With Amazon

White House insider accounts:

The Clinton Wars is ranked no. 84

The Right Man is ranked no. 2,290

Public policy books:

Paul Krugman's 1995 volume, Currencies and Crises, is ranked no. 59,398

Mickey Kaus's 1995 volume (paperback), The End of Equality, is ranked no. 263,200

The Cost Of Peace

"A U.S. soldier was killed and another was wounded in a hit-and-run shooting Wednesday in central Baghdad, the latest in a wave of attacks and ambushes targeting U.S. forces in Iraq. Earlier, U.S. forces fired into a crowd of Iraqi protesters outside the headquarters of the U.S.-led administration in the capital, killing two people.

...

"Attacks and accidents have killed about 50 U.S. troops � including about a dozen from hostile fire � since major combat was officially declared over May 1." -- MSNBC.com, June 18

Don't Ask, Don't Tell

Sully's audition for the Radio 4 programme "I'm Sorry I Haven't A Clue":

"Here's a simple question: is it still kosher in conservative circles to describe an entire group of people as representing a 'sewer'?"

You're a shoo-in, Sully.

Illiteracy And Incoherence Are No Longer Obstacles To Employment With The Moonie Times

The Daily Howler demolished David N. Bossie's latest attempt to smear Senator Hillary Clinton, pointing out how Bossie "seems to be lying" when he claims, in a Moonie Times article, to have read the book.

The whole piece has to be seen to be appreciated. It purports to be a response to some of Hillary's claims, but the "truths" Bossie sets out in response to Hillary's supposed "fiction" don't even match up to the claims. For example, Bossie counters Hillary's claim that she cooperated fully in the investigations with the assertion that the President sought to block questioning of his Secret Service bodyguards. The best part of Bossie's article, though, is the elementary school level quality of the writing, mispunctation and poor grammar. The first sentence should win some sort of award for bad writing:

"'Hillary Clinton and theSorcerers Stone' sounds like the title to a new Harry Potter book."

Most adults couldn't write something that stupid if they tried.

Tuesday, June 17, 2003

Does Rick Santorum know about this?

(Via T.)

There Are Some Things You Can't Cover Up/With A Head Full of Chowder

Joe Scarborough has the uncanny knack to sniff out a Catholic school girl uniform at 500 yards. He must be angling for L. Brent Bozell's gig of monitoring teen sex comedies and cable t.v. and cataloging the number of naughty bits... for the sake of the children, of course.

Fresh from his spanking of Vanity Fair, Joe's gonna give ten of his best to that shameless little tease, Viacom:

"Now listen, as a guy who grew up listening to Elvis Costello, Led Zeppelin-and yeah, even the Sex Pistols, I�m part of a generation that can�t be shocked by what I hear on the radio or what I see on TV. But as an adult� and apparently there are very few adults right now at MTV� I am concerned when the center piece of MTV�s biggest awards show is a blowout number glorifying teen lesbian sex, complete with an army of young girls in Catholic school uniforms."

Whatever you say, Holy Joe. Why dont'cha pull out your copy of Houses of the Holy and get back to me on this one.

(Another steal from pandagon.net.)

Making History

"Publisher Simon & Schuster, which threw the latest Manhattan bash Monday, declared 'Living History' to be the top-selling adult nonfiction book ever, based on first-week sales of 600,000 copies. An additional 500,000 copies have been ordered on top of an extraordinary initial printing of 1 million copies, the publisher said." -- Associated Press, June 17

Meanwhile, at amazon.com:

Living History is ranked no. 4

A Charge to Keep is ranked no. 47,639

Barbara Bush: A Memoir is ranked no. 53,222

Laura: America's First Lady, First Mother is ranked no. 78,275

Sounds about right.







Toeing The Lyin'

It must be tough to be Dick Morris. No R will hire you to perform your chosen profession, political consultant, because you worked for President Clinton and paid big money to lick the athlete's foot fungus from the soles of a prostitute. No D will hire you because you worked for Trent Lott and Jesse Helms and paid big money to lick the athlete's foot fungus from the soles of a prostitute. With disclosure laws, no sane pol or PAC would even pay you under the table for a consult. Even Payless Shoe Source wouldn't hire you, due to liability issues.

Your only remaining career option is to sell personal tales, true or not, concerning President and Senator Clinton to the wingnut media. As soon as you exhaust those stories, your only source of income dries up. And the longer the President is out of office, every new tale will have people asking "why did he wait so long to tell that one, if it's true?"

Then there's the difficulty in keeping your stories straight. As Joe Conason points out, Dickie Footjoy has now told three versions of an encounter with Bill Clinton, and admits that the version he told in a 1997 book was false. So you have zero credibility.

You are now just one sorry-ass Dick.

(Link via pandagon.net.)

A Combat Veteran Speaks

To say that a three-week war in Iraq against an adversary not linked to 9/11 was a victory against terrorism, and, then, proclaim victory on an aircraft carrier by the President of the United States, is misleading at best. Within days of the so-called victory in Iraq, Al Qaeda was alive and well and killing Europeans, Americans and upper-class Saudis in Riyadh, the very capital of Saudi Arabia. Additionally, LTG. David McKiernan in Iraq says the war is not over. He is right. Since the President declared a so-called "victory," we have buried 34 young Americans killed in Iraq. We are losing young men and women every day. We are trapped in a quagmire. We have 240,000 American troops tied down in Iraq and Kuwait. We have no clear exit strategy. So far we have found no WMD. We have taken our eye off the ball. In so many ways, we have substituted a rogue regime for the true target. The real target is Osama bin Laden and his terrorist cadre around the world.

...

The Congress needs to fully investigate the rationale and outcome of the war and explain to the American people who knew what and when did they know it. If the Congress does not do its duty, the National Commission on Terrorist Attacks Upon the United States on which I sit should take the mission on itself. The American people need to know who was accountable for the war in Iraq and why the cream of American youth was sacrificed. To try to look for justification for the war after our young men and women are buried is immoral, unjust, and unacceptable Before we go to war the next time, the president must be fully truthful to the American people and the Congress, and we should know what we are doing and why. That includes straightening out the intelligence community.

(Link via Buzzflash.)

Covering Steno Sue

Remember this bit of "reporting" in the Washington Post?

Pfc. Jessica Lynch, rescued Tuesday from an Iraqi hospital, fought fiercely and shot several enemy soldiers after Iraqi forces ambushed the Army's 507th Ordnance Maintenance Company, firing her weapon until she ran out of ammunition, U.S. officials said yesterday.

Lynch, a 19-year-old supply clerk, continued firing at the Iraqis even after she sustained multiple gunshot wounds and watched several other soldiers in her unit die around her in fighting March 23, one official said. The ambush took place after a 507th convoy, supporting the advancing 3rd Infantry Division, took a wrong turn near the southern city of Nasiriyah.

"She was fighting to the death," the official said. "She did not want to be taken alive."

Lies, all lies, says the Washington Post:

Lynch tried to fire her weapon, but it jammed, according to military officials familiar with the Army investigation. She did not kill any Iraqis. She was neither shot nor stabbed, they said.

Lynch's unit, the 507th Maintenance Company, was ambushed outside Nasiriyah after taking several wrong turns. Army investigators believe this happened in part because superiors never passed on word that the long 3rd Infantry Division column that the convoy was following had been rerouted. At times, the 507th was 12 hours behind the main column and frequently out of radio contact.

Lynch was riding in a Humvee when it plowed into a jackknifed U.S. truck. She suffered major injuries, including multiple fractures and compression to her spine, that knocked her unconscious, military sources said. The collision killed or gravely injured the Humvee's four other passengers.

And now, a little ass-covering:

Lynch's story is far more complex and different than those initial reports. Much of the story remains shrouded in mystery, in large part because of official Army secrecy, concerns for Lynch's privacy and her limited memory.

Translation: We took a pack of lies and sold them to you as news. There's nothing more complex about the true story, it's just entirely different.

In an effort to document more fully what had actually happened to Lynch, The Post interviewed dozens of people, including associates of Lynch's family in West Virginia; Iraqi doctors, nurses and civilian witnesses in Nasiriyah; and U.S. intelligence and military officials in Washington, three of whom have knowledge of a weeks-long Army investigation into the matter.

The result is a second, more thorough but inconclusive cut at history. While much more is revealed about her ordeal, most U.S. officials still insisted that their names be withheld from this account.

How do you document something more fully when your first story was entirely false? Apart from the fact that Private Lynch was a member of the 507th Maintenance Company convoy and was injured while in Iraq, there's nothing accurate about Steno Sue's first tale. And yet Schmidt refuses to identify the officials who lied to her, leading one to question whether the false story originated with those unnamed officials or elsewhere.

And here's the big excuse:

In the hours after the ambush, Arabic-speaking interpreters at the National Security Agency, reviewing intercepted Iraqi communications from either hand-held radios or cellular phones, heard references to "an American female soldier with blond hair who was very brave and fought against them," according to a senior military officer who read the top-secret intelligence report when it came in. An intelligence source cited reports from Iraqis at the scene, saying she had fired all her ammunition.

Over the next hours and days, commanders at Central Command, which was running the war from Doha, Qatar, and CIA officers with them at headquarters were bombarded with military "sit reps" and agency Field Information Reports about the ambush, according to intelligence and military sources. The Iraqi reports included information about a female soldier. One said she died in battle. Some said she was wounded by shrapnel. Some said she had been shot in the arm and leg, and stabbed.

These reports were distributed only to generals, intelligence officers and policymakers in Washington who are cleared to read the most sensitive information the U.S. government possesses.

These intelligence reports, and the one bit of eavesdropping, created the story of the war.

No, Sue, you created the story of the war. According to your own "follow-up" report, either you repeated the Administration's story without verifying any facts, or you turned the unnamed female soldier(s) into Private Lynch without substantiating that claim. Neither version does you any credit. Private Lynch, her comrades and the public deserve better.

The questions remain: When Steno Sue quotes unnamed officials, how can we ever believe her? And when you allow a reporter to "correct" her own false story, how can you trust the correction?

P.S. To be fair to Steno Sue, Vernon Loeb also told the original fable.

Monday, June 16, 2003

Boat Trip II

In what may be the biggest surprise since the absence of WMDs in Iraq, it turns out that people don't want to spend two weeks at sea with Martin Peretz and Leon Wieseltier.

Maybe if they added Columbia as a port of call.

Hey, Morons!

Did you vote for President Clinton in 1996? Did you oppose his impeachment? Were you better off in 2000 than in 1992? Then Jonathan Yardley has one word to describe you: Idiot.

"But between the first inauguration and the pardons lay eight years of bumbling, dissembling, concupiscence and amorality. That the American people not merely tolerated this but gave Clinton the benefit of just about every doubt is a sign, perhaps, of their capacity for forgiveness, but it is a sign of moral obtuseness as well."

You're all fools, amoral scumbags, and most likely unworthy of citizenship. You're not worthy to breathe the same all-American air as the righteous Johnno.

Yes, the Washington Post finally got around to (nominally) reviewing Sid Blumenthal's The Clinton Wars. It should come as no surprise that the Post circled the wagons and had one of their own employees review Sid's tome. An independent reviewer reading Sid's book might have quite appropriately discussed the journalistic failings of the Post's own employees (Steno Sue) and those of the Post's sister publication, Newsweek. Clearly, the Post saw that as an unacceptable risk.

Watch out, Conflict-of-Interest Kurtz, you've got some real competition from Mr. Yardley.

Mommie's Little Helper

"Did we know about 'Just Say No' Nancy's reliance on Valium and appetite suppressants? (Daughter Patti knew, because she stole them.)"

Ah, when character was king.

I've never received an answer to my question of whether Krazy Kounselor Klayman's Judicial Watch has ever won a case at trial or ever gotten money for a client in a favorable settlement. That question is moot, really, since Judicial Watch doesn't need to win lawsuits to thrive.

The Palm Beach Post reports:

In the contested recount, the Clinton-hunting Judicial Watch team swooped into Palm Beach County to eye the punch-card ballots. Judicial Watch was financially stable thanks to the Sarah Scaife and Carthage foundations, which gave $1.5 million in 2000 -- nearly double from the previous year. Conservative-minded readers also could track the recount via a new West Palm Beach-based Internet site, NewsMax, whose third-largest contributor is Richard Scaife.

So much for tort reform.

The entire article is a good primer on the Scaife Evil Empire.

A Slap On The Wrist

If Joe Scarborough is really concerned about pedophiles, maybe he could do a segment on his fellow Republican, Waterbury, Conn. Mayor and U.S. Senate Candidate Joseph Giordano:

BRIDGEPORT - The criminal case against former Waterbury Mayor Philip A. Giordano was built around the children he abused - the depravity of the acts he forced on two girls who had not yet reached puberty....

Senior U.S. District Judge Alan H. Nevas made their trauma the focal point Friday of scathing remarks before sentencing Giordano, 40, to a 37-year prison term that, with all credits factored in, would keep him behind bars until the approach of his 70th birthday....

Referring to the reports of therapists and guardians, Nevas vividly described the nightmares both children - ages 8 and 10 when the sexual assaults began in the fall of 2000 - experienced as the trial and their turn to testify approached. The younger one, he said, became ill from anxiety and lay curled in a fetal position one floor above the courtroom, waiting to testify.

As the prosecutor noted, Giordano has never shown any remorse for his conduct.

As Long As They Spell Your Name Right

The hacks in the MSNBC transcription department are as dense as the on-air talent. They can't even get the name of the evil one right:

David Brock, let me ask you the toughest question, because I think it gets to the heart of everything. Do you believe that she believed Bill Clinton�s denials from January of 1998 all the way through mid-august of 1998 about his noninvolvement with Monica Lewinsky? Do you believe she�s telling the truth now in this book?

DAVID BROCK, AUTHOR, �THE SEDUCTION OF HILLARY RODHAM�: Yes, I do. Would you like to know why? I�m reading part of the book today, and this is a very chilling story of the demonization of these people, and she was living with lies, phony stories, false scandals day in and day out.

For example, in this book we learn how much of an impact the �Wall Street Journal� editorial pages attacks had on the tragedy of Vince Foster committing suicide, her close friend. She lived with that. She lived with Roger Ales, then the chairman of CNBC, talking about the Clintons as possible murderers. So absolutely, she had no reason not to believe.

Ouch.

Or maybe they think the evil one was hiding State Department papers in Tim Russert's hollowed-out pumpkinhead.

Scarborough, Fair

Last week, failed talk-show host and family man Joe Scarborough had some rather bizarre thoughts about this month's Vanity Fair. He says it's full of "salacious," "provocative" and "sexualized" photos of "underaged celebrity girls" "with their chests jutted forward."

June 6 � The soon-to-be-released edition of �Vanity Fair� magazine is full of underaged celebrity girls dolled up in makeup, posed provocatively. And if you want to know why these salacious pictures are sending our young girls the wrong message, here�s the �Real Deal.�


NOW, THIS month�s �Vanity Fair� says it�s celebrating Hollywood teen stars, from singers like Mandy Moore to TV phenoms like the Olsen twins. They�ve put nine beautiful teen girls on their magazine�s cover and even more inside. Almost all of these girls are underage. Some are even as young as 15. But they�re all dolled up in a way that might even make Lolita blush.

�Vanity Fair� has put these girls in skintight halter tops, bikini tops, micro-miniskirts, Catholic School girl uniforms, and Daisy Duke shorts. They�ve placed them in come-hither poses, with their chests jutted forward and their skirts blowing up in the wind. It�s a pedophile�s dream come true and it�s just the latest instance of the cultural elite�s sexualization of children.

Simmer down there, Joe.

In fact, there's nothing sexual about any of the photos, and very little that's accurate in Scarborough's description. (There are also photos of teen boys, which I guess Joe didn't notice.) The accompanying article is a look at the marketing of teen celebrities by corporate media heavyweights, which mocks the concept without bashing the kids themselves. It takes a special kind of mind to find anything salacious in the photographs or the article.

Scarborough's absurd pedophile comment reminds me with a Q&A interview of a member of a pedophile organization done by Spy magazine years ago. They asked the guy what his favorite television show was, and he said Home Improvement. Now that's creepy.

Wednesday, June 11, 2003

A Brief Hiatus

Roger Ailes will be on break until Sunday, June 15.

I sincerely appreciate all the recommendations regarding my trip to Los Angeles. Even more, I truly appreciate the readership and participation of those who make this blog a part of their day. Don't forget to come back next week.

In the meantime, please enjoy the fine blogs listed to your right. (I'll be adding more enemies to the list when I return. The RA mailbox will remain open.)

Tuesday, June 10, 2003

Good Stuff; Crappy Blogger Links

Suburban Guerilla has an outstanding new look, and an outstanding post entitled "What Would Bruce Do?" (Scroll down; link is broken.) Her point is very well-taken.

Tom at TBogg reminds us of the abomination that was... and still is... David Bossie. (Link also broken, scroll to "Obsession ... by Bossie" on June 9.

(Do anybody's Blogger links work anymore... ever?)

E-Mail Of The Damned

Hi,

Have you heard of "Inter-Network Marketing"?

It is Network Marketing on the Internet. Another name for it is E-commerce with a heart.

I've got an article on that for you below.

Thousands of Network Marketers are seeing the benefits of working Online compared to Offline.

No more presentations, no meetings, no more fliers, no door knocking, no pestering friends and family!

Now it's marketing, no more selling. The Websites and E-mail messages give all the information and become the online office doing all the work.

Let me get this straight...Inter-Network Marketing is... Online Network Marketing on the Internet... with a heart. And without selling.

It's pure genius. Where do I sign up?

Blix Krieg

Hans Blix finally learns how the game is played by Bushco.:

Hans Blix, the UN chief weapons inspector, lashed out last night at the "bastards" who have tried to undermine him throughout the three years he has held his high-profile post.

In an extraordinary departure from the diplomatic language with which he has come to be associated, Mr Blix assailed his critics in both Washington and Iraq.

Speaking exclusively to the Guardian from his 31st floor office at the UN in New York, Mr Blix said: "I have my detractors in Washington. There are bastards who spread things around, of course, who planted nasty things in the media. Not that I cared very much.

"It was like a mosquito bite in the evening that is there in the morning, an irritant."

Unfortunately, Hans, you're dealing with the West Nile Administration.

Smokin' A Blunt

Missouri Carolina Republican Representative Roy Blunt has a price: $150,000. Blunt tried to repay his benefactor, Philip Morris, for its campaign contributions by slipping Philip Morris's pet legislation into the "Homeland Security" bill:

Only hours after Rep. Roy Blunt was named to the House's third-highest leadership job in November, he surprised his fellow top Republicans by trying to quietly insert a provision benefiting Philip Morris USA into the 475-page bill creating a Department of Homeland Security, according to several people familiar with the effort.

...

The provision would have made it harder to sell tobacco products over the Internet and would have cracked down on the sale of contraband cigarettes, two practices that cut into Philip Morris's profits. Blunt has received large campaign donations from Philip Morris, his son works for the company in Missouri and the House member has a close personal relationship with a Washington lobbyist for the firm.
Blunt's tactics were so sleazy that even Tom "Rat Boy" DeLay was repulsed by the fact that he hadn't thought of them first.

Correction (6/11): Ras_Nesta has shown me the error of my ways. Smokin' Roy Blunt is from the Ashcroft State (Missouri), not North Carolina. My apologies to NC and sympathies to MO.

The Corrections

Sullywatch applies a much needed corrective here. Perhaps Sully should use some of that largese to hire an ombudsperson. Or at last Stephen Glass.

Now and Forever

Meanwhile, in light of this comment -- "[c]ertainly the administration has now done a lot to give a direct one-word message to its gay supporters: suckers" -- let's have some harmless fun at Sully's expense by replacing "Hillary" with "Sully" and "her husband" with "Bush," "the administration" or "the Republican Party" in the following passage:

Hillary always knew that her husband couldn't keep his pants on. She knew that he had had serial affairs. They were so obvious that their joint strategy was - from 1992 on - to coyly concede that their marriage had not been perfect. Perhaps she somehow believed that once he became president, everything would change. But surely, given the past, it wasn't inconceivable that he would continue doing what he had always done. If, then, she was genuinely shocked by his admission in 1998, she was a fool. But better to portray herself as a fool - and as a maligned wife - than to acknowledge the truth: that her political ambitions always outweighed the integrity of her marriage; or that she was completely comfortable with an open marriage as long as it meant she could still ride her husband's coat-tails to political power. Her deal with Bill was a marital version of Gordon Brown's and Tony Blair's Islington pact: one partner would be the front, the other would be an integral part of the project.

The infidelity would of course be the Bush/Republican hostility toward gay men and lesbians. It works well if you replace Bill with "the Moonie Times" too.

Monday, June 09, 2003

Happy Anniversary

Happy 25th Anniversary to the brilliant Madeleine Begun Kane and her husband, Mark.

War Porn and Wolf Whistles

Max Sawicky doesn't read Vanity Fair for the pictures:

"I don't feel like spending six bucks for a Vanity Fair. I'd rather read the Monthly Review. The pictures aren't as good, but the content compensates for the lack of semi-clad women."

But I bet he hasn't seen the latest issue, which features a spread on those hotties Wolfie and Kristy. A noted libidinist writes:

"...[T]he Tanenhaus article was adorned with two excellent photographs by Nigel Parry, making both Wolfowitz and Kristol look quite sexy and potent."

Va-Va-Va-Voom! It's enough to make an atheist kick in a plate glass window.

Howie Sees No Evil

Conflict-of-Interest Kurtz writes:

A high school student who briefly became a star in the Cherry Hill, N.J., Courier-Post has been forced to own up to plagiarism.

Blair Hornstine, who was covered by the paper when she successfully sued to maintain her status as the school's valedictorian, wrote a half-dozen pieces for the Courier-Post. Last week the paper said that the 18-year-old had repeatedly failed to attribute material to a variety of sources, including writings by two Supreme Court justices and Bill Clinton's speechwriters.

We could point out Konflict Kurtz's boners in his own lift-and-paste job: Hornstine never sued to "maintain her status as valedictorian," she sued to prevent other students from being named co-valedictorians along with her. Further, she was never a "star" in the paper, she submitted stories for the teen page and got zero compensation. No one ever reads that section, as evidenced by the amount of time it took someone to recognize that her columns sounded like Supreme Court opinions and Thanksgiving proclamations.

Instead, we want to remind Howie of the Washington Post's own adventures in "repeatedly fail[ing] to attribute material to a variety of sources," namely, the work of Blaine (not Blair) Harden. Why has Kurtz failed to mention of Mr. Harden's Poached Opus in his daily diary of journalistic theft?

Konflicted hacks should know better.

Of course, Ms. Hornstine's plagiarism was pretty atrocious. She even swiped part of a paper from a Berkeley think-tank with its own 51-foot sailboat. Even Doris Kearns Goodwin would be embarassed.