Wednesday Mashup (10/28/09)

So House Minority Leader John (“Man Tan”) Boehner says that it’s “time to get down to business” here, huh?

Well, after reading this, I should say that I’m more in favor of honoring Confucius than a bunch of teabaggers (and honoring this, by the way?).

And claiming that the Dems are “wasting everyone’s time” is really rich from the party that brought us the following, when they ran the happily-now-long-gone 109th Congress (here).

At least I hope Boehner doesn’t hook his drive into the sand trap. I’d hate to see those fashionable sneakers of his get all dirtied up.

And I guess this is the point where he says, “now watch this drive,” just like his old boss.

I gotta tell ya’, RNC Chair Mike (“What’s Up?”) Steele just makes my job too easy sometimes (here)…

The Republican National Committee (RNC) demanded an investigation into a report published in The Washington Times that top donors to the Democratic National Committee (DNC) had been rewarded with access to privileged White House tours, behind-the-scenes briefings and other perks.

RNC Chairman Michael Steele said that the White House had effectively become a "full-service resort" during Obama's tenure, likening the alleged access to the benefits former President Bill Clinton had offered to some friends and top donors during his time in office.

"The seriousness of this issue requires an immediate investigation looking into the degree and details of fundraising efforts between the White House and DNC, whether there was any quid pro quo offered to donors, and the names of White House officials who were involved in such activities," Steele said Wednesday in a statement.

And we know what a thoroughly credible source the “Moonie Times” is, don’t we (smirk)…

Well then, I would ask that you consider the following (from here)…

A London newspaper's report that a Houston lobbyist promised to arrange meetings with top Bush administration officials in exchange for a large donation to the George W. Bush presidential library set off a flurry of denials Monday from Dallas to Washington.

A story in The Sunday Times of London – complete with online video from a hidden camera – triggered the dust-up. Under a headline that said, in part, "a hotshot lobbyist who can get you into the White House," the newspaper detailed a meeting between Stephen Payne, a lobbyist and Republican donor, and two men he supposedly thought were acting on behalf of the exiled former president of Kyrgyzstan.

In the meeting at an exclusive London hotel, the story said, Mr. Payne was told that the former president of the central Asian state, Askar Akayev, wanted to rehabilitate his image abroad. Mr. Payne indicated "some things could be done" with top Washington officials, and he suggested that the Akayev family contribute to the Bush library, The Times reported.

Tee, hee, hee (and by the way, by saying any of this, I don’t mean to imply that Steele is credible against Obama in any way here).

I can’t tell you how many times I heard Republicans screaming about President Clinton supposedly providing access to the Lincoln bedroom for high-rolling campaign donors way back when (and please remind me once more why I should have ever cared, and not that I did?). And this is just an updated version of that ridiculous tactic.

This is called “a thoroughly compromised minority party has no inclination whatsoever to help this country solve its myriad problems left over from the previous administration, so it decides to play partisan games instead,” with the willing collaboration of the right-wing media echo chamber.

This supposed “scandal” is deflating even as I type this. I’ll just wait patiently for the next one to experience a similar fate.

Update: More from Media Matters here...

And finally, former Laura Bush employee Andrew Malcolm tells us of the following here…

Obama wasn't backing off his war of necessity argument (concerning Afghanistan) in a Florida speech to sailors and Marines earlier Monday (full text here), the necessity being to deny Afghanistan as Al Qaeda's safe haven to repeat the 9/11 attacks.

A major new troop surge (adding to the 68,000 U.S. troops already there) would anger the Democratic left, which Obama needs for the healthcare vote, especially if he gives up on the public option. And the left is already impatient about other issues, including the promised but continually delayed abolition of don't ask-don't tell.

I’ve already pointed out numerous times that the public option is favored by almost all Democrats, most independents, and even some Republicans, so I’m not wasting any more time with that. However, I should note from here that Col. Lawrence Wilkerson (ret.), former chief of staff to Colin Powell (and hardly a Democrat), said that DADT should be repealed “immediately.”

Back to Malcolm…

The need for unifying distractions could help explain all these gratuitous....fights with Fox News and the Chamber of Commerce. And the Washington Post report(ed) (yesterday) morning the first known resignation of a State Department official in disagreement with the administration's war handling.

Yes, but after reading this, you would think that the official, former Marine Corps captain Matthew Hoh, resigned because of President’s Obama’s supposed “dithering” on troop levels.

In fact, as noted from here, Hoh resigned for a very different reason…

…last month, in a move that has sent ripples all the way to the White House, Hoh, 36, became the first U.S. official known to resign in protest over the Afghan war, which he had come to believe simply fueled the insurgency.

"I have lost understanding of and confidence in the strategic purposes of the United States' presence in Afghanistan," he wrote Sept. 10 in a four-page letter to the department's head of personnel. "I have doubts and reservations about our current strategy and planned future strategy, but my resignation is based not upon how we are pursuing this war, but why and to what end."

(And we know how this movie ends, so to speak, don't we, people?)

The fact that Malcolm didn’t bother to do some rather easy verification here leads me to believe that, as Media Matters observed previously here, that he must be bored with his job.

Well then, please allow me to echo the following sentiments from MM below…

...here's a suggestion, Mr. Malcolm: Quit. Do it now. Hand in your press pass. There are plenty of out-of-work and soon-to-be-out-of-work-reporters who actually give a damn and who won't have any trouble staying awake for a presidential press conference and who are capable of producing a substantive article that will actually help readers understand what is happening in the world, instead of simply whining that they are insufficiently stimulated. Let one of them have your job. Take up skydiving or running with the bulls or whatever it takes to get you sufficiently excited, and let serious people do your serious job.

Also, Malcolm could actually try interviewing someone from “the left,” instead of merely writing about us in the abstract. He really should because he doesn’t have anything to fear.

We don’t bite – much.