Tuesday Stuff

Mark this day on your calendars (h/t The Daily Kos)...



...and leave it to the Repugs to try and spoil the occasion...



...though the party out of power is no doubt an inspiration to these cretins, as Pap tells us...



...and this news flash: Michael Jackson is still dead (and yes, he received a very nice sendoff; wonder if these guys were influenced - maybe?).

Some “Fish-y” Palin and Sanford Fodder

I was honestly going to leave former “Governor Hottie” and Mark Sanford alone, which is particularly tough in Sanford’s case since, as noted here, he voted to impeach President Clinton over the business with Monica Whatsername, and he also excoriated fellow Repugs Rob Livingston and Larry Craig over their infidelities.

I was going to grumble and merely accept the rank hypocrisy of the fact that, as noted here, Sanford was censured by his own party in South Carolina, enduring the fate that Clinton should have endured for approximately the same offense (to say nothing of the fact Dem governors Jim McGreevey and Eliot Spitzer resigned and candidates John Edwards and Gary Hart saw their aspirations end as a result, while Sanford, John Ensign and “Diaper Dave” Vitter continue merrily on).

I really thought I would get past all of this, until I read Stanley Fish’s column in the New York Times today, in which he tells us…

I did not vote for Sarah Palin in the November election, and had I been a resident of South Carolina, I wouldn’t have supported Mark Sanford. But I find their failings and, in the case of Sanford, sins more palatable than the behavior of the pundits who are having so much fun at their expense.

Please note that Fish considers himself a columnist only and not necessarily a pundit, as if that actually makes a difference.

In the matter of Just Plain Folks Sarah in particular, Fish tells us as follows…

Palin had barely finished speaking when MSNBC paraded analysts from both sides of the aisle (Matt Lewis and Chris Kofinis) who agreed that (1) it was a disastrous performance and (2) they couldn’t for the life of them figure out why she had delivered it. Kofinis: “It’s hard to understand why she’s resigning.” Lewis: “What she’s essentially done is guarantee that no pundit could make any intellectual defense of her.”

Later, Joe Scarborough pronounced in the same vein: “It’s hard to find a compelling reason.” The former majority leader of her own party, Ralph Samuels, chimed in, “I’ve had a million calls today from friends, all political junkies, and everyone is asking the same questions. Is it national ambition, or does she want time to write the book, or is she just tired of it. Don’t have a clue.”

Maybe he should look at the video and pay attention this time to the reasons she gives. It is true that her statement was not constructed in a straightforward, logical manner, but the main theme was sounded often and plainly: This is not what I signed up for. I’m spending all my time and the state’s money responding to attack after attack and they aren’t going to let up because, “It doesn’t cost the people who make these silly accusations a dime.”

“Silly accusations,” huh? And Palin’s statement “was not constructed in a straightforward, logical manner”? Shocking!

I’ll tell you what, my fellow prisoners. Let’s review some recent history concerning Our Gal Sarah, Dontcha Know, and you can decide who is “silly” here and who isn’t.

This tells us that Palin lobbied against the stimulus before she saw a drop in oil-related revenue impacting her state.

This tells us about the wingnut Alaska cruise that first brought Palin to the attention of usual conservative media suspects such as Rich Lowry (ugh) and V.D. Hanson before she ended up as the VP nominee last year.

This tells us that, prior to her debate with fellow VP candidate Joe Biden last year, Palin couldn’t recall a single newspaper or magazine she’d ever read.

Among the wealth of information here, we learn that Palin said that Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac were “publicly owned” (they started out that way before they were privatized).

We also learned the following (here, from the once-credible Dana Milbank)…

Barack Obama, (Palin) told 8,000 fans at a (Florida) rally here Monday afternoon, "launched his political career in the living room of a domestic terrorist!" This followed her earlier accusation that the Democrat pals around with terrorists. "This is not a man who sees America the way you and I see America," she told the Clearwater crowd. "I'm afraid this is someone who sees America as imperfect enough to work with a former domestic terrorist who had targeted his own country." The crowd replied with boos.

…

Palin's routine attacks on the media have begun to spill into ugliness. In Clearwater, arriving reporters were greeted with shouts and taunts by the crowd of about 3,000. Palin then went on to blame Katie Couric's questions for her "less-than-successful interview with kinda mainstream media." At that, Palin supporters turned on reporters in the press area, waving thunder sticks and shouting abuse. Others hurled obscenities at a camera crew. One Palin supporter shouted a racial epithet at an African American sound man for a network and told him, "Sit down, boy."

Here is a tour de force Palin post by georgia10 of The Daily Kos, in which we’re reminded that Palin claimed to oppose the “Bridge to Nowhere” she once supported, managed to insert earmarks on behalf of her state with the help of a lobbyist to former Senator Ted “Tubes” Stevens, never issued a single order as the head of Alaska’s National Guard, managed to fire a longtime local police chief who ran afoul of her, etc.

And finally, this “Political Punch” post from Jake Tapper tells us of Palin’s encounter with the “Reverend” Thomas Muthee of Kenya, who “laid hands” on Palin in a church service to protect her from “witchcraft” (or as Bill Maher said on “Real Time” last year, “if Barack Obama were in this video instead of Palin, this election would be over”).

And it’s not as if Palin didn’t have her own defenders in the media, including Michael Barone, who claimed that “journalists” were attacking Palin because “She did not abort her Down’s syndrome baby” (nice).

Also, I’m not going to waste more space on Sanford than that which is absolutely necessary, since I already devoted a lot of space documenting what an awful governor he is here (and please, Governor, no more apologies, particularly for using state funds for your trips to Argentina – I’d prefer that you go, but if you stay, at least you’ll serve as a bad example...and how funny is it that, when Sanford served in the U.S. Congress in 1997, he "pointed to the U.S. embassy in Argentina as an example of wasteful State Department spending when he was trying to cut the department’s budget," as Politico tells us?).

The rest of Fish’s column is a bunch of navel-gazing about what Palin and Sanford’s true intentions supposedly are, as if anyone can divine that (I would say it’s merely survival for Sanford).

In Palin’s case, though, if this really is a case where she has had enough and that’s all there is, then she should also realize that, for reasons not entirely of her own choosing, she has exceeded any reasonable person’s wildest expectations of what she could have ever hoped to accomplish (oh, and by the way, here’s still more proof of how overmatched she was).

And by the way, if somehow she really is done (though I don’t think so), let this be her postscript.

Monday Stuff

Well, it's nice that Robert McNamara finally realized his mistakes in Vietnam (as he acknowledges in this C-SPAN interview with Brian Lamb), at least 30 years too late, though (and by the way, this story is true)...



Update 7/7/09: Here are more "fond recollections" with Joe Galloway, and a better retelling of the Martha's Vineyard Ferry story.

..."Worst Persons" (John Boehner decries the lack of "shovel-ready" stimulus projects, except the ones in his state of course; Flush Limbore proposes an armed insurrection against our government by Honduran rebels...uh, isn't that, like, incredibly illegal?; but the Duval County, FL Repug Party and their teabaggin' pals take it for more Obama-Hitler comparisons - ugh)...

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...I don't know if Allen Klein deserves a tribute song or not, but if one fit, I think this would be it...



...and oh yeah, time to rock...

More Dubya Mementos

(And I also posted here.)

The New York Times (via Think Progress) tells us here today that when Former President Highest Disapproval Rating In Gallup Poll History opens his library at Southern Methodist University in 2013, “visitors will most likely get to see one of his most treasured items: Saddam Hussein’s pistol.”

The Times also tells us that another library memento candidate could be “a brick from the Iraq safe house where the Qaeda leader Abu Musab al-Zarqawi was killed by an American air strike in 2006.”

I think it’s telling that no direct role was played by Dubya in acquiring these items (the story also tells us that, along with gifts donated to presidents, “sitting on John F. Kennedy’s desk in the Oval Office was a paperweight made from a coconut shell he had carved with a distress message after his PT-109 was sunk during World War II”).

With that in mind, I’d like to suggest these “additions” to Number 43’s SMU library…

A portion of the levee that ruptured along the Industrial Canal of New Orleans’ Ninth Ward during Hurricane Katrina in 2005 (the occasion of Dubya’s infamous “fly-over”)

A slice of the birthday cake Dubya presented to “Straight Talk” McCain on the occasion of the senator’s 69th birthday on an Arizona airport tarmac, which also occurred while New Orleans drowned (the cake reportedly melted in the heat)

A Florida voting ballot with a so-called hanging or partially perforated “chad” from 2000 during the contested election which made him president

A book of fart jokes to commemorate Dubya’s preoccupation with that genre of humor (Timothy Noah of Slate tells us that a “whoopee cushion” trick carried out against Karl Rove was postponed for two weeks in deference to the aftermath of the London al Qaeda bombings)

A manuscript of Dubya’s 2003 State of the Union address, one of the most grotesque examples of wall-to-wall lies ever foisted on this country

His ceremonial veto crayon, which he used only once before the Democrats took over Congress in 2006 – after that, he vetoed 11 bills until he left office last January

A copy of the Iraq Study Group report, issued in December 2006 after the Democrats had recaptured Congress, which recommended a “phased withdrawal” from that country and negotiations with Iran and Syria over Iraq; this was promptly ignored in favor of “the surge”

This is all I can think of for now. If I come up with anything else, I’ll update this accordingly.

Think Progress notes that historian Douglas Brinkley said Bush has “a True West magazine kind of pulp western mentality,” and I think that makes these items appropriate; I would tend to think “pulp” is an apt description also (as in the matter between his ears).

Fourth of July Stuff

Smart cat...



...don't worry - here they are (from 2005, recorded at Disney-MGM Studios in Walt Disney World, FLA).

Where The Rubber Meets The Road (7/4/09)

As reported in last Sunday's Philadelphia Inquirer, here is how Philadelphia-area members of Congress were recorded on major roll-call votes for the week ending Sunday June 28th.

House

Homeland-security budget: By a 389-37 vote, the House approved a $44 billion Department of Homeland Security budget for fiscal 2010, up 6.5 percent from 2009. The bill bars development of a national ID card, requires threat assessments of Guantanamo Bay prisoners, and prohibits spending to block individuals from importing FDA-approved drugs from Canada.

A yes vote was to pass the bill.

Voting yes: John Adler (D., N.J.), Robert E. Andrews (D., N.J.), Robert A. Brady (D., Pa.), Charles W. Dent (R., Pa.), Chaka Fattah (D., Pa.), Jim Gerlach (R., Pa.), Tim Holden (D., Pa.), Frank A. LoBiondo (R., N.J.), Patrick Murphy (D., Pa.), Joseph R. Pitts (R., Pa.), Allyson Schwartz (D., Pa.), Joe Sestak (D., Pa.), and Christopher H. Smith (R., N.J.).

Voting no: Michael N. Castle (R., Del.).

As noted here, the presence of language in the bill about barring development of a national ID card was in all likelihood the reason for Castle’s “No” vote here (no other information on his web site). And I realize the argument for this has some theoretical merit, but trying to implement this in the real world would be a nightmare (one of the reasons why I personally support licenses for illegal immigrants – we need to track these people somehow). Also, telling foreign nationals that they suddenly need an ID card to work and/or study here would exacerbate the “brain drain” that developed after 9/11 at a time when we can least afford it.

Air marshals budget. By a 134-294 vote, the House refused to cut spending in the Homeland Security Budget for the Federal Air Marshal Service from $860 million to $819 million. The agency's mission is to station armed marshals on an undisclosed number of passenger flights.

A yes vote was to cut the air marshals budget.

Voting yes: Castle, Pitts.

Voting no: Adler, Andrews, Brady, Dent, Fattah, Gerlach, Holden, LoBiondo, Murphy, Schwartz, Sestak, and Smith.

I’m hearing rumblings that Castle might make a run for the Senate in 2010. If he does, I can’t wait to hear him try to defend votes like this one.

Economic stimulus. By a 113-318 vote, the House refused to cut Department of Homeland Security spending by $2.7 billion, which is the amount of stimulus funds Congress added earlier this year to the department's budget.

A yes vote backed the spending cut.

Voting yes: Adler.

Voting no: Andrews, Brady, Castle, Dent, Fattah, Gerlach, Holden, LoBiondo, Murphy, Pitts, Schwartz, Sestak, and Smith.

I have to admit that it took a long time for John Adler to made a rookie mistake like this one (can’t find any further information to explain this).

2010 military budget. By a 389-22 vote, the House authorized a $680 billion military budget for fiscal 2010, including $130 billion for war in Iraq and Afghanistan and $9.3 billion for the National Missile Defense. The bill sets a 3.4 percent military pay raise, increases active-duty personnel by 40,200 troops to 1.4 million troops, and bars permanent U.S. military bases in Iraq.

A yes vote was to pass the bill.

Voting yes: Adler, Andrews, Brady, Castle, Dent, Fattah, Gerlach, Holden, LoBiondo, Murphy, Pitts, Schwartz, Sestak, and Smith.

Withdrawal from Afghanistan. By a 138-278 vote, the House defeated an amendment to the 2010 military budget requiring that the Defense Department report to Congress by the end of the year on any plans to withdraw U.S. troops from Afghanistan.

A yes vote backed the amendment.

Voting yes: Brady, Fattah, and Sestak.

Voting no: Adler, Andrews, Castle, Dent, Gerlach, Holden, LoBiondo, Murphy, Pitts, Schwartz, and Smith.

Here is a link to a congressional votes post from September ’06 where a measure calling for accountability from Dubya on Iraq was introduced in the Senate and defeated in a party line vote. I’m just trying to point out here how one party kept in lockstep with its commander in chief, as opposed to the Dems.

Yes, accountability is always a good thing, but, for better or worse, Obama has barely had time to do anything is Afghanistan. Do I personally agree with what he’s doing? Not completely. But all I’m saying is that he deserves a chance before politicians of his own party start hectoring him over withdrawing troops.

Interrogation videotapes. The House required, 224-193, the government to videotape all military interrogations, except during combat, and retain the tapes in a secured and classified repository. The amendment was added to the military budget bill.

A yes vote backed the amendment.

Voting yes: Adler, Andrews, Brady, Castle, Fattah, Murphy, Schwartz, Sestak, and Smith.

Voting no: Dent, Gerlach, LoBiondo, Holden, and Pitts.

Patrick once opposed this (here), but kudos for doing the right thing this time (and Castle looked like a chump earlier, but he does the right thing here; also, even though there’s a lot not to like about Chris Smith, he also keeps casting votes like this one).

Cap-and-trade energy package. The House voted, 219-212, to shift U.S. energy production and consumption from fossil fuels to renewable fuels while setting cap-and-trade rules to cut emissions linked to global warming.

A yes vote was to pass the measure.

Voting yes: Adler, Andrews, Brady, Castle, Fattah, LoBiondo, Murphy, Sestak, Schwartz, and Smith.

Voting no: Dent, Gerlach, Holden, and Pitts.

I weighed in on this earlier here (first item) – shocking that, except for the air marshals vote with Castle, Joe Pitts isn’t hanging out on a limb all by himself this week.

Senate

Tourism in America. By a 53-34 vote, the Senate failed to get 60 votes for ending a filibuster on a bill that would establish a federal corporation to increase foreign travel to the United States and expand Department of Commerce tourism programs.
A yes vote was to advance the bill.

Voting yes: Thomas Carper (D., Del.), Bob Casey (D., Pa.), Ted Kaufman (D., Del.), Frank Lautenberg (D., N.J.), and Robert Menendez (D., N.J.).

Not voting: Arlen Specter (D., Pa.).

Yeah, why the hell do we need to spend money on any stinkin’ tourists, particularly in light of this?

Harold Koh nomination. The Senate confirmed, 62-35, the nomination of Yale Law School Dean Harold Hongju Koh as the Department of State's top lawyer.

A yes vote was to confirm Koh.

Voting yes: Carper, Casey, Kaufman, Lautenberg, Menendez, and Specter.

Now that Koh is confirmed, hopefully Dawn Johnsen will be next.

Legislative branch budget. The Senate killed, 65-31, a motion to reduce the $3.12 billion legislative branch budget for fiscal 2010 to its 2009 level. The bill remained in debate.

A yes vote opposed a budget freeze at 2009 levels.

Voting yes: Casey, Carper, Kaufman, Lautenberg, Menendez, and Specter.

The Inquirer reports that Congress is now in a July 4th recess, with everyone scheduled to return to Washington next week.

Friday Stuff

Words can't express my shock over the news that Just Plain Folks Sarah Palin is resigning (and not even finishing out her term...???) - with that in mind, here once more is her interview in front of the turkey slaughtering processor, for the benefit for the half-dozen-or-so people on this planet who haven't seen this yet (there's a version out there with commentary by K.O., but I think the captions here are funnier)...



...Jon Stewart takes down that idiot Michael Scheuer for wishing another 9/11 on this country (Stewart's initial five-word reaction nails it - h/t The Daily Kos)...

The Daily Show With Jon Stewart	Mon - Thurs 11p / 10c
Osama bin Laden Needs to Attack America
www.thedailyshow.com
Daily Show Full Episodes Political Humor Jason Jones in Iran

...and time for a bit of summer fun...



...also, Happy Fourth, everybody.

Thursday Stuff

A word from our sponsor: the Friday area votes in Congress thing is on my "to do" list, but after that, I don't know what will be going on around here over the 4th and into next week. I'll keep you posted.

But in the meantime, let's kick start this baby...



...and memo to President Obama: sometimes worrying about setting a precedent isn't as important as doing the right thing, particularly when the Bushco cretins outed a patriotic American, Valerie Plame by name (David Shuster, sitting in for K.O., interviews Michael Isikoff)...

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...and RIP, Fayette Pinkney of The Three Degrees, pioneers of The Philly Sound (I don't think she was in this later incarnation of the group from '82, though)...



...and if Karl Malden had never acted in another movie besides this one, which of course is "On The Waterfront" with Eva Marie Saint, Lee J. Cobb, Rod Steiger and Marlon Brando from 1954, he would deserve a special place for it alone (particularly for this scene).

Lamenting “Polarization” With Bernie, Smerky And Irv

I really didn’t have a lot to say about the passing of local radio personality Irv Homer (pictured) last week except for a brief mention at the end of another post, but intrepid Philadelphia Daily News columnist Michael Smerconish had some words on the subject in his column today.

Homer held court on radio station WWDB in these parts, among other employment locations. And it was not uncommon for us in the Doomsy household to put the station on in the morning (we’re talking about the late ‘90s here) for news with Gil Gross and Pat Farnack, with Irv coming on at midday. After that, the lineup often changed, with a pair of talkers named Jay and Hilarie (?) followed by Kent Voss and Dr. Jim (God rest him). So basically, I can vouch for Smerky here when he says that Homer went back and forth between conservative and liberal viewpoints, being true to what he was, and that was a libertarian.

All of that went up in smoke the day before the 2000 presidential election, when Beasley Broadcasting bought the station and changed the format (one of many times) to all-80s hits (or, as I always tell the missus, you just can’t get enough of A Flock Of Seagulls – and I always wondered about the timing of that change).

And I probably would not have another word to say about any of this were it not for the fact that Smerky then used this as an excuse to note his recent conversation with one Bernard Goldberg (former CBS News correspondent and pathological liar), in which he tells us…

"What we have in this country is we have people who hang on every word" that people like Rush Limbaugh and Keith Olbermann say, Goldberg told me. The problem with that, he continued, is that "regular folks have now confused cable television with real life." They think America really is as divided as a split-screen TV - far from the truth, Goldberg noted.

And it becomes a self-fulfilling prophecy. Listeners and viewers become so dependent on the labels and ideology that they block out any personality or any show that doesn't fit neatly into one box or the other. Politicians and candidates for office play the game to get their name in the paper or on the on-screen graphic.

The shame of it is that these 24/7 split-screen kerfuffles serve only to shut down the important debates the country could be having on the important issues of the day. The end result is the snuffing out of nonpartisanship in this country.

Cue the tinny-sounding violin someone, please (as if either Goldberg OR Smerky would have a clue about “regular folks”).

Gee, I wonder if the reason why Goldberg lumped in K.O. with Flush Limbore here is that Olbermann busted Goldberg on taking a question from Charlie Rose to Tom Brokaw in an interview the former conducted with the latter, taking a completely different answer from Brokaw to another question and clipping the quote to boot, and putting them both together to make it sound like Brokaw was agreeing with Rose that “there’s a lot we don’t know” about Obama here?

Also, how sad is it that Goldberg ducked an interview with CNN’s Howard Kurtz, of all people (backgrounder here), here after Goldberg accused Kurtz of “being in the tank” for Obama?

And for more Bernard Goldberg nonsense, here is his claim that “left wingers” “threw Oreo cookies” at RNC chairman Michael Steele, and here is another bogus charge that neither Hillary Clinton nor Barack Obama, when they were running for president last year, condemned the “General Betray Us” MoveOn ad.

And as far as Goldberg’s book about the 100 people who are supposedly “screwing up America” (from 2005, with new Minnesota Senator Al Franken at number 37, I believe), this review from The Boston Globe tells us as follows…

In a similar vein, if Democratic Senators Ted Kennedy of Massachusetts and Robert Byrd of Virginia are ''screwing up America," hasn't Representative Tom DeLay (R-Texas) contributed at least a little? What about Representative Dan Burton (R-Indiana), the far-right conspiracy buff who once shot a pumpkin in his backyard to reenact the supposed murder of Clinton aide Vince Foster -- and has joined forces with the loony left to propagate the dangerous canard that vaccines cause autism?

And if Goldberg is going to throw the book at leftist academics, writers, and pundits who were quick to blame America for the terrorist attacks of Sept. 11, it's odd that evangelical ministers Jerry Falwell and Pat Robertson, who asserted that we brought it on ourselves by angering God with secularism, feminism, abortion, and gay rights, are let off the hook.

It’s also funny how we never heard the whining from Smerky and his pals about America being as “divided as a split-screen TV” when the Repugs just about wrecked our country when they were in charge from 2001 through 2006, isn’t it?

And it’s sad that Irv Homer can no longer “take to the mic” once more to say those very words, which I’m quite sure he would.

Update: God, is Kurtz a mess (here).

Wednesday Mashup (7/1/09)

(And I also posted here.)

This tells us the following…

GRANTS PASS, Ore. — A federal judge has struck down the Bush administration's change to a rule designed to protect the northern spotted owl from logging in national forests.

U.S. District Judge Claudia Wilken ruled from Oakland, Calif., on Tuesday that the U.S. Forest Service failed to take a hard look at the environmental impacts of changing the rule to make it easier to cut down forest habitat of species such as the spotted owl and salmon on 193 million acres of national forests.

"I am hopeful that this is the last nail in the coffin to (President George W.) Bush's assault on our public forests," said Pete Frost, an attorney for the Western Environmental Law Center in Eugene, which represented plaintiffs in one of two cases challenging the rule.

Amen to that; this is actually a follow up to this prior post, in which the Obama Administration…

…told a federal court that it will not defend the Bush administration's decision to cut back protections for the northern spotted owl.

…

Interior Department lawyers said in the motion that the decision was based on an inspector general's report finding there was political interference in owl protections by a former deputy assistant interior secretary.

And that person would be Julie MacDonald; the prior post gets into all of the gory details (the best that can be said for her is that she’s gone).

Here’s another item of interest…

WASHINGTON — A federal panel said Wednesday that a judge should reconsider the $110,000 in fines he levied against two companies in the 2002 Quecreek Mine accident.

The Federal Mine Safety and Health Review Commission's preliminary decision was in response to challenges by PBS Coals Inc. and Musser Engineering Inc. against the fines levied by an administrative law judge last fall. A federal safety panel had previously recommended lesser fines of $5,000 against each company.

As noted here…

In August 2003, the (U.S. Mine Safety and Health Administration) blamed the accident on inaccurate mine maps and said the companies could have done more to ensure the miners' safety. The safety administration had suggested PBS Coals and Musser Engineering were moderately negligent, but (Administrative Law Judge Robert) Lesnick found both companies "grossly negligent" (Lesnick said the companies played "Russian roulette" with the lives of the miners and exhibited a "very high level of negligence”).

(Federal Mine Safety and Health Review Commission) Chairman Michael Duffy said he was having "serious problems" with characterizing the actions of the companies as "gross negligence." He asked why the panel should not be influenced by considering what was standard operating procedures by companies involved in mining in Pennsylvania during the time period in question.

So it sounds like the federal panel is contemplating reinstating the fines that were originally referred to as “outrageous” by the United Mine Workers of America here in 2004.

And this post about the tragedy of the Sago Mine Collapse in West Virginia tells us the following (12 of the 13 mine workers were killed)…

A New York Times article dated August 9, 2004 detailed the Bush administration's close relationship with the coal mining industry. While the piece largely focused on environmental issues, it still makes it clear that (the) administration's concern for the health and safety of coal miners took a back seat to their concern for the bank accounts of their allies at the mining companies.

Given all of this, I cannot imagine how the existing judgments against PBS Coals and Musser Engineering can be overturned (well see what happens, though).

I also wanted to note that the acting governor of PA at the time, Mark Schweiker (pictured), did a commendable job of communicating news developments as the Quecreek drama unfolded (PA having learned its lesson in media disaster management after Three Mile Island – Schweiker assumed the role of governor after Tom Ridge was named to head the Department of Homeland Security in 2001). I often wondered if he would have beaten Ed Rendell in a head-to-head race for governor, but Schweiker opted out of public life to become president and CEO of the Greater Philadelphia Chamber of Commerce, leaving Attorney General Mike Fisher as the Repug standard bearer who would lose to Rendell in 2002.

You’re absolutely not going to believe this item from Baltimore Sun media critic David Zurawik, including the following…

Two weeks ago, I praised Fox News for being one of the only TV news operations seriously questioning the administration of President Barack Obama as it pushes an agenda of massive social change not seen since Franklin Roosevelt's New Deal.

Whatever the reasons for Fox's tenacity, I said, it is the one channel that seems absolutely committed to being a watchdog on the White House -- a job crucial to any notion of press responsibility.

It is to laugh, my fellow prisoners...

This tells us how, after enjoying exclusive coverage of Dubya, Fix Noise blasts ABC for last Wednesday's “infomercial” on health care.

Also, here is some typical Fix Noise punditry on the stimulus from Fred Barnes and Morton Kondracke...

BARNES: There's already a lot of stimulus in place. We have had gasoline prices that dropped like crazy, helping the poor and the middle class. Rich people don't get much more for that. Gas for their limos maybe doesn't cost as much. We've seen the Federal Reserve pumping all this money into banks, another $150 billion to go out. As we know, because there's a problem, there will be billions more after that. Look what the Federal Reserve is doing, it's buying up tens of billions of these mortgage securities. They're increasing the money supply. They're buying treasury bonds. There's a lot of stimulus out there. If you added some tax cuts, plus some spending to ease the pain of the recession, I think it would be great shape.

KONDRACKE: All that's being done and the economy is still cratering.

Here is still more from the recently sane Shep Smith...

Fox News' Shepard Smith falsely suggested that a $500 individual tax credit, reportedly included in President-elect Barack Obama's proposed economic recovery plan, would benefit people who don't currently pay taxes, asking, "I know we don't know the details yet, but $300 billion in tax cuts -- how do you cut taxes on people who don't pay taxes?" In fact, all American workers are required to pay taxes on their wages for Social Security and Medicare under the Federal Insurance Contributions Act.

And finally, I give you this...

Rep. Trent Franks (R-AZ) took the lies (about the stimulus) to a new level today when he — with the help of an enthusiastic Fox News’s Megyn Kelly — declared that the 2009 omnibus bill included funding for a train traveling straight from “Disney” to Nevada’s most famous brothel, the Moonlight Bunny Ranch (supposedly supported by Harry Reid, of course).

Thanks for playing our game, Dave - here are some lovely parting gifts...

And in a typical no-class move, Sen. Jim Inhofe said here that Al Franken, who was FINALLY proclaimed the winner of the Minnesota U.S. Senate race yesterday, was “a clown.”

This tells us that Inhofe “derailed a study on motorcycle safety by making sure it was to be conducted by an underfunded Oklahoma state agency.”

This tells us that, in his global warming denialist hysteria, he decried a children’s book on the subject published by one of the producers of An Inconvenient Truth.

This tells us that Inhofe claimed as follows…

WASHINGTON — U.S. Jim Inhofe, who earlier said a criminal investigation "probably should be'' conducted into allegations the EPA suppressed a climate change report, said Tuesday he is not qualified to make that determination.

…

In his interview with the Tulsa World on Tuesday, he also said that his own investigation into the matter has not uncovered anything that would warrant a criminal investigation.

This tells us Inhofe said "There has never been a documented case of torture at Guantánamo" and he also called Obama’s Cairo speech “un-American.”

Well, given a choice, all I can say is that I’d rather be a clown than an idiot.