Tuesday Mashup (6/14/11)

I have one word in response to this story – duuuhhh!!!

And this is what passes for editorial commentary on the Fix Noise web site, from the network that brought us such ingloriously chauvinistic moments as those noted here.

Oh, but don’t worry – there’s ample umbrage aimed at probably-soon-to-be-ex-Dem-House-Rep Anthony Weiner for his online stuff (Hey, Fox, I’ve got the proverbial “first stone” for you…and I’m pretty much on the fence with the Weiner thing anymore, considering as how fellow Repug Rep Chris Lee did the honorable thing and stepped down, even though David Vitter continues to take up space in the Senate…still can’t believe that a fighting Dem like Weiner is going down in flames over something he should have been smart enough to avoid).

(Oh, and by the way, concerning Fox, this is a great story on the demonic Roger Ailes in the latest issue of Rolling Stone.)

Before we leave the subject of the embattled New York congressman, I wanted to note this item in The Daily Tucker saying, more or less, that Weiner’s road to redemption is similar to the one followed by John Profumo, the former Secretary of State for War in the government of British Prime Minister Harold Macmillan in the 1960s…

A few days after the affair, (Profumo) showed up at the door of Toynbee Hall, a charitable mission in London’s east end, and asked if they might need any help. They assigned him to wash dishes and help with a children’s play group, which he did quite ably — for the next 40 years. He never again did anything in politics, commented in the press, or tearfully apologized on a TV show. He set himself on a course of redemption and charity and, one could fairly say, he succeeded at that task, at least in the eyes of those who mattered — his family, friends, and God. As well as anyone else who was paying attention.

So basically, as far as the wingnuts are concerned, Weiner must make amends for the utterly juvenile tactic of sending crotch shots of himself over Twitter by living a life of abject poverty.

Yeah, I think we’ve officially gone around the bend on this whole thing right about now.

It also needs to be pointed out, on behalf of The Daily Tucker’s Ike Brannon, that Profumo did not “(have) a fling with a comely KGB agent.” As Wikipedia tells us here, he had an affair with Christine Keeler, the reputed mistress of an alleged Russian spy (the whole thing is the subject of the entertaining film “Scandal” from the 80s, starring John Hurt, Ian McKellen, Joanne Whalley and Bridget Fonda, with the latter upstaging the former).

Also, did you know that 80 percent of U.S. mosques promote violent jihad, as noted here?

Don’t worry – as noted here about a comparable report…

The report attempts to establish a link between what it calls the “Shariah adherency” of the 100 mosques “surveyed” and the promotion of violent jihad. (The surveyors supposedly made two visits to each mosque and asked certain questions of the mosque leader.) But the survey was structured with highly dubious assumptions. The Shariah-adherency of a mosque was determined by observing a dozen externally detectible religious practices, such as whether imams wore beards, whether men and women were allowed to pray together, and whether worshipers were formed into straight lines. But this could easily be nothing more than a reflection of an imam’s respect for tradition, and not a “tell” tipping off a secret embrace of radical Islam.

Then, the mosque’s supposed willingness to promote violent jihad was evaluated by noting the presence or absence of certain pre-modern Islamic law texts, contemporary pamphlets, and whether, when asked, the mosque leader “recommended” those that contained calls to violent jihad. But this, too, is a weak and unreliable standard, as it equates the simple presence of certain material, or the imam’s recommendation of it, as an endorsement of the most violent passages. (If a priest or rabbi had a Bible on hand and “recommended” the reading of the Book of Leviticus, would that establish that he favors killing adulterers, idolaters and incorrigible children?)

And as Media Matters tells us here, the “80 percent” claim is just the latest announcement of an evergreen “zombie lie.”

Next, I don’t know about you, but I’ve been waiting anxiously to find out what our Repug PA-08 House Rep, “Mikey The Beloved” Fitzpatrick plans to do about jobs.

Well, as noted here, he plans to award a $1,000 tax credit to a business in Warminster for hiring a single employee.

…

I hope all of you nitwits who voted for this fraud last year are still pleased with yourselves.

Finally, I want to note that I recently watch the HBO production “Too Big To Fail” based on Andrew Ross Sorkin’s book about the 2008 financial meltdown from which we have yet to recover.

I think all of the performances were great, in particular William Hurt as Bushco Treasury Secretary Henry Paulson, Billy Crudup as New York Fed Chairman Tim Geithner, Paul Giamatti as Fed Chairman Ben Bernanke, Tony Shalhoub as John Mack, Chairman of Morgan Stanley, and James Woods as Richard Fuld, Chairman of Lehman Brothers. I particularly liked some of the interaction between Hurt and Giamatti as they almost tried to out-deadpan each other while everything unravels.

Woods gets a chance here to do what he does best, and that is to chomp on the scenery big time as Fuld, and as I watched Woods’ portrayal, I thought to myself that Fuld must have been good at something, or else he wouldn’t have ended up in charge, even though he ends up committing an unending series of mistakes and miscalculations. And when Lehman goes down, Paulson is at first staggered, but then he ends up benefitting from some favorable press about “taking Wall Street to the woodshed” or something; his reverie is short lived, though, as the market begins falling even faster after Lehman goes under (and Paulson faces fire from overseas banks also as a result).

Another fine performance comes from Matthew Modine as John Thain of Merrill Lynch, someone who emerges as particularly detestable when he announces arrogantly (though correctly, as it turns out) that Lehman is “dead,” and Thain also ends up questioning Paulson and Bernanke over the issue of compensation when Thain is basically told to sign off on TARP, leading to a firm smack down by Bernanke (I can’t recall the name of the actor who played former SEC Chairman Christopher Cox, but I thought he did a good job of showing Cox as a truly spineless individual, particularly in the showdown with Lehman).

The problem I have with this, though, really goes back to Sorkin (who appears in a vanity moment asking Paulson a question at a press conference). I have no grounds to question any of the facts that he presents here, but I could not help but feel that he was waaay too deferential to these people, particularly Paulson and Bernanke and, to a lesser extent, Lloyd Blankfein of AIG Goldman Sachs. Sorry, but I absolutely refuse to believe that even Bushco didn’t have any idea just how toxic the crap was that our geniuses in finance were peddling, and to hear Sorkin tell it, the fallout caught everyone utterly by surprise – again, that may be a spot-on retelling, but it doesn’t sit right with me.

It’s kind of a shame that the only sympathetic viewpoint from the audience here is expressed by two relatively minor players, though they were good also (Topher Grace and Cynthia Nixon portraying individuals on Paulson’s staff). I think the fact that they were the only people who apparently represented the actual interests of taxpayers here is symptomatic of the problem.

The movie ends with TARP getting passed and Paulson and company wondering if it will be used for its intended purpose. I actually supported it partly because then-Congressman Patrick Murphy said it was necessary to unfreeze credit markets, and also because I thought it would be accompanied by some effective mortgage modification on behalf of “underwater” consumers. More fool me, I guess.

I won’t make that mistake again. If God forbid we’re faced with another crisis like this, then just nationalize the bastards and throw all of these criminals out into the street.