Beck’s Dreck Taints “The Most Trusted Name In News”

I guess CNN believes that they must cater to some truly demented audience demographic out there and give page space to Glenn Beck, though why any adult with a double-digit IQ would bother to take Beck seriously is a never-ending mystery to me.

My instincts got the better of me, though, and I actually read some of his opining today along the lines of “gee, I just don’t know who I’m going to vote for in this election, because no candidate is ‘conservative’ enough for me…I only know that BARACK OBAMA IS A DIRTY LIBERAL (whisper, whisper, threatening, uppity Negro, wants to $#@! your white sister, whisper, whisper, really a SCARY MUSLIM!!, whisper, whisper), and I’ll NEVER vote for him and neither should you” (whisper, whisper, SCARY, ELITIST MUSLIM!!, whisper, whisper).

Well anyway, Beck ticks off the list of candidates and rambles about them, but as I looked over his drivel (and did a search just to make sure I was right), I noticed that Beck omitted a highly notable name.

And that would be Alan Keyes (gee, you’d think Beck would at least do a bare minimum of research before he decided to “gather his source material” by apparently gazing at his navel for an extended period of time).

As you can read here, Keyes has a pedigree that would be attractive to Beck. Under The Sainted Ronnie R, Keyes served as deputy chairman of the delegation to the 1984 World Population Conference in Mexico City, and in that capacity, he negotiated the language of the Mexico City Policy to withhold federal funds from international organizations that support abortion. And when he ran for the U.S. Senate for the state of Maryland, he took a $8,463/month salary from his campaign fund.

Even better is the notion of a “revenge factor” in supporting Keyes, since he was defeated in his run for an Illinois U.S. Senate seat (the Washington Post called Keyes a “carpetbagger” since he’d never lived in Illinois) by none other than (you guessed it) Barack Obama.

Now it’s true that Keyes isn’t really officially sanctioned by a political party at this point, but he apparently is trying to drum up support in California (kind of an odd strategy for someone who was once an avowed conservative), but I’m sure an endorsement by Beck would help that along. After all, a tortoise moves faster than a snail, doesn’t it?

And finally, I present as evidence this interview Beck conducted with conservative scholar (tongue firmly in cheek here) and writer Mark Steyn, who said conservatives should “get behind Alan Keyes or shoot ourselves.”

So please allow me to do here what Glenn Beck should have done, and that’s to help drum up support for Alan Keyes.

I believe this would have the effect of weeding out and neutralizing some of the mental misfits who give credence to Beck’s opinions by ensuring that they vote for Keyes, thus making it more likely that the most important election of our lifetimes will be decided by actual grownups voting for the most legitimate candidate instead.

Update 8/1/08: As a mea culpa of sorts, I should point out (as noted in the comments) that Beck doesn't have a recent history of spreading Obama smears about wanting to $#@! your white sister, or words to that effect (though, as Josh Marshall noted here, that narrative is clearly emerging from people who are kindred spirits to Beck).

However, Beck entertained Mann Coulter here and allowed her to refer to Obama as a "Manchurian candidate" without a word of protest, and Beck himself referred to Obama as "the antiChrist" here. Also, Beck referred to Obama as "colorless" here, which, while maybe not too offensive, was pretty dumb anyway, and Beck pulled a sneak attack against Dem Rep. Keith Ellison here, accusing him of being a "scary Muslim." So basically, anyone defending Beck barely has a leg to stand on.

Update 1 8/6/08: He's at it again - can a whole, fresh cycle of trolling comments be far behind?

Update 2 8/6/08: By the way, jarabefull left the following comment that I approved; don't know why it didn't show up...

"All I am really trying to get across is a point that Mitt Romney made. He said that bias is shallow thinking. Read widely, particularly from people who disagree with you. Argue to learn rather than to win. If you don't respect, I mean really respect, the views of people who disagree with you, then you don't understand them yet. There are smart people on both sides of almost every important issue. Learn from them all.

You can't do that when you just categorize people as clueless and bullies and unpatriotic. When you do, YOU are the one putting up a wall of misunderstanding that makes it hard to create any real progress.

Glenn Beck, Al Gore, Reverend Sharpton and even Ron Paul all have something we can learn from."

To which I replied...

"Hard for me to respect someone who threatened to kill a person he disagreed with, which apparently is fine with you, but otherwise your point is well taken."

That was being overly kind as far as I'm concerned (and quoting The Mittster??); as this point "uppity Negro who wants to $#@! your sister" is the only negative thing Beck HASN'T said about Obama.

Wednesday Stuff

This news report on Jim Adkisson, the deranged individual who killed two people at the Tennessee Valley Unitarian Universalist Church, informs us that high on Adkisson's reading list were Michael Savage, Sean Hannity and Billo himself with their screeds against liberals (more info here - congratulations, you sick frauds; now your garbage is getting people killed)...



...and uh, excuse me, but I think Senator McBush needs to take a look in the mirror the next time he imagines that a presidential candidate besides himself has anything in common with Britney Spears (h/t The Daily Kos; apparently, Obama already has a response, which is typical for his generally sharp campaign, and I'll keep an eye out for it)...



Update 7/31/08: Welcome back to "fighting the good fight," Jake - well done (h/t Atrios).

...and Charles Krauthammer gets the nod from K.O. here for "Worst Person In The World" for his dig at Obama's speech in Berlin, even though Patrick Pogan, Jr., the "clothesline cop," is a very close second IMHO...



...and I am absolutely bound and determined to try to work some music videos in again, even though I won't be able to do it in batches like I used to, and with that goal in mind, here's a neat little YouTube gem from axelmaes for "Crash Into The Sun" by Jim White.

Wednesday Mashup (7/30/08)

I came across two of these items last week that I haven’t seen in posts anywhere, so here is my commentary, for whatever it’s worth (with a third thrown in from yesterday).

For anyone who thought that Bushco would treat the whole FISA fiasco as a “one-and-done” on the issue of immunity from prosecution for negligence, I give you this story in which FEMA is seeking the same thing on the matter of people sickened by the formaldehyde in the trailers the agency provided for the victims of Hurricanes Katrina and Rita.

See, the branch of Bushco formerly run by Mike (“Horsey Time”) Brown thinks that the contractors they hired should face litigation and not the agency itself…yeah, that’s the ticket…sure (dated comedy reference, sorry).

And by the way, good luck trying to get these contractors to help our government again after Bushco left them high and dry (sorry), or, you could say, sold them down the river (oops – sorry again…honestly can’t think of other ways to put it).

And when I think of the fact that a legislative precedent now exists for FEMA to fall back on due to FISA, I can only present this graphic once more in response.

Heckuva job, Congress.

And in another shining example of stupidity by our ruling cabal, voter registration drives have been banned from VA facilities (from here)…

The policy, called Directive 2008-025, prohibits voter-registration drives at all VA facilities and hospitals.

VA officials said the policy is intended to prevent disruptions and ensure that the VA doesn't get caught up in partisan politics.

"It's totally ridiculous," (Dem Philadelphia U.S. House Rep Bob) Brady said. "We're talking about having bonafide nonpartisan organizations going in and helping soldiers register or get absentee ballots, and they won't allow it."

Matt Smith, the VA's deputy assistant secretary for public affairs, said in a statement that the VA isn't in a position to "examine the agenda, history and motivations of every organization" that wants to hold registration drives at VA facilities.

Translated: we’re not going to “support the troops” because we believe that, due to the pain they’ve suffered from Dubya’s disastrous war of choice in Iraq, they’re going to have the proverbial heads of the Repugs, as it were, this November, and we’re not going to do a damn thing that will make that any easier.

Ideologues to the bitter end…

And in keeping with that theme, I present this San Diego Union-Tribune story telling us that Bushco’s Transportation Secretary Mary Peters has proposed a new plan for funding of our highways (hint: it poses a threat to the environment, of course)…

(Peters) said the scheme plan would reduce the 13-year average it now takes to build (highways and transit projects). It also promises a renewed focus on maintaining and expanding federal highways instead of diverting funds to other projects.

She also called for Congress to revamp the “antiquated” gas tax, which she said results in less revenue for transit because it relies on volatile fuel prices.

…

Environmental activists quickly raised a red flag, saying the plan would eliminate the Congestion Mitigation and Air Quality program, a key air pollution project.

“It's a little bit surprising that they would go so far as wanting to abolish a critical part of the Clean Air Act,” said Frank O'Donnell, president of Clean Air Watch. “The message they are sending is they want money going for asphalt rather than clean air.”

Peters said the funding that would go to the program would instead be funneled into a pool that cities could use as they wish. Cities struggling to meet clean air guidelines could use their share to reduce pollution, while others could expand transportation.

By now, there are certain words or phrases that, though they are part of our lexicon, should automatically invoke a response not unlike that of the “DANGER WILL ROBINSON!!” gyrations of Bob May’s robot on “Lost In Space” (hey, I haven’t sneaked in a “boomer” reference for a little while now, OK?). One of those is “deregulation of markets.” Another would be anything whatsoever indicating that federal monies will be distributed to states or other localities to do with as they please (either in the form of block grants or other appropriations), since that inevitably means that at least some of that funding will be misspent. And this is a perfect example.

Also, I really don’t understand why Mr. O’Donnell would actually be surprised by the antics of Peters on behalf of her ideologue handlers in the White House. How much more evidence do you need that the environment isn’t even an afterthought to Incurious George and his puppet masters?

And finally, this story gives me an opportunity to plug this site, which I am only too happy to do. There are just way too many Bushco bottom feeders out there to go after for me or anyone to tackle by ourselves, and to say that Peters has a checkered history is an understatement.

The Latest Lies From Dana Perino

On the one hand, I suppose it’s pretty miraculous that our lap dog White House press corps (with the notable exception of Helen Thomas) even bothered to ask Bushco about the internal investigation that discovered the long-known-but-not-quite-so-thoroughly-proven politicization of the Justice Department under Abu Gonzales and his mindless functionary Monica Goodling at all (here).

However, that in no way excuses the following…

Q Dana, what's your reaction to the Justice Department report where they -- the report essentially says, yes, that there was inappropriate influence on politics and ideology that was part of our hiring and firing practices?

MS. PERINO: Well as I have read the coverage of it -- I haven't read the report, but as I read the coverage of it, there's obviously information in there that would cause concern to anybody. And we agree with Michael Mukasey that -- the Attorney General -- that there was concern. There should be concern any time anyone is improperly using politics to influence career decisions. We believe that is improper. We could absolutely not defend that. And we are pleased that the Attorney General has taken steps to change it there at the Justice Department.

Uh…not exactly.

The New York Times recently opined as follows about this (here)…

The details of what the investigators found were appalling, and Attorney General Michael Mukasey’s response was disgracefully lukewarm. If he hopes to leave office with any sort of reputation for integrity, he needs to get serious about punishing this sort of wrongdoing.

The report, prepared by the department’s Office of Professional Responsibility and Office of the Inspector General, does not delve deep enough. There is much more work to be done. But even this dip into the murky waters of the Justice Department found that senior officials took into account applicants’ political views in hiring United States attorneys and other nonpolitical positions. This, the report said, “violated federal law and department policy, and also constituted misconduct.”

…

Mr. Mukasey’s response to the report focused on making sure that the improper and illegal activity “does not occur again.” He does not seem to understand that, as the nation’s top law enforcement officer, he has a duty to investigate crimes committed in his own department and to punish the offenders. The report’s authors could not interview Ms. Goodling because she no longer works at the Justice Department. Mr. Mukasey, who has subpoena power, presumably could get her to talk — as well as Mr. Rove, Ms. Miers and all of the others who need to testify under oath before this matter can be put to rest.

The strength of American democracy depends on our ability to be shocked by abuses like these — and to punish them appropriately.

You may now return to your regularly scheduled propaganda.

Barely Even Worth The Bother Anymore

This item from Political Radar tells us that George W. Milhous Bush recently appeared at a speaking engagement in Cleveland, Ohio, and, instead of reciting his canned spiel and then departing the stage, he actually decided to linger and take questions from the audience.

The only problem is that his audience didn’t have anything to ask him, so he started waxing philosophic about a rainbow he saw in Bucharest, Romania instead (yawn).

Well, I have a question for His Irrelevancy; why have you held 32 of your last 36 campaign fundraisers behind closed doors (as noted in this New York Times story of Dubya campaigning for Repug Aaron Schock of Illinois, who is running for the U.S. House to replace retiring Repug Ray LaHood...and no wonder the child is crying; the parent who permitted that should be slapped).

Is it because you finally realize what an utter embarrassment you are based on the cringing acknowledgement of your presence from nearly everyone, and you don’t want anyone else to notice that either (as if you could hide it)?

173 days and counting, people…

Update: Actually, I wished someone had asked Dubya about this. After all, these are two topics he knows about.

An Advertisement For Failure

In yesterday’s Philadelphia Inquirer, writer Jeff Hurvitz tries to make a case here for allowing Unisys Corp. to place its sign amidst the downtown Philadelphia skyline, and he also tells us…

The request by Unisys to display its name near the top of the building that will house its world headquarters - Two Liberty Place - was met by a strong opposition during hearings with the Philadelphia Zoning Board of Adjustment last week. A follow-up hearing is scheduled for September.

It is imperative that the board approve that request.

Residents who recently bought condos in the otherwise commercial use structure are contending that the 11-foot-high letters will detract from the aesthetics of the structure and thus reduce the value of their investments. To call this massive building a "residential community" is like calling a horse a cow, simply because it can supply milk.

In legal terms it is called caveat emptor - buyer beware. For the few to stymie the benefit of the many is absurd.

And aside from impugning those who actually had the audacity and bad business sense to buy property in the same building where Unisys proposes to hoist their hideous signage, Hurvitz takes a potshot at those “twentysomethings” who find it “hip” to leave Philadelphia and look for better employment elsewhere.

(Before I continue, though, this disclosure and a mea culpa; family members of yours truly work in the sign-making industry, and I don’t know if they have a contract with Unisys or not. My criticism isn’t with their work, but with the aesthetics of the Unisys logo, which I always though unintentionally showcased the amateurism of the company as a whole. And I apologize in advance for any possible negative economic impact upon any party noted by reference or association in this post, but I feel like I have to say this.)

On the matter of employment, the Inky tells us here that Bushco’s Bureau of Labor Statistics tells us that area employment was up slightly in May, though, as McClatchy tells us here, our ruling cabal has effectively managed to hide the numbers of long-term jobless in their doctored figures. Regardless, it’s childish for anyone to impugn anyone of any age group for trying to better their careers by leaving this area (trying to find recent employment numbers by region in this country and having some difficulty – I’ll keep looking).

But the real issue I have with allowing the Unisys signage atop Two Liberty Place really doesn’t have anything to do with the aesthetics of the sign (bad as they are) and the pain it would inflict on those unfortunate enough to live there.

It is the fact that Unisys is an awful company (I ripped into them here, with a post title that was meant as a parody of their advertising slogan at that time), and if I were Mayor Michael Nutter, I wouldn’t want to allow them free advertising and thus besmirch the city’s name in the process. They bled capital and slashed their workforce for years before they realized some recent growth through expansion of consulting services and (you guessed it) offshoring.

Trying to fend off charges of provincialism and imagining some benefit for “the many” by granting Unisys some primo publicity far into the future are hardly justifications for allowing this ludicrous request (at least Comcast, with their many faults, isn’t a quarter or two away from a slide into the financial abyss).

As many of us know, Unisys was formed by the utterly mindless merger of Sperry and Burroughs many years ago in a move by Michael Blumenthal to get rich off the new company’s inflated stock price. The end result was not unlike “putting perfume on a pig,” which is what this corporate mistake remains to this day, regardless of how it is “branded.”

Tuesday AM Stuff

"The Pap Attack" tells us who's responsible for trying to kill "green" automotive technology (by the way, we saw "smart cars" all over the place at MVY last week - more of those insidious liberals actually trying to better all of our lives by being eco-friendly)...



...and yeah, I've beaten some of this stuff to death, but I still thought this was a funny vid of Sen. McBush (hat tips to The Jed Report and The Daily Kos)...



...and so truthful McCain is, of course; sorry I don't have the ad in question at the moment...



Update 1: More "straight talk" from "Senator Honor And Virtue" here (or, to paraphrase Atrios, McBush is happy to portray Obama as a presumptuous and arrogant African American who seeks to have relations with your female sibling).

Update 2: More on the original ad here...

...oh, and I mustn't forget that little development with the senior Repug senator from Alaska yesterday; here is my "tribute" once more, with Stevens "explaining" a modern marvel of technology (h/t The Daily Kos).

"Milk"-ing Intolerance

If nothing else, this demonstrates that there’s no vacation for gay bashing and other forms of discrimination.

As the PFAW post tells us…

Religious Right groups are voicing their opposition to efforts to honor gay rights activist Harvey Milk: "'What significant contribution did Harvey Milk bring to the state of California – other than encouraging gay people to come out of the closet?' asked Benjamin Lopez of the Traditional Values Coalition. 'This is yet another example of them trying to normalize and force acceptance of the gay lifestyle upon people,' he said…

God, this stuff is tiresome.

This Wikipedia article about Milk tells us that, aside from the fact that he was San Francisco’s first openly gay city supervisor (and a rather shameless self promoter, though he was admirably tongue-in-cheek about it), he was also a tireless community organizer, building a coalition from labor unions and neighborhood groups to replace the city-wide elections with district elections (as the Wikipedia article tells us). And he did so with the specter of death threats overshadowing him constantly.

As we also learn from the article, the effect of the change to district elections was to elect the most diverse board of supervisors the city had ever seen.

Also, as a result of the assassination of Milk and former San Francisco Mayor George Moscone by former supervisor Dan White (who infamously employed what came to be known as the “Twinkie defense,” committing these acts supposedly because he’d consumed too much junk food), the “diminished capacity” defense for capital crimes in California was eliminated (a legal footnote that deserves to be mentioned).

And as far as Milk’s legacy is concerned, the following paragraph barely scratches the surface…

Milk "profoundly influenced gay and lesbian politics, and was also a champion of human rights".[1] He was named in the "Heroes & Icons" section of Time magazine's Time 100: The Most Important People of the Century. Many institutions and organizations are named for Milk, including the Harvey Milk Recreational Arts Centre, Harvey Milk Civil Rights Academy, the Harvey Milk Institute, the Eureka Valley/Harvey Milk Memorial Branch Library, and the Harvey Milk LGBT Democratic Club in San Francisco.

Truth be told, though, I have to tell you that, after considering Milk’s life and his enduring imprint on our politics in this country, I have to reluctantly say that I don’t think he deserves a day for commemoration either.

Actually, I think he deserves an entire month (on behalf of himself and all gay, lesbian and LBGT individuals). And I’ll really be interested to find out more on this upcoming movie about him starring Sean Penn in the title role.

Oh, and speaking of San Francisco, how curious is this anyway?

The Courier Times Concocts Nader Nonsense (And More)

I admit that I haven’t had anything to say about the Bucks County Courier Times for awhile, even before we left town. And that is because it has given me very little reason to do so, seeing as how all it does anymore is recycle the same old, less-and-less-relevant freeper agit prop, either from its usual litany of right-wing shills or (mostly) from its reader correspondence.

Today, though, the paper leapt to the defense of perennially losing Democratic presidential nominee Ralph Nader, and it’s going to take a bit of ‘splaining to tell you why.

As the editorial notes, the “Bonusgate” scandal is currently under investigation in our beloved PA commonwealth, highlighted by “grand jury revelations of political work conducted with taxpayers' money,” according to the Philadelphia Inquirer here.

More specifically…

The grand jury report, released by Attorney General Tom Corbett (earlier this month), alleges that former House Minority Whip Michael Veon of Beaver County ran a statewide political operation out of his Capitol and district offices involving hundreds of legislative workers on the House Democrats' payroll.

One of the House Democrats' most visible targets was Nader, who in 2004 was seeking to challenge Democrat John Kerry as well as President Bush. As many as 50 Pennsylvania House staff members worked on a challenge to Nader's ballot petition, and more than half received state-funded bonuses, in part for their "Nader efforts," according to the report.

Even though there may be a link between “Bonusgate” (yes, I hate that four-letter suffix also) and Nader’s failed 2004 candidacy, that doesn’t change the following facts as noted by the Inquirer…

A decision by Commonwealth Court, upheld by the state Supreme Court, found that most of the signatures for Nader were invalid.

…

Abe Amoros, spokesman for the Pennsylvania Democratic Party, said the grand jury report did not "exclude the fact that Ralph Nader and Carl Romanelli (the Green Party candidate in the 2006 U.S. Senate race won by Bob Casey) falsified their nominating petitions."

"I fail to see how this is the responsibility of the Democratic Party," he said. "They are rehashing their own inadequacies and their own incompetence to get on the ballot."

Exactly.

And the Courier Times tells us in the editorial that “We don't know how many of the signatures Nader collected were no good,” even though they state earlier in their own editorial that “Nearly two-thirds of Nader's signatures were declared invalid.”

It is to laugh, my friends (oops…a little “McBush” sneaked in there).

Also, as long as I’m on the subject of Bucks County’s conservative newspaper of record, I’d like to pose a question: whose bright idea was it to either reduce the point size of the newspaper’s text type or change the leading, thus making the paper harder to read? Are you trying to reduce your own circulation?

Also (again), as long as I’m talking about matters pertinent to Bucks County, I have to point out that, unless he gave a speech or public pronouncement of some type while we were away, I should note that Tom Manion is running the most mysterious campaign for the U.S. Congress that I have ever seen, in an effort to unseat Patrick Murphy that is looking less and less likely to succeed.

I know of no time (except for the kickoff press conference at his house) that this man has spoken in a public forum or addressed a group of individuals on any issue or cause whatsoever. And I don’t think it should be incumbent upon yours truly to do the legwork and seek out his web site absent any coverage in the “traditional” print media. Hell, even Mikey Fitzpatrick wrote Guest Opinions regularly; I know I shot a few of them full of holes, but at least he told us what he believed and what was going on, however bad the information was and/or however wrong he was on the issues.

I know Tom Manion is a brave man, and he certainly isn’t dumb. But when a purported candidate for Congress is reduced to merely naysaying against the Democratic incumbent in response to the most important issues we face (the war and the economy, including the price of gas, among others) then he does a disservice not only to himself, but more importantly, to the voters he would serve in Washington.

An "Old Gray Lady" Obama-Rama Sneak Attack

As we romped on the beaches of Lobsterville, Aquinnah and Squibnocket (public after 5 PM) last week, I must confess that I missed Barack Obama’s Berlin speech, which is my loss I know (though I was able to browse over BoBo’s hit job on it in the New York Times last week…if you choose to subject yourself to it, please do so from here).

And in case you missed out on it, Mark Leibovich (who wrote a tremendous article on Tweety noted here) joined in the Obama-bashing fun yesterday also, comparing the imagery of the presumptive Dem nominee’s overseas travels to that of “Senator Honor And Virtue” here…

The journeys provided a roving platform for the candidates to mimic the “official” conventions of a commander in chief. Mr. Obama set forth on his European and Middle Eastern tour accompanied by 12 foreign policy advisers and a virtual army of men wearing earpieces that approached presidential levels. He was ferried through the streets of Amman, Jordan, in a 20-car motorcade.

While the McCain entourage pales compared with that of his rival — as does his Boeing 737 next to Mr. Obama’s 757 — his trips still convey an unmistakably presidential vibe.

No word on whether or not Obama rewards members of the press who provide favorable coverage with special access, as McBush does (here), or whether or not the Illinois senator would even consider the military accompaniment of the Repug nominee as the latter “strolled” through a Baghdad market here.

But what really got me about Leibovich’s column was this…

Mr. Obama’s trip was mostly judged a success — he made no embarrassing missteps — which was particularly important to his candidacy because polls have shown that he has the greater burden in persuading voters that he is ready for the presidency. He needs “to plant in peoples’ minds the visual image of him sitting in the White House,” said Mike McCurry, a former spokesman for President Bill Clinton.

First of all, I cannot fathom at this point why any Democratic politician or operative of one type or another would take Mike McCurry seriously at this point (though the media is another story, I know). All he does is lend what little gravitas he has to the Repug-favored story line of the day, to say nothing of his odious opposition to Net Neutrality.

Second (and this is a familiar refrain, I know), what possible evidence does either he or Leibovich have to substantiate the charge that Obama has a “greater burden in persuading voters that he is ready for the presidency”?

Well, whatever it is that Obama is doing, it must be succeeding so far to indicate a result like this; we have miles to go in this contest, however, and we can only look forward to more of this nonsense to perpetuate the “horserace” so fervently desired by our corporate media cousins.

Update: And by the way, Senator McBush is at it again with the gaffes, as noted here (and of course, he was against Barack Obama's 16-month timetable for withdrawal from Iraq before he was for it, as noted here).

Another Hollywood Type Tries To Analyze The News

And what should greet me upon my return to the keyboard today but this CNN nonsense in which Ben Stein is given a platform to pontificate about the economy.

I guess, if you’re a high-profile conservative, it just doesn’t matter how many times you screw up as you echo Republican Party talking points in the guise of an “interview” or other allegedly impartial means of communication. And Stein has had his share of these moments, such as here where he incorrectly claimed that Dr. Benjamin Spock’s son committed suicide (it was his grandson, and how low is it to bring that up anyway)?

Stein also claimed here that ExxonMobil “needs a hug” (and how much did it cost for you to fill up your vehicle at the pump recently, dear reader?)

But for today’s CNN “story,” Stein claims that John W. McBush needs to bring on Karl Rove and put him in charge of the former’s fading presidential campaign.

Sure, bring on board the guy who “led” the Repugs to their Congressional loss in 2006 and, in the process, remind way too much of this country of how they got suckered in 2004 to vote for President Highest Disapproval Rating In Gallup Poll History because they were afraid of wetting their pants over terrorism and the threat of gays marrying and indoctrinating their kids into “the homosexual agenda.”

Brilliant!

And I also want to take note of Stein’s comment about how the economy is supposed to be doing just fine, thank you…

"We are in a psychological recession. People think times are really, really bad, but it is an amazing thing if you are out there among them: the hotels are full, the airlines are full, the high-end shops are full, the Wal-Mart is really, really, really full, the highways are full, the trains are full. But on the other hand, clearly some portions of the economy are suffering terribly."

There are all kinds of ways that I can blow holes in this, but I would just like to point out the following.

In the metropolitan Philadelphia/Southeastern Pennsylvania area where I live, I have occasion to travel on our roads a good deal for both work and non-work related reasons. And I have traveled into southern New Jersey on Saturday mornings twice recently during what would normally be peak traffic times for those traveling to the Jersey shore points.

In prior years, I would have sat for possibly an hour or longer, but I have sailed through to my destinations as if I were traveling at night time. And we recently completed a six-hour trip en route to our vacation stop through Connecticut when we expected to run into horrendous traffic on I-95; we almost tried to break up the trip through making a hotel reservation near Mystic, CT closer to our final vacation stop at MVY. But the anticipated traffic hangups didn’t materialize there either and we proceeded with no problem; we only hit traffic when we arrived on the cape of Massachusetts, which was completely anticipated.

My point is that the price of gas is affecting people’s vacation plans. The highways are not as crowded as they have been in prior years when gas was a dollar or more less per gallon. Anyone who denies that is a liar or a fool, or both.

At least Stein supports Al Franken for the U.S. Senate from Minnesota, though if I were Franken, I would be wary of such an endorsement.

And believe it or not, this ties into a comment on Stein’s column in the New York Times a couple of days ago, in which he told us…

As far as I can tell, there are several reasons (why, in Stein’s view, the economy isn’t as bad as we’re being told). One is the immense size of government expenditures. Federal outlays alone are roughly $3 trillion in a $14 trillion economy. If you add in consumption expenditures by state and local governments, the number comes in above $4 trillion. Second is the very large federal deficit, on the order of $400 billion. This is highly stimulative, as was the federal stimulus package itself. Third is the truth that the blows to the economy, while painful, are simply not enormous on a national scale.

Actually, I agree with Stein a bit on the fact that our federal deficit is “highly stimulative”; as noted here, it is “stimulative” for China, Japan, the UK, and other countries that (for now) continue to finance our wasteful economic negligence (and since Stein doesn’t go to the trouble to source his numbers except to claim that they basically come from Bushco, I won’t bother to try sourcing them either).

Also, as kos notes here, those sorry statistics noted by the Australian actually don’t include the cost of our two wars, believe it or not.

I couldn’t help but note in the CNN piece that Stein is hoping for a sequel to the ‘80s hit movie “Ferris Bueller’s Day Off,” the film that launched his movie career (he wants to star in the sequel, of course). This is appropriate in a way, I guess, given that the original (and yes, I had a laugh or two over it also) took place during the supposedly sunny, “Morning In America” years of The Sainted Ronnie R, which prescribed both domestic and international reality avoidance for this country.

The problem is that, though Stein has the means and the high profile to get away with intellectual “truancy” over our current plight, if you will (reminiscent of Bueller himself – an iconic performance by Matthew Broderick), most of this country does not (including yours truly, of course). And due to eight years of primarily Repug “governance,” we have ended up in the same metaphorical condition of Cameron’s father’s Ferrari at the end of the movie (and don’t expect Stein or any of his fellow members of the investor class to help as we dig ourselves out of the ditch).

Update: More proof for Ben Stein that everything is just hunky dory...

Monday Stuff

Ready or not, I'm shaking the last of the sand out of my flip flops and other beach accouterments and plan to rev up this whole blogging thing again soon. But for now, here are some vids for your edification.

First, Bruce Lunsford heaps this one onto Sen. Mr. Elaine Chao (h/t Daily Kos)...



...and my oh my, did John W. McBush make a stinky here while we were away at MVY (h/t Atrios)...



...I also missed this joyous little item featuring McBush pal Bud ("RUN FOR YOUR LIVES FROM THE SCARY MUSLIMS!!") Day...



...and I meant to squeeze this in before we left also: Liddy Dole in freeper la-la land, Chris Wallace screwing up his talking points and Mike Meehan sinking lower than I hope anyone else does ever again (which probably means someone will go lower still)...



...and as far as I'm concerned, this is why David Sirota is The Man.

DeMint Is Part Of DeProblem (And McBush Too)

This McClatchy story about Repug South Carolina Senator Jim DeMint (pictured) offering to hold hearings on Afghanistan with all-but-named Democratic presidential nominee Barack Obama is really a hoot, because, after he did so…

…DeMint then joined forces with top aides to Sen. John McCain in criticizing Obama's war plans.

DeMint's high-profile appearance with McCain's senior foreign policy aides came as McCain and Obama delivered speeches laying out sharply differing views on Iraq, Afghanistan and the broader U.S. effort to defeat fundamentalist Muslim forces.

What a partisan hack.

This SourceWatch article on DeMint tells us that he blocked the Legislative Transparency and Accountability Act of 2007 shortly before it was due to come to a vote so he could engage in some grandstanding over supposed earmark reform (with the blessings of Sen. Mr. Elaine Chao, no doubt).

Also, he blocked a Democratic attempt to implement one of the 9/11 Commission recommendations that would have “require(d) that all containers on U.S.-bound vessels be screened in foreign ports for radiation, and all cargo loaded onto U.S. airliners be screened for explosives”…see, the “problem” is that the bill would have allowed the Transportation Security Agency screeners to unionize, and President Highest Disapproval Rating In Gallup Poll History simply could not allow that (and DeMint dutifully complied).

And I have to note something else from the story concerning a certain absentee senator from Arizona…

In his address, McCain advocated sending even more fresh troops to Afghanistan -- three brigades, or 10,500 troops -- but he and his aides stopped short of saying they should come from Iraq.

"I know how to win wars," McCain, an Arizona Republican, said in Albuquerque, N.M. "And if I'm elected president, I will turn around the war in Afghanistan, just as we have turned around the war in Iraq."

“You know how to win wars,” huh?

Really? And just how would you know that?

By accusing your Democratic opponent of supporting the policies of your party’s failed president better than you (here), even though the actual facts scream otherwise (here)?

By stubbornly ignoring what Obama has pointed out here, that "the status quo is not acceptable. Security in Afghanistan has deteriorated, and our enemies are on the offensive," he said. "From the moment the next president walks into the Oval Office, he will face critical decisions and crucial decisions about Afghanistan”…(and by the way, Senator McBush, any plans to present your strategy on Iraq in the New York Times, as Obama has done here)?

Or by conducting that laughable photo op of yours last April through that supposedly secure Baghdad market (which, arguably, got people killed as a result)?

It really speaks volumes about the moral decrepitude of the Repug party and their “movement” conservative base that McBush is the best this party has to offer for the most important job in the world.

Go back to making “Ape rape” jokes and telling us about imaginary countries again, Senator. At this point, it doesn’t matter, because we don’t take you seriously anymore anyway.

Update 7/30/08: Our boy gets a dishonorable mention from Michael Gerson (of all people) here.

...

I was hoping to close out with some videos, but I don't think I'll have time, so I now take my leave, for hopefully just a little while (look for me again on about the 27th or 28th). In the meantime, please check out the good stuff from my peers at the Impeach Bush Coalition and the Out Of Iraq Bloggers Caucus.

Courage.

Little Ricky "Bombs" On Obama-Rama

(May be my last regular post for a little while, for what it’s worth…).

In today’s Philadelphia Inquirer, former Senator Man-On-Dog is glad to see here that the presumptive Democratic presidential nominee has apparently talked tough enough for him on the matter of Iran…

But how, you might ask, can the candidate of MoveOn.org and the antiwar-forever crowd be aligned with Bush on preemptive strikes against Iran? Here's how: Last month, Obama declared, "I will do everything in my power to prevent Iran from obtaining a nuclear weapon, everything in my power to prevent Iran from obtaining a nuclear weapon - everything."

It’s always worth a chuckle for yours truly to read Little Ricky make a snide remark about war when, in fact, all he did when “the call to service” came from this nation was to run away as fast as he could to his mansion in Virginia…

International Atomic Energy Administration director Mohamed ElBaradei said last month that if Iran expelled the United Nations' nuclear watchdog agency, Iran would need six months to produce a nuclear weapon. Couple that with last week's test firing of missiles capable of delivering that weapon to Israel, and it is no wonder you have seen a rash of stories about the Israelis training for strikes against Iran.

You mean, that test firing of Iranian missiles where a fourth one was added in a photo of the launch, a true “Photoshop” special?

Yes, Iran is a threat, but to Israel, despite what John Bolton and Fox Noise tells us here. And I think it’s pretty much a safe bet that something is already in progress; I for one believe Sy Hersh when he tells us that we’re conducting operations of some type inside Iran (here).

And given the utter waste of the lives of our people, to say nothing of materiel and our overall prestige, fighting Israel’s proxy war in Iraq, I’m not inclined to do any more favors for our “ally.”

And as far as ElBaradei is concerned, he told us that Iran was “only months away from an atomic bomb” in December 2005 here, they will be conducting “mass uranium enrichment in six months” in February 2007 here, although in that same month, he told us a bomb was “ten years away” here.

This man truly needs to get his story straight.

And Obama is now like Bush on nukes, according to Little “Eye of Mordor” Ricky? Please. Obama wants to strengthen the non-proliferation treaty (NPT), while Dubya continually ignores it, as he did in his nuke deal with India.

But as noted here, the India deal is up in the air anyway; maybe it would have faced smoother sailing if India had signed off on the NPT first (not automatically blaming them, but maybe we should have had more negotiations to settle on that)…

...the legislation passed in 2006 -- the so-called Hyde Act -- that gave preliminary approval to the U.S.-India agreement, requires that Congress be in 30 days of continuous session to consider it. Congressional aides said that clock can begin to tick only once India clears two more hurdles -- completing an agreement with the International Atomic Energy Agency, and securing approval from the 45 nations that form the Nuclear Suppliers Group, which governs trade in reactors and uranium. Because of the long August recess, less than 40 days are left in the session before Congress adjourns on Sept. 26.

"At this point, both [the IAEA and NSG actions] have to take place in the next couple of weeks" for the deal to be considered by Congress, said Lynne Weil, spokeswoman for the House Foreign Affairs Committee. But the IAEA Board of Governors is not expected to take up the matter until August, whereas the NSG may take several months to reach a consensus.

And this prior post gives you an insight into the restrictive terms of the Hyde Act, which actually encourages India to deal with other “nuke” nations, including Iran.

And on an somewhat related note (as long as we’re talking about the Inquirer), I happened to come across this survey of the Top 30 Newspaper web sites from Editor and Publisher yesterday, and I wanted to see how the paper was faring seeing as how they'd been “treading water” at an average of one percent increases in site traffic over their last two surveys, which is statistically insignificant.

Well, even though 80 percent of the top 30 sites from their survey showed an increase in traffic…why, call me crazy, but I’m looking down this list for philly.com and (gulp), it looks like you guys completely fell off the survey!

C’est dommage!

Well, if I may make a suggestion or two to get back on the list, let me put forward the idea once again to offer content from actual progressive writers from time to time, such as David Sirota or Gene Lyons (many others you could choose from, but those are two names that come to mind). At least the Daily News has Will Bunch (the trolls at Attytood are truly obnoxious) and the occasional appearance of Cliff Schecter as well.

Also, maybe someone navigating to your site from elsewhere in the world doesn’t care about Larry Mendte’s firing over alleged snooping into Alycia Lane’s Emails (if you don’t know who they are, then you’re probably in the group of people I’m talking about). And it would be nice not to have to do so much navigation to obtain such a paucity of national and international news (though Signs on San Diego, for example, makes you navigate all the way to the bottom of the main site page, at least it only takes one click to get the news once you get there).

But then again, if you want to conceive a business model that ultimately leads to your extinction, that’s your choice.

Wednesday Stuff

The line about infants is too far, but otherwise The Onion does it again (I have a feeling that the line about a McCain presidency isn't satire, though)...


'No Values Voters' Looking To Support Most Evil Candidate

...and hey kids, look! Lee Stranahan tells us about Phil Gramm's new self-help seminar (what fun).

Say Bai To Credibility

(Lots going on with your humble narrator before he heads out of town; while most everybody else has gone south to Austin, I’m going north to a true liberal haven, if you will. But first…)

It’s taken me a little while to get to this, but last Sunday, the New York Times magazine carried this feature written by Matt Bai about the McCain and Obama campaigns, ostensibly communicating the theme that they’re “reformers” (warning: more of the dreaded “conventional wisdom” ahead).

And with a bit of a nod to this prior post, Bai tells us…

McCain, however, takes a personal and confrontational approach toward reform, which he sees fundamentally as a matter of overhauling the rules that govern Washington. By this thinking, a Rough-Rider-type leader should press for tough measures — publicizing earmarks, for example — that insulate legislators from moneyed interests.

I hate to break the news to Bai, but even though there is more work to be done on the matter of earmark reform (once again, as long as they’re disclosed, I personally don’t have a problem), I should communicate the following from here, in which President Highest Disapproval Rating In Gallup Poll History tried to seize some imaginary (for him) moral high ground on the matter…

Earmarks today are far fewer in number and out in the open for all to see. Both the number and dollar amount of earmarks reached an all-time high during the last Congress (the 109th) with Republicans firmly in control of both chambers and the White House – with 13,997 earmarks worth $27.3 billion in 2005 and 9,963 earmarks worth $29 billion in 2006. But this year, under the new 110th Congress, earmarks plummeted to only 2,658 earmarks worth $13.2 billion in 2007, and 11,043 earmarks worth $14.1 billion in omnibus appropriations and related bills for 2008 – a reduction in the amount of earmarks by half.

Just as importantly, earmarks are no longer secret. It used to be that pet spending projects were quietly inserted into massive spending bills. Not any more. The new reforms require each earmark to be clearly identified and assigned a sponsor – and posted on the Internet 48 hours before a vote. Committee reports even put this information in chart format.

The Bush administration and the 109th Congress loved the out-of-control system of earmarks, hidden from the public. But now that the 110th Congress has reined in earmark abuse and opened the books – “bridges to nowhere” earmarks are no more to be found in the new budget bills – Bush feigns that he is at the head of the pack on earmark reform.

And Bai also sneaks in the following dig…

It’s certainly possible that the campaign we have now is the one we’ll get after the conventions — a campaign about who’s patriotic and who’s out of touch, inevitably driven by the darker subtexts of age and race. Chances are better, though, that the old soldier and the young orator will ultimately drift back toward the less dogmatic political space in which they are most at home. This certainly wouldn’t please the net-roots and religious warriors whose demand for partisan government has come to shape the environment.

For Bai’s information, the “netroots” is not about a “demand for partisan government” (I mean, this guy just wrote a book on the subject, for crying out loud). This is another echo of the cry that the “netroots” are just a bunch of dirty hippies screaming about Bush, insulting our troops and fervently supporting “the homosexual agenda,” whatever on earth that is.

The reality, however, is that the “netroots” is a broad-based coalition of progressive, Democratic activists who support candidates across a wide spectrum, from pro-gun individuals to anti-choicers, if need be (common sense social conservatism fits in quite nicely with us, thank you, even if it means that we agree to disagree at times).

I don’t mean to ridicule Bai’s call for change, which is the right attitude I believe. I just would prefer that he not “dress that up” with the same tautologies that we’ve already come to detest about this campaign.

Update 7/18/08: Daily Kos person BarbinMD does a better job of explaining how "the left" (including the netroots) is actually pretty mainstream here.

More McBush Wankery From "The Old Gray Lady"

So Adam Nagourney tells us here that that “straight-talking maverick” submitted the idea of participating in his beloved “town hall” forums with Barack Obama to the presumptive Democratic presidential nominee.

And…

Mr. Obama initially seemed enthusiastic about the idea when it was floated by Mark McKinnon, an adviser to Mr. McCain, as it became clear in early May that Mr. Obama was going to win the Democratic nomination. “I think it’s a great idea,” Mr. Obama said at the time. And for just a moment last spring, it seemed that voters might actually in be for the different kind of political campaign that Mr. McCain and Mr. Obama have both promised but, arguably, have yet to deliver.

The idea slipped away, though, after what appeared to be a half-hearted response from the Obama campaign. Mr. McCain wanted to hold these town-hall meetings every Thursday until the Democratic convention at the end of August — about a dozen of them in all. The Obama campaign countered with an offer of five — but that included the three debates the two men were already scheduled to hold in the fall, meaning that Mr. Obama was really only agreeing to two of the sessions that Mr. McCain proposed. And the Obama camp wanted one of the two to be held on July 4, a day when Americans could be expected not to flock to their televisions.

I guess Nagourney is also on the staff of the Nielsen ratings company…

Mr. Obama’s aides insisted that he really did like the idea, but that his time was better spent directly talking to voters and preparing for his convention and the fall campaign. The town-hall meetings would eat up hours of preparation time, and the Democrats noted that Mr. McCain was able to claim his party’s nomination long before Mr. Obama could his, leaving Mr. McCain with plenty of time to do the preparation Mr. Obama is doing now.

That sounds like a reasonable position as far as I’m concerned.

Continuing…

Bill Burton, Mr. Obama’s press secretary, blamed the breakdown on the McCain campaign, for failing to embrace the counter-offer Mr. Obama made. “The McCain campaign didn’t respond to our last proposal, except to reject it through the media,” he said. “They were much happier to play the politics of these joint appearances. Given what we have in the weeks down the road, we’ll see what the schedule dictates.”

Mr. McCain’s aides scoffed at that, saying that what Mr. Obama — despite his initial enthusiasm — was offering was nothing like what Mr. McCain had suggested.

OK, so what we have here is basically some political gamesmanship going on. However, Nagourney follows up with this (more of the dreaded “conventional wisdom,” of course)...

Mr. Obama’s advisers suggest that one reason he has been avoiding town-hall matchups is because they play to Mr. McCain’s strengths.

Uh, didn’t Obama present a counteroffer that McBush ignored? Doesn’t sound to me like he “avoided” him.

This column is pretty much a rehash of every “McBush/town hall forum/likes the interaction/plays to his strengths” column we have ever seen so far and probably will see far into the future.

Well, for the reality perspective, here is Rachel Maddow once more interviewing Josh Green from The Atlantic.



Update 7/16/08: Ad Nags just can't stop wanking.

More AP Fournier Follies

(I may be able to squeeze in a couple after all…I’ll try.)

So the AP’s Ron Fournier tells us here that Karl Rove should “keep up the fight,” meaning that Rove should continue to ignore congressional subpoenas and thus break the law (with Fournier noting after he was caught that he “regretted the breezy nature of the correspondence”).

Well, in a category you might call “breezy attempts at journalism,” I give you Fournier’s take on the nomination of Hangin’ Judge J.R. as Supreme Court Chief Justice here (my bad for not citing the original story, which I can’t find now as luck would have it), in which Fournier tells us that “a summer (of 2005) spent in the spotlight turned up no warts on the nominee,” even though there was ample fodder to protest the Roberts nomination here.

Also, Fournier used the pardon of “Scooter” Libby to attack the Clintons here, repeatedly asked John W. McBush if he thought Barack Obama was “an elitist” here, mischaracterized the controversy over Dubya’s warrantless spying here (just those bad Bush-hating liburuuls fightin’ the pre-see-dent whose tryin’ to keep us safe frum tha' terrists…), and claimed that a “Democratic interest group” aired an ad comparing Bush to Hitler here, through there are at least two issues with that statement: 1) Moveon is not funded by the Democratic Party and, though often sympathetic to that organization, is not an officially sanctioned outlet, and 2) the ad Fournier mentioned never aired, but was removed from the competition because (in a testimony to the good judgment of Moveon’s members) no one voted for it.

If Fournier is paid to be a propagandist, he is doing exemplary work. However, if he’s paid to be a somewhat legitimate MSM journalist, then he is stealing from his employer.

Update 7/28/08: More from Eric Boehlert (h/t Atrios).

Update 7/29/08: Curiouser and curiouser...

Update 9/2/08: And how sad is it that a news organization has to issue talking points to defend its Washington bureau chief against charges of bias?

Monday Stuff

"The Pap Attack" takes on the "straight-talk express" (not pretty, people)...



...and personally, I think Kagro X is being kind here to Dubya; this message is aimed at Repug Senator John Sununu of New Hampshire, but at this point, the recipient is Commander Codpiece himself (and by the way, McBush didn't even bother to show up and vote No for this)...



...Josh Green of The Atlantic comments on McBush's very awful week last week with Rachel Maddow (another guest on "Countdown" pointed out that Obama surrogates Bill Richardson and John Edwards went after Gramm a little more)...



...and dag, that Stranahan guy is good.

Monday Mashup (7/14/08)

(Took awhile to finish this - sorry...).

PA Governor Ed Rendell (pictured) was quoted as follows here…

PHILADELPHIA – The United States should establish a capital budget to pay for about $1.6 trillion in national infrastructure repairs to ensure the work gets down and prevent the risk of becoming a “third-rate” economic power, (Rendell) said on Monday.

In his first speech as 2008/09 chairman of the National Governors Association, Rendell said U.S. spending on facilities such as roads, bridges, and passenger rail is only 0.6 percent of gross domestic product, compared with 9 percent in China and 3.5 percent in the European Union.

…

According to a 2005 report by the American Society of Civil Engineers, the U.S. has a shortfall of $1.6 trillion in infrastructure funding over a five-year period.

Without those repairs, the U.S. risks becoming a ”third-rate” economic power in 50 years' time, Rendell warned.

This takes you to similar warnings from the American Society of Civil Engineers in 2005, and this post from early February tells us that America’s governors requested the same thing from Captain Clueless at that time as well, and I’m sure Rendell’s request today will be met with the same result.

189 days, people…

Yesterday’s excellent New York Times column by Frank Rich, dealing in part with how al Qaeda and the Taliban have risen once more because of our stupendously awful war of choice in Iraq, contained this excerpt about former Attorney General John Ashcroft (pictured) from the recently published book “The Dark Side” by New Yorker writer Jane Mayer…

In (Mayer’s) telling, a major incentive for (Dick) Cheney’s descent into the dark side was to cover up for the Bush White House’s failure to heed the Qaeda threat in 2001. Jack Cloonan, a special agent for the F.B.I.’s Osama bin Laden unit until 2002, told Ms. Mayer that Sept. 11 was “all preventable.” By March 2000, according to the C.I.A.’s inspector general, “50 or 60 individuals” in the agency knew that two Al Qaeda suspects — soon to be hijackers — were in America. But there was no urgency at the top. Thomas Pickard, the acting F.B.I. director that summer, told Ms. Mayer that when he expressed his fears about the Qaeda threat to Mr. Ashcroft, the attorney general snapped, “I don’t want to hear about that anymore!”

I would ask that you remember that when you read about Asscroft’s opposition to the warrantless surveillance here; to say he “got religion” too late is an understatement.

By the way, Rich’s column expounds on the following topic…

So hot is the speculation that war-crimes trials will eventually follow in foreign or international courts that Lawrence Wilkerson, Colin Powell’s former chief of staff, has publicly advised (Doug) Feith, (David) Addington and Alberto Gonzales, among others, to “never travel outside the U.S., except perhaps to Saudi Arabia and Israel.” But while we wait for the wheels of justice to grind slowly, there are immediate fears to tend. Ms. Mayer’s book helps cement the case that America’s use of torture has betrayed not just American values but our national security, right to the present day.

If you are registered with the New York Times, I highly recommend Rich’s column (even if you're not, I'm sure it is reproduced in some other form out there somewhere).

And by the way, Parade Magazine published an interview with Repug Louisiana Governor and possible vice-presidential nominee Bobby (“Don’t Call Me Piyush”) Jindal (pictured) here, including this excerpt…

You’ve been described as “a person in a hurry.” Are you?

Yes. We have a once in a lifetime opportunity to improve Louisiana. The hurricane gave us the chance to completely redesign our health-care and education systems. I’m not saying the storms were good, but out of that destruction we have been given a choice. We would be doing a disservice to the people who lost their lives and property if we rebuilt failing structures.

Well, that’s interesting, given that Jindal’s treasurer has called for denying funding to schools in Baton Rouge (here), and according to this, “When Bobby Jindal ran the Department of Health and Hospitals, he cut his budget by shutting down local clinics that many of our citizens depended on for their health care.”

And did I mention that Jindal voted against access to the TRICARE program for Louisiana’s National Guard, and he also voted for a budget that cut veterans’ health care by $13.5 billion, as well as curtailing debt assistance for our troops (here; Jindal had company on the TRICARE vote, though, including our own former U.S. House Rep Mikey Fitzpatrick).

But if I ever need a Catholic Republican governor of Indian ancestry in charge of a Southern state to perform an exorcism for a college roommate, then I have to tell you that Jindal is my guy (and so tolerant of other faiths too).

And finally, we have a choice item from Smerky in yesterday’s Inquirer (here).

Our intrepid columnist fawns in the appropriate manner over former Patrick Meehan (pictured), who resigned recently as the U.S. attorney for the eastern district of Pennsylvania (Meehan is a fellow Repug, of course), leading to speculation that Meehan may run for governor.

And Smerky takes this opportunity to recall one of Meehan’s highest-profile cases…

Meehan's tenure will be best remembered for the Oct. 7, 2003, discovery of a small electronic listening device in then-Mayor John F. Street's City Hall office. The FBI confirmed it had planted the bug but would not immediately elaborate on its purpose. Neither would Meehan.

Basically, Smerky takes this opportunity to bemoan in “what might have been” fashion the fact that Meehan’s little gambit, though it ended up generating some incriminating headlines against former mayor John Street, identified as a “person of interest” in a Meehan corruption investigation (repeatedly in the media, of course), basically blew up in the face of Sam Katz, who was the Republican running for Street’s job (the discovery of the bug occurred a few weeks before the election – true “Rovian” timing, if you will).

But when Smerky talked to Katz about this, who do you think they blamed?

Katz also noted the irony that the presidential candidate running as an outsider and agent of change today has David Axelrod as his chief political strategist. The same David Axelrod guided Street in what Katz called "the now familiar-sounding playing of the race card."

Uh, wait a minute…

Funny, but from what I can read from here, Axelrod's influence had more to do with emphasizing experience and an "everyman" quality to Street, whatever you may think of that, as opposed to Street's "blackness" or whatever (and as far as the Obama campaign is concerned, I recall that A Certain African-American Preacher complained that Axelrod was trying to make the Illinois senator “too white”).

Also, this post noted that one of Axelrod’s tasks was to emphasize Street’s connection to former Philadelphia mayor (and current PA governor) Ed Rendell – bringing this post “full circle” a bit (sorry that the nested link to reporter Thomas Fitzgerald’s story has expired…good one, Inky).

We don’t know what will happen this November, of course, but it looks like Smerky is “greasing the skids” a bit on behalf of his boy Pat Meehan in the hope that he’ll end up in the Harrisburg governor’s mansion after another future election. That’s OK. And congratulations to Meehan for racking up such an impressive political “body count.”

Because as all good Repugs know, only Democrats commit acts of political malfeasance.

Today's Obama-Rama Dustup

Above (h/t HuffPo) are some previous New Yorker Magazine cover illustrations by Barry Blitt; as you can see, he’s hardly an ideologue. I would only ask that you keep that in mind when you look at this week’s cover depicting the Obamas in a highly unflattering manner (here).

Yes, it’s tasteless. Yes, it’s based on some fundamental misconceptions that reinforce right-wing stereotypes. Blitt could have depicted Obama in a negative light over his FISA vote or cowering with other Dems, and that would have been deserved; a recent Tony Auth cartoon features Bush as a cowboy rounding up the Dem donkeys into the FISA pen, or something like that, and the cartoon made the point.

Or, the illustration could have shown Limbaugh, Hannity, Bill Orally and Smerky hiding in a cupboard or something with an expression on their faces as if they were saying, “YA’ SEE? YA’ SEE? WE WERE RIGHT!” and that would have been fine; the spirit of the satire wouldn’t have been lost.

But it’s a magazine cover. And it’s advertising a feature story by Ryan Lizza that I’ll read at my earliest opportunity.

The attempt at humor went splat. That’s what happens with comedy sometimes.

Now, I’ll breathlessly wait for our corporate media cousins to publicize Blitt’s other covers, some of which I’ve highlighted above, seeing as how we’re going to see the Obama/New Yorker cover now about two million times at least in the guise of “editorial commentary and political analysis.”

On second thought, I won’t hold my breath waiting for that. I’m sure I’d suffocate.

Snow Falls

I promised I wasn’t going to say anything about the demise of Tony Snow, but I feel that I have to because “it’s getting a little thick,” if you know what I mean.

And yes, I know, if you don’t have anything good to say about someone, you shouldn’t say anything. That is why I will merely link back to prior posts and try as hard as I can to stow the disparaging remarks.

I should say at the outset, though, that 53 is entirely too young an age for anyone to leave us. And I can’t imagine the guts it took for him to live his life with his family history of colon cancer (there is no good type of cancer, but that’s particularly debilitating) and knowing that the chances were good that he would acquire it also.

However, his legacy as a conservative media hit man will live on in these less-than-shining moments, as well as many others…

Snow equates the pardon of Scooter Libby with the pardons of Bill Clinton (here).

Snow informs us that there was no attempt by the White House to link Saddam Hussein with 9/11 (here).

Snow is granted a forum for selling a whole bunch of GOP talking points unchallenged on CNN and Fox (here).

Snow tells a White House reporter, in response to an AP story, that troops getting ready to be shipped out due to the "surge" will get their advanced battlefield training for Iraq not at the Army's premier training range in California...but in Iraq.

I cut Tim Russert some slack when he left us because he occasionally practiced his craft with skill and impartiality as far as I was concerned.

However, Tony Snow leaves no such legacy, even a spotty one, only that of a shameless media ideologue. And how sad to waste one’s talents for such an unworthy cause.

Update 1: And Snow perfected his act (if that's the right verb) through many appearances on "Dr. McLaughlin's Gong Show."

Update 2: I should have extended my condolences to Snow's family and friends at the outset; sorry about that.