More Fun With Condi And "The Old Gray Lady"

This is a follow up to this prior post about the feature article in last Sunday’s New York Times Magazine, in which Secretary of State Condoleezza Rice and three others reporting to her were questioned by Times reporters Helene Cooper and Scott L. Malcomson.

Basically, I have some issues with Madame Secretary’s answers – continuing…

We have said to Iran that this is about changing your regime’s behavior, not changing your regime. That has been the message all along.

I will give Rice credit here for being definitely less hawkish than the neocons, but for her to deny that Bushco has never had any thoughts on military action against Iran is a fantasy; as noted here, Sy Hersh of The New Yorker documented how our “good friends” the Israelis were helped Dubya and Deadeye Dick “stovepipe intelligence” in anticipation of military conflict by providing evidence of Iran’s development of a “trigger for a bomb” two years ago.

(I’m not arguing that Iran isn’t a threat, by the way, but mainly pointing out that this followed the same pattern as the runup to the Iraq war, particularly when you add the Kyl-Lieberman Amendment to the mix.)

Continuing…

If (the so-called “Responsibility To Protect”) turns out to be nothing but words, the Security Council is going to have a real black eye, and in the Darfur case it has turned out to be nothing but words. I think it has been an enormous embarrassment for the Security Council and for multilateral diplomacy.

I think there’s a lot of truth in that, but the following should be noted from here also…

It has taken President George W Bush nearly three years to match his impassioned rhetoric about what he decries as genocide in Darfur with tougher US action against some of those blamed for the suffering. When Bush announced sanctions on Tuesday, advocacy groups and lawmakers wished the president had been harsher and wondered whether it was a case of too little, too late for Darfur. The violence has killed 200,000 people and forced 2.5 million more from their homes since it began in February 2003.

And to argue that the Iraq war had nothing to do with our decision not to commit troops to Darfur is an utter fantasy.

And finally, here comes probably the most boneheaded remark of the entire piece (appropriately enough, by Daniel Fried again, at the very end)…

Do you think Bush expected 9/11? No. Did Clinton expect Bosnia? No. Man makes his plans; God has his own.

As much as I read and re-read that, I’m still having a difficult time with my thoughts of utter disgust and revulsion.

As noted here, in March of 1999, Bill Clinton prodded NATO into a bombing campaign against what was once Yugoslavia and Serbian thug Slobodan Milosevic, which unleashed the disintegration of that country into Serbia and Montenegro as a result of a brutal domestic uprising.

You can argue that Clinton and Secretary of State Madeleine Albright’s actions were ham-handed stemming from the so-called Dayton Accords of 1995, which some argue was a pretext for Clinton and NATO to flex their muscle against Milosevic. However, Milosevic’s troops in Bosnia were committing acts of genocide, and Clinton believed he had to act; he had already acknowledged that he was wrong not to intervene in a similar crisis in Rwanda earlier in his presidency.

Also, you could forget about further U.S. troops in the region, since we already had about 20,000 there at the time, and without the bombings, the only other alternative was to send more troops (can you say, “Vietnam”?).

And by the way, here’s something else to consider: brutal as it was, the bombing worked, and (with the help of Russian diplomacy), the Serbs withdrew, with no further U.S. casualties (here).

Simply stated, Clinton made a controversial calculation that achieved the “least worst” result possible (and let’s not forget that this little matter was playing out at the same time).

And to compare any of that to 9/11? To compare any of that to the utter horror and chaos precipitated by the fact that this bunch utterly ignored the warnings from Richard Clarke, among others, to pay attention to al Qaeda?

There’s a lot of old history that I could rehash here, but I’ll merely point out the following from this article in The Nation…

The various accounts offered by the White House are almost all inconsistent with one another. On December 4, 2001, Bush was asked, "How did you feel when you heard about the terrorist attack?" Bush replied, "I was sitting outside the classroom waiting to go in, and I saw an airplane hit the tower--the TV was obviously on. And I used to fly myself, and I said, well, there's one terrible pilot. I said, it must have been a horrible accident. But I was whisked off there. I didn't have much time to think about it." Bush repeated the same story on January 5, 2002, stating, "First of all, when we walked into the classroom, I had seen this plane fly into the first building. There was a TV set on. And you know, I thought it was pilot error, and I was amazed that anybody could make such a terrible mistake...."

This is false. Nobody saw the jetliner crash into the first tower on television until a videotape surfaced a day later. What's more, Bush's memory not only contradicts every media report of that morning, it also contradicts what he said on the day of the attack. In his speech to the nation that evening, Bush said, "Immediately following the first attack, I implemented our government's emergency response plans." Again, this statement has never been satisfactorily explained. No one besides Bush has ever spoken of these "emergency plans," and the mere idea of their implementation is contradicted by Bush's claim that at the time, he believed the crash to have been a case of pilot error.

The events leading up to the Bosnia bombing were premeditated by a president with a particular outcome that was largely realized. The events of 9/11 showed a president who was absolutely befuddled and overmatched by horrific events that possibly could have been mitigated or even prevented with a minimum of diligence or forethought (yes, it’s true that I’ll never know if I’m right, but I’ll never know if I’m wrong either).

I only know that if Daniel Fried really believes what he says, then he has absolutely no business serving this country in any diplomatic capacity whatsoever.

Update 11/23/08: And speaking of Richard Clarke, he had what I believe were some interesting words on the latest Zawahri tape here (tied to this post, the third item in particular).

Shelby The Shill Worsens The Main Street Meltdown

The AP (via Time Magazine) tells us the following here (and I also posted briefly over here on a separate topic)…

(WASHINGTON) — The senior Republican on the Banking Committee said Wednesday he doesn't believe there will be a turnaround in the troubled U.S. auto industry until its top management is ousted and its manufacturing operations are revamped.

"I don't think they have immediate plans to change their model, which is a model of failure," Sen. Richard Shelby said, a day after the top executives of General Motors, Ford and Chrysler came to Congress to plead for a $25 billion "bridge loan" to avert layoffs and plant closings. "I think a lot of it will be life support," Shelby, R-Ala., said. "I believe their best option would be some type of Chapter 11 bankruptcy ... These leaders have been failures and they need to go."

Wow, that’s some harsh talk (and not entirely undeserved, I must say).

Well then, since the financial meltdown precipitated the credit crunch that imperiled the automakers, forcing them to greatly “ramp up” production of vehicles that make much better use of alternative sources of energy (something they should have done long before now, I’ll admit – both the New York Times and the Murdoch Street Journal today have full page ads from GM telling us what they’re up to on that front), you would think that Shelby had equally harsh words for the mismanagement of firms such as Lehman and AIG, wouldn’t you?

Not exactly; as noted here…

Where the (two major) parties appear to diverge is over Democrats' demand for government authority over the paychecks of executives whose companies participate in a taxpayer bailout. House Republicans oppose the idea, aides said, and Sen. Richard C. Shelby (R-Ala.), a key figure in the debate, said yesterday on CBS's "Face the Nation" that he thinks compensation should be set by corporate boards.

Boy – somehow, that doesn’t have the same oomph of fire and brimstone, “make right your paths, you sinners!” as “these leaders have been failures and they need to go” in the case of the automakers, does it?

Well, call me a filthy, unkempt liberal blogger if you must, but somehow I think that has more than a little bit to do with the fact that Shelby has received a hell of a lot of campaign finance dough from the financial services industry, as noted here by Open Secrets (don’t see any automakers on that list, just for the record).

And while it’s true that Shelby voiced concern about the original bailout proposal by Dubya and Treasury Secretary Henry Paulson, as noted here (which was nothing more than a typical Bushco power grab and giveaway of our tax dollars with no oversight, as opposed to the little bit that currently exists), to me, that was more of a matter of political survival than anything else; maybe I should give Shelby props for that, but I won’t because it was a no-brainer.

See, Shelby to me is another Repug in the mold of Arlen Specter, someone who pretends to be something that he’s not, and that’s a moderate (I’m not sure a species like that can survive long in that party). As noted here, he was originally a Democrat, having fought Bill Clinton over taxes and spending in the early ‘90s, though Shelby apparently kept his mouth shut when prosperity flourished largely because of Clinton’s money management (and he knew which way the wind was blowing, as it were, changing parties in ’94 when the Repugs retook Congress and starting doing just about nothing but making Clinton’s life an utter misery).

Here are some more Shelby “lowlights”:

He received a 0 from the Republicans for Environmental Protection, as noted above by Wikipedia; he also loved Dubya’s tax cuts and voted to confirm “Strip Search Sammy” Alito (though he wisely voted against the Gramm-Leach-Bliley Act that weakened financial transparency, I must admit).

He also revealed classified information to Carl Cameron of Fox News (possibly tied to 9/11), though Cameron didn’t air it but Dana Bash of CNN did instead – Shelby wasn’t punished because the Senate Ethics Committee dismissed the matter in ’05, when it was run by the Repugs.

He also opposed the FDA’s efforts to regulate tobacco here; also helped direct $50 million in earmarks to a space and missile defense company run by a friend who hired one of the senator’s former aides as a lobbyist.

He also blocked a Darfur divestment bill that would have put pressure on Khartoum to stop the genocide (also said in June of ’01 that we had bin Laden “on the run”).

Another thing - also like Specter, Shelby is due to defend his Senate seat in 2010 (and also like Specter, it will be tough to knock him off, since he has an approval rating of approximately 54 percent at this point).

As you can see, though, Shelby has no trouble summoning up some serious harrumphing over the automakers in our current crisis (and as attractive as it is to punish them, it makes little sense since, like the money guys, the ripple effects would be felt everywhere - and I thought this was a good column pertaining to all this). But when it comes to the financial culprits who first toppled the dominoes, as it were, leading to the current economic misery, it looks like he’s out of gas.

Update 1: I must admit that it's really hard to support help for these cretins (the carmakers, that is) when they pull antics like this.

Update 2 11/20/08: And by the way, I think Shelby is an ideological fellow traveller with this guy.

Update 3 12/08/08: Regarding the matter of a loan to the automakers, I thought was kos said here was spot-on (concerning another unrepentant egomaniac).

Update 4 3/17/09: God, is Shelby a fraud (here).

Tuesday Stuff

Bye, Ted...



...and as I said, Dana Perino will argue that water isn't wet unless she's covered in it over her head; here, she tells the White House press corps that Bushco didn't torture - uhh, no...



...and just for the record, Paul Krugman provides a minute-or-so history lesson in The Great Depression and pretty much "schools" George Will in the process (and fortunately, the video faded out before Cokie Darling could blather on in barely coherent fashion, probably about how great "free" trade really is)...



...and like many of you, I continue to be repulsed by the shameless cowardice of Harry Reid as Senate Majority Leader for allowing Joe Lieberman to remain in charge of the Homeland Security Committee (so down with kos on this), and the only song I could think of to truly capture how I felt was "Nowhere Man" by The Beatles, so here it is (the video makes fun of Dubya, which is deserved but is a bit off-topic at the moment - I was probably influenced by the fact that I'm currently reading Larry Kane's fine book "Ticket To Ride" about the 1964 tour).

“Gunga Dan” Carries On

A hat tip goes out to Will Bunch of Attytood for alerting us to the fact that former CBS Evening News anchor Dan Rather’s lawsuit against his former management is proceeding, as noted in this New York Times story, which tells us…

Mr. Rather has spent more than $2 million of his own money on the suit (alleging that his former employer had commissioned a politically biased investigation into his work on a “60 Minutes” segment about President Bush’s National Guard service). And according to documents filed recently in court, he may be getting something for his money.

Using tools unavailable to him as a reporter — including the power of subpoena and the threat of punishment against witnesses who lie under oath — he has unearthed evidence that would seem to support his assertion that CBS intended its investigation, at least in part, to quell Republican criticism of the network.

Among the materials that money has shaken free for Mr. Rather are internal CBS memorandums turned over to his lawyers, showing that network executives used Republican operatives to vet the names of potential members of a panel that had been billed as independent and charged with investigating the “60 Minutes” segment.

…

Some of the documents unearthed by his investigation include notes taken at the time by Linda Mason, a vice president of CBS News. According to her notes, one potential panel member, Warren Rudman, a former Republican senator from New Hampshire, was deemed a less-than-ideal candidate over fears by some that he would not “mollify the right.”

Meanwhile, (former PA governor, Reaganite and longtime Repug Richard) Thornburgh, who served as attorney general for both Ronald Reagan and George H. W. Bush, was named a panelist by CBS, but only after a CBS lobbyist “did some other testing,” in which she was told, according to Ms. Mason’s notes, “T comes back with high marks from G.O.P.”

There is so much to the story of Dubya’s National Guard service that has been neglected or ignored, with some of that here (sorry, linked video no longer available), including the promotion of Major General Daniel James to head of the Texas National Guard after he allegedly scrubbed Dubya’s records at the instruction of Bush confidants Joe Allbaugh (the guy who bailed on FEMA to make a financial killing from the Iraq war and handed over that beleaguered agency to Mike “Horsey Time” Brown) and Dan Bartlett.

But if Rather’s suit proceeds to trial (even with five of the seven counts dismissed), it is likely that the story he tried to tell on TV will be told once and for all through the force of the law (and don’t get me started on the Burkett documents – there was a lot more to it than that).

And for that, he deserves our thanks.

Snarlin' Arlen Gets Ready For Another Scrap

(By the way, I also posted over here.)

It’s pretty much common knowledge in these parts that Arlen Specter is going to run for another term in the U.S. Senate starting two years from now (noted here). And given that, I’d like to point out some things before a Democrat decides to challenge him.

Any politician can be beaten, but to dethrone Specter is going to take the performance of a lifetime for a Senate contender. I’ve seen great candidates such as Bob Edgar and Joe Hoeffel try and fail, and I would only say that you’re going to have to try and pin him based on substantive issues. And that will be tough because, though Specter has voted a lot more conservatively than his rep would indicate, he has managed to escape the media spotlight by feinting towards moderation when it suits him.

Also (speaking of the media), this recent column by Michael Smerconish is pretty representative of the “Arlen love” by our corporate media in these parts (and I haven’t said much about Smerky because, like Specter a bit, he’s managed to avoid doing anything truly stupid lately). And that shouldn’t be underestimated; anyone gunning for Specter will have to beat both him as a candidate and his accompanying media narrative, which I have to admit is a powerful pair.

I can’t think of a reason why any Dem in this area would take a shot, because this person would have to substantially out-perform Specter in this area to offset losses across the state, and that’s not going to happen.

Here, though, are some of our senator’s lesser moments…

He voted against a bill to appropriate $96 billion for the wars in Iraq and Afghanistan over six months, $4.3 billion for veterans' care, and $19 billion for domestic programs. The bill (HR 1591) required the Bush administration to begin U.S. troop withdrawals from Iraq within four months of enactment and set a nonbinding target of March 31, 2008, for redeploying all but a residual force (here).

He voted against the fiscal 2007 intelligence budget that would have required the CIA to tell Congress the locations of its secret prisons abroad and identify interrogation techniques; the bill failed, 50-45, to reach the 60 votes needed to end a GOP filibuster blocking action (here).

He voted against a bill mandating that we withdraw U.S. troops from Iraq within 120 days and finish the pullout of all but a residual force by April 30, 2008; the bill failed, 52-47, to get 60 votes to break the filibuster (here, a second time he voted against a troop withdrawal timeline).

He voted against an amendment that set longer periods between soldiers' tours in combat and time stateside; the amendment to the defense budget (HR 1585) would have required at least as much time back home as in the war theater (it failed to reach the 60 votes needed to break yet another filibuster here).

He voted against a bill that would put children of illegal immigrants on a path to citizenship if they first serve in the U.S. military or complete two years of higher education (failed to reach 60 votes; this is a recording – here).

He voted to confirm Michael Mukasey as attorney general (and yes, this is a bad thing – here).

He voted against a bill appropriating an additional $50 billion for the wars in Iraq and Afghanistan while setting a goal of pulling most troops out of Iraq by Dec. 15, 2008 (a third vote against an Iraq withdrawal timeline here).

He voted against the conference report sent to Dubya on the fiscal 2008 intelligence budget that required CIA personnel to obey the Army Field Manual's ban on torture of prisoners; the manual outlawed harsh techniques such as waterboarding (here).

He voted against a Democratic bill (HR 3221) enabling holders of shaky subprime mortgages to rework payment terms in bankruptcy court (failed to reach 60 votes, blah blah blah; God, I hope Chambliss, Coleman and “Tubes” Stevens all lose so I won’t have to say that any more!- here).

He basically blocked the attempt by Senate Dems to allow Dubya’s tax cuts for the rich to expire in two years here.

He voted to kill a measure that sought to give bankruptcy judges authority to change the terms of subprime mortgages on primary residences. The proposal, offered as an amendment to a House housing-related bill (HR 3221), would have given the judges power to cut interest rates and principal to help borrowers keep their homes (here).

He voted against a bill (S 3268) directing the Commodity Futures Trading Commission to curb "excessive speculation" in the oil-futures market, in part by setting higher margin requirements, requiring more public disclosure and working more closely with other countries' regulators in an attempt to hold down gas prices (couldn’t break yet another in a seemingly endless chain of filibusters here by falling short of 60 votes; at the time this was considered by the Senate, gas topped off at about $4 a gallon).

He voted against a bill to extend renewable-energy tax credits due to expire at year's end; the credits promoted fuel extraction from sources such as the sun, wind, earth and crops and promoted the manufacture of more energy-efficient homes, buildings and appliances (couldn’t get the 60 votes for the umpteenth time here).

He voted to increase National Missile Defense spending by $271 million over the $9.3 billion already included in the $601 billion 2009 military budget (S 3001 – fortunately, this boondoggle of a bill failed to pass here).

(And by the way, the 7/31 Specter post I noted at the beginning contained a reference to his Senate book deal, which apparently was legal given the looser rules for this sort of thing in that body of Congress as opposed to the U.S. House.)

So this is what I’ve been able to assemble against Specter, for the benefit of anyone choosing to oppose him. If anyone think this is enough to beat him, along with whatever else a candidate can come up with, be my guest. All I’m saying is that you should know what you’re up against before you try.

Monday Stuff

God, Georgia Repug Senator Saxby Chambliss is so far beyond clueless that it's a joke; to do something about it, click here...



Update 11/18/08: Glub, glub, Saxby...

...Electric Touch, from Austin, TX ("Love Is In Our Hearts").

A Love Letter To Condi From "The Old Gray Lady"

(By the way, I also posted over here today.)

As far as I’m concerned, the New York Times committed a journalistic atrocity in its Sunday Magazine section yesterday (and I’m not even talking about Deborah Solomon’s interview with Karl Rove, which, aside from the fact that the decision to interview a moral leper like Rove is bad enough, was made worse by the fact that the interview wasn’t even interesting because Rove will never give away anything that can hurt him).

What I’m referring to is its “exit interview” with outgoing (happily) Secretary of State Condoleezza Rice. There were so many unanswered assertions and examples of Bushco-friendly spin that I don’t believe that it will be possible for me to answer them all in a single post. And the worst remarks didn’t even come from Rice herself, but from someone named Daniel Fried (I’ll get to him shortly – “Welcome To My World, Barack”??).

To begin, here’s what Fried has to say…

The West does not go out and conquer countries by using force, try to deprive countries of a choice. It didn’t insist that Poland join NATO. Poland wanted to join NATO. It didn’t impose NATO membership or E.U. membership on Estonia; Estonia chose it. That’s a difference, and it’s a moral difference as well. . . . If you validate the assumptions of Russians who believe that the only proper relationship between Russia and its neighbors is one of subordination and intimidation, then how do you expect a more cooperative Russia to emerge in the future?

Oh, and by the way, speaking of “not conquering countries by using force,” it sounds as if the Iraqi Parliament has ratified the agreement stipulating that our forces will be gone by 2011 here (of course, since we didn’t “conquer them by using force,” such a date should be arbitrary, since we could leave whenever we want, right?).

(In a little more than two months, we’ll be governed by grownups again, people; just keeping hanging onto that – as the saying goes, tell me lies that are slight shades of the truth; don’t tell me lies that insult my intelligence.)

And speaking of a “more cooperative Russia,” it should be noted that President Medvedev has called upon President-Elect Obama to pursue better relations here.

Actually, this and other comments by Fried are surprising, since he has a pretty good record in foreign service, though he is decidedly a hawk (which will be obvious the more I dig into this “interview”).

Also, here’s another gem from Fried…

An Obama presidency will be greeted in Europe with enthusiasm, but as some Europeans have put it to me, “We realize that we won’t have the excuse of George Bush.” Obama made it clear during his trip to Europe that he wants to work with Europe, but any American president is going to think globally, and Obama, from what I know of his team, is a freedom Democrat. He believes in a values-based foreign policy. He’s going to want Europe to stand up and do more. . . . And Europeans will have a problem, in that they will embrace him, and they will not be able to say: “Well, this is the Bush administration. We have to resist.”

Uh, do I detect just a bit of sour grapes here?

Before Assistant Secretary of State Fried starts blaming Europeans for things they have yet to do, let’s keep the following in mind from Der Spiegel here...

President Bush, who may well be the worst president in the history of the United States (a view held by historian Sean Wilentz of Princeton University, for example), has brought the country's reputation to an all-time low worldwide. In the eyes of much of the world, the America of George W. Bush is no longer a beacon of democracy. Instead, it stands for contempt for international law (because of the US's unilateral war in Iraq), torture at Abu Ghraib, bending the law in Guantanamo and selfish environmental policies that do more harm than good to the world's climate.

...

Statistics support the dramatic decline in the US's reputation. Less than half of the populations of all Western European countries, 30 percent of Germans and only 8 percent of Turkish citizens have a positive view of the United States. This negative assessment apparently has nothing or very little to do with the often-cited anti-Americanism to which conservatives like to attribute the US's image loss. When George W. Bush began his first term in January 2001, 78 percent of Germans still had a positive view of the United States. This general fondness for Americans remains high today.

And that to me is nothing short of a miracle, but there you are.

Also, here is another item to note from the “interview”…

I think the first thing the next president will have to do is understand that Afghanistan is now part of a regional problem. Maybe four or five years ago it was about Afghanistan, but now it’s about Afghanistan and Pakistan, and you can’t deal with one without dealing with the other.

…

So the question is with all of this capability there, why do we have the sense that we’re backsliding? The top of my list is the drugs and narcotics, which are, without question, the economic engine that fuels the resurgent Taliban, and the crime and corruption in the country. . . . We couldn’t even talk about that in 2006 when I was there. That was not a topic that anybody wanted to talk about, including the U.S.

And why the hell not, anyway? Particularly considering the fact that at about that time (as noted here), the Afghan drug gangs were fortifying themselves more than the Taliban itself.

(By the way, that observation was made by General James L. Jones, who was named as a special envoy for Middle East security by Rice last year. And I do not mean to criticize him here; actually, I give him credit for admitting yet another idiotic blunder by his superiors.)

And so what of Our Gal Condi anyway, as long as I’m devoting all of this time to her minions?

Well, as the Times tells us straight from Condi herself…

…I think the structure is there, I think the Annapolis structure is a very powerful structure . . . On the Palestinian-Israeli issue, we will leave this in a much, much better place, agreement or no.

Well, as this tells us (and to me, the headline says it all)…

After months of publicly insisting that an agreement still could be sealed by the year-end deadline set by the two sides and Bush last November in Annapolis, Md., U.S. officials said Thursday for the first time it would have to wait.

"We do not think it is likely it will happen before the end of the year," White House spokeswoman Dana Perino said in Washington after Secretary of State Condoleezza Rice acknowledged as much at the start of a Mideast trip.

And when it comes to the "department of the obvious," rest assured that Perino would never confirm that water was actually wet until she was just about to drown (and I don't wish ill on her, just speaking figuratively - I mean, she still won't admit we're in a recesssion, people).

And as the AP story tells us, many of the foreign policy players of the incoming Obama administration worked for President Clinton also, so my guess is that they’ll scrap the “framework,” “structure,” or whatever it’s being called this week by Bushco and start over anyway, especially with Israeli Prime Minister Ehud Olmert leaving anyway under a cloud of scandal.

There are more choice items in this whole piece, and I’ll get to them later.

Update 11/18/08: Nice to see that Condi is keeping herself busy here (would it be too snarky of me to wonder how soon Griffey Jr. will end up hurt performing his duties and try to go on the disabled list?).

Some Rhee-ly Tough Times For D.C. Schools

Parade Magazine yesterday featured an interview with Washington, D.C. schools chancellor Michelle Rhee here, and among other things, we learned that, in her second year on the job, Rhee “closed 23 schools and fired 36 principals,” and apparently, one was her own children's principal at the Oyster-Adams Bilingual Elementary School.

Oh, and this WaPo story tells us that she fired about 98 employees in March, including anywhere from 40 to 55 in the school district’s information technology department (the numbers aren’t exactly firm because, as the story tells us, she decided not to provide a list of the fired employees to the D.C. council).

I am certainly not an expert on educational issues, nor am I familiar much with D.C. politics, but when I see someone come on board and give that many people the “ax,” it tends to get my attention.

And I would argue that the fact that Rhee only had two years of classroom experience (despite some sterling academic credentials) before she was put in charge of the D.C. schools is certainly an issue, and I believe that has led to episodes such as this, in which a pay-for-performance plan apparently didn’t achieve the desired results, in particular at Hart Middle School, where 6th, 7th and 8th grade students were to be paid up to $100 every two weeks for good grades.

As far as I’m concerned, no student should ever be paid for their best academic performance, ever. However, I think it’s utterly ridiculous that the NCAA, for example, doesn’t “share the wealth” with student athletes who generate their bounteous revenue (that’s a bit off-topic, though, I’ll admit).

And this Ezra Klein post includes feedback from a grad student studying to be a math teacher; the student tells us…

It seems like reformers keep wanting to jump in and start doing things, because education is so stagnant. Which I understand. But the place to start isn't merit pay, it is finding methods of assessing teachers that aren't totally fucking useless and irrelevant. I think if we had such assessment, people would find teachers much more amenable to merit pay and a lack of tenure.

(Oh yeah, there’s the “F” blast in the quote there – and Rhee wants to abolish tenure and target merit pay also; I realize I didn’t make that plain earlier).

And just for the record, the person responsible for hiring Rhee is NYC schools chancellor Joel Klein, who (according to this post) is being considered as Education Secretary for the incoming Obama Administration (which should definitely raise flags, as they say).

As is usually the case, I’m in agreement with Ezra Klein here. It sounds as if something needs to be done in D.C. and many other places in this country, but firing people indiscriminately isn’t the answer (and remember, the vast majority of teachers, whether they’re in a union or not, are truly unsung heroes and give more of their time and talent to the education of our kids than we will ever truly know; if we weren’t so fundamentally screwed up in this country about who should be compensated best for the importance of their work, we wouldn’t even be having this discussion – and I’m sure the obligatory umbrage about teacher salaries will begin momentarily).

Turning back to Rhee for a moment, I should note that she is a big proponent of NCLB (of course). She is apparently noncommittal on the issue of school vouchers, though, so she has that going in her favor anyway.

But given the indiscriminate havoc she has wrought in D.C. with what appears to be almost no oversight, I think it would be terrible to reward her (or anyone responsible for putting her in her present position) with more authority than that which she appears to have abused already.

Sunday Stuff

So "Zigzag Zell" Miller escaped from his padded room to publicly endorse Saxby Chambliss, huh? This is the guy who frothed in fury over John Kerry four years ago (noted here) after previously claiming that Kerry "fought for balanced budgets" and "worked to strengthen our military, reform public education, boost the economy and protect the environment" (noted here, and let's not forget the precedent Miller set which should be used to punish Holy Joe accordingly here)...



Update 11/17/08: By the way, Miller also referred to Kerry as "one of this nation's authentic heroes, one of this party's best-known and greatest leaders – and a good friend" (I have that saved in a Word file that I cannot link to from here, but I'll try to source it online - here's more).

...Sheryl Crow ("You Don't Bring Me Anything But Down," and I'd like to dedicate this to the Philadelphia Eagles football team here in these parts, seeing that they pulled off quite a feat today, managing a tie against the 1-8 Cincinnati Bungles - actually, they deserved to lose, and that would have happened if Cincy's kicker had booted the ball properly at the end; to be fair, the defense should fly home in first class, but the offense should travel back on a Greyhound bus with a slow leak in one of the tires, and that includes the offensive coaching staff, a literal description here in a couple of categories).

Now They Tell Us

From here...

Learning from Bush's Mistakes? In contrast, President Bush was notoriously ham-handed in his dealings with Capitol Hill, particularly in the early years of his administration. The desire of congressional Republicans to appear supportive of a president of their party often obscured the roiling tensions under the surface as Bush squandered a deep reservoir of good will.

He developed policies that were antithetical to many conservatives, most notably the 2001 education law known as No Child Left Behind and the 2003 Medicare prescription drug law, often ignored Congress until he needed votes at the last minute, and was ultimately viewed as a lame duck by many in his own party as soon as he was re-elected.

"Now there is no re-election prism, " Rep. Zach Wamp, R-Tenn., said when Bush won a second term. "People are not going to have to feel that they have to vote for things that they think are unnecessary."

It was clear from the first major domestic policy initiative of his second term -- an overhaul of Social Security -- that Bush had little political capital left in the Capitol.

"From the Speaker on down, they pretty much ignored him," said John Feehery, a Republican consultant who was a top aide to House Speaker J. Dennis Hastert, R-Ill. "They weren't going to walk the plank on it."

Bush's influence in Congress dwindled even further with the failed appointment of White House Counsel Harriet E. Miers, a Bush loyalist, to the Supreme Court in late 2005, and was evident in the restoration of then-Mississippi Sen. Trent Lott to the Republican leadership team in 2006 after the administration had pushed him out four years earlier.

Bush picked top-notch staff to represent him on Capitol Hill but demonstrated little interest in what congressional leaders thought and had even less personal engagement with lawmakers, according to a House Republican leadership aide.

"I'm not sure Bush had the proper respect for Congress," the aide said, observing that the job of well-regarded congressional liaisons like Nicholas Calio and David Hobbs ended up being "to cover for the president, who didn't want to have to deal with anybody from Congress."

The White House staff can only do so much, the aide said.

"It all has to do with the principal," he said. "The lesson is the president has to engage."

Fat lot of good all of these revelations do now, with His Fraudulency only taking up space for 64 more days.

Friday PM Stuff

K.O. speaks out about the utter idiocy of Proposition 8 in California (and this tells us about tomorrow's day of protest)...



...and this may be the best anti-Joe Lieberman commentary I've heard yet from Rachel Maddow (h/t The Daily Kos, and also to Atrios for this)...



Update 11/16/08: This is a great post in a related vein, and though this is somewhat off-topic, it definitely pertains to the 2000 election.

...Dem U.S. House Rep Elijah Cummings is my hero for today after laying this on "bailout czar" Neil Kashkari over the latest antics from those pirates at AIG (h/t Think Progress)...



...Electric Six ("Formula 409"; I think they missed a spot).

Friday AM Stuff

And by the way, you can learn more here also (h/t The Daily Kos - still don't know about posting today)...



...and to learn more about how to help Jim Martin for the special election in Georgia against the odious Saxby Chambliss, click here...



...more Bush scandals: the State Department is going to fine Blackwater for the 900 illegal guns in Iraq (and they still kept getting contracts after the story broke, of course), it looks like we'll never know who let the word out at Immigrations and Customs Enforcement about Obama's aunt supposedly here illegally timed for just before the election, and it looks like Dubya could revive a Truman-era precedent to combat subpoenas after he leaves office that is based on a shaky legal foundation at best)...



...and as a tribute to Mitch Mitchell of the Jimi Hendrix Experience, here's "Red House" from Woodstock in 1969.

Poverty Versus Denial

Former Bushco speechwriter Michael Gerson opined as follows in the WaPo yesterday…

Political indifference to durable poverty in our midst has long been a scandal; from Obama it would be a tragedy.

From here…

According to the U.S. Census Bureau and the Bureau of Labor statistics, the national poverty rate increased from a record low of 11.3 percent in 2000 to 12.5 percent in 2007 -- an increase of approximately 5.8 million Americans living below the poverty line. “In George W. Bush’s presidency, there’s been an almost total absence of benefits of growth trickling down to the middle class, much less to those at the bottom,” says Jared Bernstein, an economist with the left-leaning Economic Policy Institute, whose extensive writing on the working poor includes the book "The State of Working America." The nation's unemployment rate has risen from 4 percent in 2000 to 6.1 percent at present. Bush's economic policy has been marked by tax cuts largely beneficial to the wealthy, while federal funding for many programs helping low-income people has not kept pace with inflation.

Obama isn’t even sworn in yet and already the pundit class is holding him accountable on issues he hasn’t even been able to address.

Try laying this “political indifference” rap on President Highest Disapproval Rating In Gallup Poll History first, OK?

The Catholic Church’s ACORN Inquisition

(By the way, I also posted over here today.)

This CNN story tells us…

The Roman Catholic Church is cutting off funds to the community organizing group ACORN, citing complaints over its voter registration drives in the November 4 election as part of the reason.

The Catholic Campaign for Human Development froze its contributions to the group in June amid allegations that Dale Rathke, the brother of ACORN founder Wade Rathke, had embezzled nearly $1 million.

This week, as the U.S. Conference of Catholic Bishops met in Baltimore, Maryland, the campaign's chairman said it was cutting all ties with the group.

"We simply had too many questions and concerns to permit further CCHD funding of ACORN groups," Roger Morin, the auxiliary bishop of New Orleans, Louisiana, told his colleagues in a letter to the conference.

I guess it was too much trouble for auxiliary bishop Morin to do a little investigating into this and found out what I discovered here, notably…

The head of a foundation that has funneled millions to liberal causes anonymously repaid $1 million embezzled from one of the organizations the foundation financially supports.

The New York Times reported Sunday that Drummond Pike secretly agreed to replace the money embezzled from the Association of Community Organizations for Reform Now, or Acorn. Pike is chief executive of the San Francisco-based Tides Foundation.

According to the Times, Pike was aiding Wade Rathke, the Acorn founder and a Tides Foundation board member, when he decided to buy the promissory note requiring the Rathke family to repay money taken by Rathke's brother, Dale.

Acorn discovered the embezzlement in 2000, but did not alert law enforcement officials. Acorn's management committee instead negotiated an agreement to have the Rathke family pay back the stolen funds.

So Pike covered for the Rathkes while Dale made restitution. So the money has been repaid.

So this happened eight years ago and it’s a DONE DEAL NOW, OK? And since Morin didn't even bother to specify his supposed voting registration issues, I'm not going to do his research for him on that score.

Should law enforcement have been notified and charges filed? Probably, but I and other family members have some experience with non-profit organizations, and I can tell you that all kinds of things are apt to be “swept under the rug” as circumstances warrant because divulging them would potentially cripple fundraising and thus threaten the very existence of these operations (kind of funny in a way that the Catholic Church, one of the oldest nonprofits in the world, doesn’t seem to understand that; assuming priests could perform community organizing tasks, I’m sure ACORN would never turn one away because of the abuse scandal).

I’ll tell you what I think is going on here, and it partly explains why the Church didn’t provide funds to assist with the election over the summer.

The problem is that aiding ACORN means aiding minorities who are likely to vote Democratic, which means that they're apt to vote pro choice, and this snit with ACORN over money that probably was never even missed to begin with gives the Church the chance to walk away from the group for good and thus hide the real reason for such a callous decision.

Keep the poor disenfranchised unless they vote “pro-life,” right?

More Thursday Dana Perino Propaganda

She’s getting a little more clever anymore as opposed to merely telling outright lies, I have to admit (from here)…

Q Earlier in the administration, the President opposed stricter CAFE standards on lighter fuel -- lighter vehicles --

MS. PERINO: Oh, really? When?

Q It was I believe about four or five years ago.

MS. PERINO: I believe not, because I was here, I worked as the communications director for the Council on Environmental Quality, and he has long championed -- and he was the first to increase CAFE standards for SUVs and light trucks for the first time in a decade.

Q Well, wasn't the basis on less, smaller fuel-efficient cars weren't as safe as SUVs and --

MS. PERINO: There was a National Academy of Sciences report that said that, yes. And when you are working on CAFE standards, one of the things that you take into account is the safety of the vehicles. And I don't think anybody in this room would suggest that we shouldn't do that.

Perino is actually right about Dubya favoring raising vehicle mileage standards for SUVs and light trucks, as Media Matters notes here (though environmentalists claim that the new standards are too modest), but His Fraudulency fought raising mileage standards for passenger cars for years – that is, until the Republican 109th Congress came up with “a proposal…to grant the executive branch authority to set fuel-efficiency standards for cars -- a power that (until then resided) with Congress” in April 2006.

For the life of me, I cannot imagine why Bushco would care about having that authority, unless Dubya wanted to use it as a cudgel against the automakers and the UAW by raising standards so high that they wouldn’t be able to compete and lose market share, political clout, etc. (the UAW is a decidedly Democratic-favoring constituency, though the “Big Three” execs aren’t so easily categorized, I know).

And by the way (as noted here), the National Academy of Sciences study that Perino cites from 2001 called for raising the mileage standards at a higher rate than proposed by Bushco and also for closing the “light truck loophole” that allows SUVs to adhere to the same mileage standard as trucks, even though SUVs are used like passenger cars (the loophole in the law was created at a time when SUVs were only about 20 percent of the vehicles on the road, though that number was closer to 50 percent at the time of the study and is probably comparable to that now, in spite of our economy).

Also…

Q Dana, can I follow? At the risk of -- you said we'll see what Congress puts forward on an unemployment extension if they come back. It seems to me in the past, you opposed that, saying that it encourages people to stay out of work longer.

MS. PERINO: What we have said is that -- well, if you just look at the statistics, the historical data, that as soon as that last week comes about, that's -- it's like a hockey stick and people's employment goes up. But it doesn't mean that we're not mindful of the fact that -- how distressed some people are because we realize how high unemployment is, how tough the economy is, and how it's taken a while to get people back to work. And so, we'll just see if Congress comes back with anything.

I don’t know where the hell Perino is getting that “hockey stick” reference from, but I would say that this states pretty clearly what she and Bushco in general think of the unemployed.

And finally, another Think Progress link tells us of more recent evasions by Perino on the matter of stem-cell research (thus allowing these folks to “beat us to the punch”; not attacking the Indian researchers, but bemoaning Bushco stupidity yet again).

Wednesday Stuff

More Bush scandals with K.O. (looks like Laura is on the fast track to getting her memoir published, whereas Dubya - well, I said something about that here recently; also, I can't think of a word for the irony that some of the hard cases at GITMO could actually walk because they were tortured, which happens to be INCREDIBLY ILLEGAL in other countries besides ours, and the Treasury Dept. is "under siege" from a variety of corporate miscreants who WANT THAT BAILOUT MONEY!)...



Tom Gabel ("Anna Is A Stool Pigeon"; a few "F" blasts, but good stuff, and watch the message at the end).

And Bill Kristol Gets A “Wedgie” – True!

(This story kind of takes a bit of the sting out of this post – a bit, anyway.)

The “E&P Pub” of Editor and Publisher Online tells us here that parody copies of the New York Times were distributed all over the place today, including in “The Big Apple” (in the spirit of this, of course).

However, in a nod to reality, the work of Ben Stein was reproduced word for word (more here).

Update 1 11/13/08: And speaking of hoaxes...

Update 2 11/13/08: What Atrios sez here...

Tell The Big Three To “Give Us The Keys”

OK, I should let you know at the outset that I am about to flip-flop on my earlier position against a taxpayer-funded bailout of the auto industry, partly because of my shortsightedness and also because I sense an opportunity here for the “pay no price, bear no burden” corporate class to jump in and use the auto industry woes as an excuse to slash hard-earned benefits enjoyed by members of the United Auto Workers employed at Ford, GM and Chrysler, so I must take up an opposite position with some “rethink” on this issue.

(And for those such as Cal Thomas here who predictably blames those benefits as the source of the trouble for the carmakers, I would only point to this Wikipedia article on the UAW, which tells us – among other things – that UAW membership has fallen below 500,000 for the first time since 1941, an indicator of the ground lost not just by the UAW but the union movement overall, particularly over the last eight execrable years.)

I should also note another reason why I may be receptive to a bailout, and it is because of this post by Jonathan Tasini (who, along with Bob Cesca, is one of the few HuffPo writers I seek out from that site), in which he advocates a hell of a lot of good ideas, though he notes first that…

The most dangerous and ludicrous proposals I've seen (for an automaker bailout) call for the union contracts to be torn up. Today, for example, the extremely wealthy columnist Thomas Friedman has the audacity (if I may use that term in a negative connotation) to parrot a line from The Wall Street Journal:

…

Let's be clear: tearing up union contracts equals deep wages and benefit cuts.

This is dangerous and ludicrous not just because I'm a UAW member. Dangerous and ludicrous because, by trying to blame some of the victims, we will end up hurting the economy.

Let's get some facts straight. People who want to blame the UAW for the problems of the auto industry are off-base. Would I have liked the union to be more aggressive about pushing the auto companies a decade ago to move towards more fuel efficient cars? Sure. But, respectfully, the union does not control those kinds of decisions--it doesn't control the board and, as recent history has shown, has struggled mightily to just preserve its wage base (and has had to agree to some painful wage and benefit concessions).

Now, some will say: well, why should UAW members get such "rich" contracts? Let's first get real. UAW members are not living large, though compared to Wal-Mart workers they are better off.

And it’s not UAW pensions that are a problem. Its CEO pensions, for example, that are weighing down the auto companies, particularly GM.

I would ask that you remember that while you wonder when the day will come that Thomas, Friedman and others of their ilk decide to hold corporate malefactors such as those pirates at AIG accountable, as opposed to blaming the UAW, whose membership have given vast amounts of their talent and hard work over the span of their lives to build vehicles that, as it now appears, no longer seem to meet the demand of the marketplace.

Tasini lists six conditions that would accompany a taxpayer-financed bailout of the auto industry, and I applaud his recommendations (and by the way, I realize Friedman is in the process of reinventing himself as an expert on energy matters, which he may be, but it still sickens me to hear him criticize Bushco’s wrongheadedness in this arena without admitting his own culpability for cheerleading the Iraq war, seeing as how any turmoil in that region of the world is bound to affect the price of crude and a change in our driving habits).

Update: Uh...no (and that's my final word on that).

Tuesday Stuff

(By the way, a bit of "housekeeping"; posting questionable for tomorrow, maybe a better chance on Thursday, and I'll be out of commission on Friday.)

Some Veterans Day images courtesy of YouTuber jtlong1969 - our thanks on this day and every day (no clue about the song)...



...I haven't had much to say about the doings with the Dems and "Holy Joe" Lieberman, partly because, with his whiny, self-righteous cowardice, I have to admit that the guy turns my stomach...



..."Worst Persons," with Bill Orally wondering if Heidi Klum in her underwear is indecent (yep, more hard-hitting "journalism" from Falafel Boy), John Hinderaker of Power Line suggesting that Barack Obama take elocution lessons from Dubya (uh - I have to admit that Hinderaker may have utterly obliterated the stupid meter with that one), and Paul Broun of Georgia (of course) suggests that Obama is trying to revive the "Gestapo" with Obama's "civilian reserve corps" (and a curious non-apology from Broun here - and the Marxists fought the Nazis in World War II, you asshat)...



...Cake ("Never There"; a hell of a great fan video by YouTuber chadkroeker - quite probably describes Broun and Hinderaker's mental faculties).

Happy Veterans Day

Jake Tapper of Political Punch tells us of the remembrance by President-Elect Obama here (Tapper also points out that we've just gone through the fifth election in a row in which the candidate who didn't serve in uniform abroad beat the candidate who did; just sayin').

And speaking of our veterans, I posted about one of our most visible (and highly regarded, IMHO) ones here.

Whistling Past The Dixie Graveyard

The map shown above (property of the New York Times) illustrates just how dramatically this country has shifted in its voting patterns from the 2004 election to the one we have just completed; it is linked in this Times story by Adam Nossiter today (set in that hamlet of diversity and tolerance – snark – Vernon, Alabama), which tells us in part that…

What may have ended on Election Day…is the centrality of the South to national politics. By voting so emphatically for Senator John McCain over Mr. Obama — supporting him in some areas in even greater numbers than they did President Bush — voters from Texas to South Carolina and Kentucky may have marginalized their region for some time to come, political experts say.

The region’s absence from Mr. Obama’s winning formula means it “is becoming distinctly less important,” said Wayne Parent, a political scientist at Louisiana State University. “The South has moved from being the center of the political universe to being an outside player in presidential politics.”

…

By leaving the mainstream so decisively, the Deep South and Appalachia will no longer be able to dictate that winning Democrats have Southern accents or adhere to conservative policies on issues like welfare and tax policy, experts say.

That could spell the end of the so-called Southern strategy, the doctrine that took shape under President Richard M. Nixon in which national elections were won by co-opting Southern whites on racial issues. And the Southernization of American politics — which reached its apogee in the 1990s when many Congressional leaders and President Bill Clinton were from the South — appears to have ended.

“I think that’s absolutely over,” said Thomas Schaller, a political scientist who argued prophetically that the Democrats could win national elections without the South.

What a difference an election makes, ladies and gentlemen.

Why, it seemed like only yesterday when Ralph Reed spouted the following here, trying to imitate Gen. George Patton from WWII: “The Democrats are the enemy. Wade into them! Spill their blood! Shoot them in the belly!”

Nice (and as long as I’m noting Reed, I should point out this prescient post by Schaller from about four years ago, in which he notes that Reed wanted just about exclusive credit for Dubya’s re-election – can you say “overreach”?).

And not to be outdone by any means, we have the following from Pat Robertson in March 2006 here…

Ladies and gentleman this is a fascinating book. If you want to, you'd better take your blood pressure medicine before you read it, but it's "The Professors: The 101 most dangerous academics in America" and that's just a short list of the 30-40,000 of them, they're like termites that have worked into the woodwork of our academic society and it's appalling. This is available at CBN.com and book stores everywhere, and you really ought to read it and be informed.

And finally, we have the guy who is the granddaddy of intolerant “Christians” out there, with the departure of Jerry Falwell, and that would be James Dobson, who told us here in October 2006…

"Isn't it amazing that there's such a sizable number of people in the media and in the liberal community that despise this country and its freedoms, and they're doing everything they can to undermine it?"

Ha, ha, and ha (and back to the story)…

Many people made it clear that they were deeply apprehensive about Mr. Obama, though some said they were hoping for the best.

“I think any time you have someone elected president of the United States with a Muslim name, whether they are white or black, there are some very unsettling things,” George W. Newman, a director at a local bank and the former owner of a trucking business, said over lunch at Yellow Creek Fish and Steak.

Don Dollar, the administrative assistant at City Hall, said bitterly that anyone not upset with Mr. Obama’s victory should seek religious forgiveness.

“This is a community that’s supposed to be filled with a bunch of Christian folks,” he said. “If they’re not disappointed, they need to be at the altar.”

All together now…

WAAAAAAHHHHHHH!!!!!!!

Among other things, this is the vindication of Howard Dean’s 50-state strategy (and I can’t recall where I read this – probably the Daily Kos – but someone put forth the idea of former Obama campaign manager David Plouffe as the new DNC head, which is a choice I wholeheartedly endorse; never in my life have I seen a political campaign such as the one Obama ran, and I certainly mean that as a compliment). Obama won in large part because the Dems forced the Repugs to play defense all over the place on turf they had long since considered to be locked up in their favor.

No more (and it is truly a beautiful thing – and just for the hell of it, let’s give this knucklehead one more boot for good measure).

Update 1: David Corn says here that Plouffe will pass on the DNC chair, but is apparently keeping his options open, which is wise.

Update 2 11/12/08: Hat tip to The Daily Kos for this.

Monday Stuff

And remember, boys and girls, this is coming from the guy who said a couple of days ago that this country is more conservative now than it was in 1994; with this language, maybe he's right (h/t Atrios)...



...Bush scandals again: more stuff coming out against Georgia before Russia intervened in the conflict this year, Blackwater could face even more fines for about 900 weapons on the loose in Iraq (nice), and typical Bushco lack of transparency in the bailout (from here, and congrats to K.O. on the contract extension)...



..."We now know what a truly deregulated market looks like: it looks like the derivatives industry" (and if you guessed that those words were spoken here by Naomi Klein, then you win a free copy of "The Age Of Turbulence" by Alan Greenspan, suitable for shredding and lining your cat's litter box)...



...and as a tribute to Miriam Makeba, here's her U.S. hit "Pata Pata" from back in the day.

Obama-Rama And The Teutonic Twit

(By the way, I also posted over here today about a local matter.)

This Der Spiegel story tells us that, while most of the world has extended good wishes to President-Elect Barack Obama, there are some individuals who need to emerge from the dark ages, you might say…

(Veteran Austrian television personality Klaus Emmerich spoke) a string of blatantly racist remarks regarding the election of Barack Obama in the US. Speaking on a talk show on the Austrian public channel ORF on Wednesday, he said: "I wouldn't want the Western world to be directed by a black man. When you say that is a racist remark: right, without a doubt."

Americans are "racists, now as before, and it must be going very badly for them that they so convincingly ... send a black man, and a black, very good-looking woman, into the White House," he said.

So what did this genius do when he was given the opportunity to climb out of his hole, you might say? Why, he just went on digging, of course…

…Emmerich himself voiced no regret. On the contrary, he even took a harder line in subsequent interviews. Obama's victory was an "extremely disconcerting development" he told the Austrian Standard on Wednesday, because "blacks aren't as politically civilized." Meanwhile, he told Die Presse in an interview published on Friday that Obama has "a devil-like talent to present his rhetoric so effectively."

Yep, dat sho ‘nuff be it; we all jus’ gave it up to dat "devil-like" jungle rhythm!

Good God…

Well, at least Emmerich has now assured himself of a viable career with Fox Noise, as opposed to a respectable news organization (Roger Ailes and his demented shouters being primarily responsible for this).

WHYY Should We Tolerate The Marrazzo Salary Mess?

(Stepping back from politics a bit here…)

To its credit, the Philadelphia Inquirer revisited the whole issue of the salary of public radio and TV station WHYY CEO Bill Marrazzo in this story yesterday (a prior post appears here based on a fine column by Karen Heller – it feels strange to give the Inky all of these compliments, but they’re deserved for a change).

The main difference between the prior Marrazzo post and this one is that, last year, I noted that he was awarded $430,786 in salary and an additional $56,250 in benefits during fiscal year 2006 (borne out here, along with lots of other financials).

However, as staff writer Carolyn Davis NOW tells us…

President and CEO William J. Marrazzo's potential pay, benefits and expenses totaled $740,090 in the year ending June 30, 2007, according to its most recent tax filing. The package consists of $415,993 in salary, $317,240 in benefits and $6,857 in expenses.

Those benefits include $280,000 in deferred compensation reported to the IRS that Marrazzo will receive next July if he meets performance goals, as he has in the past (all told, Davis tells us that this is a 14 percent increase in Marrazzo’s compensation over the prior year).

At this rate, Marrazzo will be pulling down a mil by the end of the decade; actually, he’s just about there now when you consider the fact that, as Davis tells us, “(Marrazzo) has maintained professional ties with utility companies. As a director for American Water Works Inc. and for Amerigas Partners (where he sits on both firms' compensation committees), he earned a combined $153,500 last year, according to Securities and Exchange Commission filings.”

I must tell you that I know of no one whatsoever who has achieved a 14 percent increase in compensation over the prior year as Marrazzo has (hell, we’re all still lucky to even have our jobs).

And who are the geniuses responsible for this farce? Why, that would be WHYY’s Board of Directors, including one Gerald H. Sweeney cited in Davis’ story, who has no problem with this debacle (a list of the culprits is here).

Also, as I read the list, I happened to notice something strange, and that is the appearance of Marrazzo’s name on the board of directors; I’m not an expert in corporate governance, but I think it sends a pretty rank message that the CEO of a company can sit on that company’s board and potentially have a say in his own compensation.

I would ask that you remember this the next time another public television station offers a new broadcast of “Nova,” “The American Experience” or other new, original programming on a Saturday evening in prime time and WHYY offers a Shirley Temple retrospective instead.

A Monday Mashup Of Neocon Nuttery

Doing what I do so you don’t have to – to begin, Oliver North at creators.com tells us here (in response to what President-Elect Obama may do concerning Iraq) that…

…a "total pullout" from Iraq invites the theocrats in Tehran, who are the world leaders in exporting terror and are intent on acquiring nuclear weapons, to further ambition and adventure in the region. This week, Iraq's foreign minister, Hoshiyar Zebari, obviously concerned about a premature U.S. retreat, said that candidate Obama "reassured us that he would not take any drastic or dramatic decisions." In case the point was missed, he added: "When there is a reality check, I think any U.S. president has to look very hard at the facts on the ground. The gains that we have attained and won with hard struggle and a great deal of sacrifice need to be sustained."

Based on this Times Online story, though, I think Zebari seems at least as concerned about what we would be able to do legally within his country under the status of forces agreement (which apparently has not been ratified because of squabbling over a withdrawal date – my source on that is the K.O. video from here) as he is about “a premature U.S. retreat”…

In one of the most detailed insights yet into the content of the deal, (Zebari) has also told The Times that the US military would be barred from unilaterally mounting attacks inside Iraq from next year.

In addition, the power of arrest for US soldiers would be curbed by the need to hand over any detainee to a new, US-Iraqi committee. Troops would require the green light from this joint command before conducting any operation.

The Pentagon refused to comment last night on the proposals laid out in the draft agreement between Baghdad and Washington that covers the status of US forces beyond 2008.

By the way, for anyone wondering why I’m commenting on someone like Oliver North, it is because in this New York Times Magazine story yesterday about the flawed, fetid reign of Bushco, retiring Virginia Repug Senator John Warner is discussed, and the article notes how Warner refused to campaign for North when the notorious Iran-Contra figure ran for the U.S. Senate in 1994; with that, it’s safe to say that Warner did his state and the country a favor (it would have been so far beyond a joke if North had actually won, seeing as how he lied to members of the very body in which he hoped to serve – Wikipedia tells us here that North was convicted of three charges related to Iran-Contra, though those convictions were eventually overturned with the help of the ACLU, strangely enough).

(And speaking of Iraq, Atrios tells us the following from here, just before Joe Scar's "F" blast.)

Next, we have Kimberly A. Strassel of the Murdoch Street Journal telling us the following (so much here to wade through, but I’ll concentrate on this excerpt for now)…

All but one of (Sen. Harry) Reid's 51 caucus members voted last year to proceed with legislation eliminating union secret ballots, and all 50 knew it would never become law. (Chief “Roadblock Republican” Mitch) McConnell has his own list of vulnerable Democrats who he -- with the help of the business community -- will remind of the electoral consequences of enacting a measure hated by 80% of the country, according to polls.

Really? 80 percent of the country opposes the Employee Free Choice Act?

Not according to economist Mark Weisbrot, who tells us here that…

A poll by Global Strategies Group this month found that 68 percent of middle-class Americans support the Employee Free Choice Act. Polls also indicate that tens of millions would join a union if they had the choice.

And finally, what would the “Monday stupids” be without the latest piffle from the New York Times’ conservative quota hire Kristol Mess himself here…

…there was virtually no change in the voters’ ideological self-identification: in 2008, 22 percent called themselves liberal, up only marginally from 21 percent in 2004; 34 percent were conservative, unchanged from the last election; and 44 percent called themselves moderate, compared with 45 percent in 2004.

In other words, this was a good Democratic year, but it is still a center-right country. Conservatives and the Republican Party will have a real chance for a comeback — unless the skills of the new president turn what was primarily an anti-Bush vote into the basis for a new liberal governing era.

I guess it would have been too much for Irving’s boy to read his colleague Frank Rich yesterday, who tells us here that…

We now keep hearing, for instance, that America is “a center-right nation” — apparently because the percentages of Americans who call themselves conservative (34), moderate (44) and liberal (22) remain virtually unchanged from four years ago. But if we’ve learned anything this year, surely it’s that labels are overrated. Those same polls find that more and more self-described conservatives no longer consider themselves Republicans. Americans now say they favor government doing more (51 percent), not less (43) — an 11-point swing since 2004 — and they still overwhelmingly reject the Iraq war. That’s a centrist country tilting center-left, and that’s the majority who voted for Obama.

Well, at least, among the “faithful,” you can count on Mike Huckabee pal Chuck Norris to be honest here; wrong, but honest.

Sunday Stuff

One hell of a great New Rules segment from Bill Maher a couple of days ago...



...Death Cab For Cutie ("I Will Possess Your Heart"; actually, I'll settle for your page reads and/or views and leave it at that - tuning up for a few minutes before they get going, but still cool).